Hello, BestNewBands.com readers! Ready for the weekend? Yeah, we are too. To aid you in your musical pre-funking, here’s a look (and listen) back on what we featured this week.

“Livin’ The Dream (I’m On A Float)” – Super Mash Bros.

Kristina Villarini caught the mash-up artists at Irving Plaza in New York this weekend, and even got a chance to sit down with the guys before their performance.

Check out the rest of Kristina’s review here.

“To The Grave” – The Pierces

Daniel Kohn reviewed The Pierces’ four-track EP, Love You More, which was released Tuesday.

Daniel wrote, “The songs are catchy and punchy, especially the title track, which features dirty riffs under Catherine’s haunting vocals and is an alt-folk song with a dark vibe. This track sums up the vibe of the EP, which is more polished than the girls’ earlier work and is a natural step forward from Thirteen Tales. Though only four songs, the girls’ songwriting is full of self-confidence and the results are sharp and terrific song. Love You More is hopefully a precursor of what’s to come on from the New York-via-Birmingham, Alabama duo, whose full-length, You & I, is slated to be released on Polydor on March 14.”

Read the rest of Daniel’s review here.

“Sam Bond’s Garage” – The Stagger and Sway

In this week’s BackStory feature, Mike Last of the Eugene, Oregon band explains the significance of a local bar in the Whiteaker neighborhood.

Mike said, “When I’d left Chicago, this song was simply a chord progression, troubled with a trickle of place-holder lyrics (I eventually kept only one line: “I, for one, come here too often”). Lyrically, nothing was working, and this tune was shelved!

Shortly after arriving in Eugene, a friend invited me to see an incredible musician at Sam Bond’s Garage that I later described in a letter as “Woody Guthrie gone bald, punk rock, and how!”

I collected more and more fun experiences starting fresh in a new town – writing new songs, playing with new bands, hardly stopping to think about old, unfinished material. On that same “Punk Rock Woody Guthrie” night, I met several folks that helped shape the direction of my next few years: musicians I would come to play with, the guy who later produced both our records (including this song), and a real cool lady who has since become my wife!”

View the rest of the BackStory post here.

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“Older Brother” – Pepper Rabbit

Monica Christoffels interviewed Xander Singh of Pepper Rabbit shortly before the duo began touring with Ra Ra Riot through the Pacific northwest. Here’s some of their conversation:

MC: Hi Xander! So the last time you spoke with Bestnewbands.com, you were working on material for a new album in between shows with Freelance Whales and Miniature Tigers. Have you been able to take a decent amount of time off since then?

XS: I’m very happy to report that we have finished the record! 10 brand new final mixes just waiting to be mastered and released. We’ve had the past few days since getting home from the studio to relax and see friends. Luc has been making sure to get in lots of girlfriend time before we head out and I’ve been hastily getting through my recently acquired and very large Blu-Ray collection.

MC: You’d previously mentioned to Laurel Kathleen that you may be heading to SXSW this year – any other big venues or festivals we might catch you at (Sasquatch!, Bonnaroo, etc.)?

XS: We will be at SXSW playing as hard as we can and as much as we can. As for any other festivals we’ll just have to see! It’s been a big dream for a while to make the rounds at the summer festivals so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Read the rest of Monica’s interview here.

“Gettin Drip” – Wallpaper.

Rebecca Haithcoat caught Wallpaper. at The Troubador earlier this week – well, one half of the electro-pop duo, at least. (Drummer Arjun Singh was apparently “on a plane back to Bollywood,” as rapper Eric “Ricky Reed” Frederic explained.)

Rebecca wrote, “Reed flipped through his set rapidly, and maybe he wanted the audience to know that he really can sing. Though he came more alive when he switched into Auto-Tune for a riff on UC Berkeley graduates drinking IPAs before diving into a celebration of the alcohol/caffeine bomb Four Loko, he mostly kept his set serious. And dancing through songs like “Gettin’ Drip,” an ode to the collegiate practice of pre-partying, “I Got Soul, I’m So Wasted,” a weekend club-warrior anthem, and “It’s My Birthday,” a call for expected sex, Reed showed he actually can sing.”

Read the rest of Rebecca’s review here.

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“Mind” – Range Rover

Liz Livengood shared some new songs from this San Diego trio on Thursday.

Liz wrote, “You hear ‘sample’ and you think ‘oh no, another DJ record,’ right? Wrong. Range Rover is unabashedly original, incorporating the weirdest noises into densely layered mini-symphonies that please the mind for their pure simple complexity. [...] Austin Ceasar’s dark, gravelly vocals mix seamlessly with blaring guitars and synth accompaniment to make something that feels like a declaration. I love the vocals at the end. Austin says he doesn’t mind, but he so does.”

Read the rest of Liz’s post here.

“Twisted and Clover” – The Sunshine Factory

Claire Gallagher shared this song in her BNBTV Spotlight with the band, which also contained an interview with the Mobile, AL trio. Here’s some of their conversation:

CG: What do you think you would be doing right now if you weren’t a musician? What did you want to be when you were a kid?

IT: I have no idea. I never think about anything else, really [laughs].

MH: A fireman, I guess. I wanted to be a cowboy when I was a kid.

SR: Well I love graphic art and drawing as well as photography, but my passion is music and basically that is all I ever want to do!

CG: What has been a personal high and a personal low about your musical career so far? Any particular moments of awesomeness or embarrassing blunders?

IT: A high for the band has probably been the release of Sugar and everything that has happened since. A low: A show in Georgia where we ended up playing at a revival center of some sort, and Matt had a tambourine thrown at him by a drunk member of another band [laughs].

Read the rest of Claire’s interview here.

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“Catch Myself Catching Myself” – Underoath

Lauren Novik recently sat down with Tim McTague of the band before his performance at the House of Blues earlier this week. Here’s some of their conversation:

LN:  So you guys are officially on tour to promote your most recent album, Disambiguation – any plans to play that album or any other album in its entirety – like Thursday will be doing tonight?

TM:  We would like to- but not necessarily for a whole tour.  I’d like to do a couple of shows where we play the whole new record or maybe the last few records!  It’s just figuring out how to do it and when to do it!

LN:  What made Underoath & Thursday decide to do a 7″ split?

TM:  We were just talking about it- we were like let’s do something cool for the tour!  We really wanted to have something to offer people who were coming to the shows aside from the norm.  I feel like touring in general has become less of an experience or an event- shows are everywhere!  So we wanted to do something else for people.  There were a few online and those sold out right away, and the rest can be found on tour!  You know when people see it, it’s like oh yeah – I was at THAT show!

Read the rest of Lauren’s interview here.