The day before my birthday I sent a desperate message to Rainbow Kitten Surprise via Facebook. It read, “Please, it’s my birthday,” and to my surprise, it worked.(Little did I know they had actually been responding to my emails all along, but their responses had ended up in my junk mail.) I checked out a camera, drove to Asheville, NC, and shot one of my favorite bands the next night.

It was a sold-out show at the Asheville-favorite venue, The Orange Peel. The line wrapped around the building even as people poured into the venue. Anticipation grew until — hallelujah — the band finally emerged from backstage, kicking off the show with one of their new singles “Fever Pitch.”

They progressed through new singles and singalong classics, pleasing new and old fans alike. From their characteristically upbeat songs to bassist Charlie Holt’s endearing crazy eyes, to lead vocalist Sam Melo’s hairy bare chest (not pictured), to the constant movement on stage, Rainbow Kitten Surprise kept the audience fully engaged from start to finish, even through two encores. They danced onstage and reached offstage. It was a crazy, exciting, energetic show, and I couldn’t help but want to jump around watching Sam do the same.

Lucky for you, they released their new album How to: Friend, Love, Freefall a few days after the show, on April 6th. Give it a listen and keep a lookout for a Rainbow Kitten Surprise concert near you.

The post It’s My Birthday and I’ll Take As Many Photos of Rainbow Kitten Surprise As I Want appeared first on SCAD Radio.

In creating this EP they broke another boundary. They tore down the wall between their upbeat pop rock and New Orleans’s soulful funk. They became participants in the culture that was hurting. The EP not only featured Bonerama but was made in partnership with them and released under both artists’ names. The release of the EP was more than just the profits to be donated, but rather about uniting as artists. They recognized the significance of this community in the music industry and sought not only to help them but to learn from them; for that and the resulting fusion, we are thankful.

The EP starts with a cover of David Bowie’s “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide,” progresses through a few revamped songs from OK Go’s previous album Oh No, and ends with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Each seamlessly fuses the two genres, creating something new and refreshing and exciting that makes your heart hurt and your body dance and that sounds a bit different every time you listen to it (I can attest to this after listening to these songs on loop for the last couple of days).

The EP was released on Mardi Gras day 10 years ago, but it will surely make the perfect soundtrack for this year’s Mardi Gras.

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Jack Steadman. You may know him as the frontman of Bombay Bicycle Club, the bald guy with big glasses, or if you’re lucky, Mr Jukes. If you don’t know him as the latter, it’s time you get educated.

After the (friendly) breakup of Bombay Bicycle Club, Steadman quite literally set sail on a new journey. He boarded a cargo ship from Shanghai to Canada, on which he set up a makeshift studio and started experimenting independently.

In this new project, he sought to explore genres he was passionate about and record his imagination as it truly was. He felt freed from the constraints of the four-piece guitar band he had formerly belonged to and delved into new grounds, claiming that this music was born of a sort of spiritual journey.

With this spirituality in mind, Steadman named his album, God First. While glimmers of his indie folk past shine through on occasion, the album is largely jazz-funk-focused. Taking not only inspiration but samples and collaboration opportunities from varying genres, Steadman created a body of work that seamlessly fuses the best of the best into something that is simply, in my humble opinion; the best.

Mr Jukes is a new level of exciting, refreshing, cool. Like, if I were almost out of storage on my phone and was frantically downloading what little I could before a flight, I’d download God First first.

If I were laying in a hammock at the park with my best friend and couldn’t decide what to play, I’d play God First.

If I had a new friend in the car and wanted to play something fresh and interesting and good but not overwhelming, I’d play God First.

If I were sitting on the couch playing Mario Kart on a Saturday night, I’d play God First.

If all my roommates were gone and it was just me and my humble (one fourth of an) abode, I’d play God First.

The list goes on.

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