Stereopathic is pleased to announce its first fall show: Sub Pop Records’ own Fruit Bats! Finishing up a nationwide trek , Fruit Bats will play Pullman’s Belltower on Friday, October 23 at 8 p.m.

Once an outlet for former Califone member (and current member of The Shins) Eric D. Johnson, Fruit Bats have come a long way from their solo side project roots. Though it’s taken over a decade, Johnson now shares the instrumentation duties, fully trusting his band members with the songs he writes.

The result of this trust and collaboration is 2009′s The Ruminant Band, a lush record with folk roots, but unafraid to explore the rocking, stomping benefits of having five talented musicians. The band lists their influences as Incredible String Band and Little River Band as their influences, and while the comparisons can be made, Johnson and crew keep things fresh. Fruit Bats are a contemporary band with strong roots, to be sure. A solid section of traditional folk instruments provide the basis for the band to explore lush sonic territory without straying too far from tradition.

Recently, Fruit Bats covered Hall & Oates basketball-themed romantic come-on “One on One” for AV Club’s AV Undercover project. We really hope they play it when they stop by.


Fruit Bats cover Hall & Oates

Tickets are $10 in advance via PayPal (button below) or $12 day of show or at the door. Yarn Owl and Moss Campion open.


Enjoy a few free Fruit Bats tracks thanks to Sub Pop Records:

Fruit Bats – The Ruminant Band
Fruit Bats – My Unusual Friend
Fruit Bats – Silent Life
Fruit Bats – Lives of Crime
Fruit Bats – A Bit of Wind
Fruit Bats – Slipping Through the Sensors

Laura Stevenson and the Cans!

l_6df03a96cbb543639f9714cf319e3bb5Listen to this song right here

and then

check this song out too!

Laura Stevenson is from Brooklyn and is part of Read more

Shearwater. The band, not the bird.

Stereopathic is pleased to announce totally blown away that Shearwater is playing at the Bell Tower in Pullman on Tuesday, April 20th Friday, April 30th. The show starts at 8 PM. We’re lining up a local act to kick things off; Lawrence, Kansas’ Hospital Ships opens, followed by Shearwater’s thrilling and epic live show.

Shearwater, of course, will be touring in support of their Read more

Do you think this metal is black?

When I heard Phil Elverum would be making a Mount Eerie album influenced by Scandinavian black metal, I worried. Black metal typically manifests as maudlin nihilism, and hasn’t drawn me in. While Wind’s Poem does contain some chaotic, heavy, distorted passages, it also goes subdued with tracks like this one, which closes the album. It also bears mentioning that Elverum has tended to punctuate with noise and distortion throughout his career, last year’s Lost Wisdom being a notable exception.

On “Stone’s Ode” the lyrics work with familiar Elverum themes. The stone is Read more

A sweet, confusion-filled Matza
“And now I’m hung up on a dream.”
-The Zombies

August 11

I’m mystified. Last night in my dream there was a guy who sort of looked like my boss yelling at me for all the work I hadn’t done, because I’d gotten really into re-editing the Wikipedia page about Internet addiction. I still have no idea what it means. I also had the dream about eating my pillow. When I woke up, the Jet-Puffed Marshmallows I keep by the side of the bed were gone.

August 12

Dreams really are inscrutable. Last night I had this dream where I got Read more

takenbytrees
“I’m feeling lost and found.”
-Taken by Trees

Several years ago a couple in their seventies used to come to the park near my house with metal detectors. They’d show up about once a week. Around their waists they both wore small aprons with pockets to collect their finds; the kind a waitress might use for tips. I liked the idea that they were working so quickly they needed to stash their winnings on-the-go, heedless of what they’d dug up until later. Since I didn’t usually have much to do in the evenings, I sat and watched them whenever they showed up.

In this way, I became increasingly curious about them. They never found Read more

Consider the unicorn.
“Like a hitman/Oh, like a dancer/All muscle.”
-A.C. Newman

Mel and I watched everyone walking past. We guessed about what everyone did. We sat on the bench in front of the playground facing toward the street. It’s about twenty yards to the street from the bench and in the early evening we used to do a lot of people-watching. We both wore jackets; mine olive, Mel’s a surprising shade of red. Mel said the sky looked like the yellow inside of a foam pillow ripped up by dogs and scattered across the sky. I couldn’t agree. I claimed it looked like a patient waking up just after the ether, eyes clear in front of a fogged brain. Mel stuck to his guns.

A man wearing pants with plastic buckles at the ankles. Bald on top, with a bird’s nest of Read more

I think he needs a new heart within his heart.

Two men, Tolly and Stephen, have shut themselves up in a room. They’re adapting Tolly’s off-Broadway play,The Heart Within the Heart, for the screen.

Stephen: So, in the play Robbie and Jeff are gay?

Tolly: No. They’re brothers.

Stephen: So why do they live in the same room?

Tolly: Because they’re brothers and their family’s a little poor, so Read more

It's a metaphor, right?

Two former roommates meet at a class reunion. One of them works as a sales rep for Walgreen and the other is a physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider.

Chris: So you’re working on that thing? That’s amazing. Is it going create a black-hole and kill us all? (Laughs)

Lance does not react.

Lance: No, that’s impossible. There’s no way that anything like that could happen. We’re looking for Read more

Go easy.
You are to have—ease it —an open hand while you pray.
Say, tell it, speak like it’s for a free pass.

A condemned man, you have to kill the rule.
You have to keep down at mind.

If you have to have me,
break the first born friend
till it pass over me, Read more

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