Simonnewcomb//Sweet Afton

OSS got nice shout-outs on girlfriend is a homo and The Rest is Noise yesterday. Both excellent blogs worth checking out—the former being an essential guide to modern queer, the latter being some of the stiffest Bloggie competition.

Now let’s local local local local
[Local! Music! Friday!]
Tell me...what is this Local Music Fridays?

Simonnewcomb is the solo project of my dear, dear friend Travis Bursik, who was mentioned a few posts earlier, takes gorgeous photographs (I’ve got one framed on my wall!), has been very involved in iamjanet! and Hall of Owls, recently became a celebrity on sleeveface, lives and djs in the fair city of St. Louis.

Travis, in addition to having great taste in music (even if it veers a little farther to the left on the noise spectrum of things than my own does), has great writing, performing and recording chops. I’ve played with him so I can vouch: this man can handle a pedal board.

This is my favorite Simonnewcomb song. It’s got the shouty big chorus and guitar licks of a Modest Mouse masterpiece, with the contemplative lyrics and vocal tone in the verse of a quiet Pedro the Lion track. Of course, for someone as well-versed in contemporary music as Bursik, there are bound to be plenty of influences, but this doesn’t keep the originality of his voice and arrangement from shining through.



Sweet Afton.mp3

You can learn more about Simonnewcomb here . If you live in the St. Louis area, be sure to catch his next dj set here.