Lightning 100 hooked a few of our listeners up with a not so secret show, secret show with Jake Bugg! WRLT was one of the first stations in the US to play Jake Bugg. Check out these live performances live from The High Watt of “Lightning Bolt”, “Trouble Town”, “Country Song”, Two Fingers”, and “Taste It”. What’s your favorite song from the performance? Click here to see all of the perfomances. Please make sure to share, rate, and subscribe to our youtube channel!
Written by Kaitlyn Crocker
Outside of Midtown’s Tavern I catch the boys mid-conversation and end-cigarette with an old friend, looking like every other Nashvillian in need of a good beer by Tuesday night. Snarky comments and a functional dysfunctional bickering between these guys should always be expected… they probably hate each other more than anyone else – and love each other more too.
……………………………………………………………….
[some.... girl] “The City Profits… What, are you like all about making a profit or something?”
[Terry] “Well no, but everyone has to make a profit, everyone has bills… money is something everyone can relate to, it’s a common denominator.”
Peter Terry & the City Profits, even when faced with boldly pointed questions from an unbeknownst audience member, know how to respond with the cool collection of a band who acknowledges reality and still knows what they are all about. As for their city profiteering, they have made something of themselves in Chicago and now in Nashville.
In a city culture riddled with wannabe musicians and aesthetic dreamers who dig Nashville’s niche-industry of re-surging “vintage” songs recycled from artists’ parents’ old vinyl collections, Terry and his profits have found it difficult to find their place here in music city. Cellist Stephen Juergensen and percussionist Chris Spann add unique elements of classical and Old Soul/R&B and Jazz sounds to Terry’s 50s Doo-wop / 70s and rock background.
Although all three band members claim the same Indiana roots, their individual backgrounds contribute in a unique way to the classical/pop/rock/blues trio.
Growing up in a household full of trained classical musicians, it is amazing that even at the age of eight Juergensen followed suit with a hunger for strings. Cello became his go-to.
Spann studied jazz at college in Chicago where he got together with mutual-student friend Terry whom he had oddly enough gone to high school with.
Chicago was the middle ground where they found each other, whether again or for the first time. Even with a large audience-on-command, the boys were looking for something more than friend-fans bleeding from the heart of a city that only beat routinely for them. The perks of rebuilding a local audience outside of their home state is knowing that new fans really dig their music, who they are and will stick around and support. All three had agreed that moving to Nashville seemed the best next option for them as uncomfortable and uncertain as that seemed at the time. As Juergensen so elegantly put it, they had to “just do it.”
As their sound has progressed, there is something of symphony and of pop running alongside their growing desire to make music that “people can dance to.” A significant power lies still within the lyrics that are somehow just as meaningfully crafted into songs as the intricately layered music itself. With their 2011 I Am Jackson album , stories besides their own were portrayed, but in the future more importance is being laid on their own experiences in this upcoming album that they’ll be getting under way with in June at the Tracking Room. They hope that even this late-spring planting will yield an August album harvest.
One past-album lyrical gym [lyrics here], Miss May and Dean kay originated from… “the Chicago tribune. Dating prior to the Korean war, a soldier went to war leaving the sweetheart of his yesteryears. When he returned much later she had married somebody else, and he in turn got married. They had their own lives, and 40 years later one sent a Christmas card to the other one, just checking in, and they started talking via letters and ended up starting a relationship and got married at 65″ -Peter Terry
The latter represents days past for the band, and now their focus is being narrowed to their experiences, struggles, and aspirations to engulf contemporary surroundings. Somewhere in between the Black Keys and Bruno Mars you will find them chasing after something brilliant that makes them echo “Hallelujah!” in the new Daft Punk album.
This team of profit-snatching bandits (as some people might like to see it) has their own interpretation of their band whose name they currently hate – and that fact which they will shamelessly and unforgivingly publicize – and would rather identify themselves as Lewis - “Like Lewis and Clark… the spirit of adventure.”
Episode45. the615 5/13/13
Local Artist of the week
Peter Terry & the City Profits – Lawyer (Playin’ Live Friday 5/17/13 at Soulshine Pizza 7:15- FREE!)
Dj Picks
Hammel – Echo Group – Supra
Wells – The Delta Saints- Out To Sea- Death Letter Jubilee- (On Lightning 100 Friday 5/17 at 3pm- Playin’ Musicians Corner Saturday 5/18/13 in Centennial Park)
This Just In
Los Colognes – Working Together – Working Together
Farewell Flight – Begin Again – Out For Blood
Kink Adore- Sunshine
Cooper & the Jam- I Wanna Love You- Motown Suite (Playin’ Live East Side Hootenanny 5/25/13)
Mother Honey- Moanin- The Peachtree Dance-
Bands Around Town
The Commitment Bells- Double Secret Agent- Time WIll Fix It All (On Tap Thursday 5/16/13 at Tin Roof Nashville- 8pm w/ Carolina Story & Jessica Frech)
The Weakenders- Sliding Home (Playin’ Live 5/13/13 at Mercy Lounge 8 off 8th featuring Gavin Shea, The Electric Hearts, Diamond Carter, Heavy Sole, Mercy Bell, Stacey Randol, The Weakenders and The Cultivation)
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Kyle Andrews- You Always Make Me Smile- (Featured on Music Business Radio Monday 5/13/13 at 10pm)
The festival in Austin, Texas, expands to two weekends this year, Oct. 4-6 and 11-13, at Zilker Park. Three-day passes go on sale Tuesday for $225.Go here for more information.
DEPECHE MODE | THE CURE | MUSE | KINGS OF LEON | ATOMS FOR PEACE | LIONEL RICHIE | PHOENIX | WILCO | VAMPIRE WEEKEND | THE NATIONAL | ERIC CHURCH | PASSION PIT | QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE | ARCTIC MONKEYS | FUN. | KENDRICK LAMAR | FRANZ FERDINAND | D’ANGELO | KASKADE | TAME IMPALA | LOCAL NATIVES | THE SHOUTING MATCHES | TORO Y MOI | GRIMES | PORTUGAL. THE MAN | SILVERSUN PICKUPS | THE JOY FORMIDABLE | NEKO CASE | DIVINE FITS | GROUPLOVE | JIMMY EAT WORLD | THE BLACK ANGELS | THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR | THE MAVERICKS | OKKERVIL RIVER | SHUGGIE OTIS | PURITY RING | DAWES | HAIM | SMITH WESTERNS | JUNIP | WALK THE MOON | VINTAGE TROUBLE | NOAH AND THE WHALE | PAPER DIAMOND | LISSIE | PINBACK | THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION | WILD BELLE | PHOSPHORESCENT | COURT YARD HOUNDS | THAO And THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN | FOXYGEN | LITTLE GREEN CARS | SAVAGES | AUTRE NE VEUT | PARQUET COURTS | FIDLAR | WHITE DENIM | TRUE BELIEVERS | THE BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA | DELTA RAE | JAKE BUGG | THE LONE BELLOW | ELECTRIC GUEST | DAN CROLL | DEAP VALLY | WILD NOTHING | TYPHOON | HUNDRED WATERS | TWIN FORKS | RED BARAAT | ELECTRIC SIX | SHOVELS And ROPE
REIGNWOLF
MONA
MS MR
WIDOWSPEAK
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
BEAR MOUNTAIN
GREENSKY BLUEGRASS
JD MCPHERSON
PACHA MASSIVE
VALERIE JUNE
WILD FEATHERS
ROADKILL GHOST CHOIR
JC BROOKS AND THE UPTOWN SOUND
DESERT NOISES
THE BAND OF HEATHENS
HOLLY WILLIAMS
ALANNA ROYALE
CHERUB
THE DYNAMITES FEAT. CHARLES WALKER
SHINYRIBS
JACUZZI BOYS
WICK-IT THE INSTIGATOR
SHAKEY GRAVES
HOUNDMOUTH
WILD CUB
PETERSON BROTHERS BAND
LUELLA AND THE SUN
X AMBASSADORS
SONS OF FATHERS
COURRIER
MY JERUSALEM
NOT IN THE FACE
DANA FALCONBERRY
BOBBY JEALOUSY
WHISKEY SHIVERS
THE PRESERVATION
MAX FROST
LATASHA LEE & THE BLACKTIES
CALEB
SHANNON LABRIE
ANDREW DUHON
KRISTIN DIABLE & THE CITY
COLIN LAKE
BROOKE WAGGONER
TYREE MORRIS & HEARTS OF WORSHIP
ENDURANCE
THE STAPLETONES
HEAVENLY VOICES CHOIR
THE MCCRARY SISTERS
DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
THE HENSLEY ENSEMBLE
THE DURDENS
THE WARRIOR GOSPEL BAND
BARTON HILLS CHOIR
THE VERVE PIPE
SCHOOL OF ROCK
TIM AND THE SPACE CADETS WITH MOTHER FALCON
PETER DISTEFANO & TOR
GRACE LONDON
PLAYDATE
THE OHMIES
THE Q BROTHERS
ANDY Z
CASPAR BABYPANTS
Written by Kaitlyn Crocker
Levi Weaver is one of those artists who substantiates our hopes that “Someday I’ll make it big! I’ll get lucky!” And while Levi is definitely one lucky man, he has hoards of talent to back it up.
No one place belongs to Levi, and he belongs to no one place. Small town Texan turned immersed-European turned Nashvillian, Levi doesn’t define his home as a singular place. His “geographical commitment issues” may have spurred him to the road, but he has consciously made the decision to run down it with no backwards glances. Following his heart and marching forward blindly – literally – landed him a six-week tour gig with Imogen Heap and five previously released albums. The blindness I speak of, fear not, is this: I closed my eyes, spun a map, and pointed. This is how Levi pulled his lucky card again and landed in Nashville.
He had so much experience to bring too, after only a span of two years abroad.
When I couldn’t get on another tour, I started booking my own, saving up bus fare and playing around the country. I was in a new country with no professional contacts with musicians or studios… I’m proud that I learned how to work.
I know England still colors my music. As does Texas. As does Tennessee, now… It’s just the flavor I know how to cook with…
He has put himself in the unique position of starting over new many times. This from-scratch musician has cooked up a homeade career that has turned out to look like a gourmet 5-star meal. His lyrics are “something akin to food. The lyrics are the vitamins and minerals, and the music is the food. You can take the vitamins by themselves, and they’re still effective (poetry) and you can eat things that have no nutritional value (brainless pop music) but they are just so much better when they come as a team.
Levi’s far and wide search for his sound and his soul’s niche therein might not have always left him feeling full, but he is certainly satisfied with where he has come.
When I lived in a small town in Texas, I remember feeling like “I think I know where I want to be, but I can’t see any bridge that leads there”. I was — like, seeing a bridge but not being able to cross it would be frustrating, but this was something else altogether. Something like despair, I think. Moving to England was, in a sense, the experience that showed me that no one else was going to build that bridge for me, but hey – here are a bunch of materials and – no blueprint, but here’s a book about leverages and engineering, so… your move, pal. I mean, you absolutely need other people, and no one person can do everything that a career needs to be successful, but you can’t just sit back and expect it to come to you.
Expect his new album to drop some time around October!
Episode44. the615 5/06/13
Local Artist of the week
Levi Weaver – Talk Me Down
Dj Picks
Hammel – Hotpipes – Magic Is Everywhere – Dust
Wells – Sanders Bohlke – Serious – Ghost Boy
Featured Guest of the Week Buffalo Clover – (Playin’ East Nashville Hootenanny 5/11)
Buffalo Clover live- Hey Child
Buffalo Clover live- Drunken Spree
Buffalo Clover pick- Thunderbitch- My Guitar’s My Baby
This Just In
Coat Tales – Washington Apple
Daphne Willis – People That Matter – Inside Outright
Nava Hotel – Get Outta Town – Nava Hotel
Bands Around Town-
The Future – Slow Fast – East Nashville Underground 5/10)
The Kingston Springs – Secret Game – (East Nashville Underground 5/11)
The southern states of America held my hand for the first few months of self-discovery. Taking me to church for the first time, with the sermon being casually led by The Reverend Al Green, I asked myself why I hadn’t tried this whole religious thing years ago. But after coming to my senses whilst eating pulled pork BBQ shortly after service, I quickly realized church would probably never live up to that kind of high ever again, so I put the lyrics about the devil back in my jeans pocket and naturally turned to the all forgiving hard liquor-pouring juke joints of Clarksdale, MS. After learning a thing or two about the “real” blues, and finding out from a chap named Eddie who had a penchant for moonshine, that I clearly ain’t got them blues if I could afford a plane ticket from New Zealand to Clarksdale, I decided I better keep on chewing through this whistle stop tour of mine to find the true blood and bones of this record. So, I got down to business and started writing furiously. I wore my fingers down to a callous state writing with every Tom, Dick & Harry around the world, including a chap named Charlie who plays for a man named Bob, to wrestle my emotions and bring out the raw grit hiding in my tightly guarded sub-conscious. Lucky for me, it all paid off in the way of 11 tip-top songs that have the love of a cowboy, bathe in a little lonesome blues, dance to a touch of rock ‘n’ roll and have the swagger of a woman past midnight.
After much persistence in the form of incessant nagging to my label to get Mr. Butch Walker to produce and Mr. Jake Sinclair to engineer, I found myself in the beachside haven of Santa Monica in the U.S. summer of 2011 with those two fine gentlemen by my side ready to record my second album. After a month of live and loose recording with the Black Widows and Stu Thompson, we managed to uncover my newest album Gravel & Wine…
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The Weeks perform “Ain’t My Stop” and “King-Sized Death Bed” off their new record Dear Bo Jackson live at Lightning 100. Click here to check out previous in-studio performances and a live set for Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival! Have you listened to full album Dear Bo Jackson? Any other songs off the album you would like to hear on 100.1 FM? The Weeks will be performing at East Nashville Underground on May 10th and then on tour for a while with Kings of Leon in the U.K. We’ve also posted the entire interview via soundcloud here.
Lt Dan from Lightning 100 and Jared Corder from East Nashville Underground chat about and play some music from ENU Past, Present, and Future. Join Lightning 100 on the other side of the river this weekend for East Nashville Underground! Party on the Eastside with 20 local bands such as The Weeks, Kingston Springs, Erin McCarley, The Kicks, The Young International, Chancellor Warhol, and more! East Nashville Underground is sponsored by Grolsch. Click here to get your tickets!
Mondays from 9-10pm CST on WRLT/Lightning 100, Nashville’s Independent Radio
lightning100.com
Indie Underground Hour 5-06-13
The National – Don’t Swallow The Cap (Trouble Will Find Me, 4AD)
Frank Turner – Recovery (Tape Deck Heart, Epitaph/Interscope)
The Replacements – I’m Not Sayin’ (Songs For Slim, New West)
Telekinesis – Power Lines (Dormarion, Merge)
Phoenix – Trying To Be Cool (Bankrupt!, Glassnote)
!!! – Fine Fine Fine (Thr!!!er, Warp)
The Weeks – Dear Bo Jackson (Dear Bo Jackson, Serpents & Snakes)
Father John Misty – Nancy From Now On (Fear Fun, Sub Pop)
Daughter – Human (If You Leave, Glassnote)
Shuggie Otis – Miss Pretty (Inspiration Information, Epic)
Marnie Stern – East Side Glory (The Chronicles Of Marnia, Kill Rock Stars)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Mosquito (Mosquito, Interscope)
Guided By Voices – Islands (She Talks In Rainbows) (English Little League, GBV Inc)
Jake Bugg’s, not so secret, secret show! Jake was in town from the UK May 1st, 2013 and invited Lightning 100 listeners to hear a few tracks from his new self titled full length debut album. Now you can enjoy this performance on demand and please share with your friends! From Nashville’s Independent Radio, Lightning 100.
Episode43. the615 4/29/13
Local Artist of the week
Josh Farrow – Devil Don’t You Fool Me – Single
Dj Picks
Hammel – Guthrie Brown – Family Tree
Wells – Judah & the Lion – Hesitate – Sweet Tennessee (Playin’ live 4/30 at 12th & Porter 6pm)
Featured Guest of the Week The Features
The Features live-This Disorder
The Features live-With Every Beat
The Features pick- Non Commissioned Officers- Say
This Just In
Commitment Bells – Thirst – Time Will Fix It All
Night Beds- 22-Country Sleep
Bands Around Town-
Repeat Repeat-12345678 (Playin’ Live 4/30 w/ Dick Dale @ Mercy)
Anderson East- Flowers Of The Broken Hearted (Playin’ Live 5/2 @ Basement w/ Tumbleweed wanderers, The Lonely Wild, Swear & Shake- Communion Show)
Deep Fried 5- Spotlight (Playin’ Live 5/3 @ 5 Spot)
COIN- Atlas-(Playin’ Live w/Lonely Biscuits 5/2 @ 12th & Porter)
Ranch Ghost- Ragged Mile-(Plain’ 5/2 @ The End)
The hippies from California, The Mowgli’s, perform “Time”, “Great Divide”, and “San Francisco live in the Lightning 100 studio! We crammed 7 band members, 1 dj, and a camera guy into our small studio.
Filmed and edited by Brian Waters
Junip releases “Line of Fire” the first single off their sophomore album Junip, out April 23rd. JUNIP is José González (Guitar/Vocals), Elias Araya (Drums), Tobias Winterkorn (Keyboards). Featuring Öyvind Hegg-Lunde, Joel Wästberg, Johan Grettve, James Mathe, Andres Renteria as live band.
Lover of the classics, nature and water and the outdoors, Josh Farrow is making his own path in the music industry. He may be walking under the hot sun of Nashville’s song-writers’ spotlight, but he is well shaded by inspirations of Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and The Beatles. Josh knows the beauty of things past and how to recycle his loves into meaningful lyrics and current tunes.
Since the tender age of 10 when he got his first guitar, music has been a constant in his life. It may not have been till age 19 when he began singing and writing hardcore, but he certainly has come a long way very quickly. Josh has been highly involved in years past with Lightning 100, and he has a record of popping up as one of their featured artists. Josh has experienced a wonderful give-and-take partnership with Lightning 100:
“I’ve played some sponsored shows for them, have been at their Christmas parties, and love supporting those guys!”
A fruitful relationship with the radio station has been just one of the high points of his career here in Nashville. Producer Dexter Green has inspired Josh not only by his intense involvement with the artist and in his support, but he has also challenged Josh through a respect warranted by his own talent. In Josh’s own words: “My biggest encourager so far has been my producer Dexter Green. He’s by far the most talented person I’ve met in this town, and has been willing to help me greatly.
Nashville has been the biggest blessing in my music career. From an overwhelming response from music city roots with Leon Russell, to meeting everyone I know from the 5 spot, the reception has been unreal.”
If you are ever in the area, you should stop by 5 Points Pizza and say ”Hey!” to this fellow. After all, he promises that it’s the “best pizza in the south.”
It’s doesn’t take much to see that Josh truly loves this city.
“Nashville has put a little more country in me, kicked me in the ass a little bit, and pushed me to be the hard-working motivated person I am today. Nashville can wear you down in the music industry, but if you recognize your weaknesses it can pick you right back up.
“I don’t plan on leaving this beautiful city, especially East Nashville where I live. I’m going to be touring most of the summer, including some shuttle bus gigs for Hangout Fest and other festivals like Merlefest in 2014.”
Josh’s most recent releases include two singles titled Devil Don’t You Fool Me and The Worryin Kind. During a fairly stressful time in his life he turned yet again to music to learn to channel the tumultuous context of his life. True to the single’s name, he explained “I’m a worrier by nature and am learning to get it out creatively.”
But how exactly did Josh come to call himself an immersed Nashville native? For love of a woman, of course! Spring Break can do many terrible things to our lives, but in his case it did one thing tremendously right. Four months after a trip to Daytona Beach he moved to Murfreesboro to be with her, and five years later they are still going strong. Two years ago he made the official move up the interstate to pursue music full time in Nashville. He has dug his urban roots deep here, but he has not let go of his rural ties either.
“I feel like I write mostly about the natural elements of life, and it translates to music from a love of being alone in the outdoors. And being in water. Too many of my songs are about water…”
So what is on the up-and-coming for Josh?
“The new singles, and new songs I’m tracking in the studio right now are a lot more mature (naturally) and have a lot more harnessed energy and soul in them. A bit dark, a bit soothing, and a bit haunting. Southern Drag was all about a very young and fresh outlook on living and writing in a new place – the south.
“I’m expecting to release a new full length album in the later part of this year.”
The Weeks perform “Ain’t My Stop” and “King-Sized Death Bed” off their new record Dear Bo Jackson live at Lightning 100.
Mondays from 9-10pm CST on WRLT/Lightning 100, Nashville’s Independent Radio
lightning100.com
Indie Underground Hour 4-22-13
Iggy & The Stooges – Burn (Ready To Die, Fat Possum)
Wire – Love Bends (Change Becomes Us, Pink Flag)
The Features – This Disorder (The Features, Serpents & Snakes)
Phoenix – SOS In Bel Air (Bankrupt!, Glassnote)
Major Lazer feat Amber – Get Free (Free The Universe, Secretly Canadian)
Devendra Banhart – Your Fine Petting Duck (Mala, Nonesuch)
Paramore – Holiday (The Holiday Sessions 7″, Atlantic)
Marcos Valle – Os Ossos Do Barao (Previsao Do Tempo, LITA)
The Shouting Matches – Gallup NM (Grownass Man, Middle West)
My Morning Jacket – Leaving On A Jet Plane (The Music Is You, ATO)
Mikal Cronin – Weight (MCII, Merge)
Little Green Cars – The John Wayne (Absolute Zero, Glassnote)
R.E.M. – Strange (Live In Greensboro EP, Warner Bros)
Alabama native Matthew Houck & co have one of the most compelling songs of 2013. Here’s the live TV performance from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s 4/23 show.
Wavves started in 2008 as the recording project of Nathan Williams (born June 12, 1986 in Santa Monica, California). Wavves released several 7″s as well as a cassette leading up to the first two releases, Wavves (Woodsist) and Wavvves (Fat Possum/Bella Union). After gaining recognition, Ryan Ulsh was enlisted as a touring drummer and Wavves embarked on their first US and European tours. Wavves released their self-titled debut album in 2008, subsequently drawing the attention of Pitchfork Media.[1][2] At the time, the band consisted of guitarist Nathan Williams and drummer Ryan Ulsh.
Zach Williams, the Lone Bellow’s lead singer and principal songwriter, can pinpoint just about exactly when the Brooklyn-based group serendipitously willed itself into being. It was around 9 a.m. one morning in 2010, at Dizzy’s Diner in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where the Lone Bellows guitarist and Williams’ old friend Brian Elmquist was working a shift. Williams, up to then performing as a solo artist, needed a place to try out some new songs; for a scuffling artist, the diner was as good as any rehearsal space. He asked fellow singer Kanene Pipkin, just returned to New York City from living in Beijing, to meet them at the diner and the trio did more than merely jam. With the beginnings of a repertoire and an already strong communal spirit, that fateful morning they became the Lone Bellow. As Williams recalls, “Three songs in I realized I should quit what I’m doing and just make music with these people.”
And that’s what he did. The trio’s self-titled debut disc is exuberant in its playing, welcoming in its attitude. Though the lyrics have a melancholic undercurrent, the tracks are more often rave-ups than ruminations, with swelling three-part harmonies and rousing group-sung choruses, especially on the electric guitar-driven “The One You Should’ve Let Go” and “Green Eyes and A Heart of Gold,” a we-will-survive anthem that could be about a family or a band. Indeed, there is a strong familial feel to The Lone Bellow, a recurring theme of inclusiveness.
That sentiment lies at the heart of the album and Williams’ own career to date. The native Georgian first came to songwriting via near tragedy. While still living down south, Williams’ young wife was catastrophically injured in a horseback riding accident. Physicians initially told Williams that, at best, his wife would leave the hospital a paraplegic. But doctors at the pioneering Shepard Center in Atlanta thought otherwise and after months of rehab there she ultimately regained the ability to walk. Throughout the ordeal, Williams had been scribbling his thoughts into a journal; good friend Caleb Clardy, co-writer of “Teach Me To Know,” suggested he turn his writing into songs. The couple’s friends had rallied around them, practically living in the hospital waiting room with Williams, organically becoming the support group he needed. Williams admits, “That was the first time I really experienced somebody trying their best to carry someone else’s burden. It was very moving to me. I was going to classes on how to bathe and feed my wife, and I was trying to process all the fear and anger and the numbness. I started reading my friends these journal entries. I was writing in a kind of rhyming form because it helped to keep my mind focused. Caleb said, these are songs, man, you need to learn how to play the guitar and sing at he same time.”
Written by Kaitlyn Crocker
Boston born and California raised, Mercy Bell is no stranger to new places. New York embraced her and Nashville has made her a comfortable home. With all of these different regional sounds surrounding her, Mercy has kept her balance by digging deep to her west coast roots. You can catch glimpses of the western horizon in her music, distinctly American folk with a progressive touch of the 90s songwriter stamp etched onto her from her childhood.
Her first and most recent 13-track album “All Good Cowboys” was produced in the big city that sprung Mercy from the shadows to the folk spotlight and gave her wings enough to catch flight to Nashville to expand her career. Produced in Brooklyn with her dear friend Danielle DePalma – producer, musician and engineer – this album resonates with the experiences of a young, poor, and emotionally confused songwriter trying to figure out who she was and wanted to be.
I was alternately sad and elated on any given day. I was going through a lot of difficult personal experiences during that time that I made the album, but she [Danielle] helped me by giving me a refuge and turning the album-making process into a communal process (with tons of home cooked food).
With her love of big, wide, open spaces – of possibilities – it’s safe to wonder if Mercy plans on nesting into Nashville for a bit?
I know in my bones it is where I need to be right now. My girlfriend and I moved here after only visiting once. We wanted an adventure and change after Brooklyn and Arkansas. It’s funny, I moved to NYC after seeing a license plate that said “be brave”, made up my mind. We moved to Nashville after hearing this Alan Jackson song “gone country” while driving Highway 321, and we decided that’s where we needed to be. I knew there was a huge Americana scene here and that was so exciting to me.
But whether here or there, Mercy’s passion for the aesthetic recallings of the west coast ever linger about her.
I love any music or any art that evokes horizons. It’s the “western” in me. My granddaddy was a Georgia boy who died in San Diego, but had travelled the world in the Air Force and was the cowboy I associate with in my heart. He was into horizons. He and my family and California instilled that in me.
She assures that a new EP will be on its way this summer, so keep an eye on that horizon, the one Mercy loves so much.
Matthew Houck likes to work. The Alabama native, now resident in Brooklyn has delivered five albums as Phosphorescent since his 2003 debut. Houck has a highly distinctive artistic voice and a refreshing, rolled-sleeves approach to his expression. 2007′s Pride – a delicate and haunting work of ragged country and bittersweet gospel – first caused ears to swivel in Phosphorescent’s direction. He followed it with To Willie, a tribute to Willie Nelson, then 2010′s Here’s To Taking It Easy, an enthusiastic plunge into country rock and Americana. Now, his sixth album Muchacho flashes yet another color in the subtly shifting Phosphorescent spectrum.
Muchacho reprises the understated melancholia and sensuous minimalism of Pride, while kicking up a little of Here’s To Taking It Easy’s dust, but it also strikes out into more adventurous waters via rhythm and electronic textures. It took shape partly as a result of events beyond Houck’s control. After spending the best part of 18 months touring his last record, Houck was, in his words “pretty fried.” He returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard studio where he’d recorded his previous two albums, planning “on taking this whole thing down a few notches. I wanted to make music,” he explains, “but I was weary, so the spectre of putting anything out and getting back on the road was a bit of a block.” He bought a load of old analog gear and “just starting playing around with it, making these noises. They weren’t songs, they were just strange sound pieces. I’ve always had that element in my work, and one or two weird, ambient pieces seem to squeeze themselves onto every record, but suddenly I was doing a lot of those.”
The singer says, “This time, I was getting really excited about the experimental sounds I was making. I was thinking I might make an ambient record that had vocals, but no lyrics. I was actually considering releasing it under another name.” Exactly as 2012 turned, Houck’s life began to unravel. A domestic crisis meant he had to find another apartment/studio at short notice, in the dead of winter. His life was falling apart, but almost perversely, “songs just started happening, and there were five or six of them.” Houck admits he was “in the middle of a bit of a freak-out,” so in the small hours one Sunday, he booked a ticket to Mexico, on a plane that was leaving three hours later. “It sounds really cheesy, but I went down there with a guitar and got a little hut on the beach in Tulum, on the Yucatan Peninsula.” After a week there working to finish the songs that would become Muchacho, he went back to NYC, found a new place, fitted it out and began tracking the record in May 2012.
‘Muchacho’s Tune’ – with its opening braid of twanging guitars, piano and electric keys, its warm, rich reverb and poignant mariachi brass – is the song on which the album turns. This was the first song to come to him fully formed, and it establishes the album’s lyrical theme – “that the possibility of redemption through love and romance is not just hopeful, it’s also viable. It definitely exists. But what ends up happening is more redemption through some vague means that I don’t really understand.”
It’s indicative of Houck’s distinctive talent, dedication to his work and trust in his muse, then, that a temporary hurdle didn’t become a serious block. “I got clear of it by just getting to work on the recording,” he says, simply. Sleeves rolled. Resolve fixed. Muchacho delivered.
A sampler of Those Darlins best songs to date with three 7″ singles and an extended studio version of the title track Screws Get Loose. Those Darlins are in the studio with Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, Tennis, Sleater-Kinney) now recording new material for their third full length record.
Episode42. the615 4/22/13
The Weeks – King-Sized Death Bed- Dear Bo Jackson – CD release show Friday 4/26 at Mercy Lounge
Local Artist of the week
Mercy Bell – Icarus
Dj Picks
Hammel – Kait Lawson – A Place In The Ground
Wells – Peter Terry & the City Profits- Lawyer
Featured Guest of the Week Steve Lee
Steve Lee’s – Trash 2 Treasure- Yumzah
Steve Lee’s pick- The Lonely H- Love her Anyways- The Lonely H
This Just In
The Joy Of Painting- Dontchu Wanna- Tender Age
Bands Around Town
Pujol – Mayday – Playin’ live Thursday at Exit/In w/ J Roddy Walston
Vinyl Thief – White Light – Playin’ Live 4/26 The Deli Nashville Presents: Milktooth, The Gills, & Vinyl Thief @ The Stone Fox
