As part of the operations, we see a lot of music videos. Here’s our favorites from the month of June:
1. Races – “Lies”
Frontman Wade Ryff gets kicked around suburbia in what feels like a bad dream. It all ends with a scene eerily reminiscent of a zombie flick.
2. A Toys Orchestra – “WELCOME TO BABYLON”
If you’re queasy, I would skip the first 5 seconds (HINT: Babies), but the rest is worth it. A life story — that we can all relate to — told through magnificent cinematography.
3. Giulia Millanta – “The Old Man”
Giulia Millanta quaintly reminds us that potato sack dolls have feelings too.
Last Saturday was Record Store Day, the one day in the year reserved to shine a spotlight on records and record stores across the country.
It was a very successful one, too! The Black Angels 7″ that we’ve been raving about did mighty well at Waterloo Records, who reported that it made #4 on the best-selling 45RPMs and The Raveonettes EP that was just released was #4 best-selling CD. Zia Records had the pleasure of hosting our very own Vintage Trouble at their store in Las Vegas. They had a great turnout and took some pretty rad photos, which you just have check out here. Other Music hosted Suckers as they spun some tunes in the totally packed store. Check out the pics on Brooklyn Vegan!
Of course, as eager Orchard-ites, we were present everywhere we could be. We couldn’t make it to all of our bands’ performances in stores all around the country (Vintage Trouble, Rhett Miller, RACES, Mates of State and Suckers), but we do have some accounts of what we did see:
The lovely Allison Ullrich — who took a whole bunch of great photos, including the one accompanying this post — went store hopping in NYC and even wrote a blog post about it for Purple Revolver. In it, she shares her experience with mad RSD lines, impromptu fights and friendly record buyers post mayhem.
One of our Interactive Marketing Managers Tonia Samman went to see Mates of State at Brooklyn’s Soundfix and had this to say about it: ”Brooklyn’s Soundfix was at capacity and overflowing with Mates of State fans at 7:30AM when the band’s performance began, and most of them stuck around throughout the set just to listen and catch glimpses of Jason and Kori in the windows. Rounded out by a guitarist and second keyboard player (who also doubled on trumpet), Mates of State sounded as tight as ever as they ran through hits from 2011’s Mountaintops including “Palomino” and “Maracas,” and highlights from 2009’s Re-arrange Us like “My Only Offer” and the album’s title track. They also did an inspired cover of “The Weight” in honor of the late Levon Helm.”
Given the breadth of our catalogue, it is a fun (albiet daunting) task to pull together some of our favorite tracks of the year so far. So, we did it and you’ll love it!
We have a little bit of something for everyone. If you fancy some chill but cheery blues/jazz/gospel don’t miss the lovely Ruthie Foster. Need more metal in your life? Obvi Nuclear Blast‘s Meshuggah is included in the mix. Perhaps you want a fuzzy romantic indie tune? Radiation City‘s “Find It Of Use” will do it for you. Fancy some mildly offensive entertainment? Check out Bobby Light (AKA Rob Dyrdek)’s satyrical track “Do You Right” that has all the youngins dancin’.
Decide for yourself what your favorites are… We’ve got links to both Spotify and Rdio below, as well as our friends at ShareMyPlaylists — or you can listen to the playlist right now by just clicking Play below!
Best of 2012 (so far) on Spotify
Best of 2012 (so far) on Rdio
Best of 2012 (so far) on ShareMyPlaylists
Happy Spring, beautiful freeloaders! We know it’s been a while, so to make up for the two-week recess we’re jam-packing your Friday with some pretty sweet music from a collection of our friends.
Setting things off, we suggest you check out free tracks like MESHUGGAH‘s “I Am Colossus,” Heavy Blanket‘s “Dr. Marten’s Blues,” Nada’s Surf‘s “Looking Through” and Rhett Miller‘s “Out of Love.” A special bonus comes to you in the form of a free stream of RACES‘s new LP Year of the Witch, which comes out next week!
MESHUGGAH: “I Am Colossus” via Scion A/V
KOLOSS out March 27th on Nuclear Blast
Heavy Blanket: “Dr. Marten’s Blues” via EW.com
Heavy Blanket out May 8th on Outer Battery Records
Nada Surf: “Looking Through” via Billboard
The Dulcitone Files EP out now on Barsuk Records
Rhett Miller: “Out of Love” via his website
The Dreamer out June 5th on Maximum Sunshine Records
RACES: Year of the Witch via Paste–out March 27th on Frenchkiss Records
Vintage Trouble at The Orchard's Day Party, SXSW 2012
Even if you did not attend SXSW, you must have heard about the giant Doritos vending machine/stage, free BBQ via pedicabs, homeless hotspots, The Boss’ “you can do it” keynote or at least, A$AP Rocky’s do-rag.
No? Well it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on at SXSW and cut through all the noise, so I’ve put together some documentation of what The Orchard crew was up to for SXSW 2012.
Some members of our team arrived for Interactive to touch base with some of our tech partners and fellow nerds. Among the many were our friends at Webdoc, Fanbridge, Topspin and Rdio. We hit up some panels, tried to squeeze into the Al Gore + Sean Parker keynote and checked out the Google Village whenever we had a spare moment.
The Music Fest brought us together with loads of our clients and we did our best to get out to as many shows as we could, namely, Cleopatra Records‘ Blackburner’s mind-blowing set, Lefse‘s lovely showcase, Volcom‘s beerfest and metal mania, Barsuk‘s stellar jam sesh and MANY more. Not to mention IODA’s day party with some of our favorite buzz bands taking the stage. The Orchard’s Day Party with Radical Dads, Arms, Scoundrels, Races, Vintage Trouble and Rhett Miller had us enjoying every minute of the day on Friday along with free tacos and beer at Parkside in Austin (PICS HERE). Also, we were thrilled to host the event alongside our sync department who announced their new venture, Concentrated Music.
This only touches on all of our festivities at SXSW but we do want to thank everyone who attended The Orchard’s Day Party and all the amazing showcases hosted by some of our favorite labels. Signing off with some of our staff favorites from SXSW 2012 (Poliça and Vintage Trouble took the top):
