Counter programming to Super Bowl Sunday? Join us for another dash through the world of independent music from around the globe and please patronize the artists we play because without them there would be no future. Click below for the whole show!
CAAMP – By And By
Hometown: Columbus, OH
Album: Title track from their second album released on Mom And Pop Records in July.
Review Snippet: In some ways it’s a bad time to be troupe of acoustic guitar wielding indie-folk types. The banjo renaissance boom is on the wane, figureheads the likes of Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes scrabbling for continued relevance in a new indie age of dream-pop melodies and ’80s nostalgia. But in fairness, the mass commercialization of simple-life rootsiness was really just popularizing folk traditions that have endured for generations, and largely took their place in smoky bars and around campfires on the periphery of the big stage. In this sense, it’s not always easy to separate heartfelt authenticity from those just riding the wave. Where Columbus trio CAAMP fit in with third record By and By takes a little unweaving.
Album: Their eponymous debut EP/album was released in October.
Review Snippet:
It’s a bit of a detour from the Little Feat / Dead dichotomy that’s cropped up of late, but don’t you fret, Rose City Band are as locked into the endless euphoria of the eternal jam as any of their contempos. Once the record rolls ‘round to the mind melt of “Fear Song,” you know you’re home. The album’s at its most serene when it locks into a melted swoon, with the kind of liquid lysergic guitar that’s always been Rip’s specialty bouncing off the country strut in perfect balance. There’s a genuine feeling that this record has been lost in the stacks just waiting to be found by the right set of ears, a nod to the harder to pick up country-psych melters like Relatively Clean Rivers, Jim Sullivan, KAK, or Curt Newbury. Where Rose City swerves expectations, though, is by boiling those belters down with an ear towards heavier progression, recalling the latter half of Can’s “Spray” if those guys came up in Laurel Canyon.
Its an almost overwhelming year for music, with necessary releases popping up faster than any sane listener can grab them, but this is highly recommended for pickup. The record’s a psychedelic crossroads that’s not being traversed as much these days, and as usual Johnson’s created a record that’s absorbing as its own little world. Once this hits the turntable you’re set to repeat endlessly until the leaves give out and the skies are parched once again of that pristine pearl blue. Rose City Band is the calm center of your summer.
Hometown: I Personally know nothing about this band. Just like the song!
Album: Title track from debut album released on January 10 on 1420903 Records DK.
Review Snippet:
Website:
Nora Jane Struthers – Slow Climb
Hometown: Nashville
Album: From her forthcoming 9th album “Bright Lights, Long Drives, First Words”, currently raising money on Kickstarter for a February release.
Review Snippet: “Slow Climb’s musical personality doesn’t stop at a single premise…there’s much to be said for Struthers’ individual decisions regarding aspects like arrangement, pace, and harmonic progression…every element works together.”
Review Snippet: Mike Rathke is a Kansas based native singer/songwriter. Like most, appreciation for music came from a homelife influence. Rathke’s background is a bit different than the usual. At age twelve, he left home and drifted from house to house, sleeping on any couch that welcomed him. Upon buying his first acoustic guitar, the light began to flicker. At age nineteen, he became a Christian and found his calling in music. Rathke began leading worship in churches and quietly writing songs of struggle, forgiveness, grace, and redemption and in an effort to express his most in-depth resolution of the journey. He has three self-produced albums, Letters From the Father, Spoken Words and the Word That’s Spoken, and Never Change. Rathke has a new five-song ep, Dawning Fire, set to launch in the summer of 2020. Recorded in Nashville in the summer of 2019, the songs reflect Rathke’s most profound devotion for biblical lyrics swathed in a stylish bed of modern folk music.
I See Hawks in LA and The Good Intentions – Rambling Girl
Hometown: Where Else?
Album: From the album “Hawks With Good Intentions” available on Western Seeds Records.
Review Snippet: I See Hawks in LA offer a throwback to an earlier era, one which found rock and country finding common ground in the songs of the Byrds, the Burritos, the Dead, and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Their forthright vocals and sweep of pedal steel guitar boast a high lonesome sound, one that echoes with the original optimism of days gone by. “Every year is without precedent, every hour is a great unknown,” opening track “Ballad for the Trees” proclaims, its steady pace providing a way forward. Indeed, these Hawks fly high on an adroit blend of optimism and insistence, a sound that culminates in the rocking refrains of “The Last Man in Tujunga,” a ready rocker that’s full of sentiment and sincerity, and “My Parka Saved Me” a nuanced narrative that relates a harrowing tale of a near-fatal mishap.
Next Time In LA: Truck out to the Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms in February.
Album: From the album “Chick A Boom” out February 14 on Outside Music
Review Snippet: No one forgets the first time they saw Tami Neilson. She can hush a room with an original song that channels the hurting spirit of Patsy Cline or the sensuality of Peggy Lee, or bring the audience to its feet on a rockabilly raver. She’s an artist with real range, whose powerful voice can take on big ballads, golden-age country, heartfelt Gospel, soul-infused R&B, Western swing, even old-style rock ‘n’ roll. Tami encompasses them all and is a personality-powered cyclonic force of nature in stylishly retro attire, long lashes and a stacked-high beehive. Of her new album’s title, CHICKABOOM!, Tami explains, ‘I wanted to write an album of punchy little songs, popping firecrackers that, when stripped back to nothing but a guitar, percussion and two voices, would still go boom!’ The new collection brings much personal and family history to the table. Tami grew up performing across North America with the Neilson Family Band, working alongside greats such as Johnny Cash, Tanya Tucker, and Kitty Wells. Subsequently, Tami fell in love with a New Zealander, moved to the bottom of the world and began her solo career without the support of the family. Her early records saw her in a self-created territory between mainstream country and alternative country, with awards in New Zealand for albums that added breadth to her ‘country singer’ label: Best Female Artist, Best Country Album, Best Country Song, an APRA Silver Scroll (songwriting) award and Album of the Year nominations. Her Dynamite! album of 2014 received rave reviews in Britain’s MOJO and the Guardian named it a Top 10 Best Country Music Album. Tami’s songs appeared on the Netflix series Wanted and the terrestrial TV series Nashville. Tami Neilson’s singing and writing is too big to contain, as HMV Canada noted: ‘There are singers and then there is Tami Neilson, for whom the word singer just isn’t big enough.’ The road has now led to CHICKABOOM!, which is something different again, and even more personal. ‘In the past year, I started to notice something,’ she says. ‘The artists I would spend time with backstage at festivals, the ones I gravitated to the most and followed on social media … artists like the Secret Sisters, Shovels & Rope, Kasey Chambers, Brandi Carlile … they all had family performing with them. When you tour away from loved ones, it makes a world of difference to have part of your village with you on the road. Not to mention, nothing can come close to that special blend of blood harmonies and silent communication that only comes from being onstage with a person for over 30 years. Family has always been a huge part my music-writing, recording and creating with me, but I wanted family on this project and on the road with me again.’ Brother Jay flew to Auckland, New Zealand from Toronto to record a selection of new songs that have unmistakable sibling magic and harmonies. ‘I don’t think he quite understands what he’s gotten himself into but now the album’s coming out it’s a bit too late. Sucker,’ she laughs. And if you’ve missed Tami before ‘ on record or in concert ‘ then you are in for a treat … and you might not quite understand what you’ve gotten yourself into either. As we say: you’ll never forget the first time you saw Tami.
Album: Self-released album called “Free Ride” came out last August.
Review Snippet:
Now this, this is delightful. Like a sunny 16 Horsepower or a winsome Asylum Street Spankers, Spirit Family Reunion, for sheer fun, matches any Jimbo Mathus project yet conceived, while flirting with the flat-out accessibility of the Lumineers or the dreaded Mumfords. “Ease My Mind,” indeed! They’ve been doing the “open-door gospel” thing for a decade now, and with Ride Free they are sounding better than ever. Nick Panken’s sweet, plaintive wail is a joy, and Maggie Carson’s still unorthodox banjo plunking serves as its own center of gravity, even on low key gems like “Come Our Way.” Whether assailing the tumbleweed moan of “Whoopie Ti Yi Yo” or romping through the ersatz title track “One Way Ticket,” the Spirits score high marks here. Americana was a tired term the day after it was coined, but this music makes good on the promise. It’s just what repeat play was invented for.
Review Snippet: The Adobe Collective effortlessly embody what is rapidly becoming known as the “high desert sound”. Based in Joshua Tree, CA their surroundings reflect a kind of no-frills authenticity that is baked into their music – cosmic desert americana with flashes of psychedelia, country, and indie rock.
Album: Their 2nd album “Home Again” was self-released on January 24
Review Snippet: “The Copper Tones awaited sophomore album release is set for January 25, 2020 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. You can expect the same “Soulgrass” sound as their first album, but expect to hear a more refined Copper Tones on this record. The road traveled has molded them into a seamless music making unit bringing their well known sound into new material for you to enjoy. From songs about love, politics and sausages, yes sausages, there’s something for everyone.”
Review Snippet:David-Ivar Herman Düne is a French/Swedish citizen who began playing anti-folk in Paris at a time when no DIY scene existed, let alone any songs performed in English.
Website: https://www.facebook.com/HermanDuneYeah/
Bobby Jo Valentine – This Year I Learned
Hometown: Petaluma, CA
Album: His self-released album “Temporary Weather” came to Bandcamp on January 2
Review Snippet: If Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson, and Regina Spektor were to combine forces, you would have Bobby Jo Valentine.
Next Time In LA: Friday February 14 in Orange and Sunday February 16 in Palm Springs, at St. Matthew and UMC of Palm Springs respectively.
Review Snippet: Thank God for Sons of the East, then. They’re from the northern beaches of Sydney, surf country apparently, and it shows in their unshakeable calm and smooth tempos, despite some feedback issues early on. They play a kind of folk-inflected rock – dare I call it ‘Australia-cana’? – reminiscent of Marcus Mumford and company.
Website: http://www.sonsoftheeast.com/
The Casters – Ariana
Hometown: Central Massachusettes
Album: From the album “Shave Your Soul” released in July
