New Music, Emerging from your Local Scene
Marrow have released a video for their single and title track of their forthcoming album "The Gold Standard". The video was beautifully directed byJake Saner and heartbreakingly highlights the struggle of relationships.
You can catch Marrow at Lincoln Hall for their record release party on November 27th.
Emerging from the guitar/drum nucleus of prior decade indie rock band Lotion and adding keyboards to their sound, New York City’s Baby Spiders release an inspired three song EP “Seven months out of the year.” Leadoff track “Knockout Gas” (streaming) pairs distorted low frequency synth lines with a distinct guitar melody over loose power-rock drumming. Vocals are delivered in a bluesy Ozzy Osbourne style, where the last word in a lyrical line trails off in echo. “Summer Triangle” lumbers forward at a slower, more deliberate pace. The defining hook comes via a heavy synth line over Leslie-speaker-amp driven Hammond organ pads, mirroring what prog-rock crossover band Deep Purple did so well. Final track “Hunter” continues the heavy English blues rock references, dipping into the canon first popularized by bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin. Verses are closer to narration than actually sung, with big riff breaks in between. An extended keyboard led coda fills out what is the EP’s longest track at over four and a half minutes. The band will be playing an official CMJ showcase at Pete’s Candy Store on October 15, hosted by Tinderbox Arts + The Catalyst Publicity Group + William & Park present – Dave Cromwell
Nashville’s The Gills have been upping the ante in the pop rock game. They’re gutsy and dynamic and… really good.
Between touring, preparing to release a new album (any time now!) and keeping hometown fans happy, frontmant Jesse Wheeler made a little time to answer a few questions for us.
5. Heard any good jokes lately?
(Technically we’re not supposed to talk about bands that aren’t local, but Courtaud and Bobtail were based in the OC for four years, and continually come down to perform — they’re currently on tour, and have played with some of the finest folks in the underground scenes: Shojo Winter, Cruelty Code, Media Jeweler, Young Lovers, Deep Fields, CTHTR. So they’re pretty tight in my book, and worthy of mention.)
Inspired by a mythical 15th century French wolfpack that killed 40 Parisians, the experimental outfit — Alana Cook, Emily Wasilewski, and Andrew Quinones — come up with some very unsettling and vesperous sounds. The accumulated recordings are placid, lo-fi scrawls of peaking feedback, acoustic hum, and calm verse that poeticize the dismal realities of life. Their newest LP "My Love Who Never Was Will Never Be" ventures into narratives of depression, ennui, trauma, and exploitation. It’s heavy with poignant use of reverb and sparse, minimalist arrangements — sadder than Hollywood sadcore, but less boxed into ambient soundscapes as Mojave 3 and Mazzy Star.
Thursday night, Courtaud and Bobtail joins Young Lovers (post-rock from the valley) and Tender Age (C86/noisepop from Portland) at the Ham & Eggs Tavern, DJ set by the lovely Izzy Sophia. Come out: you might cry, you might dance, and you just might find love. Listen to "Hanging Wall" below. – Ryan Mo
New York singer/songwriter Sam Kogon recalls different kinds of rock while radiating his own whimsical pop on his irrestibly warm debut solo album ‘Before You Knew Me.’ Bookended by the guitar-seared songs "Before" and "On The Ceiling" while featuring the Wilco-esque Americana of "I Could Never" and the Electric Light Orchestra-like jubilance of "Plans" (streaming below), the Brooklyn-recorded effort has the Brian Wilson-admiring Kogon imbuing tracks of angst and heartbreak with both charm and sincerity. Ahead of the release of ‘Before You Knew Me’ on Friday (9.18), Sam Kogon plays at The Elvis Guesthouse tomorrow (9.17). – Zach Weg
Seven siblings with names that all start with J and radio-ready musical talent is what you’ll find when you listen to The Hunts. Hailing from Chesapeake, VA, this septet masterfully dots their Americana-folk sound with elements of pop, indie, and alt, creating a textured and harmonic mosaic for your ears. Overlapping vocals and cheerfully plucked strings give way to drumbeats and quick violining. Catch an old hit of theirs below and check out their new LP Those Younger Days. They’ll be sharing their heartwarming set on 9/26 at the Landmark Music Festival in DC. -Jonathan Goodwin
Well, you’re certainly in for a once in a lifetime line up on September 23rd! Music Box Presents and the Elbo Room will be hosting an incredibly well curated pre-party for the Desert Stars Music Festival. The San Francisco based neo psych outfit, Cellar Doors and Rachel Fannon, formally of the SF based band, Sleepy Sun will be shining beacons on the line up. Portland’s new ensemble, Hollow Sidewalks which features the legendary neo psych rock aficionado, Jason "Plucky" Anchondo will be performing as well. If Cellar Doors, Rachel Fannan and Hollow Sidewalks are not enough incentive to attend this pre-party celebration, the lead singer of The Black Angels, Alex Maas will be sharing a very rare Bay Area solo performance.
If you’re in San Francisco and you don’t make a sincere effort to attend this show, you’re going to miss a very unique night that you’ll probably remember for some time. Make your way down to The Elbo Room on September 23rd to celebrate the dawning of the 2015 Desert Stars Music Festival.
A gentle, meditative Americana rustle with a timeworn twang – Oldermost presents mollifying tunes that pass over one’s mind as a gentle mist. Steered by charming passionate vocals and sneakily swift instrumentation that doesn’t force the pace, the band captures an unassuming atmosphere, artfully crafting songs that on the surface retain a simple pleasant folk air, but that simplistic sound is the end game of precise compositions. These are the type of the songs that calmly echo in a timeless manner, steady while wistfully reinforced by harmony. However, the scales occasionally tip, and a momentary flash of unrestrained, combustible sound occurs. Tonight, Oldermost open for the slightly adrift rock of San Diego’s The Donkeys, whose lyrically pensive nature is balanced by refreshing wafts of sea breeze. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 9pm, $10, 21+ – Michael Colavita
Below is a new music video from Spill (featuring members of the defunct band Placeholders and We Are Skeletons) for the track "Sucks Either Way," off their debet self-titled EP. Most of the footage was filmed at the group’s record release show at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA, and the video was directed by Bernard Downey. The band will be performing next in Philly on Monday, September 21 at Boot & Saddle.
If you’re into the non-radio-play hip hop scene even a bit, you know that the Drake "Back to Back" freestyle diss track that the sports-cursing Canadian dropped on SoundCloud a month ago has been just about the only off the cuff verses anyone has been hearing lately (63.9 million plays as of this posting), so much so that the thing must be paying all of Soundcloud’s bills by its own damn self at this point. So, maybe now we think is a good time to be reminded that just ’cause one really famous rich dude made another sort-of famous rich dude look somewhat goofy in a fairly decent freestyle rap, Drake’s verses weren’t good enough to end all of freestyling forever. Hell some of them ain’t even that good- there’s def cats out there who hold down rapping’s most difficult and impressive tradition with much more power and skill, and they’re still droppin’ bombs on SoundCloud even after the Destruction of Meek Mill at the Hands of the Canadian Aubrey Drake Graham.
To wit, give yer brain an ice-cold dose of Austin’s David Shabani and his newest release, a freestyle good enough to be an album track called "YUL to DFW" that’ll get you right cool for these last few mind boiling summer days. Shabani is, as the track’s title might suggest to those who are hip to the locational acronym game, a Texan via French Canada who has been building a rep and a fan base here in Austin through a consistent, quality output of tracks (a ton of his stuff is free on SoundCloud) and some big damn shows like an appearance at the 2014 X Games out at that big fuckoff rich person racetrack thingy. "YUL to DFW" is catchy like some kinda head-noddin’ virus and does everything a truly good freestyle does- it’s fast, smart as hell, it sounds so clean and put together it’s hard to believe it’s all off the dome, and you wanna jam it again a few times just to catch everything.
Freestylin’ should be part approachable shit, like references to pop culture and current events or common daily life shit, and part personal perspective and peaks into the rapper’s life. Shabani knows this, flows this and nails this, dropping in everything from bits on Star Wars, Anita Baker, Montreal not having an NBA team and even looking for the remote in the couch while sticking in personal shit like a bit on his life story, such as in the hook (the part that’ll definitely get stuck in your head) where he lays out he went from "Montreal to Hamilton/Hamilton to Dallas/Dallas down to Austin/Feelin’ good, feelin’ awesome." That call-out to these four heavily populated areas should make it instantly dig-able by anyone with the good fortune to live in any of em, and should especially hit with Austinites, this city being so full of transplants and all (for better or worse, though in Shabani’s case certainly for the better).
Let Shabani get up in your head and move that mildly great Drake piece right along into the museum of old freestyles where it belongs, and also get introduced to one of Austin’s solid young rappers heading up the Most Likely to Succeed pack in this city’s scene with this freestyle below, as well as his other tracks over at the internet’s home for new hip-hop tracks before Meek Mill just loses it and tries to burn down their server warehouses.
