Again I need to ask the question, why is no one giving The Sidekicks any love? Their new album Weight Of Air is simply brilliant and a huge step forward for the band. Over the course of just one full length and a 73 the band's sound has changed significantly enough that it might be hard to recognize them as the same group that released So Long, Soggy Dog back in 2007. The quartet (from suburban Cleveland) has ditched most of the rough edges and standard-issue pop punk affectations of their early material [...]
ROCK & COUNTRY COLLIDE ON SHURMAN'S NEW ALBUM Still Waiting for the Sunset IN STORES JANUARY 26, 2010 There's a powerful sweet spot at the juncture where rock'n'roll and country intersect, giving the music that results a double-whammy that can't be denied. The Austin, Texas-based band Shurman hits that bulls-eye dead on packing a powerful punch of rock crunch, soulful grooves and deeply-rooted country twang. The songs breathe the truth of real life experiences and emotions, and reside within the common themes that are a part of everyone's lives. The foursome's [...]
While Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar have had their share of differences since the acrimonious breakup of Uncle Tupelo, at least they now have one rather remarkable thing in common -- they've both had the opportunity to collaborate with a noted American writer who happened to be dead. In 1998, Tweedy's group Wilco joined forces with Billy Bragg on the album Mermaid Avenue, in which they set a handful of newly discovered poems by Woody Guthrie to music, and now Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie have released One Fast Move or I'm Gone, a collection of [...]
Metro Weekly profiles singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer . ''I like mixing up music and lyrics in ways that are confusing to compel the listener,'' the pop musician says. ''That's another thing I really like about this art form. You can make as much or as little sense as you want and you're not going to get arrested.'' Tiger Saw's Dylan Metrano talks to the Newburyport News about his memoir, All My Friends Are Right [...]
Metro Weekly profiles singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer . ''I like mixing up music and lyrics in ways that are confusing to compel the listener,'' the pop musician says. ''That's another thing I really like about this art form. You can make as much or as little sense as you want and you're not going to get arrested.'' Zadie Smith talks to NPR's All Things Considered about her new essay collection, Changing My Mind . An [...]
Metro Weekly profiles singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer . ''I like mixing up music and lyrics in ways that are confusing to compel the listener,'' the pop musician says. ''That's another thing I really like about this art form. You can make as much or as little sense as you want and you're not going to get arrested.'' Zadie Smith talks to NPR's All Things Considered about her new essay collection, Changing My Mind . An [...]
Anodyne: Noun. Anything that relieves distress or pain. (dictionary.com)When Son Volt goes onstage tonight at the Continental Club (we've heard around 11 p.m.), there's an outside chance the band... Continue reading "We've Been Had: The Enduring Wisdom of Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne" >
No matter how many people he knows at a St. Louis Son Volt show, Jay Farrar will always be the guy who played a big part in creating the "alt. country" genre. Twenty years after Uncle Tupelo's he... Continue reading "Show Review: Son Volt at the Pageant, Friday, November 6" >
HANK ALTOGETHER: Over at boingboing.net , Cory Doctorow posted a wonderful link to a site which has collected a bunch of folk covers of punk songs. There are some oldies but goodies here like Uncle Tupelo's cover of Iggy Pop's "I Wanna Be Your Dog," Calexico's atmospheric rendering of The Clash's "Guns of Brixton," and Ryan Adams doing his -- I wanted to be in Black Flag -- thing. Then there's some really surprising stuff, too: the bluegrass "Lust for Life," the sweet Japanese-pop of "Lost in the Supermarket." But the [...]
One Fast Move Or I'm Gone is a wonderful collection of songs from Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and Son Volt/Uncle Tupelo's Jay Farrar. The material, crafted together using words from Jack Kerouac's Big Sur novel, invokes the same optimism, longing, and playfully deep introspection that has made millions of readers identify with Kerouac's work. Last monday, Gibard and Farrar brought these songs to life with a rocking three-piece rhythm section at the brand new Lincoln Hall [...]
A wonderful cascade of covers from a friend has turned my thoughts to covers of punk music this week. As Katie noted in her send-along, much of which appear below, "the thread that runs from folk to punk seems such a vibrant and easily spotted one to pull at", and that sounds just about right; I'd even go so far as to suggest that, like folk in the generation before it, Punk both served and sprung from the hearts of a discontented youth counterculture, and - as I noted about Rap rather tongue-in-cheek last year - [...]
Nada Surf @ Music Hall of Williamsburg ( Jack Groetzinger ) There weren't a ton of shows going on in NYC last night (10/28), relatively speaking, but members/collaborators of most indie rock bands in existence were part of them. Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, husband of She of She & Him) played with Jay Farrar (Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo) at Webster Hall with John Roderick (The Long Winters) opening. "Along with all 12 songs from the album, Farrar and Gibbard [...]
As a member of Uncle Tupelo, a solo artist, and now, in his second go as the leader of Son Volt, Jay Farrar has written hundreds of songs--and in terms of inspiration and the creative process, ... Continue reading "Interview: Jay Farrar on Finding Inspiration in Jack Kerouac's Big Sur and Working With Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard" >
NPR has Ben Gibbard & Jay Farrar streaming live tonight : Jay Farrar (Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo) and Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) take the stage together to perform songs inspired by the writings of Jack Kerouac, in a full concert webcast live on NPR Music tonight (Oct. 27). Hear the performance, featuring music from the duo's new album (One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Music From Kerouac's Big Sur), beginning at approximately 9 p.m. ET from the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. Related posts: [...]
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) -- KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Bottle Rockets have been a hard-touring bar band for almost 17 years. Back when they started, the Rockets were thrown together with other bands in the fledgling '90s alternative-country genre, thanks mostly to founder and front man Brian Henneman and his association with Uncle Tupelo. But more than just a country-ish band with a punk/rock attitude, the Bottle Rockets are Midwesterners - Festus, Mo., is their hometown - with rock...
I gotta admit I was a bit late in discovering the Drive-By Truckers. Guess people just plain forgot to tell me about them or something. And when I finally did wake up to these southern rebel rousers a couple of years back, they crept up on me only slowly. Haven´t got a clue to the why, but it took me a quite while to acknowledge that the Truckers are probably the finest American roots rock band since... well, Uncle Tupelo maybe? For some reason, their music works especially well while driving. So [...]
HANK ALTOGETHER: When I was maybe 13 or 14, I found a copy of Dharma Bums at my local library. Being a nascent theater dork at the time and thinking that this was about theater people (only instead of Drama they had added in an "h"), I picked it up and found it to be nothing quite like what I had imagined. I can't say that I'm the first, nor will I be the last to be enchanted with the deliberate will of Jack Kerouac. There's been quite a few Kerouac-related [...]
Al fin, casi 2 años después de que apareciera en Youtube la primera pista del proyecto, se publicará la música inspirada en Jack Kerouac realizada por Ben Gibbard de Death Cab For Cutie y Jay Farrar de Uncle Tupelo. Jack Kerouac es uno de los escritores favoritos de todo amante de la música, sobre todo gracias a libros como 'En el camino', aunque el documental que se ha hecho y para el que han compuesto la música Gibbard y Farrar se centrará en unos cinco años más tarde de que escribiera ese libro, la época de [...]
If it's mid-October in New York City, then it's CMJ Music Marathon time... five days and nights of music, film, informative panels, and parties that guarantee a good time, if your idea of a good time involves nonstop live shows from up-and-coming musicians from a variety of genres. Thing is, since you're reading EAR FARM, we're going to go ahead and assume that CMJ 2009 is your idea of a good time. Ours too. And it just so turns out that fourteen of our previously featured Bands of the Week are playing the festival [...]
Sweet drawing, eh? Its the Nov-Dec 2001 cover of the now defunct roots music magazine No Depression , which is now a thriving on-line community of music enthusiasts. You can find all kinds of cool stuff in their archives . This edition of Jay Farrar Friday is all about the cover tracks. Let's get into the music, shall we? Originally recorded by Waylon Jennings in 1975, this track is part of the bonus material on the reissue of Uncle Tupelo's Anodyne . Uncle Tupelo [...]
new music from vampire weekend – cousins + music video
Friday Five: Surf Songs
No Curve Allowed (Grading This Week's New Tracks)
HOT CHIP TAKE another crack at IT and I’m IN
