Jacob Haller – Cabin Fever
75OL-209 Jacob Haller – Cabin Fever CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Limited to 50 copies on compact disc. All cd purchases will receive an immediate download code for digital download. Forty of these were pre-ordered through a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Track Listing
1. My Little Lobster
2. I’m Sick (of This American Life) (by John Linnell and John Flansburgh)
3. Maybe I Know (by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich)
4. I Wish That I Was Vegan
5. Swat the Bees
During the winter of 2015, Rhode Island songwriter Jacob Haller kept his spirits up by sharing some old and new home recordings with his friends. Once the weather calmed down a bit, he and 75orLess Records sorted through the recordings, picked out five or their favorites, and put them together to form ‘Cabin Fever’. Despite the brevity of the album, there’s a lot of variety here, from the disco beats of ‘My Little Lobster’, to the accordion-and-drum-machine blues cover of the They Might Be Giants song ‘I’m Sick (of This American Life)’, to the Lesley Gore acoustic tribute ‘Maybe I Know’, to the folksy singalong of ‘I Wish That I Was Vegan’, to the spoken word insanity of ‘Swat the Bees’.
Praise for Jacob Haller
“Providence musician Jacob Haller is as unique as his lyrics are clever.”
– Annie Messier, Providence Daily Dose, 10 May 2012
“Jacob Haller does music as though he were the secret love-child of Warren Zevon and Burl Ives.”
– Jeffrey Channing Wells, Skin Horse co-author
The Noise reviews I am Tom Cummins, Suicide Bill & the Liquors, and Coma Coma
SUICIDE BILL & THE LIQUORS Cricket Wisdom
12 tracks
Low-budget Big Star worship abounds here. The fact that this is their fifth album and it sounds like a clunky demo might be worrisome to some, but I think it works. They never land square on the beat, their timing is always slightly off, the solos have duff lines here and there, the vocals slip out of tune, and it always sounds like it’s all happening in a basement next to a leaky water heater. These guys are not swashbucklers, they’re bunglers, but endearing bunglers with decent record collections and open hearts who probably remember their friends’ birthdays. Most of the songs are about how girls don’t dig them, which is cool. A few of the songs – funny/sad power-popper “No Friends,” the Husker-y “Cool Fail” – would be hits if somebody, you know, more competent recorded them. Overall, I’d say Cricket Wisdom squeaks by on low-watt charm. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be, but what is these days? (Sleazegrinder)
I AM TOM CUMMINS Holiday 3-Pak
3 tracks
A cruel person might suggest that “Squirrel Song,” with its ukulele accompaniment and spacy keyboards, is like something a mentally challenged person might conjure up—but I beg to differ; it takes a good deal of talent to come up with and put across this faux-naif approach. “Downy Woodpecker” is another supposedly poignant encomium to the natural world, replete with aah-ing chorus. “Resolve to Start Again” is a bit like a terminally depressed Mr. Rogers decrying the commercialism of the Christmas season. Short and sweet, but, all in all, a bit twee for my taste. (Francis DiMenno)
COMA COMA The New American Dream
10 tracks
If you like indie rock, I would say this album is above par. I’m not sure why, I just feel like if you like stuff like this, it’s a prime example. The end. (Sleazegrinder)
Seacoast Online Interviews Nate Laban
Spotlight: What got you into playing music?
Laban: My mother bought a piano at an estate sale for $50 when I was in third grade. She brought it home and tried playing it for a week and then it just sat there unused with a red book on it that said, “How To Play Piano.” So, I read the book and tried to pick things up. I still have the piano and it’s one of few instruments that I have a good relationship with.
Spotlight: You’re like the punk rock version of Elvis Costello. That said, I want to know who and/or what actually influences your writing/singing/playing.
Laban: I am most influenced by sincere compositions either in rock, pop or R&B, but lately I’ve been listening to a whole lot of Black Sabbath and Red Fang. I also listen to a lot of female songwriters across a lot of genres.
Spotlight: Besides music, you seem to like to fish a lot. Is fishing a more calming release than hammering away at power chords? Any funny fishing stories?
Laban: I fish to honor my father. Fishing is the only thing that has ever completely satisfied my curiosity when it comes to nature. Story? When I was a small boy I was fishing in the Salmon Falls River that ran behind my childhood home in Rochester. I hooked a big lamprey eel but I didn’t know it until I yanked its whole body out of the water. The eel hit my bare leg and wrapped around it. I screamed and started running dragging the eel and my pole several feet before the eel rolled off onto the ground. I found the biggest rock I could find and beat the thing to death with the hook still in its mouth while I cried hysterically.
Well, I think that’s a funny story anyway.
Spotlight: You’re a relatively new “proud poppa.” How does parenthood change your perspective on things, artistically or otherwise?
Laban: My daughter Ernestine is three now. She has completely changed my perspective on music. I don’t write autobiographical songs anymore. I wrote those for years and years … very serious tunes about my own problems or social problems or whatever. After Ernie entered the picture, I write more using people I see or meet as characters and dress them up in situations I dream up. Of course, on the other end of that is Sam Hill (the metal band) where we tackle topics such as ice giants, serpents and stuff like that. It makes me feel like I’m a teenager again. I feel incredibly lucky that way. I don’t feel old.
Spotlight: Father John Misty. I hear you’re a massive fan. How’d he catch your ear? What’s he doing right?
Laban: Eric Ott turned me on to him and we went to see him in Boston the other year. He opened up the night by playing drums for the opening band without introducing himself. I thought that was pretty great and then he came on and killed it. He kind of has the whole package: Great lyrics, sincere songs and he is a funny performer. His first record I would put on my top five favorite records of all time list and the latest one is almost as good. He is a strong representative of our current 25- to 35-year-old generation and is saying things in his songs that are part of the casual national conversation, such as the over-prescribing of medications, student loans, drug use, unequal distribution of wealth, as well as poetic love. I think this has endeared him to a lot of people. Couldn’t recommend him enough. Especially to those dopes who say music isn’t any good anymore. Man, I hate that. What a bunch of lazies.
Bonnaventure James – Not By A Mile
75OL-210 Bonnaventure James – Not By A Mile CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Digital download is available here
Track Listing
1. Not By A Mile
2. Space In Lost
3. Summer ’86
4. Chinuuk
Though dabbling with music creation software since the days of Windows 98, the singer and producer now known as Bonnaventure James did not become the artist he is today until an assignment in avant-garde music composition reignited his interest in music production. Now, Bonnaventure James makes melancholic, bedroom-pop with the help of his trusty laptop and an assortment of synths, samplers and electronic noise makers. His new EP features tongue-in-cheek lyrics that reference pop-culture and modern relationships, laid over lo-fi beats constructed using an array of samples, plug-ins and shoddy equipment.
Bonnaventure James (Bonnaventure, or Bonnie to his friends) stole his name from a movie. We assure you it has nothing to do with the Lake or Drive in Calgary (where he now makes his home). Influences include Caribou, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Panda Bear, James Murphy, and other dudes who sing into microphones over electronic beats.
RI’s The Rhode Show Interviews Frequent 75orLess Collaborator William Schaff
Bradford Kendall – Hot Spuranka Chocket, Words & Drawings book
75OL-207 Bradford Kendall – Hot Spuranka Chocket, Words & Drawings signed book
[sold out]
A privately printed book that features 100 pages of surrealist drawings, poems, and general violations of logic. All remaining copies available through the 75orLess website are signed by the author.
samples from the book
Feng Shui Police’s ‘Thank You’ EP Review at Space Rock Mountain
Feng Shui Police – Thank You (2015)
As I listened to this EP I very soon felt I was hearing a college kids, yet as I kept on it seems that might be an artful feint. So while I cannot be sure that Providence, RI’s Feng Shui Police has anyone in college among its members, it was “Recorded in Dash’s basement, powered by coffee and Thai food.” Basically that sentence summarizes all I can remember about college anyway. What they’ve done here is make an acoustic garage rock album, if your mind can handle that concept. But it totally is, the drums are lower to make the guitars audible, the singing is lyric-centered like a young man liberated by use of language ought to embrace. Clever, in an cool, funny way.
Sick Pills – Under My Skin
75OL-204 Sick Pills – Under My Skin CD
$10.00 S&H Included
Digital download is available here
Track listing
1. You Make Me Sick
2. Black Skies
3. Close To You
4. Leeches
5. Don’t Know What To Do
6. All Day
7. Get Away From Me
8. I Got Nothing
9. Wasted Time of Your Life
10. Gone
11. Take It All
Under My Skin is the second full-length release from New Bedford, MA band Sick Pills. Sick Pills play indie rock and roll heavily influenced by 1980’s college rock/post-punk. Features members of Chris Evil and the Taints and The Blood Moons.
April issue of Boston’s The Noise has a review of Monument Thief’s ‘Your Castle Comes Down’
MONUMENT THIEF – Your Castle Comes Down 13 tracks
Jeremy Withers and Bill Paukert have a long history of making music together, but their latest project, Monument Thief, is probably their most direct and forward-thinking act to date. The band’s trademark sound is a fresh blend of pure and uncompromising rock ’n’ roll that borrows eclectically from the vast vernacular of the genre, incorporating elements of punk, hard rock and alternative.
One of the most interesting things about Your Castle Comes Down is that it allows listeners to take a peek into the kaleidoscopic song-writing sensibilities of the band. Tracks such as “Every Time” or “A Scene” are as gritty and punchy as early Nirvana, while songs the likes of “All On Me” or “Endless Debut” showcase the band’s ability to create memorable melodies, unlike artists such as The Cure or R.E.M.
Your Castle Comes Down is a classic-sounding yet remarkably diverse album that truly makes for an engaging and intriguing listening experience for fans of alternative music spanning all ages and currents.
Matt Fraza interview in the Newport Mercury
By Bre Power Eaton | Mercury | February 25, 2015
As an elementary school teacher at Kingston Hill Academy in Saunderstown, Matt Fraza loves putting on plays with his students. The actor and director enjoys the feeling of unpredictable chaos, of not knowing what will actually happen onstage. This same feeling he now thrives on as a musician. Three years ago, the Perryville resident decided it was time to stop just listening to music and make his own instead. His debut album “Let Trouble Go” was released with 75 or Less Records last September.
Congrats on the release of your debut album!
Thanks. The late-in-life debut.
Well, you’re also busy acting and directing, right?
I kind of came to music through that. I had always played guitar, but from acting and directing, the methodology and work in that I brought to music and found out that I could write and perform songs. Before I didn’t know what my place in music was, but then it was like, Oh! You just have to work at it and memorize the best version of what you want to do. It was like acting like a musician, but now I’ve been playing music long enough that I am a musician.
If the album was a cocktail of your inspirations, what is the recipe?
The mixers that come to mind are the artists that I’ve listened to over and over again. Gram Parsons and the early ’70s Stones. I really love Elliott Smith too, but soul music at the same time.
It kind of reminds me of old punk.
That’s something we always hear too. The Velvet Underground, growing up I loved that. There’s a certain quality to it, I think. People wherever we play, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s got some ’70s New York punk to it.’ I’ll take that as a compliment. I love that kind of music.
Has the album been a work in progress for a while?
I’ve been working on it for about three years maybe. I’ve only been doing the musical performing thing for about three years, but I had that idea, I was in “King Lear” and I was really tired from moving sets and learning all this stuff, and I wanted to do something that I could do on my own time, on my own schedule and not have to listen to what other people were telling me to do, so I wrote the songs in a couple of batches. To get through the recording, it was about three years. Kind of learning how to play shows, playing shows, and learning how to add musicians to it little by little, getting the songs from just one person playing them up to a full band.
How long have you been playing guitar?
12 or 13, around that age. I was playing but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was messing around.
So now do you feel like you know what you’re doing?
To a degree. I know I have a place in music. I practice a lot to get better at it — just being in the frontman role and playing the guitar. So now that I know what to do, I can get better at that. I hid in the background for a long time because I didn’t think I could, didn’t think I had a good voice, but then you don’t have to feel that way. Anybody can do it.
Teaching, acting, singing. You’re kind of a Renaissance man. Is jumping to the next thing kind of a life pattern for you?
Sort of. It has been a pattern, I guess. I had that accident [in which he lost his lower left leg] when I was 16. Probably for 10 years after that I didn’t do sports. I was active. I worked all the time. I was growing a family at a young age. As I got a little bit older, I went skiing and learned that I could ski, I learned how to surf and got really into surfing for a long time, then picked up the acting. I almost made a conscious decision with music — you never get to the end of learning.
Do you mind if I ask about the accident?
Basically I got hit by a Thunderbird and that was it. I got crunched.
Have you been on crutches for a long time?
On and off. I’ll go long periods of time on the prosthetic, too. I’m kind of in a tricky spot with it right now. Because I’m on crutches and it’s icy, and then I’ll wear the prosthetic, but it hurts. So it’s hard, but it’s not stopping me. The physical stuff, it’s a challenge. But most people that know me don’t see it after a little bit. It’s not that I act like it’s not there, but I try to be fully engaged in whatever I have going on. If you have something that hurts all the time, the best tactic is to fully engage with something.
Which song seems to strike a chord with your fans?
People like “Hit the Wall” a lot since we kind of rev it up.
And it’s motivating. You sing, “I hit the wall, I kept on going. That wall couldn’t stop me.”
It’s a defiant sort of deal. And “Seventeen” people always seem to like because there’s something about it that’s heartfelt.
A nostalgic sort of feeling?
Sort of. I was thinking back on what it’s about — I’ve been married for almost 24 years — but those days, about being 17, I was friends with my wife, since when we were 12 or 13. I just remember we’d be out drinking or whatever in bars with other teenagers and she was holding me up, and she still is! (Laughs.)
Because you got married in your early 20s and started a family, do you feel like now you’re reliving those younger years?
Not really. You can’t. You know too much to be back in your 20s.
If you could open for anyone, who would it be?
Neko Case.
Why?
Because she’s a daring singer and lyricist and tours with her dog!
Another area of performance in your life is teaching elementary school, where you also teach drama.
We put on so many crazy good plays at Kingston Hill Academy. And that was part of the music thing for me, too. I like putting on a show, dressing up, and having these certain chaotic factors. A lot of it comes from that. The chaos factor is so high when you’re putting on shows with kindergarten to fifth graders. The fun of it is gigantic!
How is that similar to playing music?
Just the excitement of having a show coming up and getting ready for it.
So what do you enjoy more — making records or performing?
They’re two different parts of the same organism. The creation part was fantastic. Working with Tom Chace and Kraig Jordan on the record, making everything as good as you could make it. I think the performance is as or more exciting just because there’s an audience there and there’s a certain element of not knowing what’s going to happen.
That chaos?
Yeah! Keep the band on their toes. Not tell them what’s going to happen. (Laughs.) Bands surprise each other with mistakes. Not in a bad way. Mistakes are a part of performance.
What are your favorite theater roles?
I’ve played in a lot of Shakespeare with Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket: “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Tempest,” “Comedy of Errors.” I played a major role in this show called “An Iliad” with The Wilbury Group. It was one actor and one cellist. I played Homer and all the characters in the story. It was painful to learn, but I did really enjoy it. … It’s the kind of role that I’ll be able to play again down the road. It’s kind of back to the Homeric tradition, like “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” They were passed on for thousands of years by these guys called rhapsodes and basically you’re a rhapsode when you tell the story because you memorize not the whole thing like the rhapsodes did, but they would go from place to place and present it in an exciting way. So I know I can do that.
So you’re a rhapsode?
I kind of have a rhapsode in my back pocket! I’m just happy to know that it’s there. It was worth the work.