Category: Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog

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Video: The Rest, Who Knows

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Here is the video for Who Knows from, SEESAW, by The Rest. The third in their ongoing series, it features science, the world’s most maddening Rorschach test cards, some super-freaky drawings, 3-D printing, birds, and explosions, roughly in that order.

If you watch it with the sound off it still makes perfect sense as a movie, which makes it one of my very favorite kinds of music videos.

 

The Rest - Who Knows

 

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Two Songs from: Lance Whalen

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Lance Whalen is singer/songwriter from Nashville via Kentucky. The tracks below are from Sweet Sugar Pie, his latest EP. It is a collection of fan favorites, and, y’all, his fans have excellent taste.

There are four songs on the EP, and it was hard to choose two to share because they are all just delicious.

I picked the first one, the title track, because it one has one of the best song-as-marriage-proposal-lyrics I’ve ever heard: Stay with me / just for one life / you can bring all of your books / and dress all in white.
 

 
And this one because it is a strange beautiful love story:
 

 

He’s headed out on tour next Monday; be sure to check his listings and get out to see him if he’s playing near you!
 

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El Sportivo & the Blooz, Nights & Weekends

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elsportivo

Nights & Weekends, the new record from El Sportivo & the Blooz, is aptly named; this could be music for the after-hours, for unwinding and spinning down. Or it could be company for the dark hours of the third shift. It definitely is high-quality smooth country funk – sippin’ whisky for the soul, if you will.
 

 

The songs have a sneaky hypnotic quality. Sneaky in the sense that days may pass between the time you listen to a song and the time you find yourself singing it to yourself while doing the dishes; hypnotic in the sense that it is easy to become wholly absorbed by the bright ribbon of pedal steel twining through the crashing guitars, and forget all about the dishes.
 

 
That’s okay, though, the dishes can wait, because it’s time to grab your sweetie and slow dance around the kitchen.
 

 
Other notes: El Sportivo (Daron Hollowell, co-founder of Black Iris and White Iris) is actually a man with two bands: The Blooz, on the West Coast, and the Dirty Palms, on the East. They play the same songs, though, and should either name appear in your concert listings this year, get out and see them. I promise it will be refreshing.
 

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Video: Jonathan Coulton, First of May

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One of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs. Still not safe for work, but now with bonus ASL translation!
 

First of May (ASL) LIVE with Jonathan Coulton - Dallas May 2009

 
The signs are provided by Stephen Torrence and friends; if you’d like a closer look at the signs, you can have that here:
 
Jonathan Coulton - First of May - ASL Song

 

 

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Housekeeping and reminders: submissions guidelines and survey

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Two items of business this evening, darlings:

1) Our submission guidelines have been revised.

2) The reader survey: still happening. 10 questions which should not take more than 10 minutes of your time. Stand up and be counted and give us your unvarnished opinion!

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One More Time With Feeling: The NTSIB Reader Survey

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This time with a little bit more explanation.

The survey is our attempt to get to know y’all a little bit better, partially because we’re curious, and partially because we do sometimes get asked who our audience is, and it would be useful to have some hard data to back up our suppositions.

There are also a few questions about mechanics – the hows, whys and wheres of keeping up with the blog – that are mainly there because I’m curious about people use organizational tools, like tags, and also how they interact with information sources in the context of social media. So far very few people navigate NTSIB with the tags, and the more people are subscribed to the NTSIB Twitter feed than any other of our social media presences.

It’s also a chance for you to tell us about things you like, and maybe would like to see more of, and things you don’t care for, and perhaps would like to never see again. For example, so far the “A Good Read . . .” series is super popular and the Video Challenges have gotten very little love.

In summary, to paraphrase the late Ed Koch: How we doin’?

A final word about numbers: My response goal for this survey is 140 people, or slightly less than 20% of our total Twitter subscriber base. (Which is now at a mind-boggling 770 people. Even allowing for certain percentages of bots/dead accounts, that’s still a lot of people. Enough to fill a small club!) So far we have less than 20 responses. Please stand up and be counted and dispense your unvarnished opinions!

 

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Two Songs From: Night Engine

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Night Engine are from London, England. They only have four songs; I’ve picked these two because I listened to them and immediately wanted a) acquire all of their music and b) lace up my boots and go out dancing.

This is I’ll Make It Worth Your While, and, darlings, THEY WILL. Click that button, you won’t regret it:
 

 
This is Seventeen, which takes a minute to get into gear but when it does it takes off like bounce and swagger-fueled rocket:
 

 

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Salt Petal: Sea Monster

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saltpetalac
 
Salt Petal are: Autumn Harrison (Vocals/Accordeon), Rodrigo Gonzalez (Guitar), Hiroo Nakano (Drums), Jesse Herrera (Bass), and Dayna Richards (Trumpet). They are currently from Los Angeles, but have roots in Argentina.

Their music is an effervescent combination of languages – English, Spanish and Portuguese – and styles, including Argentinian folk, Brazilian tropicalia, Cumbia (big brass band sound) and rock and roll.

Sea Monster is their second record, and it is a lush, expansive collection of tunes. It’s hard to pick particular favorites because I’m really fond of the whole thing, but highlights include Por la Luna, Darkest Hours and Es Dificil.

Here they are with their first single, Songs I Used to Love:

Salt Petal - "Songs I Used To Love"

 
 

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Empires: Live in Chicago

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Empires, scrappy little band of my heart (North American division) have made a live album. Recorded last September at Lincoln Hall in Chicago, it showcases Empires in all of their grimy, bluesy glory.

Check it out:

 

 

 

 

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Willow Sea: Across the River and Into The Trees

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The songs on Across the River and Into The Trees by Willow Sea (Willy O’Connor) are, collectively and individually, balm for the weary soul. I listened to them a lot this winter, because this winter was very, very long.

Here are two I especially like. This one is a ray of cheery sunshine on cold gray days:
 

 
And this one sounds like the realization that the night be dark and deep, but it is lovely, too, and not full of monsters waiting to crunch your bones. The lights you can see are not an oncoming train, but rather the lanterns your friends have left on their porches for you to find your way home.
 

 
For more, go to CD Baby or iTunes.
 

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