I reinstalled the Music Wednesday Plugin and this will be the first post with it.

The Teenagers are a Euro-based alt-pop band who list their base whereabouts as both London and Paris. I’m imagining a boathouse anchored on the channel. The trio’s biggest track to date has been “Starlett Johannson”, which you can sample by hitting the “more by this artist” button right in the player there. If it shows up. :]

I chose the “French Kiss” track because of the way the music helps the lyrics draw you into the suspenseful moments leading up to a first kiss. The nervous energy and odd things you find yourself saying can be comical —when you’re not in the moment anymore. The experince of the very first french kiss is delved into in the lyrics, which is a bit insightful, but how the song captures the nervous moments leading up to it is what really captured my attention. It would have been a good choice for last week, V-D and such. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s not exactly like a time agent or a secret agent.
A few weeks ago, I had a weekend where I was doing a lot of stuff for work, and really needed a break, and after getting to the Five Points area in Atlanta, stopped in at the Star Bar. There was a really good turnout, and they put on a high-intensity show. Red Letter Agent is local to Atlanta, and their current tour includes Los Angeles, parts of NV, TX, NM, AZ, LA, and TN before coming back to GA. Their sound is described mainly as brit-pop, and is reminiscent of Dishwalla, ColdPlay, and Kasabian. The songwriting is very tight, using great hooks that don’t feel like hooks, and guitar melodies that bolster the smart lyrics and strong vocals.

My favorite track from RLA is “Burn the Good Ones Down”. They have had a couple of tracks used in both television shows (Kyle XY) and commercials(an E! promo), so their sound might already be familiar to you.

Burn the Good Ones Down

Watch it all before in the bright lights, do you
Burn the good ones down ’til they’re nothing
But you’ll never keep them out

Could it be the last of the blackouts of the darkness
Heard a young one’s cry for the heartless
They’re bleeding to the bone, alone

Say tonight you’ll listen to their hearts

Watched you bend your knee on a dirt floor, so you
Offer what you have in a spotlight
Never to be shown

We could be the spark to ignite them, higher
Hear this one’s cry for the hopeless
They’re begging to be free, believed

Love is the only cure for you
Love is secure enough for you

This week, we have Valentine’s Day, so when I came across this track, I knew that it just had to be the one for my post. Diesel Boy Has recently had a re-release of the 1999 album to Amie Street, so you can get the tracks for your digital music device (DRM-free, no less!) for a great deal less than other places. The track is about pining for the long-lost best friend in a romantic way.

Diesel Boy was always known years back for songs that would now be pigeonholed in the “nerdcore” category: Shocking, self-effacing humor, heavy instrumentation, and hyperactive vocals. Call it what you will, it’s fun to listen to.

The band I discovered this week is West Side Winders. Amie Street has done some UI updates on the site, especially in the pop-up player, and in some other account-related updates. The West Side Winders are from the Chicagoland area, but tour all over the eastern midwest and New England area. I have a bit of a weakness for rockabilly and surf guitar, and I haven’t highlighted much of those genres here in quite a while. The surf rock guitars and the rockabilly lyrics make me want to paint flames on the hood of the jalopy, and go and find someplace to look surly…. This is a good-times song about wanting to go to a particular diner to hang out with everyone because there’s a girl who works there that you are interested in.
Enjoy!

I ran down to The Loft for what is referred to as “an industry event”. It was put together by a group called Badd Lemonade, which I wasn’t able to find much out about.

The evening featured a rapid-fire sampling of ten bands local to the Atlanta area. The bands playing included:

1. Leaving Araby
2. Kalvin Nova
3. The Rein
4. Xzamen
5. 1994
6. Fact Not Fiction
7. The Love Willows
8. Unusual Suspects
9. The Honor Roll
10. She Came From Above
11. Fox Trot November
12. The Pennies
13. The Nerd Parade
14. Auditioning Alice

I missed four of the acts, mostly due to my parking option not syncing well with the event. The staff at the parking deck were chatty and helpful, though. I’ve been to several shows at The Loft over the past couple of years, and it is a good, flexible space for various types of events.

The organizers of the event were ensconced in a roped-off area, and were all hurredly scribbling notes as each act started to play. The format allowed thirty minutes for each band to set up, sound check, play (most of them played about three songs) and then clear off, including equipment breakdown. After seeing a couple of rounds, the personalities of the bands began to shine through, and certain things started to become much more clear. Primary of these things was stage presence, including segue and mic banter. Only having a true ten-15 minute block performing, those small bits of space between songs are the only bits you have to drive home the connection with the crowd you have laid down with your instrumentation and delicately laid lyrics. I’m not certain if the Badd Lemonade people were actively judging for record and promo deals, or if anything was really at stake, but the crowd was full of die-hard fans and family of the bands for the most part.
Here are links I found for several of the bands. I have snapshots, and if you check out this page of unedited photos, you can see the progression of the quality of the pics as I fine-tuned the camera settings, finally getting it everything right for handling upshot stage lighting. I also dug up links for most of the bands in the list, so be sure to check them out if you live in or visit the Atlanta area.

The Love Willows Made an impression as they transformed the stage from mostly blacked out to a glamor-splashed, candy-striped high fashion scene. This band played well, and is highly memorable due to the incredible contrast in both visual and musical style from the rest of the bands playing. reminiscent of a Gwen Stefani show, the songs played were very upbeat and loaded with energy, and are ones you could listen to with the kids in the car. They even wrapped up with a song all about having an acute shoe fetish and being okay with that.

The Unusual Suspects have a sound that is very hook-laced and clean, with a careful eye on traditional production values and meter. The track “People, Pills, and Problems” will have you hooked in a single dose.

Athens-based The Honor Roll came in like a thunderstorm… This is the kind of storm where you just want to see how it goes down, a train wreck of hyperbole and angst that is beautiful in its references to our stalking of each other, as well as the social impact of your myspace telling on your fibs. They opened up with “Bedroom Politics”, storming and pacing the stage in barefoot pissed-offedness. And the bass player is kinda nuts, too.

She Came From Above delves into the screamo metal area, though the guitar riffs remind me of the early speedmetal riffs that Metallica and Megadeath popuarized.

Fact Not Fiction really made an impression on me. From Hartwell, GA (outside Athens, at the SC/GA border), their sound is someplace between post-punk, and rolls near the melodics of true indie rock. There is a definite Anglo influence, with well-read lyrics and a mock English accent, you almost get the gist, then they throw another twist in the next song that gives it more dimension. “Here at Hartmin” and “The Ballad of Jack and Amy” get the must-listen tag.

Foxtrot November was much more at ease as a band. They seemed to ruminate and relax as they played, and I think giving off this vibe made the band members seem older and more serious about the music than they were about being seen on the stage. The vocals –for whatever reason– remind me of Kenny Loggins. The general sound of the songs are very unique, but similar to Wilco, and maybe Coldplay. Definitely check out “What if We Don’t Carry On”.

The Pennies This was the last band I saw for the evening, and they got a lot of reaction from the crowd. The sound is solid rock with Irish-inspired female vocals that range between a delicate lullaby and a soul-bearing wail that wends its way to your primal foundation. If you like bands like Evanescence or Dido, you should hear them. Check out “Love Me” and “Shine Within Sadness” for sure.

The Nerd Parade. I had been looking forward to seeing these guys, but had to leave before they finished setting up. Maybe I’ll be able to catch them some other time.

Now that I’ve been sorting the night back out from memory, I’m thinking I should have been ensconced in a roped-off area scribbling notes, too….

The band I discovered this week is Jotto, out of Philadeplhia, they have an interesting sound: melodies taht are almost Beatles-like, as well as a wet, grimy sound to the electronics, giving it an aged noise. There’s also a good bit of Bob Dylan and The Strokes influences there on the surface.

A bird will fly right into your eye and sing what you regret
A night a name it all seems the same way, too delicate
She’s young, she’s taught and stares as we stalk its all irrelevant
I Just Want to See You
I Just Want to Be You
We wait outside deciding if she lied as if it mattered
She walks on by pretending if she’s shy or flattered
It’s a wife, a kid we, all saw that falling bridge and scattered

The band I discovered this week is Fat Robot. I was following links, and the band seems to be off-and-on, and possibly defunct. Out of Toronto, this three-piece includes an engineering student and a world traveler, and they have a sound similar to The Strokes and maybe even Modest Mouse, especially on the track “I Roll“. I hope you enjoy them!

The band I discovered this week is Dropjoy. Everyone needs a little bit of punk-inspired bootprint-on-the-forehead fun music here and there, and this one is a good one for working out the cobwebs in your cranium after lazing around on New Years Day in your “recovery” from the previous evening’s shenanigans.

Dropjoy is a three-piece from San Diego with a range of tastes and a strong gut feeling for songwriting. The tracks I found so far range from punk and high-volume rock to sweet, lonely ballads. It’s all there, do don’t be afraid of the “more from this artist” button.

I really dig the throwback to early punk, and the almost predicted yet unexpected hook in this track. This is another one that’s good for getting stuck in your head. Works for me!