The lineup announcements started yesterday for the 3rd annual Monolith Festival, coming to Red Rocks September 12th and 13th. This year, the acts are being released incrementally through Facebook updates and Tweets (we are SO hip to the jive here in the Colorado) — whetting our appetites a little at a time, rather than unleashing all the artists on the world at once.
This weekend felt like the head-clearing kickoff of summer for me.
In addition to examining the smattering of new shoots emerging in my garden, running down green trails Saturday morning, an excellent peppered bacon breakfast with good company on Sunday morning, and Sunday twilight rooftop patio relaxin’ in Boulder, I was enraptured twice by The Bittersweets.
The Bittersweets converted me into something of a frothing-at-the-mouth missionary by Saturday morning. After leaving their Friday night show practically vibrating from the perfection of it all, I went home singing their songs in my car, to myself, loud and strong and clear. Saturday morning I started calling people, emailing those who I might be able to entice away from the sold-out Flight of the Conchords / Iron & Wine show at Red Rocks to come see The Bittersweets at Swallow Hill (sadly, a very low conversion rate).
So what was it about them that left me so rattled in all the right ways?
Well, as I told a friend on the phone shortly after waking, they kinda broke my heart and fixed it all in one night and I couldn’t breathe. Both the strength of the songwriting and the brilliant chemistry of primary songwriter Chris Meyers and lead vocalist Hannah Prater are exceptional, along with the slide guitar and harmonica of Jason Goforth rounding out the trio. “Come,” I wrote to friends. “Like Whiskeytown before anyone heard of them and before Ryan Adams started twittering about his decline. Or like Gillian Welch in a tiny tiny venue.”
They played their rootsy, honest music for a solid two hours, songs laden with plaintive lines that stopped me dead (“it’s been years, and I’m still fucked up, like some stillborn afterthought“). There were a handful of beautiful covers in there — Lucinda Williams’ “Orphan” early in the set, the sweetly wrenching “Broken Things” by Julie Miller, and towards the end of a late night, “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” (Dylan) and “I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You” by Tom Waits. Tom Waits is real good at that hour.
They closed their main set with the heart-stopping rendition of “When The War is Over” that I was waiting for — but they sang it standing down in the crowd with no microphones or amps, lapsing in the middle of the song over to “Falling Slowly” as I hoped they would. You could have heard a pin drop and it felt like half the audience was swallowing back a lump. The first time I heard that song, I personally “knew” instantly that it was about a divorce and the wake left, because of the way it punched me square in the metaphorical jaw. I talked to Chris afterwards about his song, letting him know how devastatingly powerful I found it to be. “Yeah,” he said, “People always come up to me and think it’s an anti-war song, and tell me how powerful of a political statement it makes, but the war there…” he looked around over his shoulder, then leaned forward towards me, “…it’s the war of a divorce.”
Lalita
The Love Language
This song starts with machine -gunfire drums under a huge carnival big-top, all swirling sequined girls and fire-twirling. What a fun, perfect summer song from North Carolina’s Stu McLamb, performing as The Love Language, a band that my friend Oz at HearYa is calling his favorite new discovery. I like taking Oz’s word for things, and I think LL might be getting a fair amount of rotation from me all through these upcoming summer months. This tune is from the home-recorded, self-titled debut album. Man, there’s a lot of Voxtrot here, and, as their MySpace description says, LL sounds “like etta james kicking heroin.”
Flightless Bird, American Mouth (alternate version) Iron & Wine
If my sources are correct, the formidable Sam Beam played this gorgeous song at Red Rocks on Saturday night, aptly controlling the there-to-laugh crowd with “songs about God and shit.” Alongside songs like “Woman King” and a set-closing “Trapeze Swinger” — even without hearing what he played in between, I’d say that sounds like a bit of heaven. Tomorrow Iron & Wine is releasing a 23-song double disc of rarities and b-sides called Around The Well, and having had the privilege to sit with it for a few weeks, I can say that I have found so, so much to love within those quiet plucked notes and whispered truths. This version of Flightless Bird, American Mouth comes from the free collection of alternate versions of songs off 2007′s The Shepherd’s Dog, which you can download for free over on the Iron & Wine site. Go. Do it.
Set in Stone
Catfish Haven
A flirty funk-guitar riff starts things off loose and happy here, and then that compelling Seventies-tastic bassline comes in. There’s a world-weary strain in the voice of lead singer George Hunter, almost as if it’s too difficult to be this earnest, this cool. Hailing from Chicago with a blisteringly boozy soul that feels more at home in the South, Catfish Haven makes my heart beat a little faster. This track is off Devastator, their third album, out now on Secretly Canadian, and one of SPIN’s best overlooked records of last year. I looked right over it, and now am circling back.
“And I do need the wind across my pale face. And I do need the ferns to unfurl in the spring. And I do need the grass to sway. Yes, I do need to know my place. But all I want is your eyes, in the morning as we wake, for a short while.” This is the first song off their new album Upper Air, out July 7th on Dead Oceans/Secretly Canadian. Bowerbirds are on tour with Megafaun all this summer, including a date right through Denver here during our 2009 Underground Music Showcase. Hmmm.
You’re Never Alone In New York (feat Craig Finn)
Mark Mallman
Any time Craig Finn guest stars on a track, I’m gonna want to hear it — a constant curiosity about how well his distinctive, pointed delivery works outside of the Hold Steady we love. Friends from the shared hometown of Minneapolis, Finn joins Ruby Isle frontman Mark Mallman on a track from his forthcoming solo release Invincible Criminal (Aug 11 on Badman), an album that was written “in the haunted basement of a converted church and inspired by a ghostly apparition of Elvis.” This intro is a slick, shiny song about big cities, I could tell when Craig Finn was about come in because the mood of the song shifts away from electronica and towards that meaningful-sounding swell of piano chords and then — boom. I was right. He comes in just at the right moment, bringing things back down into the dive bars and boulevards. [via P-fork]
The acerbic & talented Mike Doughty brings himself to Boulder tonight for a taping of E-Town, and I am looking forward to seeing his show. I’ve been a fan since seeing Soul Coughing live in the mid-’90s, and if I ever see him up close again, I still thoroughly intend to move a-side and let the man go through (let the man go through).
I consistently find Mike’s hard-driving use of guitar-as-percussion to be addictively listenable – “I Just Want The Girl In The Blue Dress To Keep On Dancing” from last year’s Golden Delicious (in addition to having one of the greatest song titles of late) was a favorite tune of the summer and the whole year, and every time I stand in Starbucks, I think of this.
Other tour dates below, with a few b-side tracks I dug up:
MIKE DOUGHTY TOUR DATES
May 17 – Boulder Theater – Boulder, CO
May 22 – The Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ
Jun 19 – Universal Church of Love and Music – Acme, PA
Jun 20 – Riverfest – Troy, NY
Jul 4 – Grandview Park – Sioux City, IA
[audio via the excellent Mike Doughty site from gremmie.net]
One of the most surprising new acts that I saw at SXSW this year was the diminutive 23-year old Zee Avi, from Malaysia. Plucked from obscurity half a world away in Kuala Lumpur through her homemade YouTube videos, which were seen by Raconteur’s drummer Patrick Keeler and passed along to White Stripes manager Ian Montone, Zee is freshly signed to Brushfire Records.
Her debut self-titled album comes out on Tuesday, with a sound that is a refreshing throwback to jazz vocalists of the 1920s, cross-bred with an island vibe of acoustic guitar and ukulele.
Zee and I bonded over Colorado beers in a noisy bar in Austin after her daytime set at the Filter Magazine party. She looks maybe 17, so I had to double-check before I ordered us some drinks. Still electrified from her well-received set a few minutes prior, Zee was utterly approachable, and completely passionate about where her music is taking her.
ZEE AVI INTERVIEW
F/F: When you were studying in London, were you focusing on musical education, or law?
Zee: Well, primarily fashion design, at first. I did my undergraduate there at the American Intercontinental University in England, but I eventually decided I no longer had “the passion for fashion”…. I did do eight levels in law when I was seventeen – I joke that I was “bred to be a lawyer.” My dad’s whole family were lawyers, so they had that driven mindset. But I’m really glad that they pushed me towards that, because it did teach me a lot about hard work.
I started teaching myself to play the guitar, though, in Malaysia. I had a lot of free time when school ended each day and I bought this guitar for 19 ringgit, which I would say is around thirty bucks. After I got back from London, I bought myself a chord book and decided to take the guitar out of the closet where it had been sitting and….you know, started jamming my A and G chord. It took me some time to figure out how to stretch my hands around it, I have the tiniest hands – you should see how long a bottle of nail polish will last me (laughs). Oh – and it’s an ongoing joke at practice that a ukulele is actually a normal-sized guitar for me. So, I played rhythm guitar in a couple of bands, and then moved to London. When I moved back to Kuala Lumpur, that’s when I really started with the songwriting.
The first time I heard your music, it was kind of surprising (to me, at least) for a girl from Malaysia to have a sound that’s very much throwback to American music styles from, say, the 1920s onward. Where did that influence come from? Were you exposed to women in jazz a lot growing up?
I actually had that comment once on a YouTube video, something like – “How did a twenty-something Malaysian girl sound like she’s from the Mississippi delta?” But I guess for me, it just came naturally. Of course, listening to music that was from that era really helped a lot, it inspired me. Sure, I went through my rock periods and my British indie phase when I was in London, but I felt like none of them really fit me. So I fell back into listening to jazz, and I connected with its simplicity and honesty and just the lack of sugar-coating to the lyrics. Vocal-wise, I would say that 1920s music has a lot of impact on how I write my music today.
In Malaysia, jazz is a pretty big circuit, so I was exposed to it, but I would certainly never call myself a jazz singer even though I love it. Among my friends I am probably still one of the only one who listens to that era, or looks for vintage vinyl, old pressings, of this music from a different time. But American music in general – I mean, blues and jazz came from here and have shaped and defined modern music. I love going back to the roots to see how it shapes music today. I mean, if it weren’t for Howlin’ Wolf, Led Zeppelin wouldn’t have been around.
The way your music was discovered, through your personal YouTube postings, is pretty cool. Tell me about why you started doing that – was that primarily driven by a desire to have your creativity heard?
Well yeah, the whole internet thing has definitely been a blessing. I think it is such a good outlet to help you put your work out there no matter what you do. It does seems to be a more common story these days, that someone, somewhere has their talent first seen on the internet. It’s been pretty crazy to be heard by so many people, and that Patrick (from The Raconteurs) took an interest in my work. I hadn’t even told my friends or family about it until I got the deal. It was really just a place where I could let things out and just write songs for me.
I mean, I don’t talk much about this part of the story, but the whole reason I had even started with YouTube in the first place is simply because a friend of mine missed my first gig and he’s a poet and I really wanted his feedback on “Poppy,” which is the first song I wrote. He wanted me to send him and mp3 but I didn’t know how to do that, but I did have a crappy webcam and an old IBM laptop, with a call center headset. After he watched it, I was going to delete it, with all of the grainy and crackly sound, but he said, “No, why don’t you just let it nest there for a little bit?”
So I left it up instead, and within a few days I started getting other comments on it from around the world, from random strangers. It was just more encouragement for me. I found that the more videos I started recording, the reception was great and more people started coming to the channel to see them and comment and sharing them with their friends. It was all a big, crazy snowball effect
Tell me about the new record that you recorded at Brushfire Studios in Southern California – was that the first time you’d been in LA?
Yes! It was the first time I had been to the U.S. at all, so you can just imagine everything being brand new, and me being a trainwreck of nerves and jetlag. The material that I arrived with was a blend of older stuff from YouTube and new things I had written more recently that they liked when I played for them, they said, “You know what, we should put that on the record!” It was an incredibly good experience – I feel like they are all family now.
One interesting thing on the album is the Morrissey cover song! Why did you decide to cover “First Of The Gang To Die”?
Well, I’ve always been a really big fan of the Smiths, and that particular song was actually played all the time in this indie club in KL (Kuala Lumpur) but it became kind of like an anthem for all of us in that club. It reminds me of feeling like warriors, and a pact of being different from everybody else, and it is just such a beautifully written song. And apparently Morrissey has heard my version of it — which is daunting for me to think about – apparently Ian (Montone, manager) sent it to him. It’s just crazy!
Are you still writing these days? It has been a pretty crazy few months for you.
Yeah, I’m creatively exhausted at this moment. I plan to go home and recuperate for a little while and be a hermit and grow a shell. I need it. Because this summer I have a lot of touring, some cool festivals coming up for me like No Depression in Seattle (with Iron & Wine and Gillian Welch) and Bonnaroo and Outside Lands in San Francisco. It’ll be a good summer.
VIDEO: FOUR ZEE AVI ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES
Live at the Solar Powered Plastic Plant
ZEE AVI TOUR DATES
May 17 – Boulder, CO Etown taping (opening for Mike Doughty)
May 19 – Long Beach, CA – Fingerprints Instore
May 20 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy
May 22 – San Fran, CA – The Rickshaw Stop
May 26 – Towson, MD – WTMD Listener event
May 27 – Charlottesville, VA – Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
May 28 – Washington, DC 9:30 Club (opening for A Camp)
May 30 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
May 31 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
June 1 – Hoboken, NJ – Maxwell’s
June 6 – Pittsburgh, PA 3 Rivers Arts Fest (opening for Medeski, Martin & Wood)
June 13 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
June 15 – Chapel Hill, NC – Night Light
June 16- Kill Devil Hills, NC- The Pit Surf Shop
June 17 – Columbia, SC – Hunter Gatherer
June 19 – Opelika, AL – Eighth & Rail
June 20 – Birmingham, AL – City Stages Festival
July 9th – Spokane, WA- Knitting Factory
July 11th – Redmond, WA – No Depression Festival
July 12th- Vancouver, BC – Media Club
August 28th San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands Festival
I first fell in love with the open and clear voice of Hannah Prater through her duets with fellow San Franciscan Ryan Auffenberg, on the gorgeous song “Under All The Bright Lights.” Something about the stirring timbre she possesses just reels me in and (very) often entices me to sing along.
Along with Chris Meyers, Prater ‘s band The Bittersweets have now relocated to Nashville. Their strong songwriting, melodic harmonies, and sun-dappled alt-country has been on rotation in my stereo for the last few years, with this superb track likely being played the most:
I am thrilled to be seeing The Bittersweets tonight at the cozy mountain shop / cafe / brewpub Kinfolks in the neighboring hippie enclave of Manitou Springs, and they’re in Denver tomorrow night at Swallow Hill. More tour dates below.
And yeah — it would be pretty shiver-riffic if they performed something like this:
Their original song “When The War is Over,” from their current release Goodnight, San Francisco, along with a few minutes of “Falling Slowly” from the movie Once, thrown in for very good measure:
THE BITTERSWEETS – TOUR DATES
May 15 – Kinfolks, Manitou Springs, CO
May 16 -Tuft Theater @ Swallow Hill, Denver, CO
May 19 – Folk Salad House Concert, Tulsa, OK
May 20 – Blue Door, Oklahoma City, OK
May 21 – Lupus General Store, Lupus, MO
May 22 – Otherland Cafe, Memphis, TN
Jun 12 – Boone County Library, Burlingtom, KY
Jul 23-26 – Floyd Fest, Floyd, VA
Jul 29 – The Sea Ranch and The Pearl, Kill Devil Hills, NC
Aug 8 – Puckett’s, Franklin, TN
Aug 15 – Eighth and Rail, Opelika, AL
Aug 16 – Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, Mobile, AL
Aug 21 – Swampjam House Concerts, Plymouth, NC
Aug 22 – The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
Aug 23 – North Meets South House Concerts, Greensboro, NC
Sep 9 – Battle of Plattsburgh Commemoration, NY
Most months, the only music magazine I read cover to cover is Paste.
I always walk away from devouring each issue with a mind that feels sharpened and engaged by all kinds of new music and interesting stories I want to investigate further. I believe that Paste is in it for the right reasons, and are trying to do nothing more than write about music (and books and movies and more) that they love. Same thing I do, essentially, except they’ve chosen the far more expensive “paper magazine” method of distribution, and have run smack into some hard times.
Here’s their letter, they’re asking for you to chip in now to help save the magazine, and in return they’re opening their vaults to a bunch of great rare tracks, including this one from Matt Nathanson (below), and folks like The Avett Brothers, Thao, Jamie Lidell, Emmylou Harris, Josh Ritter, Rosie Thomas, The Low Anthem, Matthew Caws….it just goes on and on (and on).
AND if you’re feeling especially feisty and wealthy, and donate $350, you get a subscription for life. Considering inflation (and you not dying before you can get the full value of the subscription), that’s a pretty solid investment.
Dear Paste readers,
We write this letter with great appreciation for all you’ve done for Paste, as well as sorrow that we need to come to you and ask for further support. The economy has taken its toll on Paste, and we need your help to continue.
As the global recession has continued, many of you have written us (especially as ad pages shrunk) to say, “If you ever need help, let us know.” That day has come.
…As a completely independent company, Paste has struggled for the past nine months as advertisers have decided to wait out the recession. As most of you realize, magazines are heavily subsidized by advertising. Industry experts estimate that an average subscription for a monthly publication would cost $60-$80 per year without advertising support. But last month was brutal…
We’ll make it through this short-term economic crisis—but it’s only with your help. Our fate is (and has been and always will be) in your hands. Big-time investors are not “in the game” right now—but readers can rise up and “invest” in Paste’s future. Will you be a part?
It doesn’t take much. Every little bit helps and you can be a part of continuing our efforts to help you find signs of life in music, film and culture. Know that every dollar you give goes into keeping Paste alive and, ultimately, making it even better.
With our sincerest thanks,
Josh, Tim and Nick for the entire Paste family
I am confident they will be successful. I just donated some money — jet on over and do the same, kid.
STREAM: Still (acoustic) – Matt Nathanson
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A note about that song: I’ve always thought this was one of the most powerful and simple songs on Matt‘s current album, and something about this even-more-stripped version just pierces….
i remember hearts that beat
i remember you and me tangled in hotel sheets
you wore me out
you wore me out
i remember honey lips and words so true
i remember nonstop earthquake dreams of you
coming on a fast like good dreams do…
The Pearl Jam “Christmas” single for 2008 is just starting to hit mailboxes worldwide, a scant five months late. As I’ve said before, punctuality has never been a reason to love these fanclub-only vinyl singles that Pearl Jam records almost each year since 1991.
Simply put, I am having a small seizure of happiness.
As a California girl, when I saw that the songs on this year’s release are “The Golden State” (a John Doe cover with Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney) and a brand new original Pearl Jam song called “Santa Cruz,” my heart beat in triple-time. I grew up in San Jose, just forty-five minutes and over the green mountains from the beach town of Santa Cruz. This naively feels like a gift just for me, a soundtrack to the terrain I love and miss.
2008 PEARL JAM CHRISTMAS SINGLE Golden State (featuring Corin Tucker) – Pearl Jam Santa Cruz – Pearl Jam
The lyrics to the harmonica-laced “Santa Cruz” couldn’t be any better for my insides; I can almost see the redwoods flashing past, and smell the salty air of the ocean as we approach over Highway 17. I’ve driven it so many times.
Santa Cruz
Heading south the compass reads
Look at our speed, we’re going 63
Look out the window as the trees go green
I look at them and they look at me
I got Neil Young on the stereo
He comes along whenever I go
There’s something different as I hear him now
Heading south on a familiar route
I can feel the lifting of my blues
I can see a wide horizon loom
I got the feeling I just can’t lose
Pulling into Santa Cruz
I got an old friend, he remembers me
From way back when we were seventeen
We’ve got kids and we’re older now
But when I see him we’re still seventeen
I need the beach to set me free
I need the wind to make me breathe
I need the water to wash my soul
I need my loved ones to let me go
I can feel the lifting of my blues
I can see a wide horizon loom
I got the feeling that I just can’t lose
Pulling into Santa Cruz.
Up in the Northwest we’ve got it good
A little soggy, but we’ve got it good
Can’t help thinking that I wish I would
Move my ass down to Santa Cruz
I got a feeling I don’t wanna lose
Pulling into Santa Cruz
The unaffected love song b-side of “Golden State” is a different version than the one that appeared on the John Doe Golden State EP, with less reverb and a sweet acoustic purity to the harmonies.
When I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, I was able to combine business and pleasure into a few exceedingly lovely musical moments.
In addition to catching the sold-out Blind Pilot show at Schuba’s, I was also invited to come see the band record an intimate session for the superb HearYa Sessions. As we all shared a bit of Maker’s Mark in the late afternoon (and what better time for it, I might ask) Blind Pilot spun some pretty striking renditions of tunes from their debut album Three Rounds and a Sound, one of my recent favorites.
Also, the HearYa guys shot fancy multiple-camera video of this same song which you can watch on their site but (like a tourist) I love this version because it’s mine.
Blind Pilot is on tour in the coming months with The Hold Steady, Counting Crows, Akron/Family, The Decemberists, and Andrew Bird, as well as playing Lollapalooza and Outside Lands in SF. Whew.
Knowing my interest in dabbling in all things related to Euro-pop and cover songs, one of my Spanish readers far across the Atlantic let me know that musician Antonio Vega Tallésdied early this morning in Madrid.
Tallés wrote the 1980 pop song “Chica De Ayer” (featured on this comp of Spanish pop that looks pretty fun), and was also covered by Gigolo Aunts a decade later. Listen to both below -
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.
Iron & Wine
Bowerbirds
Zee’s 
Name: Heather Browne
