Black Moth Super Rainbow

I’ve been listening to Black Moth Super Rainbow‘s 2007 album Dandelion Gum. This analog-sourced electronic synth pop drone James-Bond-theme-on-better-drugs whatnot occupies certain parts of your brain so the others can go into overdrive. It’s great stuff to blare while you’re brainstorming. My favorite tune is Forever Heavy.

I bought it because I downloaded the song Sun Lips, which quickly became a staple for all sorts of mixes. I like to pair it with the Air remix of the Beck cover of the Air song Heaven Hammer (Missing).

MOKB alerts me that BMSR is coming out with a new EP in August/September: Dippers (preorder). You can listen to one track, Happy Melted City, here at their MySpace or download the thing from YANP. Download some other tunes, including some old stuff of theirs, from their site.

Also! I have uploaded the tracks the band has released as a promo for Dippers, which they are calling Bonus dippers. The band has all the files zipped for download here, or you can download them individually through the miracle of ones and zeroes from my mp3 page. I recommend Slide 9, Day On a Bike, and Unfinished Sketch 3.

If you’re way into it, check this out. They played SXSW with their buddies The Octopus Project; together the two bands released a disc called The House of Apples and Eyeballs.

Trampled Under Foot (TUF)

Kansas City blues band Trampled Under Foot gave a stellar CD release concert at Uncle Bo’s last Friday night in Topeka, Kansas.

Their latest release, May I Be Excused, is available for purchase here. My copy is still on its way, but judging from the evolution of their live shows (and because of the rough recording quality of some of their older work), this must-have 12-song disc will certainly be their best, showcasing their songwriting skills and commanding vocals. They won the 2008 International Blues Challenge in Memphis (in a field of 90 bands), and just in case you think these kids are fooling around, also note well that “big brother Nick” won the Albert King Award for Most Promising Guitarist at the IBC.

These incredibly talented siblings–vocalist and bassist Danielle, guitarist Nick, and drummer Kris Schnebelen–are part and parcel of the larger family of regional blues musicians. This is Kansas City, after all, and it ain’t known for its techno. So singeth Muddy Waters (listen here to Kansas City Blues).

Their mom and dad were musicians in KC-local Little Eva and the Works. Nick worked with the bands K-Floor (a.k.a. Killin’ Floor) and Buddahead on the east coast before returning to team up with the fam. Danielle came up in the KC scene via Fresh Brew Band, The Nortons (watch her here), and regular Friday gigs at the Grand Emporium as Danielle Schnebelen and the Rush Hour Rendezvous. She recently married Brandon Hudspeth, the front man for local blues group Levee Town.

This post updates (and eclipses) Stella Splice’s February review.

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The Trampled Under Foot performance on June 27, 2008, was in the basement of the downtown Ramada. If you can rock the Ramada in northeast Kansas, you can rock any place imaginable.

I’ve also seen the band at other, bigger venues: B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, which is a must-go club for all those passing through, no matter the act, and also The Jazzhaus. These three shows, over the course of time, were like core samples of TUF’s evolution from great to call-everyone-you-know killer great.

I’m going to act like I’ve seen the hard-touring TUF crew a bunch of times and sketch a “typical” show.

They open with an instrumental, tuning you in to their groove. Then maybe Nick steps up to the mic, tearing into the most danceable sort of blues number with a voice that sounds chock-full with decades of whiskey, cigarettes, and no-good women. His smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen this side of a Crest commercial, but it’s twisted with a love for the bended blue notes he shakes out of his left-handed guitar (she’s a lefty, too). We hear the first round of Nick’s solos, and even the most recalcitrant concert-goer wants to hop up and see if they’ve got any boogie-woogie left in ’em.

The third song: it’s Danielle’s turn to sing. You could have listened to a Nick-fronted band all night, and been ecstatic for the chance. But once the force of nature that is her voice emanates from that woman’s soul, you just want more “D,” the little sister on bass. I recommend listening to the title track May I Be Excused on their MySpace. The butter-smooth song showcases Danielle, and even though it comes in just shy of seven minutes, she still makes you wanna beg for more. Don’t think for a minute that that song captures her energy on stage, though. In fact, my one and only criticism of her is she gets so into the vocals she sometimes twists her head away from the mic, and I don’t want to miss even those split seconds.

The rest of the show will go back and forth with Nick and Danielle trading songs. The real gems are when they (plus Kris, who is underused for this function) chime in on each others’ choruses, for that familial harmony that rings so true.

For the last song of the first set, D will leave the stage while Nick solos his ass off, guitar behind the head, taking you through a technical and emotional tour of blues history. Then Nick will leave Kris alone on stage for the sort of drum solo that makes you regret your current occupation–“Why didn’t I choose percussion in grade school?!?” Eventually, after waves of tom riffs and powerfully silent two-beats that make you yell out in hearty agreement, Kris drops back into keeping time and the others join him to finish off the song and the set. But not to worry, there’s so much more to come.

To kick off round two, Nick sets up at the trap set. He plays guitar and two-foots the bass and the top hat perfectly. It’s not a novelty; it’s just a great song that he plays himself. And it’s gotten much, much better over time.

The rest of the show may include Nick on the Dobro, a round of solos by each band member during the bridge of a couple of songs, a jam with a fellow musician (last night on the Hammond B3 organ), and a whirlwind of covers. Over the course of three shows, I heard Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools, which turned people into crazed fools on the dance floor, Gladys Knight & the Pips’ Midnight Train to Georgia, Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor and his Howlin’ for My Darlin’ (which Nick rocks with absolute authority, as if he penned it himself), the Janis Joplin version of Summertime, I Shot the Sheriff by Bob Marley and The Wailers, and Danielle workin’ it out on Etta James’ At Last. (D says Etta is her biggest influence.)

The most crowd-pleasing of their older original music is Honey Bee and Virginia Creeper, both streaming on TUF’s MySpace.

At the end of a third set, the band tried to get off the stage and no one wanted to let them. Brilliantly, Danielle satisfied the crowd and sent us off to bed with a sweet a cappella cover of Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz with big brothers on harmony. Very nice.

The Swell Season at Bonnaroo 2008

The Swell Season captured the spirit of Bonnaroo best, of all the great bands I saw (pictures). You can download the show, transformed magically into mp3s, here, or any of 15 other live shows of theirs here.

I expected great things from Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, but I also know it’s hard to put a sweet sound out into the great outdoors and manage to maintain intimacy and vibrancy all at once. Their songs did just that, and their humility and joy refreshed us despite the mid-day heat. The two musicians really did fall in love while filming the movie Once and making the music that became not just a soundtrack but also this group The Swell Season. They interacted on stage just how I’d hoped: adoring looks, encouraging cues, an ever-so-slight touch on the shoulder while they worked out what to play next.

If you haven’t bought any of their stuff yet, I would recommend the collector’s edition of the Once soundtrack that also includes a couple of live cuts and a making-of DVD. Perhaps it talks about how they fell in love while filming and touring. And the actual movie DVD is out now, too, if you missed it in theaters. If you saw the movie, you won’t be surprised to know The Swell Season covered two Van Morrison songs, Astral Weeks and Into the Mystic.

Glen was much more of a showman than I expected. He orchestrated the audience without commanding us (see future post on Metallica at Bonnaroo), encouraging us to cut loose with no inhibitions in the spirit of a festival. We were hungry for this sort of communal happiness, and the packed audience ate it up and gave it back to the performers on stage tenfold.

Glen and Markéta were accompanied by Glen’s usual band (since 1990) The Frames. I’ve not been able to get into their records, but this show made me want to keep trying until it takes. The drummer was an incredible mix of charismatic and seriously absorbed, the guitarist and bass player were great role players, and the violinist played so emotively I actually looked for another woman singer when he laid harmonies over and under Markéta’s soaring vocals.

The song I loved best was originally a Frames song, called God Bless Mom. It’s not anywhere online live to show you. I’ll keep a lookout. The video for the original version of the song does nothing to capture the dynamic range with which The Swell Season infused it.

I love The Pixies. I was amped for a Pixies cover by a downloadable concert of The Swell Season at the 9:30 Club offered by NPR here. So when the band left the stage and Glen and Markéta had a confab and then broke into a cover of Levitate Me, I went ballistic. You can’t see me going apeshit about five rows back in  the crowd, which is only due to the camera angle, but it’s still fun to watch them.

The band worked a jam for a while, which was unremarkable in and of itself. But Glen asked poets to come up on the stage, and two people took the invitation. The man who went first looked at the crowd in awe, genuinely taken aback by the sea of people focused on him. Glen nodded in shared astonishment, and with that bolstering moment the dude plowed into a really good poem. I tapped him on the shoulder later and thanked him for letting us all be part of something special, and he seemed to take the compliment as seriously as I meant it.

Final note: They did an encore, Hey Day (written by Mic Christopher), which was racous. What more could ya want?

The Black Keys

I was recently convicted by a friend for my “apparently unceasing love for The Black Keys.” Roger that. Makes me smile every time to think how much a compliment I consider her straightforward statement of fact to be.

Stereogum points out that the duo cut and put out a cover of the Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band (geek on frontman Don Van Vliet here) song I’m Glad.

The mp3 is downloadable on their MySpace (or at Stereogum) until Friday.

I hesitate to be so crude, but this is the sort of song you put on and ignore for a couple of minutes, only to find it has surreptitiously grabbed you by the balls and you realize you may have been holding your breath.

In other good news, if you live in the Cleveland, there’s a surprise first-come-fist-served Black Keys show on Wednesday. Check the info here.

Chaka Khan, Al Green, Diana Ross & The Supremes, etc.

I totally missed the great Chaka Khan‘s double-Grammy disc Funk You (listen/buy). For fun, here are three very different YouTubes of her, a classic song, her on drums, and a jazzy tune.

Muzzle of Bees introduced me to the disc Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country. Review here, tracklist here, and buy it here. We’re talking a great compilation here, including James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, The Pointer Sisters, Bobby Womack, Etta James, etc.

Stop, children, what’s that sound … everybody look at this delicate but soulful cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth covered by Sergio Mendes & Brazil ‘66, which you can download at Aquarium Drunkard. Buy the disc.

Aquarium Drunkard also alerts us to the amazing double disc of Diana Ross and The Supremes rarities, available here. Find their cover of Stevie Wonder’s Uptight for download here. Also, you can stream Diana Ross’ recent album of just covers, I Love You, in its entirety here.

In late May, Al Green comes out with a new disc Lay It Down that is evidently star-studded, as if Al weren’t enough. Preview a track at Soul Sides; it’s Al with Anthony Hamilton (my review of him) performing You Got the Love I Need Babe. You can also stream Al Green’s remastered greatest hits album here.

By the way, if you get a chance to see Al Green live, pay the money and sit in the front. It’s a life highlight. Check the tour dates, such as his shows co-headlining with Gladys Knight!

To bring this post full circle to yesterday’s, the Estelle/Kanye song American Boy contains the lyric “The Pips at they Gladys.” Fun!

Van Morrison

Van Morrison’s new album, Keep It Simple, is as wonderful as you could hope for. He hasn’t lost his chops, and though his voice may have deepened a tad or perhaps just mellowed, it is to no ill effect. The sound of the disc is gentle and soulful, rather than intense–perfect for rainy spring days.

You can stream four tracks on his exemplary MySpace. Buy the thing, which came out just yesterday.

Peruse his back catalog at his website to soak in the iconographic heft of Van the Man. Glen Hansard humbly and sincerely acknowledges “the greatest Irish songwriter that ever lived” in the preamble to The Swell Season’s cover of Into the Mystic (download or stream at my Bonnaroo Muxtape).

Mmmmmm … now for the YouTubes! Oh, wait, there are none. Well, good for him and bad for you. Go rent The Last Waltz and let him dazzle you with a rendition of Caravan backed by The Band (looking dapper and showing some chest in a tight rhinestone jumpsuit, if memory serves).

The Raconteurs

The Raconteurs‘ second album Consolers of the Lonely is released everywhere all at once today; buy it.

Jack White and Brendan Benson know telling a story is an art (hence the name of their collaborative effort), and so they gave the press very little advance warning about the album and did not release advance copies or songs. It was driving the critics nuts to not be able to listen until the hoi polloi had access. It’s a ploy to get press; it’s egalitarian; but more to the point it prevents advance-leak burnout: fan downloads two songs, and therefore lose the fire to go buy the album on iTunes.

When I first went to the throw-back Raconteurs website in anticipation of the first album, Broken Boy Soldiers, I remember thinking (and telling my friends) that The Raconteurs could be the next evolutionary step in rock music. I was let down in a big way because the band is merely very good, not paradigm-shifting good. But I have circled back around with more sane expectations, and can now truly enjoy things like watching them rock out Level, from that album. I can’t wait to see them at Bonnaroo!

Check this video for Steady, As She Goes, that really captures what it sounds like to listen to Jack wail, though in its close-ups his face often looks similar to Michael Jackson’s. Download the album version of the song, or get this fantastic acoustic version of Steady, As She Goes. The hook is from Joe Jackson’s Is She Really Going Out with Him? (which I first knew from the Goldfinger cover : )

U.S. tour dates for The Raconteurs:

April 20 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
April 21 – Seattle, WA – Neumo’s
April 22 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
April 23 – San Francisco, CA – Bimbo’s 365 Club
April 25 – Indio, CA – Coachella
April 26 – Las Vegas, NV – The Joint
April 28 – Denver, CO – The Fillmore Auditorium
April 29 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theatre
May 1 – Dallas, TX – House of Blues
May 2 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s BBQ
May 3 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s BBQ
May 4 – New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
June 13 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo

Brendan Benson writes songs that sound like The White Stripes‘ Coke Ad song. Download five songs of his if you’re not familiar. And, yeah, the ipod commercial for What I’m Looking For is his.

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In other news:

The new Gnarls Barkley album The Odd Couple is in stores today, earlier than expected.

Blikk Fang is a side project for a dude from MGMT and another from Of Montreal; the convoluted details can potentially be discerned from this muddy Pitchfork article. I listened to two downloadable tunes here and just didn’t care for them. However, it is news, for sure, and the collaboration of Jack and Brendon reminded me to post something about it.

Quality Cover Songs

I have compiled some links to other blogs’ I-drink-your-milkshake-good mp3 downloads of covers. Enjoy.

Chris Cornell masterminds a gritty, soulful, mind-blowing cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.

Sufjan Stevens croons a cover of R.E.M.’s This One Goes Out to the One I Love.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience rocks Cream’s already-rockin’ Sunshine of Your Love.

Andrew Bird sweetly covers Bob Dylan’s Oh, Sister.

Tangoterje remixes Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes into Diamonds Dub.

And there’s a CD of covers to be bought: Stax Does the Beatles, featuring Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and lots more.

Kurt Cobain: About A Son

I’ve been geeking out on the soundtrack for Kurt Cobain: About a Son. I can’t speak to the way the songs articulate with the film, because I haven’t seen it, but I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from listening to and thinking about the artists that influenced KC.

Buy the About a Son CD or DVD for reasonable prices. The trailer for the documentary pulls from 25 hours of interview tape done for Michael Azerrad‘s biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. (His other book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, follows Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Beat Happening, The Replacements, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Fugazi, and Mudhoney.)

Azerrad wrote the liner notes to the soundtrack, which contains no Nirvana songs but instead other artists’: “stuff he studied and worshiped and adored … So if watching About a Son is like seeing the world through Kurt’s eyes, then listening to this music is like hearing it through his ears.” I think fans will appreciate the amount of respect this choice shows for them and their ability to do the mental labor of analyzing influences and processing the clips of KC speaking that are sprinkled among the songs.

In particular, I like the inclusion of the Creedence Clearwater Revival cut Up Around the Bend because KC’s first band was a CCR cover band. CCR was logical, in retrospect, according to Azzerad, because it’s “basic, chunky guitar music, easy to play and yet boundlessly resonant, full of simple, catchy melodies and a singer with a voice that sounded like a tuned scream.” Nicely put. And when the CCR is juxtaposed against Put Some Sugar On It by Half Japanese (download), the Nirvana sound emerges around the margins.

Two songs that Nirvana covered are included: the original David Bowie version of The Man Who Sold the World (download) and Son of a Gun by The Vaselines. If you’re interested, Matt Yglesias talks about Nirvana covers of Vaselines songs here.

Of course Mudhoney (download Touch Me I’m Sick) and Lead Belly (The Bourgeois Blues) are on there. But I was unpleasantly surprised to note the absence of The Pixies and The Breeders, who influenced KC mightily. The Pixies’ lyrical ambiguity (for a discussion of that, see the 33 1/3 book for Doolittle) is what lets Nirvana go national; it made the angst malleable to any set of personal circumstances, to anyone who thought that the world and/or themselves were SNAFU central.

My only other complaint is the incongruous cut by Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service; his unmistakable voice concludes the CD with the song Indian Summer, and it sort of leaves me lost. I would have liked to see something more assertive or definitive as a closer. He helped compile the songs on the CD, so this track sort of feels like when a first-time film director gives him or herself a cameo.

But, regardless, the thing is worth buying. And in case you aren’t convinced yet, check the list of artists on the soundtrack I didn’t even talk about: R.E.M., The Melvins, Bad Brains, Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Arlo Guthrie, and Iggy Pop. Whew!

Elliott Smith

Inspired by the downloadable unreleased track Place Pigalle, posted by i guess i’m floating, let’s have ourselves an Elliott Smith post.

At turns, ES’s music is simple or intricate, lush or desolate, prancing or frantic. Or, as is generally the case with either/or (pun intended) options, both. I love his whole body of work (buy), but I like the whirling and raucous album Figure 8 better than the very compelling album Either/Or, which is considered his best by most music geeks. The above download, however, fits in better as an Either/Or song (or any other album, just not Figure 8).

Short two-part aside about his album titles. 1) Either/Or is from Kierkegaard (1843); a sample K quote that speaks to ES’s mental state: “My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known–no wonder, then, that I return the love.” 2) ES says, of the Figure 8 title, though I think the metaphor extends to his songwriting in general, “I just like the idea of a figure eight, of figure skaters trying to make this self-contained, perfect thing that takes a lot of effort but essentially goes nowhere.”

Excellent use of ES’s music in soundtracks includes the following choice songs (each album is worth owning):

Good Will Hunting ~ Miss Misery (this image of him feeding meters serves as my default)

Thumbsucker ~ Trouble (this Cat Stevens song (made famous in Harold and Maude) is much covered, to good effect here and by Eddie Vedder) (read the bio on this soundtrack; ES died, and Tim Delaughter and The Polyphonic Spree filled in)

The Royal Tenenbaums ~ Needle in the Hay (this song evokes the suicide attempt scene so vividly for me, it’s nearly too much to bear)

Los Lobos

Los Lobos is working on a children’s album of Disney covers. What a great idea.

The 30-year veterans of mex-rock music will cover Robin Hood’s Not in Nottingham, 101 Dalmatians’ Cruella De Vil, and also, according to band member Louis Perez, “a Grateful Dead-style version of `Zippity Doo Dah’; a surf version of `When You Wish Upon a Star; a Randy Newman song from `Toy Story, `I Will Go Sailing No More’; a Spanish version of `Hi Ho,’ and `Bella Notte’ from “Lady and the Tramp,’ with one section in Spanish.”

Hear their cover version of I Wanna Be Like You from The Jungle Book, originally swung by Louis Prima. Link to Kipling’s book, just for fun.

For more fun, download these other tunes:

Los Lobos rocks Fats Domino‘s Fat Man

Mavis Staples fronts Los Lobos to record their Someday

Gnarls Barkley

After taking a break from being jacked-in to the internet, I found a few things that looked interesting … but were not.

The new Gnarls Barkley video of Run, heralding their April album release, aptly titled The Odd Couple. The video includes Justin Timberlake goofing around, which is marginally more entertaining than the song, in which Danger Mouse does a terrible job of featuring Cee-Lo‘s talents. (from Subterranean Blog)

Eddie Vedder and Janet Weiss (of the now-defunct Sleater-Kinney) sing a duet with a ukulele. Not what you’d hope. And, btw, she’s not the same Sleater-Kinney singer that backs up Eddie Vedder in the cover of Gordon Peterson’s Big Hard Sun from EV’s Into the Wild soundtrack — that’s Corin Tucker. (from You Ain’t No Picasso)

Music in Presidential Politics

Obama and the Clintons have each won Grammys for reading their books.

Bill Clinton played sax. Mike Huckabee played bass guitar, with “his band” Capitol Offense, pissing Boston‘s Tom Scholz off when More Than A Feeling signals implicit endorsement.

There is interest to be found in the ramp-up and walk-off music at rallies, as in this great Daily Kos piece, as well as in the artists that perform at the rallies in unlikely small towns in rural America (e.g., I saw Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes do a lame set before a rally in Iowa, and, no, he didn’t play When the President Talks to God (jeez he’s trying to look like Jack White in that vid), but you can download the song for free from his label here).

will.i.am (of Black Eyed Peas fame) made two celebrity-riddled videos mashing up Obama speeches and chants with sung speech lines and heartfelt appeals: the most recent, We Are the Ones, and the first one, Yes, We Can. The alignment with Sí, Se Puede is intense (and I think they should have highlighted it better in the video, though of course Pat Buchanan is disgusted).

More direct than the Cesar Chavez reference made by Latino movie stars, Barack and Hillary each have a Spanish-language song. Listen to hers here; watch his here. Thanks for the tip, VSL.

Michael Jackson

Last week the Michael Jackson empire rolled out Thriller 25, a remastered anniversary edition of the best selling album EVER. It includes a bonus track recorded with in the original studio sessions but previously unreleased, titled For All Time, plus some songs reworked by artists inlcuding will.i.am, Fergie, Beyonce, Wyclef Jean, Akon, and Pharrell Williams. You can buy it here, if you want to assure yourself the cover art of your choosing, or here where you cans stream clips of the new songs to judge them for yourself.

The video here pimping Thriller 25 features some of the artists and Quincy Jones; it’s fun to watch.

The reviews are mixed, but the general consensus is that the new songs look pretty bad next to the nine tracks that the world knows so well. Gimmicks? Sure. But I’m strangely comfortable with it; I’m just glad they’re reason enough for another generation to get on board.

The best bonus of all on the 25 is hearing Vincent Price’s maniacal laugh: “Michael Jackson is the Thriller. Can you dig it? Ha ha ha….!”

Also, it’s imperative you watch MJ’s 1984 Grammys performance of Billie Jean on YouTube. Rolling Stone hails that song’s influential pop brilliance thus: “Madonna made her own version of ‘Billie Jean,’ retitled ‘Like a Virgin.’ Stevie Nicks called her version ‘Stand Back,’ Pat Benatar called hers ‘Love Is a Battlefield.’ Bob Dylan called his ‘Tight Connection to My Heart.’ Yet none of them could touch the original.”

Gene Wooten

A recent restorative roadrip, which took me through the Bible Belt, rekindled my faith in the medium of radio. Toggling back and forth between radio and CDs, one must have been a very good boy or girl to tune in a classic R&B station or perhaps a classic rock channel in a singer-songwriter mood. But lucky me, I had the good fortune to catch a couple of great community radio shows.

One was on St. Louis’ KDHX hosted by a blues aficionado who wove great stories into his set (stream here). That night he spun records that probably only exist in his collection, and it was special to get to listen to those blues artists from the 1930s.

The other was Vanderbilt’s student radio station, WRVU, which provided a bluegrass soundtrack for a goodly stretch of interstate. The show’s guest host was focusing on covers. He played down-home versions of People Get Ready / One Love (original Bob Marley And The Wailers), Sailin’ Shoes (original Little Feat), and Day Tripper (original The Beatles). Day Tripper was covered by Gene Wooten on the dobro.

Wooten won a grammy for The Great Dobro Sessions, on which you can hear this particular cover. Listen to a clip here, but if it doesn’t work in Firefox, don’t download a plug-in, just use Explorer instead … or you could just buy it. This song re-enchanted radio listening for me for a time, and that’s worth a listen.

The White Stripes

It’s a loving holiday, and so I would like to share some audiolove. I enjoy The White Stripes‘ amazing covers during their live shows and on b-sides. I’ve culled my three favorites for your downloading pleasure.

Bob Dylan’s Isis

Son House’s Death Letter

and the tremendous, not-to-be-missed Dolly Parton’s Jolene

If you’re not done geeking out, you can stream a live 2007 Jack and Meg show at NPR. Also, it’s interesting to hear somewhat screechier and sparse versions of songs you know and love from earlier years. Download live songs from a 1998 show, including a cover of Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee or download live songs from a 1999 show from WDET, Detroit public radio.

The Deep Dark Woods

HearYa introduced me to the band The Deep Dark Woods with the song Hang Me, Oh Hang Me. I like these alt-country Canadians very much. The rich and compelling vocals include some good harmonies, and the band incorporates the banjo, mandolin, and organ seamlessly, without making a gimmick of them.

I recommend listening to them on their MySpace, streaming nine songs on ReverbNation here, or listening and buying on CD Baby. You can also download two mp3s, including Hang Me courtesy of Berkeley Place here. Better yet, listen to both their self-titled first release and their 2007 disc titled Hang Me, Oh Hang Me on CD Baby and purchase them so maybe they will have enough money to tour near you.

While streaming them, I heard the song River in the Pines just now, and damn these kids are agreeably good.

DDW’s Hang Me is an interpretation of the folk song I’ve Been All Around This World, which was also covered by Jerry Garcia (listen to a clip here) and Bob Dylan. I came to the song last year via a more traditional version by Oliver Buck on the 2007 album Rust Belt Blues (listen and buy here).

Trampled Under Foot

Trampled Under Foot, the excellent Kansas City blues band consisting of two brothers and a sister, recently won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. It appears, from the buzz, they might get a lot more well deserved exposure this year.

Check TUF’s killer vocals and ever-impressive musicianship at their MySpace (particularly my mom’s favorite track, the soulful Honey Bee) or you can also stream a bunch of great blues tunes on their website.

They have a new release, The Philadelphia Sessions, that I have yet to buy. Since they’re constantly improving (to the point of ridiculous goodness), I believe it will be a better disc than their others.

The point of TUF, though, is to enjoy them live. They have a great sense of how to put together a set, and the covers they sprinkle throughout (Etta James’ At Last original courtesy of Motel de Moka, Bob Marley and The Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff original courtesy of Aquarium Drunkard) the show, as well as the extended solos, really get a crowd going. The female vocalist/bassist Danielle Schnebelen is magnetic! The few YouTube clips available do not do them justice at all, but if you’re curious, see here, here, here, and here.

They’re hard working local musicians with no “tour” to speak of; they do constantly play a variety of shows in the greater KC area and the midwest generally. I recommend seeing them (and practically any other show) at Kansas City’s BB’s Lawnside Bar B.Q. They’ll be rocking the indoor picnic tables February 15, March 15, and May 30.

Ha Ha Tonka

Ooooooh! In the next month, Ha Ha Tonka is playing some small venue shows with cheap ticket prices around the midwest; this is your chance to get up close and personal with Missouri’s finest young band. Here’s them covering Black Betty (an older song than I thought) at a show that looks like just too much fun. What more could you want?

Valentine’s Day, they team up with Split Lip (awesome, of course; also, this band Ludo sounds like they’ll be likeable live). Bonus, Bloodshot Records is featuring them at South by Southwest. Check the recently announced SXSW list here.

February 14 – Columbia, MO – Blue Note w/Split Lip Rayfield
February 27 – Kansas City, MO – The Record Bar w/Ludo
February 28 – Chicago, IL – Metro w/Ludo
March 7 – Decorah, IA – Luther College
March 10 – Waverly, IA – Wartburg College
March 15 – Austin, TX – Red Eyed Fly as part of SXSW

Ha Ha Tonka‘s Buckle in the Bible Belt (buy it!) was one of my favorite albums of 2007. They call their music foot-stompin’ indie rock, but I think it’s also deserving of the “dash-slappin’ good” descriptor. High praise, indeed. Turn up the volume for this live cut of them at The Blue Note in Columbia playing St. Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor, perhaps one of my top ten songs of 2007. Yeah. That good.

Download three live cuts and two studio cuts at My Old Kentucky Blog. Also, you can download five songs recorded live by these personable musician at the HearYa studio. Thanks to those blogs for creating live material with quality sound.

Scarlett Johansson, Tom Waits, and TV on the Radio

Scarlett Johansson is releasing an album covering ten Tom Waits songs on May 20 called Anywhere I Lay My Head.

Here’s an excerpt from a Pitchfork interview with Waits, who is very zen about the concept of covers:

Pitchfork: I’m sure you know Scarlett Johannson [sic] is recording an album of your songs?
Tom Waits: Well no, I read about it in the paper.
Pitchfork: No one consulted you beforehand?
Tom Waits: No, no. But, you know, more power to her.
Pitchfork: Are you excited to hear it?
Tom Waits: I don’t know if I’m excited to hear it, but I’m curious. People make songs so that somebody else will hear them and want to do them. I guess it’s an indication that the songs aren’t so ultra-personal that they can’t possibly be interpreted by anyone else. I’ve seen her in movies. I don’t know what she’s going to do with the tunes. When you get a hold of somebody else’s song, you make it your own. That’s all you can do. And that usually requires a certain amount of tailoring. Cut the sleeves off, lay some buttons. Everybody does something different to a song, that’s the tradition.

I didn’t really care about this S-Jo release until I heard it was produced by TV on the Radio‘s Dave Sitek. So now I have a timely reason to blog about TVotR. Huzzah! Let me sketch an outline of this band for you.

First and foremost, they make exquisite night-driving music.

While hanging out with a new-ish friend this summer, we raided a jukebox and I asked him, “What kind of stuff do you listen to?” He could have said a genre or listed a few bands. But he brazenly slid the weird sounding band name “TV on the Radio” into the conversation, just as simple and easy as greasing the maitre’d with a discreetly folded hundred dollar bill. The reference was currency; I knew we’d get along just fine.

Watch a video on their MySpace of a performance of Dreams with Peter Murphy and Trent Reznor. PM can’t turn “it” off, and he most certainly shouldn’t! Even better, watch TVotR’s excellent weirdness in other live performances.

Laugh at this excerpt from an interview with band member Kyp Malone, as he responds to the question, “Are you aware of anyone of importance calling your band pretentious?” Kyp said, “I don’t know, but I think we are. If it’s pretentious and it falls short of what it’s striving for, then I’m sorry. But without pretension, no one would do anything creative and get on stage and record it on some tape. I’m an art fag, dude, give me a break.”

Read a quality review on Pitchfork of the stellar disc Return to Cookie Mountain.

Download a couple of tracks at Dead Indie Elephants.

Enjoy this cool music video for Staring at the Sun.

Grab the free and legal mp3 Dry Drunk Empire.

Support great music.

Anthony Hamilton

The more I listened to Anthony Hamilton on the web, the more I liked him. So, I bought the 2005 disc Ain’t Nobody Worryin’. I passed on the 2007 album Southern Comfort, because it was a little less funky than I wanted. There’s supposed to be a new album coming out in early February, according to Billboard, but I see neither hide nor hair of it so far.

He’s been collaborating with a lot of artists, including another R&B singer who’s getting hyped right now, Keyshia Cole. I’d love to see him do a duet with Alicia Keys (when she’s in a Fallin’ mood, and not a No One mood). (Really, watch that video of Fallin’. It’s a live performance, and there’s a stellar piano solo at the beginning that’s worth your time.) Anthony and Robert Randolph helped out with Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay (live YouTube of the original here that’s shockingly different than the original recording) on Buddy Guy‘s star-studded album Bring ‘Em In. Buy the album and listen to short snippets of the songs here. And, of course, you can see another bit of his work in the video for his song on American Gangster Do You Feel Me, which I posted about February 1 here.

I really gravitated to Anthony’s ’05 album because of the song Sista Big Bones, which streams on his site. However, I am warning you, DO NOT watch the video for Sista Big Bones. It nearly ruined the image I had of him in my head as a way-cool soul singer. In the song, as soulful as Anthony is, the awesome beat is more George Clinton than Al Green, and the backup vocals evoke Rufus. That sentence right there, once I formed it in my head, convinced me to buy the disc.

The other superstar track on the disc is Preacher’s Daughter, which features Stax-style backups by his wife Tarsha’ McMillian. She’s releasing an album February 26 called The McMillian Story. The intense lyrics draw you in, hard, and she’ll break your heart at the end of that song. As the liner notes say, she “vamps” the outro.

I like songs like those two with thump enough to rattle the pennies in my car’s change holder, and the album provided enough of them to keep me happy.

There are a fair number of crooning songs that I don’t love, but I feel because they’re rougher and groovier than, for instance, the too-smooth Brian McKnight, they might grow on me. Some sound like puttin’-on-the-night-moves songs, but closer attention to the lyrics reveals they’re really break-up songs.

A couple of tracks use a spoonful of soulful sugar to slip gospel messages into the grooves, not unlike Stevie Wonder and Al Green. There’s a song called Everybody that sounds in the intro like a rockin’ version of Lionel Richie’s Easy like Sunday Morning; the lyrics really remind me of Stevie: “Everybody needs love in their life / Everybody needs a little sun to shine.”

Final assessment: Dig the album, some tracks in particular, and I hope that he just funks out the next one.

DeVotchKa

It’s so awesome I can’t hardly contain myself. You can now get a track from DeVotchKa‘s fortcoming album, A Mad and Faithful Telling, due on March 18. Download the song Transliterator from My Old Kentucky Blog (Stereogum was first). Devotchka offers frantic fiddle playing, accordion stylings that make for quality drinking songs, and fall-in-love/heartbreaking vocals in a variety of languages that can spin you into an introverted trance–and sometimes all three things at once.

The songs DeVotchKa picked for their MySpace represent them fairly well, though they of course cannot capture the beauty and crazed nature of the live shows. I first saw them in 2005 opening for The Dresden Dolls, and they totally stole the evening. The audience wanted nothing more than to stomp their feet, swirl their pint glasses above their heads in a wild toast when the music crescendoed, and take home the pretty upright bass player with the rose behind her ear. But don’t we all.

Colorado’s DeVotchKa have also toured with the self-styled “Burlesque and Fetish Star” Dita Von Teese, Calexico, and Flogging Molly, among others. I can’t wait to see who’s with them on the next tour.

Catch performances of Queen Of The Surface Streets and a darling little version of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s Something Stupid performed on an interview/session with MPR’s The Current.

I am obsessed with their cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico’s Venus in Furs. Watch a live YouTube here, grab the mp3 here at ThaBombShelter, or, better yet, buy the EP Curse Your Little Heart. The EP also contains a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees’ The Last Beat of My Heart and the Sinatras’ tune.

 

American Gangster

I nearly purchased the American Gangster soundtrack a couple of times since seeing the Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe flick at the drive-in movie theater, but when I visit InSound to do so, they scare me off with their assessment that the disc is “An entirely fitting companion piece to the movie, but certainly not on the endlessly playable level of the Dead Presidents soundtrack discs.” And I have them, so why would I need this. Well, I’m beginning to make up my own mind on this matter.

The American Gangster soundtrack is not to be confused with Jay-Z’s album with the same title (preview all the songs here) that was inspired by the movie. Jay-Z’s is a concept album, and each track comes directly from a scene. He played the film in the background while recording. There’s also an a cappella version of the Jay-Z album for the DJs to mess around with, as usual. That’s all very interesting, but I’d actually prefer an instrumental-only version. The hooks are what keep me listening to Jay-Z, not his lyrics; for instance, in Soul Sides’ post of Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, the Dap-Kings are on the instrumentals, and I wish Jay-Z would just be quiet. Similarly, his business savvy is what keeps me following him in the news, not necessarily his rhymes (as is the case with lots of other rap stars).

Antony Hamilton singing Do You Feel Me (download it at Soul Sides or stream it at Def Jam), the featured song in the movie, is great. It was written by Diane Warren, and also relies on the Dap-Kings for the groove. Sometimes I think I’d like Hamilton’s vocals to be more silky, but it doesn’t stop me from listening. He convicts me with the line: “And you like to keep keepin’ me.” I think I keep him because the vocals sound like a man is singing them. There’s a bit of falsetto, but it’s not gratuitous, not like Pharrell Williams, who’s an interesting cat (The Neptunes) with a nice sound, but it’s certainly not manly when he sings.

The producer of the Hamilton single is Hank Shocklee, and he talks about the process in an interview here. I like that he used the Dap-Kings (of the we-may-have-backed-her-but-we-ain’t-no-Amy-Winehouse ’cause-we-been-doin’-this-for-a-long-time-and-ain’t-nobody-been-listenin’ Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings) as his session band and recorded at Daptone Records with old (“vintage”) equipment. Shocklee, famous at first for his work with Public Enemy, said, “the thing that I thought was most amazing was me actually working with live musicians again. I think that is an art that has been lost. Everybody is more drum machine and sample-oriented now.” I hope it moves Shocklee and the music he influences in a little different direction.

The final assessment is I think I talked myself into the Hamilton solo album rather than the American Gangster soundtrack … review coming soon.

The Mars Volta

On Tuesday The Mars Volta released a new cd, The Bedlam in Goliath. Interestingly, you can also buy the album on a 1 gig USB drive that carries the songs and a video and magically gives you additional goodies such as videos, more songs, and b-sides every month for a year. Cool. The band says while writing the new tunes it was channeling dark spirits that cursed them via their purchase of an old Ouija board. Listen to two songs from the album here; download their cover of the Black Flag song I’ve Had It here.

I want to like them so badly, still hoping for a reincarnation of At the Drive-In, who had brilliant music and awesome concerts (watch them go ape-sh*t on Later with Jools Holland). Like Elliott Smith, they’re one of the few acts I rue missing. Sigh. At the Drive-In broke up in 2001, after which the band members split into The Mars Volta and the good-but-not-great Sparta. (Sparta’s 2002 Wiretap Scars disc was very good, but now they’re starting to sound more Coldplay-ish. It does not suit them.)

I saw The Mars Volta open for A Perfect Circle in 2004, and I was ready to give them all the adoration I had stored up for At the Drive-In. Alas, their uber-technical wall-of-sound explorations just didn’t rev me up like I’d hoped. I couldn’t get into them then, and this disc didn’t change my mind.

One caveat: I do enjoy some of their songs with more apparent Mexican influences, like L’Via L’Viaquez. But if I’m going to listen to angry Mexican rock, then I’m probably going to go straight to the more aggressive bits of older Cafe Tacuba or Plastilina Mosh, or even the hip hop of Control Machete.

The Flaming Lips

A couple bits of Flaming Lips news. You should definitely download this fantastic, addictive bluegrass version of Turn it On.

They’re also returning to Kansas the first week of June to headline the Wakarusa festival again. To see what the exuberant, prop-filled show will look like, check this YouTube clip of them at Waka in 2006 (bad sound, but it catches the spirit; for perfect sound watch the official video for the song Race for the Prize).

The last time I saw them, they covered Bohemian Rhapsody. Their covers are sincere, fun, and sincerely fun. You can grab some of them for your very own:

Beck’s The Golden Age (awesome) from Indie for Bunnies

The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army (awesome) from The Indie Index

Queen’s much covered Under Pressure from Dead Indie Elephants

Radiohead’s Knives Out from Indie for Bunnies