Reportaje: Why this began..

Today is our 49th post. We’ll be taking a break to work on the 50th post zine edition. Preorders for the zine package will be up in the coming weeks. Stay tuned..

Since today is a monumental post I’d like to write about why Presencia del Sol began. The underground punk community is often celebrated, but sometimes bands who are key elements to the movement are overlooked. Some of the most talented bands in the country go overlooked and often times suffer because of it. These bands are out there. They’re in the basement of the house next door. On the floor of the coffee shop you frequent. They’re in art galleries, living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, backyards, warehouses and storefronts. They are part of the reason hardcore, punk and doing things yourself are so great. They’re honest. They have no gimmick. They are simply here to share what they love to do the most.

Today I’m posting about seven bands I call our “roster.” This roster is by no means all inclusive of every band I believe deserves attention. Simply go back in the archives of this blog and see for yourself. Let’s get started.

Brighter Arrows – Chicago, IL
This band hasn’t been around for long but they took the time to craft a great first album. They didn’t create a Facebook, they created a reason to listen to them. With a super line up (members of Lautrec, Mans and Phoenix Bodies) this band is destined to continue on creating some of the most challenging music to come out of Chicagoland for years to come.

Canyons – Marshall, MO
The hidden gem of the Midwest. These boys have been puttin’ around the country for a few years now and have a whole slew of back catalog releases. Their live show is directly representative of their personal character: honest and to the point. There’s no bullshit. There’s no grand gestures. Just bone-breaking hardcore with messages about everyday life in the Midwest.

Cloud Mouth – Chicago, IL
Cloud Mouth is the main reason I started this blog. I feel like when people talk about their favorite Chicago bands, this band is not present enough on the lists. They play a truly unique and vivacious rendition of post hardcore, with every release being a step in the best possible direction. Please watch for their upcoming EP, it will change the way the genre is viewed as a whole.

Code Orange Kids – Pittsburgh, PA
I put most of my eggs into this basket. I firmly believe this band is destined to do great things. I’ve never witnessed such energy and enthusiasm in a hardcore act. They’re down to earth and excited for whats to come. They are open to playing any show everywhere, just to reach out to kids and share their art. These kids are truly living beyond their years.

Creeper – Toronto, ON
This band is truly surprising. I was always told that Creeper was “heavy as fuck,” but that was surely an understatement. Their most recent material is skull-crushing, unforgiving and flat out devastating. On their first tour of the United States they destroyed everything on their route (their Chicago date was left in ruin). This October marks their second tour of the US and they are sure to leave a lasting impression.

Droughts – Chicago, IL
I came across this band the first time I saw Brighter Arrows and I’ve been keen on them ever since. They fuse together a lot of elements I like: shoegazey guitar playing, intricate but hard hitting percussion and super aggressive bass playing.  Their new material shows promise of making them a memorable part of the Chicago punk scene.

Slip – Chicago, IL
One of my dearest friends from childhood. He went away to school for two years and came back one of the best producers I’ve ever met. Watching him in the studio is inspiring. His sense of melody and percussion is unexplainable, he simply knows how things should sound. He’s in the midst of putting together a few albums that will turn heads and inspire change.

Here’s to these 50 posts and here’s to another 50. We’ll be on the prowl for more deserving bands and informative pieces. Hope you’ve enjoyed. 

Reportaje: Nevermind’s 20th anniversary – A compilation of thoughts

When I was in fourth grade I wasn’t very aware of the world around me. I didn’t know much about cliques but they existed. I didn’t really know anything about the world around me. I watched television a lot and listened to the music my parents listened to. But I remember being at the store with my mom and seeing a Rolling Stone magazine with Kurt Cobain in it and thinking “hey this guy looks cool.” I didn’t know who he was, what he did or his place in the world. Some time later I recognized the same man playing in a band during a commercial on television. Through some unplanned investigation I came to the conclusion that this man was the lead singer of the band Nirvana, and I needed to hear them. That day finally came on a ride home from school with my father, when a local rock station played “Come As You Are.” I remember thinking “ok sweet, I heard a Nirvana song” and it was a huge moment.
I eventually became aware of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and like any impressionable young chap it rocked my world. I obsessed over the song and finally coaxed my mother into buying me “Nevermind” on cassette tape. The rest was history. This month marks the 20th anniversary  of this monumental album, and a way to celebrate its history is to talk about the band that created it. Here’s my contribution to preserving musical history, here’s a compilation of thoughts on Nirvana:

“I used to hate Nirvana. Probably because it reminded me of all the music that killed punk. As I grow older I don’t really care anymore and realize that they have a few great songs, I’m not too into their noisy shit but the ‘hits’ are pretty cool for the most part. ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’ is fun, ‘Come As You Are’ has just the right amount of apathy. ‘Heart Shaped Box is awesome.’ Kurt Cobain was alright I guess but the guy didn’t really say anything new and shot himself. Probably the best thing that could have happened for the band’s career.” – Will Allard of Xerxes.

“I started listening to Nirvana when I was about ten or eleven, around the same time I started playing guitar. Alot of people will tell you ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is the one of the first songs they learned how to play, and this was the case for me as well. It’s a fairly simple song, but when you’re on the third or fourth week of playing, it can help you feel like a real badass to jam it out. I watched an interveiw with Nirvana once, and they said from the early days their sound was always taking their favorite parts of bands like Black Sabbath and mixing it with what they liked of The Beatles, ie, taking really heavy songs and still making them catchy and rememberable. I loved them for that and still do, and I have remembered that when writing with my own band. The fact that you can be unique but still make music people like and will remember is a wonderful lesson, and i’m thankful everyday my sister had the cassette copy of ‘Nevermind’ in her room.” – Matt “Black Iowa” Mabrey of Canyons and Drought Years.

“I first heard Nirvana in the mid 90s. I was hanging out in my friend Forrest’s basement and we were listening to his dad’s CDs. ‘Nevermind’ was one of them. I remember being totally blown away by how gross and loud everything sounded. The first time I heard ‘In Utero’ I thought my stereo was broken, but it turns out it just sounded that awesome. I also played drums for a band that ripped them off, that was fun.” – Ben Sears of Black God, Prideswallower and Mountain Asleep.

“Kids still want to cover ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ every year. Pretty amazing considering it was twenty years ago.” – Erin Leigh Burke-Moran of Caspian.

“I recall a girl I had a crush on trying to teach me the guitar line to ‘Come As You Are,’ and failing so miserably at learning it that it became immediately clear that I had ruined any chance of us ever rolling around in the grass at recess together like I had pictured. That bummed me out so I stopped listening to them for a while after that. I remember a friend of mine asking me if I wanted to go see some ‘cool band’ from ‘California’ named Nirvana down at a local YMCA. This YMCA was in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a town of no more than 20,000 people, more than 3,000 miles of course from their actual home of Seattle, Washington. I stayed home that night and didn’t think much of it. Perhaps the first time I remember really experiencing the raw power of their music though happened on my first overseas trip to France as a young kid some time in the early 90s. I was on an exchange trip with a French kid named Peter and his family. I remember going to a public swimming pool in his town on a classic hot and sticky summer afternoon, at which ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was blasting on someone’s boombox as women were sitting around tanning themselves topless. Of course, sitting around topless at a public swimming pool in France is customary, but to a sheltered American 12-year-old during his first cross-cultural experience, it was about as jarring as moments come. That sort of primitive sexual experience combined with the brash and aggressive tone of the song arguably crated my first true punk-r0ck moment, and to this day it’s the first thing that comes to mind when I hear that tune or hear the name Nirvana.” – Philip Jamieson of Caspian.

“I’m always changing what my favorite record by Nirvana is. In middle school it was ‘Bleach,’ high school it was ‘In Utero’ and now after much denial it’s ‘Nevermind’ (it pained me to admit to myself that the most popular record is my current favorite). How many other records can you think of where every single song was a hit, or the drums were panned to audience perspective. I hate that about ‘Nevermind,’ yet embrace it since it’s one of the best sounding records ever. When I was first starting to play guitar I thought I had to be a shredder in order to be ‘good.’ Nirvana changed my outlook on this completely. Although the music isn’t super technical, every member’s part compliments one another’s. Dave Grohl is always relentless with solid, heavy hitting drum parts. He is the master of ‘drum riffs.’ So many of his drum parts are instantly recognizable. In an age of Pro Tools and putting drums to the grid, such a truly solid, interesting drummer is a rare sight. Krist Novoselic is hands down one of my favorite bassists. As a kid I actually paid more attention to the bass lines of this band rather than the guitar. Dave and Kris always had a solid groove behind Kurt. Not to mention, Krist always had an awesome bass sound on every record. Kurt’s guitar parts are noisy, a little sloppy, fuzzy and yet controlled. He is the master of using feedback in a controlled and musical way. Just because he didn’t always have crazy chord progressions or cleanly played leads, doesn’t hinder the music at all. Not only is having a guitar lead/solo that just follows the vocal melody genius, so was his absolutely appropriate guitar playing. The music sounds as if it’s about to fall apart at any moment, whether it’s his mumbled vocals, or fuzzed out guitar, yet it all just barely stays together beautifully. I have bonded over Nirvana with almost every single one of my best friends at some point or another. No matter what other bands we may or may not like, there has always been that one common love. Nirvana is responsible for me really getting into music and leading me into whatever my life is – to disappointing my family by having ripped clothes and long hair, paying to see some pissed guy scream into a mic for 20 minutes, getting paid to record pissed bands and hating school. Just realizing I’m currently living my 14-year-old self’s dream and not complaining.” – Chris Teti of Silver Bullet Studios, The World is a Beautiful Place & I am no Longer Afraid to Die and My Heart To Joy.

“I had bought ‘Nevermind’ the day it came out and had waited til bedtime to fall asleep on the record. Trying to achieve shut eye for the better part of the first half of the album, I was amazed at the abrassive pop music that was filling the dark and otherwise dead room. ‘Breed’ in particular attracted my attention as its massive chorus and intense vocals. I cant really remember when I lost consciousness but I was abruptly taken from my snoring by the crazy piece of work that is ‘Endless Nameless’. Frightened and confused, it took me at least 20 seconds to realise what was going on and to this day I still feel weird when Is hear this masterpiece of a recording.” – Wooden Carpet of Carpet, Les Bois Francs and L’Oeil du Tigre.

“I have a tricky relationship with Nirvana. When ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ hit, I hated it. You could not escape that song. They even played it on the local rap radio station. I can trace my skepticism of hyped bands back to Nirvana. In fact, I can trace a lot of things back to Nirvana. Nirvana eventually became the first band that I ‘gave in to’ and grew to love. Nirvana made me think three-piece bands were cool. Nirvana started an obsession with reading music and guitar magazines. I had always like music, but Nirvana made me become obsessed with it. And Nirvana eventually became the first band that I got-over. These days I don’t hate Nirvana, but I  don’t think I will ever care to listen to them ever again. They were lumped in with a few other bands that I liked before I discovered a certain British punk band (even though they had crashed and burned years before Nirvana) and made everything that I had heard prior to them, Nirvana included, seem silly. Having said that, I can still trace my discovery of this band back to Nirvana, and while I don’t have much of an interest in listening to them (Nirvana) ever again, I can’t deny the legacy that they left behind or their impact on my own musical path.” – Nathan Latona of Tera Melos.

“It isn’t something I’m proud of, but I was born a contrarian and have spent a large portion of my adult life battling those tendencies. I was not cool nor old enough to have gotten into Nirvana from their humble beginnings. Then the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ video hit, complete with its Weird Al parody and they seemed like the biggest band on the planet. So, I did what I do with every ‘biggest band on the planet’ for as long as I can remember.. I was indifferent (at best). Looking back now with a more sophisticated view of the music AND industry, it really depresses me that I didn’t embrace a band that made so many ugly sounding records, that made so many decisions that I’m sure made managers, agents, record execs contemplate what was eventual Kurt’s fate (poor choice of words or poor taste, you judge). There will never be a band like that, that reaches that level of success ever again. They still aren’t as good as the Melvins but I’d argue that Kurt’s death was also the nail in the coffin for all pop music that was more art than product.” – Merrick Jarmulowicz of the Kenmore Agency.

Reportaje: New Carpet tracks are up..

I just recently posted about Carpet, a new shoegaze project from Montreal Quebec. Today Carpet put up four new songs on their bandcamp available for stream and download.

The songs stay true to the form Carpet has displayed in their other work, with over-driven guitar work, basic percussion and buried melody. The vocals are more layered now, giving the songs an almost garage punk feeling. But just as with their old material the stand out element would be the “distorted ukelele” tone. It’s so thick and hazy, like a really warm sweater for the rest of the parts of the song. The stand out track of the bunch seems to be “The Last Day of Summer,” which takes the noisy content in a structured punk rock direction. Carpet is appearing more and more to be a fusion of all things underground, really expanding their boundaries with every new release.

You can hear the four new tracks at their bandcamp account.

Find Carpet here:
http://www.facebook.com/carpetgaze

Reportaje: Animal Faces’ east coast Canadian tour

The limits and boundaries of tour life are getting pushed to the ends of the earth everyday. Tours are becoming longer, months turning into years. Routes are covering vast distances and all corners of the earth. In my opinion one of the most beautiful parts of the country is Canada’s east coast. Since it is quite a jaunt from Quebec it is difficult for bands to make the drive, but more and more are getting there. Toronto residents Animal Faces made the trip out over the summer and have decided to share their experiences with us today.

From the mouth of guitarist/vocalist Ryan Naray:
Our first tour out towards the east coast of Canada was a pretty big deal for all of us. None of us have had the chance to tour with any of our previous bands, so finally being able to set this up was something we all really needed. We also hadn’t spent that much time together as a band and from this we actually got to know each other, even though we’ve all “known” each other for a few years now. I think Nilsson’s impulsiveness is what made this tour what it was (aside from the rad gigs of course). We almost lost him on his birthday while he was out indulging himself with a couple of pals in Trois-Riviers. In Halifax, we showed up a day before our scheduled gig and were offered to play a show in drag at a gay bar called Reflections, which we obviously accepted. We rode a very large boat over to Newfoundland, which was cool at first then just long and shitty and 14 hours. We stayed in Newfoundland for 3 days with a couple of our pals in the band Polina. Chris and Peter from said band took us around for most of the weekend and really went out of their way to make our stay beyond amazing. I still can’t get over how beautiful and awesome everything was there. But yeah, really all of the shows we played were awesome in one way or another. Even the ones where you only get to rip for a few people, but those people are genuinely excited, still feels great. We are going to play Halifax Pop Explosion at the end of October, but other than that we aren’t going to be able to head out very far until the spring time. 

The group wanted to share some of their experiences in photo form, which can be seen in the gallery below:

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The band’s debut EP is available for stream on their bandcamp.

Reportaje: Carpet interview

statement:noise..

Montreal has always held a very special place in my heart, and my friends there play a big part in that. Not only are they great friends, but they’re some of the most talented musicians I’ve ever met. Bands like Expectorated Sequence, Kraken, Hawkes, Black Ships and Les Bois Francs have been in heavy rotation over the years and have put out some of the best albums I’ve heard from the Great White North. Now add to the list Carpet, which is comprised of my dear friends Arch and Wood.

In a time in music where “less is more” and minimalist genres like shoegaze and drone are making a resurgence, many acts are emulating sounds from the past but applying a clean face. Production quality has improved drastically, and the new wave of these genres is heard in a pristine light. Not many current examples tackle that authentic “low-fi” sound that is so prominent on old My Bloody Valentine and Earth albums, but Carpet has done just that. Huge, distorted piano and guitar tones. Buried vocals and minimal percussion. And yet, something about the chaos is charming. There are a lot of poppy elements that you really have to listen for. A lot of the sounds are distant and hard to imagine (I actually was surprised to find out Arch actually uses a ukelele instead of a guitar!). In true “MBV” fashion there are many melodic hooks buried in the mix, which make you dig through the fog of fuzz.

Already with a full length album under their belt, Carpet push on into the fall with a lot more tones to experiment with. I recently got to ask Carpet some questions about their happenings and what to expect in the future.

So what brought about the beginning of Carpet?
Wood: Arch being in so many loud bands, he just started a solo project to have total control of the ideas behind the music and I decided to help out .
Arch: I first used the name Carpet after jamming at a friend’s house in spring 2010. The whole idea was to write and record a song all in one afternoon. The whole Carpet thing came when I said “this song is more than shoegaze, it’s actually carpetgaze!” but the name just slept for a while. At the same time, I was discovering Audacity, the most basic recording program you can download for free, and I was trying to record cover songs, the first one being Earth Angel from the Back to the Future soundtrack. After that, I started writing songs with Audacity, for myself or the bands I am or was working with (Expectorated Sequence, Royaume des Morts). Then the idea of bringing back the name Carpet came when I started doing brand new weird compositions on the spot, just like the first time. It wasn’t really a solo project but more like a collective with myself as the engineer. Different people were featured in the beginning like Xavier of Solids, my dear friend Nic The Geek or some of my roommates, but Wood and Fraülein have been the only ones to actually stick around, for now.

Before you started writing music, did you have any ideas of what you wanted it to be musically?
Wood: No preconceived ideas about sound or number of tracks or anything like that. [We] wake up with a melody in our heads and put it into music !!
Arch: The concept of fun in Carpet is interconnected with spontaneity. We compose riffs or beats on the spot and add texture to it, then lyrics. Nothing is planned and everything happens when we actually hit “record”. Something noisy comes out, it’s not always good but most of the time it’s original!

How are the songs recorded and where?
Wood: The songs are recorded in Arch’s bedroom using the most minimalistic equipments.
Arch: ..like a desktop microphone and a cheap laptop with Audacity installed. Everything is done track by track, even the percussions. For this we rely on a metronome that we set up before starting anything. We record all of this at home trying not to annoy the neighbours, so mostly in my own bedroom or in the kitchen.

Talk about the unique instrumentation used in Carpet, how do you get the instruments to sound the way they do.
Arch: Instrument-wise, ukulele has become the center of the project. Most of us know how to use a guitar or a bass, but none of us can really wail on the ukulele. The different tuning makes it difficult for our brains to actually be able to use this instrument to its full capacity on the first time. This summer I kind of let that challenge lead me to Carpet. And you could probably say I got tired of playing drums and needed something new and eccentric. Distorted ukulele became my essence. Then of course for the songs we use everything laying around in my apartment.
Wood: Broken cymbals, a 3-string bass guitar.
Arch: A bass drum pedal beater, an old snare (that I hit only with my fingers). Fraülein plays keyboard in some of the songs.
Wood: Whatever we can find, we’ve even done drum tracks on the table using our fists… all in good fun!
Arch: Now to have them sound the way they do, at first I was just recording dry ukulele and pumping the volume in Audacity to the maximum. This was how I first was able to put distortion into the ukulele. Now with a pick-up, I am able to plug it and use effect pedals to amplify the sound. I basically use the same 3 pedals with all the instruments, them being a digital delay, turbo overdrive and a phaser, all of them work quite well with bass, guitar, ukulele and even vocals sometimes. I am definitely on the hunt for cheap pedals right now too.

What are your biggest influences for Carpet?
Arch: “Lo-fi” one man blackmetal bands have really influenced my vision of home recordings during the last winter, and so I am sure it played a huge part in the whole fuzzy sound of Carpet. After that, we try to create something catchy but noisy, and we let our fingers be guided on the instruments.

Talk about some of the songs in particular and how they came together.
Wood: Most of the skeletons of the songs are composed by Arch with me and Fraülein bringing in different melodies and ideas on vocal harmonies.
Arch: For the song “Irene”, I had found a riff on the uke while drinking my morning coffee with Fraülein, we then sat down in my room to record it (always with a metronome, it helps), I added a basic drum beat (only snare and kick), then shaped the structure into a simple formula with two riffs like “AAAA-BBBB-BBBB-AAAA” and added a few noises and a guitar track. It slept in my computer for a few days, then Wood came to hang out during the hurricane Irene (which was only like a heavy rain with lots of wind here in Canada). All three of us basically added a few instruments and did a brainstorm on Irene that became lyrics, we sang them, then posted the song online the same day just so our friends could get a good laugh.

What do you write songs about?
Arch: The first few songs didn’t have lyrics, only a few Gregorian chants-like moans. Then basically everything became a good subject for lyrics.
Wood: Everyday life, what’s in the news and what’s happening around us. We also talk about the hard times of moving, the club scene, food, horses, snakes, frogs.
Arch: and bed bugs! (which I happened to have in my apartment this summer).

Any instruments you’d like to experiment with in future Carpet recordings?
Arch: We definitely need to be working with more keyboards. Only a few songs have distorted piano in them, I definitely feel we could do a lot more there. For anything else, it mostly comes down to a question of budget, I’ve always dreamed of having fun with a cello but I never had the chance to have a date with one.
Wood: I’d like to do more stuff with voices and vocal experimentation, using voice more as an instrument. I’d like to try acoustic bass on some tracks as well.

What are the future plans for Carpet?
Wood: The goal would be to play some songs live and have either pre-recorded drum tracks to just play over or even mount a full band with drums, bass, keyboard, ukuleles and guitars, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about having fun, jamming with friends and creating stuff that naturally comes out without really taking the time to think about it.
Arch: I would definitely love to prepare a live performance for Carpet. I am turning 27 next year and yet I have not become a rock star like Jimi Hendrix. But before anything, what I truly want is to record some of our songs in a studio with a more decent production. I have learned over the past ten years that albums keep on living but live performances and bands are ephemeral.

All of Carpet’s discography is currently available at their bandcamp:
http://onthecarpet.bandcamp.com/ 

Learn more about Carpet here:
http://www.facebook.com/carpetgaze

 

Reportaje: Brighter Arrows interview

I’ve written high praises about this band many times before, but I don’t think the whole thing sinks in without meeting these boys and getting to talk to them. It’s even better when you can see them in their element, such as at band practice. They’re a lot of fun and have a lot of interesting things to say. Not to mention they write incredible music and play with great fluency.

I always said that Brighter Arrows was if Sunny Day Real Estate had stayed together and continued writing after “LP2.” There’s a great sense of melody and progression in all the members, which make their songs unfold like stories. Drummer John Olds brings backbone and sheer power to the already emotionally intense music. It’s almost draining. There’s so much to be said about the emotions this music conveys. Some notes make you sad, some melodies make you smile and the whole band in their element playing every note as if was there last makes you sit back in awe. From their guitar player Colin May’s humble abode, here’s Brighter Arrows.

Right from their basement practice spot, here’s “In Its Wings, a Wind Has Wrapped Them.”

Their debut EP, “Division and What it is to Abide” has not yet been officially released, but is available on a limited edition cassette run.

Once again, their track “Severance.”

Where to find Brighter Arrows:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brighter-Arrows/218122628219874 
http://brighterarrows.tumblr.com/ 

ESTRENO: “Cycles (The Days Get Longer)” from Code Orange Kids’ upcoming 7″

For my 25th post I wanted to do something very special, and luckily things worked out and I’m able to share with you something that will very well shape the future of this blog and others for years to come..

About a year ago we played Girlfight’s CD release show in Pittsburgh. They told us that their young friends were opening the show, a band called Code Orange Kids. They truly were young, and I half expected to hear a bad-mallxcore set. But, as they began to play I quickly learned my lesson, to never judge a band by their youth. They played one of the most punishing sets I’ve ever witnessed, and pretty much made it senseless for the rest of the bands to play that night. Next March when we rolled through Pittsburgh again the quartet joined us again, and once again they destroyed all. Their set that night was so intense it was honestly frightening. They bleed integrity, they mean every note they play. There’s an honestly in their music that I thought was only written about in fiction, and it is reassuring to see such promise in such a young band.

Since then I’ve watched the band grow even more. They wrote and recorded an amazing cassette tape, wowed the Midwest on their first tour through and now have recorded one of the most exciting releases to happen in hardcore this year. I am extremely honored and proud to bring you now, “Cycles (The Days Get Longer)” from their debut 7″, “Cycles,” due out this year on Mayfly Records.

“Cycles” will be available from Mayfly Records this fall.

I urge you to get behind this band. They are the most promising group I’ve come across in a long time and they have a very promising future ahead of them.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Code-Orange-Kids/162474823794246
http://codeorangekids.bandcamp.com/

Reportaje: Kid Sister Everything interview

I met Harrison Hickok when I was a junior in high school. Since then we’ve been in bands that played countless shows together and over the years I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. I’ve been with him through his days with the Wichita Kansas Trailer Park Conspiracy, Forever and Always, Lion of the North and Proles. Harrison moved from New Buffalo, MI to Chicago during all of it and got really involved with the punk scene there, by helping run a frequented tour stop called Summer Camp and owning and operating the all-in-one entity we’re talking about today, Kid Sister. With Kid Sister he’s put work in on numerous Midwest releases, playing on some and releasing even more. Today Harrison keeps busy with many screen printing jobs and bringing about additions to the Kid Sister catalog. He also plays bass with a great Ohio-based band called Antilles and guitar for Chicago-based Lovesick. To find out more about Kid Sister and the work behind it, we joined Harrison for some dinner at his apartment.

Here are a couple of select tracks from Kid Sister’s favorite releases.

From Animal Lover’s “Live at Lemp Arts” cassette, “Untitled.”

From  Antilles’ self-titled EP, “Vanity.”

Here is a gallery of Kid Sister’s print and design work:

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Here is where you can learn more about Kid Sister on the web:
http://kidsistereverything.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnama/ 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kid-Sister-Everything/189713516503
http://kidsistereverything.bigcartel.com/
http://kidsistereverything.bandcamp.com/

Reportaje: David Summers interview and gallery

With every era of progression in music, there is always a group of individuals behind the scenes, capturing it all. These artists use photos, video and script to preserve these times in the history of music. One of these artists of current day, grew up about 45 minutes away from Chicago in Valparaiso, IN, between the major music hubs of Milwaukee, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Indianapolis and Louisville. He picked up a camera in high school and started out photographing his friends bands. As months turned into years he got the hang of things and really refined his craft. After slews of shows and tours, he’s now one of the nation’s celebrated upcoming music photographers, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Ladies and gentleman, I bring you David Summers.

Here’s a gallery of some of Dave’s work, with subjects spanning the international music scene.

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Where to find David Summers:
http://summersphotography.org/
http://twitter.com/#!/dsummersPhoto

Reportaje: New Code Orange Kids 7″ on the horizon

This one is going to be a double whammy: a teaser video for one of my favorite bands, made by one of my favorite videographers. Pittsburgh’s own Code Orange Kids are putting the final touches on their upcoming 7″ for Mayfly Records, and my friend Max Moore made a teaser for it.

I’m very excited for everyone to hear this release, I truly believe it’s going to shake the world of hardcore as we know it.

To find out more about Code Orange Kids go here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Code-Orange-Kids/162474823794246
http://codeorangekids.bandcamp.com/ 

To find out more about Max Moore go here:
http://vimeo.com/maxsfilms
http://maxmoorefilms.tumblr.com/