Philadelphia

Sunshine Recorder Rains Down on JB’s Jan. 28

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If there ever was such a thing as ambient garage rock, Sunshine Recorder, the latest moniker for Christopher Coello’s sort-of-solo project, probably fits the bill. Coello is also part of The Cobbs, and while there are some similarities in tone, the name Sunshine Recorder should hint at the difference here: a sound that’s a bit brighter, more spacious, but losing none of its edge, like a drug-fueled walk through the desert at high noon. There may occasionally be some subtle electronic flourish, but Sunshine Recorder prove themselves to be a guitar band through and through, with the hard, propulsive drums serving mostly as an anchor to the hazy delay of the guitars. “Love in a Coma” has a hypnotic riff and a great vocal hook, while “Die Pretty” takes a darker turn, sounding borderline industrial with its cyclical drum pattern and fuzzed-out atmospherics. Catch Coello and co. over at Johnny Brenda’s where they’re sharing the bill with The Entrance Band and Lights. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave, 9 p.m., $10, 21+ myspace.com/sunshinerecorder666 (Photo by Ed Roper) – Joe Poteracki

 
Philadelphia

Enter the Madness That Is Whales & Cops at KFN Jan. 28

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Sometimes the band’s words just seem to describe them best.
 
“WhAlEs aNd cOpS=New lifestyle music and hermetic philosophy from erstwhile MAN MAN components Tiberius Lyn and G. Clinton Killingsworth…”

”brick bats, kendo classes, the falls, cargo cults, the vaporization of elugelab, alone in the wilderness, hai karate egg monsters, candy-colored clown!, man-eating trees, prison burpees, freeman dyson, suave homeless assholes, riddling fucks, yukon cornelius, the leather apron club, batshit billy with a boing-boing, cold statues of bitches, pajama’d cong, bobby fever, fist fights on the moon, wind-up sushi, bog man, food from a wooden spoon, weird ear, swiss rib side panels, caesar mohawks…crouton earrings, you’re going to jail…BuBbLeTaPe LoUnGe”

 
I know. You’re intrigued, and so am I. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 7:30pm, $7, 21+ myspace.com/wearewhalesandcops – H.M. Kauffman
 

 

NYC

A quick look outside your local scene: The other Deli Best of 2009 Polls

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Rockers, Folkers and Poppers of all ages, sexes and hair colors,

The Deli’s regional Year End Best of Polls for emerging artists are finally over and it’s time to have a quick look at what’s going on outside your local scene. Here’s a recap of the winners of our nine polls with links to overall charts and readers’ polls results:

AUSTIN – Winner: Stereo Is a Lie
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

CHICAGO – Winner: I Fight Dragons
Overall Chart – Readers Chart

LOS ANGELES – Winner: Local Natives
Overall Chart – Readers Chart

NASHVILLE – Winner: Those Darlins
Overall Chart – Readers Chart

NEW ENGLAND- Winner: Mean Creek
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

NYC – Winner: Talk Normal
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

PORTLAND – Winner: Explode into Colors
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

PHILLY – Winner: Reading Rainbow
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

SF BAY AREA – Winner: Girls
Overall Chart – Readers Chart – list of jurors

The Deli’s Staff

L.A.

Local Natives are The Deli’s Best Emerging LA Band of 2009!

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Deli-cious Readers,

After weeks of voting and calculating we finally have the winner of our LA Best of 2009 Poll for emerging artists. Local Natives topped our final chart thanks to a very strong consensus amongst our Jurors – mostly composed of local venue promoters, independent radio DJs, record store staff etc. (list coming soon). Because of this the band will be rewarded with the cover of the Spring Issue of The Deli Magazine! Hurrah!

This is their new video of the single Airplanes – coincidentally released today!

Also congrats to Fitz and the Tantrums and Crash Kings, who placed 2nd and third in the Overall charts, and Light FM, My Imaginary Friend and Lemon Sun, who rocked on the Fans’ Poll side of things (see the readers’ Top 10 chart in the next blog entry).

Here’s the Final Overall Chart of our Best of LA Poll 2009 for emerging artists:

 
 Artist
Jury
Writers
Readers
Total
 
1
 Local Natives

9
1
0.026
10.026
2
 Fitz & The Tantrums
4
1
0.044
5.044
3
 Crash Kings
4
1
0.024
5.024
4
 Warpaint
3
1.5
0.021
4.521
5
 Mississippi Man
2
2
0.102
4.102
6
 Emily Wells
3
1
0.011
4.011
7
 Nosaj Thing
3
1
0.008
4.008
8
 Robert Francis
3
1
0.004
4.004
9
 Globes on Remote
3
1
0.002
4.002
10
 Light FM
 
1
3
4
11
 Evan Voytas
3
 
0.047
3.047
12
 Audra Mae
3
 
0.003
3.003
13
 Jump Clubb
3
 
0.001
3.001

14

 My Imaginary Friends
 
0.75
2
2.75
15
 Chasing Kings
2
 
0.347
2.347
16
 Professor Calculus
2
 
0.07
2.07
17
 Edward Sharpe & The…
2
 
0.021
2.021
18
 The Growlers
2
 
0.01
2.01
19
 Happy Hollows
2
 
0.009
2.009
20
 Foreign Born
1
1
0.005
2.005
21
 Slo-mo Erotic
2
 
0.002
2.002
22
 Gaslamp Killer
2
 
0.001
2.001
23
 Lemon Sun
1
 
1
2
24
 Spindrift
 
1.5
0.003
1.503
25
 KillKillKill
1
 
0.093
1.093
26
 Active Child
1
 
0.062
1.062
27
 Dirt Dress
1
 
0.047
1.047
28
 Dawes
1
 
0.011
1.011
29
 Best Coast
1
 
0.008
1.008
30
 Afternoons
1
 
0.007
1.007

As we are sure you’ll be wondering how the point system works, each juror was asked to vote for 3 LA based emerging artists (best band gets 3 points, 2nd best gets 2 and 3rd best gets 1 point); Deli writers also had 3 choices, but they only counted 1 point each. Reader’s vote counted 3 points for the winner, 2 for second place, 1 for 3rd place, 0.001 per vote for all the other artists. Open Contest points (here added to the writers’ column) counted 1 point for the winner, 0.75 for 2nd place and 3rd for 3rd place. If you want to get even more confused check out the poll’s rules here. It’s just a little complicated, but extremely transparent!

This chart of course doesn’t represent the "truth" about the emerging LA scene, but we did our best to create a system that has some kind of validity. For us this poll is really just a fun way to give exposure to (and also get to know some new) emerging local artists, keep in touch with what’s going on in the scene and waste a lot of time organizing 9 (nine) of these polls in each city we cover.

An exhausted Deli’s Staff.

L.A.

Best of LA 2009 Readers’ Poll – Final Chart

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BEST OF LA 2009 –
FANS’ POLL RESULTS
 
  Artist  
Score
     
 
1 Light FM
632
2 My Imaginary Friends
544
3 Lemon Sun
382
4 Chasing Kings
347
5 Mississippi Man
102
6 KillKillKill
93
7 Professor Calculus
70
8 Active Child
62
9 Evan Voytas
47
  Dirt Dress
47
 
 
This is the final top 10 of The Deli’s Best of LA Fans’ Poll. This Poll is based solely on the votes cast by the bands’ fans and Deli readers.

All the artists in this list were either nominated by our juror or selected through our Open Contest in late December.
NYC

Yeasayer release 2nd free mp3 + announce Webster Hall show on 05.04

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The winners of our Best of NYC 2007 Poll Yeasayer (currently #21 in The Deli’s Web Buzz NYC Top 300 Chart) keep building momentum towards the release of their sophomore album, entitled Old Blood and scheduled for release on 02.09.2010 under Secretly Canadian. The band just announce a second free mp3 from the album, which can be downloaded from their homepage. Yeasayer two New York shows this February have been sold out for months, but you can still catch them perform on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on February 10, 2010 (honeslt, we would have preferred to see them with Conan O’Brian but, hey…) Yeasayer will also appear at the Coachella Music Festival on April 16th, and have added another New York show at Webster Hall scheduled for May 4th.

NYC

Weekly Feature 187a: She Keeps Bees

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Jessica Larrabee (guitars/vocals) and Andy LaPlant (drums) come from the no-frills school of rock basics. It’s where a nasty blues riff and a backbeat come together to turn up the hairs on the back of your neck. They’ve been at the local circuit for a few years now playing showcases, and they have a release out on UK label Names Records. She Keeps Bees (currently has received press already from The Guardian and NME. The Deli spoke to Jessica while her band was overseas in Ireland. – read the interview by Simon Heggie here.

NYC

Weekly Feature 187b: City Center

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City Center (currently #6 in our Avant Indie NYC Web Buzz chart) formed in 2007 as the side project of Fred Thomas and Ryan Howard of Saturday Looks Good to Me. After just dabbling and recording over the past couple years, the duo recently released their self-titled full-length City Center. The album is beautifully diverse and swims with sound and experimental electronic loveliness. With brief guest appearances by Mary Pearson from High Places, other friends, as well as tons of sampling, City Center takes sounds that would typically be dubbed as noise or strange and makes something so much more fluid and meaningful. Their raw textures and busy electronic orchestration creates a watery, floating feeling and the vocals are clear, yet soft and blisteringly sweet with harmonies. The duo also has a really entertaining blog, which is apparently how the whole band began in the first place. – read the full interview here.

NYC

Hesta Prynn readies new album, plays Pianos on 01.27

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Hesta Prynn should know by now that you DON’T lick the snare on a freezing day!!! The singer – formerly of the hip-hop group Northern State – is putting the final touches on her first solo album due out later this year. Hesta’s new sound pits euphoric beats and distorted basslines with punkish guitar overlays to create and energetic, edgy sound. New Yorkers will have another chance to catch her live this Wednesday, January 27th at Pianos.

Philadelphia

Reading Rainbow Definitely More Than Just a TV Show!

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Yay – we have many words from our highly literate Best of Philly Winners Reading Rainbow! It was no contest this year by the time our jury cast their votes. The bedazzling duo Rob Garcia and Sarah Everton made winning look easy like the friendship that they’ve developed. You’ve read plenty about Reading Rainbow from us, and recently XPN’s Bruce Warren so let’s see what the champs have to say.
 
The Deli: When did Reading Rainbow form as a band?
 
Reading Rainbow: March 2008
 
TD: What is the origin of your band name?
 
RR: It’s obviously taken from the T.V. show, but we thought it would be funny/interesting to take it out of context. So it’s not only nostalgic for 80’s childhood, it has a redefined meaning that sounds pretty mystical. But we’d understand if people think it’s dumb, band names aren’t that big of a deal in the end anyway!
 
TD: What are your biggest musical influences and what bands (local/national/international) are you currently listening to?
 
RR: We’re directly influenced by early punk and 60’s psychedelic. We are obviously really into VU and just straight forward pop with lots of vocal harmonies. Currently we have been going through a huge Beatles kick. Aside from that, we’re currently listening to the 100 Flowers album, Loaded (VU), and Bo Diddley. Current band-wise we are huge into Grass Widow (San Francisco), King Khan and BBQ, and Eternal Summers.
TD: What’s the first concert you ever attended and/or first album you ever bought?
 
RR: Rob – 1st concert: B.B. King with my parents when I was 12. 1st album: Led Zeppelin – Houses of The Holy (?)
Sarah – 1st concert: one of those shitty alternative radio station “birthday bashes” (104.7 THE BUZZ!) I think Our Lady Peace and Semisonic played. I was 12. 1st album: Nirvana – In Utero
TD: What’s your take on the Philly music scene?
 
RR: There’s tons of bands and it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on! We are recluses, and when we aren’t playing shows, we are recording/practicing/chilling with our cats watching music documentaries or Strangers with Candy.
 
TD: What are your plans for your March tour and trip to SXSW?
 
RR: We are carpooling there with our good friends Eternal Summers from Virginia. We are hauling ass to get to Texas by the 16th, so we are only playing 2 shows on the way down. Our plan is to just play as many shows as possible when we are there and haul ass back to get to school and work by the 23rd.
 
TD: What are your other performances and recording plans for 2010?
 
RR: We want to keep playing Philly and NYC pretty regularly (and B-more more this year), and we are hoping to do a tiny tour with Woven Bones from Austin in May. We are going to VA to record 10 songs in February. We want to record and tour as much as possible with what Rob’s work schedule allows, and be as prolific as possible for the rest of the year!
TD: What was your most memorable Reading Rainbow show?
 
RR: One really memorable show here in Philly was the first time we played The Ox in November with Beach Fossils, Eternal Summers, and The Spooks. There weren’t that many people there but we had a drunken, self-indulgent, love-fest between the bands. SUPER FRIENDS.
 
TD: What’s your favorite order at the Deli?
 
RR: Every time we play in Brooklyn we go the Brooklyn Deli on 2nd and Bedford before we drive home at 3am. We usually get roast turkey with Swiss on wheat, and they give you a free banana with each sandwich. And they sell Kombucha. It rules pretty intensely.
 
 
– The Deli Staff
 
Chicago

Interview: Scotia Widows

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Back in the day, which I guess wasn’t that long ago, I was obsessed with punk music. Something about the power chords and snarling into a microphone really caught my attention in high school and although my taste have changed, the love is still there. NoVo Arts is supporting music of all sorts with their Girls in the Garage showcase at Lincoln Hall and hasn’t forgotten the ladies of punk. Scotia Widows has the beautiful but deadly Gina Knapik rocking the mike at the show, representing all that is feminine about the genre. We recently chatted with Knapik about the upcoming show and her thoughts on music.

The Deli: There’s a pretty diverse group of girl bands playing this show, from pop to punk. How do you feel Scotia Widows fits into the show?
Gina Knapik: Well, I feel that is pretty obvious. It’s a showcase featuring women musicians and I have boobs. Also, I’m friends with a bunch of the gals playing so playing the show together is an excuse to hang out. Although all of our music is different, I appreciate what everyone is doing.

Deli: How did you hear about the Girls out of the Garage show and get involved?
GK: I’ve known August for many years through the different bands I’ve played in. He contacted me to ask if my other band, Venom Lords, could play. We are on a long break and I suggested Scotia Widows because that is the band I have been playing with the most these days. And as I said before, I’m friends with a bunch of the ladies on the bill and I’m excited to play with them!

Deli: As a huge punk fan (especially of the the Adverts) I have to ask, how does it feel being a woman in a genre that is considered very masculine?
GK: Hmm, I don’t really think of punk as masculine. I am no authority on the genre. I mean, it’s not a boys club. I joke about holding the guys coats, but sometimes I make Kirk hold my purse too. I have a picture to prove it. Ok, I tricked him and it only happened once.

Deli: You recently released your demo and it’s been getting a lot of good feedback from locals. What was the inspiration behind your style, form, and content on the demo as well as the decision behind making it free to download?
GK: Boredom, reality television, mangled birds, rumspringa, the History Channel and beers inspired us. As for our demo, our drummer David recorded us in his basement. I think it cost us however much the pizza cost that night. I hope we didn’t make him chip in. Anyway, it hardly cost us anything to record and we would like as many people as possible to hear it. We’re not in this to make money. So spread it around!!! We’d love to record again and take our time and have some small label put it out for us. We did that demo quick.

Deli: Sometimes I hear from girls who are in bands that it’s hard to get along with a bunch of guys, especially if you’re fronting the band. Have you ever had problems with that in Scotia Widows or any of your other bands?
GK: No way. All the guys I have been in bands with have been my friends…and…not jerks. If I was in a band with a bunch of guys that I didn’t get along with…I would not be in that band. That goes for girls too. And actually…I used to think it was harder to be in bands with girls because of boyfriends and all that drama, but then I realized all that jazz is not gender specific.

Scotia Widows’ latest demo is available to download here. The Girls in the Garage show is Thursday, January 28th at Lincoln Hall and also features the Wanton Looks, Leslie Hunt, and the Maybenauts rocking the mike in support of femininity. The show stars at 8 pm and tickets costs $10. – Amy Dittmeier