bands and musicians

I have a wide and varied taste in music, and this is certainly not a comprehensive list; just a very brief selection of bands and musicians I'm paying attention to at the moment.

Vienna Teng: a singer-songwriter and pianist from Northern California, recently transplanted to New York, Vienna Teng gets compared to Tori Amos a lot, as part of the "chick with piano" genre, but I don't think the comparison's entirely fair; as much as I love Tori Amos, Vienna Teng's lyrics are orders of magnitude better. Her songs tell absolutely wonderful stories with beautifully poetic wording, and her classical training shows in her music; it's folk-y and accessible, but also richly constructed and full. Really gorgeous stuff, and her shows are always deeply satisfying.

Wallpaper: Since I'm new to the area, I don't know which local bands rock and which local bands don't, but The Stranger's local show announcements make a great list of groups to check out on the web, even if I can't make it out to see live shows that week. That's how I found these guys, a kind of garage-y rock group out of Auburn that are equal parts catchy and barbed. I didn't manage to catch them the last time they played live, but hopefully I'll get a chance to make up for it soon.

Empires: a brand new baby band from Chicago; to my knowledge, they haven't so much as played a show yet. The guitarist, who is also a very fine photographer, used to be in The Academy Is..., but don't think that means you know what they sound like; Empires is doing their own thing, and their own thing is really, really cool. The vocalist was what really made my jaw drop the first time I listened to these tracks; he has a gorgeous shape to his voice, and the instrumentation is interesting and surprising in all the right ways, combining a lot of Latin dance influences in with some excellent straight-up rock. So far all we've got is four MySpace demos; I can't wait to see where they go from here.

Stars of Track and Field: a couple months ago, I somehow ended up with a copy of their most recent CD, but I can't remember who gave it to me and I don't remember buying it. Maybe I'm being visited by the free music fairy. Fine by me; Centuries of Love and War starts off a little so-so, but by three or four measures into "With You", the third track, I had giant cartoon hearts in my eyes. They're a very...indie-sounding indie band, not musically particularly demanding and very low-key, but they're doing really very wonderful things within the constraints they've set for themselves, small, tight musical turns of phrase, and occasionally devastating lyrics. Really lovely. (Oh, and a note--I think "Movies of Antarctica", the track everyone seems to know, is one of the weaker songs on the album, so if you've heard that and dismissed them based on it, I'd give "With You" or "Arithmatik" or "Say Hello" a try.)

Cobra Starship: these guys are fronted by the same guy who used to head up just about my favorite pop-punk outfit of all time, the Jersey-based band Midtown, but Cobra Starship is not a pop-punk band--they're more dance pop than anything else. Wait! Don't run! They're actually really good! They're almost entirely a live band for me, though I do have both the albums and enjoy them, but dancing by yourself just isn't the same. If nothing else, I like going to Cobra Starship shows because the whole pit is twelve-year-olds, so for once, I'm tall enough to breathe easily. And besides, Cobra Starship is really entertaining, and really fun, and they put on an absolutely fabulous live show. They're on tour right now, too, so grab a ticket if you can find one; they're wonderful.