The Drunken Unicorn: Friday, July 29th is Noel Stephen and The Darlings here at the Drunken Unicorn

Friday, July 15, 2011

Friday, July 29th is Noel Stephen and The Darlings here at the Drunken Unicorn

PFH Productions presents:

Noel Stephen & The Darlings at the Drunken Unicorn on Friday, July 29th, 2011

"Young Atlanta group Noel Stephen & the Darlings crafts the kind of un-ironic rococo pop that winks at its musical forefathers (Serge Gainsbourg, Rufus Wainwright) while concurrently, and proudly, declaring its independence. The band's first album, Ten Years Too Late, has a very appropriate first-album feel. The production is inconsistent, vocalists trade off from song to song, and the band has a stylistic tendency to veer rather wildly back and forth from barroom country to the baroque and beyond. But there's a sweetness to the Darlings' blue-eyed approach, an honesty that's missing from most new music, that saves Ten Years Too Late from itself. Likewise, certain unanticipated moments — the dramatic downshift halfway through "Your Scarf," for instance — flirt with profundity. The Darlings' best moments are certainly ahead of them, but this altogether solid debut should prove a fine jumping-off point." - Gabe Vodicka / Creative Loafing Atlanta

Noel Stephen & The Darlings on Facebook

Country Mice will be the second performer of the evening.

Country Mice front man Jason Rueger grew up on a farm in rural Kansas passed down through three generations of his family. With headphones on, he walked the path, bruised his hands and squinted his eyes in the sun, but music, above all else, made him whole. Looking out from his window, he set his sights for something different than the dirt and milo that stung his eyes and cut his hands. Jason fought against the gravity-pull of hometown and, with all the joy and pain of letting go, moved to Brooklyn. Here, he met Ben Bullington (guitar), Kurt Kuehn (drums) and Mike Feldman (bass), who, being from Kansas, Wisconsin and upstate New York, also shared a comfort in displacement and they quickly banded with Rueger. As Country Mice, they rallied together to craft apocalyptic ballads through amplifier hazes that thicken into funnel clouds, drums that stomp-clap sedately before the storm peaks, and bass tones that thicken the bloodstream. Jason draws on his small town rearing with sophistication beyond the ordinarily romantic and reductive Americana troubadour, and his songwriting is anything but dime a dozen. You can hear strong traces of Neil Young and Wilco mixed into their modern experimental guitar sounds that any fan of mid-90’s Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. would love. Together they cut their teeth among the other hardworking bands of Brooklyn's fast-paced scene. To date, the band has released two formative 7" singles and a limited edition cassette on Brooklyn-based indie labels and now they are ready to unleash their debut album,"Twister," on Wao Wao Records. This is a record that sonically chisels through the calloused shell of glossy rock & roll to find the dissonant live wire beneath and play it for all its worth. It tells a tale of strained memory: the hardships, joys, and love of growing up in a small town in the Midwest, with the hopes and dreams of traveling the world – a record for every kid seeing the big world from his small bedroom window. Wao Wao Records (www.myspace.com/waowaorecords) is run by Toby Rascal and Hbear, two members of Kanine Records (www.kaninerecords.com), out of the basement of the Kanine Records headquarters, normally referred to as the Doghouse. Toby and Hbear formed Wao Wao Records to start releasing records by Country Mice the day they heard a lo-fi mp3 off of a 4-track demo that Jason, Ben and Kurt did in their practice space. They instantly knew then and there, that these three had something special and they wanted to be a part of it. “I instantly fell in love with their scratchy guitar sounds. It reminded of the joys of digging up a lost bone on a warm spring day. While their guitars feed back off of his homemade amp, Jason gives off a classically lost vocal style that gives way to a whole new take on a long lost 90’s indie sound.

Country Mice on Facebook

Holding Rabbits are the opener for the evening.

i live in korea most of the time and make music in my bedroom...but sometimes, it sounds like i actually know what i'm doing. i am influenced mainly by 60's and 70's type things as well as the indie folks i listen to.