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Skeletons Band release new CD; extensive U.S. tour
10/5/2008
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The Skeletons BAND will be undertaking an extensive U.S. tour in celebration of the release of their latest album MONEY. The tour proper starting October 31 in Brooklyn and ends December 5 in the Bronx. MONEY was invented by the Skeletons BAND: Jon Leland, Tony Lowe, Jason McMahon and Matt Mehlan and is being released by Tomlab this coming Fall.
Already up so early in the morning of 2008, Skeletons were hibernating in the safest, quietest, warmest place in the world: Times Square, New York. In a haunted WWII-era ballroom they recorded through the wintry nights when the studio was on fire. Taking breaks at 5am, standing under heat lamps listening to Hot Jass outside the Time Warp Hotel, soaking up the the empty streets with the leftover creeps while the tourists sleep. It's just the same struggle any old human has to go through to make anything: make it to work on time, make an excuse, make babies, make war, make breakfast without getting into a fight. The child of this struggle is MONEY.
Moving on from the albums of your childhood: GIT (2005) was all heart attack and 808. LUCAS (2007) was trash cans and boiling oil. It's time to get to know MONEY. MONEY was written in your sleep. MONEY was performed by hired extras. MONEY was produced by wanted celebrities. MONEY was engineered by a secret government. MONEY was arranged to be discovered by indigenous tribes. You're in a forest of insects wearing night vision goggles and everything is the color of MONEY.
This album was recorded the old-fashioned way: LIVE, like psychic surgeons making cuts before a single note was played. Every sound rings out in it's own place, every word given space - confusion in crystal-fever dream-form, right inside your earhole. You're daydreaming out the window "maybe if I pray, the sun will shine for me...but I don't have the time" while the overjoyed drivers play a choir of car horns (Fill my pockets full). You're trying to dial in the classical station when a train bursts out of the tunnel, percussionists tossing their first born cymbals into the furnace (RIPPER aka the pillows). You're singin' and celebratin' cause this long week of work is done and you got paid enough to eat (STEPPER aka work).
These songs are inspirationals - So rejoice! "There is a simple way to get through the day, if you like magic tricks" (Unrelentinglessness). See every beautiful tear! Hallelujah! "Are you waiting on change? Or is that a complaint?"(The THINGS). Dance! Move it like you've been bit. "Your feet swell, keep walkin', keep walkin'"(BOOM!). Feel embarassed and pass it on. This record is angry because it's hungry, sad because it's scared, and joyous all at once, ending with a celebration: "You can unknowingly believe anything!" (Eleven)
Why not call this release GASOLINE or DEATH? Because MONEY is the root, and this is Root Music. Because MONEY will still be there after you've thinned out. Because MONEY is TIME and TIME is SPACE. MONEY is YOURS!
MONEY is the house you built with your bare hands, waiting for the flood. MONEY is the pregnant woman who just dropped a new carton of milk on the kitchen floor. MONEY is the preacher on the corner, screaming this press release in your ear. MONEY is the billionaire you just gave your last dollar to because he was dressed like a bum. Put down the floor and start steppin'! MONEY is slang!
You can try and paper the walls with MONEY, but it won’t stick. It is not music for the 77% of your body that's vegetable water. It's not music for the offices, the dance clubs, the slaughterhouses, or the top floors. MONEY is for your stomach, your hands and your feet. A product too bold to be in the background, too clear to be swept under the weird rug. It's energy music, brain food, soul drugs, body memories, from a band striving for TRUTH. True to survival, true to contradiction, true to themselves, true to you, Skeletons give you MONEY.
http://skeletons.tv/
http://www.myspace.com/skeletonsandthegirlfacedboys
10.22 New York, NY - Cake Shop (DJ set)
10.31 Brooklyn, NY - Zebulon
11.1 Baltimore, MD - Golden West Cafe w/ Fakers, Sejayno, DJ Dog Dick
11.2 Pittsburgh, PA - Garfield Artworks w/ Hearts of Darknesses
11.3 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Tavern w/ Hearts of Darknesses
11.4 Ann Arbor, MI - Arbor Vitae
11.5 Chicago, IL - Av-aerie
11.6 St. Louis, MO - CBGB
11.8 Denver, CO - Glob w/ Pictureplane
11.9 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Ct. w/ Danielson
11.10 Portland, OR - Someday Lounge
11.12 Oakland, CA - Mag's/House of Nostromo
11.13 San Francisco, CA - The Eagle w/ The Mayyors
11.14 Los Angeles, CA - The Smell w/ David Scott Stone, Nite Jewel
11.16 Austin, TX - Scoot Inn
11.17 Dallas, TX - Club Dada
11.19 Atlanta, GA - Eyedrum
11.20 Athens, GA - Secret Squirrel
11.21 Knoxville, TN - Pilot Light
11.22 Columbus, OH - Skylab
11.23 Cincinatti, OH - The Gypsy Hut
11.24 Bloomington, IN - TBA
11.28 Chicago, IL - TBA
12.5 Bronx, NY - Fordham University
| Seminal Steampunk outfit Rasputina announce late 08 tour
10/1/2008
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Seminal, cello-driven steampunk trio Rasputina will be introducing more fans to their recently renovated line-up. Melora Creager has operated the Rasputina outfit for 17 consecutive years. From its original inception (which included 7 cellists sans drummer) to today's power-trio, Rasputina has remained true to its mission of performing emotive, historically themed rock-music on the cello.
New blood is always needed, and for the first time ever, Rasputina includes a male cellist, Daniel De Jesus. He is an incredibly talented singer/cellist from Philadelphia. On punk-folk drums is Catie D'Amica, a brilliant young animal rehabilitator. This will be Rasputina’s second tour since their West Coast tour opening for Siouxsie Sioux early this year. In between, Melora contributed a performance to the soundtrack of Repo! The Genetic Opera joining the likes of Richard Patrick (Filter), Steven Perkins (Jane's Addiction), Clown (Slipknot), David J (Bauhaus/Love & Rockets), Daniel Ash (Love & Rockets), Blasko (Ozzy Osborne), Tommy Clefetus (Rob Zombie's band), and many others as well as cutting tracks for her own second solo outing. Rasputina are preparing to enter the studio to begin work on their next album which should be released early next year. Repo! The Genetic Opera.
Last year Rasputina released Oh Perilous World, their sixth full length album and toured North America extensively. The album was released by the Filthy Bonnet Recording Co. with distribution through Ryko.
Creager wrote the songs featured on Oh Perilous World over the last two years after deciding current world events were more bizarre than anything she could scrounge up from the distant past. She obsessively read daily news on the Internet, copying words, phrases and whole stories that especially intrigued her. She compiled a vast notebook of this material from which the Oh Perilous World lyrics are culled. Press response to the record was typically adulatory:
…The album’s fancifully tangled story lines and larger-than-life characters include Fletcher Christian’s son Thursday and a demented Mary Todd Lincoln, who leads her blimp army as the Queen of Florida... A thicket of oppressive fuzz descends ominously on the aptly titled “Draconian Crackdown.” Foreboding cello strokes march like sentient redwoods, elegantly framing the hazy fantasy “A Retinue of Moons,” before being pulled back for the austere melody of “The Pruning.” What a weird and wonderful World. Falling James/LA Weekly
While Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart are seen as the torchbearers of the “freak-folk” movement, Rasputina can plausibly be called its progenitor. Unable to fit tidily into one genre for most of their 15-year career, the band’s use of stratified string arrangements, idiosyncratic vocals and antique songwriting should certainly receive some more attention now that the style is musically chic. World only reinforces singer/cellist Melora Creager’s bid as one of the more creative songwriters of the past decade. Kevin Kampwirth/CMJ New Music Monthly
Rasputina have never gotten the props they deserve. Bandleader Melora Creager is more than just a tireless advocate for cellos and corsets or a role model for people who want to live in Tim Burton movies—she's exactly the sort of oddball alternate-world-building songwriter, artiste, and polymath who, were she male and her iconography less insistently girly, would surely command the devotion of countless shambling, shaggy-faced hipsters. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to need 'em. Oh Perilous World (Filthy Bonnet) is the sixth album from the group proper (needless to say, Creager's got her own sidelines going), and on it the ladies and dude get topical. Impressionistic
and disjointed, with bits of current events woven into the usual off-kilter historical source
material, the disc's tall-tale dreamscapes sometimes recall the Mekons—at their best and their worst. (And not just because they're the only two bands I can think of that've name-checked Fletcher Christian.) Creager's not shy about disrupting a groove to follow her own tangents wherever they may lead, whether her declared topic is "Old Yellowcake Breaking News" or "1816, the Year Without a Summer." - Monica Kendrick/Chicago Reader
This emerges from slurred dulcimer, humming cello and shambling percussion into "1816. The Year Without A Summer." Rasputina's sixth album lodges the intrinsically offbeat trio well left-of-center but they inhabit that spot with a naturalism that normalizes the unorthodox instrumentation and precipitous shifts in mood. "Choose Me For A Champion" incongruously evokes both Queen and Patti Smith, but "Cage in a Cave" chirps like Scandinavian radio fare, bright skipping in service of a dark rumination. In the past, Rasputina's eccentricities may have kept less adventurous listeners at bay but Oh Perilous World is perversely catchy, balancing the stormy bits with the pastoral ones in a pretty winning way. Dennis Cook/Jambase.com
…Blending European gothic imagery with a sometimes frantic cello-driven sound, Creager and company have carved out and inhabit a distinct musical cubbyhole since breaking out a decade ago... Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press
…Literate, carefully constructed, ferociously belted and rocked and drummed, these are songs for a hard-rocking apocalypse. The cello—like the Victorian females who populate these songs—is stronger, and angrier and more desperate than it seems. I’d get out of the way if I were you. This perilous world is about to blow. Jennifer Kelly/Popmatters.com
Born and raised in Kansas, Creager comes from a musical family and received classical training. At 18 she moved to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design. While majoring in photography she began playing her cello in rock bands and became involved with drag performers. She formed “The Fingerlakes Trio,” a falsely geeky classical group that performed covers of disco hits, before joining NYC’s Ultra Vivid Scene who recorded three albums for cult British label, 4AD. It was her first exposure to the professional rock world - UVS opened for label mates like The Pixies, Belly and Throwing Muses. Following a tour with Nirvana as a cellist on their In Utero tour she desired to do a project of her own, and she created Rasputina.
The concept for the group came to her fully formed; the idea was written as a manifesto. Her intention was to create an electric cello choir - no boys or guitars allowed. Through want ads she recruited like-minded young cellists. Rasputina evolved, employing elaborate costuming, as they were unable to move about while forcibly stationary in their chairs. What began as strictly "Victorian Whites"- bloomers, corsets and hoopskirts, has evolved into an amalgam of historical feminine icons- Indian princesses, Hawaiian handmaidens and fallen medieval queens, Rasputina keeps their cultish following enthralled with intimate recitals and post-show receiving lines.
Rasputina works as an anomaly in popular music. By ignoring fashion trends and maintaining artistic integrity coupled with musical enthusiasm, the group has thrived as time has passed. They expose passionate fans to historical tales, and inspire young string players to seek alternatives to the classical world.
Rasputina have released two albums on Columbia Records, Thanks For the Ether and How We Quit the Forest. Following a short break after the birth of Melora’s daughter Hollis, the group returned with two more studio albums on Instinct Records, Cabin Fever, and Frustration Plantation. The live CD A Radical Recital was released in 2005 on Creager’s own Filthy Bonnet Recording Co. record label.
Oh Perilous World was co-produced by Melora Creager and Charlie Campbell (who mixed the live A Radical Recital), mixed by Dae Bennett and recorded at the Clubhouse in Rhinebeck and Soundcheck Republic in Chatham near Melora’s new home in New York State’s Hudson Valley. For more information visit www.rasputina.com
RASPUTINA LATE AUTUMN TOUR
11/19/08 - Diesel, Pittsburgh, PA
11/20/08 - The Wonder Bar, Asbury Park, NJ
11/21/08 - Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ
11/22/08 - The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY
| female British blues guitarist Bex Marshall tours U.S.
9/28/2008
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Female British Blues/roots guitarist/songwriter (and one time croupier) Bex “Lady Fingers” Marshall will be undertaking her first U.S. tour in celebration of the release of her latest CD, Kitchen Table recorded in North London last year, which is released on the House Of Mercy label, distributed by Koch.
Kitchen Table is gutsy collection of self-penned compositions that run the gamut from down-low blues to back-porchy country-rock and marks the arrival of one of the UK’s finest new talents in the trans-Atlantic roots-music field. Bex is a renowned and respected guitarist who’s fierce chops have earned comparisons to the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, Rory Gallagher and Bonnie Raitt. Known for her masterful synthesis of fleet bluegrass picking, bluesy slidework, Marshall performs largely on the acoustic steel-top resonator guitar. Marshall also distinguishes herself as an accomplished songwriter able to craft both sultry serenades and gut-bucket rockers with impressive authority and conviction. Kitchen Table also shows off her unique, earthy voice -- equal parts Janis Joplin grit and homespun Raitt tunefulness. "Bex has a terrific voice and she plays guitar like a goddess, a cocktail of Joplin and Hendrix" (Alan Whittaker SOLFEST)
Bex is the product of two completely different family backgrounds: one, blue-blooded, landed gentry and the other Irish Romany. Classical guitar playing was her first passion, then flamenco, but eventually country and the blues won her heart. Growing up she often went along to her uncles’ live gigs and when one of them gave her a 1963 Gibson Hummingbird when she was 11 she was inspired to make music her life.
Hailing from Devon, now settled in London, Bex worked as a croupier from the age of 18. She travelled around the world, dealing illegal poker games in Amsterdam, then hitch-hiking throughout Europe, always with her trusty guitar strapped to her back. More than once she had to raise the price of a meal and a night’s lodging with a quick spot of busking. But once she began performing professionally her career took off quickly.
The Fleadh Festival in ’04 saw her performing alongside the likes of Bob Dylan, The Counting Crows and John Prine. The following year Marshall performed four separate sets at the legendary Glastonbury Festival (including the Acoustic and Leftfield stages) and then undertook a 28-date Summer tour with the U.K Buegrass band Hayseed Dixie ending with a show at the prestigious London Forum. Bex earned the distinction of being the first and only ever woman to be invited to perform at the Cork’s International Guitar Festival sharing the stage with Thin Lizzy founder Eric Bell, Preston Reed, Matt Churchill etc. Her debut album Bootlace received impressive airplay throughout the U.K and Europe.
http://www.myspace.com/bexmarshall
Bex Marshall U.S. Tour
Wed 29th Oct - Steel City Coffee House, Phoenixville, PA
Sat 1st Nov - Marsh Woodwinds, Raleigh, NC
Mon 3rd Nov - A Dough Re Mi, Mount Pleasant, SC
Thurs 6th Nov - Acoustic Coffee House, Johnson City, TN
Friday Nov 7th - Norm's River Roadhouse, Nashville, TN
Sun Nov 9th - Bluebird Cafe Writers Night, Nashville, TN
Tues 11th Nov - Dan’s Silver Leaf, Denton, TX
Thurs 13th Nov - Opal Devine’s Freehouse, Austin, TX
Fri 14th / Sat 15th Nov - World United Music Festival & Radio Conference, San Marcos, TX
Thurs 20th Nov - 3rd & Lindsley, Nashville, TN
Fri 21st Nov - Genghis Cohen, Los Angeles, CA
Sun 30th Nov - 19 Broadway Nite Club, Fairfax CA
| gospel drenched roots band Hoots & Hellmouth 1 1/2 years into tour!
9/25/2008
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Philadelphia’s gospel-drenched roots rockers Hoots and Hellmouth continue their endless barmstorming of the United States that began in March of 2007 and currently runs solidly through Novenber 2008 – and more to come. They released their self-titled debut album, produced by Brian McTear, last year on MAD Dragon Records, distributed by Ryko Distribution (WEA) and have been on the road supporting it ever since. I’m hoping you’d consider advancing this show with a feature, CD review or advance blurb.
From gospel fury ("Want On Nothing") to subtle, understated beauty ("Backwoods Don't Lie"), Hoots & Hellmouth's self-titled debut presents a startling range of musical depth. Dedication to the craft of songwriting is the common thread that connects songs such as the folk-inflected “Forks & Knives,” which leans heavily on the more traditional aspects of Americana, to the modern soulfulness of “West Of Where The Sun Goes Down” as it incorporates a swirling mélange of psychedelic organ and walls of vocals that leave the listener enraptured, enveloped, enamored. Hoots feels that “working with Brian really helped us to hone in on what each song demanded of us…we became mere channels for the greater power of the music.” The resulting record speaks for itself in exuberant tones.
Press response to the album has been excellent:
Philadelphia's Sean Hoots and Andrew "Hellmouth" Gray play acoustic guitars, backed by a mandolinist and upright bassist, and favor country-rock harmonies and hippie romanticism in the mode of Crosby, Stills & Nash or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The band's debut album, "Hoots & Hellmouth," is marked by rambunctious energy, a welcome sense of humor, a hint of old-time string bands and the potential to grow into something more original. Geoffrey Himes/Washington Post
Hoots & Hellmouth: Righteously ragged backporch jammers share a tart and tangy lineup with Frog Holler and Bitter Bitter Weeks. Jon Takiff/Philadelphia Daily News
The night began with the fervent roots pop of Hoots and Hellmouth. The quartet managed to make a righteous, old-timey racket with two acoustic guitars, mandolin, upright bass, and ragged harmonies. The Hoots' blend of alt-country, rock, and gospel was amplified only by their own considerable joy and the physical way they threw themselves into singing. Sarah Rodman/Boston Globe
Listening to the Pennsylvania quartet feels like listening to old bluegrass tapes recorded at some back porch hoe-down during Prohibition. The band's technique and song content is so distinctly true to their deep bluegrass/folk roots' past, the generational gap seems to disappear. Matthew Godbey/Charleston Post
The “fuck-it-we’re-doing-this-thing-no-matter-what” attitude is what makes songs like “This Hand is a Mighty Hand” erupt in person. Hoots, Gray and Berliner growl and yell the lyrics, barely keeping control. They chug cold beer and their skin sweats. A Hoots & Hellmouth concert is a loud, obnoxious, sweaty, thrilling, revival of a show. It is a nightly barn raising, in fact, whether they’re playing in Memphis, Austin or Brooklyn. Paul Smalera/NY Press
And you’ll find some wonderful performance footage here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5jepo_hoots-hellmouth-what-good-are-plows_music
Sean Hoots and Andrew “Hellmouth” Gray first collaborated in early 2005, when they began creating a collection of distinctive original songs based around their acoustic guitars, a departure for the two as they had both previously been involved with loud rock bands. It was a powerful process of discovery for them. "This is not music for the sake of commerce. It’s alive. It's about bleeding, sweating, crying, rejoicing... it's raw soul," Hoots says of their work. “We live this stuff.”
Since their inception, Hoots & Hellmouth have been on a mighty roll, touring relentlessly both on their own and with friends (Dr. Dog, The Teeth, Langhorne Slim, Will Hoge). The band’s unique style of acoustic mayhem provides a flexibility that allows them to perform in all manner of venues, from rock clubs to folk fests. Each stop garners new fans, as word continues to spread of their undeniably compelling performances. Enthusiastic festival appearances have included Langerado, Wakarusa and the venerable Philadelphia Folk Festival.
And while the emphasis has always been on the live experience, H&H’s eponymous debut studio album (released in April 2007) proves one hell of an adventure, to boot. Produced in collaboration with fellow Philadelphian Brian McTear (Capitol Years, Matt Pond PA, Bigger Lovers) at his Miner Street/Cycle Sound Studio, the album gives powerful evidence that the band has concocted a musical blend of roots/revival sensibility with a healthy dose of rock n’ roll energy that is all their own. Starting with the core instrumentation of two guitars (Hoots and Hellmouth), mandolin (Rob Berliner), upright bass (Tim Celfo), three-part harmony vocals and foot stomps, the band worked in conjunction with McTear to flesh out each song, adding drums, organ, additional voices and the occasional accordion flourish.
Hoots & Hellmouth are forever on tour, bringing their music to more and more people and working to build community at every step along the way. In the words of Hoots, "this music is at once a celebration and a mourning – championing the human potential to feel deeply and come together as a unified whole, while bemoaning the fact that much in modern life seems to work against that sense of community and bonding. It's a catharsis for 21st Century humans...it’s new music for old souls."
www.myspace.com/hootshellmouth
http://www.hootsandhellmouth.com
http://www.maddragonrecords.com
PRESS: Howlin’ Wuelf Media * Howard Wuelfing * 215-428-9119/howlingwuelf@aol.com
Hoots and Hellmouth Tour Dates:
10/10 – The Arts Center, Athens, TN
10/11 – Rose Center, Morristown, TN
10/14 – Melting Point, Athens, GA
10/15 - The Basement, Nashville, TN
10/16 – World Grotto, Knoxville, TN
10/17 - Atlanta Room @ Smith’s Olde Bar, Atlanta GA
10/18 – Crimson Moon, Dahlonega, GA(Atlanta)
10/23 - The Black Sheep, Wakefield, QC
10/26 – Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA
10/30 - Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY
10/31 - Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA
11/1 - Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, PA
11/2 -TT The Bear’s Cambridge, MA
11/3 - La Sala Rosa, Motore, Montreal, QC
11/4 - El Mocambo, Toronto, ONT
11/5 - Mohawk Place, Buffalo, NY
11/7 - 123 Pleasant Street, Morgantown, WV
11/8 – HemlockFest 2008 at Starbridge, Murrayville, GA
11/9 - Sertoma Youth Ranch, Dade City FL
11/11 – Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa, FL
11/12 - The Backbooth, Orlando, FL
11/14 - Chelsea Café, Baton Rouge, LA
11/15 - Juanita’s Cantina Ballroom, Little Rock, AR
11/16 - Hi-Tone Café, Memphis, TN
11/18 - The Pour House, Charleston SC
11/19 - Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
11/21 – Visulite Theatre, Charlotte, NC
11/22 - Five Points Pub, Columbia, SC
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