| Sounds Like | "Romeo’s visually strong lyrics ooze into brain crevices like the best memorable images always do. Sometimes he dons kindred souls like a new coat; he covered Leonard Cohen at a recent show, and says he was moved by the death of Love’s Arthur Lee. That understated heft of spirit grounds his songs, ballads and confessions bright with hope. With night stalkers Twilighter." $6/10 p.m. --Chris Toenes - Independent Weekly
"Wearing Me," the primo cut from former Fake Swedish frontman Joe Romeo’s first major batch of recordings with his new O.C., sounds a little like the Byrds cutting a band song in Motown, a stoner-smile haze floating through a smart, hook-centric pop arrangement, a chorus of friends bearing the weight of its world-weary disciple." - Grayson Currin, Independent Weekly (www.indyweek.com)
"Formally the Chief Songwriter and frontman of Fake Swedish, Joe Romeo is back with a new band, The Orange County Volunteers. An ensemble cast including two former Fake Swedes (Rock Forbes & Ashley Hayes), a Hotel Light (Chris Badger), A Spiderbag (Rob DiPatri), a Pawnshop Ruby (Kate DeMayo) and a Boy (Jared Fruth) mix together a sound that is full of influences from all over the place.
Romeo’s lyrics, often hidden by the guitar onslaught of Fake Swedish, are now allowed to bloom atop a green stalk of smooth, almost rootsy sounds. His words tell tales of homeless millionares, nicotine-stained eccentrics, scoundrels forced to pray for redemption and cats forced to pay rent."
-excerpt from Frank Hurley’s review
"Joe Romeo has the perfect combination of literate swagger & dark self consciousness; he simultaneously revels in & recoils slightly from his own rockstar instincts" - Ross Grady, trianglerock.com
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