Today's Hotness: Eros And The Eschaton, Amity Beach, Weekend



>> [Photo Credit: Lemon Photography] Late last year a friendly label rep turned us on to the Eros And The Eschaton, a North Carolina-based couple making serene dream pop presented in some charming video clips like this arresting one for "You Know I Do," and this one for "Lately (I've Been Wondering"). Fast-forward to earlier this month and, lo and behold, it was announced that the duo -- Kate Perdoni and Adam Hawkins, who met in Omaha but settled in Greensboro when their van broke down in the central Carolina city -- have now signed to the above-referenced label. And so Eros And The Eschaton's full-length debut Home Address For Civil War will be issued by Bar/None Aug. 13. The bigger surprise is the huge, bold sound of the record's preview single "Heaven Inside." A calm center remains, in the form of the duo's airy vocal harmonies, but the remarkably dense musical accompaniment eschews the subdued sound of the band's self-released, 2012 singles and instead throbs with energy while a vast wall of melodic guitar and white-out percussion smear across the fore of the stereo field. The result is one of the most stirring shoegaze tracks of 2013, just the kind of thing Clicky Clicky is always on the look-out for. Eros And The Eschaton are supporting the 10-track release with a substantial tour in September including an appearance at the annual Hopscotch confabulation in Raleigh, but as of yet there is no date for the duo's live return to the Boston area (its area debut was at Precinct in late spring). To whet your appetite for the release, we've embedded the thriller "Heaven Inside" for your listening pleasure below; pre-order Home Address For Civil War from Bar/None right here.



>> It's been a surprisingly long time since we were last rocked by the fresh-faced indie pop of Amity Beach, whose late 2011 digital single knocked our socks off. The Ontario-based quintet returned at long last this month with pop gold in the form of a new digital single, "Sunday Nights To Infinity" b/w "Avalanches." The pair of songs, released via Bandcamp June 10, are taken from the act's planned debut long-player Bonfire Etiquette. Both tunes are driven by bright, tight guitars. Fizzing tempos push melodies across deft arrangements in a manner that recalls the remarkable pop of veteran Delaware indie pop heroes Spinto Band. "Sunday Nights To Infinity" overflows with lyrics bursting with romantic optimism and nostalgia underscored by tinkling piano embellishments. "Avalanches" runs with a similarly irresistible formula, but is notable for bright horns bolstering the soaring chorus. We can't find a release date for Bonfire Etiquette, and it would be a shame if it were not released in time for the set to be a go-to summer jam that this intoxicating single suggests it will be. Then again, that slightest of bites of nostalgia and loss in "Sunday Nights To Infinity" and "Avalanches" may be even more potent once summer begins to fade. Stream both tunes via the embed below, and keep an eye on Clicky Clicky for news about Bonfire Etiquette.



>>So maybe you live under a rock, or just have a terrible memory, and so you aren't aware of the excellent second preview single from Weekend's forthcoming long-player, a song called "It's Alright." Well, we've embedded it below along with the new album's killer lead track "Mirror," because you need to be up-to-speed on the latest, greatest thing from Slumberland, a label that has been just on fire these last couple of years. "It's Alright" is taken from Weekend's Jinx, which will be issued July 23, and the tune in its earliest moments sounds like a brilliant The Cure outtake circa 1983's "The Walk" 12". However, it is fronter Shaun Durkan's booming but gentle vocals, the song's Keith Levene-styled guitar playing and a big swinging beat that dominate the tune. Pre-order Jinx from Slumberland now on 45RPM, colored-media double 12" or CD. The now Brooklyn-based post-punk foursome play at Church in Boston Oct. 23, and you can bet that's gonna sell out faster than you can say, well, just about anything.

That Was The Show That Was: Frightened Rabbit | Middle East

For the first time out of several that we've seen the band perform, Frightened Rabbit Sunday night appeared, well, a little frightened. And band fronter Scott Hutchison seemed almost willing to concede the performance a failure from the onset. What the Selkirk, Scotland-based quartet didn't count on was the fact that the young crowd was ready to love anything it did, even the occasionally tentative or forced. All was forgiven by the grateful crowd even before Mr. Hutchison began offering apologies. Which brings us to an adage of ours that we'll explain later: they can't all be flaming gong nights.

At issue Sunday night was the fact that the foursome, according to Mr. Hutchison, had too much to drink in New York the prior evening and accidentally left a substantial amount of its stage gear there, including guitar pedals, MIDI pedals, cables and we think the organ the band has been using recently to perform our favorite FR song, "The Twist." Much of the equipment apparently belonged to newest member Andy Monaghan, who (incidentally or coincidentally) was very hard to hear in the house mix from our perch several bodies back from the opposite side of the stage.

So, yeah, "flaming gong nights." That's a reference to what in our opinion is the greatest live performance clip ever filmed, namely Van Halen's 1981 Oakland show that climaxed with this amazing version of "Unchained." During the finale, drummer Alex Van Halen figuratively takes the show to 11 by standing up, grabbing a torch and lighting a giant gong on fire. We'll say that again: he stands up, grabs a torch, and lights a giant gong on fire. Then he smashes the hell out of the gong, sits down and smashes his crash cymbals, and it's complete mayhem. That, in our opinion, is the apex of live musical performance. Of course not every show can be bananas like that, and that is OK.

So while Frightened Rabbit did exhibit last night signs of being off their game -- despite having cobbled together a sufficient amount of stage gear from touring mates Spinto Band and The Swims -- it is hard to flop with such exceptional material. And so fans called out praise between songs as the lads tuned; young co-eds dreamily gazed at Mr. Hutchison and sang along to his solo ballad "Poke;" tousle-haired young men gesticulated their teenage angst toward the low ceiling while chanting out "you're the shit and I'm knee-deep in it" along with their hero. Truly the Frightened Rabbit phenomenon continues to propagate unchecked, and last night's stymied performance did nothing to derail it. Drummer Grant Hutchison put an exclamation point on the evening -- and the band's apparent frustrations -- as he bashed out the exultant, obliterating tattoo that ends the sublime shouter "Square 9" and closed out the show. Grant did so with such ferocity that we half-worried as he lurched up from his kit that he was heading to the fans in the front row to continue administering beatings. Which, in a way, is pretty damn close to a flaming gong.

We posted the remainder of Frightened Rabbit's tour dates here in the foot of the review of the band's new live record Liver! Lung! FR!, which is being released by Fat Cat today; the band returns to Boston in January. Below we've posted our admittedly fuzzy memory of last night's set list, and under that are a couple live MP3s being offered here by the web site of Glaswegian nightclub The Mill, where Frightened Rabbit played Sept. 25.

The Modern Leper
Fast Blood
Old, Old Fashioned
I Feel Better
Good Arms Versus Bad Arms
Poke
My Backwards Walk
The Greys
Square 9

Frightened Rabbit -- "The Modern Leper" -- Live At The Mill, Glasgow, Scotland
Frightened Rabbit -- "I Feel Better" -- Live At The Mill, Glasgow, Scotland
[right click and save as]
[buy Frightened Rabbit music from Newbury Comics here, EMusic here]

Frightened Rabbit: Internets | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Selected Prior Frightened Rabbit coverage:
FR Live At TT The Bear's, July 2008
FR Live at the Middle East, March 2008
Review: Frightened Rabbit | The Midnight Organ Fight
FR Live at Great Scott, November 2007

Today's Hotness: Seb Roberts, The Anwering Machine, Spinto Band

>> Heretofore you probably had little idea what you would be doing April 14. Frankly neither did we, until we received an email this evening from Spoilt Victorian Child Records. You may recall the label issued the stunning debut EP from Texas-shoegaze behemoth Ringo Deathstarr last year. Well on the aforementioned date the rising label will issue Seb Roberts' Exit Strategy. Mr. Roberts was born in Canada, has apparently lived and rocked in Baltimore, and now splits time between Hamburg, Germany and Japan. Along the way he's released nine records under almost as many different monikers, which we suppose makes Exit Strategy his 10th? The two songs we've heard from the set (posted below) are sinewy, spare and fragmented rock numbers that slap together spoken word, feedback, forthright grooves and profanity into a strangely arresting product that would have played very well at the goth/industrial all-ages dance night we frequented in our youth. We hear similarities to Wall Of Voodoo, Police drummer Stewart Copeland's Klark Kent side project, and "Jesus Built My Hotrod"-era Ministry. There's a palpable Fall thing going on as well. Seriously. Seb Roberts' Exit Strategy will be issued digitally and on CD in the UK and Europe, and North Americans should be able to find the record via ITunes and Amazon. As an added inducement, both the digital and tangible releases come with full artwork and a link to download an additional album of improvised instrumentals called NO Sense, NO Feeling performed by Roberts and Tokyo-based psych unit NO.

Seb Roberts -- "U.S. Out Of N.Y." -- Exit Strategy
Seb Roberts -- "Man-Whore, Fashion Hag, and Former Neighbor" -- Exit Strategy
[right click and save as]
[watch this page for your chance to buy this record]

>> Streaming radio outfit WOXY has finally posted here the March 13 live session recorded with indie pop upstarts The Answering Machine. Perhaps because the band has yet to release a full-length, the Manchester-based quartet still seems very much like a little secret. But The Answering Machine sounds huge in this WOXY session. They tear through a version of the superlative single "Silent Hotels" and the guitars sound bigger than on the recording, and the drums doubly so. The second track, "Your Father's Books" is new to us and very promising, particularly in the breakdown section. Suddenly this band is outgrowing it's lockstep dance rhythms a bit, and it is exciting to hear. Download the whole session at the link below.

The Answering Machine -- WOXY Lounge Act Session 3/13/2008
[right click and save as]

>> We remember reading about the making of Spinto Band's new video "Summer Grof" [link] at some point, perhaps when we were researching the goings-on of the band in the fall around the time we saw them play Bowery Ballroom with Los Campesinos! and Johnny Foreigner. Anyway, on paper the concept seemed a little flat, but the clip is actually really fun, appealing as it does to the universal joys of the water balloon fight and food fight. And the clip's black and white rendering dovetails nicely with the nostalgic vibe that permeates Spinto Band's music like smoke in an old carpet. The Delaware-based septet play T.T. The Bear's in Cambridge, Mass. Friday, April 4, and if we can fit it in after an earlier commitment (meaning if we can keep awake) we hope to see the set. As we reported here about six weeks ago, Spinto Band is poised to release its eighth full-length, Moonwink, later this year.

Today's Hotness: The Hooters, Spinto Band, Songerize

>> Un.Be.Lievable. Philly-based '80s rockers The Hooters released a new record, Time Stand Still, this week. It looks like you can stream most of it at the band's MySpace dojo here (we didn't think we'd ever type the words "Hooters" and "MySpace" in the same sentence), which we just did. We don't hear pop hits, but the set has an easy folk-rock vibe with the expected but not overpowering religious references. There was a year back there in the '80s when the quintet was bigger than big. We distinctly remember being a kid getting driven to The Mall in the way back of a station wagon the year that the follow-up to Nervous Night was released and "Satellite" was on the radio. A pretty damn good song, and certainly much better than "Johnny B," which one of the articles linked supra contends is something of a phenomenon to this day in Germany. Anyway, a lot of our Hooters memories are tied into being a passenger in the car -- no surprise given our age at the time. Nervous Night was huge one summer during which we drove most every day to the cringe-inducingly affluent "swim club" to which our family belonged. And of course a car plays a prominent role in this video for "And We Danced," which Sony BMG refuses to let us embed for you no matter how amazing the short bridge to the song is. The Hooters' Eric Bazilian ended up moving into a house across the street from one of our girlfriends back in the day, if memory serves.

>> Delaware-proud (Debella-ware, anyone?) indie pop septet Spinto Band -- this decade's Hooters? Man, that would probably be a hell of a touring bill -- is poised to release its eighth long-player this summer. The set is titled Moonwink, and the lads will support its release with a spring tour including the obligatory dates at SXSW, which is fun to type because all the letters are adjacent to each other. Too bad Austin isn't right next to Boston -- which would be particularly awesome not only because of access to primo Tex-Mex, but also because they rhyme. But we digress. No release date or label has been disclosed for Moonwink, according to this bit in CMJ, and the information is conspicuously absent from a presser that was flaregunned Tuesday. But we recall Philebrity reporting in Jan. 2006 [here] that Spinto Band has a 700,000 pound licensing deal with Virgin UK. So don't worry, the guys aren't starving. In fact they displayed an almost absurd degree of pep when we saw them sandwiched between Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos! Nov. 30 [review]. Spinto Band's most recent full-length Nice And Nicely Done was released three years ago -- or, roughly 10,000 years in so-called Internetz time -- on Bar-None. Because it never gets old, here is "Oh Mandy."

Spinto Band -- "Oh Mandy" -- Nice And Nicely Done
[right click and save as]
[buy Spinto Band records from Newbury Comics here]

>> A few words about Songerize. Is this thing brilliant or what? It is bloody drop-dead easy to use. And although it doesn't have any advanced functionality such as playlisting, that very well may be the beauty of the thing. Songerize is a pure diner jukebox with almost endless inventory -- well, endless capacity, anyway. We wanted to hear "Destroyer" by The Kinks, we typed it in and boom. Huey Lewis and The News' "Do You Believe In Love?" or Bold's "Wise Up"? Well, no dice. But The Jam's "Down In The Tube Station," voila! Sure, there is no playlisting, but for people who want to actively consume and not passively consume, it is hard to beat Songerize -- assuming the song is available. Of course, it is probably not even close to legal, but -- as one of our digital music industry pals points out -- it may be the most legal thing that embattled media search engine creator Seeqpod has created (Seeqpod is currently being sued by Warner Music Group). It is interesting to note that Songerize doesn't seem to scrape music that is made freely available through Last.FM. We punched in a few titles by smaller acts (such as Nosferatu D2's genius "A Footnote") that we know that the Viacom-backed and UK-based social music play offers for free and none of the tunes came up.

>> Mobius Band is promising some form of Valentine's Day surprise. We're hoping it is a cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love." Either way, we're guessing the surprise is something the cyborg-rock trio recorded during the band's recent woodshedding in Western Massachusetts. Of course, the surprise could be anything. Time will tell.

>> Uhhh, given the touring history shared between the bands, the first fellow we'd call to fix this problem if we were Kevin Shields is J. Mascis. Might be hard to fit in his schedule, as Witch is just about to release a new record and tour Europe.

That Was The Show That Was: Johnny Foreigner | Bowery Ballroom

While one of the more memorable lines in its song "Sofacore" suggests otherwise, rising indie rock dynamos Johnny Foreigner always sound like they are falling down. Or at least as if the Birmingham, England-based trio is in mid-careen as it slams out indie anthems for the underground. The band members themselves are so disarmingly charming and self-deprecating in person that it is almost hard to believe that they are responsible for the jagged and desperate sounds found in Johnny Foreigner's recordings. That awkward charisma and a lot of kickass indie rock cohered into a winning opening set at Bowery Ballroom last night that visibly made believers out of the assembled hipsterati who steadily filled the house over the course of the performance. Not bad for a band that has yet to a release a single song in the United States, let alone one that had colds coming on and had been putting in 14-hour days in a recording studio for the previous two weeks.

Johnny Foreigner's opening salvo was a blistering version of "Champagne Girls I Have Known," the tune that ignites the EP Arcs Across The City, which was released in the UK Monday on Best Before (suck it up and buy the import here). The rest of the half-hour's proceedings, padded by amusing commentary from guitarist Alexei, featured frantic renditions of "Yes, You Talk Too Fast!," the anti-gentrification anthem (well, they're all anthems, aren't they?) "Cranes And Cranes And Cranes," and an annihilating version of "The End And Everything After." Alexei provided interesting context for the relatively new track "Eyes Wide Terrified," namely that it was inspired by a lover's surprise choice of bringing a third party into bed. The relatively gentle track crests with the blunt kiss-off chorus, "you're life is a song, but not this one." Incidentally the tune is the first we're aware of that includes a prominent backing vocal by able and affable drummer Junior.

Before and after the set we were able to drink some beer and eat some carrots with the band and members of Los Campesinos!, during which time we learned a bit about the marathon recording sessions Johnny Foreigner were to complete today in producer The Machine's Hoboken, New Jersey studio. The trio reports that it surpassed its goal of recording twelve song by two tracks. And the label is eying a mid-spring release for a full-length record. One question we posed was whether the tilted currency exchange rate, which favors British Pounds over the US Dollar at a ratio of roughly 2:1, influenced Johnny Foreigner's decision to make the record in America. It was surprising to hear that the answer was no, and that the band was more than a little surprised at the buying power the pound has afforded them during their stay in and around Manhattan. Anyway, here is a Flickr slideshow of our shots from last night's show. Yes, we know we need to clean our camera lens.

While Johnny Foreigner's live US debut was nothing short of a success, the remaining two acts on the bill also showed up to play. Delaware-based septet Spinto Band turned in a spirited and professional performance punctuated by its two biggest jams to date, "Crack The Whip" and "Oh Mandy." After seeing the mandolin get strapped on and put through its paces we couldn't help but be nagged by a question we presume must similarly nag Spinto Band. After you've written one of the decade's few true towering pop achievements, the perky band's aforementioned and undeniable thriller "Oh Mandy," how do you do it again? Our posse last night decided that one of the band's key assets for its live performance is rock foot (alas, we were so blown away by rock foot, we only captured the ensuing partial rock foot linked).

Perhaps the act will take inspiration from last night's hotly tipped top-liners, Cardiff, Wales' twee sensations Los Campesinos! The ensemble's arsenal of singles and the recently issued Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP provided ample fodder for a set abounding with hits. The crowd happily sang along to "The International TweeXcore Underground," "You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives," the Pavement classic "Frontwards," "You! Me! Dancing!" and on and on and on. Interestingly, seeing Los Campesinos! arrayed across the parcemium triggered a memory of a performance by the since-forgotten '90s Montreal indie pop phenoms Pest 5000. The latter act's record Interabang (?!), released on Derivative in 1996, should provide a pleasant listen to Los Campesinos! fans who seek it out. Here's the excellent Pest 5000 track "Too Skinny" to get you started.

Pest 5000 -- "Too Skinny" -- Interabang (?!)
[right click and save as]
[buy Pest 5000 records from Amazon here]

Johnny Foreigner: Interwebz | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Selected Prior Johnny Foreigner coverage:
Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Lilys, Dirty On Purpose
Johnny Foreigner: The Beginning of The End and Everything
Johnny Foreigner's 13 Point Plan To Destroy Etc. And So On
Various Good Reasons To Write About Johnny Foreigner Yet Again
Clicky Clicky Parade Of MySpace Stars vol. 2