Last week, we took a look at singer/songwriter Kelsey Wild’s highly-anticipated debut at SXSW, the famous Austin-based festival where artists from around the globe converge for a “Texas-sized” week of music and media.  Since 1987, a lot of deserving, indie acts such as Wild have been given the chance to show industry players what they’ve got as well as build their fanbase. Another deserving group making the trek this year is Denver’s A Shoreline Dream.

A Shoreline Dream has been making their own success for years now.  Formed in 2005, the group created their own label and released albums on their own dime.  This melodipsych/post rock band is now set to take SXSW by storm, combining thick textures with synths and dreamlike dynamics.  With a new bassist, a killer producer and more steam than ever, A Shoreline Dream is ready to rock it.

OurStage caught up with guitarist Ryan Policky to talk about the festival, his previous performances there and the band’s plans to get loud.

Continue reading ‘SXSW Preview: A Shoreline Dream’

With the multitude of videos posted OurStage people often only watch the first minute or so before skipping ahead to the next. In this ADD-infused world we live in, with high speed Internet and thirty second previews, trying to sit and watch an entire music video without our minds wandering is almost impossible. Sidney York’s video “Stalker” (see below) is one exception. From the opening scene (where York plays banjo while staring longingly at  a book titled “The Stalker’s Handbook”) to the end scene (she sits alone on a park bench) the video thoroughly entertains and amuses the audience. With line’s like “Three minutes have passed since I last called/ I’ll dial you again to just check in/ I know that you read my emails/ I checked your account and they were in the garbage bin,” you can tell that York’s got a great sense of humor — hopefully, because if not she’s an ex-boyfriend’s worst nightmare. While the majority of the lines are tongue-in-cheek, some may find unfortunate truth in the line, “If you try to cheat I’ll just let it go/It’s much better than being alone.” A credit to her songwriting ability, the song and video is both laugh-out-loud funny and thought-provoking. “I am so picky about my lyrics,” explains Sidney, “I usually like to have something on the surface, then something deeper you’ll find if you really listen to the lyrics.
Continue reading ‘Poptarts: Sidney York’

Through my daily surfing of the interwebs, I often come across many interesting stories of bands and their travels.  There’s really little that surprises me these days—we’ve all seen the funny videos, the unbelievable stories and even the unknown facts of Wikipedia.  After surfing through craigslist I found quite the attention-grabbing post, one that is hard to preface. See for yourself:
Continue reading ‘The Melophobic: Band for Sale’

Alain de Courtenay is no newcomer in the world of folk, spending nearly a decade perfecting his craft.  Both inspiring and distinct, Alain’s music is evocative poetry at it’s finest.  A few years back, he joined forces with violinist, TJ Callanta and has been producing deep, poignant compositions ever since.  In the vein of Alexi Murdoch and Nick Drake, Alain draws from experience to create organic music that pulls at the emotions.  It goes without saying, the young star shows great promise in his future.

OurStage got the chance to catch up with Alain de Courtenay about working with TJ Callanta, opening for DeVotchKa and what’s to come.

Continue reading ‘Folkin’ Around: Alain de Courtenay’

Freelance Whales have made a name for themselves as a band “Busking to the Big Time.” However, this is not your average busking band. True — they can often be seen playing on street corners and in subway stations around hipster’s paradise (a.k.a Williamsburg), but they also get pretty creative. They’ve been spotted playing in dark abandoned warehouses, roof-tops,  “culturally significant Williamsburg house parties”, and other various nooks and crannies around Brooklyn, NY. Their unconventional methods and somewhat unusual sound caught the attention of many leading voices in the media. They’ve been featured artists on NPR’s World Café and Stereogum.com, taken the blogosphere by storm on respected pages such as Brooklyn Vegan and HearYa and recently nabbed a spot on Grey’s Anatomy — which some may hate to admit is a band’s one way ticket to indie fame and fortune.
Continue reading ‘Tour De Force: Freelance Whales’

Welcome to the fifth video blog installment of Ask Marcus: the place where artists from any genre can ask Marcus Johnson, a Billboard charting jazz pianist, professor at Georgetown University and founder of Three Keys Music, questions about the music business.

Are you an artist with a question? Ask Marcus HERE. You could end up in his next video blog!

February 23rd marked the release of This Addiction, Alkaline Trio‘s followup to 2008′s Agony & Irony and their first release on their own Heart & Skull Epitaph Records imprint. After a disappointing fan reaction to the band’s 2008 major label debut, Alkaline Trio frontman Matt Skiba made it clear that This Addiction would be a return to the band’s punk roots. Addiction delivers on these promises, displaying heavier guitars and a more aggressive sound than it’s predecessor. Continue Reading Punk On The Rocks: Alkaline Trio – This Addiction

The Good

OK Go debut another expertly timed music video

OK Go

On Monday OK Go debuted their video for “This Too Shall Pass,” and reaffirmed their status as music’s most synchronized video stars. This time around, they joined forces with Synn Labs in Los Angeles to build a large-scale chain-reaction “machine” to serve as the focal point of the video. The results include lots of funny, bizarre and often poetic effects, not to mention some pretty badass paintball action. Check it out here.

The Bad

Kanye’s got a new blog

Kanye West

Well Kanye West is back at blogging, and his newly redesigned site has made his all-caps-stream-of-consciousness rants at least 10 font sizes larger. In this edition, Kanye laments the passing of Alexander McQueen and his mother, muses about the ancient Egyptians being robbed of their MTV awards and still finds space to remind us all that he is brilliant and sometimes his genius makes him cry. That and the booze. Read all about it here.

The Ugly

Mini Lady Gaga and mini Ke$ha prompt the question, “What’s wrong with kids these days?”

What makes you fear the future more – a small child pretending to brush her teeth with a bottle of Jack to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” or a small child crawling pants-less across the stage to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”? We’ll let you decide. We have to go lie down.

Miscellany

• Bruce Willis stars in Gorillaz video
• Lil Wayne jail sentence postponed (again)
• Kelly Rowland and Michael Bublé cover the Bee Gees
• Gang Starr rapper emerges from coma
• Pavement reunion tour is under way
• Band of Horses announce new album
• LCD Soundsystem frontman scores Noah Baumbach flick
• New Black Keys album

Last month Beat Kangz launched the “Beat Kangz Independent Artist Challenge” for urban, pop and electronic artists to celebrate the introduction of Beat Thang and Beat Thang Virtual — revolutionary beat making solutions. Over 700 OurStage artists competed for the grand prize, a music critique by the GRAMMY award-winning producer Rockwilder (50 cent, Jay-Z, Eminem) along with Beat Thang and a copy of Beat Thang Virtual from Beat Kangz Electronics. Congrats to the Number 1 ranking artist in the channel, Jarell Perry, who was named the grand prize winner for his song “My Life.” Other members of the channel’s Top 5 will  receive a copy of Beat Thang Virtual — preloaded with a library of over 3,000 sounds recorded by Beat Kangz — as well as a free year of Rocbattle.com and over 50 royalty-free beats made by super producer Rockwilder.

If you didn’t get to compete in last’s month competition, don’t worry. Beat Kangz are giving artists another chance to win this groundbreaking gear! The Top 5 ranked artists in this month’s “Beat Kangz Independent Artist Challenge” will be eligible to win Beat Thang with Beat Thang Virtual in addition to a music critique by Rockwilder. Urban, pop and electronic artists are invited to submit their best original songs before March 23rd. For more information on rules and entering visit www.ourstage.com/go/beatkangz.

Be sure to check out music from last month’s winners.

You don’t need a ton of money and a fancy recording studio to make a good recording these days. The members of the London rock quartet High Child proved this by securing a place in the OurStage Indie Pop Channel Top 10 this past January. The band’s keyboardist Alex Plowright stepped in for this week’s “Liner Notes” to tell us about the DIY recording process for their ’60s Britrock-influenced tune “Songbird”:

Continue reading ‘Liner Notes: High Child – “Songbird”’