By Matt Harness
A sampling of Bloodshot bands performing in Chicago in May.
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Artist: Ha Ha Tonka and Ben Weaver
Date: Saturday, May 2
Venue: Subterranean
Sample:

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Posted on April 30, 2009

By Don Jacobson
The Del-Lords are a band that I probably should have known something about, given my geekish obsession/compulsion with anything smacking of ’80s cowpunk. And yet . . . the coming re-issue of their first three albums (released between 1984 and 1988) caught me by surprise. I thought I had heard the name, but it turns out I was confusing them with another influential ’80s band, the Del Fuegos. So I looked up the Del-Lords and I’m glad I did, because I discovered they occupy a key place in the holy roots rock/punk rock union from which much of our beloved modern alt-country/Americana comes from.

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Posted on April 25, 2009

By Matt Harness
By my count, 15 bands on Bloodshot Records call Chicago home. Don’t you think you ought to know them? Of course you should.
So this week in Bloodshot Briefing we’re introducing a recurring feature, Get To Know Your Chicago Bloodshot Musician. Off we go.
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Name: Lucas Long
Band: Ha Ha Tonka
Instrument: Bass, vocals
Neighborhood: Couch surfs between Andersonville and Edgewater
Bars: Simon’s for the jukebox, the Sovereign for the cheap beer.
Coffee Shop: Pause.
Record Store: Hasn’t bought a CD in two years; gets his music online.

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Posted on April 24, 2009

By The Beachwood Comcast Music Choice Affairs Desk
Comcast has remade its Music Choice lineup including the addition of several new genres/channels. Let’s take a look.
Channel: Hit List
Description: Today’s hottest mainstream and rhythmic pop hits and crossover smashes straight off the charts!
Now Playing: Angels On The Moon/Thriving Ivory
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Channel: Hip-Hop and R&B
Description: Today’s hottest Hip Hop and R&B music, exclusives mixes and remixes.
Now Playing: Mad/Ne-Yo
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Channel: MC MixTape
Description: A non-stop mix and blend of popular music and beats designed to keep the party going.
Now Playing: Pop Life Vol. 2/DJ Lonnie B.

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Posted on April 22, 2009

By Matt Harness
My first memories of listening to Scotland Yard Gospel Choir are fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I was at Subterranean a few years back for another band when these lads and lassies opened the doors to their world. With guitars, trumpets and violins, the orchestral sound was as soothing as it was shirt-shaking.
Elia Einhorn, who co-founded the band in 2001 with another college music major, took some time between mastering SYGC’s latest effort (due out in the fall and tentatively called . . . And The Horse You Rode In On to let Beachwood Music peel back the curtains.

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Posted on April 16, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
1. I find the New Yorker’s weekly listings of bands playing shows in New York to be a pretty consistent source of interesting rock info. Here are two items in the current mag that caught my eye:
“Irma Thomas wasn’t the first artist to record ‘Time Is On My Side.’ The trombonist Kai Windig recorded Jerry Ragovoy’s tune in 1963. Thomas covered it less than a year later, and that’s the version the Rolling Stones heard and then turned into their first Top Ten single in the States.”
I did not know that.
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2. “The British metal gods Napalm Death return to New York armed with ‘Time Waits for No Slave,’ a stunning new installment in their exhilarating musical ouevre. Founded in 1982 in Birmingham, England (Black Sabbath’s home town), these metal pioneers started their career in the anarchist-punk movement before inventing grindcore, a metal subgenre that merged elements of hardcore and metal.”
Oh hell, I’m gonna reprint the rest of it. Let ’em sue me, it’d be worth it.
“Napalm Death’s innovative style, political lyrics, and exquisite musicianship have garnered them wide appeal, with fans ranging from the local avant-gardist John Zorn to the late British d.j. John Peel. The new album features their trademark style of short, furious songs, impossibly fast drum patterns, and growling, melodyless vocals in all its glory.”
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3. And . . . here’s an excerpt from Chicago expatriate Neko Case’s April 11 show at the Berklee Performance Center, which was followed by two nights at the Nokia Theatre Times Square.
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And so as not to leave you hanging like that, here’s a cut from her new record, Middle Cyclone.
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From Avril Lavigne and Kid Rock to the Replacements and Radiohead, we’ve got the best RockNotes around. Comments and contributions welcome.

Posted on April 15, 2009

By Don Jacobson
What a bittersweet thing is the 1973 Badfinger album Ass. As a Bin Dive entry, it is eminently qualified because it completely flew under the public’s radar (it was released simultaneously with their first Warner Brothers album Badfinger, which flopped, too). It also fits the bill because it is an unjustly overlooked artistic success – it featured the penultimate popsters branching out into early ’70s-style hard-boogie psych-rock and showed what could have been from a band that was right on the edge of a bitterly hard fall.

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Posted on April 9, 2009

By Matt Harness
We’re such huge fans of Bloodshot Records here at Beachwood Media that we consider them something like a house label. And this being the 15th year of their existence, we’ve decided to make them something of a beat here on the Music page and follow their movements as best we can with our limited resources. In fact, we’re going to attempt to bring you a weekly Bloodshot Briefing – from tour diaries to new releases to Bloodshot artists (and in some cases, Bloodshot alum) in the news. Whatever we can muster. Feel free to contribute your own comments, sightings, YouTube videos or tales of drunken Bloodshot sex and raised-fist Bloodshot politics. You can do so here.
We’ll get started this week with some Bloodshot dates here in Chicago and a sampling of what you can expect to see and hear. In the coming weeks, we’ll build out our Bloodshot Briefing, hopefully with your input.

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Posted on April 7, 2009