Author: You Hear That?!?

The Devil Whale

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Teeth

I had a weird realization while having drinks with a friend a few nights ago. I don’t have a single active concert ticket right now. Not a one. No PDF printouts waiting to be scanned, no tickets sitting at will call… nuthin’.

How did this come to pass? Summer concert burnout is partly to blame, not that I have anything to complain about. The stack of yet-to-be-used tickets that usually lives on my wife’s desk at home got plenty thick during the past few months, and seeing Radiohead, tUnE-yArDs and Neko Case, each for the first time, The Alabama Shakes for the second time, Justin Townes Earle for the fourth, Old Crow Medicine Show twice and The Lumineers three times is pretty damn good way to spend the summer, if you ask me.

But looking forward with a clean slate is exhilarating, and it didn’t take long to find a show that has me excited to start chalking it up all over again.

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Shovels & Rope

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O' Be Joyful

If you happened to catch the musical away message I put up on Saturday morning, you already know I spent the long weekend on Chincoteague Island, which is located at the very top of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. It offers a beautiful strip of coastline, notable for its status as a National Wildlife Refuge, the wild horses that roam its dunes, and the freedom to drive your Ford F150 up and down the beach in search of the perfect fishing spot.

Having taken a few of these pickup-truckin’ trips over the sands of Chincoteague, I can report that it’s an incredible way to enjoy a day at the beach. There’s seclusion, stunning views of the ocean and bay at the same time, tasty fish waiting to gobble up the bait you throw at them… what more could you want? But this kind of freedom comes with prerequisites, and my F150-owning friend Keith mentioned two of them on our way onto the beach this past Saturday — a shovel and rope. I didn’t know this until he said something, but apparently, they’re required by law if you plan to take your 4WD vehicle on the sand, in case you forget to deflate your tires to the recommended 20 psi and end up getting stuck.

So imagine my creepedoutedness upon discovering a band yesterday, on my first full day back from the beach, called Shovels & Rope. An awesome band. A country-rocking duo of drum- and guitar-trading South Carolinians. A pair I would have been excited about regardless of what they were called. It’s super weird, and while coincidence doesn’t itself imbue meaning, this lucky bit of timing afforded instant insight into what the band’s name represents — call it a serendipitous symbolic shortcut.

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Molly Wagger

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A band for all seasons

(especially the cold, hot, wet, dry ones)

By Greg A. Lohr

Last fall, in an article lamenting the “lean times” for modern music critics, The Guardian suggested that album reviews have been made unnecessary by the ease and speed of illegal downloading. Who needs a review? “If you want to know what an album’s like before release, you can probably find out for yourself.”

With a blend of chagrin and nostalgia, I’d tend to agree. Grooveshark, Youtube, Pandora, Spotify … take your pick of music purveyors. Hate the ads? Pay the fees, and the end result’s the same: You can have the tunes you want, anytime. All the time.

And yet … Easy access may have granted reviews more power, rendered them more personal. Written well, they’re a friendly introduction, a vouching-for in mafia style. “Dear readers, I’d like you to meet [so-and-so band]. I stamp my approval. I think you’ll agree.”

So it is in this spirit that I introduce you to Molly Wagger, a band of Scots. They got stuck in my head. They’re my most recent crush.

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White Laces

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“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
— Bob Marley

With all due respect, Bob is wrong on this one.

I mean, I get what he’s saying, that music wields a special type of nonviolent power, but some of my favorite songs are the ones that hit you where it hurts — on gut-churning topics like mortality, heartbreak and loneliness — with intensity that you can actually feel. Those are the songs I find most vital. They’re the records I’d grab first before escaping from a burning building. Their impact is essential, in every meaning of the word.

Before I’d even had a chance to listen to it, my experience with White Laces’ debut full-length Moves could already be described as “impactful.”

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Goldrush

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Making Moves

2 weeks have passed since I had the pleasure of interviewing Prabir Mehta and Treesa Gold of Goldrush about their installment in Mad Dragon Records’ Making Moves series, and now that the 7-inch single has hit the streets (and my doorstep), I wanted to share a few thoughts… and a scurrilous accusation.

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1,095 Little Birds

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About a month ago, while running with my iPod on shuffle, I hatched a plan. A crazy one. I decided I was going to choose a song and listen to it every single day for a year. I figured that, if it didn’t put me in a padded room, this stunt exercise would help me explore the boundaries of how deeply I could connect with a song. Would I grow to hate it? Would I hear things that had previously gone unnoticed? Would it start to seem abstract, like words do when you say or read them too many times? So many questions, but one stood head and shoulders above the rest:

Which song?

After weeks of careful consideration, I’ve chosen Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Here’s my reasoning:

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The Low Branches

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Rock Bottom

Everything tastes better when it’s homegrown, and The Low Branches are taking a refreshingly agricultural approach to financing their upcoming full-length, 100 Years Old.

In order to grow the funds needed to release 100 Years Old, frontwoman Christina Gleixner has been seeding Bandcamp with home recordings, each of which can be purchased for $1 (or more — you have the ability to name a higher price if you’d like to donate extra). The series started with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Leah,” and it continues with an original entitled “Rock Bottom.” Gleixner was kind enough to answer a few questions via email about this latest recording, the status of 100 Years Old, and more.

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Nicki Minaj

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With each new release, artists take a risk. No two recordings can be the same, so it’s inevitable that as newcomers are (hopefully) hopping on the bandwagon, a certain subset of fans are going to feel alienated by the new tune(s). So what do you do if you’re part of that alien-nation? What do you do when musicians zig when you were hoping they’d zag? When they twist when you wanted them to mashed potato? When they feed you a Mounds when you were hankering for an Almond Joy?

Here are the options as I see them:

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Mercies

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In My Room

Who you cover says a lot about you.

A pivotal moment in my Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr obsession occurred when I heard their electro-silken version of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” What struck me about the cover wasn’t the degree of difficulty (though it’s true that the original is a musical beast that’s said to have taken 23 musicians and 20 takes to bring down). Nor was it the considerable chutzpah it requires to reimagine one of the most revered songs of all time. What drew me in was the sense of adventure I gleaned from Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr’s recording. In context with their elaborate marketing persona and DIY showmanship, it felt like their cover of “God Only Knows” was channeling the creative spirit that The Beach Boys had in droves — a drive that helped them expand the general sandbox in which future pop musicians could play.

I was so excited when I heard Mercies’ cover of  The Beach Boys’ “In My Room,” because that same adventurous spirit comes through loud and clear.

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