Ian Fisher was kind enough to stop by the Airplay studio this late October to play a few songs and chat before his first Chicago show in over five years. These songs, created somewhere in the space between his hometown of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri and current home in Vienna, are featured on his newest release Nero. Fisher provided us the perfect soundtrack to a midwestern Sunday afternoon, really the perfect soundtrack for any time. LISTEN HERE…
If you’re a rapper based in the Big Apple, there’s a lot of responsibility to remain true to the city’s historical core, combining the boom-bap beats with conscious lyrics. Having met in the teeth of the New York City rap scene as Fat Beats employees, Koncept & J57 have an acute awareness of how to remain true to themselves, while reflecting the city’s deep rap roots. The duo’s The Fuel EP showcases Koncept’s conscious lyrics with J57’s — who counts the legendary DJ Premier as a mentor — production, proving that the duo can build on their early underground success and reach a wider audience. This is best demonstrated on the song we’re premiering today, “Crazy is Beautiful.”
“I was in Portland for a little while, and this was actually the first song I recorded while in the city,” Koncept explains of the song. “I was going through a lot of changes — relationship, leaving the place I’d lived in for six years and called home, the music and our business structure while working on the records, financial stuff, etc. I know some people saw my life as a little crazy, but I saw it as beautiful. What people might have seen as chaos or disorder with these changes I was making, I knew it was what I needed to make me better and, to me, everyday felt more beautiful and amazing than the last.
“The first vocals that I wrote and recorded for the song was the bridge, ‘chaos is beautiful.’ Not everything is easy, or so crystal clear, but that’s what’s attractive to me. I find when things are a little more difficult, and then you overcome them, that’s when you can see and feel the true beauty in it.” LISTEN HERE…
Atlanta, Georgia’s The Head release their Millipedes EP today and we give you the following debut listen followed by a few exclusive insights. The trio of Jack Shaw, Mike Shaw, and Jacob Morrell partake in the time tried and true traditions of power pop that have been reinforced further from the group’s work with the likes of John Vanderslice, Doug Gillard, Mitch Easter, Big Star legend Jody Stephens and more. Continuing what brothers Jack and Mike and friend Jacob began during their freshman year of high school, the self-producedMillipedes moves in a variety of directions that finds The Head moving in assured and exciting headstrong directions.
Musings of messianism and more rocks hard on the opener cut “Jesus” and unfolds in ways that present the three working together like a well-serviced savior machine. Matters get serious on “It Ain’t Easy” that recalls the 2012 Newtown school shooting that explores interpersonal connections from father and son dynamics, to examining the balances and imbalances of our surrounding society at large. Storms and downpours burst in the catchy tarp clad “Raincoats” that seeks a sort of shelter for all things from the threat of overhead rain clouds and their emitted contents. Ineffable things left unsaid, forgotten, and unacknowledged are illustrated in the power fist clenched cut “Unspoken”, right before the three leave you strolling to the guitar lick laden stoned strewn pathway of “Pebbles On The Ground”. Developing styles and sounds of their own championed by their idols and contemporaries, The Head have hemmed a five song cycle to keep you warm this winter until word of a forthcoming full-length makes the news rounds. LISTEN HERE…
8 Inch Betsy was a shining light in the Chicago music scene, so the community was caught off guard with singer and guitarist Meghan Galbraith’s death earlier this year. The band went on hiatus in 2012 when bassist Eli Burke moved to Tucson, where the band originated. But work on what would become their sophomore effort, The Mean Days, began in 2009. And today the LP is finally being posthumously released on 307 Knox Records, a label run by the band’s final live drummer Melissa Thomas.
The Mean Days is a ferocious blast of pop-punk, filled with raw emotion balanced an ear for melodies that will have you shouting along with the choruses within seconds. It’s filled with love, lust, raw emotion, fury, laughter—it’s a spectrum of emotions ground up and funneled through Galbraith’s unique sensibility. LISTEN HERE…
As Atlanta’s The Head prepare to release their new EP, Millipedes today, Surviving the Golden Age is excited to premiere the album track “Raincoats.” The track sounds straight off the soundtrack of your favorite 80s teen comedy. With a fuzzed out indie rock song, its easy to hear comparisons to bands like Psychedelic Furs or Echo & the Bunnymen. LISTEN HERE…
As often happens in the New York City way of life, a serendipitous meeting at a holiday party in Manhattan grew into a collaboration for hip hop duo Koncept & J57 and Dice Raw of The Roots. The song is “Live Forever,” taken from the duo’s forthcoming The Fuel EP, and we have the premiere of that track today.
When creative minds click the possibilities are endless. After J57 met Dice Raw at that party, they started booking shows together featuring members of The Roots and local (to NYC) artists. From there came the opportunity to work together in a studio setting, which resulted in the inspirational “Live Forever” with Dice providing the opening vocal hook on the track. And as Koncept says, “his voice compliments the track so perfectly. Right from the jump you hear his vocals and it brings you right into the vibe.” LISTEN HERE…