Friday, November 30, 2012

Happy Birthday Shuggie Otis!



Jem Cohen presents We Have An Anchor @ TIFF Bell Lightbox, Dec 4 & 5


After piecing together footage gathered in Nova Scotia over the past 10 years with relevant bits of text. filmmaker Jem Cohen is unveiling his latest project We Have An Anchor at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West) on Tuesday and Wednesday (December 4 and 5) at 8 pm.

Being that music has played such an integral role in all of Cohen's visual features, it should come as no great surprise that We Have An Anchor has an exceptional soundtrack – in this case performed live with a stellar cast of Cohen's musician pals including Guy Picciotto (Fugazi); Jim White (Dirty Three); Efrim Menuck and Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra) and T. Griffin (The Quavers). As an added treat, supernatural vocals will be provided by Toronto's own Mary Margaret O'Hara who not coincidentally stars in Cohen's most recent feature film Museum Hours which had it's North American premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

Advance tickets are $30 for each night available via the Images Festival online store www.imagesfestival.com or at the Lightbox box office (open daily from 10 am to 10 pm), Rotate This and Soundscapes. Any remaining tickets will be sold for $40 on the day of show. Those hoping to grab an iPhone pic for their Facebook page with Jem Cohen or a member of his celebrated cast of musicians  can purchase VIP tickets for $50 which provides access to a special meet-and-greet session before the screening. Visit tiff.net for more information.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

New "Bad Seeds" album from Nick Cave due in February


The release of the latest album from the troubled mind of Nick Cave is now slated for February 18,  2013 and while Push The Sky Away is being credited to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, without the participation of key players Mick Harvey – who left the group in January 2009 after 25 years – and Blixa Bargeld who split in 2003 – it's essentially a new Grinderman album with slightly less facial hair.

Joining Cave on the purported follow-up to 2008's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! will be his entire Grinderman crew including multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis on violin, flute, tenor guitar and synths, Martyn Casey on bass, percussionist Jim Sclavunos along with Thomas Wydler on drums and former Bad Seeds keyboardist Conway Savage only contributing vocals. Furthermore, Push The Sky Away was recorded with Grinderman producer Nick Launay at Studios La Fabrique,  a residential facility set in a grand 19th Century French mansion in bucolic Saint-Rémy de Provence.

The first song to appear from the nine-track album will be We No Who U R – available for download December 3 from your digital retailer of choice or get it gratis when you pre-order Push The Sky Away on CD, limited CD-DVD, vinyl, digital via nickcave.com. Check out the trailer below...


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Friday, November 23, 2012

Happy Birthday RL Burnside



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

New Caitlin Rose album due in March


Some good news for Caitlin Rose fans, her new studio album The Stand-In is finished and scheduled for release by ATO Records on March 5, 2013. The much anticipated follow-up to her promising but under-performing debut Own Side Now, The Stand-In includes two songs co-written with Gary Louris and a cover of the Felice Brothers' Dallas. Here's the press release followed by the fab first song from the sessions to be released, No One To Call:

Still only 25, the scope of Caitlin Rose's progression as an artist is palpable from the outset, and she happily concurs. “This album could be considered my first attempt at a high kick,” Rose says, acknowledging Own Side Now as a much more small scale and pared down recording. “We're not aiming to make indie-sounding records. How boring would that be?”

Incorporating classic influences from her Nashville roots with a modern pop twist, Caitlin's vocals soar over lyrics that seem to possess the wisdom of an old soul. It was a daunting endeavor to follow up Own Side Now, the brilliant debut that landed her on countless year- end best of lists, including Time Magazine’s # 7 Albums of 2011, American Songwriter’s Top 50, CMT’s 10 Most Overlooked Albums and SPIN’s 20 Best Country and Americana Albums, but Rose has delivered a masterpiece that promises the type of career longevity that most young artists can only dream of attaining.

Crafted with Nashville producers Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson (Justin Townes Earle), featuring two songs co-written with Gary Louris (The Jayhawks), The Stand-In came together and took form as a team effort, strengthened by a longtime friendship with band mates Jeremy Fetzer and Spencer Cullum. Inspired by classic country musicians, misunderstandings, break ups, mystical landmarks and the constantly evolving landscape of the Nashville music scene,

The Stand-In is an ambitious record, a testament to Rose's bold approach and strength as a songwriter. With a trademark punch that the New York Times once likened to a young “Patsy Cline learning to howl”, Rose’s fiery disposition shines through on rollicking tracks like “No One To Call” and “Waitin’,” songs that possess a huge sound and a whole lot of character. Never the type to be one-dimensional, Rose wears her heart on her sleeve on candid serenades like “I Was Cruel” and sentimental ballads like “Pink Champagne” or “When I’m Gone.” And true to form, Rose includes a brilliant cover on The Stand-In, this time of The Felice Brothers’ single, “Dallas.”

When evaluating Rose’s historic love affair with reinventing classic songs, the term “cover” seems like a bit of an understatement. With her past renditions of songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “Things Change” and Arctic Monkeys’ “Piledriver Waltz”, Rose demonstrates an undeniable knack for choosing unexpected gems that result in a unique interpretation that can stand up to the original. As Rose noted, “I’ve got a big personality when there’s room for it.”

No One To Call by Caitlin Rose

  

Fresh & Onlys @ Parts & Labour tonight


In this 18-minute mini-doc, San Francisco's Fresh & Onlys pull the curtains back on the less-than-glamourous process of recording their Long Slow Dance album with Phil Manley at Lucky Cat Studios. Spoiler alert: No fistfights break out over guitar levels.


Monday, November 12, 2012

Happy Birthday Neil Young!





0:00 Out On The Weekend
04:31 Old Man
08:20 Journey Thru The Past
13:12 Heart Of Gold
17:22 Don't Let It Bring You Down
20:18 A Man Needs A Maid
24:17 Love In Mind
26:29 Dance, Dance, Dance

Friday, November 9, 2012

Adult. covers Detroit techno classic

 
Shari Vari (ANumberOfNames) by Adult.


Shari Vari on The Scene 1981


Shari Vari by The Dirtbombs

Rachel Maddow tallies Tea Party takedown

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

5th Annual NuJazz Fest launches with Souljazz Orchestra @ Wrongbar tonight!





LINKS
Souljazz Orchestra http://www.souljazzorchestra.com/
NuJazz Festival http://www.nujazz.ca/

Madlib Medicine Show: The Aftermath


The Madlib Medicine Show dates with Freddie Gibbs, J Rocc Egon and of course Madlib in the US, Europe, Russia and Australia have wrapped up for 2012, one of which is hazily captured in in this video by Mochilla's Eric Coleman:


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Psych Pop discovered in Toronto!


Optical Sounds' great new Psych Pop From Toronto compilation is a state-of-the-fuzzbox report on the Big Smoke's post-shoegaze whumpers as selected by Will Carruthers of Spacemen 3, Spiritualized and Brian Jonestown Massacre infamy. More than simply being an exemplary arbiter of trippy style, the fact that Carruthers also spent some quality time hanging out with many of the musicians on the scene while living in  Toronto back in 2006 makes him precisely the right man for the filtering job. 

Naturally, the 14-track compilation includes tracks by a number of groups on the Optical Sounds label roster  – namely Flowers of Hell, The Hoa Hoa's, Revolvers. Action Makes, Planet Creature and The Disraelis – there are some impressive moves displayed by Ostrich Tuning, Persian Rugs, Saffron Sect and Volcano Playground.

But you don't have to take my word for it, check out the ace Psych Pop From Toronto collection available for free download right here and then go to the two-night launch party at the Silver Dollar on Thursday (November 8) featuring The Auras (10 pm), Planet Creature (10:45 pm), Flowers of Hell (11:30 pm), Ostrich Tuning (12:15 am) The Disraelis (1 am) and Friday (November 9) including Persian Rugs (10 pm), The BB Guns (10:45 pm), Volcano Playground (11:30 pm), Revolvers (12:15 am), B-17 (1 am). The cover charge is just $8 each night.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Video of the Week: Lonnie Holley


"All Rendered Truth" by Lonnie Holley, from the album Just Before Music out November 6 on Dust To Digital (see Links below). Video directed by George King, with footage from his upcoming documentary about Lonnie Holley. 
 

Lonnie Bradley Holley aka "The Sand Man" was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama, the seventh of 27 children. From the age of five, Holley worked various jobs: picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state fairgrounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood.

Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events.

Holley did not start making and performing music in a studio nor does his creative process mirror that of the typical musician. His music and lyrics are improvised on the spot and morph and evolve with every event, concert, and recording. In Holley’s original art environment, he would construct and deconstruct his visual works, repurposing their elements for new pieces. This often led to the transfer of individual narratives into the new work creating a cumulative composite image that has depth and purpose beyond its original singular meaning. The layers of sound in Holley’s music, likewise, are the result of decades of evolving experimentation. “Just Before Music” features Holley’s first studio recordings made in 2010 and 2011.

LINKS
label  http://www.dust-digital.com/lonnie/
video director George King  http://www.georgeking-assoc.com/

Timmy's Organism shakes the Silver Dollar tonight





Thursday, November 1, 2012

Happy Birthday Andre Williams!



Susie Arioli brings All The Way to Hugh's Room

Montreal-based jazz chanteuse Susie Arioli will make her triumphant return to Hugh's Room tonight to showcase the American Songbook standards from her seventh studio album All The Way (Spectra Musique) which just earned her two Félix awards including Album de l'année–Jazz Interprétation (Album of the Year - Jazz interpretation) at l'Autre Gala de l'ADISQ recently held in at the Theatre St-Denis in Montreal. Arioli will be joined by longtime collaborator, guitarist Jordan Officer, Bill Gossage on bass, Tony Albino on drums and Cameron Wallis on saxophone. Showtime is 8:30 pm but it would be wise to arrive early for this one.