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Country Mice

Country Mice front man Jason Rueger grew up on a farm in rural Kansas passed down through three generations of his family. With headphones on, he walked the path, bruised his hands and squinted his eyes in the sun, but music, above all else, made him whole. Looking out from his window, he set his sights for something different than the dirt and milo that stung his eyes and cut his hands. Jason fought against the gravity-pull of hometown and, with all the joy and pain of letting go, moved to Brooklyn. Here, he met Ben Bullington (guitar), Kurt Kuehn (drums) and Mike Feldman (bass), who, being from Kansas, Wisconsin and upstate New York, also shared a comfort in displacement and they quickly banded with Rueger. As Country Mice, they rallied together to craft apocalyptic ballads through amplifier hazes that thicken into funnel clouds, drums that stomp-clap sedately before the storm peaks, and bass tones that thicken the bloodstream. Jason draws on his small town rearing with sophistication beyond the ordinarily romantic and reductive Americana troubadour, and his songwriting is anything but dime a dozen. You can hear strong traces of Neil Young and Wilco mixed into their modern experimental guitar sounds that any fan of mid-90’s Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. would love. Together they cut their teeth among the other hardworking bands of Brooklyn's fast-paced scene. To date, the band has released two formative 7" singles and a limited edition cassette on Brooklyn-based indie labels and now they are ready to unleash their debut album,"Twister," on Wao Wao Records. This is a record that sonically chisels through the calloused shell of glossy rock & roll to find the dissonant live wire beneath and play it for all its worth. It tells a tale of strained memory: the hardships, joys, and love of growing up in a small town in the Midwest, with the hopes and dreams of traveling the world – a record for every kid seeing the big world from his small bedroom window. Wao Wao Records (www.myspace.com/waowaorecords) is run by Toby Rascal and Hbear, two members of Kanine Records (www.kaninerecords.com), out of the basement of the Kanine Records headquarters, normally referred to as the Doghouse. Toby and Hbear formed Wao Wao Records to start releasing records by Country Mice the day they heard a lo-fi mp3 off of a 4-track demo that Jason, Ben and Kurt did in their practice space. They instantly knew then and there, that these three had something special and they wanted to be a part of it. “I instantly fell in love with their scratchy guitar sounds. It reminded of the joys of digging up a lost bone on a warm spring day. While their guitars feed back off of his homemade amp, Jason gives off a classically lost vocal style that gives way to a whole new take on a long lost 90’s indie sound.

My Artists Sessions

Wednesday, March 16
 

12:00pm CDT

9:00pm CDT