#brian sendrowitz

So excited to share some new music with you guys.  Today is the release day for a split EP I'm releasing with my friend Drew Danburry. You can grab it now on iTunes or also over at CDBaby.  

I feel lucky that through making and releasing music I've gotten to know some really brilliant songwriters and musicians, and for me Drew is right at the top of that list.  He came to me with the idea for this EP earlier this year where each of us would write a song, and then each record a cover of each other's songs and release it all together.  I had a really great time working on this and I hope you enjoy it.

My new song is called "The World's a Mess."  Despite the title, I think it's full of optimism.  It's got sort of a "bringing it all back home" vibe to it, for any of you who might be familiar with the music I made before Beat Radio.  When I heard Drew's cover of the song I was totally knocked out.  He approaches it from a whole different direction and it's so full of feeling.  Drew's song "One Eleven" is also really fantastic and I had a good time figuring out how to tackle it. I enlisted the help of my 11 year old son Elijah to sing backing vocals, he's the talented one in the family and this marks his first official release.

Hope you are all doing well - Happy September!

Beat Radio (a band that I've been listening to for a good few years now, round up post from a while back here) are back with their fourth LP, Hard Times, Go!. Lead Brian Sendrowitz teamed up with drummer Brian Ver Straten to put together a full length release based upon two previous EPs (which we wrote about here) after a succesful Kickstarter campaign.

The new album shows some definite changes from past Beat Radio releases. Yes, the music is still gloriously fuzzy and the words thoughtful and heartfelt, but the lyrics appear to deal with a different set of themes, as if Sendrowitz has changed his focus from a rose-tinted past and decided to confront the present. The explanation of the album on the Bandcamp page pretty much confirms this, with him detailing the circumstances under which he wrote the record and sounding very much part of ‘real’ life (with all the tedious and painful worries it brings), saying that the writing process was his way of dealing with the problems he faced.

Hard Times, Go! is doubly refreshing, firstly because it deals with a different aspect of relationships than the usual first love/loss of pop songs, and secondly in that it demonstrates that attentive and poetic lyrics can work in what is essentially catchy indie rock. Beat Radio show that pop music and literate lyrics aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

Hurricanes, XO by beat radio

I think Sendrowitz’s achievement (and it is a large one) is successfully managing to transfer the feeling from his earlier nostalgic releases into a new record which deals with very adult issues. It is easy to write and sing about a sunny past and sound in love with so-called better times, but here he manages to still come across as warm and sincere when dealing with less romantic topics. The album is full of realistic but hopeful (and thus hugely endearing) songs about life. It is a personal record, a brave record that truly wants to let the hard times go. It is a triumph.

Beat Radio - BTR Live Studio [ep163]

Two things I'm a huge fan of ; Japandroids and guys who can do a cover that brings elements to the table which were either subtle or non-existent in the original.

It's no secret that by playing a song on acoustic it's instantly going to feel deeper and draw more emotions from the listener. We all get that acoustic songs seemingly bare an importance that no plugged in track could ever hold a candle to, look at Bob Dylan, his electric albums are the best he ever created but put on "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll" or "Blowin In The Wind" and tell me you don't instantly have a connection that "Maggie's Farm" could never bring.

Oddly it's not so much the acoustic aspect that makes what Beat Radio (Brian Sendrowitz) has done so great, it is the fact that he has taken a song that was a James Dean "Rebel Without A Cause" angst driven soundtrack to making ones own life happen and turned it completely on it's heals. If you were in a band on your first tour the original is what you would listen to upon entering the highway on the way to the first show in another state, this remake is what would get played on the drive home when the lack of sleep, truck-stop food, and a desire to just be yourself has you almost in tears.

The original is a statement, Beat Radio have changed it into a concession of remembrance. Celebration Rock is in my top five albums of the year so I'm not taking anything away from Japandroids when I say this, but I think I may actually like Beat Radio's cover better than the original (oh the blashphemy!), right or wrong it's true.

Connect with Beat Radio - Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr | Website | Bandcamp

(Via)

For the followers that are always down for Beat Radio, that "sometime in June" is here!

This song ("Days Like Diamonds") is off the new EP, hard times go, part 2! 

It's available on bandcamp RIGHT NOW on a name-your-price basis.

Brian Sendrowitz is back with the second part of the Hard Times Go series. Part 1 had a delightfully downbeat sort of feel to it; a slightly melancholic atmosphere that suited its release in January. If you visit the Bandcamp page you will see a brief insight into each song which proves an interesting read. It's always nice to have a bit of background and the artist's opinion/intentions for the piece.

Part 2 has been released today and the first few play throughs suggest that while this isn't a bouncy, jangly summer record it is certainly more upbeat and again captures the time of the year. 'East Coast' and 'Never Let You Down' highlight this with optimistic lyrics and a pleasant sound reminiscent of a summer evening. The EP is capped off superbly with a cover of The Weakerthans' 'Left and Leaving' (a personal favourite). Expect to see this on our next cover mix!

I have been listening to Beat Radio (Brian Sendrowitz and various collaborators) on and off for a few years now and I will admit that I have never given him/them the credit deserved. I really liked 'Sleepwalking' from Safe Inside The Sound but I did not fully explore his releases and give them a fair chance. A few months ago I put a couple of his songs into a mix (alongside some of my favourite artists) and went for a run along the beach front in the cold. It suddenly clicked. What I had taken for an enjoyable listen with one or two ‘great' songs was in fact a catalogue of top-notch albums and EPs with enough variation and lyrical depth to encourage repeated listens. Without wishing to unfairly categorize I would say Beat Radio is comparable to The Weakerthans in terms of feelings and themes, which is certainly no bad thing.  

However cliche or pretentious my little anecdote sounds I think it highlights a problem with modern day music fans which must be very frustrating for artists who work so hard to produce high quality work. The ease of access to hundreds of thousands of MP3s has devalued the individual. If something doesn't catch our attention straight away we can skip and download something else. Similar problems are now developing with books with the arrival of ebooks and various other heresies. Obviously it is partly the job of the artist therefore to 'hook' the listener but they go on the assumption that the listener is just that, listening. That evening on the dark beach, looking across the water at the lights on the shore, I was truly listening. Guess what? I was hooked. I think the author Jonathan Franzen's defence of the printed book is pertinent for other art forms too. We owe it to the people who make music to give them a fair chance, especially those as diligent and productive as Brian Sendrowitz. 

The songs which I 'got' were on the Teenage Anthems album (notable 'Teenage Anthem for the Drunken Boat' and 'Sunday Matinee') but since I have also fallen for Golden Age (check out 'Cold War' and 'Evangeline') and am now exploring further. A new EP, reassuringly titled Hard Times Go, Part 1, was released in January and is worth your time. Most of the releases are on Bandcamp digitally (for peanuts) or as physical copies. Don't make the same mistake I did.