One of Denver’s best success stories in recent years (behind their buddies The Fray, perhaps) Meeseis preparing to release their sophomore album on Atlantic Records in the coming months. The album is completed and tonight they are unveiling all the songs from the new album for fans, family, and friends.
M E E S E
LIVE AT THE LARIMER LOUNGE
TUESDAY MARCH 3RD
featuring DJ HOT TO DEATH
9PM / $5 / 21+
SPRING TOUR DATES (with Valencia)
Mar 12 – Lawrence KS – the jackpot
Mar 13 – Orland Park IL – moejoes
Mar 14 – Detroit MI – the shelter
Mar 15 – Cleveland Heights OH – grog shop
@ SXSW:
Mar 19 – Purevolume House (6PM)
Mar 20 – Mile Hi-Fidelity at the Jackalope (2:45)
Mar 21 – Maggie Mae’s Rooftop (9PM)
WATCH: Snippets from the 2006 show opening for The Fray at Red Rocks. Aw, look how they’ve grown since then.
LISTEN: If you sign up on their website, you can get a free download of their new song “Count Me Out.”
If someone can either explain to me how to crack the new Pearl Jam 3D Rubix Cube Matrix game, or give me some private lessons, or possibly powerful mind-clarifying substances — that would be much appreciated. To not excel at something Pearl-Jam-related is maddening. Ha. At least the soundtrack is good… if I could get past level one it might be even better.
Pearl Jam is reissuing 1991′s Ten this month, and I am very excited to have one of the Legacy Editions to give away in my first official Pearl Jam contest. Whee! Been waiting for this since I was 13.
NEW CONTEST: Win a Ten Legacy Edition (2-disc set in mini-LP style slipcase)
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· Re-designed packaging
If you’d like to enter to win, leave me a comment with your favorite Pearl Jam moment from any of their songs — live version, album version, full stanza, exhalation, guitar solo, scream — have at it. I just mostly like talking about this stuff. The various rad reissues come out March 24th, and this contest runs through Sunday night.
Also, speaking of Brendan O’Brien and his remix work on the reissue, I was just reading tonight in the Rolling Stone with the (excellent & eloquent) Sean Penn interview about O’Brien’s reprisal on the new PJ album due later this year, and I hear a fall tour may be in the works. A September show in Colorado would be so nice, don’t you think? Hmm.
So the countdown has begun in earnest to my first SXSW. I know, right? How did it take me this long to go? In past years I’ve focused on festivals in other regions (UMS Denver, Noise Pop SF, Coachella, etc) and wound up without the money or wherewithal to trek to Texas.
This year, we change that.
Two weeks from Wednesday, I hop a plane to Austin. I couldn’t be more excited, or more overwhelmed. There will be a showcase that Fuel/Friends is helping to present (details forthcoming) and lots of great parties and showcases that I am anticipating. In addition, I’ll be helping out with an actual panel (!!), so come see me if you are attending the conference portion.
I downloaded two torrents full o’ music from SXSW Showcasing Artists and have been slowly working my way through them all weekend. Here are five from the bazillion that first caught my ear as artists that I will want to keep my wits about me for to try and make their shows. Even if you’re not going to Austin, have a listen to five I love:
NeverEnds
Vijay Kishore
The stream of music can be numbing after the first hundred, but this song just absolutely stopped me in my tracks, dead, heartworn. Web information tells me that Vijay Kishore is from Birmingham, England, but all I know is that the gorgeous falsetto and high lonesome drone of his voice sounds uncannily like an incarnation of Thom Yorke or Jeff Buckley, from an Indian gentleman with a shaved head. I have nothing else to say, except that I have chills. He’s playing a ton at SXSW, including an official showcase Thursday night at Creekside.
Wave and Water Gordon Gano and the Ryan Brothers
Lead Violent Femme takes to the airwaves again with this song that could probably be on all your summer mixtapes. Over a barely-contained funky guitar line and shiny brass melodies that echo Cake, Gordon Gano brings that same dry delivery to his latest (catchy) creation. I didn’t know he was at it again, didn’t know he’d be at SXSW (late Thursday at the Parish Downstairs).
Baby Come On
Elemeno P
This song makes me feel dizzily and joyously confused. I first heard it tonight when I was putting dishes away and lordy I think I nearly dropped a glass or two from the force of my spontaneous dancing. There’s yelling like those snappy street gangs in Broadway musicals, a huge marching drum beat, and melody for pogoing to. Elemeno P is from New Zealand and theirs will undoubtedly be a fabulously fun show (not sure when they’re playing yet).
Eager To Sail
Wine And Revolution
My experience with wine is often that it leads me into thick sleepiness, and distinctly not revolution, but this Austin band would like to encourage me otherwise. From listening to this selection, it seems as if they wish me to travel with them through a long line of good sounding influences, from the Kinks to Voxtrot, and have a lot of fun while I’m at it — to which I say, “okay.” Wine and Revolution is playing a handful of shows Wednesday and Friday.
Kamphopo
Radioclit
I’ve read a lot about Malawian artist Esau Mwamwaya and the Radioclit DJ duo on Gorilla vs Bear over the last year or so, and always smile at the joyous African-inflected dance creations that they often release free into the world. This cut builds Southeast-African rhythms & words over music from Architecture in Helsinki. Radioclit preserves an earthy connection with their music while featuring folks like M.I.A. and Santogold on some fabulously sweaty-fun remixes. It’s where I’ll be midnight Thursday, in the Beauty Bar Backyard.
So…who’s on the early flight out of Denver Wednesday morning on Southwest?
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.