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Anniversary Giveaway: The Black Keys

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How badass is that poster? So badass that, in my excitement to obtain it, I managed to acquire two of them.

So, here’s the deal: Now This Sound Is Brave will celebrate two years of existence a week from today. To celebrate this thing we do with the music and the writing and the writing about music (and writing about writing about music), we’re going to give a gift to you. Well, to one of you. But you have to earn it.

In order to own your own beautiful, 3-color, 18″x24″ lithograph poster (and it is even more striking in person) created by Jeff Proctor for the Black Keys’ December 11, 2010, show at the Rimac Arena in San Diego, California, you’ll have to tell us about an important music moment in your life. Be it funny or touching or something that will make us all want to slash our wrists, whether it involves playing music, listening to music or meeting a music hero, as long as it was important, influential and memorable to you, we want to read about it.

The sharer of the best music moment, judged by my own indefinable I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it standards, will win my extra Black Keys zombie poster to have, to hold and to scare young children with. The deadline for entry will be 5 PM EST on January 26, and I will announce the winner on the NTSIB anniversary, January 27, giving you about a week to compose your entry. And that’s one (1) entry per person, please. Submit your entry as a comment to this post, and please remember to include a reliable e-mail address. (We reserve the right to share your story in a future post to the blog, though, of course, with full credit to you and retaining no copyright for ourselves.)

Good luck, kids. Thanks for being here.

 

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Give: Shivering Timbers

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Not that they need our help, but they’re going to get it anyway. The lovely and talented Shivering Timbers, out of Akron, Ohio, are raising funds for their next album. I just found out about this Kickstarter project yesterday, and I see that Sarah and Jayson have already surpassed their original fundraising goal (that would allow them to produce a basic version of their forthcoming album) and have even surpassed their second goal (that would fund high-quality mastering, a vinyl release or both), but there is still a third goal that you can participate in that would allow high-quality mastering, plus vinyl releases of the forthcoming album and of their debut album, We All Started in the Same Place.

Aside from getting to enjoy more of the Shivering Timbers’ unique and enchanting music, the Benns are also offering up some wonderful and personal items as rewards for pledging: Sarah’s 1950s Bacon & Day banjo, Jayson’s 1965 Kay Galaxie hollow-body electric guitar, a quilt made by Sarah’s grandmother, a day in the studio with the band and more. Wow.

For a listen to some songs from their first album and some new material – including songs from their recent Daytrotter session – please visit their website.

 

Shivering Timbers @ Kickstarter

Shivering Timbers @ Daytrotter

Shivering Timbers Official Website

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Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Van Halen

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Okay, yes, I am.

About a week ago, apropos of nothing, I felt the urge to do a post about covers of Van Halen songs. There is just something about Van Halen that transcends aversions to spandex and sexism. I have a feeling it has something to do with David Lee Roth (I can still un-ironically enjoy “Hot for Teacher”, but I can’t listen to “Why Can’t This Be Love?” without wincing). Though I can no longer stomach most of the David Lee wannabees who so littered the wasteland of my youth, I am still charmed by Roth’s unapologetic showboating. And if you can’t rock out to “Panama”, you just don’t know why rocking out was created, my friend.

Here, I give you a few choice Van Halen covers, beginning with my favorite Van Halen cover: the Black Diamond Heavies doing up “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” and proving that you don’t need guitar to be badass. And feedback-y.

 

 

Next, the minutemen covering… “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”. Hey, bite me, it’s the minutemen. And since it’s the minutemen, it will only take a minute of your time. Less than a minute, actually.

 

 

Next up, San Francisco swingsters from hell Lee Press-on and the Nails add big, beautiful horns to the horny “Hot for Teacher”.

 

 

And to round us out, “Jump” as covered by… Aztec Camera!? Like I said: Van Halen transcends boundaries.

 

 

In a moment of serendipitous timing, a few days after gathering this list of covers, Rick Saunders dished the info that Van Halen was featuring a new single on their website. Check out “Tattoo”.

 

Van Halen – Tattoo from Van Halen on Vimeo.

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More Deep Space Doom Funk from Phantom Tails

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Check out some new heavy, fuzzy synthfunk from one of our awesome discoveries of last year, Phantom Tails.

 

 

You can listen to and purchase the album, The Armageddon Experience, here, and if you’re in the Twin Cities, you can see them live on the following dates:

Jan 12 @ Hell’s Kitchen w/Fort Wilson Riot & Hevy Syrup

Jan 20 @ Turf Club w/ Sleeping in the Aviary

Feb 10 @ Triple Rock w/ SexCat & Umami

 

Phantom Tails @ Bandcamp

Phantom Tails @ Facebook

PhantomTailsTV

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Feel Bad For You, January 2012

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The FBFY talent pool has corralled a smattering of favorite songs of 2011. Eclectic, quirky, odd… and that’s just the contributors. Stream or download below.

 

Download.

 

1. Title: Devil In New Orleans
Artist: Powder Mill
Album (2011): Southern Independent Vol. 2
Submitted By: Adam Sheets
Comments: Of all the exclusives we put on the three volumes of Southern Independent, this is probably my favorite.

2. Title: New Orleans
Artist: Robyn Ludwick
Album (2011): Out Of These Blues
Submitted By: Mando Lines (Jim Warren)
Comments: My favorite track off of one of my favorite records of 2011. Robyn Ludwick is a Robison, as in sister to Charlie and Bruce, but she’s got her own take on being a singer-songwriter. As New Orleans demonstrates, her voice is sexy, her lyrics are smart and her songs are real.

3. Title: The Reckoning
Artist: Mount Moriah
Album (2011): Mount Moriah
Submitted By: Ryan (Verbow at Altcountrytab)
Comments: One of the more upbeat songs off this album. Sweet vocals, beautiful melody, just makes you feel good all over. If you’ve ever liked any music described as “alt-country” you need to check this album out. A perfect blend of country and indie rock – go get this one now.

4.Title: I Make Enemies
Artist: Daniel Knox
Album (2011): Everyman for Himself
Submitted By: April @ Now This Sound Is Brave
Comments: Since I already submitted my favorite song of 2011 to the August FBFY, here’s my top runner-up from Couch by Couchwest alumni Daniel Knox. With some help from Akron, Ohio’s own Ralph Carney (Tin Huey, Tom Waits, the Black Keys), Knox spins a heartfelt tale of love for humanity. Ah, my cockles, they are warmed.

5. Title: Out With The Embers
Artist: Ghosts I’ve Met
Album (2011): From A Spark
Submitted By: erschen

6. Title: Out Of These Blues
Artist: Robyn Ludwick
Album (2011): Out Of These Blues
Submitted By: Truersound
Comments: Has been my favorite song for the better part of the year. I love everything about it.

7. Title: You Been Lyin’
Artist: Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
Album (2011): Scandalous (2011)
Submitted By: BoogieStudio22
Comments: Four of my top ten favorite albums leaned toward R&B and Soul-influenced sound. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears captured it beautifully. Great band to see live too!

8. Title: You Devil You
Artist: John Paul Keith
Album (2011): The Man That Time Forgot
Submitted By: @mikeorren
Comments: Lots of new music this year, but I keep going back to this one. And I’m always a sucker for a Devil song.

9. Title: Workin’ Man Zombie
Artist: 4 On The Floor
Album (2011): 4 x 4
Submitted By: toomuchcountry
Comments: Nothing like a little optimism about the working life to begin the new year.

10. Title: Shut Up And Love Me
Artist: The Dead Exs
Album (2011): Resurrection
Submitted By: @Popa2unes
Comments: I’m trying to make it on 10 dollars a day, I’m working part time and their docking my pay, My baby tells me we got three mouths to feed, I’d stop complaining if she just say to me, Shut up and love me.

11. Title: Sweet Disposition
Artist: Lori McKenna
Album (2011): Lorraine
Submitted By: @Rockstar_Aimz
Comments: I think that this song may be about me.

12. Title: Before the Night is Gone
Artist: Zoe Muth & Lost High Rollers
Album (2011): Starlight Hotel
Submitted By: Simon

13. Title: Ashes Of Burned Out Stars
Artist: The Pollies
Album: N/A – Live From The Shoals track (rough)
Submitted By: Corey Flegel – This Is American Music
Comments: The Pollies are just another band along with DBT, Jason Isbell, The Civil Wars, Doc Dailey, and Lauderdale that hail from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. No big deal…they will have their proper coming out party in 2012. Be ready…

14. Title: Freaks and Geeks
Artist: Childish Gambino
Album: EP (2011)
Submitted By: Phil Norman | @philnorman
Comments: My favorite records of the year would be folks like Jason Isbell, Chis Thile & Michael Daves, Glossary, and Gillian. But when I looked at my iTunes playcounts, a little guilty pleasure was right there at the top. Donald Glover is insanely talented.

15. Title: Bummer
Artist: JEFF the brotherhood
Album (2011): We Are The Champions
Submitted By: annieTUFF
Comments: I was able to catch JEFF the brotherhood at the Pilot Light here in Knoxville back in September, and I feel really lucky that I did. It was an amazing show, one that I keep thinking about. (I posted about it on my tumblr…just in case you wanna see pics) It was definitely in my top live shows of 2011, sooooo I decided to pick a song off their 2011 album “We Are The Champions” for this mix.

16. Title: God-Fearing People
Artist: Kelsey Waldon
Album: Anybody’s Darlin’ EP
Submitted By: Trailer

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Saturday Matinee: Just before Elvis Costello was banned from SNL

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On December 17, 1977, Elvis Costello and the Attractions performed on Saturday Night Live, filling in for the Sex Pistols, who were having visa issues. I’d always wondered what the deal was with Costello stopping mid-verse and launching into a different song.

From Dangerous Minds:

Costello’s record label, Columbia, wanted him to perform “Less Than Zero”, the first single from his as yet unreleased (in the U.S.) debut album My Aim Is True. Elvis wanted to perform “Radio Radio,” his attack on corporate control of the airwaves – a punk move that would have been in the spirit of The Pistols. Columbia disapproved of the idea and SNL producer Lorne Michaels allegedly told Costello, on orders from his employer NBC, to not perform “Radio Radio.”

Come show time, the band started playing “Less Than Zero” and then abruptly stopped and shifted into “Radio Radio.” At the end of the tune, they defiantly walked off the set.

 

Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Less Than Zero/Radio, Radio – Live 1977 from docinwestchester on Vimeo.

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Joe Strummer: “I wake up and thank God for punk rock every day.”

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Even after writing the date again and again, I somehow forgot that yesterday was the 9th anniversary of the death of NTSIB patron saint Joe Strummer. As I said to a friend, some days it seems like more, some days it seems like a lot less.

Here’s some treats I gathered in remembrance: extra interview footage from Dick Rude’s great documentary Let’s Rock Again!, the great (and cranky) Bo Diddley talking about his opening slot for the Clash in 1979 and, via boingboing, the 1942 New Year’s resolutions list of one of Joe’s heroes, Woody Guthrie (you can easily imagine a very similar list coming from Joe himself).

 

 

 

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Rebirth of the Cool: Searchin’

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The album cover, with it’s eye-searing blue-on-red pattern of a repeated image of the group, is a lesson in bad design, but the vinyl platter inside was a masterclass on making music to appeal across divisions. This best of Coasters’ album from my mother’s collection is one of the small group of things that reside in the overlap of the Venn diagram representing me, my mother and my father. And it’s one of those rare things that can make my notoriously cranky father act a little goofy, as he dances through the house, singing along and pointing his fingers in the air.

“Yakety Yak”, probably the Coasters’ best-known song, was always my least favorite due to over-saturation, having heard it on the local oldies station (WMJI, Majic 105.7… back when it still played oldies. Remember those days, Cleveland kids?) a million times and seen it depicted in several cartoons of the time. But one of my favorites on that best of album was “Searchin'”, with it’s sliding rhythm. A great song to do the Stroll to.

Written by the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the song was released on Atco Records in 1957.

 

 

The Coasters had a knack for recording songs with catchy, instantly-likeable rhythms. (Though the song was slowed down in their live performance of it on censorship-loving Steve Allen’s show.)

Fun fact: The Beatles covered “Searchin'” in their audition for Decca Records in 1962. Their cover was pretty terrible. They should have taken a cue from Bill Lee Riley, who covered the song in ’57 for Sun Records.

 

 

There was also a creditable rendition by the Hollies in 1963.

In 1965, the Spencer Davis Group laid down a surprisingly soulful version of “Searchin'” with a little more hipsway in the mix.

 

 

In the mid-’90s, Man of a Thousand Bands, Mick Collins, covered “Searchin'” with his band Blacktop, adding his signature loud, fuzzed-out, chainsaw guitar sound. (Collins also covered the Coasters “The Idol with the Golden Head” with the Gories, making me like him even more than I already did.)

(Note: I have no idea where the visuals are from in this video. It’s just what was available.)

 

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Saturday Matinee: The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart

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It was a year ago today that fearless artist Don Van Vliet, more widely known as Captain Beefheart, died of complications from multiple sclerosis. If you’re unfamiliar or only passingly familiar with the man who likely influenced every musician you listen to, check out this Beefheart documentary from legendary music enthusiast John Peel.

 

 

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Feel Bad For You, December 2011

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With my lack of posting lately, it’s hardly my place to give anyone else shit, but now that Truersound Matt has finally gotten off his ass, I can present you with this month’s FBFY mix, compiled by bloggers, tweeters, music makers and music lovers and powered by love. And hate. And liberal doses of alcohol and caffeine. And possibly narcotics. And electricity. Stream or download below.

 

Download.

 

Title: This Ship Was Built To Last
Artist: The Duke Spirit
Album: Neptune
Year: 2008
Submitted By: Shooter
Comments: Why don’t you go over there and blow me and come back over here and fuck you

Title: The Stranger Song
Artist: Leonard Cohen
Album: Songs of Leonard Cohen
Year: 1968
Submitted By: Adam Sheets

Title: Quarter Chicken Dark
Artist: Yo Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan
Album: The Goat Rodeo Sessions
Year: 2011
Submitted By: Phil Norman – @philnorman
Comments: You should need no comment after seeing the names of the four masters making this music.

Title: Solitary Man
Artist: Sidewinders
Album: Witchdoctor
Year: 1989
Submitted By: BoogieStudio22
Comments: Who can resist a great Neil Diamond cover?

Title: Zane Merite
Artist: Mudlow
Album: Zane Merite
Year: 2006
Submitted By: April @ Now This Sound Is Brave
Comments: I knew what Mudlow looked like (thanks to this photo set on Flickr) a few years before I knew what they sounded like (which seems fair enough since Mudlow takes their time between albums). And what they sound like is the noir soundtrack of my (rougher, dustier) dreams. This song will make a reappearance on their next, just-finished album, so think of it as an early preview.

Title: Presents From The Past
Artist: Billy Joe Shaver
Album: Victory
Year 1998
Submitted By: Truersound
Comments: It’s a Billy Joe xmas

Title: Impermanent Things
Artist: Peter Himmelman
Album: Mission Of My Soul: The Best of Peter Himmelman
Year: 2005
Submitted By: toomuchcountry
Comments: My knee-jerk reaction was to offer Ray LaMontagne’s “Beg, Steal or Borrow” as a Dirty Santa submission for this month’s compilation. However, I’m a sucker for Christmas. I want to believe – I have to believe – that there is still a shred of relevance to it. Even if the time and events surrounding it have been bastardized by black days, cyber weeks, thoughtless gift cards, hair-graying stress over time at “your folks or mine this year?”, apathetic efforts in helping the truly needy, gluttony, etc., there is still something magical about The Day. Being Jewish, Himmelman clearly didn’t write this song about Christmas. Nonetheless, I think its a good kick-in-the-gut reminder where my priorities need to be -and where they shouldn’t. Thus endeth the soapbox. Enjoy the track. And thanks to those who sampled, listened, downloaded, commented, and ignored my submissions this year – and to FBFY overall. See ya in 12.

Title: Up the Junction
Artist: Chris Difford
Album: Uncut Sept 2006
Year: 2006
Submitted By: Simon
Comments: Had this track stuck in my head for a few days now, like this version with a little bit of steel.

Title: This Town
Artist: Don Ryan
Album: Tangle Town
Year: 2011
Submitted By: @popa2unes
Comments: Staying in my own backyard again this month, Don Ryan is from Hawthorne NJ. The 18 song album is available on his bandcamp page, name your price. fantastic witty dark lyrics and multi influenced music mixed together by a mad scientist. “As defeat licks the jaws of victory, The rotten teeth of injury and insult gnaw at me, The local stigmatic handsome gentleman detonates, incinerates the town he’s living in”

Title: Speak Plainly Diana (Live)
Artist: Joe Pug
Album: Live at Lincoln Hall
Year: 2011
Submitted By: Autopsy IV (ninebullets.net)
Comments: A live album with no new songs on it a Top 10 of the year? Better fucking believe it.

Title: Ruby Jack
Artist: Ronnie Lane & Steve Marriott
Album: The Legendary Majik Mijits
Year: 1980
Submitted By: Erschen

Title: Merry Christmas To You
Artist: The High Score
Album: Christmas Split
Year: 2009
Submitted By: annieTUFF
Comments: I know this wasn’t technically a Christmas themed mix, but I’ve been listening to this song a bunch today….so you should too. AND it talks about New Years Eve too…soooo really it’s fitting for the entire month of December (yay).

This is actually one half a free split that Mic Harrison and The High Score put out for download on their website last year (it’s still up, you can download both songs @ http://www.micharrison.com/Download.html. )

By the way, I kept going back and forth between this song, and the Dwarves “Drinkin’ Up Christmas” and the Vandals “My first X-mas As a Woman” so, go find those (slightly offensive) Christmas songs too.

Title: Whiskey Christmas
Artist: Darby O’Gill and the Little People
Album: Christmas Songs For Drunken Atheists
Year: 2007
Submitted By: Rockstar_Aimz
Comments: Christmas brings psychotic family, massive consumerism,
loneliness, huge expectations, and getting stuck overnight in an
airport somewhere during a goddamn snowstorm. But at least there’s
booze!

Title: Foregone
Artist: The Decemberists
Album: Long Live the King
Year: 2011
Submitted By: Ryan (Verbow @ Altcountrytab.ca)
Comments: I never thought I would like anything by the Decemberists, but The King is Dead is my favorite album of 2011. The follow up EP Long Live the King is a pretty good addendum, with “Foregone” being the best of the bunch. Cannot believe this song didn’t make the album proper – listen to that pedal steel!

Title: Destiny
Artist: Riviera
Album: Watching Western Skies (EP)
Year: 2011
Submitted By: Cowbelle (www.morecowbelle.net)
Comments: Riviera were an alt.country group in Chicago, now re-located and re-grouped in Portland, OR.