Andrew Bird/Loney Dear – Free Concert

 

Andrew Bird/Loney Dear Concert Download – NPR

NPR – February 3, 2009 – Andrew Bird is a gangly, classically trained violinist who mixes jazz, folk and quirky art-pop with whistled melodies. Along the way, he’s attracted the kind of screaming crowds normally reserved for pop stars. At a recent show in his native Chicago, thousands of breathless fans came to see the singer, many of them shouting “I love you!” between songs. Hear what the hype is about with this entire concert, recorded live from the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3. The show began with an opening performance by Loney Dear.

Bird gives incredible live performances. Essentially a one-man band, he plays lines on violin or guitar or whistles a theme, then records and loops the sounds before playing new layers over them.

“Every night,” he says, “I am rewriting all my songs for the audience.”

Bird was born in 1973 and learned violin from a young age using the traditional Suzuki method. He graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in violin performance.

Opening for Bird is Emil Svanagen, a Swedish singer and former pro cyclist who writes and performs as Loney Dear. Loney Dear’s music is sweetly innocent and mostly joyful, with candy-coated layers of delicate tones and atmospherics. As with his 2007 debut, Loney, Noir, Svanagen recorded the new Dear John by himself in his living room and his parents’ basement. For the 9:30 Club performance, Loney Dear will feature a full-band lineup, including Samuel Starck (keyboards), Malin Stahlberg (tambourine, vocals, keys), Ola Hultgren (drums) and David Lindvall (bass).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100059244

Shearwater: Listen – The Golden Archipelago

Shearwater – Castaways

Cool website: http://shearwatermusic.com/

Shearwater’s delicate, dramatic new album, The Golden Archipelago, wasn’t built for earbuds or tinny car stereos: This is immersive, artful music, meant to be examined in-depth from every angle. As if to prove that point, singer-guitarist Jonathan Meiburg assembled an elaborate and appropriately oblique 75-page “dossier” to go with deluxe editions of the record. Filled with maps, charts, art and photos, the dossier only enhances the otherworldly mystery of music that fuses instrumental majesty and natural beauty.

A working bird scientist when he’s not slogging through clubs with his ace backing band — bassist Kimberly Burke, versatile drummer and multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris, and frequent collaborators Kevin Schneider and Jordan Geiger — Meiburg isn’t afraid to infuse his arty rock with field recordings and the terminology of ecology, and to let his ambitions sprawl in ways both gentle and gargantuan. Shearwater is fearless in its seriousness and often awe-inspiring loveliness: As The Golden Archipelago finds him examining humanity’s complex relationships with nature, Meiburg’s whispers can hit like screams, and when he screams, the effect is so clean and graceful, it’s strangely calming.

Meiburg got his start in another thematically ambitious band, Okkervil River, with Shearwater functioning as a side project. But in recent years, Shearwater has become a full-time job whose work equals and often exceeds that of its better-known cousin. On The Golden Archipelago, Shearwater’s songs flow together fluidly, to the point where they work best as a 38-minute whole. Fortunately, you can hear them exactly as intended by clicking the link above: The album will stream on this page in its entirety for the two weeks leading up to its release on Feb. 23.

Please give The Golden Archipelago a listen — without interruption and on headphones, if possible — and leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below. NPR 2-7-2010

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123406907

April Smith and the Great Picture Show – ‘Songs For A Sinking Ship’

April Smith – Colors

Free Concert download @Daytrotter.com

“Well folks, I’ve been asked by many which tracks will be on the new album. First, I’d like to add that they are ALL NEW RECORDINGS of the songs, so even if you know them, you’ve never heard them sound THIS good. Dan Romer produced the album and we’re all really proud if it. So here they are… “

1. Movie Loves A Screen
2. Terrible Things
3. Drop Dead Gorgeous
4. Can’t Say No
5. What’ll I Do?
6. Colors
7. Dixie Boy
8. The One That Got Away
9. Beloved
10. Wow and Flutter
11. Stop Wondering

http://www.aprilsmithmusic.com/

Phantogram: Listen to ‘Eyelid Movies’

Phantogram – When I’m Small

Hundreds of bands played the music showcase known as CMJ in New York City last fall, but someone told me that I absolutely had to see Phantogram. I went, I saw, I loved.

Phantogram is a Saratoga Springs, N.Y., duo: Sarah Barthel plays keyboards and sings, while Josh Carter plays guitar. These folks have been friends since junior high — about a dozen years ago — and the chemistry is undeniable. Plenty of percussive beats and sonic textures pervade the music, so it’s hard to tell who’s doing what, but that’s just fine.

In performance, swirling lights and projections reflect in light what you hear in sound. Barthel is a visual artist, and this is a team that uses its arty sensibility to make mysterious and danceable pop music.

Without the live light show, the music feels a bit less dense and even more fun. If you want to think about the words and music together, their songs function as self-contained vignettes. They feel a little bit like short films, but you can just let the beats and sound carry you away, drift off into a dream and dance.

You can hear Eyelid Movies, the duo’s new album of mysterious and danceable pop music, in its entirety on this page until the disc’s release on Feb. 9. Please leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below. From NPR February 1, 2010

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123085620

Lawson Rollins – Guitare Flamboyante Exotiques

I’ve been deeply moved by the glorious sounds of the guitar for as long as I can remember.  Once while prowling the avenues of Sevilla we almost stopped for a show at a flamenco house – some name having to do with “a cat” or “a rooster”  - but were dissuaded by my wife, as we had seen a professional show a few years earlier in Cancun.  Oh, well . . . 

While the talented Mr. Rollins does not always settle on pure flamenco (he has a wide-ranging palate of colors and canvases to choose from), I still feel the rhythm of Andalusia with its thunder and staccato hand claps resonating from the stone and stucco walls of old Sevilla.

 

Lawson Rollins – Moonlight Samba (From Espirito)

When guitarist Lawson Rollins appeared on the world music scene, he astonished listeners with his electrifying speed and expansive musical vision. His impossible-to-categorize sound combined the passionate rhythms of salsa and samba, the free flowing improvisations of Latin jazz, the deep bass tones of the blues, the gentle lilt of the bossa nova, the fiery attack of flamenco, and the soaring melodic flights of classical music. His debut album, Infinita, lived up to its name with a far-reaching series of groundbreaking soundscapes. All About Jazz called the album “a rewarding gem…one of the year’s best.” Rollins was praised for his compositional skill and soulful virtuosity.

Espirito, Rollins’ second solo effort (out on January 19, 2010), is a suite that extends and expands the vision of Infinita with thirteen compositions that delve deep into the roots of world music. This time he’s added biguine, reggae, son, and swing rhythms to an approach already heavy with intimations of Spain, India, Persia, and the Arab world. “I love the hybrid quality of World Music and how it allows for cross-cultural communication and exchange,” Lawson says. “Centuries ago, travel, trade, and migration created new forms of musical expression. The Spanish guitar is a true manifestation of the commingling of cultures with its ties to the Arabic oud, the Persian tar, even the Indian sitar, so drawing on those connections seems natural to me.”

LINKS

• Artist Site
• Myspace
• Infinita Records

It was a rooster and not a cat after all.

Evie Ladin – Float Downstream

Float Downstream

There is a Northeastern Folk sound in these recordings that is unmistakable.  I also sense an Appalachia heritage and heartbeat that digs beneath the surface of American music.  The melding of these two traditions reveals a soothing and home-spun vibe that recalls family and friends around the hearth revealing tragic and proud family tales while occasionally spinning yarns from whole cloth. 

A worthy listen and beautiful discovery for this homesteaders ears. 

EVIE LADIN FLOAT DOWNSTREAM

1 I Love My Honey 2.49 -  2 Romeo 3.50 -  3 Float Downstream 2.54 - 4 How Did You Know 3.16 – 5  Dance Me 3.00  - 6 Maybe An Angel 3.14  – 7 Mistreated Mama/Yew Piney Mountain 3.40  - 8 One Of These Days 2.20  - 9 Precious Days 3.45  - 10 Going Across The Sea 2.22  - 11 Home From Airy 2.16 12  - Mardi Gras 3.20  –  13 Floating Downstream 1.08

Evie Ladin grew up in a trad folk scene up and down the eastern seaboard of the US. With her sister she learned to dance, play the banjo and sing southern harmonies, and she’s been performing ever since—stringband music, step dancing, square dance calling and songwriting, world music collaborations, body percussion and contemporary work. Her first collection of songs are ripe, catchy stories—could be anybody’s stories, but Evie’s telling makes them deeply personal, makes them float. For Natalie Ladin (1941-2008), who taught me how to persevere. Deep love to my family and friends, without whom I could not.

“I have a very strong old-timey aesthetic, I know what good stringband music sounds like, but I also listen to a lot of world music, old and new country, indie rock, soul – music scenes that often don’t overlap that much. I like a lot of interesting new treatments of Americana and traditional music; well-played, well-phrased music is just good.  In making the album, the music that was old-time had to be real old-time, but I also needed to let songs stretch toward a pop aesthetic, a more contemporary aesthetic. The mix of the two can be very exciting.”

The songs themselves can be energetic, poignant, or downright sad like the title track. “I had been away from the Eastern woods for a long time,” Evie recalled. “I was teaching at a camp in Tennessee and went walking in the trees. There was something so familiar about the way the sunlight came through the leaves, spilling on the forest floor, that made me feel like I was floating.  It was so beautiful it was heartbreaking. The first verse of the song fell into me on that walk, and then it took me a year to figure out the rest of what happened in the story.” Evie is playing a fairly traditional clawhammer banjo style here, with Mark Summer’s cello swimming underneath and contemporary lyrics floating along the surface.

http://evieladin.com/

Vigilantes of Love – Perfect Concert Download

 

Vigilantes of Love Live at 7th Street Loft on 2000-09-01 (September 1, 2000)

This is a must download and must hear show.  If you don’t have much VOL or Bill Mallonee background or you do, this is a show to listen to and download.  The photo above is not related to this recorded show

VOL – Solar System

Subject: Great show and great SBD recording!
I had the pleasure of seeing this show, and have had a copy of it for some time now. I received mine through someone who knew the person who tapped into the SBD to make the recording, and this sounds like the same source. If you’re interested in checking out VOL (and you should be, if you like alt-country/americana music), this is an excellent place to start.

VOL 7th Street 2000 concert

Beach Boys – LandLocked (Bootleg)

Beach Boys – Lady (Landlocked Sessions)

The bootleg called Landlocked by the Beach Boys is a much circulated, rejected version of what would eventually become Sunflower. After leaving Capitol Records in 1969, the band compiled an album’s worth of demos and recordings for approval by their new label. In 1970 Warner/Reprise smartly demanded that the band continue work on new songs. The Beach Boys went back to the drawing board, abandoning the Landlocked songs at the time. (A second rejected “version” is available in bootleg form as Add Some Music to Your Day.) Some of the songs in Landlocked remained unreleased for decades while others made their way onto future Beach Boys albums. “Take a Load off Your Feet,” “‘Til I Die,” and “Lookin’ at Tomorrow” were first heard on Landlocked but made it onto Surf’s Up. “Good Time” was eventually recorded for Love You, “Big Sur” was released on Holland, and Mike Love’s “When Girls Get Together” was heard on 1980’s classic Keepin’ the Summer Alive. Other songs like “I Just Got My Pay” stayed in a vault until the release of the Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys box set in 1993. Standout tracks include “Loop De Loop” which was a collaboration between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (later heard on Endless Summer Soundtrack) and “Lady” which was a Dennis Wilson composition. Clearly, this is a record for diehards only. It is worth tracking down for Beach Boys fans who are interested in their recording process, especially in the post-Pet Sounds world where other members like Dennis and Al Jardine began taking a more active role in the group. Landlocked is the only time when these songs fit into their original context. To that end the well-developed demo of “‘Til I Die” is fascinating. It is perhaps the best song on this bootleg and fit in perfectly on their 1971 album. But here is where it first appeared. Reader beware: “Context” is a historical attribute, not a synonym for “cohesive” or “concept album,” both of which Landlocked is not. Overall though, Landlocked is marked by good audio quality, and compared to Sweet Insanity, the songs are also good. Thus, it is also one of the best Beach Boys bootlegs and a little more accessible than Smile. Landlocked is often bootlegged with an abortive version of a Brian Wilson solo album called Adult Child. ~ JT Griffith, All Music Guide

Session Download: http://therisingstorm.net/

Skybox – What Music?

Just discovered Skybox.  Quirky, spastic and energetic!

Skybox – Buckets

Free Download and more:

http://skyboxmusic.com/

Joe Pug News – Free Download and More . . .

After a few weeks at home writing new material, I’m excited to be back on the road and even more excited about Messenger coming out on 2/16.  For any of you coming out to shows, we’ll be selling it there a few days early, beginning on the 11th.  For this tour I’ll be joined by Andrew Harrison, who is a fantastic multi-instrumentalist and owner of one of the most robust beards you’ve ever seen.  The tour is set through mid-March, and we’ll be adding dates for late March and April soon.  The latest dates are listed below.  You’ll also find a free song from the new album called “The Sharpest Crown” to give you a taste of what you can expect. http://www.joepugmusic.com

I’m going to keep this note brief, as I have a few things to do before we have to leave the Econo-Lodge and it’s coveted wireless internet signal, but as always, thanks for your help and your support.  Looking forward to seeing you all out on the road. 

–JP

 Free Music

Check out the song “The Sharpest Crown” from the new album by downloading a free copy here: http://www.joepugmusic.com/2010/02/free-download-of-the-sharpest-crown/

Soundcheck Sessions

We finally made the dubious purchase of a video camera, so we’ll be posting some updates from the tour on my You Tube Channel.   The first installment is something called “Soundcheck Sessions”.  On tour your nightly sound check ends up functioning as your rehearsal, so it’s your time to try out new ideas, new songs, etc.  It’s also your time to screw up mightily.  We’re going to post a few nuggets from time to time, for good or for ill.  The first installment is a version of “Nobody’s Man” from Des Moines, IA last night.  My full band made the trip to Chicago, and it’s always a nice treat to play with them, so we dialed in the “loud” treatment of the song.  You can check it out here.

The Mother Hips – Seriously Infectious

Infectious jams and tunage that should make the Drive By Truckers grin.

Southern sensibilities and bad tude vocals.

Leave your pick-up running by the Emergency Exit . . .

Download the concert at www.daytrotter.com

Home page for loads of FUN http://www.motherhips.com/home.php

Frank Hoier and The Weber Brothers

Honey Drippers riding the back roads of Oklahoma to their next gig in an unknown Pan-handle town, in their Bondo scarred Dodge van.  These hip cats have the moves and seem more than willing to pay their dues bringing smiles to the local guys and gals and moving on to their next haunt.

From Daytrotter.com:  This is good and this is true. He brings a strong knack for the romantic ideals of old-fashioned leading men, good men, who want to bring home the bacon to a house filled from floor to ceiling with his loving family, rushing at him like an avalanche, just to jump into his arms when he comes in through the door at quitting time. It’s an outdated concept in many ways, but damn if that wasn’t the American standard not even 50 years ago – you found that good man or that good woman and kept him or her. You raised a family and you lived for those people through all the thicks and the thins. Hoier writes songs that speak to that settling down nature of human beings, to still feeling a passion for your partner all those many years later. If you’re in love, you’re in love and there’s no fighting it. It’s a yearning and a pact with another that comes through on the songs featured here, with the Weber Brothers as his backing band, and on his latest full-length, “Lovers and Dollars.”

Download all at daytrotter.com  

Frank Hoier Official Site
Weber Brothers Official Site

the spy from Cairo – “Exposed”

This is a whip-lash journey to the clubs, parties and energetic cultures of the Middle East.  Mr. Visini (THE SPY) will not leave you languid . . .   He has received his burn notice and is staying local to make some awesome music with inspiration from Byzantium to the Nile Delta. 

confidential: The spy from Cairo is secretly Moreno Visini, the artist formerly known as Zeb. He has written hundreds of songs & has produced over 10 albums over the past 12 years including 5 ORGANIC GROOVES albums, 3 ZEB albums, 2 THE SPY FROM CAIRO albums. He has contributed to Turntables on the Hudson Compilations as well as Buddha Bar & countless others! Furthermore, this talented musician & studio wizard has done around 80-100 remixes for artists as diverse as Tosca, Billy Holiday, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Baba Maal, Astor Piazolla, Nickodemus, Novalima & many more…  This is why he is secretly famous!

theSFC – Kurdish Delight

 

 theSFC – Sufi Disco

The album Secretly famous (Wonderwheel Recordings; February 10, 2010) is an effort by The Spy from Cairo to consolidate as much Middle Eastern music as possible. Every track focuses on a particular style of music from the arab countries… all with his signature Afro, Dub, electronic sound. From the fierce sounds of the Mizmar and Nay in “Nayphony”  (which is an adaptation of traditional Jordanian music), to the very uplifting Reggada from Morocco and the Egyptian “Leila” which is a tribute to the beautiful orchestra of the great Mohamed Abdel Wahab. The spy from Cairo tries  to introduce the beautiful, emotional, deep ( and sexy at the same time…) music from Arabia to a western dance crowd.

Listen to “Secretly Famous”

spy

Drakkar Sauna – Love That Gives Unconditionally

From Daytrotter.com

Here’s what happens when Wallace Cochran and Jeff Stolz of Drakkar Sauna start playing their very idiosyncratic and complicated songs: You think of yourself differently. You find that there are a great many more bizarre characteristics to you than you were aware of before. There is a sick amount of stuff that has you feeling anxious. Drakkar Sauna songs aren’t about you, but most songs aren’t so that’s nothing new, but they are about your hidden feelings and metered fears of aging or the place where that aging is going to take place. There’s a scene in the relatively amusing movie “The Invention of Lying,” where Ricky Gervais’s character – a man who invents lying and almost more importantly the stories of the Bible – walks into a nursing home to visit his senile and depressed mother and encounters a trio of fellow residents. One mutters to him that he looks like that man’s dead son, another comments that she’s on pills that make everything look orange and the final woman says that every day is worse than the one before it. He later finds a way to make them all smile – with lies, naturally – but their uncomfortable concerns and states of mind seem to be established in something other than craziness and it’s a condition that Drakkar Sauna can likely appreciate. The Western and bluegrassy-sounding songs that this eclectic duo has been making in their homes in Lawrence, Kansas, for a few years now are steeped in a kind of uncertainty as to the judgments that might or might not be handed down at the Pearly Gates someday.

http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/drakkar-sauna-concert/20030861-110093.html

http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/drakkar-sauna-concert/20030008-110093.html

Beach House – Free Concert 02-01-10

 There are deceptive embraces, loves fading and causing a bleary drowsiness that’s hard to get over, hard to manhandle into submission. So many of the flickering images that she presents in these masterful dirges of grief and sadness are the results of deceptions and their lukewarm shadows, how they’re still acting on her. Often mentioned are the wild children and a wild-eyed fever that’s been sunken into a lonely remembrance of the past. It’s this wildness that’s slowly drying up as time takes over. It’s as if a piece of the spirit gets extinguished in a slow burning death that Beach House knows all too well about.

Read more and download all @ www.daytrotter.com

Princeton – 2 IVY League Concerts

Swirling guitars and shimmering soundscapes capture the mood of this Left Coast band.  Synth voyages bring to mind The Ocean Blue and even The Innocence Mission, while the vox harkens back to Morrisey with a lingering flavor that singer from The National.

Stunner Shades in Heaven:

Growing up on Princeton Street in Santa Monica, twin brothers Jesse & Matt Kivel and childhood friend Ben Usen started playing together as a group in the late 90’s, but officially formed Princeton during a year long stay in London in 2005. With the addition of drummer David Kitz, the band first gained attention in 2008 with the conceptual four-song Bloomsbury EP, a breezy dance-pop confection about the imaginative group of British intellectuals. The band now lives in the Eagle Rock district of LA where their album was recorded.

Among the many detrimental effects that love has on the mind, one of the more subtle is the way it litters the memory with a batch of misplaced associations – places, figures, products and (especially) music that, through chance, become invested with deep personal significance. This detritus of love is scattered all over Princeton’s, Cocoon of Love, right down to its title, taken from a long-ago-cancelled children’s show. Stacks of herbal tea, a glow-in-the-dark monument, paperback writers, the Wall Street Journal, a departing Mercedes, The Metamorphosis, video arcades, graffiti, and a cyclist on the Autobahn all figure prominently into Princeton’s musical sketches.

Fittingly for such a broad range of lyrical touchstones, the band’s musical influences stretch just as wide, taking in everything from Something Else-era Kinks to Serge Gainsbourg, New Order, Arthur Russell, Scott Walker, Yo La Tengo and Gilberto Gil. While still rooted in the Baroque pop of their past work, Cocoon of Love sees the band explore new moods and styles, from the seductive, synth-driven Martina and Clive Krantz to the straight-up Stax-style soul of Show Some Love, When Your Man Gets Home.

 

In anticipation and support of their debut album, they’ll head out on tour with Ra Ra Riot and other touring acts through the rest of the year.

01-30-10 Session: http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/princeton-concert/20031092-3737810.html

03-04-09 Session: http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/princeton-concert/20030539-3737810.html

2 free tunes @ http://www.princeton-band.com/music/

the NiNjA StARS – The Spirograph Heroes EP

the NiNjA StARS – Everyone Goes

the NiNjA StARS – Spiograph Heroes

Denmark may have the highest taxes on the planet, but they are happy folk.  The vox reminds me of Conor of Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk fame.  Enjoy!  (the youtube vid and doggy pix has not been approved by the NiNjA StARS)  

Hi! We are the NiNjA StARS, a Danish duo. We have just finished our debut EP. It is called The Spirograph Heroes. U can listen to it (and download it for free at bandbase!) in its entirity on Myspace. We have been exploring the delights of cheap keyboards, distorted percussion + vox, no reverb & no compressors this time. We haven’t got a clue where we’re going the next time. We arranged, recorded and produced everything in 2 days, putting much effort into catching the restless energy of being spontaneous.
DOWNLOAD “THE SPIROGRAPH HEROES EP” HERE!

MySpace Link: http://www.myspace.com/theninjastars
Bandbase Link: http://www.bandbase.com/theNiNjAStARS (free EP download!)

Murray Attaway – Diary Found

Guadalcanal Diary is back together?

Well, sort of. They’re taking it slow right now. Every once in a while they play a gig around the Athens/Atlanta area.

Guadalcanal Diary was one of the most underappreciated bands on the 80’s, Their sound is a mixture of catchy, sharp, sometimes twisted lyrics with thundering drums, catchy bass lines and the well-crafted guitar stylings of Jeff Walls.

To the uninformed, it’s really difficult to really classify the band’s sound. To get a grasp on what the band is like, check out the articles page where you can read a feature from a 1986 Guitar magazine. After you take that in, read up on the band’s reunion in 1996.

So what now?
Seems that the band had so much fun doing those reunion shows that they announced that their seven year “hiatus” was officially over. “Breath,” “Blasting Cap,” “Monkey Brains,” “Be Still,” “Change is Good”. These are all titles to NEW Guadalcanal Diary songs.

As for the old songs, don’t worry, they sound better than ever. We get tons of requests for copies of their older albums. The band would love to see those reissued, but they have no control over that. To find out more go here. In the meantime, to get the old songs back out there, “Guadalcanal Diary At Your Birthday Party” was released in November of 1998. (Now sold out).

A tune to help us see our true, proper place in the world.
This one helps to get the thoughts rolling.
Which is good, ’cause you know, an idle mind an whatnot.

A theme of abandoned and forgotten houses, set to a rare track by Guadalcanal Diary’s lead singer Murray Attaway.

The lovely Nina hosts “Basement Tapes”. The audio track is a live recording!

Alli Millstein – Human Nature EP

Alli’s songcraft hits this music lover right between the eyes with both complexity and simplicity.  There are occasional electric flourishes, but the heart is singer-songwriter folk art.  This drips with passion and one is left with the impression that Ms. Millstein is only scratching the surface of what she is capable of.  Here is hoping that a full release will be offered this year as she digs ever deeper into her muse; fearlessly drawing out those truths that both wound and make one whole. 

A native of Hartford, CT, Alli Millstein singer/songwriter is one of the Indie scene’s emerging artists. More recently, Alli has brought her unique vocal and guitar melodies not only to coffeehouse and pubs in the Hartford area, but also to legendary venues in NYC, including Kenny’s Castaways and Arlene’s Grocery. Alli takes inspiration from the work of Dylan, Jenny Lewis and Kimya Dawson to craft her compelling sound that is no less evocative than these artists who have come before her. Alli Millstein’s debut EP, Human Nature, reflects her studied efforts as a perceptive and sophisticated indie folk artist.

About Alli Millstein:

                        ”With the pacifying, calming tone of her melodies and understated guitar accompaniment, Millstein sang lyrics that not only had a personal touch but were well-crafted poems and beautiful songs.” – Allie Siraco Trinity Tripod Review 4/22/08 http://www.troublewithroy.com/2009/09/6-best-quirky-chick-singers-and-how-to.html I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rain Machine – Mountaintop Concert

Malone comes across as a sage of a man, willing to keep his thoughts rooted in the very fundamental claims of the curious heart, speaking from the points of view of the rage and of the collected knowledge of great books and fine philosophic minds who have thought and thought and thought about such matters. His Rain Machine songs are aggressive and uplifting and they’re dark and freakishly somewhat spiritual in that they almost always make you want to burst out the door with new fire fuels your limbs. It’s as if he’s the kind of guy who can force an awakening and make you see things differently, even if the advice he might offer up there on our ceremonial mountaintop was loose and vaguely applicable. The same has always been said about Confucius and those thin strips of paper that he wanted in all of those stale cookie middles. It’s as if the yelps and the times when Malone reaches into the back of his throat and summons up the fireplace in the pits of his stomach, right next to the soul parts, it’s all coming from some old and tested dimension that’s not of these days. The words that he sings and the energies that he chooses to expend and meld here with the wonderful vocals of Sharon Van Etten (the opening act on this tour and a member of his touring band – soon to be featured on the site) are those that come from lion cusses and from hearts that have been hotwired and taken for joyrides – returned with balder tires and with some chips of paint gouged out from the side paneling.

http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/rain-machine-concert/20031094-3738243.html