These songs comes courtesy of Welles, a Nashville-based band fronted by Jehsea Wells, who had his origins in Ozark, Arkansas. They has a distinctly psychedelic influence to their music-making (at least based on this song),
Wells grew up in Arkansas and, until recently, lived in an art commune in the gorgeous mountain lands around Fayetteville. In his gently drifting power ballad “Seventeen” – which may be a bit of a tribute to Big Star’s great song about the same kind of angst, “Thirteen” Wells tells his messed-up love he’d like to bring them to “Ar-Kansas, where there’s beer and molasses” and a certain immunity to time and those titular “red trees and white trashes” dot the psychedelic landscape. Unlike other artists who’ve found inspiration in the region’s woodsy cover and nighttime heat, and are keeping feedback-fed rock alive by not worrying about anybody else’s idea of what’s cool.
At only 23, Wells is already writing hooks that any of his heroes would envy. In Nashville he’s found bandmates who can take his vision past what he could do in Fayetteville’s coffee houses and backyards.
Keep posted for their upcoming EP called Codeine, via C3 Records.
This South X Lullaby Session with Soccer Mommy took us away from the frenetic world of the South by Southwest music festival and into the past. Venturing my favorite store in all of Austin, Texas: UncommonObjects, is a self-described “one-of-a-kind emporium of transcendent junk” or “your eccentric uncle’s attic on steroids.”
There are 24 different antique sellers under the single, Uncommon Objects roof, and for Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, it was the perfect setting for her song “Wildflowers.” It was, in fact, filled with objects related to blooming flowers.
The song from the Switzerland-born, Nashville-raised artist is, as I hear it, about finding your place in the world — to discover who you are and to blossom.
“Wildflowers don’t grow in the city
I dreamt the sidewalk broke in two
The earth was calling to me”
The song is from Soccer Mommy’s album Clean which was released earlier this month on Fat Possum Records.
There’s a lot of heart in every project Maryn Jones touches. Her lyrics – which project struggles with self-doubt and depression, and a penchant for self-reliance, graceful and introspective. And her voice is powerfully expressive, whether combined with the muscular, fuzzy guitars of All Dogs – the indie punk band she fronts — or providing delicate harmonies for Saintseneca, the folk-rock group of which she’s a member. But often with those projects, the uniquely tender, vulnerable aspects of Jones‘ singing and songwriting run the risk of being buried, or, at the very least, not getting their chance to be heard.
Jones released an album called The Offer under the name Yowler in 2015, those facets were finally given space to be a centerpiece. The songs on The Offer are sparse, relying mainly on just Jones‘ voice and guitar. They’re deeply intimate and enveloping, both emotional and physical.
Maryn’s unique voice suits these songs perfectly. Here, I can’t get enough
After leaving Crystal Castles in 2014, and subsequently revealing the reasons – “a decade of abuse, manipulation and psychological control” – by CC partner Ethan Kath (who sought to sue for defamation), Glass has used the theme in her work, such as “Cease and Desist’, which she called “a call to arms for all survivors.”
Her latest track, ‘Mine’, comes with a gothic styled video directed by Lucas David, and featuring Violet Chachki, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7.
“‘Mine’ is about someone who hurts themselves in an attempt to regain control of of their own life and experiences,” says Glass. “It’s a form of self-sacrifice and also an act of personal freedom for someone who feels completely out of control. I do not condone self-harm, but like a lot of my music ‘Mine’ is about my struggle with coming out of an intensely abusive relationship. In the ritual of hurting myself or taking something from myself I am at the very least in control of that act, when in so many other aspects of my life I felt hopeless.”
St. Paul, Minnesota indie foursome Hippo Campus have dropped their first new material since last autumn’s ‘warm glow’ EP and earlier ‘Landmark’ full-length.
Titled ‘Passenger’, the stand-alone track is out now via Transgressive Records.
“Passenger was written in the winter of 2017 after the first four months of touring on landmark,” says singer/guitarist Jake Luppen. “Lyrically the themes deal with the challenges of growing alongside the person you love. For this song in particular I tried to challenge myself to write a more complex chord progression to sing to. I started off with a TR-8 groove and the rest followed pretty naturally.”
Any time fans or critics are asked to pick the most influential and innovative guitarists in rock history, iconic names such as Eric Clapton and Queen’s Brian May invariably crop up. But if you asked those legends which guitar god they themselves respect the most, chances are they’ll cite Rory Gallagher.
Clapton once told the BBC that Gallagher should be credited with “getting me back into the blues”, while in the film What’s Going On: Taste At The Isle Of Wight, Brian May says, “I bought this little AC30 amp and Rangemaster Treble Booster, just like Rory’s set up, and plugged in my own home-made guitar with it. It gave me what I wanted, it made the guitar speak, so it was Rory that gave me my sound.”
May and Clapton are just two of numerous luminaries who have keenly expressed their admiration for the trailblazing Irish guitarist, bandleader and singer-songwriter. He died aged just 47, in 1995, but Rory Gallagher’s music continues to cast a long shadow over rock’n’roll, with fretboard wizards from successive generations.
With his entire solo catalogue about to be reissued on CD and vinyl, fans old and new have an ideal opportunity to re-evaluate Rory Gallagher’s illustrious body of work, yet the much-missed Cork man deserves respect on so many levels, for what he achieved was simply unprecedented.
The young, idealistic, blues-loving Gallagher broke that mould, with his work ethic, self-penned material and incendiary live shows building his band’s reputation from the Shandon Boat Club, in Cork, to London’s famous Marquee, and eventually brokering a deal with Polydor. This dedication led to hit albums such as On The Boards and prestigious shows with Cream at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival alongside The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Free.
That Rory Gallagher was the first credible Irish rock musician to make such things possible was acknowledged by Hot Press journalist Dermot Stokes in Marcus Connaughton’s biography, Rory Gallagher: His Life And Times.
“I think that the hugely important thing that Rory did early on in his career was to establish that an Irish band could form, play original material – could do it in Ireland first of all, then could take it to London, then Europe and around the world,” he said. “Taste first of all, then Rory, were the first bands to do that from this country. That’s the fundamental example that they set.”
Other elements of Gallagher’s DNA that set him apart from his contemporaries were his inherent professionalism, discipline and commitment to his craft: essential qualities he exuded throughout his entire career. Rarely happier than when he was on the road, Gallagher toured incessantly during the 70s and 80s, and his best work was often captured on timeless in-concert recordings such as Live In Europe and the live double-album and concert film Irish Tour ’74.
“The great instrumental soloists such as Rory, they were people whose skill I was just in awe of, and that was coupled with considerable musicianship every night,” Irish Tour ’74 director Tony Palmer told Marcus Connaughton. “I think I was the first person ever to film Jimi Hendrix and I’m often asked why. It was because I’d never heard anybody play the guitar like that before! That was why I wanted to make Irish Tour ’74, because Rory’s talent was for a long time underestimated, I felt. He was a wonderful musician and I also liked the fact there was absolutely no bulls__t about him and absolute tunnel vision – very professional, minded very much that we reflected that in the film.”
“He never got above himself,” Rory’s brother and manager Donal Gallagher said in a recent Irish Examiner article marking what would have been the guitarist’s 70th birthday, on 2nd March 2018. “He was very much the man in the street. He lived to be on stage. When he was off-stage, everything was about getting from A to B, getting to the stage or to write. That’s what he was about.”
Of course, with album sales numbering upward of 30 million copies, we should also remember Rory Gallagher’s recordings also yielded considerable commercial success. Yet, chart positions and the trappings of fame were never the driving force for this unassuming figure, whose high-octane live shows contrasted with his shy off-stage demeanour. One of rock’s master craftsmen, Gallagher really cared about his art. He was – and remains – a role model for aspiring young guitarists, and his body of work will inspire generations still to come.
The irreplaceable Irish blues-rock guitar virtuoso Rory Gallagher was a cruelly young 47 when he died after complications from a liver transplant on 14th June 1995.
Order the Rory Gallagher reissues . A limited edition box set of 300 copies, housing all 15 of the albums.
With soft gorgeous pop sensibilities that know how to turn up the overdrive. these tracks are meticulous–the textures, the way the songs build, just gorgeous. fourth track had me impulse buying, second to last track had my jaw physically dropping
You might expect something akin to goofy surf rock from an LA-based project called Illuminati Hotties. And while Sarah Tudzin can certainly play to that note, it’s far from the only one she’s well-versed in. On her debut LP Kiss Yr Frenemies, Tudzin draws from a wide ranging palette — encompassing acoustic balladry, bouncy surf rock, and simmering noise pop — from which she doodles detailed scenes and stories of young adulthood. Also in her toolbox: keen self-awareness, vulnerability, poignant wit, nuanced social observations, and a sense of optimism that recognizes the beauty that can grow out of growing pains. Tudzin is both personal and personable; her anecdotes are relatable without sufficing the intimate specificity of her experience. Lighthearted odes to past flings with lame dudes carry the same weight as heart-wrenching letters that begin with sleeping in her car on her 24th birthday. Kiss Yr Frenemies is the fruitful aftermath of emotional labor and hindsight.
Premiered by Huw Stephens on Radio 1 earlier this week, Welsh alt-rock three-piece Estrons share cutting new track, ‘Lilac’.
An explosive sub-three minutes of visceral energy, ‘Lilac’ packs a punch with Rhodri Daniel’s off-kilter guitars and Tali Källström’s commanding vocals, and lyrics that owe a debt to “an encounter I had with a teenage girl in the early hours of the morning,” reveals Källström.
“I drove past her crying in the street with her shoes in her hand and so I decided to turn the car around to check on her. I’d assumed that she was crying about something superficial and I’d also assumed that the man walking a few feet behind her was trying to take advantage. Turns out the man actually lived on that street and the girl was heartbroken because her dad had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“We often get things wrong because society leads us to create prejudices on genders; the song is myself reflecting on that. It also celebrates human empathy as the girl I helped was genuinely touched that I’d stopped to check she got home okay. I haven’t seen her since that day – but this one goes out to her, anybody who is going through a difficult time and also to all the people out there who have helped me in a crisis. Someone always cares and you can get through it.”
Muncie Girls have announced their triumphant second album, Fixed Ideals, set for release on August 31st (Buzz/North America, Specialist Subject /UK+EU, and Lost Boy/AUS). To celebrate, they’ve shared the video for lead single, “Picture of Health” .
The title, like the band’s first LP, From Caplan To Belsize, was inspired by the writings of poet Sylvia Plath, in this instance drawing from a line of Plath’s Sonnet: To Eva regarding “perfume, politics and fixed ideals.” It was produced by Muncie Girls’ longterm collaborator Lewis Johns (Funeral For A Friend, Rolo Tomassi, Gnarwolves) at The Ranch
From Caplan To Belsize, the debut album from Exeter’s Muncie Girls, was one of the better pop-punk albums of 2016, a heady fusion of razor-sharp lyrics and wonderfully subtle flourishes (not to mention endlessly sing-along-able refrains) that elevated the band’s four-chords-and-an-attitude into something special—and making our list of 2016’s best music along the way. Now they’ve followed it up with Fixed Ideals, an album that doubles down on the anthemic spirit of their earlier work while becoming more musically adventurous in both sound and style. With a lengthy recording process that found singer Lande Hekt often playing both guitar and bass during the songwriting, the group created a record that if excellent leadoff single “Picture Of Health” is any indication—will be even catchier and more inspired than the last.
“Picture of Health” is the lead single from Muncie Girls’“Fixed Ideals” LP out August 31 via Buzz Records (US/CAN) and Specialist Subject Records
