The CO

Before I even begin to talk about this week’s featured band I want to send out my prayers to the Nashville community. A devastating flood has hit, destroying homes and lives with no mercy. I know that during and after this crisis we will see the community of Nashville all coming together to help its neighbors. I have seen what an amazing community of musicians are there supporting each other in their careers so I know without a doubt they will be supporting each other during this time. Already as I’ve been researching this week’s band I’ve seen their efforts to help their town by setting up sand bags and helping friends who have lost their homes. This week’s band, The CO, are some amazing guys who met at a local university in Nashville and have stayed there to pursue their careers as musicians. Another Brite Revolution find, the band supports the Dalit Freedom Network which you can learn more about at the bottom of the post.

The CO began with Collin Brace, lead vocals, and Troy Akers, keys and vocals, who started writing songs together during college. The two decided to form a band and were joined by Nate Fleming on drums and later Will Harrison on guitar and Jordan Hester on bass. The band is a pop/rock group that reminds me of One Republic with a little Kris Allen thrown in. Their songs sing of rough times and struggling faith in their tracks, “Keep It Together” and “Hold On,” as well as love in their track, “Come In Closer.” The song writing of this band shows great promise and I can easily see them going far in their careers.

The CO has one album out available for $7.92 on Amazon here and iTunes here. If you are enjoying this band I would recommend buying it through the links provided or through their website links below since it will not be easy to find their music just searching for it. I tried and quickly gave up and found it through the provided links on Brite. Since CO is a very common word when googling The CO you will find a million other companies and websites before finding anything related to the band, which made it a bit hard to research. Even a search on iTunes and Amazon resulted in so many other options before I found them. So, if I had one recommendation for this band it would be a name change. I know that sounds quite brazen of me to suggest that a band change its name but I believe that you want potential fans to find you easily online. If I had heard a friend mention them or heard them playing on the radio I don’t know that I would have had much luck following up with their music. For now I’m making it easy for all of you readers to find more of their music. I hope you can use this as a resource to share this music with your friends because The CO is really a great band that deserves to be heard. And boys, if you ever read this, know that my intentions are not to bash your name choice but help you to be even more successful they you already are.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s featured band. You can follow them on Twitter to get updates on the Nashville flood and learn more on their website, facebook and myspace page. Make sure to leave your comments below on what you think of the music.

The CO Website

The CO on Myspace

The CO on Twitter

The CO on Facebook

Dalit Freedom Network - Approximately 250 million Indians (a full 25% of the population), are Dalit. In a country where everybody is supposed to have equal rights and opportunities, one out of four people is condemned to be untouchable.

The Dalit Freedom Network partners with the Dalits in their quest for religious freedom, social justice, and human dignity by mobilizing human, informational, and financial resources. Learn more from the website.

Photo 1 & 3 - by michael sloane of strategic blend

Needtobreathe

We finally have our first band featured here on Monday Musicology and I think this band is a great transition from the singer/songwriter genre that all our previous features belong to. Atlantic Record’s Needtobreathe has become one of my favorite new bands. I first heard their song “More Time” on the P.S. I love You soundtrack and found myself adding in three part harmonies every time it played on my iPod. After realizing that I really liked the track from the soundtrack I researched the band and purchased their recent album, The Heat.

The Heat is the second album for Needtobreathe band members Bear and Bo Rineheart, Seth Bolt and Joe Stillwell soon to have their third album The Outsiders to be released this August. Their first album, Daylight was released to 2006 and has some great tracks that are worth checking out.

Bear and Bo are brothers raised in Possum Kingdom, South Carolina as sons of a local pastor there. Now that may sound pretty honky to some of you but you wouldn’t know it listening to their music. There is no washboard or harmonica, just some good American rock. They also place a lot of importance in what they write and the music they produce. Here’s what Bear has to say about their music,

“There are moments in music—maybe it’s a whole song, sometimes it’s just a portion—that when you hear it, it just breaks you down. We really wanted to get those kinds of moments on this record. We wanted this record to hit people in a really strong way.”

Music is huge in my life and for many others and it affects us emotionally. There is music that affects our youth and us in a bad way and then there is music that encourages us through a dark or rough time in our lives. That encouraging music that touches me on an emotional level is one of the things that makes me love music so much. I’m loving their current album and I eagerly await for the new release in just a couple months. I hope you all liked it to this week.



Please leave your comments on what you think of the music and make sure to become a follower of this blog if you enjoy it!