…after 18 months at Oregon Express, tonight will be our final edition of The Buddha Den NTRO/XPO at that location. Tonight we will wrap up our February Residency with Brandon Hawk performing a solo acoustic set and also with his band, By Way of Sunstorm. Certainly, this will be the icing on the cake of our stint at the Oregon Express. We’d like to thank Joe Bavarro and the staff at OE for providing us with such an incredibly opportunity and an amazing room in which to host this event. Thank you to everyone that came out and supported the event and thanks to all the musicians that took time out of their week to come by and play. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience and we learned a lot about hosting shows and just exactly how much incredible talent there is in Dayton…
…as we move into March, we’ll be moving The Buddha Den NTRO/XPO across town to the cozy confines of South Park Tavern. Additionally, we will be changing the night of the week for the NTRO/XPO from Wednesday to Tuesday. The event will continue to be FREE, however, and will now also be ALL AGES. We will kick off our March Residency on Tuesday, March 9 with an amazing young band that we recently discovered, Roley Yuma.
…after making his first appearance stateside last fall, Dave Doughman [better known as Swearing at Motorists] will return for a series of house shows in the states. He is planning one in Dayton on March 19 and tickets are limited to 40. Currently, there are 24 left, so you’d better go here and buy tickets before they are gone…
…while the snow threatens to shut down Daytonia yet again, we’ve got some excellent East Coast acts slated to stop through South Park Tavern tonight. As we mentionedlast week, DC’s Title Tracks will be stopping through in support of their new album, It Was Easy. Along with them are our old friends from Boston, Pretty & Nice. Add in one of our favorite locals, the explosive/experimental instrumental quartet Kuan, and there is simply no way the snow is gonna keep us inside tonight. Hopefully, we’ll see all of you there as well….
MP3: Title Tracks “Every Little Bit Hurts”
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MP3: Pretty & Nice “Tora, Tora, Tora”
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MP3: Kuan “E”
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…For the past five years, the Dayton music scene has patiently awaited the formal recorded debut from one of the city’s most revered live acts: Human Reunion. Featuring members of such Dayton outfits as The Dirty Walk, 8-Bit Revival, Let’s Crash, and Cigarhead, Human Reunion channel several elements of the city’s storied musical past into a danceable, yet deliciously demented sound. While the quartet has established themselves as one of Dayton’s must-see live acts, the band is poised to finally issue their first recorded artifacts in 2010. All slated for release on Detroit imprint Five Three Dial Tone Records, Human Reunion will issue the Carbonics 7” in May, followed by rarities on a cassette-only issue. The band’s long-awaited debut album, Arc de Square [recorded by Dayton expatriate, Brainiac alumni, and Enon leader, John Schmersal], should be out Summer 2010 on MinorManor. You can catch Human Reunion tonight in Detroit with a free show at The Pike Room and/or tomorrow, Saturday, February 13 at Blind Bob’s with metal/dance duo Electric Banana and Silo’s Wasted Space…
MP3: Human Reunion “Black Owl”
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…while we’re a couple days behind on getting this up to you, we just wanted to let everyone know about some Daytonians that are currently out on the road spreading the word. After a successful winter tour opening up for Hawthorne Heights, The Story Changes have teamed up with HH frontman JT Woodruff [on his first solo tour] and Spitalfield’s Mark Rose for the Never Say Decaf Tour. While it’s a brief stint for these epic travelers, it is February. Take a look at the dates below, have a look at the clip below and make it out if you can….
Feb 9 7:00P THE HOUSE CAFE Dekalb, Illinois
Feb 10 6:30P MIXTAPE CAFE Grand Rapids, Michigan
Feb 11 7:00P THE FACTORY Rochester, Michigan
Feb 12 5:30P FRANKIE’S INNER CITY Toledo, Ohio
Feb 13 6:00P MUSICA Akron, Ohio
Feb 14 6:00P ELEANOR RIGBY’S Jermyn (Scranton), Pennsylvania
Feb 15 6:00P Vibe Lounge Rockville Centre (Long Island), New York
Feb 16 6:30P THE LOFT @ THE AUCTION HOUSE Audubon, New Jersey
Feb 17 6:30P SOZO State College, Pennsylvania
Feb 18 6:00P THE BRICKHOUSE Nitro (Charleston), West Virginia
Feb 19 6:00P RHINO’S Bloomington, Indiana
Feb 20 4:30P BLIND BOB’S *EARLY SHOW ALL AGES* Dayton, Ohio
Feb 20 9:30P BLIND BOB’S *LATE SHOW 21+ Dayton, Ohio
…thanks to our friends at The Test Kitchen for the notice on this. According to a Guardian UK report yesterday, Google has terminated a number of music blogs that they perceived to be in violation of their terms of service, a phenomenon already being dubbed Musicblogocide 2010. While Google received complaints that the blogs in question were in violation of the nebulous Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the bloggers argue that all questionable materials were provided directly from labels or artists, as the blogs serve as promotional outlets for the music. We’d encourage you to read the full article for all the specifics and implications. While this situation has been contained only to blogger sites thus far, it seems it may have the potential to spread to virtually any domain if the DMCA is invoked…
…although the snow refuses to relent its grasp on Daytonia this week, we will forge ahead with The Buddha Den NTRO/XPO this evening, featuring our February Resident, Brandon Hawk. Along with Mr. Hawk this evening, we have the duo, Doom Patrol, featuring Brian Baker of Astro Fang and Mike Payne aka Cry Baby Genius, who also serves as drummer for Andrew & the Pretty Punchers. As always, we’ll be at Oregon Express this evening, music starts at 10 pm and is FREE. See you there….
…continuing from yesterday, here’s the rest of our interview with John Davis of Title Tracks….
TBD: The album, It Was Easy, was basically a solo effort. Where did you record? What was the time frame on putting the album together yourself?
JD: I had written the songs myself, I had started writing songs before Georgie James had broken up yet. We still had a good bit of touring to do, but I knew that I didn’t want to do that band anymore. Around January of 2008 I started the songs that what ended up on this album. So I kinda started writing everything and by the end of 2008 I had enough songs to do an album. I recorded most of it our practice space [in DC]. Probably 2/3 of all the recording was done at the practice space. We did the rest of it at a couple of different places, like Inner Ear Studio, which is a pretty famous studio where a lot of the Dischord bands recorded. We did some vocals there. Piano and things like that, we did a couple other overdubs at a friend’s house, but it was mostly done at the practice space. I pretty much played everything myself on it because I just wanted to make a record where I just played everything. I had written everything and I knew how it to sound and could play it, so I thought like, I should just try it. I don’t know if I’ll do records like that, that way, in the future, maybe it’ll be like a mix: sometimes I will, sometimes I won’t. I’m really glad I did it this way because it was a good experience.
TBD: So now you’ve got this album that you did yourself and you’ve transitioned into the live band. How has that process worked out? Who did you decide to bring in on that?
JD: My friends Andrew [Black] and Michael [Cotterman] play drums and bass in the live version and they were both in the live version of Georgie James. Then another friend named Nick Anderson plays guitar and he is the guy who engineered and co-produced the Title Tracks record with me. So it’s the four of us normally, although the part of the tour on which we’re gonna be coming through Dayton, Michael couldn’t get away from work to do those shows so another friend of ours is gonna be filling in for him on those shows. His name Eamonn Aiken and he runs a studio here in DC and it’s just kind of a guy about town that is just a friend of our and he’s been filling in and doing a good job so it’s gonna be fun to get out and do some shows with him too, although Michael Cotterman is our main bass player normally.
TBD: So there haven’t been any glitches or anything transitioning from the record to the live band?
JD: No, not at all. It’s really better for me, in my opinion. For me, it’s little more like what I’d like to be doing. The record is a little more refined in places. I kinda like more what we do with it at the live shows.
TBD: In terms of musical continuity, how do you feel about your progression musically speaking from Q and Not U to Georgie James and now with Title Tracks? How do you perceive any similarities or differences? What, if any, themes do you think you carry through all of these incarnations of your music?
JD: It’s always just been in whatever band I was in, whatever the band sounded like at the time, it was also just naturally ‘this is what we happen to be sounding like at this point’. Q and Not U changed a lot over the seven years that we were a band. Every record that we did was different sounding from each other. So that was something I just got used to. Even in Q and Not U, every time there would be a record that would come out, some segment of our fan population would be really disappointed. Even when the first album came out, [some people] preferred the first single as opposed to the album. Every time it was like that, so it was something that I got used to pretty quickly in terms of not really worrying that much about it or not worrying about that people weren’t into it. It just kinda thought, “OK, if you don’t like it, that’s fine. You can always go listen to whatever the record was that you did like. We’re just gonna keep doing what we wanna do.” It was definitely that way with Georgie James. It was very different from Q and Not U, but it was just what I wanted to do at that time, just sort of focus more on that type of music. It was the sort of music I really liked, and still like. You know, each band has reflected the different people that I was working with. Q and Not U was me and those guys, Georgie James was me and Laura, and then Title Tracks is just me. It’s been kinda different, so it would be interesting to me to try and think of a thread that’s run through all three bands would be. When you think specifically musically, I’m really not sure what it would be. I do know that the thread that runs through all of it is that it was very natural in terms of [it being] just what we were into at the time and we writing this stuff and it all came very naturally and was just sort of an expression of the music we interested at the time that we were writing those records. Generally speaking, every time I’ve done an album, whatever the next one it’s been kind different because I’m just trying different stuff. Even if it’s not radically different, I understand the Georgie James to Title Tracks isn’t some huge leap, although I definitely think there’s a difference. When the next Title Tracks record comes out, I think it’ll be even further away from what Georgie James sounded like. I think that would be sort of the trend of those three bands is that I never really worried much about what people are gonna think and let’s just do whatever we feel like doing and be confident in it enough that we know that at least some people will like it and we’ll just roll with it and hope that some people like it and [we’ll just keeping making music.
TBD: Coming from one of the more renowned music scenes in the indie world, that being DC, what degree do you feel that informs or inspires what you do and what you’ve done? When you go out on tour and see other cities, how do you view other scenes based on what you’ve seen in DC?
JD: It inspires us a great deal, it influences us a great deal. The DC scene now is different from the one I grew up in and participated in. It’s pretty different now. I don’t think there’s the same sense of community that there was a few years ago, certainly not in the sense of activism. It’s a little bit more of like a normal rock n’ roll scene right now. I don’t know if it’ll stay that way. I do think that being part of the scene in DC for well over 15 years now, I was in high school when I first started going to shows and putting on shows and doing a fanzine that started doing in the early- to mid-90s, when I was a young teenager, all that stuff has stuck with me and think the main way is relating back to the last question, in that it’s always been about do whatever you want to do. Don’t feel like you need to change anything about what you want to do. Express what you’ve gotta express and that’s it. Some people are gonna like it and some people aren’t, but just be free and do what you wanna do. I’m sure that there are plenty of other scenes that extol those virtues too, but that’s definitely a big part of the DC one. People say that there’s a DC sound, maybe not anymore, but in the past there was kind of a DC sound, but when people said that they meant Fugazi and Jawbox and Hoover, or whatever, that kind of angular sort of tough kind of guitars, but the DC thing was always much, much broader than that. You had bands like Tsunami and Unrest alongside Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses and kinda weird bands like Holy Rollers and 9353. Just all kinds of stuff in DC, it was a very broad mixture of bands. I think that still exists, there’s definitely a broad list of bands in DC still, but I do miss the more underground feeling. There’s not that many shows in DC anymore at sort of alternative spaces: community centers and churches and this and that. Every summer there’s still a show at Fort Reno Park in DC which has been going on for decades and is a crucial part of the punk scene here. That still continues. There’s still some shows off the track at alternative spots, but not as many as I would like. I’m hoping that’s something we can do more of this year, because Title Tracks has not done anything like that since we started playing shows. Everything has generally been bars and clubs and stuff like that, so that’s something that as people get to know us more and come out to see us more, I definitely want to do more shows in challenging locations and keep that notion alive. I’ve always felt more excited about and by and connected to shows that were in sort of weird spaces, like a basement of a church or a community center or just some weird outdoor show or whatever. That’s something we’ll be able to help continue. But to answer your question, I think that what growing up in DC and being part of the scene here, how that affect Title Tracks now is not being afraid of what people may say or think about what you’re doing and to just do it and be confident in it and just put it out there. Get it out there and see what happens. That’s definitely very much a complete part of our DNA.
TBD: Yeah, I think it’s like that a lot of places, where everything was seemingly more underground fifteen years ago or whatever. People have complained about that around here too, so I think it’s just a trend going across everywhere.
JD: That makes sense, it’s kinda hard when the people who put all the work into doing those kinds of shows just got a little older and have other things going on or whatever and there’s just nobody to replace them, it’s kinda tough. We had that [underground show scene] in DC, definitely well into last decade. Q and Not U played a ton of shows at alternative venues, but it was always a lot more work to do. It was just harder to get people out. If we would play the Black Cat, which is the main club in town, it would sell out at like 800 people. At the same time, if three months later we played a show in some community center basement or something, it would be a nice turnout, probably like 200 people, but again, you have a quarter of the turnout. It’s always just more difficult to just play something alternative like that. I just think there’s a value in that. I think that’s an important part of a community feeling and it’s something a little different than just playing bars. As essential as I think clubs and bars are to a scene, I really like to have an alternative once in a while.
TBD: Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about Title Tracks and whatever else you’re getting into?
JD: I’ve actually never been to Dayton in all my years of touring. I’ve played any city of note in Ohio you could name, I’ve played there, but not Dayton. I’ve played Akron twice, but I’ve never played in Dayton. So I was excited to see that was a possibility for us, so that when it came through I was like, “Awesome!” Obviously the musical history of that town is awesome and we’ve just never been there. I’m excited to play Dayton.
…thanks again to John Davis for taking time out to speak with us. Remember, Title Tracks will be at South Park Tavern next Monday, February 15 with Pretty & Nice [Boston] and Kuan. Have a listen and a look and we’ll see you all next Monday night….
MP3: Title Tracks “Every Little Bit Hurts”
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…Over the last decade, DC native John Davis earned an impressive reputation within indie rock circles with his bands Q and Not U and Georgie James. While the former channeled much of the DC music scene’s storied musical legacy into its records, the latter seemed like a radical departure for Davis into electro-pop territory. With his unrepentant desire to follow his muse wherever it may call, Davis seems to have maintained something that most who follow fleeting trends have long since surrendered: integrity. With his new outfit, Title Tracks, Davis leaves behind the sounds of Georgie James for a vintage guitar pop sound that could have easily landed them on the roster of Stiff Records circa 1977. We recently spoke via telephone with John Davis from his DC home as Title Tracks prepares to release their debut album, It Was Easy, on Ernest Jennings Record Company and head out on tour in support of the album. Title Track will appear at South Park Tavern next Monday, February 15, along with Boston’s Pretty & Nice and local instrumental quartet, Kuan…
The Buddha Den: Following the demise of Georgie James, to what degree did you seek to depart from or retain elements of that band? What did you feel would be the defining feature of Title Tracks?
John Davis: I think that when we started working on these new songs, I wasn’t really…I didn’t have an agenda. I think it was just that I was gonna write whatever I wanted to do and not worry about anyone that I was collaborating with because it was just me. It was good for me to just be able to do whatever I wanted and not worry, “Well, we’ve got this song and I don’t hear keyboard or piano in it. How are we gonna do this?” Or, “I don’t hear a second vocal.” Maybe things that I had to worry about in the past. In this case, I just didn’t care about that. I’m just writing whatever I want. I knew it was gonna sound fairly different from Georgie James, though not dramatically, not quite as big a difference between Title Tracks and Georgie James as there was between Georgie James and Q and Not U. As much as I like Georgie James, there were things about it that I was never that comfortable with, so I was kinda happy to be able to move on, dump some of those things, and just do something that was completely on my own. I really like collaborating with people within a band and other writers and stuff, I think it’s something I’ll definitely do again. Just for now though with the album I did and the album I’m working on now, I’m still really enjoying just doing things by myself.
TBD: So you’re already working on something new for Title Tracks on your own?
JD: Yeah, I started writing more songs again. I’m finishing up some of the different parts and fragments I’ve had floating around for a little while that I didn’t use. I’ve had a fair amount of off time like from the road and such for the past six months to a year. I had sorta hoped to use that time a little better, meaning that I’d hoped to write more songs but I just didn’t really spend as much time as I should have. Now I finally started focusing and getting some songs finished and I’m really excited about the stuff I’ve been able to finish so far and the direction the songs are taking now. It’s something that I’m even more proud of.
TBD: Title Tracks started out by putting out the “Every Little Bit” 7” single on Dischord Records. How did that come about? Did you feel that connection with Dischord helped raise the profile of the band at such an early stage?
JD: I’ve worked with Dischord before, with my old band Q and Not U, three records and a bunch of singles, it’s an easy label for sure. I’m friends with Ian [Mackaye, Dishcord Records founder and leader of Fugazi] and the people there. I knew I wanted to get a single out first and have something available out there. I recorded those two songs and talked to Ian about it over a period of a couple of months, he was willing to do it. That was pretty much it: I know them, I’m friends with them, and wanted to work together again on that single and we did and I’m really glad that it came out on Dischord. I just really wanted to get a single out and have something out for this new project that would be available to people because I knew it would be a little while before the album was gonna be out. That was pretty much it. It was just a really natural fit working with them again.
TBD: So you did the single with Dischord and now you’re going to be releasing the full-length album It Was Easy on Ernest Jenning Recording Company. How did the materialize?
JD: I actually didn’t really know them at all before this album. My booking had suggested I send them the record after I’d finished it. He thought they would like it. So I said, “OK” and sent it to them. They did like it and they wanted to put it out. I talked to them and it turned out that the guy that works for the label was somebody that I interacted with repeatedly over the years in various ways. He used to do a webzine that I knew and he used to work at CMJ and he had promoted a show that I had played, so it was just kinda funny there was all these ways that we had already interacted in the past. The more we talked and hung out, the more I go to like him and the people at the label. They’re really, really enthusiastic about the record and about the band. It’s probably the most enthusiastic response I’ve ever had from a label in my years of putting out records. It was just really nice to feel supported that way. I’ve always felt supported by the labels that I’ve been on, but these guys in particular just seem really, really excited.
So yeah, I didn’t really know them, but we’ve gotten to know each other over the last six months or so and I’m really glad I’m working with them on this record. I feel really lucky to have met them and be able to get to work with them. I’m really satisfied so far with the way it’s been.
TBD: So I’ve seen three different release dates for the album. When does it actually come out?
JD: We’ve had to change it repeatedly because there’s been some issues with the distributor. I the vinyl and the digital will be out on February 9 and then the CD will be in stores on February 23. We’ll be selling it at shows though and I think DC stores will have [the CD] on February 9.
TBD: The timing of this tour is impeccable hitting the road really hard right as the album is released. How much coordination on your part and with your label and your booking agent to get the timing of the tour right as the album was coming out? Was there a plan to maximize the impact of that?
JD: Definitely. There was definitely a plan. We hadn’t really been playing many shows over the last few months because it was like, “Let’s just wait until the album is available.” With Georgie James, we toured a lot before we had an album out. We worked really, really hard for like a year, year-and-a-half, before the album finally came out in terms of touring and flying out to the West Coast and playing shows, all this stuff where we had no album to sell. So if somebody liked us, they still couldn’t really go buy anything. It put a real strain on the band because we spending a lot of money to go do all these things, but we weren’t really bringing in much money. We decided [with Title Tracks] to just hold off until we had the full-length available. We can sell it at shows, it will start getting around. I think that’s something we learned from the Georgie James experience.
[This tour] was definitely a coordinated thing. We knew the album was coming out in February, so we knew we could hit the road and start playing because we’ve all been very excited t about getting out and playing again. We haven’t toured in at least a year-and-a-half, and that’s pretty strange for me considering over the previous nine or ten years, I would tour for a lot of the year. It’s been really awesome being home, having this amount of time to spend at home, but I do miss playing music every night and that’s what tour provides you. It gives you the chance to be playing music every night in different places, and see places, and there’s a lot I really like about that. So yeah, it was definitely a plan to get this album out and hit the road right at the same time.
…tune in tomorrow for Part II of our interview with John Davis. Have a listen now of the track “Black Bubblegum” from the Title Tracks debut, It Was Easy…
MP3: Title Tracks “Black Bubblegum”
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…although winter weather has descended upon Daytonia with a vengeance, plans have been made for a show of such monumental proportions and simply will not sway. Tonight at Blind Bob’s, the Fictionband Mechanics imprint is making its first foray into physical releases in a major way this evening. Both The Motel Beds and Smug Brothers will issue new discs, Moondazed and Stock Romeo [EP], respectively. Additionally, John Gassett will issue his debut disc entitled Makeher. Add in the always amazing Toads and Mice and you have a bill well worth trudging through whatever ice and snow to witness. We’ll see you there…
MP3: The Motel Beds “Bat Naps”
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MP3: Smug Brothers “Low Like Nothing”
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MP3: Toads and Mice “Dig Hole”
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