MP3 The Vitamen - Children of the Bear

A sprawling album of short pop songs with horn sections, vibraphones, xylophones, banjos, synthesizers, harmonicas, flutes, French girls, American girls, accordions, pianos, computers and even a Skid Row inspired guitar solo.

18 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Classic Rock, POP: 80's Pop



Details:
The Vitamen are three high school friends from suburban NY who now live in Brooklyn, but they don’t really sound like anybody else in Brooklyn. They write songs with strong melodies, uncomfortably honest, non-poetic lyrics & love to harmonize with each other as much as possible.

They are just releasing their third album in two years on J’MOZ Records. The first one (Fun – 2002) was 16 or 17 songs recorded on a 4-track. There were a lot of songs about Jesse’s penis & ex-girlfriend who kind of cheated on him, but people liked it & the album managed to catch the ear of the Village Voice’s world famous Robert Christgau & land the CD in his world famous Consumer Guide. An extremely rare honor for an unsigned band, this put The Vitamen “on the map”. The next album (Mujer – 2003) was a short, seven song CD recorded on a cassette 8-track. A big step up sonically for the band & the songs were leaning in a more traditionally serious direction. There were even a couple of 4 minute mini-epics. Mujer got the band in even better with the people & got them taken more seriously by the critics. With some steady radio play on WFMU & an article in New York Magazine’s annual music issue proclaiming The Vitamen “one of the 16 hot bands changing the soundscape of New York” (in the company of Secret Machines & TV on the Radio), the band began to amass a loyal following of people from New York to Ohio who knew all the words at the shows. Their new album (Children of the Bear – 2004) is an eighteen song, 54 minute triumph of the spirit. They went up to a house in Massachusetts for a week with a 1/2" 8-track machine & the result is their best album songwise & soundwise. When they got back to NY, they asked anybody they knew who had ever played an instrument in their lives to play on this thing & now it’s a sprawling album of short pop songs with horn sections, vibraphones, xylophones, banjos, synthesizers, harmonicas, flutes, French girls, American girls, accordions, pianos, computers and even a Skid Row inspired guitar solo. Children of the Bear has it all & the band can’t wait for people to hear it.