This year's bands

By Kyle Gauser

Fred Fest always seems to have a good blend of local bands and sometimes a popular headliner.

This year’s local bands seem to be a group of popular up and comers in the industry that many of the students of Fredonia have had a chance to hear at various shows around Fredonia. The Scarlet Ending, Ghost of a Stranger, Flood the Shoreline, and Andrew Halliday and Friends have given Fredonia students many opportunities to see them play at places in downtown Fredonia from BJ’s to EBC to Valentine’s.

Some bands, like The Scarlet Ending, with two CDs released already, a song on MTV’s “The Hills”, and a new album on the way, are more established in the industry than others. Flood the Shoreline and Ghost of a Stranger have released albums this year, with Ghost of a Stranger playing a CD release show at Valentine’s in Fredonia on April 25. Andrew Halliday and Friends has also played various shows in Fredonia and are a very popular band to see live.

While the choice of Cartel as the headliner was unpopular with many students, you could also call them an up and comer. With two albums released so far (their latest in August 2007) they are still relatively new to the industry.

Secret Machines have been around for a while longer but at least for me they were a relative unknown. It seems that the theme of this Fred Fest may be young relatively unestablished bands looking to make their way in the music industry. While the local Fredonia bands may be more popular with the students, it should overall be a good show that provides attendees with a variety of different sounds and styles of music.

Here's the rundown:

Flood the Shoreline
Style of Music: Rock
Sound Like: Categorize their sound as Emotion, hooks, and drive.
Recordings: “Around and Around” Five-track CD released February 1, 2008.
Influences: Brand New, Our Lady Peace, Strata, Finger Eleven, The Juliana Theory.
Links: http://www.floodtheshoreline.com/home.html http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=61757943
Watch 'em:



Andrew Halliday and Friends
Style of Music: Rock
Sounds Like: Categorize their sound as “Something you might want to check out.”
Influences: Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles.
Links: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=22649924
Watch 'em:


The Scarlet Ending
Style of Music: Indie/ Folk Rock/ Acoustic
Sounds Like: Say they sound like “ever evolving Indie rock.”
Recordings: “Cries and Whispers” June 16, 2006, and “The Scarlet Ending” 5 Song EP released November 30, 1999.
Links: http://www.purevolume.com/thescarletending
http://www.myspace.com/thescarletending
Watch 'em:


Ghost of a Stranger
Style of Music: Indie Rock
Sounds Like: The Killers
Influences: Bloc Party, Muse, Radiohead, and Tokyo Police
Recordings: “Hers and Yours” Released on April 29, 2008.
Links: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=123956518
Watch 'em:

Secret Machines
Style of Music: psychedelic/ Big beat/ Blues
Sounds Like: My Bloody Valentine, and Ride. May also have hints of Procol Harum, U2, and The Flaming Lips.
Influences: The Flaming Lips.
Recordings: “Now Here is Nowhere” May 18, 2004, “Ten Silver Drops” April 25, 2006.
Links: http://www.thesecretmachines.com/ http://www.myspace.com/secretmachines
Watch 'em:

Cartel
Style of Music: Power Pop/ Punk/ Rock
Sounds Like: Simple Plan, Hit the Lights, The Academy Is...
Influences: Green Day
Recordings: “Chroma” June 13, 2006, “Cartel” August 21, 2007.
Links: http://www.cartelrocks.com/main.html
http://www.myspace.com/cartel
Watch 'em: Well you can't. Not here. We could do some downloading and converting to get around their "no embedding by request" on youtube, but they probably have more lawyers than we do. Way more lawyers. So we'll just send you to the link while remaining slightly irked that they're the only one of the Fred Fest bands to discourage embedding their video on a blog.