Lemuria’s Alex Kerns on their forthcoming LP, recording with J. Robbins, and more

lemurialowres
Buffalo trio Lemuria have been purveying a strain of rocking indie pop for almost a decade now. With a slew of singles behind them, it’s surprising that they’ve only recently finished recording their third full-length. As yet untitled, the LP will be released later this year on Bridge 9 Records, following their second, Pebbles (also on Bridge 9) and their debut, Get Better, on Asian Man. We harrassed the hell out of drummer and vocalist Alex Kerns via Twitter and e-mail, and he was surprisingly willing to answer some questions for us.
Continue reading

Download the Young Leaves’ AOTU single (and more) for free

young-leaves-logoThe Young Leaves have made everything on their Bandcamp page free downloads. That means that, in addition to both their full lengths – Big Old Me and Life Underneath – you can get their recent Art of the Underground single, “Am I Cool?” b/w “Something Missing.”

If you like hooky, ’90s-style college rock a la Dinosaur Jr, this will wet your whistle perfectly. And, of course, if you like what you hear, you can purchase the physical product. The single and Life Underneath can both be found in the Art of the Underground distro, and should only set you back a little over $20 for the both (Life Underneath being a UK import and all).

Cheap records from Art of the Underground

aotu-logoAlex Kerns of Art of the Underground wants to clear out some space and make some money to put out some new records. Kerns, who also plays drums for Lemuria, puts out the fucking STELLAR Art of the Underground single series, which is the best $60 I spend every year.

Anyhow, the deal works thusly:

Sale 1: 5 AOTU 7″s for $5 (of the staffs random choosing)
Sale 2: 5 AOTU LP’s for $10 (of the staffs random choosing)
Sale 3: 10 AOTU CD’s for $10 (of the staffs random choosing)

Sale is only for US and Canada.

Nice, right? Hit the label’s website and get crackin’.

Podcast #24, “My Head is Hanging Down”

sad-bunnyLots of interesting new stuff this week, courtesy of Traffic Street Records, as well as the Art of the Underground 5 for $5 7-inch sale they ran last month. New stuff and new-to-me stuff, as well, plus some interesting folk-punk-blues type tunes that I don’t frequently have cause or reason to play (including that fantastic new 45 Drakkar Sauna put out on Third Man).

This week’s podcast was ran through Levelator, so that hopefully took the edge off the abrupt shifts between spoken words and music. That was an obvious and irritating hallmark of last week’s Halloween podcast that really detracted from the overall effect, and I apologize.

Podcast #24, “My Head is Hanging Down”
Continue reading

Black Wine releasing “Dark Energy” in December

cover-bw-dark-energyEarlier this year, I tried to book Black Wine to play a show at the Replay. It never happened, for various reasons all beyond my control, and that just sucks. I’ve never seen the Ergs!, For Science, or Hunchback, but I was hoping Black Wine, which features former members of all three, would be my way of making up for that.

As it is, I’m making do with listening to the band’s recording, which until this point has consisted solely of a self-titled LP on Don Giovanni and an Art of the Underground single. Thankfully, they just announced that the band’s next release will be the Dark Energy 7-inch on Don Giovanni in December. The label says that the EP “features one song by each band member.” Listen to one of those songs, “Pick At Pieces,” below.

MP3: Black Wine, “Pick At Pieces”