Tour Dates Announced

• 10/31 – PA’s Lounge – Somerville, MA
• 11/10 – The Zodiac – Baltimore, MD (w/ Blood Warrior)
• 11/11 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA (w/ Blood Warrior)
• 11/12 – Union Hall – Brooklyn, NY – (w/ Blood Warrior)
• 11/16 – The Social – Orlando, FL (w/ Stellastarr*)
• 11/17 – Whirlyball – Atlanta, GA (w/ Stellastarr*)
• 11/18 – Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC (w/ Stellastarr*)
• 11/19 – Rock n roll hotel – Washington, DC (w/ Stellastarr*)

Drink Up Buttercup

After a spectacular series of shows at this years CMJ, Drink Up Buttercup are not resting on their laurels. They’re heading out on tour playing shows with Blood Warrior and Stellarstarr*.

To celebrate, Stereogum are giving away a free download of the Andrew WK remix of Drink Up Buttercup’s new single Even Think.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

“they turn into the bastard sons of Shane MacGowan and Tom Waits, pounding on garbage cans and deftly mixing theatrical swagger with plenty of punk-rock ‘tude. Not many bands can mix homemade percussion, three-part harmonies, a melodica, and some opera training (no lie—lead singer James Harvey can bust out the vibrato when called upon), and make it all sound like this much beer-soaked, unpretentious fun” –Andy Hermann, Metromix New York

Drink Up Buttercup signed with Yep Roc Records and their first offering is the single ‘Even Think’, a fast-paced fist-pumper, driven by frenzied organ arpeggios and swelling vocal harmonies reminiscent of the sound of Brian Wilson re-imagining The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat – all recorded and mixed in less than 24 hours as a lo-fi gift for their fans sonically unique from their other recorded material. If this is the kind of studio magic that is conjured in less than one day you won’t believe your ears when you get to hear the full length coming in early 2010 recorded by Philly’s veritable go-to guy, Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man) and mixed by Rusty Santos, the man responsible for the sound that graced Panda Bear’s Person Pitch.

The single is backed by an all new alternate version of the live performance fan favorite “Heavy Hand,” and this digital 45 can be downloaded for FREE at Yep Roc’s site. And for all the vinyl junkies out there the 7” only version will feature a cover of the Buzzcocks classic “Why Can’t I Touch It.” Expect two amazing reworks of the single courtesy of electro-pop meastro Cale Parks and renowned party-starter Andrew WK.

Drink Up Buttercup is truly the story of hard work and dedication. There was no stumbling upon an album deal, they earned it the good old-fashioned way by working their backsides off for it. This year alone they released a 7” (Sosey&Dosey/Farewell Captain) on Kanine Records (Grizzly Bear, Chairlift), recorded an entire full-length album, all while playing 60+ self-booked shows. They’ve shared the stage with the likes of Bishop Allen, The Fiery Furnaces, Tune-Yards, Clues, Marnie Stern and Free Energy and if you were lucky enough to catch them live at SXSW, New York’s After The Jump or the countless other shows, consider yourself a member of a privileged club because it won’t be as exclusive for too much longer.

Always planning the next trip, Drink Up Buttercup will be hitting the road again introducing more people to the onstage fracas of fretboards, drumsticks, elbows, metal lockers, mannequin heads, and trashcan lids thrashing through the air. Yet somehow avoiding serious injury to themselves, and always leaving the audience exhausted but eager for more in fashion that The New York Times declares “mesmerizes and clobbers live.”

AWARD WINNING CULT DIRECTOR TAKES RISKS ON DIRECTION OF The Prairie Cartel’s video “No Light Escapes Here.”

Prairie Cartel

Award-winning Chinese director Peng Lei (an accomplished filmmaker/animator whose clay animation film “Beihai Monster” from 2006 was a hit in the Chinese indie-film world and has won numerous awards) discovered The Prairie Cartel’s music online and reached out to them about wanting to direct their video for “No Light Escapes Here” from their forthcoming debut release “Where Did All My People Go” . This is such a surreal, psychedelic urban-yeti dance trip.

As Peng explained to the lads, “The reason I wanted to direct this video was that I’m impressed with the lyrics and understand that they’re about trying to express yourself artistically in an oppressive communist regime.” Musically he also felt connected, Peng Lei is a member of New Pants, one of the most revered bands in China’s contemporary music history who formed in 1996 – their early sound was influenced heavily by new wave and early punk rock, particularly the Ramones. And in a true punk rock fashion, Peng takes a huge risk by using Mao all over the video.

View the video here:  No Light Escapes Here

The Prairie Cartel unleash their debut full length

“Where Did All My People Go”

• Double Wax package Released November 17th on Long Nights, Impossible Odds
• Distribution by Burnside & Ioda
• Digital release date: October 27th, 2009
• In stores: November 17th, 2009
• Record Release Party Thursday November 5th in Chicago

Please Join The Prairie Cartel at their record release launch including a special live performance by The Prairie Cartel, unleashing new material from their debut album

AT

• Disappear Here @
• Angels & Kings New York, NY
• Plus Resident DJs Members Only AV and Heaven Malone

Download a free MP3 Where Did All My People Go?

For 10.5 months of the year there is little else to do in Chicago besides drink heavily. The Prairie Cartel started as an excuse for Scott Lucas (Local H), Blake Smith and Mike Willison (both ex-Caviar) to do this in Mike’s basement while playing their favorite records. Albums on DFA, Matador, Wax Trax, Modular and Creation were all in heavy rotation during those dark months except when the whisky came out and it went all Ummagumma on them. The obligatory, possibly illegal, and definitely messy DJ gigs followed. Warehouses and lofts trembled before their can’t-mix, won’t-even-try-to-mix majesty. They developed a reputation for sets that were somehow gloriously disheveled but still extremely satisfying. After a particularly delirious night behind, on top of, and in front of the decks in London where some teeth got chipped, a little blood got spilled, and the local authorities threatened to pull their passports, they decided the timing was perfect to pick their instruments back up and go home to cut a record.

They bought a couple of used microphones, a bi-polar Mac, and locked themselves back in Mike’s basement. For a long time. maybe longer than what is considered healthy by normal people. Empty bottles and pizza boxes piled up. Beards grew, got cut, and grew again. Creatures with tails scurried in shadowy corners. Friends and family became worried. But then 2 EPs suddenly emerged in quick succession to unanimously positive reviews and doors began to open for them. They got asked to put a song in the Grand Theft Auto video game. Then they got asked to create an entire channel for the hand-held version, achieving every artist’s dream of cornering the market in sound tracking virtual third-person deals of digital drugs.

So, with all things taking its course, rather than emerging to tour and possibly killing this creative streak, they decided to ride it out in their tiny room until somebody cracked. The exhilarating result of this is Where Did all my People Go.

From the warped raw warehouse party-provoking opener “Keep Everybody Warm” The Prairie Cartel start off their debut by giving everybody a shout out, “And what you gotta do, is keep yourself together. Keep everybody warm.” Emerging from the Chicago Urban underground TPC blur the line with their delectably industrial yet funky directions. Taking it further is their cover of “Homicide” recorded by British punks 999 in 1978.

Sequenced in a continuous mix, the second tune in, “Suitcase Pimp” keeps the dirty rock alive with it’s seedy sleazy guitar line and gutter-nonsense lyrics: “Can I kick it can I lick, if I lick it if I lick will you like it?” While “Jump Like Chemicals” rhythm guitar hooks are gritty, sexy, and contagious.

From the Giorgio Moroder meets Modern Lovers groove of “Cracktown” to the WTF Ian Curtis frenetic freak out of “Fuck Yeah That Wide”, Where Have All My People Gone captures the anarchy and spirit of a mid-western band giddy to warp their electronics with the necks of their guitars. And they’ll wet your sonic palate even further with their hypnotically catchy chorus in “Lost All Track of Time”. You’ll even find a bit of Ambient layered with texture and chaos on “Magnetic South”. So Enjoy what the Prairie Cartel sound like now, the band just discovered Pink Floyd and that’s just the icing.

Where Did All My People Go is a slurry blast through Disco, Indie, Punk Rock and Electro, (depending on what they were ingesting at the time) and plays like an unruly house party that is more about sloppy kissing and jumping up and down and less about that one dude nobody invited getting into fights.

Where Did All My People Go is set for release on November 17th on Long Nights, Impossible Odds

TRACK LISTING:

• KEEP EVERYBODY WARM
• SUITCASE PIMP
• LOST ALL TRACK OF TIME
• CRACKTOWN
• BEAUTIFUL SHADOW
• HOMICIDE
• NARCOTIC INSIDIOUS
• TEN FEET OF SNOW
• JUST LIKE CHEMICALS
• NO LIGHT ESCAPES HERE
• COBRASKIN BRIEFCASE
• BURNING DOWN THE OTHER SIDE
• MAGNETIC SOUTH
• FUCK YEAH THAT WIDE
• THE GLOW IS GONE

Formerly the front-man of Preston School Of Industry, and guitarist, singer and founding member with Pavement, Scott Kannberg returns to our turntables with his first solo album, The Real Feel, credited to his long-running nom-du-rock, Spiral Stairs.

“I guess Spiral Stairs is my name now,” he laughs. “It had been so long since the last Preston School Of Industry album, it made sense to call this a Spiral Stairs record. Everybody knows me as Spiral, it’s weird when someone calls me ‘Scott’. I’m not sure anyone knows who Scott Kannberg is.”

Despite the pseudonym, however, The Real Feel is, lyrically, Spiral’s most personal and honest recording yet, the songs’ loose, late-night vibe, soulful ache and charmingly vulnerable optimism very much shaped by his experiences in the years between the last Preston School Of Industry album, 2004’s Monsoon, and today.

an album heavy with haunted blues and bruised soul

It’s an album heavy with haunted blues and bruised soul, with a soused late-night ambience that perfectly fits both its scuffed and sad-eyed ballads, and its more strident rockers. ‘Wharf-Hand Blues’, closing the first side, is a standout, with stricken slide guitar and ghostly backing vocals, and Spiral’s smouldering, sad refrain of “What was wrong for you / might’ve been right for me”; the lyrical, pedal steel-gilded country of ‘A Mighty Mighty Fall’ is a sunnier glide, and easily charms. Foot-stomping opener ‘True Love’ and the brooding, blistering ‘Subiaco Shuffle’ rock out with the ragged glory of Neil Young and his Crazy Horse, unkempt and heartfelt, while the sunshine jangle of ‘Cold Change’ offers more of the lilting, beguilingly-unkempt pop Spiral’s spent a career perfecting.

“People who’ve heard the album told me they weren’t expecting it to sound the way it does,” says Spiral. “It’s been a few years since the last album, and I’ve heard a lot more music in that time, and been influenced by it. I was listening to Richard Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights a lot, and mid-period Fleetwood Mac, and Bob Dylan records from when he was in his mid- to late-thirties. I was listening to those records at home, with my guitar in my hands, and thinking, I want to write songs with that same weird vibe.”

While the album sounds like the work of a group playing in simpatico, camped out in the studio together some way past midnight, the recording sessions actually spanned months and oceans. Spiral first recorded the bare tracks with some of his former bandmates in PSOI, including bassist Matt Harris and drummer Darius Minwalla, before hooking up with friend and fellow Seattle-ite Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star), who helped Spiral record further overdubs and background vocals, and added touches of organ and mellotron to the proceedings. Next, Spiral took the tapes with him to Australia – where, of late, he’s been spending his winters – and recorded further instrumentation and backing vocals with friends out there. (He has become so enamoured with Down Under that he will soon be emigrating there, and marrying his Australian fiancé).

Spiral ascribes the five year delay between Monsoon and The Real Deal to the personal upheavals he experienced after touring the last Preston School Of Industry album, experiences which fed the mood and lyrics of these new songs. “I split up with my wife,” he says, “and went through some dark times here in Seattle. I had some songs written, but I just never really got out of my doldrums enough to get it together. It’s weird how five years can go by so quick: a lot of shit went on.”

Spiral wrote the songs for The Real Feel during this period, in Seattle and in Australia. “I was just playing music with these guys, making up these songs. It’s a more personal record than I’ve made before; they’ve all been personal, but this one’s pretty dark. The song material was very emotionally-tinged, very personal, all about what’s been going on with me. I knew that I wanted to deal with what was going on, what with my break-up, and the lost years after that. I wanted to deal with that in the songs.”

The result is an album that’s dark and potent, vulnerable and unflinchingly honest, an album unafraid to rock and to roll. Spiral describes it as having an “Australian” sound, and says it reminds him of the Bad Seeds and the Go-Betweens. Cathartic and powerful and uplifting, it’s the sound of Spiral making sense with that which makes no sense, making peace with his demons, and celebrating the life that follows. Certainly, despite the emotions that fuelled the record, making The Real Feel was an experience that proved entirely positive for Spiral.

“This is the best record I’ve ever made,” he says. “I spent so long on it that, once I finally listened back to the completed record, it was exactly how I wanted it all to be; that was a good feeling. There were moments in the last five years when I thought I didn’t want anything to do with music anymore… But you hear a good record, and it pumps you back into it again. It takes a lot to make a record, but it feels so great, and makes me want to make another, real quick.”

Drink Up Buttercup have signed with Yep Roc Records and to celebrate are giving away the single ‘Even Think’, a fast-paced fist-pumper, driven by frenzied organ arpeggios and swelling vocal harmonies reminiscent of the sound of Brian Wilson re-imagining The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat – all recorded and mixed in less than 24 hours as a lo-fi gift for their fans sonically unique from their other recorded material.

If this is the kind of studio magic that is conjured in less than one day you won’t believe your ears when you get to hear the full length coming in early 2010 recorded by Philly’s veritable go-to guy, Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man) and mixed by Rusty Santos, the man responsible for the sound that graced Panda Bear’s Person Pitch.

“Lumbering drums, jangling shakers, electronic squiggles, and lots of…ragged shouts accompany the strutting bass line and stomping guitar….it’s all just loose and playful enough to avoid coming across as overly nostalgic.” -Pitchfork

• 10/20 – CMJ Showcase @ The Delancey – New York, NY
• 10/21 – Kanine / Insound CMJ Showcase @ Cake Shop – New York, NY
• 10/23 – CMJ Happy Hour @ Brooklyn Brewry – Brooklyn, NY
• 10/23 – Popgun Unofficial CMJ Party @ Glasslands – New York, NY
• 10/24 – Young and Hungry Party @ The Delancey – New York, NY
• 10/24 – Vice X Colt X Etnies party @ Etnies Showroom, New York, NY (RSVP at viceland.com/coltrsvpny)

www.myspace.com/drinkupbuttercupband

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