Cory Graves
New Fumes Helps The Flaming Lips, and Eisley's Family Keeps Growing.
Since 2009, Gutterth Records co-founder Michael Briggs has been masterminding Denton's answer to the Rock Island, Illinois-based Daytrotter with his Violitionist Sessions project.
With Violitionist's trademark three-songs-and-three-questions format, Briggs has captured performances from such varied acts as Zorch, Sarah Jaffe, Tera Melos, Amanda Palmer, R. Stevie Moore and Mikal Cronin just to name a few, all the while documenting a moment in time in Briggs' living room with no overdubs or studio trickery to mask any of the bands' deficiencies.
Starting last week, though, Briggs decided to open up his studio up to the public, offering the services of he and his newly-dubbed Civil Recording Co. to bands of all types as a digital, low-cost alternative to some of the more well-established studios around town.
But just because Briggs is offering up his services at a discounted rate doesn't mean he's inexperienced. It's quite the opposite, actually. In the past several years Briggs has helmed records for dozens of bands, including New Science Projects, Innards, Two Knights, The Angelus, and Bad Design, for his Gutterth label.
Speaking of recording: Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne conducted a somewhat unconventional text message interview with Thrillist this week, in which he discussed the band's latest album, The Terror, as well as several other current projects.
To be fair though, can we really call anything Coyne does “unconventional” at this point? Probably not. Still, he mentioned in that interview the Lips' plan to follow up their 2009 cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon album in its entirety and last year's cover of King Crimson's In The Court of the Crimson King album with a re-working of The Stone Roses' self-titled debut that Coyne says is “almost finished.” And, as was the case with the King Crimson album and last year's Heady Fwends release, the album will once again feature Dallas' New Fumes, who has become something of a go-to collaborator for the Lips as of late.
Speaking of collaborations: Mavericks owner Mark Cuban teamed with Ryan Seacrest, Creative Artists Agency and concert giant AEG last July to re-vamp the old HDNet channel to the pop culture-centric AXS TV, whose current program lineup includes shows about drinking alcohol around the world, MMA fights, live concerts and comedy. One of those live concert series is of particular interest this week (for purposes of this column, anyway) because, included among its 12 weeks of performances from the world's greatest tribute acts (mere cover bands need not apply) is an episode set to air next Monday night, featuring Dallas' premiere AC/DC tribute act, Back in Black, whose will be performing live from Hollywood's Roxy Theater.
As difficult as it can be for tribute bands to get on the road, though, it can be even harder for bands whose members have recently given birth — or so Eisley has just discovered.
While the band just leaked “Drink the Water,” the first track from their upcoming album, Currents, via Nylon magazine, the band is still figuring out how they're going to pull off a tour in support of the record. A few days ago, the band went live with a Kickstarter project that is attempting to raise $100,000 so the band can purchase a vehicle large and safe enough to hold the band, their crew, and the group's freshly-birthed herd of kiddos.
Writes the band: “…this is going to be more difficult than ever, since we not only have to support ourselves on these tours, but we have four beautiful new mouths to feed, safely transport, and care for. This means we no longer have the luxury of being able to suck it up, hop in a 15-passenger van and have a care-free, fun time with you all on the road. Our future, which we want to spend with you, requires the use of safer, but more expensive means of transportation.”
In other local release news, Sunnybrook's Paul North has debuted some new tracks from his solo project. North mentioned to us that the track “Sea Nothing,” not only features a toy drum machine purchased from a thrift store, but a Copperphone he built while working at Placid Audio, as well as with another prototype mic he created there.
Elsewhere, Little Black Dress released this teaser video for their EP due out later this spring, Fort Worth's We'rewolves leaked the first single from their debut album that's out in May, and The Birds of Night have decided to give a free copy of theirjust-released sophomore LP to everyone who comes out to their show this Saturday at Prophet Bar.
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