Matador

Hippies is the second long player from Austin's hardest working troublemakers, Harlem. As demonstrated by numerous self-booked tours including stints at SXSW and CMJ, Harlem have a reputation of making club gigs seem like living room shows (and living room shows feel like club shows). Hippies harnesses this energy in its 16 blasts of pure pop energy with a new dimension of songwriting that is as tightly masterful as it is true to a joyfully frantic primitivism.

Recorded at the Distillery in Costa Mesa, CA with the assistance of Mike McHugh, Hippies is more refined and cleaner record than it's predecessor (the self released Free Drugs) with a classically iconoclastic sound that in eras-past, was achieved by The Gories, The Standells, Dead Moon, The Kinks and The Pixies. The songwriting and vocal duties on Hippies are evenly shared by Coomers (nee Michael Coomer) and Curtis O'Mara —who switch between guitar/vox and drums on stage (and off) alongside newly-added bassist Jose Boyer.