meet the bands

Bio 2008

A Pack of Wolves: the sound of late nights, tight jeans and urban decay. A world where malfunctioning laptops attempt to assuage bleary eyebags and unruly facial hair with beats from the late-century ennui songbook. Where Morrissey rides a fixed gear and opens for the Faint in a basement somewhere in the Midwest, where the sweat drips from the bricks just as salty and flat as the leftover PBRs from the night before.

Eden Mazzola and Francesco Catania are this pack unto themselves, raised on rhythm and propelled by temptation. They’ve shedded the suede duds of yesteryear for the prowling pulse of gold lamé, and they’re headed to take hostage the hoariest writhing bodies full of bloody guts, teenage venom and useless resistance. Drums vs. Guitar, Casio vs. Korg, Mac vs. PC—and now, you vs. A Pack of Wolves. It’s Round One, m’fers. Let the pain begin.

eden-drums.vocals.synth.laptop[mac]
francesco-guitar.vocals.bass.synth.mandolin.desktop[pc]

One sheet: A Pack of Wolves

Bio 2008

The Bicycats is a one-man musical act created by Zachary Bernstein, a Long Islander by birth, but a Western New Yorker at heart. In 2005, he graduated from SUNY Purchase College with a degree in dramatic writing.

On the album, he plays guitar, bass, ukulele, keyboards, marimba, banjo, drums and sings nearly every song. His songs touch on subject matter such as nepotism, socks, melting Ferris wheels and sometimes, love. Armed with his charm, vivacity and sense of humor, he tries to keep the audience happy and uses curse words only when he really needs to.

The Bicycats have been touring all over the country since completing the album. You can go to www.myspace.com/thebicycats to find out more about The Bicycats music and performances.

Following are some sweet nothings people have said about Zachary:

"I danced in my seat. I nodded earnestly. I guffawed. I think I even drooled."
-Kelli Rae Powell, colleague

"Enjoy this music, I hope you find it poignant, thoughtful, creative, redefining, maybe even a little bit sexy"
-Cyber Cafe West, Binghamton NY (venue)

"When I need to enjoy someone's simple melodies and straight up honesty, I turn on Ray Lamontagne's "Trouble". When I want to listen to someone who makes me laugh because his simple melodies and straight up honesty are so simple and straight up they are poetic, I can always count on Zach "The Shark" Bernstein's concoctions. This one gets a special shout out for the well-placed marimba."
-Dan Costello, Urban Folk Magazine

Right now he is touring as a member of the Handsome Trio. Soon, he will be traveling to Durham to take part in the First Annual Midtown Dickens Music Festival. Okay, that is not really the name, but it is is their all day long CD release party. If the Dickens are involved, then you are sure to have a good time!

One sheet: The Bicycats

Bio 2008

"I often find two-pieces lacking in a fullness of sound. Of course, sometimes this works to a band's advantage, if it fits the music well. Such is the case with boy/girl, made up of Brooklyn's Eric Stiner (boy) and Jersey City's Lisa Cusack (girl). The word "spazz" or "spazzy" seems to get thrown around a lot when talking about them, but I don't really get full-on "spazzocity" or "spazzmasms" from them -- instead I feel dysfunction, but in a good way. So there you have it: dysfunction rock."City Belt - Day Job(http://citybelt.typepad.com)

"It seems the indie rock Friday we've been trying to keep afloat lives to see another week...and in a big big way. Today's featured duo are an incredible exercise in both reckless noise rock and minimal needs where bells and whistles are concerned. Plenty of you might make an obvious initial comparison to a certain Jon Spencer project (minus the cheesy ego), just as I first did. That might be a result of them using the same Manhattan practice basement many of Spencer's previous bands and related artists inhabited at one time or another. That likeness quickly faded as the vocals kicked me in the stomach" 4casey4music - Listening Room(http://milkmilk-lemonade.blogspot.com)

boy/girl are Eric and Lisa.

Join the boy/girl street team!

One sheet: boy/girl

Bio 2008

...have a ridiculous story to tell. It is their own. Now with their second record on 307 Knox Records it just might get stranger...

Cantwell, Gomez & Jordan arose from the ashes of the much-ballyhooed mafia-ridden "Chapel Hill Scene." Anne Gomez had just been thrown out of UNC's prestigious law school and was looking for some paying gigs to support her Army of Three-Legged Cats.

She was known for her electric bass and vocal stylings in the rather esoteric world of beach resort dance bands like Special Agents of Her Majesty's Secret Cervix, The Blue-Green Gods, and the seminal Shaggy-Dawg's Shag-o-matics.

Anne hooked up with her former sorority sister Shannon "The Biggest Drumset in the World" Morrow. Shannon was the unifying "backbeat" behind HMS Cervix's spankin' rhythm section, as well as the blood that flowed through the mighty Bicentennial Quarters, Hillsborough's finest metal outfit since the Unoriginal Sinners.

Anne and Shannon immediately re-bonded but still needed a guitarist.

They needed look no further than David Jordan. After his expulsion from UNC's Ph.D. program, guitar player David Jordan decided to end his self-imposed hiatus from music. A veteran of such staples of the Catskills circuit as Polycarp, Glockenspiel, and Tony D'Antonio's Blue Velvet Chillers, he had certainly racked up his share of "cred." He had a vision for NC's musical future; he just needed some partners.

David completed his community service just in time to join with Shannon and Anne to create Cantwell (named in honor of Shannon's favorite Alaskan nineteenth-century Goldrush town, the study of which had always been a passion of hers). The music was dangerous, edgy, and threatened to dismantle Rock as we know it — and reassemble it into a soul-less musical Worldcode for the twenty-first century.

But, after a handful of promising shows and one brilliant long-player, Shannon "had to leave town." This time for Joliet. No one said a straight life was easy, and old habits DO die hard. Maybe life "on the outside" was too stressful — and too full of temptation.

Anyway, Anne and Dave still had bills to pay, so they got the first drummer they could find to fill in until Shannon was "all better": Dave Cantwell, backbone of party funk-metal jokesters Analogue (and his own solo experimental hip-hop John Williams tribute "project").

In a bizarre coincidence, the young drummer shared a name with the band he once drunkenly heckled. To avoid confusion (and dispel rumors), Anne and Dave Jordan decided to re-christen the band Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan. Says Gomez: "We were hoping the name would sound like a law firm or an ice cream company or something. You know: conceptual and shit."

Conceptual and shit, indeed! Gomez and Jordan's exciting, original, quirky tunesmithing combines with Dave Cantwell's ham-fisted drumming to create a new NC music like no other. Well, maybe like some other things, but I can't remember any of their names right now.

--Daniel Forthrite

Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan are:
Anne Gomez, Dave Cantwell and David Jordan

One sheet: Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan

Bio 2008

The 307 Knox Family is continuing to grow. 307 Knox now welcomes the Future Kings of Nowhere to our label. Very exciting news! I remember the first time I saw the FKoN perform at the Nightlight in Chapel Hill, all I could think was how much the band reminded me of Billy Bragg and the Irish performer Luka Bloom. In my book, those are good things. Shayne and Luka Bloom both share the ability to take an acoustic guitar and produce a sound that people don't associate with acoustic.

Really the FKoN sum up their style best on their Myspace page- "If pressed, this Durham group (Shayne O'Neill on vocals and guitar, Mike on drums, and Jon on bass) will tell you that they play "acousticore," music for people who are angrier than Peter, Paul or Mary, but nicer than Henry Rollins."

photo credit to Flop

Video:
Performing at a skatepark (February 2007)
Duofest 2007 (April 2007)
BCHQ Grand Opening (March 2007)

One sheet: The Future Kings of Nowhere

Bio 2008

Malcolm Rollick started playing on New York sidewalks at the age of seventeen. She then headed off to college, collected degrees in Music and in Literature, and graduated to late night subway entertaining with friend and co-writer Gerard Smith (TV on the Radio). Malcolm and Gerard held a summer long residency at the now forgotten ‘Stinger’ club in Williamsburg in 2000. Their music was performed with and by members of ‘Coco Rosie’ and ‘TV on the Radio’. Most memorably Tundai (TV…) and Malcolm screamed angry jazz down each other’s throats until Malcolm got distracted and began reading aloud from Moby Dick. She apologizes to Jason Sitek… yes, i still have your book. Ian Coletti wrote the first four songs for his project “Angriest Pussycat” with Malcolm’s voice in mind.

Over four years she quit the band twice because no one could hear the lyrics (which are really good) but eventually she laid her four tracks to rest on the EP. She still misses screaming, and rock and roll sometimes, but not enough to go backwards. Ian dubbed her the cult character that kept vanishing from the band to go meditate, but she got kicked out of meditation camp in 2003. She worked for two awkward and potent years with the grassroots misfit band ‘Dufus’, singing in the choir and dancing like a robot. (this move is called “picking up a piece of paper and exiting stage left…” Lucas Crane, circa. 2001) In 2004 she played the lead in Gina Young’s most recent rock musical “God in a Girl”. She frequents as guest backup vocalist for NY-based chamber-pop ensemble Edison Woods. She has shared the stage with Diane Cluck, Mary Timony, Regina Spektor, Kyp Malone, Jenny Owen Youngs, Pamela Means, Kimya Dawson, Chris Pureka and many more. She is currently dreaming and manifesting her next recording, a character based project with a little film attached. Her music has been heard on WFMU, WFUV, QueerWaves Radio, RubyFruit Radio, Amazon Radio, and Wild Woman Radio. Her music was a gift from her father and her god-father alike, and it carries her close.

Video:
The List

One sheet: Malcolm Rollick - Lo-Fi(ction)

Bio 2008

if you've ever impulsively left in the middle of the night to drive north and spent the way up the coast answering all of your life's questions by means of scanning the radio dials, you might have a taste for how Midtown Dickens began their ongoing tour. Only in addition to the radio dials, they use a well-thumbed version of Charles Dickens Hard Times to answer the more essential questions, such as which way they should go Kym, Catherine and Michelle the anti-folk denizens behind Midtown Dickens, carry their front-porch-music habits with them on their backs. Kym and Catherine began their musical career on the parking decks, roofs, and streets of Durham and Chapel Hill. They soon left their hometown to venture across the country and picked up plenty of orphaned instruments on the way, unbiased to their quirkiness or condition.

Thus, the raw folk roots that had originally sprouted the band quickly grew to feed it with a punchy minimalist humor that compliments bold lyrics and ethereal harmonies. Upon their return to North Carolina, Midtown Dickens stumbled upon their indie-rock influence. To top off their style, they strung together the found and scavenged instruments (banjo, accordian, musical saw, drums, tambourine, trumpet, trombone, harmonica) with a sparkly blue danelectro guitar. Midtown Dickens harbors an honesty too often absent from modern music, and the panache to pull off a broad spectrum of original songs from solid instrumentals, to escapist ballads, to a catchy tunes just about anything.

Performed with artists such as: Kimya Dawson, Bellafea, The Moaners, Willy Mason, The Robot Ate me, The Future Kings of Nowhere and Robo Sapien at venues including: The Cats Cradle and Local 506 in Chapel Hill; The Duke Coffeehouse and Centerfest in Durham; and CBGB's in New York. They are currently working on their second album, and they have a rooster. Midtown Dickens picks you. Kym: guitar, drums, trombone, banjo, trumpet, accordian, bass, bottlecaps, uke, fiddle, slide, tinky thing. Catherine: guitar, drums, saw, trumpet, banjo, accordian, (bowed) bass, harmonica, skateboard, melodica, piano, slidewhistle, uke. Michelle drums and egg and beat boxing. Shayne trumpet on Airplane.

Video:
New Song! performed @ Local 506 (June 2007)

CD Release Party, May 12:
Tetris (kinderfest)
Tambourine (kinderfest)
Guitars
AM Dial

Duofest 2007 (April 2007)
What A Bore performed @ Cat's Cradle (April 2007)
Tetris performed @ Underground (April 2007)
AM Dial performed @ 2007 Antifolk Fest (February 2007)
Tetris performed at "Too Much Head-banging" @ Cat's Cradle (July 2006)

One sheet: Midtown Dickens

Podcast: created by Kim G. from WXDU w/Ross Grady MtD Plays Live May 6th, 2007