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The New Up: San Francisco band records "Gold"
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Being in a band is about as close a relationship as a group of people can have without sharing a bed...Being in a band is about as close a relationship as a group of people can have without sharing a bed.
There are artists who come out of the gates full of promise and critical canoodling, but end up resembling a one-night stand; acts who, decades after a breakup, cannot even speak to one another unless a Coachella-size paycheck is involved; and downright abusive relationships, bound by a nostalgic fan base that romanticizes the good times.
The New Up falls outside any of these scenarios. Instead, the San Francisco band seems held together by an honest adulation that has both the spark of a teenage crush and the measured balance of lifelong sweethearts.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?type=music&f=/c/a/2010/09/16/NS6I1FATSC.DTL
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Album Review: Gold
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San Francisco quintet The New Up takes the template of hard alternative rock and contorts it with si...San Francisco quintet The New Up takes the template of hard alternative rock and contorts it with singer ES Pitcher, whose voice is a pretty and husky as any pop starlet. It is an interesting contrast to hear the crashing, psychedelic guitars guiding through the haze with Pitcher’s incandescent vocals.
The band’s third EP, Gold, starts with its title track’s groaning guitar riff before Pitcher lays on her sweet nothings. Its the quiet-LOUD-quiet dynamic made famous by Pixies, but Black Francis would scream where Pitcher coos. The chorus dives into Noah Reid’s guitar riffing, which is worthy of Tony Iommi comparisons, before the catchy, sing-along chorus comes in.
Most of the choruses on this record are infectious and memorable, another thing that sets The New Up apart from the other distortion slingers currently coming out of California.
“Daydream” picks up the tempo and adds a slide guitar behind the cagey, Television-esque two-string rhythm work. Reid gets a chance to do some vocals on this cut. His voice sounds more conventionally harsh for a hard rock band, but when he harmonizes with Pitcher her high bounces off his low in a compelling team-up.
“Tiz Da Season” starts small, with a bass drum hit from drummer Drew Bertrand. When the guitar sidles in with abstract seventh chords, a drunk slacker vibe wafts through. The chorus gets off the couch with some exertion but the trippy arpeggios of the verse come out on top again. The sickly guitar solo feels even crazier on account of half-heard radio announcements underneath.
“Situation Overload” and “See Yourself” are also both heavy hitters. On “Situation,” Dain Dizazzo’s bass lumbers in before woodwinds and other ambient noises from wild card fifth member Hawk West infiltrate the soundscape. Pitcher says in the chorus that she “can’t stop” her subject from destroying themselves as the band hits a jarring stop-start pattern. “See Yourself” starts with an awkward, two-step metal riff that grows naturally until it is ingrained into the track’s harrowing wake.
“Emphasis” isn’t as craggy as its predecessors and has a guitar part that sounds something like Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” although it’s nowhere near as creepy as that classic. Reid gets some more vocal time in, as well. He also breaks out the slide guitar for the eerie dream pop chorus.
Speaking of dream pop, “Just Because,” here credited as the “Bushmills Cut” of the song, also takes that direction and is an even more rewarding experiment the second time. Sounding like the best song Beach House has never written, the elevated atmosphere of the track comes from Reid’s gently alternating guitar line, some more of West’s special effects and the loveliest melody on the album.
The last track, “Better Off (Bayview Cut)” retreats to the style that The New Up started with. But the song is constructed soundly and the chorus feels like an anthem. With an unnerving, drum-fueled fade out, it’s a satisfying conclusion to a successful preview of The New Up. Hopefully we can get a full album soon to see if they deliver on the promise of this EP.
Final Grade: ****1/2 (out of five)
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The New Up: Sultry Psych-Pop for the End of the World and Beyond
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Hey, remember Garbage? No no, hear me out. If you go back and revisit their first album, the one wit...Hey, remember Garbage? No no, hear me out. If you go back and revisit their first album, the one with the pink feathers, I think you'll find time has proven them right about a few things: a balance between heavy-alternative jangle and fetching lead melodies, the virtue of buzzing guitars and a rhythm section just a hint funkier than it should be, and the potential of noirish imagery conveyed by a honeyed female voice.
Anyway, once you finish playing "Only Happy When It Rains" on Guitar Hero, take a moment to meet The New Up, an Inner Sunset-based quintet who put the vamp in "extended vamping." They're releasing an EP called Gold in late October, the third in a trilogy with an ambitious narrative scope... We chatted with vocalists and guitarists ES Pitcher and Noah Reid to talk about what to expect this weekend, influence versus inspiration, and the seduction of grammar. Well, one of us talked about that.
Read more: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2010/09/the_new_up_sultry_psych-pop_ja.php
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The New Up: Flowers in a Sea of Concrete
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In the 1960s, San Francisco was the epicenter of a peace loving, free-for-all culture that featured ...In the 1960s, San Francisco was the epicenter of a peace loving, free-for-all culture that featured music as its voice. Throughout the years, the idea of everything being so peachy has drastically changed. These days, themes of war, destruction, and disaster have become an overwhelming doctrine of modern day civilization. So where's the middle ground? Where's the hope? Meet The New Up, a San Francisco-based psychedelic indie rock quintet that embodies the light in the darkness of a crumbling utopia. Comprised of five very eclectic musicians - rowdy front woman and guitarist Emily Pitcher, jamming guitarist and vocalist Noah Reid, Dain Dizazzo on bass, drummer Drew Bertrand, and electronic-influenced Hawk West on flute and automation, the band transcends any one musical genre. On the surface, The New Up is a rock band; complete with sonic guitar, raw drums, and an aggressive female lead. But there are deep layers to this band. Having evolved from a basic structure of heavy guitars and walls of sound, the band now finds itself moving towards more of a psychedelic space. They are a sensory driven band, big on textures and big on noise, yet they balance that bravado with a sensual soulful awareness that comes through in their melodies and lyrics.
Read more: http://performermag.com/Bands/Article/2010/The%20New%20Up
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MTV-lauded The New Up Announces CD Release Party for Gold "Glitz, Gold & Rock & Roll" at Café Du Nord Heralds in Fourth Studio Effort from San Francisco Band
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MTV-lauded The New Up Announces CD Release Party for Gold "Glitz, Gold & Rock & Roll" at Café Du Nor...MTV-lauded The New Up Announces CD Release Party for Gold "Glitz, Gold & Rock & Roll" at Café Du Nord Heralds in Fourth Studio Effort from San Francisco Band
August 20, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - The New Up, voted a Best Bay Area Breakout Band of 2009 on MTV2/Ourstage, proudly announces their "Glitz, Gold & Rock & Roll" CD release party in honor of their fourth studio effort, Gold, at Café DuNord, Saturday night, September 18, 2010. Golden Tickets include an advance copy of Gold plus admission, sans service fees, and can be purchased at www.thenewup.com
NBCSanDiego.com calls The New Up "dark, dreamy rock with gorgeous female vocals," Behind the Hype states, "Metric with a touch of The Rolling Stones, with a front woman with an addictive, classy, lingering voice," and Flagpole says, "striking, exotic and brashly coherent indie pop that feel[s] like the sonic equivalent of a thrill ride." In a recent feature article on The New Up, Tanya Fuller writes in the July 2010 Performer Magazine, "They are a sensory-driven band, big on textures and big on noise, yet they balance that bravado with a sensual soulful awareness that comes through in their melodies and lyrics."
Gold was recorded at Radical House Studios and The Pleasure Pad Studios in San Francisco, with engineering by Andrew Michael Bertrand and Adam Fine. Gold was produced by Andrew Bertrand, Noah Reid and The New Up, and mastered by Roger Lian (The White Stripes, Madonna, The Killers, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Strokes) at Masterdisk in New York City. Gold is the culmination of a series of three EPs that includes Better Off (2009) which Performer Magazine called, "An artful sonic balance that's miles beyond the typical indie-rock release," and the CMJ Top 200-charting Broken Machine (2008). Better Off, Broken Machine and The New Up's 2007 full-length studio effort Palace of Industrial Hope, all were mixed and engineered by one of the most in demand "audio alchemists" on the West Coast, Jaimeson Durr, who has worked with The Killers, Cake, Franz Ferdinand, and Handsome Boy Modeling School.
Delivering captivating live performances that combine uniquely catchy songs with polished chops and inspired musicianship, The New Up features Noah Reid on guitar, Hawk West on flute and automation, Dain Dizazzo on bass, Drew Bertrand on drums, and - front and center - the intoxicatingly liquid voice of ES Pitcher, who the Sacramento News & Review calls "the bastard love child of Siouxsie Sioux and Karen O."
In August of 2010, The New Up's entire critically acclaimed catalogue will be made available through all US music retail locations and worldwide digital music retailers through IRIS Digital Distribution.
The New Up's "Glitz, Gold & Rock & Roll" CD Release Party for Gold
(also appearing: The Hundred Days, The Moanin' Dove and Jack Frost spins the DJ Dance Party!)
Where: Café Du Nord (21-years and over please), 2170 Market Street, SF, CA, tel: 415-861-5016 www.cafedunord.com
When: Saturday, September 18, 2010, Doors at 8:30 p.m., Show starts at 9:30 p.m.
Cost: $13 advance, $15 day of show; $19.99 "Golden Ticket" includes an advance copy of Gold, available only through September 15 on www.thenewup.com, and no additional ticket service fees.
To order tickets, for band news or to check out The New Up's new award-winning Bitch video, please visit thenewup.com
To arrange interviews, show review credentials, or request a copy of Gold for review, please contact Christopher Buttner at 415-233-7350 or email chris@prthatrocks.com.
For radio enquiries, please contact Brian Gerhard at Rocket Shop Promotions at 303-258-6806 or via email at brian@rocketshoppromotions.com.
For US distribution inquiries, please contact Steffen Franz or Ben Lang at Independent Distribution Collective, 415-292-7007 or via email at sales@independentdistro.com
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SoundDiego: San Diego IndieFest Preview
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Of those myriad performers, the New Up are a clear standout. Like Metric, the San Francisco five-pie...Of those myriad performers, the New Up are a clear standout. Like Metric, the San Francisco five-piece specializes in dark, dreamy rock with gorgeous female vocals. Last year, the band released Better Off, the second in a planned trilogy of EPs that show off the band's sultry, tempestuous sound. Lead singer ES Pitcher's soaring vocals are worth the price of admission alone, and all you flute enthusiasts out there will be pleased to know that the band has one of those, too.
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Sound Check: International Pop Overthrow Preview
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Lovers of early Jefferson Airplane and both Under the Covers volumes of ’60s and ’70s covers from Ma...Lovers of early Jefferson Airplane and both Under the Covers volumes of ’60s and ’70s covers from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs will find the swirling layers of dreamy instrumentation, lethal guitars and melodic vocals from ES Pitcher, frontman for this group (pictured above), to be a strong brew indeed. [Their CD] boasts a mere five cuts, but it’s a fantastic introduction to the San Francisco quintet’s powerful yet tuneful approach.
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MUSIC PICKS: Osama Bin Rockin, The New Up, Eightball Break, The Variety Hour
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San Francisco's The New Up kind of sounds like an updated, slowed-down version of the old Hammerbox....San Francisco's The New Up kind of sounds like an updated, slowed-down version of the old Hammerbox. Like, Carrie Akre's Hammerbox - all ferocious and female and flannel covered, circa 1990-whatever. But don't get me wrong; this five-piece is no rehash. While the scene stealing rock guitars, gut-punch hooks and the voice of female frontwoman ES Pitcher lend themselves to Hammerbox comparisons, there's definitely an air of originality to the indie rock The New Up pumps out. It can shape-shift from classic rock to iPod-contemporary at a moment's notice, and with no loss of impact - which is a skill few current bands seem to posses or even desire. After releasing the debut EP in 2008, the well received Broken Machine, The New Up is planning the release of a new EP, Gold.
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Better Off Reviews / 2009 National Tour Clips
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"Metric with a touch of the Rolling Stones, with a front woman with an addictive, classy, lingering ..."Metric with a touch of the Rolling Stones, with a front woman with an addictive, classy, lingering voice."
- Behind the Hype
"[Better Off] bears a song craft light years ahead of many contemporaries."
- Athens Banner-Herald
"[Better Off] exemplifies how The New Up has not only grown as a band over the years, but why they can't be boxed into any particular genre... The New Up is its own band, and getting better at what they do all the time."
- Blogcritics
"...striking, exotic and brashly coherent indie pop that feel[s] like the sonic equivalent of a thrill ride."
- Flagpole
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CD Review/Broken Machine
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Veering towards the new wave side of rock, San Francisco’s The New Up (as in “down is the new up”) h...Veering towards the new wave side of rock, San Francisco’s The New Up (as in “down is the new up”) has further spit-shined its sound with third release, Broken Machine. Jaimeson Durr, who helmed the band’s Palace of Industrial Hope full length (not to mention his work on sessions with Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and other big-timers), has given this five-song EP maximum punch, creating an artful sonic balance that’s miles beyond the typical
indie-rock release and closer to something one might expect from a
major label with money to spend.
Of course, this sound has just as much to do with the rock-steady rhythm section of drummer Jack McFadden and bassist Dain Dizazzo, flanked by lead vocalist/guitarist ES Pitcher, guitarist/vocalist Noah Reid and,
the cherry on top, ornamentalist Hawk West on flute and “automation” (read: laptop). No, the flute never does take a lead role in The New Up’s sound, but rather it slides snugly into the mix, most effectively realized on “Just Because.”
Though Pitcher’s smooth, elegant vocals are well suited for upbeat numbers, the songs on Broken Machine follow a more serious path. Typical of the EP’s overall tone is “Libations,” which is less of a celebratory drink and more of an expression of disappointment: “A fading space that once was mine / a never changing point of view.” The music, however, tempers the words with slow-moving vocal lines and expert pop arrangements. Yet this is actually a double-edged sword that cuts the whole EP – the messages carried by the vocals tend to get lost amidst the music’s infectiousness. This would be fine for a band that writes silly lyrics simply for their musicality, but for a band like The New Up, whose music has been described as “an ontological Molotov cocktail for modern primitives,” they can easily afford to be more hard-hitting and emphatic with their vocal lines.
-Michael Fortes
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CD Review/Broken Machine
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"[title track] 'Broken Machine' is set against a heavy bass line, a flurry of distorted guitars, and..."[title track] 'Broken Machine' is set against a heavy bass line, a flurry of distorted guitars, and an occasional sprinkling of keys, with ES Pitcher's sultry vocals enhancing the sensuous display of alt-rock and post-punk. Most music of the genre tends to be gritty and instrumentally disoriented, but 'Broken Machine' emits an unconventional tone of polished anguish and melancholy; it is one of the several components that are responsible for the song's success... rarely do you come across an EP where the majority of tracks are even better than a preceding album that was impressive in itself."
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Critic's Pick
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"The New Up decorate their trippy new wave with fetishisized guitar play - gentle wah-wah abuse and ..."The New Up decorate their trippy new wave with fetishisized guitar play - gentle wah-wah abuse and the kind of noodling that evokes Neal Schon, back when Journey was a guitar-geek band - held together by frontwoman ES Pitcher, whose thick voice has the irresistible presence of a Glace Slick or Deborah Iyall. They laid all this down in their self-titled, self-released debut album, and it looks like their follow-up is going to be a gem: the tracks move with a seething, aggressive kind of dream logic."
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Show/CD Review-Broken Machine
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The New Up give modern rock a good name. Watching them sweat and shimmer in the smoke of the Bottom ...The New Up give modern rock a good name. Watching them sweat and shimmer in the smoke of the Bottom of the Hill stage one felt compelled forward, thrust – no, that's not the right word - coerced into the beckoning arms of what's next, a tomorrow that's scary and hopeful and full of unknown things. This young, highly precocious S.F. band reminds us of bright possibilities even as they ruminate on today's bog water mess, and this national tour kick-off and EP release show did so in a most visceral way.
Outside of a spot of spread leg, cock rock stage antics from hirsute guitarist-singer Noah Reid (who also dropped a Cheap Trick At Budokan reference, though he probably picked it up from the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head), there's nothing backward leaning about The New Up, no genuflecting before the clichés of yesteryear. It didn't take a whole song to pick up on their current bent – a puckish roughness in service of really catchy songs – and it didn't take two songs before one wondered why this band isn't already all over video games, diet soda commercials and Gossip Girl montages. None of which is to say they court the mainstream but there's a slinky coolness to what they do that only requires more ears, more exposure in order to woo way more fans. There's plenty of music I adore that has zero chance of commercial success. What I dig about the Up is how they sacrifice nothing artistically in their popish streamlining. Awash in their glandular surf, I couldn't help but think of early Roxy Music, middle period Sioxsie and even Joy Division – all greats that put art before commerce but still managed to make music with broad appeal.
A mixture of ad hoc stage outfits – Reid's lounge singer, chest exposing dress shirt, lead singer E.S. Pitcher's $8 dollar thrift store dress that she made work like vintage Debbie Harry – and post-modern Motown bodily interpretations, The New Up are a blast to watch, always interesting and full of neat angles. They put on a show in addition to being quite serious musicians, and in terms of pure entertainment they'll give just about anybody a run for their money. The mixture of technical concentration and slightly wild-eyed enjoyment on the faces of Dain Dizazzo (bass), Jack McFadden (drums) and Hawk West (flute, electronics, keys) was nearly as alluring as the more extrovert appeal of Pitcher and Reid, who admittedly are hard to take your eyes off of. Charisma, you just can't manufacture it.
They launched with "Benny Hinn" from their last full length, Palace of Industrial Hope, a blur of grungy guitars and snare snap that sends your head spinning, raw gold like P.J. Harvey before she sat down at the piano. And while they could just ride their new wave chooglin' and leave it at that, "Hinn" is peppered with odd digressions, ideally placed open air pockets that clear the steam away to reveal cool, green grass in your mind, and then back into rock with a decidedly dancey undercurrent. The crucial rhythm team and West's well-placed complications made sure even the most obvious "rock" moments shimmied a bit, generating an off-kilter, lighted dance floor with earthquake uncertainty.
"Hinn" was followed by the entirety of their brand new EP, Broken Machine (see JamBase's review here), played in sequence. From "Ginger Tea," which could be a nightclub hit in the time of Blade Runner (they love this one in the off world colonies...), to the gunfire percussion crack and flute dappled hardness of the title cut to the standing-on-your-own-two-legs anthem "Just Because," the band played with a sense of live possession, overtaken by forces greater than five musicians, shining a light that comes from the invisible world behind all our surfaces. They tacked on three more in their short set, finishing with a tune that sounded like "Foxy Lady" slipped some synthetic muscle relaxer and angried up with strobe flashes and snorting guitar bursts, while Dizazzo and McFadden kicked it John Paul Jones/John Bonham style behind Pitcher's kitten purr and bottleneck slide.
Taken together it was enough to make one downright hungry, and it's only decorum that kept me from taking a friendly nibble. Another smitten fellow had earlier shouted, "I want to have your baby!" to which Pitcher replied, "I'll think it over." With a sneer John Lydon would appreciate and a sound Blondie wishes they could make today, The New Up are a fleshy, fantastic thoroughbred that reminds us to "pump up the jam/ your life's in your hands," and does so without irony or gutless disco intent. For them, shimmy and roar rest in their double bed and grind beautifully.
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CD Review/Broken Machine
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...the songs are excellent examples of grungy, female-fronted alt-rock. ES Pitcher's vocals are dead......the songs are excellent examples of grungy, female-fronted alt-rock. ES Pitcher's vocals are deadpan when they need to be and aching otherwise; melodies are strong... and compelling hooks and riffs land in all the right places.
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Critic's Pick/CD Review
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"In the luxurious breakroom here at SN&R, right next to the lab experiment-sploched microwave, are p..."In the luxurious breakroom here at SN&R, right next to the lab experiment-sploched microwave, are piles of books, DVDs and compact discs discarded by various editors who’ve deposited them there after coming up for air by digging themselves out of the mountains of books, DVDs and compact discs piled atop their cubicles. Considering the amount of swag that’s sent here, every day is like Christmas, but every Christmas present is socks.
Still, I make it a habit to rummage through the free-stuff pile and give a CD or seven a spin in my computer while dribbling out this drivel you’re reading now, which must go a long way toward explaining all the curse words you’ve been reading lately. On one such sonic journey, I was not ready to drop F-and CS-bombs, however, having been pleasantly taken back years ago, to the first time I heard Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the radio. “Wow,” I thought back then, “Siouxsie Sioux cut a new album." Joke was on me, as it was when I played my breakroom freebie and immediately thought, “Wow, Siouxsie Sioux and Karen O have had a bastard love child."
That bastard love child would be ES Pitcher, the singer/songwriter/ guitarist for the San Francisco band The New Up, whose website makes no mention of the obvious product of a Sioux-O coupling, although it does refer to The New Up sound as incorporating “the rocking channel surfing feel of Ween with the pointed female roar of P.J. Harvey and Garbage."
Garbage, I doth protesteth. Slide in The New Up’s new release, Palace of Industrial Hope, cue up the third tract, (“Learning to Crawl”) and tell me if the musical intro and Pitcher’s vocals don’t sound like something Ms. Sioux could’ve mp3'd last week. Or that "Chewbacca’s Garden” couldn’t have been cut by a Siouxsie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs supergroup (or Karen O and the Banshees for that matter). Or that the opener (“Arkansas”) doesn’t sound like the vocals from whatever protoplasm would squirt out of a Siouxsie-Karen O sandwich.
And, oooo-eeee–yoooo, all your Siouxsies lie in dust."
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National Tour/CD Review Palace of Industrial Hope
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"The New Up are brazen but keep their cool by matching
aggressive songwriting with rocksteady new-w..."The New Up are brazen but keep their cool by matching
aggressive songwriting with rocksteady new-wave style
on Palace of Industrial Hope, a sleek, sultry work
worthy of its mystical name."
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CD Review/Broken Machine
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On Broken Machine, The New Up bring their moody dance-rock to a boil and keep it there. From the fir...On Broken Machine, The New Up bring their moody dance-rock to a boil and keep it there. From the first moments of lead track 'Ginger Tea,' the EP oozes smoky atmosphere, as if Metric and My Bloody Valentine had collaborated on the soundtrack to a David Lynch film... Sounding like the twin sister of former Denali vocalist Maura Davis - particularly on the EP's emotionally-charged title track - and supplying every bit of the sultry, soaring delivery that the comparison implies, ES Pitcher's voice is truly something to behold... Relaxed but rocking, dark but poppy, tempestuous but delicate, moody but playful, the band maintains a careful balance, avoiding tactical errors that turn lesser bands into accidental camp rock.
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Show Review/High Sierra Music Festival
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"To hear greatness in its germinal stage is intoxicating. Bookending the festival, San Francisco's T..."To hear greatness in its germinal stage is intoxicating. Bookending the festival, San Francisco's The New Up was all prickly erogenous zones and contemporary disquiet. The quintet channels the future-forward zeitgeist of Radiohead, Lake Trout (who they covered), Talking Heads, and TV on the Radio. Singer E.S. Pitcher is a dizzying blur of hips and lips, seductive as memory with the sharp tang of the lash -- a thoroughly modern frontwoman that's actually a woman, and not some whiney little girl.
Superb, tight playing fuels a compellingly varied approach broad enough to rope in tweakers, hippies, and library bound indie kids. Subtle electronics and processed flute scuttle predictability, and while their predominantly compact compositions avoid bloated excess, there are enough guitar tangents to appeal to Pavement and Ween fans.
Singing about how "lonely machinery distracts us from our lives," there's a sense of giddy desperation in their sound that feels downright prophetic. Cute as hell in a scruffy sort of way, the New Up have the makings of a "Next Big Thing." They're a Luaka Bop band waiting to happen, a tastemaker cooked up from a recipe book of their own design."
supersonic
