The February installment of the Feel Bad For You Mixtape is up and streaming. The FBFY mixtape has entered a new segment of it’s life moving from a message board tape curated by Ms. Rockstar Aimz, of My Aimz Is True, to a mixtape put together by a collection of (mostly) like minded bloggers. You can stream it below and head over to the official FBFY mixtape web site for some dialog on why each song was selected.

Track Listing:

01. Shayfer James – Title: Weight of the World
02. “Mississippi” Charles Bevel – Don’t Lie to Me
03. Timothy Bracken – Unmade
04. Valerie June – No Draws Blues
05. Robert Pete Williams – You Used to Be a Sweet Clover Shaker
06. Dirty Bourbon River Show – One Way Or Another (I’ll Be Free)
07. John 5 – Behind The Nut Love
08. Folk Family Revival – Unfolding
09. Ola Belle Reed – My Epitaph
10. The Bear – Jack and Joan
11. David Allan Coe – Spotlight
12. Roky Erickson – For You
13. The Setters – Don’t Love Me Wisely
14. The Clash – I’m So Bored With The U.S.A.
15. Mark Lanegan – The Gravedigger’s Song
16. The Louvin Brothers – The Great Atomic Power
17. Dax Rigs – Say Goodnight to the World
18. The Bee Gees – Marley Purt Drive
19. Old Crow Medicine Show – Angel From Montgomery
20. Texas Wettnex – Get Your Ass On Out Of Here
21. Some Dark holler – Sweet Red Wine
22. Bombino – Tar Hani (My Love)
23. Kim Jannsen – Drift (Live on InDeKringloop.nl)
24. Anthony Leon & The Chain – Uncle Sam
25. The Maldives – Blood Relations

Last night I got off my 2012 show snide by catching Lydia Loveless and Scott H. Biram over in Tampa and rushing across the bridge afterwards and catching Mr. Austin Lucas in St. Pete. Not bad for a Tuesday night.

Speaking of a Tuesday night. The Alabama Shakes continued their staggeringly rapid ascent last night by appearing on Conan. Let’s check that out:

Speaking of staggering….Joe Pug has a new album coming out soon called The Great Despiser and Paste Magazine debuted the lead single this week. The track is called “Hymn #76″ and it is quintessential Joe Pug. Hopefully, I found the right code to copy/paste that bitch below:

Latest Ninebullets.net podcast
Last week’s episode of ninebullets radio (it was a really good one)
Ninebullets.net January Spotify Playlist

On February 3, 1959, a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed three American rock and roll pioneers: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. The plane crash has been called the first and greatest tragedy rock and roll has ever suffered.

So. For the first time in 14 years as a band and 27 years as a band with David Lee Roth in it, Van Halen is releasing an album of all new material. When I first heard this news, I shrugged it off and went about my life confident I’d not think about Van Halen again until one of them does another stint in rehab. Then a funny thing happened. My twitter and facebook feeds started blowing up with folks talking about how good this new Van Halen album was. In the end, I couldn’t resist giving it a listen and decided, in the process, to give my opinion track by track on twitter as I listened for the first time.

Now, to be fair, you need to know that I was never a huge Van Halen fan. If you walked up and said, “Quick, name as many Van Halen songs as you can in 5 seconds!”, “Jump” is gonna be the only track I come up with. Peeking at Wikipedia it’s obvious I know many more, but that’s the only one that comes to mind and it brings back memories of me being 11 years old and sitting in front of a little single speaker cassette player/radio in my backyard. I think that’s worth keeping in mind as you read this break down.

Van Halen – A Different Kind Of Truth (in 140 or less characters at a time):

Tattoo: musically, okay. Lyrically, not so okay.

She’s The Woman: Sounds like it came right out of the heyday of hair metal. Think 1991 Arena Rock and you’ve nailed it’s sound.

You and Your Blues: I only need 1 word for this song: boring.

China Town: not bad. not bad at all. Rocks harder than any other 60 year old’s music. I’ll thumbs up this track considering.

Blood and Fire: This is the first time on the album they’ve felt like old men trying to rock instead of just rocking.

Bullethead: not bad. Fave from the cd so far.

As Is: This one has that classic David Lee Roth feel/swagger to it.

Honeybabysweetiedoll: ugh. bad song. 2 minutes in I had to press the skip button. First time I’ve done that on the album though.

The Trouble With Never: Another one right out of the 90′s arena rock sound.

Outta Space: Starts off promising but I didn’t even notice it end. Tried to listen twice. Same result.

Stay Frosy: The title says, “bad song”. The opening guitar says, “maybe not”. The title was honest & honestly, Dave ruins this song.

Big River: musically, you totally could have sold me that this was a George Lynch song. Honestly, this one is pretty good.

Beats Workin’: Despite the promising musical opening, this song fell flat on me. Again, I blame David Lee Roth for fucking it up.

And that concludes the Van Halen 140 character review. In the end, not horrific but I’ll never listen to it again…

Below is the playlist for February 02, 2012

01. Todd Farrell – Ninebullets Theme Song
02. Shooter Jennings – Southern Family Anthem
03. The Drive-By Truckers – The Southern Thing
04. Matt Woods – Beating Down My Door
05. Chuck Ragan – Let It Rain
06. Arliss Nancy – St. Forgot
07. Otis Gibbs – Christ Number 3
08. William Elliott Whitmore – Black Iowa Dirt
09. Chuck Allen Floyd – Hard Times
10. Lucero – Sometimes
11. Merle Haggard – Working Man’s Blues
12. Charlie Parr – God Moves On The Water
13. Possessed By Paul James – Shoulda Known Better
14. The Willard Grant Conspiracy – The Ballad Of John Parker
15. Yawpers – Worthless

Bold = Request

You can download Ninebullets Radio here

P.S.: If you like this show, do me a favor and post about it on your Facebook/Twitter/Blog. It’ll do a lot to help these bands reach new ears…and in the end, that’s what this is all about. It’ll also help bring the existence of the radio show to more people’s attention & the more people there are listening/paying attention to the show the more likely it is to stay on the air.

Episode 57: aired 02.02.2012

Norway’s hardest working rock’n’roll band is called ORBO & The Longshots.

For years they have toured Norway extensively, all the while working to break onto the American music scene, playing several tours across the US. They are among the few bands in Norway who are able to make a living from playing honest rock’n'roll.

“ORBO” are the initials of lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Ole Reinert Berg-Olsen, The Longshots are his band, consisting of Ine Tumyr on vocals & percussion, Reidar Opdal on vocals, piano/organ and acoustic guitar, Paul Inge Vikingstad on bass and Stian Tumyr on drums.

ORBO & The Longshots were the first norwegian band to record in legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, and have gotten help from people like Claudia Scott, Kevin Welch and Mike Henderson on their previous albums.

After five studio albums and one live album, they released Prairie Sun in Norway in the middle of august – and now it’s available in the US.

Prairie Sun was recorded at the old turkey farm Prairie Sun Recording Studios in California and produced by ORBO. And let me tell you, this is one kick-ass record.

Equal parts heartland rock, country, blues and americana, with a hint of dixieland are melted into a sound that borrows from Tom Petty, John Mellencamp and Delbert McClinton. McClinton was so impressed by a duet he did with ORBO at a show in Bergen, Norway that they ended up recording a song together, “Little Queen” which is a bonus track when you buy the album on iTunes.

What sets ORBO apart from most Norwegian singers and songwriters is his voice and his pronunciation. He sounds like a well spoken American, and he even writes songs like he should have lived all his life in and around Austin. His guitar playing is another trait that really sets their sound apart, and combined with Reidar Opdals piano they got a unique groove.

As I mentioned, this is their fifth album, and it’s their best one yet. I’ve been a fan since the first album, following their sound from being a rocking country band into the bluesy americana sound they have now.

What really sets this album apart from the previous are mainly the songs and the lyrics. ORBO has grown a lot as a songwriter, and he’s not afraid to write about his life. The band has gotten a lot of experience from intensive touring and hundreds of gigs, and you can really hear it by how tight they sound.

Singer and percussionist Ine Tumyr also stands out on this album, taking a long step forward and into the spotlight. We’ve seen it live for years, but on record she’s never been as prolific as she is now. The duets she sings with ORBO on this album are among the best songs they have ever done, and the way the two main vocalists work together throughout the album lifts the sound.

The best example is the song “High Grass Dog”, where ORBO and Ine keeps changing vocal lines between them, and it seems it makes ORBO give that little bit extra to really push the song into a higher division.

Another great example is the song “Magic”, where most of us can find recognizable elements. Love, breakups and insecurity are key elements, and the intensity in the song really shows of ORBOs quality as a songwriter. And what really singles this song out is Ine Tumyrs contribution on vocals.

“We’ve been feeding off of this long enough,
couldn’t see a thing.
But I guess the magic came to an end.
I keep my dreams all to myself,
’cause I’m scared.
I’m watching windows close,
and doors slam shut behind me.
while magic takes my chance”

ORBOs love for Tom Petty is obvious through the song (and new single) “Nights Don’t Belong To Us” about how you suddenly come to realize you have grown up – and have to let younger souls take over your place by the bar or on the town. And the delicious guitar parts could just as well have been played by Mike Campbell. The imagery is brilliant, just listen when ORBO sings:

“Stallions don’t lock the stable door,
but they can’t ride me anymore”.

Another high point on the album is “Neon Scar”, where ORBO writes about the lifestyle of being a musician and going out on the road.

“I’ve got a drumbeat baby,
I’ve got a loud guitar,
I’ve got a restless heart,
with a neon scar”

There are two songs I don’t really care for, the dixiland infused “New Times”, and “All Kinds Of Blue”. I usually don’t go for horns in music, unless it’s something Delbert McClinton has recorded – and here it just gets too much. Too bad, as “New Times” is one of the strongest tunes on the album, when you remove the clarinet…

Thankfully the album kicks right into top gear after those two songs, and gives us the brilliant “Crystal Ball” – which could have been lifted straight from Tom Pettys “Wildflowers”. We get a nod towards The Eagles on “Word On The Street” and a delicious feel of the prairie on “Prairie Sun”.

This is the best norwegian album of 2011, and in February ORBO & The Longshots hits the bars and clubs of America once again. If they pass by your town, drop by and give them a chance. I doubt you will be disappointed…

ORBO & The Longshots – High Grass Dog
ORBO & The Longshots – Crystal Ball

ORBO & The Longshots Official Site, ORBO & The Longshots on Facebook, ORBO & The Longshots on Spotify, Buy Prairie Sun

Ahhh the protest song. Some are awesome, more are terrible and most are some where in between but that doesn’t keep folks from writing new ones on a regular basis. Well, Patterson Hood of The Drive-By Truckers, Mike Mills of R.E.M. and some of the fellas from Widespread Panic have come together to write a song protesting the construction “of a massive mixed use development in downtown Athens, anchored by a 94,000 square foot Walmart.” Is it great, terrible or somewhere between the lines? You decide:

Dear Sister is Raven Shields and Bri Salmena playing on vocal harmonies and guitars, joined by multi-instrumentalist Aaron Comeau from multi-cities Canada. Their debut album, Dear Sisters, was orginally recorded and released in early 2010, managing to catch a little fire at the time. Despite selling out multiple Canadian venues, life took over and the band seemingly lost its momentum. Well, it seems the band has refocused and decided to give it another go with repackaging and re-releasing Dear Sister here in 2012.

I’ll be honest, I had to put in a little work to like this album. There were a few songs that jumped out at me right away but there were more that just came and went with little response. Normally that would result in moving the songs that jumped out into a directory I have set for that sort of thing with the rest getting the delete treatment, but something wouldn’t let me. So I saved it and came back to the album from time to time, and man am I glad I did. The singers harness that same vocally deadpan delivery you find with Gillian Welch, while musically they feel very similar to The Waifs or to me.

Admittedly, there are still a few tracks on the album I skip but if you’re willing to let an album incubate with you for a few listens, Dear Sister might, ultimately, reward your patience. Hopefully the band will maintain momentum this time around, I’d like to see what their sophomore effort might sound like.

Dear Sister – Con Man
Dear Sister – Coyote
Dear Sister – Hey Oh!

Dear Sister on Bandcamp, Dear Sister on Facebook, Buy Dear Sister

Last month I asked if you guys would be interested in a monthly Ninebullets Spotify playlist. You seemed pretty responsive to the idea so here is the first one. This playlist features every band that was featured on ninebullets in the month of January that was also on Spotify. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, pass it along to some friends. Like I keep saying, every new pair of ears these bands reach is a potential fan/head at show.

This month’s playlist features: Lauderdale, Ryan Adams, Jason Isbell, The Far West, Will Hoge, Sasparilla, The Rainmakers, Micah Schnabel, Hellbound Glory, Molly Gene, Lucero, Childish Gambino, Chris Cornell, The Pack A.D., The Dirt Daubers and Low Cut Connie.

The Ninebullets.net January 2012 Spotify Playlist