"part space-rock cacophony, part punk rock sonic wipeout,
and part ambient bad trip"
Recent news:
-Free Digital Download EP of three Brian Eno covers:
Here come
the warm jets
Sombre reptiles
Warsawza- Visit My Education's Web site.
- To book My Education, contact
rosa@greenpotatoventures.com
The My Education story so far:
David Fricke of Rolling Stone called My Education's sound "advanced
ecstasy" and announced the band as his "surprise find" at SXSW 2005,
but plenty of fans from central Texas and all around the globe
already knew that My Education are better than drugs: the
pulse-pounding emotion of their visceral live shows and the lyrical
beauty and dark grandeur of their recorded output had heralded this
from the get-go. Formed in Austin in 1999 by Brian Purington, Eric
Gibbons and Sean Seagler, three refugees from San Angelo, TX, the
band flirted briefly with the idea of vocals but soon decided they
were never necessary to begin with and became a purely instrumental
outfit. With the addition of keyboardist Kirk Laktas (Stars
of the Lid, Ultrasound, etc.), viola virtuoso James Alexander (Cinders,
ecfa) and
Floridian transplant guitar god Chris Hackstie, the lineup
stabilized and their first album 5 Popes was recorded at the Bubble
with Chris "Frenchie" Smith (16 Deluxe, Young Heart Attack) at the
helm. The self-released record peaked at number one on many college
radio stations across North America. The band has toured Midwest,
East Coast, and Canada multiple times since the original release of
5 Popes along w/ showcasing @ SXSW 2003-2006. The first
self-released pressing of 5 Popes sold out in December 2003, and was
promptly re-released on the Austin, TX-based record label Thirty
Ghosts Records in January 2004. In February 2003 the UK-based label,
Jonathan Whiskey, released a 7” single for the song Concentration
Waltz. My Education also has songs featured on the Rollerderby
Records compilation The Speed by Which we Fall, and the Clairecords
compilation Test Tones Vol. 2.3. After three years of blood, sweat,
and tears My Education finally completed their 2nd CD, Italian,
which was released on Thirty Ghosts Records on April 26th, 2005. Mr.
Fricke soon chimed in with critics all over the world in their
admiration of this fine record, which has been described as
everything from "...swirling and swaying and leading your ears and
your soul into a trippy, calm world, where the sky is glowing a
beautiful shade of pink and the sun is always setting on a cold
winter's eve" (Joseph Kyle, mundanesounds.com) to "careening around
mischievously, like the score to a fictional film" (Chris Elkjar,
trust-me.ca) and "slow-cooked noise bombs (that) left everyone in a
daze" (Audra Schroeder, Austin Chronicle). Following up Italian is
the EP/remix record Moody Dipper. Along with this new record came
changes for the band, as Eric decides to leave to purse his
blossoming fine art career (Eric's lovely paintings adorn the covers
all four MyEd releases and will likely continue to do so). New
bassist Scott Telles of
ST 37 fame and
vibraphonist Sarah Norris (Benko,
Austin New
Music Co-Op) join the fold. Accompanying the three new My
Education songs on this release are remixes by
Dalek,
Red Sparowes,
Kinski, and
Teith (Trevor from Pelican).
The CD was released on
June 27th 2006 and the band hit the road in July to bring the magic
to the kids. The tour was a rousing success, seeing the band do some
remarkable shows all over the East including particularly memorable
ones with Tone in Washington DC, Bardo Pond project Alasehir in
Philadelphia, the Early Day Miners in Baton Rouge, A Place to Bury
Strangers at Cakeshop in NYC and all the way down to Jackson MS with
Living Better Electrically. On a rare day off in the NYC area, the
band had the privilege of recording at
Deadverse
Studios with Dalek,
who collaborated with the band on the forthcoming 12 inch release of
"Spiegel im Spiegel", an interpretation of a piece by the eastern
European composer Arvo Part, which features the band's original
recording on one side of the disc, and Dalek's radical, extended
reworking of the piece on the other, complete with a My Education
first, vocals (gasp!) in the form of one of Dalek's trademark
abstract verses. Subsequently, the band continues to stay busy with
shows opening for the likes of Isis and the Red Sparowes, recording
for the upcoming full length Bad Vibrations, followup to Italian, and composing a
score for F.W. Murnau's classic 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of
Two Humans.