Dallas Good's Were The Watchtowers, features Kurt Vile, John Doe, Yo La Tengo, Jon Spencer, Scott McCaughey, Gary Louris, Neko Case and others.
From Yep Roc HQ...
Yep Roc is honoured to announce the June 26th wide-release of Were The Watchtowers, the final recorded work of Dallas Good, completed before his unexpected passing in February 2022. Written and recorded slowly over more than a decade with Richard Reed Parry, the project captures a deeply collaborative, cosmic strain of psychedelic Americana. Guest appearances include Neko Case, Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Jim Jarmusch, John Doe, Jon Spencer, Scott McCaughey, Gary Louris and Margaret Atwood.
The video for Kurt Vile's "Like Exploding Stones" was shot by Sean Dunne. You can get (watch my moves) right here.
Sez Kurt...
Sometimes at night a song comes into my head like a flash bolt of inspiration… other nights I feel inspired anyway… welp… “Tonight’s the day, candle.” Sometimes I think about Kim Gordon’s semi-childlike vocal delivery cutting through the best wall of noise in the 90s (when I wuz a teen.) I remember skateboarding downhill on plumstead Avenue (the street I grew up on in lansdowne…) full-blasting cypress hill Temple of Boom straight from cassette Walkman into my ear drums… that musta been in 97 (?) … 95 (?) … I flash back to those places a lot, I dunno why but it’s beautiful. I’ve been told I have a dangerous memory. (As in I remember everything.) Thanks, you’re right and it’s a gift. I’m also gifted with killer fans. I’m so excited to come out and connect with all of you again from the stage. I realized at some point I write music tailored for obsessives (like myself) and sensitive souls (I’m sensitive!) …life is beautiful, man, but life is heavy: but I love you. This morning I discovered this thing called Instagram. There are so many people I wanna thank but they only allow so many words. Totally grateful and indebted to my family, Suz, awilda and Delph and my manager rennie and my new label family at verve and my old label family at matador and so many others. I’ll list y’all on the next one! This is my best record. It’s a masterpiece! (They always are.) It’s where I’m at, haha… This is me come into my own, son, at 42. Anyone that might not see it should listen again cuz that’s the kinda music I make (the kind made to play over n over). Btw I’m totally grateful for all the reviews. Thanks for the support! Couldn’t have done it without so many. Sending so much love out to the world. We need a lot of it. Trying to hone in on it, gotta grab hold of somethin. - KV
Paul Major and his Endless Boogie whumpers are back with the double-wallop of Admonitions featuring a cameo by Kurt Vile.
Here's the scoop...
Endless Boogie returns with its fifth proper studio album, Admonitions, set for release November 12th via No Quarter Records.
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Seven tracks of unrefined wisdom, mostly put to tape in improvised fashion with little to no warning. Recorded over two years and two sessions - at the pastoral tranquility of the Stockholm inland archipelago in 2018, and in the dank, cramped basement of a Fort Greene, Brooklyn studio in February 2020.
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Eklow on crude direction, Sweeney on stealth glamour, the obscurantist clarity of Paul Major is, as always, as ever, on full display, the fierce reality of Mike Bones is crucial, and the stoic solidity of The Harry Druzd lays beneath it all. Old pal Kurt Vile hovers over the track "Counterfeiter."
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Full grease, delivered with ease. It is the band’s humble wish that you immerse yourself and enjoy this offering. And come 2022 there will be much concertry. No smoke machines, no capes. Godspeed.
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You can pre-order a copy of Endless Boogie's Admonitions 2LP right here. Note: EU/UK and Canadian customers should check your local record shops to avoid the brutal shipping rates. Check out the psych and heavy rock reissues Paul Major picked up on his 2018 trip to Amoeba Records and an Endless Boogie live Daytrotter session from 2014 following the track listing.
ENDLESS BOOGIE – ADMONITIONS
SIDE A THE OFFENDER
SIDE B DISPOSABLE THUMBS / BAD CALL / COUNTERFEITER
SIDE C JIM TULLY
SIDE D THE CONVERSATION / INCOMPETENT VILLAINS OF 1968
"It's Easy (Like Walking)" is off The Sadies' forthcoming Northern Passages album.
The Sadies will release their 10th studio album, Northern Passages (Dine Alone/Yep Roc) on February 10th with a pre-order available here.
As the light swirled with each album The Sadies have made over the past two decades, the overall picture took on more defined colours. On top of that is an incredible list of collaborations—Neko Case, R&B legend Andre Williams, The Mekons’ Jon Langford, Jon Spencer, Robyn Hitchcock, John Doe, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Gord Downie, Neil Young—each artist pushing their sound into new, unmapped territory. Eventually, more time was taken in between albums as focus shifted to their original songwriting, and what was once the best live band in Canada became the best band in Canada, period.
Recorded in the basement of Dallas and Travis’ parents’ home north of Toronto over the winter of 2015, the familiar surroundings and lack of distractions resulted in a consistent feel, despite the eclecticism at the heart of The Sadies’ sound. The psych-folk flourishes on tracks such as “Riverview Fog” are no mere homage; this is the sound of our inscrutable world, and how we manage to survive in it.
The Sadies are a band that fans cling to like a closely guarded secret, with each new release fulfilling the promise to reach further, for all of our sakes, not just their own. With Northern Passages, the time has come to make room for more on this wild acid-folk-country-punk trip, and we’ll be better off because of it.
The band will be heading on a Canadian Ontario and East Coast tour supporting Blue Rodeo kicking off in Toronto on February 2 following The Sadies' annual New Year's Eve gig at The Horseshoe with Duende and Pow Wows on December 31. See below for a full list of 2017 tour dates.
THE SADIES' 2017 tour with BLUE RODEO
Feb 02 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall*
Feb 08 – Montreal, QC – Place des Arts*
Feb 09 – Kingston, ON – Rogers K-Rock Centre*
Feb 10 – Barrie, ON – Barrie Molson Centre*
Feb 11 – Oshawa, ON – GM Centre*
Feb 14 – London, ON – Budweiser Gardens*
Feb 16 – Hamilton, ON – Hamilton Place*
Feb 17 – Hamilton, ON – Hamilton Place*
Feb 18 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre (Southam Hall)*
Feb 19 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre (Southam Hall)*
Feb 21 – Woodstock, NB – AYR Motor Centre*
Feb 23 – St. John’s, NL – Mile One Centre*
Feb 25 – Halifax, NS – Scotiabank Centre*
Feb 26 – Moncton, NB – The Molson CDN Centre at Casino NB*
Steve Gunn's new album Way Out Weather was released on October 7. Watch his Tiny Desk Concert below.
Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His astounding solo albums, as well as his work with GHQ and longtime collaborating drummer John Truscinski, represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven, forward music. A voracious schedule of international performances has cultivated a fervent fanbase for Gunn’s music throughout the world. These days you can find him playing with his band as well as sometimes serving as guitarist in fellow Philadelphia-bred troubadour Kurt Vile’s band the Violators.
Mining the catalogs of Basho, Bull, Chapman, and Sharrock, among other titans of stringed-things and record-session royalty, Steve has steadily processed these inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Friendships and collaborations with Jack Rose, Tom Carter, Meg Baird, Mike Cooper, and Michael Chapman colored the disciplined evolution of the discursive, deconstructed blues sound, at once transcendent and methodical, that is now Gunn’s signature. Close listening reveals the influence of Delta and Piedmont country blues, ecstatic free jazz, and psych, as well as Gnawa and Carnatic music, on the continually unfolding compositions.
Gunn’s 2009 solo album, Boerum Palace (availble here), demonstrated a fully realized power for songcraft; Steve started to sing more and developed a commanding vocal style equal to his guitar practice. His acclaimed instrumental duo recordings with Truscinski, Sand City (2010) and Ocean Parkway (2012), cemented his place among the top of his peers, both present and past. These documents display Gunn’s compositional penchant for charting musical travelogues that ramble through city and wilderness alike. Dispatches home are not merely descriptive but corporeal; the evocative, rhythmic power of his writing and phrasing carries the listener along bodily. Steve builds songs as exploratory vessels, opens them up for mechanical tinkering, and lives in them through ceaseless improvisatory permutations.
In 2013 Paradise of Bachelors released Time Off, his first album as leader of a trio including longtime friends John Truscinski on drums and Justin Tripp on bass, and a record on which Steve’s compelling singing features more prominently than ever before. The album features his oblique character sketches and story-songs about friends, acquaintances, and denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood, using the trio band format to launch his compositions into new, luminous strata. This is Gunn at the top of his game, writing his most memorable tunes and lyrics, utterly unique but steeped in traditions both vernacular and avant-garde.
A heady and elliptical travelogue, Gunn’s follow-up, Way Out Weather (available via Paradise Of Bachelors), demonstrates a radical widescreen evolution, featuring a larger band and lighting out for lusher, more expansive, and impressionistic territories than Time Off. This is the virtuosic guitarist and songwriter’s career-defining statement to date.
