EZTV Record Release w/ Alex Bleeker and The Freaks, John Andrews & The Yawns

Jersey-bred songwriter Alex Bleeker first started making solo music under the guise of Alex Bleeker & the Freaks?, gathering together his friends and like-minded players to fill out his sometimes dreamy, sometimes heavy-hearted tunes. While splitting his time between writing solo songs and his duties as bass player in breezy indie band Real Estate, Bleeker eventually crafted two separate albums of material with his able-minded Freaks, a low-key self-titled release in 2009 and a more full-bodied 2013 record entitled "How Far Away".

The second album found Bleeker's deceptively passionate songwriting at the core of what came on as a rather unassuming collection of country-tinged rockers, with wispy vocal harmonies and burning organ leads wrapping around simple but unrelenting melodies. Informed by a deeply-studied fixation with audience-recorded tape trades, parking lot culture and the entire cannon of roots rock history, Alex Bleeker & the Freaks serves as both a continuation and an update to the road-ragged, hard working American party band.


Ezra Tenenbaum reeled Michael Stasiak into the band when he told Michael that his new songs sounded a little bit like Teenage Fanclub, and that he needed a drummer that could play like Jody Stephens from Big Star--after a bit of flattery like that, how could he refuse? But even though Ezra, bassist Shane O'Connell, and Michael all share a deep love for Chilton and Bell, there are plenty of other wonderful bands and songwriters that echo from inside of Ezra's songs (which he writes and demos in his bedroom like you or I breathe). EZTV has a whole lot of affection for Midwest power poppers like Shoes and Dwight Twilley, but also a definite love for left-of-the-dial bands from across the pond like Orange Juice and The Go-Betweens. Ezra's chiming guitar riffs ring perfectly within classic pop song structures, while Shane and Michael provide groovy, dynamic rhythm and keep the sneaky hooks and riffs clicking like the gears of a fine watch.