Finding Musical Nuggets In This Denver Goldrush

This is an incredibly exciting notion - a festival run by three ace of base blogs! Pity its in Denver...too far away! The rad dudes from Tome To The Weather Machine, Magic Teepee and Speaker Snacks have united to present the first annual GOLDRUSH Music Festival, in two weeks' time, September 16th and 17th at the Hi-Dive Rock Club and Sputnik in Denver, Colorado. This two-day event will cover a wide, varied selection of musical styles from across North America, featuring rock, electronic, pop, and ambient from over 30 nationally renowned artists, headlined by Tennis, CVLTS and How To Dress Well. The Tome's Crawf and Ryan H., Magic Teepee's Ryan P., and Speaker Snacks' Jake Martin are all longtime friends and avid supporters of all things music. Each site has had a careful hand in picking out the artists performing this year, making the artist invitations/acceptances and pending performances extremely personal and sacred. These musicians have been obsessively listened to, worshipped, and then subsequently written about—and for good reason. Its a veritable who's who od SM-endorsed artists like Vitamins, Junior Low, Tjutjana, School Knights, Candy Claws, Seven Feathers Rainwater, Slow Magic, StaG, the Kevin Costner Suicide Pact, Steffaloo and Teen Daze, plus a shedload more, GOLDRUSH promises to be something special.

The guys put together this compilation to showcase the event, and its pretty spectacular. You can get tix for the event here! Its uber cheap and will be an amazing weekend, so get on board!!

The Hidden Lands of summer

So it's August already, the end of summer is rushing towards us like the blackness of an on rushing tunnel but wait there's still plenty of summer fun to be wrung out of the year yet. In fact in my head summer ends with last festival of the year and that takes us all the way to ATP Nightmare before Christmas in December, childish optimism never dies my friends.

Enough of my rambling, right now the perfect band to hold on to that 'summer feeling' is Candy Claws and their second L.P Hidden Lands, out on Two Syllable Records. The album dropped back in early June and is inspired by a book entitled The Secret Life of the Forest, their first L.P, In the Dream of the Sea Life, was was meant to mimic the sound of the ocean floor, so these kids have a thing for nature. Now it may of taken me till last month of summer for me to fall for this hazy dreamscape pop, all subtle softness and unexpected rhythms, vast vistas and minute details, but sat on Hampstead Health with a picnic on Sunday it suddenly made a lot of sense.

Unfortunately the Colorado duo aren't without tragedy, their car burnt to crisp, along all their kit, whilst on tour last month. No one got hurt thank god but its still a tough break but maybe the sound of melting metal might inspire their third long player?

Candy Claws - Sunbeam Show
Candy Claws - Silent Time of Earth