Search results for: TBD

White Rabbits: From Missouri to the Big Time

White Rabbits: Photo by Andrew Droz Palermo Brooklyn band White Rabbits is composed of six guys, and their live shows sometimes feature as many as three drummers at a time. Each member contributes lyrics and riffs, and—since many of them come from music school backgrounds—they sometimes switch off on instruments. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the group can sometimes get out of control. “On our first album, it was like, ‘How much noise can we create?’” remembers drummer Jamie Levinson of their 2007 debut, Fort Nightly.

“It’s a little exhausting to always be going on all cylinders,” adds singer/guitarist Greg Roberts.

I spoke with the pair at a Williamsburg bar one sunny afternoon a few months back, and they were joined by the act’s singer/pianist Stephen Patterson. Drinking a Bloody Mary and smoking a cigarette with his Ray-Ban sunglasses propped atop his mussed blond hair, Patterson plays the part of the rock star, while Levinson is more casual in a hooded sweatshirt. Roberts, meanwhile, looks preppy in his blue sweater, white collar, and slicked-back hair, and offers up intellectual tidbits every now and then. “We have graduated from the ‘anxiety of influence’,” he says at one point, quoting Harold Bloom. read more

by: Ben Westhoff

published: November 5, 2009 in column: Feature Story

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Port O’Brien

by: Andres Jauregui

Port O’Brien
threadbare
(TBD Records, 2009)

Some songwriters detach themselves from their subject matter; if their lives influence their songs, it is primarily in the abstract. Not Port O’Brien. In this band, the young couple of Cambria Goodwin and Van Pierszalowski (still my favorite indie rock surname) share writing duties, and while their approaches differ—Pierszalowski a little more rock, Goodwin a little more rustic—their songs almost always get personal. Their latest album, threadbare, is no exception.

Tension bubbled beneath the surface of Port O’Brien’s last album, All We Could Do Was Sing. Amid questions of identity and reflections on a migrant lifestyle (the Pierszalowskis are a fishing family that travel to Alaska from California to catch salmon every summer), the band examined relationships and vented emotional brine within the framework of its folk-rock milieu. It was a cathartic exercise––foreign in setting, yet easily relatable for its plainspoken delivery––that the band mirrored during its performances supporting the record. Screams and stark harmonies pierced the wild, wandering heart of the group’s collective nemesis: The pains and pleasures of living in near-permanent transition.

by: Andres Jauregui

published: October 1, 2009 in column: Reviews

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Other Lives

by: Lavinia Jones Wright

Other Lives
Other Lives
(TBD Records, 2009)

Back when members of Other Lives were a more instrumental outfit called Kunek, they made a beautiful, sweeping record called Flight of the Flynns. It was lush and inspired, and it caused me and my rock journalist brethren to take note. But although Flight of the Flynns had an overabundance of magical, orchestral arrangements (all of which translated well in their live show), it was obvious the group lacked the strong center that would help them appeal to a wider audience, as vocals in the music seemed like a garnish and none of the tracks particularly stuck in your head.

Now the Stillwater, OK group, comprised of Jesse Tabish, Colby Owens, Josh Onstott, Jonathon Mooney, and Jenny Hsu, is at the onset of an exciting deal with TBD Records (the imprint of ATO that was started to release Radiohead’s In Rainbows), releasing the self-titled, full-length follow-up to their well-received, also eponymous, EP from last year. And where their ethereal earlier music was pretty but fleeting, Other Lives takes a stronger stand, cleverly infusing a prevailing lyrical narrative and more instrumental diversity.

by: Lavinia Jones Wright

published: April 20, 2009 in column: Reviews

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