Firebrand rockers The Districts have enjoyed a stellar year so far. Their debut album “A Flourish And A Spoil” has been getting rave reviews and they’re filling bigger and bigger venues across the world. Their riotous live shows are notorious, and, to show this off, the band filmed themselves storming it at a hometown show in Philadelphia, a show you can watch in its entirety,
Cheerleader is Joe Haller, Chris Duran, Josh Pannepacker, Carl Bahner and Paul Impellizeri. Haller and Duran’s musical partnership was born in Duran’s parents’ basement, sparking a connection that survived the 2000s and colleges in separate states. After garnering critical attention for their self-produced and recorded three-song demo, the duo grew and began performing live. Now a five-piece based in Philadelphia, Cheerleader is a bigger, bolder version of its original incarnation. Cheerleader’s debut album is due in 2015.
Small Houses is a Philadelphia, PA-based alternative country project featuring the songs and poems of Flint, MI-native Jeremy Quentin. Artfully crafted with finger-style guitar and softly sung melodies, the bars of his new album Still Talk; Second City describe the people, the love, and the homes of Quentin’s life.
Still Talk; Second City is the result of a one yearlong effort, borne of the exhaustion from too much time spent moving. Prompted to flee to Atlanta with the intent of an indefinite stay, Quentin’s eight months of living and recording was funded by various odd jobs and sleeping in the car – anything to keep the project alive. All-night restaurants and friends’ homes were among the venues where he recalled the memories of the hometown suburbs that suffuse the album, while shades of influence from poets like James Wright, Jim Harrison, and Seamus Heaney hover like weighty ghosts in the background.
Featuring guest appearances by artists including Mike Brenner (Magnolia Electric Co., Songs:Ohia), Samantha Crain, Erin Rae (The Meanwhiles), and John Davey, Still Talk; Second City celebrates the survival of winning out of “the worst and the longest time” and the drive to create a home outside of the one we already had (“I want something better, mean weather, revelier” – “South, Southern”). Other songs struggle with the want and need to leave, but reveal the need missing, or withheld (“I hear you’re lucky on me, honest, and torn to beat up my 99′′ – “Staggers and Rise”). “Still Talk” eavesdrops on imagined conversations, wished for but never had: “I want to make my real life static, real life when it’s worth, braided veins and a headlight coming, and a real list of words saying, ‘your mom and I still talk’”.
Damon Moon, the album’s producer and engineer, was inspired by the recording style of creators like Richard Swift (Foxygen, Tennis, Damien Jurado) and Roy Halee (Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds), and took a hand in helping to write and serve as a sounding board across one of his most involved efforts to date.
Formed as a quartet in Philadelphia, Asteroid no.4 has since become a permanent five piece and now calls Northern California their home. Named after Vesta, the brightest asteroid in our solar system, the moniker is an obvious nod to Spacemen 3, the classic UK band which Asteroid no.4 repeatedly drops as an influence. Over the last decade and a half, they’ve built a trove of eight full-length albums, well over a dozen compilation appearances, digital-only rarity releases, and multiple single releases.
The Asteroid no.4 sound is a hypnotic hybrid of several different genres filtered through the kaleidoscope of all things psychedelic: krautrock, ‘shoegaze, folk, and even ’70s cosmic country rock. Despite never shying away from wearing their influences squarely on their sleeves, it’s their longevity that has matured them to the point of originality rather than simply homage. It is that same longevity that has enabled them to do whatever they want, when they want, allowing them the freedom to experiment, which certainly makes up the foundation for anything truly ‘psychedelic.’
The group’s debut record, Introducing, was released to critical acclaim and branded as an, “uncommonly original and innovative space-rock album for the latter 1990s.” Considered a pylon of the “Psychedelphia” scene that also included luminaries Bardo Pond and Azusa Plane, reviews consistently cited Syd-era Floyd, The 13th Floor Elevators, Hawkwind and early-Verve as the inspirations heard on the album and, The Asteroid no.4 wholeheartedly agreed. Following the debut’s release on the band’s in-house label Lounge Records, they quickly began touring with the likes of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Philly brethren The Lilys, the latter having a profound impact on where the band’s sound was headed next.
Now, a decade and a half later, the band is gearing up for the release of their eighth record, aptly named Asteroid no.4. Employing sitars, eastern-tinged sparsity, space-rock fueled anthems, and pastoral folk instrumentals, Asteroid no.4 seems to have hit upon the magic first heard on their debut, but with the mature songwriting that could have only been learned over a journey of this many years.
After returning from another tour of Europe at the end of 2013, the band has joined forces with Bad Vibrations Recordings. They are ecstatic to have a new label partner, record, and surroundings that will surely inspire them to continue to write and record for the foreseeable future as Asteroid no.4’s story continues ….
This Small Houses session of Cover Club, Small Houses’ cover choice was DRGN King. Jeremy explained “I actually found DRGN King while looking around the 7 inch records at a Philadelphia record shop. “Holy Ghost” was the A-side. Months later, I found myself opening for the band in an odd factory space in Houston, TX. Dom[Angelella] and the gang were such nice guys that I made an effort to attend a few shows at SXSW and in Philadelphia. I’m a sucker for good old style pop music, there’s really no other explanation for my attraction towards the band. “
Fresh mix from multi-track of New Year’s Eve show at Tower Theater
For Bruce Springsteen, 1975 was a year that changed everything, 12 months of milestones which included recording the majority of and releasing the seminal “Born to Run” to critical acclaim; his first true national and international tour in support of the album; and appearing simultaneously on the covers of the National magazines Time and Newsweek.
The year and the Born to Run tour came to a close with a four-night stand on friendly turf at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, with the final show ringing in 1976. The band marked the occasion by wearing tuxedos, in response to which Bruce said, “If I’d known you guys would dress like this, I wouldn’t have come.” That memorable performance arrives today at live.brucespringsteen.net as the third archival release in Springsteen’s live Archive Series .
December 31, 1975 is newly mixed from 16-track master reels by Toby Scott and mastered by Adam Ayan at Bob Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering. It’s being released in standard and ultra-high-resolution 24-bit/192Khz digital files, as well as being available for CD pre-orders which will ship in another month, says Brad Serling, founder and CEO of Nugs.net which powers the Springsteen download store.
“In looking for the next release,” Serling tells Backstreets, “we wanted to go for the highest quality sources we could find. With Agora, we found the highest-quality two-track, but we didn’t want to go down that road with the next release. Toby was going through the list of what Sony had in their archive, and up came a complete set of multi-track reels from the last night of the Born to Run tour. So that was pretty compelling.”
Things moved impressively fast from there, as Scott got the tapes from Sony and shipped them to Sonicraft, which specializes in multi-track analog-to-digital transfers and just happens to be based in Bruce’s hometown of Freehold, NJ.
“It didn’t require the level of work of a Plangent transfer,” Serling explains. “The tapes just needed to be baked and sampled.” The 24/192 transfer made its way back to Thrill Hill, where Toby Scott began to mix “as purely as possible, with no gadgetry” through his SSL console. “He built the mix in a way he knew Bruce would like a live show to sound, particularly from that era,” Serling adds. Scott sent the results to Jon Landau and to Bruce for them to listen and approve, and then on to Gateway for mastering. The process wrapped up the first week in February.
The show was recorded by a young Jimmy Iovine in the Record Plant’s remote truck, one of a few select dates (including CW Post College on Long Island and Seneca College in Toronto) captured at the request of Mike Appel for a possible live album. Rough mixes of the show were made back in early 1976 for consideration, but the live album plan was scrapped.
Nine tracks from those ’76 mixes surfaced to collectors a few years ago, and a rough two-track board tape has been around for decades from the collection of the Philadelphia DJ Ed Sciaky. But this all-new Toby Scott mix marks the first time the complete performance has been heard, and the quality is undoubtedly unprecedented.
In terms of setlist, Philadelphia 12/31/75 varies materially from the other high-quality document we have of the Born to Run tour, Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75, recorded just six weeks earlier on November 18. The set includes the show jump-starter “Night,” “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?,” the stunning and short-lived slow piano arrangement of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” plus extraordinary covers of The Animals’ “It’s My Life,” Manfred Mann’s “Pretty Flamingo” and Harold Dorman’s “Mountain of Love” (also made famous by Johnny Rivers) before closing out the night with “Twist and Shout.”
“It is amazing how young Bruce sounds,” notes Serling. “It’s the end of this monumental tour, at a pivotal point in his career, and it is thrilling to listen to.” Thanks to Erik Flannagan
Bruce Springsteen is continuing his live Archive Series of CDs which began last year with the release of the Apollo Theater, New York City concert of March 12, 2012 and the Agora Theatre, Cleveland show of August 9, 1978 (from The Darkness on the Edge of Town tour). The newest release, for which pre-orders began Tuesday, takes fans back to the Tower Theatre, Philadelphia, on December 31, 1975 when Springsteen and the E Street Band held the stage for an electrifying night.
The last night of 1975 was also the last night of the Born to Run tour. As the press information for this new release indicates, “engineer Jimmy Iovine brought The Record Plant Remote truck out for the occasion. Front of house recordings of this show have circulated for years, along with partial tapes of stereo mixes from the multi-tracks. This marks the first time the entire show has been mixed for release.”
Toby Scott at Thrill Hill remixed the tracks just last month, and Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering mastered them for this release. The nineteen-song rock and roll extravaganza includes seven of the eight songs from Born to Run (sorry, “Meeting Across the River” fans) as well as favorites from Springsteen’s first two albums (“It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” “4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy),” “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight”) and choice covers such as the epic reinvention of The Animals’ “It’s My Life,” “Mountain of Love,” “Pretty Flamingo,” the Detroit Medley, “Quarter to Three” and the show-closing “Twist and Shout.”
As with the other releases in Springsteen’s live series, Tower Theater Philadelphia 1975 is available in multiple formats: MP3, FLAC or Apple Lossless , HD-Audio FLAC-HD or ALAC-HD) and CD. CDs will not begin shipping until March 1, but those purchasing the CD have the usual option to pay extra to obtain MP3s now.
All three volumes of The Bruce Springsteen Archive Series – plus a number of recent concerts from 2014 – are available at Springsteen’s official live store for download and physical purchase.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tower Theater Philadelphia 1975
Setlist
Intro
Night
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Spirit in the Night
Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?
It’s My Life
She’s the One
Born to Run
Pretty Flamingo
It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Backstreets
Mountain of Love
Jungleland
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
Detroit Medley
Quarter to Three
Thunder Road
Twist and Shout
Steve Gunn a new phenomenal guitarist the Philadelphian reared on punk, but now he is expanding his repertoire into blues, folk and country with his intricate finger picking on his Guild 1970 guitar, he was a bassist in a pretty hardcore band but last year he toured as part of Kurt Vile’s Violators band, his new album “Way out Weather” out this week. Way Out Weather: Hot on the heels of last year’s fantastic Time Off, Way Out Weather is a tour de force filled with a seemingly endless array of awesome guitar tones, fantastic interplay and powerful songwriting. It’s Gunn’s most lushly produced effort to date, and this approach works out perfectly — it’s a record you’ll get lost in, whether you’re playing it at home or taking it for a spin on the open road (we highly recommend the latter).
In 2013, Joe Haller and Chris Duran self-produced and recorded a three-song demo in their apartment in downtown Philly under the name Cheerleader. To their surprise, the release of that three-song demo on SoundCloud led to features in NME and Nylon, some radio play, and a slew of SxSW invitations. Doors were opening quickly, but the duo was suddenly faced with the technical challenges of recreating their music live with only two members.
After a gig in New York, one of the first that Cheerleader played as a five piece, they were approached by Mark Needham, who invited them to record with him in Los Angeles. Haller and Duran were at first overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation. “All of a sudden, we’re in New York having dinner with this guy who has mixed some of the biggest rock records of the past decade, and he’s talking to us about the lo-fi songs we recorded in our apartment at 3 am in the morning.
When Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker harmonize, it’s like a lightning bolt to the gut. As Girlpool, the two keep the instrumentation spare — just an electric guitar and bass — while infusing their songs with a striking confidence that knows we’re all failures, or at least trying not to fail so often. So in “Chinatown” when they sing, “And if I told you I loved you, would you take it the wrong way?” it’s raw and vulnerable, taking stock of a painfully awkward situation with open eyes. After a self-titled cassette (recently reissued on vinyl) and a move from L.A. to Philadelphia, Girlpool is putting “Chinatown” on a forthcoming 7″single. Even in such a short period of time, there’s growth here in the vocal phrasing and pacing, not to mention production that rounds out the trebly tinniness. the cheap guitar twang remains; it’s an intimate quality shared in this video, homemade videos with friends and fellow musicians. “Chinatown” comes out March 24th on Wichita Recordings, featuring a cover of Radiator Hospital’s “Cut Your Bangs” on the B-side.
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