The Districts

The Districts, a group of young trailblazers from Lititz, PA., is a band whose popularity is increasingly rising in Philly (thanks in part to the high schoolers being embraced by our local folk/blues community). The group kicked things off for the evening at the North Star Bar with their jazzy blues-infused power rock. The four-piece came out on stage and demanded the eyes and ears of everyone in attendance within just a few strums of their guitars, and immediately every notion of a novice band had been completely thrown out the door. Their age and talent was definitely not an issue. With a variety of song styles ranging from the likes of “Lyla” and “Funeral Beds” with their contemplative folk arrangements that melt your soul like a hot knife through butter to the more up-tempo “Four & Four” and “Long Distance,” which rejuvenated your weathered mind by enticing you to grab a loved one and ecstatically spin with them into tomorrow. The Districts offer a glimpse into the creative minds of the young talent flocking to our not-so-secret-anymore music scene. - The Deli Philadelphia

The Districts, a group of young trailblazers from Lititz, PA., is a band whose popularity is increasingly rising in Philly (thanks in part to the high schoolers being embraced by our local folk/blues community). The group kicked things off for the evening at the North Star Bar with their jazzy blues-infused power rock. The four-piece came out on stage and demanded the eyes and ears of everyone in attendance within just a few strums of their guitars, and immediately every notion of a novice band had been completely thrown out the door. Their age and talent was definitely not an issue. With a variety of song styles ranging from the likes of “Lyla” and “Funeral Beds” with their contemplative folk arrangements that melt your soul like a hot knife through butter to the more up-tempo “Four & Four” and “Long Distance,” which rejuvenated your weathered mind by enticing you to grab a loved one and ecstatically spin with them into tomorrow. The Districts offer a glimpse into the creative minds of the young talent flocking to our not-so-secret-anymore music scene. - The Deli Philadelphia

The Districts are a soulful, folk-rock band from Lancaster County, Pa, Lititz to be exact, a town name that gave me a laugh. More importantly though, this band is super rad. With a sound reminiscent of Dr. Dog and Cold War Kids, this band radiates a vibe and groove that is generally hard to attain without months/years of hard touring. Singer Rob Grote displays endless emotion and goes hard at all the right moments, while the rest of the band does their job of locking into thick folk jams worthy of your favorite 60s legends. The album has such an appropriate roominess that is filled with a relentless energy all throughout that leaves listeners sure they just witnessed the bands’ live show. As the record progresses, it becomes harder and harder to believe this group doesn’t have a heavy-hitting label behind them because of how developed the sound/production is. My final words about The Districts will be that I’m pumped to have heard this record certainly not long before they explode onto the American music scene and abroad. - Dingus Music Blog

The Districts are a soulful, folk-rock band from Lancaster County, Pa, Lititz to be exact, a town name that gave me a laugh. More importantly though, this band is super rad. With a sound reminiscent of Dr. Dog and Cold War Kids, this band radiates a vibe and groove that is generally hard to attain without months/years of hard touring. Singer Rob Grote displays endless emotion and goes hard at all the right moments, while the rest of the band does their job of locking into thick folk jams worthy of your favorite 60s legends. The album has such an appropriate roominess that is filled with a relentless energy all throughout that leaves listeners sure they just witnessed the bands’ live show. As the record progresses, it becomes harder and harder to believe this group doesn’t have a heavy-hitting label behind them because of how developed the sound/production is. My final words about The Districts will be that I’m pumped to have heard this record certainly not long before they explode onto the American music scene and abroad. - Dingus Music Blog

The Districts, an impressive young four-piece from Lititz, in Lancaster County. The band channeled the rock-and-soul vibe of Cold War Kids and Spoon; singer Rob Grote’s searing voice cut across the concert hall, blending with the band’s smartly-arranged instrumental interplay. They do the very Pixies loud-quiet-LOUD thing, but in a more textured way than simply turning their overdrive pedals on and off. A thundering swell cuts, leaving a clean guitar arpeggio floating in space as Grote catches his breath; the verses build in waves, with the heaviness sometimes derived just from Braden Lawrence’s drums. Grote is an intense, emphatic, occasionally bewildering stage presence – he kicks, stomps and snarls, both at the mic and far away – but guitarist Mark Larson and bassist Connor Jacobus hold their own, shuffling and bobbing and giving the overall band a dynamic stage presence. Check out “Four and Four” from their album Telephone below, and watch these guys close – they’re moving fast. - XPN's The Key

The Districts, an impressive young four-piece from Lititz, in Lancaster County. The band channeled the rock-and-soul vibe of Cold War Kids and Spoon; singer Rob Grote’s searing voice cut across the concert hall, blending with the band’s smartly-arranged instrumental interplay. They do the very Pixies loud-quiet-LOUD thing, but in a more textured way than simply turning their overdrive pedals on and off. A thundering swell cuts, leaving a clean guitar arpeggio floating in space as Grote catches his breath; the verses build in waves, with the heaviness sometimes derived just from Braden Lawrence’s drums. Grote is an intense, emphatic, occasionally bewildering stage presence – he kicks, stomps and snarls, both at the mic and far away – but guitarist Mark Larson and bassist Connor Jacobus hold their own, shuffling and bobbing and giving the overall band a dynamic stage presence. Check out “Four and Four” from their album Telephone below, and watch these guys close – they’re moving fast. - XPN's The Key

You’ve likely heard of The Districts by now. We’ve written about them, and we’ve sure loved following their growth from small hometown shows as a noteworthy local high school band to, well, playing sold out shows across Europe, signing major record label deals and, now, sharing the stage with legendary bands like The Rolling Stones.

This afternoon, the band posted on its Facebook page announcing that they will play as a direct opener for Mick and co. on July 15 at Le Festival d’été de Québec, the long-running Canadian music festival based in Quebec. The epic opportunity seems to be the cherry atop a month of activity that will include Governors Ball on June 5, Bonnaroo on June 12 and a seven-day romp through Europe. Oh, and a free concert on the Baltimore Waterfront on June 4 with The Lone Bellow and Rubblebucket. - lancasteronline.com

The worry with still-teenage bands who’ve crafted an awesome live reputation is they get too hyped too soon and spook like dogs hearing fireworks. They hit the studio only to emerge months later, blinking into the daylight, having lost the spark that made them great.

No such concern with The Districts, whose philosophy in their short life has been: record now, worry later. The four-piece, from a small Pennsylvanian town called Lititz, self-released the gravelly-sounding ‘Telephone’ back in 2012 while they were still at school. Last year, they followed it with an equally hard-riffing self-titled EP. Their iron is hot, and they’re striking the shit out of it. ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’, their debut for Mississippi indie label Fat Possum, is less polished than Shane MacGowan’s bathtub, and just as full of infectious grunge.

Ramshackle opener ‘4th And Roebling’ comes on like The Libertines raised on moonshine instead of gin in teacups, and will rattle around your skull for weeks. There’s a scrappy exuberance to tracks like ‘Peaches’, with it’s My Bloody Valentine howl, and the slower ‘Chlorine’, that suggests a band who heard Dinosaur Jr’s ‘You’re Living All Over Me’ and decided to see just how loud they can play.

There are misfires, like the psychy echo on ‘Hounds’ that sounds like hearing a gig from the toilets, or ‘Sing The Song’ which resembles a scratched My Morning Jacket record and renders singer Rob Grote’s usually full-blooded voice a strained shadow of itself.

But tracks such as the melancholy ‘Suburban Smell’ redeems them. Essentially a Grote solo track, the 19-year-old frontman strums a sparse acoustic melody and meditates on a real-life incident when he realised small-town life wasn’t for him after seeing a group of jocks bullying a mentally handicapped child.

‘Young Blood’ is better still, and the album’s centrepiece. Clocking in at nearly nine minutes, it’s the perfect example of The Districts capturing the ferocious squall that gave them that live reputation.

This isn’t the band as a finished product, rather a snapshot of them as they began to understand their power. A freshly squeezed record with the pulp left in it.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/reviews-the-districts-15906#sc7GzmDxSF3KcA7J.99 - nme.com

It’s a special occasion the first time a Philly artist headlines the cavernous Callowhill venue The Electric Factory. We’ve seen it with Dr. Dog, we’ve seen it with The Wonder Years.

When you step out on that stage, and you know in your head that it’s the same room you crowded into so you could watch your favorite bands as a teenage kid – maybe you took the subway downtown from your neighborhood, perhaps you drove in from the surrounding burbs and grabbed sketchy street parking, nervously hoping that your car would be there when you return, or you waited on Spring Garden Street for your parents to pick you up at the end of the night. It’s that place, only now you’ve got this view you never had before, not of the stage but from it, looking out at an enormous room. And it’s packed. And it occurs to you that these people are there to see you…

I’ve heard it described as humbling. I’ve heard it described as exhilarating. You can call it some serious circle of life stuff. And it’s something that Philadelphia by-way-of Lititz rockers The Districts experienced back in November as they wrapped a year of heavy international touring in support of their acclaimed debut LP A Flourish and a Spoil with their biggest headlining hometown show, and one of their biggest shows ever.

We were there, camera in hand, following along this milestone gig from the time the first guitar cases were carried up onstage. - thekey.xpn.org

It’s a special occasion the first time a Philly artist headlines the cavernous Callowhill venue The Electric Factory. We’ve seen it with Dr. Dog, we’ve seen it with The Wonder Years.

When you step out on that stage, and you know in your head that it’s the same room you crowded into so you could watch your favorite bands as a teenage kid – maybe you took the subway downtown from your neighborhood, perhaps you drove in from the surrounding burbs and grabbed sketchy street parking, nervously hoping that your car would be there when you return, or you waited on Spring Garden Street for your parents to pick you up at the end of the night. It’s that place, only now you’ve got this view you never had before, not of the stage but from it, looking out at an enormous room. And it’s packed. And it occurs to you that these people are there to see you…

I’ve heard it described as humbling. I’ve heard it described as exhilarating. You can call it some serious circle of life stuff. And it’s something that Philadelphia by-way-of Lititz rockers The Districts experienced back in November as they wrapped a year of heavy international touring in support of their acclaimed debut LP A Flourish and a Spoil with their biggest headlining hometown show, and one of their biggest shows ever.

We were there, camera in hand, following along this milestone gig from the time the first guitar cases were carried up onstage. - thekey.xpn.org

The worry with still-teenage bands who’ve crafted an awesome live reputation is they get too hyped too soon and spook like dogs hearing fireworks. They hit the studio only to emerge months later, blinking into the daylight, having lost the spark that made them great.

No such concern with The Districts, whose philosophy in their short life has been: record now, worry later. The four-piece, from a small Pennsylvanian town called Lititz, self-released the gravelly-sounding ‘Telephone’ back in 2012 while they were still at school. Last year, they followed it with an equally hard-riffing self-titled EP. Their iron is hot, and they’re striking the shit out of it. ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’, their debut for Mississippi indie label Fat Possum, is less polished than Shane MacGowan’s bathtub, and just as full of infectious grunge.

Ramshackle opener ‘4th And Roebling’ comes on like The Libertines raised on moonshine instead of gin in teacups, and will rattle around your skull for weeks. There’s a scrappy exuberance to tracks like ‘Peaches’, with it’s My Bloody Valentine howl, and the slower ‘Chlorine’, that suggests a band who heard Dinosaur Jr’s ‘You’re Living All Over Me’ and decided to see just how loud they can play.

There are misfires, like the psychy echo on ‘Hounds’ that sounds like hearing a gig from the toilets, or ‘Sing The Song’ which resembles a scratched My Morning Jacket record and renders singer Rob Grote’s usually full-blooded voice a strained shadow of itself.

But tracks such as the melancholy ‘Suburban Smell’ redeems them. Essentially a Grote solo track, the 19-year-old frontman strums a sparse acoustic melody and meditates on a real-life incident when he realised small-town life wasn’t for him after seeing a group of jocks bullying a mentally handicapped child.

‘Young Blood’ is better still, and the album’s centrepiece. Clocking in at nearly nine minutes, it’s the perfect example of The Districts capturing the ferocious squall that gave them that live reputation.

This isn’t the band as a finished product, rather a snapshot of them as they began to understand their power. A freshly squeezed record with the pulp left in it.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/reviews-the-districts-15906#CqlHsUwSbddzcAMH.99 - nme.com

You’ve likely heard of The Districts by now. We’ve written about them, and we’ve sure loved following their growth from small hometown shows as a noteworthy local high school band to, well, playing sold out shows across Europe, signing major record label deals and, now, sharing the stage with legendary bands like The Rolling Stones.

This afternoon, the band posted on its Facebook page announcing that they will play as a direct opener for Mick and co. on July 15 at Le Festival d’été de Québec, the long-running Canadian music festival based in Quebec. The epic opportunity seems to be the cherry atop a month of activity that will include Governors Ball on June 5, Bonnaroo on June 12 and a seven-day romp through Europe. Oh, and a free concert on the Baltimore Waterfront on June 4 with The Lone Bellow and Rubblebucket. - flymagazine.net