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.
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
Mondays from 9-10pm CST on WRLT/Lightning 100, Nashville’s Independent Radio lightning100.com
Indie Underground Hour 4-15-13
Futurebirds – Virginia Slims (Baba Yaga, Fat Possum) The Weeks – Brother In The Night (Dear Bo Jackson, Serpents & Snakes) Hanni El Khatib – Penny (Head In The Dirt, Innovative Leisure) Villagers – Nothing Arrived (Awayland, Domino) Paramore – Ain’t It Fun (Paramore, Fueled By Ramen) Born Ruffians – Ocean’s Deep (Birthmarks, YepRoc) Dawes – Most People (Stories Don’t End, HUB Records) Josh Rouse – A Lot Like Magic (Happiness Waltz, Bedroom Classics) Charles Bradley – Love Bug Blues (Victim Of Love, Daptone) Lady – Good Lovin’ (Lady, Truth & Soul) Goat – Run To Your Mama (World Music, Rocket Recordings) Bombino – Amidinine (My Friend) (Nomad, Nonesuch) Hotpipes – Magic Is Everywhere (DUST, YewKnee)
Lightning 100 understands that everyone needs a vacation. Sign up now for Ultimate Hangout Music Festival Vacation Pack and you could win two tickets to the festival and hotel stay at Meyers Vacations Rentals for the weekend! Hangout Music Festival is May 17th – 19th in Gulf Shores Alabama featuring Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, Steve Wonder, Kings of Leon, The Shins, Jim James, and more! The Hangout Festival is the first and only music festival of it’s kind in North America. Located directly on the white sandy beaches of Gulf Shores, AL. The festival treats guests to a unique festival experience and consistently features a diverse selection of top touring artists. Participates must sign up before April 22nd at noon(CST) to be eligible to win.
Diamond Carter is a music project based in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. Carter was born in 1990 in Southern California, where he was drawn to the 60′s revivalist groups that were sprouting out of Orange County. He began playing the guitar when he was thirteen, and music soon became the most important thing in his life.
Diamond started and played in several local bands throughout high school, all inspired by the sound of the 60s. Mod, Mo-town, and surf rock became his primary musical focus. After scraping by the last year of high school, Diamond and a couple close friends bought an old van from a “dead head”, who, once learning of the boys intentions, drastically lowered the price and offered to continue paying for the satellite radio as long as the boys promised they’d only keep it on the Grateful Dead station. They kept this promise, as they drove through the states playing several house parties, and dive bars getting paid in food, liquor, and the occasional bag of mushrooms and a place to stay. They’d perform on the street by day to get gas money to get to the next town, and leave immediately after each gig because they had no place to spend the night. During these drives, Diamond became fascinated with the Dead’s approach on folk and country music and began to start writing a catalogue of acoustic songs. One of the boys got arrested, and Diamond and the remaining member temporarily planted themselves in Santa Cruz,where they lived in a 100 square foot lockout space in an old warehouse by the train tracks. During this time, Diamond developed a deep love for Santa Cruz, and it’s weirdness. He spent his nights indulging with the crusties and singing the blues with the old timers on the avenue. The good times slowed down as his new friends began getting picked up by the cops, or moving on to a new town.
He decided to change his scene once again, and moved to Los Angeles where he played solo at house parties and lounges until he captured the eye of a music manager, who decided to represent the project. This gave birth to the identity of Diamond Carter. The origin of the name can be found in the lyric of Mark Levine’s 1968 album ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. The name was taken from the lyric “Diamond Carter was a writer, and a singer too. A far-out author of some far-out tunes.” Mr. Carter felt this line spoke of the new identity he was to assume as a writer and performer. Diamond put together a band and began playing through Los Angeles, most notably at the silver lake speak easy “The Overpass.” The debauchery that ensued at these shows, complimented by the band’s groove, gained them a bit of buzz in the local scene, before re-locating as a collective to Nashville.
Diamond Carter’s music spans from the acoustic singer songwriter vibe of songs like “Clarksdale”, a tale of the devil, to the more indie pop sound of songs like “Beg” or “Let Yourself be loved”. He attributes his major musical influences to artists like Sam Cooke, the Louvin Brothers, Conor Oberst, and Lou Reed. In the spirit of these inspirational artists, Mr. Carter writes about things that he knows, mainly booze, mind-altering substances, and torturous women. Diamond Carter includes Drummer Trevor Hunnicut, Michael Gigante as Producer/Keys, Tenor Saxophonist Cameron Black, and background vocalists Jordan Rogers, Janay Byrd, and Jennifer Roberts . Diamond also enlists help from several other instrumentalists when the song calls for it. The band will continue to be rooted in its classic foundations while constantly pushing forward and absorbing the strange world that surrounds.
The Weeks – Ain’t My Stop – Dear Bo Jackson – CD release show Friday 4/26/13 at Mercy Lounge
Local Artist of the week Diamond Carter – Let Yourself Be Loved
Dj Picks
Hammel – Langhorne Slim- Colette
Wells – Lulu Mae – The Mockinbird & the Dogwood Tree – The Mockinbird & the Dogwood Tree- Congrats to Lulu Mae our Music City Mayhem champion
Featured Guest of the Week Griffin House- CD release show Friday 4/19 at Exit/In w/ Josh Matthews Griffin House live-Go Through It-Balls Griffin House live- Real Love Can’t Pretend- Balls
Griffins pick- Mary Gauthier- Wheel Inside the Wheel
The Features – This Disorder – The Features – Out May 14th
Bands Around Town- Stactic Revival -Whole- Gilding The Lily – Playin’ Live at Exit/In Saturday 4/20/13 w/ Grass Root Kids, The Gills, The Cultivation Peter Terry & the City Profits- Stripper Song CherryCase- Make Up Your Mind
Peter Terry & the City Profits, CherryCase & Dead Martinis playing live Thursday 4/18/13 at Tin Roof Nashville FREE Show
The epic trio Muse will be coming to Nashville to play Bridgestone Arena on September 6th. Lightning 100 wants to know #WhatIsYourNashvilleMuse on Instagram or Twitter. Take a photo of your Nashville Muse and upload it to Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #WhatisYourNashvilleMuse and you could win a backstage experience with the band and tickets to the show. Make sure to tag @Lightning100 so we can see it! Submissions are due by Friday, April 26th at 10am (CST).
City and Colour’s acoustic, folksy sound will reverberate in the halls of the Ryman September 29. City and Colour, the recording guise of Canadian singer-songwriter Dallas Green, has released three albums and opened for acts such as P!nk. Inspiration for the City and Colour alias came from Green’s own name: his first name – Dallas – is a city, while his last name – Green – is a color. Green has been awarded three Juno Awards in his native Canada. Singles include “Comin’ Home” and “Fragile Bird.”
The tour is in celebration of City and Colour’s highly anticipated new album, The Hurry and The Harm, out June 4 on Dine Alone Records. As a special thank you to the band’s loyal live following, all tickets come with a digital download of the new album, The Hurry and The Harm. upon release date. Ticket purchasers will also receive an immediate digital download of the unreleased, exclusive track “Northern Wind (Live from Molson Canadian Amphitheatre – Sept 2012).”
Leave a comment on the photo and you could win a pair of tickets to the show!
Dawes – From The Right Angle (Stories Don’t End, HUB Records) Iron & Wine – New Mexico’s No Breeze (Ghost On Ghost, Nonesuch) The Strokes – Partners In Crime (Comedown Machine, RCA) Cold War Kids – Jailbirds (Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, Downtown Music) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Let The Day Begin (Specter At The Feast, Vagrant) The Black Angels – You’re Mine (Indigo Meadow, Blue Horizon) The Lone Bellow – Green Eyes & A Heart Of Gold (The Lone Bellow, Descendant) Ivan & Alyosha – Be Your Man (All The Times We Had, Dualtone) The Besnard Lakes – The Specter (Until In Excess Imperceptible UFO, Jagjaguwar) Hotpipes – For Cowboy (DUST, Hotpipes Music) Palma Violets – Best Of Friends (180, Rough Trade) Art Brut – My Little Brother (Top Of The Pops, The End Records) New Process – Freedom (Original Raw Soul III, Now-Again)
The Weeks- Brother In The Night- Dear Bo Jackson- Brother In The Night CD release show 4/26 at Mercy Lounge
Local Artist of the week The Get Togethers – June- Playing Soulshine 4/12 FREE show at 7pm
Dj Picks
Hammel – The Rouge – Sinners – Blurry
Wells – Cory Chisel & the Wandering Sons – Never Meant To Love You- Old Believers
This Just In The Paranormals – J. Clyde Craig Jackson Band – A Little Love – Sweeter Songs- CD release show 2/5 at Soulshine Pizza
Bands Around Town-
Music City Mayhem “Final 5″ at East-Centric Pavilion Saturday- 5pm- be there by 6pm to vote!- Lightning 100 will be Broadcasting from 4-6 Mercy Bell – Icarus Levi Weaver- Talk me Down Shannon Labrie- Slow Dance Jessica Frech- Reality Lulu Mae- Coralina
The year of 2007 with all of its tragic happenings launched a brokenhearted Bethany Gray on a quest to document the events of that year, the most horrifying year of her life. This may seem melodramatic, but what doesn’t to a 17 year old girl?
After escaping a tumultuous childhood, Bethany faced an entirely new stomach-gnawing heartbreak. In 2007 she had an affair with a teacher, a woman, at her…See More
Description
The Get Togethers take their musical cues from acts like Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie, and Rilo Kiley, uniting the epic and the intimate, the foreign and familiar. They are story-tellers at heart that have discovered people like their stories dressed up in pleasant sounds. Home As In Houston is the story of the year 2007. The album takes place in Houston, was conceived in Austin, written in Seattle, recorded in Nashville.
“They’re like if Led Zeppelin & The Band had a baby in Joshua Tree that grew up listening to Ryan Adams covering the Stones 70′s country influenced songs” Ricky Young, Joel King, Taylor Burns and Preston Wimberly, grew up steeped in music; playing solo gigs, touring with local bands and working at venues. The four guys came together in Austin in 2010 through coincidence, mutual friends, and a shared love of the classics: Petty, Dylan, Cash, The Band, Allman Bros, Neil Young and Willie Nelson. They immediately began playing together
and became The Wild Feathers. The young band spent the next year writing and defining their sound and touring around the country, sharing the stage with Delta Spirit, Surfer Blood and The Heavy, even landing an opening spot on Paul Simon’s 2011 fall tour.The Wild Feathers are a truly American band: their music takes elements of the best of rock, country, folk and blues music and reshapes it in a way that is both unique and modern.
The sound of wind through the pines, bare feet brushing through leaves, snapping sticks like the spines of the weak. When we started we were small and strong at heart, five southern souls damned to speak the truth. But with this responsibility comes pain and loss. And as the years passed our numbers grew smaller, and there were four. This did not stop these brave soldiers of thought, keepers of truth. They were older now and their soft footsteps through the forest had grown louder and stronger. Like the dust filled hoof beats of a thousand wild horses, they layer sound like musket fire, their melodies bend and twist like train-tracks. A music shaped from the calloused hands and wrinkled faces of their fathers. They have walked through the fire wide-eyed and crazy, and came out enlightened. You cannot stop these men, your armies can’t cease their hands, dampen this thunder, or silence their tongues. We have trudged through the muddy swamps to freedom.
Our shoes are tattered and torn, but our feet are dry. As for our places in history, we will run naked through your streets before we sit decorated in your halls.
It’s difficult to say where Night Beds begins, but it could be here: August 2006, a young Winston Yellen is invited to a longtime friend’s apartment. They talk, they record a little aimlessly, and something exciting emerges. Maybe it’s a little later, when one is studying engineering in Nashville, and the other remains behind, an unhappy captive of secondary education. It could be any number of moments, really, along a series of migrations, but probably here: the summer of 2008, back in Colorado Springs, when they write the first Night Beds song, “You Were Afraid.”
After that there is a lot of time spent in basements, a lot of alcohol, a lot of irreverent tuning, but not all that much need for talk. Most things are shared, understood: in thin mountain air, or in a waterlogged summer atmosphere, there can be a sense that breathing is effortful, that sleep is easy but not restful. The songs that come out of those first few years, collected on three EPs (night beds, every fire; every joy, and hide from it), are an exercise in catharsis. They’re deeply ringing things, washed in whiskey. The sound is like something emergent from a tunnel. It may be the red eye of a cigarette in the dark, or it may be the dawn peeking out.
“It was never thought. It just was always what felt good.” So the songs come together over acoustic guitars, over the first skeletal melodies, and then they grow. Yellen’s voice takes on a pure kind of thirst when wrapped in the sonic landscapes he devises. It’s searching. It’s taken several years to map everything out, but after a hiatus spent driving the deserts and prairies and coastal roads of the United States, sleeping in a hatchback or on friendly couches – after a long time spent alone – Night Beds has found a home in Nashville. Soon it will see the release of Country Sleep, a full-length album in the spirit of the vagabond, in the winding path to a place of good rest.
While checking out our numbers on soundcloud, we noticed a huge bump in listens and comments on our last Nashville Sunday Night featuring Luella & the Sun! Check out what everyone is talking about. Are they the next big band from the615? Let us know what you think.
Slowly, but surely we are getting all videos posted from our “not so secret session” with Alt-J! Hope you enjoyed “Fitzpleasure” and “Tessallate“, now check out “Matilda” and their hit single “BreezeBlocks” live at WRLT!
Hailing from the state of Florida, Gavin Shea has brought his eclectic sounds to the mecca of music today.
Since his arrival in Nashville, he’s been turning heads with performances of his “Alive and Well” EP, a collection of pieces that combine a mathematical intelligence with the intuition of a forward thinking artist. True to form, Shea’s band features skilled studio musicians from a variety of locations and backgrounds. Together, they possess a remarkable ability to extract beats and formulate original compositions, while remaining consistent in the story-telling experience of Shea’s newly-released EP.
Stay tuned for what they’re bringing, it won’t disappoint.
The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, June 13th through June 16th in Manchester will once again feature world class talent…acts such as Sir Paul McCartney, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, and dozen more! Lightning 100 wants you to Roll Like A Rock Star at Bonnaroo, courtesy of Miller Lite. One lucky winner and seven friends will win the grand pize, a trip to Bonnaroo in a private tour bus, plus VIP seating! Click here to enter!
We’re excited about this year’s Hangout Music Fest lineup, which features Tom Petty, Kings of Leon, Stevie Wonder, The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Trey Anastasio, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and The Shins, among others…all happening along on the beach of Gulf Shores, AL on May 17th-19th. Click here to get your tickets!
The Columnist is playing at TPAC’s Johnson Theatre, April 20th – May 4th. David Auburn’s The Columnist—written locally – performed nationally; paints a portrait of legendary and controversial Joseph Alsop and of a rapidly changing America. For decades, Joseph Alsop was the most powerful journalist in the country: beloved, feared, and courted in equal measure by the Washington social world at whose center he sat. As the country and the world of journalism moved into a time of dizzying changes and drastic shifts, the intense political drama Alsop was embroiled in became deeply personal as well. Both intense and moving, David Auburn delivers intelligence and insight in one of the most gripping new plays to hit the American stage.
Corn-Hole Toss Competition: Corn-hole or Corn Toss is similar to horseshoes except you use wooden boxes called corn-hole platforms and corn bags instead of horseshoes and metal stakes. Contestants take turns pitching their corn bags at the corn-hole platform until a contestant reaches the score of 21 points. A corn bag in the hole scores 3 points, while one on the platform scores 1 point.
Our competition will not go to 21 points due to time constraints. We will go to 11.
Call to action during the Friday Afternoon Live with Wells from 5-7 for participants to show to register. Number of registrants is unlimited.
8 Teams of 2 will be picked at random from the registered guests.
Little Green Cars – Harper Lee (Absolute Zero, Glassnote) The Lone Bellow – The One You Should’ve Let Go (The Lone Bellow, Descendant Records) Charles Walker & The Dynamites – Still Can’t Get You Out Of My Heart (Love Is Only Everything, Gemco Records) Charles Bradley – Strictly Reserved For You (Victim Of Love, Daptone) Dawes – Hey Lover (Stories Don’t End, HUB Records) Caitlin Rose – Menagerie (The Stand-In, ATO Records) The Strokes – Welcome To Japan (Comedown Machine, RCA) The Virgins – Wheel Of Fortune (Strike Gently, Cult Records) Wavves – Sail To The Sun (Afraid Of Heights, Mom+Pop) Vampire Weekend – Diane Young (Vampires Of The City, XL Recordings) Allen Stone – Rocky Mountain High (The Music Is You: Tribute To John Denver, ATO) Ivan & Alyosha – Running For Cover (All The Times We Had, Dualtone) Girls Names – Pittura Infamante (The New Life, Slumberland)
Jake Bugg(born Jacob Edwin Kennedy 1994 in Nottingham) is an English singer songwriter. His work is influenced by Bob Dylan, Donovan, Jimi Hendrix, Oasis and The Beatles. You’ve been hearing “Two Fingers” on 100.1 FM, now we hope you enjoy the deep track “Lightning Bolt.”
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.
