Cory Graves
Festival News Explodes, New Science Projects Are Everywhere and These Machines Are Indeed Winning.
It's already been quite the day for local mid-March festivals, what with Spillover, 35 Denton, and Untapped all making big announcements earlier today.
And now you can add to that yet another upstart SXSW-spillover lineup scheduled to go down next month at the recently burgeoning Crown and Harp. On March 12, the wunderkinds behind the local cassette label and promotions company Dallas Distortion Music will present a bill in conjunction with California label Burger Records that will feature sets from Burnt Ones, Summer Twins, White Fang, The Memories, Pangea, Colleen Green, Snow White and War Party, most of whom will be appearing on various stages at 35 Denton just days before.
Speaking of that impending 35 Denton festival: Denton's own Danny Rush and the Designated Drivers put out word that their followup to last year's Brown and Blue should be available just in time for their performance at this year's festival.
Not available, however, at this year's 35 Denton affair — or any of the above festivals, for that matter — are Denton power rockers Deep Snapper, who officially announced their split last week. By the band's own count, they've played 107 shows, completed two tours and released six records since 2006. As always, when longtime Denton acts part ways it'll be interesting to see where each of the band's individual members will land.
Also potentially looking for a new gig is recently departed Ishi drummer JJ Mudd, who made it known this week the band's recent Perot Museum gig was his last with the group. Interestingly enough, the news of Mudd's departure comes the same week that local promotions company Banjos to Beats officially announced the launch of their boutique talent agency. Other than Ishi, the “edm to bluegrass” agency currently counts D.V.S*, David Starfire, Govinda, Montu, Psymbionic, Ugly Lion, wizard among its roster of local talent.
Also worth mentioning this week are a handful of other new local releases, a trio of which involve Danny Rush's Gutterth Records labelmates, New Science Projects, in one form or another. For starters, Gutterth's Brent Frishman tells us that NSP is roughly a week removed from wrapping up an album called Hard On that's scheduled for a spring release. And, turns out, the other two releases we're talking about involve NSP, too: The Olympia, Washington-based label People In A Position To Know finally released their recorded-last-fall, psych-tinged, indie-folk tribute to legendary Texas Rhodes Scholar, helicopter pilot, janitor, actor and song-writer Kris Kristofferson; that double LP titled The Rising Cost of Livin' High and Lovin' Hard finds NSP's take on “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33” alongside songs from former North Texas-based one-man band Miniature and Presidential, Indianapolis twee psych-poppers Amo Joy! and indie icon Calvin Johnson, among others. Lastly, Gutterth act Bad Times' debut, which was released last month, contains a cover of a rare, never-released NSP tune called “One of Them.” But seeing as how Bad Times' roster counts NSP bass player Donovan Ford and the tune in question additionally contains a guest keyboard appearance by NSP drummer Scarlett Wright, we're not sure if “cover” is exactly the right term for it. Nonetheless, it's a quality tune that can be found over at the group's BandCamp page.
One more Gutterth note: Michael Briggs' awesome Violitionist Sessions is still doing an amazing job of documenting the Denton local and touring band scene by inviting various acts to come play and answer some questions in Briggs' living room. The latest must-see clip from the series features the great Centro-matic and can be watched right here.
And, finally, in a bit of rare non-Gutterth-related new local release news, Idol Record's Exploding Plastic imprint released the first track from Dylan Silvers' new audio-visual project, These Machines Are Winning. Peep the pretty rad video for “Fornication” below before the group makes their live debut this Saturday night at the Double Wide. As a bonus, the track includes guest vocals from Zhora frontwoman Taylor Rea.
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