Category Archives: indie rock

Music Monday: The Colourist

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colouristThe Colourist

Local artist to: Orange County California

RIYL: Indie Rock, Pop, Echosmith, HAERTS

Touring in Seattle: Friday 4/11/14 at Tractor Tavern

The Colourist first stumbled upon one another in an underused warehouse in Orange County, CA, where Adam and Maya discovered the harmonic chemistry that has come to define the band’s bright and anthemic signature sound.

Having spent much of 2012 honing their live show with the likes of Grouplove, Electric Guest and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., The Colourist begin 2013 holed up in a small studio in Southern California. It’s there that Adam Castilla (vocals, guitar), Maya Tuttle (drums, vocals), Kollin Johannsen (guitar, bass), and Justin Wagner (bass, keys) committed their pop-fueled, indie-bred rock to tape before embarking on their first tour which included appearances at Coachella along with support shows with Metric and Youngblood Hawke and Atlas Genius. source

colourist2

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Music Monday: Parlovr

Music Monday: Fenster

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Music Monday (SXSW edition): Balthazar

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balthazar

local artist to: ghent belgium

riyl: millionaire, the van jets, das pop

balthazar are an alternative pop band, with rock, electro and hiphop influences. they were formed in 2004 in kortrijk-belgium and anticipated their first album with gigs all over europe and a tour in south africa. their debut album “applause” was released march 2010, and both the album as well as their live performances were received with much critical acclaim. source
balthazar is one of my picks for sxsw 2012. check back every monday for a new band to check out at the next sxsw.

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Music Monday: Calhoun

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calhoun

local artist to: fort worth, texas

riyl: blind pilot, pete yorn, doug burr, cataldo, alt-folk-rock

calhoun’s music has been described as catchy, irresistible, gorgeous, melodic, sorta poppy, sorta rootsy, sorta rockin’, and, in general, really splendid music. you can call it what you will, but lead singer tim locke says, “we’re just a pop band.” then he laughingly concedes a nod to the root-rock and alt-country influences that others hear in the band’s music. “well, let’s say we’re just a pop band with a pedal steel thrown in occasionally.” source   

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Music Monday: Cataldo

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cataldo

local artist to: seattle washington

riyl: indie folk rock, ben gibbard, hey marseilles, alexander

cataldo is the recording project of eric anderson. an increasingly consistent though persistently shifty group of musician pals joins him live and in the studio. their music is generally of the “indie” variety–meaning pop/rock/folk which hopefully seems like it was composed by a hard worker with a mild taste for adventure. source

          

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Music Monday: Pet

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pet

local artist to: edinburgh uk

riyl: dreamy guitar pop

the single track ‘what you building?’ is easy to fall in love with with its dreamy sounds and vocals while other songs offer a more garage sound, which i like a lot. i hope to hear much more from this little uk band known as pet.

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Don’t Say Oh Well

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for today’s music monday, i am re-featuring grouplove. i am super psyched for this show tonight at tractor tavern!!! so you should get acquainted with them if you have not already! there have been a few posts on here already like this one…and this one. grouplove is easily my favorite band of 2011 and they were my favorite performance at sxsw. the stateside tour schedule is quite short with the band staying on the west and east coasts over the next few months and lots of overseas dates. i’m also gonna see them at san francisco’s outside lands festival in august! i am giddy and will be front row for tonight’s show. the openers for tonight are walk the moon and people eating people.

Music Monday: Grouplove

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grouplove

local artist to: los angeles california

riyl: the vaccines, modest mouse, yuck

etc: check them out at sxsw 2011! they are playing at the floating fest day party on 3/17 (presented by flying dog brewery and i guess i’m floating ) …which is where i plan to be camped out.

hannah hooper met christian zucconi late one evening on the lower east side of manhattan. they had both been living in new york for years and had never crossed paths before. but from that night forward the two could hardly be pulled apart. soon after their connection hooper was invited to an art residency in greece on the island of crete and hooper insists “without any hesitation” she invited zucconi to join her on this journey. “seriously, we had only known one another for a few days but are both so inspired and alive when we are together that going to greece seemed like a magical and natural thing to do” recalls zucconi.

on crete, in a small remote mountain village, hooper and zucconi met the members of their future band “grouplove” a year before it was officially formed. sean gadd, a natural songwriter and guitar player, born and bred in london instantly bonded with the two eccentric new yorkers. their relationship became apparent through the music they were making day in and day out. andrew wessen, a pro surfer and musician from los angeles and his childhood friend ryan rabin, an accomplished drummer and producer, were also at the residency and quickly joined in with the musical trio. these five musicians make up the members of what we now know as grouplove. (source)

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Music Monday: Astronautalis

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astronautalis

local artist to: seattle washington

riyl: electric president, indie-rock-rapping, radical face

etc: his improv songs at the end of his set are impressive. check him out at sxsw 2011!

it was only after having chosen the name astronautalis for himself while in high school in jacksonville, florida, that the rapper (born andy bothwell) began to make himself heard in the local circuit, winning battles and competing at the scribble jam. though he was known for his witty freestyling, astronautalis’ musical influences and interests fell outside the hip-hop realm, as well, and he performed on the Warped Tour for three years. It was his rhyming, however, that he pursued while studying theater at college in dallas, and in 2003 he self-released his debut, you and yer good ideas (which was sold only at his live shows), with production help from friend and fellow musician ben cooper (from radical face). It wasn’t until two years later that the album was picked up by orlando-based fighting records (who signed him after seeing him perform), which reissued it and then in 2006 released his follow-up, mighty ocean and nine dark theaters, a record that found astronautalis moving away from rapping and more toward shoegazer-inspired indie rock. from last.fm

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Music Monday: The Bears of Blue River

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the bears of blue river

local artists to: chicago illinois

riyl: margot and the nuclear so and so’s, folk rock, edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros

etc: they are playing sxsw next month and are on my must see list!

the bears of blue river are friends with day jobs who that began gathering in the evenings to make silly noises in a dilapidated old apartment with wooden floors. soon they found themselves playing folk diddies dressed up with some bop about them. their roots define them as hoosiers but currently they are split between chicago, indianapolis, and muncie. they are simple folks but with one request…. share the bear!  from last.fm

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Music Monday: The Lemurs

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the lemurs

local artist to: austin texas

riyl: indie rock, golden bear, what made milwaukee famous

etc: i saw this band many times while living in austin and they just keep getting better and better!

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Music Monday: Yuck

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yuck

local artist to: new jersey, hiroshima, london

riyl: cajun dance party, alternative brit rock, the temper trap

etc: since i stumbled upon this band, i can’t stop listening and am psyched to see them in dallas in february and at sxsw in march.

forming little over a year ago, yuck are a band of four people who are sometimes a band of five people. daniel (vocals, guitar) and max (guitar) are from london. mariko (bass) is from hiroshima. jonny (drums) is from new jersey. the part-time fifth member is daniel’s sister ilana who joins him for the harmonies on the album and occasionally live. since the release of georgia, their debut single on transparent in march 2010, yuck have mainly been on tour. they have supported teenage fanclub, modest mouse and times new viking. their most recent single “rubber” was released by pharmacy recording company in october 2010 and remixed by mogwai. when they’re not on tour, yuck make a lot of stuff, like drawings and books and t-shirts. you can see some of these on their blog.  they self-produced and recorded their debut album at home, which will be be released in february on fat possum records/pharmacy recording company. fat possum website

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Music Monday: The High Dials

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exposing unsigned or lesser known bands to the masses…or to the three people that actually read this. today’s band:

the high dials

local band to: montreal canada

riyl: the byrds, the brian jonestown massacre, the morning after girls

etc: alex from the black angels tipped me off to this band about five years ago. i’ve liked em ever since. the song ‘the holy ground’ made me a believer.

photo courtesy of the high dials website

the band started out playing a brand of pop music strongly influenced by 1960s british mod styles, but their sound evolved to become a form of power pop, more influenced by psychedelic music. they released two albums on rainbow quartz records, a new devotion (2003) and war of the wakening phantoms (2005), before releasing their most recent record, moon country (2008) independently. they have toured with fellow neo-psychedelia band the brian jonestown massacre. notably, rod argent, keyboardist of the zombies performed on their song “picture of a fading man” in 2006. in 2007, their song “the holy ground” was featured in a rogers television ad. professed fans of the high dials include steven van zandt and andrew loog oldham. last.fm

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Music Monday: Ortolan

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exposing unsigned or lesser known bands to the masses…or to the three people that actually read this. today’s band:

ortolan

local band to: riverside new jersey

riyl: eisley, au revoir simone


a hot minivan barreling down the highway, filled to the brim with siblings, sleeping bags, and travel checkers sets—this is the setting for a decades-old american tradition upheld by millions: arguing over the radio dial until consensus is happily found at that hallowed institution, the oldies station. thus begins the story of ortolan, four young women from southern new jersey with music-loving, art-teacher parents, devoted to each other in laughter, bickering, love, and play. sisters stephanie (17), brianna (19), lara (21), and sister-in-law jill (24) also happen to create music that is singularly winsome, disarming, and sincere, possessing the same kind of universal appeal of 1950s and ’60s rock and roll, with its earnest abandon and joy in simple and uncluttered gestures. ortolan’s sound is at once familiar and new, a sort of musical déjà vu—where listeners remember that which they are hearing for the first time.

*photo & blurb courtesy of ortolan. listen to their lovely music here.*