The Ready Set is Jordan Witzigreuter of Fort Wayne Indiana. His debut album “Tantrum Castle” is available at your favorite music retailer. Featured below is his song “The Scientist”, which features pop punky vocals with the autotuner turned on high as a hamster dance backing track wiggles and explodes with joy.
February 24, 2009
The Ready Set Touring! New Single!
The Ready Set is Jordan Witzigreuter of Fort Wayne Indiana. His debut album “Tantrum Castle” is available at your favorite music retailer. Featured below is his song “The Scientist”, which features pop punky vocals with the autotuner turned on high as a hamster dance backing track wiggles and explodes with joy.
June 3, 2007
Elkland caught in a Goat Explosion
Elkland, was an up and coming synth pop band from upstate New York (where I reside) led by vocalist Jonathan Pierce. They also performed at Alfred University, opening for VHS or Beta. They released a highly enjoyable, fully formed, synth pop album named “Golden” in 2005. After that I didn’t hear much from them, apparently Pierce (From a statement on their website) thought that shooting this promising band in the face was the best thing to do. While I disagree with that, Pierce has teamed up with former bandmate Jacob Graham of Orlando’s Flashlight Party to reform their old band Goat Explosion. While not as polished and fully formed as the Elkland debut, Goat Explosion features just as much electronics and huge hooks, and the more electro sound has allowed them to open up and feature some different structures and vocal melodies that at times lean towards a Morrissey vocal style rather than the old Depeche Mode Cure Hybrid Vocals. It’s been a while since they released their “Hope is Alive” EP, and I hope they don’t have any firearms aimed at this project’s head as well, because I would really like to hear what they have coming up next.
MP3 – Goat Explosion – Come on Make Me Feel
MP3 – Goat Explosion – You’re Right There
MP3 – Elkland – Everybody’s Leaving
Elkland – Apart Video:
May 30, 2007
Plush Guns Shoot Synth Pop
It seems that pop punk has found my weakness. Keyboards. Blink 182 tried desperately for me to like their last effort with their synth laced songs and guest vocals by Robert Smith, at that point I resisted. Hellogoodbye covered their whiney emo voice with a vocoder and injected their songs with dance-y electro, this left me unable to decide whether they were actually good or if everything that I stood for musically was being compromised. Luckily, new artist Plushgun (Dan Ingala) isn’t forcing me to make such rash decisions about my musical taste. While he does include the traditional power chords of pop punkers, it is pushed way back in favor of synth strings and plucky melodies. Plushgun’s stripped down retro electro sound, especially on “The Dark in You”, calls to mind a more stadium ready Joy Electric or early Depeche Mode. The piano ballad “An Aria” sounds like a Snow Patrol ballad with a drum machine and synths, and that only makes it better. The crowning achievement up until this point is the catchy high school satire of “How We Roll” which goes from pop punk accessibility to a wafting melody to an aggressive dance beat and back again. Well there you go, I didn’t think it was that simple, but if you want me to like mainstream pop music, put the keyboards up front and give it a dance beat.
