Crying Like A Man

Having just booked seats to see Joseph Arthur at the City Winery in New York this March (during our first trip to NY/America from the UK), I decided to check out his official site to see what's happening in the world of Arthur.  There's no news on there of the new solo album that's coming out at some point this year, but there was this link to some awesome live videos recorded recently for KEXP at the Tiple Door in Seattle.

During his recent West Coast solo dates he has been joined on stage by Peter Buck of REM and Ben Harper, but the most special thing about these shows has been how he has been supporting the relief efforts in Haiti.  At each show he has been painting live on stage and auctioning the painting off at the end of the show with all proceeds going to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.  Bids have been starting at $500 and a painting has sold every night.

Here's a video of one of these live paintings.  I would have loved to have seen this live, I never expected him to be singing and painting at the same time.  Roll on March and the City Winery show.

I And Love And You

It looks like I missed quite a lot of good music in 2009.  First it was the debut album by Lisa Hannigan, now lately I've been discovering the sounds of The Avett Brothers for the first time.

I can't stop listening to their new album, 'I And Love And You', an album that encompases so many different styles, but still retaining their signature sound.  They are descibed by the San Francisco Chronicle as having the "heavy sadness of Townes Van Zandt, the light pop concision of Buddy Holly, the tuneful jangle of the Beatles, the raw energy of the Ramones", which certainly rings true for me.

The Avett Brothers are Scott and Seth Avett, who are joined by Bob Crawford on upright bass and  Joe Kwon on Cello.  The brothers play all other instreuments in the band, live and on record.  The 'I And Love And You' album was peoduced by the amazing Rick Rubin.

I first stumbled upon their music after a video of Seth Avett playing one of his solo songs, released under the guise of Darling or Timothy Seth Avett As Darling.  I HAD to hear more after seeing this video and from there stumbled across The Avett Brothers.  It looks like they have quite a back catalogue to get my teeth into, as well as the solo Darling stuff.  Good times indeed.

The video for 'About Love' by Darling seems to be unavailable at the moment, but here's 'Awaiting The Flood' instead.

Everything Is Energy

 "Everything Is Energy is a band that is born of a man that has been through hell. Which is odd, because they sound like the ocean, flecked with gold dust straight from the angels’ afros."

Everything Is Energy is a band by Chris Shinn, as it says on the cover of their self-titled debut album.  The same Chris Shinn who fronted the "supergroup" Unified Theory, which consisted of members of Blind Melon and Pearl Jam.  Unified Theory were a great band, but when the Everything Is Energy album was released digitally in 2007 I was blown away and it has been in constant rotation in my collection ever since.

Despite touring the album in 2007, the band ran into problems with dodgy management, which has since left their website and MySpace defunct for well over a year.  Thankfully Chris can still be found on Facebook, where he has been hinting of new material coming soon, posting today "Finished ruff demos of two BRAND new tunes. Wow, deadlines DO work. I'm back in Nashville to track with the whole band This weekend".

Here's a picture Chris posted on his Facebook page recently, I would love to have a jukebox with the Everything Is Energy album on it in my town, hell I'd love to actually own a physical copy of the album.  It looks like it must have had a limited release at some point, but I can't find one anywhere.

At some point last year, the band posted a very open statement regarding the state of the band, talking of the management problems they've experienced, which has resulted in them no longer being able to use the name Everything Is Energy, so the new tunes will be released under a new name, but as far as I'm aware, the same personnel.

There's not any official music videos for the band, but I did manage to find this pretty decent live video of 'Real Easy', hopefully we'll be hearing some new tunes from the band soon.

I Liked You Better When. . .

Some awesome pre-orders have started for the new Butch Walker & The Black Widows LP, 'I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart' here.  I love the way that bands are really starting to think of the fans with the packages they do for their albums now, some might be a bit pricey, but for a true fan they're well worth it.

I'm definitely not going for the $25,000 dollar package, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone did.  I seem to remember that happening when Josh Freese did something similar.  But one of the vinyl packages sure is tempting!  Shame that the postage is so pricey to the UK, but I don't think I can resist. . .

In fact I couldn't, I've just pre-ordered it, got to wait til the end of February to hear the full thing now.  I'm still warming to the tracks that came with the purchase, which you can hear here if you'd like.

Butch also did a pretty cool cover of Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me' last year at one of his live shows that got such a great reaction he decided to do a studio version of it.  Here's what happened:

Caballeros

Ethan Johns has produced albums by Ryan Adams, Kings Of Leon, Ben Kweller and Ray LaMontagne, amongst many others. He also runs the Third Crows Music studio and is a multi-instrumentalist, but until last September he'd never stepped out into the spotlight.

During Ray LaMontagne's UK tour last September, Ethan Johns opened the show with just an acoustic guitar, under the guise of Caballeros. Three tracks have surfaced from this support slot, 'Hello Sunshine', 'Long Way Around' and '21st Century Paranoid Blues'.

The tracks are live cuts, but almost sound like studio quality recordings. The only tell-tale sign is the applause at the end. I really like the sound of these tunes, with 'Hello Sunshine' probably being my favorite and really hope we see some materiel from this project at some point this year.

Check out the Caballeros page on the Three Crows Music website to listen to the tunes and for a bit of background information on them.

A View Of Other Windows

I've just pre-ordered the new photography book by Cardinals guitarist Neal Casal, 'A View Of Other Windows', that is released next month. It will feature 200 photographs of the Cardinals, many of them never seen before. It looks like it should be amazing and a fitting tribute to Chris 'Spacewolf' Feinstein, the Cardinals bass player, who passed away last month.

The foreword is by Ryan Adams, with an afterword from Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead. There's apparently band commentary throughout too. I really can't wait to get my hands on this. I'm also hoping for more Pax-AM releases of old Ryan Adams material this year, but his site has been pretty vacant for a while now.

2010 - In Anticipation. . .

I've got a feeling that this post is going to turn more into a list than a proper post as there's so much music that I'm looking forward to this year.  It's only January and already we know that albums by the following will be with us within the next twelve months, as well as many other surprises I hope:

Fionn Regan, Joseph Arthur Frightened Rabbit, Butch Walker, The National, Charlotte Gainsbourg/Beck, Interpol, She & Him, Beach House, Arcade Fire, Jesse Malin, Rob Zombie, Chris Shinn/Everything Is Energy, Alkaline Trio and Caballeros.

Those are the one's that I'm already aware of, who knows what else I'll discover by bands/artists I've never heard of before and the one's I already love.  It's all so exciting!

I'm also hoping for UK tours by Our Lady Peace, Butch Walker, Joseph Arthur and Rob Zombie and for Ryan Adams to release some more tunes on his Pax-AM label, maybe even the vinyl albums he's been hinting at.

I'm sure that all the above and more will be written about here throughout the year.  Hope you like the new lick of paint Ive given the place for the new decade.