Bringing Bloomington's Husband & Wife to Muncie to share the stage with a few of Muncie's own, Village Green Records should give listeners a wide spectrum of indie rock Saturday.
The acoustically driven band from the home of Indiana University will be joined by ambient-rock outfit Shipwreck Karpathos and indie-pop group Scales.
"I expect this to be the first of many Scales-Shipwreck shows. And Husband & Wife is playing, which is awesome," said Austin Hayden, guitarist for Scales. "I've been talking about trying to set something up with them since last spring, so I'm really excited to play with them."
Having recently finished their new album, Husband & Wife are stopping by Muncie on their tour of the Midwest that will hit Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Kalamazoo, Mich.
"This show is actually the Muncie release for their new CD," said David Chastain, guitarist of Shipwreck Karpathos and avid Husband & Wife fan. "I'm honestly more excited to hear them than I am to play."
Husband & Wife have ties to Village Green Records, despite their Bloomington roots.
Mike Adams, guitarist for Husband & Wife, said the band has known VGR owner Travis Harvey for a long time. The band also played VGR when previous owner Jared Cheek was running the store.
"We've got a lot of friends around there, so it's always our first pick when we come to Muncie," Adams said.
Scales is using this show to make a better impression upon the VGR crowd, having not met their personal standards at their debut show at the store last year.
"It was our first real show, ever, and looking back, our set was a disaster," Hayden said. "Too fast, wrong notes, awkward stage presence."
Since the beginning of the semester, Scales has gained many fans, Hayden said, playing a few large house shows with other local acts.
"We played a bunch of shows this summer and we grew up a lot," he said. "There aren't many bands playing music like we're playing, especially in Muncie, so that could account for some of the attention."
Hayden and synthesizer player Josh Hicks met drummer Carrington Clinton at orientation. The trio hung up flyers and found bassist Dave McDermand and singer Ben Latimer.
"When we started playing, we wanted to play dance-electronic indie music, like Passion Pit and MGMT and Miike Snow," Hayden said. "After getting bored with the standard pop song structure and formula, we've scrapped songs we don't want to play ever again, and began to write more musical stuff, more aggressive stuff."
Having played many open mics and Muncie shows last year as well as several Indianapolis gigs this summer, Scales believes their hard work might finally be paying off.
"I think people are beginning to take us a bit more seriously due to the fact that we stuck with it for a year and are improving," Hicks said.
Scales is currently in the process of recording an EP. The band plans to add another synthesizer player in January and record a full-length album with Voltaic Recording Studio in Indianapolis in March.
"We want to play in a lot of basements and living rooms this spring, and we're booking a couple regional tours this summer," Hayden said.
Similar to Scales, Shipwreck Karpathos has been around for about a year. Guitarist David Chastain and bassist Ian Duvall were both fans of post-rock bands such as Mono, Explosions in the Sky and Saxon Shore. After jamming for a while, they realized how much they enjoyed playing this style of music together.
"We started messing around and then eventually started liking what we were doing," Chastain said.
All members of Shipwreck Karpathos share an open-minded opinion of music, drawing influence from many genres, although two members are in metal bands they are more dedicated to, Chastain said.
"Other than me, all the other dudes are in other bands that are their priorities," he said.
Despite having long, drawn out songs that are more than seven minutes long, which is typical of the ambient genre, the band said it is tinkering with the genre.
"We're still in a very experimental stage," Chastain said.
In addition to a diverse showcase of indie rock, the bands are expecting an fun-filled night.
"I think as long as they are looking for a good time, so are we, so let's have a good time at the same time," Adams said.
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