Deer Tick Finding Bigger Spotlight (+Brand New Track)

Things are falling into place for John McCauley and his cohorts. With the band's nonchalant attitude toward fame and success, I can quite tell you things are falling into the exact place that they had planned - or even imagined. Deer Tick, the Providence, Rhode Island grunge-country band, has seen a dramatic ascension in notoriety since John's first recorded guitar strum.

Deer Tick's debut War Elephant was originally released on the small Houston label Feow Records back in 2007. By the time I first heard of the band, the small label had been sold out of the record for some time. Luckily, iTunes held a digital copy. War Elephant was immediately impressive - in fact, I named it my #3 album of 2007 in my first post ever here at This Mornin'...

That small feat is just a grain of sand on the beach that has been made out of notable accomplishments for Deer Tick. A simple google search will yield countless press snippets of praise for War Elephant and their live show, many from much more reputable sources than this (check this and this out for even more).

Recently, the attention focused on Deer Tick has become harder to ignore. I learned that in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Deer Tick was named the #1 Breaking band at SXSW 2009. If that didn't impact you enough, let me try to put it in perspective. SXSW is THE largest gathering of unsigned, new artists in one place IN THE WORLD. So, according to Rolling Stone - a fairly well-regarded music voice - Deer Tick was the best out of 1900 new-ish bands from 46 different countries. Yeah.


Just a few days after that news broke, I found this:

Watch Brian Williams talk about his favorite new bar band.

Also, John sent us a link to a video of Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks) buying a copy of War Elephant. Pretty cool.

I have a strong suspicion that before the end of 2009, Dave Letterman and SNL will be making a few calls to the band. Especially after this drops in June:

The hip new label Partisan Records had the great idea to not only sign Deer Tick, but to re-release War Elephant late last year. The first effort with the band, Born on Flag Day, will hit shelves and ears on June 23rd, 2009.

Pre-order: Vinyl/CD.

1. Easy
2. Little White Lies
3. Smith Hill
4. Song About A Man
5. Houston, TX
6. Straight Into A Storm
7. Friday XIII
8. The Ghost
9. Hell On Earth
10. Stung

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More Deer Tick at This Mornin...

• A Little Kum-Ba-Yah with Deer Tick

• War Elephant Re-Release/Review

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