Crib Notes

Let’s say you’re a Nick Cave fan. Maybe not even a “fan,” but someone who owns and likes a couple of his records. You might not listen to him much anymore. If someone asked you why you like him, you might talk about that inimitable Australian voice of his. Or you might talk about his songwriting (which has bordered on story writing for most of his career) and the enduring cast of characters he has born – murderers and witnesses and bystanders to the scenes.

Or, if you’re the story-telling type, you would talk about the first time you really listened to a Nick Cave album. It was Tender Prey and you were single at the time, so no one was around to tell you to turn it down. You pulled a bottle of Bushmills out of the cabinet and listened to it over and over again, turning up the volume a little each time until you realized that Nick Cave just sounded best at 10, blaring so loud that your speakers were in a vague sort of danger. You don’t remember how many times you listened to the album that night, but you can recall how the repetition of songs like “The Mercy Seat” were every bit as intoxicating as the Bushmills. You remember waking up the next day with a splitting headache and the needle skipping at the end of the record.

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BLUES CLUES: Michael Gray's book details his journey to uncover the story of Blind Willie McTell.

I want eight crapshooters for my pallbearers, let ‘em all be dressed down in black.
I want nine men going to the graveyard, but only eight mens coming back.
I want a gang of gamblers gathered around my coffin side, with a crooked card printed on my hearse.
Don’t say that crapshooters will never grieve over me, my life’s been a doggone curse.
— Blind Willie McTell, “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues”

Take a walk over to the corner of Luckie and Cone streets in downtown Atlanta and you won’t find much today, just a parking lot, a parking garage and a convenience store. Back in 1940, when the Tabernacle down on Luckie Street was still the Third Baptist Church, John and Ruby Lomax were staying at the Robert Fulton Hotel, a hulking mass of red brick that towered over that street corner.

Late one afternoon during their stay, Ruby noticed a blind black man playing a 12-string for change in front of a Pig’n Whistle barbecue stand on Ponce de Leon Avenue. He accepted their invitation to record a few songs for the Library of Congress archive, on the condition that he was paid a dollar plus cab fare. In his notes about the day, Lomax would write, “He sang some interesting blues. His guitar picking was excellent. … He shuffled away from me across a busy street in the downtown district. I watched him until he was out of sight.”

Continue reading “Retracing Blind Willie’s blues”

(Image courtesy Bloomsbury)

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STONED ORB: San Francisco’s the Sleepy Sun play music beyond their years.

Is it ever a surprise when a new psychedelic rock band emerges from San Francisco? Mind-altering music might be Northern California’s second-largest export, right after the cash crops budding in Humboldt County. The six fresh-faced twentysomethings who play music as Sleepy Sun — from San Francisco by way of Santa Cruz — are well-acquainted with Northern California’s rich musical history and somewhat criminal agricultural output. Judging by their debut LP, Embrace, they’ve been eating pot brownies and digesting Neil Young guitar solos since grade school.

Calling from a remote cabin in the mountains outside of Tahoe, bassist Jack Allen joked about being pigeonholed as a San Francisco act. “Actually, we’ve been talking about just changing our name to Haight Street Acid Beard,” he says.

Continue reading “Sleepy Sun’s rays of psychedelia shine with confidence”

(Photo by Brett Wilde)

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The Creative Loafing team survived the brutal drive to and from Austin for this year’s South By Southwest festival, kept alive only by gallons of gas station coffee and truck stop tacos.

While we chased down every free meal and drink ticket we could find, we also managed to see a tiny fraction of the 1,900 bands that played this year. Sure, everyone is talking about it today, but we didn’t see Kanye or Metallica. We’re OK with that. Check out a rundown of our favorite moments from the festival after the jump.

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“Haven’t you talked enough today?” Ian McCulloch, lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen, asked the audience at Emo’s in Austin last night. He was in a typically dour mood, playing their late-night set clad in a pair of dark sunglasses and a heavy, black pea coat that didn’t make much since in Austin heat.

Despite all the industry schmoozing that seems to happen in the room of every single show at SXSW, Echo played an absolutely killer set to an otherwise rapt, packed crowd last night. FLickr has a ton of photos from the event.

The shows at Emo’s were among the biggest draws last night — a big line formed to see actress Juliette Lewis prance around in a cape with her new band Juliette and the New Romantiques. I wasn’t exactly impressed. The Leafy Green showcase next door at Emo’s Jr. had a great back-to-back line up, with sets from creepy folksters Larkin Grimm, recent Sub-Pop signees Vetiver, and San Francisco newcomers Sleepy Sun.

We missed Atlanta hero Janelle Monae last night, but we’re really happy to see Rolling Stone giving her some much deserved blog love.

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This week, half of the people who work on the Internet, half of the people who write about music in North America, and half of your friends are all going to head to Austin, Tex. for the sweaty, drunken party known as South By Southwest.

A few of us from Creative Loafing are making the drive and plan on watching about 1,000 bands, drinking 1,000 Lone Star beers, and swimming in the Barton Springs Pool. Out of all the bands playing, we’re excited about a few of them more than all the others. Check out more videos of our favorite new bands after the jump.

Sleepy Sun might be the best new rock band from San Francisco. They’re a bunch of young kids on their first cross-country tour, so expect some serious enthusiasm and a potential disaster wherever they go. This live clip is a psychedelic mind-blower.

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East Atlanta’s Earl doesn’t usually host musicals (and I don’t think they’re planning on booking Cats or Phantom of the Opera anytime soon), so this Thursday’s show should be out-of-the-ordinary for everyone involved. The Last of the Blue Eyed Devils is a musical of country tunes from members of County Hell, Mastodon, and West End Motel.

They’ve written a cycle of songs that might not end up on Broadway anytime soon, but definitely tell a story set to rootsy, Americana-tinged tunes. “It’s the closest thing I’ve ever done to a musical,” songwriter Tom Cheshire told me earlier this morning. “It’s based on my grandfather, actually. He was a Chilean sailor and each of the songs are based on travels and late nights that I read about in his journal. Like any good musical, there’s a little bit of love, a little bit of laughter, and a lot of loss.”

The band counts six members among them, including Jeff Moore on banjo and pedal steel, Brent Hinds on guitar, and the singing debut of Meredith Griffeth. In case you’ve heard the stories (yes, plural), local ne’er-do-well Brent Hinds has promised to stay out of any fights, at least until after the show. Considering that they’ll be trying something new, Cheshire explained, “We’ll all be on our best behavior.”

Anna Kramer & the Lost Cause open with a special, acoustic set. Thu., Feb. 26. 9 p.m. $7. The Earl. 488 Flat Shoals Ave. www.badearl.com.

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GENRE: A brick-sized collection of music journalism from a decidedly Southern magazine

THE PITCH: Trendy bands and celebrity fluff pieces aren’t welcome here. OA editor and founder Mark Smirnoff wants this writing to pay “tribute to how music seeps into us.”

BLUES SISTERS: The writing is most successful when it veers far from the confines of music history, like Carol Ann Fitzgerald’s memoir-ish tale of lesbian attraction and Bessie Smith. “I slept while she rubbed my back in motel beds. Her hands clenched and declenched, just shy of hurting. We burned candles that smelled like pumpkin pie. Bessie was on repeat,” she says.

SEX PISTOLS IN ATLANTA: Mark Binelli tells the story of the Sex Pistols’ first U.S. show at a strip mall in Atlanta. Afterwards the band heads to a bar, but Sid Vicious disappears into the night. “Vicious finally turned up at Piedmont Hospital,” Binelli explains. “After scoring some heroin, he’d gotten bored and carved the words GIMME A FIX into his chest.”

STEVE MARTIN ON FAILED MUSIC ASPIRATIONS: “Obsession is a great substitute for talent.”

ALLMAN BROTHERS IN MACON: John T. Edge quotes roadie Red Dog Campbell about Mama Louise Hudson’s soul-food restaurant, “At the H&H, they didn’t care if we were black, white, or purple. Mama didn’t say anything if we were trippin’ our asses off. Now, she might tell me to come in the back door instead of the of the front when I was messed up, but really she just fed us fried chicken and loved us.”

Read the rest here.

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Atlanta-based record label Dust-to-Digital does it right. They don’t release a lot of discs, but what they do put out is so consistently good that it’s always worth buying.

Take The Art of Field Recording Volume I for example — when that box set came out in 2007 it got two GRAMMY nominations and glowing praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and pretty much everyone else who heard it.

So listen up, the second volume of The Art of Field Recording is just starting to hit shelves now and Dust to Digital are throwing a shin-dig in Athens on Saturday to celebrate. Performers will include the blind, nonagenarian Sister Fleeta Mitchell, Ed Teague who “is perhaps the only tradition-schooled two-finger banjo picker still actively playing in north Georgia,” and a good number of other artists recorded over the years by folklorist Art Rosenbaum. More details can be found at Dust to Digital.

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Going to lose it if you hear another tedious version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?” Eskimo Bliss wants you to have a Christmas gift from The Ten Thousand Dollar Tattoo, a Los Angeles based folk-tronic group.

TT$T’s latest album, “The Advent Calendar,” is being offered for free on Last.FM. Even though the melancholic tunes are written as Christmas songs, you can be sure that this is a holiday gift that will still be worth listening to after the first of the year. They’ve even thrown in a couple remixes of indie superstars Fleet Foxes and Sufjan Stevens. Not bad for a last minute stocking stuffer.

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