Black Francis (aka Frank Black, aka the driving force behind the game-changing Pixies of yore) is returning to Santa Barbara on March 27th  to play Soho with his collaborative pal Reid Paley.   Check Francis out below performing the still-wondrous Wave of Mutilation.  After, check out Francis and Paley giving a nod to velvet nightmares in Another Velvet Nightmare, all courtesy of WNRN of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Both songs seem an (unintentional) tribute to the weekend’s cry-an-ocean passing of Jason Molina (“You’ll think I’m dead, but I sail away”–we’ll hope Jason’s somewhere else in an amphibious vehicle; and “This drunkard cannot drink”).  RIP Jason.

Get your tickets for Black Francis‘ Soho show HERE.

We were thrilled to learn (as predicted) this morning that Thom Yorke and his Atoms For Peace will return to the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 17th for one of only six US shows (announced thus far) in the fall.  Santa Barbara is Yorke-town!

The Band’s beloved Levon Helm passed away last April at the age of 71.  Thereafter the airwaves were jammed with tributes by musicians around the world, and it was heartening to see.  Amongst others, My Morning Jacket, Roger Waters, Gregg Allman, Ray LaMontagne and G.E. Smith got together for a concert tribute to Levon.

Check out below (via Rolling Stone) a revelatory rehearsal performance of The Band’s It Makes No Difference . While nothing will erase our fond memories of The Band performing the song at the Santa Barbara Bowl in 1976 (with the incomparable Rick Danko leading the way), My Morning Jacket delivers a superb version of the song below.

A resulting album, Love for Levon: A Benefit to Save the Barn will be released tomorrow.

Rolling Stone’s embedded player below is acting up, so you’ll either have to click on it and watch in Full Screen mode or go to Rolling Stone HERE to watch.

Last fall, one of our most highly-anticipated shows had been World Party’s show in Santa Barbara.  Over the years, leader Karl Wallinger has put together some of our favorite songs (Ship of Fools, All Come True) and albums (Private Revolution) of any era.  Wallinger had been a part of the fantastic Irish band The Waterboys back in the day, but then left Mike Scott’s band to rock on his own in more of a Stones/Beatles-motif.  Wallinger put out a series of successful albums in the 80s and thereafter took intermittent extended breaks and odd-jobs.  We were saddened to learn that Wallinger had suffered an aneurysm in 2001 that left him unable to speak.  After an extended recovery, World Party began playing live shows again in earnest in the late 2000s and released the massive anthology Arkeology last year to deserved critical acclaim.

Unfortunately, Wallinger was ill in November, and World Party cancelled their Santa Barbara show (not surprisingly, wanting to preserve strength for mega-market LA).  Such is the allure of the band, that several we know caravaned down to the Troubadour in LA, followed by rave reviews.  To see why, check out the stripped down World Party performing the intelligent, exemplary Is It Like Today? for KEXP in November, but just released today.  Beauty.  How did it come to this?  Indeed.  After you can check out the full performance on KEXP, which includes the additional song Put The Message In The Box.

Cary Ann Hearst has one of the grittiest voices we’ve heard.  Legitimate grit.  We first heard Hearst on her stellar song Hells Bells (which you can watch/listen to at bottom).  Hearst has since combined with Michael Trent as Shovels & Rope.  They appeared on the Letterman Show in January and have been garnering ever-growing praise.  Check out some winning vignettes below.

As we were saying this morning, the SXSW musical flood has been slow to trickle in.  But as predicted the trickle tap has been opened up.  Check out below, courtesy of NPR, fine performances by buzz-bands Alt-J and Youth Lagoon.  Club Mercy is bringing Youth Lagoon to Soho on 4/18.

SXSW has been going on full-tilt in Texas this week, though that’s only just now becoming apparent.  The phases of SXSW have become pretty predictable from afar.  Leading up to the “festival,” there’s an ever-increasing barrage of blather about the approaching music-industry storm.  In that Phase I, PR horns are trumpeted and the scattershot schedules screened and screamed.  Phase II is veritable radio silence within the calm before the storm, owing to industry folks traveling, meeting up and participating in SXSW’s early prep and playout as the festival gets going.  Yesterday and today we have been moved into Phase III when the storm has unleashed resulting in  the musical levee breaking upstream.  Now trickles of reports have begun flowing in before the full flood overtakes the earth.  Phase IV will watch the waters rise and the inevitable flood occur over the next 2-4 weeks.  The reports, vignettes and hyperbole will wash over the earth following the industry’s return to their posts.  And there will be standing water, sun, malaria and ear-plague.  Something like that.

We have mixed feelings about SXSW.  What began primarily as a way for emerging/unheralded bands to gain exposure (especially artists playing Americana–as it was quaintly known back then) has morphed into something completely different.  Yes, new bands and artists can still gain some of the exposure they seek (though we will discuss another time:  at what cost?).  But you know you are wading in different waters within the  SXSW ecosystem when industry titans such as Green Day are playing the festival (how far they have traveled up and down the music mountain since we first caught them in the ‘hood at the Gilman Street Project).

As part of Phase III’s trickle, check out below one of our favorite, under-appreciated artists Josh Rouse performing his wise charmer A Lot Like Magic for Rhapsody’s Stripped Down By The River (with they sistah?) off his new album.  Rouse’s hat-trick of mid-2000s albums, Under The Cold Blue Stars, 1972 and Nashville, remain amongst our all-time favorites.  And now Rouse has a brand new album out entitled The Happiness Waltz, and which you can stream at his site HERE.  Just listen to the sumptuous first song Julie (Come Out Of The Rain) would you!   It’s typical Rouse:  understated beauty.  American Songwriter is also streaming the album and has an interview with the artist HERE.  Rouse is out on tour in support of the album, which will lead him to the West Coast in mid June.  Check out those tour dates HERE.

Animal Collective is on tour in support of their dense album Centipede Hz and recently were forced to cancel some shows due to health issues (laryngitis).  For those that missed cancelled shows and those that haven’t caught the band, The Creators Project has put up three of the band’s song performances recently at Terminal 5 in NYC.  Check the music and visual sensory overload below.  We can’t wait to catch them live.  The cancelled dates have been rescheduled and their tour continues.

Applesauce:

Moonjock:

Amanita:

One of our favorite UK bands, British Sea Power is back with a new album Machineries Of Joy to be released on April 1st on Rough Trade Records.  British Sea Power are a six-piece band variously originating from Cumbria, Yorkshire, Ealing and Shropshire and are currently based in East Sussex and on the Isle Of Skye.

The band’s singer/guitarist Yan explains about the new album:  “We’d like to think the album is warm and restorative. Various things are touched on in the words – Franciscan monks, ketamine, French female bodybuilders turned erotic movie stars. The world often seems a mad place at the moment. You can’t really be oblivious to that, but we’d like the record to be an antidote – a nice game of cards in pleasant company.”

British Sea Power has now released its cycling-centric official video for the fantastic, chugging title track from the new album.  Check it out below.  We love anything cycling, and the video captures well the spell of spinning through (and up) bucolic terrain and letting life flow past.  We love the down-tube shifters and vintage look, and the bicycle sculptures along the way.  Not sure about the angst instead of release/joy in the closing moments.  Still, a beauty in song and vision.  And remember:  help is [always] on the way.

Bring on the new album!  You can pre-order it HERE.

Oxford’s Stornoway has outdone itself with its brand new album Tales from Terra Firma.  We’ll have a full review of the album soon.  In the meantime you can stream the album over at Pop Matters HERE.  The album is a gem from stem to stern, but if you’re short on time make sure to check out the magnificence of track 8, The Ones We Hurt The Most, which will feature highly on our Best Songs of 2013 list.