A Pretty Good Situation

Pretty Good Dance Moves makes music with an evolving cast

By Christine Werthman
Published: March 13th, 2010 | 1:00pm

Jimmy Giannopoulos and Aaron Allietta know how to make a long-distance relationship work. Giannopoulos lives in Brooklyn while Allietta lives in Chicago, and they keep in touch by calling and e-mailing. But it is in their sporadic face-to-face meetings that the duo’s brains align to create the synth-centered, pop-flavored songs — starring a variety of female vocalists — that have come to define their band, Pretty Good Dance Moves.

Giannopoulos met Allietta while the two were working together at a bar in Chicago, but they also knew of each other previously from involvement with different bands in the local music scene. At the time of their meeting, Giannopoulos was looking to explore a new sound, and Allietta seemed like the perfect partner. “I really wanted to do something where I didn’t need a drummer,” Giannopoulos says, “and I knew that [Allietta] had a bunch of vintage synthesizers.” The two started collaborating at the end of 2006, with the initial jam sessions taking place in the bar before it opened for the night. “We’d plug in and just start making songs,” Giannopoulos says. “We had no idea what the fuck we were doing.”

The guys eventually moved the bar sessions into the studio and developed a sound that crossed Giannopoulos’s synth, vocal, and guitar duties with Allietta’s skills on everything from Moog synthesizers to the glockenspiel. “The only thing he can’t really play is guitar,” Giannopoulos says. The project even started to have a name: Pretty Good Dance Moves, chosen because it fit the criteria of not being too serious. Though Giannopoulos did cover some of the band’s vocals, he thought that a female singer would better complement the music and found a match in Genevieve Schatz, the vocalist for Company of Thieves who sang on PGDM’s debut EP.

The self-titled, self-released album came out in early 2008, right after Giannopoulos had packed up and moved to Brooklyn where his then-girlfriend and numerous friends were living. But back in Chicago, one of the 1,000 copies of PGDM’s EP landed in the hands of Jim DeRogatis, music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and former editor for Rolling Stone. DeRogatis gave the album a positive review, and shortly thereafter, PGDM started showing up on music blogs as far as the eye could see. The group responded by adding two new tracks to the EP, re-releasing it right after Seattle’s KEXP invited the band to do an in-studio performance. “We had never even played live before,” Giannopoulos says.

Playing shows was not originally on the band’s to-do list, but when the group decided that it wanted to take its music live, they hit a snag. Company of Thieves had just signed to a label, which meant vocalist Schatz was unavailable to perform with PGDM. “They just got busy — fast,” Giannopoulos says. Undeterred, the group came up with a new plan to use not one consistent singer, but a variety of vocalists. And though hip-hop artists and other groups have used this practice before, it seems some people have found it difficult to comprehend as a method for an indie band. “Everyone is so confused,” Giannopoulos says. “They’re like, ‘I don’t understand, so there’s different singers?’”

One of these singers is Angelina Lucero, who now performs with the group live and on their latest self-titled EP release, released March 9 on Township Records (the record also features Bjorn Yttling of Peter, Bjorn, and John). The Chicago-based Lucero has worked with the band since February 2009, receiving instrumental tracks from Giannopoulos via e-mail and then inserting her own vocals. “Going into the project, I knew they were working with other vocalists, which I think is awesome,” Lucero says, noting that the tactic gives the music a more diverse sound. And for her own part, Lucero says she does not worry about whether or not she is a “permanent” part of the band, but is enjoying the experience of playing with PGDM especially at this year’s South by Southwest Festival.

As for Giannopoulos, he seems to be enjoying the lack of constraints on the group and would not change any part of the band’s situation, including the distance between the members. “[Allietta] wants to move out here, but I won’t let him,” he says. “It’s so different because when you’re in two different places and you only see each other for a small period, you’re so much more creative and you don’t slack.”

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Pretty Good Dance Moves official site

Pretty Good Dance Moves MySpace page

Township Records