Sunday, April 12, 2009

CFW Rocks Live...

I've actually got two separate stories to talk about.

The first live story is from April 2nd.

This one is a little bit more personal.

I went to see a band featuring someone that I went to high school with. His name is Craig Howe and he is the lead male vocal for an indie rock band called The Golden Age of Radio.

Indie rock is not generally my thing, but it was really good to see him still doing what he did when he was in high school, playing guitar in a band.

They're going to be working on an album and while the demos on their Myspace are a little raw, they definitely sound better live.


Now for story #2, which actually happened this past Saturday the 11th.

If you remember, earlier in this blog, I'd mentioned a band called Static Cycle.

I got to see them at a place in NYC called The Ace of Clubs.

There weren't a heck of a whole lot of people there...as a matter of fact, there were five people that went in to actually check them out. There are five people in the band.

They just came over from their home state of Alaska about a month ago and they're trying to develop a name within this enormous scene. 

Their 40 minute set featured songs from their debut album When We Meet Again

Well, even though there wasn't much of a crowd, they proved through their set that they're experienced and have the potential to get on a nice tour with other up and coming bands and hopefully get signed as well.

I talked briefly with Jared Navarre, the lead singer, about how hard the scene is here and how it's been made even more difficult with K-Rock no longer existing. I also made sure to plug the ever loving hell out of the website that I found them at, Tunelab Music.

But that wasn't the end of the night for me. I figured while I was down there that I'd bar hop to The Crash Mansion. The Crash Mansion is one of my favorite venues in New York City. It was the first small venue on the Lower East Side that I went to a concert for when I went to see Rev(elation) Theory back in 2005.

They have this mini-festival where they have a whole bunch of New York hard rock bands simply called Gotham Rocks

A bunch of bands played and I got to see four of them.

The first was Diablo Royale. I'm not much into classic rock, but they tore it up quite nicely. They included a cover of Jimi Hendrix's classic song "Fire". 

The next band that played was Fixer. I'm really sounding picky, but I'm also not a big fan of hair metal type bands either. However, they really connect well with their fans and Evan Saffer has one hell of a yell.

Next up was Black Water Rising. This was one of the bands I wanted to see because I particularly loved the song "Brother Go On" and I'd mentioned them on my blog before. This band is interesting because they play more of a Southern brand of rock and yet they're from Brooklyn. They're everything a hard rock band should be. Gritty, funky, and filthy. They didn't have to be pretty, they just flat out brought it. This show would have effectively served as their CD release party as their debut was scheduled to come out on April 7th. However, they're in negotiations with a label and after their set, there was no doubt why.

The last band, Shadows Lie, I'd actually seen before. The first time I saw them was when they opened for Fixer and Machina back in December of '07.

It looked like most of the people that were at the show were there to see them. The fans were hyped up and even though the lead singer Kira Leigh couldn't get her vocal effects to work (she actually uses her voice almost as a lead guitar in some songs), they still had the crowd in the palms of their hands. Not to mention that they have a bad ass Journey cover.

Temporary hearing loss has never sounded so good.

1 comment:

Tracie B said...

Damn. I love Static Cycle.

I wish I had known they were in the area :(