Audiences will get Anchored at Altar Bar

Audiences will get Anchored at Altar Bar

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/04/21/audiences-will-get-anchored-altar-bar-0

Anchored
Altar Bar
April 25, 6:30 p.m.
$17
(412) 263-2877

The band Anchored markets itself as a band that plays “dirty Southern modern rock,” but the newly formed five-person band doesn’t feel that’s the best way to describe its music.

“It’s Southern pop rock, pretty much,” singer Brandan Narrell said. “They put dirty in because of the first single [titled “Dirty in Texas”]. But it’s a clean record with no swearing. It’s about happy and kind of chill songs where you could be on a boat fishing or in a club.”

Anchored is Southern-oriented in many ways, according to Narrell. The band formed in Texas nine months ago, gaining support through radio shows before beginning its first tour.
The band will perform at the Altar Bar along with the groups Saliva, October and Bishop Clay as part of its kick-off tour.

But Dallas, where the crowds were especially fun, had plenty to offer the band, Narrell said.

“It’s always a wild show,” he said. “All the bands around [Dallas] are super hardworking and nice. With some scenes you never know, but I love all the guys and bands.”

As Anchored tours and brings its music to other cities, the members hope to discover welcoming music scenes other than that of their home-base city. The band brings plenty of its personality on tour to welcome new fans.

“At some shows we do a Texas BBQ so we can get closer to the fans,” Narrell said, explaining he hopes the band will have cookouts and grill by the tour buses so that fans can come speak directly to them and “just have fun” getting to know the members.

The tour will also include quirky merchandise that anyone can buy, including stylish undergarments and condoms, Narrell said. It’s the merchandise and music that will give the band a strong financial base.

“For every guy in the band, music is our life,” Narrell said. “It’s cliché, but it’s true for us. We can’t go away until we get this out. That’s why we try to sell all of our merchandise as cheap as possible, and we also care about the fashion. You may not like the band, but you may like the products.”

The band’s tour will also be the only place to find its new album for at least three more weeks. The album is actually the reason the band exists, according to Narrell.

“It just sort of happened,” Narrell said about the band’s formation. “I wrote the whole album about a year ago. The [other members] came in after-the-fact. The band was created because of the record.”

And since he was composing and writing it, Narrell’s life became the focus of “Listen To This.”

“I wrote the album based off of life at home,” Narrell said. “This time I did it in a home studio. So I was in the room 12 hours a day for a month. Every word on the album is true, and it happened because of my daughters or my wife. I tried to put a twist on it to where you can relate it to anything.”

The stories about relationships and everyday life are all stories that could happen to anyone or anything, Narrell said.

“This album wasn’t that hard to write, because for three years I wanted to do an album like this,” Narrell said, explaining he used to perform in a band, Advent, that sounded more like Drowning Pool.

Now that the album is composed and recorded, the band is on tour for the first time. All of the members enjoy similar things, and although they currently spend their weekends on the tour buses, they would rather cook, go fishing or go out with other bands, Narrell said.

“Everybody’s got humor,” he said. “You’ll see that [if you see us perform]. We’re just a bunch of good old boys that like to play music.”

Too Late for Roses 'Debut' a dissapointing album

Too Late for Roses 'Debut' a dissapointing album

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/04/13/too-late-roses-debut-dissapointing-album

Too Late for Roses
Debut
LPE
Sounds Like: Pacific Dust
Grade: C+

Too Late for Roses? But the band’s album Debut is just debuting now; don’t they deserve roses?

Described as alternative and punk, Too Late for Roses kicks off its album Debut with a song that fits its genre mold. “Take Me Out” runs through swiftly with a solid-sounding instrumental mashup of guitars, drums and the other necessities of just about any punk band.

The vocals sound like they were run through a synthesizer, blending into the music. When are they understandable? When the singer screams, “Take me out.”

The band tones it down for most of the album, begging the question: Why compose two hard punk and techno style songs that don’t fit in with the rest of the album?

None of the other songs really tune into the “punk” genre, instead becoming soft alternative and guitar based. Even then, whatever the band members sing is often not noteworthy. It’s easier to listen to their music and stare into space daydreaming than it is to pay attention to their lyrics.

But the last track on the album, “Winter Tide,” is almost 20 minutes long. And while it starts this finale off with a fantastic acoustic guitar, it fills about 15 minutes with what sounds like static. What was the point, guys? Static is for bad cable connections, not album releases that need to make a good impression.

This album isn’t bad for a “debut” — but seriously, it lost a ton of points for static.

Mucisian Votolato stays true to folk music passion

Mucisian Votolato stays true to folk music passion

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/04/11/mucisian-votolato-stays-true-folk-music-passion

Guitarist Rocky Votolato has always felt that he belonged in the folk music scene.

Even when he performed as the guitarist for punk rock bands like Waxwing, he wrote acoustic songs on the side for himself. Votolato described the composition as an unconscious process.

“I played in a bunch of punk bands, but on the side, I was always writing country-sounding songs,” Votolato said. “I was always writing on the acoustic guitar. My mom bought an acoustic guitar from a pawn shop, and that was always the guitar I was writing songs on in my bedroom.”

In 2003, Votolato emerged as a solo artist with songs that combined his life and fictional aspects. He has used this songwriting style ever since while slowly gaining support.

The singer prefers to perform in small venues, often participating in charity shows. Ten percent of the royalties from tomorrow’s show will go to One Day Foundation’s wages to help fight extreme global poverty. Votolato said he does not consider himself a large-scale, famous singer.

“I’ve always been kind of under the radar with my career,” he said. “I do good in a lot of places in the country, but I started out kind of subtle and it was a slow climb.”

Votolato stayed positive and always had help from a support system of friends, family, fans and reliable music labels. His name is known in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Even though his name has gone international, he still holds to one of the values of folk song writing — closeness.
“It’s still at a level that it’s very intimate,” Votolato said about his music. “Most of my shows are from 200 to 500 people. I like that right now. I’m happy with it. If it continues to grow, I’ll try to do two nights in each city since I like small venues. It’s just me and my guitar.”

Votolato said he also loves the “sense of community” he creates with his music.

“The communication at shows, having a group of people there to experience art and take away something meaningful” is his favorite part of the shows, Votolato said.

“That’s what drew me in originally,” he said. “It has the ability to change people’s lives, hopefully for the better.”

He said his own life has taken extremely fortunate turns.” He balances time between tours and playing music with being with his wife and children in Seattle.

“In Seattle, it’s beautiful,” Votolato said, explaining he dislikes seeing scenic landscapes disappear, and he is lucky to be able to walk in the forests with his children. He plays at least once per year for a show that contributes its proceeds to conservation efforts.

Most important to Votolato is having good music to perform.

“It sounds obvious, but there are people who want to market and have a plan,” Votolato said. “But I think it comes back to the songs. People know it when they hear a good song, and if they feel it, you have a shot at a career. I stay focused on the music and writing, and stay true to what’s in my heart with it.”

Votolato’s music career thus far has given him a sense of longevity, and he said he is grateful that his life has worked out the way it has.

“I knew from a young age this is what I wanted to do,” Votolato said. “When I had kids, I struggled with the idea of if I could take the chance [of performing for a living]. It’s a big risk, especially if you have kids. I worked other jobs, but no other vocation I really wanted to do. I got my degree in English literature, so maybe I could have taught, but I don’t know. For me, I’ve made up my mind.”

Share Heart-filled adaptation of 'Wizard of Oz' comes to Heinz Hall

Heart-filled adaptation of 'Wizard of Oz' comes to Heinz Hall

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/03/28/heart-filled-adaptation-wizard-oz-comes-heinz-hall

photo credit: Courtesy Peter Coombs

The cast of 'The Wizard of Oz' takes a trip down the yellow brick road.

“Wizard of Oz”
March 20 – April 4
Heinz Hall
Presented by PNC Broadway Across America - Pittsburgh
(412) 392-4900 or at pgharts.com
$27.50 through Pitt Arts

Just as the Tin Man embarks on a journey to gain a heart in the perennial classic “The Wizard of Oz,” Peter Gosik sees his involvement in the musical in a similar fashion, and he would like audiences to take away a message he has learned from the show.

“Everybody, as we grow up, has to have a heart and [has] to love people,” Gosik said.

All of the characters — and all of the heart — from the classic 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” are singing and dancing their way into Heinz Hall in a family musical meant to bring the magic of the movie to the stage.

Gosik, who graduated from the University of Michigan in 2008 and plays the Tin Woodman, or the Tin Man as he is more commonly known, said the stage version of “The Wizard of Oz” only adds to the fantastic elements of the film.

“You can’t get away from the movie, and you don’t want to because it’s such a classic piece of culture,” Gosik said. “We keep and honor everything wonderful about the film, but we do things that you can only do on a live stage.”

The additions to the stage show include an extra dance number (“Jitterbug”) that was filmed but never added to the final version of the movie, as well as extra lines of dialogue that flesh out the characters.

“You get to know the characters better than you do in the movie,” he said.

According to Gosik, this also helps the theater make the production unique to that particular creative team.

“You don’t want to go into it trying to copy the movie,” he said. “That is somebody else’s performance, not yours. We’re fortunate in that our script fleshes out [my] character more than in the movie, where they just find him and he comes along. You get backstory.”

The backstory includes a romance that ends with the Wicked Witch casting a spell on the Tin Man and replacing his parts with tin, Gosik said.

“It was a revelation when I read that,” he said. “He really is a real person. Approaching him that way and finding honest emotions, not being a caricature of a walking statue, helped me come at it not from 1939 but in 2010. His quest to find a heart is very special to me.”

The Tin Man travels with Dorothy looking for a heart, only to be told by the Wizard of Oz himself he is lucky not to have one at the end of his journey. The Tin Man, however, says something that strikes Gosik.

“There’s a moment where he says ‘I still want one,’” he said. “For me, that is the message of the show. You have to risk having your heart broken. To me, playing that part is really affirming.”

Gosik grew up watching the film with his mother. He believes the show has something to offer everyone and that “The Wizard of Oz” is not dated, despite its age.

“The ultimate message is that you have all these people who think they are missing something, and I think everybody feels that way — that there’s something wrong with them. What you come to learn is you are good enough; the thing you think you lack has always been there, you have to see it in yourself,” he said.

Gosik also hopes that children who see his show will react the same way he did when, in the second grade, he saw his first musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” with his mother.

“I fell in love right there,” he said. “This is my first tour and I’m glad to do it because of the kids. I hope there are kids who react the same way I did and that I can spark a love of theater, as actors or audience members.”

The Cave Singers bring 'Welcome Joy' on second album

The Cave Singers bring 'Welcome Joy' on second album

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/03/30/cave-singers-bring-welcome-joy-second-album

The Cave Singers

Welcome Joy

Matador Records

Rocks Like: A toned down The Alternate Routes

Grade: B

The Cave Singers deserve to emerge into the spotlight. Welcome Joy is the Seattle-based band’s second album and a welcome new addition to the genre of indie folk. I’ll say this up front: This band knows its way around a guitar.

The Cave Singers boasts both a harmonious acoustic guitar and an electric guitar, and the guitarist knows how to manipulate both instruments to instill the right emotions in the listener. With such prevalent guitar playing, the songs match the instrument: simple, sweet, soft and emotional. They blend together to form a story meant to be heard in one go, so don’t turn off the iPod before it’s over — it’ll ruin the vibe. The album has a slow tempo overall, with only one song notably faster than the rest. There’s an echo throughout the album adding an element of folk sound and mystery.

Even if this means it’s not always possible to understand the lyrics, the great guitar makes up for the lost words. There are also harmonicas and other blues and folk instruments introduced at certain points, but really, the guitar steals the show.

Though the album will not revolutionize the genre, it will still be a “welcome joy” for The Cave Singers and indie folk fans alike.

The Unthanks are something to be grateful for

The Unthanks are something to be grateful for

http://pittnews.com/article/2010/03/29/unthanks-are-something-be-grateful

The Unthanks

Here’s the Tender Coming

EMI

Rocks like: A pop-style Loreena McKennitt

Grade: B

The Unthanks might deserve a round of applause for style, but its songs’ topics on the album Here’s the Tender Coming are a bit of a downer.

Labeled as an English folk band, it’s hard to ignore that The Unthanks has a hint of pop stirring beneath the surface, with a sharp drum and piano accompanying almost every song it composes and releases.

Yet it focuses on old-style topics, like drowning sailors, young mine workers and weddings gone tragically wrong. It uses classical music brass and string instruments instead of simply guitars, as well.

The piano especially feels like the centerpiece instrument that helped create the band’s identity, adding an element of eeriness to every song.

The keyboards create relaxing atmospheres yet stay sad throughout the album. The vocals are so soft they sound ghost-like.

Randomly introduced instruments, such as a brass instrument, don’t feel random at all. They might only be used once, but they are used perfectly, easing into the song in which they are used and fitting the mood.

But the beautifully haunting vocals work and draw attention to topics, and the melancholy beauty makes the listener think.