Start your Friday off right with a selection of music from this week’s featured artists on BestNewBands.com
“Get What You Want, Get What You Need” – The Ascetic Junkies
Liz Livengood caught up with a few members of this Portland-based band after their show at The Woods last weekend. Here’s some of the interview in a video from BestNewBands.com’s YouTube channel.
Read the rest of Liz’s interview here.
“Butterfly” – Delicate Steve
Kristina Villarini caught Delicate Steve and Akron/Family at their sold-out show in Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory last weekend.
Kristina wrote, “The standing-only crowd were enraptured from start to finish, as the musical stylings of Delicate Steve illuminated the venue. The full-band sound of [Steve’s Wondervisions LP] is an incredible, riveting listen. Both bands were particularly successful in the execution of their game plans, sounding incredibly full, and almost bursting at the seams with new and engaging sounds. [...] Steve released the LP in February and has garnered all kinds of praise for it: from SPIN and NPR to the New York Times. He recently discussed the motivation for his song, “Butterfly” in our BackStory feature, which you can read HERE.”
Read the rest of Kristina’s review here.
“Hey Tina” – Andy D.
Daniel Kohn chatted with Andy D. last week about his latest single, “Hey Tina” and his upcoming album, Songs In The Key Of Magic, due out next month. Here’s an excerpt of their conversation:
DK: What gave you the idea for “Hey Tina”?
AD: The story of the song is pretty straight-forward, it’s a narrative song and it’s just an ode to the power of parties to make all the crap that happened in your week go away. So in the song, I’m trying to get my hypothetical friend Tina to go to this party because I know she’s had a bad week, but the lady won’t PICK UP HER PHONE! So I’m singing to her outside her window. I think I was at a party after having a crappy, stressful week and I immediately felt better and I wanted to capture that feeling and articulate that in a song. I wrote the song the weekend after that party. “Crush on You” was in heavy rotation on my iPod around the time of that party, so that seeped in for sure…just a little bit. The song is not about methamphetamine. I didn’t even know that Tina was a nickname or code for meth until very recently, months after I wrote the song, because I’ve never really wanted to do meth nor needed to refer to it in code.
DK: What can we expect from this album? How has your sound evolved from your first record?
AD: On this new album, I feel that the song craft and themes are more mature. I’m still raunchy and sexual, but I feel I know what I’m doing more now and that it shows in my songs. My approach to sexuality has always been at the college level I feel, both in it’s social sophistication and base ribaudness, which I think encapsulates the college experience nicely – it’s the place where most people engage in the most high-brow AND low-brow activities they will ever do in life. So I try to keep that approach steady from the first album, but now I’ve added this level of mythology and mysticism, which is a major interest of mine. Songs in the Key of Magic really has a lot to do with actual magic, from Norse Mythology to Harry Potter to Aleister Crowley to Merlin to Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers to magical thinking – it’s all in there. I stand by my first album, but I think this new album is a better collection of songs. It was recorded here in Bloomington by Scot Gallop at Hardlight Studios and really knew how to capture my live show for Songs in the Key of Magic, which was our main goal. This is also a collection of songs that it is more difficult to stuff all in one genre. I tend to think genres are limiting at best and ridiculous at worst. I try to be as eclectic as a musician as my tastes in music are as a listener. I want to blur genre lines as much as possible. I feel it is the zeitgeist rite now, that people don’t define themselves with genres of music anymore – there are no proper punks or Hessians anymore really because everyone listen to everything pretty much. So the songs on this new album are not as easily pegged as hip-hop or electro or rock as on the previous album.
Read the rest of Daniel’s interview here.
“Bent Around A Dying Dream” – The Fervor
In this week’s BackStory installment, Ben Felker of The Fervor explained how the song “Bent Around A Dying Dream” came to be.
Ben said, “I started writing this song on a day when one of my cats died. It began with me just looking for something ugly and desperate sounding to play on the guitar. Something that would suit my mood. From that I found the little instrumental refrain that we do. I came away that night with that riff and and the chorus. None of it is really about my cat, though I must say I wasn’t really on top of the world that night.
The verses of this song were written almost entirely by Natalie. Though I can’t speak for her, I can say that we were both feeling the crunch of trying to make it in rock and roll. This was about two years ago, and we’d both recently been laid off from our day jobs. We’d been doing a lot to make the band really work and this essentially had cut off our financing. Trying to tour and pay the bills had been tough as it was and this kind of gave us that sense that we were getting right up to the edge of something. In general the song is about that. Trying to reconcile yourself to the path you love in the face of reality.”
View the rest of The Fervor’s BackStory here.
“The Greatest Story Never Told” – Saigon
Rebecca Haithcoat featured Brooklyn rapper Saigon’s newest release, The Greatest Story Never Told.
Rebecca wrote, “Saigon’s got the rawhide exterior typical of New York rappers; instead of letting his voice break with bitter disbelief, he lets his lyrics speak. ‘My living condition is not in the greatest position/Nah I ain’t bitchin’, I just gotta make a decision,’ he raps on one of many standout tracks, ‘Believe It.’ Later, on ‘Oh Yeah (Our Babies),’ he raps a cappella, ‘I’m flabbergasted you got a platinum plaque for that wack shit/All the real gangsters, they on their way to bein’ dead or in jail/They don’t make records to sell.’ Placed side by side, the two songs reveal the toil those years took on him.
Despite having sat on the shelf for so long, the project gathered no dust. Glossed almost completely with producer Just Blaze’s jubilant orchestration, the record reminds you how much you miss the kind of cohesive albums that, thanks to iTunes, are practically nonexistent now. Take the a chunk in the middle of the album, for instance: ‘Enemies’ dark clouds part momentarily in the chorus, then hesitantly begin to clear during ‘Friends,’ until the sun bursts through victoriously in [title track] ‘The Greatest Story Never Told.’”
Read the rest of Rebecca’s review here.
“Big Girl” – Darlings
Kelly Knapp reviewed the new Warma EP from Darlings, a garage-rock quartet from New York.
Kelly wrote, “Darlings’ grungy garage rock brings back some 90s nostalgia, with that kind of attitude that is lackadaisical yet sounding effortlessly put together. [...] The whole EP is full of simple but catchy guitar melodies, and especially on ‘Everybody’ they harken back to more obscure 90s bands like Beat Happening, with the same dazed catchiness. Did I mention these guys are catchy? The standout song for sure is their lead single off the EP, ‘Big Girl.’ This song will get stuck in your head for days. I still can’t get it out.
Darlings aren’t trying to reinvent the indie wheel or anything – it’s more like they are taking inspiration from a great decade for music and paying homage to it. [...] This is going to be my new go-to record when I want to just sit back, put on headphones at work and shirk my responsibilities. Warma is out now on Famous Class.”
Read the rest of Kelly’s review here.
“Never Be Content EP Mix” – Innerpartysystem
Kristina Villarini reviewed Never Be Content, the latest album from Innerpartysystem.
Kristina wrote, “Never Be Content brings the club or rave party from the outside into your eardrums. The songs are fused with a new life, of sorts, that you would be surprised to expect from a band that was once considered more rock than electronic. [...] The band is keenly aware that some people may see this as a complete deviation from the Innerpartysystem they know, but as Kris Barman explained to me last week, (you can read the full interview HERE) ‘Some people think this is a 180-degree turn, but it feel more like 30-degrees.’ To a certain extent, he’s right. [...]
As a fan of dancey tunes, I’m not complaining. For example, the eight minute wallop called ‘Not Getting Any Better’ will have you bobbing your head within the first sixty seconds, or maybe you prefer as I do, the instructional monotone of my favorite track, lead single ‘American Trash.’ [...] While some critics have complained that the band has always sounded fuller live than in their past releases, I think that Never Be Content comes very close to harnessing the full potential of Innerpartysystem. They should be proud of this release, and I’m excited and anxious at where they can go from here.”
Read the rest of Kristina’s review here. The “Never Be Content EP Mix” is available for free download on Innerpartysystem’s website.
“Lantern” – The Heavy Pets
On Wednesday, Kristina Villarini chatted with Jeff Lloyd of The Heavy Pets, a five-piece, fast-paced rock band from Fort Lauderdale.
KV: You guys are about to head on the road for a big tour. Why is it called “The Illumination Tour”?
JL: Oh, we feel like we’re going out there to illuminate, and we’re ready to be illuminated. It ties in with the tune “Lantern,” which is available for free on our website. We wanted to release this song and do this tour, and I felt like the song meant a lot. You know, you can still make people dance with sticks and strings. Like they used to.
KV: You guys have received a great deal of critical acclaim. So is that how you know you’re doing it right? What defines making it?
JL: On one level, it’s the opportunity to keep creating music with my best friends for however many years later. We just keep on making the show better, keep rocking together and keep kicking ass. On another level, one of my favorite things is to hear from a new fan after a show, and it’s flattering. We hear it a lot. Maybe they weren’t sure what to expect, or maybe jam bands or the instrumental music wasn’t their thing before, but now they’re going home and giving us a chance.
KV: The band has played some festival dates, but still continue to play clubs and smaller shows across the country. Do you think there are differences between a festival audience and one at a club or concert hall?
JL: No fundamental difference. I think it has to do with time of a day, like 5pm or 11pm versus the major acts who start at 8pm. People have a natural flow of energy throughout the day. We don’t play bars or clubs in the middle of day. Obviously, when you get to play in front of an audience of thousands of people at 3pm, it’s going to be an amazing experience and rivals a club that’s jumping off at night.
We feel so lucky to be doing this, and to have this opportunity. We just try to relish in that moment every time we play. On stage, we feed off of the energy of one another. I love those guys and we are all great friends. So that’s the first part of the energy we tap into. Everything else comes naturally.
Read the rest of Kristina’s interview here. “Lantern” is available for free download on The Heavy Pets’ new SoundCloud page.
“Lullabye” – Lucy Walsh
Daniel Kohn caught the Santa Barbara native’s show at the Hard Rock Cafe in L.A. Tuesday night.
In his review on Wednesday, Daniel wrote, “Backed by a seven-piece band, Walsh sat behind her Nord keyboard and showed off the familiar vocals that got her noticed in the first place. Throughout the set, the singer was very comfortable on-stage, often mingling and interacting with the crowd, which was well received. [...]
One of the highlights of the night was ‘Lullaby,’ a song that Walsh wrote in tribute to a friend who lost his life to cancer. Before the number, she explained that the song was about living life to it’s fullest and the crowd reacted very strongly to the singer’s emotion throughout the song. This was one of the few songs where only an acoustic guitar backed the singer and the power of her song’s message resonated with everyone.”
Read the rest of Daniel’s review here.
“Delta Fog” – Scott Bartenhagen
Laurel Kathleen spoke to the NorCal native on Thursday, and got the inside scoop of the guitarist/singer/songwriter, who will also be playing at SXSW next month.
LK: Is it tough to write good quality lyrics at this point in our collective musical evolution? Do you ever get frustrated trying to create something completely new?
SB: Oh my God. The lyric writing process is the bane of my existence. I can’t even describe how frustrated I get with lyrics! I love wordplay and words, but I’m so scared of saying…I don’t want to say anything pretentious or lame. I don’t know, it freaks me out. Which is why a lot of the lyrics I write are very personal, because I think that’s important to powerful songwriting. A lot of what I write is sci-fi based and stuff that I haven’t done yet but I want to do. Lyrics are the hardest part of music for me, far and away.
LK: What made you decide to offer your music to fans for free?
SB: Mostly because I’d rather have somebody have it than not have it, which is the simplest way to say it. I’d also rather have somebody get it from my website. Not that I’m big enough for someone to upload a torrent for. But I’d rather give someone something from me and treat them like a fan. That way, they might come to my shows and not feel like I’m treating them like a thief. That’s my whole philosophy on free music. I make decent money from my Bandcamp just because I’m not going to guilt-trip them into buying my stuff. If they think my stuff is worth it, they’ll pay for it.
LK: How did you react to the news that you would be playing in Austin during South by Southwest?
SB: There had been talk. But I didn’t believe it was going to happen. But not in a bad way! Then four or five days ago I got a text saying that it was going to happen. I threw a fit and ran around in circles. I’m so excited – it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Read the rest of Laurel’s interview (and get a free download of “Delta Fog” by Scott Bartenhagen) here.
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