2014 Archives
Sep
Watch Full Tweedy Concert at Brooklyn Academy of Music
by Lefort in Music
Like many, we are suckers for the songwriting of Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, etc.). Tweedy’s new father-son ensemble Tweedy released its initial album, the critically-acclaimed (natch) Sukierae, on Tuesday and celebrated with a release show at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. The relateds were backed by their touring band (Jim Elkington, Darin Gray, and Liam Cunningham. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius), along with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline who came out for the encore. Père Tweedy also performed solo at times. The setlist (holy setlist!!–see below) also included Wilco and Uncle Tupelo songs. The first song, Nobody Dies Anymore, is worth the price of admission alone and a purchase of Sukierae HERE.
SET LIST:
Nobody Dies Anymore
Fake Fur Coat
Diamond Light Pt.1
Flowering
High As Hello
New Moon
Honey Combed
Desert Bell
Summer Noon
Wait For Love
Slow Love
World Away
Low Key
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
New Madrid
Hummingbird
You and I
Please Tell My Brother
Born Alone
Hesitating Beauty
Jesus, Etc.
Radio King
Passenger Side
I’m the Man Who Loves You
A Shot in the Arm
Encore:
Love Like a Wire
Only The Lord Knows
Give Back The Key To My Heart
California Stars
Sep
Watch Kwabs Perform Live our Song of the Week–“Walk”
by Lefort in Music
We first heard trending Londoner Kwabs this summer on Later with Jools Holland in a commanding performance of his encouraging track Wrong Or Right (you can only watch the mesmerizing Official Video for the song at bottom since we can’t share the flipping BBC’s Holland-show vignette–the BBC will allow every citizen on the planet to watch Jools’ videos EXCEPT Americans–what the sailboat??!!).
We love Kwabs’ compassionate lyrics combined with his instantly-catchy melodies. And the dude can sing! Today comes another great live performance by Kwabs that was thankfully captured well by La Blogothèque (BBC? Cha! Ya vex I!). Watch below as Kwabs performs his superb new single Walk (hereby, our Song of the Week) for LumiaLive down in the Deep End of the Chadderton Baths in Manchester.
Afterwards check out the just-released Official Videos for Walk, Pray For Love and Wrong Or Right.
It won’t be long before Kwabs is commonly revered. And deservedly so.
Sep
Watch Volcano Choir’s Inspiring New Video for “Tiderays” Off of “Repave” Album
by Lefort in Music
Volcano Choir has today released a new official video for great track Tiderays off of 2013′s Repave, our No. 3 Best Album of 2013. The video, created as part of the 551 Project, was directed by Kyle Buckley & Andi Woodward and features dancers from the Milwaukee Ballet. Simply beautiful.
Sep
Watch Elbow’s Entire Concert at Eden Project (Cornwall)
by Lefort in Music
What a treasure trove. These past few weeks have seen an embarrassment of Elbow riches. First, the band’s appearance at the iTunes Festival in Camden was made available for viewing (until October 31st, you can go HERE). And now the band’s entire set at Eden Project in Cornwall is available for viewing courtesy of Eden Sessions. Check a few particular gems out below and then watch the entire set performed in the magical venue. Outstanding.
Sep
While Radiohead’s Away–Listen/Watch New Songs from Drummer Phil Selway
by Lefort in Music
The interweb was agog yesterday with the semaphoric, ever-enigmatic news that Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood had dispensed pixels depicting something white and round (see at bottom), which may or may not be representative of somebody’s new album or, really, anything musical at all. Yay! In the words of the seminal Johnny Rotten from way back: “Ever feel like you’ve been cheated??”
In the meantime in Comparatively Concrete News, Radiohead’s drummer Phil Selway has released two tracks from his impending album Weatherhouse. While nothing can touch the loft of Radiohead’s output, Selway acquits himself incredibly well on the tracks Coming Up For Air and This Will End In Tears (oh, the uplift). Check out the videos for both and below them the better-sounding audio tracks after.
Bring on Weatherhouse (before that white, roundish blob does what it has to do)!!
Sep
Start Your Week Right–Check Out the Sebastien Remix of Moby’s “Almost Home” (with Damien Jurado)
by Lefort in Music
It’s been a little too quiet on the Moby front in the aftermath of his release of our No. 7 Best Album of 2013, Innocents. Innocents was a tour de force et de coeur that took us up and away. The album features several superb cameos, not least of which is Damien Jurado’s vocal on the uplifting gem Almost Home. Now comes a remix by DJ Sebastien (Leger) that adds to the uplift. We love everything about the remix and video, including the footage of Joshua Tree and the three-night run last year at the Fonda Theater. The Sebastien Remix: a great way to kick off the week.
You can buy the Sebastien Remix HERE. You can buy the Live From the Fonda package HERE.
Afterwards below, you can watch the Live From the Fonda capture of the song followed by the touching original official video for Almost Home.
Sep
Watch Spoon Pay Poignant Homage to Jay Reatard in Milwaukee
by Lefort in Music
It was a Spoon Summer here at Lefort. Like many indie-rock lovers, Spoon wowed us with their fantastic album, They Want My Soul, and then took television and live audiences by storm throughout the season.
This week in Milwaukee the band added to their live laurels by paying homage to the gone-to-soon Jay Reatard. We had forgotten that Milwaukee was the site of Reatard’s last concert on New Year’s Eve in 2009 as opener for Spoon (two weeks before Reatard was found dead in his house in Memphis). Watch below as Britt Daniel and the boys perform a riveting cover of Reatard’s song No Time (an extra cut released on Reatard’s collected Matador Singles ’08. Reatard’s original audio and song’s lyrics (harrowing harbingers of his demise) can be checked out after.
Excuse us while we slip out to listen to Reatard’s album Watch Me Fall, one of our all-time faves and highly recommended listening.
No Time:
“I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
I’m getting lost and tossed around this mess of pains
I think I’m tremblin’ and frownin’ and tired o’your stupid game
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine
I close my eyes and I slip away
These things seem to happen more than not these days
It seems I never have the time
To make my mind feel fine
Just locked inside this glassbox
Looking out the window for you
It seems I’m never feeling fine”
Sep
Listen to Mariachi El Bronx’s “New Beat” off Impending New Album–Coming to Santa Barbara on 11/7
by Lefort in Music
We were caught off guard and wowed by Mariachi El Bronx’s last album (II) and several ensuing and vividly-captured live performances on Letterman, Kimmel and NPR.
At long last the band has announced the November 4th release of their next album, surprisingly entitled III on ATO Records. The band will follow with a West Coast tour that will bring them to Santa Barbara at Velvet Jones on November 7th. Check out below the first sample off the new album, the ferocious track New Beat. We first hear the trademark percussion and horns, and the valiant vocals of Matt Caughthran, but a bit later (starting at 1:55) some added Specials-esque ska-inflections and Ghost Town hectorings. Bravo Bronx!
See the new album’s tracklist and the upcoming tour dates at bottom.
MARIACHI EL BRONX (III) – TRACK LISTING
- New Beat
- Wildfires
- Sticks And Stones
- High Tide
- Nothing’s Changed
- Eternal
- Raise The Dead
- Everything Twice
- Right Between The Eyes
- Valya
MARIACHI EL BRONX – 2014 TOUR DATES
West Coast Headline Tour
11/5 – Los Angeles, CA @ The El Rey Theatre
11/6 – San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brewing Co
11/7 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Velvet Jones
11/8 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
11/10 – Bellingham, WA @ The Wild Buffalo
11/11 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
11/12 – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
11/14 – Sacramento, CA @ Assembly Music Hall
11/15 – Fresno, CA @ Strummers
Sep
Listen to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Cover Johnny Cash’s “As Long As The Grass Grows” for New Cash Tribute Album
by Lefort in Music
One month from now will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Johnny Cash’s release of Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. At the height of the Civil Rights era in 1964, the album was released by Cash to add to the human rights spotlight the injustices done to Native Americans.
Earlier this year, producer/artist Joe Henry gathered together a cast of superb Americana artists (Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Steve Earle, and Norman and Nancy Blake, amongst others) to pay tribute to the album and the anniversary by recording a new album entitled Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited on SonyMasterworks. The album is out now.
To get a feel for the depth and quality on the tribute album, check out below (via Rolling Stone) Welch’s and Rawlings’ melodic modulation of (a la Bragg/Wilco to Guthrie’s poetry) Cash’s originally spoken-word cut As Long As the Grass Grows. Cash’s winning way with words (“Cornplanter can you swim?”) is on display in the telling of the Seneca tribe’s broken treaty and the dam that broke their hearts. Lake Perfidy indeed.
After listening to Welch and Rawlings, you can watch the Man in Black perform the original live with June Cash and Pete Seeger in , and the song’s lyrics are at bottom.
You can pick up this worthy album HERE and HERE.
As Long As The Grass Shall Grow
As long as the sun will shine as long as the grass shall grow
The Senecas are an Indian tribe of the Iroquois nation
Down on the New York Pennsylvania Line you’ll find their reservation
After the US revolution Cornplanter was a chief
He told the tribe these men they could trust that was his true belief
He went down to Independence Hall and there was a treaty signed
That promised peace with the USA and Indian rights combined
George Washington gave his signature the Government gave its hand
They said that now and forever more that this was Indian land
As long as the moon shall rise…
On the Seneca reservation there is much sadness now
Washington’s treaty has been broken and there is no hope no how
Across the Allegheny River they’re throwing up a dam
It will flood the Indian country a proud day for Uncle Sam
It has broke the ancient treaty with a politician’s grin
It will drown the Indians graveyards, Cornplanter can you swim?
The earth is mother to the the Senecas they’re trampling sacred ground
Change the mint green earth to black mud flats as honor hobbles down
As long as the moon shall rise…
The Iroquois Indians used to rule from Canada way south
But no one fears the Indians now and smiles the liar’s mouth
The Senecas hired an expert to figure another site
But the great good army engineers said that he had no right
Although he showed them another plan and showed them another way
They laughed in his face and said no deal Kinuza dam is here to stay
Congress turned the Indians down brushed off the Indians plea
So the Senecas have renamed the dam they call it Lake Perfidy
As long as the moon shall rise…
Washington Adams and Kennedy now hear their pledges ring
The treaties are safe we’ll keep our word but what is that gurgling
It’s the back water from Perfidy Lake it’s rising all the time
Over the homes and over the fields and over the promises fine
No boats will sail on Lake Perfidy in winter it will fill
In summer it will be a swamp and all the fish will kill
But the Government of the USA has corrected George’s vow
The father of our country must be wrong what’s an Indian anyhow
As long as the moon shall rise (look up) as long as the rivers flow (are you thirsty?)
As long as the sun will shine (my brother are you warm?) as long as the grass shall grow.”
Sep
Check Out The Mattson 2–Jazz Goes Surfing Over Rock and Raga
by Lefort in Music
West coast twin-brothers The Mattson 2 (Jared and Jonathon) cavort in an evolving soundscape that melds surf-guitar, jazz, rock and Raga elements. They have a brand new album Agar, on Um Yeah Arts, a label run by surf/skate film director Thomas Campbell. The album title evidently came from the gelatinous substance that binds and connects items in a petri dish (to simplify, it’s “Raga” backwards). The guitar and drum duo are on an extensive US tour that will bring them to the Mercury Lounge in Goleta on October 18th. Be there.
To get a feel for this dynamic duo, check out below the outstanding new track Dif Juz off their new album, which begins Interpol-ated, then Hosannas for a while, but with the Mattson’s own distinctive signature. Afterwards, check out some of their older recordings (but especially the very impressive live recording of Man From Anamnesis). Finally, at bottom is their video for Black Rain, a standout track off of their last album, Feeling Hands.
And then get ye to the Mercury Lounge on October 18th to check out this up and coming combo.
The Mattson 2 – Black Rain from matti kakkori on Vimeo.
