Kate Davis A singer songwriter from New York, The first single from Kate Davis’ record ‘Strange Boy’ was originally released January 15th, 2021. ‘Strange Boy’ is a track from the album of Daniel Johnston’s‘Retired Boxer‘. Released in collaboration with the Hi, How Are You Project, a non-profit organization that provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and education on mental well-being, Davis will release Strange Boy, a unique rendering that is named after the eighth song on Johnston’s original masterpiece.
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Bob Boilen October 9th, 2020 Wayne Coyne has appeared inside a bubble for over a decade. At concerts, he’d roll over the tops of adoring fans, their outstretched hands keeping him aloft. That was novelty long ago; now it seems prescient. For this Tiny Desk (home) concert, Wayne and his fellow bandmates are seemingly quarantined from one another, with the bubble-sharing green-haired drummers and keyboards pairing off, playing together yet apart. The Flaming Lips have always embraced the surreal. Drugs are undoubtedly part of the culture, and on their new songs from “American Head”, drugs are at the core. These are songs for the lost, the overdosed dreamers, the damaged, the car crashed. On the album’s opening track “Will You Return/When You Come Down” (which also begins this concert), Steven Drozd asks in falsetto, “Will you return? Will you come down?” while Wayne Coyne responds, “Thinking back to those lost souls / And their ghosts / Floating around your bed / Hear it said / Now all your friends are dead.”
SET LIST: “Will You Return/When You Come Down” “God And The Policeman” “Be Free, A Way” “It’s Summertime”
MUSICIANS: Wayne Coyne: vocals Steven Drozd: keys, vocals Michael Ivins: bass Derek Brown: guitar, vocals Jake Ingalls: keys Matt Duckworth: drums Nicholas Ley: percussion
The Weather Station – project of Tamara Lindeman – marks her bold return with a new single “Robber”, featured here on a limited edition 7 inch, together with B-side “Better Now”, which is exclusive to this vinyl single. The 7 inch is out now on Fat Possum Records and Outside Music.
Recorded in at Canterbury Studios in Toronto in Spring 2019. Featuring musicians Kieran Adams, Philippe Melanson, Marcus Paquin, Johnny Spence, Brodie West, Ben Whiteley, and Tamara Lindeman.
The first music from The Weather Station since the critically acclaimed S/T album in 2017, Robber marks a bold shift in sound and tone for songwriter Tamara Lindeman. With jagged saxophone and percussive complexity, the track builds slowly over the course of five minutes, see-sawing between order and chaos.
“I think in my life I’ve been pretty naive, always tried to see the good in everyone (still do), always tried to make do with what is and not think of what can’t be (still do),” says Lindeman. “But those attitudes are dangerous when applied at a societal level, especially at this moment in time. I think we’re all in denial a bit, about where we are, and what is happening, because it’s easier on some level, easier to try and make do with what’s missing than to see what’s missing. I think it’s hard to believe in the robber, hard to even see the robber; it’s easier to try and make love to or glamourize the robber. It hurts too much otherwise. To put it straight; there are real human people who are literally robbing us and all future generations of all of everything that matters, right now. But we literally can’t see that as a society, because for one thing we’ve been taught not to value what is taken, and for another because we’ve been taught to glamourize and love the taker. We love to love the taker. We don’t know how to see the victim of the taking.”
The five members of Sun June spent their early years spread out across the United States, from the boonies of the Hudson Valley to the sprawling outskirts of LA. Having spent their college years within the gloomy, cold winters of the North East, Laura Colwell and Stephen Salisbury found themselves in the vibrant melting-pot of inspiration that is Austin, Texas. Meeting each other while working on Terrence Malick’s ‘Song to Song’, the pair were immediately taken by the city’s bustling small clubs and honky-tonk scene, and the fact that there was always an instrument within reach, always someone to play alongside.
Coming alive in this newly discovered landscape, Colwell and Salisbury formed Sun June alongside Michael Bain on lead guitar, Sarah Schultz on drums, and Justin Harris on bass and recorded their debut album live to tape, releasing it via the city’s esteemed Keeled Scales label in 2018. The band coined the term ‘regret pop’ to describe the music they made on the ‘Years’ LP. Though somewhat tongue in cheek, it made perfect sense ~ the gentle sway of their country leaning pop songs seeped in melancholy, as if each subtle turn of phrase was always grasping for something just out Sun June returns with “Somewhere”, a brand new album, out February 2021. It’s a record that feels distinctly more present than its predecessor. In the time since, Colwell and Salisbury have become a couple, and it’s had a profound effect on their work; if Years was about how loss evolves, Somewhere is about how love evolves. “We explore a lot of the same themes across it,” Colwell says, “but I think there’s a lot more love here.
”Somewhere is Sun June at their most decadent, a richly diverse album which sees them exploring bright new corners with full hearts and wide eyes. Embracing a more pop-oriented sound the album consists of eleven beautiful new songs and is deliberately more collaborative and fully arranged: Laura played guitar for the first time; band members swapped instruments, and producer Danny Reisch helped flesh out layers of synth and percussion that provides a sweeping undercurrent to the whole thing. Throughout Somewhere you can hear Sun June blossom into a living-and-breathing five-piece, the album formed from an exploratory track building process which results in a more formidable version of the band we once knew. ’Real Thing’ is most indicative of this, a fully collaborative effort which encompasses all of the nuances that come to define the album.
“Are you the real thing?” Laura Colwell questions in the song’s repeated refrain. “Honey I’m the real thing,” she answers back. They’ve called this one their ‘prom’ record; a sincere, alive-in-the-moment snapshot of the heady rush of love. “The prom idea started as a mood for us to arrange and shape the music to, which we hadn’t done before,” the band explains. “ Prom isn’t all rosy and perfect. The songs show you the crying in the bathroom,, the fear of dancing, the joy of a kiss – all the highs and all the lows.” It’s in both those highs and lows where Somewhere comes alive. Laura Colwell’s voice is mesmerising throughout, and while the record is a document of falling in love, there’s still room for her to wilt and linger, the vibrancy of the production creating beautiful contrasts for her voice to pull us through.
Opening track ‘Bad With Time’ sets this tone from the outset, both dark and mysterious, sad and sultry as it fascinatingly unrolls. “I didn’t mean what I said,” Colwell sings. “But I wanted you to think I did.” Somewhere showcases a gentle but eminently pronounced maturation of Sun June’s sound, a second record full of quiet revelation, eleven songs that bristle with love and longing. It finds a band at the height of their collective potency, a marked stride forward from the band that created that debut record, but also one that once again is able to transport the listener into a fascinating new landscape, one that lies somewhere between the town and the city, between the head and the heart; neither here nor there, but certainly somewhere. “Karen O” by Sun June from the upcoming album ‘Somewhere‘ out February 2nd, 2020 via Run For Cover Records,
We are extremely happy to be announcing the February 5th release of Sun June’s forthcoming LP Somewhere. “We shot the video out on a Texas Hill Country ranch with a spotlight ranchers use to check on cattle at night (very Texas of us). We thought the stage lights and disco ball helped draw out the connection between feeling an emotion and performing it, both for yourself and others. We got lucky and happened to shoot during a lightning storm, so we went full melodrama with it.”
If you’re looking for indie-pop thrills this quarantined fall, you won’t find many better than the ones on , this debut EP from New York City trio Ribbon Stage. Jamming five songs into eight minutes — the longest, “Personal Hell,” maxes out at a lean 2:21 — the EP is all sugar-buzz hooks and aching guitars, approaching the platonic ideal of what a DIY band can do with the right mix of amateur enthusiasm and accidental pop songcraft. When it ends, you’ll want to listen again; you’ll probably listen to it a few more times after that, too, unless you have somewhere better to be right now than the blissed-out basement show in your head.
This NYC/Olympia trio’s debut EP was more fun than most full-lengths in 2020. The elements are nothing new — take some lo-fi guitars and sweet melodies, shake ’em up and perform with great feeling — but Ribbon Stage make every note sting as freshly as your first unrequited crush. Songs like “Rid Myself,” “Reasons Why,” and the excellently titled “Cry in the Driveway” are mini-masterpieces of sulky garage pop, and they all clock in at under two minutes. At that length, any fan of this kind of music would be fooling themselves if they don’t give My Favorite Shrine at least one listen through. Once you do, the hooks are there to stay.
Ribbon Stage is a very new band, formed last year by three friends in New York using the punk-rock pen names of Anni Hilator (bass and lead vocals), Jolie M-A (guitar), and David Sweetie (drums). The songs on My Favorite Shrine were initially intended as a demo tape before making their way to the venerable Pacific Northwest indie label K Records, which released it as a vinyl seven-inch in its International Pop Underground, He first crossed paths with Jolie at the late, lamented Brooklyn venue Silent Barn, where she was performing with a noise band for an audience that she recalls as being “99 percent friends.” David was impressed by her stage presence all the same: “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I need to make a band with Jolie.’”
Squirrel Flower’s cover of Liz Phair’s “Explain It To Me” from her 1993 debut, ‘Exile in Guyville’ serves as the A-side, backed with a new Squirrel Flower original. ‘Explain It To Me’ has been one of my favourite songs since I first heard it when I was 14. I made this recording in my basement while experimenting with self harmonizing for the first time in a while. “Chicago” is a rework of an old song I originally released in 2018. It’s from a studio session a while ago and it never got used, so my brother and I put some extra guitar on it during quarantine and voila.
Ella O’Connor Williams, also known as Squirrel Flower, I originally wrote it in 2015 when I lived in the Midwest. Put it on when you’re lost/moving/found.” – Ella Williams (Squirrel Flower)
Chicago duo Ohmme was started by Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham in the summer of 2014, combining their love for lush vocals and song writing with their love of experimentation and sound. Ohmme founders Sima and Macie and their drummer, Matt Carroll, were supposed to hit the road in April opening for Waxahatchee, ahead of the June 5 release of “Fantasize Your Ghost” on Joyful Noise Recordings. Cunningham, 30, and Stewart, 27, are nimble multi-instrumentalists and arresting singers, and they’ve collaborated widely throughout Chicago’s sprawling music communities, playing with artists working in rock, hip-hop, classical, folk, country, jazz, noise, and more. Between them they’ve worked with the likes of Chance the Rapper, Tortoise, Jeff Tweedy, and Twin Peaks.
In the months since COVID-19 shut down the live-music ecosystem, Ohmme have played several online sets, sometimes sharing a room and sometimes remotely, including as part of Goose Island’s 312unes series and the Dr. Martens Presents: Stay In series
There’s obvious chemistry emanating throughout Ohmme’s music that’s so tangible it can only come from a decades-spanning friendship. Songwriters Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart formed their unbreakable bond performing throughout the fringes of Chicago’s many interlocking communities, collaborating with titans from the city’s indie rock, hip-hop, and improvised worlds. The two formed Ohmme in 2014 as an outlet to explore an unconventional approach to their instruments. “That’s the whole genesis of the band: us walking up to our guitars and saying, ‘how can we make this noisemaker do something different?’” says Cunningham. Their 2016 self-titled debut EP took these experiments live and showcased the band’s vocal interplay that is another key to their songs. The full-length follow up, Parts, found the duo adding a drummer, Matt Carroll, and expanding their sound; Spin wrote: “Ohmme’s aesthetic universe has the cramped intimacy of a small rehearsal space, and they are its masters. Anything they can squeeze inside—swirling baroque vocal melodies, punchy punk power chords, three-minute rockers and dreamlike chamber-pop suites—ends up sounding like Ohmme.” Their latest album, Fantasize Your Ghost, was released in June of 2020 and found the band featured in outlets such as Premier Guitar and Uncut with songs that capture more closely the band’s live show
Stevie Nicks has released her first new single in nine years, ‘Show Them The Way’, and it features Foo Fighters legend Dave Grohl on drums. The song was inspired by a dream Nicks had involving Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and John Lewis before the 2008 presidential election. Nicks only decided to record the song for release this year, finding the track to be a hopeful source during this “very strange and dangerous time.” #The musician revealed that the song started out as a poem, and considers it to be “a prayer for our country.” “I felt that this was its time, its reason,” she said in a statement. “I understood what it meant then and what it means now. Please God, show them the way. Please God, on this day. Spirits all, give them the strength. Peace can come if you really want it. I think we’re just in time to save it. “I hope that this song and its words will be seen as a prayer. A prayer for our country. A prayer for our world.”
Official music video for Stevie Nicks – “Show Them The Way” Later this month, Stevie Nicks will unveil her concert film Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert.
Post-hardcore band Touché Amoré released their long-awaited fifth studio album “Lament” via Epitaph Records. The album is produced by Ross Robinson, who’s worked with Glassjaw, Slipknot and Korn. Lead single “Limelight,” which features Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull, is as chaotic as Touché’s other songs, though it’s quiet at first, with Bolm’s scratchy vocals making the most noise. Hull’s silky vocals are a great addition to the post-hardcore/emo mess. Touché Amoré’s last studio album was 2016’s critically-acclaimed Stage Four, which reckoned with the death of frontman Jeremy Bolm’s mother. It was powerful and evocative, and Bolm’s poetic lyricism resonated with many. Since then, they re-recorded their album “To the Beat of a Dead Horse”, and they released a live album and some one-off singles.
After extensively grieving his mother on 2016’s Stage Four, Touché Amoré singer Jeremy Bolm just wanted to move on. As Lament makes clear, though, it wasn’t that easy. “It’s not how it was, but it’s not getting lighter,” he yells on “Limelight,” the album’s soaring lead single. Bolstered by an extensive recording session with legendary nü-metal producer Ross Robinson, Touché Amoré fine-tune their trademark brand of post-hardcore on Lament and make every note serve a purpose, from the enormous “Deflector” to the tenderhearted “I’ll Be Your Host.” Bolm may not feel like he’s basking in sunshine just yet, but by the sound of Lament, he’s found the next best thing: the promising warmth of a sunrise and the glimmer of determination that comes with it.
It’s October 9th which means “Lament” is officially out worldwide. We’ve been working on this album on and off for a couple years now and for it to be finally out feels extremely gratifying. Working with Ross Robinson was a dream and a privilege we don’t take for granted. He taught us new things about ourselves every step of the way and this album wouldn’t be what it is if it wasn’t for his most sincere devotion to every decibel of sound any of us made from an incorrect note, embarrassing voice crack or getting something just right. We can’t thank the hard working people at epitaph enough for indulging all our wild ideas with vinyl packaging / flexis / music videos and more. Andy Hull, Julien Baker and Justice Tripp for lending us your voices however big or small, we understand that finding the time and energy in the times we are living in can feel like monumental tasks so to have your energy and grace on this album is something we’ll cherish forever.
Last but not least thank you to the kindness, patience, and understanding of those who have purchased the LP, streamed the album, or shared a kind word about its release. Following Stage Four wasn’t an easy task and often felt unachievable. We are so proud of Lament and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. Seldom can a band evolve so organically and still remain relevant,
The sound of pure anguish with a glint of hope.
Released October 9th, 2020 The Band:
Jeremy Bolm – Vocals
Clayton Stevens – Guitar
Nick Steinhardt – Guitar
Elliot Babin – Drums
Tyler Kirby – Bass
All songs written by Touché Amoré except * Written by Touché Amoré & John Andrew Hull
“Limelight” (feat. Manchester Orchestra) by Touché Amoré from the album ‘Lament,’ available now
This week’s Saturday Night Live musical guest was supposed to be Morgan Wallen, before the country singer got himself disinvited. At short notice on Friday morning, SNL creator Lorne Michaels announced that Jack White — whose best-known band, The White Stripes, who releases a greatest-hits album in December — would show up to perform in Wallen’s place. With no new material to promote, White cranked out a few scorching career highlights, including 2014’s solo hit “Lazaretto” — which he performed with a guitar designed for him by the late Eddie Van Halen and kicking off with a fantastic medley.
This song White chose is a medley of his Beyonce collaboration “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” the White Stripes classic “Ball and Biscuit” and Blind Willie Johnson’s “Jesus is Coming Soon” which was recorded in 1928 about the 1918 flu pandemic. For his second song, he played “Lazaretto” on that signature guitar and Jack incorporated a little EVH-style tapping too.
The drummers name is Daru Jones, he’s endorsed by; Paiste, DW/PDP, Ahead Drumsticks. He is talented as all get out! He plays the drums like that for ergonomics and to allow for his choppy playing style (at least that’s what he’s said in interviews.)
Musical guest Jack White performs a medley of “Ball and Biscuit,” “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and “Jesus Is Coming Soon” on Saturday Night Live. .interweaving Blind Willie Johnson’s “Jesus is Coming Soon” about the 1918 flu pandemic w/ Ball & Biscuit…only Jack White could have pulled off a song to save 2020,
The Musical guest Jack White performs a medley of “Lazaretto” on Saturday Night Live. Jack White dedicated his “Saturday Night Live” musical performance to another fellow rocker: Eddie Van Halen. In a touching tribute to the late Van Halen who died of cancer at 65 on Tuesday, “The White Stripes” frontman abandoned his own guitar to instead use a cobalt blue model. The show then featured a short clip of Van Halen’s guitar performance in February 1987 on “Saturday Night Live.” Host Bill Burr ended the show by saying “rest in peace, Eddie Van Halen.” Hours before his appearance, White, 45, teased that he would be using his “Saturday Night Live” performance to honour the musical legend, whom he described as “very kind.”
The Fat Angel Sings 