White Denim - D

WHITE DENIM-D

I had the pleasure of discovering White Denim when they opened up for Wilco on their west coast run last winter.  Now they are my absolute favorite band.

I was blown away by their intense dynamics, musical prowess, and powerfully contained energy.  I immediately became obsessed with their music and delved into the entire catalog that they have released over the past six years.  This Austin, Texas-based quartet are startlingly good, and their most recent album, “D”, is a shining example of the art that is “the album”.

         
With everything from masterful drumming, dueling guitars, thunderously magnificent bass playing, intriguingly contemplative lyrics, dreamy background textures, Latin infused poly-rhythms, and complex song structures, this record is, dare I say, perfect.  It contains everything that an album should; it’s tender, it’s mighty, it’s groovy, it’s soothing, it’s threatening, it’s comforting.  I could literally talk for days on end about this band and this record in particular.  Safe to say I listen to it at least once a day and if it happens that I don’t, it is sure to be stuck in my head at some point.

        
 Many bands these days are lauded as psychedelic rock.  This band is at the summit of that mountain, dispelling waves of awesomeness that reverberate with majestic melody.  I strongly urge you to pick up this album.

Six String Sorcerers

What do you do when you have bomb-blasting drum beats and deliriously dope bass tracks combined into splendiferous grooves?

You track guitars over it...I guess (insert clever remark about my guitar envy here).

That's right, we have nearly completed all the basic tracks for our upcoming album.  In the past few days Mike and Taylor have layered tasty guitar all over these new tracks to shape them into marvelous tunes-to-be.  We couldn't be happier with these intensely powerful and groovy cuts.  David Kershenbaum has certainly brought out the magic of 28 North.

Check out this video to get an idea of 28 North's guitar prowess:


In other news we had a glorious show last night at All Good Bar in Ventura, CA.  It was our first time to this quaint beach town west of L.A.  It was nice to play for about three hours instead of the typical hour long sets we've been playing on The Strip.  Reminded us of the old days when we would clumsily navigate through ubiquitous cover songs and sophomoric versions of our originals in dives for hours.  (Anyone in Pittsburgh remember the Grey Goose??)  Anyway, we had a hell of time playing in Ventura and we look forward to returning.

In other news, we have a show at The Roxy coming up in July.  The show is on Friday July 6 and we are totally pumped to get up on the legendary Roxy stage once again.  More info here.

More soon.

Ty

LA Vegan Beer & Food Fest

This past weekend we participated in the third annual LA Vegan Beer & Food Fest hosted by the Roxy Theatre.  No, we're not vegans.  But we love beer and we'll eat just about anything.

Needless to say we had an absolutely lovely time at the festival; drank unlimited delicious craft beers, sampled some fine vegan cuisine, and played a splendid acoustic set while basking in the sublime California sunshine.  Thanks to Nic Adler, Scott Reifman, Heather Kohos, and all at the Roxy for taking great care of us as always.

As per vegan beer.

Apparently the reason some beers are not considered "vegan beer", is because they use ingredients in the brewing process which technically contain animal products.  Obvi.  The reason you may not know this is because in most cases the animal products are used in small amounts as clarifying agents, for head retention (mmmmm, fooooaaaaamm), and coloring.  Not to mention the U.S. does not have any laws requiring the listing of non-vegan products.  For those of you that are concerned vegans or just pleasantly interested, here is a very informative web site that will get you privy to the vegan beer concept: nomeatathlete.com/vegan-beer/.  I've found a few other sites that hip the public to which beers are in the vegan realm and which beers are not.

Clearly I've found this subject rather stimulating.

But not quite as stimulating as Colman's stretching routine before our set:

Not really, but I thought it was funny.

Several of our favorite beers are technically vegan, including Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, and Stone Brewing Co.

Naturally we "sampled" these in copious quantities.

We also discovered a couple brewing companies which we were delighted with.  One was Epic Brewing from Salt Lake City, Utah.  Utah!  Who knew?  Along with sharing a couple lovely brews at the fest, Epic Brewing also donates to jazz music education. Bonus!

Another favorite was Smog City Brewing.  This very new brewery is right here in Los Angeles, just launched this year.  Though they don't have an official website, you can read a little about them here.  Their imperial IPA was a big hit with us as it was with everyone apparently.  They ran out pretty darn fast.

Along with the beer, I personally sampled some vegan chocolate covered bacon (what!!??), french fries with hummus (the cornerstone of beer-y vegan cuisine), and some delicious vegan tacos made with soyrizo.  Yep, soyrizo.  It's like chorizo but....not.  And they were mighty tasty I must add.  These I got at the Plant Food For People truck which I highly recommend checking out.  From what I gather on the net, they are located in Highland Park and I'm not sure if it's strictly a taco truck kind of thing or if they have a place, but you can look into it here.  Great stuff.

All in all, we had a super-rad time at the LA Vegan Beer & Food Fest.  Definitely look forward to next year's.

More soon.

Ty

Drum Tracks, Bass Tracks, Delicious Snacks

Well, all those marathon rehearsal sessions I've been writing about have paid off in the form of some super killer, slammin'-ass basic tracks.  That's right, the foundation has been laid for the completion of our record with legendary producer David Kershenbuam.

On a beautiful day in West Hollywood, we showed up at Drac Studios ready to cut some grooves.  Our mission was to track at least nine more drum tracks, the list of potentials stood at twelve.  We certainly had our work cut out for us.  Starting a little later than expected, we were still able to crush our goal with energy to spare.  Like I said, all that practicing truly paid off.

And during this intensive, condensed sojourn into the realm of recording the most glorious of drum tracks, we were fueled, amongst copious caffeinated beverages, by none other than Doritos Tacos from Taco Bell.

Naturally.

It's right down the street, give us a break.

With the drum tracks in order, the next day was to be bass day.  In Jonathan Colman's world, thankfully every day is bass day.  And it is that very day, today, that I am writing this.  So, Happy Bass Day to one and all!

We find ourselves now transfixed by the masterful skill of Jon's bass playing.  These drum tracks don't stand a chance of being un-groovy once the magical Jen (Jonathan's beloved P-Bass) juice has been supplied to it's cracks and corners.

Here is a small taste of the aforementioned grooviness:

More updates from the studio soon.

Ty

LA Vegan Beer Fest, Fun In The Van, Fun In The Sun, And Practice, Practice, Practice

This week will be another busy one chock full of rehearsal at GC Studios, tracking at the recording studio, and culminating with a rocking set at the LA Vegan Beer Fest at The Roxy Theater. Cannot wait for this one!

 If you ever find yourself wondering what goes on in 28 North-land during those precious moments in between, here are just a few outstanding examples. We spend a lot of time in what we have come to lovingly/begrudgingly call..."The Van". Sometimes, this happens in the van:

 And during one of our rare trips to the beach, this happened:

We've been hard at work on the new tracks that we will be recording this Thursday and Friday at Matt Sorum's Drac Studios in West Hollywood. The past few weeks have been dedicated to nit-picking every little detail of each song and repeating them ad-nauseum. It's exhausting but well worth the effort. Once we hit the studio Ty is gonna rip the shit out of these tracks, the mixing board won't even know what hit it. (I totally just referred to myself glowingly in the third person, which is a first for me on both fronts, and I personified an inanimate object; I must be losing it).

 Here is a little taste of one of the new songs stripped down:

Thanks for reading, more to come soon.

Love,
Ty

Viper Recap, QR Codes, and David Spade

What up y'all!! We had a fantastic show at the Viper Room last Saturday, infinite thanks to all of you that showed up to rock out with us, we had a blast! It was a pleasure sharing the stage with the Thomas Nicholas Band and Jared Lee.

We've chosen the following video for our Fan Video of the Week. It was taken by our friend Evan Forrester last Saturday at Viper. Totally epic. If you were at the show last Saturday, you may have noticed we have 28 North stickers which we've manually altered with tiny QR code stickers.

This was one of our little promotional projects we've been working on with our wonderful friend and 28 North team member Skyler Nielsen of the killer LA band Oh No Not Stereo. They're wonderful things those QR codes.
 And Skyler's cat Stevie Wonder kept us in line.

This week we are very excited to be returning to the studio with David Kershenbaum. We will be laying down fresh drum tracks to be nurtured into finely crafted songs of rock. Today will be another marathon practice session at GC Studios in Woodland Hills to rev up our recording engines.

Oh, and last week we met David Spade at Rock & Reilly's on the Strip. No big deal. Hollywooooooooood!

 Til next time, Ty

Viper Room this Saturday 4/28!! And going to Target.

We had a lovely little day of practice last Wednesday. We got our set down pat for Saturday's show at Viper Room with the Thomas Nicholas Band. It is sure to kick you all in the pants and then put a smile on your face. We are totally psyched for this show!

 Jon has a spankin' new iPad, which totally rocks. He carries this thing around like it was his infant progeny, sort of like me and my sadness (elbow to the ribs). He's also altered the case he bought in brilliant makeshift fashion to reveal a superior product, in my opinion. It's totally a hipster pad, take a look below.

I know, it's just a little duct tape and shoe lace. But I say fuck the sleek, go for the tweaked.

In other news, we went to Target later that night to run some errands. This is basically what happened:
That's right, we're a bunch of idiots. Unfortunately, I turned the camera off right before one of the cashier dudes came over and told us, in his faux-authoritative way, to basically shut the fuck up. Fair enough. I also got some new hipster glasses. Check 'em out.

More soon. Ty