"WHAT IS A SOUNDRABBIT?" ...asks the music critic.
SoundRabbit is just about 2 years old.
That officially qualifies YOU, a visitor to SoundRabbit.com, as an EARLY ADOPTER. Translating the phrase from the technology world to the music world, an "Early Adopter" is "a listener who is among the earliest, after the music makers, to give the music a listen."
We CONGRATULATE you. And we THANK you for exploring new bands like us. And we give you FREE music:
Please share these files far and wide. Upload them to peer to peer networks. Put them on your friends' iPods. The days of slinging plastic discs and chasing 'pirates' are over, and we're happy about it.
Want to support us?
Join our Backstage Community for the typical price of an album (twelve bucks) and help us make music while supporting cancer research, housing the homeless, supporting the environment, and more.
If you're a new fan wondering who SoundRabbit is, here's the Reader's Digest 'band bio' for you:
We're four musicians with varied backgrounds and influences, which comes across in the music we create. We enjoy mixing and spanning genres, all the while keeping the "SoundRabbit sound." We're glad to meet you. We've been called a 'rock' band, a 'jam' band, a 'singer/songwriter' band, a 'jazzy' band, an 'indie' band, and every combination thereof. We've been compared to "old school Weezer," Wilco, Bon Iver, Phish, The Thrills, Pink Floyd, and Jack Johnson in the same breath. We know that our band name is a bit silly. We love seeing the country through van windows. Our audiences include hippies, hipsters, college kids, and their parents [seriously]. We have a bumper sticker that reads "RBT," and people ask us if it's short for "Robot," but those in the know take photos holding it in places all over the world, from the Coliseum in Rome to a remote village in Panama. We appreciate each and every fan who is with us here in the early days of our burgeoning little SoundRabbit community. We're fighting the battle for ears at this early stage in the game, and you're our best ally. We're psyched to watch it grow along with you.
If you're a big time label A&R/management/production/booking company person wondering about how we've spent our first 24 months in existence, here's the Readers Digest 'band resume' for you:
We're brand new. But we've been busy.
We recorded our first album, This Room Becomes A Crowd, in a home studio. Released it at the very end of 2007, and got our single "Hazel" played on local radio and college radio nationally through self promotion in 2008. Won "Best Pop/Rock Album By A New Band" from the Mile High Music Store in Denver. Put 12,000 miles on our van and trailer, playing self-booked dates in Arizona, Iowa, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Maine, Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri, along with shows throughout Colorado.
Self-booked college shows included the University of Wyoming, University of Colorado, Colorado State University, Curry College, Babson College, St. Anselm College, Edinboro University, St. Lawrence University, Boston College, Arizona State University, Brandeis University, and others. We played the main stage at the Democratic National Convention "Rock The Vote" concert. We played the main stage at the Tempe Music Festival in Arizona with Fergie (Black Eyed Peas), Matthew Moon, and Cowboy Mouth. We played the Monolith main stage at Red Rocks Amphitheatre with Band of Horses, the Avett Brothers, TV on the Radio, Tokyo Police Club, and Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings. We played in upstate New York with Keller Williams and 2009 Mtv Video Music Awards house band, Wale. Main stage billings on a pop/rock lineup, an indie lineup, and a jamband lineup in our first year = good times.
We designed, built, and launched our web-based "Backstage Community" program, a new fan & charity business model that is the first of its kind in the music industry. In its first year, we donated thousands of dollars to the American Cancer Society, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the National Kidney Foundation, the Make A Wish Foundation, Habitat For Humanity, the March of Dimes, EcoCycle, the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure, the RATNA Prison Initiative, Alternative Spring Break, and others.
We recorded our second album, Tree Trunk Airplanes, in the same home studio over the winter of 2008/09. Released it in March of 2009 with a show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, and immediately received local and national press inquiries (see below). The writers of the Boulder Weekly magazine in Boulder, Colorado nominated us as the "Best Band of 2009," and the writers of Denver's biggest entertainment paper - the Westword (Village Voice) - nominated us as the "Best Rock Band of 2009" a month later, alongside bands who have been around two to five times as long as us.
In February 2010, we're heading to the NACA National Convention in Boston, to sell our wares and book college shows throughout 2010 and into 2011. We saved up the money to cover the steep fee structure ourselves, and we look forward to generating a decent return on the investment by working hard on-site at the event.
All in our first 24 months. We're just getting started...
THE BAND + THE PRESS
"We have a tradition of playing 'smash or trash' on the bus with all of the CD's we get on tour. We wanted to let you know that we're super excited about your band. You guys are super sick, and we mean that in a good way. Your music kicks ass."
- Joe Pisapia & Guster
"Best Rock Band in Colorado, 2009"
- The Westword magazine / Village Voice Publications nomination (Denver, CO)
"Best Band in Boulder, 2009"
- Boulder Weekly magazine nomination (Boulder, CO)
"Some bands have great recordings. Some bands are killer live. Then there are bands that are both. Boulder's SoundRabbit is a group that continues to craft folk- and reggae-infused world rock blended with Pink Floyd-esque sonic textures that flat-out tops better-known performers such as Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz."
- The Westword magazine / Village Voice Publications (Denver, CO)
"Tree Trunk Airplanes is exciting, because it offers a glimpse of excellence. 'Diminished Returns' is the type of song that I could listen to again and again."
- The Scene Magazine (Fort Collins, CO)
"With their sophomore effort, Tree Trunk Airplanes, [SoundRabbit] could well multiply their reach exponentially. The band has said that the open soundscape throughout Tree Trunk Airplanes mirrors the never-ending blue skies that stretch over the Rocky Mountains. I would agree. "Vast" is a particularly apropos word to characterize the songs, which sound kind of like fellow 'rado residents String Cheese Incident, minus the jam. Here, it’s all about the song writing. By far the album’s greatest number, “Machine,” seems to combine the best elements of all the previous songs into one lush orchestral voyage. A very cool sonic-travel from undirected space to a concentrated, riff-centered ascent, guarantees that this song will exist effortlessly in the world jam. This is a good album, by a good band, which should be well-received on all levels."
- Relix Magazine / Jambase.com
"Best Pop/Rock Album By A New Band for TRBAC"
- Mile High Music Store
"SoundRabbit sounds like a winner! This band does a lot for charity and I'm sure they will break out on the soundtrack of some TV show or film any day now."
- Buzz S&E Magazine (Chicago, IL)
"Non-formulaic music of true songwriters."
- Colorado Music Buzz Magazine (Denver, CO)
"Probably one of the nicest, most down-to-earth bands in Boulder, SoundRabbit's sound is like falling in love for the first time; insightful, romantic lyrics with a complex sound. They span genres, having been called folk, jazz, indie, and rock. They are building a community following in and out of Boulder, and those in the know take pictures of the band's 'RBT' sticker all over the world and post it on their website in appreciation."
- The Rooster Magazine, University of Colorado (Boulder, CO)
"Brilliantly simple genre spanning pop music (and a breakthrough indie "distribution" plan) is exactly what you get on the debut LP from this Colorado quartet. The self production is crisp and the wide variety of song styles gets locked in your head."
- Turn Your Ears Off (Boston, MA)
"[TRBAC is] the most complete album in the stack at the moment... hopefully, SoundRabbit will multiply faster than the sex-crazed mammal they're named after."
- Boulder Weekly Magazine (Boulder, CO)
"SoundRabbit truly shines musically."
- The Scene Magazine (Fort Collins, CO)
"For SoundRabbit, a newer, Boulder-based band, it's all about the fans with their Backstage Community program."
- The Westword (Denver, CO)