Live at Public Assembly: Chamberlin

 

We first shot "Dust" on the porch of an Italian restaurant on our last day in Austin, a place that couldn't be further from Communion, the UK-transplanted, curated night of bands and DJs the label finds to be awesome Chamberlin was performing at. We don't agree with all of their choices — Brother were given the obligatory three before we snuck out to catch the train — but to include this somewhat obscure-to-the-indie world band among their lineup of consistent up-and-comers is something we can definitely get behind.

The rhymes about why we love these folks have already been delivered, and though we've really only been around this band for about an hour or two, it almost feels like we know them even better than some of our friends. They give faces to the phrase sweet as pie, and though they didn't play on a chair this go-around, that same carefree, excited spirit is still alive and well in everything they do. 

Oddly enough, the same spirit we have towards pie.

MP3
Chamberlin - "Dust (live at Public Assembly)"

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Big Ugly Yellow Couch SXSW Session

Couch Session: Creepoid

 

Couch Session #35: Creepoid


First things first, we have some serious thanks to bestow,
upon Mark over at yvynyl, who some of you might know.
When asked what band we should record with, out of every last one,
he chose Creepoid as the answer, that son of a gun.
Thank goodness he did, as these guys were a hoot,
and without his help, we wouldn't have had this shoot.
As the inaugural band in our third couch location,
this one's instantly a source of our admiration.
But our love doesn't come easy, and it surely helped,
that these guys came back from the van with a box of animal pelts.
PETA be damned, i'm like a caveman to fur,
so this session was red paint-worthy I'm sure.
Feathers abounding, atop huge tape recorders,
the band was just as good as the pizzas we ordered.
Hyuck hyuck, i'm just kidding, they were better, of course.
As cheese, sauce and dough aren't much of a musical force.
Each song was great, but that one small part,
when "Find You Out" shifts — it's damn near art.
Bright and dreamy and drenched in color,
the saturation in this one is full of splendor.
Moody and brooding when playing live,
these guys were hilarious the rest of the time.
Great people, great songs, a great great great time we had,
and when they left to trek back to Philly, we were just a pinch sad.
But now, we can watch them all the day long,
sitting and playing and seeing their songs.
With our brand new session, Creepoid will never be far,
so listen to them often, wherever you are:

MP3

Creepoid - "Find You Out (Big Ugly Yellow Couch session)"

Creepoid - "Stranger (Big Ugly Yellow Couch session)"

Creepoid - "Emily (Big Ugly Yellow Couch session)"

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bandcamp

Alright, Kids. Come Sit Down. We Need To Have A Talk.

 

I have a confession.

I've never seen a Magic Eye.

Well, I've seen them, in the sense that there was a book filled with muticolored ones around the house growing up and classmates would always go "OoooOOoooooh" when they would stand in front of a poster and see a floating pirate ship or koala bear or heart or whatever have you, but for me, it never appeared. Not then, not now, not once, not ever.

As you can tell, things are, ahem, a bit traumatic for me where optical illusions are concerned. It wouldn't be far to bestow the same 3D-depression upon someone else, especially the fine people who visit a fugly worn-out couch website. So, here goes.

We moved. To new apartments.

Me, to a Bermuda Triangle-esque corner of Manhattan, and Donald to a new section out in ye olde historic Bushwick. We traded in a wall of windows and a ginormo loft for a quaint space with a private rooftop porch, and as excited as the cancer stick-loving artists who pop by will be about insta-smoke breaks, we're even more stoked that we somehow replicated the same look of our old spot, down to the candy orange color of the wall our beloved sleeper couch is pushed against.

We could be sneaky sneakersons and ignore the whole thing and just quietly post videos of bands playing in front of a puzzlingly smaller wall with a hallway that appeared out of thin air — like a Magic Eye :( — but this whole illusion mess bums the doody out of me, so we took the high road, even though it'll make my quads hurt tomorrow morning.

So, that's that. And that photo above? Taken at the new place. See, it won't be so bad. It might look like a weird, kooky camera trick at first, but we'll be happy in our new home, won't we, Sally and Jimmy? You'll make new friends at our new school, and your teacher is a peach. It'll be grand.

We swear the videos won't be as fuzzy as that picture though. And we'll prove it. Tomorrow.

Get StooooOOOoOOOoooOoOoOoOOOked!

(That was an optical illusion of bubbles. Now we can all be in on the fun.)

xo,

c & d

Live At Mercury Lounge: North Highlands

PEOPLE WERE DANCING.

That's really the only thing you need to take away from this show when it comes down to it. People. Were. DANCING.

To get that many pairs of legs to bounce along to music in New York City isn't easy, and North Highlands somehow, some way, pulled it off at Mercury Lounge when they blew the place up last night.

Besides finding out that people in the city know how to cheer, clap and boogie (a rare trifecta in these parts of town, may I add), we were also presented with drummer Jasper Berg's lovely set of stems, and found out the California hometown that North Highlands takes their name from isn't quite the, ahem, serene, babbling brook type of countryside it infers itself to be.

Not that the band hasn't been getting their fare share of scenery lately — with trips back and forth to Philadelphia, where they've been recording their almost-80%-done album, I'm sure they've soaked in a lot of the beautiful, American highway system. Oh, the splendid roadsides!

Well, at least there's this — now, we know when they're finally done recording, there'll be a whole slew of people around applaud it. Loudly.

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Big Ugly Yellow Couch Session: North Highlands
Big Ugly Yellow Christmas Covers: "Last Christmas"

In Which We Further Express Our Love For A Former Couch-Dwelling Band

Holy CHRIST. This video is better than every episode of Lost combined, and not just because it has the one thing they couldn't cram into those smoke-filled, plane-crashing, cuckoo time traveling hours of lore — phenomenal music. (The other thing missing: more boobs. Why didn't that show have more boobs?! They were on an ISLAND for God's sake. AN ISLAND. I don't understand.)

Part of me wants to scrawl down the URL, put it in an envelope and send it to that Lindelof fellow to show him how it's done — with, natch*, a PS asking for those fifty hours of my life back — but the post office is so far away, and I'd rather just sit here watching this on repeat.

Also, does a tiny part of you also hope that's the guy from Married With Children as much as I do? So it's not just me who wishes he and Christina Applegate had reversed success. Cue sigh of relief.

*(I don't think this is the way the word "natch" is supposed to be used, but who caaaares it's all goooood let's just go with ittttt.)

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Big Ugly Yellow Couch Session: Hooray For Earth