Unreleased & live from Tom Luce

Luce is an excellent band out of San Francisco that writes melodic, well-crafted tunes, and whose two albums (self-titled and Never Ending) I have listened to a lot lately. I wrote a few weeks ago about how all the band’s equipment was stolen this summer while they were on tour, and then for a double-whammy, a fire gutted the apartment of lead singer Tom Luce (who is truly one of the nicest & sincerest guys you’ll meet).

They are appearing at a benefit concert tomorrow night, which I am pleased to report is sold out. Tom Luce appeared on the KFOG Morning Show on Monday and the response to their upcoming show has been phenomenal.

Here’s a track from that acoustic performance, this is one of my favorite songs from their first album, and this performance is just devastatingly gorgeous. If you haven’t heeded my call to listen to them in the past, start with this wistful little gem that’s going on repeat for me today:

After Tomorrow – Tom Luce
Live on the KFOG Morning Show, 9/25/06

If you live in NorCal and don’t already have your tix to the Luce show tomorrow, but want to support the band, there is also a cool eBay auction with a few neat items up for bids, including a Blue Sage Poets CD (the original name of Luce) and a backstage/hang-out-with-the-guys pass for the show. If you did get tickets, there’s a silent auction at the event as well, with additional swag like 3 private guitar lessons with Tom Luce and a demo CD of never-released songs from him.

Tom was kind enough to send me one of those unreleased demo solo songs from the CD that is being auctioned (silently). He wrote it with Charlie Colin — former guitarist/bassist from the band Train, who has collaborated on both Luce albums. Check out this lovely track — it’s got a nice solid beat and a catchy anthemic chorus. Tom says it may be re-done or rewritten, he’s not sure, but for now, I like it a lot:

Liars – Tom Luce (with Charlie Colin from Train)

Nice pic. Aye-aye, captain.
They’re even more fun in real life (but I haven’t gone sailing with ‘em).

Mixmasters please report to the dance floor

You love it? You hate it? Pitchfork says it is a blatant publicity stunt (but hey, they can’t spell “blatant” so I don’t know if I trust them), Rolling Stone calls Adams a freestyle rap prodigy, and Stereogum just wants Ryan to come back and leave some rambling comments on their site.

Check out the new rap that’s streaming on the recently redone Tron-tastic Ryan-Adams.com. I absolutely enjoyed the laugh it gave me, and think it shows a brilliant sense of self-effacing humor. Come on people, lighten up!

Look Who Got A Website – MC Ryan McFresh (aka Ryan Adams)

Ryan recently wrote on a fan message board about his time in the studio & his recently achieved sobriety, and ends with this note:

“i also am stoked that at least one or two songs a record have some rap.
i am really bad at rap.
its awesome.”

Update 9/29: Rap II
Drunk Santa – Funky Ryan DeeLyte
(oh, and he rapped in Manchester last night. Live. At least he knows he’s bad at it!)

M. Ward: Scene From #12 EP

Now THIS makes me feel nice and happy today. As you may recall, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with M. Ward‘s latest release, Post-War, and have been on a spirited jaunt to seek out his earlier material. I love the warmth of his songs and the way so many of them just envelop you with a sense of immediacy.

One of his earliest solo releases, the Scene From #12 EP (2000, 62 TV Records) is currently not commercially available, but it’s a seamless little collection of four songs that make me contentedly smile. I think you’ll be happy if you enjoy these along with me today:

01. Scene From #12
02. Wild Minds
03. Carolina
04. Going Away

SCENE FROM #12 EP AS ZIP FILE (re-upped June 2010, by request)

Buy Post-War if you haven’t already.

Rogue Wave is Sirius tonight

Thanks to all of you guys who have participated in my little promo offer related to the Rogue Wave Benefit fund. You guys are absolutely wonderful and generous; the response has been better than I could have expected. I have a few more good CDs left if you still want to take part, and there’s still time to bid on the rbally iPod deluxxxe.

Chris from gorillavsbear also turned out in fine style to support this worthy & noble cause after I emailed him about the need. He’s having all the guys from Rogue Wave tonight as guests on his SIRIUS show. They’ll pick some songs with Chris and his peeps and talk shop. Click here for more info and tune in tonight. Thanks, Chris!

The Hold Steady: new song “First Night,” album & tour news

Huh. I think maybe I misunderestimated* The Hold Steady.

Perhaps subconsciously it’s because Craig Finn’s voice sounds exactly like the scruffy, leather-clad, black-dyed-spiky-haired lead singer for the house band in the movie Empire Records (“Gotta have it, really need it, Sugar High . . .”), but here I was pegging them as solely a raucous rock/punk band — when in reality the Brooklyn-based group has more depth than perhaps I gave them credit for.

The cuts I’ve heard from their critically acclaimed Separation Sunday (2005, French Kiss Records) were dirty and rusty, riff-heavy, with a pointed, wry spoken drawl to the lyrics (Exhibit A: “Banging Camp,” Exhibit B: “Your Little Hoodrat Friend“). I missed what some call the Springstonian threads in their tunes, hearing only some dirty Replacements-style rock ‘n’ roll (Finn’s previous band Lifter Puller was from MPLS). And it was good raw fun.

So when AOL Indie (wait . . . what?) offered up a free download of the second song I’ve heard off their upcoming Boys And Girls In America album (Oct 3, Vagrant), I was shocked to hear this melodic, wistful song with a rambling piano and strings:

“The First Night” – The Hold Steady

Some reviewers who have their advance copies are pegging Boys And Girls In America as one of their top albums of 2006 (the album is named after a line from Kerouac’s On The Road, so clearly this isn’t bathroom wall scrawl christening here). I also just learned that it is produced by John Agnello (Breeders, Drive-By Truckers, the new Sonic Youth, Son Volt).

Interesting. I stand enlightened and now am really interested in hearing their new album with open ears.

Their tour starts this Saturday, Masonic Temple Connecticut style.

The Hold Steady 2006 Tour
Sept 30 – Hamden, CT – Masonic Temple
Oct 1 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
Oct 2 – Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
Oct 4 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
Oct 5 – Birmingham, AL – Bottle Tree
Oct 6 – Memphis, TN – Hi-Tone Cafe
Oct 7 – Denton, TX – Hailey’ s
Oct 8 – Austin, TX – Emo’s
Oct 9 – Houston, TX – Walter’s on Washington
Oct 12 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
Oct 13 – San Diego, CA – Brick By Brick
Oct 14 – Costa Mesa, CA – Detroit Bar
Oct 16 – Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
Oct 17 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
Oct 19 – Portland, OR – Lola’s
Oct 20 – Vancouver, BC – The Plaza Club
Oct 21 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile Cafe
Oct 24 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
Oct 25 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
Oct 26 – Chicago, IL – Metro
Oct 27 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick
Oct 28 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern
Oct 29 – Ottowa, ON – Zaphods Beeblebrox
Oct 30 – Boston, MA – Middle East

Oh, and Stereogum’s got the news of the new Hold Steady podcast (which, really, has little to do with music from the actual band, but is a good excuse to listen to some Replacements and Bad Brains).

*that word’s just for you, Chad.

The impossibly good-looking stoner with perfect bone structure

Yippee-ki-yay, the new Lemonheads is out today. And eMusic’s got it, which makes me a happy camper-and-a-half.

Eric over at Marathonpacks has penned exactly what I feel about Evan Dando and the Lemonheads. He captures it so perfectly that no one ever needs to try and encapsulate them in writing ever again; just link to him.

He muses:

“Dando was the pop-culture exemplar of the guy that each high school and dorm floor had one or two of—the impossibly good-looking stoner with perfect bone structure, but also the guy who would manage three or four ‘girlfriends’ at once and write impossible-to-ignore moody pop-rock songs about longing and nostalgia and memory and probably those girls too. The guy who everyone tried to hate, but could never actually hate because he was essentially harmless and would screw himself over consistently with the fervor of a religious ascetic, and would finally put that on record.”

Read the rest here. I love how he says the new record has “guitars that still sound like late ’80s Boston, lyrics sung from a bedroom floor, trying with all of their sleepy might to end a relationship without sounding like a complete dick.” Yes. Exactly, my man.

Here is one of my current favorites off the new disc, I recommend you get the rest (there’s also one more free track for download on the MySpace page):

Become The Enemy – The Lemonheads
(This song is ridiculously catchy & I am in love with it)

Brandi Carlile update from the studio

News from Fuel favorite Brandi Carlile:

Sep 8, 2006 9:12 AM
Subject: In the Studio

As I sit in a dark control room and listen to the music we’ve been recording, I look at T Bone Burnett sitting at an old Neve console holding an 80 year old guitar and wearing sunglasses and it strikes me that if the twins and I weren’t wearing Chuck Taylors we could be anywhere in the world and at any point in time over the last 100 years…

We’ve been in the studio for over a week and things are going amazing — the twins and I have been on the road for so long that we have become a live band so it’s been intimidating and exciting to be put under a microscope… it’s a scary thing to know how you really sound. It’s such a thrill to get these songs off my chest after a couple of years of playing them on the road…we recorded “The Story” and my voice cracked before the big loud scream and we kept it because it sounded raw and real. Sometimes it’s hard for me to accept imperfection but I’m learning everyday. T Bone has taken us to church.

Love,
Brandi

LISTEN:
“The Story” – Brandi Carlile
Live on KCRW in 2005. The cracking wails are my favorite part of this song, very Janis-Joplinesque, in an urgent and passionate way.

Buy her first album here (highly recommended)

Update: Stream all the new songs from Westerberg/Open Season

Lost Highway has put up clips from all of the songs on the new Open Season soundtrack — those sung by Paul Westerberg as well as Pete Yorn & Sacramento indie rockers Deathray.

You can take a listen here. The CD comes out today on Lost Highway.

They’re also sponsoring a contest to win the CD and a trip to New York. I usually have really good luck with these things, so perhaps I’ll win. But maybe I’ve milked my NYC luck already by winning that trip to the 2003 Grammys (seriously, it was cool, except I couldn’t stop saying over and over again, “Holy crap! That’s Tony Bennett!” (x5) when I realized he was standing right behind me, like touching elbows).

Monday Music Roundup

So I woke up Sunday morning to a thick dusting of snow on Pikes Peak and surrounding mountains. Breathtakingly beautiful, yes. But I really do not know if I am ready for winter again. I kind of like my flipflops.

Well, the bright side of the picture as we are now into Fall and cruising towards shorter days and longer nights: more downtime to listen to music? Here’s a few to start your week off in style.

Kings Horses
Jet
The melodic influences of the Beatles (and their latter-day disciples Oasis) are brushed in wide, vivid strokes all over the new forthcoming album (Shine On, due Oct 3) from Aussie rockers Jet. Where before you probably knew them best for the tambourine-shaking, fatty bass line, Lust-For-Life ripoff “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” (which was used once in Alias where Sydney was dressed up like a kickass punk rocker with a mohawk, Docs, and a short plaid skirt, so she’s always the “girl” I think of when I hear that song), their newest effort is a lot prettier, with harmonies, woo-woo-woo backing vocals, strings, and expansive guitar lines. First single “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” carries the torch of previous rowdier songs, but there is a lot more depth this time around. Sounds pretty good to me, I’ve been listening to it all weekend.

Sometimes
Howie Beck, featuring Matthew Caws of Nada Surf
Toronto singer/songwriter Howie Beck was someone I hadn’t heard of until recently, and I admit I took a listen because of the people he has worked with: Feist, Josh Rouse, Jason Collett (Broken Social Scene), and Matthew Caws (Nada Surf). Those are all positive associations to my ears, but as I listen to more of Howie, I hear that he is a talented and polished musician in his own right. The shimmering, sure guitar melodies on this track, blended with the honest lyrics, make for an enjoyable introduction. His self-titled album was re-released last week in the US on Ever Records, a follow-up to his 1999 album Hollow, which was highly acclaimed by the British press following its release on Easy!Tiger in the UK.

Sweet Lady
What Made Milwaukee Famous
So these guys are completely NOT out of Milwaukee, rather their name is a nod to a lyric from Jerry Lee Lewis, which is all good in my hood. What Made Milwaukee Famous are from Austin, Texas, and have a bright, fun, singalong pop feel to their music (rather than the grey and snowy Schlitz-drinking soundtrack I had expected). Toe-tapping and fantastic, this song really wants to be the first track on your next mixtape. From the Barsuk Records re-release of their Trying To Never Catch Up album (August 2006, recommended).

She Moves In Secret Ways
Polly Paulusma
Thank you again to the free music from Facebook. I doubt I would have otherwise ever stumbled across Polly Paulusma, a British singer-songwriter with both smarts (Cambridge, Ph.D program) and vocal cords to love. Her charming folksy sound and earnest timbre reminds me a bit of Aussie Missy Higgins. This song has a rich, melodic, catchy, coffeehouse-show feel, lovely for the first chills of autumn. Also listen and tell me if parts of the melody and humming voices aren’t completely reminiscent of the best parts of “Trapeze Swinger” (Iron & Wine). This is off her self-produced 2004 album Scissors In My Pocket.

Supernatural Car Lover
Robert Pollard
I’ve joked here before about Bob Pollard‘s prolific songwriting (sometimes right up there with Ryan Adams in terms of quantity), as well as his wildy varying quality. You kind of never know what you are going to get. Following the eclectic From A Compound Eye, which he just released earlier this year, his new album Normal Happiness seems to exude a more upbeat, accessible, “normal happy” vibe. Most of the tunes on this album clock in at somewhere around 2 minutes, and they pack a fast and tuneful punch. This particular cut has the ability to stick in your head for days at a time. Normal Happiness is due Oct 10 on Merge Records.

Oh, do a good deed. We’ll make it fun!

I wrote a few days ago about the benefit concert this Saturday in San Francisco for Rogue Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon (on the left, above) — for which tickets are still available. I sent the notice around to a few friends on the blogs to see if anyone else wanted to write up a little something about this money being raised for a good cause (his only kidney failed, consequent medical expenses mounting).

Several generous blogger friends have cross-posted this information (thanks!), and superstar Jennings over at rbally.net just did something *very* cool. He is auctioning his like-new 4gb iPod Nano (plus fancy leather case) on eBay and donating all the proceeds to the Pat Spurgeon fund.

But wait, there’s more.

He’ll also load up the iPod with a custom blend of music (you tell him what you like, he’ll hook you up with his own patented blend of concert tracks, rare stuff, etc.) before he sends it on its merry way to you, the new owner.

Now THAT is a pretty sweet side benefit that the folks at the Apple Store will ne’er be able to hold a candle to.

I cannot top Jennings (the only “extra” iPod ’round these parts makes a sad face when you turn it on. I’m thinking that can’t be good), but I can offer a little side perk for those of you who would donate something to this fund.

I’ve got a huge stack of some excellent recent releases, and somehow I have ended up with double copies of a lot of really great CDs, either through a promo copy being sent to me of an album I already bought, or occasionally a record company accidentally sending me two of the same CD.

If you donate $10 or more to the Rogue Wave/Pat Spurgeon Kidney Transplant Fund, and forward me some sort of confirmation, I will email you the list and let you pick one from my stash. There’s some goodies here, fine albums that I have mentioned or reviewed recently. Perhaps you can find something new.

So, why do I care? Not to sound sappy, but musicians give up a certain modicum of security when they choose to follow their passion and gift us all with the tunes they create. They don’t (generally) have the 401k, the corner office, the dental insurance, and the basic medical benefits that a regular job would offer. So when they are in need, if there is any way that we the listeners can somehow help, I am all for it.

One step closer towards calling it even for what music gives to me.

“Everyday” (Buddy Holly cover) – Rogue Wave

“10:1” – Rogue Wave
(listen to Pat crash and bash on this excellent track from 2005′s Descended Like Vultures)