Here’s the first batch of bands to play Fort Worth Weekly’s 12th Annual Music Awards Festival (MAF) on Sunday, June 22, at eight venues in the West 7th Street corridor.
And they are: Pinkish Black, Son of Stan, The Hanna Barbarians, Foxtrot Uniform, The Me-Thinks, Jetta in the Ghost Tree, Un Chien, FOGG, Secret Ghost Champion, Patriot, Ronnie Heart, Jack Thunder & The Road Soda, Huffer, Slumberbuzz, The Fibs, Missing Sibling, Mills & Co., Animal Spirit, Stone Machine Electric, Igneous Grimm, Lindby, The Royal Savages, Lazy Summer, and MidWay.
The remaining 24 bands will be announced next week.
All of the bands are nominees in our 2014 Music Awards (see: pg. 42), and all hail from the great 817.
MAF ’14, taking place from 4 to 10 p.m. at Capital Bar, Fred’s Texas Café, The Grotto, Lola’s Saloon, Magnolia Motor Lounge, Poag Mahone’s, The Pour House, and Rodeo Goat, is freeeee.
It’s like Christmas. But in June. And instead of presents, there’s local music. So, basically, it’s better than Christmas.
Sign Up for Group Therapy
Son of Stan, War Party, Toy Gun, Jack Thunder & The Road Soda, Patriot, Bummer Vacation, FOGG, The Cush, Slumberbuzz, Year of the Bear, The Fibs, Vicious Firs, Doom Ghost, Bitch Bricks, The Ape Hangars, Britt Robisheaux, Street Arabs, Vacations, Sealion, and Andy Pickett have all contributed at least one track to Group Therapy, Vol. 2, a co-production of Dreamy Soundz Records and Lo-Life Recordings, two Fort Worth record labels. Though the album won’t be released for a few weeks, tracks have begun streaming piecemeal at Loliferecordings.com.
The follow-up to the first compilation CD (2013) is just one more thing that committed folks are doing to “support the underground community and showcase it in a way that unifies our scene” in North Texas, said Cameron Smith, Lo-Life co-founder and War Party frontman. “We want these collections together so that when people look back on Fort Worth music in this time, they very clearly see not just the wealth of great talent but the communal nature of it all, and we want to supply as much content as we can as a testament to this.”
All of the songs are new or previously unreleased. Most of them were recorded live in one marathon session at The Where House in January. The rest were done either at Dreamy Soundz with co-founders/producers Jennifer and Robby Rux or at Eagle Audio Recording with Robisheaux. Smith said that, to him, Vol. 2 represents the release of a lot of pent-up excitement. With new recordings by War Party, The Road Soda, Bummer Vacation, Toy Gun, Sealion, and Bitch Bricks on the way, he can’t help but be pretty psyched. “It excites me so much to hear what everyone is up to and to watch this scene continue to blossom,” he said. “All the while, I’m just thinking things to myself like, ‘Wait until everyone hears this Bummer Vacation debut! Minds will be blown!’ ”
Lo-Life and Dreamy Soundz recently incorporated under the name Dreamy Life Records and Music and will open a record store of the same name on Park Place on the Near Southside in July. Lo-Life, Smith said, is on a roll: “We don’t make enough money to support all of our releases yet, but that doesn’t stop us from doing it. When it must be done, it must be done. … We are all in this together. Community is the key to everything.”
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
