The Sugar Oaks

In very exciting news, we at Number One Millionaire have received our first ever promo e-mail from a real band, who, though they didn't explicitly say it, obviously want us to post some of their material on our fabulous blog. It's called free advertising. Blogs are, like, so influential now, you know. I'm sure that in a few months when we are, like, the next Hipster Runnoff and my inbox is constantly clogged with e-mails from "Upcoming Bandz" I'll rue this day. But since none of that has happened yet, I am somewhat excited, and I'll admit it, a little bit flattered too.

Now, while I don't really dig these "Sugar Oaks", as they like to call themselves, I thought I'd post some of their stuff anyway, to mark what is a Number One Millionaire landmark of sorts.
Also, I just wanna send the message out that if you are in a band, or make art, or write poetry, or take photos, or have noticed an upcoming youth craze that you want us to post, just e-mail one of us and we might just pop your stuff up. We do love e-mails.

So anyway, The Sugar Oaks are from Orlando, Florida, and describe their sound as "Indie R&B". They've supported such acts as Elf Power and Of Montreal and have a new single called No One Can Love You Like Me (oooh, original!) coming out on the 20th of June. Apparently it will have hand silk screenprinted covers (!). Actually, that fact alone has nearly won me over. I mean, in these days of digital music downloading, who actually buys albums for any reason other than fancy artwork anyway? I know I don't.

Now for a brief semiotic analysis of the band's press photo (click for a larger view):


They're obviously trying to communicate something here about both the band's 'brand' and their musical style. By sitting in long, green grass they're telling us "we like to make lush, organic sounding indie-music, and don't take ourselves too seriously. We hang out and have fun, semi-hippie times sometimes, just like you guys, you know? We're also really good friends, and care a lot about nature." The black background, however, suggests "but we're not all about sunshine and butterflies either, we're a bit dark and moodly sometimes. Our lyrics are deep and penetrative. They're about real, important, existential issues. Like lesbian love, or when you realise that no one can love your gf like you can love your gf."

They've also tried to express that the guy in the middle is the lead singer by making him hold stuff. I mean, he's holding both a cup of tea and a dog which expresses both his down to earth wholesome fun-ness, and the fact that he wears the pants. No one else is holding anything! I bet he's a bit of a control freak and the band all secretly hate him. The two guys to his right are even laughing about him right now: "Oh, fuckin' Jeff, why does he always get to do all the holdin'?" they're saying "we wanna hold stuff too!". There is also a token good looking bearded but not too beareded guy (which every indie band needs) who may or may not be on drugs, and a hot but wholesome looking girl who probably only plays the tambourine, or other quirkly "indie" instruments like the glockenspiel or the viola.

On second thoughts, my detective skills have just detected that on the website the line up only mentions the four guys. So maybe she isn't in the band at all. Maybe she's just the manager, or stylist, or manager's stylist's girlfriend and they just put her in the photo for aesthetic, semiotic reasons, which is why she looks just a tiny bit awkward. Facinating...

Unfortunately I've been having issues with my file hosting bandwidth...but if you still wanna hear their stuff (after I've spoken so highly of them), then I'm sure a quick hype machine search will bear fruitful results.