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Tour Dates
12/13/15 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
12/14/15 Boise, ID Neurolux 12/15/15 Seattle, WA Columbia City Theatre 12/16/15 Portland, OR Bunk Bar 12/17/15 San Francisco, CA Bottom Of The Hill 12/18/15 Los Angeles, CA Bootleg Theater 12/19/15 Phoenix, AZ Valley Bar 12/21/15 Austin, TX The Mohawk 12/22/15 Dallas, TX Double Wide Read More
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J Fernandez's first stop on his tour in support of his debut album Many Levels of Laughter was Wednesday night at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis.
J Fernandez is an Arkansas native who has been in living and making music in Chicago. His music is indie pop but don't be too quick in assuming it sounds like everything else out there. There are moments in his music where you hear pure psychedelic rock. Then there are moments where the vocals fall out and you are left with some beautiful instrumentation. J. Fernandez is hard to categorize because the music is so diverse. I'm not talking just between the songs, I'm talking in the songs.
It wasn't loud music. It wasn't necessarily fast. It wasn't anything that I typically truly enjoy, but I enjoyed every single moment of it. The driving baselines matched with the prominent keyboard sound had me intrigued and had me stuck.
The lyrics were all over the place. There were some lyrics that hit you right where it hurts. They were so dark and gloomy but they were hard to catch because the music was much more upbeat and led you to believe it was a happy song. Not a song with lyrics like "You laugh at everything/ this is no joke". Sometimes they were funny and relatable especially when Fernandez would sing about the mundane things in his life. Other times you were stuck wondering what kind of drugs he was on when writing and lyrics and how can you get some?
Two locals were fortunate enough to open for this up and coming artist.
The Awful Truth completely caught me off guard. Brent Colbert, singer, has a voice that made me stop dead in my tracks. There were times where I would have sworn it was Casey Crescenzo (from The Dear Hunter/ Receiving End of Sirens) on that stage, but it wasn't. It was yet another amazing local band from up here in the Twin Cities.
Wednesday was The Awful Truth's first night playing in the legendary First Avenue building and I hope and pray that it won't be the last. Not only were the vocals on point, the whole band sounded crisp and clean. Usually when a band has a cello player, that cello player is actually the keyboardist who decided to experiment with a cello and figured out enough notes to play on maybe one song. Last night was the complete opposite. Stephen Sokolouski seemed to be a cello player who decided to experiment with a piano. Unfortunately, the cello was only featured on a few songs but when it was, I couldn't take my eyes off of Stephen. He played it so professionally and it had such a great tone. That being said, it didn't overpower anything else that was going on on stage. It was just a nice added feature that you truly don't get to see much in local bands.
The first opening band was Panther Ray. They treated the audience to some new material. Well, let's be honest, it was all new to majority of the crowd. But the growing crowd seemed to truly enjoy it.
Think The Libertines meet The Kills but without the drugs and with professionalism (not bashing either the Libertines or the Kills, I promise!).
Panther Ray's third full length Ripple is out now on Forged Artifacts.
J Fernandez's album Many Levels of Laughter is out now on Joyful Noise.
J Fernandez is an Arkansas native who has been in living and making music in Chicago. His music is indie pop but don't be too quick in assuming it sounds like everything else out there. There are moments in his music where you hear pure psychedelic rock. Then there are moments where the vocals fall out and you are left with some beautiful instrumentation. J. Fernandez is hard to categorize because the music is so diverse. I'm not talking just between the songs, I'm talking in the songs.
It wasn't loud music. It wasn't necessarily fast. It wasn't anything that I typically truly enjoy, but I enjoyed every single moment of it. The driving baselines matched with the prominent keyboard sound had me intrigued and had me stuck.
The lyrics were all over the place. There were some lyrics that hit you right where it hurts. They were so dark and gloomy but they were hard to catch because the music was much more upbeat and led you to believe it was a happy song. Not a song with lyrics like "You laugh at everything/ this is no joke". Sometimes they were funny and relatable especially when Fernandez would sing about the mundane things in his life. Other times you were stuck wondering what kind of drugs he was on when writing and lyrics and how can you get some?
Two locals were fortunate enough to open for this up and coming artist.
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The Awful Truth |
Wednesday was The Awful Truth's first night playing in the legendary First Avenue building and I hope and pray that it won't be the last. Not only were the vocals on point, the whole band sounded crisp and clean. Usually when a band has a cello player, that cello player is actually the keyboardist who decided to experiment with a cello and figured out enough notes to play on maybe one song. Last night was the complete opposite. Stephen Sokolouski seemed to be a cello player who decided to experiment with a piano. Unfortunately, the cello was only featured on a few songs but when it was, I couldn't take my eyes off of Stephen. He played it so professionally and it had such a great tone. That being said, it didn't overpower anything else that was going on on stage. It was just a nice added feature that you truly don't get to see much in local bands.
Panther Ray
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J Fernandez's album Many Levels of Laughter is out now on Joyful Noise.
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J. Fernandez at 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis (09 December 2015) |
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