We're driving down the road on the way to play a live radio show tonight to promote our show tomorrow night in eastern PA/western NJ. Yesterday, on the way in to DC to play at the Red and the Black, we got behind a Bookmobile. Both Chris and I had't seen a Bookmobile since we were kids, so that sent us to Nostalgia-ville for a little while. We played with The Blue Line and Noon:30 last night at the Red and the Black. Noon:30 is an all-girl band, so I had a great time watching them and chatting it up about what it's like to be a female musician (this is Melissa writing, by the way. . .).

We caught wind of a review of our Spartanburg show last weekend at the Spring Fling and decided to pass it along. Here's what the Spark thought of our show--big thanks to Steve and Chris!

Went back to see The StereoFidelics. They were outstanding. They were easily the most original and interesting band I saw all weekend, combining a dizzying array of styles into a very enjoyable original sound.

They have two members, Chris Padgett who alternates between electric and acoustic guitar, runs loops, play a little synth, and plays synth bass with his feet, and Melissa McGinley who plays electric violin and drums. McGinley’s violin playing style is phenomenal, and the interplay of her violin and drum work and Padgett’s multi-instrumental stylings makes it seem impossible that two people are making that much music.

The only problem I saw was the crowd. The Spring Fling always draws a pretty diverse crowd and in a way, I felt like that may have worked against The StereoFidelics. There just seemed to be a lot of people who just plain didn’t get it. Not to put to fine a point on it, but a lot of the people watching were the same sort of people who were enthralled earlier when a local musican on the same stage played a cover of “Hotel California”.

Let me just say, if your idea of a great band is one that covers The Eagles, you probably won’t have that much to say about The StereoFidelics. Also had a couple of groups of metal kids who wandered away from the Broad St. Stage to roll their eyes at anything “not metal”. God I wish I was cool enough to roll my eyes at something that didn’t fit into my narrow idea of what genre’s are acceptable and which ones are to be mocked. Remember kiddies all the cool musicians wear black and grunt lyrics incoherently.

Curiously though, you can almost always tell the metal musicians, from most of the metal music fans. The metal musicians I saw hanging around, seemed to really dig the StereoFidelics. There were plenty of other people enjoying what they had to offer also, and after the show there was a nice little line at their merch table waiting to buy a cd. I bought one too (an act I reserve almost exclusively these days for independent or local acts)

I have to say also, big ups to Mr. Shanafelt for recommending them, and it was also nice to see some of Asheville’s finest playing down here. I hope to see the StereoFidelics playing somewhere here in Spartanburg again soon.