The erstwhile Waxwinger takes the stage of Washington's DC9 on April 11 and wow the crowd (and maybe his wife, too). Check out the three video clips, below, too.

By Roxana Hadadi / Photos by Adam Fried

Don't underestimate Rocky Votolato. Sure, the singer-songwriter might be on the petite side, but his compact size shouldn't fool you: The man is a whirlwind of impassioned energy that whipped the packed DC9 crowd on Sunday, April 11, into an indie rock-loving frenzy.

Well, as frenzied as you can get for songs about love, loss, isolation and the American dream. Oh, and whiskey. Lots and lots of whiskey.

For years, Votolato was in Waxwing, a band that fused folk and punk; since 1999, he's been trekking it solo-style, releasing a plethora of different albums - including the much-loved Suicide Medicine, released in 2003, and Makers, released in 2006, as well as his latest, February's True Devotion - that capture a gradually developed, increasingly articulate sound which focuses on Votolato's sparsely acoustic instrumentation and insightful, aching lyrics and vocals. And both of those were on full display at DC9, where a crowd of rabidly devoted hipsters (honestly, who else would be there?) sang along to practically every word, shouted out requests and made a modest Votolato practically bashful from all the praise. There might have been some blushing. Anything is possible.

After an opening set from pianist-singer Brooke Waggoner and her friend Ben accompanying her on guitar and lap steel (think folk-pop songs about birds, faith, love, etc.), Votolato took the stage at about 10:15 p.m., but with ... basically nothing. Though a high-backed, weathered wooden chair held three guitar picks and four harmonicas, the only other things onstage were the mic stand and Votolato himself, strapped with a guitar and harmonica mouthpiece. It was meager but all the more intimate because of it, an assurance that nothing would come between Votolato and his fans - the kind of show that seems personalized and molded just for you.

Of course, the encore of three songs requested by the crowd helped. Yelling cadres of fans sure can get their way.

But before all that came a 14-song set that grabbed from nearly all of Votolato's solo albums, such as 2002's Burning My Travels Clean, the aforementioned Suicide Medicine and Makers and 2007's The Brag and Cuss, and was balanced between the musician's more well-known older songs and newer tracks. Things started off with "Alabaster" from Suicide Medicine, which Votolato introduced as "a song about a man on a spiritual journey." The song was a steady example of the night to come: An intensely passionate Votolato, an awestruck audience, a song about finding oneself in a world ready to tear it apart ("But I feel my strength returning tonight ... It spills out onto an ocean where the sharks are circling/ A carnival of counterfeits want to crucify something real"). If Votolato's ruminations on life could be a cult's doctrine, every cutoff-wearing kid in DC9 that night would have been dashing past each other in their Toms and Vans, wondering where they could sign up. 

Honestly, the whole set could be described that way. Take tracks like "Lucky Clover Coin" and "Eyes Like Static" from his latest album, which transcribe hauntingly romantic emotions ("I'll put your broken pieces together/ For the rest of my life" and "I hope you'll be OK, baby/ Please tell me if you're gonna be alright/ I know what I've broken, and that it's not easy/ But I'll stay up with you all night," respectively) in the most heartbreaking of ways.

Or, consider the crowd's two favorite songs, "Suicide Medicine" and "Makers," which caused robust sing-along reactions. Though vastly different in structure - the first being an up-tempo analysis of mental illness ("Is it the red wire or the blue wire?/ Just pick one and cut/ It just doesn't matter anymore/ Or did it ever?"), and the second a resigned acceptance of what's to come ("Heaven or heavenless/ We're all headed for the same sweet darkness") - each created an almost riotously pleased environment, the kind of frenetic energy that crackles in a room united in its adoration of something. Remember that whole Votolato-being-bashful thing? Insert that here.

And though most of Votolato's songs deal with heavy subject matter, that couldn't kill the night's buzz. Whether it was his cover of Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" or his own songs "Sparklers," "Portland is Leaving" and "White Daisy Passing," all mused on the ephemeral quality of life and time. There may be only six words in the line "Sparklers only burn for so long," but its weight is far more tragic - and based on the crowd reaction to "White Daisy Passing," which was featured on "The O.C.," the audience may have fully known the all-encompassing devotion Votolato was singing about.

But if not, Votolato himself provided another example to the masses: April 9 also happened to be his wife April's birthday, and as he brought her onstage, the look shared between husband and wife was indescribably heartwarming. As the crowd sang her "Happy Birthday" and Votolato gestured toward the chocolate cake studded with candles that Waggoner's guitar player Ben brought onstage and joked, "You're gonna blow ‘em out, dammit!" it was a peek into the life that inspires the singer-songwriter every day. He may have explained, "She puts up with my shit all the time," but based on the audience that night, anyone would have gladly switched places with her. OK, maybe not all the guys. But the girls, and this one in particular? Definitely. 

Photographer Adam Fried also posted videos of three songs from this show to YouTube. Check ‘em out:

"Suicide Medicine"

"Makers"

"Silver Trees"

Amid fever-stricken narratives and shadowy harmonies, married duo Tim Hurley and Danni Iosello paint their masterpiece, due in stores April 13.

By John Schacht

You could probably never really say Sin Ropas has made a happy album and be taken seriously, but there is a tangible sense of joy in music-making, and renewal in general, coursing through the band's first record in five years. The previous recording from the married duo of Tim Hurley and Danni Iosello, 2005's apocalyptic Fire Prizes - an album that chronicled calamity and was recorded in the band's North Carolina mountain home of Marshall as a century flood washed parts of the town downriver - received only a belated U.S. release on vinyl and undeservedly passed by unnoticed. That record's dark textures were haunting, and no doubt draining; a hiatus seemed a preordained by-product of rooting around in the depths of human despair.

But Holy Broken (Shrug; www.sinropas.com) feels like a re-set, though all the usual Sin Ropas strengths are present and accounted for: the hypnotic dirges and sinister, sinewy rockers; relentless guitar layers and shuffling, shambolic percussion; Hurley's fever-stricken narratives and weary falsetto, and Iosello's shadowy harmonies. An opening one-two punch of the surging "Fever You Fake" and sinuous processional "Folded Uniforms" encapsulate everything that makes Sin Ropas' music so siren-like; the former grounds Hurley's roiling guitars and solo skronk with a rollicking piano line, while the latter's slinky barre chords are accented with distant synth hums, processed guitar leads, and keyboards whose circular swirls are pleasantly dizzying, like twirling yourself around till the horizon bends. The title track's whispered narrative and opiate-dream tempo celebrates the flaws that make beauty beautiful, and the dreamy lullaby "Stolen Stars and Light," with its scratchy fiddle and stop-time pace, reflects its existential question/chorus, "what good is stealing light from another star?" "X Is for Christmas" is one of the band's finest songs, a holiday dirge first performed several years ago during a Euro-tour VPRO broadcast. It's recast here with wheezing harmonium into a plangent wintry hymnal. There are some twists here, too, that point to renewed inspiration -- paradoxically inspired by old friends and music. To celebrate Sub Pop's reissue of Bunny Gets Paid last year, Hurley's former band Red Red Meat reunited for a few dates, while Iosello got her North Carolina trio Pure back together for Merge Record's 20^th Anniversary party later that summer. The former certainly informs "Unchanged The Lock," which has the same chugging Stones vibe that characterized mid-era RRM, while "Plastic Furs" adds RRM thrum to Sin Ropas' own Trickboxes on the Pony Line-style urgency. 

Hurley and Iosello recorded these eight songs in two months in the basement studio of their isolated log cabin, and the songs have a ramshackle feel that accentuates how they were made, often using Hurley's cobbled-together instruments: a fretless banjo made from cookie tin; a two-stringed hurdy gurdy made from a church pipe organ; a thumb piano built out of a dresser drawer. But whether they're homemade or processed products of the electronic age, the songs are still informed by the blues and folk traditions that have always resided at the core of the RRM/Califone/Sin Ropas universe, and that's why they feel as timeless as the mountains themselves. Holy Broken deserves a far better fate than its predecessor, but whether it passes again largely unnoticed or lights the world afire, you sense that Hurley and Iosello will still be in their log cabin basement making this beautifully broken music either way.

[Photo Credit: Jimmy O'Neal]

Latest pick of cool emerging artist in our ongoing collaboration with Sonicbids.

By Fred Mills

The BLURT staff put our heads (and ears) together and we have the latest (March 2010) pick for our Blurt/Sonicbids "Best Kept Secret": it's Boston-based Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents.

The band came together a couple of years ago when Jen D'Angora's punk/pop combo The Dents broke up and her other group, garage legends the Downbeat 5, started playing out less frequently. A big fan of girl groups from the ‘60s like the Ronettes, Crystals and Shangri-Las, she had a batch of songs that dovetailed neatly into that sound, along with records by classic NYC punk/New Wave combos. Pretty soon she was recording an album. "I've been a fan of that music since I was really young," she notes, "and my interest was rejuvenated as I started getting into Blondie and The New York Dolls - their interpretation of songs by the Shangri Las and other groups fascinated me. That's basically what this record's about - writing in a style that I love, having a great time, and working with amazing people."

The lineup:

Jenny Dee - Vocals and songs
Rebecca D'Angora - Backing Vocals
Samantha Goddess - Backing Vocals
Ed Valauskas - Bass
Phil Aiken - Keyboards
Eric Saulnier - Guitar
Tony Goddess - Guitar
Eric Anderson - Drums

The resulting Keeping Time, issued last month on the Q-Dee label and billed as Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents, is like a dream date between Blondie and the Shangri-Las as produced by Shadow Morton (if Morton worked in the Motown bullpen) - how's that for some namedropping? It's a seriously fine, and fun, album, and the fact that it contains a girl-group reinvention of the Flamin' Groovies' timeless anthem "Shake Some Action" should be reasons to cheer for any self-respecting fan of rock ‘n' roll.

Incidentally, while this mark's Dee's "debut," so to speak, at BLURT, it's not the first time she's become a staple of our musical diet: readers with sharp memories who recall our predecessor Harp magazine might recognize the Downbeat 5 name, above, from when Harp was selecting under-the-radar artists to keep an eye on as part of our previous alliance with Sonicbids. Nice to know we're keeping a tradition alive around here.

We'll have an interview with the band posted to the site shortly. Check out the band's MySpace page for song samples, tour dates and more. And congratulations to Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents. They're one of the good ‘uns, trust us.

***

Bands, go to www.sonicbids.com/blurtonline to submit and have us review your materials for feature consideration.

>Our November ‘08 Best Kept Secret: The Handcuffs, from Chicago.

>Our December Best Kept Secret: Black Swan Green, from Brooklyn

>Our January Best Kept Secret: stephaniesI­d, from Asheville

>Our March Best Kept Secret: Polly Mackey & the Pleasure Principle, from England

>Our June Best Kept Secret: Wiretree, from Austin

>Our August Best Kept Secret: Bulletproof Vests, from Memphis

>Our November Best Kept Secret: The Vivs, from Boston

>Our January Best Kept Secret: The Public Good, from D.C.

>Our February Best Kept Secret: Dirty Dancing, from Austin

Hats off! Don Van Vliet has re-entered the building, with P.J. Harvey on his arm and Tom Waits as his guest. New Ry Cooder-produced album due in July, to be followed by a full US tour in August.

By Fred Mills

MOJAVE, CALIF., APRIL 1, 2010: It's like déjà vu all over again! The legendary Captain Beefheart, whose last foray into the music industry was in 1982, has recorded a new album and will be reconvening his Magic Band to tour behind it.

The tour will have its official unveiling at Bonnaroo in June, and then get in full gear starting early August and running into mid September. The opening act is to be P.J. Harvey & John Parish - whose A Man A Woman Walked By was issued last year - and Parish will also be pulling double-duty on guitar in the Magic Band due to Gary Lucas' prior commitments with his own Gods And Monsters. The other players include John "Drumbo" French and Michael Traylor on drums, Rockette Morton on bass, and Denny Waller on guitar, plus an as-yet-unnamed keyboard player.

One very special guest: Tom Waits, who contributes "backing vocals" (term used loosely) on the tunes "Taiwan in Tupperware" and "Ming the Merciless' Chimpanzee."

The eponymous album is described as "a mixture of folk, rock and extemporaneous da-da boogie, along with at least one avant-garde Tex-Mex medley, and a freewheeling cover of Robert Johnson's country-blues classic "Me and the Devil Blues." Sessions were produced by Ry Cooder and featured the Magic Band augmented by some of the same players who appear on Cooder's acclaimed 2007 album My Name is Buddy (e.g. Jim Keltner, Mike Elizondo, Cooder's son Joachim and, on the aforementioned Tex-Mex number, accordionist Flaco Jimenez). Captain Beefheart will be released by Nonesuch (also Cooder's current label) on July 5 in the UK and July 6 in the US.

Beefheart (a/k/a Don Van Vliet), in typically left-field manner, didn't make the announcement via the usual channels (his official MySpace page, Pitchfork.com, etc.) but at a news conference held at the Annual Van Vliet Family picnic, located at a state park near his home in Mojave, Calif. A small handful of reporters had been tipped off in advance by Beefheart's manager, Herb Cohen, who in an official statement noted, "With my longtime friend Don's re-emergence, the musical world will finally get a firsthand taste of the quality rock ‘n' roll that it has been sorely missing for the past quarter-century." (Note: Cohen recently passed away, sadly.)

Beefheart read Cohen's statement aloud at the press conference and, according to journalist Byron Coley who was on hand and filled BLURT in on the event, the notoriously curmudgeonly performer snorted, ripped the document in half, and said, "'The higher you go, the rarer the vegetation.' Salvador Dali said that, although I don't know where he got it. I think I've read it in a classic of one sort or another. Or older classic. What do you think about that? Am I right or wrong? Although there really is no right or wrong. The truth has no patterns."

Beefheart subsequently filmed a video in which he discussed the record, the tour and his artistry in general. It was posted in low-key fashion to YouTube - you can view it below - although in typical Beefheart fashion, his comments are maddeningly elliptical. He's still got a bit of the prankster to him too: the interview is interspersed with random archival clips and earlier news reports, so you have to pay very careful attention to the entire video.

For those not in the know of truth and its patterns, Beefheart, born in 1941 in Glendale, Calif., emerged in the early ‘60s as a protégé of Frank Zappa. His 1969 album Trout Mask Replica regularly figures on Top 100 Albums of All Time lists, and he also exerted a huge influence among the punk and new wave bands of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, who embraced his final trifecta of albums-1978's Shiny Beast, 1980's Doc at the Radar Station and 1982's Ice Cream for Crow as benchmarks of DIY bloody-minded artistic inventiveness.

 According to the Wikipedia Beefheart entry, "Since the end of his musical career around 1982, Van Vliet has made few public appearances, preferring a quiet life in his California home where he has concentrated on a career in painting. His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for sculpting and his work-employing what has been surmised as a ‘neo-primitive abstract-expressionist aesthetic,' has received international recognition. Several of Van Vliet's former band members recently reformed as a group, and toured as The Magic Band from 2003 to 2006."

Fun fact: in recent years, P.J. Harvey and Beefheart somehow struck up a correspondence and established a kind of confidante-mentor relationship. There's no official word from either artist's camp whether or not this had anything to do with the good Captain's re-emergence, but certainly Harvey's encouragement and support didn't hurt. Having her and Parish on the tour, then, is a logical and laudable strategy. Kindred spirits, all.

Meanwhile, Precision Made, a newly-formed imprint of Handmade, which itself is an imprint of Rhino Records, will be issuing a limited-to-5000-copies Beefheart box set, provisionally titled Flight of the Blimp. The five-disc collection will contain rarities, outtakes, and live material culled from the artist's Straight/Reprise/Warner Brothers years and reportedly does not overlap with the Revenant label's 1999 Grow Fins rarities box. It's set for a late July or early August release, full details tba.

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band 2010 Tour Dates:

06-10 Manchester TN - Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival,
08-06 George, WA - The Gorge (Sasquatch! Festival)
08-07 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum
08-08 Vancouver, British Columbia - Orpheum
08-10 Portland, OR - Keller Auditorium
08-12 Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre
08-15 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-16 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-17 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-18 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre
08-19 Phoenix, AZ - Dodge Theatre
08-22 Denver, CO - Red Rocks
08-23 Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theater
08-24 St. Louis, MO - Fabulous Fox Theater
08-26 Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theater
08-27 Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theater
08-29 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
08-30 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
08-31 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theater
09-08 Milwaukee, WI - Eagles Ballroom
09-09 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre
09-10 Columbus, OH - Ohio Theatre
09-12 Cincinnati, OH - Music Hall
09-13 Louisville, KY - Palace Theatre
09-14 Cleveland, OH - Playhouse Square Center State Theatre
09-16 Toronto, Ontario - Molson Amphitheatre
09-19 Providence, RI - Performing Arts Center
09-20 Boston, MA - Opera House
09-21 Boston, MA - Opera House
09-24 New York, NY - Keyspan Park
09-27 Columbia, MO - Merriweather Post Pavilion
09-28 Atlantic City, NJ - House of Blue

[Photo Credit: A.P. Rilfool/RETNA Images]

30-track collection reportedly dates back to the Nirvana frontman's childhood; estimated as being worth "seven figures" or more.

By Fred Mills

A trove of dusty Phillips cassettes purchased by a self-styled "junker" at an Aberdeen, Wash., garage sale have turned out to be early demo recordings by the late Kurt Cobain. It marks the first time since the 2004 Nirvana box set With the Lights Out that heretofore unheard Cobain material has surfaced, and Nirvana experts are hailing the 30-plus tracks - some of them full songs, others just "sketches" - as likely representing the earliest known Cobain material in existence.

The individual who bought the box of tapes initially got curious when he spotted the initials "KDC" (as in, "Kurt Donald Cobain") scrawled in black magic marker on the side of each cassette. Upon listening to them he contacted a music industry lawyer, who in turn contacted representatives of Cobain's estate and Cobain's record label; the tapes were subsequently verified by noted music producers Jack Endino and Butch Vig (who both worked with Nirvana) as being legitimate. The finder is reportedly now in negotiations to sell the tapes to the estate and label.

One industry observer estimates the potential value of the tapes as being "in the seven-figure range."

Cobain, who was born in 1967 and attended high school in Aberdeen while living there with his mother, apparently recorded them on a vintage 3M Wollensak mono tape deck when he was in elementary school - presumably about the age of 8 or 9, as several of the song titles focus on people and events circa 1974-75: "Nixon Must Die (Or Resign)"; "I Wanna Be Just Like a Weatherman"; "Carlos the Jackal"; "Shazam!"; and the collection's lone cover, a ukulele version of the Steve Miller Band's "The Joker."

According to a source who has heard the material, the tunes are "mostly singalongs" performed on acoustic guitar or the aforementioned ukulele, along with some rudimentary percussion performed by an unknown additional musician,  "There's nothing there that would really give a blindfold test listener the sense that Cobain would go on to form one of the biggest bands on the planet, although it is worth noting that even at that age you could hear the initial stirrings of his trademark rasp - kinda like any kid sounds after he's been punched in the throat a couple of times, actually.

"With that said, however, a few recurring lyrical motifs, somewhat precocious on one level and disturbing on another, do provide ad hoc foreshadowing. At least three songs contain the word 'vagina,' each part of some childlike rhyming scheme, one of them being 'your mama'; and there's an unusual fixation on firearms too, such as in ‘...Weatherman' where he sings in a kind of taunting tone of voice, ‘You'll wish you were dead/ When I point my gun at your head.' That's followed by the popping sound of a kid's cap gun."

Genuine historical artifact, or merely a curio for hard-core Cobain and Nirvana fans? With interest in both the artist and the band never having waned since his death in 1994, it's likely that "The KDC Tapes," as they're being referred to in industry circles, will eventually anchor several archival releases: a CD of cherry-picked highlights, a collection of DJ remixes, and the inevitable big-ticket boxed set - possibly even a DVD documentary outlining the finding-of, the cleaning-up-of and the marketing-of the tapes.

Also likely: the unknown percussionist will turn up wanting his cut of the profits. Already, the Cobain estate has reportedly been contacted by several individuals claiming - rather implausibly, and without credible documentation - to be the percussionist. As Cobain's mother, Wendy, told a Seattle newspaper reporter, "Kurt really was a surly, unpleasant child to be around, and while he's been characterized as being the type of musician who didn't like to play with just anyone, it was actually the other way around - nobody wanted to play with him."

Held last weekend, March 26-28, in Tennessee, it featured such non-festival staples as Terry Riley, The National, Joanna Newsom and Nico Muhly. Guess what? It was cooler and smarter than just about any festival you'll be privy to all year.

By Steven Rosen

As there are smart phones, cars and homes, there are a growing number of smart rock-music festivals.

By that I mean something more than those that are astutely booked to show breadth and depth of their line-ups (Bonnaroo, Coachella), or clever niche appeal (Ponderosa Stomp). Rather, these other festivals believe they can smarten you up - educate you - about the connections between new rock, especially that with an alternative bent, and other types of creative music, including classical, contemporary jazz and avant-garde/experimental. And they also just want to have fun.

Fests like New Orleans Jazz & Heritage and South by Southwest long ago taught us the connections between rock and traditional jazz, blues, R&B, folk and country - so this is the new frontier. Such "smart" fests include All Tomorrow's Parties, England's Meltdown, Cincinnati's MusicNOW, Cambridge's Beeline, and BAM Next Wave in Brooklyn.

And also Big Ears in Knoxville, Tenn., which completed its second year during the final weekend of March. Based on the quality and imagination of its approximately 55 performers, the beauty of its major venues, the attentiveness of the audiences, and the general coolness of downtown Knoxville, this is becoming the smart-festival standard-bearer. It is founded by Ashley Capps, who also organizes Bonnaroo. At the end of Big Ears 2010, he said he'd soon start work on the 2011 edition.

He'll have to go some to beat 2010. It featured as artist-in-residence the 74-year-old minimalist composer/keyboardist Terry Riley, a guru-like figure with his long white beard and kindly smile. During the weekend, he performed solo and with both jazz- and classical-oriented combos, including one featuring his son, guitarist Gyan.

With an almost-20-piece version of the Bang on the Can All-Stars, Riley did a fantastic, long-after-midnight performance of his 1964 "In C," which begins on a C and features individual musicians repeating short patterns. Over the years, Riley has studied Indian raga vocals, and his use of chanting and calm, meditative singing gave this "In C" - a landmark of Western modernism - an Eastern spiritual dimension that only enriched it.

So, too, did the concert setting - downtown's 1,600-seat Tennessee Theatre, a restored 1928 movie palace that has a curved interior and luxuriously golden Baroque decorations and looks like a Turkish palace. "It's like being inside an Easter egg," said an admiring Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), while performing her exhilarating Sunday evening set there before a fest-closing performance by Brooklyn's The National.

The other major site, downtown's nearby 100-year-old Bijou Theater (also restored), was smaller and less opulent but also had wonderful sound. Other venues included an interesting club on Market Square called the Square Room, which shared a glass wall with a restaurant so you could watch diners eat and read newspapers while listening to, say, a Tennessee solo guitarist using the name Mountains of Moss create sampled, looped ambient soundscapes suggestive of a forest on a calm day.

The National used its Big Ears gig as a showcase for songs from its upcoming alt-rock album, High Violet, which seem to highlight U2ish group shout-out vocals - and revved-up bursts of rousing song-ending rhythm-guitar work - as counterpoint to Matt Berninger's moody, tense, Ian Curtis-style baritone singing.

Yet despite the use of horn arrangements and extensive violin work by Padme Newsome, the set featured some of the least experimental music of the weekend. (It was rivaled in that department by Vampire Weekend, whose sold-out Saturday night Tennessee Theatre set of punkish but friendly, world-music-tinged rock had the crowd on its feet and screaming start-to-finish. At the very least, they're the new Weezer.)

Ironic, then, that one of The National's guitarists, Yale-educated Bryce Dessner (the other is his brother, Aaron), was Big Ear's co-curator, and has emerged as perhaps the rock world's biggest advocate of festivals like this. (He founded the smaller MusicNOW in his native Cincinnati five years ago. It is held immediately after Big Ears.)

Dessner, himself a New Music composer, brought plenty of other rock-tinged (or not) experimentalists with him. One was Newsome's chamber group The Clogs, which features Dessner and used Big Ears to debut The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton. Dessner also appeared with Bang on a Can All-Stars for "In C."

But as busy as Dessner seemed, the electrifying young New York composer/keyboardist Nico Muhly seemed even busier - nearly omnipresent. A strong candidate for my favorite Big Ears set was one at the Bijou featuring Muhly with two singer-songwriters, Sam Amidon and Doveman (Thomas Bartlett), and viola player Nadia Sirota. Among the set's highlights was Sirota playing to a Muhly-created tape loop of Antony's recorded voice, and a group take on a haunting old folk song, "The Only Tune," that Muhly's family taught him.

On the latter, the group - with Amidon on banjo - built up the song's mournful, Americana qualities but then also deconstructed them with discordant atonality, before singing "Oh, the dreadful wind and rain" like a resigned, touching refrain of all life's pains. Strong, mesmerizing, transcendent stuff. (It's on Muhly's new album, Mothertongue.)

Of the alt-rock bands that I caught, London's The xx trio made the most startling impression during a Friday night set at the Bijou. For such a young band, it had dramatically theatrical lighting - worthy of Tom Waits - and started the show with only its shadows visible behind a stage curtain. Its music was twisty, downbeat, restrainedly romantic. Simultaneously dark and gnarly, minimalist yet textured, it left a powerful impression. Its co-vocalist and -guitarist, Romy Madley Croft, was just one of several younger women who led or co-led groups in powerful experimentalist pop and rock sets.

St. Vincent's Annie Clark, also at the Bijou, compensated for her small voice with powerful use of guitar feedback, pounding and beating the instrument to get noise and jumping backward and forward with a startle, as if getting a shock. Quite literally, her band's set seemed electrifying. But for all that, it was most notable not me for a lovely melancholy cover of Jackson Browne's "These Days," which she introduced as a Nico song. (Nico recorded it on her Chelsea Girls album.) That revealed a lot about her influences.

I'm not sure if Joanna Newsom's densely textured and arranged pop music qualifies as rock or even pop - The New York Times has called her "alt-harp" - but she has the kind of adoring following that is characteristic of cult rockers. They were out in force at her headlining Bijou show. Tiny compared to her harp, with long flowing hair and a broad smile, she had a magnetic stage presence, which she needed given the time she spent tuning her harp. (She also played piano.)

At their best, the songs she and her five supporting musicians played had colorful arrangements, and songs from her Have One on Me album benefited, especially the title one. She was also in strong voice, with an especially clear soprano range. That said, there were still times when the songs and lyrics seemed to go off somewhere private, resisting accessibility as they hunt for something mythic and enlightening. Incidentally, Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen opened for Newsom, doing his mildly amusing impersonation of drumming instructor Jens Hannemann.

It'd be great if next year Big Ears introduced this crowd to some of the still-active lions of Free Jazz - Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor or Anthony Braxton would all make great artists-in-residence. And, it'd be terrific to hear some of the more barrier-breaking vocalists/songwriters of jazz and soul - Abbey Lincoln, Andy Bey, Eugene McDaniels if he's still performing, and some younger people they have influenced.

That way, Big Ears would get even smarter.

Bearing the potentially prophetic title Your Future Our Clutter, the latest release from Mark E. Smith & Co. is another solid effort, though not one containing any significant new surprises. It's released May 4.

By Jason Gross

If your Fall scorecard isn't up to date, here's some help. Right now, they're up to 28 studio albums and the graveyard of previous members numbers about 50, with the only constant of course being sometimes-lovable curmudgeon Mark Edward Smith. The latest release is titled Your Future Our Clutter (Domino).

For a while now, Markie's had a good formula in place for Fall albums. Start out with some stomping good rockers and sprinkle a few throughout later on (the grimy mix and nagging rhythms of "O.F.Y.C. Showcase" and the Diddley-beats of "Bury Pts. 1 +3"), all of which will nicely fill out virtual mixtapes.

Then there's the slack stuff (the sloppy disco of "Mexico Wax Solvent" and the droning grooves of "Chino"). And there's always the WTF, experimental track: "Weather Report 2" which starts out reflective and lyrical before breaking down into bass hum & glitchy electronics.

In short, another solid effort from a reliable post-punk institution! One consumer note worth mentioning: the vinyl edition (a double LP) contains two extra tracks not on the 9-song CD: "986 Generator" and "Get A Summer Song Goin'".

Life affirming therapy from the crew that needs the therapy the most.

By Blurt Staff

The names are Jon Spencer & Cristina Martinez (a/k/a Boss Hog and assorted other scum-rock combos) and Elisabeth Esselink (a/k/a electronic mistress Solex), and the name of the game is Amsterdam Throwdown, King Street Showdown! It's a project the three mavericks cooked up and are aiming to unveil it May 18 via UK label Bronzerat.

They already have debuted a single from the album, "Galaxy Man," described as "2 minutes and 40 seconds of life-affirming therapy - a reanimation party with Link Wray's corpse on the decks." Whew.

Check out the MP3 of "Galaxy Man"

And the rest of the hype on the rec is just as colorful. To wit:

As we stand united, let us shake our collective ass. Amsterdam Throwdown, Kingstreet Showdown!  is back-to back with it, kicking off with the sugar-fix that is "Bon Bon": a dirty, funky bastard of a concoction, complete with strings. "Dog Hit" is a tale of irresponsible pet ownership, as if told by sexed-up and AWOL philharmonic orchestra members on mephedrone! "Aapie" is a tribute to our ancestry and invites us to unleash our inner monkey!  As you can see, there is something for all tastes. Throughout, Elisabeth Esselink has ingeniously fattened up a rich tapestry of cool, the perfect canvas for Cristina and Jon, who pepper-spray it with personalized lunacy whilst shrugging off the wannabes scrambling for their plinth.  

Yes indeed. Let us shake our collective ass. See ya on May 18,

The Young@Heart chorus to perform musical theater piece at St. Ann's Warehouse April 21 - May 1.

By Blurt Staff

"Cover band for the ages" the Young@Heart Chorus will perform End of the Road, a musical theater collaboration with experimental company No Theater, at St. Ann's Warehouse NYC from April 21-25.

The group, whose members range in age from 73-90, came to fame performing "a set list of rock's greatest hits-including songs by Joy Division, Wilco, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, The Clash, and Outkast-in the 2008 Fox Searchlight documentary Young@Heart (see video below). With End of the Road, the group continues to explore "the power of music to transcend age" as they take audiences on "a journey through the 20^th Century, with ballads giving way to songs of sexual love and hardcore rock n' roll." Tunes featured in EOTR include The Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and The Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" as well as interpretations of Bruce Springsteen and the Buzzcocks.

"End of the Road is moving but unsentimental, honors life and death,
creativity and vitality, and challenges what happens on the life continuum when old people co-opt ‘youth' culture," reads the press release. "The piece concludes serenely, with a sense of wisdom that can come with age. A core value for Young@Heart can be summed up in one of its famous program notes: ‘We all have to die. Some of
us are lucky enough to grow old first.' They are having a ball and so are their audiences."

Show dates:

April 21-24, 8pm

April 25, 3pm (official opening)

April 27-30, 8pm

May 1, 2pm and 8pm

Tickets are $32-$65 online at www.stannswarehouse.org, by phone at 718.254.8779 or 866.811.4111, and in person at the St. Ann's Warehouse Box Office at 38 Water Street in NYC. See website for box office hours.

VIDEO:

Bouncing back from double-bypass heart surgery, the singer-songwriter announces new album due June 29.

By Blurt Staff

It's time to go back to work for one of rock's most talented songwriters-and since musicians famously lack health coverage, Peter Case is wiggin' out.

"I'm what you'd call ‘very extremely overcommitted' at this point," jokes Case in a Yep Roc Records press release announcing his 10^th studio album, Wig! A 2009 double-bypass left Case with a six-figure medical bill (a chunk of which was defrayed by benefit shows by friends Dave Alvin, Richard Thompson, Joe Henry, Loudon Wainwright III and Van Dyke Parks) and lots of time on his hands. He says he killed time maxin' and relaxin' to jazz records but as he prepared reissues of albums by his bands The Plimsouls and The Nerves, he began to feel like rockin' again.

"I had to do the mastering and spent quite a bit of time listening to the old records," he says, and "it really got me going, hearing those guitars." After an "especially rocking" sold-out comeback show at favorite venue McCabe's where he debuted the new stuff, Case went into the studio with drummer DJ Bonebrake (X) and lead guitarist Ron Franklin (Gasoline Silver, Jack Oblivian, Arthur Lee). The trio had Wig! "mainly finished" five days later. The press release describes the album as "full-on electric and loaded down with dirty, raw blues riffs... recorded largely live and definitely straight to analog tape."

"It felt really good to rock again," says Case.

It's good to have you back, man.

The beloved singer-songwriter's debut Roman Candle and penultimate release From a Basement on the Hill, remastered and reissued on Kill Rock Stars.

By Blurt Staff

Heads up, folks: they're ready. Elliott Smith's 1994 Cavity Search debut Roman Candle and penultimate release, 2004's From a Basement on the Hill (originally on Anti-), have been remastered and reissued by Kill Rock Stars.

For those of you who haven't been waiting in slobbery suspense, here's the skinny on the reissues campaign from Kill Rock Stars:

Roman Candle had quite an impact on Slim Moon, Kill Rock Stars' founder. "In 1994, I had been asked to be on this five-person solo-act tour called Pop Chord with Tammy Watson, Carrie Akre, Sean Croghan and Elliott Smith. The first night at the Crocodile in Seattle, I didn't pay too much attention and people talked all thru Elliott's set. Sean Croghan got up next and said, ‘All of you people who just talked through Elliott's set are bummed because you just missed something very, very special.' The next night of the tour, at The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco, I listened very closely to Elliott's set, and it was basically one of those life-changing moments. Instead of watching the rest of the performers, I went out to the tour van and popped Roman Candle into the player, and listened to it on endless repeat for the rest of the evening and beyond. It completely blew my mind. I have never heard music as heartwrenchingly, gut-checkingly honest, intimate, and wise - before or since."

Roman Candle has been remastered for the re-release by Roger Seibel and Larry Crane, editor of Tape Op Magazine and archivist for Elliott's family.

Larry explains, "The intention that I had was to make the album more listenable. I felt that a lot of the guitar "squeaks" were jarring and very loud, and that many of the hard consonants and "S" sounds were jarring and scratchy sounding. I felt by reducing these noises that the music would become more inviting and the sound would serve the songs better. When I went to Roger Seibel's SAE Mastering, he proceeded to equalize the tracks a small amount and to make the volume slightly louder.  We never tried to make this CD as loud as current, over-limited trends, but just to match the volume of the rest of Elliott's KRS catalog in a graceful way. Please note that none of this album is "remixed" from the master tapes - it is still composed of the mixes Elliott created himself."

Kill Rock Stars will also be releasing Roman Candle on vinyl for the first time in the U.S.

With the addition of these two records Kill Rock Stars is now the home for all of Elliott Smith's independent releases: Roman Candle, Elliott Smith, Either/Or, From a Basement on the Hill, and New Moon.

Allison Moorer and Steve Earle welcome into the world their first child, John Henry Earle.  John Henry was born on April 5th at 10:07am, weighing eight pounds, two ounces and measuring 21 inches long. The Greenwich Vilage-based Moorer and Earle were married in 2005. This marks Moorer's first baby.

Former Sex Pistols manager succumbs to cancer. He was 64.

By Blurt Staff

UK paper The Independent reports that Malcolm McLaren, best known as the former manager of the Sex Pistols, died today after a long battle with cancer.

"McLaren had had cancer for some time," reads the obit. "His condition recently suddenly worsened and he died this morning in New York. His body is expected to be brought home to be buried in Highgate cemetery, north London."

McLaren's spokesman, Les Molloy, told The Independent that despite the cancer McLaren had been "full of health, which then rapidly deteriorated."

The always quotable Johnny Rotten just issued a statement on the death of his former manager Malcolm McLaren...

"For me Malc was always entertaining, and I hope you remember that. Above all else he was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you.”

--Johnny Rotten (4/8/2010)

Battling (or enabling) shitty sound, the indie-rock provocateurs still manage to pull it off for a hard-boiled Beantown audience at the Middle East Downstairs on March 25.

By Wyndham Lewis

First, a disclaimer: the two most fun, unpredictable, dynamic, chaotic and enjoyable sets I witnessed in 2009 were courtesy of the Black Lips. So the bar was set high for a recent show at Middle East Downstairs. For the uninitiated, the Black Lips are a Nuggets style garage band attitudinally reminiscent of the young, mid-eighties Beastie Boys, always ginning up a riot, but withholding the option of jumping in or running away. Punks, not in the allegiance to a particular political stance or musical dogma, but united in their shared faith in minor vandalism and snot-nosed brattiness. Basically, four guys who've just lit the bag of dog shit on fire, rung the door bell and are crouched in the bushes exploding with anticipation.

Although they occupy completely different genres, even musically they have something of the same all-in, gang mentality, executing their musical and vocal parts together, three and four deep, both because it sounds optimally trashy, and it insures that someone is there to pick up the slack should any of them get too fucked up, distracted or bored during a given song. Increasingly, lead vocal chores tend to be spread democratically and when a song ends, any of the four is likely to count off the next. On this particular evening they pulled nearly evenly the best tunes from their last two records, 2007's Good Bad, Not Evil and last year's 200 Thousand Million.

As the band "progresses,"  Jared Swilley appears to be emerging as the foreman, exhibiting just enough adult supervision to ensure forward progress. Armed, as always, with his violin bass, Swilley manned center stage, backed by drummer Joe Bradley and flanked by double-grilled guitarists Ian St. Pe, and Cole Alexander. All Black Lips members give full effort, but Alexander, in particular, is a dervish on stage who appears to be desperately searching for the costume that best suits his mustache, with tonight's salty seaman having pulled rank on last summer's favored bandelaro get up.

Black Lips shows have historically provided a showcase for bodily fluids: barf, piss, sweat, spit (expectorated and swapped). But for a brief make-out session between guitarists Ian St. Pe and Cole Alexander, which felt obligatory, this show was played pretty straight. Antics aside, this show was hurt significantly by aggressively bad sound. The Middle East, with its subterranean room and low ceilings, is notoriously challenging and it inevitably takes a few songs to right even the most perfection driven bands. Though not privy to any such discussion, I couldn't help thinking that there was some disagreement over sound that resulted in the band simply cranking up the volume in revolt.

There is a popular viewing area elevated and situated to the left of the stage between the bar and band. Ordinarily, this is where you'll find couples and others who, stopped competing for position and graduated from the pit. This is not to say that it is a senior center or a place for fair weather fans. There is a large, powerful wall of amps that divides this section from the ME's backstage area. This Black Lips show was the first I can remember when volume prohibited anybody from standing in this area. Ordinarily, this might be a strength, but sadly, it just sounded unintentionally crappy.

The live stand-outs are predictably the album's best songs. The Troggs/Thirteenth Floor Elevators slop of "I Saw a Ghost, I'll Be With You" or "Drugs," along with the raucous cranked doo-wop of "Bad Kids" and the clamorous classic "Oh Katrina" (with its extended intro) all come across more spirited in the live setting. Familiarity with the tunes was more important than usual given the sound quality, and new material was not easily judged as a result.

The bottom line: the Black Lips have sounded better and been more entertaining than they were at the Middle East, but they remain one of the few can't-miss shows on the calendar. Even plagued, the Black Lips are a better show than most.

One can't help but think, like the Beasties successfully did, the Black Lips will, for better or worse, at some point evolve. It will be interesting to see if what has been cute, for several years, in the kitten remains so in the cat.

[Live photo via Vice Records]

On April 3 at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ, Tweedy & Co. pulled out all the stops for a marathon performance that left cynics and fanboys alike scraping their jaws off the floor.

By Ron Hart

Ever since the sad and unexpected death of former Wilco multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jay Bennett in 2009, there has been a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for Jeff Tweedy. I can't really pinpoint what it is exactly, but somewhere between the totally phoned-in statement the Wilco frontman posted on the band's Web site and the cocky, innocuous way he declares, "Wilco will love you, baby" on that ridiculous song from the group's underwhelming self-titled seventh LP, the man just kind of lost me in translation.  Call it a case of bad timing if you will, but in my estimation, it was more of an instance of bad taste.  A lot of people like to compare Wilco to the Band, and it seems as though Tweedy fits right into the role of Robbie Robertson like a Totes glove. I think a friend of mine on Facebook put it best when he said, "He looks like he knows he sold his soul."

For someone who continues to perform many of the amazing songs Bennett had contributed to this otherwise amazing rock band's canon night in and night out, one would think that Jay's death merited far more gravitas than the flat three sentence sympathy note Tweedy seemed to hastily dish out in order to save face (not to mention a rather obtuse response to Bennett's death on Chicago Public Radio (http://www.spinner.com/2009/07/06/jeff-tweedy-opens-up-about-jay-bennetts-death/).  Regardless of the public bitterness that had fallen between these two former songwriting partners since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Jay Bennett was as instrumental to the creation of the Wilco sound as Tweedy or John Stirratt, the only two members of the band who appeared on every work from AM through Wilco (The Album,) and seeing the group's arguably lackadaisical reaction to Jay's death proved to be disheartening enough for this veteran fan to step away from the Wilco catalog and reassess my allegiance to the group many consider to be America's best rock band.

However, having said that, the concept that everybody deserves a second chance rings mighty true in my particular case against Tweedy and co. And on the second night of their two-night stand at the Wellmont Theatre in beautiful Montclair, NJ, I was once again reminded me exactly why this group's music is important enough to transcend my petty opinions of Jeff Tweedy beyond the stage and fully appreciate the amazing body of work he and the rest of this current incarnation of Wilco presented over the course of three whirlwind hours in the heart of North Jersey.

Billed as "An Evening With Wilco", this current tour finds the Chicago sextet delivering sets that pull from every era of the band's career trajectory. And on this particular night, I'm not quite sure if it was the cosmic vibes of skepticism I was sending their way or something, but this second night at the Wellmont was loaded with beautifully performed versions of Bennett-era material, including a heavy helping of tracks from 1999's Summerteeth, considered by many Wilco fans as Jay's finest hour with the band.  It was almost as though Tweedy was paying a penance of sorts for the shallow way by which he addressed the death of his old friend and partner by paying tributes to his massive contributions to the band via transcendental versions of such Teeth nuggets as "A Shot in the Arm", "Summerteeth", "I'm Always In Love", "Candyfloss" and "When You Wake Up Feeling Old" played over the course of this two-set, half-electric/half-acoustic show.

Yet the concentration on Summerteeth material wasn't the only reason for longtime fans of Wilco to express joy on this night.  Sure, those who attended the first show of the Wellmont stand might have gotten such choice selections from the outer perimeters of the Wilco galaxy as "Pot Kettle Black", "Forget the Flowers", "More Like The Moon" and "Passenger Side". But those of us on hand for the Saturday show, however, scored mighty handsomely in the deep cut department as well, as the band busted out their ace pair of A.M. hits-"Box Full of Letters" and "Casino Queen", respectively-not to mention an incredibly rare performance of the boisterous, rootsy Being There coda "Dreamer In My Dreams" during the group's "acoustic" set (I put it in quotes because it seemed like Tweedy was the only one playing anything acoustic), not to mention a lovely reading of "Hesitating Beauty" from the first Mermaid Avenue album.  And, as they did on night 1, they even broke out the Loose Fur chestnut "Laminated Cat" (from Tweedy and percussionist Glenn Kotche's celebrated side project with producer Jim O'Rourke), to the exult of the particularly geeky fanboys in attendance. Other highlights of the evening included the band opening their set with a downright epic version of "Ashes of American Flags", an unplugged run through the Krautrockist boogie of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and an equal parts celebratory and solemn double shot of Big Star that closed out the second set, as Wilco played loving, lively covers of "Thank You Friends" and "In The Street" to the thrill of the packed house still trying to come to grips with the sudden passing of Alex Chilton.

And dare I forget to mention the gigantic stage presence of guitarist Nels Cline, the real star of Wilco's stage show. Now in his seventh year as the band's lead guitarist, the elation by which this avant-garde great soars from stage right is nothing short of mesmerizing.  With the exception of maybe Thurston Moore and Jimmy Page, no guitarist can touch Nels' finely balanced ballet between microtonal improvisation and maximal grandiosity quite like he. His acrobatic embellishments enhancing the power of such established Wilco crowd faves as "Misunderstood", "California Stars" and "Poor Places" blew minds from the golden circle seats to all the way up in the nosebleeds.  Onstage amidst a capital ‘L' of effects pedals, the fiftysomething-year-old musician, who has a stellar new double album with the Nels Cline Singers entitled Initiate due out this month on Cryptogramophone, plays guitar in Wilco like Jeff "Skunk" Baxter trying to jockey for a position in the Glenn Branca Ensemble based on the way he walks that fine line separating grace from chaos. 

Then I tore my eyes away from the happenings on the stage, scanned my surroundings and soon realized why it has been about seven years since I last saw Wilco perform live-the fans. I was making fun of my cousin-in-law for driving down to Atlantic City that weekend to go see Nickelback, goofing on him about what kind of people he was going to have to contend with in that audience down there. But then I surveyed the scene encompassing my eyesight, an old theatre filled with snooty, aging hipsters, dirty hippies, bespectacled blogger types from Williamsburg and professional-looking white guys who danced around like 13-year-olds at a Justin Bieber concert to "Bull Black Nova", and soon realized that the joke was indeed on me. (There's a reason why I rarely go to concerts these days...lol. Oh man, I mean seriously. Hey, My Old Kentucky Blog just called, they want their demographic back, lol.)

But in regards to the fans, one would have to be a true blackheart to not feel the love beaming Wilco's way from that crowd of hippies and hipsters as just about everyone in the Wellmont sang the entirety of "Jesus Etc." in unison while the band delivered a lovely instrumental rendition of their mid-tempo Yankee Foxtrot gem.  In Jersey terms, it was the group's "Hungry Heart" moment, and definitely put a smile on this cynical bastard's face.

In spite of the fact that they did wind up playing that annoying "Wilco (The Song)" on this night (seriously, keep the braggadocio shtick to the hip-hop world, Jeff), Wilco's stand at the Wellmont Theatre served as a token, if only for a moment, of a time when these Chicago greats were not some lionized chunk of egocentric hype thrown to the wolves of hip, but rather the humble band who sprung from the rib of Uncle Tupelo looking to bring American roots music into the 21^st century.  And regardless of where you stand with Jeff Tweedy, his between-song obnoxiousness and the way he handled the death of Jay Bennett, you cannot deny this man and his incredibly skilled band knows how to put on a show, even over 15 years later.

SETLIST:

Ashes
Wilco
IATTBYH
BBN
Face
One Wing
Shot
Muzzle
Deeper
Summerteeth
Misunderstood (36 "nothings")
CA Stars
Impossible Germany
Poor Place

acoustic:
Spiders
You & I
Kamera
Hesitating Beauty
Laminated Cat
When you wake up
Dreamer (*I may be splitting hairs here, but technically, Jeff was the only "acoustic". Nels on electric.)
Outtasite

*back to electric
Airline
Always in Love
Candy Floss
Jesus Etc.
(*irrational crowd participation banter: boo-ya & Arsenio dog pound)
Box of Letters (Pat solo)
Can't Stand It
Hate it Here
You Never Know
Walken
Man Who Loves You
Thank You Friends
In the Street


Encore:

Casino Queen
Outtasite
Hoodoo Voodoo

[Photo Credit: Autumn de Wilde]

Drag City's resident iconoclast-among-iconoclasts charts love's humblest pleasures on her newest record, due April 20.

By A.D. Amorosi

Baby Dee has a history as long as your tattooed arm and more queerly dramatic than a Sondheim musical. The Cleveland native was a church organist, a circus act, an avant-garde harpist, a go-go dancer, a tricycle rider, a performer and bar keep of Manhattan's famed Pyramid Club, a contributor to Antony and the Johnsons' catalog and, once-upon-a-time, a man.

The panicky confessional cabaret of 2008's Safe Inside the Day, her Drag City debut, was rich and jittery - an autobiographical picture of a street scene she recalled with tears and cool hysteria. The new Book of Songs for Anne Marie (also Drag City), though, takes its time and has, at its heart, the tales of Johann Sebastian Bach and the tiny book he wrote for his wife Anna Magdelena as well as Rembrandt's golden paintings of his sweetheart. In a voice resembling the mannered wizened sing-speak of Mabel Mercer's, Dee allows love's humblest pleasures to trickle through eleven of the sweetest steadiest songs with but a softly prancing chamber-classical arrangement of harp, piano and fleeting few wandering strings and French horns to announce Dee's delights.

Last week (April 6) at Northampton, Mass., venue Pearl Street Ballroom, Craig Finn & Co. slayed - and made a believer all over again of our reviewer.

By Jennifer Kelly / Photos by Oliver Scott Snure

The first time I saw the Hold Steady it was at a bar just outside Fenway Park, with maybe 30 other people, in a show that was held off for hours in the hope that timing it with the end of the baseball game would boost the numbers a bit. I was sitting there at the bar the whole time, leafing through the Phoenix, drinking a beer, probably three feet away from the clump of them, with no inkling that they were a band at all, let alone one that might become the best live band in America. I saw them almost by accident. (I was really there to see Runner & the Thermodynamics, who were also really good, but you've probably never heard of them)

But the main thing is that that night, in the sketchiest of venues, in the very epicenter of Hostile, Massachusetts, the Hold Steady slayed. Finn seemed like a powder keg, dancing side to side, gesturing wildly, slapping himself in his excitement, and spouting the most intricate self-referencing poetry about wasted kids and killer parties. His band slammed out homage to Lizzy and Zeppelin and Queen and AC/DC, with big power chords and dead stops and the kind of riffs that start like diesel trains, chugging a couple of times before they pick up the whole song and carry it away. I bought  Almost Killed Me on the way out, and it became one of my favorites. A couple of years later Separation Sunday, following the same cast of bedraggled characters, was even better...a big serious rock album that was, at the same time, a lot of fun. The hype wave caught under them.  By the time I saw them again, every kid in the front row knew all the words to all the songs.

And, you know, I kind of lost interest. As their sound got more conventionally rock, the albums seemed to get bigger and less interesting. I paid only passing attention to Boys and Girls in America and skipped Stay Positive altogether. And while my back was turned, the band churned its sing-along songs into massive crowd hits, what might have begun as a riff on classic rock became the thing itself. They opened for the Rolling Stones at one point, and it made perfect sense.

Fast forward a couple of years, and the Hold Steady are playing Northampton, a home town for Finn, in a sense, since his parents were married there and he himself was baptized in a church just down the street from Pearl Street. It's a packed, sweaty show, especially towards the front, and it quickly becomes clear that what flattens out and becomes too easy on recent Hold Steady records works pretty brilliantly in concert. This is one of the best shows I've been to in a long time.  

It starts with the Oranges Band, the Baltimore-based pop punk band headed by Roman Kuebler, a horn-rimmed collegiate type who once played bass in Spoon. (This is the night for nebbishy guys in glasses.)  His band looks a little more rock. Skinny Dave Voyles sits in back, pounding out the straight-up beat, and Pat Martin, the bass player, has long hair and elaborate tattoos on both arms, which you can see because he's wearing a muscle tee.  

The music, too, is an uneasy mix of nervy, nerdy post-punk and uncomplicated rock. Kuebler's voice quavers in wide vibrato, like Glenn Mercer on the first Feelies album or Jonathan Richman anytime, while the band pounds and pummels underneath. They play a good smattering from the new album in what Kuebler calls the "Oranges Band Are Invisible Rock Block," an alternate history of Baltimore's rock scene. "Ottobar After Hours" is a big, hard-charging power rocker, with some surprisingly old fashioned guitar shreddery tucked into the middle. (The guitarist must have heard some Eddie Van Halen when he was little.)  Other cuts pitting Who-like windmills against Kuebler's ironic and tremulous voice, scrubs and scratches and scrambles of guitar against the lucid resolution of power chords. "It's like rock ‘n roll only weird," Kuebler explains, deadpan, in a break between songs, and yes, that's one way to put it. They close with something about sharks with a huge, sing-along chorus of "who-o-o-o", which is just an inkling of the audience participation about to erupt on stage.

Because then it's the Hold Steady's turn, and Finn starts out, right away, by turning the mic to the audience and letting them shout out the first lines to "Hornets! Hornets!":  "She says always remember never to trust me," a good three-quarters of the audience knows this stuff cold, "she said that the first night that she met me...she said there's gonna come a time when I'm gonna have to go with whoever's gonna get me the highest."  And then the band comes in with those enormous guitar chords, those sludgy, rubbery bass lines, bobbing and weaving in the sheer density of the sound. Finn, once he takes over singing duties, is in effervescent form, grinning madly, acting out the song with broad, almost parodic gestures, and holding a kind of manic PeeWee Herman glee just barely in check. There's a moment in this song where he turns back and faces off with Tad Kubler for the twining, cartwheeling guitar parts near the end, the best part of the song.

The Hold Steady have a new album, Heaven Is Whenever coming out this May on Vagrant, so a good portion of the set is devoted to new material. "Hurricane J" follows "Hornets!", its bouncy, punky pogo beat lifting everybody in the band, and eventually, most of the audience into an exuberant up-and-down hop. The Hold Steady is a band that sets up inexorable rhythms just to break them, that pummels and pushes and then, just when you're used to that, comes to a dead stop. There's one of these, every instrument swinging down in a giant chord, complete silence, and then Finn admitting "See I don't think that I'm the guy."  It's this combination of bravado and vulnerability, of balls-out rock and nerdy over-thinking that make the Hold Steady great, and if they've tipped a little towards the macho side lately, they haven't tipped all the way.

Then it's the "Swish," the monster song from their first album, with buzzsaw riff, its huge guitar builds, and its great throwaway lyrics about Robbie Robertson, and Nina Simone, and UPCs dialed into the system. Finn lets the audience have the best lines, stopping and turning his mic outward for the front five rows to shout into, even the final, definitive line at the end (are Finn's best lines always at the end?). "Swishing through the city center, I did a couple of favors for these guys who looked like Tuskan Raiders." 

Then it's "Magazines" from Stay Positive, and right after that, another new song, called "Weekenders," which seems on the surface to be a real departure. You see, it's not unusual to hear traces of Sweet or Queen or Cheap Trick or Thin Lizzy or AC/DC in the Hold Steady's songs. You just don't look for Joy Division. But here it is, a four-thumping, guitar luminous darkness at the beginning of the new song, a self-deprecating lyric about how "I never was your first choice/I think I was the last one maybe". Yet even here the moments of vulnerability are annihilated by an onslaught of guitars, buried under crowd-melding bouts of rock ‘n' roll hedonism.

The rest of the set is mostly forward looking with a handful more songs from the upcoming disc ("Soft in the Center," "Rock Problems," and in the encore "Barely Breathing"), a bunch from Stay Positive, a few each from Separation Sunday and Boys & Girls. Only Almost Killed Me gets slighted. "The Swish" is the only one from the first album. For "Lord I'm Discouraged," Kubler breaks out a double-neck guitar, coaxing the lyrical opening out of the 12-string half and banging out the rougher, later chords on the six-string below.  Dan Neustadt, who has taken over for the departed Franz Nicolay at keyboards is hard to hear (as is Finn a lot of time), but je seems to be a pretty good replacement.

The regular set closes with two from Stay Positive, on the evidence, the band's most conventionally rock statement so far. "Sequestered in Memphis" turns the room into a giant karaoke bar, the group-sung choruses hanging in the rafters as the crowd surges toward the stage. By this point, the boys in front are mirroring every one of Finn's gestures. If he points at you, you point at him. If he claps in double time, you clap in double-time. It must be a powerful feeling.  "Slapped Actress" closes and, if anything, takes it up a notch.

For the encore, the band pulls out another new song, the bizarrely offbeated, cabaret-ish "Barely Breathing", and then two huge old ones, "You're Little Hoodrat Friend" from Separation Sunday and "Stay Positive" from the album of the same name. This final song is maybe the band's most crowd-rallying ever, with its irresistible who-o-o-o chorus and its insistent melodic lift. It sounds too easy on the record, but live it's a monster and one more reason why you should see the Hold Steady if you get the chance, even if you think you've outgrown them.

Oh, and by the way, I bought Stay Positive on the way out. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Four-song live-in-studio EP offered up to fans.

By Blurt Staff

Over at MySpace Music Broken Bells has made available for free download a four-song live-in-studio session highlighting key tracks from the Bells' - Danger Mouse and James Mercer, natch - recently issued self-titled debut. It's available for your gratis grabbing at MySpace's "Transmissions" page right here.

Songs include the hit single "The High Road" plus "The Ghost Inside," "October" and "Vaporize." The session was recorded and filmed at The Village in Santa Monica, CA and you can also view three videos at the MySpace page along with a series of interviews filmed at the session.

The BLURT review of Broken Bells

BLURT review of Broken Bells live in Brooklyn March 10

Premiere of "The Other Side of Love," from his most recent album.

By Blurt Staff

Here you go, Freedy Johnston fans - a brand new video of  Johnston performing his popular song  "The Other Side of Love." Hailing from his latest Bar/None album Rain On The City, it's a minimalist take, just one man, one guitar, one room and one handheld camera.

We're proud as punch to debut the clip for you, so check it out. Further Johnston investigations at BLURT:

Rain On The City review

Johnston Interview: Now The Lucky One

One-off for this weekend's Kristen Ann Car benefit - but no telling what the future may hold for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members.

By Blurt Staff

The legendary The Rascals will perform with all four original members for the first time in forty years at the Kristen Ann Carr benefit this Saturday April 24th at Robert DeNiro's restaurant Tribeca Grill in downtown Manhattan.

For E Street Band member/Sopranos star Steven Van Zandt, who along with his wife Maureen is being honored at the annual fundraiser, it's a lifelong dream come true and the culmination of thirty years of discussions. "We first met around 1980 to discuss reuniting the band and have tried every five years or so," he said. "Maureen suggested we give it one more shot and sure enough it took Kristen's amazing spirit to finally get it done."

"I speak on behalf of the band when I say all the money offers in the world could not entice the Rascals to reunite," said guitarist Gene Cornish, "but four phone calls from Stevie and without hesitation we enthusiastically and immediately agreed to both support this wonderful cause and honor Stevie and Maureen."

"Rehearsals have been incredible," Van Zandt added, "and of course my hope is they can stay together and finally show the world why they are one of Rock and Roll history's greatest bands."

"Having Stevie and Maureen as our honorees has been an amazing experience and this ices the cake! Kristen, who loved rock and soul music, would be dancing harder than anyone on the room. Thanks guys!" said Dave Marsh, Kristen's father and fund trustee.

The original Rascals lineup performing is:

Eddie Brigati (vocals)
Felix Cavaliere (keyboard, vocals)
Gene Cornish (guitar)
Dino Danelli (drums)

For more information on the Kristen Ann Carr Fun benefit, please visit: http://sarcoma.com/

Early demos! Not! Bad actor alerts! Actor wish lists! Restraining orders! Smells like Kurt spirit to us!

By Blurt Staff

In our ongoing quest to keep you, the Blurt readership, fully apprised of all goings-on in the Kurt Cobain milieu - not to mention maximize our web stats by deploying the popular keyword "Kurt Cobain" - here's what we've got for ya today.

First up, of course, is our main feature at the site: "Feeling Stupid & Contagious: The Kurt Cobain Demos Hoax". It's a kind of meta-meditation on the perils of internet reporting seen through the lens (darkly) of our April 1 story on those supposed early Cobain demos that surfaced recently. As it turns out, the story was one of our annual April Fool's Day jokes, but it didn't stop foolin' folks when the clocked ticked over to April 2 - as you'll read, once it got picked up as a legit news story, it was the prank that kept on pranking, leaving a trail of red-faced bloggers in its wake. Think of our feature as a "cautionary tale" and a warning to anyone who's thinking about going into music journalism: the brand is permanently tarnished, so consider an alternate career path, like rat extermination.

Next is that deal about a Kurt Cobain biopic being in the works at Univesal, the rumored title right now being All Apologies or Heavier Than Heaven (after the Charles Cross biography) depending on what source you come across.  Initially last week, the web was on fire about Twilight start Robert Pattinson getting the nod to play Kurt Cobain. Britain's The Sun got the jump with its coverage, writing, "R-Patz has been in regular contact with Kurt's widow Courtney Love, who has been handed a key role in the production by bosses at Universal Pictures. The Hole singer wanted R-Patz as Kurt and Scarlett Johansson to portray her." But that turned out to be a false rumor. So naturally everyone started speculating on who would be picked, with odds at the moment seeming to favor Ryan Gosling - or so the NME would have it. So who the hell knows!

Not to be outdone in the quest for creating news when there actually isn't any news. The NY Post simply published a story titled "5 Actors We'd Like To See Play Kurt Cobain," listing reasons why Michael Pitt, Jeremy Renner, James Franco, Ben Foster or Justin Welborn would all be good candidates.

Lastly, the daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Frances Bean Cobain, is also in the news, having reportedly appeared in an L.A. courtroom last week in order to gain an extension for the restraining order against her mom (recall that was put into place awhile back, but it was due to expire on Friday). Since Love is considered "incapable of being a proper parent" and Frances turns 18 in August, the reasoning goes, why the fuck should I let her control me for the next four months.

Jeezus, people - don't you have anything better to do than read this crap? Go check out some of our record reviews down at the bottom of the page or something...

Wow - this might be the best one all year, come to think of it...

By Blurt Staff

We'll be on hand at this weekend's Coachella festival out in Indio, Calif.: Blurt blogger Scott Dudelson will be filing his reports and photoblogs, along with some choice Tweetpics direct from the moshpit, so keep your eyes peeled for our coverage on the site here and via our Twitter feed.

Meanwhile, the set times and stages have been announced for act's performance, so head over to the official Coachella website for the breakdown. Among some of the don't-miss sets:

Friday, April 16

4:20-5:10 Yeasayer (Mojave Tent)

5:05-5:55 Street Sweeper Social Club (Coachella Stage)
5:45-6:35 She & Him (Outdoor Theater)
6:20-7:20 The Specials (Coachella Stage)
6:55-7:55 Gil-Scott Heron (Gobi Tent)
6:50-7:40 Lucero (Mojave Tent)
7:50-8:40 Them Crooked Vultures (Coachella Stage)
8:05-8:55 Grizzly Bear (Mojave Tent)
8:35-9:25 Echo and the Bunnymen (Outdoor Theater)
9:05-10:00 LCD Soundsystem (Coachella Stage)

9:30-10:10 Imogen Heap (Mojave Tent)
11:10-12:20 Fever Ray (Mojave Tent)
11:20-12:10 Public Image Limited (Outdoor Theater)

Saturday, April 17

12:45-1:25 Steel Train (Coachella Stage)

1:35-2:25 Porcupine Tree (Outdoor Theater)

2:45-3:35 Frightened Rabbit (Outdoor Theater)
3:25-4:10 Girls (Gobi Tent)
4:25-5:15 Beach House (Mojave Tent)

5:45-6:35 Raveonettes (Gobi Tent)
6:25-7:10 The xx (Outdoor Theater)
7:35-8:25 Hot Chip (Outdoor Theater)

8:10-9:00 Aterciopelados (Mojave Tent)

8:15-9:05 Bad Lieutenant (Gobi Tent)
7:55-8:45 Faith No More (Coachella Stage)
8:50-9:40 MGMT (Outdoor Theater)
10:30-11:20 Z-Trip (Sahara Tent)
11:05-12:00 The Dead Weather (Outdoor Theater)
11:50-12:45 Devo (Mojave Tent)

Sunday, April 18

12:55-1:40 The Soft Pack (Mojave Tent)

1:30-2:30 Talvin Singh (Sahara Tent)

2:05-2:50 King Khan & the Shrines (Mojave Tent)
3:35-4:20 Deerhunter (Outdoor Stage)
3:50-4:40 De La Soul (Coachella Stage)
4:25-5:10 Matt & Kim (Mojave Tent)
4:45-5:30 Sunny Day Real Estate (Outdoor Stage)
5:00-5:50 Yo La Tengo (Coachella Stage)
5:35-6:20 Julian Casablancas (Mojave Tent)
5:55-6:45 Jónsi (Outdoor Stage)
6:30-7:20 Spoon (Coachella Stage)
7:00-7:45 Sly Stone (Gobi Tent)
7:45-8:55 Pavement (Coachella Stage)

8:10-8:55 Little Boots (Gobi Tent)
7:55-8:45 Gary Numan (Mojave Tent)

9:00 Thom Yorke (Outdoor Theater)

9:30 - 10:30 Plastikman (Sahara Tent)
10:30 Gorillaz (Coachella Stage)

Limited editions... reissues and repressings... colored wax... MP3 downloads... in-store performances... what's not to like? Support your local indie retailer!

By Blurt Staff

Just two more days until April 17 and what's unquestionably the biggest and baddest Record Store Day ever. Consult the official website for RSD to get details on what's being offered, and if you're unsure of whether or not there's an indie retailer in your area, go to their Participating Stores page.

Meanwhile, here's some of the more tasty swag that's been recently added or announced:

Rodriguez: Light In the Attic Records has a special 7" featuring two live performances from Rodriguez's 2009 tour. The A-side is a recording of "Inner City Blues" from his Cold Fact album performed on the streets of Paris. The B-side is a cover of Frank Sinatra's "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die" recorded at The Triple Door in Seattle. The release will be packaged in a hand-numbered gatefold jacket. It includes a CD sampler featuring a dozen new tracks from the label's catalog.

And get this: To celebrate the release, Rodriguez (with a full band to accompany him) is scheduled for a live performance on Record Store Day at Criminal Records in Atlanta, one of our favorite record shops. To commemorate the event, Criminal Records is releasing a special version of the 7" printed on gold vinyl containing a ticket to attend that night's show.

Smashing Pumpkins: Corgan & Co. will release "Astral Planes," the fourth track of their epic 44-song Teargarden By Kaleidyscope project, this Friday, April 16 via the independent Amoeba Records' website. The swirling, psychedelicized song will first be available for free download on www.amoeba.com (in the left-hand corner under "Breaking News") and then, later that day, available for free download via www.smashingpumpkins.com along with three previously released tracks: "A Stitch In Time," "Widow Wake My Mind" and "A Song For A Son."  The release of "Astral Planes" comes one day before Record Store Day, which the band will celebrate with a free performance in Los Angeles. The first 250 fans who pre-order the Teargarden... EP on Saturday, April 17, will receive the limited edition black light poster as well as a wristband giving them entry into The Smashing Pumpkins performance from Amoeba and Urban Outfitters Space 15 Twenty later that day. The pre-order is exclusive to independent record stores. By pre-ordering the EP, fans will be guaranteed to own the EP and will immediately receive a collector's edition Smashing Pumpkins black light poster, while supplies last.

Flaming Lips and Stardeath and the White Dwarfs will see the first physical release of their album covering Pink Floyd's classic, Dark Side Of The Moon on Record Store Day 2010, to be released by Warner Bros on 12" seafoam green vinyl.

The UK's David Bowie-championed Fanfarlo will release a 7"-single, "You Are One," an original tune, b/w Fleetwood Mac's "What Makes You Think You're The One," which the band recorded exclusively for the Record Store Day 7".

Pavement will release a special Record Store Day version of their double album, Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement, a fully re-mastered 23-track compilation featuring tracks spanning their career from 1989 to 1999. This limited  edition (1000 copies) pressing features the track listing submitted by a contest-winning fan, and chosen by the band.

Sonic Youth make it back again for Record Store Day with vinyl reissues of their classic early albums, Confusion Is Sex, (on 12" white vinyl), EVOL (on 12" pink vinyl), and an Interscope release of Hits Are For Squares,  a double-LP featuring 15 tracks selected by other artists with an exclusive new Sonic Youth track, "Slow Revolution."

 MGMT - "Siberian Breaks" 12"single-sided disc with 12 minute track and etched side

Hole - Skinny Little Bitch 2 track single from upcoming album 10" white vinyl

Monsters of Folk - Double LP set on clear blue vinyl (2,000 available)

Wilco - Kicking Television deluxe package vinyl reissue box set with 4 LPs, 8 extra tracks, and extra CD (1,000 available)

Thermals and The Cribs - split 7" on Kill Rock Stars, respectively "So Hot Now" and "If I Had a Hi-Fi"

TV On The Radio - vinyl reissue of Dear Science with bonus Hot Chip remix plus MP3 download.

Soundgarden - reissue of 1987 debut single "Hunted Down" b/w "Nothing to Say", on orange translucent vinyl

The Album Leaf' - "There Is a Wind" 12" featuring two new songs with two alternate takes of tracks from the band's last album

CocoRosie - "Lemonade" 7", which includes one track from the band's forthcoming Sub Pop debut, as well as a cover of the Beach Boys' "Surfer Girl"

Win fabulous prizes! In polite circles we call it "Working This Job" actually...

By Blurt Staff

With a title like that, you could call it radio suicide, but never mind all that. In honor of the success of Drive-By Truckers first single, "This Fucking Job," off of The Big To-Do, the Drive-By Truckers want the fans to show them what's it's like to have your job.  

Hear about Cooley's worst job ever, win a chance to be a in a Drive-By Truckers video, win lunch for your whole office, win a brand new Flip Camera, a chance to meet the band and tell them face to face about YOUR FUCKING JOB, and more.

Get more details on the contest at www.workingthisjob.com  - the band is looking for short (under one minute) clips where you show them "how shitty it is, how great it is, how messed up it is". Anything goes. And they promise not to show it to your boss.

Winners will have a portion of their video edited into a music video.

The best three entrants will also receive:

• Lunch for your office
• A Drive-By Truckers t-shirt
• A No Depression t-shirt

The Grand Prize winner will also receive:

• A copy of the Deluxe edition of the band's new album, The Big To-Do
• No Depression with DBT on the cover- signed by the band
• A FLIP VIDEO CAMERA
• A MEET AND GREET WITH THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS AT A SHOW IN YOUR TOWN (certain restrictions apply)

First North American date for Iggy & the Stooges. Also on the bill: X, The Raveonettes, De La Soul, Mudhoney, Les Savy Fav, Man Or Astroman, Cold Cave, Japandroids, Surfer Blood, Kid Sister, Wavves, Thee Oh Sees and Sloan among the bands performing in Toronto.

By Blurt Staff

NXNE (www.nxne.com)  announces 14 concerts in Toronto for this summer's festival, which kicks off on June 14 and runs until June 20, 2010.

The big news is that Iggy & The Stooges headline a ree show on Saturday, June 19 on the Virgin Mobile Stage at Yonge-Dundas Square - their first North American tour date this summer and only Canadian date on the tour. The Stooges' line-up features James Williamson on guitar, original Stooge Scott Asheton on drums, bassist Mike Watt of Minutemen fame, long-time saxman Steve Mackay - and, up front, the godfather of punk himself: Iggy Pop.

Grammy award-winning Long Island trio De La Soul brings NXNE a shot of vintage hip hop and jazz rap. Mudhoney, considered the pioneers of Seattle grunge, play the festival and speak as part of the NXNE Conference Village. Incendiary art-rock quintet Les Savy Fav arrive from New York; and Alabama sci-fi surf rockers Man or Astroman's crazy live show will leave crowds buzzing.

Also joining the line-up are Stereogum "band to watch" synthpop group Cold Cave and supercharged Vancouver duo Japandroids, whose music NME described as "a virtual tempest of joyous abandon."

Original Los Angeles punk band X returns to Toronto after a 20-year hiatus from Canada. Featuring the original line-up of John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and dummer DJ Bonebrake, the band has two of its albums listed on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Danish duo The Raveonettes hit NXNE on tour in support of their October release In and Out of Control. The band's blend of ghostly vocals, spacey guitar, and noise has earned praise from Blender, Rolling Stone and Q Magazine since their first album was released in 2001.

Rolling Stone's Hype monitor alerted the world to Florida's Surfer Blood, calling their April 2010 debut album "giant-sized choruses, festooned in glitter and lit up with neon." They're booked for NXNE, as is electro-rap Kanye protégé Kid Sister. San Diego's surf-punk phenom Wavves tour as a three-piece and are also on this year's bill.

Breakout psychobilly San Francisco quartet Thee Oh Sees make their NXNE debut playing "tunes only a soulless vampire couldn't enjoy." Juno award-winning Canadian rockers Sloan return to the festival this year.

To read about more artists just announced for NXNE 2010 go to www.nxne.com as well as for ngoing music announcements.

New Album (out June 29) Produced by Tony Visconti and Features Guests Bruce Springsteen and Ian Hunter

By Blurt Staff

Alejandro Escovedo and his band, the Sensitive Boys, took a two-month, Tuesday night residency at the Continental Club in Austin before making his new album 'Street Songs of Love,' presenting three new songs per week. "It was a way to show the audience how the songs evolved," he says.

"We would play them acoustically first for the audience, and then I'd bring in the rhythm section, and slowly but surely we would add each piece. It was interesting to see it grow and blossom. Every week, it became more intense, the album taking shape in front of us organically, a work in progress, as if it knew where it wanted to go. So that by the end of those two months,  we had watched songs begin with a verse and a chorus become what we felt were complete compositions."

When the songs had reached a cohesive point, he brought them to producer Tony Visconti, who helmed 'Real Animal,' Escovedo's previous record and highest charting to date.

Escovedo says, "We had chemistry. He knows what I'm trying to express, the message of the album. He also works well with a band and this is a band record. His skills as a communicator are masterful."

The songwriter also elaborates on how the album unfolded: "I came into this album not really wanting to have a concept but it became an album about love, the pursuit of a feeling that is forever elusive, mysterious, and addictive."

A father aches for his son's struggle to find life's meaning in "Down In The Bowery," perhaps the album's beating heart on which Ian Hunter contributes full-throated vocals.  Bruce Springsteen and Alejandro trade lines around a nasty guitar riff on "Faith," a tightly woven rocker that bores in and never lets go.  The lead track "Anchor" explodes out of the speakers, a statement of purpose about that treacherous thing called 'love,' that recalls the best of The Band, Tom Petty and Rolling Stones. "A band record," as Escovedo puts it, Street Songs of Love is performed by Escovedo and The Sensitive Boys: David Pulkingham on guitars, keyboards, vocals; Bobby Daniel on bass and vocals; and Hector Munoz, drums and vocals.  Karla Manzu and Nakia Reynoso contribute essential background vocals throughout the album.

Escovedo recently wrapped an acoustic tour and will tour extensively with The Sensitive Boys this summer and fall. The album is due out June 29 on Fantasy/Concord.

Track Listing:

1. Anchor (3:30) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

2. Silver Cloud (3:03) (Alejandro Escovedo)

3. This Bed Is Getting Crowded (3:16) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

4. Street Songs (2:46) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

5. Down In The Bowery (4:17) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

6. Tender Heart (2:26) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

7. After The Meteor Showers (4:38) (Alejandro Escovedo)

8. Tula (3:48) (Alejandro Escovedo- Nick Tremulis)

9. Undesired (4:26) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

10. Fall Apart With You (4:19) (Alejandro Escovedo)

11. Shelling Rain (3:20) (Alejandro Escovedo-Kim Christoff)

12. Faith (3:23) (Alejandro Escovedo-Chuck Prophet)

13. Fort Worth Blue (2:51) (Alejandro Escovedo, David Pulkingham)

[Photo Credit: Marina Chavez]

The morals of America's youth instantly crumbled when this vintage clip was aired... We're not sure what Dinah Shore thought, however.

By Fred Mills

So in honor of all our Stooges coverage this week - John B. Moore's interview with James Williamson, Jud Cost's reflections on attending a Stooges show in 1973, and yours truly's review of the Raw Power reissue - we decided we'd be remiss if we didn't give you some real eye candy.

Below is a classic video clip of  Stooges live in 1970 at the Cincinnati Pop Festival which was apparently broadcast at the time on a regional television station. It ain't the Raw Power incarnation of the band (which is the Stooges version we've been championing this week), but it's still prettygoddam raw and must-viewing for any serious student of rock.

After that is a short documentary on the band issued around the time of The Weirdness that also includes a slew of vintage footage and some pretty clever audiovisual cuts.

Break out the peanut butter, kids!

First new material from the 2-headed dog in two decades teams him with Austin heroes Okkervil River. Guess what? It's even better than anyone might've hoped for. In stores next week via the Anti- label.

By Jud Cost

After 45 years, the third shoe has finally dropped. Roky Erickson's first new album since Bill Clinton moved into the White House, puts an exclamation point to a tale of personal redemption for the Austin, Texas, native, a saga that has seen enough twists and turns to serve as the backbone of a major motion picture. Whether the film ever happens (at one point, Jack Black was said to be interested in a Roky biopic) remains to be seen, but the long-rumored, new recording from Roky Erickson, now backed by Austin-based indie-rock hotshots Okkervil River, has finally seen the light of day.

Whatever longtime devotees may have been expecting to come next when Erickson, backed by longtime pals the Explosives, played a short set at Threadgill's Ice Cream Social in Austin in 2005, this probably isn't it. Nevertheless, True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-) is a total mindblower.

The first brogan hit the deck for Erickson when the banshee howl and electric jug-fueled psychedelic madness of his 13th Floor Elevators scaled the national charts in 1966 with "You're Gonna Miss Me." After a series of devastating albums that included The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and Easter Everywhere, Erickson found himself committed to Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in 1969 to avoid a long prison sentence for possession of a small amount of marijuana. Two years later, Erickson left Rusk as a diagnosed schizophrenic, a shock-treatment victim with a major drug problem.

By the late '70s, the second boot fell to earth when Erickson hooked up with the Aliens to cut a Stu Cook-produced, horror movie-influenced set of Roky originals that included "I Walked With A Zombie," "Bloody Hammer," "Creature With The Atom Brain," and "Don't Shake Me Lucifer." With a sprinkling of classics from the Elevators ("Fire Engine," "Tried To Hide," "Roller Coaster," "Reverberation"), Erickson's live set remained static for the next 10 years. By the mid-'90s, Erickson - unhappy, unhealthy and uncommunicative - had all but given up music. In his darkest hour, Roky was taken in hand by his younger brother, Sumner, who cleaned him up, fixed various health problems and, over the course of a year, got him back on his feet.

The Erickson brothers have since parted ways, but Roky's career seems to have taken a definite upturn with the new album. For the man who once wrote a song called "Two-Headed Dog" and whose album artwork has depicted Erickson with a third eyeball in his forehead, dropping the third shoe was mere child's play.

You enter the rabbit hole to the new world of Roky Erickson through "Devotional Number One," a song so lo-fi it sounds like it was recorded by a rusty nail gouging a spiral furrow in a round slab of wood. Apparently, some of this material was tracked by Roky's mother, Evelyn, on a portable tape deck at Rusk 40 years ago. Like the horror B-movies that once ran nonstop in Erickson's Austin apartment, the unavoidable, burning-rodent-squeal of electric guitar feedback in the background of "Goodbye Sweet Dreams" eventually shakes the song like a rabid dog. The lyrics to "John Lawman," a dark number that would have fit well with Erickson's creepy mother lode of material from 30 years ago, are just these: "I kill people all day long/I sing my song/Because I'm John Lawman." On the other hand, "Birds'd Crash," with Roky at his most stream-of-consciousness endearing, floats on rain-seeded clouds of electric guitar and quivering organ. "Bring Back The Past" has that shimmering Buddy Holly/Sir Douglas vibe that once made Roky's "Starry Eyes" such a lump in the throat experience.

If they ever get around to doing a Texas Mount Rushmore, the chiseled visages of Buddy, Doug and Roky would be a damn fine place to start.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" performed last night in Oakland.

By Blurt Staff

The sound is atrocious and the amateur concert video's typically handheld-shaky, but if you're either a Radiohead or Joy Division fan, the site of Thom Yorke and his band Atoms For Piece covering "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is still pretty cool.

It was videotaped last night (April 15) in Oakland at the Fox Theatre - the 7^th in the band's brief U.S. tour, which concludes Sunday at Coachella - and quickly slapped up on YouTube. Check it out below, along with Radiohead's cover of New Order's "Ceremony" (featuring markedly better sound quality) from a couple of years ago.

Funny - as the picture at the top and above demonstrate, Yorke's no stranger to rocking the vintage Ian Curtis image...

Acclaimed musical now gets the at-home version you can listen to.

By Blurt Staff

You've no doubt spotted the banner up top on our home page about our FELA! contest where you can win tickets to the Broadway show - more details here. Now comes word of the June 8 release of the original cast soundtrack on the Knitting Factory label, which has been instrumental in bringing a slew of Fela reissues back into print.

Fela! - Original Broadway Cast Recording documents the magic of the hit Broadway musical that Ben Brantley of the New York Times called "hot (and seriously cool)." He went on to say that "there has never been anything on Broadway like this production."

Fela! - Original Broadway Cast Recording features the incomparable Sahr Ngaujah as Fela singing with members of the irrepressibly funky Antibalas. A version featuring Kevin Mambo will be available for download and for sale at the theater. All 16 of the Fela compositions that are peformed on stage each night, leaving sold-out audiences astonished and breathless at the end of every show, are on the record as are several songs peformed by Funmalayo (Fela's mother) as played by the Tony-award winning Lilias White, and Sandra Izadore (Fela's American girlfriend) as played by Saycon Sengbloh. The record was produced by the Grammy-nominated Robert Sher.

"We worked incredibly hard, and have had amazing and talented people on board to create what we think is one of the hottest, sexiest, entertaining and unique Broadway experiences today," says the show's producer Stephen Hendel. "We're working equally hard to make sure that's captured in the cast record."

Based on the life of groundbreaking African composer and performer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, FELA! is the critically acclaimed Broadway musicalthatuses Fela's music to explore his life as an artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. 

Watch a video of the musical here:

Directed and choreographed by Tony® Award winner Bill T. Jones, with arrangements by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean, FELA!is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance and musical theatre. The cast recording captures the electricity and joy that thousands have experienced at the Eugene O'Neill Theater every night since the play opened on November 23, 2009. The record is a document of that experience, yet at the same time is a musical statement in its own right.

Says Hendel, "There are three great bands in the world that can capture this music with the thrill and intensity of Fela Kuti himself: Femi and Seun Kuti live and play in Nigeria and tour around the world; members of Antibalas live in Brooklyn. We are priviliged to have these members on our stage every night, bringing this music to a world that has, to a large extent, only recently understood what they've been missing."

Tracklisting:

Everything Scatter

Yellow Fever/Ikoyi Blindness

Trouble Sleep

Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsese

Lover

Upside Down

Expensive Shit

I.T.T.

Water Get No Enemy/Egbe Mi O

Zombie

Na Poi

Sorrow Tears and Blood

Dance of the Orisas/Shakara

Rain

Coffin Head of State

Is there hope for alternative rock? For one brief evening, April 2 at the 9:30 Club, the crowd-pleasing indiepopsters signaled in the affirmative.

By Roxana Hadadi / Photos by Adam Fried

It's easy to enjoy Nada Surf. The band's alternative rock style is bouncy, energetic and fun. Their live show is bouncy, energetic and fun. And their fans ... well, OK, their fans aren't so hot. But what else can you expect from middle-aged yuppies desperately clinging to some semblance of past youth?

Regardless of the almost sold-out crowd's douche-tastic behavior - such as a tendency to pop their collars and throw back bizarrely bright mixed drinks, as well their overwhelmingly tall height (did these people's DNA all idolize Larry Bird or something?) - the show itself certainly made up for it.

Since 1992, Nada Surf has been making catchy, pop-influenced tracks over a course of six albums, with their latest, "If I Had a Hi-Fi," being a collection of covers and only available during the band's tour. But while the group flirted with mainstream success in 1996 with their hit song "Popular," that period of their history - you know, the one with a supposedly homoerotic video and MTV coverage and rabid French fans - was pretty nonexistent at their performance at the 9:30 Club on Friday, April 2. Nada Surf didn't play that track, but instead picked a variety of songs from their other albums, with offerings from 2000's "The Proximity Effect," 2003's "Let Go," 2005's "The Weight is a Gift," 2008's "Lucky" and "If I Had a Hi-Fi."

And the rabidly excited, awkwardly dancing, repetitively fist-pumping crowd loved every second of it. (I wish that was a joke, but alas.)

Things started off with "Weightless" from "Lucky," an immediate introduction into Nada Surf's infectious little world. Over a huge swell of applause, lead singer Matthew Caws launched into the song about muddled realities: "That is a dream, it is what it seems," he sang, while following it up later with a kind of rock-and-roll wisdom - "Behind every desire is another one/ Waiting to be liberated/ When the first one's sated." You may call it a cautionary tale against hedonism, but the drinking, rocking-out crowd paid that no notice. Instead, they kept the energy at a constant high, jumping up and down haphazardly and falling all over each other in glee. The happiest crowd in Washington, D.C., that night? Possibly.

That infectious mood continued to build over the course of the night, too, as Caws and co. dug into their catalogue and played more of their sonorous, contagious songs. Next came "Hyperspace" from "The Proximity Effect," another advice-spreading track ("There's no right and there's no wrong/ There's just the balance of the things you know") that pleasantly whirled and swirled into a crashing, droning flood of sound; the somewhat existentialist "Happy Kid" from "Let Go," which described the trials and tribulations of being "stuck with the heart of an old punk" and "drowning in my id"; and the fantastic "Whose Authority" from "Lucky," a definite crowd favorite that was effortlessly listenable and delightfully fizzy. Though the song sounds like a slice of ‘90s nostalgia, it's only from two years ago - is there hope for alternative rock yet?

Well, probably. For proof, see the lilting harmonies of "I Like What You Say," the complex instrumentation of "Killian's Red" (which started cloudy and wandering, but then measured into a pointed and relatable love song, with lyrics like, "We'll go on vacation tonight/ Under a sea of neon light/ And I almost love this town/ When I'm by your side") and the unabashedly melancholy-yet-romantic "Your Legs Grow" (with achingly honest lines including, "There was no fear in my room when we got close"), which reached ballad status when the lights went out and a single glow was cast upon Caws. Oh, to be idolized.

Yet for Caws that night, there was good reason. Whether he was leading the band through their own tracks or covers from "If I Had a Hi-Fi" - including "Electrocution" by Bill Fox and a sped-up version of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" that Caws introduced by calling it a "Goth-disco song - it's the only kind of disco, really" - or bantering with the audience about his relationship with his father, a philosophy professor at George Washington University ("He's always been proud; it's just when I got health insurance he stopped being worried," Caws said of his father's reaction to his rock ‘n' roll career choice), the man held the crowd in the palm of his hand. For one night, being "Popular" really didn't matter that much - Nada Surf was bigger, and way better, than all that.

You just might get your version released officially on the iTunes version of her new album and nab a thousand bucks in the process.

By Blurt Staff

Laurie Anderson, Nonesuch Records and Indaba Music are teaming for a contest in which fans can remix Anderson's new song "Only an Expert," from her album Homeland, due June 22 from Nonesuch. It's her first new studio album in ten years. One fan will have his or her remix included on the iTunes release of Homeland.

Through May 13, remixers can visit http://www.indabamusic.com/remixla   to create their own version of the "Only an Expert."  From May 13 through May 27, fans and a jury of experts (including Anderson) will review the submissions. Then Indaba will announce the jury's choices of Grand Prize Winner and two Runners-Up, as well as the public's choice of ten Honorable Mentions. 

 
All jury selections will receive prizes. Specifically:
 

Grand Prize (1)
·        $1,000
·        Remix included on iTunes edition of Homeland
·        One year free Platinum membership to Indaba Music

Runners-Up (2)
·        One year free Platinum membership to Indaba Music

Honorable Mentions (10)
·        One year free Pro memberships to Indaba Music
·        Remix streamed on Anderson's official site
·        Signed deluxe package: 12-inch "Only an Expert" single and Homeland CD

Homeland was produced by Anderson with Lou Reed and Roma Baran, and it includes a diverse list of collaborators, from the Tuvan throat singers and igil players of Chirgilchin to New York experimental jazz and rock players including Rob Burger (keyboards), Omar Hakim (drums), Kieran Hebden of Four Tet (keyboards), Shahzad Ismaily (percussion) Eyvind Kang (viola), Peter Scherer (keyboards), Skuli Sverrisson (bass), Ben Witman (percussion and drums) and John Zorn (saxophone). Antony Hegarty contributes additional vocals.
 

Some days we write the news, and other days the news... you know...

By Blurt Staff

"They're better on his desk than on my chest. They're awful!"

That's Sharon Osbourne, appearing this morning on the Today show, disclosing for some undisclosed reason to the entire world that she is undergoing breast reduction surgery in July and plans to have her 34DD implants removed - and turned into paperweights for husband Ozzy.

Ah, yes. No mention about whether or not Celebrity Apprentice is also suffering from... drumroll please... sagging ratings, and that Osbourne's popping in to the NBC set this morning was intended to drum up some viewership.

Or it could just be an Earth Day stunt intended to get people into the spirit of recycling....

Canadian band had just completed a North American tour.

By Blurt Staff

Sad news from the indierock world over the weekend: the drummer from Canadian dance/rock outfit You Say Party! We Say Die!, Devon Clifford, collapsed during a performance in Vancouver Friday night and subsequently died early Sunday morning. He was 30.

Clifford's family issued a statement, saying that he'd "experienced a massive brain hemorrhage resulting from congenital defects... and fell into a coma. A surgery was performed but sadly doctors were unable to save his life."

Paper Bag Records, the band's label, also issued a statement, saying, "It is with absolute sadness to report that our dear friend Devon Clifford died just hours ago in a Vancouver hospital surrounded by his family and friends. He will be deeply missed by everyone who knew him."

YSP!WSD! had recently released the album XXXX on Paper Bag and made a successful North American tour that included shows at the winter Olympics and South By Southwest. The Vancouver gig was their homecoming show, and a European tour was set to start next week.

Read the full account at the Vancouver Sun.

Out today, Tears, Lies and Alibis lets the songwriter finally be herself.

By Nancy Dunham

Talk about starting out with a bang. When Grammy Award-winning singer Shelby Lynne releases her eleventh album - Tears, Lies and Alibis - this week it will be on her own label Everso Records.

"The goal on this record was to start writing and recording my own songs," she told Blurt. "Last time [Just a Little Lovin'] was a covers record. Those are fine but you can't do too many of those or you turn into a human karaoke machine."

Although that 2008 collection of Dusty Springfield covers was well received, expect this latest offering to receive a heap of critical and popular acclaim because,  sans label, Lynne is finally able to do what she's wanted all these years - be herself.

Taking interesting wordplay and stories that she's gathered during the past few years, Lynne serves up a gem of an album with songs like "Loser Dreamer" - taken from a friend's description of how a former girlfriend views him - and "Rains Came" - about Southern California storms. Press reports note that "Like A Fool" has already been slotted for use on the Lifetime series Army Wives.

Don't expect a lot of lush orchestration and wailing guitar in these offerings. The guitars, percussion and other instrumentation are rich but in every song the vocals are way out front.

That's just what Lynne wanted.

"The lyrics to the songs are very important to me," said Lynne, who also produced the record. "Simplicity is the most attractive thing you can have in a song. I like big production and lots of are fine as long as you can hear the lyrics...This is my most unfancy record ever."

That simplicity is what makes the beauty of Lynne's music shine.

Shelby Lynne does "Alibi":

Hugely influential MC helped pioneer a new style of NYC hip-hop during the nineties.

By Blurt Staff

Word arrives this morning via MTV.com news that Guru (aka Keith Elam), MC for heavy hip-hop act Gang Starr, passed away yesterday following a lengthy battle with cancer. (A month earlier he'd suffered a heart attack that briefly put him in a coma and led to surgery.) Guru was 43.

In the nineties Gang Starr - Guru plus DJ Premier - issued a string of influential records, notably 1998's Moment of Truth, while Guru himself notched solo popularity via his Jazzmatazz series in which he brought jazz artists into a hip-hop setting (Donald Byrd and Branford Marsalis among them).

As the MTV report outlines in detail, Guru penned a farewell letter to his friend and fans while he was hospitalized that read, in part:

"I, Guru, am writing this letter to my fans, friends and loved ones around the world," it begins. "I have had a long battle with cancer and have succumbed to the disease. I have suffered with this illness for over a year. I have exhausted all medical options.

"I have a non-profit organization called Each One Counts dedicated to carrying on my charitable work on behalf of abused and disadvantaged children from around the world and also to educate and research a cure for this terrible disease that took my life. I write this with tears in my eyes, not of sorrow but of joy for what a wonderful life I have enjoyed and how many great people I have had the pleasure of meeting."

He also went on to single out his current musical partner, Solar, and his son, KC, as inspirational to him, while making it clear that his former partner, Premier, hadn't been part of his life "for over 7 years" and that Premier was not to have "anything to do with my name, likeness, events, tributes, etc. connected in anyway to my situation."

(Read the entire letter in the MTV report.)

In a statement, Solar said, "The world has lost one of the best MCs and hip-hop icons of all-time - my loyal best friend, partner, and brother, Guru. Guru has been battling cancer for well over a year and has lost his battle! This is a matter that Guru wanted private until he could beat it, but tragically, this did not happen. The cancer took him. Now the world has lost a great man and a true genius."

Spending the weekend in North Carolina, the Truckers join the Record Store Day celebration in style. (Three cheers for Harvest Records, too.)

Text/Photos by Fred Mills

If you're a Drive-By Truckers fan and you were in Asheville, NC, this past weekend, you essentially ran into a perfect storm, musically speaking. For starters, the band held down a two-night stand - sold-out, from all appearances - at local mega-venue the Orange Peel, promoting the recent DBT album The Big To-Do. (Read the BLURT album review here, and an interview with founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley here.)

The band - guitarists Hood, Cooley and John Neff; bassist Shonna Tucker; drummer Brad Morgan; keyboardist/multiinstrumentalist Jay Gonzalez - was clearly angling to perform their own variation on a scorched-earth policy at the Peel, for based on the evidence of the Friday night show (April 16), at least, the Truckers have never been louder or more a-swagger with confidence. They played for well over two hours, performing the bulk of the album along with a slew of old faves and even some obscurities drawn from their extensive back catalog. Yours truly's picks to click: Cooley's boogietastic "Get Downtown," performed at such breakneck speed that half the audience had to be treated for whiplash after the concert; Hood's "This Fucking Job," already a crowd-pleasing anthem, and perhaps an anthem for the current economic times, lyrical irony be damned; and the timeless, hard-twanging, get-your-motor-revvin' "Sinkhole," from 2003's Decoration Day.

Feet were set to a-stomping; asses, to a-shaking; and ears, to a-ringing - the latter syndrome, until well into the next day's p.m.

***

But wait, as the saying goes - there's more.

Saturday just happened to be Record Store Day. You might have heard about it this time around, considering it received near-blanket lead-up coverage, with such unlikely suspects as USA Today and NPR's "All Things Considered" running features on the annual event (along with pretty much ever respectable music outlet in the country, us included). That day, over the country, punters and freaks and geeks and collector scum fanned out to their fave local emporiums, and I'm advised that a good time was had by all.

BLURT contributor Steven Rosen, for example, writes, "I [went to] Shake It Records (www.shakeitrecords.com) in Cincinnati's Northside neighborhood and talked to the owners, Darren and Jim Blase, who were really busy. They said 150 people were lined up outside by 8 a.m., ahead of the 9 a.m. opening. By the time I got there, a lot of the limited-edition vinyl, especially the stuff featuring new music, was gone. They were enforcing the one-title-per-customer rule. A friend bought the last Springsteen, there were a couple Flaming Lips LPs [Dark Side of the Moon]. I bought a Rodriguez live (recently recorded stuff) from Light in the Attic. The checkout line was a pretty constantly a dozen people waiting -- everybody was rifling through free sampler CDs by the register as they waited, or picking up Record Store Day/Shake It buttons and bumper stickers. Darren's Shake It label (Wussy) also printed up a special-edition vinyl single (33 1/3 rpm) of three songs by a hot local band, alt-rock The Seedy Seeds, for today, and those were moving briskly. Seedy Seeds were scheduled to play a store-closing gig."

And another BLURT contributor, Jennifer Kelly, checked out the scene in Keene, New Hampshire: "I was at Turn It Up [www.turnitup.com] and probably the coolest thing they had was a new vinyl copy of John Fahey's The Yellow Princess, the reissue, with Glenn Jones' notes.  I have a CDR of this somewhere, but the cover art was so beautiful that I considered repurchasing it. They had a lot of singles, too - the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Skeletons looked kind of cool.  Carson from (the late, underappreciated) Amargosa was working behind the counter, and we talked about a Robbie Basho CD (Bonn Ist Supreme) I'd traded in a week ago, and how good it was, and how Carson's dad had known Basho in his heyday, because he'd published something for him.  Then we got into a conversation with another guy we know slightly, through our kids, about how much fun it used to be going to record stores, just as entertainment, and how our kids just point and click instead.  Not that that isn't fun, too, sometimes, like at 3 in the morning, but still..."

I didn't miss out either. Credit card in hand, I traipsed over to Harvest Records in Asheville where I loaded up on some choice limited editions and more. Dangit, the Truckers' own limited edition 7" was long gone by the time I got to the indie record shop - read about the DBT single here at BLURT, and dig that Cooley record sleeve - but no matter. The spirit at Harvest was festive, and despite the owners and clerks looking extremely under the gun (a line of about 12 customers will do that to you), the broad grins that creased their faces when I greeted them told me that, to paraphrase Megadeth, "Records is my business - and business is good." Among some of the Record Store Day goodies I spotted that looked particularly cool: a Fela Kuti 10-inch, a numbered/limited John Lennon singles bag, singles from the Budos Band/Sharon Jones (split), Ted Leo and She & Him, and a Coheed & Cambria 7" picture disc. Early risers who got to the store when it opened received free swag bags, and anyone who made a purchase got entered into a special raffle for the Beatles In Mono box set.

Harvest is one of those "new breed of old-school" indie shops that instinctively grasps what anyone who grew up haunting record stores knows: that a business can be a gathering center and focal point, a source of entertainment (like Jennifer Kelly pointed out, above), and also a community resource while still managing to make a profit and put food on the table. It's a modest-looking and -sized store, essentially two aisles crammed on either side with CDs, books, DVDs and the main counter, plus a small nook at the back devoted to vinyl; get more than 25-30 shoppers in there at one time and there's a lot of jostling and brushing up against one another just to move from point A to point B, but somehow that just fuels the buzz and makes the vibe more entertaining.

Today the vibe was further enhanced, starting around 2pm, by the presence of the Drive-By Truckers and their opening act on the current leg of the tour, Langhorne Slim. Harvest hired a sound system and set up a performance area in the gravel parking lot behind the store, additionally bringing in a small film crew in order to air the show live over the internet, along with interviews with some of the audience members. (Plans are, hopefully, to archive and subsequently stream the concert, so keep checking the official Harvest website for info on that.)

By the time Slim and his band kicked off their half-hour set, there were easily a couple hundred people in attendance. By the time the Truckers arrived and started setting up, the crowd had swelled to, by one estimation, at least five hundred, with people lining the stairwell leading down to the parking lot and on the long strip running alongside and into the yard of the business next door. There were even a few enterprising fans perched in trees.

The DBTs performed a semi-acoustic set (Tucker and Gonzalez plugged their instruments in; Morgan played a snare drum) so it was a treat to hear a number of The Big To-Do songs in stripped-down format - "This Fucking Job," for example, almost had a sing-song quality to it that you could imagine (well, almost imagine) a classroom full of gradeschool kids belting out. The crowd was hugely appreciative throughout and you could tell the band was feeding off that wave of appreciation.

Afterwards, the Truckers wandered over to a table where their merch person was selling DBTs teeshirts and let people line up for autographs and photos. Hood was enthusing about "what a fantastically cool store" Harvest was, and I'd have to give a big boy howdy to that.

You just can't beat a new-breed old-school record shop. Thank you, Record Store Day. Thank you, Harvest. And thank you, Drive-By Truckers.

Dateline: April 17, at The Iron Horse. The Rhode Island indiepop combo, along with opening act Timber Timbre, slowly seduces a Massachusetts audience.

By Jennifer Kelly

It's a night for hushed harmonies, winding clarinet duets and eerie musical saws, as the Low Anthem, out of Rhode Island, swings back through the east, headlining for the first time this evening in Northampton (though they've been here before on a secondary slot for Ray LaMontagne).    

It starts with Canadian folk/bluesman Timber Timbre, a pseudonym for lanky Taylor Kirk, who records, currently, for the Arts & Crafts label.  As I arrive, he is hunched spider-like over a well-worn acoustic guitar, one foot on the kick drum, one eye to his bandmates on lap steel and violin, respectively.  A very slow, atmospheric blues emerges, moving forward on funereal thumps of bass drum, with waltz-timed guitar flurries blossoming out of gothic shadows.  A fine, down tempo spookiness haunts these contemporary murder ballads, where one love pulls another out from under the wheels, another contemplates the likelihood of ghosts.  A layer of high, spectral violin floats over glacially syncopated drums, as Kirk intones "There is a house in New Orleans," but it's not "The House of the Rising Sun."  Later, the pace picks up, just noticeably, in a weary roadhouse swagger.  "I must be under your spell," Kirk murmurs, as the music swells in a sad two-step, and you can picture broken lovers whirling in melancholy across a faded pine floor. 

Low Anthem, when they take the stage, are altogether lighter and more lovely, picking among a junk-shop's worth of instruments, multiple guitars, electric and stand-up bass, glockenspiel, two clarinets, some sort of brass horn, pump organ and keyboards.  Ben Knox Miller sits first at a keyboard housed in some sort of antique cabinet, his slouchy fedora casting deep shadow over his face.  His earliest collaborator, Low Anthem co-founder Jeff Prystowsky, stands behind on gleaming double bass.  Jocie Adams stands with a bow at the glockenspiel, coaxing, weird, slippery sounds out of their shiny surfaces, and Mat Davidson mans a musical saw.  Yet the minute you get a handle on who they are and what they play, everyone switches instruments.  Almost everyone in the band will get a chance at the drum set before the night finishes and most will play some version of either guitar or bass.  Miller handles most of the singing, but he is often supported by wonderful harmonies in three and four parts, everyone at the mic, eyes closed at the prettiness of it all. 

Over the night, the Low Anthem revisits much of their last album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, tries out a few new songs (one nicely rustic one called "At the Apothecary") and slips in some traditional numbers, including a rousing, giddily harmonized version of "Evangeline" late in the show.  They move, with relative ease, from the lovely, subdued lyricism of Iron & Wine-ish "Ticket Taker" with its winding threads of clarinet or "Cage the Songbird" with its sharp, octave leaping melancholies, to the flat-out raucous-ness of "Home I'll Never Be," with Adams on electric bass, belting like a blues singer. 

For "This God Damn House," even the Low Anthem's extensive collection of instruments falls short.  Miller instructs the audience that after the second chorus, he wants all of them to take out their cell phones and call the person they came with and talk to them.  When the moment comes, you hear a few buzzes and rings, and see Miller himself, up at the mic with two cell phones, feeding their tones through mics and effects for a ghostly, lonely sound.  Later, the band finds extraordinary sounds in a far more traditional corner when Prystowsky gets an extended bass solo, his hands jumping and twitching in a percussive, slapped-and-popped tour de force.  When the band finally steps in, he is grinning ear to ear and the audience gives him a hand, jazz concert style, for his efforts.

But loud or soft, on traditional instruments or jerry-rigged technology, the Low Anthem sounds wonderful, much better in fact, than its album.  There's a wistful gorgeousness in the slow songs, a gutsy fire in the faster ones that just doesn't come through as well via the recording process, and if you're wondering about the Low Anthem, I'd recommend you get out and catch them live. 

Read the BLURT interview with the Low Anthem here.

New York rocker has a new album out - and well as a mini-documentary, viewable at Blurt.

By Blurt Staff

Jamie McLean is no stranger to those who have their ears to the ground and their eyes on the skies of American music.

As a songwriter, singer, and guitarist, McLean has a diverse set of talents that frame his music, which combine rock, blues, R&B and soul. The New York-based musician has been called to play sessions for artists as diverse as Norah Jones and Chuck D, shared the stage with Elvis Costello, The Black Crowes and Dave Matthews, toured the world as a member of the celebrated Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and rocked the worlds of fans in small clubs, in Madison Square Garden, and before crowds that sprawled toward the horizons of Bonnaroo and Japan's Fuji Rock.

So we're pretty proud to be able to host a new video about McLean - it's called "From The Bottom Up" and it's an intriguing documentary featuring producer Stewart Lerman discussin McLean and his band. Just click over to the BLURT video kiosk.

His latest album Completely was released on April 13 and you can download the album at www.jamiemcleanband.com and "pay what you want" for the digital version. He's currently in the middle of a national tour - tour dates at his website.

Meanwhile, enjoy the video!

Jamie McLean also penned a recent installment in our recurring feature "The Most Fucked Up Thing I've Ever Seen" - check it out here.

Settling in with the recently released Under Great White Northern Lights and putting Jack and Meg on the analyst's couch.

By Ron Hart

"We never used to be able to get across the border ever," admits Jack White about a quarter of the way through Under Great White Northern Lights (Third Man/Warner Bros.), a spectacular, intimate documentary (and companion live album) of the White Stripes' 2007 tour through every province and territory of our northern continental neighbors in support of the Detroit duo's last studio album, Icky Thump. "Out of all the countries we've been to, Canada is the only place I have to pay a fee to get into. It was the only country we've ever been turned away from. It's hilarious, too, because we used to live right across the street."

Given that revelation, the gorgeously shot Under The Great White Northern Lights seems to be a fitting victory lap for Jack and Meg White, which finds the faux brother/sister duo from Detroit, with their crew and director Emmett Malloy in tow, commemorating their decade-long run as a group by returning to their roots (so to speak) of playing before a succession of crowds who never heard of the White Stripes before, contrasting with explosive performances at sold-out arenas thick with diehard fans who knew every word to every song. As Malloy and his pair of 16mm film cameras stylishly shoot Jack and Meg with an ambience that equally recalls elements of Bob Dylan's Don't Look Back, U2's Rattle and Hum, The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and the earthier moments of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same, the twosome play in areas of the country where no Canadian artist ever ventured, be it Rush, Neil Young or Anvil. And whether they are instigating a singalong on a city bus of the age-old children's song "Wheels on the Bus", playing a cover of Robert Petway's "Catfish Blues" on a fishing boat or delivering Blind Willie McTell's "Lord Send Me An Angel" during a touching song exchange with Inuit Tribal elders at a Nova Scotia senior center (this takes place shortly before their 10-year anniversary show at the legendary Savoy Theatre), at every turn Jack and Meg play with the same spirit they demonstrated back when they were signed to Sympathy for the Record Industry.

The film also proves to be a fine, fitting showcase of the Stripes' interpersonal dynamic, showcasing how Meg's tortured, spaced-out calm provides a perfectly hued counterbalance to Jack's God-fearing alpha-dandy narcissism. This is interwoven throughout the thread of live performances, which include some pretty interesting alternate renditions of such Stripes gems as "Little Ghost", "Ball and Biscuit" and "Fell In Love With A Girl", cumulating in the touching closing scene that finds Meg crying on Jack's shoulder while sitting beside him at the piano as he sings "White Moon", a lovely, stark ballad from 2005's Get Behind Me Satan - a moment that precedes Meg's much-publicized breakdown that forced the duo to cancel the North American leg of the tour. In a recent analysis of the song in the legendary music zine Crawdaddy!, writer Denise Sullivan theorizes that if you listen closely enough to the words that Jack White is singing it unlocks the truth behind the nature of his and Meg's mysterious relationship with one another.

And if this really is what many theorize it to be - the last word on The White Stripes-that final scene in Under The Great White Northern Lights makes for a fitting ellipsis to the career of a band shrouded in innuendo, ambiguity and, above all, genius.

"It is as thrilling a moment as rock has produced so far this year": fifth album Paul's Tomb: A Triumph is, indeed, a triumph. It's due out next week on Dead Oceans.

By Steven Rosen

You just don't expect groups that sound like Frog Eyes (or are named Frog Eyes) to go for the grandeur - reach for the transcendent - that has long been considered the elusive goal, the Holy Grail, of pop music taking itself seriously as art.

Frog Eyes, a British Columbia band led by prolific singer/songwriter/guitarist Carey Mercer, is already on its (official) fifth album, Paul's Tomb: A Triumph (Dead Oceans) - and Mercer has also been involved in side projects. Their sound - sludgy, feedbacky and loud hard rock with an uber-emotional, messy lead singer who yelps, shouts and constantly threatens to overdose with portentousness - seems closer to self-parody than to the kind of lyricism or imaginative arrangements that lead to rock breakthroughs.   

Maybe that's unfair - the Stooges had that kind of sound - and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is nothing if not transcendent. But Iggy had that baritone gravitas, not the choked, strained voice of Mercer.

But, listen a bit beyond the stylistic trappings of the sound and you'll hear a strong melodicism, thought-through playing (even though it was recorded live-to-tape) that allows for quiet passages, some inventive guitar and keyboard work, and a magnificent way of catching the full inherent drama of great rock at peak moments and riding it forward like a huge wave.

This band's sound isn't an end to itself, but as a means to something more. When Mercer breaks into an impassioned "because the river is bad, the river is cold" in the 8+-minute opener, "A Flower in the Glove," it is as thrilling a moment as rock has produced so far this year. 

And the quartet keeps it going - with a relatively consistent sound but a variety of tempos and approaches - for another eight songs, (almost) finishing with "Paul's Tomb's" pleading that "THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE!  HOPE!  THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE! SHACKLE YOUR WRISTS TO THE RAZOR-LIKE RIM! HOLD ON TO THE EDGE OF THE RAZOR-LIKE RIM!" (The lyric sheet provided by Dead Oceans has this passage in all-caps.)

At the album's conclusion, you feel like you've been transported somewhere. Where, one isn't certain. The album title, as well as the song names, point to thematic connections. The lyrics, not easy to hear without repeated listening (or a lyric sheet), are densely descriptive, imagist, inciting and allusive to the point of surrealism, but also sometimes endearingly direct, as in "Lear, in the Park's" "I kissed a girl, she was the only one who seemed to own a shard of light, She's all right, and it's all right."

Quite beautiful, really. And this is a terrific rock album.

Announcing the latest installment in our "Play For Today" series of video game reviews. This time out we take on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, Wario Ware DIY and Just Cause 2.

Head over to BLURT blogger Aaron Burgess' "Play For Today" blog - he's just posted some action-packed (term used relatively and literally) reviews of three more top-rated games. Included are his own ratings plus screenshots - like the ones below - and trailers. Game on!

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Wario Ware DIY

Just Cause 2

New York Times finally joins the digital era by hosting advance stream premiere.

By Blurt Staff

The New York Times is premiere an exclusive advance stream of The National's new album High Violet, due to be release by 4AD on May 11. The stream may not seem like a big deal - nowadays, bands are fools NOT to offer advance streams to prime the fan-pump - but this is the first album ever to debut on the Times' website, so yeah, it is kind of a big deal.

The album will stream for free and on-demand until 10AM EDT, April 27. That's next Tuesday, kids.  Listen here:  http://nyti.ms/asXAbF

The stream accompanies a feature story by Nicholas Dawidoff that is online now and will be published in Sunday's edition of the New York Times Magazine.

This is The National's first album in three years and anticipation is pretty high - they've already got sold-out shows lined up for Radio City Music Hall in NYC, Royal Albert Hall in London, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Festival appearances will follow at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and elsewhere.  More tour dates will be announced soon.

Go to http://www.highviolet.com for more information, including details on the so-called High Violet Annex, a performance space at 13 E. 4^th Street in NYC (adjacent to Other Music) where over the course of a 5-night residency (May 11-15) they plan to host a series of music happenings.

Slew of jambands, roots rock, psychedelia, electronica and more to be jamming May 14-16 down by the ‘bammy beach...

By Blurt Staff

The Hangout Beach Music & Arts Festival is offering fans a radically different live music experience - instead of fields and mud, the ocean and sand of the beaches of the Gulf Coast.

It will take place in the ocean resort community of Gulf Shores, AL. New ew lineup additions including Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Papa Mali & Friends, and Honey Island Swamp Band. These three bands join a lineup that already includes the Zac Brown Band, John Legend, Trey Anastasio and TAB, Black Crowes, Flaming Lips, Ben Harper and Relentless7, also Girl Talk, Matisyahu, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Funky Meters, Grace Potter and others.

Hangout attendees will enjoy three full days of music and beach activities May 14th - 16^th across four stages of music, with two stages directly on the white sand beaches. A number of late night performances will be announced soon. To kick-off the festivities, Alabama's Morning Show hosts, Rick and Bubba, will be broadcasting a pre-festival broadcast live from The Hangout on April 30th, 2010.


Details:

WHEN: May 14th - 16th, 2010
WHERE: 101 East Beach Boulevard at AL-Hwy 59, Gulf Shores, AL
PRICES: $159 Three-day Pass / $79 Day Pass / VIP Ticket & Travel Packages start at $500
WEBSITE: www.hangoutmusicfest.com



CONFIRMED ARTISTS INCLUDE: Trey Anastasio and TAB, Zac Brown Band, John Legend, Ben Harper and Relentless7, The Black Crowes, Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Gov't Mule, The Flaming Lips, Ray LaMontagne, Jakob Dylan and Three Legs feat. Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Funky Meters, Blind Boys of Alabama, Matisyahu, Girl Talk, Guster, Brett Dennen, Keller Williams, Jerry Jeff Walker, North Mississippi All-stars, ALO, The Whigs, Ozomatli, OK GO, Orianthi, Papa Mali & Friends, Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam, Pnuma Trio, Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears, Toubab Krewe, NeedToBreathe, Jeff Austin & Friends feat. Larry Keel, Matt Hires, A.A. Bondy, Rachel Goodrich, Honey Island Swamp Band, Moon Taxi, El Cantador, Kristy Lee, Roman Street, Kirsten Price, Wild Sweet Orange, Rustlanders.

June 29 release features appearances from Jackson Browne, Glen Campbell, Vince Gill, Billy Joel, Mark Knopfler, Michael McDonald, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther and Lucinda Williams. Tour dates also announced.

By Blurt Staff

Just Across The River, the new album from multiple Grammy award-winner Jimmy Webb, one of the most celebrated composers and songwriters in American music history, is set for release June 29 on E1 Music. The album features interpretations of the classic songs that made him a vital cultural icon including "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," "The Highwayman," "Oklahoma Nights" and more. The album features guest appearances from Webb's friends, fans and recording partners including Jackson Browne, Glen Campbell, Vince Gill, Billy Joel, Mark Knopfler, Michael McDonald, Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther and Lucinda Williams.

Just Across The River came together at the behest of producer and longtime Webb collaborator Fred Mollin, who wished to honor Webb's storied career and his celebrated contributions to the Americana roots tradition (Webb is a native son of Oklahoma). Says Mollin of the album, "This record is a homecoming for Jimmy. His songs are true classics and they could provide the soundtrack to your life."

Webb adds, "From the very first song, first take, first note this record seemed blessed. I hope everyone else feels what we did as we listened to the first rough mixes. And then as each piece fell into place, a fully realized, conceptual work of art emerged."

Just Across The River was recorded primarily live over the course of two days at Sound Emporium in Nashville, TN. Joining Webb live in the studio were John Hobbs (piano, Wurlitzer, organ), Bryan Sutton (acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin), John Willis (acoustic guitars, electric guitars, banjo), Larry Paxton (bass), Greg Morrow and Eddie Bayers (drums), Stuart Duncan (fiddle, mandolin), Jeff Taylor (accordion), Pat Buchanan (electric guitars) and Paul Franklin (steel guitar, dobro). Mark Knopfler provided lead electric guitar on "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," Johnny A. contributed electric guitar on "Galveston" and Jerry Douglas added dobro on "Wichita Lineman."

Tracklisting:

1. "Oklahoma Nights" featuring Vince Gill
2. "Wichita Lineman" featuring Billy Joel
3. "If You See Me Getting Smaller" featuring Willie Nelson
4. "Galveston" featuring Lucinda Williams
5. "P.F. Sloan" featuring Jackson Browne
6. "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" featuring Glen Campbell
7. "Cowboy Hall Of Fame"
8. "Where Words End" featuring Michael McDonald
9. "Highwayman" featuring Mark Knopfler
10. "I Was Too Busy Loving You" featuring J.D. Souther
11. "It Won't Bring Her Back"
12. "Do What You Gotta Do"
13. "All I Know" featuring Linda Ronstadt

 
Tour Dates:

April 10            AMSD Concerts            San Diego, CA

April 18            Watercolor Café            Larchmont, NY

May 14            Freight & Salvage            Berkeley, CA

May 15            Napa Valley Opera House            Napa, CA

June 17            Riverbend Festival            Chattanooga, TN

June 26            Infinity Hall            Norfolk, CT

July 7            Axelrod Performing Arts Center            Deal Park, NJ

July 8            Atlantic County JCC            Margate, NJ

July 14            River to River Festival            New York, NY

July 30 & 31            The Guthrie Center            Great Barrington, MA

October 2            Hugh's Room            Toronto, ONT

November 20            The Lensic Theatre            Santa Fe, NM

How to grow old gracefully: Craig Finn & Co.'s latest finds the band in a state of transition, with mixed but mostly positive results. It's due out May 4 from Vagrant.

By Hal Bienstock

Following the success of their last album, Stay Positive, The Hold Steady found themselves in a difficult spot. While Stay Positive was a strong album with some incredible high points, it covered a lot of the same musical ground as the band's breakthrough Boys & Girls in America. Making another similar album would have left them typecast and directionless, eventually leading to diminishing returns a la the post Some Girls Rolling Stones.

As a result, much has been made of the fact that Heaven is Whenever is the most diverse album they've ever made. Essentially, it's the sound of a band in transition.

Many of Craig Finn's lyrics have dealt with how to grow up gracefully, but this seems to be the first time The Hold Steady, as a band, has had to face that problem. Their solution is to keep the arena-rock riffs and smart, name-dropping lyrics they're known for ("Rock Problems" and "Soft in the Center") while also trying their hand at pop ("Hurricane J"), ballads (killer leadoff track "The Sweet Part of the City") and even a somewhat awkward stab at ska ("Barely Breathing").

Given the band's skill and experience, it's not surprising that most of the album's strongest tracks are riff-rockers. As for the experiments, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. No surprise there either. So for now, let's give them credit for trying and see where they go from here.

[Photo Credit: Mark Seliger]

James Cameron's b-b-blockbuster gets a bare-bones home viewing release last week, and while it looks spectacular, it can't possibly do justice to the big screen theatrical experience.

By Chris Zimmerman

When James Cameron smashed box office records with the now infamous Titanic, fans eagerly anticipated what he would do for an encore. A dozen years later, the growing shift in technology present in movies has drastically shifted and Avatar is perhaps the best example of this. When James Cameron first set about on his quest to achieve technical perfection many believed there were no effects that could do his dream justice. With an army of visual effects technicians backing him, Cameron once again proved naysayers wrong, demonstrating to the world that he is the unchallenged king of the cinema.

Despite the gorgeous computer generated scenery and state of the art motion capture science, Avatar at its heart is a love story, pitting man against the unknown to create a multi-layered romance every bit as believable as anything that has come before.  To Cameron's credit, he relies very little on said technology to tell his story, allowing the actors and an already enchanting script capture the audience. While it's true the breathtaking landscapes and fantastical creatures help, it's the actors who make the film believable, never allowing themselves to be outshone by their elongated blue counterparts. Every minute detail of their performance shines through and is perfectly captured.

The film takes place 150 years in the future; corporations from Earth have set their eyes on Pandora, a planet that contains a priceless energy source known as "unobtainium". Pandora is also home to an alien race called the Na'vi, 8 feet tall, cat-like creatures sporting human features who want nothing to do with the humans and their customs. In a break from most modern sci-fi, the humans are the ones wielding the technologically superior weaponry, posing a huge threat to the Na'vi and their home.

In order to establish relations with the Na'vi, the "Avatar" program was created, allowing humans to the link their consciousness to the body of a cloned Na'vi from the comfort of a metallic shell. Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is once such recruit, having been paralyzed in the line of duty; he signs on in the hopes of being able to regain his legs if successful. Along with Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the two travel into the heart of the forest, coming into contact with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the princess of the Na'vi.

At first, Sully's sole priority is to observe the native people with the deceit of creating a more peaceful planet. Instead his true mission is gathering and sending intelligence back to the corporations so that they can later use it against the Na'vi if need be. Over time Jake grows accustomed to their ways and finds himself falling in love with Neytiri as she schools him in the ways of her people. The two join their hearts and become as one. As Jake finds himself being taken in by the joys of the Na'vi, the corporate mercenaries sent to retrieve the unobtainium grow restless and unleash an all out assault on the natives, forcing Jake to choose between his fellow humans or the Na'vi whom he has grown to love.

Through it all, Cameron injects his own brand of magic, filling the screen with hypnotic colors and soaring dragons. Using every visual tool at his disposal, he takes the viewers on a wild finale that is sure to leave his audience breathless.

On the technical side of things, the Avatar DVD - a 2D release that was synched to arrive in stores on April 22 in conjunction with Earth Day - fails to do the film justice; while image and sound quality are spectacular, this is the best example of a barebones release. The only thing buyers will find here is the film, opening up the possibility of a potential director's cut later on down the road. Focusing on the movie itself, the visuals pack quite the punch and are sure to challenge even the best home theatre systems. Colors are bright and the image is crisp. Even in 2D this is a fantastic movie to behold.

After 12 years of dormancy, Cameron unleashed what can only be referred to as an experience on the film going public. With the success achieved by Avatar, the question for James Cameron now becomes: What's next?

Put-on, or performance art? Werner Herzog meets Jackass in a repellant, not-so-teenage wasteland. Due in theaters May 7. And no, the trailer (see below) doesn't make any sense either.

By Jonah Flicker

Harmony Korine's new film, Trash Humpers, is either a put-on or performance art, but it's definitely not a narrative and it's dubious as to whether there's even any meaning to the film, such as it is. That is not to say it is without value, I suppose, but it's sure to divide evenly between admirers and haters. So sure, that perhaps it's almost too easy to dismiss this bizarre new feature from the one-time Werner Herzog protégé. There is no doubt that Korine knew what he was up to.

The director summed it up quite succinctly in the press release: "A film unearthed from the buried landscape of the American nightmare, Trash Humpers follows a small group of elderly ‘peeping Toms' through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world." In layman's terms, that means a couple of guys and one girl, including Korine himself (who is behind the camera most of the time), dressed up as old people and humping trash, screeching, destroying shit, and talking and singing nonsense.

The film is shot in the style of an old VHS tape, often falling out of tracking and occasionally superimposing "rewind" or "pause" over the images. The visual quality, the summertime Nashville at night setting, and the burn-victim makeup of the main characters bring The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to mind, as these old, pervy Leatherfaces go about their business. John Waters, Herzog's Heart of Glass, Jackass, and Lars Von Trier's The Idiots also seem to be points of reference.

It's hard to imagine that this film would even be under discussion if Korine did not make it, whose hipster cred and provocative reputation are both his blessing and his bane. Amidst all the simultaneously repellant and hypnotic images of humping trash cans, destroying baby dolls, and eating pancakes covered with dish soap lies a deeper meaning. Maybe. Maybe Trash Humpers is a statement on the destructive nature of American society, our tendency to waste pretty much everything, the white trash Southern Gothic, and the decaying wasteland of suburban heartland America. Then again, maybe it's just a piece of trash.

Go to IMDB.com for more details - don't forget to check the comments section ("worthless, punishing swill") at the bottom, as they seem to confirm our reviewer's worst fears.

The "Godfather Of Detroit Rock 'N' Soul" set to release new solo album on May 18.

By Blurt Staff

Scott Morgan, one of the most influential and important vocalists to emerge from the Detroit scene of the '60s returns with his first true solo album, appropriately titled Scott Morgan. The album sees Scott joined by some of the Motor City's finest talent both in the band and handling production. His one-of-a-kind style comfortably straddles the Detroit soul and Ann Arbor high energy rock realms as he delivers a battery of six classic soul covers and five rocking originals that touch on almost every aspect of his storied career.

The backstory:

Morgan first became a part of the then-burgeoning Detroit music scene in 1964 as the teenage lead singer for The Rationals. Widely considered to be the roots of the high energy rock and roll sound pioneered by fellow Detroiters the MC5 (who opened for the Rationals on numerous occasions), the band recorded a string of singles over the next few years and released one album before disbanding in 1970. In the mid-'70s, he teamed up with former MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton and Lightnin' bassist Gary Rasmussen to form the Detroit supergroup Sonic's Rendezvous Band. The '80s saw the formation of Scott's Pirates, which featured Rasmussen and Asheton. In the mid-'90s Dodge Main rolled out with the triple threat of Morgan, Wayne Kramer (MC5) and Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman), and at the end of the decade Morgan partnered up with Nicke Royale (Hellacopters) and Tony Slug (Nitwitz) to form the European-based high energy group The Hydromatics. Keeping one foot on either side of the pond, he started Powertrane in Detroit in 2003 (who continue to record and tour today), and the Scandinavian  soul-rock all-star band The Solution in 2004.

The first Solution CD charted in Germany and Sweden, and Morgan was looking to capture some of that vibe back here in the States. "I did two records in Sweden with The Solution," he explains, "so I wanted to pursue the same plan but do it in Detroit. We got together some of the best musicians here and we went into Jim Diamond's studio. We just went in every day for about a week and knocked stuff out; we'd never played together as a band before the record. We were gonna call it The Irrationals because my first band, The Rationals, had a two CD set come out on the UK label Ace last year. But since it's not the Rationals, we decided to drop that idea and call it Scott Morgan."

Scott Morgan, the album, was produced by Diamond, Matthew Smith (of Outrageous Cherry) and Dave Shettler (Sights, SSM) - respectively, they play bass, guitar and drums -who've been responsible for producing The White Stripes, The Go, Nathaniel Mayer and scores more bands. The record's due May 18 from Alive Naturalsound, natch.

Clips of the band performing 2 songs this past weekend.

By Blurt Staff

Currently on a North American tour that runs through next week then resumes in late May, MGMT did Saturday Night Live the other night, performing "Flash Delirium" and "Brian Eno" from the new Congratulations album - reviewed at BLURT here.

Live from Indio, California, April 24 and 25: Avett Brothers, Victoria Williams, Bobby Bare, Carlene Carter, Oak Ridge Boys, Brooks & Dunn, Sugarland, Keith Urban and more.

By Scott Dudelson

Ed. Note: Coachella ain't the only thing that happens this time of year out at that Polo Club in Indio, Calif. How about the "premier country music festival," for example? Our Stetson-rocking shutterbug (and Blurt blogger) Scott Dudelson was on hand this past weekend, April 24 and 25, and filed this photo report.

(above) Avett Brothers

(below) Victoria Willams

Prior to founding Firefall in 1975, guitarist / vocalist Jock Bartley was Gram Parson's touring guitarist in his Fallen Angels band.

The Oak Ridge Boys were founded in 1945 and its longest standing member - William Lee Golden - has been with the group since 1964

2010 will mark the end of Brooks & Dunn as this Stagecoach event, and their subsequent tour is being dubbed as the "Last Rodeo" before the split.

Baxter Black

Billy Currington

Black Prairie

Little Jimmy Dickens is the oldest living member of The Grand Ole Opry (89 years old).

In 2002 Bill Anderson became the first ever country musician to earn BMI's icon music award for songwriting excellence.

Bobby Bare is widely credited as introducing Waylon Jennings to RCA records, effectively giving Jennings his start.

Doyle Lawson

Heidi Newfield

Jason Aldeen

Carlene Carter - daughter of June Carter - was married to English pop-rocker Nick Lowe, and had a long term relationship with late Tom Petty bass player Howie Epstein up until his death.

Mary Gauthier's classic 1997 debut album Dixie Kitchen was named after a restaurant that Guathier owned in Boston (and subsequently sold after she decided to pursue music full time).

Less than two months after surgery for lung cancer in 2008 Merle Haggard returned to the stage to perform at Buck Owen's Crystal Palace (talk about a tough dude!).

Stagecoach marked Nick13 - singer of Tiger Army - first solo country performance ever.

Joey & Rory

Keith Urban

Phil Vasser

Ray Price

Sugarland

Waddie Mitchell

UPDATE: THE ALBUM IS STREAMING IN ITS ENTIRETY NOW AT THE FLYING LOTUS MYSPACE PAGE.

Due next week from Warp, the latest from West Coast hip-hopper Steve Ellison opens up a brave new world while embarking upon some seriously cosmic jams. Guests include Thom Yorke (you may have heard of him), string arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Ellison's cousin Ravi Coltrane.

By Ron Hart

Every decade or so, an artist comes into the public periphery and just changes the way we collectively perceive how music is created. Steve Ellison, who goes under the name Flying Lotus, has been that artist for the late part of the 2000s. Given his familial lineage, it should come as no surprise. Ever since FlyLo burst onto the scene in 2006 with his debut 1983 (named for the year of his birth), it has been duly noted in the press that his great-aunt is legendary jazz pianist/harpist Alice Coltrane. And on his latest album, Ellison delivers a fitting tribute to his auntie on his amazing new album Cosmogramma, expanding upon the nature of his unique IDM-gone-B-Boy sound that has earned big fans in everyone from Thom Yorke of Radiohead to Lil' Wayne.  

Through the utilization of live instruments threaded into the mix of this 45-minute "space opera", FlyLo maps out a sonic genealogy directly inspired by the genius of the late Mrs. Coltrane by employing many of the meditative and spiritual approaches to musical composition his great aunt had employed on in her own work. Several tracks here, most notably album opener "Clock Catcher", "Intro/A Cosmic Drama" and the mesmerizing "Recoiled", feature the nimble excellence of harpist Rebecca Raff intertwined within the experimental polyrhythms FlyLo delivers here; elsewhere Ellison and Raff work in tandem with in-demand West Coast string arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, famous for Suite for Ma Dukes, his stirring tribute to noted FlyLo hero J. Dilla, on such numbers as "Zodiac Shit" and a second revision of "Auntie's Harp" (here paired with a track called "Drips"), which originally closed out Lotus' 2008 Warp debut Los Angeles. Atwood-Ferguson also lends his lush stringplay to "Do the Astral Plane", featuring orchestral swells so rich they sound as if they were sampled off an old Alfred Newman MGM film score.

However, the pair of cuts that serve as the most fitting testament to his jazz heritage and surely have Auntie Alice smiling down on her great nephew from up in Heaven have to be the ones featuring FlyLo's elder cousin Ravi Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Both "Arkestry" and "German Haircut" find Lotus digitally manipulating free-form drum breaks that echo his aunt's and Great Uncle John's old bandmate Rashied Ali as Ravi delivers some of the most celestial blowing of his near-twenty year career, temporarily transforming Cosmogramma into a 21^st century version of Trane and Ali's 1967 duo masterpiece Interstellar Space. Those jams between the two cousins are undoubtedly the finest moments on here, far surpassing the one track that everyone is making a hoopla over, "...And the World Laughs With You", a murky dubstep ditty featuring guest vocals from the aforementioned Mr. Yorke that is decent enough, but it barely fits in with the overall thread of the album on a thematic level.

While many multigenerational artists tend to shy away from the shadows of their elders, it is nothing short of incredible to hear this immensely talented figure in the brave, new world of West Coast hip-hop embrace his legacy with open arms and usher his legendary aunt's message of universal consciousness for a whole new generation.

"Tiny Light" comes from the new self-titled album, due in June from Hollywood Records.

By Fred Mills

BLURT faves Grace Potter & the Nocturnals have the first video from their forthcoming album, and you can watch it below. Produced by Mark Batson, the album represents, in Potter's words, "a stylistic epiphany. We realized we're not the kind of band that's ever gonna fit neatly in one genre, and this time we just let the songs be the songs. We just naturally wound up playing them in a certain way - they all have that beat to them, a physicality and a mood. You have to either want to dance to it or cry to it. But there's also a feistiness to these songs that's completely unapologetic."

Meanwhile in regards to the video, be patient  - while there's a lot of arty camera stuff going on, there's also a killer live band raveup near the end of the clip. The song's pretty damn good, too.

Make that "throbblehead," actually...

By Blurt Staff

First we warned you about those GG Allin and Tesco Vee bobbleheads, er, throbbleheads, which instantly became collectors' items. Next came the twin-threat Dwarves throbbleheads, apocryphally complete with a faked death. Now, just to allay the obvious accusations of propagating a misogynist agenda, the good folks at Aggronautix are releasing their very first female throbblehead, Wendy O. Williams "1982", in the limited capacity of 2000 numbered units.

The figure captures Wendy's 1982 look, stands at 7 inches tall, and is made of a lightweight polyresin. Displayed in a tri-windowed box, here she is accurately sculpted right down to the platinum blonde mohawk, spiked arm bands, and tattered threads.

Aggronautix figures are available at  www.aggronautix.com or www.seeofsound.com and will also be available at many independent retailers, comic shops, tattoo parlors, and Walmart (just kidding).

Victoria Williams, Syd Straw, Nicholas Hill, and Peter Holsapple each contribute a track to a free, downloadable EP. Meanwhile, members of the crew got together to cut Big Star's "Thirteen."

By Blurt Staff

We previously brought you the news about Radio Free Song Club, a free new monthly podcast featuring some decidedly cool folks making music for, like, free. Now they've posted a new EP in tribute to the late Vic Chesnutt. The EP "Four Songs for Vic Chesnutt" features performances by Victoria Williams, Syd Straw, Nicholas Hill, and Peter Holsapple.

Radio Free Song Club comments on the EP by saying, "Vic Chesnutt's death was a sobering event for us all. We'd like to share this collection of songs from the first few shows that were an unplanned response to the sad news. Victoria sent us 'Vic on Vic,' Syd Straw brought 'You Had Your Chance' to play live on the show, Nicholas Hill sings Vic's song 'Lucinda Williams,' and Peter Holsapple brings us home with 'Don't Ever Leave.'"

Listen to the EP at http://radiofreesongclub.com/songs (Incidentally, they've also provided at link at the site where you can make a donation to Chesnutt's family - please consider doing so.)


Radio Free Song Club features music from veteran songwriters Freedy Johnston, Laura Cantrell, Peter Blegvad, Kate Jacobs, Victoria Williams, Dave Schramm, Freakwater, Jody Harris, and Peter Holsapple, and is hosted by Nicholas Hill. The premise of the song club is for each participating songwriter to write, record, and submit a new song each month; the songs are then highlighted in the one-hour radio show.

The fourth show in the series, which goes live this week, includes special guests Beth Orton and Sam Amidon performing alongside Dave Schramm and David Mansfield on Alex Chilton's song "Thirteen." They recorded the song just a few hours after learning about Chilton's death. It was recorded for Radio Free Song Club, and is now up for free download at http://radiofreesongclub.com/songs. Radio Free Song Club comments about the fourth show, "In addition to a set of contributions from the regular writers, this show got a little crazy in the live realm. It was St. Patrick's Day, and Alex Chilton had just died, and there were all these people in the room, and everyone wanted to sing."

The San Fran/NYC buzzband, riding high on critically acclaimed new album Big Echo, plays to (and occasionally, over) an appreciative crowd at the Mercury Lounge on April 22.

By Zachary Herrmann

"It's good to be home", The Morning Benders' front man Chris Chu announced to a young, sweaty sold out crowd.  Yes, he said "home". Although the band originated out in San Francisco (c'mon, you didn't think that was Far Rockaway on the cover of Big Echo, did you?), Brooklyn is home these days, as it is for many bands that get lumped under that giant genre umbrella known as "indie rock".

The question of identity seems relevant in this case not for anything as shallow as geographical pride, but because the New York/California split pretty much defines The Morning Benders' sound. Yes, Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor co-produced the band's sophomore LP, Big Echo, but the Grizzly Bear comparisons will only get you so far.

Sure, both groups dig the Phil Spector (a bi-coastal man as well) "girl groups" pretty hard. Put Grizzly Bear's take on "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" up against The Morning Benders' "Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love", though, and see how much more loyal the latter is. Where Grizzly Bear takes the Wall of Sound and filters it (and just about everything else in their musical universe) through a glass darkly, The Morning Benders merely darken the corners a bit.

Played live (albeit slightly out of sequence), Big Echo - released last month on Rough Trade; see review here - is hearts-on-their-sleeves, aching, swaying, crooning Pop.

No matter how much the Chu brothers and Co. dress the songs up in reverb and that harsher, East Coast mentality, there's no denying the band's sunnier roots. With opening band Miniature Tigers locking in on the sound of The Kinks' Kronikles-era, the headliner solidified the balance between influence and innovation.

It's retro done right.

The Morning Benders reached a bit further back into the late 1950s and early 1960s, armed with beneficial knowledge of the forthcoming musical revolution c/o The Beatles. Compared to the band's first LP, Talking Through Tin Cans, sure, these songs could be considered more experimental. It might be more accurate, though, to say the pop hooks are stretched out this time ‘round. And the best part is watching The Morning Benders fill in the gaps they left behind.

Hence why the lone Tin Cans track the band offered up, "Damn't Anna", feels to reverential, more a nostalgic re-creation than a song filled with actual emotion. It's fun, but clearly inferior to what the band has been doing of late.

Joined by Miniature Tigers' drummer Rick Schaier for the 50-minute set, The Morning Benders were not too concerned in replicating the studio density of Big Echo. "Excuses" (which became a show-closing sing-along) and "Nice Clean Fight" stood up as sparser efforts. Unlike so many younger bands (or hell, so many bands in general), The Morning Benders know a thing or two about setting levels, which helped highlight many elements that may have wound up a little buried in the big sounds of Big Echo.

Even with all the reverb (something Chu, especially, seems to love), the band produces a very clean live sound, which was evident from the get go in the ambitious opening jam that became "Stitches".

These songs have teeth, and as soft as Chu and the rest of the band look, they are more than capable of tearing through your eardrums when the occasion calls for it.

In fact, aside from the brevity of the set (understandable since they have essentially started anew with Big Echo), my only complaint was that they didn't let loose a little more here and there, if only to drown out the audience. The crowd was exceptionally talkative, which meant before/after and during songs, enduring gems like, "The Twilight movie soundtrack is the most legitimate movie soundtrack this year. Thom Yorke is on it." Or "I'm on Facebook every fucking day".

Lest cynicism creep in, some of the chatter cut to the heart of things. Before the band launched into "Nice Clean Fight", one girl was audible near the stage. "I love talent," she said. 

Photo Credit: Matt Jacoby

The man's shit is perfect. Check the video for proof.

By Fred Mills

Arizona's mighty Bob Log III, erstwhile frontman of the late, great Doo Rag gonzo blooze duo (ask me sometime about their  legendary tour of swap meets), he of the miked motorcycle helmet, slide guitar glissandos, kickdrum finesse and boob-slapping song choruses, has a new album on the Birdman label. Sensitively titled My Shit Is Perfect, it is indeed perfect, a platter that showcases, in the words of hi handlers, "finger picked lightning, sliding up and down, stopping when it wants to, then starting again when it feels like it, all in a way that makes people move uncontrollably, smile and reel."

Log's also got a tour kicking off next month, one that will take him up an down the west coast, across the Midwest to the east, and then back again. Need we say do not miss this human dynamo and his R-rated brand of rock ‘n' roll? Full tourdates below; more details at www.boblog111.com.

Meanwhie, we'll leave it to Tom Waits to sum up the magic and mystery that is Bob Log III:

"And then there's this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He's this little kid - nobody even knows how old he is - wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can't see his face, and plays slide guitar. It's just the loudest strangest stuff you've ever heard. You don't understand one word he's saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That's what I aspire to basically."

Tour Dates:

5/13 - Los Angeles, CA - Echo Curio

5/14 - Anaheim, CA - The Juke Joint

5/15 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah

5/22 - Tucson, AZ - Plush

6/11 - Las Vegas, NV - Club Aruba

6/12 - Reno, NV - St James Infirmary

6/13 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom Of The Hill

6/16 - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern

6/17 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge

6/18 - Boise, ID - Nerolux

6/19 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge

7/8 - Oklahoma City, OK - 66 Bowl
7/9 - Dallas, TX - The Loft
7/10 - Austin, TX - Emo's Inside Room
7/11 - Houston, TX - Rudyard's
7/12 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks
7/13 - Birmingham, AL - BottleTree
7/14 - Atlanta, GA - E.A.R.L.
7/15 - Greensboro, NC - Artistika Cafe
7/16 - Washington, DC - The Red and Black  Bar
7/17 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
7/18 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
7/19 - Brooklyn, NY - Knitting Factory
7/20 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East Upstairs
7/21 - Burlington, VT - The Monkey House
7/22 - Québec, QC - L'Agitée
7/23 - Montreal, QC - Il Motore
7/24 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern
7/25 - Hamilton, ON - Corktown Tavern
7/26 - Waterloo, ON - Starlight Club
7/27 - Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird Cafe
7/28 - Cleveland, OH - Beachland Tavern
7/29 - Dayton, OH - South Park Tavern
7/30 - Cincinnati, OH - Fountain Square
7/31 - St Louis, MO - Off Broadway Night Club
8/1 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Brass Rail
8/2 - Lansing, MI - Mac's
8/3 - Detroit - MI - Majestic Theatre Cafe
8/4 - Chicago, IL - Schubas Tavern
8/5 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon
8/6 - Iowa City, IA - The Mill
8/7 - Lincoln, NE - Bourbon Theatre
8/8 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge

She's baaaackkk... on Twitter, too. New album getting the thumbs down from critics, however. And what's up with the pink Mickey Mouse ears?

By Fred Mills

She should, and probably did, see it coming: the new album from Courtney Love's reconstituted Hole, titled Nobody's Daughter and issued this week on Mercury, ain't getting much respect from the critics. It's hard to say just yet whether writers have been sharpening their knives or not; Love's been their whipping boy, er, girl, for more than a decade now, so it's not as if we needed a new excuse to pile on. She squandered her stock of rock capital ages ago and has been racking up credibility deficits for so long she's already a punchline. That means, given some of the more pointed commentary that's surfaced thus far, there's a good chance that the record is, in fact, objectively bad.

[Aside: must insert obligatory Nirvana and Kurt Cobain meta-tags here to maximize web traffic.]

USA Today's Edna Gundersen, for example, in a departure from her and her paper's typical mainstream-cheerleader stance, calls Love, in her 2-out-of-5 stars capsule review, "a prepackaged folk-rocker with tonsillitis. Her formidable persona gets lost in the mediocre tunes." Pitchfork's Amanda Petrusich, delivering a blistering 2.9-out-of-10 stars extended review, describes the record as "heartbreakingly banal," whatever that means (as in, she feels bad for Love, or for fans who pay for the record?), calling Love's vocals "garbled and withering," her lyrics "plastic and artless" and the whole comeback project "a badly missed opportunity." MEOW!

Leaving estrogen alley for testosterone boulevard, we find the Washington Post's Joe Heim stating the painfully obvious (though it had to be said): "It's petty and pretentious. It's self-absorbed and self-pitying. It rocks in only the most generic way imaginable. Although its failings were entirely predictable, given who Love has become, it's still a disappointment... [Love is] still howling, only now it sounds so empty... [and] a bigger problem is the shabby songwriting." Even BLURT's own A.D. Amorosi, a chipper fellow who generally looks to find the good qualities in an artist, was compelled to give the album a middling 5-out-of-10 stars, writing, "The vulnerable wild child that exists on Nobody's Daughter is but a mask of the one that existed on Hole's mega-mess (and classic) Live Through This... The majority of the songs here are blithely overproduced with most of its melodies un-memorable as if it (and Love) are caught in the headlights of the ‘90s end with doe-eyed fear rather than ferocity."

These are not isolated slams. The current tally over at Metacritic.com list a score of 58 (out of 100), which pretty much jibes with Amorosi's assessment. It's interesting to check out the reviews at Metacritic, by the way, given the presence of several outright Courtney Love apologists such as BBC Music (who gave the album an 80), Billboard.com (77) and Spin (70); you can read whatever you like into those reviews and ratings, including speculation as to whether or not certain publications are loathe to wax too negatively for fear that they'll have artist access summarily removed. (Spin put Courtney on the cover of a recent issue, incidentally, in one of their typically generic let's-hang-out-with-the-musician-at-home puff pieces that allowed Love to serve up mock penance for her sins under the veneer of a so-called candid, no-holds-barred profile. Bah.)

But the most interesting Nobody's Daughter coverage comes not from any rock critics or celebrity journalism hacks, but from an old collaborator (and presumed paramour) of Love - namely, Billy Corgan. Check out what Corgan has been saying and Twittering about our gal. "I have no interest in supporting her in any way, shape or form. You can't throw enough things down the abyss with a person like that," he told Rolling Stone, recently. He then followed that up with a series of snarky tweets on April 26, just before release day:

Thought #1: my face is my face, my heart is my heart, my money is my money. Oh, and my songs are MY songs+If you can't write your own songs?

Thought #2: if you can't write your own songs maybe you should just be happy that you fooled someone into doing your work for you...

Or, thought #3:maybe you should go someone nice+live off your husband's money, u know the money he made for writing all those great songs.

Thought #4: when you issue someone an apology on YOUR facebook page you might actually mean it and take responsibility for it. But...

Thought #5: the world is aware of your lack of responsibility, as seen in the gov't taking away your parental right. Only you could abandon!

Thought #6: so have your moment, burn up in the sun that laughs at u as equally as it appears to celebrate u+sleep knowing u have no honor.

Dang. Harshness, dude. Thought #7: Twitter really has a dark side to it that makes it the posterchild for UNsocialnetworking. Wouldn't it be great if every time someone had a nasty tweet ready to send, he or she was magically transported into the physical presence of the recipient and forced to say it directly to their face?

Anyhow, Courtney's back on Twitter, in case you missed her during her layoff - check out @CourtneyLoveUK since there's some brunette bimbo from Texas currently claiming the @CourtneyLove address. With Love's track record, you know there's always going to be some kind of sideshow (check out the BLURT coverage of Hole's gig in Austin at SXSW back in March here) worth sticking around for, and you can also bet that the forthcoming tour to promote the album will have its share of fireworks, too.

That's a pretty steamy video, gal.

By Blurt Staff

L.A.'s Carney set out on tour this summer in support of debut album Mr. Green Vol. 1 out May 11th on DAS Label/Interscope.  The tour will include a cross-country trek supporting Athlete.

Carney are known for their incendiary live show with regular sold out LA residencies at the El Rey Theatre and The Troubadour. Carney's first single, "Love Me Chase Me" is already available on iTunes "It's cinematic, it jumps around to different places, and in the span of five minutes, it sort of sums up what we're capable of as a band," says guitarist Zane Carney. "I like having a cinematic approach to music," adds lead singer, Reeve Carney. To that end, the music video for the single co-stars Evan Rachel Wood and was shot on the set of the hit HBO series Carnivale - view it, below.

The brothers are joined by Aiden Moore on bass and Jon Epcar on drums. In addition, frontman Carney has some high-profile extracurricular activities: playing the role of Peter Parker/Spiderman in the upcoming Julie Taymor-directed Broadway production of "Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark", featuring music written by Bono and The Edge.  "An amazing voice and a truly charismatic presence", raves Bono of Reeve.  Reeve Carney has also been cast in the film adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest alongside Helen Mirren, Alan Cumming and Russell Brand.

[Photo of Band: Lauren Dukoff]

Kozelek's latest is all acoustic, due in July.

By Blurt Staff

The new album by Sun Kil Moon is due July 13 from Mark Kozelek's Caldo Verde label. Titled Admiral Fell Promises, it's a 60 minute, ten song album of original material - the vinyl version includes liner notes and two bonus tracks recorded live in St Malo, France.

This is Sun Kil Moon's fourth album but only the third of original material after 2003's Ghosts of the Great Highway and 2008's April. Additionally it is the first that is all acoustic, played entirely by Mark Kozelek on nylon string guitar.

 All purchases direct through the Caldo Verde website will receive a free limited edition 4 song EP entitled 'I'll Be There.' The EP included covers of songs by Stereolab, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and The Jackson 5.

Track listings:

Admiral Fell Promises
 

Alesund

Half Moon Bay

Sam Wong Hotel

Third And Seneca

You Are My Sun

Admiral Fell Promises

The Leaning Tree

Australian Winter

Church Of The  Pines

Bay of Skulls

I'll Be There EP

Third And Seneca (alt version)

Tomorrow Is Already Here

Natural Light

I'll Be There

Mark Kozelek will also be playing the following solo, acoustic shows this summer:

July 26th Brooklyn, NY The Music Hall of Williamsburg

Jul 29th London, UK Union Chapel

Jul 31st Giske, Norway Sommerfesten

Five songer recorded at Stratosphere Sound in NYC.

By Blurt Staff

On a rainy afternoon in February, Göteberg, Sweden's The Soundtrack of Our Lives made their way to Stratosphere Sound (which counts ex-Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha as one of its owners) in New York City. Only hours after landing, they plugged in their equipment and cranked out the five numbers that now comprise Live at Lime with The Soundtrack of Our Lives, an exclusive EP for LimeWire Store. It's the followup to last year's Communion studio album.

"We didn't really think about the songs we played," said vocalist Ebbot Lundberg about the band's Live at Lime session. "I can't really analyze how it works. If it feels good, it feels good."

"TSOOL embody what we hope for when recording these sessions - great musicianship, a fun attitude, and a willingness to play around and give us fresh takes on their material," said Tom Monday, LimeWire Director of Partner Relations. "Add an award-winning engineer like Geoff Sanoff to the mix and it's like magic - it was a joy to watch these guys at work."

Go here to get the EP: Live at Lime with The Soundtrack of Our Lives

You can also watch the band lay down "Second Life Replay" in the studio here in this exclusive video.

EP tracklisting:

Joan of Arc extended family tree has a zillion branches (and at least 24 songs). Check the Cap'n Jazz video from the reunion, below.

By Blurt Staff

Back in January, Cap'n Jazz played a surprise four-song reunion set at the Don't Mind Control Variety Show, and as one reviewer put it, "The building almost crumbled under the weight of nostalgic tremor upon the first few licks of opening (Cap'n Jazz) song, 'Little League.'" Hosted at Chicago's Empty Bottle, the event was a sold-out, one-time gathering of the Joan of Arc family tree that featured nearly 30 musicians - culled from bands such as Euphone, Vacations and Birthmark - who have performed with the band during its 15+ years in existence.

The organizers made a soundboard recording of the show that's now being made available as a free 24 song, 320kbps MP3 download. See the full tracklisting below, and then go here to download the music. Incidentally, Cap'n Jazz is doing a pair of reunion concerts on July 17 and 18 at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago, although both shows are reportedly sold out; the band has indicated it will be announcing more dates soon.

Tracklisting:

1. Euphone w/Tim Kinsella - Friend in Common
2. Euphone w/Tim Kinsella - King Missile Lizard King Jam
3. The Zoo Wheel - The Prize/Water
4. The Zoo Wheel - Hi Honies
5. Owen - No More No Where
6. Litesalive - Tele / Shoulders / Alone and One / Blue-Bronze Player
7. A Tundra - Beer Plugs
8. A Tundra - Fallen Awake
9. A Tundra - The Doug McComb Over
10. Jeremy Boyle - Thanks Todd and Theo
11. Disappears - The 15th (Wire cover)
12. Disappears - Sound of Confusion (Spacemen 3 cover)
13. Cap'n Jazz - Little League
14. Cap'n Jazz - Oh Messy Life
15. Cap'n Jazz - We Are Scientists
16. Cap'n Jazz - Que Suerte
17. Joshua Abrams - [amalgamation of many tunes]
18. Birthmark - Untitled New Song
19. Birthmark - Untitled New Song
20. Birthmark - Untitled New Song
21. Vacations - Friday the 13th Pt. 2
22. Vacations - New Friends
23. Vacations - Ewoks in Domes
24. Slick Conditions - Spit in Layers

"Undisclosed illness" causes cancellation of two key gigs; full details being withheld.

By Fred Mills

Invoking the ominously pregnant terms "unforeseen circumstances" and "undisclosed illness," the Flaming Lips have canceled a pair of concerts following multiinstrumentalist Steven Drozd's hospitalization yesterday. The band was set to play Florida's SunFest tonight (April 29) and the Beale Street Music Festival Memphis on May 1. A hastily-drafted statement from SunFest yesterday read thusly:

"Due to unforeseen circumstances SunFest is announcing a last minute schedule change," a statement from the event reads. "The Flaming Lips have withdrawn from the festival. We regret any inconvenience that this may cause. ... SunFest has been informed that the cancellation is due to due to the hospitalization of Steven Drozd and therefore extends wishes for a speedy recovery."

For the time being the Lips camp is remaining mum about the source of Drozd's hospitalization, although the group's publicist did tell Spinner.com that Drozd is "expected to make a full recovery" from the ailment, whatever it may be. No other dates have been canceled yet, and the band has a number of high-profile festival dates slated for the summer, including Bonnaroo and Glastonbury.

 UPDATE: Pitchfork is reporting that drummer Kliph Scurlock posted a short note to Facebook last night that still doesn't specify what happened but is intended to put fans' minds at ease:

"Kliph Scurlock wants everybody to know that Steven will be just fine as soon as he gets some rest. He (and the rest of us) really appreciate your kind thoughts and well wishes, but please don't worry yourselves."

UPDATE 2: Yesterday Drozd posted his status on his Twitter feed which read:

Thank you, everyone, for your concern. I had to do this and I'm getting it together.

Tour opening for Pearl Jam starts next week; album due out May 18.

By Blurt Staff

From the forthcoming Band of Horses album Infinite Arms (Brown/Fat Possum/Columbia) comes the song "NW Apt." the video was directed by Christopher Wilson.

Next week the band hits the road with Pearl Jam too, followed by a string of headline and festival dates:

WITH PEARL JAM:

05/03/10    Kansas City, Mo -Sprint Center

05/04/10    St. Louis, Mo -Scottrade Center

05/06/10    Columbus, Oh -Nationwide Arena

05/07/10    Noblesville, In -Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

05/09/10    Cleveland, Oh -Quicken Loans Arena

05/10/10    Buffalo, Ny -Hsbc Arena

05/13/10    Bristow, Va Jiffy Lube Live

05/15/10    Hartford, Ct-Xl Center

05/17/10    Boston, Ma -Td Banknorth Garden

05/18/10    Newark, Nj - Prudential Center

05/21/10    New York, Ny -Madison Square Garden

HEADLINE DATES:

05/27/10    Davis, Ca- University Of California, Freeborn Hall

05/30/10    Bend, Or -Les Schwab Amphitheater

05/31/10    George, Wa-Gorge Amphitheater

06/20/10    Brooklyn, Ny - Williamsburg Waterfront (With Grizzly Bear)

NW Apt.

Band Of Horses | MySpace Music Videos

The Threshingfloor aims for the mythic and the epic...

By Fred Mills

In 2008, erstwhile 16 Horsepower frontman David Eugene Edwards painted his masterpiece, under his current moniker, Wovenhand. The Ten Stones album was, at least in the opinion of BLURT and this reviewer, a wildly diverse affair that drew together myriad influences, from rural Americana to gothic noir to pop-tilting psychedelia. (Read the 9-star review here.) Word arrives today that there's a new Wovenhand album incoming, and while it would be hard to top the previous effort, my money's on Edwards for pulling off such a formidable feat.

According to Edwards' label, Sounds Familyre:

The Threshingfloor lies at the foot of a mountain in the American West.  It's American Indian country: chiseled by canyons, where everything is magnificent and arresting and echoes unmistakably with whispers of the supernatural.  In Wovenhand's sixth full-length album, soundscape mimics landscape, towering and jagged like high peaks, enveloping like the star-studded dome of the sky.  We are acutely aware of our own smallness, as our senses are accosted by something otherworldly.

The Threshingfloor is distinctively marked by the place where it was made, but David Eugene Edwards also gathers threads from other places both mythical and familiar; faraway places, well beyond the borders of his home state.  The result is a stunning album that embroiders strands of Eastern and Balkan influences into the fabric of American folk music.&n bsp; As a child, Edwards would dig through records at the public library for these treasures-first, Appalachian folk, later, music from all over the world.  Now, he travels.  Sounds from the band's recent tours in Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey weave through the record with the unmistakable voices of the Hungarian shepherd's flute, the Greek oud, the Turkish saz.  Lilts of Hungarian and Romany pepper the album, subtle imprints from both the Hungarian folk band that Wovenhand performs with regularly and the Iranian and Moroccan music that captivated Edwards during the writing of this record.  The Threshingfloor connects places as disparate as Mongolia and South Dakota, showing off their richness like desert gems.

The album is due out this summer and features Edwards' cohorts Pascal Humbert on bass and drummer Ordy Garrison, plus guest Peter Eri on "Hungarian shepherd's flute" (cool!); it was co-produced by Edwards and Robert Ferbrache.

And you can bet we'll have a full report on it too. We've been fans of Edwards since his ‘90s work with 16 Horsepower and he's yet to disappoint us. Meanwhile, check out the band on the web at their MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/wovenhand

Following a grating set by Nurses, Kristian Matsson - aka The Tallest Man On Earth - showed a sold-out April 23 crowd at hipster venue the Black Cat how things get done. Screaming fangirls not optional.

By Roxana Hadadi / Photos By Adam Fried

The Internet is a peculiar thing. About 10 months ago, when The Tallest Man on Earth a.k.a. Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson opened for John Vanderslice at the Black Cat in Washington, D.C., barely a fraction of the already small audience (about one-third of the venue's 700-person capacity) had any idea who Matsson was. In fact, the Black Cat itself got the artist's name wrong on a sign outside - calling him "The Tallest Man in the World" - until someone pointed out the mistake and it was hastily corrected with handwritten marker.

And sure, Matsson had a few screaming fangirls in attendance, but for the most part, people were there for Vanderslice - and the blueberry pie he was handing out to the audience was definitely an added bonus.

But on Friday, April 23, the Black Cat was mysteriously packed - sold out, even - just for little ol' Matsson (that was literal, because, you know ... he's short). Maybe it had to do with his latest album, "The Wild Hunt," which came out earlier this month, or maybe it was because of his MySpace profile, which has gathered hundreds of thousands of listens on some tracks. Either way, the venue was overrun with Tallest Man on Earth fans jonesing for the singer-songwriter's mesh of old-school Americana and bluesy folk.

They weren't alone, though - the crowd was also mixed with pastel-wearing, Teva-donning upper-middle class yuppies who made it seem like Georgetown had vomited all over the little club on 14^th Street. And those paunchy suburbanites cared a whole lot more about the Black Cat's drinks than Matsson's songs, leading to a few uncomfortable instances where the singer's emotionally wrenching ballads were interrupted by far-too-loud lushes. Keep it classy, D.C.

The night began with an opening set from Portland band Nurses, whose heavy use of synthesizers and drum machines got real old, real quick. During their 45 or so minutes, more than a few girls swayed and gyrated back and forth to the band's droning, Animal Collective-like songs - but they all seemed to be wearing some variation of an outfit including cut-off denim shorts, tights and boots (new D.C. hipster uniform, apparently), so what do they know?

Yet when Matsson took the stage, it was those same girls that fueled much of the maniacal shrieking that met him. And during his 12-song set, which drew heavily from his 2008 album, "Shallow Grave," and "The Wild Hunt," Matsson did a lot to encourage their wide-eyed fanaticism: Much like his performance last year, there were lots of stares off into the distance; leaning over the edge of the stage into people's faces; and sheepish facial expressions, as Matsson seemed genuinely surprised by the dedication of the crowd. That modesty seemed most evident on some of the crowd's most favorite tracks, like "The Gardener" and "Pistol Dreams" from "Shallow Grave," when Matsson let the crowd take over singing duties as he strolled around the stage, ducking into shadows.

Metaphorical? Maybe. But Matsson still delivered. He started things by immediately launching into the title track from "The Wild Hunt," which introduced listeners to the fractured English, but simplistic beauty, of his lyrics: "I left my heart to the wild hunt a-comin/ I live until the call/ And I plan to be forgotten, when I'm gone/ Yes, I'll be leavin' in the fall." Similarly inquisitive about the nature of life and salvation was the next track, "Thousand Ways," in which Matsson half-mused, half-snarled, "I have lived for ages, I'm a thousand turns of tides/ I'm a thousand wakes of springtime, and a thousand infant cries ... But I'll always be blamed for the sun going down with us all/ But I'm the light in the middle of every man's fall." A little spiritual, a little metaphysical ... Matsson does it all.

And of course, the man was overwhelmingly gracious, numerously thanking the crowd - "I'm so happy to be back here," he stammered out before "Thousand Ways" - while also singling out his manager Niclas Stenholm, whom he invited onstage. Really, the only time Matsson even bordered on rude was when he shushed the crowd to announce his gratitude for Stenholm. Be quiet, people! A bromance is upon you.

But no one was going to quiet down, not even when Matsson littered his setlist with seriously somber picks like "Where Do My Bluebird Fly" and "You're Going Back" from "The Wild Hunt," which elicited many off-key, impassioned sing-alongs (especially during the line "You're just a target in the sky" from the former song). And when he struck up the intro for the set's closer "King of Spain," it was like he had just handed out his cell phone number or announced he was opening up a free kissing booth after the show: Girls squealed, friends clung to each other, spasms of glee abounded - and, expectedly, Matsson blushed. What else is new?

"A collaboration they've been dreaming about for years" Meloy + artist Carson Ellis.

By Blurt Staff

Decemberists mainman Colin Meloy, no stranger to flights of lyrical whimsy, and an author in his own right, is now set to deploy his active imagination in the field of children's literature. HarperCollins Publishers announced yesterday that it has acquired North American rights to Wildwood, a middle-grade series by Meloy, illustrated by acclaimed artist Carson Ellis. Wildwood is described as "a classic tale of adventure, magic, and danger, set in an alternate version of modern-day Portland, Oregon."

It's a 3-book deal for Meloy, with the first one due in the fall of 2011.

"Storytelling and rich imagery are hallmarks of Colin's songs, so writing a novel seems like a perfect next step for him," said Donna Bray of HarperCollins imprint Balzer & Bray. "Wildwood is both incredibly original yet timeless - nothing less than an American Narnia. We're thrilled to introduce such an exciting new voice in children's literature."

Steven Malk of Writers House added, "Colin and Carson tap into the greatest potential of an illustrated novel; the words and images invigorate each other in a way readers rarely get to experience."

"The germ of this series goes back a long way," Meloy said. "For me, this is the culmination of a long-term collaboration with Carson, matching words and art.  I grew up on a steady diet of Lloyd Alexander, Roald Dahl, and Tolkien; this is our humble paean to that grand tradition of epic adventure stories." Artist Ellis, who first rose to prominence as the artist who created the band's iconic visual look, and has gone on to illustrate bestselling books such as The Mysterious Benedict Society and Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead, commented, "Wildwood is a project very close to my heart - the collaboration that Colin and I have been dreaming about for years."

BONUS BEATS: Name the two separated-at-birth celebrities, below.

...some things just don't need a caption, now, do they?

5-LP vinyl box also includes exclusive 7" single of Akron/Family collaborating with Kasai Allstars.

By Blurt Staff

Here's one for you, world beat-cum-indie rock fanatics.

The acclaimed Congotronics series gets the deluxe vinyl box treatment this summer courtesy Crammed Discs, the Belgium-based label that has been documenting the electrified traditional music of Congolese acts including Konono N°1, Staff Benda Bilili and Kasai Allstars. The limited edition, one-time-only pressing will contain all 5 Congotronics albums to date (full list below), an exclusive 7" featuring a collaboration between Kasai Allstars and US psych-rock-folk adventurers Akron/Family, plus a re-usable Congotronics USB pen drive with videos & mp3s and a specially-designed book featuring photography from Kinshasa.

Here' what you get:

- Konono No 1 Vinyl LP: Congotronics
- Congotronics 2 /"Buzz'n'Rumble From The Urb'n'Jungle" Vinyl LP (feat. five different Kinshasa bands)
- Kasai Allstars Vinyl LP: In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic
- Staff Benda Bilili Vinyl LP: Très Très Fort
- the brand-new Konono No 1 double vinyl LP: Assume Crash Position
- a Congotronics book with exclusive photos from Kinshasa, Congo.
- a customized, re-usable 2Gb USB pen drive containing 9 videos, and mp3s (in 320 kbps) of all 5 albums.
- 7" vinyl with two exclusive tracks by Kasai Allstars, one of them featuring a collaboration with Akron/Family
 

The five albums above, including Konono No1's Assume Crash Position will also be made available to the customer for immediate download when the orders are processed on May 15th (i.e. prior to the release date of the new Konono album). Orders should be shipped out around June 30.

 
Each vinyl (180 gr) will come in an original sleeve, and an inner sleeve of a different colour, reproducing the Congotronics fabric which will be on the box (with a design resembling that of the fabrics used for dresses & robes in the Congo, based on the Congotronics logo).
 

Full details and ordering info at the Crammed Discs site, natch.

Helps if you're going to one of the London concerts, of course...

By Blurt Staff

This Sunday, May 2, fans of Iggy and the Stooges will be able to purchase RAW POWER "LIVE" on USB stick and MP3 download when the band perform their seminal 1973 album at the London HMV Hammersmith Apollo.

The instant digital live concert recording is the brainchild of Music Networx (whose other digital live recordings includes KISS, Alice Cooper, Madness, Simply Red, Brett Anderson, Foreigner and Simple Minds) - you'll be able to either pre-order the concert stick or MP3 download from www.simfylive.com/iggypop, or they can pick up the USB stick in person right after the May 2 concert.

The same goes for the second Raw Power London Apollo concert on Monday May 3rd. The USB stick will retail for £20 pounds sterling, or can be downloaded via MP3 for €14.95 euros from www.simfylive.com.

Check those currency converter charts, North American fans!

Streaming service set to shutter on May 31 with no details yet disclosed. We're betting that President Obama already has a subscription to Spotify...

By Fred Mills

Boy, here's one you didn't see coming... well, that depends on whether or not you subscribed to Rhapsody (reportedly on the rails) or listened to music at MySpace Music (in 2010 the equivalent of a 26k dial-up connection). Come to think of it, pretty much everybody saw this coming. Especially music consumers NOT in North America, enviously eyeing overseas folks (and occasional lucky-ass people Stateside; Lefsetz, we're talkin' to YOU), whose dewy-eyed testimonials about Spotify have pumped up the volume to the point where nobody in their right mind would sign up for any kind of music streaming service not clearly and definitively looking at least, oh, 6 months into the future. Like Spotify. Which the major labels seem determined to, if not stymie, at least bow to their will. Time will show the wiser.

Lala (aka lala.com, aka www.lala.com) unexpectedly posted this message at their sign in page today:

"Lala is shutting down. The Lala service will be shut down on May 31^st, 2010. Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting new users. Members, you can still use Lala through May 31^st, 2010. Log in for details."

Members who did log in received a generic message expressing thanks for the "support" and indicating that they would "receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple's iTunes Store."

As we all know, Lala was bought by Apple not long ago. Like we said - if you didn't see this coming (given Apple's deep pockets and history), well...

It's not like the Lala music player(s) and interface(s) were particularly intuitive or helpful in the first place. Music websites viewed the partnerships as stupid money, but consumers rarely were heard singing Lala's praises, so  smart money is on no tears shed in the long run. Prediction: Apple fine-tuning and expanding iTunes (no pun intended) to the point where the government files an antitrust suit. Guess who will have deeper pockets? No doubt Lefsetz will have a commentary set for an email blast any second now, too...

 Read more about this news here.

Despite membership shuffles and even the occasional legal tussle, they never completely went away.

By Fred Mills

The mighty Wishbone Ash, extant in various forms since the late ‘60s - anybody who doesn't own their classic album Argus really doesn't know much about rock ‘n' roll - but often consigned in the minds of fans as an old dinosaur/classic rock act, is about to release their first new studio recording in ages.

The good news? "Reason to Believe," due May 17 at iTunes, sounds like they never left. (The band can be found at WishboneAsh.com, btw.) The bad news? Their ain't any. Check out the official video, below. That's followed by a vintage live clip of "Warrior" from 1973.

The other news? Well, this is the Andy Powell-led Ash. Powell was one of the founders. There's also the other founder, Martin Turner, who tours under the Wishbone Ash name as well; check him out at WishboneAsh.co.uk. (Hint: both outfits have their merits.)