I've got your long weekend planned (pt. 2)

So go ahead and sleep in on Friday, my Ghetto peeps. You'll probably need it after Thursday night (did I mention that they'll be $1 PBR's at the Bomb/My Tyger show? Well there will be, so drink up, kiddies). It's OK, we'll forge you a doctor's note for work.

ANYWAY... the good times keep coming on Friday night as I'll be hosting a night of stellar locally grown rock goodness at Mercy Lounge. This will be Mercy's official grand re-opening party after the remodeling job they've been working on the past several weeks. It looks great, by the way. After being there tonight to see country music legend Charlie Louvin, I can truly say that Mercy Lounge is hands down the best larger venue in the city. Come see for yourself.

The Tits will get things started at 9pm, so plan on getting there early for some deafening punky cock rock. After that will be indie-folk troubadour Wes Sp8, followed by Nite Nite and their Nancy-Sinatra-on-downers brand of goth-pop. Batting fourth will be The Glib who brought a Stooge-y mayhem to the last 8 Off 8th I hosted, violently tossing their instruments around as if there were a stack of back-ups backstage (there weren't). Rounding out the evening will be the Shoot the Mountain, who remind me of a southern-bred Replacements and finally Eastern Block, who sound a lot less Communist than their name implies.

Tune into the show this afternoon - 1:00 - 3:00, 91.1 WRVU - to hear all these bands along with the best in local and regional rock. Hit Matt & me up with your requests at 615.421.7625 or 615.322.7625.

Oh and don't sweat swinging by the ATM before coming to Mercy, 'cause there's no cover charge! Do I take care of my crew or what? Who's yer boy?

I've got your long weekend planned (pt. 1)

OK, gang. I know sometimes we all get a little overwhelmed and don't want to have to make decisions about what to do with our free time and where to do it. That's where I'm come in this week. Being a self-appointed public servant, I'm gonna go ahead and plan your long weekend for you. You can thank yer boy later. Oh and you're welcome.

Anyway, onto your Thursday evening plans...

Contrast can be a beautiful sight to behold. And Thursday night might just be one for the books.

As usual, tourists in their Aaron Tippin t-shirts and the good ol' boys (and gals) from the surrounding counties will be creeping and cruising up and down Nashville's Lower Broadway. Full of booze and overly-stimulated, these masses will be darting in and out of our city's honky-tonk bars and souvenir shops, line dancing, gettin' rowdy and trying to talk some game with the opposite sex.

Like some weirdo eagle in the dark, a sound quite unfamiliar to their ears will swoop down from the roof above, either enticing or enraging them. That sound will be booming from the rooftop joint know as Aerial and shall be coming from the hands and mouths of How I Became the Bomb, My Tyger, and Principal & Coach.

Is this some social experiment in juxtaposition? Perhaps. That would depend on the outcome, I suppose. What's certain is that it's a dance party and it's gonna be one damn fine evening up on the rooftop.

Anyway, the Bomb boys should need no introduction by now. Same goes for Principal & Coach for any of you in the late-nite-dance party-hoppin' young hipster set. I should, however, drop a few word about My Tyger and this reunion they're putting together for Thursday.

Though My Tyger only existed in the Nashville rock milieu from late 2001 - 2003, they proved to be a spring board for its members into more high profile projects. Golden-voiced singer Sam Ashworth went onto front the short-lived supergroup Astronaut Pushers (with members of Superdrag, Sixpnence, and Ben Folds' band) and has enjoyed success as a songwriter and producer. Bassist Ben Patton later anchored retro pop outfit Girls & Boys with his catchy songs and Jamerson-esque Motown basslines and currently holds down the low end for Imagine Asians. Guitarist Jim O'Shea was also a member of Girls & Boys, but is probably best known for organizing and promoting a number of sexy hipster dance parties, most notably the monthly rooftop rager known as Happy Valley. Brothers Taylor & Brandon Harris (drums and keys, respectively) have gone onto successful careers as record producers, bouncing between Nashville and LA for the past several years. And finally, original keyboardist Ryan Norris has found success as a member of Lambchop, The Privates, Hands Off Cuba and backing Cortney Tidwell.

Thursday night will see Ashworth, Patton, and O'Shea revisiting and cherry picking through their strong catalog of songs. Filling in on drums will be all-around sweetheart David Gerkhe of The Silver Sea's. They're on first, so be sure ot get there early.

So once again, here's what we're doing on Thursday night:
How I Became the Bomb, My Tyger and Principal & Coach
Thursday, July 31st
Aerial (411 Broadway, above Paradise Park & Big Bang)
9pm
$7, 21+

I'll be in touch about Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Radio Show Playlist - 07.24.08

Big thanks to Michael Harrell for sitting down and chatting with us this week. Be sure to swing by Cafe Coco on Monday at 7pm for his show.

Dig it via Real Audio

Ghostfinger - Alabama (The Feeler)
Vovo - Lighter Side of Life (Vovo EP)
Coral Castles - The Intrigue and Eventual Despair... (the Corpse and the Cake)
Cuttlefish - Crow Dog (Marble)
Majestico - I like You (Boundary Conditions)
The Howlies - Baby Shake (Lake Fever Sessions)
Eastern Block - Predawn Cantina (Eastern Block EP)
The Lonely Hearts - Everybody's Got A Broken Heart (Born in the Dark)
Michael Harrell - Paint By Numbers (Jericho Blues)
Astronaut Pushers - Cut Me Off (EP)
John Davis - Nothing Gets Me Down (4-Track Demos)
The Semantics - Jenny Won't Play Fair (Powerbill)
Silver Seas - The Country Life (High Society)
Michael Harrell - Slide Away (Jericho Blues)
This Modern Station - Evengelina (unreleased)
The Nobility - The Mezzanine (The Mezzanine)
Roman Candle - You Don't Belong to this World (Wee Hours of Review)
Vermicious K'nids - Away O Way Oh (unreleased)
The Cable Company - Beached Whale (Syndication)
Vovo - Well Known Theme (Vovo EP)
Ghostfinger - Ann Marie (The Feeler)
Kindercastle - Postmaster General (Kindercastle)
My Tyger - It Can't Be You (Lake House Demos)
How I Became the Bomb - Fat Girls Talking About Cardio (Let's Go)

Michael Harrell & New Jams Today!

This afternoon on the radio show, Matt and I will be welcoming Michael Harrell into the studio for some tunes, pleasant conversation, and a maybe plate of cucumber sandwiches.

Taking cues from some of the shining stars in the power-pop cannon (think Teenage Fanclub, Kinks, Elliott Smith, et al.), his sound is classic yet never hackneyed. Though still quite young at 22, Michael is wise enough to surround himself with seasoned vets to help him coax the sounds in his head onto record. His debut LP, which is currently being mixed by Jason Bullock at Lake Fever (plug!), features a backing band made up of members of Superdrag, Reliant K, and The Lonely Hearts. Not too shabby, eh? And from what I've heard of it, this one is a louder and more aggressive upgrade from first excellent first EP, Greetings from the Village, which came out in '07.

Michael will be playing over at Cafe Coco next Monday, July 28th at 7pm. He'll be backed by Josiah Holland of The Lonely Hearts on bass and - get this - Superdrag frontman John Davis on the drums. I'll be there, chowing down on a Monte Cristo and knocking back some crushers. Hope you'll join me.

In addition, we're stoked to be debuting some unreleased goodness into your earholes. I've got my hands on the long-awaited sophomore LP from Ghostfinger, which will be available in September. In addition, you'll also be privy to the debut EP from Vovo, which is the brainchild of Features keyboardman, Mark Bond. This five-song gem features his band mate Rollum Haas on drums and bass, along with vocal work from Jonathon Rogers (Hotpipes) & Sam Ashworth (My Tyger) and some tasty pedal steel bits from Luke Schneider (Cortney Tidwell, Stone Jack Jones, ex-Character). Can't wait to spin both of these records for all y'all.

So go ahead and tune your radios to 91.1 WRVU from 1:00 to 3:00 this afternoon and get with it. Alternately you can stream the whole affair live via Real Audio at wrvu.org. And if you miss it, you can still stream it all week via the link to your right.

Fresh Blog Alert

These days, any monkey or idiot man-child with a laptop can, and often does, start their very own music blog (you are reading this one, aren't you?). We all know there's plenty out there that doesn't warrant the energy expended to make a couple mouse clicks, so it's refreshing when a truly gifted writer decided to weigh in on the state of music.

Enter Andrew J. Spaceman and his finely crafted blog, A Star To Sail Her By. He's a Writer in every sense of the word and has been for as long as I've know him (12 years, which is like 108 years in blog years). Someone should pay him handsomely to put pen to paper. Until then, he'll do it for free like the rest of us.

His mission is simple... he's calling out the artists that need to be shot down, while lifting up the ones that deserve his praises. Even with those short arms of his, he succeeds. Andrew's wit cuts deep and his knowledge base is broad. He's not afraid to take the piss out of the undeservedly over-hyped fluff, all the while retaining an air of self-deprecation with his words.

Ghetto Nation, please dig these choice quotes and update those RSS feeds...

On Air France:
I give them an 8.6, the same as Pitchfork did, except mine is on a scale to 100. It's the kind of lame dance music I might listen to if I was taking staggering amounts of white drugs and, oh yeah, was fucking deaf.

His retort to Jack White's poetic ode to Detroit:
The laid off leave their burning cars
Betwixt all the burned out tenements
walk a few blocks to their dealer’s bar
gunfire sprays out of every end of it
a drunk knife fight over a hot crack pipe
by a burning dumpster in the back slum
Jack White moved where it’s safe at night
From Motor City, where there is no sun.

A tangent on his disdain for American Idol:
Once I get that reality TV hate flowing through my veins, I'm hard to stop. I make Simon Cowell look like Joel Osteen. Speaking of, here's some reality I'd love to see on my television screen: Simon Cowell and Joel Osteen fight to the death! One's a Christian self-help guru, the other is British!

Prefacing the new Features record review with a quick, well-known history lesson:
To their credit, it was a rather unsavory proposition: cover "All You Need Is Love" for a credit card commercial. John Lennon would roll over in his grave and puke up a bullet. Naturally, Nada Surf picked up that blank check and ran, dreadlocked twat bassist and all.

Radio Show Playlist - 07.17.08

Another week... another radio show. Apologies if we offended any of the following groups of people: Hippies, Trust Fund Hippies, Black Folks, White People, De Novo Dahl, Matt's Girlfriend, The FCC. Thanks.

Stream them jams from July 17th

De Novo Dahl - Shake Down (Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound)
The Lonely Hearts - Nightingale (Born In The Dark)
Coral Castles - Ring Out Sing Out (the Corpse and the Cake)
The Features - God Save Rock & Roll (unreleased)
The Clutters - Radio (Don't Believe a Word)
Mean Tambourines - That's What I Said (from myspace)
And The Relatives - Cowboy Jazz (Below and Above)
Nite Nite - Hello, I'm Melancholic (Nite Nite EP)
Silver Jews - Candy Jail (Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea)
The Selmanaires - Broken Mirrors in the Mud (Lake Fever Sessions)
The Explorer's Club - Don't Forget The Sun (Freedom Wind)
Michael Harrell - The End (Greeting from the Village)
Mother Father - Blue Flux (Mother/Father)
The Pink Spiders - Gimme Chemicals (Sweat It Out)
Glossary - Chase Me Out of The Dark (The Better Angels of Our Nature)
Lifeboy - Rich Girls (Garage Rock Operas)
My Tyger - It Can't Be You (unreleased)
Kindercastle - Don Quixote (Kindercastle)
The Features - The Drawing Board (Some Kind of Salvation)
Howlies - Don't Taze Me Bro (Lake Fever Sessions)
Stories that Live - Lucky at Cards (unreleased)
Eureka Gold - Cannons of Dixie (unreleased)
Gringo Star - Guevon (Absolutely)
Joe Mormann - The Way It Was (unreleased)
How I Became the Bomb - Minute Romance (Let's Go!)
The Alcohol Stuntband - The Sheik (The Alcohol Stuntband)
John Davis - I Need Someone (Arigato!)
Cuttlefish - Crowdog (Marble)
We Were the States - Girl, You're Not a Thief (Believe the Thieves)
Hotpipes - The Future is Where We Belong (Future Bolt)
Meemaw - Blue in the Blacklight (Glass Elevator)

Radio Show Playlist - 07.10.08

Go ahead and tune into last week's show since they'll be a new one up in about 48 hours.

Stream the July 10th Indie Ghetto, son

Here's the playlist...
Glossary - Shout If From the Rooftop (The Better Angels of Our Nature)
The Lonely Hearts - Nightingale (Born In the Dark)
Tommy & The Whale - Blackout (Shot the Moon)
The Protomen - Unrest in the House of Light (The Protomen)
The Nobility - The Mezzanine (The Mezzanine)
The Privates - One Piece (Barricades)
Roman Candle - You Don't Belong to this World (The Wee Hours Review)
The Modern Station - Long Over Due (home demo)
Sam Ashworth - No Room (unreleased)
Repent or Forever Be Damned - The Last Thing I Gave Away (Repent or Forever Be Damned)
The Features - The Gates of Hell (Some Kind of Salvation)
The Jane Shermans - Popular Music Social Condition (Popular Music Social Condition)
Wes SP8 - Please (Please EP)
John Davis - Watch Me Walk Away Again (Arigato!)
Cuttlefish - Sanducky (Marble)
Coral Castles - Phatic, Static, Magic! (the Corpse and the Cake)
D Striker - Broken Strings Again (I Can Handle It)
Nite Nite - Amongst The Tenants (Nite Nite EP)
Kindercastle - Don Quixote (Kindercastle)
Magic Wands - Black Magic (Magic Love and Dreams)
The Silver Jews - Party Barge (Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea)
Ghostfinger - Let It Ride Real (unreleased)
Meemaw - Blue in the Blacklight (Glass Elevator)
Glossary - Blood In the Knobs (The Better Angels of our Nature)
The Howlies - Baby Shake (Unreleased Lake Fever Sessions)
Tristen - Eager For Your Love (Teardrops & Lollipops)
Apollo Up! - Heartbreak of Victory (Walking Papers)
Orange in Circles - Tall Favors (unreleased demo

Godspeed Glossary

Tonight's the night to come say bon voyage to Glossary as they embark on a 5 1/2 week tour with their buddies from the west side of the state, Lucero. They'll be riding the highways and byways of this beautiful nation of ours, coast-to-coast spreading the Gospel, saving souls, and blessing the huddled masses. Come out to the Cannery this evening to give them their hugs and handshakes and wish them well on their journey. And if you still haven't done so, go download their masterpiece The Better Angles of Our Nature for free. It's a gem.

So Godspeed dearest Glossary. You guys are the real deal - the truest of the true - and we all know it. Go forth and spread thy word. You shall be missed in the mean time.

Radio Show Playlist - 07.03.08 (plus last week's)

A big thanks to Josiah Holland of The Lonely Hearts for slumming it with us in the Ghetto for the first hour. Be sure to swing by 12th & Porter tonight (Saturday July 5th) for their big EP release show. $10 gets you in along with a copy of their stellar new disc, Born in the Dark.

Stream this week's show via Real Player, playa

John Davis - I Need Someone (Arigato!)
The Lonely Hearts - Nightingale (Born In the Dark)
The Jane Shermans - Young & Hungry (Popular Music Social Condition)
Kyle Andrews - Blow It Out (Real Blasty)
Red White Blue - Good Morning (Red White Blue)
The Lonely Hearts - Born In the Dark (Born In the Dark)
The Lonely Hearts - My Last Goodbye (Born In the Dark)
Superdrag - Slow to Speak Slow to Anger (4 track demo) (unreleased)
Ricky Young - Acoustic Guitars (Learn to Steal)
Thad Cockrell - Pride (Won't Get Us Where We're Going) (To Be Loved)
Apollo Up! - Heartbreak of Victory (Walking Papers)
The Nobility - The Mezzanine (The Mezzanine)
Kindercastle - Violet (Kindercastle)
The Raconteurs - Old Enough (Bonnaroo Backstage 2008)
This Modern Station - Long Over Due (unreleased home demos)
Pico vs Island Trees - Love Again (Love Again)
And The Relatives - Cowboy Jazz (Below and Above)
Cheap Time - Glitter & Gold (Cheap Time)
Mean Tambourines - That's What She Said ( unreleased)
The Cable Company - Beached Whale (Syndication)
The Cancer Bullets - My Maxine (Jesus Says Relax)
Eureka Gold - Cannons of Dixie (unreleased)

..and since I neglected to post last week's playlist, here you go. Better late than never, right?

Apollo Up! - The Heartbreak of Victory (Walking Papers)
Hotpipes - Born in a Bomb (Future Bolt)
Cheap Time - Too Late (Cheap Time)
The Mattoid - Suicide (Glory Holy)
Roman Candle - You Don't Belong to This World (Wee Hours Review)
Kindercastle - Violet (Kindercastle)
Pico vs Island Trees - Malibu
The Clutters - Radio (Don't Believe A Word)
Meemaw - Original Sin (Glass Elevator)
Mother Father - The Youngest God (unreleased)
Shoot the Mountain - My Little Girl (Jigsaw Mountain)
Norhtridge Rangers - The Thing (Electric Shoes)
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges (Evil Urges)
Eureka Gold - Cannons of Dixie (unreleased)
Gringo Star - Guevon (Absolutely)
Lehning Brothers - You Be The Pawn (Make Out With Violence)
The Glib - Mentor (Why Not Just Love Me Dr. Hoopty - demo)
Eureka Gold - Red Still (Eureka Gold)
Ocelots - Psychotic Mood Right Now (If Lightning Strikes Us Both)
D. Striker - Last Resort (I Can Handle It)
Cuttlefish - Sandusky (Marble)
Wes Sp8 - Please (Behind My Back)
Kink Ador - Little Sister (Get Lucky)
Ricky Young - Poor You (Learn to Steal)
Tristen - Heart and Hope to Die (Teardrops & Lollipops)
The Explorers Club - Forever (Freedom Wind)
Howlies - Poison Ivy (unreleased Lake Fever session)
13 Ghosts - Riverside (Lost and Found)
Pink Spiders - Sleeping on the Floor (Sweat it Out)
Tommy and the Whale - Brothers (Shot The Moon)
Orange in Circles - My Shaker Mover (unreleased)

Today's Radio Show

Hey gang. Go ahead and block off this afternoon from 1:00 - 3:00 for another installment of Indie Ghetto. We'll be welcoming Josiah Holland of The Lonely Hearts (that's him on the right up there) into the WRVU studios to chat about his band's forthcoming EP, Born in the Dark. They're celebrating its proper release this Saturday at 12th & Porter along with Red White Blue & Courtney Jaye.

Get your fix on the FM dial - 91 on the 1 - or online at wrvu.org. Feel free to hit us up with any requests of the local and regional nature: 615.421.7625 or 615.322.7625.