Harper Blynn at Mercury Lounge (02/20/10)
Photo: Alexis Maindrault
Harper Blynn (formerly Pete & J) are at SXSW right now but after the party is over in Austin they’ll head out on a tour which will eventually wind its way back to NYC and a show at the City Winery on March 30 with Audra Mae.
Their new album, Loneliest Generation, (which was previously available on iTunes and Amazon.com), will have a “proper” release on May 11 on the band’s own imprint, Baby Jackal Records. The folks from Spinner.com recently caught up with Harper Blynn as part of their SXSW 2010 preview series, here’s a little excerpt from that interview:
Describe your sound in your own words.
Pete: There was a girl at the show last night, the way she described the music was that it sounds like Fleet Foxes, but with pop songs, or like MGMT, but with big three-part harmonies. Which I really like, but it’s hard to make comparisons with modern music. There isn’t a lot of modern stuff with big harmonies that also feels uplifting. We love harmonies in music. Obviously, with Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear and others, there is a big psych folk harmony movement, but it’s not, generally speaking, uplifting music. It’s not really pop music, and our music is definitely pop music. We’re kind of hook-mongers.
How did your band form? When did you change from Pete and J to Harper Blynn?
J: Pete and I met in college, we didn’t really have a band, so we were writing music, just the two of us, and we did some shows with a drummer, but a lot of shows with just the two of us, as Pete and J. We started to write more and more upbeat stuff, that needed to be played by a band. It just got to the point where we were always playing with the band. This lineup has been together about a year now, and touring around as a four-piece band called Pete and J doesn’t make sense. At a certain point, it confuses people. The music led us there, ultimately. [Spinner.com]
More Harper Blynn tour dates and pictures from their Mercury Lounge gig after the jump.
Harper Blynn at SXSW
Harper Blynn 2010 Tour Dates
Mar 19 2010 SXSW – One 2 One Bar Austin, Texas
Mar 20 2010 SXSW – Bayou Lounge, ATN Showcase Austin, Texas
Mar 23 2010 Drunken Unicorn Atlanta, Georgia
Mar 24 2010 The Soapbox Wilmington, North Carolina
Mar 25 2010 Evening Muse Charlotte, North Carolina
Mar 26 2010 Night Cat Easton, Maryland
Mar 27 2010 DC9 Washington, Washington DC
Mar 30 2010 City Winery New York, New York
Harper Blynn at Mercury Lounge (02/20/10)