Mel and Hunter-Spiders (169) (Right Click,Save Link As)

Mel and Hunter-Spiders

Mel Washington of All Get Out and Hunter Duncan of Kill Anties and The Lion Winter have joined together to record a cover of “Spiders” by the band Lovedrug.

This is the first in a series of duets that Mel and Hunter will be doing for Scene SC.  They recently recorded this song with Zach Buchanan in Lexington, SC with artwork contributed by Sami Wood of London.

This is a beautiful cover of this song.  Already got me looking forward to the next release.

New Brookland Tavern

Sunday January, 23

with Winston Audio and Enemy Lovers

Scene SC Exclusive

New Calculator Demo-Natureholic

Calculator-Natureholic Version 2.1

Here it is folks. The youth of the South Carolina indie rock music scene. Two bands budding with talent that both average under 22 years old at New Brookland Tavern this Sunday night.

Rising from the ashes of The Devil and The Lion and Tyler Morris’s side project New Masses, Calculator quickly became not only one of the best new bands of 2009, but one of the most talented bands that South Carolina has to offer. Their sound, unlike any other around, is a mix of lo-fi grunge that would have been common in the post Nirvana indie rock music scene. What sets them apart these days has a lot to do with chief songwriter Tyler Morris’s ability to not only test your ability to be comfortable as a listener, but also invade your sexual privacy at live shows. Calculator has already released two digital EPs in less than a year, the newest, Classic Acid, is currently available on bandcamp and is coming to iTunes soon. Recommended if you like sex, drugs and grunge.

I don’t think it is too soon to start calling Kill Anties veterans of the Columbia music scene. I know, I know, it might seem odd to already be calling the still high school aged guys veterans, but they have stuck it out longer than most local bands and they do more for the local music scene than their peers. We’ve said from day one they have talent and they prove it more to us everyday. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Hunter Duncan already has a side project and the guys are constantly recording high quality music in their home studio(Check the video below). So there is no more, “They may be the next great Columbia indie rock band.” Their time is now and the opportunity is in their hands. Watch them explode live at the end of My Friends, the Great Pretenders and you’ll believe too.

Week 3 of our summer tour has been an eventful one, to say the least. Probably what tops the list is that we received our final mastered album from the mastering house. Alan Douches at West West Side Music (Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective, etc..) mastered the album, and we are SUPER pumped about it. It’s going to be released September 29^th, and we’re beginning the largest promotional campaign of our career to try and build up as much hype about the album as possible. We started by uploading a preview track from the record, “Like Ice in Water” to our MySpace.  So be on the lookout for new music over the next couple of months, and start telling your friends about the new Rocketboys record, “20,000 Ghosts” coming in September!

But let me back track and fill you in on some of the daily events that took place over the last week…

After Maryland, we headed south, crossing the Mason-Dixon line, and played our first show ever in Charlotte on Tuesday at Tremont Music Hall. We made some new friends in My Epic and Jonas Sees in Color. After the show, we headed to Columbia, SC to stay with Daniel’s sister and brother in-law (Megan and Josh).  We love staying with them because they always treat us so well. On Wednesday before the show we took their boat out on Lake Murray and did some wake surfing. (see pictures below).  Justin saw some huge striper coming to the surface of the lake and he was so excited I thought he was going to jump in after them!

Columbia is becoming a favorite city for us, and this was our second time to play New Brookland Tavern. Our good friend Ben Walker played a great set, and we made some new friends in Kill Anties.

The Rocketboys Climb Stone Mountain from Scene SC on Vimeo.

Thursday we played one of our favorite shows of the tour at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta with our long-time friend , Trevor Dowdy, and his band  I Married My High School Sweetheart. There were a ton of friends and family there and Dear Future and IMMHS played stellar sets.

We had the day off in Atlanta on Friday, and some of the Rocketboys went to Lake Lanier and had a nice time on our friend’s father’s yacht. That evening we hung out with All Get Out at their show at Vinyl with Gasoline Heart while Daniel and Justin hiked up Stone Mountain and watched the laser show after sunset…pretty sweet!

Saturday we played in Macon with All Get Out and Rova Zetella while Dear Future drove up to Cleveland to open for Live at The House of Blues. Back in Macon, other than Matt breaking his kick drum pedal during the 2^nd verse drum solo of “Like Ice In Water” and Brandon’s vocal mic continually cutting out, and the sound guys not paying attention, it was a great night for us…. Good crowd and even better friends!

Oh, and Sunday morning, before heading to Nashville, we went to a church potluck with the Wiseman’s. It was great, and this really awesome lady gave one of the most interesting talks I’ve ever heard/seen. She had two baseballs with smiley faces drawn on them and pink ribbons tied to them. One was named Theodocius and the other Friend, and she told this crazy story about Theodocius stealing ice cream from a convenient store….then she said  “Sin separates you from God!” and then cut Theodocius’s ribbon. Yeah, I’m still not sure what the point was, but it was pretty entertaining!

Dear Future At Exit/In from Scene SC on Vimeo.

Sunday we played in Nashville at the Exit/In, one of our favorite clubs in the country. There was a huge crowd and the energy was so great that night. Definitely one of the best shows yet!

Monday we played our first show ever in Cincinnati and were pleasantly surprised by the turnout…afterwards, however, we had no place to stay, so we drove down this crazy back road looking for a campsite, and there was fog and dense forests and everyone was getting scared…so we went back to the interstate and ended up sleeping in the woods at a rest area. Other than the ants crawling all over my face and the sound of big rigs pulling in and out, it wasn’t that bad of nights sleep! I think we have to spend at least one night at a rest area for any tour to really be a “tour!”

3 weeks down, 2 more to go!

Check out our first post ever a year ago!

When I started this website a year ago, I don’t think I realistically expected it to be where it is today.  After running the website for a couple of months hits were staying steady between 25-50 a day and I was really trying to figure out if it was worth it.  I started the website in late June, because I needed something to do.  Work was slow and I felt like I needed to get more involved in a promising music scene where I thought artists weren’t getting the exposure that they deserved.  What I didn’t imagine was the amount of time it would take up in my life.  Last October/November I was working 50-60 hour weeks at my day job.  Finding time for Scene SC was getting harder than I ever imagined it would be.  It seemed like every time I would be close to thinking about letting the website fade away, something would happen to make me realize people were paying attention.

The first person to say the words that I needed to hear to keep the website going was Mike Rogers of All Get Out in Charlotte, September 5th of last year.  In August I wrote a post about how there is a good and bad side to the music scene in South Carolina and about how some people out there are trying to take advantage of bands.  The post was really harsh, so I pulled it down within in an hour of posting it.  Mike told me that night that he really liked that post and that he reads the website daily.  He even showed it to me on his Google Reader.  At that point I decided to stop worrying about how many hits I was getting a day.  If one or only a handful of people are reading the site and it means something to them, I decided that it was worth it to keep going.

So let’s look at the numbers.

• July 2008 we had 291 unique hits to the site.
• June 2009 we had 3,873 unique visitors to the site.
• About 80% of our hits come from our home-base of Columbia.  We are working on changing that.
• We currently offer over 100 videos of bands including full sets.
• According to my bank account there has been over $3,000 invested in this site including video equipment, hosting fees, banners, getting into shows etc.
• The most hits we ever got in a day was 871
• Our most commented story was The Dino-Mech Vs. Blake Lewis Saga.  The Free-Times broke this.
• 5 of our favorite bands have broken up.
• 885 Twitter Followers
• 338 Posts
• 1,826 Comments
• 1 Full Time Scene SC’er and 4 Part Timers
• Over 200 shows attended.
• We’ve hooked up at least 2 couples
• Made Countless Friends
• Created 1 Music Community

I am going to attempt to make a list of people to Thank that really helped me with this website and it being where it is today.  I know I’ll leave someone important out.

Adam Fogle (Palmetto Scoop)  The site wouldn’t exist without him, My sister Meredith Stringer for editing every post on the website and going to more shows than me, Bentz Kirby, Pat Wall (The Free Times), Our Staff Stephen Russ, Bakari Lebby, Sarah Kobos.  My brother Jeffrey for investing in me and my parents for supporting me.  Our fans from the get go Kevin Morrissey, BK Kennedy, Will Armstrong, Steven Niedringhaus, Seth Birkes and Ben Dimond.  Homemade Genius and Ian!

Specific Bands that have really reached out to us including Marry a Thief, All Get Out, The Fire Tonight, This Machine Is Me, Kill Anties, The Decade,  The Reverie, The Restoration

These people Erich Skelton, Colin Brown, Brandon Kean, Brandon Wilks, Jeffrey McMicken, Nathan Hussey, Grayson Venters,  Mel Washington, Mike Rogers, Chad Rochester,Marcy Bozek WUSC, Otis Taylor at The State, Randy Borawski at WXRY, Austin Crane, Nate Puza, Ashleigh Lancaster, Will Flourance, Daniel Machado, Cayla Fralick, Blake Arambula, Nick Bays, Michael Crawford, Kevin Oliver