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MY TEENAGE STRIDE
AGENT:
JIMMY
AVAILABILITY:
SEE AVAILS /
UPCOMING SHOWS
TOOLS:
MAKE AN OFFER
BAND SITES:
FACEBOOK PAGE
FREE MP3:
To Live And Die In The Airport Lounge
HOMETOWN: Brooklyn,
NY
DISCOGRAPHY:
2008 - LESSER DEMONS
EP
2007 - EARS LIKE GOLDEN
BATS
CD
2005 - MAJOR MAJOR CD
2003 - A SAD CLOUD CD
2003 - I'M SORRY
7"
2003 - BLACKBEARD'S GHOST
7"
BIO:
Paste Magazine's Courtney
Balestier wrote:
"Let's take a moment to
thank Jed Smith's ex-girlfriend. Were it not for
her, Smith would've never entered—then won—a
Williamsburg songwriting contest, which led to the
formation of My Teenage Stride. The band started
with Smith, bassist Michael Hollitscher and drummer
Brett Whitmoyer. These days, it's primarily Smith,
Whitmoyer along with Jenny Logan and Tris McCall. My Teenage Stride started turning
heads with its third full-length release, last
year's short but sweet Ears Like Golden Bats.
The songs are poppy but not oppressively so, with
witty, edgy lyrics-- and they've garnered more than
one comparison to cuts from a John Hughes movie
soundtrack... Still, Smith, a self-described studio
rat from Massachusetts' Berkshire Mountains, wonders
how his label-less band has gained so much
exposure... And there's a reason (the band's) sound
is so specific to the 80's: Smith doesn't think
there was a good record made after 1983.
They're too clean, he says, too expensive sounding.
To avoid studio slickness, My Teenage Stride does
its own recording."
My Teenage Stride is a
classically pop songwriting-oriented machine based in
Brooklyn. A songwriter since age 7, Jedediah Smith is a
prolific songwriter and My Teenage Stride is the result
of years of recording. The band's 2007 full-length
Ears Like Golden Bats has been featured in many
‘Best of 2007’ lists but special mention must go to the
#19 position in Magnet’s review of last year. It
follows the article the magazine did on the band in the
summer and is another example of the great response the
album has had. My Teenage Stride are currently working
on new recordings and an exclusive 5-song digital EP
titled Lesser
Demons
is out now.
Sometimes
emphasizing the finer aspects of early 60s bubblegum,
the aggressive distorted lo-fi squall of art rock, the
odd moment of 70s soft-rock, and the 80's brit-dance ala
New Order, My Teenage Stride is not revivalist for its
own sake, but really by way of whatever happens to be
floating through Jed's mind at the time of the song's
inception.
Smith is currently putting his prolific tendencies to
work with Whitmoyer to finish the next, as-yet-untitled
My Teenage Stride album, to follow recent release of
Lesser Demons.
The band has
toured over the past few years to play summer festivals
and short stints, but in 2009 they are spreading their
wings to tour more in the North East and beyond.
REVIEWS:
My
Teenage Stride wraps hooky, horn-studded 1960s pop in
layers of very modern-sounding feedback.
-Pitchfork
Smith
readily admits his debts to vintage groups but doesn't
believe that treading ground already covered by acts
such as the Go-Betweens, The Pastels, and The Bats is an empty enterprise. Rather, he feels that the pop
sounds of any era can still make sense as a way of
thinking about, and hearing, the world.
-Magnet
The
best 2007 album I’ve heard yet – smart, funny, stylish,
catchy indie-pop. #1 on Top
10 of 2007 List
-The Big Takeover
While some (songs)
have the green pulse of New Zealand, others will remind
you of XTC, The Smiths, and the dBs.
-PopMatters
Ears
Like Golden Bats is a great little album that will catch most people completely by surprise.
-Exclaim (Canada)
What frontman and main
songwriter Jed Smith understands, and what so many
others haven’t, is that the most impressive thing about
all that 80s stuff was the songs, and not the stupid
clothes. The most obvious comparison to be made here is
to the Go-Betweens, but there are also hints of lovably
cheesy 60s pop and a seemingly endless appreciation for
Dylan’s sad-one-minute / funny-the-next schtick.
-The L
Magazine
It’s one of the year’s most
thrilling surprises, an album that wraps wry gallows humor
in glistening guitars and whistling synths.
-eMusic
One-man pop music
compendium Jedediah Smith, the virtuoso behind My
Teenage Stride, rivals the Magnetic Field's Stephin
Merritt in the scope of his songwriting prowess, albeit
with more instantly catchy results.
-New York Magazine
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