Revealing The Story So Far

It’s every young musician’s dream to go on tour with friends, and have fans screaming the lyrics to his/her music at shows all across the world. This dream has become a reality for The Story So For, who, after almost two years since their last release in 2011, are set to drop their new album, What You Don’t See, on March 26 via Pure Noise Records. All signs point to the album being one of their best yet, with the help of producer Steve Klein, founding member and guitarist for Pop-Punk godfathers New Found Glory.

Wanting to show that the band is back stronger than ever, the dynamic quintet recently released a cut off of their new album called “Right Here.” This powerfully catchy anthem instantly teleports you to your rambunctious high school days where the sounds of Warped Tour bands, like your overly attached girlfriend (or boyfriend), would follow you wherever you went. However, unlike your unfortunate stage-five clinger, you probably couldn’t resist those Pop-Punk siren calls and requited the feelings of infatuation. This is the flavor of musical grandeur that The Story So Far bring to the table with their new single and forthcoming album.

The Story So Far is set to take their incomparably energetic live shows on the road this spring, embarking on a North American tour starting in late March with The American Scene for the first three dates, and Man Overboard for the remaining dates. After this leg, the band will journey to Europe for a month-long tour starting in late April. Man Overboard (first three European dates) and The American Scene (remaining European dates) will be switching positions from the North American tour.

With the upcoming release of What You Don’t See, the tours coming up, and the fact that they’re featured on the cover of AltPress’s April issue, we can’t wait to see what new and exciting chapters are ahead for The Story So Far.

Forward Thru The Past: Austin Psych Fest, The Black Angels and Some Texas Psychedelic Originals

Stick around long enough and you can watch musical trends come and go…… Punk fades in the early 80s, goes underground and re-emerges with a (commercial) vengeance. Heavy Metal morphs through various re-incarnations, even Dance music evolves from Disco to House to Techno to whatever Step/Trap/Shake thing is happening.

And so it is with Psychedelic music, which began in Austin, TX in 1965 with Roky Erickson’s 13th Floor Elevators and almost simultaneously in London with the formation of Pink Floyd. The leading lights of today’s American Psych Rock scene are of course Austin’s own The Black Angels, whose new Blue Horizon album, Indigo Meadow, hits digital media sites and record shops on April 2. By now, many of you have heard their very of the moment new single “Don’t Play With Guns.” Perhaps the more cutting edge aficionados out there have even purchased the just released Austin Psych Fest 2012 DVD featuring the Angels and contemporaries like Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees, Dead Meadow and so many other bands bending minds live on stage. Like Austin’s famed SXSW and Austin City Limits Festivals, Austin Psych Fest has developed a momentum of its own, this year attracting artists from as far away as Brazil (the re-united Os Mutantes) and Mali (Tinariwen).

While the fest boasts an awesome lineup of talent too deep to detail here (check their website for details), it is the triumvirate topping the bill on Sunday April 28 that has tripendicularly-inclined fans salivating. Austin’s Psych godfather Roky Erickson? Check. Leaders of the new school The Black Angels? You betcha. But wait, who’s this? Houston’s legendary The Moving Sidewalks with all four original members, including some guitarist from ZZ Top named Billy Gibbons?

Seems like everything old is new again. The Psychedelic Blues Rock of The Moving Sidewalks imploded in the summer of 1969 after a few successful singles, one album – Flash – and tour dates opening for Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and the Jeff Beck Group w/Rod Stewart. Uncle Sam drafted original band members Tom Moore and Don Summers and the dream came crashing to an end. Their influence continued on and in late 2012, a Christmas present appeared in the form of a 2-CD reissue, The Complete Moving Sidewalks. Then came news of an exclusive NYC reunion show at BB King’s club in Manhattan on March 30. Still, the wild-eyed fans of the Texas Psych Rock scene were heartbroken until the announcement that yes indeed the original Moving Sidewalks would be appearing on the same day as their fellow Texans at Austin Psych Fest 2013!

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Welcome, Stephanie!

Introducing Stephanie Neptune, Production Manager, The Orchard Video Network

Hi Everyone! I’m Stephanie Neptune (yes, I swear that’s my real last name) and when I’m not in the office I can be found digging for records, shooting video, or searching for the best taco truck in the city. Ecstatic to be a part of the team! See you around the espresso machine…

The “Song & Dance” of Duologue

Having recently graced us with the sultry vocal melodies and crafty programming of their double A-side single release Underworld / Zeros, which, co-produced with Jim Abbiss, felt as complex and intriguing as any full length-album, the group with a penchant for eclectic compositions is back with a full-on full length record.

Duologue, the Indie-Electronic band from across the pond that we just can’t get enough of, are bringing their notable Indie-Electronic crossover sound that blends digital effects and effervescent acoustic tones to their new, highly anticipated release Song & Dance. The album, released on Killing Moon Records, made its digital debut yesterday, with a physical release hitting April 23rd in the U.K.

But more than simply producing intricate material in the studio, Duologue have the ability to masterly channel their genre-blending music onto the live stage — our very own stairwell included. The band performed “Machine Stop“ and “Zeros“ at The Orchard’s first-ever CMJ Stairwell Series last October, and needless to say, the Indie men from London did not need to be plugged-in to capture a memorable sound, rocking our beloved stairwell with just a violin, glockenspiel, some acoustic guitars, and haunting harmonies.

Just recently, the group sold out their album launch party at London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, and you can expect similarly packed shows on their upcoming tour with Post War Years. After the European stint, the band will be coming stateside to perform at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Get a taste for the new record now with the video for “Push It,” the first single off the album, below, and take a peek after the jump for full European and SXSW tour dates.

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What You Need to Know About YouTube’s New Layout: One Channel

Back in November, YouTube launched a new channel-driven experience for logged-in users. This experience encourages users to subscribe and provides a feed-like experience when logged in. Ultimately YouTube is looking to build audiences. Not only do engaged audiences attract advertisers (at higher rates), but they create brand loyalty to specific channels. The long-term goal here is to be a real alternative to television, not a source for cat videos. (Unless you make a stream of incredible cat videos, of course!)

Given that goal, YouTube’s algorithms have also begun to change. The emphasis is coming off of overall plays (and we’ve all seen how those can change) while giving more importance to other factors. Combined subscribership, overall minutes watched, and number of videos watched were given additional weight over the last few months, and as a result traffic patterns have changed. Videos that may once have been holed off in the dregs of page 10 in search results and never popped up in suggested videos are suddenly trumping videos with more views or prominence.

The next step in this plan is to change the channel experience; this is where One Channel comes in. If you want to increase subscribers and float more engaging content to the top, a good place to start is providing an equitable experience across all platforms. The current landscape sees a desktop version, a differing mobile experience, and a plethora of app designs on diverse platforms ranging from tablets to Xbox.

One Channel addresses this by creating a layout which lives on the web and responds to the device upon which it’s being viewed. I wouldn’t call this a classic example of responsive design, but it does take it in another direction. In large part, the design works by basing all the visuals around a large image suitable for television viewing. When used in the other contexts, like mobile, tablet, or internet-connected television, the design crops the image used. Desktop has a large banner, with mobile and tablet having smaller versions. This experience prepares us as well for the change of the landscape as more internet-connected televisions come to market and more people watch YouTube through their television set.

All other content has shifted to side columns and what YouTube calls shelves. To the right is space to promote various sidebar items that were further down in the old design (like featured channels). At the left the user sees their subscriptions. In the middle are the new shelves. While The Orchard did get an early chance to use One Channel, I don’t yet have any best-practices recommendations for using these shelves. There’s an assorted number of features including activity, recent uploads, playlists… similar to what exists in the old layout, but seemingly more impactful. You can see a channel we’ve been experimenting with in our new metal property: Infernal Racket.

One feature of the shelves I do know will have future importance is the welcome video. Non-subscribed visitors will get this video when they visit a channel and we’re already seeing folks from Geek & Sundry and iJustine to MysteryGuitarMan using these to promote more depth of content on their channels. Once subscribed, your visitors (now subscribers) won’t have to see this video anymore and can see a feature of your choosing. There are a wealth of examples already on how to use shelves. So far my favourite includes DeStorm’s.

While I’m personally (and professionally) excited about these changes and how we might inventively use them going forward, I’m sure just like any change there will be complaints. In particular, the loss of image maps in headers on channels will likely be a big source of pain for many users, particularly artists and labels used to using this space to link to music and tickets for purchase. Some of this functionality has moved; in fact you’ll notice links have now been moved from below the ‘about’ section to a nice set of overlays on the header of the desktop version of the site. I also feel the real estate that now exists takes over where a lot of those links left off, making the channel functionally more robust.

Expect to be able to opt-in yourselves in coming weeks. As always I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments.

Update: You can now opt-in to the new One Channel layout! Here’s a One Sheet to help you get started.