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Tag Archives: Mike The Punk
Mike The Punk Pulls A 180, Finishes Album
Mike The Punk At Sabine’s (Statesville, NC) January 2013
When Exquisite Noise artist Mike The Punk entered a professional studio last month, he had some hand picked musicians in tow, a batch of fully written songs, and positive expectations. Weeks later, he was pulling the plug on the entire operation – and yet would soon discover this was the greatest thing that possibly could have happened.
The album was in fact fully finished, but the results were not what he’d hoped for. So he returned home, downloaded a free recording program, plugged in just a pair of microphones, and cranked out ten songs, all on the first take. The resulting effort, Michael Adams, is a refreshing ode to simplicity. Proving once again Tom Petty’s maxim that if you’re having trouble getting a song right, the solution is to strip it down rather than become more technical, recording these songs in this manner brings their hooks and fine lyrical edge closer to the surface than they otherwise might be.
Mike isn’t quite sure what he plans to do with this album, or if he wants a formal release at all. For now, you can listen to the entire project on SoundCloud here. So give it a spin, download some tracks, leave some commentary and by all means share with your friends. We at the label think it’s a great story that illustrates our overriding philosophy here. Another Exquisite Noise band, The Judas Cow, once saved up $1200 in anticipation of knocking out a complete CD professionally, blew through that entire budget with nothing to show for their time but a handful of drum tracks, which were scrapped when they too decided to go the lo-fi home recording route. In this day and age, going high dollar and high tech is simply no longer an absolute requirement, and it has prompted a question we’ve been asking our artists of late: is it really worth spending thousands of dollars just to sound maybe, at best, 10% better, if at all? Our opinion, demonstrated again by Michael Adams, is a resounding no. Let us know what you think.
Mike The Punk “A Long Time Ago”
Mike The Punk At Sabine’s (Statesville, NC) January 2013
Our young signee Mike The Punk recently delivered the second offering in his “single of the month” plan for 2013 and beyond, with the excellent “A Long Time Ago” arriving in our mailbox just days ago. Continuing along in a similar vein as Mike’s prior work, the frenetic strumming, introspective lyrics, and Social Distortion inspired vocals remain in place, although he seems to be moving toward a more epic scope, if future singles (teaser alert!) are any indication. You can listen before you buy it here and it will be available for purchase soon on all the major platforms. Give it a spin & let us know what you think!
Mike The Punk’s Bold New Strategy
Mooresville, North Carolina’s Mike The Punk recently announced plans to issue one single a month for the next twelve months. A relatively recent signee to our roster, Mike (that’s Michael Robert Adams II, formally, if you’re keeping score), as his moniker might imply, combines something of a gritty Social Distortion-esque vocal delivery with catchy pop hooks…but then these are delivered, predominantly, with an acoustic guitar as his sole accompaniment, and yet the entire package does somehow manage to sound like, well, punk rock. Understandably, the instant we heard Mike’s recordings, we knew he was a must have for our lineup.
His first offering in this Single Of The Month club, Don’t Tell Her, is streaming before you can buy it at select online radio stations now, last.fm (http://www.last.fm/music/Mike+The+Punk/Don%27t+Tell+Her) and Rdio (http://www.rdio.com/artist/Mike_the_Punk/album/Don%27t_Tell_Her/) the major ones among these. You can also check out a YouTube clip the artist himself has posted himself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMDoe_tsnv4
As always, stay posted for future updates. Mike The Punk seems poised to deliver a string of quality tunes, which update and expand his core sound without straying too far from his punk roots. We’re excited about what the future has to offer for this exciting new performer, and look forward to sharing this with the world – be it our label’s small yet rabid niche following, or the mainstream audience (we hope) at large.
The Perfection EP
Mooresville, North Carolina’s up and coming solo artist Mike The Punk has just released his brand new EP, “The Perfection,” here on Exquisite Noise Records. An extremely engaging 3 song primer full of surprising pop hooks and innovative textures, it gives just a taste of the body of work he is currently amassing, both on his own and with a separate, full fledged band, No Tears For Kennedy. You can check out this exciting release here: http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/mike-the-punk/the-perfection/13800108/:
Also available at Amazon, it will soon show up in the iTunes store and Spotify as well. For those curious about finding out more, check out Mike The Punk’s personal music site here: http://www.reverbnation.com/mikethepunk
Fresh New Sounds Of Punk
We here at Exquisite Noise are pleased to announce our latest addition to the roster, Mike The Punk from Mooresville, North Carolina! Though his career arc is just beginning, this young artist has already brought some fresh sounds to his chosen niche, incorporating metal and pop smarts and dare we say a hint of new wave, plus some cutting edge twists for which there are yet no names. Needless to say, we are stoked about our partnership and looking forward to what he comes up with next! Check out his latest offerings here:
http://www.reverbnation.com/mikethepunk
And for those of you in the area, definitely check him out live, playing November 8 at Diverse Expressions in Mooresville, and November 23 at the Bonu5 Room in Huntersville.