Philadelphia's Downtown Harvest Prepares for Upcoming Album, Tour

Much like the band's sound, the studio is unexpected, yet kitsch in all the right ways. After a bit of searching, I find the door - hidden by a block of foam insulation in the wall; and when I'm finally inside, I find myself in a room that is a cross between a jam studio and a living room. The band is set up in the back of a room over the bright blue carpet that decorates the floor, and under the random patches of red carpet that decorate the ceiling. Random couches, chairs, and other oddities are set up in the front of the room, where several of the band's friends sit -- including the band's east coast manager, Noel Caldwell. The chair I find myself sitting in is a glittery, gold-colored masterpiece from a vintage hair salon, but I have to gracefully decline when the band offers to give me a new hairdo. Luckily, the guys are just as eager to talk about their new album called Golden Dragon, which is due out in July.

Downtown Harvest is comprised of Pennsylvania natives Bob Cahill on bass and guitar; Christopher "C-Dubbs" Wood on drums and drum machine; Frank Ewing on saxophone, guitar, keyboard, and percussion; and Larry Thomas Moore - better known as Tom - on guitar and bass. Additionally, the entire band contributes vocally, with the exception of Cahill. Their lyrics - often something like indie rock star Beck's - are usually more a stream of consciousness, and sometimes nonsensical - yet so catchy, you'll find them stuck in your head for days. And with such an eclectic blend of instrumentality and personality, the result is a genre-busting band that could quite easily fit in in almost any atmosphere and still walk away having gained a few new fans.

The name of the album -- Golden Dragon - comes from the Chinese restaurant run by the parents of DTH's west coast manager, David Hua. The band is dedicating the album to Hua, whom they attribute a great deal of their success to, and they plan to have an underlying Chinese restaurant theme to the album as well. Beyond that, Golden Dragon is a bit of a departure from their self-titled first album. Their original sound is more of a "dream pop" sound - the sort of music that you'd spin when you're thinking 'good times'; infused with bits and pieces of good old-fashioned rock, hip-hop, funk, and melodic groove rock.

"We feel like this album has a lot more attitude ... like, our old sound is kind of more appealing to moms and shit - like my mom loves our first album." Cahill joked. "Basically what [this album] is about is comical punk rock ... just like, early 90's bands and long hair."

And some of the band's old, more "fun" sound will be there as well, including their smorgasbord of mixed genres.

"Our new album has some hip-hop leanings as well. It's really about more avant-garde, hard-hitting rock, meaning punk, and some other stuff too," said Wood. "We really utilized everything that Milkboy [Studios] had to offer. We used their old-school organ sounds, and they had a really nice grand piano - we used that on a couple of tracks."

Milkboy Studios in Ardmore, PA, is where the band independently recorded the album, with engineering help from former Townhall guitarist, Tim Sonnefeld.

"We had a blast, we had an absolutely great time making the album," said Wood of the recording process. "We worked for 5 days. We ended up finishing on Saturday night at like 3:00 am, and we started on Tuesday."

From there, the band took the album to Ewing's newly built home studio, where they did all of the editing and post-production themselves.

"We felt like our first album was a lot more of a learning experience, as well," said Wood. "This album we knew a little more about what we were doing, and Frank bought all of the [production] equipment so that we can actually do it ourselves."

The album will then be sent off to be mixed by Grammy and Multi-platinum Producer/Mixer Bob Power, which the band is also very excited about. Power has worked with artists such as Chaka Khan, A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Pat Metheny, Erykah Badu, and Macy Grey, and is also currently an instructor at the Tisch School of Music at New York University.

Beyond the new album, the band has been and will continue to have quite a busy schedule. They recently had one of their original songs, "Hurry Before Worry" included on Jaxon's Local Shots, Volume 3. The album is the latest installation in the "Local Shots" series, put together to showcase some of Philadelphia's "greatest original acts" and compiled by Jaxon himself, a DJ for local rock station WMMR.

The band also recently won the first round of RalphRocks.com music video competition, sponsored by Ralph Lauren fragrances. After the first round of voting is done, the 8 finalists will be judged by a panel of music executives and possibly win a trip to play for Atlantic Records. The video they submitted - made for their song, "Alexander Hayes" - was recorded entirely in their studio bathroom. "It's not very professional, but it's very weird and fun," said Wood of the video.

DTH has also got a very busy tour schedule ahead of them. According to Hua, the band will be touring randomly around the East Coast until August, when they will pile into Eleanor, their trusty van, and begin touring on the West Coast. And if that weren't enough, after the West Coast tour, they will be back in Philadelphia, touring around the Northeast.

If you can't wait until then, you can get your fix of the band by visiting their official website, downtownharvest.com, or their MySpace, myspace.com/downtownharvest.