Awesome Color

Psych-garage-noise purveyors Awesome Color coalesced after Michigan skater/musos Michael Troutman (aka Michael Awesome) and Allison Busch (aka Allison Awesome) hooked up with fellow Great Lake State expat Derek Stanton (aka Derek Awesome) in Brooklyn, NY, in 2004. Tired of the same old, same old that was passing for N.Y.C. underground punk at the time, the trio set out to inject a little Detroit rock know-how into the tired scene. Succeeding marvelously at channeling the grit and free abandon of the Stooges and MC5 into a propulsive, riff-based, Black Sabbath-informed mule-kick of a live show, the group soon caught the ear of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore -- who wasted no time snatching the band up for his Ecstatic Peace! label. Their self-titled debut hit the racks in 2006 and album number two, Electric Aborigines, followed in 2008. The wake of that second release found the group touring the world in support of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. throughout the rest of 2008.