Calexico “Live from Austin, TX” DVD of 2006 Austin City Limits Show Out 1/20

Photo by Gerald von Foris

Photo by Gerald von Foris


I was pretty happy to hear about this release. Back in 2006 during their Garden Ruin tour, Calexico taped an Austin City Limits show– part of which was aired with part of a Sufjan Stevens performance. As much as I like both acts, I was disappointed that Calexico didn’t get a full hour. On January 20th, this is fixed as New West is releasing as part of their “Live from Austin, TX” series the full Calexico performance from Austin City Limits expanding the show from the seven tracks aired to 15!

Tracklist (I’ve included whether each was originally aired and what order):

“Convict Pool”
“Across The Wire” (originally aired as 1)
“Cruel”
“El Picador” (originally aired as 3)
“Sunken Waltz” (originally aired  as 4)
“Not Even Stevie Nicks” (originally aired as 2)
“Stray”
“All Systems Red”(originally aired as 7)
“Sonic Wind”
“Alone Again Or”
“Roka”
“He Lays In Reins”(joined onstage by the Iron and Wine) (originally aired as 6)
“Guero Canelo”
“Letter To Bowie Knife” (originally aired as 5)
“Crystal Frontier”

This is a nice mix of (at the time) old and new songs. With a catalog like Calexico’s it’s interesting to see which tracks the band chose for their set at ACL, and which tracks ACL chose to air. Considering that “All Systems Red” from Garden Ruin is about the frustration of second Dubya election, it’s sort of fitting that this DVD is released at the Inauguration of President Obama.

Free Download : “Absent Afternoon” from Calexico

As announced on Casa de Calexico— the official website of Calexico–  Threadless is hosting exclusively as part of its “Threadless Loves Travel” contest. The contest picked a shirt design by Alex Solis called “Bird Migration” that will be a regular teeshirt at Threadless. To celebrate, the got an exclusive track from Calexico for their site called “Absent Afternoon.” It has the very distinctive sound of Willie Nelson’s harmonica player Mickey Raphael on it which is pretty cool. Per Joey:

hello threadless nation

hope you and all at threadless like the song.
it’s one of my favs.
written at home looking out the window at the weekly funeral procession…
soul migration

nick luca played pump organ, first day back in the studio after recovering from a serious bout with keta acidosis and was in the hospital for a week diagnosed with diabetes type 1.

mickey raphael plays harmonica. we met him through the i’m not there movie when we recorded with he and willie nelson. he loves tucson and hangs out here whenever they are on tour. he wants to record a whole album with us here. should be fun.

paul niehaus on slide acoustic archtop guitar and lush pedal steel.

john convertino on badass drums

i play guitar, bass and sing.

enjoy threadless love what you do
thanks for being there and opening the door to our world

joey

It’s not clear to me how long they will host the song, so grab it while you can!

Click Here to download “Absent Afternoon” by Calexico

Click Here to see the winning design at Threadless

Streaming Calexico Concert at FabChannel.com

Thanks to the folks at the Yahoo Group CasadeCalexico, we bring you a streaming video of Calexico’s concert on 10/15/08 at Paradiso Main Hall in Amsterdam. Calexico plays a nice set that focuses on Carried to Dust but also delivers old standbys like “Across the Wire” and the cover of Love’s “Alone Again, Or.”

B-Sides in the Bins #32 – Mad City Music – Madison, WI 9/27/08

The Tortoise show at Snake on the Lake started at 3PM in Madison, but Erik, Shawn and I weren’t interested in all of the opening acts, so we decided to hit a record store before meeting up with Tom, our taper friend. We stopped at Mad City Music which I’ve been to a couple of times. The first time Erik and I went there it was for a small Camper Van Beethoven in-store which was really cool.

This was a pretty fruitful trip in that I picked up some amazingly pristine copies of Tom Petty albums. Like freakishly mint, really. No ringwear or sleeve wear of any sort. They looked like they just shipped from the plant and were taken out of the cellophane! In addition to the four records, I bought plastic sleeves for them.

Tom Petty is one of my long-time favorite artists. Of course, this means that I need to keep an eye out for other Tom Petty vinyl… Two of the records were upgrades. I gave the replaced copies to Erik.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Damn the Torpedoes (LP, MCA 5105, 1979)($3.00) The third album. First Top-40 record for the band, includes “Refugee” and “Don’t Do Me Like That.”

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Hard Promises (LP, Backstreet BSR 5160, 1981)($3.00) This was an upgrade for me. First record to hit Top-10 for Petty.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Long After Dark (LP, Backstreet BSR 5360, 1982)($3.00) First record with the late Howie Epstein on bass. The record was an attempt to repeat the formula of success by using Jimmy Iovine as producer. Sadly, it would not pan out. “You Got Lucky” was an MTV favorite, though.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Southern Accents (LP, MCA 5486, 1985)($4.00) Another upgrade for me. Rae got me my first copy for my birthday in 2006– that one was a corner-cut cutout record. The vinyl was immaculate, though. This was really the record that started my interest in Tom Petty, and probably the song “Rebel.” I started listening to this about the same time I got into the Del Fuegos, which would make sense. Lots of radio and video airplay for this one– “Rebel” and “Don’t Come Round Here No More.” Three songs were co-written with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.

What I didn’t buy: Carried to Dust by Calexico on used CD (I got this one on vinyl through Amazon), and two Dumptruck albums For the Country, and Positively Dumptruck on vinyl, and a Love Tractor LP on DBRecs. Jethro Tull’s Crest of a Knave (the album they won a Grammy in 1989 for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance against Metallica!). If I get back to Mad City and the Dumptruck records are there, I will buy them. Based on the price stickers they’ve been there for a couple of years.

Free Downloads: Calexico Secret Show in Berlin 9/6/08 (FLAC)

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly great free downloads are available on the Internet. This morning at 9:46AM GMT a BitTorrent for a live broadcast from BBC 1 of a show Calexico did YESTERDAY showed up on Dimeadozen! This was a “secret show” that was performed by Calexico as a quartet in Berlin in a small venue. The broadcast part of the show was all new songs and mostly tracks from Carried to Dust which comes out on Tuesday.

To download the FLAC files using your favorite torrent client, click here (requires account on dimeadozen)

Ballhaus Ost, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany

Setlist:
01 [00:28] [starting a new chapter…]
02 [04:38] Frank’s Tavern
03 [05:14] Victor Jara’s Hands
04 [04:55] Man Made Lake
05 [03:28] [slowness prelude] >
06 [05:29] Slowness
07 [04:32] Two Silver Trees
08 [04:14] Above The Branch >
09 [03:42] The News About William
10 [04:39] Writer’s Minor Holiday
11 [05:35] [unidentified title]
12 [06:25] Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)
13 [03:36] Red Blooms

The lineup was:
Joey Burns: guitars, vocals
John Convertino: drums
Martin Wenck: trumpet, harmonica, vibraphone, whistling
Paul Niehaus: pedal steel guitar, electric guitar

Calexico Video at All Songs Considered and Joey Burns Interview

Thanks to the the Yahoo Calexico group, I bring another video clip from Calexico and Quarterstick. This one is from NPR’s All Songs Considered and is bundled with a review by Robin Hilton. The clip has some stripped-down arrangements of “Two Silver Trees,” “Man Made Lake,” and “The News About William” along with some commentary from Convertino and Burns about their hometown Tucson and the role it plays in their music. Apparently, this is the first of a series. So, visit that page for updates. These videos are filmed and edited beautifully, I would love to see these all edited together or possibly turned into a DVD.

NPR: Video: Calexico Previews New Album

NPR: Video: Calexico Part Two

Also, the fine folks at the Aquarium Drunkard blog published an interview with Joey Burns this morning about Carried to Dust complete with a couple of mp3’s to download. Go read it.

Calexico “Two Silver Trees” Video

After the two “teasers” from Quarterstick, we are provided the full length video for “Two Silver Trees” which seems to be the first single from Calexico’s upcoming Carried to Dust album due out September 9th. The video includes footage that was used in both of the teasers– Joey and John play in the Hotel Congress Tap Bar as well as the on the amazing Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) aka the “Airplane Graveyard” on Davis Monthan AFB. The video is interspersed with other landmarks from Tucson. A very cool video that makes me want to take a road trip to Tucson.

Calexico New Album News: Carried to Dust due September 9th

Joey and John visited the KXCI studios on Friday, May 23rd to perform songs, talk about their new album and to promote the benefit show they played Friday night at the Rialto in Tucson to send Mariachi Aztlan de Pueblo High School to Washington DC for the National Independence Day Parade.

During Friday’s Home Stretch show hosted by Kristi Lloyd which I heard thanks to a fan on the Calexico Yahoo group who snagged the Internet feed of that show it was announced that the new album is finished and will be called Carried to Dust and will be released September 9th in the U.S.

Calexico played three songs (I think) but I only heard two of them. The first song was new and they didn’t announce a title for it, but it was a slower song with a road or driving theme, and they played another new waltzy song titled “The News About William” played on acoustic guitar and brushes on drums. No earth-shattering change in direction in my opinion, but more strong music in the familiar Calexico vein.

The tour dates are filling in for Calexico this summer and it looks like they might be holding most of the U.S. dates until after the album release. There are three dates, though, Detroit on 7/5, The Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI, and the World Music Festival in Chicago on 9/25. The World Music Festival will be a free one, so I might consider making a long weekend in Chicago for that one.

Calexico In The Studio for a September Album Release

From the Yahoo Group Casadecalexico, on March 8th it was reported by band archivist Jim Blackwood that Calexico have been in the studio working on the new album. On March 23rd it was reported on the board that Calexico’s European Booking Agency said that the release date for the new album in Europe– I suppose on City Slang— would be September 8, 2008.

Drowned in Sound reports that Calexico is set to headline the UK End of the Road Festival which takes place September 12th through the 14th and would be right on the heels of the album release.

As expected, discussions of a new Calexico brought the Garden Ruin dissenters to the fore. Some hope that Calexico’s next album will be less “rock” than Garden Ruin. I love all of the Calexico albums, but Garden Ruin is what brought them to my attention, so I don’t mind if the new release sounds a bit like it.

Click Here to visit Touch and Go’s Calexico where you can stream songs under “Featured Clips”.
Click Here for Rare Calexico on iTunes iMix icon