PHW Exclusive! New Music - Tunnel Motor

I was recently in touch with Andy from the Brooklyn-based Tunnel Motor who passed on word that the band is set to release a brand new EP called Substantial Ranch. And, of course, with everything from 80h Records, Tunnel Motor’s own web-based label, the EP will be available for free download in its entirety at the website.

A lot can and has been said recently about the way Radiohead went about their business a few weeks ago, but for every In Rainbows there are countless bands without that name recognition who are trying similar tactics to get their music heard. Most of them suck big-time though. Not so with Tunnel Motor. This is a band that writes catchy, driving Americana styled rock n’ roll - a little bit Guided By Voices, a little bit Mike Cooley-led Drive-By Truckers - and releases their songs for free, with the hope that a fan-base will grow out of respect for a band that obviously isn’t in it for the money.

Substantial Ranch is basically a work in progress. The band plans to record the follow-up to last year’s With Fins in the coming months and a few of these songs may turn up again on whatever comes of those sessions. For now we’re left with 5 tracks that rock, roll, spit, sway, swear, rip, cut, bleed, and groove. I wish these guys would quit their day jobs, but I guess that’s up to you….

MP3 :: Oh Hell
MP3 :: I Don’t Think
MP3 :: Hatchet Head Blues
MP3 :: Geiger
MP3 :: In The City
(from Substantial Ranch. You can’t buy it. So if you like it, see them live for cryin’ out loud)
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Previous :: Tunnel Motor Stay Free
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New Music - Your 33 Black Angels

Your 33 Black Angels has been getting a lot of attention lately, and rightfully so. Here’s some things you should know about them:

1. They are the only band I can think of in the past 15 years (at least) that I first heard about through Rolling Stone magazine. Not the actual magazine of course, I haven’t bought one of those in, well, about 15 years, but through a fan of the band (thanks Bryan) who directed me that way. To think, in this day and age a band can be featured in RS virtually before anywhere else. Remarkable.

2. Lonely Street, their debut album, was first released in a limited edition LP with only 250 individually numbered, pressed copies earlier this year. It’s now available on CD.

3. “Y33BA was born in Brooklyn, but dreamed in a West Harlem flophouse. There was a bottle of Wild Turkey, grown men in boxers, and far too much bachata music going around.” I don’t know what a flophouse is, or bachata music for that matter, but it sounds like a good time.

4. The band is playing a big Halloween show in Brooklyn. Check it:

10/31/07 - Heavenly Horrors III. Don Pedro’s.

90 Manhattan Ave. Brooklyn. $7 door. 7 PM.

5. Critics (well, bloggers and David Fricke) are mentioning Loaded-era Velvet Underground quite a bit in describing Y33BA’s sound, as well as Pink Mountaintops (not familiar), and The Unicorns (not hearing it). Personally I’m hearing The Silver Jews, especially on leadoff track “I Took A Deep Breath”. Lead singer John Westfal’s voice is a very un-Brooklyn-like creeky drawl that immediately brought David Berman to my mind.

6. The band mixes hard-driving Bob Dylan-meets-Dinosaur Jr. rockers (“Psycho On Your Side”) with completely un-ironic, feel-good, mid-tempo country rock (“Me And My Girl”) to great effect.

7. Lonely Street is the best kind of debut album - one that has plenty of highly enjoyable tunes scattered throughout it, but more importantly shows real promise for the future. It sounds like a band that is still feeling itself out, getting comfortable playing and recording with one another, but still knocking out melodic, passionate, memorable rock n’ roll songs.

MP3 :: Psycho On Your Side
MP3 :: I Took A Deep Breath
(from Lonely Street. Buy here or here)
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Linkage...

You may have heard about The New Pornographers recent YouTube based contest to “get weird” with their music. The above is the winner - a version of “It’s Only Divine Right” as performed by Michael McDonald.
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Daytrotter invited Andrew Bird in for a studio session recently. The results are terrific, but after releasing one of the year’s strongest records, Armchair Apocrypha, what would you expect? Here's a sampler:

MP3 :: Fiery Crash

(download 4 more songs at the above link)
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Sucks that Stylus will be closing it's cyber-doors down. It’s been among my favorite music websites for some time now, and a great resource for someone like me who needs to check his facts pretty regularly. They’re running lots of their “greatest hits” right now, so if you’re unfamiliar with the site, check it out before it’s too late.

Some of my favorites they have up right now:

Favorite Albums of all-time #101-200
Playing God with Radiohead’s Amnesiac
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I Am Fuel You Are Friends has a great “New York” themed mix available.
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Rolling Stone has a list of the 30 Best Moments of The Office. Yes, seems silly since the show is just one 21 minute “best of” video every Thursday night. Worth watching the clips though if you are yet to be converted to the funniest show of all time. All time. I found another compilation, this one on YouTube and highlighting some of the best encounters between Jim and Dwight. My favorites are #6 (Jim puts Dwight’s things in the vending machine) and #7 (Jim sends a message from “Future Dwight”):

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Watch a Deer Tick video over at Oceans Never Listen. It’s one of my favorite songs from one of the best debut’s of the year, War Elephant.
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A lot of bloggers are talking about the new movie, Control, that is based on the life of Ian Curtis and the music in Joy Division. Check out Rawkblog for in-depth coverage.
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New Music - Castanets

Castanets first 2 releases, 2004’s Cathedral and 2005’s First Light’s Freeze, while well-received and widely available, never found their way to my ears. It wasn’t until In The Vines dropped last week that I explored this band’s catalog, and since then I’ve listened to hardly anything else. Led by singer-songwriter Raymond Raposa, the band plays a slow and meditative form of American music - equally inspired by Appalachian folk as they are by experimental sounds. Think Califone led by Tom Waits and you’re getting warm. In The Vines has very quickly emerged as a strong candidate for whatever end-of-the-year list I put together.

Album opener “Rain Will Come” begins with a real downer - “so it’s going to be sad and it’s going to be long and we already know the end of this song” - played over gentle and buzzy acoustics. Raposa’s voice is a perfect instrument for music that sounds like it was recorded outside at night in the middle of nowhere - deep and rich but creeky; harrowing and inviting at the same time. The song devolves over its final third into a wall of noise that would scare away anything getting too close in the dark. “This Is The Early Game” follows it and I’ll be damned if that isn’t Matthew Houck (of Phosphorescent, but I don‘t have proof) wailing in the background - not so much harmonizing as yelling to the same microphone as Raposa from the next room. It’s beautiful in every sense of the word, a classic folk melody brought back to life over brushed drums and pedal steel guitar.

MP3 :: Rain Will Come
MP3 :: This Is The Early Game
(from In The Vines. Buy here)
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Bonus MP3 :: All That I Know
(from First Light’s Freeze. Buy here)

Bonus MP3 :: Three Days Four Nights
(from Cathedral. Buy here)
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Cover Me

Recently I posted a whole bunch of covers of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” as done by some of 2007's brightest young acts. As a sort of companion piece to that post here’s a sampler of some of my other favorite Bruce covers.

MP3 :: Tougher Than The Rest - The Mendoza Line
(from Final Reflections Of The Legendary Malcontent. Buy here)

MP3 :: Streets Of Philadelphia - Marah
(from Point Breeze [single]. Buy here)

MP3 :: Further On (Up The Road) - Johnny Cash
(from American V: A Hundred Highways. Buy here)

MP3 :: Something In The Night - Aram
(from The Songs Of Bruce Springsteen. Buy here)

MP3 :: Racing In The Street - Townes Van Zandt
(from Road Songs. Buy here)

MP3 :: Atlantic City - Ed Harcourt
(from an Uncut sampler)
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Some Videos For Your Monday....

The Black Lips - “Cold Hands”



Animal Collective - “Peacebone”



Feist - “1 2 3 4”



LCD Soundsystem - “All My Friends”


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Destroyer :: "City of Daughters" Re-released

Merge has recently re-released Destroyer’s second album, 1998’s acclaimed City of Daughters. If you are a fan of Dan Bejar’s more recent work - including PHW’s favorite album of 2006 Destroyer’s Rubies, or his contributions to The New Pornographers (I mean he only wrote the best song on Challengers) - than check out Bejar’s first attempts at recording outside of the confines of his bedroom. It’s full of the madcap genius that is so evident in his fully realized, current incarnation. It’s because of this that City of Daughters feels out of time - a revisionist’s dream that is easier to appreciate today than when it was released because we hear it as a starting point.

MP3 :: The Space Race
MP3 :: I Want This Cyclops
(from City of Daughters. Buy here or from eMusic here)
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MP3 :: Myriad Harbor
(from The New Pornographer's Challengers. Buy here)
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Music News - Evangelicals

Relatively new label Dead Oceans has been and will continue to be very busy. Having just released the debut full-length from Bishop Allen over the summer and the terrific new record from Phosphorescent this week the label will now be looking ahead to early 2008. Evangelicals are working on the follow up to their 2006 debut So Gone. There aren’t many details yet, but the band has released a seasonal song to hold fans over. “Halloween Song” is available for free download at the label’s site, or below for those who’d just assume not leave PHW.

MP3 :: Halloween Song
(from Dead Oceans website)
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Evangelicals will be performing at Austin’s upcoming Fun Fun Fun Fest
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New Music - Wakey!Wakey!

photo from cmj.com

These days it’s good to be in Wakey!Wakey! The band, fronted by NY singer/songwriter extraordinaire Mike Grubbs, has been rapidly gaining a larger and larger audience with practically every show they‘ve played over the last few months. So while they’ll continue to play to packed houses at their practical home base Rockwood Music Hall, they’ll also start playing to larger venues in the coming months. Much larger venues. Like Central Park’s Bandshell this coming Saturday at 1:30 as part of the Pumpkin Festival. Come on out, carve a pumpkin, celebrate Fall (or Indian Summer, whatever), and hear some great tunes. Stick around long enough and you’ll get a set from Chris Barron, former front man of the legendary jam band The Spin Doctors - who just happen to be the first band I ever saw live. Yup, I just said that.

But that’s not all the exciting news in the W!W! camp. Their long-rumored live album has finally been officially named (via a fan contest no less), given cover art, and will apparently be available at shows in the near future. Silent As A Movie is the name by the way, beating out rough draft (and the slightly “masturbatory” PHW favorite) Make A Fist Inside Your Pocket, as well as the tongue-in-cheek Wakey!Wakey! Sucks Live! and Wakey!Wakey! What’s Your Namey? It will feature live versions of fan favorites such as “War Sweater” and “Fallin’ Apart”. In the mean time the band will be releasing a different cover song every week for the next 10 weeks. For now go over to their myspace (link above) to hear a live version of everyone’s 3rd favorite Cindy Lauper song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Yup, I just said that too.

Mike was nice enough to pass along an exclusive mp3 to PHW for sharing. It’s a live version of “LGA”, one of his more straightforward ballads, recorded live with a string quartet at Rockwood a few months back during his residency. The strings carry the song up to it’s understated climax, adding nuance to Grubbs affecting vocal melody and piano. The story is inspired by that annoying holiday airport traffic, waiting for a loved one to get home before the celebration ends. Appropriately enough, it’s going to be released on the forthcoming Liberated Matter Holiday Album to be released later this year.

MP3 :: LGA (live)
(from Liberated Matter’s Holiday Album. Release TBD)
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Be sure to check out Wakey!Wakey! at some of their upcoming shows:

This Saturday at 1:30 central Park Bandshell,
Friday Nov 2nd, 10PM Rockwood Music Hall
Friday Nov 16th, 9PM Rockwood Music Hall
Wed Nov 21st, 8PM Highline Ballroom
Wed Dec 5th, 8PM Rockwood Music Hall
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Previously :: Talkin’ New York Vol. 1 - Wakey!Wakey!
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It's Cool To Like Bruce Springsteen

Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson wrote an article last week detailing the recent emergence of Bruce Springsteen as an indie rock hero, which followed Stephen Duesner’s review of Magic in which he claimed Bruce has supplanted Brian Wilson as the go-to “ideal” among young bands. I’d noticed this trend of late as well, as many of my favorite young bands (The National, The Hold Steady, Handsome Furs, etc.) sport a fairly obvious influence of said American icon, who happens to be my own first musical hero. I still remember quite clearly buying Born To Run from a catalog in 4th grade because I figured it was the one with “Born In The USA” on it. Well, it wasn’t. Regardless, I spent the next 2 or 3 years pouring over the technicolor words of “Jungleland”, “Backstreets”, and the rest of those rock n‘ roll poems.

I wonder though, now that Bruce is “cool” again, if the ever-trendy Pitchfork would reassess their notion that not one of Springsteen’s classic 70s albums were worthy to be named among that decade’s Top 100 albums. Seriously, the 4th best Brian Eno album (including the 1 with Roxy Music) is better than Born To Run? Nothing against Eno - I have Another Green World and Here Come The Warm Jets and enjoy both a great deal, but that’s about as poor a verdict on any list I’ve seen online. And yes, I’ve seen all those ridiculous Rolling Stone lists.

Anyway, in the article Richardson uses the fact that he’s heard 4 different bands cover the Boss’s “I’m On Fire” over the past few months as proof of his assertion. I’d heard 2 myself - - one being the previously posted A.A.Bondy version that hasn’t been officially released, the other a P’fork posted version by a band called Chromatics. I did some searching over at the new Hype Machine for the other 2 he was speaking of and came away with several other “I’m On Fire’s”, including live versions by Bats For Lashes and Heather Nova (which actually dates back to the mid-90s) and a really fantastic song by a band called The Soft Hands, which in no way, shape, or form resembles the Springsteen penned classic (more on this exciting young L.A. band soon). So, in case you read the same article and were looking for all these songs in the same place, here they are. And don't worry, it's cool:

MP3 :: I’m On Fire - AA Bondy
MP3 :: I’m On Fire - Chromatics
MP3 :: I’m On Fire - Bats For Lashes
MP3 :: I’m On Fire - Heather Nova
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Here’s a fiery (pun intended) version that I don’t think Richardson was talking about:

MP3 :: I’m On Fire - Earl Pickens & The Black Mountain Marauders
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Video: Band of Horses

Has anyone else noticed just how simple and repetitive the lyrics to “Is There A Ghost” are? I guess I’ve always just allowed myself to be swept up in Bridwell’s voice and those glorious power chords without paying too much attention to what he’s saying. Turns out I wasn’t really missing much. But oh how I love it anyway....


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And here’s the official video for “Is There A Ghost”, complete with a very original take on the Tooth Fairy:


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MP3 :: Is There A Ghost
(from Cease To Begin. Buy here)
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Related :: PHW’s Cease To Begin Review
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Fred Eaglesmith - "Water In The Fuel"

This post isn’t going to be any sort of official list of my favorite alt.-country songs of the 90s or anything, but it’s close. That time period and genre were crucial in my development as a music fan, and I go back to those artists, songs, and albums all the time when I need a little twang, a little insurgency, or just a little shuffle beat to pick up a slow day.

When I think of my favorite songs from that time it’s mostly the standards that spring forward. Son Volt’s “Tear Stained Eye”, The Old 97s “Timebomb”, and Uncle Tupelo’s “New Madrid” were all fixtures to nearly every mixtape I made during the last years of college and that blurry time immediately after.

But another song from that era that I consider just as great is “Water In The Fuel” by Fred Eaglesmith. While Farrar had the voice, Tweedy the spirit, and the Old 97s the spunk, Fred Eaglesmith’s classic trucker song was all about the story. I’d dare say it’s the best trucker song since “Willin’” actually. A little lost treasure at the end of his Lipstick, Lies, & Gasoline album from 1997, the song spins a heartbreaking tale of a couple separated by the endless turnpike miles. Everything about the song is perfect - Eaglesmith’s gruff vocals, the microscopic detail (“I got a left front tire throwing thread..”), the mandolin that sweeps in halfway through the song, and the image of driving a truck out on the ice and spinning it round and round. Highly, highly recommended….

MP3 :: Water In The Fuel
(from Lipstick, Lies, & Gasoline. Buy here)
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And while we’re on the subject of this song, Australian singer/songwriter Kasey Chambers recorded an unlikely cover of it as a b-side for a song from The Captain, I think. With her child-like voice she obviously doesn’t sound at all like she’s lived the song, but it’s a beautiful rendition in its own right.

MP3 :: Water In The Fuel
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