Pigman talks The Weepies, Deb Talan, Steve Tannen and theDecemberists/REM Connection

The Weepies, Deb Talan, Steve Tannen
Originally uploaded by picksysticks

Is it me, or does the guitars in the new Decemberists hit sound like REM?

Mash up the Decemberist's "Down by the Water" with REM's "The One I Love".

Saw the Weepies live last Wednesday night down in Little Five Points; Been a
big fan for a couple of years. Very cool and laidback show. Imagine seeing a
band at the Vogue Theatre.

Ciao main.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Originally uploaded by vhf

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead will be releasing their seventh full length on February 8, 2011. The record is titled Tao of the Dead and will be the second on their own imprint, Richter Scale Records. The album comes almost exactly two years after the February 2009 release of The Century of Self .

The band will of course be touring in support of the new album, kicking things off in Europe at the end of March on a co-headlining tour with Rival Schools and then heading out in the US at the end of April – dates to be announced shortly.

Keith Morris - New Project OFF!

Keith Morris - Circle Jerks
Originally uploaded by wanapixel

Keith Morris is one of the grandfathers of American punk. He traces his roots back to the early LA punk scene, as former frontman for legendary Black Flag. As the 80s dawned, he went in a new direction with his band the Circle Jerks. I loved the Jerks because of their weird sense of humor and hard riffs.
So, not long ago, I hear he has created a new supergroup called OFF! Seems natural, first Black Flag and now OFF! He will be creating great punk until America runs out of pest control products. Can't wait to see what comes of it. A cd? A tour? Who knows, but even RAID can't kill these old roaches, who keep putting out great punk into their fourth decade. Geez are we getting old?

The Right Ons: Greatest American Rock and Roll Band. From Spain?

The Right Ons en la Barha Party Madrid 08
Originally uploaded by Barha Party

You owe it to yourself to give The Right Ons a listen. If you love the gritty American sound of bands like the MC5, Iggy Pop and the whole of 60's garage proto-punk. Singing in fluent, American accented English, they have the feel and grit of a real American band. The riffs are dead on American garage rock. They are currently on tour in the US, kicking out the jams as they used to say in Motown. They have an energy and dynamic that will grab you by the throat. Glad to see these fine Spanish lads keeping the garage rock banner flying.

HullabaLou festival

Looks like an interestingly diverse group of bands for the festival. Ranging from 70s rock to country, bluegrass and soul, only the Kentucky Derby crowd could be more diverse. I would probably stay close to the bluegrass stage for such acts as Ricky Skaggs and Dan Tymenski and the McCoury boys. Dwight Yoakum and Loretta Lynn offer glimpses of what country should be. This is not the Warped Tour or SXSW. No indie or punk. More like mainstream Americana. Not that there is anything wrong with that. See info below for dates and times.

JUNIOR BROWN OUT ON THE ROAD AGAIN

JUNIOR BROWN @ ANTONE'S
Originally uploaded by Kingsnake

I am excited. Junior Brown is coming to Nashville. I plan on being there. Junior Brown is what country music SHOULD be. Nashville country really blows. Cardboard cutout cowboys who all look and sound the same. Same tire stuff. Same tired recycled 70's rock passed off as country. Not so with Junior. When he picks up his guitsteel, a combo of a lap steel and Telecaster, get ready for some down home picking. Equally adept at surf, blues, rockabilly and country, a Junior Brown show is all about what is great in music. Clever lyrics, virtuoso playing and a humble persona that would make Ernest Tubb proud, Junior makes the audience feel at home. I remember seeing him in Chapel Hill NC back in the 90s. The crowd had college hipsters, old guys wearing overalls and everyone in between rocking the house. He hasn't done a studio album for a while so I hope one is in the works. In the meantime, we can catch him out on the road.

Alex Chilton: Dead at 59

Alex Chilton
Originally uploaded by deSingel International Arts Campus

Sorry to see that indie rock legend Alex Chilton has died of a heart attack. He was 59. He had a career that spanned the decades and covered all bases including jazz, indie, rock and the like. I got curious about him when a song titled Alex Chilton appeared on the Replacements album Pleased to Meet Me. He was a guest performer on that recording. He was scheduled to appear at the SXSW Festival in the next few days. Not fully recognized for his genius, maybe now Alex Chilton will get the due he deserves.

Decent College Radio still exists...

I stumbled onto the Western Kentucky University station and was pleasantly surprised. They played some Bright Eyes, Surfer Blood, Old 97s. A pretty diverse list of tunes on their play list. No punk. I wonder if they have a punk show on weekends or during the overnight hours? Good old college radio. In the 80s, it was a real force to be reckoned with. Nowadays most radio seems irrelevant. Maybe there is still some hope out there. The best way to find new music is the internet, but radio stations that are adventurous is always a viable option. Rock on, WKU.

Surfer Blood - New and Interesting Grooves from the Sunshine State

Surfer Blood - CMJ 2009
Originally uploaded by Giulia Mazza

Surfer Blood caught my attention because someone described them as punk. I was hoping they would be punk revival along the lines of Against Me! or Anti-Flag. They didn't sound like that, but that is ok. They do have an interesting groove. More like power pop and indie rock rolled together. I hear the surf guitar of the 60s, the Shins, and a little My Morning Jacket along with some new stuff that washed up on the beaches of the Sunshine State. "Surfer Blood are a band from West Palm Beach, Florida. Their debut album, Astro Coast was released on January 19, 2010 on Kanine Records." That is all the information I can find about them on Last.fm. Simple enough. If you want to get some fresh grooves for the fresh decade of the 2010's, check out Surfer Blood.

Wayne Hancock goes West Coast

Wayne Hancock
Originally uploaded by Brian Bubonic

I love old country music. Nashville killed real country music in about 1975 or so. I like the story telling, the manic songwriting, and the twang of real country music. That is why Wayne Hancock excites me so much. A throwback to Hank Williams Sr., his tunes are so authentic old school country, you can hear the pops and crackles of the old turntable in his voice. Thunderstorms and Neon Signs was the tune that turned me onto Wayne. His music tells stories the way Hank Sr, Ernest Tubb and others of the vintage 50s era did, full of sorrow and pain. Most of his dates are out west, but I have my eye on a gig he is doing in Nashville in a couple of months. Maybe some of that old country mojo will rub off on Nashville, but I doubt it. Country music has been long dead in the Ville. I would love to see Wayne, Hank III, and Junior Brown kick country music in its ass to get it going again.

Great radio is still around: WXRT Chicago

WXRT tower
Originally uploaded by MDavid11

Driving home today from the cold, snowy Windy City, I was tuning around the dial. It landed on an old familiar spot at 93.1 WXRT. I was on the Kennedy Expressway, trying to see out the one clean spot on the windshield of my van, and grooving to the music. They played a nice mix of old and new like always. Some Natalie Merchant, some Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead... The highlight for me was Taj Mahal's version of the old "Six Days on the Road". In a world where all the crap is pre-fab, pre-programmed blandness, I am glad WXRT is still going strong.

London Calling: Voted Best Punk Album of All Time by Dissident Readers!

London Calling
Originally uploaded by Adriano Comissoli

We have closed the polls and the votes are in. London Calling by The Clash, was voted the best punk album of all time. I can't say that I disagree. There have been so many great punk records over the years, but London Calling was a special record. It was a double LP that blew away any notions of what punk should sound like. Running the gamut from punk to ska to folk and dub, the songwriting was deep and the tunes were classic.
The opening cut was the title track, the plaintive London Calling. This is still a classic. Brand New Cadillac, a psychobilly tune was next. Jimmy Jazz, track 3, was a jazzy little number. Hateful and Rudie Can't Fail are both tuneful tracks to end side 1.
Side 2 featured some nice softer tunes. Spanish Bombs and Lost in the Supermarket are VERY soft from a punk perspective, but are great songs, full of insight. Clampdown is more straight-forward power punk. Then follows the punk classic, Guns of Brixton.
Side 3 boasts rockers Koka Kola, and Death or Glory. Side 4 finishes with my personal theme song of the time I'm Not Down, along with Train in Vain and Revolution Rock. If you don't have this disc, GET IT! I was still in high school when it came out 30 (ugh!) years ago. I graduated in 1981. This was the soundtrack of my youth, alongside other greats such as Black Flag - Damaged. Hope you have enjoyed this tribute to the album Dissident Times fans have voted their favorite all-time punk recording.

Why I Don't Like Coldplay

Coldplay GF3Q1817.jpg
Originally uploaded by kingpinphoto

I remember the first time I heard a Coldplay cd. I had heard all the buzz and wanted to hear them for myself. I borrowed a disc from a friend and put it in the system. The first track was slow, downtempo and boring. I fast forwarded to the next track. It sounded like a long intro to a song that never arrived. Then it hit me. All of their tunes sound like a long intro waiting for a song to happen. But the song never happens. I wrote it off to my love of in-yer-face SoCal punk that offers instant gratification, hooks that beat you over the head, instant energy. But I asked other friends who weren't fans of Fat Wreck Chords compilations, and they told me the same. Coldplay is simply this: BORING. Like Pink Floyd minus the cleverness and psychedelia. Now they are on 60 Minutes and next I guess it will be Corn Flakes commercials. There is truly a void in the big arena of corporate rock that Coldplay fills I guess. I will stick with my indie and punk roots. Bands that are creative and make music for the sheer joy of making music.

Hit the Switch! New record is out, and it rocks HARD

Chino, California based Hit the Switch has a new cd out. Hit the Switch mixes SoCal punk, hardcore and thrash that is powerful stuff. I found them a couple of years ago on their cd, Domestic Tranquility and Social Justice. The new disc is called Observing Infinity.I love their low tech, straightforward approach to the music. It sounds raw, energetic and thrashes with a real sense of urgency. Take a stroll to their myspace page here:

Funk for a New Generation: Alan Wilkis

Age of Funk
Originally uploaded by Chester The Disaster

Just checked out a new track from Brooklyn artist Alan Wilkis. His music is described as dance/pop/funk for a new generation. That is a pretty good description. I hear shades of Parliament Funkadelic going on there. He has a blog that features free downloads definitely worth a listen. http://wilcassettes.com/blog He is definitely channeling Bernie Worrell on the synthesizers. Bernie was the P Funk and Talking Heads key guru with the distinctive sound. I have been waiting for some new funk for ages. Prince has kept up the funk, and George Clinton as well. But we need the new FONK... Here it is.

PINK AND PURPLE is this new release. Brooklyn-based producer/instrumentalist, Alan Wilkis brings some great tracks on the new material... Hear some of what was good about the 1980s - Vintage synth hooks and a cheerful groove. "6 songs of non-stop electro-pop dynamite."

The Newest Framptons: Meg and Dia

Meg and Dia
Originally uploaded by TheUniversalCynic

While listening to the 2009 Warped Tour compilation, I got this insidious tune stuck in my head. It had great pop hooks and beautiful vocals. It really stood out from the screamo of many of the bands on the disc. I was in love. With Meg and Dia? Who the heck are Meg and Dia? I had to look further. Here, courtesy of their website, is the lowdown on some talented youngsters, Meg and Dia Frampton.

"Seeing the world is an eye-opening experience—especially if you grew up in the tiny town of Draper, Utah—so it’s no wonder Meg & Dia’s new album, Here, Here and Here, paints a portrait of what life has been like for this hard-working band as they’ve toured for the past two and a half years in support of their 2006 debut album Something Real (which spawned the fan favorite singles “Roses” and “Monster”). Despite being fronted and named after sisters Meg and Dia Frampton, Meg & Dia is very much a collaborative effort between five individual musicians. With the upcoming release of their second album Here, Here and Here, this group of five friends has begun to evolve into the kind of musicians they want to be—although they’re the first to admit that it’s still a collective work in progress. “On the first record, Dia and I were these little naïve girls who got this huge opportunity to make a record,” Meg recalls. “We went into it completely unaware of everything. Then we traveled the world and our perspective expanded a hundred-fold.”

It was this newly gained viewpoint that influenced all the songs on Here, Here and Here, whose title is inspired by a quote courtesy of Mozart: “There’s nothing to composing. You just need to focus on here, here and here,” he said in reference to his head, heart, and ear. If there’s a consistent theme throughout the album, it’s that life doesn’t come with instructions or a map. “All of the songs reflect the sentiment that we’ve been on this really long journey—from point A to point B—and it’s taken us a long time to learn all these different things,” Meg explains in regard to their learn-as-you-go attitude. “We wanted to create the feeling of progress, even though we’re not done yet. The whole album has a feeling of motion…that we’re trying to get somewhere while still having a little more way to go.”

Meg & Dia have certainly shown just how far they’ve come since their debut release. Here, Here and Here is a musical and emotional rollercoaster through various striations of pop-rock sounds and sensations, with each of the 13 tracks brimming with the band’s signature candor and charisma. Meg & Dia stepped outside of their musical comfort zone by experimenting with different instruments and arrangements. “Hug Me” is an upbeat rocker inspired by Brave New World and the desire to be your own person amidst a sea of expectation; “What If” is a guitar-driven, alt-rock romp that’s filled with hypothetical questions we all encounter in our lives (i.e., “What if I find my purpose first?/What if I fulfill my life’s work?/What if you’re counting on my failure made me live?”); “Bored Of Your Love,” a revealing and bittersweet duet performed with Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T’s, marks Meg and Dia’s first co-writing experience with an outside person; and “Black Wedding” is an ominous-yet-sassy salsa with fist-pounding choruses and arena-rock guitar solos.

To help Meg & Dia realize their vision, the band turned to noted producer Howard Benson, who is known for his work with My Chemical Romance and The All-American Rejects among many others. “Howard encouraged us to do a bit of soul-searching and inspired us to push ourselves creatively as artists to the limit,” Meg says. “I learned what I am capable of and to not be afraid to try any idea no matter what it is. He taught me to have faith in myself and not sell myself short just because I'm young and haven't had as much experience. His hand in the arrangements really helped bringing the songs together as a whole, making them more cohesive and emotionally solid.”

Never ones to hold anything back lyrically or musically, Meg and Dia also pride themselves on the fact that—for better or for worse—they are responsible for all of their own material. Meg mastered the GarageBand recording program while the band was demoing songs, which resulted in the final tracks not varying too much from their original form. “Organic” and “authentic” were keywords during the songwriting process, which meant that everything—from the lyrics, to the guitar lines, to the string arrangements—is 100 percent a product of the band. The result is an album that encourages the listener to use their imagination and glean their own meaning from the songs. “Today a lot of musicians hire people or just go with big, corporate writing teams,” Dia says. “That kind of thing scares me to death. “Even though we’re still learning, it’s just cool that no matter what, it’s all completely us.”
Check out the Warped Tour Compilation for Meg and Dia, along with a lot of other interesting bands.

Against Me! has new trax due on July 7th!

Against Me at Warped Tour
Originally uploaded by tomkclarke.com

At least somewhat new, to us. The new disc is called "The Original Cowboy" and it features hard rocking demos from circa 2003. Hailing from Gainesville, they manage to NOT sound like Lynryd Skynrd, and blaze their own musical trail. Just last year, Against Me! was named best punk band by Rolling Stone mag. As if they know punk, but I agree with them on this one. This band IS a great punk band. Not derivative of earlier punks, and forging a new sonic trail through the murky swampland. I love the vocals and the bass work of this band. Every great punk band needs that low end and the raspy vocals. Against Me! never disappoints...

Rancid's "Let the Dominoes Fall" due on Tuesday!

Tuesday will be a busy day for me. My son who broke his arm a while back will be getting his cast off. I will be starting a new job and have to travel to Pittsburgh for some training. Somewhere along the way I need to pick up the long awaited Rancid cd, "Let the Dominoes Fall" coming out on Epitaph Records on June 2. From the previews I have heard, it sounds like classic Rancid. They don't stray too far from their traditional sound, but that is a good thing. It has a mellower vibe to it than their 2000 classic "Rancid" album. That's great too. We can't keep up that intensity forever, but can mature and keep the fire going. Like Husker Du, who continued to evolve after Zen Arcade, I feel that Rancid still has years of great material in them.
They are touring in support of the album. I call the best gig on this tour at Summerfest in Milwaukee. If you have never been there, the environment is great, the food is plentiful, and there is more music than you could shake a bratwurst at. I have seen some memorable shows there on the lakefront in Milwaukee. Violent Femmes, B52s, Sugar Cubes, Public Image Ltd, you name it.
Like I said, the disc has a mature vibe to it. Like when 40 year old guys play punk. But that is a good thing!

Weezer to Team with Snuggie to create their own signature "Wuggie"

Weezer
Originally uploaded by Photographer Christine Taylor

And in news of the strange, Weezer is reportedly teaming up with Snuggie. They are going to create their own "wuggie". It is exactly like a snuggie, except it has Weezer's name on it. No report of whether they will wear them in concert or not.

The Pigman takes on The Kings of Leon

The Kings of Leon
Originally uploaded by chris tuite

This new shtuff by the "Kings of Leon" is just rediculously infectious.

I mean, FOK the Swine Flu.

I can't get outta my small pea brain head, "Sex on Fire" and "Use Somebody". Which have found their way onto several mainstream stations here.

The guitars in SOF remind me of the 80's imports staples. Give it a listen, Mr. Alex Trebec. And, name that band!

The voice in both SOF and US remind me of Eddie Money from the '70's (not that I ever loved Eddie Money....I loved Eddie Munster...but that was earlier in the '70's of the '60's and Billy Munster too in the '80's when he had that "FISH HEAD" song after a long career lost in space).

We have a major avenue here, in the A. Te El, called Ponce de Leon; hence, I thought, pea brainingly that for sure "these 4 Kings are from Ponce, man".

Nope.

Says it plain as day, on "our" SPACE: Dem kangs is from the other 'Ville.

As in Nash. Which is still a good thing. Anything between here and home is on the way, relative.

And so if you look at their group photo, looks like two of 'em belong; dos are emo's.

But they must be doing something right. 91,xxx,xxx hits.

That is math ole W could not comprehend. These foks are huge already.

Yeah, that's right. It's pop music. And these Kangs is a goin' places.

Ciao main.

Bebo