By Raoul Hernandez
Published on April 23, 2010 at 1:41am
The Parish, Friday, Apr 23
“Our overall set went well at Carousel Lounge the last night,” e-mailed Sour Notes frontman Jared Boulanger about the locals’ SXSW 2010 showing. “We were so loopy by then it was just way fun and interactive.” The quartet’s Shinsian pop finds a perfect show counterpart in the classically minded arrangements of chamber-pop orchestra Mother Falcon, which made its name at last month’s Austin Music Awards. Fellow locals She Sir and the Authors make it a foursome.
By Raoul Hernandez
Published on March 17, 2010 at 1:41am
The Sour Notes
12mid, the Hideout Four songs on the Sour Notes’ third pop pleaser, It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty, were inspired by Criterion DVD titles: “The Distant Knell” (The Seventh Seal), “A Cute Little Ruin” (Jules and Jim), “One Word Emotions” (Pierrot le Fou), and “It’s the Hair That Makes the Dress Chic” (La Notte). Take that, James Mercer! The Austin quartet sells out New York.
By Raoul Hernandez
Published on March 12, 2010 at 1:41am
The Sour Notes
SXSW showcase: Wednesday, March 17, the Hideout, 12mid
No one was more surprised than Jared Boulanger when Waterloo Records cut him a $600 check for his record collection. The Sour Note figured they’d take most of it, but not every last piece. Said stake then paid for the local pop quartet’s second album, 2009’s Received in Bitterness, but today in the Chronicle bubbleplex, the skinny Boulanger finds himself jobless, thankful for food stamps, and indebted to his girlfriend. Heartbroken as he may be about his music library, the Sour Notes’ third disc, It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty, was worth the struggle.
“I’m not afraid to say this album will be the best record I’ll ever put out,” he told us in January, and six weeks later the 29-year-old singer-songwriter still believes. “I call the new album the best I’ll ever do just because the songs came together all in a row like a stream of consciousness,” he explains. “Everything always sounded right. There wasn’t ever a point in the recording or the writing process where we were like, ‘What should we do here?’ The way the songs flow in and out of each other just feels perfect to me. I don’t think I’ll get that perfection again with this kind of sound.
“From the beginning up until this album, we’ve been on the wave, getting more experimental and louder and faster and more rock & roll. All the elements of our four [releases] are on this one. The first one’s kinda quiet, the second one’s garage-y, then we put out the 7-inch, and it was rock-sounding. It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty encompasses everything I’ve ever tried to do. The next one, even though there will still be elements of the Sour Notes’ sound on it, needs to be a new direction, because you can’t just keep feeding people the same ol’ song and dance.”
Somewhere between Fountains of Wayne’s Teflon hooks and the Shins‘ minor-key reveries, the Sour Notes – Boulanger, multi-instrumentalist Chris Page, keyboardist Elaine Greer, and drummer Travis Hackett – emote anything but the same ol’ song and dance, especially here in cow town.
“Totally,” humbles Boulanger, who moved to Austin from Houston in 2008. “I think that’s been our biggest struggle so far. Not only did I move here knowing nobody and not having any connections – and having to start from nothing – we don’t have that niche. We don’t fit into a certain group. I feel like there’s a scene within the Austin music scene, people who have that sound, like Strange Boys and Harlem. That’s a really popular sound right now, and people love it. I love both those bands. But I don’t think they’d accept us in their scene. Not because other bands sound better or worse, it’s just their scene.”
By Audra Schroeder
Published on March 5, 2010 at 1:41am
, Cowabunga BabesLamberts, Friday, Mar 5
This local layer cake will go straight to your hips, in a good way. The sweet country ballads of Monarchs creep up on you, courtesy of rare songbird Celeste Griffin. The recent release of the Sour Notes’ It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty marks big things for the Austin fourpiece; the pop confections are easy on the ears, but they’ve got the chops to cover Jawbreaker. Openers Cowabunga Babes have returned from tour, ready to get their Kinks off.
By Austin Powell
Published on January 22, 2010 at 1:41am
In bowling terms, the Sour Notes just notched a turkey: three significant, successive releases in just over a year. Latest LP It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty rules the roost – dense, sincere indie pop for the Garden State generation. “I’m not afraid to say that this album will be the best record I’ll ever put out,” admits singer-songwriter Jared Boulanger. “That’s kind of disheartening to say, but we’ve gotten progressively louder and thicker in the sound and faster paced. It’s like everything that we tried to do previously came together on this album.” Originally envisioned as a solo vehicle, the Sour Notes has ripened quickly since Boulanger moved to Austin from Houston in 2008, coinciding with the release of the band’s debut EP, The Meat of the Fruit. The quartet just finished a two-week East Coast tour that was filmed for a documentary, and a third full-length is already in the can, though Boulanger plans to hold off on its release for a while in hopes of gaining some more national attention. “I like to think that I’m writing little pop song scores to movies,” relates Boulanger, who shares a house with multi-instrumentalist Chris Page. “Most of the songs are themed after specific movies in the Criterion Collection. I get totally wrapped up in the feeling of what I’m watching and let that dictate the music.” The Sour Notes light up Mohawk on Thursday, Jan. 28, with contemporaries the Demigs and Zest of Yore.
