Links:
Viva’s Homepage: http://www.vivamusic.info/live/
Viva on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/vivadeconcini

Viva DeConcini and her back up band released Rock & Roll Lover in mid-July.

Rock & Roll Lover is good, girl-fronted, girly-centric fun rock and roll. Many tasty ingredients make their way into this gumbo of a record.  The title track is a bouncy, funky, danceable song that should appeal to the rockabilly kids in the crowd, as should “Go-Go Boots,” and her instrumental cover of Carole King’s/ Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman.”

DeConcini’s vocals are skilled and show a plethora of influences. She goes from fun and flirty to slow and serious in the span of the record. Her voice seems better suited for the upbeat tracks more than the solemn track “Emily.”

The strings are mainly well-crafted blues and rock guitar with some late 60s Brit-psyche.  Nothing about the bass and drums stand out too much; the focus stays on Viva’s voice, the guitars and horns. Horns? Yes! Viva employed the services of a full horn section in this her release, and apparently takes a 4-piece with her on tour.

Rock and Roll Lover is over all a good record, a solid record.  It is not, however, a fascinating listen. I have always had the opinion that when a musical outfit plays a little bit of everything on a single record (for this record, it would be a psychedelic rock song, a few upbeat rockabilly-new swing songs, and an instrumental Motown cover, etc), they prove themselves to be a great studio band. They do not prove themselves to be a good independent band with their own sound.

Where the band may lack in a sound that they own, they make up for in playing decent songs. Overall, Rock & Roll Lover is a fun record to relax to and have as background music, or to see at a festival or show; not a band to make a point of seeing based on the contents of this record alone.

RIYL: Stray Cats, Motown records, Ani DiFranco, any alternative-Grrrl music, David Bowie, neo swing music.

Links:
Viva’s Homepage: http://www.vivamusic.info/live/
Viva on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/vivadeconcini

Viva DeConcini and her back up band released Rock & Roll Lover in mid-July.

Rock & Roll Lover is good, girl-fronted, girly-centric fun rock and roll. Many tasty ingredients make their way into this gumbo of a record.  The title track is a bouncy, funky, danceable song that should appeal to the rockabilly kids in the crowd, as should “Go-Go Boots,” and her instrumental cover of Carole King’s/ Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman.”

DeConcini’s vocals are skilled and show a plethora of influences. She goes from fun and flirty to slow and serious in the span of the record. Her voice seems better suited for the upbeat tracks more than the solemn track “Emily.”

The strings are mainly well-crafted blues and rock guitar with some late 60s Brit-psyche.  Nothing about the bass and drums stand out too much; the focus stays on Viva’s voice, the guitars and horns. Horns? Yes! Viva employed the services of a full horn section in this her release, and apparently takes a 4-piece with her on tour.

Rock and Roll Lover is over all a good record, a solid record.  It is not, however, a fascinating listen. I have always had the opinion that when a musical outfit plays a little bit of everything on a single record (for this record, it would be a psychedelic rock song, a few upbeat rockabilly-new swing songs, and an instrumental Motown cover, etc), they prove themselves to be a great studio band. They do not prove themselves to be a good independent band with their own sound.

Where the band may lack in a sound that they own, they make up for in playing decent songs. Overall, Rock & Roll Lover is a fun record to relax to and have as background music, or to see at a festival or show; not a band to make a point of seeing based on the contents of this record alone.

RIYL: Stray Cats, Motown records, Ani DiFranco, any alternative-Grrrl music, David Bowie, neo swing music.

Links:
Band home: http://vimeo.com/9746894
Band MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/demander

Released in January of this year, Future Bright is an entire butt-load of fun. It’s a collection of somewhat simple yet rather punchy, energetic, aggressive pop tunes. Compared to their 2 earlier releases, the Future Bright LP is brighter and more experienced, while increasing the energy and focus. Demander practically requires crowd sing-along.  Obviously well rehearsed for the studio, Demander has to be a lot of fun live. I get the feeling many babies will be made listening to this record. I hope it was released with a disclaimer.

I’d be a bit surprised if they don’t get approached for radio and television video rotation.  This band would have enjoyed as much rotation on MTV’s120 Minutes as Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails had they existed 20 years ago. The alternative and indie labels should be ashamed of themselves for not beating down Demander’s door for publishing rights. Ashamed. Tsk.

Karen Correa sings and plays bass, Sian Harlap beats the drums like they deserve it, Jared Scott plays guitar. Included in the album are a whole host of guest artists. Go to their website to get the list.

The title track, “Future Bright” provides ice dynamic- break down with bass and drums, moving to piano chords, then on to high-distortion guitars with a definite industrial metal feel, and finally ends up in string section with myriad parts playing together. Honestly, it sounds more like a description for Norwegian black metal music than for power op, but I assure you it’s true. Karen’s sultry vocals reign throughout the track.

The fifth song, “Math” comes in at a brisk 2 ½ minutes long, with plenty of punch in the bass and bouncing steady drums. The guitars sound like Johnny Mars chords and strumming. Sing along vocals with repetitive chorus and guitar hooks and sounds. Check out the video link below.

“Coulee” has more fun guitar hooks and great vocal textures. It’s a dynamic piece, with slow crescendos and quick drops in the tempo. “Rising” is similar, but with almost steady energetic driving beat.

The production is good, showing some skeelz in the recording studio. The bright, energetic, and dynamic sound lends itself very well to the power pop and alternative rock that Demander delivers. With strong and breathy vocals, Karen sounds as if she were born for the role. The bass is strong and driving providing the backbone of the rhythm, and the guitars show a wealth of ability. The drums are full of highs and high-mids in the playback which is damned-near perfect for the album.

RIYL: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Killers, Strokes, Archers of Loaf.

Check out the “Math” video:
http://vimeo.com/9746894

Links:

Look Mexico! On MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lookmexico
Look Mexico! On FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Look-Mexico/16634892739
Suburban Home Records: http://www.suburbanhomerecords.com/

Look Mexico! come from the capital of Florida, Tallahassee.  Their newest studio effort comes from Suburban Home Records, To Bed, To Battle.  This is their second LP and fourth release all told.

To Bed, To Battle comes so close to being a really good album. It really does. Sappy vocals on top of alt-punk music is usually a given for me that I will really like it. The record has some good songs with great parts, but no great songs.  It’s very much a music version of the “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls” movie- coming from good roots, expectations high, but falling short. Sigh.

The first track on the LP, called “You Stay. I go. No Following.” Is a strong track, maybe the strongest. The drawn-out chords and keyboards contrast the artistic drumming. The song fits the vocals, which are mostly drawn out like the slide guitars.  Slide guitars? Yes. I’m reviewing an alternative rock album with slide guitars. There is a hell after all.

Another track called “Take it Upstairs, Einstein” is not so strong.  I think what set it off burning into the deep end was the tail end of the hook, “…my girl says I should read more, but I like playing my guitar.” Really. Sigh. Again.  The track is primarily the acoustic guitar and (god- again) the electric slide guitar.

As a whole, the vocals remind me quite a bit of Engine Down (from around 2002′s Demure” with slightly less range. The guitars fall somewhere between The Strokes, Engine Down,  Idlewild, and maybe even INXS from around the time of Shabooh Shoobah. The drums stand out as rather imaginative, strong, and well produced. The LP is decent alternative rock for uppity alternative rock fans. There is an impressive number of instruments appearing on the album, showing good skill and variety, and it all ties into a pretty record over all. Slide guitars and even a hint of twang in vocals are almost always a deal killer, though.

RIYL: alternative rock,  Strokes, INXS, REM.

Links:

Haunted Stereo on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/hauntedstereomusic
And their homepage: http://hauntedstereo.co.uk/
SoTones Records: http://www.sotones.co.uk/

Not calling the single a “single,” Haunted Stereo consider the release a “double A-side” release. Regardless of the species, it will be released on May 17^th. Spooky  experimental alt-folk ensemble from across the lake, this time the Mediterranean beachfront property of Southampton, England. This of course an inaccurate description of the city. I digress.

Haunted Stereo, a 6-piece group (how the hell do you fit 6 people with folk instruments on a stage?). According to their Facebook page, they have been creating and playing since 2007; and as evidenced by their release, have been doing it rather well. Only 2 songs on the release, but its chock full of goodness. “Lock the Doors,” borrowing a hint of a groove from the Peter Gun theme, and filling in the spaces with strings and thin vocals, is atmospheric and sultry. The male vocalist reminds me ever-so-slightly of Thom Yorke of the virtually unknown act Radiohead. Country-lounge music with dynamic hoe-down breakdowns, with absolutely no twang. That’s what makes much of American folk, country, and bluegrass shitty- the southern twang on vocals. Its so very refreshing to hear folk with no twang.

The other A side, (whatever), “On a Pin,” features female lead vocals. Violins, plucky banjo arpeggios, plinking pianos and warm drums picking up halfway through the track. The vocal breakdown at about 3 minutes in is just downright pretty without getting into Enya territory. Thankfully.

Very interesting listen, would very like to see them if they ever sail across the lake. Looking forward to more releases.

RIYL: The Builders and the Butchers, Pogues

Links:

Surfer Blood on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/surferblood
Kanine Records Home Page: http://kaninerecords.com/

Surfer Blood bring forth from the blue-green sea foam a sound not wholly original, yet still updated enough to call their own. Mixing in ’60s vocal styling, Indie-Rock/Brit-Power Pop guitar and drum hooks, a Surf-Rock feel (surprise), and even some British-influenced Shoegaze all at once. So, dispensing with the sea of music labels (a water pun… way too many more to come), let’s leave the lake bed and get to the substance of the album, shell we?

The record for the most part is a solid album, not allowing itself to be drugged out in the undertow of experimentation that makes many bands sound like just a studio band, yet able to play music in a hundred different styles but never having their own. Too many musicians reach for this in their first couple of bands as they search like lifeguards for a sound.  This being said, there is a single track that seems a bit out of place, awash in the band’s appreciation for British Shoegaze — a little ditty called “Harmonix.” Using guitar harmonics and arpeggios, spilling over mechanic drums , this track is more than a simple wave to early ’80s Cure.

The other tracks on Astro Coast are less of a direct borrowing , and more original in arrangement. Tracks of mention are “Anchorage” and “Catholic Pagans.”  The former track comes out noisy and poppy, diving right in with drums and ringing brass. The reverb guitars pour in and maintain a Beach Boys-meet-The-Smiths feel. Spilling on top of this are the echoic vocals evaporating and condensing over the 6+ minute voyage. The later track seeps in with ’60s ballad arpeggios and some guitar processing, and a vocal structure that is at once poppy and basic washes in to keep our appetites wetted.

According to the band’s MySpace page, Surfer blood swim in from Palm Beach, Florida. Meeting in their freshman year of college, Astro Coast was recorded in their dorm rooms, and this involved spending their college scholarship money to do so.  They will be spending the first part of the new year touring in support of the new album.

Bad water pun count: 16. yeah. Drink it in.

Links:

Jezus Factory: http://www.jezusfactory.com/
Sukilove on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/sukilove

Sukilove is great Belgian art-pop/blues-based alternative rock, not too far removed from The Only Ones , the Walkmen, and Radiohead. Static Moves is a bouncy, bass-heavy artsy alternative album. The production is deep and overly-full; the bass is so powerful it drones a bit and becomes the ambience, the vehicle to carry the remainder of the music and vocals. Keyboards and sustained guitars accompany the echoing vocals and back-ups.

The LP is an interesting listen; sporadic, intense, and unafraid to let the music play out a bit; the tracks are balanced and produced together giving a definite theme to the release. The only drawback to this notion is that one is almost drawn to consider the whole album, not the individual tracks; this will make things difficult for the band if they are trying to get a track onto the radio for exposure.

The track “Rebel” has an intensity that grabs hold right away and doesn’t let go easily. “Fear” has a rambling, grooving backbone to it driven by a nice bass line, and the line “We’re all just meat, we’re all just waiting to die” repeating over and over adds a psychedelic feel to the track.

Links:

65daysofstatic homepage: http://www.65daysofstatic.com/
Monotreme Records: http://www.monotremerecords.com/

In a series of performances supporting a virtually unknown band from England called The Cure (has anyone ever  heard of them?), 65daysoftatic recorded a number of tracks that appear on Escape from New York, from the Madison Square Gardens and Radio City Music Hall gigs.

65dos is an instrumental, electronic, alternative math post-rock band hailing from England. Falling somewhere in intensity between Aphex Twin and The Prodigy, the band uses heavy doses of vocal and noise sampling, distorted guitars, synthesizers and 808 drums (techno fans will understand that reference) to pack its release full of sound. Powerful, in-your-face, and rather well-crafted, 65dos apparently plays out with intensity not often seen in this genre.

One track that really sticks in my head is “Retreat! Retreat!” The equivalent of the chorus to this song is a great repeating melody that sounds like it is the music from some of the great melodic post-hardcore bands. The notable exception, of course, would be the lack of vocals and presence of electronic samples.

So many electronic bands have so much in common, and fans just accept this fact. This is fine, except that if one has a few releases in the genre, one really needn’t buy more than that; they’ve heard it all. 65daysofstatic is a rare exception to this group. The genre also doesn’t tend to lend itself well to live performances, but this release is a powerful testament to what can be done.

Other tracks to check out would be “Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here” (one of the best song titles I’ve ever heard), “No Use Crying Over a Little Techno,” and “Fix the Sky a Little.”

Anyway,  their new EP, Can’t Stop Not Knowing,” is a fine little gem. Frantic and powerful, the tracks are packed good hooks and harmonies. Radish does well to mix the dance beats with rock beats; they blend rather well.

The New Loud features Jessi on keyboards, Shane on the guitar, Radish Beet (nice name!) on drums, and they all contribute to vocals. Check out their great live performance at the Chicago Dark Room on their MySpace page. Jessi’s screech comes out of nowhere and almost made me pee a little. The folks of The New Loud took time out of their busy schedule of scaring children and elderly people to answer a few questions for us, for which we are obviously grateful.

Link: http://www.myspace.com/thenewloud and http://the-new-loud.blogspot.com/

Your album Can’t Stop Not Knowing was mixed by Mark Trombino(producer of a few Jimmy Eat World and Blink 182 releases, and former member of Drive Like Jehu). What was it like working with someone with those credentials?

Working with Mark is great. He was our was our first choice for mix engineers. After we got his contact info, we sent him some demos of the tracks and he was really into them. The EP mixes sound amazing and we just finished up the LP mixes right now. We love the way everything has turned out. From the outset we intended for both releases to sound different from one another as we didn’t want to make it seem like we recorded 15 songs total and put 5 over here and 10 over here. We wanted each release to have its own sound and atmosphere. Mark definitely delivered on that front. The LP sounds very different from the EP. Both equally good, but very different from one another.

As Mark is in CA, it would’ve been nice to fly out for the mixes, but being a totally independent, self-released band, we just didn’t have any budget for it, so all correspondence has been through e-mail.  We have a pretty strong vision of how things should sound in terms of relative levels and Mark is totally cool when we send him revisions. As we finished up the last of the LP revisions, Jessi jokingly mentioned that we shouldn’t tell Mark the disc is done and keep sending him fake revisions for the LP, even after it is pressed so we can still keep in contact with him – LOL!

According to your blogspot site, you’ve been on a number of tours, including a bad night in NYC. I’ll let readers visit your site to read up on what transpired, but has anything changed in your touring  strategy in light of the events from that night?

Since our last West Coast tour in 2007, our tour strategy has been to slow down a bit and focus on the back-to-back release of our upcoming EP/LP. You hear so many people talk about how touring and playing live is where bands are making their living as music sales decline, but the reality is that the market is completely over-saturated when it comes to lesser known touring bands. Trying to get a foothold when you’re an unknown consumes tons of resources, both in terms of time and money. Over the years we’ve tried to adapt the philosophy of ‘working smarter not harder’. We love playing live and we are definitely up for touring, especially as we consider the intensity of our live performance to be one of the band’s biggest strengths. At the same time, we are less inclined to play shows for the sake of playing shows, hoping that the press around the releases creates an environment where touring makes more sense.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin isn’t really known for it’s powerful music, especially the kind you deliver. What local influences do you cite, if any?

Between 1999-2003 I worked doing sound at a small, 100 person capacity venue called The Cactus Club in Milwaukee. One of the best and, at the time, one of the only places where more underground bands were coming to Milwaukee besides basements. Over those years I saw/ran-sound-for a bunch of different great live bands including The White Stripes, Bright Eyes, The Faint, Cursive, Zen Guerilla, Lonesome Organist, Bad Wizard, Wanda Jackson, etc. Seeing those bands play their sets in the same venue that we play our shows was totally inspiring.

What would be your ideal venue to play- hall size, bands to play with, event to play, etc?

After playing however many shows we’ve played over the years, I can say, positively, that the venue size/shape/capacity/bill doesn’t matter to us at all. The only thing that matters is if there are people there who are getting into the music. Without an interested crowd, its like playing into a vacuum in deep space. A lot of times I go to shows, especially smaller shows and the crowd is just standing there. Even if they’re into the band, they just stand still. I’m not sure what happened over the years, but audiences both larger and smaller seem to be losing their energy. I think a lot of people don’t understand that when you go and see a band play live, despite the band being on stage and the crowd being on the floor, there is a definite interaction that happens. It begins with the band, but the energy should bounce back and forth between the stage and floor. When the crowd is interested, but unresponsive, energy levels drop significantly. Its like trying to play tennis without another person on the other side of the net to volley the ball back. Sure you can hit the ball as hard as possible, but if its not being hit back, most, if not all of the purpose is lost. I think as people use computers for more and more of their entertainment, we are all losing our sensitivity to pick up on this exchange of energy.

How much planning was put into covering the Radiohead song ’2+2=5′?  Did it just come out one day in practice, or was there a specific idea you had before hand?

The song was originally released on a Radiohead tribute compilation in which we did the mix for it. When it was set that Mark Trombino was going to mix our releases, we decided to include our interpretation on the EP.

For the tribute, we were given a list of possible songs to use. Jessi initially was shooting for the song ‘Lucky’, as it is one of her favorites, but when I heard it under the pretense of covering it, my mind was blank. We listened to a few more tracks and upon listening to ’2 + 2 = 5′ I immediately had ideas for how to re-work the song into something that I thought was both different and representative of The New Loud. Sometimes people are more receptive to cover songs from newer band’s than originals, so int he event that was going to be the case, I wanted this to not just be a cover of ’2 + 2 = 5′, but I also wanted this to be The New Loud, as a band, in a 2.5 minute microcosm, showcasing as many of our strengths as possible. We wanted incorporate my vocals and Jessi’s vocals, both as their own entities and in harmony. We wanted to have singing vocals, softer floatier parts, as well as gang shouts. We wanted to incorporate Radish Beat’s use of both electro drums and live drums and have the rhythm parts range from something groove oriented with deep dub-ey bass to something super aggressive with thrash drums and saw tooth bass. We wanted to add melodic keyboard parts as well as filter noise keyboard parts. We made sure to not do anything we wouldn’t incorporate into one of our own songs which is why we decided to skip the arpeggiated guitar part in the beginning, instead substituting a more random keyboard sequence and almost progressive bass line.

All in all I think we did exactly what we set out to do. Mark’s mix on the EP really gave the whole track focus and consistency which was missing from the tribute CD version.

On your press release you mention that some songs on  Can’t Stop Not Knowing had 60-80 tracks that were used in the songs. When playing these tracks out, do you bring all the tracks with you, do you set them up on site, or do you do without?

We travel with an Alesis Masterlink, a hard disc recorder with just a L/R output. We have all the sequences mixed to the left channel and a click track in the right channel. We’ve mixed all our bass and some keyboard and vocal effects into the sequence channel. We’re trying to get as close as possible to the CD, but we still want to bring as much live playing to the audience as possible. Except for a couple parts none of the drums or percussion sounds are sequenced, Radish just plays all of that live between acoustic drums and electronic drum pads. I play all the guitar live and Jessi plays as much keyboard as possible. We haven’t started sequencing any vocal parts except for effects, yet, but in the future we may try and layer some of the bkg. parts so they’re more full sounding. Live we’re relying more on the intensity of performance, plus at the stage we’re at you don’t want to make anything too complicated for whoever is running the sound, as in smaller venues the sound engineers can be pretty spotty at best.

How has media attention affected your playing, your reception at shows? 8. How, if at all, has professional representation changed the band?

Getting the band’s name out there definitely helps. Its opened some new doors for us, for instance we played CMJ this past year which is positive, despite the forced brevity of our performance – LOL! Fingers crossed we get into SXSW, but you never know. Everything is all about what kind of connections you can build and having press and professional representation of some kind definitely helps with that. Aside from having legal and PR representation the band continues to be totally self funded/released/managed. We are looking to retain as much control as possible, so, we have not even pursued any labels at this point and probably won’t. Management is something that may interest us in the future, in order to let go of some of the day-to-day which would leave us more time to focusing on the most important part of the band which is creating new, interesting music.

Based on the number of releases you’ve put out, the band is relatively young. How long has the band been together, and what influences drew you each to one another?

Individually The New Loud is influenced by a huge variety of different bands and styles – everything from new wave/post punk to dub/reggae to hip hop/R&B to punk/hardcore to 90′s indie to African and more. The New Loud as a band is trying to blend all the elements we love about all the disparate genres and create something that sounds like a cohesive group. Radish and I formed The New Loud in 2001 as a power pop band working on writing good, catchy songs. When Radish added the electronic pads and kick drum to his acoustic drum set, and we added Jessi on keyboards in 2004, it was to open up our options. We didn’t want to relegate ourselves to just playing ‘guitar rock’. In 2007, we adopted the sequences to further branch out. We don’t want to sound like a new wave band or a punk band or a R&B band, but we want to use some of the elements that identify those archetypes. After all I don’t really think the world needs another caricature of a ‘hardcore’ or ‘reggae’ band – what we need is something we haven’t heard yet. Something new is out there and we can’t stop not knowing what it is.

Links:

Beaten Awake on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/beatenawake
Fat Possum Records Site: http://www.fatpossum.com/

Very retro early 90s alternative music. Very reminiscent of early British shoegaze alt-rock. Think New Order/Electronic but during their more rock phase, think Lemonheads but mopier, think The Church with a different singer. If this existed when 120 Minutes was still on, Beaten Awake would be in heavy rotation. For our readers under 30, 120 Minutes used to be an alternative rock video show on MTV in the early 90s featuring great alternative bands like Lightning Seeds, Mighty Lemon Drops, Smiths, Beastie Boys, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, etc. For our readers under 25, MTV used to play music videos. For our readers under 20, MTV used to suck a lot less than it does now. For our readers in 3^rd world nations, we have this thing called TV.  But I digress.

Beaten Awake, by their name alone, sounds very much like a hardcore punk band, a la late 80s/early 90s when hardcore got huge in the US. Even the album title Thunder$troke has a great punk-sounding parody name. This group, however, is neither punk rock nor hardcore. Smooth, heavy bass alternative rock with proto-shoegaze influence by the bucketful. Makes me warm and nostalgic inside. Great music to put to a movie soundtrack or to leave on while making out with a bunch of friends in the same room, lights low, hoping your parents stay upstairs just . 10 . more . minutes.

Being composed of members of Harriet the Spy, Party of Helicopters, Man I Fell in Love With and New Terror Class, Ohio’s Beaten Awake have an outstanding musical genome. Artsy, airy alternative rock, this 11-track LP is very listenable. Notable songs to pay attention to would be “Halo V” and “I’m Not Asking for the Moon.”

Thunder$troke is a fine record, deserving to be listened to more than a few times in a row.