Anthemic rock is alive and well in Louisville Kentucky. Wax Fang serves up the listener a dish or huge guitar driven epic indie. A blend of almost classic rock with a touch of folk and almost tongue in cheek lyrics with a commanding and powerful vocal delivery. Lead singer Scott Carney barks sweetly, a blend of your parents golden retriever, a drill Sergent and every 70’s English punk band. Beyond this the music is hard to describe, one moment Carney is singing a light melody over a sparkling guitar line, the next we’re assaulted with what feels like one hundred floor toms bashing away at your ear drums. Guitars are looped and relooped, the repetition so so sweet. You can check them out here and two awesome handed picked songs below.

Wax Fang – World War II (Pt. 2)

Wax Fang – The Doctor Will See You Now

Wax Fang – Can You See The Light

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Daniel Zott’s covers of Low, Low, Low By Flo Rida & Crank Dat Soulja Boy by Soulja Boy, have been on my “love making playlist” for a while now…Listening to Zott’s music and seeing Dan’s “doo”… I instantly wanted to know more about this man and where he came from. I mean exactly which American burb birthed this multi-color mohawk sporting, smooth singing, rap covering artiste?

Royal Oak is a suburb of Detroit in the grand state of Michigan. According to the City of Royal Oak.com it is “sometimes called the city of trees”. B-Movie God’s Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead Trilogy) and Sam Raimi (Director & Producer) were both born in Royal Oak, but have since moved on. Eminem was charged for gun possesion in 2000 and Sergei Fedorov failed a breathalyzer in 2001. Since 2000 only 2 known murders have been committed… (*Thank you Wiki)

Young Daniel Zott had posted this on his Myspace page regarding his rap covers…

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Daniel Zott – Low Low Low

Daniel Zott – Crank That Soulja Boy

To see some awesome live footage of our boy Daniel Zott wandering through Detriot check it out here, here and here.

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The infamous Montreal music scene. At one time the home of some incredible bands and the creation of a sound that defined and raised Canadian independent music to the standard it sits at today. Then it was sucked in, chewed up, and spit out by the media hype machine. What began as a genuine and beautifully crafted creative expression quickly deteriorated into a very shitty, very contrived initation, masquerading as the real thing.

“Have you heard that new band from Montreal?”

“No, are they good?”

“I haven’t heard them either, but probably. They’re from Montreal!”

“Cool.”

Now, I don’t want to sound bitter. I LOVE Montreal. It is the absolute bee’s knees. To prove it, I’ll let you know about this great band that calls it home. Out of the ashes of the legacy built by bands like Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, and The Unicorns comes Parlovr.

I instantly liked this band from the first time I listened to their self-titled album. Armed with plenty of poppy hooks, twangy guitars, and mildly strained, up-beat vocals this band will make you bob your head. You might even feel like dancing. Yeah, you probably will want to dance, so make sure you are somewhere with lots of pretty boys/girls when you put this on.

Hiccup! – Parlovr

Sever My Ties – Parlovr

So great music is still being made in Montreal, just like in every other major city in the world. While a person’s surroundings are obviously an influence, how good, or not good, a band is should never be judged by what city it comes from.

And anyone who still doesn’t believe that I love Montreal is welcome to fly me out there and I will gladly show them how much fun it is.

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Wow! As a lover of all things Frog Eyes I was very very very excited to hear about an upcoming album, and now a song is making it’s way around the Internet! I have always thought that Frog Eyes have only improved with every release, and judging by this track, this album will be no different.  It is unmistakably Frog Eyes, and unmistakably amazing.  Even from the very first howl, you know the emotion that we all know and love is more than present, and as with Tears of the Valedictorian the production is fantastic. Oh, and its nice and long. The track is called “A Flower in A Glove” and it will be featured on the upcoming LP “Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph”, it is due out on Frog Eyes’ new label Dead Oceans on April 27th, no mention of a preorder, but we shall keep our fingers crossed. Here is a track list for all the nerds.

1. A Flower in a Glove
2. The Sensitive Girls
3. Odetta’s War
4. Rebel Horns
5. Lear, in the Park
6. Styled by Dr. Roberts
7. Lear in Love
8. Violent Psalms
9. Paul’s Tomb

Frog Eyes – A Flower in a Glove

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Besides awkward comedy and tasty green fruit, as far as I know not much comes out of New Zealand. Sure Flight Of The Concords really opened up peoples views of a strange music scene, but if your like me you see New Zealand as Australian silly little brother and pay little attention to it (if your reading this from Auckland, I’m sorry). I’m sure we’re all also terribly mistaken and Surf City is a great example of what isolation and the internet can do. Picking up some great inspiration from modern lo-fi garage rock and blending with some classic surf guitar riffing and sometimes surprising indie sensibilities that will catch you quite off guard while your being pummeled by waves of drums, distortion and sea foam. The Surf City EP was released on August 6th ‘07 (holy shit, this was 2 years ahead of it’s time) on Arch Hill Recordings and besides a few blogs and a Pitchfork nod it was under almost everyones radar. Well, not mine! Surf City jumped from below the horizon to the clouds in a matter of hours for me. Every song on this 6 song EP is incredible indie epics, rarely leaving you more than a second to catch your breath or adjust the star struck grin plastered across your face. I feel that maybe these guys started too soon, and where forgotten before this style was so prevalent. However since they’re still a fully active band playing shows all over New Zealand and Australia, a new album is hopefully in the works.If it was summer right now and I drove, I’d be blasting this from my convertible Camero speakers ripping down the hi-way, probably drunk.

Surf City – Mt. Kill

Surf City – Free The City

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Dan Mcgee cares about three things; the mighty church of the bottle, the distant sent of a lost woman, and the twangy new country sounds of his band Spider Bags. I discussed this band of southern fried troubadours a few months ago and included a few tracks of the album “A Celebration of Hunger”  which was Spider Bags first full length album, and after hours of searching I’ve finally acquired Dan McGee & Spider Bags “Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World”. All of the classic elements of Spider Bags that I loved are still there, Dan McGee’s crooning raspy voice, laying out stories drenched in beer and whiskey, tales of lovers posed with the affluence of a hillbilly Poet Laureate “the longer than I stick around the more I forget, life is spent between cigarettes and regret”. Like their earlier albums Spider Bags cooks us up quite a few bangers, fast paced bar brawlers, seen and heard through their own personal beer goggles. However on “Goodbye Cruel World..” we see another side of Dan McGee not so present in just Spider Bags releases. We see his life as a Saturday news paper comic strip. Dan McGee falls for a woman, she forgets/leaves/hurts him, he drinks down his sorrows, he writes a song. Luckily for us, no where on this album do things feel hopeless or even worse, cheesy. McGee is able to keep things light enough to keep us up and alter enough to process his napkin scribblings. All in all “Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World” is a chuck wagon ride through the dusty some times heart broken hills of Raleigh North Carolina where McGee and Spider Bags call home, and I’ve never been happier.

Spider Bags – Long White Desert Rose

Spider Bags – Que Viva El Rocanrol

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In our advanced society lines have been blurred. There is very little pressure to be a mans man, cream of the crop, all american or jack of all trades. One is able to simply slide through being who you are and it’s a real luxury. Sometimes though, in certain situations one’s masculinity is tested. Usually it comes in the form of being able to  honestly enjoy something that would down play your manhood, maybe a cute puppy, a tear jerker movie, a relaxing bath, listening to a Cat Power album. All of those circumstances could be perfectly framed with the music of Twin Sister, except your half cut on wine and a pack of smokes in. The music is nice and down tempo but not boring, hazy but sweet.  Lead singer Andrea Estella has a voice like milk and honey, and perfection is reached in an almost Nico moan in the song ‘Dry Hump’ (haha). Catching me completely off guard, Twin Sister feels like it must be played through headphones. There are many deeper layers then what comes up straight away, well rehearsed and planned feedback, hums, the clicking of a guitar pick on a string  and so very light drumming and bass that is sure to give you goosebumps. Twin Sister is offering out the EP “Vampires With Dreaming Kids” for free right now and I highly recommend you grab yourself the digital download and dream dream dream. I don’t care what anyone says, manliness aside, I love Twin Sister a lot.

Twin Sister – I Want A House

Twin Sister – Ginger

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“Oh you sleepy hipsters. How can one complain? Your music is so catchy, your demeanor so lame. You play your keyboards through a tin can, your beard is that of a Neanderthal man. On the street I may confuse you with a bum, but god do I love that reverbed hum.” I would say that sums up Small Black to me. A great band with more hype then content, but can you blame them?  Now Small Black is by no means bad, but once you read a little more into them I was left with a bit of an odd taste in my mouth, I’d imagine it tasted like being fed with a silver spoon, but I digress. Small Black uses toy casios, reverb, loops and a bass to get their message across (where have I heard that before) and they do it well. They’ve got a sound mapped out, except they threw out the map and bought a GPS. You cant really go wrong here, so get high put your headphones on and enjoy this little EP they recently released on CassClub.  Check out this video of Small Black as they try so hard to stay awake for their song Despicable Dogs, which can also be heard below.

Small Black – Weird Machines

Small Black – Despicable Dogs

It feels like these days you can describe a band one of two ways, vocal harmonies or no vocal harmonies. Suckers has got the harmonies, boy do they got ‘em. A relatively buzzed band in the late summer of ‘09 Suckers have seemed to fade a bit since the release of their Suckers EP. Granted they had a huge song entitled “It Gets Your Body Movin’ ” and it’s pretty tough to follow up such a hit on a four song EP, but what they’ve done I am really into. In the least corny way possible Suckers blends 1980’s pop and rhythms with some strange and fluttering dissonant guitar and bass patterns, and again, what a voice! When you have a band in which everyone plays everything there is a lot of room for experimenting and this defiantly happens on Suckers EP, synths galore paired with some horns, some yelps and enough bleep bloops to make a believer out of any AnCo fan. Things never get to hectic which is something I’m liking more and more these days, I’m able to sit back and enjoy (see: Am I Old?) but still have a bit of a mind melt. Think of nursing your baby to sleep with Valium cut with acid. Relaxing yet still psychedelic. Here are two tracks by Suckers, one from their new Suckers EP and one from a Daytrotter session that I loved.

Suckers – Easy Chairs

Suckers – Roman Candels (Daytrotter Session)

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The Mantels is kind of like when you finally got the courage to crawl down into the dusty, dark and spider infest crawl space of your parents house to pull out a giant box of dusty old records your dad filed away in shame after a wild youth he’d rather hide and repress. (more…)