Perhaps you, like many other late night denizens, saw Alabama Shakes nearly burn down Conan’s studios with their performance on last night’s show, and sat there on your couch shaking your head and saying “what the hell was that?!” Maybe you’ve caught them live on this tour (LUCKY), or watched some of their immensely dynamic videos online. One thing is, I believe, for certain. Alabama Shakes are a force of nature akin to a hurricane or a tidal wave, and they are conquering something serious.

A few weeks ago they played The Independent in San Francisco, and one of my fabulous readers (“B”) taped it and sent it to me in a simple padded envelope, as he often awesomely does. I was slack-jawed listening in the car on my next long drive up to Denver. Brittany Howard’s tremendous, ferocious wail of a voice is one that has the volcanic potential make a dent on this thing we call musical history.

Enjoy this magnificent show, from a band that is rightfully poised to explode. Their debut album Boys & Girls is out April 10th.

ALABAMA SHAKES
THE INDEPENDENT – SAN FRANCISCO (JAN 26, 2012)

Goin’ to the Party
Hold On
Hang Loose
I Found You
Always Alright
Boys & Girls
Be Mine
Rise to the Sun
Hurricane Strut
Mama
You Ain’t Alone
Heavy Chevy *possibly my favorite
Heat Lightning
I Ain’t the Same
On Your Way
How Many More Times (Led Zeppelin cover)

ZIP: ALABAMA SHAKES IN SF (1/26/12)

Also, pretty much all you need to know about why Brittany Howard is so rad can be heard when she introduces the band during “Hurricane Strut,” with none of their real names, but nevertheless their perfect names:

“Let me introduce you…to the 100% legit…Alabama Shakes. Right over here on this ebony guitar, I got Cobra Snake Jackson. Let him know you love him. This gentleman right here… why this is Mahogany T Jones. What’s up Mahogany. Right back here… you know I got Scooter Johnson. Awww Scooter… keep it on time, keep it on time. Right over here, aha… I got Styrofoam Jones. Let’em know what’s up Styrofoam. Ya know…that’s all there is to it.”

Damn straight.

[top image by Joseph Lanford, second photo (from that SF show) by Pam Torno. Thanks to Adam Sharp for helping me with clerical work - you're hired.]

I keep trying to get further into the new Damien Jurado record, Maraqopa, but then I get stuck and stuck and stalled on this marvelous (melodic, melancholy) song. Not a bad place to be, there swimming in the ghostly doo-wop sadness. Of all them, Damien consistently slays me the most.

Working Titles – Damien Jurado

I didn’t listen to Saint Bartlett (2010) adequately until 2011, so it was voided from my ‘favorite albums of the year’ eligibility, but it totally was one of the very best things released that year. Maraqopa is Damien’s follow-up to Saint Bartlett, also collaborating with the production of Richard Swift, and will be out February 21 on Secretly Canadian. Damien possesses the ability to sledgehammer in on a sentiment with only a handful of words.

Preorder Maraqopa here. It is just completely marvelous.

[image credit]

Ryan Adams’ music has been woven taut and wooly through so many parts of my life in the last seven years, and writing objectively about his jaw-droppingly good show last night at Denver’s Temple Buell Theater is tough. For me it was a parade of ventricle-punching, flushed-cheek-inducing song after song, and it felt like it was just for me. I was off in my own stratosphere.

The show for me was intensely personal, hearing these passionately executed, pure renditions of songs I never really thought I’d get to hear live, and especially not with that much potency and perfection. “Wonderwall”? “Please Do Not Let Me Go” (oh my heart), right into “English Girls Approximately”? He started with “Oh My Sweet Carolina” and encored with a cover of Alice in Chains’ “Nutshell”? It was almost too much for this one girl to take. Just like my mix I posted on Friday night, this was a personal thing for me — no detachment, just marveling. Hoping for the best, and –for once– getting it.

I’ve seen Ryan Adams a handful of other times, in 2006 and 2007, chasing after the magic I heard in all his records that I learned about and then started gorging myself on. When I saw him during those years, he was alternately in a very scattered, rambly place the one time I heard him play acoustic (at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts) and long-form electric jammy, the three times with the Cardinals. Every time I’ve seen him has been worth it, in its own way, but I have never been as satisfied as I was last night. This was something else entirely.

Ryan was focused and amiable, sang passionately with a voice that is sounding the best I’ve ever heard it, and lavished well-crafted songs on the spoiled crowd for two hours. All told, he sang 24 songs — well, 28 if you count fantastic on-the-spot creations like:

-”Climbing a Tree In My Yellow Pants (What Kind Of Cake Will I Have?)” (a brilliant example of the kind of song he would have written if Prozac had been around when he was a kid)
-”Mr. Cat You Are Soft As Fuck” (a somber piano ballad about his pet he misses at home)
-”Mr. Heckles” (a sweetly soaring, apologetic guitar tune for the man near me who yelled “play the good one!”):

-a final “Thank You” ditty to us all, before launching into “Come Pick Me Up” with harmonica that felt like it stopped hearts in that room. Even his fake songs sounded really good, showcasing just how amazingly effortless it seems for him to write solid songs, even on the fly. Last night he played almost twice as many songs as the only other acoustic set of his I’d seen, in SF.

After the 2006 San Francisco show, I lamented. I worried that I would never get to see my favorite, favorite gorgeous songs live and delivered well from Ryan, since he seemed to be teetering and veering off in another direction. I worried I’d missed the catharsis, the beauty I first fell so hard for. Therefore last night was deeply rewarding, to see him pull all his skill and eloquence together, to wow the (mostly) silent crowd with a cherry-picked setlist of new and old, to make my heart beat so hard I could hear it in my eardrums.

SETLIST, RYAN ADAMS IN DENVER (2/4/12)
Oh My Sweet Carolina
Ashes & Fire
If I Am A Stranger
Dirty Rain
Winding Wheel
Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)
Invisible Riverside
Everybody Knows
Firecracker
Let it Ride
Rescue Blues
Please Do Not Let Me Go
English Girls Approximately
Chains of Love
Two
Lucky Now
Avenues (!!) (Whiskeytown)
New York, New York
Wonderwall (Oasis)
The End
16 Days (Whiskeytown)
Come Pick Me Up

Encore:
Nutshell (Alice in Chains)
When Will You Come Back Home


Ryan rivals Jeff Tweedy for my favorite in the stage banter category. He was relaxed, funny, constantly talking to the audience (in that silent hall some people really ran with that privilege, yelling every blessed thing that flitted into their minds). But the night felt totally unvarnished — reminding me of the very best things about the house concerts we put together (the atmosphere of this one, in particular).

Ryan’s voice shone in this setting — the Temple Buell Theater has impeccable acoustics (we could even hear him shifting in his chair) and oozed quiet dignity. As I listened to him hold the whole crowd transfixed, singing these songs that he’s sang hundreds and thousands of times, I marveled at how nothing seemed trite. When the song started, he was fully present in the moment and giving it his all. His face scrunched, that slightly pouty lower lip wailed. Even when he took to the piano with his back to me, I could see his face reflected back in the glossy black instrument, brow furrowed. This wasn’t a mechanical night.

The warm feeling spreading over me during the show felt closest to the night my friend Andrew and I laid around on the floor of my living room and listened to Heartbreaker on vinyl. You appreciate the space and the sanctuary created to just sit and listen. There was nothing catchy or flashy about last night’s show. But it riveted me to my seat and took me off somewhere else completely. It felt like course after course of the perfect-sized small plates kept arriving at the table, each so rich and delicious. I left totally satisfied, glowing, and sated. Everyone around me had huge smiles on their faces, and there was a crackle of ebullience in the air. If I never see Ryan Adams live again, I will be happy after last night.

[photo by my friend Andrew, who was with me and has more megapixels in his phone camera than my retro-mazing Nokia. If you're a visual learner, there's a spot-on drawing here, down to the labels on Ryan's shoes]

Ryan Adams is hanging out here in Denver this weekend, snowed in and tweeting his adventures as we collectively pass the time until his postponed show – Saturday, instead of tonight. I’m not good at waiting, so I’ve decided to compose a fierce rejoinder to my friend John Hendrickson’s confidently categorized list over at the Denver Post: “The 11 Best Ryan Adams Songs of the Past 11 Years.”

As a person who apparently has 648 Ryan Adams-related songs in my iTunes library, whittling it down to eleven would be like someone picking a favorite child, beer, or ice cream. It cannot be done. However, these are eleven DANG fantastic songs from Ryan Adams that you may possibly have not heard, with which I would like to reply:all to Mr. Hendrickson.

These tunes are on the rare side — most were never officially released on an Adams album, or at least not in the version here. I also love all of them ferociously. They rip a small tear in the surface to reveal the staggering depth and ability Ryan has to pen these songs by the scads, like it just ain’t no thang. Just write ‘em on up before breakfast.

Here’s to six years of collecting them, and hopefully maybe seeing at least one live tomorrow night. Been a long time coming, this show.

11 BEST “OTHER” RYAN ADAMS SONGS

Ghost (demo)
From the Cowboy Technical Sessions, this is my number one favorite Ryan Adams rarity. A raw alt-country gem, this always gets from the opening crisp smack of the drums to the way his voice cracks as he pleads, “I wanted you and I lost.” Six words that say so damn much.

Hard Way To Fall (live in Tilburg, 12/1/02)
I got this from a collection we call ‘Black Clouds’ in nerd fan land, and a more ornate version later appeared on 2005′s Jacksonville City Nights. But this one, oh this one stops me in my tracks. It is a naked, grey, stunning song on the night of its very first live performance. I can hear that aching space, the void in this song. It’s a hard thing to love anyone, anyhow.

Monday Night
This one was on the Bloodshot Records compilation Down To The Promised Land, and it makes me just want to roll through your fingers, dusty and loose. Recorded easy in an 8th Street NYC apartment, it’s as good as anything he’s released officially (like all of these).

The Bar Is A Beautiful Place
If you bought one of the first runs of Gold, you got this song as one of five on the “bonus” disc. My go-to song of choice for a particularly heady and confusing period in my life, from the opening piano chords I feel dizzy. The night is so young. This song cracks it wide open for me every time.

Hey Mrs. Lovely
This song first popped up live in 1999, and was recorded in Nashville in 2000 during the Destroyer sessions — a meandering little jewel of a song about an off-limits married woman that’s always made me smile (“and we started playing twister with our tongues / we probably should have scrapped the game and gave ourselves some hugs”). Ryan reinvented it with different lyrics on 2007′s Easy Tiger as the song “These Girls,” but this one sticks with me so much more.

Halloween
The tinkly piano cadence in this song reminds me in the best way of “She’s A Rainbow” by The Rolling Stones, in that same slightly-off jangle effect. Released only in the UK as a bonus track to Vol. 1 of the Love Is Hell EP, it shows the lithe and playful vocabulary of our protagonist in one of my favorite outings.

The Battle (Caitlin Cary)
This song is a live favorite from the Whiskeytown days, officially released on Caitlin Cary’s 2002 record While You Weren’t Looking. It is essentially perfect – strong, sure, sad. I am not sure if Ryan wrote it, Caitlin wrote it, or if it was a collaboration, but I do know it brought me at least one bartender friend when it came on in a favorite local spot and I demanded to know whose iPod it was hooked up to the speakers. Because I want to be friends with that guy.

When The Music Don’t Come
There’s the opening count-off yell across the room in the studio, and then those bluesy chords start in with a swagger and Ryan is off running, his voice in marvelous form here. Almost like the upbeat book-end to my beloved “Hotel Chelsea Nights” (from the same sessions), this song is where the freedom comes and the lightning clouds lift.

Avalanche
This one is easy to find, sitting there solidly as track 9 on my favorite of all the Ryan Adams albums, the sad-bastard gut-punch perfection of Love Is Hell. It was also the first Ryan Adams song I ever heard. My reaction was instant and visceral; I yelled profanity at my car stereo as I sat there parked in the growing twilight outside my old office, under elm trees, spinning a borrowed CD. There’s this beautiful hesitation in the piano chords that makes this whole song sound uncertain to me. It found me at the perfect time.

Mega-Superior Gold
This blaze of a song sounds terrific always and forever driving down the wide stretches of California summer highway — a confident tune from the Pinkheart Sessions that is, as it claims, cocked & loaded-ready. I’d also say it is a good song to listen to while getting ready for a date, except for the brilliantly-spat line, “able to do as I’m told, babe,” because I don’t like being told what to do.

Awww shit … Look who got a website
Ripped from the auto-play music that soundtracked Ryan’s site redesign in 2006-ish, this remains sublimely lasers-all-the-time brilliant. It also talks about Ancient Sumerians a lot, and explains to us how his website is updated by witches. I love you, Ryan.

Point, set, match, Denver Post.

ZIP: 11 BEST “OTHER” RYAN ADAMS SONGS

I’ve been transfixed these last few weeks by the snippets of the Vincent Moon film about the Danish band Efterklang, called An Island. The movie was indeed filmed on an island, in the summer, with over 200 musical collaborators for their haunting, magnificent music. I heard about this film late one Oregon night recently, when the rain was pouring outside and I sat, mesmerized by this film from one of my favorite current filmmakers.

Alike – Efterklang

Vincent Moon is best known to me for being the messy, moody, impressionistic mastermind behind not only much of the Blogotheque series, but also so many of my favorite videos from The National. Meeting him once at Noise Pop in San Francisco still ranks as one of my very best nights.

The lyric I chose for the title of this post gets at me in a way I think the film will — that tug between heady intelligence and inherent truth. An Island was filmed in August 2010, released around this time last year, and spurred 1178 private screenings in homes, clubs, common houses, dorm rooms, theaters, parks, and bars all over Europe and the world. The only caveat was that the screening had to be free, and had to bring more than five people to watch together. I like every aspect of that, and am so sorry I missed being part of that community as it was unfolding.

So now I undoubtedly have to get my hands on this full DVD (you can buy it here), as I am generally a fan of transformative island music experiences. I might even host a screening myself outdoors this summer, late to the game but nonetheless inspired. Who’s in?

Also, the word “efterklang” translates from Danish into “echo,” in English. Which just goes to show that the Danes know how to craft themselves some dang fine onomatopoeia.

With a skiffly, radiant backbeat and a prowling baseline, this first song I heard from Dr. Dog‘s new album Be The Void sounds to me like the opening credits of some Seventies blaxploitation film. One can practically see the satin man-blouses and the corduroy bellbottoms, sunlight glinting off badass shades, no? It is completely terrific and I can’t stop listening to it.

That Old Black Hole – Dr Dog

The rapid-fire impressionism of the video above is completely fantastic, but in my mind I definitely see this:

Be The Void is the sixth album from the Philadelphia band, and I love what Scott McMicken said about how it feels to him: “It was reminiscent of when we were starting out and were these fearless weirdoes in a basement, so confident and reckless and bold.” Those are some of my favorite things in music.

Listen to the fuzzy, bluesy, messy opening track off Be The Void below, and preorder it from the ANTI website.

Dr. Dog – Lonesome by antirecords

The New French Hacker-Artist Underground, Wired Magazine

Why do they care about these places? Kunstmann answers this question with questions of his own. “Do you have plants in your home?” he asks impatiently. “Do you water them every day? Why do you water them? Because,” he goes on, “otherwise they’re ratty little dead things.” That’s why these forgotten cultural icons are important.

One of the most electrifying articles I’ve read in years. I’m probably considering a career change.

[image credit: UX]

Portland was an unrelenting adventure of starting an intense graduate program (80 class hours in two weeks), trying to taste all the beers in the city (failed), and also seeing five tremendous shows at four different Portland venues. I slept little, laughed much, and met rad folks. As the dad of the host family I stayed with bemusedly told me, his eyes crinkled with a smile as I clung to the coffee pot one early morning: “Well, you sure are squeezing every last bit out of this city, aren’t you?”

But I’ve felt tense and dry since my plane landed home, throat closing a little at the magnitude of the schoolwork I gotta be on top of in a self-directed way for the next six months until my next residency in July. Music? What’s that?

And then I shut up and stopped the spiral, and just put the headphones on and laid flat on my bed. I put the opening song on the new, marvelously stunning Adam Arcuragi album on, and it was like a churning, splashing river just poured all through me, striking fear. From that earthquake rumble drumroll that starts the song, how can any of us doubt our reserves when there is music like this to explain the questions?

We have wells they don’t even know about.

Oh, I See – Adam Arcuragi


I have been listening to Like a fire that consumes all before it… (Adam’s incredibly-aptly-titled new record) without ceasing since early December. Stream the full album now on NPR, then go preorder it immediately so at the end of the year when I am naming my favorite albums of 2012 you can pull this out and we can excitedly discuss.

The album is out next week on Thirty Tigers (Centro-matic, The Avett Brothers, Jason Isbell, Jessica Lea Mayfield – they’ve got some of my favorite ears in the business). Every track is phenomenal, laced with stomping feet, ebullient golden-bright banjo, weighty piano that cascades just when you need it to, and choruses of voices. Also, track 8 “The Well” is worthy of being played at my funeral: “When we ache no more (oh won’t it be something to see)”…

Then while you are waiting for January 31 for the new album, go get their Daytrotter sessions, because there have been full days where all I want to listen to is “Broken Throat” from Daytrotter 2009, a bluesy bittersweet tune that stuns me every time with the opening lyrics: “Like swinging your arms in the dark to find out how the light sits…” and then just keeps walloping me over and over. You guys, it’s ridiculous.

You might remember the Blogotheque video I posted last month of Adam and his friends singing their pure little hearts out in a NYC market; I said if I ever got to see them live I’d probably be like that ancient Chinese lady sitting by her booth, grinning and clapping along. Well, we’re recording a Chapel Session on Saturday morning. That’ll be me, grinning and clapping along.

Oh I see them coming.

ADAM ARCURAGI WILL WARM UP YOUR WINTER TOUR
Jan 27 (Fuel/Friends presents!) – Hi-Dive, Denver, CO
Jan 29 – Cicero’s, University City, MO
Jan 30 – The Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL
Jan 31 – Cafe Bourbon Street, Columbus, OH
Feb 01 – Garfield Artworks, Pittsburgh, PA
Feb 02 – Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY
Feb 03 – PA’S Lounge, Somerville, MA
Feb 04 – Cafe Nine, New Haven, CT
Feb 06 – Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA
Feb 07 – IOTA, Arlington, VA
FEb 08 – Cedars Lounge, Youngstown, OH
Feb 09 – Musica, Akron, OH
Feb 11 – MOTR Pub, Cincinnati, OH
Feb 12 – The End, Nashville, TN
Feb 13 – Bottletree, Birmingham, AL
Feb 14 – The Earl, East Atlanta, GA
Mar 14 – The Green Room at Warehouse Live, Houston, TX
Mar 21 – Sail Inn, Tempe, AZ

This happened tonight not far from my home in Colorado. Gregory Alan Isakov is a state treasure, and I am a sucker for Springsteen covers that make me take in my breath sharply when I really should be sleeping.

I am enjoying my attempts to weave myself into the city of Portland these last few days, jogging on mossy sidewalks while the grey sky spits rain, breathing the deep smoky-damp smell through my nostrils as I walk to catch the bus, and listening to a lot of music that helps spark and warm that seeping coldness away.

Bryan John Appleby is one of those artists whose music I have been leaning heavily on since I got here for this grad school residency; his music is smart and sharp, steeped in intelligent songwriting and crowned with a piercingly pure voice that resonates with me. He was one of the first artists we welcomed into the chapel when the seasons started to turn from summer to autumn, and the night he came also brought a cold snap that sent us all inside seeking a glow.

Bryan’s debut album Fire On The Vine is thoroughly superb, from front to back. I wrote about him last summer, after seeing him live (it was “decimatingly muscular”) and before the full-length was released. I have been delighted in the craftsmanship and the illumination in this album, which takes a thousand tiny moments and holds them up to let the sun shoot through.

BRYAN JOHN APPLEBY – FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSION
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Glory
As I sat on the edge of the stage, I had to suppress every fiber of my everloving harmony-singing self here, because this song on the album has incredible, exuberant multi-part choral joy potential. But I found it every bit as wonderful as a solo acoustic creation – something laden with truth and honesty.

Sprout
Perhaps it is my unique spiritual heritage that seems to connect on several flashpoints with Bryan, but when I listen to his music I see this complicated map of faith sprawl out before me — one that has been folded and refolded til it is faded and worn, trying to figure out how to make it fit, now. This particular song seems to be one of hope, despite lines like: “When I woke, I had been slain in the spirit of reason / Baptized in the rolling dark waters of doubt / ‘Cause I’m told it’s Your will to withhold, but it feels like treason / A rain cloud refusing to pour in a season of drought.”

Duncan (Paul Simon)
Bryan’s tenor radiates a clarity in the song that you come across just every once in a while – Paul Simon does it for me in a similar vein, and so I smiled about a thousand feet wide when Bryan launched into this cover of Simon’s 1972 song “Duncan” — so, so perfect. Listen to this and tell me he doesn’t nail it. Plus, he whistles. Yup.

…And The Revelation
This is 1/2 of the sibling duo of songs on his album that repeats the brilliant, brilliant line “you, you will not dig a hole in me, you will not chop down my tree, hold me under the water…” When I saw him live last summer, I just stood there jaw-dropped with the power of that declaration, hearing his defiant howl in concert on these words. For the full effect, also hop over to his Bandcamp and listen to the other part of the thought, “The Words of The Revelator.”

And here is one bonus song that we only have (incredible) video of. Chills:

ZIP: BRYAN JOHN APPLEBY CHAPEL SESSION

Later this night, after we recorded in the chapel, Bryan came to do a house show for me and my friends, and in honor of the stormy night, we decided to illuminate the show simply with candles, and sent out a Facebook request for guests to bring a candle or two. We got dozens, and the room flickered and glowed around his stunningly rich music. It was a good night; these are good songs.

I am seeing BJA this very Friday, at the Doug Fir with Pickwick and Jessica Dobson (The Shins, Deep Sea Diver). It is going to be a pret-ty amazing Friday, if I can make it through the week.

[video and that gorgeous still photo with the chapel ceiling by Kevin Ihle]