We’re sent a lot of music here at raven + crow studio. True, our main forte is design, but we’ve written about music since day one because it’s a huge shared passion of ours, especially in the realm of inventive independent music. Doing so for so many years, we’ve gradually built up and maintained the avenues that provide us with new musical discoveries, which, with prevalence of home studios and self-promotion via the Internet, seem more plentiful than ever before.

In such a crowded field, we’re always appreciative of bands that immediately hook us on first listen, making our jobs pretty easy. One such band is newcomer duo, Mideau, based in Salt Lake City and Chapel Hill, NC. We loved their easily accessible, poppy sound right off the bat and, after some quick, relatively unproductive online research, reached out to the band to find out more about them.

Give their excellent track—”Way with Words”—a listen below and read on to find more about the two bandmates, learn about the musical scene in Salt Lake, and find out how the band raised $10,000 in a little over a month to record their forthcoming debut LP.

raven + crow studio: Okay, first off, you’ll have to forgive me—normally I’m either going into this kind of thing already knowing the band well or at least having done a good bit of research up front, but I admittedly don’t know a ton about you guys and, honestly, can’t find that much online. So…introduce me to Mideau.  How did you guys meet?

Spencer Harrison: One of my old bandmates produced Libbie’s solo record—she’d be waiting around our house for him to show up which gave us time to commiserate on his absent-mindedness and more important musicophelia.

Lackadaisical serendipity! I know you’re a duo, but is that more in the song-writing phase of things or do you keep it to two live too?

Spencer: Mideau is a duo in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening and in the studio and on stage in the night time.

Libbie Linton: We are almost always joined by two other musicians when we perform live—a bass man and a drummer.

Nice—we love a built-out live band. And you’re from North Carolina and/or Salt Lake City, from what I can tell?

Specner: Libbie and I both grew up in Utah, and I currently reside in Chapel Hill, NC.

Libbie: Transcontinental.

Ah, we’re both huge Chapel Hill fans, but what’s the scene like in SLC, musically and otherwise? …also, do people actually even call it SLC or did I make that up? Seems phonetically odd to bring from print to speech….

Spencer: You’re right on, Troy (see SLC Punk Trailer).

Libbie: Utah is home to amazing geography and astonishing talent. The Last few years have seen the launch of Imagine Dragons, Neon Trees, Fictionist, Mindy Gledhill, The Moth & The Flame, to name very few. Kaskade lives in Utah, and so do the Osmonds. Our best friend/photographer, b3njamin, is currently shooting Beyoncé in NYC. The scene is wondrous.

Oh, yeah, I know some of those guys. Had no idea they were from SLC though. So, you did a (successful) Kickstarter to raise money for the album, right? What was that like?

Spencer: That was a wild ride. We started from the bottom and had an amazing amount of support from our community. Many things were learned and many friends were made!

It’s weird—I’m always torn with Kickstarters. Like, I would feel bad asking friends—many of whom are already inundated with that kind of request as is—for money for a project, but I guess it’s about finding a project that you really believe in, right?

Spencer: I think it does get overwhelming, another groundbreaking album with a “big vision” needs your help!! How to choose? The simplest way I can see it—people who would buy the record later can just preorder a copy now. I hear you though, in some ways it feels like jingling your charity-can at a party with your friends and family. But there is a lot that can be done to spread your net wide before you ever launch a crowd funding campaign. And plus, uncle Charlie hasn’t given you a birthday present since you were 5, so he stands with wallet wide open.

No, the whole crowd-funding model’s really cool in theory, so it’s great to see it work. Plus it’s totally impressive that you raised over your goal of $10,000 in 45 days. Did people cash in on any of the perks? You had some good ones—guest list for life, pick a cover for the album, lunch with you all, haircuts by Spencer…?

Spencer: We shipped many a hand written note and recorded special request cover songs that took far more time than we imagined. We did our very best to thank those who quite literally made the recording process possible.

Is Spencer a particularly skilled barber?

Libbie: I’m pretty good, actually. But they were haircuts with Spencer.

I love this, by the way: “Do you desperately want a Mideau cover of Simon & Garfunkel? Consider it done. You want to hear us do a sensitive version of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club”? Fantastic, we admire that kind of out-of-the-box thinking! We will record any song you want, just for you.” Can you clue us in to the cover or is that going to be under wraps until the full album’s announced?

Spencer: If you’ve seen the artwork for the EP or singles, you’ll see a strong visual language that will be represented in the album artwork.

Libbie: We wanted to capture a strange moment in time that would quietly inspire a viewer to wonder what happened before and after the still frame.

Oh, I was more looking into the cover song that was going to be recorded, but that’s cool too. Got an album title yet? ETA?

Libbie: Self titled for the debut. Feels right.

Spencer: Early 2015!

So, we’re always curious with everyone we interview—where does the band name come from? 

Libbie: Honestly, we saw the word as our blank canvas that had the right raw materials—we want to paint it however we see fit.

That makes some sense. I really like the video for “Way with Words” (below). At first I was hoping that was a mustachioed Spencer, but I did some photo comparison and am pretty sure that’s not the case. Who is that dancing?

Spencer: Jonathan Frey, photographer/videographer/choreographer and king of strangely tickling posts on social media.

And did he just wing it or is that highly choreographed?

Libbie: How much can you call it an improvisation if you’ve been practicing in front of your mirror since childhood?

Well-put. I know you supported Katie Herzig for part of her tour—level of 1 to 10, how much fun was that?

Spencer: Touring with Katie for a string of dates was a dream. Her and her crew were extremely hospitable, we loved playing with them.

Awesome. Really liked The Waking Sleep—especially that RAC remix of “Free My Mind”—but have yet to hear her new one.

Spencer: Her new album is darn special. She is a killer writer and performer.

Any plans to play LA soon?

Libbie: Yes, actually. We had plans to be there this June, but plans changed and we will have to wait until fall. But can’t wait to meet you and the other LAers when we get there! Where do you think we should play?

Hmmmmmm. Echo/Echoplex is great, as is the Bootleg. Though, the Fonda’s walking distance for us, so…there!  On a closing note, please share with our audience the weirdest dream you’ve ever had to date.

Spencer: Setting was a prim suburban neighborhood with a park during the golden hour of evening. I watched (and ran away) as a psychopathic samurai in civilian clothes cut through anything/anyone in his way with the sharpest sword one can imagine. I proceeded to try and reason with him when he advanced toward me.

In waking life, I would definitely categorize myself as a lover rather than a fighter but come on—trying to rationalize with an irrational killer in the heat of a rampage?

I don’t recall getting sliced before I woke up … but what does it all mean?

Your father once denied you a bomb pop on a hot summer’s day in your youth rationalizing that your lips would turn blue and people would think you looked like a weirdo; this resulted in both a mild eating disorder and the deeply held desire to ‘stick out’ amongst the crowd, defining, to a certain extend, your adulthood personality and social trajectory. Also, you think samurais are cool. You’re welcome.

You can watch the video for “Way with Words”, starring Jonathan Frey, below. If you like it, which you will, you can download the Way with Words EP and pay what you will via noise trade. Look for Mideau live this fall; they’re full-length debut is due early next year.

Photo: B3njamin Photography

Mexico City’s Rey Pila is new to most—ourselves included—but likely won’t be for long. The band signed to Julian Casablancas’ Cult Records last fall and just announced they’d be opening for Interpol later this year (dates below).

Rey Pila are announcing a full-length in the coming months. Int he meantime, you can listen to the band’s just-released single, “Blast”, below and get a free download of the song by singing up for their email list. Small price to pay, neh?

Tour Dates:
08/05 – New York, NY @ Pianos
08/12 – New York, NY @ Pianos
08/14 – Guadalajara, MX @ Teatro Diana ^
08/19 – New York, NY @ Pianos
08/26 – New York, NY @ Pianos
09/15 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom #
09/16 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre #
09/17 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom #
09/20 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theatre #
09/24 – San Diego, CA @ House Of Blues #
09/26 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot #
09/27 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre #
09/28 – Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theatre #
09/30 – Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom #
10/02 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Music Hall #
10/03 – Houston, TX @ House Of Blues #
10/04 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
10/07 – New Orleans, LA @ House Of Blues #
10/08 – Memphis, TN @ Minglewood Hall #
10/11 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
^ Julian Casablancas+The Voidz
# Interpol

Our friend Eliza wrote this bit with Kristen Bell where she plays a Mary Poppins who’s newly awakened to the realities of her workplace. It’s that perfect pairing of funny and brutally truthful; the next best thing to funny/terribly sad, like that scene at the end of Steel Magnolias where Sally Field’s all yelling and crying and laughing in the graveyard and you lose your shit every time you watch it.

What? Just me?

Anyway, watch this. It’s awesome.

Last week, 38-year-old Tokyo-based artist Makoto Azuma launched two of his botanically based pieces—a Japanese white pine bonsai in a metal frame entitled “Shiki 1” and an untitled arrangement of orchids, hydrangeas, lilies, irises, and other flowers—into space from the floor of the Black Rock Desert.

According to the artist, “I wanted to see the movement and beauty of plants and flowers suspended in space.”

You can read more about the extensive process involved when shooting gigantic art into space on the NYT Magazine Blog, but we just dig the final product. Well-done, crazy artist. Well-done.

Photos courtesy Makoto Azuma.

Heads up that MooShoes is in the midst of an Instagram contest to promote the coming western outpost, MooShoes LA. Win it and you could win a $100 gift card.

All you have to do is re-post this image on Instagram, and then tag + follow MooShoes NYC + MooShoes LA.

If you have no idea what any of that means…you probably aren’t Instagram. Which is totally fine, man. Totally fine. I mean, if you like missing a ton of cute photos of our dog + cat and the non-stop stream of vegan food with which we engorge ourselves. It’s fine.

The winner will be chosen this Friday, July 25.

This track just hit our inboxes and we dig it.

“Folded Out” intricately layers trilling, climbing guitars and choral vocals to result in a surprisingly deep, sweeping song that jumps from intimately quiet moments to raucously melodic ones.

The band behind the song, NY-/NJ-based Stolen Jars, is made up, at its base, of twenty-something duo Cody Fitzgerald + Molly Grund.

Of the song, Fitzgerald writes:

“I started writing “Folded Out” in the middle of the night. Molly and I had stayed up making Joseph Cornell-esque boxes. As the night went on, the boxes got better, the music got better. The song came out of that moment.”

Listen + download below. Easterners—catch the fully built-out band over the next few months:
7.26 Brooklyn, NY – Pete’s Candy Store
8.15 Paterson, NJ – Paterson Art Factory
9.20 Providence, RI – Nissan’s Lair (sorry—no clue where that one is)

We just randomly came across this original logo concept sketch from 2008 for Park Slope yoga outpost, Bend & Bloom, and felt the need to share.

I keep a stack of all my old Moleskin notebooks just in case I need to harken back to a sketch or concept or just find some old notes. Searching through them just now for an IP address for a client, we stumbled upon this sketch, which actually ended up feeding pretty directly into the final mark. Also I guess we were planning a vegan cheese board dinner that night?

You can see the final logo in our branding portfolio.

Cool find…that also makes us feel very…very…old.

A favorite old Polaroid of mine of Coney Island’s Cyclone during the Village Voice’s old Siren music festival (RIP), thus the hundreds of hands in the air.

If I remember rightly, I think it was just before we moved to Brooklyn, 2002 or so.

We bought these tealights a while back, but the light was hitting them in such a beautiful way the other day as we were leaving the house, I had to take a minute to photograph them.

Designed by Amsterdam’s &Klevering, the tealights are made of a delicate, thin white biscuit porcelain that, while delicious sounding, is simply unglazed porcelain. They then paint the insides with in neon pink, a spring pink, bright red, neon green, neon orange, and neon yellow, all of which give off a great glow when paired with a lit candle or, as we’ve opted to use them, just setting them in a really well lit space during the daylight hours. That keeps them soot-free too, which is nice with such a clean-looking porcelain.

You can order the tealights and a wealth of other fine home goods from &k’s site, but we got ours at the somewhat unfortunately named home design store, Yolk, in Silver Lake. Which really is a great store, despite the name. …sorry, Yolk—eggs just kinda gross me out, for multiple reasons.

A couple weeks ago, I got a chance to catch up with an old friend of mine. We got on the topic of healthcare—a few years back, he’d dealt with the sudden, earth-shattering appearance of testicular cancer in his life. I’m happy to say that he’s healthy today, but, as he pointed out, that’s thanks largely to the relatively generous healthcare coverage he enjoyed at the time due to his corporate employment. We talked about that for a little while and reflected on how mind-boggling it is to us that some of our mutual friends feel it unpatriotic or unfair or what have you to work to offer that kind of life-saving healthcare to the general population, corporate job or no corporate job.

How can it be unpatriotic to try your very best to take care of your citizens? Longest-possible-term thinking, doesn’t that make for the healthiest, most functional society possible? Imagine if we were able to prioritize the health of Americans over all else and every single citizen of these United States no longer had to worry about any of that. Imagine everything we could get done, putting that energy elsewhere.

As we all know, though, that’s not at all the case. For many of us, sadly, we experience that reality first-hand.

Like our friend, Pam.

We met Pam years back in Brooklyn. She ran an Atlantic Street boutique called the Banquet with another friend of ours, Miranda Bennett, both of whom we did some branding work for back in the day. Last year, Pam moved out to California to be closer to her family and move her jewelry line, PLUME, to its next stages of development.

But shortly after arriving on the west coast, Pam was diagnosed with B-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Leukemia. A little while ago, Pam found a bone marrow match + donor. That fact, and the fact that she has a broad, dedicated support network make Pam luckier than most. But she’s since been hospital-bound for six months and her healthcare is only partially footing the massive, massive bill.

Cue dedicated support network—our mutual friend, Allison Tray, owner of Boerum Hill’s Tres Belle Petite Medi-Spa, is hosting The Pam Give-a-Damn, an evening of light fare, wine, and awesome gift bags worth $500 each, all to benefit Pam. As Allison puts it:

“100% of monies raised will go directly to Pam. Busy that night? Not feeling social? Out of town guests?That’s fine, buy a ticket to help Pam and we’ll drink your wine.”

The event takes place Wednesday, July 23 from 6 – 9 PM at Tres Belle—105 Bond Street Brooklyn, NY. But, like Allison wrote, you don’t need to be present to win the raffle bags—winners will be announced by email on July 22 and each ticket you buy automatically enters you to win one of twelve bags.

Visit the event site Allison set up to see details and see the impressive list of raffle bag donors. But, clearly, we’re doing this for bigger reasons than gift bags, those are just a nice side effect of giving a damn.

Whether you know Pam or not, trust us, she’s good people and she’s in need. If you can’t afford a ticket ($45), please give what you can. And thank you so much.