Haldern feature three:
How old are you? Do you know who Johnny Cash was?
Of course you know. But, do you know who Jamie N Commons is?
Born in Bristol, Commons moved to Chicago with his family at the age of six after his father's job transferred there. The first gig his father took him to was the Allman Brothers: "I have strong memories of strange-smelling smoke and the guy next to us howling like a wolf."
Nina
Returning to the West Country at 16 with a skewed accent, he taught himself the brass tacks of the guitar and, aged 18, moved to London to study music at Goldsmiths in New Cross.
For You To Learn
Singing the blues at 22 is a tough call. It's not just the baggage and breadth of the subject matter: you also need the right pipes and without them you risk parody.
Devil In Me
Fortunately Commons has them. After spending years trying and failing to imitate Gregg Allman, he found a substitute and the resulting sound is both rasping and lovely but inevitably studied, something he defends: "If I didn't think it was genuine I wouldn't sing in that way."
The Preacher
Can’t await the album. Give us some more blues Jamie!!! And thanks to The Guardian.
Friday, 13 July 2012
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
ACHTUNDZWANZIG
Today it's something special - thanks to Thank you scientist and the depths of the internet through which I've come across this exciting new band, started listening and got hooked. The band comes from New Jersey, has 7 (!) members and plays roughly 20 instruments, among which are the trombone, saxophone and the flugelhorn (some career opportunity for you, Geri?). But be not misguided by this - it's progressive rock at its finest. When I started off listening to the band, my first impression was a strong Coheed and Cambria-resemblance. A few hours later, I guess that was mostly due to Salvatore Marrano and his vocals.
Thank you scientist are a lot more than that. Their website describes their sound as follows: "Progressive rock, jazz, fusion, classical, metal, psychedelic, 60s Pop and world music all seem to collide together at full speed, and the impact demands your attention."
Interesting? Right! Even more after reading about how their records came to be: The band have released an EP (The Perils of Time Travel) from which a few songs are featured on Youtube - check out Leave your light on, a brilliant song. Wanting to release a full studio album but not having been signed they decided to get their forthcoming (and now released) album Maps of Non-existent Places funded by fans. And this actually worked out, so here it is: You can listen to the full-length album on the website for free. Youtube doesn't offer much at the moment, so this is the easiest way to get a better impression (c.f. above;)) and to listen to it in one sitting.
The album starts with a prelude and perfect acapella intro, only to switch to raw guitars immediately with the first song, a salesman's guide to non-existence. Here, you can already dive into the band's mastery of all different kinds of instruments and styles - after guitars, its vocals, trumpets and breaks which arebeing speeded up by drums to start over again - beautiful!
In most of the songs you can hear that all band members have been trained in classical and jazz music, a good example of that is feed the horses - atonal at first, the mixture brews and brews and changes to jazzy styles.
Still, this is music that needs to be listened to at a high volume - and you will need time for it. None of the tracks is shorter than 5 mins, Blood on the radio is even an epic 9 minutes, light inbetween, but keep listening, the guitar solo around the 7th/8th minute will blow you away.
I recommend listening to all songs, so I haven't linked all of them individually. If you want a teaser from that new album, My famed disappearing act can be found on youtube.
So, what do you think? Coheed and Cambria? Or something new, thanks to Thank you scientist? And where does that weird band name come from anyway?
Thank you scientist are a lot more than that. Their website describes their sound as follows: "Progressive rock, jazz, fusion, classical, metal, psychedelic, 60s Pop and world music all seem to collide together at full speed, and the impact demands your attention."
Interesting? Right! Even more after reading about how their records came to be: The band have released an EP (The Perils of Time Travel) from which a few songs are featured on Youtube - check out Leave your light on, a brilliant song. Wanting to release a full studio album but not having been signed they decided to get their forthcoming (and now released) album Maps of Non-existent Places funded by fans. And this actually worked out, so here it is: You can listen to the full-length album on the website for free. Youtube doesn't offer much at the moment, so this is the easiest way to get a better impression (c.f. above;)) and to listen to it in one sitting.
The album starts with a prelude and perfect acapella intro, only to switch to raw guitars immediately with the first song, a salesman's guide to non-existence. Here, you can already dive into the band's mastery of all different kinds of instruments and styles - after guitars, its vocals, trumpets and breaks which arebeing speeded up by drums to start over again - beautiful!
In most of the songs you can hear that all band members have been trained in classical and jazz music, a good example of that is feed the horses - atonal at first, the mixture brews and brews and changes to jazzy styles.
Still, this is music that needs to be listened to at a high volume - and you will need time for it. None of the tracks is shorter than 5 mins, Blood on the radio is even an epic 9 minutes, light inbetween, but keep listening, the guitar solo around the 7th/8th minute will blow you away.
I recommend listening to all songs, so I haven't linked all of them individually. If you want a teaser from that new album, My famed disappearing act can be found on youtube.
So, what do you think? Coheed and Cambria? Or something new, thanks to Thank you scientist? And where does that weird band name come from anyway?
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