Mumfords, Magnetics, & Old Crow: This Train Is Bound For New Orleans
April 19, 2011
If anyone doubted the popular resilience of acoustic roots music within mainstream rock, Mumford and Sons ended the debate for now for with their top-selling record, with their recent performances on the Grammies and at Coachella.
This spring, like a gang itinerant preachers, the West London quartet that reinvented gritty Americana with a touch of British posh have hitched themselves to the train of a literal revival. Opening this Thursday on the West Coast and taking six days to reach New Orleans, the Railroad Revival Tour brings a triple bill that adds two artists of a similar disposition: Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.
Addressing attendees on the tour website as “fans, friends, railroad enthusiasts, hobos, drifters and saints,” the deep vintage nostalgia caravan shows only a thimble of resemblance to the Joplin and Dead 1970 Canadian railway hippy chaos immortalized on the film Festival Express.
In this far-flung, fast-paced, fragmented culture, hardcore music fans form a devout intelligentsia, willing to travel long distances and squander significant quantities of cash in search of life’s deeper meaning. This tour reaches this demographic like a perfect, sacred parchment of the super-authentic, as the postman delivers by hand our souvenir tickets resembling railroad vouchers and embossed with the 3D-effect of novelty-store postcards.
With music as soulful as America’s imagined spirit of the early 20th century, these artists have loaded all our collective dreams onto a vision that’s “1,500 feet long and consists of 15 vintage railcars from the 1950s and 60s, pulled by two locomotives.”
The tour’s official announcement explains, “The bands will eat, sleep, and record on the train as they travel across the American Southwest, bringing their collaborative vision to fans from California to New Orleans. The bands will have equal billing and equal time on stage, in an environment that encourages creativity and cross-pollination. The entire tour will be the focus of a documentary that captures the spirit of the journey and gives intimate insights into the creative process.”
With Mumford’s Winston Marshall invoking Woody Guthrie and describing the whole idea as a “glorious disgrace,” fans across the country booked their own travel and scrambled to score tickets to one of the six sold-out shows. Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show explains the tour like this: “It’s bound to be one hell of a steel-wheelin, railroadin good time…while the western country rolls by and the smoke rises blacker than musical notes pouring out of that stoked-up-and-chuggin iron chariot.”
Imagining that a tour just like this will probably never occur again, or will at least need to wait another 40-years (the time since the aforementioned psychedelic train ride across Canada), we’ve decided to disembark from the daily grind for two days and dispatch to New Orleans for the tour’s conclusion. Check back at the end of next week for the report.
–Andrew William Smith, Editor
Visit http://railroadrevivaltour.com/
Nashville’s Long Players To Perform The Joshua Tree On June 4th!
May 31, 2010
Sad about the postponed tour dates? U2 fans in the southeast have a rare opportunity to hear The Joshua Tree performed in its entirety by Nashville’s The Long Players on June 4th at the Cannery Ballroom.
Beginning in 2004 with Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones, The Long Players have worked to revive our collective respect and reverence for that beleaguered and beautiful art form, the rock album, simply known as the LP. Each month, the Players unveil their fresh version of something special, covering everything from the Beatles to The Band, from Led Zeppelin to Aretha Franklin. This will be the group’s first performance of a U2 album.
Guitarist Bill Lloyd explains the Players process as they arrive at each choice: “We pick the records we perform in a democratic fashion. Over the course of six years, we’ve all tried to do albums we all liked. Some more than others, but we try to allow everyone in the band to get their favorites in.”
Although a handful of the choices have seemed more eccentric than others, so far, The Long Players have taken aim at albums that most everyone would recognize as enduring classics. Lloyd observes, “Because we eventually found an audience in Nashville for what we were doing, the popularity of an album has come to be a factor. We’ve done some albums that were personal favorites where the attendance dropped, and we try to keep a balance in our choices.”
Since U2 often skips Tennessee on its big tours but commands a fanbase in the volunteer state, hopefully, the U2 faithful will turn out this Friday to hear an epic and expert interpretation of what many fans argue is U2‘s best record.
Lloyd expects a good turnout this Friday: “We like doing what we we think are great albums, but we also like having a crowd to play to. When we play The Joshua Tree on June 4, it will be the 40th album we’ve done in a public setting since March of 2004.”
Each time out, The Long Players bring in an array of guest vocalists. On Friday, we’re particularly looking forward to hearing Mike Farris on a couple of tracks.
Already fronting his own an amazing gospel-rock shows in Tennessee and around the nation, Farris rocks a look that very much evokes Bono, circa-1987. His voice will work well with any of the tracks, but I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t take lead for the song that Bono’s been using to turn stadiums into churches for two decades now.
In addition to Farris’s Bono, I really look forward to Lloyd’s and other guitarist Steve Allen’s interpretations of Edge’s guitar parts.
The Cannery Ballroom is one of Nashville’s best live rooms where I’ve seen acts like Raconteurs, Of Montreal, and TV On The Radio. It’s hard to imagine seeing U2 there, but The Long Players should fill the space and do this classic album justice. –Andrew William Smith, Editor
The Long Players perform U2′s Joshua Tree. Cannery Ballroom. Nashville. 9:00 PM June 4, 2010. $15 cover, with proceeds in part benefitting The Nashville Musicians Emergency Flood Relief Fund.
Amazing News: One eskimO Launch More US Dates
May 13, 2010
Musically and miraculously, One eskimO occupy a lovely and accessible space reserved for the greats, a layered cake of Britpop and adult-alternative with a clubby frosting. The diverse songs on the debut album purvey a delicate power and delicious pathos, conjuring moods previously offered by likes of The Beatles, Radiohead, or Moby, with a soulful finish that recalls Jimmy Somerville’s work with Bronski Beat.
When One eskimO lead singer Kristian Leontiou described in an interview wanting to make music that’s amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking and filmic, I’m not sure even he anticipated how a song like “Amazing” could become the heartbreakingly beautiful film soundtrack to our lives.
An epic melody carries the lyric of “Amazing” to emotional crescendos as Leontiou croons about a redemptive cosmic oneness that’s both ridiculously corny and achingly sincere. On an already great album, it’s the kind of song that takes it to the next level in ways that embody why “taking it to the next level” has become such a lovely but worn phrase for such carelessly timeless creations.
Based on videos we’ve watched, the live One eskimO shows present a gently intimate ensemble on acoustic instruments, creating a soaring but spare mix that really lets Leontiou’s vocals shine.
After kicking off the festival season a few weeks ago at Coachella, One eskimO continue their US tour well into the summer. The current jaunt features several dates opening for Michael Franti and Spearhead, mixed in with some solo headlining dates in small venues. A young band this promising warrants attention; let’s welcome their warm ambition as we check out these gigs. –Andrew William Smith, Editor
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