#hardtimesgo

[wearebeatradio]

$10 Vinyl Sale at Bandcamp to celebrate Record Store Day.

[wearebeatradio]

Visit Original Link

This track is from an album that was only made available to our Hard Times, Go kickstarter backers.

[wearebeatradio]

tonight you belong to me by beat radio & sarah wood

One of the fun things about our Kickstarter was that some of our backers picked cover songs they wanted us to record for them.  This is such a brilliant song, that I first came to know through the Steve Martin Movie "The Jerk."   Big thanks to Brian Berger for commisioning this one, and to our friend Sarah Wood for singing it with us.  Sarah sings in a rad band called Mount Sharp (mountsharp.bandcamp.com) which you should go listen to now! Here's a link to the amazing version from the film, by Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqtmXnQZ6Qk

"Tonight You Belong to Me" is a popular American song, written in 1926 by lyricist Billy Rose and composer Lee David.  Our cover is available as a free download at Bandcamp.

[wearebeatradio]

We're thrilled to announce that our fourth full length record, Hard Times, Go! is now available at bandcamp - both digitally and on translucent red or coke bottle clear 150 gram 12" vinyl.  You can also find the album digitally at itunes, amazon, and emusic.

HARD TIMES, GO! by beat radio

Here are liner notes: Before I explain our new record I should maybe introduce myself. I’m Brian Sendrowitz and I live with my wife Liz and our 3 young boys in Bellmore, NY. Bellmore is a small town near the south shore of Long Island. I’ve been putting out music as Beat Radio since 2005. I guess my music career/family trajectory was sort of backwards. I never wanted to put my life on hold for my art. The lineup for the band has changed a lot over the years, but the latest record has primarily been a collaboration between my drummer Brian Ver Straten and I. I’ve somehow gotten into the habit of writing songs as lifelines. Last fall when I started working on the material for this album I was in sort of a dark place. The existing band lineup seemed to be dissolving. I don’t remember an exact moment when it happened. All I can remember is feeling a strong urge to start writing and figure out what the next step should be on my own. Liz and I were going through difficult times financially, struggling to make things work from one month to the next. Like so many people around the country we felt trapped and disillusioned. It started to feel like the walls were closing in around us. I needed a place to put my anxieties about things, and perhaps more than anything I needed an escape. I headed down to my basement studio. In the past I’ve drawn inspiration mostly from artists like Sparklehorse, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Van Morrison. Last fall I fell headlong into a deep obsession with the Swedish pop star Robyn. I listened to her Body Talk album on repeat, hunted down all the remixes, watched endless Youtube clips of live performances. Liz and I would spend long road family road trips analyzing the narrative complexity of her songs. We also started writing songs together, trying to capture a little bit of the brilliance we heard coming through the speakers of our minivan. The sound of the new Beat Radio album was beginning to take shape in my mind, and my ambition was to work with the rhythms and melodic structures of electronic dance/pop music, but flesh things out with more organic sounds. Lyrically I felt like the stories I had to tell needed to be more focused around the realities of what we were going through. My records in the past have been thematically centered around a romantic escapism and a nostalgia for things past. I wanted the new songs to address real adult problems, in the way Bruce Springsteen had started to do with his records Darkness on the Edge of Town and Nebraska. I didn’t feel like I should hold anything back, and I wanted to be as direct and honest as possible. I decided to follow Robyn’s lead and release a series of EPs the way she had done with Body Talk. My original ambition was to have the entire album thematically correlate with Robyn’s album, sort of in the way that Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville was a companion to the Stones’ Exile on Main Street. That plan ended up being a bit more grandiose than what actually happened. In the end, we ended up with another Beat Radio record. We challenged ourselves to make it. The songs feel special, and we’re really proud of them. We’re trying to spread the word about our music as far and wide as possible. If you could share with your friends that would be awesome. Thanks for listening, Brian

[wearebeatradio]

Hurricanes, XO

Our new single “Hurricanes, XO" premiered last week over at The Wild Honey Pie, and is now available for download over at bandcamp.

It's one of my favorite songs on the album and it captures a sort of sound that I had carried around in my head for a while, but had never quite been able to pull off.  The writing and recording of the song was sort of a fun experiment.  It started out with just Brian V and I improvising in the basement. I basically said “let’s play a punk rock number” and then we hit record and just played whatever came to mind. It sounded kind of crazy but really fresh and urgent, so I sent the demo to my friend Vince Bauters. Vince is a poet and a sort of pen pal - I’ve never met him in real life but we’ve been in touch for a while and seem to have a creative understanding and a mutual respect for each other as artists. We collaborated once before on a poem. Anyway - Vince and I started collaborating on the lyrics for the song via google docs.  I had a rough idea of what the song should be about. I wanted it to be a sort of freewheeling/apocalyptic love song.  Like a collection of images, or movie of only words.

As that was happening, I called over my friend Bryan Bruchman - he ended up playing on 4 songs on the new album and is kind of our very own stand in post-rock guitar hero. Bryan recorded some really amazing lead guitar parts over these weird basic tracks, and the feel of the song was starting to come together. Once the lyrics were finally complete (lyrics are the only part of songs I tend to obsess over) I knew the song was just about done but I kind of wanted to get someone to sing the choruses with me, to add to the anthemic quality. I have another friend/postmodern pen pal in Maia Macdonald. Maia makes music as Kid in the Attic and is also in a really great indie pop band called Mitten. She sang on one of the other songs we had recorded earlier on and that had been really awesome. So, I emailed her with a rough mix of “Hurricanes”, and right away she sent back some tracks with these amazing amazing harmonies. Funny all the strange and wonderful ways you can collaborate and function as a band these days.

Anyway - hope you enjoy the track!  The full album will be released on 2/19 via Awkward For Life Records, and is now available for pre-order as a digital download and also on 150 gram translucent red or coke bottle clear vinyl.

<3

BEAT RADIO

[wearebeatradio]

#Nowplaying the test press for #HardTimesGo!!!!!!

[wearebeatradio]

sending the new LP off to the presses! Here's the cover art.

[wearebeatradio]

Today was a day that we'll never forget.  We started it out feeling kinda nervous about whether or not we'd reach our goal.  Not only did we pass our $3500 target but things kept going and we're already over $4,000!!  We're completely amazed, and there are no words to describe how much it means to us.

This thing feels pretty unstoppable.  We've still got 21 hours to go, any additional funding we get will give help us with some really valuable resources in spreading our music as far and wide as possible.  If you'd still like to pre-order through our Kickstarter, you can do so here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/648896607/new-beat-radio-album-hard-times-go

We've got some pretty fun backer rewards.  Also, we're recording a special alternate acoustic version of the entire album that will only be available to our Kickstarter backers. 

Again, for everyone who has helped us out with this, we love you and we're honored to be a part of this with you.  We've got lots more great news coming, and we'll keep you posted each step of the way.

cheers, beat radio