TV on the Radio’s Gerard Smith was diagnosed with lung cancer at the conclusion of recording for the new TVoTR album Nine Types of Light and will be unable to accompany the band on their current tour. A statement on the band’s website throws a hopeful light on Smith’s recovery, and we are sending good thoughts Smith’s way.
Head over to the Rolling Stone website to get a taste of the new Booker T. Jones album as he and the Roots cover Lauryn Hill’s “Everything is Everything”.
NYC’s Bowery Ballroom will play host to a show celebrating the 10th anniversary of one of my favorite books, Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, on May 22.
The 2nd installment of Oxford American’s ABALABIP! concert series celebrating Alabama music and music makers will take place on June 4 in Florence, Alabama, and will feature Dexateens, G-Side and Candi Staton.
J Mascis’ new acoustic album, Several Shades of Why, is streaming at Spin.
A new Mark Lanegan track, “Burning Jacob’s Ladder”, is free to download on the Rage website.
And a new Royal Bangs track, “Fireball”, is free to download at Spin.
Speaking of Austin, can’t make it to SXSW this year and envious of your friends who are hitting up Austin? Want to show just how hip you are by not going to SXSW? Then CXCW – Couch by Couchwest – is the event for you. While the so-called mover and shakers are standing in long lines and getting alcohol poisoning, the CXCW crowd will be drinking beer, ordering pizza and moving as little as possible. Join the thrill ride on Twitter and Tumblr. CXCW – Where the beer is cheaper and the only hipster is you.
While some hetero ladies like to pretend they only want an upright, decent, clean-living man who is home every night by dinner time, I tell you what, it’s hard to pass up a long, tall Texan with Waitsian vocal cords and key-pounding fingers… especially when he serves up some of the filthiest, most driving soul/jazz/blues-powered rock ‘n’ roll since T-Model Ford’s debut.
James Leg, a.k.a. John Wesley Myers – who was a part of the last line-up of the Immortal Lee County Killers and comprises one half of the Black Diamond Heavies – is releasing his solo debut, Solitary Pleasure, on April 5th, and it is a delight. Leg expands his usual repertoire into piano bar ditties and gospel while still serving up slipping, sliding, sweaty blues-tinged rock and heavy soul with take-me-as-you-find-me lyrics. He even dips into comedy with “No License (Song for the Caged Bird)”, a song that begins with a sad trombone, ends with a Three Stooges motif, and plays like Fats Waller at the end of a week-long bender in between, in an ode to one hell of a dame.
Among the 10 tracks on Solitary Pleasure are two covers: a thumping, fiery take on Link Wray’s “Fire and Brimstone” that I’m sure Wray would have approved of and a cover of the Kill Devil Hills’ “Drinking Too Much” that takes the Australian band’s aching ballad of self-realization and turns it into a ramshackle tumble that makes the final verse feel even more confessional than in the original.
A little over half-way through the album comes a track, “Whatever It Takes”, that threw me for a loop the first couple of times I listened through the album. The song features vocals that are so sweet and pleading that they are actually jarring after 6 tracks of Leg’s broken-glass gargle. I made a note to myself to check the liner notes and find out who was singing on this almost out-of-place track and was shocked to find it was still Leg, making a heartfelt plea to a lover who wants to throw in the towel. In contrast to his usual singing style, the softer vocals make the nature of this song that much more affecting.
If I had to pick one track that would best encapsulate Solitary Pleasure, it would be “Drowning in Fire”, as it combines elements of rock, blues, jazz, soul and gospel into one hell of a revival complete with a church-worthy backup chorus.
The whole collection wraps up with a straight-up, hand-clapping gospel tune called “No Time to Tarry” that Leg throws himself into so whole-heartedly that you can hear him panting and cussing at the end. It’s an oddly uplifting and fitting end to an album that is ultimately the story of a man who has come to realize his faults and seems ready to take the first step to redemption.
James Leg is currently touring in support of Solitary Pleasure and will be making a stop at the Happy Dog in Cleveland this Thursday, 3.17.11, at 9 PM, and I highly recommend you get there.
(And if you live elsewhere, check out these dates [more to be announced]:
March 17- Cleveland, OH- The Happy Dog
March 18- Ft Wayne, IN- The Brass Rail- Left Lane Cruiser record release show
March 24- Chattanooga, TN- JJ’s
March 25- Chattanooga, TN- JJ’s
This song, “Night and Day”, from Ocean Carolina, out of Brooklyn, NY, reminds me of Grant Lee Buffalo/Grant Lee Phillips in a wonderful way. It is a sweet, heartaching tune.
I was not expecting the sounds that came through my earphones when I hit play on De Staat’s “Sweatshop”. This band from Nijmegen, the Netherlands, mixes rock, dance, industrial and hip hop with ass-kicking verve. You can catch them at SXSW.
The Wildernes of Manitoba is actually from Toronto, Ontario, but either way, this track is sunny enough to have come out of the Carolinas. Lovely instrumentation and lovely harmonies complement a bouncing, running-barefoot-through-a-field rhythm.
Old Crow Medicine Show, Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros will be kicking off the Railroad Revival Tour on April 21. The bands will travel by train across the southwestern United States and perform at outdoor venues in California, Arizona, Texas and Louisiana. Not quite as fun as the Roots on the Rails shows since the audience won’t get to travel on the train with the bands, but a unique and cool gimmick nonetheless.
Our friends at Ninebullets.net will be throwing a couple of fine parties at SXSW this year – on March 18 and 19 – featuring artists like Caitlin Rose, Kasey Anderson and the Honkies, Two Cow Garage, the Only Sons and more. Details here.
If you can stand heading over to MySpace, you can stream Raekwon’s new album Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang.
Booker T. Jones will be releasing a new album, The Road from Memphis, on May 10. THe album is produced by Jones, ?uestlove and Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliot Smith), and Jones is backed by the Roots.
Shivering Timbers will be in the WRUW studios on March 31 around 5 PM EST. Listen via the internet here.
Happy Mardi Gras! Laissez les bons temps rouler, y’all.
What were you doing when you were 18? Nearly single-handedly producing fully realized songs and then promoting your music around the world? The continued maturation of the internet as a tool is making this more possible, and Jordan Bolton of Manchester, England, is taking advantage of that. Bolton has released two EPs, Jazz Hands and Silver Age, via free download (two songs from Silver Age are available below and both EPs can be obtained through the links at the end of the post), and as you listen to these collections you get the sense of a young artist’s growth and evolution being documented as he absorbs influences and lets them flow lightly into his own unique compositions.
Each song on Silver Age, his latest, has at least one sublime element in it: the pounding drums of “Lull”, the loping bassline of “Control”, the infectious chorus of “Black and Grey”. While becoming firmly rooted in your head (and later coming out as a hum as you go about your day), these songs make you excited to hear what’s next.
Fri, Mar 4| 8 PM (7 PM door)
Beachland 11th Anniversary Weekend
Wayne “The Train” Hancock
California Speedbag
$12
Tavern | All Ages
Sat, Mar 5| 8 PM (7:30 PM door)
Beachland 11th
Anniversary Weekend:
This Moment In Black History
Wussy
Cloud Nothings
The Modern Electric
Hosted by:
Miss Firecracker
Charles Peachock
Special Advance 2 for $11 Admission!
(Limited number available)
Free Downtown Soulville After Party in the Tavern
@ Midnight-ish!
$8
Ballroom | All Ages
Sun, Mar 6| 9 PM (8 PM door)
Beachland 11th Anniversary Weekend
The Parting Gifts
The Jay Vons
Little Bighorn (members of Coffinberry, Prisoners)
$10
Tavern | All Ages
Tue, Mar 8| 8 PM (7:30 PM door)
Gifts From Enola
If These Trees Could Talk
Purse Snatcher
$6
Tavern | All Ages
Sat, Mar 5| 9 P< 13th Annual Queens of the Iron Mic
Aaqila
Indica
Mz. Crazy Tee
Rain the Quiet Storm
Neshia-Nee
Dominique Larue
B. Jorda
Ms. Moone
Ebonie Lane
Marvelous Miles
Early Girl
$7
Sun, Mar 6| 9 PM
Koffin Kats
Benedict Arnold
Rockabye Ransom
Gunfire Getdown!
$8
It took me a while to come around to country music on the whole. Sure, I had some questionable dalliances with country artists in my youth. You would have found Oak Ridge Boys and Randy Travis tapes stacked in with my Duran Duran and Depeche Mode tapes. And my mother’s housework was often accompanied by Kenny, Dolly and Alabama when she wasn’t playing the Rolling Stones, Pat Benatar and the Pointer Sisters. But I soon became the kind of person who, when asked what kind of music she listened to, answered, “Almost everything… except country.”
Then, eventually, I was turned on to the country music of the 1940s and ’50s. Ernest Tubb, Hank Sr., Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash… you know the bunch I’m talking about.
On her second solo album, Down in the Barnyard, Rachel Brooke’s music hearkens back to this time in country music when the keys to success were a steady rhythm, a clear and honest voice and a good story. But, like myself – and like many of you reading this, Brooke has probably spent a little more time in her life cozied up to Joy Division than kicking back with Merle Haggard, and this adds a quirky edge to her songs. With her eyeliner, black bob haircut and murder ballads, she appeals just as well to goths as to lonesome cowboys. Had she been recording when I was discovering classic country, younger me would have wanted to be her. Hell, current me kind of wants to be her.
Check out a couple of her songs below, then check her out live.
Bluesman Eddie Kirkland was killed in a road accident this passed Sunday. Our hearts go out to his family, friends and fans. I’m glad I had the pleasure to see him live this past autumn when he opened for the Gories.
The first track to be revealed off of TV on the Radio’s forthcoming album, Nine Types of Light, can be heard on the 107.7 blog.
Our friends Conrad Plymouth, accompanied by Strand of Oaks, did a set for Folkadelphia. It will air tonight between 6 and 8 PM ET.
Cleveland’s Chip Tha Ripper has a new mixtape, Gift Raps, at Rap Radar. Digging it as I type…
Kent, Ohio’s Jessica Lea Mayfield made her Letterman debut (with brother David Mayfield, formerly of Cadillac Sky, currently of the David Mayfield Parade, accompanying her) last Friday. Check it out below.
You might have a difficult time doing it due to their ridiculously sparse internet presence, but This Moment in Black History is a Cleveland band you should know about. They’ve been producing real, raw, limitless punk for almost a decade, and they’ll be a part of the Beachland Ballroom‘s 11th anniversary festivities as they play a gig with fellow Ohio bands Wussy, Cloud Nothings and the Modern Electric this Saturday, March 5.
TMiBH performing “Blackwards Masking” at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn last August.
To get an idea of what a TMiBH show is like, you can get a free download of a show they played in Baltimore last summer here.
