| Masters of the Hemisphere | |
|---|---|
 Masters of the Hemisphere live in Indianapolis, Indiana, 2000 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Athens, Georgia, USA |
| Genres | Indie pop |
| Years active | 1996–2002, 2010-present |
| Labels | Kindercore Records |
| Past members | Sean Rawls Bren Mead Adrian Finch Ryan Lewis (1996) Jeff Griggs (1996–2002) |
Masters of the Hemisphere are an American indie pop group, founded by Bren Mead and Sean Rawls. The two moved to Athens, Georgia, to attend college in 1996. There they met Ryan Lewis, co-founder of Kindercore Records, who played drums at the first Masters of the Hemisphere show. Jeff Griggs (also of The Mendoza Line) soon replaced Lewis. In 1997 Kindercore released their debut seven-inch ep, Going on a Trek to Iceland. The group then recorded their first full-length album, the eponymous Masters of the Hemisphere , which was released on Kindercore Records in 1998. The band soon expanded to a four-piece, adding multi-instrumentalist Adrian Finch. Several singles and compilation appearances followed, including a release on the Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records singles club, before the band released their second full length, the concept album I Am Not a Freemdoom , also on Kindercore. The record garnered mixed reviews, which in part was likely due to the album's rather complicated concept, regarding an island of reservoir-dwelling creatures being enslaved by an evil dog. The Permanent Stranger EP followed in 2002, on the dcBaltimore2012 label. The band split up after their next album, 2002's well received Protest a Dark Anniversary . A recording of their then-final show at Athens, Georgia's 40 Watt Club was later released as The Last Show Ever .
Indie pop is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Compared to its counterpart, indie rock, the genre is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.
The Mendoza Line was a rock band whose members began playing together while in college in the mid-1990s in Athens, Georgia, USA, and who eventually settled in Brooklyn. Their name comes from a characterization of an intolerably low batting average (.200), based on the dismal .215 batting average of Mario Mendoza. They released eight full albums of sometimes folky, occasionally country-styled indie rock that is influenced by classic songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Cale and Paul Westerberg, and alt-country bands like Whiskeytown and Wilco. They recorded for several labels, such as Kindercore, Misra, Bar/None Records and Loose Music.
Masters of the Hemisphere is the first full album by the Athens, Georgia based indie pop band of the same name. Though it lacks the elaborateness of their followup, the heavily concept-based I Am Not A Freemdoom, it still maintains the essential element of the band's indie pop songcraft, drawing comparisons to R.E.M., among others.
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Rawls subsequently joined Je Suis France and, upon his move to San Francisco, formed the reggae-inspired band Still Flyin'. Mead eventually joined Still Flyin', and in 2010 raised money through Kickstarter [1] to release an album by his solo project Vetran. Finch released an album under the name Dances with Wolves on dcBaltimore2012 in 2002, and currently plays in Atlanta band Night Moves Gold. Griggs currently plays in Je Suis France, Murder Beach, Shitaake Knights (aka REN, aka Transmitter), and any number of other bands.
Je Suis France is an American indie rock group formed in Athens, GA, in 1997. Their albums have been released by David Lowery's Pitch-A-Tent Records, Elf Power's Orange Twin Records, and Antenna Farm Records. The band has also self-released a number of singles and CD-Rs.
Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s.The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use the word "reggae", effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political comment. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as ‘Rudie Blues’, then ‘Ska’, later ‘Blue Beat’, and ‘Rock Steady’. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat, and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
Still Flyin’ is an American Indie pop band based in San Francisco, founded in 2004 by Sean Rawls.
In 2006 the Masters of the Hemisphere briefly reunited to play shows in Athens, Georgia; Lexington, Kentucky; and San Francisco.
Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city–county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about 70 mi (113 km) northeast of downtown Atlanta, a Global City and the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, being in the top ten of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. It is a component of the larger Atlanta–Athens–Clarke County–Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area, a trading area. The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public university and a R1 research institution, is in the city and contributed to its initial growth. In 1991, after a vote the preceding year, the original City of Athens abandoned its charter to form a unified government with Clarke County, referred to jointly as Athens–Clarke County. As of 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau's estimated population of the consolidated city-county was 125,691; the entire county including Winterville and Bogart had a population of 127,064. Athens is the sixth-largest city in Georgia, and the principal city of the Athens metropolitan area, which had a 2017 estimated population of 209,271, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city is dominated by a pervasive student culture and music scene centered on downtown Athens, next to the University of Georgia's North Campus. Major music acts associated with Athens include numerous alternative rock bands such as R.E.M., the B-52's, Widespread Panic, and Neutral Milk Hotel. The city is also known as a recording site for such groups as the Atlanta-based Indigo Girls.
Lexington, consolidated with Fayette County and often denoted as Lexington-Fayette, is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 60th-largest city in the United States. By land area, Lexington is the 28th largest city in the United States. Known as the "Horse Capital of the World," it is the heart of the state's Bluegrass region. It has a nonpartisan mayor-council form of government, with 12 council districts and three members elected at large, with the highest vote-getter designated vice mayor. In the 2018 U.S. Census Estimate, the city's population was 323,780 anchoring a metropolitan area of 516,697 people and a combined statistical area of 746,330 people.
"Local Government", a song from Protest a Dark Anniversary, was prominently heard in an environmental PSA that debuted on MTV on August 31, 2006.
The Masters of the Hemisphere recorded a new album in 2010; released by Kindercore Records in 2011, the new album was entitled Maybe These Are the Breaks .
