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OUR CALENDAR
January
27
Tuesday
February
6
Friday
February
12
Thursday
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February
18
Wednesday
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February
21
Saturday
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February
27
Friday
March
2
Monday
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March
3
Tuesday
March
20
Friday
April
8
Wednesday
April
8
Wednesday
John Doe (of X)
John Doe was born in 1977 when he arrived in Los Angeles. His previous life in Tennessee, Wisconsin & Baltimore was a great & fertile time but new music and social changes led him to events that created a life in art. He graduated from Antioch College in Baltimore in 1975, worked as a roofer, aluminum siding mechanic, and ran a poetry reading series. Ms. Meyers was his landlord in the rural black community of Simpsonville , MD.
John met Exene Cervenka at the Venice poetry workshop Nov 1976 and he started working with Billy Zoom around the same time.
When DJ Bonebrake joined X in mid-1977 the line up was complete. They released six studio records, five or six singles and one live record from 1978-1993. Five of X’s records have been re-issued along with two compilations. The Unheard Music documents their lives and progress as a band from 1980-83. In 2009 the film was included in the Sundance UCLA Archive of greatest films of all time. They appeared several times on American Bandstand, Solid Gold and David Letterman. As one of the last original punk rock bands standing, they continue to tour. The day that X played a free noontime concert in Fullerton, CA, they caused Orange County’s greatest high school truancy rate to date.
In 1988 John started a family and lived in the Tehachapi Mountains, near the “Grapevine” of Highway 5, which separates southern and central California. He has recorded 8 solo records w/ numerous renowned singers and players, more recently including Patty Griffin, Dan Auerbach, Aimee Mann, Don Was, Kathleen Edwards and Greg Liesz. He has appeared in over 50 films and television productions, with some of his most notable roles in Road House, Georgia, Roadside Prophets, Great Balls of Fire, Pure Country and Roswell. He continues to act these days but more sporadically as his touring schedule has become more demanding.
Other musical side projects include work with the Knitters, Jill Sobule and The Sadies. He continues to write poetry and has even taught workshops from time to time. He currently lives north of San Francisco, California.
OUR LINKS
Jesse Dayton
Jesse Dayton has been building a cult following around the globe playing festivals in North America and Europe for years with his guitar shredding, country-infused, Americana sound. As a critic’s darling for his first record on Justice Records, Raisin’ Cain (1995), and a number one Americana radio ranking, Jesse was hired at a young age to play lead guitar on some of the last recordings, and play live, by country legends Waylon Jennings, Ray Price, Johnny Bush, Willie Nelson & Glen Campbell and he’s been featured in many guitar magazines. Sensing a shift in the music business climate, Jesse formed his own label in 2002, Stag Records, and began his most prolific recording period. While recording five solo records, one duet record, one live record, all on Stag, as well as two soundtrack recordings (Devil’s Rejects, Halloween 2) for rocker/director Rob Zombie, Jesse managed to act in movies and music videos, produce several records for other artists (the latest being Supersuckers front man Eddie Spaghetti’s “The Value Of Nothing” on Bloodshot Records), write two screenplays, and most recently wrote and directed a new horror movie, “Zombex,” starring Malcolm McDowell, Sid Haig, John Doe, and Lew Temple (“Walking Dead). All while still performing 150 shows per year.
OUR LINKS
Ben Howard
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
Willy Mason
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
2/6
Waka Winter Classic
All Ages | 8 pm
Waka Winter Classic
The Wakarusa Music Festival will be traveling to 20 cities this winter in a quest to locate the best and brightest musicians the country has to offer. At every stop on the tour several bands will compete in a regional talent showcase. The winner of each talent showcase as decided by the fans in attendance will receive an invitation to play at Wakarusa 2014. But it doesn’t end there. The winners in each city will also have their music featured on our website and will compete in an online talent showcase. The three bands that receive the most votes in our online competition will get a chance to play the Revival stage at the festival along with a host of other surprises. Be sure to come out and support your favorite band!
Band Lineup:tba
OUR LINKS
That 1 Guy
With an extensive and amazing track record of unique and imaginative performances featuringhis curious instrument and copious amounts of originality, Mike Silverman aka That1Guy has set himself apart as a true one-of-a-kind talent that rivals any other artist currently in the entertainment industry. Averaging 150-200 shows a year all over North America and Canada, he has been a consistent favorite at such festivals as: Wakarusa, Electric Forest, Big Day out, All Good, Bella, High Sierra, Summer Meltdown, Montreal Jazz Festival, and many more. He was also the ʻTap Water Awardʼ winner at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for best musical act. His legendary collaboration and multiple tours with Buckethead as The Frankenstein Brothers has further cemented his virtuoso story as a creative visionary as well.
His innovation continues to soar with the announcement of another tour kicking off in January 2014, which will feature live video projections on a completely unique rig invented, created and operated by the guy himself. Along with his pioneering main instrument, The Magic Pipe, a monstrosity of metal, strings, and electronics, facilitates the dynamic live creation of music and magic in ways only That1Guy can conjure, expect to see magic as well now integrated into the already clever performance. With this addition of incorporating magic seamlessly into his live shows, he has legitimately achieved an all inclusive audio/visual performance unlike anything experienced before. “So much of my music has miraculous qualities to it because itʼs hard to tell whatʼs going on. There are lots of slights of hand and sonic misdirection. It feels like I was meant to do magic”.
Silvermanʼs backstory is very similar to many musicians that have come before him. He grew up a self proclaimed music geek, soaked in the influence of his jazz musician father, and enrolled in San Francisco Conservatory of Music before joining the local jazz scene himself as a sought-after percussive bassist. This is where the similarities end, though, and where That1Guy truly began. “In my case, being a bass player, I just felt very restricted by the instrument itself,” he says. “Iʼve always wanted to sound different and have my own sound. I was headed that way on the bass, but for me to fully realize what I was hearing in my head sonically I was going to have to do it my way”. His influential and innovative double bass style eventually evolved into what we see today as That1Guy and ʻThe Magic Pipeʼ.
As his story continues to develop, Billboard has famously noted, “In the case of Mike Silvermanʼs slamming, futuristic funk act… the normal rules of biology just donʼt apply.”
OUR LINKS
DJ Feels Goodman
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
The Wood Brothers
Chris Wood had a scrap of a song — seemed like a chorus — scribbled in a notebook. He played it for his older brother, Oliver, who’d had a verse lying around he didn’t know what to do with. The two pieces, composed months apart, one in urban Atlanta and the other deep in the Catskills, dovetailed musically and lyrically: the verse about a man regretting chasing unattainable women, the high-lonesome, harmony-driven refrain of “When I die, I wanna be sent back to try, try again.”
“Neon Tombstone” wasn’t the first song that Chris, a founding member of jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood, and Oliver, formerly Tinsley Ellis’s guitarist, had written — since 2006, they’d released three studio albums of Americana as The Wood Brothers. But it was the first one they’d written like this. “This is how a song is supposed to come together,” Oliver remembers thinking. “There was some chance, some randomness, to it.”
The experience marked a deeper level of collaboration for The Wood Brothers, a newfound fraternal synchronicity that’s captured on their latest album, ‘The Muse.’ Within the first few bars of opener “Wastin’ My Mind,” which could pass for a lost cut from “The Last Waltz,” it’s clear the brothers are operating on a different plane than when we last heard them, on 2011’s ‘Smoke Ring Halo.’ The components are similar: the dialed-in vocal harmonies, Oliver’s gritty acoustic guitar, Chris’s virtuosic upright bass, the warrior poet lyrics. But here there’s a glue — a yellowy carpenter’s glue, one imagines — holding it all together. The cohesion comes from the brothers having spent the last two years on the road with new full-time member Jano Rix, a drummer and ace-in-the-hole multi-instrumentalist, whereas they relied on session musician-friends to fill out previous albums. Jano’s additional harmonies give credence to the old trope that while two family members often harmonize preternaturally, it takes a third, non-related singer for the sound to really shine. And then there’s Jano’s work on his literally patented percussion instrument, the “shuitar,” a shitty acoustic guitar rigged up with tuna cans and other noisemakers, which, in his hands, becomes a veritable drum kit.
Starting with debut ‘Ways Not To Lose,’ which NPR described as a collection of “gracious little songs [that] sound like they were born on a front porch during a beautiful sunset,” The Wood Brothers have made albums like you’re not supposed to anymore — recording mostly live, warts and all. But on ‘The Muse,’ they double down on the production values of a purer time. Whereas ‘Smoke Ring Halo’ was tracked with the musicians playing in separate rooms, here Chris, Oliver and Jano often circled around a tree of microphones, a couple feet apart from one another, and simply played the songs, with even the lead vocals being recorded on the spot. The arrangement is a producer’s nightmare — the different sounds bleed into the various mics, limiting mixing options and ruling out the possibility of fixing mistakes — but the band had two willing accomplices: legendary country musician Buddy Miller, who produced the album, and Nashville studio vet Mike Poole, who engineered.
“I just love how Mike and Buddy really embraced that idea,” Oliver says. Miller, an award-winning producer, guitarist and solo artist, has performed and recorded with icons such as Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Oliver continues, “I hear little things that are out of tune or imperfect, and I love it. That’s what I like about old recordings – they just did it, and that’s what happened.”
From early in their childhood in Boulder, CO., Chris and Oliver were steeped in American roots music. Their father, a molecular biologist, would perform classic songs at campfires and family gatherings, while their mother, a poet, instilled a passion for storytelling and turn of phrase. The brothers bonded over bluesmen like Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins, but their paths, musical and otherwise, would diverge. Oliver moved to Atlanta, where he played guitar in cover bands before earning a spot in Tinsley Ellis’s touring act. At Ellis’s behest, Oliver began to sing and then founded King Johnson, a hard-touring group that would release six albums of blues-inflected R&B, funk and country over the next 12 years. Chris, meanwhile, studied jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music, moved to New York City and, in the early ‘90s, formed Medeski Martin & Wood, which over the next two decades would become a cornerstone of contemporary jazz and abstract music.
After pursuing separate musical careers for some 15 years, the brothers performed together at a show in North Carolina: Oliver sat in with MM&W following King Johnson’s opening set. “I realized we should be playing music together,” Chris recalls. Soon after, the pair recorded a batch of Oliver’s songs, channeling the shared musical heroes of their youth while seizing on their own individual strengths — Oliver’s classic songwriting, Chris’s forward-thinking musicianship. A demo landed them a record deal with Blue Note, who released ‘Ways Not To Lose’ in 2006. Follow-up ‘Loaded’ came in 2008; after covers EP ‘Up Above My Head’ the next year, the band moved to Zac Brown’s Southern Ground Artists for ‘Smoke Ring Halo’ and then 2012’s ‘Live, Volume One: Sky High’ and ‘Live, Volume Two: Nail and Tooth.’
On ‘The Muse,’ following the opening one-two of “Wastin’ My Mind” and “Neon Tombstone,” the album shuffles between bluesy, classic country and swampy funk, mining the brothers’ timeless influences (Robert Johnson, Willie Nelson, Charles Mingus) while sounding fresh enough to win over fans of today’s mainstream roots-music acts (The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons). The title track shows Oliver’s songwriting at its most tender and autobiographical to date, as he sings of his “finest work yet” — his newborn child — in his endearingly offbeat voice, which The New York Times calls “gripping.” Chris takes the vocal lead on “Sweet Maria” and “Losin’,” and capably so, while on his standup bass, he’s often playful, even rascally, imbuing the songs with humor with his warm, unpredictable notes. Jano, when not banging on his shuitar, adds refreshing flourishes of piano and melodica.
‘The Muse’ marks another milestone for The Wood Brothers: it’s the first full-length they’ve recorded at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville. In the way that Manhattan becomes its own character in an old Woody Allen movie, the live room at Southern Ground plays a key role on the album, making its warm presence felt throughout. (There’s even a little hiss from the analog tape machine.) The choice of location was practical, given Nashville’s rich history and network of musicians, but also symbolic: The Wood Brothers are now officially a Nashville-based band, with Oliver having relocated in 2012, and Chris recently following. It’s the first time the brothers have lived in the same city since they left their parents’ nest; both are eager, along with Nashville local Jano, to plumb the sense of collaboration they tapped into during the fateful “Neon Tombstone” writing session. As Oliver says of ‘The Muse,’ “This is the first record that really feels like a band record. It’s taken years for us to really feel like we can collaborate, and I think this is the pinnacle of it so far.”
OUR LINKS
Kristina Train
Savannah, Georgia native Kristina Train released her debut solo album “Spilt Milk” on Blue Note Records in 2009. Noting her distinctive, soulful voice, Herbie Hancock invited her to join his band as lead singer and violinist for his 2010 world tour. After literally circling the globe with Hancock, Train moved to London to record the much-vaunted “Dark Black” for Mercury Records which was deemed "fantastic" by Bruce Springsteen. The most-recent chapter of her journey finds Train back Stateside, living in Nashville, collaborating with old friends and exploring her life-long love of Americana and roots music.
OUR LINKS
- Kristina Train Homepage
- On Facebook
- On Youtube
- On Spotify (Will launch Spotify Application)
- On SoundCloud
- On Twitter
Chuck Mead
He’s been known as the co-founder of the three-time Grammy nominated BR549, the honky-tonk heroes that almost single-handedly lit and carried the blowtorch for the mid-‘90s alternative country explosion. He’s been hailed as ‘The Hillbilly Renaissance Man’ for his subsequent successes as a songwriter, performer, producer and musical theater director. Now after more than a decade as one of the most uncompromising and consistent talents in the American roots music movement, Chuck Mead at last emerges with the most anticipated role of his entire career: Solo Artist.
With Journeyman’s Wager, Chuck Mead throws down the gauntlet with an album that defies all sonic expectations while re-defining his position as one of the hardest-working artists in the business. “I respect the term ‘journeyman’,” Mead says, “because that’s I what consider myself. I’ve been living by my wits musically for more than 20 years now, going from job to job and doing them all pretty well. Certainly there’s a hustle to what I do, but there’s always been a gambling aspect to it, too. With this album, it’s finally all me going all-in. It’s a record that challenges listeners in a good way. Best of all, I’ve challenged myself.”
Produced by Grammy-winner Ray Kennedy, the eleven tracks on Journeyman’s Wager embody not only the core of country music, but also the pulse of pop, R&B, hillbilly rock, Gospel and beyond. “Why be confined by barriers or genres?” Chuck asks. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s all American Music. These are the sounds that made up my musical vocabulary. I still believe that American Music is about real things, good stories and unique songs. And I’m willing to bet that most everyone else does, too.”
“It’s hard to believe that it’s taken him this long to make a solo record,” says producer/engineer Ray Kennedy, best known for his work on classic albums by Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. “What sets Chuck apart from so many artists is that he’s a genuine hard-working, blue-collar performer. I hate the word ‘old-school’ but we didn’t want this album to sound like a lot of modern records where everything is over-tweaked and perfect. We knew we had to make it intimate and real.” Kennedy recorded the entire album analog on two-inch tape, in a studio full of both state-of-the art and vintage equipment that included ‘60s tube microphones, a Vox Continental organ, and a badass band that featured Kenny Vaughn (Marty Stuart), Audley Freed (The Black Crowes), Mark Miller (BR549), Mark Horn (The Derailers), Dave Roe (Johnny Cash), Mike Henderson (The SteelDrivers), Pat Sivers (The Everly Brothers) and Jen Gunderman (The Jayhawks). “Chuck is the same in the studio as he is on stage,” Kennedy explains. “He loves working without a net. There are a lot of multiple voices singing into one microphone and the band playing together in one room. Most of all, it’s an album that really represents his worldview song-wise. It has humor, intelligence, sarcasm, a bit of politics and a lot of spontaneity. Plus he’s singing his ass off. Chuck doesn’t have a model; he really is a journeyman in that songwriting and entertaining is his life.”
For Mead, life and music have always been irrevocably intertwined. “I joined my first band at 12 years old,” he explains with a laugh. “Ruint me forever.” Throughout his 20s, he led several groups in and around his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, including the popular Mid-western cult band The Homestead Grays. By the early ‘90s, Chuck found himself as an itinerant musician on Nashville’s then-seedy Lower Broadway. It was a place in time where a performer armed with only the vision of a sonically relentless hillbilly band with nothing to lose could try anything. Within months, Mead co-founded a quintet that began playing must-see marathon sets in the front window of bar/bootery Robert’s Western World. Seven albums, three Grammy nominations and millions of worldwide fans later, BR549 would become one of the most improbable success stories of the past decade.
“BR549 is on extended hiatus,” Chuck now says. “We were – and remain – a family, and taking a break from each other will make us miss each other more. We survived the highs, the lows and all the hype, and we still had fun making music we love. But it was also time for me to do my own thing.” With the exception of occasional reunions on Prairie Home Companion (at the behest of longtime fan Garrison Keillor) and benefits for favorite charities, Mead’s post-BR career soon became known as much for its continued integrity as for its eclecticism. He founded the touring collective The Hillbilly All-Stars featuring members of The Mavericks, co-produced acclaimed tribute albums to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, guest-lectured on ‘The Sociology of Modern American Culture’ at Vanderbilt University, and became a staff writer at one of Nashville’s top song publishers. In 2007, he was named Musical Director of Million Dollar Quartet, the new hit stage musical based on the night in 1956 that Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley came together for an impromptu jam session. “It’s been incredibly liberating to do all these things I’ve never done before,” Chuck says. “But most of all, I wanted to call my own shots and make a record that mattered.”
Ten of the eleven tracks on Journeyman’s Wager are co-written by Mead, who’d spent the past year working with such idiosyncratic and award-winning songwriters as Tia Sillers, Bobby Huff, Greg Crowe, Patrick Davis, Angeleena Presley, Mark Collie and Jon & Sally Tiven. The album roars out of the gate with the twanging highway stomp of “Out On The Natchez Trail”, and runs head-on into the sinister mystery of “Gun Metal Grey”. The horn-powered “She Got The Ring (I Got The Finger)” is a sly nod to Jerry Reed’s “She Got The Goldmine (I Got The Shaft)”. There’s classic country-pop wisdom in “Albuquerque”, gentle insight in “Up On Edge Hill”, and hard-driving good times in “I Wish It Was Friday”. “A Long Time Ago” is a paean of pedal-steel regret, while “After The Last Witness Is Gone” is a bold testimonial that’s equal parts honky-tonk and roadhouse rocker. “In A Song” may be the album’s genuine showstopper, a gloriously sanctified testament to the Everlasting Church Of Music. The disc’s sole cover is a fiery version – complete with yodeling – of George Harrison’s “Old Brown Shoe”, the obscure Beatles b-side from “The Ballad Of John & Yoko”. The album closes with the assured shuffle-funk of “No Requests”, a song whose chorus is a potent statement of purpose from an artist who is now truly his own man.
“Even when BR549 were being called a throwback act, we never allowed ourselves to be classified,” says Chuck. “The key was to always bring something new to everything we did. Today my slate is cleaner than ever before. This album is all me, doing what comes naturally.” For Chuck Mead, the time has come for one of Americana’s most uncommon artists to finally step out, step up and be heard on his own unique terms. And in a game where sure bets are rarely the real deal, one singer/songwriter/performer is again unafraid to lay it all on the line. “I mean everything I say on this album,” Chuck Mead says. “You can tell it with a wink and a smile, but it’s still the truth. And the truth is that Journeyman’s Wager is the culmination of everything I’ve learned. These are my decisions. This is my music.”
OUR LINKS
The Howlin Brothers
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
Earphunk
Hailing from New Orleans, Prog-Funk band Earphunk has emerged as one of the Southeast's premier jam acts. The quintet has been steadily building a rabid fan base across the United States with their unique brand of high-energy funk, inspired improvisation, and dynamic stage production. In an innovative move to get their music in the hands of live music fans, Earphunk have partnered with direct-to-fan publisher platform BitTorrent Bundle to release content-rich collections of live shows and studio albums. Visit the band's website (www.earphunk.com) to stream and download songs from Earphunk's current discography for free.
OUR LINKS
Zoogma
Zoogma combines the sonic diversity and precision of a DJ with the excitement and immediacy of a five piece rock group. Known for their energetic performances and retina pleasing light show, the band consistently dishes out heavy-weight beat-driven dance parties across the nation. Sets are kinetic, combining live improvisation with carefully crafted beats and melodic textures.
With the release of their debut album, Recreational Vehicles, along with a relentless tour schedule, the five members have already added their unique voice to the live electronic-rock scene. Evolving in Oxford, MS, Zoogma’s sound can be described as an eclectic fusion of Electronica, Rock, Jazz, World, and Hip-Hop. This blend of genres results in a musical experience that appeals to a range of audiences, with a sound that is refreshingly original yet steeped in the dance music tradition.
Sharing the stage with acts such as Perpetual Groove, Pnuma Trio, Big Gigantic, Eliot Lipp, Keller Williams, The New Mastersounds, and Ozric Tentacles, Zoogma is poised to captivate you!
OUR LINKS
Houndmouth
That first November 2011 night, when it all fell together at the Green House, was nothing more complicated than four friends playing music, armed with something to drink and a curiosity about what might happen. They were the generation who has come of age in the new economy, already adept at shuffling jobs and get-bys, firmly acclimated to the diminished expectations that come with growing up somewhere the rest of the world assumes is nowhere. Which, in this case, is New Albany, Indiana.
Houndmouth, then, knew each other from…around. Matt Myers and Zak Appleby had played in cover bands together for years, schooled in blues and classic rock and Motown, toughened by indifferent audiences and the clatter of empty bottles. Matt and Katie Toupin had worked as an acoustic duo for three years, when she wasn’t on the road tending to a straight job. Katie and Shane Cody had gone to high school together, before Shane disappeared off to Chicago and New York to study audio engineering. In the beginning it was Shane and Matt who’d started knocking around at first, just drums and guitar, once Shane got home and free of a brief bluegrass flirtation.
The rest happened in a tumble, Zak and Katie switching from guitars to bass and keyboards, respectively. Four months later, their homemade EP in hand, Houndmouth made the pilgrimage to South By Southwest. Their booking agent convinced Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis to come have a listen. Of such things are dreams made. Months of conversation and a proper studio later, their debut album, From the Hills Below the City, will be released by Rough Trade.
“We lucked out,” Matt says. “We knew we were making good music. We knew we had something. But we didn’t know it would escalate so quickly. Always the element of luck.”
Before and after that bit of luck, Houndmouth have been on the road, building their audience. Working. Opening for the Drive-By Truckers, the Lumineers, the Alabama Shakes, Lucero, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Headlining on their own. Turning heads.
“You know good art when you see it,” says Newport Folk Festival booker Jay Sweet, an early adopter, “and you know good food when you taste it. Well, you also know good music when you hear it, and when I first heard Houndmouth it was like freshest tasting art I had heard in many moons. A true musical omnivore’s delight.”
“I’m going down where nobody knows me,” they sing during the jaunty chorus of “On the Road.” The opening track to From the Hills Below the City, which is more or less the relationship New Albany has to Louisville, across the river: “I had a job had to leave behind me…I had to move to another city.” A two and a half minute slightly bent pop confection, conscious of all kinds of music which went before. Self-conscious about nothing, not even the neo-rap cutting contest that snaps across one break. A blues for now, then.
The older heads are noticing, the ones who are hardest to convince. “Houndmouth is a great young band,” testifies Patterson Hood of the Truckers. “They toured with us last month and brought it each and every night. They were extremely popular with our fanbase and our band. I look forward to hearing what they do next.”
Rolling Stone’s David Fricke joined the chorus of praise after seeing Houndmouth during SXSW ’13: “They are all singers, leading with individual character and harmonizing in saloon-choir empathy. The music is earthy melancholy with a rude garage-rock streak.”
Houndmouth’s songs emerge with a loose-limbed swing, anchored by a sturdy rhythm and a cagey melodic sensibility. “Penitentiary,” revived from Matt and Katie’s acoustic days, is all dressed up as a rock anthem. It’s dark, yet fun, with all those voices singing, “come on down to the Penitentiary/oh mama, the law came crashing down on me.”
Matt sketches the origins of his song, which became their song. “I met a guy in Reno on a road trip before we started the band, and he was super down on his luck,” he says. “We met him at a gas station, bumming money. He told me a few details that are probably in the song, but I made most of it up. I changed the setting to Texas, because it sounded authentic.” And then he mentions that he was listening to Jimmie Rodgers at the time.
Hard-luck songs, to be sure, betraying a certain criminal bent. Not their stories, Katie is careful to note, but the world they’ve watched walk on by. “We grew up in Southern Indiana,” she says. “It’s not always the classiest place. So all that is not unfamiliar even if we haven’t personally been through the darkest parts of it.”
And yet, as she also says, “No matter how much anyone wants to write a completely fictional or narrative song, there’s ALWAYS part of you in it. I think that it is important, even when writing narrative songs, that there is something real about them. That there is part of yourself in them.” Houndmouth’s truths, then, are emotional. For the most part.
“The dealers and the bootleggers/Got me hooked on freebasing/And I can’t trust my government/So I looked into the other dimension,” Katie sings, tough and innocent. “And now they got me doing bad things.” “The song is a story,” Katie says. “I didn’t get hooked on freebasing. Yet there is part of me in it…It’s also maybe about me wanting to escape, loosen my morals, not opening my heart to people.”
So are the songs. Deeply emotional, that weird, powerful, essential thing the blues does that makes you feel better through the tears. Especially the songs which are deeply personal, like “Halfway to Hardinsburg” or “Palmyra.” Or the sad, slurring loss of “Long as You’re Home,” on which they sing, “Who am I supposed to be?”
Themselves, of course.
Four musicians from New Albany, Indiana, across the river from Louisville. Where Will Oldham, Jim James, and Freakwater’s Catherine Irwin live. A fecund place, and place
matters. Not a sound, not a scene, but a place. A real place. “There is a familiar element about My Morning Jacket that I can’t really pinpoint,” Katie says. “It’s kinda like what I can’t pinpoint about what Houndmouth is that we all sort of get. It just makes us feel at home.”
OUR LINKS
- Houndmouth Homepage
- On Facebook
- On Youtube
- On Spotify (Will launch Spotify Application)
- On SoundCloud
- On Twitter
Twin Limb
"I'll be real: I have no idea what Twin Limb sounds like. I can tell you based on the above picture that they will feature ladies, probably of the singing variety, and an accordion, but I can't tell you anything beyond that. So I'll make it up. Hailing from an alternate reality where accordions are the universal language, Twin Limb are the heroes of their dimension. Originally high school do-nothings, the two were met by a lovable, time traveling so-and-so who via a series of misadventures involving the duo themselves time traveling, taught the pair to "be excellent to each other." This wisdom was imparted on the world after the great Battle of the Bands that Twin Limb won, at which time hover boards and jet packs were widely distributed to the citizens of Earth that everyone may be equally radical. Twin Limb were stranded on our plane of existence shortly after they defeated the quantum bear invasion of 2028, and hope that through their gift of excellence to the planet that they can find a way home." -Never Nervous, 11/5/13
Lacey Guthrie - Accordion, keys, vocals.
Maryliz Guillemi - Drums, guitar, vocals.
Kevin 'Twinderella' Ratterman - Miscellaneous sonic sorcery, magical buttons and pedals, guitar.
Sara Pitt - Everything you see.
Maizy the Dog - Encouragement and unconditional love.
OUR LINKS
Electric Six
2014 was another stellar year for Electric Six. Electric Six began the year by delivering the "Absolute Treasure" live DVD to the Crazies who so generously supported that project, thus making good on the promise to provide the Crazies with a devastating document of the band LIVE IN THE FLESH. Electric Six played shows all over the world, from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Holyhead, Wales to St. Petersburg, Russia and many points in between. Electric Six recorded and released a new record, "Human Zoo." Electric Six went sailing on a sailboat. Electric Six said goodbye to Van. Electric Six welcomed New Van and after a rocky start to the relationship, seems to be settling in just fine. Electric Six initiated a new project involving a 2 disc set of covers and rarities, entitled "Mimicry And Memories," and has worked to record those songs throughtout the latter half of 2014. As is normally the case, Electric Six got a lot done in its 12 months. Electric Six expects that 2015 will be similarly active. Electric Six will finish up the "Mimicry And Memories" project and deliver it unto the Crazies (still holding to March, 2015 at the moment for delivery). Electric Six will embark on its typically active touring schedule once again. Electric Six will commence work on a new record shortly. Electric Six has other plans, dreams and schemes which it hopes to reveal shortly to all the Crazies. It'll be another wild ride, Crazy...get on board.
OUR LINKS
- Electric Six Homepage
- On Facebook
- On Spotify (Will launch Spotify Application)
- On Twitter
- On MySpace
Avan Lava
Being engaged, always being present – it’s about maintaining a certain kind of energy. It’s all inclusive – there’s room for everybody,” describes multi-instrumentalist Ian Pai of the intraband state AVAN LAVA constantly aspires to. In many ways, AVAN LAVA is bigger than their parts and their sum – central to the band is the communing with their fans. “Our whole thing is the audience. It doesn’t happen without them.”
It was this realization that first drew the core members of AVAN LAVA – Pai, producer-musician Le Chev and lead singer TC Hennes – into each other’s paths. The three had spent years orbiting each other in the New York music scene, with Le Chev even auditioning for Pai, who was with performative electroclashers Fischerspooner at the time. (“It’s still the only audition I’ve ever done,” says Le Chev.) When he eventually joined that outfit, Pai and he discovered their shared adoration of Daft Punk was only the beginning, and the two began collaborating on an undetermined project. While Pai and Le Chev found the music came easily, Pai was haunted by the voice he imagined singing over their tracks. “It’s a certain kind of tone that cuts through everything, because of where it sits in the frequency range,” Pai says of what he kept envisioning. Around that time, Pai saw Hennes perform in The Last Goodbye, a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set to the music of Jeff Buckley. “As soon as I heard him sing, I knew that was it,” recalls Pai.
Within days, Hennes came in to sing on a few tracks, and the final piece of AVAN LAVA snapped into cosmic alignment. With Pai amidst the tidal pace of touring, departing and returning for stretches of time, Le Chev and Hennes put together Vapors, AVAN LAVA’s first EP. On the strength of that offering, the group began lighting up audiences and garnering critical attention (prompting The Village Voice to call the band “lush, sparkling”). With 2012’s Flex Fantasy EP, the band built on their unique alchemy of soulful vocals laced through dime-stop beats, launching them on a trajectory that hasn’t stopped. The band embarked on a year-long string of sold-out shows in New York and a US-wide tour with Little Boots, all while managing to spread the AVAN LAVA gospel globally, as when the Seoul Institute of the Arts commissioned the band to put up a full-scale staging of their live show with 100 students. Their reputation as a transportive, over-the-top live act grew, with Noisey raving in a show review "You need these guys in your life!"
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Sylvan Esso
Sylvan Esso was not meant to be a band. Rather, Amelia Meath had written a song called “Play It Right” and sung it with her trio Mountain Man. She’d met Nick Sanborn, an electronic producer working under the name Made of Oak, in passing on a shared bill in a small club somewhere. She asked him to scramble it, to render her work his way. He did the obligatory remix, but he sensed that there was something more important here than a one-time handoff: Of all the songs Sanborn had ever recast, this was the first time he felt he’d added to the raw material without subtracting from it, as though, across the unseen wires of online file exchange, he’d found his new collaborator without even looking.
Meath felt it, too. Schedules aligned. Moves were made. And as 2012 slipped into 2013, Sanborn and Meath reconvened in the unlikely artistic hub of Durham, N.C., a former manufacturing town with cheap rent and good food. Sylvan Esso became a band. A year later, their self-titled debut—a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance—arrives as a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don’t suffer the longstanding complications of that term.
OUR LINKS
- Sylvan Esso Homepage
- On Facebook
- On Spotify (Will launch Spotify Application)
- On SoundCloud
- On Twitter
Flock of Dimes
Flock of Dimes is the solo project of Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner.
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Yonder Mountain String Band
Yonder Mountain String Band has always played music by its own set of rules. Bending bluegrass, rock and countless other influences that the band cites, Yonder has pioneered a sound of their own. With their traditional lineup of instruments, the band may look like a traditional bluegrass band at first glance but they’ve created their own music that transcends any genre. Dave Johnston points out “What could be more pure than making your own music.” Yonder’s sound cannot be classified purely as “bluegrass” or “string music” but rather it’s an original sound created from “looking at music from [their] own experiences and doing the best job possible.” The band continues to play by their own rules on their new record The Show.
The Colorado-based foursome has crisscrossed the country over the past eleven years playing such varied settings as festivals, rock clubs, Red Rocks Amphitheater in the band’s home state, and recently the Democratic National Convention in Denver at Mile High Stadium opening for Barack Obama. Their loyal fanbase has been built from this diverse setting of music venues as fans latched on to their genre-defying original sound.
In between tours the band spent time this last year working on its fifth studio album. Set for a September 1 release on the band’s own label, The Show is the second album with rock producer Tom Rothrock (Beck, Elliott Smith, Foo Fighters). While some might scratch their heads as to why a string band would want a rock producer, this decision was a natural choice for the band. “We don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the past,” says banjo player Dave Johnston. “You shouldn’t try to recreate the 1940s. I like to think of us as informed by the past and all the great performers before us. But we also want to look forward rather than give people something that has already been perfected.”
The Show has the similar acoustic instrumentation (Adam Aijala on guitar, Johnston on banjo, Jeff Austin on mandolin and Ben Kaufman on bass with all four singing) as many of its classic bluegrass forefathers. Though once again drums are present (as with the self-titled fourth album) with the great Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello’s bands adding a rhythmic backdrop to Yonder’s still-acoustic sound on six of the tracks. The record consists of thirteen songs all written by Yonder.
The band has long cited such varied influences as the bluegrass of Del McCoury, Johnson Mountain Boys, Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, Osborne Brothers as well as the punk rock of Bad Religion, Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. Somewhere in between these two tent poles are early 20th Century composers and alternative rock bands like Grandaddy and Postal Service. It’s all funneled through the band’s unique chemistry, honed since they first met at an informal club performance in 1998. With band members writing individually, in different pairings and as a collective, the album proves that this group is a collection of creative peers and you can hear it in the rich tapestry of music that makes up The Show.
Here Yonder offers such traditional bluegrass sounding fare as “Out Of The Blue” and “Casualty.” The band has explored its country roots in the past and does so again this time on “Steep Grade, Sharp Curves,” a song that describes the roads around its home base in Nederland as well as a particularly dangerous femme fatale. A little further from the roots is the impressionistic “Isolate” with its simple but ominous bass line and minimal arrangement. There is also a bevy of rockers like “Complicated,” “Fingerprints” and “Belle Parker,” a gem of a song about a hard-hearted woman. The band even finds some excellent middle ground between bluegrass and rock on “Fine Excuses” thanks in part to a scorching guitar solo from Adam Aijala. There is also the extended “Honestly” -- at eight-minutes, the longest song on the album, with a middle section that is an excellent platform for lengthier live excursions that are as improvisatory as any electric band on the live music circuit.
The band is a regular at bluegrass festivals like the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the band's own Northwest String Summit as well as massive multi-stage events like Austin City Limits Festival, Bonnaroo and Rothbury. Fans are no doubt drawn to Yonder’s anything goes attitude, its humor and passion about music, and the band’s ability to stretch out live. “We love that people come to see us,” Johnston points out. “Everyone appreciates good music. Some people want to go to a recital and some people want to party.”
But as its fans know, Yonder Mountain String Band does something a little different, more than just a musical party. The Show is the band’s most varied and versatile album to date, and the summation of the journey that these guys are on together. It’s bluegrass for the masses, acoustic tunes filled with dazzling chops, and it’s fun to boot. The humble Johnston sounds as surprised as anyone by the band’s success, but knows that it all boiled down to chemistry, which has never changed. “Somewhere down there we all kind of recognized that we had something unique,” he explains. “But there is no way I could have imagined the amount of success that the band has had.”
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Ben Sollee
Kentucky-born cellist and composer Ben Sollee likes to keep moving. He kicked off 2014 with the release of his score for the documentary film Maidentrip. In March, he performed at Carnegie Hall as part of a tribute to Paul Simon. And you may have caught Sollee on the road supporting song-writer William Fitzsimmons throughout April and May. If you’ve seen him perform, you know it’s not to missed.
For listeners just discovering Ben’s music, you’ll find that there’s a lot more to it than songs. Over the 6 years following the release of his debut record, Learning to Bend, Sollee has told an unconventional story with his rugged cello playing. Seeking a deeper connection to communities on the road, Ben first packed his touring life onto his bicycle in 2009. Since then he has ridden over 4,000 miles from show to show. He has been invited to perform and speak on sustainability at a number of festivals including South by Southwest Music (2011) and TEDx San Diego (2012).
Closer to home, Ben has devoted a tremendous amount of energy to raising awareness about the practice of mountaintop removal mining in Central Appalachia. His 2010 collaborative album Dear Companion (Sub Pop) brought together fellow Kentucky artist Daniel Martin Moore with producer Jim James (My Morning Jacket) to shed light on the issue. In teaming up with international organizations such as Patagonia Clothing and Oxfam America, Ben has come to be known as a thoughtful activist who mobilizes his audiences to take environmental actions through the power of live music.
Like his contemporaries Chris Thile and Abigail Washburn, Sollee’s music is difficult to pin down. Following a performance at the Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, the New York Times remarked how Sollee’s “…meticulous, fluent arrangements continually morphed from one thing to another. Appalachian mountain music gave way to the blues, and one song was appended with a fragment from a Bach cello suite, beautifully played.” It’s Ben’s quality of narrative and presence on stage that unifies his musical influences.
However, always on the move, Sollee’s musical career has expanded beyond the stage into film and TV. Shows like ABC’s Parenthood and HBO’s Weeds have placed featured Ben’s songs. In 2013, he was invited by director Mark Steven Johnson to write a song for the film Killing Season starring John Travolta and Robert De Niro. Ben has also has written music for ballet, most recently performing with the North Carolina Dance Theater in the world premiere of Dangerous Liaisons, and is currently at work on scores for several pieces of theatre. He continues touring, including headlining dates throughout the United States in the fall of 2014, and has recently returned from his first solo tour of Europe, which took him to three countries to play eleven shows in two weeks.
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Dr. Dog
On January 13th DR. DOG will release Live at a Flamingo Hotel, the first ever bottling of the band’s legendary live performance. While studio releases have seen high critical acclaim, it’s the band’s live show that has truly cemented it as one of America’s best and brightest acts, a rock n roll juggernaut that has won its large and ever-growing fan base by exceeding expectations.
“That’s always what we’ve wanted to do,” says bassist/vocalist Toby Leaman. “We’re one thing on a record and a different thing live. Somebody goes to a DR. DOG show and they come back again and they bring more people with them. Our live show is vital to how we view ourselves as a band.”
With Live at a Flamingo Hotel, the band has captured the essence of a DR. DOG show; no matter the venue or town, the medium is the message. That tiny article is important: It’s “A” flamingo hotel, not “The,” which lends itself to that idea of transient perfection, a band that gives its all to each and every audience, every night, all the time. “That’s the point of a DR. DOG show, transporting you in some way,” says Leaman. “Whether it’s a shit basement in Texas or an amphitheater in Philadelphia, it doesn’t matter, this is the place; this is what we do, no matter what.”
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Mewithoutyou
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
Reptar
There are four boys who make up Reptar. They have offered twice as many (if not more) explanations for why they chose to name their band after a Rugrats character. Â But these days, the Athens, GA based group is sticking to this one: “I first tried to name the band Invisible Boyfriend,” giggles singer-guitarist Graham Ulicny. “And everybody goes, ‘that is the stupidest name I have ever heard in my life.” So why Reptar? “It is the second stupidest band name we have ever heard.”
Indeed, there is no pretense behind Reptar, which also includes Andrew McFarland (drums), Ryan Engelberger (Bass), and William Kennedy (analog keyboards). Â Still, the ability to amuse and arouse their fans is just as important to them as indulging their musical curiosities. Â This sonic wanderlust extends from African Music to post-punk to psych-pop and converges joyously in songs such as “Blastoff” and “Rainbounce,” and it’s won them high fives from NPR and NME alike.
Their aesthetic percolates even more vibrantly through their debut LP, Body Faucet, out May 1, 2012 on Vagrant Records. Â A set of shimmering sing-along anthems produced by Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Washed Out), Body Faucet is propelled by jerky guitars and persistent beats. Â “The record feels like a big dream with different chapters,” says Ryan. “Ghost Bike” captures the space between witnessing a friend’s death and surviving it. In “Sebastian” (named after a saint who became a gay icon), it’s experiencing, then remembering, a sexual awakening with a close friend. Â Lyrics and music flow in a liquid form from real places, each song oozing with a different color and substance. Â “We wanted to capture the thoughts we project on our surroundings and the ideas that flow in and out of us each day,” says Graham. Â Indeed, much of the record deals with exploring and interacting with one’s surroundings in new, occasionally frustrating, ways. Â The album builds with songs such as “New House,” expressing a future of possibilities. Â A centerpiece of sorts, notes Andrew, “it’s the most driving song on the record, and it’s really empowering live.”
If Reptar had a superpower, it’d be the knack for warming up every space they inhabit. Â “Our music is very physical,” says Ryan. Â “We always try to get people moving.” This is wired into the DNA of the band, which honed its chops on house shows and continues to keep them a central part of its life. Â These shows began three years ago when they moved into a teetering, buttercup yellow abode together. Â “It was slanted at a 20-degree angle,” Ryan explains, “and we’d have shows in the front room.” Â Word spread, and soon they were popping up around at other houses, then clubs.
Reptar even rounded out their stint at last year’s SXSW by playing in a friend’s backyard. Â Impressed by this commitment to connect, NME later rhapsodized about that bouncy set performed on a flatbed truck, anointing Reptar one of the “biggest buzzes” at the festival. Â “Little kids were running around selling cupcakes to drunk people for exorbitant amounts of money,” marvels Graham. Â Reptar, of course, played for free.
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Infamous Stringdusters
Dismiss labels. Forget trying to fit into a scene. Be true and play your songs.
That encompasses the prevailing spirit of Let It Go, the fifth studio album from Grammy-nominated bluegrass expansionists The Infamous Stringdusters. The new effort, released April 1 on the band’s own High Country Recordings, finds the band on firm footing, at ease with an evolving sound that defies categorization. It’s acoustic music, sure, but not the kind you’ll hear from any other band. Roots can be traced but boundaries don’t exist.
The Infamous Stringdusters have proven they can both mine the past and look forward to the unknown, and their new album is a touchstone for a group of tightly bonded musicians completely comfortable with each other and their collective identity.
Perhaps the sentiment is best summarized through five joined voices in the mountaintop gospel-hued title track: “If it’s worry you’ve been feeling over things you can’t control, it’s time to let it go.”
The Evolution
When The Infamous Stringdusters first emerged eight years ago, the band was immediately branded fast-picking Nashville wunderkinds, a new-generation super group built to revive the high lonesome sound. Then came immediate accolades—IBMA awards, a chart-topping self-titled album for Sugar Hill Records and a Grammy nomination for “Best Country Instrumental” (for “Magic No. 9″ from the 2010 album Things That Fly). Incendiary chops, complete with undeniable instrumental virtuosity and heartfelt harmonies, immediately positioned the band to be longstanding bluegrass torchbearers.
But for the five members of The Stringdusters—Andy Hall (Dobro), Andy Falco (guitar), Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle) and Travis Book (upright bass)—reverence for traditionalism has always been only part of the equation. The group has always remained intent on fostering something bigger, more original. It’s this desire—and the combined efforts of uniquely creative minds—that has brought the quintet to its current place as multi-dimensional string explorers, mixing tight song craft from a variety of musical styles with a flare for improvisation. Armed with an exhilarating, often-unpredictable live show, the open-minded approach has certainly resonated and allowed the band to easily fit on a diverse set of stages—from Telluride and Grey Fox to Bonnaroo and High Sierra—building crowds along the way that fill some of the country’s best rock clubs.
The Lifestyle Experience
The past year was particularly transformative, as the band members realized there was no need to go through the formulaic motions in a shaky music industry. Bolstered by the support of a loyal and dedicated grassroots fan base, The Infamous Stringdusters are constantly looking for opportunities to create new experiences. Oftentimes it happens on stage, like the recent sit-ins from Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh or jazz guitar legend John Scofield. Other times it’s through accompanying adventures, like the band’s August 2013 trip on the Middle Fork of Idaho’s Salmon River.
Following the group’s 2013 summer American Rivers Tour, which doubled as an awareness campaign for water sustainability issues in partnership with prominent outdoor industry companies including Patagonia, Klean Kanteen and Osprey Packs, the band members and select fans and friends embarked on a six-day float trip through an unspoiled wilderness area. With instruments in tow, the band played music daily, standing on the banks of the river or sitting together in campsite circles. The inspiration of natural surroundings yielded fresh songs that landed on the new album. “Middlefork” is a newgrass instrumental that conveys the mood of being free in pristine open spaces. “Where The Rivers Run Cold” features a fast progression and introspective lyrics that peak with a bold chorus about enjoying the beauty that surrounds.
In The Studio
When it was time to record Let It Go, the band came together in the fall at White Star Sound, a secluded studio with rustic, close-knit accommodations and state-of-the-art equipment, located on a vast, historic farm outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s a quiet place, accessed by a dirt road, where chickens wander freely and long pastoral views can be enjoyed in every direction. With no distractions, it was the perfect place to distill an overflowing well of ideas that had been filling since the band’s last release, 2012’s Silver Sky.
The result is easily the band’s most cohesive musical statement to date. It’s a record that respects the studio process. Dynamic picking is delivered with restrained grace, in service to song. There’s stylistic range within the context of a unified vision, as melodic reflective tunes wander between nuanced expansive folk (“I’ll Get Away”), anthemic country jams (“Colorado”), freewheelin’ acoustic rock (“Peace of Mind” and “Light & Love”) and dusty balladry (“Rainbows”).
The members of The Infamous Stringdusters now all reside in different locations. Hall and Pandolfi recently felt the calling of the mountains and both moved to Colorado. Guitar ace Falco returned to his roots in Long Island to be near family, while Garrett remains in Nashville, where he’s known as a prolific songwriter. Book dwells quietly in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, near the site of the band’s annual October festival The Festy Experience.
Occasional separation has proven to be a good thing. It’s important to remember these are five musicians with unique individual talents, but they all realize they have an undeniably special chemistry when they come together. That was apparent from day one. But now after years of growth—both personal and professional—the band has cast off labels and found an existence where music is about a greater connection. Through friendship, democracy, skill, passion and open minds, it’s a broader lifestyle filled with community and plenty of celebration.
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Bad Manners
Bad Manners, composed of vocalist Buster Bloodvessel (born Douglas Trendle), Louis Cook (guitar), David Farren (bass), Martin Stewart (keyboards), Brian Tuitti (drums), Gus Herman (trumpet), Chris Kane (saxophone), and Andrew Marson (saxophone), were one of the many bands to take their inspiration from the Specials and the ska revival movement in England in the late '70s. They quickly became the novelty favorites of the fad through their bald, enormous-bodied frontman's silly on-stage antics, earning early exposure through 2-Tone Records package tours and an appearance in the live documentary Dance Craze. In the early '80s, they managed several U.K. hits including "Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu," "Lip Up Fatty," "Special Brew," and "Can Can." By the mid-'80s, the ska craze was over and the band retired temporarily after the release of 1985's Mental Notes, only to return in 1989 with Return of the Ugly, remaining a live attraction despite a lack of concurrent hits. By the mid-'90s, a third wave ska revival renewed interest in the band. Eat the Beat was released in 1996 and Uneasy Listening followed in 1997, as well as several collections from the band's peak years.
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Young the Giant
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
Wildling
MORE INFO COMING SOON!