This Liverpudlian marsupial is a distant cousin to the sorely missed Los Angeles marsupial, Possum Dixon. Note the similar lyrical delivery, a kind of snotty, melodic talking. The two species also share a certain jerky jangle in their guitars. The resemblance is most notable on “Derail and Crash.” The Wombats are known to travel as a trio and were first spotted in the wild, open myspace. Everyone here at 3hive looks forward to this fine specimen arriving to this continent for a prolonged stay.
Children of the CPU
Look at the cover. Look at the band name. WYSIWYG (a little tech nerd reference of my own there). Warm, synthy pop with sweet, disposable lyrics. Perfect for an analog road trip with your windows down.
Butterfly Explosion
Irish and Swedish bands. I’m a sucker for them. Irish caused I lived there for two years (even saw Bono’s house/castle/mansion on a road nicknamed, what else, Millionaire’s Row). Swedish cause they have some unexplained disposition to creating great pop music. Is it nature or nurture? Personally, I blame ABBA.
Butterfly Explosion are Irish, are unsigned, and recently played at SXSW. One reviewer names Duran Duran, Sigur Ros, Smashing Pumpkins, and My Bloody Valentine as comparisions. While I reject the MBV link (for reasons we won’t go into here), I would add Lush as a strong starting point. “Sophia” will be on a soon-to-be released EP.
Oh No! Oh My!
If you haven’t lately, why not stop by our links page? There’s a few of the usual suspects as well as some sites you may not be familiar with. Lots of good stuff to discover, like this gem I found via You Ain’t No Picasso. What I like best about Oh No! Oh My! is what they don’t put in their songs. They use their white space well. Not that there’s empty spaces in the music, it’s just that every instrument counts. No filler. The best way to describe them is clap your hands and say yeah. I’m not talking about the band. Imagine if that was a sound, a genre: clap your hands and say yeah. That’s where you’d file Oh No! Oh My! Listen to “The Party Punch” and you’ll get it. I bet they’re a ton of fun live. A total jam band vibe…if by jam band I meant The Boy Least Likely To instead of Phish.
Data Panik
You want the bad news or the good news first?
The bad news (you’re so predictable): Scottish electro-pop-punkers Bis are no more. Kaput. Finito. The band that gave us the theme song to the Powerpuff Girls is dead.
The good news: original Bis members Manda, Steven, and John have been joined by two other lads to form Data Panik. The torch has been passed. Now aren’t you glad you heard the good news last?
Guggenheim Grotto
This is soft music with slight edges. As such, it’s probably some of the most accessible stuff posted on 3hive for people into folk, Iron & Wine and understated strings. These tracks from GG’s A Lifetime in Heat EP are touching tracks that your average Sum41 or Good Charlotte fan will run screaming from. These tracks are perfect for bringing up next time someone says, “they don’t write songs like this anymore”.
Katie the Pest
Lo-fi bitrates for this wonderful, lo-fi shoegazey duo that takes me back to L.A.’s Paisley Underground days—a gritty version of The Bangles or Opal. The stand out track here is “Sober.” It’s, as they sing in the song, “unstoppable.” You’ll end up listening to it twenty times in a row. It’s maddeningly addicting. Thanks to Whitney B for reminding me about Katie The Pest. She can’t stop listening either and is mad at us for making her spend so much money on records. We’re not sorry.
Iron Hero
Sam from Iron Hero got my attention with two words and one number: Athens, 40, Watt. Although I’ve never been there, the 40 Watt Club is a hallowed place for me since my teenage years spent worshipping Love Tractor, Pylon, and many other Athens, Georgia, bands who played there. Iron Hero, you see, had a CD release show just recently at said 40 Watt Club. Then Iron Hero got my adoration with two things: delightful pop and some oh so delightful fuzz. With songs like “Heart of a Ghost,” surely Iron Hero’s days of self-releasing albums will be a thing of past, ie., there’s a label somewhere out there who has gotta snatch them up soon.
Mike Ferraro
Tim O. and I were sitting in the office listening to Mike Ferraro’s “Lovers Only Love,” and he was like, “Hey, all this guy needs is hand claps,” and I was like, “Yeah.” And then I started wondering how Mike Ferraro’s songs ended up on my computer, and I found an old e-mail he sent to 3hive on 8.14.05. That explains that. And then I dug around some more and saw that David — of the wonderful LargeHearted Boy MP3 and other stuff blog — wrote about Mike Ferraro way back when, too, and then I felt really scooped. But you know, that was last year, and this is now, and Tim O. and I are digging these songs so much and hoping you people will go to Mike F’s website and buy his demos, go see him live, or whatever, and clap your hands at all the right times. Yeah.
Shotgun and Jaybird
Lo-fi music from “smalltown Canada.” That’s how Paul from Shotgun and Jaybird described Sackville, New Brunswick, in his e-mail pitch to 3hive (I added the lo-fi part). It seems like these guys are kind of into the small — small sound, small town, a new EP of (only) 6 songs. Even their wonderful crayon slideshow bio is too short, in the sense that it’s not long enough. What happens next? Do they still live in the Road King? Download “Secret” for a Pavement-inspired soundtrack of what’s going on in Sackville.