Red House Records recording artists and former Iowa City band The Pines are returning to the big stage at CSPS in Cedar Rapids on Saturday, February 4th. The Pines were here just last September as the third act to play the newly re-opened CSPS which had gone under a very extensive remodeling and updating over the previous year. The picture above is from that show. This time the band is back as part of a tour supporting the release of the band's fourth album Dark So Gold which came out this [...]
Though we don't get this fantastic show on Iowa Public Radio, Acoustic Cafe is an independently-produced 2-hour radio show hosted by Rob Reinhart focusing on a wide variety of music, but tending to center on the "unplugged" side of things. Acoustic Cafe also sponsors a tour, and for some of the dates on their evening tour Pieta Brown is joining the 2nd half of the run replacing Erin McKeown in the lineup with also includes Carrie Rodriguez (who Pieta toured with in 2011) and Kelly Joe Phelps . This is the [...]
The month of January was named after the Roman goddess Janus who had two faces. Like the goddess, January is the month of the year when we both look back on the previous year that is over as well as ahead to the year coming up. I just posted my favorite releases for 2011 - here is a list of releases that I'm looking forward to in 2012. The Right Now - sophomore release (April 21st) - The Chicago R&B group The Right Now has had a pretty great run since their [...]
Here we are in the final month of 2011 and it is time for the Top lists. I started this last year for the first time , and I think it was a pretty good exercise. 2011 for me personally was a time of change- I was laid off from a job I had for over 13 years and spent most of 2011 unemployed. As I write this, I'm happily employed, though I'm having to deal with the fallout of being unemployed for so long. If it wasn't for the friends and contacts I made through this [...]
Somewhere between Milwaukee, Rockford, IL and Chicago sits Whitewater, WI . Whitewater is home of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater (alma mater of John Belushi if you believe Wikipedia) as well as folk/country/Americana singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault . Foucault has been spinning his particular yarns into song for going on ten years and has performed in support of complimentary artists like Greg Brown, Todd Snider and Chris Smither. His 2006 album Ghost Repeater was produced by Bo Ramsey and included a few of his regular sidemen- Rick Cicalo on bass, Steve Hayes on drums, as [...]
Today it was announced that Garbage is back in the studio in L.A. after a seven-year hiatus following their 2005 studio album Bleed Like Me , which was their highest-charting album at #4 on Billboard Top 200 Album chart. As-yet-untitled, the album is projected to release in Spring 2012, and the band posted earlier that there should be a song coming out in October. They've been in the studio all summer in L.A. recording in a basement, and apparently at the infamous Western Recorders (now called EastWest Studios ). The progress [...]
My wife had a wedding makeup gig in Mt. Vernon on Saturday and since I didn't have a lot going on I offered to come along and help her load in and out. I figured I'd check out the antique shops to see what books or vinyl they might have. Unfortunately, there used to be a really great record store in Mt. Vernon above one of the art stores. I guess the father of one of the owners of the store had a large record collection that they wanted to sell, so they ran a store for a while. [...]
Red House Records and Pieta Brown announced today that her new album titled Mercury - her second for the label will release on September 27th with an iTunes download of the title track available immediately . There is also a pre-order on iTunes with two-minute samples of every track on the 13-song album. At first blush the album continues the honey-drenched laid back bluesy folk sound that is her trademark sound. Pieta's first album on Red House Records, One and All [...]
Over the long weekend, I was hoping to get in on some of the sales that were going on- specifically Guitar Center in Cedar Rapids, and the full-weekend 20% sale at Half-Price Books. While I didn't actually get over to Guitar Center, I did hit HPB, but also managed to see David Lowery and Johnny Hickman tape a Java Blend session in Iowa City with my friend Erik , which also resulted in a great trip to The Record Collector. I also visited Moondog Music in Dubuque on Thursday and picked up some "missing titles" and hit a Half [...]
In the middle of a run of dates with Cracker and some shows as Cracker Acoustic Duo, Lowery and Hickman managed to sneak in a Daytrotter session and a performance at The Redstone Room in Davenport as well as a Java Blend show in support of Lowery's first solo album The Palace Guards . Erik and I got to Iowa City well ahead of the 1:30 start time to grab some Jimmy John's for lunch and stake a good vantage point for the show. I didn't think that [...]
On a snowy night in January I had an opportunity to see Rob Mazurek's newest band in an incredibly intimate setting at Monk's Kaffee Pub in Dubuque, IA of all places. Starlicker is a trio made up of cornet player Mazurek, Jason Adasiewicz on vibes and John Herndon on drums. The trio played a dynamic set of improvised jazz punctuated by frenetic and muscular solos by each. I had my appetite whetted for their eventual release titled Double Demon , which is due out on 5/17 on seminal jazz and blues label Delmark . [...]
Today Daytrotter posted a session I've been waiting over a year-and-a-half to hear- Pieta Brown 's encore session! The session was recorded Thursday, June 11, 2009 using a short-lived band lineup called "Dream #93 with Jim Viner on drums, Jon Penner on bass and Bo Ramsey on guitar. They performed only two shows in this configuration . June 11th at The Redstone Room in Davenport and then on June 12th at The Mill in Iowa City , which I reviewed . Here is a picture of that band [...]
2010 was–by anyone's estimation–a triumphant year for Philadelphia-native soul/hip-hop band The Roots. It was their second year as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, each night providing interstitial music as well as stepping in as the band for guests as varied as Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Todd Rundgren, Mos Def and Justin Timberlake (with Fallon doing an amazing "History of Hip Hop"). In June, The Roots released their ninth album How I Got Over. It earned an 8.1 on Pitchfork, "…one of their most lyrically straightforward, and a work of strong stylistic cohesion." [...]
This Saturday, March 5th brings to the Mill Restaurant in Iowa City former V2 Records singer-songwriter Charlie Mars . Charlie is wrapping up a run of dates that started at the beginning of February of East Coast and Midwest dates in support of his latest album Like A Bird, Like A Plane which came out in 2009. The bio on Mars's site says that Like A Bird, Like A Plane is almost a "new debut." While this album is his 5th release dating back to his 1996 album [...]
Most of the press that surrounds the Chicago sextet Canasta is wrong. Maybe I should be more clear. Upon my first listens of Canasta's fantastic 2010 release The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather I was immediately whisked back to my halcyon days of college in the early Nineties, when I had more hair on my head, less hair on my face and the dew of optimism had yet to be wiped from my eyes. This hot tub time machine was made possible by very strong–and I use [...]
In addition to having a pretty cute band name, Fitz and the Tantrums seem to have really taken the scene by storm in their relatively short existence. The story goes that frontman Michael "Fitz" Fitzpatrick rescued a vintage keyboard from someone who needed to leave town quickly. The keyboard was the inspriation that Fitz needed to start writing the keyboard-fueled R&B that is the signature of Fitz and the Tantrums. A chance hearing by Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine gained them a gig opening for his band on tour. Another opportunity [...]
I was out running a bunch of errands today and ended up at Half-Price Books. When I arrived I didn't find anything in the used vinyl bins that I absolutely needed- they had a couple of new Donna's LP's which was interesting, but I'm not familiar with their music enough for me to jump in. I was just about out the door when the girl who is the most knowledgable about the vinyl happened to be bringing a pile of newly-priced records to the bins to put away. Thankfully I stayed! I found the King Crimson LP from the pile [...]
Starlicker photo by Alessandro Carpentieri It is said that for most people, the music that defines them tends to be based on the music that they listened to in their teens and twenties. I'm not immune to this either- when I talk about about bands I really like, it is framed with a reference of 802s New Wave, Punk, and College Rock (U2, R.E.M., The Cure...). This is possible, in my opinion, because most bands in the Indie or Alternative space are really building on or working from the same language of melody and [...]
Since I just finished my Top 20 of 2010 , it has me looking towards 2011 and the releases that are rumored, speculated or actually announced. Here are some releases I'm looking forward to (in no particular order). The Second Dawes Album (May 2011) - I wrote an article about this release and speculation about what tracks are going to be on it . The first Dawes album- North Hills was released in 2009 and has had [...]
Welcome to the first Top List for It's Time to Play B-Sides . I've considered doing one of these lists every year since 2006, but never before have I had a year filled with as many really great albums that have compelled me to compile a year-end list. 2010 has been a pretty busy year for me as far as music has been concerned. Some fantastic concerts and events and some really interesting local (Eastern Iowa) releases have come out. This list represents releases that spent the most time on my playlist- in some cases I have had direct [...]
Time to play b-sides
![Niki & The Dove - The Fox [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/l2f6UbMnlq4_130.jpg)
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