There were so many good albums this year that I couldn't make the decision to rank them, and I know that's not the most important decision anyway, so this year's best-of list is in groups with no internal order. This is the art I spent my cherished/wasted time consuming this year. Hope everybody's upcoming year is full of growth. Albums, Best of the Best: Franz Nicolay - Do the Struggle - tentative cynic-folk, sincere show-rock ( 9B review ) [...]
I'm of the school that the most important quality of a writer is his/her/hir deftitude at balancing humor and heartbreak. One isn't true without the other, not for any prolonged period of time. For high office in this school, Carolyn Mark runs unopposed. The Queen of Vancouver Island is Carolyn Mark's seventh album. In the past she's sung the vulnerable and farcical songs of alcoholism ("what a wino/what do I know?"), infidelity ("point of view/what's the point of you?"), and not being terribly famous ("you're at the Irish bar, not [...]
When listening to Carolyn Mark's eighth and most recent solo record The Queen of Vancouver Island , you would be hard pressed to tell when she is being earnest and forthright, and when she's only joking in her lyrics. When you think about country music, you tend to usually think about it in serious terms, Johnny Cash walking the line and all. However, humour has played a large role in country music since its humble beginnings. After all, to use Johnny Cash again as an analogy, he sang both about "A Boy Named Sue" and being "Flushed from [...]
The Queen of Vancouver Island is a small treasure trove of rock-and-roll gems. 09 Not Like The Movies.mp3 [...]
I firmly believe country music is best when it's played honestly and with having fun in mind. You always get that with B.C.'s Carolyn Mark , and her eighth album The Queen of Vancouver Island (out September 18th) is no exception. There's a rich, powerful quality to Mark's voice. Much like her occasional singing partner Neko Case , she can easily handle a wide range of emotions, be they tender, wrenching, defiant, or playful. Her voice conveys the tone of her lyrics magnificently. Continue reading »
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet. Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: Adelyn Rose : free and legal Mezzanine album [mp3] search for more Adelyn Rose posts at Largehearted Boy Bambi Lee Savage : "Oh Loneliness" [mp3] from Darkness Overshadowed (out November 13th) [...]
Canadian roots musician Carolyn Mark has announced the release of her new album, her eighth. The record, The Queen of Vancouver Island , has been tapped with a September 18th street date. Watch a preview of the single "Not Like the Movies" here: Continue reading »
die stammdaten: das album: "we become ourselves", das label: control freak kitten records , erscheinungstermin: 19. oktober, vorschau: via video "use my body while its still young", künstlerin: rebekka karijord : eine dritte single wird uns vor- und zugleich in szene gesetzt, das debutalbum "giants and dreamers" erscheint am 10. juli, bis dahin werft doch einen blick auf "western thrills" von bravestation : western thrills by bravestation [...]
Ninebullets Radio is a radio extension of the blog ninebullets.net that airs every Thursday night in Tampa, Florida on WMNF 88.5 FM at 10pm Eastern. The show is archived for one week after it’s original air date and is available for streaming here . Also, don’t forget to head over to Facebook and like the Ninebullets Radio page . Below is the playlist for July 28, 2011 . 01. Greenland Is Melting - No More Sorry Songs 02. Nikki Lane - Gone, Gone, Gone 03. Eilen [...]
Blackout Beach - Claxxon's Lament Billy liked to imagine his voice held the grit and gravitas of Christian Bale's Batman when he talked to himself in his head. "Let's drive on out of this cesspool of humanity," he thought, looking out from behind his tinted windows and shifting into third. In the passenger seat next to him lay an old wooden baseball bat. It had a splintery chip a few inches long at the top, where blood had crusted. "I'm a professional fucker-uper," Billy said aloud, but [...]
Mother nature did not cooperate on the last day of the Ottawa Folk Festival . So there was alot of rescheduling of the music workshops that was suppose to happened on the Sunday afternoon. Mostly spent being inside the Bowie Theatre all day. But overall with the chaos that happened, things went pretty smoothly. The workshop that I saw were: Sunny Side Up with Robyn Dell'Unto , The Musettes and Ladies of the Canyon [...]
Photos from Carolyn Mark 's set on the second of the Ottawa Folk Festival . [...]
One of the problems you can run into sometimes when you write a music blog and work at a radio station is that there is often just too much music to listen to. E-mails, direct mails, download sites, promoters, other blogs... there's a lot to keep up with. I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me... it's a nice problem to have... I'm just trying to explain why it can take something like six months for me to finally get around to writing about an album like Let's Just Stay Here from Carolyn Mark and [...]
Canadian alt-country balladeers NQ Arbuckle teamed up with singer-songwriter Carolyn Mark this past year for a collaborative release. The result was the full-length "Let's Just Stay Here", released through Vancouver's Mint Records mid-October. The album marks the first release from NQ Arbuckle since their 2008 Juno-nominated released XOK , and the first from Carolyn Mark since her 2007 LP "Nothing is Free". Driven by the strong storytelling one comes to expect from an NQ Arbuckle piece, and harmonies from Mark that often impress over the melody, Officer Down is one of [...]
![It’s a Team Mint Xmas Vol. 2! – Mint Records [X-mas Audio #9]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2216434_lg.jpg)
I gotta tellya, I find Mint Records to be a maddeningly inconsistent label, albeit one with a ridiculous amount of spirit propelling it forward (hear/sample some of it via the two FREE MP3s posted below). It's a Team Mint Xmas Vol. 2 , sure enough, does double duty when it comes to testing my patience, its songs jumping wildly from rock-a-billy-fried punk to Ventures -esque instrumental rock to Social Distortion / Mike Ness -style acoustic storytelling to ecstatic pop with no twee [...]
Buckle up. I know the last thing you need is yet another list from herohill, but this is the list full of big hitters. Twenty records that blew me away in '09 and a few special treats for all you loyal hill-ians. 20 Band:: The Great Bloomers Album:: Speak of Trouble Review:: http://www.herohill.com/2009/0 4/reviews-great-bloomers-speak -of-trouble.htm 1) What was your best musical moment of '09? My best musical moment [...]
Much like Kasey's two sentence reviews, I thought I'd bang out a couple of pieces that have been floating around in my Google Docs account in various forms of incompletion and combine them into one post instead of just deleting them. Sometimes it's hard to find something to say about every. single. cd you like, but I'll usually at least give it a shot. These are those shots: PETE BERNHARD - STRAIGHT LINE Pete Bernhard is one third of the phenomenal [...]
Carolyn Mark is my new hero. I'd never seen her live before she and NQ Arbuckle played a double, actually triple, bill at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto on Thursday, October 22. The Dakota is exactly the kind of place you want to see this show. Its like a dusty Texas saloon, only downtown in a major metropolis. The capacity is maybe 200, and it was only two-thirds full that night, the second night of their CD release party for Let's Just Stay Here . [...]
Here are some thoughts on music I could get to properly this week: Carolyn Mark, Let's Just Stay Here Recorded with N.Q. Arbuckle, this album is full of warm, roots rock. If you like your Canadian imagery in your music this one's for you. With lyrics like "it's hard to be a good man listening to the Drive-By Truckers" how can you go wrong? Mark also has a new cookbook out this week. Carolyn
This is my favorite picture of Falcon Heene, mainly because it's one of the few where he looks like he has an idea of what a freakin' creep his father is. Anyway, amid the sheriff's press conferences implying the family's too poor to fine, youtube spoofs and the Halloween costumes , Huffington Post columnist David Wild has come up with something NHT can sink its teeth into: a balloon boy playlist . If & when NHT has the track we'll slip it in there. Suggestions welcome! In a week we'll revisit and maybe get the whole thing in [...]
Nine Bullets
PopMatters
Inyourspeakers Media
Snob's Music
largehearted boy
das klienicum
TUNE THE PROLETARIAT
PhotogMusic.com
A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz
BowlingStone.com
The Gumshoe Grove
Herohill
Rockstar Aimz
Now Hear This
Blondie returning with a new album and a show at the Keswick in October
Nueva canción de Arctic Monkeys: Do I Wanna Know
