Chipper Jones and Mas Ysa

So as I was reminiscing about my recent escape to the beautiful city of Paris and how I missed the fact that everyone took bottles of wine to the local parks to get drunk with friends and significant others while taking in the sights of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower; I found myself illegally walking down the streets on East Austin with a red Solo cup full of some random microbrew I bought at Central Market. It was at this moment that I realized that I might become the latest subject of police brutality on CNN as this is clearly an offense that warrants lethal force by the local authorities. Why can’t they make Solo cups black so that you can hide them from the police? And was the fact that the cup was so brightly colored red the real reason I kept calling the tremendous new band Chipper Jones, Crimson Tide instead?

Maybe I just had Denzel Washington and his unique ability to question white authority without being executed on the brain. Whatever the case was, I eventually got in the right state of mind to finally see the band I discovered on line a few months ago. Chipper Jones is a two piece instrumental indie rock band from the now budding music epicenter that is Austin, Texas. Gone are the days of old hippies stumbling on stage and giving audiences their best Stevie Ray Vaughn imitation; this city is now full of youthful and creative artists who have migrated here thanks to festivals like SXSW and ACL.

And it appears that Chipper Jones is trying to cement their place among the city’s elite as they thankfully avoid falling into the same trap that most instrumental bands do today, and that’s to have 20 minute long songs that consist of very little movement. Jones’ songs are for the most part short and build to climaxes that would have Ron Jeremy questioning his stroke. They have great stage presence and are somehow able to command an entire room of drunken hipsters on a Tuesday night (on a Tuesday…) without the use of lyrics or a light show.

Check out their EP Two Rooms and go see one of their cheap shows as I give these guys a rating of FRESH!
https://chipperjones.bandcamp.com/

Next up is Mas Ysa, he’s a guy from Brooklyn who sounds like M83 is he ever decided to sing. The jury is still out on this guy but I do find myself nodding my head to quite a few of his songs, so right now he gets a rating of barely FRESH! Check out his song Margarita.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjgZIVvggdQ