artpower at uc san diego Performing Arts Season 2011-2012

Club NME: Freelance Whales

featuring the union line

Freelance Whales found one another in late 2008, in Queens, amidst a strange amalgam of unfamiliar instruments, and precariously arranged pop songs. Using whatever musical gadgets they happened upon (mostly harmonium, banjo, glockenspiel, synthesizers, guitars, bass, drums, waterphone), the five members worked at crafting songs with interlocking rhythmic patterns, lush textural layering, and an engaged group-vocal energy. The result is their debut LP, weathervanes, whose songs work at evoking a sense of dislocation, or sensory disorientation. They invite the human spirit to exit the body, if only for brief moments. Freelance Whales can be spotted in the streets and humble venues of New York City, and in due time, elsewhere.

The Union Line may be another band from surfer paradise Orange County, but their vintage sound mixed with a heavy scoop of granola and couple-of-three swigs of bourbon is anything but typical. In less than 2 years, the five-man band has set the indie industry ablaze, managing to finish a tour with good friends The Local Natives, accepting the 2008 OC Music Awards title, “Best Live Band,” and landing a record deal with Black Seal.

Ticketing Questions: Call Amy Thomas at 858.822.3199.
Purchase: Call the Box Office at 858.534.TIXS (M-F, 10am-4pm)