^^coming soon to a music conference near you^^

We’re out of the office all week, hopefully you are too.

The Big Big Bucks, The Points North, and Young Mammals are playing all kinds of shows throughout Austin this week, view their performance schedules here.

Just listen to Side A of Rainbow Bloodsucker by Doomstar!.

MiniBoone will be coming up to Boston on Saturday 4/17 to play our first AS BUILT PR(ESENTS) of 2010 with The Bucks, Earthquake Party!, and Pretty & Nice. Répondez s’il vous plaît.

mike & mike
ASBUILTPR[at]gmail[dot]com
twitter[dot]com[slash]ASBUILTPR

1:12 am  •  16 March 2010

Whistle Jacket
Hello Heart LP

01 Microphone
02 Einstein’s Brain
03 Pinewood Derby
04 Fire Alarm
05 Compliment
06 Even When
07 Yekaterina…
08 Let Your Guard Down
09 Turnout
10 Viva Revolution
11 Watermelon
12 Quitting Cigarettes
13 Brooklyn

onesheet :: hires album art

2:24 am  •  24 February 2010

Whistle Jacket “Compliment” (MP3)

With about eight different incarnations of the band, Whistle Jacket’s biography reads like the Book of Chronicles. Started by Michael Leyden in 2002, the band has been playing what one UCLA college radio DJ described “as near genre-exempt” music. This description is a testament to the range of song stylings that have appeared in the band’s 4 full-length albums and 1 EP. Nevertheless, despite this range, the band repeatedly draws from rock n’roll, pop, folk, and noise.

Hello Heart is Whistle Jacket’s 2010 release. Playing with Michael on this release is longtime member Matt Jugenheimer (who also recorded the album) as well as Spenser Gralla and Noah Bond, both of whom also play in Boston’s Doomstar. Other local musicians contributed on vocals, horns, violin, and piano. Two of note, Erin Hasley and Judy Feldman, have made contributions on the last 3 Whistle Jacket records. Hello Heart features 13 songs that sonically strive to sound big while at the same maintaining an intimacy and the band’s usual quirkiness.

Whistle Jacket have been primarily playing in the Boston and Northampton area, though the band has toured both the Midwest and the South. A 2010 tour is in the works.

Other releases of Whistle Jacket include Rainy Day Sunshine, So Let Me Know, Start Stop Skip & Jump, and Whistle Jacket Wishes You a Happy Holiday. Additionally, the band contributed a song to the Boston compilation release, These are Centre St. Tracks and to Holiday Heart, a benefit album for hospice. In 2010, Michael Leyden also released an album of his home recordings entitled Happy Home Recordings, Volume 1.

2:20 am  •  24 February 2010

“To strip the bells and whistles takes (in this reviewers opinion) guts, a confidence in your talent and hooks. WJ has this confidence.”

— Left Hip Magazine

2:16 am  •  24 February 2010

“Somewhere in between the contradictory abrasive melodiousness of the punk and surfer rock-influenced Pixies and the cheerful brand of pop-rock of Tilly and the Wall lies the strange but amiable sound of Whistle Jacket.”

— Northeast Performer

2:15 am  •  24 February 2010

“..lo-fi, spare, and mildly haunting in a Tom Waits sort of way.”

— The Noise

2:15 am  •  24 February 2010

“I’m simultaneously reminded of the Beatles and Built to Spill, as strummed electric guitar nicely compliments chiming piano, and Leyden’s voice really hits its stride.”

— Delusions of Adequacy

2:14 am  •  24 February 2010

DOOMSTAR!
Rainbow Bloodsucker EP

A1 Handsome Man
A2 Kitty Kitty
A3 Lily Face
A4 Rainbow Bloodsucker
B1 Sharon Mitchel
B2 Gimmee Some
B3 Ronald Ray-Gun
B4 You Can Hide

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

Rainbow Bloodsucker album art onesheet
Doomstar! press 1 press 2 press 3

doomstarmusic.com to listen to Side A
doomstar.bandcamp.com to purchase Rainbow Bloodsucker
facebook.com/doomstarmusic
myspace.com/doomstarmusic

11:07 pm  •  19 February 2010

Doomstar! “Rainbow Bloodsucker” (MP3)

Rainbow Bloodsucker is the 2nd release by Doomstar! of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like its predecessor Colors, it was recorded and mixed in a week by the band and Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth).

Consisting of 8 songs and falling just under 26 minutes, Doomstar! take the songwriting displayed on their debut and concentrate it like a reduction on Rainbow Bloodsucker, intensifying the flavors and hitting the aural palate quicker. Guitarist Spenser Gralla and drummer Noah Bond exchange their share of yelps, whoas, and other syllables on songs like “Handsome Man” and “Kitty Kitty” while bassist Jeff Johnson maintains a foundation of rhythmic fuzz.

In fact, everything seems to be marinated in a warm mix of fuzz, reverb, and slap echo, a decision that Doomstar! has consciously made. Like Black Lips and Thee Oh Sees before them, this sound serves as the sonic glue for the songwriting spectrum; from the galloping title track, to the Dead Meadow dirge of “Sharon Mitchel” and the “Gimmee Some” psychedelic beach party.

It spans the void between a summer car ride and a tidal wave! Imagine experiencing massive flashbacks of early 90’s nostalgia while riding a gilded unicorn across a rainbow landscape folding in on itself and then exploding in to geysers of 60’s R&B grooves and you might start to get the picture.

Copies of Rainbow Bloodsucker will be available at their next show, opening for Surfer Blood and Turbo Fruits at Great Scott in Allston, Massachusetts on March 2nd, 2010.

HIGHLIGHTS
Rainbow Bloodsucker and Colors are both available for sale at http://doomstar.bandcamp.com, and available physically on CD and 12” vinyl through their own label Grandma & Grandpa Records.

Doomstar! moves fast: wrote Colors one month before recording. Recording and mixing took four days. The band hit the road immediately after, playing as low as Atlanta and as high as Toronto. Rainbow Bloodsucker was recorded and mixed in seven days.

Shared stages with Mission of Burma, Apollo Sunshine, Drug Rug, Thank You, Mi Ami, Wooden Shijps, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Beach Fossils, and others.

11:05 pm  •  19 February 2010

“Doomstar! seem to have been teleported here from the ’60s, a band of unassuming musical hobos who picked up some Minutemen rhythmic turbulence along the way.”

— The Boston Phoenix, 3/9/09 :: more

10:43 pm  •  18 February 2010