Working with Dani, we've decided to look at the Providence folk scene. I'll be focusing on Deer Tick and other local acts that are now more national while she'll be more involved with the strictly local scene. We're both planning on seeing Deer Tick and a few other bands play a show Wednesday night, but until then when I can actually interact with people I decided to do some online research to see what I could dig up about Deer Tick and their listeners.
Last.fm profile
According to last.fm, Deer Tick has 37,571 registered listeners and 466,515 plays. These people have tagged Deer Tick songs with some of the following descriptions: folk, indie, indie folk, alt-country, singer-songwriter, 5432fun, folk songs that make my heart melt into a syrupy potion, mellow, providence, rhode island, and (my personal favorite) people who are freakier and folkier than motherfucking devandra banhart. Most of the listener comments (recorded in the "shoutbox") generally seem to say that the band is amazing and great live; there were also four people in a row who said, "his music the hipster garabe i've ever heard"...not entirely sure what that's supposed to mean. The five most-played songs are:
1. Ashamed
2. Art isn't Real (City of Sin)
3. These Old Shoes
4. Dirty Dishes
5. Baltimore Blues No. 1
MySpace profile
Next I looked at the band's MySpace profile. It classified their music as rock/rock/rock. Most of the songs in the playlist came off their album War Elephant (reviewed here by Pitchfork), but they did have a covor of the Sean Kingston song "Beautful Girls" [also, I realized later that "Little White Lies" is currently unreleased]. They also had pictures and names of band members, a band bio, and a list of upcoming shows. They're in the middle of a national tour. What was interesting was all of the locations for shows seemed to be announced accept for the one in their hometown of Providence. It said that it was at "Steve'n'Levin 4-ever w/ Chris Paddock, The Gambees, and Brokedown Serenade," but in order to find out where that is you had to email John McCauley, the lead singer. I found a blog that talked about how most local shows in Providence often aren't advertised because they don't want to "[allow] the authorities the ability to obtain info on these performances." Because of this, "What ends up happening is, bands play in guerilla places, off-the-radar and technically illegal venues; houses, basements, in mills, artist studios, and lofts." The blog also discussed how Deer Tick is a great Providence band, something the author felt couldn't be said often enough. The blog can be found here.
Daytrotter Session
A brief bio/commentary on the band accompanied by four acoustic songs. Two ("Ashamed" and "Baltimore Blues No. 1") were previously released on the album War Elephants; one of the others ("Little White Lies") is "sure" to be on their next recording, while the final one ("The Ghost") is simply cited as a non-album song. "Ashamed" sounds much different than it does on the album; John told the band to pretend like they were playing "Imagine." Speaking about "Little White Lies," the band said "Chicks, money, sex – it’s all here in this song." An excerpt from the commentary (written by a Daytrotter writer):
"The songs on War Elephant, the band’s newest self-release is an exploration of those simple concerns of desperate times and the ways in which we’re imaging ourselves breaking out of them and getting on with the way it was back when we faintly remember. He charters some of the most persistent and lovably humble and quaint sentiments that Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and many of the other country outlaws have survived on since they began. “Baltimore Blues #1” makes a man feel as if he’s being sent out of a mouth along with the rest of the discarded cigarette smoke, but in slow motion, sailing out in a white tumbling cloud, silhouetted against those black backgrounds that they shoot all of those educational sneezing videos in front of."
That's all for now. I'll hopefully have lots to update with after the show on Wednesday! I'm also going to take some time to explore Deer Tick's top friends on MySpace and see if any of them are local and have upcoming shows.
Almost forgot: Band Bio on their website; also, video of their show at SXSW last year:
Deer Tick Secret Special Show! from liz isenberg on Vimeo.
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I just found out Annikki Dawn and Vio/Mire are friends with Deer Tick.
ReplyDeleteI see it all coming together!!
That's really interesting that Deer Tick also plays secret shows in Providence. I knew that there were quite a few noise and drum n bass bands that play in warehouses and other illegal locations, but I had no idea that there were folk musicians playing those shows as well.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Deer Tick's success has helped the Providence folk scene grow and receive more attention or if the band's departure from this city to tour the country created a sense of loss in the scene instead.
It's very rewarding finding connections between different groups and artists, isn't it? Maybe you can try to contact some of the smaller bands/musicians online to delve into these connections more before seeing them live.
The ProJo website soemtimes has reviews and pictures of these local artists and shows as well, something I just realized.
Good Luck
I like that the band classifies themselves as rock/rock/rock and the fans classify it as all different types of genres; everything about the band seems to give its fans the satisfaction of feeling personally connected with the band. How does the lead singer answer all of those emails? That would be literally impossible for most bands, but I guess they care enough about their fans to respond to each one personally. I can't wait to hear more about Deer Tick.
ReplyDeleteHey Alyssa. I am a fan of Deer Tick, so your project is especially interesting to me. Today, Dani and myself sat down to talk about her project with my friend Evan. Hes a nice guy, and is involved with/knows a lot about the scene in Providence revolving around bands like Deer Tick and Wrong Reasons. If you have any questions, he knows most of the guys in all of those bands and can probably help a lot.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm really interested in the laws which govern music venues in Providence. I know Gabe is doing his project on venues, so it may be interesting to collaborate with him and ask about that or do some research together.
I'll be checking out your blog often to see how its going!
The secret Providence show brings up some interesting questions - when a local band becomes a national act, what can/do they do to stay local? Is staying local still important at that point, and does the answer to that question correlate with the genre at all?
ReplyDeleteAlso, Spring Weekend should give you some interesting material to work with...