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| Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at Hawthorne Theatre |
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(click for full-page printable poster)
GENRES
Pop
Rock
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Their Final Tour!
Scary Kids Scaring Kids
The Sleeping
A Tale Through Audio
The Seatbelt Tragedy
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Hawthorne Theatre 503-233-7100
1507 SE 39th Ave, Portland, OR (MapQuest)
7:30pm (doors open at 7pm). All Ages.
$12.00 advance tix from TicketsWest.
$14.00 at the door.
ABOUT SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS -
While most young, upstart acts launch with a mission in emulating their favorite bands, the members of Scary Kids Scaring Kids -- who were juniors in high school when the band formed four years ago -- already had their sights set higher: they wanted to create music that was largely outside of the predictable norm from the onset.
"We wanted to start something new," says drummer Peter Costa. "Something harder, not just your typical fast punk."
It's that quest for originality and innovation that lead the Phoenix-area six-piece through a musical journey. Their latest stop on the route: the band's Immortal Records full-length debut, The City Sleeps In Flames. Of course, the aforementioned journey wasn't a simple stroll. Scary Kids Scaring Kids launched their recording career years earlier, demoing tracks at a local community college with the help of some friends. But the act's real recording experience arrived through the sessions for their first official release, an EP titled After Dark. Working with producer Bob Hoag (The Format, Recover) in nearby Tempe, the time spent in the studio yielded an immeasurable education for the already established unit.
Honing in their song structure and paring down excessive length, Scary Kids Scaring Kids was finally able to nurture their keyboard-tinged, guitar-charged melodic hardcore sound into a more palatable product. In fact, the added refinement was enough to attract the attention of local label Hour Zero, who released the band's EP.
Hour Zero was also the launch pad for the band's transition to Immortal. After playing a show and impressing the Immortal staff, the band found themselves with a record deal in September 2004 and entered the studio with renowned producer Brian McTernan (Thrice, Hot Water Music) in January 2005. Just over a month later, Scary Kids Scaring Kids wrapped their sessions for The City Sleeps In Flames. "He made our music more powerful and punchy," Costa says of McTernan's input and expertise. "We usually write the music first, and then vocals after, but he helped us realize that sometimes it's not just the music that makes the song; you've got to lay a good bed for the vocals." With The City Sleeps In Flames, Scary Kids Scaring Kids aimed for individuality amongst their tracks, and they nailed it. "We wanted to stray away from lots of random screaming stuff -- we didn't want all the songs to sound the same," Costa says. "We wanted each song to be really unique and I think it turned out like that." The City Sleeps In Flames launches with the title track for the album's opener, with a slamming quarter-note snare, doomsday guitar riffs, desperate, dynamic vocals and moving rhythms. The 11-song collection also includes the metallic, driving, synth-supported "The Only Medicine" (which also features a grappling harmonized guitar solo), the sparse, calm, slow-building intro of "What's Said Is Done," and the immediate, syncopated guitar chord punishment of "Drowning," which also sports meticulously inserted keyboard parts. A couple tracks were actually penned in the studio, including "My Darkest Hour," which was finalized the day before the band began tracking sessions. "The way we recorded it, we didn't even rehearse it like that," notes Costa of the last-minute squeeze, which ended up as one of the album's best cuts. "It's a really fun song, really keyboard driven." Although the members' ages are 19 and 20, they're already mature road warriors, having toured consistently over the past year, including stints on the West Coast and in the Midwest. And this year, the group plans to make their debut East Coast appearance. Supporting an album like The City Sleeps In Flames won't be an easy task. But then again, Scary Kids Scaring Kids were never sought to take the easy way out in the first place.
ABOUT THE SLEEPING -
The shores of Long Island, NY are known for producing some of the most influential names in rock. Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Straylight Run, and many others have been born into notoriety out of the Long Island scene. Just as it looked like all hope was lost and every band was becoming faded carbon copies of one another, Long Island's latest export The Sleeping comes along to shake things up and insert sincerity and originality back into underground rock. Punkbands.com said "[The Sleeping is] varied and interesting, hitting every genre from prog rock to hardcore, back to a pop sound and then off the wall to ambient party sounds with layered, ghostly vocals."
The Sleeping formed in/around Long Island, NY in 2003, with founding members Salvatore Mignano (bass) and Cameron Keym (guitar) wanting to try something new and different from their days in the band SkyCame-Falling. They hooked up with Joe Zizzo (drums) and started writing songs that drifted from musical conventionality, intermingling well calculated choruses amidst multitudes of cleverly positioned technical guitar work. The band, calling themselves The Sleeping, set out to find a front man for their new collaboration and, after auditioning twenty-two potential singers, came across Doug Robinson. Doug says of joining the band, "We are all brothers. We know each other in and out. Our personalities are so different yet similar, they are my best friends. We all have the same goals: to spread our music all over the planet and let people know it's okay to attempt something different."
For three years now, The Sleeping has been writing forward-thinking, dynamic, multi-faceted songs that are as infectious as they are innovative. After The Sleeping released their first full length album (Believe What We Tell You, via OneDaySavior ), Chicago's Victory Records immediately took notice of the band and their ever growing fan base and hard worth ethic. Shortly thereafter, Victory signed The Sleeping to a roster of legendary Long Island Artists including Bayside, Action Action, and Straylight Run. Perhaps the breaking point for the band was the tour that they did with Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, and Matchbook Romance in October of 2004 where their national buzz really started bubbling over.
The Sleeping hit the studio in February 2006 with Michael Birnbaum and Chris Bittner at Applehead Studios (Coheed and Cambria, Straylight Run) to record their Victory debut, Questions and Answers. These new songs are packed with undeniable hooks and contemporary textures, but their sonic landscapes are a lot like atmospheric and progressive bands from the 90's like Incubus and At The Drive In. Doug Robinson, vocalist, said, "Our influences are really, really all over the place. We listen to everything from Nine Inch Nails to The Police to The Mars Volta, somehow we were able to take four diverse musical opinions and craft them into one interconnected album." From breakdowns to bongos, Questions And Answers forges its own path and has a lot of depth that is often neglected by many fledgling bands.
Lyrically, Questions And Answers touches on some very heavy-handed issues such as dealing with the untimely death of a friend, failed relationships, and lost love. Doug said, "This record released a lot of demons in all of us, but at the same time, it definitely fueled some sort of a fire within us. It's hard to be satisfied when things get taken away from people so unexpectedly." Questions And Answers is an undeniably moody record and was titled as such to remind the listeners to question themselves and
their surrounding environment.
The Sleeping will premiere several new songs from their Victory Records debut on May 6th at Bamboozle Festival in E. Rutherford, NJ, joining the small group of elite Artists playing on the main stage like Hawthorne Heights, Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, and AFI. Then, on May 30, 2006, The Sleeping will unleash Questions And Answers, a sincere and epic album, resonating with a booming rhythm section, start-stop guitars, and dramatic vocals. This album manages to evoke a myriad of emotions from every listener and is a true showcase of the individual band members' artistry, craft, and musicianship. Vocalist Doug Robinson said it best, "Above everything, I am just glad to have made an honest record." And honest it is.
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