Cory GravesThis Week, Midlake Ran This Town.
Each week, we take a survey of the local music scene and try to determine which acts in town are really putting in work and seeing it pay off. Which bands have the most intriguing shows coming up? Which bands are getting the most press around town? Which bands have accomplished the most notable feats of late? Based off these criteria, our music writers submit a list to be weighted and compiled into a master list revealed each week in this here space. We like to think it's fairly revealing. Check out our previous Buzz Rankings here.
Earlier this week, the Denton luminaries of Midlake released a new video for Antiphon cut “Aurora Gone.”
The clip, directed by My Name is Earl actor Jason Lee features the band jogging around its hometown in what could just as easily be an advertisement for the Paschall Bar the band owns or perhaps a tourism bureau promo or maybe even a PSA touting the health benefits of jogging.
Which kinda makes sense, actually, since Mojo points out that the video is intended as a sort of promo for an upcoming documentary on the band that was also directed by Lee.
Were all that attention not enough to earn the band its sixth overall time topping our weekly, local music power rankings (or seventh if you count the so-called “Grandlake” group's win back in March 2012), there's also the fact that the band recently announced that it'd be opening for Neil Young when that icon performs his first-ever concert in Turkey later this year.
Similarly, the Old 97's released a video of its own this week for its song “Let's Get Drunk & Get It On,” which made its premiere via the Wall Street Journal. That clip features the GoPro footage shot during the band's album release show at Strauss Square back in April. Likewise, Ishi — which performed a rather memorable set at last weekend's second annual Elm Street Music & Tattoo Festival — released an animated video of its own this week for the song “Emotional Hard Drive” that quickly made the rounds.
Then there was A.Dd+ and Booty Fade, both of which performed as part of a free show where concert promoters Spune announced some of the bands playing this year's Index Festival. Among that rather solid Local Natives-, Future Islands-, Foxygen-, and Kaiser Chiefs-topped bill was local outfit The Angelus and the aforementioned A.Dd+.
This week's other big local music story, of course, was Nervebreakers guitarist Barry Kooda's plans to make a mockery of Open Carry Texas' gun-toting ways by staging his own Guitar Open Rally.
Elsewhere: Corn Mo, Deep Blue Something, Lisa Loeb and Erykah Badu were all referenced on the new season of Orange is the New Black; Centro-matic performed a pair of local release shows for its latest album; and Analog Rebellion will represent the local contingent at tonight's Red Bull Sound Select show.
(Also receiving votes this week: Sarah Jaffe, Chambers, Orgullo Primitivo, Kelly Clarkson, -topic, Oil Boom, Plissken, Mike Dillon, Street Arabs, Son of Stan, Daniel Markham, Dark Rooms, Melting Season, Cliffs of Insanity, Jess Rya, Cutter, The Mohicans, Air Review, Slowride, Sudie, Nervous Curtains, Ten Hands, Catamaran, Terminator 2, Telegraph Canyon, Party Static, J. Charles & the Trainrobbers, Van Darien.)
