Aquabear Legion FREE All-Athens Summer Show When Saturday, July 30, 2011 10:30pm - 18 + Where Casa Cantina (map) 4 W. State Street Athens, Ohio, USA 45701 Other InfoWheels On Fire! Weird Science! Octopus and Owl! We will have the brand new Aquabear Legion Volume 4 compilation for sale along with new Aquabear T-Shirts hot off the press. Aquabear Legion FREE All-Athens Summer Show « Back to the calendar
Howdy, Aquabear Legionnaires! Please enjoy this, the very first Aquabear Legion podcast. Your hosts Noah Andrews and Kris Poland give it their all as they struggle to name the podcast, take you on an abridged journey through Athens music history (1997-present), and get excited for both the County Fair and the Nelsonville Music Festival. Rock out to some of our favorite Aquabear bands and listen to two thirty-year-olds butcher the English language. Good times await when you click the link below. Sometimes the Bear Eats You: Episode One
The Aquabear Legion is excited to announce our 8th release of Ohio music, Aquabear Legion Volume 4! The 2-cd compilation (which will feature over 30 Ohio bands) will be released this coming Spring as a handmade screenprinted package with original artwork from NYC via Athens artist Jed Collins. Full list of bands announced next week, and a Kickstarter to help raise money for its production and distribution. The Kickstarter will also serve as pre-order for the new compilation and offer some very limited edition Aquabear items for those who offer their support.
I was very excited to come up with a list of my favorite music from Ohio this year, particularly because not too much on the national scene really blew me away this year. The following list however features some very, very good music and all of it comes at high suggestion for me. Great records from Megachurch, Super Desserts, Wheels On Fire, Sun God, This Moment In Black History, Whale Zombie, The Black Swans, Orchestraville, Manor Animals, Seascapes, and Weedghost. When possible we have included a link and where you could purchase a copy, though a few of these things may be out of print. I know I missed a few (sorry), and I am putting them in arbitrary order as I cannot possibly rank anything. But, I did limit it to 11, because 10 just didn’t work… Happy New Year from the Aquabear Legion! 2011 is gonna be pretty awesome. Megachurch, Megachurch GET IT: megachurch.bandcamp.com Super Desserts, Banjo Forever GET IT: banjoforever.com Wheels On Fire, Liar Liar GET IT: Bompstore Sun God / This Moment In Black History, The Paul EP GET IT: Smog Veil Records The Black Swans, Words Are Stupid GET IT: St. Ives and Secretly...
So, Aquabear Legion has spent a lot of time getting official these past few months and filing for our non-profit status (more on that in another post) and as a result we have been going through the archives… What follows is an almost complete list of around 150 bands and musical projects we have worked with since 2004. This includes about 60 Aquabear shows and events, 8 compilations, and those who have committed so far to our upcoming 2011 compilation. Aquabear could not be more proud… thanks guys. List after the break!
Aquabear is pretty excited about Cleveland, Ohio’s Megachurch making its first visit down to Athens… These guys are damn good, they even opened up for Mission of Burma at last year’s Studio-Rama. A drummer and two basses, these guys have spent a good deal of time over the years in many other projects both past and current including Machine Go Boom, The Buried Wires, Washout Corporation, and a lot more. These guys play sweet math rock driven by pounding drums and twice the bass. Megachurch is playing the Aquabear County Fair at The Union on Saturday, March 6th. Check out this video of them playing at last year’s Compund Fest in Cleveland!
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am playing with this project at the Aquabear County Fair, and played with Scott in Casual Future for years. Thx. Tiger is the current outlet for Scott Spice’s recordings, Scott (and myself and others) played for years in Athens band Casual Future. We stopped playing last June because most everyone was moving but Scott continued to write and eventually recorded a album’s worth of songs, playing everything himself (I think). And the record is awesome. Never would I have thought my next live project after Casual Future would be in a band with Scott Spice again, but I am thrilled to play some drums (of all things) and help a few more people hear these songs. You can listen to those Thx. Tiger songs on the Myspace page. It will be very nice to play for folks Thx. Tiger will be playing the Aquabear County Fair on Thursday, March 4th at The (bruce) Manor. We will play early so seriously get there at 7pm. Casual Future was not a well-filmed band, so all I can link you to in a visual sense is a performance from last year’s County Fair were we played our newest song...
Chris Biester is arguably the best damn musician in this town, so what better way to open up the Friday night Casa show then with a set from him? Chris hosts the weekly Wednesday Open Stage at Casa Cantina and melts all of our faces with the occasional Chickenpussy performance besides working as an artist at Passion Works Studio in uptown Athens. And of course, I cannot preview a Biester show without bringing up his former band, Athens legends Appalachian Death Ride. For those of you who have never heard ADR you should remedy that problem immediately. Watch Chris play solo and check out a great Appalachian Death Ride video for “The Serpent” put together by Mike Elliott below and come see Mr. Biester play himself FOR FREE at the Aquabear County Fair on Friday, March 5th at Casa Cantina.
Aquabear continues to celebrate our 5th birthday with the release of TWO MORE FREE ONLINE COMPILATIONS! These two go way back in the archives… The Moose is Loose is a collection of Athens and Cleveland music from 2003 and was put together by Brian Koscho right before the start of Aquabear and features some great bands (Southeast Engine, Self Destruct Button, The Franchise, Leslie Keffer, and more). The Refugee Records compilation was originally released in 2001 by Cleveland musician Dave Straub and features even more great music from across the state (including Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party, Small Object a, Neo Nothing, Washout Corporation, and more!) You can download all our compilations here.
Aquabear Legion and Stuart’s Opera House are teaming up for another Music Swap Meet this Saturday, October 10th in the Stuart’s lobby (52 Public Square in Nelsonville) from 10am-5pm! Lots of great LP’s, CD’s, Gear, and a whole lot more all for sale, and FREE ADMISSION! If you are interested in reserving a table please e-mail brian@stuartsoperahouse.org for details or call the Stuart’s office at (740) 753-1924. It’s always a good time, hope to see you all out!
Aquabear Legion Volume 2 and Aquabear Legion Volume 3 are now available for FREE DOWNLOAD, and three more compilations will be joining those shortly too. All in celebration of Aquabear’s 5th anniversary! 5 years = 5 new and free compilations. Add those 5 to the 3 already up and you got yourself a whole lot of free downloads. These two compilations were originally released as physical CD’s, and are available here for the first time. Two out-of-print Cleveland area compilations from years past will be put up in the coming weeks (including one from 1997 originally released on cassette, and the fantastic Refugee Records compilation) and Brian’s own first compilation The Moose Is Loose (which dates back to 2003 and pre-dates Aquabear!). Get them here.
One of my favorite nights of the year is coming up this weekend, the 11th annual Athens Community Music Festival. This night is Athens’ own version of SXSW with 38 Athens bands playing at 6 venues around town. Other weekends of music throughout the year in Athens have wonderful music (Blackoutfest, Nelsonville Music Festival, and of course the Aquabear County Fair), but this night is ALL Athens, while all of the other mentioned bring regional and national acts in as well. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there is something special about all of that great live music happening in one night. And seriously, a wristband for all venues all night is ONLY $10 or you can go one venue for $5 and passes and tickets are available at each venue. Proceeds go towards helping local musicians in need and music education. In fact there are far to many bands and amazing musicians playing it is impossible not to write an article like this and be able to mention everyone, just pick some at random to see or do my preferred method of bouncing from venue to venue as quickly as possible. Full schedule and more...
The Aquabear Legion will be hosting our first ever film festival titled L’Aqua Porter Film Festival as part of our third annual Aquabear County Fair (March 5-7, 2009). Aquabear’s good friend, filmmaker, musician, and OU school of film alum Brian Wiebe will be curating the L’Aqua Porter Film Festival. And we need your films. If you are interested in submitting a piece, this is an entirely free entry festival. As a result the grand prize will most likely be some kind of Aquabear gift package. There are two ways to submit your film. You can send it in the mail to: Brian Wiebe 664 Jacoby Rd, Yellow Springs, OH 45387 or you can send and e-mail to contact@aquabearlegion.com and we will sort out the details. DEADLINE IS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14th Please send this information along More information at www.aquabearlegion.com or e-mail contact@aquabearlegion.com
Come celebrate the holidays with Aquabear with an awesome show at ARTS/West. (the) Giants of Gender are absolutely amazing, if you are around Athens you have to check this show out.
Aquabear continues our monthly concert series at ARTS/West in Athens on Friday, September 19th at 8pm! This month we will feature: Casual Future – www.myspace.com/casualfuture Flotation Walls – www.myspace.com/flotationwalls Weedghost – www.myspace.com/weedghost Come on out and support local music and still make it out to see some great shows in uptown Athens afterward… AND… Next week we are having an Aquabear Legion Noise Showcase at The Union in Athens on Thursday, September 25th at 10pm (sharp). There will be a whole bunch of Athens noise makers doing drone, freeform stuff, improv, and probably just banging on things to some sounds come out. Look for an update this weekend with a full lineup and poster… And don’t forget: Saturday, Sept. 27th: RECLAIM MUSIC FESTIVAL (www.reclaimmusicfestival.com) Sunday, Sept. 28th: Monthly Noise Night @ ARTS/West, 6pm
