Tag: links

No comments

Cold Specks: Holland

  By

 

Take a listen to this voice.

 

 

Cold Specks is gearing up to release their full-length debut, I Predict A Graceful Expulsion, on May 22, and it sounds like this will be an album worth keeping an eye and ear out for.

Here is Cold Specks performing “Old Stepstone” and “Lay Me Down” on Later… with Jools Holland.

 

 

Check out Cold Specks on tour.

March 13th-18th – SXSW – Austin, TX
March 21st – Co-operators Hall at River Run – Guelph, ON
March 22nd – The Music Gallery – Toronto, ON
May 1st – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
May 2nd – High Noon Saloon – Madison, WI
May 3rd – Cedar Cultural Centre – Minneapolis, MN
May 4th – West End Cultural Centre – Winnipeg, MB
May 6th – McDougall United Church – Edmonton, AB
May 7th – Central United Church – Calgary, AB
May 8th – Southminster United Church – Lethbridge, AB
May 9th – The Royal – Nelson, BC
May 11th – The Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC
May 12th – Alix Goolden Hall – Victoria, BC
May 13th – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA
May 14th – Doug Fir Lounge – Portland, OR
May 16th – The Independent – San Francisco, CA
May 18th – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
May 19th – The Compound Grilll – Phoenix, AZ
May 20th – Club Congress – Tucson, AZ
May 22nd – The Prophet Bar – Dallas, TX
May 23rd – Stubb’s BBQ (Indoor) – Austin, TX
May 24th – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
May 25th – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA
May 26th – Grey Eagle – Asheville, NC
May 27th – Rock and Roll Hotel – Washington, DC
May 28th – Johnny Brenda’s – Philadelphia, PA
May 30th – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
May 31st – Middle East Downstairs – Cambridge, MA
June 2nd – The Music Hall, Toronto, ON

 

Cold Specks Official Website

Cold Specks @ Facebook

No comments

Rebirth of the Cool: I Fought the Law

  By

I first heard “I Fought the Law” by the Crickets as I first heard many of the oldies: travelling in the car with my parents. Much of the foundation of my music education was laid while sitting in the back seat of the car as we drove to family gatherings, listening to the only radio station – WMJI Majic 105.7 – that my mother, father and I could agree on.

 

 

Sonny Curtis wrote the song and brought it with him when he joined the Crickets after Buddy Holly’s death, releasing it in 1965. The song was covered in 1966 by the Bobby Fuller Four and did well for them (though Fuller’s tremolo warble makes me want to punch him), but I’m going to take a wild guess that the majority of people reading this are most familiar with the Clash’s 1979 cover.

 

 

You’ll notice a couple of small lyrical changes from the Crickets’ original. For instance, the narrator of the original is robbing people with a zip gun, while, starting with the Bobby Fuller Four cover, he began robbing people with a six-gun. Though, of course, the biggest change implemented by the Clash took the narrator from merely missing his baby (or, as Fuller had it, leaving his baby) to killing her, making him much more of an outlaw than he started out. But, you know, at least he feels bad about it.

The lyrics of “I Fought the Law” seem to invite people to mess with them, and nobody messed with them more than Jello Biafra as he rewrote them to comment on the murders of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk for the Dead Kennedys’ 1980s re-working of the song.

 

No comments

Kick Back with Richard Hawley

  By

 

We started the week with a taste of my current fixation, Elbow, including a luscious duet from Guy Garvey and Richard Hawley, so let’s end it with some Hawley solo work.

Richard Hawley’s work is like something you’d hear as the soundtrack to a slightly garbled, scratched and dusty black-and-white film found at the back of an old drawer. I first heard Hawley when “The Ocean” was slipped into a mix sent to me.

 

 

I didn’t know what to make of it the first time I heard it. It sounded like an old lounge singer was trying to make another go at a career by using a new producer with shiny new gadgets, yet still using all the old musical tricks. You might construe from that description that I didn’t like it, but the song eased its way further and further under my skin until hearing it late at night while driving down city streets felt like serenity.

So, lean back, have an entirely too sweet cocktail, imagine waves lapping against a Mediterranean beach while a couple who look curiously like Astrud Gilberto and Marcello Mastroianni walk along the sandy shore, and enjoy a little more Richard Hawley.

 

“Coles Corner”

 

“Born Under a Bad Sign”

 

“Serious”

 

Richard Hawley Official Website

One Comment

CXCW is Coming!

  By

 

It’s almost that time again. Time to sit around on the couch in your underwear with a beer in your hand and your laptop overheating your legs. Okay, for some of you this is just known as “Thursday”, but come March 11th – and extending through the 18th – you’ll be able to do this while communing with your fellow poor and lazy people who won’t be attending South by Southwest and still get to witness one-of-a-kind performances from up-and-coming musicians

This is Couch by Couch West, where the beer is cheaper, and the only hipster is you. Run by a secret cabal, CXCW started last year as an alternative entertainment gathering for those uninterested in or unable to go to SXSW, and we are thrilled that it’s being brought back for a second year because it was a hell of a good time.

The virtual showcase takes place over two platforms, with sharing of beer recommendations, pictures of zonked-out pets, and, most importantly, couch session videos on the CXCW Tumblr shiny new main stage to be announced this weekend (follow on Twitter or Facebook for the premiere) shiny new main stage and lewd and drunken conversation happening on Twitter (follow @couchxcouchwest and hashtags #cxcw, #cxcw12 and #cxcw2012).

MUSICIANS! If you want to participate by taping a couch session, post the video of your session to YouTube or Vimeo, then e-mail your video link to cxcwest at gmail dot com. You can begin submitting now and keep submitting until the 18th. It’s a unique and fantastically fun way to gain a little exposure. (And if it’s good enough for Neko Case, well…)

Here are a few favorite couch sessions from last year (you can check out more at last year’s CXCW Tumblr)…

 

Conrad Plymouth – “Texas in a Drawer” (A Heidi Spencer Cover)

 

The Imperial Rooster – “God Has Left the Building”

 

Doc Dailey – “German Train”

 

The Ridges – “Not a Ghost”

 

Daniel Knox – CXCW – You Win Some, You Tie Some from Daniel Knox on Vimeo.

No comments

Have You Met Elbow?

  By

I sometimes forget that, even though I think a band is big shit, not everyone has heard of them. I was genuinely surprised when I made a post of various Mark Lanegan videos a little while back, and it helped people discover him for the first time.

In that vein, I’ve been listening to a lot of Elbow this weekend, and while I surmise that they are a decently big deal in the UK, they don’t seem to be as known as they deserve to be Stateside. They traffic in full, lush, sweeping arrangements set off by Guy Garvey’s gritty, wrought vocals (keeping his accent beautifully intact and not trying to sing like an American, thank you very much – I love Garvey’s voice to pieces, if you can’t tell). Their songs are tailor-made to be played with a full orchestra, and, hey, whaddya know? They’ve done just that. Here’s a selection from a concert Elbow played with the BBC Concert Orchestra and choral group Chantage.

 

“Starlings”

 

“Grounds for Divorce”

 

“An Audience with the Pope”

 

“The Fix” with Richard Hawley

 

“One Day Like This”

 

And, as a bonus, the song that introduced me to Elbow, a thoroughly delightful, off-kilter cover of Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Woman”.

 

 

Elbow Official Website

No comments

Drew Smith: Smoke and Mirrors

  By

 

Canadian musician Drew Smith first showed up on NTSIB when we shared his enchanting video for “Love Teeth”. Here we have him again with this lovely, “outsourced” video for “Smoke and Mirrors”.

 

 

Both “Smoke and Mirrors” and “Love Teeth” appear on Smith’s album The Secret Languages, which you will likely read more about here very soon.

 

Drew Smith Official Website

No comments

Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral

  By

 

It seems we turned a few people on to their new favorite thing the last time we posted about Mark Lanegan. Well, get ready to get happy again, because the Mark Lanegan Band (the heavier, grittier outfit with whom Lanegan recorded 2004’s Bubblegum – which includes one of my favorite of favorite songs, “Methamphetamine Blues”) has a new album coming out next week, Blues Funeral. Here’s a taste with “The Gravedigger’s Song”.

 

 

If you just got as excited as I did when I first listened to that song, you can listen to a stream of the full album at KEXP (U.S.) or Mojo (International).

Blues Funeral will be released on February 6, and the touring begins the next night.

7 Feb New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
9 Feb Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
24 Feb Tromso, SE – Aurora Rock @ Kulturhuset
25 Feb Oslo, NO – Rockerfeller
26 Feb HELSINKI, FI – The Circus
28 Feb GRONINGEN, NL – Oosterpoort
29 Feb AMSTERDAM, NL – Paradiso
1 Mar EINDHOVEN, NL – Effenaar
2 Mar ANTWERP, BE – Trix
3 Mar Antwerp, BE – Twix
4 Mar BRISTOL, UK – Academy
5 Mar MANCHESTER, UK – Academy 2
7 Mar DUBLIN, IE – Academy
8 Mar BELFAST, NI – Mandela Hall
9 Mar GLASGOW, UK – ABC
10 Mar LEEDS, UK – Cockpit
12 Mar BIRMINGHAM, UK – Library
13 Mar LONDON, UK – Shepherds Bush Empire
14 Mar COLOGNE, DE – Gloria
15 Mar HAMBURG, DE – Gruenspan
17 Mar COPENHAGEN, DK – Amager Bio
18 Mar BERLIN, DE – Columbia Club
19 Mar WARSAW, PL – Proxima
20 Mar PRAGUE, CZ – Lucerna Music Hall
22 Mar VIENNA, AT – Arena
23 Mar Zurich, Switzerland – M4Music
24 Mar BOLOGNA, IT – Estragon
25 Mar MILAN, IT – Alcatraz
27 Mar BILBAO, ES РKaf̩ Antzokia
28 Mar SANTIAGO, ES – Sala Capitol
30 Mar PORTO, PT – Hard Club
31 Mar LISBON, PT – TMN ao Vivo
1 Apr MADRID, ES – Sala Kapital
2 Apr BARCELONA, ES – Sala Bikini

 

Mark Lanegan Official Website

2 Comments

The Parlor Soldiers: Now I Wrestle Every Rhyme

  By

 

“You’re a little bi-polar,” he tells her, “and you get on my ass about drinking my liquor and smoking too much grass.”

She parries. “You know, you’re no Johnny Cash.”

“Woman, what’d you say?”

“I said, you ain’t the Man in Black, and I won’t be treated this way.”

But there is a wry, knowing edge in each of their voices that melts into affection by the end of their argument.

 

 

This argument is the third track, “Crazy”, from the Parlor Soldiers’ album When the Dust Settles, and showcases the essence of what makes their songs really work (and if you click up there, you can download “Crazy” for free). Backed by simple, slim but solid Americana-based arrangements, they are playful without coming off as if they are trying to hard to show how clever they are, and they are real without being precious. And their voices are so handsome that you want to date them both.

Forming in Fredericksburg, Virginia, after Alex Culbreth asked Karen Jonas to sing at some gigs with him, the two, each who had already established themselves as solo artists, added upright bass (played by Dan Dutton) to the mix and began writing and playing as the Parlor Soldiers.

“We spent several months coming up with different band names but none of them seemed to fit our style of music,” Culbreth told me. “We came up with The Parlor Soldiers after coming across a list of Civil War terms. It was a derogatory term meaning a soldier who was unfit for war, a poseur, or not a true soldier. We thought that it sounded good, liked the old-timey Civil War connection, and liked the fact that it was an insult.”

When the Dust Settles, which I’ve fallen a little more in love with at each listen, covers themes from giving an abuser his just desserts to being a woman with ramblin’ on her mind to being a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde duo driven to desperate ends by the economy and circumstance, with the singing, playing and songwriting shared evenly by Jonas and Culbreth. And the balance between those three elements is nearly perfect, never sacrificing their enticing musicality to showcase their smart lyrics, never working their chosen genre up into caricature and always singing strong and true.

 

 

 

And each time I listen to When the Dust Settles I want to hear those songs played live. You will, too, so take note of these tour dates.

Jan 25
Courtyard Marriott
Fredericksburg, VA

Jan 26
Kybecca Wine Bar
Fredericksburg, VA

Jan 27
The Dunes
Washington, DC

Feb 03
The Griffin Bookshop
Fredericksburg, VA

Feb 04
Northside Social Cafe & Wine Bar
Arlington, VA

Feb 08
Courtyard Marriott
Fredericksburg, VA

Feb 11
Colonial Tavern
Fredericksburg, VA

Feb 16
The Camel
Richmond, VA

Feb 17
Bar 4
Brooklyn, NY

Feb 18
Caffe Vivaldi
New York, NY

Feb 29
Strange Matter
Richmond, VA

Mar 13
Solly’s U Street Tavern
Washington, DC

Mar 31
Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
Fredericksburg, VA

Apr 27
Hill Country Barbeque Market
Washington, DC

May 11
The Corner Store
Washington, DC

May 28
Brewer’s Alley
Frederick, MD

Sep 07
Ashland Coffee & Tea
Ashland, VA

Jan 25
Picker’s Supply Concert Hall
Fredericksburg, VA

 

The Parlor Soldiers @ Bandcamp

The Parlor Soldiers @ Facebook

The Parlor Soldiers @ ReverbNation

No comments

Give: Shivering Timbers

  By

 

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

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

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

 

Shivering Timbers @ Kickstarter

Shivering Timbers @ Daytrotter

Shivering Timbers Official Website

2 Comments

Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Van Halen

  By

Okay, yes, I am.

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

Van Halen – Tattoo from Van Halen on Vimeo.