It'll make you forget those Lana Del Rey vids pretty quickly...

By Blurt Staff

This has gotta be one of our favorite new songs - that spookysexycool "Concrete Waves" by NYC soul songstress Kendra Morris. Shot on location in the city by director Nick Sasso, it's "a tale of obsessive love gone bad." Her debut for the Wax Poetics label, the song is from her forthcoming album, due next spring. You can purchase the single/EP for "Concrete Waves" at Wax Poetics, natch.

Kendra Morris “Concrete Waves” from Wax Poetics on Vimeo.

"You're My Friend" from forthcoming Sunkissed album, via Akron/Family's new label.

By Blurt Staff

Wasn't too long ago that we got word about Akron/Family launching their own record label, Family Tree Records, with their first signing being Denver's Bad Weather California. From their 2012 Sunkissed album comes the ace track "You're My Friend" and we're pretty stoked to be able to serve it up to ya as a free MP3:

Bad Weather California "You're My Friend" by Howlin' Wuelf Media

Here's what Seth Olinksy from Akron/Family says: "This Bad Weather California track could be looked at many ways: part roller rink alt anthem, part Tom Tom Club meets Black Lips meets Motown, and then there's chorused big man sax, or maybe they all just meet up outside of the roller rink and drink beer listening from the outside, well, anyways, who cares what the parts are or how many ways you could look at it. Bad Weather California set out to make an album for the kids and here you have it: ‘You're My Friend,' the last track on BWC's new album Sunkissed, is an anthem made to the middle school kid in all of us. In 2:30, the song has just enough time to roll by your house on a Friday night, see your bedroom light on, and convince you to go roaming the streets smoking cigarettes and looking for something at all to do and maybe that's when you end up at the parking lot outside of the roller skating rink. Yes, that's right, that's how we got there, and from outside you hear the chorus, ‘Just remember what I always told you, you're not a fuck up, you're my friend.' and you're feeling better already."

We could not have said it better because, in fact, we are permanently stuck in our "middle school" phase and BWC seems to have just the right kind of mojo to make it a little less painful...

[Photo Credit: Cory Gustason]

Will also release 4^th full-length at the end of January.

By Blurt Staff

With news still fresh about the new Grimes album Visions (due Jan. 31 on Arbutus; read details and listen to first single "Oblivion" right here), she's now announced a spring tour with Born Gold. It will kick off Febr. 18 in Vancouver and run through the end of March. Here are the tour dates:

Tour Dates:

2/18 - Fortune Sound Club - Vancouver, BC*
2/20 - Sunset Tavern - Seattle, WA*
2/21 - Holocene - Portland, OR*
2/24 - Echo - Los Angeles, CA*
2/25 - Soda Bar - San Diego, CA*
2/27 - Rhythm Room - Phoenix, AZ*
2/29 - Lambert's - Austin, TX*
3/1 - Dan's Silverleaf - Denton, TX*
3/2 - LBC Quad - Tulane University - New Orleans, LA*
3/3 - Cats Purring - Oxford, MS*
3/5 - Drunken Unicorn - Atlanta, GA*
3/6 - The Orpheum - Tampa, FL*
3/7 - Backbooth - Orlando, FL*
3/8 - Bardot Miami - Miami, FL*
3/13 - 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN*
3/14 - Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL*
3/19 - Legendary Horseshoe Tavern - Toronto, ON*
3/20 - Brillobox - Pittsburgh, PA*
3/21 - Str8 Cavin - Baltimore, MD*
3/22 - Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA*
3/23 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY*
3/24 - Glasslands - Brooklyn, NY*
3/26 - Great Scott - Allston, MA*
3/31 - Cabaret Mile End - Montreal, QC*

*with Born Gold

Listen to "Show Me The Place," below.

By Fred Mills

With news still fresh about the impending (Jan. 31) Columbia Records release of Leonard Cohen's Old Ideas, the cover, tracklisting and first single have all arrived from The Bard. "The album's ten songs poetically address some of the most profound quandaries of human existence - the relationship to a transcendent being, love, sexuality, loss and death," says the accompanying press release of this "most overtly spiritual" album.

Go here to read the BLURT review of Cohen's recent The Complete Albums box set.

"Show Me The Place"

Show Me The Place by leonardcohen

Tracklisting:

1 Going Home
2 Amen
3 Show Me the Place
4 The Darkness
5 Anyhow
6 Crazy to Love You
7 Come Healing
8 Banjo
9 Lullaby
10 Different Sides

September 21-24 in Montreal, the ten-year-old music bash celebrated home grown talent.

 Text/Photos by Michael Toland

Music festivals proliferate around the globe at an almost alarming rate, with only the best-known getting the most press. This means that many festivals get overlooked in the glut. In the case of Pop Montreal, that's a shame. No spring chicken (the fest turned ten this year), the festival offers not only a smorgasbord of bands, but also art shows, panels, films, a record show and the backdrop of the spectacular city of Montreal. Even better, the music lineup is probably 95% Canadian, giving heavy support to its homegrown music - both Anglophone and Francophone. If anything, Pop Montreal recalls the early years of the more celebrated South By Southwest, when the focus was local and success hadn't yet stuck in its throat. It was a privilege to be invited to sample the 2011 edition of the festival for four of its five days, in which we concentrated on Canadian music exclusively (with a couple of exceptions, detailed below).

Wednesday 9/21/11

A rescheduled flight meant arriving in Montreal several hours later than planned and missing the opening ceremonies. But it was still enough time to hit a club - specifically Divan Orange, the kind of dive bar found in any city in the world, thus a good first choice for a stranger. Our arrival coincided with locals No Joy hitting the stage, a particularly well-timed moment. (Bass Drum of Death was scheduled, but the Mississippi band was denied entrance into Canada.) The co-ed quartet wasted no time ripping into its melodic acidcore. Lathering simple rock/pop riffs in enough distortion and effects to choke a dustbuster and reverbing the vocals into incomprehensibility, the band made mincemeat out of songs from its new LP Ghost Blonde, sounding like a mid-80s SST band after overdosing on mescaline. The group lived up to its name with its members' collective uncommunicative demeanor, but there was nothing dour about its performance. No Joy simply came out, did its thing with all the intensity it could muster, and left the stage in a haze of feedback.

After No Joy's set, the club was instantly packed to the gills for the next act: Japandroids. The talkative Vancouver duo was miffed that their friends in Bass Drum of Death couldn't get into the country, pleased that No Joy filled in on short notice and happy to see the eager crowd, and the pair's exuberance was evident in its unbridled attack. The rush of energy blowing off the stage stimulated enough fist pumps, singalongs and slamdancing to incite an outdoor festival crowd. That's not to say the ‘droids' songs were running on fumes - every number had strong tunes and clever lyrics to recommend it, and the band knew how to play with dynamics so it wasn't simply one punch to the face after another. Alternating between dependable crowd-pleasers like "The Boys Are Leaving Town" (from the debut Post Nothing) to new songs like "Evil Sway," Japandroids conjured the garage-anchored ghost of noise pop titans like Hüsker Dü like Flip Your Wig came out yesterday. Travel fatigue demanded an early night, but being blasted back out into the street by the likes of Japandroids meant enough of a second wind to get home safely.

Thursday 9/22/11

While music is the main component of Pop Montreal, it's not the only one. Comfortably ensconced in the funky old multi-story building that serves as the festival's headquarters was This is Art Pop, three floors of paintings, comics, films and installations. The centerpiece of the exhibits was The Raincoats Adventures, a series of paintings by each member of the legendary British postpunk band, augmented by short films about the band. Fellow traveler Nick Blinko, of contemporaries Rudimentary Peni, was represented by Skeleton Scratches, a series of drawings of skeletons, from the representational to the abstract.

One of two film installation highlights, The Women of Dr. Phil presented shots of emotionless female faces in the disgraced TV psychologist's TV studio - a commentary on the suburban housewives that made up the show's audience. Most intriguing, though was the Marcel Dzama installation, which looped a pair of the experimental filmmaker's more intriguing works. A Game of Chess is an avant-garde black-and-white piece that featured living chess pieces, assassination and silent revolutionary rhetoric in a timeless presentation that could have come as easily from Ingmar Bergman's early 60s library as from a couple of years ago. Death Disco Dance is a color piece featuring most of the same cast from A Game of Chess doing a choreographed dance to a funky percussion piece. Both films featured outsider ballet and obscure sociopolitical commentary, but you don't have to appreciate either to be drawn into Dzama's bizarre visions.

That evening featured one of the main events of the festival: a free outdoor concert headlined by hometown heroes Arcade Fire. By 6:45 the Places des Festivals was already packed, as thousands of people spilled out into the downtown Montreal streets. This guaranteed a huge crowd for DJ Kid Koala, who opened the show with three turntables and a mix of everything from hard rock to easy listening to heavy funk grooves. Playing a children's record ("my daughter's favorite song - she's three years old") and getting half the audience to play "open/close" with it was startling enough, but Koala's ability to convincingly improvise along with a Louis Armstrong tune was mindboggling. He ended the set with "Moon River" ("my mom's favorite song"), scratching his way through a sentimental favorite - all in a koala suit, by the way.

Next up was Karkwa, a Montreal quintet with two drummers and a widescreen alt.rock sound. Not as bombastic as Muse or as washed out as Coldplay, the melodic, intense band would probably find an eager audience on American radio if they didn't sing entirely in French. The local crowd was definitely into it - we were informed afterward that Karkwa is extremely popular in Quebec, but not so much in the rest of Canada. The band is building a following in Europe, though, and has played SXSW, so it wouldn't be surprising to hear more about them outside Quebec despite the language barrier.

By the time a marquee proclaiming "Coming Soon - Arcade Fire" appeared the audience was well and truly warmed up. Thus the cliché rings true: the crowd did go wild when the Montreal octet hit the stage for its tour-ending hometown blowout. "Our hearts are very full - thank you," proclaimed Win Butler after the set opener "Ready to Start," and the townies responded in kind. No matter what the tune - tracks from the band's Grammy-winning LP The Suburbs or older classics like "Keep the Car Running" - the crowd lustily sang along. There's nothing like thousands of people moaning "Whoa-oh" along with "Wake Up" to get the blood pumping in a tribal gestalt sort of way. It's impossible to imagine this band every having played clubs - they seem born to be a festival act. The Fire treated the crowd to "Speaking in Tongues," described by Butler as "one we don't play too often," and brought on Dr. Paul Farme from Partners in Health to talk about something only French speakers understood. The band closed the show with a sizzling, discofied "Sprawl II," shooting balloons into the nearly - but not quite - spent audience. "A Francophone band, an Anglophone band and Kid Koala," noted Butler. "It feels like home." With arms wide open, hometown heroes and fans embraced on a grand scale.

Friday 9/23/11

At the afternoon barbecue at the Notman House (essentially an adjunct to the Algerian embassy), electro duo UN served as a sort of palette cleanser with their spiky synth rock. More avant-garde than pop, the pair blasted out steady beats (provided by a drummer who looked to be all of twelve), programmed bass grooves, simple keyboard riffs and heavily echoed vocals in a breathless whirl.

One might think that a panel entitled A Conversation With R. Stevie Moore would be a font of bizarre stories and mad ranting. But no - the redoubtable Mr. Moore was nowhere near the kook his flamekeepers would like him to be. Instead, he came across as a reasonably sane dude who just likes what he likes (Beatlesque melodies, noise, silly humor and what he calls "trash music") and refuses to compromise his vision. Giving straight answers to equally straightforward questions, Moore chatted amiably about his career, his methods and his future, which includes more touring and a collaborative LP with Ariel Pink and Jason Falkner, already in the works. A few YouTube videos showed how his D.I.Y. ethic extended to music videos as well, and teased the substantial crowd for his show later that night.

Which we unfortunately missed, in dedication to our resolve to see as much Canadian music as possible. This was not an unreasonable oath, but tonight's show strained its credibility. Cagibi, a tiny room in the back of an equally tiny vegan café, hosted a showcase of bands from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Given that city's revered place in the indie rock pantheon, thanks to the mid-90s explosion that produced Sloan, Eric's Trip, Jale, the Hardship Post and so many others, one could be forgiven for placing sky-high expectations on the young bands that took the microscopic stage this evening, and for the disappointment that resulted.

The evening started promisingly enough with Special Costello. Frontman Jeremy Costello strummed and plucked chords on his fuzzed-out bass and sang in a keening voice not unlike Craig Wedren's, while the guitarist played his amp as much as his axe. Costello's songs combined pop melodies with spiky, unsurprisingly bass-heavy arrangements, giving a postpunk punch to what could have devolved into whining emo. The set hit an odd high note when the guitarist's amp gave out - Costello ably carried both the melodic and rhythm load alone, leaving the six-stringer's use to the band in doubt. By the time he'd set up a borrowed amp, the performance was over and Special Costello had proven themselves worthy of continued attention.

Next up were the charmingly named Old & Weird, and here the show took a turn into the territory dreaded by rock critics everywhere. Because, quite frankly, this quartet of (very) young ladies sucked. It was pretty clear before the first song was over that no one, with the possible exception of the drummer, had been playing their instruments very long, let alone mastered them, and they were just as obviously unused to playing and singing at the same time. And it probably goes without saying that they didn't play together well - they were too busy trying to get through the songs on their individual instruments to pay attention to key and tempo. It sounded like the band's first-ever gig, even though aftershow chatter revealed that it wasn't.

That said, Old & Weird drew the biggest crowd of all the bands that night, including one guitarist's mother and aunt, who were filming the performance. Seeing the band surrounded by such warm support makes us feel like ogres in pointing out the obvious - that the band was clearly not ready to gig regularly, let alone fill a spot in a festival meant to spotlight the best Canadian music. Old & Weird are not without talent or ambition - their songs contained multiple tempos and more chords than most punk/indie bands allow - but their reach exceeds their grasp to the point of embarrassment. An opinion likely not shared by the friends or family present, who should just ignore the preceding two paragraphs and move along.

Quivers followed, and could only look good after Old & Weird. With the usual 2 guitars bass + drums setup (plus a tambourine player/backup singer who contributed so little to the sound he must be somebody's BFF), the quintet of young men essentially mixed together every cool style of rock that involves guitar interplay - garage rock, postpunk, psychedelia, jangle pop. Unfortunately, the group was only about 85% of the way to its intended ambitions, which might have more tolerable had the weak singing not been so distracting.

Quivers was almost immediately followed by howling, acid-fried garage punk duo the Ether. Setting up on the floor in front of the stage (despite being the only band who could have comfortably fit), the singer/guitarist bathed in a sea of reverb and effects, pushing his playing into outer space and his vocals into incomprehensibility. While definitely not sounding like the Cramps, the Ether shared a similar aesthetic as far as stripping everything down to the most basic riffs and rhythms and adding a shot of wild-eyed mania. The songs weren't particularly memorable, but the band's sonic attack was fairly impressive.

Closing out the night was Montreal's Crosss (yes, with three S's), the lone Montreal act. The festival literature tried to build this show up as a minor event, as the apparently long-running combo rarely gigs. That notion was certainly borne out by the performance - the band clearly knew the songs but just as obviously hadn't played together in a while. The group's bass-heavy psych rock folded in elements of postpunk dissonance, Black Sabbath riffage and gothic gloom - an enticing brew made unfortunately bitter by bad singing and more repetition than was healthy. Loads of promise here, though - if Crosss considers adding a real singer and playing out a bit more often, they might very well live up to their reputation.

Saturday 9/24/11

Our final night in Montreal was spent in the Theatre Rialto, a groovy, wooden-floored theater that usually housed musicals, plays and revues. Tonight, however, it hosted three Montreal acts and the legendary Redd Kross.

First up was Cocobeurre, a dreamy psychedelic pop duo. The headbanded guitarist - who looked like an extra cast in a 1971-era flick about hippies - lathered his tone in enough effects to drown a shoegazer band; the cape-wearing singer played electric piano while cooing in French and English. Unfortunately, her unsteady rhythms allowed the songs to meander far too much for comfort. The addition of an actual rhythm section, even if just a percussionist, would do wonders for the pair's otherwise appealing melodies - either that or going the full-on ambient route.

Next was the curiously monikered Uncle Bad Touch, a side project of hard rock act Priestess. Outside of a similar fondness for volume and fat guitar hooks, the two bands sound little alike - UBT's psychedelic garage rock was brighter and possessed a goofier sense of humor than the parent group's unabashed metal. Whether that whimsy included the fetching young hippie girl beating the tambourine at stage right was unclear - she smacked her instrument like a blend of Roger Daltrey and Valerie from Josie & the Pussycats, but was pretty much inaudible. (Just as well, since her sense of rhythm was, shall we say, loose.) Regardless, Uncle Bad Touch showed enough talent, enthusiasm and style to be on the verge of greatness.

Les Breastfeeders came next, raising the performance levels to the point of explosion. Boasting a garage punk & roll sound somewhere between the Cynics and the Hives, the blazing sextet - three guitars, bass, drums and a tambourine-wielding wild thing whose job was to really to go nuts all over the stage and, before too long, the floor - bashed out a thrilling set full of energy, swagger and hooks. With a hot-shit Telecaster slinger on lead and the other guitarists basically doubling each other, the songs pounded right into people's faces. But the nimble rhythm section kept things swinging and the frontman's Francophone rasp cut through the blare like a scythe. Given that the band's latest album Dans la gueule des jours ("in the mouths of the days") was prominently displayed in every record store we entered, from the tiniest hole in the wall shop to the two-story HMV, the modestly sized crowd was surprising, but it was definitely full of loyal fans. Probably the most exciting set all weekend.

Which is not to take anything away from Redd Kross. Reactivated a couple of years ago with the Neurotica lineup, the L.A. rock & roll stalwarts were in excellent form. Leading off with that LP's "Peach Kelli Pop," the quartet ripped through its patented hard rock/glam/punk/power pop fusion in classic loose-but-never-sloppy style, as if they were still 20 years old. Perhaps they were in spirit - brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald both looked shockingly youthful, and guitarist Robert Hecker had the thin physique and yoga pants of someone almost disgustingly healthy, though his near-shredding chops bespoke years of practice and experience. The Kross drew material from across its 30 year career, accenting latter-day numbers like "Follow the Leader," "Mess Around," "Jimmy's Fantasy" and "Crazy World," but finding room for a mid-set group of tunes from its debut Born Innocent and its nutso cover of "Blow You a Kiss On the Wind" (from the 60s TV show Bewitched). The theater was nowhere near full - odd, given that it had been four years since the band's last appearance in Montreal - but the folks there were diehards, and the band looked like they were having an absolute blast. Given Redd Kross's celebration of the clichés and spirit of classic rock & roll, the set was an appropriate way to close our Pop Montreal experience.

Drink up!

By Fred Mills

Just in time for the holidays, the perfect gift for that little scumfuc of the household: a GG Allin beer cozy! As you can see above, it tastefully captures the core GG aesthetic while making a genuine fashion statement as you hang out with the bros, pounding brewskis. And you can accessorize with a GG teeshirt, should you so desire:

Venerable punk/indie label ROIR has assorted GG Allin paraphernalia - to date, no word on whether a GG enema bottle or jockstrap is en route - not to mention a slew of items bearing their flagship band The Bad Brains' myriad logos, such as the beer cozy below. (Speaking of brewskis.) Check ‘em all out at the ROIR site.

Title track from EP now on Soundcloud.

By Blurt Staff

Thuggin' is the title of the new Stones Throw EP from hip-hop star Freddie Gibbs and producer Madlib. The pair have a full-length due sometime early next year, but in the meantime you can grab the six-song EP (tracklisting below) as well as listen to the title track. Enjoy...

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Thuggin' by Rappcats

Track listing:

1 Thuggin' (vocal)
2 Thuggin' (instrumental)
3 Riot Call
4 Deep (vocal)
5 Deep (instrumental)
6 Cold on the Blvd

Aligned with Occupy Writers, Occupy Filmmakers and Occupy Comics as well.

By Fred Mills

At OccupyMusicians.com you can view a fairly lengthy list of musical artists who have signed the online "petition" - or, more accurate, a pledge the reads, "We, the undersigned musicians and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world." Among the familiar names on the list: Amanda Palmer, Franz Nicolay, Ian MacKaye, John Zorn, Dave Allen, Dan Deacon, Kliph Scurlock of the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Tom Morello, Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond), Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and Talib Kweli.

They are soliciting additional signatures as the web page indicates:

"Are you a working musician in support of the statement above and the Occupy Movement? Please send us an email with your name, instruments, musical affiliations, and location to occupymusicians at gmail dot com. [We mean 'musicians' broadly, as in sound engineers, sound artists, producers, DJs, producers, instrumentalists, composers, lyricists, etc]"

Watch a video (via Okay Player) for Musicians Occupy Wall Street:

Meanwhile, you should also take a look at the Occupy Musicians latest press release, which specifies some of the group's goals:

*to facilitate performances at Occupy spaces and events

*provide links to media wishing to interview Occupy-supporting musicians

*host testimony and other writings of musicians for why they support the 99 percent

*host embedded media to Occupy-related songs and music videos

*network musicians to Occupy locations and Occupy fund raisers

And you can also follow the group on Twitter: @weoccupymusic

November 12 at Drom, in Manhattan, the reformed group proved why they were and are pop icons. Pictured above: Mike, Paul, George, and Tom.

Text/photos by Michael Passman

In a short diversion from The Norton Anniversary, I took a trip uptown early Saturday night to catch the newly reformed Left Banke at Drom, a below ground eatery/venue in Manhattan.  Newly reformed, the band now consists of:

1. Paul Alves - Guitar

2. George Cameron - Vocals

3. Charly Cazalet - Bass

4. Mickey Finn - Keyboards

5. Tom Finn - Guitar / Vocals

6. Mike Fornatale - Guitar / Lead Vocal

7.    Rick Reil - Drums / Vocals

Best categorized as "baroque pop" due to strong classical influences, they had a few hits in the ‘60s such as "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina".  They also had a diverse following from Leonard Bernstein to George Harrison.  Their two albums were also recently reissued on Sundazed. 

The performed two shows that evening, covering both albums and a few other songs, but what sparked in their performance personally was "She May Call You Up Tonight," a song covered six years ago by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs as Sid ‘n' Susie. 

The show had a tremendous crowd response and was also attended my members of Muck & The Mires, Richard & The Young Lions, and Little Steven.

Four UK shows already confirmed.

By Fred Mills

Well, that was a swift turnaround. Last night at brucespringsteen.net it was announced that Bruce Springsteen was prepping a new album for a 2012 release, to be accompanied by a tour:

Well, things are starting to heat up down on E Street.

A lot of you have been hearing that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be on tour in 2012. That is absolutely correct. The European dates run from the middle of May until end of July and are being announced this week. Info on the US dates and the World tour dates will coming up shortly.

In addition, we want you to know that the music is almost done (but still untitled), we have almost settled on the release date (but not quite yet), and that we are all incredibly excited about everything that we're planning for 2012. That's all the info we have for right now, but we'll get back to you - real soon.

Then this morning, reports Springsteen fan site/magazine Backstreets, the first handful of concert dates have been confirmed, all for England: June 21 at Sunderland, June 22 in Manchester, June 24 at the annual Isle of Wight festival, and July 14 at the Hard Rock Calling festival in London. Follow this link for ticket on-sale details.

This will mark the first full touring the Boss has done in three years, and the first shows for the full E Street Band since the death of Clarence Clemons earlier this year. Bruce himself has performed in 2011 at various functions and fundraisers.