Breaking News!
Announce Northeast Record Release Shows for New Album "Marching Band"
Out April 2nd on Jump Start Records
+ March 27th Appearance on The Chris Gethard Show!
The time was nineteen-ninety-something, the place was the small town of West Chester, Pennsylvania...or Delaware County, or Wilmington, Delaware. PLOW UNITED quickly earned a place in the collective heart of punk rock for their furious melodic punk anthems that documented suburban life in a way that set them apart from their Fat Wreck and Epitaph contemporaries. They came, they made their mark, they left.
But that's only part of the story. Fast forward to the year 2011, when Brian McGee, Sean Rule and Joel Tannenbaum caught their devotees by surprise, announcing that they'd be reuniting to play at Riot Fest East in Philadelphia. Defying the stigma that comes with reunions, Plow United made it immediately evident that there was nothing crass, nothing insincere about their desire to bring their signature brand of punk to a new generation.
Similarly, it's clear that the creative vehicle has undergone a full tune-up and has the kind of mileage to bring them through the present tense with legitimate conviction and a new perspective entirely. Once they picked it up, they found they couldn't put it back down; the next year was packed with live shows, opening for the likes of The Bouncing Souls and Less than Jake, and tearing the roof off in front of festival crowds in Baltimore and Gainesville, FL. Before they knew it, they were in the studio recording a new record.
Fourteen years passed between Plow United records. Fourteen years is a long time. Brian, Joel and Sean spent those 14 years moving restlessly–and separately–around the country and the world, sometimes keeping in touch, sometimes not, sometimes playing music, sometimes not.
But throughout that time, the memories were there: pushing, pulling, guiding. Memories of lessons learned, reminders of scars borne, and the occasional unearthing of an old record while moving from place to place all brought the past to present. And, at the same time, the songs, long out-of-print, were winding their way from person to person and town to town in disembodied, digital form.
The songs on Marching Band are direct responses to the frenetic energy that resurfaced when Plow United took to a stage again in 2011. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear Plow United (circa 1996) performing these tracks. However, one thing Plow circa '96 could not have accounted for is time: these songs are the product of an extra 42 years added to three lives. The old Plow United songs were about wanting to be recognized as adults, or about realizing all the things you'd been told about life and how to live it were wrong, and being fucking pissed about it. The new Plow United songs – the ones on Marching Band – are about not giving in to cynicism, about not lowering expectations, about not giving up hope, even when giving up hope seems like the sensible thing to do.
They say that the first album is the easiest to write. You have your whole lives to write the first album. Subsequent ones have to be cranked out in a year or two. Marching Band is the first Plow United record in over a decade, and in a way that means the band has the chance to make a first album all over again, with all that time and all those new experiences from which to draw, not to mention all those half-finished songs, lyrical snippets jotted down but never completed, songs written for other projects that fizzled out before their time.
From the boundless joy of "Human 2000" - the band's ode to its audience - to the rage, frustration and teeth-gritting determination of "Falling, Deeply", to the raucous affection of "Get Low," it's clear that Plow United has expanded their reach without dulling their edge. Marching Band isn't a comeback. It's a never-left.
* In support of the new album, and in addition to their upcoming appearances in the New York and Philadelphia areas, Plow United will be performing live on The Chris Gethard Show on Wednesday, March 27th, fans interested in being part of the live studio audience can RSVP to zerolaughs@gmail.com.
"Marching Band" Track List:
1. Human 2000
2. Act Like It
3. Cui Bono?
4. Shaking
5. The War Is Over and Our Side Won
6. Falling, Deeply
7. Next Five Minutes
8. Water Rights
9. The World Is a Slum
10. Get Low
11. The Beginning of the End of the World
12. Meggers
Plow United Live!
3.27: Live Performance on The Chris Gethard Show New York, NY
3.28: Knitting Factory Brooklyn, NY w/ Iron Chic, The Unlovables
3.29: Roxy and Dukes Dunnellen, NJ, w/ The Scandals, Let Me Run, The Headies, Blackjack Jukebox
3.30 Record Release! The Barbary Philadelphia, PA w/ The Holy Mess, NONA, Ma Jolie
5.17: POUZZA Fest Montreal, Canada
For more information, visit:
twitter.com/plowunited
facebook.com/plowunited
www.plowunited.net
plowunited.tumblr.com
www.jumpstartrecords.com
