The extremely excellent new Waiting For The Click EP by The Stick Arounds features four songs, and the band has made videos for each of these songs. Check them all out below and get the EP directly from the band at bandcamp! These guys really know how to make the best out of a crummy year!
And don’t forget about their rippin’ cover of The Realists from This Must Be The Place!
Incoming Sticks…
In their 10 plus years as a band, Lansing Michigan’s The Stick Arounds have never shied away from the music that inspired them. Three full-length LPs and a dozen singles later, the influence of the songcraft of bands like Sloan, Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, and other power pop luminaries is as evident as ever on their new EP Waiting For The Click.
“We’re Not Even Close” is the painfully familiar tale of failed relationships, told in the most midwest way possible: through rock bombast akin to bands like Cheap Trick and The Replacements.
“Redtail Hawks” couples that same energy with a bit of straight vintage swagger reminiscent of T. Rex, and handclaps directly inspired by Motown records.
The vocal harmonies that have become part of the Stick Arounds signature sound are immediately apparent on “Easy To Take”, as is the Byrdsian guitar approach that harkens back to some of the band’s favorite classic country records and early country rock. Gram Parsons would have loved this.
Simultaneously a call for help and call to arms, “Ode To Kid Marine” is an open love letter to drowning your sorrows in a few beers and a favorite record. Named for a terrific solo Bob Pollard record, this track epitomizes the glory and inherent regret in blasting an album and drinking to make it through the night.
Four tight and taut songs make up this ten minute trip rooted deeply in harmony, threadbare honesty, and the enduring power of rock and roll.
Pre-order the thing at The Stick Arounds bandcamp.
Posted in The Stick Arounds
Tagged Indie Rock, Lansing, Michigan Music, Powerpop, The Stick Arounds, Waiting For The Click
The Stick Arounds collection of Hot Singles is out digitally everywhere now and on CD – you’ve got til the end of the month to pre-order a vinyl copy! Do it!
Posted in The Stick Arounds
Tagged Cool, Fun, Hot Singles Club, Indie Rock, Lansing, Michigan, Powerpop, The Stick Arounds
The debut album from Harborcoat is officially out today! Check it out below, and make sure to put GTG Fest on your calendars – Oct 11, 12, and 13, cuz that’s your next chance to see this group live. Let the GTG autumn begin!
Posted in Album, Harborcoat
Tagged Alternative, Best Album of 2019, Brutal Gravity, DIY, Harborcoat, Lansing, Powerpop
Harborcoat, the latest project from Matthew Carlson (The Stick Arounds, Pantones, et al) will be releasing their debut album this fall and are having a CD release party at The Avenue Cafe on August 24! The debut album, Brutal Gravity, is a 12 song “exploration [of] the quiet desperation, darkness, and inertia that can lie underneath the veneer of the oft-romanticized life in small-town/rural America” and features contributions from, among others, Carlson’s Stick Arounds bandmates and The Hat Madder’s Isaac Vander Schuur. Isaac’s mitts are actually all over this record as he engineered and produced it and you can feel a little bit of that Hat Madder grime throughout, which is welcome to the ears while the Hat Madder are on hiatus. In addition to scratching all kinds of GTG friend itches, the record basks nicely in the tradition of REM, Big Star, Guided By Voices, et al. Basically, it’s another Midwest-weirdo-pop classic from GTG! Check out the video for lead track “Missing On The 4th of July” below:
Get your CDs early at the album release show and stay tuned to the band’s socials for info on both the wider release AND a limited edition vinyl release. GTG124!
The 2nd LP from the Lansing masters of powerpop is now available everywhere. CD, vinyl, digital, Matt and Jeff knocking down your door and making you listen to them, you name it! An instant classic of melodic pop rock ‘n roll, Ways To Hang On is the result of a year of hard work from these Lansing gentleman and it definitely lives up to the expectations. Check it out!
Posted in Album, The Stick Arounds
Tagged Best Album of 2018, Lansing, party, Powerpop, The Stick Arounds, ways to hang on, Whiskey
GTG112, Headacher by Extra Arms is out now! This excellent southeast Michigan quartet recently stole the show at GTG Fest XI and we’re extremely excited to have a band in our ranks that evokes “the cleaner, crunchier sound of alt-rock greats like Sugar and Superdrag” among its confident, concise, fuzzy powerpop sounds. Extra Arms is headed by Ryan Allen, a face and name that should be familiar to Michigan indie rock fans of the last decade-plus via his work with the great Thunderbirds Are Now! and his various solo activities, and Headacher is the debut release from the new, full-band iteration of Extra Arms. It’s always fun to have good company, which we certainly now all have with the addition of Headacher to our catalog. The CDs are available from us, with slabs of wax available from our Canadian pals at Get Party Records, digitally its everywhere, and the release party is tomorrow night at Cellarmen’s in Hazel Park!
Check out their page to stay updated! Welcome them to the family!
Posted in Album, Extra Arms
Tagged Best Album of 2018, Extra Arms, Fun, Get Party Records, Headacher, Powerpop, Ryan Allen, Thunderbirds Are Now
