*The Following Press Release Was Issued By Earshot Media*
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In a joint statement, the surviving members of Brooklyn, NY indie rock band Stringer say, “Mark Fletcher, our brother and bandmate passed on Feb. 19th, 2019. For six years we made music. We lived our lives together with a bond that can only be forged by the most intense and ecstatic experiences, we spoke in our own language. Mark and filmmaker Chris Elia made this video featuring a collection of strangers and his best friends singing his words. We think this is fitting because Mark made friends so easily and it didn’t take long for a stranger to become a best friend.” Elia, a longtime friend of the band and frequent collaborator adds, “When Mark was in the Bay Area this past winter, he used his camera phone (as well as his outgoing & charming personality) to start filming the 1st verse in my old neighborhood. We spent literal hours talking on the phone during his trip, part of which involved his vision for a lyric video. He was so ecstatic about the initial rough cut I had sent him, so I can only imagine the happiness it would have brought him to see the completed video full of familiar faces singing his song.” Watch Stringer’s ‘Through The Walls’ video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJcluMu586g. Members of Stringer, along with family and friends of Mark’s have also banded together to launch The Mark Fletcher Studio, a non-profit that has been set up in his memory. Stringer’s practice room in Bushwick, Brooklyn has been refitted to host analog recorded sessions that are free for artists. The band adds, “We are running this studio solely on community donations so any help is greatly appreciated! Even $5 or $10 will go a long way. Please donate here: https://www.paypal.me/markfletcherstudio. Produced by Adam Reich (So So Glos, ex-Titus Andronicus), Stringer’s critically-acclaimed album ‘My Bad’ was released in July on Wiretap Records. ‘My Bad’ on Bandcamp: ‘My Bad’ on Spotify: ‘My Bad’ on Apple Music: Praise for Stringer’s “My Bad”:“Stringer often play furious, scraggly rock music that manages to evoke the frantic energy of the city they call home but also the constant war against your surroundings that can come with living in New York. Across the album, there are also stylistic modulations, with Stringer occasionally employing a sound that’s akin to a roughened echo of ’80s college rock or ’90s indie.”- Stereogum “… a quick and dirty blast of attitudinal rock ‘n’ roll that slides and glides like classic punk and feels like the kind of furious throat punch that only NYC music can deliver. You could call it garage rock but one suspects there are few garages in the heart of the city and so perhaps alley rock or gutter rock is better nomenclature. But Stringer manages to elevate the gutter to art.”- PopMatters ““Ghosts” is a ragged, punk-y garage rock song that grapples with the changes in their hometown and people’s perceptions of it.”- Stereogum “Stringer’s latest is a winning combination of heady indie and punk grit, smartly straddling both to great effect.” (4/5 stars)- New Noise Magazine “…A little bit of punk with a little bit of indie, combined to create this garage-rocky anthem that’s sure to make quite a first impression.”- Substream “…smartly crafted, moody pop with a permeating sense of sorrow that creates an intriguing duo of works. While members of Stringer have played in various bands, they retain a DIY ethic that is highly commendable, as is their adherence to providing a new twist to standard pop-punk fare.”- Jersey Beat “… off kilter psych influenced power pop that is delivered with a punk rock attitude …My Bad will undoubtedly to appeal to fans of the more left field punk bands, devotees of the likes of Culture Abuse, The Dead Milkmen and Baked will find something to treasure amongst the eclectic and unpredictable grooves…an unapologetically idiosyncratic album that flits between genres without ever quite settling on one…Stringer have produced something strange and offbeat that manages to defy description.”- The Punk Site “…as quirky as they are catchy….sounds like Wavves getting it on with Pkew Pkew Pkew while FIDLAR is watching from the side.”- Punk Rock Theory “…the brattiness of a Fidlar song mashed together with the straight-up rock of a band like The Hives…”- Punknews “…an eclectic 13 songs that are relatable, colorful, and intriguing.”- Spinning Thoughts “…has that throwback garage feel, the kind where it is as dirty as a sexually transmitted disease, as contagious as Influenza A…”- Madness To Creation |
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