Oh Albany!

This weekend I'm heading to Albany NY, one of the best cities i've had the pleasure of living in (sarcasm). For those of you who don't know, Albany is the capitol city of New York State and is just chock full of history. Albany is home to the worlds first television station, WRGB, which launched in January of 1928. Albany once claimed the Albany Patroons, part of the CBA basketball league, a team that famed NBA coach Phil Jackson coached to his first ever coaching championship. Yay!

On the music end of things, a few bands of note have called Albany their home, and if you're ever in Albany (God help you), and want to check out some live music, Valentines is still my favorite venue on the planet. Anyways, here are some of my favorite Albany bands, though i think they're all either broken up, or no longer claim Albany in their history.


Rockets and Blue Lights(Close at Hand)
This is by far the best band that has ever come out of Albany, hands down. Its unfortuante that the only record of this band is their 4 song demo, and a 4 song 10" vinyl EP, released on Redder Records. That means that finding their music online is very, very difficult, but I suggest scouring for it. This band does the loud, quiet dischordent indie rock sound better than just about every band i've heard. You can check out their song "A Smashed Piano" here.




The Figgs
www.myspace.com/thefiggs
Power-pop at it's finest, The Figgs now claim NYC as their own, but back when they were an Albany band their shows were always a party. Though always flirting with the big time (They had a record or two on Capitol), they never blew up like they should have. If you feel like digging back in time and can find a copy of Low-Fi at Society High, check out the song "Favorite Shirt." It's an Albany classic. (The Figgs circa 1995, when they were an Albany band)




Das Oath (The Oath)
http://www.myspace.com/dasoathdasoath
This band was bi-continental with some of their members based out of The Netherlands and the other half calling Albany home. They've released their NYC style thrash on labels like 31G, Dim Mak, and Youth Attack. Das Oath had one of their early records banned by the Ebullition record distro because the insert was collages of hardcore transvestite pornography. True story.