August, 2013 Archives

12
Aug

Watch Rose Cousins’ Official Video “For The Best”

by Lefort in Music

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Canada’s Rose Cousins has just released her official video for her sweet song For The Best from last year’s superb We Have Made a Spark album.  Amongst other laurels, We Have Made a Spark won the 2013 Juno Award for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year (Solo).  To get a feel for Cousins, check out the video below for For The Best, in which Cousins sings sonorously, reminding us of Sally Ellyson’s Hem vocals (a lofty standard in our book). After, check out the official videos for What I See and Go First, also from We Have Made a Spark.

11
Aug

On Sunday: Watch Glen Hansard Concert in Dublin

by Lefort in Music

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We can think of nothing better to do musically on a Sunday morning than watch a short documentary of a Glen Hansard concert (as for Sunday night, we’ll go with The National at Hollywood Forever Cemetery).  Glen Hansard and his full band performed in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens on July 21st, and Arbutus Yarns’ Michael O’Reilly was there to capture it in all its glory.  Check it our HERE.  And if you have the time, also check out Arbutus’ capture of Hansard in Italy.  Great, heart-warming stuff.

10
Aug

Hello Out There: Gifted Singer-Songwriter Bill Mallonnee Could Use Your Help–Buy Some Great Music Now

by Lefort in Music

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With his outstanding band Vigilantes of Love, solo and in various other combinations, Bill Mallonnee has released 50 plus albums in 22+ years.  During that time, he has written some of the most well-wrought, incisive and evocative songs of the era.  Years ago, Mallonnee stepped outside the “industry” and elected to go his own way.  According to Mallonnee:  “It’s been a lot of love, a lot of joy…And maybe it has been some work. but as they say:  ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never ‘work’ a day in your life.’  To me it’s always felt more like opening one’s heart or describing what’s in the mirror.  Being completely on the ‘outside’ for years now, of whatever constitutes the ‘industry,’ is another story altogether.”

Following this path does not make earning a livelihood easy, particularly in these digital days in which artists make most of their money from touring and selling merchandise on said tours.  We’ve recently received increasingly urgent emails from Mallonnee lamenting his inability to successfully put together strings of shows on his own and the resulting effect.  Writing from the Grand Canyon, Mallonnee writes:  “Alas, booking tours & selling records is just hard, especially when “the pond is over-stocked” these days.”

Mallonnee has both a pen and a heart of gold.  If you don’t know his art or even if you do, we encourage you to go over to his Bandcamp site HERE, and listen to some of his superb songs and artistry.  Mallonnee’s lyrics are consistently amongst the best in the land.  And once you concur with us, please do yourselves and Mr. Mallonnee a favor and buy yourself some music.   We just did. Pretend it’s 2007 and that you’ve got cash and home-equity to burn.  Fire it up!  Your ears, heart and mind will be greatly rewarded.  If you need a place to start, we highly recommend the all-time Audible Sigh (with Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller–see below) or recent albums Heaven In Your Heart, Amber Waves, or The Power & the Glory.  You can do no wrong.  And, as you can read below, you will have the gracious gratitude of this national treasure.

Mallonnee:

“This is a simple note to those support my work by buying it and listening to it. Thank You! Thank you, one & all. I am truly blessed to have so many fans who still listen as if music matters. And me? Well, I write it that way. It matters a great deal to me. I’ve always had LOTS to say, a life to examine. We’re all living in the same skin. And so, if i do my work aright, i believe it’ll resonate with you.  At least that’s what I’ve ‘bet the farm on.’ Your goodwill & listening ear is the best gift any artist could receive.  SO: Copious ‘thanks’ for your continued interest in my new songs & recordings. I deeply appreciate your belief in the music. All 50 plus titles (and some “freebies”)  are available for download (“The Power & The Glory” and “Amber Waves” are avaliable in hard copy cd).”

And Bill, when you are headed out to the Central Coast of California, please let us know as we would love to host a house concert and supply any help we can in booking venues.  Keep the faith brother.

10
Aug

Watch The National Perform “Sea Of Love” and “Terrible Love” (with Bob Weir) at Outside Lands

by Lefort in Music

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Outside Lands is on and you can stream it live on UStream HERE.  Yesterday national treasures The National played a bizarrely early (5pm) set (hello, headliners?).  Check out below a fan capture of the band performing Sea of Love off of their Best-Album-of-Year-So-Far Trouble Will Find Me followed by set closer Terrible Love (with Bob Weir).  The band was also backed by the always-captivating Kronos Quartet throughout much of its set.  Bring on the Greek Theater tonight.

9
Aug

Read George Saunders’ Titular Story from His Short Story Collection “Tenth of December”

by Lefort in Books

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We are coming off a bender.  A word and image bender.  A word bender of brilliance, hilarity, fright, disquietude, and uplift.  All in one short story collection.  We’ve just feasted on George Saunders’ short story collection, Tenth of December, and like many before us (read, for example, The New Yorker’s article George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year HERE), we heartily recommend these awe-inspiring writings to you.  Tenth of December may now stand as our favorite of all-time in the genre.   If you like short stories, or even if you don’t (true confession:  not our favorite genre), this book will knock you back and cause you to take stock.  These stories are not for the faint of heart (since: life), but your courage and fortitude will be gravely rewarded (if you will).  The gravitas is, however, leavened throughout with satire and hilarious wordplay.

For a sample, you can go over to The New Yorker HERE and read the title story (which is simply one of the best short stories we’ve ever read).  And if you like it, there’s much more where that came from in Tenth of December.  Highly recommended.  Excuse us while we head off to purchase every other George Saunders book that’s been published.

8
Aug

Listen-to/Watch Two New Neko Case Videos Off of Impending New Album

by Lefort in Music

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We’re oft-distracted and a little slow.  And so we occasionally overlook salient occasions.  Such as the release of a new Neko Case album!  Heaven knows they only come around every once in a blue moon these days, with her last album release occurring in a bluish 2009 (Middle Cyclone).  That’s a millennium ago in this digitalis morass.  But to the point: Neko Case will release her new album The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, on September 3rd.  We can’t wait.

To wit, today Case and Anti-Records released the album’s second (!) video, the lyric video for the unsettling song Night Still Comes.  Said video follows on the hills of the initial video release for album track Man. Check both out below, and then order her new album HERE.

Ms. Case is also out on tour and the dates are listed HERE.  We last caught her live at LA’s since-shuttered Brown Derby venue, and it was one of the finest nights ever of musical magic.  Highly recommended.

8
Aug

Watch Rogue Wave on KEXP

by Lefort in Music

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Rogue Wave recently crested across the region while on tour in support of its fine new album Nightingale Floors. They recently showed up at KEXP. Watch below as they perform Figured It Out off the album. At bottom you can watch their entire KEXP set (College at the five-minute mark is particularly great).

7
Aug

Stream Jake Bellows’ Outstanding New Album “New Ocean”

by Lefort in Music

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Yesterday Saddle Creek released the fine new album from Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova) entitled New Ocean.  We strongly urge you to avail yourselves of its stream below while you can.  We have had it on repeat, and repeated listens continue to reap rewards.  Sonically, we hear the influence of American Music Club, Josh Rouse and The Walkmen, along with some twangy elements.  The opening title track is an immediate standout, as is Should You Ever Change Your Mind, but there’s not a clinker t0 be found.

After fronting Neva Dinova for over 15 years, Bellows quit the band and moved to Los Angeles.  Bellows subsequently hooked up with musician and engineer Ben Brodin, Heath Koontz (Neva Dinova), Todd Fink (The Faint), and Whispertown bandmate Morgan Nagler, amongst others.  Collaboration, recording and performing ensued, ultimately leading to the recording and release of New Ocean.

Listen in below to the New Ocean stream, and go buy the album at Saddle Creek.

6
Aug

Listen to John Cale’s New Breezy West-Coast Song “All Summer Long”

by Lefort in Music

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Last year John Cale, founding member of the Velvet Underground, producer, collaborator, solo artist, and soundtrack composer released only his third proper studio album (entitled Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood) of songs since 1993.  Despite the artist’s laurels, the album received mixed reviews (though several tracks were hailed as hallowed tunes).  Somewhat as a counterpoint to the darkness of Nookie Wood, Cale has released today the song All Summer Long bundled with Sandman (Flying Dutchman), one of those hallowed tracks from Nookie Wood.

We’ve been listening to solo John Cale since 1970’s masterful debut, Vintage Violence, which 12″ sits staring back at us across the way.  Check out All Summer Long below, about which Cale says evolved from “dreaming about a breeze, space and light. Recalling those early days in my sticky, sweltering NYC flat – how I’d heard summer from the West Coast – thinking how the California landscape informed a vibe that churned out Brian Wilson, Herb Alpert and that strange sexy breeze in your ears.”  Well, at least the “sexy breeze” as John Cale hears it.  Kind of a brooding breeze, but we like it.  Ian Curtis meets Brian Wilson at Hossegor in February?  You can pick up the All Summer Long record HERE.

After, check out Cale’s recent interview on WTF with Marc Maron HERE, in which John Cale talks about the formation of The Velvet Underground, the creation of The Stooges’ first album and many other seminal moments in rock history. Cale also tells Maron why Cale was disappointed in The Velvet Underground reunion and why his latest project has roots in hip hop.  This we’ve got to hear.

5
Aug

Watch Andrew Bird (featuring Tift Merrit) Perform at Newport Folk Festival via NPR

by Lefort in Music

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It’s Festival-time around the world. Lollapalooza went down last weekend. Outside Lands will go down outside this coming weekend. And for those of us who couldn’t make it to each Mecca, vignettes from various Festivals are trickling in from around the Interglobe.

Take, for example, the performance below by one of our favorites, Andrew Bird (featuring the lovely and talented Tift Merrit), of Begging Questions and Dark Matter at the Newport Folk Festival (courtesy of NPR).

While we revere Mr. Bird’s albums, we confess to enjoying his live performances more.  With his superb songwriting, singing, storytelling, and playing (violin, etc.), as you’ll see below, Bird flies highest upon the stage.  Go over to NPR HERE, to hear the entire set (as listed below).

SET LIST: “MX Missiles” “Give It Away” “Something Biblical” “When That Helicopter Comes” (The Handsome Family cover) “Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dyin’ Bed” “Dear Old Greenland” “Begging Questions” “Dark Matter” “Tenuousness” “Three White Horses” “Headsoak” “Danse Caribe” “If I Needed You” (Townes Van Zandt cover), and “Don’t Be Scared” (The Handsome Family cover)