Ike Reilly is a mid-western institution. He’s flirted with rock radio fame on WXRT in Chicago, he’s been critically acclaimed, as well as being bar band friendly and jock approved. His new record is out Nov. 24 and is titled Hard Luck Stories. It features a bunch of special guests including a high school chorus (Glee anyone?!), blues legend Barrel House Chuck and Johnny Hickman and David Lowery of Cracker. The song below features rebel country “star” Shooter Jennings and is a pretty cool duet on love, lust, sex and all things related to terror (kids) and drugs.

The War On The Terror and Drugs (takes a minute to load)

The Providence based band Brown Bird has been blowing up my Twitter feed thanks to Slowcoustic (posts here and here). The band plays a gloomy blend of americana and indie folk. David Lamb’s voice is deep and resonant, his songs are suitably dark and are laden with many intense images and appropriate instrumentation. The band sits somewhere between the slow dark folk of J. Tillman and the punk spirit of O’Death.

The band’s new record The Devil Dancing is out November 10th and can be preordered now through Peapod Recordings. Here are two songs from the new record that show the depth and range of Brown Bird’s music.

Muck And Mire

Bonus:

Danger and Dread

“Bottom Of The Bottle”

Joy Kills Sorrow is a Boston based whose motto of “a modern American String band” encapsulates their sound pretty well. Darkness Sure Becomes This City is the followup to their debut record. It’ll be released in 2010 on Signature Sounds. From what I’ve heard of the band they don’t do that modern string band sound that is like a whirling dervish. Instead they use a lot of texture and space to create a sound that stradles bluegrass, folk and old timey.

Pretty sure this song will be on the upcoming record in some form or another. Looks like the next best time to see them perform live is Nov. 18 at The Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA. or Dec. 18 at The House of Yes in Brooklyn, NY. Enjoy and keep your eye out for this band in 2010.

Thinking Of You And Such

Honky-tonk Friday came a little early this week with the (virtual) arrival of the new record by Martinsville, Virginia natives Doug & Telisha Williams. The record’s called Ghost of the Knoxville Girl and sits squarely in the intersection of blues, country and roots. Much like the recent record from Eilen Jewell “Knoxville Girl” isn’t content to stick with just one genre. There are Bruce Springsteenesque social consciousness raising rockers like “20 Point 2″ and eerie murder/ghost ballads like the title track.

For honky-tonk fans it’s the first track that shines. I just love Telisha’s voice on “Kitchen Light” and the song features tasty pedal steel and just the right combination of bass and drums.

You can buy the new record here via Cd Baby.

Kitchen Light

Today’s post is a lesson in ironic serendipity. Yesterday I posted on the new jug band, string and blues record by Geoff Muldaur & The Texas Sheiks and now today I have something from the NYC based jug band Brotherhood of the Jugband Blues. Two jugbands in two days, how strange.

Buy the new record Word To Mother here.

Brother of the Jug Band Blues

There’s been one hard to find record I’ve been dying to write about. I wanted to write about it for a number of reasons but foremost of these was the fact that it featured Stephen Bruton. Stephen died of cancer in 2009 and aside from the one last project he recorded with T-Bone Burnett this was his last recording. He was sick with cancer at the time Texas Sheiks leader Geoff Muldaur proposed doing the session. I can just imagine the fun they had all getting together in Austin to record these old timey jug band, string band, blues and western swing songs.

In fact here’s a quote from the Boston Herald on exactly what the sessions were like:

“The recording sessions were originally set up to give Stephen something to do,” Muldaur said. “He was fighting cancer, and we got a bunch of people down in Texas just to have some fun and get his mind off it. Stephen was going through chemo torture. He’d come in, laughing, just hours after treatment. Bruton put all that slippery Texas stuff in there. Is there any in the current crop of guitar luminaries to compare?”

Coming in a close second of reasons I wanted to highlight this record is the fact that it features the aforementioned Geoff Muldaur of the famous Muldaur musical family (Maria et al). I’ve loved Mr. Muldaur’s solo work. In fact I would count his two records for Hightone as among the best the genre has ever seen (Password and The Secret Handshake).

I’m not going to plead with you to go and and buy every record I mention but if you are a fan of either contemporary roots music or old timey string bands than you really must purchase Texas Sheiks here through Amazon or in Europe here through the band’s label Tradition-Moderne.

The World Is Going Wrong

When I was making my internet rounds of all things roots music there was one name on the Americana charts that I didn’t recognize. Mixed in with Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Roseanne Cash and Guy Clark was Cam Penner. Cam Penner is from Southern Manitoba, his bio describes a rich life spent traveling the country performing with some of the greats (Flatlanders, John Prine, Glen Cambell). He’s a completely indie artist putting out his own records and booking his own tours. In that way he’s like many of the artists featured on Songs:Illinois. That he’s had so much success is testament to the quality of his songs. Here’s the track “13″ from his brand new record Trouble & Mercy. Buy it here.

13

PS Here are the album notes from Trouble & Mercy:

“I found these songs in the alleys and streets. Under a dumpster. In the remains of discarded trash. Faded phone numbers and addresses on cigarettes packs. In empty clubs, gas station pumps and front page headlines. On the bottom of a styrofoam cup. In the last drag, stuffed in the glove compartment. Between sofa cushions. On the side of the interstate. Waking up beside her, watching two worlds collide. In the dives and diners. At cheap no tell motel rooms where you sleep in your clothes, shoes on. Stopping when I saw something shiny. Walking through the ditch, kicking at the tall grass, searching for a dime. Living hand to mouth and waking up to stove top coffee. In the madness of a rich man’s town, where the poor and elite collide. There in the midnight hours, I’d sometimes peel back the gauze and poke it to see if still hurt.”

Bop Ensemble is a Canadian folk supergroup of some sort. I’m honestly not familiar with all (any!?) of the members of the group. But I like the sound of the band I hear on “Flash Around the Globe” from their new record Between Trains.

Today is one of those posts when you have to listen for yourself and see what you think.

Buy the new record here.

Flash Around The Globe

The new song by Chris Scruggs threw me for a loop. It wasn’t at all what I expected. In the past I had Chris (who is the former frontman of BR549) pegged as a neo traditionalist content to put out twangy honky-tonk and nothing more. But the guy is young and talented and is setting off in new directions on his new record Anthem. He’s enlisted the help of folks like Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Nick Luca and Paul Niehaus (Calexico), Don Herron and Harvey Brooks (Bob Dylan), BR549 and Kelly Hogan.

I’m still undecided on this one song from Anthem. But I appreciate what Chris Scruggs is trying to do in his attempt to redefine the sound of roots rock. Buy it here directly from Chris Scruggs.

Josephine

Yesterday’s post was from forty years ago. The music for today’s post is from this year but sounds like it was recorded a hundred years ago. Go figure! The Asylum Street Spankers’ new record God’s Favorite Band is a live concert recording of mostly gospel inspired music. But as you can see from the photo above this is not your grandpa’s gospel group.

To celebrate the new record the band is going out on a tour called Salvation and Sin. The first half of the show will feature the stomping gospel sounds of the new album while the second half will deal with more earthly, secular songs of lust, love and other important topics. Check their website for tour dates.

Last Mile Of The Day