I first met Evan Weiss (Into It. Over It.) while he was still in the middle of his 52 Weeks project when he played at Akron’s small hipster bar, The Matinee, with Ben Hendricks of Annabel.  He has played the house a couple times since then, the most recent being last week’s show with Snowing, Glocca Morra, and Annabel.  Currently he’s in the middle of a very cool split 7 inch project called Twelve Towns, where he puts out different splits with different bands and sings about 12 towns that he played in on a previous tour.  So far splits with Bob Nanna, Castevet, Everyone Everywhere, Empire Empire, Snowing, and Akron’s own DIY stalwarts in Pswingset are either out, in pre-order, or coming soon.  Thanks to Evan for being a great dude all around and for agreeing to play a song for us on the swing!

There was a lot of talking up until he hit his first note, so I had to go with a different type of edit than I normally do and the audio isn’t the greatest quality.  I plan on upgrading my video camera (and editing software knowledge) in the future, but for now this will work.

Here’s the song “Pontiac, MI” which is out on his split with Castevet called Snack Town.

It’s A Swing Thing! – Into It. Over It. from Its A Kling Thing on Vimeo.

Joie De Vivre is a band that you should know and listen to right now if you’ve ever listened to and loved the ever thrown around Midwest-Nineties-Emo genre.  They pull their biggest influences from bands from that era while making songs that are fresh and filled with new life.  We had the pleasure of their company after they played at A.R.M. Fest (www.armfest.org) in Kent with a ton of amazing bands (which is another post completely…)

After clobbering us at Mortal Kombat 3 for Sega they felt bad enough for our poor gaming skills that they agreed to do a Swing Thing! first thing in the morning.  Watch the video of “Upper Deck San Diego” then go check them out at their myspace.

It’s A Swing Thing! – Joie De Vivre from Its A Kling Thing on Vimeo.

Koji is a singer/songwriter from Pennsylvania.  This is the second time he has played at the house and I couldn’t have been more excited to hear him play his songs and tell anecdotes about his life and his beliefs.  He’s definitely one of the most hard-working, passionate, and genuinely nice people I have ever met and he also cooks spaghetti better than an old Italian grandmother!  Be sure to keep your ears and eyes peeled for this dude, he has some really cool things happening.  He will be back at the house in September.  Here’s the song “Color Quiet Loud”

It’s A Swing Thing! – Koji from Its A Kling Thing on Vimeo.

First post!  Welcome to the It’s A Kling Thing! website/blog!  We don’t really know exactly everything that will end up on this page, but one can assume that we’ll post show reviews, pictures, and videos.  One thing that we will for sure be posting on a regular basis is a video series called “It’s A Swing Thing!”  Basically, we have an awesome swing on our porch and a ton of bands coming through… why not present them the option of playing an acoustic jam or two for your enjoyment?  We don’t have any crazy HD cameras, or even a microphone.  Just an iPhone, a swing, cheap video editing software, and the internet.  That’s all we need!

North Carolina’s Museum Mouth is the first band to record a Swing Thing video.  While they didn’t play a show at the house, they stayed here after their show in Cleveland and agreed to at least play a song!  They were three of the nicest people and their love of cats was awesome!  They played their song “Outside” before they headed back on the road towards their next show in Columbus.  Check it out!

It’s A Swing Thing! – Museum Mouth from Its A Kling Thing on Vimeo.