Perhaps one of the hardest working indie bands in Los Angeles, The Californian is pleased to announce their self-titled debut album, available this September.

Formed in 2007 by vocalist John Graney, the Californian was born from Graney's dream of creating a modern day surf act. The early years of the young band saw a galore of line-up changes with members of Phantom Planet, Warpaint, The Bird and the Bee, and The Henry Clay People, coming and going. However, with four years under their belts, the Californian's lineup has solidified with guitarists Jonathan Price and Darren Robinson, drummer Michael Hopkins, and bassist Jake Gideon.

Without the help and comfort of a label, The Californian's hardworking D.I.Y. aesthetic has proven to be beneficial during their first four years of existence. Following the self-release of the band's 2010 EP 'Sea of Love' and a plethora of West Coast gigs, The Californian took to fan funding platform Kickstarter to raise the money for their debut full-length. Within 45 days, the band not only made the $5,000 in which they set out to raise, but surpassed their goal with a total of $9,238.

With vocals and guitars seeped in reverb and gritted with sand, the new 12 song collection of dreamy surf rock provides the perfect soundtrack to a modern day sock hop. Recorded at Dave's Room in North Hollywood, the album was produced by Jeff Halbert (Nick Cave, St. Vincent, Rickie Lee Jones) and mastered by JJ Golden (Sonic Youth, Puro Instincto, Superchunk). While The Californian are celebrated for their summery surf riffs, the band is surely not a one trick pony. Songs like "Who Killed The Lights" and "A Billion Grains of Sand" showcase the band's gorgeous, sun drenched harmonies and energy fueled arrangements while "Girl in the Moon Pt. 1" exemplifies the bands' ability to produce an infectious down tempo clap-along song.

Royal Canoe is a group of musicians on a mission to construct ambitious, inventive music. The songs are thick with catchiness, rich in rhythm and are consistently pushing against the boundaries of pop music.

They spend almost every day in a shit-hole rehearsal space writing hooks, singing through effects pedals, scrawling lyrics on scraps of paper, and constructing heavy beats in odd time signatures. They create samples by running conventional sounds through unconventional pieces of gear, drumming on bathtubs and garbage cans, listening to Big Boi and manipulating bits of old records.

The band calls Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada home – the enigmatic prairie city, which has served artists as both an abundant, creative watering hole and a debilitating quagmire. The city's mood swings from euphoric summers spent biking with beers, fence-hopping residential pools and climbing abandoned roof-tops to harsh, bitter winters that are countered first with defiance, then self-loathing, then denial, then "you've got to be fucking kidding me." Royal Canoe's songs are, in part, an effort to make sense of the resentment and romanticism of the city's divergent identities.

Royal Canoe releases their EP, Extended Play, on February 21.

Recognized as one of the most skilled and stylistically original guitar players amongst the Los Angeles music scene, Detroit native Brett Farkas has been a major contributing force, playing for such influential artists/groups as Aaron Embry's psychedelic indie outfit, Amnion, legendary soul music icon, Solomon Burke (of whom he was nicknamed, "Cookieman") and most recently, acclaimed folk rockers, Lord Huron. After two years of heavy touring with Huron and masterminding the guitars on their breakthrough album, Farkas steps out to front Boys School, and delivers an exuberant, self-titled, debut album of sneering rock n' roll, addictive pop and thoughtful ballads.


With particular nods to early Elvis Costello, the Clash, Spoon and Harry Nilsson, and not to mention a wicked obsession for the savory sounds of the Swedish death pop supergroup, ABBA, the Boys School album clocks in at a brisk 34 minutes, yet it embodies a wide inclusiveness of inspiration - from early rock n roll, 70's glam and punk, to 90's college radio and the traditional song-smithery. Songs alternate between high charged abandon and meditative plateaus, often within the same tune, a testament to Farkas' strong belief in multi-faceted musical exploration. Lyrics navigate the pressure and release of frustration and heartbreak, coupled with wary hope and near manic longing for freedom, all snaking their way through a colorful, sometimes sunny, sometimes snarling, and often humorous landscape.


There is something undeniably, adolescently fun about Boys School, though a fun that's tempered by a very grownup sense of foreboding and a very old school appreciation of spirited musicality, especially felt in their live shows. In a an era of bands attempting to mimic their own recordings in live performance, playing along to pre-recorded tracks, Boys School takes the old road to reach new destinations.


"Musicality is being in the moment, playing the song to the means and capabilities of the group, and taking it to new places every time. And that's all that matters, that there's risk and intention behind it, energy. Nobody's gonna miss a thing if you're playing hard. And I mean "hard" not like loud and heavy, but intensely focused and giving everything that you've got."