Dixie Automatic
New York City, New York, United States
Music
Press
There's no doubt the 80's were a period in which a lot of artificial bands had success and only kick-ass bands like Guns 'n' Roses or Metallica could emerge from that mess of kitsch and taken for granted songs, images and so on. The 90's brought more depression and stagnation and of course the worst has no bottom, so now those bands have disappeared in a way or another and the fear of risking and labels' blackmails reduce most bands to performers rather than artists.
From this asphyxiated view bands like Coppersonic are fighting to stand out and I'd say their resumes are fit for this aim. Besides boring and futile distinctions about what is really alt rock, I'd just like to tell you that if you're chasing a band which can skillfully mix US Rock, Blues and an ounce of Country without losing their integrity, then you should contact NY-based Coppersonic a.s.a.p.!
Just enjoy the highs and lows in "On and On" or the ones in the dynamic single "Tomorrow Girl", by the way gifted with a great chorus and then hit your stride with this superb self-released debut album.
Actually for and old rocker like me, I admit my fave composition is "Memories of Hollywood", enriched by bass lines so rich of feeling, and a bit melancholic keyboards, but Virginia's leader John Truelove can show good things with his melodic touching vocals in "Hghway Blues" and "Stars" as well.
The band experimented with digital recorders and computer based production tools but found the overall quality somewhat cold and sterile for rock songs with a traditional American, roots sound, so they decided to utilize a vintage sound studio fulla classic studio effects and instruments used by bands like The Rolling Stones and The Allman Brothers; that explains why (Italian-American?) John Carini's Fender howls so well in "Time Wasters Club" or "Love Lies Bleeding". After the excellent "Live through Anything", that's gonna work fine especially in live shows, we got the closer "Reno", all but a cheesy acoustic ballad.
There's something to improve in a few vocals not mordant enough, and 3/4 tracks would benefit smoother arrangements, yet I consider Coppersonic quite a promising act and a crime bigger month by month, the fact they still haven't been signed by a mighty label now that they've solved their line-up problems owing to skinbeater John (yes another John!) Cina's entry.
--MARKUS GANZHERRLICH - Rocket Metal Bands
Dixie Automatic (Self-released) It's always refreshing to come across a band that is unafraid to simply play the music they enjoy without apparent concern about the commercial impact it may have. Dixie Automatic delivers a brand of rock music that may be labeled as "southern rock" though one wonders whether that phrase has any more resonance in this day and age. Nevertheless, the passion and verve must be recognized - check it out!
--Kevin Mathews - Fufkin.com
Very active local trio Dixie Automatic manage a very interesting marriage of '70s southern rock à la the Outlaws and merge it with an almost Television (the band, people) kind of sound. John Carini's effortless sounding guitar is mighty fluid. Good shit.
--Andrew Aber - The Village Voice
Dixie Automatic is a band that combines cleverly some rocking riffs with a pop
feeling, delivering nine accesible songs. Many of this tunes are potential hits
if well promoted with good radio airplaying and TV appearances. The music is
carefully constructed along guitar clean arpeggios and rhythms with a clean
voice that developes beautiful melodies through all teh album. Most of the
songs here will stick in your mind thanks to their melodies that are sometimes
repeated until you find yourself singing them. The sound of the recording is
crystal clear making the band sound polished and very clean sounding letting
you appreciate every single note that is played here.
- Music Extreme ARGENTINA
Discography
Dixie Automatic - EP
Photos
Bio
Are you serious, you actually want to read a band's biography? All right, then. I only ask because I consider band bios, next to a vegan cookbook, to be the most excruciatingly boring arrangement of letters on a page. A suggestion was made to hire a professional writer but that would most likely come at a considerable sum of money that of which, if in my possession, I would rather apply to an over extended credit card. Besides that, writers would employ an overabundance of two-dollar adjectives and metaphors that anyone who has spent the last few years traveling in a van and playing in bars would never use.
And there is the issue of getting the facts straight and someone in the organization would invariably decide their interests and contributions were not adequately represented. So that's all more trouble than it's worth. Besides, it is only logical that if someone has to tell the story of a band, then it should come from someone who lived it - the ability to render clever, engaging, prose be damned. And since I wrote the words to the songs that logical step was handed off to me.
Now, these songs I speak of are the whole reason that we're all here right now. And the songs are here all because a few years ago a couple of freelance musicians met up and decided to do their own music for a change and have their own group to do it with.John Carini Guitar
Those two musicians are myself, bassist John Truelove and John Carini who plays guitar. Now we didn't sit down and decide what we would sound like, that sort of thing just comes naturally, but we had fun and so kept on doing it that way. Some people might call it rock, others country. Still more might call it alt-country, which makes no sense since any music other than country would be an alternative to country. Rap, for instance, and we sure as spit and shinola don't play rap music.
So we borrowed an idea from Buck Owens who called his kind of country music: American Music. And that is what we have here, a little rock, a little country, a little blues: American Music.
If you're a band then you need a catchy name and we chose Dixie Automatic because it about says it all.
I said before that I wrote the words for the songs and this was because I did all the singing at the time. Now we have Delilah Legend singing lead so she might be writing her own words one day. Of course, the words wouldn't have been written, necessarily, unless our guitarist John Carini hadn't first written a heap of music that needed some words.
Our newest songs "I.O.U" "Reno" and "Honeymoon" were recorded at our studio and they can all be heard on our EPK.
A lot of people much smarter than ourselves have heard our music and have had nice things to say about it in places like the Village Voice, Time Out New York, and Fluff.com. We have also enjoyed hearing our songs played on the radio at stations like WROV in Virginia and WUSB in New York while we were riding around in the van on the way to any one of the shows we have done between North Carolina and Vermont. Of course, we still do a lot of riding around and you can see where we are riding to next on the front page. Maybe we're coming to see you!
Links
