Driving around trying to get some shopping done yesterday, a song I had never heard jumped out of my radio from local commercial station KINK here in Portland. "High on a Wire" by the Black Box Revelation:
As a teenager in Detroit and then as a young adult in Chicago, most of my music discoveries came via WABX or WXRT. But in the last 10 years as playlists have shrunk, formats narrowed and radio programming usurped by very conservative national conglomerates, commercial radio became predictable, boring and anything but a launching pad for new sounds.
Kudos to KINK for bucking that trend. They are actually playing a great deal more new music now than they ever did, not just hits, with some cool stuff that is somewhat edgier than their adult alternative history. I think they are owned by Clear Channel but they seem to have a lot of local autonomy.
Which brings me to today's discovery - Black Box Revelation from Belgium. I thought this blog had already pumped up every dirty rockin' guitar-drums duo there is, but no. Black Box Revelation has all the WYMA Blog ingredients - garage rock simplicity, great guitar riffs, and chock full of attitude and sexy swagger. Party in a box. Really, what's not to like about that approach?
Next up, the title track from their brand new CD My Perception:
A one minute teaser of the dangerously catchy single "Rattle My Heart" from the new record (full video not available in US per my Mr. You Tube police):
We'll leave you with an older track "I Think I Like You" that was licensed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, which means they have a much cooler music programmer than a certain football team that the WYMA staff follows:
Belgium, it's not just for great beer anymore.
Band web page: http://us.blackboxrevelation.com/
KINK radio: http://www.kink.fm/pages/main
No comments:
Post a Comment