America’s 50* Best New Bands The Boston Phoenix presents its annual state-by-state search for the coolest music in the United States of Awesome
BOSTON, MASS — For the second year in a row, to celebrate July 4th, the Boston Phoenix (thePhoenix.com) has named the best new band in each of the 50 states.
Bands on this year’s list range from the blisteringly fast punk of Arizona’s Shark Pants to the precision pop of Illinois’s Maps and Atlases, from the bizarre drunkcore of Alaska’s Stubby’s Crack Co. to the achingly gorgeous Americana of Rhode Island’s Low Anthem.
“If we’ve learned anything from this project, it’s that there are scores of pulsing, vibrant scenes outside of New York, Los Angeles, and Chapel Hill,” says Phoenix editor Lance Gould. “It’s proof positive that creative, arresting, and just plain weird music is thriving from Bangor to Boise.”
“We New England types tend to live in fear of the rest of the country,” says Michael Brodeur, Phoenix music editor. “This list provides comforting proof that there are good bands just about everywhere. Although — full disclosure — we didn’t have the budget to check out Guam.”
To be clear, by “new,” we really mean “emerging” (just try fitting that clumsy word into a headline). Thus, “new” band actually means a band that, whether they just formed or have been slogging in the clubs for a few years, is poised to breakout for indie success.
W drew from as many genres as possible — we’ve got metal, rap, electronic, indie-pop, art-punk, Americana and whatever the hell New York’s Capillary Action counts as. We’ve also got a couple of solo artists masquerading as bands (IN, VT) and just plain soloists (FL, MD, TN, SC, MS). (* We even threw in a 51st band for Washington, DC.)
On
June sixth, twenty Denver musical acts swap songs at the all night
auditory orgy called Denver Does Denver. Played on three stages between Bar Bar
and Old Curtis St, these two neighboring venues serve as the sets for
promiscuity in sound. Each band abandons their original material to
play a set covering another Denver band. The expansive lineup includes
a wide assortment of Denver's most adventurous artists, from singer
songwriters to electronic composers, hip hop crews to blues crooners,
improvisational avante gardists to old time country troops. Witness a massive intersection of local on local sound at Denver
Does Denver.
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