LI Sound: Matthew Koma's Winnetka Bowling League has smooth debut performance
Seaford native Matthew Koma has gone back to his rock roots with his new band, Winnetka Bowling League. Credit: Dan Monick
Matthew Koma revealed early in Winnetka Bowling League’s debut show that he and his new band had just done a panic room challenge and that it didn’t go well.
“I think my band is worried that I would leave them for dead,” the Seaford native joked at Manhattan's Mercury Lounge Monday night.
Any worries should be short-lived, though. Winnetka Bowling League easily passed the most important team-building challenge — playing well as a band.
The Los Angeles-based quintet slipped easily into three-part harmonies during the dreamy “Alice,” part Beach-Boys sunniness and Radiohead cool. The drumming of Koma’s brother, Kris Mazzarisi, helped give the Beck-ish “Feeling California” a bit more edge than the recorded version. And the band’s first single, “On the 5,” currently in heavy rotation on SiriusXM’s Alt Nation, sounded even more carefree.
It’s unusual to see a band sound so tight at its first show, but Winnetka Bowling League is no fledgling act. Koma and Mazzarisi have been in bands, together and separately, since Koma, best known for co-writing the Grammy-winning hit “Clarity” as well as a string of dance tracks for EDM’s hottest producers, was at Seaford High School. And that helps explain how Winnetka Bowling League got signed to RCA Records and released their eponymous debut EP, which was released Sept. 21, so quickly.
“Thanks for coming out to see a band you’ve only known about for five weeks,” Koma told the crowd at the packed Mercury Lounge, which included friends and collaborators like Ryan Star, Matthew Reich and Jared Scharff from Pearl Lion and the “Saturday Night Live” band.
Winnetka Bowling League unveiled two new songs in its 30-minute set and Koma has said an album’s worth of material is already completed, much of it written while he was living in New York, even though it sounds very California-inspired. “Makes a lot of sense, right?” he jokingly asked the crowd.
Following the debut shows of the band, Koma has built in some time to focus on another project — the upcoming birth of his child with girlfriend Hilary Duff. Winnetka Bowling League plans to release its debut album early next year followed by a full national tour, something Koma is already promising.
“We’ll be back soon,” Koma said at Mercury Lounge. “We’re always writing new music and we want to come back to play it for you.”
Contact The Long Island Sound at glenn.gamboa@newsday.com or follow @ndmusic on Twitter.
