featured vid

 

Frank Turner - The Way I Tend To Be

mp3s

Chase the wind and touch the sky…

So, I was updating my review widget a couple of days ago when my sidebar exploded. I’m still not sure if it was an update or some weird code error but I am bereft of social media links till I get them all reinstalled.  I feel like the blog is stranded on an iceberg and the only contact with civilization is a small pontoon plane.

Shoreacres from The Task at Hand found and shared the Featured Vid for this Week. Check out Unorganized Hancock doing their cover of Modest Mouse‘s Float On.

Lots of new music in the jukebox this week including The Heavy Horses track I was looking for a few weeks ago. Give a listen to Alabama ShakesAlways Right, Great PeacockTake me to the Mountain, The Heavy HorsesCopper and Gold, Joe PugThe Great Despiser and Jason IsbellCigarettes and Wine.

hhhbears1

Okay, I promised once the sun came up I would go find Hamish for Scooter. She has the little brothers from Brave in bear form and when I went to collect them so she could sleep, Hamish was nowhere to be found. Since I draw the line at moving furniture at four in the morning, I am off to search now.

- Kit

 

Born on the wrong side of the tracks…

How many guitar straps does Martin think I can possibly use? I get that a lot of the emails are just auto-sends with whatever is on sale but still.

Amazon informs me that some Walter Trout tracks I bought from them in 2006 are now up in the Cloud if I want to snag.  I long ago ripped tracks off the CD for my mp3 player and then again for my phone so I am not sure what I am supposed to do with the Cloud versions. It may just be a way to introduce their new auto-rip feature. Any physical CD you buy from them with a certain logo also gets you and immediate digital version to download. Most of the indie sites I buy from have been doing that for years now. Welcome to the 21st century Amazon.

The best thing in my mailbox lately?

Kit’s Awesome Vid of the Day

The Record Company - On the Move

 

 

Some new and some nearly new tunes in the juke this week with Semi-Twang - The Wrong Side of the Tracks, Wires in the WallsIn the RainDebbie DaviesDone Sold Everything, Skyla Burrell BandBottom of my Heart, and finally the Hickman Dalton Gang with Whiskey Rain – just because I can.

The featured vid earlier this week was Traps from Black Music by the Dark Horses. They seem to be somewhat of a performance art kinda band  so I will likely watch their vids and forego snagging the tunes but if you like that kind of music expression you should check them out on their facebook page or follow them on Twitter @darkhorsesmusic.

The featured vid right now (grin) is a live acoustic version of Ashes to Ashes from Peter Parcek 3. You all should snag Peter’s facebook page not only for the blues music he and his band play but also for his articles and stories about guitar players and blues musicians.

Also – added shiny new track Turn me Loose from The Record Company to the jukebox. The guys are offering it as a free download so you all go snag it while I make a pot of coffee.  Ummm, coffee.

- Kit

Arc & Stones…

Now that Scooter is back sleeping nights I proclaim this ’dig myself out from under the mountain of un-reviewed music‘ week.

Kicking off the week o’reviewing is Arc & Stones, the debut EP from Brooklyn band Arc & Stones. The guys are Dan Pellarin (vocals), Ben Cramer (guitar), Joe Doino (drums) and Eddy Bayes (bass).  I had the cool video for Silence up in the featured spot last month but I’ve popped it into the review for anyone that missed it the first time around.

 

 

My favorite track is She’s Mine because it’s loud.

No, seriously. It has slamming drums, gritty fuzzy guitars and a growl-y vocal delivery. Kind of like ’70′s ZZ Top with a little bit of Mr John Lee Hooker thrown in for fun. Oh, and did I mention it was LOUD?!

Rise is not quite as raw but it is still a good rock tune while Let Me Down seems a little out of place, not because it is quiet and mellow but because it sounds like it needs to be played acoustic on your front porch. It is a nice track, just different. Say Goodbye starts off all warm and cozy then explodes into another hard rocking number:

 

 

This is a great EP and you all should go and buy it now. Yes now. Or tomorrow when it releases. Hey, it is a couple of bucks and you get awesome music from a new band. There is no bad in this. Well, except for the waiting until tomorrow part.

 

Arc & Stones releases tomorrow, Feb 12, 2013 and is available in digital format from Amazon and Bandcamp. You can also check out the band on their facebook page or on their website and follow them on Twitter @ArcAndStones

- Kit

 

I don’t wanna feel, cause I don’t wanna bleed…

Brewed Southern Pecan coffee this morning. The house smells like pecan pie.

New tracks in the jukebox this week. I’ve also posted links to all the jukebox songs within the post for anyone pulling the blog on feed. Unless it says differently these are all linked from Soundcloud.

The Delta Saints - Chicago, Jack Moore covering Something Good, Viv and the Revival with Early Ape – I Want It, Fife and Drom – Wicked Tongue, and from Reverbnation W. B. Johnston – Sky Blue.

Precious Bryant passed away this weekend. The Music Maker Relief Foundation has a nice article about her on their website.   Check out  Fool Me Good from her 2002 release of the same title over in the jukebox.

The featured vid this week is Green Lights by Eastern Rift off their new EP Left of the Mark. You can check out more stuff from the band on their Facebook page or over on their Reverbnation page.

What We Could Be…

Sometimes a girl needs to rock. She needs guitars that make her scream, drums that give her a danceable beat, a bass that digs so far inside her bones they vibrate in time and a sexy voice that already knows what she’s doin’ after the show.  She needs a rock band.

Cue The Amends.

Their second full length album, What We Could Be, is a meld of rock and other musical influences that come together in a cool layered sound, kind of like someone crossed INXS with Joe South and then slipped in a little punk while no one was looking.

My favorites are Come and See, for reasons I won’t mention because I really try to keep a PG rating on the blog, Big City Way for the epic clashing guitar-keyboards-drums ending and A Certain Speed for it’s awesome punk driven guitars.  I also like, oh, everything else on the album.

You all should go and buy this album.  Seriously, like right now. If you need a little more to go on, check out the full preview of What We Could Be below:

 

 

In addition to the new album, I am also stoked because Tyler and Drew (Tyler Taylor, Drew Weikart) were nice enough to take some time and answer a few of my questions.

##############

Kit - I hear a lot of different musical influences in your songs. What bands would you all list as your biggest influences?

DREW : In general, mostly blues and classic rock, but some newer indie stuff, too. Rolling Stones, Black Keys, RHCP, The Strokes, Chuck Berry, My Morning Jacket, Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn.

TYLER : Weirdly, in many ways my all-time favorite bands and my main influences are different. I can’t say my absolute favorites– like Radiohead and Bob Dylan for example– much influence the songs that I write. I couldn’t even begin to write songs like them. That’s a non-answer, I know. So in general, I’m influenced by indie rock and classic rock. Classic rock is where Drew and my tastes really overlap, and then he brings the blues influence and I bring the indie rock side.

Kit - You guys have been very open about your creative process with your fans – even to releasing unfinished versions of your songs and asking for feedback. Is it hard to give people outside the band input on your songs?

TYLER and DREW : It’s not hard, because we’re not beholden to take every piece of advice we hear. But it’s sometimes good to be able to step outside ourselves, and see what other people think, to get an outside perspective. Sometimes we think we have something good, but we’re too close to it, and we can’t be sure. Sometimes people tell us we’re crazy. The music industry is obviously kind of a mess these days– a lot of it due to new technology. But there are advantages that technology brings as well, one of them being the ability to connect directly with fans. Another invaluable one for us is the ability– if we want to– to record pretty much everything we do, every practice, every writing session. In some ways it makes us lazy, but in other ways it allows us to always be able to go back and find that what snippet of a song we played that we forgot.

Kit - You guys (Tyler and Drew) have two very different voices. How do you decide who will sing any given song?

TYLER : After our last album, Drew and I talked about trying to nail down an “Amends song (or sound)”. We love rock n roll of all kinds, so it was hard to focus on a certain kind of sound. But we knew that we’d have to do that at least to some extent in order for people to know what we’re about. And one thing we decided that would help that was for Drew to be the sole lead singer– keep that sound cohesive at least. I do a bit of backup still. And besides, I secretly kind of dislike singing if I’m being honest, especially in front of other people.

KitWhich song (or songs) do you guys enjoy playing live the most?

DREW : The ones that are more Rock/Blues rock.  I feed off of higher energy live, and also when I can let loose on guitar. I sometimes find myself dreading performing the slower songs, but when we get through a few, and I know rock ones are coming up, I get a feeling of excitement and relief. I love the slower ones on our albums, but when we do them live, sometimes it feels like they can take away some of the energy. A lot of them start slow and build and we have to figure out how to work those kind in.

Kit – What do you guys do when you aren’t playing or writing songs?

DREW : I listen to music. I drink. I work. I watch movies and I play and watch sports.  It seems simple, but there is alot of excitement that comes from that. Except for work.

TYLER : Unfortunately, for the time being, we both have day jobs. But besides that, I write a lot. I write fiction in addition to music. I travel a lot– which you can kind of see in that video for A Certain Speed. Hiking, backpacking, and other typical Colorado stuff. I love scuba diving too, but I obviously don’t get to do that too much here. And I’m a huge St Louis Cardinals fan, ever since I was a kid.

KitIt’s a brand new year and a brand new album – What are you guys looking forward to in 2013?

TYLER: We’re working on putting together our first tour right now. If that’s successful, we’ll do another. We hope to start writing some new songs again soon. And beyond that, we just want to try to get our music out to as many people as possible.

DREW: We are looking forward to taking our music career to the next level.  It’s our passion, it’s what we want to do, but we feel stuck in the circle of working our day jobs, while also trying to be musicians, and ultimately that doesn’t work. So we want to break out of that. Make the leap.

Shay, Drew, Chris and Tyler

 

What We Could Be releases today, January 8, 2013 and is available in digital or CD from Bandcamp or from The Amends website. You can also check out the band on their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter @TheAmendsBand

 -Kit

Can’t go anywhere without my sunglasses…

We headed over to Raleigh this weekend  for some ‘must spend my holiday money gifts’ shopping. I wore my cool new Wayfarers.

Okay, okay…I wore my new sunglasses that just happen to look like Wayfarers.  I can’t have actual Wayfarers because I am the Mount Doom of sunglasses. Seriously, I am where sunglasses go to die. I usually buy three or four pair at a time from someplace cheap like Dollar General and then hope they last out the month. A couple of months before we moved to North Carolina, Kahuna bought me fifteen pairs from slickdeals. By the time we pulled out to make the trip I had three (3) pair left out of the bunch. One of those was a tiny pair I gave Scooter. Yes, my preschooler keeps sunglasses longer than I do. Sigh.

Anyway, beautiful weather, no traffic and mostly deserted stores. We even braved Toys-R-Us but it was a ghost town. (like an actual empty town, not like the band) It would have been great for shopping but there was nothing to buy - just big stretches of empty shelves. Even the above-mentioned toy abyss had scattered all the toys out to make the shelves look full.  The girls came home with a few items but it appears I will be spending most of my money buying music online.  Or maybe over on Kickstarter…I haven’t decided yet.

(Bands! If you have new stuff coming out soon or a Kickstarter project, now would be a great time to tell me)

I have a new article up on GamingHUD. It’s sort of the video game version of my best music list. While you all are over there you might give the ‘rename GamingHUD’ contest a try.

All new music in the jukebox to start off 2013. Check out new tracks from The White Buffalo, Viv and the Revival, Hawk and Dove, Corey Koehler, Gypsy and the Wolf and The Flying Bricks.

The featured vid this week is A Certain Speed off the upcoming (January 8, 2013 release)  What We Could Be by The Amends.

Okay, time for more coffee…

- Kit

Twas the night before Christmas…

…and I was going put up a neat pic of Ryan Bingham and his dog, both decked out for Christmas -but- I do understand not everyone shares my Boodreaux obsession so a change of plans was enacted.

The Delta Saints are giving away a couple of tracks off their 2010 EP in anticipation of their new album release (Death Letter Jubilee) next month. You can pop over to Noisetrade and download the songs for free  but if you can afford it be sure to drop a couple of bucks in the tip jar.

Hey, at 12:17 tonight when you are still trying to put together the bike, dollhouse, toy chest, or whatever - slipping The Delta Saints and a cup of coffee in between Perry Como and Tony Bennett will wake you up enough to finish the job before morning.

 

Kit’s Rockin’ Vid of Keeping you all awake on Christmas Eve

The Delta Saints – A Bird Called Angola

 

 

Happy Holidays

- Kit

Through the smoke and fire…

I missed Ninebullets Radio last night which is a shame because Bryan put together a stellar line-up of artists and then attempted (or so I assume) to blow the roof off the radio station. Since I missed it live I am listening to the recorded version.

If you all want to join me you can catch the archived show on Ninebullets.net .

Just check out the playlist:

01. Otis Gibbs – Crap For Christmas (Once I Dreamed Of Christmas) 02. The Black Keys – Thick Freakness (Thickfreakness) 03. Left Lane Cruiser – Big Mama (Bring Yo Ass To The Table) 04. The Legendary Shack Shakers – County Of Graves (Believe) 05. Those Crosstown Rivals – Kentucky Woman (TCR/Arliss Split 7?) 06. The Whipsaws – Jessi Jane (60 Watt Ave) 07. Arliss Nancy – Both Got Old (TCR/Arliss Split 7?) 08. Frank Turner – The Road (Last Minutes & Lost Evenings) 09. The White Buffalo – The Pilot (Once Upon A Time In The West) 10. Drag The River – History with History (unreleased) 11. Have Gun Will Travel – To The Victor Go The Spoils (Mergers & Acquisitions) 12. Doc Dailey & Magnolia Devil – She Has Her Moments (Catch The Presidents) 13. Possum Jenkins – Greasy Spoon (On Time) 14. JKutchma & The Five Fifths – Used To Believe (Pastorals) 15. Chris Knight – In the Mean Time (Little Victories) 16. Scott H. Biram – Judgement Day (Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever)

Seriously good show. Four or five of these are on my best of 2012 list but the entire line-up is just awesome.

For those of you that pull the blog on feed, Routed Tree is the video up in the featured spot  and it’s from my favorite Brighton guys, Gypsy and the Wolf.

If you like the track they have it free for download over on Soundcloud.

This is my new desktop background -

Before everyone gets overcome with jealousy, there are several wallpapers and some new shots from Ironman 3 over on the Marvel website so you all can have your own Tony Stark/Ironman background.

Well, I’m on the last track of the show (appropriately titled Judgement Day-grin) and need to run. Have a good weekend!

- Kit

music reviews
  • Blurred…
    February 12, 2013 | 4:06 pm

     I have been trying to write the review for Blurred, by San Francisco singer/songwriter Alex Wise for a few months now but can’t seem to finish it. This is difficult for me to say but I get about halfway through the process and find myself so homesick I just can’t continue. The past few years have been full [...]

  • Arc & Stones…
    February 11, 2013 | 4:53 am

    Now that Scooter is back sleeping nights I proclaim this ’dig myself out from under the mountain of un-reviewed music‘ week. Kicking off the week o’reviewing is Arc & Stones, the debut EP from Brooklyn band Arc & Stones. The guys are Dan Pellarin (vocals), Ben Cramer (guitar), Joe Doino (drums) and Eddy Bayes (bass).  I had [...]

  • Telegraph Taboo…
    January 21, 2013 | 8:45 am

    So, I was in the mood for some blues and whoosh – blues appeared. Other people get coupons, bills and news updates in the mail while I get blues music. Cool new blues music in the form of the debut release Telegraph Taboo from the Chicago-based band Nick and the Ovorols. This is not a pretty album. The vocals on a few tracks [...]

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