Netherfriends 50 Songs 50 States Tour Continues on the West Coast

By: Sep. 08, 2010
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The 50 Songs 50 States tour is halfway completed! Netherfriends make their way over to the West Coast, up to Alaska and POP Montreal and continue to record and play in every state in the US!

Check out this live video from the Netherfriends' tour shot in Richmond, VA
for a glimpse into the national musical comradery.
The Onion's interviewed Shawn about the 50 Songs 50 States project.

Netherfriends' debut LP Barry and Sherry will see a
November 9 vinyl release through the Lateral Label.

Full tour dates, more music and Shawn's mission statement below.

Netherfriends have created two lovely stop-motion videos for tracks off of debut LP Barry and Sherry.
Watch "Bret Easton Ellis Novel"
and "Lead You Through the Misty Fog of Milwaukee Ave" !

Netherfriends Tour Dates (so far)
Sept 9 - Luigi's Fun Garden - Sacramento, CA
Sept 10 - The Closet - Reno, NV
Sept 12 - Rendezvous/Jewelbox Theater - Seattle, WA
Sept 18 - University of Alaska, Fairbanks Pub - Fairbanks, AK
Sept 22 - Flying M Coffee Garage - Nampa/Boise, ID
Sept 24 - Silver Dollar Saloon - Hill City, SD
Sept 25 - Red Rooster Coffee House - Aberdeen, SD
Sept 26 - The Aquarium, Dempsey's Upstairs - Fargo, ND
Sept 30 - Cabaret Playhouse - Montreal, QB - POP Montreal
Oct 14 - 529 - Atlanta, GA

More dates to be announced soon!

50 Songs 50 States (In Shawn Rosenblatt's words)
Starting April, I will be without a home for one year. It seems the easiest way to get to all 50 states in one year is to avoid the paying bills and rent and make different parts of the country my home base. I plan on touring a ton and being broke forever. I am starting my journey East (Philly) and playing with Mark from the band Hop Along and possibly another friend. Below is the list of dates. If you'd like us to play at your venue/house/party or if you would like to offer up your house so I can write and record a song in it, please message me Netherfriendsbooking@gmail.com.

For more on the 50 Songs 50 States project and to follow Shawn's progress,
check out his blog, chart his progress on Tumblr and follow him on Twitter!

More Netherfriends Music
Check out the Netherfriends' Daytrotter session
Listen to the super catchy track "Nunya"
Check out crowd favorite "Mom Cop"

Netherfriends rocked the Pitchfork Fest
check all the festival coverage at Time Out Chicago, Gapers Block, Loud Loop Press, Prefix Mag,
Pink Mafia, The Minnesota Daily, Huffington Post, Black Sheep and Gearwire!

What the Press has to say
Our favorite Chicago track of 2009 came from the mind of one Shawn Rosenblatt and his band Netherfriends.

The DeLi Chicago

Shawn Rosenblatt, the lone constant in the Chicago band Netherfriends, is some kind of a mastermind. The young man has such an expert way with indie rock arrangement and with the tricky business of sounding both unfamiliar and like something that we've been intimate with time and again. It's as if we could recall his songs by closing our eyes and checking in with our olfactory sensibilities and we should be able to arrive at a clear picture - like a demented circus train, or a hammer hitting a bullet sending a gorgeous distress signal up from a life raft to explode over a vast and terrifying ocean. He seems to have gone out with a net and corralled all of the tails of every comet that's come close enough to Earth to nab, bundled them and then shocked them into weird motions and dance maneuvers.

Daytrotter

 

Wander into bar. Buy cheap beer. Discover greatness. Banging out sweetly distorted sing-along melodies on guitar, keyboard and drums, Chicago trio Netherfriends delivered the thrill of the unknown.
Blender

Netherfriends have a bunch of toe-tappers in their repertoire, and I definitely wouldn't mind this band leading my crew in a round of campfire songs (if campfires weren't so creepy when you and all your friends are 30-something).
Oh My Rockness

Chicago's Netherfriends allow their songs to define the band, not their fashion sense or peers. Rare as it may be, Netherfriends are at the forefront of a new crop of artists focused on great songwriting and performance. This group is the amalgamation of experimental field recordings, solid pop melody, and vocal harmonies. Netherfriends make some of the most likeable music. It's fun, poppy, catchy as all get out, and smart as a whip.
RCRDLBL

"TAC TAC" is some wicked smart pop music that's bone simple with a fantastic melody. I guess... if pressed, I'd say the production is closest to Man Man performing at their happiest and youngest.
You Ain't No Picasso

Chicago's Netherfriends caught my attention with their Feather & Dots 3 track 7″. It was overflowing with layered (but not heavy and dense)
experimental folk-ish pop rock.
Pasta Primavera

Playing in all those dark corners, this trio of Chicagoans emerged from the depths to play as the Netherfriends. With haunting wails scattered amongst the vocals and heavy keys dauntily looming over from the background, Netherfriends play a maniac, mad brand of rock. Fear not though, these guys are here to shed a bit of light from the darkness and tame their demons. What you have left with Netherfriends is a delightfully obscured, deviously dark set of distortion.
Both Sides of the Mouth
.

More about Netherfriends and Barry and Sherry

There is an on going struggle inside of every human being; a struggle between addiction and self-control, between right and wrong, between mother and father. Sharing this same struggle Netherfriends Shawn Rosenblatt finds himself balancing between artist and child, between growing adult and parent's son. This is the conflict that defines one's voice, this is what inspires songwriting.

Building off of 2009's Calling You Out EP, Netherfriends continues to tour extensively in support of their anticipated debut full length, Barry and Sherry. Amplified interest has pushed them into national attention including a place in Pitchfork's Music Festival.

While working on Barry and Sherry, Netherfriends retreated to the small town of Apple Valley, Minnesota for seven days, managing to record nine tracks. Without any sort of theme in mind, Shawn soon realized that he had subconsciously written the ideas surrounding his life growing up (in the past and future) as pieces of his parents.

We all try to defy our parents. Listen to different music, wear different clothes, do drugs, move/run away to a big city, meet someone your parents approve of, get a real job, get married, buy a house in the suburbs, have a kid, get divorced, get remarried, get cancer, die. It's inevitable; we are a product of our parents, and for Netherfriends this is Barry and Sherry.

http://www.myspace.com/netherfriends



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