Category Archives: Rock and Roll

Robert Plant Flirts with Twang

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I’ve had a running list of rock stars already straddling the fence of rock and country and
could probably make a pretty great straight-up country release (Tom Waits, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey)
and then there’s those that you never considered for that list but when their name come up to
do something in that vein you say “Hmmm, yeah that could be cool.” This story from Nashville
newspaper, The Tennessean falls into category 2.

Robert Plant (ex-Led Zeppelin) and bluegrass diva Alison Krauss are the collaborators in question.
After Plant was spotted at several “see and be seen” Nashville restaurants and clubs in recent days,
columnist Beverly Keel started sniffing around and discovered that the seemingly unlikely pair have
been in the studio, recording an album of duets under the watchful ear of producer T Bone Burnett.
Release date for the album has yet to be announced.

The two have recently become label-mates, as Rounder Records Group has just released Plant’s first
ever live performance DVD, Robert Plant and The Strange Sensation, from a 2005 PBS Soundstage
production.

Twang note – for a great Zep cover from a great band check out Devil in a Woodpile’s cover of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp(mp3) on their release In Your Lonesome Town

Grinderman – Nick Cave, Bad Seeds Members

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From Pitchfork – Nick Cave and three members of his Bad Seeds– Warren Ellis (also of Dirty Three), Martyn Casey, and Jim Sclavunos– will release their as-yet-untitled debut album as Grinderman on March 5 via Mute in the UK.

Grinderman’s music is “an instinctual yawlp that…resurrects the demons of each musician’s past: the trashcan proselytizing of Birthday Party-era Nick; Jim Sclavunos’ late 70s New York no-wave noise wisdom; Martyn Casey’s ominous Triffids bass reverb; plus Ellis’ avant-garde soundtrack work and his teenage love of Black Sabbath,” according to a press release.

“No Pussy Blues”– the song streaming from the band’s MySpace page– could be mistaken for a track from the Stooges’ reunion album, or at least what we hope that record will sound like. It’s noisy, funny, raw, and totally cathartic.

As previously reported, Dirty Three’s ATP in April will include sets from Grinderman and Nick Cave solo. Cave also has some European solo dates scheduled for the rest of November.

Finally, Cave has re-teamed with John Hillcoat, director of 2005’s Cave-written film The Proposition, for the next installment in Cave’s screenwriting career: Death of a Ladies’ Man. According to various reports, The Proposition‘s Ray Winstone plays the film’s protagonist, a sex-addicted traveling salesman who takes his son on a road trip after his wife commits suicide. Cheery! Production began in September.

Nick Cave dates:

11-09 Nurnberg, Germany – Meister
11-10 Stuttgart, Germany – Liederhalle
11-11 Mainz, Germany – Phoenixhalle
11-13 Vienna, Austria – Konzerthaus
11-14 Bonn, Germany – Beethovenhalle
11-17 Zurich, Switzerland – Kongresshaus
11-19 Helsinki, Finland – Finlandia Hall
11-20 Riga, Latvia – Arena
11-22 Dresden, Germany – Kulturplast
Stream: Grinderman: No Pussy Blues [MySpace]

Bloodshot Records 11th annual CMJ (weasels!) BBQ

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Yeah those weasels at the CMJ denied yours truly a press pass to attend their precious conference (don’t they know that tens of people worldwide read this blog?!) but who cares there’s only one show I want to  go to anyway and it’s open to the public and CHEAP! from the label:

BLOODSHOT 11th annual CMJ BBQ
Saturday, November 4th @ Union Pool in Brooklyn (Williamsburg)
Sponsored by KDHX, eMusic, and Oskar Blues Brewery.

Tickets $10 or $7 with a CMJ badge.
Public welcomed and encouraged.  No invite needed!!!
Beer, BBQ and goodies provided
Doors at noon, music PROMPTLY AT NOON!!

Scotland Yard Gospel Choir (Chicago IL) (chamber folk punk)
Mark Pickerel (Seattle WA)
The Silos (NYC)  New CD in Feb 2007
Deadstring Brothers   (Detroit MI)
Scott H Biram   (Austin TX) (That dirty ‘ol one-man band-Twang)
Bobby Bare Jr  (Nashville TN) 
THE MEAT PURVEYORS  (Austin TX)   LAST SHOW EVER!!!!!(RIP dammit-Twang)

James McMurtry Gives Away Protest Song

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After winning the best album for “Childish Things” and best song for “We Can’t Make It Hear”
at the Americana Music Awards a few weeks ago James McMurtry is throwing his fans another
another tasty slice of rockin-roots dissent.

McMurtry is making the rough mix of “God Bless America” available for free on his website. “I had meant to wait until I was finished overdubbing before putting this song out, but our brave legislators have once again outdone themselves in their acquiescence to the executive by passing the detainee bill,” said McMurtry. “We refer to foreign governments that employ all-powerful executive branches as dictatorships, but we’re still supposed to think of our own government as democratic. I’m appalled at the spinelessness of Republican legislators. I guess they still think they’ll be invited to the feast. They will be, but only if they continue to watch their mouths.”