Well how is this for some news? Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile are going on tour. But because this is just too awesome, no Vancouver date! For shame.
I’ll have to plan ANOTHER roadtrip to Seattle or Portland in the fall (if the US hasn’t completely melted down by then and is still letting tourists visit).
Barnett talks about how she came about to working with Vile.
“In 2014 I scored a support slot opening for Kurt at the Abbotsford Convent [outside Melbourne]. We met briefly after the show but I was a bit nervous and didn’t wanna bother him, just grateful for the gig. Years later we started bumping into each other on the festival circuit all around the wide world and we became friends. He hit me up when he was coming to Melbourne next and said he thought we could work together.”
Philly rock & roller Kurt Vile is pretty much perfect to me these days.
He’ll be putting pout a new record in September on Matador called b’lieve i’m goin down. The follow up to 2013′s most excellent Walkin On a Pretty Daze is a darker record from the man, Kurt saying it “definitely has that night vibe.”
Kurt Vile traveled all over the place to record the record including stops in Brooklyn, LA, and Athens, Georgia. The dude even stopped in to Rancho de la Luna (Josh Homme’s studio) for a desert session of recording.
Kim Gordon released this statement about the record through Matador:
Kurt does his own myth-making; a boy/man with an old soul voice in the age of digital everything becoming something else, which is why this focused, brilliantly clear and seemingly candid record is a breath of fresh air. Recorded and mixed in a number of locations, including Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, b’lieve i’m goin down… is a handshake across the country, east to west coast, thru the dustbowl history (“valley of ashes”) of woody honest strait forward talk guthrie, and a cali canyon dead still nite floating in a nearly waterless landscape. The record is all air, weightless, bodyless, but grounded in convincing authenticity, in the best version of singer songwriter upcycling.
Let’s hit play.
Hmm roadtrip weekend to Portland or Seattle in October?
10-17 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom % 10-18 Seattle, WA – The Showbox % % with Cass McCombs and Heron Oblivion
Here’s a older cut that was featured on an episode of Shameless….
Neat. So Mr. Vile’s new record,So Outta Reach, is an EP of odds and sods from his recording session of the album Smoke Ring For My Halo.
I was reading about “Downbound Train” as I do when I download new songs. I want to learn about the history and what was going on. Nothing to flex my brain too hard, usually just poke around on Wikipedia.
Music critic Dave Marsh said that “Downbound” is one of the Boss’ worst songs! Heavy. Who is this Dave Marsh fella anyways?
Turns out Dave is pro Bruce (his wife is a co-manager of Bruce Springsteen) and he’s written a bunch of books about the man. BUT, what is more interesting is that dave marsh was one of the first people to use the term “punk rock” in a publication to describe a style of rock & roll. Now how cool is that?
I always knew that the first band to be described as “punk” was ? and the Mysterians. They had a number 1 garage rock hit in 1966 called “96 Tears.” The song doesn’t sound “punk” rock like you might hear on Jason Lamb’s Punk Show… but this was the first time a music critic described something as “punk.”
? and The Mysterians – “96 Tears”
More poking around on Wiki shows the term “punk” had been batted around in the late 60s and early 70s… but Marsh took it to describe a style of music in Creem in ’71. A member of the Fugs… used “punk” to describe his band’s sound in ’70… but for some reason, it wasn’t in the true “sense’ of the word I guess. BUT, fun fact… Fugs were the first band to have the word “fuck” show up on a recorded album. Neat.
Must be pretty cool to be THEE guy that invented a genre that gets used all the time today.
Right, so what was the point of all this?
Kurt Vile’s “Downbound Train” is a pretty good song. You should listen to it.
The Morning After 