“This three piece didn’t so much play their instruments as thrash themselves against them, with the singer shimmying across the stage in a staccato of frenetic energy. Larynx-shredding crooning and a rip-it-up mentality make Eleven Year Old a must see.”
— DIY Birmingham
Eleven Year Old’s sneaky, fuzzed out psych-rock tunes are Jacob Hethcox’s prayers of suburban apathy and bad posture. Joined by Sam Reynolds and Max Andrews, the trio makes music heavy with tremolo-damaged guitar, post-punk bass lines and rhythm so deep in the pocket it gets lost in the wash. The lyrics are a funhouse mirror held up to everyday experience, a mixed stream of unconsciousness and bad trip poetry sung into twisting pop melodies.
The group’s debut full-length, Harakiri Krishnas, was recorded on a Tascam 488 Portasound and put out as a limited run of home-dubbed cassettes in late 2012. The band has since released a series of three singles, Mild Child, Waste Me and A Hermit’s Blues. Their forthcoming LP, American Lizards, is due out later this year.
LINKS:
“Started in 2012, the band has settled into an incredibly tight groove. They utilize the characteristics of progressive rock (time changes, modal movement, intricate arrangements), yet their unique instrumentation gives them a tinge of the unexplainable. Drummer Mathew Pelton rolls relentlessly through the sprawling compositions, playing with feel and precision. Guitarist James Webber has impressive control of his syrupy Les Paul tone, and his chord voicings and arpeggios indicate his heavy jazz influence. Nick Gilbert fills out the band on trombone (an atypical instrument in rock), and what he does with it is ingenious. With a small microphone on the bell, he runs the instrument through a series of effects generally used for guitar, and the result is a rich horn section sound, with octaves and various intervals weaving through the music. Any group that can cover Chick Corea and get the audience to crowd surf at the same time is worth paying attention to.”
— Garrett Deming, Hissing Lawns
Culture Vulture is a progressive, instrumental outfit that shreds the old prog trope of complexity over enjoyment. Underestimating the audience’s ability to dance in 7/8 feels wrong though, so Culture Vulture avoids that too. Blending such disparate influences as jazz, math rock, and straight-up pop music combined with eclectic instrumentation sets Culture Vulture apart. Guitar, drums, and trombone, all with processing and effect power make a full sound that spans from wistful dreaminess to metal creaminess. Dancey for the brave, complexity for the analyst, sexy for the depraved. Culture Vulture has existed, in a few different iterations, since 2012. Each member cut their teeth in very different scenes across the country but converged on Savannah to bring it all together in a colloidal mixture of densely packed sound.
LINKS
“These are youth to watch…”
— Punk City Pages
Jake Wittig, Breely Flower, and Walker Scott come together to bring west coast sounds to Birmingham, Alabama, with an added southern flavor. Punchy and catchy tunes combined with an ever expanding visual experience make The Burning Peppermints an undeniable spectacle of energetic and fearless youth that will surely make you tap your foot, if you don’t keel over laughing first. Dressed in formalwear head to toe and playing at blood-pumping tempos, The Burning Peppermints simultaneously give the impression that they’re not messing around and that they’re only messing around.
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Star Mic is becoming a rising star. His witty lyricism coupled with a sick flow over dope beats also proves why he was the 2013 ASCAP freestyle contest winner.
— DJ V.I.P., hiphopsince1987.com
They say everyone has the ability to be a genius, born with a gift, or not. Michael Ashby “Star Mic” was born in Jamaica Hospital, Queens, New York as an only child. A quiet, yet commanding presence speaks to his aura. A beacon radiantly screaming a bright star the minute you hear Star Mic rhyme. Mic began rapping before he was 13, 11 years old to be exact. He didn’t take it seriously at the time until he put out his first project ‘From Queens To Everywhere’ in 2010. Many might ask when Mic first fell in love with Hip Hop and an interesting story was when, New York Radio Hot 97 dj and car fanatic Funk Master Flex introduced Star Mic to the world by calling him every day on his popular evening segment called “Air it out”. Star Mic daily activity intrigued Funk Master Flex so much that Star became a regular on the segment every night. Ironically a few years later Star Mic won Hot 97 Dj Monsee’s talent competition in New York. Beating out artists twice his age with a commanding stage presence, Star Mic captivates audiences when he performs. Showcasing an ability to make songs, records, rhymes better, and high powered at an age when most artist are just touching their talent surface. Star Mic has released three critically acclaimed mix-tapes; ‘From Queens To Everywhere’ parts 1 & 2, ‘Teenage Romance Love Story’ & his latest project ‘TEAR$ Over Diamonds’ which will be out soon! Star Mic appeared on the “Scream Tour” in 2011. Performing alongside some of today’s most promising up and coming young stars such as; “Mindless Behavior”, “Diggy Simmons” “Jacob Latimore”, “Juwan Harris”, and others. Star Mic has so far been on a journey to follow his dreams, and showing progress.
LINKS:
“This three piece didn’t so much play their instruments as thrash themselves against them, with the singer shimmying across the stage in a staccato of frenetic energy. Larynx-shredding crooning and a rip-it-up mentality make Eleven Year Old a must see.”
— DIY Birmingham
Eleven Year Old’s sneaky, fuzzed out psych-rock tunes are Jacob Hethcox’s prayers of suburban apathy and bad posture. Joined by Sam Reynolds and Max Andrews, the trio makes music heavy with tremolo-damaged guitar, post-punk bass lines and rhythm so deep in the pocket it gets lost in the wash. The lyrics are a funhouse mirror held up to everyday experience, a mixed stream of unconsciousness and bad trip poetry sung into twisting pop melodies.
The group’s debut full-length, Harakiri Krishnas, was recorded on a Tascam 488 Portasound and put out as a limited run of home-dubbed cassettes in late 2012. The band has since released a series of three singles, Mild Child, Waste Me and A Hermit’s Blues. Their forthcoming LP, American Lizards, is due out later this year.
LINKS:“With music loops that should have had the crowd tripping the light fantastic, Captain Kudzu brought the heat with his solo show. Among other songs, Gafford played his latest single, “Porch.” At one point, he let go of all inhibitions and began tribal dancing to the beat of his own drum (loop).”
— Corner News
Captain Kudzu, formerly a music project between Jackson Gafford and a friend, has now become Gafford’s stage name for his independent work as a producer, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, and singer-songwriter. An Opelika native, Gafford is currently recording his first album, while performing at venues within the Auburn-Opelika area.
Gafford crafts his sound by using the increasingly popular method of looping. He records a certain sound and then replays it to create a seamless repetition of music. He loops sounds as a simple as a drum beat to more complex guitar riffs. Gafford layers these sounds upon each other, slowly building his work, piece by piece, until he fills a room with atmospheric sound.
Most of the material was written this way but recently Captain Kudzu has grown from a one man show to a full band, Gafford enlisting his friends Abby Anderson (drums) and Shannon Wrenn (bass, vocals) for part of the live show and up coming album. Going to a Captain Kudzu show you’ll see everything from hip hop tinged ambient loops, to folk music, to fuzzed out psyche rock in a relatively short time span.
Currently Captain Kudzu is in the process of setting up a studio and recording a debut album, building a website, and filming videos and live shows so there is much, much more to come from this group of weirdos from Opelika.
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Jake isn’t just a rare bird, he’s the professor you always wished you had, the friend you never get tired of epic hangs with, the human jukebox, the guitar player and singer who makes any band that he’s in better. He’s a southern scholar and gentleman in the tradition of Jim Dickinson, George Mitchell, and Les Blank. He’s a Dave Van Ronk for SEC country.
— William Tyler
Durham, North Carolina singer and guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell’s self-titled debut record, produced by and featuring William Tyler, transmutes ten arcane folk and blues tunes into vibey cosmic laments and crooked riverine rambles. Jake Xerxes (yes, that’s his real middle name, after Georgia potter D.X. Gordy) grew up in Columbus, Georgia, son of Fred C. Fussell, a folklorist, curator, and photographer who hails from across the river in Phenix City, Alabama (once known as “The Wickedest City in America” for its rampant vice, corruption, and crime.) Fred’s fieldwork took him, often with young Jake in tow, across the Southeast documenting traditional vernacular culture, which included recording blues and old-time musicians with fellow folklorists and recordists George Mitchell and Art Rosenbaum (which led Jake to music, and to some of the songs herein) and collaborating with American Indian artists (which led Jake eventually to his graduate research on Choctaw fiddlers.)
As a teenager Jake began playing and studying with elder musicians in the Chattahoochee Valley, apprenticing with Piedmont blues legend Precious Bryant (“Georgia Buck”), with whom he toured and recorded, and riding wild with Alabama bluesman, black rodeo rider, rye whiskey distiller, and master dowser George Daniel (“Rabbit on a Log”). He joined a Phenix City country band who were students of Jimmie Tarlton of Darby and Tarlton; he accompanied Etta Baker in North Carolina; he moved to Berkeley, where he hung with genius documentary filmmaker Les Blank and learned from Haight folkies like Will Scarlett (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Brownie McGhee) and cult fingerstyle guitarist Steve Mann (“Push Boat”); he appeared on A Prairie Home Companion. He did a whole lot of listening, gradually honing his prodigious guitar skills, singing, and repertoire. In 2005 he moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he enrolled in the Southern Studies department at Ole Miss, recorded and toured with Rev. John Wilkins, and, last year, met up with acclaimed artist William Tyler to begin recording his first solo album.
Collaborating with Tyler and engineer Mark Nevers in Nashville was a conscious decision to depart cloistered trad scenes and sonics for broader, more oblique horizons. Tyler, a guitar virtuoso known for his own compositions that untether and reframe traditional six-string forms and techniques, helmed the push boat in inimitable fashion, enlisting crack(ed) Nashville session vets Chris Scruggs (lap steel, bass, mandolin: Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marty Stuart), Brian Kotzur (drums: Silver Jews), and Hoot Hester (fiddle Bill Monroe, Ray Charles) to crew.
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“…Eugenius Neutron is the perfect blend of dope storytelling and well thought out rhyme schemes… Many rappers talk about similar subjects but Eugenics sets himself apart from the pack with clever lines… a well deserved 5 stars.”
— Concrete Magazine
Eugenius has been sharing his hip hop doctrine from the tender age of nine. The tone of his music began to change once he began high school and started venturing into the city. Eager to flood the streets with his music and taking a note from MP, a legend in Birmingham who created a street buzz with his self-marketing techniques, Eugenius released multiple mixtapes and flooded the streets selling his CD’s and performed all throughout the Birmingham metroplex.
With money saved from working at nightclubs and profit from his CD’s, Eugenius put himself in college at Alabama A&M in Huntsville. Without a booming hip hop community in the college town, he joined the poetry society and began creating music that was less mainstream, more conscious and relatable. The BET Black College Tour gave him an outlet to showcase his incredible wordplay through their annual freestyle battle that Eugene won two years in a row. During the time, he began collaborating with his good friend and producer B-Flat Trax. Their song “Pass Me By” expanded his fan-base and became popular in the city of Huntsville.
“I stopped wanting to be like the artists who I looked up to while I was in high school and wanted to be myself and find my own voice,” remembers Eugenius. “The atmosphere in Huntsville was much more productive. I was able to be more creative. Birmingham is a tough place to live and develop. Huntsville gave me that space and opportunity.”
After mastering mixtapes, in 2011 Eugenius decided to release his first studio recording with all original music. “The Brainstorm”, spawned two singles, “Pass Me By” and “Searching for my Zen”. The project was sold on iTunes but was available for a free download on sites such as Datpiff and Bandcamp. The following year, he released the mixtape “Million Dollar Dreams”, which was given a five star rating by Concrete Magazine. In the following year, expanding his musical boundaries Eugenius elected to offer his fans a jazz influenced project. He documented his past experiences and interactions with the nightlife he was accustomed to in “The Roaring 2000’s: Beauties and the Beast”. The collection showcased a tale of a modern day bachelor and gentleman. Four of the songs were regularly featured in the Alabama Now segment on 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham.
His upcoming release “Euniversal Understanding” is an evolution of a young kid who dedicated his life to music for the love of hip hop. His story is a coming of age tale that shows the impact of music on a young man destined to share his stories and enlighten the world through song.
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“Lexington, KY’s Bear Medicine doesn’t occupy a space–it invents one. Any description of their music using rock crit shorthand—“chamber-prog-folk,” for instance—seems inadequate, even misleading. To put it plainly, Bear Medicine leaves me speechless. Joshua Wright’s songs simultaneously nod to and annihilate time-tested songform traditions, while the band’s spooky energy and skillful arrangements combine to reveal a multiplicity of ideas within each strange, evocative song. Fans of artists as varied as Comus, Led Zeppelin circa III, Kayo Dot, and Townes Van Zandt will be unable to resist the Aquarian Dream Music of this precocious and deeply psychedelic young band.”
— Aquarium Drunkard
Bitten and beaten by bears and subsequently dragged to a hollow rock, Joshua, Severn, Seth, and Kim found themselves on their last legs, their last fingers, and knew that to survive they had but one choice. From the white bones in the cave, from the strung out sinews and the discarded hides, from the very dirt and dust of the floor and walls they forged instruments and began to play their Bear Medicine. Nothing else could soothe their wounds. Ointment of flute, elixir of piano, balm of cello, salve of six-string, shuffling pacemaker rhythms of snare and tom-toms, nightly these remedies coalesce and keep the four breathing so that their voices may sing. Should you pass the hollow rock in which they convalesce, you will hear the fusion of melancholy and mirth, the former for the shed blood, the latter for the continued life. You needn’t have been mauled by grizzly to receive the benefits of this Bear Medicine. You need only life in your lungs, knees and hips willing to be swayed.
“On Being Alone doesn’t contain a single weak moment…a touch of free-wheeling roots and earthy country. A little pop.”
— Shea Stewart, Sync Magazine
Swampbird is a folk-rock/alt. country five-piece out of Little Rock, Arkansas. They have done extensive touring throughout the southeast and midwest playing a variety of clubs, amphitheaters, and festivals. They just finished recording their third release “Something to See” out January 1st. It was recorded by Jason Weinheimer (Secret Sisters) at Fellowship Hall Sound and Mastered by Bronson Tew of Fat Possum Records. Previous releases include “It Rolls the Dice EP” and “On Being Alone” on Bear America Records (New Orleans).
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“I can’t really think of any other bands with the same sound, this album is actually exactly what I would expect from a band called ‘…and the lawyers.’ It’s quirky, unique, fun, with both moments to chuckle or raise an eyebrow and ask ‘what the hell was that?’ this really is a musical experience.”
— Amber O’Shea, Birmingham Free Press
and the lawyers started as two piece dance prog art-funk from montgomery alabama. the original concept was DJ-feeling music played by human beings, and has spread to be a unique visceral live experience. looper-core electro-art-faggotry is dabbled in, drums are beaten with tight aplomb and enthusiasm: noodly guitar noises are rejoiced and been made glad for there-in. jason fifi is a comic and artist from montgomery alabama that studied classical guitar in school but didn’t want to play wakes and weddings for the rest of his life, so he did something fun instead. this is that something fun. no matter who plays drums, the performers in “…and the lawyers” always remember to ask themselves, the question, “what would black michael jackson do?”
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“The personality that shines through on the band’s songs has helped them carve out a comfortable niche somewhere between bright pop and aggressive, noisy rock.”
— Paste Magazine
Gold-Bears’ second full-length, Dalliance, is a record about regret. It reminds you of that time you lied to your friend when you said you were too busy to hang out, but instead went to the bar alone. Or when you sent that really shitty email to your brother about something that really has no bearing anymore, because you were too caught up in the moment to think clearly. It also reminds you of the time you got divorced… from whatever or whomever.
In the past two years since Gold-Bears released their debut album Are You Falling in Love?, main Bear Jeremy Underwood gathered a new crop of friends to carry out his fuzz-filled visions. Dalliance is more focused and abrasive than that 2011 debut, combining their noise-pop influences from forebears like Boyracer and The Wedding Present with shades of the post-hardcore, emo and post-punk on which the band all cut their musical teeth. This is not to say that Gold-Bears gave up impossibly catchy song-writing, just that their signature indie punk anthems are now even sharper, the guitars even more slashing, and the songs even more harrowing and heartfelt than ever.
Dalliance opens with the anthemic “Yeah, Tonight,” a proper pop song featuring a duet between Underwood and Emma Kupa (of the defunct London indiepop band Standard Fare) that sets the agenda right away — sharp melodies and even sharper guitars, all whizzing by in less than three minutes. “Chest” rushes in almost immediately after, barely two and a half minutes of punk energy and fizzing feedback.
The stomping “From Gainesville to Tallahassee” features a gnarly feedback guitar solo and backing vocals from Black Tambourine’s Pam Berry. “Punk Song No. 15″ is as described, a blazing flash that condenses the history of UK noisy pop into just over one minute. “I Hope They’re Right” and the lovely, jangling “Hey, Sophie” show how much the band have expanded their range, slowing the pace, turning up the jangle and taking on the big subjects.
Gold-Bears cover a lot of territory, musical and lyrical, in Dalliance’s 32 minutes and by the time that we reach the miniature epic of closer “Fathers And Daughters” we realize that we’re watching a band and a song-writer hit their stride, turning in an album that’s exciting, thoughtful and infectious.
LINKS:
“The Kernal fills his music with mid-century twang evoking Porter Wagoner one minute and Gram Parsons the next. He even rasps his way through the rapid-fire verses of “Green Green Sky” like Bob Dylan… which is appropriate, since one of Dylan’s former engineer/producers, Jeff Powell, produced the tune.”
— American Songwriter
Based in Jackson, TN, The Kernal & His New Strangers call the Downtown Tavern home and from that halfway point between two Tennessee music mecca’s, tour the country with their homegrown brand of Southern mystique. Tied deeply to the legacy of the wandering musician and the historic Grand Ole Opry, the Kernal, a southern gentleman with an old soul and youthful ambition, found his sound and showmanship in the greats of the classic Country music scene like Del Reeves. “My dad,” The Kernal reminisces, explaining the impetus of the band, “met Sleepy LaBeef at Limebaugh’s Restaurant in Nashville. Lonzo & Oscar were looking for a drummer and he asked my dad if he could play a shuffle beat on the table. He did and he left for a 10day run the next day. It worked out because soon he was playing with Sleepy.” From there, his father found his way to The Kendalls, and eventually to the legendary Del Reeves, with whom he would play until Reeves’ death in 2007. His father died in September of the same year and the seed was planted.
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“Temperance League’s most polished and affecting LP chronicles the day-to-day grind of a tight-knit band in the face of long odds that only get longer as the months and years roll by. Like the blue collar songs of Petty and Springsteen that inspire them, quiet desperation infuses their music — work a job, write and rehearse like another job, then channel it all into that night’s “magnificence,” leader Bruze Hazel sings on the title track. Hazel’s gruff, desperate and determined vocals embody the band’s ethic and sound: resigned one moment (“While the City Sleeps”) and defiant the next, as when the one percent “come back for more” (“The Gap”). In the end, it’s only home — family, friends, Charlotte, your band — that you can rely on. “Can you feel it?” Hazel asks over soothing synth strings and Rickenbacker jangle, “It feels like home.”
— JS, CharlotteViewpoint.org
Temperance League has been overturning the old-guys-can’t-rock notion since solidifying as a sextet three years ago; and they’re doing so at a pace that should shame many younger acts, kicking out blitzkrieg jams on a relentless basis.
The band’s singles and 3 LPs – released through their own Like, Wow! label—were recorded with famed producer Mitch Easter (R.E.M., Pavement, Wilco, Lets’ Active) at his Fidelitorium Studio in Kernersville, NC. The songs channel the band’s forebears, including ery elements of the MC5, Ramones, Springsteen, Tom Petty and even the Byrds, all in a vintage-sounding blend of swagger and catharsis. But what sounds raw and feral belies the craftsmanship that’s gone into these tracks. The two-guitar attack of Shawn Lynch and Chad Wilson tears through muscular rhythms-delivered by drummer David Kim and bassist Eric Scott and ably decorated by keyboardist Jay Garrigan. Hazel, meanwhile, shouts out common-man aphorisms and left-leaning agit-prop like the possessed ospring of Joe Strummer and The Boss. Decades spent lugging it out in the service industry provides him with plenty of narrative vigor and vitriol.
As energized as their albums sound, it’s live that the Temperance League really plugs into its strengths. The live chops are formidable, having been honed in some of the Queen City’s best bands of recent years, including Lou Ford, Benji Hughes, Les Dirt Clods, the Fence Lions and Buschovski, among others. It’s a veteran lineup, in other words, playing music we traditionally associate with younger generations.
But while youthful rockers and punk energy and inspiration in the hunger to make their mark, this band is powered by something maybe even more urgent-the ticking clock.
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Modern day hip hop has become a battleground where binged out messiahs of materialism have often gained the upper hand, but MCs OSI and IseQold of the Regiment are the positive force for change in music.
OSI and Ise define the Regiment as “a number of people fighting for a common cause.” When the cause is something as vast as Hip Hop culture there are no individuals that can get the job done alone. OSI and IseQold now lead The Regiment and legions of music lovers wanting quality work are willing to join the battle. Dealing with the everyday struggles of trying to make it in an often brutal world, The Regiment leaves the gold plated fantasies to others. Taking cues from artists as diverse as KRS-1 and J-Dilla, the crew mixes the uplifting with the painfully truthful alongside production reminiscent of the days when people of all ages could listen and enjoy musical truth.
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“Commonly categorized as “dream pop” or “dream folk,” Twin Limb combine harmonizing vocals, deliberate percussion and the slow and powerful sound of an accordion, like a tidal wave. (It’s the moon’s powers.)”
— Mary Chellis Austin, Louisville Magazine
Twin Limb is a band from Louisville, KY formed in 2013 by Maryliz Bender (drums, vocals) and Lacey Guthrie (accordion, vocals), and was joined in 2014 by Kevin Ratterman (sampled sounds, guitar, percussion).
That’s the easy part. Describing the band’s sound is much tougher.
Don’t assume that accordion is wasting its time being happy, for example. Guthrie makes it do some very sinister things, underpinning the music with a luxurious darkness that connects folk and psychedelia. It’s the same with the vocals, as Guthrie and Bender wrap their voices one around the other like they’re telling secrets, creating another bridge between the familiar and the disarming.
Bender keeps the drums simple and purposeful, often parsing out her beats in short, sharp bursts with a precision that never feels forced. Ratterman is the final wild card, using guitars and samples in unexpected ways that feel both post-punk and experimental.
The band’s debut album captures all of this with a kind of eerie confidence, almost as if they don’t care if we even listen. You should, though. You won’t hear anything else quite like it.
“Started in 2012, the band has settled into an incredibly tight groove. They utilize the characteristics of progressive rock (time changes, modal movement, intricate arrangements), yet their unique instrumentation gives them a tinge of the unexplainable. Drummer Mathew Pelton rolls relentlessly through the sprawling compositions, playing with feel and precision. Guitarist James Webber has impressive control of his syrupy Les Paul tone, and his chord voicings and arpeggios indicate his heavy jazz influence. Nick Gilbert fills out the band on trombone (an atypical instrument in rock), and what he does with it is ingenious. With a small microphone on the bell, he runs the instrument through a series of effects generally used for guitar, and the result is a rich horn section sound, with octaves and various intervals weaving through the music. Any group that can cover Chick Corea and get the audience to crowd surf at the same time is worth paying attention to.”
— Garrett Deming, Hissing Lawns
Culture Vulture is a progressive, instrumental outfit that shreds the old prog trope of complexity over enjoyment. Underestimating the audience’s ability to dance in 7/8 feels wrong though, so Culture Vulture avoids that too. Blending such disparate influences as jazz, math rock, and straight-up pop music combined with eclectic instrumentation sets Culture Vulture apart. Guitar, drums, and trombone, all with processing and effect power make a full sound that spans from wistful dreaminess to metal creaminess. Dancey for the brave, complexity for the analyst, sexy for the depraved. Culture Vulture has existed, in a few different iterations, since 2012. Each member cut their teeth in very different scenes across the country but converged on Savannah to bring it all together in a colloidal mixture of densely packed sound.
LINKSTimber is Will Stewart and Janet Simpson.
LINKS:
Rob Alley, “a trumpet player with an ambrosial tone whose most singular gift is his adroitness at the art of improvisation.”
— Mike Overall, Occasions Magazine
Solid Sender: An improvisational quintet making sounds inspired by late 60s/early 70s Miles and the NYC super-group Sex Mob, with directions in music by Rob Alley. And grooves. Yes, grooves. Lots of them. Deep ones.
The band consists of Alley 62 mile trumpet and directions in music, Andy Nevala – Fender Rhodes piano and pedals, Matthew DeVine – Wurli and pedals, Chris Kozak – electric bass and pedals, and Mark Lanter – drum set and a different kind of pedals. (A quick Google search will yield a plethora of information as to the band member’s prior high jinx. It’d be a waste of your time and space here.) Hope to see you out there. We’ll be. Out there, that is.
LINKS:
“Smoke-wreathed pleading, romantic rock that explodes into a gnashing guitar solo redolent of post-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco.”
— SPIN Magazine
Sweating their way through tour fever, exhaustion, and the last round of shows supporting 2013’s The Secret Will Keep You, Brass Bed entered The Loading Dock studios in Sacramento’s fruit-packing district with Chris Woodhouse (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall) to blast out a three song set on a chance collaboration. Woodhouse’s breakneck tracking speed and explosive guitar treatments collided with a Brass Bed line-up well honed in dynamic, incandescent performances from nearly a year on the road. The result was an unlikely marriage of aesthetics boiled quickly in a summer heat that resulted in a raw, unsettled, lunging, leaning, and skuzzy version of a band heretofore known for its song craft and precision, all captured live to 16 tracks of two-inch tape.
While the three-song session would serve as the cornerstone of the band’s upcoming 4th LP (much of which was also recorded with Chris at the Dock) the material as it sat right on the tape, mixed in a fury of caffeine and beer, was just too good to languish on a reel. Recorded with the shortest distance from sweaty performance to wax, and presented in its purest form, the band shares “Be Anything” b/w “Mind the Gap” and a glimpse of what’s to come.
Brass Bed is the lifelong collaboration of Jonny Campos, Christiaan Mader, and Peter DeHart, begun during a bedroom recording session in Lafayette, LA in the Elephant 6-obsessed summer break from college. It has blossomed from studio to stage through changes in lineup, geographic distance, three studio albums, four EPS, a handful of singles, a pair of robberies, and the various life distractions known as growing up. Brass Bed is not a project. Brass Bed is a band.
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Star Mic is becoming a rising star. His witty lyricism coupled with a sick flow over dope beats also proves why he was the 2013 ASCAP freestyle contest winner.
— DJ V.I.P., hiphopsince1987.com
They say everyone has the ability to be a genius, born with a gift, or not. Michael Ashby “Star Mic” was born in Jamaica Hospital, Queens, New York as an only child. A quiet, yet commanding presence speaks to his aura. A beacon radiantly screaming a bright star the minute you hear Star Mic rhyme. Mic began rapping before he was 13, 11 years old to be exact. He didn’t take it seriously at the time until he put out his first project ‘From Queens To Everywhere’ in 2010. Many might ask when Mic first fell in love with Hip Hop and an interesting story was when, New York Radio Hot 97 dj and car fanatic Funk Master Flex introduced Star Mic to the world by calling him every day on his popular evening segment called “Air it out”. Star Mic daily activity intrigued Funk Master Flex so much that Star became a regular on the segment every night. Ironically a few years later Star Mic won Hot 97 Dj Monsee’s talent competition in New York. Beating out artists twice his age with a commanding stage presence, Star Mic captivates audiences when he performs. Showcasing an ability to make songs, records, rhymes better, and high powered at an age when most artist are just touching their talent surface. Star Mic has released three critically acclaimed mix-tapes; ‘From Queens To Everywhere’ parts 1 & 2, ‘Teenage Romance Love Story’ & his latest project ‘TEAR$ Over Diamonds’ which will be out soon! Star Mic appeared on the “Scream Tour” in 2011. Performing alongside some of today’s most promising up and coming young stars such as; “Mindless Behavior”, “Diggy Simmons” “Jacob Latimore”, “Juwan Harris”, and others. Star Mic has so far been on a journey to follow his dreams, and showing progress.
LINKS:“On each of their releases to date, Buke & Gase have never been anything less than absolutely thrilling.”
— Pitchfork
Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez perform genuine, contradictory, rhythmically dense, melodically driven sonic ear candy with gingerly handled instruments of disproportionate focus onto so for with which one might exclaim “That’s only two people?!” to which the e-cig off-gassing suspicious fumes from the tender edge of another’s lip replies “…Perhaps”. Always accounting for self-sufficiency, they aim to perform each sound live, utilizing multiple limbs to manipulate their sonic space. The self designed instruments referred to in their nom de plume are filtered through some stuff, transforming what was once a regular boring sound into pure Zing, the flavor. The girl sings her heart out; medics will siren their arrival shortly after the final note to replace her throbbing meat-ball with scotch tape and pliers.
Buke And Gase have performed festivals and stages throughout North America and Europe with: Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Death Grips, Flying Lotus, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Owen Pallett, Tinariwen, Extra Life, Daniel Higgs, Tune Yards, Reggie Watts, The National, Mission of Burma, Tomahawk, Talk Normal, The Ex. Festivals: All Tomorrow?s Parties, Moogfest, Big Ears, Bang On A Can, Pop Montreal, Cross-Linx, Fusion Fest and more.
LINKS :
“…waves of ambient drones that slowly morph into a plundering groove reminiscent of krautrock pioneers Kraftwerk and Cluster.”
— The Nashville Scene
When Lambchop’s Ryan Norris began Coupler it was largely to answer one simple question: “If I were to have a project of my own, what would it be like?” After some contemplation and pulling together of loose strands Coupler was born. Central from the outset was the notion of creating a music both modern and ancient, with its origins at the moment when early man fashioned his first tools and began beating animal skins with bones and sticks, but realized with modern implements, a body music for the ages. Then came another question: “How do we cope with the relationship between ourselves and our machines in an age of technological fear?” And then an answer: “Through dialog.” It is with this idea in mind that Coupler take the stage not only in dialog but in communion with their machines. There is no fear. For if what separates man from beast is the ability to make tools why then should we fear losing control of ourselves to them? Don’t our machines, our tools, make us all the more human?
LINKS:
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“A power pop masterpiece.”
— Weld for Birmingham
Holy Youth is a four-piece dream punk band from Birmingham, AL. They started playing live in April 2012 in Montevallo, and they released a self-titled EP on Happenin Records in early 2013. They have played opening sets for The Fresh and Onlys, Cheap Time, Grass Widow, and Natural Child. Holy Youth released their first full-length album on October 14, 2014.
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“Once you take a listen to this, you figure out quickly why AF THE NAYSAYER is quickly becoming a big deal. It’s bold yet basic, simplistic without sounding thin, and lush but not cluttered. In the end, he’s created his own sound while gently nodding the soul and the funk of those who came before him.”
— Houston Free Press
An up-and-coming voice in the electronic music and instrumental hip-hop scene, the South’s own AF THE NAYSAYER is a Louisiana-based, Los Angeles-bred producer. AF cites g-funk producer DJ Battlecat and legendary video game composer Yuji Takenouchi as his biggest influences. Iman Omari, Los Angeles producer and singer-songwriter, describes AF’s first EP as, “Electrifying soul-hop with a splash of purple rain; full of vibes!”
AF’s debut EP, the Autodidact Instrumentals Vol. 1, is a masterful postmodern blend of 80’s R&B and 90’s West Coast hip-hop that has served as the backdrop for many BMX web edits for FITBIKECO, DAN’S COMP, and ESPN. His collaborations in New Orleans have led him to co-curate producer Jneiro Jarel’s “Viberian Experience” music series, as well as the creation and hosting of the Dolo Jazz Suite showcase. AF is also currently the New Orleans ambassador for Red Bull Music Academy.
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“Landlady…joins a lineage of New York City art-rock bands that transmute existential questions and primal fears into exultant songs, bands like Talking Heads, TV on the Radio and Dirty Projectors.”
— The New York Times
“This is the part of the song when we come together.” Adam Schatz’s voice rings out in the flickering candlelight of Manhattan Inn. “There’s no before. There’s no after. There’s only this.” Schatz leads Landlady, the Brooklyn five-piece whose 2014 Hometapes debut, ‘Upright Behavior,’ boldly disrupts the notion of genre and reveals the soulful work of the band that, according to the New York Times, “joins a lineage of NYC art-rock bands that transmute existential questions and primal fears into exultant songs, bands like Talking Heads, TV on the Radio and Dirty Projectors.” Landlady toured extensively last year (including dates with Sylvan Esso, Man Man, and Rubblebucket) and continues growing their explosive and moving live show on tours with Son Lux and Buke and Gase this year.
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“In the digital age, there is a new band on the radar every week, and it’s hard to find anything that stands out. But in a pool of up-and-coming bands that blend together, Spaceface has fused psychedelic rock ‘n roll with pop in a way that makes them – dare it be said – unique."
— Josh Cannon, The Memphis Flyer
Spaceface is a psychedelic rock/pop band from Memphis TN. Using creative soundscapes, groovy rhythms, and catchy vocal melodies, Spaceface has taken vintage psychedelic rock and blended it with pop and surf influences to form a truly unique sound. With their high energy and quality stage presentation, Spaceface puts on a show that will leave you dazed and wanting more.
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“It’s hard to be so sure about these Birmingham guys, though. They may just be plain pathetic. That in no respect precludes their being the best garage band this city has seen in a great long while. Maybe ever.”
— David Pelfrey (Black and White)
Taylor Hollingsworth is one of the quieter yet most prolific musical forces from Alabama. Best known for his time with Conor Oberst in the Mystic Valley Band, Taylor has never let off the gas with his own releases. His latest, Taylor and the Puffs’ Knifer is self-described “Lo-fi Art Punk.” “Little tiny amps turned all the way up!” Hollingsworth wrote, produced, performed, recorded and mixed everything himself. Part skater punk, part Beach Boys, part White Stripes at times, with a kind of Daniel Johnston ring to the vocals…but still Taylor’s own.
Written by: David Carn
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“This is pitch-shifted cosmic soul built on euphoric triggers and tugged emotions, meticulously blurring samples and featherweight beats to unbearingly addictive heights.”
— NPR
Holly Waxwing co-runs the label Noumenal Loom, where they released their debut album ‘Goldleaf Acrobatics.’ They have an upcoming EP, ‘Peach Winks,’ with Cascine
History of Project:
An attempt to stratify and give contours to micro-postures, soft looks, floral eaux de vie and discreet vibes. A Chartreuse smash, under palm shade by the pool. Moment in a nape. Taupe sleights of hand. Longing wet eyes of a Northern Lapwing.
Influences:
Sky tones, skin tone and comfy colors. ASMR feels. Body Statistics. Juliet of the Spirits, Wild Strawberries, Zazie dans le Métro and Oskar Matzerath. The flashbulb still of over caffeination. Wishdasher, Lucky Dube, Chris Weisman and Future. Palettes. White Muscari.
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“These are youth to watch…”
— Punk City Pages
Jake Wittig, Breely Flower, and Walker Scott come together to bring west coast sounds to Birmingham, Alabama, with an added southern flavor. Punchy and catchy tunes combined with an ever expanding visual experience make The Burning Peppermints an undeniable spectacle of energetic and fearless youth that will surely make you tap your foot, if you don’t keel over laughing first. Dressed in formalwear head to toe and playing at blood-pumping tempos, The Burning Peppermints simultaneously give the impression that they’re not messing around and that they’re only messing around.
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A’cros’tic – (noun) a poem, word puzzle, or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words.
You meet a lot of forgettable people in life, and but JR Collins is not one of them. He is a true character in every sense of the word.
J.R. is the leader and creator of The Acrostics and is quite infamous in some circles. Some of these circles date back to the legendary house party scene in Auburn, Alabama in the late 90’s and 00’s. While some of these other circles are spread from Los Angeles to Stockholm. As a member of two of the of the finest punk bands to ever come out of the Southeast – The Quadrajets, The Immortal Lee County Killers, J.R. helped pave the way for bands like The Dexateens, Pine Hill Haints, and The Drive By Truckers. While touring extensively and playing shows across the globe (24 countries on 4 different continents) with bands such as The White Stripes. Mudhoney, Man or Astroman?, and more.
After everything went to hell, as things mostly do with great punk bands, J.R. somehow ended up in the touring band of the mighty Jose Gonzalez for a time playing various percussions and contributing on backup vocals.
Most recently, at the urging of Southern Indie record label This Is American Music, J.R. started writing songs and just simply “creating something”. What he created was a lush home recording through an IPod of 9 songs written in Acrostic style. Yes, an iPod.
“Nightlife”, an urgent collection of thoughts, experiences, and storytelling that had to be put into song with has subtle nods to T. Rex, Nirvana’s “Bleach” and even Winger.
You can really sense that J.R., like some of us, is feeling the pull of middle age and he realizes that it is now or never, not “Now and Then” when he’s playing his songs (or just discussing them amongst the collection of freaks and weirdos that inhabit East Central Alabama). A sense of urgency can be a beautiful thing, and we feel “Nightlife” captures that immediacy in the best way possible. We feel honored to have been part of this ride even if we are “Going Nowhere”.
Lo-fi Southern Indie DIY Punk Rock.
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“I love to have this type of music playing when my friends come over just so I can have something fresh to introduce to them. I like to think of RMVBM as the guys who birthed oxygen… let that soak in.”
— Fresh Plug
A breath of fresh air with an air of competition, RMVBM (Hop and Crash) is a pair of mask donning emcees based at Auburn University. Aside from rapping, RMVBM is capable of producing, engineering audio, drawing, painting, and scratching turntables. That, along with Hop being from Atlanta and Crash being from Brooklyn, presents a unique dynamic that is unparalleled. Although newly formed in July 2013, RMVBM has already shared the stage with acts such as Pen Pals, DJ Mafioso, DJ Rashido, Boog Brown, and Yamin Semali. They recently released their self-produced debut album, Rocket Man vs. Better Man.
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“The Vibe Doctors give jazz music a dreamy facelift.”
— Portico Magazine, 01/15
The Vibe Doctors have been together since the summer of 2013. Started as a standard jazz trio, with a vibraphone frontman instead of a pianist, The Vibe Doctors have evolved into an original eclectic improvisation-driven jam band. The jazz standards are still there but played in a style that is part funk, part fusion, part Latin, but always interesting and unique. They have also written several original tunes which showcase the strengths of each performer and the band as a whole.
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“‘This Is Rock N’ Roll’ is a big, gaudy take on pre-Brit Invasion catchiness, deep fried synths and glockenspiel-like chimes irreverently bouncing off of every syllable in its nursery-rhyme-simple chorus (perversely, the song’s title repeated ad infinitum). The presence of tunneling, fuzzy riffs suggest this is the kind of sly bubblegum nugget Marc Bolan might’ve made had he lived to see the digital age. But garage pastiche this is not; an unpredictable, ADD-driven arrangement and vocals seemingly pitch-shifted by helium consumption suggest this all takes place in a distinctly post-Animal Collective universe.
— Under the Radar Magazine
Raindeer was formed in 2010 as a bedroom recording project by Charlie Hughes. The band has since evolved into a full four piece band, pulling influences from many different genres into a psychedelic pop sound. Raindeer currently features Charlie Hughes, Jessie Bucaro, Tom Yewell and Rod Lauver.
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“Onawa recently released a four song EP, and as this year comes to a close, it is going down as one of 2013′s best. The EP opens with Memories in Bending Color, a track that raps gently on the door before blowing it from it’s hinges and jettisoning it into deep space. The King Crimson-esque psychedelia wraps itself in gloss and orbits the soundsphere, eventually forming it’s own gravitational pull and collapsing into a super massive black hole. The drums build and die, the guitar mirrors their movements, the vocals question in echoes, the sound engineering spirals and ellipses. The whole, living sound springs to life, revolts and burns out…And that’s just the first track…Seriously. Give this album a listen.”
— ListenAsheville.com
Formed in 2012 in the woods of Alexandria, Va, Onawa began as a side project for two friends, Zach Wright and Kenneth Harrington. With their current project winding down and heads full of new ideas, they embarked on a journey of auditory experimentation, recording the results along the way. After months of recording and hashing out ideas, the duo set their sites on Asheville, NC and made the move there. Almost immediately after moving they joined up with fellow sonic explorers, Eric Roberts and Stephen Pierson and began translating the recordings they had made together and making strides in the direction of the band that Onawa is today. After a few years together, a lineup change, two EP’s released, and countless shows played in the Asheville area, the members of Onawa are proud of what they’ve accomplished and excited about whats on the horizon.
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Tonk is nothing more and nothing less than Raleigh’s most reliable honky-tonk outfit. It’s all in the name.
— Jordan Lawrence, The Independent
Tonk creates original country music that is heavily influenced by the great masters of the late ’60s to mid ‘70s such as Ray Price, Merle Haggard and Johnny Paycheck. Their album “Let’s Keep It Dark” was released in November 2013 to wide praise. After a string of 2014 shows on bigger stages with acts such as the Steep Canyon Rangers and Chatham County Line, the band is back in the studio working on their second full length entitled “Second Nature,” which is being produced by Dave Wilson from CCL.
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In an internet age where information is coming to us at light speed, how does one bridge the gap between real life and our pixelated version? Stay Tuned to find out.
One of the few live acts to successfully marry the concept of Audio and Visual – and quite possibly the only live Hip-Hop act to do so – Stay Tuned was the most fitting name for the outfit, based initially on their love for all “sub-genres” of Hip-Hop and music as a whole, and the influence those styles have had on them. This was first reflected in the recorded music made, taking Boom-Bap, Dubstep/Electro, Hardcore, Downtempo…righteously, whatever moved them at the moment, and crafting live sets as such. Boston MC, Akrobatik pointed out to the duo that he admired how they’d bounce around sonically in their live sets, which was also metaphoric for the ups and downs that were faced in the industry itself. The light bulb flashed. MC Mane Rok figured “Stay Tuned” would perfectly describe the musical path taken-of which grew when the live set coupled itself with the visual portion, leaving the group’s then DJ-DeeJay Tense- as the program director controlling a live video feed with his turntables. This continued to grow and began to come full circle, influencing how overall ideas and themes for albums came to fruition. The first being the fictional story of a serial killer (with an underlying theme questioning media practices) in the form of “Murder He Wrote: A Love Story.”
The Stay Tuned moniker would allow the group to have interchangeable parts. Akin to the idea of channel surfing, letting them invite special guest performers, making each show unique. The channel surfing idea has now come to full bloom in their self titled EP released 1/24/15 (simply take a listen to understand), which was also the official introduction of the groups new DJ, DJ AWHAT!! (formerly of The Pirate Signal,) and the change itself begs the listener to…well…Stay Tuned.
**NEWS FLASH** Another update has come the way of Stay Tuned in that they’ve officially added frequent collaborator and long time fellow L.I.F.E. Crew member Ichiban in to the fold. The trio officially released “After This Break”(5/2/15), a mixtape only found in physical format at live shows as well as having begun to work on a new 7 song EP. Stay Tuned.
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“Y’all’s band is like actually really really good.”
— Some guy Bonnie met once
Just a couple’a war-torn hambone’d terraformed slow poke silver backed hard hittin rimmed up bow throwin’ brabble crammin’ snaggle toothed cripple dicked butt touchin’ cold cut sammies lookin for love in all the wrong places.
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“Saxophonist Brent Bagwell and drummer Seth Nanaa epitomize intuitive interplay as they balance furious cacophony and subtle melodicism, each permutation feeding off its counterpart.”
— Creative Loafing
Ghost Trees are Seth Nanaa (drums) and Brent Bagwell (tenor saxophone).
Nanaa (ex-Indian Summer) and Bagwell (Great Architect) met in NYC in 2000. Along with bassist Jordon Schranz, they formed The Eastern Seaboard. That trio toured the US relentlessly, releasing two records with legendary Italian label Black Saint and a fistful of vinyl and CDs from Tigerasylum Records.
After playing together for a decade, the duo released their debut 10″ on the Future Recordings label. September of 2014 saw the release of their most recent LP, The New Gravity.
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“Fat Possum have just snapped up this little-known four-piece, who hail from Shreveport, Louisiana. Debut tracks ‘Don’t Need It’ and –surely the best title of the year so far– ‘Chokin’ on Your Spit (Karma)’ fizz with jaw-dropping vocals from A.J. Haynes that recall Arthur Lee at his most free-flowing.”
— NME, Buzz Band of the Week
On her own, lead singer A.J. Haynes is a force—in another era, she might have sung about strange fruit. But the magic of Seratones is completed with the devastating trio of Conner Davis, Adam Davis and Jesse Gabriel. These dudes have been working together on-and-off for years in different projects and incarnations of projects and one-off projects. Take your pick: Noids, Sweaty Cleopatra, AJ + Monkey Bizness, Don’t Forget Your Dinosaur, Thrashosaurus Wrecks, Spreekiller, Sunday Mass Murder- many more, but between Adam, Connor, and Jesse they have created Rock’n’Roll in almost every conceivable flavor. If they had come together earlier, they might not have gained the chops or the experience or whatever it is (probably some obfuscated and annoying German word) that rips across the Seratone’s first demo, “Don’t Need It”. This is a song that demonstrates just how far they have come as musicians. It is a song that feels NEW. Refreshingly new. One could point out influences and similarities to other bands, but they fail to elucidate the Seratones sound.
Sure, Connor’s guitar work might sound like this or that guitarist’s work, but Connor’s work is only given its full due against the backdrop created by the bass and percussion provided by Adam and Jesse. A.J.’s voice draws obvious comparisons to many a great singer, but none of them were singing over, or even with, the pounding rhythm of her band—they play with an awareness that lets them not just keep the beat, but drive the song forward at an almost frenetic pace, keeping their sound always on edge…as if something is bubbling just under the surface waiting to explode.
It seems like most rock music these days stays fresh by pushing envelopes or exploring edgier concepts. It stays relevant by going louder, faster, dancier, or mixing their sound with new genres. But the Seratones- the Seratones are the real deal, no sub-genre necessary, they are a ROCK AND ROLL band. It’s not something you’ve never heard before. (Is that a bad thing? F**k no, because the world can never have too much Rock’n’Roll!) It’s something you’ve heard before in a way you’ve never heard it.
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C1UB:A.M. is a hip-hop collective hailing from Birmingham, AL and consisting of 3 members — Love N Sin, WhoSaine Jett, and ChriStyle. While still under the radar, their aggressive performances at open mic nights has landed the C1UB some opening show slots for big name artists such as Curren$y, Big Krit, Hopsin, Bubba Sparxxx, Mod Sun and more.
ChriStyle and Love N Sin formed the group in November of 2011 with Jett joining shortly after its birth based on common interests. C1UB AM’s sound varies between many styles of hip-hop, from North to South. You can expect drum driven production topped off with melodic encounters and in house production. Lyricism is a primary focus, and the C1UB is commited to getting their point across by delivering their lyrics with energy and focus. Wake up to the tune of the C1UB:A.M.!
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“Lead singer Frank McLallen sounding a lot like Mick Jagger while he howls over impressive guitar solos drenched with reverb and distortion.”
— Chris Shaw, Memphis Flyer
This Memphis garage rock three-piece has connections all over the current Memphis scene. Frank McLallen also plays bass with Memphis punks Ex-Cult, Keith Cooper’s home studio just finished recording a new single for another Goner artist Nots, and drummer Graham Winchester recently released his first solo album. The band also backs Jack Oblivian.
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“A classically trained opera singer, Bonnie Montgomery is known for her warm country voice and her timeless folkie songwriting, but her talents don’t stop there.”
— Paste Magazine
Following the release of EPs “Cruel” (2012, Fast Weapons) and “Joy” (2013, Fast Weapons), Arkansas born and bred Bonnie Montgomery released her self-titled LP in July 2014 on Portland/Arkansas label Fast Weapons.
A classically trained singer whose southern roots run deep, Montgomery has taken her authentic spin on golden-era country/western music through the U.S. and Europe, headlining shows and also supporting Gossip, Shovels and Rope, Robert Ellis, Hayes Carll, Billy Joe Shaver, Turnpike Troubadours, Pokey LaFarge, and Wayne “the Train” Hancock.
Bonnie’s composition of the modern folk opera “Billy Blythe”, about the childhood of Bill Clinton, previewed in New York, and has earned her the attention of publications such as The New Yorker, The Economist, The Huffington Post and the London Daily Telegraph.
Upcoming tour dates will feature her supercharged Arkansas/Austin country rock band, featuring fellow White County native Nathan Howdeshell of Gossip on electric guitar, Jimmy Young on upright bass and Justin Collins on drums.
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“With every new release the group seem to find new ways to amaze, proving to both us and themselves, that there is no need to be limited to one idea or sound.”
— We All Want Someone To Shout For
The Pass are an electro pop four-piece based in Louisville, Kentucky. Weaving together psychedelic rock, mainstream pop, and ’80s dance with haunting melodies and dance floor ready beats, The Pass have created a sound entirely of their own.
With a raucous live show defined by high energy, lasers, fog, and an LED-synched backdrop, The Pass turn any venue into a foot sliding, head bobbing, hands in the air dance party. Since the release of their debut album BURST in 2011, they have been on a steady touring diet, playing at over 30 national festivals, thousand seat arenas, and venues from east to west coast sharing the stage with everyone from Cage the Elephant to Chiddy Bang to Capital Cities.
Over the past few years, The Pass have seen their music grow nationally and internationally through featured spots on HBO, FOX, ABC, The CW, MTV, and over 40 other TV and movie placements. Their collection of music videos have reached over 500,000 plays and over 200,000 Soundcloud/Bandcamp plays over the course of an EP, two full length LPs, 7″ vinyl series, and their newest offering, the “High Road EP”.
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“While so many indie folk groups try to chase the success of Mumford & Sons, Dalmatian plays great old-school folk rock with enough soul to remind you that their hometown of Macon was the home of Otis Redding. ”
— Josh Jackson, cofounder and editor-in-chief of Paste Magazine
In search of the ever-elusive Song of the South one need not look in the back of a mud-splattered pickup truck or hike the hills in search of pickers and fiddlers, for the tune that emanates from the heart of Dixie can be heard echoing from the basement of the Macon, Georgia home occupied by the quartet of twenty-somethings that make up the adaptable musical collective known as Dalmatian. Dalmatian seeks to provide an experience not unlike eating a damn good slice of pie. Their jaunty tunes are an offering of a fleeting presence of savory indulgence that will probably make you shake your booty Gathered and raised in bars on the arboreally-labeled, spacious streets of Poplar and Cherry in the geographically-true Heart of Georgia, these penmen of buoyant melody aim, with a sincere sense of humble honesty, to gratify. Dalmatian has released two EPs: Dances with Dalmatian and Obscure Discoteca.
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“But the fact remains that there’s a whole catalog of stuff under the Muuy Biien banner, including the newest album This Is What Your Mind Imagines, and it’s safe to say the overwhelming majority comes straight outta Evans’ heart of darkness. His musical touchstones run the gamut from Black Flag to Rudimentary Peni to The Fall. In very real terms, Muuy Biien isn’t a “punk band” but a band of punks. If there were ever a case of the ends justifying the musical means, this is it.”
— Vice
Muuy Biien is the real thing. No college degrees, no connections, no future. Kids in their 20’s raised in the Georgia countryside, born to work in fast food—the band members met while all working at fried chicken chain Raisin’ Cane’s, eventually moving in together like some kind of white trash Monkees. But art springs forth from the unlikeliest of places (though you’d think everyone would know by now that being rich in Brooklyn doesn’t give you access to anything besides access. Or excess. Yet for all their antics—getting kicked out of local awards shows, self-mutilations both verbal and physical—the members of Muuy Biien are first and foremost artists. The power of DYI is palpable and real, but so is the sense of craft that hangs over it. Like the latest Laurel Halo, the album closes with a fractured piano instrumental. They might go anywhere from here.
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On “Rome”, Birmingham, Alabama’s Through the Sparks conjures up a mighty indie-rock groove, something with the swagger of Spoon when it’s strutting its stuff
— Pop Matters
Through The Sparks is a Birmingham, Alabama-based rock band formed in 2003. They first received critical success following the release of their first full length LP, Lazarus Beach, in 2007 and have steadily released music with a new LP expected later this year.
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“Random’s proven he can excel in storytelling, punchlines, poignancy, freestyling and, well, pretty much any other way you can measure an MC.”
— LA Weekly
Random, aka Mega Ran, or Random Beats. Teacher, Rapper, Hero.
If you put video games, the 80’s, hip-hop, soul music, jazz and standup comedy into a blender and hit “puree,” you’d have something close to The Mega Ran Experience.
Before being chosen as LA Weekly’s “Rapper Most Likely To Be Big in 2014,” The Penn State graduate and self-proclaimed “TeacherRapperHero” made waves by going way left of his backpack roots by combining 8-bit video game sounds and hard hitting hip-hop tracks, and has become a trailblazer in the budding genres of chiptune and nerdcore hip-hop, while maintaining a career as a middle school teacher. Ran’s first album “The Call” was a critical success, featuring tracks with some of the underground’s most respected heads.
Ran cut his teeth in the city of Philadelphia as a moonlighting emcee and producer, performing, freestyle rapping, producing and later engineering at a studio. After relocating to Phoenix, competing in the Scribble Jam emcee battle championships and taking an early exit, Ran almost quit before he was even started, when a creative lightning bolt struck, and a fire was lit.
Retro video games were the catalyst. Random began the transformation into Mega Ran, his alter-ego, an ode to the classic video game character Mega Man. After creating a tribute album and receiving an unprecedented level of support and blessing from Capcom to continue, Ran was reborn and became a trailblazer in the budding “nerdcore” and chiptune subgenres, while coining his own term to describe what he had done, “Chip-Hop.”
Various video game developer co-signs and admiration from the genre’s toughest critics have led to placements in TV, movies, university coursework, and of course, games. Random’s music and story have been shared on stages across the world, on television (ABC/NBC News, ESPN, Portlandia, Tosh.O, WWE Wrestling) and in leading music, gaming and tech publications, print and online.
Today, Random is no longer a teacher by title, but maintains a rigorous touring and recording schedule, traveling the world to entertain and educate through the gift of rhyme. With 3 million YouTube views, over $50,000 raised on Kickstarter, and a legion of smart art fans he calls “Team Mega” beside him, the future looks brighter than ever.
Now that’s Random.
“‘This Is Rock N’ Roll’ is a big, gaudy take on pre-Brit Invasion catchiness, deep fried synths and glockenspiel-like chimes irreverently bouncing off of every syllable in its nursery-rhyme-simple chorus (perversely, the song’s title repeated ad infinitum). The presence of tunneling, fuzzy riffs suggest this is the kind of sly bubblegum nugget Marc Bolan might’ve made had he lived to see the digital age. But garage pastiche this is not; an unpredictable, ADD-driven arrangement and vocals seemingly pitch-shifted by helium consumption suggest this all takes place in a distinctly post-Animal Collective universe.
— Under the Radar Magazine
Raindeer was formed in 2010 as a bedroom recording project by Charlie Hughes. The band has since evolved into a full four piece band, pulling influences from many different genres into a psychedelic pop sound. Raindeer currently features Charlie Hughes, Jessie Bucaro, Tom Yewell and Rod Lauver.
LINKS:“Through his transparency, it was clear to me that Jabee is one of those people who gets it. He understands the world from a larger perspective, and his music and work reflect that understanding. He focuses on honesty within his music, and being authentic—and he encourages other artists to do the same.”
— Cellar Door Music Group
“Jabee’s music has the potential to change the world.” Chuck D personally said on air of his radio program and personal twitter. Jabee was outstanded to hear this from one of the most profound hip hop pioneers. Jabee is a rapper born and raised from Oklahoma City. While his Hometown is not Known for their hip hop culture, his accomplishments have topped locally and national attention. While on NBA lockout, Kevin Durant, had Jabee perform at his All star NBA game. Towards the end of 2013 Jabee was an opener for EL-P & Killer Mike on the “Run The Jewels Tour”. Following the RTJ tour Murs caught wind of Jabee and his music. He offered Jabee a one off LP deal on Mur’s label 316. Dropping in December of 2013 “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” was released. The album “Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt” debuted at #50 on the itunes charts and is still climbing with physical and digital sales. With national attention and europe attention Murs then asked Jabee to be the main supporting act on the Ice box Tour. For the latter of the 2014 Jabee has been on the road becoming one of the fastest rising stars. as of June 2014, Jabee has appeared in home and sports bars across the country during the 2014 NBA draft. Jabee was a vocal and focal point for a leading role in the new NIKE x Kevin Durant Commercial “The Baddest”. soon after the NIKE commercial, Jabee received some news. Jabee had been nominated by Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) for an Emmy, with funnel design group. Shortly after JABEE won a Emmy Award for his performance in “What if”. A solo commercial he wrote and styled for the Science Museum of Oklahoma. Most recently Jabee was invited to Shade 45 in NYC to be featured and interviewed by Sway of “Sway in The Morning”. While on air Jabee was able to show his musical talent but also his likeness, humility, and performance range to the public. All while gaining high praise from Sway and his team at Shade 45 and MTV.
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“Singing in both Cajun French and English, Sweet Crude’s indie pop-rock songs are inspiring and achieve what a lot of other indie bands fail to do: they are truly joyful without being superficial.”
— Offbeat Magazine
We are indigenous to South Louisiana. We would like to show the world that we can make progressive music that also embraces this region’s French-speaking tradition. We are joining a small but fervent group of young Louisianians engaged in keeping the language relevant via art. Also we would like to drink whiskey and dance all the time.
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“……the approach is so different: Tone’s completely another thing. It’s not really metal, but it’s not mathrock either, and it’s not normal rock for sure. A good way to summarize Solidarity would be “ambient music.” All in all, an interesting concept perfectly done. I honestly can’t imagine all the effort that must have been put into Solidarity, but I do know that the result’s near perfection. (9.9/10)”
— Maelstrom
Instrumental Force of Nature from Washington, DC.
Founded by Norm Veenstra and Gregg Hudson, TONE has relentlessly explored the often unpredictable, always epic sonic path of a dedicated instrumental ensemble.
Currently a five-piece band, the ranks of TONE have swelled to as many as nine through the years to include multiple guitarists, bass players and drummers. At times TONE has performed with string and horn players, even dancers. From 2004 through 2006, a collaboration with The Bowen McCauley Dance Company resulted in performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., a festival appearance in Aachen, Germany, and a set of intense new works. TONE has performed in numerous venues throughout the Eastern U.S., at CMJ, and SXSW.
2014 saw the release of two digital singles – “Incoming” (mixed by Kurt Ballou of Converge)
& Bright Angel Falls (mixed by J. Robbins).
TONE’s latest album, Priorities, is available from The Kora Records.
Previous recordings are available from Neurot Recordings, Dischord, and Independent Project.
Ryan Schaefer is the singer/songwriter for the band Royal Bangs. As a member of that band, he made appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and numerous festivals throughout the US and Europe, as well as a performance on Late Night with David Letterman.
Backed by an array of percussion and synth loops, as well as a homemade light rig, his new solo material retains some recognizable characteristics from his work with the band, but moves in a decidedly more electronic, experimental direction.
As founding member and lead singer/songwriter of the indie-alt-country group Damn Arkansan, Drew Walls returns with a new project that goes under the moniker Early Walker. The group features Walls manning lead vocals, guitar, and harmonica surrounded by a seasoned cast of Arkansas’ finest home-grown talent. Matt Pierce, formerly of Jimbo Mathus & the Tri-State Coalition, weighs in to provide lead guitar and vocals in the group that also features veteran bassist Mike Cobb who has served as rhythmic backbone to acts ranging from Black Oak Arkansas to Cracker since 1962. After cutting his teeth touring throughout the US and Europe with the band Starroy, drummer Jacob Brumley rounds out the rhythm section. Lee Zodrow, lead singer/songwriter for the group Basement Brew, lends support on keys and organs.
The group plans to release their debut EP in the Fall of 2015.
“He’s a guy with huge dreams and skills to match”
— Ryan Murphy
Cash Lansky (Label 316, Murs 316) is an independentartist from Tucson, Arizona. Cash was hand picked by the Living Legend himself, Murs, and asked to be an artist on Murs’ label, Label 316. Cash has toured with the likes of Murs, Jabee, Kosha Dillz, Curtiss King, Mayday, and Mursday. Cash has been a part of several music festivals such as Viva PHX and SXSW 2014, as well as featured on a “Team Back Pack Cypher” for 2015 Cash is gearing up for another mixtape and album release, as well as plans for a tour with some of his Label 316 label mates.
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“Some bands are just fun, and White Reaper are just that.”
— Pitchfork
From the increasingly fertile DIY scene of Louisville, KY, emerges White Reaper – an incandescent power foursome who is ready and willing to blow out eardrums far and wide.
The band – formed by Tony Esposito (vocals/guitar), Ryan Hater (Keys), and twin brothers Nick (drums) and Sam Wilkerson (bass) — combines sparkling hooks and fluid, fluttering rhythms to create psychedelia-tinged garage punk that make heads bob without sacrificing an ounce of sonic bite.
Having cut their teeth playing a number of raucous local and regional shows that left everyone’s ears ringing and no pores devoid of sweat, the group is ready to unleash their eponymous debut EP — a six-song blitzkrieg that traces the band’s present and future. While dingy and jangly single “Conspirator” scratches the itch left behind by Jay Reatard, infectious stand outs “Cool” and “Funn” will undoubtedly make the ears of the Ty Segall/Oh Sees sect perk up.
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Trombonist and singer Chad Fisher and his band (Birmingham, Al.) perform a variety of musical styles, exploring the roots of traditional jazz alongside an eclectic blend of influences. Ranging in performance from rock, soul, and Afrobeat to interpretations of honky-tonk country classics, the band in recent years has developed an especially enthusiastic following for Fisher’s own songwriting that reflects these many influences, and on occasion, it’s repertoire of deep-swinging 1920s and ’30s jazz.
The band has recently shared the stage with Birmingham sensations St. Paul and The Broken Bones, New Orleans’ own Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, and many others.
Individually, Fisher and many of the band’s members have played with such artists as Jason Isbell, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The O’Jays, and Natalie Cole. Their combined experience is evident wherever the group performs. Longtime fans and first-time listeners are equally drawn in to the band’s energy, virtuosity, spirit, and swing.
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“Unrelenting and deeply powerful, \\GT// are simply more mind expanding, more visceral and more psychedelic than any other contender.”
— CLASH
When Scotty Lee began writing the songs that ultimately became the core of the rock band \\GT//, he couldn’t have been any lower—physically or emotionally. At the age of 24, Lee, then already a veteran of a dozen other acts, had back surgery. But the incision and its supposed repairs weren’t permanent. Four years ago, while living north of Birmingham at his father’s outpost alongside the winding Coosa River, his spine and hips seemed to shift out of place. He got immobile. He got depressed. And for the better part of a month, he lay down on the floor and just wrote songs.
“Then, when I got better,” says Lee with a rueful chuckle, “I put a band together.”
Seemingly well rested from his riverside recuperation, Lee indeed got busy with the new group. He’d been playing with bassist Byron Sonnier when the group was an idea more than an actual set of songs. They recruited drummer Mark Beasley and started writing in earnest.
A power trio given to insistent but agile rhythms and psychedelic interpretations of standard rock muscle, \\GT// self-released two excellent EPs in 2013. Spurred by the enthusiasm of Alabama label and recording studio Communicating Vessels, who signed on to produce and release the band’s debut LP, the trio doubled down to make their best work yet—the thrilling, anthemic, addictive eight-song debut, Beats Misplaced. It’s a rock ’n’ roll thrill ride, full of pumping beats and plangent guitars, howled vocals and hooks that past. For these eight tunes, the blues commingle with noise rock, and a righteous boogie pulsates beneath shoegaze distortion. Think Japandroids or No Age being born in and embracing the humid and strange American South, and you start to hear \\GT// through the haze.
“If you came to one of our practices and saw us write a song, it’d probably confuse you as much as it does us,” says Lee. “When we hear something that makes us feel good, that’s it. If you’re not feeling good, there’s no reason to write it.”
Indeed, Beats Misplaced feels like an exciting open-road adventure. That’s fitting for Lee, who lives these days in an Alabama motorcycle shop and frequently admits that the two most important things in his world are his music and his wheels. The music reflects that, as though these rock hymns were being blasted from a speaker mounted to a bike, motoring down a backwoods road and paying no mind to the law or its speed limit. “Something’s Wrong with My Mind,” for instance, surges from the start but delivers a hook that just begs you to hang on tight. The annoyed but uplifting “Life Is…” sounds as if it’s being blasted from the back of a biker bar, the band on stage too busy playing and the crowd in front of them to busy shouting the song’s mantra to notice they’ve fried the place’s cheap PA. And during epic closer “Real Good Sex,” where the crisscrossing words blur into a kind of tantric nonsense and the guitars bend into wonderfully lurid shapes, you close your eyes and just go along for the trip, happy to let the volume blow your hair back.
Long before he wound up on the floor beside the river, Lee had tinkered with various incarnations of “GT,” the unifying acronym of his one-man arts-and-music project alternately known as Green Teeth, Get Tryin’ and Ghost Traveler. He’d been playing in bands since high school, from early cover acts and sets of instrumental brooders to post-hardcore crews and straight-ahead rock acts. But \\GT// was a chance for him to separate himself from the frustrations of band life and start an outlet that would be forever his.
“I wanted to start something that could only be stopped if I stopped it, as if in I died or my arms fell off,” he says. “Well, no, I’d probably still play if my arms fell off.”
Beats Misplaced, though, represents the fulfillment both of that self-determination and start of a great new rock band from the depths of the South. It’s a long lay from the bottom of the floor.
“It shows you there’s hope, in a way. It’s like we’re in high school and about to go to college, or maybe you even get drafted before you go to college,” Lee says of \\GT//, Beats Misplaced and their place on Communicating Vessels. “You have people who are willing to open their doors for you, to take all the time you need and put out your stuff. Coming from where I’ve come from, it makes me want to do all of this even longer.”
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