Tag Archives: State Champion

WAND, LITTLE GOLD, INOCULIST, STATE CHAMPION at SKULL ALLEY, Saturday, August 21st

Leave a reply

WAND (from Lexington, on Young God Records)
LITTLE GOLD (from NYC, on HeartBreakBeat Records)
INOCULIST (from NYC, on HeartBreakBeat Records)
STATE CHAMPION (from Louisville/Southern Indiana, on Sophomore Lounge Records)

Saturday, August 21st
at SKULL ALLEY
1017 E. Broadway, at the corner of Barrett
8 PM, $6, ALL AGES!

WAND

James Jackson Toth has been playing and recording (and releasing) music for over a decade, most notably as leader of the now-defunct New York-based collective Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice. After a solo album in 2007 on Rykodisc, and Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label and the Mad Monk label, he continues under the name WAND with his new release on Michael Gira’s Young God Records label with Death Seat, due this October . Abandoning the psychedelic wail of WW&VV for a starker, more direct songwriting style, WAND’s most recent tunes are harrowing and hellaciously good. Michael Gira writes that Toth is “a passionate singer and guitar player and inhabits the songs as he performs them with straightforward, unpretentious, and confident gravitas. I’ve been listening to this record over and over for the last several months—we went through dozens of equally compelling songs before choosing the line up of tracks—and the more I listen, the more honored I am to be associated with James Jackson Toth.”

Former Woods songwriter and Meneguar member, Christian DeRoeck is back with the Completely Fucked! 7″, his second release as LITTLE GOLD. Vastly different from the melancholy country of LITTLE GOLD’s debut LP On the Knife (2009), these two songs are brimming with fuzzy guitars, sweet harmonies, and what sounds like youthful exuberance. DeRoeck’s lyrical content is morose as ever, but on this record it comes packed in two and a half-minute pop songs. The most immediate difference is the addition of Brian Markham on bass and Pat Broderick on drums, both of Brooklyn psych-rockers Ancient Sky, and Broderick of beloved DC hardcore outfit Majority Rule. Released in an initial run of 300 on NYC label HeartBreakBeat Records, this record is a taste of what’s to come. Little Gold heads back into the studio this year to record the follow-up to On the Knife.

Watch Little Gold – “Bird’s Eye” – Le Loft Rooftop from DUKE STREET on Vimeo.

Through harmony and intricate musical arrangements, INOCULIST crafts an uncompromising scape of eerie pop, jazz progressions, and the swing of old world rhythm and blues. Started as the home recording project of John Hunter (guitar, vocals) in 2005, INOCULIST is a band constantly in the mode of creation. INOCULIST currently operates as a four-piece with Ashlyn Davis (keys,vocals), Ethan Schmid (drums, banjo), and Marc Merza (bass). Their new album Spells has just been released on HeartBreakBeat Records.

STATE CHAMPION started in 2006 as a moniker for the early acoustic experiments of Ryan Davis. It has since evolved into a rock n’ roll band with a Chevy van and a vinyl record. Having created a sound that is a product of its upbringing, with Sweetheart of the Rodeo on the radio, Bleach idle in the tape deck, and a Smog song stuck in its head, Davis & Co. drive through forty minutes of sincerely howled, sloppily executed, stripped down garage-country on their full-length debut, Stale Champagne (released this year on Sophomore Lounge Records). “The band is an under-the-radar phenomenon in the making, the classic style of quality band that Louisville overlooks… The tone is just right for this type of subtle rock. A bit earnest, a bit funny, a bit smart.” – Joseph Lord, Velocity Weekly.

Check out the Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108166219238444.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com.

JOSEPHINE FOSTER, CATHERINE IRWIN, STATE CHAMPION at SKULL ALLEY, Friday, May 7th

Leave a reply

JOSEPHINE FOSTER (from Colorado, on Fire Records)
CATHERINE IRWIN (from Louisville, member of FREAKWATER)
STATE CHAMPION (from Louisville/Southern Indiana, on Sophomore Lounge Records)

Friday, May 7th
at SKULL ALLEY
1017 E. Broadway
8 PM, ALL AGES!
$8 in advance, $10 day of show
Tickets available at ear X-tacy or online here: http://skullalley.indieticket.com.

Over the course of just a few years, Colorado native JOSEPHINE FOSTER has captivated audiences & critics alike through a magnetic patchwork of recordings ranging from broken spirited balladry as one half of Born Heller, fiery psych rock gestalt with her rock outfit The Supposed to the voice of an outsider folk siren. The one constant is the utterly overwhelming strength and seductive unease of her voice & the bravery of an iconoclastic spirit. “You might call Ms. Foster’s eerie warbling old-fashioned, except that is evokes a scrambled past that exists only in her own vision: mountain songs that never were, spaced-out hybrids that never will be.” —New York Times.

CATHERINE IRWIN has called Louisville, Kentucky home, or at least her home base, all her life. She began performing by playing guitar in punk bands “and not caring a bit about country music,” she says. Still, the seed for her band Freakwater was inside her: “Most of the country music I heard on radio, I hated. But I loved the Carter Family, the way they would approach songs about death and dying or being saved and rejoicing the same way. That kind of music seems to age better. I can’t see myself playing punk anymore, but this kind of music I can see playing the rest of my life” (Chicago Tribune). Her songs are just packed with sapience, despondency, and wry wit, though you don’t have to look past “Louisville Lip” or “Dirty Little Snowman” to see she’s one of America’s greatest living songwriters. Even so, she remains humble, even self-depreciating: “If I had a master plan, it’d be trying to get people used to the idea of frumpy middle-aged losers singing music” (Boston Phoenix). She will be joined at this show by fantastic Louisville guitarist Michael O’Bannon, formerly of Blinders, Antman, and current member of 1069.

STATE CHAMPION started in 2006 as a moniker for the early acoustic experiments of Ryan Davis. It has since evolved into a rock n’ roll band with a Chevy van and a vinyl record. Having created a sound that is a product of its upbringing, with Sweetheart of the Rodeo on the radio, Bleach idle in the tape deck, and a Smog song stuck in its head, Davis & Co. drive through forty minutes of sincerely howled, sloppily executed, stripped down garage-country on their full-length debut, Stale Champagne (released this year on Sophomore Lounge Records). “The band is an under-the-radar phenomenon in the making, the classic style of quality band that Louisville overlooks… The tone is just right for this type of subtle rock. A bit earnest, a bit funny, a bit smart.” – Joseph Lord, Velocity Weekly.

Check out the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109505479085276

For more information, check https://othersideoflife.wordpress.com. To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com.