Bits: Cadillac Sky, The Due Diligence, Bill Monroe, Justin Townes Earle, The Black Keys

  • We are very sad to announce that Cadillac Sky are going on “indefinite hiatus”, i.e. they broke up. But I guess if you’re going to go, it’s good to go out on the best album of your career. And we still have The David Mayfield Parade to enjoy, along with projects the other guys will surely be involved with.
  • The Due Diligence is touring! Along with Crazy Brains and a number of local openers, they are hitting a number of joints down the eastern U.S., including a January 13 stop at Now That’s Class with Shivering Timbers.
  • The International Bluegrass Music Museum will be hosting the Bill Monroe Centennial Celebration in honor of what would have been the 100th birthday of the late bluegrass great September 12-14 in Owensboro, Kentucky. The amazing line-up will include Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, Jesse McReynolds, Mac Wiseman, J.D. Crowe, Bobby Osborne, Eddie Adcock, Tom Gray, Kenny Baker, Curly Seckler, Everett Lilly, The Lewis Family, Bill Clifton, Rodney Dillard, Melvin Goins and Paul Williams.
  • Justin Townes Earle will be hitting the Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night, January 5, while the … Continue reading

Bits: Cadillac Sky, Stephen Calt, The Magnetic Fields, mr. Gnome, Twain, The Low Anthem

  • Bryan Simpson has announced his departure from Cadillac Sky. An announcement about his replacement is forthcoming. We are grateful to Bryan for the great music he’s given us and wish him much happiness.
  • Dust-to-Digital reports the passing of blues biographer Stephen Calt, author of King of the Delta Blues: The Life an Music of Charlie Patton and I’d Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues among other tomes.
  • Now on to better news: the Magnetic Fields would like to bring their film Strange Powers to your town. Learn how you can help make it happen.
  • mr. Gnome has almost completed it’s third album and has announced tour dates starting in November.
  • Mat Davidson of the Low Anthem has released his second album with his project Twain. Interesting stuff. Check it out.

Speaking of the Low Anthem, we’ve been slowly falling in love with them since seeing them open for the Avett Brothers last winter. Here’s a nice little docu-video on them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0yAMMCCgg4?fs=1]

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Bits: Cadillac Sky & Mumford & Sons, Justin Townes Earle, Conrad Plymouth, Wayne Coyne, the Black Keys

  • NTSIB favorites Cadillac Sky will be touring with Mumford & Sons from late October to mid-November. They’re not coming through Ohio, but, hey, I’m not weeping bitterly while wondering what I’ve done to anger the music gods or anything…
  • For the price of your e-mail address, you can get
    ” target=”blank”>a free mp3 of “Harlem River Blues”
    from Justin Townes Earle’s forthcoming album of the same name, which drops on September 14.
  • Christopher Porterfield of Conrad Plymouth is playing some solo dates in support of Jeremy Messersmith. He promises some brand new material.
    8.10.10 – The High Noon Saloon – Madison, Wisconsin
    8.11.10 – Cactus Club – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    8.12.10 – Schuba’s – Chicago, Illinois
  • People have been all… uh… atwitter about Kanye West joining Twitter, but the new Twitter poster you really want to follow is Wayne Coyne (I don’t have to tell you he’s the beneficent leader of the Flaming Lips, right?). He will make you happy.
  • Northeastern Ohio music fans are proud of the Black Keys. Obvious statement is obvious. We are proud of the blow-the-top-of-your-head-off music they make, but there’s another aspect of these guys that makes … Continue reading
  • Slackday: Theme Time Time with Cadillac Sky

    In addition to being talented musicians and songwriters, the members of Cadillac Sky are also a bunch of goofballs. It’s part of what we love about them. Their YouTube account features, along with some performances and some interesting behind-the-scenes documentation, something called “Theme Time Time”, which is basically Matt Menefee and David Mayfield acting like dorks and exercising their playing fingers at the same time. All under a minute long, the clips are a nice way to get a smile and hear some good picking.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhHAjj13HRQ]

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hClojlyh0]

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    Obsess Much? : Dan Auerbach never stops

    Okay, in terms of making this Cadillac Sky Week at NTSIB, this may be cheating a little, but since it’s my blog and you can’t stop me…

    Dan Auerbach – of Akron, Ohio’s the Black Keys, if you don’t know by now – loves music. This may seem an obvious thing to say about a musician, but it’s more true of some than others. To quote the man himself from his Nonesuch feature page, “I’m pretty obsessed with making music and with recording, I’m always thinking about it. It drives my family crazy. But it’s what I do.” Auerbach likes being on both sides of the recording console and in his “spare” time, he lends his help, and his home studio, to a long list of bands. Here is a gathering of Auerbach-produced songs from bands ranging in vibe from bluegrass to blues to punk.

    Cadillac Sky – Nashville, Tennessee


    Obviously, we here at NTSIB love these guys and encourage you, again, to pick up their new album, Letters in the Deep, and catch them live if at all possible.

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    Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Cadillac Sky

    More Cadillac Sky = more good. Jennifer shares a little of her experience with the guys during their New York show. Panda says this show was off the hook, and I don’t doubt it for a second.

    Continuing the Cadillac Sky theme for this week, here’s some pictures from the show I went to over Memorial Day weekend. They played at Union Hall – the random picture of the old lady that was hanging on the wall behind the stage has sadly disappeared – and it was a rockin’ good time.

    Note: Union Hall tends to be dark, and I was struggling a little bit with the low light. I do take pictures in color, I promise, it just happened that this time the black and white ones were (mostly) the ones that came out the sharpest.

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    Bryan Simpson

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    Matt Menefee and David Mayfield

    IMG_7360
    Matt Menefee and Andy “Panda” Moritz

    At one point Dave, Bryan and … Continue reading

    Bits: Cadillac Sky, Big Boi, Mark Lanegan & Isobell Campbell, Juniper Tar, Local Natives, Lou Barlow & the missingmen, Suckers

    • Because it’s Cadillac Sky Week here at NTSIB, we have to kick this off by reminding you that their excellent album Letters in the Deep is available NOW. Get it.
    • Hypetrak has a Big Boi song for you to hear and enjoy that re-teams BB with Andre 3000, along with Dungeon Family cohort Sleepy Brown, but which may not appear on Big Boi’s solo joint coming next month due to apparent record label bullshit.
    • Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell are teaming up yet again. Their third collaboration, Hawk, will be released on August 24 with U.S. tour dates in the works.
    • At the time of this writing, there are 18 hours left to help fund the Juniper Tar tour documentary. They have some pretty nifty reward levels, including a private house concert for big-bucks donors in the Milwaukee area.
    • Aquarium Drunkard’s forthcoming (June 22) digital compilation, L’Aventure, a collection of covers from Television’s album Adventure will feature Local Natives doing “Careful”. Hear it here.
    • Lou Barlow has recorded an EP with the missingmen, =Sentridoh III, and Pitchfork has the sweet track “Losercore” Continue reading

    JP and the Chatfield Boys & Cadillac Sky at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 6.5.10

    JP and the Chatfield Boys

    The evening began a little quietly with JP & the Chatfield Boys playing straight-up bluegrass of a somewhat sedate nature. While they’re certainly a skilled group, they were pretty by-the-book. But the harmonizing on “Midnight Moonlight” stood out, as did the fiddling on “Stoney Lonesome”. They would be a great group to catch at an evening outdoor event.

    Cadillac Sky

    A sure sign of a good show: when you, as an audience member, are exhausted, yet the band is still going.

    To call a Cadillac Sky show a bluegrass show would be akin to attempting to recreate a Brueghel painting with one brushstroke – there is so much more going on. Cadillac Sky assured us they meant business by opening their 2-hour-plus set (from my calculations, but I didn’t pay close attention to what time they came out, so I may be off – I can tell you they played longer than I’ve seen … Continue reading

    Cadillac Sky: Keep the Melody Ringing

    It might not be the first thing you notice. The first thing is probably the musicianship throughout or the down-home quality harmonies on a song like “Hangman” or the sweetness of David Mayfield’s voice on a song like “Human Cannonball”. But it doesn’t take long to notice it, and it is the thing that will stick with you the most about this third full album from Cadillac Sky (made up of Bryan Simpson, Matt Menefee, Ross Holmes, Andy “Panda” Moritz and Mayfield), Letters in the Deep: the emotional wallop. It is not solely one thing or another; it is all the elements, from lyrics to instrumentation to vocals to dynamics, combining to make an incredible whole.

    Recorded at the home studio of Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys in Akron, Ohio, with Auerbach in the producer’s chair, in many ways, Letters in the Deep is, as Auerbach declared at the end of the four-day recording session, Cadillac Sky’s “first record”. With new band member Mayfield (brother and cohort of Jessica Lea Mayfield, who has also benefited from Auerbach’s production … Continue reading