Randy Garcia’s other band, Nerd Parade, makes the kind of big Southern rock that you feel down in your bones. But on his solo album, I Used to Write on Walls & Other New York City Stories, Garcia blends indie pop and electronic touches for a smaller sound.
Continue reading at Atlanta Music Guide.
If the critics peg you as the next big insert-seminal-indie-band-here, is it all downhill from there? Is there any way to step out of a shadow you never meant to get under in the first place?
These were the questions that The Rural Alberta Advantage were most definitely not contemplating this past Friday night at the Drunken Unicorn. The band released their debut album Hometowns in 2008 to a veritable avalanche of Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons, most of them favorable, but nonetheless intimidating. Lesser bands might have let the comparisons get to them, but not the RAA. Friday night found them here in Atlanta for the first time, doing what they do best: forgetting all about the critics and just playing as hard as they can.
Continue reading at Atlanta Music Guide.
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This one is small, but important to me:
At 7:00 this morning, Athens’ historic Georgia Theatre caught fire. Luckily, the fire department has been able to contain the blaze, and they do not believe anyone was inside. But the roof has collapsed, and witnesses are reporting that the outer walls are all that remain. The venue, a converted movie theatre, was scheduled to host 11 bands during next weekend’s AthFest.
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Hearkening back to the days when the American South was inextricably tied to rock ‘n’ roll, Nerd Parade’s The Span of a Life contains the kinds of big sounds and inventive daring that rock music should be about. The songs would, in fact, make the perfect soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s next film — gritty, soulful, searing. Their palate is wide-ranging, as though they went into the studio with a big grab bag of ’70s rock and punk sounds, shook it up really good, and then pulled out pieces at will. But it’s also fresh, not so much stuck in the past as acknowledging a little bit of nostalgia, then moving on in unexpected ways.
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What is the fortress around Ida Maria’s heart? Perhaps it’s the frantically fun beat, the enjoyment of the night of with no thought of the morning after. The songs are stories of bars and boys, but with little sense of lament. Even on “Queen of the World,” when she sings “I’m lonely this year, I’m lonely forever,” a sense of joy underpins the sentiment. It’s the feeling of abandoning all concern for recklessness, with the half time handclaps urging her on. The band mixes hints of PJ Harvey’s guitar sound with more candid pop (think new wave, not boy bands), spinning angular guitars and slightly out-of-rhythm drumbeats into a restless post-punk dream.
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In recent years, a particular subgenre of indie cinema has developed: cute and quirky films centered around offbeat, slightly strange boys who defy all previous tenants of masculinity. Think Zach Braff’s character in Garden State, pretty much any role Michael Cera has ever played on the big screen, or, more recently, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s turn in 500 Days of Summer. These skinny, geeky, slacker-ish boys make for compelling narrators (at least, they do in the midst of our turn-of-the-21st-century ennui). And now, with the release of Miniature Tigers’ Tell It to the Volcano, indie music finally has its own version of the story.
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There’s a bridge and a tower, and you only go under one, and you’re never supposed to enter the other. This is what life is like here.
The bridge can be a sign. Most days it is a portal. Underneath and through, there is another city.
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In order to be successful, it seems that rock documentaries need to feature three basic things: awesome music, copious alcohol, and a topless girl. Atlanta music scene doc We Fun has all three, and it’s pretty great.
The movie profiles several Atlanta bands who have become well-known in the wider indie world. The Black Lips, Deerhunter and Mastodon are the big three — Atlanta’s holy trinity, if you will — but there are also notable appearances by and interviews with The Coathangers, Mourdella, The Babyshakes, King Khan and the Shrines, and many others.
The music is loud, the parties are crazy, and the city feels epic. It’s almost hard to believe these bands weren’t even on the map a few years ago.
Continue reading here.
Some days, it feels like Venice is Sinking is finally getting the recognition they deserve. Their video for “Ryan’s Song” premiered on the front page of Stereogum in February and since then the band’s new album, AZAR, has received glowing reviews from the likes of NPR and Venus Zine. But other days, the band still feels like Athens’ best kept secret. Their record release show, this past Friday night at Kavarna, felt a lot like the latter. In the smallish coffee shop, the band played flawlessly to a crowd of about 40.
Continue reading here.