Thursday, December 6, 2018

2018 E2TG Earie Awards - # 2 - Recap February 2018



Be sure to "Like" Ear to the Ground on Facebook!


For your holiday shopping: The Drift - A Novel by Joe Wolfe-Mazeres Available at Amazon.com (Kindle edition also available)



Day 2 of the 2018 E2TG "Earie" Awards/Recap of 2018.  Today, our shuffle is focused on the February 2018 Playlist. As today's shuffle highlights - diversity was the rule at E2TG in 2018.  Let's go!



"Return of Judge Roughneck" by Neville Staple

Neville Staple was an early member of The Specials who went on to form Fun Boy Three with Terry Hall and Lynval Golding.  He was later in Special Beat alongside Ranking Roger. The Return of Judge Roughneck was released in 2017.  This title track resurrects the character that Staple created while with The Specials. I am going to present the Ska Redux Earie Award to Neville and Sugary Staple.  Christine Sugary Staple appears on this album and on together with Neville Staple on Rude Rebels which we have been featuring of late. 

"All We've Got" by Jeryko

Jeryko is a New York City artist we connected with this year. He released a two part visdeo which began with his song "Fighting For" and which concluded with the video for this song (you can find them on his YouTube Channel.  In the Video playlist is an official audio version of the video for this song. Cool stuff that added to the variety of my playlists in February. 

"Thrash Your Head" by Henry Metal

Henry Metal is a man and a band.  As the name implys, Henry Metal plays metal. He had an extremely (insanely) productive 2017 and early 2018. This track is from Metal O'Clock which came out late in 2017 and hit us early in 2018. Fun, loud rock and roll music. Once again, adding to the variety of the music I present. I present Henry Metal with the Thrash and Burn award for 2018.

"Oxytocin" by Ronan Furlong

Ronan Furlong is a singer-songwriter from Ireland. Oxytocin may be the first song I have featured about a neuropeptide. This year, we have featured several songs from this young songwriter. This is one of my favorites. Ronan Furlong gets the Clear and Present Pop Award for 2018.

"Road to Reason" by The Cravens

Based in West Palm Beach, Florida - The Cravens came to us via their latest album On the Line. They quickly caught out attention. In typical E2TG fashion, shortly after first featuring The Cravens, I found out that their bass player was a one-time pare of Let's Active and knows E2TG favorite Tim Lee. So, with that trivia, how about I give, The Cravens the Small World Earie for 2018.

"Swim" by Phantoms vs. Fire

More so than ever before, E2TG expanded our reach in 2018 - not only in the variety of music (though certainly that) but also in the becoming a truly global music blog. Phantoms vs Fire helped on both fronts - leading the emergence of electronic music to our shuffle.  Phantoms vs Fire is the project of Thiago C. Desant who Brazilian and based in Italy.  Their sometimes lush but rhythmic music was perfect for my morning commutes. 

"Where the River Meets the Road" by Tim O'Brien

Holding over from 2017, Tim O'Brien is one of the more well-known musicians we have featured on E2TG.  A member of Hot Rize and former member of Earls of Leicester. This is the title track to his album - which was a tribute to the music of his home state of West Virginia. 

"Dan Stuart's Blues" by Jon Dee Graham

I swear, I do not plan my shuffles. They truly are random. Not a 2018 release, but I first heard Knoxville Skyline in 2018 after seeing Graham play a show with Ben de la Cour at The Local. Our pals, Tim and Susan Lee play on this album. Graham - three times a member of the Austin Music Hall of Fame: solo, with The Skunks, and with the True Believers. The song is Graham's tribute to Green on Red founder Dan Stuart.  The video is a live performance of the song from Fitzgerald's in Chicago.   The Crusty Old Softy Award seems appropriate. I was kind of intimidated about meeting Graham - who I thought would be kind of crusty and gruff. But then, I saw him holding Ben and Collins de la Cour's baby and knew he was okay. 

"Face Down Penny" by Ben de la Cour

As I said, not planned at all - but today's shuffle ends with Ben de la Cour following Jon Dee Graham. The paid have been touring together and they played Fitzgerald's just the other night.  As you may recall, I first heard about Ben de la Cour from Couch by Couchwest - a couple of years before meeting him.  His latest album, The High Cost of Living Strange was one of my absolute favorite albums of 2018, and I think it is de la Cour's best work yet. Ben was one of our guests during the E2TG residency in June. I would like to present him with the Love to Hate, Hate to Love Earier - because of his good-natured love/hate relationship with other Nashville songwriter. ;-)

VIDEO PLAYLIST




I am continuing to work on my Spotify playlists for E2TG.  So far, I have completed nine - January - October 2018.  These are meant to be a cross-section of music I featured during those months - not necessarily music released in those months.   If you are interested, you can check out the playlists (links below)  and follow my personal profile to find out when new playlists are created.

JUST ADDED!  October 2018 Playlist!

E2TG January 2018
E2TG February 2018
E2TG March 2018
E2TG April 2018 
E2TG May 2018
E2TG June 2018
E2TG July 2018
E2TG August 2018 

E2TG September 2018  
E2TG October 2018  (NEW!)

E2TG November 2018 (Coming Soon!)


No comments:

Post a Comment