Dan Smalls brought these two well-paired groups to The Haunt last night and we snagged some footage!



Zammuto - 'The Greatest Autoharp Solo of All Time'


Lymbyc Systym

Braveyoung (formerly known as Giant) hail from Greensboro, NC and compose beautifully lush and complex instrumental music for your aural pleasure. Their latest, We Are Lonely Animals and their preceding EP Song found release through the mighty The End Records (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Ulver, Goes Cube, etc).

They've had a busy 2011 so far with the release of their latest LP and a pending collaboration with The Body. Up next the troop is about to launch on a Northeast US/Canadian tour with our friends in Rosetta. On their way back home, Ithaca Underground is presenting an absolutely FREE show with this fantastic five-piece in celebration of Bubba (IU main-man) Crumrine's birthday and the final performance of local favorites, Beach Parade. BY bassist and co-founding member Zack Jones takes a few minutes before they hit the road for some quick Q&A.

IU: For the uninitiated, could you give our readers a bit of background on how you, your brother, and Kyle (and Derrek at the time) all met and started writing music together as what would become Braveyoung?

Zack: Isaac and I have been playing together since we were children. We grew up in a small farmtown in rural NC, fortunately immersed in a very musical family. Kyle and Derrick were living in greensboro when Isaac and approached them about working with us on some stuff. We had already written what would become the red opus, and some other stuff we later discarded.

IU: When did Ben come into the picture?

Zack: Rodney, who had been working with us during the recording of 'song' and some tours following that, decided to have a family.  Ben is a long time friend, and he was over what he was involved in musically at the time, so after continuing for quite some time as a four piece, we asked him to help us flesh out some bigger ideas.

IU: Earlier this spring the band released "We Are Lonely Animals" What are some of your favorite moments of the LP - ether of the process or the composition itself? 

Zack: There have always been long drags of time between records with braveyoung, mainly because it is expensive to produce a record the way we feel like a record should be produced. We had been stuck on a collection of recordings that over 2 years of production, had thousands and thousands of dollars invested in it, only to be discarded. It was an intensely confusing time for us, and when Derrick decided to leave the band after 5 weeks in Europe, it gave us the opportunity to just completely move on from that material. The writing was, personally, one of the most intimate and favorable experiences of my life. We also got to record live, which is something we always felt would benefit us. We were very excited to finally be able to put to record what we had been doing live for the past few years. Trying to compose some pieces that had a severe amount of weight to them without being "heavy", in a common sense of the word. I really like how quiet the record is.

IU: Also earlier in the year, you all collaborated with The Body on a studio project - any updates on when the world might get to hear what came of the sessions?

Thanks to everyone who came out for Ithaca Underground's five-band night on Wednesday. If you missed it (or just want to relive it) check out the videos below - including the surprise reunion of Crime Pays! No word on whether more shows are in the works but we'll keep you posted. A pleasure seeing you all as always and thanks for your continued support!  Special thanks to McNeil music who have been a huge help this spring with PA equipment, especially with the sub for this one.


The American Dollar - Fade In Out


The American Dollar


Crime Pays


Crime Pays


Paper Armies


Paper Armies


The Atomic Forces


Kites In Space


Kites In Space

Over the last 2.5 years, we've been communicating with the supporters of IU through an eNewsletter which required a user sign-up. Recently, we've started posting these on ithacaunderground.com and Facebook as well. It dawned on us that maybe we should be posting here as well. These updates on FREE! may continue or they may not so, feel free to give us your feedback! We know there are still people in Ithaca and the surrounding areas who do not know we exist so hopefully this additional medium will help others get involved and help spread the word on the artists we love and support. 

Greetings from the underground,

Thanks to everyone who came out to the annex Sunday night for the show! Great sets from Womyn Boiz, Inerds, Coworkers, and Pharaohs – looking forward to seeing Inerds’ dual female fronted powerviolence at Big Day In! We’ll have WB and Coworkers back soon too. If you’re looking to catch Pharaohs, they’re playing a benefit at CSMA on Apr 9. They’ll split after spring graduation!

We have some sad news that BANNER PILOT decided to drop off their upcoming tour with THE QUEERS – this show is still on for Tues, May 24 at The Haunt with Beach Parade and Fight A Scary Dog 5PM doors, 6PM start $10 and presale are up now: http://thehauntithaca.ticketleap.com/iu-the-queers-banner-pilot-beach-parade-fight-a-scary-dog/ - just no BxPx.

BIG DAY IN: Saturday May 7th 2011 was finalized as TOMBS, WOE, EHNAHRE, SULACO, Oak & Bone, Night Owls, Lux Carentes, Sepsis, Inerds, Mouth To Mouth To Mouth, Hiroshima Vacation, and Sun Spells. Still just $5, 12PM-10PM at The Haunt. Help us spread the word on this one!

We posted two new ‘Meet The Band’ pieces right here on FREE!
The Invisible Hand
Pharaohs

Looking ahead, next week we continue one of our best April’s with the likes of Des Ark, Pygmy Lush, The American Dollar, Zevious – and a whole lot more!

IU: What have you all be up to since we last saw you last July?

SFTNL: Wow, I don't even know where to begin...Well, we're all a year older, considerably poorer and continuously amassing new debt. We've been playing as much as possible in as many places as possible, writing a lot of new material and working on having a full length out for early next year.

IU: How did the mini-tour with Hey Predator! go?

SFTNL: It was a lot of fun, the Hey Predator! boys are our most-bestest-band-like-buddies, so to do a string of shows with them was awesome. We did one show in an auto shop and played facing each other, trading song-for-song... which was a ton of fun! That show culminated in a drunken 10-piece jam of Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" complete with each of us taking the biggest jerk solos we could muster. Originally we had planned to do a lot more shows together this summer but ended up deciding to break up the dates into two sections, so we're hoping to visit them in the fall and do some more shows together.

IU: I believe you mentioned you’re on a new label when we spoke in the spring. How did that come to be?

SFTNL: Sure, We've recently struck up a relationship with Easy Tiger Entertainment, a Toronto indie label that's on the verge of doing some big things. They're going to be taking care of us in Canada and helping us get a full-length off the ground, hopefully by the second quarter of 2011. They're absolute sweethearts and have already welcomed us into the family with open arms. How this will affect the USA, I don't know- for now we're just focusing on promoting our current EP "Human People", visiting with all of the wonderful people that we met last year and making as many new friends as possible.

IU: So you mentioned you have new material in the works?