The nonpareil blues, country and bluegrass-fusion brilliance of the
Codetalkers can be traced to its legendary featured player, the
ursine, craggy-voiced guitarist and “godfather of Southern
alternative music,” Col. Bruce Hampton.
Former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus will release his third solo album May 24 via Matador. The 11-track “Face the Truth” includes the track “It Kills,” a live version of which was recorded with his backing band, the Jicks, and released last fall on Matador’s “At Fifteen” compilation.
“I did more of it myself, a little bit like the old Pavement records,” Malkmus told Billboard.com last September. “Because the studio was in my basement, I took the helm. I pretty much engineered it myself; punching in with my toe, Todd Rundgren-style.”
A Matador spokesperson says the Jicks appear on four songs on the record, with bassist Joanna Bolme and drummer John Moen also contributing to some songs individually. Malkmus said last year that Moen “is featured quite prominently on a lot of stuff [like] backing harmonies. He did a great job.”
“Face the Truth” the follow-up to 2003’s “Pig Lib,” which debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart. Because Malkmus is soon to become a first-time father, he will not tour extensively in support of the set but is confirmed to appear March 18 in Austin, Texas, as part of Matador’s showcase at the South by Southwest Music Festival.
In other news, Malkmus will appear on the first album in four years from Silver Jews, which is led by longtime friend/collaborator David Berman. The 15-track Drag City set will also feature guest spots by former Pavement members Bob Nastanovich and Steve West, singer/songwriter Bobby Bare Jr., former Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison and vocalist Azita, among others.
Here is the track list for “Face the Truth”:
“Invisible Bodies”
“Baby C’mon”
“Horslip”
“Mmmmm…”
“Loud Cloud Crowd”
“No More Shoes”
“Mama”
“Malediction”
“Pencil Rot”
“It Kills”
“I’ve Hardly Been”
Source billboard.com.
Three-time Grammy winner Lucinda Williams will release Live at the Fillmore, her first-ever live album, on May 10th.
The two-disc set, recorded at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore Auditorium last year during her World Without Tears tour, features twenty-two tracks from Williams’ twenty-five-plus-year career. Included in the set list are “Change the Locks,” from 1988’s Lucinda Williams and later recorded by Tom Petty; “Pineola,” a poignant song about a family friend’s suicide from 1992’s Sweet Old World; and “Those Three Days,” from Williams’ most recent studio album World Without Tears.
The Live at the Fillmore track listing:
Disc One:
Ventura
Reason to Cry
Fruits of My Labor
Out of Touch
Sweet Side
Lonely Girls
Overtime
Blue
Change the Locks
Atonement
Disc Two:
I Lost It
Pineola
Righteously
Joy
Essence
Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings
Are You Down
Those Three Days
American Dream
World Without Tears
Bus to Baton Rouge
Words Fell
Source rollingstone.com.
A milestone in the history of recorded music was marked on New Year’s Eve when Quantegy, the last company in the U.S. to manufacture the magnetic tape used for studio analog recording, shut its doors.
Analog recording has fallen by the wayside since the mid-Nineties, when faster, cheaper digital recording and editing programs such as Pro Tools became the norm. Still, die-hards — including Neil Young, Jackson Browne and producer Rick Rubin — swear by the natural sound of analog. “Digital has gotten really good, but it’s never going to be analog,” says Lou Reed. “People who want a vintage sound are going to have a problem.”
Quantegy’s closing caught most by surprise. “The news really freaked me out,” says Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes, whose band’s current album, Deja Voodoo, was recorded almost entirely in analog. “There’s no other way to get that warm sound.” The Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch worries that a valuable way of thinking about music will be lost. “With digital you might look at the sound waves and see that the bass player is a little behind the drummer and move some of those notes to make it look tighter,” he says. “But with tape you might listen to that same performance and just think, ‘That bass player has a nice feel.'”
As the news spread, analog tape reels hit eBay, and tape vendors were besieged with phone calls. ATR Services, which makes and services analog gear, has plans to launch a line of tape by summer. “There’s still a solid base of customers for analog,” says Michael Spitz, ATR’s owner. “But any company making it needs to realize it’s not the de facto recording choice anymore.”
In addition to concerns about digital music’s sound quality, questions have been raised about archiving it. “I get folks coming in here with waterlogged boxes of analog tape where there’s actual mildew on the reels, and we can still clean them up and get them to sound great,” says John Nicholson, owner of Hilltop Studios, the longest-running studio in Nashville. “You show me a hard drive that can handle that.”
Source rollingstone.com.
Big Joe Burrell, the gregarious saxophone player who towered over Burlington’s music scene for three decades, died Wednesday morning from complications following abdominal surgery. He was 80.
Burrell learned from Count Basie and B.B. King and passed his knowledge on to a new generation of musicians including Trey Anastasio of Phish. His sweet sax drifted into the ears of untold thousands across the world, across the country and across Vermont after the Michigan native arrived in Burlington in 1976. His reach went as far as blues festivals in Europe and as close to home as Halvorson’s Upstreet Cafe on Church Street, where he played every Thursday.
He was an imposing physical presence, but with his cherubic face, large spectacles and larger smile, he was a friendly presence, too, quick to support any charity event in town.
Burrell was big in name, big in size and big in reputation. If the Burlington music scene had a patriarch, a Jedi jazz master, it was Big Joe Burrell.
“He fell in love with Burlington a few years ago, and Burlington fell in love with him, and we were really blessed to have him in our community,” said Chuck Eller of Charlotte, who played for years with Burrell in the Unknown Blues Band.
Burrell entered Fletcher Allen Health Care last month for abdominal surgery and developed respiratory problems. He died about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, a week shy of his 81st birthday. Burrell, who will be cremated, didn’t want a funeral; Eller said he is organizing a musical tribute likely to take place in May on a Thursday night – “the Big Joe day of the week.”
Source burlingtonfreepress.com.
Upon entering the Tower, I was immediately floored by the gothic architecture, the lavish lobby, and the wide marble steps leading up to the second floor. At some point during the show I remember stopping and finally soaking in my surroundings, and thought to myself,
