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The Wind-up Birds, Poor Music

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Poor Music by the Wind-up Birds

 

When I retired from NTSIB, I threatened to return with the release of the next album from the Wind-up Birds, the Leeds four-piece whose first full-length album, The Land, was dropped into my lap in 2012 and reminded me of why I started this blog in the first place. Well, Poor Music, which comes out on May 27th, gives me 17 tracks worth of fantastic reasons to make good on my threat.

 

They killed off all our favourite TV characters
So we became TV characters
We started off subtly by giving stupid answers on quiz shows
But then, we just took the whole thing over

 

And the musicians tried to keep selling us their past
So we trapped them and beamed them up
Into an infinite loop of knowing references
And made them perform their best album, in order, for ever

 

Opening with the power drill riff of “There Will Be No Departures from This Stand”, Poor Music asserts that, no, the Wind-up Birds are not going to start taking it easy on you now. Like The Land‘s opener, “Good Shop Shuts”, “There Will Be No Departures […]” calls us all to examine ourselves and our actions, and we can only nod in resignation as Kroyd points out all-too-astutely that “…we agreed that compassion was just one of life’s luxuries.”

But Poor Music reads less like a lesson book and more like a short story collection full of uncomfortable, and sometimes disturbingly familiar, situations, ranging in scope from global to personal – stories populated with characters, wandering in and out of scenes, who are sometimes allegorical, sometimes representational, sometimes biographical, and the lines blur between them. In “Addis Ababa”, the story of a young child’s sartorial mishap on a school field trip calls into question not only the real aim of the sometimes bizarre practices of educators but also the act of conforming that we seem to be called on to do from birth until death.

 

 

Like in the best books, the ones that stay with you, some of the characters of Poor Music will tear your heart right out, like the “non-gender-specified teen” of the three-part “Glue Factory” suite that is interspersed throughout the album, whose affecting story plays out against a sparse arrangement of organ chords as you watch the teen being torn down by growing up. Then there is the narrator of “A Song or Two” whose candid, raw chronicling of his madness spiral left me, for one, reeling from the too-close-for-comfort familiarity. (A personal thanks to the band for following up “A Song or Two” with the relief of “The Wind-up Birds Songwriting Workshop” dance party – which you can hear as a part of this month’s Feel Bad For You mix.)

But even the best book lacks Poor Music‘s biggest delight: the compelling, sometimes surprising, music. The sounds of Poor Music are bigger, brighter, more varied, and often more aggressive than those of The Land. I’ve already talked about the music of “Glue Factory” and “The Wind-up Birds Songwriting Workshop”, and songs like “The Gristle” and “Guy Ritchie” (both personal favorites) grab you by the neck and gleefully shake you around. The band continue to hone their chops to the point where individual moments will stick with you just as much as overall songs – Kroyd’s startling rage on “A Song or Two”, Oli Jefferson’s loose and funky drumming on the title track, Ben Dawson’s carousel-like (up, down, and around) bassline on “Two Ambulance Day”, the insistence of Mat Forrest’s sharp-edged guitar (with help from Ben Dawson on additional guitar) that grows near-transcendent through the last half of “Guy Ritchie”. (There are a ridiculous number of great guitar riffs on this album, really.)

 

 

I could go on about this album, but then I’d be writing a book myself. So why don’t you just tuck in yourself and discover the joys that I haven’t even been able to touch on in this post? You can download the single of “The Gristle” (with special non-album B-side “The Fun Never Starts”) right now and pay what you want, and you can pre-order the full album.

Additionally, the album is so good that it requires two launch shows, the first in London on release day, May 27th, and the second in Leeds on May 29th.

 

The Wind-up Birds Official Website

The Wind-up Birds @ Bandcamp

The Wind-up Birds @ Twitter

The Wind-up Birds @ Facebook

 

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Better to Burn Out: A Farewell

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rekkids

 

Apparently, this is my 600th post on Now This Sound Is Brave; it’s also my last post as owner. As the song goes, it’s better to burn out than to fade away, but I think I did both. I don’t have the fortitude to recount the whole thing in new words, so I’ll steal from a personal post I made yesterday:

“My music blog is set to turn four years old around the end of this month… but I’m thinking about shutting it down. I took an official hiatus from posting when I started my current day job in early 2013, but I’d slowed way down on writing before that. I thought the seasonal layoff from the day job would give me time to get back into the spirit, but the spirit seems not to be there for me anymore. I haven’t even listened to much music in the last few months. And very little in the way of new music (I listened to an old A-ha album a few days ago, and those songs are still bouncing around my head because there’s been nothing in the meantime to replace them).

I did go much longer with the blog than I expected. And I loved the shit out of it. It was rewarding on so many levels, and I’ve made some great friends because of it, seen some great shows, gained favorite new bands, met people who’ve contributed to my musical identity since I was a teenager… It’s been an amazing, singular thing that has helped me reveal some of my ability and worth to myself.”

It’s like breaking up with a long-term lover, leaving NTSIB – it wrenches my heart. But I’ve decided not to shut the blog down. Instead, I’ll be handing the reins over to my brilliant, rock-steady, strong and capable co-blogger Jennifer, and it is a salve on my broken heart to know that it will go on.

And I may be back with the occasional post. There are upcoming albums from the Wind-up Birds and the Payroll Union, after all.

My gratitude and love to every musician who has allowed me to hawk their wares, to every PR person who has pushed the right thing at the right time, to every fellow blogger who has offered their support and friendship, to Jennifer, to our beneficent benefactor, and to every reader who has stopped by even for a few seconds. As patron saint Joe Strummer said, without people, you’re nothing.

So I’ll take my leave of you now and hope everyone will join me in wishing Jennifer the best, eager to see where she will steer this craft next. Mutts are going to play me out with a song that seems appropriate.

 

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Strummer Remembrance Day

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Joe Strummer, who we take as our patron saint here at NTSIB, died 11 years ago today. The above song, “Mega Bottle Ride” by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, ends with the line “And it’s time to be doing something good”, and it seems to me that one of the best ways that anyone can pay tribute to Joe is by doing good in his name.

 

 

A lovely example of that ethos is the Tumblr blog “What Would Joe Strummer Do?” A recent post on the blog itself beautifully sums up what’s going on there.

 

letsagetabita-rockin asked: Hello, Joe. Do you like the idea that there’s someone who lets people ask them rather serious questions on the internet and answers them as if they were you?

This blog was started as a fun project, a bit of punk-rock silliness we could share with others. We didn’t expect serious questions, but we got them – and now, those questions are the reason we keep doing this. If people stop asking us questions, we’ll stop answering.

In the meantime, there are people out there who have real questions and life-changing problems and no one to talk to about them. If we can give those people a hand; if we can cheer them up a little when they’re miserable; if we can encourage them to give life another chance, then we are going to do it. People feel safe talking to Joe – and everyone deserves to feel safe talking to someone.

We are obviously not Joe Strummer, nor have we ever claimed to be him or to be affiliated with him in any way. Everyone who comes to this blog to ask us questions knows this, and it’s stated clearly here in our disclaimer. But if there are people asking us questions because they have no one else to ask – because they feel alone or lost or hopeless – and we can help by running this blog, then we are going to.

This isn’t about us. This is about what we can do to help other people.

WWJSD receives questions ranging from just asking Joe’s opinion of other musicians to relationship questions to pleas for advice from people who are at the end of their tethers in very serious ways. Each question is answered with compassion, love, and encouragement, and each answer is accompanied by a charming illustration featuring cartoon Joe by artist Giles, like the ones you see above and below.

 

 

And, of course, there’s always the wonderful Strummerville – The Joe Strummer Foundation for New Music. Pay them a visit – it’s worth your time.

If you know about other ways people are doing good in Joe’s name, please share it in comments.

 

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Tony Fitz: Cut Me Up

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Tony Fitz

 

Face front, true believers! I’m back in action! At least for the time being… As I’m on seasonal layoff from my day job through January, I’ll have enough time and brain power to contribute to the blog again, instead of just harassing you all on Twitter.

The NTSIB crew (can it be called a crew when there are just two of us?) love taking part in the Couch by Couchwest festivities every year, not least because we always manage together some new friends who also happen to be very talented. This past CXCW got us acquainted with Tony Fitz when he organized a very lovely Irish showcase.

Aside from all the behind-the-scenes work Tony does in production, recording, and sound engineering, he also makes music with his band Susie Soho. And in between everything else, he has began recording solo songs, releasing them on an as-ready basis, the first of which is “Cut Me Up”, which includes Ciaran Brady from Heritage Centre on drums, along with Jason Maher and Niall Campion on bass and guitar. Breaking my own rule of never comparing musicians, this song does slot easily beside Tony’s fellow countrymen the Frames in its laying bare the raw emotions of disappointment and anger while making you want to stomp, head bang, and fist pump to the jagged blasts of guitar and drums.

 


 

To check out Tony’s work on the technical side of things, you can listen to his production work for Red Sails on their EP We Still Build Forts, his live recordings for the Chapters, and his sound work for Homebeat.

 

Tony Fitz Official Website
Tony Fitz @ Twitter
Tony Fitz @ Facebook

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The Replacements at Riot Fest Toronto

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Everything you wanted, they were.

So says our friend and Toronto musician Christian D. Christian saw the recently-reunited Replacements play at the Toronto Riot Fest date, and with all the debate flying around on whether the Replacements should reunite (spoiler alert: Too late! They already did), Christian wanted to get his take on things down into words, and he kindly let us post his thoughts.

 

 

 

I’m betting that, like me, a lot of the audience at Toronto’s Riot Fest, never got to see the Mats the first time around. For me, it wasn’t so much about “was it worth the wait”, but rather a chance to see what might have/should have been. Based on those songs, the critical accolades, and the snotty punk attitude, it always seemed like the Replacements should have been goddamned huge. “Best band of the ‘80s”, remember that? Maybe they were ahead of their time or too fucked up to play the game – whatever it was, it never really happened for them.

BUT – the legacy looms large. I grew up on those albums, and the bootlegs, and all the stories of the brilliant band who’d show up too drunk to even bother. I didn’t know what Riot Fest was, and didn’t give a damn who was on the bill – to me this thing was all about the Replacements.

A big question for some was whether it should even be called the Replacements – maybe it should have been the Paul and Tommy show or something. That didn’t bother me. The Replacements name was fine by me, Paul singing those songs he wrote for all of us, Tommy hammering the bass and screaming his backing vocals – that’s close enough for rock and roll, ya know? Like, they’re the Replacements: don’t ask why.

I had to be there – this show was bound to be legendary, whether it would be a transcendent blast of rock and roll or a sloppy drunken money grab of half assed covers and a half hour of the roadies jamming Hootenanny.

Here are two things you should know before I get rolling: 1) I worship Iggy Pop and the Stooges, 2) I never buy merchandise at shows.

This is important because after a typically brilliant, always-manic Stooges set, I pretty much forgot I had just seen Iggy fucking Pop the second the Mats took the stage. Unfor-fucking-givable. And I, cheap bastard that I am, bought a T-shirt and wanted more shit, but they were selling out quick. The magic of seeing the Mats turned me into a 15-year-old fanboy.

So what did we get really? A wise-cracking Paul intros the set and slams into “Takin’ A Ride”, the first song from the first record. Perfect. Then “I’m in Trouble”, “Favourite Thing.” The Westerberg ravaged voice is as expressive as you remember it; his deadpan self-deprecating humour is still intact. Tommy still wears the bass low, rips some of the coolest bass lines ever to come out of punk rock, and plays with the energy of the hyper 17-year-old he was all those years ago.

“Hanging Downtown”, thousands are screaming along: “Bus stop, pimps and whores, liquor stores, Sixth Street, Seventh Street, bus stop, bus stop, bus stop, bus stop, bus stop…” We all know it until an ad-libbed “Jim Osterberg, he’s my new best friend”, then loud fucking cheers.

Some more classic Paul half-assed, jokey stage banter – including “Does everybody feel… uptight and worthless? ” – resets the show for a great romp through “Color Me Impressed”. The band (including Josh Freese and David Minehan) are having a blast, and we’re all having our minds blown in the audience. It’s like a triumphant headline gig that really should have happened when we were all a lot younger. Maybe we’re all appreciating it more now? I don’t know. It feels great, though. The band is semi-sloppy, pulling out some half-assed covers. Paul’s whispering in Tommy’s ear, it’s all playful rock-and-roll fun, and the crowd is lapping it up, transported. Like, damn, they could have/should have done this years ago. I’m already hoping they do it again, and we’re not even halfway done yet.

Then what? Do you want a song list? How about you go download the bootlegs instead? I sure as hell did. How about some highlights: “Tommy Gets his Tonsils Out” into Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun”. A tremendous sing-along to “Kiss me on the Bus”. Paul’s misremembering/not remembering lyrics, Tommy and Dave are filling them in. Part of the magic of the Mats was that they never seemed to take themselves too seriously, and they still don’t. There’s a sloppy “Maybelline” in the best sense of sloppy. A slamming cover of “Borstal Breakout”. Was there stuff I wanted to hear and didn’t? Yeah, of course, but over all it was a mad romp through one of the best catalogs in rock and roll. We even got “Wake Up”, a sharp little rocker from the All Shook Down sessions.

“Little Mascara” into “Left of the Dial”, hell yeah! Perfect.

Paulie (as he keeps referring to himself) says, “I think we’re running out of time, we got maybe one more or something” at the end of “Can’t Hardly Wait”. And then THAT opening: the guitar break and scream that kicks off “Bastards of Young”, one of the best intros in all of rock and roll.

Do you know the feeling of a crowd of thousands shouting along to one of the best songs by a band no one ever thought would play again? It’s pretty goddamned amazing – and if you can get your ass to one of the two promised Riot Fest shows you can find out for yourself.

For the encore, Paul returns in a Montreal Canadians jersey – a classic Replacements playful fuck-you. “We’re gonna play a really stupid song that we don’t know”. It’s “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from the benefit e.p. Songs for Slim. Which is how and why we all got here, the sad backstory to a triumphant return.

Westerberg once wrote, “Rock and roll could make you quiver a long long time ago”. Well, tonight, it sure did again.

If you can, I’m telling ya: get to the remaining shows, go grab the bootlegs that are roaming around the net. Who knows how long this can last?

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On Joe Strummer’s Birthday: Reinvention

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Time to raise a glass to NTSIB patron saint, Mr. Joe Strummer a.k.a. Woody Mellor a.k.a. John Mellor, who would have been 61 years old today.

Joe had a nervous energy that never let him settle in one place, one role, one style, one identity for too long, as outlined in a new article from The Atlantic website Joe Strummer and Punk Self-Reinvention. When Joe passed away in 2002, he was in the midst of yet another renaissance with his young group of lads, the Mescaleros. Below is an artifact from that time, a full Mescaleros show filmed at the Roseland Ballroom in New York in 1999.

 

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Boxed Wine: Cheap, Fun

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If you missed CXCW last week, you missed out! (Except you didn’t because you can still see the whole thing on the site.) One of the stand-outs for me (aside from performances from our friend Kroyd of the Wind-up Birds with his project Forgets, our friend Pete David of the Payroll Union taking a solo turn, and our friend Christian D. once again inspiring panty-flinging), was a band out of New Jersey called Boxed Wine, who not only played a great cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”, but also trotted out an original called “Boomerang”.

 

 

Check out their EP Cheap, Fun which includes “Boomerang” as well as two other energetic, catchy songs that will get stuck in your head without making you hate them.

 

 

Boxed Wine @ Bandcamp

Boxed Wine @ Twitter

Boxed Wine @ Facebook

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A Foreign Country: Depeche Mode

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A Foreign Country is a non-regular series in which I write about music I dug in my youth and still enjoy now. The name comes from the L.P. Hartley quote “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”, because, while I do continue to enjoy some of the music I listened to in my early days, my tastes have changed since then (thank fuck for that) and even the songs I still like are heard through different ears.

 

 

Depeche Mode

 

Depeche Mode initiated me into puberty.

This is an exaggeration, of course. I had already been a fan of Depeche Mode – then composed of Martin Gore, Dave Gahan, Andy Fletcher, and Alan Wilder – for a couple of years when their album Music for the Masses was released. I was 14, and the album brought DM up so high in my estimation that they might have even had a chance of knocking Duran Duran from their throne as my favorite band. It was a great album, an evolutionary step forward in their career, rich and meaningful. And one of those meanings, the one that spoke loudest to my hormone-addled mind, was sex.

In retrospect, though, I see that it wasn’t about sex: Depeche Mode introduced me to desire. I had no solid concept of sex, but songs like “Behind the Wheel” (you’re fooling no one with your clever car allusion, Mr. Gahan) and “I Want You Now” stirred up heat and longing inside me, a deep, full-body-and-mind desire that wouldn’t be elicited by another person until several years later.

 

“I Want You Now” – Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode I want you now Lyrics

 

The thread of desire is stitched heavily throughout the Depeche Mode catalogue from Black Celebration on – “Stripped”, “World in My Eyes”, “I Feel You”, etc. – reinforced by the feminine and feline sensuality displayed by frontman Gahan onstage (“I’m basically an overpaid stripper,” he recently said about his stage presence), and backed by sometimes throbbing, sometimes slinky rhythms.

 

“Personal Jesus” – Depeche Mode

 

The band’s career has had its peaks and valleys, as would any career that’s been going for over 30 years – ever-mounting success, followed by Gahan’s struggle with drug addiction, Wilder’s departure, and some uneven albums – but Gore, Gahan, and Fletcher have managed to hold on, with their nails dug in deeply. And with the release of the first single, “Heaven”, from their forthcoming album Delta Machine, the band may be poised for a new wave of success.

“Heaven” – Depeche Mode

 

There is some sense of personal pride in watching a band you’ve loved since your formative years continue to produce new music as inspired as this when you’re firmly ensconced in adulthood.

Delta Machine is slated for release on March 26, and Depeche Mode will be touring the world throughout the summer.

 

Depeche Mode Official Website

Depeche Mode @ Twitter

Depeche Mode @ Facebook

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A Conversation with Pete David of the Payroll Union

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The Payroll Union

photo credit: Nina Petchey

 

In the three years that Now This Sound Is Brave has been going, I have come to think of some of the bands we cover as “my bands” – bands who have struck a singular chord with me and whom I have continued cover, excited to share news of their movements. If I had to rank “my bands” based on which ones hold the biggest place in my heart and spend the most time on my personal listening turntable, the Payroll Union would likely top that list. We’ve been covering the band since spring of 2011, and this year has been the most exciting in our shared history with the band yet.

 

 

This year has seen them touring the UK, beginning an exciting collaboration with historian Andrew Heath, and, best of all, releasing their first full-length album, The Mule & The Elephant . TM&TE is a more somber outing than previous Payroll Union releases – though more in sound than lyrical content as they continue to focus on the hard and bloody stories of early American history – but it is the most rewarding one so far.

As Dr. Heath expounds upon in the album’s liner notes, “the album is no celebration of the history of the Early American Republic, but rather an eloquent measure of how unevenly the U.S. managed to live up to its democratic promise.” The early years of “the great American Experiment” were rife with ambition, death, and longing. Some of the stories illustrated on TM&TE include the tragic life that lead to the ruthless ambition of Edwin M. Stanton, the campaign for temperance by preacher Charles Grandison Finney, the relationship of Thomas Jefferson to his slave Sally Hemings, and the duel that ended the life of Alexander Hamilton.

The feeling that rises to the top on TM&TE again and again is one of yearning, from the longing for a dead loved one to the wish for a different outcome in a tragic situation to the yearning to be remembered for the good one did despite the precarious balance of the scales of one’s life. Singer Pete David’s voice seems naturally suited to these tales of longing, with its dark and woody timbre, especially at what feels like the emotional crescendo of the album in the double-shot of “The Cawing Cuckoo” and “Mary Lamson”. The more you listen to this album, the more the tendrils of this longing snake into your heart.

Knowing how the mention of early American stories sets him off on passionate tangents, I was very pleased to have Pete answer a few questions for us. Join us as we talk about the Payroll Union’s collaboration with Dr. Andrew Heath, the murder of “the Beautiful Cigar Girl”, exactly why Brits are making songs about early American history, and more.

How does a fine young British gentleman come to be so interested in the history of the treasonous American colonies? And how does he then rope other British gentlemen into making music about said history?

America’s unlikely experiment in democracy is fascinating precisely for that reason: it’s amazing that it happened. I think I gravitated to the Early Republic because I’m almost expecting it to all fall apart at some point. The stories are so rich and varied and the ideas so lofty and patriotic. It’s the paradox which keeps me hooked and that still exists today; the country’s attempt to live up to its promise is so appealing a subject. In terms of the band, I think they find the subjects interesting but it was never in the job description: ‘must be able to display knowledge of 19th Century American history.’

 

How do you put yourself into the minds of the subjects of your songs? Some of them are such heartbreaking stories, and that feeling comes through in your voice.

Exactly that. Putting myself in their skin is what I try to do. The voice is where I find the character and I don’t know if this comes across entirely but I do try and fit my voice to my subject. “House on the Hill”, the final song on the album, is supposed to be tender and so my voice is very different to, say, “The Anxious Seat”, where I’m attempting to inhabit an authoritative evangelical preacher. I love those little moments, tiny expressions of the voice, where I’m able to imbue the words with the feeling they deserve. I think “Mary Lamson” is probably my most successful attempt at that and mourning is a strange emotion to try and express in song.

 

 

Where does “Cawing Cuckoo” come from? The heartache of it is wholly relatable and seems like it could come from any number of painful relationships, modern as well as past.

Cawing Cuckoo is a funny one in that it was inspired by a New York murder in the 1830s. Mary Rogers – the “Beautiful Cigar Girl” as she was known – was found battered in the Hudson River and there were various suspects but no one was ever charged. She worked in a cigar shop and the story got a lot of attentione becasue she attracted a lot of newspapermen, as well writers like Irving, Poe and Cooper. Poe was actually a suspect for a while. I got quite consumed by the case. The story was strung out by the papers and various ‘witnesses’ came forward for their moment in the limelight. I worked on it for some time but then I ended up stripping away a lot of the detail and it soon became quite a simple heartbreak song. The lyric comes from the perspective of the murderer, who in my retelling of it, is the boyfriend who has come to the conclusion that she has been unfaithful to him. He was the character I was drawn to, particularly his weakness and uncertainty. Tragically, he ended up committing suicide. It’s a bitter song and yes, it’s true, it could really be anywhere at any time, especially when I say, ‘there are no pictures of you now.’ I wasn’t particularly thinking of photographs when I wrote that line but I can see how it would fit that interpretation. It’s a song of regret and resentment but I there’s enough sweetness in there to at least pity the protagonist. I suppose I was thinking of the Sun Kil Moon album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, when I wrote that one, particularly Glenn Tipton. Great song, beautiful but brutal.

 

What is the source of “Imitation of Life”?

Stolen from the film of the same title! It’s a Douglas Sirk melodrama and probably my… hmmm, second favourite film. The main protagonist is a black woman whose daughter is born very light-skinned and can essentially ‘pass’ as white. The daughter runs away to avoid suspicion but her mother tracks her down. In the film, it’s the most wonderfully tender scene and I felt the need to recreate it in song. Seriously, try and watch that film without crying, it is incredible. It’s also pretty radical. Sirk was obsessed with Bretcht and used all the distanciation techniques and reflecting the contradictions of the family unit back onto the audience. Imitation of Life is his masterpiece.

 

 

What can you tell us about your project with historian Dr. Andrew Heath?

Well, the project will be broadly focusing on music and history, but then more specifically we’ll be producing an album using a lot Andrew’s research on antebellum Philadelphia. We’ll be creating a website where people can delve a bit more into the subject matter and we’ll be producing a short film looking at the process. We’ll also be staging a number of events throughout the year to open the project up so I’m very excited about the whole thing. Andrew has been a huge inspiration to me and I’m really looking forward to working on something with more defined parameters. Having said that, it’s certainly a bigger challenge for me as a songwriter. The city itself, as an entity, is what I’m trying to get inside. As a band we’ve already begun talking about how we’re going to portray that and it’ll be a very different approach than the first album.

 

How was the mini-tour? Do you feel like you made a lot of new fans?

The tour was a lot of fun and we were fortunate enough to have great crowds and we played with some fantastic bands. Actually, I’d really recommend a couple of the other bands. Check out Johnny Panic & The Fever based in Liverpool and The Yes Mess in London. Both great. The two London dates at the end were a really good conclusion to the week. Loads of energy at both gigs and we got a chance to meet a lot of new people and yes, hopefully we made a few new fans.

 

Do your fellow Brits find your obsession with American history odd at all?

I think some people find it a bit strange, but that’s usually a reaction to my ridiculously long introductions to some of the songs when we play live. I can see the quizzical looks on some faces so I’ve tried to reign that in a bit. As opposed to a five minute lecture, I can just tell them in a sentence what it’s about but I get a bit carried away sometimes. I think generally it’s quite a good talking point when I chat to fans and for those who have even just a passing interest in the subject, it’s quite an interesting quirk.

 

The Payroll Union Official Website

The Payroll Union @ Bandcamp

The Payroll Union @ Facebook

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Mark Lanegan. Again. Some more.

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“Riot in My House” – Mark Lanegan Band

 

Yes, I just made a “Why isn’t everyone a raving Mark Lanegan fan yet?” post a couple of months ago, but I just started a new day job, and Lanegan’s rumbling tones have been helping ease my re-entry at the end of the work day (the album version of that killer live track above is particularly good for shaking off the effects of fluorescent lighting and conversations with normal people).

And there is a bit of news to include:

  • Lanegan has collaborated with British multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood and the result, an album called Black Pudding, is slated for release on April 16.
  • April 2 will see a deluxe reissue of Mad Season’s sole album Above and will include a track featuring Lanegan called “Locomotive”. You can hear the song at Rolling Stone.
  • Mark will be opening for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on a run of Australian dates:
    Sat. March 2 SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL Melbourne, VIC
    Sun. March 3 THEBARTON THEATRE Adelaide, NSW
    Wed. March 6 RED HILL AUDITORIUM Perth, WA
    Fri. March 8 RIVERSTAGE, Brisbane, QLD
    Sat. March 9 ENMORE, Sydney

A few more songs on the way out. The first, “Buring Jacob’s Ladder”, is from the video game Rage. The last two are both tracks from Blues Funeral.

 
“Burning Jacob’s Ladder” – Mark Lanegan Band

Mark Lanegan- Burning Jacob's Ladder

 

“St. Louis Elegy” – Mark Lanegan Band

“The Gravedigger’s Song” – Mark Lanegan Band

 

Mark Lanegan Official Website

Mark Lanegan @ Twitter

Mark Lanegan @ Facebook