The Bowery Presents

The Bowery Ballroom upcoming shows

Suckers
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Suckers Seek a Wild and Imaginative Musical Landscape... The experimental side of indie pop has gotten a nice little creative boost lately, thanks, in part, to the artistic contributions of bands such as Brooklyn's own Animal Collectiveand Portland's Menomena. Tack another "Made in New York" outfit on this short list of artists challenging the sonic limits of modern day indie pop. Comprised of Quinn Walker, Austin Fisher, Brian Aiken, and mystery man Pan, Suckers offer indefinable and stunningly unpredictable fare that ranges anywhere on the sonic scope between sedate guitar songs and crunchy, erratic drones. It is a new musical landscape that Suckers have set out to find; one that lies beyond the fringes of more traditional pop, psychedelia, noise, and folk music. Packing their knapsacks with a wild assortment of ambient guitar work, ritualistic percussion, wolf pack vocals, and a variety of other knick knacks (organs, keys, horns, etc), Suckers set up camp in a manic, yet wildly imaginative place where pop music is contrived of equal parts melody and dissonance; a place where musical limits do not account for much. - David Pitz, Deli Magazine
Local Natives
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Local Natives make soaring, sky-scraping harmonies, dreamy orchestral melodies, and throbbing tribal beats that bash their way into your soul. Theirs are songs you can dance to almost as well as you can swoon to them. Drawing a line from the vocal stylings of Crosby Stills Nash & Young and the Zombies through the more esoteric edges of post-punk and Afro-beat, this California five piece have communally crafted a brand of indie rock all their own.

For Local Natives everything is a collaboration, from song writing duties to the band’s self produced artwork. The three part harmonies come courtesy of keyboardist Kelcey Ayer, guitarists Ryan Hahn and Taylor Rice. Then there’s Matt Frazier on drums and Andy Hamm on bass, who look after the band’s equally impressive graphics and artwork.

One of SXSW 2009’s biggest success stories, the band drove for two days to get from Los Angeles to Austin in order to play nine spectacular shows that saw them sprinting, instruments in hand, from one gig to the next. Their hectic schedule paid off as Local Natives left Austin with the attention of the UK music Industry.

Based in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, three of the five-piece originally hail from Orange County. Kelcey, Ryan and Taylor attended neighbouring high schools and hooked up with bassist Andy a year after they graduated, later meeting drummer Matt. They’ve been playing – and evolving - together for three years. Last year, however, the band realized that the new songs they were writing were the sounds of a new project entirely.

It was in December 2008 that the band decamped to Silver Lake, where they all live in the same house. But the Silver Lake digs isn’t the first house the band have shared. They lived together in Orange County too, in a place affectionately known as Gorilla Manor. “It was insanely messy and there were always friends over knocking around on guitars or our thrift store piano,” says Ryan, “it was an incredible experience and I’ll never forget that time.” The original Gorilla Manor, where the band wrote the majority of their record, had such an impact that the band has paid tribute to the house by naming their debut album in its honour.

The self-funded ‘Gorilla Manor’ was recorded by Raymond Richards in West Los Angeles. Chosen because he was “super talented and super affordable,” Richards co-produced the record with Local Natives in his own Red Rockets Glare studio.

Featuring twelve sumptuous slices of dappled California sunlight and beguiling percussive rhythms, the album kicks off with the moody, driving, ‘Wide Eyes’. Says Ryan, “It’s about people’s obsession with the miraculous and disastrous…with witnessing extraordinary events”. The effervescent, mandolin boasting ‘Airplanes’ follows, which Kelcey explains is about “longing to have met my grandfather, a great man and pilot, who died before I was born.” Also included is the glorious ‘Sun Hands’, which was released as a limited edition single on Chess Club back in July. According to Taylor, the lyrics describe “that all too familiar feeling of wanting what you can’t have – especially when you once had it.” There’s a cover version in the mix too, a barely recognisable version of Talking Heads’ ‘Warning Sign’. “We’ve basically flipped the song on its head,” says Matt, explaining how they switched David Byrne’s original yelped vocals into a beautiful three-part harmony.

Local Natives’ debut album ‘Gorilla Manor’ comes out on November 2nd in the UK through Infectious Music.
JBM
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Not Even in July is the kind of record you have to live before you can write. The album is an exquisitely crafted and painfully human collection of songs that exhibit the measured persistence and spectral beauty of a breaking dawn. It feels as weathered and wise as an old home— alive, lived-in and loved. Like the family cabin in the Adirondacks where he writes, Not Even in July is Marchant’s safe and solitary haven— his place of emotional harborage.

Jesse Marchant, who records under his initials, JBM, was born and raised in his family’s homes in the Adirondacks and Montreal. Classically trained on guitar from the age of 7, he had always written instrumental songs as a means of expression, but it wasn’t until recent years that he began writing lyrics, singing and recording. After a decision to withdraw, he retreated to his family’s home in the mountains, to live in seclusion and fully realize songs that he’d written while living in Los Angeles, in what he’s described as a somewhat strange and solitary three-year existence.

After shaping and working an album’s worth of music, Jesse got in contact with Henry Hirsch who took instantly to the demos and the two, with a few visiting musicians, made the record in just two short weeks at Hirsch’s 19th Century church studio in Hudson, NY.

Not Even In July is a mostly acoustic venture, textured thoughtfully by Marchant’s atmospheric arrangements, lyrical purity and unaffected baritone— that is as grand in its haunting restraint as it is in its emotional vitality. “Years,” a lulling, finger-picked instrumental slips into “Cleo’s Song,” a ghostly reverie on loneliness and despair, while “Ambitions & War” targets Los Angeles, in a shuffling indictment of greed and inhumanity. “July on the Sound” crashes delicately and darkly through scenes of death, love and life; “From Me to You and You to Me” weaves a lazy, spiraling plea; and the resolute beat of “Friends For Fireworks” swings from the optimism and beauty of sunset to the dark finality of night. The album closes with “Red October” and its piano-drenched memories of a love lost, and “Swallowing Daggers”, a hopeless declaration of concern for a loved one gone off the rails.

Not Even In July is an improbably stunning feat from a man who, until this point in his life, had never considered being a musician or playing his songs live until this year (he’s now shared the stage with St. Vincent, Elvis Perkins, Tallest Man on Earth). It plays out like a painstakingly elegant, yet brutally honest break-up letter written by Marchant and addressed to many: a lover, a dying friend, a piece of himself and a passing phase of life. But it’s also a love letter— to what comes next, and to finally coming home.
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