Bits: The Famous, Daytrotter show, Maximum Balloon, Alan Moore, Suckers, Flaming Lips, the Black Keys, Devo, Big Boi

Bits: free Jay Bennett album, Hell and Half of Georgia and The Famous shows, listen to Peter Wolf Crier, the Black Keys on late night

  • The Jay Bennett Foundation, an organization supporting music and education started by the late musician’s mother and brother, will be releasing Bennett’s final solo album, Kicking at the Perfumed Air, as a free download on July 10 (a portion of physical album sales will go to the foundation). You can take a listen to two of the songs from the album at Pitchfork.
  • NTSIB friends Hell and Half of Georgia and the Famous have shows coming up. HaHoG will be playing Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, California, on June 5, and the Famous will be playing at the first annual Brewfest, hosted by the San Francisco Giants, on May 29 at AT&T; Park in San Francisco.
  • Inter-Be, the debut album by Peter Wolf Crier, is up for free listening at Spinner.com. They’ll be playing the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on July 22 with the Builders and the Butchers and Heartless Bastards. There’s no way that show could be anything but killer.
  • Because you know we can’t help ourselves mentioning them right now, the Black Keys will be playing The Late Show with David Letterman tonight and … Continue reading

The Famous: Really working to be happy

On first listen, the Famous’ new album, Come Home to Me, sounds like the soundtrack to a roadtrip* wherein Very Bad Things Happen. Can’t speak for your world, but in NTSIB’s world, that’s more than enough to merit a second listen.

The Famous has a birth story reminiscent of the birth story of the Rolling Stones, but instead of Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters albums, the chance meeting of Laurence Scott and Victor Barclay hinged on them both owning the same car: the ’65 model Ford Galaxie. The Rolling Stones comparison could be extended to the way the Famous take an old American songstyle (in their case, country & western) and mix it up with modern sensibilities… but that would be facile and trite, so we won’t do that. We could exaggerate the facts to make it seem that Laurence Scott left his life of farming for the life of a rock ‘n’ roller, but we’ll leave Scott’s 2nd place award in the 1983 Junior Farmers competition at the Dallas Farmer’s Market for excellence in radishes and swiss chard for the tabloids to … Continue reading