Our good friends and local Philadelphia favorites, The Districts, recently played a pop-up show at our headquarters to a intimate crowd of 50 or so fans. We got so many requests for tickets that we had to close the RSVP within an hour of posting about it. The guys played a full set that night and we filmed three songs.
“Hounds, Bold, Heavy Begs”
The Districts met in their hometown of Lititz, Pa., and began making a name for themselves in Philadelphia’s music scene. Coming from a small town, the band members have known one another for most of their lives. “I went to preschool with [frontman] Rob [Grote],” says drummer Braden Lawrence, “but I didn’t talk to him because he stole my blocks or something and I hated him for 10 years.”
Eventually the Districts relocated to Philadelphia and became part of that city’s music scene. Their most recent album, A Flourish and a Spoil, was recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minn. “It was awesome,” Grote says of the experience. “We put on some Nirvana and went swimming.”
Now on tour supporting the new album, the Districts visited The Current’s studio for a session with Mary Lucia. Here are some key quotes from the interview:
On the title of their song, “4th and Roebling”:
“It’s right off the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. We parked there the first time we played in New York a long time ago, and we needed a title for the song.”
http://www.thecurrent.org/listen/feature/2015/02/23/the-districts-perform-in-the-current-studio
On how their van and gear disappeared while on a previous tour:
“We went to the City Museum in East Saint Louis (Ill.), which is an awesome museum but not in an awesome area. We were in a gated lot, but we came out of the City Museum and our van was gone.”
On the Philadelphia music scene:
“I feel like it’s one big music scene with a lot of different little ones in it. But even if you don’t necessarily fit into a certain one, no one really hates on each other too much. Even if you don’t like the music, it’s cool that there’s a lot of bands; everyone’s pretty supportive of it and into it, so that’s cool.”
Songs Performed
“4th and Roebling”
“Peaches”
“Chlorine”
All songs off The Districts’ album, “A Flourish and a Spoil”, out now on Fat Possum Records.
Philadelphian quartet The Districts are preparing to return to the U.K along with their upcoming album, “Popular Manipulations”on August 11th through Fat Possum Records. So far, they’ve teased us with the full-length trio of new songs “Ordinary Day” , “If Before I Wake” and “Violet”. Today, the rock outfit has unveiled yet another new track, “Salt”.
Taking cues from “If Before I Wake”, the reverberating “Salt” has a glossy sound buoyed by sparkling synths, but with scaled back guitars this time around. Frontman Rob Grote’s soaring vocals rise above the fray with contemplative lyrics like, “Thought you were hopeful/ The last of the glow/ Until you burn out/ Until we burn out.”
The Districts have graced us with another thunderous single off their upcoming album Popular Manipulations.
Rob Grote from the band says, “Lyrically, ‘Violet,’ deals with ideas of possessiveness, intimacy, sex, dependency, and how they’re used manipulatively. Kind of a look at how these things can be beautiful but are also used as devices, usually unconsciously which is the somewhat terrifying part. There is a pervasive thing throughout a lot of classic and modern popular music where ideas of ‘needing’ and referring to a romantic partner with a tone of ownership are normal and poignant lyrical topics. This song was using those same ideas but observing the strangeness in them, rather than celebrating them. Structurally the song reflects that strangeness by restraining and exploding somewhat irregularly.”
Next week, The Districts continue their world tour in support of Popular Manipulations, with a show supporting Ryan Adams and a stop at Lollapalooza. They follow that up with a string of Midwestern and Northeastern dates including a pair of shows with My Morning Jacket. After that, they kick off a European tour at Reading and Leeds Festivals.
The Lititz, Pennsylvania-formed four-piece don’t concern themselves with mundane tales. With frontman Rob Grote at the helm, they bellow out wild stories about the vastness, fear and thunder of youth. Everything sounds huge. Grote’s vocal never simmers down, guitars are packed like sardines bursting at the seams, drums threaten to blow the doors down.
If 2015 coming-of-age album ‘A Flourish and a Spoil’ hinted at the band’s big-thinking signatures, new song ‘If Before I Wake’ cements it. Grote chants “I’m just a narcissist!” and claims he’s “too blessed to be depressed!”, like he’s had a spiritual awakening. Every fragment of the track has been pushed up to 100 per cent, blared out to the skies. In just three minutes, it feels like The Districts have contained a lifetime’s tale.
The Districts are a band that never stops moving. Popular Manipulations is an accurate representation of how much Robby, Braden, Connor, and Pat have grown, individually and as one solid unit. They’ve fallen in love and had their hearts broken and put back together again. They’re not the young underage band anymore, they’ve stepped out of their comfort zone and have come face to face with things that are so much bigger than them.
Popular Manipulations is life in the present. The way Robby belts from the depths of his chest compliments Pat’s crooning guitar while Braden and Connor lock in with a rhythm section so thick you could slice it with a knife. The songs are so visceral and compelling they make you like you’re experiencing every emotion at once. You can wade through the lyrical themes of manipulation, possessiveness, and anxiety or float among their dark and dreamy arrangements. Each song stands alone on its own but the synergy between them as a whole is explosive.
Philadelphia band The Districts have announced a new full-length album entitled, “Popular Manipulations”. The follow-up to their 2015 excellent breakthrough effort, “A Florish and A Spoil ” due out August 11th via Fat Possum Records.
Four of the 11 tracks on the LP were recorded with producer John Congleton, who’d previously worked with the band on Flourish. The other songs were all self-recorded by The Districts themselves alongside Pine Barons member Keith Abrams. “Both sessions were great,” said frontman Robby Grote “We just have fun working with John. There’s a dialogue between us when we are working with him where he has suggestions or we’ll just talk stuff out, but it was definitely refreshing recording just a neighborhood away from where we live and doing it all ourselves with Keith. We viewed it as more of a challenge.”
In addition to the album announcement, the band released the single and video for lead single “Ordinary Day”, On Record Store Day 2017 7-inch vinyl. Directed by Out of Town Films, the clip is a brooding visual that Grote said “deals with ideas of loneliness, alienation and going through the motions in life.” It tackles those concepts by having the black-garbed band deliver a lifeless performance for a bunch of people in creepy white masks drinking milk.
In September 2012, a high-school rock band from Lititz, Pennsylvania, called The Districts took to the stage at World Cafe Live in Wilmington, Delaware, as part of a local battle of the bands competition.
The band took first place in the competition, “The impressive, young band channeled the rock-and-soul vibe of Cold War Kids and Spoon; singer Rob Grote’s searing voice cut across the concert hall, blending with the band’s smartly-arranged instrumental interplay. They do the very Pixies loud-quiet-LOUD thing, but in a more textured way than simply turning their overdrive pedals on and off. A thundering swell cuts, leaving a clean guitar arpeggio floating in space as Grote catches his breath; the verses build in waves, with the heaviness sometimes derived just from Braden Lawrence’s drums. Grote is an intense, emphatic, occasionally bewildering stage presence – he kicks, stomps and snarls, both at the mic and far away – and the entire band hold their own, shuffling and bobbing and giving the overall band a dynamic stage presence.”
Since that night in Delaware five years ago, The Districts have built their growing fan base on exactly the kind of dynamic energy described above. This energy, powered by lead singer Rob Grote’s charisma and emotionally riveting performances, was fantastically captured in a HotBox session of “Funeral Beds,” in 2012, and the band haven’t looked back since.
By 2014, The Districts had become one of Philadelphia’s best new bands, and toured incessantly. They moved to Philly and released their second album, “A Flourish And A Spoil”, in 2015. After the release of Flourish, Grote and the band started working on new music, and have kept busy with local side projects including the fuzzed out punk-garage Straw Hats (featuring Districts’ Grote and drummer Braden Lawrence) and the occasional solo show by Grote.
So its a new song by The Districts, “Ordinary Day.” The band is putting the finishing touches on a new album due out later this year. “Ordinary Day” is the first chapter of a new book in the band’s creative growth. In well-crafted Beatles-esque fashion, the song leads with a left jab, seducing you with its soft open, only to land a quick right hook.
There’s so much to love about the complex dream that is Haggert McTaggert‘s self-titled debut. Haggert Mctaggert is the songwriting outlet of Braden Lawrence. While he plays drums in The Districts and sings and plays guitar in Straw Hats, his unique style of creativity is most vulnerably expressed in this particular project. For the album, Lawrence combined with the endlessly imaginative brain and performance/production talents of Pine Barons Keith Abrams. Together, the pair transformed eight love confessions and life ruminations into a sparkling landscape of mid-tempo pop.
Every sound on the album was carefully chosen, whether it be from an object traditionally considered an instrument or not. Bubbles percolate amongst the wavering “Annie Hall” while the galactic synths of “Home Rule” fit suitably as a dampening backdrop. No song is swallowed by the cushion of accouterment but rather enlivened. “2ndDoorFloor” expands gradually from a structured acoustic guitar riff to include guitars pinging from all directions, swelling harmony, and even a little bit of saxophone.
The album’s layers of tinkering build triumphantly and fade gracefully around the core: a constant sense of gilded isolation. In “TBS,” Lawrence’s weary voice straddles soft reflective verses and a howling chorus all stuck in the same enveloping tedium of his daily routine. Fighting the odd balance between distance and intimacy, Lawrence’s thoughts are personified in distorted echoes and unexpected bursts of fervor. “Landmines” is a slow welcome home with a haunting refrain that is the antithesis of the barreling whirlwind of “Tick.” As a whole, Haggert Mctaggert blossoms into an enchanting world of pop ideal for escaping the monotony and heartache that inspired it.
KEXP radio presents The Districts performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded March 5th, 2015. The Districts will be your new favourite band especially if you like raggedy US rock, country-tinged Americana with elements of blues and folk. made by young men who appear to have just stumbled out of bed. For whom languor is an energy. There are tracks on their debut EP that tap into traditional American musics and amp it up, give it some contemporary welly, like a latterday Little Feat, which suggests they are going to remain a cult concern. And there are other tracks which point towards a Stateside Mumfords, others where they evince a penchant for rocking out that hints they could be Kings Of Leon big style.
Songs:
Peaches
Chorine
Bold
4th and Roebling
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