Ain't Nothin' But Music
The fellows from Gatsby's American Dream.
Land of Confusion: I'm totally confused. A month ago indie rock band Gatsby's American Dream's press folks sent me a little e-mail about their upcoming show at Jerry's Pizza, so I interviewed the band. But now the Aug. 9 show is apparently now on at the MontGo with Allister, Plain White Tee's and Down To Earth Approach. Whatever. In our interview Gatsby's bassist Kirk Huffman without realizing it explained to me why I liked their last album so much.
It was the heavy Jon Brion influence. Jon Brion of film scores ("Punch-Drunk Love," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Magnolia") and Fiona Apple fame.
I love Jon Brion.
"When we recorded our EP we were listeng to a lot of Aimee Mann records, Fiona Apple, a lot of records Jon Brion produced. We wanted to make a Jon Brion sounding record. For Volcano (their new album) we wanted big rock sounding record," said Huffman.
"We're shooting video in LA. It's pretty insane because I've never shot a video. I don't know what to expect. It's been a wild year. We've been doing this for three years, playing shows with mainly 50 kids. We did the Warped Tour this year. It's all happeneing really fast. It's exciting but strange at the same time. We're all feeling fortunate right now to be doing this."
Wanna take a listen to their new release or download a track? Click here. (From Purevolume)
Also playing next week ...
Seattle, Wash. dirty pop band Mon Frere!
You can read my interview with them, Disturbed and Pattern Is Movement in tomorrow's Californian.
posted by Danielle Belton @ 1:30 PM
2 Comments:
At 10:20 PM,
Anonymous said…
they're sort of cool I guess, lyrics aren't the worse, tho maybe more narcotics, prolonged listenings to late Soundgarden ( or mebbe Mingus and Steely Dan) and some help from bay area whores might help.....it's too poppy methinks....sorry to be so negative...i do like your writing..and 'tude usually..
but if a band is goin' to do this sort of angst-pop at least do the fans the favor of knowing how to rock (e.g a band like velvet revolver shreds this sort of indie pop to pieces)
At 9:53 AM,
Danielle Belton said…
You're entitled to not like Gatsbys American Dream if you so desire. My only issue with them is that some people have labeled them as "emo" and I hate, hate, hate emo. It's a fake musical genre. They're just a moody rock band. Can't they just be rock? All music is frickin' emotional. No musical genre should get to lay claim to having "feelings" since I can have "feelings" while listening to tribal music from the Amazon if I so desire.
They're still young so they've got plenty of room to grow and experiment. Although I did enjoy their first EP since that was the one where they tried to be like Jon Brion and if you're going to aspire to be pop rock worth listening to, Jon's a good guy to rip off. His film score work has been outstanding and I love his work with Fiona and Aimee Mann. I even have his solo album "Meaningless" which was bought by, what? Twelve people? But it's a good pop album.
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