New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
The feisty foursome Dawes just released a spectacular music video entitled "Love Is All I Am". It is sure to have you feeling amorous in mere seconds. Modern scenes are juxtaposed against grainy shots that look as though they were snatched from a family’s home movie collection. Check it out!
Nurses were the latest PDX band to visit the Horseshack and lay down three live tracks for Daytrotter, which you can download for free!
In their worming and brooding manner, Nurses took three psychedelic tracks from Apple’s Acres, put two together as an eight-minute amalgamation ("Technicolor/Man At Arms"), and recorded an unreleased beauty.
Sadly, Nurses just played their last PDX gig this week (opening for Atlas Sound) and won’t be back for a while when their tour with The Tallest Man On Earth comes to the Mission Theater on Tuesday, May 11th. In other big Nurse news, the trio will be rocking this year’s Sasquatch Music Festival on Saturday, May 29th. Other PDX acts playing the three-day Memorial Day weekend fest include YACHT (who rolled Holocene this week), Quasi, Portugal. The Man… and if we can count them as one of ours… the Pavement cash-grabbin’, alt-rockin’ reunion show. Frontman Stephen Malkmus does live here after all!
– Chris Young
Sean Flinn – The Pageantry from Live From Your City on Vimeo.
You may think you don’t know Sean Flinn & The Royal We, but trust me, you know more about this band than you think. If you are a fan of the local indie darlings, Y La Bamba, I guarantee you are a fan of Sean Flinn, for they are one in the same…almost.
Sean Flinn & The Royal We comprises all of the Y La Bamba members, excluding percussionist Mike Kitson, and adds three other members on pedal steel, organ, percussion and drums. The beautiful Y La Bamba front lady, Luzelena Mendoza, takes a step down in this project, with the roll of backup vocals and percussionist, allowing Flinn, lead guitarist in Y La Bamba, to flex his vocal muscles.
Flinn and Mendoza’s vocal harmonies are ethereal in “Patient Heart,” the title track of the band’s first release, a digital E.P. Morose minor chords and waves of percussion fill all of the empty space, giving the song a full yet fragile sound. The rest of the songs on the Portlanders’ Myspace are in the same vein. The band does a good job of incorporating every instrument to create solid, emotive music.
The octet expects to release its debut LP, Write Me a Novel, this June and is playing shows around town in the meantime, including Mississippi Studio’s one-year anniversary in March. You can check out Sean Flinn & The Royal We tonight at Doug Fir, and if you like what you hear, make sure to give them your vote on our Band of the Month poll. Show starts at 9 p.m. $10.
-Katrina Nattress
Christopher Pappas’s solo project Forest Fires is an organic incarnation of this preternaturally gifted musician. The show at TT the Bear’s on Tuesday, February 16th consisted of seven songs from Forest Fires’ debut album Hark! And Other Lost Transmissions. Backed by a full band, Pappas blended his bittersweet lyrics with master showmanship to build his venue into an atmosphere fitting for the music he plays: something familiar and accessible while also testing the audience’s willingness to open themselves to the implications itinerant in his music.
Pappas played a tight seven-song set showcasing Forest Fires’ range from the tender, lulling opener “Lost at Sea” to the show closer “The Dying Physicist”, a tongue-in-cheek anthem to quantum physics, foregone opportunities and squandered time. There’s a controlled grittiness in Forest Fires, something gleaned even in more upbeat tracks like “Sweet Tooth” and “Static Gloom.” In “Son Son (Son)”, a tender apology to an unborn child, Pappas’s voice wavers between seduction and guilt, enough so to make the audience suspend the knowledge supplied by Pappas himself, “This is about the son I never had, not one I abandoned.”
Throughout, what ties the music together is Pappas’s ability to experiment with variations on melody, theme and genre conventions. The result is ultimately catchy, alluring and accessible while maintaining an impish degree of challenge. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the song “Fooling Everybody, All of the Time,” a coy, catchy dirge about the ubiquitous need to be accepted that began with Pappas near-cooing into the microphone and ended with the proclamation, “There’s no song to sum up the way you feel.” The music captures the sense of ongoing loss and elation inherent in any innocuous moment. Forest Fires hints at complex ideas through pristine songs, music that cycles back to key concepts and chords alike. Ultimately, Forest Fires strives to expose the bittersweet revelation of everyday experience and the mark it leaves upon us.
–Meghan Guidry
Deli readers who play in bands,
The Deli has reserved 3 showcase slots at Music Tech Mashup during SXSW, a party which will take place at Rusty Spurs in Austin, TX on 7th St. on March 17. Rusty Spurs features 3 stages with an 800 person capacity in the middle of it all and is an official SXSW venue. During the Austin based festival it will host shows by heavy hitters like Echo and the Bunnymen, Vega (Neon Light side project) and Semi Precious Weapons (recently on tour with Lady Gaga) amongst others.
To apply to play this SXSW show all you need to do is fill in this form HERE and click on the confirmation email you’ll receive (this will simply add you to our mailing list and enter your band in our fabulous charts organized by genre and region – one day we’ll also create band profiles!). 3 artists will be selected by the organizers (one of them will be a local Austin, TX artist). Any band that is available to travel to Austin is eligible.
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SUBMITTED FOR THE BUSHWICK FEST, DON’T FEAR, JUST FILL IN THIS FORM AGAIN – you’ll be submitted to both opportunities.
Submission deadeline is Monday 02.22 at 11.59 pm.
Music Tech Mashup Showcase (hosted by Coast to Coast Models & Events and presented by GreenShoeLace.com, HunnyPot and The Deli) will celebrate the convergence of music and technology and the opportunities it presents for everyone involved just as SXSW itself switches gears from Interactive Week to Music Week. This is a list of some of the artists already booked: Jada – Universal Motown Records (Boston, MA) – Bamboo Shoots – Epic Records (New York) – Shinobi Ninja – (Brooklyn, NY) – McAlister Drive – (Boston, MA) – Odd Modern – (Los Angeles, CA) – Keys and Crates (Toronto, Canada) – Curtis Santiago (Toronto, Canada) – Keith Masters (Chicago, IL) – FutureCop! (UK) – Mark Foster (Los Angles, CA).
The Deli’s Staff
IMPORTANT P.S. The Deli will not select the bands for this event so please don’t email Paolo trying to "schmooze".
Danger Danger Gallery (5013 Baltimore St.) FRI Pony Pants and Amateur Party, SAT Buffalo Analog and The Owl Station
MarBar (200 S. 40th St.) FRI The MLMs and Dragonzord, SAT Swift Technique
North Star Bar (2639 Poplar St.) FRI Codename, SAT Psychedelphia
The Khyber (56 S. 2nd St.) FRI Pissed Jeans, SUN Folklore and Woodlands
M Room (12 W. Girard Ave.) SUN The Invisible Friends
World Café Live (3025 Walnut St.) FRI (Downstairs) Brothers Past Haiti Benefit
Blockley Pourhouse (3801 Chestnut St.) FRI Philadelphia Slick and Mechanical Minds
Just wanted to share with you a neat little video for A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s “So Bloody So Tight”, which was filmed in New Orleans during their travels on tour last fall. It was directed by Bob Weisz. ASDIG’s Annie Fredrickson and Ben Daniels documented some of the trials and tribulations experienced during the two day shoot here. (From my experiences working on and acting in indie movies and videos, shoots can often turn out to be a test of wills. I could never do it for a living.) The video is quite beautiful and artsy, but you had to know that coming from Daniels and the crew that it probably would be. – H.M. Kauffman
Xeno and Oaklander placed 44th in our Year End Best of NYC 2009 Poll. The band brings back to life austere Kraut Rock atmospheres that became extremely trendy in the late 80s early 90s (think Depeche Mode and Eurhythmics). These guys are getting quite a lot of attention lately, we recommend you don’t miss their show at Cameo on March 3rd.
Earl Greyhound is one of the few NYC bands that can truly recreate the authentic Rock’n’Roll vibe of the first hard rock of the late 60s early 70s (think Jimi Hendrix’s intensity and Led Zeppelin’s power with the added bonus of a mind blowing female bass player). The band – that has been on The Deli’s radar for quite awhile now – is back with a new album after about 3 years of discographic silence. The sophomore release, titled Suspicious Package, will be out in April on Hawk Race Records – you can hear some tracks from it here. These guys have badass rock attitude flowing in their veins – their set must be must be witnessed live. Don’t miss their next live show in NYC.
Newcomer David Safran has released the second single from his forthcoming debut album. The track is a little Chris Isaak and a little Lenord Cohen, and a unique culmination of Chicago musicians. What is exciting about David’s forthcoming album is the quality of local musicians he has pulled into the process. On this track he has recruited, Andreas Kapsalis (Andreas Kapsalis Trio), Angelina Lucero (Pretty Good Dance Moves), Dan Ingenthron, Lynn Suh, Jamie Gallagher, and Tim Sandusky.