On Saturday, April 23, KCR College Radio is holding a music fest at the OB Rassle House from 2-5 p.m. Tickets are $10 if you use the QR code and $15 at the door. Come through for some great live music and to support KCR and local artists!
Performances by:
By Jesse Miller
Give us a little bit of background about yourselves… you’ve been a band for a while, you’re earliest releases being back in 2014-2016. Tell us where you’re from and how the band formed.
S: “We’re both from Glen Mills or Gradyville, Pennsylvania. We met on facebook. I was having a bad time at my high school and I ended up transferring to Colin’s school and we just started making music in our free periods, throwing it up on bandcamp. That was like 8 years ago now. Everyone else joined bit by bit.”
A: “Blaise, we knew his girlfriend. Tyndall worked at a coffee shop with Arthur. My cousin will just came to a session because our drummer quit, and our friend Kieran we’ve known for a long time. He’s in my other band, too. He’s like a master of bass so we just brought him in.”
What’s your other band called?
ARTHUR, it’s weird pop music, kinda. It’s kinda dark but its like depressing funny pop music
Tell me a little bit more about the single you guys just put out, ‘What Lovers Do‘, the recording, writing, release process is like.
S: “We did most of it ourselves and had it mixed and mastered by different people, professionals. We produced it on our own. We usually work with our friend Caleb on production stuff. we have a studio in Philadelphia, so we just are making music all the time and producing it out ourselves as well as working with other people. It’s all over the place. Generally Arthur and I write all the songs and then just flush ’em out with everybody.”
Is the single a precursor to more new music being released?
“It’s not a single for a record but we do have another single coming out, I think, April 22nd. And then we’re gonna go back home and work on albums. There’s another ARTHUR album to make, too.”
I noticed over the past year or so, ‘Looking Out For You‘ has had some leverage online, especially on Tik Tok. Have you noticed a change at all, a difference at shows or in your fanbase?
S: “The song is super fun to play live, it’s super fun on this tour because we play it really late in our set and people sit through our whole set, we gage the crowd, then play the song, and more peoples ears perk up.”
A: “then they get hyped for Snail Mail.”
S: “it’s cool having a moderate hit on our hands, at least people know us for something.”
Tell us about a typical tour day for you.
A: “We wake up, try and get breakfast. If we have time, we’ll wander around a bit. Only just recently we’ve started having days where we have more time. A lot of it is just getting in the van and watching the road for like four hours, listen to something, maybe a podcast. You get to the venue, load in, do soundcheck and then you have like an hour. We chill and then eat dinner. You sit, chill. Get all your gear loaded in the van. Wait for the other band to finish playing. Do a little dance, shake around a little bit, you go back to the hotel, turn on the TV, watch some weird old stuff and a lot of commercials. That’s pretty much just everyday.”
What are your musical influences? Do you have any other media that influences your thought or songwriting process?
A: “Animals, the water, your friends, everything has an influence on your music. Anime and cool movies, like Blade, Matrix, anything.”
S: “Other musicians like The Beatles, Ween, rub off on us a lot. I haven’t been listening to a lot of good albums lately.”
A: “Sleep and dreams are good inspiration.”
How have you grown into your sound the past few years, given you have been a band releasing music before and after the pandemic? What did the pandemic look like for you as musicians?
S: “I didn’t write a lot of Joy Again stuff during the pandemic. I produced a couple other records for people, so that was fun. I am kind of just getting back into the swing of writing for Joy Again now. I wrote a few things during the pandemic but nothing I really like.”
A: “I don’t wanna make music that’s coming out at the same time as everyone else’s quarantine album.”
Be sure to check out Joy Again at the House of Blues on April 23rd! Get tickets here!
Last Friday (3/4), I had the opportunity to go see Vacations at the Voodoo Room in the House of Blues. After waiting almost two years to tour, Vacations kicked off their first U.S. tour in Los Angeles and then made their way down to San Diego for their third show. This Australia-based indie-pop/rock band was a staple in my early high school years, specifically during 2018-2019, so I was excited to see them live and experience some nostalgia.
The venue completely took me by surprise; the inside was highly decorated with detailed beaded walls and paintings from local artists, which gave off a fancy but rustic feel. Doors opened at 7:00 and even though my friend and I got there around 6, we were just a row behind the barricade. Side note: I’m from the Bay Area, and one thing that always catches me by surprise down here in San Diego is how late everyone arrives at concerts! In San Francisco, people are lining up at 4:00 for an 8:00 show.
Opening for Vacations was indie-pop artist Harmless who was not only talented but super entertaining. He was cracking jokes, referencing popular memes, and even whipped out some choreographed dances with his guitarist in the middle of songs. Because of his interaction with the crowd throughout the entire show, you felt like you knew him personally by the end of the set! I had never previously heard of his band, but I knew the last song that he played, “Swing Lynn,” which went viral on the internet a couple of months ago.
Vacations came on promptly at 9:00 and opened with their song “Moving Out” from their sophomore album Changes. Their romantic and melancholy lyrics mixed with whimsical instrumentals had the whole room dancing and swaying. The room swirled with soft pinks and blues, perfectly corresponding to the playful and lighthearted aura that their music gives off. Later, they played some songs from their 2016 album Vibes and their 2020 album Forever in Bloom, such as “Home” and “Lavender”. Though there were a lot of technical difficulties, the band made the most out of their spare time by talking with fans in the crowd and expressing their excitement to be touring again, and in a new country nonetheless. They even passed some time by playing the “Cowboy Bebop” theme song and the “Neon Genesis Evangelion” closing song, which totally caught my friend and me off-guard because we love those shows. After getting a new guitar, they continued and played my favorite song “Telephones” with dimmed lights, further amplifying the intimacy that the song already projected.
Reading the excitement of the room, the band decided to skip the encore pause and just go straight into their last songs. They ended the night with their hit song “Relax” and then took a big audience photo for the art project that they were working on while on tour. Overall, the energy throughout the entire night was amazing, and seeing Vacations live was a great way to revisit some positive memories from my younger teen years.
Last Saturday (3/11), I was lucky enough to catch Ritt Momney’s Sunny Boy Tour, supported by artists Hannah Jadagu and Shane T, live at the House of Blues Voodoo Room. The walls of the venue are adorned with unique folk-style art, the Voodoo Room (located in downtown San Diego) is one of my favorite spots. And with a capacity of only about 150 people, the coziness of the venue made for an intimate, yet still electrifying set.
The show opened with alternative/indie artist Shane T’s set — hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, Toriscelli has a bit of a blues influence in his sound. With his profound vocals, Toriscelli caught my attention right away. For the rest of his set, my attention was fixated — his song “Simple Man” was definitely a favorite of mine, with its candid lyrics and dreamy guitar. It’s also important to mention that T belted his heart out during each song, which made his performance feel that much more impactful. Toriscelli was truly a crowd favorite, as for the rest of the show some fans continued to shout his name as he supported Mitt Romney on guitar.
Next up was the angelic Hannah Jadagu, originally from Mesquite, Texas. Upon walking on stage, she immediately lit up the room with her warm presence. But her somewhat reserved demeanor on stage fell away at the first strum of her guitar. Jadagu’s wide-ranging set of bedroom pop originals and lively mashup cover of Grouplove’s “Tongue Tied” and M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” had the crowd in a wave of emotions, singing and dancing, completely captivated by the band’s performance — which, I have to say, Jadagu and her bandmates seemed to blend beautifully together, crafting zestful, alluring energy which seemed to radiate into the crowd.
And at last, headliner Ritt Momney — fronted by SLC’s own cat-beanie-adorned Jack Runner — entered the stage. Switching from instrument to instrument, Runner’s dynamic set had me engaged and wanting more. Performing an array of originals from the newly-released album “Sunny Boy” and some older songs from “Her and All My Friends” (2019), Ritt Momney had a diverse crowd (which included everyone from young teenagers, to millennials, to even some middle-aged adults) singing, dancing, and even crying along to the music. Because of his down-to-earth presence, Runner truly shocked me with how much energy and gusto he put into performing each song. Not even a minor nosebleed incident on stage could stop Runner — with rolled up bits of bloodied tissues in his nostrils, Runner pushed on and gave a performance impossible to forget.
Singing at the top of his lungs in the rawest and most honest fashion, moving around the stage, and interacting with the audience, Runner’s passion shined through — nothing about that set was half-assed. I’ve been to shows before that feel dry and disconnected, sensing that the band cares little about the quality of their performance, and it feels terrible. But with Ritt Momney, that wasn’t true — I can honestly say that Jack Runner left his heart on that stage.
After the show, I had the chance to meet Runner and give my thanks for a great show — he was incredibly kind and humble, greeting everyone who came up to him with a smile and never saying no to a picture or an autograph. So, make sure to catch Ritt Momney (as well as Jadagu and Toriscelli) the next time they’re in your area — or you just might miss some magic.