Tag: Athens Bands
Welcome the Sunstones to the Stage
If you have been to any frat party recently, Flicker or even a sorority in Milledgeville, you have probably heard the name Sunstones. This band of four has immersed itself in the competitive music scene of Athens and now, recalls their journey for Vinyl Mag.
The group met while studying at the University of Georgia. Bassist Jackson Burns first met guitarist Christos Kaloudis at Oglethorpe dining hall three days before classes began their freshman year.
Their mutual love for jamming paved the way for the two to join forces with vocalists Cole Maston and Jackson Britt. Soon after, the group began practicing. “We all just feel the energy, even when we’re practicing, not just playing for a show,” said Kaloudis. “It’s almost transcendental.”
Britt found his start as a drummer as early as middle school in Suwanee, Georgia. His mom was his main influence, a 90s musician who found her start on the drumline. Both his parents influenced him towards grunge; however, his personal taste morphed into a mosh-post of hard rock, metal and even a dab of funk.
Maston, born a Michigan native, got his first Squier Stratocaster guitar in 7th grade and the rest is history. Pulling his influences from the passionate depths of grunge vocalists, Maston emits raw emotion in his vocal performances, a discovery he made during his junior year of high school.
In seventh grade, Burns was given his first telecaster by his dad. However, he didn’t start playing until he was in eighth grade when he heard ‘Leila’ by Eric Clapton and knew music was what he wanted to pursue. It was when Burns was in the throws of learning Joshua’s Law in 10th grade that he decided to pick up bass.
Kaloudis’ journey began in a Wal-Mart. He saw a $20 acoustic guitar, bought it and began taking lessons straight away. What started as simply playing the Eagles on this acoustic guitar turned into a full-blown, Zeppelin-inspired electric guitar saga that materialized six months after that compulsive Wal-Mart purchase.
The group debuted in the spring of 2023 at a Sigma Phi party as a cover band melding together their individual influences from The Red Hot Chili Peppers to Pink Floyd to Black Sabbath.
Improvising is the name of the game for the Sunstones. A slight nod or vicious eye contact leads the members to create a sense of organized chaos as they riff off of each other.
“We were playing down in Milledgeville and something went wrong,” said Burns. “But the improv that happened was borderline intentional.”
Since their debut, the Sunstones have played all around and outside of Athens with various bands, finding what playing as a certified Athens local band means to them as a collective.
“A lot of people are really only in bands for the allure of it,” said Maston. “I can confidently say that for all of us, that’s kind of just an added bonus, you know we really enjoy playing music, we enjoy playing with each other and more importantly the whole process.”
Though the group is still a cover band, they have been writing originals since the beginning. With over 30 original songs in their arsenal, they have combined their inspirations and unique rock-grunge sound that vibrates the crowd.
“I think all four of us kind of have our own distinct sound,” said Burns. “When that comes together, sometimes there’s clashing but when we get it right, it sounds really good.”
So what can audiences expect from the Sunstones?
From a small studio, they will be pulling from their large collection of original songs to record demos with Tweed Recording studios here in Athens to deliver a grunge-rock EP that will shake up the Athens music scene. So, keep your eyes open and your ears ready.
EP PREMIERE: A Look At Honeypuppy’s Speculative EP ‘Nymphet’ Track By Track
Athens-based Honeypuppy is set to release its EP Nymphet across all streaming services tomorrow, January 24th, 2024. At Vinyl Mag, I had the opportunity to chat with lead vocalist and guitarist Josie Callahan and bassist Adam Wayton for an early listen to their soaring new record to discuss each track.
The title Nymphet, meaning ‘a sexually attractive girl or young woman’, comes from the EP’s pointed musings on girlhood and youth. Callahan observes “It can be very pretty and sweet but also something that could make you go crazy, just being a girl in general. It’s exhausting.” Equally inspired by Callahan’s time as a preschool teacher, she molds her experiences into meditative lyrics over punky, poppy music.
Vinyl Mag readers can get an exclusive early listen to the EP right here at this link. Read below for a track-by-track breakdown of each song.
Penny Press
“Penny Press”, inspired by the Penny Press/Dell puzzles magazine, was the very first song the band recorded together. The inspiration came to Callahan while she worked on a crossword puzzle, weaving in an old nursery rhyme her grandmother used to sing to her when she was young called “There Was A Girl With A Little Curl” that goes ”When she was good she was very very very good / When she was bad she was horrid”.
Included in the EP, is the demo recording of “Penny Press”, originally recorded for a class project in fall of 2020. The demo features a light surf rock tone, with the final recording shifting into an edgier vibe with harsher guitars and more muted vocals.
Suck Up
For “Suck Up”, Callahan came up with the lyrics “pass me the tape and pass me the glue / I’m gonna stick stick stick myself to you” while doing arts and crafts with her students. It chronicles the familiar feeling of having a crush and assuming the worst—that they don’t return your affections. To her the song sounds like when you “want someone to like you back but in a forced way almost”. Wayton remarks that song heavily drew from punk rock influences. And obviously, nothing says teen angst and trepidation better than punk rock.
Thrum A Thread
“Thrum A Thread” draws heavy inspiration and verbiage from Robert Herrick’s 17th-century poem “Upon Some Woman”. The imagery in the song paints the picture of a woman stitched together like a rag doll. Callahan and Wayton reflect on the technical difficulty of recording this song, which required two separate click tracks with the two versions needing to be stitched together in the studio. Towards the end of the song, the pace picks up for a bridge, eventually slowing back down to the original rhythm with a drawl, singing the final line “Would it kill you to be a little bit meaner to me?”
Nymphet
The title track was the first song Callahan wrote for the record, reflecting on “a situation when someone is infatuated by somebody older.” The song’s tone is overall quite creepy. She says of her six-year-old self “I remember having a crush on one of my dad’s band mates,” reflecting on the humor of the situation now. Her favorite line “You’re a tooth and I’m a fairy” draws upon a very literal image of her coming back from ballet in a fairy costume and seeing her dad’s band in practice.
There’s a stark contrast between the demo recording and the final piece. The demo recording featured at the end of the EP is a raw and unfiltered piece. Callahan decided to put it on the EP, admiring the imperfection of the amateur recording with quirks like the kitchen timer used as a metronome.
Kerosene
In “Kerosene”, Callahan once again turns to a dark subject matter but with an inclination towards humor and unserious whimsy. The song came from a riff Wayton originally wrote for Telemarket, another Athens band he also plays with. He decided to give it to Callahan for the record because “it seemed like a cool fit and I knew we were trying to do another high-energy song.” As a true-crime girlie, Callahan had the idea to write a song about the MacDonald triad, an alleged phenomenon that bed-wetting, animal cruelty, and lighting fires in adolescence are indicative of a potential for violent, serial crimes in the future.
Honeypuppy works alongside Indecent Artistry, a recent Athens upstart and boutique label services provider, to release Nymphet alongside a limited edition run of tapes and a brief southeast tour at the end of January. You can catch them here:
1.24.24 – Athens, GA EP release show @ World Famous w/ Sunset Honor Unit, Neat Freak
1.25.24 – Nashville, TN @ Springwater Lounge w/ Zook, Iven, Fresh Air 4
1.26.24 – Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light w/ Lucy Abernathy, Jorden Albright
1.27.24 – Chattanooga, TN @ JJ’s Bohemia w/ Sun Bleach, Landis Zehrung, Catherine Campbell
Review: Cam and his Dam Jam Band: ‘The Paradise Experiment’
Athens-based Cam and his Dam Jam Band released their first full-length album, The Paradise Experiment, on January 1st, 2024. On the new record, the group hosts jazzy, groovy coffeehouse tunes that drawl on and on, clocking in at just under 50 minutes with eight songs. The album features the band’s 2023 single “Gypsy Magic Woman”, a psychedelic retro-sounding anthem (with an ill-advised concept), as well as an extended version of “Jet Black Moon”, originally released in 2021.
Cam and his Dam Jam Band make ambient music, not typical for the post-streaming world, but like their name, it calls back to an earlier era of jam bands and music made to be enjoyed live. Exemplified excellently by the opening track “Backpack of Stone”, this gargantuan track is nearly 10 minutes long. Except for two songs, all tracks on the record are beyond the 5-minute marker. The focus of the record is on evoking emotions using melody, tempo, and a fun array of instruments.
The musical elements are infused with sparse lyrics that tend to tell a story with only a few changes in wording. “Rob a Bank”, a western-style song, is an entertaining take on the outcast character on the run from the law. Parleying between “don’t rob a bank” and “let’s rob a bank”, the track leans on American mythology, familiar to almost everyone. The track ends in a call-and-response fashion, with lead singer Cameron Norton sounding conflicted as a chorus of voices try to dissuade him.
The diversity in the band’s repertoire is apparent, particularly in the second half. “My Potion / Three Hours Later” featuring two songs in one wrestles with these subtleties. The song begins with a rather romantic sound, which feels almost yearning. As we fade into “Three Hours Later”, the mood shifts into a more melancholy tune, with a bass that underlines the comparative emptiness of the track. “Jet Black Moon” drives further into the melancholia with an increased moodiness and lyrics alluding to isolation and loneliness, singing “ain’t nobody there to hear me now”.
The record wraps, appropriately, like a live show. “Carry Her Away” takes place on stage, a moment where Cam looks out into the audience and pines for a lady he spots, ultimately unable to get to her. He sings “Now I’m searching but she’s on the run / I was hoping that she would stay”. “Afterparty”, the shortest track by a large margin at one minute and 21 seconds, has all the oomph and joy of a celebratory post-show after-party.
Unfortunately, the familiar story of the gypsy invoked in “Gypsy Magic Woman” does leave an unsavory taste. The term “gypsy” comes from the mistaken belief that the Romani, also known as the Roma, originated from Egypt. It’s been characterized by decades of cultural references from Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame to songs by Shakira, Fleetwood Mac, and Lady Gaga. Often it refers to a provocative woman, a wanderer, a wielder of dark magic, or a cunning thief, sometimes a mix. The history of the Roma is fraught with decades of persecution across Europe and beyond, spanning genocide during World War II to forced sterilizations into this century. The term gypsy is an extension of that persecution and is seen by most as a racial slur. Thus, it’s unfavorable and objectionable for Cam and his Dam Jam Band to lean into the gypsy stereotype with a song and visuals to back it up. Though, without a doubt, a reflection of the lack of knowledge on the subject in the US.
In The Paradise Experiment, Cam and his Dam Jam Band harken us back to when music at will was indispensable to most, with the live local band being a staple in everyone’s soundtrack, giving us the ambient music we would feel so plain without. Skipping over the poorly titled “Gypsy Magic Woman”, you’ll find an otherwise impressive selection of music to groove and jive to. If the point was to create an advertisement to go and see the dam jam band live already, well then I’d say it worked.
Review: Nuclear Tourism: ‘Nuclear Tourism’
Athens, Georgia band Nuclear Tourism’s self-titled sophomore album serves as a reminder of how much fun music can be in its rawest form, especially if that form involves a couple surf-rock anthems.
The album opener, “Feels Alright,” perfectly sets the tone with a song that highlights the strengths of each member without taking itself too seriously. The spirit and skill of the band is on full display in substance inspired songs like cannabis carol “Mary”, a loving tribute to marijuana, and “Half Drunk”, both of which feature rapid changes in tempo that redefine the songs halfway through.
Below the beer soaked surface level, the songs offer a different kind of substance. Beginning with a sample from 1967 film The Graduate, “Dad Brains” perfectly describes the feeling of rejecting the things you don’t want to do while still figuring out what it is you do want; the song is about doing the things that bring you pleasure, even if that means doing nothing at all, and doing your damnedest not to turn into the authority figures around you. Rather than denying the confusion about the future that many experience in their youth, this song embraces and capitalizes off of it. With “No Never!”, a song about refusing to compromise your identity, Nuclear Tourism delivers with a combination of deep-fried sounding instrumentals and growly sing-shouting that results in something even more fun to listen to than its counterparts on the album, which is not an easy task. With these songs, the band is able to offer criticisms in a way that is easy for listeners to digest without coming across as pretentious.
Standout “Cut Your Hair” captures the feeling of being enamored with someone and the comforting fact that despite not knowing what you want to do, you know who you want to do it with. Between the screams scattered throughout the song and the spoken lyrics and heavy guitar at the end, “Sick of it” is the kind of song that needs to be experienced live, bonus points if it’s in the pit cradling a beer.
With Nuclear Tourism, the band experiments with different genres, concepts and sounds and the result is something filled with the good old fashion dye-your-hair, smoke-your-weed, question-your-authority-figures garage-rock sound thatNuclear Tourism does so well.
Check the album out on the platform of your choice and go see Nuclear Tourism live this summer to get the full experience (which may or may not include someone having their head shaved on stage).
Nuclear Tourism’s upcoming shows:
6/17 Masquerade (ATL)
6/23 AthFest
7/7 Georgia Theatre (unplugged set)
7/27 Slopfest (unplugged set)
8/11 Royal American (CHAS) (unplugged)