Be Cool & Listen Now #2

This title is cheesy…but until I come up with a better one, this is what you’ve got!

So here’s part two of my “small artists you should listen to before they blow up.” Because, mark my words, they will blow up.
I have stacks of press kits and demos in my room. Some are great. Some are just awful and make me wonder why in the world I would have ever requested them. I listened to a ton of unsigned artists when I was interning with Columbia. I still do. I wish I could post about every single one of those great ones, because they really do deserve recognition. But for now, here’s one that I’ve been listening to a lot lately:

Their name? Dinner & A Suit.

There are  few reasons I’m in love with this band. For starters, they grew up half an hour from me. But somehow I was never introduce to them until maybe a year ago. I was actually pretty disappointed that they had somehow previously escaped my radar. When booking a show at Rowan, I asked students via Twitter what bands they would want to hear. Someone mentioned Dinner & A Suit. We ended up bringing in some bigger acts and that suggestion was pushed aside. Next semester I  posed the question once more on the social networking site. Once again, I got a request for Dinner & A Suit. This time, I went and checked them out. I was floored.

Vocalist Jonathan Capeci has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard in quite some time. It’s unique, smooth and..well…addicting. An artist with great vocals always stands out.

Check it out for yourself:

Now after you’ve watched that one, watch both of their Paramore covers. The most recent one received a nod from Hayley herself. She tweeted a link to the video, then posted it on her blog, and then on the grand Paramore.net blog.

But back before Hayley was telling her bazillion fans about how awesome these guys are, they were playing our local Camden, NJ Warped Tour date. I saw the end of their set in ’09 by accident. I just remember the lead singer’s hair, oddly enough, and that I really liked what I heard of their closing song.  Then in 2010, they played the 7 or 8 regional dates. They’ve also played MTV’s Projekt Revolution, and were featured in both AP and Substream Magazines in the unsigned artists spotlights. In addition, they’ve also made a few appearances on AbsolutePunk, including an AP.net Exclusive for their song, “Where We Started.”

Now located in Nashville, Dinner & A Suit are working on new material and polishing their act. There’s a chance they’ll be coming back up here to play my next Rowan show. Keep your fingers crossed! But while you’re waiting to see them live, be sure to “like” them on Facebook and pay special attention to their YouTube page for another great video performance.

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