Western Civ


Band Mem­bers:

Mem­bers: Rich Hen­der­son– lead gui­tars, vocals
Jason B– Bass,keys,vocals
Bryan C– drums,vocals
Misty Dawn — keys,percussion

…and have occa­sion­ally been occom­pa­nied by friends and cohorts:
Ken Lar­son — Gui­tar
Kem­per McDow­ell — Per­cus­sion, keys
Jason Hall — Gui­tar, Keys, Per­cus­sion
Brian Meekins — Vio­lin, lap steel

Music:

I Am A Waterfall

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Albums:

Regent King­fish Slum­ber­pad — EP — 2005
Rem­ing­ton Steel Mag­no­lia — LP — 2007
Shower The Peo­ple You Love With Gold — LP — NMFL — 2009

Com­ing in 2011:

Con­tribut­ing to NMFL’s GBV trib­ute album and a New LP!

Bio:

Like most bands of the indie-rock per­sua­sion, the mem­bers of West­ern Civ tend to balk at efforts to define the band’s sound. “Can I just tell you what it isn’t?” asks guitarist/singer Rich Hen­der­son. And it’s not that he hasn’t had time to mull it over– Hen­der­son and his long­time pals belong squarely in the catagory of musi­cal “lif­ers”. “I don’t think I could do any­thing else,” Hen­der­son says, his generally-easygoing fea­tures tak­ing on a steely edge as he makes the admission.

Hen­der­son, Briggs, and Cabler were all mem­bers of the same small-town Alabama high school class, and have been mak­ing music together with vir­tu­ally no inter­rup­tion for well over a decade. Nonethe­less, they only began to con­cen­trate on pub­lic per­for­mances and record­ing in 2005, when they released the self-recorded EP Regent King­fish Slum­ber­pad. “We decided to let the rest of the world in on what we’d been doing for fun in a prac­tice room for ages,” says bassist Briggs.

Slum­ber­pad was fol­lowed, in rapid suc­ces­sion, by the band’s first taste of tour­ing; by its first receipt of flat­ter­ing crit­i­cal praise; its relo­ca­tion, en masse, to Chapel Hill; and the well-received follow-up LP, 2007’s Rem­ing­ton Steele Magnolia.

Mag­no­lia, in turn, gar­nered impres­sive radio play and jus­ti­fied fur­ther tour­ing before the group turned its atten­tion to the stu­dio again– this time with Mitch Easter at the con­trols — to begin track­ing Shower The Peo­ple You Love With Gold, a ten-track affair loaded with exu­ber­ant melodies, gui­tars that alter­nately buzz, shim­mer, and wail, quirky lyri­cal con­ven­tions, thun­der­ous rhythm-section hero­ics, and Mitch Easter’s renowned mixing-desk brilliance.

As the album, which was tracked on 24-track Studer ana­log tape machine, began to take shape, Easter’s stu­dio toy­box was plun­dered by the band– in addi­tion to typ­i­cal rock instru­ments, a 1980’s Casio key­board, a vin­tage Leslie cab­i­net, and a child’s bull roar toy were employed in the pur­suit of sonic diver­sity. And that’s to say noth­ing of the bright-orange metal fold­ing chair which was rechristined an instru­ment, miked up, and played con brio by Cabler with a drum stick.

The 2009 release of Shower The Peo­ple You Love With Gold gained more crit­i­cal acclaim than the band had seen thus far includ­ing reviews in some of their favorite music mag­a­zines and spots play­ing some of their favorite music festivals.

So what’s next for the band? A track on their anti-label No More Fake Labels’ indie all-star Guided By Voices trib­ute album which includes The Flam­ing Lips and Kel­ley Deal and the Buf­falo Killers, due out in early 2011. The band will also be releas­ing a new album of their own com­ing in spring 2011 that will take the band deeper into Henderson’s love of 60’s garage and pop.

Press:

“Loosely bound melodies buzz and shim­mer out of the gui­tars, using har­mony and dis­so­nance, shine and mud to set the scene. Like­wise, var­i­ous vocal styles rang­ing from a soft, nearly spo­ken mum­ble to a falsetto swoon add char­ac­ter.“
Damon — DOA

“From front to back, Shower the Peo­ple is com­pletely acces­si­ble and yet still main­tains in being com­pletely cool. And it was released on some weird anti-label called NoMore­Fake­La­bels. What’s cooler than an anti-label? Noth­ing. Nothing’s cooler than that. I give it 4 stars.“
Joce­lyn Hoppa — Crawdaddy

“4 out of 5 Stars!! “…West­ern Civ…does a nice job of har­ness­ing its lay­ered sounds to melodies that make the most of them.”“
Jim Abbott — Chicago Tribune

“5+++ out of 6!! “We liked this album right off the bat…but con­tin­ued to spin it for about a week before writ­ing this. West­ern CIV is a great band with great songs.Totally enter­tain­ing stuff. Rec­om­mended. ““
Baby Sue — LMNOP

“West­ern Civ has honed its brand of mean­der­ing and com­plex indie rock…Still, the album adheres largely to West­ern Civ’s orig­i­nal sound: ram­bunc­tious gui­tar melodies inter­twined with spas­modic yet strangely infec­tious vocals.“
MAGNET Magazine

“West­ern Civ has linked up with vet­eran pro­ducer Mitch Easter (R.E.M., Super­chunk, Pave­ment) in their new home state of North Car­olina. The indie four­some will com­mence record­ing their third record in May 2008 under Easter’s guid­ance at his Fideli­to­rium Stu­dios in Kernsville.“
Lora Kolodny — CMJ Music news and CMJ blast

“You will want to be able to say that you were lis­ten­ing to them before they were everyone’s favorite band!“
Chris Bowie — Fans of Left of Cen­ter face­book newsletter

“Wel­come Alabama trans­plants West­ern Civ, whose dark, chunky, post-punk churn ought to feel at home in the birth­place of Archers of Loaf and Polvo.”…“a nice Wire-y insis­tence, char­ac­ter­ized by the band’s push and pull between jagged, stac­cato rhythms and ear-catching rib­bons of melody.“
Chris Parker — The Inde­pen­dent Weekly

“(after a ref­er­ence to Super­chunk) “West­ern Civ does that Merge flag­ship proud…”“
Spencer Grif­fith — The Inde­pen­dent Weekly

“West­ern Civ Is An Undis­cov­ered Gem You’re Shocked Hasn’t Been Signed Yet.”…“To lis­ten to songs from West­ern Civ’s EP, Regent King­fish Slum­ber­pad, you instantly see that this is a band that’s going places.“
Gray­don Smith — IndieMusicXposed.com

“…the record reveals an hon­esty that is miss­ing from many of today’s up-and-comers.“
William Cane — Per­former Magazine

“…Next up was West­ern Civ. The boys from Alabama played a truly impres­sive set that went beyond even what we’d seen or heard from them pre­vi­ously. They’ve begun to work in more har­monies and moments of nuanced arrange­ment that build on what was already an impres­sive sound.
LIVE REVIEW — stereoactivenyc.com

“Mak­ing bug-eyed, imag­i­na­tive Indie Rock with wiry gui­tar tex­tur­ing and effec­tive, spec­tral melodies…“
Mike Breen — City Beat (Cincin­nati, Critic’s Pick for Mid­Point Music Fest)

“Com­bin­ing a dual gui­tar attack with the ver­sa­til­ity of a bass player and gui­tar player who each also play key­boards, West­ern Civ mixed the tonal qual­i­ties of Built To Spill and Pave­ment into a refined indie pop sound.“
the wheels still in spin (LIVE review)

“ABOUT EP REGENT KINGFISH SLUMBERPAD “It might not always come out sound­ing civ­i­lized, but this CD is a win­ner…”“
Dan Mac­In­tosh — Indie-music.com

“These guys are not try­ing to be any­one else and that shows. In todays world where many of the bands play­ing are inked up copies of the pre­vi­ous group, It’s good to see some fresh ideas.”“
Alca­traz — Voices Magazine

Links:

www.westerncivrock.com
www.twitter.com/westernciv
www.myspace.com/westernciv
www.reverbnation.com/westernciv
www.facebook.com/pages/Western-Civ/12571330238
www.ilike.com/artist/Western+Civ

Con­tact:

Misty Dawn, man­ager
mistydawn@westerncivrock.com
AND
Shil K Patel, Press/ Radio
shil@teamclermont.com