FREE Love & Coffee from Aaron Berg

South Carolina songwriter offers full album of ace tracks absolutely free.

By Fred Mills

Without a doubt, one of our favorite singer-songwriters to come down the pike of late is Greenville, SC (by way of Brooklyn, NY) rocker Aaron Berg. That we like him personally as a solid human being doesn't hurt, either. Over the past year or so he's been handing out sundry digital servings of his Love & Coffee Tapes - prior to that came his 2007 EP Songs For Madame X, billed to Aaron Berg & the Heavy Love - and to say that he's a gifted multiinstrumentalist and tunesmith would be an understatement akin to saying that the late Ted Kennedy was a U.S. Senator.

He's got a little Dylan in him, maybe a little Tom Waits  and Tom Petty too, with a deep, resonant voice that'll click with all the Leonard Cohen and Chuck Prophet fans out there - ladies, were are talkin' deep ‘n' sexy - plus a lyrical outlook that probes the grey edges of life while somehow reasons (as Springsteen or Hardin might put it) to believe. He's playing the blues, in essence, but they're distinctly postmodern blues.

So to convince you, the discerning-but-harried music consuming public that he's the real deal, Berg is offering the compiled L&CT into one big digital download, gratis. (Yes, it is FREE of charge, but don't be afraid to use the tip jar, if you're inclined to go by the Radiohead model of pay-what-you-like.) Here's the link:

Download 'Love & Coffee Tapes' FREE 14 Song Bootleg EP

According to Berg, "Love & Coffee is my collected bootlegs, demos, rap remixes, and live road tapes. These songs were written in a thousand different places and recorded in garden sheds and motel rooms, on coffee tables and live on stage.  These are frozen accidents of sound drawn together as some kind of record.  Most of these songs were either written or recorded while traveling to California and back. No attempt was made to obscure the creaking chairs, ambient summer garden crickets, open window rain above folk rap freestyle, hazy century old upright pianos...who knows..."

He played most of the parts himself, with a few assists here and there by Mike Bagwell, John Byce and Ira Rosoff.

Tracklisting:

1* The Wheel  (4:10)
2* Electric Mike's Coffee Table Acid Demo No. 1  (5:49)
3* Madonna Of The Evening Rose  (6:25)
4* Fellowman Blues  (3:06)
5* Honey For You  (5:08)
6* Where The River Meets The Sea  (4:18)
7* The Darkness  (5:57)
8* Until I See Her Again (2:35)
9* House Of Light  (3:26)
10* Darkest Before The Dawn  (3:39)
11* Behind Closed Doors  (4:58)
12* The Blue Room  (4:57)
13* Chains  (3:47)
14* Freestyle demo of 'Bluest of Blue'  (7:36)

Berg additionally plans to record a new album in Chicago this November for Tight Ship Records, and you can keep track of him (sound samples, tour dates, etc.) via his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/theheavylove

Check him out, and tell him that BLURT sent ya. And have, er, "fun."