I sifted through a few submissions today and declined about four or five groups based mostly on their lyrical content, or lack thereof, rather. As a songwriter, the difference between hiding behind poorly-constructed metaphors and creating phrases that strike from the bone and come right from the heart is like night and day. There’s poetry in the day to day and honest simplicity will always trump complicated purple prose. That’s why Connor McGuire is our Band You’ve Never Heard of Band of the Day.

British Columbia singer/songwriter Connor McGuire’s songs take a road traveled by the likes of Mason Jennings and Jason Collett , built around acoustic instruments, peppered with non-obtrusive arrangements of mandolins, strings, horns, organs and electric guitar. His lyrical couplets follow ideas to their full conclusion (see “The End of the Line”), blending axioms and blunt moments into a seemless earnestness. You can purchase his album Different After Dawn here.

One thing, though: When will musicians and photographers stop being so infatuated with photos taken by brick walls and/or train tracks? It’s a prerequisite new jack move and it is quite possibly the most boring convention in rock journalism. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP. Connor, you’ve been warned. Wheat fields are out, too.

When you’re a band that plays small bars and clubs, being a sextet must provide interesting challenges. The most obvious, as the picture above illustrates, is where the fuck do you put everyone?

Ergonomic difficulties aside, Madison, WI’s A Catapult Western sound doesn’t suffer from such hindrances. The six members of the group employ mandolins, violas, guitars, bass, drums, synthesizers and whatever else they can get their hands on to create beautifully spare arrangements, with each part in its proper place. This stuff isn’t for the feint of heart. ACW’s music is a slow, somewhat morose hodgepodge of sounds that borrow from post-punk, country and folk. But it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re kinda hungover from the night before and wondering if you’re making a mess of your life (uh…or so I’d imagine). The Onion had this to say about the group:

“Considering the novel draw of spaghetti-western scores, alt-country, and free form indie rock, musicians were bound to start combining all three. Not all will prove as graceful as recently formed Madison band A Catapult Western… ACW diffuses its vocal layers, viola, guitar, piano, and assorted other keyboard sounds through a slowcore haze. Even when it pushes into more straight-up, rocking country sounds, skewed guitars, and synths fend off genre cliches”

A Catapult Western’s debut full-length CD was released in October 2007. You can sample the songs and purchase it, if you’re so inclined, at CD Baby.

I’m happy to announce that it took nearly a year after its renovation for our downtown park to once again attract drug dealers. Walking through the other day I heard a “hey you!” whistle, and a scruffy older hippy approached, asking if I wanted a 20 sack of “the kind.” Ah, the perks of being a longhair… Hippies like to use the word “the kind” around here to denote quality marijuana, and although Seattle’s The Kindness Kind includes a longhaired drummer, I’d like to think their band name has more interesting connotations than the sticky weed. Maybe they’re just super nice…

I’m really feeling their track “The Rain came late,” expansive indie-pop with twinkling keyboards and sultry, sleepy vocals. Then it gets WAY big with churning waves of guitar and retro-tone synthesizers. That they recorded their album A Novel at Bear Creek where Blonde Redhead laid down tracks is fitting. You can purchase their new album, A Novel Here.

Check out their West Coast tour stops after the jump;
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This past summer I had the awesome opportunity to spend a month on tour with Ruth, an amazing band that thankfully many people have now definitely heard of, since they just got off the road with Switchfoot and Relient K. Since all we basically did for a month was throw fire crackers at each other and eat Waffle House there was plenty of time to sit around and listen to music, taking turns turning each other on………….to new music [c'mon now, this is a family blog]. One night Ruth frontman, and namesake, Dustin Ruth put on some shit that he was jocking, and we all agreed that it was pretty badass. The band was called Pomegranates, like the fruit, and the juice. Here’s what they say about themselves:

Pomegranates began in the young minds of Jacob Merritt and Isaac Karns, long time friends whose respective musical projects had recently disbanded. With a mutual desire to continue making music, the two began penning songs. Immediately they felt this new project was heading places, so they solicited the help of Joey Cook, and the three got down to business. Their initial practice session gave shape to what would later become their first song, “Nursery Magic”. This was November 2006.

Four months later the band recorded their debut EP, Two Eyes, at The Lunchington in Columbus. The five-song disc was tracked in two days and boasts intricate, melodic guitar arrangements adorned by bells, samplings and keys. Hand claps and tambourines actualize in the quirky percussion section, while falsetto vocals dance delightfully above. This is sophisticated stuff for such a youthful band. When Two Eyes hit streets June 12 of 2007, it was no more than a week later they were inking a deal with indie label, Lujo Records. The bands forthcoming LP ‘Everything is Alive’ will be released in Spring of 2008.

If “Hand claps and tambourines” actualizing in the “quirky percussion section, while falsetto vocals dance delightfully above” doesn’t sound cute enough, than how about their list of influences?

Grizzly bears shooting lightning out of their eyes and riding rainbows.

Um…can someone say bad ass????! Check the doods out on the Space and tell them to come to California already.

The other night I cruised down to LaSalle’s, a local shithole that from time to time hosts badical rock shows, to check out my friends, the always heavy-as-fuck Armed For Apocalypse. Opening things up were a band that no one seemed to know anything about, some yahoos named Trigger Renegade from Santa Cruz. Needless to say, expectations were low. But then the band started humping their gear onto stage, and I began to take notice. Bogner half-stack? Double Bass drumkit with a fucking 236″ single rack tom? White curly guitar cords??!! Suddenly the scent of rock began to fill the air. Adding to this presentiment was the fact that the members of the band all looked the part of late-70s rock gods, with long flowing locks, tight shirts, and the requisite rock snarl. But could their sound match their image?? COULD THEY COME THROUGH WITH THE ROCK????!!

The answer was a resounding yes. From the first harmonized guitar solo it was apparent that Trigger Renegade were not, and weren’t going to be, fucking around. The band was like The Sword kicking it with Ted Nugent playing Iron Maiden covers with Rick Neilsen’s guitar collection. Check them out on Myspace and if you like what you hear, buy their fucking CD from CD Baby so they have enough gas money to come back to Chico and rock Saddam Hussein’s ass back to fucking Russia!!1oneone!

Ah, those meddling kids; always ruining plans to steal hidden treasure and proving that the “haunted castle” isn’t haunted at all, it’s just some scoundrels with holograph machines and white bedding… And they would have gotten away with it too….

Apart from traveling the country in search of devious plots to foil, The Meddling Kids dish out the power pop in chunky doses, replete with breakdowns, guitar solos, gang vocals and the kind of lyrics that don’t demand a whole lot of dissection.

I can’t help but bring it up, but more often than not lead singer Tyler Norton sings like he kinda has to poop - a stylistic device popularized by the “Yeah Rock” genre (see Candlebox, Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20) involving a restrained vocal attack, a short sustain and lot of extra breath at the end of a line, and featuring as many “yeah!”s as possible and resulting in rock chix with big asses and overly-dyed hair totally swooning. Their music has more in common with the likes of Cheap Trick and Weezer, going as far as winking at Rivers Cuomo by aping a riff here or there.

Since I’m a sucker for some fretboard gymnastics, I give The Meddling Kids the nod, and if I were at their show I would probably even take a break from smoking cigarettes and hitting on fat-assed, overly-hair-dyed rock chix to catch at least two songs. After all, “I’ve Done Everyting For You” has a solo that absolutely STOMPS over the theme from Beverly Hills 90210. Their CD is available here.