Temporary People

'Temporary People', the new album from Joseph Arthur And The Lonely Astronauts is unleashed upon the world today. I've yet to receive mine in the post, but am hoping the postman will be dropping by very soon. Joseph Arthur has released four solo EPs this year, the first 'Could We Survive' featured 'King Of The Pavement', my favourite track of the year so far.

It's been hard to resist the 'album premiere' on MySpaz and what I've heard on there sounds really good. After 'Let's Just Be', the first release by The Lonely Astronauts I was worried how the new album would sound as I really couldn't get into that release. It lacked the magic from the Joseph Arthur solo releases that I've been listening to for so long. Thankfully the new record doesn't seem to. There have been two music video's made for the album so far:

The first being for the title track, 'Temporary People':

The second track from the album to have a video made is 'Faith':

'You Are Free', a documentary film by Bryan Johnson will be premiered at the at Pop Montreal on October 2nd. The film documents Joseph Arthur's first show of the 2005 tour at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, "the film is an unforgettable blend of music, art, and drama. "You Are Free" goes beyond merely documenting the performance, it allows the viewer to truly get to know this unique artist. Performances are inter-cut with scenes of Arthur speaking with moving sincerity about his career, his life, and his spiritual journey as a person and a musician. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur demonstrates why he is 'one of the last true artists left in the world' in this immediate and unflinching documentary that blends music, art and drama into an unforgettable movie experience."

You can view the trailer here. I'm really hoping that this will get a DVD release soon.

You can also download the title track from the new album via Stereogum.

Ships In A Bottle

Butch Walker, the singer-songwriter, producer and former member of the Marvelous3 lost everything in the Malibu wildfires in November 2007. "I lost everything I've ever owned. Every master of every song I've ever recorded, every piece of recording equipment, guitars, drums and things I've collected over the years, cars, motorcycles, every family memorial, heirloom, picture, and document we ever had.... Gone." he was quoted as saying at the time.

I can't imagine what it would be like to lose everything like that, my heart went out to him when I read the news. It's now been almost a year and Butch has picked himself up and got back to doing what he does best - music. His new album 'Sycamore Meadows' comes out in November and the single 'The Weight Of Her' has been released digitally on iTunes, but only for those lucky folks in America as it's not yet in the UK store.

But he has made a video for 'Ships In A Bottle' that gives us UKers a taste of the album. It was filmed in the remains of his house in Malibu before it was torn down. The song itself was written two weeks before the fire that savaged his house and features the lyrics "Just wanna walk away from the ashes, and take the fact that I've been burned", which really pull at the heart strings.

Butch Walker has also released a live album and DVD this year as well as a record from his other band, 1969. He also recently started his own blog.

Brooklyn Is Love

Creaky Boards are another Brooklyn based band that I’ve been getting into recently, along with Scary Mansion. In fact, both bands have even worked together in the past. Creaky Boards is the name Andrew Hoepfner has given to all of his music since moving to New York City in 2004. They got quite a bit of publicity earlier this year when they accused Coldplay of copying one of their own songs, the aptly named ‘The Songs I Didn’t Write’, by posting the following video on You Tube.

The song does sounds a bit similar at first to “Viva La Vida”, but to my ears sounds a lot better than anything Coldplay have put out since ‘Parachutes’. It may have been a bit of a cheap publicity stunt, but certainly something that has helped spread the word of the ‘Boards. This all happened back in June. I must have been oblivious to it as I only just found out about the band.

The bands new album, 'Brooklyn Is Love', comes out in November and can be pre-orderd through the band's MySpaz site, where there are also a few songs streaming from the album, including the pretty groovy ‘Brooklyn’.

Every Joke Is A Half Truth

I've been addicted to the Scary Mansion album 'Every Joke Is A Half Truth' for about a month now. They are Brooklyn based Leah Hayes' musical project. I discovered them through a blog post on Foggy when Ryan Adams was talking about her awesome graphic novel 'Funeral Of The Heart'. Much like her graphic novel work, the album is intense and sweeping, creating a very haunting landscape. The vocal and instrumental delivery throughout the album is very unique, which adds to it's charm.

Here's a 'live in the dark' video for 'Go To Hell':

It also turns out that Leah has done the cover and lyric book for the limited edition vinyl of the new (Ryan Adams &) The Cardinals album 'Cardinology', which comes out on October 27th.

Check out the Scary Mansion MySpaz page for more songs (try 'Sorry We Took All Yr Money' first) and buy the album here if you like what you hear.

Eureka!

The Eureka Machines are one of the support bands from the Wildhearts Eath Vs gig I went to recently. Unfortunately I didn't get to catch all their set as I was waiting in line to get a t-shirt with a blokes beer belly pressed against my back. But what I heard was very good.

Chris Catalyst (also of the other Wildhearts support act that night, The God Damn Whores) is the singer/guitarist/songwriter for the band. Bobby Ball of 'comedy' duo Cannon And Ball once called him 'last of the mohicans'. And Crispian Frigging Mills out of Kula Frigging Shaker once accused him of stealing his minidisc player. Oh, and he writes some irresistibly catchy pop nuggets.

They released their debut album 'Do Or Die' on September 1st. Check out the coolio video for 'Everyone Loves You':

And as usual, check out their MySpaz page for more awesome songs. You can also buy the album from the band here.

Raine Maida - "Works Everytime!"

I stumbled across this hilarious video of Raine Maida busking in The Hour (a Canadian TV talk show) offices on YouTube today. Raine is the lead singer of Our Lady Peace and released his first solo album last year, 'The Hunters Lullaby', an awesome album that explores much different musical landscapes to his Our Lady Peace work. In this clip he is playing 'Yellow Brick Road' from that album.

I just love how he keeps a straight face during the toilet scene. Classic! The clip relates to the official video that was released for 'Yellow Brick Road', where Raine busked on the streets of Toronto to raise money for War Child Canada’s School Rehabilitation and Revitalization Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He personally made $22,000, enough to build what is now called the Abala School.

Our Lady Peace are currently in the studio finishing up their seventh album. Raine is taking on producing duties this time himself and says of the album:

"There’s no, "Okay, let’s demo up this and demo this and see what we think." It’s like we have an idea, let’s write, finish it, and record it. That’s one of the things I’ve learned over the last five or six years, is really just to try and capture that moment as best you can. And that’s what we’ve done and probably made the best record yet."

I can't wait to hear the new material.

Raine Maida official site.

Listen to to 'The Hunters Lullaby' in full here.

Sorry And The Sinatras

When I saw The Wildhearts this past weekend in London playing the Earth Vs album in it’s entirety and all the b-sides, I saw a t-shirt at the merch booth for Sorry And The Sinatras. I knew that the new bass player for The Wildhearts was called Scott Sorry, but didn’t know anything about this band. It was especially odd seeing as Sorry And The Sinatras were not supporting The Wildhearts that night, those duties went to The Eureka Machines and The God Damn Whores.

So I checked them out on Myspaz the other day and really liked what I heard. They have a very DIY punk approach to their music, which sounds very raw and enjoyable. Check out a live video for ‘Hated Heart’:

Sorry And The Sinatras played their first show supporting The New York Dolls and will be supporting The Misfits this October. They are currently recording their debut album ‘Highball Roller’, which comes out in early 2009 on Undergroove.

Check out their MySpaz site for some cool DIY demos that you can download. I suggest you start with ‘Riverside’.

Cardinology

Cardinology, the new album from Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, will be released on the 27th October in the UK. The cover art and tracklisting has been confirmed as:

Born Into A Light
Go Easy
Fix It
Magick
Cobwebs
Let Us Down Easy
Crossed Out Name
Natural Ghost
Sink Ships
Evergreen
Like Yesterday
Stop



The first single from the album will be 'Fix It', which was released digitally to radio stations today. You can listen to a clip of 'Fix It' at the Cardinal Cave.

The Cardinals are touring America and the UK from September 25th. Check out the official site for full dates.

Here's a video of an early demo version of 'Crossed Out Name' that Ryan posted on his blog Foggy earlier this year, as introduced by Wilson & Barnabus.

I absolutely love this song and can't wait to hear the album version. You can also download a live version of 'Crossed Out Name' from the September 4th show in Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, ON. Check out the full set at Archive.org.

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