From Omaha With Love
Omaha’s Cursive–another of Saddle Creek’s darlings–is out with a new album and video to support the release.
[via Stereogum]
“I’m A Man Eater” Isn’t As Scary When Animated
The video for “People Got a Lotta Nerve” from Neko Case’s new record Middle Cyclone debuted on MTV2’s Subterranean and is now showing on a computer screen near you.
The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts earlier this month.
The video is animated and directed by Paul Morstad and Julie Morstad.
[MP3] “People Got A Lotta Nerve” by Neko Case
Tugboat Brings MMJ Safely Into Harbor
My Morning Jacket from Tugboat Productions on Vimeo.
Craig Dodge of My Old Kentucky Blog saw My Morning Jacket perform on Lou-a-vull’s waterfront last year. Lucky man.
It was truly a show that unified the city and celebrated the heroes of the hometown. Our friends at Tugboat Productions were on hand to document it all and put together this incredible video to coincide with the band’s upcoming Celebración De La Ciudad Natal EP release. The EP is made up of recordings from the band’s Waterfront Park show and a in-store at Ear X-Tacy. It will be released on limited edition double 10″ vinyl.
A Friday Night Spanking
My cousin Joshua is tour manager for Asylum Street Spankers, Austin’s finest troupe of acoustic humorists.
This fact led to our being placed on the guest list for the band’s Portland appearance last night. It was our first Spankers show and one we could fully appreciate in the intimate Mississippi Studios setting (another stellar room for music).
Darby loved the band’s quirky humor and laughed hard throughout. At some shows guttural bellows might not be welcome. At a Spankers show it’s a form of applause.
What’s so funny? The theatrics mostly, but also the songs themselves. Many of the lyrics are catchy and funny and that’s a powerful combination. Let’s look at an example from “Everyday’s A Parade”:
- I drive a 1965 Imperial
It’s all original with vintage Texas plates
But I’m told if I want classic car insurance
I could only drive it to get repaired or in a parade,
So everyday’s a parade.
Wammo’s delivery of his material brings a lot to the performance. He’s highly theatrical and a born performer. Charlie King on mando, dobro, slide whistle, jug and banjo is right there with him. The two tell some interesting tales that some (not in the audience) would clearly find in poor taste. But that’s part of their circus charm.
Joshua mentioned that King has a new solo album out that he likes a lot.
[MP3 Offering] Everyday’s A Parade > My Baby In The CIA by Asylum Street Spankers, Live at Mississippi Studios, March 13, 2009
The Music Business Is In Jack White’s Hands
Jack White has no concept of down time. He’s always inventing and doing. That’s what great artists do–they produce day in and day out year after year.
According to The New York Times, White has a new band, his third. Being in White Stripes and The Raconteurs would be more than a normal musician could handle. White’s not normal. He’s now the drummer (not guitar player) for The Dead Weather.
The new band features Alison Mosshart of the London duo the Kills as its lead singer, Dean Fertita, from Queens of the Stone Age, is the guitarist, and Jack Lawrence, also of the Raconteurs, plays the bass.
But why stop at three bands? Why not touch every base in the music business arena?
To that end, White has opened Third Man Records in an industrial neighborhood several blocks south of Nashville’s Lower Broadway honky-tonk district. At a recent opening of the space for 150 friends, White said the building will also house a small record store concentrating on vinyl albums and 45s and a darkroom: a full-service facility for bands to practice, record and release music as fast as possible.
“It’s certainly not lucrative to open a record company now, between the recession and where the music business is,” he said. “But this is what I love to do, put music in people’s hands.”
You Don’t Have To Be In Austin To Enjoy The Free Samplers
Next week in Austin there’s going to be an overwhelming amount of live music available to the industry execs, journalists and other ne’er-do-wells gathered at South By Southwest.
SXSW Music consists of five days and nights of label showcases. 4AD is putting on their showcase next Wednesday, March 18th at Central Presbyterian Church on E. 8th Street.
The label is giving away a free promotional EP to promote the event (and in this economy, who doesn’t like free?).
[via OPBMusic.org]
Ryan Bingham – Hard Times Troubadour
An empty sack of dust
Or just a box of bones
Call me what you will, son
My name’s Travelin’ Jones
And I search for the fire
Stumbled upon with a precious desire – Ryan Bingham
If you’re from Texas, or have anything to do with Texas, and you’re a talented singer-songwriter, chances are I’ll become a fan. That is, if I know about you.
Yesterday, while surfing KGSR/Austin site to see what they have in store for SXSW, I happened upon Ryan Bingham for the first time. A few fortuitous clicks later and I’m a fan. The Web delivers when you know where to look.
Bingham’s major label debut Mescalito, was produced by Marc Ford, formerly of Black Crowes. The album was recorded at The Compound in Long Beach and released in October 2007 on Lost Highway. Ford, whose son is the group’s bass player, also plays on the album.
Bingham’s music is raw. Apparently, some dip shit music critics don’t do raw and questioned Bingham’s act. Thankfully, Scott Gold of The Los Angeles Times provided a long copy article about Bingham’s life to help the uninformed get a clue.
The more Bingham unspools, the more it becomes clear he is authentically wayworn and wounded, that his life has, as his songs contend, hurtled between cursed and charmed.
Gold describes a tough upbringing in the hard scrabble towns of West Texas and Bingham’s bull riding past.
He broke both legs, one wrist and the big toe on his right foot three times. He broke his right hand at least once just hanging onto the rope, leaving him with a permanent growth on the back of his hand.
Gold also describes happier, and more recent, times.
Bingham had been invited to play in Marfa, Texas, at a large anniversary party thrown every few years by musician Terry Allen and his wife, Jo Harvey. Allen had invited Bingham after catching his act at a local club.
It was no ordinary party; it was more like a Cabinet meeting of the West Texas songwriters. Among those in attendance: Joe Ely, Guy Clark, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Robert Earl Keen. David Byrne of the Talking Heads, who’d begun collaborating with Ely, was there too. Everybody had a guitar, and they played until almost 8 the next morning. Bingham kept pace, and more; it was all the Cabinet needed to see.
“It’s a pretty serious lineup, and he just kept right up,” Ely said. “That night, we accepted him into the Texas Songwriters Ne’er-Do-Wells — an exclusive club.”
Bingham and band appeared with the Drive-By Truckers on February 7, 2009 on Austin City Limits.
[MP3] “Sunshine” by Ryan Bingham
A Good Commencement Speaker Is Hard To Find
I don’t read the Sunday Review of Books each week, but I should. There’s always something to learn in there. For instance, I just learned that Conan O’Brien went to Harvard, wrote a thesis on Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner and spoke at Harvard’s commencement in 2000.
Here’s some of what he shared with those about to depart Harvard in 2000:
I’ve dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you’re desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.
I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.
So, that’s what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over.
I can relate. I’m coming off a huge year earnings wise in 2008 and I know 2009 isn’t going to match up. Yet, I’m now free to write and pursue the things that matter most to me. Maybe I’ll make a mess of things as Conan suggests; maybe there’s no need for all that.
The story is never over and the music never stops.
GD101
I was glad to see “The Dead” add a Northwest date to their spring tour. The band will play The Gorge on May 16th with The Allman Brothers Band and The Doobie Brothers. However, I was not happy to see the ticket prices–$51 for the lawn and $101 for a reserved seat, not including the always hideous Ticketmaster fees.
Perhaps, news of The Recession hasn’t yet hit Marin County.
Backyard JAX, Eagle Overhead
David Fricke of Rolling Stone has been jamming out to Derek Trucks’s latest release, Already Free.
The record was made at Trucks’ new studio, behind his home in Jacksonville, Florida, and features songs Trucks wrote there with fellow Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes, and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, Trucks’ bandmate in Eric Clapton’s touring group over the last two years. Bramhall also sings and plays on the album. The Trucks-Haynes acoustic hymn “Back Where I Started” is a geniuine family affair: Trucks’ wife, singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi, is the featured vocalist, Trucks plays the Indian sarod in a striking Delta-blues bottleneck style and Trucks’ brother Duane plays cardboard-box percussion.
Fricke, who is the consummate music critic, says this new album has hints of Dixie Chicken by Little Feat and Brothers and Sisters by The Allman Brothers. The album opens with what Fricke calls “a crunchy cover of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes song ‘Down in the Flood.'” I don’t know if crunchy is the word that comes to mind. I’m listening to the track now, and it’s sultry, yet nourishing like the humid air of north Florida.
The second track, “Something to Make You Happy” could easily have been the title track. It’s classic DTB. Vocalist Mike Mattison delivers the soul, the band brings the funk and Derek tears it up.
After Songlines, DTB fans had to wonder if the band could ever rise that high again. It’s too early for this fan to say, but the fact Already Free is a contender out of the box is saying a lot.
[MP3 Offering] “Something to Make You Happy” by Derek Trucks Band