Interesting news from New Haven's own The Mountain Movers on their new site:"We started a record label called “Car Crash Avoiders”. This label is putting out our new record called “The Day Calls Out For You”. We’re also wrapping up LP number four. It’s a record about a mystical place called Apple Mountain.
We’re playing some new songs at Neverending Books on State St. in New Haven on November 21st. 8PM or so."
Last night I saw The Stoned Ambassadors and Wooden Shjips at Cafe Nine. The place was packed with flannel and beards, as expected. The Ambassadors sort of had a Brian Jonestown Massacre vibe going on - dark shades and groovy 60s styled songs. The singer wore shades and played a big red hollow body. He wasn't really singing, giving more of a deadpan delivery, but it was still a real nice set.
Deathconciousness by Have A Nice Life arrived a few weeks ago. I've sat and brooded and thought; and I finally feel like I've thoroughly digested this one enough to write about it.
So how does it sound? On the surface, the music is all the things I love about bedroom recordings: reverbed out vocals, fuzzy guitars and pounding lo-fi drumming. Digging a bit deeper you'll find the dreampop sensibilities are supported by atonal drop-d metal riffs and razor-sharp vocal wit. Each song is minimalistic to it's approach, but remains very calculated from start to finish. There's a lot of crafting that went into each song, and it definately shows. Take "The Big Gloom" for instance - it's heartfelt lyrics drive the song through the beginning, but when the drums kick in, it's pure bliss that drives it home - it builds and builds until it's a wash of beautiful sound.
The album was released through their own label, Enemies List. You should keep your eye on them for some up and coming bands. It's really shocking that something like this is coming out of Middletown! You can buy the record direct from Enemies List if there are any copies left, or you could go with a digital download. Whatever your media preference, you should be snapping this up ASAP.
Don't forget that tonight, Wooden Shjips is playing at Cafe Nine. Don't miss this one, folks. But if you do, they're playing at The Elevens in Northampton tomorrow, so that's not too far of a drive... Make sure you see them though, since this is their first East Coast tour!
~photo by C. Taylor Crothers
Ok, so I was digging through some record bins and stumbled across this - it's a compilation of local CT musicians from the 80s. I bought this with really good intentions, and I was more than surprised by what I heard. The compilation is a ton of bands doing all kinds of varied 80s new wave tunes. A lot of it is synth-driven cheesiness in the best possible way - Cyndi Lauper styled girl-pop, Flock of Seagulls esque keyboard parts - you name it, it's here. It's very different from the It Happened... But Nobody Noticed compilation independisc put out while that's got a very ragged, 80s punk edge; this comp has smoother and more radio-friendly artists.
The compilation was released in 1987, and put together by a guy named Dan Foster, who I found on myspace. I'm sure some readers will remember him from back then. He was in the Phil Fingerz Band (pictured left), who have a track on the comp. For those of you playing along at home, Phil Fingerz played in a ton of local bands, including the Subdueds and The Sabres. That's a lot to keep track of, but if you watched the IHBNN documentary, you might find things a little easier to follow. Since then, Dan's been playing bass with a ton of bands all around the USA, and has been self-producing a bunch of albums."I've always had a great love of music passed down to me from both my parents, although they weren't musicians. From a family of 7 kids, I'm the only musician. I didn't start playing until I was 20 years old, I knew several young musicians from my home town and wanted to get into it, it seemed like a great way to meet and impress girls, especially since I was shy around them. That's basically it.
What got me into doing the compilation record was the fact that being that I was playing the New Haven club circuit for several years, I noticed that there were many talented bands out there. Then, one year at Christmas, I received a book from my older sister entitled "How to make & sell your own record," I still have it! That sparked the idea to put out a compilation of some of the great bands I was seeing. My plan was to continue it and put out more volumes of it in the future but as I learned during the marketing process, one record store owner summed it up in 4 words: "compilation records don't sell". He was right, it never sold enough to even pay for itself, nonetheless it was a great learning experience for me and I met some real nice folks throughout the state.
The CT live music scene sadly died probably around the early 80's due to 2 factors:
1) The state raised the drinking age from 18 to 21
2) The police started really cracking down on drunk driving
Before that, the nightclubs were prospering greatly. you could go to most any club and it would be packed with people partying and having a great time. There were tons of great bands, touring cover bands and just a great live music scene. Once that drinking age went up, the scene went downhill quick, clubs went out of business, band payscales went down, many places just stopped having live music.""Today, I am still playing, in fact, last night I did a gig opening up for national country artist Randy Houser in a big club at the oceanfront in Virginia Beach. I've been a rock & roller for 30 years and have played in several rock bands down here. I've put out 3 cd's since I've been here which has been 8 years now. 2 cd's with a rock band I put together called Concrete Sky, I produced both records. I also did a Jazz cd called Jazz X which I also produced. I'm very proud of the music that I've done since moving here.
More recently, I've been asked to play with 2 rising country stars here. I've never been a country music fan but since learning more than 3 sets of country cover songs and a long set of country originals, it has really grown on me. Country music is more popular down here, with the young and old. Since playing with these country acts, I've played the biggest shows of my career, last month I did a show at a local navy base in front of over 8,000 fans!
The music scene is way better down here. The local musicians complain about how bad it is, that's when I tell them "If you think this is bad, just move to CT! Or you go to LA and pay to play."
I love music and expect to be playing until I'm dead, after that I hope to jam out with Jimi Hendrix, that's gonna be a helluva show, don't miss it!"
The Needle Drop posted a live set from Holiday Shores when they performed at The Space in Hamden last week. Check it out here.
Fake Babies, MT Bearington, Eula, Etta Place, If Jesus Had Machine Guns, and Seafire will all be at a FREE HOUSE SHOW in New Haven on Halloween. If you know anything about the small indie scene that exists in CT you'll know this is a rare stack of CT indie elite. IMO, this might be the best show of the night, ranging from shoegaze (Etta Place) and funk (Seafire) to dirty electronic beats (Fake Babies) this should quench everyone and anyone's thirst. Free show, $2 Dollar Beers and 6 bands, what more do you want?
Thursday, Oct 29th will be the last Surf Nite of 2009. It's going to be a killer Halloween show featuring Zen Dudes & The Universe and North Shore Troubadours. This one's free, folks! Head on down to the fantastic Two Boots in Bridgeport to get your fix.
No party to go to on Halloween night? Well the guys and girls at The Space have your back with The Dear Hunter and Annuals. So toss on a costume, put "Thriller" in your tape deck and come on down to this show.
Get ready for a Halloween party at the Artspace Underground featuring New Jersey-based indie rockers Lima Research Society and local electronic pop band The Simple Pleasure. DJ Sofia Cavallo will also be spinning some tracks, and modern classical composer Casey Mullen will be offering up a mysterious art "happening" that you will have to see to find out more. Check out the facebook event for more details.ArtSpace Underground, $5, 8 -11pm, all ages
Remember to wear a pink costume so everyone will know you support breast cancer awareness.
The back of Cold Snap's photocopied folded-piece-of-paper-as-CD-cover reads, "This is the demo we recorded in 2008. Since then we've evolved from ape to man." Apes are still cool, though, and their bone crushing strength is definitely nothing to mess with. Ditto this demo. There's nothing groundbreaking going on, but no bullshit either. They save the best for last and then without any hesitation drive straight off a cliff into a pit of noise. It's not the self-indulgent crap you'd expect, just a simple case of the film getting too hot in the projector and burning up.
We here at CT Indie have just gotten our hands on a fat stack of local records, and have a bunch more coming in this week, so expect a lot of reviews to be hitting the site real soon. From metal to pop, from brand new to retro - and everything in between, there's a lot of stuff to sift through here, so bear with us as we dig through the pile and find some shining gems.
Manic Productions Presents:
Popular progressive power pop* band The Dear Hunter will be at The Space on Oct 31st with pop band Annuals. The Dear Hunter has just released their latest album, the third in a six album series: Act III: Life and Death. Their albums all tell the ongoing story about the birth, life, and abrupt death of a boy, known only in the story as "The Dear Hunter." Also playing will be local indie rockers The Ghost Sonata.
San Francisco trance-rockers Wooden Shjips will embark on their first ever string of shows on the East Coast of the US in October 2009. The band will play a show at Cafe Nine in New Haven on October 27th with Brooklyn's psychedelic mind benders The Stoned Ambassadors. It's going to be a night of wild soundscapes and weirdness of all kinds.
I talked to lead singer/guitarist Ripley of Wooden Shjips a little about the upcoming show, and it turns out he's a super nice guy:
R: Well, when we arrive in a particular town or city we usually have no idea what the venue is like, who the promoter is, what the crowd will be like, where we're staying for the night, etc... So you have to be open to whatever transpires. I guess a good example would be when we played Estonia this past June. We had two shows there. The first was in Talinn, in their modern art museum, which was a really stunning modern building. Very up-scale. A few hundred people, most of them shockingly beautiful and dressed to the nines. Great show, everyone danced. Next night we played a birthday party in the woods in the countryside. When we arrived in the afternoon it appeared everyone had been tripping for hours, some naked, covered in mud, swimming, stumbling, drinking, smoking. In the middle of nowhere. Quite a different experience. Both amazing shows and complete surprises.
R: I currently use: MXR Distortion+, MXR Phase 100, Electro Harmonix Memory Man, Klon Centaur and Real McCoy Custom wah.
Sunday Oct. 25th
Saturday, Oct 24th Suburban Home Recordings artists Mike Hale, Joey Cape and Jon Snodgrass making a stop in New Haven during their extensive tour. They bring DIY punk ethics to folk music.
For the select few that don't know him, Malcolm Tent is a local legend. He's the brains behind Trash American Style, which was once CT's hottest record shop, and is now CT's hottest mobile record shop. Chances are if you ever set foot in that place, you knew who he was - an instantly recognizable personality that would chat with you for hours about obscure records, old punk bands; really anything at all. His list of accomplishments are pretty staggering: he plays in experimental punk band Ultrabunny, and he plays brash acoustic solo shows. He hosts the fantastic Mr. Tent's Wild Ride radio show on WNHU 88.7 FM. He also features pretty prominently in I Need That Record, a phenomenal documentary by Brendan Toller, which examines the closing of local record stores all over the country, but focuses on New England.
JH: So between the records, the shows, and the radio, where do you find the time to do everything?
Ultrabunny will be playing at the Heirloom Arts Theater on October 17. They're known for their wild stage antics, so it should be a really insane night. Also on the bill are old school 80s hardcore legends 76% Uncertain, young punks Loud Youth, Fighting Cocks (Philo Cramer, ex member of FEAR), and grunge punks Ovlov. All Ages, 7pm, $5.
Neon Indian is the project of 21-year-old Alan Palomo, and he's all the rage across the internet. His 80s styled danceable lo-fi pop is taking the blog world by storm, and his new Psychic Chasms EP is getting a ton of great press. Pitchfork rated it an 8.6
Brooklyn-based Body Language have been burning holes in NYC dance floors all year long, playing w/ Passion Pit, School of Seven Bells, Theophilus London, We Have Band, Ninjasonik & Jimmy Edgar. Their new 5 track EP “Speaks” is out now on Moondgadget Records.
