SFTB #3 - Colorstore/Sweetbleeders Double Feature

So since I fell short and didn't do last night's post, I decided this would be a good time to revisit the appearances of Colorstore and Sweetbleeders. Two for one. Like this blog post. Here's why:

I first heard Sweetbleeders at Stinkweed's during their annual sale at the old Apache Blvd location. I remember being completely immersed in all they had going on and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what they were called. I eventually caught up with them a few years later, buying the CD and rocking it on The Basement. It was unpretentious and one of those records that made you feel like you were floating.

I eventually got them on an episode of The Basement and was surprised when I saw Mark from Colorstore there since he played with them. I hadn't had a chance to see them live since the Stinkweed's performance and didn't put it together until I saw him there. It turns out that they are, for lack of a better term, inversed of each other, with Robin taking lead in Sweetbleeders and Mark taking lead in Colorstore. It may not be easy to hear on first listen of both bands, but each album has distinct differences, even with the same minds creating them in different capacities. It's fun to take the two and make it a point to listen carefully, which is what music should be anyway.

Later that semester I had Colorstore on, with Mark at the healm, and used the song "Lunatic" on the Sounds from the Basement compilation. The whole situation got me thinking, especially after moving to NYC, how interesting a scene Arizona has. The biggest difference between what should be the music capital of the world and AZ is that musicians are actually fostered in the desert.

It seems as though every band has a member of another band that has played with another band who collaborates with someone in another band to form a band that played with the lead singer's side project. You'd go to parties and meet other musicians and the bands were careful to look out for one another. One of my favorite things, although I don't know if it exists anymore, is a group of a few art district bands that created a checking account to save up and support each other when they go on tour. That is trust, and that is what a community is about.

I haven't felt that here, but maybe I haven't been looking hard enough. I feel like no band is truly a "New York" band, but Arizonans are so proud to be from AZ and anxious to work and create together.

That's really lucky.

Check out more:
www.myspace.com/sweetbleeders
www.myspace.com/colorstore
www.purevolume.com/theblaze1260am

Photos:

Sweetbleeders - Jan 2008

Colorstore - Feb 2008

SFTB #2 : Dear and the Headlights

This day and age, I find it hard to believe that there is any sort of "formula" to exposing music. There are certain ideas that work and some that don't, but we are in an era where there is so much music to consume and so much time needed to do so, from band and consumer alike. It's hard to have conversations with friends in bands about their futures in music because there is no real answer, but for many bands from Arizona, the idea seems to always pop up:

"All we want to do is go by the Dear and the Headlights plan"

Recently, the Phoenix New Times called ,"The most important band in Arizona", and with each step in their career, it's becoming more and more clear that they are. It isn't so much about exactly what tours they are on (well, Warped Tour, Jimmy Eat World, Paramore and Coachella, to name a few) but that they represent so much of what Arizona bands, or any self-supporting band, are. They never really had a "plan". They're just people who stood outside every show with demo CDs for free (which surprisingly isn't as common anymore) They're the ones who played up to 5 or 6 times a week, sometimes without a PA system, sometimes to only 20 kids. They're the people who went from relative obscurity to touring the majority of the year while trying to create new music in the process.

But most of all, they represent that good people and good music do exist in this business and can be successful. It's the core of artist development and a band that I feel represents everything I wanted to do with The Basement. I was lucky enough to have them on not once but TWICE, and work with them in varying capacities over the years. It gets a little sad when I don't see them for several months at a time, but I know that it is possible for a band to be organically grown and fostered and still come out on top.

The song featured on Sounds From The Basement is "Paper Bag", from their Small Steps Heavy Hooves album. I wish I could speak for the music as well as it speaks for itself. Just watch the video above.

More photos from both appearances:
April 2006

April 2006

January 2007

January 2007

www.myspace.com/dearandtheheadlights

SFTB #1 : Skybox and the Secret Past of The Basement

It's only appropriate that I start of my "Sounds from The Basement" series with the band that started it all : Skybox

Originally, The Basement was intended to be a ska/punk specialty show. I grew up in what is lovingly referred to as the "AZ Ska" scene in high school and spent most of my weekends and hostess paychecks on tickets to shows around town. It's actually where the name "The Basement" came from in general, as a tribute to the small stage in the basement of The Nile Theatre in Mesa. I'm sure many people who were around in those days can attest to the fact that despite the fact that the volume of shows increased over the years, not much can compare to nights spent inhaling sweat mixed with cigarette smoke mixed with the smell of Mesa at The Nile. It's when things were truly organic, you found out about shows from people passing out flyers outside and you felt part of a real community.

My very first show was January 22, 2006, shortly after the start of Spring semester of my sophomore year. I slotted a prime-time slot : 8PM-10PM on Sundays. Lots of people home doing homework and directly competing with The Edge 103.9's ska/punk show. I was going to just go off the playlist as planned, but a few weeks prior, I saw that Skybox, a local band that I had worked with on a show the Spring before, was releasing their first full-length CD the Friday after my first show. I really enjoyed them and they got a lot of praise at the show, so I reached out on MySpace (myyyyyyyspaaaaaaace) and asked them to come in and play a few songs and promote since it happened to be the same week. As it were, Skybox had very little to do with ska or punk, but with The Blaze's local show up in question and having done a few misc. in-studios during the Fall, I figured it would be fun.

The morning of the 22nd rolls around and I'm on my way to my horrible retail job, bright and early at 10AM. I have a bad habit of turning off my phone before I go to sleep because my friends have bad habits of texting me at 2AM, so I didn't look at my phone until I stopped at the gas station and saw about 4 missed calls from Tim, the lead singer of Skybox. I check my messages and hear:

"Hey Ashley, it's Tim. So, we're outside The Blaze right now and it's locked. It's about 7:30AM, which I think is when you said to come in but no one's really here, so yeah, call me back."

I quickly called back, freaked out that I had told them 7:30AM, even through I meant 7:30PM. I talk to Tim who realized that their drummer had misread my message (that did say PM) and they had all gotten up, battled their hangovers, and were ready to play at 7:30AM on a Sunday. This still goes down as one of my favorite stories from The Basement. Ever.

Needless to say, they all went home and went back to bed, came back and did an incredible set between my ska/punk music (since I didn't really have a formula at that point) and provided the very first recording of the show that they had up on their MySpace for a while, the songs "Crickets" and "Batman on Crack". "Crickets" is the song featured on Sounds from The Basement and is a fuzzy, organic tune with so much amazing instrumentation, it takes a few listens just to pick up everything that was going on in round-robin they set up in the room.

Ultimately, this performance inspired me to change the format of my show to one hour ska/punk, one hour local music and bring in more guests as the semester progressed. Eventually (as we all do) I grew out of ska/punk music and as I dug deeper into the local scene, I decided to dedicate the entire show to local music and a weekly live performance/interview. Skybox made me realize the kind of resource I had and the good people I could work with and expose some great music.

Skybox has since moved to Chicago (and MO, respectively), gone through a few line-up changes and shifted the direction of the music. They are gearing up to release their next full-length, with the lead track "In a Dream" released for free on their website and is an incredible example of what this band is capable of. They continue to play shows in the Chicago-land area (including recently with Ben Folds) and I am anxious to see what's next.

Check out more at:
www.skyboxmusic.com
www.myspace.com/skybox
www.purevolume.com/theblaze1260am to download "Crickets" for free.

In a Dream

Photos from the first episode of "The Basement"
1/22/06:

The very first playlist

More playlist, more ska ska ska

Skybox performance (and not enough headphones, as always)

Skybox and I, them holding an "I Listen to The Blaze 1260AM" license plate holder, me wearing stupid pants

Goodbye "Sounds from the Basement"

So begins my triumphant return to blogging . . .

Many of you who knew me in college knew that I worked at The Blaze, ASU campus radio during all four years. And those of you who were around near my final semester probably saw about 9,000 messages about my show "The Basement" and a compilation of live performances that has been available online called "Sounds from the Basement".
www.purevolume.com/theblaze1260am

Each week I would bring in a local Arizona band and sit down, talk about their music, play album tracks and give them the mic for 30 minutes to play an acoustic set. It felt like a waste to have all of these saved up just for me, so I put them all up for FREE download on PureVolume and had a nice release show at Modified (which coincidentally was my last show in Phoenix). It was a great night with great friends and the compilation has existed as a time-stamp on some of the bands that have made huge waves in the last year or so since it's been out : What Laura Says, Dear and the Headlights, Kinch, Skybox, This Century, Raining and OK, Captain Squeegee, Matt Reveles and more.

In order to post all of these for download (about 17 total, plus videos and pictures) I had to buy a subscription to PureVolume, which expires on September 15, 2009. I've decided to take the page down entirely at that point not only to say goodbye for myself, but to let the music exist where it did and encourage the next wave of whatever that is to continue on.

If you are interested in hearing some really cool, organic tunes, you now have approximately 30 days to visit, stream and download. I had a conversation wih a friend about what band may put Arizona on the map again, and you have about 17 here that have a fair shot. You decide.

That being said, I'm going to update my blog each day with either a picture or video from the bands featured and some that aren't and share some stories about them as I had gotten to know them over the years. I want to introduce you to some new music that just so happens to be concentrated into this one compilation. I hope, even if only for a few people, that it's a reminder that music exists through PEOPLE, not a machine, and college radio is as organic as you will get. For those of you who have just met me in New York, this pretty much meant the world to me, and will probably always make me the most proud as I continue on in music.

Time starts . . . now.
-Ashley