Posted inLive Recordings

The Grenadines @ Drake Underground

[caption id="attachment_1791" align="aligncenter" width="500"]The Grenadines The Grenadines @ Drake Underground[/caption]

. : : November 13th, 2011 : : .

 

Guess we might as well keep the Birmingham, Alabama-based bands who opened for Maria Taylor theme going.

 

I posted about Dead Fingers last week, but since discovered that I also neglected to post the night's first opening band, The Grenadines.

 

You'd be forgiven if you haven't heard of them. Looks like after a couple of lowkey EPs, a self-titled LP on a small indie label, and maybe about four active years, the band called it quits. There's little online of the husband and wife team of Lauren and Michael Shackelford (not to mention guitarist David Swatzell) that hasn't been scrubbed, but what there is appears to be overwhelmingly positive.

 

Their pop-infused psychedelic rock is infectious, hook-filled and fun that captured the attention of influential indie stalwarts such as Jenny Lewis, Jim Eno, and Andy LeMaster.

Posted inLive Recordings

Dead Fingers @ Drake Underground

[caption id="attachment_1779" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Dead Fingers Dead Fingers @ Drake Underground[/caption]

. : : November 13th, 2011 : : .  

Speaking of bands that opened for Maria Taylor that I haven't uploaded in the better part of a decade...

 

Maria's sister, Kate Taylor, and brother-in-law Taylor Hollingsworth formed an alt-country "cowpunk" bluesy husband-and-wife band known as Dead Fingers. Some four-months before their debut album dropped, with only a three-song sampler to their name, Maria took the duo on the road with her to help generate some buzz.

 

It must've been effective, because the duo was listed as one of the top 12 bands you should know in Alabama by Paste Magazine shortly thereafter. A follow-up disc, Big Black Dog, was issued in 2014, but the band has been radio silent since. While Hollingsworth continues to regularly release as a solo artist, Kate seems to have transitioned to a part-time role in the scene (perhaps to care for the couple's daughter, born shortly after the eponymous debut).

 

A shame, really, because both spouses have the support of indie rock darling Conor Oberst, who has featured both, separately and together, in various incarnations of his bands and has even released a cover of Hollingsworth's song Dominos with Phoebe Bridgers.

Posted inLive Recordings

PJ Bond @ Drake Underground

[caption id="attachment_1772" align="aligncenter" width="500"]PJ Bond PJ Bond @ Drake Underground[/caption]

. : : February 9th, 2014 : : .

 

While the world's in a COVID-induced lockdown, I'm still in the process of combing my archives and trying to rediscover recordings that haven't made it online for whatever reason.

 

My recording of PJ Bond, opening for Maria Taylor at the Drake Underground, is another that slipped through the cracks at the later end of the blog's earlier incarnation. I actually had to double check the site to verify whether or not it had been already posted.

 

Seven and a half years later, I get to listen to the recording again for the first time -- and I wonder why I didn't remember it more vividly. Songs like Darlin' I've Been Drinking Nights and Untitled (Robot Golf) are the kind of rootsy, punk-influenced Americana that is directly in my wheelhouse.

Posted inLive Recordings

Emilie Mover @ Drake Underground

[caption id="attachment_1746" align="aligncenter" width="474"]Emilie Mover Emilie Mover @ Drake Underground[/caption]  

. : : January 25th, 2013 : : .

 

Emilie Mover's performance in January of 2013 was another in a series of concerts I'd EQ'd, tracked, started the info file for, and just didn't finish...

 

... with one notable exception: It has a much better story.

 

Set to open for Brooklyn's Wakey!Wakey!, the Drake Underground was decently occupied with fans. Probably the most fans of any Wakey!Wakey! performance to date, which was exceptional because it was a freezing cold Canadian night, with a steady, solid stream of snowfall.

 

Things were slow to get started, and when Emilie finally took the stage, it was clear it was an unusual pairing.

Posted inLive Recordings

Paula Perri @ Drake Underground

[caption id="attachment_1573" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Paula Perri @ Drake Underground Paula Perri @ Drake Underground[/caption]

. : : May 10th, 2012 : : .

 

I regret that this Paula Perri recording hasn't seen the light of day in almost a decade.

 

It was recorded May of 2012, in a busy mid-month week packed with a handful of other Hater-High favourites (including Rocky Votolato and Amelia Curran), opening for Pearl and the Beard at what is in my estimation the best sounding venue in town: the Drake Underground.

 

But as a sapling among the tall trees, this tape was left to dry out. It was EQ'd and tracked, but abandoned somewhere between encoding to FLAC and creating a text file.

 

Listening back now, I'm glad I didn't put it out as it was. The original EQ pass I did was thin, brittle, and doesn't do Paula's performance justice. This new version is more balanced, with the bottom-end brought up significantly to balance out the lack of bass in the performance.

 

Unfortunately, I'm a day late and a buck short. In the nine years that have passed, Paula transitioned from a promising performing career with an ardent fan base to a booking manager, event programmer, promoter, professor and VP of an event planning firm.

Posted inLive Recordings

The Rest @ Drake Underground

One late April afternoon, quite out of the blue, Hamilton’s indie darlings The Rest announced that they would be parting ways as a band. There was none of the drama or theatrics…