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Rural Ghosts, City of Elms

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ruralghosts2

Rural Ghosts are from Portland, Maine. City of Elms is their most recent release, and I am sharing it today because I am really fond of the way the cello adds depth and warmth as it winds through the drums and guitar.

For example, here is Tenant, which slowly spins up into a quasi-psychadelic jam, with all of the jagged edges held together by the cello:
 

And also Worried Man, where the cello provides the bounce:
 

If you like what you hear, stop by their bandcamp on Oct. 1 to get the rest!

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cata9tales, Hello Maybe Everything

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cata9tales is: Berkley Priest (vocals) and Kreator (Kenny Perkins) (beats), and they’re from Baltimore and Virginia and are currently based in Baltimore.

Hello Maybe Everything is their most recent record. It is an extraordinary, visceral, aggressive torrent of words and pop-cultural references. My first thought on listening to it was, no lie, “these dudes are going to keep the people at Rap Genius in business all by themselves.”

For example, in their first song, things they mash together include but are not limited to: Guns n’ Roses, Jay-Z, Wizard of Oz, Jungle Book, the Bible and Valley of the Dolls:
 

 
There is also Children of the Cloud, which is a complex riff on modern living and the weird things internet culture / living on internet time does to our brains that starts with a Dorothy Parker quote and then – in just the first verse – slaloms through two centuries worth of the concept of “frontier” before hitting a crescendo with All around the Starfleet they coming out their carseats which I’m pretty sure sums up both the connections and the yawning cultural chasm between those present for the birth of the web and those who have been on the web since birth in, like, nine words.

Though my favorite line is probably So you got a broken heart? Well there’s an app for that.
 

 
And then there is A Conspiracy of Ravens, featuring Brad Bass, Crafsmen, Cream De La “The Tenman” which is just Baltimore: raw, beautiful, brutal, and capable of being home to Edgar Allen Poe and Omar Little.
 

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Link Session: Benefit compilations and related items

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A compendium of benefit compilations and related items recently noted and received:

    Benefit Compilations

  • Coming Together For A Cure, Vol. 2, featuring songs from Thee Oh Sees, Cave Singers, Elf Power and many more, to support adult stem cell therapy and research.
  • Posting this one again because when it comes to noonday demons and black dogs run amok, April is not the cruelest month, September is: Country Fried Rock Vol. 2 for Nuci’s Space, featuring songs from Drivin n Cryin, the District Attorneys, Shonna Tucker & Eye Candy, Michelle Malone Banned and many more, to support Nuci’s Space, a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, GA.

    The aim of the organization is to prevent suicide by providing obstacle free treatment for musicians suffering from depression and other such disorders as well as to assist in the emotional, physical and professional well-being of musicians.

  • National Endowment for the Brents, featuring songs from a broad variety of Chicago and Los Angeles musicians, including JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, Bumpus, Terrible Spaceship, and Rachael Yamagata, to help “sexy sax man” Brent Puls pay for some recent life-saving surgery.

    • Related Items

  • Brown Bird is still on hiatus while Dave Lamb does battle with leukemia. They have a donate button on their homepage, if the spirit moves you that way, but you can also buy their tunes from Bandcamp.

    An example:
     

    •  

  • Jon Walker is also temporarily out of commission following hand surgery. Folk song enthusiasts, head over there and see if anything strikes your fancy.

    An example:
     

    •  

  • Tom Oakes of More Amor is selling some amazing paintings and picture remixes to help pay for repairs done to one of his knees. Copy of More Amore’s Gracias? (combination of In Spanish and Thanks? EPs plus two additional songs) and poem included with each work!
     
    I’m particularly fond of this one, which is called Party Catz:
     
    photo-15
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Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City

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Internets, I have a confession: I spent all day today listening to Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend on endless loop.

Literally all day. More than eight hours, even allowing for breaks for lunch, phonecalls, and a webinar.

It started because I had Diane Young stuck in my head (again) and then I just kind of got stuck in their groove and didn’t get out.

My observations on this experience are as follows:

1. Whoever came up with the video for Diane Young really fucked up. They took this FBI-agents-on-roller-skates dance party of a song and made it the soundtrack for the world’s most emo Last Supper. That said, when I watched it, I said both “what the hell? and also “I guess I’d maybe like to hear the rest of that record,” and I was not previously a Vampire Weekend fan.
 

 
2. They somehow sound like a fusion of Paul Simon and fun., but minus the latter’s tendency towards gloppily anthemic pop ballads. Now, I enjoy listening to Nate Ruess wear his heart on his sleeve and jump up his range as much as anyone else, but after a while it’s like being force-fed a seven course meal consisting entirely of cherry cobbler and vanilla custard. Vampire Weekend is just as capable of sweetness, it’s just that theirs is the less dessert and more the perfect hot cup of coffee from a street vendor before dawn on an icy New York morning.
 

 
3. Okay maybe they are a little bit gloppy sometimes:
 

 
4. A brief sampling of reactions to a few of the rest:

Don’t Lie is both plaintive and full of furbelows; Finger Back is a real New York love story (and also a true story, at least in part) told at breakneck speed and also my very favorite song; Everlasting Arms is what you play when cleaning your kitchen by yourself on a Friday night (bottle of wine optional); Hannah Hunt reminds me of a time when all of my furniture was foldable or inflatable and the Tower Records in the East Village salvaged many a bleak evening; and Hudson is the sound of the heart of the city that exists beneath/beside the one with all the bright shiny lights. There are the places the tourists go, and then there are the places we actually live, and sometimes they look like they are the same, but they are not.

Overall: A++, would marathon again.

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AustraliA, Robot

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Australia Copertina!!

Okay, so, first things first: AustraliA is Olga (drums/bass/synth) and Mr. Xicano (guitar/vocals) and they are not Australian. They’re from Pisa, Italy, and they play synth-heavy, hard-fuzz punk rock.

I like them because they’re brash and refreshing and just going for it.

Here are two of my favorite tracks from Robot:

Hotter Than Me, where they stomp on the fuzz pedal and then drop in some jaggedly perfect synth arpeggios just to keep things interesting:
 

 
It Will Be, where the steady, distorted, surfy chug of the guitar is the background against which the bright sharp clean synths sparkle and shine:
 

 

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Ghost Twins, Dream On/Dream Off

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Ghost Twins (formerly Crushing Blow) are from Derby, England, and arrived in my inbox as “dream noise pop.” This might seem like a contradiction in (genre) terms, but, you know, not all dreams are quiet and slow. Some are very exciting. This song would have been the perfect soundtrack for the one I had recently where I had to jump a tall ship in full sail over a waterfall.

Dream On/Dream Off is half of a Double A single to be released October 7 through Snug Recording Co.; their debut album is expected after Christmas.

 

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Video: Wood Shampoo, Cover Girl

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I always like a good lyrics video. This one, for Cover Girl, from Crack Crack Heart Attack by Wood Shampoo, gets points for interesting font choices and incorporation of outside quotes. And I learned something watching it, which is that apparently both Steven Tyler and Dolly Parton have come out with memorable lines about how it’s expensive to look cheap.
 

COVER GIRL by WOOD SHAMPOO (tribute to Karl Lagerfeld - Steven Tyler - Marilyn Monroe)

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Late Night Listening: Robbie Fulks, Gone Away Backwards

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Robbie Fulks - Photo credit: Dino Stamatopoulos

Robbie Fulks – Photo credit: Dino Stamatopoulos

I don’t know what it is about this record that encourages listening to it in the middle of the night, but that’s when I keep coming back to it: at the end of the day, and in the late/small hours.

I have a suspicion it might be the fiddle, though. I do like a fiddle late at night. (Actually I like a fiddle all the time.) And the lyrics, which have some bite, a little more so than country lyrics usually do.

And this is definitely a country record. Its roots are sunk deep, way past the current topsoil of pop-country, into the bedrock of the open fields and rocky hills of the genre.

It’s also a little bit of commentary on how the genre of country has changed, along with the culture, and, in the case of That’s Where I’m From and Sometimes The Grass Is Really Greener, how where you are from makes you who you really are.

Which, as I prepare to go back to the place where I grew up to visit with people I haven’t seen in 20 years, is probably the real reason I keep circling back to listen to these songs again and again.

It is, in summary, the kind of record that encourages both serious thinking and singing along.

Here are two tracks from the record, so you can hear what I mean:

Long I Ride is a meditative examination of bad decisions with fast-picking and harmonica:
 

 
When I Get to The Bottom is a post-break-up “screw you” song, and I love it:
 

Special memo to Cleveland: Mr. Fulks is doing a record release show at the Beachland Ballroom on September 29, 2013. Get on down there and see him.

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Dúo del Sol, hello Kaleidoscope

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Album art by Michele Mikesell

Album art by Michele Mikesell

Dúo del Sol is Tom Farrell (guitar/vocals) and Javier Orman (violin/vocals), and they are from Los Angeles, via Chicago and Uruguay.

hello Kaleidoscope is their first full length record, and features assistance from Oscar ‘Luminoso’ Rospide (accordion), Cameron Stone (cello), Derek Stein (cello) and Andrew Bush (percussion) on some tracks.

Their sound is an awesome intoxicating swirl of classical forms and world music (mostly Latin) rhythms, and is kind of like a fine red wine: you have to do the aural equivalent of letting it breathe, i.e. just sit back and listen to it. Allow yourself to be swept up and away.

These are a few of my favorite tracks:

Never The Same River Twice, in which the violin sings a song of longing and adventure, accompanied by a cello and guitar that sound like the steady movement of water.
 

 
Louie, which unfurls and expands slowly, like a delicate, complicated rose:
 

 
And finally Satoomba, in which the guitar and the violin are dancing a flashy, sexy tango:
 

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A Good Read, A Good Listen, and A Good Drink: Sloane Spencer, Countryfriedrock.org

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

If you’ve ever been sitting around listening to your favorite under-the-rader musicians play the tunes you love and thought, man, I wish I could listen to these people play this stuff on the radio, guess what, YOU CAN.

All you have to do is adjust your dials so that Country Fried Rock is coming in clear. Or you can download a podcast or several, if that works better for you. Your reward will be hot tunes and intelligent conversation.

But what I really want to draw your attention to today is the two compilation records they have put out in support of Nuci’s Space, a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, GA.

The aim of the organization is to prevent suicide by providing obstacle free treatment for musicians suffering from depression and other such disorders as well as to assist in the emotional, physical and professional well-being of musicians.

Volume One was released in May 2012, and featured songs from a broad variety of artists, including The District Attorneys:
 

 
And Stephanie Fagan:
 

 
Volume Two, featuring never-released songs from Shonna Tucker & Eye Candy (former Drive-By Truckers), Centro-Matic, Drivin N Cryin, Hillbilly Frankenstein (Jeff Walls of the Woggles and Guadalcanal Diary’s 1990s band), Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Belle Adair, Doc Dailey, Matt Hudgins, Adam Klein, Old Smokey, Norma Rae, Rebecca Morning, Burning Angels, & Jack Logan and Scott Baxendale, is due at the end September 2013.

Also included will be Skyline Dream by The Blue Dogs:
 

Blue Dogs SKYLINE DREAM Dock St Theater Charleston

 
And Don’t You Want To Love from MaryJaneDaniels
 
MJD - Don't You Want to Love

 

The proceeds from both of the records go entirely to Nuci’s Space.

And now, without further ado, here is Sloane Spencer, host of Country Fried Rock, to share some of her favorite book(s), best-loved music and a most delicious non-alcoholic drink:

I love to read. When I was in elementary school, I decided that I would read every single book in my school’s library by the end of 5th grade, which I did. Sadly, as an adult, my reading is often limited to The Onion & Mental Floss, technical reading for work, and an unhealthy amount of celebrity gossip websites – the latter of which makes me feel much more normal every day than I probably am! That being said, I tend to re-read some of my favorite books.

A Good Read

I love Southern literature. I like the contrast of what the South really is and what it thinks it is, how we see ourselves and how others see us. I can appreciate my great-grandparents who were uneducated cotton sharecroppers in South Carolina who sent my granddad to The Citadel (the first and only one of that part of the family to finish college) as much as I can the other side of my family that has been Ivy League college-educated for 6 generations.

For some reason, this is why Ferrol Sams’ trilogy that begins with Run With The Horsemen and Whisper of the River really appealed to me. (Note: I don’t really like the third book in this series.)

Some of my own philosophy of “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” comes from these books, not so much in themselves, but in how Sams weaves a tale. The books on re-reading are a little (lot!) sentimental, but the appreciation for a sense of place, family, and how life will always continue to change, whether we are ready for it or not, shows a Southern world-view that I understand, even if I am not exactly like that.

A Good Listen

It’s funny – whenever I am asked about music I like, I always go for whatever is new-to-me and emerging. I’m not nostalgic or sentimental in general, but something about the books I just mentioned and the drink I like to make in the summer have me in a frame of mind that just oozes this album: the original Landslide Records issue of Space Wrangler by Widespread Panic, in its entirety, beginning to end.

I don’t “follow” Panic and never did, but this record is gorgeous – Southern, jangly, groove, lush, contradictory in its forward motion and reflective attitude. I just want to sit in the hammock, re-read one of those books, and drink my slushy.
 

Widespread Panic - Space Wrangler (Live From Austin TX)

 
A Good Drink

I don’t drink alcohol. I’m not Baptist, I’m not against it, and I’m not an alcoholic. Let’s just say that I have a large, extended network of friends and loved ones for whom Southern brown liquor has not been an asset to their lives. I was in college when I realized that most people don’t hide their liquor under the guest room sink and pretend they don’t drink it.

In solidarity for the struggles they have had, I just decided in my early 30s that it was not going to be part of my life any more. I have no problem with anybody else’s choice to enjoy good drinks. Besides, I’m hilarious without alcohol.

So, you really need to make my summertime watermelon slush.

Watermelon Slush

Large, ripe watermelon, seeds removed

Fresh key lime juice, if possible, or bottled if you can’t get key limes

Agave nectar or stevia to taste (not too much – it should be tart)

Ice

It’d probably be pretty good with some clear liquor in it, too, but not too much to make it sicky-sweet or take away from the tart taste of the key lime.

Chop watermelon into cubes and fill a blender. Whiz until slushy consistency. Add ½ C key lime juice and some sweetener to taste.

Whiz. You may want to add a few ice cubes and whiz for a slushier consistency.

Drink immediately. It will separate if you let it sit. You can just stir it back up w/ a spoon or re-whiz in the blender. If you have one of those slushy maker machines, it might work, too.