Aberdeen City on purevolume™

Alternative / Indie / Rock

Fresh out of the studio with Grammy winning producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, Morrissey, Talking Heads) and Nic Hard (Jesse Malin, The Church, The Bravery), Boston quartet Aberdeen City has just re-released their debut record, The Freezing Atlantic. While recurring themes of abandonment, zealotry, and regret might suggest a cold and melancholy affair, The Freezing Atlantic offers surprising warmth and optimism. The politically aware first single God Is Going To Get Sick of Me won a Boston Music Award in 2005 - before it had been commercially released- and The Freezing Atlantic was recently voted Local Album of 2006 by Boston Phoenix readers. The album also won the 2006 Boston Music Award for Local Album of the Year, pairing with the band's win for Local Rock Band of the Year.

Three of the four members grew up in the same Chicago neighborhood, though their paths did not cross until 2001 when they met at a seminar for underachieving child prodigies at a Boston area university. Details of their Midwestern backgrounds are murky and scarce. What is known is that each member, once poised for greatness, has had to overcome tremendous personal failure. Brad Parker (vocals, bass), an aspiring spiritualist, spent much of his adolescent years in a sensory deprivation chamber he built in his parent's attic. Emerging with incredible insights he found difficult to communicate, Brad halted his search for universal truths in order to explore songwriting. Ryan Heller (guitar), business minded beyond his years, declined the opportunity to run his family's snack food empire after losing the patent for the highly anticipated Ket-Chip to a rival Canadian company. Rob McCaffrey (drums) was a successful stage actor until an unfortunate commitment to method acting during a production of the "The Pirates of Penzance" led to his expulsion from middle school. And Christopher McLaughlin (guitar, vocals) gave up what promised to be a successful and lucrative career in physics after a homegrown experiment involving ionized photons blinded the family dog.

The four became fast friends and rented a house in the Aberdeen Architectural Conservation District of Boston. There, they eagerly pursued their collective hobby of writing and recording music. The band's self-produced, self-released We Learned By Watching EP (2003) helped them to build a regional fan-base while reviews unanimously predicted bigger things to come.

In the deep freeze of winter 2005, Aberdeen City retreated to The Ranch, a former country western hangout turned recording studio, with producer Nic Hard to record their debut LP. For three weeks, they obsessed over every lyric, chord and sonic nuance. Delicately balancing distance with intimacy and dynamic tension with beauty; they achieved a sound that is grand without pretense. Textured guitars occasionally yield the melody to the bass (Parker, a classically trained violinist, picked up the instrument recently), while decisive drumbeats evoke a call to arms as often as a call to dance. Parker's delicate lyrics develop carefully and reveal multiple meanings with each listen. Sprinkled with romance and dark wit, "Pretty Pet" offers: I've seen shame on many faces / I've seen it on mine / I've been helped my many people / I've hurt more than you / Sometimes regret makes a great pet / You hit the target, my pet, regret.

The record was released in the fall of 2005 on New York based Dovecote Records. Thanks to positive reviews, a healthy Internet buzz and a strong presence on the CMJ charts, the band played to capacity crowds at the 2005 CMJ Music Marathon and the 2006 South By Southwest Music Festival. They found an early fan in Producer/A&R Columbia Records Steve Lillywhite who approached the band about going back into the studio to work on a few tracks, leading to a deal with Sony's Red Ink label to re-release the album on August 8, 2006. Recent months have found the band touring the US with the likes of Elefant (Kemado/Hollywood) and Sound Team (Capitol). For up to date tour dates, press and more, visit www.aberdeenmusic.com.

September 16

Lansing, MI

Temple Club

It is only fitting that we begin and end this tour in Michigan. Electric
Six is from Michigan and they seem proud of that fact. We are from
Boston. We hope they are proud of that too. Here is how we can be sure
that this will be a good tour: During the end of Electric Six's set the
people started dancing. And OH how they danced. The Temple Club was,
in fact, a temple of some sort in the past. It's floor has seen many
years of rites, prayers, and sacrifices. When the dancing started, the
floor sagged in response as it is tired and elastic. The funny thing
about music and an old floor is that when hundreds of people bounce on
it at the same time (known as 'dancing'), the weight on the floor at the
precise moment of their landing (probably in time with the kick drum) is
intensely magnified. It started with swaying mic stands onstage
followed by glasses and bottles smashing on the floor all over the club.
By the end of the tune, the bouncers were wrestling with the
loudspeakers by the stage, trying to keep them from falling off of their
stands into the crowd. The floor was about to go and no one seemed to
notice.
Conclusion: This tour, we're going to rock to the brink of tragedy.

Leave a Comment

June 14

greetings from the great midwest

currently driving from milwaukee to madison. this particular tour started last week in Chicago with a lovely headlining show at Schubas. that was fun. Two nights later we found ourselves driving around "downtown" Toledo trying to find the promoter of the show in order to get paid. that was not fun.

here is what has kept us entertained in between shows this week:

George Takei
"Handfull of Billions" by Sound Team
The Office
Jamison
Ayn Rand
Entertainment Weekly
Chuck Klausterman
Canada

also, we found this mannequin head that looks JUST like Sam from Sound Team. We're going to mail it to him in a box. We'll let you know how that turns out.

bye for now.

Leave a Comment

May 30

#6

this one is an arm wrestling movie that you have to to go the news at www.aberdeenmusic.com to watch.

Leave a Comment

May 21

#5

5.21.06 Day Off-

Yesterday was a much needed day off. The show in Louisville was the sixth in as many days and the drives have been lengthy, as you may have read. Originally our plan was to drive from Louisville to Dallas in a day, but we got detoured in Nashville as we found out that two of our friends, Zoe and Ryan, were there on the Imogen Heap tour. We hung for the afternoon at this fabulous place called Cafe Coco, caught up with our pals and met Imogen, who was lovely.

We drove a few more hours and stopped for the night in Memphis. We convinced Sound Team to do the same, to which they agreed and challenged Aberdeen City to disco bowling down the street. Game on. They have more people in their band so we took on Dana, their tour manager, and Andrew, Elefant's Merch Man who claims he "majored in bowling for a semester"... I think I believe him. It was neck and neck as they matched spare with spare and gutterball with gutterball for a couple hours... but in the end, we took it.

Then it was off to Beale St. where they have "Drinks To Go" at most bars, though most of us opted to take our sitting down at the bar as we're accumstomed... Some of the Elefant dudes showed up and the night rolled on... it was a good day off for sure.

Leave a Comment

May 20

#4

It's 3am and we're making our way towards Louisville, KY feeling pretty relieved. After what was one of our worst days on the road... let's see, ever... we managed a pretty good show in DC tonight. I think just the fact that we played the show would have been enough, but it felt good tonight, which was a bonus.

The day started out pretty well. We woke up in our own beds in Boston, having just played a packed and rowdy hometown show for Best Music Poll, which was a lot of fun. We met at our rehearsal space early and started out on the Mass Pike around 10am which, unbeknownst to us, was closed in both directions due to a methane truck that had tipped over. Six hours later we hit NYC Friday rush hour where we spent another three hours in stop and go traffic. It was 7pm by the time we were through New York. Our set time in DC was at 9:30pm, and we were 240 miles from the venue, not to mention that we still had to get through Philly, Baltimore and DC on a Friday. Hopeless. We hadn't stopped for water, food or bathrooms all day- all of which stung a bit. Brad edited a creepy movie on his computer, Chris slept, having just put in 9 hours behind the wheel that would break any man's spirit, and I watched the new Office Season Finale on repeat. "Why are you the way that you are?" We raced the clock to the venue where the Sound Team was gracious enough to play in our normal opening slot and let us use their gear afterwards. The mighty Elefant agreed to go on a bit late and the people at the Black Cat were also totally accommodating to the speeding shit show that was Aberdeen City. We rolled up to the loading dock of the club at 10:45PM, loaded what we needed directly onto the stage, played an abbreviated set to several hundred DC-ites, did an interview (originally set for 8PM- sorry again, Kyle), set up and sold our merch, had a quick bite to eat in the green room and left.

There was one major casualty of the evening. When things were looking grim for us getting to the show, I called our dear friend John Rancort, who lives in DC and has never missed one of our sh ows there. He was all "you'll make it, just keep going", and we were all "but it's so hard, John, we're tired and sad and we just want to use the bathroom and eat turkey jerkey", and he was all "forget about that and drive goddamnit, DC needs you tonight", and we were all "okay John, we'll do our best". I texted him with our new set time of 11pm as we were rolling into the city. He sent me a text message as we were unloading behind the club that said "got a spot right in front". I wrote back "see you in 5 minutes", knowing we would be loading onto stage and starting our set immediately. I didn't notice him in the front of the crowd during the set, but no matter. When I walked outside to get a breath of air after our set, I saw John standing outside the club, holding a van-sized parking spot in front.

Leave a Comment

view all 7 posts