Helvetia is the project of Built To Spill bassist Jason Albertini, along with his former Duster bandmate Dove Amber, Zeke Howard (formerly of Love As Laughter), Samantha Stidham, and Jim Roth, (the greatest Northwest guitarist of the last 25 years and also of Built To Spill, the Delusions, Voodoo Gearshift, etc…) The band released their …
Month: October 2015
“Love Ain’t A Prize” was written by Donica Knight, her producer, Jim Huff, and Chris Vos (The Record Company.) Recorded at Fox Force Five Recorders and Huff’s home studio in Los Angeles, CA, the track is taken from her forthcoming EP, Can’t Buy A Southern Girl, slated for early 2016 release. The single is already …
John Berg died last night. he was the art director of Columbia records through most of the 1960’s and 1970’s. as a result he designed most of the important record covers of the modern era. a small list would include most of the record covers for bob dylan, chicago, neil young , elton john, the …
Tvärvägen, which means “the Crossroad” in English, returns with the album This River So Red. Neo-classical chamber pieces for strings and piano are at the center on the new album, recorded live at Atlantisstudion in Stockholm. Tvärvägen has a unique voice, which has developed off the beaten track. The debut Sånger från Tvärvägen was an …
In Taeyeon’s newest video, the former Girls Generation star plays a young woman in search of her true self who is stuck in a dead end job as a beverage server in Portland, Oregon. Though this was actually filmed in New Zealand, they are seeking a Portland vibe as the quirky cafe in which the …
Lawrence Rothman dropped this video last Friday and it’s gorgeous and strange. Angel Olsen is featured on the track. There’s an awesome twist at the end. Be sure to watch all the way through. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8uaI7SGdPY
Written by Serge Gainsbourg, sung by France Gall who (according to the internet) was 17 at the time. This was a bit before her voice became a device that caused widespread madness. Like many female French pop stars during the sixties, she recorded and performed like a crazy woman. As in the US, they thought …
With this video for “I Love Isan,” a new release from The Isan Project, you can hear and see the sounds of Isan, a region in Northern Thailand, hitting the charts. Two brothers from Manchester, UK, Producer Will Robinson and his brother, hand-assembled four traditional Thai instruments, played them, and added some very Western EDM …
Television host Steve Allen plays the piano on this and it forms a moment of unusual beauty. Here’s Jack Kerouac, our latter day Whitman, singing the body electric in old school San Francisco. He uses the word “fellaheen” a half century before middle eastern class and sectarian struggles would dominate the headlines. Something in this …
When Steve Wynn finished producing Chris Cacavas debut solo album in early 1989, I took the master tapes over to the offices of CMJ; College Music Journal. I played this song for the editor and he smiled and looked at me and said “holy shit, this sounds like the Buffalo Springfield jamming with Steppenwolf”. Two …
Yes, a staggering talent, like discovering the next Dalai Lama in the body of a six year old American boy… http://joeyalexandermusic.com/
One of the best French pop songs of the sixties. OK, Sylvie has crazy teeth and this video is all cheesy sci-fi robo-bondage, but the tune endures. If I ever go on tour beyond Spokane or Walla Walla, I’m gonna figure a way to include this in the set. And yeah, I’ll sing in French. …
Great piece from Charles Pierce on the Cubs win last night. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/beatdown-the-cubs-keelhaul-the-bucs-in-pittsburgh/ Pierce appears to have made a regular assignment of covering Wild Card playoff games in Pittsburgh. This is the one he wrote last year when the Giants paid their visit. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/baseball-playoffs-mlb-roger-goodells/ Even as they suffered their second year of one-and-done disappointment, last night’s …
This is from one of my favorite recently acquired jazz albums, Rising Son by Takayu Kuroda, a great up-and-coming jazz trumpeter. Modern jazz with a distinctive afro-beat influence (I’m a big afro beat fan). – Don Lundell
Here are 30 bands that I’ve NEVER shared a stage or dressing room with – and I’m totally at peace with that: 1) Pavement 2) Thurston Moore 3) Bonnie Prince Billy 4) Kid Rock 5) Tool 6) Helmet 7) Fleet Foxes 8) Rem (after Bill Berry left) 9) Replacements (after Bob Stinson passed) 10) Beyonce …
Yonatan Gat is a guitarist from Tel Aviv, and I saw him live at a rainy event on a farm yesterday, and he’s the REAL DEAL — just playing with a trio, and 90% instrumental. So many sounds from his guitar — ferocious surf punk and psychedelia that’s so musical it’s bursting and wonderfully exploratory. …
How fricken cool was it to open up the video file of Slim Wray’s “Take it or Leave it”?! About as cool as pulling an unlabeled can from the cup board, popping the seal and finding out it’s full of “Hell Yeah”. If that analogy doesn’t reach you, maybe you could imagine releasing a squirrel …
The Foreign Resort will perform at Kelly’s Olympian in Portland on Oct. 30. and at Substation in Seattle on Oct. 31. Tuning in to The Foreign Resort’s new release single “Under Bright Neon Stars” was like a trip down memory lane. I found myself back in the era of The Cure and quite frankly I …
This Bach fugue (a classical guitar favorite) is particularly stunning in Chris Thile’s hands – his subtle musical approach to the piece is incredible… and on a very limited instrument. Genius. – Don Lundell
Being uninitiated to Ghosts in Pocket and their music, I clicked on “stream” and released the flow of their musical creation. The bass line sawed away, the drums tapped and then, the lyrics sang, my mind opened, and I felt refreshed. Focusing in, I submerged for a closer look. For me, Ghosts in Pocket’s new …
Back in the days before Marvel’s more “realistic” super heroes overthrew DC’s dominance in the comics marketplace, DC would sometimes feature what they referred to as “imaginary stories,” which was a rather endearing way of saying the plot pursued an alternative story arc that didn’t fit in the overall fictional continuity of the characters involved. …