juliana hatfield & frank smith collaborate

juliana hatfield's latest project finds her teaming with country/folk band frank smith. a six-song ep entitled 'sittin' in a tree...' was released a few weeks back and is available for purchase at juliana's website, the ye olde records website, or from your local music store that gives a crap about good music.

juliana hatfield has been one of my favorite artist's for years and years, and i can honestly say that she has never done anything quite like this before. i won't go into detail about each track, but will say that it could easily fall under the category of what they call 'alt-country', or whatever they are grouping ryan adams and son volt into these days.

some of the tracks have a very country music feel to them, with hints of a banjo and slide guitar here and there. but juliana's touch is ever-present in the lyrics and the vocal stylings. this is a far move from her last full-length disc, 'made in china', but it is a nice change of direction. since this is probably a one-off recording with frank smith (the band), we will probably see the old ms. hatfield returning in all her glory on her next album.

in the meantime though, until that next album comes, get your fix with this ep. also, look for her live cd 'the white broken line', officially released in june of this year.

new iron & wine single

iron & wine (singularly sam beam) has returned with a single from his forthcoming album 'the shepherd's dog', out on sub pop in september. the single is the kind that i used to get so excited about: the domestic single that does not cost $9.99 and above. i bought this one for four bucks at monster music and movies in charleston, sc. so that alone was a bonus for me (not to mention that i knew there was an excellent chance i would love the tunes as well).

the single features a new song, 'boy with a coin', from the album mentioned above. it also boasts 2 (yes, 2!) unreleased b-sides. the first of the b-sides is called 'carried home', and it is beautifully presented with a mix of acoustic guitar, banjo, piano, and bass guitar (among others, i'm sure). the vocal harmonies are lovely as well.

'boy with a coin' comes in as the second track. it has a faster pace than most of his songs, but it is a nice direction, i think. there are hand claps serving as percussion throughout. this adds a more constructed feel to the song. again, the vocal harmonies are lovely.

the final track is 'kingdom of the animals', a bouncy tune with a dance-y piano. nice sounds throughout this one. the bass guitar stands out in this recording, as it also does in the other two songs, making me wonder if the direction with this new album will have the feel of a band playing the music (sort of like what he did with calexico a while back), instead of the slow and quiet music of many of his past recordings.

this is a good cd for the money, and makes me anxious to hear the whole album when it is released. if you have been a fan of his past works, give this one a shot, too.

the white stripes, myrtle beach, sc

photo courtesy of jim lawhead

the white stripes played at the house of blues last night in myrtle beach, sc. i went with my wife, and friends, charles and leah. the tension has been building up for this show for months now, since tickets went on sale. the venue is pretty decent, the band is freakin' sweet, and it is only 2 hours away. so, needless to say, i was pretty pumped.

the opening act was a fella named dan sartain. i was quite impressed with his music. he played good solid rock music with hints of rockabilly and the blues. i suggest checking him out. it is well worth a listen. he played for about 35 minutes with his band.

promptly at 9:00, the white stripes took the stage, beginning their set with the insanely rockin' 'icky thump', their lead single from the album of the same name. it was bliss.

throughout the show, mr. white displayed some frustration. whether it was with his guitar not staying in tune or just not wanting to play the song that they started playing, it showed during the middle of the set. however, things picked back up as the show moved along. mr. white switched effortlessly between multiple instruments, sometimes switching back and forth during a verse or chorus multiple times. the man is extremely talented.

unfortunately, from where we were standing, we could only see meg's arms as she was playing. she was partially hidden behind a stack of speakers. her drumming was spot on, though, and when she came out and sang 'cold, cold night', from their album 'elephant', it was a thing of beauty.

they covered a good span of music from their career, but focused mostly on newer tracks. the highlight of the show, in my opinion, was 'i'm slowly turning into you'. jack screamed the chorus like the fate of his soul depended on it. it was intense.

another highlight for me was 'the union forever', probably my favorite white stripes tune of all. i was hoping they wouldn't stop playing it in the middle and start a different song, which they did a few times during the show, but they played it to the end, and it was a beauty (sigh.). a few songs were left out from the set that they usually play live, like 'astro' and 'jolene'. i would have loved to experience those live.

anyways, it was overall a great show, albeit a bit schizophrenic at times, but what can be expected?

yeah yeah yeahs 'is is' ep - a return to form

the yeah yeah yeahs are back with an excellent 5 song ep. a few of the tracks were performed live and put on their 'rockers to swallow' dvd that came out over a year ago. they were rerecorded in the studio for this ep. the other two are brand new, never-before-released. a fine collection, for sure.



'rockers to swallow' sounds as if it could be (and very well may be) an outtake from their early days. it is gritty, noisy, and crazy. it actually reminds me a bit of the song in the movie 'high fidelity' by the kinky wizards (those skateboard kids), which i think is actually done by royal trux. i think it is just how the vocals sound. easily the most rockin' song on the ep.

'down boy' makes me think of what would happen if 'fever to tell' yyys jumped into a blender with 'show your bones' yyys and hit puree. it is quite a lovely tune, with karen o switching effortlessly between smooth, sweet vocals during the verses and her trademark high-pitched squeals during the choruses. a bit of organ or keyboard is mixed in as well.

'kiss kiss' is straight-forward, fast-paced rock. i like this one a lot. it builds up throughout the song, then stops short, allowing karen o to finish it off with a bit of a cappella.

'isis' starts out a bit tame, but ends with lots of heavy guitar, cymbal crashes, and screaming. lovely.

'10 x 10' is a great song as well, although a bit tame. it works well to end this small collection of songs, though. it builds up a bit near the end, then it fades out with nick zinner's tinny one-note guitar picking.

do yourself a favor and pick this one up. it is available at your friendly neighborhood independent music store, i am sure, for under $7. no excuses! besides, have they ever let you down before?

family reunion in west virginia

well, a week and a half ago, anna, mina, and i traveled up to west virginia with my parents and younger sister, sarah, to attend the annual harvey family reunion. this year, we decided to have it at the local bowling alley. my family has a long history with the sport of bowling, one that carries on in my veins to this day, so i was quite excited about the reunion this year (not to mention that it was not going to be outdoors in the sweltering heat!).



i got to practice my form, whilst in heavy competition with my dad, as anna and mina watched from the sidelines (anna has this highly irrational fear that if she bowls, she will instantly grow fringes on her clothes and have mall wall, then start square-dancing or something). anywho, we had lots of fun.

we then went traveling through the mountains to visit the harvey memorial freewill baptist church, a church started by my great grandfather (or maybe it is great-great grandfather). after about 30 minutes of winding mountain roads at break-neck speeds and near vomiting, we reached our destination, all persons fully intact, and visited a few graves of old family members.



we hung around for a while and had a good time. there were a few outhouses, which we don't see too many of here in charleston anymore, so that was pretty sweet. they were fragrant to say the least. i won't include a picture of the inside of one of these, to spare those that are weak in the stomach.



finally, we went to another cemetery to visit my grandfather's grave. he died in 2003 at the tender age of 77. he was a sweet, feisty fella, and i still miss him greatly. it is a true shame that my daughter will never know him.



overall, we had a pretty dang good time, although it only lasted 2.5 days (that includes the 7+ hour trip each way), and i must applaud anna and mina for making it through the trip without a single complaint. well, mina complained a little bit, but she just is a baby! we look forward to next year's big event.

addendum to previous smashing pumkins post

i got my tickets in the mail saturday, and they are in row GG instead of row G as i had originally hoped. so we will be 33 rows back instead of 7. bummer...

natalie dee

a friend emailed me a funny one-panel comic of sorts the other day, along with a link to other one-panel comics by the same artist. the artist's name is natalie dee.

i have to say that after looking at her site, and laughing hysterically, that she is brilliant. the cartoons are drawn with the innocence of a child, but usually include irreverent humor (i am a huge fan of that!). she created a character for herself that she uses in most of the comics, but also includes funny looking animals or monsters, and usually includes a curse word or two.

some people may think that it is childish humor, but duh, i think that is the point. there are lots of archived comics dating back to 2002, so dig in and prepare to have a few laughs.

a moment of silence... R.I.P. guaninator

today, my iguana 'guaninator' passed away. i have had her for 7 years.

i found her in an office i was working in, which was on king street in charleston, sc. it was in the attic of a shoe store. my friend, dasan, and i had torn the old shelves down in the attic and built an office complete with wood-paneled walls, a floating ceiling, and fluorescent lighting. we also hung a curtain in front of a door that lead to where the air-conditioner for the building was located.

i was working alone one day in the office and kept hearing noises behind me, but when i turned around, nothing was there. needless to say, i was getting a bit freaked out. finally, after a series of scratches and scurrying noises, i turned around to find an iguana hanging onto the curtain. she was just hanging there using her claws to hold on. i had never encountered an iguana before, so i was even more freaked out.

we have been friends ever since...

my friend, geoff (a very skilled woodworker and cabinetmaker), and i built a nice wooden lid with built-in doors for a 7 foot long display case that i have had forever. a divider was placed in the center to make 2 cages, one for the iguana and one for my box turtle, ester. everything has been rolling along fine ever since.

i noticed she had not been eating as much over these past 2 weeks, and her skin color slowly has changed from a bright green to a shade of light brown. after doing some research into this on the internet to see what the cause could be, i decided to make an appointment to take her to the vet. the appointment was for 4 o'clock today. when i got home to put her in the travel cage that i used to use for my ferret 'dogg' (r.i.p. also), i reached in to pet her in the way that makes her close her eyes, lift her head, and become immediately chill (i am the only person that can calm her down with voice or a head pet), but she did not lift her head. she had passed away sometime between this morning at 7 o'clock and this afternoon at 3 o'clock.

i am very sad. i look in her empty cage and feel even more sad. she was a bit insane at times, but she was very cute with beautiful turquoise and green markings, and she made me smile with her funny head-bobbing. i will miss her dearly. sleep well, sweet guan.

smashing pumpkins have returned with a new album

so, the new smashing pumpkins album "zeitgeist" is out. instead of going to best buy, target, and itunes to purchase the album 3 times for 3 different bonus tracks, i bought the version with the 76 page book, which cost me $27 at my local independent music store, which i whole-heartedly support (the bonus tracks can be accumulated from other friend's purchases down the line, hopefully). the book is pretty sweet, but i am not sure it is $17 extra worth of sweet. the music is brilliant. when i listened to the first 2 tracks, i was swept back to my mid-to-late teens on a magic carpet that flies on the wings of totally wicked fuzzed-out distorted guitar and jimmy chamberlin's always magnificent drumming. i was thinking, "they are back!... well, 2 of them are back anyways. woo hoo!!!".

i find out the same day that the pumpkins are playing in atlanta on october 30th at the beautiful fox theatre. tickets were to go on sale thursday, the 12th of july. i think to myself, awesome! i will buy tickets on that day. then i go to ticketmaster’s website to see how much i will be soaked for a pair of tickets, but not caring. it is then that i find out that the itunes presale starts on the 12th and lasts until friday the 13th at 10:00pm (so basically 2 whole days). what that means, is that i had to prepurchase the music from itunes prior to the release date to get the itunes presale password so i can get tickets 2 days before they go on sale to the general public (because the general public is so much more unimportant than the itunes music purchaser, right?).

so because i bought the actual $27 deluxe edition instead of buying the tunes digitally, i was being punished, and i knew for a fact that i would get crappy seats to the show, because everyone else probably bought it from itunes (coincidentally, i ordered tickets on saturday, the 14th, and got great seats - at least i think i did; i will need to verify that when the tickets actually arrive in the mail - but that is not the point!). {back to my rant}---

and at that point, i couldn't even bite the bullet and buy it on itunes just to get the passcode either, because it had to be a preorder.

SON OF A…!!!!!!

so, basically, because i bought the deluxe edition that cost almost 3x what the others cost, i was getting screwed out of 3 bonus tracks and a passcode to buy tickets early.

what they should have done is this:

one edition that is a standard format - 12 songs
the second, deluxe edition, would have the 76 page booklet, three bonus tracks, and a slip of paper inside with a unique passcode for preordering the tickets for their 2007 tour.

that is worth the $27 price tag. why should people who preordered the album from a certain place (itunes) get the front-of-the-line privilege when there are people that spent a boatload of money for the deluxe edition? the consumer should be rewarded for supporting the band, not for supporting the store that the band’s CD was bought from. if i was the record company, i would have pushed more for people to buy the deluxe edition vs the standard edition, instead of trying to get people to buy the $10 edition from some big box retail store. complete bull$hit.

anywho, buy the album because it is good. see them in concert if you can. but man, these shenanigans make even the die-hard fan wonder what the hell they were thinking. urgh!