11 – Build Your Own!

Posted on April 22, 2011 by mike

The much-anticipated sophomore release from North Hills, CA band Dawes was announced yesterday to much joy (at least around here…). The album called Nothing Is Wrong with the artwork above will come out on ATO Records which was the home of North Hills— the band’s first release. Following the astonishing success of their first album and in particular the amazing “When My Time Comes” which ended up in a Chevrolet trucks commercial– Nothing Is Wrong is a tough act to follow. Thankfully, the band has been playing songs from the new album for over a year, so we already know that there are some contenders on this album as well. Looking at the tracklist below, we see that “Million Dollar Bill” which was also a Middle Brother track makes an appearance as well.

The original North Hills album came out on 2 LP 45 RPM 180g vinyl. I confirmed with Taylor Goldsmith that there will indeed be a vinyl version of Nothing Is Wrong as well!

To start the buzz, Dawes has made the track “If I Wanted Someone” a free download in exchange of your e-mail address.

Here is the tracklist for Nothing Is Wrong, and I’m providing links to live performances of the songs from archive.org:

1. Time Spent in Los Angeles 2-13-10 2-15-10 5-14-10

2. If I Wanted Someone 2-13-10 2-15-10 5-14-10 6-27-10 11-13-10

3. My Way Back Home 11-13-10

4. Coming Back to a Man 1-23-11

5. So Well 7-4-10

6. How Far We’ve Come 9-12-09 10-09-09 10-12-09 10-24-09 2-15-10 5-14-10 11-20-10

7. Fire Away 5-14-10 6-17-10 11-20-10

8. Moon in the Water 2-15-10 11-13-10

9. Million Dollar Bill

10. The You Laugh 1-23-11

11. A Little Bit of Everything 11-13-10

Here are the upcoming Dawes shows (from the Dawes website):

May

05 – Houston, TX – Fitzgeralds
06 – Austin, TX – La Zona Rosa

07 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theatre
09 – Orlando, FL – Beacham Theater
10 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room
11 – Tampa, FL – State Theatre

12 – St Augustine, FL – Cafe 11
13 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
14 – Birmingham, AL – Secret Stages Music Festival (2PM)
14 – Nashville, TN – Cannery Ballroom
15 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel

17 – Charlotte, NC – Visulite Theatre

18 – Carborro, NC – Cat’s Cradle

19 – Athens, GA – Melting Point

20 – Chattanooga, TN – Nightfall Series (Free Show)
23 – New Haven, CT – Toad’s
24 – Portland, ME – State Theatre

25 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse
26 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
27 – Montreal, OC – Le National

28 – Toronto, ON – Opera House
29 – Detroit, MI – St. Andrew’s Hall

June
01 – Louisville, KY – Headliners
02 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue

03 – Chicago, IL – The Vic Theatre
05 – Hunter, NY – Mountain Jam (1:30PM Set)
06 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant

07 – Louisville, KY – Iroquois Ampitheatrer

08 – Columbus, OH – LC Ampitheatre

09 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE – Indoors

10 – Philadelphia, PA – Mann Center for Performing Arts

11 – Vienna, VA – Filene Center at Wolf Trap
13 – Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre
14 – Seattle, WA – Moore Theatre
15 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom

16 – Bend, OR – Athletic Club of Bend
17 – Chico, CA – El Rey Theatre
18 – Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre
20– San Diego, CA – House of Blues
21 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
22 – Phoenix, AZ – Marquee Theatre
23 – Las Vegas, NV – Silverton Casino
24 – Reno, NV – Knitting Factory
25 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theatre

July

02 – Emeryville, CA – High Sierra Music Festival

07 – Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival

08 – Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival

Upcoming Release : Booker T. Takes “The Road From Memphis” with The Roots and Daptone’s Gabriel Roth on May 10.

Posted on March 26, 2011 by mike

Following up 2009’s GRAMMY-winning Potato Hole should have been tough for Booker T. Jones to follow. In fact, who would have blamed him if he took a break, resting on the achievement– which was a tribute as much as an updating of the Southern Fried B-3 fueled sound he effectively served on dozens of sides on Stax Records with his band The MG’s. Backing Booker T. on Potato Hole was an Überband of Neil Young and The Drive-By Truckers and produced by main Trucker Patterson Hood which delivered its Hammond barbeque with a side of Gibson distortion.

The formula for following up Potato Hole was to enlist go-to backing band from Philly THE ROOTS! Titled The Road From Memphis the album also features vocals from Sharon Jones, Lou Reed, Yim Yames from My Morning Jacket, and Matt Berninger from The National. Jones himself steps up for a rare vocal as does his daughter Liv. The album is produced by ?uestlove of The Roots and is engineered by Gabe Roth of Daptone Records.

Frankly, this album has GRAMMY written all over it.

Anti- Records released Potato Hole on 2 LP 180g that sounded pretty damn amazing. For The Road From Memphis according to Amazon, it will be 1 LP. No word on weight, but I’d have to believe it will be 180g again.

Here is some footage of Booker T. and the Roots taking on Lauren Hill‘s “Everything is Everything”:

Full track listing for ‘The Road from Memphis:

Walking Papers
Crazy
Progress (feat. Yim Yames of My Morning Jacket)
The Hive
Down In Memphis
Everything Is Everything
Rent Party
Representing Memphis (feat. Matt Berninger & Sharon Jones)
(On April 4th, you’ll be able to download this mp3 for $0.99 from Amazon).
The Vamp
Harlem House
The Bronx (feat. Lou Reed)

Click Here for the Anti- Records Page on The Road From Memphis

Click Here for Booker T. Jones’ website

Click Here for The Booker T. Facebook Fanpage

B-Sides in the Bins #54 – Half-Price Books, Bloomingdale, IL 3/13/11

Posted on March 20, 2011 by mike

Sherry and I were back in Chicago last weekend for her yearly America’s Beauty Show conference at McCormick Place. My goal was to spend some time working on some writing and possibly do some record shopping. We were also planning to see The Right Now open for L.A. R&B band Orgone at Schuba’s.

Because I was concentrating on some writing, I primarily stayed holed up in our hotel room in Oak Park, but I ventured out on Sunday morning after dropping Sherry off at the show. I had been meaning to hit the Half-Price Books up in Bloomingdale and the hotel was relatively close to there. As far as Half-Price Books stores are concerned, this one is a pretty well-stocked one. The vinyl section was very large and had a very good selection of titles. The rule of thumb for pricing vinyl at HPB in Cedar Rapids is to use the Goldmine Vinyl Pricing Guide and charge 50% of that. So, when Neil Young’s Harvest shows up in the guide for $10, you can count on it being $5 or $6. In my opinion, the Bloomingdale prices seemed on average a little higher than I’d see in Cedar Rapids, but not oppressively so. I ended up getting some collection fillers– Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd which was cool. Those titles tend to be kind of rare in Cedar Rapids, so I want to snag them when I see them. I also got some odd college rock releases, too.

Led Zeppelin – Coda (LP, Swan Song/Atlantic 90051-1, 1982) ($9.98) Coda was the 9th and final LP from Led Zeppelin, post John “Bonzo” Bonham’s death. Assembled by Jimmy Page of studio and soundcheck outtakes recorded between 1970 and 1978. The album is largely dismissed by most as a non-essential Led Zeppelin release. At my house Coda was actually played quite a bit. We became fans of Led Zeppelin around the time I was a freshman in high school and bought all of the albums on cassette. My brother Steve is a drummer and was a big fan of Bonzo at the time. I think out of all of the tracks we played the drum instrumental “Bonzo’s Montreux” the most which we saw as the sequel to “Moby Dick” from Led Zeppelin II. In fact, the first big CD boxset of Led Zeppelin included a medley of both “Moby Dick” and “Bonzo’s Montreux.” The sleeve for this LP is a nice embossed 2-pocket gatefold. The LP fits in one pocket, but I don’t have anything in the second pocket– am I missing something?

Pink Floyd – The Wall (2 LP, Columbia 36183, 1979) ($14.98) This was a bit on the pricey side, but the sleeve was in excellent condition as was the vinyl. Essential for any Pink Floyd collection– I’m still building my vinyl collection so I’m keeping an eye out for these releases. My dad bought this on cassette when it came out and I didn’t really pay any attention to it aside from “Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)” which was a #1 single in 1979. It wasn’t until the summer between my 8th Grade and Freshman year of High School in 1983– almost four years after the album came out– that I would really embrace The Wall. My first girlfriend (more of a summer fling, I suppose), coincidentally with the last name of “Watters” wanted me to copy the tape for her. I wasn’t a fan, but she insisted that it was an amazing album. Back in these days one would have to sit through the dub process– I had two individual cassette decks– not even the dubbing cassette deck that I have today. Press play on one and record on the other and wait. On this particular night I laid in bed with the headphones on listening to it as it copied. It was at that point that I understood what the fuss was about and it opened my eyes to the utter majesty of The Wall and at that point caused me to be a fan of Pink Floyd. Considering that I was pretty much raised on a steady diet of the Beatles, The Moody Blues and Fleetwood Mac, The Wall was revolutionary. That Christmas I asked for Animals and Dark Side of the Moon for gifts. As was usually the case around the house, whenever I would start getting heavy into a particular band the rest of the family would follow suit and it seemed like we were listening to The Wall in the car all the time usually singing along with songs like “Mother” as disturbing as that seems in retrospect. Our family had planned on seeing one of the rock laser shows at Five Flags as was the rage at the time, and they regularly did one for Dark Side of the Moon. In a last-minute decision we decided to buy a Betamax tape of The Wall Movie under the idea that it would cost about the same as the admission to the laser show was about the same price as the movie. I remember inviting the art teacher from my high school, Dave Eischeid over to watch it one afternoon. It was kind of a big deal at the time and people hadn’t really even seen the movie.

Pink Floyd – The Final Cut (LP, Columbia QC 38243, 1983) ($9.98) While not generally regarded as their best effort with Waters, the copy was in such good shape I thought I should pick it up. Really, though, people probably didn’t play The Final Cut as much as any of their previous releases, so I suspect that most of the copies in the used bins are in good shape. The Final Cut was as much a reaction to the events surrounding The Wall as it was kind of a sequel to it. The only single from the album was “Not Now John” which seems to me also very related to “Young Lust” from The Wall. I had “Not Now John” on a mix tape I used to listen to a lot in my car in high school and it still stands as a great track in my opinion and the only one on the album to feature David Gilmour’s vocals, but he shares vocal duties with Waters.

Paul Simon – Graceland (LP, Warner Bros., 25447-1, 1986) ($4.98) Finally a copy of Graceland that was in really great shape! Lots of copies of Paul Simon’s brilliant return to the top of the music charts and winner of two GRAMMYS. Graceland was an early CD purchase for me– I got my first CD player in the early 90’s and it was part of the first ten or so CD’s I bought. I don’t have a lot to say about the album that hasn’t been covered. It’s one of the all-time great albums as far as I’m concerned.

Camper Van Beethoven – Telephone Free Landslide Victory (LP, Independent Project/Rough Trade IP016, 1985) ($7.98) WOW! Big find! I was really happy to find this one languishing in the bins! CVB’s debut record which would establish the band with it’s best-known song, “Take The Skinheads Bowling” (best known next to their cover of “Pictures of Matchstick Men” anyway). Wonderful blend of ska/Eastern Bloc instrumentals and relatively straightforward “college rock.” A very welcome addition to my collection indeed, and the beginning of my vinyl collection of CVB.

The dB’s – Like This (LP, Bearsville/Warner Bros. 25146-1, 1984)($9.98) Another great college rock find! I saw the dB’s open for R.E.M. during their Document tour on October 31st, 1987 in Davenport, IA. What little I remember about their performance includes a pretty great version of “Amplifier” which was on Like This and their previous album. Like This is a great album even though it is missing Chris Stamey. Produced by Chris Butler of the Waitresses and the dB’s. The LP credits and the deadwax show the LP was mastered at Sterling Sound by Greg Calbi.

Janet Jackson – Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 (LP, A&M Records SP 3920, 1989)($2.98) While I never owned this on CD or cassette, it was a record I had a lot of respect for when it came out. The easiest way to create a funk masterpiece is to bring the Minneapolis sound– Jam & Lewis. Seven singles in the Top Five is a record that has yet to be topped. Great record and I’m happy to have this in my collection– especially in this condition. Slight ringwear on the sleeve, but the record itself is pristine.

Full Fathom Five – Smoke Screen EP (12″ Link Records 021, 1989)($2.98) A red vinyl pressing for the “Smoke Screen” single from the Iowa City band Full Fathom Five’s major label debut 4 A.M. on Link Records. I picked up the vinyl version of this at Cheapo’s in Minneapolis back in 2009. This HPB tried to get $9.98 for this back in June of 2009 according to the layered price stickers, and then dropped the price to $4.98 in October of 2010, and then dropped the price again in February of this year to $2.98. A pretty cool piece and a nice companion to my 4 A.M. vinyl. “Smokescreen” is on side 1 and side 2 has two non-album tracks, “What We are Missing” and “Take It To the Station.”

Ryan Adams Emerges from Self-Imposed Exile, Looks Around Suspiciously, Announces Stuff

Posted on March 17, 2011 by mike

We’re just past the Ides of March and although he has historically exclaimed “Et Tu, Internets?” this month has brought us a bunch of new Ryan Adams news. The last time we heard from our hero, he had fired up his PaxAm imprint and released two albums that had been hiding in his archives– his Metal Space Opera Orion and Cardinals III/IV which was two albums worth of Easy Tiger-Era recordings with The Cardinals.

To accomplish his desired DIY apprach, he assembled a staff to handle the shipping and orders that were done via the PaxAm website. In the case of Orion things went pretty well, but apparently folks were having issues with delivery of the III/IV album that were placed on the PaxAm site and went to the internet boards to bitch about it. The fact of the matter is that there was an accident involving the guy who was handling the orders and things got delayed and people complained loudly and frequently as is the manner of some.

Fed up, Ryan responded on the boards:

All future Pax-Am releases are cancelled and I don’t have any plans to continue anymore merch. Maybe I will sell the rights to someone else and let them make this stuff. All I know is I am not going to do it. I don’t believe we did a bad job…. The truth is both releases cost a boat load to manufacture and so many good people who I enjoy working with are involved in a hands-on way, all the way down to the manufacturing, that I seriously doubt the vinyl made any money back. It was about the tunes and doing it right and making quality vinyl. We took time to do it right.
Clearly I was 100 percent wrong that this was a good idea and I am really glad I tried but am totally done. Sorry if that sounds passive aggressive or something but I am just being real. I over it and over blogging and I had to borrow this very computer to even write this crap. Blah.

And with that he went into radio silence, but clearly this wasn’t the end of the story as we have now heard about a Record Store Day 4-song, 2 colored vinyl 7″ single EP of Cardinology-era previously-unreleased tracks called Class Mythology that will be a limited edition of 2500 copies with a picture sleeve, poster and sticker and will be on PaxAm Records! It is confirmed from his Facebook page with a mock-up of a single. The distributor for this record is going to be Junketboy who has a history of doing small-run releases like this. So, it would appear that he is delivering on the idea of letting someone else press the records. Hopefully he is getting his say on the quality of the records as his desire to get the mastering right had delayed releases in the past. In the same post where he bows out of pressing records, he also comments on the Lost Highway vinyl and in particular the new 10th Anniversary clear vinyl releases:

I was simply signed to Universal/ Lost Highway as an artist and had no say in the quality of the product. I was appalled they ever released ANY of my albums on vinyl since NONE were mastered for vinyl including the clear GOLD thing. I still have the original ones and they sound like ass. THAT is my personal opinion and I don’t care. Sorry. I like mastered vinyl.

I picked up the 2 LP clear vinyl version of Gold recently, and I don’t think it sounds “like ass” but there are a couple of spots where there are some clicks present, so there is a bit of a QC problem. I was particularly interested in this release as it included the “Side 4” bonus tracks that were only available on the first 150,000 CD pressings of Gold. This release fixes that sin.

So, with this RSD release, there is some hope for the future of other archive releases– in particular, folks are really anxious to get to hear Blackhole, which is another release that apparently did not leak to bootlegging. There is photographic evidence around the time he was working on the III/IV ramp-up that it had been mastered to vinyl, so perhaps we are close to this actually coming out if he’s working with a distributor.

On top of this great news, it was announced in an e-mail from the PaxAm site that Ryan is working with legendary producer Glyn Johns on his first album of new material since 2008. Johns is credited with some of Rock’s great albums including Who’s Next, The Stones Sticky Fingers, and Clapton’s Slowhand. Clearly keeping the trust in the family, Johns’ son Ethan produced Heartbreaker, Gold and 24 for Adams.

The question would be how he’s going to release this album– he is not on a label at the moment other than PaxAm– and he used TVT/The Orchard to distribute III/IV to stores and online. So, potentially, the new album could still be on PaxAm. Really, the only issues were the orders placed on the PaxAm website, so that is probably solved by not doing preorders by himself.

While we ponder the always-unpredictable career of Ryan Adams, on Monday he announced a tour of Europe starting in June that will be just him with an acoustic guitar playing new songs he wrote over the winter. “I’d like to play them for whoever wants to hear them,” he posted to Facebook, “Please don’t yell at me,” These are the songs that evidently moved his wife Mandy Moore to tweet, “been listening to my hubby write insanely beautiful music over the past few weeks. blows my mind at how easy he makes it look. the nerve! :)”

This will be the first organized tour since Adams announced in early 2009 that he was leaving the Cardinals following a very extensive tour in support of Cardinology. This announcement was for a few reasons, but likely primarily related to his affliction with Ménière’s disease that caused severe vertigo among other afflictions. He’s clearly easing back into touring since this tour will be solo acoustic. I’m not alone in hoping that he brings this tour to the US.

Here are the European tour dates (from his Facebook post):

Friday, June 10, 2011 Stockholm, Sweden Cirkus
Saturday, June 11, 2011 Oslo, Norway Folketeatret
Monday, June 13, 2011 Malmö, Sweden The Consert House
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 Copenhagen, Denmark Koncerhauset
Thursday, June 16, 2011 Lisbon, Portugal Aula Magna
Friday, June 17, 2011 Porto, Portugal Teatro Sa Da Bandeira
Monday, June 20, 2011 London, UK Barbican
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 Brighton, UK Dome
Thursday, June 23, 2011 Manchester, UK Bridgewater Hall
Saturday, June 25, 2011 Glasgow, UK Academy
Sunday, June 26, 2011 Oxford, UK Oxford New Theatre
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 Amsterdam, Holland Concertgebouw

(Free Download) Pieta Brown Encore Daytrotter Session

Posted on March 6, 2011 by mike

Today Daytrotter posted a session I’ve been waiting over a year-and-a-half to hear– Pieta Brown‘s encore session!

The session was recorded Thursday, June 11, 2009 using a short-lived band lineup called “Dream #9” with Jim Viner on drums, Jon Penner on bass and Bo Ramsey on guitar. They performed only two shows in this configuration. June 11th at The Redstone Room in Davenport and then on June 12th at The Mill in Iowa City, which I reviewed.

Here is a picture of that band lineup from The Mill Show:

Pieta’s first Daytrotter session was recorded in March of 2008. Between these two sessions recorded less than a year apart, Pieta would go from being on a semi-major label to being “in limbo” with no label. A situation which was remedied by September 2009. Nevertheless, Pieta had self-released an EP titled Flight Time in October 2008 and both sessions include songs from Flight Time as well as her Shimmer EP— produced by Don Was and her debut release on Red House Records.

The session is a nice cross-section of Pieta’s career:

1. “#807” is from her 2005 release In The Cool, which was released on Valley Entertainment and apparently is still in print!

2. “Going Away Blues” is a Frank Stokes cover that Pieta also recorded for her self-released 2003 EP I Never Told which is impossibly out-of-print. I managed to get one of these when Pieta discovered a box last year.

3. “4th of July” also on In The Cool.

4. “Sunrise Highway #44” is from her self-released EP Flight Time which is still available on CDBaby.

5. “You’re My Lover Now” is from her debut Shimmer EP on Red House Records. This version differs from the EP version by having some nice subtle brushwork from Jim Viner.

Pieta Brown Daytrotter Encore Session: The Faint Light of All Lungs and Hearts

Pieta Brown has tour dates coming up (from her website) with a show at the Mill Restaurant on April 9th:

Date	Location
Sat Mar 19	Bluegrass & Roots Festival, River Falls, WI	more info
Sat Apr 09	The Mill, Iowa City, IA	more info
Sat Apr 16	Stoughton Opera House, Stoughton, Wisconsin	more info
Thu May 26	SPACE, Evanston, IL	more info
Sat May 28	Crossings At Carnegie, Zumbrota, MN	more info
Fri Jun 03	Mountain Jam Music Festival, Hunter, NY	more info
Sat Jun 04	Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA	more info
Sun Jun 05	Club Passim, Cambridge, MA	more info
Sat Aug 06	Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA	more info
Sun Aug 07	Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA	more info

(Show Preview) SCOPE Presents The Roots at IMU Main Lounge – 3/9

Posted on March 5, 2011 by mike

2010 was–by anyone’s estimation–a triumphant year for Philadelphia-native soul/hip-hop band The Roots.

It was their second year as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, each night providing interstitial music as well as stepping in as the band for guests as varied as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Todd Rundgren, Mos Def and Justin Timberlake (with Fallon doing an amazing “History of Hip Hop”).

In June, The Roots released their ninth album How I Got Over. It earned an 8.1 on Pitchfork, “…one of their most lyrically straightforward, and a work of strong stylistic cohesion.” As a casual follower of The Roots dating back to Illadelph Halflife (1996), I agree with Pitchfork on this point. Every Roots album to date has had standout tracks, but How I Got Over is for me their most satisfying effort beginning-to-end. Possibly this has to do with the fact that the album draws its inspiration as a collective sigh of relief with the election of President Obama. How I Got Over is itself a “reaching across the aisle,” if you will, featuring collaborations with indie darlings Monsters of Folk on “Dear God 2.0″ (a re-engineering of the MoF single), harp-wrangler and Van Dyke Parks BFF Joanna Newsom on “Right On,” and members of The Dirty Projectors on the opening acapella track “A Piece of Light.”

Read the rest of the article at The Little Village Website

(Upcoming Show) Charlie Mars with Griffin House at The Mill 3/5/11

Posted on February 27, 2011 by mike

This Saturday, March 5th brings to the Mill Restaurant in Iowa City former V2 Records singer-songwriter Charlie Mars. Charlie is wrapping up a run of dates that started at the beginning of February of East Coast and Midwest dates in support of his latest album Like A Bird, Like A Plane which came out in 2009. The bio on Mars’s site says that Like A Bird, Like A Plane is almost a “new debut.” While this album is his 5th release dating back to his 1996 album Broken Arrow.

The path to his major label release in 2004 on V2 Records (now folded– once home to The White Stripes and Moby) was an uneven one. The 150-dates-per-year touring over three years took a toll on him resulting in needing to enter rehab for substance abuse. Following that he split for Sweden choosing to recluse himself in obscurity. But, it was this move that allowed him to watershed the material that would become his self-titield major label debut in 2004. The major label backing gave his career the necessary re-launching. “I had no manager, no band, I hadn’t toured for about two years – I thought my career was done,” he says.

V2 gave him the radio exposure, backing and critical praise. That ride ended in 2006 when V2 shuttered forcing Mars to reassess his career and start the daunting prospect of a follow up to what was his most successful release. He headed to Austin to assemble a band to record Like A Bird, Like A Plane.

The release has been out for over a year at this point and Mars spent most of 2010 touring in support of it. As I listen to the release, it strikes me as a solidly written and composed album. The album has a stripped down, acoustic approach with an almost Dub-like dissasembled percussion. The album is scattered with studio chatter and starts and stops that give the album a feel of immediacy and live performance. This is substantiated by the fact that Mars says that they tended to use the first takes and left in the “happy accidents” generated as they worked through the recordings.

The standout track for me is the slightly tongue-in-cheek “Listen to the Darkside” with its double entendre use of “darkside” to mean both the classic Pink Floyd record and possibly the advice of the narrator in the middle of a relationship. The song was featured in an episode of the made-for-Showtime series “Weeds” and benefits from a music video that features”Weeds” star Mary Louise Parker.

Charlie Mars will be performing at The Mill Restaurant in Iowa City on Saturday, March 5th at 9PM tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. Charlie House opens.

You can order tickets from MidwesTIX.

Click Here to listen to “Listen to the Darkside” from Like A Bird, Like A Plane

Here is the video to “Listen to the Darkside”

Upcoming Show : The Play B-Sides Guide to the Gayngs Affiliyated Showcase

Posted on February 27, 2011 by mike

The super-mega-conglomerate quinvicatet known as Gayngs released their debut record in 2010. Titled Relayted, it was quickly praised by critics and fans and made quite a few year-end best-of lists. A seemingly impossible feat for an album with– by anyone’s estimation– having way too many cooks in the kitchen and a formula based on 70’s and 80’s soft rock.

Nonetheless, it is a great album and it works due to the singular vision of Ryan Olson: the court jester, band leader, and love train conductor. He is both the “Space Cowboy” and “Maurice” and capably speaks of the pompatus of love.

As if pulling off an album with 25 members wasn’t enough– Ryan gathered all of them for a pair of shows at First Avenue on the Friday following the album release that thematically was “The Last Prom on Earth” complete with limousines, balloons, prom formals and prom portraits. By all accounts it was one of the great live experiences last year. There were no promises that the band was going to ever do another show.

But, it was announced last Fall that a much smaller touring version of the band (a mere ten members) was going to do a quick nine-date run of the East Coast and Midwest culminating with a high-visibility shows in Austin for the Austin City Limits Festival. That tour was received well with a stop on Jimmy Fallon as well as a quick Daytrotter session. Unfortunately, there was some kind of mixup with the tour bus company which caused the band’s gear to end up in Nashville the night before their big ACL appearance and caused the band to cancel. But, it looks like Gayngs will be making up for their missed appearance by making it back to Austin in March for a few gigs at SXSW. The band will head out in the spring and summer for some other festivals and West Coast dates in June.

Gayngs is going to perform a “warmup” gig of sorts for SXSW next Sunday by completely taking over First Avenue Mainroom, The 7th Street Entry and The Record Bar with a lineup of “Affiliyated” bands starting at 6:30PM. In other words, this event will be a festival of 15 or so bands that have a connection with the members of Gayngs!

What we get is a kind of who’s who of the current Minneapolis music scene. I wasn’t familiar with all of these bands, so I did some research, and here is a kind of Guide to the Gayngs Affiliate Showcase.

The first observation I have is that while this might not be the 25-member lineup of Gayngs that played The Last Prom on Earth in May 2010, we should get a bigger version of Gayngs than the 10-person one that toured last fall!

Bands Playing The Mainroom:

Gayngs : Duh. Supergroup that is headlining the showcase. MySpace Facebook Website Twitter Vimeo Daytrotter Session

Doomtree Collective : Minneapolis’s premier hiphop collective with members that contributed to Relayted including P.O.S. and Dessa. Looking forward to hearing the other MC’s– especially SIMS, whose Lazerbeak-produced album Bad Time Zoo has been getting a lot of spin for me. There will be individual sets performed at The Record Bar as well (see below). Website Facebook MySpace Twitter

Solid Gold : It’s safe to say that the core of Gayngs is really Solid Gold since it was the initial collaboration of Ryan Olson and Zach Coulter and Adam Hurlburt of Solid Gold that started the project and they are the core part of the Relayted band. If you listen to Solid Gold’s music, you hear the shared DNA of both bands– Solid Gold has a penchant for 80’s rock and synths– just check out their slowed-down take of the Kenny Loggins Top Gun smash “Danger Zone” on their Synchronize EP. Website Facebook MySpace Twitter Daytrotter Session Daytrotter Session with Naughty By Nature(!!!!)

Megafaun : The first recruits into the Gayngs Army were North Carolina-meets-Eau Claire group Megafaun– the obvious connection being Joe Westerlund who is the one from Ryan Olson’s Wisconsin home town. I’m really loving their latest EP Heretofore– kind of a glitchy atmospheric, vocal harmony Americana. Website Facebook MySpace Twitter Daytrotter Session

Leisure Birds : The garage-psych band Leisure Birds contributed two members to Gayngs- Jake Luck and Nick Ryan. Leisure Birds released their debut album Copper Scroll for the label Totally Gross National Product in October 2010. MySpace Facebook

Alpha Consumer : Alpha Consumer seems to be known more for backing other musicians (Dosh, Andrew Bird) than for their own music– although they have released three albums. Michael Lewis from Alpha Consumer provided saxophone for Relayted. MySpace Facebook Twitter

Mystery Palace : Mystery Palace is one of Ryan Olcott’s (formerly of 12 Rods) projects that center around his circuit bent music. Mystery Palace records for Totally Gross National Product. MySpace Facebook

Bands Playing the 7th Street Entry:

The Entry ends up being a showcase of bands on Ryan Olson’s record label Totally Gross National Product.

Har Mar Superstar : Wow– well, this should be interesting. I didn’t have an opportunity to see Har Mar Superstar when he was living in Minneapolis– he has moved from being an oddity to being completely embraced for his utter distorted personal view. I love his distinctly 80’s sounding Minneapolis funky sound, though. He recorded a cover of the George Michael classic “One More Try” with Gayngs last year. Click Here to download this from Stereogum. Website Facebook MySpace

Slapping Purses : Slapping Purses is the one-man electronic noise + electro beat of Jason Power. Promises to be loud and abrasive. If you’re into electronic glitchiness and beats, this is the act for you. Also on Totally Gross National Product. MySpace Facebook

Marijuana Deathsquads : Marijuana Deathsquads is Gayngs head honcho Ryan Olson’s other going music project. Marijuana Deathsquads started as a backing band for P.O.S. At the core of the group is essentially Minneapolis hardcore punk band Building Better Bombs also fronted by P.O.S. The lineup of Marijuana Deathsquads changes as they bring outside artists to collaborate with them. I guess you could think of MD as an early template for Gayngs. Records for Totally Gross National Product as well. Currently doing an in-residence with Har Mar Superstar in L.A. at Spaceland. Website Facebook MySpace

Spyder Baybie Raw Dog : Another act from the Totally Gross National Product stable. A spaced-out M.C. I guess you might say. MySpace

Moonstone Continuum : Progressive electronic music. Sounds like 70’s bands like Tangerine Dream or Kraftwerk to me. I liked the couple of songs I sampled on their MySpace page. On Totally Gross National Product. Their self-titled release comes as a 150g vinyl LP with digital download and a 23-page book of works by their “Lunarian Minister” M. Mikah Mackert. A really out-there release to be sure. MySpace Facebook

Albert : Analog synth music by Minneapolis musician Albert Elmore. Elmore has been releasing music via his website bbpwc.com since 2004 and encourages reuse and sampling through Creative Commons Share Alike Licensing, which is great. He also performs under a few aliases including Jon Jacob 3, Never Say DJ Fred Equipment and James St. Murder Laden Mitten Wonder among many others. His new album – a compilation of works dating back to 2004– will be released on vinyl on March 15th on Totally Gross National Product. Website Twitter Interview with MPLS.TV

Radical Cemetery : I couldn’t find much information about this band other than they had a DIY 90-minute cassette release last June in a limited run of 100 titled Stoned Minors.

Performances at The Record Room:

DJ Sets and Doomtree Solos : I think this has the potential to be a really interesting set of performances. I’m really digging the MC’s and producers in this collective. Sims, Dessa, P.O.S., Mike Mictlan, Paper Tiger, Lazerbeak.

The Gayngs Affiliyated Showcase is presented by the City Pages blog Gimme Noise. Tickets are $20 and Doors are at 6:30 PM on Sunday, March 6th. This is an 18+ show.

Click Here for the First Avenue page on this show with information on how to purchase tickets.

Gayngs 2011 Tour Dates (from Consequence of Sound):
03/06 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
03/11 – Austin, TX @ Stubbs
03/13 – Denton, TX @ 35 Confederate Festival
03/17 – Austin, TX @ SXSW / Mohawk
03/18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW /Lustre Pearle/ Dickies Party
04/15-17 – Indio, CA @ Coachella
05/28 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
05/29 – Quincy, WA @ Sasquatch Music Festival
06/01 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
06/04 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah

(Upcoming Release) New 7″ Single from Stuart Bogie as Superhuman Happiness on 3/1

Posted on February 26, 2011 by mike

One thing is certain, Stuart Bogie is a busy dude. Just a quick look over his bio and you see an impressive list of bands he has recorded with and performed with including steady gigs in Antibalas, Iron & Wine, TV on the Radio, plus any number of acts related to those. It’s pretty obvious that he is a very in-demand horn player in the indie music space. So, you might not think that he would have time to have his own project. But, he does. It’s called Superhuman Happiness.

Bogie started work on the first release by Superhuman Happiness on the heels of a long tour with Antibalas. A Christmas gift for his family, Fall Down Seven Times Stand Up Eight released in 2008 was a collection of songs that he had been working on for ten years.

In July, 2010 Bogie released a super-limited 7″ of “GMYL” b/w “Hounds” which sold out very quickly. “GMYL” stands for the joyous refrain “God Makes You Live” in the hooky sax driven afro-rhythmic head-bobber. The single was recorded at Dave Sitek‘s (of TV on the Radio) Williamsburg studio Stay Gold. Some of the upbeat happiness of the tracks have to do with the fact that Bogie starts the compositions with handclap exercises to establish the rhythm– no sad songs based on hand clap rhythm- right?

On March 1st the single is going to be reissued by Electric Cowbell records with new label and a colorful sleeve (one side pictured above). Electric Cowbell is a cool singles-only label located in Brooklyn. I recommend you check their site out and try to score some of their releases! Superhuman Happiness shared a now-out-of-print single with the incredible CSC Funk Band. In addition to the “GMYL” single, Electric Cowbell released a collaboration between Superhuman Happiness and Sahr Ngaujah, “Gravity” b/w “String Theory.” Sahr performed the part of Fela Kuti in the “Fela!” Broadway show that Antibalas scored and Bogie performed music for. This single is worth checking out as well.

For the record geeks: I compared both the original 7″ and the Electric Cowbell release of “GMYL” and they share the same master plates as they have the same matrix information. SHH-002A/B and U-6368IM-A/B are in the deadwax for both releases. Also scribed was “PCMJR” with a “U” in a circle. This is the marking for Mark Richardson of Prairie Cat Mastering out of Belvidere, IL.

Coming up for Bogie and Superhuman Happiness is a couple more singles to come out this spring or this summer followed by another full length that is currently in early stages of production.

Click Here for the Superhuman Happiness website.

Click Here for Stuart Bogie’s website.

Click Here for Electric Cowbell’s website.

Here is the video for “GMYL”

GMYL by Superhuman Happiness from Tatiana McCabe on Vimeo.

“GMYL” | Superhuman Happiness by Calabro Music Media

The Hounds | Superhuman Happiness by Calabro Music Media

B-Sides in the Bins #53 – Rubber Soul Restoration

Posted on February 22, 2011 by mike

Over Christmas I took on a project– the restoration of a Mono Beatles Rubber Soul.

A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law Sarah gave me a stack of LP’s that she picked up at a thrift store in the Twin Cities. The stack was a colorful collection of 60’s, 70’s and 80’s pop, tropicalia, hair metal and Phil Collins. I pulled out the records that I thought I’d want to keep and got ready to carry the lot of discards to Half-Price Books. Thankfully, I looked closer at the Firefall sleeve in the pile as it had The Beatles Rubber Soul on rainbow Capitol label in it! As happy as I was to find this treasure, I was saddened that it was missing its jacket. I found a paper sleeve and put it in a crate with other records that I don’t store with my main collection.

In December I was doing some work in the room where we have our furnace and storage and happened to notice the record. I picked it up and looked closer at it and realized that it was not just a 60’s Capitol Beatles release, but it was also a MONO!

The reason why the monaural release is desirable, is that it is generally accepted in the collector’s circles that the Capitol monaural versions of the Beatles catalog are superior to the stereo releases. To explain why, there is some history to cover.

The Beatles had kind of a shaky start in the US as far as record labels were concerned. They were signed to EMI/Parlophone in the UK and when EMI’s US counterpart Capitol was initially approached to release the Beatles albums, they declined– thinking that the US teenagers were more interested in the clean-cut portrait of The Beach Boys (on Capitol) than they would be with the shaggy snapshot of the Beatles. The center of the mess was a man named Dave Dexter, Jr. who is quite possibly the most controversial person in the history of the Beatles recorded output. Dexter’s job was managing EMI’s releases in the US for Capitol and was the guy who was in charge of screening the releases, and ultimately made decisions about everything from cover art, to production and mastering to what tracks were included on a given release.

Incidently, Dexter was also the guy who made the decision that initially squashed releasing the Beatles on Capitol. This is why the first Beatles album released in the US was handled by a typically R&B label out of Chicago called Vee-Jay (which is a whole other story). Eventually, Capitol couldn’t ignore the force of the Beatles and signed them in November, 1963.

Capitol and Dexter felt that the way EMI was releasing the albums in the UK was not what their customers wanted and changed almost every packaging of Beatles material up until Sgt. Pepper’s when the Beatles renewed their contract and blocked this practice. Capitol changed track lists, generated new “greatest hits” collections and the most egregious aspect of all was the remixing of the music that George Martin and his engineers so masterfully recorded at Abbey Road. EMI/Parlophone would release singles and LP’s in the UK and then tapes would be shipped to the US for packaging and release by Capitol.

When the Beatles would finally make it to compact disc in 1987, it established that the standard for their catalog would be the UK EMI/Parlophone/Apple versions. Well, and stereo for those releases that were in stereo.

Rubber Soul ends up being the poster child for Capitol’s changes to the Beatles releases with a dramatically different track listing than the UK version in sequence and in content!

The “proper” UK version of Rubber Soul tracklisting (from Wikipedia):

No.	Title	Length
1.	“Drive My Car“	2:25
2.	“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)“	2:01
3.	“You Won’t See Me“	3:18
4.	“Nowhere Man“	2:40
5.	“Think for Yourself” (George Harrison)	2:16
6.	“The Word“	2:41
7.	“Michelle“	2:40

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	“What Goes On” (Lennon/McCartney/Starkey)	2:47
2.	“Girl“	2:30
3.	“I’m Looking Through You“	2:23
4.	“In My Life“	2:24
5.	“Wait“	2:12
6.	“If I Needed Someone” (George Harrison)	2:20
7.	“Run for Your Life“	2:18

So, this brings us to my copy of Rubber Soul, which as I stated, is a Capitol mono original pressing from 1965 (Catalog number T-2442).

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	“I’ve Just Seen a Face“	2:07
2.	“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)“	2:05
3.	“You Won’t See Me“	3:22
4.	“Think for Yourself” (George Harrison)	2:19
5.	“The Word“	2:43
6.	“Michelle“	2:42

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	“It’s Only Love“	1:55
2.	“Girl“	2:33
3.	“I’m Looking Through You“	2:31
4.	“In My Life“	2:27
5.	“Wait“	2:16
6.	“Run for Your Life“	2:18

You can see from these two track listings that the UK and US releases are substantially different! According to sources, the US release was deliberately resequenced to make Rubber Soul more of a “folk rock” album in hopes of cashing in on the emerging genre which included popular releases from bands like the Byrds and Dylan which were both having an effect on the Beatles new– and I think– more mature writing style. As a result, the more upbeat, and likely representative of the “Rubber Soul” moniker– songs were removed from the track listing and would be released on the following US-only compilation Yesterday… and Today. These songs “Drive My Car” and “Nowhere Man” which are considered notable songs in the Beatles canon, as well as “What Goes On” and “If I Needed Someone.” These songs were replaced with two songs removed from the UK version of Help! (the US version of Help! was also different in the US where it served more as a soundtrack to the movie and included score music)– “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “It’s Only Love.” The result drops the album to just under 30 minutes in total.

There is a debate that continues over whether the Capitol changes actually improve the album. One side of the argument is that it does. The replacement of the pumping piano kickoff of “Drive My Car” on the UK version with the acoustic guitar-driven immediacy of “I’ve Just Seen a Face” is a vote for a more balanced release. The counter-argument is that it varies too much from the UK release in favor of an album that seems to clumsily try to pander to the US market. For me, the differences are more of an interesting curiosity. My first exposure to Rubber Soul was with the 1987 CD releases, so my experience is a stereo UK version for all intents and purposes.

After I stumbled across the lone sleeveless copy of Rubber Soul in my basement and realized what it was, I thought that it would be nice to find a cover for it. It was a gift, and it was in pretty good shape for a 44-year old record– some slight scuffing, but otherwise the vinyl had a really nice black luster to it. On play, it has some slight crackle, but the recording itself is loud enough to hide it.

It was as if the universe wanted this record to have a new jacket. The first search I made for a Capitol Rubber Soul jacket turned up ONE eBay auction from a seller in Arizona whose ID was “scampy”– it was for a mono, too! It was a Buy-it-Now for $39.95 plus $4 shipping. It was kind of expensive, but if the condition was good, then it would be worth it because the record plus the jacket would have a greater value than either alone. The seller and I exchanged a couple of messages and he pointed out that mono sleeves were rare and that this sleeve was in very good shape. I was sold, but I also wanted a period-correct inner paper sleeve. On a whim, I asked him if he had a correct inner sleeve. He responded that he thought he did. He quickly responded that he had one!

“I found the correct one, it lists albums up through the #2355. It is in real nice shape except a small split at the bottom that is hardly noticeable, it also has the pitch to upgrade your old albums to the new stereo discs that was only put on the mono ones. I will include it at no charge.”

Wow! That was a lucky coincidence! He quickly shipped the package to me and I had it in my hands within the week– it was in amazing shape with very little ringwear. I was able to assemble the record, sleeve and jacket to a set that I was very happy with!

It is noted in the Wiki article on Rubber Soul, that the sleeve colors in the US were a variation on the UK sleeves due to some color saturation differences, resulting in the title logo being more of a brown or gold than the UK orange logo. I like the color of the sleeve I got a lot– maybe more than an orange one.

According to the Spitzer book on the Beatles on Capitol, the “5” in the lower right indicates that the record sleeve was printed by Modern Album in Terre Haute, IN.

Overall, this was a very satisfying project for me. Maybe the word “restoration” overstates the effort, but that is what is really is, I think. I have a small vinyl Beatles collection that was started for me by my aunts back in the early 80’s– on purple Capitol label but didn’t include Rubber Soul, so this sits proudly next to those releases, but a mono Yesterday… and Today I picked up on Black Friday last year.

Time to play b-sides

Mike Roeder muses over things musical

Category Archives: Music