JOATA is the moniker of Puerto Rican indie pop musician, Jose Oyola.  Based in Los Angeles and originally from New Haven, Oyola blends hip hop and indie rock with Caribbean rhythms and writes anthemic bilingual songs about love, outer space and the homesickness of being part of the Puerto Rican diaspora.

Not Blood Paint is a theatrically vivid—and sonically intense—four-piece from Bushwick, formed in 2008 by guitarists George Frye and Joe Stratton, bassist Mark Jaynes and drummer Seth Miller. 

Musically, it’s a group impossible to pigeonhole, far removed from traditional verse-chorus-verse structures. The songs manifest as detailed stories that worm into the minds of always-shifting narrators. At different times, you’ll think Zappa, Ween, Primus, Gang of Four, Devo, early Genesis, Tool, Dirty Projectors. (The band itself would proffer Of Montreal. “That group inspired us in the beginning. We’d go dress up and dance our asses off when we saw them live.”)

Given their influences, it’s little surprise the band members—who all hail from the same school in Michigan—share a passion for the theatrical. From early on, Not Blood Paint shows have been purposely and aggressively different, often constructed for the venue and audience on hand. 

Costumes abound. Beguiling rituals and themes take hold--one night you may witness, say, the Renaissance-type flair of “The Aristocrats.” Another, “hypnotic owls,” or “glam rock scientists” or maybe something akin to an alien prison break. This cornucopia of on-stage choreography, dialog and make-up—connected to some fantastically elaborate songs—often extends off-stage, where whole belief systems spring up and evolve, while characters take on lives of their own—often over years of time.

Instead of being about a band, a record and a show, Not Blood Paint becomes a fusing of mythology and the real world. Ever shifting, ever changing. 


Rap with my Original Face. Otherwise, phony. 

The Kickback immediately enters the front ranks of contemporary rock ‘n’ roll with WEDDINGS & FUNERALS (Jullian Records), a furious, exhilarating, and deeply emotional collection that somehow captures all of the shared experiences that bring us together – joy and sorrow, unity and separation, love and hate, life its own self. Produced by Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, WAVVES), the album sees singer-songwriter Billy Yost rending his chest to bare his own dark heart while grappling with intense personal trauma. Set against an inventive bed of infinite guitars, grizzled bass, and slippery rhythms, songs like “Latest Obsession” and “False Jeopardy” are personally cathartic but also painfully universal, Yost’s heartbreak as identifiable and real as any of our own.

“I found out I was getting divorced,” Yost says. “It was really unexpected. I got to a pretty bleak place initially. I don’t know what I’d have done without the ability to try and cope with things through music. I wouldn’t care to ever make a record this way again, but I also know it’s the best group of songs this band has been able to make.”

The Kickback was founded in Yost’s hometown of Vermillion, South Dakota, and then rebooted in Chicago to include guitarist Jonny Ifergan and bassist Daniel Leu. The band made their bones with a series of self-released EPs and electrifying live set before recording their 2015 debut album, SORRY ALL OVER THE PLACE, with Spoon’s Jim Eno behind the board. Like any rock ‘n’ roll band worth its salt, The Kickback toured hard, lighting it up at countless headline shows, festival showcases, and gigs alongside such diverse outfits as Here We Go Magic, Manic Street Preachers, Miracle Legion, Tokyo Police Club, and Bush.

Yost relocated once again when his wife entered graduate school at Penn State but continued to be dead focused on pushing The Kickback forward. Yost admits his perspective on the long relationship was clouded by drive and ambition, leaving him totally blindsided when his wife dropped the axe.

“We were in South Dakota,” Yost says. “The band was playing my best friend from college’s wedding. I found out I was getting divorced about an hour before I had to give my best man speech. I pretended like everything was okay and then went numb for about a year.”

Yost moved into a friend’s basement office where he spent a month “staring at the walls” before getting back to work. “I Taste My Own Blood,” a musical open vein marked by its candid chorus “I lost my love in central Pennsylvania/And heard about it in South Dakota,” was followed by a long stream of “really sad rock ‘n’ roll songs,” all demoed on Garageband.

“A one-sided view of someone trying to work through a divorce,” according to Yost, WEDDINGS & FUNERALS marks a great acceleration in more than simply sonics. Songs like “Dating Around” and “Pale King” are more literal than The Kickback’s earlier work and all the more potent for it, Yost’s existential turmoil forcing him to write from the gut rather than his head, reducing the popcraft and wordplay to find the sweet spot between those two aspects of his persona.

The Kickback is now poised to tour in support of WEDDINGS & FUNERALS, joined on drums by Yost’s brother Danny. The band is somehow more raw and unhinged on stage than ever before, like the album, an ideal vessel for Yost to unleash his still-roiling internal angst. Confrontational, aching, and fraught with palpable pain and apprehension, WEDDINGS & FUNERALS is as powerful and pure as modern rock ‘n’ roll gets, the striking sound of a gifted artist’s primal scream howled into the abyss with no hope on the horizon.

“Being a divorcee before 30 was not something I saw coming,” Billy Yost says. “I'm still a fucking mess. I still have my ex-wife's name tattooed on my chest. I still hate myself for every right decision I made for the band that ruined my marriage… and I would do it again.”

www.arca1000000.com
email - shaun@codexmgmt.com + regeneratedgirl1000000.com

Hello--
If you want to d/l & mix any of my covers, link me with your finished product so I know about it! Working on originals --stay tuned :)





All songs written & performed by A Deer A Horse. 

A Deer A Horse is: 
Angela Phillips - vocals, bass guitar 
Rebecca Satellite - vocals, guitar 
Dylan Teggart - drums

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