The Lovely Sparrows is an

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

based

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

band currently on Abandoned Love Records and founded by Shawn Jones. Their sound is categorized as

folk rock Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, wit ...

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

, or just

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

, blending lush, complex arrangements with sing-along choruses that bring to mind folk-inflected pop and well-written novellas. ''Pulling Up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint'', released in 2006, captures the gorgeous melodies and warm, organic maladies of front man Shawn Jones. The September 2008 release saw the band embark on its most extensive touring to date, which included

CMJ Music Marathon CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...

Pop Montreal POP Montreal is an annual List of music festivals, music festival occurring in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the early fall, usually at the end of September or the beginning of October. More than 400 bands are scheduled to play in more than 50 ve ...

and

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

. The Lovely Sparrows premiered the music video directed and animated by Eric Power of Clear Productions for ''"Year of the Dog"'' off ''Bury the Cynic'' during the 2009

SXSW Music Festival South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both s ...

. The video was honored as one of the 25 best music videos of the year 2008 by MusicForants.com. ''Bury the Cynics'' was on the best of list by Fensepost (#2 album in 2008), The Bomb Shelter (#11), the Austinist (#5), Side One: Track One v1 (#7) and Side One: Track One v2 (#1). The Lovely Sparrows band's "new record is now officially in progress" and targeting the record's release in 2010.

History

Formed in 2005 by singer-songwriter Shawn Jones, The Lovely Sparrows is the culmination of over a decade of slugging it out in the southwestern indie rock circuit. The earliest incarnation of the band, which can be heard on 2005's self-released ''Take Your Hats Off You Godless Bastards 7″'', reveled in Pavement and Bob Pollard-style laconic fuzz pop. Their early bash and pop revelry, however, was to be short-lived after a romantic split between Jones and bandmate Meaghan Perry stripped away the band's fuzzy, upbeat pop leanings. Jones rebuilt the band, embarked on a brief, danger-prone West Coast solo tour, dealt with numerous house floods, and recorded the band's debut EP in the wake of that breakup. Friends as well as former, current and occasional members of the band contributed their talents to flesh out Pulling up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint, which was released to small-scale acclaim on upstart label Abandoned Love Records. The EP received positive reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, Spin, Paste, and Harp, as well as a host of bloggers and radio stations such as KUT, KVRX, KEXP, and KSZU. The band showcased at

then embarked on a few short tours of the East Coast and Midwest, recording a Daytrotter session and picking up discerning fans along the way.

Discography

* 2011 ''Tall Cedars of Lebanon'' ( Abandoned Love Records) * 2008 ''Bury the Cynics'' ( Abandoned Love Records) * 2006 ''Pulling Up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint'' ( Abandoned Love Records) * 2006 ''Take Your Hats Off You Godless Bastards 7″'' (Self-Released available through Abandoned Love Records)

References

External links

The Lovely Sparrows official websiteThe Lovely Sparrows official MyspaceThe Lovely Sparrows - Year of the Dog YouTube Music Video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lovely Sparrows Indie rock musical groups from Texas Musical groups from Austin, Texas Musical groups established in 2005 2005 establishments in Texas