NSFWknd: The Coathangers • Wand • Empath • Hash Redactor • NOTS

Parade of Flesh

Parade of Flesh's Not So Fun Wknd: The Coathangers (Suicide Squeeze), Wand (Drag City), Empath, Hash Redactor, Nots at Dada, Deep Ellum, TX

Club Dada - NOT THIS ONE

<a href="http://thecoathangers.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Coathangers</a> (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheCoathangersATL/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> / <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thecoathangers/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/TheCoathangers" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>)It’s a tale told so many times we might be numb to its magic, but when The Coathangers played their first show back in 2006 at a small house party in Atlanta, the band’s aspirations were little more than a one-off excuse for a few friends to hang out and make some noise. Yet the clamorous racket of that first show was addictive, both for the newly recruited musicians navigating unfamiliar instruments and for the local punks who witnessed the band’s divine birth. Other parties were quickly put on the calendar. Then a few club shows. Then came the records.The Coathangers’ eponymous 2007 album was a rowdy, ramshackle, and infectious debut. The album’s intoxicating revelry gained traction outside of Georgia, eventually leading to a record deal with Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze Records and the band’s first forays into national touring. Subsequent studio albums Scramble (2009), Larceny &amp; Old Lace (2011), Suck My Shirt (2014), and Nosebleed Weekend (2016) found the band expanding their sound to include elements of golden oldies rock n’ roll, Americana, and Joan Jett badassery, while their relentless touring schedule made their already jubilant live shows transcend into a sweaty, ecstatic, and damn near spiritual events. Over the course of thirteen years, the band hit many milestones—touring in Europe, Japan, Australia, and Mexico, sharing the stage with artists like Minus the Bear, Refused, Janelle Monae, and The Black Lips, appearing multiple times on Last Call with Carson Daly, receiving accolades from luminaries like Kim Gordon, and landing a spot on the Billboard charts with Nosebleed Weekend.Few bands make it out of the basement and even fewer survive more than a couple of years. The ability of The Coathangers to thrive in their thirteenth year of operation with original members Julia Kugel (guitar/vocals), Meredith Franco (bass/vocals), and Stephanie Luke (drums/vocals) is a testament to both their music and the genuine spirit of camaraderie that drives it. “Our combined strength is much more powerful than our individual powers, which is true of us as a band and further to us as a community and society,” Kugel says. “We’re choosing to be positive, proactive, and vocal about our stories and life experiences, giving up the devil we know. We’re going to uncharted places—looking for truthful existence, one not based on fear of the unknown but one that occurs when you have an open heart to was is real.” It took an extended break in 2018 for the trio to reflect on their accomplishments and regroup with a fresh perspective. This newly restored unity is immediately evident on their latest album The Devil You Know. As a statement on moving forward and abandoning the baggage of the past, The Devil You Know succeeds in capturing the arduous road to maturity while striking a perfect balance between the fiery spirit of their youth and the psychic creative interplay of a musical bond that has held The Coathangers together for over a decade.<a href="http://wandband.info/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wand</a> (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/wandbandinfo/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> / <a href="https://www.instagram.com/corythanson/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/corythanson" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>)Plum is Wand’s fourth LP since the band formed in late 2013 but their first new album in two years. After a whirlwind initial phase of writing, recording, and touring at a frenetic clip, their newest document marks a period of relative patience; a refocusing and a push toward a new democratization of both process and musical surface.In late winter of 2016, the band expanded their core membership of Evan Burrows, Cory Hanson, and Lee Landey to include two new members—Robbie Cody on guitar and Sofia Arreguin on keys and vocals. From the outset, the new ensemble moved naturally toward a changed working method, as they learned how to listen to each other and trust in this new format. The songwriting process was consciously relocated to the practice space, where for several months, the band spent hours a day freely improvising, while recording as much of the activity as they could manage. Previously, Wand songs had generally been brought to the group setting substantially formed by singer and guitarist Cory Hanson; now seedling songs were harvested from a growing cloudbank of archived material, then fleshed out and negotiated collectively as the band shifted rhythmically between the permissive space of jamming and the obsessive space of critique. This new process demanded more honest communication, more vulnerability, better boundaries, more mercy and persistence during a year that meanwhile delivered a heaping serving of romantic, familial and political heartbreak for everyone involved. They learned more about their instruments and their perceived limitations. Much else fell apart in their personal lives, in their bodies, and the bodies of those near to them. In this way, Plum lengthened like a shadow underneath a dusking Orange; or rather “Weird Orange,” an affectionate name given to the color of a roulette-chosen, tour-rushed batch of Golem vinyl…an idiom, an inside joke, a talisman, a bookmark, a mood ring. And meanwhile all the shifting weather, the wireless signals, the helicopters overhead. Weird orange softened, darkened delicately, and rouged itself to a Plum.The music of Plum focuses teeming, dense, at times wildly multichromatic sounds into Wand’s most deliberate statement to date, with a long evening’s shadow of loss and longing hovering above the proceedings. Plum delicately locates the band’s tangent of escape from the warm and comfortable shallows of genre anachronism, an eyes-closed, mouth-open leap toward a more free-associative and contemporary pastiche logic of that more honestly reflects the ravenous musical omnivorousness of the five people who wrote and played it.<a href="https://empathx.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Empath</a> (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/EmpathPhilly/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Facebook </a>/ <a href="https://www.instagram.com/empath.jpeg/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a>)Warm earth noise pop from Philadelphia.LATE SHOW:<a href="https://hashredactor.bandcamp.com/album/demo-tape-2017" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Hash Redactor</a> (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/hash_redactor/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/hash_redactor?lang=en" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>)<a href="https://nots.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">NOTS</a> (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/memphisnots" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> / <a href="https://instagram.com/NOTSMEMPHIS" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a> / <a href="https://twitter.com/notsmemphis" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>)NOTS are a 4 piece, all XX, “nuevo no wavo” band from Memphis, TN. Unpredictable guitars, celestial synths, and punctuated vocals swirl around the repetition of a powerful rhythm section to form a sound and a live show not easily classifiable but entirely addictive. Drummer Charlotte Watson and guitarist / frontwoman Natalie Hoffmann are the band’s two constants throughout a handful of roster changes. NOTS’ current lineup also includes Alexandra Eastburn on synth, an instrument she picked up to join NOTS and to record on their first full-length LP We Are Nots, and bassist Meredith Lones, another new Memphis musician, and the most recent addition to the band. NOTS’ newest punk-noise-psych-collision 7”, Virgin Mary, aggressively follows on the heels of their debut LP, foreshadowing an ever expanding experiment in direction of things to come for the band. Don’t miss out.