The Black Summer Crush
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The Black Summer Crush

| INDIE

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The best kept secret in music

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Discography

The Black Summer Crush * Self-titled LP * In Stores Jan'08 !!!

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Bio

Is it still possible to divest the immortal coil of rock and roll without falling into a bottomless pit? Who out there can scour those authentically rich and rarified bits of inspiration, and mold them into modern marvels of melody? The Black Summer Crush — four unsullied visionaries with an exuberant, rambunctious swagger, leaping into the vortex like bewitching alchemists stirring up a new, insatiable potion — have heeded the call.

Anyone can cite Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones as influences, but seldom do they dig in deep enough, harvesting the grace and guts of the masters as effortlessly as The Black Summer Crush. “There’s a reason people still revere these bands,” Scott Holiday, the band’s guitarist and chief songwriter, explains. “We’re not trying to emulate them as much as we’re trying to emote the way they’ve made us feel.”

Before recording their self-titled debut, the California-based quartet — Holiday, vocalist Thomas Flowers, bassist Robin Everhart, and drummer Michael Miley — had already stirred the cauldron at the 2006 “European” Woodstock Festival in Poland. The promoter was so impressed he insisted the band play the headlining slot on the festival’s main stage before a crowd of 250,000. “We were lucky because no one else was doing what we brought to the festival,” Holiday fondly recalls. “This allowed us to really capture the audience.”

Upon their return to the States, The Black Summer Crush signed a deal with EMI and immediately went into the studio with producer Dave Cobb, whose list of credits includes work with The Shys, Shooter Jennings (Waylon’s son), and The Strays, a group formed by Small Faces founder Steve Marriott’s son, Toby.

For Holiday, the sessions were efficient, inspiring, and emotional. “Essentially, we wrote a lot of the record on the spot. The whole thing was done in just 27 days. It was a healthy and fantastic experience.”

The end result comprises a wide-ranging amalgamation of blue-infused, hard rockin’ tomes, incorporating elements of pop, garage, R&B, and Middle Eastern textures.
“Angel,” the opening track, emerges from a delta swamp and evolves into a turbulent, harmonically charged tale, ripe with liberation, direct in its deportment. “She's like the changin' of the seasons/Cold wind is blowin' through my mind…” Holiday says it’s guised as a simple love song but gives way to deeper feelings inspired by Charles Bukowski’s poem Bluebird . “He wrote a wonderful poem about a bluebird being locked in his heart. Basically, it says I have this rough, weathered, troubled persona — yet, what keeps me pure or true is I have a special warmth deep inside me”.

A self-effacing soliloquy bristling with passion, “Memphis Sun” scratches its way out of the catacomb, angling for redemption. “I like to keep some degree of ambiguity and leave my songs open to interpretation,” Holiday notes. “But there is a strong feeling of rejuvenation or renewal to ‘Memphis Sun.’”

At its core, The Black Summer Crush is rock and roll embroiled in visceral, transcendent energy — be it the breakneck crunch and sizzle of “I Want More,” the crucial slip and slide that drives “Lucky Girl,” the raunchy hullabaloo behind “Tell Me Something,” or the coagulating slam and jam of “Between The Lines.”

Still, it’s impossible to ignore the band’s adventurous spirit in pushing the envelope beyond basic three-chord patterns and accessible lyrics. “The Man Who Wasn’t There” is a silky and surreal observation of what Holiday calls “the fleeting genius” ala late, great artists like Syd Barrett and Brian Jones. “We love those people, we need them, we feed off them.”

“Flames Of Lanka,” largely based on the guitarist’s spiritual leanings, is a nebulous, free-form voyage gone amok. “It was completely improvised. We started working on a 6/8 type of riff in a blues vein. I did it all on an alternately tuned, double neck guitar. I went in alone and started playing, the rhythm section leapt in, and the dynamics took hold…”

With the album in the can and being readied for a mid-summer of 2007 release, the band is anxious to hit the road and share their music with the world. Invariably, the foursome approaches the stage with a fresh, unassuming aesthetic, leaving plenty of space for interpretation, ad-libbing, and uninhibited creativity.

Whether celebrating or questioning these times in which we all contrive to live and prosper, The Black Summer Crush remain firm in their conviction to spread a message of optimism, faith, and hope. “The Black Summer Crush is a feeling of taking that first step forward and burning your innocence,” Holiday says. “Once you get a taste, it’s over and the innocence is lost.”