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Good
to be the King Justin King is an accomplished singer/songwriter, acoustic guitarist and sound engineer at his own Blackberry Hill recording studio. Now, he and his band are preparing for the next level, as Universal Records courts them.
King has long been a popular solo performer, having played nine dates on a national tour with James Taylor and an entire summer tour with Diana Krall. He has performed on the same bills with B. B. King, North Mississippi All Stars, Willy Porter and Al Green. While he happily plays the large venues, he's seen his share of small clubs and bars across the nation, and his years of hard work are paying off. "I started out writing songs," says King. "I didn't start out as an instrumentalist. Within the last year I put a band together to play a lot of songs I've been writing. The solo stuff is kind of half songwriting and half acoustic guitar stuff," he continues, while describing his band's work as "U2-ish, Death Cab For Cutie-ish, kind of a mix between an 'indie' sound and Coldplay-ish stuff." His musical comrades are drummer Ehren Ebbage, guitarist James West and bassist Drew Dresman, who King has been playing with since the age of 15. King notes that he is known for a unique style of playing that's based on tapping. "It's a very percussive style where you play on the neck with both hands fretting the notes. It's not like one hand strumming and one hand chording. It's both hands chording." King has merged that style into his band's stage presence, and since the band has taken root they've played two months of bi-coastal shows: March in New York and September in Los Angeles. One year prior, a Universal employee saw a solo King show at The Knitting Factory in New York City. That employee's co-worker is the brother of the owner of Larrivee guitars, the company King endorses. Thanks to that connection, Universal reps watched a show of King and his band, met with them the next day and gave them money to record a demo with one of Universal's producers, a project King says turned out "decently." Later, they recorded one by themselves at Blackberry, which King is more impressed with. King and drummer Ebbage also have an instrumental side project in the works with bassist Michael Manring and Dutch guitarist Carlos Vamos, who flew over to participate. The band will return to New York and the Northeast in November. and Los Angeles in December "What we're doing basically is playing showcases for industry folks," Says King, "and since our first meeting with Universal we've had Capitol Records and Epic Records contact us, so we're flirting with the majors at the moment. We're just kind of playing it by ear, but we have a buzz going right now and we're trying to continue that by going out and getting in front of these people." "And also," he continues, "we're just trying to build a good solid fan base." The band already has plans to live part of the year in New York, ("I have a deep, deep love for that place," says King) and part of the year in Eugene. If a deal does materialize, the band will base their touring operation out of New York and record in Eugene at Blackberry, which King will maintain via a manager and engineer while he's away. In addition to stateside shows, the band will perform in Japan in January, buoyed by a Japanese distribution deal he inked for his acoustic guitar record, Le Bleu. Throughout all this excitement, King sustains a healthy outlook. "I've learned from this process over the last two to four years," he says, "that it's important to just keep sights on what you can do immediately. And what I can do immediately is continue to try to write good songs and work on the things I can affect. And the rest of it is something that just hopefully comes through!"
The Fall, Live At The Witch Trials, 2004 RE-RELEASE EARTHMARK RECORDS By Sean Campanella In 1979, The Fall described itself as "northern white crap that talks back." Live At The Witch Trials, the first of The Fall's 26 albums, is a dubious and unforgettable combination of raw, roughshod punk and glitzy pop.
Yvonne Pawlett provides the primitive keyboarding and Mark Smith does the atonal snarling. The lyrics come off as schlocky and high-flown at first, but once the industrial landscape of North Manchester is filled out in all of its horror (with pollution, gangs, street drugs, creaking floorboards, "peephole places … toilets and feces"), Smith's self-made heroics seem entirely reasonable and even endearing. Here are homely looking blue-collar kids in oxfords and argyle trying to break out. "Cracker Factory," belts Smith (who worked in a meat plant), "a place where you get into the working routine again/rehabs for no hopes/prefab for jobless dopes!" The result of all this is strangely glamorous, a sort of groovy bleakness. Far from studio-perfect, Witch Trials is the one-of-a-kind music we all should have been making in high school, but you have to hand it to The Fall — they did it. Decades later, Smith still leads the band and a devoted following.
Godsmack, The Other Side, 2004 UNIVERSAL RECORDS By Matthew T. Stone Don't get me wrong, I like my music heavy just as any other metalhead, but I hold a special respect for those bands, and the musical artists themselves, who are just as proficient in writing and performing songs on acoustic AND electric instruments. Godsmack has released an album worthy of such respect. Here is a group, like Led Zeppelin, who has a talent for making acoustic songs sound just as heavy as their electric counterparts. "Re-Align" and "Keep Away" show their alternate face here: intimate, yet with a still brazen energy. And "Asleep" is the soft closing track of its alter-downtuned-ego "Awake." The opening track "Running Blind," like most other opening tracks, stands out with its emotional poignancy, revealing secrets inside ourselves the more we search outside for answers. The band collaborates with Dropbox members Lee Richards and John Kosco for "Touche," a musical statement on the human condition, and its reflection upon the individual with the golden rule. All in all, throughout its seven tracks, The Other Side is an enjoyable listen, when your gleeful demons who dance to double-time drums can simply sit in your head and sip on some nostalgic ambrosia. Cheers!
Floater, Acoustics, 2004 ELEMENTAL RECORDS By Mikey Knac The Northwest psychedelic rock trio and musical phenomenon Floater find themselves treading new ground with their most recent effort Acoustics. After a long string of very successful live acoustic shows throughout Oregon and Washington, the band has recorded an album consisting of original tracks all performed acoustically.
This is a major shift in tone from their previous record, Alter, which sported heavy hitting metal tracks with lyrics reciting intense political commentary. With Acoustics we find all three musicians, and most of all front man Robert Wynia experimenting more musically and lyrically than they have in any previous album. Lyrically, Acoustics shies away from the social and political commentary so often found in their previous work and focuses on more intense personal situations. We find Wynia crooning laments ranging from rejection of love to acceptance of ridicule. In one case, they even take a stab at the blues. Wynia's rich voice accompanies the trio's sound very well through the majority of the album, but slightly sticks out a bit too much on several tracks. Percussionist Peter Cornett even has his own vocal track, which is a breath of fresh air in the middle of the album. Everything from the excellent musicianship to the Floydian cover art make this album worth picking up.
Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender, DRAG CITY RECORDS By Tynan DeLong She sounds like Billie Holiday crossed with the Wicked Witch of the East and her lyrics sometimes veer into abstruse territory, but I'll be damned if Joanna Newsom hasn't released one of the most captivating albums this year. For all her eccentricities, The Milk-Eyed Mender remains a fully realized work, an intimate showcase of her many musical talents that pits her as one of the breakout performers of 2004.
Using the harp as her weapon of choice, Newsom's nasal twang crawls over angelic arrangements that sound both country and classical. The off-kilter baroque charm of "Sprout and the Bean" provides the best evidence for Newsom's melodically precise harp playing, as she confronts loneliness through her unique breed of impressionistic storytelling. When she opts for more up-beat numbers, as she does on the harpsichord-driven "Peach, Plum, Pear," the results are just as entertaining. Newsom enlists what sounds like a choir of children to accompany her, as she admits, "I am blue and unwell." To write-off Newsom as an acquired taste would simply be unjust. The songs here revel in a certain accessibility and beauty that reveals itself after only a few listens. Newsom has a gift for making thought-provoking music without allowing her eccentric nuances to overpower the songs themselves. Take it or leave it, The Milk-Eyed Mender is one of the year's best.
R.E.M., Around the Sun, 2004 WARNER BROTHERS RECORDS By Kris Bluth When you love a band as much as I love R.E.M., you get used to defending albums that others dismiss. Some people hated Fables Of The Reconstruction, but "Good Advices" might be my Favorite R.E.M. Song. Monster is an underrated gem, and Reveal can stand alongside their best work.
And Around The Sun is their worst album. Some "fans" still want them to keep remaking Murmur, but R.E.M. has built a career out of growth and evolution. I wasn't crazy about Up and New Adventures In Hi-Fi, but the band got to stretch itself out, and R.E.M. was never boring ... ... until now. Around The Sun occasionally perks up ("Leaving New York" and "Wanderlust"), but the rest is just one mid-tempo dirge after another. This album isn't bad, it's worse than bad. It's inert. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from Warner Brothers went to Stipe's house and pounded on the door. "Hey! Open up! It's been three years! Time for a new album!" The mailslot flips open and a voice creaks out. "Only if I get to namecheck Kyoto in the lyrics." Done, and done.
Adem, Homesongs, DOMINO RECORDS By Tynan DeLong On Adem's debut, Homesongs, the latest release from the seemingly unstoppable Domino record label, this Fridge instrumentalist finds himself donning the mask of an earnest troubadour. Building off the same gorgeously hushed ambience that made Fridge's Happiness such a headphone treat, Adem spends most of the album hunched over a guitar, sorting the pieces of a failed relationship.
Nowhere is this more evident than on "Gone Away," the album's centerpiece. Plaintive accordion drones and whispering xylophones carry Adem's soft lament to its stirring middle section, where he assures himself, "It's alright/there's plenty more left for me." And the grand strings of the album's closer, "There Will Always Be," provide a touching backdrop for an understated sing-a-long. It's a lullaby for a campfire on a cloud. Call it Damien Rice, sans the syrup. Yet Homesongs never sounds rueful or depressed. Quiet, melancholy even, but not once do you get the feeling Adem's going to pull a Richie Tenenbaum behind the bathroom door. Rather, the album's a sweet send-off for a lost love. Our hero has the good sense to have a little laugh, make some fine tunes and move on. Desertion has never sounded so self-assured.
Tom Waits, Real Gone, 2004 EPITAPH RECORDS By Johnny Millionaire Listening to Tom Waits' twentieth album, Real Gone, is like being transported to an archaic circus fun-house on Halloween night with a full moon, and a Chupacabra as your date: Intriguing, beautiful, and scary as hell.
Waits' voice is raw and refined, like railroad spikes sprouting into rose buds. The lyrics on Real Gone are haunted as a saloon in Mushroomcrow, Wash.: crooked, dark, aged; Whittled with betrayal, love lost, romanticism of the damned. This is the album of the year for freaks, desperados, outlaws, individuals, and the un-abashed un-brainwashed, who love true Americana.
CAFE PARADISO CLUB TSUNAMI COFFEE GROVE COOPERATIVE COUNTRY SIDE RESTAURANT
COZMIC PIZZA@THE STRAND DIABLO'S DOWNTOWN LOUNGE DUCK INN EMBERS SUPPER CLUB FR: Michael Anderson Trio—9; Variety, country GOOD TIMES JOE'S BAR & GRILLE JO FEDERIGO'S JOHN HENRY'S JUANITA'S HIDEAWAY THE KEG LATITUDE 10 CAFE LAVELLE'S WINE BAR & BISTRO LUCKEY'S CLUB CIGAR LUNA MAC'S AT THE VET'S MULLIGAN'S PUB THE O BAR OREGON ELECTRIC STATION OUR PLACE TAVERN PEABODY'S PERUGINO PRIME TIME SPORTS BAR QUACKER'S RICH'S DUG OUT
SAM BOND'S GARAGE Bingo w/Tom & Scott--8:30; Prizes SAM'S PLACE SAMURAI DUCK STACY'S COVERED BRIDGE SWEETWATER'S TAYLOR'S BAR AND GRILL WETLANDS
WOW HALL
CORVALLIS
FOX 'N' FIRKIN NEW MORNING BAKERY THE PEACOCK PLATINUM NIGHT CLUB
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