Twerps At Gasa Gasa

The Bowery Presents: Twerps w/ Ultimate Painting, Marine, Small Reactions Wednesday March 18 Gasa Gasa 8pm Doors // $10 ADV Tix: http://bit.ly/TwerpsNola Twitter: @twerpstwerps Twerps - http://www.mergerecords.com/twerps Cheeky, charming and touchingly direct, Melbourne foursome Twerps are international pop champions. Formed in late 2008 around guitarists Martin Frawley and Julia MacFarlane, they were already supporting the likes of Deerhunter, the Bats, the Black Lips, Yo La Tengo and Thee Oh Sees within a few months of their first gig. Their debut EP, released on Chapter Music in late 2009, featured nine short but infectious tracks, recorded by Total Control guitarist Mikey Young. These tracks were also released on cassette by US label Night People (Wet Hair, Peaking Lights). On the basis of the EP, Twerps began to filter out into the world, and were called “the best new band in Australia” by iconic UK magazine Uncut. In 2011, they released singles on New York labels Underwater Peoples (Real Estate, Spectrals) and Group Tightener (Best Coast, Cloud Nothings). They also took off on their first US tour that March. A self-titled debut album followed in late 2011, co-released by Chapter Music and Underwater Peoples. Lead tracks Dreamin and This Guy were premiered on Pitchfork, who gave the album a glowing 7.9 review, then awarded album closer Coast To Coast a Best New Track (only the third Aussie band ever to score a BNT, after Cut Copy and Tame Impala). The band returned to SXSW in 2012, getting written up in the NME, Blllboard and elsewhere, and then toured the US with well-known buddies Real Estate in April. A series of sold out Aussie dates in August followed, with Twerps heading back to the States again in October for CMJ, plus a Stateswide tour supporting standalone single Work It Out. The single was thrashed on BBC6 by Marc Riley, and scored an NME review as well as high rotation on Triple J in Australia. Twerps played Aussie festivals over their summer, welcomed new drummer Alex Macfarlane in early 2013, then spent much of that year recording album number two. They took time out for the likes of ATP’s Release The Bats festival and some sold out shows with Mac Demarco. The band signed to Merge Records internationally in 2014 and released effortless eight song EP Underlay in August. Their much anticipated second album is due via Chapter for Australia/New Zealand and Merge for the rest of the world in January 2015. Ultimate Painting Drop City was a community formed by a small group of American artists in 1965. It was the first real commune, pre-summer of love, inspired by the happenings of Allan Kaprow, Fluxos and John Cage. The artists’ most celebrated collaboration was a piece they called ‘The Ultimate Painting’. Ultimate Painting are James Hoare and Jack Cooper. They’re a band. “James and I started talking about making music whilst we were on tour with our other bands. We’d known each other to say hello to for about 4 years and saw each other other regularly at shows in London. I’d always enjoyed seeing him and chatting, but I found him to be an tricky character; he had a habit of threatening to get me and being abusive. I took it as a sign of endearment” The seeds of the band and friendship were sewn in Europe whilst Jack’s band Mazes were on tour supporting James’ band Veronica Falls. “On returning, we began figuring out where we could take the whole thing and what sort of music we’d like to make. Demos were exchanged and we hit on some synergy in the songs we were sending each other. After a fairly disastrous first attempt at recording, we reconvened and recorded what became the song ‘Ultimate Painting’, a vague theme song for the band… everything began to fall into place; us both singing and playing guitar, me playing drums and James playing the bass. Our ethos was; if it wasn’t working, don’t push it; so some sessions ended before they began… oh and the music won’t be touched my anything digital till it needs to go online or something” Initial plans to record a couple of tracks together became an EP and then a full album which will be out via Chicago’s Trouble In Mind (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Jacco Gardner) this Autumn/Fall. The album, 5 songs from James and 5 from Jack, is very much a product of their collective taste…obviously. That’s what records usually are right? Yo La Tengo, Red Krayola, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stereolab, Townes Van Zandt, Velvet Underground… some sense of space and feel. Some haze from Santyajit Ray films John Barry and Jack Nitzsche… Taking Tiger Mountain. “But really there’s no story apart from the fact we set out to do something and we did it.”