The house of the jazz and blues vocalist Meschiya Lake was burglarized earlier this month, and her musical friends in the tightknit Frenchmen Street scene are coming together for a benefit. It is scheduled for Thursday night at the Maison on Frenchmen.
Lake first drew the attention of the music-loving public as a street musician. A widely circulated video of her performing in the French Quarter with the Loose Marbles established her as a singer of certain conviction. A story in the New Yorker followed.
She has fronted her own band, The Little Big Horns, for several years now, and the funds that were stolen from her house were dedicated to recording the follow-up to their acclaimed 2010 debut, Lucky Devil.
It’s been a busy year for Nightlands, aka Dave Hartley. For starters he is the bassist for indie-Americana band The War On Drugs. Since their excellent release from 2011, Slave Ambient, the band has been touring relentlessly.
When he’s not playing with The War On Drugs, Hartley writes earthy, surreal dream pop tunes under the moniker, Nightlands.
Somehow during the extensive touring schedule he was able to find the time to write and record an entire new album. Oak Island will be released early in the new year on January 22nd via Secretly Canadian. It’s Hartley’s first full length record as Nightlands since 2010’s Forget The Mantra.
“‘Forget Regret’ is a phrase that I have tattooed on my neck.”
“To me it’s a way of looking at the past with an active positive attitude. There is so much more to do and experience. Why regret the past? It cannot be changed. The protagonist in the song sees it differently. He has committed all kinds of misdeeds but has reassured himself with the same mantra.
This character was inspired by some people I know who are absolutely capable or ripping and roaring through people’s lives with little visible remorse. I guess it can mean either. Enjoy!”
—Ari Shine
After touring relentlessly behind his last album Ghost Town Directory and receiving plaudits from sources like No Depression, Americana UK, and Big Takeover, on September 25th Ari Shine released Songs Of Solomon, his most honest and rugged batch of songs yet. It has also made the Grammy ballot for Americana album of the Year.
We’re delighted to exclusively debut “Forget Regret.”
“My very first memory of seeing a record spinning and hearing music was Buddy Holly. I must have been about 2 years old, at a party with my parents. I remember pretty clearly running around to the adults and trying to explain to them how much I loved this music. When I was around 5, I remember putting on Michael Jackson’s Thriller and lots of Weird Al Yankovic records.”
“During my late teens I was mellowing out on hip-hop and punk rock, looking for something that ran deeper. I would pull out dusty records from my dad’s collection. The Beatles’ Let it Be, Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band. Hearing this music on these scratchy records made them sound mysterious from some long ago era, yet the music was more immediate to me than anything current.
Of all the countless CDs I’ve bought and thrown away, it’s these few records that have really stayed with me. I came to feel that CDs sounded thin and clear in a way, while vinyl was deeper and more tonal. The tones get into you and somehow leave more to your imagination. And imagination is an indispensable part of the magic of music.
Of all the fine stuff scheduled to hit the racks last week for Black Friday, one item particularly stood out in large part due to its belated appearance on vinyl. In all the excitement and hubbub of the holiday festivities, it was easy to miss the last minute cancellation of this record, shifting the focus below from an appreciation of a long-delayed vinyl slight to a consideration of a release whose LP coronation continues to be denied. The subject is Fun, the sole major-label entry in the discography of Daniel Johnston, originally issued by Atlantic Records in 1994. Hopefully its eventual emergence on vinyl comes sooner rather than later.
While I won’t be so bold as to say there was no middle ground, the reaction to Daniel Johnston’s original home recordings did largely run to extremes. On one hand, there were those who championed a new and startlingly unique pop singer-songwriter. On the other were the strident doubters and the often exasperated reactions of folks who considered it all a big put on.
Johnston’s advocates largely felt that his crudely recorded homemade cassettes were just as legitimate and deserving of attention as anything being produced for mass consumption in the spacious multi-track studios of the big label machine. Many listeners not smitten with his considerable output identified it as another example of underground tastemakers locating a marginal artist and then lording it over those with enough sense to not buy into the hype.
As more people became acclimated to the uniqueness of Johnston’s work, either through the stumping of music journalists and critics, the name dropping of assorted clued-in musicians, and via his now legendary appearance on MTV’s The Cutting Edge Happy Hour, where he performed during his lunch break at McDonalds, it started to become clear to some of the previously doubtful that the passionate reaction of so many was indeed sincere, the music having struck a deep chord. A fair number of these agnostics listened again, and what had initially sounded strange shifted into something special.
While they’re currently conjuring up new music in Bristol, Massive Attack’s literally massive 1991 release Blue Lines has undergone the lovingly remixed and remastered route in a deluxe package—and we’ve got one to give away to one of you.
Some official info: Originally released in April 1991 on the Circa imprint via Virgin Records, Blue Lines was an unprecedented mixture of breakbeats, sampling and live instrumentation with vocal styles ranging from soulful female to gritty rapping.
With influences as diverse as soul, punk, reggae, dub, lover’s rock, electro and hip hop, Blue Lines was truly groundbreaking, and remains one of the most unique and influential British albums ever made.
Edinburgh based Hiva Oa make music that feels dreamlike, it inspires awe and wonder. Their debut album The Awkward Hello, Handshake, Kiss was released earlier this year but before the band present fresh material in 2013, they’re releasing a double A-side single from the album,”Badger / Urban.”
The video for “Badger'” finds the main protagonist immersed in bath water, whilst simultaneously waking from his slumber in a field by a power station. The atmosphere is creepy and mysterious as we see glimpses of what appear to be memories or simply moments in time as he walks through the streets of Edinburgh.
It sounds confusing, which it is, but the music and imagery combined make this a truly captivating watch as you feel stuck between the dreamworld and reality.
Toronto based (via London) Elephant 12 debut their new track “Renegade” with us today, and while we’re at it, we got them on the record—on records.
“The earliest experience with records that I can remember is being six years old and listening to my Dad’s collection every Sunday morning in Jamaica. He would place his speakers on the balcony and play these great records from the Skatalites, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Marvin Gaye, The Wailers—just great Ska, Reggae, and Soul records.”
“Moving to Canada and finding Hip Hop, I purchased my first Tribe Called Quest record to early Busta Rhymes, and my best friend at the time had all these great tapes of Boot Camp Click, Helta Skelta, and Camp Lo.
Now older and able to travel, one of my favorite experiences is going to market stalls and finding great records. I found an album once of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye duets in Berlin, of all places. I still find myself venturing to record shops to this day. I once was travelling to rehearsal and this gentleman had 2 boxes of records he was bringing to the market and I ask him why he’s selling it, and he told me he has no room for it he saw the disappointment on my face and asked me if I like Primal Scream, I told him yeah—he then gave me 2 records..SWEET..”
—Jerome
“Seems like everyone I know or have met in music grew up listening to vinyl records. Either their parents were listening to vinyl or their older siblings were doing it. I on the other hand had only a very little experience early in life with any sort of vinyl.”
“I had no idea what it was until I was about 10 years old. My brother and I were snooping around my grandma’s house and in the basement we found a cabinet/table that opened up into a radio and record player. I recognized the turntable contraption from some MTV rap video I had seen and started “scratching” an old record pretending to be a DJ.
My dad found us playing around with the thing and told us to stop. He then went into one of his stories…he told us about when he was in high school and his older brothers had started a DJ business for dances. They didn’t know what was “hip” at the time and so hired my dad to be the DJ. My dad loved it–flipping through records, getting each track ready, and choosing the next song that people would love and dance to. “It used to be an art,” he always tells me.
Back in August 2011 I wrote a short piece about the debut album release shows of Bloomington, Indiana’s, Sleeping Bag. Now, nine months later, I have the pleasure to write about the indie-pop trio’s incredible follow-up and sophomore effort, Women of Your Life.
Not a Chicago release, but seeing as how Indiana doesn’t have its own Vinyl District representative, we at TVD-CHI have are more than happy to step up and represent our neighbors to the East.
While more complex tracks and deeper lyrics may show a maturation since their 2011 debut, you’ll find yourself right at home within the consistently catchy pop hooks of Women of Your Life. Take a look at the official “Still Life” video above, and listen to the album’s melodic, whistle-fueled closer, “Walk Home”, below.
“Point to the ceiling and bend your knee. Point to that FEAR…” The physical process to point to your fear and squat down to the ground, slowly getting away from it, is what almost every person at the 9:30 Club last Saturday happily obliged.
For those that didn’t enter Dan Deacon’s trance/ritual, they were pointed at, casted out as those who had no fear (supposedly). From that, the experience known as Dan Deacon began, but before the adventure that cast a smile on my face for days to come, we took Dan Deacon away to Som Records in DC, exposing Dan to a city he rarely gets a chance to visit, but which we all hope he comes back to visit more often in the future.
Social media has created a new level of fan-musician interaction. It hasn’t gone unnoticed as to how gracious Dan is with his fans via Twitter. This makes sense, as his audiences are such an integral part of his show. Yet, it’s still a pleasant surprise when Dan favorites a Tweet or kindly responds.
I like to use it, it’s fun and it’s a nice way to interface with people. I tend to use it more on tour; I’m in the bus all day so it gives me something to do. I have a hard time writing music on the bus, so Twitter is a nice way of not letting your mind explore itself.
You talk about your discovery of a newfound positivity toward the USA, yet you still expose us to some of the darker moments of thought. You do a beautiful job of mixing the two together, creating a hopeful future for life’s realities.
Thank you, I want the music to be uplifting and euphoric but I don’t want to come across like “everything is great,” so that’s what I aim for.
You’re originally from Long Island. When you went overseas and came back to the US did that affect how you viewed your hometown specifically?
I was already living in Baltimore at the time. I grew up in Long Island and moved when I was 18 up to Westchester County where I went to school. I moved to Baltimore in 2004 and have been there ever since. Yeah, it definitely changed, but not on a micro level, more on a macro cultural level. I started looking at the traits that make me American or make Americans American. Obviously it’s impossible to see until you are taken out of it. You start noticing things that are different, missing or gone or that were there and you didn’t see before.
While he experienced much success in the ‘80s and beyond, these days Graham Parker’s best work is widely considered to be the fine run of albums he recorded in the mid/late-‘70s with The Rumour, a group of pub rock vets that helped propel the singer-songwriter into the company of Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and the young Joe Jackson as a direct, classicist (and UK-based) breath of fresh musical air. They’re back together again after a 30-plus year break with Three Chords Good. It’s a solid if modest success, mainly because its attitudes regarding the past and the present are kept in proper balance.
Graham Parker was a smart lyricist, a strong vocalist, a generous bandleader, and his influences were generally impeccable; as a result he became a critic’s fave in an era that frequently jettisoned such artists to the cut-out bins, though happily the man accumulated a large enough following to avoid being labeled as a commercial casualty.
If Parker had the songs and the attitude, The Rumour’s pub rock pedigree proved key in bringing it all to fruition. Guitarist Brinsley Schwarz and keyboardist Bob Andrews had previously been members (along with Nick Lowe) of the band Brinsley Schwarz, a terrific outfit if one cursed by record label hype, sort of the UK equivalent to San Francisco’s Moby Grape. Brinsley Schwarz was the forerunner of such pub rock staples as Dr. Feelgood and Ducks Deluxe, a group that included Rumour guitarist Martin Belmont.
Additionally, drummer Steve Goulding and bassist Andrew Bodnar had worked in the band Bontemps Roulez, and the Rumour Horns rounded out what was much more than just a backing band. For The Rumour released three pretty swell if not earth shattering albums of their own, starting with ‘77’s Max for Phonogram and followed by a pair for Stiff, ‘79’s Frog Sprouts Clogs and Krauts and ‘80’s covers heavy Purity of Essence.
True story: Perry Farrell personally turned me on to Jethro Tull. Well, I was among a huge crowd at the (old) 9:30 Club the night Jane’s lost the Grammy for “Best Metal Act” to Jethro Tull. (Metallica lost to them too, if memory is serving me correctly.)
Prior (to be honest) I didn’t get it. Oh sure, I knew the classics, but all that mincing about with the flute…I dunno. But Jane’s delayed their arrival on stage for the outcome of the Grammy award and upon losing and announcing such from the stage, lept into the heaviest version imaginable of “Aqualung,” and Perry, dressed in a silver body suit with orange hair and made up akin to a psychotic Raggedy Ann, and yes – mincing about – opened my eyes. I never again heard Tull as I had prior. I became…a fan.
For you guys who we’ll call the “pre-converted,” we’ve got a fantastic giveaway—Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick, the 40th Anniversary Edition, which follows the release earlier this year of the sequel to Tull’s Thick As A Brick, Thick As A Brick 2.
“Born in ’82, I grew up with cassette tapes and compact discs. I mainly remember playing CDs as somehow, even when I was very young, I knew cassette tapes were rubbish (in the same way we all knew Minidiscs were rubbish when they made their brief interruption into our musical lives). My early memories of vinyl involves only 2 records – Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue” and Sex Pistols’ “Something Else.” These were the only vinyl records I was allowed to play when I was younger as they were unwanted Christmas presents passed on to me by my Dad. Unfortunately for my parents, I discovered “Friggin In The Riggin” (the B-side on the Pistols record) and played it incessantly.”
“There was then a long interlude in my relationship with vinyl that only ended this very summer, when I acquired a Crosley turntable and started rediscovering some old favourites. So far my favourite acquisitions have been Shellac’s Live At Action Park and 1,000 Hurts, Low’s Trust and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. I still listen to a lot of CDs and MP3s, but putting on a vinyl LP is just a different proposition. It’s like the difference between sitting leafing through a magazine to settling down to read a good book.
Now, technically speaking, vinyl records are inferior to compact discs. Vinyl shortcomings include incomplete stereo capability, fidelity reduction toward the centre of the record, production quality issues, easily scratched and damaged grooves, static pops, wow and flutter, record wear and warping through age, false starts, delicate styluses…these are all problems we don’t encounter with our CDs.
However, despite all this, vinyl just sounds better.
There seems to be an array of talent holed-up in Scotland. Perhaps it’s that dreary weather and bitter cold that inspires bands to warm the cockles of music fans with creepy alt-folk, off-kilter indie, and raucous rock. Fat Goth fall into the latter category, that being “raucous rock,” and raucous is perhaps somewhat of an understatement. Fat Goth pack a massive, brass knuckle sized punch.
“Creepy Lounge” is the second free download offering to be lifted from their forthcoming album Stud. Fat Goth are a band that sound unafraid to dive balls-deep into the alt-rock melee, strangle it to pieces, and drag it out kicking and screaming. They take the best of The Jesus Lizard and McClusky and amalgamate these into a glorious cacophony of gnarling vocals, hectic beats, and heart thumping bass lines.
After the release of “Debbie’s Dirty Harry” in October and now “Creepy Lounge,” this is sure to have left people salivating for more. For the last few years, it has felt as though bands are a little scared to turn on and crank up their guitars, so having Fat Goth pave the way for big, bold, brazen tunes with extra balls is just what the doctor ordered.
The house of the jazz and blues vocalist Meschiya Lake was burglarized earlier this month, and her musical friends in the tightknit Frenchmen Street scene are coming together for a benefit. It is scheduled for Thursday night at the Maison on Frenchmen.
