BrandsForBands

Fever Charm got their start in Oakland over 10 years ago. Yianni, Theo and Ari met in middle school when they discovered they all happened to share the same birthday. Fuelled by their undying love for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the movie “School Of Rock” they began to write their own original music. Instead of doing their homework, they spent night after night playing, writing, and recording music in a dusty basement. What began as a casual jam session in Ari’s basement developed into a decade long passion project.

In 2011 the band moved to Boston for college, where Yianni met JT in their very first class. It was not long until this friendship bloomed into the current lineup of Fever Charm. Together they lived in a putrid, rat infested basement unit in a downtown apartment complex infamously known as “THE DEN”. Basking in the otherwise creative and youthful air of Boston, they collaborated with many great musicians, producers, and artists. During this time the band recorded song after song and played show after show, ventures that included their Sound of Summer EP, for which they traveled to Austin, TX as well as several west coast and east coast tours.

Following graduation, the band relocated to Los Angeles to fully pursue their careers in music. Immediately after moving, the band went straight to the studio, recording demos every night after their 9-to-5’s. The resulting demos evolved into Retrograde, but the creating has never stopped. They continue to write endlessly and look forward to what the future has to offer.

Living Hour began in the basements of south Winnipeg, writing dreamy love songs inspired by the cinematic sky of their hometown. Blending bright shimmering guitar pop with thick casio drones and uniquely powerful, smoky vocals, their sound washes over you like the soundtrack to the best parking lot makeout session of your youth. Watery echoes of gorgeously sung melodies, psychedelic interlocking guitar, and huge driving crescendos create an enchanting wall of blissful dream pop.

Living Hour contributed two songs to Family Portrait II, a vinyl compilation put out by Art is Hard Records (Bristol/London) in April 2015, and released a super limited edition cassette of their debut s/t album with Tree Machine Records (Bloomington) that same month. The band released their debut album world-wide with Lefse Records (Portland) on February 19, 2016.

Meet Zach and Billy. Childhood friends and Leisure Coast legends from Windang, Australia. They are two surf/skate kids that grew up together living two doors down from each other since age 4. Unofficially getting their start with a jam on Zach's Dad's equipment, the 18 months has seen the duo Hockey Dad move from garage band to Austrlian indie pop stars. With their debut album 'Strange' due June 2016 out on Brooklyn based indie label Kanine Records, Hockey Dad is set to branch out internationally.

They are two surf/skate kids that grew up living two doors down from each other, the duo known as Hockey Dad unofficially got their start with a jam session on Zach's Dad's old gear. Officially breaking out of their home city with the release of their debut EP "Dreamin'" in June 2014, the duo quickly moved from garage band to Austrlian indie pop stars in 18 months.

Selling out shows in Sydney, Melbourne and their hometown, Hockey Dad spent 2015 on the road in Australia and capped it off with an appearance at CMJ in New York.

Unofficially getting their start in their tween years with a jam session on Zach's Dad's old gear, the duo known as Hockey Dad officially arrived with debut EP that landed them support from Triple J and FBiRadio Australia and a slot on whatever festival. For 2016, Hockey Dad is really to bring their brand of surf, rock, pop, punk indie rock stateside with debut album " name" out 2016 on Kanine Records.

Mixing the simplicity of a duo, Zach is on guitar/vocals and Billy is on drums. Living a couple doors down from each other and growing up in a small coastal town that they still call home, Hockey Dad unofficially got its start when Zach and Bill had a jam on Zach's dad's old gear.

I am a musician, songwriter and producer currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m passionate about expanding auditory expression through collaborating with artists of different mediums, expounding and executing other musician's ideas and making the world more beautiful through song and sound.

My story begins with getting a small Fisher-Price tape recorder as a child. I made mix-tapes by holding the little red and yellow microphone up to the speakers of our family stereo and interjected comments between songs. I distinctly remember being incredibly moved by certain cassette tapes my parents had. I would take the tape recorder to bed and listen to my favorite songs on repeat until I fell asleep.

My irrepressible desire to make music lead me to pester my father until finally he surprised me with my first red, electric guitar. I felt wonderfully empowered having an instrument and being able to express myself in a way that transcended words. The connection between sound and emotion, the soul and song, remains one of the most beautiful and mysterious things to me; which is why I seek to make music and document the audible world around me. Whether it is through creating or listening, my vision is to foster that sense of beauty and transcendence.

Needle Points is a psych-boogie outfit from Philadelphia formed in 2013.  Their music, largely influenced by sixties and seventies vibes, is what punk music would have been if Keith Richards invented it.

Needle Points’ first release Bom Tugangu (2013), intended as a collection of 4-track basement demos to book shows with, was met with acclaim locally and even internationally.  The album, along with their raucous, face-painted, animal suited, hair-for-days live shows, led them to a record deal with indie label PaperCup Music in 2014.  With the label, they released a 7-inch for “Cripple Street” a song that has since been picked up for use by Converse for showroom play.

            In the fall of 2014, Needle Points worked with Dr. Dog frontman Scott McMicken on their upcoming release Feel Young.  McMicken produced the album and lent his talents as a second guitar player and keyboardist to several tracks.  The band decided to leave PaperCup earlier this year and form their own label NeedLove Records on which they’ll release Feel Young. 

            Needle Points, a band of artists, have also worked hard to develop a marketable aesthetic.  Everything they have done and worn since their formation in 2013 has been meticulously curated.  Their psychedelic taste and party vibe has helped them develop a loyal social media following, notably in their more than 12,000 Instagram followers. The band members have also always designed and created their own merchandise.  Their talents were recently validated when Philadelphia based clothier Free People purchased one of their t-shirt designs.  The company will be releasing their Needle Points shirt in department stores and boutiques nationwide this summer.  Free People also cited Needle Points as their “favorite band” in a 2015 blog post, and used their track “Needlove (City Walls)” in a YouTube commercial featuring model Alena Blohm.  Other brands such as Billabong and Marc Jacobs have also featured Needle Points songs in their work. 

Needle Points have toured the east coast twice, including shows at Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival and Georgia’s Savannah Stopover Festival.  They have supported bands such as Temples, Dead Meadow, Fat White Family, Sun Club, Spank Rock, CRUISR, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and many more.  They will be joining Spaceface, fronted by the guitarist of the Flaming Lips, on a leg of their tour this July and will be joining indie rock favorites mewithoutYou for a month-long, national tour this October to support their upcoming release.

Native America is a rock & roll band from New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-piece, comprised of Ross Farbe (guitar/vocals), Ray Micarelli (drums) and John St. Cyr (bass/vocals), evolved from Farbe’s dorm room recording project to deliver their first studio LP, Grown Up Wrong, via Inflated Records in late 2014. After releasing Dancing About Architecture with Park The Van Records, self-recording last summer’s Bad Weed / But Still Weed EP and touring heavily over the past few years, Grown Up Wrong finds them in peak form. Recorded with engineer Chris George at NOLA’s the Living Room, the album is a triumphant leap forward for Native America, infusing this young band's gift for easygoing songwriting with textured production that provides the record with simplistic nuances and gorgeous tape warmth.

Dan San, one of Belgian's indie folk mainstays, is back!

After two years of silence, work, questioning and waiting, Dan San comes back with “Shelter”, an astral, organic and atmospheric second album!

In 2010, the band’s discography takes off with the first EP “Pillow”, quickly followed by the album “Domino”. At that time, comfortably installed in a sweet and carefree position, Dan San gives concerts after concerts and keeps moving forward without taking any short cuts. The “Domino Tour” takes the band all around Europe on more than 120 stages. The musicians discover, enjoy and make noticeable appearances at the Eurosonic (NL), Dour Festival, Nuits Botaniques, Ardentes or Francofolies de Spa. Then comes the time of resourcing and individual experiments. The six musicians take a step back from their common path in order to renew their inspirations within their respective side projects (The Feather, Yew or Pale Grey).

In early 2015, the band ends up back together! The enthusiasm, the envy and the ambition to reinvent itself are strong but working together again is a journey full of obstacles, since the clarity and simplicity of the early days made way to more expectations and sometimes divergent sensibilities. Throughout rehearsals, the creation process becomes more complex, with cornelian choices to make and concessions required from everyone. The musicians abandon their habits, decide to put themselves in danger and to leave their certainties behind, this comfortable shelter in which they had taken refuge. “Shelter” was created around that idea: from the artistic production to the recording, through the writing of texts or the choice of instruments, the reinvention had to be complete in order to give birth to this new record. Consequently, Dan San decided to call on an external ear, a conductor who would shake up its routine.

Enamored by the project, Yann Arnaud, known for his work with Air, Phoenix or Syd Matters, joins the adventure. In Paris, at “La Frette” studio where Yann is established, Dan San settles in the middle of a mess made of amps, vintage keyboards and guitars. The production is engaged! Isolated in this out-of-time manor, which has already welcomed artists such as Feist, Girls in Hawaï or Patrick Watson, the musicians experiment new working methods. From now on, track-by-track recording is over, Yann wants to capture the emotion and the essence of their music live.

The multi-instrumentalist Olivier Marguerit joins the band and sheds a new light on the tracks by opening them to synthetic sonorities. The match is perfect: human and musical. The recording goes on to the GreenHouse Studio in Beaumont where Dan San, still cut out from the world, brings the final touches to this “Shelter”.

The result is a successful and fully-grown album whose compositions are sensitive, authentic and exhilarating. Dan San synthetizes its folk heritage while placing itself in a modern and inventive dynamic. Let “Shelter” take action, as it reveals itself listening after listening.

First things first: Cool Ghouls are not a retro act. Yes, they dwell penniless in the storied hills of culturally resurgent San Francisco. But these boys have their feet firmly planted in the soil of the now. They look not backwards for approving nods of hipster forebears, but rather skyward, hoping that the "supernatural forces" they yodel for, guide them to all corners of a half-deserving world.

If one were to ascribe to them a 60's-reverent description, one would most likely find an artistic kinship with some the most inimitable, idiosyncratic, yet unmistakably influential bands of the retro-fitting oeuvre. The Troggs, The Monks, Sir Douglas Quintet come to mind immediately (Save your Kinks and Rolling Stones references). Like those that came before, the Ghouls are natural heirs to the folkloric lineage which precedes them, adding dashes of weirdness where needed. And despite their mid-fi leanings and natural fit within the current pantheon of San Francisco rock ‘n roll bands (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Fresh and Onlys), theirs is a timeless record, which will hopefully transcend the descriptors (garage, psych, etc.) that will undoubtedly plague it. The reason being - they write good SONGS.

These young men have honed their three-headed vocal attack in front of ambitious and unexpected chord progressions, an unrelenting rhythm section, and a keen ear for harmony. Theirs is a trifecta of songwriting styles, ranging from the raspy, rambling psychedelic soul of longhair Pat McDonald ("Grace"), to the high yonder twang of bassist Pat Thomas ("Natural Life"), to the boisterous, fever-pitched, perfect pop of lead guitarist Ryan Wong. Theirs is a truly democratic song-making process, wherein all members are eager to contribute their most zealous performances. Hence, the debut record, an adventurous, colorful romp seen through the eyes of old-souled youths, feels wholly coherent and intentional. The self-assuredness of their songwriting is evident. And no, the Ghouls are not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves; this is partly what makes the record so digestible. It doesn't claim to be anything other than what it is; a record for now, a record for then, and a record for forever.

- Tim Cohen (Fresh and Onlys, Magic Trick)

My Double, My Brother is an alternative indie band based out of Long Beach, California. After meeting in college and playing together in their school's music conservatory, the band started rehearsing at an old church in Whittier. They soon moved into a house in Fullerton to record their debut album What We Found Beneath the Ground and self-released the record in March 2011. After a warm reception, many gigs—including an opening slot for mewithoutYou—and a successful Kickstarter campaign, My Double, My Brother released Infinite Line EP and started recording their follow-up LP with producer Jon O’Brien in Orange County at the Music Box.

The band released their sophomore LP Shelves in February 2015.

It’s like this: New Beat Fund is more than just a band.

Yeah, the four sun-bleached, good time boys from LA with the colorful hair and the funky clothes play music, travel the country, have a new album called Sponge Fingerz, and are best friends and brothers as well (half of them by blood), but this thing they ride with is way deeper than any of that. It’s who they are, what they think, how they dress; it’s where they come from, and how they live their lives. And, even if you didn’t already know it, New Beat Fund is who you are, and how you live your life, too. But we’ll get to that part.

New Beat Fund birthed when a piggy bank with the words "New Beat Fund" encrypted on it was catapulted into the facade of a corporate building. No joke. Jeff Laliberte, his brother Paul, Shelby and Michael have been at it for a couple years now, releasing an EP Coinz, and touring with the likes of blink-182 and 3OH!3, but they go way deeper than that. They trust each other on a supreme level, and even though their business is that of getting you hyped up, helping you chill, setting the mood to lay back with your girl or guy, or just letting you be you, they take that business seriously. “That’s the whole point and the reason that we’re in this,” says Paul, “to grow with a culture. And to also influence that culture rather than just hit at a surface level.”

“When people meet us, they say, ‘You guys are weird, but it’s fun!’” says Michael. “We want people to be cool with being weird, and thinking about things differently. The name of our record is Sponge Fingerz. What the fuck is that? It’s what we are as a band, there’s no definition—we’re able to be free. We wrote the record in Topanga Canyon—the freest place ever—we live in Southern California…that’s the whole vibe of our band. Just being weird and free.”

That freedom is the first thing you notice when listening to Sponge Fingerz, which was co-produced by Matt Wallace (Faith No More, Maroon 5) at LA’s legendary Sound City Studios and mixed by Tony Hoffer (Foster the People, Beck.) The band finds inspiration across the musical spectrum, shoving it all in a blender to cook up a colorful mash-up they call “G-Punk.” The vibe jumps from track to track—sometimes within the same song, or even the same verse—covering all the band’s favorite bases, like if you drew a huge baseball diamond over SoCal and swung for the fences. First base might be the surf-rock and dub-heavy vibes of the coastline, while rounding second brings up the hip-hop beats of South Central. Sprint over to third and pick up on the arty, indie hip and punk stuff from the city’s downtown heart. Finally, slide headfirst into the garage pop and heartfelt jams of Ventura County and the Valley, the band’s true home.

“It’s not just punk rock, or indie, or weird ass psychedelic art. We were all exposed to different things growing up, so we didn’t choose to only go in one direction,” says Shelby.

“We don’t claim any certain scene,” adds Michael, “and that’s kind of what we represent as a band, especially for kids who are figuring out who they are and where they fit in this weird ass world. We can hang with all of it and show people that’s OK to do. Let’s play how we play as individual musicians, and let’s write about our lives and go in that direction and not think about it too much. And this is what came out.”

The album blasts off with “Any Day,” a funky breakup anthem about finding your footing. The song itself was an early demo that was cast aside, but finally found its own groove at the last minute during pre-production when the band bought some dancehall albums for 50 cents at a nearby head shop. “The dancehall groove just laid the song out in front of us,” says Jeff. “It’s about when you’re right at that post-breakup thick of it, that moment where you look back and you finally see what it is. That switch when you’re done, you’re not lingering.”

In contrast, “It’s Cool” came together quickly. The song’s creation serves as a blueprint for how the band works best. “At the time, we were in a bedroom so we didn’t have the opportunity to jam it out, and we were fucking around with sampling and just had this mood and started writing to it,” says Jeff. “We all usually come together and build tracks like that. We start pretty simple, lyrics or melodies or beat, and we all color in the picture. If you had a sketch or a pencil drawing, we all come in with colors or additives and finish the painting, and then there’s the song.”

“Sikka Taking the Hard Way” shines, too, with its with its funky dub breakdown and noodling electric guitars, and its celebration of overcoming whatever obstacles life can throw at you: “I tell myself that it’s alright/it’s OK/there’s no way/I’m stumbling back now/I’ll figure it out.”

Then there’s “Halloween Birthdaze,” with its Red Hot Chili Peppers-worthy chorus, and the catchy, stoner shrugs of “Friends in High Places,” which showcases the band’s love of hip-hop. “It paints a picture of someone who is less fortunate but has the support system that they can find happiness in,” says Paul, before his brother finishes his thought: “When you got nothing but you have everything.”

Jeff sums it up like this: “We want everyone to be into our music. The word ‘pretentious’ is the worst fucking word I have ever heard. We want people to feel at home when they come to our shows, like they can do whatever they want at a New Beat Fund show. We want to be an unpretentious band that makes people feel honest emotions. Come to our show and join an experience and let you just be you. Have a good time and relate to our music.”

Yeah, it’s like that.