Black Crowes' Warpaint Bonus Tracks

A couple of bonus tracks were made available via vinyl and iTunes versions of the excellent new Black Crowes album, Warpaint. "Hole In Your Soul" and "Here Comes Daylight" make fine additions to an already great album.

Hear here:

http://www.w8man.com/audio/sotd/Hole_In_Your_Soul.mp3


http://www.w8man.com/audio/sotd/Here_Comes_Daylight.mp3

Maybe It's Not Crowded Enough

Crowded House--you know, Austrailian band helmed by Tim Finn who writes those beautiful and haunting pop ditties--have released a new CD, and announced an "American Tour" to support it. Time on Earth came out last July on ATO. Their subsequent tour of America, which kicks off next month, consists of multiple shows on the coasts two in the middle and none in the South, which was presumably not quite crowded enough for them.

The press release follows:

CROWDED HOUSE CONFIRM AMERICAN TOUR
Crowded House has confirmed its first North American tour of 2008. Instead of single dates in many cities, the band is going back to a few of its favorites to do short residencies in smaller, more intimate venues in those markets. Slated to start on April 28 in New York City, the tour will end on May 17 in Los Angeles, with four cities in between. The tour is still in support of Crowded House's first record since 1993. Entitled "Time on Earth," the band is Neil Finn - vocals/guitars; Nick Seymour - Bass; Mark Hart - keyboards/guitars; Matt Sherrod - drums. "Time on Earth" was released on ATO Records on July 10, 2007.

"Time On Earth" was recorded at Roundhead Studios, Auckland, NZ, RAK Studios, London, and Real World Studios, Bath, and was produced by Ethan Johns (Kings Of Leon, Ryan Adams) and Steve Lillywhite (U2, Morrissey). Guitar legend Johnny Marr features on two tracks, lead-off single "Don't Stop Now" and "Even A Child," a song he co-wrote with Neil Finn. Another album track, "Silent House," was co-written by Finn and the Dixie Chicks, whose own version of the song appears on their Grammy Award-winning album "Taking the Long Way."

The press response to the new record was rapturous. "Paste" said, "'Time on Earth' is another batch of Finn's impeccably crafted pop gems," and the "Los Angeles Times" noted that, "Finn is a master at expressing ambiguity, lyrically and musically." "USA Today" hailed that, "the melodic gifts that allowed Finn to craft some of the sweetest pop of the late '80s and early '90s are still intact," and then continued to say, "the album's unpretentious warmth and modest wit offer a refreshing alternative to the winking and whining of some successors."

Crowded House formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1985 and first tasted global success with their massive 1987 hit "Don't Dream It's Over." They continued to have hits for a decade, including "Something So Strong," "Weather With You" and "It's Only Natural." "Don't Dream It's Over" hit #2 on the American Top 40 and won the band Best New Artist at that year's MTV Music Awards, while "Something" reached the #7 spot. They produced four studio albums and a best-of compilation.

The dates for the tour are as follows:
April 28 - 30 New York, NY NY Fillmore at Irving Plaza
May 2 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
May 5 - 6 Boston, MA Somerville Thatre
May 7 - 8 Toronto, ONT Danforth Music Hall
May 10 - 11 Chicago, IL Vic Theater
May 14 - 15 San Francisco, CA Fillmore
May 16 - 17 Los Angeles, CA Orpheum Theatre

Done Up And Did It

Another One Bites The Dust: Therondy For Harp Magazine

Aw, hell. Shortly after getting the news about No Depression, Harp Magazine announced that they would quit publishing after 7 years.

They cited mostly the same reasons as No Depression and Honest Tune.

This was one of my favorite magazines. It was almost strictly about music--no fashion or politics and very little bullshit. I liked it especially because they focused on music that didn't neccesarily come across my desk on a regular basis. It was ostensibly a "Rock" magazine though more and more it could be characterized as an Indie Rock mag, but that's mostly because a lot of the best music being made these days is getting tagged with the "Indie" label. It'll be something else in a few years. I guess most bands don't know what genre they're in until some asshole behind a keyboard (ahem) says so in a magazine, or I guess now a blog. They relentlessly hammered me with information about Cat Power (among others) until I finally acquiesced, and I'm glad I did.


Former Honest Tune scribe Andy Tennille had just penned a great cover story on the Mars Volta for the second-to-last issue. Andy's written for lots of folks but did some great articles for us, and really helped us find our footing. He did a great piece on Slang, the collaboration between Lang Martine and Dave Schools. He interviewed Jim Dickinson and John Hiatt and turned in countless other pieces. Other Honest Tune alums like Dennis Cook and Aaron Kayce were regular contributors. Aaron did a kick-ass story on Danger Mouse in the last issue. And I'd been talking to them about contributing some articles myself and, I think, getting close to finding something that fit.

Such it is that there aren't too many "small" (Harp was about five times the size of Honest Tune, but that's still small compared to Rolling Stone, Spin and Paste, and half the size of Relix) music magazines anymore. It's sad because it means that fewer musicians will get the ink they deserve as the larger magazines are more about broad appeal that artistic merit (in most cases).

So long, Harp. We hardly knew ye.

One Moe High Ate Us

The Grateful Dead did it, of course. So did Phish and Widespread Panic. I think String Cheese did too. So I guess it was just their turn to follow suit.

In a message on their website, moe. announced their plans to take a break from touring after a massive summer tour. They plan to return to the stage sometime in 2009. Naturally, their fans are freaking out, prompting a post on their myspace page telling them to calm the fuck down.

The Dead took a year off from their rigorous road schedule in 1975, playing only a few shows during that year. They did it to get a handle on their ever-expanding universe of hangers-on, an extended family that was costing them no telling how many dollars. Of course they went on to play another 20 years after that. The break probably did them some good. They explored side projects that likely fed their imaginations and helped to expand the palette of styles they utilized so well.

Twenty years later, Phish took a break too. They'd slipped into the role vacated in 1995 by the Dead as the biggest concert attraction for what were now being called "jam bands." Thousands of traveling fans who had followed the Dead from city to city simply jumped on the Phish bandwagon, and the popularity of the band soared a bit more quickly than it probably would have otherwise. Suddenly, they were selling out huge arenas and amphitheaters. This too, brought with it some problems as their organization, which like the Dead's was comprised largely of friends who were expecting a paycheck, swelled. It got too big for them, out of their control, and by their own admission, began to include more and more nefarious characters. They played what should have been their swan song, their Shea Stadium, on New Years Eve 1999 for about 70,000 fans on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida, preforming more than six hours until sunrise. They could have called it quits then and their legacy would have been intact. But they didn't. They took a break, and for them it didn't seem to do much good. They came back from their break sloppy and uninspired. They held it together for a few more years, with the good shows being far less frequent than the trainwrecks.

Widespread Panic had the best reason for taking an extended break, but took it at the wrong time. They soldiered on playing shows in 2002 even as founding guitarist Michael Houser left mid-tour and soon succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Guitarist George McConnell filled in for more than a year of on the job training before they decided to take a long overdue break. When they came back, they struggled some more before McConnell left the band in 2006 amid a barrage of back-up guitarists being trotted out on stage and rumors of Jimmy Herring replacing him, which he did the following tour. If they had taken their break when Houser passed, they might have re-grouped better, though perhaps not at all.

Now, moe. is taking a break. It may seem like it's just part of the jam band formula, like playing two sets and an encore and allowing taping. But really, it's no big deal. Most bands tour every few years to support an album release. Only in the insular world of the jam band community does a few months or even a year off constitute a "hiatus" (or as Widespread Panic's bassist Dave Schools termed it, a "sabbatical.")

Jam fans seem to literally get addicted to the euphoria and obsessiveness of following their bands from show to show, so a break seems like cold turkey.

But there are plenty of other great bands out there to see. Maybe it'd do moe.rons some good to check it out, and maybe it'll do moe. some good to have some rest. As one of the hardest working bands on the scene, they certainly deserve it.

Backyard Tire Fire's New FREE EP

Backyard Tire Fire has to be one of my favorite unheralded artists. The fact that more people aren't tuned into these guys is a damn shame.

They are a rocking little trio from Indiana helmed by Ed Anderson, who is such a prolific songwriter that their road manager once complained to me that by the time they recorded an album he already had a whole new batch of tunes that he played on stage, thus giving them nothing to sell to the throngs of fans who came up after the show wanting to buy the album with "that song" on it. I'd hope those fans picked up one of their other albums. There isn't a stinker in the bunch.

They've wisely measured this output by adding EP releases in between full-length albums, and they're recently announced the lastest EP, Sick of Debt, which is available as a free download on their website.

These are Ed's comments about it:

"We loaded into Oxide Lounge in Bloomington, IL on a cold December afternoon (12.17.07) to record a healthy dose of some acoustic Tire Fire twang. There had always been talk of sitting down in the same room and doing a stripped down recording and we finally found the time to do it! Some of these songs are favorites that have been around for years and never found a place on an album, while others were written only weeks before. All of the tunes feature our good friend Jerry "Muttonhead" Erickson on either dobro or pedal steel guitar and were recorded live with minimal overdubs. The result is a raw collection of some of our finest acoustic material that we decided to make available for FREE DOWNLOAD. Please enjoy and pass it around." - Ed Anderson

Download the EP here.


The tracklisting is as follows:
1. "Sick of Debt"
2. "I Only Cry When My Momma's Sick"
3. "Honey to a Be
4. "Cigarettes and Coffee"
5. "Ice Cream Truck"
6. "Lost in Durango"

Here's a video:

Otis Taylor's Banjo Record...

I talked with Otis Taylor a few weeks ago about his new CD, Recapturing The Banjo.

Lots of people think of the banjo as a bluegrass instrument only, but its roots are actually in Africa. When it became a staple of the minstrel show circuit, lots of black musicians didn't want to be associated with it anymore.

Otis' record features an all-star cast of African -American banjo players....Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb Mo, Guy Davis, Don Vappie, Corey Harris. They all contribute songs and it comes with really great exhaustive liner notes for those of you (like me) who are into that kind of thing. ...With or without the history lesson, it's a great record.

Read my story about it over at
Honest Tune


Happy Monday,
Tom