I'm a little pressed for time - so let's jump right into the shuffle. On Wednesday, we shuffle all the songs I currently have stored on my phone. This can be... well - let's just shuffle! You'll see...
Well, it's Friday again, and we've reached what will likely be the final Morning Shuffle of 2012. As I mentioned yesterday, I loaded up my new memory card with a random sampling of my digital music collection. I left some space for all of the great new music to come in 2013. UPDATE on Band of the Year Voting: As of the time I am writing this post, we've had in the neighborhood of 1750 votes. Brooklyn based The Disappointment are holding a 5% point leave over Skeletons in the Piano who are from Upstate New York. Currently, New York band The Great American Novel are running third. You've got a couple more days to vote. Voting will end just before Midnight (Central Time) on Sunday December 30. Also, we need about 200 more votes to surpass our total vote count for last years inaugural Band of the Year poll. So keep the votes coming. Here is where to vote: CLICK HERE Now for the shuffle which is pretty mind-blowingly eclectic and includes some songs I probably heard for the first time today. After the JUMP!
Before we get to the shuffle, I have to take a moment to send out lots of prayers, good thoughts and love to everyone affected by the tragedy in Connecticut on Friday. And let's face it, it affected most of us in some way. Several bands we follow regularly here at Ear t the Ground live not too far from Newtown. The Velveteens who were featured artists a couple of months back had family members who attend the school. Thankfully, they were okay. For those of us with children, for those of us who have any compassion - this was an unspeakably devastating event. But talk we must. So, I sent out the prayers and good thoughts and love to those in Newtown and those in Connecticut and those in the United States of America and those in the world. We are sick of violence, but we feel powerless in the face of it. But, if there is power to break the cycles and change the old ways, it will... it must come from within us. And it won't all come in these fleeting moments of national and international grief and outrage. The necessary changes have to come over time, even as the immediacy of the horror begins to fade and blend with all the previous horrors which were once in our immediate path.
I've been away longer than I intended, but as promised, voting a ended at 11:59:59 on November 30. The E2TG election officials have been pouring over the votes, counting the provisional ballads, recounting, checking all the of dangling and hanging chads and generally having a good ole time. And, if you remember, at the beginning of this poll, we said we would have two Bands of the Month since this poll covers two months. The first Band of the Month for November/December receiving an overwhelming majority of the votes, is Walking for Pennies.
Here is their album Forget about Wonderland
Here's Walking for Pennies doing Nashville
Our second Band of the Month and the final Band of the Month for 2012 is fast-rising Americana Singer/Songwriter Nena Anderson.
Here's her album Beyond the Lights
Here is the official video for I Fall in Love Too Fast
So congrats to Walking for Pennies and Nena Anderson - thanks to all our great featured artists and now onward we go to the Band of the Year Poll!
After a days delay - here are the final two Featured Artists for November/December 2012. We will give you the whole list and post the Band of the Month voting information soon.
Good morning world from downtown Nashville! I'll save the rhetoric for now. Call this shuffle, music for the morning after.... I can't explain how much in love I am with Songs of Praise and Scorn by current Featured Artist, Christopher Paul Stelling. Up today is the lead-off track from that album which is called Mourning Train to Memphis. I'm a sucker for a train song, and I once lived in Memphis; so this song strikes a chord with me.
Jessica Pratt is a San Francisco based Folk singer (hum-dinger). She just recently released her self titled debut album (called Jessica Pratt interestingly enough). The lead song from this record is the lovely Night Faces.Head over to Stereogum to get the MP3 of Night Faces.Like what you've heard? Then go to the Birth Records site to get the album.
Shelly Colvin released her album Up the Hickory Down the Pine on October 30th. The CD release party is this Thursday here in Nashville, and Ear2theGround will be there! The album is chocked full of great music, and To the Bone is one of them.
Here's Shelly with Red June doing Red Dirt Girl
We close out a delightfully consistent set of music with the title track from the album Forget About Wonderland by the band Walking for Pennies. I'm really digging this record.
Tweet #E2TG We've arrived at the mid-point of the week. Busy, busy... Let's get to the awesome shuffle we have for today: First up, we have another song off the fantabulous newish album by our good friends, The Dead Exs who are back in New York after conquering the hell out of Texas. The new album is called Relovolution and today's song is the scorching Get Over. By the way, David Patillo of the band has created an app for Spotify called h1tcher which is pretty cool. If you Spotify, check it out.
Here's another Relovolution song from the Texas tour
Chicago-based Joe Pug writes great songs. His album, The Great Despiser came out in April on Lightning Rod Records, and today we have Hymn #76 from that record.
American Football was an Illinois-based band active in the late 1990s to 2000. They are described as an emo band. The song we have today is called Never Meant which was on their self-titled album but which we culled from a Polyvinyl Records compilation. By the way, you know how Europeans and others get irritated when American's call their football, soccer? Why don't they turn around and call American Football soccer? Just curious....
I've just recently been introduced to the New York duo Walking for Pennies. They are self-described as folk americana/pop with bluegrass and motown influences. I have to say the whole bluegrass and motown thing grabbed my attention, and I'm glad it did. Walking for Pennies has some really great music, and I am looking forward to hearing and sharing more of it in the weeks to come. For now, we'll start off with a song from their album Forget About Wonderland which just came out at the beginning of this month, and a song about my town - Nashville.
