Photos: Pegasuses-XL, Deaf Judges, Mighty Erfling @ Drunken Unicorn (6/10/09)
Pegasuses-XL:
Deaf Judges:
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- Posted by Kevin Griggs on June 24, 2009 at 3:07 am
- 1 Comment
Hott Mp3s For The Road: Pegasuses-XL, These Are Powers, Say Hi, SXSW Playlist
Ohmpark hits Austin next week for SXSW
I’m about to hit the pavement hard, so before I leave this blog mostly unattended for a few days, I figured I’d leave y’all some tunes. Plus, I have about 30 new records to listen to on this trip, so I have a feeling I’m going to move on from everything I’m listening to right now after I get back.
Athens’ Pegasuses-XL has released all of their first three EPs together on one album called Electro Agitators. It isn’t exactly the best entry point for a band that at its best is easy to hate, but the more I jam it, the more I find things to love. It is a book of sketches that made the blueprint for one my favourite albums from last year, their debut full-length The Antiphon. They should be dropping another proper full-length later this year and I can’t wait. We Versus The Shark‘s future may be bleak and unclear, but at least there is another Jeff Tobias related project to get excited about. It is hard to choose representative tracks from a band like this, but I’ll try:
Last weekend on my way down to Harvest Of Hope Fest, I listened to both Say Hi‘s Oohs & Aahs and These Are Powers‘ All Aboard Future for the first time. I thought both of them when great, in totally different ways. Neither album will change your life or anything, but they are both extremely solid and were a great soundtrack to my last road trip. Both bands will also be stopping through Atlanta after playing SXSW, and I recommend you go see each of them:
Say Hi : The Starts Just Blink For Us
These Are Powers : Life Of Birds
These Are Power : Glass Blocks
And finally, here is a short playlist of mp3s from bands on top of my list to check out at SXSW, so expect these artists showing up around here in the next week:
Loney Dear : Airport Surroundings
Women : Shaking Hands
White Denim : Don’t Look That Way At It
Wavves : California Goth
Oh No Oh My : Be A Star
Abe Vigoda : The Garden
Crystal Antlers : A Thousand Eyes
Time to head to Savannah and party before heading to Texas. Have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day and I’ll be back late next week with total South By Southwest coverage!
- Posted by Davy Minor on March 14, 2009 at 5:04 am
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The Quest For The Best Albums Of 2008 Continues…
Bambara are playing the Drunken Unicorn tonight (Wednesday)
So I continue to scan through other people’s year end posts and add albums to a very long list of stuff to listen to, but I’m already finding so much good new music. For instance, I just finished listening to Bambara‘s self-titled album for the first time, and it blew me away. The three piece Athens, GA outfit has been playing together for about 7 years, but this is the first release from them as Bambara. I’ll have more on this one upon closer inspection, but give a track a listen and then go see them live tonight:
Pegasuses-XL @ Fest 7.
Another record from Athens I have been extremely impressed with is Pegasuses-XL‘s latest release, The Anitphon. It seems that this album is not getting much love from the various reviews I read and other folks I know that have heard it, but I just can’t get enough. They do the Bloodhound Gang school of rap way more interestingly than Why?, and the keyboard driven atmospheric melodies are juxtaposed by an intense punk streak. There are very few albums that I can think of that can be so avant-garde and so much fun at the same time. Maybe the best record to come out of our sister city all year long:
Pegasuses-XL : Marathon Mansion
Pegasuses-XL : Serious Feelings
Starfucker
Another high quality album that is very fun is the self-titled Starfucker album. This thing is sort of like Peter Bjorn And John meets Ratatat. It is totally a summer jammer, but even in these wintry times I can’t help but to get on their poppy, sunny vibe.
Starfucker : Isabella Of Castile
Pale Young Gentlemen
So another album that I think can be appreciated by just about anyone is Black Forest (tra la la), the new release from Madison, Wisconsin’s Pale Young Gentlemen. The singer has one of those voices that you could draw a comparison to just about any other male vocalist you can imagine. The terrific songwriting is bolstered by lush instrumentation and perfect production resulting in a top shelf indie-pop record.
Pale Young Gentlemen : Coal/ivory
Pale Young Gentlemen : The Crook Of My Good Arm
Fleet Foxes
Ok, so I have been listening to a lot of Fleet Foxes lately because everyone has gone bonkers for these guys this year, but I still feel the way I did upon first listen: They are a good, nice sounding band, but a bit overrated. They are just so conservative and safe and bring absolutely nothing new to the table. When I was listening to the full length album, someone who didn’t know them came in and thought i was listening to Christmas music. There is just an extremely generic quality to this band. In a short dose like Sun Giant it can hold my interest, but there is way too much filler on Fleet Foxes, and that album doesn’t even last 40 minutes. But regardless, there is no denying that this is an amazing song:
Fleet Foxes : White Winter Hymnal
Mount Eerie
Probably the greatest discovery so far in my holiday album dash is Mount Eerie, the most recent moniker of Phil Elverum, formerly The Microphones. The Microphones are one of those bands that I had always heard about, but for some reason I never stumbled across one of their albums. Although, I’ll be making my trek through Elverum’s entire discography very soon because currently three releases Mount Eerie put out this year are in my heavy rotation and all could possibly find their way on to my year end lists. Get hip to this lo-fi hottness:
Mount Eerie : Dawn : Cold Mountain
Mount Eerie w/ Julie Doiron and Fred Squire : Lost Wisdom : Voice In Headphones
Mount Eerie : Black Wooden Ceiling Opening : In Moonlight
Mount Eerie : Dawn : Goodbye Hope
Buy Dawn
Buy Lost Wisdom
Buy Black Wooden Ceiling Opening
- Posted by Davy Minor on December 17, 2008 at 7:31 am
- 3 Comments
The Fest 7: On The Road With Sorry No Ferrari
Gainesville, FL. November 1st-2nd, 2008
The weekend before last, I rode along with Atlanta instrumental rockers Sorry No Ferrari for their performance at The Fest, a punk music festival in Gainesville, Florida. I woke up very early Saturday morning after a long Halloween night to ride along with the three fourths of the band I didn’t really know, but between naps I had plenty of conversation with them about things including music, the history of the band, and barbecue. This was actually the first show with their new drummer, Jonathan Balsamo, so there was lots of getting to know each other between the band as well. We were trying to get to The Fest in time to catch fellow ATLiens Benard, but we got there a few moments too late. So we went to the biggest venue of the fest, which was a bit smaller than Variety Playhouse, to catch Atom & His Package. It was a one-man-punk-band who seems to be a pretty big deal in the punk universe, but very much not my thing.
After that we headed to a tiny venue called 1982 to catch the local Gainesville band whose house we were staying at, Giuseppe. The venue had lots of very old gaming systems hooked up to the TVs on the bar, so I played some Dr. Mario and drink PBRs with the SNF folks for a bit. Giuseppe took the small stage and rocked the house:
After that I jumped around to different venues to see some shows, but didn’t see anything too special. So I joined SNF for some food and drinks and drunken music discussions/debates. The band I was most excited about catching down here was Pegasuses XL, an Athens outfit with ties to We Versus The Shark, and they did not disappoint. I’ve really been enjoying their album, The Antiphon, and I will have more on that in a future post, but here is some eye candy from their epic live set:
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- Posted by Davy Minor on November 11, 2008 at 6:14 am
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I Heart We Versus The Shark (Tour Dates, New Album, Covers)
It took me a while to get into them, but I have totally fallen in love with the Athens, Georgia outfit, We Versus The Shark. If you haven’t picked up their latest album, Dirty Versions, you are seriously missing out. They are able to combine bravura with brilliant song writing. They rock out harder than most bands, but still keep their work artful.
They have also been releasing a cover song for each month of the year for free here at Quote Unquote Records, that will be put together as an album called Murmurmur when they are done with the project. Their latest additions have been covers of Deerhoof and Radiohead, two favs around these parts. Next week I am going to unleash the videos I took from their Athfest performance that blew me away earlier this year. Also, they are heading out on tour this week with Athens supergroup Pegasuses-XL (featuring members of We Versus The Shark and Cinemechanica), who are pretty badass as well. They are both hitting up Georgia Tech Thursday night.
We Versus The Shark & Pegasuses-XL Tour Dates:
Oct 9 – Atlanta, GA @ Under the Couch %
Oct 10 – Birmingham, AL @ Cave 9
Oct 12 – Murfreesboro, TN @ Midnight Mountain
Oct 13 – Bowling Green, KY @ “Revfest” at Western Kentucky University
Oct 15 – Lexington, KY @ Al’s Bar
Oct 16 – St Louis, MO @ Cicero’s ^
Oct 17 – Chicago, IL @ The Moperie
Oct 18 – Hamtramck, MI @ The Beaumont
Oct 19 – Columbus, OH @ Bernie’s Distillery
Oct 21 – Lancaster, PA @ Ad Lib Cafe
Oct 22 – New York, NY @Hello Sir CMJ Party the Bowery Poetry Club
Oct 23 – New Yok, NY @ Ernest Jenning CMJ Party at the Cake Shop
Oct 24 – Brooklyn, NY @ The Silent Barn
Oct 25 – Philadelphia, PA @ Danger Danger Gallery
Oct 26 – Baltimore, MD @ Hexagon
Oct 27 – Lynchburg, VA @ The Bridge
Oct 28 – Greensboro, NC @ UNCG Campus
Oct 29 – Clemson, SC @ Clemson University
Oct 30 – Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge
Nov 1 – Gainesville, FL @ The Fest!
Nov 2 – Gainesville, FL @ The Fest!
% w/ Pattern is Movement
^ w/ So Many Dynamos
We Versus The Shark : Idiotheque (Radiohead cover)
We Versus The Shark : Practical Animal
- Posted by Davy Minor on October 6, 2008 at 4:18 am
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