User:Woboogie40/Western Civ (band)

Western Civ is an American indie rock band based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who are perhaps most known for 2009's much-vaunted LP, Shower The People You Love With Gold, which charted on the CMJ chart and was aired significantly on college and rock radio stations coast to coast, even ranking 23rd on the "100 Best Albums of 2009", placing ahead of offerings that year by Jay Reatard, Son Volt, Deerhunter, Polvo, and Kingsbury Manx. Members are Rich Henderson (vocals, guitar), Jason Briggs (bass, vocals), Bryan Cabler (drums, vocals), and Misty Briggs (keyboards, percussion, vocals).

Genesis
The exact date of the group's founding is difficult to pinpoint; the members have been involved in various seemingly-interchangeable projects together since the early 1990's. By all accounts, the band coalesced into its present form when Henderson and Cabler, childhood friends, enlisted Briggs, with whom they'd attended high school, to play bass for a project they'd started with other friends in their hometown of Florence, Alabama. Over the next two years, the other musicians drifted away one by one, leaving behind the trio who have performed and recorded together consistently since 1999.

Regent Kingfish Slumberpad
In 2005, Western Civ released its first recording of original music, an EP titled Regent Kingfish Slumberpad. The EP featured seven songs, all credited to Henderson, Cabler, and Briggs and released on the band's own imprint, HoosierDaddy Records. In addition to Cabler, Henderson, and Jason Briggs, the record features guitar work by Jason Hall, who was a regular member during this period. Upon Slumberpad's release, several cuts from the EP received airplay on college and underground radio stations across the country, and garnered critical praise. The band began to tour outside their home base in the south, traveling to New York and other locales in 2005 and 2006.

Remington Steele Magnolia
In 2007, the band released Remington Steele Magnolia, its first full-length effort, which garnered critical praise and substantial airplay. The band began to tour more outside their home region, and relocated later that year to Chapel Hill, where they promptly gained a local following and became well known in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill scene. Magnolia was recorded entirely by the band, and features cover art, like its predecessor, by Wendy Cabler.

Within a few months of releasing Magnolia, the band played dates in Chicago, New York City, Austin, TX, Athens, GA, Ann Arbor, MI, and Winston-Salem, NC.

Shower The People You Love With Gold
In early 2008, Western Civ convened at the Fidelitorium Studios of renowned producer and engineer Mitch Easter to record their latest batch of material. The ensuing record, Shower The People You Love With Gold, retained the often deliberately low-fi, arty sound of the band's earlier work, but was noticeably enlivened by Mitch Easter's production values, which cause the record to shimmer and gleam in contrast to the previous work.