Budding Yellow Red Sparks open at Larimer Lounge

Weekends were made for music lovers to fall in love with a new band at a random venue like people impulsively kissing and groping on the corner of an unlit building with someone amazing they just met. Yellow Red Sparks—a budding California folk indie band—could very much be that make-out session you’ve been hoping for at the Larimer Lounge.

Songwriter Joshua Hanson started out writing and performing under the solo acoustic moniker Yellow Red Sparks after relocating to Southern California, quickly growing a passionate local following. He eventually self-released an EP on iTunes entitled Simply Put Me In Your Place. Since then he has added two full-time members—Goldy on drums and vocals, and Sara Lynn on upright bass, piano, vocals, and banjo—that take Hanson’s songs of heartache and amplify the emotional voice.

Yellow Red Sparks is ready to launch its first self-titled full-length record on Jan. 29. It was produced by Ted Hutt who has also worked with Gaslight Anthem, Lucero, and the continuously drunk Irish-American band Flogging Molly. It was also mastered by multi-Grammy award winner Brian Lucey, who worked with The Shins, Sigur Rós, and The Black Keys. Yellow Red Sparks has the trio beautifully weaving solid songwriting with rich harmonies in the midst of a strong emphasis on lyrical content, creating music with an ageless feel while providing an open and candid perspective to raw blistering emotions that come with the everyday trials of life.

Yellow Red Sparks has been gaining notoriety in California by defending its Best Folk Act title at the 2010 OC Music Awards with a second win in 2011. Yellow Red Sparks is everything listeners want in an indie band: a lead singer with plenty of vocal range, melodic and lyrically perceptive music, and even an introverted female upright bassist. It is a hardworking band that has propelled itself out of the Orange County music scene and became a must-see act in venues across California.

“I love words and I love melodies and the main goal of any song that I write is that it’s honest and real for me,” Hanson told Kacie Yoshida of OC Weekly for its music blog two months ago. “The best way to describe the process is sort of an emotional vomiting.” This makes a childish mind wonder if Hanson has ever emotionally vomited on himself piss-ass drunk and temporarily came back to consciousness before his dog gobbled up his lyrics.

FILTER magazine is calling “Monsters With Misdemeanors”—Yellow Red Sparks’ upcoming single—“stunning” and is projecting the entire album to be “one of 2013’s standout records.”

So cram into the Larimer Lounge this Saturday, Dec. 8 to see Yellow Red Sparks play a show around 8 p.m. with plenty of the evening left to emotionally vomit in the street while stumbling home after sloppy-kissing them in a dark, dingy dive bar.