Mark Lanegan. Again. Some more.

“Riot in My House” – Mark Lanegan Band

Watch this video on YouTube

 

Yes, I just made a “Why isn’t everyone a raving Mark Lanegan fan yet?” post a couple of months ago, but I just started a new day job, and Lanegan’s rumbling tones have been helping ease my re-entry at the end of the work day (the album version of that killer live track above is particularly good for shaking off the effects of fluorescent lighting and conversations with normal people).

And there is a bit of news to include:

  • Lanegan has collaborated with British multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood and the result, an album called Black Pudding, is slated for release on April 16.
  • April 2 will see a deluxe reissue of Mad Season’s sole album Above and will include a track featuring Lanegan called “Locomotive”. You can hear the song at Rolling Stone.
  • Mark will be opening for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on a run of Australian dates:
    Sat. March 2 SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL Melbourne, VIC
    Sun. March 3 THEBARTON THEATRE Adelaide, NSW
    Wed. … Continue reading

Friday Link Session

  • It’s about that time: Bands, if you can’t – or don’t want to – make it to SXSW this year, start getting your submissions ready for the third annual CXCW (Couch by Couchwest), March 10-16. Find submission details here.
  • If you’ll be in the Cleveland area on June 22 and would like to move from the couch to someone’s porch, the 5th annual Larchmere PorchFest is accepting submissions until May 1.
  • Wonderful CXCW alumnus Daniel Knox is playing a residency at the Hideout in Chicago, IL. For a highly interesting read, check out his pre-residency interview with ChicagoMusic.org.
  • Spacehog – yes, the “In the Meantime” band – are preparing to release their first new album in twelve years, As It Is On Earth. They have a fundraiser project for the album, with part of the proceeds going to the David Lynch Foundation.
  • On February 7, Patti Smith received the Katharine Hepburn Medal from Bryn Mawr College. The medal “recognizes women whose lives, work and contributions embody the intelligence, drive and independence” of the great feminist actress.
  • Roots artist Frank Fairfield is Continue reading

A Good Read, a Good Listen, and a Good Drink: Murder by Death

Murder by Death's Dagan Thogerson

 

It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

Murder by Death’s latest album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, is a product of one of the most successful Kickstarter music campaigns to date, and the endearingly … Continue reading

Murder by Death Is Coming to Cleveland

Murder by Death

 

The best voices in modern music are not those that are technically proficient but those that are dented and torn, so full of character that they could tell a whole story just by humming a few notes. Tom Waits, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen… as their careers continued their lives seeped into their voices, expanding, contracting, cracking, causing deep crevices. Adam Turla of Murder by Death is well on his way to becoming a member of this camp. In the early days of MbD, Turla’s voice was like a flower bud, green and simple. Now, a decade on, his voice has a timbre closer to another one of those vocal icons, Johnny Cash.

 

 

And like those other singular singers, Turla is not relying merely on his battered vocal chords to carry him forward. He integrates it with A) a great band, and B) great stories. While this is clearly a band with a sense of humor – not only are they named after the 1976 murder spoof starring Peter Falk, Peter Sellers, … Continue reading

A Good Read, a Good Listen, and a Good Drink: Mutts

Instagram Mutts

 

It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

 

Earlier this month, I extolled the multi-flavored virtues of Chicago’s Mutts and their latest album Separation Anxiety. It’s a wily, skittering creature of an album, … Continue reading

Friday Link Session

  • …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead and The Coathangers have teamed up as Thee Deadcoats to cover Pussy Riot’s “Putin Lights Up the Fires”. Proceeds will be split between the funding of Pussy Riot’s legal defense and the American Red Cross Sandy relief effort.
  • Classic 1981 concert film “Urgh! A Music War” is available to view in full on YouTube.
  • BBC Radio Four’s “Mastertapes” is available as a podcast (meaning non-Brits can listen without any country restrictions). “Mastertapes” is an interview, audience Q&A and performance show, and programs posted so far have featured Billy Bragg, Suzanne Vega, and Paul Weller.
  • Richard Hell is publishing an autobiography called I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp in March of 2013. The book can be pre-ordered at Amazon. There is a review of Chapter 28, which was released as a chap book, at We Who Are About to Die.
  • While most of the output from new Cleveland radio station 87.7 is pretty bland, the station is now the new home of Cleveland-centric showcase Inner Sanctum on Sunday nights from 9 to 11 p.m. Cleveland … Continue reading

Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost): NYC Premiere

Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost) Bobby Bare Jr documentary poster

 

As people continue to salvage their homes and lives, life in New York continues on. (You may slow New York down, but you will not stop it.) And this Sunday, November 11, the Bobby Bare, Jr., documentary Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost) will be seeing its NYC premiere as a part of the DOC NYC festival.

The film will be screening at 9:30 p.m. on November 11 at the IFC Center and will include a Q & A with Bobby Bare, Jr., and director/producer/director of photography William Miller. You can purchase tickets here.

There will be an additional screening at the IFC Center on Thursday, November 15 at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are available here. Bobby Bare, Jr., will not be at this second screening, but he will be playing a show down the way at the Mercury Lounge. (Note: the show is a separate ticket.)

A portion of the proceeds for the Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost) … Continue reading

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch: The Mystery of Heaven

I’ve been a little slow getting to this one (then again, I’ve been a little slow on everything lately – sorry, friends), but I would watch film director Jim Jarmusch open a can of beans and listen to him play his armpits, so I was thrilled to learn he was collaborating on an album with composer and lutenist Jozef Van Wissem. Fortunately for all of you who might not be Jarmusch zealots, the resulting work is a damn site more pleasant and entrancing than either beans or armpits. Indeed, there are moments when you feel you are listening to a soundtrack from one of Jarmusch’s films, which have always been excellently scored.

 

“The Sun of the Natural World is Pure Fire” – Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch

Watch this video on YouTube

 

Jarmusch and Van Wissem released an album, Concerning The Entrance Into Eternity, back in February and are already set to release a second album, The Mystery of Heaven.

 

 

Heaven will be out on November 13 and includes vocals from Tilda Swinton (both Van Wissem and Swinton are involved in Jarmusch’s … Continue reading

Harriet: I Slept with All Your Mothers

 

I love this first song from Harriet’s EP Tell the Right Story.

 

Harriet “I Slept With All Your Mothers” from Harriet on Vimeo.

Harriet, which includes Alex Casnoff (Dawes, PAPA), is offering Tell the Right Story for free download at their website, and they will touring the American/Canadian west coast with AC Newman in November.

11/8 – Vancouver, BC – The Biltmore Cabaret
11/9 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
11/10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
11/12 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent
11/13 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echoplex
11/14 – San Diego, CA – The Casbah

 

Harriet Official Website

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Lillian Todd-Jones: Butter Soul

 

It’s difficult to gauge the quality of an artist based on one song (there’s a reason there are so many one-hit wonders), but this one moody song from Lillian Todd-Jones is very promising.

 


Watch this video on YouTube

 

If you’re in London, Todd-Jones will be a part of the City Showcase at the Borderline on October 11, 2012.

 

Lillian Todd-Jones @ Facebook

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