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BennyStrange SxSW Gig Announced
LA Indie Band BennyStrange Win ReverbNation SxSW Contest
© Danny Brown
Feb 22, 2007
Los Angeles-based indie band BennyStrange have won the ReverbNation / SxSW contest and will appear at the influential festival next month.
Genre: Indie / indie rock / indie pop
Sounds like: Elbow, Death Cab For Cutie, Travis
Home: Los Angeles
The South By Southwest festival (SxSW) has been running for twenty years now. Bringing together the best that new music and media has to offer, it has long been a breeding ground for some of the brightest up-and-coming bands from all genres. Therefore, gaining an appearance slot there has become highly desirable.
ReverbNation, an online new music website that specializes in bringing bands and fans together under different genres, combined this year with SxSW, to run a competition where two lucky bands would be given the chance to win such an appearance at the festival. Voted for by a panel of judges at the ReverbNation site, the winners have just been announced.
Indie band BennyStrange are one of the winners and will play a coveted slot on Friday, March 16th 2007, at the Dirty Dog Bar as part of the SxSW festival being held in Austin, Texas. A five piece unit that combine lush arrangements with sweeping hooks, BennyStrange is beginning to generate a lot of buzz in the indie community. Their impending appearance at SxSW will only further that. I'll be reviewing their debut EP Nowhere Left To Run shortly here on Suite101, as well as running a feature on the band.
- Danny Brown
BennyStrange SxSW Gig Announced
LA Indie Band BennyStrange Win ReverbNation SxSW Contest
© Danny Brown
Feb 22, 2007
Los Angeles-based indie band BennyStrange have won the ReverbNation / SxSW contest and will appear at the influential festival next month.
Genre: Indie / indie rock / indie pop
Sounds like: Elbow, Death Cab For Cutie, Travis
Home: Los Angeles
The South By Southwest festival (SxSW) has been running for twenty years now. Bringing together the best that new music and media has to offer, it has long been a breeding ground for some of the brightest up-and-coming bands from all genres. Therefore, gaining an appearance slot there has become highly desirable.
ReverbNation, an online new music website that specializes in bringing bands and fans together under different genres, combined this year with SxSW, to run a competition where two lucky bands would be given the chance to win such an appearance at the festival. Voted for by a panel of judges at the ReverbNation site, the winners have just been announced.
Indie band BennyStrange are one of the winners and will play a coveted slot on Friday, March 16th 2007, at the Dirty Dog Bar as part of the SxSW festival being held in Austin, Texas. A five piece unit that combine lush arrangements with sweeping hooks, BennyStrange is beginning to generate a lot of buzz in the indie community. Their impending appearance at SxSW will only further that. I'll be reviewing their debut EP Nowhere Left To Run shortly here on Suite101, as well as running a feature on the band.
- Danny Brown
"Each song was better than the last. Truly impressive!" -- Todd David Schwartz, CBS Radio - CBS Radio
"Each song was better than the last. Truly impressive!" -- Todd David Schwartz, CBS Radio - CBS Radio
"Rising indie-sensation Benny Strange knows that brevity and experimentation aren't necessarily strange-bedfellows."
-Relix Magazine
- Relix Magazine
"Rising indie-sensation Benny Strange knows that brevity and experimentation aren't necessarily strange-bedfellows."
-Relix Magazine
- Relix Magazine
Discography
Nowhere Left to Run - Darkroom Records (2006)
Photos
Bio
After hitchhiking from New York to California with no more than an acoustic guitar, a sleeping bag and $112, multi-instrumentalist David Avram Brown found work touring Europe and the U.S. with a handful of Los Angeles and Bay Area based bands. Eventually Brown settled in Los Angeles where he began to focus on his own original songwriting.
With the help of recording engineers Joe Zook (Modest Mouse) and Ethan Willoughby (Black Eyed Peas), Brown recorded his self-produced debut EP Nowhere Left to Run, which he released under his newly adopted moniker Benny Strange on his own label, Darkroom Records in September of 2006. Since the release of Nowhere, Strange has been invited to perform at SXSW 2007 and Street Scene ’07 (where he shared the bill with the likes of Matt Costa, Voxtrot, Elvis Perkins, Spoon, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and Muse).
Currently Brown and co-producer/keyboardist Anthony Enns are putting the final touches on a follow up Benny Strange EP, which is slated for release on Darkroom Records in early 2008.
SOME NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS:
- The Nowhere Left to Run EP broke over a dozen top 30s in college radio charts all over the U.S. as well as several top 10s. Currently the EP is in rotation at over 100 college stations.
- Benny Strange has shared bills with well known acts such as Matt Costa, Voxtrot, Elvis Perkins, Spoon, Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and Muse.
- Benny Strange's song "Blip" was featured in Relix Magazine as part of the November 2007 issue's compilation CD.
- Benny Strange has performed at high profile venues such as The Coors Amphitheatre, House of Blues, The Roxy, Spaceland, The Knitting Factory & The Viper Room.
- Benny Strange was the 2007 winner of the ReverbNation SXSW contest. The judging pannel that awarded the highly regarded showcase included staff members from Merge Records (Arcade Fire, Spoon) and Yep Roc Records (Paul Weller, Apples In Stereo).
- 3 seperate Benny Strange songs have individually charted at #1 on the highly regarded music competition website OurStage.com.
- "Blip" was hand selected to be part of the highly respected Noise Pop New Music Podcast.
WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING:
"Rising indie-sensation Benny Strange knows that brevity and experimentation aren’t necessarily strange-bedfellows."
-Relix Magazine
"Each song was better than the last. Truly impressive."
-CBS Radio
"...lush arrangements with sweeping hooks, Benny Strange is beginning to generate a lot of buzz in the indie community." -Suite101.com
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