Sour Bridges

If you haven't heard of Sour Bridges yet, it won't be long until you do. The Austin-based band is dropping their sophomore album, Catfish Charlie, this week, and it should quickly propel them to household name status among Texas music aficionados.

Comprised of guitarist brothers Bill and Matt Pucci, along with Jack Bridges on bass, Kat "Mama Kat Fiddle" Wilkes on strings and Dalton Chamblee on percussion, Sour Bridges is a tight "browngrass" (it's like bluegrass, just a lil' dirtier) band that is sure to get you out on the dance floor.

It's not often you see a "local" band put out an album with 15 original songs, and even less often to be able to say that any one of the 15 could be the lead track. Catfish Charlie is that album.

Right off the bat, Sour Bridges rocks the speakers with the title track. It doesn't take long to realize you're listening to something new. The band takes traditional bluegrass, mows it down, then replants it with seeds of rock-n-roll, Texas folk and a little doo-wop. The end result is a new branch of Americana that's sure to take root.

Proving they're no one trick pony, the band moves from the rocking tracks of Catfish Charlie and J-Train right into Midwife Crisis, with a rich three-part harmony and a crying fiddle that's reminiscent of Hank Sr's ballads. With the wide variety the band throws at listeners, you will be hard pressed to pick a single favorite track.

Catfish Charlie hit the shelves on Tuesday the 28, but you can head out to the Official Album Release Party this Friday, May 31, at the Historic Scoot Inn and Bier Garten (1308 E 4th St.) in Austin at 8pm. Clyde and Clem's Whiskey Business and All My Friends will be opening up the show. Wear your dancing boots, because you won't be leaving the floor.

Be sure to check the band out at sourbridges.com, and go pick up Catfish Charlie along with their first LP, Workin' On Leavin', then get on up to A-Town this Friday. You won't be disappointed. - TX Citizen

If you haven't heard of Sour Bridges yet, it won't be long until you do. The Austin-based band is dropping their sophomore album, Catfish Charlie, this week, and it should quickly propel them to household name status among Texas music aficionados.

Comprised of guitarist brothers Bill and Matt Pucci, along with Jack Bridges on bass, Kat "Mama Kat Fiddle" Wilkes on strings and Dalton Chamblee on percussion, Sour Bridges is a tight "browngrass" (it's like bluegrass, just a lil' dirtier) band that is sure to get you out on the dance floor.

It's not often you see a "local" band put out an album with 15 original songs, and even less often to be able to say that any one of the 15 could be the lead track. Catfish Charlie is that album.

Right off the bat, Sour Bridges rocks the speakers with the title track. It doesn't take long to realize you're listening to something new. The band takes traditional bluegrass, mows it down, then replants it with seeds of rock-n-roll, Texas folk and a little doo-wop. The end result is a new branch of Americana that's sure to take root.

Proving they're no one trick pony, the band moves from the rocking tracks of Catfish Charlie and J-Train right into Midwife Crisis, with a rich three-part harmony and a crying fiddle that's reminiscent of Hank Sr's ballads. With the wide variety the band throws at listeners, you will be hard pressed to pick a single favorite track.

Catfish Charlie hit the shelves on Tuesday the 28, but you can head out to the Official Album Release Party this Friday, May 31, at the Historic Scoot Inn and Bier Garten (1308 E 4th St.) in Austin at 8pm. Clyde and Clem's Whiskey Business and All My Friends will be opening up the show. Wear your dancing boots, because you won't be leaving the floor.

Be sure to check the band out at sourbridges.com, and go pick up Catfish Charlie along with their first LP, Workin' On Leavin', then get on up to A-Town this Friday. You won't be disappointed. - TX Citizen

If you've ever wanted to be in an indie-folk or bluegrass band, now is the time to capitalize on that dream. The Austin scene is exploding with knee-slappin', banjos, and whiskey these days, and Sour Bridges are one of the stand-outs of the group.

The group has been bopping around Austin since 2009 and brands itself "browngrass", which is self-defined as "bluegrass, but a little dirtier". The Sour Bridges released their fist LP in 2010, and have since played a slot at UTOPiAfest and more shows than I can count around the Austin-area and beyond.

May 2013 brings us up to date as Sour Bridges is about to release its sophomore work, Catfish Charlie.

Catfish Charlie is like a burst of Texas-style soul fueled by a drunken hoedown. Its like your inner hick comes out in the best of ways while listening to this album. You want to shake you butt, slap your knee, and down some unidentifiable alcohol out of an unmarked jug.

Each track follows the true "browngrass" formula: full of mandolin, fiddle, and foot-stompin' soul. The harmonies throughout the album are beautiful and give Sour Bridges a bit more "oomf" than you might hear from other similar style bands. - Austin Music Examiner

If you've ever wanted to be in an indie-folk or bluegrass band, now is the time to capitalize on that dream. The Austin scene is exploding with knee-slappin', banjos, and whiskey these days, and Sour Bridges are one of the stand-outs of the group.

The group has been bopping around Austin since 2009 and brands itself "browngrass", which is self-defined as "bluegrass, but a little dirtier". The Sour Bridges released their fist LP in 2010, and have since played a slot at UTOPiAfest and more shows than I can count around the Austin-area and beyond.

May 2013 brings us up to date as Sour Bridges is about to release its sophomore work, Catfish Charlie.

Catfish Charlie is like a burst of Texas-style soul fueled by a drunken hoedown. Its like your inner hick comes out in the best of ways while listening to this album. You want to shake you butt, slap your knee, and down some unidentifiable alcohol out of an unmarked jug.

Each track follows the true "browngrass" formula: full of mandolin, fiddle, and foot-stompin' soul. The harmonies throughout the album are beautiful and give Sour Bridges a bit more "oomf" than you might hear from other similar style bands. - Austin Music Examiner

On a Sunday afternoon the members of Sour Bridges sit on the patio of East Austin bar Gourmands, cradling cocktails and recounting the previous night’s excess. Instruments sit in cases nearby, and maybe the band will get to playing them, if they feel like it. But for now they are just happy to be in each other’s company. Despite seeing each other often, the members of Sour Bridges come across like long lost friends finally reunited, and the excitement is contagious. Unlike bands who get together for professional reasons, the members of Sour Bridges connected naturally and almost by accident.

Rhythm guitar player and vocalist Bill Bucci recounts, “Matt [Pucci] and I were in a band and we moved down to Austin from Pennsylvania and started a [different] band called Buffalo Breath. We met Jack [Bridges], who was in another band and he lived below us. We kind of hung out and started playing together and just created a great friendship. When Buffalo Breath went south we started thinking about the idea of playing together, and Dalton [Chamblee] decided he could play drums just as well as anybody else. So we started a band with no name or gigs, just playing parties and bar parking lots.”
Since those humble beginnings in 2009 the band has grown to include Kat “Mama Kat” Wilkes on fiddle and tambourine, and are now on the verge of releasing their sophomore LP Catfish Charlie, which explains the enthusiasm. While Sour Bridges’ debut album Workin’ On Leavin’ comes off as grassroots and self-produced with a fun-loving backyard folk sound, Catfish Charlie explodes with a fuller, more dynamic rocking sound and a band who have clearly started taking themselves seriously (not without losing their sense of humor of course).

“[Catfish Charlie] only took us about 5 days. We would go in the studio from about 10:30AM to 7PM, blast out 3 songs, then buy another day if we needed to and just let our producer do all of the mixing. That was what was really cool about this compared to our other albums; we didn’t have to go through the whole mixing process,” says bassist Jack Bridges.

In Workin’ On Leavin’ Sour Bridges are clearly a young band testing the water and getting a feel for working as one musical unit. The songs are stripped down and played in the bands signature style of “browngrass.”

“We had a tough time describing ourselves when people asked what we sounded like because we didn’t want to say bluegrass or Americana or folk because there are so many different directions we go. We have heavy harmonies and bluegrass roots, but we plug in and there’s a little bit of dirt. So it’s like bluegrass but dirtier. The idea is to kind of personalize yourself,” says drummer Dalton Chamblee.

On Catfish Charlie the dirt is still there, but the band has cleaned up and polished their music into bigger, more rock-based numbers. If anything, this shows a band ready to expand their sound to larger stages and audiences. That being said, Sour Bridges are still dedicated to having the best time possible onstage and sharing that feeling with their audience.

When the band casually take out their instruments and comfortably strum through 4 or 5 tunes on the patio of Gourmands, there’s nary a frown in the whole place as unsuspecting customers find themselves enjoying this guerilla performance. Anyone can listen to a band’s music online or in the car, but Sour Bridges play with a wholehearted emotion that can never be experienced through a speaker. As the band finishes with a Beatles cover and a laugh, the newfound audience on the patio clap before returning cheerfully to their sandwiches and drinks. The members of Sour Bridges thrive off of these spontaneous moments of jubilation, and with a new album coming out and a packed schedule of summer shows, this is only the beginning. - The Horn

Sour Bridges reminds me of a burst of something good. Just…BAM. The music jets like a runaway train with no brakes. And, if you’ve not had the pleasure of such back porch musical revelry, you get this sudden realization: That’s what a hootenanny’s supposed to be like. Duh!

The local quintet describe what they do as “browngrass,” something quite like bluegrass with those heavy Appalachian influences, but a bit dirtier, more gritty, mixed with traditional Texas folk, indie and rock ‘n’ roll. This would be Americana gone wild. To top it all off, they’ve got some of the best vocal harmonies around.

Be expecting a new album from Sour Bridges, Catfish Charlie, coming out in August. Meanwhile, you can see Sour Bridges play tonight at midnight at The White Horse, 500 Comal St., following the most wicked blues rock around by Mrs. Glass at 10 p.m. And, if you miss tonight’s show, you can check out Sour Bridges at their Thursday night Browngrass Social at the Scoot Inn, 1308 E. 4th at Navasota. If that isn’t enough, catch them at Holy Mountain, 617 E. 7th St., this Sunday. - 98.9 KUTX

Sour Bridges reminds me of a burst of something good. Just…BAM. The music jets like a runaway train with no brakes. And, if you’ve not had the pleasure of such back porch musical revelry, you get this sudden realization: That’s what a hootenanny’s supposed to be like. Duh!

The local quintet describe what they do as “browngrass,” something quite like bluegrass with those heavy Appalachian influences, but a bit dirtier, more gritty, mixed with traditional Texas folk, indie and rock ‘n’ roll. This would be Americana gone wild. To top it all off, they’ve got some of the best vocal harmonies around.

Be expecting a new album from Sour Bridges, Catfish Charlie, coming out in August. Meanwhile, you can see Sour Bridges play tonight at midnight at The White Horse, 500 Comal St., following the most wicked blues rock around by Mrs. Glass at 10 p.m. And, if you miss tonight’s show, you can check out Sour Bridges at their Thursday night Browngrass Social at the Scoot Inn, 1308 E. 4th at Navasota. If that isn’t enough, catch them at Holy Mountain, 617 E. 7th St., this Sunday. - 98.9 KUTX

“Cravings of those Austin summer nights with friends in a backyard drinking whiskey until the sun rises are exactly what I yearn for when listening to Sour Bridges and that’s the browngrass way of life.” - The Deli Magazine

“Cravings of those Austin summer nights with friends in a backyard drinking whiskey until the sun rises are exactly what I yearn for when listening to Sour Bridges and that’s the browngrass way of life.” - The Deli Magazine

“Sour Bridges combine elements of folk, Americana, bluegrass, and rock n’ roll to conjure a sound reminiscent of rocking chairs on porches, the shade of an old oak tree, and simpler times.” - The Austinist

“Sour Bridges combine elements of folk, Americana, bluegrass, and rock n’ roll to conjure a sound reminiscent of rocking chairs on porches, the shade of an old oak tree, and simpler times.” - The Austinist

Nate: The Sour Bridges are a multi-talented folk group with heavy americana and bluegrass influences. Based in Austin, the group also channels some old-time country vibes. Basically, their music would be the perfect soundtrack for exploring the Appalachian Mountains or road-tripping in the flats of Texas.

And even though all of these talented musicians play a variety of instruments in the band, I am most impressed by their voices. Throughout their songs, they'll cut to a capella and create beautiful panning harmonies. The contrast between these purely vocal points and sections packed with instrumentation really helps to highlight all of the Sour Bridges' strengths. - Sonicbids

Nate: The Sour Bridges are a multi-talented folk group with heavy americana and bluegrass influences. Based in Austin, the group also channels some old-time country vibes. Basically, their music would be the perfect soundtrack for exploring the Appalachian Mountains or road-tripping in the flats of Texas.

And even though all of these talented musicians play a variety of instruments in the band, I am most impressed by their voices. Throughout their songs, they'll cut to a capella and create beautiful panning harmonies. The contrast between these purely vocal points and sections packed with instrumentation really helps to highlight all of the Sour Bridges' strengths. - Sonicbids

Sour Bridges – Sour Bridges
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2015 BY SHAWN UNDERWOOD

The simple fact is, some bands are better when they’re in the studio and some are better out on a stage. Ray LaMontagne literally made me squirm at a show given how obviously uncomfortable he was on the stage. Carrie Rodriguez has never managed to capture the magic of her stage charisma on a record. I was trying to reconcile this as I listened to the latest album from Austin-based Sour Bridges. I think one of the requirements for live greatness is a broad repertoire so you can feed off the audience. That broadness is really evident in this self-titled release and probably why they’re known for their shows.
Several tunes have a clear rock and roll bent and inspire what the band calls browngrass–a dirtier form of bluegrass. Cocaine Lorraine leads off with some cowpunk sounds and a charge to “dust off the jar, and put some whisky in thar.” Teddy stylizes a story about working on the Panama canal. Mr. Read It goes a little further stylistically and puts out a Tom Waits vibe.

As far as the recorded disc goes, though, my favorites were all slower country waltzes. Southeastern Corner could have been a follow on for Jason Isbell, painting the picture of being on the wrong side of the tracks with a subtle-but-sweet touch of trumpet and kettle drum. Meet You There is perhaps the ultimate autobiographical number for a musician with the observation that “there’s a place in my heart for the ones that I love, there’s a hole in my head where the music comes from.” Just to prove my comment about broad styles and that the exception defines the rules, the disc finishes with an untitled, almost a cappella, little ditty with just percussion for emphasis. There’s a big variety of styles on Sour Bridges, but all of it maintains a necessary thread to still feel like an album. And if you just hit play, I practically guarantee by 4 or 5 songs into it you’ll have found a song that quickly gets tagged as a favorite. - Twangville

Sour Bridges describe their sound as “browngrass”: bluegrass but with a dirtier, more raucous edge to it. The Austin band debuted in 2010 with Workin’ On Leavin,’ a charmingly lo-fi take on classic country. 2013’s Catfish Charlie mixed their exuberance with a hard-earned honky-tonk spirit, coming after years of gigging around Texas. Later this year, Sour Bridges are set to release a self-titled album, and all this month they’ve held down a residency at the Cactus Cafe in preparation. Their final Cactus date is tonight, and in the meantime, a song of the day from their recent Studio 1A session will get you ready. “Fine Life” is rough around the edges, but there’s just enough sugar in the band’s multi-part harmonies to keep you coming back for more.

–Art Levy - Art Levy