I got a note about a new music collective being formed in the Twin Cities, and my interest was piqued. Sparked by a conversation by bands of similar interests and tastes, Electric Orange Music Collective is poised to take the MSP music scene by storm next year.
Formed by some heavy hitters and rare gems in the local scene, EOC will start 2010 off right, with a debut on New Year’s Day….
How did this get started?
We (Chris Tures and Brian O’Neil) met by chance on an Uptown Bar bill on April 25th, 2009 and became fast friends. Our bands have shared a lot of bills since then, and end up hanging out and talking about life as musicians in the Twin Cities.
The idea for a collective came from simply promoting each other and wanting to share that support system with other bands we dig. Twin Town being so musically dense is both a blessing and a curse – and tough, no matter who you are, to make it alone. No one is going to hold the door open for you just because you’re in a band. So we starting thinking about how to help our friends promote themselves in a more formal, organized way. We both have been making music in town since the late 90s, and have learned a lot via mistakes and good fortune that we can utilize to help other bands.
Ultimately, we wanted to organize a collective (rather than a label or promotion company) designed to make life as a musician easier via the philosophy that many hands make light work. The more we talked about it, the more people were interested – bands, fans, artists and friends. We realized that this community already existed, we just wanted to give it a name: Electric Orange. (plus a myspace page/blog/twitter/facebook etc) with music, dates, and news about each band)
Who’s in it?
- Wizards Are Real
- Dragons Power Up!
- Power of 2
- The Japanese Space Program
- Haroh
- Company Inc.
- Mr. Mustacio
- (all the bands sites can be found linked on our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/eomusiccollective)
What distinguishes this group of bands from others and how does Electric Orange fit in the scene?
We know that a music collective is nothing new. Bands that know and respect each other working together to reach more listeners. These are bands that have been supporting each other for years – sharing bills, speading the love via mixes and word of mouth, and simply hanging out at each other’s shows.
In a way, Electric Orange is kind of a land of misfit toys. None of the bands in the collective sound like anyone else we’ve come across in Twin Town, and they are all really hard to classify and we love them for that. None of these bands fall into an easy genre. Everyone knows that Twin Town is rich and diverse in its music/art. This group more or less collects the loose ends that we are. We value each other and hope that Electric Orange can be a testament to that. It’s a random mix – and that mix is really exciting. Ultimately, we’d like to release a compilation or series of split 7″s.
In the end, it’s bigger than us. One of our goals is to find new ways to recognize that the fans/supporters/independent media (bloggers, record shop employees, etc) of local music are just as important to the scene and the people making music. That we appreciate them too. We don’t want our efforts to soley benefit the bands. We want our efforts, be it an event or a release, to show our supporters that they are part of why we make music. We’ve already directly involved some long-term supporters of our bands – from working merch tables to promoting their art right next to our own.
When will people get their first taste of EOC?
Our kickoff party is New Year’s Day, Jan 1st @ 9pm. Why not? It’s a new year and a new collective. It’s at SAUCE on Lake and Lyndale in Uptown. Not every band playing is part of the collective, which is still cool because we want to promote them as well. It’s all part of playing music in the Twin Cities – it’s a community, not a competition. We’d rather support local music than put up walls between bands. Big Cats! and Dragons Power Up! have supported each other for years in different musical ventures (DPU! will be backing Big Cats! as a live band at this show). And we all have a great respect for Telepathos, who is opening the show.
Then what’s next?
You’ll see…
Electric Orange Collective host a kick-off party on New Year’s Day at Sauce.
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