About 100 people squeezed near the upstairs stage at Fitzwilly's last month -- swaying and singing along as Bob Turek jumped up and down with an acoustic guitar, stomping his feet against a platform crammed full of bandmates and random instruments.

The hipster crowd -- standing underneath mounted heads of deer and moose -- wasn't what one might expect to see during a normal night out on Northgate. Men in tight jeans and women in retro '80s outfits stood listening to occasionally synthesizer-heavy music without the slightest hint of country twang.

It was a gathering one might be more accustomed to seeing in an Urban Outfitters catalog, or Austin.

But this was The Flyers -- a homegrown group of Texas A&M seniors whose indie-pop lovesick sound would probably fit better on the Juno soundtrack than it would on the bill at, say, Chilifest.

The group has been working for four years to find a local audience to share its love of such music -- a hard-to-classify meshing of bouncy acoustic guitar and synthesizer that has caught on elsewhere with whimsical indie bands such as Of Montreal, Architecture in Helsinki and Tilly and the Wall.

The band is beginning to reach that goal.

Members currently are mixing their first album -- expected to be out "soonish" -- and have started to see the fruits of a burgeoning College Station scene, as witnessed by the recent Fitzwilly's crowd (the next show, Thursday, will take place at the same location).

Too bad the band's days in College Station appear to be numbered.

'Let's start a band'

The Flyers formed in 2004, when Turek and guitarist Carlos Mendoza were paired randomly as Dunn Hall roommates their freshman year.

Mendoza, who moved to College Station from Mexico to attend the university, came from a musical background. His grandfather, who played traditional bolero music, tried to put a guitar in his hands when he was 3, he recalled. But he found his love for music on his own as a teenager listening to British-influenced rock.

Turek, whose military family most recently hailed from Louisiana, also played guitar as well as trombone and baritone from his days as an all-state musician in the high school band.

"You play guitar?" one asked the other within the first hours of their rooming together.

"Me too. Let's start a band."

Drummer Seth Brunner also resided in the dormitory and happened to be walking by one day soon afterward as the two were jamming. He had grown up in San Antonio playing weekly shows in his Christian school's praise group and was heavily influenced by New Orleans funk-masters Galactic.

"We played shows the first semester, but it was just the three of us and it was just terrible," Turek said, explaining that their repertoire initially included covers of Incubus and Weezer songs. "It wasn't clicking for the first year at least."

Part of the problem was there was no bass player. The other, recalled Brunner, was the group "just didn't know how to play together."

They were joined later by Whitney Smith, whose synthesizer and backing vocals have become an integral part of the group's sound, and bassist Keaton Tucker, who played guitar in Roskey, a College Station-based alternative band.

Roskey had a garage with a sound system but a ratty drum set. The Flyers had good drums but no spot within the dorms to practice. A partnership was made and the group cut its teeth opening for the more established group.

Let's build a studio

Although they've long since left the dorms, three of the band members continue to live together in an apartment crowded with guitars, a banjo, a cello, two drum sets, a trumpet found at a pawn shop for $30, a saxophone, a trombone, a large marching bass drum, an upright piano found in the street and several keyboards.

The collection is big enough that Mendoza and Turek share bunk beds in one room to make more space.

The Flyers' living room is absent the television, couch and video game system found in typical student quarters. Instead, the living room has been converted into a homemade recording studio. It's where they spent last summer gathering tracks -- and frantically looking for a tuba -- for their upcoming album.

"They're expensive," Turek explained of the yet unfulfilled tuba hunt.

"Our life and our house kind of revolves around the band," he explained. "All the money we ever make [playing gigs] goes back into it. We've definitely pulled a lot out of our pockets."

The instrument collection is a little out of control, the group conceded. Although every member plays two or three instruments, some haven't been mastered yet, they said.

But the group likes the idea of being able to pick up a random instrument and use it as needed. For instance, Turek said, he found the cello in a pawn shop last summer and has been teaching himself to play. It was on prominent display during the group's last concert.

On the surface, much of the band's set appears to consist of sugar-coated musings on love and relationships. That sugar is often dissolved, though, upon closer look at Turek's lyrics.

"They're all really sad or sarcastic, but they're disguised with the music," Mendoza said. "They don't just tell you the punch line right away. You have to hear the whole thing."

Heading westward

One good thing about college towns is the constant influx of creative people, Turek said recently as he sat with Mendoza in their living-room studio. But the downside, he added, is creative people are always graduating and moving on.

At the conclusion of this semester, it appears The Flyers will be among that set.

Turek always wanted to move to the Northwest -- perhaps San Francisco, Portland or Seattle -- and he's convinced Mendoza to go with him after graduation (Smith and Brunner also are considering the move).

"We're planning on taking our studio and setting up wherever we end up," Turek said, explaining that the final location might depend on which grad schools accept him and Brunner. "It's going to be kind of hard. We still haven't figured it out yet."

Mendoza said he'll take any job any place the band moves so he can continue to follow the music dream.

Self-taught in acoustics with books checked out from the A&M library, Mendoza oversaw construction of the group's current recording studio. In the long run, he said, he would like to have a recording studio and label used by other bands as well. Recently he's been reading a lot of business books on how to incorporate a band.

Even though The Flyers might have initially meshed more easily with the Austin music scene, band members said they've enjoyed their time in College Station. Working with Town Hall, an on-campus concert-planning organization, they've tapped into a receptive fan base. And their stark black-and-white posters utilizing minimalist designs also started catching people's attention.

Things really started jelling for the group about a year ago, they said, and these days shows draw decent-sized crowds. One concert last year -- in which they opened for Johnny Cash Cover Band, which Brunner also plays in -- they helped sell out Fitzwilly's with a crowd of about 300.

In a way, developing their sound and their following the hard way, in College Station, has made the band experience more fulfilling than it might have been in a place like Austin, Turek said. There, he explained, it's easy to get lost in the hipster crowd.

"We're weird for College Station," Turek acknowledged. And on that level, he said, "It's been good being able to develop as kind of a big fish in a small town."

• Craig Kapitan's e-mail address is craig.kapitan@theeagle.com.

Comments

(Requires free registration.)

0 comment(s) found!