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Music

North Texas Music Expats Ended Up in Surprising Places in 2012

Parquet Courts in Time magazine, and Fight Bite Releases Sophomore Album Through Rough Trade.
By Chris Mosley |
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You may not read Time magazine or follow the signing activity of Rough Trade Records (And really, who’s even heard of those two entities?), but it turns out they took notice of a couple of North Texas exports in 2012. I mention it largely because I have not heard much about it in the local media. That’s odd, since they often like to still report on bands such as School of Seven Bells with “Dallas-native” this and “Denton-Native” that.

As FrontRow originally reported in June of 2011, Parquet Courts features former Irving/Denton-residents Andrew Savage (of Fergus and Geronimo), his brother Max Savage, and former Denton-resident, Austin Brown, who used to DJ around town and now performs in New York-area band The Keepsies. The group also features Sean Yeaton, who is the lone member without Texas roots.

Fergus and Geronimo has received plenty of attention for their efforts for the past few years, and so it’s not all that surprising for the equally listenable Parquet Courts to garner attention as well, but even I was surprised to see Time Magazine’s Douglas Wolk choose their track, “Master of My Craft” as the fifth “top song” of 2012. This finds the still-fairly obscure group wedged between Taylor Swift and Skrillex. If you had told me in 2008 that Dirty South DJ  Young Doc Gooden (Austin Brown’s alias) would end up in Time Magazine’s year-end best-of roundup a few years from then, I would have never believed you. “Master of My Craft,” indeed. Parquet Courts will be performing at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios this evening, along with Sin Motivo, and the debut performance by local act, Endless Thoughts, which features the still very local, Daniel Ziegler and Payton Green.

Next up, we have former Denton/Dallas-based act, Fight Bite, which features Geoffrey Williams and Leanne Macomber. The two have since moved on to Austin and Brooklyn respectively, but have maintained the project entirely on a recording-only basis for the past several years. They originally released their self-titled second album themselves online, before Rough Trade-owned, Japanese-based subsidiary label, Tugboat, took notice. Tugboat has released music from the likes of Low, múm, and Baths. Rough Trade itself has released music by The Raincoats, Arcade Fire, and The Smiths. The hard-copy release of Fight Bite, was a joint effort between Tugboat and P-Vine Records, which is commonly referred to as one of the longest-running and largest independent record labels in Japan.

Fight Bite’s video for “Charlotte Iris” was a “Staff Pick” on Vimeo this year, and their record even cracked Gorilla VS Bear’s “Top Fifty” Albums lists, one of the few locally-tied records to do so.

Image: Detail from the hard copy-release of Fight Bite’s second record. 

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