HIPPO CAMPUS WITH THE GREETING COMMITTEE AS SUPPORT HIPPO CAMPUS
[http://hippocampus.band/]
Hippo Campus isaband from St. Paul, Minnesota. Formed in 2013,prior to
graduating from performing arts high school, the band started on a
break out trajectory following a series of talked-about performances
at SXSW.Thiswas immediately followed by their network television debut
on Conan. They’ve since risen to the forefront of their genre on the
backs of relentless touring and the strength of their debut album
'landmark'.
In October 2017, the band released their self-produced EP ‘warm
glow’ as an ode to loyalty and self-preservation. “We had tunes
that didn’t fit on ‘landmark’ but took on a life of their own.
The project became about the support we couldn’t find as individuals
but discovered as an entity.”
The band’s sophomore release, ‘Bambi’ was released on September
28th ,2018.
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THE GREETING COMMITTEE [http://www.thegcband.com/]
The Greeting Committee's full-length debut This Is It is a
coming-of-age story in album form, a reflection on growing up but
defiantly holding onto a certain innocence. All between the ages of 19
and 21, the Kansas City-based band delivers an undeniably original
selection of songs that feel as intimate as a basement recording but
unfold in intricate textures and melodic sophistication. And with her
delicate yet powerful vocals, Sartino instills This Is It with an
openheartedness that transcends age and time, bringing both dreamy
sensitivity and wide-eyed wisdom to every track.
"A lot of the album is about that point when you get to 19 or 20 and
look around only to ask yourself, 'Why did I want to grow up so badly?
Is this all there is?'" says Sartino. "But at the same time, the album
holds songs that were written when I was still in high school and
experiencing a lot of big firsts, so it's also a soundtrack to those
moments, the ones that lead me to where I am now."
This Is It arrives as the follow-up to Meeting People Is Easy, a 2017
EP that marked The Greeting Committee's debut release for Harvest
Records. Working with producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray
for the Riff Raff) and recording at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville, the
band expands on the finespun brand of alt-rock that landed them a
major label deal when they were still in high school. As The Greeting
Committee's most fully realized work to date, This Is It finds the
foursome enlisting background vocalists, horn players, and a string
section to shape a lavish but gritty sound perfectly suited to the
album's vast emotional scope.
Throughout This Is It, The Greeting Committee sustain a raw vitality
that makes even the melancholy of the album-opening "Is This It?" feel
hypnotic and thrilling. On "You've Got Me" the band shifts into
feel-good romanticism, the song's soulful horns and backup vocals
blending with Sartino's lovestruck lyrics ("Built my life around sound
to keep you dancing"). "Flint" brings jittery rhythms and jagged
guitar work to its exploration of "being afraid of your own potential
and revolting against your future," as Sartino puts it, while the
"Don't Go" offers a shimmering and sweetly hopeful meditation on
coping with abandonment issues. And with its airy grace and tender
harmonies, "Gold Star" examines what Sartino refers to as "the weight
of being the eldest daughter, as well as a big sister to six younger
siblings, and how that can be tough but also so rewarding."
This Is It also features a longtime live favorite for Greeting
Committee fans, a string-laced serenade named "Birthday Song." In
penning the lyrics, Sartino drew from a journal entry she'd written on
her 16thth birthday. "I was thinking about how your birthday begins to
hold a sense of sadness as you get older, how the unknown of the
future can be so paralyzing. That led me to create a story of a boy at
his eighth birthday party," says Sartino. "He's sitting there looking
at his cake on what is supposed to be the best day of his life, but
something feels wrong. Everyone is looking at him as though the cake
is going to eat him instead. He later discovers that his parents are
getting divorced, something everyone else in the room already knew.
From then on he stops believing in the magic held in a birthday
candle." With its quiet intensity and heart-crushing lyrics ("Wishing
too hard for them to stay/You burnt the house down"), "Birthday Song"
pulled from her own experience in dealing with her parents' divorce.
"It kind of came from imagining what would happen to my little brother
if his parents got divorced," she says. "Even if it's a story I'm
making up, there is always a bit of truth."
On tracks like "Birthday Song," Sartino shows the elegant songcraft
she's honed since she was a kid. "I've been writings songs for as long
as I can remember," she says. "In first grade someone asked me what I
was going to be when I grew up and I said a rock star, and from then
on that's all I wanted." Thanks in part to the influence of her
stepfather, who took her to a Vampire Weekend show when she was 12,
she later channeled an edgy sensibility into her songs and began
performing at open mics at age 14. "I was playing songs I'd written
myself, but I just felt really lonely up there," she recalls. "After a
while I met Brandon and he started accompanying me, and it felt so
much better." Yangmi and Sartino soon brought Turcotte and Fraser into
the fold and, in a nod to a T-shirt worn by John Lennon in a Beatles
documentary, named themselves The Greeting Committee.
Formed in summer 2014, The Greeting Committee self-released their
debut EP It's Not All That Bad in fall 2015 and sent it to local radio
station 96.5 The Buzz. The EP quickly caught the ear of
programmer/on-air personality Lazlo Geiger, who played lead single
"Hands Down" on The Buzz and helped the track to amass over 10 million
streams on Spotify. As record labels came calling, The Greeting
Committee ultimately signed with Harvest Records and put out Meeting
People Is Easy in March 2017.
Since the breakout success of "Hands Down," The Greeting Committee
have spent much of their time on the road, touring with the likes of
Jukebox the Ghost, Saint Motel, Tennis, MisterWives, and Andrew
McMahon in the Wilderness, in addition to appearing at major festivals
like Lollapalooza and SXSW. "While we were still in school, we'd do
two-week runs whenever we could," says Sartino. "Our teachers were
fine with it. I think they realized, 'Okay, these kids have a record
deal, I don't need hound them about solving some math equation.'"
Like any work of art that honestly documents the formative years --
including J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which Sartino names
among her songwriting inspirations -- This Is It invites endless
revisiting, revealing new insight each time. But for Sartino, who
recently wrote an essay for Rookie about her experience as a queer
frontwoman and how her goal is to "show others that they should be
confident in ways that make them comfortable," The Greeting
Committee's central mission is provide a sense of connection and
solace. "I think what people look for in music is vulnerability, and
the feeling that someone else understands what you're going through,"
she says. "My favorite part of all this is having people tell me that
something I wrote made them feel less alone, because that's what
music's always done for me and for the people I love."
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_Standing Room Only, General Admission Venue_
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13/11/2019 Last update