Poetic Memory: Red Wire Black Wire (List)
Red Wire Black Wire are originally from Connecticut but now call the hip streets of Brooklyn their home.
Drawing from a palette of new wave influences that includes Depeche Mode and The Human League, the six-piece use synth-heavy, melancholic rock songs to paint a surrealistic picture of life in the big city. The success of their first LP, Robots and Roses, has helped the band build up a solid fan base in New York. Red Wire Black Wire are currently preparing an as-yet-untitled EP of remixes and B-sides for release this year.
Lead singer Doug Walters recently gave us a peek at the music that has shaped his band’s sound. His Poetic Memory is below. Continue reading…
Interview: The Silent Comedy
The Silent Comedy are on a roll. Thanks to their high-energy performances and whiskey-soaked songwriting, the San Diego band has amassed a passionate following, repeatedly selling out the Casbah as if it were their grandma’s basement. The stylish six-piece will return to the venue on April 2nd to celebrate the release of their sophomore album, Common Faults. We sat down with verbose singer/keyboardist Jeremiah Zimmerman to discuss the album, the problems with consumerism, and the band’s love of mustaches. (more…)
Poetic Memory: Boy Without God (List)
Fact: there are more albums in existence today than ever before, and, as more albums are released in the future, that number will most likely increase. We, the intrepid writers for Owl&Bear, stand at the frothy frontline of this constant deluge of new music, bravely filling buckets with the good stuff and presenting it as sweet sustenance to our parched readers. We perpetually receive music from PR people, begging us to check out undiscovered artists, and a lot of it is, quite frankly, underwhelming. But once in a while we come across a diamond in the rough, something that grabs us by the ears and doesn’t let go. And so it happened that, mere seconds into hearing “If You” (MP3), I became a fan of Boy Without God.
Hailing from Massachusetts, famed home of the sassy Congressman, Boy Without God is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Birnbaum. His new album, Your Body Is Your Soul, which sounds like Neutral Milk Hotel if they’d been fronted by Johnny Cash, has been on constant rotation in the Owl&Bear offices lately and is shaping up to be one of the best albums of the year. Birnbaum was kind enough to share his influences with us for our newest installment of Poetic Memory.
Poetic Memory is a regular Owl and Bear feature in which musicians disclose their influences—whether it’s albums, songs, artists, or something random. If you’re interested in being featured here, send us an email. (more…)
Poetic Memory: The Rest (List)
The last time Ontario, Canada’s The Rest played at the Casbah, we missed it. But we won’t make that mistake again. After all, according to their MySpace page, The Rest like all the things that we like: doing push-ups, shooting each other with water guns, howling at the moon, and delicious Thai food. (More details below.) We have other reasons, too. For one, their new album, Everything All At Once, is amazing. For another, they graciously agreed to write the latest installment of Poetic Memory. Also, they use the word “rascal” in their lyrics.
We’ve featured The Rest on our podcast a few times, but in case you missed it, here are a couple of MP3s. The wondrously haunting “Drinking Again” is definitely one of our favorite songs of 2009. Also, be sure to check out “Everything All At Once“, the epic titular track from their new album.
Poetic Memory is a regular Owl and Bear feature in which musicians disclose their influences—whether it’s albums, songs, artists, or something random. If you’re interested in being featured here, send us an email. (more…)
Watch Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel Live at Jittery Joe’s (Links)
Watch Jeff Mangum Live at Jittery Joe’s One week only at PitchforkTV. Where Hiphop is “Going” And where it never was. Eight Druggiest Rock Star Stories Some of the twisted highlights or low-lights of rock star behavior. Phil Spector Gets 19 to Life The only wall of sound Phil Spector will be hearing is the night howls of a state penitentiary. Will Shakespeare’s Come and Gone One writer beautifully captures the mood of most audiences at Shakespeare performances as “reverently unreceptive,” “gratified that they have come, and gratified that they now may go.” Madame Bovary Goes Interactive Thanks to an unprecedented international collaboration between scholars and volunteers, we can now trace the development of Flaubert’s masterpiece online, draft by draft.
Review: Elvis Perkins in Dearland; March 15, 2009 at M-Theory Records; San Diego
There are worse fates than being compared to Jeff Mangum. As the frontman for Neutral Milk Hotel, Mangum spearheaded one of the most influential and revered bands in indie rock history, finally creating an album—1998′s In An Aeroplane Over The Sea—that was so perfectly realized even Mangum himself never dared attempt a follow up. So, nearly a decade later, after everyone had given up hope, a guy named Elvis Perkins quietly stepped up to the plate and did the job for him.
Perkins’ 2007 debut, Ash Wednesday, established him as a brilliant artist with a penchant for crafting songs of poignant sadness and profound beauty. The son of Anthony Perkins (Psycho‘s Norman Bates) and Berry Berenson, Perkins channeled his much-publicized real life tragedies into a soul-baring masterpiece of catharsis. For his newly-released sophomore album, he added a backing band and adopted the moniker Elvis Perkins In Dearland.
And somehow, local record shop M-Theory Music was able to lure the band into their store for an exclusive, free performance on a beautifully sunny San Diego afternoon.
