Piano rockers Augustana had their van broken into and musical equipment stolen Monday morning in Kansas City.
Around 9:30 a.m., they tweeted: “van AND trailer broken into in kansas city. lots of stuff missing including 2 old tele’s, old bass, records, andy’s favorite shoes . ..
The band has recovered their bass, but are still looking for the rest of their equipment.
At this time, they have not canceled any shows. Their next performance is Monday evening with Counting Crows at Starlight for Red, White and Boom in Kansas City.
The band – lead singer/bassist James Cook, guitaristMatt Cocksedge, and multi-instrumentalist Rick Boardman – recently played shows in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in June prior to the American album release date. But there are rumors the English trio will return to America for shows in October. I just saw these guys last week at Roskilde Festival and they’re definitely ones to watch. Check out the promo video for “Halcyon” below.
The trio from Tel Aviv, Monotonix, live up to their over the top live shows, playing raucous shows enough to have the power shut down and the police called in.
Ami Shaler (lead singer), Yonathan Gat (guitarist) andHaggai Fershtman (drummer) have played over 250 shows around the world since being banned from most venues in the holy land of Israel. This Black Sabbath-like band came to Lawrence and the audience kept their eyes peeled opened in shock and amazement.
All sorts of liquids were thrown into the crowd–beer, water, Red Bull–you couldn’t escape the madness. The band started on the floor of the venue instead of the stage and before you knew it, everyone was outside having the time of his or her life.
There was, as usual, no inhibitions shown by the band and the crowd loved every minute of it.
You have to wait a few more months for the new album from N.E.R.D. (Nothing is out Sept. 7), but there’s still plenty going on in the band’s camp.
They’ve just released “Hot-N-Fun” featuring Nelly Furtado. You can get the track on iTunes in a addition to a slew of remixes from acts like Hot Chip and Boys Noize.
One of our favorite remixes is this uptempo one from Yeasayer:
If you’re in Kansas City on July 30, make sure you have your dancing shoes…
California electronica duo The Crystal Method will be DJing at Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge on Friday, July 30 until bars close at 3 a.m. Resident DJ, Eric Coomes, will open at 9 p.m.
Tickets are already on-sale and while the $5 early purchase tickets have already sold out, you can still get your tickets for a really cheap price of $10. If it doesn’t sell out (which we think it will), the price goes up to $15 at the door. You must be 21+ to attend.
The band was playing Slowdown Jr. in Omaha, Neb. when they announced that was their third to last show. Their last show will be July 24 at the Maha Festival alongside The Faint and Spoon.
PopWreckoning got to see them in action a few times and while the smooth vocal harmonies and the walls of guitar fuzz impressed us, the band’s excessive drinking habits were less than exhilarating (You might recall the Sailor Sequence fiasco). That being said, the early break up is sad, but not too surprising.
The Kentucky rockers in Cage the Elephant, popular for hits such as “In One Ear” and “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” played Kansas City’s Beaumont Club with a high energy set filled with big guitar solos and bluesy vocals. Photographer Todd Zimmer captured the event:
As an adolescent, Brad Oberhofer went to Tacoma School of the Arts just half an hour south of Seattle. He recorded some songs with a band in his parents’ basement, and then moved to Brooklyn where he has since created a bit of a name for himself. I mean, his music just appeared in a Sobe commercial. And he’s about to release his debut 7″, perplexingly titled o0O0o0O0o.
Being from the Tacoma area myself, I always love hearing about success stories from our little corner of Washington. I can’t help but feel a sense of pride when listening to Neko Case’s “Thrice All American” (which is about growing up in Tacoma), and now Oberhofer can also show the rest of the world that Seattle isn’t the only place in this state that breeds good artists these days.
Having already released a set of free songs on his MySpace, Oberhofer now officially will release his three-song 7” in the physical sense. The titular song and single, I’m guessing refers to the “ooo ooo ooo” that encompasses most of the chorus, but it doesn’t really matter. This is the song that hit the television in the new, hip advertisement for Sobe. Even though it’s the most commercial on the 7″, this track employs fuzzy guitars, lo-fi drums, toy piano, glockenspiel, and Oberhofer’s scrappy shouts and coos. That’s actually what I like the most, because the instrumentals aren’t all that distinct from a lot of the independent artists coming from the underground these days, but Oberhofer’s vocals mirror the styling of both Noah Lennox and Dave Portner of Animal Collective, but a bit more youthful. And I love me some Animal Collective, so what’s not to like about Oberhofer, right?
I couldn’t find much that I didn’t like. Especially, since this isn’t the first I’ve heard of him. A friend of mine who went to art school with Brad put his song “Away frm U” on a mix CD a while back, and I got curious. “Away frm U” was one of the songs Oberhofer released for free via their MySpace page, so I suggest you go there first to have a sample before shelling out the coin for the 7” in August.
The next two songs on o0O0o0O0o aren’t nearly as catchy as the title track, “Don’tneedya” and “Smylez,” but you can see that Oberhofer is creative with his song titles. “Don’tneedya” is a darker song with far more electronic instruments than the title track – which I’m sure if I played around with Garageband for long enough, I could figure out how to put something similar together. But the cheesy synthetic noise mixed with the raw quality of all the other layers makes for an especially interesting debut. “Smylez” again uses the familiar guttural “ooo ooo ooo” prevalent on the first track. Now the title is making a little more sense.
The only downside to the o0O0o0O0o 7″ is that you don’t get more tracks. And even though Oberhofer has a similar wall-of-sound style as Animal Collective, they aren’t playing epic eight-minute songs that Animal Collective. I just hope it’s a small taste of what is to come from the Tacoma native. Okay fine, so Brad Oberhofer moved to Brooklyn before getting all the publicity that he has (which is why I think he moved to Brooklyn in the first place), but Oberhofer’s parents’ basement isn’t in Brooklyn. It’s in Tacoma.
If you pre-order the vinyl right now over at InSound, you’ll get the mp3s right away to take a listen.
Kansas City’s HOLY mountain took the time between touring and recording their debut effort to dazzle PopWreckoning with smiles, share secrets to success and give other insights into the band. Read the transcript of the interview or watch the video of it below:
PopWreckoning, Bethany: Can you tell me who you are and what instruments you each play? Carlos, HOLY mountain: I’m Carlos. I play guitar and drums and I sing vocals. Dave, HOLY mountain: I’m Dave and I play piano and guitar. Elijah, HOLY mountain: I’m Elijah. I play bass, sing and play guitar. Shaker. Cameron, HOLY mountain: I’m Cameron. I play the drums, the bass and I sing one time.
PW: How did you get together and form HOLY Mountain? Cm: Well, last April {2009} we played a worship set at this church that I used to go to and we really liked the way it sounded. Dave was actually playing the acoustic guitar and singing. Carlos was playing the guitar. Elijah played the bass and I played the drums. We liked the way it sounded. So we went back to Dave’s house a couple of days later, set up in his living room and played a few songs. We just jammed out, but we ended writing our first two songs that way. So we thought maybe it will go somewhere and we just kept going.
PW: Where did name come from? E: There’s this verse in the Bible–HOSEA. HOSEA chapter 2 and it’s actually on our t-shirts. It just speaks about the end of the age and the coming change. We believe it’s now. So this name has a lot of meaning to us. We didn’t completely agree on it to begin with. Cameron even said ‘I’d never be in a band called HOLY Mountain.’ After awhile it was the only one that stuck. Cm: That’s what I said, too. E: We went through so many names…I think we all kind of love it now. D: I still don’t care. Cr: That’s his opinion on everything though.
PW: Would you label yourselves a Christian band? HM: We’re Christians in a band. That label, just the word Christian itself, it’s so misused. We believe in God. We believe in the Bible. We make music and write about it because it is the most important thing in our lives. But, we’re not playing in churches on Sunday night. I mean, I wouldn’t mind playing at a church, because, you know? We’re just dudes playing music that happen to be Christians and love the lord. Cm: Amen. Cr: Amen. Alright, let’s have a moment of prayer.
PW: How would you describe your sound/classification? Cr: Simple, but big. Cm: Post-rock with a heavy twist. Cr: Hits you in the face. D: Old, classic. Cr: Hit you in the face and then pet your butt. Cm: Haha. Ahh. PW: I’d say you just invented a whole new genre. Cm: I would say that there’s definitely a very strong post rock feel to it, but we don’t only come from that. You can pick up on that here and there, but there are definitely sounds from influences and people that do not play post rock. So, it’s interesting.
PW: What artists are your influences? E: Neil Young would be a big one for me at least, especially in my guitar playing. Cr:Sigur ros, the Appleseed Cast, Minus the Bear. D: The Beatles. E:Mogwai, American Football. Just a full collaboration of everything we listened to growing up. Even like Bossanova to classical music. We grew up with a ton of Bossanova music. Dave is a classical trained musician. I had no idea what Cameron grew up with. D: Sleepy yawns? Cr:N’Sync. We were loving that N’Sync stuff. Haha. Cm: Yeah. That was a good one. Cr:No Strings Attached. PW: You guys knew all the dance moves. Cm: Yeah, Backstreet Boys had a sick album.
PW: What is your songwriting process? D: Usually one of us brings an idea and we just layer on that idea. Sometimes its nothing more than just two or three chords. Cm: We’ve all been writing songs for a long time. There’s literally hundreds of songs that I’ve written, but then Dave writes the most killer song that I’ve heard: about 1 every six months. We go from it. We bring an idea. Seventy-five percent of our songs had some sort of context to it before it was brought in for us to go off it; 25 percent are just written while we’re jamming. Cr: We write a couple of songs that just happen when we’re just hanging out and just jamming, but for the most part somebody brings an idea. It never turns out the way we think it will at first. We do a voting system. If 3 people like a guitar then it stays and the person that doesn’t like has to deal. E: We feel things out a lot. It’s usually a lot of fun. Writing songs is one of the best parts about practice. We sit there and we just start playing. A lot of it is speaking and trying to figure things out. It’s fun. D: It kind of sucks that we have to keep playing a set because I feel like we could be writing a new set about every week or so. Cr: Recently, when we’ve been writing a song, we’ll sit and play that song for about 4 or 5 hours straight. Next practice we’ll just pick up and play that song again. We just abandon our other songs and just kill over and over until we’ve picked apart every note: change that note here, that little tiny part, we try to master the song. It’s always kind of a work in process.
PW: Dave – how does your classical training affect you in the band? D: The classical training really only comes in on more of a technique level. Especially when I play piano…but I think, well I’ve played not just classical, but a lot of jazz, too. Most of my stuff, half of my stuff that I play in the set, I feel like I’m improv-ing every night. Cr: That’s a problem when we’re trying to record. Haha. He plays whatever. D: Through that jazz stuff you have to think quickly and think on your feet. Everything kind of comes through in the jazz. I wouldn’t say it is too much different than anyone else’s. E: It is a little different process. D: Yeah, I mean, sometimes I struggle with weird beats and stuff like that some of these guys throw out there. E: Bear with me. D: I don’t know. I think that since we all come from such different musical backgrounds; it’s a fun balance. Cr: Even though me and Elijah are brothers, we have probably the opposite the idea of what we think in music is good, but for the most part, somehow we’ve worked together and we write together. we have pretty much the opposite idea on every aspect of life. E: We like a lot of the same music, but for completely different reasons. Cr: Exactly. E: It’s really funny to sit and compare why. Pick a band we both like and I’ll give you a completely different reason for why I like it…Mine and his relationship when we both play, really affects our music.
PW: What’s your secret to success and being like family? D: you shouldn’t think that we don’t [all get on each other's nerves.] Cr: We’ve all been friends for so long. I mean Lei? has been my brother my whole life, Cameron has been my best friend since the 4th grade and he met L the same time. Dave went to high school with Cameron and we met him back then and we didn’t hang out as much, but it just goes so far back. Cm: Now D and L and I all live together and Carlos is married living two blocks away. His wife, Jackie, is one of our best friends. We’re always around each other. We’re pretty much inseparable. With that comes annoyances, but it is so small compared to the love that we have for each other. E: We’re family. Cm: Yeah, we are. We’re family.
PW: What’s it like trying to be a KC band gaining Lawrence acceptance? Is there a division between the two cities? E: Lately, we’ve been surprised at the connectivity between the two scenes recently. It seems like when one scene in one city kind of drops, then the other one builds up and then they help bring it over. I’ve been here for like 15-16 years now in the area of KC/Lawrence and I’ve gone back and forth a lot. It is really interesting to see the dynamic. I think they’re a lot more interconnected than some people believe. We’ve received a lot of help from bands in Lawrence and vice versa. It’s been pretty cool to meet people and people you barely know go out of their way just to help the music and help you out. In return, you want to try and help them out…It’s cool. We have such a unique geographical location being that there are two remarkably different music scenes very close to eachother and they really help eachother.
Cm: They’re really good music scenes. The cool thing that I’ve found out and a lot of our friends brought up is that in the music industry which is so make or break, you kind of have to fight for yourself, it is an industry where here there really is a lot of community between KC and Lawrence music scene. We’ve met the guys from some bands here, met them in passing, and they’ve been so friendly and genuine. It is really remarkable how much everyone wants to see everyone else succeed. It’s been a blessing. Cr: Kacie Brown is also a big secret to our success. E: Best manager ever. Cm: We call her mom. Cr: Mom and Dave’s babysitter, but we’re also Dave’s babysitter.
PW: What should people look out for in HOLY mountain’s future? Cr: We’re just writing and trying to make our sound better and fuller and more in your face and just having fun. Look out for our smiles. Cm: We’ve got some blinding smiles. Cr: We’ve got some bllllinnnding smiles.
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Concert Calendar
Nov 23, 2011
HaHa Tonka @ Recordbar, Kansas City MO
Nov 25, 2011
Thee Oh Sees @ The Granada, Lawrence KS
