Stephie Coplan and the Pedestrians and Defunct Radio Circus – FRIDAY MAY 18th
After failing miserably at art lessons at the tender age of eight, Stephie Coplan snapped her paint brush in half and promptly entered a third-grade life crisis. She was too young to buy a sportscar, so she asked her parents for a piano instead. By high school, she was writing songs, recording her first album, winning classical piano competitions, and traveling from her small town in Maryland to perform all over the world, from Switzerland to Disneyworld to New York City.
Like a musical M&M, Coplan’s outer shell of crisp, colorful lyrics protects a sweet, gooey, melancholic center of rich, observational storytelling. Blending humor, poignancy, and one hell of a vocabulary, Coplan creates characters ranging from hipster snobs to wild-child hippies to sadistic flight attendants and effortlessly builds entire worlds around them – all within catchy, tunefully crafted pop songs. Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne noticed similarities to his own songwriting, commenting that Coplan seems “destined for the same commercial purgatory as the rest of us ‘smart’ songwriters.”
After forming a large and supportive fan base in Boston while attending Tufts University, Coplan moved to the New York City area and formed Stephie Coplan & the Pedestrians with bassistJohn F. Hebert and drummer Shane Considine. Earning comparisons to the bombastic piano-banging of Ben Folds Five, the dance-punk edginess of Metric, and yet the earnest sweetness of Taylor Swift, the trio has gone from playing intimate clubs in the Lower East Side to receiving airplay on commercial alternative radio alongside artists like Death Cab For Cutie and the Foo Fighters in just a few months.
Only twenty-four hours after putting the ’60s-inspired music video for their first single, “Jerk!” on YouTube (directed by David Dutton of “Internet Killed the Video Star” fame),Coplan and her band were bewildered when it went somewhat viral, receiving thousands of hits in under a week from word-of-mouth alone. One of those hits was from Paul Driscoll, program director at Boston’s WFNX, who instantly identified the song as a breakout hit and put it into regular rotation on the station. The Boston Phoenix blogged about the song twice within days, calling it a “gold-star keeper,” and AOL Spinner featured it as their Video of the Day in December 2011 alongside videos from Foster the People and Feist. The group was immediately named Artist of the Month in The NYC Deli Magazine, after having just won the fan-voted People’s Choice Award at the Hoboken Music Awards the month before. In January 2012, Stephie Coplan & The Pedestrians were named one of the Top 20 Emerging Artists of 2011 in The NYC Deli Magazine.
Lifelong musicians, Stephie Coplan & the Pedestrians are passionate about playing live and are enjoying a rapidly growing fan base along the East Coast. Music Connection Magazine has praised Coplan’s “razzmatazz keyboard tickling and stunningly clever choruses,” calling their show a “home run” and featuring the trio on their 2011 year-end Hot 100 list of live unsigned artists. Audiences can expect “great energy and playfulness,” (DAVE’S PHOTO BLOG), “fearless moxie and a wicked sense of humor,” (UNVEILED ARTS), “unhinged dancing” (CULTURE BRATS), and even a little beatboxing (the group opened for beatboxing legend Rahzel at CMJ 2011.)
In 2012, Stephie Coplan & the Pedestrians embarked on a sold-out CD release tour through New York City, Boston, Washington, and Hoboken, New Jersey. Thanks to rapid word-of-mouth, “JERK!” is currently the #2 most-requested song on Boston’s WFNX and is enjoying commercial, internet, and college radio airplay around the country. The group is excited to spend 2012 writing new music, recording new songs, playing more shows, and making new friends. 2012 is the Year of the Pedestrian – hold on tight.
DEFUNCT RADIO CIRCUS
