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January
~~~Matt
O'Brien~~~
coming soon....
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November
The Secret Machines
Albums:
September 000 (EP), Now here is Nowhere
Great Songs: Nowhere Again, Pharoah’s
Daughter, You Are Chains
Website: www.thesecretmachines.com
Personal Note: This is one of the best bands I’ve heard in awhile. You may have seen
them out on tour, on MTV2’s $2 Bill w/The Killers, but anyone who’s heard of them knows what a truly unique sound
they bring to an era of repetitive rock. I HIGHLY recommend buying their CD Nowhere Again to reinvigorate your creative juices!
Background
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The Secret Machines story begins in Dallas, Texas, where Josh and brothers Ben and Brandon
served their musical apprenticeships in the '90s with such bands as UFOFU, Tripping Daisy, Captain Audio, Comet, and When
Babies Eat Pennies. When the three musicians found themselves at loose ends in July 2000, they decided, says Brandon,
"to do something that was a little more significant to us." Secret Machines was formed, and plans were immediately hatched
for trading the big skies of Texas in for the limestone canyons of New
York City.
"Living in Dallas, we would have
probably had the same ideas and written the same songs," says Ben. "But the reality is, you've gotta go where the work is.
It's like we're migrant farmers; the season is in New York, so you go to New
York."
"And anyway," adds Brandon, "in all
the great rock 'n' roll stories, you have to get up and go somewhere else. The Beatles went to Hamburg,
Bob Dylan went to New York, and Jimi Hendrix went to London.
You have to go out and seek your fortune, you know?"
But rather then heading straight to New York,
the trio first stopped in Chicago, where they spent eight days recording at a
studio belonging to their friend Brian Deck (Red Red Meat, Califone). "We knew that living in New York
would be such a drain on our finances that we wouldn't be able to afford to record after moving there," Brandon
explains. "We funded the recording ourselves, with whatever savings we had; our friends and family contributed, and we sold
a bunch of stuff. That was our plan--zap together enough cash to go to Chicago,
then go to New York and just kind of land."
It was a rough landing in New York,
however. "We rented this apartment in Bushwick, and for two or three weeks we didn't have hot water," Brandon
remembers. "It was winter, November of 2000, and it was 20 degrees outside; there was no hot water, we had no jobs and no
money, and we were just like, 'What the f--k have we done?'"
The band's Chicago tracks were eventually
released in March 2002 on Ace Fu records. Though the EP, September 000, received rave reviews, Secret Machines--whose
stunning performances inspired New York Press to call them "the city's best live band"--were already miles beyond it.
After an extended road trip to Southern California in October 2002--a visit which
the trio concluded by inking a deal with Reprise--and a brief stop in Marfa, Texas to play a concert amid the Chinati Foundation's
environmental art installations, Secret Machines returned to New York and began work on their Reprise debut. Recorded at Stratosphere
Sound, Now Here Is Nowhere is both urban and interstellar, conjuring up everything from the screech of the subway to
the hum of a distant satellite.
Rather than simply reproduce the band's live sound, tracks like "First Wave Intact,"
"Nowhere Again," and "Lights ON!" mix live drums with multi-hued layers of treated guitars and keyboards, while still retaining
the elastic, adventurous spirit of a Secret Machines performance. Now Here Is Nowhere glows with the organic warmth
of the Band's Music From Big Pink, while also possessing the mechanical propulsion of classic Krautrock bands like
Neu! and La Dusseldorf, a combination of seemingly contradictory musical strains that sounds completely natural the way these
gentlemen work it.
Ultimately, though, it's the music itself that motivates Secret Machines to keep
pushing the sonic envelope. "For us, it's about being true to the art," says Josh. "It's about looking back at the Band, looking
back at Zeppelin, looking back at all those bands and saying, 'What did they do, and why did they do it?' As opposed to saying,
'Let's try to mimic, let's try to redo what's already been done.' (http://launch.yahoo.com/artist/artistFocus.asp?artistID=1100970)
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July 24
evening
Albums: Other Victorians, evening
Great Songs: Whither in Bloom, Placing you center,
Arrow, Majestic...
Personal Note: This is one of THE
BEST bands I've ever seen! I recently saw them perform with the Killers, and Melodrone; it was amazing! Not only
are they so full of energy onstage, they are so nice! I had the pleasure of meeting evening's bass player Zach Brewer, and
guitarists Lee Burik and Patrick Sklenar after the show. They are some of the nicest and most grateful musians I've had the
opportunity to meet. They were even so kind as to sign the shirt I'd bought from them. I'll try and scan a picture of it to
show ou guys, because instead of just signing it, they drew pictures all over the back. Anyways, I totally recommend catching
their live show; it will make you remember why you go to rock shows to begin with. You can still catch them on tour with the
Killers, and be sure to pick up their new album 'Other Victorians'!
Background
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evening began with guitarists Patrik Sklenar and Lee Burik
in a college music practice room. Their studies in jazz and their noise experiments solidified a musical connection that eventually
became evening. After the usual rounds of band-mate roulette, the band developed an original sound with the addition of Matt
Rist' emotive vocals, Zach Brewer's solid bass playing, and Brian Kim's kinetic drumming.
A local fixture within the San Francisco music scene, evening
has performed at renowned venues like Great American Music Hall, Bottom of the Hill, Bimbo's, Café Du'Nord, and L.A. 's Spaceland.
The band has played with such notables as Interpol, The Fall, Hot Hot Heat, BRMC, Scene Creamers, Erase Errata, Deerhoof,
Brian Jonestown Massacre, Vue, and Pleasure Forever. evening has been praised as a top live act, landing a coveted spot on
a Top 10 for Live Shows in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
In Spring 2001, the band released a well-received self-titled
EP. The EP caught the interest of record label High-point Low Life, which included the song 'near death' in its nationally
distributed compilation 'Tired of Standing Still'. Capturing the attention of festival programmers, evening was invited to
play at The 2002 Noisepop Festival and at the 2002 Mission Creek Music Festival. They've also completed a tour of the northwest
and Canada with RCA recording artists Vue.
evening has developed new material for a full-length album
which they have just completed with producer/engineer Alex Newport (At the Drive-In, Mars Volta, The Pattern) at San Francisco's
Hyde Street Studios. (http://www.theevening.com/main.htm)
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July 18
Ryan Adams
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Albums to check out: Heartbreaker, Gold, Rock N
Roll(reverse), Love is Hell, any of the Whiskeytown albums
Great Songs: Damn Sam I love a woman that
rains; Oh my sweet Caroline; Rock and Roll; Afraid not scared;
Why do you leave; Wonderwall; Rescue Blues;
Sylvia Plath; Thank you Louise; I see monsters;
English girls approximately; La Cienega just smiled
Background
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Ryan Adams was born in Jacksonville, NC, in 1974. While country music was a major
part of his family's musical diet when he was young (he's cited Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Cash
as particular favorites), in his early teens Adams developed a taste for punk rock and he began playing electric guitar. At
15, Adams started writing songs, and a year later he formed a band called the Patty Duke Syndrome; Adams once described PDS
as "an arty noise punk band," with Hüsker Dü frequently cited as a key influence and reference point. The Patty Duke Syndrome
developed a following in Jacksonville, and when Adams was 19 the band relocated to the larger town of Raleigh, NC, in hopes
of expanding their following. However, Adams became eager to do something more melodic which would give him a platform for
his country and pop influences.
In 1994, Adams left the Patty Duke Syndrome and formed Whiskeytown with guitarist
Phil Wandscher and violinist Caitlin Cary. With bassist Steve Grothman and drummer Eric "Skillet" Gilmore completing the lineup,
Whiskeytown (the name came from regional slang for getting drunk) released their first album, Faithless Street, on the local
Mood Food label.
Following Whiskeytown's collapse, Adams wasted no time launching a career apart
from the band, and after a few solo acoustic tours, Adams went into a Nashville studio with songwriters Gillian Welch and
David Rawlings and cut his first album under his own name, Heartbreaker, which was released by pioneering "insurgent country"
label Bloodshot Records in 2000. The album received critical raves, respectable sales, and a high-profile endorsement from
Elton John, and Adams was signed by Universal's new Americana imprint, Lost Highway Records. Lost Highway gave Whiskeytown's
Pneumonia a belated release in early 2001, and later that same year, they released his second solo set, Gold, which displayed
less of a country influence in favor of classic pop and rock styles of the 1970s. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist
attacks, the album's opening track, "New York, New York," was embraced by radio as an anthem of resilience (though it actually
concerned a busted romance), and Adams once again found himself touted as the "next big thing."
Always a prolific songwriter, in a bit more than a year following Gold's
release, Adams had written and recorded enough material for four albums; Adams opted to whittle the 60 tunes down
to a 13 song collection called Demolition, which was released in 2002 as Adams went into the studio to record his official
follow-up to Gold.
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