2018-19 Guide To Yellow Springs

23 Y e l l ow S p r i n g s N ews the Guide to YelLow Springs y 2018 - 1 9 y Speaking Suns on the rise y By Tracy perkins-schmittler and megan bachman While there are many bands out there keeping the venerable traditions of rock ‘n’ roll, blues and funk alive and well, there is one pioneering a new sound for a new era. That band is Speaking Suns. A group of Yellow Springs High School grads — Jacob Diebold, David Bryne, Rourke Papania, Jay Teilhet and Dylan Sage — now in their 20s, the confident five-piece sounds like what’s next. Drop - ping expectations and conventions about how they should play their instruments and how they should sound, Speaking Suns is inspired and authentic. Seven years after they formed, pop-rock band Speaking Suns is on the rise. In the summer of 2018, the group performed as part of the Bellwether Music Festival in Waynesville, sharing a stage with such national headline acts as The Flaming Lips, Echo & the Bunnymen and the Psyche- delic Furs. In addition, the group is set to release a new full-length album in the spring of 2019. Speaking Suns recorded their first EP, “Part One” on their own in 2013. They have recorded and released two LP’s: “Vanishing Country,” in 2014, and “Range,” in 2017. Vanishing Country was released by Great Guys Records, the label of Yellow Springs native and former Speaking Suns-bandmate Connor Stratton. The album explores the changing Ohio landscape of the members’ youth — the old farm equipment rusting in fields and dying small towns. “The whole wide country is vanishing,” sings Diebold in the refrain of “Symmetry.” But far from melancholy, the album has more of a warm, nostalgic feel. As Stratton said of the album, “It’s a lot like [the band’s] sound — dark but endearing.” Speaking Suns’ style ranges from psyche- delic dream pop, to indie, to art rock, and borders on chamber pop. Recently the band has gotten somewhat more sociopolitical, singing about such subjects as “empty capi- talism,” diversity and multiculturalism. According to bassist Dylan Sage, the fact that the band is all white and all male means they need to be active as allies through their music. “Coming from privilege, we feel an obliga- tion to be more politically active to support diversity, minorities and those less fortu - nate,” Sage said. After officially forming in 2011, the band Yellow Springs-based pop-rock band Speaking Suns performed as part of Waynesville’s Bellwether Festival in the summer of 2018. Speaking Suns’ members are, from left: Dylan Sage, Jacob Diebold, Jay Teilhet, Rourke Papania and David Byrne. • submitted photo by khalil Nasar has gone through several iterations. Key - boardist Rourke “Rory” Papania is a newer addition to the band. Jacob “Jake” Diebold is the lead singer and guitarist, hailing originally from Akron. He became good friends with Jay Teilhet, who plays guitar in the band, and Sage. Teilhet also improvises makeshift hand-crafted instruments that provide a variety of sounds for the group’s studio recordings. Sage and David Byrne, who plays drums, played percussion together in the high school band. Byrne’s parents played for a time with the band Swearing at Motorists, which began in Dayton in the early 1990s and went on to tour internationally. In an interview this summer, band mem- bers said they were excited to be per- forming amid a lineup of bands that were influential in their development. “It doesn’t seem real,” Papania said. 1 Springs Healing Massage Since 1999! Amy Spurr, LMT • 374-2699 Keri Speck, LMT, RYT • 767-8483 Swedish Massage • Myofascial Release Pregnancy Massage • Deep Tissue • Reiki Master 213W.Whiteman St. rear building, Yellow Springs Service Company,Inc. How well do you know your LOCAL PLUMBING & HEATING COMPANY? AIR CONDITIONING / HEATING We service all brands & install: • Bryant furnaces and air conditioning units • Gas furnaces and boilers PLUMBING We repair & install: • In-house plumbing and fixtures We install & repair: • Water Heaters • North Star Water Softeners • On-Demand Water Heaters We install new & repair old: • Water lines, sewer lines, gas lines • “Inside & outside” • DOT-certified #LWS • State ID #27702 COMPLETE BATHROOM & KITCHEN REMODELING We install: • Ceramic wall & floor tiling • Cabinets / faucets / fixtures www.acserviceyso.com 116 Dayton St. 767-7406 or 767-7404 We’re a local business offering COMPETITIVE PRICING & a 100-YEAR, RESPONSIBLE RELATIONSHIP with the people of Yellow Springs! Financing available!