Results tagged “pillowqueens”

With each passing day it becomes ever more doubtful that Rolling Stone magazine will pay anyone - let alone me - to fly around the country to tag along with and write about a mediocre rock band while they traverse house parties willy-nilly and take acid. But that's okay. It means less paying gigs, but also fewer glossy, in-depth profiles of hacks like Lenny Kravitz or accounts of visiting the needle exchange with Staind. What you'll get here is a more down to earth account of five bands en route to Denton and Dallas. Hopefully the quality of these groups will offset the lack of rock and roll excess contained in the following account.

Used to be the word “garage” was the template and the starting point for most if not all of rock and roll. Whether the garage was literal was irrelevant - the term could apply to a basement, empty room or vacant storage space/warehouse, or really anyplace a band could put their roots down, plug in equipment and then plug away at songs without disturbing the peace. Back then, rough demos were cut onto cassette tape (putting a pillow over the built-in microphone helped stifle cymbal noise), and “in the garage” recordings were the first and easiest way to get the word out about a project.

If garage and psych rock are your thing, you've got a buffet in front of you for a Friday night. In addition to the Monotonix/Strange Boys performance at nearby Red 7, you may also elect to follow your ears to the rumbling of Emo's inside stage, where a quartet of local bands will be giving it their rocked-out all.

                

The three bands in this pictorial took a different route: the neo-psychedelic Ume work on their songs in an office enclosed in a business park off of 183, Brothers and Sisters rent a storage space in north Austin, and the Pillow Queens practice in a warehouse off Burleson road. While different, the unifying factors of sweat, inexpensive beer, clutter and a getting-shit-done mantra were there for all three.

Austin's Monofonus Press brings together artists, writers, and musicians to collaborate on synchronized distribution. Their latest effort combines artist and writer with one of our favorite local bands, the Pillow Queens. Tonight marks the celebration of their CD release at the Compound, where attendees can also check out Shapes Have Fangs and Human Milk.

Beerland, known for music, old school video games, and, um, beer, will host a kind and compact cluster of five bands this Friday night, with all five bands making names for themselves within the confines of our fine city. Headlining will be The Diagonals, a subtle and scratchy outfit that, despite their somewhat workmanlike stylings while on stage, carries an innate danceability. Beyond that, Diagonals vocalist Steve Garcia, in some of his more speed-speak moments, has been compared to a young Michael Stipe...you know, before Michael Stipe had that whole fifteen years of boredom thing.