American Songwriter

Diamond Rugs: Diamond Rugs

Andrew Leahey — Fri, 25 May 2012 22:37:40 +0000

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Diamond Rugs Diamond Rugs (Partisan) Rating: 3.5 out of 5 There’s a scruffy, liquored-up swagger to Diamond Rugs’ debut album, which might as well have been recorded during an all-night jam session in Hollywood Town Hall, fueled by a molotov cocktail of whiskey, bong hits and a collective appreciation for Sticky Fingers’ faster tracks. John McCauley, frontman of Deer Tick and one third of the singer/songwriter supergroup Middle Brother, is clearly the captain here, but he lets his bandmates take the wheel often, a wise move when you’re fronting a lineup comprised of members from Los Lobos, Dead Confederate, Black Lips and Six Finger Satellite. So, even though Dear Tick’s punky, yowling take on hillbilly country-rock is a close relative to Diamond Rugs’ own sound, it’s more of a first cousin than an identical twin, and the few songs that deviate from the Deer Tick template are some of the album’s most enjoyable. “Country Mile,” a swampy mind-bender sung by Dead Confederate’s Hardy Morris, veers between straightforward Americana and psychedelic blues-rock, and “Hightail” throws a bone to Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin by replicating the clean, good-natured Tex-Mex that his band pioneered during the ‘80s. The guys do the more predictable stuff pretty well, too, from the Bob Dylan-inspired “Blue Mountains” to the scuzzy “Tell Me Why,” which works some Stax-styled horns into the mix. The whole thing feels almost stereotypically masculine -- most of these songs are about getting drunk, hiring prostitutes and/or telling an ex-girlfriend to piss off -- but Diamond Rugs never purport to be anything more than rag-tag, blue-collar guys you’d never take home to mom... unless mom knows good music when she hears it.

Song Premiere: Jon McLaughlin “If Only I” (Piano Version)

Chris Rutledge — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:23:14 +0000

Jon McLaughlin took a hands on approach to his most recent album, Promises Promises. The singer-songwriter not only wrote all of the songs on the album, he produced it as well. Here’s a stripped down piano version of “If Only I” that comes with the Best Buy edition of Promises Promises. "'If Only I’ is maybe my favorite song on the Promising Promises record," McLaughlin tells American Songwriter. "It's one of those slow building unrequited love story songs. I get lost in the vibe every time I play it."

Drinks With: Bobby Long

Skip Matheny — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:32:49 +0000

Skip Matheny— currently a songwriter in the band Roman Candle and former bartender in a retirement community recently talked with UK songwriter, now living in New York, Bobby Long. Bobby is a singer/songwriter from Wigan (near Manchester) England. His major-label debut record A Winter Tale came out on ATO records in the U.S. as did his 2011 follow-up e.p. The Backing Singer. Bobby is currently touring with Steve Winwood and has spent the earlier part of the year recording his next full-length. This interview took place at the Oak Bar beneath the Hermitage hotel in Nashville. What's your favorite drink? My favorite drink? I like milk. But I also like beer and red wine. Not in the same glass. I know on your website you post different bits of writing or poems. Is that something you've been doing for a while? It’s always been on the side but I kind of had a bit of -- not a writing block, but just kind of getting frustrated with writing songs, putting pressure on myself to write the next album. This album had only been out for a month and I already had 15 songs. I just wanted to finish them. But I couldn’t, so I went back into the poetry thing. I am doing it every day and I'm going to be releasing a poetry book . But I’m not sure of how big of a deal it’s going to be. I’ve been talking to a publisher and he really seems to be behind it, so we're going to put it together. It’s pretty cool, it's something I want to do. But it’s been something that’s only happened in the last 3 months. It’s kind of fun to write without having the structure of the song to care about. You feel much freer. Who are some of your favorite poets? I think I've seen you mention Pablo Neruda, Robert Frost. Yeah I love Neruda, Frost, Dylan Thomas and I love John Cooper Clarke a lot. I’ve seen him as a kid. Our English classes went to poetry readings and it used to be a lot of, mainly English poets. And some of them were fairly boring. And John Cooper Clarke turned up once and everyone was kind of like this and he did Chicken Town. It’s really aggressive; lots of swearing, “The fucking weed is fucking turf, the fucking speed is fucking surf...” and I was like, ‘Wow, this is interesting. Poetry is not boring and written by middle class people.’ I like him and I like Billy Childish. He’s an artist and musician as well. I've been to his poetry readings in London and his stuff is really cool. I like a little bit of everything but those are the guys I’ve really loved. Did you write poems before you wrote songs? I guess I did. I’d be in class and school and I would write stuff in the back of my book, not wanting any of my friends to see it. Because I would’ve got kicked around (laughs). I did a little bit but – I don't know where those poems are now . It’d just be me gazing out the window at a tree and wishing I was somewhere else. But songs for me, were the first thing I ever took seriously. Who are some of the lyricists you really enjoy? I love Bob Dylan. I’m a huge, huge, Leonard Cohen fan. I’ve seen him play a few times. I saw his last concert of this past tour. He did it in Vegas, at Caesar’s Palace. It was insane; he played for four hours. And it’s really dramatic – there’s some spoken stuff – for “If It Be Your Will” he’s on his knees – I really love him. Elliott Smith I think is a great lyricist. It’s easy to get what he’s talking about because there are some pop culture references. He’s talking about his social awareness and what’s going on. I really like that. When you are working to start or finish a song, what does that look like? Is it mostly you and a guitar? It usually starts with the guitar. Once I’ve got the work done on the guitar then I can take it somewhere else and I can kind of take it to finish on the train or something, or finish on the park bench. But it does usually start with me and a guitar. But that’s another thing I’ve been trying to do with the poetry is to get away from the structure of the thing of having this guitar because it does, I find, kind of slightly limit you. Yeah there's a big difference between writing words for a poetic structure and writing words to fit some predefined melody, even though they might seem somewhat related. Yeah, you’ve kind of got 8 words and 15 syllables that you have to go between, and you have to be very concise to find the beginning the middle and the end. And whether you’re talking about something that happens over the space of 15 seconds or something that happens over the space of 4 years you have to be very concise. In some of the writings you have you seem to use small details to give a bigger description of a history or setting. Like there was a detail about sitting with someone on a blanket that had been used last at a beach, and then somebody rolls over, and leftover sand falls on their arm. That little detail kind of provides a larger sense of how much time has passed in their relationship. Do you try and plan around these details in your writing, or make room for them? Or is that just what naturally comes out? Yeah, absolutely, I try to include them. With the song thing, I’m always trying to put detail in. A little bit anyway. Because otherwise it can seem fairly vast. I like being kind of particular so things – come into focus. That’s funny, it’s surprising that a lot of people on the reviews of the album have been great; except on a couple of them there’s been this thing of ‘his lyrics don’t make sense,’ or ‘his lyrics don’t have any kind of structure.’ And I’m like, well that’s kind of the point of creative freedom of writing poetry and everything else is being able to be free with what you’re doing. And I think because I’m slightly in that “folk” thing, they expect some kind of visible amount of structure and it doesn’t have to be like that. If you were to try and pull apart some of the lyrics from Dark Side of the Moon, you’re going to be saying ‘well, this is kind of bizarre.’ Of course it’s bizarre because it’s Pink Floyd. And Radiohead, too, if you try and pull apart Paranoid Android you’re going to go ‘wow, this doesn’t make sense on a normal level.’ You obviously you let your mind roll free on it and work it out in your head. Yeah there are several ways you can get a story across without having to go the traditional linear route: “I woke up, I ate a yogurt, I left the hospital, etc.” Yeah there’s a Leonard Cohen song called “The Partisan,” and the lyrics are “When they poured across the border/ I was cautioned to surrender/ this I could not do/ I took my gun and vanished.” And it feels like there should be another line at the end but it just leaves it open, so you’re like: okay, that’s interesting. And then your mind creates the next scene “I’ve changed my name so often/ I have lost my wife and children/ but I have many friends/ and some of them are with me.” And you want to fill in the gap. And that’s great and it shows you don’t need to sum up. It can be very specific and withdrawn at the same time. Which is cool, and that’s why writing is great (laughs). I mean that’s what’s great about it. Some of my favorite stories are told by what the writer leaves out . And it’s letting people think. Not everybody wants this pre-depicted thing. It's like getting a ready-meal. Some people want to go out and buy their own ingredients and cook their own thing and work their own thing out. Was there a time when you were a kid and you heard a particular pop song and the whole notion of what a popular song was kind of clicked into place for you? Mostly it came from the Beatles. My family were really into the Beatles. We’re not to far away from Liverpool. I remember hearing “Hey Jude” for the first time, and the first time I heard it, all I was interested in was the last bit where everyone is going crazy and singing. When I heard it I was like, ‘Oh my God. What is this?’ And we had just gotten the internet so I scouted it and I downloaded it and it just sent shivers up my spine. And then my dad told me to go to bed and I was up for most of the night trying to remember and I couldn’t do it. I just wanted the feeling the song brought. And at 7 a.m. I listened to it again and that was huge. Loads of Beatles stuff. 'This Boy.' That's an incredible song. The Beach Boys, too. I loved the Beach Boys when I was a kid, but mainly it was the Beatles. Do you have any habits that surround writing? Like walking or smoking or desks? I definitely smoke when I’m writing, like chainsmoke. I was actually thinking, I haven’t really got the place I can write. In New York I have a little desk in the corner I just kind of sit down there. But I’ve been struggling with that recently so need to find a new place. I usually write in the evening. In the morning I’ll get up, early afternoon I’ll go out for walks and get a coffee and do some writing. And then in the evening I’ll sit down for a few hours again every night and write. If you were going to cover a traditional folk song tonight what would it be ? Probably "Will Ye Go Lassie Go" by the Clancy Brothers. I love the Clancy Brothers. I know it's not particularly one of their songs, but its just a beautiful song, and the Irish and the Scottish both try and claim it for their own. Now if you don't mind I'm going to mention a few artist's names and you just say the first thing that pops into your head. (laughs) Ok. Bob Dylan “America" Elliot Smith (pauses) “Personal” Joni Mitchell “Sweet.” Blue is the best acoustic, pure record of all time. It’s incredible. And girls love it, as well (laughs). If you’re in your house and you’ve got a girl with you and you’ve got Blue on, you’re doing well.” _________________________________________________ * special thanks to Logan Matheny for the above (color) photo, and Kent Bennett for additional editing.

Daily Discovery: Stacey Randol, “Battled Feet”

American Songspace — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:45:00 +0000

Musicians Corner Spring 2012 Contest Winner ARTIST: Stacey Randol SONG: "Battled Feet" BIRTHDATE: December 12th, 1986 BIRTHPLACE: Decatur, IL AMBITIONS: To make music my whole life and to see as much of the world as possible. TURN-OFFS: cockiness, negativity, apathy TURN-ONS: humor, creativity, adventurousness, humbleness DREAM GIG: I love outdoor venues. One in particular being Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO. It is gorgeous. IF I HAD MORE TIME, I WOULD: take more road trips! MY NIGHTLY RITUAL BEFORE BED:  I usually enjoy mixing up my evenings, but one of my favorite ways to unwind after a long day is to write with a glass of vino. THE BEST WAY TO GET A MAN’S ATTENTION: Confidence and a smile should do it. MY 5 FAVORITE FUNNYMEN: Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Jimmy Fallon, Richard Pryor, and Chevy Chase SOMEONE I WANT TO MEET AND WHY: Paul Simon. I admire his entire song collection--from the beautiful melodies and balance of Simon and Garfunkel to his solo career where rhythm is the focus. He is my absolute favorite. I WROTE THIS SONG: When looking at my gnarly feet. It's true. Like many women, I wear shoes that end up causing a lot of pain. I ended up comparing the sacrifice of these shoes to relationships girls stay in even though they get hurt many times. Stacey Randol will perform at Musicians Corner in Nashville, TN on Saturday, May 26. Stream “Battled Feet” and more music from Stacey at American Songspace.

The Flaming Lips’ Experimental Year

Chris Rutledge — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:00:28 +0000

(Wayne Coyne at this year's Hangout Music Fest)

2012 has been a particularly experimental year for The Flaming Lips.

Never wanting to play it safe, the band surprised fans this year by releasing everything from a 24-hour song to music packaged in gummy fetuses.

Frontman Wayne Coyne said that taking the band in such an experimental direction was not only an artistic venture, but also a business decision.

At the end of 2010 the Lips’ contract with Warner Bros. Records was about expire.

Coyne said that because of the changing nature of the music industry, the Lips members weren’t sure how to approach renegotiations, so they didn’t.

“There were a lot of bands like us that were sort of getting ready to do a new version of a record contract, because nobody knows what the fuck to do,” Coyne said. “So we thought someone would figure something out and we would just do what they did. Well, that didn’t really happen.”

When it came time for the Lips to renegotiate, the members still couldn’t make up their minds. “We said ‘Let’s fuck around for a year. Let us discover what we want, in our own way, to happen,’” Coyne said. “So they said ‘Cool, let’s see what happens.’”

Their most recent experiment, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, is a collaborative record featuring Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Yoko Ono, Ke$ha, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and more.

“Since we were releasing music every month, we thought it would be a little bit boring for us each month to say ‘Well here’s four more Flaming Lips songs,’” Coyne said. “We just thought ‘Well we’ll get some of our friends, and we’ll do collaborations and see what happens.’”

Coyne said the recording process began modestly.

“In the beginning it was just people we would run into.”

The Lips’ collaborations with Neon Indian happened when the bands paths crossed on tour in Portland. But soon Coyne began to reach out to bigger artists.

“A lot of these people I would just get their number and text them,” Coyne said. “I would know they were fans, like Bon Iver; I knew Justin Vernon liked us.”

Coyne said it wasn’t easy assembling an all-star cast of collaborators.

“Someone like Nick Cave, you’ll ask him and it’s ‘No, I’m too busy. I’ve got things to do,’” Coyne said. “And I’m like ‘Well, I know, but I’ll make it easy for you.’ So the third time I ask him he says ‘Well, I might do it,’ and by the tenth time he’s like ‘Fuck it, I’ll do it if you’ll just leave me alone.’ It’s hardly ever like ‘Yes! Let’s make music!’” For one collaborator though, it was just that. Ke$ha called Coyne on his birthday and invited the band to her house in Nashville, Tenn., to record some songs. “She is just crazy,” Coyne said. “She has a tattoo gun, and within 30 minutes she gave me a tattoo on my toe.” The Lips ended up recording songs with Ke$ha into the night and more the next day. Coyne said he is a big fan of Ke$ha.

“She’s crazy in the best way: she’s creative, she’s funny, she’s intense, she has a lot of energy,” Coyne said. “Erykah Badu was the same way.”

The band already has another batch of songs ready and will enter the studio in three weeks to decide what to do with the material.

“Steven (Drozd) and I have been listening it to it quite a bit,” Coyne said. “It’s a good collection. We’re calling it nine songs, but some of them connect together. This is all like a big piece of music. It’s a bunch of different songs, but it feels like a piece of music.”

Despite the frantic pace of their musical output, Coyne said the band members aren’t struggling to create new music.

“Sometimes it’s like nothing,” Coyne said. “You’re already there and stuff is happening, you’ve already done one song and it’s like ‘Fuck, yeah, I’ll do another song.’ Sometimes they just happen. And then an hour later you’ve got a whole other thing. It’s just music. People seem to think it’s got to be some mystical experience or something. Sometimes things just sound cool and you’re already recording.”

American Songwriter Live: Rhett Miller

American Songwriter — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:58:05 +0000

It seems that even Rhett Miller, one of the most accomplished songwriters of his generation, gets stuck from time to time. “Lost Without You,” a tune from Miller’s forthcoming solo album The Dreamer, is a jaunty, five-minute ditty of new love found and quickly lost. But the writing of the tune did not come easily. “I had been wrestling with it for months,” the Old 97's frontman says of his solo album’s lead-off track. “I’d written this little beginning that I thought was good but I knew that the chorus was failing.” Help arrived soon in the form of singer-songwriter Ben Kweller, whom Miller met up with in Austin during a break in touring. “Ben really pulled this out of me. He’s a great co-writer. I was lucky to be able to write this song.” Watch the video to see the magical results. Audio recorded and mixed by Steve Martin. Video shot and edited by Neal Dahlgren. Text by Caine O’Rear.

The Ballad Of Phillip Phillips

Marissa R. Moss — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:30:45 +0000

American Idol’s finale provided us with a great range of treats this year: Steven Tyler debuting both Aerosmith’s new song and his new old man belly, finalist Jessica Sanchez and Jennifer Holiday singing-grunting “I’m Telling You” in a manner which can only be described labor-pain-chic and, perhaps most notably, Phillip Phillips answering the question that keeps most of us up at night, being: “Gee, I wonder what Dave Matthews would sound like singing Creedence?” Actually, this is a treat Phillip Phillips, the 21-year-old pawnshop worker whose father kept a gun on his person during his son’s homecoming segment, has provided us during the entire season. From the weird foot curl to the hiked-up guitar, Phillips has basically spent the entire run performing the never-released Dave Matthews cover album, which has been a unique adventure. Lessons learned: Matthews (er, Phillips) sounds great covering Billy Joel, Damien Rice and Bob Seger, and terrible covering The Zombies and Queen. Someone just needs to make sure that Phillip and the real Dave Matthews never are in the same room, because it would probably disrupt the time/space continuum, kind of like how Doc Brown warned Michael J. Fox to never meet his “future” self in Back to the Future. My track record for picking American Idol winners has always been moderate-to-decent, until last year, when I knew that Scotty the country flautist had this one in the bag as soon as he wooed the judges by singing in his signature opposite-of-a-dog whistle baritone. I called that one from day one. This year, my bet was on pride of Nashville Colton Dixon: I thought he played what everyone is calling the “White Boy with a Guitar” trend better (ok, so he plays piano, small details), actually exuding some stage presence, suitably skinny rock star legs and voice perfect for the same Fray-esque songs that have been allotted to past winners. Joshua was my favorite, but I knew he’d go before the final showdown. Phillip? Cute, could he really win? Nah. I should have known – Dave Matthews does seem to sell a lot of concert tickets. So why did Phillips take the crown? Sure, you could chock it up to the WBWAG syndrome, or to the fact that Dave Matthews Band has not released an album since 2009, and everyone thought this would just be the closest thing –I mean, holograms are big right now. It could also be due in part to the fact that the judges never actually judge anything at all, which is both extremely boring and a disservice to the contestants. Most interestingly, it’s about the song. While Sanchez, who had a technically better voice though appeared as a rather precocious one-trick pony, sang something called “Change Nothing” (I say “something” because I’m not sure what that was could technically be called a song. I don’t even think it had a chorus. Did it? Anyway, she should have changed everything, not nothing, about that tune), Phillips was gifted with a Mumford & Sons/Coldplay/Head and the Heart inspired anthem called “Home.” Despite the fact that Jennifer Lopez attempted to judge it by saying “this is like nothing on the radio right now!” it is actually the first “coronation song” to ever actually sound like something on the radio. And I mean like something on the radio in 2012, not 1993. In other words, it’s probably the first time that American Idol stopped thinking its viewers are stupid. “Home,” written by Drew Pearson and Greg Holden, was, according to the Hollywood Reporter, pitched to Jimmy Iovine after Holden decided not to record it, and was inspired by Mumford and Arcade Fire. It has all the elements of a current hit: British folksiness, anthemic marching-band-ness, rootsy singalong. When America voted, for the first time in Idol history, I’d bet they were voting on this song. Because audiences aren’t dumb or tasteless: they just aren’t given enough choice. And for the first time in my history, I actually found myself humming an American Idol single this morning while making coffee. Phillips or no Phillips, the fact that he won pointed out one small but indelible fact: it’s not really all about the voice. It’s about the song, too. Phillips got lucky with a pretty good one, but that’s not only limited to American Idol, and it doesn’t mean he’ll have a career (e.g. anyone know what happened to The Proclaimers?). If American Idol wants to raise their ratings next year, they’ll learn from the ballad of Phillip Phillips: people don’t just like voices, they like good, current melodies. They like songs, and they like style, and they’ll choose it if given the opportunity. They like things to feel modern, and they don’t like being lied to or taken for granted. And, um, I guess they really, really like Dave Matthews.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes: Here

Megan Pacella — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:45:27 +0000

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Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes Here (Vagrant) 3.5 out of 5 stars

For most bands, a sophomore album can go one of two ways: In some cases, the energy poured into their debut fizzles, and the follow-up is comparatively flat. When we’re lucky, a band builds off of the passion they felt as a start-up and hits their stride.

It’s hard to say whether Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros has hit their stride with Here, their second album—but it’s safe to say that it brings forth just as much energy as the band’s 2009 debut, Up From Below. And with three years of touring and life experience behind him, Sharpe uses the album’s nine tracks to continue exploring the themes of love, loss, redemption and joy that he sought after in Up From Below.

But to understand where Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are now, you have to know where they’ve been. After fronting electronic rock band Ima Robot, singer Alex Ebert exited the LA party scene and entered himself into rehab. Eventually, he came out clean—in an unshowered Appalachian hipster sort of way. It was then that Ebert took on the persona of Edward Sharpe, a Messianic figure who represents Ebert’s rebirth into a new man. Not long after his stint in rehab, Sharpe saw singer Jade Castrinos sitting outside on a bench, and later claimed he knew immediately that he had to have a relationship with her.

The two fell in love and started singing together, slowly adding a rotating cast of 10 characters to their band. Once Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros formed, Sharpe wrote most of the material for the band’s 2009 debut.

The title of Up From Below says it all. Sharpe was grappling with the battle scars he had received in his young life: the tenuous relationship with his father, the pain of death, the selfishness of his addiction, and so on and so forth. Three years, a few tours, and plenty of new material later, the band’s Messiah-like frontman has arrived somewhere on the other side of that sadness.

On Here, Sharpe proves right out of the gate in "Man on Fire" that he has found a resolution—the album’s first track is a Johnny Cash-style ballad of freedom. Lyrics like, “Want the whole damn world to come dance with me” are rife with the naivety and truth everyone experiences after a rebirth.

Holding the second slot on the disc, "That's What's Up" is guaranteed to be the most popular song on the album. With New Orleans-style horns and a soulful 70s sound, it’s impossibly catchy -- much like ‘Home’ was on Up From Below. But after singing sappily about their relationship before, "Thats Whats Up" proves that the two former lovers have found something even purer in each other: true friendship. The lyrics are unquestionably hokey (like, “I’ll be the sun, you be the shinin’”), but the chorus gives Jade Castrinos her first opportunity to showcase her powerhouse vocals on the album.

In a world where too many artists err on the side of overproduction, Here is decidedly under-produced. In some tracks, like "I Don’t Wanna Pray," the lack of production gives Sharpe’s voice a dreamy quality that lends itself to the storytelling. The less-than-stellar production value adds an element of honesty to this song about acknowledging God’s presence, but refusing to pray to him. Unfortunately, in other tracks-- like "Dear Believer," "Child," and "One Love To" -- the lack of vocal sharpness makes it difficult to listen without distraction. These tracks are in succession, giving the second half of the album a slow start.

Castrino’s vocals in "Fiya Wata" will snap you back to attention before Here closes with "All Wash Out." Despite a three-track slump, Here isn’t the kind of sophomore album that will disappoint fans of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. They've certainly has crawled out of a dark place, but they haven’t lost any of the fervor developed through life’s difficulties. At the same time, Here isn’t a naïve take on optimism: the band has found the salvation and peace they were looking for -- but they know that pain and sadness lurk around every corner.

Luckily, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes found a way to translate that life lesson into their music without losing the quirky evangelic charm that attracted listeners in the first place.

Review: The Darkness Take Nashville

Andrew Leahey — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:54:41 +0000

The Darkness, Marathon Music Works, 5/22/12

It was the encore to beat all encores.

While his bandmates vamped a few bars of bottom-heavy, hard rock riffage behind him, Justin Hawkins strutted his way toward the edge of the stage, climbed onto a security guard’s shoulders without letting go of his Les Paul, and pointed his way toward the audience. The guard obliged, carrying his passenger through the crowd while Hawkins preened like the world’s hairiest model and played a shredding, shoulder-top guitar solo. It was a novelty move, of course -- a familiar one, too, for anyone who’d already seen a Darkness show -- but Hawkins’ solo was actually good, performed with enough technical expertise to satisfy any hair-metal fans in attendance (and man, there were many) and enough tongue-in-cheek humor to placate those who usually hate that sort of stuff.

Once the piggyback ride was over, Hawkins spent a few seconds onstage before leaping back into the audience, this time relying on the audience’s outstretched arms to keep him aloft. Again, he pointed out the direction he wished to go, and his fans crowdsurfed him from stage left to stage right. Forty-five seconds later, Hawkins was back onstage, holding the mic in one hand and gesturing toward his pelvis with the other.

“I want to thank everyone here,” he huffed, “especially those who caught me just then. One person caught me by my right testicle, which is still hurting a bit. Now I’ll always have something to remember Nashville by. If I have a misshapen child in the future, I shall call him... Nash. Does anyone out there want to have a misshapen child with me?”

And then, with a flurry of guitars and falsetto vocals, the Darkness careened their way back into the chorus of their final song, “Love on the Rocks,” before leaving the stage in a fit of triumph and feedback.

“The Darkness is f*cking back!” Hawkins had reminded everyone earlier that the night, and the guy wasn’t lying. Once bloated like a post-fame Vince Neil, Hawkins has cleaned up his act in recent years, kicking the nasty habits that tanked his band in 2006 and reclaiming the upper reaches of his voice. He’s also become an unlikely sex symbol, displaying his six-pack all night long in a variety of ridiculous outfits (a leather pants-and-vest combo emblazoned with the American flag; an open leather jacket with tons of zippers) and eventually ditching a shirt altogether. This was a rock show, after all. Tops were optional.

What wasn’t optional was delivering some sort of proof that the band’s reunion -- which started last year and will hit warp speed in August, when the new album Hot Cakes comes out -- is something more than a quick, easy cash-in. To convince us, the guys trotted out a handful of new songs, each one filled with Queen-sized guitar licks and sky-scraping melodies, and attacked their older songs with renewed vigor, as though “Black Shuck” were a recent tune instead of a decade-old favorite. There were other highlights, too, including a speed-metal cover of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” gobs of harmonized guitar leads from Justin Hawkins and brother Dan, and a 20+ song setlist that ran through most of the band’s catalog.

Maybe it was the novelty of seeing Hawkins and company back in the saddle, galloping their way down the fine line between self-parody and genuine awesomeness, but Tuesday night felt like 2003 all over again. That was the last time that the Darkness had something to prove, and they sounded better because of it. Rock music has changed since then, pushing the Darkness off their platinum-selling pedestal and back into the underground reserved for underdogs and has-beens. They seem to be climbing their way out, though, one shoulder-top guitar solo at a time.

Video Premiere: Air Traffic Controller, “Hurry Hurry”

Evan Schlansky — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:30:14 +0000

Got a minute? Check out the frenetic new video for "Hurry Hurry" from Boston indie-pop outfit Air Traffic Controller. The song comes from the album Nordo, which was produced by singer-songwriter Bleu, and hits stores June 26 via Sugarpop Records.

"I think indie film-maker Gavin Michael Booth and I formed an emotional bond the moment he heard this song," says Air Traffic Controller frontman Dave Munro. "As you hear in the lyrics, I'm a bit of a busy body hurrying through life to establish myself at any cost, physically, mentally, financially, ... the list goes on.

"For Gavin, it's the exact same thing. In fact, the day I arrived in Canada he was on the set of another video that was being shut down because of a power outage; then he jumped right into making 'Hurry Hurry,' which he ambitiously wrote in more scenes than he's ever done in one video. Like us, Gavin has a solid support system in his hometown. Windsor, Ontario is like his own little Hollywood backdrop with talented actors, crew members, and all. It was so inspiring, definitely an 'If you build it... they will come' moment for me."