loremmagazines

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Issue 4 - Grocery Bag

It’s no secret that Austin, TX is a hotbed for musical talent, producing captivating live acts in any available corner. While compiling a list of every must-see band may feel like a seemingly impossible task, there’s no doubt that Grocery Bag would find themselves at the top.

Acting as one of Austin’s premiere rock ensembles, Grocery Bag leaves audiences in the wake of their own fevered mosh pits, incited solely by the fast paced rhythms that define the “psyche-punk” ethos found in every one of their live performances. Now being recognized by the Austin music scene with nominations in the Austin Music Awards and official showcases as SXSW artists, Grocery Bag has found themselves with the recognition they have long been deserving of.

The band is fronted by guitarist Bella Martinez, with Jimmy Mercado on drums, Dillon Aitala on lead guitar, and Logan Kerman on bass. 

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Following an electrifying performance filled with intense head banging and frequent crowd surfing, Grocery Bag and I found ourselves seated on the back patio of Hotel Vegas discussing how the the current lineup of the group came to be.

Bella: Grocery Bag used to be an old band that I had in San Antonio. I had gotten asked to do a show and I was like “Hey guys (current Grocery Bag line-up) I have this old band, would you guys possibly want to start something with this?”

Logan: We literally had our first band practice over Instagram Live mid-covid.

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Met with a coalescence of shared influences ranging from Rush, Ty Segall, The Police, and more, Grocery Bag has found themselves with a truly unique sound. With the ability to show off their technical virtuosity in a musically rewarding way, the group allows each and every song to be elevated beyond a previously set standard.

Dillon: I think it’s our love to create. I want to reciprocate in some sort of way, the energy our favorite bands give us. All of the bands we love, we want to put it into our own words by playing our instruments.

Jimmy: I just like how, complex musicianship can like, heighten a song and make it super intriguing and powerful. I think bands like Yes and Rush, they just compliment the music with their drums differently then maybe someone like, Ringo Starr. 

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Following the release of singles such as Alone and XING, Grocery Bag announced their highly anticipated debut album Break You, with an official release in November of 2023. This quintessential introduction was set to record at Matchbox Studios with producer Jackson Baker at the helm.

“Without him the album wouldn’t be the same.”

Bella: It was a whole week of being together in such a great environment with Jackson. It felt like we were hanging out with our homie, making music with him. He was just like ‘oh, do this, do that, add this!’”

Jimmy: When you think of a producer, they’re someone who really thinks about the music. Jackson really spiced it up and put his flavors into it and made it sound amazing. It was just like working with your best friend. 

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As our interview with Grocery Bag was wrapping up, a security guard from Hotel Vegas kindly informed us that they were closing for the night. Making their way back inside to gather their gear, the band was kind enough to answer one final question before heading out.

Each member of Grocery Bag has had their own unique level of involvement in the Austin music scene prior to the group’s formation. From playing in multiple bands, being a concert photographer, booking DIY shows, and more, this band has been, and still is, a part of the engine that keeps this scene alive.

Now being recognized by the Austin Chronicle as a nominee for Best New Act at the Austin Music Awards, along with their recently announced status as the official artist of SXSW, their hard work is beginning to receive the recognition it has been deserving of.

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Jimmy: It really means something that people would nominate us. It’s really it’s own destiny in a way.

Logan: I think it’s just motivation to keep going. It’s validation that we’re adding to the collection of music Austin produces. 

Dillon: A true privilege. I feel very lucky, I definitely don’t deserve this life nor to play in a band like this.

Bella: It feels pretty crazy! Also, it’s Dillon’s first band!

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With each electrifying performance leaving a trail of audiences in a fevered frenzy, Grocery Bag continues to solidify their status as Austin's hottest band. As they gear up for a packed schedule of official SXSW showcases, you can listen to Grocery Bag’s latest release, 'Break You', available on all streaming platforms. Keep an eye out for restocks of physical copies in select Austin record stores; copies of this must-own album sell out fast!

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Issue 3 - Water From Your Eyes

Meet Water From Your Eyes, the experimental pop-duo making waves from the boroughs of New York City. With Rachel Brown providing their passive yet alluring vocal style, and Nate Amos bringing his defining experimental production, Water From Your Eyes has managed to carve out a space of their own in today’s musical landscape.

Since taking on a more experimental approach with their sound, the duo received new levels of criticalreception with each new release. In support of their latest album, Water From Your Eyes sat down with me to discuss the new stage the duo’s career is in.

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As we make our way to Koriente’s for a quick bite to eat, Rachel and Nate take me through their back-to-back schedule filled with DJ set’s, interviews, and live sessions during Austin’s Levitation Festival. Though a recent occurrence, this type of schedule is not unusual for the duo. Following the release of their critically acclaimed album Everyone’s Crushed, Water From Your Eyes has made it onto everyone’s list with features and reviews from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and NME.

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Nate: A lot of the press things that happen are like, in one ear and out the other. It takes too much energy to process all of them, but there’s been a big difference between what’s happening now and early 2022.

Rachel: Yeah, I feel like now if we headlined a show in a city we don’t live in, there’s actually a chance that people will be there? We’d never done the touring thing, so it’s not like we’d been in communities outside of New York.

Prior to the critical praise received for albums such as Structure and Everyone’s Crushed, the experimental musical direction now displayed by the duo originally found itself at the cross roads of Water From Your Eyes’ pure-pop roots and Nate’s experimental solo project This Is Lorelei.

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Having originally met through the Chicago DIY Music Scene, Rachel and Nate would work on music together, officially dating in the process. Following Nate’s relocation to New York, Water From Your Eyes would become the duo’s main focus, trading places with each of their solo project’s.

Nate: We just got really tight really quickly.

Rachel: We started dating and never stopped hanging out, until we stopped hanging out. Then we stopped hanging out.

Later ending the relationship and continuing the project as collaborators, the group would take on a transformation of identity during this period. Sighting their ramp up into “break up mode” as a possible source, the group quickly found themselves at an inflection point. musically.

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Rachel: Yeah, that time period is very confusing. I didn’t want to work on music with Nate, so it became this thing where Nate’s solo music and Water From Your Eyes were so linked. I wasn’t paying attention at that time.

“It’s the first time we made something, and it actually made sense as a thing.”

Nate: Break/Freaking me in is a great example of this because either one of those songs could have ended up on either musical project. I think of Structure as like, the first Water From Your Eye’s album. It was a growing pain both creatively and personally for us.

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A new level of unhinged creativity was brought forth by Water From Your Eyes this November with the official release of their remix album titled Crushed By Everyone. Featuring a reworked version of Everyone Crushed by incredible artists such as Sword II and The Dare, this album manages to take the inherent beauty found in each song and show them in a new and equally unique light.

Nate: Yeah, it kinda became a process where we’d make a list of people we wanted to see remix our songs and realizing which ones were realistic.

Rachel: We did ask The Flaming Lips, but they didn’t respond. Wayne Coyne does send us the most out of context photos though.

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Supporting the band Squid for their North American tour, Water From Your Eyes will be making their first stop at Austin’s very own venue, The Parish, in early February. Providing a unique performance that is as nonchalant as it is captivating, Water From Your Eyes is a must see band with a discography balanced beautifully between their pure-pop and experimental roots.

Following their performance at Austin’s Levitation Festival, we here at Lorem Magazine highly recommend you check out Water From Your Eyes live if you do get the chance.

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Issue 2 - chokecherry

Coming straight from the heart of the San Francisco Music scene, Chokecherry’s blend of shoegaze and grunge cut’s you like a knife and leaves you begging more. With Izzie on Guitar and Scarlett on Bass, their unique blend of musical styles creates an undeniable chemistry felt by both the audience and the band. 

Originally only knowing each other through their respective bands, Izzie with ‘Thank You Come Again’ and Scarlett with ‘Fauxes,’ the duo struck a match through a fateful swipe on Hinge.

Growing into a friendship, the pair decided that starting a band was their next destined step. Officially making their debut in September of 2022, chokecherry would soon begin playing together as a declaration for what’s to come.

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“it’s really fun to share the front person duties with someone else”

Calling in from an apartment in San Marcos, a park in San Francisco, and a quick stop to “Rhea's Deli & Market,”  Scarlett, Izzie, and I sat down over the phone to discuss everything from their favorite colors to the Bay Area music scene, and most importantly, how chokecherry came to be. 

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Scarlett: I went to UC Berkeley, where I started my first band, Fauxes, with my friend Nick. Fauxes has played at Freakout Festival, opened for incredible acts like Destroy Boys, and toured down to Mexico- which has been absolutely amazing. I love being in two bands at once. It’s really exciting to experiment with different styles of music.

Izzie: Before I was in chokecherry and Thank You Come Again, I was in a band called GRLS, which I fronted with my friend Emma. Emma and I also sang together, kind like what Scarlett and I do, and it’s really fun to share the front person duties with somebody else. It feels a lot less scary-

Scarlett: And lonely! 

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Izzie: It’s really nice to be able to come and do that again with Scarlett. I guess the difference here is, everything’s just happening so fast! We have these amazing opportunities and I think that there’s just something tangible there that feels really authentic to the kind of music we want to make. 

“It’s something you expect to happen ten years down the line...” 

In May of 2023, chokecherry released their first single, Glass Jaw, which was met with viral success following a feature from The Bun 91.3. Now sitting at over one million plays in just over five months, chokecherry’s embrace from the San Francisco music scene has been all but cold.

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Scarlett: Because Izzie and I had been in the San Francisco scene for a long time, people were really excited for us to come together and create this project. Everyone called it a supergroup. I woke up and I saw we had a couple hundred new followers, and I thought that it was a mistake or something.

Izzie: It was so crazy! I woke up and was freaking out, I couldn’t eat all day because it was so awesome. I was overwhelmed with how it felt but grateful.

Scarlett: It’s something you expect to happen ten years down the line and it’s happening right now. It was really incredible and really special.

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Izzie: It’s shocking to accept that you’re in the position where the promoters are like “oh, we need to get this band on the bill.” I work marketing at a venue we’re playing in a couple of weeks, and it’s funny to put the marketing plan together for our show.

“A massive renaissance in the past couple of years”

Scarlett: The music scene here has had a massive renaissance in the past couple of years. We have a really solid hardcore scene, there’s an incredible garage & shoe-gaze scene that’s popping up, and it’s super exciting to be a part of that and watch it take off. 

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Off the back of their success with ‘Glass Jaw,’ chokecherry released their new single ‘Around Around Around,’ citing it as an “extension of the Glass Jaw universe.” An early demo of this song can be found on their Bandcamp, offering a slower and more brooding take for what would later become their second single. 

Scarlett: ‘Around Around Around’ is the first song we ever wrote together as a band. I feel like ‘Glass Jaw’ is like, holding on and annoyed while ‘Around Around Around’ feels like letting go and relief. They almost feel like two sides of the same coin.

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With an album and EP in the pipeline, and a new single planned for release later this year, everything to come from chokecherry  is destined to be their “most unhinged thing yet.”You can catch chokecherry live at San Francisco’s Psyched Festival this weekend or on tour with Death Valley Girl’s as they support them through their Fall 2023 tour along the West Coast. 

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[loremmagazines]

Issue 1 - Bird and Byron

From their new home in Nashville, Bird and Byron bring along a unique blend of soul and rock music, creating a discography full of undeniably infectious songs. Making their debut as a group in 2020 with their first release, The Boy is a Storm, Bird and Byron tested their chemistry through shared influences of The Black Keys and blues music. With lead singer Blake Bergeres developing a unique vocal style and guitarists Nick Lorenz bringing in new and obscure music to the group, the duo has been able to dig into the stylings of soul, gospel, and emotional folk rock with their sound. In January, Bird and Byron released their first ep, How Love Grows, followed by a six-show tour along the southern U.S. I was able to catch up with them in Austin during their last show of the tour to discuss how the project came together.

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“It’s not me writing all the vocal parts, we’re building these tracks together.”

In the back of a dimly lit Empire Garage & Control Room venue, Nick and Blake introduced us to the band members supporting them on stage as we make our way to a standing table. Blake, wearing a tucked-in RHCP shirt, explains to us the process behind making their EP.

Blake: How Love Grows is entirely written, produced, mixed, and mastered ourselves, except for the song Lessons Of Love, which was mastered by Brian Lucey from Magic Garden Master. In terms of differences between what we’ve done before was that it was a labor of love, because we had every connection to the creative process in each of these songs. We wanted to keep control of it because that’s where the fun is.

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In anticipation of the debut of How Love Grows, Bird and Byron released five singles in what they called their "45" series, which was "an initial documentation of our first releases in our new home of Nashville.” Accompanied by a different colored sleeve of a 45’ record, each single contained a new stamp alongside the ones found on the previous covers. When asked if there was any significance behind the stamps on the singles, the eyes of both Blake and Nick lit up with surprise as they explained to us how the stamps came to be.

Blake: Nicks girlfriend does the art work, she’s incredible. We’d have these songs written and we’d go to her and she’d devise something that would embody the song and it’d be a stamp on the vinyl.

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With the Pandemic in place during the start of the band's career, dreams of touring were put on hold for Bird and Byron as they turned their attention toward their music. Now, In support of The Criticals, Bird and Byron were able to go on their first-ever tour, playing shows in Mississippi, The Carolinas, and Texas. From videos shown in their stories, the reaction from the crowds was found to be exhilarating. The energy at the shows seemed to be in a continuous exchange between the band and the crowd. 

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In asking how the band felt about the audience reception so far, I was surprised to hear that a majority of the concert goers didn’t know who Bird and Byron were.

Nick: We knows that there’s been a good amount of people that haven’t heard us that come to these shows, and I feel like we’ve been doing a good job showing them who we are and the music that we really want to inspire people with.

Blake: You’ll see tonight, we’ll get the crowd going and a lot of these people really won’t know who we are. I bet you like 80% of this crowd won’t know who we are, so when they get moving, you’ll see.

And that they did. With Nick wearing his pair of black sunglasses, and Blake wearing a white, Elvis inspired, t-shirt with the word “BIRD” sewn to the back (as seen on the back cover,) Bird and Byron got the crowd into a dancing frenzy.

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“We’re just happy the music’s connecting. This is kinda like the reward for it”

As the tour comes to a close with their last show in Austin, Bird and Byron are hopeful for the future as they begin a new chapter in their careers. In discussing any plans for a future project, the group lets us know that an album may just be around the corner.

Nick: We both have day jobs, but every minute of every hour outside of it we dedicate to the music.

Bird: We’re in album mode right now, its been like 4-5 hours a day. Most of the songs are already written, and now it’s just like finishing them. They all feel really cool and they all feel like us. We’ll play one of the songs tonight, Its looking like it might be around summertime.

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With anticipation for a future release growing as Bird and Byron hint at the possibility through their Instagram, this band is one to keep your ears out for. With a discography of infectious songs, a commanding presence on stage, and artistry that is both refined as it is their own, we’re both excited to hear more of what Bird and Byron have to offer.

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Issue 1 - Bird and Byron