Seth Woods, The Whiskey Priest, composes a haunting effort in his album Wave & Cloud, which debuted August 23^rd.  For the most part, Wave & Cloud is an airy, ghostly sound, with songs that simply have a single line repeated throughout on top of lonely instrumentals.  Wave & Cloud at times showcases the ‘priest’ part of Whiskey Priest, as it has hints of inspiration from a hymnal in its repetitions and sometimes simplistic song structure, and, in rare times, the upbeat life of gospel music.  Wave & Cloud is folk music that will give you the blues, but not without a hint of light and hope in it overall.  Wave & Cloud, if anything, will be the best sermon you’ve heard all week.

–Mitchell Mazurek

 

 

Saints Of Valory come with quite the international flair. Front man Gavin Jasper is Brazilian, guitarist Godfrey Thomson is American, on drums Gerard Bouvier is from France, & on keyboards Stephen Buckle hails from Canada. After just a few shows in Austin, Saints Of Valory already have a rapidly growing fan base due in part to such crowd favorites as Merry-Go-Round, Providence, Stay Wild & more! And now, with headlining shows coming up at Stubb’s Jr (Sept 4th), and the Parish (Sept 30th) this is a band you will not want to miss!

(Ed.: this post taken from Saints of Valory’s post on our DIY Open Blog, check out other Open Blog posts in the Deli Kitchen.)

 

The Bright Light Social Hour, who will one day go head to head vs. The Black & White Years in a mustache-maintenance contest, are tonight (8/26) taking the stage at Antone’s to support The Starlight Children’s Foundation, whose mission is to educate, entertain, and inspire seriously ill children. If there’s a better excuse to get out and see an excellent local band, I’d like to hear it…

(photo by Annie Ray) 

While most of Austin is stuck in traffic steeping with road rage as cars start growing moss and Delilah crackles softly with unwitting irritance, there are a few souls that are having fun riding their bikes. Much of the two-wheel insurgence in Austin is due to the Austin Yellow Bike Project, an all-volunteer non-profit community initiative which serves to equip Austinites with bicycles. The Austin YBP recently moved their entire 4500 sq. foot headquarters by “human-power” alone—no moving trucks or even pow-pow-power wheels—in a truly remarkable tour de force. 

The Yellow Bike Project provides a space (1216 Webberville Road) and the equipment for the bikers that bear their sweaty brow to build and repair their bikes. The result is community-focused, beneficial, environmentally kind, and nearly free transportation. Austinites feel the love from YBP with their Bikes to Schools Program and their efforts to keep Austin healthy and clean. Now is Austin’s chance to show some love back. On Thursday, August 26, Austin is invited to turn down all the excess noise of the raging freeway, to shut off the ignition and let Delilah drift away to the nearest Dillard’s and experience the Yellow Bike Benefit Show in support of this really great collaborative. The Sour Notes (above), She Sir, The Boxing Lesson, White Rhino, and Searching for Signal will lay on the bike horns at Red 7 starting at 9pm for a night of music and spinning wheels.

–Lauren Hardy (YBP photo by Blake Gordon, The Sour Notes photo by Eric Morales)

 

 

Since Dignan’s conception within a church sanctuary seven years ago, the indie rock outfit from McAllen has been diligently carving into Texas’ music scene.

 

Between extensive touring schedules, Andy Pena (lead vocals/guitar), Devin Garcia (bass), Heidi Plueger (keyboard/vocals), and David Palomo (aux instruments/vocals) have released two successful EPs and a debut album, Cheaters and Thieves. 

 

The quartet has performed twice at South by Southwest. They rocked New York City’s 2009 CMJ Music Marathon, and they played a special in-house show at Paste Magazine’s headquarters. 

 

This small town band is on the verge of breaking completely onto the music scene. 

 

“We’re not unknown, but we’re not really known either,” Garcia said. “We’re in the middle…Right now it’s a lot of multitasking and doing little odd and end jobs on the side [for income], doing a lot of internet work, all while performing each night.” 

 

Dignan is currently on the road again, playing through Texas, the Carolinas, Florida and other southern states. They will hit The Mohawk in Austin at the end of August. This tour, and all events prior, has been fueled on the band’s own budget and determination.

 

 “We don’t have any label support or booking agents or anything,” Garcia said. “We’ve kind of done it all. We’ve done it by slowly working towards it, working our way up, and doing it by ourselves.”

 

Dignan attributes the internet to their independent success. 

 

“These days you can do anything through the internet,” Garcia explained. “With the right dedication and drive and persistence, I think [a band] can build themselves as big as they’d like to be.” 

 

And big they will be. For the next three months, Dignan will take on various stages and perform a shifting set list for fans.

 

“It will be kind of different each night I think,” Garcia said. “Hopefully we will have some variation.”

 

Although their shows will be a mix of old and newer tracks, the band hopes the atmosphere remains the same. 

 

“Having a really energetic crowd and a good response is what we hope for of course every night,” Garcia said. “It’s really nice when that happens—when it’s a good intimate moment with the crowd and the band.” 

 

Dignan’s emotional lyrics paired with sweet melancholy melodies could easily consume a crowd. 

 

“I feel like [our music] is very hopeful—our songs are very hopeful even when the lyrical content is darker,” the band’s bassist said. “It’s kind of eerie at some points. It shakes my bones up sometimes even playing it on stage. It throws a chill down my spine. I like it.” 

 

Their whimsy, wanting sound has been described as a blend of Arcade Fire, Cursive, and Broken Social Scene. 

 

“It’s always nice being compared, or people telling us that they hear a certain band in us,” Garcia said. “That’s always a nice compliment.”

 

For their own influence, Dignan draws from other indie works.

 

“We are all very big fans of David Bazan of the band Pedro the Lion,” Garcia explained. “Just recently we found out he had our record and he sent us a picture of himself holding our CD. He is such a big influence on our band, and a personal influence on our lead singer. It’s a great moment when you look up to someone and then they turn around and are like, ‘No, you’re great too. We enjoy what you do.’…We’ve had a couple of moments like that, where people we look up to shine light on us.” 

 

By this time next year, Dignan fans will have another album to hold.

 

“Right now we are in the early stages of slowly working towards getting some songs complied for, what I believe will be, our full length release,” the bassist said. “We are trying to have that out late July or early August of next year.” 

 

Until then fans will just have to hold themselves over with Dignan’s current tour and hits. 

 

After each show fans can catch Garcia, and the rest of the members, hanging around their merch table and talking about their sound. 

 

“Our band just kind of enjoys meeting new people and talking to people, and spreading the word about our music—one by one,” he said. 

 

–Cassie Morien, photo by Taylor Pool

 

(As mentioned above, Dignan hits the Mohawk this coming Sunday, 8/29…) 

 

One Hundred Flowers are releasing their national debut full length album on October 26, 2010. After two and a half years of playing in Austin and all over the Southwest Region, they will support the release of their upcoming album by playing a Southeast tour. The band is working with locals Stem & Leaf and Team Clermont (Athens, FL) to promote their independent release, Mechanical Bride, recorded at Cacophony Recorders with Erik Wofford. Release party will be on October 23, 2010.

(Ed.: this post taken from One Hundred Flowers’ post on our DIY Open Blog, check out other Open Blog posts in the Deli Kitchen.) 

Here’s a music industry story for your Tuesday: The Toadies released Rubberneck long, long ago, and saw their baby debut laminated in platinum; however, their label (Interscope) "unapproved" the follow-up, Feeler, in 1997. Years and tours and break-ups and reconstitutions later, Dallas label Kirtland Records stepped in, and so Feeler comes out…today. And you can find those Toadies playing an in-store at Waterloo Records today, 5 pm. 

It takes a lot for a band to play to a packed crowd, especially on a Monday night in Los Angeles, but Language Room rose the occasion August 9th at the Viper Room. The set began with Todd Sapio on his knees conjuring swells of guitar with his pedal board while Scott Graham, Matt Graham, and Caleb Kelly lent their talents to make the bricks and mortar of this wall of sound. The band’s music attacks with an honesty and magic that isn’t as common as it should be.

I don’t think I’ve heard a local crowd cheer as hard as they did for the band. The show was a fitting launch for their self titled album. I wish we could get some of these Austin transplants back.

–Angelo (The Deli Los Angeles)

My friends: I have it on good authority that rtb2, the ‘uber-duo’ down from Denton, absolutely kills it live. And they will do said killing tonight (8/13), at the Ghost Room, in the always fine company of Leatherbag and the Duquaines. Oh yes. Oh yes. 

(photo by Thorpe Grine)

The completely undefinable group ("weirdo instrumental rock" according to the band themselves) Bee vs. Moth (who tell the story of boy meets guitar in this vid) have announced their tour dates in support of their second release, Acronyms, due out September 6th on the Aggraveire Music label. Because you’re in Austin, though, you don’t have to wait – you can catch them next Thursday the 19th at Club de Ville, along with Darling New Neighbors and the Sad Accordions. 

(photo by Aubrey Edwards)

Dates: 

10/01    Hot Springs, AR @ Maxine’s 
10/02    Columbia, MO @ The Blue Fugue
10/05    Lake Villa, IL @ Swing State
10/07    Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s 
10/09    Denton, TX @ Andy’s Bar

 

The Whiskey Priest preaches with a sound reminiscent of a tent-covered revival. A raw, visceral sound that often toes the line between melancholia and exuberance, the sermons of The Whiskey Priest have been a project of songwriter Seth Woods—of Sad Accordions, and often Zookeeper, and Alex Dupree’s Trapdoor Band—since 2006. The years of work and ache have come to fruition in the forthcoming debut LP, Wave & Cloud, an album that, if the first single, “If A Train Was A Doctor Was A Song,” promises to exhibit that special kind of avant-garde styled folk-rock/bluegrass music that feels like a mule kick to the heart; it’s the kind of thing you don’t notice rarely possesses a drum section until someone points it out to you, and makes you realize you don’t at all miss the convention of it. The right kind of music at the right time. The Whiskey Priest goes down smooth and mellow, with sweet melodies that hides the underlying sting of bitter heartache the joy in spite of it.

The Whiskey Priest will be performing this Saturday, the 14^th at End of An Ear Records on 2209 South 1^st to celebrate the impending release of Wave & Cloud, which debuts on August 23^rd.

–Mitchell Mazurek (photo by Valerie Fremin) 

 

Riding the recent wave of publicity from their fifth national tour, Megafauna is finally releasing its full-length debut album, Larger than Human. Fans and press alike are singing the praises of Megafauna, Austin’s newest rock sensation.

Megafauna features Dani Neff as vocalist/axe-wielding guitar goddess and Will Krause and Cameron Page as her rocking rhythm section. Neff has been called a "sexy maniac" and often comes on stage in a Tyrannosaurus Rex costume, which she then strips off to reveal a skintight leopard print unitard, tutu or a star track mini dress. Neff has been described as a “shredmaster” and consistently stuns audiences with one-million-notes-a-second blasts of power.

“Will Krause and Cameron Page’s brimstone rhythm heed to solos that will melt the seals off seven scrolls,” writes Jeremy Martin from the San Antonio Current. “Neff pulls off several of the moves that eventually required Van Halen to undergo hand surgery.” Austin blog, Big Western Flavor, described Neff’s solos as “blood-curdling, burning flesh.” Called “noise-pop glory” by Detroit blog Deep Cutz, and “grunge rock and metal-inspired madness” by Flagpole Magazine, Megafauna is making quite the impact around the country. One awe-struck fan said that it is a “shocking co-mingling of everything that matters.”

Underground poet Thax Douglas, who has introduced the likes of MGMT and Dirty Projectors, read a poem before Megafauna’s last show at Mohawkand then explained that Megafauna is “one of the best bands on the planet.”

Much like Megafauna’s music and live performances, their newest album Larger than Human is a pastiche. Larger than Human was recorded at four Austin recording studios: Cacophony Recorders, Premium Recording, The Bubble and Cucuy Productions. “It’s an unconventional approach,” Will Krause explains. “We wanted the album to have a unique texture. We thought that recording different kinds of songs at different studios would accentuate the area covered by the album.” “It remains cohesive though,” adds Neff. “We also wanted to offer listeners around the country a sampling of what Austin has to offer in the way of recording.” At Cacophony Recorders, Megafauna worked with Eric Wofford, the man behind the Black Angels’ first album. They also worked with Alex Lyon at The Bubble, a studio that has recorded And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Jet, and Explosions in the Sky.

Larger than Human is heroic and outlandish, at once heavy and poppy, improvisational and staunchly composed. It is Stereolab meets ACDC, featuring vintage metal riffs paired with gorgeous ethereal vocals. The album is epic yet fiercely catchy. One listener noted, “these songs are crazy, but they get stuck in your head.” “Not enough can be said about this band” said Austin blog Cannibal Cheerleader, “they supply a smorgasbord of indie-rock madness for all to enjoy.”

Hole in the Wall will be abuzz on the night of Saturday, August 21st in celebration of Larger than Human’s release. “We’re really excited,” guitarist/vocalist Dani Neff says of the new release, “It sounds fantastic.”

The party kicks off at seven and features eleven Austin indie-rock bands, including Transmography, Red Leaves, Death is Not a Joyride, We the Granada and The Hi-Tones. The event is free before 9:00pm and $3 after 9pm. “We try to make sure all of our shows are cheap,” says Neff. “We don’t want anyone to be turned away because of money.” Austin booking and promotion company, Lucy The Poodle Productions, is putting on the event. “There will probably be a special appearance by our favorite poet and good friend, Thax Douglas,” Neff assures.

Texas and Louisiana tour dates for August and September, as well as more information on buying the CD, can be found at www.myspace.com/mymegafauna.

(Ed.: this post taken from Megafauna’s post on our DIY Open Blog, check out other Open Blog posts in the Deli Kitchen.)