Moritat will be rolling through St Louis again, playing at Heavy Anchor on Friday, April 12th with Earth Program, Boreal Hills, and Moon Glampers. HERE is the event page on facebook. On our Soundcloud, you can download "I Forgot to Kiss Her" of which they'll be releasing a video for it in the very near future, as well as "Cats" which was the single premier off their debut LP CLiLL BLaNZIN. Plus, I went down the artists on the bill for that night's show and all have downloads available for sampling purposes, as well. We have a track by another Chicago act below and then the two original music groups based in St. Louis offer up a complete album digitally on Bandcamp.
*Click HERE to stream/download "I Forgot To Kiss Her" by Moritat.
This Friday night is a big one for one Daniel Dwyer as he will be joined on stage at Foam with his friends Carson Burke on upright bass, John Lee on cello and Chris Princivalli on acoustic guitar. They will be celebrating the "Sincerely," EP release along with Austin Jones and the Bootheel Boys, plus Jack Nations. This will be an all-ages show and is $5 at the door. Show starts at 9pm. Daniel shared on the event page HERE that "All the music on the EP will be recreated into something live, up close, genuine, and sincere." Sounds like a night of good music to me. Check out a song by Daniel Dwyer below and also this week's #VideoOfTheWeek! by Jack Nations below.
*Click HERE to stream/download "I Don't Know feat. IQ" by Daniel Dwyer.
Brandon Petit of The New Madrid Fault Line has a side project called, "Salt Creek Coyotes" and he heads up the production end of it. He also has released some experimental sounding electronic music with some hip-hop, rap and instrumental influences under his production monicker "Flyswatter Maestro". I'm digging the name for sure. Sample his track below and if you like it you can download the full nineteen-track album, as well.
*Click HERE to stream/download "Little, Little, Late, Late" by Flyswatter Maestro.
*Click HERE to stream/download the full album "Bill Malloney & The 2 Step Crew" by Flyswatter Maestro.
Richie Callison just so happened to be logged into his facebook account last year promoting his music when that little box popped up on the right. You know, the one that shows "Here's someone you may know", "Would you like to add them as a friend?" Before he sends a friend request, aside from having mutual friends, Richie always check to see what their musical tastes are. He uses it to promote his music. As it turned out, it was a hot chick that has mutual friends and loves hard rock music, so Richie sent the request. Not a day later, he get this snotty message from her "Do I Know You?" Richie thought about it for a while and wrote back,"No, but thanks for the song title!" True story, he also obviously created a story around this encounter. For the lyrics to this song and more of his music downloads visit HERE. His next single drops 4/16 on Itunes. The title is "Easy on the Eyes"!
*Click HERE to stream/download "Do I Know You?" by Richie Callison.
The uplifting St. Louis Metal artist Battalion really does not disappoint with their sophomore release. It is the follow up to 2009's "Seasons" by them. "Resilience" was recorded in the fall of 2012 at The Nook Recording Studio in New Lenox, IL with studio engineer Nick Nativo (Oceano, Monsters). I saw them live this past year at Fubar and enjoyed their set. Vocalists Clint Kesinger and Jamey Kroesen bring it and duel throughout the entire effort. Then you have Josh Masten on guitar, Shad Baldes on the bass and Justin Bess on drums. Initially, they were from rural Green County, Illinois. After some time, they decided to move to St. Louis and get more exposure. Battalion is scheduled for an exclusive interview to be featured on The Black Sheep Radio Show
(88.3FM, www.wqna.org) in Springļ¬eld, Illinois later this month. Battalion has been asked to perform,
fellow St. Louis local, Tear Out The Heart's (Victory Record's) album release show on March 22nd at "The Mad Magician" in St. Louis. Tear Out The Heart is an aggressive and catchy metal-core band which signed to Victory Records in August of 2012. Below is a quick review of the album by Battalion, followed by a free download of one of their new songs. Note that the album can be purchased on Itunes and ordered on CD Baby through the band's facebook page, which is linked at the top of this paragraph.
The first track "Chump Change" starts out with a short, but powerful introduction to the new eight-song effort by Battalion called, "Resilience". The second song, "Semper Fi" shows off elements that the listener will discover throughout the album, as a whole. Time signature changes, sweet grooves and original sounding builds. It ends with silence, followed by an echo that is reverberated a few times which then brings the listener to the next song. The guitar work on "Riot Control" is real cool. The drummer really sets the pace with this one. I also liked the atmosphere on the bridge of this song too. An excellent choice for track three and this one really stood out to me.
On "Thieves" the listener finds out just how brutal these guy's sound is. A polyphonic symphony for the metal-head heading out to war, so to speak. "Heartland" has a particularly upbeat groove with some interesting time signature changes. On the bridge, there is a guitar effect that really makes the song hit home and also the vocals seem to be chanted by their vocalists as the reverb added to their tracks give this part a different feel. Thus proving that these guys are a threat from the heartland. "Armistice" is an instrumental song with a nice delay on the guitar and a clean tone. The drummer paces the timing out with some snare beats. The bass plays a low melody to fill it out further. Appropriately, timed out too. Which then brings us to the title track.
"Resilience" is a rousing number. Quickly I figured out why. This is an anthem. Not just for the listener, but for the group itself. At the end of the song, the lyrics state the following,"Take a look at where you are, Where you've been, and where you're going. You only have one life, achievement sustained through believing in myself. Tighten the grasp on what is dear to you, We are at the top of the bottom, we are a band of brothers standing resilient." The back ground vocals stand out well with the effect that is chosen as the last two lines of the lyrics above are repeated a few times as the song plays out. "The Maniac" is the final song and just leaves you wanting more. This one is merely unpredictable and the changes come out of nowhere throughout, whether it be the drums, the guitar or the vocals.
Click HERE to stream/download the song "Resilience" by Battalion.
Fight For Midnight is a five-piece Indie, Alt. Rock outfit. Dennis Hamer, their Sax, Keys and backing vocalist was kind enough to send me over a song in promotion of a show that they are headlining this coming weekend at Plush. HERE is the official event page. Sharing the stage with them is a band from Columbia that is releasing their CD called Pluto's Still A Planet. They are a four-piece that play Blues, Funk-Rock and are scheduled to play at 11 pm. HERE is a video of the creation of their album. Check it out, it is interesting. Then at 10 pm, Indie Rock artist Shotgun Abby will be keeping the evening in motion. They are a six-piece band with some female back ground vocalists even. Frontman Shawn Telkamp is now officially a contributor to the blog here and has been a big part of STLMU from the beginning. Kicking the show off at 9 pm is Flat Earth Society from St. Charles. They are a female-fronted group that is also a six-piece playing Rock, Funk, Acoustic and Pop. Their first EP is in post-production, so when I get something from them I will share it when it is shared with me. I know that they are excited to almost have it complete. Looks like it will be a good turn out. Check out three of the four artists on the bill below and download their tracks if you like. This is an 18 and up show, doors are at 8pm. $5 at the door.
Click HERE to stream/download "Waiting" by Fight For Midnight.
Click HERE to stream/download "Southern Junk Funk" by Plutos Still A Planet.
Click HERE to stream/download "Cold" by Shotgun Abby.
It's February of 2013 and I guess that I should get around to the best of 2012. Just like last year, this is based off of songs that have been submitted and then uploaded by one of our Soundcloud accounts. The only method that I track otherwise is how it performs on a loved basis via the Hype Machine. Otherwise, this is just too time consuming to follow all together for each post, plus some plays/downloads by different accounts would not necessarily be from this blog. So, without taking up any more time here are your top performers for 2012. By the looks of it, I notice that three out of these five artists were represented at Rock University Festival this past year. Hmmm... Well, what do you know?!
Most played song goes to the F.O.A.D.'s with a total of 1,040 plays.
Click HERE to stream/download "F**K You!" by CeeLo Green in the style of the F.O.A.D.'s.
Click HERE to stream/download "Reggae Soul" by Jeff Riley Jazz Suite. Also, this song was the second most played track on the blog this year with 723 plays.
The second most played song is by Unanimous and it's called "Stay The Night". It received 511 plays. Click HERE to stream/download this song.
This year's most downloaded artist is Unifyah. This song received 26 downloads itself. However, they had submitted three songs, the three totalled 80 downloads all together. 1,195 plays in all, which also gives them the title of most played artist. In addition, they also are crowned with this year's most hyped artist on the Hype Machine with 13 loves between all three tracks total. See the most hyped HERE.
Click HERE to stream/download "Over You" by Unifyah.
Most hyped song on the Hype Machine goes to Dancefloor Makeout's "Slut" with 15 hearts.
Click HERE to see this song's performance on the Hype Machine.
