Taken from his new Thrill Jockey album Leaving The Commonwealth.

By Blurt Staff

D. Charles Speer, also known as Dave Shuford of the No Neck Blues Band, recently issued his full band album, Leaving The Commonwealth, a hot batch of tunes that draw from Memphis string band blasters, Georgia soul merchants, Texas and California psych, Cajun and country influences, and anything with gusto to spare.  We recently reviewed the album, with our writer singling out its "country ballads, Civil War laments, bluegrass-y raveups and a couple of Cajun party tunes."

MP3: "Freddie's Lapels"

Speer's label, Thrill Jockey, also just unveiled a video from album track "Le Grand Cochon":

D. Charles Speer & The Helix - Le Grand Cochon from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

The band is hitting the road in support of the album:

May 12  Washington, DC  The Velvet Lounge

May 13  Pittsburgh, PA  Howler's

May 14  Oberlin, OH     Jack Fest

May 14  Cleveland, OH   Pat's In The Flats

May 15  Milwaukee, WI   Franks Power Plant

May 17  Minneapolis, MN Medusa

May 18  Iowa City, IA   White Lightning Warehouse

May 19  Chicago, IL     The Empty Bottle

May 20  Detroit, MI     PJ's Lager House

May 21  Columbus, OH    The Summit

May 22  Nashville, TN   Betty's

May 23  Chapel Hill, NC Nightlight

May 24  Blacksburg, VA  The Cellar w/The Black Twig Pickers

May 25  Baltimore, MD   Golden West

Not exactly what you might be expecting from the gentleman...

By Blurt Staff

It's likely the only place you'll find the Isley Brothers, Chromeo, Jon Brion and ELO rubbing shoulders: lightly-hued funk soul brother Mayer Hawthorne drops a free covers EP this week called Impressions, and it's a winner all around.

Go here to nab the free download of the EP, which debuted earlier this week at RollingStone.com.

TRACKLISTING:

Work To Do - Isley Bros

Don't Turn the Lights On - Chromeo

You Got The Makings Of A Lover - The Festivals 

Fantasy Girl - Steve Salazar

Little Person - Jon Brion

Mr Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra

STORY BEHIND THE SONGS:

1. Work To Do- Isley Bros

This one features my live band, The County: Quentin Joseph on drums, Topher Mohr on guitar, Quincy McCrary on piano, and Joe Abrams on bass. It was recorded live in a radio station studio somewhere during our Winter 2010 US tour. The tapes recently surfaced, but nobody can remember exactly where we were. The song is originally by The Isley Brothers, and that's the only version I was familiar with until we started playing it in our live shows and people would come up to us and say "hey, loved your cover of Average White Band!".

2. Don't Turn The Lights On- Chromeo

My favorite track from Chromeo's latest LP. On the surface it's an electro-funk, dance floor filler, but underneath is a brilliant love ballad with lyrics that reminded me of something from Tyrone Davis. Dave1 (of Chromeo) told me the song is about a guy who falls in love with a ghost, so I wanted my version to have an eerie, ghostly feel to it. Quincy McCrary played the creepy piano solo at the end.

3. You've Got The Makings Of A Lover- The Festivals

Textbook Northern Soul from a little known Dallas, Texas group called The Festivals. I was digging for records in NY with my homey DJ Kurse, and the shopkeeper played the 45 in the store. Both of us immediately ran up to the counter and said "yo! what is THAT?!". The original version was recorded in the late 60s, and the mix isn't very good. I wanted a version that I could bump. Quentin Joseph played the drums and we recorded them at Sam Beaubien's studio in Detroit. That's Sam playing the trumpet as well.

4. Fantasy Girl - Steve Salazar

This song was written and composed by an amazing man from Pasadena named Steve Salazar. He was born with a heart condition and passed away at the young age of 27. Before he died he recorded one incredible album of demos in the mid-70s with a band called Shorty's Portion. Peanut Butter Wolf found a copy of the album and I loved it so much that he gave it to me (thanks Wolf!). The vinyl had a handwritten note tucked in the sleeve that was addressed to anyone who could help the band with management, a record deal, radio airplay, etc. I'd estimate there were less than 300 copies pressed. That's my Dad playing pedal steel guitar on my version.

5. Little Person- Jon Brion

Jon Brion is not from this planet. He penned this song for the soundtrack to Charlie Kaufman's film "Synecdoche, NY". I didn't get the film at all, but I really got the soundtrack. The original has only female vocal and piano, but I always heard a larger arrangement. Hubert Alexander played some of the piano and I did everything else.

6. Mr. Blue Sky- ELO

This one also features my band, The County, and was recorded live, in one take, in a tiny makeshift tent, at a festival in Dour, Belgium.

Texas rockers confirm dates and artists for Dia De Los Toadies 2011, debut video for LCD Soundsystem cover.

By Blurt Staff

Since resurfacing in 2006 after a label-hassle induced absence, the Toadies have been full-speed ahead. Along with 2008’s comeback No Deliverance and the 2010 resurrection of their lost album Feeler, the Texas-based alt-rockers have toured relentlessly and conceived/curated their own festival, Dia De Los Toadies. Now it’s already time for the fourth such fest – Dia De Los Toadies Cuatro, which will occur August 26 and 27 at the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, TX.

“The Dia festival keeps getting better every year,” says guitarist Clark Vogeler. “It always feels like a big family reunion with a great soundtrack.” Whitewater, he says, seems like it was designed specifically with the Dia festival in mind, with multiple stages, “lots of shade and the ever-flowing Guadalupe River there to cool us all down whenever we want.”

The music menu – featuring all Texas-based acts – has included The Secret Machines, Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears, The Heartless Bastards, Ben Kweller, Two Tons of Steel, Bowling for Soup, Centro-matic, and Sleepercar. First among the acts confirmed for Dia Cuatro are The Sword and UME, with more to be announced soon.

After the festival, the Toadies will play a handful of dates before hunkering down to crank out another platter for release later this year. An acoustic record and Toadies tribute CD are also in the queue.

See below for a video from last years Dia De Los Toadies performance in which the band performs an acoustic cover of LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great.” The clip was produced and edited by Vogeler, who is an Emmy Award-winning editor and recently worked on Bombay Beach, a documentary that premiered at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.

TOADIES – “SOMEONE GREAT (LIVE ACOUSTIC LCD SOUNDSYSTEM COVER)

Kickstarter-funded album due in June - take a look at the bewitching video, below.

By Blurt Staff

Marissa Nadler has debuted a new video for "Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning," the first single off her forthcoming self-titled album out June 14 on her own Box of Cedar Records.

MP3: "Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning"

Produced by Nadler and Guy Benoit, the video for "Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning," was shot at The Grand Manor in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The storyline: "Marissa depicts a lonely character singing to herself in various empty rooms of an antique manor. As the sadness and longing consume her, she fades into psychedelic fever dreams losing grip of reality. The clip shows the character walking around the abandoned house in a white wedding dress, overcome by nostalgia. All that remains are old player pianos, mannequins, costumes,  and memories of her forsaken love." Check out the video, below.

As previously announced, Nadler is self-releasing the new album and funding it via a successful Kickstarter campaign. She's also offering a string of hand-painted records and original artwork via Etsy.

Recently performing several dates with Low, Marissa will embark on a summer tour behind her new album, starting with Timber Timbre in June. More dates to be announced shortly.

Tue. Jun 7 @ 9:30 PM - Seattle, WA - The Sunset
Wed. Jun 8  @ 9 PM - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
Fri. Jun 10 @ 8 PM - San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall
Sat. Jun 11 @ 8:30 PM - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater  
Sun. Jun 12 @ 9:30 PM - San Diego, CA - Casbah  

Marissa Nadler - "Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning" from Alec K. Redfearn on Vimeo.

Pop/punk sisters put the "manic" back into Manic Panic - the musical manic, that is...

By Blurt Staff

The full-length isn't out until next year, but for now, fanboys can settle in with an EP that arrives June 21. Teenage sisters Jewel & Blaire Restaneo, front-women of Pixikill, will release their first EP The Luring, executive produced by award winning multi-platinum songwriter/producer PJ Bianco (Jonas Brothers, Metro Station), was written entirely by Jewel and Blaire and features their explosive first single "Chameleon." Check out the self-produced/directed/edited video for "Chameleon:

Okay, now that your eyes are suitably singed, some background: Jewel and Blaire, originally from Pittsburgh, eventually joined the national touring company of Annie then moved to New York City where they appeared in Annie Get Your Gun and A Christmas Carol, along with making several appearances in kid roles on Saturday Night Live. After four years in New York, Jewel and Blaire headed for Los Angeles, where they started playing guitar, writing original songs, and forming Pixikill.

If that seems like a reasonable formula for a teen-pop "sensation," well, you'd be wrong, but it's a safe bet that the industry wheels are turning for these kids...

Jewel and Blaire handle the songwriting and arranging duties along with guitars, vocals, and synth, while Mike Kimchi plays drums and Victor Trevino and Chris Norwood multi-task with bass, guitar, keyboards, and synth.

Each with very special artwork...

By Blurt Staff

Van Dyke Parks has announced the launch of  a unique series of 7" vinyl singles, the first new studio music in over 15 years since he released his acclaimed album Orange Crate Art. Each vinyl single is illustrated by some of the most important modern artists of the time. Out on his own label Bananastan and distributed by City Hall/ Runt worldwide, the singles will be released starting in August, available wherever vinyl records are sold, as well as online at the label's website, eBay store, and during live performances.

Parks intends to release six new singles over the course of 2011.  He  has commissioned selected artists to illustrate each single with what he describes as "a work of art that relates to the music within." The first two singles to be released will be the Ed Ruscha-illustrated "Dreaming of Paris" / "Wedding in Madagascar" and the Art Spiegelman-illustrated "Wall Street" / "Money Is King." The other artists slated for the series include Frank Holmes, Charles Ray, Sally Parks and Billy Edd Wheeler.

Parks said of the singles, "They are from highly different genres, each of them. They don't cohere. They belong somewhere. But the emphasis on the visual art is a big, big deal. These are the pre-eminent American artists of our time. We're calling it "Nouveau Niche."

In addition, Parks just announced a September 20th release date for a compilation album of some of his greatest arrangements. Arrangements by Van Dyke Parks will contain 15 songs featuring artists including Arlo Guthrie, Ry Cooder, Little Feat, Sal Valentino, Mojo Men, Bonnie Raitt, Dino Martin, Lowell George and Van Dyke Parks himself.      

With her new Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, out next week on the Diesel Only label, the Americana songstress serves up a show-stealing tribute. Nab a free download from the album, below.

By Lee Zimmerman

Laura Cantrell's come a long way since she first befriended John Flansburgh, co-leader of the band They Must Be Giants, over a decade ago and made her tentative bow singing on one of their albums.  Yet, it's to her credit that Cantrell's never turned her back on her earliest influences, paying homage to Burt Bacharach and Hal David on the title track of her last album, Trains and Boats and Planes, while covering the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Merle Haggard, John Hartford, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot as well. 

A popular deejay at WFMU-FM and a contributor to both The New York Times and Vanity Fair.com, she knows her way around her subjects, but even so, it's remarkable how she summons the spirit of Country music queen Kitty Wells and finds common ground between this classic material and her own tempestuous treatments. The title track, the album's sole original offering, sets the stage with an evocative ode to both Wells and her contemporaries - Mother May Maybel, June Carter Cash and all the other Rockabilly ladies that made a mark "from Mobile to Memphis." She may be voicing every girl's dream, as she says in the song, but she still makes the sentiments her own.

The rest of the record follows suit, and in tapping into these tunes, Cantrell actually seems to transform herself into that big-haired balladeer. The sweet, homespun honky-tonk that distinguished Wells' work is nicely nurtured here, and when the fiddles kick off Wells' signature song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels," authenticity is all but assured. Shimmering steel guitar maintains a cool caress, steering the sound from classic to contemporary and blurring the lines in-between. A bruised and battered "One By One" -- which finds her locked in a duet with Chuck Mead of BR549 -- effectively rekindles the spirit of Johnny and June, while the heartbroken ballad "I Gave My Wedding Dress Away," with its obligatory spoken word interlude, effectively captures the bittersweet remorse articulated by all the great Country crooners.

Yet even pitted against her predecessors, Cantrell herself steals the show, demonstrating that even in channeling a Country queen, she's still capable of seizing the spotlight.

First single from acclaimed songbird's new album.


By Blurt Staff


Not long ago we featured Daisy McCrackin in our series Songwriter We'd Like To Get To Know Better. Here's her single "I Think I'm A Ghost" from the Los Angeles actress/singer-songwriter off her new album titled God Willing.


It's now available digitally on iTunes and will see a physical summer release on Aeronaut Records.



MP3: "I Think I'm A Ghost"

Photo Credit: Stephanie Schneider

By Blurt Staff

Portland-L.A. psych-folk avatars the Parson Red Heads announce the release of their newest LP, Yearling, due Aug. 16 from Arena rock. The quartet also hit the road in June with Alela Diane & Wild Divine.

For a preview of what to expect, give a listen to "Burning Up the Sky" from the Yearling LP.

The 11-track album was produced by sometimes-band-mate Raymond Richards at Red Rockets Glare (Los Angeles CA) and by Chris Stamey, of legendary Southern jangle-pop band, The dB's, at Mitch Easter's Fidelitorium Studios (Kernersville, NC); and Yearling  was mixed by Stamey at Modern Recording (Chapel Hill, NC).

‘The title of the new record Yearling has all sorts of meanings', says singer Evan Way. ‘For us...with this album...the obvious is that the record took between one and two years to make (see: definition of ‘yearling') but it means much more than that. The collection of songs tell stories about learning as you go, moving on when you finally realize you can't turn back and loving people when you can. It's a record about growing up made by a band that's growing up (and still are!). The songs and messages are very important to us, as are the performances and memories we have of the creation of this album. We consider it a big step for us, although one step of many, but an important one nonetheless.'

 June 1 - Tractor Tavern - Seattle, WA *
June 2 - Rio Theatre - Vancouver, BC *
June 4 - Miss Studios - Portland, OR *
June 7 - Hi-Dive - Denver, CO *
June 8 - Bottleneck - Lawrence, KS *
June 9 - Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL *
June 11 - Rivoli - Toronto, ON *
June 12 - Il Motore - Montreal, QB *
June 13 - The Skinny Pancake - Burlington, VT 
June 15 - Space 538 - Portland, ME *
June 16 - Brighton Music Hall - Boston, MA *
June 17 - City Winery - NYC, NY *
June 18 - Knitting Factory - Brooklyn, NY *
June 19 - Iota - Washington, DC *
June 20 - Kings Barcade - Raleigh, NC *
June 21 - The Earl - Atlanta, GA *
June 23 - The Bottletree - Brimingham, AL *
June 25 - Stubbs JR - Austin, TX *
June 27 - Plush - Tucson, AZ
June 29 - Echo - LA, CA *
June 30 - New Parish - Oakland, CA *
July 1 - Henry Miller Library - Big Sur, CA *
July 2 - Center for the Arts - Grass Valley, CA *

w/ Alela Diane & Wild Divine *

Google makes a power play? Well, what would YOU do: shoot the horse and send it to the glue factory, or keep housing and feeding it for another X number of years?

By Fred Mills

UPDATE 7pm: Billboard.biz has added a story on why the labels and Google could not come to an agreement on licenses, and why Google went ahead and launched without their blessings. 

Cloud-based music services, aka digital music lockers: you might've heard of ‘em. Possibly back in March, when Amazon unveiled their Amazon Cloud Drive and related digital ephemera aimed at letting you store your music collection online (well, part of it, anyway; up to 5 gigs, about 1000 songs, are free, but then it will cost you $100 a year for 100 GB) instead of on your hard drive or your basement shelves, and not incidentally, also aimed at convincing you to buy product from their MP3 store.

Now this week comes the big news that Google is launching its own cloud service, called at the moment Music Beta, where you can stuff that storage locker full of tunes and, like the Amazon deal, stream and download from pretty much any web-connected location you happen to find yourself at. You can get all the details at the Billboard.biz report that ran yesterday - including the part about it being an invite-only deal at the moment (but don't let that hold you back) -as well as this followup report that includes illustrations and Google's promo video (also below).

The fascinating part, however, is that just like Amazon, Google is launching without licensing agreements with the major labels. One Google exec is quotes as saying the company had been in protracted negotiations with the majors, but that they "were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms." Google added that they "remain open to partnerships with the music industry" but as you might imagine, that's just a tactful way of saying, "Hey, we're going to move forward whether you fucking like it or not, but get in touch when you decide you don't want to be on the wrong side of history."

Indeed, industry observer Wayne Rosso, of the respected "Wayne's World" blog, astutely suggests in his latest entry that much of this was inevitable, and that both Amazon and Google intend to remain out in front on cloud service issues as all signs suggest this is exactly what the consumers have been wanting. (In my opinion, it may be more a case of consumers not knowing what they want, but will always gravitate towards something new and cool, and then the voting-with-pocketbook ensues.) More important, unless the labels figure out how to cooperate with Google and Amazon in a mutually beneficial, as opposed to one-sided, manner, their hopes of reviving their near-terminal patient will continue to diminish.

Writes Rosso, "Frankly I'm thrilled that Google decided to move forward without label cooperation. It's time that major record labels got knocked from their pedestals and hopefully realize that they don't necessarily have all of the leverage any longer. For years label arrogance cost investors tens of millions of wasted dollars. Nobody wants to deal with them. Since Google and Amazon have launched services without going through licensing hell, maybe investors will be more willing to come back to the digital music sector.

"In the meantime the unlicensed Google music service, along with Amazon's, could very well be the deathblow to a recording industry that is currently on life support. Unreasonable demands have now cost the labels a lot of money and it's unlikely that they'll ever see a dime from Google. They were counting on Google to help save them from Apple and bring them some big coin."

As one wag put it to me, "Across the Atlantic we've been seeing the uprisings of the Arab Spring. Maybe this is the beginning of the Cloud Service Spring..."