You are probably wondering, “Who are these dudes and why are they bothering me?” If you know about Mexican Cheerleader, The Mashers, Lynyrd’s Innards, Apocalypse Hoboken, The Arrivals and countless other offshoots, chances are pretty good these are dudes you know. 5 dudes to be exact. 5 very good looking dudes.
The new LP – Untitled (In The Original It’s Red) will be available for a very limited time on vinyl in June 2015. Be sure to watch The Mons for pre-order info soon.
Ten years ago, in the middle of freezing Chicago blizzard, Chris Mills got together with seventeen of the best musicians he could find to make his fourth album, The Wall to Wall Sessions.
They recorded and mixed the whole album, completely live to tape, the way a lot of Chris’s favorite records were made years ago – no overdubs, no computers, no nonsense.
His co-producer and arranger David Nagler created beautiful orchestral scores for all ten songs that were then played live by Chris’s crack, seventeen piece City That Works band, while engineer Dan Dietrich captured it all in living stereo on a Studer 1/4 inch 2-track tape machine. It was a big undertaking, but what they ended up with was (in Chris’s opinion) one of the best things he had ever done.
The only problem was, even with all of that old-school analog production, the final product ended up in the computer anyway – mastered digitally and then released on CD.
Until now. The 10th Anniversary release of The Wall to Wall Sessions is available very soon on vinyl for the first time ever – newly remastered completely in analog.
An indie rock supergroup of sorts, Camerado’s origins go back nearly six years, when Undertow Music Collective co-founder Mark Ray began writing a new batch of songs after moving to Portland, Oregon from the midwest.
Inspired by the untimely passing of his father and his family’s subsequent journey westward, Ray completed demos of the songs in 2010, sharing them with friend and frequent collaborator, and revered Denton, Texas drummer/producer Matt Pence (Centro-matic, Justin Townes Earl, Midlake), who felt the tracks should be realized as a proper album. Aided by Portland producer/musician John Askew (The Dodos, Richmond Fontaine, Neko Case), the self-titled record was completed in Fall of 2014.
Shimmering with plaintive, pastoral textures, the eponymous album reveals Ray’s love of seminal early 70s work by ELO, Badfinger, and Pink Floyd fused with a lean, Pacific Northwest indie sensibility.
Session Americana (Boston) is a rock band in a tea cup, or possibly a folk band in a whiskey bottle. This band/collective of talented musicians craft an musical experience unlike any other. On stage is a collapsible bar table wired with microphones, a vintage suitcase recast as a kick drum, an old Estey field organ, a pre-war parlor guitar, a mandocello and all of its smaller siblings, a harmonica case fire damaged when Jack’s bar went up in flames and graffitied by Depeche Mode roadies, and an assortment of other instruments that get passed around in this freewheeling modern hootenanny. The anything-could-happen feel of a Session show depends on craft that’s not accidental or easilywon; they bring a kind of ease and genuineness to this timeless music, sometimes presenting the latest batch of original songs, sometimes reaching back into depths of the American “song bag”.
The new album, Pack Up The Circus, was mixed by Paul Q. Kolderie, engineered by Matt Beaudoin and Ry Cavanaugh, recorded at Q Division and Larboard Studios, and mastered by Ian Kennedy at New Alliance Studio.
Since its beginning in late 2012, Seafair has been turning heads and confusing critics who want to place the sextet into a carefully constructed box. The thing is, with six musicians whose backgrounds range from classically trained to punk rock roots, the band can’t be pigeonholed by genre.
From the heavy hitting of drummer Ryan Kelly to the acrobatic guitar and bass lines of Michael Flaherty and Joshua Riehl, the band builds a soundscape that is completely their own. But it is this, with the combination of the trio of women at the band’s epicenter, that make this ensemble more than your typical indie-rock band. Andrea Belding Elson and Tara Hanish blend precise and poignant violin and cello voices amidst the band’s sound, while the presence and strength of frontwoman Chayla Hope makes the experience of seeing Seafair live one that will not soon be forgotten.
In 2014, Seafair took its live performances on the road, from New York to Denver. In Denver, the band recorded its forthcoming album at Black in Bluhm Studio with Chris Fogal. The album, The Querencia, is scheduled for release in May 2015.
Anthonie Tonnon is a songwriter and performer based in Auckland, New Zealand. His new album, Successor, is available now – vinyl purchase includes unlimited streaming as well as a download.
These Columbus, OH shredders have been happening all your life. The tastiest jams this side of the Mississippi just got spread on wax. Get em’ before they gone. Buy here.
Packing 10 brand new songs into just under 34 minutes, The Ruffian’s Misfortune is the tightest and most focused record of Hubbard’s career — it also happens to be his first record pressed on vinyl in more than 30 years! You can pre-order an autographed copy now!
Philadelphia, PA noise rock powerhouse Fight Amputation have returned with their first new record in three years, entitled Constantly Off. Set for release on June 9th, Constantly Off was recorded in August 2014 at Gradwell House Studios in Haddon Heights, NJ with engineer Steve Poponi (Ladder Devils, Fight Amp). You can pre-order one of three limited variants from Brutal Panda Records now.
