Another 8tracks mini-mix

Here's another little mix, featuring some of the bands I've been lucky enough to see live over the last few weeks:

Gabriel Sullivan - By The Dirt

Tucson singer-songwriter Gabriel Sullivan is definitely in the running for best local album of the year, but his fantastic debut By The Dirt has already started earning some well-deserved national attention. But, just to make sure the locals don't miss out on this fine talent, I wrote a review of the record for the new downtown magazine, Zócalo.

Released on his own record label, Gabriel Sullivan's By The Dirt is an expressive and forceful debut that strings together junkyard brawlers, country weepers, jazzy haunts and a sort of peyote-streaked desert blues.

The first song hits like a raging storm dragging a voice that growls like gnarled mesquite bark, a wicked harmonica wail and percussion credited in the liner notes simply as "auto parts."

From clinking chains to haunted clarinet to pedal steel and soft violin strokes, Sullivan runs through a wide circuit of sounds, aided by an all-star cast of Tucson musicians: Joey Burns, Tom Walbank, Nick Luca, Marco Rosano, Andrew Collberg and Vicki Brown.

Like Tom Waits, and locals Howe Gelb and Joey Pena, Sullivan has a voice that can rough up the most gentle songs, leaving them all the better for a bit of smeared grit. It's the sort of voice that makes lyrics like "I've done things / That would bring the devil to his knees" completely believable.

"Sewer Cats" is a piano and strings ballad on the order of Waits' "On The Nickel," swinging gently from downbeat and dreary to uplifting and wistful. "Dillinger's Wings" is a driving roadhouse rocker about the famous fugitive's capture in Tucson, with Sullivan singing of the outlaw's disgrace: "Go down sin, go down shame / Let it all go up in flames today."

Other highlights are Sullivan's choice of covers: the chilling and ghostly rendition of Rainer Ptacek's "Life is Fine," and the rustic "The Gardens," by Chris Gaffney.

It's hard to talk about Sullivan's music without mentioning Waits or Gelb, but it's a credit to Sullivan's talent, originality and ambition that long before the conversation ends, those names have receded into the background, more footnotes than foundations.

Gabriel Sullivan live @ The HangArt

The HangArt | MySpace Music Videos

'Neil Young' covering Fresh Prince

This is funny/brilliant enough that I might actually start watching the guy's show...

The Generationals @ Congress TONIGHT

Generationals - Angry Charlie from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

New Orleans throwback rock band the Generationals are headlining Club Congress tonight, for the band's second Tucson show. Part of the same Park the Van roster as Dr. Dog and our own beloved Golden Boots, the Generationals are touring in support of their first album, Con Law. I talked to the band a couple weeks ago for a feature in the Tucson Weekly:

Catchy 1960s-style rock music built on the foundations of Phil Spector and the Beatles doesn't have much to do with the classic New Orleans sound.

But for the Generationals, reaching back in time to weave threads of different musical traditions together into their own new and exciting entity is exactly how the Crescent City has always functioned.

With a set of demos that had slowly been building since the 2007 breakup of their previous band, the Eames Era, singer-songwriters Grant Widmer and Ted Joyner formed the Generationals, now a four-piece band that mines the glory of sunny '60s pop. But even though they start with a Beatles/Kinks/Byrds-loving throwback sound, the Generationals' three-minute pop songs are a little jammier and a little quirkier, bedding down with some 1980s synth and even soulful horns.

"There aren't a lot of other rock bands in New Orleans. There are maybe three or four others that consistently play shows in the kind of genre we're dealing with," Widmer says. "It's strange to be based in a city that has such a strong musical history and be on the outer edge of any of it. But people in New Orleans do appreciate that, and people are thirsty for music that's not the traditional music in New Orleans."

Well aware of the fact that they're a throwback rock band in the city of jazz, blues and funk, Widmer and Joyner sought to play up the old by recording in the Washington, D.C., studio of producer Daniel Black.

"We definitely wanted most of it to sound pretty old, and we took some pains to get the sounds that we were trying to reference, using tape machines and archaic recording techniques," Widmer says. "The demos we cooked up for this record just wanted to be produced that way, so we ran with it."

Recording over six months, the band had time to tinker and experiment.

"We're kind of all over the map, and the thing with Dan is we have a lot of options, and he's good at nailing a lot of different sounds," says Widmer during a phone interview as the band made its way from St. Louis to Denver. "Some of it is definitely Phil Spector, '60s-influenced; some of it was Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, '70s-sounding stuff. We draw from different precedents and mess it up just enough to make our own kind of thing out of it."

Recorded on a 24-track 2-inch tape machine, Con Law manages to sound both as fresh as a debut record and familiar in its styles.

"Faces in the Dark" has a distinct Kinks feel, with shakers and bass doubling up on the bouncy vibe. "Our Time (2 Shine)" could've been a pre-new wave surf single, with a flighty organ riff, quickly strummed upstrokes from a chiming guitar and—of course—a horn-driven hook.

"When They Fight, They Fight" begins with a groovy guitar riff and handclaps, then gives way to its slinky soul bassline and bright horns. The vocals swing from quirky to irresistible sing-along. In the 1960s, this song could have been a huge hit; now, it's the blog download the band hopes sends music-seekers back to check out the whole album.

"Exterior-Street-Day" is a 1980s post-punk homage, starting with a detached sense of cool that fades as the big drums, squeaky synth and shouted "oh-way-oh" chorus coalesce into a dance-floor shaker.

For this summer's release of Con Law, the Generationals found the perfect partner in Park the Van Records, a label that returned to its founding city of New Orleans at the end of 2008 after three years in Philadelphia.

"They're a label that is full of other bands that seem focused on songcraft a lot, and less on virtuosity," Widmer says. "Mostly, the focus seems to be on shorter songs, more traditionally structured songs, and songs that are often recalling more of a '60s sound. It's a great place for us to land, especially with this record."

Joining a roster of similarly idiosyncratic and skewed pop bands—including Dr. Dog, the Spinto Band and Tucson's Golden Boots—the Generationals had plenty of tourmates for a year of criss-crossing the country. Widmer says they were glad for the opening slots that allowed them to play to bigger crowds and quickly build a positive reputation. (The band first played Tucson in August on a Park the Van showcase and is anticipating the return: "It's an unexpectedly weird, offbeat city. We took a liking to it last time," Widmer says.)

Currently touring as a four-piece, the band is reworking songs on the fly, covering horn parts with keyboards and jumping between instruments song by song.

"We had to basically rewrite the songs to make them work live, and pick and choose what sounds and instruments we are able to play with," Widmer says. "A lot of the songs have horns and a lot of textures and different instruments, and we had to redo everything and tailor to the live set. It's a challenge, but I love to re-imagine things like that."

Widmer says the touring experience will push them in the direction of sounding more like a live band for the Generationals' next record. Friends since high school and musical collaborators for roughly a decade, Widmer and Joyner are working on their next batch of songs.

"We're each trying to cook up a handful of demos and work them to a point where even though they're still pretty raw, the main piano or guitar riff is there, and the lyrics are mostly there," Widmer says. "Then we'll shuffle the deck and try to finish off the other one's songs. We certainly have that shorthand to know where the other one is going to go and where to challenge each other to do something unexpected."

DOWNLOAD:
Generationals - Angry Charlie (live Laundromatinee Session)
Generationals - Exterior Street Day (live Laundromatinee Session)
Generationals - When They Fight They Fight

Grand Archives @ Plush tomorrow

Seattle's Grand Archives are playing at Plush tomorrow (11/17), and if it's anywhere near as good as the band's first Tucson show (June 2008), it's not to be missed.

I have a review of the band's latest album, Keep In Mind Frankenstein, in this week's Tucson Weekly. So check it out, and check out the show:

Not one to offer up much in the way of new tricks, Grand Archives' Mat Brooke instead maintains a remarkable level of quality control.

A veteran of both the cult-favorite Carissa's Wierd and the quickly ascendant Band of Horses, the Seattle singer-guitarist sounds content to remain firmly planted at the easy-listening end of the indie-rock spectrum.

Grand Archives' second record, Keep in Mind Frankenstein, returns with the same familiar pastoral sound: delicate harmonies, shimmering electric guitars and gently strummed acoustics.

The band went back to the same producer, Ben Kersten, to create the same comfortable sound found on the group's 2008 debut. While the album's weaker songs fade too softly into the background, the differences here are the subtleties, and taken together, they add up to a stronger effort.

Lyrics like "someday I will come back and burn it all down"—from album opener "Topsy's Revenge"—have never sounded so pretty, backed by an acoustic guitar, as well as touches of cello and accordion.

"Oslo Novelist" pairs the "come tomorrow, this will all be gone" chorus with a wistful pedal steel guitar, while Brooke's former Carissa's Wierd bandmates Jenn Ghetto and Sera Cahoone lend haunting backup vocals to "Siren Echo Valley (Part 1)."

"Dig That Crazy Grave" is the album's highlight, the catchiest song Grand Archives has recorded yet.

DOWNLOAD:
Grand Archives - Oslo Novelist
Grand Archives - Silver Among the Gold

Five videos for Friday

Forgive me for going a little lazy with the blog lately, but it happens.

Here are a bunch of videos of bands I've seen over the last three weeks (one hell of a great run, I have to say. It's been a bit hard to wrap my head around it all, especially coming on the hells of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival). The videos are in a reverse chronological order based on when I saw the bands:

Tom Russell - Tonight We Ride


Dinosaur Jr. - Feel the Pain


Art Brut - Emily Kane


The Low Anthem - Charlie Darwin


Blind Pilot - Two Towns From Me


U2 - Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Stupid U2 official youtube won't allow embedding, but click through anyway since it's a fantastic video - live from the Rose Bowl.

Bob Dylan - Things Have Changed
Another non-embeddable clip, this is from this summer's AFI tribute to Michael Douglas.

Yo La Tengo - Nothing to Hide