The Lumineers

It's rare these days to find music that seems to have real soul and passion. Music that makes you feel alive and warms your heart. A few years ago I discovered The Tallest Man On Earth, a Swedish artist who did just that, but since then I've been searching and searching, but not found anything that warms my soul quite the same, until now.

Earlier this week I stumbled across a band called The Lumineers. A live video of their song 'Ho Hey' on The Sights Of Sounds Vimeo page really caught my attention and their other live videos on there did nothing but make me want to hear more.


A few days later this official video for 'Ho Hey' surfaced on the internet:



The band are releasing their debut album at the beginning of April, which I've already pre-ordered, of course.

Whip-John-Will

It looks like the long awaited album from producer Ethan Johns.  A video for a song called 'Whip-John-Will' surfaced on the internet recently and is rather addictive!  According to his Three Crows Music website the album is due this July and this first track has been mastered by his Dad, Glyn Johns.  The track features Ryan Adams and Laura Marling on backing vocals.  From the sounds of this track, the albums is going to be something special and I really can't wait to hear more from him!

I Miss The Zoo

A few years ago when my Fiancée and I went to New York, we were lucky enough to see Joseph Arthur live at the amazing City Winery.  We'd seen Joseph play before with his band The Lonely Astronauts, but this was the first chance that we got to see him play solo.  He played old a new songs on the night, using his guitar, piano and many pedals and loops to create an awesome sound.  One highlight of the night was when he looped his guitar and a beat and then sang while painting on a fresh canvas at the back of the stage.  This painting was then up for sale right after the show!

Another highlight was a new song that he played that night, called 'I Miss The Zoo'.  The song was a bit of a new direction for a very adventurous Mr Arthur, mixing music and spoken word.  It sounded amazing on the night, but I wasn't sure how it would translate on record.  Thankfully I had nothing to worry about, as the song appeared on the free double album 'Redemption City', he released in February and it sounds great!  I think we've been spoilt this year with the free double album, hot on the heels of last years' brilliant 'The Graduation Ceremony'.  He's made a video for 'I Miss The Zoo', which you can watch here:

Ashes & Fire

Ryan Adams unleashed his new solo album earlier this month and it's everything that I was expecting and more! Anyone who frequents here often will know of my love of all thing Ryan and how devastated I was when he announced he was quitting music in 2009. Thankfully, as we all expected that didn't last for long!

He's been in the studio with the legendary Glyn Johns on production duties, whose son Ethan Johns has worked with Ryan on Heartbreaker, Gold and 29. The new album, 'Ashes & Fire' is up there with his best work and is certainly his most focused and consistent album to date.

There's even an official music video, a first since 'So Alive' from 2003's 'Rock N Roll'. The video is for 'Lucky Now':

And here's an awesome acoustic take on the title track:

The Tallest Man On Earth

I've fallen in love with The Tallest Man On Earth since I last posted on here, but haven't had the time to update the blog. He recently played on Jools Holland and I couldn't resist sharing them on here! Check out these videos and fall in love with the amazing Tallest Man On Earth:

King Of Spain



Love Is All

Oh, Ryan

This pre-sale got me up at 3am this morning, when I snagged a copy of the new Ryan Adams LP, Orion, his first fully-realized sci-fi metal concept album, through the PAX-AM store over at Ryanada.ms.  The extremely sexy looking clear vinyl ships next week and I really couldn't be more excited, anything new from Ryan always gets me giddy with excitement.  Now just gotta wait for it to get through customs and to me in the UK and give it a spin.

MMTV

It's a known fact these days that MTV doesn't play music videos any more, they're more concerned about the latest celebrity fads and anything non-music related really.  Gone are the days when you could tune into one of the MTV stations and just watch some cool music videos.

MTV Rocks goes some way into making this better and with the likes of Kerrang!, Scuzz and NME stations in the UK, all is not lost.  But it seems even these stations show more adverts than music videos, but I guess they have to pay the bills somehow.  Still, the music videos they do play are all pretty dated, with the stations seemingly churning out the SSDD.

A few years ago I'd watch these stations a lot, channel surfing between them all and usually catching something cool or something new that I'd then check out more by the band/artist.  These days I tend to make my own music television by surfing the internet.  With websites like From The Basement popping up and Tom Green sticking his finger up at the commercial channels and hosting his own online show, it's now wonder that ratings have been dropping for these television stations.

If I were to have my little slot on somewhere like MTV, at this moment in time I think the following videos would be played.  Here's my MMTV (My Music Telly Vision), why not join me for twenty minutes and check out some cool tunes and videos, all ad free and ready to stream. . .