5/29/11

The Fox and the Hound Show - 4/26/11





The last time we had Bishop's Garden perform on the show, we crammed their full band into the green room of the WVMM studios. They rocked a bit too hard for such a small space and the microphones couldn't quite handle it, which left our listeners with an incorrect impression of the Annapolis outfit's sound. This time around, frontman Joe Memmel and guitarist/songwriter Paul Bowers gave us a stripped-down acoustic performance that left us even more impressed than we had been previously.

Catching Up with House Exit

My former roommate Matt Hannigan and his band House Exit finally got in a real studio and did some proper recording. I'm a bit behind on posting this (we premiered it on The Fox and the Hound back when it came out), but the resulting single "Focus on You" is available on iTunes and CDBaby. The upgrade in quality does a lot for House Exit's sound, demonstrating growth beyond the lo-fi faux-Blink-182 that has served as a muse for Hannigan's graphic design work for the past few years. Hopefully these improvements will continue and we'll have much more to look forward to from House Exit!

5/26/11

Show Review: Brand New w/ Robbers

The last concert of my Messiah career was both sold out and substantially harder than any other. Unlike the last time I saw them, Brand New was not touring an album, and was therefore free to fill my night (and everyone else's) with the old songs we fell in love with as teenagers. But before Brubaker Auditorium erupted into a massive sing-along, we were subjected to some rather strange experiences.
photo courtesy of Angela Darte
True to form, the difficult-to-classify Long Island rockers brought another genre-busting hometown act with them on tour. Robbers are an upbeat bunch with a histrionic frontman whose Afro and mannerisms had the audience incessantly shouting for various Hendrix songs. Unfortunately for any other impressions they may have made, their set was abruptly interrupted by a kid in the front row who was having a seizure. Security inexplicably chose to keep him in the middle of the floor and stop the show until EMS arrived, truncating the performance drastically.

photo courtesy of Amanda Fox
As Brand New took the stage, the crowd erupted with cheers and cameras (despite a regulation attempting to deter the latter). Peppering a set of songs that the college-age and up crowd had grown up to with a few recent roars from Daisy and college radio staples from the critically-acclaimed The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, Jesse Lacey and company masterfully worked their audience into a frenzy. As Lacey was left alone on stage for a more intimate set, it became clear just how much Brand New means to their fans, and "Soco Amaretto Lime" seemed the perfect sendup of and sendoff to our college days:

Farewell Flight Signs With Mono vs. Stereo

photo courtesy of http://lyricsfever.net
After many years of hard work as an independent outfit, Harrisburg's Farewell Flight have signed with the re-opened Mono vs. Stereo, a joint effort between Gotee Records and Matt Thiessen and Matt Hoopes of Relient K. After fans protested a proposed name change to 'Indian Summer', the label relented, and the confessional indie-pop stalwarts will release a split EP with newfound labelmates Deas Vail June 7. Hopefully this means the songs from 2008's excellent Sound. Color. Motion. will get the promotion they always deserved.

Stream new song "Out for Blood", the title track from their upcoming MVS debut:

5/23/11

Vote for Dinner and a Suit


When we advised all our unsigned friends to submit a song or two for the soundtrack of Renee, the upcoming movie from To Write Love On Her Arms, it seems only South Jersey pop-rockers Dinner and a Suit took us up on it. [Click here] to go to page 9 of the submissions and vote for their track "It's Not Over", currently 169th in the standings. Voting continues until the 30th of this month, so hopefully we can move this uplifting anthem from local stalwarts up the rankings.

photo courtesy of Rebecca Cicione

5/22/11

The Fox and the Hound Show - 4/19/11

The April 19th edition of our radio show featured a guest appearance by The Hound's dad, Duane High, who did college radio back in the day as "The Rough Surf Show", as well as a phone interview with bassist Mike Elliott of Darry Miller & the Veil.

5/21/11

The New Division: Electronic Production Crew


The New Division are not only a Southern California band with their own twist on the Depeche Mode/New Order redux that is going on right now, they are a group of talented guys with an interest in all forms of electronic music. Solo productions, remixes both by the band and its individual members, and DJ gigs add to the electronic movement TND is building. Until their double single "True Lies/Saturday Night" drops on the 30th, content yourselves with these goodies:

The New Division Remix of Keep Shelly in Athens' "Hauntin' Me":

(or their takes on Keilan's "Dying for a Change", Phoenix's "Armistice", or Houses "Endless Spring", as well as original trance production [as GALA] "San Diego")

John Glenn
(aka frontman John Kunkel) has done a couple of original prog house tracks:

(as well as remixing Phoenix's "Countdown" and Keep Shelly in Athens' "Hauntin' Me", among others)

Vaab (aka programmer Janzie) just picked up a Top 40/House club residency with this audition minimix:

(in addition to remixing John Glenn's "Naia", Short Circuit's "Late Night Drive", The New Division's "Art Kraft", and producing a few original tracks)

For the original tracks, check out:
Phoenix
Keep Shelly in Athens
Short Circuit
Keilan
Houses photo courtesy of Aerial Noise

Show Review: Zola Jesus

Every once in a while, Messiah gets an "important" artist to grace our stage for B-sides. For the last show of his two year reign as B-sides maestro, Ryan Faus got us such a show. Zola Jesus is an operatically trained princess of minimalist goth pop whose government name is Nika Danilova. Lady Gaga cites her as an inspiration, and Pitchfork and NME give her rave reviews, comparing her music to Fever Ray and Florence + the Machine. Equal parts music and performance art, her live shows have sold out legendary venues like The Bowery Ballroom, and yet we got to see her for free.

Before we could feast on this audio-visual experience, however, we were subjected to an endurance test: an opening set by Australia's Naked on the Vague. As Pitchfork put it:
Naked on the Vague churn out stripped-down and monotonous post-punk. The rhythms are primitive; the most animated songs rely on little more than the incessant thud of a bass drum. Likewise, any pretense of harmony is chucked out the window.
Somehow Pitchfork turned that into a positive thing, but I've seen noise rock, minimal, and virtually everything else I could construe them as done drastically better. The majority of the audience missed out on Zola Jesus because they were unaware that there was an opener and thought the entire show would be similarly abrasive.

To those who did miss out: I am truly sorry. Danilova and her band took the stage and immediately commanded attention with intricate sound textures emanating from not one but three synthesizers, whose churning was soon joined by pounding drumbeats. After a brief instrumental introduction, she began singing in a kneeling position, face still covered in a flowing red hood. Once the hood was removed, she stalked about the stage, compelling all eyes to follow with vocal power and sheer emotional force. For once, the echoing chamber that is the Student Union seemed suited to the stadium size of an artist's stage presence. Climbing up on trashcans, examining the screen of one student foolish enough to be doing homework, dancing and thrashing about on the floor in front of the stage-nothing is beyond the theatrical performances of Zola Jesus. At show's end, she rushed off the stage, seemingly in anger, only to return moments later to affably interact with all and sundry. In short, Zola Jesus was even better than the hype led me to expect.

photo courtesy of The Guardian


Updates Forthcoming

For anyone who was wondering, the temporary hiatus of Foxy Python's Flying Circus was due to decreased free time surrounding my graduation from Messiah College and move to Riverside, California for the summer. Several posts are already in the works, and I should be back to business on the regular for the rest of the summer. In the meantime, enjoy this wonderful track and its excellent found-footage video: