Greg Dulli to Release New Album

David Nadelle of Pitchfork: Daily Music News reports:

Former Afghan Whigs frontman and silver-tongued devil Greg Dulli has spent little time in the spotlight since the collapse of his former band. The singer would be the first to admit that rather than cranking out the tunes Ryan Adams-style, he tends to return to past ideas and noodle them into completion. Sometimes it’s deliberate, sometimes fate– following the 2002 loss of a dear friend (director Ted Demme), Dulli turned his back on the album he had been working on, issuing a wholly different record in tribute to Demme. The resulting Twilight Singers album, Blackberry Belle, came out in 2003 on Birdman Records, and now its unreleased older brother, now entitled Amber Headlights, will see release on September 6. The album is the curtain-raiser for Dulli’s Infernal Recordings imprint and contains many friends and past collaborators, most notably multi-instrumentalist Petra Haden. Tracklist:

01 So Tight
02 Cigarettes
03 Domani
04 Early Today (And Later That Night)
05 Golden Boy
06 Black Swan
07 Pussywillow
08 Wicked
09 Get the Wheel

Dulli has also co-written songs with Screaming-Tree-turned-roots-rocker Mark Lanegan in the eventual hope of issuing a record as the Gutter Twins. Until that day comes, the Gutter Twins will manifest themselves solely on two dates with Italian band Afterhours. Meanwhile, Dulli hopes to finish the new Twilight Singers album Powder Burns, and to mount a full-scale tour, both of which have tentative arrival dates of “early 2006”.

Musical Poseurs

It’s a slow day at work today (again). So, while I’m thinking of it, I wanted to mention something I found on my work’s intranet.

There was an employee profile I read online, where the employee being interviewed said, “I love all music, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, Enya, Shania Twain and the Beatles.” I found this pretty amusing, being a person of fairly eclectic musical taste myself. If she loves all music, where’s the jazz? The industrial? The classical? All I’m seeing is country and easy listening and the Beatles. (I wonder if she likes their later, stranger albums, too?)

I’d like to be indignant and declare her a poseur and say that I really DO love all music… but I know I don’t. I’m not a big fan of modern country, or gangsta rap, or even recent “modern rock” in more than small doses. And I’m sure there’s other music I’ve never heard that I don’t like, either.

That’s the thing: everyone says that they like just about all kinds of music, but they don’t ? and can’t ? consider music that they rarely or never hear during the course of their daily lives. They may think they really do like everything… but it’s only everything within their own sphere of influence. Most people want to think they’re eclectic and tolerant and far-reaching in so many ways… but they’re not.

I include myself in this generalization, as well. As far as music goes, I enjoy alternative, some modern rock, some punk, ska, classic rock, jazz, classical, drum & bugle corps, barbershop / a capella, progressive rock, easy listening (“adult contemporary”), some techno/electronic, some j-pop, new wave, synthpop, old-school rap, folk, pre-90’s country, some international music, and some other music that can’t quite be pigeonholed. I know for a fact that I don’t like gangsta rap, modern country (“crossover” country is almost worse), really heavy industrial, a lot of modern rock and pop… but I can’t think of much else that I can’t stand, mainly because I don’t find myself in situations where I would experience music I may not like.

So, yes, feel free to claim that your tastes are eclectic. Claiming that you love “all” music is a bit of a stretch, though.

Drum Corps Reflections

My practice gloves smell like sunscreen and sweat. I reach into the horn case and put them on. I lift out my mellophone, still shiny from the bath and polishing it got Saturday afternoon before the performance.

That shine was the first thing, back in the summer of 1995, that made me truly realize that I was part of a drum corps. I remember being on the practice field at the Memorial Day camp, looking around the circle of horns warming up, and seeing the sun shine bright off the silver. It spoke to me somehow, made me realize that I was part of something I’d never dreamed I could do.

Now, standing in the basement of my house, I pick up my LakeShoremen horn, blow some long tones and lip slurs to warm up, then play through the show, opening my music to look at a few bars in a couple songs that I can never seem to get right. I run through the trouble spots again, then warm down with “Contact,” the horn feature.

It’s up to me now. This isn’t Junior corps, like Northern Aurora or Bluecoats. No one is going to make me practice. If I want to perform better at DCA than I did at DCM, I need to apply myself. Now that I’ve tasted performance again, now that I’ve roll-stepped out onto the turf and seen the stadium lights flash off the silver horns, now that I’ve heard the applause again and been congratulated by one of my own for a job well-done, now I can find the impetus to practice on my own.

How could I have thought of leaving? I’ll have to take time away from LSM eventually, I know… but not quite yet. There’s plenty of time to have kids and stay home on weekends. For now, I’m just starting to remember why I love this activity.

Lou Barlow

Lou Barlow in Motion, Grog Shop, 12 Mar 2005 || Lomo LC-A

Neither myself nor Aaron had ever gotten to see Lou Barlow live before this show. (Lou Barlow = Folk Implosion, Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Kids soundtrack… remember the song “Natural One” from the late 90’s?) Being a giant fan of Lou, and wanting to support the Hannelore Barlow charity tour, we bought ourselves tickets and headed out to Coventry.

Anyway, he performed back in March at the Grog Shop and, despite my less-than-stellar Tegan and Sara results, I brought my trusty lomo along. This was one of the two shots of Lou that I got; after a while, I realized that they weren’t really going to come out well, and I gave up on snapping pictures and just enjoyed the show.

Bob Mould: Body of Song

No, I haven’t found the leaked album. But it’s not for lack of trying.

It’s late, so this will be kind of disjointed, but I wanted to get my first thoughts written down.

I was surfing through my blogroll, hitting sites I hadn’t hit in a while, when I surfed over to Bob Mould‘s blog. He’s been promising us a guitar-driven album for a while now—several years, in fact—and, lo and behold, Body of Song is finally due for release next month! I also learned from Bob’s blog that the album had been leaked.

Which, of course, set me to trying to find it.

I did manage to find it on Soulseek, but the guy logged off before I could get ANY of it. Now, you watch: I’ll wake up in the morning and Aaron will have read this and downloaded a torrent of it overnight. [No, wait, there it is. Only 3.5 KB/sec, but it’s going. I’ll have it by the time Aaron gets home.]

Anyway, I did find a couple of sanctioned tracks: (Shine Your) Light Love Hope, and Paralyzed.
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