Video: Gaslight Anthem live at Nor'easter Festival 2010

A couple weeks ago we posted a live recording of Gaslight Anthem from the Nor'easter Festival in Lincoln NH.  Now I'm happy to share some excellent HD videos of two tracks from the band's set at Nor'easter - The '59 Sound and Bring It On.  Thanks to Steve from Kitchen Sessions for putting these together.  Now, without further ado...

Bring It On

The '59 Sound

New music: Yellowbirds "The Rest Of My Life"

A friend recently tipped me off to Yellowbirds, a Brooklyn-based psych-folk band and side-project of Apollo Sunshine's Sam Cohen.  The band's debut The Color is scheduled for a March 2011 release, but the band has made a few tracks available for stream early.  Many of the tracks feature Cohen's trademark guitar work, and find a balance between dreamy psych-pop and a more organic Americana sound.  Check out the band's Bandcamp page to preview a few of the tracks.

"The Rest Of My Life" starts with a soft organ intro before Phil Spector-esque snare hits propel the song forward.  The summery, at times Beach Boys-esque, sound masks the darker theme in the lyrics - really liking this.  Listen to the full track below:

New music: Cymbals Eat Guitars

Cymbals Eat Guitars' Why There Are Mountains was one of my favorite albums of last year - a perfect blend of 90's alt-rock influences and epic, modern indie rock.  Over the last year the band has shared a few excellent next tracks that one hopes will be on their next full-length.  The first was "Plainclothes" a song that showed a much stronger narrative than anything on Why There Are Mountains.  Now the New Jersey band has released two more tracks - listen below:

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Definitive Darkness
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Wavelengths

Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons - White Lighter

By:  Maria Cristina Romero

In their 2007 debut album, Bury Your Problems, Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons deliver rock ‘n’ roll riffs steeped in blues with a rockabilly twist. Telling tales of lone rangers, rebels, and lying lovers over straight-shooting rock arrangements, the Wrong Reasons is sure to evoke your inner cowboy. The band’s crisp guitar riffs and clean drum lines sound of another time, while the gravelly story telling of front man Joe Fletcher carries listeners from beginning to end.

Wrap your ears around this! Free download:  Who Makes The Knives?

In the Wrong Reasons’ forthcoming album, White Lighter, Fletcher pairs somewhat softer arrangements with poignant depictions of loves lost and despondent souls. You can preorder the album here.  Having already been compared to greats like Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, it’s no surprise that expectations of White Lighter are high—so high in fact, that Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons have raised over $5,600 to produce and press the album.

The Wrong Reasons played “Too Many Doors,” a track from White Lighter, in the Kitchen Sessions living room as part of Kitchen Sessions #7. They were lucky enough to have Morgan Eve Swain and David Lamb of Brown Bird (who are also featured in the album version) join for this very special performance.

If you like what you hear, do yourselves a favor: go see Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons live. They are playing at The 201 in Providence, RI TONIGHT with Banditas and Wooden Sky (a bill not to miss) and they play Great Scott in Allston on 11/9.

New music: Kingsley Flood "Quiet, Quiet Ground"

Boston's Kingsley Flood has been busy since their excellent debut Dust Windows was released earlier this year.  Over the past few months the band has maintained a healthy tour schedule, bringing their brand of urban-roots music up and down the eastern seaboard, and was recently featured on NPR.  Apparently the band has also had a chance to work on some new songs as well - check out the video below for a brand new track "Quiet, Quiet Ground"

Kingsley Flood will play the Beast of the Northeast CMJ showcase on October 22, and return to Boston for a big show at the Paradise on October 26 (opening for Angus and Julia Stone).  If you haven't seen these guys live yet (or even if you have), do yourself a favor and make it to the Paradise, should be a great night!

New music: Cinema Red and Blue

Cinema Red and Blue is kind of an indie rock supergroup, featuring members of Comet Gain, Crystal Stilts and Ladybug Transistor.  The result is an album of lived-in songs that reek of college radio (a very good thing).  While I've found that most collaborative records are interesting at first, but the novelty wears thin after repeated listens, I get the impression that Cinema Red and Blue's self-titled debut will only sound better with time.  The music is a jangly and vaguely psychedelic in a Paisley Underground kind of way - really digging this.

Cinema Red and Blue - Same Mistakes

New music: Dr. Dog "Nobody Knows Who You Are"

One of our favorite bands, Dr. Dog, is giving away another free track (here's the last).  The song, which features a foot-tapping beat, plenty of harmonica and a great refrain "I must have lost a lot of blood" feels like it could have fit on their last excellent LP Shame, Shame.

Check it out here, and watch for some exclusive live Dr. Dog video + interview coming soon!

Dr. Dog - Nobody Knows Who You Are

The Wooden Sky - "If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone"

There is a long tradition of Canadian bands that make music we often refer to as Americana.  Neil Young and The Band anchor the list, of course, but there are plenty of more recent examples too, including Wooden Sky.  I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with the band until their recent Daytrotter session - but I immediately picked up their most recent release If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone and haven't stopped listening since. 

Gavin Gardiner's simple folk songs form the centerpiece of the album, but the band adds varied and evocative sounds to fills in the gaps.  The instrumentation suits each song perfectly - at times subtle pedal steel and banjo add texture, other times distorted guitars and electric piano carry the melody.  I often find that folk music is what I reach for most during the fall, and I expect this record to be my go-to for the next few weeks, especially for those long weekend drives through the country.

The Wooden Sky - Something Hiding For Us In The Night

The Wooden Sky is at The Rosebud in Somerville on October 21 (update:  and this Saturday Oct 16 at The 201 in Providence with Joe Fletcher & The Wrong Reasons -- check this out if you're down Providence way!).

Bruce Springsteen - "Darkness On The Edge Of Town (2009)"

By Seth Mitchell

Bruce Springsteen's first three records, culminating with Born To Run, showcased the songs of an idealistic, romantic young man.  The songs were lyrically complex - Springsteen was a scruffy street poet, singing songs of friendship and dreams.  The arrangements were as ambitious as the stories the songs told - first dense and jazzy, and later epic with massive crescendos and Phil Spector-inspired production.  Springsteen and his E Street Band rode a huge wave of hype after the release of Born To Run an album that introduced his music to a much wider audience outside of the I-95 corridor, but with it brought expectations and pressure.  And then there was the lawsuit that kept Springsteen out of the studio, and also cast a shadow of doubt over his future recording career.  Rather than make concessions over the rights to his songs, Springsteen dug in for battle - a process than changed his outlook on life, and forever changed the way he approached music.

The roughly 3 years between the release of Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town saw Springsteen turn away from the hopeful and outward-looking songs of Born To Run, and instead turned the focus towards darker, more mature themes - loneliness, uncertainty and responsibility.  During that time Springsteen also started listening to punk and country music, which undoubtedly influenced his writing and vision for the album.  All of this contributed as much to the sound of Darkness, as much as the lyrics.

The new documentary "The Promise:  The Making of Darkness On The Edge Of Town" leads viewers through the rigorous and trying process of recording the album.  Archival footage shows Springsteen and the band in the studio, sessions that were long, exhausting and trying.  Springsteen talks at length about the sound he was looking for - stark, stripped-down, raw - and the trouble he had actually getting that sound on tape.  A sterile, "dead"-sounding studio.  Weeks spent getting the snare sound right.  The inability, until Chuck Plotkin became involved, to get a mix that wasn't muddy.

In the years since Darkness On The Edge Of Town was released, Springsteen has been quoted as saying that he wasn't happy with the way the record sounded.  If he has any regrets, it isn't for lack of work and determination.  In putting together the upcoming "Promise" box set Springsteen got the band together for another shot at recording the record.  After 30+ years of playing and living with these songs, the band played the entire album, in order, to an empty theater and filmed it.  Without a live audience to play to, the band could focus on the performance and the sound - this was their chance to finally correct the flaws they hear in the original.  While the DVD of the full performance will not be available until the box set is released November 16, listen to a rip of Darkness On The Edge Of Town from the documentary - the passion and intensity with which the song is performed is incredible:

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town (2009)  (fixed)