« The Juan MacLean | Main | The Lovely Feathers »

Midori Umi

The great thing about living in Austin is sometimes you discover that people sitting on all sides of you in the cube farm at your day job have a secret rock'n'roll identities. In my office alone, I've worked with singer-songwriters, pop/punk local heroes, thrilling shoegaze bassists, screamo punks, and members of retro-cabaret-burlesque collectives. But believe me, I had no idea that that nice new girl Paula Smith in the research group was a shreddy guitar goddess. (Or, for that matter, that my friend Hillary's nice new boyfriend Zach was the bassist in Paula's band! I guess the world is too small sometimes.)

Paula's nimble-fingered noodlings are the focal point of the Yo La Tengo, Built to Spill, and Karate-influenced, jazzy, fuzzy, and jam-packed peppy angst rock of Midori Umi. Pretty boy-girl harmonies with guitarist Ryan Wade and bassist Zachary Logan add another level of texture to the band's songs; Chris Laurel's high-hat heavy drumming anchors it all perfectly.

And so, thanks to my super-rad insider connection, See You in the Pit has an exclusive -- a few preview tracks from the band's upcoming EP that will be released later this spring.

Midori Umi - Straight to the Bone
Midori Umi - Hat Trick

Midori Umi's official website. You can catch them on Wednesday, March 15 @ 10pm at the Whisky Bar; the band is also playing a number of day parties around town this week, including The Launch Pad's party on Thursday (12:30pm); Friday at Homeslice Pizza on S. Congress (1pm); and Saturday at Vulcan Video on Elizabeth St., one block west of S. Congress (2pm)

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll at 03.13.06 at 10:19 PM

Comments

Comments are now closed for this entry.

Recent Comments

What This Is
See You in the Pit is an MP3 blog exclusively featuring artists who will be playing the SXSW Music Festival, because the best way to learn about music is to hear it. This weblog will self destruct on March 22nd. You have been warned.

Queen of the Front Row is a twenty-something music fan in New York City who spends more time looking for new bands than she'd care to admit. She can usually be found watching live music in divey clubs on the Lower East Side. She loves that everybody she knows from NYC ends up in Austin for SXSW.

Little Miss Rock'n'Roll is very pissed off that the management of Emo's has repainted the ladies' loo red, masking that gloriously nasty pink paint and all that graffiti. It looks like a circle of hell now. Anyway, she'd like you to know that she's lived in Austin for nearly 12 years now and still knows all the secrets about you and that local musician you think you'd like to date.

Last Girl to the Party is always the last girl to the party...usually because she's fretting about what to wear. She has lived in Austin for 9 years, knows which bars maintain supplies of Campari and Pernod and which serve Stella Artois in those annoying goblets. She'd also like you to know that she has more shoes than Queen of the Front Row and Little Miss Rock'n'Roll combined.

Disclaimers
We are not affiliated with SXSW, any record label/bands/musicians, iTunes, Amazon, any secret government agencies, or your parents. Posts, comments, songs, and angry letters of indignation belong to those who wrote them in the first place.

MP3s for sampling purposes only and will be available only for a limited period of time. Please support the music makers; without them, SYitP does not exist. Information wants to be free, but musicians gotta eat.

This site powered by Movable Type, Squidfingers, and love.