Starcrawler!! Need we say anymore?? , Got a feelin these LA punks are going to feel right at home in the Pit!
Starcrawler are a Los Angeles rock band who formed two years ago when lead vocalist Arrow de Wilde first met drummer Austin Smith. Shortly thereafter, she found guitarist Henri Cash at her Echo Park high school and LA native Tim Franco (bass). They play with squalling riffs and thundering beats, and their incendiary performances, fronted by de Wilde’s otherworldly magnetism, recalls nothing as much as a youthful amalgam of the Cramps, the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, and Alice Cooper.
They released their debut single “Ants” in 2017 and London DJ Matt Wilkinson quickly discovered the track and played it on his Beats One show, after which the track made its way to Zane Lowe and Sir Elton John, both of which spun the track repeatedly. The band made several trips to the UK and Europe over the remainder of the year and opened for bands such as the Foo Fighters and Black Lips in the USA. Starcrawler released their debut album on January 19th, 2018 recorded with Ryan Adams in his Pax AM studio in Hollywood. It features their present single “I Love LA” and is out everywhere on Rough Trade / Beggars.
Spend 13 minutes with Starcrawler and you will NEVER BE THE SAME.
The young punks of Starcrawler have been lighting up L.A. with their famously fun and ferocious live shows, and now they’re catching ears across the country with their self-titled debut album, produced by Ryan Adams.
Songs performed Love’s Gone Again, I Love LA ,Used to Know, Ants
With head-banging, strobe lights, and electric guitar solos, First Aid Kit brought a new energy to the Palace Theatre in January. Sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg just released their fourth album, ‘Ruins.’ The album features songs that fit the texture we’ve come to expect from First Aid Kit folksy sounds with beautiful harmonies as well as expanding the group’s palette to include a harder-rocking sound.
Live, they channeled that energy with songs like “You Are the Problem Here,” which expresses the sisters’ frustration with the discussion surrounding sexual assault. “I think I can speak for every woman when I say that we’re really really f—ing tired of being afraid,” Klara said after the song ended, inspiring loud cheers.
The stage setup was simple; a white sheet behind the duo acted as a projector screen. Videos of country roads, mountains, hearts, and more were projected behind the group. The sisters were both dressed in red, with Johanna wearing a red shirt and Klara wearing a red dress. The other members of their band wore black cowboy-style shirts.
In addition to their edgier new material, First Aid Kit also delivered the warm, acoustic sound they’ve become known for with songs like “Postcard,” which Johanna said is the “most country-sounding song we’ve ever written.”
Although listed as a Record Store Day special release in the UK, Neil Young‘s Roxy: Tonight’s The Night Live is freely available to order in the USA on double vinyl, and it’s very cheap, too. The Tonight’s The Night album was recorded in mid-1973 with the ‘Santa Monica Flyers’ who were NilsLofgren (piano), Ben Keith (pedal steel guitar), Billy Talbot (bass) and Ralph Molina (drums). The album wasn’t released until 1975 but not long after it was recorded Neil and his band head decided to play it live. Here’s what Neil has to say about it:
“We had finished recording and decided to celebrate with a gig at a new club opening on the Sunset Strip, Roxy. We went there and recorded for a few nights, opening Roxy We really knew the Tonight’s the Night songs after playing them for a month, so we just played them again, the album, top to bottom, without the added songs, two sets a night for a few days. We had a great time.”
The ‘added songs’ Young refers to are Borrowed Tune, Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown and Lookout Joe which were added to the studio the album, but not part of those original sessions (or the live performance). Walk On would end up on 1974’s On The Beach.
None of these live recordings have been released before and with Neil Young vinyl notoriously expensive, this double album is a bargain at $26 on Amazon US – that’s about £19.
Roxy: Tonight’s The Night Live is released in the US on 24th April and will also be for sale in the UK on Record Store Day on 21st April.
King Dude & Chelsea Wolfe reunite to create another seven inch song of collaborative songs entitled “Sing More Songs Together…”. These two are perfect for each other, especially when Chelsea was still doing folk music. As someone stated, its like a gothic Hazlewood/Sinatra! or Nick Cave /PJ Harvey fantasy album” the resulting music is catchy, brooding, soothing, and stirring. “Bed on Fire” is to DIE for, too.
Due out March 25th 2014 on Not Just Religious Music.
Recorded by King Dude at the Actual Pain M-M.F. Warehouse in Seattle Washington in July/August 2013. All instruments performed by Chelsea Wolfe, King Dude and Ben Chisholm.
Side A: Be Free
Side B: Bed on Fire
NJRM-002 – King Dude & Chelsea Wolfe – Sing More Songs Together... – 7″ vinyl
Limited to 1000 copies:
500 black vinyl
300 white vinyl
200 blended white and black vinyl
There’s a whole lot to love about Wilco’s “The Whole Love”. It’s a career-spanning set of songs that appeared in the fall of 2011. Start with “Art of Almost” (you shouldbe starting with this song, unless you have the album on shuffle.) The opening cut is the group’s most ambitious, confrontational piece since the Jim O’Rourke days. Plus, there’s the infectious “I Might,” the lovely, shuffling title track—all great. If The Whole Love has a weakness, it’s that the album spends so much time exploring the stylistic terrain of Wilco’s career to date that it never quite establishes an identity of its own. Plus, at 55 minutes and some change, Whole Love sags in its latter half. But man, “Art of Almost.” What a song
Has Wilco ever sequenced as perfect a coupling as “Art of Almost,” the band’s theme song, and the driving organ-pop number “I Might”? Those are 11 minutes to get lost in the music. The album ends with the 12-minute anti-epic “One Sunday Morning,” containing some of JeffTweedy’s best lyrics. You have to find your own meaning, but “One Sunday” seems inspired by a troubled father-son relationship, with Tweedy’s somber delivery over lovely piano accompaniment eventually leading to an understated jam that follows the tone of the proceedings. The album’s a little soft in the middle, but it includes a song that predicted Diamond Rugs (“Standing O”) and one (“Black Moon”) that cuts through Townes Van Zandt’s backyard on the way to the symphony.
Sunflower Bean is a New York rock band featuring Nick Kivlen (lead guitar and vocals), Jacob Faber (drums), and Julia Cumming (bass and lead vocals). Their new album Twentytwo In Blue comes out later this month on Mom + Pop Records.
Sunflower Bean put the “party” in day party. Watch the New York three-piece rock out during our SXSW event.
Proud inheritors of the inimitable New York rock tradition, Sunflower Bean deliver resonant anthems with chiming guitars that will take you back to…well, name your favorite year. It might just be 2018.
Songs Performed: 0:50I Was a Fool4:35Crisis Fest13:35Twenty Two18:40Easier Said
Band Members
Jacob Faber (drums)
Julia Cumming (vox/bass)
Nick Kivlen (vox/guitar)
Wye Oak reimagined their expansive sound for an intimate, mellow sound at the PledgeHouse day stage during SXSW. Austin! So excited to come through playing all-new material for the first time ever in our new power trio configuration holy shit!
Baltimore duo Wye Oak retooled their songs to soften the wall of sound to fit within Blackheart stage. Their expansive sound has been heard in TV shows including ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘The Walking Dead,‘ so expect a distinctly cinematic sensibility at the PledgeHouse stage.
Songs performed: The Instrument ,Shriek The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs, I Know it’s Real.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Exile in Guyville, the landmark debut album from Liz Phair. In commemoration, she and Matador Records will soon release a limited edition box set containing the record as well as music from Phair’s pre-Exile days.
Due out May 4th, the Girly-Sound to Guyville: The 25th Anniversary Box Set comes with a fully remastered version of the 1993 debut, overseen by Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Emily Lazar at The Lodge. It also boasts the first official restored audio of Phair’s three Girly-Sound demo cassettes: Yo Yo Buddy Yup Yup Word To Ya Mutha, Girls! Girls! Girls!, and Sooty. These date back to 1991, during the pre-Exile era when Phair recorded under the moniker Girly-Sound.
Also included in the bundle is a lavish book featuring an oral history by Jason Cohen and essays penned by journalist Ann Powers and Phair herself. The box set will be available as a 3-CD set or 7-LP set (with added goodies like never-before-seen photos and artwork), and will also be offered in digital formats and on streaming platforms.
For fans just looking for the debut, Exile in Guyville will be reissued on its own on the same day on CD and double LP; it hasn’t been widely available on LP in years. As a teaser for the box set, the veteran singer-songwriter has shared an early alternate version of “Divorce Song”, which appears on Girly-Sounds tape Yo Yo Buddy.
Philadelphia’s Hop Along will release their third studio album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” on April 6th! Available on black vinyl, and a tri-color striped vinyl that is limited to 750 copies and sold exclusively on the Saddle Creek Store. The formidable 9-song collection is the band’s strongest and most cohesive album to date. Crafted by Frances Quinlan (songwriter, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist), Tyler Long (bass), Joe Reinhart (guitar), and Mark Quinlan (drums), the album considers what it’s like to cast off longheld and misguided perceptions, yet without the assurance of knowing what new ones will replace them. Quinlan has been meditating a lot on power.
In this particular moment in history, this thought begs a greater question: what do we do with power and the men who so freely brandish it? “So strange to be shaped by such strange men” is a line that repeats on more than one song on the album. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That I just deferred to men throughout my life,” Quinlan says. “But by thinking you’re powerless, you’re really robbing yourself. I’m at a point in my life where I’m saying instead, ‘Well, what can I do?’
On album opener, “How Simple,”Quinlan wrangles with what it’s like to learn about yourself—which can get ugly. Quinlan explains, “People romanticize the idea of finding themselves, but when they do, at least in my experience, it can be really difficult. You see how you fail others and how others fail you.” Offering fans a classic dose of Hop Along’s searing songwriting and unabashed honesty.
Self-produced and recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia by Reinhart and Kyle Pulley,Bark Your Head Off, Dog features the familiar sounds that have always made the band allergic to genre: grunge, folk, punk, and power pop all appear, with inspiration from ELO to Elvis Costello to ‘70s girl group vocal arrangements.
This time around, they’ve added strings, more intricate rhythms, lush harmonies (featuring Thin Lips’ Chrissy Tashjian), along with a momentary visit with a vocoder. In more than one place, Mark Quinlan drums like he’s at a disco with Built to Spill. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is, without question, Hop Along’s most dynamic and textured record yet.
Throughout the album, one gets the sense that Quinlan is wandering in the thicket of a forest—a state of being that will feel familiar to longtime listeners—and on this outing, she hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. The album’s artwork, which Quinlan painted herself, invites the listener into that forest, as well. The record calls upon references that Quinlan has woven throughout all of the band’s albums: the wild presence of animals (rabbits, foxes, dogs, and blue jays all appear on this record) and historical touchstones (from a podcast on World War I to books by Karl Ove Knausgaard). Hop Along’s songs continue to reveal the curiosities nesting in Quinlan’s mind.
“If Philadelphia is the capital of indie rock, then Hop Along sits at the table with its top leaders. […] Quinlan’s gripping vocals, an earworm of a chorus, and an unexpectedly dreamy violin outro. “How Simple” may leave you feeling a touch of whiplash, but the ride is undeniably fun.”
– Pitchfork,
Best New Track“ …with some extra touches like layered vocal tracks and a touching string outro, [“How Simple”] is a song that hits all the emotions that Quinlan can reach in one breath.”
– Esquire
“How Simple” is easily one of Hop Along’s poppiest moments, and as the two parties at the center of the song try to make sense of their confused situation, the answer comes in a glorious gang vocal you can’t help but sing along to: “Don’t worry, we will both find out, just not together.”
– NPR
New album “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” out April 6th!
