There isn’t a month that doesn’t go by that I don’t get a package in the mail containing yet another great new band from Austin, TX. What is it about this city that begets so many amazing musicians, filmmakers and artists? Having regrettably never been to the “Live Music Capitol of the World,” I can only fantasize about the size and quality of its music scene but the simple fact that the pivotal SXSW conferences are held there every year speaks volumes about the acts that call Austin home.
One such band is the hometown local act of Peel, who coincidentally will also be playing SXSW this year from March 16-18th. The guitar-riff heavy pop-rock band features Josh Permenter and Dakota Smith on guitar and vocals, with drummer Derrick Chaney and Allison Moore on keyboards and back-up. Their first full-length release, the self-titled Peel, harkens back to a time when being young meant spending all of your time at your local record store, searching the bargain bins for that rare new find. Tracks such as “In the City,” with its heavy guitar and keyboard infused sound, and “Someone’s Cousin,” a screaming perfect mess, provide the ideal soundtrack for a night spent cavorting about town with friends, or spent alone dancing lazily in your room. From the album’s very first track, “Oxford,” one thing will become abundantly clear: this band is out to have fun—exclamation point and all.
JIVE MAGAZINE RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5
Track Listing:
1. Oxford 2. Bells 3. In the City 4. Sliding Doors 5. Workers, Wake Up! 6. 1949 7. Moxy Blues 8. Love Soaked in Blood 9. Someone's Cousin 10. Tejax 11. Navy Waves
Release Information: Peel isn’t just another rock band with catchy hooks and melodies that bickers, argues, gets into bar fights, and wreaks havoc around the Austin, Texas music scene. Peel is also well read, well written, and loves playing shows that benefit the community. The Austin quintet’s unabashed intelligence, maturity, and emotional depth reverberate through its music. Peel is the ultimate indie band’s band – unafraid to take risks, unafraid to stick to its ideals, and unafraid to abandon all of that in service of a great song. One thing is for certain – Peel is about to become one of the year’s breakout bands.
Honing the mass of contradictions that is Peel, the band claims that with the exception of Stereolab, Sonic Youth, and Pavement, it isn’t influenced by any music from the 90’s. The influences Peel does claim (which are many) include musical geniuses such as Brian Eno, Love, The Pretty Things, Francoise Hardy, and Blondie. If you’re listening for these acts in the grooves of Peel’s debut album however, you probably won’t hear them. This is just another example of how Peel ultimately sounds like Peel. Its sound is that of a band that worked really hard to craft a record outside of what can now be characterized as the “indie rock mainstream”.
Peel’s self-titled record is a valiant debut, demonstrating what a band can do when a band just does what it wants to do. Local Austin label Peek-a-Boo (The Octopus Project, Black Lipstick, Spoon) was therefore a perfect match for Peel, as label owner Travis Higdon has become well-known for quietly championing the artistic wants of the local music community, while also acting as a true entrepreneur and sharp businessman. Peel won Higdon over in the fall of 2005 when he was blown away by the group’s live show at one of the multitude of dive-y bars in one of many of Austin’s seedy underbellies. Peel’s self-titled debut will be released this spring to be followed by a US tour.
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"What struck me most upon first hearing Peel was an innate, unpretentious wisdom beyond the band's years. I happened upon Peel in a crappy downtown Austin bar one Fall night in 2005. The singer, visibly uncomfortable being the focus of attention, appeared happiest making noise into his amp while the other guitarist blistered out an effortless lead," says Travis Higdon, owner of Peek-a-Boo Industries, "The bassist, who I later learned was 17, nervously covered her face with her hair and stared at her flip-flops. The exuberant keyboard player joked between songs to fill the silence when her bandmates didn't have their shit together, and the drummer anxiously yelled out the next song. This was a young band. But when they played..."
"If I had my way, I'd demolish every building of rock polished to shine so bright, like headlights in the day time." This semi-nihilistic line opens Peel's debut album and leads into a concise, two-minute pop song that climaxes and ends almost as soon as it begins. The opener "Oxford" is not a mission statement but simply a starting point for intellectual exploration and is quickly replaced by the meandering introspection of "Bells" ("24, 36, I'm getting old / I'm falling down like snow") and the fist-pumping rejection of pastoral pining, "In the City" ("So long to those dusty roads and windy sheets in the summer").
Peel’s music is bursting with the kind of loose energy only young bands exude, yet the songs belie a cerebral approach to songwriting and lyrical maturity that usually takes a band years to discover. These songs are immediate and timeless, nostalgic yet hopeful, teeming with sunny regret. And they f’n rock.
The boozey frustration of “Sliding Doors” gives way to a hopeful resolution that could be everyman’s Monday morning mantra, “I’m going start living the right way / and setting my mind on someday,” while “Workers, Wake Up!” reinforces this self-affirmation with the double-meaning of “This blue collar won’t fall easily,” chanted over a pulsating Krautrock fanfare. “1949” is a thinly-veiled nod to Pynchon over a bouncy Rhodes melody, and “Moxy Blues” is a noisy pop jam that would have made Eno & Ferry jealous. Peel’s origins are by the books, beginning as a three-piece in late 2004. Josh Permenter, a lefty who plays right-handed guitar, had a written bunch of quirky pop songs with book-smart lyrics and whimsical melodies. Allison Moore, a classically trained pianist, added vocal harmonies and keyboard flourishes. Drummer Derrick Chaney did his best to keep the trio together. Early audiences were limited to friends and the occasional cop
By March of 2005, they’d recruited Dakota Smith, found Christie Cahoon through Craigslist and played their first official show. The youngest in a Texas music dynasty, Dakota was weaned on country music from an early age and lends Peel a rootsy twang. Christie, a junior in high school at the time, chucked her flute and put her marching band rhythm to work on the bass guitar.
The sum of these parts is a group in pursuit of the perfect three-minute pop song yet handicapped by their own youthful enthusiasm, hot-tempered bickering and ADD. Like a bad child, Peel can’t write a beautiful song without also giving in to the irresistible compulsion to destroy it with unhinged noise. It’s that tension that makes this record so interesting and compelling. It grabs you upon first listen and never lets go, long after the surges and swells of “Navy Waves” have subsided and the final echoes drift listlessly toward the horizon.
