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CAPITAL CITIES VIDEO PREMIERE TODAY

| 26 April 2013 | Reply

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April 25, 2013 — New York, NY — Capital Cities premiered the official video for its Top 10 Modern Rock radio hit “Safe and Sound” earlier today on VEVO. The clip was directed by Grady Hall (Beck, Modest Mouse), who is a writer-director and creative director at GRAMMY®-winning Motion Theory. “Safe and Sound” can be seen here.  Starting next week, the video will be on rotation on MTV and MTV2.  The song is the first single from Capital Cities’ debut album, In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery, which will be released on June 11 by Capitol Records, in partnership with Lazy Hooks.

In the video, the celebratory “Safe and Sound” fuels a mash-up of the past 100 years of dance, presided over by front men Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian at the newly restored Los Angeles Theatre, an ornate movie palace located in downtown Los Angeles. The pair learned lots of new moves from famed choreographer Mandy Moore. Although Sebu was injured during rehearsals, he took to heart the “no pain/no gain” axiom and simply wrapped up his throbbing sprained ankle so that he could perform.

Moore, who received an Emmy nomination for “So You Think You Can Dance” and was the choreographer for Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook, recruited dozens of professional dancers to join them. Hall and his team augmented those ranks by pulling people off the Venice boardwalk and out of dance clubs and then blending all the participants seamlessly with archival film footage to create a dance-off that spans the past century. More than 40+ dance styles – from Burning Man, the Electric Boogaloo and water ballet to Kazatsky (the Russian “kick” dance), the Charleston and roller disco – are represented in the three-minute clip.

“We really strived to show the basic idea of dance as a timeless celebration that expresses and re-mixes itself over the decades,” says Grady Hall. “Part of that was working with the dancers to go into the middle of the circle and lay down their “power moves” – i.e., those jaw-droppingly big moves that take years to perfect, and only about a second to pull off. I love that we immortalized some of those. But also, we wanted to create the sense that the song itself was inspiring a mash-up of styles so that the swing dancers were break dancing, the B-Boys were tap dancing, and Ryan and Sebu were inspiring the dance with their performance – which is kind of the way it is at their live shows, too.”

“Safe and Sound,” which has been heard in promotional campaigns for HBO, Smart Car, Microsoft and more than half a dozen other spots, was hailed by RollingStone.com as “a song that merges high-energy dance beats with unbridled optimism and joy” whileNeon Gold pronounced it a “sonic head rush…an easy, breezy, beautiful slice of effervescent-electro-pop that absolutely kills it.” In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery also include fan favorites “Kangaroo Court” and “I Sold My Bed, But Not My Stereo.” OutKast’s Andre 3000, vocalist Shemika Secrest and NPR’s Frank Tavares are featured on the song “Farrah Fawcett Hair.” The album is produced and mixed entirely by Ryan and Sebu – two Los Angeles jingle writers who met on Craigslist. The artwork is by Brazilian artist Joao Lauro Fonte, who has done works for Wired, Converse and others.

Capital Cities is previewing songs from In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery during its first-ever North American outing. The “Dancing With Strangers” tour, which features special guest Gold Fields, kicked off earlier this week and includes sold-out nights at New York City’s Irving Plaza (5/9) and Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre (6/6 & 7). All proceeds from the June 7 show at the El Rey will go to MusiCares and A Place Called Home. The band, which recently appeared at Sundance, SXSW and ULTRA, will also perform at numerous festivals, including Sasquatch! and Firefly. Tour dates are as follows:

Capital Cities – Dancing With Strangers Tour

4/26      Austin, TX                                 Brazos Hall

4/28      Houston, TX                              House of Blues – Bronze Peacock                           SOLD OUT

4/30      New Orleans, LA                        House of Blues – The Parish

5/2        W. Columbia, SC                        New Brooklyn Tavern

5/3        Charlotte, NC                 The Fillmore

5/5        Virginia Beach, VA           The Jewish Mother

5/8        Boston, MA                                Paradise Rock Club

5/9        New York, NY                            Irving Plaza                                                         SOLD OUT

5/10      Philadelphia, PA              Theatre of the Living Arts

5/11      Albany, NY                    The Bayou

5/13      Toronto, ON                              Virgin Mobile Mod Club

5/14      Cleveland, OH                            Cambridge Room @ House of Blues

5/15      Detroit, MI                                 The Shelter

5/21      Colorado Springs, CO      The Black Sheep

5/22      Aspen, CO                                 Belly Up

5/23      Fort Collins, CO             Aggie Theatre

5/24      Englewood, CO                          Gothic Theatre

5/28      Vancouver, BC                Venue Live

5/29      Portland, OR                              Hawthorne Theatre

5/31      Sacramento, CA             Ace of Spades

6/1        Santa Barbara, CA          SOHo Restaurant & Music Club

6/5        Anaheim, CA                             House of Blues

6/6        Los Angeles, CA                         El Rey Theatre                                                    SOLD OUT

6/7        Los Angeles, CA              El Rey Theatre                                                    SOLD OUT

Additional Dates

4/27      Frisco, TX                                  FC Dallas Stadium/Edgefest

5/4        Washington, DC                         RFK Stadium-Lot 9/ DC 101 Chili Cook Off

5/26      Quincy, WA                              The Gorge Amphitheatre/Sasquatch! Music Festival               SOLD OUT

6/23      Dover, DE                                 Dover International Speedway/Firefly Music Festival

8/2        Montreal, QC                 Parc Jean-Drapeau/Osheaga Music Festival

8/9        Squamish, BC                  Loggers Sports Grounds/Squamish Music Festival

8/2 Montreal, QC Parc Jean-Drapeau/Osheaga Music Festival

8/9 Squamish, BC Loggers Sports Grounds/Squamish Music Festival

For more about Capital Cities, please visit:

www.capitalcitiesmusic.com

www.facebook.com/capitalcities

www.twitter.com/capitalcities

Category: Articles

About the Author ()

ToddStar - that's me... just a rocking accountant who had dreams of being a rock star. I get to do the next best thing to rocking the globe - I get to take pictures of the lucky ones that do. I love to shoot all genres of music and different types of performers. If it is related to music, I love to photograph it. I get to shoot and hang with not only some of my friends and idols, but some of the coolest people around today.

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