Yep, another Friday in January blowing through the Canyon. As fires burn canyons to the east, “warm” and “dry” are two words that come to mind this morning. The great drought of ’14 has begun.
The story of 2014 is beginning to feel much like one of those “clever pop songs” of late. Catchy, ironic, and fun in an upside kind of way.
Speaking of pop, it’s Grammy weekend in LA! Thanks to the oncoming Winter Olympics, LA—or I should say NARAS—is pushing the party panic button early. (Quite a parade of most things not so cool about the music business.) Yet, like the clever pop song and our drought, it’s not all bad. They’ll be plenty of sunshine and clever smiles to go around.
These days, 5 years is pretty long for most anything. Hell, what were you watching 5 years ago? Bet you still don’t have the same boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife, do you? Your shoes…5 years old? (No way.) Your phone? (Please.)
We will wager however that you were taking in a ton of music 5 years ago and we’ll double down on the fact that it was on vinyl, right?
Which is why we’re thrilled to announce that the DC Record Fair—now in its 5th year—returns this January 26th to DC’s Penn Social for a bit of a birthday blowout! And 5 years in, some things are still a given: the 40+ vendors from up and down the East Coast, the curated DJ line up, the bar, the food, and the random other surprises that make the DC Record Fair a special community event for all ages. In addition, Zeke’s Coffee will be on site with a special blend just for the DC Record Fair!
“My first record ever was a yellow 7″ that I do not remember the name of. It was an eerie couple of kid’s songs and I somewhat remember—a chorus of men singing lyrics about a girls head falling off. I fucking loved it, but alas I was only 2 or 3, and the record probably didn’t even survive till I was 3 or 4. (Kids are hard on stuff.)”
“I grew up in a fairly censored household. My parents were very religious and didn’t allow me to listen to anything that wasn’t Christian. So I grew up listening to a lot of shit. But there was one guy, Russ Taff, who was, and IS excellent, in spite (if you will) of his religious lyrical agenda. I got his tape Medals and I remember I used to just keep flipping it over and playing it through.
It had musical depth and cool sounds and groove and reverbs and chorus and distortion and huge 80s drum machine drums and synthesizers and pretty much everything I love most about music. Seriously, check it out. If you can’t get past the fact that it’s probably about something you don’t believe in and appreciate, the awesome 80s pop/rock masterpiece that it is, then you’re probably pretty fucking dumb.
Reigning victorious after battling stage two cancer, soul/R&B singer Sharon Jones jumps right into the new year with a new album, new tour, and new life.
After recording her fifth and latest album Give the People What they Want, Sharon Jones did not get to promote the release with a tour, physical release, and the usual. Instead, she spent her 2013 battling cancer and taking chemotherapy. Though postponing tours is not what the singer had planned for last year, she emerged victorious and cancer-free.
The anxiously awaited Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ fifth album Give the People What they Want was released earlier this month. To promote the new album, and partially to celebrate Jones’ good news, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are embarking on a tour that begins on February 6. As a part of the tour, Jones and her band are stopping by The Lincoln Theatre in DC for not just one night, but two: February 10-11. The February 11 show is sold out, but we do have a pair of tickets to the February 10 show that we’re giving away!
“There I was at Shangri-La Records in Memphis, digging through the 45s in the back.”
“I found this one Elvis song. “They Remind Me Too Much of You.” It was just sitting there. Didn’t know about anything about it. Still don’t, really. “Elvis Presley and The Mello Men”—not The Jordanaires—like all the others.
I put it on and what I heard was more dust that I was hoping for, but then out of the crackling snow comes that unmistakable voice, then the piano line, then those other voices, and then, only when I listen a second time, the light strum of a guitar. It’s a miracle you can hear any notes at all above the hiss.
It’s like a tree line where nothing past it can come up.
The Mardi Gras Indian funk band is following in the big footsteps of legendary stage acts such as Big Chief Bo Dollis and Wild Magnolias and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux by fusing the ancient call and response of the black Indians of New Orleans with blues and funk.
The band’s original guitarist Colin Lake will reunite with the group for the first time since last spring. He has been focusing on his highly acclaimed solo career but plans on electrifying the stage at the Leaf.
He plays electric guitar as well as lap steel guitar creating a unique sonic palette in the Mardi Gras Indian community.
Fantôme’s latest single “Love” is out very soon and the Berlin based duo have just released this very odd but highly compelling video for the track.
Fans of Atari Teenage Riot will recognise Fantôme’s leading lady, Hanin Elias. Moving away from the industrial sound of ATR, Fantôme are channeling a modern new wave sound, showing Hanin’s diverse approach to music making.
The video itself is like a twisted fairytale with Hanin’s Fantôme bandmate Marcel Zürcher chasing lovely Hanin all painted in black, hiding amongst the foliage and being, well, a little bit creepy!
Fantôme’s debut album It All Makes Sense is out on 17th February 2014.
Have you ever loved something to death but were unable to tell anyone why? A particular mangy bong, a certain flashing array of exterior bar lights, that chimney atop the old house on the corner, your asshole boyfriend? Well that’s the case with Lambchop—the band, not the famous sock puppet sheep—and yours truly. I adore them, but I’ve always been loath to review them, because I’m afraid I lack the words to tell you just exactly what it is that makes them so goddamn great. Some things, as Samuel Beckett would have said, are Unnamable.
The Nashville-based Lambchop are singer, guitarist, and songwriter Kurt Wagner—who is never to be seen without some manner of non-baseball-related baseball cap and a graying soul patch—and a constantly shifting cast of musicians who on any given day may number as many as 14. They play an indescribable scramble of rock, funk, R&B, gospel, country, lounge music, and vintage folk that generally leaves you feeling either a lingering sense of melancholy (“Your Life as a Sequel,” “Slipped Dissolved and Loosed”) or joyously uplifted (“All Smiles and Mariachi,” “Your Fucking Sunny Day.”)
But those are just words; I love them because, because: hell, all I can say is check out “Give It (Once in a Lifetime)” from 2009’s Live at XX Merge on YouTube, and you’ll know why. (And if you don’t like it, we’re different species. You’re a wombat.) Or listen to “Garf,” which begins as a recollection of childhood only to make an abrupt left into this: “And I could be sitting/By the telephone tomorrow/To receive a call/By the overweight Garth Brooks/Who would then try to offer me/Like a hundred thousand dollars/Just for me to go the fuck away.” I laugh at the preposterousness of those words every time I hear them, but I don’t think that’s why I adore Lambchop either.
Often called “one of the greatest female MCs of all time,” former Fugee emcee Ms. Lauryn Hill celebrated the 15th anniversary of her solo masterpiece The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill behind bars. Recently released, the singer, rapper, humanitarian, producer and actress isn’t letting a short stint in federal prison slow her down.
Shortly after being released, the five-time Grammy winner has already made her comeback into the music world through the release of her latest single titled “Consumerism.” The single was posted on the same day Ms. Hill was released with the statement, “it is a product of the space she was in while she was going through some of the challenges she has been faced with recently.”
In addition to the release of “Consumerism,” Ms. Hill didn’t hesitate to get back on the stage. She announced a brief Homecoming tour, which kicked off in New York City. As a part the Homecoming tour, the five-time Grammy winner stopped by the 9:30 Club in December, and she’s back in DC again on February 9 at the Lincoln Theatre. We happen to have a pair of tickets to give away!
In recent times, Scotland has proved that amongst the cobbled alleys of Edinburgh, the rough ‘n’ ready streets of Glasgow, the rolling hills of the highlands, and beyond that, there’s a wealth of talent literally pouring from this part of the UK. This Silent Forest are one of the bands leading the way.
Their latest single, “We Are We Were” is eight minutes of epic indie, taking heritage sounds from bands like The Twilight Sad and combining them with the best of Idlewild’s later tracks.
The build up is slow but steadily rises with the pay off not coming to light until around 5-minutes into the track; a brave choice for an album opener and even more brave for a single.
From January 25 through January 31, 2014, local shoppers will get a 20% discount on all merchandise at the the Louisiana Music Factory’s Decatur Street location.
In case you hadn’t heard, the store is moving from its longtime home on Decatur Street about fifteen blocks downriver. The new location, which will open on February 8, is located at 421 Frenchmen Street on the corner of Decatur—the gateway into the Frenchmen Cultural and Art District.
The store has a huge collection of vinyl records, as well as thousands of mostly local CDs, T-shirts, books (shameless self-promotion—including all three of mine), photographs, and other great stuff that celebrates Louisiana music.
This is an in-store sale only, so internet customers are out of luck unless you know someone in the city willing to shop and ship for you.
Subtle is definitely not a word that can be used when describing southern hard rock band Nashville Pussy. Led in tandem by the husband-wife team of Blaine Cartwright and Ruyter Suys (for those who don’t know, that’s pronounced “Rider Size”), the Pussy has been blazing their own path, with their over-the-top rock anthems extolling the joys of sex, drugs, and booze. Their new album, Up The Dosage, hit stores on January 21st, and promises to be more of the same.
Ruyter took a few minutes out of their European tour to chat with us about vinyl, bassists, songs about diarrhea, and more. Her easygoing style and infectious laugh were a treat, showing us a rock goddess that just wants to play loud and have fun. Fair warning, we may have broken a TVD record for most uses of the word “fuck” in an interview. We wouldn’t have Ruyter any other way.
It’s been five years since From Hell to Texas. What’s Nashville Pussy has been up to?
We’ve been touring incessantly, as usual. We’ve toured like crazy with Nashville Pussy, and we’ve done, we’ve actually written and recorded four other albums since the last Nashville Pussy release.
Wow!
Plus we put out the re-release of From Hell To Texas, which involved the live album—we had a whole live album in addition to it, so that took a lot of gleaning. We had to listen to seventy hours of us.
Greater Manchester’s most in the know radio host Shell Zenner broadcasts the best new music every week on the UK’s Amazing Radio and Bolton FM. You can also catch Shell’s broadcast right here at TVD, each and every Thursday.
“On this week’s show my ROTW is Waking Lines by the awesome Manchester based band Patterns. I was the first person to play them on radio a few years ago and it has been a blast watching them grow and go onto such great things. Their album is a triumph and if you haven’t heard it yet, then this is the perfect chance to introduce yourself as I’ll be spinning three tracks off the record.
There will be the usual accompaniment of new and emerging music as I spin some of the best new Alt releases. Love music? Don’t miss it…” —SZ
Inspecting chart history proves otherwise, but due to the ubiquitous nature of that one song everybody remembers, Bobby Fuller is considered by many as a One Hit Wonder. Others view him as the true-blood ‘60s extension in art as well as life of fellow Texan Buddy Holly, which overlaps with the assessment by some that Fuller was maybe the last gasp of rock ‘n’ roll innocence before the ‘60s became The Sixties. But he was also just a passionate young guy with a boatload of talent for whom music was paramount, and nothing communicates that better than a listen to The Bobby Fuller Four’s 1966 LP, I Fought the Law.
The Bobby Fuller Four’s second and best long-player opens with what is probably my pick for the band’s greatest moment and certainly one of their leader’s finest compositions. It’s not the title track, for “I Fought the Law” was penned by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets, a group most famous for their backing of Buddy Holly (Curtis joined after Holly’s plane crash demise; the original appears on 1960’s In Style with the Crickets.)
The tune is “Let Her Dance,” a delicious slice of guitar and vocal harmony driven pop-rock and easily one of ’65’s best singles. Perfectly calibrated for airplay, its 2:32 flows with expertly layered simplicity. Once established, none of the song’s elements drift far in their roles; not Fuller’s lead singing of his wounded-heart love lyrics or the gorgeous chiming and jangling of his and Jim Reese’s guitars, not the beautiful but non-grandiose backing vocals, not Randy Fuller’s bass, and definitely not DeWayne Quirico’s drumming, which with subtle alterations follows the same pattern throughout.
Individually, none of these aspects are especially noteworthy. It’s in the assemblage and the ensuing vigor of the captured performance that greatness is attained. And over the years, playing “Let Her Dance” has turned many a head that had erroneously pegged Bobby Fuller as basically a slightly displaced rockabilly guy.
Go to college. Graduate college. Start a successful band with your pals and tour across the world. Sounds just about right for the psych-folk band, Quilt.
Quilt’s founding members were sewn together through the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The musically diverse trio composed of John Andrews, Anna Rochinski, and Shane Butler are known for their eccentric sound that showcases well-arranged two- and three-part harmonies. Quilt’s upcoming release Held in Splendor reflects the trio’s on-point harmonies as well as their great instrumental additions and arrangements.
The release ofHeld in Splendor is still almost a week away, but to make the wait a little bit easier, we’re giving away a Quilt prize pack! The prize pack includes the band’s self-titled LP, the “Arctic Shark”7″, and the upcoming Held in Splendor LP.
