That weekend is the huge, two-day Small Stone Records showcase in Philly, so I’m thinking of this show on Tuesday, Sept. 20 — featuring three of the most rocking bands on the label — as a kind of pre-party. Just a sampling of the debauched, rocking madness to come that weekend. Suplecs, in New York for the first time in who the hell knows how long, team up with natives The Brought Low and Ohioan fuzz mavens Lo-Pan (you may have read about them on this site once or twice) for a gig at Union Pool in Brooklyn.

I’m excited to be teamed with BrooklynVegan on this show, and am so pretty much only through their graciousness, so thanks much to them. It’s going to be a killer night — if you’ve never been to Union Pool, the taco cart is fantastic — with three righteous, bullshit-free bands for the low price of $10. It’s the kind of show I’d be happy just to go to, let alone have this site’s name on the flier:

Speaking of, here’s that flier:

Any spreading the news around or buying of advanced tickets you’d like to do is certainly appreciated. Hope to see you at the show.

Coextinction Recordings was founded late last year by the formidable team of Dave Curran (Unsane, Players Club, Pigs), James Paradise (Fresh Kills, Players Club, Pigs), Chris Spencer (Unsane) and producer Andrew Schneider (Pigs, Slughog), and has already had digital releases from the founders’ bands as well as Shrinebuilder, Goes Cube and Julie Christmas, among others. Their ninth release — aptly titled Coextinction Recordings 9 — is a three-song EP from New York rockers The Brought Low.

Boasting the songs “Army of Soldiers,” “Black River” and “Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing,” The Brought Low‘s Coextinction EP (produced, not surprisingly, by the band in conjunction with Schneider) distills the elements that make the band among the finest their overcrowded city has to offer. The opener is a classic Brought Low barn-burner, “Black River” finds bassist Bob Russell taking the lead for some mid-paced classic rock stomp, and on the seven-minute finale, “Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing,” the trio — Russell, guitarist/vocalist Ben Smith and drummer Nick Heller — slam on the breaks and deliver the twanged-out melancholy as only they can.

The band and Coextinction were kind enough to allow me to host “Army of Soldiers” for streaming on the player below, so please check it out. Under that, you’ll find some insight from Smith and Russell about the three songs. Thanks much to all parties involved for kicking ass.

The Brought Low‘s EP is available for a whopping $2.99 at Coextinction‘s website: http://www.coextinction.com

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“Army of Soldiers”

Ben Smith: The result of listening to too much NWOBHM in Bob‘s truck last tour. Originally the lyrics were about knights and dragons but I couldn’t sing them with a straight face so Bob suggested, “Make it about being a kid in Queens and getting fucked up on angel dust and doing graffiti.” Done.

Bob Russell: If you ever stood in the freezing cold somewhere in the woods wearing only your denim jacket and Cons just so you could listen to your Celtic Frost tape and drink a few cans of stolen Budweiser with your friends, then the army of soldiers wants YOU.

“Black River”

BR: “Black River” is about doing bad things. You may not want to do ’em, but you know you’re gonna do ’em. I wrote it while having to walk across the English Kills to work on a shitty construction site right between a waste transfer station and a demolition transfer station. I always wondered what you’d find at the bottom of that water.

BS: Bob’s jam. He had given me an acoustic demo of it and I instantly thought we could turn it up. Fulfills my dream of The Brought Low sounding like The Band using Marshall stacks.

“Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing”

BS: Wouldn’t be a Brought Low release without a weeper.  Had the first two verses for like 10 years but didn’t write the last verse until a few months ago. Whenever I bring in a ballad I always worry the dudes won’t like it yet they always do, which makes me very happy.

BR: I think this is the most glacially-paced song we’ve recorded. We reckoned it begs for horns and keys and stuff but here, in its sparse version, it works kind of sweet. This is also the first time I’ve seen Ben play a Strat. Just attach yourself to Nick‘s ride cymbal and don’t make any plans for the next seven minutes.

Get The Brought Low’s Coextinction EP here

I’ll have more on this in the next couple weeks, but I wanted to get the news out there in case anyone didn’t see it on the forum that The Brought Low — otherwise known as New York‘s best rock band — will be putting out a new EP digitally through Coextinction Recordings come July 15. The material follows the trio’s usual scope of fire-breathing rockers and woeful hungover melancholy. At a little over 13 minutes long, it’s quite a roller coaster.

Here’s the news from the band:

The Brought Low will be releasing a new three-song digital EP on Coextinction Recordings this July 15, 2011. We cut three new songs with producer Andrew Schneider about a month back and they will be available for download at the Coextinction website: http://www.coextinction.com.

Song titles are “Army of Soldiers,” “Black River” and “Don’t Give Up Your Good Thing.”

We should be posting some song clips in the near future.

Also we just booked our first show of the fall on Saturday, Sept 24, 2011, at The M Room in Philadelphia as part of Philly Fest‘s Small Stone Records showcase with Roadsaw, Gozu, Throttlerod, Sun Gods in Exile, The Might Could and Ironweed.

Between this and yesterday’s live review, that’s two days in a row of writing about NYC rockers The Brought Low, and as far as I’m concerned, those are two good days. Even though I made this list weeks ago at this point, seeing New York‘s most powerful power trio play live again this past weekend only reaffirmed how much they belong on it. The Brought Low are killer heavy rock. End of story.

Third Record was their second release for Small Stone, and it rested on the mighty groove of tracks like “The Kelly Rose” and “My Favorite Waste of Time” just as much as the wistful emotionality of its ballads, “A Thousand Miles Away” and “Last Man Alive.” It opened catchy with “Old Century” and was enough to keep me coming back to The Brought Low for the whole year. And seriously, it was just about the whole year. I reviewed this thing in February.

I don’t think The Brought Low are ever going to be an album-a-year kind of band, but when they do get to putting out records, they’re killer. Third Record is the closest the band has come to capturing their formidable live energy on tape, and it was genuinely worth the four-year wait to get it. As the band matures, they only seem to get better, and of Small Stone‘s several really strong offerings in 2010, The Brought Low was most definitely among the upper crust.

It had been years since I was last in the Cake Shop, but upon my arrival I found it much the same as I’d last left it: upstairs a coffee bar that sells LPs and limited this-and-thats, and downstairs a basement venue not unlike other venerable Manhattan stops I’ve come across over the years — Lit Lounge, Ace of Clubs, The Pyramid all spring to mind. Christmas lights hung around the stage, giving a festive air, which was appropriate for Kings Destroy‘s record release show for the brilliant And the Rest Will Surely Perish. I got there in time to see the band soundcheck, and they sounded tight, guitarist Carl Porcaro playing through a broken wrist and not being held back by it in the slightest. Everything came through clear, so they broke down and eventually the show got going.

Maegashira opened. There was a lot of friends, a lot of emotions and a lot of feedback. Then it was over.

I couldn’t remember if I’d seen The Brought Low since they put out Third Record earlier this year, but even if I had, I was certainly more familiar with the songs this time around. During the course of their set, they played the first four songs off the album in a row — by the time they got around to the ultra-grooving “My Favorite Waste of Time,” I was both drunk and so happy I couldn’t stand still — as well as cuts from their prior self-titled and Right on Time offerings. They’ve always been a live band in my mind, and since they went power-trio, they’ve only gotten better. Their garage rock side comes out more in their sound, but they offset it with thicker tones and occasional breakneck speed. However long it had been, it felt like too long since I’d seen them. What a band.

As they do, Kings Destroy pulled in a good crowd for the release show, and they positively killed. They were slower than the last time I saw them, and it seemed like the band had purposefully taken a step back to examine what they were doing live, to bring it more in line with the album. It worked. Porcaro and fellow guitarist Chris Skowronski played together with the kind of unspoken chemistry you can only have when you’ve shared a stage with someone for years — because they have — and bassist Ed Bocchino‘s tone is quickly becoming one of my favorites in doom. Couple that with the refined crash of Rob Sefcik and the increasing confidence of Steve Murphy — now firmly in command of the room — behind the mic, and you’ve got the makings of a classic.

They’re reportedly at work on new material already, but stuck to And the Rest Will Surely Perish for their set. I’m not sure when I grabbed it, but at some point in my stupor, I grabbed their set list and it went as follows: “Medusa,” “The Mounty,” “Planet XXY,” “The Whittler,” “Stung,” “Dusty Mummy” and closing with “Old Yeller,” leaving only “Two Tons” from the record unplayed. Even when Porcaro broke a string, they kept going. He got another guitar and was back in it in no time, and no momentum was lost. These dudes are pros — and I’ll be totally honest — they make me wish I had a real label, with distribution and promotion and all that happy crap, because they deserve to be heard.

The crowd thinned out some after Kings Destroy, leaving Alkahest to close out the night in the basement. I continue to be a fan and intrigued to see where these guys end up stylistically, since every time I see them it’s a different kind of experience. Frontman Chris spent a good portion of the set writhing on the Cake Shop floor (which didn’t look clean), leaving the stage to the rest of the band, who filled it amply. They were a last-minute replacement for Mighty High, whose drummer’s special lady had a baby the week prior, but Alkahest made the best of it and capped off a great night in fittingly aggressive fashion. Their balance of tortured vs. angry vs. ambient has not yet ceased to fascinate.

The Patient Mrs. drove me back to the valley, and certainly I wouldn’t have made it without her. I gave back some of the evenings Newcastles in the form of a short and sweet-tasting vomit session, then crashed out, my ears ringing, my body sore, and my stomach already looking forward to the omelet that would necessarily follow in the morning. I wouldn’t have traded any part of the night for anything in the world.

It’s the weekend of my wedding anniversary, but man, the lineup for Small Stone‘s Philadelphia showcase is pretty badass. True, I’ve seen most of these bands, but I don’t imagine House of Broken Promises are going to make a habit of being on the East Coast, Backwoods Payback are buddies, Solace kill every time, Red Giant‘s got a new album coming, I’d really, really like to hear some of the material from Sasquatch‘s third record live, and the Millcreek Tavern has their own home brew. Looks like it could be another test of The Patient Mrs. living up to her name.

Here’s the news from Small Stone:

Small Stone is pleased to announce that we will be doing two back-to-back showcases at The Philadelphia Film & Music Festival in September. Our events will be taking place at the Millcreek Tavern which is located at 4200 Chester Avenue, University City, Philadelphia (215-222-1255). And, now for the lineup:

Friday September 24th: Dixie Witch, The Brought Low, Throttlerod, Lo-Pan, Sun Gods in Exile, Backwoods Payback

Saturday September 25th: Solace, Roadsaw, Sasquatch, House of Broken Promises, Gozu, Red Giant

As I told The Brought Low bassist/backing vocalist Bob Russell while we waited outside guitarist/vocalist Ben Smith‘s work for him to come down with a suggestion as to where to go to lunch and conduct this interview today (March 2, 2010), and as I’ve said on multiple occasions prior, every time I come to Midtown Manhattan, I swear it’s going to be the last time I ever do it. Sure enough, though, there’s always something to bring me back.

This time, it’s The Brought Low‘s Third Record (review here), the band’s first offering in five years since they made their Small Stone Records label debut with Right on Time. An entirely unpretentious and confident collection of songs, it was easily worth the drive into the city to discuss with Smith and Russell the process of making the album with producer Andrew Schneider (Throttlerod, Puny Human, etc.), and as we went to dine at Cafe Edison — located in the hotel on Broadway of the same name — the environment reminded me of something straight out of a New York movie, one of those scenes where intimacy is somehow managed in one of the planet’s most crowded spots. For the record, Smith credits his father with showing him how to navigate Midtown.

Likewise, both Smith and Russell agree that a good portion of Third Record‘s natural, organic sound comes from Schneider‘s work behind the board, but neither discounts their comfort in the trio lineup of the band — rounded out by drummer Nick Heller — as a factor in the positive results. Over our shared meal, there was a lot of joking and a lot of lighthearted sarcasm (one of the charms of The Brought Low has always been their self-deprecating sense of humor), but it’s no question that the band is passionate and serious about what they’re doing and how far they’ve come in their decade of existence.

After the jump, Smith and Russell discuss making Third Record, their plans surrounding South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and, of course, how every other band is jive and The Brought Low kicks ass. It’s a given. Enjoy the interview.

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What New York City rockers The Brought Low have always managed to do best is get right to the point, and on their latest offering, the appropriately titled Third Album (Small Stone), the trio make it known right away that they’re open for business. “Old Century Man” is an upbeat rocker that plays directly into the trio’s old fashioned classic rock aesthetic. That song could be said to be the mission statement for the eight tracks following it, but The Brought Low do more sonically than hit overdrive for three minutes at a time and call it a day.

Which is fortunate, if you think about it, because if they did, we would have waited four years for a 27-minute record. And that seems silly somehow.

But no, The Brought Low offer substance in more than just temporal fashion right off the bat. There has always been an underlying emotionality to their songs, a blues-driven sense of loss made palpable to the listener through the vocals of guitarist Ben Smith. “Everybody Loves a Whore” keeps the vibe of the opener going, albeit more aggressively (or many that’s just me reacting to the name), but with “The Kelly Rose,” the band begins to show a personality in their work that 2006’s Right on Time had, at its strongest moments, started to fulfill. “The Kelly Rose” is catchy and memorable — a solid transition into “A Thousand Miles Away,” which takes a wistful, acoustic turn, highlighting a road-weary loneliness in the lyrics that’s perfectly suited to the pop melancholy of the music.

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