Beginning at SXSW continued after making their Coachella debut, Glasgow artists Frightened Rabbit will embark on a U.S. headlining tour in support of The Winter of Mixed Drinks.
The Winter of Mixed Drinks is the group’s third album due out March 9 on FatCat Records. The group delivers anthemic songs in highly-praised passionate performances. Early feedback of upcoming singles “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” and “Nothing Like You” have glowing. The singles can be heard here.
Tour Dates:
March 17 – SXSW / Austin, Texas
March 18 – SXSW / Austin, Texas
March 19 – SXSW / Austin, Texas
March 20 – SXSW / Austin, Texas
April 17 – Coachella / Indio, Calif.
April 19 – The Clubhouse / Tempe, Ariz.
April 21 – Walters / Houston, Texas
April 22 – Loft @ Palladium Ballroom / Dallas, Texas
April 23 – Revolution / Little Rock, Ark.
April 24 – The Masquerade / Atlanta, Ga.
April 25 – Cat’s Cradle / Carrboro, N.C.
April 27 – Black Cat / Washington, D.C.
April 28 – Webster Hall / New York, N.Y.
April 29 – Paradise / Boston, Mass.
April 30 – First Unitarian Church / Philadelphia, Pa.
May 3 – Petit Campus / Montreal, QC
May 4 – Opera House / Toronto, ONT
May 6 – Southgate House / Newport, Ky.
May 7 – The Old Rock House / St. Louis, Mo.
May 8 – Metro / Chicago, Ill.
May 9 – Pabst Theatre / Milwaukee, Wisc.
May 10 – Varsity Theater / Minneapolis, Minn.
May 12 – Bluebird Theatre / Denver, Colo.
May 13 – Urban Lounge / Salt Lake City, Utah
May 15 – Biltmore Cabaret / Vancouver, B.C.
May 16 – Neumo’s Crystal Ball Reading Room / Seattle, Wash.
May 17 – Berbati’s Pan / Portland, Ore.
May 19 – The Fillmore / San Francisco, Calif.
May 22 – Casbah / San Diego, Calif.
On this special bundle, Kevin Devine takes Manchester’s “The Only One” and gives it his own electronic spin. Manchester takes Kevin’s “I Could Be With Anyone,” and strips it down to bare its heart.
I still maintain that 2009, besides being a crap year financially and personally, should have not focused so much on which albums were better than others, but on what kind of crazy collaborations the greater indie genre saw (think Discovery, Karen O. and The Kids, etc.). The announced project that came out of the meshed minds of Danger Mouse and James Mercer in September, Broken Bells, would hold its own in that list with the their blippy, bloopy, but otherwise sophisticated (thank you Mercer vocals) smooth starter debut single in December: “The High Road.” It promised a serious balance of The Shins and electronic to symphonic elements with the edge of a producer who has given a proper noise to everyone from Gnarls Barkley to Beck to The Black Keys.
The resulting self-titled full-length doesn’t sound as cutting edge and genre-blasting as I would have expected. But classifying it just isn’t easy; saying I’ve heard the sound before would be too much so. The duo recorded all their own instruments, which definitely boosts the cool-factor of the final result. If you imagined The Republic Tigers broadening their scope by suddenly including, wait, by including Danger Mouse, well you might just get the same effect. You could sub Danger Mouse for another searcher of solo spotlight—Julian Casablancas. The album is catchy after a few listens, and it’s nice to use the words “electronic elements” to describe some highlights of the album, and not have to follow up with an eye roll. The lyrics–for all you weather-beaten and serial status updaters out there–are quite an eyebrow raise of life lessons: “Come on and get the minimum/Before you open up your eyes/This army has so many hands to analyze.”
As far as internal movement, there are moments of subtlety and inner-focus, where you hear a lot of keys and minor percussion and sweeping, swooning vocals. Those are plays like “Sailing to Nowhere,” which is great in its entirety as it breaks down to a few hooks of acoustic confession and bass drum spotlight and then flips into dramatic swings and a piano rift straight out of the 20s. “Trap Door” is also mellow, keeping in tune those low-key “electronic elements” with a hand clap-style back beats and even an inclusion of “mmmm” that I definitely dig, and you’ll appreciate. To switch gears to something a bit more upbeat and add some attitude, immediately set your dial to “The Mall and Misery” and feel a bit closer to a DJ state of sound as you bounce your head to a mini percussion lab. The lyrics here play out a tad more spiteful, “Your tiny vengeful life might pass through my mind, but I blink and it’s over.” Perfectly matches the bad-ass sound that the Shins never got to break out.
The remainder motion of this debut gift of an otherwise stellar partnership (because who knows how long it will last, so let’s not get too involved in the fling), flirts with southern acoustic (“October”), Mars Volta-reminiscent overdramatic echoes (“Vaporize”), a Bee Gees-style sound of soprano heights and hand-claps (“The Ghost Inside”), and lyrics that are more observatory than “God, I’m so heartbroken, lonely, introspective and abused.”
This album can’t be better likened to anything less obvious than a sigh. A freaking sigh. You don’t really know you needed it until it runs through your entire soul, removing all frustration, confusion and clutter by giving you the ‘You Time’ that’s deserved. Add to that some famous guys and a fling with electronic tics and you have something that should feel even better when you know what to expect.
Track Listing:
1. The High Road
2. Vaporize
3. Your Head Is On Fire
4. The Ghost Inside
5. Sailing to Nowhere
6. Trap Doors
7. Citizen
8. October
9. Mongrel Heart
10. The Mall and Misery
The Grammy-nominated rock group Paramore have unveiled details of their Spring headlining run.
The tour kicks off with a home state show in Tennessee’s Knoxville Civic Coliseum on April 26. Relient Kand Fun will support the tour.
Fan Club members can buy presale tickets on Monday, February 1 at www.paramorefanclub.com. General public sale begins Friday, February 5 and Saturday February 6.
Tour Dates:
April 26 – Knoxville Civic Coliseum / Knoxville, TN
April 28 – John Paul Jones Arena / Charlottesville, VA
April 30 – Trump Taj Mahal – Mark G Etess Arena / Atlantic City, NJ
May 1 – The Bamboozle New Jersey – Meadowlands Sports Complex / East Rutherford, NJ
May 3 – The LC Amphitheatre / Columbus, OH
May 4 – DeltaPlex / Grand Rapids, MI
May 6 – Rockford MetroCentre / Rockford, IL
May 7 – i Wireless Center / Moline, IL
May 8 - WestFair Amphitheatre / Council Bluffs, IA
May 10 – E Center / Salt Lake City, UT
May 12 - WaMu Theater / Seattle, WA
May 15 – Rabobank Arena / Bakersfield, CA
May 16 – The Joint / Las Vegas, NV
Hot Chelle Rae is hot new band going out on one of the hottest tours…the Owl Citytour.
We’re giving away two copies of their CD Lovesick Electric. To enter is simple. Finish this phrase, “I like to dance because _______” and you’re entered to win.
You have until 12:00 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 to enter. We’ll pick our winners then.
Be sure to check these guys out on tour and check out why these guys like to dance in the video for “I Like to Dance” here.
This month Florence was nominated for Best Female, Best Album (for her 2009 Mercury Prize-nominated album Lungs), and Breakthrough Artist at the 2010 BRIT Awards and is set to perform at the ceremony in London on February 16. UK music magazine NME has also nominated her in their Shockwaves NME Awards 2010 in the categories of Best Solo Artist, Best Track (for the song “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up).” Best Dancefloor Filler (for her cover of Candi Staton‘s “You’ve Got The Love”), and Best Dressed.
Tour Dates:
Apr 09 – Terminal 5 / New York City
Apr 10 – Phoenix Theatre / Toronto
Apr 12 – House of Blues / Chicago
Apr 14 – Commodore Ballroom / Vancouver
Apr 15 – Showbox at the Market / Seattle
Apr 18 – Coachella Music Festival
In a PopWreckoning exclusive premiere, we are pleased to bring you an HD video of the talented Irish songstress Lisa Hannigan performing “Lille.”
This performance is just a taste of her amazing live sound. In addition to this video, Hannigan has released an EP from a live performance at Fingerprints available at the new download store ThinkIndie.
ThinkIndie offers DRM free downloads and exclusive vinyl rips and unreleased live recordings. You can buy Hannigan’s live EP at www.digital.thinkindie.com.
Why must good things always come to an end and why is that when it rains it pours?
The same week that late night TV fans had to bid adieu to CoCo, Kansas City was bidding farewell to JoCo.
The Beaumont Club Saturday night was as packed with people as the line up for the final Josephine Collective show was as packed with bands. In what might be a Kansas City first, people actually showed up early to see all openers, which might have been in part to most of the openers being the new projects of Josephine members.
Though all information listed 5 p.m. for the show, the first band actually started at 4:45 p.m., so showing up at 5:10 meant I missed Holy Mountain, but based on the size of the crowd and hum of kind words about the act when I arrived, it seems like it would have been a great set. They’re local to KC, so I’m sure I’ll get another chance to review them.
The first act I did catch was amazing and set the bar high for the rest of the groups. I had no idea this sort of group-this sort of music-existed in Kansas City. The group seemed to have the recipe for awesomeness down. They had the basics: drums and guitar. Then, they made it a little unusual by rounding the foursome out with a violinist and a cellist. But what really made them unique was what the drummer, Jared Bond did on the first song.
Jared already had me excited when he came out on stage because he is also the drummer for Josephine Collective and his group was the first of the offshoots that I was seeing. I guess he was inspired by the string players in his new group and he thought, ‘Hey, why not bow the drums.’ Can you imagine the shock of seeing someone whip at a bow to run along the cymbals? That’s something you don’t see every day.
The group’s sound, abetted by the Americana folk-style vocals and the driving riffs on the cello, was reminiscent of Murder by Death. They were all very skilled, but perhaps too much so — Chaski Zapata: loosen up. This isn’t a school orchestra concert. Granted, the group has only been together since fall 2009, so stage presence has room to grow, especially when the musical talent is already there.
The only real problem with this act is that they’re a little difficult to track down on the webs. At this show, all the promotional material billed them as Dolphin Lounge, but on stage it sounded like they kept introducing themselves as Root & Stem and then when I tried to track them online, they appeared to be known as Casa Real. I could understand being confusing and hiding if you are a shitty group, but these guys are good and I’m trying to shout about them from the mountaintops…well shout about them from the laptops at least. I’ve tried to contact them about their real name, so hopefully I’ll be able to update soon.
The indie pop trio Sailor Sequence followed the mystery band name group. I’ve talked about these guys before, but that show was colored by a drunken interference. It was kind of exciting to go from the folk rock into their cool piano melodies with crashing cymbals. They played five songs with each song better than the last. They’re like Explosions in the Sky meets Postal Service meets Twilight Sad.
They group glided through their five songs, taking just a few brief moments for singer Noffy to thank the crowd and sadly say that this would be the last in Kansas City, for awhile at least, while they adjust as some members move to Nashville. This group is fairly new to the scene, and already one of its greatest rising acts, so I’m sad to see them go. I look forward to seeing where the future brings them though.
The show was about midway through and it was time for two of the most anticipated openers. Ninety-Four and Black Oxygen. These two groups are the side projects of Josephine’s two lead singers, Alexander Sandate and Dillon Devoe, with Alex leading the Atlanta-based Ninety-Four and Dillon helming the Kansas City-based Black Oxygen.
Watching both groups, it was pretty obvious that the Josephine spirit would at least live on. Heck Ninety-Four practically looked like they were Josephine with six members swarming the stage. The same sort of energy and crazy intense rock was present in the acts. Ninety-Four leaned a little toward the harder metal with screaming more prevalent in the band’s first few numbers. Black Oxygen has been around for awhile, but they’ve gone through a minor rehaul since Dillon has joined. Regardless of their changes, I think they’ll still leave metal fans gasping for more. I felt Black Oxygen had a bit more consistency and control than Ninety-Four, but I think any Josephine fan will easily be pleased with what will come out of either band’s camp in the near future. At least the audience at this particular show seemed equally pleased with both bands and responded with appropriate fist pumps, moshing and claps to the beat.
After the taste of Josephine given by the side projects, the audience was geared and ready for JoCo, but while the singer’s got a rest before their final performance (and time to change their shirts), a final opener took to the stage: Kansas City’s popular alternative rock group Queen’s Club.
This is about the third or fourth time I’ve seen these guys and I just didn’t get it. To me they’re like the KC Nickelback if Nickelback added a dance beat to all their tunes. What I mean by this is that I just don’t get why the music is popular and yet it inexplicably is. The kids just ate that shit up. They danced, body surfed and I was in disbelief over the amount of fists pumping the air. Seriously? I want to like these guys. My friends say I should, but I just don’t get it and this is one club I won’t be joining.
I love getting more bang for my buck and at $5 a ticket, this show easily gave buyers their money’s worth, but all these bands later and I was getting extremely anxious for the headliners. When the full Josephine Collective (including Bond) finally came out, it was complete chaos, but in a good way. The band already has a bajillion members, but their close friends and the other bands surrounded the group as well serving as cheering sections. If you’ve ever had the privilege, it was like being at Girl Talk show minus the toilet paper and instead of electronic remixes, it was heavy rock tunes in the vain of The Used, Say Anything and Taking Back Sunday that got the bodies moving. Even during some of the band’s few slower numbers, moshing and crowd-surfing ran rampant.
Josephine Collective know how to throw a going away party. As they blasted through songs from their Living EPand We Are The Air, crowd-surfers ran rampant causing security to sweat, but Josephine to smile as Alex and Dillon hardly missed a beat as they dished out hugs and high-fives to the kids landing on stage.
One of the highlights of the set came early with the popular single, “Living.” When the guys sang, “It just stops,” the entire mass of bodies intensely moshing, surfing and singing froze before jumping back into the chorus as raucous as ever. Other great moments included an impromptu and jokingly sung tune about this being the band’s final shows that included mentionings of mustaches and other things. I also loved when one of the Sailor Sequence guys joined for a tune, and of course, I loved the colouration that the softer “Lye,” brought to the set.
“Josephine, Josephine, get back together,” Alex and Dillon quipped back and forth. But then they pointed at that much like an ex-girlfriend, you can get back together and, “Yeah, the sex is great, but then you start dating and you remember why you broke up.” Sad, but understandable.
We wanted the show to keep going, but with their entire catalog pretty much done, the boys had to let the final tune fly.
“Freebird.”
Yes, the group began to play “Freebird,” but sans special appearances of Will Ferrell and co. It was all in good fun before they began their final song of the evening and of their band’s lifetime: “Pray for Rain.”
January 23, 2010 – Josephine Collective reunited and ended it the way it should have ended. They will be missed, but with Dolphin Lounge/Casa Real/Root&Stem, Fire for Effect, Ninety-Four, Sensational News Commentary Groove and Black Oxygen, we can all still continue the JoCo love for years to come.
Battle Studies is crap–that’s what I wanted to say because I felt like I was in a locker room with the rest of my peers. Like we were laughing at some kid for getting an “A” when it was cooler to get a “D,” while not ever realizing that time, blood and pain had generously poured over the soul that had reaped it’s reward.
John Mayer’s newest outing is simple: gleeful even and sadistically happy. Quoted as saying “I approach music like a director doing a period piece...” John has pulled a fast one on our senses. As with most music, it’s the initial feeling you get that determines what you receive from the piece, but that’s not my job. My vocation is to dig and dig deep. Battle Studies is what a trained soldier would call experience coupled with decision. Mr. Mayer went to war, and came back with a myriad emotions, attempting with each song to display the ever changing notions that we are not just one thing or thought, we are many.
Starting with “Heartbreak Warfare,” John slips in as though it’s a symphony, tuning together and beginning. But this is no ordinary score; it’s an introduction into a need to stop the chaos. Yes, he is famous, and yes, his relationships appear trite on paper, but with lyrics like “How come the only way to know how high ya get me, is to see how far I fall,” it’s also obvious John is skin and bones like the rest of us. And not every argument is sophisticated with an agreed back forth, sometimes it’s just plain childish.
At times, in all of us, we have locked ourselves in a room and said out loud “Who says I can’t get stoned, turn off the lights and the telephone, me in my house alone” and thrown it in the face of someone who is supposed to care.
Mayer’s descriptions of backs in and outs and pure notions of inadequacies are no better met than in “Assassin.” This is the meat of this fully loaded LP, and his clearest statement of admission and failure to continue in just meaningless sex. This track in particular, at around the 2 minute and 40 second mark, John Mayer’s exploits, in all their TMZ fueled glory, makes it all very clear. He lost control at some point and met his match, whomever that would be. Toning down the situation John includes “War of My Life” and you almost wonder, is he laughing at someone? The subtle easy flow indicates an almost intended contradiction. Anger coupled with happy chords, almost as though it’s a joke. “All the suffering and all the pain, never left a name...,” but you can’t help but wonder, is this an insult as well, depriving someone of what they wantingly own?
John Mayer is a no joke, solid artist and he has surely paid his dues. Like many of us, he himself left college, took off to another place and worked the road, even at one point playing SXSW and getting onto compilation LPs. But we don’t see that now; what we see is an over exposed, sometimes selfish, but talented icon. This is the anti LP and it is my opinion that Mr. Mayer knew exactly what his intentions were: to make what he likes and damn the critics, damn the masses and in some ways, damning himself. That, in and of itself, is art. He so directly states in “Edge Of Desire:” “I want you so bad, I’ll go back on the things I believe,” which every indie artist in the world has at one point or another conveyed that exact concept.
Battle Studies was not written to receive thank you’s and accolades, it was written to purge one man of a heartbreak so deep, he had to bleed it out of himself. It may not be your most treasured purchase, or even liked, but I give John Mayer credit for knowing where he wanted to go and taking that chance.
I always loved the videos that Straylight Run crafted, so I was thrilled to see that the creative visual stories are continuing in John Nolan‘s solo project. I love how this video balances images of the adorable relationship of Nolan and his wife with images of him struggling inner demons and life pressures.
Check out this video for “Til It’s Done to Death” and if you find yourself craving more Nolan, swing by his site to download a freelive EP.
To keep this site up and running, we reserve the sidebar for ads. In that case, put your ad here.
All that's needed is for you to fill out this lovely form.
All media content contained within PopWreckoning is meant to enhance reader appreciation for the art and medium. Please support artists you discover here by purchasing albums, attending shows and buying merch.
Contact us should you wish for certain media to be removed from PopWreckoning.
Concert Calendar
Nov 23, 2011
HaHa Tonka @ Recordbar, Kansas City MO
Nov 25, 2011
Thee Oh Sees @ The Granada, Lawrence KS
