The Seedy Seeds - Verb Noun

credit: Scott Beseler

http://www.taketheday.com

It's going on 3 years now that I've wondered to myself why I'm the only person I know who's into Cincinnati's quirky banjo-electronic The Seedy Seeds. I can't understand why these guys aren't a much bigger deal than they are. Not a week goes by that I don't play them in my car at least once.

Here's to hoping their newest record Verb Noun (available later this spring) makes a bit of a splash. If the whole thing is as good as the title track (listen or download), I think it's got a decent chance.

For good measure, here's a great track from their last record, Count the Days:

Bad Books - You Wouldn't Have To Ask (mp3)

This makes two posts in a row on my neglected blog about Bad Books, but when I posted the first time there weren't any (legit) downloads available, and now there are. Click the link below for a download of "You Wouldn't Have To Ask," and then head over to facebook.com/badbooksmusic to stream another (even cooler, IMHO) song: "Please Move."

Download Bad Books - You Wouldn't Have To Ask (mp3)

Adam Haworth Stephens - The Cities That You've Burned

Adam Haworth Stephens is one half of Two Gallants.  More relevant to this post, he's putting out a record all on his own, called We Live on Cliffs.  As you might guess, it sounds a lot like Two Gallants (or at least the lead single"The Cities That You've Burned" does.  That is, unequivocally, a good thing.

This here fancydoodle widget'll letcha yank yer own copy down from th' ether:

The Chap - We Work In Bars

The Chap split their time between London and Berlin. Or maybe some of them live in the former and the others the latter. Or maybe there's a city called London/Berlin somewhere. Probably not that one though.  They've been around for a while, and once in a while an mp3 of theirs crosses my desk. I could have sworn I'd written about them before and/or posted a song, but apparently not.

So...here's "We Work In Bars" from The Chap's upcoming Well Done Europe -- their fourth. It's about exactly what the title says it's about: working in bars. It's poppy, quirky, and fun, and if you're like me you'll end up playing it more than once.

The Chap - We Work In Bars (mp3)

The Bravery - The Spectator (mp3)

Back when The Bravery were first getting attention, a friend of mine went to go see them at a label showcase sorta deal in Los Angeles and had a vehemently negative reaction. So I was wary of them for a not very good reason from the beginning. And then they put out "Believe" and it sounded a lot like a Meat Puppets song that might not have been ubiquitous had Nirvana not covered it in a show that everyone in the entire world has listened to hundreds of times, and I sorta stopped paying attention.

But you know, whatever. Haters gonna hate; The Bravery're doing just fine. "The Spectator" will be on their forthcoming record, Stir The Blood, but it's also going to be released tomorrow on the Vampire Diaries soundtrack. Insert your own punchline about copycat vampires...all this negativity is really killing my buzz.

The Bravery - The Spectator (mp3)

New As Tall As Lions: Circles (mp3)

As Tall As Lions Album Trailer from Alternative Press on Vimeo.

This just got emailed to me like I'm a real blogger or something. Sweet!

Seriously though, I love this band, and I've been excited for their new album since they put out ther last one. You Can't Take It With You is slated for release August 18th, and judging from the video above, it was hell and a half in the making. Judging from "Circles" (mp3), it might have been worth it.

Get it on.

This is hokey, but let it never be said that, even when I'm posting as infrequently as I have been, I make careful editorial decisions with regards to the content on this site. From now until Valentine's Day, Amazon.com has decided to give away an .mp3 of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" for free. If you don't already own this (HOW COULD YOU NOT ALREADY OWN THIS?!) you now officially have no excuse. Click here, this ish is FREE.

Matt Singer interview

Download: Matt Singer - The Poet (mp3)
Also check out: myspace.com/mattsingermusic

A few months ago, I wrote a review of Matt Singer's latest EP, The Drought. Then I heard about a residency he had at The Living Room during December, so I went to check out a show. He played a bunch of stuff from The Drought, a few songs I hadn't heard before, and even found time in his set for an audience participation dreidel tournament. The way every rock show should go, really. I'm a total jackass for never getting around to writing about it (blame Left 4 Dead), because I was going to call the post "From the dreidel to the grave," which would have been a big hit, I think.

Anyway, a week or so later, Matt emailed me a quick note about the first review, and I asked if he'd like to do an interview. He very graciously consented.

Mike McClenathan: When you meet strangers at parties and they ask what you do, how do you describe it?

Matt Singer: Ferocious sensitive 90’s folk rock?

Actually, I always feel like I’m answering that question for the first time, so if you’ve got any good ideas, please let me know.

MM: You write songs on a pretty wide range of subjects. George Bush, American Idol rejects, The Catholic church, amazing dongs. What really gets you fired up to write? Or, perhaps a better question: is there anything you won't write about?

MS: I can never really predict what is going to grab me. About five years back, it’s clear that church scandals, the Iraq war and the statewide bans on gay marriage were on my mind, but looking back on that time, I realize that those songs were just as much (if not more) about personal stuff… romance, loyalty, my own craziness… The same stuff still seems to be happening in my writing… I just finished a few songs that touch on the lives of refugees and the challenges faced by immigrants, but they’re still totally personal somehow, even though I’m a relatively spoiled suburban kid.

Nowadays, it seems that for every new book I read, a song comes out of it. I’ve been reading a lot of different stuff… Dave Eggers, Alison Bechdel, Cormack McCarthy… so my songs are pretty varied. Then again, with me, they always have been.

As for dongs and sex on restroom sinks, that’s all just an over-active imagination. And wishful thinking.

And no, there is nothing I won’t write about. Except pate. Don’t care for it.

MM: You've been at this a while now. What would 2008, fresh-off-a-Living-Room-residency Matt Singer say to 2003 Matt Singer if he could?

MS: Avoid cruelty, floss daily, and take occasional deep breaths. But not too deep. Oh, and do some recording on your own, Matt… It’s great that you’ve got ridiculously talented friends who do you favors, but buy a freaking pre-amp and a decent microphone, and make it happen, for God’s sake.

MM: How much does it burn you that myspace.com/mattsinger is some other dude that plays music, who claims to sound like "ten thousand farts through paper towel tubes, all in unison"?

MS: Yeah, there are actually quite a few Matt Singers involved in the arts, including a guy from North Carolina who harassed me once for not promptly responding to an email about how cool it is that we have the same name. I like to think that I shoulder this heavy burden with grace, although I’ve been typing the hyphen in my own website for years now (matt-singer.com), and it still makes me a little queasy. Hyphens suck.

MM: Aside from the other Matt Singer, who do you listen to?

MS: Mostly, the folks from the same music scene as me… Lowry, The Blood Sugars, Pearl and the Beard are a few.

MM: During your residency at the Living Room, you were collecting different charitable donations (canned food, toys, warm clothes) each night. What are your favorite charities?

MS: The New York Immigration Coalition and Generation Q do great work. Not sure if they qualify as charities, but they are fabulous organizations.

MM: Where and when can we catch you next?

MS: Union Hall (Brooklyn), Fri. January 2nd

The Dahlak (Washington, DC), Sat. January 10th

Rockwood Music Hall (NY), Mon. January 26th

Springsteen does Halloween

Head on over to brucespringsteen.net and watch the video and download the free mp3 for "A Night With The Jersey Devil." Not sure how long it'll stay up past Halloween, so grab it while the grabbing's good.

It's a nice touch that the download page encourages, but does not mandate, email submission.

Happy Halloween.

The Lighthouse Song

Speaking of new things worth checking out on MySpace (and really, when are we not), Josh Pyke has posted the first new song from his forthcoming Chimney's Afire record: "The Lighthouse Song." The list of artists whose work I'll grant a preemptive endorsement is dwindling to say the least, but Mr. Pyke remains firmly entrenched there. Buy this record when it comes out. It will be good.

In the interest of not just posting a link to MySpace and calling it a day (not that there's anything wrong with that), here's a mostly forgotten interview I did with Josh Pyke back in 2005 on the now-defunct PulverRadio.com. The interview includes four fantastic live performances interspersed in between poorly worded, mundane questions and patiently delivered answers. I cringe to listen to the interview these days, but the songs are really marvelous.

Fun.

In a move surely designed to make me say "damn" and drink a beer, The Format announced months ago via MySpace that they will not be making any more records. I didn't write about it at the time because if you look back at February, I wasn't writing about much of anything. But it seriously sucked, sucks, and will suck.

That said, an announcement went up today about Nate's new band, fun. Stupid name perhaps, but it's exactly the word I'd use to describe the demo (download available with login) of "Benson Hedges," currently the only song available on the site. Which is a neat concept, really. Imagine if other bands followed suit. What a great day it would be when Animal Collective changed their name to WTF.

If you've got some time to kill and are interested, Nate also posted a long letter to his fans about what he's been up to so far in 2008 here. Make sure you go to the bathroom before you click if you want to get through it uninterrupted.

I'm missing Chairlift RIGHT NOW.

Photo by Ross Fraser

Chairlift, who might very well be on stage at the Knitting Factory as I type this at the end of a long night of sweating in my apartment, is today's swift-kick-to-the-ass for amassing such a backlog of to-be-listened-to songs that I never got to "Evident Utensil" (mp3) until it was too late.

Don't make the same mistake I did. Listen to this bizarre 80's-ish ode to pencils (other songs are about earwigs!) sooner rather than later, and don't waste the night languishing on your ass when they come through your town.

Chairlift's debut Does It Inspire You comes out 10/18/08 on Kanine Records, although it's apparently already available as a digital purchase at Amazon.

Update: an email from a BlackBerry confirms that yes, I am missing them right at this very moment.

The Confusions are still at it.

My favorite Swedish band, The Confusions, are in line to play the last set at this year's Storsjöyran Festival in their native land, hitting the stage at 1:30 AM on 8/2/08. What? You've never heard of the Storsjöyran Festival? Well turn in your Cool Dude Card right now, Buster, because the lineup features some of the raddest groups around, from Drive-By Truckers to Justice to Kris Kristofferson to Blondie!

Ok, I had never heard of it either.

If you like the song in the video above (it's called "Thin"), an email from the band assures me that for a limited time, an mp3 will be available here, although at the time of this posting, it doesn't seem to be working yet.

[theconfusions.com]

With new wave hairdos I want girls

There's a new(-ish) radio station in town here, WRXP - New York's Rock Experience, that has single-handedly renewed my interest in the art of radio programming. In fact, I've resisted more than once the urge just to post a set of 5 or 6 songs in a row they've played just to comment on how nicely done it was.

They do most of the things I like, such as not relying on big artists' crutch hits (they play a bunch of Zeppelin but I've yet to hear "Stairway to Heaven," tonight they played The Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe"), playing two songs in a row without even a dry sweeper in between (love that), and playing a palatable mix of good old stuff and decently cool new stuff. Forget that this is what every station says it does. RXP has actually been doing it. For example, they've been playing new My Morning Jacket and Rogue Wave, and they nearly made me crash my car the other night when they played Steve Forbert (mp3), who I haven't heard on the radio since...well since I programmed a station myself.

They've also invested in some talent, which I guess is ok. Matt Pinfield, despite an impressive and enviable CV, still feels the need to tell me during every one of his breaks that he'll be with me for about 42 minutes. This is the kind of shit that jocks do when they're brand new to the field (he's not) or when they're completely phoning it in (ahem). And his cheese-grater voice sounds totally forced. But really, it's fine.

What drives me fucking crazy, and honestly what I wouldn't have expected from a station that's otherwise programmed so brilliantly, is that just like every other station in the universe, I seem to hear a track from Licensed to Ill EVERY SINGLE TIME I listen for more than a few minutes. Who still wants to hear that so often?

Early Beastie Boys material must test extremely well, but on a well programmed station, it does nothing slap me right out of whatever groove a station has me in. It's just not cool anymore. It's like a throbbing growth on the face of rock radio that everyone politely ignores. Stop the madness.

If you're going to play the Beastie Boys (and really, I'd rather you just let them be), at least play "Sabotage."

Sounds like: happy.

I don't usually post things like this because as soon as music like this comes out of my speakers I'm reminded that I don't have cool enough clothes to ever be taken seriously at a show where music like this is played, but screw it.

Here's the first single from Ponytail's forthcoming release Ice Cream Spiritual!:

Ponytail - Celebrate The Body Electric (It Came From An Angel) (mp3)

I'm really at a loss to describe this, or what I like about it. Essentially, it's 7 minutes of...rapture. The guitars are loud and have the attention span of an overly sugared toddler. Once in a while they'll settle into a groove for a few bars, but they seem to get bored of it before I do every time. The vocals don't amount to much more than rock and roll googoogaga babytalk. It feels like it should be the soundtrack to one of those internet videos of grown adults that get together and have naptime on the floor and play with Tonka trucks. It's just about exactly what you'd expect from a band that calls their record Ice Cream Spiritual!

And if you're like me and you're reading this without having heard it, you're wondering why I would ever expect you to listen to this.

I don't know, maybe it's just that it's really beautiful in the city today after a number of spring's false starts, but I'm really into this song right now. Give it a shot. You might like it as much as I do.

Ponytail's Ice Cream Spiritual! comes out June 17.

Interview: The Rapt...err...The Sarah Pedinotti Band

Although they stole my heart during their short stint as The Raptors, The Artists Now Known Again As The Sarah Pedinotti Band ultimately decided not to stick with the daringly Cretaceous name. Read why below, and then find a way to be at one (or, preferably, both) of the following two shows to see first hand what all the fuss is about.

Saturday, 3/29/08, 9pm - Kenny's Castaways
Friday, 4/4/08, 8:45pm - The Living Room

One last thing. As you read the interview, play this. Over and over and over.

The Sarah Pedinotti Band - Julio (mp3)

Mike McClenathan: Who are The Raptors?

Sarah Pedinotti: We're now the Sarah Pedinotti Band. We're still looking around for the right name. We've looked under garbage cans and in newspapers; the boys come over regularly, pick up any book off my shelf and shout out random words. One day, we were talking about T.Rex and Chris (the drummer) said, half-joking "how about the Raptors." We all stopped what we were doing. It seemed familiar but good and we thought it had to be taken. And it is. "The Raptors" are a Canadian Basketball team that rarely wins... BUT we became The Raptors for a little over a week too. It felt good.

Now to answer your question: The group of keen-sighted, flesh-eating birds and ferocious dinosaurs known as The Sarah Pedinotti Band consist of: Tony Markellis (bass), Chris Kyle (guitar), Chris Carey (drums) Dave Payette (piano) and me.

MM: How long have you been playing together?

SP: Dave, Chris Carey and I have been playing together since high school.
Tony joined in the summer of 2006. We added Chris Kyle in the fall of 2007.

MM: How did the decision to change your name come about?

SP: Well, my last name is difficult for most people when they're sober. Something about four syllable names, they're too perplexing for the mind to handle. But since we're back to being The Sarah Pedinotti Band, for now, I just think of how much people love Luciano Pavarotti. It makes me feel better.

MM: Comparisons are all but necessary evils when it comes to getting the word out about great new music, but I hate making them too much to do it directly myself. So here's this: your bio mentions recent comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, Jacque Brel, Dr. John and Tom Waits. I'm sure there have been scores of other comparisons as well. Which do you find the most flattering?

SP: I find the ones you mentioned the most flattering. Especially Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits. And since this industry calls for braggarts, they're mentioned in my bio. What my bio doesn't mention is that I hate being compared to Pee-wee Herman. Actually that has never happened. But if it did, I'd be pissed.

MM: Because every conversation I have with anyone always ends up here and at least this time we have a reasonable transition to it, let's focus on the Springsteen comparison for just a minute. Your songs, like his, are full of vividly developed characters. Where does the inspiration for a character like Michael (from "Julio") come from?

SP: I met this man in the Albany bus station. I was in the cafeteria, sitting in an orange-colored booth between the jukebox and the video games. The air was sticky with the smell of hot dogs cooking on a dirty grill. I was reading Down and Out in Paris and London and he came walking up to me. He was a short, tough-looking Latino man. He wore all black, a black bandana on his head, faded black jeans, black leather boots. It was hard to tell his age because his skin was so rugged. He had many tattoos (including a teardrop on his left eye) and plenty of scars. He asked me for a pen and said he'd give it right back. I quickly rummaged for one and told him to keep it.

He came back minutes later and asked me what I was reading. He said, "Oh, George Orwell, like 1984 and Animal Farm." I must have looked impressed because he sat down across from me and proceeded to tell me his whole life story. He said he was never interested in books until he escaped the law, riding solo on boxcars and hitchhiking to Mexico. Reading was the only entertainment he had back then. He didn't know anyone outside of New York City and he was only fourteen when he ran away.

Long story short, I missed my bus. I found myself simultaneously freaked out by the man who claimed to be a mass killer and enthralled with his story. It was like talking with a jungle cat. I felt frozen in time, watching his pitch-black eyes flash like lighting while he spoke. He was less a socio-path and more an emotional wreck with a tough-as-nails exterior, born into the wrong neighborhood.

Meeting him took awhile to process. But months later, during an earsplitting thunderstorm, I woke up out of a deep sleep and wrote down the song in 10 minutes. No joke. Maybe I was electrocuted.

MM: Saratoga Springs, NY looks like it's as close to Montreal as it is to NYC on a map. What's it like to be a band there?

SP: Saratoga is a strange and sometimes beautiful place. In the summer it turns into a touristy freak show. It actually is home to the oldest organized sporting venue of any kind in the US, the Saratoga Race Course. So every year when it gets warm, horses, gamblers, cigars and big hats follow. A lot of people like to get drunk here. That's sort of the underlying disorganized sport that takes place around these parts.

But there's beauty too. The mineral water is supposedly sacred, we're at the foothills of the Adirondacks, there's a community of artists and musicians, and a farmer's market. And that's why we're here. That and drunks seem love us and tip us more.

MM: What's the local beverage of choice?

SP: Most drinks are popular. All I know is the non-alcoholic beer doesn't sell. I drink whiskey from time to time. It's good for the voice.

MM: Being in a band is cool. What's the coolest thing about being in your band?

SP: We're good friends who share a passion. I can honestly say I love my band mates. Every single one of them is brilliant in their own strange way. Chris Carey has boundless amounts of energy. He can make the best and most realistic farting noises with his armpits. He has a talent for turning any inanimate object into a musical instrument and he actually makes everything sound good. Dave is nocturnal and sleeps in a cave like batman. He has perfect pitch and can probably read minds. Chris Kyle is a badass with a heart of gold. He’s got a scar on his lip from a pit bull that attacked him at a gas station and yet he can’t wait to have a dog of his own. He’s soulful and wild like a Buddhist monk on a motorcycle.

And Tony? I bet he’s played on every stage, stadium, theatre, basement, living room, bathroom and kitchen in the universe. With every famous, infamous and unknown person I can think of. He’s gotten fancy treatment on tour, sleeping in 5-star hotels, signing hundreds of autographs and he’s dealt with the shit, sleeping in vans after playing hole-in-the-wall bars. Now he’s playing with us. That shows dedication.

[Buy the album at CD Baby]
[sarahpedinotti.com]
[myspace.com/sarahpedinotti]

Colour Revolt - Plunder, Beg, and Curse

"It's pretty sometimes, sure, but it doesn't do to leave gorgeous alone, and sometimes you have to punch the blushing bride in the face, you the low-hearted puggish bridesmaid with nary a suitor."

- from (I swear to God) the official bio that came with the disc

Despite the recent infrequency with which I've been writing about music, I requested a review copy of Colour Revolt's soon-to-be-released Plunder, Beg, and Curse [edit: it's available now at eMusic!] because they really rocked when they opened for Brand New a year and a half ago. And despite the bio that greeted me when I opened the envelope (it's three paragraphs of that shit) and the supremely creepy cover art, I was quite determined to like what I heard before I even pressed play. I guess you should know that going into this.

As the CD ripped, and I wondered whether the bio indicated a band that takes itself too seriously* or one that doesn't take its audience seriously at all (maybe both), I tried to conjure up a recollection of exactly what I liked so much about Colour Revolt in the first place. It wasn't the lyrics, which is what usually enthralls me about a band; there was no making lyrics out that night above the din. It was the groove. Five guys on stage playing LOUD, but tight, and slow. If you're a New Yorker or a New Englander and you've ever been intrigued in conversation with a Southerner by the careful, relaxed cadence of her speech, well it's kinda like that...only with rock. You don't realize how fast everyone plays loud music until you hear a band slow down a bit when they get to the instrumental breaks, as CR does in opening track "Naked and Red." They hail, incidentally, from Mississippi. And they play music that's well suited to that full-body-head-nod that's (let's face it) the only dance you know.

Here's the thing: It only works loud. My first listen was on my computer speakers at low volume while I folded laundry. I was...unimpressed. My second listen was in my car, cranked. And when I heard this band slip into a hot, sticky groove as loudly as my little Yaris could play it, I was reminded, quite pleasantly, of why I was interested in the first place. When Colour Revolt is good, when they're indulging in their sound, they're very good. If grooves are what move you, you should listen to this record. Loud. I like it more and more every time I play through it.

If you're interested, the aforementioned "Naked and Red" is currently available for download at myspace.com/colourrevolt and it's as good a place to start as any. You can't download "A Siren," but that one's pretty rad too.

UPDATE - download "Naked and Red" here, and "A Siren" here. Sweet.

---

* The record ends with "What Will Come of Us," which itself ends with some backwards muttering. I couldn't resist re-reversing it to see what the whole thing was about. Turns out it's a comment on how "that end part's fucking tight" and how Len is "dropping that shit." Hear for yourself.

Nobody Writes About: Shootyz Groove

Brilliant sticker placement in High Fidelity* reminded me last night of a band that I haven't spent much time thinking about since high school. Like pretty much everyone that went to high school in Connecticut in the mid-late 90's, I had a brief and ill-advised love affair with rap rock at that time: my beloved Rage Against the Machine provided a gateway into winding, seemingly never-ending couloirs stacked high with ill-advised guitar/emcee combinations. Still, not all of it was bad, and there are a few bands that I still remember fondly, when I have occasion to remember.

Shootyz Groove had one semi-national semi-hit in the summer of '99 (I remember this because it was played on at least 3 different radio stations as I made my way up the Taconic State Parkway to Woodstock '99, a shitshow if there ever was one), but I knew and loved them prior to their short-lived radio fame because of an opening slot they tore apart at the Webster Theater in Hartford before 2 Skinnee J's, a band I'll continue to defend as long as I shall live.

High Definition (purchased at the show) was...fine. Okay, at the time I thought it was amazing. Not all of it sounds good still, but the aforementioned hit (download it or watch the video below) still sounds as good as it ever did, the live cut "Faithful" continues to satisfy, and when album opener "Mad For It" fades in, I'm taken right back to driving around town in the first car I ever owned, playing music louder than I ever could anywhere else. What a feeling.

But Shootyz Groove was a better band to see live than their records let on. I've seen a lot of bands since then, but they still have a special place in my heart as one of the greatest opening acts I've ever seen. Ironically, on the day that I decided to write about them, I checked around the web for them (figuring they'd long since broken up) to find they were playing the Highline Ballroom AS I WAS TYPING ABOUT THEM. I'm buried too deeply in Brooklyn to have been able to make it, but believe me when I tell you that I would've jumped right on a train if I'd had a chance to catch them.

So not only are they still together and performing occasionally (spent the summer on the road with 311, hitting The Living Room in Providence soon), they're putting out a new record, One, this year. I'd be lying if I said I expected to be blown away based on what I've streamed at their site, but I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't still going to check it out anyway.

If there's even a shred of fondness for well-done rap rock left behind the hardened indie rock husk in which you currently dwell, check out what Shootyz Groove has been up to at shootyzgroove.com, or at myspace.com/shootyzgroove.

Shootyz Groove - L Train (video below)



* The "WHAT FUCKING IAN GUY!?!?" scene: Rob goes into his back office and closes the door behind him so Marie DeSalle (Lisa Bonet) doesn't hear him flip out, and there's a Shootyz Groove sticker behind him on the right. I used to have the same sticker on my first car.

Prince - PFunk

I absolutely did not bother writing about it when Prince (or someone representing him) tried to stop the Internet from using his likeness, name, or symbol-as-name. Mostly because I like the guy, and I couldn't tell if the whole to-do was even real. Idolator did like Idolator does, so if you're totally in the dark re: the backstory, you should just read about it there.

The denoument, if you will, is Prince giving away^ this 7 minute ripper of a track. As mea culpa? Regardless, it rules.

Prince - PFunk

* Okay, so I can't actually find confirmation on 3121.com (Prince's site) that this song is free to download, but it's HOSTED there, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's cool.

Lead the way, and we'll all go home

There was once a band named Curbside Service. They put out a record called I Packed My Bags a Year in Advance with a few great songs on it (notably the title track) which I stumbled upon one day whilst poking about the Internet. One day they emailed their mailing list announcing a name change and a move from Alabama to California. I've had my eye on The Snake The Cross The Crown ever since.

The band's first EP, Like a Moth Before a Flame, got them signed to Equal Vision Records with a decidedly emo sound. It was the logical progression from the band's Curbside Service days, and if you're into that kind of thing (as I definitely was and still sometimes am) you'd probably like it. TSTCTC's first full-length was called Mander Salis, and it just felt uneven; it showcased a band with serious chops but an even more serious identity crisis. Did they want to be folk rock, emo, psychedelic? All of the above?

I wasn't surprised when the band announced a hiatus after a shortened tour supporting Mander Salis. The record telegraphed individual differences between the members. I expected it to turn into a permanent breakup, and I prematurely mourned the loss of a potentially great band.

I was wrong. The Snake The Cross The Crown are back (sorta) with the decidedly folky Cotton Teeth, and they've been slowly putting themselves back out there (minus bass player Carl Marshall, probably the emo guy) in recent months. Back in March I went to see a performance at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn that had been billed as a performance by the full band, but which ended up being a short set by singer Kevin Jones, who occasionally summoned keyboardist William Sammons and drummer Mark Fate to the stage to help him with songs (pictured above). William's brother Franklin was nowhere to be seen. It was at the same time extremely cool (it kinda felt like a booze-fueled singalong in a college dorm room) and disappointing.

**Update: One of the other 15 or so people at that show took a bit of grainy video. The sound quality is pretty ok. Check it out:

Truthfully, I'm ambivalent about the band's most recent work. Some of their stuff is Great with a capital G, and some of it is...ok. It's the name thing, really. How many folky sounding names can you squeeze into a song? You'd still sound folky without all the names, guys. Not every song needs to mention a Jack or a Jim or a Sue or a Margaret.

Regardless, the band recently did a session for the legendary Daytrotter that's worth checking out. One note: although the Daytrotter site says all the songs are from Cotton Teeth, "A Brief Intermission" is in fact found on Mander Salis.