Palm Readers will be playing the Soapbox this Friday, August 15th, on the Lounge level with Young Livers, Grabass Charlestons and Eerie Night at 9. Tracks can be heard on their MySpace page.

Reprint from Encore Online:
If judging by previous crowd-pleasers from our local scene—Swashbuckler, The Stunt Doubles, The Valentines and Silver Judas—the future of our rawking days will be more than engaging when listening to new rock outfit the Palm Readers. And it doesn’t take a crystal ball to foresee such. This foursome spawned from the popularity of previously noted acts, and together they are combining mystic and myth, fortune and talent all in one fell swoop.

Made up of John Baltz (bass), Shawn Corbett (drums), Jason Delamar (guitar/vocals) and Ben Moore (guitar/vocals), the quartet became a sonic force after their respective bands dissolved into the ether. “We’d all been friends, surfing together, digging on each others’ music for close to 15 years,” Jason Delamar told encore via e-mail last week. “We’d talked about getting together on numerous occasions, but music is all about timing [and] not just in the rhythmic sense. When you’re talking about bands, you’re talking about people with lives and wives, careers, dogs and cats, mortgages and babies. The older [we] get, the more everyone has on [their] plates. Putting together a good band has as much to do with good fortune as anything else.”

With more than a decade of consistent musicality under their belts, their talents perpetually drew them to a raw garage-rock sound influenced by “just about anything,” Delamar noted. “Shawn jokes that if you don’t like what you hear at first, stick around because we have a little something for everybody.” From indie to ‘60s British-pop, metal to punk, 12-bar blues to psycho-billy, “we’re all over the place,” he iterated. Still, what comes from the speakers is instantaneous seduction, showcasing everything from gravelly vocals, as heard on my personal favorite, “NawLeans,” to staccatic riffing, as digested on the Eighties pogo punk of “Neverland Raunch,” a playful song to say the least. The music rushes its audience like a well-oiled machine spouting out blood, sweat and tears with every switch. It’s maniacal rock ‘n’ roll, softened only by compositional mastery. And its makers are on the prowl to transfix new audiences.

“When we took a moment to step back and listen to the things we were doing in our cramped, mold-infested practice space, we felt sure that all this must have been written in the stars, really,” Delamar confirmed of Palm Readers’ genesis. “The last star to fall into position was John Baltz. We’d long dreamt of a solid bass player to give us that underlayment we were missing, and like magic, John appears—poof! The elements of magic, fate and prophecy we perceive to be at work in this union led us to dub ourselves Palm Readers. Of course, all that mystical shit may just be the effect the mold is having on us.”

If it’s the mold talking, then it’s safe to say such blue-and-green fuzz is pretty well-versed. Each member ticks along more than impressively on their six-song demo CD, as songs like “Karma Sutra,” “Well-Hungarian” and “My Two Eyes” stand out most unapologetically. With Moore and Delamar stepping up as primary songwriters, they each approach the role quite differently.

“Ben churns out songs like a machine,” Delamar said. “He has something new [at] every practice. He throws ‘em out, and looks for us to add parts, make suggestions. . . . I, on the other hand, bring songs that have been meticulously worked over time and again, with careful decision to details. Then I waver under the weight of the changes the band wants to make like a doting mother might as she watches three dudes tattoo her beautiful little baby. Shawn is as much a genius when it comes to arranging as he is on drums. The whole thing is as much of a collaborative effort as I’ve ever been privy to—and that’s a rare thing; it’s easy to overcrowd the kitchen when there’s a song a brewin’.”

Their mish-mash of talent and the experience they’ve garnered doing it over the years adds another dose of venerability to Wilmington’s scene. “There’s a few bands out there doing what we do,” Delamar shared. “[We’re] old enough to be past entertaining any delusions of grandeur; we’re really all about making music and having some fun doing it.”

Delamar and the rest of the palm-reading gang storm the Soapbox this Friday, August 15th, on the Lounge level. They’ll be playing with Young Livers, Grabass Charlestons and Eerie Night (9pm). Folks who can’t be a part of the fortune this weekend can mark their calendars for Saturday, September 6th, at Reggie’s 42nd Street, where Palm Readers play with the funk-and-groove of Sweaty Already (9pm). Check out the sound first at http://www.myspace.com/palmreaders.