Category Archives: Upcoming Show

New Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Cardinology Live Previews

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On the 17th it was announced by Lost Highway that Ryan Adams and the Cardinals will be releasing a new album on October 28th titled Cardinology. As expected, Ryan and Co. are already pulling the songs out on their Fall tour. Yours truly will be seeing Ryan again this year and shooting pix for a review at the Ames show on October 7th. The songs I’ve heard so far are pretty good and certainly on par with Easy Tiger. Since Archive.org has a pretty good collection of Ryan shows, I thought I’d provide links to individual mp3’s so you can listen to a live version of the album before its release. All of the tracks from the album aren’t represented by shows on archive.org, yet, but as shows are recorded and shared there, I’ll update the links here until the release of the album.

BTW: We are going to be able to download “Fix It” on Tuesday. I’m not sure which sites, yet, but I’ll update this when I find out. According to some folks on the ryanadamsarchive.com forum, “Fix It” was released to radio today. The single will be available for download on October 7th.

Update: Ryan is providing a streamed sample of “Fix It” from his blog site:

Check out the beautiful cover art for the vinyl version of Cardinology by Adam’s chum Leah Hayes— author of the graphic novel Funeral of the Heart. According to a poster-in-the-know on the ryanadamsarchive forum this limited vinyl release will have colored vinyl, artwork by Leah Hayes including illustrated lyric book and the exclusive 7″ of “Orange” b/w “Asteroid” and will also include an mp3 download! I’ll have to try to score some record flats of this!!

Click here to read the post and to play the sample (requires Flash)

Here is the track list for Cardinology:

“Born Into a Light” (10-16-2008)
“Go Easy” (9-26-2008)
“Fix It” (9-4-2008)(9-7-2008)(9-25-2008)(9-26-2008)
“Magick” (9-4-2008)(9-7-2008)(9-25-2008)(9-26-2008)
“Cobwebs” (9-7-2008)(9-25-2008)
“Let Us Down Easy”
“Crossed Out Name” (9-4-2008)(9-25-2008)(9-26-2008)
“Natural Ghost” (9-25-2008)
“Sink Ships” (9-7-2008)(9-25-2008)
“Evergreen” (9-30-2008)
“Like Yesterday” (9-25-2008)
“Stop” (10-16-2008)

Backyard Tire Fire – The Places We Lived (Review)

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My discovery of Backyard Tire Fire is thanks to MySpace. I’d heard of the band– references have shown up in a few of the RSS feeds I follow– but I hadn’t heard their music. Apparently, their enterprising “web guy” saw that I was a fan of Cracker and Johnny Hickman and reached out. Hickman is quoted as saying that Backyard Tire Fire is his favorite band right now. After listening to the streaming tracks from their MySpace page and samples on their website as well as a full album stream of their previous album Vagabonds and Hooligans on Indie911 I, too have become a fast fan of their Midwestern brand of country-tinged rock. Hickman compares them to early Wilco, Son Volt and Flaming Lips.

However, I don’t think that the shades of early Wilco and Son Volt stick around for long on Backyard Tire Fire’s new album The Places We Lived. There is something more at work here. From the treated pianos, chimes, bells, and strings throughout, the plucky bass and the double tracked harmonies– specifically on “Shoulda Shut It.” It at times seems like a darker version of Brian Wilson’s vision and the band toys with some Smile-ish changes in mood and the layering of instruments and sound effects. Is this our Surfer Girl with Seasonal Affective Disorder?

I’m not sure that Backyard Tire Fire would ever claim the Beach Boys as a relative, however. Maybe through a second cousin of Tom Petty or Cheap Trick. Ed Anderson has one of the better voices I’ve heard out of the indie scene with the ability to get very soulful and funky on the stomping “One Wrong Turn,” he evokes his inner Zander with the anti-tribute to the workweek “Welcome To The Factory.” “Bright lights and blank stares through the night,” indeed complete with ratchet and clank over big rock drums delivered by official timekeeper Tim Kramp. This is clearly the sound of a band having fun in the studio playing with all the toys. The album sounds great. I read that Tire Fire likes to work in analog, and this album has a vinyl release to compliment that effort, BTW.

This record seems to owe a bit to Tom Waits as well. Certainly Ed’s voice is easier to listen to, but you can hear it in the slightly boozy songs anchored with treated piano in “Rainy Day (Don’t Go Away),” “One Wrong Turn” and the album closer “Home Today.”

“It’s funny how we forget sometimes,” Ed sings in the album opener and title track, “the places we once lived.” Tire Fire’s new album is as much about the Middle-Class Midwestern perspective of the places they lived that colors the landscape of the songs as it is about the influences of the music that provided the soundtrack to the journey to get to those places. The Places We Lived wears its influences proudly. Each of the songs on the album’s economical 35 minutes stands on its own effectively, but also provides guides to those places they lived from funk and blues to country and classic rock. Mixed together with some impressive studio production we have what I think it one of the standout albums from this Summer! In an interview with JamBase, Ed says that with each album he thinks, “this is the recording that everyone is gonna latch on to” which drives them to “get the job done.” In my opinion, The Places We Lived certainly has the hooks and chops to get them there.

Backyard Tire Fire are currently touring in support of The Places We Lived. Click Here for the updated dates. They are going to be at the Picador in Iowa City tonight (9/10) for an early show and I’ll be there.

Click Here for Backyard Tire Fire’s Website

Click Here for Backyard Tire Fire’s MySpace Page

Click Here for the interview in JamBase with Backyard Tire Fire

Upcoming Shows: Wye Oak in Iowa City and… Dubuque?

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Wye Oak is back with another attempt to play Iowa City’s Mill. You may recall that they were scheduled to play the Mill back on June 15th in a bill that had Thrill Jockey new signings Pontiak. Your’s truly was to go and cover this, but the Floods of 2008 (as it will become known) prevented both the bands and me from getting to Iowa City. The route that the Iowa DOT was recommending to get to town took you over 200 miles out-of-the-way!

So, true to their word, Wye Oak is coming back to Iowa City– again at the Mill— on Wednesday 9/17 in a lineup that has Rock Plaza Central headlining and The Lonelyhearts opening.

More interesting than the Mill show (at least to me) is the fact that Wye Oak will be playing at Isabella’s in Dubuque, IA (my other hometown) on Saturday 9/10. Isabellas is a COZY little bar in the basement of the posh-ish Ryan House Restaurant. Since Wye Oak is a two-piece, they would fit on the little stage at the far end of the bar. But, the bar itself probably only holds 100 people or so– it would be a snug affair for certain!

Download four songs from If Children by Wye Oak

See a bunch of live videos of Wye Oak on YouTube

Free Downloads: Pieta Brown with Bo Ramsey at Daytrotter!

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A cool and unexpected offering from Daytrotter– Pieta Brown with hubby Bo Ramsey performing tracks from her fantastic 2007 release on One Little Indian Remember The Sun plus a couple of unreleased tracks.

I think it is really admirable that Daytrotter, which calls its home The Quad Cities (specifically Rock Island) and chooses to occasionally feature regional acts to the watching planet.

I hope that they had the opportunity to record Bo as well. If not, they should try to get him on the schedule.

Click Here to read the article on Pieta Brown at Daytrotter and download yourself some mp3’s.

While I was putting this article together I noticed that Pieta will be playing in Marion, IA at the very cool Campbell-Steele Gallery on October 10th. Campbell-Steele is the home of the funny and musical Liar’s Holographic Theatre. Tickets are 25 smackers, but the art gallery is a very intimate place to see performances and Pieta would be a wonderful artist to see there.

Damp and Cool, Crisp and Warm — The Country Canvas: Pieta Brown

High Places – 03/07 – 09/07 (Review) & Upcoming Show

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The High Places’ first release on Thrill Jockey is a collection of singles and hard-to-find tracks leading up to their signing. This release stands as an introduction to the collaboration of Robert Barber and Mary Pearson. Barber provides a babbling brook of cut-and-paste drum circle riddims propelling the paper boats of Pearson’s innocent iko-ikoish jumprope chants. Daycare psychedelica for the Thomas the Tank Engine set, if you will.

At times the at once atmospheric and Caribbean feel of the songs reminds me of my favorite parts of Adventures in the Ultraworld by the Orb.

The cover art used in this release is exactly the same as the band’s 2007 High Places EP 7″ (only 300 made) on Ancient Almanac that earned an impressive 8.2 at Pitchfork. All four songs from that EP are represented here along with some harder to find tracks including “Jump In” which was a song commissioned for an elementary school music program. It seems to me that this band isn’t entirely inappropriate to play for the little ones, in fact, and certainly a bit more interesting that some of the kid fodder dolled out today.

The band is currently on tour gearing up for their self-titled release on 9/23. You can hear two songs– “Golden” and “From Stardust to Sentience” from that release if you visit the band’s MySpace page. They also have some downloads available, too.They will be stopping in Grinnell College at Bob’s Underground Cafe on Thursday, 9/25 and at The Mill in Iowa City on Friday, 9/26 where they will be with Ponytail and Wet Hair.

Sep 6 2008 8:00P
FREE! East Village Radio Music Festival at South St. Seaport New York, New York
Sep 11 2008 8:00P
Le Poisson Rouge w/ Crystal Slits, Breathe Owl Breathe, Deastro New York, New York
Sep 16 2008 9:00P
Brillobox Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sep 17 2008 8:00P
Grog Shop Cleveland, Ohio
Sep 18 2008 8:00P
The DAAC Grand Rapids, Michigan
Sep 19 2008 8:00P
Forward Festival w/ Dan Deacon Madison, Wisconsin
Sep 20 2008 8:00P
Pygmalion Fest @ Krannert Center w/ Yo La Tengo Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
Sep 23 2008 8:00P
Record Release Show at AV-aerie Chicago, Illinois
Sep 24 2008 8:00P
Triple Rock Social Club Minneapolis, Minnesota
Sep 25 2008 8:00P
Grinnell College w/ Ponytail, Wet Hair Grinnell, Iowa
Sep 26 2008 8:00P
The Mill w/ Ponytail, Wet Hair, Peaking Lights Iowa City, Iowa
Sep 27 2008 8:00P
Rhinoceropolis w/ Ponytail Denver, Colorado
Sep 29 2008 8:00P
Kilby Court w/ Ponytail Salt Lake City, Utah
Sep 30 2008 8:00P
Badlander w/ Ponytail Missoula, Montana
Oct 2 2008 8:00P
Nectar w/ Ponytail Seattle, Washington
Oct 3 2008 8:00P
Department of Safety Anacortes, Washington
Oct 4 2008 8:00P
Richards on Richards w/ Ponytail Vancouver, British Columbia
Oct 6 2008 8:00P
Backspace w/ Ponytail Portland, Oregon
Oct 8 2008 8:00P
Bottom of the Hill w/ Ponytail San Francisco, California
Oct 10 2008 8:00P
The Smell w/ Ponytail Los Angeles, California
Oct 12 2008 8:00P
Modified Arts w/ Ponytail Phoenix, Arizona
Oct 15 2008 8:00P
Emo’s Austin, Texas

Listen to Head Spins

High Places MySpace Page

High Places Blog

Upcoming Show: Tortoise at UW Madison Memorial Terrace 9/27/08

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Tortoise recently announced some upcoming dates to their slowly-building tour. One date of particular interest to us here at playbsides is the September 27th show at the University of Madison’s Memorial Terrace.

When I inquired about the availability of tickets the Student Union said that the show is part of the “Snake on the Lake Festival” which runs from 3PM to Midnight. The event is free but is intended for UW-Madison students, faculty, staff and Union members and their guests. This festival is put on by the Union and WSUM.

So, if you aren’t any of those or know anyone who is, you can join the UW Union as a member for 1 year for $50. You’ll need to bring your membership card to the show and you can bring guests. So, I’m thinking of joining and splitting the fee with a couple of friends who are big Tortoise fans.

According to Muzzle of Bees, other acts that have confirmed are Damien Jurado, Awesome Color, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, El Valiente, and Pistols at Dawn.

Tortoise has been playing three new songs in their setlists which appear to be the same songs they debuted at the Thrill Jockey 15 show last December. The titles are “Korg”, “Glow,” and “Coffin.” It remains to be seen whether these will be the actual titles when these are released or if they are just what they’re calling them on the setlists.

Upcoming Show: Nine Inch Nails at US Cellular Center 11/20/08

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In the last couple of years Cedar Rapids has had some disappointments when it comes to national touring acts wanting to stop by our fair city. Acts that had planned stops but backed out or had changes included Black Eyed Peas, Willie Nelson (this year anyway, he did stop by with Dylan a couple of years ago), and Kid Rock to name a few that I was paying attention to. Unfortunately, the US Cellular Center– formerly the Five Seasons Center– is getting a bit long-in-the-tooth when it comes to mid-sized arenas. In some cases acts can’t perform there because their stage or rigging might not fit, in other cases there are newer and nicer arenas cropping up in the area. It seems that Council Bluffs is really getting a nice run of acts through their new facility. To add insult to injury, the center was designed with sports in mind, so backstage ends up being not much more than a locker room. Certainly not very appealing.

So it is with some hopefulness that we hear that Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails are planning a stop at the US Cellular Center as part of his very extensive “Lights In The Sky : 2008 Tour.” The sale date for the tickets have not been announced, yet, but if you sign up with nin.com, you have the opportunity to buy the tickets pre-sale.

The line-up of opening acts for this tour is impressive and includes Crystal Castles, Deerhunter, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and personal favorite the shoegazy distortion festival known as A Place to Bury Strangers. The opening act is TBD, but the website is offering for download a free sampler of all of these bands and a couple of tracks from NIN.

I’ve seen Nine Inch Nails three times. The first time was for the first Lollapalooza in 1991 at the World Theater in Tinley Park. This was a daytime show– Nine Inch Nails was one of the afternoon acts along with the Butthole Surfers as I recall. I saw them twice for the Downward Spiral tour. They played Carver Hawkeye in Iowa City on 11/6/94. They were supposed to play the Mark of the Quad Cities (now called the iWireless Center) in Moline on 1/19/95 but it was cancelled due to a snowstorm. I saw them again on 2/4/95 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. I think that Marilyn Manson opened the two shows I saw. Pop Will Eat Itself was supposed to open in Moline. In 1995 I was a very big fan of NIN and had all of the “halos” (“Halo” was a catalog designation for the NIN releases including albums and singles). I stopped listening to NIN some time after The Downward Spiral and hadn’t really followed Trent’s career closely until last year with the Year Zero release. If the ticket prices aren’t crazy, I would like to see the show.

I’ll update this article as I get more information about the show, so stay tuned.

Upcoming Show: Backyard Tire Fire @ The Picador 9/10/08

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Backyard Tire Fire is a band I’d heard of, but never searched out. So, it was cool that the band’s manager reached out to me via MySpace last week to be a friend. I gave a listen to some of the songs on their page and checked out the streaming songs from their upcoming album on their website, too.

The guys from Backyard Tire Fire are from Bloomington, Illinois which is next to Normal, where I spent part of my childhood and one of my brothers was born there in the early Seventies while my dad worked at General Electric. Not that this makes them my neighbor, but they might be the only band I’ve ever heard of from there.

I bought and downloaded from mp3.rhapsody.com Tire Fire’s 2007 release Vagabonds and Hooligans in an acceptible 256K rip. The band delivers a confident mix of Americana-leaning rock with Indie sensibilities. Across the album we are offered glimpses of the bands influences– “Green Eyed Soul” comes off like an early Wilco track, “Tom Petty” draws a bit from Tom Petty. The Black Crowes could stand to write a soulful ballad like “The Wrong Hand.” But, to break Backyard Tire Fire down to comparisons misses the fact that it is a strong album from a band that is growing with every release.

In a time when bands that tour as much as Backyard Tire Fire does tend to wait a while between releases, it’s a bit surprising to see that they are releasing the followup to Vagabonds and Hooligans at the end of this month (August 26th) titled The Places We Lived. The three songs streaming from their website and MySpace page shows the promise of another great release. According to the press info on their website, the band holds true to an analog asthetic preferring to record with tape over ProTools. The logical The There will be a vinyl version of this album as well!

The band is getting ready for a run of late-summer Midwestern dates in support of the release that will run through the end of September. Here are the dates as of today from their MySpace page.

Aug 13 2008 9:00P
Lucky Aces – Ed Anderson acoustic Le Roy, Illinois
Aug 16 2008 9:00P
J Bucks – Ed Anderson acoustic Bloomington, Illinois
Aug 20 2008 9:00P
Official TPWL Chicago Listening Party – Alive One! Chicago, Illinois
Aug 21 2008 9:00P
Highdive Champaign
Aug 22 2008 9:00P
Paulie’s – w/ Dirty Hands Band Bloomington, Illinois
Aug 23 2008 9:00P
Paulie’s – w/ Company of Thieves & Peter Adriel Bloomington, Illinois
Aug 28 2008 7:00P
Kiss the Sky – BTF acoustic instore Geneva, Illinois
Aug 31 2008 10:15P
Strip Mines Music Festival – Shawnee Cave – Strip Mines Music Festival Murphysboro, Illinois
Sep 5 2008 8:00P
Metro w/ Ha Ha Tonka Chicago, Illinois
Sep 10 2008 7:30P
The Picador w/ Ha Ha Tonka Iowa City, Iowa
Sep 11 2008 7:00P
The Rave w/ Ha Ha Tonka & Blueheels Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Sep 12 2008 8:00P
The Annex w/ Ha Ha Tonka & Blueheels Madison, Wisconsin
Sep 13 2008 9:00P
7th Street Entry w/ Ha Ha Tonka Minneapolis, Minnesota
Sep 17 2008 7:00P
Blue Note Summerfest w/ Avett Bros & Ha Ha Tonka Columbia, Missouri
Sep 18 2008 8:00P
Record Bar w/ Ha Ha Tonka Kansas City, Missouri
Sep 19 2008 9:00P
Josie’s w/ Ha Ha Tonka Emporia, Kansas
Sep 20 2008 7:00P
Lucas School House w/ Ha Ha Tonka St. Louis, Missouri
Sep 24 2008 8:00P
Grog Shop w/ Ha Ha Tonka Cleveland, Ohio
Sep 25 2008 8:00P
The Basement w/ Ha Ha Tonka Columbus, Ohio
Sep 26 2008 8:00P
Spin w/ Ha Ha Tonka Indianapolis, Indiana
Sep 27 2008 7:00P
Southgate House w/ Ha Ha Tonka Newport, Kentucky

The band will be in Iowa City at the Picador on September 10th. The show is at 7:30PM so maybe it will get over early enough for me to do a mid-week show. Opening is Ha Ha Tonka who did a Daytrotter session in July. Tickets are $7 and if you order them in advance you get a signed poster of the album art you can pick up at the show.

There are a lot of places to stream or download content for Backyard Tire Fire.

They did a session for the kind folks at Daytrotter in March with some new material.

Click Here to download a FREE EP called Sick of Debt (a zip file of mp3’s)

Click Here to download live shows of the band from archive.org

Click Here to stream Vagabonds and Hooligans at Indie911

Click Here to download an in-studio recording with My Old Kentucky Blog from last year.

Click Here to visit their MySpace page which has six tracks from The Places We Lived.

Buckingham’s Gift of Screws to Deliver in September

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Gift of ScrewsThe “more rock” follow-up to Lindsey Buckingham’s 2006 Under the Skin was announced today. Given the title of the aborted solo album Gift of Screws which was supposed to be released before the last Fleetwood Mac album Say You Will to which it donated five tracks. The original Gift of Screws donated three tracks to Under the Skin. The new Gift of Screws only shares its title track with the original version, but two songs were reworked. “Shuffle Riff” became “Wait For You” and “Twist of Fate” became “The Right Place to Fade.”

So, what we have now according to a news item from Billboard today is a mostly new Gift of Screws to be released September 16th on Reprise that also has the rhythm section of McVie and Fleetwood from Fleetwood Mac on a number of songs.

The new track listing for Gift of Screws:

“Great Day”
“Time Precious Time”
“Did You Miss Me”
“Wait For You”
“Love Runs Deeper”
“Bel Air Rain”
“The Right Place to Fade”
“Gift of Screws”
“Underground”
“Treason”

Click here for my 2006 article comparing the aborted version of Gift of Screws to Under the Skin.

The plan is for Buckingham to tour in support of Screws this Fall and for a possibly-augmented Fleetwood Mac to tour in early-’09.

Visit lindseybuckingham.com to see the list of tour dates.

Upcoming Show: Bo Ramsey and Band at Blues Before Sunset

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Bo with Telecaster

The State Historical Society of Iowa and the Central Iowa Blues Society will be wrapping up their 7th season of Blues Before Sunset on Friday, August 1 with a rare appearance of Bo Ramsey performing as a frontman.

Blues Before Sunset shows are put on in front of the State of Iowa Historical Building at 600 E. Locust in the middle of East Village in Des Moines. The show will start at 5:30PM and end at 7:30PM and is free. Food and beverage vendors will be available on site. They recommend you bring your own seating.