MANCHESTER: Hey! Manchester @ The Castle Hotel

Thursday 8th August, 2013

7:30pm

Event information

New Orleans’ Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer formed Generationals out of the ashes of The Eames Era, a band they created while at college in Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge native and Eames Era producer Daniel Black (The Oranges Band) invited them to record their debut, Con Law, at his Washington studio Bent Black in 2008, where incessant coverage of the presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain, and the issues dividing the candidates’ viewpoints, gave rise to the band’s name.

New Orleans-based label Park The Van (Dr. Dog, The Spinto Band) released Con Law in 2009. Its retro vibe clearly bore the infuence of Phil Spector’s mid-century pop, but Generationals’ infuences always ran the gamut, with pieces of britpop, dance and electronic poking through the trumpet stabs and Abbey Road compression on their analogue 24-track recordings.

The band maintained their obsession with tape recording on 2010′s Trust EP, produced in Austin by freak-folk mastermind Bill Baird (Sunset, Sound Team). Trust saw the band drift away from the Brill Building origins of Con Law in favour of a new wave sound that owed more to The Sugarcubes and The Stone Roses than the Ronettes.

2011′s sophomore LP Actor-Caster revealed a band zeroing in on their strong suit: effcient pop songwriting. All ten of its taut, bright songs found their way into the band’s setlists as they hit their stride with a live confidence earned by relentless touring.

In 2012 a renewed and refreshed Generationals completed work on Heza, their debut LP for Polyvinyl Records (Deerhoof, The Dodos, Vivian Girls, Loney Dear, Xiu Xiu), in their hometown of New Orleans. On Heza, Generationals aren’t so much shedding their old skin as growing more comfortable in the one they’ve always inhabited.

Tour support comes from Windings. The Limerick five-piece have been playing with the likes of Teenage Fanclub, Kurt Vile, Iron & Wine and Modest Mouse, and releasing singles described as ‘infectious aggro pop’ and ‘dreamy folk pop’. Their third album, I Am Not The Crow, was recorded in Montreal with Efrim Menuck (GY!BE, Silver Mt Zion) on engineering duties.

66 Oldham Street
Manchester
M4 1LE

www.heymanchester.com