With the first day of CMJ underway, we’ve put together a list of nine showcases going on today that you should take some time out to see! We’ve included some FREE showcases for those of you who have not purchased a CMJ badge this year, but keep in mind, some shows do have an age restriction (which we have included as well)! If you attend any of these showcases, reach out to us on our Twitter and let us know what new favorite band you have been introduced to!
Official CMJ Showcase When: 12pm
Where: Rockwood Music Hall
Cost: FREE
Artists: Keys & Corridors (12pm), Playboy Manbaby
(12:45pm), Captain Squeegee (1:30pm), Fairy Bones (2:15pm), Valise (3pm), Amy
& The Engine (3:45pm)
Link: http://bit.ly/1OuGnev Additional Info: 21+
Pianos CMJ Kickoff
Party When: Doors 12:30pm
Where: Pianos
Cost: FREE
Artists: Robbing Millions (1pm), Good Morning (1:45pm),
Caveboy (2:30pm), Them Bruins (3:15pm), Slum Sociable (4pm), Crooked Colours
(4:45pm), Cosmo Sheldrake (5:30pm)
Link: http://on.fb.me/1jvHFso
Rhyme & Reason
Records CMJ Day Party When: 1pm
Where: Pianos
Cost: FREE
Artists: Golden Bloom (1pm), Holiday Mountain (1:50pm), The
Suffers (2:40pm), Catey Shaw (3:30pm), Kid In The Attic (4:20pm), Fiction Plane
(5:10pm), Say Girl Say (6om)
Link: http://bit.ly/1k0auO4
DoNYC CMJ Official
Kickoff Party When: Doors 6pm
Where: The Delancey
Cost: FREE
Artists playing downstairs: Village Psychic (6pm), Original
Sharks (6:30pm), MPV (7pm), Life Size Maps (7:45pm), Narc Twain (8:30pm),
Silverbird (9:15pm), King Neptune (10:15pm), City of the Sun (11:15pm), Arrows
of Love (12:15am)
Artists playing main room: Growing Stone (7:30pm), Lance
Neptune (8:30pm)
DJs playing: Edward Askew, Dirty Boogie, Big Vic, Tek It
Izi, K Styles
Link: http://bit.ly/1NaWE5b
Banners Showcase When: 7pm
Where: Pianos
Cost: $10 cover for showroom, free for upstairs
Artists playing showroom: Yabadum (7pm), Methyl Ethyl
(7:45pm), High Waisted (8:30am), Chastity (9:15am), Great Caesar (10pm), Sizzy
Rocket (10:45pm), Mainland (11:30pm), Crooked Colours (12:15am), Gilligan Moss
(1am), Matty Rico + DJ Set (1:45am)
Artists playing upstairs: Ben Talmi (7:30pm), Tora (8:15pm),
Jack and Eliza (9pm), Brave Shores (9:45pm), Briana Marela (10:30pm)
Link: http://bit.ly/1gSowzo TJO Showcase
When: 7pm
Where: The Rock Shop
Cost: Free w/badge, $10 for non badge-holders
Artists: Dreams of June (7pm), Bree and the Whatevers (7:45pm), Out
of System Transfer (8:20), Polyvox (8:55pm), Best Behavior (9:35pm), Nightmares
of Nashville (10:25pm), The Tins (11:15pm), Howth (12am)
Additional info:21+
Data Touring + Siren
Sounds Showcase When: Doors 7:30pm
Where: Arlene’s Grocery
Cost: FREE
Artists: Swizzymack (8pm), Wes Walker & DYL (9pm),
Weekend Money (9:45pm), Denitia & Sene (10:30pm), Nina Sky (11:15pm)
Link: http://bit.ly/1RF7J05 Additional info: 21+
BMI + HD Radio Showcase When: 8pm
Where: Knitting Factory
Cost: Free w/badge, $10 for non badge-holders
Artists: Cultfever (8pm), Sizzy Rocket (8:50pm), Audiodamn! (9:40pm), Secret Weapons (10:30pm), Frances Rose (11:20pm), Chrome Pony (12:10am)
Link: http://bit.ly/1iZT97k
Music is GREAT Britain
Showcase When: 8pm
Where: The Living Room
Cost: FREE
Artists: Stealing Sheep (8pm), Garden of Elk (8:45pm), Jake
Isaac (9:30pm), Sykes (10:15pm), Hooton Tennis Club (11pm)
Link: http://bit.ly/1QmApdg
Taking place over Labor Day Weekend, UTOPIAfest returns for its seventh annual festival in Utopia, TX! Thoughtfully designed to allow creativity, music, and new friendships to flourish in a unique and intimate setting, UTOPiAfest is bringing back the basics by showing an unparalleled hospitality to both artists and music fans. Festival attendees can enjoy their free camping (cabin and RV lodging is also available), and while there are plenty of options for dining in their food forest, everyone is welcome to bring their own drinks and food under the festival’s open BYOB policy. Now does that sound like a good time or what??
Below you can find the official line-up for the festival (including performances by Explosions In The Sky, Wild Child, Holiday Mountain, Of Montreal and The Suffers, to name a few) and camping information! To purchase tickets, click here!
Official Lineup: Explosions in the Sky, Leftover Salmon (2 Nights), Tune-Yards, RJD2, Charles Bradley & his Extraordinaires, Of Montreal, Man Man, Wild Child, WhoMadeWho, Valerie June, The Suffers, Mikhael Paskalev, Holiday Mountain, The Sheepdogs, Monophonics, Calliope Musicals, Hard Proof, Sphynx, Vinyl Williams, Sip Sip, Les Hay Babies, Netherfriends, Chipper Jones, Sid Fly, Riders Against the Storm, The Deer, Transcontinental Trip, Dimitri’s Ascent, Bone Fur and Feathers, Kupira Marimba, and Blunt Force.
Main Festival Information: UTOPiAfest’s CEA (Chief Experiential Architect), Travis Sutherland says, “We think it should be more meaningful than just watching a show. It should be a place where individuals and communities grow and learn. Participants should feel free to be and express their truest selves, and contribute to the experience…The experience should be accessible to all ages, and enjoyed with your whole family. You should never have to feel crowded or wait unreasonably long in a line. We believe you should be able to bring your own beer and cook your own food. We believe a music festival should be seamless, effortless, and timeless.”The festival is also offering a limited number of Hassle Free Tent Rentals, which include a pre-set up tent, cots or air mattresses, chairs, coolers, and a lantern.
Our favorite colorful trio, Holiday Mountain, has premiered a brand new track today! The new single, titled “Get Really Freaky,” premiered exclusively over on Interview Magazine where the band discusses their roots, their writing process, their fashion and even their style icons!
To read the full interview and listen to “Get Really Freaky,” click here!
We spoke with dance pop trio, Holiday Mountain, about their upcoming EP, how the band prepares for festivals, and some of their favorite acts they caught at South By Southwest. Check out the interview below!
You guys have such an energetic and whimsical presence about yourselves, which is refreshing to see. When forming the band, how did you decide that this would be the type of music you guys would be creating? Thank you! We really appreciate hearing that. It definitely didn’t happen over night. We went through a couple different phases of wiggling around in our collective musical space. I think it just took hours and hours and hours of playing together and discovering that we all really love hip hop, electronic music, and pop hits. As far as the energy level, it’s like this explosion of stomach butterflies that we have little control over. Something or someone else truly takes over- I recently watched a video of a performance of ours and thought “wow! who is that crazy bitch!?”
Even just the thought of getting on stage makes us wanna jump around!!
South By Southwest is filled with tons of incredible acts, were you excited to catch any artists in particular? Did you stumble across any new artists that you are now a fan of? There were certainly a lot of shows we wanted to check out-mostly rap shows, but we were basically running from gig to gig the whole time. We played a show with an NY funk/soul inspired act called Great Caesar-they were awesome! Also, we got to meet the Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote-we love hearing a band that can play the $hit out of their instruments!!
It’s been a while since we’ve seen an album from you guys. Is there any new music in the works, possibly a new album? If so, what information can you share with us about it? Yasssss! We’ve been working hard for several years on our new recordings and are so excited to announce that we’ll be releasing ‘You Be You Pt.1’ on April 28th! The EP is available for pre-order on iTunes. There will be a ‘You Be You Pt.2’ to follow in the near future as well. We worked with producer CJ Eiriksson, who is most well known for his work with U2. He taught us so much about perfecting song form and flow. We put our soul and sweat into these heavy dance tracks and are so grateful the time has come to share them with the world.
You’re no stranger to playing festivals, having previously performed at CMJ and South By Southwest last year. Do you guys prepare differently for festivals versus any other show you would normally play? We often find festivals to be more about physical stamina and endurance-similar to an athlete, we prepare for game time with a lot of emergen-C, high protein snacks, stretching, and lots and lots of coffee!!
What can we expect next from Holiday Mountain? Soon we’ll be releasing our music video for ‘Feelin’ It’ which was shot with a 360° camera by Onion Creek Productions. We also have an Austin residency every Saturday in April at the Scoot Inn with national headliners like Man Man, Turquoise Jeep, MIS, Toy Selectah, and Suffers. Lastly, we have a 2 month tour to support ‘You Be You Pt.1’ from the beginning of May-June; we’ll be playing all around the US as well as parts of Canada and Mexico and we can’t wait to sweatily group hugs tons of new friends.
Psych-dub trio, Holiday Mountain, have released information about their upcoming EP, You Be You, Part 1. The EP, produced by the Grammy-nominated CJ Eiriksson (U2, Phish), will be available April 28th!
To pre-order You Be You, Part 1, and grab an instant download of the bands song “Slow Motion Thugs,” click here! Below you can find the album artwork and track listing!
Track listing:
1. My Body
2. Feelin’ It
3. Starlight
4. Get Really Freaky
5. Slow Motion Thugs
6. Bug
7. With You (ft. Wild Child)
It’s that time of year again and South By Southwest (SXSW) is just around the corner! We’ve decided to bring back our “50 Acts You Won’t Want To Miss” feature, which will run from today until March 16th, the day before the Music section of SXSW begins! Check out our second installment (acts 11-20, in no particular order) of artists we think you need to check out below! For installment one, click here!
*Note: some acts we’ve included are performing at South By So What?! and not South By South West. However, since the festival takes place during the week of South By Southwest, we’ve decided to still include them in our list!
Down and Outlaws It’s safe to say that 2015 is a pretty incredible year for Down and
Outlaws. Not only is the band performing at four showcases next week, but they will
also be releasing their highly anticipated debut full length later this year.
Our favorite fun fact about their album? It was recorded at Studio 606, aka the
recording studio owned by Dave Grohl. Needless to say, we can only expect
bigger and better things from this band. Keep them on your radar. Where to catch Down and Outlaws: 3.17 – 4:45pm – Big Picture Media @ The
Blind Pig; 3.18 – 11pm – Red Gorilla Music Festival Showcase @ Touche; 3.20 –
Noon – Another Planet Entertainment Showcase @ Red Eyed Fly; 3.22 – 5:15pm –
Bon Vivants Showcase @ Half Step.
Uh Huh Baby Yeah!
A little bit Head Automatica, a little bit Escape the Fate, a little bit
pop-punk, Louisville four-piece Uh-Huh Baby Yeah! find their sound by not
allowing themselves to be pigeonholed into just one. While I’m not entirely
sure just exactly what’s happening when I listen to them, that should translate
into an interesting set. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Where to catch Uh Huh Baby Yeah!: 3.18 – The Side Bar; 3.19 – SXSCongress @
Doc’s Motorworks ; 3.20 @ Icenhauer’s; 3.21 – MerchCat Indie Showcase @ Lucky
Lounge
Colony House
From the first time I stumbled across Colony House’s album, I’ve been
hooked. Whether it is the nostalgic lyrics of personal struggles and heartbreak
or the blend of pop, folk, and indie genres, there’s just something about this
band that has me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what they produce next.
It’s easy for me to say I’m jealous of anyone and everyone who gets to catch
one of their sets. Where to catch Colony House: 3.18 – 10pm – BMI Showcase @ Bar 96; 3.19 –
5:40pm – IFC Showcase/Party Fairground @ Palm Park; 3.20 – 3:45pm – Audiotree @
Licha’s Cantina; 3.20 – 8pm – Rachel Ray Party @ Rachel Ray House; 3.21 – 3pm – Noistrade @ Blackheart.
Mideau
We were introduced to this band not too long ago and they’re one that we
were pleasantly surprised by. This duo, comprised of Spencer Harrison and
Libbie Linton, deliver bright, ambient, hooky tracks to please fans of anybody
from A Fine Frenzy to St. Vincent to Eisley or anywhere in between. The band
creates an oddly hypnotic sound that is both complex and melodic – unusual, yet
beautiful. Judge for yourself. Where to catch Mideau: 3.20 – 2pm – Powerhouse Party @ Fado’s; 3.20
– 12am – Official Play @ Trophy Club.
Set It Off
When it comes to artists who have progressed and change their sound over
time, I immediately think of Set It Off. From their initial pop punk/symphonic
rock days to their orchestral rock days to whatever you want to classify their
current sound as, this is a band that continues to grow and progress in the
best way possible. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this band a handful of times
and they put on one of the best shows you will ever see. If you can’t make it
out to South By, don’t fret! The band recently announced they would be joining
this summer’s Vans Warped Tour. I suggest that you NOT miss out on their set. You
will hate yourself if you do. Where to catch Set It Off: 3.20 – South By So What?! @ QuikTrip Park.
Holiday Mountain
This past October, I was able to catch Holiday Mountain perform a short set
at CMJ and was amazed at how energetic and uplifting this trio truly was. As
someone who is (semi) obsessed with the music and fashion of the 80s, this band
makes you want to grab your legwarmers, glitter, and teasing comb and basically
go ham. No complaints. Where to catch Holiday Mountain: 3.17 – 2:30pm – Paypal Party @ Empire
Control Room; 3.17 – 4:10pm – Big Picture Media Showcase @ The Blind Pig; 3.19
– 2:15pm – Flatstock Stage @ Convention Center; 3.19 – 5:30pm @ Tiniest Little
Bar in Texas; 3.20 – 9:20pm –Clean
Bill Music/Convoy Group Showcase @ Palm Door on Sabine; 3.21 – 2pm – Best of
Austin Party @ Holy Mountain; 3.21 – 6pm – Future of Music Showcase @ Shiner
Saloon.
The Stone Foxes
This San Fran band is fully dedicated to keeping rock engaged and
succulently alive. They achieve this in a multitude of ways including raising
awareness of hunger and homelessness on tour, personally delivering any and all
food that was collected, and by staying true to their roots when creating their
music. The band doesn’t release their new album until August, but in the
meantime, they will be releasing a new song on the first Friday of every month.
Check out the hashtag “#FoxesFirstFriday” to hear some of the new tunes. Where to catch The Stone Foxes: 3.20 – Party In My Pants @ Little Woodrow’s
Austin;
Frankie
Just a few days ago, Frankie released a brand new track over on Nylon.com
where she is referred to as “the musical embodiment of California.” Now, never
having been to California, I can’t say I agree with this; however, Frankie is
most certainly a breath of fresh air. Not only has she written every song
herself, but also her music is filled with empowerment and energy. If listening
to her music has us dancing in our seats, we could only imagine what it would
be like to see her perform live. Where to catch Frankie: 3.18 – 5pm @ The Blackheart; 3.18 – 6pm @
Shiner’s Saloon; 3.19 – 4:50pm – SpokesBUZZ Showcase @ 512 Bar; 3.19 – 9pm @
Maggie Mae’s; 3.20 – DeliRadio Party @ The Jackalope; 3.21 – Brooklyn Country
Cantina @ Licha’s Cantina; 3.21 – 8pm – Powerhouse Party @ Peckerheads.
Parlour Tricks
Parlour Tricks are no stranger to playing music festivals. They’re
previously performed at Bonnaroo, Summerfest, Lollapalooza, CMJ, and last
year’s South By Southwest. Self-described as “PRETTY/GRITTY” (AND FROM NEW YORK
CITY), this sextet blends dirty synth, clean rhythms, beautiful vocal
harmonies, and thumping drums into an end-result that is inarguably
irresistible. Where to catch Parlour Tricks: 3.17 – 8pm – Conflict of Interest @ Hype
Hotel; 3.18 – 5pm – Annual Back Alley Bash @ Tequila Mockingbird’s; 3.19 –
2:55pm – Big Picture Media Showcase @ Bling Pig; 3.19 – 11pm – Bar None Records
Showcase @ Valhalla; 3.20 – 7pm – Rachel Ray’s Feedback House.
Fatherson
Making the trek all the way from Glasgow, these three have been making
waves throughout Scotland, thanks in-part to opening slots for Panic! at the
Disco, Twin Atlantic, and a handful of other notable acts. After the release of
2014’s beautiful debut I Am An Island, it would be wise to check these guys out
while they’re here. Where to catch Fatherson: 3.17 – 2pm – Big Picture Media Showcase @
The Blind Pig; 3.18 – 3:50pm – Daytime Rock Showcase @ British Embassy; 3.19 –
8pm – APA Agency Showcase @ The North Door; 3.22 – 8:30pm – Conscious
Immaturity Charity Showcase @ Stubb’s.
![5 Questions With: Holiday Mountain [SXSW Edition]](https://thisislucyoutloud.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/holiday-mountain.jpg?w=540&h=270&crop=1)
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