*Roddy Bottum: Guitar/Vocals,
*Will Schwartz: Guitar/Vocals,
*Lynn Truell: Drums/Backing vocals
*Jone Stebbins: Bass/Backing vocals

Imperial Teen is a San Francisco-based indie pop group. The band features many prominent musicians from other bands such as Faith No more, The Wrecks, and the Dicks. The band’s original name was ‘Star 69’ but had to change the name after a local band from New York City threatened to sue over the trademark of the name. A lot of the band’s lyrics deal with gay/lesbian issues and the band has made this an important issue ever since Roddy Bottum announced that he was gay in 1993. Imperial Teen first gained notice with their debut album, ‘Seasick’, in 1996. The album was popular thanks to the band’s breakout single called ‘You’re One’ and helped the band be listed as Spin magazine’s 4th best album of the year. In 2002, the band needed to change labels after issues arose with Universal Records. The band made the switch to Merge Records and released a third album entitled ‘On’. After a brief hiatus, the band returned on stage at the 2007 South by Southwest music festival. Their fifth studio album,’ Feel the Sound’, was released on January 31, 2012. Furthermore, the band has also released a live album called ‘Live at Maxwell’s’ that came out in 2002.

You can listen to a sample track from their fifth studio album below this article on this site’s web media player.

Image source: http://stereogum.com

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*Brittany Howard: Lead singer,
*Heath Fogg: Guitarist,
*Zac Cockrell: Bassist,
*Steve Johnson: Drummer

The band was originally formed when lead singer Brittany Howard approached bassist Zac Cockrell during a high school psychology class and began meeting after school to write songs. The two members then approached Steve Johnson (who was working at a music store at the time) to join the band and finally had guitarist Heath Frogg join the band at a music event where Heath was asked to play some songs with the band and had such a fun time that he ended up joining the band on a full-time basis. Their music style most resembles that of a Southern rock band, blues band or garage rock band. The band was originally called ‘The Shakes’ but decided to change their band name to ‘Alabama Shakes’ in order to differentiate themselves from other bands that had a similar band name. Alabama Shakes released the four-song EP ‘Alabama Shakes’ in September 2011. In November 2011, the band was signed by Rough Trade Records in the United Kingdom and ATO Records in the United States. The band made MTV’s list of 11 Artists To Watch In 2012. Their first full length album entitled ‘Boys & Girls’ was released on April 9, 2012. In 2012, the band made several media appearances on television shows such as ‘the Conan O’brien Show’ and ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ where they played their first single off their new album which is called ‘Hold On’.

You can hear a tiny bit of ‘Hold On’ in our media player below this article.

Thanks to http://www.wikipedia.org for some biographical information.

Image source: http://www.glidemagazine.com/

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*Mark Foster: (vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitar, programming, percussion),
*Cubbie Fink: (bass and backing vocals)
*Mark Pontius: (drums, extra percussion)

Mark Foster began his music career by moving in with his uncle in Los Angeles. Foster’s attempts at a music career fell flat and he spent several years waiting tables at restaurants. He spent most of his time trying to network at parties in the Hollywood Hills. During this time, Foster had a serious drug addiction and nearly died several times. Foster remained in Los Angeles after landing a job as a commercial jingle writer for Mophonics in 2008. Foster had trouble playing music by himself with just a laptop (which he used for various electronica recordings) and needed to find a band to help contribute to his vision. Pontius joined the group after leaving another band and Fink had lost his job because of the economic recession and joined as the group’s bassist. Initially, the group was called “Foster & The People’ but fans thought the name sounded like ‘Foster The People’ which meant something nurturing or heartfelt. The group’s initial success came after Foster released the single ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ on his website. The song went viral and was used in several advertising campaigns. In March 2010, the band performed at South by Southwest music festival. In May 2010, the band was signed to the Columbia imprint Startime International in a multi-album deal. The band’s debut album, ‘Torches’ was released on May 23, 2011. In order to promote the album, the band performed on several late night talks shows as well as a memorable performance on Saturday Night Live that featured a special guest appearance by saxophonist Kenny G. Several of the bands song have been licensed and used for other media usage including television programs such as HBO’s Entourage and Gossip Girl, a Nissan car commercial and the Fifa 2012 video game.

You can listen to a sample of ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ from their latest album in our media player below.

Thanks to http://www.wikipedia.org for some biographical information.

Image source: http://www.latimes.com/

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Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) is an American actor, writer, comedian, and musician. He is best known as student ‘Troy Barnes’ on the NBC comedy ‘Community’. Also, he was a writer for ‘The Daily Show with John Stewart’ in 2005 and ’30 Rock’ from 2006-2009 where he won the Writer’s Guild of America award for best comedy at the 2009 ceremony. In 2009, Glover’s sketch comedy group ‘Derrick’ Comedy’ wrote and starred in a feature-length film, Mystery Team.In 2011, Glover taped a stand-up comedy special entitled ‘Weirdo’ for Comedy Central. Glover raps as Childish Gambino, a name he found from a Wu-Tang Clan name generator. Glover is a fan of DJ music and produces his own music under the name ‘McDJ’.In 2008, Glover released the album ‘Sick Boi’ and later released the album ‘Pointdexter’ in 2009. In 2011, Glover signed to Glassnote Records so that his music could be released on a cd/vinyl for the first time. Gambino’s first studio album is called ‘Camp’ and was released on November 15, 2011. He performed “Heartbeat” from his album Camp on the Conan O’brien show. After two successful tours entitled ‘IAMDONALD’ and ‘Sign-Up’; Glover intends to do a nationwide tour called ‘Camp Gambino’ sometime in 2012.

You can listen to a sample of heartbeat in the media player below…

Image source: http://www.thegroundmag.com/

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*David Portner – vocals, guitar, samples, keys, percussion
*Josh Dibb – guitar, vocals
*Brian Weitz – electronics, samples, vocals
*Noah Lennox – vocals, percussion, samples, guitar

American Collective is an experimental rock band currently living in New York City. Aside from writing and creating music, the band also runs the record label ‘Paw Tracks’ where they release their music from as well as the music of other artists on their label. The band was officially formed when two of the members left school and came to New York City where the band would play live shows and release limited edition vinyl records of those performances on the Catsup Plate label. Their first official album ‘Hollinndagain’ was merely a collection of live performances that the band had played and then retired the songs soon after. Their next album ‘Campfire Tales’ was a collection of live songs performed by the band one night while performing on their screen porch which included the nature sounds of the environment in the background. After mounting pressure from record labels, the band came up with the formal name of their band calling themselves ‘Animal Collective’ in order to emphasize that the band was a collective of different musicians at any one time and not simply one group of people all working together in unison. The band would release their first album as Animal Collective which they called ‘Here Comes the Indian’ under their Paw Tracks label in 2003.

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