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Hell and Half of Georgia: Men Destined to Hang Cain’t Drown

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Good friend to NTSIB Sean Fahlen has been promising us new Hell and Half of Georgia tunes for a while now. In early spring, he let us know that a gig mix-up would result in some new song recording, so we eagerly waited. And waited some more. Then we forgot about it for a while. Then we remembered. And waited some more.

Then, in a virtual ambush, he dropped a spankin’ new EP on us yesterday.

“first recordings with th full band,” Sean told us. “put down basic tracks in one day, then th Capt. fucked up his back pullin up an anchor, got laid out perty bad. pieced it together hour by hour from there. what shoulda took 3days lasted 3month. it’s been a slow summer…”

While Men Destined to Hang Cain’t Drown was a more democratically-produced effort for HaHog, it finds their sound more cohesive. A shiny thread of honky tonk glitters brightly throughout, aided greatly by some beautiful lap steel. And don’t forget ol’ Captain Ed Brady.

“th Capt. has become absolutely indispensable, this band could not continue without him,” Sean notes. “he’s th rugged free-spirit in th band, sometimes we gotta reign him in. he is in his 60s and has more excitement and passion for this band than anyone else. “

We’re happy to have the new batch of songs and offer you a couple of our favorites.

Hell and Half of Georgia – I Got a Girl

Hell and Half of Georgia – In the Way

Go download the whole shebang yourself right now because the HaHoG boys are giving it away for free again. Do it, people.

Hell and Half of Georgia – Men Destined to Hang Cain’t Drown

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Fall Mix

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Not the Fall as in Mark E. Smith, but fall as in the season. This week, Jennifer shares some thoughts on her current favorite tunes.

School foiled my concert-attending plans last week, so today you get a selection of things currently in heavy rotation on my iPod, along with some pictures from my recent travels.

1. Love Hurts, Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons feat. Emmylou Harris – Yes, it’s that “Love Hurts.” You may be more familiar with the Nazareth version — I was — but this one is 90% less cheesy and ridiculous. The song is infinitely better as a country love song than as a heavy metal power ballad. The lyrics have a lot more oomph now that I can listen to them without laughing.

2. Slink (A Hymn), Theme song for The Good Guys, Locksley – This band signs off all of their news emails with a cheery “Be in love” which makes me both grin and half-roll my eyes every time. Oh, babies. I’ll work on it, okay? I’m a cranky old lady, though, so you have to give me a running start. Meanwhile: this song is a delightful story about falling in love with someone else’s lady on the dancefloor, or maybe just about flirting via dancing. I’m not quite sure. But it’s definitely a whole lot of fun, and never fails to pull me out of the end-of-a-12-hour-day dumps.

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Waterfire, Providence, Rhode Island, October 2010

3. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Flamingo, Brandon Flowers – This song should be the first thing travelers hear upon deplaning at McCarren Airport. And it should be turned up loud enough to drown out the sound of the slot machines. (I was sure “slot machines at the airport” was an urban legend until I walked off the plane and saw them, and the lights of the Strip flickering in the distance.) There are a lot of love songs on this record; this one is for Las Vegas herself.

4. Cheat on Your New Lover With Me, Inconvenient Dreams, Jail Weddings – From what I can gather from the Internet, there’s a kind of ’60s revival going on in certain circles of the Los Angeles music scene. There’s the mods ( The Like), the surf-pop (The Young Veins), and then there’s the rockers: Jail Weddings. If I was put in charge of remaking Grease, Frenchie and the rest of the Pink Ladies would totally get down to Jail Weddings’ grooves. I think of this one as Rizzo’s song. It’s a filthy, irresistable suggestion, the kind of thing one would whisper to a hot boy in a fast car before hopping in and putting your feet up on the dash while he guns it for the state line. I like to listen to it while I walk to the train in the morning. True confessions: I had the whole five song EP on repeat for a while. It really is that good.

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A seabird @ Asbury Park, New Jersey, September 2010

5. Blackhawk, Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris : Listening to Grievous Angel and Wrecking Ball on shuffle will break your heart, because when she comes up on her own, her sweet clear voice sounds so lonely without his warmer tones harmonizing. Blackhawk is a requiem for a love story — though not theirs, necessarily — and it is a gem. Also beautiful: Wrecking Ball, the title track, and Waltz Across Texas Tonight.

6. Brian Eno, Congratulations, MGMT – I’m so late to the MGMT party that everyone who’s already there is at the “sitting on the front stoop looking mournfully at empty solo cups” stage of the evening. Okay, I’m not going to abuse that metaphor any further. I love their second record, and this song in particular, because it sounds like Scooby Doo. If I was making videos for them, there’d be lots of cartoony effects and “RUT ROH!” thought bubbles. Also possibly willowy boys in miniskirts and go-go boots chasing a caped miscreant through a candy-colored dreamscape.

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Lion statue, Washington Heights, September 2010

7. Love Drunk, Love Drunk, Boys Like Girls – The first and so far only time I have seen Boys Like Girls live was in the summer of 2009, at the (unintentionally hilariously misnamed) MTV Sunblock Fest, on a miserable, wet, cold July day at Jones Beach. It was raining so hard there was water whipping across the stage in sheets, and the crowd was huddled in hoodies and ponchos, sipping hot chocolate. I had gotten good and mostly-soaked watching the opening bands I had come to see (Gym Class Heroes and The Academy Is . . .) but for whatever reason – curiosity or cussedness – I stuck around for Boys Like Girls. This song is one of the many reasons I was glad I did. It’s a classic break-up song of the “Don’t let the door hit you on the behind on the way out!” variety, and it’s got a satisfyingly bouncy melody as well as entertaining lyrics.

8. Na Na Na, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, My Chemical Romance – I did not want to like this song, or their new record. I was fully prepared to be sulky and cross about their metamorphasis into brightly-colored dance punk being broadcast from 2019. (I like brightly colored dance-punk and post-apocalyptic futures, mind, but we had been teased with early reports of a gimmick-free punk rock record.) I may have done some grumbling about too much California sun rotting their brains. And then somewhere between a killer opening guitar riff, eight legs to the wall/hit the gas/and the wall/and we crawl and let me tell you ’bout the sad man/shut up and let me see your jazz hands, I caved, and now I’m hooked. I take it back, My Chemical Romance; I’m in. Bring on the candy-colored cap guns and awe-inspiringly ridiculous stage costumes. If you’re ready to dance, I’ll pogo with you.

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Cactus from Brown University greenhouse, October 2010

9. Club Can’t Even Handle Me Right Now, Step Up 3D (soundtrack), Flo Rida , feat. David Guetta – This song is ridiculous and I love it. It’s bubblegum pop from a movie whose main conflict resolution device is dance-batttles and I can’t stop listening to it. I suggest you put this one on if you have a tedious chore to do and need something fun to ease the pain and/or pass the time.

10. Record Collection,Record Collection, Mark Ronson and The Business Intl. , feat. Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon and Wiley – Part of the peculiar alchemy of this record, and also this song, is how many people Ronson has brought in to share
the singing duties; the overall effect is of a big game of vocal pick-up sticks. This particular track, sung by Mark Ronson, Simon Le Bon and Wiley is a sweet synth-pop confection of a tune that is mainly about the perks, trials and tribulations of being a pop star. Sample lyrics: I drive ’round cities in a chariot, I get preferential treatment at the Marriott, but if the truth be told I’m naked under all these clothes. I’ll tell you what it is on my mind, I only want to be in your record collection.

— Jennifer

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Die, Sloopy, Die: Rocket from the Tombs

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Die, Sloopy, Die is a tribute to great Ohio bands of the past and present. The name is an anti-tribute to our official state rock song “Hang On, Sloopy” by the McCoys because, while it is awesome that we were the first state to declare an official state rock song (and, so far, we are one of only two states to do so, Oklahoma having declared the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” their official state song), we chose one of the lamest songs it was possible for us to choose.

Rocket from the Tombs

Music lineage can be a tangle, especially when it comes to punk. (The family tree of British punk band London SS would take an entire gymnasium wall to itself.) Most music lovers probably know that if you follow the trail backward from the 2006 team-up of Nine Inch Nails and Peter Murphy for “Final Solution”, you’ll light on Murphy’s 1986 version of the song for his album Should the World Fail to Fall Apart before ending up on Pere Ubu’s 1976 release. But there’s another step back, to a Cleveland band who existed for a year. If you trace back from the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer”, you’ll stop on that same Cleveland band.

Having been only a year old at the time of their existence and having parents who continue to be a prime target for mainstream pop, I was unlikely to ever hear Rocket from the Tombs. In their short lifetime, beginning in 1974 and ending in 1975, RFTT never released an album, and they played only a handful of shows. Yet they ended up leaving an important mark on music.

Ain’t It Fun

The core line-up of Rocket from the Tombs included Dave Thomas, Peter Laughner, Craig Bell, Gene O’Connor and Johnny Madansky (with a “guest” appearance by a guy named Steve Bators at their last show). A powder keg with a short fuse, when RTFF imploded, Thomas and Laughner formed Pere Ubu, while O’Connor became Cheetah Chrome, Madansky became Johnny Blitz, and they joined Steve (now Stiv) Bators to become Frankenstein, which later became the Dead Boys.

Rocket From The Tombs 30 Seconds Over Tokyo

Rocket from the Tombs might have only existed as a name in a footnote… but then came the internet, and the knowledge of a continued and widespread interest in this proto-band propelled the release of The Day the Earth Met the… Rocket from the Tombs, 19 tracks comprised from radio and concert recordings from the band’s short life. And what an amazing racket it is. My view is skewed and insular, but it’s difficult to believe this sort of music existed in Cleveland in the early ’70s. The jagged urgency of these songs is still stunning and compelling. In fact, listened to back-to-back, the original “Sonic Reducer” makes the Dead Boys’ version sound polished and mundane in comparison.

Sonic Reducer

Rocket from the Tombs reformed in 2003, bringing Television’s Richard Lloyd along, to play the Disastodrome festival, which they followed up with their own tour and the band’s first recorded album, Rocket Redux. Since then, the band has been ebbing and flowing through each other’s orbits, writing new material, then straggling off again, but they did manage to release a single, “I Sell Soul/Romeo & Juliet”, this past spring (which was, according to Ubu Projex, recorded at the Red Roof Inn in Mentor, Room 146 – so, now you know where to stay if you find yourself in Mentor for some ungodly reason).

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Drummer on Laundromatinee

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There will be a Henry Clay People/Drive By Truckers show review later today, but I had to share this now. Drummer, which includes Patrick Carney of the Black Keys on bass, recorded a session for Laundromatinee, and it was just posted yesterday.

Drummer – Buddyscapes from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Drummer didn’t get the attention it deserved and further activity from the Ohio drummer-comprised “supergroup” seems unlikely, but if you missed their album Feel Good Together the first time around, you should still jump on it. Their Laundromatinee session, which includes mp3s as well as videos, will show you why.

Drummer on Laundromatinee

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Bits: The Twilight Singers, Infantree, Devo, The Mississippi Sheiks, Matador at 21

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  • The first taste of the new Twilight Singers album is available. Get a free download of “Blackbird and the Fox” here.

  • My Old Kentucky Blog premiered the video for Infantree’s “Slaughter House” today. Check it out. MOKB may be on the fence about the song, but we love it.

  • Devo will be heading out on a tiny, little tour at the end of the month, so hope you Devotees are ready to travel.

  • (Additionally, you can get ready for Halloween by purchasing a Devo costume from their webstore. Yeah, that’s… I don’t know what to make of that.)

  • If you are a casual blues fan, you may not have heard of the Mississippi Sheiks – you may not even realize there were blues bands back in the 1930s since all the focus is usually on the man-with-a-guitar bluesmen of the time – but you’ll likely know their songs as covered by other artists. No Depression is running a contest to win a Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks DVD, CD, poster and T-shirt. Contributors include Van Dyke Parks, Dave Alvin and Alvin Youngblood Hart, among others.

  • If you didn’t make it to the Matador at 21 celebration in Las Vegas this past weekend, check out the recap at Stereogum to decide just how bitter you should be about missing it.

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Don’t Say I Never Gave You Anything: Infantree

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My lack of time is your gain. No time for an in-depth post today, so we’re going to share a batch of Infantree mp3s we’ve been sitting on. (You may recall us talking about them before.) Not only are they a sweet bunch, but they are pumping out ever more impressive music. Here’s a handful of songs from their new album Would Work.

Infantree – Slaughter House
Infantree – Speak Up
Infantree – Water

If you’re in the Boston area on October 19, you can check Infantree out live at TT’s.

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Bits: The Flaming Lips, The Due Diligence, A Place to Bury Strangers, Liars, The Like, Gin Blossoms

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  • Pitchfork is featuring a doc on the making of the Flaming Lips’ Embryonic, and since the week is almost over, you’d better get over there.

  • Hooray for the Due Diligence! Isaac Gillespie and company surpassed their Kickstarter goal, so I Will Wreck Your Life will get a vinyl pressing, and the album is streaming at their Bandcamp site.

  • “But what I really want to do is direct…” A Place to Bury Strangers are holding a contest for aspiring music video directors. Create a video for APtBS’ song “Deadbeat” and upload it to the Deadbeat contest YouTube channel for a chance to win a signed boxset, 4 tickets to an APtBS show of your choice and have your video posted to all APtBS websites with credit as the official video.

  • Additionally, do yourself a favor and see A Place to Bury Strangers live:

    9/30 – Nashville, TN – Next Big Nashville Festival at Exit In with Yeasayer, Waaves, & Javelin

    10/1 – Durham, NC – Duke Coffeehouse

    10/2 – Richmond, VA – Strange Matter with Ceremony & Soundpool (Killer Pimp Night)

    10/3 – New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge with Chapterhouse, Soundpool & Ulrich Schnauss

    10/15 – Minneapolis, MN – Whole Music Club at University of Minnesota

    10/26 – Brooklyn, NY – Death By Audio with Japandroids

    10/30 – West Palm Beach, FL – Respectable Street

    11/3 – New York, NY – Billboard Showcase at Gramercy

    11/11 – Monterrey, Mexico – Escenica

    11/13 – Mexico City, Mexico – Festival Sonorama

    Leave your pansy earplugs at home.

  • This could be worth wading into the murky depths of iTunes: Liars have released a live EP of their May 27 Shepherd’s Bush gig, cleverly entitled Live at Shepherds Bush Empire, exclusively through iTunes.

    Tracklisting:

    1. Scissor

    2. Proud Evolution

    3. The Overachievers

    4. Clear Island

    5. A Visit from Drum

  • I finally watched We Jam Econo: the Story of the Minutemen last night! This is not news. It’s just an excuse to post this video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79D1ifOhGb4?fs=1]

Jennifer adds:

  • The Like are on a U.S. west coast tour now-right-now.

  • The Gin Blossoms’ new album No Chocolate Cake is streaming on AOL Music.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Titus Andronicus

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This week, Jennifer gets excited about some punk fuckin’ rawk.

The best way I can explain The Monitor, the new(ish) record from Titus Andronicus , is to say that it is like two photographs, one from the 21st century and one from the 19th, carefully overlaid so that their elements blend and the eye is left with the challenge of determining what is now, what was then, and what is both, eternally suspended on the thin webbing of successful illusion. Internet, I have listened to this record a lot. I was really, really excited to finally be able to see them live.

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Patrick Stickles (l) and Ian Graetzer (r)

Following opening acts Screaming Females (solid punk band; their singer can also really shred) and Free Energy (pop punk so awesome they get their own post next week), Titus Andronicus kicked off the show last Saturday night at Webster Hall with A More Perfect Union, a song which references, among other things, the Newark Bears, the Garden State Parkway, Born to Run as well as both the Battle Cry of Freedom and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The recorded lyrics include the phrase tramps like us, baby we were born to die, but Patrick Stickles sang born to run instead, infusing (and transforming) the line with howling punk rock defiance. Naturally the pit went crazy. And it only got better from there.

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Amy Klein, playing her violin while wearing her guitar

One of highlights of the show came during The Battle of Hampton Roads. The song is 14 minutes long and they played all of it. The middle section is instrumental, a fusion of fuzzy guitars, parade drums and what I thought were bagpipes on the record but live turned out to be keyboard effects. It sounds like a column of weary Union soldier walking home on a dirt road in the rain. It is the kind of thing that just begs for a drum line. And so the barrier provided one: we stretched out our hands, all of us, all the way down as far as I could see, and pounded on the stage. Meanwhile, the floor was vibrating from the pogoing feet of the pit behind us.

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l to r: Patrick Stickles, David Robbins, Eric Harm, and Ian Graetzer

In conclusion: that was awesome, and I can’t wait to see them again when they open for the Felice Brothers in Poughkeepsie in October. If you live in the tri-state area and are waffling about going to that show, BUY A TICKET NOW. It’s going to be good.

— Jennifer

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The Due Diligence: Cigarettes and Cynicism Will Only Get You So Very Far

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Isaac Gillespie may be an evil mastermind. He looks sweet and unassuming, but I think it’s just a clever guise. You see, I listened to the title track from his forthcoming album with the Due Diligence, I Will Wreck Your Life, for the first time on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, I was walking around my apartment, singing the chorus… over and over again. I try to avoid direct comparisons between bands and songs, but “I Will Wreck Your Life” compares favorably to the Felice Brothers’ instant classic “Frankie’s Gun!” in that it is a shambling good time that makes you want to sing along, loudly, about terrible things.

http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer.swf/track=2779349700/size=grande/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=eb8d0f/

Also featuring players Alex P, Jo Schornikow, Morgan Heringer, Ben Sadock, Colin Fahrner, IWWYL runs the course from twangy (“Antifolk Song”) to slinky (“Uncle Stephen”) and is a delight all-around with lyrics that can be simultaneously sweet and cynical. Here’s the catch: To give this album a physical release, Due Diligence need some help. They have a Kickstarter program to raise money for a vinyl pressing of IWWYL that is now in its final days. They have a modest amount to go to reach their goal (Kickstarter is an all or nothing prospect), and Gillespie has some clever rewards for backers, especially in the higher dollar amounts (if I didn’t need a Kickstarter for my own life, I’d be aiming at the $300 level so I could hear Gillespie cover the Afghan Whigs’ Black Love), and you could be the one to make it all happen.

I Will Wreck Your Life Kickstarter

I Will Wreck Your Life Bandcamp

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Einstürzende Neubauten 30th Anniversary

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Apparently, it’s time for my generation to feel old. Anniversary shows? For my bands? That’s something that’s only supposed to happen to my parents’ bands. Paul Revere and the Raiders have anniversaries. Einstürzende Neubauten do not have anniversaries.

But I suppose I can give a little leeway to a band who have been around for three decades and have made music of everything from warehouse noise to aching ballads. On November 9, EN will be releasing the fourth in their series of “archival” albums, Strategies Against Architecture, which covers material from 2002 to present, including selections from the Musterhaus series that was available exclusively through the band’s website.

In addition, EN will be kicking off a special tour in the Netherlands on October 14 (and hitting American shores on December 1). Each city on the tour will get two shows: the first night will be a full-on Neubauten concert, while the second night will be a three-part program with music, film and other typically experimental media.

U.S. Dates

12/01/10 – Los Angeles, CA – The Music Box
12/02/10 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echoplex
12/03/10 – San Francisco, CA – The Filmore
12/04/10 – San Francisco, CA – Slim’s
12/08/10 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
12/09/10 – Chicago, IL – Metro
12/11/10 – Toronto, ON – Phoenix Concert Theatre
12/12/10 – Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
12/14/10 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
12/15/10 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_NIN8ZQo8?fs=1]

Einstürzende Neubauten Official Website