Clocking in right around the 20 minute mark, Tender Age's only fault is that it doesn't go on forever. Just in time for summer weather and pool hangs, all of the teasers and hype surrounding the Joy Of Painting's latest effort have paid off. If you start streaming now and buy yourself a copy of Tender Age on Tuesday, you'll know enough of the lyrics to sing along at the band's in-store performance at Grimey's on June 8th. –Brianne Turner
With a name like brotherun, the relationship between the band's two members, Nicholas and Trevor James Tillery, seems like an obvious one. Hailing from Phoenix and residing now in Nashville, the duo's self-proclaimed "whatever-you-thinktronica" scales back on the bleep bloops generally associated with any genre ending in "-tronica" and instead opts for something a little more calm and clean. Their video for "Wishful Thinking," directed by Nick Duplessis, is a firm representation of the band's sound, flashing black-and-white images that waver between a Rorschach test and a virtual brain massage.
If you prefer to downshift and ease your way into the weekend, hit the video below and catch the chillest vibe you can find on a Friday afternoon. –Brianne Turner
We've been excited about the forthcoming Kyle Andrews album that has been in the works for some time now, and it looks like the wait is about to pay off. Premiered today over at MTV Buzzworthy, "Way To Wonder" stays true to Andrews' indie-pop sound, complete with his signature bouncy cadence and sticky bubblegum melodies that make you want to get out of bed in a good mood, even on a Monday.
Click over to stream "Way To Wonder" (caution: autoplay) and keep your ear to the ground for more about Kyle Andrews' upcoming Brighter Than the Sun, out July 23rd. –Brianne Turner
Our favorite weekend of the season is upon us! Starting tonight at 9 pm, East Nashville Underground's spring lineup hits the East Room for their last festival weekend in the two-story venue on Gallatin Road. Tonight starts strong with the Kicks and the Weeks headlining, and the weekend has no intention of slowing down, with Erin McCarley and Alyssa Bonagura headlining the Saturday day show and the Kingston Springs and Chancellor Warhol taking the big spots for the night show.
In the past, we've spared no expense fawning over the Corders and their independent festival that started in a basement, so there's no doubt that you're in for a wild ride this weekend. For the price of a wristband, you get two nights (and one day!) of rad music, free drinks, and a $1 candy buffet (where you'll find me, hi). If you haven't pre-ordered your day pass or wristband, be sure to show up early to get in, and we can't wait to see all of your sweaty, happy faces tonight at the East Room!
Let the games begin...
Friday NIGHT (May 10, doors at 9pm, to 3am) EVAN P. DONAHUE
THE FUTURE
THE YOUNG INTERNATIONAL
THE KICKS (headliner)
THE WEEKS (headliner)
BANG OK BANG
SOMAAA (DJ)
Saturday Bands + Brunch + Beer ("the day show") (May 11, 1pm to 8pm)
BEARS OF BLUE RIVER
DEREK HOKE
LITTLE BANDIT
NATALIE PRASS (headliner)
ERIN MCCARLEY (headliner)
JUSTIN KALK ORCHESTRA
Saturday NIGHT (May 11, doors at 9pm, to 3am)
BRANDON JAZZ & HIS ARMED FORCES
*repeat repeat
KINK ADOR
CHANCELLOR WARHOL (headliner)
THE KINGSTON SPRINGS (headliner)
HOTEL WAR
DJ JAZZY JAZZ
To begin their upcoming spring/summer tour, punkgrass duo Grace and Tony played The 5 Spot last Thursday. The tour will be the group's most canvassing jaunt yet. The Lawrence County, Tennessee natives will cover eight of these United States and will venture across the pond to the UK for their first international performances.
Performing songs from their recently-released November, the twosome strummed and picked a guitar, a banjo, a ukulele, and a mandolin, swapping instruments between themselves as the songs rolled along. (There was even a brief appearance by a kazoo.) However, as fervently as they played these bluegrass instruments, the tunes were often drowned out by the noise of the crowd. This is almost certainly the fault of a rude crowd and inefficient sound mixing, and not of a low-quality performance. Going forward though, Grace and Tony might want to consider keeping their acoustic performances in more intimate venues and bringing on some additional musicians for club gigs. This would not only help in keeping audience's collective attention, but would more truly represent their studio efforts, which are well developed and missed in the acoustic format.
For an exemplary representation of their sound, have a go at the video below. It is for the title track of their latest release, and has been gaining some air play on the Country Network. –Jonathan Parrish
Last night at our show featuring Milktooth, The Gills, and Vinyl Thief, Apple Road and The Deli Nashville teamed up to give you the chance to tell us your thoughts about the Nashville music scene and take over the blog for a day! With the ballots tallied, we give you... The Deli Nashville and Apple Road Present... Take Over the Press!
Our final category asked who would play your dream local showcase if you could feature two modern local acts and any local headliner, alive or dead. The results are fantastic:
Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night and to everyone who filled out a ballot! You make this fun and we appreciate that more than you would guess.
Until next time, Nashville!
Last night at our show featuring Milktooth, The Gills, and Vinyl Thief, Apple Road and The Deli Nashville teamed up to give you the chance to tell us your thoughts about the Nashville music scene and take over the blog for a day! With the ballots tallied, we give you... The Deli Nashville and Apple Road Present... Take Over the Press!
In our third category, we gave you the mic to hype your most-anticipated upcoming local show. East Nashville Underground seems to be on everyone's mind this week (can you blame them?), but there are some exciting shows coming up, and you guys told us what to keep an eye on:
Last night at our show featuring Milktooth, The Gills, and Vinyl Thief, Apple Road and The Deli Nashville teamed up to give you the chance to tell us your thoughts about the Nashville music scene and take over the blog for a day! With the ballots tallied, we give you... The Deli Nashville and Apple Road Present... Take Over the Press!
In our category for "Favorite Local Artist," we had an overwhelming number of fans vote for Vinyl Thief, The Gills, and Milktooth, which is both expected and deserved. (Shout out to The JAG, who also had an solid turnout!) But the full list is impressive and spot-on, so check out which favorites are hitting radars throughout the local music scene:
Last night at our show featuring Milktooth, The Gills, and Vinyl Thief, Apple Road and The Deli Nashville teamed up to give you the chance to tell us your thoughts about the Nashville music scene and take over the blog for a day! With the ballots tallied, we give you... The Deli Nashville and Apple Road Present... Take Over the Press!
In the first category, we present to you your choices for the "Favorite Song By Local Artist" category, complete with a Spotify playlist* of your choices.
Spotify playlist: The Deli Nashville & Apple Road: Take Over the Press
The Young International, "Vampire"
*repeat repeat, "12345678" [stream here]
Natural Blonde, "30th Street"
Justin Kalk Orchestra, "Pancakes & Syrup" [stream here]
The Gills, "Let's Get Together"
The JAG, "White Horse"
The Features, "Golden Comb"
Peter Terry & the City Profits, "Stripper Song"
Milktooth, "In My Blood"
The JAG, "Talk At Me"
Mikky Ekko, "Pull Me Down"
Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes, "Shoe Fits"
The Gills, "Summer Lovin'"
Milktooth, "The Gate"
Milktooth, "O Laredo!"
The Joy Of Painting, "Dontchu Wanna" [out May 21st on Tender Age EP. Stream here.]
Sexx, "Top Down" [stream here]
The Gills, "Keep Holding On"
COIN, "It's Okay"
Milktooth, "Billie Jean"
Cherub, "Roxxy"
*Songs not available on Spotify are featured in the links provided.
Milktooth have been on fire this week. In addition to gearing up to debut a new song at our show at the Stone Fox tonight, the band released the latest (and possibly best) episode of their Stay Home America series. Just when it seems there's no topping the last episode (in this case, their gorgeous interpretation of Beck's "Eyes That say I Love You"), they go and do it again. Episode six finds the band covering Mumford and Sons' "Whispers In the Dark" in a refurbished mechanic shop in Germantown and, in keeping with the theme of the series, this latest cover may be their best one yet.
Born from bassist Zac Stred's idea to start a video series to complement the band's Tour America series, Milktooth began work on the first episode of Stay Home America last summer as a way to generate new content between their own releases. With only six episodes under their belt, each cover is a fantastic and re-worked rendition of a song by a known artist. The latest clip may be Milktooth's most abstract yet, so we decided to get to the bottom of things.
The Deli Nashville: What moves you to choose the songs that you choose? David Condos: We choose songs based on a number of factors. First, we need to like the bones of the song. Once we have the song stripped down to its basic elements, we can change the instrumentation and arrangement however we like. Sowe are always thinking about what might make an interesting subject for our little experiment. But ultimately, I need to like the original lyrics and melodies enough to sing them because those are the least changeable parts of the equation.
DN: What are the pictures of in the video for "Whispers In the Dark"? DC: For this song, we wanted the visuals to play off the emotion invoked by the closing lyric, "While we are young." The song struck us as a retrospective story of nostalgia or regret. So we gathered a collection of photos from the 1940s and 1950s that showed a variety of nostalgic memories from people's long lost youths (vacations, dances, family celebrations, classrooms, etc). We were really excited about how it all ended up working together, especially since this was the third different visual idea that we explored for pairing with this song. We originally wanted to shoot it at a taxidermy shop or an antique mall but couldn't find a location that would allow our shoot. Third idea was the charm.
DN: Where was this episode filmed? DC: Another aspect of this series that we've tried to change with each episode is the location. Shooting both video and audio on location can present a number of challenges, but it's fun to explore different possibilities and let each location shape the video to a certain extent. For this video, we wanted an open area that would give the projections enough space to have their impact. So we recorded it at a refurbished mechanic shop in Germantown, which is where the church I'm a part of meets.
DN: Who directs these videos? DC: We started out directing the first few episodes ourselves; this meant that we would set up a handful of stationary cameras around us, press record and start playing the song. Then I would edit the footage together. Fortunately, we've had some talented help with the past two videos. For Beck's "Eyes that Say I Love You," direction and editing was provided by Jace Freeman of the Moving Picture Boys, who just premiered their new documentary "Nashville 2012" at the Nashville Film Festival. Jace not only improved the look of the video but he also brought a storyline, which worked perfectly with the song's lyrics. This episode was shot and edited by our friend Caleb McLaughlin. The projector element complicated the shoot more than I anticipated, so I'm not sure how we would have done it without him. Strangely enough, our Beck video was shot at Caleb's home, so this isn't the first time he's been a champion of Stay Home America.
DN: How do you get your brain around your arrangements of each song? DC: Breaking down a song and writing a new arrangement is one of our favorite things about what we do. We've loved doing this to our own songs for special occasions too, so it seemed like a natural transition when we had the idea to start this video series. For Kavinsky's "Nightcall" we wrote the arrangement together in our practice space, just like we would when writing a new song. I had the idea for this Mumford cover late last year so I pieced together a demo a while back, and then we got together to finesse the details earlier this month.
For the Stay Home America arrangements, we try take each song in a different direction than the original artist did. We loved stripping down The xx's "Fiction" and turning it into a unplugged song for Zac's back porch. So I thought it would be cool to do the opposite thing to a Mumford song, taking their old-time thumper and giving it a minimalist groove based on a string synth. I've become a bit of a synth geek, so I was especially excited to get to use a new piece that I bought earlier this year.
Examining "Whispers in the Dark" taught me that the song was much more interesting than I believed on first listen. I think that the original arrangement has so many uptempo instrumental elements going on that it distracts from how dark and beautiful the lyrics are. By slowing down the tempo and exposing the vocals, I think it allows the focus to shift to the song's story, which describes loss and regret before landing on the final stanza's "Carpe Diem" proclamation. So this arrangement was influenced both by our understanding of the original lyrics and by our desire to take the song into new musical territory. Hopefully, our take can be appreciated by Mumford fans and non-Mumford fans alike. –Brianne Turner
