“‘Animals Figure 427’ is revelatory,” says Buzz Bands of re-recorded “mangled” version of GANGI tune; Track appears on duo’s first release in a decade.

 “Imagine if 2008 visitors from a distant galaxy got just close enough to Earth to pick up warped snippets of the song.” Hear “Animals Figure 427” now.

+++

GANGI (L-R): Mahadev, Eric Chramosta. Photo credit: Jeanette Getrost.
 
+++
 
GANGI | In The Press
 
“Dark and rich.” — Los Angeles Times
 
“Aural collage that seems aimed at warping any expectations.” — LA Weekly
 
“A soundtrack to cognitive dissonance.” — Under the Radar
 
“GANGI’s electro-psych evolution has been years in the making.” — SPIN
 
+++
 

PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
GANGI | “Animals Figure 427”

[YOUTUBE]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf2sU5BXpyQ

[SOUNDCLOUD]: https://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/gangi-animals-figure-427

+++

Stream “Animals Figure 427” by GANGI at Buzz Bands or at the links above.

“‘Animals Figure 427’ is revelatory — imagine if 2008 visitors from a distant galaxy got just close enough to Earth to pick up warped snippets of the song ‘Animals,’ says Buzz Bands in its premiere coverage of the track from the upcoming three-track, 12-minute GANGI EP “As Fake Estates,” the duo’s first official release in about a decade.

Buzz Bands continues, “The song is an eye into their creative process, which incorporates feeding the music through hand-built circuits and using noise from revived reel-to-reel tape machines.”

“‘Animals Figure 427’ is a re-recorded and then ‘mangled’ version of the song ‘Animals’ from our debut album A. We sampled our own re-recordings to deconstruct it,” Mahadev (fka Matt Gangi) of GANGI explains. “The only sample that we didn’t record on instruments is from the band POWERSOLO, friends of ours from Denmark who found A through Seb Doubinsky, an amazing sci-fi writer.

“We thought ‘Animals Figure 427’ was a fun title, as in ‘See figure 427’ in a book, i.e. ‘See this map to tell you how to understand the previous iteration of animals here. See figure 427.’ I thought I chose the number at random, but I was born on the 27th and 27 has always been my favorite number, but I don’t understand 427.

“(Bandmate) Eric (Chramosta) and I played the original ‘Animals’ live at many shows. It’s a song where we would go really ‘out’ sometimes. I remember a show where Eric was playing synth during ‘Animals’ and I went out into the audience and started reading out interesting things that I found in the local paper for quite a long time.”

+++

GANGI
“As Fake Estates” EP
(Office of Analogue and Digital)
Aug. 5, 2022
  

 
Track Listing:
 
01. Animals Figure 427 (YOUTUBE | SOUNDCLOUD)

02. Toshiba Maxwell (STREAM | SOUNDCLOUD)
03. Subject Positions Redux

+++

PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
GANGI | “Toshiba Maxwell”
  

[YOUTUBE]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_XWCqTURE
 
[SOUNDCLOUD]: https://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/gangi-toshiba-maxwell
 
+++
 
Stream the sound collage “Toshiba Maxwell” by GANGI at the links above.
 
“Animals” and “Subject Positions” are mangled re-recordings of songs from the debut GANGI album A, released in 2007.
 
“Toshiba Maxwell” is different. Mahadev (f/k/a Matt Gangi) of GANGI explains, "Many years ago, I was 18-years-old and hanging out with (bandmate) Eric (Chramosta) who had a laptop and a broken violin. We somehow started recording using some free software, with me playing the broken violin and saying ‘Na na na na na’ over it. When Eric and I re-connected to start making music again as GANGI, we started there. We made some other noise music, too, but we remembered this one.
 
“We vowed to start a noise project called Toshiba Maxwell, a riff on the audio tape company Maxell. Eric was going to be Toshiba and I was going to Maxwell.  “As it turns out, instead of a band name, it became a song, landing on the ‘As Fake Estates’ EP right in-between the two mangled re-recordings of the A songs ‘Animals’ and ‘Subject Positions.’”
 
+++
 
GANGI | About
 

“Two men’s trash can be the same men’s treasure.”
 
Previously praised as “dark and rich” (Los Angeles Times) for its “aural collage that seems aimed at warping any expectations” (LA Weekly) or more esoterically, “a soundtrack to cognitive dissonance” (Under the Radar), GANGI’s “electro-psych evolution has been years in the making” according to SPIN, writing in the summer of 2012 about the Los Angeles-based duo’s second album.
 
Now, “making” is made as GANGI (Matt Gangi and Eric Chramosta) lands in the future with a three-song suite of sonic disturbance from the past. “As Fake Estates” arrives Aug 5 on the artist’s Office of Analogue and Digital label.
 
The material on “As Fake Estates” was recorded around the same time as the 2012 GANGI album gesture is, and is mostly comprised of what Matt Gangi describes as “mangled” versions of songs that date back to the debut GANGI album A, released in 2007. “We sampled and re-constructed our own re-recordings to make most of it,” he explains.
 
Chramosta terms the new release “a multiple-decade long lineage of assembly, disassembly and reassembly” or the re-examination of “that which had been left to collect digital dust. Two men’s trash can be the same men’s treasure.”
 
The elements that call back GANGI’s psych-pop past are heavily spliced and fed through myriad electronic components, channeling the anarchy of The Pop Group and melting warble of DJ Screw. Other influences include Black Dice and Salem.
 
A collaborative brotherhood that began when Gangi and Chramosta were only 12-years-old, “As Fake Estates” represents the first official release in this decade for GANGI, a project that will go forward with the name Fake Estates from this point on.
 
Just as this long-overdue release is transitional, Matt Gangi himself is traveling a new path with a new name.  “I found Sanatana Dharma and the traditional yoga since I last released music,” he explains. “My main Guru gave me the name Mahadev.”
 
“After GANGI as Fake Estates, GANGI will BE Fake Estates,” Mahadev says.
 
Just as Gangi the man is now Mahadev, the band’s moniker represents a permanent change for the pair after recording and touring throughout the world for years as GANGI. The decidedly more experimental sounds of “As Fake Estates” are heavily colored by hand-built circuits and the noise of revived reel-to-reel tape machines.
 
“I was building circuits when we were recording this material and we passed sounds through all kinds of things,” Mahadev explains. “Eric grew up around Otari reel-to-reel tape decks. In middle school, he recorded a mangled symphony to his dad’s Otari deck.”
 
“We were inspired by all the glitch music that was happening in LA at the time that we recorded this material,” Mahadev continues. “GANGI performed at (weekly experimental hip hop and electronic music club) Low End Theory during those days. The experimental electronics that were happening there influenced these sounds.”
 
“As Fake Estates” by GANGI arrives on Aug. 5, streaming on all digital services, and as a vinyl release with etched B-side. These very limited vinyl copies are artifacts, having been pressed and stored at the time that the original recordings were made a decade ago, only to be released now.
 
Their trash, our treasure.
 
“As Fake Estates” by GANGI arrives Aug. 5, 2022 via the band’s Office of Analogue and Digital label. Members of GANGI are available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
+++
 
GANGI | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : INSTAGRAM : TWITTER : BANDCAMP
 
+++
 
Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL

“I Wanna Hate You” is another one of The March Divide’s “pop-rock gems;” See perfectly beautiful picnic get perfectly destroyed in latest video.

Intentional tribute to 90s indie pop-rock (Gin Blossoms, Fountains of Wayne, Matthew Sweet), Lost Causes album, out now; More tour dates added.

 
+++
 

 
Jared Putnam of The March Divide as photographed by Short Eared Dog Photography.
 
+++

PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
The March Divide | “I Wanna Hate You”
 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IijipEsvPr8

In its premiere coverage of the “I Wanna Hate You” video by The March Divide – in which a perfectly beautiful picnic gets perfectly destroyed – V13 also calls the tunes on the new album Lost Causes, “Sarcastic for sure, certainly humorous,” but also “rather confessional.”

Jared Putnam of The March Divide says, “The new album carries an intentional tribute to 90s indie pop-rock (Gin Blossoms, Fountains of Wayne, Matthew Sweet) and ‘I Wanna Hate You’ is the perfect song to represent that. I wanted everything I miss from the songs I grew up with: driving verses, big power-pop choruses, and even rippin’ guitar solos.”

The director of the clip, Hector Gallardo comments, “I don’t think I’ve heard such a happy break-up song. But I feel it. So of course the accompanying video had to match that theme. What a perfectly beautiful sunny day for a picnic and what a perfectly beautiful setting for our characters to let their aggression out.”

 +++

PLAY, POST & SHARE

 
The March Divide | “Tension In The Air”
 

 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfiAVLf9_nU

“Putnam’s urgent melodies, wrapped in just-slick-enough production, draw you in and keep you there. “‘Tension In The Air’ is one of The March Divide’s best examples of this trick to date.” – The Big Takeover
 
About the music video for the song, recently premiered by Dallas NPR-affiliate KXT, Putnam says, “The song is about needing a break from the mundane. We all have our own thing,  and life can become mundane for a lot of reasons. So, we made a video about what that break might look like if you’re a puppet with no morals or self-control!”
 
Hector Gallardo, the director of the clip, and de facto puppeteer explains, “This puppet is inspired by the movie ‘Labrynth,’ and was made by a group of very talented artists here in El Paso, Texas.”
 
Gallardo continues, “Growing up with ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Fraggle Rock,’ I always loved what they did with these puppets, but until I did this myself, I always took for granted what goes into making those shows. Some of these shots are honestly torturous. You have to really contort your body to not end up in the shot!”
 
“In the scene with the band, everyone at the bar was super happy to meet and party with the puppet. They kept asking what his name was and I realized we never gave him one. That night, he was forever known as Maurice.”
 

+++
 
The March Divide | Live

08/20/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean

08/23/2022: Red River, NM @ Noisy Water Winery

08/24/2022: Albuquerque, NM @ Noisy Water Winery

08/25/2022: Santa Fe, NM @ The Cowgirl BBQ

08/26/2022: Ruidoso, NM @ The Cellar Uncorked

08/27/2022: Alamogordo, NM @ 575 Brewing

08/28/2022: Cloudcroft, NM @ Cloudcroft Brewing

08/31/2022: Clovis, NM @ Bandolero Brewing

09/01/2022: Albuquerque, NM @ Rio Bravo Brewing

09/02/2022: Alto, NM @ Enchanted Vine

09/03/2022: Ruidoso, NM @ Lost Hiker Brewing

09/04/2022: Las Cruces, NM @ T or T Brewing

09/29/2022: Wichita Falls, TX @ The High Dive

09/30/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralo’s

10/01/2022: Houston, TX @ Bohemeo’s (w/Brightwire)

10/02/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralos

10/06/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralos

10/07/2022: Corpus Christi, TX @ Art Walk

10/08/2022: Cibolo, TX @ 1908 House of Wine & Ale

10/10/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Sternewirth Sessions (Emma Hotel)

10/14/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean

10/15/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralos

10/20/2022: Wichita Falls @ The High Dive

10/22/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean

11/05/2022: Clovis, NM @ Red Door Brewing

11/11/2022: Tyler, TX @ ETX Brewing

11/18/2022: San Antonio, TX @ The Point Park

11/19/2022: Cibolo, TX @ 1908 House of Wine & Ale

11/12/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean

11/25/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean

12/16/2022: Mountain Home, AR @ Rapp’s Barren Brewing

12/17/2022: West Plains, MO @ Wages Brewing

12/18/2022: Tulsa, OK @ The Hunt Club

 +++

 

The March Divide
Lost Causes
(Slow Start Records)
Out Now
 
Streaming Link:
STREAM FULL LP
 

Track Listing:
 
01. I Wanna Hate You (STREAM | VIDEO)
02. Tension in the Air (STREAM | VIDEO)
03. I’m Not Perfect (STREAM | VIDEO)
04. Dover Cir (VIDEO)
05. Corduroy
06. Giving Up
07. Virginia (STREAM)
08. Mont Del Dr (VIDEO)
09. King of The Lost Cause (STREAM | VIDEO)
10. This World is Gonna End (LYRIC VIDEO)

+++

PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
The March Divide | ”King of The Lost Cause”
 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZJ3A078Tw 
+++
 
“All I really had of this song was a bad phone memo of the idea,” says Jared Putnam of The March Divide about “King of The Lost Cause,” but I knew that I didn’t want to leave this song off the album, and as it turns out, the song is an obvious expression of the anxiety that comes with writing songs for a living.”
 
About the video for the song, director Hector Gallardo comments, “The video might be a bit on the nose with this guy going about his life imagining it’s something completely different from his actual reality. He’s a character trying to present a well-put together image when he might actually be just wandering through life.”
 
+++
 
The March Divide | About
 

I wanna hate you. I’m not perfect. Giving up. King of the lost cause. This world is gonna end.
 
Jared Putnam is a funny guy. No, really, he is. Don’t let the negative words above, which comprise five of the ten song titles on Lost Causes (oops, he did it again!), Putnam’s sixth album as The March Divide, fool you.
 
Being able to laugh at yourself is one of the tenants of comedy and Putnam’s greatest strength has always been to take his everyman, self-effacing character and wrap it in urgent melodies backed by just-slick-enough production to draw you in and keep you there.
 
It’s why over the years music critics have called his songs “impressively hooky” (American Songwriter) with “classic pop hooks” (The Big Takeover) where his “pop sensibility comes entirely to the forefront” (Under The Radar).
 
As a next-door neighbor who you would actually like to know, Putnam doesn’t try to overstay his welcome, either. Even though he is a prolific songwriter, after the release of his appropriately titled fifth album cinc in April of 2021, he figured he was tapped out of ideas for a while.
 
Instead, he started making the best distillation of his talents to date. As Putnam tells it, inspiration returned as he was just out doing Dad stuff.
 
“I was driving my kid to school and Gin Blossoms came on the radio. I’m a forever fan of Gin Blossoms, but this was ‘Hey Jealousy,’ which commercial radio has been running into the ground for 30 years.
 
“But in that moment, it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard! The hooks, the subject matter, and all the rest were as they’d always been, but I was struck by how it was put together. In that moment, that’s what made the song great.”
 
Putnam has spent years deconstructing pop songs in an attempt to discover the formula. This “Hey Jealousy” epiphany may have been destined, because the blueprint of the connection Putnam realized while just doing Daddy duty allowed him to build Lost Causes.
 
“I’ve always been fascinated with dissecting what makes a song great and trying to find the catalyst for the chemical reaction that emotionally connects us to where a handful of tunes are run into the ground for 30 years,” he says of the rarefied air that a timeless hit song occupies.
 
Joining Putnam under The March Divide banner for Lost Causes are friends Ernie Garcia (long-time player with El Vez and Javier Escovedo) on bass and Jason West on drums.
 
“Our mutual love of Cheap Trick has always made Jason the perfect drummer for my songs,” Putnam says. Lost Causes was mixed and mastered by Mike Major (At The Drive-In, Coheed and Cambria.)
 
“Mike also produced a lot of great bands around the southwest,” Putnam explains. “It wasn’t lost on me that Gin Blossoms are from Tempe and have a very staple southwestern sound. Mike knew what I was going for.”
 
Lyrically, the songs on Lost Causes pick up where the last single from Putnam’s previous album left off. At the time, he had started to write in a more stream of consciousness style, even making a promise to himself not to change his words.
 
“It’s pretty satisfying to just say what you want to say, without worrying about how cool it sounds,” he said at the time.
 
This is why Putnam’s humor shines brighter than ever on Lost Causes.
 
I wanna hate you. I’m not perfect. Giving up. King of the lost cause. This world is gonna end.
 
We have all felt these things, but putting them in song, or voicing them at all could seem whiney or at least cynical and pessimistic.
 
Not so, with Putnam, who has become a master of this somewhat sarcastic craft. Instead, these songs are relatable confessions in a candy coating.
 
“Writing sad songs about utter loneliness comes very naturally to me,” he says. “These kinds of songs are very therapeutic for me to write.”
 
These sad songs are the ones that most connect with Putnam’s growing audience, especially those overseas that have propelled tunes such as his 2019 release “Secrets,” to just-shy of a million Spotify spins.
 
“I’m Not Perfect,” the first single from Lost Causes, started out as one of these “downer” tunes, but in sharing his early demo with his collaborators, Putnam was pushed to make it more, while keeping what makes it The March Divide. The tune opens Lost Causes and is a total success.
 
“Even though writing these types of songs is therapeutic for me, it’s also a rut,” Putnam says. “Emotionally, I got so much more out of working on ‘I’m Not Perfect’ by working with others. I’m hopeful that the fans who crave these songs from me will too. Maybe we can all get out of our sad bastard rut together.”
 
He’s a funny guy.
 
Lost Causes, the sixth album by The March Divide, is out now via Slow Start Records. Jared Putnam of The March Divide is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
+++
 
The March Divide | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : BANDCAMP : SPOTIFY : APPLE : SLOW START RECORDS
 
+++
 
Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL

Pressed then stored for a decade, Los Angeles duo GANGI to release 100 vinyl copies of “As Fake Estates,” a 12-minute, three-track suite of sonic disturbance on Aug. 5.

 Title of EP — also available on all streamers — reflects permanent transition to new name Fake Estates going forward; Hear sound collage “Toshiba Maxwell” now.
 
+++

GANGI (L-R): Mahadev, Eric Chramosta. Photo credit: Jeanette Getrost.
 
+++
 
GANGI | In The Press
 
“Dark and rich.” — Los Angeles Times
 
“Aural collage that seems aimed at warping any expectations.” — LA Weekly
 
“A soundtrack to cognitive dissonance.” — Under the Radar
 
“GANGI’s electro-psych evolution has been years in the making.” — SPIN
 
+++
 
PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
GANGI | “Toshiba Maxwell”
  

[YOUTUBE]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_XWCqTURE
 
[SOUNDCLOUD]: https://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/gangi-toshiba-maxwell
 
+++
 
Stream the sound collage “Toshiba Maxwell” by GANGI at the links above.
 
“Animals” and “Subject Positions” are mangled re-recordings of songs from the debut GANGI album A, released in 2007.
 
“Toshiba Maxwell” is different. Mahadev (f/k/a Matt Gangi) of GANGI explains, "Many years ago, I was 18-years-old and hanging out with (bandmate) Eric (Chramosta) who had a laptop and a broken violin. We somehow started recording using some free software, with me playing the broken violin and saying ‘Na na na na na’ over it. When Eric and I re-connected to start making music again as GANGI, we started there. We made some other noise music, too, but we remembered this one.
 
“We vowed to start a noise project called Toshiba Maxwell, a riff on the audio tape company Maxell. Eric was going to be Toshiba and I was going to Maxwell.  “As it turns out, instead of a band name, it became a song, landing on the ‘As Fake Estates’ EP right in-between the two mangled re-recordings of the A songs ‘Animals’ and ‘Subject Positions.’”
 
+++
 
GANGI
“As Fake Estates” EP
(Office of Analogue and Digital)
Aug. 5, 2022
  

 
Track Listing:
 
01. Animals Figure 427
02. Toshiba Maxwell (STREAM | SOUNDCLOUD)
03. Subject Positions Redux
 
+++
 
GANGI | About
 

“Two men’s trash can be the same men’s treasure.”
 
Previously praised as “dark and rich” (Los Angeles Times) for its “aural collage that seems aimed at warping any expectations” (LA Weekly) or more esoterically, “a soundtrack to cognitive dissonance” (Under the Radar), GANGI’s “electro-psych evolution has been years in the making” according to SPIN, writing in the summer of 2012 about the Los Angeles-based duo’s second album.
 
Now, “making” is made as GANGI (Matt Gangi and Eric Chramosta) lands in the future with a three-song suite of sonic disturbance from the past. “As Fake Estates” arrives Aug 5 on the artist’s Office of Analogue and Digital label.
 
The material on “As Fake Estates” was recorded around the same time as the 2012 GANGI album gesture is, and is mostly comprised of what Matt Gangi describes as “mangled” versions of songs that date back to the debut GANGI album A, released in 2007. “We sampled and re-constructed our own re-recordings to make most of it,” he explains.
 
Chramosta terms the new release “a multiple-decade long lineage of assembly, disassembly and reassembly” or the re-examination of “that which had been left to collect digital dust. Two men’s trash can be the same men’s treasure.”
 
The elements that call back GANGI’s psych-pop past are heavily spliced and fed through myriad electronic components, channeling the anarchy of The Pop Group and melting warble of DJ Screw. Other influences include Black Dice and Salem.
 
A collaborative brotherhood that began when Gangi and Chramosta were only 12-years-old, “As Fake Estates” represents the first official release in this decade for GANGI, a project that will go forward with the name Fake Estates from this point on.
 
Just as this long-overdue release is transitional, Matt Gangi himself is traveling a new path with a new name.  “I found Sanatana Dharma and the traditional yoga since I last released music,” he explains. “My main Guru gave me the name Mahadev.”
 
“After GANGI as Fake Estates, GANGI will BE Fake Estates,” Mahadev says.
 
Just as Gangi the man is now Mahadev, the band’s moniker represents a permanent change for the pair after recording and touring throughout the world for years as GANGI. The decidedly more experimental sounds of “As Fake Estates” are heavily colored by hand-built circuits and the noise of revived reel-to-reel tape machines.
 
“I was building circuits when we were recording this material and we passed sounds through all kinds of things,” Mahadev explains. “Eric grew up around Otari reel-to-reel tape decks. In middle school, he recorded a mangled symphony to his dad’s Otari deck.”
 
“We were inspired by all the glitch music that was happening in LA at the time that we recorded this material,” Mahadev continues. “GANGI performed at (weekly experimental hip hop and electronic music club) Low End Theory during those days. The experimental electronics that were happening there influenced these sounds.”
 
“As Fake Estates” by GANGI arrives on Aug. 5, streaming on all digital services, and as a vinyl release with etched B-side. These very limited vinyl copies are artifacts, having been pressed and stored at the time that the original recordings were made a decade ago, only to be released now.
 
Their trash, our treasure.
 
“As Fake Estates” by GANGI arrives Aug. 5, 2022 via the band’s Office of Analogue and Digital label. Members of GANGI are available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
+++
 
GANGI | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : INSTAGRAM : TWITTER : BANDCAMP
 
+++
 
Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL

“King of The Lost Cause” is “an expression of the anxiety that comes with writing songs for a living,” says Jared Putnam of his meta single; See new video now.

 Inspired by 90s pop perfection of “Hey Jealousy,” The March Divide’s Lost Causes continues to build songwriter’s loyal following; More tour dates announced.
 
+++
 

 
Jared Putnam of The March Divide as photographed by Short Eared Dog Photography.
 
+++
 
PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
The March Divide | ”King of The Lost Cause”
 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZJ3A078Tw 
[STREAM]: https://fanatic.lnk.to/TheMarchDivide-KingOfTheLostCause
 
+++
 
“All I really had of this song was a bad phone memo of the idea,” says Jared Putnam of The March Divide about “King of The Lost Cause,” but I knew that I didn’t want to leave this song off the album, and as it turns out, the song is an obvious expression of the anxiety that comes with writing songs for a living.”
 
About the video for the song, director Hector Gallardo comments, “The video might be a bit on the nose with this guy going about his life imagining it’s something completely different from his actual reality. He’s a character trying to present a well-put together image when he might actually be just wandering through life.”
 
+++
 
The March Divide | Live
 
07/08/2022: Boerne, TX @ Gather Boerne
07/09/2022: Cibolo, TX @ 1908 House of Wine & Ale
07/16/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
07/21/2022: Wichita Falls @ The High Dive
07/22/2022: Tyler, TX @ ETX Brewing
08/20/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
08/23/2022: Red River, NM @ Noisy Water Winery
08/24/2022: Albuquerque, NM @ Noisy Water Winery
08/25/2022: Santa Fe, NM @ The Cowgirl BBQ
08/26/2022: Ruidoso, NM @ The Cellar Uncorked
08/27/2022: Alamogordo, NM @ 575 Brewing
08/28/2022: Cloudcroft, NM @ Cloudcroft Brewing
08/31/2022: Clovis, NM @ Bandolero Brewing
09/01/2022: Albuquerque, NM @ Rio Bravo Brewing
09/02/2022: Alto, NM @ Enchanted Vine
09/03/2022: Ruidoso, NM @ Lost Hiker Brewing
09/04/2022: Las Cruces, NM @ T or T Brewing
09/29/2022: Wichita Falls, TX @ The High Dive
09/30/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralo’s
10/01/2022: Houston, TX @ Bohemeo’s (w/Brightwire)
10/02/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralos
10/06/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Fralos
10/07/2022: Corpus Christi, TX @ Art Walk
10/08/2022: Cibolo, TX @ 1908 House of Wine & Ale
10/10/2022: San Antonio, TX @ Sternewirth Sessions (Emma Hotel)
10/14/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
10/22/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
11/11/2022: Tyler, TX @ ETX Brewing
11/18/2022: San Antonio, TX @ The Point Park
11/19/2022: Cibolo, TX @ 1908 House of Wine & Ale
11/12/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
11/25/2022: Plano, TX @ Terra Mediterranean
 
+++
 
PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
The March Divide | ”Tension In The Air”
 

 

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfiAVLf9_nU

“Putnam’s urgent melodies, wrapped in just-slick-enough production, draw you in and keep you there. “‘Tension In The Air’ is one of The March Divide’s best examples of this trick to date.” – The Big Takeover
 
About the music video for the song, recently premiered by Dallas NPR-affiliate KXT, Putnam says, “The song is about needing a break from the mundane. We all have our own thing,  and life can become mundane for a lot of reasons. So, we made a video about what that break might look like if you’re a puppet with no morals or self-control!”
 
Hector Gallardo of Subharmonic City Productions, the director of the clip, and de facto puppeteer explains, “This puppet is inspired by the movie ‘Labrynth,’ and was made by a group of very talented artists here in El Paso, Texas.”
 
Gallardo continues, “Growing up with ‘Sesame Street’ and ‘Fraggle Rock,’ I always loved what they did with these puppets, but until I did this myself, I always took for granted what goes into making those shows. Some of these shots are honestly torturous. You have to really contort your body to not end up in the shot!”
 
“In the scene with the band, everyone at the bar was super happy to meet and party with the puppet. They kept asking what his name was and I realized we never gave him one. That night, he was forever known as Maurice.”
 
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The March Divide
Lost Causes
(Slow Start Records)
Out Now
 
Streaming Link:
STREAM FULL LP
 

Track Listing:
 
01. I Wanna Hate You (STREAM)
02. Tension in the Air (STREAM | VIDEO)
03. I’m Not Perfect (STREAM | VIDEO)
04. Dover Cir (VIDEO)
05. Corduroy
06. Giving Up
07. Virginia (STREAM)
08. Mont Del Dr (VIDEO)
09. King of The Lost Cause (STREAM | VIDEO)
10. This World is Gonna End (LYRIC VIDEO)
 
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The March Divide | About
 

I wanna hate you. I’m not perfect. Giving up. King of the lost cause. This world is gonna end.
 
Jared Putnam is a funny guy. No, really, he is. Don’t let the negative words above, which comprise five of the ten song titles on Lost Causes (oops, he did it again!), Putnam’s sixth album as The March Divide, fool you.
 
Being able to laugh at yourself is one of the tenants of comedy and Putnam’s greatest strength has always been to take his everyman, self-effacing character and wrap it in urgent melodies backed by just-slick-enough production to draw you in and keep you there.
 
It’s why over the years music critics have called his songs “impressively hooky” (American Songwriter) with “classic pop hooks” (The Big Takeover) where his “pop sensibility comes entirely to the forefront” (Under The Radar).
 
As a next-door neighbor who you would actually like to know, Putnam doesn’t try to overstay his welcome, either. Even though he is a prolific songwriter, after the release of his appropriately titled fifth album cinc in April of 2021, he figured he was tapped out of ideas for a while.
 
Instead, he started making the best distillation of his talents to date. As Putnam tells it, inspiration returned as he was just out doing Dad stuff.
 
“I was driving my kid to school and Gin Blossoms came on the radio. I’m a forever fan of Gin Blossoms, but this was ‘Hey Jealousy,’ which commercial radio has been running into the ground for 30 years.
 
“But in that moment, it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard! The hooks, the subject matter, and all the rest were as they’d always been, but I was struck by how it was put together. In that moment, that’s what made the song great.”
 
Putnam has spent years deconstructing pop songs in an attempt to discover the formula. This “Hey Jealousy” epiphany may have been destined, because the blueprint of the connection Putnam realized while just doing Daddy duty allowed him to build Lost Causes.
 
“I’ve always been fascinated with dissecting what makes a song great and trying to find the catalyst for the chemical reaction that emotionally connects us to where a handful of tunes are run into the ground for 30 years,” he says of the rarefied air that a timeless hit song occupies.
 
Joining Putnam under The March Divide banner for Lost Causes are friends Ernie Garcia (long-time player with El Vez and Javier Escovedo) on bass and Jason West on drums.
 
“Our mutual love of Cheap Trick has always made Jason the perfect drummer for my songs,” Putnam says. Lost Causes was mixed and mastered by Mike Major (At The Drive-In, Coheed and Cambria.)
 
“Mike also produced a lot of great bands around the southwest,” Putnam explains. “It wasn’t lost on me that Gin Blossoms are from Tempe and have a very staple southwestern sound. Mike knew what I was going for.”
 
Lyrically, the songs on Lost Causes pick up where the last single from Putnam’s previous album left off. At the time, he had started to write in a more stream of consciousness style, even making a promise to himself not to change his words.
 
“It’s pretty satisfying to just say what you want to say, without worrying about how cool it sounds,” he said at the time.
 
This is why Putnam’s humor shines brighter than ever on Lost Causes.
 
I wanna hate you. I’m not perfect. Giving up. King of the lost cause. This world is gonna end.
 
We have all felt these things, but putting them in song, or voicing them at all could seem whiney or at least cynical and pessimistic.
 
Not so, with Putnam, who has become a master of this somewhat sarcastic craft. Instead, these songs are relatable confessions in a candy coating.
 
“Writing sad songs about utter loneliness comes very naturally to me,” he says. “These kinds of songs are very therapeutic for me to write.”
 
These sad songs are the ones that most connect with Putnam’s growing audience, especially those overseas that have propelled tunes such as his 2019 release “Secrets,” to just-shy of a million Spotify spins.
 
“I’m Not Perfect,” the first single from Lost Causes, started out as one of these “downer” tunes, but in sharing his early demo with his collaborators, Putnam was pushed to make it more, while keeping what makes it The March Divide. The tune opens Lost Causes and is a total success.
 
“Even though writing these types of songs is therapeutic for me, it’s also a rut,” Putnam says. “Emotionally, I got so much more out of working on ‘I’m Not Perfect’ by working with others. I’m hopeful that the fans who crave these songs from me will too. Maybe we can all get out of our sad bastard rut together.”
 
He’s a funny guy.
 
Lost Causes, the sixth album by The March Divide, is out now via Slow Start Records. Jared Putnam of The March Divide is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
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The March Divide | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : BANDCAMP : SPOTIFY : APPLE : SLOW START RECORDS
 
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL