If Sebastian Bach is anything, he is a trooper. He has been in this business long enough to know that sometimes you just have to fight for what makes the blood run through your veins.
This is her most consistent effort yet, and the process of building the songs up from programmed sounds reveals Herzig’s deft architectural hand, and the fact that she’s chosen bouncy, spirited and cathartic as her palette further bolsters the album. The next step will be learning how to incorporate lyrically the more intimate and raw moments of introspection, but this is an admirable first step in the right direction.
Tom Waits On Tom Waits brings together a large number of interviews conducted throughout the great man’s storied career. Covering a remarkable 35-year span from 1973 to 2008, this collection employs Waits’ own words to paint a vivid self portrait of a highly original American artist and iconoclast. The book makes for a very intriguing chronology of Waits’ development as a songwriter, recording artist and performer. Fiercely protective of his private life and notoriously reclusive, Waits nonetheless has always been a lively and unpredictable interview subject.
With his newest release – The Lost Cause Minstrels – on the Potato Head Family label, Grayson Capps takes his music in a new direction. Having lived in both New Orleans and Nashville, the Alabama native recently returned home and seems to further embrace his roots.
Will Sheff is a densely literate songwriter of the highest degree. Like a good novelist, his songs reveal layers as they progress, adding intrigue and possibility to the plot and subtle nuance to the characterization, while weighty symbolism abounds throughout. The man also likes his hand-claps, as Sheff raucously urged and prodded the crowd to “throw their hands up” and clap along to the beats of some of the band’s best-known numbers
Rhythm and Roots Festival held in Charlestown, R.I. 9/2-4/11.
2007’s personality-driven Marry Me and the production-forward Actor have been rounded out by Strange Mercy’s maturity, honesty and skill to make a solid, progressive and enviable career trilogy that showcases Annie Clark’s talent, innovations and development as an all-around artist.
Jessie and Jennifer Clavin returned to writing music together after a brief pause, but this time under the name Bleached. Fully entrenched in the SoCal scene, their music is beginning to spread around the country, thanks in part to the well-received Carter 7inch release and their wildly enjoyable and raucous live show. Look for the Clavin sisters this fall as they tour to and from the CMJ festival.
Soundtown Music Festival held in Somerset, WI August 19th and 20th, 2011.
Alex Botwin has been a busy man. Just turned 27, the former bassist for the young, thriving live dance music trio Pnuma, has since evolved into something of a modern day renaissance man.
