EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD: Attack Formation - Pearl Snaps + Manipulation + The Cost
It's the kind of situation that can only really happen in places like Austin. Ben and Reagan live in an airy, open house just outside of town. When laying your head there over SXSW 08, bands were coming in and out from Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois and California. The garage/Attack Formation practice space served as a place to work out new line-ups with last minute additions, the backyard was a tent city for visitors who wanted their own space outside of the house. It was an open-door policy to the most fun place to stay with the nicest people in Austin.
Attack Formation the band is not unlike Ben and Reagan's house. Any given performance may have the same line-up you saw last week, but it's not the same one you saw last year. Every recording features a combination of willing pranksters as nebulous as Clay Aiken's sexuality. The one steady is Ben Webster. He is the unfailingly enthusiastic leader of this band of merry nuts and artists. RCRD LBL presents: The older "Pearl Snaps," try to keep up if you can. The borrowed (from the Big Boys) and live "Manipulation" - Mike Flannery, whoever you are, pay up. And the new "The Cost," which was just completed last week. Clap along. Welcome to the Fun House.
Sounds Like: Dark Meat, Les Savy Fav, Sean Na Na, Vampire Hands
Download: Attack Formation - Manipulation
FEATURED: BLK JKS play show at New Museum
We saw BLK JKS (Black Jacks) perform at the Fader Fort at SXSW, without really knowing what was going to happen--we had jusy heard that we had to check them out. Turns out they're a whyle out rock band from South Africa—real musicians— who blend just about every genre of music that that description can encompass to make totally captivating and visceral music. Someone said that when the Bad Brains stopping making "hardcore", this was the sort of thing they were really driving toward. Dub step/afro/freak/vibes....
BLK JKS are playing the New Museum today as part of their "Get Weird" art series, tickets are $10, so if you have some spare time be sure to check them out.
Levi's/FADER Fort x RCRD LBL: More More More
Our bros over at FADER just posted up a grip of videos and photos from the Levi's/FADER Fort in Austin. Unfort, there's no video yet from our latest obsession band BLK JKS, but we'll link you guys up as soon as it goes live. In the mean time, click away and dig some street styles as captured by the FADER freelance fashion squad, vids of the Stills and Spank Rock and more....
Levi's/FADER Fort Video: The Stills
Levi's/FADER Fort Video: Lykke Li
Levi's/FADER Fort Video: Spankrock
Fool's Gold SXSW Recap
It's a wrap - finally made it back to B-R-O-O-K-LYN (the planet) and finished uploading everything from that music industry networking event in Austin, TX you might have heard about this past weekend. About damn time! Click here for more...
DOWNLOAD: Subtitle - Bluetrack
During SXSW’s Mess With Texas festival on Saturday, we were impatiently waiting in the Port-a-Potty line as Islands were about to go on, standing directly behind this really tall, awesome-looking black dude with this amazing graying flat top. After we both made it back into the crowd, he’s all “Oops, gotta go”, climbs up onstage and trades spit-fire rapping with Nick from Islands. We were totally blown away, and it turns out it was Giovanni Marks, a.k.a. Subtitle, the experimental hip hop engineer we posted about last week. Serendipity, right?
Here’s a new track from Subtitle’s Lurk Mode EP. Like the ones we posted before, it’s crazy ballsy and surreal, with Subtitle’s distorted vocals over the entire track. Enjoy!
Download: Subtitle - Bluetrack
VIDEO: Lykke Li - Window Blues (Live at the Fader Fort)
In between updating this here site at the RCRD LBL Lounge at the Fader Fort this year in Austin, we also saw loads of awesome artists play the venue, specifically Swedish alt pop starlet Lykke Li (still don't know how to pronounce it, by the way). The Fader Team posted a video of her doing "Window Blues" for the sweaty, afternoon crowd, so check it out!
FEATURED: The Felice Brothers tear up a barnyard dance with their amazingness
Photo courtesy of Abbey Braden for Punk Photo
So it’s the Sunday after SXSW, we’re more exhausted than we’ve possibly ever been, and we’ve still managed to miss our new favorite band, the Felice Brothers, at every single one of their festival performances so far. Our last chance to see them in the balmy Texan weather is at some event called “the Barn Dance”, which we naively assume is some sort of secret, Todd P-style venue out on the residential outskirts of South Austin. Little did we know, one $20 cab ride later (we were driven to the premises by a charming gentleman named Charles E. Lusty, seriously this is writing itself), it turns out the Barn Dance is literally a barn, with people dancing in it, located in a back yard owned by what appears to be a million awesome hippies. We’d be straight-up lying if we said we didn’t stick out like sore thumbs, but after about four Keystone Ices, mi casa es tu casa, and we were more than excited to share some chips and queso with these amazing old dudes and watch the Felice Brothers take the stage.
In a way we’re kind of glad we missed all of the Felice Brothers' SXSW showcases because this intimate setting was obviously their element: all these local people line-dancing and going totally crazy, and no, they didn’t hear about Felice through MySpace or Pitchfork or Vice or whoever, they were just there to get considerably wasted and dance along to really good music by some young kids from upstate New York (did we mention we walked in on a weed deal between a guy with a white pony tail and his friend in a Pink Floyd T-Shirt?). The Brothers were grinning ear to ear the entire time, and as drummer/vocalist Simone stated before the first song, “All those fancy bastards are on planes out of here, so let’s have a party with some real Austin folk”. When the band ripped into “Whisky In My Whiskey”, we don’t think we’ve ever experienced a less convoluted and more real musical instant in our entire lives. These guys are the real deal, and no amount of stuffy industry showcases will ever change that.
In case you missed our run of Felice MP3s the other week, check them out below, and next time they randomly play a barn in the middle of nowhere, please, please, please go.
Download: The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun!
Download: The Felice Brothers - San Antonio's Burning
Download: The Felice Brothers - Tip Your Way
Levi's/FADER Fort x RCRD LBL Rec Room Photos!
While a few of us RCRD LBL staffers are STILL in Austin, we're already fondly looking back at our times at the Levi's/FADER Fort. Here are some mellow vibes from our RCRD LBL Rec Room, including cameos from our very own Cameron Cook, Elliot Aronow, Dirty On Purposes' manager Jin, members of Ra Ra Riot and others. Also, if A-Trak's mom is reading this, we are sorry the clean up team threw out that poster of your son. We are going to make another one for you, promise!
FEATURED: White Denim get a shout out in New York Times SXSW Recap
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The New York Times' Jon Pareles dropped our boys' White Denim's name in his SXSW recap today. Congrats guys! He also name checked two other RCRD LBL-affiliated bands as well, naming the Dodos and Atlas Sound as some of his other favorites from the festival. Way to get some exposure dudes!
Check out the whole piece at the Times website and grab free downloads from all those artists using the handy links below.
FEATURED: An Americana Revival at Austin
This year SXSW this year, we noticed a tenacious Americana folk/bluegrass/roots revival- the type invented on American porches while smoking cigarettes and drinking sweet tea. A washboard is usually involved as an instrument. You wouldn't be surprised to see chickens running around at the band members' feet. Harbingers of the movement? The vibrant, gritty Felice Brothers, The Butchers and the Builders, Phonograph, Dr. Dog, etc....check it out here.
For more click here.
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