FEATURED SONG: Guineafowl – “Little Fingers”
Need a little Bowie in your electro indie pop? Look no further!
For those of you who enjoy a touch of Bowie with your modern funky pop music — Fitz and the Tantrums and Cavedoll fans, I’m talking to you! — then you’re going to love what Guineafowl brings to the table. These Australian has built their reputation in a similar fashion, working from the ground up in their home region, and now they’re getting a shot at the global domination they’ve aimed for since forming in 2009. Their latest EP, Hello Anxiety, came out October 4th on Dangerbird Records, and judging by the groove of this initial single, I’d say it’s worth checking out if you haven’t already. Watch the video below, and feel free to sound off in the comments section … we need more conversation here at “Hear! Hear!”
MP3 DOWNLOAD — Guineafowl – “Little Fingers”
FOR MORE INFORMATION — Check out the band’s MySpace and Facebook.
ARTISTS TO WATCH: Mighty Fine
Brooklyn's Mighty Fine
With a lead singer who looks like Tim Meadows and a sound that’s straight-up retro funk fusion, Brooklyn-based Mighty Fine has a sound which truly lives up to their name. This is the perfect music to blast out loud as we all come down from the long weekend, and it’d make a perfect mix with some Imelda May and Fitz and the Tantrums to showcase the wild unpredictability of 2011′s revivalist leanings. The band’s already made the rounds with TV on the Radio and Clap Your Hands & Say Yeah while promoting 2006′s The Dirty Sessions, and they’ve been working on what was to become 2011′s Get Up To Get Down since 2008, recording everything on 12-track tape live, to preserve the raw sound and fury of a Mighty Fine show intact on record. That album comes out October 25th, but until then you can enjoy the fresh funk of “Black Train,” which debuted today. Download the song here if you get hooked like I did — all it’ll cost you is an email address.
ALBUM REVIEW: Fitz and the Tantrums – “Pickin’ Up The Pieces”
Year of the Album — #058
Fitz and the Tantrums – “Pickin’ Up The Pieces” (2011, Dangerbird Records)
The music on Fitz and the Tantrum’s full length “debut” has been floating around the Internet for years, but they’re always finding new listeners, and (much like Maroon 5 did with Songs About Jane) and they finally seem on the verge of going mainstream, having done all the hard work themselves. That’s right, kiddies, touring incessantly pays off if the music’s actually good! My review of the new album went up at Stereo Subversion yesterday, and trust me — it’s a winning debut you need to check out:
Michael Fitzpatrick is the ultimate bandleader, and his Tantrums take to the stage every time as though it might be their last chance to draw an audience into this particular cult of cool. For that reason they’ve become the “go to” act for pop music cognoscenti to point out to the uneducated just how great music can still be in this new decade. It helps that the music on Pickin’ Up The Pieces is so solid that even the advance hype can’t rob these songs of their raw sense of fun, and that’s really what Fitz and the Tantrums have working for them.
Read the rest of the review at Stereo Subversion!
Fitz and the Tantrums announce new tour dates
Fresh off their huge and elaborate mention in one of Bob Lefsetz’s most recent Lefsetz Letters, Fitz and the Tantrums have announced a handful of new tour dates, for which fan-specific early ticketing is now on! If you haven’t heard the band — and by all means, you should get out there and HEAR THIS BAND! — what better time than now is there to go out and catch a great live band doing what they do best? Anyone can record something well in a studio and make it sound good. But it takes a unique group of artists to go out night after night and make their music come alive, staying fresh and original all the way.
To order tickets, visit the band’s ticketing site and register with your email address, and you’ll get a password to order tickets free of the whole Ticketmaster surcharge game. The following shows are available as of this posting:
April 10: 20th Century Theatre (Cincinnati OH)
April 11: The Orange Peel (Asheville NC)
April 12: Music Farm (Charleston SC)
April 14: The Loft (Atlanta GA)
April 17: Soul Kitchen (Mobile AL)
April 18: House of Blues Houston (Houston TX)
April 19: La Zona Rosa (Austin TX)
April 20: House of Blues Dallas (Dallas TX)
April 22: Santa Fe Brewing Company (Santa Fe NM)
April 24: Club Congress (Tucson AZ)
And for those of you out of the loop still, here’s a great reason to check the band out, courtesy of our friends at YouTube:
And if you want some background on the band’s hard-working ethic, you can read their response to Lefsetz’s letter. It’s an interesting read!
