Cory Graves
St. Vincent Joins Nirvana, The Josh Davis Band Learns A Lesson and Seryn's Got a New Single.
Smashing guitars? That's pretty rock 'n' roll, we suppose. And, as the below clip shows, that's something the Josh Davis Band promised to do with its guitars at each and every show.
“We would like to put on film that these guys are buying these guitars for one reason and one reason only,” says a Norman's Rare Guitars employee in the above 2011 clip as he stands next to the band's members. “And that's rock 'n' roll.”
As it would turn out, though, smashing those suckers was never the intent of this Fort Worth rock outfit.
Last Thursday, the band's Randy Gray became the last of its members convicted in a scam in which the band purchased over 165 cheap, unbranded guitars, used a laser printer to create fake C.F. Martin & Co. labels for them and then resold them to more than 50 pawn shops across 18 states. The move earned the crew more than $50,000 in the process, according to prosecutors. And the band at least thought it was being smart about things, too, by keeping a detailed list of shops they'd previously sold to and being careful not to hit the same shop twice.
But the jig had a shelf-life. And, before long, the FBI caught on.
For his role in the scam Gray will serve one day in jail, three years of supervised release and pay a restitution of $7,617.
Over the course of the past few months, his bandmates also caught sentences: Bandleader and namesake Josh Davis was ordered to pay $22,050 in restitution and serve six months of home confinement; Bruce Alford was ordered to pay $8,700 in restitution, and Romeo Rondeau was ordered to pay $7,130 in restitution and serve six months of home confinement.
Yeesh.
Fortunately, a whole slew of North Texas-based musicians were busy making news this week for far less dubious reasons.
Take St. Vincent, for instance. She not only joined the surviving members of Nirvana on stage during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, but she also performed “Lithium,” “About a Girl” and “Heart Shaped Box” with the group at an intimate, secret gig at Brooklyn's Saint Vitus club. That affair also found Joan Jett, J. Mascis, Deer Tick's John McCauley and Kim Gordon each sitting in with what's left of the iconic grunge band. Check out cell phone video from the performance below — or head here for the complete set list and other details.
Also getting a little taste of the national limelight this week was Air Review, as the band's SXSW-shot, March 27-aired segment on Last Call With Carson Daly was finally uploaded to the interwebs. Take a look for yourselves below — and pay special attention to the sneak peek of the band's upcoming video for “Young,” in which the band has tapped an artist whose video collages pair nicely with the visual aesthetic frontman Doug Hale has crafted for the band over the years.
Interestingly enough, Hale also mentions in the clip the band's need for posters and the like was his impetus to start exploring the design world. These days, of course, his work can be seen not only in his band's posters and album artwork but in those of local acts Home by Hovercraft, Ishi and Midlake, among others.
Speaking of Midlake: That band also had a hand in helping Seryn's latest single come to be — well, sort of, anyway.
“Disappear” is the newest single to leak from Seryn's upcoming sophomore album, is undeniably the hardest hitting and most quick-to-the-point single the band's released to date. That in and of itself, we reckon, is probably been enough to earn props from the group's detractors — even if Seryn hadn't also dropped much of its weird Baptist youth group vibe in the process.
Anyway, check out the track, which was recorded by Jordan Martin and mixed by McKenzie Smith at Denton's Redwood Studios below.
Speaking of new tracks: Zach Witness premiered his latest electronic opus, “Amen Love”, this week. The must-listen dance track goes a long way to further the notion that Witness isn't just one of the hottest new DJs to emerge in the past 12 months, but one of the most promising young talents in the city's electronic music scene, period. You can grab a free download of the track using the above link.
Oh, and since we're on the subject of body-moving new releases: Below, you can check out a new one from Pictnictyme (of Booty Fade and The Cannabinoids). The song finds the former A.Dd+-exclusive producer and sometime DJ re-imagining K.P. & Envyi's 1998 hit, “Swing My Way” in quite the delicious way. Delicious enough, we'd say, to keep our appetites up for Sea Monsters, the producer's debut solo LP, which he's been promising since May 2012, at least.
Moving on, the friends and family of Dallas Distortion Music co-founder Matt Vickers have organized a fundraiser on his behalf to help relieve some of the medical costs he's racked up over the course of the past few weeks while recovering from a serious car wreck late last month. A May 9 benefit will go down at Fort Worth venue The Where House, and will feature performances from Spacebeach, Doom Ghost, Jack Thunder & the Road Soda and Tidals, with 100 percent of the money collected at the door going directly to Vickers' bills. Of course, if you want to donate more than just the $5 entry fee to that show — or perhaps you're not able to attend that one — you can also donate any amount to Vickers' online benefit fund here.
Then there's KXT, which recently announced the lineup to this summer's Barefoot at the Belmont series that is set to start with next Thursday's already-sold-out offering of Jamestown Revival and Ronnie Fauss. That's pretty much par for the course with these things, though; they always sell out. That said, you should probably check the link above for dates that tickets to upcoming performances in the series go on sale. And then you best grab those suckers quick.
Seryn cover photo by Sean Berry. Got a tip for White Noise? Email us!
