Posts by Shane Handler

They weren’t looking for gold or a spiritual revelation, but for These United States,  renowned for their frenetic touring pace, the road almost serves as a bodily function- it just happens.  What also happens in their loose limbed brand of rock is a whole lot of wailing, banging, screaming, rocking, stomping, aching that combines the raunchy blues of Exile in Main Street with the modern rock folk of Deer Tick.

Right The Stars is fronted by Los Angeles singer/songwriter and producer Rich Jacques. He recently produced Kina Grannis' album Stairwells, the first single "Valentine" has 13 million youtube hits and the second "In Your Arms" has almost 7million. He’s also been working with ABC Family writing and recording songs for Tyler Blackburn including the first single “Find A Way.” Jacques had quite a lot to share when we recently spoke with him.

Talk to any aspiring artist and you can bet that they would sell every scrap of hair off their head (and nostrils for that matter) for any kind of big break.  For Field Report, perhaps it was a series of well-received gigs in March at South by Southwest or maybe it was opening for Counting Crowes this past summer or was it was once being in band with some guy Justin Vernon?  The funny thing is, Field Report never even played a show before this year’s SXSW; there must be something in the lyrics.

As much gifted composer as he is exhilarating collaborator, Marco Benevento has been amplifying each of his eclectic projects with a striking sonic palette for years.  So it's no shock that his fourth studio effort, Tiger Face, finds him expanding the canvas with fresh compositions and a who's who of guest musicians.

Shut and Play the Hits serves as The Band’s Last Waltz for a certain postmodern generation, one that understands and can appreciate the assimilation of multiple influences. It is also as much a testament to the creative genius of LCD, as it is to the process of ending a creative enterprise on a high note – MSG sold out models included.

Russian-American singer-songwriter and pianist Elizaveta released iTunes Sessions EP on July 17, 2012, joining the ranks of the notable artists who have put out these EPs over the years.  Available exclusively on the iTunes Store, these six songs have been bundled with six videos from the session

While Winnipeg might not exactly feel like a fertile music scene to those that live outside the Canadian prairie, Imaginary Cities formed from the small community of musicians and creative folks that encourage themselves to play in up to five bands at a time.  Primary songwriters Marti Sarbit and Rusty Matyas met and formed in Winnipeg as Sarbit’s soul-powered voice immediately captured multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Rusty Matyas’s attention at the Cavern, a Winnipeg bar where Sarbit was fronting a Motown cover band and Matyas had come to mix the sound.

Although the performance was billed as ”Gillian Welch,” it’s clearly a team effort here as David Rawlings is an essential part to their creative process, and a prominent musical partner on stage.  By flat-picking his 1935 Epiphone Olympic guitar, Rawlings, with a cowboy hat tilted down to shadow most of his face, evokes an addictive flavor of dissonance that fuels tenderness and rawness.  He also balances intensely visceral fervor with restraint, providing the songs with plenty of passion but without ever disrupting their delicacy. 

Recently, Glide Magazine had a chance to speak with her about her debut album, what it's like to have gain such success so quickly and who she'd like to collaborate with in the future.

The Sierra Leone’s Refugee Allstars are hardly your group of musicians born and bred on Zeppelin, Nirvana and Radiohead. In fact they are the epitome of a roots band having formed as refugees displaced to Guinea during the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002). Instruments and musicians were hard to come by and the concept of touring and recording were something of far fetched fantasy verse reality.

Despite his rough and tumble sounding first and last name, Rocky Votolato is anything but a brute -as he himself best pronounces:   “quiet is the new loud.”  Like M. Ward, Votolato echoes a timeless quality that better serves on vinyl courtesy of soulful chords and worn melodic vocals, via a discography that started in 1999.

Toronto roots rock band Enter The Haggis reached their goal and then some while nailing it in- house through their own fundraiser, where to their astonishment, $40,000 came in over just a couple months to record their sixth studio album Whitelake. Bar band, they are not.  Enter The Haggis are an established international touring act whose Amazon ratings for Whitelake kill it on two pages with five star ratings.

Although Drive by Truckers  have never been down and out like the protagonists of their songs, these musicians haven’t exactly driven an easy road either.  Last December, Shonna Tucker, their bassist since 2003 and lead singer of a handful of stellar DBT numbers, abruptly left the band.  If that wasn’t enough of a rock and roll cliché, the three guitar southern rooted rock band’s equipment truck broke down the night prior to Phoenix, forcing the band to spend the night in the snowy mountain town of Flagstaff waiting for a fix.  

Somewhere just beneath the hazy, slasher-film, psych-rock smog of Phantom Family Halo is an unassuming songwriter and a pensive band that spends as much time working with Bonnie “Prince” Billy as they do hunched over in droning dissonance. 

The Kickback is currently writing and rehearsing what will mark their first full-length release, but is taking a break for a residency at Schubas in Chicago. Each Monday in March The Flavored Players Series ft. The Kickback will take over Schubas at 8PM

On their second trip to the Phoenix area in one month, having just opened for Wilco in Tempe, White Denim, played a short one hour set to cap their road-work in support of 2011’s D.   And since D is only 37 minutes long, it was welcoming that the Crescent Ballroom performance was an hour in length.   Also it was a good night out on Valentine’s Day, seeing a no-fluff guitar rock band always keeps it real for those of us don’t buy into the Hallmark holiday.

It's stiff competition amongst artists who need to be heard in the states but haven’t earned their ears.   Steafán Hanvey is one of those artists. Steafán Hanvey & The Honeymoon Junkies was recently released here in the states on October 25th after being released in Finland in 2005 & Ireland in 2006

New Blood Live in London does what any worthy live concert feature film should: deliver a brand new experience to songs you already know by heart.

This LA based Renaissance Woman is also an accomplished singer-songwriter who has already made an artistic impact with her full length debut Spiders that will grasp the ears of both Tori Amos and The National listeners.

Although Divine Providence didn’t run list and list with Fleet Foxes or PJ Harvey for album of the year, its still one of the year’s most entertaining listens with its hard drinking rockabilly rhythms that permeates like spilled beer and cigarette butts  Just following a tour in support of Divine Providence, the always candid and witty McCauley wrote us back some thoughts…