Middle Brother

Middle Brother is collaboration between Deer Tick's John McCauley, Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith, and Delta Spirit frontman Matt Vasquez which debuted as MG&V at the 2010 South by Southwest music gathering.  The groups self titled full length will be out on March 1st, but they've already given everyone a sneak peek at a couple of tracks which display the nice range of sounds we might expect from this record.

The between-the-sheets sweetness of "Daydreaming" nicely clashes with the slammed piano keys and dissonant guitar solo in "Me, Me, Me" .

While all of these players blend a mixture of American roots influences in their individual projects, it will be interesting to see how the Laurel Canyon folk pop influences of Goldsmith mix with the harder edges of McCauley and the foot stomping fun of Vasquez. 

 

Middle Brother - "Me, Me, Me" by crawdaddy

Check out the full tracklisting for the new album and the bands upcoming tour dates.

Twitter Record Reviews

Christopher Weingarten is a music critic who has worked for some of the heavy hitters of music journalism like Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and Revolver just to name a few.  In 2009, in a speech at the 140 Characters Conference (a gathering to "provide a platform for the worldwide twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business") Weingarten discussed his new project.

For all of 2009, he would review 1,000 albums as twitter posts, i.e. in 140 characters or less which everyone can follow @1000TimesYes.  He then went on to bemoan the state of music criticism in this age of the internet and bloggers and leaked albums and lots of other things in a expletive laced rant which I don't really agree with as a whole, but he makes some good points.

The interesting part for me was the idea to say something meaningful, insightful and essential about a full album of music in just 140 characters (that includes punctuation, spaces, etc. and you've gotta get the band name and album in there).

So inspired by his example, and giving credit to his idea, I'm gonna try a few of these out which will be posted and tweeted shortly.  I'm going to call them 140 Character Record Reviews so look out for that title.  Try out one of your own on a record you know well and see how satisfied you are with the results.

Check out Weingarten's full speech below.

Round-Up (Not the Weed Killer)

It seems like its been a busy year for music in 2011 already.

We've already seen the re-emergence of Lauryn Hill (to mixed reviews), a new Britney Spears track, and a the news of a full length Kanye West and Jay-Z collaboration.

As if that wasn't enough, here's a couple more stories that are making my radar this week.

- Check out a new song from Telekenesis - "You Turn Clear in The Sun" from new album 12 Desparate Straight Lines coming out on February 15th.

- The Black Keys dirtied up SNL this past Saturday, 1/8, to everyone's enjoyment.  Don't bother cleaning up.

- Okkervil River played a new song "Wake and Be Fine" (with A.C. Newman from The New Porographers) on Tuesday's Jimmy Fallon from what we now know is a new LP entitled I Am Very Far, due for release on May 10th.

- Iron & Wine debuted their new album at The Greene Space at WNYC by playing a live set that included most of the new songs off the album and the single they released for Black Friday Record Store Day.  Watch or listen to the full set over at NPR.

- Also, check out a full list of musical guests on this week's late night talk shows here.

I Taste Your Beer

Well, actually I don't taste your beer.  But Hagan Blount will.

I Taste Your Beer is a new site that just launched where Hagan tries out a beer a day, gives a complete rundown on the beer vitals, suggests food pairings, and posts some great photo and video - to help us all uncover the great craft brews out there.

Check in to find out about beers you might not know of and maybe learn more about some you do.

Cheers.

21 Records to Look Forward to in 2011

 21. Kid Sister - Kiss Kiss Kiss mixtape 
       Release Date:  1/11

20. Amos Lee - Mission Bell
      Release Date: 1/25 
      (Listen to "El Camino") 

19. Talib Kweli - Gutter Rainbows 
      Release Date: 1/25 
      (Listen to "Cold Rain")  

18. The Cave Singers - No Witch
      Release Date: 2/22
 
17. The Decemberists - The King is Dead
      Release Date: 1/18
      (Listen to the entire album via NPR First Listen until the release date.)

16. North Mississippi All-Stars - Keys to the Kingdom
      Release Date: 2/1
      (Listen to "Hear the Hills")

15. Ryan Adams - TBA
      Still a rumor, but we're all hopeful right after the new year.

14. Bon Iver - TBA
      Wishful thinking.

13. Drive-By-Truckers - Go-Go Boots 
      Release Date: 2/15 
      (Listen to "Used to be a Cop")

12. Umphrey's McGee - TBA 
      Release Date: TBA
      (Get "Wellwishers" here.) 

11. Jay Electonica - TBA
      Maybe...with help from Jay-Z and Roc Nation. 
      (Listen to "Shiny Suit Theory")

10. Flaming Lips - TBA 
      Release Date: TBA

9. Radiohead - TBA 
    Yes, it matters.  

8. Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi - TBA 
    Speculation at this point but with The Derek Trucks Band officially on hiatus, a website dedicated to the
    project, and tour dates together in 2010 and more in 2011 already on the schedule, don't be surprised to 
    see something from Derek & Susan out this year.

7. Cake - Showroom of Compassion
    Release Date:  1/11
    (Listen to the promo by the band here.) 

6. Smith Westerns - Dye it Blond
    Release Date:  1/18
    (Listen to "Weekend")

5. Fleet Foxes - TBA

4. Bright Eyes - The People's Key
    Release Date:  2/15
    (Listen to "Shell Games")  

3. Wye Oak - Civilian
    Release Date: 3/8 
    (Listen to "Civilian") 

2. Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean 
    Release Date: 1/25
    (Listen to "Walking Far From Home")

1. The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh
    Release Date: 2/22
    (Listen to "Apothecary" ["Apothecary Love" on the new record])