Family bands such as Matrimony have always been with us, and perhaps with good reason. Siblings not only have shared DNA, but they grew up in the same household, influenced by their parents music collection, which provides a common ground that often gives birth to great music. Not to mention being in a band is often tough, and the fact that blood binds them together could certainly help the family members get over the inevitable fights and squabbles that go with a life on the road. After all, a band is a relationship between multiple people who spend way too much time together in tight spaces for too many hours at a stretch. It’s bound to get intense, and things will occasionally get ugly. Yet when the band consists of family members who grew up together, they’re all that much better at getting over it.
But what about the music? There is a unique quality to sibling harmonies that you simply don’t hear with people who are not related, I’m not saying it’s necessarily better but it’s definitely different. Some might laugh at this example, but can you imagine what the Bee Gees would have sounded like if the brothers Gibb were just three guys who met at university? All I know is that the sound wouldn’t have been the same. I would even argue that at times family members create counter melodies and layered rhythms that add up to more than the sum of their parts. Anyone who has played in a live setting for any length of time will tell you that every now and then there is a little magic that happens, it’s almost like the universe is pulling some cosmic marionette strings and playing you playing the instrument. Perhaps that magic happens just a little more frequently in family bands. I only know that I like it.
Matrimony consists of Ashlee Hardee Brown, her husband Jimmy Brown, and Ashlee’s brothers Jordan and CJ Hardee. They are scheduled to play at 6 PM on the Paint Shop stage at Revival Fest this Saturday, September 14. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time online, or at the gate the day of the show.
Below is a fairly new video for what might be their most popular song, Obey Your Guns.
In no particular order, I thought I might make a short list of some other family bands to think about:
I’m really excited to hear some of the 12 bands playing the 1st annual (well, we hope it will be annual) Revival Fest on Saturday, 9/14 at the Roundhouse (officially the Georgia State Railroad Museum) off MLK here in Savannah.
The schedule will has pretty much continuous music on the two stages — one in the old paint shop and another outside. MusicFile Productions is putting on the event, with Capital A Productions handling the staging.
hissing lawns will be posting previews throughout the week of some of the acts we’re excited to hear on Saturday, so first here’s just a Soundcloud playlist of almost all the bands:
Btw, because of permit problems involving the health department, Revival Fest can’t hold the long-planned oyster and pig roasts, but other options are in process. Those who bought the higher-priced $55 tickets can get the food portion of that refunded. All tickets are now priced at $35. (We’ll save our rants about the local bureaucracy for a future post.)
Little Tybee is based in Atlanta these days (I guess), but a couple of the members have deep Savannah ties. And the band is even named for one of the barrier islands off the Savannah coast.
The band’s most recent album For Distant Viewing has the richness and lushness that we’ve come to expect from Little Tybee.
A few days ago on Facebook, the band announced a short fall tour that includes a Saturday, Sept. 28th show at The Jinx:
9/14 @ 529 – Atlanta, GA
9/18 @ SLIMS – Raleigh, NC
9/20 @ PETES CANDY STORE – Brooklyn, NY
9/21 @ ROCKWOOD MUSIC HALL – NYC, NY
9/22 @ THE CAMEL – Richmond, VA
9/23 @ THE WORLD FAMOUS – Athens, GA
9/28 @ THE JINX – Savannah, GA
10/11 @ VARIETY PLAYHOUSE – Atlanta, GA
Here’s the title video from the latest album:
Little Tybee at Congress Street Social Club during the 2013 Savannah Stopover
To celebrate the day, indie label Furious Hooves (based in part in Savannah) has released Stay Rad Vol. 01, featuring some great new work by mumbledust, Hallucinex, and other bands with the label:
Graveface Records has released the new single “Holding You Back” by The Casket Girls:
And Sauna Heat‘s new cassette Singles – 2012 is being sold by the UK indie label fuzzbook:
Helado Negro played a private party last week here in Savannah. It was something of a homecoming — the musician was once a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Of the 50+ in attendance, a fair number seemed to know Negro from back in the day in college.
I’ve been following Heyrocco’s music closely for about a year now, and it’s been really interesting to watch the very young and awesomely talented trio explore different styles.
I’m a big fan of these recently released “shitty demos” for Greatest Hits of the 90s. Well worth a listen:
The Savannah-based metal trio Black Tusk is headed to Europe later this week promoting their recent EP Tend No Wounds on Relapse Records.
Black Tusk’s monthlong tour begins September 13th in Frankfurt, with gigs literally every day until October 12th. On October 5th, Black Tusk plays in Copenhagen with Baroness, which also got its start here in Savannah.
Take “Truth Untold” full screen for the full effect:
I took a few shots of Black Tusk’s recent gig at The Jinx here in Savannah:
hissing lawns is a new music blog based in Savannah, Georgia. We’ll obviously have regular news and multimedia from Savannah-based acts, but we’ll also be posting about touring acts on their way through town, plus regional, national, and international acts.
For unclear reasons, Savannah’s steadily growing music scene has not really spawned any music blogs.
We’ll be getting quite a bit of content up here in the next few days. If you’ve already stumbled upon this, feel free to share.
Oh: hissing lawns. Some of you will know that the name is a nod toward Joni Mitchell, but more about that later.