Author: April

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Daytrotter Barnstormer 5, Akron, OH, 8.31.11

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“We’re in a barn. Shit.” – Dean Povinsky, Wildlife

Having grown up in the country (not too far from the site where the Daytrotter Barnstormer 5 tour set down in Akron), I’m not unfamiliar with hearing live music in barns – though in my childhood experiences, the bands were usually a sidenote to a pig roasting on a spit or people getting drunk at a company picnic. Don’t get me wrong: there were people getting drunk at the beautiful Conrad Botzum Farmstead Barn Wednesday night, but the main event was clearly the music.

The show started promptly at 6:30 PM, the sun still out, shining in through the open barn door and windows. A group of photogenic young men dressed all in black with matching teal armbands (“We chose black for our uniforms,” keyboard player Tim Daugulis commented later. “What a great idea.” “Oh yeah: daylight,” singer/guitarist Dean Povinsky added) drew people into the barn from the deck and surrounding grounds with their energetic set. This was Wildlife. Belting out passionate vocals and rocking hard, half the band’s black uniforms were sweat-soaked by the third song. I liked Wildlife immediately and even got goosebumps during an a cappella break toward the end of the last song of their set.

Next up was Princeton, an L.A. band led by twin brothers Matt and Jesse Kivel. Their synth-heavy mellow dance music was not my thing, but they had a friendly presence, and the woman in striped jeans to my right danced ecstatically through most of the set.

Doug Paisley was probably the artist on the bill who most fit people’s idea of music you might usually hear emanating from a barn. Looking like the lovechild of Thurston Moore and John Doe, Paisley is a sweet guitarist with a comfortable, weathered voice. In his songs, he is a storyteller, but he joked about trying to keep quiet between songs because stage banter didn’t seem to work for him. “I don’t like telling the same jokes every night,” he said. “I think you should keep things fresh. That may be my problem.” Either way, he had a barnful of people quietly transfixed by the end of his set.

(In a slightly mistimed moment of serendipity, a bat flew high over Paisley’s head a couple of songs after he played “Bat Song”.)

For the seventh inning stretch, White Rabbits brought their spirited Brit-style pop-rock to make the barn bounce. They brought out a crop of new songs that still managed to engage the crowd, though it was with their last couple of songs, more familiar tunes, that really brought punch to their set.

I have gushed about Hacienda on this blog before, and this is going to be more of the same. I tell everyone that they are one of my favorite live bands for a very good reason. These guys always serve up a loose soul groove while still being a very tight unit, and there aren’t many bands who make me dance more at shows. The Villanueva brothers and cousin Dante brought out a bunch of new songs from their third album, recently recorded at Dan Auerbach’s relocated Easy Eye Studio in Nashville, my favorite being “You Just Don’t Know” with its superior soul groove. And while the new songs were great, it was in the more familiar tunes where they really laid it down. They ended their set with a spectacular version of their Everly Brothers cover “You’re My Girl” that featured an extended groove-jam intro and left the crowd hollering for more. They proceeded to top themselves with an encore of “Mama’s Cookin'” that could have set the barn aflame had it gotten any hotter.

All in all, a great evening in a great setting. I’d like to extend my personal thanks to Sean Moeller and the Daytrotter crew for bringing this great tour to Ohio this time around.

 

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Austin Lucas at Blue Moon Café, Shepherdstown, WV, 8.26.11

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Happy to have another guest post from the lovely and talented Michelle Evans (Dear Ben Nichols, The Vinyl District: Washington, D.C.), this time a live review of Austin Lucas and the Bold Party.

 

 

I discovered Austin Lucas a couple years ago, but I had yet to see him live. When I heard he was going to be at the intimately set Blue Moon Café in Shepherdstown, WV, with his brilliantly talented back-up band The Bold Party and opening acts Matt Kline (of The Fox Hunt) and Marcellus Hall (from Brooklyn), I packed up my ’89 Honda Accord (with pop-up headlights!) for a road-trip north to see some awesome music (oh, and my sister too).

I am very much a voice and lyrics person. I often say that if I can’t understand what someone is singing, I’m not likely to be very interested in what the singer has to say (although there are, of course, exceptions). While initially drawn by the overall tone and sorrowful beauty of Lucas’ voice, I came to find bluegrass, country (the real kind), mountain, and Old Time influences in his music – some of my favorite genres. But that’s not all I found. On his new full-length album, A New Home in the Old World, Lucas has employed the use of electric guitar, as can be heard on one of my new favorite songs by him, “Thunder Rail.” Some of my other favorite songs he performed that night included “Somebody Loves You,” “Go West” (below), and “Wash My Sins Away” (also below), all of which can be found on both Somebody Loves You and Live from the White Water Tavern.

Austin Lucas is by and large one of the alt-country genre’s unsung heroes. He not only has a beautiful, soulful voice that propels along a story, but a knack for constructing and writing songs that are both emotive and smart.

Recently coming off a tour with Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown, Austin Lucas is currently headlining a tour with The Bold Party as well as touring as support for the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. If Lucas is performing within a few hours radius of where you live, see him (and definitely see him with The Bold Party, if you can). It won’t be long before he’ll move from intimate saloon settings to theaters, and you’ll regret not seeing him when.

 

Austin Lucas - Go West @ The BlueMoon Saloone 08/26/11

 

Austin Lucas - Wash My Sins Away @ The BlueMoon Saloone 08/26/11

 

Austin Lucas - Wild Boar @ The BlueMoon Saloone 08/26/11

 

Austin Lucas Official Website

Austin Lucas @ Reverb Nation

Austin Lucas @ Facebook

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Comrade Plymouth: Bodies of Bones and Breasts and Unmapped Chambers of Hearts

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Being moved to tears by live music is one thing – the confluence of proximity and energy can be powerful – but have you ever been moved to tears by something you heard on the radio? I had that singular experience once, not long after I had hosted Christopher Porterfield and Nick Berg for a night as they passed through Cleveland on their way to shows with Strand of Oaks and Yellow Ostrich in New York City. I tuned in to a little low-end-of-the-dial folk show to hear them play, as Conrad Plymouth, a little in-studio set with Timothy Showalter (a.k.a. Strand of Oaks). I expected it to be fun to hear my friends on the radio, and I expected it to be lovely, but I didn’t expect, as they played “Fergus Falls”, a song I’d listened to so many times, to be made weepy.

This is their gift, to reach right into your chest, gently pull out your heart and show you all the amazing things inside you. Inside humans. On Comrade Plymouth, Christopher Porterfield’s new solo record, he does it again. To paraphrase writer Raymond Chandler’s description of colleague Dashiell Hammett, Porterfield writes lyrics that seem never to have been written before. They don’t beg or shout to be heard, but you will stop to listen.

Have a listen to a couple of my favorite tracks:

 

 

 

Comrade Plymouth is available now via Conrad Plymouth’s Bandcamp on a name-your-own-price basis.

Conrad Plymouth Official Website

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Diamond Doves, Brooklyn Bowl, 8.19.11: “We Always Want People To Dance”

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NTSIB friend and cohort Joy Wagner kindly offered this sweet little interview/show review to us and the good dudes at Citizen Dick. Check out Diamond Doves’ music at their MySpace (and then entreat them to get off of MySpace).

 

 

The odds are good that, if you’re a regular follower of this blog, you’ve already heard of the Diamond Doves. They’ve backed up and opened for several popular acts: A.A. Bondy, The Felice Brothers, Elvis Perkins. In fact, they were Dearland, as in “Elvis Perkins In.”

These days, they’ve struck out on their own, but they’re not trying to ride any coattails. The Doves are doing this all themselves.

“With our band, we’re trying to break every rule we set for ourselves [in the previous band],” says Wyndham Garnett (guitar, trombone, vocals).

Brigham Brough (bass, vocals, saxophone) agrees. “Our past material taught us what we’re capable of and what we wanted to do. But we’re trying less to build off of that platform than to create anew.”

Which isn’t to say that they’re arrogant — just that they’ve learned from experience. Nick Kinsey (drums, clarinet, vocals) maintains “We’ve hit the ground running.”

And indeed, in the space of a few months, they seem to have picked a direction and headed for it full bore. In April, when I last saw them, they were playing upbeat, catchy, and well-orchestrated but fairly mild tunes: solidly enjoyable opening-band material. Between then and August, however, they’ve shifted into floor-shaking, guitar-driven indie rock that can convince even a notoriously apathetic Williamsburg hipster crowd to dance.

Garnett attributes this to the album they’ve been recording. “We’ve been working our ass off to make the new record and we want everyone to hear it.”

“We always want people to dance,” says Brough. “We want to write good songs and make good music. [Within the band] we want to inspire and challenge each other.”

Which seems to be working out pretty well. Their songwriting method is democratic, with each band member contributing his part and allowing the others to fill in theirs. Each takes his turn at singing, while Brough and Garnett often trade instruments onstage. Each has his own distinctive sound, and there is no clear frontman in the typical sense of the word.

Brough acknowledges that this approach is both “our biggest strength and our biggest weakness,” and that it keeps them on their toes.

Garnett asserts that with his contributions, “I want to impress my homeboys and give them something good to play.”

“Our energy ties it together,” says Kinsey, adding that the trio’s longtime friendship has given them a significant nonverbal connection. And indeed, their democratic interactions carry over off the stage. When I caught up with them after their set, they were affable, personable, visiting with friends and chatting over a shared plate of chicken wings. They have a habit of contributing to and even finishing one another’s sentences. The Diamond Doves are just three friends who are also in a band, making music they want everyone to check out.

“We speak music to each other,” Garnett explains, and I readily believe that.

After the chicken wings had vanished, the trio went outside to watch the other bands on the bill and catch up with Elvis Perkins, who’d offered a supportive presence; I sat in the lobby organizing my notes. A young man sharing the sofa explained that he’d journeyed all the way from Pennsylvania to hear the headlining act, and asking what I had come for. When I told him, he frowned in thought for a moment.

“The Diamond Doves, were they the first act?” He paused, then grinned. “They were fucken awesome.”

Between that and the dancing hipsters, I think this is a good sign.

 


Diamond Doves opening for the Felice Brothers, Club Helsinki, Hudson, NY, 3.26.11

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Southern Independent, Vol. 2

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The XXX movement is moving ahead and gaining steam. The project, spearheaded by Shooter Jennings, aims to promote and provide a support network for music that is “too rock for country, too country for rock”, music that is often invisible to the eye of the larger public because the bigger record labels and radio stations find it too difficult to pigeonhole.

Following up on last month’s Southern Independent, Vol. 1 compilation, the crew at Give Me My XXX have dropped their second volume today (with slots for the Vol. 3 dance card already filling up). Check out the track list below – a nice mix of artists you already know and love together with new artists that will become future old favorites.

1. Honky Tonk Carnie / Lonewolf OMB
2. Devil in New Orleans / Powder Mill
3. Quittin’ Time / Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre
4. Codeine / Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
5. I Like The Way / The Imperial Rooster
6. Whatever Kills Me First / Joey Allcorn
7. Chevy Beretta / Jonny Corndawg
8. Santa Monica / John Carter Cash
9. Sweet Delta Water / Black Oak Arkansas
10. Down and Out / Honky Tonk Hustlas
11. Canteen Full of Dreams / Roger Alan Wade
12. I Ain’t Drunk / Whitey Morgan and the 78’s
13. Hear The Hills / North Mississippi Allstars
14. Hootchie Kootchie Man / Jerry McGill (recorded at Sun Studio, this previously unreleased track includes Waylon Jennings on guitar, Jim Dickerson on keys, Ritchie Albright on drums and the Memphis Horns)

To get the comp, all you have to do is register an account at Give Me My XXX. Nice and easy. If you need a little more appetite whetting, check out the videos for some select tracks below.

 

 

The Imperial Rooster - I LIke The Way (She...) Live from the Porch

 

Whitey Morgan and the 78's - I Ain't Drunk

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Bonnie “Prince” Billy & the Phantom Family Halo: I Want Love to Eat My Mind

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It’s a simple equation: for instant creepy backwoods elegance, just add Will Oldham (a.k.a. Bonnie “Prince” Billy). Oldham has found a worthy collaborator in Phantom Family Halo helmer Dominic Cipolla. On their 4-song EP, The Mindeater, Cipolla and the Phantom Family Halo construct huge, echoing warehouse chambers of sound for Oldham’s voice to travel in and out of, creating music that is simultaneously ethereal and dark.

Check out the outstanding title track.

 

 

The Mindeater CD (a limited-edition vinyl version was released in May) will be available September 27, which is also the day the Phantom Family Halo begin a tour with Bonnie “Prince” Billy down in Nelsonville, Ohio.

Tue Sep 27 – Nelsonville OH – Stuart’s Opera House
Wed Sep 28 – York PA – Capitol Theater
Sun Oct 02 – Alexandria VA – The Birchmere
Tue Oct 04 – Knoxville TN – Bijou Theatre
Wed Oct 05 – Marshall NC – Marshall High Studios
Thu Oct 06 – Wilmington NC – The Soapbox
Sun Oct 09 – Louisville KY – The Clifton Center

Bonnie “Prince” Billy & the Phantom Family Halo Official Website

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Caryn Rose: B-Sides and Broken Hearts

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Lisa Simon, age 37, still loves loud punk rock and hates Dave Matthews with an all-consuming passion. So begins the synopsis of Caryn Rose’s first novel, B-Sides and Broken Hearts. If this book is for you, you know it just from that sentence. You’ve already heard the click of recognition and know you’re about to read the story of a kindred spirit.

For the rest of you, let me put it to you this way: B-Sides and Broken Hearts is like High Fidelity for female music nerds. I mean big music nerds. The ones you know in school who always wore band T-shirts, who tried to sneak their Walkman/Discman/mp3 player to class, whose locker and bedroom was papered with band posters, who camped out for concert tickets, who spent hours in records stores on the weekends and cried when the tape recorder ate their favorite cassette/favorite CD became too scratched to play/computer ate their mp3s. But moreover, these are the music nerds who never “grew out of it”. They may have flirted with being “normal” – took a desk job, toned down their wardrobe, tried dating a guy with a steady job. But the nerd streak never went away. They went on to start bands themselves, to work for bands, to start record labels, write for music rags, run music blogs…

The moment I knew Lisa Simon was one of my tribe happened in the first few pages, when Lisa fights with her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend over the significance of the death of Joey Ramone.

“Lisa, I’m sorry, yes, it’s sad, but–it’s not the greatest loss ever endured by the music world that the author of ‘Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue’ is no longer with us.” He pronounces the song title in artificial, clipped tones.

“That was Dee Dee,” I say, automatically. It was like Tourette’s or something. I honestly couldn’t stop myself.

I know that particular affliction well, and she’s right: it is like Tourette’s.

Now, not only is B-Sides a first novel, but it’s also a pretty DIY effort and, as such, can feel a little rough around the edges at times. But this works as a strength for the book, enhancing the feeling that, instead of reading a novel, you’re in conversation with a good friend who really gets it, a music-obsessive soulmate.

And as with a good friend, watching her go out and do what you’ve long dreamed of doing is inspiring and galvanizing. I’d like to put this book into the hands of teen girl music nerds to give them faith that their dreams are not silly, wrong or unobtainable. They are well within reach, perhaps now more than ever.

B-Sides and Broken Hearts Official Website

Caryn Rose Official Website

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On Joe Strummer’s Birthday: The 101ers

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Time again to pay tribute to NTSIB’s patron saint, Joe Strummer, who would have been 59 years old today.

Before he was known as Joe Strummer, John Mellor was nicknamed “Woody” after hero-idol Woody Guthrie (he looked a bit like Guthrie, too). And before he was boldly stolen from them by a couple of fellow art school misfits called Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, he was in a pub rock band called the 101ers.

 

 

Joe said he knew the fix was in for the 101ers and pub rock when the band played a gig on April 3, 1976, with a young upstart band called the Sex Pistols.

 

 

If you’ve heard “Lose This Skin” from the Clash’s Sandinista! album or any of the great albums from Joe’s last band, the Mescaleros, you’ve heard the work of another 101er, Tymon Dogg. Another tie found on Sandinista! was a song the 101ers covered called “Junco Partner”.

 

 

After the 101ers, guitarist Clive Timperley played with the Passions, bass player Dan Kelleher went on to Martian Schoolgirls and the Derelicts and drummer Richard Dudanski played with The Raincoats, Basement 5 and Public Image Ltd. On April 20, 2003, Timperley, Kelleher, Dudanski and saxophonist Simon Cassell reunited for a Joe Strummer tribute gig, with guest guitarist Mick Jones.

101ers Fan Site

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Hell and Half of Georgia: Build It Up

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Our old friends Hell and Half of Georgia just dropped this new little tune, and I think it’s the best they’ve done yet.

 

 

Listen, love, download – because as with all Hell and Half of Georgia’s musical fare, it’s free. If you’re in the Long Beach, California, area, you can catch the guys live at Alex’s Bar on August 26 (showtime to be determined).

I’m going to listen to this song again right now.

Hell and Half of Georgia Official Site

Hell and Half of Georgia @ Bandcamp

Hell and Half of Georgia @ Facebook

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A Conversation with Austin Lucas, Part II

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NTSIB friend Michelle Evans (Dear Ben Nichols, The Vinyl District: Washington, D.C.) concludes her conversation with Austin Lucas. If you’re in Seattle, you can catch both Austin and Drag the River this Friday at SoundFest

 

 

It seems both Austin Lucas and I are quite the chatty pair, which is great for y’all, because we discuss the country music scene, Lucero, Cory Branan, and everything in between.

So what are your thoughts on country music?

I listen to a lot of country radio. I appreciate the songwriting, even though most people hate the songwriting, but I listen to it, and I’m like, “This is so catchy. This person is such a clever, intelligent songwriter.” What a lot of people don’t understand about pop music, in order for something to stay with someone after hearing it one time, it has to be extremely catchy. The average music listener isn’t really a music fan. They want image. They want to lust after somebody who’s a star. So the thing is, if you don’t reel them in with a really, really catchy hook, they’re not interested. Trust me, writing really, really dumb and catchy stuff is a lot harder than you think. There’s a certain amount of genius that goes into doing that. A lot of people are hateful towards pop music and very spiteful, and the way I feel about it is, it’s there, but you don’t have to pay attention to it or give money to it, and maybe spend less time being upset about that stuff and more time discovering bands that are worth giving money to and are great. On the other hand, as a songwriter, I just respect the fact that people can do that. And, I mean, who are we kidding? Everyone likes a certain amount of that stuff.

Yeah, there seems to be some pretentiousness out there with certain groups of people regarding pop music or music on mainstream radio.

Yeah, it’s like this pretentiousness exists in people to be nit-picky. When I was young, and I think when everyone’s young, and we’re first exposed to music, everything they hear, they like, pretty much. I used to see the shittiest bands just because they were local and they played kind of the style that I liked. Any band that came on tour, I would go see. Anything I could get into at the all-ages clubs, I’d see. Or a house show, I was there. I would just sit in the record store and be that annoying guy asking what’s good. The point that I’m getting at is that as we get older, we get so pretentious. Our tastes get refined, and we learn to be pretentious, because everyone else is pretentious. I’m guilty of it too. We all are at some point, but the truth is, I feel like I have to have an opinion about all the music out there, even if I don’t really care either way about it. I hate the fact that I’m like that – that I’m the way that I hate how people are.

You just came off Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown. What were some of the highlights?

Everything was a highlight at the Throwdown, but I think that the biggest highlight was probably the first night that I went on stage and sang with Willie Nelson. I just remember how it felt. It’s weird. I did it seven times. I was definitely counting, because that’s what you do when something that spectacular is happening to you. But the first time that I did it, it was in Arkansas, and Travis from Last chance Records – my record label boss – was there as well as my wife, so it was so cool to run out on stage and be like, “I’m doing this, and these people that I care about are here!” And I looked over, and Willie Nelson’s there, and I swear to god, and everyone told me I was crazy, but I swear he looked over at me with a look that said, “What the fuck is this fucking freak dude doing on the fucking stage right now?” [laughs] I mean, because for the first week of that tour – and this is no joke – everybody thought that I was on the crew, because it’s Warped Tour personnel, so all the stage managers and lighting people and tour managers are all punks and all tattooed, so everyone just assumed that I was part of that menagerie of the circus. It took a long time before everyone realized I was a performer.

Did that make you feel extra special?

Well, it made me feel very special in a lot of ways, but it also made me feel like an outsider, which I was. The people I performed with were great, but there were press people specifically who had no desire to talk to me and who were talking down to me. They’d cut interviews short or say really rude things to me like, “So you’re not part of the country music scene.” And I was like, “Actually, I’m part of the alternative country scene which most people would probably argue is more like country music than the country music you’re talking about,” and he countered with, “Well, you’re not in Nashville. You’re not going to be on the radio,” and I’d just be like, “Yup. That’s true.” I dunno, it was funny for me, because I don’t take things that seriously, so I would just make jokes about it usually. There were some really nice press people too, though, who saw me as a good story. You know, the guy who’s not from Nashville and who doesn’t live in Nashville and not part of the corporate country music establishment, and yet I still have a career, and I’ve toured Europe, so a lot of the people from the press were excited to talk to me. It was just kind of a mixed bag, and I really just thought it was all funny. What was really funny is that I always get that I’m “too country” in the punk world, so it was funny going into the country world and be told I’m not “country enough.” [laughs]

You started out in the crust-punk scene with your band Guided Cradle, which is as metal as punk can get, and now you play folk/country music. I’m interested to know who some of the bands are whom you admire or of whom you are a fan.

Well, one of the bands is Lucero. And I know a lot of people love Lucero, and I know a lot of people hate Lucero, but the truth is – and I don’t think there’s anybody who would disagree with this on either side – but Lucero really were a game-changer. They fought to become as popular as they are, and that’s probably why they’re going to be popular until they decide to call it quits or until they die. Every single fucking fan that they ever had, they had to fight for. They won them by constant fucking touring. You know, they were playing country music in a scene [the punk scene] that was totally not interested in it, and in a lot of ways, made people interested in it. I think that a lot of the interest that happened in country music and roots music in the 2000s happened as a result of Lucero hitting the scene and working their ass off. I mean, there are a lot of other factors, but I think they are a very heavily influential band and a very important band, and if someone who’s not a dick writes a book about the scene one day, if they don’t give Lucero all those props, then they’re leaving them out because they personally have a pretentious idea of what is and what isn’t important. Them and Drag the River, actually, are both important.

Anyone else?

Cory Branan is another one. He is probably the best songwriter of my peers. And I don’t think that – I know that that’s true. The guy is a fucking genius. He’s a great performer. I hold him in such a high regard. He’s definitely one of the genre’s unsung heroes.

Last but not least, tell me about your current tour.

The first two weeks are just headline shows with my back-up band, The Bold Party. Then we’re main support on tour with Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band who is from Brown County in Indiana, right next to Monroe County, which is where Bloomington is, which is where I’m from. They have a lot of days off, so the days off are going to be filled with more headline shows. Basically, it’s half a support tour and half a headline tour. It’s gonna be awesome, because I’m going to be out with people from my home turf.

 

 

 

Austin Lucas Official Website

Austin Lucas @ Facebook

Austin Lucas @ Twitter