You can call it a “creative departure” or use words like “progression”
and “mature”, but the bottom line is that all great music reaches a
metamorphosis at some point. It could be subtle as a whisper or
cataclysmic like a dirty bomb exploding under their entire musical
foundation. Either way, you know it when you hear it.
Starting
tomorrow Fingerprints Record store presents another round of in-store
performances featuring two artists who prepare to submit their own
reinvented sounds to the masses. Tomorrow, Nathen Maxwell (bassist for seminal Celtic punk band Flogging Molly), pictured, offers you a little bit of…reggae?
Yes,
Nathen Maxwell and the Original Bunny Gang present a sound that has
been a decade in the making: a slow melting glass of reggae, ska and
folk. And though none of these words come to mind when you think of
classic albums like Drunken Lullabies, Maxwell's music is
finally being released at the perfect time, during FM's extended hiatus
following a relentless round of touring. His new album, White Rabbit
will be in stores tomorrow, Aug. 18 and so will Maxwell himself, who
will be strumming for the audience at Fingerprints alongside his band
(producer and former Flogging Molly guitar player Ted Hutt, Flogging
Molly accordion player/skateboard legend Matt Hensley and drummer
Maxwellvision, otherwise know as Nathen's father…how cool).
But the fun doesn't end there. The very next night, garage punk provocateur Jay Reatard is coming through to jam some tunes off of his new album Watch Me Fall,
also in stores Aug. 18. And though his new sound doesn't include a jam
with his pops, Reatard Sr., it does bring a melodic change of pace for
him and his band. By now, most fans of Reatard (for some reason it
never feels right, typing that out) have digested the pop-tinged tenor
of the single “Aint Gonna Same Me” which peels away some his fast and
furious guitar styling for something a little more structured. Though
the overall change is not enough to put “pop” and “punk” in the same
sentence.
But good music aside, the real good news for fans of
the freebie is that unlike some of their past in-stores, Fingerprints
doesn't require you to have pre-ordered theses artists' albums to get a
good spot at the show since the guest list is now open to all! But for
the sake of Maxwell and Reatard's economic well being, we're gonna
suggest that you buy their records anyway.
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