Hey there, Beyonders!
I’m happy to report that we will have a kickass live performance from a kickass new band called The Main Street Gospel, in the EVR booth on Beyond Beyond is Beyond this Thursday. Their beautifully fuzzed-out classic rock style shines bright on their Tee Pee Records debut, Love Will Have Her Revenge. Dig ‘I Won’t Be Stayin” below…
The Main Street Gospel – I Won’t Be Stayin’
Here’s a great quick intro to the band from Dan Epstein at Shockhound (where you can also download the free mp3):
Here at ShockHound, the only thing we love more than getting turned on to killer new music is when we can turn you on to it before anyone else does.
Which is why we’re so stoked to present the world premiere of “I Won’t Be Stayin’,” a fuzz-caked track from Love Will Have Her Revenge, the forthcoming full-length debut by the Main Street Gospel. Lodged somewhere between the bluesy scuzz of the Black Keys and the haunted highway ramblings of Neil Young, “I Won’t Be Stayin’” is one of those rare cuts that sounds both oddly familiar and intriguingly fresh. And you can only download it for FREE from ShockHound, baby!
Formed in Columbus, Ohio in 2005 by former Brian Jonestown Massacre tambourine shaker Barry Dean (vocals, guitar), Ryan “Tito” Ida (bass) and Adam Scoppa (drums), the Main Street Gospel’s brand of “mystic trip-rock” caught the ear of fellow bearded Ohioan (and Black Keys guitarist) Dan Auerbach, who produced and pressed up a couple of their songs on an indie seven-inch back in 2008. One thing led to another, and the band signed to Tee Pee Records early this year. Love Will Have Her Revenge, a wonderful album which touches upon everything from Byrds-y country rock to Spiritualized-type psychedelic mantras, will drop June 29.
But hey, you don’t need to wait until then to bathe in the cosmic vibes of the Main Street Gospel. Just click on the link above, and grab that free MP3 before it’s gone like a late spring breeze.— Dan Epstein
So tune in Thursday to Beyond Beyond is Beyond and here the Main Street Gospel live in the iconic East Village Radio booth!
- Main Street Gospel’s Love Will Have Here Revenge on Amazon
- East Village Radio
- Beyond Beyond is Beyond archive page
And if you’re in the NY area, be sure to see them play live, along with the excellent Hopewell and White Hills Thursday night at Perfect Prescription at Secret Project Robot!
…everybody’s got a CMJ story, right? So here’s mine.
Thursday afternoon, I was lucky enough to have two bands (The Amazing and The Blakes) on my East Village Radio show. Both bands played a couple live tunes and sounded fan-fukkin’-tastic! Actually, you can check out the post-show roundup via this here link… The Amazing and The Blakes on Beyond Beyond is Beyond on 10/22/09 (there’s even a couple great YouTube videos of the two Amazing songs).
Then, Thursday night, the good folks at Kemado/Mexican Summer Records were kind enough to have me out at their soiree in my old neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, where I got nice and toasted with the guys from The Amazing. ‘Twas a blast of a time. And Farmer Dave Scher played a pleasing set to an intimate group of pretzel-eaters.
Friday night led me to some great adventures. Mind you, my CMJ path is anything but typical…as I never even saw Surfer Blood play once! Not only that, I typically have to work weeknights, so I just can’t be doing that shit all week long. Not to mention that my liver wouldn’t be able to handle more than the 3 days that I did!
Read on to find out how Chris Squire fits into this equation…
As the major record companies are dying off, unable to adapt to the changing times, we just may be seeing the rise again of music that is more real, as bands and smaller labels have less to lose. There’s a couple albums that you really should here that may just be great signs of the times! Check ‘em out…
First I’ll give you a tried and true band (or solo artist with a band name, at least) who has made their (her) best album perhaps since Learning To Crawl! It’s the Pretenders. The album’s called Break Up The Concrete and it is super raw rock & roll which was recorded in just 10 days! Chrissie is still the shit and her voice sounds better than ever and her songwriting is top-notch. If you need more convincing to pick up this album, then watch and listen…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Y0JyKdsgA]
And the second album I need to tell you about that’s out today on Tee Pee Records (a fantastic rock label) is by a new heavy psych-rock trio called Earthless. Think Sabbath meets Hawkwind meets Blue Cheer. The album is Live at Roadburn and it obviously was recorded live at the annual Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland.
The story’s pretty amazing that Earthless wound up on the main stage at the festival in front of 2,000 psych-rock fans when the headlining band did not use their two hour time slot. The festival organizers scrambled to find a replacement and Earthless stepped right in and just straight-up jammed for the next hour and a half. Their songs have names but there are no vocals and you should probably stay clear of this album unless you really dig space-rock type jams…like I do! If you do, get it now, and be proud to hear that such a band can exist in today’s musical landscape of actual signed bands!
Here’s a great sample of their song “Godspeed”: [audio http://teepeerecords.com/media/Earthless_-_Godspeed.mp3]
And here’s a great vid of the band, but not from Roadburn…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCEACSH8YBE]
I just recently saw a great live show at NYC’s Cake Shop on the Lower East Side. The headliner was San Francisco’s amazing throwback Detroit-style rockers, Apache, and playing before them was New York’s Electric Shadows, who were equally rockin’ and who are currently working on a full-length debut album. But the opener that played before them both was Brooklyn’s The Weight, whose album, Are Men, has made me regret grabbing that second pre-show pitcher at Katz’s and rolling in after they wrapped up.
The Weight are very different than the bands that they shared the stage with that night, and they are very different from the other music scenes that they are used to sharing stages with in Brooklyn. Their new album, Are Men, is a fantastic display of dive-bar country tunes interspersed with rockin’ psych guitar rave-ups. They probably share the closest likeness in style with Gram Parsons-era Byrds and pre-Wilco band Uncle Tupelo, and I’m hearing some of the grit of good ole’ original country boys like Merle and Waylon. The band has dropped some of the ‘alt’ in the alt-country style more present on 2004’s 10 Mile Grace and really plays a looser, more fun version of country-rock. Not really what you think of when you hear “Brooklyn indie-band,” huh?
The album starts strong with “Like Me Better” which introduces the hillbilly singer who sounds like he is playing his first song of the night to a sparsely-attended dive bar. The rock presence picks up though just two and a half minutes in when the electric guitar forces its way in and hangs around for a good minute. I know, it’s unheard of, an extended guitar solo on a modern rock album! God bless ‘em for it. “Had It Made” follows and it makes it very clear that there is plenty of rocking to be done. Over the next few songs you get steel guitar, country wit and wisdom, a great harmonica solo, and a stellar guitar rave-up closes out the song “Talkin”. The epic 7-minute “Sunday Driver” is like The Weight’s “Tuesday’s Gone”.
The Weight’s Are Men is sheer rocky-tonk music that should be in every dive-bar jukebox in the country. I love this quote from the The Colonel Records’ one-sheet for the album…”for the similarly post-jaded kids and honest fans of Americana, Are Men sounds like the record you actually enjoy listening to.” It’s so true. The next time me and the boys are drinking an 18-pack of Bud at my place, I’ll certainly be spinning this album.
Sample some songs over here.
