What's better than two Best of the Bay winning bands? Two BOTB winning bands joining forces to create a new promising outfit, duh, and that's exactly what's happening on this demo of Talk Nice's "Separated."
The group is centered around Ben Saylor of Jensen Serf Company (JSCO) and Vaughn O'Loughlin from Alexander & The Grapes. JSCO took home a 2012 BOTB for being the "Best Band That Can't Drink Legally" and in 2013 they took home more hardware for a new sonic wrinkle they showed off by covering Spaceman 3. The Grapes most recently took home BOTB honors for playing a huge role making The 'Burg one of the coolest cities in the world.
The track — a three-and-a-half-minute ode to late 1990s slacker rock — was put to record at St. Petersburg's Yoko Phono studios, which is manned by another Grape, Alexander Charos. O'Loughlin and Saylor handle the bulk of the writing, but Charos made it onto the track during the recording sessions, which also yielded three other demos and a bunch of sonic sketches. "Ben and Vaughn had been jamming on these songs for a while," Charos told CL in a message. "I don't remember exactly how I came into the picture, but we started jamming at my studio and recorded a demo the first day we got together. I play the bass and record the demos, but we've messed with some stuff I wrote as well."
The band hopes to play some low key shows this summer, but in the meantime you can catch the boys play live in their other bands. Jensen Serf Company hits New World Brewery (1313 E. 8th Ave, Ybor City) this Saturday, May 17, and Alexander & The Grapes are on the bill for a much-anticipated Grecian Urns reunion at Green Bench Brewery (1133 Baum Ave. N., St. Petersburg) on Sat., May 31. More info on those shows is available here and here.
Listen to Talk Nice's "Separated" below and grab a free download of the track at Bandcamp.