Band To Check Out: The Royalty

23 May

The Royalty @ Beat Kitchen, 5.16.12
There’s a lot to like about El Paso, TX’s The Royalty. Between their fuzzy, punk-influenced surf rock and their more Motown-influenced pop numbers, the band’s music is engaging and they put on a thrillride of a live show. Lead singer Nicole Boudreau’s voice soared with the power of a much older chanteuse on every song, yet she brought a youthful energy in her role as frontwoman while the band jammed on behind her. The rambunctious fun of “I Want You” gave way to the sultry swagger of “Please Lie,” and before you know it, they were closing with the upbeat and danceable “Bartender” without a dull moment in between. I walked in barely familiar with their music, and would see them again in a heartbeat.

Their new full-length, Lovers, came out May 8th on Victory, so pick it up.
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Giveaway: The Naked and Famous!

20 Apr

Hey, want that super-cool picture disc of New Zealand indie-punks The Naked and Famous‘s debut album, Passive Me, Agressive You? Of course you do! Well, thankfully we’re giving away a copy, and here’s how you can be the one to get it:

1. Follow both The Naked and Famous and MCMG on Twitter!
2. While you’re at it, go ahead and like The Naked and Famous on Facebook and keep up with us, too!
3. Then, tweet us at at @MCMGdotcom telling us why YOU deserve the record, and we’ll pick one entry at random on Monday, April 23rd!

Pretty, easy, huh? You should probably go enter right about now for your chance at this awesome copy of this record!

Once you’ve entered, check out the cool new remix of “No Way” by Bloc Party’s Russell Lissack and the band’s upcoming tour dates, below:

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Interview: Sparks The Rescue

26 Mar

Sparks The Rescue by Mike McAllister

My Car And My Guitar caught up with Sparks The Rescue last month when they were on the Strength In Numbers tour with D.R.U.G.S., Hit The Lights, and Like Moths To Flames. We talked about the tour and Craig Owens, their upcoming EP, why vocalist Alex Roy is filled with sadness, Siri, and the challenges they face doing things on their own for the first time in six years. They’re working on their EP, due out late spring/early summer, and then they’ll be hitting the road with Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

Alex Roy: My name is Alex and I sing in Sparks The Rescue.
Dave Pait: My name is Dave and I play bass for Sparks The Rescue.
Toby McAllister: I’m Toby. I play guitar.

My Car And My Guitar: So I don’t ask, what’s a question you get in interviews all the time that you find annoying?
Roy: What my favorite food is.
Pait: Really?
Roy: No, I made that up.
McAllister: Most annoying thing I get asked during interviews is “Why don’t you guys scream anymore?” And it’s one of those things where we used to scream and now we don’t because we’re evolving as musicians and as people. Some people have a hard time adapting to change, but literally every single interview I get that question and I’m just like “how many times do I have to answer this question?”
Roy: We don’t have any screamers in the band.
McAllister: When we wrote the EP that we screamed on we were just out of high school and now we’re all 25. We’ve changed and we’ve grown, and I say it every time. It’s not really annoying. I don’t really get annoyed easily, but that’s a question that keeps coming back no matter how much music we put out.
MCMG: Dave, do you have anything to contribute?
Pait: I haven’t been interviewed enough to have any strange questions yet, so there’s that.
MCMG: It’s been six months since you took over playing bass in the band?
Pait: Yeah, just about.
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Interview: The Cab

14 Mar


My Car And My Guitar had the chance to chat with Alexander DeLeon and Alex Marshall of The Cab when the Everything’s Fine Symphony Soldier Tour made a stop in St. Louis back in January. We talked about their fans sticking by them in the long gap between albums, the possibility of “Crown” finally coming to fruition, and their goal of working with Justin Timberlake. They had a lot of fun of the EFSS tour, and it shows. Read what they had to say below.

My Car and My Guitar: Can you please state your name and role in The Cab?
Alex DeLeon: I’m Alex Deleon, I sing.
Alex Marshall: I’m Alex Marshall, I play piano.

MCMG: What’s the most annoying question you get in interviews like this?
DeLeon: Annoying? There’s nothing really annoying. Sometimes it gets redundant if they ask.. there’s always the basic questions. None of them are annoying because people want to know. Like, “How’d you get the name ‘The Cab’?” or “What’s your favorite song to play live?” But those questions aren’t annoying, people want to know the answers to those. So it’s like, no questions to us are annoying, there are questions we get more than others, but we don’t hate any questions. Everyone has the right to ask whatever they want.

MCMG: Symphony Soldier came out fairly quietly. I’ve heard Bad and La La on the radio. What are you hoping to release as your next single?
DeLeon: I don’t think we’re sure yet. Sirius XM, the cool thing about them is they kind of play whatever they want. Whatever songs they’re passionate about, they’ll play. So we got a call the other day saying they love “La La” and they want to play it, so we’re like “awesome.” A lot of times they only play one song from an album, so the fact they’re willing to play multiple, and that’s not even our next single technically, that’s really cool of them, y’know. Sirius XM are the first people who have played all of our single and we owe a lot to them, they really support The Cab and our music, so, whatever they want to do, we’re really excited about.

MCMG: Any ideas to what you want to push as your next single?
DeLeon: “La La” is kind of an upbeat song, so maybe go with a slower ballad – not ballad – ballad-y song for our next single. So maybe “Endlessly” or something. [ed. note: They ended up going with "Endlessly."]

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Pledge to arrange’s New Memory

22 Feb

It’s pretty obvious – I love Malcom Lacey and the seemingly nonstop bevy of powerful, beautiful music arrange has brought us.

Well, fresh on the heels of his excellent Five Years With The Sun EP, Lacey has put up a Kickstarter page to help fund his next project, pressing a brand new “mini-LP, New Memory, to vinyl. Now, I’m beyond excited about the prospect of new arrange tunes, but even better, I’d love to be able to own them on vinyl. He’s even released a new song, “When We Saw” and a beautiful video with it:



Now, this Kickstarter has been up for a while, but it’s got about a week left and still hasn’t met the goal – so pledge pledge pledge. Pledge if you love good music. Pledge to support independent artists and projects. Pledge because you’re a good person. And then tell all your friends. Make this happen, because Lacey more than deserves it. And then, if you’ve still got some cash left over, buy Five Years With The Sun as well! Seriously, arrange is one of the best musical projects out there right now, and this is a cause more than worth backing. Get behind this.

Super-Collaboration Announced

17 Feb

If you thought that you would never live to see the day that James Murphy, formerly of LCD Soundsystem would team up with the likes of Andre 3000 and the Gorillaz, the musical project of former Blur frontman Damon Albarn, I’ve got news for you.  This trio of musical talent are planning on dropping their song “DoYaThing” next week, when it will be available for download.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but I for one am extremely excited for the track.  You can listen to a thirty second sample of the track below.  Hot damn.

 

Interview: The Summer Set

17 Feb


My Car And My Guitar had the chance to chat with Brian Dales, the singer of The Summer Set, a couple of weeks ago when the Everything’s Fine Symphony Soldier Tour made a stop in St. Louis and played to a sold out crowd. Brian and I talked about the tour, Spotify, and his hopes that the band will start work on their third full-length later this year. Though they don’t have any more plans to tour nationally this year, fans in the Philippines, Australia, and Brazil should be sure to catch them when they come through those countries.

My Car And My Guitar: What’s the most annoying question you get in interviews like this?
Brian Dales: I’m not sure – you’d be surprised – I get some pretty interesting ones, now that I think about it. Not so much interviews, but we do a meet and greet with The Cab every day before shows, and at the end of it we do like a joint question and answer thing, Alex and I, where meet and greet winners can ask questions. And literally every day someone asks, “What is your favorite color?” I swear to God, like I did not think I would get that question every day, but I think almost every day of this tour someone’s asked me what my favorite color is. And the answer is green. Still.
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Listen to fun. Some Nights

13 Feb

Fueled by Ramen is now streaming one of our most anticipated albums of the year – fun.’s sophomore album, Some Nights.

The album comes out February 21st.

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Everything’s Fine Symphony Soldier Tour @ The Firebird, 1.30.12

10 Feb

The Cab @ The Firebird, St. Louis, MO, 1.31.12

The Everything’s Fine Symphony Soldier tour makes sense for multiple reasons. Neither The Summer Set nor The Cab had done a national headlining tour before, they both released their sophomore albums in 2011, and they rounded out the tour package with bands that have been gracing a lot of similar tours recently: He Is We, Days Difference, and Paradise Fears.

And clearly the bands are doing something right since many of the dates have been selling out on the tour, including last night at The Firebird in St. Louis, Missouri. It was an unseasonably warm evening, and when doors opened, the female-heavy line stretched the length of the parking lot.

The line outside was still fairly long when Paradise Fears took the stage, and I can’t comment on their sound since I did not catch much of their set. A good portion of the half-full room seemed familiar with them, and the young band’s confidence and energy seemed to be contagious. They caught my attention when a minute into what I thought was just going to be a standard cover of the Gym Class Heroes song, “Stereo Hearts,” vocalist Sam Miller said “If you think we’re only going to cover one song we’re not. This one’s by Taking Back Sunday.” And then they launched into “Cute Without The ‘E’” which, much to my disappointment, was received with less excitement by the crowd. But then when they continued with “Stereo Hearts,” I realized they’d made an unconventional mash-up of the two merging the endings of the two songs quite effectively.
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AOTW: February 1, 2012

1 Feb


*NSYNC – Celebrity (2001)

I’ve always (and by always, I mean since they went on “indefinite hiatus” in 2002, which I think was just a nice way of letting us know they broke up) found it funny that the first track on *NSYNC’s final CD contained the lyrics “You got to realize what we’re doing is not a trend, we’ve got the gift of melody, we’re gonna bring it ’til the end.” I guess the end was near, unless you consider their various projects since then, and by that I don’t mean that movie with Lance Bass On The Line whose only redeeming quality was being partially about Chicago, or the other various films Joey Fatone’s been in, well, minus My Big Fat Greek Wedding which was fine, but I digress.
Despite what I just said, they “quit” while they were ahead. And if you’ve never listened to Celebrity, definitely don’t write it off. Especially not if you’ve liked what Justin Timberlake has done since then, because there are definitely some similarities. While I realize now the songs I liked when it first came out like ‘Up Against The Wall” and “Tell Me, Tell Me… Baby” are probably not the best ones on the record, and I ignored anything slower, like “Selfish” or “Something Like You,” it’s really not a bad pop record. Not at all. There’s a reason they were selling out stadiums during the Pop Odyssey Tour, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just because of the dance moves and costume changes. So do yourself a favor, and when you feel like having a poppy hour, give Celebrity a listen, and be sure to make it all the way to “Do Your Thing.”

Evan:

Los Campesinos! – We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (2008)

Los Campesinos! are, without question, one of my absolute favorite bands making music today. And though I’ve tried multiple times to see them live, Friday was the first time things didn’t fall through and I got to witness the group’s incredible live show. But I wouldn’t have loved screaming along to every note if the music weren’t so great – and their unconventional “Extended EP” We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is the perfect example of their brilliant melancholy. From the clunking energy of “Ways To Make It Through The Wall” on through “All Your Kayfabe Friends,” this is just about as good as it gets. Take the incredible one-two punch of “Miserabilia” and the title track – two of the most emotional songs I’ve ever heard in my life. And sure, lead singer Gareth Campesinos! might be just a little bit (okay, more than a little) obsessed with sex and death, and that’s part of what makes his witty, verbose so damn interesting. Everyone needs to give Los Campesinos! a listen, and this is as good a place as any to start. Get on it.

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