Cloud Nothings have announced a new album, “Life Without Sound”, not due out until January 27th. It will follow-up 2014’s Here and Nowhere Else. (Since that very good 2014 effort, Cloud Nothing’s main creative force, Dylan Baldi, worked with Wavves’ Nathan Williams on the good-not-great No Life for Me.) The new album’s announcement comes with “Modern Act”, the first single from Life Without Sound.
Check out the album’s 9-song tracklist and the band’s new tour dates.
Columbus, Ohio songstress Maryn Jones had a prolific 2015. She once more lent her Teflon harmonies and multi-instrumentation to an ornate Saintseneca album, as well as stripped herself down to an emotional and musical minimum on her haunting solo effort The Offer, released under Jones’ Yowler moniker.
All Dogs exists somewhere in between. More direct than Saintseneca’s folk communalism and built on a scrappy four-member rock scaffolding, last August’s Kicking Every Day remains inimitably addictive. A cathartic jet stream of emotion engulfed in ‘90s DIY distortion, All Dogs carries the baton of early Liz Phair and Belly with less sheen and more spit. This show should be worth checking out alone to hear Jones’ voice ascend to oxygen-deprived heights on standout track “How Long.”
All Dogs perform “How Long” on Audiotree Live, November 17th, 2015.
“Bad Ideas” by Saintseneca from the album ‘Such Things’, available now
The band originated during Zac Little’s teenage years in a small Appalachian town in Noble County, Ohio. Little then relocated to the city of Columbus, Ohio with original members Steva Jacobs and Luke Smith to attend Ohio State University. Throughout his college years in Columbus, Little accumulated and learned a number of instruments: banjo, mandolin, dulcimer and more, and upon meeting violinist Grace Chang, Saintseneca’s initial live line-up coalesced in the fall of 2008. This line-up toured regionally around the East Coast and released the four-track Saintseneca EP on September 1st, 2009. This was followed with the release of the five track Grey Flag EP on March 30, 2010.
This line-up continued to tour the Midwest and East Coast throughout 2010 and early 2011 while work began on their first full-length album, Last which was released by Mama Bird Recording Co. in August 2011. The initial line-up amicably dissolved on August 31, 2011 after the album release show for Last in Columbus.
Since releasing their debut album, the band has brought Steve Ciolek (The Sidekicks), Maryn Jones (All Dogs), Jon Meador, and Matt O’Conke (also of Tin Armor) into the band. The band signed to ANTI- records in the spring of 2013. On October 9th, 2015 the band released their third album, Such Things.
Finally back in print! Second classic live performance from Lou Reed (first being American Poet), this one totally unreleased and not bootlegged before combining key classic tracks from his previous solo albums ‘Transformer’ , ‘Berlin’, ‘Sally Can’t Dance’ and ‘Coney Island baby’. Presented in full colour glossy deluxe gatefold sleeve with shots of Lou Reed from the tour and liner notes by Nina Antonia.
Finally back in print! Second classic live performance from Lou Reed on Easy Action (the first being American Poet (EARS012)), this one is totally unreleased and not bootlegged before, combining key classic tracks from his previous solo albums Transformer, Berlin, Sally Can’t Dance and Coney Island Baby. This is an FM Radio broadcast from Lou Reed’s 1976 Rock N Roll Heart Tour fully restored and remastered in 2006, presented in full colour glossy deluxe gatefold sleeve with shots of Lou Reed from the tour and liner notes by Nina Antonia. Rock and Roll Heart was the seventh album by Lou Reed, released in 1976. It was his first album for Arista Records after record mogul Clive Davis reportedly rescued him from bankruptcy. ‘A Sheltered Life’ (included in this set) dates back to 1967, when the Velvet Underground recorded a demo of it (available on Peel Slowly and See). Lou’s band Michael Fonfara – keyboards, Bruce Yaw – bass, Marty Fogel – sax, Michael Suchorsky drums. Recorded at the Civic Theatre, Akron, Ohio, October 23rd, 1976
Lou is on fine vocal form and is actually SINGING, instead of his usual trick of just reciting his lyrics, my fave track has to be the run through “The Kids”, this version is at times very nasty and visceral and splenetic in its rage, but also tender. This would have been a great show to have witnessed in America’s home of Rubber and Tyres. Plus, the back cover also states this was licensened from Lou’s own Sister Ray Enterprises Production Company. So all in all it is a fine snapshot of a night where Lou was focussed and on fire and burning with real passion.
Lou Reed’s momentary departure into pop with the mould-breaking New Sensations is naturally made with bold intentions and with dark wit intact, but ironic? no, simply pop in the hands of a master craftsman. As well as marking Lou Reed’s fourteenth solo studio album, New Sensations was also a statement of intent whilst similarly bearing the trademark parallels of transgressive wit and intelligence that accompany his historic path to solo artist. The album was a potent mix of anxious pop that found little room for the distorted, exotic mongo that guitarist Robert Quine honed in previous works with Reed. Accompanied by Fernando Saunders on bass, Peter Wood on keyboards and the return of drummer Fred Maher, Reed’s perverse new structure in steroid sound was taken on the road including a midday show at the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio Klondike proudly celebrates the posthumous performing career of the late Lou Reed with the entire WMMS-FM broadcast from his Coffee-Break performance at the Agora Ballroom on 3rd October 1984.
One of the better “bootleg” releases that we’ve seen Lou Reed shuffled off from this mortal. with a great band and Lou is pretty upbeat. The liner notes suck the writer doesn’t even know his topic. A lot of tracks from New Sensation album era.
Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio
10/03/1984
01 00:00 (DJ Intro) 0:42
02 00:42 Sweet Jane 4:08
03 04:50 Waiting for the Man 3:41
04 08.32 Martial Law 5:04
05 13:36 Legendary Hearts 3:42
06 17:18 Turn out the Lights 4:25
07 21:43 (Interview) 1:25
08 23:09 Sally can’t Dance 5:06
09 28:15 Walk on the Wild Side 5:18
10 33:33 Satellite of Love 6:25
11 39:59 (interview / Band Introduction) 1:23
12 41:22 My Red Joystick 5:10
13 46:33 New Sensations 7:11
14 53:44 Turn to Me 4:44
15 58:28 I Love You Suzanne / (DJ outro) 3:38
Lou Reed Band
Robert Quine (guitar)
Fernando Saunders (bass)
Peter Wood (keyboards)
Lenny Ferarri (drums)
Maryn Jones leads All Dogs, a band that channels some of her ferocious musings into catchy, honest punk songs. But when all of that snarling frustration has been unburdened, what’s left over and where does it go? Yowler is Jones’ solo project, and her debut release The Offer is a beautiful and hushed, almost intimidatingly personal collection of songs that feel like they’ve trickled down from a wellspring of emotion to make a home in the heart of anyone who bothers to listen, Yowler, a solo project by Maryn Jones.
Sometimes when I listen to The Offer, I feel like I’m wandering through a landscape dotted with bare trees. Sometimes I feel like I’m returning to a river in the middle of nowhere to release a memory into the dark. I always feel like I’m creeping along the edge of a mystery.
As Yowler, Maryn Jones explores minimalism and symbolism, a stark contrast to the music she’s made with All Dogs. When I listen to All Dogs, I blast it and scream along to every song while zooming down the highway or dancing around my bedroom. When I listen to Yowler, I need stillness. Maryn opens with an image of water and she invokes various forms of water again and again throughout the tape. On “Holidays” she sings, “Someday the river will find me; solid walls of water / And I’ll gestate in white under layers of ice.” She paints water as a simultaneously destructive and creative force that sweeps you through hell and brings you back brand new. I wonder if that’s the heart of The Offer––introspection and personal mythology.
Listen to the album over and over, think about the essence of water as an element, how it’s about emotion and intuition. And how it can be scary to delve into the world of your feelings. On “The Offer,” Maryn sings, “So the offer I make / Is a promise to stay here / May they leave me out of their wandering / And be still.” I almost feel like I’m eavesdropping on this radical idea of retreat, which Maryn reinforces on the mantra of her eponymous track, “You can lead me to the water but you cannot make me drink.” Settling into solitude, allowing memories and people to pass like shadows, tuning into your own voice and recognizing its importance––perhaps Maryn is musing on self-care as a ritual, even a spiritual practice. I feel like I could read the lyrics of all eight songs on The Offer like I’d read poems in school and pick apart the images, but I prefer settling into the aura. I like the reflection. There’s something wonderful about creating a personal mythology from your experiences and sharing it with others and seeing how it resonates. I’ll be pondering the world of The Offer for a while. It’s beautiful album.
Sports are less of a “band to watch” and more of a “band to love and let go of.” Formed in Gambier, Ohio at the village’s small liberal arts school, Kenyon College, Sports self-released a short and promising LP, titled “Sunchokes”, and made it available on Bandcamp in 2014. From there, they played shows with heroes of the local and not-so-local underground, toured, and sold out of their first run of cassettes. All but one member of Sports graduated from Kenyon this past spring, and the band has since scattered across the United States with future plans obstructing their ability to continue playing together. Drummer Benji Dossetter will attend medical school in the fall, bassist James Karlin is moving to Arizona to teach Latin in a secondary school, and guitarists/vocalists Carmen Perry and Catherine Dwyer have plans to move to Philly together. Jack Washburn, who also sings and plays guitar, has another year left in Gambier, finishing his Kenyon degree. Sports won’t be able to tour their forthcoming full-length release. Sunchokes made its way out of Ohio and across the country by word-of-mouth. This new album will undoubtedly follow the same path.
Sports recorded All Of Something with Kyle Gilbride, who has engineered some of the most noteworthy DIY punk records in recent years and also fronts Swearin’ alongside Allison Crutchfield. Waxahatchee, All Dogs, and Girlpool are just a few of the bands that he’s worked with, and “All Of Something” harbors the same live, spontaneous sound that makes all of those other acts so appealing. After recording Sunchokes at WKCO, Kenyon College’s radio station, Sports decided that they wanted to record its follow-up in a semi-professional environment. Father/Daughter Records will release the album this coming autumn, adding Sports to a roster of like-minded though sonically dissimilar bands that include fellow Bands To Watch PWR BTTM and Diet Cig.
All of the members of Sports have side projects; Perry is also known as Addie Pray, Dwyer as Spring Onion, Dossetter as Count Lenny, and Washburn as Cry About It. Dwyer and Washburn also play together under the name Ice Cream Social. All Of Something is a starting point for a group of musicians who undoubtedly have even bigger projects to come, and this will be the record that made them.
This is the year of Maryn Jones, or at least a higher profile. The Columbus,Ohio musician shared a gorgeously haunting solo album as “Yowler”, her emotionally charged rock band All Dogs are about to release their magnificent debut LP, and the world is just learning of a new record this fall from Saint Seneca. The DIY folk ensemble has always been Zac Little’s baby, but on the pleasantly rumbling “Sleeper Hold,” he wisely puts Jones’ sweet songbird chirps on equal footing with his quavering Appalachian howls. Jones’ songwriting tends to communicate deep feelings in powerful turns of phrase, but Little is more concerned with abstract questions like “What is a dream made of? What is the thingy-ness of thought? Where does the substance of perception converge with the perceived?” “Sleeper Hold” peels open those ideas and finds beauty inside
This Cleveland-based group are gearing up to release a new album called “Mont Royal”, to be unveiled on August 28th. A couple weeks back they unveiled a first taste in the form of “I Want To Feel Alive,“ and today we’re stoked to premiere the latest offering: “In Motion.” The song is boisterous and upbeat, with a strong folk-rock tempo that will no doubt serve the band well during live performances. It certainly piques my curiosity: this album promises some great variation, and will definitely be worth a listen.
Lighthouse and the Whaler hail from Cleveland, Ohio, a city infused with entrepreneurial spirit. It’s the birthplace of Superman, the members of the band — Michael LoPresti, Matthew LoPresti, Mark Porostosky Jr., and Ryan Walker — have embraced their hometown’s DIY spirit and taken it to heart. Since self-releasing their first two albums (2009’s The Lighthouse and the Whaler, 2012’s This Is An Adventure), the band has made a name for itself internationally, moving from coffee shop tours to renowned venues. In the process, The Lighthouse and the Whaler has grown from a folk-leaning group into a fully-realized band that blurs genres and continues to reinvent. The results of this tireless pavement-pounding and soul-searching speak for themselves: millions of streams for the then-unsigned band’s songs “Pioneers” and “Venice,” and tours with artists like Ra Ra Riot, Matt Pond PA, and Jukebox The Ghost.
Heydays is the sophomore album from Ohio’s Total Babes, and their first record for Wichita Recordings. It will be released on the 18th May (19th in North America).
It has been nearly four years since we heard about Total Babes, who were formed in Medina, Ohio, by Jayson Gerycz of Cloud Nothings and his friend Christopher Brown as an outlet for pop songs that could not be played in their noise-rock band Swindlella.
Now their sophomore album, “Heydays”, is set for release on May 18th through Wichita Recordings worldwide.
Blurred Time is the most appetising first track from it.
Dedicated to all jangly indie/guitar/jangle-pop
Show a little faith there's magic in the night
Horror, Science Fiction, Comic Books and More
IN MEMORY EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO MUSIC - Tennessee Williams
A Celebration of Thrillers, Noire and Black Comedy by Pamela Lowe Saldana
Join me as I listen to every single #1 single!
Two Guys In Search of Great Music
Hoping to make the world more beautiful
hear ye, hear ye!
Celebrating music craftsmanship
Favorite song lists, reviews, featured indie artists, and music commentary.
A Blog About Music, Vinyl, More Music and (Sometimes) Music...
Eclectic reviews of ambient, psychedelic, post-rock, folk and progressive rock ... etc.!
A transparent attempt to promote a writing career
Quality articles about the golden age of music
Slow molasses drip under a tipped-up crescent moon.
Click Header to Return Home
to Rock, Country, Blues & Jazz
A Glasgow view of Americana and related music and writings.
Rewind the Review
A stroll down memory lane through my music collection
the best music of yesterday today and the tomorrow, every era every genre
The Fat Angel Sings 