Thursday Morning Music Shuffle - 3.5 Degrees Mix

I read somewhere that due to the explosive of social networking - primarily Facebook, the degrees of separation between all human beings has been reduced from 6 to 3.5.  I have no idea if that is true, but it sounds right.  It is always odd when a "Friend Suggestion" comes up and the person and I have mutual friends who come from entirely different parts of my life. 

This also falls in line with my philosophy that music is all about connections, and that no matter how diverse and random my music collection is, there is always a way to connect any one artist to another.

First up, Have Mercy is a stand-out track on the Jack White produced Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn. What a great collaboration this turned out to be.
 
  <----- Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose (amazon.com)

Loretta Lynn: Still Woman Enough: A Memoir
Loretta Lynn's first memoir, Coal Miner's Daughter, was a #1 national bestseller that sparked an Oscar-winning movie and left fans hungry for more. Now Loretta finishes that story, and the second half of her life is every bit as remarkable and inspiring as the first. In a friendly, down-home style that belies her stature as country music's most celebrated performer, Loretta writes candidly about the price of fame and the stresses of stardom; tells of friends and family she's loved and lost along the way; and shares secrets not included in her first book. But at the heart of this memoir is her stormy relationship with Doo, the man she married at thirteen and stayed with until he died, through his drinking, their violent arguments, and their passionate reconciliations. Loretta reveals the devotion behind "one of the hardest love stories in the world." Filled with intimate portraits of country legends, and brimming with folksy humor, this personal tale of grit, determination, and loyalty will enthrall Loretta's countless fans and anyone who adores a good old-fashioned love story.

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Next up is the hard to google band called The Men - they released a stunning album called Leave Home in 2011 and have a new album due out in early March called Open Your Heart. They play hard, loud music with compromise. Today we have a stand out track from the Leave Home LP "( )".
  <---The Men - Leave Home (amazon.com)


Finally, completing our interesting three song shuffle and proving that the drugs were really good or really bad back in the mid sixties, we have a track whose working title was Tough Apple, but which ended up being called 2000 Light Years from Home and it comes from the Stones' album Their Satanic Majesties Request.  



<----- The Rolling Stones - Their Satanic Majesties Request (amazon.com)

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A Festivus for the Rest of Us* - CXCW 2012

Annually, cool musically inclined people and various and sundry hipsters load up their VW vans and what not and make a pilgrimage to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW).  Pretty cool, I've heard.  But what about the rest of us.  Those with 9 to 5 jobs, those who are financially or geographically challenged or even those of us who would rather just hang around our homes, apartments, shacks and hovels?  Well sure that has always been a option, but come on - admit it, a tiny (or not so tiny) of you is jealous of the cool musicians and bloggers and hangers-on who take to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram or whatever and go on and on about the incredible diverse and exciting musical offerings. Where was I?

Oh yeah, Announcing Couch By Couch West - the alternative to South By South West!

A wide selection of bands and artists have or are recording videos of themselves in their apartments (couches are optional) and submitting those to the Couch By Couch West headquarters.   March 11-18th, you can sit back, relax - pop open a beverage of your choice and watch some fine, fine tuneage.

Some of your favorite Ear to the Ground related bands like The End Men, The Dead Exs, Those Mockingbirds and Don Ryan among many, many more. 

So tune in - here the linkage.

BANDS:  It is not too late - get busy with some videos and send them in.  See the website for more information.

*Apologies to Frank Costanza.

h/t as usual to Popa's Tunes.

Wednesday Morning Music Shuffle - All Fall Down Mix

So for Christians, this is the season of Lent, and I'm hearing a lot of people talking about what they are giving up.  So here at Ear to the Ground, we've made a decision.  From now until Easter we will not post any music by Justin Bieber. It's going to be difficult, but I guess the idea is that such sacrifice will bring us closer to God.   So here we go with the first of many Bieber-free music shuffles.

First we have Streetwalker by Delta Spirit.  The song comes from the band's first EP - I Think I've Found It.  A newer version of the sound was included on the full-length debut album Ode to Sunshine which we have linked below.  We got the EP version off a no longer available Noisetrade download.

<---Delta Spirit - Ode to Sunshine LP

Next up, we have the brand new Jack White solo track Love Interruption from his forthcoming album Blunderbuss - which was also the title of a Will & the Bushmen album.  Coincidence?

< Jack White - Love Interruption single

After Jack White, we got a fine rollicking country-flavored track which we got via Popa's Tunes Popakazooza 2012 volume 2.  Nikki Sue & the Bad News are yet another great New Jersey band.  Here's a link to the band's website.


Our current Band of the Week are back with In the Woods  from their Led into the Wood - seven song EP.


<The Amboys - Led into the Woods EP

And finally we have The Signal by E L E M I N T. The original version is on the Poet Tree EP.


<E L E M I N T - Poet Tree EP

We listened to the Broadcast remix of the song by our Soundcloud friend Galen Wade which you can hear here: Elemint - The Signal [ Broadcast Remix by Galen Wade ] by Galen Wade

Fat Tuesday Morning Music Shuffle - Thorazine Mix

Welcome to the working week.  After a productive President's Day of studying Presidential trivia and decorating the President's Day shrub and taking part in at least six different President's Day parades, we are back at it for another, albeit short, week.

We first caught up with Taco Land back last year when they were our Band of the Week and went on to a fifth place finish in the Band of the Year competition. We've recently been able to add some more great music from the San Antonio based band's Heart of Texas album and today we feature Lost and Found. Taco Land, which is now the duo of Joseph Russell and Jerry Lafere, write and play smart and smooth indie rock.

 

Our second and fourth songs from today's shuffle comes from the 2006 album Four Thieves Gone - The Robbinsville Sessions by The Avett Brothers.  First up with have a cheerful little number The Lowering (A Sad Day in Greenvilletown).

Townes Van Zandt was a national treasure.  To say he was under appreciated in his lifetime is a gross understatement.  He suffered from a variety of mental health issues and substance abuse problems, and eventually, these problems slowed his once prolific musical output.  Today's song is the painfully fractured gem Sanitarium Blues which was released posthumously on the A Far Cry from Dead album.

 

We close it out with another song from The Avett Brothers' Four Thieves Gone album, this is one Matrimony. The Avett Brothers will be appearing at this years Bonnaroo festival.

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Band of the Week: Year 2, Month 3, Week 3: The Amboys

What exactly can you say about The Amboys?


Ah hell, just take a look and dance, dammit!





The Amboys - Worrisome // Live @ Asbury Lanes, NJ from Anthony Yebra on Vimeo.




The song you just fell in love with is called Worrisome and it is just one of many great ones on the band's most recent EP - Led Into the Woods.  We were first introduced to the band when Popa's Tunes included another fine song from the EP Ashley Meets the Wolf on one of his incredible compilations.  The song captured our attention and we grabbed the whole damn EP, and now we are about to go collect the whole set with includes another EP Mary Celeste and an album called Everything from the Moon to the Sun.


And yeah, in case you didn't notice, we're late with the Band of the Week, but you know what... well we are that's all.  To all my Nashville Readers - The Amboys are a going to be at The Basement on March 11th.  Sure to be a raucous good time - come prepared to dance and sweat.


The band mixes traditional folk instrumentation, a indie-punk vibe and a wicked sense of humor. The music they make is well - listen and watch and enjoy:



The Amboys - Ashley Meets the Wolf // Live @ Asbury Lanes, NJ from Anthony Yebra on Vimeo.


Old time folk music had a dark underbelly from it's early days.  When The Violent Femmes put Country Death Song on the (imho) underrated second album - that band was adding to a long list of DARK folk murder songs. I mention that because the darkly sensual undertones of Led into the Woods brings that to mind.


I'd write more, but it's late and all... So go Like and Follow and all that good stuff.

TFIF (Thank Frigg It's Friday) Morning Music Shuffle - Underage in This Funky Bar Mix

It's always fun to look at my blog stats* and see what kind of searches bring people to my site. Recently, a search for Appalachian culture brought people to yesterday's post.  I've had several searches for former Band of Week - Sealight's Dead Letters EP which I reviewed here. I also had a recent search for Elvis Costello telling Whitney Houston to let him write some songs for her. :-)

*Not that I obsessively and compulsively check my stats, because that would be lame.

Got some diverse and fun tracks in today's shuffle, so let us get to it:

Tons of Johnny Cash news lately - the previously mentioned museum set to open in Nashville this summer, plans for an 80th Anniversary of his birth celebration and probably more...

Today we have one of Johnny Cash's classic songs.  A few years ago, at a church talent show, the young son of some friends' of mine did an amazing and funny as hell version of this song.  A Boy Named Sue was written by Shel Silverstein and was inspired by the humorist Jean Shepherd (A Christmas Story) who was taunted as a child for his feminine sounding name.

<-----check out Johnny Cash At San Quentin (1969) at Amazon.com

We shift gears entirely now - In 1991, P.M. Dawn released their debut album, and this song helped unleash an entirely different kind of hip-hop on an unsuspecting world.  Spandau Ballet is sampled heavily.  Today I heard a live version of Set Adrift on Memory Bliss - sublime!

<----check out the debut album from P.M. Dawn at Amazon

Deer Tick who hail from Rhode Island make stunning and wonderful alt-country music. Twenty Miles which comes off of the Black Dirt Sessions album is one of my favorite songs not only by the band, but of all time - not faint praise for a song less than two years old.

<---check out The Black Dirt Sessions at Amazon.com

And finally - a song that goes way back to 1980 - when I was a wee lad of 14, and a song I know I heard quite a bit on the radio back then (it reached #6 on the charts in the US).  Paul Simon released his fifth album which served as a Soundtrack of sorts (different songs and versions of songs) to the movie which share its name, One Trick Pony.  The song is Late in the Evening - great lines like my mother laughed the way some ladies do, I turned the amp up loud and I began to play and the line borrowed for the subtitle of this post.


<---check out the 2011 Remaster of One Trick Pony at Amazon.


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One Trick Pony Jonah Levin knows what it's like to sit atop the world of pop music. But chart-topping hits (as well as enduring marriages) are harder to come by - and nothing he ever knew could prepare him for the skid to the bottom. Playing Jonah, the enduringly talent

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Vote for Livia from the End Men!

Take a minute to click on the icon above and vote for The End Men's drummer Livia - she hits like a girl!


While you're there, do yourself a favor and watch (or rewatch) The End Men's Build It Up video.