Received an email last night from Todd asking me to check out the Durham/Chapel Hill, NC band Red Collar.
A rock-indie-alternative outfit in the veins of Fugazi and Jawbox, Red Collar will be working this winter with producer, Brian Paulson (Wilco, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk) on a full length album to follow up their 2007 debut, The Hands Up EP.
What sets Red Collar apart from most new R-I-A (rock-indie-alt) bands these days is that they've actually got some quality lyrics, as evidenced by the ones in "Hands Up,":
I got my Bachelor's, got my Master's,
I got my Doctorate, yes I'm a go-getter
Cocaine and caviar, oh I'm bonafide
An old man says, 'Buy you a scotch son?
When I was young I used to buy it by the case.
But here's to the new face!
Here's to the rat race!
Here's to thirty years in my briefcase!'
As Grayson Currin writes in his review of the band for Indy Weekly, "This may be a red band in a red state, but their symbology is more Lenin and Marx than W and donkeys."
Interested? Check out a few of their songs below. They are listed on File Den because that's how I received them.
Red Collar - "Hands Up"
Red Collar - "Used Guitars"
Red Collar - "Stay"
Red Collar - "Witching Hour"