Paper Holland

Every year, more than 2,000 acts swarm to SXSW — and every year, NPR Music painstakingly handpicks 100 of the music festival's best discoveries for a downloadable six-hour sampler. We call it The Austin 100, and it's virtually guaranteed to contain something you'll love that you didn't know existed. - Stephen Thompson - NPR

Can't make it to the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin, Texas this week? Have your own SXSW music discovery experience online. NPR is offering up a six-hour, 100-song sampler of SXSW 2014 acts that's free to stream and download—and it features a fair amount of Wisconsin artists.

Some inclusions aren't all that surprising, like Madison-based buzz band (and recent addition to Parisan Records) PHOX, and Barsuk Records artist Yellow Ostrich, fronted by Wisconsin native Alex Schaaf.

But there's also a surprising, welcome inclusion of Milwaukee-based pop rock band Paper Holland, which isn't playing an official SXSW showcase, but will kick off the unofficial MilwaukeeHome Stage, featuring 30 Brew City artists, at a downtown Austin club Wednesday.

Other artists with Wisconsin ties on the list: Grace Weber,Sylvan Esso (featuring Wisconsin native Nicholas Sanborn), and Archie Powell & the Exports, with Milwaukee natives Nick Junkuncz, Ryan Lynch and Adam Melberth.

And coincidentally or not, the writer of the NPR blog post featuring the playlist is Wisconsin native Stephen Thompson, who was one of the first editors at the Onion in Madison.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel music writer Piet Levy is in Austin covering SXSW. Follow his coverage at jsonline.com/sxsw, on Twitter and Facebook, and daily in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through Saturday.

Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/musicandnightlife/wisconsin-acts-phox-paper-holland-others-on-nprs-free-sxsw-playlist-b99222921z1-249579481.html#ixzz2w4ndYJ9s - Piet Levy - Journal Sentinel

Austin, Texas — It was an idea that bordered on insanity: orchestrate a 15-hour showcase during the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference spotlighting 30 artists from Milwaukee — and make it happen in two month's time.

Not so surprisingly, the MilwaukeeHome Stage showcase, held Wednesday at a downtown Austin club, Cielo, hit some big bumps along the way. Melissa Thornton, a chief showcase organizer and founder of the local apparel company, MilwaukeeHome, that gave the stage its name, admitted to dropping the ball on a sponsorship offer from K-Nation Entertainment. Austin-based Milwaukee native and marketer Jeremy Rogers, said by organizers to be orchestrating a street team promoting the event, said no one ever asked him about it.

Fliers for hundreds of showcases and bands were slapped up Tuesday at the Austin Convention Center, the heart of the convention — but none promoting the MilwaukeeHome Stage. And a promised Livestream video of the showcase, intended to show friends and family back home what Milwaukee musicians were accomplishing in Austin, never materialized, due to technical issues.

But enthusiasm and city pride was high Wednesday for the showcase, with the communal expectation that it was just the beginning of an ongoing mission to bring greater attention to Milwaukee's talent at the premier music industry event of the year. And there were small signs of that goal beginning to materialize.

10:57 a.m.: It's three minutes to show time, and the MilwaukeeHome Stage is nowhere near ready. There's a ladder in the middle of the floor underneath a disco ball. Production team Video Villains is still testing the projection and stringing up cables. Soundchecks haven't happened. Perhaps anticipating the day that lay ahead, Thornton has a massive container of Tums at the ready.

"The venue wouldn't let us in until 10 a.m.," Thornton says. But no one seems too frazzled.

"We're on rock and roll time," the event's stage manager, Biju Zimmerman, says on a smoke break. "We're just going to roll and see what happens, and try to make it up with (shorter) changeover times."

11:33 a.m.: One of the MilwaukeeHome Stage's first attendees shows up, and from an industry perspective, he's a good guest to have: Stephen Thompson, writer and editor with NPR Music, and a Wisconsin native. Thompson came early to see Paper Holland, a Milwaukee pop-rock group whose track "Happy Belated" he included on NPR's 100-song SXSW playlist; there were over 1,500 entries for consideration.

"I didn't know these guys were from Wisconsin," Thompson says. "I had no idea who they were. I listened to their track, and it jumped out at me. It was sparkling and appealing, and it was a no-brainer to include it."

Holland frontman Joe Tomcheck greets Thompson at the door, exclaiming that he ran into some locals while handing out MilwaukeeHome Stage fliers who said they had heard of Paper Holland because of the NPR playlist. As a sign of thanks, the band gifts Thompson a couple packs of New Glarus beer.

"That's the exciting part of the job, getting to feel like you're on the ground floor to push bands people will like if they just get a chance to hear it," Thompson says. "And when the bands are from Wisconsin, I get hometown pride, like when the Packers win the Super Bowl."

12:36 p.m.: The MilwaukeeHome Stage starts an hour late at noon with Rogers' Austin-based band Buhu, followed by Paper Holland 30 minutes later. Its set is somewhat hampered by a buzzing whine through the speakers, but the stage looks great. Video Villains is projecting psychedelic colors on big, bold "MKE" letters above the stage, and projecting some Milwaukee music videos on the club's ceiling.

1:06 p.m.: Thornton rushes to the front of the club to attract an audience for Hawaiian-flavored pop artist Corey Pieper. A few minutes later, practically everyone but singer-songwriter Kimberlee Laske has left the main floor, despite Pieper's dedicated performance and slick hooks. (His sound does differ from the guitar-driven pop-rock, moody folk and soulful hip-hop on much of the bill.) Pieper however was able to project his own livestream of his set, and later says that 300 fans watched it online.

Just prior,Paper Holland attracted an audience of 40 — not bad for an early set from a little-known band. And it wasn't just friends of the band and fellow Milwaukee musicians. Josh Southwick and Cindy Chen from Los Angeles are there, encouraged to show up aftermeeting the band the night prior.

"It's cool that so many bands from Milwaukee to come down and play," Southwick said.

2:50 p.m.: Milwaukee acts including Delta Routine,Midnight Reruns,Vic and Gab, and Kane Place Record Club are filtering through the club, talking with friends and bands, autographing a MilwaukeeHome Stage poster — and in the case of rapper Proph and Vic and Gab's Gabriela Banuelos, meeting for the first time. Meanwhile, Mark Waldoch of Celebrated Workingman is on stage, he says, for the first time since October. It's just him on an electric guitar, but Waldoch's penetrating lyrics and gripping performance are the afternoon's best set on the MilwaukeeHome Stage.

3:24 p.m.: Despite some setbacks, Thornton said she wasn't disappointed by how the MilwaukeeHome Stage was shaping up. Financially, she says, they were essentially able to meet their goals, raising $24,000 for production costs, with each individual artist set to receive a $100 stipend and each band to get $200.

"We've never done this, we've never been to this venue, we've never worked with all these artists," Thornton says. "We're learning as we're going, and we're excited for next year."

6:45 p.m.: There are more Milwaukee music people mingling outside, including the bands Hugh Bob and the Hustle,Jayk,Klassik and Milwaukee-based hip-hop music video director PhillyFlyBoy--and Thornton occassionally tries to bring the Milwaukee music mixer inside so bands are playing to more people. On now is the Delta Routine, and the set rocks, with frontman Nick Amadeus doing some foot swivels and pogo jumping. But the room is still pretty empty despite the increased traffic on 6th Street less than a block away. A doorman says capacity reached a high of about 50 an hour prior, down to a general low of 15.

7:28 p.m.: The sound issues seem to continue with Proph's set when his DJ has difficulty playing backing music through the club's speakers. Proph doesn't need it though, dropping fast-flying rhymes with force a cappella. It appears to be one of the bigger crowdpleasers of the day.

8:30 p.m.: Fresh Cut Collective,WebsterX,Dana Coppa and SPEAK Easy are among the local musicians networking outside. Also there is Monica Martin, frontwoman for Madison band PHOX, which just recently signed a deal with Partisan Records, and has a prominent series of SXSW gigs during the week, including an official showcase Friday. "I think its a great thing. We talked to a lot of labels and they offered a really good deal for us," Martin says, while mentioning other artists on the label she loves that have Wisconsin ties, including Sylvan Esso (with native Nick Sanborn) and Milwaukee-based Field Report. PHOX's self-titled album, recorded earlier this year at Justin Vernon's April Base Studios in Eau Claire County, should be released in June, Martin said. About half of the album will be new versions of previously released material, and the other half will be brand new songs.

9:30 p.m.: Rapper Taylor Mallory and Tonja Thigpen from label Level Next Music in Chicago already has some strong connections: on the flight from Chicago to Austin Tuesday, they were greeted in their seats by Chance the Rapper, one of hip-hop's biggest rising stars right now. (His show was one of Tuesday night's top acts to see, to the point that the show was shut down after 18 minutes because the club was over capacity, according to the Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot.) Mallory and Thigpen are at SXSW to hustle, and that takes them to the MilwaukeeHome Stage where they hand out music and make connections with Milwaukee artists.

12:45 a.m.: The MilwaukeeHome Stage has been going on now for more than 12 hours, but the party shows little sign of tiring, thanks to the ecstatically erratic soul pop sound of Kane Place Record Club, playing in front of one of the biggest MilwaukeeHome Stage crowds of the day. The doorman said about 120 people were inside, more than double the highest capacity in the early evening, and for the first time the number of unfamiliar faces was on par with the number of Milwaukee artists and friends in the crowd.

Read more from Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/musicandnightlife/local-musicians-showcase-their-talents-on-milwaukeehome-stage-at-sxsw-b99220230z1-249953711.html#ixzz2w4q12LC7 - Piet Levy - Journal Sentinel

Austin, Texas is gearing up to host South By Southwest. For those of you that aren’t aware of SXSW, it is Austin’s annual music, film, and interactive festival; it starts March 7 and goes through March 16. NPR released their annual Austin 100 earlier this week. The list features 100 songs by bands performing at the festival, from acts such as Against Me! to a personal favorite of mine, Cloud Nothings.

Also being featured in the list is Paper Holland, a pop-rock band from Milwaukee. Paper Holland released their debut full-length, Happy Belated, in January of 2013. You can listen to it below if you have yet to check it out. For what it’s worth, Happy Belated was one of my favorite records of mine for 2013.

Andrew Kosanke is a guitarist in Paper Holland. He had this to say to about the band’s inclusion in the Austin 100.

“It’s incredibly flattering to be included in the Austin 100. There are so many great bands on the list each year and for us to be included is really exciting. I’m most excited for us to perform and meet new people. It has the potential to be a really great experience and hopefully people like what they hear.”

This is Paper Holland’s first out-of-state show. Most bands do not jump from Milwaukee to Austin, but Paper Holland are not most bands. Please take the time to listen to them, and if you’re going to SXSW, check out their live set. You will not be disappointed. - Josh Ranft - breakingandentering.net

"Belated" isn't a strong enough word to describe "Happy Belated," the debut album from peppy guitar-pop band Paper Holland.

The band first began recording songs for the album way back in 2008 and finished the recording in 2009.

"It ended up being a lot more than we bargained for," said vocalist and guitarist Joe Tomcheck. "None of us knew what we were doing. The process was so prolonged and harrowing, we kind of wanted to wash our hands of it for a while until we were enthusiastic about it again."

"I probably would have waited even longer, maybe forever, but (guitarist) Andy (Kosanke) spearheaded us getting it together again. I was glad we did as soon as we started working on it again."

In early 2012, Paper Holland took its songs to Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings to remix the album.

"He really reinvigorated the whole record and gave it a magic touch," Tomcheck said. Finally in January, Paper Holland released its first album, a smiling collection of warm melodic tunes, and played its very first show.

Who's who: Guitarist Kosanke, 26; drummer Brian Szymanski, 30; vocalist/guitarist Tomcheck, 25; bassist Mark Yencheske, 24. Tomcheck spoke for the band.

Day jobs: Kosanke is an IT specialist for Outpost Natural Foods. Szymanski sells instruments at Music Go Round in Greenfield. Tomcheck is a server at ComedySportz. Yencheske is a bartender with McGillycuddy's and Best Place at the Pabst Brewery.

Album: "Happy Belated," available on iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon, Spotify, at Rush Mor Records and at shows. The album is also available to stream on Paper Holland's Bandcamp page.

Musical awakening: In middle school, I was actually really into boy bands like Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. Then meeting Andy around 2002 or 2003, through mutual friends in the skateboard scene, was the epiphany for wanting to play music. He was in a pop-punk band, and I hung around a lot trying to get them to let me in the band. . . . So I hung around him long enough to kill his other band and get him in a band with me.

When formed: Andy and I started writing music somewhere around the beginning of 2008. We weren't actively trying to find a full lineup, but I've known Brian equally as long as Andy and he was part of the recording process and became our de facto drummer. Mark is a friend of Andy's wife. This past summer is when we got the full lineup together.

Band name back story: I was listening to Neutral Milk Hotel around the time I started writing music, and I thought about what the thought process might have been to arrive at that band name. I thought maybe they were inspired by when they were kids and put together milk carton cities. So I based our name on the idea of a fake location like that.

The songwriting process: Originally I wanted "Happy Belated" to be centered on summer. The first track references sort of the end of a summer, and the last song talks about the fall. I kind of wanted it to be this late-summer nighttime album. The majority of these songs were written late at night in the summer, so I wanted the songs to be associated with that. I liked the idea of nostalgia, and that's easier to ascribe to a time period. I feel like summer is a time people are always nostalgic about, and that tied in with this idea that relationships, like seasons, are part of this ephemeral cycle.

Favorite song on the album: "Rory." That was the first full-length song that I ever wrote. It's about Rory Gilmore from "Gilmore Girls." It's an ode to women, basically.

First gig: It was our record-release show at the Down and Over Pub in January. We thought it would be good if we started off having a record, a tangible thing people could pick up, and not just play live. The show was great. I had a lot of family there and a ton of friends who showed up. It was a cool, intimate show where we knew everyone who was there.

Dream act to open for: Locally we want to play with Maritime at some point. We're big fans of them. If we could pick anyone else, I want to say Death Cab for Cutie. For both of them, I really like their music, and as far as what I've seen of them live, they seem really cool and humble.

Dream gig: There's this web music series in France (for La Blogothèque) called the Take Away Show. If we were featured on that, it would really blow me away.

Where do you want to be in five years? We haven't recorded with this lineup, so I'd love to get into the studio and see what this band would do. And I really like traveling a lot. It's a huge part of why I wanted to be in a band, to go on tour with friends.

Biggest band accomplishment: Anytime a friend posts on Facebook, "I heard Paper Holland on the radio," like on WMSE, that's really cool. That we've been played on the radio, that's sort of overwhelming. - Piet Levy - Journal Sentinel

Paper Holland is a four-piece band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose full-length debut album, Happy Belated, it set to be released, early 2013. If Rob Crow wasn’t so damn weird, his music might sound like Paper Holland. The title track to Happy Belated has Pinback-like wandering bass sharing the melody with rhythm guitar. The vocals (again, much like Pinback), deliberately rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. Moving to the chorus, though, is where Paper Holland strays from the Pinback model and into their own. It’s the hook. Verses lead effortlessly into a pure pop hook chorus. It’s wonderful. Tune in Tuesday at 8 p.m. to hear that hook for yourself on another edition of Local/Live – 91.7 FM on your radio dial or stream live or in the archives at WMSE.org. - Ryan Schleicher - WMSE.org

In recent memory, I can recall only a handful of Milwaukee bands who unabashedly play simple, straightforward pop. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of pop in this city, but it usually tends to get filtered through something else, be it punk energy, garagey production, off-key vocals or some combination of the three. This isn’t a good or bad thing, however, and I am immensely grateful for the wide variety of sounds our city has to offer.

Taking a slightly different approach than their contemporaries, Milwaukee quartet Paper Holland play hook-laden guitar pop songs that sonically recall everyone from The Shins to Death Cab For Cutie to The New Pornographers. Paper Holland celebrated the release of debut album Happy Belated at the Down and Over Pub on Friday evening.

Playing to a well-populated crowd, the band performed a lively and fantastic set, comprised primarily of songs from the debut. Singer/guitarist Joe Tomcheck delivered his vocals with life and fervor, his pitch spot-on for the duration of their set. Guitarist Andy Kosanke wove a tapestry of intricate leads, managing to be memorable yet modest all at once. The sound was filled out by the tight and precise rhythm section of drummer Brian Szymanski and bassist Mark Yencheske, who both played with the same amount of reserve as the rest of their band mates, serving the songs first and foremost.

Their performance was spirited, well-rehearsed and impressive. Tomcheck has quite the ability to craft simple, catchy pop songs filled with clever lyrics and infectious melodies. With a solid debut under their belt, it would be in your best of interests to familiarize yourself with Paper Holland. Chances are, this won’t be the last time you hear of them. Definitely keep an eye on these lads in 2013, Milwaukee. - Sahan Jayasuriya - ThirdCoastDaily.com

Most students go through college faster than it took Milwaukee’s Paper Holland to finish their debut full-length, Happy Belated. In fact, the recording process resembled something like an education for the band. Almost half a decade ago, singer Joe Tomcheck just picked up a guitar and begun crafting spirited power-pop songs with fellow guitarist Andy Kosanke. “The album is the first 10 songs I’ve ever written,” Tomcheck admits. Their friend Brian Szymanski had recently opened the recording space Ashwater Studios with a buddy and offered Paper Holland an undeniable opportunity.

“We said we'd do the record for free,” Szymanski recalls. “We didn't know exactly what we were doing and neither did they.”

Paper Holland certainly milked that deal. The recording process progressed at a snail’s pace, lasting more than four years. Many factors contributed to the longevity, but chief among them were that Tomcheck and Kosanke basically pieced together the songs in the studio. There wasn’t much of a choice—the two didn’t have enough warm bodies to play their songs live. The current four-person lineup wasn’t even solidified until about six months ago. Szymanski filled in as the drummer enough early on that he accepted the request to take the spot permanently. Also, Tomcheck was still figuring out how to play the guitar.

“There’s a lot of two-chord progressions on the album,” he says. “That’s because I would find one chord I really liked and I just didn't really know how to make a more advanced progression out of it. The last song of the album, ‘Before You Go,’ is two chords the entire time. That was the product of me not knowing how to make a more complex composition.”

Even though Happy Belated is a fairly simple record, it’s still charming and enjoyable. If Tomcheck learned anything in the last four years, it was how to write a good hook. They absolutely litter the album, which is a good thing since it does wonders masking the romantic frustration that rumbles underneath the surface. It should be no surprise that Tomcheck cites Death Cab for Cutie as an influence.

“Originally, I envisioned it sounding a lot like Transatlanticism,” he says. “I wanted that ambient, echo-y sound. That's the approach we took going into the studio.”

However, Happy Belated isn’t as meandering and melancholic as the Paper Holland’s major musical forebear. The extended studio time helped the band hone their more up-tempo sound and the final product makes it seem that Tomcheck took more cues from Ben Gibbard’s lyrical themes than anything sonically. “I’m here without my mind / Can’t be contained by state lines / They’re arbitrary manmade divides / Of which I find myself on the wrong side,” Tomcheck broods on “Without My Mind.” That helplessly forlorn and wandering attitude echoes the sentiment heard on countless Death Cab songs.

As with any never-ending project, the repetitiveness that came with fussing over every little detail eventually wore on the group. They ultimately passed on their work for some touching up from Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings, who mixed and mastered the record. “He whipped our album into shape and made it something we were proud to release,” Kosanke says.

Since the tracks from Happy Belated have been circling around their heads for a long time, Paper Holland already seems poised to move onto another project, though they’re not entirely sure what that is—it’ll probably have something to do with the 30-40 new songs written since work on their debut began. What’s definite, however, is that they’re overjoyed that there’s finally a tangible piece of their last four years.

“Those songs represent a certain time period now and because of the overexposure to them in the recording process, I got sick of all of it,” Tomcheck says. “I can listen to it now and it's like reading an old journal entry. It has a nostalgic quality that rekindled my enthusiasm with the songs.” - Kevin Mueller - Shepherd Express / Expressmilwaukee.com

Paper Holland might as well have stepped out of a time machine. Besides the fact that its debut album – prophetically titled Happy Belated – took four years to complete, the band itself sounds like a late but not unwelcome arrival to a party thrown by Death Cab For Cutie and Nada Surf in the early 2000s. Those bands – with their gentle indie pop and emotionally raw lyrics – are clearly influences, and for that reason alone, Happy Belated feels plucked from the Discman of a heartbroken mid-aughts teenager. Bearing in mind that the songs were written four long years ago, just as the wave of emo-indie-rock groups like Death Cab, Modest Mouse and Bright Eyes was beginning to recede, Paper Holland’s anachronistic sound makes a lot of sense.
So, while Happy Belated may sound a bit dated, Paper Holland does not blindly follow the path that had been freshly beaten by its forebears. Despite its lyrical heartaches, Happy Belated exudes a scruffy optimism, evident in the handclaps on upbeat rocker “Follow Script” and the loopy guitar flourishes on shuffling “Don’t Wake Me Up.” The band even shows flashes of brilliant lead guitar work, especially on back-to-back standouts “Happy Belated” and “Without My Mind,” whose spiraling guitars help flesh out the simple structures. And while lead vocalist and songwriter Joe Tomcheck frequently intuits the vocal ticks of Ben Gibbard, he is melodically inventive in his own right, most notably on the neat pop number “Rory,” on which he stretches the word “hair” up and down the scale.

Piecing an album together over the course of four years is no short order, so it’s not surprising that Happy Belated sounds a bit disjointed. “Still In Bed” feels like a patchwork, with a slide guitar that sticks out like a sore thumb amidst some bland chords and backup vocals. Certain songs, like “No Going Back,” bear too many fingerprints of studio engineering, with a noticeably different recording quality and a drum track that sounds tacked-on out of nowhere.

You don’t need to know anything about Paper Holland to enjoy Happy Belated, but the four-year backstory adds an interesting extra layer. A good Gibbard imitation becomes an intriguing snapshot of the past. Imperfections turn into battle scars, inflicted over the course of the album’s long trek to completion. And the album title comes full circle. That said, let’s hope it doesn’t take four years to hear what Paper Holland does next. - Joe Guszkowski - Milwaukee Magazine / Milwaukeemag.com

We first discovered this week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week, Paper Holland, in a staircase. Literally, sort of. The first time we had seen Paper Holland, it was in the form of a video of the band jamming in a staircase, as a #MKEMusicMonday submission. Might I add, they crushed it as hard as you can crush it acoustically in a staircase. Something about their sound is addicting. Whether it was the way that they blended with one another musically, or the idea of four guys just hanging out, jamming in that small of a space, something was captivating about it. At the time of this post, the band is currently looking for a new drummer, following the release of their debut, “Happy Belated”. With that said, it’s only fitting that their Milwaukee Artist of the Week is, well, belated.

“Happy Belated” is indie pop at its purest. From start to finish, this album has a distinct coolness to it, while every track is capable of getting stuck in your head at some point. The title track, most notably, is bouncy, catchy, and any other word you want to describe a great pop song. The band cites Death Cab for Cutie and The Shins as influences, but there is also a dash of bands like Minus The Bear and The Kooks that is evident in their sound. There is also a touch of Milwaukee influence on songs like “No Going Back”, which could have appeared on a later Violent Femmes release and not have missed a step. With all of those comparisons, it should be noted that Paper Holland is completely its own animal. Rather than becoming an amalgamation of the bands mentioned previously, “Happy Belated” is simply indie pop bliss. You can listen to it on a bright sunny day, or it can get you through a rainy, shitty spring/fall/sometimes winter day in Milwaukee. That’s what good pop music does. It’s relatable, but adaptable as well. Stream “Happy Belated” below via BandCamp, and I highly recommend picking it up as well. - Allen Halas - breakingandentering.net