We’re throwin a banger for Mike Slyne’s birthday! The Fam is back with New Haven’s Mountain Movers and they’re bringing the incredible Shirese, a band that we’ve been eyeing for a while now!
SLYNE & THE FAMILY STONED
slyne leads a group of punks and freaks and lovers and misfits
they try and make a glorious racket
SHIRESE
Shirese is the brainchild of Matt Paolillo and Jack Gumkowski. The band has undergone a few changes over the years but has truly meshed in recent times with Bill Davidge, Nicholas Serrambana, Logan Carr and Seany Nuelle in the lineup.
Shirese takes cues from their New Haven contemporaries, but their brand of psychedelia is more directly inspired by the late 60s garage bands who moved into unchartered waters. Far more dedicated to the song than, say, Headroom, but with plenty of eerie and swirling lysergic moments nonetheless. The band doesn’t shy away from the spoken word either, with word-salad-stream-of-conscious poetics given as much real estate as catchy melodies.
Shirese also allow their most experimental tendencies to roam free while never losing sight of what they are; a rock band. Out of phase tape manipulation and harsh noise find their places on the record, and why wouldn’t they, given Paolillo and Nuelle’s heavy roots in that arena. But somehow they always find their way back to the true core of Shirese - hard rocking on their own goddamn terms.
MOUNTAIN MOVERS
Watching the Mountain Movers' progression over the course of the past decade has truly been a treat. Their earliest beginnings saw the band documenting Dan Greene’s vast catalog of songs, while displaying a rotating cast of New Haven musicians’ unique skills. The band produced three albums and several singles of polished indie rock in this incarnation.
However, their fourth album, 2010’s Apple Mountain, saw the band transition to stranger territory; home-recorded and employing an arsenal of miscellaneous instruments, the record bore a folk-psychedelic element not displayed on their previous work. Shortly after Apple Mountain, constant members Greene and Rick Omonte were joined by lead guitarist Kryssi Battalene and drummer Ross Menze to form, what is now, the band's longest running lineup. The band has since produced a series of singles, lathe-cuts, cassettes, 2015’s Death Magic; an album that melded Greene’s song writing with the bands ability to stretch out and improvise.
In 2016, they previewed the "Sunday Drive / No Plans" cassingle (recorded at former drummer John Miller’s home studio), giving us - the listener - the first glimpse into the Movers’ newest modes. Two instrumental improvisations clocking in at just under 20 minutes that bring to mind names like Neu! and Ash Ra Tempel, as much as they do any number of American psychedelic acts of the 1960’s.
The band's sixth, eponymous album, Mountain Movers (released May 2017 on Chicago's Trouble In Mind), is bookended by two long-form jams with three perfect, crystalline pop songs sandwiched in between, mirroring both aspects of the band & representing the most fully realized recorded representation of the band's live show to date.