The Eskimo Kiss Records showcase at the Soapbox in Wilmington is Sunday night, May 30 at 9pm. See our WE Fest preview here & the fest site here.
mp3: The Good Graces -- "Working Title" My first experience of Eskimo Kiss Records was a sticker on a fire hydrant in Decatur, GA. Later when I moved to Wilmington, NC and wrote a story about Eskimo Kiss, I found out that Eskimo Kiss was started in Wilmington and that founder Kim Ware had moved to Atlanta.
What a weird, wired, small world.
Anyway, Kim is closing up Eskimo Kiss after 10 years and is returning to WE Fest in Wilmington for a shutdown celebration or something. She's bringing along Chapel Hill's North Elementary, which is one of the bands I totally enjoy--and I found out about them thanks to Kim.
Eskimo Kiss has one last release, called "Let's Do Art and Be Best Friends" which is a ten year recap and will be released in June.
The label has a crazy beginning story, so I'll let Kim tell it and talk about "Let's Do Art" after the jump...
I started eskimo kiss records on a cold winter’s day in early 2000. It was snowing, which was somewhat atypical for the southeastern tip of North Carolina. Not a fan of cold weather, I felt sort of trapped, I think both due to the snow and also the confines of our tiny coastal town. Perhaps I was bored.
A few months prior to that snowstorm, which became known as the “Blizzard of 2000,” my then-husband had randomly won an all-expenses paid vacation to Las Vegas. While we were there I hit the jackpot on a slot machine. I came home with $4,000, not a huge sum by most people’s standards, but still, you can do a lot with $4,000. It just so happened that our band was sitting on a record we had just finished recording, wondering what to do with it. Suddenly, we had the money to put it out. And so on that snowy day, we decided it made sense to start a record label.
But since then, eskimo kiss has released 21 records. And me, I’ve divorced, moved
(several times), and fallen in love again. I’ve made lots of new friends, many through this label. I’ve lost some people really close to me. I’ve changed careers. And I’ve written songs about all of the above. Through it all, the only real day-to-day constant has been my label, the songs, and my cat. (I wrote a song about him too.) So as I began putting together this collection of songs, to serve as the final release for eskimo kiss, I realized it’s basically a documentation of the past 10 years of my life. As I listened to all the releases, trying to decide which songs to include, I couldn’t help but think of the moves, the new friends, the old ones … the heartbreak and the happiness that I felt along the way.
More after the jump...
WE Fest is a funny little bird. It's a Wilmington, NC staple--kind of the definition of the underground. Starting as a zine-exchange festival, each day is only $1 (or $3 for underage) and bands come not expecting to get a cent.
The fest's heyday feels past, not that I knew that heyday, but hey (ha!) I've been here three years and every year WE Fest catches me by surprise.
I always forget about it. I'm an innocent bystander. I don't know what the machinations of the fest are. I think I spoke to the famed Kenyatta once. I don't see his band on the schedule this year. Don't know what's going on. I always feel that it could be bigger, better than it is, that its ideals are kind of holding it back, or that it's no longer holding up its ideals (a lot of local bands...) or that the industry has passed it by (bands no longer wanting to take a chance in a small town by the beach anymore).
But that's WE Fest by design. You're not supposed to know the bands. You're supposed to discover bands. You're supposed to take a chance and stumble in somewhere That's how I found this band who unfortunately isn't playing this year.
I'll go ahead and compare it to Rad Fest. Sure, the music was more closely aligned, but there was punk, hardcore, math-rock, folk stuff. You got the sense the bands really wanted to be near one another. But it costs $25. Not $1.
Maybe $1 worked 14 years ago, but gas money is a lot, and food is a lot and people only buy their albums from large fruit companies they can access on their desktop.
So (by design? by ignorance? by laziness?) I don't know most of the bands playing (the full schedule is here), but here are the few that I can recommend. You should check them out even if you aren't finding your way to WE Fest this year.
All bands are at the Soapbox:
Thursday, May 27th:
8pm- Coup De Grace
12am-Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun
Friday, May 28th:
Bootleg Mag showcase
12pm-I Was Totally Destroying It
Saturday, May 29th
8pm -Unholy Tongues12am-Zach Broocke
(The fest is on Monday as well, but I don't know any of those bands...I'll be at the beach, I guess.)
More after the jump...
mp3: Sunglasses: "Stand Fast"
Happy go lucky, maybe? Sunglasses are Savannah, GA inspired dance-pop. Yes, Samuel Cooper and Brady Keehn met at art school. No, that doesn't mean it sucks. Yes, they made an art film together. No, that doesn't mean you shouldn't like the band.
Their S/T EP comes out June 15 from Lefse.
More after the jump...
mp3: Mouse Fire -- "True I May Have Lost It"
Florida band Mouse Fire is out of the gates on tour in promotion of their new album, Big Emotion, out June 8 from Lujo Records. Their new single, "True I May Have Lost It" is above.
Loose alt-rock, it really reminds me of this fav band. I love Mouse Fire, I love Big Emotion. You will love them too. I think Louisiana people love this band--2 dates in Shreveport!?!?
More Mouse Fire on Deckfight.
Dates below... 
5/21 Gainesville, FL @ The Atlantic
5/22 Pensacola, FL @ A House
5/24 Lafayette, LA @ Artmosphere
5/25 Shreveport, LA @ Dalzell House
5/26 Hot Springs, AR @ Maxine's
5/27 Little Rock, AR @ Vino's
5/28 Oklahoma City, OK @ Sauced
5/29 Austin, TX @ The Ghost Room
5/30 San Antonio, TX @ The Ten Eleven
6/2 El Paso, TX @ Percolator
6/3 Las Cruces, NM @ The Equinox
6/4 Tucson, AZ @ The Hut
6/5 Scottsdale, AZ @ Rogue
6/9 San Diego, CA @ Beauty Bar
6/10 Santa Monica, CA @ Trip Lounge
6/11 Mountain View, CA @ Red Rock
6/14 San Francisco, CA @ Kimo's
6/16 Salt Lake City, UT @ Bar Deluxe
6/17 Denver, CO @ Lion's Lair
6/18 Wichita, KS @ Kirby's
6/23 Denton, TX @ Hailey's
6/24 Shreveport, LA @ The Collective 6/27 New Orleans, LA @ The Circle Bar 6/30 Pensacola, FL @ Handlebar 7/2 Marietta, GA @ The Local 7/3 Atlanta, GA @ The Drunken Unicorn
More after the jump...
