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Royal Bangs: We don’t know shit about cars.

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I bumped into Patrick Carney the other day, and we got to chatting about music, as we are wont to do.

Pat said, “April, you have wicked taste in music: you should be listening to this band on my label. They’re called Royal Bangs, and they’re amazing.”

“Well, Pat,” said I, “you have good taste, too, so I will give them a spin.”

Then we hugged, and I returned home to download some Royal Bangs.

This is all true except the part where Patrick Carney and I know each other and have ever carried on a conversation.

(I know I’ve been giving a lot of space to Dan lately, but I think you are way rad, too, Pat. And I usually think drummers are nutbags.)

Both Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys, have great taste in music, and they use their knowledge and connections to get good music into your hands – Dan with his invitation-only studio Akron Analog and label Polymer Sounds, Pat with his label Audio Eagle.

When you listen to the player on the Audio Eagle MySpace page, Royal Bangs stands out. Not only is their music layered and their playing confident, but there is an urgency that comes up out of their music and drills right under your skin. It infects you, and you feel like you need to burst out of your skin, flying and howling. It is simultaneously delicate and desperate. I won’t say you can’t ignore it, because you might be made of stronger stuff than I am, but you won’t want to ignore it.

http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf

http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf

Royal Bangs are currently touring Europe, coming back to the States and Canada at the end of April, including a spot at Lollapalooza.

Royal Bangs Official Site
Royal Bangs MySpace
Royal Bangs Daytrotter session
Audio Eagle Records MySpace

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Bits: Rekkid Store Day, Hell & Half of Georgia show, Hank’s Pulitzer, Rush for real, Prine tribute

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  • Record Store Day is coming April 17! As the NTSIB hermitage is newly-equipped with a rekkid playa after years of watching the old vinyl collection sit quiet and sad, we are super jazzed for this Christmas of the music world this year. I’ll be celebrating the day at Music Saves, so if you’re there that day and happen to grab the last Black Keys 12″ before I’ve gotten my hands on a copy and you feel a sharp blow to the back of your head and then wake up in a pool of your own vomit to find that TBK 12″ gone, well…
  • Hell and Half of Georgia have a free show coming up on April 24 at Canter’s Kibitz Room in Hollywood. They also have new swag in the form of a pretty rockin’ Tee-shirt.
  • Did you know there’s a Pulitzer Prize for music? Yep, and Hank Williams was awarded one this year. I spotted a blog earlier answering the question of why Hank was awarded the Pulitzer for music, but was that really a question? Is “because he was fucking awesome” not answer enough?
  • Rush is touring. That’s right. Rush.
  • A John Prine tribute album will be hitting stores on June 22 featuring contributions from the likes of Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, the Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst, Deer Tick and more.

We’ve been a little undecided on our feelings about Megafaun, but this performance they staged for La Blogotheque has certainly gone a long way in endearing them to us.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10851413&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Megafaun – His Robe / A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

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Notable shows in the greater Cleveland area & BiiiiiiiirdMAN!

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Shows worth checking out this week in and around Cleveland:

The Beachland Ballroom & Tavern

  • Sun, Apr 11| 8 PM (7 PM door)
    Drive-By Truckers
    Langhorne Slim
    SOLD OUT!
    Ballroom | All Ages

  • Mon, Apr 12| 7 PM (6 PM door)
    The Legendary Rhythm
    & Blues Revue
    featuring The Tommy Castro Band / Joe Louis Walker & Debbie Davies / Brickhouse Blues Band
    $20.00 adv / $22.00 dos
    Ballroom | All Ages

  • Tue, Apr 13| 9 PM (8 PM door)
    The Hold Steady
    The Oranges Band
    $18.00 adv / $20.00 dos
    Ballroom | All Ages

  • Thu, Apr 15| 7:30 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Meet & Greet with Baby Dee
    LGBT Fundraiser
    Price of Tix includes concert
    $25.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Thu, Apr 15| 8:30 PM (8 PM door)
    Baby Dee
    Lighthouse & The Whaler
    Adam Apple will perform a silent word piece
    $10.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Fri, Apr 16| 8 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Blue Grass Barn Dance
    Hosted by Miss Firecracker
    feat. Hoots & Hellmouth
    Heelsplitter (11:40 PM)
    Hiram Rapids Stumblers (10 PM)
    One Dollar Hat (9:20 PM)
    Timberwolves (8:40 PM)
    Two Far Gone (8 PM)
    $5.00 adv / $7.00 dos
    Ballroom | All Ages

Grog Shop

  • Sat, Apr 10| 10 PM
    Queens of the Iron Mic
    Hosted by Erica Kayne
    Indica
    Chimera
    Mz Crazy Tee
    Summer Azul
    True Poetry
    Chevy Blue
    Mami
    Erica Nicole
    FREE

  • Thurs, Apr 15| 9 PM
    Pissed Jeans
    This Moment In Black History
    Homostupids
    $7

  • Fri, Apr 16| 6 PM
    Adam Green
    The Dead Trees
    $12

Musica

  • Fri, Apr 16| 9 PM
    Over the Rhine
    Ellery
    $20

Annabell’s Bar & Lounge

  • Sat, Apr 10| 10 PM
    This Moment in Black History
    If These Trees Could Talk
    As If

House of Blues

  • Sun, Apr 11| 8:30 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Galactic
    Cyril Neville
    Corey Henry
    T Bird and the Breaks
    $20 adv
    $23 dos

No, not Harvey, but a birdman one-man-band. This fascinating street performer is Claudio Montuori, and you can find a few videos of him on YouTube. Including an interview, but it’s in Italian (if anyone can translate it, I’d be happy to post it).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzod3CotfAg]

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Game Changer: Shudder to Think

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It seems every music fanatic has at least one: a game changer. A band or album that slapped them upside the head, jarred them from complacency, shocked them into a different way of hearing or a different way of thinking. We’ve read the stories, about how, either through words that spoke to them in a way no one had spoken to them before or through an arrangement of sounds that were nothing like they had ever heard before, their internal worlds were forever changed.

My biggest game changer to date has been Shudder to Think. In 1994, I was heavily into Jeff Buckley and made a point of listening to the artists he covered and the artists he noted as favorites. Jeff had good, eclectic taste, and one of his well-documented favorites was Shudder to Think. S2T’s fifth studio album, Pony Express Record, was newly-released, and their video for “X-French Tee Shirt” was getting some play on MTV. It sounded weird to me. It was jagged and aggressive with frequent time changes and unconventional melodies. I had no idea what to make of it. I couldn’t even determine if I liked it or hated it. I wanted to hear it again.

Eventually, I bought Pony Express Record, and the whole album was a revelation. Everything that was contained in “X-French Tee Shirt” was on show, spread around and turned up. The album was pointy and electric and psychotic. It was, at turns, creepy, frightening, obscene, sexy, clever, ugly, beautiful. It was invigorating, and my mind opened up to what music could be in a way it hadn’t been since I first heard Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Pony Express Record cemented for me the idea that, while music could also go on just being fun and simple, it was important for music to move forward, open out, shake up, swallow whole and regurgitate as a new entity.

I went on to become a big fan of S2T in the short time they had left as a band at that point. I had the pleasure of seeing them live at Bimbo’s in San Francisco thirteen years ago this month. It was the day before or day after my birthday (my memory is fuzzy at best), and I got birthday hugs from Craig Wedren and Nathan Larson, who are two of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met. While the band has since dispersed to their own projects – with a reunion in 2008 – with varying degrees of success, S2T is still one of my favorite bands and Pony Express Record still serves as a mental measuring stick for me for all other music.

Shudder to Think MySpace
Craig Wedren Official Site
A Camp Official Site

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Bad Rabbits/The Young Veins/Foxy Shazam

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NTSIB is very pleased to introduce a new series to the blog. Our good friend and rock ‘n’ roll photographer Jennifer will highlight some of her favorite photos from her various rock ‘n’ roll escapades and talk about the photos, the musicians and related minutiae. Please enjoy the first installment.

HELLO INTERNET,

My name is Jennifer, and I’ll be one of April’s partners-in-shenanigans in Mississippi this summer. I live in New York. I go to a lot of shows. I take a lot of pictures. This past week the Foxy Shazam/The Young Veins/Bad Rabbits tour stopped at Webster Hall in the East Village in Manhattan and also at the (new) Knitting Factory, in Brooklyn. The tour continues through April, and all of you should see them if they pass through your neighborhood.

These are some of my favorite pictures from those shows:

Bad Rabbits

These gentlemen from Boston really bring the funk. (Their MySpace sound really does not do them justice at all. Let me put it this way: I walked in having never heard them before, I walked out willing to pay money to see them at their own show.) Most of the pictures I took of them at Webster Hall were not that great; I was much more successful at the Knitting Factory. I’ve picked two to share today.

One of their bits of stage business is boy-band style synchronized dancing, which I tried to capture here:

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And as for the second one, mainly I just like the wash of blue light:

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The Young Veins

True confessions: This was the band I went to these shows to see.[1] Their sound is closer to classic rock than to funk and they’re so new they only have two songs on their MySpace. Their record comes out in June, but, based on what I’ve heard so far live, my favorite songs are “Capetown” and “Young Veins (Die Tonight)” mainly because they remind me of the wry pleasures of being young, running around in ridiculous clothes and falling in love with inappropriate people. (She says, like she doesn’t do that anymore. Well, all right, but perhaps not on quite the same scale.)

The first couple of pictures are from Webster Hall, specifically, the basement space, known as The Studio. The light down there is kind of awful but I got several pictures I liked:

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Ryan Ross as a point of stillness amid a flurry of on-stage activity. The stillness is actually what I like; they were setting up and soundchecking at the time, so there were people all over the stage fiddling with wires and whatnot; that’s Jon Walker behind him.

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Ryan Ross with Andy Soukal in the background; I like this one because I managed to capture the spotlight hitting them just right.

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Ryan Ross again, this time playing the tambourine. I should delete it – I have other, better ones, and it’s all blown out — but I love it. Possibly I love it because it’s all blown out. Or because I have a soft spot for Ryan Ross playing the tambourine. That could be it, too.

Foiled by bad lighting at the first show, for the second night, at the Knitting Factory, I was on a mission: get a decent picture of Jon Walker. These are some of the results:

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Here he is singing a song. This one is one of the better attempts at the same picture, but I’m still not 100% happy with it. They’ll be back in June, and if I can get to their show, I’ll try again.

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In the classic “tuning my guitar” pose. I’m fond of this one because I had finally managed to get the right combination of light and activity.

Other highlights from the evening:

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Nick Murray at his drums during set-up and sound-check.

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Nick White, with Jon Walker’s arm in the middle there. This is probably one of the better ones, in terms of crispness and clarity.

Foxy Shazam

If you have never attended a Foxy Shazam show: you owe it to yourself to remedy that situation, because they are amazing. Eric Nally is a tiny tornado on stage, bunny-hopping onto the shoulders of his guitarist, eating cigarettes, doing headstands and rolling somersaults, and jumping into the audience. At the end of the Webster Hall show he was literally shirtless and swinging from the rafters. Here are some of the highlights of the shows:

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Eric Nally does a headstand (mid-song!) at Webster Hall.

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Eric Nally addresses the crowd at Webster Hall, in one of the very few moments in which he was standing still.

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Alex Nauth comes up to the front to play the horn, at Webster Hall. I love both the lights on him and his dramatic pose.

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Eric Nally, facing Daisy, who is balancing his guitar on his fingers. Sky White is playing the keyboards to the right. The Knitting Factory used a bunch of different colored lights, which is always fun. I think “green” was a great decision for this bit of stage business.

[1] Two members, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker, are formerly of Panic! At the Disco, one of my favorite bands. They left Panic last summer, and this is their new project.

Upcoming Dates
Apr 7 2010 7:00P The Basement Columbus, Ohio
Apr 8 2010 7:00P The Eagle Theatre Pontiac, Michigan
Apr 9 2010 8:00P The Mad Hatter Covington, Kentucky
Apr 10 2010 7:30P Beat Kitchen SOLD OUT Chicago, Illinois
Apr 11 2010 5:30P The Vault Buffalo, Minnesota
Apr 13 2010 8:00P Marquis Theatre Denver, Colorado
Apr 15 2010 8:00P El Corazon Seattle, Washington
Apr 16 2010 7:30P Venue Vancouver, British Columbia
Apr 17 2010 8:00P Satyricon Portland, Oregon
Apr 18 2010 9:00P Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, California
Apr 19 2010 7:30P The Boardwalk Orangevale, California
Apr 21 2010 8:00P Troubadour West Hollywood, California
Apr 23 2010 7:15P Martini Ranch Scottsdale, Arizona

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Bits: Lolla’10, Yuri’s Night, Lou Barlow tour, TBK in NYC2, new Big Boi jam

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  • While we don’t post too many festival line-ups unless A.A. Bondy or the Felice Brothers are involved (we play favorites, we admit it), the Lollapalooza 2010 line-up is pretty great. Standouts for us: Jimmy Cliff, the Black Keys, Cypress Hill (we saw them on a previous Lolla go-’round, and they had one of the best sets of the day), Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons, Dawes and Royal Bangs. It’ll be a something-for-everyone weekend.

  • If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, you should be getting tickets for Yuri’s Night at the NASA Ames Research Center this Saturday because the entertainment lineup is straight-up awesome. Les Claypool, The Black Keys, Common, N.E.R.D. and more. We ain’t got nothing like that going for the CLE celebration.

  • Lou Barlow will be touring with Mike Watt’s missingmen, though sans Watt, in June.

  • After the quick sell-out of the Black Keys’ upcoming Summerstage show, a second date has been added. Go get you some, NYC.

  • Pitchfork has a new Big Boi track, “Shutterbugg”, for you to listen to. BB has signed with Def Jam, so his solo album should finally see the light of day.

If it was possible to have carnal relations with music, while we would have a steady conjugal visiting schedule with the entire Black Keys catalogue, we would also have a tawdry affair with Lou Barlow’s “Gravitate”.

http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf

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Conrad Plymouth: I could have been a preacher if I suffered fools

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We’ve talked Conrad Plymouth up before, and we’ll continue to do so if they keep it up. If you don’t like music that moves you, that can fill you with yearning, a little melancholy and a strong sense of place – even if it’s a place you’ve never been – then stay away from these guys. If, however, you are a fan of beautiful music, heartfelt vocals and exceptional songwriting, go download Conrad Plymouth’s new EP and throw some bucks at them.

If you already took a listen to “Fergus Falls” when the band posted it previously, you already know you need this EP. If not, here’s your chance.

Conrad Plymouth – Fergus Falls

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Bits: listen to new Conrad Plymouth, see through Mike Watt’s eyes

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  • Conrad Plymouth are streaming their newborn (as in, the masters were just finished yesterday) EP on their MySpace and Facebook pages. I have even stopped listening to “Next Girl” to hear it.

  • Thunderbroom legend Mike Watt becomes an exhibited photographer tonight. If you’re in the Santa Monica area, you can see his Eye-gifts from Pedro exhibit at Track 16 through May 1.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll as Educational Tool

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I’ve always liked the Black Keys, but I have been getting more into them lately thanks to an early taste, via the uber groovy track “Tighten Up” (not a cover of the Archie Bell and the Drells’ song as I originally suspected), of their new album that’s coming out in May. Dan and Pat are Ohio boys who grew up in Akron, relatively speaking, just down the road from where I grew up. This is sometimes weird and slightly unsettling.

For instance: In doing some TBK fansite reading, I came across a familiar face.

See that big, craggy-faced dude with the feathers who’s lurking behind the amps? I know that dude. I’ve passed him many times throughout my life. Never knew his name or where he came from, but I always gave him a nod and a smile in passing.

Well, not that dude exactly. You see, that dude is a representation (possibly to size) of this dude:

I don’t know how many times I’ve passed him, and I’ve always admired him (especially during my high school years when I was obsessed with American Indian culture), but I never knew a damn thing about him until today. He has a name. Rotaynah. His creator is Hungarian-born Ohio artist Peter Wolf Toth, and Toth has erected at least one monolithic Indian head sculpture in every state in the country (some states have two or three of them), as well as in some provinces of Canada. They each have a name, and, collectively, they make the Trail of the Whispering Giants.

And it only took me twenty-plus years to find that out. Thanks, Dan and Pat!

(Astute observers may have also noted that Rotaynah makes an appearance on the cover of the Black Keys’ album Rubber Factory.)

  • Speaking of TBK, it didn’t take long for “Next Girl” to get posted on the net after it was offered as a tour tickets pre-sale incentive. You can listen to it at I Am Fuel You Are Friends. Though I have already listened to it enough times for all of us combined.

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Late to the Party: BlakRoc

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NTSIB could be all late-to-the-party all the time. Some music I am slow to warm up to (I’m just now starting to get on board with Local Natives). Some music I know I like, but I don’t really get into until years after I first hear it. Some music I don’t even know about until it’s old news.

BlakRoc falls into the third category for me, and I’m still mystified that I didn’t even know about this project this time last week. For others who may be as out of the loop as I have been on this: BlakRoc is a collaborative project between the Black Keys and Damon Dash of Roc-A-Fella Records. Dash helped bring a number of hip-hop luminaries in for the project, like Mos Def, Ludacris, Raekwon, Q-Tip and the RZA. The fucking RZA! Names even white people recognize! There’s even a from-the-grave appearance from Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

It’s no secret that the Black Keys have soul, and their groove-heavy music is a perfect, strong background for the rhymes laid down on this project. BlakRoc is fucking sweet, and NTSIB hasn’t been this instantaneously excited about an album in a long time.

http://www.lala.com/external/flash/SingleSongWidget.swf

The BlakRoc website could keep you busy for hours because not only have they posted videos of their appearances on Letterman and Fallon, but they also have webisodes of each of their recording sessions.

BlakRoc Official Website