I’ve written pretty often about Heyrocco, a great trio from Charleston, including this lengthy Savannah Stopover preview.

I’ve taken photos of Heyrocco on a number of their Savannah trips:

I recapped the entire event in my glowing Unplugged column last week in Do in the Savannah Morning News, so here I’m just going to make some random observations and attach an album of the photos that I’d say are my favorites from the weekend.

But first, a taste of Paste’s writeup:

Canadian Mac DeMarco was one of [the highlights], posturing like a crazed frontman and mixing 80s metal covers into his original material, inciting moshing, screaming and stagediving from a packed crowd at The Jinx. Brooklynâ€s Christopher Paul Stelling had a more intimate show, arriving just seconds before his set but still managing to beguile those in attendance. His awe-inspiring guitar fingering and arresting voice, which was simultaneously smooth and guttural, was worth the trip alone. But the crown jewel of the festival for me, and likely for most, was seeing of Montreal play beneath a makeshift band shell in Forsyth Park on a warm, star-filled spring night.

Of Montreal is from Athens, Ga. just a few hours away, but this was their first time playing a set in Savannah. Based on the enthusiastic—borderline chaotic—response from the crowd, I think theyâ€ll be back. A heavily danceable set had everyone, from diehard fans and local families to curious passersby, moving with the music.

For the record, here are the acts that I saw — anywhere from a single song to the entire set:

Thursday:
The Last Bison, Ben Sollee, William Tyler, Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Chelsea Light Moving featuring Thurston Moore, Delicate Steve, Naomi Punk, Mac DeMarco

Friday:
Sam Sniper, Filligar, Heyrocco, this mountain, PUJOL, of Montreal, Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, The Suzan, Country Mice, BRAIDS

Saturday: this mountain, Field Report, Blessed Feathers, The Wild Feathers, Autumn Owls, Little Tybee, Bear Fight!, Royal Canoe, Fine Peduncle, Filligar, Dent May, Roadkill Ghost Choir, Jonathan Toubin’s Soul Clap & Dance Off

Sunday at the VIP and band brunch: Jamison Murphy, Lovely Locks

And there are so many more I wish I had seen.The venues this year were well chosen for their proximity, but I still couldn’t be as many places at once as I would have liked.

I took pictures — at least one or two — of each of the bands I saw, but a few of the venues were really not suitable for quality photography unless you’re sporting some super pricy equipment (and maybe not even then). I’m in love with the fact that Hang Fire has music again, but there no lights on the band. None. B&D Burgers’ stages — both inside and out — are poorly lit, and the stages at Congress Street Social Club are only a little better. Taco Abajo has enough light, but the cartoonish backdrop and structural pillars are problematic. I hope the lighting is something the venues themselves might address sooner rather than later — they certainly won’t see many appealing shots of bands at their venues if they don’t address the lighting problems. More importantly, I think the average music lover prefers venues that have more light on the band than on the audience . . .

Of course, the Savannah Stopover is all about the music, not the lighting, and one of my few complaints would be that we need even more music. Few folks turned out for early Saturday afternoon shows a year ago, so it made sense to wait and start the music this year at 4 p.m.. But I think crowds will eventually support sets from noon or 1 p.m. onward. And I hope that next year we’ll see Friday and Saturday night sets that run right up till last call. With all the venues seeming to run more or less on schedule — a rare feat in Savannah — I sort of ran out of music before I ran out of energy on the last two nights.

I also haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that so many young Savannahians in the Stopover’s target demographic don’t seem to quite know what the festival is yet. The Savannah Music Festival has had some similar issues. But it’s hard to blame the festivals. Both the Savannah Morning News and Connect Savannah had extensive coverage in advance of the Stopover; the Stopover has a robust social media game; people like me with literally thousands of social media contacts were routinely posting about it. But on the Friday afternoon that of Montreal was scheduled to play in Forsyth, a Facebook friend of mine — a young, intelligent, gay college student who would obviously be interested in that performance — updated his status with shock and surprise about the show. How did he miss that crucial news for so many weeks? How can people like him be reached? Will it just take a few more years to get the festival ingrained in the local culture?

By the way, rather than rely on my press connection, I bought a VIP pass for the event — just $120 — which included a significant number of free drinks, plus access to the Stopover recording sessions at Dollhouse Productions, to the artists’ lounge above The Sparetime, and to the final brunch on Sunday afternoon at one of the best party houses in town.

What. A. Bargain.

If the Stopover is ever forced to restrict photography as some festivals have been, I might need to go for the press credentials, but I’m happy to support such an amazing event and I prefer the freedom that comes with paying my own way.

I’ve already done separate posts about some of the acts that I caught: Mac DeMarco, The Suzan, Chelsea Light Moving, Filligar, Little Tybee, and The Last Bison. But there were plenty of others that excited me.

Among the standouts that I was seeing for the first time were Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Field Report, William Tyler, Filligar, and The Suzan.

I’ve seen both this mountain and Heyrocco multiple times, but they never cease to impress.

I’m going to post a much larger collection of photos to the Savannah Unplugged Facebook page in a day or two, so please like that page if you want to see that update and others.

So here are some of my favorite shots from the 2013 Savannah Stopover. Click for larger versions or open using Cooliris. If you hover over a pic, you can see the act and the location.

For these and more pics — many of dubious quality — click here for a Facebook album.

I pretty much want to see every single act that’s playing in the time slots from 9 p.m. on tonight. So much talent.

Of course, there’s no reason to wait that long for great music. Christopher Paul Stelling, Pree, and a number of local acts kick things off at 4 p.m. at various downtown venues.

And it sure looks like a gorgeous day.

Yesterday was as tremendous as I hoped it would be. It’s very difficult to estimate crowds in Forsyth Park, but I’d say there were at least three thousand — that’s really conservative — for the free all ages show with headliner of Montreal and opening act Royal Canoe. In between those sets, Pujol played a few typically tight tunes in the parking lot next to the Third Man Records truck.

So here are a few pics from yesterday. These are unedited. I will be posting more pics and maybe even a couple of videos once I have time really to sit down and go through the shots I’ve taken, and then maybe clean a few of them up a little.

So here are some shots that include Filligar at B&D Burgers, Heyrocco at Taco Abajo, Pujol and of Montreal in Forsyth Park, Alex Bleeker & the Freaks at The Jinx, The Suzan at Club One, and Country Mice at The Jinx.

The trio has only one full-length album behind them — last year’s Comfort — and they’ve logged far fewer miles on the road than most of the other Stopover bands I’ll be previewing here in the coming weeks.

But Heyrocco has as much upside potential as any young band I’ve heard in recent years. Their high-energy live shows are rich and unpredictable — you have no idea what they’re going to try next, but the choices always seem just right, like they know what you want before you do.

From the band’s website:

The stars were aligned when childhood friends Nathan Jake Merli (vocals, guitar, hair gel), Christopher Cool (bass, korg, driving), Tanner Cooper (drums, mandolin) decided to put their studies on hold in pursuit of triumphant face-melting. This Charleston-bred trio may be known for their dark, nostalgic pop tunes, but offer a compelling, energetic performance on stage. Their music is reminiscent of bands such as The Cure, Nada Surf, and early Strokes spiked with an experimental blend of Broken Social Scene meets On A Friday. After spending the year touring with acts such as Surfer Blood, Mutemath, & Miniature Tigers, they began to work on their upcoming release with producer Josh Kaler (William Fitzsimmons, Jump Little Children) in December of 2012.

I first caught Heyrocco at the No Control Fest here in Savannah in February 2012. It was a daytime gig, well before the crowds swelled later that night at the Southern Pine Company, and I frankly wasn’t even paying close attention to the stage when they started. But I heard enough to make me want more and made sure to catch a couple of other stellar Savannah shows last fall — one at another No Control Fest and then one upstairs at The Sparetime.

Heyrocco might almost be too good for their own good: they seem comfortable playing in so many styles that they could be stretched too many directions at once. As you can tell in the clips below, Merli can do a lot of different acrobatics with that voice.

But they’re young — the perfect time to experiment and see how the crowds respond.

I’m not the only one who’s this enthusiastic: check out this post by David Stringer at Scene SC.

I’m posting this preview so early because Heyrocco has a busy tour schedule for the next couple of weeks — good vibes in the aether sure can’t hurt. Here’s the lineup:

FEB 1 // CHARLESTON, SC // ROYAL AMERICAN
FEB 2 // COLUMBIA, SC // CONUNDRUM MUSIC HALL
FEB 5 // NASHVILLE, TN // THE BASEMENT
FEB 6 // LOUISVILLE, KY // ZAZOOâ€S
FEB 7 // CHICAGO, IL // THE DEN THEATRE
FEB 8 // COLUMBUS, OH // TREE BAR
FEB 9 // BROOKLYN, NYC // SHEA STADIUM
FEB 11 // HARRISONBURG, VA // BLUE NILE
FEB 12 // CHAPEL HILL, NC // THE NIGHTLIGHT
FEB 13 // CHARLOTTE, NC // EVENING MUSE
FEB 14 // VALENTINEâ€S DAY // I LOVE YOU
FEB 15 // GREENVILLE, SC // RADIO ROOM
FEB 16 // ATHENS, GA // FARM 255
FEB 22 // WILMINGTON, NC // THE SATELLITE
MAR 7 // SAVANNAH, GA // SAVANNAH STOPOVER FEST

Those gigs are also under “events” on Heyrocco’s Facebook page.

Heyrocco’s Stopover gig will by an all-ages show at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 8 at Taco Abajo. The face-melting will just have to start early that day.

Here’s Heyrocco’s tight, poppy new single “Elsewhere”, which channels both youthful innocence and lust:

If you don’t have the time or inclination to listen to this whole album, start with “Rave Monks”:

And a great single from 2011:

I took some pictures at No Control and at The Sparetime. Being photogenic isn’t going to hurt.

And that’s really good news — at least for anyone who likes smart, energetic indie rock with beautiful vocals, a relentless beat, and a nod or two to New Wave sounds.

I loved Heyrocco’s set at this fall’s No Control Festival, and I would have likely gotten their followup gig at The Sparetime into one of my newspaper columns if the booking had been finalized in time. Local up-and-coming opener Deep Search spurred a good turnout.

And then Heyrocco did a tight, upbeat set in an increasingly hot and sweaty room.

A single track recorded in late 2011:

And here’s Heyrocco’s first LP Comfort:

“Rave Monks” is my favorite track on that album, btw, which the band also picked out as Comfort‘s most representative song in an interview with The Blue Indian.

It’s sort of a makeshift space on the second floor of The Sparetime, and I had one of the single incandescent bulbs moved from backlighting to frontlighting for Heyrocco’s set. I didn’t realize at the time that some of my shots of lead singer Nathan Jake Merli would include a large drawing of a naked hairy man, but there you have it.

Some shots from The Sparetime on October 25th:

And a few shots that I took at No Control:

You can find Heyrocco on Facebook, tumblr, Bandcamp, and Twitter.

Tonight — Thursday — The Sparetime’s upstairs room will host the local Savannah band Deep Search and an excellent young band from Charleston: Heyrocco. The show had been booked a while ago, then canceled, but is now back on.

I’m not really familiar with Savannah-based Deep Search, although I did catch a couple of songs at their recent, high-energy set at No Control’s mini fall festival.

But I caught all of Heyrocco’s set at No Control, which was stunningly good, and I’ve listened to the up-and-coming trio’s latest album Comfort a number of times since. The tracks channel many moods and draw from many styles, but there’s a really satisfying cohesiveness to the whole effort.

Here are sample tunes:

And here are some pics I took at No Control. The first one is of Deep Search, but all the rest are Heyrocco.

The No Control Mini Fall Festival occupied part of the sprawling Southern Pine Company — a few vendors were in the courtyard and a busy lineup of bands played in the airy old workshop at the north end of the site. Despite all the hard surfaces, the space turned out to be great for music. The proportions of the room made it comfortable for the small crowds early in the day and the much larger ones at night. The sound was really good, and the mix of lighting sources created beautiful effects. I wish there had been more folks about taking photos — it’s hard to figure that in a town full of photo students and aspiring photographers that so few show up for visual public spectacles like this.

Heyrocco lead singer Nathan Merli

But I did catch the first act Sauna Heat, comprised of members of Triathalon, and I did get a couple of pics of Triathalon lead singer Adam Intrator doing chalk drawings as a couple kids looked on.

You’ll also see shots here of Perhaps, an instrumental rock trio from Boston; Cement Stars from Charlotte; Deep Search; and Charleston-based Heyrocco.

I loved Cement Stars’ tight set.

And I have little doubt that Savannah live music fans are going to be hearing a lot more from Heyrocco. I’ll soon be posting more about them or perhaps writing about the band in an upcoming Savannah Morning News column.

For now, take a listen:

All in all, the No Control Fall Festival was a great chance to sample up and coming bands, several of which have shared stages with CUSSES in recent months.

Some pics, click to enlarge:

The fest will be at Southern Pine Company at 616 East 35th St., along East Broad Street. There’s much more info on the Facebook event invitation.

$10 at the door. Doors open at 4 p.m., with DJs first and bands starting at 5:30.

The folks with CUSSES are the main organizers. Thanks in advance to them for their efforts in organizing this!

It’s an intriguing lineup of short sets by local and out-of-town acts, with an emphasis on youth. There have been a couple of lineup changes:

• 4-5:30: DJs
• 5:30-6: Sauna Heat
• 6:15-6:45: Perhaps
• 7-7:30: Hot Plate
• 7:45-8:15: Deep Search
• 8:30-9: Whaleboat
• 9:15-9:50: Cement Stars
• 10:05-10:40: Cloudeater
• 10:55-11:30: Heyrocco
• 11:45-12:30: Triathalon

A few clips and images:

I was very impressed with Heyrocco at the last No Control Festival:

Triathalon on Broughton Street for Fashion’s Night Out Savannah 2012.

Triathalon is one of the best young bands I’ve heard in a long time:

Sauna Heat is a garage rock band fronted by Triathalon’s Michael Younker:

Cement Stars:

Whaleboat:

Deep Search:

Cloudeater:

Perhaps:

Hot Plate: