Clavius Productions presents:
Sunday, June 4
Warehouse Next Door
1017 7th St NW WDC
$8, all ages
doors at 8:30, show at 9
The Sound of Urchin (mem. of Moistboyz)
Pink Mountaintops (mem. of Black Mountain, Jagjaguwar)
Catfish Haven (from Chicago, Secretly Canadian)
Benjy Ferree (fantastic DC singer/songwriter, recently signed to Domino)
The Sound of Urchin http://www.soundofurchin.com/ Since the release of their first EP in 2000, and through 2002â??s
You Are The Best, The Sound of Urchin have been hell-bent with their goal of total world domination. The band has toured incessantly, gathering a rabid cult following that will travel anywhere to get their "Urchin F*cking Rock" fix, and will trade anything to get CD copies of live Urchin shows. SOU has also toured with a diverse group of artists like Tenacious D, Ween, North Mississippi Allstars, Mike Watt, Cracker, Cobra Verde, and The Ziggens. "We even went out on the Deep Purple, Dio and Scorpions tour," says lead singer/drummer Tomato. "To have Ronnie James Dio come up and tell us to â??keep the rock nâ?? roll flame goingâ?? was just insane. We had beers with Dio! That was huge!" Now comes the release of The Sound of Urchinâ??s ambitious and extremely ass-kicking new album,
The Diamond due out in April on Hybrid Recordings. "This is the big rock record weâ??ve always wanted to make," Tomato enthuses. "
The Diamond is a totally new phase for the band. Thereâ??s still the Urchin vibe and diversity, but our main objective for the album was to make a very focused record, capturing the energy and passion of our live show and the duel lead guitar attack of B-ill and Seahag."
"We embrace so many different styles of music and our influences are constantly growing," he continues. "Not to generalize, but songs written today seem more like commercials. Maybe a little individuality squeaks through, but for the most part, everything sounds the same, so compartmentalized. Bands that influenced us were always searching for, and finding, different kinds of songs from one record to the next. Thatâ??s where the mystery of rock nâ?? roll comes from."
Searching for a producer who could crystallize its many influences and fine tune the songs that would become
The Diamond, The Sound of Urchin chose to work with melodic power pop maestro Adam Schlesinger (founding member of Fountains of Wayne and Ivy). "Adam was the perfect producer to help us make this record," says Tomato. "He brought out elements in our music that we didnâ??t see, and his relaxed, yet meticulous, production technique really captured the Urchin spirit onto tape."
The Diamond was recorded at Stratosphere Studios in Manhattan and features two guest performances: Former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha appears on the track "Blown Away" and Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister guests on "The Jack Oâ?? Lantern."
Though a New York City-based band, The Sound of Urchin met through mutual friends in the surprisingly musically fertile town of New Hope, PA. "New Hope is a place people visit to go antique shopping," Tomato offers, "but itâ??s also an incredible community of rock musicians who get together and jam all the time." A "drummer by birth" who writes songs obsessively, Tomato spent years drumming for many other bands before realizing his heart wasnâ??t into being the drummer for someone elseâ??s musical vision. "I decided to go out on my own and start something that could be a vehicle for the songs Iâ??d been writing. When we put this band together, it was just natural that I would sing and play drums," he says. It was in the formative stages of Urchin that the band met New Hope resident, Dean Ween, who became a mentor, co-producing Sound of Urchinâ??s first EP and helping the band find it's way through the music industry. Tomato and B-ill also play in Dean Ween's side band, The Moistboyz.
Looking over the 11 tracks listed on
The Diamond -- with titles like "Police Helicopters Over Brooklyn," "There Are People In The Clouds," "The Door," "The Jack-O-Lantern," and "Dracula Bite" -- itâ??s clear that The Urchin's abstract vibe remains intact. However, Tomato's songs weigh much more on the personal side, and are more direct and immediate than on the previous albums. "The Urchin has one main philosophy," Tomato states. "We will never write the same song twice; we are always finding new ways to keep our creativity alive. Once you stop growing, you're done. That simple thought is more important than anything when it comes to making music. And for this album, we all had one of the most brutal winters ever in NYC: All our friends were out of jobs, the music industry was suffering, we were at war, it was 8 degrees everyday, etc, etc. I was writing songs to make it through the winter, trying to shed some light on it, and knowing that someday spring would pop up and put us back on our feet."
The Diamond also captures the unpredictable energy of an Urchin live show. "Weâ??re a loud guitar band, with two of the best lead guitarists on the planet! We also have a classic rock vibe in the sense that we change the set every night and extend some of the songs into improv jams," says Tomato. "We never use set lists and weâ??re always off-the-cuff. Iâ??ll call out songs from the drum kit, and thatâ??s how we go. Rock nâ?? roll is supposed to be spontaneous. Sometimes thereâ??s that element of danger where you feel like you donâ??t know whatâ??s going to happen next -- we take the crowd on a ride! That's what it's all about!"
Ultimately though, Tomato believes
The Diamond is an album for music fans: "We mean everything we say, every note we play, and we show our passion on this album. We believe in rock nâ?? roll, and we want to ROCK, no matter how silly that might sound. Rock is not an ironic thing to us, it is our life. We all grew up wanting to play music more than anything...sitting in our rooms, listening to our favorite records, turning up the stereo and playing along with the music. Now that weâ??ve got our hardcore fanbase together, we hope The Diamond will get our sound out to more music fans. This is the Sound of Urchin, right here."
Pink Mountaintops http://www.thewaxmuseum.bc.ca/jwab/ http://www.jagjaguwar.com/pinkmountaintops/ If you measure every human act or expression as some manifestation of our hard-wired propensity to have sex, survive, and spread our genetic junk around, you could be labeled a Darwinist. And they seemingly come in all sizes and shapes: economic and literary Darwinists, evolutionary psychologists and biologists, and, paradoxically, creationist-leaning conservatives, to name a few. Unwittingly, then, those kind rock journalists out there who have summed up the music of Pink Mountaintops as being all about sex have fallen into the same age-old trap of oversimplification (for which we are partially to blame). The desire is for everything to be in a neat little box, much like the variously configured Darwinists out there would prefer that everything we do be explained by just one simple and powerful idea. But what is real and true in the world does not work like that, we humbly believe. Yeah, you may express, with a wink, that you know what the "pink mountaintops" are all about. Perhaps you can fuck them, both literally and figuratively. But we'd maintain that you can't put your hands around these mountaintops. No, because these mountaintops are unreachable. You can't measure them. You can't know them or neatly dissect them. You can't possess them. All you can do is look at them. And, hopefully, having gazed on them, you'll come to the realization that you can think about them in more than one way.
Pink Mountaintops is Stephen McBean (and also many of his friends when the full band is assembled to play live). McBean has been in numerous groups over the last two decades. As a thirteen-year old, he played in a band called Jerk Ward, playing hardcore influenced by the Neos, Discharge, Crucifix and whoever else was fast or the fastest. His other bands to date have been a straight-out punk outfit, a crusty punk/metal band, and, most recently, a psych-tinged maximal rock group whose self-titled debut record,
Black Mountain, captured a great amount of critical acclaim (and meteorically became Jagjaguwar's best-selling title.) With
Axis of Evol, Pink Mountaintops' second full-length record, McBean has once again created something much greater than the sum of his influences.
Axis of Evol begins with a forboding spiritual called "Comas," the kind that McBean and only a very few other songwriters of this generation could pull off. It includes the tone-setting lyrical phrase "I have been wrestling a dead angry deer, and she is still with me after all of these years." The record then almost immediately ramps up into a thumping, buzzing, blissful haze, at various parts sounding like the Velvet Underground or Spacemen 3 or the Jesus and Mary Chain circa
Psycho Candy. And at the end, the album then segues into a hypnotic, Smog-like meditation called "How We Can Get Free." Throughout the record, McBean sings about love and war, the love of war, and the war of love -- on the body, on the mind and on the soul. Home-recorded and largely self-produced,
Axis of Evol is a further testament to the vital prolificacy of Stephen McBean. His mind, body and soul have once again created something that can't be simply measured, coded or decoded. Experience it, then think about it in more than one way.
SONG LIST:
Comas
Cold Criminals
New Drug Queens
Slaves
Plastic Man, You're The Devil
Lord, Let Us Shine
How We Can Get Free
Catfish Haven http://www.catfishhaven.com/ "Catfish Haven's debut EP,
Please Come Back, is a surprisingly poignant ode to the innocent hedonism of youth...their music eschews hipster irony for earnestness, channeling Buddy Holly and Del Shannon as opposed to the Standells. In fact, standout cuts like "You Can Have Me" and the blistering title cut show a band with both heart and soul, both of which are the only true benchmarks for rock & roll longevity." (All Music Guide)
"This is soul music for future generations of rowdy rustic types, and when singer George Hunter proclaims "Iâ??m down on bended knee," with his raspy wail, we learn that the Midwestern trailer-park-born reincarnation of Otis Redding is a white kid strumming the shit out of his acoustic guitar...Catfish Haven have put together a mighty portrait of a band musically going for broke." (CMJ)
"On the title track's searing rave-up, staccato emotive bursts get swept up in a tide of concisely pounding percussion and stately rhythm guitar. Projecting from the diaphragm without overselling the memorable melody, Hunter's voice can crank up like a lawnmower or suddenly dip into bluesy melancholy with equal facility, and on this track in particular he belts like Van Morrison at his amped-up best. But this isn't his only register. On the smoldering dirge "Crying Shame," Hunter trades his exuberance for a sinister theatricality á la Nick Cave, dragging the last word of each line over infernal embers. Both styles find purchase on "Madelin," as whining string bends and a diabolically distressed "whoa" suddenly let out into winsome, clattering rock. Take away quirky instrumentation, genre experiments, and yelping vocals; what's left in the modern guitar band's arsenal? Catfish Haven remind us: Tuneful, passionate singing, lucid songwriting, and engaging riffs." (Pitchforkmedia)
Benjy Ferree http://benjyferree.com/ Benjy Ferree may hail from our nationâ??s capital, but his real inspiration seems to come from across the Atlantic. His debut EP
Leaving the Nest suggests nothing so much as an American take on the upbeat acoustic pop concocted by Paul McCartney and Ray Davies. While there are certainly elements of Americana in Ferreeâ??s sound -- plaintive fiddles, out-of-tune harmonicas, and a Johnny Cash cover ("A Little at a Time") -â?? his sing-song melodies clearly owe much to his British forbears. Hints of Davies and early Marc Bolan also shine through in his vocal delivery, while the plentiful backing harmonies that populate the album have Beatles written all over them.
Luckily, Ferree is a strong enough performer to keep
Leaving the Nest from feeling like mere homage. Despite being only 26 minutes long, the album makes an uncommonly strong impression. Ferree has a clear gift for fashioning hooky melodies, and each track contains a surplus. The musical ground covered here is considerable as well: not content to settle with one memorable motif, Ferree delivers up several at a time by dividing his songs up into clearly distinct but coherent sections, consistently throwing out enough melodic ideas to keep things interesting. The title track, for one, shifts between a George Harrison-inspired slide guitar lead, a bluesy droning verse, and a sing-along chorus: the elements seem irreconcilably different, but somehow Ferree manages to stitch them all together.
Leaving the Nest is most impressive due to its density: Ferree crams into 26 minutes a wealth of melodies and hooks to make most full-length LPs look dull in comparison. Itâ??s idyllic and upbeat without being sappy (complete with two whistling solos), comfortably familiar and yet well-executed enough to merit a listen even from the most jaded pair of ears. Benjy Ferree may not have a particularly unique or innovative sound, but heâ??s clearly hit on a winning formula. (Michael Cramer, Dusted)
