Author: Jennifer

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Video: (Do You Think We’re Gonna End Up On) Skid Row, Jail Weddings

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Jail Weddings is more of an amorphous musical collective than an a band. But while they’ve been through some ups and downs and gained and shed various members over the years, the tunes are still solid.

(Do You Think We’re Gonna End Up On) Skid Row from Inconvenient Dreams (2009) is an oldie but a goodie, and – with a new record on the horizon – a reasonable introduction to both their frenetic punkabilly style and their louche aesthetic.

Plus it’s an excellent road trip song.

Jail Weddings "(Do You Think We're Gonna End Up On) Skid Row?"

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Late Night Listening: As Old Roads, Goldmund

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Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

I have dutifully listened to all three of Keith Kenniff‘s bands – Goldmund and Helios, which are solo projects, and Mint Julip, which he shares with his wife, Hollie – and determined that I’m most fond of Goldmund. Below, as a taste, is As Old Roads, from Sometimes, which is a piano-focused gem.

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Late Night Listening: Along a Vanishing Plane, Christopher Tignor

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Late Night Listening: a home for things that might be fleeting, might be soothing, might be weird, might be soothing and weird. The blogging equivalent of sitting in the garage twiddling radio knobs just to see what might be out there.

Christopher Tignor is a composer, violinist and software engineer. He’s written works for several groups, including A Far Cry and Brooklyn Rider, and done strings arrangements for artists like John Congleton, This Will Destroy You, and Meshell Ndegeocello.

Along a Vanishing Plane is his most recent solo record, and it is a delight. It would, I suppose, fall into the category of “soothing and weird.”

It is, unsurprisingly, mostly violins, intercut with thudding drums and the occasional burst of experimental noise. It’s peaceful, but not dull. If Metal Machine Music is a cathedral made of noise, Along a Vanishing Plane is the flowers planted in the churchyard: singularly lovely and delicate, but watch out for hidden thorns.

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Folk Music Friday: Myrkgrav, Takk Og Farvel; Tida Er Blitt Ei Annen

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I can’t give you a better teaser/introduction/summary of Myrkgrav (Lars Jensen) than he gave himself, on his website, which is “Old-fashioned peasant metal from the farmlands of Ringerike.”

Ok, I’ll explain: it’s old fashioned Norwegian fiddle music crossed with the finest in ogre-roar metal, and it is glorious. I mean, I love fiddle music and I love ogre-roar, so long as the doom is properly leavened, and in this case the folk elements shine like bright ribbons on a dark tapestry.

It is sweeping, majestic, overwhelming and boneshaking, the way ogre-roar metal is supposed to be, at its finest when its power feels inexorable, like pull of the tide going out. It is also chair-shimmy music.

The overall tempo is sludgy-but-upbeat; both the fiddle and the drums are played at a breakneck pace, while the guitars expand to fill in the empty spaces, and the result is magnificent.

Other things go to know before you plunge in:

1) This is Myrkgrav’s first full-length record in 10 years. If you’d like to listen to his back catalog, you can find it at his bandcamp, where this record will also eventually live.

2) The title of the record translates as “Thank you and farewell; times have changed”, and it’s Jensen’s last record under this band name.

Myrkgrav - Takk og farvel; tida er blitt ei annen (full album)

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Mumblr, The Never Ending Get Down

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Mumblr are from Philadelphia, and whatever else I could say about them, here’s the most important thing: they’re never boring.

Their latest record The Never Ending Get Down has a few less jagged edges than their first (Full of Snakes, 2014) and feels more . . . contemplative, I guess. Like it’s the kind of thing you could put on while staring at the ceiling waiting for the spins to wear off, or setting up for your Very Adult and Also Punk Rock Dinner Party.

Here’s what I like about it: it’s still familiar Mumblr-style punk noise, but it’s layered and nuanced punk noise, periodically punctuated (illustrated?) by contrasting rock riffs.

It’s streaming on their bandcamp and also Soundcloud, and you can listen to it below. Meanwhile, the band themselves are on an extended tour, and if you’re in the upper MidWest, check their dates and see if you can go and experience them live. It will be a face-melting good time, I promise.

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Has a Shadow, The Flesh

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Has A Shadow are from Guadalajara, Mexico, and they have just been signed to Fuzz Club records. As the name of their new label suggests, there’s an element of fuzz to their sound, but also some droning guitars, and insistent drums. If you like the roar of the big machine, you will like them. You will definitely want to investigate their back catalog.

On the subject of the back catalog, their genre notes are “lo-fi psychedelica” which, okay, fine, maybe, I guess, but y’all – they’re goths. This is straight up Sisters-of-Mercy-in-the-1990s-style gothic rock and it’s excellent. Sky is Hell Black is particularly good.

Meanwhile, hot off the presses, there’s The Flesh:

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Video: Chris Porter and the Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes, Kentuck Festival

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Not quite their last show, but close: this recording is from when Chris Porter and the Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes played the Kentuck Festival in Northport, AL, just days before Chris Porter and Mitchell Vandenburg were taken from us much too soon in a traffic accident.

Rest in peace, gentlemen. We shall miss you very much.

Chris Porter at Kentuck Festival

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Life in the Dark, The Felice Brothers

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Here are some thoughts on some of the songs Life in the Dark, the latest record from the Felice Brothers. I’d say they got their Americana mojo back, but I don’t think they ever really lost it – more took a stroll down a different path for a while, and have now rejoined the original trail.

Aerosol Ball: A Cajun-inflected delight that is dark commentary on consumerism in a bubbly, danceable disguise. I will never look at the St. Paulie Girl the same way again.

The Felice Brothers | Life In The Dark, "Aerosol Ball"

Jack at the Asylum: I heard the first couple of bars and thought Oh, they did ‘Jack of Diamonds’ again?, which – yes, but also no. It’s Jack of Diamonds, done American Gods-style. The embodied voice of the frontier, slipping through time, hopscotching states; an American everyman, a rambler, a gambler, a long way from home, counting his cards and making his luck, long after his luck has run out, writing us all a note from the “looney bin” that is both warning and entreaty.

The Felice Brothers - "Jack At The Asylum" (Official Audio)

Triumph ’73: Echoes of Vietnam, though “rich man’s war” could just as easily apply to activities in the Middle East. I like to listen to this one when driving through empty farmland under threatening stormy skies. It would probably be good on a time travel soundtrack.

The Felice Brothers - "Triumph '73" (Official Audio)

Plunder: I’m going to be blunt: this is a super bouncy shout-along song about PTSD, an in particular, mood swings, violence and persistent memories of the horrors of war. I didn’t like it the first time I heard it, but – it’s grown on me. Sometimes I still skip past it, though.

The Felice Brothers - "Plunder" - Life In The Dark

Sally!: Nearly-wordless Appalachian porch jam. Excellent company for traffic jams and/or sitting in the back yard in the shade with a cold beverage.

The Felice Brothers - "Sally!" - Radio Woodstock 100.1 - 6/24/16

Diamond Bell: Over six minutes about a dashing female bandit and the innocent boy who loved her, or: Murder, A Love Story. It unfolds slowly and gracefully and the ending pinches my heart every time.

The Felice Brothers - "Diamond Bell" - Radio Woodstock 100.1 - 6/24/16

Sell the House / Chain Me to the Earth: An Appalachian Fields of Athenry. Haunting. Heartbreaking. Also sometimes puzzling – why take the kids to Jacksonville?? Hidden at the end of the recorded version: the true last song, an expression of unmoveable defiance.

The Felice Brothers "Sell This House" (Live @ EXT)

If you’d like to listen to the whole thing, there is a full album stream here.

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Video: Ludlow Expectations, Butch Walker

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Esquire called Butch Walker‘s Ludlow Expectations a “love letter to New York” which I doubted at first – a love letter? for the title and one line? – but . . . having listened to it somewhat obsessively and also read about its creation, I get it now.

Walker wrote this song walking around the Lower East Side in the middle of the night. That is one New York.

Here is what this song is to me, which is my New York: coming up from the subway in Times Square after a heavy fall rain, giggling with someone I loved. It’s the burst of joyful adrenaline, of we made it! we made it! on the way to a late movie, the bright lights burning overhead in welcome and vindication. It’s diner food at 3 AM after a long night out. It’s the finest dance party in the city, which is held on the Coney Island boardwalk on New Years Day. It’s backflipping yourself into the slipstream and calling it as you come down, knowing the City will always take you back.

This is the lyric video, which contains an image of the Great Orange Noise, so you may want to open another tab while you listen to it. Be sure to turn it up.

Butch Walker - Ludlow Expectations [Lyric Video]