Ony's Bands - King Vulture Plays the Jasper Magazine Release Party Concert Tonight at Art Bar

King Vulture is an eletro-pop group formed by wife and husband, Kate and Jared Pyritz. Their live band includes Evan Simmons (bass), Patrick Funk (guitar), Steve Sancho (drums), and Thomas Hammond (saxophone), giving them a fuller sound, ranging from ethereal pop to a more energetic rock. The project started after Jared encouraged Kate to record some songs that she had written over several years. She wrote them without the intention of starting a band, but they eventually started recording her songs at home, which led them to make King Vulture an official band.

I asked Kate and Jared about their music and their future plans (which right now include awaiting their soon-to-be-born baby) and how they write and record their music, which they answered in the following interview. You can find some of their earlier recordings on their Bandcamp page (https://kingvulturesc.bandcamp.com/), and watch their more evolved performance at the Jasper fall 2016 release party TONIGHT at Art Bar, with other performances by Autocorrect, The Moon Moths, and Tyler Digital performing a DJ set.

Can you describe what your music is like? Jared: It's kind of all over the board. Sometimes sultry and slinky and at other times it's an energetic, fun poppy mess of sound. We try to make each song achieve something different.

Do you have any other shows or releases coming up? Kate: Jared and I are about to have a baby, so we’re actually going to take an extended hiatus following the Jasper Show at Art Bar this Thursday.  As far as releases, we have been in the studio recording our first official album this year.  We’ve completed tracking and are in the middle of mixing and mastering.  We’re shooting for a spring release so we can have time to promote it and play some shows to support it.

What is your philosophy as a band, if you have one? Jared: I think if there is any philosophy we have, it has something to do with approaching collaborative artistic ventures in a rather egoless and democratic way. All ideas (amongst members) are considered valid which allows us to experiment a lot.

Kate: It’s been a communal process. This is my first experience playing in a band--I’ve really lucked out being friends with some incredible musicians.  I’ve learned a lot watching them and listening to how they talk about music.  I know we definitely don’t try to take ourselves too seriously.  That said, we’re really proud of the music we’ve been able to create and play and record.

What is your songwriting process like? Kate: I usually have a small kernel of a song--some lyrics, general chords.  Sometimes it’s a fully realized structure, sometimes it’s just a beginning.  I usually bring it to Jared to get his input to flesh it out a little more before we bring it to the whole band.  Then, when the whole band starts to attack the song we get into orchestration and arrangement.  It’s been a nice formula so far.  These guys have played together in other bands before King Vulture so they have a short hand and a music theory background I just don’t have.  The orchestration and arrangement sessions are a lot of fun for me because I get to see this small idea or chord or lyric I wrote down get turned into something much more realized.

Who/what are some of your musical influences? Kate & Jared: We definitely all have musical likes that inform the spirit of the band:  Gillian Welch, Bowie, David Byrne, St. Vincent, T-Rex, steely Dan.

What are your goals for the band/its future? Kate: Our immediate goals will be to put finishing touches on our record and release it by Spring.  I know it’s important to Jared and I to find time to make music and play shows after our little boy is born.  We’re lucky to have supportive friends and family that will hopefully make that possible.  We’d like to come back with new song ideas--so when we release the album we can show people something different than our typical set list.

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 3: Young Bands on the Brink -- Stagbriar

"There are certain assumptions you are going to make about a band that calls its first album Quasi-Hymns, Murder-Ballads, and Tales of How the Hero Died, but perhaps the most accurate one for Stagbriar, an indie folk-rock band led by brother-and-sister duo Alex and Emily McCollum, is that they are nothing if not artistically ambitious. The album opens with, true to its title, a murder ballad of sorts. But, aside from that, it is probably not what you are expecting. ..." -Kyle Petersen For the full story and photos, check out the magazine starting on page 15 below:

In Jasper Vol. 3, No. 3: Record Review - The Restoration's New South Blues EP

 

"The title track to The Restoration new EP is a song that has been featured in their set list for a year or two now, and it’s one of their best. A jaunty, bluesy melody is tied to lead songwriter Daniel Machado’s scathing political critique of the “new South” as he connects the dots between the South of the day and the one he castigates in his more historically-oriented fare.  It’s full of jaw-droppingly good one liners (“‘You lie!,’ Boeing Jets / Don’t tread on Neo-Confederates” and “Literary legacy / Bob Jones University” are two of my favorites) as he refers to the South as “the most trusted brand” for ignorance and bigotry. In short, it’s a stunner, and it also marks the evolution of Machado as a singer, as he’s gotten more surly and irascible since some of the more romantic material on Constance. That voice is evident on his other, more tossed-off efforts here, the blues jam “Keep On Keepin’ On” and the cutting acoustic number “Nobody Cares Who You Are.”

The EP is rounded out by a richly arranged effort by bassist Adam Corbett, “Possible Country,” which narrates a rather odd eavesdropping experience in a bathroom stall, and a 12 minute ambient/field recording expedition called “Sketches of the State Fair” which has some percussion and free jazz-style fingerpicking overdubbed onto the background sounds of the fair. It’s an interesting piece that unfortunately marks the dividing line between the more serious efforts here (the title track and “Possible Country”) from the odds and sods feel of the other numbers. Still, given the overwhelming concepts that typically accompany a Restoration record, New South Blues also has the virtue of presenting the group as “just” a rock band, and a pretty damn good one at that." - Kyle Petersen

For more record reviews, check out pages 14-15 of the magazine here:

New Music: The Hollerin' River Talkers + TONIGHT = Jasper #006

Our magazine release parties (if you’ll forgive me for saying so), have had some fairly awesome live performances. And while I have written about our headlining band The Restoration in the past, I want to take some time before the party tonight to tell you about a new, lesser known act who is also capable of blowing your mind.

The Hollerin’ River Talkers, a diverse project-group of singer/songwriters spearheaded by Shallow Palace leader Greg Slattery, is dedicated to reviving classic old folk and blues tunes into a modern context. This task is something that, to put it simply, they blow out of the f***in’ ballpark.

Marshall Brown is the lead-off singer in the troupe, and contributes a (for-him) relatively straightforward vocal that still brings the Donovan-esque psychedelia he is known for to “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home.” Daniel Machado (of the The Restoration) makes a banjo-led attack on “Mary,” an old folk tune about how cheating on your wife ain’t gonna get you to heaven, while Aaron Berg and Slattery both take a gorgeously dirty stab at the blues standards “Catfish Blues” and “Death Room Blues.” Todd Mathis rounds out the set with a dirty rock take on the gospel tune “Wade in the Water,” the only tune which fully makes use of drummer Steve Sancho’s presence.

All of these tunes are ragged and sparse, but that’s not what makes them great—it’s the fact that each contributor never forgets the feeling that these songs first inspired, with lust, laughter, and longing all mixed up in equal measure. It’s a short collection, but I guarantee you’ll want to hear it again and again.

To listen/buy all of these tunes: http://rivertalkers.bandcamp.com/

Come out and see us tonight at Tom Law's Conundrum Music Hall on Meeting Street in West Columbia. We're starting at 7:30 with poetry from Kristine Hartvigsen and Cassie Premo Steele, three short films by Wade Sellers, the Next Door Drummers, a set of classical guitar from Amelia Mau, a solo set from Rhodes Bailey of the Whiskey Tango Revue, then the Hollerin' River Talkers and The Restoration, who will be missing their drummer so they'll be laying down some pretty damn good blue grass. JoeTurkaly will be making supper ($) and two bars will be open. The event itself is free. All to celebrate Columbia's badass arts scene and the release of Jasper #006 -- a solid year of bringing you the magazine we said we would, when we said we would, and in the best possible shape we could get it to you.

You can count on Jasper.