Margot & the nuclear so and so’s third album Buzzard is primal and truculent, going straight for the vitals. Opener “Birds” finds the band going to places they haven’t before – lovely, languid verses progressing into fuzzed out, howling choruses throughout the song’s twists and turns – while still holding to the guitar-based ethos on which the album is founded. “Lunatic, lunatic, lunatic” may be familiar sonic territory for singer/guitarist Richard Edwards, but the (very) dark humor that slowly unveils is something that he has only flirted with (innocently) in the past. “New York City Hotel Blues” and “Claws Off” distill Margot’s music to its essence: melody-driven pop music with teeth, set adrift against Edwards’ surreal and emotional, if slightly twisted lyrical tendencies. Similarly, “I Do” refines the evocative chamber-pop for which the band is known to its most heart-rending fundamentals, supported by simply Richards’ plaintive voice and an acoustic guitar.
And there is, of course, an intriguing path that led Margot towards this evolution in sound, which contrasts the lively optimism of 2008’s Animal! (and/or Not Animal, simultaneously released after contention with former label Epic). Buzzard was recorded over one freezing month last winter in an abandoned movie theater in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood. Edwards had taken up residence there after leaving his hometown of Indianapolis, when the house where he and the previous seven members of the band had lived was damaged in a fire last summer. Once settled, he began writing a collection of songs loosely inspired by the 8mm ‘nudie cutie’ films unearthed in the theater’s basement, and the youthful reaction of mixed emotions that the films evoked.
After six months of writing, longtime Margot members Tyler Watkins and Erik Kang joined Edwards in Chicago and the three began to dig into the new material. A cast of local musicians, who had begun to come to the theater to watch weekly screenings of Kamikaze Hearts, soon also joined them. It was against this grainy backdrop that Edwards and Co. recorded the songs with the help of these new friends, including drummer/producer Brian Deck, Tim Rutili (Califone, Red Red Meat), Joe Adamik, Cameron McGill, Katie Todd and Ronnie Kwasman.
Theater seating was cleared away to accommodate the instruments, while a makeshift control room was assembled in the projection perch. As the days went by, a dusky, Bacchic energy started to fill the theater and Buzzard began to take form. Recording took place between the hours of 10pm and 5am, and no artificial light was allowed (as such, three musicians and engineer Neil Strauch broke bones from tripping over cables). Accidents aside, the willful band – live and manic, newly freed from any past constraints – growled their way through the songs and infused them with a raw, forceful energy that Margot had only hinted at in their past recordings. The result is the band’s most immediate studio recording: bigger and louder than ever before, finally capturing Margot’s powerful, captivating live show and defiantly Midwestern sound.
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Dylan Rau started Bear Hands to spite a romantic rival. In disconnecting himself from the love triangle (and successfully copulating with several other humans) he was able to write about 70 new and exciting songs. Joining forces with fellow Wesleyan university alumnus Ted Feldman and iconoclast punk veterans Val Loper and TJ Orscher the band started to stomp live. Both other bands and people in the crowd were stomped regularly and definitively.
Touring became a new way of life for Bear Hands after the 2007 release of their Golden EP. The band opened for MGMT, Vampire Weekend, The XX, Les Savy Fav and spent time on roads all over North America and Europe with now-dear friends Passion Pit, Obits, We Were Promised Jet Packs, Hockey, Manic Street Preachers, and Mayer Hawthorne and The County.
Following the success of their most-recent single "What A Drag" (Too Pure (UK) // Cantora US) Bear Hands delighted weekend warrior crowds at such iconic festivals as Reading, Leeds, Siren, Rockness, and Forecastle. They did shows in Brazil with fellow Brooklynites Chairlift and Telepathe, narrowly escaping with their lives and intestinal parasites.
And now things are really starting to get heavy for Bear Hands. Their debut LP, Burning Bush Supper Club, took over a year to finish, slowed to a crawl by mental illness, intraband resentment, and a generally pervasive sense of indecision. Produced before the watchful eyes of frenemies and industry fat cats alike, Burning Bush Supper Club sees Bear Hands reach unprecedented levels of both truth and relevance. The songs are beautiful and new.
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$10 in adv, $12 DOS, 18+
Doors at 9 pm
Advance tickets available @ Ticket Alternative, Criminal Records,
Decatur CD, Fantasyland Records and the following CD Warehouse locations: Buford, Duluth, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville and Roswell.
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