BU Rocks: Alum’s Band Signs Label, Launches National Tour
Pretty & Nice to jolt country with “tazer rock”
BU and rock ‘n roll are in a long-term relationship — just ask the members of Aerosmith, who got their start playing parties in the dorms. Kenmore Square and the BU campus have changed since then, but the University’s musical tradition hasn’t gone away. This week, we highlight five BU bands to watch for.
Pretty & Nice
Click on the audio player to hear Pretty & Nice play "Grab Your Nets."
For Boston-based indie rockers Pretty & Nice, so far 2008 is looking, well, pretty nice.
Founded in 2004 by Vermonter Holden Lewis (COM’07), the foursome was signed in February by the Seattle-based record label Hardly Art and kicked off a national tour in March at the Middle East in Cambridge. Stops included the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Tex.
The band describes itself on MySpace as “tazer rockers” and “the four horsemen of pop doom.”
“The glitchy pop quadrangle formed three years ago between Burlington, Vt., and Boston,” the write-up continues. “The group currently resides in a yellow house in Boston preparing to emerge and destroy your life with catchy hooks and bad irony.”
The group cites as influences Brainiac, Squeeze, the Jam, Unicorns, XTC, Talking Heads, Ex Models, Elvis Costello, and the English Beat, among others.
In 2006, Pretty & Nice released its debut album, Pink & Blue, and plans on finishing its first Hardly Art project for an early fall release. Hardly Art is the new imprint of legendary grunge label Sub Pop, famous in the late ’80s for first signing bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. Sub Pop’s current stable includes the Postal Service and the Shins.
Caleb Daniloff can be reached at cdanilof@bu.edu.
This story originally ran March 7, 2008.
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