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In support of their upcoming debut full-length album out this Spring on Baldy Longhair Records, New York garage-punk four-piece Crazy & The Brains have premiered their new single "King Kong" on the band's own YouTube channel (also available to purchase on the label's website here).
In addition, the band is announcing a series of upcoming New York appearances, including the city's Anti-Folk festival taking place on February 23rd (full tour dates below).
About Crazy & The Brains:
Crazy & The Brains originally formed as a two piece anti-folk/punk act by friends Chris Urban and Jeff Rubin. For the first few years of their existence, the duo performed around the NYC anti-folk scene at places such as the Sidewalk Café while releasing their first two EPs through Crafty Records. Shortly afterwards, the band added brothers Brett and Lawrence Miller on bass and drums respectfully becoming a four piece and full band. The new additions took Crazy & The Brains from their more lo-fi folk aesthetic to a fuller sounding (albeit still quirky) garage punk sound, and found them signed to the newly formed Baldy Longhair Records, a New Jersey-based record label dedicated to releasing all forms of punk rock on analog.
Since joining Baldy Longhair, Crazy & The Brains have released a six-song EP titled “Don’t Need No Snacks,” as well as contributed three songs to a split 7” titled “Are On The Other Side” with label-mates and friends The Disconnects, who they later toured the States with as a co-headlining summer US tour in 2012.
In the last year the band premiered three music videos on Blank TV for their songs “Let Me Go”, “Saturday Night Live”, and “It’s Alright,” and has been compared to the likes of The Moldy Peaches, Black Lips and The Dead Milkmen. Recorded at SpeakerSonic in Brooklyn, NY and Produced/Engineered by Brian Speaker, the band's yet-to-be titled release will be their first full length album.
Crazy & The Brains are:
Chris Urban – Vocals/Guitar
Jeff Rubin – Xylophone/Glockenspiel/Vocals
Brett Miller – Bass/Vocals
Lawrence Miller - Drums
Crazy & The Brains Live!
01/19/13 The Lab (224 Wycoff Ave.) Brooklyn, NY
02/01/13 Muchmore’s (2 Havemeyer Street) Brooklyn, NY w/ Berth Control, Verbal Phantom, Secret Beach, Casey Holford
02/02/13 Muchmore’s 2 Havemeyer Street Brooklyn, NY w/ Dan & Rachel
02/07/13 Under St. Mark’s Theatre (94 Saint Marks Place) New York, NY w/ Tony Showtime!
02/23/13 Sidewalk (96 Ave A) New York, NY Anti-Folk Festival! w/ Trumpet Grrrl, Daniel Laitman, Jen Kaplan, Dot Will Echo, The Telethons, Happy Rappies, Dan & Rachel, Kung Fu Crimewave
Vinnie Caruana, frontman of punk icons I Am The Avalanche and seminal post-hardcore band The Movielife, has announced details today about his upcoming debut solo release, "City By The Sea," out February 5th on I Surrender / Run For Cover Records. Caruana will be touring the US in support of "City By The Sea" (produced by Steve Choi from RX Bandits) throughout February on the Acoustic Basement Tour, along with Geoff Rickley (Thursday), A Loss For Words, Koji and Brian Marquis. "Somehow The World Keeps Turning", the first track off Caruana's EP, can also be streamed here now.
Speaking from the boardwalk in Long Beach, NY, Caruana shared the inspiration for his solo debut: "The city was hit hard by Sandy and is doing its best to bounce back. It's an incredible place to live and the people are proud to call it home. I moved here 3 years ago and intend to remain here as long as I can. I live very close to the ocean and it continues to be a huge inspiration to me and my music. I was very lucky compared to the thousands whose homes and lives were drastically affected by the storm and I won't ever take that for granted. The boardwalk will be torn down and rebuilt very soon. It's all part of the healing process."
Speaking of "City By The Sea," Caruana says "I really felt like I owed this to myself and to all the people who have supported my music for so long. I won't let either of us down."
* "City By The Sea" pre-order packages are available in the following formats: CD, CD + T-Shirt, Vinyl and UK. Vinnie will have a limited run of 300 hand-numbered 12"s pressed exclusively for the acoustic basement tour. These 300 are limited will only be available from Vinnie at these shows. Additional vinyl will be released March 5th.
The time was nineteen-ninety-something, the place was the small town of West Chester, Pennsylvania...or Delaware County, or Wilmington, Delaware. PLOW UNITED quickly earned a place in the collective heart of punk rock for their furious melodic punk anthems that documented suburban life in a way that set them apart from their Fat Wreck and Epitaph contemporaries. They came, they made their mark, they left.
But that's only part of the story. Fast forward to the year 2011, when Brian McGee, Sean Rule and Joel Tannenbaum caught their devotees by surprise, announcing that they'd be reuniting to play at Riot Fest East in Philadelphia. Defying the stigma that comes with reunions, Plow United made it immediately evident that there was nothing crass, nothing insincere about their desire to bring their signature brand of punk to a new generation.
Similarly, it's clear that the creative vehicle has undergone a full tune-up and has the kind of mileage to bring them through the present tense with legitimate conviction and a new perspective entirely. Once they picked it up, they found they couldn't put it back down; the next year was packed with live shows, opening for the likes of The Bouncing Souls and Less than Jake, and tearing the roof off in front of festival crowds in Baltimore and Gainesville, FL. Before they knew it, they were in the studio recording a new record.
Fourteen years passed between Plow United records. Fourteen years is a long time. Brian, Joel and Sean spent those 14 years moving restlessly–and separately–around the country and the world, sometimes keeping in touch, sometimes not, sometimes playing music, sometimes not.
But throughout that time, the memories were there: pushing, pulling, guiding. Memories of lessons learned, reminders of scars borne, and the occasional unearthing of an old record while moving from place to place all brought the past to present. And, at the same time, the songs, long out-of-print, were winding their way from person to person and town to town in disembodied, digital form.
The songs on Marching Band are direct responses to the frenetic energy that resurfaced when Plow United took to a stage again in 2011. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear Plow United (circa 1996) performing these tracks. However, one thing Plow circa '96 could not have accounted for is time: these songs are the product of an extra 42 years added to three lives. The old Plow United songs were about wanting to be recognized as adults, or about realizing all the things you'd been told about life and how to live it were wrong, and being fucking pissed about it. The new Plow United songs – the ones on Marching Band – are about not giving in to cynicism, about not lowering expectations, about not giving up hope, even when giving up hope seems like the sensible thing to do.
They say that the first album is the easiest to write. You have your whole lives to write the first album. Subsequent ones have to be cranked out in a year or two. Marching Band is the first Plow United record in over a decade, and in a way that means the band has the chance to make a first album all over again, with all that time and all those new experiences from which to draw, not to mention all those half-finished songs, lyrical snippets jotted down but never completed, songs written for other projects that fizzled out before their time.
From the boundless joy of "Human 2000" - the band's ode to its audience - to the rage, frustration and teeth-gritting determination of "Falling, Deeply", to the raucous affection of "Get Low," it's clear that Plow United has expanded their reach without dulling their edge. Marching Band isn't a comeback. It's a never-left.
* In support of the new album, and in addition to their upcoming appearances in the New York and Philadelphia areas, Plow United will be performing live on The Chris Gethard Show on Wednesday, March 27th, fans interested in being part of the live studio audience can RSVP to zerolaughs@gmail.com.
Inspired by their love of music, creativity and adventure, Greg & Shanti have created some top-drawer music for the whole family. Upbeat, euphonious, well-crafted songs that will delight your ears and have you singing and dancing in no time! Grab a friend, tune your imagination to the key of awesome - It's time for Play Date!
What in the world is that, way up in the sky? A Bird? A Plane? A Unicorn? A Unicorn-Pegasus! No... It’s Play Date!
Soaring through time and space to win the hearts of kids, parents and magical creatures everywhere! Shanti Wintergate and Greg Attonito (The Bouncing Souls) are bringing their love of music and adventure to kids at the speed of sound!
After touring the U.S. to read (and sing) their children’s book I Went for a Walk to children of all ages, Shanti and Greg returned home inspired. Together, they created an entire album of top-drawer music for the whole family - euphonious, upbeat and well-crafted songs to delight the ears and more refreshing than an ice-cold lemonade on a hot summer day. There’s the esteem-boosting anthem Rad (“I’m Rad because I like to draw everything that I can see, I’m RAD because I like ME!”); and the empowering messages in Anyone Can Sing and Imagination which encourage singing from the heart and tapping the limitless imagination that lives in all of our hearts. The playful, educational rock-steady rhythm of The Number Song tells the story of how “One, won the race of numbers.” And Dance Like A Monster will inspire kids from six to 60 to... well... Dance like a monster! What ever the subject, tempo, rhythm or rhyme you’ll be singing while you Dance Like a Monster in no time!
All of this and much more. So grab a friend, tune your imagination to the key of awesome and buckle up before we take off – it’s time for Play Date!
Grabass Charlestons played their first show on December 30, 2000 in a little box of a house nestled in the heart of Gainesville’s student ghetto. At the time of this writing, the band has never once taken a hiatus and has played 551 more times (yes, they’ve kept count) all over America and nine other countries. From its inception, the band existed as a trio until Will Thomas, who served as both drummer and lead singer, passed the sticks to Ryan Quinney in late 2010. Since, Quinney’s fluid yet spot-on drumming and bassist Dave Drobach’s crawl-across-the-floor, flowing tones have melded to form a solid, lock-step rhythm section. Guitarist PJ Fancher’s distinctive, soaring style has only been bolstered now that Will has moved to the front and picked up a second guitar. The measured effect of this role shift is one of breadth - not just in the overall sound of the band - but in its ability to paint in broader strokes, to really dig deep and bring more intricate structures and disparate deliveries that help the songs breathe and move in new ways.
Ten, even five years ago, it would have been relatively easy to simply dub Grabass a really great punk rock band. Today, this would be somewhat of a misnomer. This is not because the band itself doesn’t have its roots firmly planted in that soil, because without question, it does. But in rock and roll as in life, there’s far more than one ingredient in the stew of Grabass’ sound. The men in this band are fans of music, and Will’s songwriting respectfully pulls from more than several stacks, and the songs bear this fact proudly. Will’s exodus from behind the drum kit has allowed him and the band more freedom to focus on writing absorbing, well-crafted songs.
Dale and the Careeners is not a concept record, per se, but there is a somewhat cohesive narrative throughout that spins tales that aren’t so much of American experience as they are of American condition. Any truly great record consists of different kinds of songs that merge to form a unified whole - Dale and the Careeners is that kind of record. Some songs swing, some bite, some weep - they all rock. Grabass has released two full-lengths and six EPs. This third full helping of songs is, without question, the band’s greatest accomplishment to date.
In addition, The Fest 11 has announced additional confirmed acts to the already impressive 300 plus band list.
The initial lineup featured the likes of:
Lagwagon, Anti-Flag, Braid, Propagandhi, Naked Raygun, 7 Seconds, Negative Approach, Good Riddance, F.Y.P, Frank Turner, From Ashes Rise, Streetlight Manifesto, A Wilhelm Scream, Mustard Plug, Titus Andronicus, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Broadway Calls, Cheap Girls, Grade (Reunion), Bomb the Music Industry, Smoke or Fire, The Copyrights, Mean Jeans, Ceremony, Cobra Skulls, The Front Bottoms, La Dispute, Toys That Kill, Dead to Me, Dear Landlord, Dopamines, Ensign, Flatliners, Good Luck, Lemuria, Look Mexico, No Trigger,Off With Their Heads, Polar Bear Club, RVIVR, Shook Ones, The Swellers, Teenage Bottlerocket, Plow United, David Liebe Hart Band, Tim Barry, Valient Thorr, Iron Chic, , Make Do and Mend, 1994!, Asshole Parade, Banner Pilot, Blacklist Royals, Heartsounds, Joyce Manor, Bridge and Tunnel, Franz Nicolay, Grabass Charlestons and many more.
Today they added The Dwarves, Riverboat Gamblers, Fake Problems, Hull, Kepi Ghoulie, Sainthood Reps, Hostage Calm, The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, High Voltage (Bon Scott ear AC/DC Tribute Band), Paul Baribeau, GG King, Brian McGee, Candy Hearts, Dads, Citizen, Rivernecks, Suis La Lune, The Ones to Blame, Tubers, World's Scariest Police Chases, Life Chain and The Joint Chiefs of Math.
You can view all the bands playing so far on THE FEST 11 official website.
The organizers are planning on 300 + bands over Oct 26th, 27th, 28th-2012 at 11 venues in downtown Gainesville, FL.
EARLY TURD 3-DAY passes are now on sale. Weekend passes are $100. Only 4,000 weekend passes will be sold (Less than 500 left) You can purchase tickets via THE FEST 11 official website.
