Phil's Bar and Grill is a small bar packed with locals on the off-season located on 11th Street between Atlantic and Pacific. The side room is decorated with a panoramic mural of the best musicians and pop culture figures of yesteryear; by which I mean the 60s-80s. Those kinds of murals are always reminiscent of the 60s through the 80s for some reason. Guess grunge rock murals just aren't colorful enough. And really, who can resist painting Jimi Hendrix and the Blues Brothers?

I wasn't at the bar to talk art and music history, I was there to check out Counterfeit Molly. First thing I want to say is I don't know how these guys aren't famous and getting tons of radio play. Bad publicist? Factory strike in whatever third-world country that all CDs getting manufactured? Government conspiracy? Who knows.

What I can tell you, is these guys have a great punk/alternative sound along the lines of Weezer at times. Chris Kendrich, Shawn Angelo, and Mike Gombais all rock on guitar with Gombais doing the majority of the vocal work. Mike Mason drops bass lines as Ben Meyer slams the drum set. I wanted to work in a joke here about Meyer being the only one without facial hair in the band just like ZZ Top drummer Fred Beard, but I've got nothing. Insert one of your own.

There's a mixture of rock styles here, so I hope you don't get thrown off by my Weezer thing up above. From the British pop-punk of "Shepard's Pie" to the early grunge style of "I Want It More" or the slower "Writing on the Wall" not to mention the awesome cover of "Stand By Me" with heavy instrumentals thrown in. Angelo's fingers practically fly across the strings during the solos with Gombais dropping in smooth vocals. It's what I'd expect from a band that's been together for years.

Their most recent album, The Eternal Optimist is available through their site at www.conterfeitmolly.net and I apologize beforehand if I've messed up on the correct names of the songs. Be sure to check out "I Wanted More" for that Weezer thing I was talking about and "Blood and Bones" for a sampling of Angelo's guitar work. It's like, twenty times cooler hearing that one live by the way. So be sure to check them out at their next gig  at Scotty Quix over in Norfolk.