Crowfield

A review of the new studio album from Tyler Mechem and Crowfield
by Stratton Lawrence

Crowfield
The Diamond Sessions
(independent)

This much is clear: Tyler Mechem knows how to write a hit song. Throughout The Diamond Sessions, the Crowfield singer touches upon universal themes of love and emotion with a clean, powerful vocal performance. At times, those themes seem specifically designed for consumption by college freshmen. Take, for example, the hook from "Change of Heart": "Oh baby, you know me/I've practiced this all day/because I would like to kiss you [pause for dramatic effect] if that's OK." The song "Three Short Words" draws from the same vein, with its chorus of "Three short words won't ever make it right." Some of these lyrics should come with a warning for diabetics — they're heartbreakingly sweet and sugary.

The album is stunningly good for what it is. Both "Change of Heart" and opening track "Catching Up" are radio-ready. These tunes easily stand alongside any polished contemporary rock hit charting nationally, and that's clearly what Mechem and his bandmates — Micah Nichols, Parker Gins, Ethan Ricks, and Whitt Algar — were going for. After breaking off of their record label last year, the band financed The Diamond Sessions with a Kickstarter campaign. Instead of dropping the heavy production and documenting the live sound they've developed over the years, Crowfield added strings and horns, achieving the soaring feel of a pop radio hit.

Pull the album up on iTunes; you'll see its genre has been labeled "rock." While the disc's epic-guitar closing track "Black Hills" can claim that category, the Rolling Stones this is not. Train or Matchbox Twenty? Perhaps. But even those comparisons don't do Crowfield's songcraft and production talents justice.

Although it was produced in Atlanta's Black Dog Studios with acclaimed engineer Rick Beato at the helm, The Diamond Sessions is one of those locally released discs that immediately raises eyebrows, asking the question, "This came out of Charleston?"

Overall, The Diamond Sessions may be too shiny for indie-rock, but it might fit well next to some of the new stuff released in the national scene. (crowfieldmusic.com)

Crowfield performs the Hard Rock Cafe in Myrtle Beach on Fri. July 20 and at the Pawley's Island Tavern in Pawley's Island on Thurs. July 26.
- Charleston City Paper

A review of the new studio album from Tyler Mechem and Crowfield
by Stratton Lawrence

Crowfield
The Diamond Sessions
(independent)

This much is clear: Tyler Mechem knows how to write a hit song. Throughout The Diamond Sessions, the Crowfield singer touches upon universal themes of love and emotion with a clean, powerful vocal performance. At times, those themes seem specifically designed for consumption by college freshmen. Take, for example, the hook from "Change of Heart": "Oh baby, you know me/I've practiced this all day/because I would like to kiss you [pause for dramatic effect] if that's OK." The song "Three Short Words" draws from the same vein, with its chorus of "Three short words won't ever make it right." Some of these lyrics should come with a warning for diabetics — they're heartbreakingly sweet and sugary.

The album is stunningly good for what it is. Both "Change of Heart" and opening track "Catching Up" are radio-ready. These tunes easily stand alongside any polished contemporary rock hit charting nationally, and that's clearly what Mechem and his bandmates — Micah Nichols, Parker Gins, Ethan Ricks, and Whitt Algar — were going for. After breaking off of their record label last year, the band financed The Diamond Sessions with a Kickstarter campaign. Instead of dropping the heavy production and documenting the live sound they've developed over the years, Crowfield added strings and horns, achieving the soaring feel of a pop radio hit.

Pull the album up on iTunes; you'll see its genre has been labeled "rock." While the disc's epic-guitar closing track "Black Hills" can claim that category, the Rolling Stones this is not. Train or Matchbox Twenty? Perhaps. But even those comparisons don't do Crowfield's songcraft and production talents justice.

Although it was produced in Atlanta's Black Dog Studios with acclaimed engineer Rick Beato at the helm, The Diamond Sessions is one of those locally released discs that immediately raises eyebrows, asking the question, "This came out of Charleston?"

Overall, The Diamond Sessions may be too shiny for indie-rock, but it might fit well next to some of the new stuff released in the national scene. (crowfieldmusic.com)

Crowfield performs the Hard Rock Cafe in Myrtle Beach on Fri. July 20 and at the Pawley's Island Tavern in Pawley's Island on Thurs. July 26.
- Charleston City Paper

The last time we featured Crowfield in the pages of Upstate Be, they were merely a duo gaining a fan base on the college circuit. Now, only a little more than a year later, Crowfield is headlining at the Handlebar and receiving radio play on the West Coast.

Tyler Mechem, vocalist and guitarist for Crowfield, said that a great deal has changed in the past year. The band has taken on a drummer, lead guitarist and bass player, which has helped flesh out their sound, while their constant traveling has helped spread the word on this Charleston-based band.

“We don’t think of it as touring,” Mechem said. “It’s more like we travel and play in cities for three or four days here and there.”

Mechem said he and the band consider Greenville their second-best market next to Charleston, but their Greenville fan base is constantly improving. Mechem said he has come to realize how much hard work goes into promotion, a great deal of which has gone into the Greenville area.

The band is still touring behind their album, “Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern,” an album filled with songs showcasing the band’s piano driven, Ben Folds Five-inspired sound. Mechem said songs from the album have taken on a new shape now that they’ve been performed constantly by a five-piece band.

“When we started recording the album, we had only just begun with a full band,” Mechem said. “But now that we’ve played these songs night after night, we’ve managed to add some intros and small pieces to songs in different places.”

Despite adding lyrics and some new instrumentation to songs, Mechem said the band does strive to keep things fairly close to what fans hear on the album. In his mind, the album is what people come out to hear so the band’s job is to give people what they want.

However, Mechem said one thing fans get at a live show that they don’t on the album is the true face of Crowfield. He said the music is more energetic and enthusiastic, almost to the point that the music makes more sense once it is seen in a live setting.

According to Mechem, highlights at any Crowfield show include “What Makes You Think You’re Sad” and “Love is Hell on the Lonely,” the latter of which now features a reprise and different outro. “Cardinal Motion” is one song that has benefited from a facelift; Mechem added new lyrics to the end of the song that make the climax much different.

“We don’t have any concrete plans for a new album,” Mechem said. “But we’re playing new songs live and gauging the crowd’s response to them. I guess the only way you can hear them is to come to the show.”

“Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern” is available on iTunes and the band’s MySpace page, myspace.com/crowfieldmusic. - Independent Mail

Concert features Stellate, Crowfield, State of Man and The Greater Vavoom

Music fans got a treat at the BMI Showcase at Vinyl. Tickets for the concert, which featured four bands, were only $5. The bill included Stellate, Crowfield, State of Man and The Greater Vavoom. Stellate, the Atlanta group fronted by lead singer Carly Kane, put on a top-notch show. Atlanta band The Greater Vavoom, which played the Lady Gaga after-party this spring,also played a well-liked set during the evening. Atlantans State of Man presented songs from their new album "In This Place," which is scheduled to hit stories at the end of June. Charleston-based Crowfield was also part of the showcase.

Four of the Southeast’s hottest up-and-coming rock outfits took the stage Thursday night during a BMI-hosted musical showcase. An appropriately raucous crowd was on hand at Vinyl in Atlanta to partake in free booze and door prizes, and, of course, hear phenomenal live music.

The first act to take the stage was the Atlanta-based Stellate and the early birds in the audience were treated to a captivating array of energetic and exciting pop-rock. With a powerful sound that combined shades of Paramore with dashes of Kelly Clarkson (if she actually rocked), the band paraded around the stage with the confidence and swagger of true rock stars.

Proving the evening was not to be without diversity, the next act offered something from the other side of the rock spectrum. Visiting from Charleston, S.C., Crowfield played a brand of soulful folk-rock that was shaped in the mold of Southern-fried legends The Black Crowes. They played with an honesty and spirit (often recalling Ray LaMontagne) that resonated strongly throughout the crowd. It would be of little surprise if these guys become very well known in the near future.

Following Crowfield was another local act, the dissident, yet alluring, State of Man. Combining elements from a myriad of styles, the band's sound was difficult to pin down and this was an obvious part of their appeal. With elements of funk, soul, jazz, and rock all in the fold, the band could have played for hours without becoming stale. Clearly, the band had something important to say as they played a unique protest song along with a cover of U2’s “In the Name of Love” to complete their set.

Not to be outdone by any means, the final band of the evening came on like a storm and refused to stop until every single rump in the place was groovin’ to the beat. The Greater Vavoom knew they had been a band on the buzz radar of many fans, and their swagger was downright dirty (Prince would have been totally jealous—and he is never jealous of anyone). They offered a sweaty, sultry brand of neo-funk soul that was nearly impossible to deny and even harder to resist.—Mike Vetter, Special to Metromix - Atlanta Metromix

Local outfit Crowfield has been burning up the road in a time-honored rock ’n’ roll right of passage. The stalwart band spent the spring soaring along the East Coast in support of the polished and heartfelt Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern. Hints of the plaintive balladry of Train and Counting Crows are revealed in songs like “Give,” while “Love is Hell on the Lonely” would settle comfortably alongside Ryan Adams’ softer fare. This summer, the band plans to self-release a video for their first single, “Jesus in My Pocket,” currently receiving a nationwide radio push from M:M Music. Though he’s proud of the album, front man Tyler Mechem says, “The live show really gets people interested. We’re doing it the way we want to, and it’s starting to catch on.”

With the music business in disarray, Crowfield hops along the commercial ledge in search of a strategic perch, focusing on homegrown marketing spearheaded by local impresario and band manager Johnny Diamond. “Nobody works harder than these guys,” he says. Following a flock of bird-named bands—The Black Crowes, Counting Crows, J. D. Crowe, Old Crow Medicine Show—Crowfield may be the next in line to take flight. - Charleston Mag

If you’re one of the 2,500-plus fans who follow popular local band Crowfield, you know that Tyler Mechem could be on his way to making it big. Earlier this year, the group signed a deal with Universal Republic Records.

But did you ever wonder how the guitarist and singer wound up pursuing a record deal from Charleston?

We did. So we asked.

It came down to a couple of darts. Mechem, along with colleague Joe Giant, taped a map to the wall and started throwing. The first dart landed in South America, so he threw again. The second hit Charleston.

And that was that. He and Giant, who became friends while attending college in the Midwest, packed everything they owned into one car and made the 750-mile trip from Indiana.

“I didn’t even know Charleston was on the ocean until we got here,” Mechem says.

Like most of the city’s transplants, they fell in love with life in the Lowcountry. Which, however surprising it may be, is how the duo decided to pursue their dream of music here instead of in Nashville or New York.

All of which would make for a nice little story, if it ended there.

But Mechem’s story—and those of Giant, drummer Parker Gins and guitarist Micah Nichols, for that matter—is a little more involved.

It’s a tale that starts with a musician who wasn’t a musician at all—not until his senior year in college, when long-time piano player Giant encouraged Mechem to sing and they started writing songs for fun.

It’s the story of two 20-somethings who saved, oh, about $500 each before moving to the South to pursue a career in music. Guys who visited the free sample stands at Harris Teeter for lunch every day; struggling artists who converted Campbell’s soup cans into drinking cups for months, until they finally broke down and spent part of their $4-a-day allowance on plastic mugs.

Self-made musicians who, after years of grueling work, caught the attention of Sony Music Entertainment and played “the most intense show ever,” only to find out later that the agent missed his connecting flight and never saw it.

“It was my first introduction to the disappointment and level of sadness you can feel [in pursuing a music career],” Mechem says.

It’s perhaps these ups and downs that make Tyler Mechem a person who seems too good to be true. The bearded Midwestern native is a genuinely modest, soft-spoken, kind soul who talks animatedly about his family and, until recently, worked the checkout line at Whole Foods.

His greatest career influence is his dad, who owns a music shop in Indiana; his favorite pastimes include “learning the art of carpentry from Grandpa David” and “working with Grandpa Raymond in his garden.”

One of his all-time favorite compliments came from Tom Blazer, a local entrepreneur who liked Mechem so much he gave him a job as an analyst at his company, eSite.

“Mechem,” Blazer says, “has the same smile on his face when he’s bagging groceries as he does when he’s on stage.” - Charlie

Many people think that when a band gets signed to a label, it means that said band is automatically on easy street, flush with money and immediately ready to go into the studio to record the album that will make them superstars.

In reality, it doesn't quite work that way.

When it was announced earlier this year that the local group Crowfield had been signed to Universal/Republic, it marked the latest step in a dream that started with keyboardist Joe Giant and guitarist and singer Tyler Mechem in Ohio a few years ago. The pair came to Charleston in 2005 with only a few dollars in their pockets and quickly landed a gig playing at a downtown bar.

Five years later, the band has expanded to include drummer Parker Gins, guitarist Micah Nichols and bassist Ethan Ricks, and after releasing its own independent CD, "Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern," things are humming along nicely. While the band, which plays Friday at the Music Farm, has indeed been signed to a major label, it still is working as hard as ever. The small advance the band received after getting signed went mostly to buy a new van after the band's longtime ride finally gave up the ghost shortly after the contracts were signed. "Our van died 20 miles outside of Charlotte," said Mechem, "and it wasn't just a matter of the van shutting off. It started spewing fluid on the windshield and smoking. We basically left it at the yard where it was towed."

That story had a happy ending. Well, kind of.

"Apparently there is a homeless guy living in it now," said Mechem, "so I still feel like we're giving something back."

The Music Farm show on Friday will be the first time the band has performed locally since opening for Hootie & the Blowfish at the Family Circle Magazine Stadium in August. In preparation for Friday's show, the band rented out the Farm for an extra day to get things ready.

"We definitely try to make each show different," says Mechem, "to make it just as exciting for people who have seen us before. You're going to see more production this time out."

The band also has been writing new material. Mechem says that Crowfield has enough new material to record a triple album.

"We won't do that," laughs Mechem, "but we could if we wanted." Tyler uses the voice recorder on his cell phone to record ideas for songs, and a glance at the phone's screen reveals dozens of sound files, each one a potential new song for the band.

So how has being signed changed things? "It brings a lot more people into the mix," said Giant, "but the music is still grass roots. We're still doing a lot of the promoting ourselves."

The band will be one of the featured acts on the upcoming VH1 Best Cruise Ever, which happens in late April and will have the band performing alongside the likes of Train, Lifehouse, and Colbie Caillat.

Friday's show also will be the band's first performance with Ricks, who replaced Jonathan Gray. The band says that the parting of ways with Gray was amicable. "He deserves so much more than we could give him," said Mechem.

Fans who buy their tickets to Friday's show from etix.com will also be able to see Crowfield play a special secret show at a later date. The details of the show will be sent to ticket buyers, and while the band members were tight-lipped about any details for the secret show, they did promise that the location will be intimate, and that the band will perform a lot of material it doesn't normally play.

The band also expects to get into the studio early next year to begin recording its major label debut, which will allow it to use that backlog of songs. - Post & Courier

I had a difficult choice this past Saturday night.

In Mount Pleasant at the Village Tavern, a performance by the new local outfit Crowfield had more buzz than a beehive, while across town on James Island at the Pour House, a group of local musicians were attempting to interpret some of Tom Waits' more challenging material in a live setting.

I actually considered trying to run back and forth between the two shows, and had there been fewer bodies of water between the venues, and had a gallon of gas not now cost more than a venti café mocha at Starbucks, I might have actually pulled it off. Ultimately, I decided to go with the Mount Pleasant option, especially since I would be seeing Waits himself next month in Atlanta.

I arrived at an already-packed Village Tavern just in time to catch the beginning of the opening set by Owen Beverly, who got the crowd in the right frame of mind for Crowfield with his acoustic alt-country tunes. Joel Hamilton of the Working Title hopped up on stage a couple of times to accompany Beverly on banjo.

The switchover from Beverly to Crowfield was incredibly brief, which meant that within about 15 minutes or so, the evening's headliners were being introduced.

The Village Tavern's compact performance space forced Crowfield's five members to be creative about their placement on stage. Bassist Ben Wells set up in the far corner, directly behind keyboardist and founding Crowfield member Joe Giant, who had a cool setup that featured an electronic keyboard housed inside an empty upright piano cabinet.

Drummer Parker Gins was positioned just under the word bubble coming from the Kool-Aid guy painted on the Tavern's wall behind the stage, making it seem as if he was saying "Oh Yeah!" all night. The front of the stage was reserved for singer-guitarist Tyler Mechem and guitarist Matt Podesla. Podesla stood behind a bank of effects pedals that would probably make Joe Satriani green with envy.

The main reason I had wanted to see Crowfield perform was to see if the live versions of the band's songs lived up to the ear candy on the band's new CD, "Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern." I had received a copy of that CD a week or so before Saturday's show, and as of this writing it still has yet to leave my car CD player.

As much as I enjoyed that CD though, the true test of a band is how well it plays live. I had to admit that, as good as the CD was, there was a concern that the live versions of the songs might miss the mark.

I needn't have worried. As the band kicked into "Break My Heart Tonight," it became immediately apparent that the great sounds on the CD were not simply the result of studio magic.

The band played every song on "Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern," as well as a couple of new tunes. As Podesla produced an impressive array of sounds from his guitars, Mechem sang lead while Giant harmonized from behind his keyboard.

Highlights of the set included "Jesus in My Pocket," "What Makes You Think You're Sad," as well as a superb live version of my favorite tune from the CD, "Mississippi (Hard Road Lately)." One of the new songs, "Dust to Dust," also was quite good.

Mechem, who sports a voice that reminds me of Levon Helm mixed with a little Van Morrison, can hit some serious high notes when the need arises. For the final song of the night, Mechem announced that he was going to really turn up the power on his vocals, reasoning that he would have a few days off after this show.

That closing tune turned out to be the song that leads off the CD, "Hayride," which has a great Black Crowes vibe to it. True to his word, Mechem, along with the rest of the band, proceeded to go for broke, putting some serious power behind what was already a lively tune.

As the band left the stage, several people in the crowd started up a chant of "one more song," but Giant was pretty frank about the possibility of that happening, telling the fans, "We played them all!"

Crowfield is - Post & Courier

"I never even thought about any of our songs being labeled as country songs until someone said, 'Hey, we can take this to country radio and CMT,'?" says Tyler Mechem, the singer, guitarist, and main songwriter of busy Charleston group Crowfield. "I thought, well, maybe it is. But now that we've had the same band together, we simply play the songs the way we play them."

Only two years ago, Mechem faced a bright-but-uncertain future as the frontman of a newly-named, quickly-assembled band. He and his longtime songwriting/piano-playing partner Joe Giant spent considerable time, money, and effort working on the official Crowfield debut album with a gallery of top studio players in Atlanta. It was a fresh but slightly wobbly new start.

"Maybe as a symptom of talking to labels and managers and listening to them a little too much, we kind of talked about ideas of how to work the album, considering taking it to Nashville and doing some country radio stuff with it," Mechem remembers. However, he and the band convey a bolder sense of confidence and independence these days.

Mechem and Giant played around Charleston for years as a duo under the name of Bell, gigging with occasional guest players. While Bell worked within a modern alternative-rock style, Crowfield aimed for a more atmospheric, emotive, and romantic Americana/rock thing.

After the 2008 release of the twangy-but-polished Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern (Ten Star), healthy buzz in the scene fueled momentum as things started happening for the band. For Mechem, the exhilaration of taking such major steps came with a little bit of anxiety and a minor identity crisis, too.

"We arranged songs based on that kind of advice, instead of playing them the way our instincts told us," says Mechem. "We've now gotten away from letting it be country and just playing things the way we think they should be playing within the set list.

"I think we've gotten away from that rootsy-to-the-point-of-almost-sounding-country sound these days," he adds. "We've turned the electric guitars up a bit. We don't have the pedal steel with us. The old songs are more energetic now than they were on the album, and there's a more dynamic element there on stage."

If 2008 was a period of transition for Mechem and Giant's full band, 2009 served as a period of solidification and self-realization. Drummer Parker Gins settled into the rhythm section right away. Bassist Jonathan Gray (formerly of Jump) and guitarist Micah Nichols regular played with the group on the road and in town. The ideas and rough sketches of Crowfield eventually took shape as a band with an indefinable personality.

"Micah is a full-time guitar player, and Johnny is just about the only bass player we've played with over the last year," says Mechem. "We realized that we had the right musical chemistry early on. We also noticed that the personal chemistry was right, too."

Mechem and Giant enjoyed tinkering with the instrumentation during the making of Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern, and they regularly assemble extra brass and/or strings at big shows like this week's gig at the Farm. They'll welcome a three-piece horn section (alto sax, tenor sax, and trombone) to the stage alongside a three-piece string section (violins and cello) for several songs during the set.

"Joe has arranged the extra strings this month," Mechem says. "He wrote all the arrangements for them, and I'm really excited to play with them. It's new to me. We rearranged some of the songs from the album for this, so some of them might be a little more epic-sounding. We hope to build the show up a little bit, and not start out too balls-to-the-wall, although some of these new tunes get really rockin' later in the set."

A dynamic creative streak over the last year resulted in Mechem penning over 30 tunes — many of which evolved from collaboration with all the members of the band.

Crowfield traveled extensively in 2009, including stints - Charleston City Paper

Tyler Mechem sounds pretty chipper for a musician who recently split from a major record label. Even more surprisingly, he's not too distraught about having to say goodbye to a very close, longtime bandmate, either. As the optimistic singer, guitarist, and main songwriter of local group Crowfield, Mechem has a new sense of independence and a hopeful approach to events on the horizon.

Mechem and keyboardist Joe Giant moved to Charleston together from a small town in Indiana in 2005. After gigging around as a duo, they eventually formed the band that would come to be known as Crowfield in late 2007. In 2009, Mechem and the guys enjoyed great momentum. With Micah Nichols on lead guitar, Ethan Ricks on bass, and Parker Gins on drums, they were delivering solid performances on stage, gaining radio play, conducting successful road trips, and, ultimately, receiving an onslaught of label interest. This year, detached from a short-lived label contract but armed with a strong, self-produced, self-titled studio album, they're rockin' with a clean slate.

"We've been through disappointment before, so we're well tempered," says Mechem. "We were so confident about the batch of new songs that we had waiting that it was easy to get through it. We continued to play great shows and move ahead."

Recorded over the winter and spring at Black Do Studios in Atlanta with acclaimed engineer Rick Beato at the board, the 12-song Crowfield is the band's first studio album since 2008's twangy and well-polished Goodbye, Goodnight, So Long Midwestern, a collection of romantic guitar pop and alt-country originals. Whereas Mechem and Giant tracked Goodbye, Goodnight with a handful of studio musicians, the new disc reflects the fully realized band version of Crowfield that took shape in the last three years.

"On the first album, the country side of it for me was almost like playing punk music," says Mechem. "I felt like I was doing something so raw, foreign, and experimental. It was exciting. For the new album, I wrote the songs in much the same way, but the country style wasn't so exciting. I wrote them with the bandmates in mind. Micah plays a much more modern style of guitar than what was on Goodbye, Goodnight. His hero is the Edge [from U2], so there are more delays and atmospheric effects."

From the new album's thumping and bombastic opening anthem "Midwestern" through the synth-laden pop ballad "Some How Some Way" and the grunge-heavy, riffy rocker "Give it to You," there's certainly a more pronounced "modern rock" style going on. Some of it might surprise longtime fans.

"There are more synths and effects on the new album," Mechem adds. "We were really meticulous with the tones this time, as well. If the last one was Jackson Browne, this one is U2. It might not come across like that to everybody, but that's how I hear it."

Getting to this point involved a meandering journey that started more than two years ago, just as Crowfield's lineup was getting tight and busy. Mechem and the fellas had a healthy buzz going, in town and elsewhere.

"People who had been watching us for a while and were in a position to help really stepped up and went out on a limb for us," Mechem says. "We had a lot of labels making trips and coming to see us. One big night was in L.A. when we were on the road with Rusted Root. They actually canceled the show the day before, and we had to scramble and book another show. We played at the Viper Room, and it went off so well. We had all these leads from label people who were saying, 'We want to do something,' to us."

A couple of months passed by, but nothing ever happened. The band was disappointed, but after representatives from Universal/Republic attended a show in New York and expressed interest, morale picked up.

Crowfield and Universal/Republic hooked up without delay and signed a recording contract, making the band labelmates with the likes of the Black Eyed Peas, Jack Johnson, and Sheryl Crow. Crowfield - Charleston City Paper