Tera Melos – Tuesday, May 13 in the 7th St Entry
[Tera] Melos’ Norcal upbringing was unalterably shaped by the sound of other Sacto band Hella, although it is of little importance which outfit came first. With a moniker in Latin that means “thousand melodies,” Melos’ jangly toggling of mathy leads and frenetic, fill-heavy rhythm made them easily classified as Norcal Math Rock. Yet this cubicle of designation, formed from the aforementioned Hella’s popularity, was too small to encapsulate Melos’ current sound of progressive pedal electronics and palatable indie touches. Melos live is like seeing the primordial ooze which we all came from take many forms, by re-atomizing itself with every tangy momentary melody, it evolves right down to its fossilized dinosaur skeleton. [Nailed Magazine]
Mayda Busy Signals Part 1 Release Show – Saturday, May 31 at the Turf Club
Mayda Miller, born in Incheon City, South Korea, and adopted at just under one year of age, has been bobbing her head and swaying to music since she was able to stand in her crib. Without anyone else in the family musically oriented, this young Korean American pop artist has made a name for herself. Hailing from Minneapolis, Mayda’s music has been featured locally as well as nationally (The Rachael Ray Show, The Jersey Shore, The Real L Word, Weeds, Good Morning America, and the list goes on). Mayda’s new album, Busy Signals, drops in May. [Lavender]
Mother Falcon – Friday, June 6 in the 7th St Entry
Mother Falcon is an orchestral indie band born in Austin, Texas that has quickly become an award winning recording act and a top concert draw, performing in rock clubs while maintaining a presence in the performing arts scene scoring plays and films. The group began to coalesce around multi-instrumentalist and composer Nick Gregg while the members were still teenagers, coming together via orchestral and chamber music classes. Composing as a collective, the 18 piece ensemble includes several multi-instrumentalists and most of the players contribute vocals. Guitarist/pianist Claire Puckett, accordionist/pianist Tamir Khalifa and percussionist/saxophonist Issac Winburne form the creative core along with Nick Gregg, though all members contribute musically.
Tommy Keene – Saturday, July 5 in the 7th St Entry
From his beginnings as a child pianist through his decades as pop-rock singer-songwriter, Tommy Keene has written some of the best work of the 1980s post-punk era. Despite his lack of commercial success, Keene’s power-pop was marked by romantically bittersweet melodies and swift arrangements. Balancing his roles as a solo artist and a hired gun for acts like Robert Pollard and Paul Westerberg, Keene is known for his thunderous guitar work and master of pop hooks. […] With swirling guitars and touches of keyboard, Keene’s post-punk and folk-pop compositions demonstrate a career’s worth of strengths. [NPR World Cafe]
Fly Golden Eagle – Thursday, July 10 in the 7th St Entry
Fly Golden Eagle has been going strong for over 5 years. Starting with Ben Trimble first playing shows solo with a boombox and tape-recordings, it has since evolved into a full-fledged band that has released 3 albums and an EP. Richard Harper, Mitch Jones and Matt Shaw flesh out the foursome.
They’ve traveled the Silk Highway to help in The Resistance of the Propagators of the Pinkest Floss, as well as the nation of Canada, where the people love their music, but the Government does not. Their songs are meant to be titillating, multilateral, and other fun, vintage buzz words. Fly Golden Eagle sincerely tries to find it’s place in the cosmos and the sentient beings on earth. They are greedy for the big synthesis and are highly listenable. Fly Golden Eagle is currently touting their latest, psych-funk release, Swagger, wherever they go and are done with their follow-up, Quartz, to be released soon. In the past year the band has toured with Alabama Shakes, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Dr Dog, Arctic Monkeys, Clear Plastic Masks and Chrome Pony. See them outside and in the sun.
Mrs. Glass | Ben Ballinger | Carson McHone – Friday, July 25 in the 7th St Entry
A trio of Austin, TX-based singer songwriters:
“The Bayou Blues crooning of Mrs. Glass is so seasoned you have to see him live to believe he’s actually a fairly young, fairly sober white guy. Looks may be deceiving, but there’s never a lack of tortured brilliance lurking beneath the tenuous surface of Mrs. Glass’ brooding music.” [Sonic Vault Austin]
“Ben Ballinger’s personal accounts of fight or flight are crafted with expression and welded to the sonic landscape. A native of The Dalles, OR, Ballinger left home at age 18, hitchhiking across the country on his way to New York City. As a songwriter for well over a decade now, this is Ballinger’s fourth studio release. No stranger to vices, lies and love, Fabrication houses stories you’ll want to hear again and again.”
“Carson McHone is a breath of fresh air in a town full of Texas songwriters who all try for the sound she was born with and presents confidently in an easy, natural way.” [Ted Branson of KOOP Radio]
Shonen Knife – Tuesday, September 18 at the Turf Club
Shonen Knife (meaning “Boy Knife” in Japanese) is an all-female Japanese pop punk band formed in Osaka, in 1981. Heavily influenced by 1960s girl groups, pop bands, The Beach Boys, and early punk rock bands, such as the Ramones, the trio crafts stripped-down songs with simplistic lyrics sung both in Japanese and English. Despite their pop-oriented nature, the trio maintains a distinctly underground garage rock sound rooted in edgy instrumentation and D.I.Y. aesthetics, which over the course of their long career has earned them a solid, worldwide cult following and made avid fans out of seminal ’90s alternative rock bands such as Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Redd Kross. The band has been credited with making “the international pop underground more international” by “opening it up to bands from Japan”. Their 20th album release, titled Overdrive, will be released in April 2014 with a World Tour to support the new CD.
