Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Travel Songs, Robot House invade Mojo Main


If you're into former scene kings Diego Paulo and robots, you'll probably want to be at Mojo Main, 270 East Main St., Newark on Saturday March 16.

But don’t show up expecting to see the recently defunct Paulo, the story of which sounds like the winding tale of some early-’90s alt-country outfit. The band formed a few years ago out of the ashes of Bellefonte, which featured brothers Tyler Doherty (vocals/guitars) and Zachary Humenik (vocals/guitars) . They then went on to form Paulo, which also featured singer Katie Dill and bassist Sam Nobles and dominated the local music scene (about 15 consecutive issues of The News Journal’s 55 Hours featured something about Diego Paulo, a world record, I believe).

Well Paulo recently splintered as well, and now Humenik and Nobles have reemerged with Travel Songs, which started out as a video project capturing world music. Humenik traveled to four different continents, used all kinds of world instruments, got caught up in the Arab Spring, set up a studio in Tunis and recorded “The Matadors LP,” which features bro Doherty and Nobles and led to the formation of Travel Songs, went to back in Los Angeles to record an EP, and then toured with Travel Songs to Thailand, Cambodia, Loas, and Vietnam.

Sounds just like the charmingly convoluted story of Uncle Tupelo, right? Kind of. Sort of. Not really.

Instead of bossa nova or world music, what the new crew – which also features new members George Murphy and Tyler Holloway - has come up with is a brand of folk-pop reflecting some of the sounds Humenik might have heard around the globe.

Oh, yeah, the robots. They would come in the form of ferocious local rock act Robot House, which in addition to muscle shirts also supports “friends, drinks, love, loud sounds, dancing, foolishness and endangered animals.”

Check em out at a recent show at the Home Grown Cafe here:



Saturday’s show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $5 at www.ticketfly.com.

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