Coming soon . . .

The Miners, Shark Tape and Superfive - Tonight at Milkboy!

 Three bands. Ten bucks. Tonight at Milkboy Philadelphia (1100 Chestnut Street). The Eagles are in the crapper, Andrew Bynum is the second coming of Jeff Ruland and the Flyers, with boatloads of young talent, can't be arsed to get on the ice. So what's that leave? Rock and roll, my friends. Rock and roll.

 The Miners headline as they drop their debut disc, Miners' Rebellion, a six song cornucopia of lilting, mournful melodies that feature the dazzling pedal steel of David Thornburgh and Jim Callan. Lead singer and songwriter Keith Marlowe's no-nonsense vignettes recall the dusty charm of Green on Red's Dan Stuart, but even more they evoke memories of the late, great Philly roots rockers The Rolling Hayseeds.

The straight ahead power pop crunch of Shark Tape, whose late period Replacements inspired "Eyes on You" is gathering heat from WXPN airplay, are second on the bill. These young bloods are promising that tonight they'll be "releasing a new single and dancing on the moon beams", but I'm hoping to hear "Red Lights", because it makes me think of Cheap Trick's In Color, and you know that is a very good thing.  

Openers Superfive (get there early!) feature the hook happy songwriting of former Conrad Michael McLaughlin and bassman about town Tom Szwech - check out "Happier Days", which sounds like a lost Plimsouls classic from MTV's The Cutting Edge. Dig it!

The Miners - "Doggone" (from Miner's Rebellion EP)

Shark Tape - "Red Lights" (from Eyes on You EP)

 

Superfive - "Happier Days"

Both Miners' Rebellion and Shark Tape's Eyes on You EP are available at Main Street Music in Manayunk. Call 'em at 215-487-7732.

ESPN NFL Kickoff Tackles The Princess Bride

 
If you are like my brothers and me, there is never an inappropriate time to drop a Princess Bride reference. So I offer a Teenage Kicks salute to three honorary "brothers-in-arms" - it appears they are not lacking in chaaarms - the ESPN NFL Kickoff crew of Trey (Trip) Wingo, Mark (Kevin) Schlereth and Teddy (Scott) Bruschi... morons compared next to these guys as they drop enough Princess Bride quotes and reference to fill a wheelbarrow. Fun stuff.

Hat tip to Patricia Noonan... as you wish.

Willy DeVille - "Storybook Love" (from Miracle)

Bruce Robison - "My Brother and Me" (from Wrapped)

Salim Nourallah's Hit Parade (Tonight at Union Transfer)

The first words on Salim Nourallah's most recent release, Hit Parade, are "this is the place to fall in love". And if you go weak in the knees for literate, Beatle-esque power pop, then Hit Parade is definitely the place to fall in love. Nourallah has been churning out breezy, melodic songs of love and loss for over a decade. There's a mountain of back catalog to explore, but it's hard to fathom that a songwriter this sharp, knocking out 3 and half minute nuggets by the dozens, has flown under my radar for so long. I live for this shit.

Having produced two Old 97's albums as well as Rhett Miller's 2009 self titled solo disc, Nourallah shares Miller's gift for turning simple, direct songs into hook happy, sing along psalms. "Unstoppable" chronicles the untapped, unlimited potential that lives in every five year old, and wouldn't sound out of place on an album by fellow Texan and pop savant Ben Kweller. But the main influence in evidence is the wistful side of Ray Davies, especially as Nourallah looks back on friendships squandered, lost and missed on the latter half of the album, where "Everybody Knows" and "The Quitter" quietly seethe and "Goddam Life"(featuring this very Kinks-ian "And when fall gives way to winter / You're standing in your favorite coat / The sleeve's ripped it doesn't fit you anymore / Another thing you loved outgrown"... ouch)  and "Friends for Life" are laced with regret.           

If you are heading out to Union Transfer tonight, make sure you get there early to check out Salim Nourallah and The Travoltas as they set the table for the Old 97's and their Too Far to Care 15th Anniversary tour. And snag a copy of Hit Parade - it'll be right up your alley.

Salim Nourallah - "Unstoppable" (from Hit Parade)

Salim Nourallah - "Goddam Life" (from Hit Parade)

Old 97's - "Barrier Reef" (from Too Far to Care)

 

The Yawpers - Capon Crusade

The Yawpers Capon Crusade, out this week (buy it here at cdbaby), is a badass record with giant balls. It's messy, loud, distorted and six kinds of fun. Hailing from Boulder, CO and led by vocalist/guitarist Nate Cook, The Yawpers scrap like a dogfight between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Cook makes like a manic Peter Case fusing acoustic folk blues with cathartic, stomping rave-ups that explode like cheap beer flying out of wildly shaken happy hour long necks.

There are times when calling a group a "bar band" can seem like a pejorative. This is not one of those times. This is the band you want playing at your favorite bar... every night. Even when they hit "Rock Bottom", where "the floor is covered from door to bed in Rolling Rock and cigarettes", the band sizzles with a chaotic fever, the tempo driven by the downright nasty blues harp of secret weapon Dave Romano. I can't remember a recent rock record where the harmonica spit felt like it was leaking out of the speakers.

Capon Crusade mixes styles effectively, balancing the lighters aloft power balladry of the (slightly) overlong "Darkening Doors" with the scuzzy blues wail of bookend barnburners "Savage Blue" and "Silicone Love". "Mother" explores the need for connection and the desire to find home, and evokes prime Whiskeytown in the process, while "Replace Me" cops the Springsteen harmonica riff from "Promised Land". Currently on tour to promote their debut full length, The Yawpers expect to hit the Northeast next spring - watch this space for further updates.

 

The Yawpers - "Mother"

The Yawpers - "Rock Bottom"

Replacements Reunite! Still Rocking Like Murder!

As reported earlier today by rollingstone.com, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson recently got together and recorded 4 cover songs to benefit former band member Slim Dunlap, who's been struggling since suffering a stroke earlier this year. The songs were knocked out in one day and will be available by auction only in a limited run of 250 vinyl 10" EPs, and will include their version of Slim's "Busted Up". When Westerberg was asked about a possible Replacements album or tour, he said " "It's possible. After playing with Tommy last week, I was thinking, 'All right, let's crank it up and knock out a record like this.' I'm closer to it now than I was two years ago, let's say that." (Editor's note: Be still my beating heart)

Despite my general disdain for cash grab reunion tours, I'd be first in line for this one. With Westerberg's recent free release of the piano ballad, "My Road Now", it's wonderful to see a little activity from the Westerberg camp.

Slim Dunlap - "Busted Up" (from Old New Me)

Paul Westerberg - "My Road Now" (from the internet)

Chris Erikson - Lost Track of The Time

Chris Erikson has been a human being for over 40 years, a guitar player for over 30 years, a hired gun to NYC americana stalwarts (Tandy, Matt Keating, Florence Dore, Hem) for over 20 years, a dad for over 10 years and a solo recording artist for less than one year. So you can see how maybe he lost track of the time.

The current Brooklyn resident makes up for that by jam-packing his solo debut with smoke-filled songs of heartbreak, romance, wiseass broadsides to exes, hyperbole and heartbreak, each one caked with a droopy-eyed hopeful cynicism delivered with a lopsided Ted Mosby smirking grin. So many alt-country/no depression artists take themselves soooo seriously (I'm looking at you, Jay Farrar and Gary Louris), it's nice to see a sense of humor poke its nose through the flannel ("When I write my memoir, you'll barely get a mention").

For a New York city slicker, Erikson's friendly drawl shows a hint of his southern origins (born in Atlanta, but moved to Connecticutt at the impreesionable age of one) on the cry-in-your-beer honky tonk weeper "Call It Even", where sly wordplay ("When you moved in, I paid the rent and never once complained / And though I hardly watched the cable bill stayed in my name / You burned through all my cigarettes and never bought a pack / Just one more thing gone up in smoke that's never coming back") catalogs the price of  love and recalls the Doug Sahm classic, "Give Back The Key to My Heart", and doesn't wilt by the comparison.

"Ear to The Ground" is the should have been a hit candidate, all jangly guitars up in your grill, making an absolutely joyous sound on a chorus so catchy it should be inoculated, all the while waiting to be discovered by some big-hatted hunk and taken to the bank. There's a lot more to be discovered on this excellent debut (the giddy pedal steel on "When I Write My Memoir", the sad-sack boogie-woogie hyperbole of closer "The Worst Thing That Ever Happened", not to mention the handclaps on "All I Need", which also features pure, brief serve-the-song soloing that makes me want to force feed it to the overplayers), so you should snag a copy of LostTrack of the Time so it's not another 40 years until the next record.

Chris Erikson - "Ear to The Ground" (from Lost Track of The Time)

Chris Erikson - "Call It Even" (from Lost Track of the Time)

Uncle Tupelo - "Give Back The Key to My Heart" (from Anodyne)

For those in the Phily area, Erikson will be playing in Scott McClatchy's band next Saturday, September 15, at the second annual Haverford Music Festival, in glorious downtown Havertown.

Joe South, 1940-2012

“Are you familiar with a guy named Joe South?” Ric asked.

“I think so,” I replied. “Or am I thinking of Joe Tex?”

“Joe South is a kind of legend in the business,” Ric said. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve always been fascinated by him. He had a couple of hits a long time ago. ‘Games People Play’ was one of them. And he was a terrific guitar player. He played on Blonde on Blonde and Lady Soul. He also wrote songs that became big hits for other people. Do you remember ‘Yo-Yo’ by the Osmonds? He wrote that. ‘Hush’ by Deep Purple? He wrote that. “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” by Lynn Anderson? He wrote that, too. You think anyone else ever wrote hits for the Osmonds, Deep Purple and Lynn Anderson? The guy made it in the business not because he was the best at anything, but because he was really good at a lot of things. I’ve always thought that you were like him.”

From my forthcoming novel XL. 

The one in which Michael writes a novel

Because a fear of heights prevents me from climbing mountains, I decided to write a novel instead. It's not entirely finished, but it's close. It's called XL. Like this blog, it's about people who love rock and roll. If you like Nick Hornby's books, you might like XL, too. An excerpt is in the new issue of The Providence Phoenix. Read it here. And for more details about the project, go here.

Why "Hold My Life" is The Replacements' Greatest Song

Sure there are many other Replacements songs that could be considered their peak – an impossibly magnificent group that would include “Alex Chilton”, “Left of the Dial”, “Bastards of Young”, “I Will Dare”, “Unsatisfied”, “Answering Machine”, “Within Your Reach”, “I’m in Trouble”, “Kids Don’t Follow”, “Achin to Be”, “Here Comes A Regular”, “Sixteen Blue”, “Never Mind” ,“I’ll Be You”  plus a dozen others in a catalogue that has no peer in the post-1977 rock world. But only one Mats’ song kicks off their best album (Tim) with this sobering declaration of the eternally drunk and downtrodden “Well, well, well, I’ve found (it’s my life) / Down on all fives”.  Down on all fucking fives.  Crawling along, crushed by the fear of expectations, paralyzed in boy-man limbo with “decisions to be made”, but not having enough sack or interest to make them.  “Hold My Life” completely captures the paranoid stasis most folks have that live life without a roadmap.  And there’s still the faux-fatalistic humor that shows up in the next two lines – “Let me crawl / If I want, I could dye… my hair”.

The only comparison I can make between Westerberg and me is that, in 1985, neither one of us wanted to grow up, but as we closed in on impending real life, we just wanted it to stop. Right there. Hold my life… freeze it until I am better equipped to use it.  Because at that exact moment - decent job, staying up late, sleeping late too, no real responsibilities and a never-ending beer – life is a new, carefree adventure each day.  Screw up and get out, ready to tear it up again tomorrow.  There’s no wife, no kids, no lasting commitments at work or home.  Those commitments would come later – and then “Hold My Life” morphs from trying to stop life from beginning to now trying to stop it from moving too fast to its ultimate destination.  It’s the threat of those commitments that lead us to “lose it in the shade” or “crack up in the sun”. The song never loses its relevance. But the razzle dazzle” hook, that at first seems innocuous or trite, is telling us it’s OK to mess up (we all will), because it’s the trying that allows “this one to come alive”. As Mr. Wizard would say to Tooter Turtle “Be just what you is, not what you is not. Folks that do this are the happiest lot.”

The Replacements - Hold My Life (from Tim)

Sessions at 23 East with Scott McClatchy

For the last 8 weeks, Scott McClatchy and his group of vagabonds, fiddlers, losers and lovers have been lighting up Brownies 23 East with a loose limbed jam that features Celtic reels, folkie standards and country and western weepers. It's fun for boys and girls of all ages. Doors open tonight at 8:00 and the music gets going around 9 or so. And it's free. And there's beer (not free, but some good specials). And the tunes are top notch. What's not to love?

Where - Brownies 23 East (23 East Lancaster Ave. - Ardmore)
When - Every Thursday around 9:00 (maybe a little earlier)
Cover - A recession-busting zero dollars!!

You might hear these:

Scott McClatchy - "American Land" (from A Dark Rage)
Scott McClatchy - "Sally MacLelanne" (from A Dark Rage)

Happy 70th Birthday, Sir Paul

Anthony D'Amato - Paper Back Bones (Appearing in Philly on 6/3!)

Still in his early 20's, Anthony D'Amato has released 4 albums, each one better than the last. Paper Back Bones, just out this week, isn't a huge departure from 2010's Down Wires, it just sounds a little bigger, a little lusher and definitely a lot more beat down. D'Amato's songs of death, desperation and doubt are colored by hauntingly sweet pedal steel and fiddle, not to mention the  banjo plonking that powers the sweet and sour love letter, album opener "But For You".

 D'Amato's characters carry heavy burdens, most noticeably in "Arrowhead", a foreboding tale of a snake-bitten family that he performed at the 2010 Montreal Folk Festival for a songwriter showcase called "The Hurtingest Song I Ever Heard". D'Amato is a gifted writer with a keen sense of melody, and those sweet melodies are needed ease the strain of Paper Back Bones dark night. My favorite melody envelops "On The Banks of The River Where I Died", whose hot-button tale of a failed border crossing calls to mind the graceful storytelling of The Band (this would have been perfect for Levon to sing).

Closer "Ballad of The Sleepless" captures the early morning dread that night lovers face every day. And it brings the listener full circle from Down Wires opener "Ballad of The Undecided".

Anthony D'Amato - "Ballad of The Sleepless"  (from Paper Back Bones)

Anthony D'Amato - "Ballad of The Undecided" (from Down Wires)
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Anthony D'Amato is a finalist in the 2012 Philadelphia Songwriters Project contest. D'Amato plus 11 other singer-songwriters perform this Sunday (June 3) at The Blockley.

Philadelphia Songwriter Project Finals

June 3, 2012 at 4:00
The Blockley
3801 Chestnut St. (the old Chestnut Cabaret)
215-222-1234
Tickets are available here.

Philly note - Main Street Music (4444 Main St.) in Manayunk is the only brick and mortar store selling D'Amato's cds. Call 215-487-7732 for info.

New Music

Here’s some stuff from the inbox that caught my ear.

Bad Veins is a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy two-piece from Cincinnati that come off like a dancier version of The Strokes. “Dancing on TV” is from their new album The Mess We’ve Made. Go here for a free download or check out the video.

Jay Shepard’s album Harsh Mistress comes out in July. The single “Last Man on Earth” is a buoyant, fuzzy ray of power pop sunshine. Listen and download for free here.

Ali Young is a singer-songwriter with a deft melodic touch. Her EP Love Animal can be downloaded here. 

Listen to Ali Young’s “Make Believe” 

The title to Gospel Music’s song “This Town Doesn’t Have Enough Bars For Both of Us” is irresistible, and so is the tune. You can download it here, or check it out below.

Finally, the band Animal isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, but the email that brought them to my attention was perfect – short and to the point, the perfect antidote to the six-paragraph bluster about how “our post-psychedelic dreamcore band started as an idea in one man’s bedroom in Boise and took shape over a nine-year spiritual journey that ended in Tibet” that I get from so many bands. Note to such bands: I get dozens of these things a week. If I have to work that hard to get to the actual music you make, I’m never going to listen to it, let alone share. So, yeah, check out Animal’s album Diatoms.

Robin Gibb

# 1 (TM) Middle Brother - Middle Brother

Supergroup my ass. That term generally signifies bland half-baked jams (Superheavy, Them Crooked Vultures), main group throwaways (Golden Smog, Monsters of Folk), intriguing novelty (The Baseball Project, Tinted Windows) or sheer wretchedness (Chickenfoot). Middle Brother brings their A game and top flight songs.

Middle Brother brings together three songwriters (Deer Tick's John McCauley, Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith and Delta Spirit's Matthew Vasquez) whose main bands have yet to rise above club status. They cherry pick the best attributes from each band and reign in their excesses. While Vasquez (the Crazy Horse inspired "Blue Eyes", the irresistible 50's pastiche "Someday") and Goldsmith ("Thanks for Nothing" and "Wilderness") shine, it's McCauley's rumpled stumblebum who dazzles. The theme is pie-eyed lovable losers, and the only cover, a suitably shaggy run through The Replacements' rarity "Portland", manages the neat trick of saluting patron saint Paul Westerberg and eclipsing his original.

But the stunner, and the best song on the year's best album, is "Daydreaming", whose chord progressions hint that this is the kid from Big Star's "Thirteen", a few years older, still lovesick and longing, looking for someone to "be an outlaw for my love". Simply gorgeous.

Middle Brother - "Daydreaming" (from Middle Brother)

Big Star - "Thirteen" (from # 1 Record)

# 2 (TM) Butch Walker and The Black Widows - The Spade

Butch Walker is a melody freak. And a fun junkie. And with The Spade, he hits all my musical g spots - big guitars, gigantic hooks and instantly memorable choruses. There's also bit of hair metal cheese wrapped in a glam, alt-country sandwich. But the main focus is F-U-N. With an in-jokey, self-referential, self-deprecating boys club atmosphere, The Spade was 2011's best non-stop party.  

Butch Walker and The Black Widows - "Bodegas and Blood" (from The Spade)

#1 (MA) Nick Lowe - The Old Magic

Nick Lowe has been mining the same territory for nearly twenty years now, meaning that "this phase" of his career has gone on for longer than the part that we normally think of as "his career," namely the Jesus of Cool and Labour of Lust years. His stock-in-trade is now to create new songs that you swear you've heard before, 1960s country and R&B classics that you just can't place, records that James Carr and Charlie Rich probably made before you were born. And he does it with such ease, such wit, such elegance that you might fail to notice the genius behind all this effortless beauty. The Old Magic is pure grace, the kind of album that will never be in fashion, but can't go out of style.

#2 (MA) Ezra Furman & The Harpoons - Mysterious Power

There's a moment on Mysterious Power when you realize that this isn't the Ezra Furman you know, the clever but sometimes too-jokey troubadour whose whine too often overwhelms his roar. It happens on the third track, "Hard Time in a Terrible Land," when Ezra and the Harpoons cast all notions of indie propriety aside and rock out with abandon. There are no trappings of irony here. Instead, Mysterious Power is a deeply felt set of songs, alternatively tender and ferocious, that reveal a songwriter and band at the height of their powers.

#3 (MA) Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

Yeah, so it's May, and we're still telling you about the albums we enjoyed last year. Maybe it's just taking us that long to get our heads around them. I feel rushed when December comes and I have to tell you how I feel about an album I bought five minutes ago. How should I know how I feel about it? I don't even know it yet. This is one of those albums that took some time to get to know. On one level, it's irrepressibly indie, the kind of thing made for the blogger/tumblr/twitter culture that celebrates songs that only twenty-seven people will ever know. On another, it's rooted in the let's-roll-another ethos of the 1970s, an unapologetic rock record that demands to be revisited, not just consumed. I bought this on mp3, but I find myself reaching for the gatefold cover and lyric sheet that I don't have. It's magic.