areuonsomething.com

MySpace Discovery Zone
featuring The Goondocks, The Pinder Brothers and Sage
by Scott "Dr. Music" Itter

It is always important for us, as music connoisseurs, to keep up with the current trends in music. So, here at Are You On Something.com, we decided to get on board with the current MySpace explosion and start opening our eyes and ears to all that has been made available through this convenient networking source. We will be scanning the pages of MySpace.com for anything musical that seems worthy of a few words. This is a source that gives us a chance to see an artist, as well as hear their music, by just clicking a few times. If you are an "old dog" and you want to learn the newest "trick," you can go to www.MySpace.com and see what all the rage is about. Or, better yet, you can just drop your eyes down below and we'll bring a few pages to you. Enjoy.


The Goondocks
I have to tell you, this is an amazing band. If you are a fan of The Dave Matthews Band or The Counting Crows, you will absolutely LOVE this band. They have captured that same "home-style," modest attitude with the music from "Everything," the band's 2004 release. Fusing some great fiddle playing, a saxophone, great harmony and lead vocals, and some of the best songwriting I've heard in a very long time together to make this a seamless and perfect record. Now here's the real kicker about this band for me. I am not a big fan of Dave Matthews and Counting Crows! I respect the immense talent of those bands tremendously, but I am just not a huge fan of their sound. I think The Goondocks appeal to me because they add another dimension that you might not find in those bands – vocals. They have great harmony and lead vocals.

Singer Martin Newnham, sounding a bit like Peter Gabriel at times, is joined by bass player, Dave Marks, and violinist / saxophonist / keyboardist Andrew Parkin, in beautifully arranged harmonies. This band can change styles extremely well also. The lead track from "Everything," "Losing You," has a great funky rock feel, with an uplifting refrain that's impossible to resist. After the lead track, they cut into a very "cultured" title track that has an amazing bass line and equally thrilling violin parts. "I Am The Fish" is another rocker with an impossible-to-comprehend bass line and a wicked harmonica solo courtesy of Newnham. Then there are the amazing acoustic pop songs like "Just My Luck" and "First Lost Fool" that are really the band's forte, and they couldn't be any more perfect. This band does it all. Click on the link below, get your hands on "Everything," and I guarantee you will hear some of the best music on MySpace or anywhere else. This is the cream of the crop.

MySpace profile: www.myspace.com/thegoondocks
Official website: www.thegoondocks.co.uk

The Pinder Brothers
The Pinder name might ring bells for some of you. Mike Pinder was a founding member of the legendary Moody Blues and fulfilled the band's mellotron duties, as well as being part of the band's great harmony vocals. But Pinder's greatest contribution to music just might be in his offspring. Both of his sons, Matthew and Michael Lee, display enormous talent both instrumentally and in songwriting skill. Their full-length CD, "Jupiter Falls," is one of the brightest discs of the year.

The Pinder Brothers tie the harmony vocals of Crosby, Stills and Nash together with the songwriting style of Simon & Garfunkel, and ultimately put their own modern spin on everything in the end. Songs like "Goodbye Say Hello" and "Closer To Mars" find the band harmonizing frequently and perfectly, with all of it layered on top of a wonderfully light pop arrangement. The band displays their songwriting prowess and harmonizing skills throughout "Jupiter Falls," with a few pleasant surprises dispersed along the way. For example, "On T.V." draws heavily from its silly and fun lyrical passages and a more upbeat electric pop sound; and "Wait For The Moon" is a hybrid of a CSN-style song that erupts into a gripping guitar solo. The Pinder Brothers talent was recently recognized when their song, "Hang On Tight," was awarded 1st Runner Up in the UK Songwriting Contest under the Indie/Rock category, and was also a finalist in the Pop category.

If you are a fan of well written pop music in the same vein as CSN, Simon & Garfunkel, or even Crowded House, this is a band you will absolutely love.

MySpace profile: www.myspace.com/thepinderbrothers
Official website: www.pinderbrothers.com


Sage
Okay, I must admit …I have a weakness for strong, attractive women that front powerful hard rock bands. Tarja Turunen of Nightwish ….Doro Pesch (Warlock) ….Anneke van Giersbergen of The Gathering ….Amy Lee of Evanescence ….I adore each and every one of them. Like all of the bands I just mentioned, Sage proves that they are more than just a pretty face.

Tracey Sage, with her deep and powerful tone, fronts this band as if she is coated in armor and wielding a mighty sword. That sword I speak of is Sage's voice. She is devastating in her delivery, and so very rich in her approach. Never subsiding to a whine or lilting cry, she remains tough and towering throughout the disc. Standing tall and straight, you can almost picture her bellowing to storm filled skies, and the skies seem to open up and welcome her call.

With their dark lyrical overtones, Sage is a hard rock quartet that is strong and focused. With a gritty vocal bite, and a rapid fire instrumental track, their five-song EP "In Vain" kicks off with a song called "Manifest Destiny." A pretty simple, straight forward hard rock track highlighted by vocalist Tracey Sage's strong, determined voice. The next track, "Graves," brings the band into a more developed song structure. This is a song that has Sage singing with a closed fist yearning, while she is backed by a tight band that incorporates a very effective keyboard arrangement into the track. Although Tracey Sage is an overwhelming presence here, the band somehow remains multi-dimensional. Guitarist Mike Walsh lays down a clinic on "In Vain," and drummer Eric Ganci rumbles and rolls impressively through the entire EP with bassist Rob Thompson tightly bound to every bass drum kick.

Besides recently playing with metal legends Anthrax, Sage has just been named winner of mall favorite, Goth/metal paradise store Hot Topic's National Battle of the Bands competition. In an age where hard rock and metal music has welcomed females quite frequently and openly - and the idea of having a serious metal band fronted by a woman is more commonplace than ever before - look for Sage to seize the day and take a big bite out of it.

MySpace profile: www.myspace.com/sage4
Official website: www.sage4.com