Band to Watch
We Are Country Mice
Hand Made, Limited Edition, One Of A Kind.
In a perfect world, we'd get all our music this way; hand scribbled track listings on a piece of paper folded over a freshly burned CD delivered right out of the back of the band's van. No way you wouldn't feel more connected and invested in the music. Particularly when the music is this good.
We Are Country Mice, one of the bands that played at our Artist Lounge at SXSW last March, were in Savannah Tuesday night playing The Wormhole and the rafters are still shaking from the reverb soaking they took. We caught up with the guys over some local barbecue and cold Sweetwater lagers before the show (yes, we take this southern hospitality thing very seriously down here), where they regaled us with hilarious and heartwarming tales of life on the road from Brooklyn to Tampa and back.
The reason for the above mentioned handmade CD? Well the band has sold out of just about everything they've released. In the case of Transmissions, it originated as a limited edition cassette released just last month on Train Man Tapes. Ditto for their first two efforts, limited edition 7" vinyl's for Make Your Own Damn Fun (500 copies) and There's No Other (300 Copies). Keeping access limited is a great way for up and coming bands to create demand and get fans out to shows where they can often scoop up these collectible copies (or in my case, get lead singer Jason Rueger to burn you a copy straight from his lap top!).
Their first full length- to be named- album is finished and in the mixing hands of Brooklyn's renowned Matt Koshak (let's go Matt!) with an anticipated release late this year.
We Are Country Mice are touring now through October and they are definitely worth seeking out in your town... where you will more than likely get to raise a glass with Jason, Kurt, Ben and Mike and maybe get your hands on one of those 7" vinyls.
In the meantime, check out "Festival", a fantastic track that will remind you of Rolling Stones circa Exile On Main Street mixed with a bit of old fashioned Crazy Horse and some new-fangled Black Lips. It's a 9 minute jam of damn fine Rock and Roll!
