Cold War Kids

Fullerton, CA's Cold War Kids make music with roots that go deep and wide, embracing influences as diverse as Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, and the Velvet Underground. Matt Aveiro, Matt Maust, Jonnie Russell, and Nathan Willett began crafting their soulful, blues-inflected take on indie rock as Cold War Kids in 2004, recording demos in Los Angeles soon after they formed. After signing to Monarchy Music, Cold War Kids released their debut EP, Mulberry Street, in spring 2005. The band's unique sound and impassioned live act generated a buzz -- particularly from bloggers -- that grew with each tour and release. Maust's clean but eye-catching designs for EPs like With Our Wallets Full and Up in Rags and the group's website also added to Cold War Kids' mystique. They spent much of 2006 on the road with Tapes 'n Tapes, Figurines, Sound Team, and Editors and appeared at that year's Lollapalooza. That summer, they signed to Downtown Records, also home to Art Brut and Gnarls Barkley. The band's full-length debut Robbers & Cowards arrived that fall.

Aqueduct
At a point in time when a person can create, record, manufacture, and distribute their own music, Aqueduct becomes quintessential bedroom rock. Stuck somewhere between lo & hi-fi, a love of beats, melody, and clever songwriting come together with keyboards, drum machines, buzzing guitars, and bass lines that put the bump in your booty. Singer/Songwriter David Terry will make a song you can access, while keeping the production at anyone's guess. "Music is Music, whether recorded at home or in the studio. If it sounds good then who cares!" Someone once said - Maybe it was me

Tokyo Police Club
Tokyo Police Club started by accident one day in the ordinary suburb of Newmarket when Greg, Josh, Dave, and Graham decided that they missed playing music together, their previous band having broken up several months before.  The four gathered in Josh's basement, plugging in instruments and making up songs almost at random, with no goal but to recapture the magic that they felt making music together.  By the time summer came, TPC had began quietly to play shows in the Toronto area, shows at which the very few people in attendance seemed impressed by what they saw.  The band seemed likely to end here, with the various members preparing to go their separate ways in the fall, when fate intervened in the form of an invitation to play the Pop Montreal festival.  Packing their instruments and girlfriends into a tiny university residence room, TPC spent a week immersed in music, spending days lazily wandering the streets of Montreal and nights rehearsing loudly in the tiniest of spaces, and topping it off in style with a sold out show that saw the band play for the first time to an audience that was actually interested.  A few weeks later, all four had agreed that it was time to break their mother's hearts and pursue that most elusive of pipe dreams: a career in the music business.

The boys got straight to business, playing a series of Toronto shows, and earning a reputation for live shows that were exuberant, lively, and unrestrained.  In January, the very day that Dave returned for good from university, Tokyo Police Club signed up with esteemed Toronto label Paperbag Records to release their debut EP in Canada.
In April, A Lesson in Crime was released, and the band has spent the months since on the road, bringing their optimistic brand of wide-eyed post-pop to audiences across Canada and the U.S., and making many new friends along the way.

So what exactly is Tokyo Police Club?  Perhaps EYE Weekly summed it up best when they wrote  "[Tokyo Police Club] are undeniably catchy and raw, marrying danceable hooks with talk of robot masters and global emergencies, providing an upbeat soundtrack to our troubled times."
Personally, however, I prefer Exclaim's proclamation that "somehow, the deeply innocuous subdivisions of Newmarket, Ontario have hatched a four-headed beast of tunefulness."

Chin Up Chin Up
Look beyond the steely skyscrapers jutting into Chicago's grey sky, past the potholed streets and shadowed alleys, and you might be able to find something beautiful in this scuffed-up metropolis. Something like a cornflower pushing through a cracked sidewalk, struggling its way toward sunshine. Or the sun glinting off choppy lake waves at dusk. Or the sounds of Chin Up Chin Up, whose disarmingly resonant debut album We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers is ready to carry you through autumn and beyond.

Recorded by John Congleton (90 Day Men, The Roots, The Paper Chase) at Electrical Audio and Soma studios throughout July, We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers proves that sentimental pop songs don't have to be cloying or trite. Meticulously layered with solid drums, keyboards, and warm guitar, these ten songs will wrap themselves around your mind and stay there all day.

The band's history reaches back to 2001, when Jeremy Bolen and Nathan Snydacker formed Chin Up Chin Up (think optimism and perseverance, not exercise). The two guitarists were joined shortly thereafter by percussionist Chris Dye and bassist Chris Saathoff. In January 2002, the band released a self-titled EP, which inspired MOJO's call for readers to "meet your new favourite Chicago art-pop band." Later joined by keyboard player Greg Sharp, Chin Up Chin Up toured extensively, playing shows with the likes of the Appleseed Cast, the Mercury Program, Pedro the Lion, the American Analog Set, Broken Social Scene, Smog, and Pinback.

But midway through writing We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers ­ hours, in fact, after mixing the demos ­ the band faced a tragic loss. In February, bassist Chris Saathoff was walking home from a show at the Empty Bottle when he was struck and killed in a hit-and-run accident. For months thereafter, the rest of the band mourned the loss of their good friend. "We all hung out together more than we hung out as a band," Bolen recalls. "We didn't think about music for a long time."

In due time, Chin Up Chin Up decided to regroup and finish the record. Using three discs' worth of practices that the band had recorded over the last few years, they pieced together the record's final six songs, keeping Chris's bass lines as intact as possible. Nathan then played the bass on the remaining tracks in near-homage to Chris's last writings. "Falcons and Vulcans," "The Architect Has a Gun," and "Get Me Off This Fucking Island" feature Chris's last performances with Chin Up Chin Up, but his talent and creative spirit live on through the band's music.

Chin Up Chin Up makes music about hope, about persevering through tragedy, and the redemption of optimism. Listen to We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers ­ from the title track's crescendoed bounce to the banjo and guitar of "All My Hammocks Are Dying" ­ and you'll discover the beauty of old souls dancing like adolescents, their hearts bruised but beating stronger and louder each day.