Champaign-Urbana has a great music scene. It's like Chicago with less assholes...
but anyways, here's our cream of the crop:
The Beauty Shop - "From the wilds of Illinois this 3 piece have been compared with Nick Cave, Violent Femmes and The Handsome Family with a Leonard Cohen (“with a bad attitude”) vocal twist."
They're signed on a label in Scotland, and just left to go tour Europe again.
www.thebeautyshopband.com OR
www.myspace.com/thebeautyshopThe Living Blue - "Barroom rock loves power pop if you just get them together in the same room -- the Shins know that. In the same way, "Fire, Blood, Water" is a surprisingly affective debut."
These guys just signed to Minty Fresh, and are on the way up. They've had a couple of songs used on TV already, and it won't be long before they are in the national spotlight.
www.thelivingblue.com OR
www.myspace.com/thelivingblueHeadlights - "Headlights are at the forefront of the resurgent scene happening in the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana. By exhibiting an uncanny ability to merge electronics with the barest of pop elements, Headlights carve a unique niche for themselves that falls nicely between My Bloody Valentine and The Postal Service."
Just saw these guys last night, and they were fantastic. They just signed onto Polyvinyl, and just came home from a long tour.
www.headlightsmusic.com OR
www.myspace.com/headlightsLorenzo Goetz - "they express their knack for wiring together pop songs with indie rock. It's this type of serene attitude that they exude seeming to bleed it from every pore with an essential exuberance that is quite rare in the indie circuit."
Signed to Innocent Words, these guys just left home on a big tour all over the good ol' USA. I believe they just played one of the final nights at CBGB's, and are currently somewhere in a van. Fun pop stuff!
www.lorenzogoetz.com OR
www.myspace.com/lorenzogoetzShipwreck - "Zack says, "The band’s sound is a patchwork of its members’ influences, from spectral indie to the dismay of country, culminating in what is perhaps a sonic drawl representative of the modern Wild West—a dry, cracked and disparate land, in the distance of which you can see high-piled city skylines perched among cacti and a glimmering reservoir." Zack talks pretty."
These guys put themselves in the genre of "subaquatic astropunk", which speaks loads in itself. To me they sound something like if the Talking Heads covered Modest Mouse's "Dramamine". Either way, it's good stuff!
www.shipwreckband.com OR
www.myspace.com/shipwreckThese are the popular groups out here now, but we have about a million more bands in the area who play regularly. It's a fun place to live.
Oh, and if you've read this far, might as well check out my band:
Johnnyork:
www.myspace.com/johnnyorkWe play all sorts of rock stuff... something like garage-rock-powerpop-overdistorted 50's rock. But that's just maybe two of our songs. We're still experiementing.
