New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Thrill Jockey announced today that the new album from Sam Prekop (The Sea and Cake), Old Punch Card. The album will be released on September 7th, and it is Sam’s first solo record in five years. The album is inspired by early electronic music and avant-garde composition and is comprised entirely of modular synthesizers. There is only one instance of guitar and no vocals or beats.
Sam will be touring with Broken Social Scene this fall and will be playing at The Riviera on October 2nd.
I’ve spent the weekend digesting the debut album, Messy Snarls, from Laura Granlund and Curt Swank (aka Chew Heart). The duo has been performing together for the last six years, and finally entered the studio, with the talented Brian Zieske (Gallery of Carpet), to capture some of that live energy. Messy Snarls finds the duo wearing their influences on their sleeves and pouring everything out through their instruments. The album was recorded live and you can tell in the sound, but I feel that adds to the nostalgic feel of the album.
What sets Chew Heart apart is that they do give a subtle nod to their love of ‘60’s pop, but they don’t drown in it like many bands today. In fact I would say they are more influenced by ‘90’s indie rock than anything else. In fact, I would say this band is a combination of Saturday Looks Good to Me and Frente. There is a raw edge, but sweet innocence that ultimately prevails.
Chew Heart celebrates the release of Messy Snarls on Sept. 12th at The Whistler, but you can purchase it from their etsy page for just $5.
The video by David E Beats was directed by Kristopher Rey-Talley, Drew Angle; and shot by Sam Wootton. It’s a fast fun and entertaining throwback to blaxploitation films starring actor Alex Goode and actresses Rebecca Hoetzel and Constance Victory. Everything was shot with crash zooms and flat lighting to emulate the 70’s low budget style and it was put through a thorough and intense color correct to degrade the HD quality to look like bad 1970’s film stock. – (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).
Even just signing to Warp Records (the mostly electronic label that hosts among others Grizzly Bear) brings its share of buzz – something that The Hundreds in the Hands have been enjoying for a few months. The Brooklyn band is set to release their debut CD on September 21 and will definitely be one of the hot emerging NYC acts at the upcoming CMJ Marathon. Check out the video of the single "Pigeons".
There’s nothing wrong with going retro if you’ve found a good road (and a nice map for that matter). And it seems that cherry-lipped New Yorker Lily Claire (alongside with her band mates, who are hidden under ‘The Parlour Tricks’ title) can handle a trip in a time machine not only without any sickness but with a spark. Most of the times the band travels right to the early 60s (before the underground-psychedelic "contaminating" period) to play with the decade’s feel-good attitude – the best number is ‘Oh, Boy’, that brings The Chordettes’ ‘Mr. Sandman’ to mind. Then there’s ‘Gigolo’, that sounds like Lily Allen covering some forgotten Motown’s classic. A moment of sadness comes with ‘The Murder Song’, a tune that your parents could easily have danced to at their prom night. But don’t expect any dust on Lily’s debut EP (set to come out this fall) – this girl knows how to return to 2010 just in time to make her vintage tunes sound fresh. Lily and The Parlour Tricks will be playing at Cameo on August 14. – Mikhael Agafonov
If cymbals do indeed diet on guitars, it’s not without a struggle from the latter if this Staten Island foursome is anything to go on. The guitars here aren’t just passive omnivores, simply serving as prey for the carnivorous drumbeat. Instead, every element sounds like it’s elbowing the others out of the way to take center stage. On Cymbals Eat Guitars‘ debut album "Why There Are Mountains" they manipulate their guitars to full effect. They act as melody carriers, provide emotional haze and even rip the occasion Prince-esque wiggle. In fact, from the crashing cymbals of ‘And The Hazy Sea’, a six minute “quiet-loud-quiet-loud” epic thrown into reverse to the feedback drenched haze and jaunty brit-pop melody of ‘Indiana’, Why There Are Mountains was one of the most confident guitar albums in recent memory, and one fully deserving of the good vibrations generated by the hype machine in first quarter of 2009. The band is currently touring Europe – their next NYC show (at Irving Plaza) is scheduled for mid October. – Dean Van Nguyen
We recently brought you the details of the new album from Tub Ring, and now the band has released ar new video for the song “Flash” from Secret Handshakes. The video premiered last week at Friday Night Videos.
August 15th When You Awake presents Free For All: A Hands on Music and Arts Festival at the Echo and Echoplex. Akron/Family, Langhorne Slim and Active Child are set to headline with 14 + bands performing throughout the course of the evening.
Dust off that acoustic guitar because festival-goers are strongly encouraged to bring their own instruments and jam between performances. If you’re feeling crafty, you can always visit one of the art stations set up by Coachella Art Studios to express your inner Picasso.
There’s no excuse for missing this one especially since admission is donation only. Come down next Sunday to see what all the fuss is about!
Here at the Deli, we’re all about local music. We, however, have to take a short break to recognize the amazingness of more prominent LA bands like Black Label Society. On August 10th they’ll be playing the Roxy as charity event with all proceeds going to the Zakk and Barbaranne Wylde Foundation at St. Jude’s Hospital.
Of course, that’s not all that’s going on. The show coincides with the release of their new album "The Order of the Black" the same day. Zakk will also be at Best Buy on Pico Blvd. from 4pm to 6pm for signings.
If you can’t make it to the show, or it sells out before you have a chance to grab a ticket, consider donating the ticket price to St Jude’s anyways. I promise it won’t hurt one bit.
Backstage at a bluegrass festival at 10:00 a.m.on a Sunday morning – well, any festival really, and maybe any morning – is like treading through a zombie prom. The coffee line is long (Kleen Kanteen users are the salt of the earth), the fruit’s all gone and everyone’s still sporting the facepaint they raged warrior-like into the previous evening’s din, the stench of decay from two days into a three-day festival becomes ever more pungent. Such is the environ I send you, dear Deli Portland readers, my first update from Pickathon 2010 at Pendarvis Farms – gloomy, overcast, humid Happy Valley, OR.
Day 1 Highlights: Friday, August 6
The day began with Weinland on the Mountain View Stage, with most festival-goers still sulking in the campground looking for a spot to hang their hat. Despite the small crowd, John Shearer executed the same moody, plaintive rock, and tactfully crafted progressions, culled from the bowels of arena rock standards. The band sifted through honest, sometimes loud refrains, and emerged as a great example of the fence-sitting parameters of Pickathon’s bluegrass-meets-indie-rock milieu. Weinland ended their set with infestations of dance-folk, which consisted mostly of ingestible pellets of organ-oaked rock and gloom…maybe too dark for the very first mainstage band.
Casey McGill’s Blue 4 Trio took to the Galaxy Barn stage – literally a barn, with notoriously sweltering temperatures, and intimate performances late nights with mainstage acts – toting old-timey lullaby juke-joint ditties. McGill appeared a blue-eyed dreamer in a dapper cabana suit while strumming a lonely guitar. The trio was festooned with ’50s-era optimism, replete with stand-up bass and ukulele, all the while conjuring specters of crumple-sleeved working stiffs let loose for the night to get their kicks with boogie-woogie ballads.
North Carolina’s Megafaun took to the Galaxy Barn later in the evening, at first employing a somewhat tame, blues-singed rock with lots of crowd involvement. With very home-y dallops of fun-lovin’ rock ‘n’ rag, the band steadily eased into a trance-y hum, with snippets of jazz noir beginning to seep into their cacophany, like The Sea and Cake on speed. In the whip of Tibetan flags off stage-left, Megafaun slowly morphed into a psychedelic tangent, an ode to flippant sonic meandering. Shamanistic shivers were executed slip-sloppy by the shaky percussionist, like some goddamn hillbilly hypnotism. Every mouth gaped at its conclusion, and – as if they needed it – Megafaun hooked a slew of new listeners.
More updates, photos, etc. coming this week from the biggest little festival in the world.
– Ryan J. Prado
