Five Kill Records Celebrates First Birthday with Live Music September 7th

Five Kill Records is celebrating its first full year of existence with a birthday show at The Hollow Bar and Kitchen on Saturday, September 7th at 8 pm with a $7 cover charge. The birthday bash will feature local and statewide artists, most with recent or upcoming releases from the label. Performances for the evening includes musical acts Front Biz, Laveda, Full Body, Greens, and Bruiser & Bicycle. 

Five Kill Records is a not-for-profit independent record label based out of New York’s Capital Region. Named after the confluence of five kills (rivers) where Albany was first settled, Five Kill is a label run by musicians, artists, producers, engineers, promoters, house-show operators, editors, and videographers. The label provides support to musicians by providing access to music industry services and assists artists in the process of releasing an album nationally. Five Kill aims to enrich the region’s creative economy by reinvesting its income back into services for New York-based artists.

In its first year, Five Kill Records has aided in the release of 13 phenomenal albums from local artists, with press placements in PASTE magazine, UPROXX, Atwood Magazine, Post Trash, hype machine, Various Small Flames, and many more. We are proud of our achievements from our first year of existence but we need your help to keep our efforts growing into the future.

Five Kill Records is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Donations can be made at fivekillrecords.com/about/, at the show, or you can message us for a mailing address. 

Below is some information about the performers lined up for the September 7th show.

Front Biz | frontbiz.bandcamp.com/

Front Biz, LLC, is a shell company for an intergalactic real estate firm, primarily focused on laundering money through an Earth-based rock band. Don’t worry; they’re the good guys in this story. With analog syncopations and guitar riffs algorithmically programmed to stream alongside the Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Chicano Batman, Kenny Rogers, and other psychedelic avatars, the quartet fights fearlessly against the Russian bot-driven influx of sad bands in the simulation. Lunch Money is their debut album, released exclusively on immaterial digital platforms by Fivekill Records. Endlessly cycling through a quantum time loop, Front Biz first formed around Erik Pravel’s electronic drum kit in 2016 to play glitched mashups of Charles Mingus and Black Sabbath in the basement of a Presbyterian church. The project soon evolved into a double-barrel guitar workout fronted by Raurri Jennings, the holographic result of Rick Moranis singing Prince karaoke, and Peter Lavery, the world’s fattest man. Josh Potter plays himself, also the bass. In their first year, Front Biz shared the stage with White Denim, Naked Giants, Rubblebucket, K. Flay, and won a battle of the bands held at a bowling alley in the mall.

Laveda | lavedamusic.bandcamp.com/

Dream Pop force Laveda awaken nostalgic moods in their sound, drawing heavily from 90s Shoegaze and Experimental Rock. Formed in the summer of 2017, the bedroom recording project was founded by Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks. Having rapidly developed over the past year, the duo has made huge growth morphing their songs from simplistic Singer-Songwriter styles into an overwhelming and full-fledged listening experience. Laveda’s first release “Dream. Sleep.” recorded out of Brooklyn and Albany has grabbed the attention of notable national and international blogs and press including Pitchfork Radio who premiered the track at their Mid-Winter Festival in February 2019. “Dream. Sleep.” captures a high energy intensity that stirs feelings of excitement and anxiousness describing a alternate unknown reality. Genevich and Brooks recently added bassist Dan Paoletti and drummer Joe Taurone to create Laveda’s live show.

Full Body | fullbody.bandcamp.com/

Full Body is a band for people who refuse to take the world at face value—for those who trust their guts, carve their own paths, and dare to ask “why?” Hailing from Rochester, NY the band finds humor and inspiration within the remains of a city’s failed industries. Forging sounds that intersect romantic melody with abrasive dissonance, off-kilter song structures with a pummeling live sound, Full Body uncovers the beauty within rust belt dilapidation. While the group was started by guitarist and lead vocalist, Dylan Vaisey, in 2015, it wasn’t until 2017’s What’s Good? that Full Body found a set line-up and honed their sound. With Jacob Kotler on guitar, Zach “Joe Smoke” Hallenbeck on bass and backingvocals, and Jack Chaffer on drums, the band built a reputation for delivering needly guitar lines and brash rhythms. After receiving positive reviews, and spending time on the road, Full Body returned to the studio in 2018 to track another record and expand on the group’s dynamic sound. In October of 2019, they will debut their most anticipated release yet, Always There, viaFive Kill Records. Now featuring Cassidy Rose Hammond on bass, the band remains eager to subvert conventions and breathe new life into rock music’s exhausted form. 

Greens | greenstheband.bandcamp.com/releases

Greens is a project of distinct origin, but without specific execution. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Alex Brooks, a veteran of Albany music as a drummer and bass player, took a step away from the sideman job to focus on writing semi-confessional material that is at once intimate and wide-lensed. He wrote most of the songs in isolation and seclusion, as a way of processing past traumas and present uncertainties. To move forward with the project, however, Brooks knew he wanted to flesh the material out with a large ensemble with a collectivist mentality. Taking inspiration from 70s Americana and jam luminaries like The Band and Grateful Dead, Brooks assembled a chamber orchestra rock group, sometimes lovingly referred to as the Greens Family Band. That 9-member ensemble of open-minded friends and Albany heavyweights formed the core of the recording musicians featured on this EP, though even more friends joined in the process of overdubbing and arranging, ultimately creating a unique blend of alt-country revivalism that embraces freak folk, ambient electronic, lo-fi noise, space rock, and indie rock. The band will often perform live in sizes ranging from 1 to 6 members, though the spirit of the performance is always anchored by the high quality, emotive songs developed by Brooks. Emphasis is always placed on an all-singing, all-dancing, group participation dynamic, as the minutiae of daily life described in the lyrics often widens suddenly into explorations of the psyche and of human nature before rising into a transcendent declaration of purpose, where the band bypasses traditional choruses in favor of repeated couplets belted in unison over cacophonous stirrings from the group.

Bruiser and Bicycle.| bruiserandbicycle.bandcamp.com/

Bruiser and Bicycle is an Albany-based band, originally formed as a quartet, currently with two members, two guitars and a kick drum. Their influences range from Alex G, Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Pavement to The Beach Boys and Fugazi. The 21 and 22 year-old musicians recently released their 2nd album “Woods Come Find Me.” The band recorded every single part of each song into one microphone, which remained in place in the center of the room throughout a three-day period. Atwood Magazine states “Built on raw DIY energy, Albany duo Bruiser and Bicycle’s ‘Woods Come Find Me is a delightfully alternative, fantastically fun time.