Troubling times came silverlined
…Found a diamond in the rough now I’m gonna make it mine
Donna the Buffalo’s new album, Silverlined is out today. Unlike their last record, Life’s a Ride, which was recorded in DTB’s home studio, (The Tracking Shack, in Perry City, New York) Silverlined went many miles, and has many hands in its making. Only one track was recorded in their home studio; two were recorded at Yes Master studio in Nashville, Tennessee, ten at Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina, and several vocal tracks were laid down at Sound Cell Studio in Huntsville, Alabama.
Guest artists Béla Fleck, Claire Lynch, David Hidalgo and Amy Helm appear on the record.
JamesMcMurtry, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Larry McMurtry, is a brave writer in his own right. One listen to “Cheney’s Toy” off his latest album, Just Us Kids, is proof enough.
You’re the man
Show ‘em what you’re made of
You’re no longer daddy’s boy
You’re the man
That they’re all afraid of
But you’re only Cheney’s toy
Washington Post reporter J. Freedom du Lac says McMurtry is a “famously caustic observer of Americana.” Freedom du Lac also says McMurtry, 46, has crafted one of the year’s best albums in Just Us Kids, which artfully mixes provocative portraits with political screeds.
McMurtry’s dad is justifiably proud of his son’s work and achievements. “One element of music is poetry, and poetry is a lot harder than fiction,” his father says. “A lyric is the hardest form. You have to concentrate and squeeze those words. I respect James a lot for having found his own art and done it so well.”
When McMurtry is at home in Austin, he performs a midnight set every Wednesday night at the Continental Club on South Congress. He’s almost always preceded onstage by singer-songwriter Jon Dee Graham.
Graham says, “He’s pretty fucking precise; I think he’s always looking for the right words. And as a songwriter, I respect the hell out of him. He’s able to create, whole cloth, out of thin air, things that never happened to people who don’t exist, and to make them funny, witty, insightful and a general comment on the world. How do you do that?”
Jim DeRogatis, music critic for Chicago Sun Times likes Alejandro Escovedo’s new album, “Real Animal.” Not as much as I do, but that’s okay.
Blame a midlife crisis or a fury prompted of any number of dramas in Alejandro Escovedo’s life, from divorce to a near-fatal bout with Hepatitis C—but at age 57, the veteran Texas roots-rocker has returned for the first time in his long solo career to the aggressive, at-times punk-rock sounds of his earliest band, the Nuns, with a few hints of pioneering alternative-country combos Rank & File and the True Believers thrown in for good measure.
Co-written with Chuck Prophet, produced by the legendary Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex) and propelled by a crack band that includes Chicago-based violinst Susan Voelz, “Real Animal” is rife with borrowed licks from Bowie and one of Escovedo’s biggest heroes, Lou Reed.
I’m still listening for the best track on a record full of contenders. Andrew Dansby of The Houston Chronicle likes the opening track, “Always a Friend.” He says it “as infectious a pop song as Escovedo has written.” I like track four, “Smoke.”
In February, The Panderers released their debut EP entitled “Hotshot’s Boy” on Snack Bar, a label created by Mike Doughty.
According to the band’s MySpace, the EP was produced by Dave Wilder and Pete McNeal, who came together on the deep belief in a trove of songs authored by singer/songwriter Scott Wynn. Scott’s roots stem from deep east Kentucky coal country where his father and uncles worked coal as did their father before them. Scott is the first of his family not to work coal and to attend college. Scott borrows much from the baseness and humility of coal country, but you have to remember that coal can also be fire. So, the music pretty much reflects that….very base, bare, rootsy…and/or pure fire.
Though chief semite David Berman sounds less electrified—and more gentrified—than usual on Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, he’s the rare songwriter who’s better for it.
As a vehicle for Berman’s words, just as much as a follow-up to his 1999 poetry collection Actual Air would be, Lookout Mountain is a volume to be consumed in one’s own time, filed on the shelf, and eventually taught in seminars as an example of form and poise.
In other words, this one’s a must have. But I wouldn’t file it on a shelf. Put it into listening rotation, straight away.
Rolling Stone reporters are soaking up the music in rural Tennessee this weekend. Kevin O’Donnell has this to say about Battles, a band I’ve never heard of until now.
Battles were a solid choice to perform on the first night of the fest. The New York-based four-piece — fronted by Tyondai Braxton, the son of jazz musician Anthony Braxton — turned out a killer hour long set of tricked-out, prog-rock grooves, which ranged from avant-garde electro-jazz to freaked-out space funk. The clear highlight of the group’s set was “Atlas,” a fantastic piece of robo-rock that mixes Daft Punk-style electro-grooves with industrial atmospherics.
Like Deer Tick, Francis is an insanely-talented young singer-songwriter (albeit with slightly less buzz). Hailing from Los Angeles, he sounds nothing like his surroundings. Actually, he doesn’t even sound like he’s from this century.
His music exudes both innocence and angst, hope and despair. His debut One By One is an earnest, introspective, timeless folk record that will undoubtedly be cherished by those lucky enough to stumble upon it.
His debut album, One By One on Aeronaut Records came out last August. It’s playing in my iTunes at this moment. Francis has a haunting, floating on the wind sound.
Categorizing his own music as “a small monsoon of emotion,” the Brentwood, Calif. native who, as a young boy, would sneak into clubs to watch his sisters perform, recorded One by One in a friend’s living room and on the second floor of his parents’ house. At eight years old, Robert Francis was invited up on the stage at The Mint Club in L.A. to perform with actor Harry Dean Stanton and singer Chaka Kahn. Ry Cooder, number eight on Rolling Stone’s “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” gave Francis a vintage National guitar at age nine. When Francis was 16, John Frusciante, best known as the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, took him on as his only student.
Interestingly, there’s another Robert Francis, a poet, who passed away in 1987.
Aubrey Sabala is “everything your mother warned you about and more…the girl next door who puts into words all that you’re thinking but are afraid to say.”
Witness:
Aubs, who works at Digg, is attending Sasquatch Festival at The Gorge this weekend. Okkervil River played their love-inducing festival set yesterday.
Andrea Myers at City Pages doesn’t care for the new Mason Jennings album, In The Ever. But Seattle blog Sound on the Sound answers any and all critics with, “Mason Jennings doesn’t play music to be cool. He plays because he has something to say.”
I’ve never listened to his music until now, so my experience of In The Ever is totally fresh.
Coming off his 2006 major-label effort, Boneclouds, Jennings decided to retreat to a studio in the woods, where he set himself up with a laptop and two microphones. The title comes from his son talking about where he came from before he was born, “Ya know dad, when I was in the Ever?”
“It was pretty raw, but fun, because that’s how I grew up working,” says Jennings about the recording process for In the Ever. “I wanted to do it quickly in a childlike way. I’d write songs in the morning, record them in the afternoon and finish them up by night.”
I tend to like my folk a little rougher around the edges, but I’ve been listening to this record over and over in my truck. It’s habit forming, and that’s lofty territory for any artist.
I listened to the intoxicating music of Jon Swift for the first time this morning. To the 11 songs on his 2003 release Coming & Going.
On CD Baby the album is decribed as, “delicately orchestrated compositions of guitar, bass, percussion, harmonica and piano stemming from bare, lyrically driven spirituals disguised as folk songs.”
Like Jack Johnson, Swift is a surfer living in Hawaii who plays acoustic guitar and writes his own material. The Google doesn’t have a lot of info on him, he’s made zero blog posts on MySpace and his site is “under construction.” So, let’s just listen to his music, shall we?
B Getz of Jambase was where I wasn’t, catching the sickest of the sick. Reading his account is actually painful to me, in a longing kind of way.
It is hard to believe that it has been five years since the mammoth Gov’t Mule “Deepest End” concert at Jazz Fest 2003, and it has become an annual Mule celebration of sorts when the boys hit Jazz Fest. This year saw numerous guests join the band on both Friday and Saturday nights at the Contemporary Arts Center. Mike Gordon teamed up with Particle’s Steve Molitz for a huge “Loser” > “Terrapin Station Jam” > “Loser” sandwich during Friday’s second set. Umphrey’s Jake Cinninger got a head start on his own late night festivities by joining in on “Dear Prudence.” New Orleans got in on the fun when the Dirty Dozen Brass Band appeared, as did Henry Butler and Roosevelt Collier. Opener Grace Potter helped on covers of Ike & Tina’s “Nutbush City Limits” and Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love.” Walter ‘Wolfman’ Washington, Ivan Neville and Papa Mali got in on the act, too, and Cyril Neville closed out the numerous sit-ins on night one.
The second night of the Mule was just as electrifying, as the parade of guests and stellar playing continued. George Porter Jr. and Ivan Neville joined the band for several songs including “Fortunate Son.” Owen Biddle and Capt. Kirk Douglas of the legendary Roots crew, fresh off their blistering Fairgrounds performance (with Ludacris!), got their Zeppelin on with “When the Levee Breaks” (a poignant song choice in these parts). Sonny Landreth, Eric McFadden and Grace Potter got involved as well. The second set on Saturday night was one of those legendary NOLA Mule sets, beginning with “Africa” featuring Cyrille and Ivan Neville, Eric Krasno and Stanton Moore. Henry Butler, as well as Kofi Burbridge, amongst others, also made their way into the Mule stew. Appropriately, it was the core four Mule brethren onstage for the final number, the quintessential “Soulshine.” Not enough can ever be said for the beauty, integrity and sheer eloquence that Warren Haynes, Danny Louis, Andy Hess and Matt Abts bring to a NOLA stage.
Thankfully, both nights are available on Mule Tracks. Check out the set list from night one:
DISC ONE:
1. Smokestack Lightning w/ John Butler
2. Wandering Child
3. Dear Prudence w/ Jake Cinninger
4. That’s What Love Will Make You Do w/ Henry Butler & Rosevelt Collier
5. Perfect Shelter
6. Spanish Moon w/ Dirty Dozen Brass Band & DJ Logic
7. Death Don’t Have No Mercy w/ Dirty Dozen Brass Band & DJ Logic
8. Brighter Days
DISC TWO:
1. Child of The Earth
2. Grinnin’ In Your Face w/ Ruthie Foster
3. Million Miles From Yesterday w/ Ruthie Foster
4. Nutbush City Limits w/ Grace Potter & Scott Tournet
5. Whole Lotta Love w/ Grace Potter & Scott Tournet
6. Ain’t No Love In The Heart of The City w/ Walter Wolfman Washington
7. Streamline Woman
8. Brand New Angel
9. Loser> w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
10. Terrapin Station Jam> w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
11. Loser w/ Mike Gordon & Steve Molitz
12. I’m A Ram
DISC THREE:
1. Unblow Your Horn/Reblow Your Mind w/ Cyril Neville
2. I Walk on Guilded Splinters w/ Papa Mali, Ian Neville & Cyril Neville
3. Fortune Teller w/ Cyril Neville & Papa Mali
4. Larger Than Life
5. Sco-Mule w/ Tim Greene
6. Guilded Intro> w/ Tim Greene
7. Mule w/ Tim Greene
Not bad for a college town of 110,000, prompting more than a few music industry insiders to call Denton the next Austin.
“There’s this combination of artistic fervor and small town naïveté,” said David Sims, a music columnist for The Dallas Observer. “Artists here don’t know they’re not supposed to be Bob Dylan so when they start a band, they shoot for the moon.”
The more I hear about this place, the more I want to hop on a plane to Dallas and experience it first hand. When I do go, I hope Dan’s Silver Leaf is in full swing.
The hub of Denton’s unplugged music scene is now Dan’s Silver Leaf, a colorful dive bar in a former radiator repair shop decorated with Texas longhorn skulls. On a breezy Saturday night last March, the bar was packed with 20-somethings with straggly beards, ponytails and vintage T-shirts. They sat in stone silence as Sarah Jaffe, a 22-year-old transplant from Dallas, belted out a heartfelt ballad reminiscent of Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah.” Local music watchers were already calling her the town’s next Norah Jones.
“People get kind of jaded because we literally have some of the best musicians in the world play here,” said Dan Mojica, the club’s silver-haired owner, who was holding court at his usual spot at the backyard bar. “We’ve set the standard so high that locals are expecting that all the time.”
MP3 Offering: “The Man in Me” by Matthew and the Arrogant Sea
I came across Robert “Wolfman” Belfour earlier this week and I love his story. He grew up in North Mississippi’s hill country, so blues is in his soul, but he never had a music career until he started playing on the streets in Memphis.
His father died when Belfour was 13, and his music was relegated to what little free time he had, as his energy went to helping his mother provide for the family. In 1959, he married Noreen Norman and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he would work in construction for the next 35 years.
In the 1980s Belfour began playing on Beale Street and in 1994 he had eight songs featured on the compilation album, The Spirit Lives On, Deep South Country Blues and Spirituals in the 1990s. This led him to Fat Possum Records and his first album What’s Wrong With You, which was released in 2000 when Belfour was 60.
His 2003 release Pushin’ My Luck is now in my listening rotation (it’s available on iTunes). Here’s track two from that record, “Breaking My Heart,” courtesy of the label.
I took note of Adam Carroll’s music recently, after Hayes Carll mentioned the San Carlos singer-songwriter.
Carroll has a new record coming out this month. It can be downloaded in advance of it’s release at Lone Star Music. Lone Star also offers an interview with Carroll where even more leads to new musicians are given–this time to Fred Eaglesmith, Scott Nolan, Mark Jungers and Roger Marin.
Q. Your new record, Old Town Rock & Roll, is your first one without Lloyd Maines producing. Were you looking for a new sound?
A. I’ve been doing some touring with some Canadian friends that I met through Hayes Carll by way of the Fred Eaglesmith crowd two of which are Roger Marin and Scott Nolan.
Scott is one of those guys I’ve been lucky enough to get to know over the past year or so- He writes great songs one of which is called “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” which is on the new Hayes record.
We were playing at Roger Marin’s festival up in Canada and we started talking about doing a record together. The idea was really exciting to me because Scott is very dynamic and engaging as a person and performer and I just had a feeling that we could do a great record. When I got back home i was so looking forward to the chance to work with Scott that I finished a bunch of half written songs that I had lying around plus a few new ones and we went to Mark Jungers’ house and started recording. I had written a lot of songs over at Mark’s and I knew that it would be the perfect place to record, (it’s) really laid back, comfortable and creative.
We all treated my record as an experiment that we could walk away from if it didn’t work but I think we all knew right away that it was going to be good.
Nolan wrote “Bad Livers and Broken Hearts,” which appears on Hayes Carll’s new album.
Scott Avett is a talented individual. He’s known for his work with The Avett Brothers, but he’s also an accomplished painter.
According to his web site, Scott is also active in illustration, printmaking, and sculpture (in addition to his songwriting, recording and performing duties).
Captain Obvious had a chance to speak with Scott last week, before the band’s Friday night Merlefest appearance.
Obvious: You guys have really picked up a lot of steam as of late, playing Late Night with Conan O’Brien last year and having “If It’s The Beaches” played on the NBC series “Friday Night Lights.” Are you surprised by the success?
Scott: None of our accomplishments have made us champions but we are extremely thankful and honored by the recognition. Since day one we have promised to carry ourselves proudly no matter the rate of “success” that comes our way. Success, for us, is to maintain that integrity and that attitude and nothing can touch us… but, surprised to find yourself on the Grand Ole Opry or Conan O’Brien, no doubt about it.
