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The Lightweight Champs and Turbo Snooze make music fun again

From wearing a robe onstage to singing a song about a flushable fish, these groups made ridiculousness work

Dan Ray September 14, 2018
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The Lightweight Champs and Turbo Snooze make music fun again September 14, 2018

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Karl Behrens of Turbo Snooze wearing his girlfriend’s robe onstage at The Sunset Tavern. // Photo by Tiffany Leslie

It’s rare I meet a Carl I don’t like: from Carl Weathers to Karl Marx to Carl Fredricksen, “K/Carl” is a name that breeds a wonderful kind of human. Karl Behrens, frontman of Turbo Snooze, is no exception.

The headliner on September 12th at The Sunset Tavern, the band came onstage, sound checked, and seemed to be starting when, suddenly, Behrens announced he had to go to the bathroom and left the stage. When he came back, he had donned his girlfriend’s robe (a lovely black number with pink hearts on it) and a large, cloth, pastel pink and white headband. Guitarist Greg Rearden, while he came to the venue wearing them already, was sporting some pretty comfy looking pajama pants.

Combined with the day-clothes-wearing drummer Jeff Browne and bassist Sean Larson, who just joined the band approximately a week ago, Turbo Snooze took the stage perhaps not well prepared, but definitely super enthused.

Behrens is an amazing frontman. While the mix made his vocals more or less disappear, he made up for it with his laid-back-yet-ridiculous aura, like when, after his robe opened a little during the first song, he blushed and abashedly said, “sorry, I think I had a nip slip on that one!”

Even with Larson having rehearsed at least one of the songs only one time, this group of guys obviously has the technical skills and power personalities to make any live show exciting.

In contrast, the opening band, Linda From Work, was better prepared but lacked the stage presence for that to matter. Frontwoman Hillary Tusick wore a opaque, lacy, white top, black leggings, and high-heeled booties. She looked great, but her look didn’t jive well with her emo-punk singing. Her clothes said, “hey, I’m really nice,” and her music said, “I’m so angsty.” It was jarring, and it didn’t work.

While their music wasn’t bad, Linda From Work didn’t seem to have the technical prowess of Turbo Snooze or The Lightweight Champs (the second act), and their performance seemed more like they were in the middle of a rehearsal — between almost every song, Tusick would quietly ask drummer Sam Nowak and bassist Gabe Medina if they were ready for the next tune — than performing for a crowd.

This band would be awesome for a house show, but they need more practice and time to find their groove as a whole. There’s potential for them to be just as fun as Turbo Snooze, though. They could easily fill out the “from work” vibe: Tusick is the edgy girl getting through her day; Nowak, easily the best performer and player in the group, is the fun guy you want to hang out with, but he always has plans; and Medina, who looks like he’s 17 but whose Facebook says he’s 22, is the quiet guy in the back who secretly has an awesome personality. It could work, but it doesn’t quite yet.

While I have zero complaints about Turbo Snooze, the stand out act of the night, by far, was The Lightweight Champs. They looked the part of a cool pop/rock band from Tacoma — vocalist and guitarist Ryan Garrette had on some dope red-pink glasses and surprisingly cool khaki floods, bassist and vocalist Justin Stiles wore a Hawaiian shirt, and drummer Angie Watson wore a black t-shirt that said “LUNGS.”

Both Garrette and Stiles had awesome, relaxed demeanors that made it impossible to take your eyes off of them. When they had snafus — like Stiles’ bass strap breaking — they kept going like it was no big deal. Stiles took care to introduce the songs, and his dry wit shined: “this is a song about our favorite kind of girl. We call her the red flag girl.” Although, my favorite moment was when Stiles said they were going to keep the sad songs going and then proceeded to sing a song about a fish lamenting that it could not climb out of the toilet bowl with its fins. Incredible.

This trio has it down, from their songwriting to their performing. Music doesn’t have to be serious, and The Lightweight Champs bring the right combination of skill and humor, and that’s all there is to it.

As Stiles said, “muthafuckin’ namaste.”

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).