'Rock' Bands // p 20 of 20

Weyes Blood

Natalie Laura Mering (born June 11, 1988), known professionally as Weyes Blood (pronounced /waɪzblʌd/), is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She was primarily raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has been performing her own material under variations of the name Weyes Blood since 2003.

Her music has undergone significant changes throughout her career. She has been involved in the underground noise music scene and was briefly bassist of the Portland, Oregon-based group Jackie-O Motherfucker and was singer for the band Satanized. As Weyes Bluhd she made two self-released albums, changing to Weyes Blood to release The Outside Room (2011) on microlabel Not Not Fun Records. She then signed with independent label Mexican Summer, releasing The Innocents (2014) and Front Row Seat to Earth (2016). She released her latest studio album, Titanic Rising (2019) on Sub Pop, to critical acclaim.

Natalie Laura Mering was born on June 11, 1988 in Santa Monica, California, into a deeply religious born again Pentecostal Christian family. Commenting on her upbringing, Mering said: "I was raised in a real spiritual, Bible Belt household. So I developed my own cynicism because there are always things in the Bible that really bum me out.... I became really obsessed with the Kids in the Hall as a kid, and they had Scott Thompson, who's like the one gay member. I remember having this feeling that 'Oh, Scott Thompson isn't going to heaven? How could that be?' That was my first big tipoff that something wasn't quite right with dogmatic Christianity. And then I was just trying to undo it at the age of 12."

Mering's family moved several times throughout her childhood; she spent her early life in Scotts Valley, California before they settled in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1999, where she attended high school. Both her older brothers and parents are musicians and music played an important part in her upbringing. Her father, Sumner Mering, is a musician and guitarist who was in a Los Angeles new wave band entitled Sumner in the late 1970s.

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Whitney

Whitney is an American band from Chicago, which formed in 2015 and is signed to Secretly Canadian. The band was formed shortly after the breakup of members Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich's band Smith Westerns in late 2014. They released their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, in June 2016 and have toured internationally.

Career
After the breakup of Smith Westerns in 2014, guitarist Kakacek joined with drummer Julien Ehrlich, who also played drums for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, to form Whitney. As roommates, the duo shared songwriting duties while Ehrlich became the main vocalist. Initially the band featured members of the Touching Voids, Ehrlich's previous band. In June 2015, the band made the song "No Matter Where We Go" available digitally through the Lead Riders label. It included former Smith Westerns member Ziyad Asrar on rhythm guitar, Malcolm Brown on keyboards, bassist Josiah Marshall and brass player Will Miller.

During 2015, the band played around thirty shows, mostly in support of other artists. This included Tobias Jesso Jr. who got the band in contact with Jonathan Rado, the producer of the album. In September of that year, they joined Rado at his Los Angeles home studio to record. In January 2016 the band released the single "No Woman" supported by a video and toured Europe in anticipation of the new album. They also featured on the 2016 edition of the SXSW festival.

On June 3, 2016 the album Light Upon the Lake was released. In support they embarked on their first headlining European tour.

In 2017, the band announced a new demos album with a previously unreleased song, "You and Me".

In March 2017 Whitney released two new songs, "You've Got a Woman" and "Gonna Hurry (As Slow as I Can)". Both are covers.

In an interview published in April 2019 the band mentioned their second album, due in 2019, will deal with "fear, confusion, and substance abuse". They shared a song titled "FTA" from the album in June 2019 and released the lead single “Giving Up” on June 6.

The album "Forever Turned Around" was released on August 30, 2019.

Style
Ehrlich outlined the approach to songwriting as "when we were writing for Whitney, we were doing what we wanted to do, the music was really freeing". Paul Lester in the Guardian described the band as "think Bon Iver, with elements of folk and country, only given a Chicago soul makeover". They cite Levon Helm and Allen Toussaint as inspiration.

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Wild Child

Wild Child is an American indie pop band from Austin, Texas formed in 2010. The band consists of Kelsey Wilson (lead vocals and violin), Alexander Beggins (lead vocals and baritone ukulele), Sadie Wolfe (cello), Tyler Osmond (bass), Matt Bradshaw (keyboard and trumpet), Cody Ackors (guitar and trombone), and Tom Myers (drums).

Wilson and Beggins met while touring as back-up musicians for a Danish indie act called The Migrant. They began writing songs together in the backseat of the tour van and found they worked very well as a songwriting team. Both had just been through the end of relationships, which provided both common ground and writing material. Beggins had brought a ukulele from his father's instrument collection simply because it was small enough to comfortably pass around in a van (Beggins played accordion with The Migrant). By the end of the tour the two had written several songs and began recording their first album upon their return to Austin. To complete the sound they were seeking, they called in other local musicians and friends to help record, which eventually became the full Wild Child band.

Their self-recorded first album, the 15-track Pillow Talk, was released on October 25, 2011 (with help from San Francisco producers Evan Magers and Alex Peterson, and mastered by Erik Wofford). The album was received positively on many blogs and yielded a number one single on the music promotion site The Hype Machine.

Their second album, The Runaround, was released on October 8, 2013 via The Noise Company and produced by Ben Kweller. Kweller liked the band's debut album and sought out the band seeking to produce their sophomore effort. The album was funded in part through a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised over $40,000. It was recorded in January 2013.

The first single from the album, "Crazy Bird", was received extremely positively, reaching number one on the music promotion site The Hype Machine, debuting number one the FMBQ SubModern/Specialty charts, and being featured on World Cafe. Reviews for the album were positive, including a rating of 8/10 from PopMatters. The song "Living Tree" was named in the 'Top Ten Songs of 2013' by NPR.

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William Tyler

William Armistead Tyler (born December 25, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American musician and guitarist who plays folk, indie folk, and pop rock. His debut studio album, Behold the Spirit, was released on November 22, 2010. Adam Bednarik produced the album with Tyler on Tompkins Square Records. He has since released three additional solo albums.

Background

Tyler was born to Daniel E. "Dan" Tyler and Adele B. Tyler on December 25, 1979, in Nashville, Tennessee. His father is a noted songwriter in his own right who wrote "The Light in Your Eyes" by LeAnn Rimes, co-wrote "Baby's Got a New Baby" by S-K-O, and co-wrote "Modern Day Romance" by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; in addition, both of his parents co-wrote "Bobbie Sue" by The Oak Ridge Boys. Tyler has a younger sister named Elise. William and Elise Tyler were the owners and founders of The Stone Fox in Nashville, Tennessee, which was a music restaurant/café/bar that opened on September 20, 2012 and held its final live show on January 31, 2016. William is a 1998 graduate and his sister Elise is a 2002 graduate of University School of Nashville.

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Yes

Yes are an English progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and drummer Bill Bruford. The band has undergone numerous formations throughout its history; nineteen musicians have been full-time members. Since June 2015, it has consisted of guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, keyboardist Geoff Downes, singer Jon Davison, and bassist Billy Sherwood, with no remaining founding members. Yes have explored several musical styles over the years, and are most notably regarded as progressive rock pioneers.

Yes began in 1968, performing original songs and rearranged covers of rock, pop, blues and jazz songs, as evident on their first two albums. A change of direction in 1970 led to a series of successful progressive rock albums until their disbanding in 1981, their most successful being The Yes Album (1971), Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge (1972). Yes toured as a major rock act that earned the band a reputation for their elaborate stage sets, light displays, and album covers designed by Roger Dean. The success of "Roundabout", the single from Fragile, cemented their popularity across the decade and beyond.

In 1983, Yes reformed with a new line-up that included Trevor Rabin and a more commercial and pop-oriented musical direction. The result was 90125 (1983), their highest-selling album, which contained the U.S. number-one single, "Owner of a Lonely Heart". From 1990 to 1992, Yes were an eight-member formation after they merged with Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe for Union (1991) and its tour. Since 1994, Yes have released albums with varied levels of success and completed tours from 1994 to 2004. After a four-year hiatus, they resumed touring in 2009 and continue to release albums; their most recent is Heaven & Earth (2014). In 2016, a new group of former Yes members began touring and named themselves Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman.

Yes are one of the most successful, influential, and longest-lasting progressive rock bands. They have sold 13.5 million RIAA-certified albums in the US. In 1985, they won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance with "Cinema", and received five Grammy nominations between 1985 and 1992. They were ranked No. 94 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. Yes have headlined annual progressive rock-themed cruises since 2013 named Cruise to the Edge. Their discography spans 21 studio albums. In April 2017, Yes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which chose specifically to bestow the honour upon current and former members Anderson, Squire, Bruford, Kaye, Howe, Rick Wakeman, White and Rabin.

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Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo (Spanish for "I've got it"; also abbreviated as YLT) is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James McNew (bass, vocals). In 2015, original guitarist Dave Schramm rejoined the band and appears on their fourteenth album, Stuff Like That There.

Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential critics' band" and maintains a strong cult following. Though they mostly play original material, the band performs a wide repertoire of cover songs both in live performance and on record.

History

Formation and early history, 1984–1985

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley formed the band as a couple in 1984. They chose the name Yo La Tengo, Spanish for "I have it". The name came from a baseball anecdote that occurred during the 1962 season, when New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and shortstop Elio Chacón found themselves colliding in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would scream, "I got it! I got it!" only to run into Chacón, a Venezuelan who spoke only Spanish. Ashburn learned to yell, "Yo la tengo! Yo la tengo!" instead. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was instead run over by left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish and had missed a team meeting that proposed using the words "Yo la tengo!" as a way to avoid outfield collisions. After getting up, Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the hell is a yellow tango?"

Kaplan and Hubley placed an advertisement to recruit other musicians who shared their love for bands such as the Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, and Arthur Lee's Love. The group's debut recording was a 7" single entitled "The River of Water" backed with a cover of Lee's "A House Is Not a Motel", released in late 1985 with Dave Schramm on lead guitar and Dave Rick on bass. After recording "Private Doberman" for inclusion on a Coyote Records compilation entitled Luxury Condos Coming to Your Neighborhood Soon, Rick left the band and was replaced by Mike Lewis, the founding bass player of Boston garage-punk bands DMZ and Lyres, who was also a member of Brooklyn garage rock band the A-Bones throughout his tenure in YLT.

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Your Friend

Taryn Blake Miller (born in 1991 on April 10) who performs as Your Friend, is a Lawrence, Kansas-based musician.

Miller was born in Winfield, Kansas. She studied music at Cowley Community College for two years before moving to Lawrence to pursue a degree in linguistics at the University of Kansas. Miller produced her first album, Jekyll/Hyde, using $1,000 in prize money from a KJHK-hosted battle of the bands. She signed with Domino Recording Company in February 2014.

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Yves Tumor

Sean Lee Bowie, best known by the recording alias Yves Tumor, is an American musician and producer of experimental music, born in Miami, Florida and currently based in Turin, Italy.

To date, they have released five studio albums: When Man Fails You (2015), Serpent Music (2016), Safe in the Hands of Love (2018), Heaven to a Tortured Mind (2020), and Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (2023).

Life and career
Raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tumor started making music at age 16 as an outlet away from "dull, conservative surroundings." They taught themself to play drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards. Describing their experience growing up in Tennessee as unpleasant, Yves moved at age 20 to San Diego, and then after college, to Los Angeles. They met Mykki Blanco in 2012, later touring for two and a half years throughout Europe and Asia.

In the early 2010s, Tumor recorded as Teams, and made music which AllMusic described as "post-chillwave". They debuted the Yves Tumor project in 2015 with an EP for Berlin's experimental club label Janus, and another one for Blanco's label, Dogfood MG. That same year, they released their first album, When Man Fails You (which would later be re-released by Apothecary Compositions on April 29, 2016).

In September 2016, Tumor signed with PAN Records and released their label debut, Serpent Music. Yves had worked on the album for three years after moving to Leipzig, Germany. The album was recorded between Miami, Leipzig, Los Angeles and Berlin. In Pitchfork's review of the album, critic Andy Beta compared Tumor's musical style to James Ferraro and Dean Blunt, and noted their use of "unsettling percussive loops and field recordings to create a mood as if lost in a strange urban landscape."

In September 2017, Tumor released a compilation album titled Experiencing the Deposit of Faith for free. Later that week, it was revealed through a tour announcement that Tumor had signed to Warp Records. Following the announcement, the artist embarked on a tour with a new audiovisual show.

In September 2018, Tumor released their Warp debut, Safe in the Hands of Love, with no prior announcement. It was preceded by the singles "Noid" on July 24, "Licking an Orchid" featuring James K on August 29, and "Lifetime" on September 3. The album received universal acclaim from music critics. Pitchfork's Jayson Greene stated in the review that the album "dwarfs everything the artist has released by several orders of magnitude. The leap is so audacious it's disorienting."

Tumor's fourth album, Heaven to a Tortured Mind, was released on April 3, 2020, preceded on March 3 by the single "Kerosene" featuring Diana Gordon. Alexis Petridis, reviewing the album for The Guardian, awarded it Album of the Week, describing it as "extraordinary: experimental, capable of any genre, with an internal logic powering its shifts in mood. There’s real skill involved in coming up with something that sounds coherent while shifting through so many styles.”

In October 2020, Tumor said in an interview with Michèle Lamy " I have another EP and a whole album basically not finished, but ready to start finishing. I’ve been very busy during the quarantine." In December 2020, Tumor released the single "let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out" in collaboration with Kelsey Lu, featuring Kelly Moran and Moses Boyd. In July 2021, they released the EP The Asymptotical World, recorded in collaboration with their bandmates, Chris Greatti and Yves Rothman.

In February 2023, Tumor was interviewed by Courtney Love for Interview magazine, in which they briefly hinted at an upcoming album. Shortly after, in March 2023, Tumor released their fifth album, "Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)", critically acclaimed as an ambitious, "ecstatic fusion of alt-rock and R&B", "spellbinding art rock", and a "Romantic, corporeal, gothy" offering that disrupts "hierarchies of gender, race, desire...and performance" via its "intense magnification and worship of life, death and spirituality." Tumor was part of the Coachella 2023 lineup.

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