Latin jazz piano legend Eddie Palmieri releases Sabiduría on May 19

Check out "Cuerdas y Tumbao" from the new album followed by an NPR special about the influential Harlem River Drive. 

Chicano Batman @ Velvet Underground, Tuesday

Chicano Batman's Carlos Arévalo, Bardo Martinez, Eduardo Arenas and Gabriel Villa make their Toronto debut Tuesday.

Philip Lewin's Canuck loner folk gem reissued by Tompkins Square

Only 300 copies of Am I Really Here All Alone? by Toronto's Philip Lewin were issued in 1975. Read all about it. 

Philip Lewin recalls Am I Really Here All Alone...
"In 1967 I began my life in the student union of a university. In other words, I was in school. But, classes definitely took a back seat to people-watching and attempts at relationships. I would not say that I was particularly good at the latter, but I made a great observer. I even stayed near the school community for an extra year until an opportunity came up to move in with friends in Toronto, Canada, which turned out to be a pivotal opportunity for me.

"I was once told that one should first write about one's own experiences, then, expand to documenting the observed experiences of those around, and, finally write about what one imagines. Am I Really Here All Alone? encompasses all of the above. Something else I realized in writing lyrics is that sometimes it is good to be transparent about the meaning and others times, not so much. 'Unusual Day' is an example of me being honest struggling to develop and maintain a relationship, but ultimately realizing it was not going to succeed.

"'Watercolours' documents a crushing experience, but is couched in metaphor. I hope that listeners will relate through their own experiences, and because my reality is implied, not specified, will not be limited to mine. 'Sweet Georgia' is an example of me, as a writer, leaving my personal space. I think of it as an attempt to clone William Faulkner to Bobbie Gentry. 'The Magic Within You' is actually a commission where I was asked to write a song for a benefit to be performed by Doug Henning, the groundbreaking stage magician and friend. I once heard John Prine complain that there was no point in writing a 'train song' because Steve Goodman had already written the perfect one with 'City of New Orleans'.

"Naturally, I had to write 'Back Home, To You', my idea of a train song where I tried to capture the movement of the train in the rhythm of the guitar. As for the other six songs, to me, they all reflect realities, experienced, observed and imagined. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." However my question is, Am I Really Here All Alone?"

– Philip Lewin, 2017

Brilliant Hamiton jazz singer Diana Panton wins another Juno!

It's going to be even harder for Diana to keep her music career secret after I Believe In Little Things took the children's album Juno.

QUIÑ, Dave B @ The Drake Hotel, Sunday

Los Angeles "fantasy soul" singer QUIÑ aka Bianca Leonor makes her T.O. debut at The Drake tonight – doors open at 7 pm.

Savoy Motel fully intend to rock Smiling Buddha May 16 – debut album out now!

The debut album by Nashville's Savoy Motel comes from a pedigree of garage, punk, and power-pop groups – bassist Jeffrey Novak founded both Cheap Time; drummer Jessica McFarland was also in Cheap Time, and played in Heavy Cream with guitarists Dillon Watson and Mimi Galbierz. Savoy Motel transposes the energy and hooks of those groups to an entirely different move: a skillfully orchestrated hybrid of glam rock, soul and dance music delivered with the sort of showmanship that's closer in spirit to Redd Kross than anything on the contemporary garage scene. “We use rock and roll as a vehicle to reach and promote the feeling of TOTAL FREEDOM,” claims Dillon. “Savoy Motel is defined more by a feeling than a sound.”

Savoy Motel achieves a compositional harmony through the meshing of the clockwork precision in the rhythms of each song, with Jessica hammering out the beats alongside a vintage Rhythm King drum machine, and Mimi locking in on guitar, alongside the interplay of three lead vocalists, while Dillon rips intense fuzz leads on every track, and Jeffrey adds the hooks on his bass. Dillon remarks: “After Jeffrey repeatedly insisted that I play more and more like Jimi and Clapton, I realized that he wanted the shit to rock, and that he was not only unafraid of, but actually going for what a lot of contemporaries would consider faux pas. I think we were all ready for something radical and new, and Jeffrey was ready to lead us there.”

The whole package opens up their horizons, and yours, to a sound made by four friends tired of witnessing music eat its own tail; with unclouded judgment, creative refinements, and peerless technique, they grab that tail and stick it into a wall socket, putting the cap back on 15+ years of rock revivalism and strident genre adherence. And they make it seem easy. If it was that easy, though, everybody else would be doing it. Look around you. That’s not happening. Savoy Motel is happening. “Whatever musical past we had feels obsolete compared to what we’re doing now,” says Jeffrey. “The past turned its back on us, so we had to turn our backs on the past in order to find our future.”

The band just completed a hugely successful tour with The Lemon Twigs, including a sold out Bowery Ballroom in NYC. They just announced a few more shows of their own including a Toronto date at Smiling Buddha on May 16. Check the complete list of tour dates following the song clips from their debut below.


Savoy Motel on tour: 
5/09 - Washington DC - DC9
5/10 - Brooklyn NY - Baby’s All Right
5/11 - Jersey City NJ - Monty Hall
5/12 - Boston MA - Great Scott
5/13 - Northampton MA - Iron Horse
5/16 - Toronto ON - Smiling Buddha 
5/17 - Detroit MI - Third Man Records
5/18 - Chicago IL - Beat Ktichen
5/19 - Bloomington IN - Blockhouse

Jim Dickinson reads Nick Tosches

Jim Dickinson reads the chapter The Girl Singer from Nick Tosches' Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll.