Tim Brantley

As thousands flock to Sanford Stadium to cheer on the Bulldogs this Saturday, a handful of Athens and Atlanta rockers will be skipping the tailgating and the game, instead prepping for a dual CD release party at the 40 Watt (for Tim Brantley's Bon Voyage and Stories Below's Radio Waltz). With locals Stories Below [see ABC section in this issue] and Atlanta native Tim Brantley providing the entertainment, the 40 Watt will be hot after the game (as well as during; the 40 Watt's showing the game for free on a big screen starting at 2:30 p.m.).

But on to the music. Inside the Java Monkey in downtown Decatur, three guys sit around a small table possibly having some deep musical discussion or perhaps just wondering why I am late. Johnny G., the youngest of the three, sits quietly and thumbs through the latest Creative Loafing. To his right is Aaron Brown, who is sporting a black T-shirt with "The 80's Sucked" printed across the front in hot pink. Against the wall, the trio's leader (and elder statesman at 25 years) leans back in his chair, Dr. Pepper in front of him and aviator sunglasses hanging from the collar of his white shirt. This must be Tim Brantley.

One look at Brantley, and you just know he's a musician. One listen to his music, and you know he's a damn good one at that. A single spin of his piano rock tune "Angel" and his raw talent is undeniable. Brantley began playing the piano when he was 11 years old, though the days of piano lessons as a youngster were numbered and it lasted only a couple of years. Then, at age 20, Brantley got back into playing and quickly began penning a plethora of songs. Today, he also plays guitar, bass, drums and harmonica in addition to the piano. But for live performances and some recording purposes, Brantley employs Johnny G. on bass and Brown on drums.

When describing Brantley's blend of piano and acoustic rock, adjectives like familiar, comforting and honest immediately come to mind. The overall sound resembles a Pete-Yorn-meets-Keane sort of style. The music blends subtle hints of pop with Brit-rock stylings of bands like Coldplay and Travis. The vocals are a bit rootsy and completely natural. Twelve tracks of pure brilliance comprise Brantley's first full-length album Bon Voyage, a sort of send-off to his old self and old life. It's a mellow yet upbeat record that delivers a stripped-down but still well-produced compilation of songs recorded at Brantley's home in Atlanta.

"We could have gone in the studio and recorded it, but we were just afraid that it would come out as contrived or sound like a studio album," explains Brantley. "We really wanted it to just be what it was. We tried to record as many of the tracks as we could live, that we felt would come out the right way. So we tried to go for a more live feel with the album. I kind of have a tendency to make songs big productions sometimes, so those, we tracked most of those songs."

In addition to raw talent, what makes Brantley's music function so well is the accompaniment of two friends who respect and admire his musical ability and who believe in what he's trying to accomplish. When describing the music on Bon Voyage, the word Brown always comes back to is "honest." "You listen to the things that he's written and you know it," says Brown, "because you've been there and because you've thought those same things, you just didn't have the ability to write chords and make it singable."

Leah Weinberg

- Flagpole

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Brantley Releases Debut CD Bon Voyage

Atlanta, GA - October 8th, 2004

After several long months of recording sessions and hard work Tim Brantley has finally captured his signature “honest” feel in his debut album Bon Voyage.

Since he was just 11 years old when he first began playing the piano, Tim Brantley always dreamed of one day releasing an album of his very own. 14 years later that day has finally come with his release of Bon Voyage on October 2nd. Critics describe Brantley’s style as having that “Pete Yorn meets Keane” sound to it. Whatever the sound, Brantley’s new CD was met with overwhelming acclaim after headlining his CD release party at the 40 Watt club in Athens, GA last Saturday night. Bon Voyage features 12 original songs varying in diversity from the typical piano based pop/rock tunes like “Real” and “Angel” which Brantley is most know for, to the hard rocking “Maybe a Little” with its biting guitar back to the emotional cello based ballad “Worlds Away”.

Brantley’s music career began as a teenager when he was a member in the pop group "Lucky" headed by producer/manager Maurice Star (mastermind behind New Edition and New Kids on the Block). Tim has also had the privilege to open up for several respected industry entertainers such as country singer Mark Willis and hip hop duo OutKast. Now, Brantley is simply “thrilled” to be with his own band and playing his own music. “I am just happy to be on stage again where I am most comfortable. Whether it is just me with a piano or my entire band backing me, I am happy.” claimed Brantley after his performance at the 40 Watt.

For Tim’s official website and to hear tracks from Bon Voyage visit: http://www.TimBrantley.com

For more information contact Tim Brantley’s management team:
Red Carpet Music LLC (http://www.RedCarpetMusic.com)

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- N/A

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Tim Brantley wins Coors Light/99X March Bandness

Atlanta, GA – April 1, 2005

After a 4 weeks of eliminations and starting with 32 of Atlanta’s strongest bands competing, Tim Brantley and his band has won the final round of the Coors Light/99X March Bandness held at Andrews Upstairs on March 30th. The remaining bands in the final four round also included Line of Sight, the Paper Champions, and Heavy Mojo.

Local music industry professionals judged each round on a point scale of 1 - 10, and every person with paid admittance received a ballot worth one vote for their favorite act. At the end of the night Tim Brantley’s score totaled 221 points compared to 2nd place winner Heavy Mojo with 158.

For wining the competition Tim and his band are awarded a prize package estimated at $25,000 value from sponsors including Aleven Music Marketing and Design, Paste Magazine, Tree Sound Studios, Protocol Entertainment, Degy Booking, AbbaDabbas, and Electron Gardens, Usedfilm. In addition, Tim’s band have secured performing slots in the following events:

- A performing slot on the East Andrews Spring Music Festival on Sunday, April 24th
- A performing slot on the 2005 Atlantis Music Conference to be held August 10 - 13, (Atlanta, GA)
- A performing slot on the Athfest Music Conference to be held June 23 - 26 2005 (Athens, GA)
- A performing slot on the Turner South - My South Rocks Concert Series with the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field
- A performing slot on the Aquafina On the Bricks – A Concert Series in Centennial Olympic Park. (Date TBA)

For more information refer to the official Tim Brantley website located at http://www.TimBrantley.com or contact Tim Brantley’s management team:
Red Carpet Music LLC (http://www.RedCarpetMusic.com)

# # #
- Scott Taylor (manager)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tim Brantley added to Music Midtown line-up

Atlanta, GA – June 6, 2005

Atlanta native singer/songwriter Tim Brantley and his band have been recently added to the all-star line-up for the annual Music Midtown Festival ’05 held in downtown Atlanta. Tim and his band take stage on the 99X/Best Buy Locals Only Stage on Sunday, June 12th from 3:45-4:15.

Music Midtown is internationally recognized as one of the greatest and most unique festivals. For the past eleven years, festival goers from around the world descend upon the heart of the South to experience Music Midtown, America’s largest three-day music festival. Over 100 major and emerging acts representing all genres of music perform each year on multiple outdoor stages in an enclosed 40+ acre complex centered between the bustling metropolitan areas of Midtown and Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. With an amazingly low admission price, Music Midtown annually draws 300,000 revelers to Atlanta. In its twelfth year the festival promises to carry out its tradition of featuring the biggest names in music and one of the most diverse lineups of any music festival in the world.

Other artists performing at the Music Midtown Festival this year include:

The White Stripes, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Kid Rock, The Pixies, Keith Urban, Ciara, Black Eyed Peas, Common, Alan Jackson, Def Leppard, DEVO, Lou Reed, The Killers, The Lemonheads, Interpol and more.....


For more information refer to the official Tim Brantley website located at http://www.TimBrantley.com or contact Tim Brantley’s management team:

Red Carpet Music LLC (http://www.RedCarpetMusic.com)

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- Red Carpet Music

08.16.05
Tim Brantley: Bon Voyage

Purchase this CD
This guy has the piano talents of Ben Folds melded with the sentimental lyrics of Ryan Adams' older stuff — bravo! In "Real," he sings, "Chunks of time/Just a footnote or a caption/People come and people go/The leave us with an ending." "The rest of the songs offer a twinge of rock-n-roll, but more importantly deep lyrics with a raspy voice that can reach high notes ala Jason Mraz. But you won't get anything remotely sounding like "Remedy" here. A refreshing sound is evident throughout the entire album, and we can only expect more to come. Brantley is working with Gold album veteran producer Russ-T Cobb (Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup) on some new tracks. These ones are great enough to last us till new material comes out. Still, I can't wait.
Favorite Tracks: Real, San Fran
Rating: 5 stars
- Discovering Artists

Sept 15, 2005

Tim Brantley and his band took home the coveted "Best New Band" award at the 2005 Atlanta Music Guide Awards. The award was hosted by Atlanta's most popular alternative FM station WNNX 99X and was determined by a series of on-line voting by concert goers as well as music industry professionals. - Red Carpet Music

For immediate release:

Tim Brantley’s "The Lion of Truth" CD Release Announced

ATLANTA, Ga. (PRWEB), June 6, 2006 – After 10 months of writing, recording, producing and mixing Tim Brantley has released his second full-length record entitled The Lion of Truth. Brantley, as voted "Atlanta's Best New Artist 2005" by the Atlanta Music Guide will be celebrating the release of the record on FRIDAY JUNE 16, 2006 at The Loft in Atlanta, Georgia. The all ages party will feature a performance by Tim and his band plus an array supporting talent from The Modern Skirts, Y-O-U, and The Modern Society as well as a VIP party after the show.

The Lion of Truth is the 10-song follow-up to 2004's Bon Voyage, an album Brantley recorded and released before ever playing a show - the most backwards way to go about things, as he puts it. Whereas Brantley recorded Bon Voyage in three weeks with some friends, The Lion of Truth is the product of high-end studios (like Ruby Red) and collaborations with well-known producers Russ-T Cobb (Butch Walker, Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup, Sevendust) and Danny Howes. Whereas Bon Voyage sounded raw and young, The Lion of Truth sounds sleek and mature. Brantley has stepped into his own sound, while still hinting at the likes of Pete Yorn and Ryan Adams; much of that can be credited to playing with a full band for almost two years, as well as the current snapshot of where he is in his life.

A recent supporting video for Lion was shot in Boston, MA which features video clips from some of the tracks as well as a candid interview from Brantley. The video can be found at www.PublikMusic.com or on Time Warner’s Music on Demand channel.

Atlanta Braves fans might remember Tim Brantley from his recent Turner Field performance. He had the prestigious honor of singing the national anthem before the game, and then performed with his band to a stadium full of fans.

For more information on Tim Brantley or The Lion of Truth please visit Tim’s official website at www.TimBrantley.com

- N/A

The Fleeting Truth
Tim Brantley's New Album Offers Snapshots Of An Evolving Songwriter



Tim Brantley

As I sit in the green room at Andrews Upstairs - as “rock and roll” of a club as one can find nestled in the heart of Buckhead - surrounded by Tim Brantley and company, a few thoughts run through my mind. The first of which is: this isn’t the same Tim Brantley that I met a year and a half ago - the jeans and t-shirt kind of guy who had never done an interview before and who had barely a couple of gigs under his belt. Tonight, as he prepares for his show, it’s evident that this Tim Brantley is far more sure of himself, far more sure of his music and far more content with where he is in his life.

And as I quietly watch the goings-on of Brantley and his 10th Street Boys (formerly known as the Electric Horsemen, though who knows what they'll be called next week), another thing occurs to me: I wish I had a video camera. The scene isn’t quite what one would expect for a backstage area. The room isn’t filled with beautiful girls canoodling with the bandmembers and no one is doing drugs off the coffee table. In fact, all the coffee table is being used for is as a makeshift bottle opener for Brantley’s bottle of Heineken. The video camera would come in handy for those random ADD moments when the entire band breaks into “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket” from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory or when they all weigh in on guitarist Brent Kinney’s outfit for the evening (he ended up going with pinstripe pants and a red and black striped shirt, for the curious).

When opener Pasadena wraps up its set, Brantley, Kinney, guitarist Roy Carson and bassist "Captain Black" Jack Davey meander downstairs, meet drummer Guy Strauss and begin setting up for what will be the band’s final show in Atlanta before a CD release party in mid-June. Actually, just hours earlier, Brantley wrapped his 11-month recording process on the new album The Lion of Truth.

Brantley didn’t spend all 11 of those months recording, but rather sporadically scheduled studio time over the course of the past year in order to be more selective with the songs he had written. This caused him to scrap the majority of the 20–25 songs he had going in, and instead, record tunes he penned during the process. “I sort of changed my approach this time,” he explains. “I’ve always recorded whatever I was writing at the time and really didn’t worry too much about structuring songs or really having an idea for a record. I just recorded songs. With this, what I did was really try to pick the best songs that I had. And I wrote a lot of this as I was going.”

The Lion of Truth is the 10-song follow-up to 2004's Bon Voyage, an album Brantley recorded and released before ever playing a show - the most backwards way to go about things, as he puts it. Whereas Brantley recorded Bon Voyage in three weeks with some friends, The Lion of Truth is the product of high-end studios (like Ruby Red) and collaborations with well-known producers (like Russ-T Cobb). And whereas Bon Voyage sounded raw and young, The Lion of Truth sounds sleek and mature. Brantley has stepped into his own sound, while still hinting at the likes of Pete Yorn and Ryan Adams; much of that can be credited to playing with a full band for almost two years, as well as the current snapshot of where he is in his life.

“I don’t think there’s any possible comparison [between the two albums],” he admits. “I feel like it’s two different people if I listen to it. The songwriting is still relatively the same, as far as it’s the style I’ve created that I use. But comparing it to the other album, most wouldn’t know it’s the same person.”

So as Brantley prepares to bid farewell to Bon Voyage - save for “Damage,” the only track to make the leap from an earlier time to The Lion of Truth - he also gets ready to usher in some fresh excitement. It’s likely that only a handful of people in the packed crowd at Andrews Upstairs realize what it has taken for Brantley to get to this point. But, if everything goes according to his plan, The Lion of Truth will help them understand exactly where Tim Brantley is right now.

-Leah Weinberg
- Flagpole