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August 12, 2009 | Silver Sound Studios’ Band Battle

Hank and Cupcakes, photo by Jessi Bautista

On Wednesday night at Public Assembly, Silver Sound hosted a battle between nine local bands, offering a music video deal of $10,000 value as the coveted top prize. Though the winner has not yet been announced (each attendee received a thumb-sized paper ballot upon admission), I’ve graded each group according to how they fared in my eyes.

The Courtesy Tier
B

It sucks to start. Nevertheless, The Courtesy Tier took the stage uncomplaining, and jumped rather un-dramatically into some heavy and hard-hitting rock and roll. The duo’s emphasis on minor keys and high-amplitude could easily have lent itself to head-banging rage-rockers, but The Courtesy Tier remained surprisingly composed as they cranked out songs that were crashing yet clean.

The band’s spotless performance is attributable to the fact that guitarist, Omer Leibovitz, and drummer, Layton Weedeman, have been playing together for over seven years. The result is reminiscent of Cold War Kids’ music – a hard but energizing kind of rock that is only possible with the aid of true talent. Fittingly, the band closed with “Cold,” a fast-licking number that demanded from both band members a dexterity that bordered on virtuosity.
More on Silver Sound Band Battle @ Public Assembly | 8.12.09

SEE IT LIVE
Jezebel Music Febuary Feature Show
February 12, 2009 @ Public Assembly
w/ My Pet Dragon, The Courtesy Tier, Trashed on Fiction, and The Jaguar Club

[All images copyright 2009 Jen McManus]

The Courtesy Tier

More on JezebelMusic.com February 2009 Feature Show @ Public Assembly | 02.12.09

SEE IT
Jezebel Music Febuary Feature Show
February 12, 2009 @ Public Assembly
w/ My Pet Dragon, The Courtesy Tier, Trashed on Fiction, and The Jaguar Club

[All images copyright 2009 Jen McManus]

The Courtesy Tier

More on Jezebel Music February 2009 Feature Show @ Public Assembly | 02.12.09

Photo by Jen McManus

JEZEBEL MUSIC FEATURE
The Jaguar Club (pictured) is Jezebel Music’s Feature Artist for February 2009. With openers My Pet Dragon, The Courtesy Tier and Trashed on Fiction, The Jaguar Club will headline the February Feature Show at Public Assembly on Thursday, February 12.

Although The Jaguar Club recently finished recording, and are highly anticipating the release of their first full-length album, they are a band with many shows and tour miles under their belt, and thrive on live performances. “A touring lesson we’ve learned is that we do not do Delaware,” says Will Popadic, singer and guitarist of Brooklyn-based trio The Jaguar Club. “We are pretty loyal to the good people at Motel 6 around the country, however we do always cheat them by booking a room for one person and then sneaking the other two in (we feel that our very repeat business offsets this in some karmic way) and this has never been a problem except in Delaware where we stopped one night very very late coming home from DC.”
More on The Jaguar Club: Jezebel Music February 2009 Feature Artist

JEZEBEL MUSIC FEATURE
The Jaguar Club (pictured) is Jezebel Music’s Feature Artist for February 2009. With openers My Pet Dragon and The Courtesy Tier, The Jaguar Club will headline the February Feature Show at Public Assembly on Thursday, February 12.

Will Popadic (vocals, guitar) is from Massachusetts, Yoichiro Fujita (bass) is from Greenwich CT, “though born someplace in Japan,” and Jeremiah Joyce (drums) is from western Michigan, but it’s Brooklyn The Jaguar Club has called home since they formed in 2006. During this time, The Jaguar Club has released two EP’s of self-proclaimed “danceable pop tunes,” and played a laundry list of East coast shows from Maine to Florida, with bands including The Duke Spirit, The Cinematics, Scissors For Lefty, Mobius Band, Pela, Bear Hands, The Shaky Hands and Love Of Diagrams.

Although recording allows them to hone their sound, The Jaguar Club can’t fully express themselves unless they’re onstage. “In the end the boys in the band still love putting on a good show more than anything,” the band’s bio reads, “with energy, and sweat, unmatched by many of their contemporaries.”

“We’re just excited to get out there and play a lot and hopefully reach some people with our new album, and then make another one,” says Popadic.

The majority of the band’s activity in 2008 was spent in a Hudson Valley barn writing and recording their first full-length album with producer Kevin McMahon (French Kicks, The Walkmen, Titus Andronicus, DieDieDie, Frightened Rabbit). The album finds the band stepping away from their New Wave influences and employing more varied dynamics, but maintains their vital energy. “The album was written in a basement with no fresh air and recorded in a huge barn in the mountains, so it’s a nice mix of the two hopefully… We finish mixing it this month. We’re really, really excited to finally get it out there. We think it’s excellent.”

Dan D’Ippolito