PLEASE Please You presents The Molochs and Montero at the Fulford Arms, York, on St Valentine's night from 7.30pm.
Led by Los Angeles singer and songwriter Lucas Fitzsimons, The Molochs will be turning the spotlight on their second album, America’s Velvet Glory, recorded with engineer Jonny Bell at Long Beach’s JazzCats studio.
The album opens with an anxious electric minor-key melody and ends on a last lonesome unresolved organ riff, and in between comes beauty, doubt, loss, hate and even a moment or two of peace. There are flashes of 60s' garage rock too, such as the Sunset Strip ’66 stormer No More Cryin’ or the heartwarming, yet heartbreaking The One I Love.
Ben Montero: promoting new album Performer
Montero's new album, Performer, was recorded at Mark Ronson‘s Tileyard studios in London and was co-produced by Ben Montero, Jay Watson of Tame Impala, Pond and Gum, and Grammy Award-winning engineer Riccardo Damian. All instruments were played by Montero, Watson and Damian, except for some violin by Emily, a waitress from the studio cafe, and electric piano from Montero’s Uncle Jason.
Montero’s music evokes the extended soundscapes and textures of Seventies' 70s prog rock, the easy-listening adult weirdness of Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach, and the sports arena pounding of vintage MOR rock, sometimes all in the space of one song.
Ben Montero is a visual artist too, his comic-based style highlighting "the universality of small human moments via a cast of furry or sometimes slimy friends". His art has graced album covers, T-shirts and posters for Mac Demarco, Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile, Pond and others, and he has lost count of the number of fans who have had his drawings tattooed on their body, while his Facebook page, Ben Montero Sketchbook, has more than 70,000 followers.
At present, Montero lives in Athens, Greece, and his live band comprises members of Greek psych heads Acid Baby Jesus plus other friends.
Tickets for February 14 cost £8 in person from the Fulford Arms, Earworm Records in York and Jumbo Records in Leeds or from pleasepleaseyou.com
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