Cory Graves
Smile Smile Officially Breaks Up, and Zhora Shuffles The Deck.
According to at least one old song, breaking up is hard to do.
Even harder, though? Breaking up and then continuing to perform in a band with your ex-partner — especially when it's clear to everyone around you that those scorned love songs you're singing are, in fact, about you and your bandmate.
Still, that's exactly the gambit that Jencey Keeton and Ryan Hamilton pulled off for so many years as the well-received indie pop duo Smile Smile.
Now, though, after months of recent silence from the band, the Marry a Stranger outfit has officially and finally dissolved their relationship. The band's last “live” performance will come this Thursday via the website StageIt.com, which will stream the farewell gig to fans who've purchased virtual tickets to the gig.
Writes the band on that site's event page: “We wish there could have been a farwell tour, but sadly it's just not going to happen.”
The fact that the band couldn't agree on a live setting to hold their final show shouldn't come as a huge shocker for anyone who ever saw the band perform live over the past several years; those two never seemed to agree on anything.
And, turns out, that's not the only local band shakeup we've come across this morning. Zhora may be busy prepping for their performance at this weekend's fourth annual Homegrown Music and Arts Fest, but when the band take to the stage at Main Street Garden Park on Saturday, it will do so without electronics wizard Taylor Cleveland and guitarist Logan Kelson, both of whom have recently parted ways with the band. Texts to both Cleveland and Kelson this morning didn't offer much as explanations, go — well, other than the in the old “creative differences” standby.
According to the Twitter feed of Datahowler's always vocal Ross Edman, it looks as if he'll be helping fire off live samples in place of the recently departed Cleveland during Zhora's Homegrown set. But that''s just one aspect of the festival that Datahowler will have his hands in this year: Aside from joining forces with Super Yoga Palace for a chilled out fest-opening stretch session, Edman has also indicated that he'll be helping The Polyphonic Spree with much of their electronics on Saturday, as well.
Meanwhile, big things are happening out Fort Worth way, too. Recently, Central Track favorites Quaker City Night Hawks announced that they've struck a deal with the Paradigm Agency to expand their reach to House of Blues-sized venues across the country, and, possibly, even to Europe by the end of the year. Before you write that off as a pipedream we'll just point out that the company reps everyone from Smashing Pumpkins to The Old 97s, The Polyphonic Spree and Sarah Jaffe.
Back on the Dallas side of the region, Dovetail earned some national recognition this week, as well. Recently their song “Julie” was named the “Rock Song of the Year” in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, making them now eligible for the grand prize, “Song of the Year” in the coming weeks. The outfit, whose players also double as much of the backing band for soul man Larry g(EE), also helped the “Yo Mamma” singer win the 2012 award for “R&B Song of the Year.”
In recording news, we're hearing that Arson States (which features former [daryl] members Dave Christensen and Chad Ferman, along with West Windows drummer Brandon Butters) has been working on an album at Modern Electric Sound Recorders. So, how many bands does that make now currently working at the popular East Dallas studio now? At least four by our count.
Anyway, Christensen also tells us that his other outfit, These Machines Are Winning, are currently finishing up their second record for Idol imprint Exploding Plastic. No word yet on when we can expect to see that record's release, though.
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