Blog: Ear It Now

There hasn't been much on good ol' Ear It Now in a while, but this is definitely worth it a post. Definitely. Since I have never watched America's Got Talent or The Glee Project , or, well, Glee for that matter, I had never heard of Dani Shay before I got an e-mail about this single release. Luckily for me, I saw the name "Fun." in the subject line, and opened that digital dreambox right on up. Apparently, Dani shared this video first with Fun., who created The Ally Coalition with designer [...]

She's eerie, she's awkward, she's created buzz across the lands. And now, she sings the national anthem!

Christopher Paul Stelling doesn’t know who Ke$ha is, and he has probably listened to more books on tape than you have. In fact, he’s listening to Crime and Punishment, and he asks me what a Ke$ha is. Good for him, right? It takes Christopher Paul Stelling and I a little while to get in touch, between missed phone calls and mixed up time zones, but when we finally do, it’s certainly worth it. I catch him while he’s at a roadside stop with his lady (as he [...]

I think it's important that I keep you up to date on Good Old War. Last week, these lovely gentlemen performed "Better Weather" on Conan--and, as always, they proved once again just how talented and charming they are. Their album Come Back As Rain dropped in March, and they have been ferociously touring ever since. In fact, just last night they sold out Chicago's Lincoln Hall---plus, they had Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, in the audience! A while back, we had a quirky interview with lead-guitarist Dan Schwartz here , well [...]

Ear It Now is back. It's been a slow year or so, but be expecting more posts, and be expecting to read more specifically about the Nashville and Chicago music scenes. First things first, Caveman . A while back, I reviewed their show at The Basement, and the Brooklyn-based rockers certainly impressed me. They've got quite a stretch ahead of them this spring, and have just recorded an NPR Tiny Desk Series, which you can check out below. I love Tiny Desk concerts almost [...]

The Heartless Bastards (originally from my lovely hometown of Cincinnati) will be hitting up our beloved Mercy Lounge tonight to infect your souls with delicious tunes. Check out this video of them on Letterman about a week and a half ago. Their most recent album, Arrow dropped a few weeks ago on Partisan records and has been getting raving reviews from a myriad of outlets. Definitely check them out tonight if you're in town, and pick up a copy of Arrow if you happen to [...]

So, apparently this video has just gone VIRAL. I'm talking over 23 million views in the last few weeks alone. So, I'm probably one of the last people with a computer to talk about it. But, in my humble opinion, it's still well worth posting just in case you a) haven't seen it or b) need to see it again. A good cover is hard to find. You want it to sound enough like the original so that you still actually enjoy the song, but it needs to have enough character on its [...]

This song is INFECTIOUS. Seriously. It is going to seep its way into your blood until you are dancing like one of the classy ladies in this video. I'll admit I ignore (read: don't always have time to read) a lot of the promotion-esque emails I get about bands/songs/videos. I try to get through them and listen, and lucky for me and my laziness, I was able to give this Animal Heart track a good listen. Frankly, I don't know that much about the band - which is usually something I'm pretty adamant [...]

I'm a sucker for catchy Indie Pop. If you've ever read this blog, talked to me, or perused my Itunes top 25, you'd know that in a second. But My God. This new Fun song is just damn good. Now, for those of you who got caught up listening to The Format in your later high school years were probably as devastated as I when they broke up in 2007. But, thankfully, frontman Nate Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is-It's -Really-Not-Important has a new project with a second album due out in February. If you watch Glee [...]

NASHVILLE. Get your party pants on. The Features Record release show is this Saturday at Mercy Lounge (everybody's favorite...or at least mine), and they are going to rock the town down. If anyone was at the block party last week, then you know that Mercy can host a hell of an event. Plus, Nashville's finest will be playing a show to release their newest album. Check out what Mercy has to say about it: "The Features’ exhilarating new Wilderness (Serpents and Snakes/Bug Music) quickly establishes the Nashville-based combo as [...]

A Prediction: Milo Greene will be a group to erupt the music scene just as swiftly as its relatives. By relatives, I mean the likes of Local Natives, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and The Head and the Heart. Now (more than ever), the sound of a woman's back-up vocals, the resonance of multiple string instruments, and the simple beat of a snare drum aim to help build the folk revival we've all been waiting for. Though the group only has a handful of songs available for download, the little ditties are well worth it. [...]

If you're in the one and only Nashvegas, be sure to hit up the basement this Thursday to see the lovely Amy Lavere. 'She’s touring in support of her new album, Stranger Me (out July 19th), produced by Craig Silvey (The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs ), which is a follow up to 2007’s Jim Dickinson-produced Anchors & Anvils .' I love a girl with a stand up bass! Be sure to check her out on NPR's The Mountain Stage here And treat yourself to a little [...]

These guys have been featured in Rolling Stone as an "artist to watch," and I will be the first to admit that I could not take my eyes off their video "Bang."(Granted, it is a video where two people hook up the whole time and someone sings in the forefront. Still, though, it's a sexy background to a sexy song.) --They were also in Rolling Stone's 'Choose The Cover' contest, but were eliminated in round three. Also, check this out: 'Since their formation, Empires has tenaciously written, engineered and produced every track they have created, allowing their [...]

Paul Dempsey's first solo album, Everything Is True out now: If the flagrant parodoxical title of this album wasn’t enough to intrigue me, then this album hooked me with the melodic surge into the first chorus. At first his voice seemed somewhat generic for my liking, creeping too close to radio-melted pop and stereotypically angsty. But then, there’s a crescendo of lyrics and melody in “Bats,” that leads into the most misleading lyrical hook I’ve ever heard: “Nobody’s ever gonna break your heart again.” And he’s singing it so [...]

If you’ve ever seen Pet Lions live, you’ll know that girls throw bras on stage at their shows not once, but twice throughout sets. Granted, this happened recently at their Lincoln Hall LP release show, and the crowd was all but sold out; people’s emotions were perhaps running on pure sexual adrenaline. Release Night: "To the Coast" @ Lincoln Hall Anywho, Pet Lions recently released its first full length album, Houses , last month to a nearly sold out crowd in Chicago, IL--the lads’ hometown (or, well, base camp, if [...]

If you haven't heard of Holcombe Waller yet, now's your chance. Get a ticket and head over to The End on Elliston tomorrow and check this guy out. Waller has a soothing, more versatile voice than most singer songwriters, and he packs more emotion into three lines than most artists can in 3 minutes. His videos and songs have an eccentricity to them to be expected from almost any musician, but there's something particularly compelling about his vocals and his sincere, honest lyrics. His full length, Into The [...]

I first heard The Middle East about a year ago, when I began to preview some of their tunes before Bonnaroo. I managed to catch their sticky set and was impressed with their calm, melodic, acoustic-based tunes amidst the chaos of the heat and sweat. Now, a year later, The group is dropping its debut LP in the U.S. on July 12. I Want That You Are Always Happy--a title that I personally loved before listening to any of the music. The group is large: seven people long with the depth of sound to [...]

I'm not usually one to listen to or post about solo female artists. I find it tough to embrace them as solo artists because, frankly, they all sound so similar. However, I was recently introduced to a gal named Agnes Obel who does a haunting version of Elliott Smith's "Between The Bars." Although, I suppose you can't very well describe any Elliott Smith song or cover without the words haunting or overwhelmingly depressing. The reason I like this cover? [...]

Having several friends who went to Alabama, and, well, having a heart---I find this pretty cool. Show is August 19th, and tickets go on sale June 17th. Other participants include Neko Case and Phosphorescent. (Might I add--Neko Case's attention to philanthropic events has really intrigued me lately--I'm quickly becoming a fan) Statements from each artist: Statement from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James: "My Morning Jacket is honored to be given an opportunity to do our part in helping [...]

Hello Nashville, Norweigan/Brooklyn's hottest blonde-ish-crooner is heading our way this coming Friday. 12th and Porter, Now I spent one of my recent posts doing a bit of hating on Brooklyn's genreless genre, but Sondre Lerche falls through the cracks of the hipstamatic photos of Williamsburg and the tank tops in Urban Outfitters' windows. In a good way. I first heard of Lerche several years ago through a friend, and his EP, Two Way Monologue, has been resting somewhat solemnly in my Itunes for quite some time. His newest self-titled album [...]