Tag: Springfield MO

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Shandies Share Road Trip Friendly Jam “Day Trip Tuesday”

Springfield, MO-based indie duo The Shandies — Natalie Wlodarczyk and Shannon Stine — will be releasing their fourth album, the Jeff Smith-produced If You Knew Me in July.

The album’s first single “Day Trip Tuesday” is a breezy pop confection built around glistening synth and a motorik-like groove paired with Wlodarczyk’s and Stine’s ethereal harmonies. While sonically bringing The Go-Go‘s and others to mind, “Day Trip Tuesday” is inspired by contemporary events while being timeless: During the height of the pandemic, the Springfield, MO-based duo frequently took day trips to get outside.

“We’d look at Google Maps and ask, ‘Where can we drive within two hours just to go somewhere, pack a picnic lunch, go sit on a riverbank, enjoy the af- ternoon and then drive home?’” Wlodarcyzk told the Springfield News- Leader. “We were doing one of these and it just happened to be a Tues- day, so we were in the car driving and one of us, we can’t remember which one, sang, ‘day trip Tuesday.’”

The rest quickly fell into the place. And for the remainder of that car ride, the duo wrote the bulk of the song’s lyrics and harmonies. Ultimately, the song is about a common desire — to hit the road with a friend (or group of friends) and have a adventure.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Industrial Post-Punk Sounds of Springfield, MO’s Kudzu

Publicly citing Tears for Fears, The Cure, Spectrum, Guided by Voices, Sympathy Nervous and This Heat as major influences, the Springfield, MO-based synth wave/synth punk duo Kudzu, comprised of Seth Goodwin (vocals, synths, drum programming) and Mark Gillenwaters (vocals, guitar) will be releasing their forthcoming full-length album Defeated on March 2, 2018 through Push & Pull Records. And reportedly, the album’s 9 songs come from several layers of disenchantment and frustration — first with their local punk and DIY scenes, which has resulted in a general dissociation from them and second, the stark reality of life in the Ozarks. As the band’s Mark Gillenwaters explains in press notes “I feel like there is a type of alienation you can harbor in a place like this that lends itself to bleak music. I like to treat lyrics as more emotional than literal, so some lyrics might not make sense but still convey the emotion I’m trying to present.” 

“Some Cops,” the latest single off the band’s forthcoming album finds the duo drawing from the likes of Ministry, PIL and early Nine Inch Nails as it features layers of buzzing, analog synths, slashing and buzzing power chords, propulsive yet forceful drum programming and an anthemic hook — and while clearly being mosh pit friendly, the song bristles and snarls with a pent up frustration at its core. 

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Although based in Springfield, MO, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Casey Jack spent a long winter in Chicago, IL, where he wound up writing the material which would appear on his self-titled debut effort, before returning to […]