Earlier this year Flyte, the UK’s most underrated act (or maybe all of music’s?), returned with new single “Easy Tiger” and they’ve now returned with the even more magical “Losing You.” While no official announcement has come about a new album, it’s on the way sometime soon.
“Losing You” is a break-up song that captures that now-familiar Flyte level of early days Bealtes-esque songwriting that taps into something personal and vivid. All while avoiding sounding cliche. It’s real storytelling, the sort of music that would be topping the charts if it was the golden day of radio. Alas, it is not those days anymore but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop and cherish a great song such as this. ‘Losing You’ was actually written years ago after having my heart broken. Every detail is taken directly from the week after the break up. The thing is we actually got back together and years later it ended again but this time the roles had been reversed. It felt strangely poignant singing a song that I was initially directing at someone who’d hurt me, to then turn it around and sing it back at myself.
I don’t think Flyte was ready to take on this song until now. We were finally confident enough to just play the song and not add any extra production, and let the lyrics do all the talking. Andrew Sarlo wanted it to feel like the track never left the lonely bedroom. Like the band just came over, jammed out the song and that was that.
Such a song deserves an equally perfect music video and it gets just that from BAFTA-winning director Mark Jenkin. The video captures the retro love and heartbreak of the track, and then some.
Official video for Flyte’s ‘Losing You’, the second track from their forthcoming album.
John Martyn’s best songs had an intensity and raw emotional power that earned him a cult following which remains strong even today. Martyn was a musical maverick, a bitingly honest songwriter, and one of the most brilliant acoustic guitarists of his generation.
One of Martyn’s biggest technological innovations was his use of Echoplex delay, which allowed him to build layers of guitar. The technique was ahead of its time, and has been cited as an inspiration by U2’s The Edge. As well as influencing contemporaries such as Eric Clapton, Martyn’s work has earned him adoration from artists as varied as Beck, Joe Bonamassa, and Beth Orton. Although Martyn never had a hit single, some of his best songs, including the folk anthem “May You Never” and the ethereal “Solid Air,” are modern classics.
His finest work was for Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, who called Martyn “a true one-take man.” Blackwell gave the musician the time and backing to create a very personal sound. Although Martyn was a powerful live performer, dazzling with his guitar work and his extraordinary smoky, sweet-voiced inflections, he instinctively understood what was needed for music to come alive in a recording studio. As a result, he left a series of enduring albums from a volatile four-decade career.
“May You Never,” “Sweet Little Mystery,” “Fine Lines,” “Don’t Want to Know,” “Couldn’t Love You More”
As a youngster, Martyn was a fan of the guitar styles of blues men such as Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. He developed his own hard plucking, dextrous style to accompany his brooding, introspective lyrics. The combination became a trademark of much of Martyn’s best work in the 1970s. His most enduring song is perhaps the catchy “May You Never,” which appeared on the 1973 album “Solid Air”. Fellow folk guitar maestro Richard Thompson, who played with Martyn in this era, said, “you could put it into a hymn book.” Martyn’s friend and occasional collaborator Clapton covered “May You Never” on his 1977 album Slowhand.
Martyn was born Ian David McGeachy, taking his stage name when he moved from Scotland to London in 1967. He recorded accessible, melodic tunes throughout his career, including “Sweet Little Mystery” from 1980’s Grace and Danger. Martyn oozed ease, something evident on “Fine Lines,” a song which featured his ad-libbed comment that “it felt natural” – an aside retained on 1973’s Inside Out album – as he slid into a tender song about friendship and loneliness. The album was made with “no self-consciousness… probably the purest album I’ve made musically,” said Martyn.
The son of two light opera singers, John Martyn’s best songs often saw him using his voice like an instrument, especially when he was repeating phrases. He sings impressively on “Don’t Want to Know,” also from Solid Air, which was written in Hastings with the help of his first wife Beverley Kutner. Another good introduction to Martyn’s back catalogue is “Couldn’t Love You More,” from 1977’s One World, which featured his long-term collaborator and bass player Danny Thompson. On the surface, it’s a sweet romantic ballad but, in typical Martyn fashion, there is an ambiguous undertow to the tender lyrics, suggesting a lover who has nothing more to give. With Martyn, the darkness usually held back the light.
“Solid Air,” “Go Down Easy,” “Small Hours” Martyn was a musician who brought the intensity of a live performance to studio work. “Solid Air,” the mesmerizing title track to his most popular album, was written for his friend Nick Drake, shortly after the release of Drake’s masterpiece Pink Moon. In the years since Drake’s death in November 1974, the song has turned into a kind of requiem for the talented singer-songwriter, who was just 26 when he passed away.
Martyn once said that he loved jazz saxophone players – he raved in particular about Ben Webster – and the singer’s deftly-phrased delivery gelled magnificently with the tenor saxophone playing of Tony Coe on “Solid Air.” Coe was a sought-after session man who had recorded with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Art Farmer. “John Martyn would smooth in his entries like a saxophone. It was almost like an actor’s voice,” John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, the keyboard player who performed on the album told Graeme Thomson, author of an excellent biography entitled Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn.
“Go Down Easy” is another song from Solid Air that has an atmospheric appeal. It’s worth listening closely to the way Martyn and upright bass player Thompson interact throughout. Thompson once said that playing with Martyn was like “a natural musical conversation.” The arrangement of the song, which was recorded like a live jam session, allowed Thompson’s deft playing to entwine with Martyn’s guitar playing in what is a masterclass of intonation.
John Martyn’s best songs often had a hypnotic, free-form grace, something evident on One World, the triumphant album he recorded at Chris Blackwell’s house Woolwich Green Farm in the summer of 1977. The project started in Jamaica, involving singer and producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, when Blackwell made the rare decision to produce Martyn. He got the best out of the singer. The title track featured a haunting guitar solo, while the epic, soothing “Small Hours,” which is just under nine minutes, is one to let wash over your brain.
(“Bless the Weather,” “One Day Without You,” “Hurt in Your Heart,” “Our Love,” “Angeline”) “Bless the Weather” is a fierce love song and a good example of the way Martyn explored the flaws and frailties of the human heart. As his career went on, Martyn’s compositions grew progressively bleaker. The man who wrote the warm-hearted “One Day Without You” (“One day without you/And I feel just like some lost ship at sea”) in 1974 was a different beast to the man who went into the studio six years later to record Grace and Danger. By that point, Martyn was trying to make sense of “a dark period in my life,” one that included divorce and addiction.
The pain came out in eviscerating confessional songs such as “Hurt in Your Heart” and “Our Love.” Martyn is quoted in Thomson’s book as saying that the songs on Grace and Danger were “probably the most specific piece of autobiography I’ve written. Some people keep diaries, I make records.”
Although Grace and Danger marked the last true high point of Martyn’s album-making, he returned to the theme of lost love with “Angeline,” on 1986’s Piece by Piece. Although “Angeline” is a more melodic offering than “Hurt in Your Heart,” it is full of passion and sorrow. Island released it as a single, but it’s worth seeking out live versions, where Martyn extended the song considerably.
(“Over the Hill,” “Dancing,” “Singin’ in the Rain”)
Although some of John Martyn’s best songs have a mordant, disturbing quality, he was also a witty stage performer, capable of recording exuberant, joyful songs. The acclaimed comedian Billy Connolly, who was a folk singer himself in the mid-1960s in Scotland, remembered Martyn as “a good laugh.”
One of Martyn’s most uplifting songs is “Over the Hill,” from Solid Air, on which Richard Thompson plays mandolin. Martyn’s song, which describes a homecoming, was written about the final part of a journey into Hastings, the train ambling through the countryside before revealing the seaside town.
Island released his 1977 song “Dancing” as a single, and this Afrobeat paean to the joys of the life of a travelling, stay-out musician, is truly infectious. Martyn was never enamored with the old-fashioned image of British folk music – which he scornfully dismissed as “the dingly-dangly-dell of life” – but he was a fan of nostalgic songs that put “a smile on your face.” He frequently performed “Singin’ in the Rain,” both live – where he encouraged singalongs – and in the studio, including his 1971 version on Bless the Weather.
(“Wining Boy Blues,” “The Glory of Love,” “I’d Rather Be the Devil,” “Spencer the Rover”) Martyn was a gifted interpreter. He even cut a whole album of covers – 1998’s The Church with One Bell – which featured songs written by Randy Newman, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, and Bobby Charles. Martyn grew up loving Jelly Roll Morton’s “Wining Boy Blues” and he recorded his own version early in his career, along with a touching take on Billy Hill’s “The Glory of Love,” a song first made famous by Benny Goodman in the 1930s.
One of his most spell-binding performances was of Skip James’s “Devil Take My Woman,” which Martyn retitled “I’d Rather Be the Devil” for Solid Air and turned into a passionate six-minute tour-de-force, full of the electronic effects from the tape device known as the Echoplex. Although Martyn had originally played straight acoustic versions of the song – which he’d learned at Les Cousins Folk Club in London in 1969 – his recorded version was the finest example of his experiments with Echoplex, something that started with the 1970 album Stormbringer! By 1973’s Solid Air, it had become a key part of his repertoire, his skill with it even earning praise from Bob Marley. “Bob was totally blown away,” Blackwell is quoted as saying in Thomson’s book.
Although Martyn rarely covered traditional songs, his version of “Spencer the Rover,” a folk song that had origins in the northern English county of Yorkshire, is sublime. Martyn, who named one of his sons Spenser, always enjoyed singing what was, perhaps, a romanticized version of his own wild wanderings.
Martyn’s roving days came to an end in 2003, when he had his right leg amputated below the knee because of a burst cyst. He continued performing until 2008, using a wheelchair. When Martyn received a lifetime achievement award at the 2008 BBC Folk Awards, Clapton was quoted as saying that the innovative Martyn was, “so far ahead of everything, it’s almost inconceivable.”
Best Coast the band has revealed a special ten-year anniversary event to celebrate that pivotal moment in Best Coast history back in the year 2010 Best Coast released “Crazy for You”. The debut album from Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno . The duo is going to stream a special performance of the album front to back. Recorded pre-quarantine with special guests including Hayley Williams of Paramore, CHVRCHES singer Lauren Mayberry, and Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, the online broadcast is set for August 14th at 6 p.m. PST.
“Crazy for You” truly changed my life,” singer-songwriter Cosentino shared in a statement. “I was 22 years old, feeling so lost, confused and anxious — and so I wrote a bunch of songs about it. I had no idea the album would impact people the way it did back then, and I had no idea its legacy would last a decade later. When I started this band, I had no expectations of what would happen, I just wanted to make and play music with my friend. Multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno and I feel so lucky to have been able to do everything we have over the last 10 years, and we are so appreciative of our fans who have stuck with us since the beginning.”
Tickets to watch the stream are on sale now for $10 in advance, $15 on the day of the show (plus fees). Any tips will be donated to the Loveland Foundation, which works to “bring opportunity and healing to communities of colour, and especially to Black women and girls” through “fellowships, residency programs, listening tours, and more.”
“This is the first time we have ever played this album in its entirety and we will be sharing some behind the scenes photos/footage/and stories of the making of the album, the songs and the story of how Best Coast came to be,” the group wrote on the ticketing site. The page also reveals a new Crazy for You capsule collection, which includes t-shirts, prints, and face masks.
from the album “Crazy For You”, available to purchase now from the Wichita Recordings
Rilo Kiley have announced plans to re-issue their extremely rare self-titled debut album from 1999. The recording, originally pressed only on CD and sold exclusively at the band’s early shows, has been out of print since its original pressing 21 years ago. Rilo Kiley will be made available on limited edition vinyl and digital DSPs on October 2nd via Little Record Company, the label started by Rilo Kiley’s own Pierre de Reeder. The vinyl package includes gate-fold and coloured vinyl. Previously only available on CDs that Jenny Lewis and company sold at their early shows, prior to the release of their “official” debut LP, 2001’s Take Offs and Landings.
The Los Angeles four piece arrived on the music scene in 1998 with their very first show at Spaceland in Silverlake. In the audience was comedian Dave Foley who was so impressed with their performance that he introduced himself and immediately encouraged them to record some of their music. Recalls Foley of this first encounter with the fledgling Rilo Kiley:
“January 1998, I was a young man, young compared to now, hanging out in L.A’s alt. rock club scene. One night in particular, I found myself at Spaceland, at the bar drinking when a band started playing. They were good, so good that I stopped fighting for the attention of the bartender and turned to see who it was. On stage was a very young, delightfully unpretentious group named RiloKiley. Between songs they were charming, smart and funny. During songs they were brilliant. After the set I introduced myself and learned that this was their first public performance. I was astonished. They invited me back to their rehearsal space for Thai food and to hear some songs they didn’t have room for in the set. Dreamily, I filled my belly with noodles and my head with one great song after another. I was in a full on, pop music fan swoon. Having decided to force myself into their lives, I suggested (insisted) that I should fund a demo recording. They relented. I also tried to talk them into changing the band’s name. They were unrelenting. A lot of years have passed. I remain proud to know Rilo Kiley and grateful that I had the opportunity and ability to be of some help”.
Some of the songs from that initial Foley-funded demo session formed the foundation for Rilo Kiley and the band handmade copies of the CD to sell at shows before signing to Barsuk Records and going on to release some of the most influential and acclaimed albums of the era. Rilo Kiley officially disbanded in 2013 following the release of their RKivescompilation. They recorded four more albums together, the last being 2007’s Under the Blacklight.
Ron Gallo’s time in quarantine has been filled with creativity, allowing space for him to create his new album, PEACEMEAL due out October 9th. I’ve enjoyed each time Ive seen him Ron Gallo – and his live band are teriffic live, his music and his online persona – since I came across him a few years ago. He’s kind of a free-spirited wild card in that you don’t what you’re going to get with his music. The Philly-based rocker comes off a year’s break with a colourful new batch of songs,
PEACEMEAL, appears to be a pun on the bite-sized nature of the project and the state of mind they were recorded in, clearly preceding the chaotic events of the year it will have been released in.
As a first taste of the record, Ron Gallo is sharing “Wunday (Crazy After Dark)” and its video, which similarly feels starkly off-topic (and therefore refreshing) for quarantine with its blunt opening line: “All I wanna do is go to the store and not see anyone I know.” “It’s an introvert summertime party jam celebrating alone time and isolation, but then after too much solo time starting to go crazy.,”
“The video is self-directed, shot and edited, being limited to whatever Chiara [his wife] and I can do with an iPhone, the two of us and our immediate surroundings. Wanted to recreate a sunny day in the happily solo life, then turning into a psycho after the sun goes down desperate for human connection.”
It’s definitely been a year. I hope getting this message makes you not think about any of it for at least like 30 seconds. I just wanted to say hey and tell you about some things :
we finished an album called “PEACEMEAL” that’s coming out in March 2021, you can hear 5 of the tracks now AND please watch the videos. from the upcoming album, “PEACEMEAL”, out 10/9/20. rongallomusic.com.
PIAS, [Merlin] Redeye Distribution (on behalf of New West Records)
People have been trying to bury rock and roll for a long time, declaring countless times that rock is dead. Well, if Mojo Nixon taught us nothing else (and there’s a lot to be learned from Mojo), he taught us that “you can’t kill rock n roll.”
The Bobby Lees are a young bone-shaking Garage Rock band out of Woodstock NY. Their new record ‘Skin Suit’ is produced by underground punk legend Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion, and mixes classic garage-punk hits with raw and emotive storytelling.In the past year they’ve played with The Chats, Future Islands, Boss Hog, Daddy Long Legs, Shannon & The Clams and Murphy’s Law. They will be on tour in the US and Europe throughout 2020.
If you need proof that Mojo is correct about that, then look toward The Bobby Lees. Ironically, this band is from Woodstock, New York, but don’t expect any folky songs about love and peace (not that there is anything wrong with those) on the band’s new album Skin Suit, It’s pretty fitting that the album was produced by Spencer. Right from the beginning of the album, that band plays with similar energy and volume to any of Spencer’s projects. There is also something of The Stooges in the band’s sound. You can hear it not only in the wildly fuzzed-out guitar and powerful vocals, but also in the bass line that is enough to make you feel a rumble in your gut.
If you’re looking for subtleties, this is not the album for you. But then, when has rock and roll ever been about subtleties? This album is about fuzzy garage-punk guitar, rumbling bass, frantic beats, and vocals that are made for loud and fast rock and roll. Fronted by Sam Quartin, whose vocal charisma channels some of the preposterous intensity of the Alan Vega/Cave/Cramps lineage, the band’s second album is an explosion of intensity of high-concept, low-budget rock’n’roll. The band show they’ve got the chops and the weirdness to refresh vintage rock, punk, and blues without the commercialism that has plagued other prominent garage bands of their generation
The album ends with a cover of Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation”. This version is pretty true to the original. Both versions feature loud guitars that may or may not have been tuned precisely. The biggest difference is the howled vocals by Sam Quartin. How many bands have you heard lately that can get away with desecrating “I’m a Man” and sound credible? It’s all in Quartin’s leering vocal and Casa’s muscular guitar.
Fear not, loyal reader. Rock isn’t dead. It is alive and well in the capable hands of The Bobby Lees. In fact, the next time you hear that rock is dead, you should present this album as evidence to the contrary. Every one of the 13 songs on this album is an absolute pounder. Even if you’ve never seen the band live, you get the idea that their live shows must be amazing considering the energy they put into recording.
There’s the certainty of Punk, the immediacy of Garage, the anger of those who don’t care here, ‘Move‘ is a one and a half minute snarl, but even when they show some musical chops, as on the percussive ‘Coin‘, there’s the itchiness of a freshly grown scab. – STEVE SWIFT’S ROCK REMEDY
Storming to the scene with a howling sense of rebellion and nonconformity. – ALTERNATIVE PRESS
The Bobby Lees are the giant green cyclops of rock ‘n’ roll. – BTRtoday
our new record “Skin Suit” being released on 5/8/20 by Alive Natural Sound Records.
A newly remastered deluxe edition of Lou Reed’s “New York” will include 26 previously unreleased recordings. The 1989 album will be given its first remastering in a massive deluxe edition by Rhino Records, out September 25th.
Originally released in 1989, New York marked the 15th album of Reed’s solo career. Hailed by critics and fans alike, the LP would go down as one of the rocker’s strongest efforts, earning Reed his first Grammy nomination. Notable tracks from the LP include “Busload of Faith” and the modern rock chart-topper “Dirty Blvd.”
The new expanded reissue of New York will include a remastered version of the original album on CD and vinyl, along with 26 previously unreleased studio and live recordings culled from Reed’s archives. These include demo versions and alternate mixes of many of New York’s songs. Bonus material includes live renditions of the Velvet Underground classic “Sweet Jane” and “Walk on the Wild Side,” Reed’s hit single from 1972’s Transformer. The first CD makes up the remastered album, the second CD consists of live versions and the final disc contains unreleased early versions of the album’s tracks.
A concert film, The New York Album, will also be included in the set. The recording, which captures Reed performing the entire LP live in Montreal at the Theatre St. Denis, was previously released in 1990 on VHS and laserdisc. The long out-of-print video makes its DVD debut here; it’s also being made available on streaming services.
A hardcover book accompanies the New York: Deluxe Edition set. It features new liner notes written by David Fricke, along with essays from archivist Don Fleming. Reed’s widow, Laurie Anderson, and recently deceased music producer Hal Willner also contributed to the book’s publication.
The New York: Deluxe Edition comes out September. 25th. It’s available for pre-order now.
We have been fans of Wye Oak since the very beginning, admiring the group as the duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack gears up to release their latest collection of music—the “No Horizon” EP, out this Friday on Merge Records—we’re showcasing the band’s latest single, “Spitting Image.”
The tune is a lovely and thrilling piece, slowly building from incidental sounds to a billowing swirl of harmonies, the aural equivalent of a sunrise. Wye Oak created the song, along with the rest of the new EP, as part of a collaboration with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and the choir’s soaring voices lend an almost operatic bombast to the fluttering rhythms and Peter Gabriel-like instrumentation. The cascading sense of awe it generates is very much of a piece with the song’s message. “‘Spitting Image’ is about trying to manage the sheer volume of information we are expected to absorb to exist,” Wasner tells us. “As naturally curious creatures, the idea of seeing everything at once initially sounds intriguing, but of course we quickly reach the limits of what we can consume, and are forced to contend with how little we can actually control. This song was an attempt to emulate the feeling of emotional and psychological overload as the waves of excess exceed the limit of our capacity to absorb them.”
The band has shared No Horizon’s invocation “AEIOU” along with its lyric video featuring artwork by Eva Claycomb and animated by Bradley Hale. Watch it today, and pre-order the No Horizon 12-inch EP on pink vinyl housed in a printed clear plastic sleeve in the Merge store, or wherever records are sold. Rough Trade UK also has an exclusive signed edition on purple vinyl.
The song “AEIOU” is about the inadequacy of language. It was written around the time that those currently in power took it upon themselves to think that they could minimize the existence of certain people by removing the words that we currently use to define them—like transgender—from use. Language is bigger than the powers that try to control it, but we are so much bigger than language. We are so much more than anything that can be suggested with words.
No Horizon, the forthcoming EP featuring five new songs WYE OAK recorded with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, is available everywhere July 31st.
From No Horizon, out July 31st, 2020, on Merge Records.
Los Angeles, CA (July 23, 2020) — In between E Street Band and Crazy Horse work, master rock singer songwriter-guitarist Nils Lofgren fit in his first tour with a full band in over 15 years. Inspired by the writing with the great Lou Reed on his last studio album, Nils knew it was time. Audience and band alike sharing their souls, gifts, spirit and energy on the tour made for a fresh, new live sound for Nils. The result is in an earthy, rockin’ album that breathes life into a world temporarily void of the excitement, energy, tenderness, and spontaneity of live music during COVID-19.
The 16-track collection, entitled “Weathered”, and issued on Lofgren’s own Cattle Track Road Records in double-CD configuration, was produced by the musician and his wife Amy, and is due out on August 21, 2020.
It was recorded on the road during select intimate tour dates in the U.S. supporting his recent Blue With Lou studio album. “My dear friends who made that album all agreed to come. Andy Newmark, Kevin McCormick, Cindy Mizelle, and my brother Tom Lofgren joining us to form an amazing band,” notes Nils. “In preparation for the tour my wonderful wife Amy hosted us all in our home and garage studio to put the show together. Amy designed our merchandise, cooked beautiful food for us and created a safe, welcoming musical environment for all. We created the show’s foundation to work from and headed out to share this fresh, new band.”
Improvisation has always been a key element in live performances for Nils, a veteran member of some of the greatest rock bands in history, as well as an accomplished and successful solo artist. “All the band members are old friends used to being encouraged to stretch out and improvise with me,” he explains. That freedom shows throughout Weathered. “Our crew did a fabulous job getting everything right for us to do our best every night.” He continues, “Regularly hearing inspired, improvisational surprises from your fellow bandmates elevated our interaction and made for one of a kind, unique shows every night. We all thrive in a live setting and at every show, the audience kicked the music up to a special level we only reach with their contagious, inspired energy.” That comes across brilliantly on this celebratory live album.
The album contains live renditions of two of the Lou Reed/Nils Lofgren penned songs, “Don’t Let Your Guard Down” and “Give,” along with Nils’ rocking protest song “Rock or Not” and the tenderly wistful “Too Blue to Play,” all from the Blue With Lou album. Cindy Mizelle’s heartfelt vocals complement throughout the double album, but on “Big Tears Fall” they take the lead and on the duet “Tender Love” they are especially powerful.
In addition to her soulful harmonies, you’ll also hear Cindy’s improvisational “scatting” throughout, becoming another instrument inside this stellar band. The dark, minor blues “Too Many Miles” is a wonderful example of this.
Nils pushes his electric soloing to new heights throughout. In “Give,” a co-write and timely lyric with the great Lou Reed, you’ll hear him at his improvisational best, launching into a “backwards” guitar segment, mid solo.
There’s a fabulous 14-minute-plus version of the haunting “Girl in Motion,” set up by a wonderful studio story of Ringo Starr watching the original recording go down and offering amazing advice.
It’s very rare for Nils to get the entire band that made a studio record out on the road with him. It pays off dramatically here. Andy Newmark on drums (John Lennon, Sly Stone, David Bowie, Eric Clapton…) Kevin McCormick on bass, vocals (Crosby, Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, Melissa Ethridge, Keb’ Mo’…) Cindy Mizelle on vocals (Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Steely Dan, Bruce Springsteen…) and Tom Lofgren on guitars, keyboards, vocals, who’s been playing with Nils since his early band Grin, combine to create a fresh, inspired take on these classic Nils songs.
Weathered includes “Like Rain” from Grin and seven other standards from his solo work. Nils’ brothers Mike and Mark Lofgren join the band on the Hank Williams classic “Mind Your Own Business.” The art of improvisation resurfaces during the “Jam / Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” which builds to a crescendo before his classic “I Came To Dance.”
“We kept the shows reckless and fun with a lot of jamming and interaction. Tour bussing from town to town all over America, we all brought our collective experience and love for performing to every show,” Nils reflects. “Turning up to ‘eleven’ and wailing inside this amazing band was a joy and revelation to me, having been away from playing with my own electric band for so long. Proud to share this rough and ready collection that breathes new life and inspiration into the best of my songs.
“After 51 years on the road, I’m so grateful to have been inspired by this band and our audiences as never before!”
Veteran folk singer/songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter strapped on her boots for a new album called “The Dirt And The Stars” (out August. 7th), and so far the singles have been promising. That includes “American Stooge,” a classic Americana rocker about a jaded all-American guy who can’t quite find the right avenues for his cynicism. Or, as Carpenter puts it, “‘American Stooge’ is a song dedicated to those experts in sycophancy who roam the halls of Congress and government, attaching themselves to any powerful interest that suits their need to be relevant and feeds their appetite for power.”
Produced by Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon) and recorded entirely live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, in southwest England, the album finds the 5-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer-songwriter pondering life’s intimate, personal moments and exploring its most universally challenging questions at an unprecedented time. Written at her rural Virginia farmhouse before stay-at-home orders became the “new normal,” the songs celebrate invaluable experiences and irreplaceable wisdom, while also advocating exploration of the best in all of us.
“The Dirt And The Stars,” the newest album from Mary Chapin Carpenter, will be available everywhere August 7th
