{"id":24735,"date":"2016-02-26T13:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=24735"},"modified":"2017-08-14T11:19:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T16:19:25","slug":"tmn-radio-new-artist-the-haymarket-squares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=24735","title":{"rendered":"TMN Radio New Artist: The Haymarket Squares"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Haymarket<\/a>Blending acoustic instruments, fast tempos, rich harmonies and rabble-rousing lyrics, The Haymarket Squares have been bringing punkgrass to audiences since 2009. \u201cThey\u2019re smart. They\u2019re funny. They\u2019re raging against the machine in four-part harmony,\u201d says the Arizona Republic of the group\u2019s incisive lyrics and boundless live energy.
\nThat range of styles and emotions characterizes The Haymarket Squares\u2019 new album, Light It Up, due for release in February 2016. It\u2019s a 12-song summation of the band\u2019s musical influences and lyrical concerns, with tasty dollops of polka, gospel, and Latin percussion mixed into the group\u2019s signature punkgrass sound.<\/p>\n

While recalling choirs and chapels, \u201cHeaven,\u201d the album\u2019s gospel-tinged opener, dismisses the idea of divine help and optimistically asserts the power of ordinary humans:<\/p>\n

“There ain\u2019t no heaven, got to make one here<\/em>
\nNo father, no son, no heavenly choir<\/em>
\nJust hearts and hands and our desire.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The urgent \u201cHorrible Inventions\u201d (driven by a blistering solo from slide guitarist Mark Allred) takes on the dirty business of unjust border policies:<\/p>\n

“We got helicopters, <\/em>quads and drones<\/em>
\nBorder towns becoming battle zones<\/em>
\nThere\u2019s humans to catch and money to be made<\/em>
\nFrom the victims of free trade.”<\/em><\/p>\n

With an accordion providing a melancholy backdrop, Light It Up\u2019s first single, \u201cLet\u2019s Start A Riot,\u201d perfectly captures
\nthe \u201ccrushing weight of boredom and responsibility\u201d of adult life, as the narrator finds himself \u201csitting in a cubicle,
\nstarting at a screen, playing with the lighter in the pocket of my jeans.\u201d
\nThe witty wordplay and pointed commentary continues throughout the rest of the album, touching on everything from surveillance (\u201cNo Such Agency\u201d) to liberal guilt (\u201cPart of the Problem\u201d) to the end of the world (\u201cGoodbye\u201d).
\nAcoustic guitarist John Luther Norris somehow manages to mention Zapatistas, Japanese vending machines, and elephants in his Latin-infused \u201cJump the Border.\u201d And no Haymarket Squares release would be complete without a love\/hate ditty about their hometown of Phoenix, where there are \u201ca million little places with local bands and beer,
\nto have a drink and wonder what the hell you\u2019re doing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the songs on the album have been part of the band\u2019s live show for years while others are recent arrivals. But they all share the same genesis: \u201cWe\u2019ll hear or read something on the news that pisses us off, and a few days\/
\nweeks\/months later, a new song arrives,\u201d laughs Mark Sunman, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist who wrote several tracks on Light It Up. \u201cFor better or worse, there\u2019s no shortage of inspiration out there,\u201d adds Marc Oxborrow, who sings, plays bass, and wrote a number of songs on the album.<\/p>\n

In 2015, The Haymarket Squares were nominated as Best Local Band by the Phoenix New Times, who called them \u201cPhoenix\u2019s original protest band\u201d and \u201cone of the most distinctly talented groups in town.\u201d
\nAnd in 2010, less than two years after their humble Craigslist beginnings (a rare case where online matchmaking actually worked), The Haymarket Squares won the Train Tracks band competition in
\nPhoenix, beating out 50 other local acts in a year-long battle of acoustic performances on the city\u2019s light rail system. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been able to hold our own in that kind of setting,\u201d says fiddle player Jayson James. \u201cIn fact, we end most shows by wading out into the crowd to play a few acoustic numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Haymarket Squares are now playing on\u00a0TMN Radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blending acoustic instruments, fast tempos, rich harmonies and rabble-rousing lyrics, The Haymarket Squares have been bringing punkgrass to audiences since 2009. \u201cThey\u2019re smart. They\u2019re funny.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"TMN Radio New Artist: The Haymarket Squares","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,1832,3402],"tags":[9351,9352,9349,9341,9345,9342,9346,9347,9344,9340,9348,9350,106,9339,7293,9343],"class_list":["post-24735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-kfhs-radio","category-area-music","tag-fortunate-son","tag-goodbye","tag-gritty-city","tag-heaven","tag-high-demand","tag-horrible-inventions","tag-jump-the-border","tag-king-me","tag-lets-start-a-riot","tag-light-it-up","tag-no-such-agency","tag-part-of-the-problem","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-the-haymarket-squares","tag-tmn-radio-new-artist","tag-working-reward","post_format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24735"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24757,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24735\/revisions\/24757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}