The Magic City offers a provocative debut with ‘Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother’
The Boston-based modern rock band delivers a stirring and sterling inaugural single on Friday, November 17
Now Playing: Listen to ‘Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother’ via Spotify
The Magic City perform live at The Jungle in Somerville on December 17
BOSTON, Mass. [November 17, 2023] -- First impressions are relatively overrated. Because as soon as someone hears, sees, feels, or experiences something for the very first time, the reaction and response is likely tied into everything that person has heard, seen, felt, or experienced before it. So as The Magic City prepares its provocative debut single “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother,” set for streaming release on Friday, November 17, the Boston modern rock band understands quite well that our pasts and prior interests help influence the feelings of our present.
Which will, in turn, help The Magic City find its tribe. Taking its moniker from a fictional city that exists in mental spaces as a combination of their home of Boston and spiritual city of London, the sound of The Magic City echoes the style, spirit, and vitality of both real-life places. Assembled over a shared love of Britpop, post-punk, classic alternative, glam, goth, UK indie and the other sounds that raised us, the quartet has taken pieces of its past and/or other affiliated projects – The Daily Pravda, Reverse, The Daylilies, Graveyard of the Atlantic, and others – and crafted something that feels fresh and new without ever losing sight of how we got here in the first place. That first impression, as always, remains rooted in context.
And The Magic City knows it shares certain subculture interests with a particular type of person.
“We want to find our people,” says vocalist David Jackel. “Like the community we had with the pill in Boston. I saw them come out to Radio City to see Pulp, the MET and the Orpheum to see Suede and Nick Cave, and they’ll all be at the Darker Waves festival in California. It’s that family tree of music culture that began with the Beatles and Stones, Bowie and Velvets, and then punk, post-punk, goth, new wave, Britpop. Angel Olsen channeling Serge Gainsbourg. Their random playlist could be Kate Bush, Bauhaus, Bat for Lashes, Pixies, and it would all make sense.”
That sterling cocktail is on sonic display through “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother,” one of the first tracks the band wrote when first meeting up at Studio 52 in Allston in early 2022, just as the pandemic haze began to lift. A proper introduction to the band – rounded out by bassist Mike Quinn, guitarist Adam Anderson, and drummer Ken Marcou – the seductive and stirring track will be followed by more new music in 2024, recorded and mixed by Quinn at Bluetone Studio in Somerville and Shave Media in Allston. It’s melodic, compact, playful, a little dark – and perfect for a group of seasoned musicians looking for a new creative outlet.
“The song illustrates a bit of our dynamic range and melodic and harmonic sensibilities,” says Quinn. “It’s honest as a rock song. There are not a lot of layered parts, but at the same time it’s not low-fi or DIY sounding. We prefer to have a little polish in our production.”
Adds Jackel: “We resisted the impulse to build our sound with overdubs; we simplified the arrangements to give more weight to each instrument and let the songs breathe. We wanted the songs to feel complete when performed as a four-piece with no backing track support.”
With an eye-raising title and ambitious demeanor, dancing out of the speakers like a comforting hand on the shoulder, “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” was first inspired while Jackel was out in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner one afternoon with his daughter. At its core, it’s about realizing that an era of one’s life may be over, that a family is a finite period of time, and that the next best move is to take what can be taken from that era and start fresh, in hopes of maybe having one last first impression at the next stop.
“I got the idea for it while getting ice cream with my five-year-old daughter Bronwyn,” he says. “We had just watched the original Parent Trap, and I was explaining to her why real parents would never do what those parents did, and that they were actually terrible parents. Across the street I noticed the movie theater marquee for Roadrunner, and the hamster wheel in my brain started to roll.”
Heavy subject matter be damned, it also serves as a nice introduction to the band, and a primer for what may come next. And it should sound lovely on stage when The Magic City plays The Jungle in Somerville on December 17, just before the holidays swallow us whole and most of us hibernate until the New Year.
“The sounds and structure of ‘Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother’ draw on Beatles circa Rubber Soul, Pixies, Pulp, Auteurs,” Jackel admits. “I don’t know where this band will go musically, but that’s the foundation.”
It’s one we all may have experience with, from the stack of records of our youth to the endless playlists we craft to reconnect with a certain feeling. This is the sound of The Magic City; warm, inviting, and something that feels intimately familiar, but undoubtedly fresh.
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The Magic City is:
Adam Anderson: Lead guitar, vocals
David Jackel: Rhythm guitar, vocals
Mike Quinn: Bass guitar, vocals, synth
Ken Marcou: Drums, drum programming, percussion
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The Magic City short bio:
The Magic City is escapism in music. The Boston-based modern rock band takes its moniker from an imagined convergence of Boston and London, and its sound echoes the spirit, style, and vitality of both cities. Debut single “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” arrives in November 2023, serving as a tone-setter and seductive invitation to what’s to come in 2024. As the great Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
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‘Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother’ production credits:
Recorded and mixed by Mike Quinn at Bluetone Studio in Somerville, MA, and Shave Media in Allston, MA
Press photo by Ken Marcou
Single art design by David Jackel
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‘Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother’ single artwork: