Black Valley Fight

The Demigs - Cities Can Wait

Chris Demiglio - guitar, vocals
Alex Hastings - guitar, piano, banjo & organ
Sid Bledsoe - bass/upright bass
Guyton Sanders - drums/percussion

Featured players:
Violin: Petra Kelly
Slide guitar: Avery "Smavis" Davis
Vocals: Annie P Ramage
Piano: Kevin Layne
Rhodes: Homer DeSmitt

Artwork by Alex Taylor, Chris Demiglio, Annie P Ramage, Jon Demiglio, Tricia Gray, Federico Archuleta, Ben Piche, Monifa, Beth Waldrop and Brenton Sewell

Recorded at Shady Lane Studios - Denton TX
All songs written, recorded and mixed by Alex Hastings & Chris Demiglio
Additional Engineering/Mixing by Brandon Van Noy
Mastering by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering - Boston, MA
Assistant Mastering Engineer - Maria Rice
DIY & Die On The Vine Records
BMI

Copyright 2011

thedemigs.com

The Demigs would like to thank:
Annie P Ramage, Petra Kelly, Smavis, Kevin Layne, Homer & the other Homer, Stu, Shaun Colón, Destiny, Brandon Van Noy, Chris Wilder, Jeff Lipton, Maria Rice, Alex Taylor, Jon Demiglio, Tricia Gray, Spooky Folk, Kyle, Jayson, Jake, Aimee, Big Jon, Bill, Jason Bacchus, Monica, Montanna, Scott Tucker, the twins, Casey Diiorio, Cody Garcia, Shawn White, Dean & Cindy, Lu, Martha Beth, Stephanie, Pete Sanders, Ben Piche, Angelica Navarro, Jennifer Sanders, Federico Archuleta, Beth, Brenton, Susie & W, Kat, Mark Calabro, Leebo & Lisa Ruth, Cathy, Wayne, Wendy, Ben & Mary Frances





The Demigs’ New CD, Cities Can Wait
Posted on March 25, 2011
by Nathan Russell, listendfw.com

If you haven’t heard them, the Demigs are a local rock/pop band that embody the DIY spirit that Denton has come to embrace as its signature quality. Guitarist/keyboardist Alex Hastings asked me to listen to the new album, Cities Can Wait, and I’m seriously pleased by it. Cities is the best CD I’ve heard that’s come out of the metroplex this year, and it doesn’t hurt that it invokes an almost Malkmusian attention in the way that every honest guitar riff and each youthful recollection demands your attention in the way you ordinarily would reserve for a veteran of the genre. I say this having never listened to any of the Demigs’ output before and having never seen them perform.

I’ve had to listen to the album a few times to really let it sink in how much of a cohesive record Cities Can Wait is, as the conflicting styles and influences mask this pretty well at first. The first few songs, including “Canada,” (which is very likely my favorite song I’ve heard in weeks) are pretty chill, Pavement/Doolittle Pixies almost surf rock sounding tracks, but that changes very drastically with the sixth track, appropriately named “Gusto” that is more of a loud, indignant rocker with Queens of the Stone Age vocals and Strokes guitars mixed with their minimalist alternative rock sound that characterizes the entire CD. The most pleasure that I got from this album has certainly been from the last five tracks though (which are closer in style to the opening tracks, but considerably darker) from “Minx” to “Slum, Alaska,” there is a gold mine of great lyrics from the opening lines: “Well, you know Jack the Ripper, they say he’s a pretty good kisser” in “Minx” to references to Swedish folk heroes, and the entire final, dreamy stanza of album closer “Slum, Alaska” that you’ll just have to hear for yourself.

My aim with the blog portion of my site is not to really objectively rate CDs, shows, etc. objectively and I refuse to do so, but I’m having a hard time not giving The Demigs’ sophomore album a lot of stars. The album artwork is also really cool, so you should definitely pick it up on April 5th.