CD Release Party Friday Aug. 6 at Burt's Tiki Lounge
Crawling out of the depths of the Ogden music scene, Fox Van Cleef took the art of the quintet rock group—long trendy and near-dead since the 1980s—and created a unique sound and live presentation that’s set them apart from many of the rockers making their way around the Utah music scene. But, the current incarnation of the group was not easy to build, and it took the band’s members more than three years to perfect before releasing any music to the public.
Formed during the members’ high school years, the group started when original members Chase Baur, Dustin Bessire and Jesse Hodshire met through a video-production class. The trio decided to start a band in the spring of 2006. After playing together off and on and booking gigs for roughly a year, the band ran into Matt Froling, who was playing guitar in another band at the time. They asked him to join, and at the same show the group met Spencer Reed, who would end up playing keyboards on their first record. Nearly 18 months later, the group met and acquired Erich Newey—at the time singing in Intimachine—as their new keyboardist. It wasn’t long before they realized how well everything jelled.
“For a few years now, most of us, and for some of us much longer, have all been close friends that have lived together, laughed together and loved drinking together,” says Bessire. “So, really, what it boils down to, it was just meant to be that the five of us would mesh those things with our love for music.”
Pulling their vocal style from classic blues and soul music, the group mixed it up with ’70s psychedelic-rock and hip-hop beats to create their unique sound. Mixing in old-school recording techniques with modern song structure, every song introduces a totally different experience while incorporating every member as an essential part.
In 2007, the group released a four-song self-titled EP and quickly found a following, and in 2009, the group released their first album, Cigarettes, Terrorism, Etc. The band recorded the album in sporadic sessions, starting before Newey had officially joined the group. When the band first entered the studio, they had no idea it would be nearly a year before the results would be released on account of an injury Hodshire experienced, putting the band out of commission for several months. When the album finally hit the local scene, Fox Van Cleef garnered serious airplay with the single “Lies,” not to mention a steady following, thanks to playing every venue from Ogden to Provo.
Rather than kick back and enjoy the album’s success, the band re-entered the studio to work on their third release, an EP titled Pleasure Junkies. The album itself, while keeping the same stylistic feel, is a completely different take on the band’s musical senses; take, for example, the track “Red,” which starts off with a ripping vocal line that begs the crowd to scream along, followed by the plicking riff carried out through the entire track. That song seamlessly blends in with the kicking beat of “Dance of the Dead” for a bouncy, catchy headbanger.
Still keeping their own Fox Van Cleef sound while penning works that approach “anthem” status, the EP serves as a fine reminder to musicians that they can keep their identity while continuing to grow as artists.
Following the CD release this week, the band will make the rounds throughout the Wasatch Front before heading on tour, starting with Seattle in early September, continuing their busy schedule and attempting to branch out nationwide.
Uncommon Bonds: The Civil Wars prepare for the year of their lives.
Posted // January 20,2011 - If
you look at the musical relationship between The Civil Wars’ Joy
Williams and John Paul White as a movie—appropriate, given their arrival
during the Sundance Film Festival—they have the perfect “meet-cute”
scene to open the flick.
Flash back 18
months to a Nashville conference room crowded with about 20 songwriters
gathered to come up with radio hits for a mainstream country act. While
the afternoon’s assignment was ultimately a failure, the gal from
Northern California with a background in gospel and the Beach Boys and
the lanky Alabama fellow whose daddy raised him to love Johnny Cash and
Townes Van Zandt found themselves matched up via drawn straws and
immediately hit it off.
Actually, “hit it
off” is putting it mildly. The songwriting spark burst into a prolonged
creative session, minus the 18 other writers from their first “date,”
and The Civil Wars was born.
As fortuitous as
their initial meeting proved to be, that was just the first stroke of
luck in a series of events that’s marked the duo’s career so far.
On a lark, they recorded their second-ever gig and released it as a free download called Live at Eddie’s Attic. Not long after, their song “Poison & Wine” was played on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, leading hundreds of thousands of people to Google the unknown band and download the Live at Eddie’s Attic set. Praise for their sparse, moving, slightly twangy songs came from music-geek quarters like Paste Magazine and from new fans like Taylor Swift.
“To see such an
underground swell be created so organically and so much out of our
control is so encouraging. It only fans the fire of us continuing to be
passionate about creating things we’re proud of and want to share with
people,” Williams says about The Civil Wars’ rapid ascent as she and
White prepare for a headlining gig at the State Room and two shows at
the Sundance Film Festival Music Café.
For his part, White feels like they’ve already matured as a duo in the hectic time The Civil Wars have been together.
“We have a long
way to go and, hopefully, we have a long time together to go, but it’s
been leaps and bounds [of growth] in the short amount of time we’ve been
doing it,” White says. “I feel like we started with a head start. When
we first sat down together, it felt like we’d been doing it most of our
lives.”
Williams and White’s lives are about to get even more hectic. Their official debut, the self-released Barton Hollow,
arrives Feb. 1, and the release will be followed by a 75-show
headlining run over six months. Both have experience on the road, and as
Williams puts it, “to be in a band with someone who also knows his way
around the road is something we both take comfort in and use as a
strength.”
“You definitely
get the spotlight every night,” White adds. “There’s a certain energy it
takes every night, and I’m anxious to see how we bend and weave with
our sets, how we feed off the crowds. And what we look like on the other
end of this!”
Replicating the
sound of songs like the title track, “Poison & Wine” and “Forget Me
Not” live shouldn’t be a problem. Minus a few subtle flourishes, The
Civil Wars’ songs are purely a creation of White’s guitar, Williams’
piano and their two voices intertwined in harmonies alternately joyous
and mournful.
And according to
Williams, finding the energy to tackle the road trip and other
responsibilities that come with releasing the album themselves isn’t
daunting in the least to The Civil Wars.
“We work extremely
long hours, we’re online a lot, we’re pounding the pavement,” Willaims
says. “But to see the enthusiasm cultivated, combined with a lot of the
blood, sweat and tears we’re putting into what we’re doing, is really
exciting.”
The City Weekly Music Awards DJ Spinoff is back bigger and better for a second year in 2011. More than 20 DJs were nominated by readers, City Weekly staffers and local DJs, and City Weekly readers whittled that list to five skilled party-starters who showcase the diversity of the DJ community in Utah.
The readers’ choices will face off Wednesday, Feb. 2, at W Lounge, and the party will once again be hosted by the inimitable funk-master Freq-sho. The winner will perform at the CWMA final showcase Feb. 19 at The Complex.
DJ Bentley
You can find DJ Bentley Saturdays at Downstairs in Park City and Tuesdays at the Huka Bar & Grill in Midvale, spinning old-school hip-hop, house and electro. Influenced by Las Vegas DJ R.O.B. and locals like Erockalypse and DJ Brisk, Bentley is intent on making a name for himself. “I’m definitely one of one, none before and none to come,” Bentley says. “I like to step out of the box and be as creative as possible, put things together that people don’t think to hear together.”
Elvis Freshly
Elvis Freshly got into DJing via his cousin, DJ Bentley, making their Tuesday gigs together at Huka Bar & Grill a family affair; Elvis also is the house DJ at Park City’s Cisero’s on Saturdays. He considers himself a multipurpose DJ, ready to rock anywhere from a restaurant to a stadium. As for Utah’s competitive DJ scene, Elvis says, “there’s enough space for all the DJs to play and do what they want to do musically.”
Flash n Flare
Hip-hop and dance music will both be found in Flash n Flare’s sets, whether he’s playing a club, wedding or corporate gig. “My favorite stuff will always be an electro beat with some hip-hop laced in,” he says. “I’m a sucker for it and it always pounds in a club.” Always searching for new sounds, Flash n Flare finds that, even in Salt Lake City, “any night of the week there is a good DJ playing in the city, except Monday … Same as live music, you may have to be tuned in to find it, but it’s going on.”
DJ NAWM
DJ NAWM credits the DJ collective he’s been throwing parties with the past three years, EDP, with motivating him to always improve in delivering what he calls a “party/high-energy style” rooted mostly in electronic dance music. “I love to mix tracks with really bouncy rhythms,” NAWM says. “I try my best to keep the crowd engaged by carefully mixing tracks from various genres.”
Roots Rawka
The reggae-inspired DJ can be heard rocking parties all over Utah, often at The Hotel/Elevate, and is inspired by “the feeling music can give you,” as well as the crowd’s reactions to his music. Stylistically, Roots Rawka says “I would describe my style as free-flowing and risky on the music selection. I like to try different tunes that I like but might not be popular.”?
Singer-songwriter blends comedy & misery
Cory Branan
Singer-songwriters tend to be dramatic, depressing folk. More often than not, when some guy picks up a guitar and croons by his lonesome, the result is humorless and painfully un-self-aware. Sure, a relationship going sour sucks, so analyzing the subject requires a certain sort of sobriety, but too many musicians never seem to crack a grin.
Cory Branan, quite thankfully, eschews this idea. The Southaven, Miss.-bred, Nashville-based musician spins his work with puckish panache. “Skateland South” revisits his clumsy childhood infatuation with a girl at a roller rink—a maiden to whom he swears to dedicate a high score on the Galaxia 4 machine—and “The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis” spotlights a greasy diner featuring miserable eats and an ineffably gorgeous server who’s “been reading those specials/ extra special.” He’s capable of drawing out different facets of his persona, getting cocky by slyly likening himself to Muhammad Ali or turning goofy in a track that mourns the era when Kiss removed their makeup. Branan does indulge in some songwriter clichés (such as frequently idealizing the opposite sex), but his skill as an engaging narrator makes up for that. During most songs, it’s easy to visualize him with a grin scrawled on his face.
This isn’t to say that the man is a jokester. When asked about whether his lighthearted approach intentionally juxtaposes the image of the unflinchingly serious songwriter, he delves into what makes him tick. “Well, I’m not a more lighthearted person. Maybe [my tone comes from] being Southern in general,” Branan says. “It’s a very humor-based culture. We’re not always trying to be funny with our humor. It’s a way to disarm enough to get the knife in sometimes.”
After being pressed for an example of this style from his own work, he brings up an instance from Mutt, his forthcoming record, where he references the “The Hokey Pokey” in an unusual fashion. “Absolutely everything—from touring to singing to even being in love with someone to writing the songs—feels utterly pointless and futile sometimes,” he says, “like the fuckin’ Hokey-Pokey.”
He doesn’t reveal many details about Mutt, an album that’s hovered in unreleased limbo for two or three years, but outlines its focus. “[Mutt contains] some of the happiest [material] I’ve ever written, too, but for the most part, it’s pretty heavy. A lot of, y’know, ‘What do you do with the leftover pieces once the veneer’s worn off of things?’” he says.
A good chunk of Branan’s charm also stems from knowing about his history as a musician and the company he keeps. As a 20-something, he was a “wank guitarist” in death metal and thrash acts in Mississippi, but after finding new appreciation for the authentic quality of punk rock, he slowly returned to “the truth that was always there in folk music.” When he heard John Prine at 24, his interest in solo stuff was solidified. Having not been part of a band in years, he maintains allies in the alt-country-via-punk-rock set. Hell, Lucero vocalist Ben Nichols even thought enough of Branan to endorse him in the band’s “Tears Don’t Matter Much”: “Cory Branan’s got an evil streak/ and a way with words that’ll bring you to your knees/ Oh, he can play the wildest shows, and he can sing so sweet.”
What makes Branan’s way with words so potent is that he regards himself as idiosyncratic—an idea that has materialized in his work. “The only criteria I have for any song is if someone else could have written it, I try not to record it,” he says, allowing exceptions for when he’s trying to fall into character or evoke a certain style. “I like to think that no one could have written my songs—not that they’re better than anything [else] or [function in] a separate, special way, but just in that they are mine.”
Roots Crew: North Carolina’s Toubab Krewe finds inspiration in Africa.
Toubab Krewe’s music is like Elvis’ hair.
In the ’40s and
’50s, some black people combed their hair back to give it a thinner,
more “white” look. Because their hair was so thick, however, it often
raised up in the front in a single curl, creating a pompadour hairstyle.
It didn’t exactly look white, but it looked cool, so many white people
began to mimic it. Elvis himself made the pompadour an iconic ’50s style
when he adopted the trend—styling his hair after black guys who were
styling their hair after white guys.
The traditional
music of West Africa was influenced in the ’60s and ’70s by American
funk and rock. West Africans adopted many of the American tricks,
including amplifying their instruments, and blended them with
traditional African rhythms to make it their own. Toubab Krewe, five
white guys from the “Dirty South,” re-adopted the music, instruments and
all, and brought it back to America in a new, hybrid form.
The Krewe’s music
is almost entirely in African time signatures, with very cool African
scales and chord structures, but they incorporate blues and surf guitar
sounds as well.
“Everyone hears
about the five guys who went to West Africa and started playing African
music,” says Luke Quaranta, percussionist for Toubab Krewe. “The story
that isn’t told is that we’re just fascinated by the whole mixing of
cultures and styles.”
The music of West
Africa stretches back a couple millennia. “The traditional music began
as a way of story- and history-telling,” Quaranta says. Before the
written word, musicians were also the storytellers and the historians of
a given culture. Many of the percussion songs that have been passed
down from generation to generation have words, stories and dances to go
with them.
“I kinda got
exposed to percussion music from that part of the world,” Quaranta says.
“That was our gateway into music styles from around that region.”
The percussion
music drew the band to West Africa, where they studied music with guitar
and kora [a 10-string harp-like lute] prodigy Lamine Soumano. Soumano
comes from Mali and is a well-known musician in both Africa and Europe.
While in Africa,
they were exposed to much of the contemporary music in West Africa,
which includes many Western instruments alongside traditional African
instruments, but they’re all amplified. There is no fine line in Africa
separating American rock from contemporary African music. “Music really
enters a cultural language and the lines are blurred,” Quaranta says.
Through Soumano,
the Krewe made a bond with the music, the land and the people of West
Africa, and the band’s musical trajectory changed dramatically. They
took the funk-inflected contemporary music and the traditional acoustic
West African music and brought them home to the States to mutate with
their own surf guitar, psychedelic rock and jazz leanings.
They’ve since
played at many major festivals around the world including the Festival
in the Desert in Mali, the High Sierra Music Festival and Bonnaroo,
among others.
Toubab Krewe’s
bond with West Africa runs deeper than the music. Soumano came up with
the idea of opening a music school for the impoverished people of the
area. Toubab Krewe hopped on board and has begun a fundraising effort in
their hometown of Ashland, N.C. A local brewery is sponsoring them with
the new Toubab Brew, with proceeds going toward the music school. In
spring of 2011, the Krewe will return to Mali to help open the school.
Just as Elvis
ultimately paid homage to the black community he grew up around for
influencing his music and style, Toubab Krewe brings it around full
circle to give back to the region that inspired many of their musical
ideas.
On the road with a new album
Youth Lagoon
Dreaming of making it big in the music industry, to many, means getting together with friends in a garage to create something new and sonically spectacular.
Trevor Powers of Boise, Idaho, artfully plodded down that path, playing in various bands and searching to find his musical feet. But in the end, his project, Youth Lagoon, came from something like the Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) model: Holing himself up in a basement to churn out material with some real heart and soul, if not serious pathos, behind it.
The resulting album, the first in a two-record deal with Fat Possum, is the soft, nostalgic-laden The Year of Hibernation.
“I don’t think I ever started finding myself musically until I started working on music alone,” Powers says. “I’m not sure why that is other than, for me, music is a really intimate thing. Even though music itself can seem somewhat intangible, it’s almost like physically creating something. Even when I did start messing around with writing by myself, it still took a long time to figure out who I was musically and how I could present it.” He adds that he’s still trying to figure that out.
Artists who create such “basement work” in relative seclusion inevitably face a crossroads of releasing that work upon the wider world and touring that personal exploration on the open road. For Powers, that process has been a huge period of growth and personal introspection.
“Traveling has opened up a whole new mindset for me and has been really inspiring. Sharing works that I write in isolation isn’t necessarily a difficult thing ... mainly, just strange,” Powers says. “I almost see it as a form of time travel, since when I’m playing these songs in front of people, I’m taken back to a different place where I’m alone again—a place where I can sing as loud or soft as I want because there isn’t anyone around to hear. And then when a song ends, I’m back around people again.”
Keeping his touring setup simple seems to help work that compelling mental magic as each song slowly develops and builds. While playing the keys and programming percussive beats as he wistfully croons about his past, Powers is joined by just one other musician: guitarist Logan Hyde.
Being so new to the game and methodical about his musical evolution, time is surely on Powers’ side, especially with the sheer amount of enthusiasm and critical acclaim he has rightly garnered thus far. One hopes his second album will find him still longing for all the solitude that was key in fashioning his first.
