Honey Radar ready new LP 'Blank Cartoon' (listen), playing shows including Northside Festival
Honey Radar will release new album Blank Cartoon on May 20 via What’s Your Rupture. The band, who relocated from Indianapolis to Philadelphia last year, are still cranking out the low-fi jams that are indebted to ’60s Britrock. (If you like Guided by Voices or late-’90s Lilys, it’s very much in the same vein.) Stomping new single “Fort Wayne Mermaids,” lyrically, has an interesting backstory. Singer Jason Henn told Noisey:
I was binge-watching Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary series again around the time the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed in Indiana , and I think the two things got jumbled in a dream I had. The episode of Baseball that features a lot on Hank Aaron mentioned that he had been on a Negro League team called the Indianapolis Clowns, which got me thinking of funny fictional sports team names. I made a list of about 100, and I decided to use “Ft. Wayne Mermaids” as a jumping off point for a song. In the dream, I-69 between Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne was flooded, and Hank Aaron and I swam to Indy to argue with Mike Pence. It was kind of a weird dream. During the vocal take, I got worried that the lyrics were too on the nose, so I moved some words around, and now it makes even less sense.
Stream “Fort Wayne Mermaids” and “Catepillar” off the album below.
The band will be playing live later this spring, including WFMU Monty Hall on May 28 (part of their “Prove it Night”), Philly’s Kung Fu Necktie on May 31, and Brooklyn’s Union Pool on June 11 with Big Quiet and SAVAK which is a Northside Festival show. Tickets for all three of those shows will be on sale soon.
Honey Radar – Blank Cartoon tracklist
1 Tones
2 Catepillar
3 Crybaby Jail
4 Song for the Medical Mission Sisters
5 Bagpipe Jazz (Is Real)
6 Kiss the Peppermint President
7 Pan Music
8 Postcard Target
9 Scorpions Bought Me Breakfast
10 Beethoven DUI
11 Pinwheel
12 Fort Wayne Mermaids
13 The Man With A Rayon Acetate Throat
14 Sugar Helicopter
15 Champagne Rodeo
16 Coughing Cop
17 Sick Day #2
18 Jet Rope
Honey Radar – 2016 Tour Dates
5/28 Jersey City, NJ – Monty Hall (WFMU’s Prove It All Night)
5/31 Philadelphia – Kung Fu Necktie downstairs with Life Stinks (from SF) and Telepathic
6/11 Brooklyn – Union Pool with Big Quiet and Savak
