Hotel Lights - S/T

Darren Jessee started Hotel Lights after many years of writing songs, playing drums and touring with Ben Folds Five. Darren co-wrote Brick and Song For The Dumped. After leaving the now-famous pop group, Jessee moved from North Carolina to New York City and quietly played solo shows around town for a while.

After toiling around without much happening, he moved back to NC to put together his ideal band: former Archers of Loaf drummer Mark Price, Roger Gupton (bass, vocals), and Chris Badger (keyboards, guitar). They took their time arranging and rehearsing, eventually recording at the Sound of Music in Virginia, with producer and guitarist Al Weatherhead, now a full-time member of the band. Adam Scheslinger, of Fountains Of Wayne, also helped out on some of the arrangements.

Jessee has the genealogy, as Fold's influence is highly apparent. This is a very good album and very reminiscent of BF5 early work.

For fans of The Shins, Yo La Tengo, Sufjan Stevens & Ben Folds. Hotel Light's MySpace. This new record was released by Bar-None Records. Hotel Lights will be playing the Bar/None Records night at SXSW on friday March 17th @ 11:00 pm.

Hotel Lights - A.M. Slow Golden Hit
Hotel Lights - Marvelous Truth
Hotel Lights - Small Town Shit

Internet Radio News: WOXY
I was supposed to post on this yesterday as MJ was like, "This is big news, you better let the peeps know!" I forgot, and furthermore, I think it's really sad news. Moreover, I hope you support them if you are a WOXY listener. Yesterday the online internet station, WOXY.com, announced that they are going listener supported.

WOXY says that they want to keep providing the best in new music while at the same time running an honest business (ie: providing health benefits to employees, paying royalties, handle the cost of reliable streaming, and filing taxes). At the same time advertisers do not have a steady grasp on who’s listening when and who the audience is, regardless of the fact that they are intrigued with the idea of it all. In short, they aren’t willing to pour in tons of ad sales money.

For the price of $9.95 a month the station will offer the premium service for 24-hour, true broadband, CD-quality streams. They will also offer subscribers special perks down the line. In the meantime, until February 13 that is, they are leaving their 64 kbps streams running. For people that do not subscribe to the station, they will continue to offer a low bandwidth stream for free. On March 6, WOXY said that they will evaluate how things are going and take things from there. For more info, go here. Copy is via Erin Chandler from Tripwire.