Dude York

The Pacific Northwestern trio Dude York formed in the early 2010s when college buddies guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Peter Richards, drummer Andrew Hall, and bassist Alex Cassidy began bashing out punky, poppy guitar rock. After a few years of fooling around, they coalesced while living in Seattle and released the home-recorded, very lo-fi album Gangs of Dude York in early 2011. They put out two more singles that year, "David" and "Satanic Vs.," then finished up with the short and noisy Dewark EP. The next year brought more recordings, July's Escape from Dude York EP and September's studio-recorded single "The Lake." There was a personnel shakeup as well, with Cassidy leaving the band and former Brite Futures member Claire England joining. The band spent time playing shows and working on its second album, 2014's Dehumanize, and first for the Help Yourself label. It was recorded in a studio and found Dude York moving away from their noisy beginnings toward a more focused, '90s alternative-inspired sound. They also began shifting away from Richards being the main songwriting voice within the group and toward a more collaborative setup where everyone brought ideas to the table. The first fruit of their new approach was the "Lose Control"/"Love Is" single, which was recorded in late 2015 and released in 2016. That year they signed to the Seattle label Hardly Art and started work on another album. After recording it once at home, with the results being deemed too home-cooked and weird, the band hooked up with ex-Blood Brother Cody Votolato and John Goodmanson, a longtime producer of bands from the Northwest, to re-record the album. The finished product, titled Sincerely, was released in early 2017 and showed the band fully embracing the power of the recording studio and channeling the power-chord-heavy, lighthearted sound of '90s bands like Weezer and the Rentals. The trio returned at the end of the year with a collection of seasonal originals, plus a punky take on "Silent Night," titled Halftime for the Holidays. ~ Tim Sendra