In August, New York based rock trio Upright Man – comprised of Aidan Dolan (guitar/vocals), Nick Katz (bass/vocals) and Max Yassky (drums / percussion / background vocals) – released their debut self-titled album. Packed to the brim with guitar-driven psychedelia and well-rounded, intense – yet somehow innately relaxing – vocals, the ten track album made a strong impact on its audience almost immediately. Exploring a wide soundscape with the prowess of a much more experienced band, we’re under the very strong impression that Upright Man is here to stay, and they’ve certainly left a mark.
We caught up with the guys briefly before the holidays to get a little insight into their process and more. Check it out below, and get your ears on Upright Man if you haven’t quite yet!
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
Max: It’s either “Only The Lonely” by Roy Orbison, or “Busted” by Ray Charles. Thanks Mom.
Aidan: Though I had heard music everywhere before I knew what it was, the first album as a whole that I became aware of was probably Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” It was in the CD player in our car that we took to and from school. The attitude and badassness was so obvious to me as a little kid and I still feel the same way.
Nick: Probably “With The Beatles” or “Help!” Though I discovered at 14 that I already knew all the words to “In My Hour of Darkness” by Gram Parsons even though I had no memory of listening to the record before. So I think I heard a lot of music before I was really making memories.
We know you met at NYU, but what is the Upright Man origin story like? Was it a meet-cute?
Max: I had to look up meet-cute. No it wasn’t anything like a romantic comedy, but we all did hit it off pretty quickly. We met and hung out as peers in school and then started making music for other people’s projects. We – all three – started making prog-jazz-classical music before we moved on to the space-rock music we’re making now.
Nick: Yeah, what Max said.
Your self-titled debut just released. What has that been like for you?
Max: Releasing an album feels like the most foreign part of making music to me. We play and write so much that sometimes I forget the end goal is for other people to hear it. I’m kind of stunned when I imagine strangers listening to it.
Aidan: It feels good to enter a new stage of development for the band. Now that we have a completed product, we have to get it out there and take the band on the road. Our passion is music and creating it, but as musicians and a band, we have to take responsibility for so many aspects of the business of being a band as well.
Nick: There’s inherent satisfaction in seeing things finished. Having people seem to like it is just a nice little bonus.
Do you have any fun anecdotes from the recording process?
Max: We had a fight with a very obstinate restaurateur. We ordered enough tortilla chips and guac to fuel a small force of underpaid interns, but got zilch. When we called up the restaurant, instead of your expected “Oh we’ll fix it”, we got put on hold while the owner checked the security tapes and assured us that all the chips left with the delivery fella. What do you do, right? Try and explain the laws of physics? Zero tortilla chips delivered to us = zero tortilla chips delivered to us. We each tried to explain this to the owner and finally our producer hung up dejectedly.
Aidan: While we were recording at Avatar Studios in NYC, we decided to use the physical reverb chambers, which are located somewhere in the stairwell of the building. We realized the mics in the reverb chambers were picking up this whole class of elementary school students playing outside, creating a really eerie far away sound of children screaming and laughing. We decided to record that and even took it a step further by running outside and asking them all to make as much noise as possible to be on our record! It sounded awesome, but we never found a place for it. Maybe next record..
Nick: It was awful and I hated every minute of it … I’m just kidding, I love being in the studio.
If your album were any Thanksgiving meal dish – an appetizer, main course, side dish, dessert, drink, whatever – what would it be and why?
Max: It’s the unidentifiable yet delicious troth of hot mash brought by that one obscure work friend of your cousin’s.
Aidan: Dat bomb gravy.
Nick: Guys, you’re really selling it short, it’s the whole turkey, stuffing, drippings and all.
We really love the composition and overall sound of “Ecstasy”. What inspired that song – if we may ask – specifically?
Max: Thanks. When we were writing it I remember thinking of this image I had in my head from a news clipping. Apparently some of the older folks in Gaza would sit on this one couch on the edge of the city, eat watermelon, smoke cigars, and watch the chaos as if it were a television program.
Aidan: It started off on guitar as the little intro chorus/riff. The lyrics sort of came from describing a feeling of pure resignation and disconnection from the world, while still being ironically blissful in its comfort. There is a moment of self realization and hopefulness in the song, but some things never last. The form has an interesting way of mirroring that emotion in a developmental way.
Nick: It was born of self restraint in a way.
Being a musical project located in NYC has its advantages and disadvantages, of course, just as any place else does. Have you been able to navigate the highly saturated music scene in NYC to find some of your favorite gems?
Max: That saturation is one of my favorite things about the city. It does make people cynical about exploring new music, but for studios, venues, stores and new people to meet, being here is a total boon. Of course you meet great people everywhere and there’s plenty of shit here too.
Aidan: The saturation is advantageous in the way that Max says, giving you so many options to experience many different types of music at a high level musicianship, but as a band in its nascent stage, you have a lot of other bands and forms of entertainment to compete with on any given night, so it’s hard to grow beyond the audience of your family, friends, and friends of friends. There is a very elusive sense of a scene and you have to really make a ruckus to get people to come to your show over something else.
What are you most excited about with your debut album?
Max: Having a copy.
Aidan: Seeing and hearing other people’s reaction to our music.
Nick: Getting to the next one.
___
The band will be playing a show in honor of an upcoming video release and Aidan’s birthday at Mercury Lounge. Tickets are available now. Keep up with Upright Man here.
At the end of November, Polish avant-pop duo Legumina released their debut album, a 11-track collection affectionately titled Something Pasty and Probably Yellow. But this album comes from a different place than many others come from, and it’s something we definitely took interest in right off the bat. Legumina is the marriage of two stunningly vibrant personalities who, as it just so happens, chose to end their romantic relationship quite some time ago. But in 2013, the pair of Mon Sadowska (vocals, lyrics) and Marcin Gręda (guitar, ukulele, electronics, laptop, earlier Letdown Dept.) chose to reconcile those differences enough to form a duo, and to create an album that seems to serve as both closure on their romantic past and as a new beginning for their artistic futures. It’s unique, well-written, and beautiful to a point that we have to make it known.
Beginning with light, staccato notes accompanied by strangely contrasting lines of voiceover, “(Not That) Yellow” makes you feel like you’re in a futuristic lullaby. Pair that with the slow, ethereal notes of “Berlin” and the twinkling sounds of “Probably June”, and Something Pasty and Probably Yellow starts out in this quirky, beautiful space that you would assume a She & Him album might steer toward. Once Sadowska’s vocals hit a track, even if it existed in another soundscape altogether, she immediately brings a fairy-like presence to it all. A fact that comes to us as incredibly quirky and endearing, especially with fourth track “Song of the Northern Pole” which – instrumentally, at least – does perfectly capture the way you assume being in the North Pole would feel. Fifth track “Swim Safety” plays a little more with dissonance in the intro, swirling into this impossibly gorgeous track.
As you reach “Parking Space Inequity”, you’re so used to the upbeat feel of its predecessors that you don’t quite expect the melancholic twinge to kick in at that point. With the pace of the lyrics versus the instrumentals, it almost feels like Legumina found their inspiration in aughts emo and punk music, but it’s been updated with an electro pop feel that slightly resembles trance music at a rave. While “Sink Sank Song” makes you feel like you’re actually inside a video game – which makes the song that much more fun -, “Short Guide to Palm Reading” is considerably less witchy than what we would assume from the title. We are 100% on board with the bizarre title of track 9, and totally agree with the sentiment that “Happiness Isn’t Happiness Without a Violin-playing Goat”. The name of the track itself made us feel like we were wandering back into that punk/emo inspiration, a la the long titles that Fall Out Boy and Panic! at The Disco have become known for. “Elementary” slows things down to a crawl – really returning to that lullaby feeling – and the band expertly rounds out the album with the track “Farewell Captain” (ft. Edyta Glinska) which audibly insists on the closure of the album. The audience feels a finite energy in this track, bittersweet in its delivery, much like the closure the duo found through the production of this album.
Check it out below, and let us know what you think in the comments!
Something Pasty and Probably Yellow is available now. Keep up with Legumina here.
Just ahead of the release of his new album Magic Boy, Bartees & The Strange Fruit (Bartees Cox) has released a music video for his drop dead gorgeous track “IDK”. Even though we’re not big on acronyms, we are incredibly happy we gave this one a shot. Bartees’ voice is voluptuous almost in its delivery, beautiful and far-reaching in its range. But even without the accompanying guitar, his voice holds its own and essentially drives the entire track, something that brings us back to the beauty and simplicity of utilizing the voice as an instrument. The slow motion, precise movements in the video just really allow you to focus on the bittersweet, heart-driven lyrics as you gaze at the Manhattan skyline behind Bartees.
We love everything about this.
Magic Boy is out December 8th and is available for preorder now. Keep up with Bartees & The Strange Fruit here.
Vocalist Nona Hendryx and guitarist Gary Lucas – delightfully known as Hendryx Lucas – have combined forces to create a tribute worthy of the indelible Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. A band that achieved cult status after their rise to existence in 1966, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band was led by the great musical mind of Don Van Vliet and released 13 albums before its retirement. They focused on a blues and jazz, yet somehow always had a punk rock flare and the ability to produce brilliant, poetic lyrics.
Taking a variety of songs from different areas of his extensive catalogue, Hendryx Lucas has somehow seemed to perfectly capture both the expanse of his musical prowess and the simplistic way with which his music could profoundly enhance your environment. And they waste no time, a “start at the top” with “Sun Zoom Spark” – buoyant and entrancing in its delivery, much as its original – adding in a bit of punk flare to differentiate it just enough. They continue through the remaining eleven selected tracks in the same fashion, putting their own unique mark on each song just obvious enough to let you appreciate the individual musicianship of the two incredible artists who are doing us this fine service. What is perhaps the most endearing aspect of this release, however, is how you can begin to see how Hendryx’s funk/soul background actually enhanced her vocal abilities to be able to cover such range as Don Van Vliet. Add in the fact that Van Vliet was a huge inspiration to later generations of punk rock and those musicians are now recreating that same music with a more progressed punk sound, and it almost feels like kismet.
The World of Captain Beefheart is out now via Knitting Factory Records.
Winston-Salem-bred indie rock/alternative collective Foxture – comprised of Marlon Blackmon (Piano/Keyboard, Vocals), Eddie J Reynolds (Guitar), Andrew Irving (Drums), and Ross Barnes (Bass) – is showing us some pretty incredible chops with the release of their E D E N EP, a sparkling, six track collection that seems to bounce right out of the speakers with its energy. From the very beginning, there is no other way to describe what E D E N does better than to call it “groove-inducing,” as your hips are immediately swaying from the time you push “play.” Smooth percussion blends perfectly with Marlon’s ethereal vocals, and you’re transported to another place entirely.
In honor of the release of E D E N, we got a few words with Marlon, and a couple with Eddie. Check it out below, and let us know what you think of the EP!
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
Marlon: The first album I remember hearing was a Greatest hits compilation by the Temptations. I was very very very young, but they were my dad’s favorite artists collectively. I have always lived at least 25 to 30 minutes away from.
I guess there wasn’t really a striking moment beyond the first impression but after listening to those songs over and over, I began to learn the lyrics and their song “My girl” was the first song I learned lyrics to. From that point on I realized that I liked music, and became curious of what else was out there.
Eddie: Outkast’s song “Roses” from their The Love Below album was the first song I remember hearing. I heard that piano drop and 3 stacks yell out “CAROLINE” , and it changed my view on music with how it’s made and how versatile and unique it can be. My brother actually introduced be to it when I was nothing but a few years old. He pulled out a book of CDs, his full collection and asked me to select one of them, and that album stuck out to me. The second I heard it, my eyes lit up.
What is the Foxture origin story like? Was it a meet-cute?
Marlon: Well, Ross (bass) Eddie (guitar) and Andrew (drums) had already known each other from being in a band called Oceans Apart. I (Marlon, vocals and keyboard/synth) had been posting songs that I had recorded in my bedroom on bandcamp and Soundcloud, and people started contacting me for shows. I was just not interested due to stage fright and more specifically, the fear of not being able to replicate the layering of various parts and sounds from the recordings to a live setting influenced my interest on playing shows. So a few days after I released a solo version of our song “Surrealism” a friend of mine, who had been keeping up with what I had been working on, asked if I would be interested in playing her benefit concert for Louder Than Words, which is a benefit to help kids follow their music related dreams no matter their financial status. I thought about it, said yes, and took to a Facebook group for musicians in the area, and made a post asking if anyone wanted to help me out with full versions of songs that I already have (about 4 or 5 songs at this point). Eddie immediately responded and said, “Yo I have a bassist and a drummer” and we met up for practice and have been a band ever since.
Fast forwarding through the month that we had to prepare and learn all 5 songs, the show itself was the most awkward I have ever felt LOL. It was in this gorgeous concert hall at UNCG, under bright, bright, bright fluorescent lights. This was my first ever show, so I was super awkward and uncomfortable and we messed up pretty bad. But I remember walking fast backstage after that performance, sitting on the floor, and saying, “We need to book more shows.” I refused to let THAT performance define us and wanted to overshadow it so badly.
Your EP Eden dropped recently. If this collection of songs were a Thanksgiving meal item – whether it be an app like fancy cheese, the stuffing or cranberry sauce or turkey, or dessert – what would it be and why?
Marlon: Hmmm, I would have to say, red velvet cake. The icing would be reminiscent to the effects that we put into the album, and when you cut into the, soft, fluffy textures that seemingly melt in your mouth, its very satisfying.
Eddie: Mac & Cheese. Get lost in the gooey and cheesy goodness.
The music you make has always had a lightweight feel to it, but Eden has this almost translucent, otherworldly feel to it. Was this a noticeable and purposeful step in your sound, or did it just kind of happen organically?
Marlon: So, this is the sound that we have been trying to hone in on from the beginning. Emotions and feeling can be very abstract things, therefore we want our music to be as dreamlike as possible. We want people to have no choice but to fall into a lucid, hypnotic sense of thinking, and experiencing our music in general.
Any fun anecdotes from the recording process?
Marlon: We often laugh at the fact that I wrote “Understanding pt. 2” before I met the guys, and way before I wrote “understanding pt. 1”. Before I decided to change the name to Foxture, I recorded solo projects under the name “Lock & Key” and after realizing that a million bands and artists had that same name, I wanted something that was my own, that didn’t exist anywhere else. I liked the way foxes carry themselves in the wilderness, so because “Fox posture” didn’t roll off the tongue how I wanted it to, I merged the 2 words into “Foxture”, and “understanding pt. 2” was the first thing that I posted under that name.
What are you most looking forward to about this release?
Marlon: I felt like whatever the understanding series was going to be, THAT would be the second part of it. There was also a creative challenge of looking back at previous instances that inspired “understanding pt. 2” and trying to connect them for my own development as a person. We tend to understand (HAH) things better in hindsight anyway and, at that time, I was experiencing some serious writer’s block and that was a perfect way to open up and articulate the series more accurately.
With this release, we are looking forward to being able to communicate our vision more effectively and accurately. We are more than happy with this record and we had a lot of fun making it as well. I would say this ep is a perfect setup for a full length album, which we are currently working on.
___
And we can’t wait to hear it! E D E N is available now. Keep up with Foxture here.
Hernando, Mississippi native Matt Hectorne continues to make us swoon with his new single, the toe-tapping “Only Way Into Your Heart”. Replete with heartbreaking lyrics, Matt leads us on an emotional journey as he sings to a significant other about how his love is strong enough to wait for them. With lines like “Don’t let Fear come take over your mind” and “My love is stronger than you think” sung with an alt-Americana tinge over beautiful guitar chords, we aren’t sure how the object of his affection wouldn’t be completely overwhelmed and work with him through things.
This September americana collective JD & The Straight Shot – comprised of vocalist/guitarist Jim Dolan, guitarist Marc Copely, bassist Byron House, violinist/fiddler Erin Slaver, and drummer/percussionist Shawn Pelton – released their sixth studio album, a ten track full-length titled Good Luck And Good Night. From easy listening guided by intense lyrics, to beautiful choral pieces, to simplistic compositions, this album covers its bases, blessing us with some incredible music to play during the holiday season especially.
We got a few minutes with lead guitarist Marc Copely to get a little background regarding his involvement with the band, and takes us inside the recording circle.
What is the first song or album you ever remember hearing, and who introduced it to you?
My babysitter put on Led Zeppelin IV and that was it for me! I was stunned and have never looked back.
Was there a moment that it struck you and you realized you were going to pursue music, or did it kind of slowly evolve?
It was fast. I started late, around 13 years old, but picked it up quickly. I did my first gig a year later and haven’t stopped.
You are the lead guitarist and musical director of JD & The Straight Shot and you also produced the band’s new album Good Luck And Good Night. How did you become a member of the band?
My friend Charley Drayton called me to be in the band. He was the band’s musical director then, so he initially hired me. I started MD’ing the band about five years ago and we’ve grown and changed quite a bit since then – from an electric blues based band to the form we’re in now, which is mostly acoustic, and roots-based.
Good Luck And Good Night is such a fun, driven album. Are there any overarching inspirations that contributed to the work itself?
Thank you! We’re always listening and always talking about what to do next. I think the fact that the band you hear on the record is the band you hear on tour is important. We each brought our own musical personalities to the recording, so it’s imperative that those are the musicians that you hear on stage.
Do you have any fun anecdotes from the recording process?
Well, we tend to sit in a circle and play through the song we’ll be recording and sometimes before you know it, we’ve been jamming for an hour and forget that we’re in there making a record! We get carried away with the fun, but I guess thats the point, right?
The band recently released a music video for your track “Run For Me”, a warm, live performance for your fans to enjoy, woven with old race horse footage. What inspired the video’s concept, and what was it like to shoot?
The shoot was easy. It features us playing a gig and was shot all in one take. No acting chops needed! Our frontman Jim had the horse racing idea since he wrote the song lyrics and had the concept for the song. I love all the old racing footage in the video. Amazingly cool.
Here’s the video to check out:
What is the band most excited about with your new album?
We love the fact that it sounds like us. It’s purely what we all sound like with no trickery at all. That record is us in a room playing music, so we’re really proud of the honesty of the album.
___
Good Luck And Good Night is available now. Keep up with JD & The Straight Shot here.
Just last month, Wilmington, Delaware’s Impetus Records released a three track EP on behalf of now-defunct band The Subterraneans. Active from 2015 to 2016, the highly talented members of The Subterraneans – Seb Roat, Peter Furman, Gavin Powers, and Sam Greaves – recorded their self-titled EP during their sophomore year of high school. Replete with intense guitar licks, the EP begins with “Earl and Everette’s Day Out”, which feels like it single-handedly fills the room with smoke as you enjoy the lazy, beautiful, 70s-influenced sound. “Tercel” brings out more of a garage/punk feel with its increase in pace and the fact that it’s driven instead by percussion where its predecessor was driven by guitar chords, though it never quite meanders out of the warmth of nostalgic psych rock. “Hey Man” eases us out of the insanity, allowing the quartet to show off their innate ability to cover a variety of sounds as though they’re old pros. (In other words, they could never have been considered a one note song.)
Good luck scraping your jaw off the ground while listening to it.
The Subterraneans is available now. Get the best from Impetus Records here.
Los Angeles-based surf rock quartet Kat Myers & The Buzzards – comprised of namesake Kat Myers, Elliott Beenk, Johnny Elkins, and Jeff McElroy – recently dropped debut five track EP Owe Everybody Money. Riddled with music that was conceptualized after a sharp turn in her career path, Owe Everybody Money grants us a peek inside the mind of someone who grabbed life by the reigns when she realized it wasn’t going the way her heart wanted. Kat has developed a sound with her band that feels rugged, at times twangy – “Reluctant Love”, for instance, boasts more of an americana feel to it -, and pure rock at its core. (I mean, have you HEARD “Under The Rug” yet?) But it’s a completely genre-bending project, as her vocals do house a bit of a country vibe to them, but also feel similar to the crooning abilities of Mary Ramsey.
Third track “The Things I Love” begins with Myers capturing the listener’s attention by singing slightly off-key, giving the song a real kick of that independent, badass feeling that Myers looks to be establishing with the development of her sound. What is particularly curious is that the track was written as a commentary on Myers’ own religious upbringing, and is actually quite introspective if you slow down a bit to listen to the lyrical content. While “So Kind” has the lines that house the title of the EP, it is also a love letter of sorts, a country ballad at its finest. The band rounds out the EP with a slightly slower track, “Another Town Live At KCSN”, allowing the guitars to drive it in a way that is 70s psychedelia at its core. It’s a beautiful, enchanting way to end the work, and we can’t wait to show this one off to the family all weekend.
Owe Everybody Money is out now. Keep up with Kat Myers & The Buzzards here.
