Jasper's Cast - 'Buffalo Kids'
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Do you enjoy the sound of the mandolin? Then you will probably enjoy this bluegrass tune. It's lush and fun and rootsy.
Donella Drive
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Donella Drive reminds me a lot of a band I loved when I was in high school from Knoxville, Tennessee called Joey’s Loss. These guys are making really solid indie rock, and they’re really easy to get excited about. There are only three songs on their Bandcamp page, but they’re all really solid. You should totally check these guys out!
I think Donella Drive only joined Facebook in February. This is a very new band! Wow! They sound like they’ve been playing together for way longer than that. They say they’re influenced by everyone from At The Drive-In, Incubus, and Circa Survive to Time Duncan and Katy Perry. Tim Duncan is pretty inspirational, and I’m very happy to see somebody else taking pleasure from his contributions to the world. In all seriousness though, I can absolutely see the Incubus influences. I don’t like Incubus very much, but I think these guys are going in a good direction with that influence.
“Business Time” is probably my favorite of the three songs on Donella Drive’s Bandcamp. It hits the hardest, and it pretty much goes at full force for the entire three and a half minutes. It’s the shortest of the three tracks, but it’s no less solid than the other two.
If you get a chance, go see Donella Drive live. These three songs are good, but I’m sure they’re even better live. Bands are all about the live shows nowadays, especially at this stage in the game. Check out Donella Drive for awesome live indie rock!
Champions Of Commerce
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Champions of Commerce have a velociraptor on their album artwork! They’re a two piece garage rock band from San Marcos, and they’re obviously have tons and tons of fun. That’s the best! That’s what bands are fun! If you like bands who realize that, check these dudes out.
“Keth And The English Language” is the first track on their 2012 EP Everything’s Auxiliary. It’s a fun little jam about everything being alright and anything being okay. This band has it figured out.
All these songs besides “Keth And The English Language” were recorded live without overdubs. Really though, they’re all equally solid. I might even like the live ones better. I don’t know how much overdubbing was done on “Keth And The English Language”, but it’s not really noticeably different except that the live ones seem more natural.
“Good Times” is my favorite. It starts instrumentally for a while and then cuts down for a bit when the vocals come in and talk about an great afternoon on the back porch. I get the feeling that these guys would be lots of fun to hang out with.
Joe Rushing and Rob Cox seem to be having lots of fun making music, and I think that’s perfect. These songs are all perfectly enjoyable, and you can name your price for them on Bandcamp. If you get the chance, see Champions Of Commerce live though. Based on these recordings, it’ll be a good show. Bands that love being bands are the best.
Deer Vibes - 'Paper'
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Most of Deer Vibes's debut EP sounds like someone switched the vocals off on an Illinois-era Sufjan Stevens track, but I actually enjoy these jammy multi-instrumentalists the most when they start to sing a little.
Choirs
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They tagged it as “punk”, “emo”, and “screamo”, and those are all really touchy titles to give yourself
Choirs album “I Used To Think That Nothing In Life Mattered, Now I Know For Sure” is five tracks of Texas hardcore. However, when I say hardcore, I mean the stuff I loved in high school and not the stuff that gets played way too much nowadays. These guys are doing spoken word followed by syncopated break beats and distorted vocals exactly the way I want them to.
My favorite on the album is almost definitely “I’m Not Lost, I Just Don’t Know Where I Am”. They seem to be a fan of seventh chords and long titles. Their album title is almost too long to repeat twice, but I think it’s really good to say exactly what something is about in the title sometimes. A statement like, “I used to think that nothing in life mattered, now I know for sure” is so detailed and so direct that you immediately know what to expect coming into these five tracks.
They tagged it as “punk”, “emo”, and “screamo”, and those are all really touchy titles to give yourself so I’m not going to elaborate on them. This music is good. Who cares what you call it?
If you have the chance, go check out Choirs! At the very least, head over to their Bandcamp page and listen to these tracks. There’s quite a bit of variety and quite a bit of detail. Put on some good headphones and get somewhere where you can really take it in. This stuff deserves it.
Buda-Pest
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A Song For Purple Eyes
What does it mean for a song to be for purple eyes? Buda-Pest says that his song “Purple” is specifically for purple eyes. He goes out of the way to assure you that he doesn’t mean minds. He means purple eyes. Maybe the point is to listen to this two minute and twenty two second ambient track and thinking about what it would mean to have purple eyes.
Back in the day, purple was associated with royalty. Maybe he’s meaning that this song is for rich people. Maybe he means it’s to make you wish for riches since you only have the purple in your eyes. Eyes are often associated with desires or goals. This song could be viewed as a soundtrack to a discovery of motivation.
Maybe it isn’t necessarily about riches though. Royalty were definitely rich, but maybe this is a more abstract type of richness. Maybe it’s about self-discovery or richness of friendships. Listen to this track and think about what it means to be rich. Maybe it’s an emotional richness. Maybe it’s a richness of mind through freedom.
Maybe the point is to listen to this drone and totally free your mind. Don’t think about anything, and then you will be rich. You will be richly lost within the depths of your mind. Maybe that’s where self-discovery takes place. Discover the richness of emptiness to discover the richness within yourself.
“Purple” is a song for purple eyes, not purple eyes. Think about it as much as you want.
Kites - 'Same Around Here'
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With the help of his bandmates, songwriter Jesus Pizana embellishes his offhand folk tunes with gentle percussive flourishes. Check out a track off his latest EP When the Dust Settles.
Morris Orchids
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Morris Orchids is, most simply, “music”. That’s what they tagged themselves as on BandCamp which is where I usually go to pick genre labels rather than make up something myself. They do indeed create music, and it is quite good. Ocassionally they incorporate things like rain or teapots which aren’t really music, and it’s beautiful. Who am I to say what is music though, right?
Of the tracks on their BandCamp, “Eyes” is my favorite. At times it reminds me very much of Fleet Foxes, and at other times it reminds me of My Morning Jacket. It is very rare for a band to remind someone of both of those bands. Don’t get me wrong, Morris Orchids has a really good, distinctive sound. Comparisons to mainstream bands are just useful sometimes to get people to listen to something.
All six songs on there are really good though. And they’re free! Download them, and if you have lots of money or you’re really nice, share some with them! Money almost always helps bands.
This was released in 2009. I hope it’s got around quite a bit since then, dear San Antonio. This is really good. Morris Orchids seems to still be playing shows pretty often, so I’m assuming you like this. Texas is full of so much music, sometimes great bands slip by without enough recognition.
If you haven’t heard of Morris Orchids, go to their shows, buy their album, or at least go over to their BandCamp and give it all a great listen.
The Rich Hands
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The Rich Hands make rock music. Their tags on Bandcamp are awesome. They include: beasts of yucca flats, can’t get enough of you, cold dead night, ghost dance blues, and rock n’ roll.
These four dudes are making really cool blues rock. That’s a genre that’s way too overdone these days, and it’s really refreshing to find a band that does it well.
“Beasts Of Yucca Flats” is one of the best blues rock jams I’ve heard in quite a while. “Can’t Get Enough Of You” is a lot more typical, but it’s played and recorded really well.
These songs were recorded at Sweatbox Studios in Austin. I can’t imagine how hot a place in Texas called Sweatbox is. I hope that’s an ironic name. Texas is way to hot.
The members of The Rich Hands were friends in high school who loved 50s rock and 60s pop. They know their influences, and they regularly take great lessons from them to create their own musical greats.
If you get the opportunity and you like good old fashioned rock and roll, I’d absolutely recommend seeing The Rich Hands live sometime. They seem to play around the San Antonio area pretty regularly, branching out to other cities sometimes.
Texas, you are known for the blues, and you’re doing a great job of turning out lots and lots of new blues rock bands all the time. Too many of them sound the same, but this one does not. The Rich Hands is a great one. Thank you.
Kites
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Jesus Pizana Writes Great Songs!
“Oh! I like these strings,” I thought as I listened to the first track on Kites’ album While The Dust Settles. “What beautiful bells!” was my next thought, and then I happily listened to the rest of the album. It’s up as a “name your own price” download, and it’s worth way more than free. What a bargain!
I was actually very pleased with this band because I found them on Myspace before I found their Bandcamp, and the recording quality difference is enormous. I’m not even going to link you to their Myspace page because I want everyone’s first exposure to be the recordings on their Facebook and Bandcamp.
“The Looking Glass” is a beautiful introduction to a beautiful album with a beautiful album cover. Speaking of the album cover, who is that woman? I wonder, but I’ll probably never know. Maybe that’s what makes her beautiful. Maybe it’s the confetti. Maybe it’s her dress.
These songs are all so short! More than once, I wished the song had kept going after it was over. That’s a good way to get people to listen to things more than once though. Some of my favorite songs are only a couple minutes long.
“Honestly” is probably my favorite track on the album because of its honesty. “I won’t see you again,” he promises. The song is ironically upbeat and jovial, but that’s really effective sometimes.
This band is really, genuinely good. If I ever hang out with them, I hope they’re dressed like clowns like in one of the pictures on their Facebook.