I saw White Arrows perform live for the first time as the opening act for UMO at the Echoplex about a month ago and instantly fell in love with this new band. Led by visionary Mickey Church, the L.A.-based quintet wooed me with their creative songwriting and energetic performance.

After a successful jaunt at SXSW, the boys came home to play their last local show until June at the famous Roxy Theatre on L.A.’s Sunset Strip.  Presented by the (also famous) KROQ as part of the radio station’s “Locals Only” showcase, it was a special night, and a rare all-ages event. Around me stood giddy teenagers decked out in White Arrows garb, causing me to temporarily forget this is a band that has yet to release a full-length album. As soon as the curtain rose, the young audience were whipped into a frenzy—yelling to band members by name and jumping up and down, writhing in their spots. It was quite a Beatles-esque moment.

And the psychotropical pop troupe delivered. In its short, thirty-minute set, the five-piece played tracks from its self-titled EP and the entirety of its forthcoming Fireworks of The Sea EP (granted, it’s only three tracks), as well as a spot-on cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.” Although I’m sure still recovering from SXSW, the band members possessed that same raw energy that attracted me so much the first time I saw them. Church belted out lyrics in his wavering voice, with hair always covering his face as he ferociously strummed his guitar. Andrew Naeve, in charge of keys and beats, grooved behind his synthesizer, getting the crowd dancing and swooning it with his angelic falsetto vocals. And bassist Steven Vernet bounced around the stage, slapping his strings and feeding off not only the band’s energy, but also the crowd’s, jumping into his sea of fans on two separate occasions.

White Arrows’ unique concoction of afro-beats, spacey synth and garage rock is what makes the group so appealing in a musical world saturated with recycled sounds, and its charismatic performances is what’s going to take it to the next level. It’s no wonder the experimental rockers have toured with the likes of Cults, Those Darlins, and the Naked and Famous, played the Sasquatch music festival, opened for Weezer, and headlined residencies at home and in London (all with only a 7” to sell!).

For the next few months, White Arrows will be embarking on Europe to play a slew of festivals. According to Church, the band is in the final stages of mixing its debut full-length record, which hopefully means a summer release. And with the legion of fans the band has already garnered, it will be exciting to see what comes next for Church and his Arrows.

Austin Psych Fest doesn’t really need much of a description. It is exactly what it sounds like: a festival with a lineup entirely consisting of psych rock, experimental, garage noise bands, which takes place in Austin, TX the weekend of April 27-29th. This is a festival for blurring the lines of reality with alternate planes of dark, hazy psych dreams and mind rides.  As this kind of music is usually best experienced under the mysterious veil of the night, the schedule allows for sleeping in. On Friday, music starts around 5pm – 2am, Saturday 1pm – 2am, and Sunday 2pm – 12am. And these are still just approximate times. There will also be pre-parties around town starting on the Tuesday prior, with those details to be firmed up in the coming weeks. Here are five bands that can definitely be a conduit to those alternate planes:

Night Beats, a Seattle-based psych rock soul group who are likened to bands such as The 13th Floor Elevators and Golden Dawn. They definitely have that slightly spooky throwback sound, but they also sound somehow parallel with the present.

Spindrift, who toured with Black Angels (who are also on the festival bill) this past fall and killed it when they played Music Hall of Williamsburg over Halloween weekend. They may not have the makeup and costumes this time – or will they? A festival like this probably doesn’t get much more perfect for them.

Quilt, a band formed by visual art students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston who had all bonded over their mutual love of weird, experimental jams and their classic music studies. They are a prime example of freak folk done right.

Prince Rama, the musical project of two sisters, who may be one of the more new-agey bands at the fest, but it’s the very fact that they are meandering down a more relatively less-traveled path that makes them interesting.

Woods, who are one of the best experimental psychedelic jam bands on the scene right now. We caught up with them when they played Bowery Ballroom, and they were a mind ride through time and space then.

With just these five bands APF 2012 might be a hard festival to come back to reality from, but since this is just the tip of the psych-berg…well, we can’t really take responsibility for any kind of extreme mind expanding you may experience. Did we mention that these picks are just from the 1^st round of confirmed bands? The 2^nd round is still to be announced at Noon CST on March 27^th, but two teaser bands that have already been leaked are The Meat Puppets and Mind Spiders…this could get serious.

Weekend passes are currently on sale for $120 here, along with other festival merch, and festival updates and pre-party info gets posted up on their Twitter and Facebook.

Matthew Dear is a man who wears many hats. At once, a DJ, a dance-music producer, an experimental pop artist, and a band leader, the New York-based producer, and co-founder of both Ghostly International and its offshoot Spectral Sound, knows no musical boundaries.  This was evident last Wednesday night at Los Angeles’ up-and-coming venue, Center For The Arts, Eagle Rock.

The New Yorker generally performs under his  “DJ” hat, but during the current tour, Dear decided to bring a full band along for the ride. The addition of four extra musicians made his unique brand of pop music come to life through live percussion, bass, and trumpet, as the multi-talented musician hopped from his laptop to the microphone, flawlessly stomping his foot pedals to produced distorted vocals and loops.

As each song progressed and the layers built on top of each other, so did the energy both on and off stage. Acting as frontman, Dear commanded the stage with a graceful swagger, sauntering across the stage during vocal breaks, slapping a maraca or tambourine forcefully against his hand as he clomped his combat boots against the stage’s floor, keeping rhythm with his feet. When the music swelled, the packed venue absorbed its energy and let it loose through each audience member’s body. Teenagers comingled with young, and mature, adults, during the all-ages dance party. Age did not matter here. Each person was focused on dancing, entranced by Dear’s beats, which transcended generations.

But the performance was not all fun and games. Standing by the front of the stage, Matthew Dear’s concentration and serious demeanor glared down. It was almost as if he was in another world, so transfixed by the music he was creating and hardly paying attention to the jubilant chaos that ensued on the dance floor. Although there was a large audience in front of him, Dear was making music for himself. He was not trying to impress anyone—although his performance style inherently mesmerized the entire crowd. He was simply making music, and for that, I have nothing but respect.

Los Angeles was just one of many stops on Matthew Dear’s path to SXSW and Europe. For a full list of live dates, click here.

Deleted Scenes is comprised of four ambitious musicians who have all been writing and performing music since grade school. In 2009, the Washington, D.C.-based quartet released its debut LP, Birdseed Shirt, to welcoming ears, and hit the road. Since then, the experimental indie rockers have played, on average, over 100 shows a year. Amidst the live shows, the four-piece somehow managed to record a sophomore release, Young People’s Church of Air, in 2011, and then (surprise, surprise), hit the road again. The band’s bassist/keyboardist, Matt Dowling, was nice enough to take time out of a surely hectic tour schedule to talk to me about recording Young People’s, the state of D.C.’s music scene, and his fantasy of getting booed off stage by crazed Beatles fans.

Katrina Nattress: Your debut 2009 release, Birdseed Shirt, was very successful. Did this put any pressure on you when writing/ recording its follow-up, Young People’s Church of Air?

Matt Dowling: I think there was pressure there, although it wasn't like this was the Arcade Fire's follow up to Funeral. Despite the newfound visibility that Birdseed Shirt brought us outside of DC, we were still a relatively unknown band after touring off it for a year. The pressure only existed in the sense that you had a lot of press/blog outlets that were tangibly familiar with the band leading up to Young People's. With Birdseed Shirt, we had no real previous chatter in the press world, so getting press was an entirely new thing for us. Thankfully, a lot of it was positive. In contrast, with Young People's it became a safe bet that there indeed would be sources that would offer their opinion on the record to the world. But if anything is certain, it is that you cannot predict what people will think of your art, so there's sort of an anxiety knowing that your new music is going to get "graded." But all we can control is our craft and the effort we put into it. We felt like we put a wholehearted effort into the record. If we didn't do that, I'd imagine there'd be a really negative pressure involved with the record.  But we did, so it was really just taking a next step as a band that overall felt natural and positive.

 

KN: How do you feel your sound has progressed between the two albums?

MD: I think we just have more an identifiable sound with this record. Birdseed sort of jumped all over the place, which at times worked beautifully, but at times may have distracted from the message. We've also refined and highlighted musical personality quirks that make us are who we are as a band. I feel like with this one we put it out there in a consistent way. But who knows, I spent a million hours working on both records, so I have no real perspective.

KN: Spending a good portion of the year on tour, I’m sure you’ve got some stories. What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you on the road?

MD: Our first van was the most decrepit vehicle I have ever experienced, and we had an instance where we broke down four times on the New Jersey Turnpike during a trip up and back from NYC to play a show there. That issue with the van was the fuel pump, and when those start going bad, the vehicle will shut off, but if you let it sit for a while, it can start up again and drive for a considerable distance before breaking down. Anyway, in each break down we had to get the van towed to a mechanic. Three different mechanics did three different things to the van and thought they had fixed it because it started up. Man, that sucked.   But miraculously, we actually made it to the show.

 

KN: If you could tour with any band, dead or alive, who would it be?

MD: Whoa. My imagination is about to have a heart attack. I think I'd have to say the Beatles. I mean it's a shamelessly obvious answer to this question, but c'mon. People never stopped clapping at their concerts. It was just clapping with minor fluctuations in volume and dynamics, but never a pause. To witness that occurrence—people applauding constantly for an hour straight, for many nights in many cities—would be so mind boggling that I'd imagine your brain chemistry would be permanently altered. Much in the way that someone who does way too much acid at once, but this would be completely tangibly safe. You'd just never view reality in the same way.

By the way, I'm sure the crowd would not applaud for us at all. They'd be like "uhhh....hello......get the fuck off the stage and let us see the reincarnation of John Lennon you assholes." But yes, I'd still pick the Beatles.

 

KN: How do you feel living in DC has affected your musical career?

MD: I think there's no doubt that environment is important, and honestly the environment wasn't particularly great for the first few years we were a band. Any spotlight that had been on the city's music sort of burnt out very quickly after the break up of a number of important DC bands. For the new bands that were starting around that time, it made things difficult. I think the city was sort of bitter at the state of things and there wasn't much of an artistic community for bands to fall back on. There was just kind of this gross dispersion of bands that all secretly, or explicitly, hated each other, but the music itself was just toothless. But within the past three years or so, it feels like there's more of a community for the bands in the city. A lot more house shows, and enthusiasm for music on a ground level and for the synergy between music and community. A wider visibility for DC music as a whole has been very beneficial for us; it's just exposed us to a much wider audience by association.

 

KN: What does 2012 have in store for Deleted Scenes?

MD: A lot of touring and writing as much as we possibly can. We're excited with the fresh start after getting Young People's out there, and we want to push things in new directions and take new approaches to our sound. It's sort of like looking at it as a new band, and that always brings excitement with it.

The Background:

Ah, White Denim. I remember the very day when my love affair with their distinctly deft sounds began.  ‘Twas a chilly October night last year.  I was at the El Rey, seeing Portugal. The Man for the first time (read about my second time seeing them in Anaheim here!).  Unsuspectingly, I stood in waiting, only to be blindsided by the opening act of all opening acts: White Denim (duh). I was sure to pick up a cd after the show, so humbly packaged in a paper sleeve.  This album, which would soon change my life if, I may be appropriately melodramatic, was 2010’s Last Day of Summer. The band released this album last year online for free, which is basically the musical equivalent of handing out Ferraris for free. No big.

On their second album, North Carolina natives EAR PWR’s sophomore effort explores an expansive set of auditory contours and certain themes that are due to the growth in their songwriting. Devon Booze’s homemade synthesizers make their debut on the duo’s self-titled follow up to 2009’s Super Animal Brothers III.

The album opens up with Booze-led synths on “Mountain Home.” The synths are the lynchpin of the record and this track helps set the tone of what’s to come. Sarah Reynolds’ vocals are the perfect compliment to what sounds like an 8-bit Nintendo background, which isn’t a bad thing. Booze’s homemade instruments are very innovative and provide the backdrop for this terrific indie dance-pop number. It is one of best opening tracks I’ve heard in sometime.

From the few bars of a radio request to a recommendation from your ultra-hip friend, we are constantly barraged with new music - but how can we find time to sift through all of it to find what’s good? In this post, BestNewBands.com will save you time and energy by highlighting some talented artists whom you might not know, but will grow to love.

Penguin Prison: Not much is known about the one-man band that is Penguin Prison. He is known only by his stage name anywhere he’s mentioned online, and he’s from New York City. Oh, and he makes kaleidoscopic, 80’s-inspired techno pop that indulges both the hipster and inner teenybopper in all of us. Play “The Worse It Gets” or “Something I’m Not” anytime you want to feel like it’s Friday night.

 

Now that fall term at the University of Oregon has started, Eugene’s WOW Hall is full, once again, of students not yet ready to leave summer behind. Club kids couldn’t complain, though, as last night’s sold-out show brought EOTO’s Dubstep Tour to town, and with it a slew of techno-trippin’, dub-steppin’ artists ready to ring in the new season.