San Diego Blues/Rock Band The OrangePickers Releases Premier EP, “Parable of The OrangePickers”

The OrangePickers, a Blues/Rock ensemble from San Diego, have released their first official EP album, “Parable of the OrangePickers”

 

The OrangePickers, a Blues/Rock ensemble from San Diego, have released their first official EP album, “Parable of the OrangePickers,” available now from www.MondoTunes.com and iTunes. The OrangePickers play classic blues rock n' roll, and they were born to do it. This remarkably young trio bases their talent on superb writing, razor-sharp chops, and impeccable taste. These musicians are clearly die-hard music fans.

Frontman Bert Django's vocals are alone worth the price of admission. Half crooning, half screaming his lines in the tradition of Eric Burdon from the Animals, twenty-two-year-old Django has perfected the art of the American bluesman with plenty of time to lead the Pickers through a long, brilliant career. As guitarist, he is capable of communicating through his instrument as if it were part of him. His tone and riffs evoke thoughts of Robin Trower and B.B. King, but he ballasts his obvious talent by

writing with the spaciousness and simplicity of Robert Johnson. His lyrics, like those of Burdon and John Lee Hooker, are intended for deep groove, not academic study. Much of the OrangePickers natural power is derived from their bass and percussion, however.

Playing bass guitar is Fabian de Armas, eighteen-year-old brother of Bert. Fabian is a multi-instrumentalist that also plays guitar, mandolin, piano, and percussive instruments such as drums and African djembe. His shining moments are born of melody and punch, rather than flashy walks and pretentiousness. Think Gail Ann Dorsey (David Bowie, Tears for Fears), not Les Claypool (Primus). His style is neither too busy nor too passive, and sticks to the kick drum like glue.

Drummer Alex Cecil, at twenty-years-old, has already designed a singularly unorthodox, punchy style that relies more on a bass drum and hi-hat combo, rather than the usual snare/kick or more jazzy kick/ride cymbal. This style alone places Cecil among the most innovative rock n' roll drummers in California, but his inventiveness never gets obnoxious or noisy. His is a deep, rolling groove, not an in-your-face one.

In their own words, the OrangePickers “carry on the tradition of the old blues masters,” and fans of classic rock and blues alike owe it to themselves to give this, their first official release, a few spins on the turntable.

-S. McCauley

Staff Press Release Writer

MondoTunes

The EP “Parable of The OrangePickers” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download

MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

Address – 13891 marbok way

Phone – 619- 823- 3467 (Bert)

619 971- 9413 (Fabian)

eMail – dearmasfabian@gmail.com

website – www.facebook.com/TheOrangePickers

Philly Rock Group Prima Donna Releases New LP and Instant Classic, “Restored”

Female-fronted rock group from Philadelphia, Prima Donna, has released their first full-length record since 2003's widely acclaimed “Not Having Fun.

 

Female-fronted rock group from Philadelphia, Prima Donna, has released their first full-length record since 2003's widely acclaimed “Not Having Fun.” The album is a grooving, rocking return to the best principles of early-80s pop rock and roll, raw without sounding crass, precise without sounding pretentious, and expertly executed without losing the purity of its garage sound.

Right out of the package, Prima Donna will remind music fans of a time when songwriting meant more than packing as much sound as one could engineer into forty, fifty, or two-hundred guitar tracks on a DAT tape. The vocals feel earnest and American, like the laid-back intensity of Heart or Fleetwood Mac, and never sound strained or contrived. Lead vocalist Debbie and twin singer/guitarists Gina and Tina are often reminiscent of the Runaways' best moments, or of the Pretenders.

Prima Donna's guitar work is one of the group's best features. With its warm Marshall tone and classic, unhurried rhythm, it ends up somewhere between the melodies of the Cars and the bar chords of the Replacements: nothing but frank, unabashed rock and roll polished to a high shine and belted out. Leads are present, but not ever-present, and never lapse into mindless noodling. The plain muscle and passion behind the songwriting exhibits the exquisite taste of its composers, as well as that of its performers.

The bass and drums are perhaps the group's secret weapon, however. Subtle in their display and surgically clean in their playing, bassist Steve and drummer Dave are more than a mere backbone, more than a solid backdrop – as a backbone they're like the steel skeleton of a New York skyscraper; as a backdrop, they're like fireworks in the sky. Bass and drums haven't sounded this good together since Joe Jackson. They probably won't be the first thing you notice, but that's how they work: they're ninjas of pop.

It's taken a long time for Prima Donna to bring rock and roll of this caliber home, but rock owes them a debt of gratitude for getting around to it at last. Their new record “Restored” is absolutely deserving of an afternoon's listen on repeat, so by all means, put on a black leather jacket and enjoy it.

-Sean McCauley

MondoTunes Staff Writer

The LP “Restored” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download

MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

eMail – gcprimadonna@verizon.net

website – http://www.Primadonnamusic.com

Burbank Rock Group Daybreak Ends Releases New Full-Length Album “A Second Chance to Fail”

Daybreak Ends, a metalcore rock group from Burbank, CA, has released their first LP since 2010's “The Self Unseen.”

 

From Burbank, CA, comes the third major release from the vitriolic four-piece metalcore band known as Daybreak Ends, an explosive collection of tracks they've dubbed “A Second Chance to Fail.” The title is at least ironic, if not outright sarcastic, as the album itself is a bulls-eye and a bombshell, a soaring success the likes of which record producers dream. With this, their most-recent release since 2010, Daybreak carves solidly their name into the annals of the absolute best alternative rock bands in the last decade.

The first impression of Daybreak Ends is reminiscent of San Diego's As I Lay Dying or the East-Bay Hardcore band-gone-emo, AFI, but upon closer inspection, their roots are far more widespread. Vocals range from At-the-Drive-In-style belting to straight-laced Def Leppard singing, and even the occasional David Bowie croon. Background vocals occasionally fly away into flawless, creepy three-part harmonies à la Bad Religion. Guitars switch effortlessly from the chugga-chugga of traditional grindcore into classic bar chords, then transition into TSOL punk rock tones, and again into grunge-era bends the likes of which Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains has been long known – and don't miss the guitarist's U2 moment near the closing crescendo of “Aperture.”

Daybreak's percussion is a laser-guided carpet-bombing, a machine gun spraying the crowd in the purest staccatos like those which Napalm Death once terrified audiences. He chops wood when he wants groove, he fills large spaces with a single strike to the top of his ride cymbal. He attacks with double-kicks and snare fills that rap on the skull like a low ceiling fan. It's much to the rest of the band's credit that they manage to keep him from stealing the show – at least, not all the time. If anyone's responsible for keeping this man in line, it's the bassist, whose surgical walks up and down the neck are pristine, but never too flashy, always tasteful and with the occasional dash of funk.

Music fans have had it hard the last few years, particularly in the genres of punk rock, metalcore, and related areas, but albums like “A Second Chance to Fail” by Daybreak Ends fill one's ears with the old intensity, adrenaline, and also the faith that rock and roll will never die, that the record industry moguls can never successfully destroy what Chuck Berry started and Metallica polished. Fans of AFI, As I Lay Dying, and the like have a duty to themselves to check out this record, and everyone else should at least put down the Ke$ha long enough to let Daybreak kick hell out of them for a track or two. There's something excellently wrong with this fantastically destructive, potentially incinerating record by some fine young lads not from Liverpool.

The LP “A Second Chance to Fail” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download

MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

Josh (818) 274-4851

daybass15@gmail.com

www.daybreakends.com

San Jose Music Group Flesh Weapon Releases First Full-Length Album “Future(Expensive)”

The San Jose music group Flesh Weapon has released their much-anticipated full-length album, “Future(Expensive).”

 

Following fanfare and the white-knuckled effort of its members, San Jose music group Flesh Weapon has released their highly anticipated full-length album titled “Future(Expensive).” This, their premier and flagship record, is a collection of spacious beat-infused tracks intertwined with cybernetic melodies and razor-sharp rhymes, each line of which they rap with precision, intent, and tact. “Future(Expensive)” is easily the most thought-provoking and talented project to emerge from the genre in over a decade, with rhythm and bass oozing from its every seam, brutal honesty and intellect from every line.

Flesh Weapon's sound borrows from many artists from many various areas of musicianship, from late-nineties industrial music to alternative rock and hardcore, but although the amalgam may seem counter-intuitive, a thread of unwavering quality and taste runs through every cut on the record that weaves a cohesive product together, one full of power, passion, and their own brand of constructive violence. The vocals are reminiscent of Maynard Keenan of Tool, crooning and lurking. The rapping is absolutely first-rate, brilliantly crafted and expertly executed, but at no time does it eclipse the background mix, a clever blend of loops and original instrumental work that can surprise in its originality and often invite eyebrow raising.

Younger fans will miss out on several inside jokes, such as the melody in Flesh Weapon's track, “Brutal Honesty,” which appropriately features the theme from Nintendo's Metroid game, a game wholly based on the concept of bio-mechanical horror. “Hearts of Men” rounds out with the spooky chord progression NASA uses to communicate to extraterrestrials in Steven Spielberg's 1977 film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Whether the ironies are lost on the youth of today or not, however, Flesh Weapon's sound communicates clearly in the language of unrelenting aggression and electronic groove.

Flesh Weapon's name is itself intended as a bleak warning and sign of the times. “We all use our bodies and minds as potential weapons, both against each other and the world around us,” says frontman Nos Leratz. F.W.'s writer/performers pay at least as much attention to what they are rapping about as they do to how they sound while rapping. Their focus is occasionally personal and intimate, but more often regards social awareness and their views on the modern human condition. In the standard viciousness they use to decry everything they feel strongly about, Flesh Weapon bluntly accuses, “You worship things you purchase, then converse with charming serpents,” a line perhaps more akin to artists such as Tool or Bad Religion, but which lends itself perfectly to the sober, yet rabidly enraged tone of Flesh Weapon's record. Come for the beats and stay for the edification. Fans of bling, tricks and ho's need not apply.

The LP “Future(Expensive)” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download

MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

Address – 7130 Yorktown Dr. Gilroy, CA 95020

Phone – 408-623-8133

eMail – leratz@gmail.com

website – http://www.FleshWeapon.com