The Owl & The Bear

Black Kids - Partie Traumatic

chris maroulakos — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:03:21 +0000

2008, Columbia Records The trumpets heralding the release of Black Kids’ debut began blowing a year ago, when the Jacksonville band made their demo EP, Wizard Of Ahhhs, available for free download. The EP was a rollicking good time - the perfect soundtrack to every out-of-hand house party or ill-advised hookup you’re looking forward to regretting - [...]

Store!

harry s truman — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:40:50 +0000

Well, we did it. We’re finally selling Owl&Bear merch. We’ll probably change it up whenever stupid ideas pop into our heads, so consider everything limited edition! And don’t think that buying those guerilla bumper stickers will give us lots of money. We consider the sale of those more of a public service–you’re (we’re) better off [...]

Redesign!

harry s truman — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:09:35 +0000

We did a site redesign yesterday to bring Owl&Bear into the modern age. Hopefully it’s a little faster, prettier, slicker, wittier, more unique, more perfect, etc. Let us know if you see anything weird. Thanks! We’ll be tweaking old posts to make them look better over the next few days.

Review: Tom Waits; July 1, 2008; Jacksonville, FL

marty — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:00:09 +0000

“I’m like a fucking race horse.” –Tom Waits, Jacksonville Tom Waits’ tours are fairly infrequent, so when I heard he was headed to Jacksonville two hours away from my house, I splurged. Jacksonville? Why Jacksonville? It’s not really the red dirt, bluesy part of the south Waits wanted to see. Jacksonville is South Beach’s conservative opposite, militarized [...]

Review: Red Red Meat; July 10, 2008; Hideout, Chicago

dave — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:04:34 +0000

The Hideout is a great place to see a show. I arrived about 7:30, just as a major storm was moving into the Chicago. Luckily, the Hideout is in an industrial part of the city and there were some good spaces right outside, which I found to be a good sign of things to come. Nicholas [...]

The Dreadful Yawns - Take Shape

ed abbett — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:00:57 +0000

2008, Exit Stencil Cleveland’s The Dreadful Yawns are back. Take Shape, The Dreadful Yawns’ second album, has been described as more psychedelic than their first release; this might be a worry if the Dreadful Yawns hadn’t awed us last time. They’ve always have a retro sound, and it’s sometimes more prevalent this time ’round, but it’s largely a [...]

Thank You - Terrible Two

ed abbett — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:00:48 +0000

2008, Thrill Jockey Terrible Two by Thank You grabs the listener–but not gently: by the shirt collar. At five songs and a cumulative 35 minutes, Terrible Two is a mishmash of noise, intense drumming, strange interludes, and howling vocals. It’s a prickly kind of record that is at times almost religious (title track) but rarely harmonious [...]

Stupid Idea

harry s truman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:52:45 +0000

I was a little shocked to see that the airlines will pay about $20,000,000,000 more than usual for oil this year (about 4x the industry’s total earnings in 1999, it’s most profitable year to date), but I was even more surprised when I got this email, called “Help US fight skyrocketing oil prices,” asking for [...]