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A band named SUE wants to rock you

From left: Selling Us Everything drummer Ryan O'Connell, lead singer and guitarist Matthew Preston and bass player and vocalist Camilo Gomez. PHOYO: COURTESY OF KELLY HOLTZ

The first song on Selling Us Everything's album Product Jingles is called Wearing Thin Products. Like the last song on the album, Killing the Host Was Never So Convenient, it condemns consumerism. It's an issue that rings true with the band's genre, punk rock, as well as the band members themselves, who were sympathetic to or actively involved in leftist causes in Canada, New Zealand and Colombia before they moved to Taiwan.

"A lot of the songs on [the album] have to do with the over-commodification of everything," said the band's founder, singer and guitarist Matthew Preston, during an interview with the band Monday night. "We blind ourselves or sedate ourselves with consumerism, and that's become our fix these days. We constantly have something shiny or something flashy telling us to buy things and that will make things OK."

Selling Us Everything is also known as SUE or Su (溯), which means "to chase," a character in the four-character Chinese idiom (chengyu) zhui ben su yuan (追本溯源), which means "to return to the source" or "to go against the flow."

Influenced by bands like Jawbreaker and Alkaline Trio, SUE can sound a bit like San Francisco group Strike Anywhere, with fast tempos, charged vocals and relatively complex song structures. They've been around for a couple of years and recently have started to draw what constitutes a critical mass in most Taipei music venues: crowds of around 70 or so people. But bassist and vocalist Camilo Gomez is leaving Taiwan, and SUE, which already survived one lineup change, will probably cease to exist unless it finds a guitarist or bassist who fits its style and philosophy. SUE's last scheduled performance is a free concert tonight at 10pm at Driftwood in Gongguan District.

Camilo, who just turned 28 and is a systems engineer, is leaving Taiwan because his job here has become too stressful. He joined SUE shortly before the band's second guitarist left Taiwan. "If it wasn't for these two guys, I would have gone crazy and started shooting people a long time ago," he said. "My only escape was music."

SUE's style is straightforward. They're not into showing off their skills. "People who want to get out there and play guitar so people will fawn over their guitar playing need a reality check," Preston said. The band's sound has changed a bit since they recorded Product Jingles. Both Camilo and Preston sing choruses. And Carmilo sometimes plays higher up on the neck of his bass for a more melodic sound.

Despite the overtly political nature of their lyrics, SUE isn't preachy. "The point is generating discussion. It's not a manifesto or a diatribe," Preston said. "If people can get something out of it great, that's really cool. I like it when people come up and say this songs means this to me, and if it's totally different from what I intended, that's cool. It shows that they're at least thinking."

Driftwood is located at 4, Alley 9, Lane 316, Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市羅斯福路三段316巷9弄4號). To contact the venue, call (02) 2365-7413. For more information about the band, log on at www.myspace.com/sellinguseverything.

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