Three Quick Things

- Boxstr is back up and running. Hurray! I guess that means I need to get back to, you know... posting stuff.

- Mercy Lounge wants to know if there would be any interest in a Peter Murphy show there. If you have a twitter account, let them know the answer is absolutely.

- I've long had a kind of unwritten rule that I wasn't going to write about or promote my own band on here. It's a rule I've really only broken once. My band mate Carl has no such ethical dilemnas. If you haven't checked it out already, he has an awesomely entertaining music blog called The Opening Acts. And for the past couple weeks, he's been posting tracks from our recently (and finally) finished album, Paris Street Is Paris Street. So if you're curious about what I do when I'm not not posting on here, here you go.

The Kid Is Hot Tonight

After seeing a picture of Sidney Crosby on ESPN.com, I got this song stuck in my head. So I went to youtube to hear it, and I've watched/listened to this three times now.



I need to get a Loverboy greatest hits CD. No really, I'm serious. I saw them play at a boat show when I lived in Las Vegas. It was completely awesome, and not in an ironic kinda way.

Let's face it... you will always love the music you thought was cool when you were ten.

Record Store Day 2009

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 18) is the third annual Record Store Day. It you're any kind of music geek, you already know what this entails... a great party with live music, discounts, exclusive new releases and freebies from your favorite local independent music retailer. If you're not sure where that is, you can check out a list of participating stores here.

Last year when Record Store Day came around I hit the road to see The Duke Spirit, and ended up celebrating all things indie at CD Central in Lexington, KY. This year I'll be staying closer to home... really close to home actually. While Grimeys always throws one hell of a party (and tomorrow is no exception), I'll be sticking to the East side for The Groove's Record Store Day festivities. Sets from local fave Hotpipes and Shoot The Mountain are part of the reason, but it also helps that it's a short five blocks from my apartment. And since, in a regrettable lack of foresight, the GF and I scheduled a yard sale for tomorrow (gotta make room for all the new CDs I'll be bringing home), it means I'll only be five minutes away if she needs help.

Whether you live in Nashville or elsewhere, make it a point to stop by your favorite independent record store tomorrow and buy something. Not only will you save some cash, but you'll feel good by not giving your money to some faceless, generic corporate behemoth, who really only sells music in the hopes that you'll also buy a new microwave while you're in their superstore.

Young People Scream

Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Exit/In, Nashville, TN
Monday, April 6, 2009

Robyn Hitchcock is no stranger to Nashville. In 2004 he recorded an album here with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and lately he has made the Belcourt a regular stop when his tours swing through the Southeast. But all of his shows in town over the past twenty years have been mostly acoustic affairs. So when he took the stage at the Exit/In on Monday night with three-fifths of R.E.M. moonlighting at the Venus 3 backing him up, it was something Music City hadn't experiences in quite some time... electric Hitchcock. He even mentioned during the set that it was nice to be playing Nashville in a rock and roll setting again.

So how did Robyn and company kick off their set? With a version of "I Often Dream Of Trains" that was about as acoustic-y as you can get while still playing electric guitars. It was hard to complain about the low key start though, because while the rest of the show might not have been as raucous as The Egyptians sets were in the mid-80s, it was definitely a rock show. The setlist covered the gamut of Hitchcock's career, from the Soft Boys classic "Kingdom Of Love" all the way through his most recent album Goognight Oslo. Peter Buck stuck mostly to playing 12 string throughout the show, only occasionally breaking out a 6 string Rickenbacker to keep things from getting too Byrds-y (any R.E.M. fans who miss his chimey guitar parts from the 80s would be wise to get out to one of these shows). With runs through "Airscape," "Vibrating," "Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis)," and an absolutely stellar version of "Madonna Of The Wasps," it was definitely a set for the fanboys (and girls) to get excited about.

After starting the encore with a solo, truly acoustic version of "The Wreck of the Arthur Lee," the band came back out for what Hitchcock described as an "celebrity cameo packed extended encore." The celebrity bit didn't come until the last song though. As R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills took the stage to play guitar, the rest of the band played musical chairs. With Buck on drums, bassist Scott McCaughey on guitar and drummer Bill Rieflin on bass, the band launched into loose but spirited version of "Listening To The Higsons." It might not have been, as Mike Mills described it, "the best show we'll see in Tennessee all year," but it was definitely one hell of a fun night.


photo by Tanya Wright, courtesy of Nashville Cream. Check out their review of the show here.

¡Viva la Revolucion!

Workers - Workers

We are only a quarter of the way through 2009, and while it may be too early to declare my favorite album of the year already, I've certainly found a front runner. Depending on how you look at it, Workers is either the best album of a young band's career, or an absolutely stellar debut.

Louisville's Workers began their career a few years back under the name Your Black Star. After four album and EP releases, and relentless touring of the US, England, Japan and Australia, last year they announced that they were changing their name. The self titled Workers is the first release under the new name, and it makes one hell of a statement. The opening track, "Revolutions," serves as somewhat of a manifesto for the rest of the album, setting the tone with delay drenched guitars and a driving and rock solid rhythm section. Both lyrically and sonically, the album is much brighter their last release, Beasts, yet it sounds every bit as urgent. While most of their final release as YBS seemed steeped in darkness, tracks like "Trinidad & Tobago" are almost relentlessly hopeful. "Spark" rings with the echoes of Unforgettable Fire era U2, and "Funeral" sounds like My Bloody Valentine reimagining "Sweet Child O' Mine" (a strange analogy I'm sure, but trust me, it sounds fantastic). It's simply an amazing record

I could go on and on talking about how much I love this album, but I won't. I'll just say that I've been listening to it pretty much nonstop for four months now, and it's never stopped growing on me. Check it out for yourself at CDBaby or iTunes.

Workers - "Revolutions" (mp3)
Workers - "Trinidad & Tobago" (mp3)

Alright Yeah

Tonite Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 will be performing at the Exit/In in Nashville. For the uninitiated, the Venus 3 is comprised of Peter Buck and R.E.M. touring members Scott McCaughey and Bill Reiflin. Although they've been backing up Hitchcock for three years now, the connection between Robyn & R.E.M. goes back over twenty years. Peter Buck has been a regular contributor on Hitchcock's albums ever since 1987's Globe Of Frogs, and Robyn & The Egyptians opened for R.E.M. on the Green tour in 1989.

In honor of tonite's show, I figured I'd dust off the old Monday morning b-side feature for a double shot of Hitchcock/R.E.M. related rarities. "Dark Green Energy" was the b-side to Robyn's 1991 single "So You Think You're In Love," and features Michael Stipe on vocals. "The Arms Of Love" is a song from Hitchcock's 1993 album Respect, but R.E.M. covered it a year earlier on their "Man On The Moon" single.

Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - "Dark Green Energy" (mp3)
R.E.M. - "The Arms Of Love" (mp3)