Filligar!

Two things I know about the Chicago band Filligar: (1) their drummer Pete sends the kind of direct, concise and polite emails that cut through the inbox clutter; and (2) they play the kind of loose-limbed, four on the floor rock and roll that never fades away even as trends come and go. We gladly direct you to the band's website where you can download two fine new tracks for free. "Knock Yourself Out" is a slow-burning hip-swayer, and "Dead Wrong" is a spirited blast of rock and roll joy.

While you're at the website, be sure to visit the tour section to see how the band is reviving the classic concert poster one show at a time.

Happy Birthday to Us

Buddy Holly and Chrissie Hynde share the same birthday as Teenage Kicks. Johnny Brenda's, the best rock on the planet, is celebrating their five year anniversary. Michael and I have bonded over many things (The Hold Steady, 70's AM radio, Springsteen, college hoops, family histories), but maybe the real Teenage Kicks totem is a band non-celebrating it's 30th birthday (where's all the love for Sorry Ma?), The Replacements.



Westerberg is the greatest songwriter of the last 30 years (apologies to Steve Earle).


Dig the 14 year old Tommy Stinson.


RIP Bob.

Rock and Roll Can Kiss My Ass...

As Teenage Kicks (quietly) celebrates our fifth birthday (stay tuned for a couple of contests next week), on Saturday we'll be hightailing it down to the new World Cafe in Wilmington, DE to catch Marshall Crenshaw celebrating the 30th anniversary of his stone classic debut album. A primer on creating the perfect pop song, Marshall Crenshaw has been a constant companion on every road trip for Mr. & Mrs. Teenage Kicks (speaking of Mrs. TK, happy anniversary baby!). And wait, it gets better! The Bottle Rockets, promoting their new acoustic disc Not So Loud!, are opening the show and will serve as Crenshaw's Crickets to his new wave Buddy Holly. Concert wood alert!

But tonight, halfway across the country at The Turf Club in St. Paul,MN is the superb triple bill that has us salivating - Tommy Keene, Slim Dunlap (Slim!) and Minnesota's best kept secret High on Stress. Tommy Keene has been so good for so long that I hereby declare him a national treasure. His latest, Behind The Parade (out now on Second Motion Records), is exactly what you'd expect - 10 blasts of revved up guitar pop nirvana. Slim Dunlap is best known as the post-Bob guitar player in the Replacements and a charming, if slightly wobbly, frontman in his own right. High on Stress open the show (then pull a Bottle Rockets as Slim's band) and their jangle crunch is highlighted by main man Nick Let's sardonic wordplay and world-weary delivery. Their 2008 release, Cop Light Parade (no relation to Behind The Parade), pretty much tells everyone to kiss their ass - I love High on Stress.

Marshall Crenshaw - "Cynical Girl" (from Marshall Crenshaw)
Bottle Rockets - "Kerosene" (from Not So Loud)

Tommy Keene - "Deep Six Saturday" (from Behind The Parade)

Slim Dunlap - "The Ballad of The Opening Band" (from The Old New Me)

High on Stress -"Table 8 in Queens" (from Cop Light Parade)

Lou Reed is not being egotistical when he says he may have just created the best music ever

Lou Reed and Metallica have collaborated on a new album called Lulu, to be released October 31. And according to Lou, the result may be even more spectacular than you might expect: "The [music] is awe-inspiring. It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever. It could create another planetary system. I’m not joking, and I’m not being egotistical."

Five Years

Earlier today, Trip sent me a note asking if we were about to hit Teenage Kicks’ fifth anniversary. So I looked it up, and it turns out that said milestone is . . . today. You can accuse us of a lot of things, but not of hyping our own history.

Five years is a blink. But it’s also a chasm. It’s the time between Meet the Beatles and Abbey Road. It’s enough time for the entire world to change.

It’s also enough time for lives to change in significant ways. When we started, my kids’ ages were five and two. Now at ten and seven, their activities and tastes (hello, Nickelodeon!) dominate my free time in ways I never expected, as do other things I never expected, like running the occasional half-marathon or taking a stab at writing long fiction.

That’s my way of saying that I used to pour a lot of effort into this place, but that I don’t anymore, and please don’t blame me.

I still love music, and I’m even trying to learn it (my third piano lesson is coming up), but it doesn't consume me quite like it used to. Still, it can still possess me in unexpected ways. Over the past four months, I've listened to the Beatles more than at any time in my life, and I’m working on reading a couple thousand words about them. Forty years after they went away, they’re blowing my mind all over again.

And bands like Dawes and Ezra Furman and the Harpoons give me faith that rock and roll, even in a time of great technological and creative upheaval, will continue to thrive as long as there are talented young people who want to connect with others in the most powerful way possible.

Five years is a blink. But it’s also a chasm. Clarence Clemons has played on two original Bruce Springsteen albums since we started. Now he’s gone.

The spirit of Springsteen and The Hold Steady, more than any other acts, animated this space like no other in our original burst, and provides the framework of our worldview. It’s a deep love of what came before and a fervent belief in what’s coming next. We love our old records, but we can’t wait to hear the next thing to grab us by our collars and shake our bearings loose.

Five years is a blink. But it’s also a chasm. When we started, I hadn't even met Trip in the flesh. Now he’s my blood brother, a bond formed over rock and roll, the occasional beer, college basketball, the community of friends we've formed, and a shared sense of what’s good and right in the world.

Thanks to all of you who have spent some of your valuable time with us. We and our friends are like the drums on “Lust for Life.” We pound it out on floor toms. Our psalms are sing-along songs.

William Elliott Whitmore - Field Songs

William Elliott Whitmore's Iowa farmer perspective infuses darkly soulful songs with dirt under the fingernails realism put across with an extraordinary big, booming voice. Each song is a call to arms, inspiring the listener action and reaction. Reminds me of Jay Farrar - an old soul frozen in a young man's body.

Field Songs evokes old time spirituals, songs of faith sung by slaves to try and ease their burdens. "Let's Do Something Impossible" implores the listener to reach for something grand, something unthinkable like escaping Alcatraz, defeating Custer or Hitler, or just betting it all on one horse to win it all. Just dream big. It seems to be the most hopeful statement from Whitmore to date.

The sparse instrumentation (a gently picked banjo, a barely strummed guitar) puts the focus on Whitmore's bruising vocals, and he hangs on to words like he's afraid to let them go. The vocals can be folky soothing like John Gorka, punky soulful like Willy DeVille or bar room broken akin to Lucero's Ben Nichols. At 8 songs and 34 minutes, Field Songs scores a quick and decisive knockout, landing blows for the oppressed and depressed everywhere.

William Elliott Whitmore - "Field Song" (from Field Songs)

William Elliott Whitmore - "Hell or High Water" (from Animals in The Dark)

William Elliott Whitmore - "Don't Pray on Me" (Bad Religion cover)

Deer Tick Releases "Miss K", Plans to Conquer World

Deer Tick today dropped "Miss K", which quite simply sounds like the best thing they've ever done, and it may only be the second best John McCauley song this year, # 1 still in lockdown by Middle Brother's "Daydreaming". Deer Tick has been steadily morphing with each release, from the spazzy punk folk of War Elephant, the country rock of Born on Flag Day and the moodier but bracing alt-soul-scuzz of The Black Dirt Sessions, where the volume was turned down while the intensity soared. And now we can get our drink on while we await what promises to be the greatest Deer Tick of all, Divine Providence, out October 25th on Partisan Records.

John McCauley is on fire, with Deer Tick tearing up clubs across the country, festive solo shows, the ridiculous greatness of Deervana and as the heart and soul (and breakout star) of Middle Brother. McCauley is forging a reputation as a monster songwriter, with a scabby, craggy voice that delivers songs with a white-hot intensity calling to mind Paul Westerberg, while Deer Tick's manic, booze-fueled live show is drawing comparisons to The Replacements.

Here's what main Tick McCauley has to say about the upcoming record:

"Man, you can practically smell the sweat and the beer! Shit, you may even hear a guitar or two break somewhere in there!. It's got a little Exile, it's got a little In Utero, it's got a little Nilsson Schmilsson, but it's 100% Deer-Fucking-Tick in our purest, and most carefree form."

Based on the above, I proclaim Divine Providence one of the best records of the year and I've only heard one song. Let the hype begin!

Deer Tick - "Miss K" (from the upcoming Divine Providence)

Middle Brother - "Daydreaming" (from Daytrotter)

Deer Tick - "Still Crazy After All These Years" (Paul Simon cover)

Deer Tick - "Nebraska" (Bruce Springsteen Cover)

Deer Tick - "Beautiful Girls" (Sean Kingston cover)

Deer Tick - "Mexican Home" (John Prine cover)

Deer Tick - "Unwed Fathers" (from Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows)

Deer Tick - "Dead Flowers" (Rolling Stones cover)

Deer Tick - "Summertime Blues

Deer Tick - "Waitress in The Sky" (Replacements cover)

Deervana - "All Apologies" (Nirvana cover)

Deer Tick - "Christmas All Summer Long"

Red Button For President

Double digit unemployment. Iraq. Afghanistan. Bailouts. Sex Scandals. Mind-numbingly bad reality TV. Every time you turn on the TV, open up the newspaper or fire up the latest app to keep you up on current events, it seems that only news can break your heart. Well saddle up losers, because it's time for the antithesis of all that with the return of The Red Button and their shimmering new release, As Far As Yesterday Goes.

Singer-songwriters Seth Swirsky and Mike Ruekberg's first Red Button disc, 2007's She's About to Cross My Mind, was one the finest debuts of the last decade. If names like The Beatles, The Zombies, The Left Banke and Big Star mean something to you, you can place your order here. If compilations like Poptopia and Yellow Pills ring your bell, you won't believe records like this still get made in 2011.

As Far As Yesterday Goes plays like an unwritten John Hughes movie, with looming heartbreak leavened by day-glo horns and impossibly sunny arrangements. Each chorus, each handclap and each strum screams pure pop. There are 60's nods everywhere - the "I Should Have Known Better" harmonica riff that powers opener "Caught in The Middle" to euphoric heights, the heavenly, Turtle-y "ba-ba-bas" of "You Do Something to Me" and album thesis "On A Summer Day" that plays like a full on celebration of Small Faces ultra-modness crossed with the elegance of Bachrach/David classic.

Fitting closer "Running Away" uses its Cat Steven cadence to posit that "it's never been harder to tune out the noise, the world just gets louder, can't hear my own voice", but ultimately the fight or flight is internal, everything else is just noise. And part of that loud world is The Red Button, whose timeless melodies cut through the noise to offer bite size bits of respite in the form of three minute paeans to help ease and understand the pain. They have my vote.

On A Summer Day - The Red Button from Seth Swirsky on Vimeo.

RIP Rob Grill of The Grass Roots (1943-2011)

If the call letters WFIL and WIBG bring a slight pang to your middle-aged heart, chances are you know Rob Grill's voice, which was silenced Monday at aged 67. It was Grill's voice that pushed The Grass Roots bubbly, dancey bubblegum folk to the top of the charts. To a 12 year old shrimp who didn't know about the Summer of Love, Bob Dylan or the burgeoning influence of FM radio, it was 560 or 990 on the AM dial that ruled the day.

The Grass Roots, along with other great AM singles bands of the late 60's/early 70's like CCR, The Guess Who, Badfinger, The Box Tops, Bread, Chicago, The Jackson 5, Rare Earth, The Raspberries, Slade, The Spinners, The Stylistics, War and The Fifth Dimension, mounted an assault on the charts with irresistible 3 minute pop songs that still sound fresh 40 years later. Rob Grill's high, sturdy voice wrapped itself around melodies with lyrics concerning the vicissitudes of love, whispering "Midnight Confessions", lamenting "Two Divided by Love", trying to avoid "Temptation Eyes", but "Sooner of Later" deciding it was best to "Live For Today". Between 1967 and 1972, The Grass Roots spent 307 straight weeks on the Billboard charts. Nice run.

So tonight, sit back, dial up the memories of George Michael or Banana Joe Montione, and let Rob Grill and The Grass Roots remind you that rock and roll, still going strong after 55 years, is still best served up in three minutes blasts of teenage symphonies to god.

The Grass Roots - "Sooner or Later"

The Grass Roots - "Heaven Knows"

The Grass Roots - "Tempatation Eyes"

The Replacements - "Temptation Eyes"

Songs in the Key of Perjury

My buddy T.J. is spending the next four to six weeks in a Washington, D.C. courtroom covering the trial of Roger Clemens, who is accused of lying before Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs during his days as one of baseball’s most dominant pitchers. For his listening pleasure during the downtime that inevitably comes, here’s a Rocket on Trial playlist.

“Rocket Man,” Elton John. A cliché, for sure, but obligatory.


“The Needle and the Damage Done,” Neil Young. See “Rocket Man.”


“The Weight of Lies,” The Avett Brothers.


“Tell Me About Your Drugs,” Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians


“I Don’t Believe You,” The Thermals


“Evidence,” Thelonious Monk


“Rough Justice,” Rolling Stones


“Give Me Some Truth,” John Lennon


“Don’t Worry About the Government,” Talking Heads. Actually, Roger, do worry about the government.


“Can I Get a Witness,” Marvin Gaye.

Willie Nile & Scott McClatchy - Tin Angel Tonight!

Come out Friday night (that's tonight if you're reading this today, yesterday if you're reading this tomorrow) to The Tin Angel for the veteran troubadour double bill of Willie Nile and everyone's favorite little brother, Scott McClatchy.

Willie Nile has been making great records for over 30 years. Not especially prolific, his latest album, The Innocent Ones, is only his 7th studio album since 1980, but his fourth since 2004. So I guess we are in the midst of a Willie Nile renaissance. His music is marked by passion, humility, grace and a sly sense of humor, ready to explode in a lightning bolt of energy. He seemed at one point to be both a "new Springsteen" and a "new Dylan", but although his first two albums (Willie Nile and Golden Down) are singer-songwriter classics, he never found much commercial footing. Friday's concert is sure to showcase a handful of favorites (I'm hoping for "Vagabond Moon" and "I Can't Get You Off of My Mind") along with new ones like the anthemic "One Guitar", which is being recorded by several artists who will each put their version up on itunes with all proceeds going to charity, including 50% to the T.J. Martell Foundation.

Scott McClatchy is local Philly musician whose latest album, A Dark Rage, is a career best. This album kicks up a Celtic storm, with tin whistles, fiddles, uilleann pipes (that's right, uilleann pipes - you got a problem with that?!) and anthemic, million man choruses raising a righteous fury. Whether singing about a wayward bachelor party ("Cigarettes, Breath Mints & Visine"), domestic bliss in under two minutes ("Forever With You") or social unrest (the rollicking title cut), McClatchy takes you a journey not only to the heartland but right to the heart.

Willie Nile and Scott McClatchy appear at The Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd St. in the heart of Old City) on Friday, June 24. Tickets will be available at the door or you can buy them here.

Willie Nile - "Vagabond Moon" (from Willie Nile)
Willie Nile - "Run" (from House of a Thousand Guitars)

Scott McClatchy - "A Dark Rage" (from A Dark Rage)
Scott McClatchy - "Forever With You" (from A Dark Rage)

It's Good to be the King

When I got an email from Stewart Copeland, I thought we had a big scoop on our hands. It turns out it was the other Stewart Copeland, guitarist for Tennessee indie pop band King Arthur. Though Stewart violated rule one of mp3 submissions by saying that he’s a really big fan of our blog (really? This little ol’ thing?), I clicked through anyway, and I’m glad I did. The band’s four-song EP Ad Inexplorata is a charmer with its heart in all the right places, and you are encouraged to give it a virtual spin.

RIP Big Man

Gimme a C!

This kid is all kinds of awesome

Toasting Our Friend

It's not nepotism if I post it, so please enjoy "Toasting My Friends," the new video from Teenage Kicks' favorite left-handed, gracefully graying troubadour, Scott McClatchy (and to get the full effect, you should really watch the video at Scott's site; it gets chopped off here).



And if you love the rockin' penny whistle, there's more where that came from on Scott's excellent long-player, A Dark Rage, available at Amazon and on iTunes.

Dawes, Dawes, Dawes - Nothing is Wrong

Since I am crushing on their brand new album, Nothing is Wrong, in a pretty unhealthy way, I feel it is my civic duty to inform you that you have three chances to catch Dawes today. Two are free and the third one is a perfectly matched sad-eyed bill with M Ward and Bright Eyes guaranteed to fill your daily quota of heartbreak and joy.

For those who place those first four Jackson Browne albums on some mystical higher plane (and really... who doesn't?), all I can tell you is you need to snag Nothing is Wrong TODAY, preferably at Main Street Music where Dawes performs a crazy intimate acoustic show for 60 lucky wristband holders. Or you can drink your lunch at World Cafe Live for WXPN's Free At Noon show with the boys. Or cough up some of your hard earned and get an americana dream bill at The Mann.

Taylor Goldsmith is on a roll - first with Dawes' debut North Hills, then Middle Brother's giddy romp, on to backing up Robbie Robertson and now laying waste to the sophomore slump with an album filled with such effortless, conversational songwriting that even lyrics about "piling on those mashed potatoes" and grabbing an "extra chicken wing" work perfectly. There are 11 songs and each one will be your favorite for at least a while. If he gives you a stock tip, buy without hesitation.

Nothing is Wrong is the Jackson Browne album you've been waiting for since The Pretender.

Dawes at World Cafe Live - 12:00 (sign up here)

Dawes at Main Street Music - 5:30 (need a wristband to gain admittance, call 215-487-7732 for more information)

Dawes (with Bright Eyes and M Ward) at The Mann Music Center (Dawes on 7:30)

Dawes - "Time Spent in Los Angeles" (from Nothing is Wrong)

Dawes - "Love is All I Am" (from North Hills)

Dawes - "Lawyers, Guns And Money" (live Warren Zevon cover)

Dawes - "Hula Hula Boys" (live Warren Zevon cover)

Dawes - "Pretty Good" (live John Prine cover)

Amanda Shires Sweetly Shines

It is so hard to get heard over the din of an ever-expanding media maze of itunes, video games, facebook, twitter, radio, TV, commercials, movies, concerts and clouds - what's a girl to do? If you're Amanda Shires, you do it yourself. Although a veteran of tours and recording projects with such alt country luminaries like Jason Isbell, Justin Townes Earle, Billy Joe Shaver, Shires is just beginning to get noticed for her burgeoning solo career.

As evidenced by an early set (8:00 sharp start!) tonight at Philly's Grape Room, Amanda Shires is a nimble fiddler who packs a wallop in her tiny frame. Taking the stage as a duo with Nashville songwriter Rod Picott on acoustic guitar, she thrilled a couple of dozen patrons with her hushed, melancholy Texas twang that recalled a less craggy Lucinda Williams with the emotional purity of prime Nanci Griffith.

With a set chock full of strong originals like the missed opportunity lament "When You Need A Train It Never Comes" and the whistling, banjo flecked lover's longing glaze of "Swimmer...", her stark, elegiac take on fellow Lubbock-ite Butch Hancock's "If You Were a Bluebird" felt like one of her own.

Amanda Shires latest album, Carrying Lightning, is a top-notch singer-songwriter album, and is available at amazon and itunes. You can check her out on tour here, and those lucky campers at the Philadelphia Folk Festival will get an earful (and eyeful) at the Wednesday night Campers Only show in August.

Amanda Shires - "When You Need A Train It Never Comes"

Amanda Shires - "Swimmer...."

An added bonus, check out this superb take of "If You Were A Bluebird" from a recent radio show:

The New Connection Tonight (5/27) at Johnny Brenda's with Southwork and National Rifle

Come out tonight for a sure fire triple bill at Johnny Brenda's (how many time do we have to tell you JB's is the best rock club on the planet?) featuring the stellar Philly trio of Southwork (11:15), National Rifle (9:15) and Teenage Kicks pick-to-click The New Connection (10:15).

The New Connection has the pop smarts of The New Pornogrpahers, but filters their songs through various lens, including the prog-pop of Yes, the piano swells of Ben Folds, the irresistble bop of your favorite punky reggae party and the lush harmonies of Philly psych stalwarts, Dr. Dog. All these elements mesh effortlessly on their brand new self titled record they'll no doubt be showcasing tonight.

Go and get yourself connected. Make 'em play the dreamy "Yours" and get lost in the gorgeous chorus.

Johnny Brenda's - 1201 N. Frankford Ave.
215-739-9684

Take the Money and Run

There’s been some press lately celebrating the tenth anniversary of Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azerrad’s book detailing the stories of thirteen American indie rock bands in the 1980s. I haven’t read it since shortly after its release, but I recall the book being fascinating, entertaining and maddening. What I found maddening was how bands seemed to cease to exist once they signed with a major label, or at a minimum how they seemed to become minimized in importance, as if moving from one business model to another diminished them or made their music less good. But several of the bands, like Sonic Youth, Husker Du and Dinosaur, Jr., made terrific records for majors. And if you forced me to choose between the albums the Replacements made for Twin/Tone and the ones they made for Sire, I’ll take the latter. As a listener, I care about the sonics, not the economics.

In a recent interview, Azerrad continues to tout the indie ethic while broadsiding indie bands who cash in anyway they can:

Your book details an “us-versus-them” mentality in the eighties underground scene which really doesn’t seem to exist anywhere nearly as much in contemporary indie bands. Does that mean these recent bands aren’t quite the heirs one would hope for? Have they sold out?

The line’s definitely blurred. Now you have this little Brooklyn indie band called Matt and Kim, or Neon Indian, who have recorded for Green Label Sound, which was Mountain Dew’s label. Mountain Dew is awful stuff. Or Spoon’s music, selling Jaguars. I guess part of it is pragmatic: “Well, we’re not selling records so we have to get our music heard, and to get some money to make more music, we have to license this song for a car commercial.” I’d really like to see the economics of that because it seems like a lot of indie bands do quite well on the road selling concert tickets. I wonder how much they really need the money.

“I wonder how much they really need the money.” I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. How much they need to rent an apartment this month? This year? Enough to buy groceries? To have health insurance? How about enough to pay for braces for the kids they haven’t had yet?

If anyone should know that the shelf-life of the average band – even the average very good band – is tragically short, it’s the guy who chronicled the Minutemen and Mudhoney. It’s nice to think that members of a band like that can make a good living recording and touring into their dotage, but for most of them, it ends. And few of those endings come with a golden parachute.

Buffalo Tom was better than 99% of the bands that came out of the era, and they still record and play. But bandleader Bill Janowitz is now a real estate broker Monday through Friday because there’s no economic security in being in an indie rock band.

The truth is, a few months away from our 25th anniversary as a band, we still manage to get out there and tour every once in a while, playing to a peak of 1500 in Brussels, or to a low of maybe 75 people in Portland the other night. But like the indie bands outlined in Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life — bands that, in the mid- to late-1980s, paved the way and formed a foundation for groups like us — we still have a devoted, if modest audience. We, in turn, have influenced many bands. And all of that that encourages us to keep trying to balance the cottage industry we have in music business with grown-up responsibilities like families and jobs. But it is increasingly difficult, financially, physically, and mentally, to tour or play to diminishing crowds. Of course we understand. Most of our audience is also in their 40s, and have kids and demanding careers. They live out in the suburbs, most likely. And we have to play weeknights as well as whatever weekend nights we can book. And who wants to go stand around in the rock clubs of their youth on a Monday or Tuesday night?

My advice to every young band out there: Sell as many Jaguars today as you can. Nothing is promised for tomorrow. Providing your kids braces doesn’t make you less of an artist.