Moonlight Bride
Moonlight Bride
Moonlight Bride
Year formed: 2007
Members: Justin Wilcox, Matt Livingston, Justin Grasham, Dave Maki
Website: moonlightbridemusic.com
Moonlight Bride has been receiving critical accolades and building a large, loyal audience with extensive touring as well as performances here in their hometown. This spring, they will return to SXSW in Austin, Texas, along with several other Chattanooga bands.
They will be releasing a seven-inch at JJ’s Bohemia on Feb. 11, followed by a five-song EP in early March titled “Twin Lakes.”
The band can also be heard on the new compilation album highlighting Tennessee bands titled “Tennesthesia,” reviewed last week in The Pulse.
Moonlight Bride’s debut album, “Myths,” is available on iTunes.
In 2009, Paste magazine assistant editor (and Chattanoogan) Rachael Maddux had this to say in her review of “Myths”:
“These guys blew the lid off my notion that I’d never really love a band from my hometown—though I’m ashamed to admit I had to be told about them third-hand from some out-of-town folks before I believed it. ‘Myths’ has become one of my favorite albums of the year. It’s just 10 tracks but it feels huge, dark and wounded but shot through at all the right moments with glorious, bursting choruses and moody, skittering guitar ... Chattanooga can’t keep this secret much longer.”
Pulse music critic Ernie Paik noted recently that the band “has subtly transformed its sound over the last four years, but with guitar-noise and post-punk influences, it has kept a certain quality constant by delivering an engaging momentum with its songs.”
The Bohannons
Year formed: 2003
Members: Marty Bohannon, Josh Beaver, Nick Sterchi, Matt Bohannon
Website: reverbnation.com/thebohannons
The Bohannons, led by the two brothers of the Bohannon name, have always been pushing their sound and the places their sound is taking them since inception.
The band has been creating musical narratives informed by personal experience, blending classic and modern influences, since the early 1990s when brothers Matt and Marty Bohannon made their first recording onto a four-track cassette tape in a duplex garage at their parents’ home. Their soundscapes emanate country, blues and folk standards fused together with rock, punk and power pop structures. Roky Erikson, Crazy Horse, Frank Black and The Band are often mentioned in describing their sound.
Following their debut album, “Songs for the Disenfranchised,” the group released “Days of Echo,” a combination of explosive songs matched with perfectly balanced, paced and acoustically based selections. The album was recorded in Chicago with sound wizard Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Robert Plant) and mixed by Nashville’s Grammy-winning Vance Powell (Raconteurs).
On Jan. 2, after performing a stellar New Year’s Eve show opening for The Features at The Honest Pint, The Bohannons were featured on a live Internet broadcast for the huge audience of Daytrotter.com, an online live studio performance website. Along with that trip to Illinois, they will be doing multiple dates in the Midwest.
The Bohannons have new material in the works and plan to release a new album by the end of this summer.
Elk Milk
Year formed: 2010
Members: Ben Hobbs, Isaac Houck, Josh Hyde
Website: reverbnation.com/elkmilk
Elk Milk is a recently formed band who began making music in mid 2010 and played their first live show at JJ’s Bohemia in February 2011. Hobbs and Houck relocated to Chattanooga, with Hobbs moving down from Nashville and Houck hailing from the midwest as well as having spent time in South Africa.
In their brief history, the band’s live performances have gained them immediate attention and respect among their peers and sparked a grrowing fan base.
The band took their name from the elk milk vine or Ligtning Blossom, a vine commonly found in the moutainous regions of the Pacific Northwest and though to contain healing properties, said to cure madness and to used to banish evil spirits.
According to their website, the band say they love playing music for its healing properties, the regaining of lighting and for the building up of the fire cast upon the earth. The three members all “love their moms, Tennessee, the mountains and the sea. They all dream of the Arctic Circle from time to time. Their music is sparked by the dream hunters in the woods.”
Elk Milk is in the final stages of a self-produced debut EP scheduled for a March release.
Behold the Brave
Year formed: 2008
Members: Clayton Davis, Zack Randolph, Joel Parks, Jeremiah Thompson
Website: beholdthebrave.com
Behold the Brave formed in 2008 and quickly released their first recording of five tracks that same year titled “Get Sky.” Continuing to perform live and writing new material, the band released “Lost In The Woods” in 2009. Behold The Brave has developed a big, expansive sound with a lot of depth behind the lyrics. The band added acoustic tracks to the “Woods” release to create a deluxe album that is available on iTunes, CDBaby and Amazon. They will be hitting the local and regional live circuit this year in support of a new recording that is slated for release this spring. The live performances of Behold The Brave have been earning acclaim and reveal diversity in the repertoire while remaining solidified in a signature sound.
Telemonster
Year formed: 2011
Members: Josh Barrett, Dave Hess, John-Michael Forman, Peter Griffis, Ben VanderHart
Website: telemonster.bandcamp.com
Telemonster first performed as a band in 2011 at JJ’s Bohemia. After developing their live show, the band turned to recording a three-song EP, “Captain Matador,” released in July 2011. In early March, the band will launch a Kickstarter.com campaign to help fund a full-length EP that they plant to record at Spanner Sound with engineer Charles Allison at the controls.
According to the band, audiences often compare their sound to The Shins and Modest Mouse, but members cite a broad spectrum of influences including Radiohead, Animal Collective, Miles Davis and Tchaikovsky. Telemonster’s music is known for its irresistible hooks and catchy vocal lines, but due to their shared interest in intellectual genres, such as math rock, jazz and classical music, the band looks for ways to puzzle expectations and compose complex songs with accessible grooves.