Milk and Honey – As Tall As Lions

I’m off to the Soundwave Festival tomorrow, to experience the best that the emo, screamo, pop punk, alternative, hardcore, and metal genres have to offer, so this week’s MP3 is from a band I would never have discovered if not for Soundwave.

As Tall As Lions formed sometime in 2001, somewhere in New York, and have four rather excellent releases to their collective name. Fast forward to 2007, when I was at Soundwave to photograph a friends band while battling a raging headcold. They were one of the first bands of the day, my job was essentially done, so I took a lazy wander around the showgrounds while I decided to stay or go. On an out-of-the-way stage, playing to a handful of people, were As Tall As Lions. I’d never heard of them, but they were very different to the ‘yelling bands’ on all the other stages, and much easier to listen to. I stayed to watch them for a little while, but the cold got the better of me, so I cut it short.

A year later ATAL returned to Soundwave, albeit in acoustic form with just Dan Nigro and Julio Tavarez. I was so determined to experience them properly that I didn’t even take any photos (thus the stock-standard press photo up there). Again on an out-of-the-way stage, again to a handful of people, but again simply hypnotic and beautiful. They opened with a stunning cover of ‘Hallelujah’. If I wasn’t 100% sold before, I was after that point.

It was hard to pick one song to define As Tall As Lions, but the song I chose has a similar vibe to the songs of an Australian band which I absolutely love, Epicure. They’re very much an ‘album’ band as opposed to a single band, so if you like this one, please check out their self-titled LP.

Unfortunately they’re not on the lineup for Soundwave tomorrow, it seems to be a much heavier vibe this year, but I’m looking forward to their return to Perth.

Enjoy.

-LYRICS UNDER THE CUT-

One of the most obvious side-effects of cutting down my photo workload, is the fact that now I have time to blog…but I have no photos to post! So to combat that, I’ve decided to go back to where it all began: music.

Most music photographers start out through their overwhelming love of music, the photography itself is just a recording medium. With that in mind, I thought I’d start up a regular series of ‘music appreciation’ posts, with songs I love, bands I love, songs with a funny story attached, whatever. The idea (and yes, the title as well) was ripped off William Beckett’s ‘Saturday Night Music Club’, so to pay due respect, he gets to kick off the series.

Bulls In Brooklyn – The Academy Is… (Santi)

It was hard picking one Academy song, but I went with one of my favourites off ‘Santi’, Bulls in Brooklyn. I hadn’t really heard of these guys before last year, they were due to support Panic at the Disco, so I thought I’d check them out and see if they were worth turning up early for. Were they ever. I clicked immediately with their infectious pop/rock/emo/whatever style, and was looking forward to seeing them live. The Academy Is… in the flesh totally lived up to all my expectations, due in no small part to charismatic frontman William Beckett who had the crowd eating out of his hand. I walked past him backstage after my three songs for Panic, tucked against a wall in the hallway, headphones in and laptop on knees. I’d wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed the band, but once he glanced up and we made brief eye contact, I knew that avoiding an inevitably stammering conversation on my part might be the better option.

Enjoy

(PS. If anyone has dramas with the music player, let me know. It works fine for me, but I can’t test it on EVERY browser. And yeah, I know there’s no volume control, I’m still on the hunt for a ridiculously simple streaming MP3 player that doesn’t start the volume at 11)

-LYRICS UNDER THE CUT-