Friday Morning Music Shuffle – Heck of F-f-friend Mix

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After Tennessee’s Icepocalypse kept me in for most the week, I ventured out into the cold last evening to check out a new consignment store called Hang the Moon in East Nashville and to hear some of my favorite people play music. I just caught the tail end of the set by Tim Carroll and Luella Wood but what I heard was (as usual) awesome. The Western Shore were next delivering an awesome set of their unique style of Americana music, and the night wrapped up with the super-duo of Lindsay Ellyn and Taylor Alexander doing a set of some of Lindsay’s great songs augmented by some classic country songs. These two voices are amazing together.

Meanwhile, more snow and ice are on tap followed by heavy rain tomorrow… joy! What the hey, we have music to present!

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Oh good, Environmental Song – we should expect acoustic folk guitar and songs about trees and… wait, it’s by Neighborhood Texture Jam – never mind. I wish could have found a video of this song, and if I had it would have been NSFW for language. Oh, who am I kidding, the video I picked is probably NSWF, too. From Funeral Mountain.

“Psykick Espionage” by Joanna Gruesome

How about some psyched out punk rock music from Joanna Gruesome off the album Peanut Butter? Okay!

“Kim” by Ryan Adams

An awesome song from Ryan Adam’s most recent and self-titled album.

“The God You Serve” by Sean Watkins

Another cool song from All I Do is Lie.

“Train Hop Flop” by David Dondero

One of America’s best songwriters with a song from his first album The Pity Party. So excited that Dondero will be in Nashville in a couple of weeks and Darrin Bradbury is on the bill for that show. Will be an great night of music.

“Gods of the West” by American Scarecrows

Minneapolis Americana band American Scarecrows with a fantastic song from their 2014 album Yesteryear. I grabbed this music from Noisetrade, and you should, too.

“Rastabilly” by The Dead Milkmen

Another song that should have been on that Short Song compilation I was talking about yesterday. One of my favorites from Big Lizard… Source of today’s subtitle.

“Hard Work and Clean Living” by Matt Prater

Real and Pure Country music from Alabama. From Matt Prater’s new album Tables and Chairs. Great song!

“Signal” (live) by Tim Lee 3

Heralding in the dawning of the Vinyl Anniversary (33 1/3) of Tim and Susan Lee – we have some new music and new recordings from our favorite Knoxville trio including this live version of one of my favorite songs on their last album Devil’s Rope. This is from a Live album called Live from Armory Sound: Boston. Look for this, the new studio album 33 1/3, and an EP from TL3 offshoot Bark coming your way in March! And listen for more TL3 and related stuff on E2TG.

“Heartless People” by Dean Wareham

From the Self-titled album by Galaxie 500 founder Dean Wareham. A great song which happens to be the only one not written by Wareham (it was written by Michael Holland).

“Tomorrow” by The Roots featuring Raheem DeVaughn window.amznpubstudioTag = “eartothegro00-20”; http://ps-us.amazon-adsystem.com/domains/eartothegro00-20_3dcd3a52-1a1a-4afe-a2fd-aaba8e251afc.js

The week in shuffles closes out with some soulful music that pairs Tonight Show house band, The Roots with D.C. R&B, Neo Soul singer Raheem DeVaughn. From The Roots’ 11th album called … And Then You Shoot Your Cousin.

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Thursday Morning Music Shuffle – Seems Like Incongruity Mix

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So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of incongruity, and I have this theory that incongruity is a concept made up by those who cannot or will not see that everything and everyone is connected. And that what we experience as an incongruity means that we cannot presently see the way things are connected. Sometimes, it helps me to think that I am the one thing that connects these seemingly !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”); incongruous things. Hint: that thought though helpful is not the truth.

Keep this in mind (or don’t) as you experience today’s shuffle

“Month of Bad Habits” by Andrew Combs from unreleased demo

We’re off to a good if congruous start. After all, E2TG is a Nashville-based music blog, and Andrew Combs is a Nashville singer-songwriter getting a lot of (well-deserved) attention. This is an as of yet unreleased song which we nicked from August Feel Bad for You mixtape.

“Roll This Stone” by David Olney from When the Deal Goes Down

Thing continue – more awesomeness but surprisingly lacking in incongruity. David Olney is a case study in why Nashville is one of the best music towns in the world.

“Eye of Tranquility” by The Grimm Generation from The Big Fame

Okay, maybe we’re getting somewhere… Our good friends The Grimm Generation are from Connecticut so we step out from the Nashville connections…. except the record was produced by Tyler Bird who lives in Nashville…

“Colour Green” by Sibylle Baier from Colour Green

We may be getting somewhere on this seeming incongruity thing. Sibylle Baier is a German folk singer. I came to her music through the Peacefork blog run by E2TG favorites Valued Customer. The album Colour Green was released in 2006, but the music was all recorded in the 70s. This song mentions Summer in New York City which seems about right for this day. Peace.

“Rock N Roll Girl” by Paul Collins and The Beat from The Beat

There is no easy transition from gorgeous folk music to an outstanding California power pop band lead by Paul Collins who was the drummer for The Nerves. They both come from the 70s – so there is that…

“Moon River” by Victoria Williams from Sings Some Ol’ Songs

Another outstanding song from Victoria Williams’ collection of old standards which simply by her amazing voice alone are transported into something amazing. Victoria Williams was previously married to Peter Case who was in The Nerves with Paul Collins.

“Unconditionally” by Lael Summer from Burden to Bear

Speaking of an amazing voice… we have another song from Lael Summer’s Burden to Bear album and another live video of Ms. Summer with the True Groove All-Stars.

“stille nag” by velodrones from kersfees tape $

So… yeah – we move effortlessly into a version of Silent Night in Afrikaans by the truly incredible Velodrones. Thean (I still don’t know how to do accent marks and stuff so I apologize) also makes remarkable music with Bosveld who recently completed a Bike Tour in Canada. And yeah, this is all connected – one link is Valued Customer who introduced me to this and Sibylle Baier.

“Wonderwall” by Ryan Adams from Love Is Hell, Pt. 1 (EP) (Oasis Cover)

See… You see… Ryan Adams has a new album that is really good. Ryan Adams once had someone removed from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville for yelling out for Summer of ’69 which in case you don’t know was recorded by Bryan Adams who is in no way related to Ryan Adams except as I previously mentioned everyone and everything is connected. Anyway, this is Ryan Adams doing a cover of the Oasis hit song.

“Reverse Vampire” by Pujol from PUJOL SAMPLER/Reverse Vampire Single

Daniel Pujol is one of Nashville’s best. I’ve seen him perform twice for Record Store Day at Grimey’s and he puts on an amazing show.

“Abstract by Alex and the Constellation (aka Livingmore) from download

Alex and the Constellations which may or may not have just changed their name to Livingmore is a collaboration of Spencer Livingston (who came into the E2TG fold back near the beginning with his band The Alternates) and Alex Moore. They are based in Los Angeles. I really dig this song and it’s an excellent way to end this shuffle with seems to be but is not filled with incongruity.

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Thursday Morning Music (Covers) – Pride & Joy Mix

Day 3 of no morning music: the crisis continues. Today is the day, I would normally be presenting some interesting covers songs, and but so, I was thinking about Covers on my way in to work – what makes a great cover, a good cover, a failed cover or a pointless cover.

Of course it is all subjective, but here goes my take on that subject at least for the time being:

A great cover can happen when a great artist takes on a great song and owns it. In many cases, over time, some people may even forget that the song is a cover – take Janis Joplin’s definitive version of Kris Kristofferson’s Me & Bobby McGee. Or this cover:

Another situation which can produce a great cover occurs when an artist you love deconstructs some over-produced popular song of the day. I recently heard Ryan Adams version of the Ratt song Round and Round. But, one of my all-time favorite examples is this track:

Of course,there are also some really cool deconstructed versions of some really cool songs. Case in point, Grant Lee Phillips outstanding album nineteeneighties which features tracks like this one: