Today, we have a double feature in store in the video department. First off, we have a stellar stop motion animated video for Dr. Dog’s Do the Trick, which stars many of your favorite old school Star Wars action figures. I’m no expert, but this looks like a dead ringer recreation of Empire Strikes Back. From execution to attention to detail; this my friends is a small work of genius.
Next up, HT faves Head for the Hills are in need a little extra scrill to finish up their third album, so they put together a nice Kickstarter video for support. Here’s a look at the sound and vision of the work in progress from one of Colorado’s best new bluegrass bands.
Ever the hotbed for up and coming bluegrass bands, there’s a new Colorado string band to pull up on your radar screen – Head for the Hills. This quartet of high country pickers have made a splash around bluegrass circles in recent years, having recorded their debut at Billy Nershi’s Colorado studio with Drew Emmitt behind the boards producing, being selected as a SXSW Critic’s Pick Must-See by the Austin Statesmen and Colorado’s best bluegrass band two years running by Denver’s the Westword and getting invited to play their first Telluride Bluegrass Festival this summer.
We caught up with mandolin player Mike Chappell to talk about the latest big news out of the Head for the Hills camp – the band’s first-ever live release. In conjunction with the album, HftH also shared an early look at a mini-doc they created in support of the new album.
Hidden Track: It’s great to hear you guys have a live album on the way. I can’t wait to hear it. What are some of the notable performances you selected and what made them stand out in your minds for inclusion?
Mike Chappell: We are very excited about this live album! It definitely has a lot of different musical flavors on it. The way that we selected material for this live album was by recording a total of five shows. We had a large amount of material to choose from between those shows so the process definitely left some things out that sounded good.
In our never-ending quest to dig up some great bands that cost less than a corned beef sandwich at Katz’s Deli, we bring you another round of Blips. Blips highlights some great bands that are largely still in their larvae stage, but will soon morph into their beautiful butterfly. In this edition, we have some really cool new music, so take a sec, poke around the bands’ various websites, and see what you think of these three under the radar acts…
Not only do We Were Promised Jetpacks boast one of the finest aeronautical band names since Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, but they share a very similar sound with Frightened Rabbit – albeit on overdrive – as a) they possess the requisite Scottish accents and b) often construct their songs similarly by building progressions via scalar chord combinations. In other words, they’ll start with a chord and structure a progression by adding and subtracting notes within that same scale. The result translates to unique and peaceful indie pop.
If there’s anyone besides me out there counting the days down to the release of Frightened Rabbit’s third full-length as your most anticipated of the year, these guys ought to buy you some time. The comparisons should come as no surprise as the two bands are label mates, thereby officially making Fat Cat Records of the most promising indie labels today. That makes two terrific Scottish bands without ceilings in as many years (three if you count the Twilight Sad, but I’m not quite sold on them yet).
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
READ ON for more Blips-worthy bands – Lubriphonic & Head For The Hills…
