This is fine.
Magic Kids have had a phenomenal year thus far. They’ve droped their album Memphis, and they’ve been touring like crazy, winning acclaim left and right. We caught up with the band members via email just before they make their way to Austin for Fun Fun Fun this weekend. Follow the jump for full interview with Will, Bennett, Ben, Michael, and Alex of Magic Kids. Read more
It’s no big secret on this here website that I’m a big fan of Lawrence, KS rock n roll band The Appleseed Cast. They’re just one of those bands that I feel a close personal tie to as I’ve followed them closely from their earliest days in the post-emo era up until now. Everybody has a few bands like that right? I’d say I have maybe 5-10 that I feel like I’ve “been with” throughout their career from start to present. Appleseed Cast is definitely one of those few bands. So I’m sure you can all imagine my excitement when I saw the band’s name pop up on the sweet Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup. I still remember the first tune I heard by the band ,”Marigold & Patchwork” off The End of the Ring Wars and immediately fell in love with the unique and progressive sound they created. I continued following the band onto Mare Vitalis and Low Level Owl 1 & 2 continuing to eat up their tunes. Afterward, the guys lost me a bit with Two Conversations, also lost one of the greatest drummers ever in Josh “Cobra” Baruth, but then got right back on track with Peregrine of 2006. Now the guys have re-entered the music world and released the ambitious Sagarmatha while somehow still flying slightly under the radar. This set is hands down my #1 can’t miss set at Fun Fest. Yeah I said it. All fans of atmospheric/badass rock n roll should head over to the orange stage at 2pm on Saturday for a set by the awesome Appleseed Cast. Newer tune “As the Little Things Go” from Sagarmatha below.
Download: Appleseed Cast – As the Little Things Go [MP3]
Nothing brings out our core values like the holidays. Halloween, for example, is a day to celebrate the most important American values. Values like fake blood and childhood obesity. Come to think of it, there’s something unsettling about Halloween. Why do people dress their children up like monsters and parade them around the neighborhood to extort candy from strangers? And what about adults who willfully engage in dressing like zombies, or slutty nurses, or slutty nurse zombies? That all sounds a little. . . you know, crazy.
It’s one thing for us to invent Vampires and Werewolves. But the real monsters, the Dahmers and Mansons, that look just like us? That’s a little harder to get a handle on. I guess that’s why people write songs about psychopaths. They want to get up close and personal to get a big whiff of crazy. If you embrace lunatics, you demystify them. The ghosts just become people in bedsheets. With that in mind, here are five songs about psychos for your Halloween weekend:
Leading up to Fun Fest next weekend, we decided to yet again get as many interviews on the site as humanly possible. We’ll begin this week with a sweet interview from hot indie band Best Coast. ATH contributor Mair.Heard had the chance to sit down recently with leading lady and main songwriter for the band Bethany Consentino. Follow the jump for this great interview.
In a conversation with one of our local blogger friend’s, Sonic Itch Mike, I decided that I really needed to take a close look at which spots on any given album are the killer spots to put your hits. Some people think that the immediacy really makes Track 1 the best, but I’m going to look a little closer at this idea. I mean, there are hundreds of classic albums out there, and surely they ascribe to this great song placement formula.
It’s that time of year folks. You thought you had just finished recovering from ACL, but just around the corner is one of our best kept secrets: Fun Fun Fun Fest. We’ll be bringing you our insight into the band’s you need to see why you’re out at the festvial. First up, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Read more
So it’s time to wrap up our ACL festival coverage finally and I thought a great way to do that would be too look at my favorite things from the weekend. Now we’ve already posted our thoughts on the best bands from the weekend so I’ll stay away from repeating myself about my favorite acts. I would however like to touch on a couple things I noticed this year that really stood out as good moves on the part of festival planners and promoters. You might even see a knock or two about how said things could be made even better… Follow the jump for full list.
So we hope all you people out there have enjoyed our interviews as part of our coverage of ACL 2010. To wrap up our interview series from the festival, we wanted to do another quick interview with local favorite TV Torso. Matt Oliver has been in the Austin scene for years so we were excited to see what he had to say about his latest project. Follow the jump for more.
Well, we’ve finally recovered, and we hope your sunburn is peeling and your liver is resting quietly in a tub of water. After a long weekend, filled with good memories, tunes and pretty much anything else we needed, we got down to the nitty-gritty. That’s right folks, after careful collaboration, and tireless hours of discussion, we bring you our Top Ten Acts of Austin City Limits 2010.
So our lovely weekend is over and it’s time for us to begin recapping what went down over the ACL Festival days. To do that, we’ll begin with an interview conducted right before the weekend with Midlake guitar player Eric Pulido. We’ve long been fans of the Midlake sound so we were excited to have some time with Eric. Follow the jump for more.
