Vermont

Vermont:

Happy Birthday

CITY: Brattleboro
SONG TO DOWNLOAD: "Girls FM"
WEB SITE: myspace.com/brattleborohousecartoon

WHY THEM: In an empty bar in Brattleboro at the end of an unattended show my band had just played, a man who looked like a younger but equally grizzled Neil Young walked into the room and onto the stage. He picked up a guitar, fell to his back, and began to shred without saying a word to anyone. That man was Kyle Thomas, and four years later he's the frontman of the wildly infectious Happy Birthday. He's also released garage-pop under the name King Tuff, drony freak-folk with Feathers, and melodic hardcore with Witch. Dude gets around. Happy Birthday's self-titled 2010 debut is packed with pop gems. Thomas backs his singsong-y tunes with melodic guitar lines in the way that the Beatles did, while still keeping things fucked up with waves of feedback and distortion. His songs follow classic pop constructions that devolve at the right points (see "Cracked," "Perverted Girl") to create something that's beautiful, twisted, and eternally catchy.

ALSO CONSIDERED: Tooth ache. — Tooth ache. is the type of female-fronted, blippy electronic music we expect from Vermont. If woodland creatures had access to electronic instruments, we're sure the resulting product would somehow sound similar.

By P. NICK CURRAN

Virginia

Utah