Archives For whitaker elledge

cardboardkids

Cause A Scene is honored to present Cardboard Kids release show for their ambitious debut album, Echo Boomer, this Friday May 23. New Nashvillians by way of Tyler, Texas skate parks, the Kids are self-diagnosed nineties alt-rock lovers with a penchant for thick blues riffs. Don’t miss this historic occasion for the Kids and three other acts on the rise. A cool $5 gets you in the High Watt, or upgrade to an album bundle for $10. Get your tickets here ahead of the crowd. Doors at 8pm. Show starts at 9pm.

Cardboard Kids’ Jake Germany (vocals), Brandon McFarlin (drums), and Austin Cunningham (guitars) pursue a rock prize bigger than Texas, and have hit their marks every time. After a year of dedicated songwriting, the Kids enlisted Tres Sasser as producer and longtime Ben Folds studio engineer Joe Costa to steer organic, muscular production at Sound Shelter Studios in Franklin, TN. Star contributor Ruby Amanfu (Jack White’s Love Interruption) adds a velvet touch to one of the many album highlights, “Dime A Time Lover.”

Tourmates Golden Youth create intricate, cinematic Americana as if Sigur Ros grew up in the Deep South. Be there when vocalist Stephanie Lauren and her army of woodland creatures makes spring burst in bloom. Check out their wonderful debut Quiet Frame: Wild Light.

Twenty-year-old songstress, Lenachka, is one of Nashville’s best-kept secrets. Not for long. The German-born singer pens inventive smart-pop on par with international breakouts Kimbra and Oh Land, and recently has taken strides toward the mainstream with producer-on-fire Charlie Peacock (Civil Wars, Lone Bellow).

Sisters Elle and Shealeen Pucket have a true knack for melody, cranking out effortlessly catchy acoustic pop as Poema. Launching from Albuquerque as a kind of Wreckers gone Warped Tour, the duo had a taste of the major label roller coaster in their teens. Finding a new center in Nashville, Poema will air out their first new material in two years tomorrow night. Cross your fingers for a live collaboration on Cardboard Kids’ “Broke A Promise,” for which they lend tender harmonies.

Whitaker Elledge

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Communion Club Night returns to Mercy Lounge tomorrow (Thursday), May 15th. This month, enjoy the breadth of styles from eight bands hitting their touring stride. The camaraderie will be palpable with our first three bands deep into a dozen dates together, and the others routing through spirited road calendars of their own. As per usual, doors open at 7:00 PM and music will begin promptly at 8:00 PM. Get your tickets here for $9.50 in advance or $15 DOS.

Here’s the rundown: Neulore comes out strong, boasting muscular, modern folk with expansive and cinematic peaks. The Nashville natives scored a deal with the music supervision titan Alexandra Patsavas’ Chop Shop Records (Twilight, Grey’s Anatomy) earlier this year, but haven’t forgotten their roots.

Pulling themselves up to rarified radio air, Bootstraps create polished, ethereal anthems centered on Jordan Beckett’s raspy vocal. The band’s larger-than-life sonic is enveloping, emotive, and sure to stun the live setting.

Los Angeles’ Busy Living brings a unique energy to the bill with effortless harmony surrounded by pop quirk. The quintet recently beefed up their sound with the help of Spoon’s Jim Eno, who produced two tracks (that we know about) at his Public Hi-Fi studios in Austin.

A familiar friendly face on the Nashville scene, Courtney Jaye’s latest set of breezy, classic country-tinged tunes made American Songwriter’s Top 50 Albums of 2013. NPR’s Ann Powers crowned her Dusty Springfield’s spiritual daughter. Somebody buy a round of box wine.

Landing somewhere between The Donnas and Grace Potter, Oregon native Cooper surrounds herself with an entourage of singers, dancers, and horns to become Cooper and the Jam. The fiery redhead brings blues, burlesque, and bravado to her latest Motown Suite.

Shifting gears, we ease in to the haunting, ethereal ballads of Penny & Sparrow. Expect a big year from the Texas duo, whose super-glued vocal layering a la Civil Wars and Swell Season has landed them on major festivals and the Billboard Heatseekers chart.

Kansas City smart-rockers Me Like Bees specialize in angular riffs and intricate rhythms with mechanical precision. With a nod to Modest Mouse, MLB have invented an equally fresh recipe for alternative music that sticks to your ribs.

We arrive at last to Daniel and the Lion, who have been making warm folk pop from Baraboo, Wisconsin for years, but broke nationally with YouTube covers. Just last month, they were asking fans on Facebook to help book shows, and in June they will open twenty-three dates for Counting Crows. It will be a treat to see these shining examples of persistence and humility under their own white-hot spotlight.

– Whitaker Elledge

agesandages

Ages and Ages stands tall on a crowded field of indie-folk, offering snappy, harmony and percussion-forward jaunts imbued with poignant social philosophy.  The Portland, OR eight-piece turned the heads of music supervisors and President Obama himself with 2011’s sparse, choral Alright You Restless.  On their latest, Divisionary, spiritual leader Tim Perry enlists more intricate production, creative countermelody, and a Rube Goldberg machine of shakers, claps, clinks, and rattles.

We’re drawn in by driving sing-a-long, Light Goes Out, and the swampier I See More.  The shimmering acoustic groove and vocal interplay of Big Idea evokes classic California pop (akin to underrated contemporaries The Belle Brigade).  But the kicker is the grand finale; an uplifting, anthemic title track that sends us out on a high note, like Row, Row, Row, Your Boat for secular humanists.

Whitaker Elledge

wbolton

Nineteen-year-old vocalist and producer William Bolton dips a toe in soul music, thankfully shedding his Times New Roman moniker just before the rest of the country does. Bolton saves ink on Let’s Stay Together with ultra simple lyrics wrapped in a bedroom pop aesthetic. There’s a charm to his cadence and understated croon, as he maintains the essence of his signature reggae flow amongst dusty horn samples.

The self-proclaimed playboy extraordinaire might find drinking age audiences with this soul-tinged pop, but the distillation came out a little weak. Mr. Bolton stumbled into a potentially great love song, landing somewhere between Mayer Hawthorne and Chris Cab. Sadly, when the drum machine finally dies into a breathy and labored a cappella outro, we’re left feeling cheap.  

But it’s pure fun… no regrets. A romp in youthful romance with big kicks. For now, we’ll cherish young love, and wait for Bolton’s inevitable artistic leap as he opens his blue eyes.

Whitaker Elledge

Kane Place Record Club Promo

The flight was impossibly early, arriving in Chicago at 7:45 local time. I was greeted with a December arctic blast as I exited the airport and launched into a stacked day of meetings, twenty-ounce coffee in hand. The Blue Line rail delivered me gracefully through the clear morning, its lofted tracks threading through a serene downtown urbanscape. I crunched snow between the offices of various creatives and music industry friends I’d come to know over the last several years. It was important to explore relationships that had only existed in email threads, or at best, a fleeting backstage beer at Lollapalooza.

By the time I wrapped meetings ten hours later, it was dark. The temperature had dropped, and I felt the frost creeping in to my toes. I ducked into Martyrs, a neighborhood club on North Lincoln Avenue. The 400-cap room was warm with exposed brick, a deep stage, and they served coffee at the bar. I was thrilled to stumble across the first band on the bill, Kane Place Record Club.

I’ve since learned that this quintet met at a weekly record club held at a home on Kane Place in Milwaukee. I imagine the tradition starting during a frigid Wisconsin winter, co-eds gathering around the hearth to share wax while the hellish blizzard raged outside. The Kane Place Record Club spawned an eponymous band that fuses disparate elements of jazz, hip-hop, classical, and R&B into surreal, cinematic journeys.

Kane Place Record Club performs at the jazz joint in Lewis Carroll’s fever dream. We’re drawn into 10,000 Timpani by the clinking of glasses. A tight snare-hat beat ramps up then dissolves abruptly into time-ticking guitar, counting down as we hear a vortex building out of chilling violin scrapes and discordant piano. The track’s exhilarating whirl is in full-tilt when bassist Eris Campbell (the Flea-esque runaway star of the show) and drummer Maurice Lidell lock in.

Enter Jon Scott; whose cool yet crazed vocal casts everything in blue. He’s the maniacal conductor of our ride that careens, stutters, and glides through a loungey bridge, the most transcendent passage, before ultimately collapsing into a noisy Motown breakdown and casting us out with a mélange of riffs and plucks. We’re thrown to the edge of a sonic cliff, panting, bewildered, and riddled with earworms.

Take a breath, and dare to venture further down the rabbit hole with Kane Place Record Club’s self-titled debut. Other highlights include the darker, surfy Sleep, and the epic stomper Sorry for the Mess.

– Whitaker Elledge

See Kane Place Record club perform at South-by-Southwest 2014 in Austin. Wednesday, March 12 @ Cielo Lounge, with more dates TBA.

Find KPRC on Bandcamp and Facebook