I think what I love most about this soundtrack is that it really is the perfect fit for the film. It travels through time like Austin Powers himself, beginning with the delicious 90s Brit Pop gem by Edwyn Collin’s, The Magic Piper (Of Love), and weaves into songs like the psychedelic classic, “Incense and Peppermints” by Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Before this idea of musical time traveling ever influenced me as a musician, I was just a pre-teen with an unusual affinity for an era I had never personally experienced, but desperately wanted to. I was living in Boulder, Colorado, but visiting my family in Southern California one summer and can still remember walking into the store, handing over the (only) $12 in my wallet, ripping off the shrink-wrap, and marrying myself to that CD for the next few hours driving down Highway 1, catching the light from the setting sun glimmering off the Santa Monica Pier. It’s still one of my perfect memories and probably the precise reason why my love of 60s styles, 90s pop, and California culture all seem to come from the same place.

Resulting from a combination of “analog” and “robot,” Anabot is the product of a dualism, of sorts. Crafted by Analise Nelson, she calls her experiment a “pop time machine with a rock engine.” Danceable yet driving, the end result is music that manages to transcend time itself, blending electronic pop with 60s Brit and surf rock. Can’t get enough electro-pop? Anabot releases her self-titled debut just in time to kickstart your summer jams. Be on the look out for it June 12th.

I took it home, unwrapped the package, put the CD in my stereo, and took out the booklet to read along while listening. I was hooked. The first notes of “Purple Haze” played. It felt magical and mysterious. Then “All Along the Watchtower” with its powerful, driving power chords and lyrical guitar solos. I felt like the universe had unveiled a great secret for me.

From Jimi I worked backwards. He was my gateway record. I tried to uncover all the blues greats who helped shaped Jimi’s style, from Albert King to Robert Johnson, and continuing backward to early delta blues. And it led me to Bob Dylan. I consider that purchase to be one of the most influential moments in my early musical life.

Nick Africano‘s brand new album The Butterfly Bull is a story about collaborations and the exploration of contradictions. About baseball and art. Love and loss. Dark yet hopeful. And it’s a story about Africano’s ability to pair some of the best elements of folk and soul with superb storytelling and raw passion.

1. Jodorowsky‘s Holy Mountain 

A film about a film, at heart, an idealistic pursuit of happiness via the machinations of a flesh-driven multi-linguist; the film itself as much of a trip as one can take through sacred texts and redefinitions of a sort of human atavism, a return to form, as it were, with just enough of a biological imperative to demand a like reflective reasoning process of its viewers (turn the lens on the lens as it lies).

While the consumption of organic matter with hallucinogenic properties is not explicitly recommended, the characters in which froth at the mouth and hurtle through dirt and earth which makes me cradle the thought of my…

2. Dove-brand(R) White Beauty Bar

Soap, which is the reason that I smell the way I do; Dove-brand(R) White Beauty Bars are composed of one-quarter pure (here undefined) moisturizing cream and are made mostly (that is to say the other 75%) from tallow, and but then washing oneself with the byproduct of another animal is a sort of comforting assurance of interspecies dominance anyway, a like 15 extra minutes of fame, which in the long run will not turn out to be a long run at all, and in any case in the mean time I’m willing to sacrifice a kinda sense of ecological awareness in favor of silky-smooth skin and a neutral, pleasant odor, which, with regard to the external world on which I unwittingly project things like smell, I’m obliged to dedicate a portion of my daily reverence to…

3. LensCrafters(R)

For engineering and manufacturing corrective lenses, which, when installed in a plastic frame, sit snugly on my head and at a comfortable distance from my eyes via three contact points (left ear, right ear, bridge of nose) and bend wavelengths of light such that objects are registered as sharply in-focus, the measurement of which directly correlates to functions of navigation, information processing, non-verbal communication, etc. (q.v. Marr, D. (1982). Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.), which, in any case, does not necessarily coincide with any factors of my personal decision to pursue a career as a musician, though I feel a responsibility to admit my fascination with Elvis Costello and the style of eyewear for which he is most known.

Conveyor is a Brooklyn-based music project spawned by the fated juncture of a wandering tarot of musicians in Gainesville, FL. Was it kismet or perhaps a primordial summon which led these gentlemen purveyors of sound to individually tune in and migrate North to the bustling seductress known as New York City? Their retort is Sun Ray, a debut EP birthed and released in the warm embrace of Spring 2011.

Brimming with lucid, homey synths layered over acoustic guitars and harmonious vocals, they channel extraterrestrial bible-thumpers drenched in love, spouting acid-soaked pop unabashed to beam with the simultaneous embrace of life/death realities backed by a polyrhythmic, pulsing backdrop. A decidedly grand task indeed, and following a string of self-released, handmade EPs, they are releasing their debut full-length album in 2012 with Brooklyn’s Paper Garden Records, a testament to our nature and the nature of ourselves.

It was Christmas of ‘94. My Dad’s couch was littered with balls of crumpled up newspaper comics (I always assumed that the Christmas elves were avid New York Times readers) as I unwrapped a stack of what would be the Genesis of my CD collection.

CrazySexyCool was the first to free itself out of the annoying constraints of its plastic and sticky-taped binding and into my CD player. Before this, TLC only came by way of bittersweet seconds of radio play while my Mom would browse stations for Garth Brooks. At eight years old, I was confident that I was ready to kick it like the girls who sat in the back of the bus and sink my baby teeth into songs that had more substance than Raffi’s, Banana Phone. Priding myself as an observant kid, I noticed that even though the overall sexual subject matter of CrazySexyCool wasn’t something I could completely understand or even understand that I couldn’t completely understand it, that didn’t stop me from drawing a line in sharpie under my right eye (because I thought it was my left) and singing about the importance of water safety (don’t go chasing waterfalls) to my generic beanie babies.

kayln rock comes from Hudson, New York, a small town just north of New York City. She grew up in the house her grandfather was raised in. She recalls, “When I was young, my Dad would play Buddy Holly songs for me on his guitar. “I would dance on top of his feet as he held my hands listening to The Police.” She went to SUNY Purchase, planning to write for the screen and stage. It was while attending a filmmaking course in Maine, the summer of 2008, that she picked up her friend’s guitar and the songs began to pour out of her. “I think it was a creative domino effect of sorts. If I hadn’t decided to branch out and study film that summer, I don’t think I would have found the confidence to express myself through songwriting.”

rock’s latest album Passenger is available through iTunes and other online vendors starting in January of 2012. The album is also for sale her website www.kaylnrock.com. Fans can also check out her out on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and read up on the day-to-day happenings of a 25 year-old hopeful romantic that writes songs and plays shows.

Lucero is known as a rowdy and raucous bar band, one that will play your requests and then close the bar down with you after the show.  They’re the hometown boys that made good and they spend most of their time on the road playing shows and “ambassadorizing” Memphis.

Their live performances are legendary and continue to be a huge part of their appeal to their fans. And we love a good, loud and drunk rock show just as much as the next person! But we’ve also had the pleasure of seeing  singer/songwriter Ben Nichols and pianist/organist Rick Steff play in more intimate settings over the last few years and that’s been a pretty special experience too. We set out to capture one of those performances this afternoon at Ardent Studios. We are pretty happy with the results.

Tonight is The Lucero Family Barbecue at The Hi-Tone. The band will be going on a 8PM, so be sure to get there early. We have a feeling that it will be jam-packed since this show will be subbing for a record release party for their latest album, Women & Work. We hear there are free hot dogs if you get there when the doors open at 5PM.

Women & Work is a love letter from Lucero to its hometown, Memphis, Tennessee. “Having a band in Memphis puts you in a tradition,” says Lucero frontman Ben Nichols. “We started at punk rock shows, not necessarily playing punk rock, but coming from the outside, from a bohemian place.”

The bohemian tradition is just as strong in Memphis as the city’s series of international hits. The popularity of Sun, Stax, Elvis, and Al Green doesn’t diminish the influence of the blues, Jim Dickinson, and Alex Chilton. The bridge between the shadows and the spotlight has become the heart of Lucero: Unafraid to mix pop with their anti-pop, they always charge into new territory.

As punks, Lucero were masters of restraint, with country music beer stains dribbled down the front of their shirts. As whiskey-soaked bohemians, they didn’t shy from sweeping Americana tableaus. And then they added an accordion. “When we started, we were building on a foundation we weren’t aware of,” says guitarist Brian Venable. “Listening back to our early stuff, we hear ourselves reference the old Sun Records. We didn’t hear it or feel it then, but we hear it and feel it now.”

We already know that we are lucky to host so many fantastic artists here on The Warm Up – but sometimes we have to pinch ourselves when we realize just how lucky. Today was one of those days.

We invited not one, but two extremely gift songwriters to come hang out with us this afternoon: Garrison Starr and David Berkeley are old friends currently on tour with each other so we were very excited when they agreed to stop by and play some songs for us. As a matter of fact, after we dropped the invitation John Fry was quick to tell us that Garrison actually used to work at Ardent many moons ago. Small world, huh?

Don’t miss them  at the Hi-Tone tonight sharing funny stories and maybe playing a little bit of music :) Check out our podcast to hear some songs!. Plus we talk about their latest releases, why this is the best Garrison Starr record yet, writing books on the island of Corsica and what both musicians will be up to the rest of the year (#PREVIEW: David will be heading back in September to play Memphis again!)

Read the Bio:

Not so long ago, Garrison Starr hit the road supporting Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Melissa Etheridge. No surprise, then, that she’s learned a thing or two about crafting a great story. Starr regularly pinches a sleight of hand or passing sound bite and turns it into a rich character assessment.

The Mississippi native struck a major chord on 2002′s hallmark Songs From Take-Off to Landing. Breezy tunes like “Big Sky”, “At the Heart of This Thing” and “Knucklehead” brought together the independent integrity of Triple-A radio and the polished smile typically aimed at mainstream play. Everything internal-head, heart and hope-worked on a universal scale. The liner notes photo accompanying her acknowledgments spoke volumes: Captured screaming jubilantly, Starr, both hands locked with heavy-metal horns, seems through the clouds. It was a profound high.

In the years since, Starr has made the road her home and garnered a passionate and loyal following. From her adopted home of Los Angeles to NYC, Nashville to Miami – Starr has crisscrossed the country and continued to entrench herself as a sure fire draw in the indie pop / rock space. Ever the media darling, Starr’s focus has never been on their fickle pen, but turned instead to a direct relationship with her fans. Many offer adoration specifically for her consistency, and Starr’s genuine, earthy songwriting approach makes it easy to keep rooting-fists clenched and shaking for more artistic evolution. Her songs seem effortless, absolutely unselfconscious and suggest the next time out she might reach the sky again.

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David Berkeley was born David Berkeley Friedland in September 1976. His parents chose to give him the middle name of Berkeley (which he later picked as his stage name) after having lived in the Californian city of the same name in the 1960s before moving to New Jersey.

David started showing a passion for singing while still in nursery school, having attended a musical school. Because of this he had his first experience of singing on stage at the age of three or four.  Also when he was four, the woman taking care of him was an Avon saleswoman; she would bring him with her while going door to door, and he would sing to her potential customers. In an interview he credits receiving cookies and applause for singing “that song about the Titanic sinking” (likely “The Titanic“) as an early experience of positive feedback. His parents helped him nurture his passion for music by taking him to several Broadway shows, and was usually selected as the leading vocalist in high school musicals. Initially he played tuba, and did not start to play guitar until the age of 15 when he would perform songs by Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Grateful Dead ”mostly to get girls”.

He graduated from Harvard with degrees in literature and philosophy. During his time there he used to busk in Harvard Square; in the same period he started writing songs ”to win (his) girlfriend back”.

David Berkeley lived in Alaska, where he contributed to the Let’s Go Alaska travel guide; Idaho, where he was a river-rafting guide; Santa Fe, where he worked for Outside magazine; Santa Cruz; Brooklyn (New York), teaching creative writing in a public school in an impoverished area; Atlantaand Tralonca, a small village in Corsica, while his wife worked on her PhD in anthropology.^[10]

While living in Santa Fe, David Berkeley managed a local band. This, in his own words, got him “excited about the music business”. It was only after this band broke up that he decided to record his own music.

He decided to become a full-time musician while he was teaching in Brooklyn, as having a double career was taking its toll on his voice and his private life.

He presently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Sarah and sons Jackson and Noah.

I turned it over again.

“Mannish Boy.” “Gypsy Woman.” “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had.”

I fished the crumpled ten-dollar bill out of my pocket, and handed it to the lady at the register.

“This it, honey?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Christmas money, probably. Maybe birthday. (It would’ve been my 11th.) Probably from Aunt Myrt, or maybe Uncle Bill.

There in the backseat, I bit off the corner of the cellophane, and tore off the rest. I cracked it open, pulled out the tape, and stuck it in the Walkman.

It crackled first. I remember the crackle. It sounded like smoke looks. Like barbecue smells. The guitar tickled my ear, the way that gnats and sweat conspire to do in the summertime. I think I blushed. Like I’d heard a dirty joke within earshot of my parents, or like somebody had called me a name. And that voice. It was kind of like the old black gospel music I’d heard. But far simpler. Cruder. Tougher. Sadder. Not pretty enough for the choir loft, I imagined. And there were all those grown-ups yelling and carrying on in the background. Drinking, surely. Cigarettes, too.

The language was familiar. The kinds of words and cadences that rolled out from between the lips of older folks, black and white both, around Birmingham. The kind that the old men in their perfectly creased ball caps and shirts, necks and noses burned deep red or deep black, would use at the Krispy Kreme or on the bleachers at the ballpark. But this man wasn’t cutting up and talking about football, or city politics, or fishing, or church, or carburetors, or old so-and-so, or whatever grown men were supposed to cut up and talk about. He was talking about crying, and being lonely, and drinking, and mean women, and drowning, and dying.

But he wasn’t complaining. I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t complaining, but it wasn’t. Complaining, of course, was something that a man didn’t do. There was just something about the way he sang, the words he chose, the way he spat them out, that sounded like he was daring — like he was BEGGING — the first dumb sumbitch to come forward and tell him he was whining. He’d earned his stripes, and there was something in the earning that was far worse, far more horrible, than anything that could be slung at him again.

Even then, I knew that whatever I was experiencing as a weird longhaired white middle-class boy at a Christian school in Birmingham was pretty far removed from whatever Muddy Waters had endured up to the point he sang “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had.” But, still, listening to that tape, watching the strip malls blur into pine trees through the backseat window, I heard that there was a certain power in putting your heart on your sleeve. And that, once you got the nerve to put it there, there wasn’t a soul that could take it from you.

Sun. May 6th LEE BAINS III & THE GLORY FIRES w/ LUCERO, Dirty Streets 5-10pm at The Hi-Tone, 1913 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN (901) 278-8663 $20 18+ 

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The title of LEE BAINS III AND THE GLORY FIRES’ debut album comes from Bains mishearing an old hymn as a child. In the soft accents of his elders around Birmingham, Alabama, “There is a balm in Gilead” sounded a lot like “There is a bomb.” It fits, really. The Glory Fires learned to construct music in the churches of their childhoods, and learned to destroy it in the punk clubs of their youths.

As much Wilson Pickett as Fugazi, as much the Stooges as the Allman Brothers, Birmingham, Alabama’s Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires have brought rock’n'roll to bear on their own experience and their own place. On ‘THERE IS A BOMB IN GILEAD,’ they deconstruct the music of the Deep South, strip it down and reassemble it, to make a righteous ruckus that sits at the vanguard of the vernacular.

In 2008, shortly after returning to Birmingham from college in New York, Lee Bains fell in with the Dexateens, a Tuscaloosa institution whose raggedy union of cock-eyed rebel pride and forward-thinking fury proved to be the perfect apprenticeship for a confused Southern boy, raised on Skynyrd and schooled in Faulkner. After Bains had played with the band for a couple or three years, a couple or three hundred shows, the Dexateens came to a reluctant end. Bains found himself off the road, back in Birmingham, without a band. He also found himself with a passel of powerful songs sitting somewhere between buzzsaw garage, classic power-pop and sweating country-soul. Casting his nets in central Alabama’s rock’n'roll clubs, Bains assembled the Glory Fires: drummer Blake Williamson (Black Willis, Taylor Hollingsworth, Dan Sartain), bass player Justin Colburn (Model Citizen, Arkadelphia), and guitar player Matt Wurtele. Chugging along with a fierce Muscle Shoals vibe, the Glory Fires brought a sense of urgency to Bains’s drawling, howling voice.

After tracking some demos under the powerful guidance of Texas punk pioneer Tim Kerr (Big Boys, Poison 13, Now Time Delegation) and a few months of shows, the Glory Fires traveled to Water Valley, Mississippi to record the tracks for their debut LP ‘There Is a Bomb in Gilead’ at Dial Back Sound with engineer Lynn Bridges (Quadrajets, Jack Oblivian, Thomas Function). The songs were mixed in Detroit, at Ghetto Recorders by Jim Diamond (The Dirtbombs, The New Bomb Turks, Outrageous Cherry). It is there — in that Mississippi grease and Detroit grit — that ‘There Is a Bomb in Gilead’ sits, fuse lit, ready to go.

We had a great time hanging out with Beth Bombara and her band, which included husband Kit and brother-in-law JJ and regular touring partner Karl Eggers, this afternoon. We went to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music (RIP Skipp Pitts), grabbed a sandwich at Kwik Check (Memphis’ worst kept secret), and then kicked it old school in Studio B at Ardent (setting up around Jody Stephens‘ drum set, which you’ll see in the video –  since he has been practicing non-stop for his upcoming show in London). We were a little crowded, but when you take a listen you’ll hear that the entire set still came out sounding awesome!

The band drove in from St. Louis to spend the day soaking  up some Memphis soul before heading west to tour for the next few weeks. We think they might make a few fans along the way…

So, take a listen to the podcast – we kick things off with three stripped down songs and then we chat with Beth and her band about what national monuments they plan on visiting on this tour, the idea of recording in ghost towns, and of course, when she’ll start work on her new record. Tonight Bombara will join forces with The Memphis Dawls at The Buccaneer to play one of those shows that we’re sure people will be saying they were at, even if they weren’t. See you there?

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Having independently released two successful EPs and, most recently, a full length album on vinyl, Beth Bombara is now more wanderer than “wonderer”. A Grand Rapids, MI native and current St. Louis resident, Beth has developed her signature sound over the past decade, drawing inspiration from not only her favorite rock, blues, and folk musicians but also from the places she’s lived in and toured through over the years, first as a member of Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers and then as a solo artist.

Beth has steadfastly grown into her identity as a strong musician first and foremost, loath to be categorized as another delicate female singer-songwriter. Beth’s versatility in live performances and multi-instrumental chops make her much more than just another “girl with a guitar”.

Beth’s most recent project is a solo album that she recorded at her home studio with husband Kit Hamon. The songs on this album are a blend of folk, alt-country, and indie-rock that sounds equally fitting alongside Hank Williams, Sr. and Neil Young as it does Neko Case and the Breeders.

Beth currently lives in St. Louis, MO. In addition to performing her own music, she makes up one half of the duo “Cassie Morgan and the Lonely Pine“, and plays guitar/keys in the pop rock band “Old Lights”.

Personally, we wanted to check her out after we read that the Canadian-born singer, whose voice has been described as a blend of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris, had moved to Tennessee.  That sounded right up our alley and we were not disappointed! She’s going to be on the road with SD and The Toadies for the rest of the month, we highly recommend the show, if you can get a ticket. Check out this excerpt form her sound check last night …

Here’s the Bio:

Biography

Some of the songs are included for obvious reasons while others actually soundtracked events that could be described using the playlist title. Click to Stream:

1. “A Feeling” – Throwing Muses

Throwing Muses taught me not to be afraid to use the insanity stuff from my life in my songs. “A Feeling” has about it a twitchy, but sinewy sensibility that lends itself to near-obsession.
2. “On Doing An Evil Deed Blues” – John Fahey

The title of this John Fahey track says it all for me. “On Doing an Evil Deed Blues”. His playing on this early version is so half-broken sounding that you want to break down.

3. “Summertime Suidice #2″ – David Donedero

Summertime in the south is a time of stickiness and heat, and bug noises and more heat. That kind of weather makes a lot of folks feel slow and dreamy, but David Dondero‘s lilting number makes me think of how I’d just about lose my cool trying to think of a way to calm down in that nearly stifling atmosphere.

4. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – Tommy James and The Shondells

In almost the same way, the utterly placid, groovy feel of this Tommy James song in particular makes me want to tear my hair out every time I hear it. It is this very quality of calmness about it that unsettles me so.

5. “Seasons in the Sun” – Terry Jacks

“Seasons in the Sun” might be the best song to throw a total foot-stomping, screaming-at-the-sky kind of “Losing It” party over, ever.

6. “Gloomy Sunday” – Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday” caused so many people to crack up when it first came out that it was practically feared, and it can definitely throw me into a tailspin.

7. “Key Lime Pie” - Camper Van Beethoven

I think Camper Van Beethoven’s “Key Lime Pie” album is a journey through all kinds of American insanity, and the intro track sets up the rest of the album with this mournful tic of a tune.

8. “Teachers” – Leonard Cohen

I picked up a cassette copy of Songs of Leonard Cohen from a spinning display rack on a truck stop counter in the midst of a cross-country meltdown and immediately memorized the lyrics to “Teachers” and set out to learn to play that guitar figure.

9. “Sister Jean” -Rachel Taylor Brown

Much of Rachel Taylor Brown’s music has an on-edge quality to it that makes her one of my favorites, and on “Sister Jean” she really lets you have it. If you don’t at first get why this one is included in this playlist, take a moment to check out the lyrics.

10. ”Rage Over a Lost Penny”  - Beethoven

This Beethoven piece is parenthetically title “Rage Over a Lost Penny” and we all know how money can drive one mad, especially when it is missing.

11. ”96 Tears” – ? & The Mysteries

Finally I think that maybe “96 Tears” is the sound of a band having a collective nervous breakdown on tape, and if you don’t agree with that, the repeated organ motif will cause you to have one yourself if you listen for long enough.

Michael The Blind is Michael Levasseur, a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist living in Portland, Oregon. Think Leonard Cohen, but not so low. Elliott Smith, but not so high. Suzanne Vega, but not so female. John Fahey when acoustic, Paul Westerberg when electric. A lyrical style that is both e.e. cummings and Mother Goose. Following up three solo albums and countless shows performed at bars, markets, coffeehouses, basements and festivals throughout the nation, the new Michael The Blind album Are’s & Els (recorded at San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone and featuring the Magik*Magik Orchestra and Levasseur’s newly formed band The Els) will be released by Alder Street Records on June 5th.