Otto Mobile and the Moaners

Otto Mobile and The Moaners and TV Mike and The Scarecrowes – two Bay Area bands composed mostly of Indiana transplants – are both releasing LPs, so they’re celebrating with an all-Indiana native show at Amnesia January 24th.

Restless Sun is the second LP for Otto Mobile, which is led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Matt Lundquist. Lundquist splits his time between San Francisco and his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. He tells me he spends time in Indiana for “lots of space and a slower pace” and “lazy front porch picking,” while the Bay Area pulls him because “people here seem driven by this tectonic frenzy and it’s fun to get all manic about your creative projects out here.” As a fellow midwestern transplant, I can easily understand why he is drawn to each place, and I think he does a great job on Restless Sun translating those forces into music. You can stream Restless Sun below, or purchase it on Otto Mobile’s Bandcamp page.

TV Mike and The Scarecrowes are also releasing their second LP, entitled Weeks to Days. While the entire album is not available for streaming yet, what you can hear is solid country/Americana/rock that showcases the songwriting talents of frontman TV Mike. According to the band’s website, the album took over two years to record “thanks to the runaway success of tUnE-YarDs, who hijacked engineer Eli Crews as their front of house sound guy.” Instead of recording with someone else, they worked around Crews’ crazy tUnE-YarDs schedule and pushed the album release back. What I’ve heard so far makes me think it was worth the wait. You can stream five tracks of Weeks to Days below, or preorder the album from their Bandcamp page.

Joining Otto Mobile and TV Mike will be Brand New Trash, which is also lead by a pair of Indiana transplants, Vince and Jimmy Dewald. After the show Thursday night, The Scarecrowes will play another show Sunday at The Night Light in Oakland with Collisionville before heading out on a tour of California and Arizona.

Otto Mobile and the Moaners, TV Mike and the Scarecrowes, Brand New Trash
Amnesia
January 24, 2013
9pm, $7

TV Mike and the Scarecrowes, Collisionville
The Night Light
January 27, 2013
8:30pm, admission TBA