Terrascope

Jagged and irregular, the music of Diacon-Panthers has urgency to it, the band pushing hard on opening track "Days of Wonder", whilst "Actress" slows things down, the voice of Natan displaying a raw emotion. Further in, a shimmering organ chord heralds the start of "American Creatures", a slow-burning epic reminding me of Television in its construction. Final track "Black Flag" is an angry Galaxie 500, the vocals carrying the song with style, the band baring their souls to the world. Resolutely a home-made album, Terrascope readers should go out of their way to support such artists, making music as art not commerce. (www.diacon-panthers.com)

http://terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_August08.htm

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TOUR BLOG

So we've been running a tour blog for awhile. Sry we didn't tell ya earlier. Check it out:

diacon-panthers.blogspot.com

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Recent Blogzzz

There were about 11,000 escalator-related injuries in 2007 in the US of A, according to estimates from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. A disturbing new trend in escalator-related injuries (ERI's) is entrapment (starring Catherine Zeta-Jones!). "CPSC is aware of 77 entrapment incidents since January 2006, with about half resulting in injury" reads their report. "All but two of the incidents involved popular soft-sided flexible clogs and slides."
So you can't have it both ways. If you're gonna wear comfortable (ugly) shoes, you gotta take the stairs. I imagine it won't be long until every mall has a little sign at their escalator warning Croc-wearers away.

It's a little-known fact that Knoxville, TN is the world capital of escalators. People there just hate stairs. Little wonder that a band such Diacon-Panthers should emerge from such mobile-staircase mecca. They've just released an album called Make It Feel Better. They're hard to describe, and even harder to forget (to fudge a Bill Callahan line). There's elements of, I dunno, Kings of Leon and Jason Molina, and maybe a little Modest Mouse. They're like the Band in a slapfight with the Flaming Lips. They're sort of a scaled down, garage-y Lambchop. Comparing bands to other bands is foolish, uninformative and boring. I'm gonna stop while I still can. So let's just say that Diacon-Panthers make music with lots of space, creepy howling and Southern rock motifs.
- A Bulldozer With A Wrecking Ball Attached



A tip for those music submitters out there: I get an overwhelming amount of music to peruse, and to be quite honest, I don't feel comfortable spouting off an opinion on a band unless I've had enough material to process (like a full album) so I basically skip over submissions that only include a track or two. Well, today, there was a treat in my inbox from a Knoxville, Tennessee band named Diacon-Panthers. After listening to "Days Of Wonder," the opening track on their new album Make It Feel Better, there was an awkward silence.. and then, a question: "what the hell just happened?" Now, sometimes this question has negative connotations, like when this creepy waiter at TGIF kept hovering around my booth and giving me uncomfortable stares. But, this surely isn't the case with this promising young band. Diacon-Panthers creates Southern-tinged indie rock with a punk aesthetic. Let's call it Americana Punk, deal? I've been on a massive Will Johnson kick lately, so to me, they sound like a looser, unpolished version of Centro-Matic with more off-kilter lead vocals. Barely old enough to be college students, the members of the band go to school in Oregon, Vermont, and Massachusetts, but their home during the summer is Knoxville, Tennessee. Make It Feel Better was recorded in a week last summer, and it was produced by Ryan Schaefer of fellow Knoxville band Royal Bangs. You can download the album in digital format over at Portland, Oregon-based Borrowdeer Records. -- Capt. Obvious



If you're checking our tag clouds on the right sidebar of this page, here are the main hits : songwriters (???), Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Ray LaMontagne… So you might think, i'm not going to find something that really rocks with these crazy dreamers ! Partly true, partly false : depending on what you mean with rock ! An that's why music is so great… sometimes it rocks your soul, sometimes your body. In this early month of March, it's time to ride the seasonal attraction : spring is almost there and my ears are requesting their yearly dose of rejuvenation !
I've found the right cure, the one that match my need : a perfect spring band for my mood.

Fasten your seatbelt, destination : Knoxville, Tennessee !

Diacon-Panthers is the name of this awesome band, I've been pointed to from Berkeley Place. Right after listening the two tracks available there, I've been more than seduced… How hard is trying to qualify their unique sound. Punk ? Garage-Punk : no and yes. But not only… Rock ? yeah rock for sure. But not only… Southern-rock though may be… Then I've browsed Diacon-Panthers site to check how those guys are self-defining their music. Well, I'm still laughing but I do agree : healing & easy listening.

Make it Feel Better - Diacon-Panthers. Their first full-length album : 'Make it Feel Better' is powerful and really fits my demand. Even if I'm not a fan of the intro track which is a bit too psychedelic for me… the second song titled 'Actress' and the transition with 'Tennessee Dancing Nights' is simply joyful ! And this feeling won't leave you until the two closing tracks : Joyful Bliss - 'jouissif' is the right French word I was looking for ! Both songs are exceeding the regular format - 7:32 and 6:39… but not enough to be replete : all you have to do is replay ! And be sure, your enthusiasm will grow on each loop ! - You Crazy Dreamers (France)

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"Make it Feel Better" & Borrowdeer Records!

Diacon-Panthers have joined a handful of other great bands (including Knoxville's Deek Hoi) on Portland, OR Label/Artist Collective Borrowdeer. "Make it Feel Better" is set for digital release on Borrowdeer on March 25th, at which point it will be available for download for $8 on the Borrowdeer website.

Check 'em out: Borrowdeer Records, Myspace.

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Berkeley Place - "Make it Feel Better" Review

DIACON-PANTHERS-"Make It Feel Better"

So, a few weeks ago I get this e-mail:"Diacon-Panthers is endearing southern indie rock from Knoxville, TN." They give me a link to hear their new record. Here it goes . . .

"Days of Wonder" starts out like grungy psychedelia, along the lines of Black Mountain, until, after a long and fascinating it descends into the sonic mess that characterizes the rest of the album: Indecipherable vocals, jangling guitars that seem to fight each other as often as they harmonize, and a drummer who apparently snorted all the speed in Knoxville. This is a group who seem to constantly battle any sense of melody or harmony. Even when they slow down, like on "Actress," the vocals have a nasal, "Blind Melon" quality that's jarring. In fact, jarring is probably the best word for this Americana Punk band. I'm on the fourth cut now, and I need to catch my breath. I never like to review a whole album in one sitting, lest my mood at the time color my perception. But in case you're wondering . . . I fucking loved every minute of it so far.

I come back and start where I left off, with "St. Anthony," which features a very off, faint and echoey distortion on Natan Diacon-Furtado's already offbeat vocals. Oh my god. This is so unlike . . . Anything. There's elements of lots of things here: Southern rock, indie rock, punk . . . There are moments where I hear snatches of something familiar . . . But every time I feel comfortable, the tune takes a right turn and leaves me behind, struggling to catch up.

The Diacon-Panthers need a big break. I hereby call upon all my fellow bloggers to write about this band. Write to me, I'll send you their e-mail address. These guys have rocked me to my core, in a way few band submissions ever do. Truly.

http://berkeleyplace.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/diacon-panthers-make-it-feel-better/

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Knoxville Voice Blurb (or, why we love Nick Huinker)

Diacon-Panthers w/ The Distant Relatives
Nick Huinker

When the Royal Bangs played their first show back from hiatus in June, the biggest surprise wasn't that the band was already back in top form or armed with new material, but that the opening act Diacon-Panthers damn near stole their thunder. Themselves reconvening after an extended break, the young band captured the fickle attentions of a packed Pilot Light with alarming ease, tearing through a set of earnest, Southern-tinged rock, exhilarating in its edgy familiarity and presided over by Natan Diacon-Furtado's distinctive, sensitive caterwauls. Scheduling conflicts unfortunately kept the band from capitalizing on its heightened profile throughout the summer, and in August Diacon-Furtado and guitarist Greg Given had to return to school in Oregon, but not before lead Banger Ryan Schaefer got the Diacon-Panthers into the "studio," recording an LP's worth of material that will finally see (limited, tentative) release on Dec. 21st, when winter break brings the Panthers back together for a single show at the Pilot Light with shoegazing up-and-comers The Distant Relatives. After that, it's back to school until late May, but a fruitful summer in Knoxville is already planned, and listening to the record, it's not unreasonable to imagine plenty of new fans will be humming along in the meantime.

Printed in the Knoxville Voice (Knoxville, TN) on December 13th, 2007.

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Metro Pulse Article

School's Out
Far-flung local band takes a break from school for a little rock 'n' roll
by Matthew Everett

The four members of Diacon-Panthers live, variously, in Portland, Ore., Middlebury, Vt., and Knoxville, with the one guy still here headed to Boston to start college in just a few weeks. They're still a local band, though--they play together during the summer and on winter breaks and record when they get the chance. And it's worked fine for them, so far.

"The music's so self-contained," says singer/guitarist Natan Diacon-Furtado from his dorm room at Reed College in Portland. "This show we've got coming up, we'll probably practice for two or three days before, and that'll be the first time we've played together in half a year. But we all love that part of it. For us, it works out better than practicing a whole bunch."

Diacon-Furtado and his partners in the band--guitarist Greg Given, Given's younger brother Jeremy on bass and piano, and drummer Charlie Henschen--were all still in high school when they first got together, and they knew some big decisions would be made soon. "I don't think any of us were prepared to let the band get in the way of college," Diacon-Furtado says. He and Greg Given are now sophomores at Reed, and Henschen attends Middlebury College in Vermont (the school's mascot is a panther, which provides half the band's name), and Jeremy Given starts at Berklee College of Music in Boston in January.

Despite their far-flung residences, the band has remained a priority for each member. The most recent evidence of their commitment to Diacon-Panthers is the band's first album, Make It Feel Better, which will be available this weekend, just in time for their first Knoxville show in months. The disc was recorded in just a few days last summer, but they've been tinkering with it ever since, getting a final master done just this month. "It took two days to track everything, but then Greg and Chris had to leave, so I stayed and did the vocals and my guitar overdubs," Diacon-Furtado says. "Up until three weeks ago we were mixing it and taking out and putting in tracks. I guess we recorded it in a short period but it took us a long period to get it to sound the way we wanted."

Make It Feel Better is a casual recording, if not exactly lo-fi. The band plays a poppy, post-punk art rock with a distinctly Southern vibe--the guitar riffs are sharp and jittery, and Diacon-Furtado's vocals are high-pitched and arch, but Jeremy Given's Fender Rhodes electric piano offers a hum of classic-rock atmosphere, and his older brother adds occasional lap steel for a hint of twang. "Tennessee Dancing Nights," one of the album's standout tracks, updates the hard-edged folk rock of the mid-'60s, and "Saint Anthony" churns into a long, loose jam session that sounds inspired by Dixie Dirt, a band that might be Diacon-Panthers most immediate local precedent.

"The recording is a slightly different beast from the live show," Diacon-Furtado says. "All of the tracks have bass and piano on the record, but Jeremy just plays one or the other live....We used to have a different drummer, too. We were more laid-back then, but I'd wanted to rock out for a while, and we have Charlie to thank for that."

The band owes its loose-knit, fluid style, at least in part, to the songwriting process, which starts with Diacon-Furtado but always evolves into a group collaboration. "Usually, the way it goes, I write everything word-wise and basic-guitar-part-wise," Diacon-Furtado says. "Basically I have a base, the words and how I want it to sound. I usually have two chords for an entire song, and I get overruled about using just two chords, and eventually we have a nice tune."

Who: Diacon-Panthers with Distant Relatives
Where: Pilot Light
When: Friday, Dec. 21, at 9 p.m.
How Much: $5

Printed in Metro Pulse (Knoxville, TN) on December 20th, 2007

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*O+m*&FGGGGG->->->NEW RECORD!!!!!!!!1!!

So, we finished up all of the recording and overdubs for the new record we didn't really tell anybody about a few weeks ago and we're having it mixed now, all by the amazing Ryan Schaefer( of Royal Bangs).
It'll be 11 songs and probably come in around the 40-50 min. mark
Sneak Peek coming soon.
-luv
Natan

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city of thousands review
Category: Music

We just got reviewed in the City of thousands blog at http://cityofthousands.blogspot.com/
Go check that blog out because it's a cool place and is a great way to find out about cool music stuff.
A super special thanks to Emily, who reviewed us

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