Archives for posts with tag: The High Watt

My Goodness Tour Stop Sunday at The High Watt

February 19, 2014 //

The Joel Schneider Interview

My Goodness, photo – Jason Tang

The Seattle duo My Goodness , Joel Schneider and percussionist Andy Lum, make their first appearance in Nashville at The High Watt on February 23^rd with Augustines in tow and a bass player!

My Goodness recently recorded a cover of Seattle’s early garage rock pioneers, The Sonics, “In The Sun” while on a tour stop in San Diego and had the event pressed to vinyl in time for fans during this cross country jaunt that brings the band through Texas before ending up in Tennessee.

While the band had been to SXSW in the past, they never made it to Nashville until now. Joel Schneider took a few minutes with The Nashville Bridge to talk about the bands roots in Seattle and the opportunity to spend some time here in Nashville.

Brad Hardisty / The Nashville Bridge: Is this the first time in Nashville?

Joel Schneider / My Goodness: It will be. Yeah.

TNB: You will like the High Watt.

My Goodness, photo – Hayley Young

JS: Nashville is actually one of the places I am looking forward to be playing at on this tour. When we looked at a map the first time, I said I really want to play Nashville and then also I would like to go to Montreal. Those are the two places I can’t wait to play.

TNB: If I’m right, you have about 25 dates scheduled this tour?

JS: We had 30, but now we have 29 because we had to cancel Salt Lake City.

TNB: Cancelled! That sucks because even Salt Lake City is starting to have a little bit of a scene.

JS: Yeah.

TNB: The thing that interested me when I was hearing your music is that it was not like what some of the other two man bands are doing, I mean I hear a little bit of Jeff Buckley, a little bit of Blue Cheer. Can you kind of define what you are after?

JS: Something came up about Jeff Buckley before. I actually write the majority of songs on acoustic guitar at home. They kind of start off as more mellow tunes usually and then once I take them into practice and, you know, this whole band setting definitely changes things. We get a lot more heavy. We add parts and what not. I started playing back in high school. Andy [Lum] and I were really big into the all ages hard core scene, so we kind of have a background in pretty heavy music. A little later on, I got into a lot of soul and blues music and stuff like that. A lot of my writing is kind of a mash-up of the two and whenever I start writing at home it’s a different technique, but with the band it starts to get pretty heavy.

TNB: Are you out of the Seattle Hard Core scene or did you start somewhere before that?

JS: We started in Seattle. I started when I was a teenager and that was what the particular scene was at the time. We are definitely out of Seattle. We have played together for a couple years now.

TNB: What’s it like in Seattle now?

JS: It’s pretty eclectic. There are a lot of different little communities there. You can be between scenes which is what I like. You can be in a folk band and can still be friends with a heavy band. You can still support each other, which is really cool. There have been a lot of scenes that have come out of the city, but there has also been kind of a heavy scene that is starting to come up and there is a record label which just started up a year or so ago. They are really giving an outlet for heavier bands that have been around for a while to get the recognition that they are getting now, which is really cool, but, there is definitely a variety music in Seattle.

TNB: We kind of have our own collection of two man bands here, like Jack White moved here a few years ago and The Black Keys followed a couple of years ago and we have had Jeff The Brotherhood around for I think probably 6 or 8 years.

JS: Yeah.

TNB: Do you know any of those guys?

JS: No. As bands for sure, but, I have never met any of them. We already have met a lot of people on this tour. Our good friend Cody [Votolato] is playing bass with us. He is gone for a few dates so we are playing as a two piece for a few dates and then he will meet up with us. He will be with us in Nashville. I think the addition of bass playing has added a lot to what we do.

TNB: Does Cody normally play in another band?

JS: He was playing in a band called The Blood Brothers for a long time. They are out of Seattle. He has been on tour with a couple of other bands, Telekinesis and Old Cave. He is just a really accomplished musician and he helps out a lot. He was our first choice and we are just lucky that he said yes.

TNB: What do you find is the biggest challenge of doing a cross country club gig tour as opposed to a regional tour?

JS: Just being away from home, bro! It’s definitely the longest I have been away. It will be almost two months since I have been home and we have girls back home so, just keepin’ that going, it gets a little tough but we are making it work. I am having a good time trying to keep it light, you know?

TNB: Are you doing any in-stores while you are here?

JS: In Nashville, I am not a 100% sure, I’ll have to look. I can always check on that for you.

TNB: I saw you pressed a vinyl seven inch about the time you hit L.A.?

JS: We came down and played a few dates last winter and there was a studio [Lost Ark Studio]in San Diego that invited us in to do a song for their singles compilation. We decided to do a Sonics cover and they decided they wanted to press us 500 copies of the song and they had us do a second song too. We just picked up the vinyl copies two days ago. It was really, really nice of them. They didn’t charge us or anything. They sound great.

TNB: Hopefully you will still have some of them when you get to Nashville.

JS: They gave us a lot more than I expected them to give us so we should have some of them for sure.

TNB: Are you doing this around the same time as SXSW or are you going to come back?

JS: We played SXSW the last couple of years, but we are going to be in Austin a week or two before so we are going to miss it. We just signed to Votiv Records. If there is not a reason for us to go, I’d rather not. It’s pretty chaotic, you know, down there. We went for a couple of years and it’s always a good time. It always feels a little stressful.

TNB: What are you looking forward to the most when you come out here?

JS: I think we have a day off after the day we play, so I just want to walk around Nashville a little bit. I hear the music scene around Nashville is amazing. I want to check out a couple of clubs and listen to a little music.

TNB: There is definitely a lot of clubs here now. One of the most interesting things is over at Third Man Records they have an antique restored make your own record booth. And it’s from the 1940’s and Jack White restored it. It sounds like a 78 when you record on it. It looks like a telephone booth.

JS: Oh wow.

TNB: Neil Young just got threw recording an entire album in there. You can walk in there and for $15 you can press straight to vinyl in the booth. If you have an acoustic guitar or something you might want to try that while you are here.

JS: That would be awesome. It sounds really cool.

TNB: I hope you have a good time and looking forward to the show.

JS: Thank you.

– Brad Hardisty, Nashville, TN thenashvillebridgeathotmaildotcom

Tags Andy Lum, Augustines, Brad Hardisty, Cody Vololato, Hayley Young, Jason Tang, Joel Schneider, Lost Ark Studio, My Goodness, Seattle, The Blood Brothers, The High Watt, The Sonics

Categories Music, Music City, Nashville, Uncategorized

Farewell Flight Takes Off At The High Watt

February 7, 2014 //

The Luke Foley Interview

Luke Foley / Farewell Flight at The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Farewell Flight showcased new music off I Was A Ghost to a packed house at The High Watt last Thursday night with a strong bill that featured The Joy of Painting and Lorien marking the first release after reaching a decade as a band with a March drop date.

Farewell Flight at The High Watt, Feb. 2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke Foley, looking like a happier version of Jim Morrison’s “LA Woman” final Doors sessions era poet, has developed into a full fledge Songwriter / Performer veteran that was at ease and ready to express fresh autobiographical lyrics about his “Quarter Life Crisis” that make up the new release.

CITGO has featured the song “Places We’ll Go” from I Was A Ghost in their recent “Fueling Good” national ad campaign and Farewell Flight has become a favorite on Lightning 100 since moving from Pennsylvania to Nashville over two years ago.

Rabbit Campbell, Farewell Flight at The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

The band is now built solidly around the core of Luke Foley as well as Caleb Allensworth [drums, samples] and “Rabbit” Campbell on lead guitar in much the same way Genesis became and ”then there were three” after Peter Gabriel’s departure.

Before the show, The Nashville Bridge spoke with Luke Foley about overcoming the anxiety of being an independent band with the realization of how strong their core fan base is after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Brad Hardisty / The Nashville Bridge: The lyrics seem like a mini storytelling Opera about events you have gone through. Is it really personal?

Luke Foley – Farewell Flight, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke Foley / Farewell Flight: Yeah I think it is. The stories pretty much stretch over the last three years, but also are reflecting on the previous ten. So, it’s very nostalgic in a sense since it is about me for the last few years, but it’s about myself for a good ten years leading up to that moment.

TNB: Two themes I really like are from “Breaking My Heart” where it talks about being 25 and “Quarter Life Crisis” which is a term I have never heard before. Also, “I Was A Ghost” where you are looking into the past then changes pulls you into the present.

Luke Foley, Farewell Flight at The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: I think everything, every person you meet is for a season and sometimes a season is for a really long time perhaps it is for your whole life. I think that even though you have people that come into your life for a short period, you can become incredibly close to people in that short period of time. It’s still in the natural and normal progression for them to move out of your life. People end up kind of doing it eventually and that song is about that, no matter how natural and normal it is, it is hard to do.

TNB: As far as the recording congratulations because Farewell Flight has been together for over ten years now.

Farewell Flight, The High Watt, Nashville, TN, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: It’s been quite a while. I was actually looking it up last night because I was trying to remember how long we have been a band like when was the first show or something. But, I think 2003 is a ballpark. That would be my best guess.

TNB: I know you guys have gone through a lot of personnel changes. How long with have you worked with the two other members of the current lineup?

Caleb Allensworth series of 3, Farewell Flight, The High Watt, photos – Brad Hardisty

Luke: My guitarist, “Rabbit” Campbell has been with me since the end of 2008, I think. My drummer, Caleb Allensworth currently started with me at the end of 2011 and we are currently a three piece. We just parted ways with our bassist who was willing to come back when my drummer did in 2011-2012. He still lives here in Nashville. He is actually a roommate of the other two guys in the band. He wanted to do some different stuff.

TNB: I know you had been with Mono vs Stereo, but I guess there were financial problems and they got around to releasing your album in 2011. This time around you are Independent and financed this album with a Kickstarter campaign. Was that kind of a gut wrenching thing, realizing that you are going to have to do it on your own?

Luke Foley, Farewell Flight, The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: I had really mixed feelings. So, yeah, Kickstarter… you know it was really hard and really easy to do at the same time. We signed with Mono vs Stereo actually twice. We signed with them once and then the guy that ran the label, that signed us, left the label and we were left without a champion there and it gave us the option of: if you want to leave you can and so we decided to leave and then we were independent for a while. Then, the label was revived by these two guys. They really wanted to sign us, but they wanted to release an old record which we kind of fought against for a while, but I don’t know, we rolled the dice. We thought it would be a lot better having a connection with them, but it ended up turning out to be, you know, they are great guys, but it probably was not a great fit. So, once we left that label we went back to square one, although we are not just a band that just formed yesterday. We don’t have a record label, but at the same time it’s freeing to know that after six months [there was four months of planning and then executing Kickstarter] you don’t have other people involved and you are just able to do it all on your own timeline. It’s just really freeing and we really enjoyed doing that. It felt we were back to square one, but we really weren’t because over the years we have toured so much and we really had a great network of friends and fans that were able to get behind us and really help make the record happen. It is amazing to see how many people are still interested in what we are doing after all this time. It’s very humbling.

TNB: I remember when Mono vs Stereo wanted to change your name to Indian Summer and your fans fought it. That showed me that you had a strong base so that later on when you did this Kickstarter campaign you had somewhere to start.

Farewell Flight, The High Watt, Nashville, TN, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: Yeah, It’s definitely been very good. It’s cool. We don’t have a ton of fans, but our fans are very loyal and very fierce. I think they really love what we do. I think it is because the music really connects with them on a very personal level. I think a lot of our fans relate to a lot of things that I have experienced. It’s like biographical tools for the people that listen to it. A lot of people have kind of adopted it as their own, kind of like, music for a movie. It’s like a score for their own personal life. I think that most people that listen to it kind of have that experience. I think that is why people are so fiercely loyal about our band even if there are not a whole lot of them.

TNB: “Places We’ll Go,” that reminds me of a Farewell Flight song, but you also took a lot of chances on this album.

Rabbit Campbell / Farewell Flight, The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: Yeah, I think one of the biggest influences for me was the movie Drive. I just love that movie and the soundtrack and then listening to a lot more “late 80’s” and “early 90’s” pop hits: the stuff I listened to when I was growing up. I didn’t know who the artists were. I just listened to the songs and I was just a little kid. There are songs by Phil Collins and Cyndi Lauper, even Springsteen stuff, you know, when you are growing up that you hear, but you don’t know who the people are. The songs are like a soundtrack to your life when you are little and so I think in keeping with the whole nostalgic thing, I think I was listening to the songs of my childhood and just a lot of that kind of music. I think that has a big play in what we do. I really wanted to lean heavily on synths and keyboards and drum machines on this record. I think that my own path is actually very acoustic stuff, so it‘s very hard. It was very difficult to get the emotion and the passion of what I was trying to say or get across with this new record. I think we accomplished trying to just get that rawness across.

TNB: It kind of has a little Prog or complexity in some of the songs.

Luke Foley – Farewell Flight, The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: Yeah.

TNB: You relocated to Nashville in 2012. What brought you to Nashville?

Luke Foley, Farewell Flight, The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: I wanted to try something new. We toured for a good seven or eight years and we never had a booking agent. We did around 800 shows or something like that, completely independent and we always thought that was what was going to get us to the next level. It’s always a tough picture. We were working really hard, but it didn’t vacillate into anything happening. I just kind of viewed that as “I can’t just keeping doing this over and over and expect different results to occur.” I was losing my mind. I had tried everything I could possibly do. What could I do differently? I thought; we have never tried relocating to a new area. I made connections and built relationships, kind of like, you know, being in the right place at the right time or at least being in the right place all the time. That was our goal in moving to Nashville and I think it is already paying off. I think that a lot of the friendships and relationships that we are building have been very comfortable and helpful to our career. A couple of things have happened here. I got our first placement on the CITGO ad. I got it from a person that I waited table on. She just asked me what I was doing further than just living in Nashville. She was like, “So what are you doing here in Nashville other than wait tables?” and I said I write songs and play in band and stuff and she said, “send me your best track.” So I sent her “Places We’ll Go” and she placed it in a CITGO commercial. That doesn’t happen every day and I don’t really bring stuff up like that as a waiter like, oh well, I have a band check me out, you know, but I think that could never happen anywhere else except maybe L.A. or New York maybe Seattle or Austin, but that never would have happened back in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The move was just to make connections with people.

Caleb Allensworth – Farewell Flight, The High Watt, 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

TNB: You are right. The thing that is interesting is Nashville is evolving into where some of the things that would happen in L.A. or Seattle are starting to happen here. You came at a good time.

Luke Foley, Farewell Flight, The High Watt, Nashville, TN 2/6/2014, photo – Brad Hardisty

Luke: I am very glad to be here. It is such a cool place to live even if you are not doing music. My wife is not a musician, she is an artist and there are so many creative opportunities here for someone like her or anybody who does something creative. It is a very creative place to be and I am happy to be living in Nashville.

Farewell Flight, photo – Brad Hardisty

– Brad Hardisty, Nashville, TN thenashvillebridgeathotmaildotcom

Tags Brad Hardisty, Caleb Allensworth, Cannery Row, Farewell Flight, Indie Music, Lorien, Luke Foley, Rabbit Campbell, The High Watt, The Joy Of Painting

Categories Music, Nashville, Rock Music, Uncategorized

Bang Ok Bang Rock The High Watt

January 20, 2013 //

Bang Ok Bang, The High Watt, photo- Brad Hardisty

Friday January 18^th, The High Watt walls were rumbling to Bang Ok Bang in celebration of their new video release in support of “Always For You” off their recently released first EP revelating through a heavy groove dirge that can only be described as Trance Industrial Metal Blues.

Ben Lowry – Bang Ok Bang, The High Watt, photo – Brad Hardisty

Ben Lowry was whipping his guitars, both 6 and 7 string varieties through a Bass amp and Marshall half stack pumping the juice through the newly minted High Watt PA system, splattering bass all over the floor and rattling midrange through all the other gear sitting to the left of the stage.

Abby Hairston – Bang Ok Bang, The High Watt, photo – Brad Hardisty

Abby Hairston is probably the most passionate drummer in Nashville today. You can literally anticipate each crack, snap and UH! and determine the pace and dynamic as she throws her hair and weight all over the kit. Abby’s every crack of the stick seems determined much like Hill Country Blues drummer, Cedric Burnside.

photo – Brad Hardisty

Pulling songs from their EP such as “Chemicals Pt. 1 & 2,” and “Above The Surface,” Bang Ok Bang paced through a complete set that showed major growth and tightness since first kicking it out several months ago.

photo – Brad Hardisty

The set featured new songs that show how to take the heavy two piece into even more sonic space.

photo – Brad Hardisty

The crowd was an interesting mix of post high school, post EMO less than twenty somethings for opener ForeverandNever that was losing their bass player after this show and a crowd more akin to a singles bar for headliner BREE.

photo – Brad Hardisty

Somehow, it looked like each group of Apprecianados found something they liked in each set even though the three bands fit three distinctly different cliques and mind sets.

Abby Hairston, photo – Brad Hardisty

One of the most amazing things was how tight the two have got to matching each other in the slow down mid song breaks as well as groove changes with ease.

Bang Ok Bang, The High Watt, Nashville, TN, photo – Brad Hardisty

Bang Ok Bang may be ready for David Letterman in 2013.

The High Watt, Joe Strummer on Mens Room Door, photo – Brad Hardisty

– Brad Hardisty, Nashville, TN thenashvillebridge@hotmail.com

Tags Abby Hairston, Bang Ok Bang, Ben Lowry, The High Watt

Categories Alabama, Alabama Music, Bang Ok Bang, Ben Lowry, Music, Rock Music, The High Watt, Uncategorized

My Goodness Tour Stop Sunday at The High Watt

The Joel Schneider Interview

The Seattle duo My Goodness , Joel Schneider and percussionist Andy Lum, make their first appearance in Nashville at The High Watt on February 23rd with Augustines in tow and a bass player!

Farewell Flight Takes Off At The High Watt

The Luke Foley Interview

Farewell Flight showcased new music off I Was A Ghost to a packed house at The High Watt last Thursday night with a strong bill that featured The Joy of Painting and Lorien marking the first release after reaching a decade as a band with a March drop date.

Bang Ok Bang Rock The High Watt

Friday January 18th, The High Watt walls were rumbling to Bang Ok Bang in celebration of their new video release in support of “Always For You” off their recently released first EP revelating through a heavy groove dirge that can only be described as Trance Industrial Metal Blues.

The Seattle duo My Goodness , Joel Schneider and percussionist Andy Lum, make their first appearance in Nashville at The High Watt on February 23^rd with Augustines in tow and a bass player!

Friday January 18^th, The High Watt walls were rumbling to Bang Ok Bang in celebration of their new video release in support of “Always For You” off their recently released first EP revelating through a heavy groove dirge that can only be described as Trance Industrial Metal Blues.