“Fuck it, the Super 8’s are too expensive.”

Coast Jumper forwent the luxury of dingy motel rooms and camped out across the country, packing their lives into a car that would take them from the blank winters of their youth to where they would eventually complete their five-man lineup in California.

Meeting as teenagers in upstate New York, the members of Coast Jumper spent four years growing up together under the same roof, enduring the harsh winters, friendships come and gone, life. Sequestering themselves one winter in their dimly lit basement, Coast Jumper assembled the collage that is Grand Opening. Equal parts ambiance, aggression, harmony, and release, it's about lost loves but it's also about new ones. It's about finding purpose and meaning in something, but also becoming disillusioned with the whole damn thing. It feels like a bunch of kids growing into themselves. In that basement, they took an oath to never stop.

Coast Jumper is currently touring the West Coast.

A Yawn Worth Yelling is a five-piece indie/alternative group from San Jose, California, specializing in group harmonies and spluttering guitarplay.

After a frustrating and fruitless year searching for the right musicians to perform recently released material, Brian Bergeron (guitar/vox) found Jon Devoto (ex-The Matches, and songwriter for Bird By Bird) and Kyle Kelly-Yahner (drums) at the beginning of 2012. They were joined by Matt Roads (bass) for their first show in March performing under Bergeron’s name. They began recording an EP soon aft
er. As the collaboration developed, it created a sound that was unanticipated and different from the original intent. They re-worked Bergeron’s singer-songwriter and material from this, Mr. Kind was formed – an allusion to the musical alliance formed by the members as well as the disposition and spirit of the collaboration itself.

They now present their first release: OK. Singer-songwriter roots are evident in “The Artist”, albeit with a more compelling and energetic arrangement. The band wades into propulsive indie rock with the title track “You’re OK” and “Take Care”, which echo the raw and stripped down studio aesthetic of Dr. Dog and Spoon. The pulse and sonic landscape of “Homeostasis” echoes The National and The Killers while the lyrics have a direct emotive appeal. Finally, with the urgency found on “The Restless Release”, Mr. Kind echoes all of the aforementioned influences with a signature that is very much individual to this particular amalgamation of collaborators.