The Rattles : The Witch

Song of the week - a band from the late 60's / early 70's with one of the coolest combos of wah-wah guitars and a string section. Prepare to have your mind blown.

PCP

Or better known at the Portland Cello Project covering Pantera's Mouth for War.

June 25th, 2009: Cause & Effect : Deerhunter

Deerhunter has a new record out and we have two hours dedicated to their catalog, their influences, and their peers tonight on Cause & Effect from 7PM to 9PM on www.wrir.org (97.3 lpfm for you RVAers) Set includes Can, Slowdive, The Clean, Pylon, The Liars, Echo, and more. It will be a night of shoegaze dreamy rock. Yes!

Cause & Effect Podcasts : Sub Pop + Camera Obscura

Hooray! We have two new podcasts finished from our WRIR Thursday radio show Cause & Effect.

The Sub Pop show can be found here.

The Camera Obscura show can be downloaded here.

Enjoy!

File Under Things I Want but Don't Really Need

The limited edition Sub Pop Records Nike shoe from 08. Sweet!

Patterson Hood of the D.B. Truckers at Deep Groove this Friday!

This Friday, June 26th from 1pm to 3pm, Mr. Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers will be signing autographs along side his trusty cover artist friend Wes Freed at Deep Groove in RVA. He has a brand new record coming out tomorrow and we thought the best way to celebrate it at the store was with the man himself.

317 N. Robinson St., Richmond, VA.

We

Mini Reviews

I think I have mentioned this before- I do small reviews to put on the CDs at WRIR so here is a list of a few I have done over the past month.

Artist: Dreamdate
Title: Patience
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Label: Skywriting Records
Street Date: Out Now
RIYL: Collecting cardigans and hugging just cause
The Hits: 8 Sleeves, Rock and Roll, Wait For You
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale - Moderate
Mini Review: Dreamdate is stripped down trio led by two ladies (guitar + bass) and a fella on drums who make plain old fashioned cuddle-core music.

Back in the day this band would have shared the stage with Tiger Trap, Cub, and Lois.

Artist: John Vanderslice

Title: Romanian Names

Hometown: SF, CA

Label: Dead Oceans
Street Date: Out Now
The Hits: D.I.A.L.O.
RILY: Man who has a way with words and can dish out intensity with a wink.
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Moderate
Mini Review: Leaps beyond all is previous recordings (6 of them to be exact) Romanian Names is a carefully crafted uber produced rock / pop record that could only be compared to the meticulous song crafting and production of an Of Montreal record. His intense story telling remains in tact here and secures his place among the more literary indie rock set (ALA death cab).

Artist: V/A
Title: Maximum RnB

Hometown: UK

Label: Past & Present
Street Date: Out Now
The Hits: all great – no losers here!!!!
RIYL: Reissues you won't regret and will listen to over and over again and harmonicas.
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Strong
Review: This is a reissue of a CD that came out in 1996 of UK heavy on the harmonica and shaker 60’s garage rock. Fuzzy bombastic goodness x 27... The Birds feature Ron Wood (stones), Bo Street Runners have a very young Mick Fleetwood on drums. The Fairies have John Alder who went on to play in the Pretty Things and last but not least the Muleskinners have Ian McLagan from the Small Faces. As an added bonus there are great liner notes and all the tracks sound cleaned up and re-mastered but not stripped of any of their original raw feeling.

Artist: Ape School

Title: S/T
Hometown: Phili, PA

Label: Counter
Street Date: Out Now
The Hits: It's Over, Be an Encore, My Intention, Caveman -v- Canary
RIYL: Grizzly Bear and John Hughes soundtracks
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Moderate

Review: Michael Johnson – once member of Lily’s and Holopaw) is celebrating the wonderful world of moog-rock with 13 songs dedicated to showboating the instrument in ways the blend the songwriting of MBV (track 6) and the haunting melodies of Deerhunter.


Artist: Wake the President
Title: You Can’t Change That Boy
Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland

Label: Magic Marker
Street Date: Out Now
RIYL: C86 jangle twee pop
The Hits: Miss Tierney, You Can't Change that Boy, Remember Fun, The Security Place
Richter Magnitude Rating Scale: Moderate
Review: Identical twins from Glasgow have some big shoes to fill since they are following in the footsteps of label mates such as Belle and Sebastian as well as Snow Patrol. These Scots tackle jangle with a C86 twee approach that any OJ fan will appreciate. Not exactly earth shattering music but for fans of this genre I can promise your ears in for a real treat.

Many more little reviews to come this week.

Tonight : Cherry Bomb!

Come see the 5 coolest ladies I know DJ with me tonight !!!!

PS: I can't figure out why my computer is making this flyer blue when in fact it is red. Technology is not my friend.

June 11, 2009 : Cause & Effect : Sub Pop Records

Wow. Tonight's show means a great deal to me.

Not just because Sub Pop Records is a legendary record label but because it was the first record label I really fell in love with as a kid and the soundtrack to my youth was absolutely fueled by their catalog.

Even more amazingly as a kid from NJ I could never guess that my love for the label could lead me to a love affair with the city of Seattle which in turn would lead me to move there in my early 20s. Even more remarkably that one of the owner's of Sub Pop Records would live just a few doors down from me and end up becoming a life long friend. It really still blows my mind.

While Sub Pop Records (a fanzine called Subterranean Pop that came with mix tapes) was initially started by Bruce Pavitt in the early 80's, Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt's joined forces in Seattle to release Soundgarden's Screaming Life EP in 1987 and well, the rest is history. A record label was born and Sub Pop went on to become the founders of what the entire world knew as a Grunge (and a little band called Nirvana) and over 20 years..and a few dark times along the way, have managed to not only stay afloat but release such heavy hitters as The Shins, Postal Service, Iron and Wine, The Obits Flight of the Conchords...the list goes on and on.

It is a HUGE honor to have Jonathan Poneman work with me on this week's track listing. He ponied up a list of songs that inspired him in his younger years (THANK YOU JONATHAN!!!!) and if you listen closely enough, you can certainly hear how the genres and styles of these songs interplay with the line up of bands we have all grown to love from the Sub Pop roster as a whole. It is the perfect example of Cause & Effect and again, this particular show couldn't possibly mean any more to me.

Tune in tonight at 97.3 FM in Richmond or stream the show at http://www.wrir.org/. We are pod casting now so this show will available for download next week. I will be telling some great stories about meeting the Sub Pop people over the years as well as a couple of funny band tales as well. I won't spill the beans on the track listing but all I can say is Alex and I have never spent so many hours putting together one show. There is a lot of love in this one!

Slacker in Blog World = Busy in Real World

Quick update.

I am stoked to announce that I am a part of a brand new indie music distro. We are called the Independent Label Collective and we are exactly what the name describes. We are a small company so reaching out worldwide to introduce ourselves and our label roster has been a task and a half. Who is our label roster you ask? Check it:

Asian Man
Beer City
Cavity
Chunksaah
CI
Corrosive
Crash And Bang
Dr. Strange
Frontier
Gilead
Gravity
Hawthorne Street
Init
Magic Bullet
The Mylene Sheath
New Red Archives
Red Scare
Second Nature
Six Weeks
Sympathy
Tribunal

I will be the head of sales and am really excited that I found a way to remain close to what I love best - helping indie music make it to the masses. I will spare everyone the DIY pride speech but to finally be free of any major label association is a blessing. If all goes well we also hoped to be based out of Richmond, VA by the end of this year and it is really exciting to have the opportunity to base a growing business right in my my backyard. The amount of work the ILC folks in Ohio have put into this company is incredible so I have to applaud all of their efforts. We may be a small company but I say with confidence that we have the best of the best people working to make this happen and it is really an honor to be a part of this brand new business.

If you are a store reading this and need more info or would like to open an account with us please email me at tracy@ilcdistro.com.

Onto other things - I am still way excited about this week's radio show (tomorrow!). Jonathan Poneman, head / one of the Sub Pop Records founders / old friend of mine has been kind enough to offer up a list of songs that changed his life and inspired him to start his label. In turn I have pulling out all my old Sup Pop records and trying to shrink down 20 years of amazing music to about an hour of time which is all we have left after Jonathan's track listing. I am dreading this evening which will be me having to kill songs to make it all fit in our time slot. Oh the horror.

This Friday will be the first all female DJ night I have ever been a part of. There will be 6 of us spinning records - mostly music featuring ladies spanning the past 50 years from all over the country. Our night is called Cherry Bomb and if all goes well we hope to make it an every other month DJ night here in Richmond at Cous Cous.

To add to the list of crazy projects I have decided to build a web based list of indie music retailers on line with the help of some friends. This is still in the brainstorming stage but it is going to happen - believe you me. In a few months when a business trip takes you to say... Montana and you want to know as a record nerd if there is any place to shop for music, you will be able to go to this website and locate a store in your general area, assuming there is one. At some point soon I will be hitting people up to tell me about their favorite record stores so consider yourself warned. And why there isn't already a site like this is beyond me. Weird, right?

Anyhow, one day I will go back to blogging about records again. I will if it kills me....that is if all this other stuff doesn't kill me first.

Your pal,
Lightning's Girl

June 04, 2009 : Cause & Effect : Camera Obscura

The lovely and often melancholy band Camera Obscura have a new record out (My Maudlin Career) so it seemed like the perfect time to spend two hours playing songs from their discography as well as the bands that inspire them to make music PLUS the bands in the peer group.

The set will include tracks by Vashti Bunyan, The Crystals, Donovan, Belle & Sebastian, Nancy Sinatra, The Field Mice, Club 8, Petula Clark, Jens Lekman, The Sundays, The Clientele, Heavenly, Lloyd Cole, The Concretes, and more!

You can listen to us on the dial at 97.3 FM or stream us at www.wrir.org

Goings On

Lot's going on behind the scenes right now - the start of a crazy new enterprise (I will expand upon this more when it is actually up and running), working part time at our local all vinyl record store Deep Groove, wrapping up the Forensics track, the weekly radio show is still going strong.... and then just plain old life stuff. I have been feeling too distracted to blog but will be back to normal music posts soon.

And if I don't say so myself, the Camera Obscura radio show for tomorrow is shaping up VERY nicely plus if that isn't exciting enough, we have an incredibly cool show planned for next week. Jonathan Poneman -owner and founder of Sub Pop Records was kind enough to send me a great list of music that shaped his life and inspired him to start his legendary Seattle record label. Part two of the show will be playing various tracks from Sub Pop's uber awe inspiring roster. I was practically raised on Sub Pop so this show has a great deal of meaning for me and I can't wait to spend two hours just talking about one of my favorite record labels of all time.

Thank You and Good Night

Last night was the last of my Ringfinger shows and to be honest I am not sure when / if I will play again in a solo capacity. It had been 13 years since the last time I took a stab at something in the realm of touring and after just a few shows I was quickly reminded how difficult it can be. The hard part isn't getting up and playing in front of people really personal material alone, it is just the very act of trying to get yourself booked into venues no less getting people to come....hell even getting friends to care which in case you were wondering, if you ever think of touring over the age of 30, be prepared for less than 1% of the people you know to actually come to your shows. Don't get me wrong, since I am quite a few years past the 30 mark... I get it, I really do so that isn't me being bitter, it was much more of an incredible reality check.

Even more so I have to be in awe of the touring bands who make it look so easy and big crowds night after night. The accomplishment isn't just in the music they play but the stamina and patience required to get out there and play night after night no matter what - no matter how crappy you are feeling or how small the crowd is. I have more respect for those touring bands than ever, I really do.

A big thank you to those who did come out and support my small handful of shows. It felt great to sing again and share the music from record in a live capacity. Some of these songs have been floating around recorded for a LONG time and performing them live breathed new life into the material which as an artist is really exciting and refreshing. To make old songs feel new again was worth the stress of touring alone. I have always carried the philosophy of making music for myself first and foremost because of the great joy and centering it brings me so being able to share it in any capacity, live or on record is just gravy. Mmmmmm gravy.

Thank you (especially you Mr. Close) and good night.