Cymbals Eat Guitars profile picture

Cymbals Eat Guitars

About Me

Contact Us:
Management: Eddie Bezalel
Publicity North America: Kip Kouri @ Tell All Your Friends PR
Publicity France: Jenny @ Nin-Nin Rose
Publicity UK: Dan @ Anorak
Booking Europe & Asia: Paul Boswell @ Free Trade
Booking North America: Trey Many @ Billions
Radio UK: Guillermo @ Anorak
Radio North America: Hannah @ Spectre
Online UK: Alex @ Anorak
Email the band

"You could blame it on so many bands being from autophobic NYC, or that the Pacific Northwest gods of indie are still going too strong to already be a primary influence, but neither would explain New York's Cymbals Eat Guitars' Why There Are Mountains. While there's plenty of geographical signifiers on their debut, it's almost topographic in its approach, without hooks and choruses so much as map-like layouts of mountains and sloping valleys." --Pitchfork [Best New Music]
"Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn. Let’s give some respect to Staten Island, home of Cymbals Eat Guitars. It’s a fledgling indie-rock quartet, but Joseph D’Agostino, its 20-year-old guitarist, singer and principal songwriter, seems like a one-man shop. He fits a lot into his music. The songs on the band’s self-released first album, “Why There Are Mountains,” which served as the basis for Thursday’s set, contain ecstatic passion; wordy, lyrical precision; hazy, drifting instrumental interludes; chiming, mechanistic, clean-toned strumming; wild, dirty, stuttering solos.The sources for his inspiration can be obvious — Pavement, Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr. — but so are his ambition and passion. And with “Tunguska,” a new song played near the end of the set, he’s made that most difficult thing in self-consciously smart music: a ballad, one strong enough to make young women near the stage look at him with big eyes.Seeing the band live drove home the full effect of guileless catharsis: Mr. D’Agostino wears himself out for you. (Like a clutch hitter between swings, he ritually composed himself after every song, wiping down his guitar neck, adjusting his capo, taking a deep breath.)" --The New York Times
"Staten Island band Cymbals Eat Guitars came out of seemingly nowhere when, a little under a month ago, their debut album, Why There Are Mountains, was bestowed Pitchfork's "Best New Music" honor. Who were these guys? Staten Island, seriously? They were, of course, four hustling musicians who'd struck gold on the songwriting front, crafting a beastly, obtuse album that sounds a lot like Built To Spill, if Built To Spill actually had some youth on their side and could still throw down in a street fight or get upset over a girl." -- RCRD LBL
"Why There Are Mountains may be one of the best 'indie' (the album is self-released, so, y'know, actually 'indie') albums of the year. And with the major label skyline being obliterated like something out of Independence Day, it's time to batten down the hatches." -- NME
"The most obvio​us thing​ about​ Cymba​ls Eat Guita​rs is that their​ epic,​ wides​creen​ indie​ rock bears​ a strik​ing resem​blanc​e to that of Built​ To Spill​ and early​ Modes​t Mouse​.​ The most impre​ssive​ thing​ about​ them,​ howev​er,​ is just how comfo​rtabl​e they sound​ playi​ng aroun​d with a sound​ those​ bands​ defin​ed on album​s like The Lones​ome Crowd​ed West and Keep It Like A Secre​t.​ This isn’t​ just a case of some young​ band weari​ng their​ influ​ences​ on their​ sleev​es,​ and offer​ing up a lesse​r versi​on of their​ favor​ite recor​ds — these​ are stron​g,​ creat​ive playe​rs stret​ching​ out and findi​ng their​ own niche​ withi​n a rich yet large​ly unmin​ed aesth​etic terri​tory.​" -- Fluxblog
"Guitars, bass, keys, drums, hooks hooks hooks. If you are unashamedly an indie-rocker, then this is the indie-rock you like—just stretched and pulled and relaxed in unfamiliar ways." -- Sound Fix
“Do you know how many cities have been built?” D’Agostino asks. He is followed immediately by some brilliant songwriting that remains both unpredictable and convincingly effective, featuring both stark smatterings of keys and explosive arrays of guitars. His vocal delivery often adjusts accordingly, especially during the song’s fiery chorus. That part in particular remains reminiscent of Modest Mouse, but the song’s structural genius and melodic excellence appears more indicative of an idolized act in the Wrens." -- Obscure Sound
"I realized I’ve yet to talk about Cymbals Eat Guitars on here, which I’ve been spinning all year and is probably my favorite debut album of the year, so I feel obligated to give it a mention. Here’s an excerpt of the review on my blog: “The band’s sound is hugely ambitious, explosively energetic force of nature that is clearly influenced by a multitude of 90’s indie rock classics from Pavement to Built to Spill to Modest Mouse while still achieving something that is forward-looking and unpredictable.” --mtvU
"No pressure, no expectations, no big press push — just some epic jams that effortlessly encapsulate the last 20 years of indie rock with the ease of dudes that have been “doin’ it” forever. The reason why it rules? Because they haven’t been." --Detour Mag
"I’ll be the first to go on record saying that Cymbals Eat Guitars/Joseph Ferocious will end up indie famous within the year."--Charles Bissel, the Wrens

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 18/08/2006
Band Website: cymbalseatguitars.com
Band Members: Joseph Ferocious - Vocals/Guitars
Brian Hamilton - Keyboards
Matthew Miller - Drums and Percussion
Matthew Whipple - Bass




Click the image below to buy the LP of Why There Are Mountains

Cymbals Eat Guitars, Why There Are Mountains

The sweat's the first thing everyone notices. It's hard not to, as salty trails drip from the pores of Joseph D'Agostino, the yelping, riff-raking frontman of Cymbals Eat Guitars.

Here's why he can't seem to stay dry: Pitchfork's "Best New Music" tag—plastered across a rave review of Cymbals' self-released debut, Why There Are Mountains, six months before its official release—was just the beginning of the band's rise to notoriety. A calling card to toss around from time to time, sure, but not something they were about to rest their entire record on.

"We had no fucking clue what we were doing in those first few months," admits D'Agostino, quite matter-of-factly.

"There was just this giant rush to keep up with hype that's beyond us," adds drummer Matthew Miller, who co-founded the group in 2007, the year they found their sound through elaborate demos with the Wrens' Charles Bissel. Demoes that were developed even further during proper studio sessions with Kyle "Slick" Johnson (Modest Mouse, The Hives). Like many other early adopters, Johnson discovered CEG on New York’s Lower East Side circuit, playing the kind of caustic set that's earned the attention of ABC News, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and the Pitchforkpeople, who continue to support the group's every move. That includes a CMJ roundup with the following pull quote: "[D'Agostino] was sweating profusely by the end of the first song, and spent the rest of the set contorting violently and playing his guitar like it was trying to eat him...Cymbals weren't just loud, they sounded monumental."

Hype-raking live reviews aside, there’s this important detail to consider: Why There Are Mountains is an actual album in an era of diminishing downloads an attention spans, a ‘grower’ that dishes out simple pleasures with every spin. Meaning everything from shades of shoegaze (the patient, feedback-bathed passages of “Share”) to subtle Motown nods (the buoyant bass lines of “Cold Spring," the breezy horns of “Indiana”). Not to mention pure, unadulterated chaos, as embraced in the gate-crashing "And the Hazy Sea,” the tension-building “Like Blood Does,” and the throat-singeing denouement of “Wind Phoenix.”

As for what’s next, well, they're figuring that out one track at a time, as D'Agostino's carefully-cultivated cuts are complemented by Miller's Wire-y rhythms, the wobbly low-end of bassist Matthew Whipple, and the Technicolor textures of keyboardist Brian Hamilton.

"I've played in a lot of punky bands where no one cared about the final product—about the actual craft of songwriting—and that was always very frustrating to me," explains Whipple. "I was always the guy glaring at someone else for not getting a part right."

Not here. As D'Agostino adds, "A song needs to raise the hairs on my neck at least three or four times before I'm happy with it. What's the point otherwise? That's the whole thrill of playing and why we're doing this in the first place."

"It's pretty simple," says Miller. "If something doesn't sound right, we're not gonna play it."


Influences: I got it going on, even flip 'em on this song
Every afternoon, I kick half the tune
And in the darkness, I'm heartless like when the narcs hit
Word to Marcus Garvey or heartless Sparkton
'Cause when I blast a herb, that's my word
I be slaying them fast, doing this, that and third
But chill, pass the Andre and let's lay
I bag bitches up at John Jay and hit a mantinee

Record Label: Sister's Den (NA) / Memphis Industries (Europe)
Type of Label: Unsigned

My Blog

Seattle we love you

Seattle we love you, but we've had to cancel tonight's gig @ Neumos because Joe got food poisoning last night in Boise. If you were planning on making it out to the show, we're really sorry and promis...
Posted by on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:24:00 GMT

Brooklyn Bowl

An amazing new venue opened up in BK called brooklyn bowl. It's a massive bowling alley with a music venue, bar & food from Blue Ribbon. We've been asked to play Insound's 10th Year Anniversary party ...
Posted by on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:58:00 GMT

Clash Music

Clash music featured ...And The Hazy Sea, check it out here.
Posted by on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:16:00 GMT

Plainclothes lyrics

There was a man who killed a state trooper and drove his pickup truck to Belmar and slept in a beach house a dream of the day when two protons collide and everything everything changes when I drive wi...
Posted by on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:51:00 GMT

WOXY Session

We did a WOXY session a few days ago. you can download it here.
Posted by on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:23:00 GMT

Tunguska lyrics

...
Posted by on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:25:00 GMT

Vinyl

We have teamed up with Insound to sell the vinyl version of Why There Are Mountains. If you purchase the Why There Are Mountains album on vinyl from Insound,  you'll receive a link to download the MP3...
Posted by on Wed, 13 May 2009 19:48:00 GMT

Stores where the album is available

We're close to announcing the re-release of Why There Are Mountains this fall with some special goodies.Until then you can find our album at the following stores:CALIFORNIAAmoeba Records San Francisco...
Posted by on Wed, 13 May 2009 19:07:00 GMT

Pitchfork Best New Music

Pitchfork redid their site while I was asreepin' last night I guess, and they've harkened back to a time when number scores (or was it stars?) were assigned to individual track reviews... ah, four yea...
Posted by on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:39:00 GMT

WHY THERE ARE MOUNTAINS // LYRICS

...And the Hazy Sea Do you know how many cities had been built on the mainland and the trains there how they'd glide over the marshes and the hazy sea carrying business men in starched collar shirts w...
Posted by on Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:28:00 GMT