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Hockey Play SPIN Rooftop CMJ Party

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In the latest edition of our SPINhouse Live series Thursday night, presented by Newcastle Brown Ale and VTech, up-and-coming Portland, Oregon, dance-rock band Hockey entertained an intimate crowd of 200 on the rooftop of SPIN’s downtown Manhattan office as part of this week’s CMJ Music Festival.

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“I want to write a truthful song over an ’80’s groove,” singer Benjamin Grubin declared launching “Song Away.”And the band’s joyfully funkified set pretty much hit that goal.

Hockey’s six-song show — all pulled from the group’s recently released debut, Mind Chaos — combined retro dance-punk (a la DFA Records) with synth-heavy New Wave to contagious effect.

“Work” had bassist Jeremy “Jerm” Reynolds showing off his prodigious 4-string skills amid countless flashing iPhones, while “Put the Game Down” alternated between a club-ready dance groove, courtesy of keyboardist Ryan Dolliver and drummer Anthony Stassi, and balls-out arena-rock, courtesy of Brian White’s schizoid guitar solo.

Hockey were as tight as their pants — and that’s saying a lot.

Grubin’s voice is a big, scraggly, soulful thing equally at home spittin’ pseudo-rhymes (as he did on “3am Spanish”) and belting the blues (as he did on “Learn to Lose”).

And Grubin is also a humble hipster. “We actually played on a roof once in San Francisco. It took us like two hours to move our stuff up there and there were like four people,” Grubin grinned. “This is much better.”

Setlist:
“Work”
“3am Spanish”
“Learn to Lose”
“Song Away”
“Too Fake”
“Put the Game Down”