Pretty Good Stuff: Dylan historian James Adams’ hour-long, monthly, program diving deep into the depths of all things Dwarf Music. Listen to the show below, and to explore further, support our Patreon for the individual tracks and more.
Opening: DJ talk over theme: What Can I Do For You? 19980-01-15 – Seattle, WA)
01:17: Shelter From The Storm (1995-04-09 Glasgow, Scotland)
07:53: The Ballad of the Gliding Swan (1962-12-30 London, England – Madhouse on Castle Street)
08:54: The Man In Me (1978-06-01 Los Angeles, CA)
12:37: Bob Dylan – Excerpt from Interview with Jann Wenner – 2007
13:13: God Knows (2006-04-08 Sun City West, AZ)
18:44: Scarlet Town (2018-11-20 Waterbury, CT)
23:56: Come Together (1985-00-00 Unknown)
27:39: Lady Came From Baltimore (1994-04-06 Davenport, IA)
30:30: DJ talk over Born In Time (1998-11-02 Syracuse, NY)
33:20: Watching The River Flow (1987-10-05 Locarno, Switzerland)
37:12: Bob Dylan – Excerpt from NPR Interview – 2004
38:19: Tryin’ to Get to Heaven (2000-09-27 Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
43:15: Maggie’s Farm (1976-05-18 Oklahoma City, OK)
48:14: One Too Many Mornings (1989-06-07 Birmingham, England)
52:28: DJ talk over Stay With Me (2015-04-24 Atlanta, GA)
54:28: Love Sick (11-22-15 Milan, Italy)
59:25: Out
Circles Around The Sun and Billy Strings teamed up for a cover of “All The Luck In The World” by Neal Casal. The collaboration is the first single off of the forthcoming “Highway Butterfly: The Songs of Neal Casal” compilation album in tribute to the late guitarist who died last year.
Highway Butterfly will feature contributions from Phil Lesh, Warren Haynes, Steve Earle, Shooter Jennings, Jimmy Herring, Eric Krasno, and many more, with proceeds from the project to benefit the newly-launched Neal Casal Music Foundation. This non-profit organization gives instruments and music lessons to children in New Jersey and New York, as well as provides mental health services through organizations like Backline and MusiCares in memory of the musician who committed suicide on August 26th, 2019.
Taken from the forthcoming 2021 release, Highway Butterfly: The Songs Of Neal Casal. This double CD/triple album vinyl is being co-produced by Widespread Panic’s Dave Schools and 7-time Grammy-Winner Jim Scott and features almost 30 artists covering Neal’s songs.
“All The Luck In The World” comes from Casal’s 1996 album Rain Speed & Wind, his second of 12 solo records. Though he became more well-known for his instrumental guitar work, “All The Luck In The World” showcases Casal’s thoughtful lyricism and is done justice by Strings’s singing. The performance is given added reverence as Strings begins the video by discussing how he came to know Casal and his music through CATS’ Interludes for the Dead album, which played over the PA’s at the Grateful Dead‘s Fare Thee Well concerts in 2015. The song is set to an in-studio performance video featuring various Casal memorabilia, as well as Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools, who produced the album. Casal and Schools worked side by side alongside Todd Snider and others in the band Hard Working Americans.
In addition to Highway Butterfly, there will also be a book of Casal’s photography released under as Tomorrow’s Sky: Photographs by Neal Casal in November. Produced by Jay Blakesberg, Tomorrow’s Sky features a selection of the more than 25,000 photographs Casal left behind in a curated collection. The photos chronicle Casal’s time playing with Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Ryan Adams& theCardinals, Hard Working Americans, Circles Around The Sun, his own successful solo career, and many more musical endeavors. Strings counts photos that Casal took of him performing onstage among his prized possessions.
“‘Tomorrow’s Sky’ is a look at the world seen through the eyes of Neal Casal,” Blakesberg said. “Neal was a stealth photographer who always carried his camera and documented the people, places and scenes as they passed before him. The photos are intimate, beautiful and from the hip. Nothing is set up, it is real life in real time.”
Visit the Neal Casal Music Foundation’s website for more information on the forthcoming projects, or to make a donation.
The Dirty Nil is sharing a stripped-down version of the band’s new single “Done With Drugs,” an infectious track about people who want the world to know they’re kicking a bad habit.
“I see a lot of people who are trying to stop doing cocaine or stop drinking rivers of liquor, or stop eating lots of s**tty fast food,” explained frontman Luke Bentham, in a release. “On Facebook, I see these posts from people declaring, ‘I’m done with this!’ — they’ll have a six-paragraph post about how they’re changing their lives.” He sings: “They been good / they been sweet / but now it’s time to get clean / I’m done with drugs / I hope they’re done with me … Maybe I’ll try origami or jujutsu / and walk around IKEA with you / ‘cause I’m done with drugs.”
Bentham insisted he is all for self-improvement – and he is not making light of anyone’s personal struggle.
“I’m just kind of amused and fascinated by that whole aspect of social media. Like someone will post, ‘I’m done drinking coffee!’ Okay, well then just stop drinking coffee — you don’t have to try to stop the internet for the day to tell everybody that you’re done with Maxwell House! . “I find that funny, and somewhat narcissistic. But that’s just my opinion, and I’m kind of an a**”hole!”
Bentham and bandmates Ross Miller and Kyle Fishe worked on new music while quarantined together during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have released “Done With Drugs” along with a video that intersperses shots of them performing on the stage of Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Theatre with scenes of a stadium full of fans at 1985’s Live Aid.
The track is also available on 7-inch vinyl with The Dirty Nil’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Even The Losers” as the B-side. Check out Bentham’s acoustic performance of “Done With Drugs”
Released in conjunction with their new EP Two Lives, “Let You Go” has been reworked for the extended player, following its release on their acclaimed new album Everything Else Has Gone Wrong. Recorded mostly at frontman Jack Steadman’s house during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, it features beautiful arpeggiated guitar work and a synthesized brass section.
The New EP! We’ve been recording some acoustic reworks of album tracks while in lockdown. Just like when we made Flaws ten years ago, we’ve been recording in our bedrooms and capturing every chair squeak and car engine outside. The first song we are putting out is Let You Go and 3 other songs will follow every 2 weeks.
The video was made by Callum Scott-Dyson in a mere 2 weeks and it’s well worth checking out.
It’s available on all streaming platforms but most importantly it’s available on our website as a pay-what-you-want download with the proceeds going to the various organisations:
Joe Pernice strips things down to the bare minimum on this mostly acoustic collection of regret-tinged songs. While The Pernice Brothers have made many excellent lush, highly orchestrated albums over the years, you can tell that most of Joe Pernice‘s songs start with an acoustic guitar. He’s got the kind of honeyed voice — and literate songcraft that doesn’t need much embellishing to get the point across. That’s clear on his new solo album, Richard, which is pretty much just Joe and his guitar.
Maybe it’s the directness of the presentation, but Richard is an especially sad record, with little of Pernice’s dark humor to cut the pain this time. Nearly every song is tinged in regret, whether it’s “wasting away my life with you” on twisted love song “Long Black Shadow,” or album opener “Starry Clown” where “every sorrow’s easy and spurious love survives.” Even the “la-las” on “Sullivan Street,” set against delicate horns, sound like a lament.
Two back-to-back songs are especially crushing. “Spend This Mountain” finds him trying to put on a brave face against a terrible loss. “When they woke me with the news, man I wish I’d never come to,” he sings, and I have to wonder if this one’s about his close friend David Berman. The other gut-punch is Richard’s title track where Pernice wishes he’d done more to befriend a bullied LGBTQIA kid that, with its refrain of “always alone, always to be alone” and Joe’s slight British-y accent, sounds like it could’ve been an early Smiths b-side.
Joe Pernice is, as always, in baroque pop mode, melody-wise, which is tailor suited to his voice, with a few cowboy ballad touches — nylon string guitar, harmonica — that also fit the songs perfectly. “Solo” has rarely sounded so lonesome and beautiful.
Released June 19th, 2020 >
Written, performed and recorded by Joe Pernice, except You Should of Came, recorded by Liam Jaeger.
Chuck Prophet, San Francisco’s saviour-songwriter, returns with his new album “The Land That Time Forgot”. Varying from the rich heartland rock of songs like Best Shirt On, to the building drum machine of Marathon and all the way back to stripped back words and guitar of Nixonland and Get Off the Stage, Prophet’s work defies classification.
Chuck Prophet is a rock and roll star in a country that has forgotten that it needs rock and roll stars. America turns its popular musicians into celebrities (as if that’s what we need more of). Meanwhile, the true grit, write it like you live it and live it ’til it kills you musical artist exists in obscurity, kicking ass and taking names in small clubs every night while sweating blood over making records. Thankfully, we live in the same timeline as Chuck Prophet.
“The Land That Time Forgot” got off the ground in the Money Belt, only to find its legs in the Borscht Belt. Musically it has deep roots, from the Southern Delta to the discos of Munich. There’s a kind of folkish inevitability to it, lots of acoustic instruments, on top of the each other and side by side. But as much as folk music is the soil all music grows from, it never hurts to have a boiler room. So, there’s always a rhythm section shuffling under your feet here.
Written mostly with longtime co-conspirator klipschutz, this LP steps out of Chuck Prophet’s comfort zone (“two guitars, bass, and drums”). After nailing three tracks in S.F. with Grammy-winning alchemist Matt Winegar, Prophet confesses, “We hit a wall. Schedules. Money. Towed vehicles: a thousand large to get one van out of lockup.”
The Band:
Chuck Prophet – vocal, acoustic guitar, electric guitar Stephanie Finch – vocals, keyboards James DePrato – electric guitar Matt Winegar – bass, keyboard, percussion Rusty Miller – keyboards Vicente Rodriguez – drums
Soccer Mommy launches the Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series, with contributions from Jay Som, MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden, Beabadoobee and Sasami.
All net profits from Bandcamp sales of the Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series will be donated to Oxfam’s COVID-19 relief fund. Oxfam is working with partners to reach more than 14 million people in nearly 50 countries and the US to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 in vulnerable communities and support people’s basic food needs and livelihoods. Women and girls usually bear a disproportionate burden of care in a crisis like this one, and Oxfam has a proven record of helping women cope during and recover after these crises in ways that allow them to be safer and stronger than ever.
From June 11th onwards, net profits from Bandcamp sales of the Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series will be split 50/50 between Oxfam’s COVID-19 relief fund, and National Bail Out. National Bail Out is a Black-led and Black-centered collective of abolitionist organizers, lawyers and activists building a community-based movement to end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration.
Oxfam has an anonymous donor who will match every dollar raised by this series for their cause up to $5000, which will double the impact of your purchase.
soccer mommy & friends singles series vol. 3 is out now. we’ve got gentle dom (Andrew Van Wyngarden of MGMT) remixing “Circle the Drain” along with my cover of MGMT’s“indie rokkers”. pre-order the full series now to get vol. 1 with Jay Som, vol. 2 with Beabadoobee, and vol. 3 with Gentle Dom instantly and the final volume with SASAMI when it’s released on july 2nd. all Bandcamp net profits split between Oxfam and National Bail Out: found.ee/SM_SinglesSeries.
The Bandcamp net profits from the Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series were initially going entirely to Oxfam’s COVID relief fund, but moving forward will be split between Oxfam and National Bail Out to help the important fight against police brutality and systematic racism. Oxfam has an anonymous donor who will match every dollar raised for them by this series, up to $5000, which will double the impact of your purchase.
Vol. 3 – Gentle Dom (Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT) 01. Jay Som – lucy 02. Soccer Mommy – I Think You’re Alright 03. Beabadoobee – If You Want To (demo) 04. Soccer Mommy – night swimming (demo) 05. Soccer Mommy – circle the drain (Gentle Dom – Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT Remix) 06. Soccer Mommy – Indie Rokkers
Lucy And The Rats return with their second album and produce another fine record of summer-infused power-pop garage full of hooks and harmonies.
Two years have passed since their debut album, and, as the summer slowly starts to kick in, London-based four-piece Lucy And The Rats release another record to soundtrack the hazy days and warm nights.
Lucy, originally from Australian group The Spazzys, has a sugary sweet voice, crystal clear and yet, although the melodies float softy over the stripped-back punk-pop choppy chords, she possesses a strength of personality within the lyrics that belies the first impression. Her songs sing of independence, feelings of settling into a happiness within one’s own skin, but always with a bittersweet touch. At times it’s like hearing a young, and perhaps more timid, Debbie Harry and the overall combination, along with her band, comes closest to that of Nikki And The Corvettes.
Those already familiar with the band will find no surprise in songs like the single September, or in the infectious Time To Time. Simple and catchy, the songs are earworms that quickly work their way into your consciousness and are hard to shake loose. However, the songs that jump out more are those where the band leave the sweetness to one side in favour of a more urgent rhythm and drive. Pinch Myself comes close to a Ramones-style attack and, given that the band that back Lucy up also form the backbone of Johnny Throttle, and have also played in the likes of Thee Tumbitas and The Gaggers, it’s logical that, once let off the leash, the band run with greater verve and energy. It’s in those moments that they call to mind some of Lookout! Records highlights in bands like Pansy Division and The Smugglers.
That said, what also marks the album as a step up from their debut is their ability to balance that sound with altogether much gentler songs such as On Fire and TV on which their fragile delicacy shines through. It’s that equilibrium between the pop and punk that results in a record to keep going back to.
Lucy and the Rats – ‘September’ from the album ‘Got Lucky’, out July 3rd on Stardumb Records & Surfin’ Ki (LP) and Dirty Water Records
Scottish alt-rock quartet The Van T’s return with a buzzing new single, the ‘Seeing Stars’. The fuzz-laden ode to self-preservation is out today via 7 West Music. The Van T’s are the West of Scotland 4-piece comprised of Chloe Van Thompson (vocals, guitar), Hannah Van Thompson (vocals guitar), Joanne Forbes (bass) and Shaun Hood (drums).
Produced by Margo Bloom at Hermitage Studios, the reverb-driven track serves as a taster of their upcoming EP. Charmingly caustic and confident, The Van T’s manifest the pursuit of happiness into a soaring dreamscape of vocal harmonies, percussion and lyrics that speak to existential becoming.
“I wrote ‘Seeing Stars’ off the back of an ongoing battle with mental health issues,” explains Hannah Van Thompson. “After a year-long slump I started off with the lyrics ‘I want to believe in something inside me’. It started off as words on paper and grew arms and legs until eventually I had a song. I’m happy with the way the music itself resonates a sense of growth in strength. I wanted the song to be punchy and bright, it sort of reflects the way I want to progress in getting better. I hope those who have the same issues can relate to this song.”
The Van T’s Released on: 2020-06-19
Band Members
Chloe Van Thompson,
Hannah Van Thompson,
Joanne Forbes,
Shaun Hood,
The first time I heard this song, I knew immediately it would become one of my favourites of the year. For one thing, one of my other favorite musicians (Sara Watkins, of Nickel Creek, WatkinsFamily Hour and I’m With Her fame) plays fiddle on this gorgeous, gut-punch-of-a-song, and there’s no shortage of banjo, either (an instrument Bridgers has implemented lightly on songs in the past like “Demi Moore,” but never like this), and Bridgers’ boygenius counterparts Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker provide backing vocals.
This is a bluegrass-emo-banjo banger, and while some of the lyrics could sound, at first listen, like a quote pulled from an Etsy poster with mountains in the background (“She could do anything she wants to), Bridgers owns it so hard—and still manages to convey that sense of wanderlust. There’s mention of southern hallmarks like Elvis and his Memphis habitat, plus eerily descriptive details like “a sleeve of saltines on my floor in my room.” . Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t write love songs as much as songs about the impact love can have on our lives, personalities, and priorities. Punisher, her fourth release and second solo album, is concerned with that subject. To say she writes about heartbreak is to undersell her blue wisdom, to say she writes about pain erases all the strange joy her music emanates. The arrival ofPunishercements Phoebe Bridgers as one of the most clever, tender and prolific songwriters of our era.
It has what makes many great songwriter so great: overly personal, descriptive details matched with some prevailing human emotion that could apply to almost anyone. Bridgers is the real deal, and I’m thrilled she dropped her new album, “Punisher”, a day early so I have some extra time with this song.
Recorded Oct. 27th, 2019 at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles. Billed as a “secret guest,” Phoebe performed an opening set for Lucy Dacus.
Bridgers pulls together a formidable crew of guests, including the Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, Christian Lee Hutson and Conor Oberst as well as Nathaniel Walcott (of Bright Eyes), Nick Zinner (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Jenny Lee Lindberg (of Warpaint), Blake Mills and Jim Keltner as well as her longtime bandmates Marshall Vore (drums), Harrison Whitford (guitar), Emily Retsas (bass) and Nick White (keys). The album was mixed by Mike Mogis, who also mixed Stranger In The Alps.
