Wednesday, March 12   12:00 a.m.
Maggie Mae's Rooftop   (323 E 6th St)

  Frightened Rabbit - Modern Leper
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Though the past year has seen Frightened Rabbit finally step into public view, with more extensive touring and some recordings now publicly available, the past few years have largely been about the band quietly, commitedly honing their sound, and cultivating their art. Now a three-piece comprising Scott, Billy and Grant, the origins of the band are rooted in 2003, when Scott began playing solo shows under the name Frightened Rabbit, mostly in support of fellow art-schoolers Shitdisco. Recordings were made on a tascam 4-track recorder, with Scott playing all the instruments (some more proficiently than others). Though looser, sparser, and certainly more lo-fi in terms of production values, their early demo’s still attest to a burgeoning talent with a defined personality, and a now familiar penchant for being able to nail a near perfect pop song.

In 2004 Scott’s brother Grant moved to Glasgow, contributing drums to certain recorded tracks, and playing live. Frightened Rabbit became louder and better. They burnt 50 copies of their subsequent demo, and sent some out to labels, resulting in three tracks being hosted on the FatCat MP3/demo website, and marking the beginning of a wonderful relationship. In 2006, Billy joined the band playing primarily second guitar, making Frightened Rabbit in the band’s own words, a wee bit better and louder still. That February they went into The Diving Bell Lounge studio with Glasgow based producer Marcus Mackay to record some songs over the course of a week. The intention was to record a better quality demo, but the resultant recordings ended up as the bands debut LP ‘Sing The Greys’, of which 1000 copies were pressed and released that May on home grown label Hits The Fan.

An incredibly accomplished live outfit (seemingly without any effort whatsoever), further live dates followed into 2007, including a brief but succesful US jaunt, culminating in a sold-out show at The Mercury Lounge in NYC, before the album was even available in the US. Since then, the band have been writing, rehearsing, recording, and remixing, and of course playing more live shows. ‘Sings The Greys’ is currently being remastered by Alan Douches, to be re-released by FatCat Autumn 2007. It will be preceded by the single ‘Be Less Rude’. Beyond that the band will be working with Producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The Twilight Sad, Mercury Rev, Mice Parade) and recording tracks for subsequent releases in the near future.