Tuesday 09 November 2010



Down in the valley, under the gun

Former Broken West guitarist/vocalist goes on with a new band

One of Quick before it Melts’ early crushes was The Broken West, whose two alt.country/indie rock albums for Merge Records (the excellent debut I Can’t Go On I’ll Go On and its follow-up, Now or Heaven) were on heavy rotation ’round these parts back in the day (2007 and 08, respectively).  So I was disheartened to read in an email from Merge that the Broken West had, er, broken up last year, but happy to hear that guitarist/vocalist Ross Flournoy has picked himself up and decided to go on recording under the name Apex Manor.  Flournoy faced a bout of writer’s block after the band broke up, but found a way through it by entering NPR’s Monitor Mix songwriting contest in an effort to pass the time while he found himself isolated by a malfunctioning automobile.  The song, “Under the Gun”, turned out to be just the inspiration Flournoy needed, and he soon found himself with more than 25 songs under his belt and an itch to get into the studio.  Along with former Broken West bandmate Brian Whelan and good friend Adam Vine, he laid down a few demos, and before you knew it, Apex Manor was born.  The Year of Magical Drinking comes out on January 25, and was produced by Dan Long (Film School, Local Natives) and Brian Whelan.  Apex Manor plans on hitting the road in 2011 in support of the disc, and you can taste their California sun-kissed goodness here and now:

MP3: Apex Manor “Under the Gun”
Myspace: Apex Manor
Facebook: Apex Manor
Twitter: Apex Manor





by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.