A Benefit for Rockin Ralph of Hollywood 5 and Dime fame will be held at The Amsterdam Bar Wednesday July 14th, 2010. Spector 45 and The Dangits will be playing starting at 9 PM. DJ Mark Ridlen willl DJ between the bands' sets, so the music will never stop.
The San Francisco-based supergroup Still Flyin' was assembled in late 2004 by singer/songwriter Sean Rawls. By the time he arrived on the West Coast he was already a veteran of various Athens, GA bands, including Masters of the Hemisphere and Je Suis France. For the latter band, Rawls wrote a reggae song, "Never Gonna Touch the Ground." The song quickly became a live show staple and crowd favorite.
After relocating to San Francisco, the song seemed to have a life of its own and demanded to be jammed. Rawls decided he needed to form a band based on that song and the dream of Still Flyin' was born. He asked virtually everyone he knew in his new city to join the reggae-inspired project, and to everyone's surprise the first practice had fifteen people at it.
What might have begun as a lighthearted nod to good times soon became a juggernaut that no one in the band expected, and before long the group had become a San Francisco phenomenon. It didn’t hurt that this nascent supergroup counts members of bands such as Track Star, Aislers Set, Ladybug Transistor, Love Is All, Maserati, and Red Pony Clock amongst it’s rotating collective.
Recording songs that combined a 1960's psychedelic nostalgia with ironic and literate lyrics, The Happy Bullets began when indie songwriters Jason Roberts and Tim Ruble met while working together at an art gallery in a suburb of Dallas. After a home recording demo was released and played on local radio, Roberts quickly recruited his wife, Andrea to learn bass guitar while lending vocal support to several of the bands more pop-oriented songs. Additional members were later added including Josh McKibben of The Sons of Sound, Rhett Jones, and Kris Youmans of The Paper Chase.
2004 saw the release of The Happy Bullets first record, Blue Skies and Umbrellas and was quickly followed up in 2005 with The Vice and Virtue Ministry, engineered by Stuart Sikes (Modest Mouse, Cat Power, the Promise Ring) and released on the upstart Dallas indie label Undeniable Records. The latter gained the band critical acclaim on the national college radio circuit and led to shared bills with Mates of State, Architecture in Helsinki, and Of Montreal.
In 2006, the Happy Bullets toured throughout the United States performing in Austin, Texas at the SXSW Music Festival, Athens, Georgia at the 2006 Athens Popfest, and at CMJ Music Festival in New York City.
Fishboy is a four-piece eccentric indie pop band from Denton, TX that began as the bedroom solo project of Eric Michener. He was given the nickname on a middle-school field trip after a dare to pluck and swallow a fish at the Dallas World Aquarium. Six years and several shoe boxes full of cassette tapes later, Michener moved from the suburbs to the Texas rock-and-roll Mecca of Denton with a handful of low-budget recordings released by the close-knit Austin music collective Business Deal Records.
Their third album, Little D, was acclaimed by the Austin Chronicle and Dallas Observer and voted Best Local Band of 2005 by the Dallas Morning News.
If there has been something salutary about the evolution of the singer/songwriter genre over the years, it's been the way that those who work in the general vein have expanded its range beyond simply being solo guitar with arrangements, or painstaking re-creations of power pop bands jamming. Robert Gomez's 2009 album demonstrates this, with perhaps expected fragments of the art pop aesthetic from the Beach Boys meshing with crisp drum punches and even full-on rhythm attacks, which "Behind a Green Rosette" shows on this album in particular. If he doesn't really let himself be as completely loose as he could -- there's definitely an air of a lost '70s wonderland present from the start -- he has an ear for unsettled backgrounds and mood establishers, like the swirl of piercing piano and the roiling chug and tones starting "At Nemeli Bats," or the slow unfolding keyboard and skyscrape guitar howl that concludes "Open Your Eyes/Escape From." Gomez serenely whispers and soothes more than sings, with as much reverb on his voice as possible, but it suits the understated flow of work like "Hunting Song," all softly chugging but nervous tones, keyboards, and beats, and perhaps the most traditional guitar/vocal song, "A Paper Figurine" -- at least before the spare funk break kicks in.This is going to be a great show.
The music of the night starts off with Denton's Grassfight. The Grassfight mixes curious sound with infectious rhythm and hypnotic vocals to create a sound that is progressive and new wave retroactive at the same time. Next up is The Kul who deliciously mix jazz, funk, soul, blues and psychedelic rock to form a genre of their own. Then there's Holy Diver. Holy Diver is somewhat of a local phenomenon of fun in the DFW area. With their mini instruments, on stage banter, and high energy, it's hard not to enjoy these guys. In between sets DJ Earwig will spin some mind-bending sounds.Visit The Sub-Rosa for more details.
The Lisps are a New York-based assemblage of 21st century indie-rock vaudevillians. They write songs about science and love, space and pain, babies and documents. Their performances have been known to involve bloody tambourines, wrestling, lipstick smeared melodicas, tap shoes, old kitchen cabinets and dinosaurs. The Lisps are the public/performative version of all the relationships you're struggling with.
That's a pretty fair description, but I'd like to add "high energy" and "a hell of a lot of fun to watch."
"RTB2 - one guitar, drums and tracks. great pipes on lead. some real heart-felt bluesy tunes" --from Adventures in Live MusicFrom Dallas, Texas: Jack with One Eye
"From noisy murder ballads to dynamic shoegaze, Jack With One Eye are a band you just can’t pin. As soon as you think you’ve found a comparison they pull you in the opposite direction and you’re not even trying to figure out who or what they sound like anymore you’re just in the moment.” –Fan at Gypsy Tea RoomFrom New York City: The Muggabears
The Muggabears are Travis Johnson, Emily Ambruso and Gabriel Wurzel, three friends in Brooklyn who play a structurally-mutilated brand of noise-pop featuring blissful interplay, sonic experimentation and song destruction. In 2003, Travis Johnson first recorded under the moniker The Muggabears in Norman, Oklahoma. The 2004 album, Kim Berlin, reveled in colorful guitar textures, off-kilter hooks, and diamond-sharp energy. Moving to New York from Dallas in the winter of 2005, he immediately drafted Emily Ambruso and Kevin Murphy, two other Southern transplants, on bass and drums, respectively.From New York City: Famous Amos
"Famous Amos touch down in your town soon, like a funnel cloud, an unbridled dervish chewing its way across the landscape. Really, just check us out when we're in town and tell me that shit ain't true." --from their website, March 2008The music starts at 9:00 PM. While there is no cover for this show, you must be 21 and show ID to attend this event. No one under 21 will be admitted under any circumstances.
Q: Before you started writing these songs, did you have any interest in performing?I love a woman who can work the word "douche-y" into a sentence when describing her music.
A: I was a theater major in college, and one of my favorite teachers was my music performance teacher. That really taught me good vocal technique and all that stuff. It also got me thinking about songwriting from a musical theater perspective. And I mean that in the least douche-y way possible. There are these great songs and different styles of writing all over theater.
Laura Palmer performing at The Amsterdam Bar, March 11, 2008
Cry Blood Apache began as a guerrilla band, setting up in local parking lots, alleys, or wherever their stripped-down electronic setup could accommodate. They play in clubs now, though the aliases remain. Formed in 2005, CBA’s lineup has been as hard to pin down as their sound, though several influences are apparent – Cabaret Voltaire, Suicide, Metal Urbaine, the Sisters of Mercy. Singer/guitarist Kaspar Glass monotones lyrics like an anti-Gary Numan; guitarist Hans Hinrich sprays feedback from axe; drum machinist Seth Nemec keeps the industrial beat. Original bassist Endal Passou was replaced in 2006 by percussionist Pahn Zhram, who beat on a trash can in addition to playing bass. 2005’s Performing Diversion Acrobatics was a scattershot introduction to the group's sound. More indicative would be 2007's Industry Mix Tape Vol. 1 (Ghetto Pagoda). They’ve recently added Maxx Hole on keys and continue to experiment with their sound, adding to the lineage of electro-minded bands in Austin.[1]You can check out their Myspace page for band info and tracks.
Just wanted to let everyone know that passes to the Melodica Festival will be going on sale this weekend at Good Records and all Melodica venues (Sloppyworld, Fallout, etc.) $25 gets you access to every show (including the Sunday all ages show), and if you want one, I'd suggest buying it soon because as of right now, only 300 passes are available. Each venue will also allow you to pay a seperate cover for individual shows (ranging from $5-10), but the passes honestly seem like a much better deal if you're planning on seeing more than one show.That sounds like good advice to us.
Record HopOn Saturday, February 23, 2008:
Happy Bullets
Jetscreamer
History at our Disposal
Jack with one Eye
We Shot JR Night:We are especially excited to be serving as the venue for We Shot JR Night. These guys know the Dallas music scene and we know they'll be bringing a great show to The Amsterdam Bar.
Finally Punk
Cry Blood Apache
Medio Mutante
Yellow Fever
Treewave
Zanzibar Snails
