Future Lives

Pre-punk, anti-folk, dad pop from Athens, Ga. RIYD Belle & Sebastian, Neil Young, Magnetic Fields But then he stopped -- in the South, of all places. But it is.

https://futurelives.bandcamp.com/

"The word 'supergroup' can be something of a catch-all for musical collaborations, but new band Future Lives truly embody the word." -- American Songwriter

"Americana-tinged road songs that are ready to inspire and delight eager listeners." -- Mother Church Pew

"It’s the best sort of orchestrated pop music, offering up lighthearted joy for us all. This is just

the sort of gem you expect from a band hailing from Athens." -- Austin Town Hall

"The newly formed supergroup have an inviting personality to their music, spiraling through multiple genres and moods with taste." -- New Noise Magazine

"The album is awash with beautifully developed songs...delivered by some very talented musicians and vocalists." -- Bee Hive Candy

King of Prussia songwriter Brandon Taj Hanick wasn’t planning to stop. He had been living out of a suitcase, traveling around the U.S. & Europe for 9 months -- wandering; visiting old haunts with old friends in his old towns; recording and then touring in support of the band’s critically acclaimed 2014 double album Zonian Girls...And The Echoes that Surround Us All (Minty Fresh Records); making a mobile album and producing the guerrilla-style, award-winning music road trip documentary Poster Boys or: The Art of Mobile Recording. To pay the bills, Hanick worked writing ACT Test questions remotely and peddling Animal House & Audrey Hepburn posters to dorm-dwelling students. She said, “Come on back to Georgia, and I’ll be here!” And he had to go. And he had to stay. And now they’re reveling in the early years of marriage together in Athens, where it all began for pysch poppers King of Prussia “all those years ago.”

The Athenians are a little older, more responsible, maybe; the door guy became the bartender, the bartender became the owner. Like Athens, the “highly literate” songwriting that Hanick has become known for has also aged like a fine, young cannibal, calling to mind the narrative, visual lyrics of Young, Cohen and Merritt. Future Lives’ Mansions sounds like Athens -- the autumnal twang of Buffalo Springfield steeped in a psychedelic Elephant 6 summer. Mansions doesn’t take time for granted. It’s the warm excitement of a new, deep love. “The Knowing.” Seeing the world and watching fire fill city squares. Exploring the space/time continuum at a street fair in a dream. Dealing with death, because it’s inevitable. And it’s the end. But it’s not. There are spirited elements throughout the songs, which vacillate between California Country and Liverpudlian Indie Pop. At the heart of the songs is love. There are lines about finding God and then wondering which God was found. When Future Lives delves into gospel on songs like “Continental Drift Divide,” Hanick opines over of finely spun hymnal harmonies, “You must be a sign from God/And you could still be a vision of Vishnu or ‘The Eye’/And you’re by my side.”

Fourteen people played in Mansions, but the heart of Future Lives is six major dude(tte)s. Hanick sings, plays guitars and orchestrates what Flagpole Magazine calls “a veritable supergroup.” Ex-Drive By Trucker John Neff bends his pedal steel lines like sine waves etching hummable tunes into the brain. Memphis-bred Sarah Robbins stax layers of rich, crystal-clear vocal harmonies that would sound at home on a Staple Singers record. In addition to arranging the vocals with Smile-esque wonder, Sarah’s big bro Nick Robbins (Velveteen Pink) brings musical inventiveness to his complex, but tasteful, drum parts. Patrick Burke (ex-Giving Tree Band), whose Lynchian flow and precision on bass buoys the jams, isn’t shy about picking out a lead guitar part that David Crosby would twirl his moustache to. Cameron Steuart’s string parts are as cinematic as they are down-home; as much canvas as they are ether. The arrangements are dense, but the expert mixing ears and of John Keane (R.E.M., Vic Chesnutt, 10,000 Maniacs) ensure that every part breathes. In some ways, Hanick’s new songs are a return to the primal. In others, he’s in search of the Divine. Listening to songs like the Petty-esque “California Vibe” -- which speak of the pitfalls of hyper-consumerism, “our true connection with God” and not being “too fu**ed up” by past injustices -- it’s unclear if Hanick ever finds complete peace in the universe on Mansions. What is clear from Future Lives’ debut, though, is that songs so full of love and meditative reverie can only come from a man who has stopped wandering.

07/04/2024

Happy 4th, y’all! In celebration of our freedoms, Bucky Hunter’s debut single “Gotta Get My Booze On” is out everywhere — give it a spin on Spotify.

Bucky Hunter — Vocals and guitar
Nick Robbins — Drums, bass, guitar and vocals
Sarah Robbins — Vocals
Nicholas Mallis — Banjo
Mixed and mastered by Jesse Mangum at The Glow
Cover art by Winston Parker

Bucky thanks everyone for making this song with him and thanks all who make our country a better place. Today, he’ll be enjoying the freedom to party with his friends and family.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4eFVuoMdbneAonHLBQG9QO?si=215190ab59cb40f4

10/08/2022

“Baby Boy” at Athens Porchfest. Song by Future Lives, dance moves by Sebastian. 😍

10/05/2022

“Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks as a happy birthday jam to my dad on his 73rd. Thank you to everyone who came out and made Historic Athens Porchfest ‘22 an incredible day!!

Special thanks to Jim and Durwood for hosting again in their beautiful outdoor space. And thanks to the Davies brothers for writing such a beautiful song.

The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon (music video)

10/02/2022

A perfect sunny afternoon for blazin’ or lazin’ over to Historic Athens Porchfest 2022, Presented by Cafe Racer!

I’m playing solo at Jim and Durwood’s (258 Lyndon Ave.) at 2 pm. The spirit of The Kinks may make an appearance.

The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon (music video) "Sunny Afternoon" is a song by The Kinks, written by chief songwriter Ray Davies. The track later featured on the Face to Face album as well as being the tit...

Future Lives -- "The Knowing" [Official Music Video]

09/30/2022

I'll be jamming this song and more this Sunday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. for Historic Athens Porchfest 2022, Presented by Cafe Racer!

I'm playing at Durwood and Jim's house -- 258 Lyndon Ave.

Future Lives -- "The Knowing" [Official Music Video] Music video for "The Knowing" from Future Lives' debut album Mansions. Music and video copyright 2017.Lyrics:Spent a long and lonely on winter on Chi-town’s ...

09/28/2022

Super stoked to be playing my first solo show in many years. King of Prussia songs, Future Lives songs, new songs, old jokes. Cash me outside! (How 'bout dat?)

09/25/2022

Really excited to play Historic Athens Porchfest again at Jim & Durwood's awesome place. Come check out 150 Athens artists for free AND support a good cause!

09/22/2022

Come hang! Porchfest at Jim and Durwood’s amazing place again. 258 Lyndon Ave.!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1753966924993287

09/20/2022

Very excited to play a rare solo show for Historic Athens Porchfest 2022, Presented by Cafe Racer on Sunday, Oct 2!

I'll start at 2 p.m. sharp at 258 Lyndon Ave.

Come see all 150 awesome Athens artists for free from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on porches across historic Athens.

All in support of the non-profit Historic Athens!

Special thanks to Jim and Durwood for hosting me again in their very awesome backyard. Come hang!

10/20/2021

Brandon's new project with Pancake Adolfsson SLATERQUAIDQUETZALCOATL just released its first single ever!

We wrote and recorded "Love, Don't Change" and most of the album *Serpentine* in a cramped, very cold, 13th Century Monastery apartment in a small Mallorcan village called Valldemossa -- just a few steps away from where Frederic Chopin lived for a while.

We tried to channel his spirit and what came out was rather odd and sometimes dark. I guess Little Frederic was a rather odd, sometimes dark fellow.

We finished recording in Catalunya and got some help from our friends Vasco Batista and Cameron Steuart before Jesse Mangum mixed and mastered this bad boy in Athens at The Glow Recording Studio.

Give it a spin and stay strange! 👁

https://open.spotify.com/album/10tekZxyxlOosEg2YCzAzv?si=8sQHNzGjTFah003LaZo4Dw

Love, Don't Change SLATERQUAIDQUETZALCOATL · Single · 2021 · 1 songs

10/19/2021

Tomorrow, Oct. 20, Brandon's project with his Swedish bud Pancake Adolfsson, SLATERQUAIDQUETZALCOATL, will release their first single ever, "Love, Don't Change," on all platforms.

Here's a bit about the album that took 10 years to start and only three sessions to write, arrange and record.

"Within those first four November hours in 2018, holed up in the flat that would become their studio for the next five days, the boys (who groove) created the abstracts for six of the songs that would become The Serpentine. They had never channeled music so effortlessly.

Recording in real time, they knew exactly what to play and sing -- even if they didn’t fully understand the lyrics that were pouring out of them. They were mediums; vessels. Perhaps they were conductors for the notes of Little Frederic Chopin. He had lived down the lane with his lover George Sand. He came to Mallorca to get healthy -- before his tuberculosis worsened thanks to his mal assumption that the island climate was sunny & fresh rather than the cold, wet reality of Mallorcan winters."

We're really thrilled to put this out into the world.

https://www.facebook.com/Slaterquaidquetzalcoatl-111329081327141

Slaterquaidquetzalcoatl SLATERQUAIDQUETZALCOATL is the time-traveling American-Swedish duo of Brandon Taj Hanick + PerHenrik Adolfsson. Birthed in the Valldemossa Valley of Mallorca by way of Barcelona by way of Bulbous Creation, SQQ makes valley goth for valley folk.

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Future Lives

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