Touting themselves as the “best rock-reggae this side of the Chicago River” Midwestern movers and shakers, Jackpot Donnie, will be gracing the fine city of Chicago with the release of their second full-length album, New Mode on March 27th, with a corresponding release show at The Cubby Bear. A band that has made the stylistic quirks of their genre their own, Jackpot Donnie delivers all the bouncy bass, funky fills, and soulful singing one would expect.
New Mode kicks off with a listener friendly track for those who may just be getting into JD for the first time, complete with a “sounds familiar but can’t quite put your finger on” sort of melody and new wave-esque synth subtly woven between the bouncing bass. The band’s penchant for reggae is in full swing in the next track, ‘Room to Improve’ which grooves and flows just the way it should, but has a little rock break with the chorus interjecting “I just won’t do this again” before going back into its smooth rhythms.
Following that same path to reggae are songs like ‘Oblivious Sunday’ and title track ‘New Mode’. While the album as a whole has that same reggae influence, certain tracks diverge into other genres such as ‘Renegade Revolutionary’ with its rockabilly inspired sound, as well as the gravelly belting found in ‘Daybreak’ and ‘Ponzi’. The former of these songs also has a float-y guitar riff and power display of pipes near its end worth giving kudos to. Its in songs that rock a littler harder that we find our front man sounding a bit like Eddie Vedder, but minus that back of the throat in audibility the Pearl Jam singer is known for. Instead, Matt Love’s voice comes across crystal clear and crisply.
One thing we noticed about New Mode is that the album essentially is one eight track long decrescendo; it’s pace starts out buoyant and bouncy then slowly trickles down to lazily float to its finish. At first listen this felt like a weak ending, but after some consideration we see the merit in the chill down New Mode weans its listener into. As a whole we believe that fans of this four piece will be anything but disappointed, and we have a feeling Jackpot Donnie might create a few new alterna-reggae fans with this full-length.
Sound as Language is a few weeks deep in their plan to offer one album, EP, or demo per week to the public. Stay tuned for weekly updates on what’s available, and be sure to check out Sound as Language for new music, interviews, and sound offs.
What do they sound like? Indie guitar rock akin to Built To Spill and Dinosaur Jr. crossed with some emo influences. This is really great laid back stuff that patiently unfolds in a particularly charming manner. For the chilled out indie rocker! If you like Tigers Jaw, you might dig Forming. And wait til you hear the band’s new stuff…so good!
From the North woods of Michigan comes Victor! Fix the Sun, a Grand Rapids three piece delivering the punch of a band twice that size with their aggressively intricate post-punk sound, lead a strong front man and collaborative bellows.
The bands third release, Person Place Or Thing, is hard hitting and hail worthy as one of the better hardcore-but-so-much-more albums we’ve heard in awhile. While just six tracks long, Person Place Or Thing delivers thirty minutes of clean aggression that is gritty without feeling grimy. From the tremulous echo and rolling drum beats of “My Friend The Guru” and title track “Person Place or Thing”, we hear an example of classic heavy rock vocals coupled with perfectly performed and controlled screams, not to mention some serious rocking out with just the right rhythmic build.
There’s a certain sense of melody and delicate planning within this bands work, most apparent in “We Come From The Northwoods” and “Paperthin Feather Fuck”, both of which, while rough and tough have a smooth give and take to their builds, as well as something very Minus the Bear to their instrumentals. Both tracks also offer a slight relief from the general assault of rock such as the former’s repetitious chorus, “We’re never going home “ followed by an awesome melodic guitar solo midway through the 7:36 song.
We loved the percussion of “Blind Man’s Bluff” as well as the looseness to the vocals in “Infested, Mother Approved”. The rollicking guitar, boost/recede paces, and chaotic energy of both these tracks kept our rapt attention for their duration.
A set of songs for fans of Native and At the Drive-In, we would even suggest this release from Victor! Fix the Sun to those who have since now only been toeing the line of heavier music. These songs are hearty without being overwhelmingly heavy, smartly written, expertly executed, and sure to turn on even the meekest of listeners. Person Place Or Thing is made available by Friction Records, and you can keep an eye out for Vitctor! Fix the Sun on tour this summer.
Having our own history working in big box record stores, we know that Tuesday’s tend to be big release days in the entertainment world. In light of it being a Tuesday,(and honestly, what else do Tuesday’s really offer?) we bring you this installment of our ‘List of 5′ series:
5 New Albums Out This Week
Click any of the album covers to check out more information.
A band solidly born in the Midwest, bred among the bar scene and good friends that come along with it, Chicagoans Moses Cleveland are four musicians just looking to have fun. Not taking themselves too seriously has done anything but impede their success as a band. The quartet had a song debuted in a national commercial for Nautica this past February, and will be featured in an up coming video game this spring. The band has also received plenty of good vibes for their lives shows around the Chicagoland area as well as their first full-length The Corner of Uncool and Care Avenue, released on the bands independent label, Spaghetti Feed Records.
Though Moses Cleveland is currently in the midst of making their second album, one they say delves away from the basic rock structure of their first and incorporates more contemporary effects, The Corner of Uncool and Care Avenue is still good example of what these musicians stand for. From the rolling, bluesy bass line and guitar soloing in ‘Story of Mack’ to the more punk driven drumming and borderline rockabilly sound of ‘Two -Step Timmy’s Traveling Blues (Less Is More)’ Moses Cleveland is band that both rocks and rolls.
The boys show their ability to slow it down and take a breather as well, like when they follow the formula for the classic rock ballad in “Unmodest Marilyn” and come off with a more alt-country feel in “So You Say (Rock Bottom)”. The former of the two gives one of the only examples of production effects, while the rest of the album comes off as relatively organic, clean, and simple. That standard rock aesthetic is fronted by vocals that have a deep rawness but still sometimes slip into a nasally croon akin the Old 97′s and a notch below Billy Corgan, which may or may not work for some listeners.
With their use of gritty guitars like those in ‘Terrorize’ as well as the more bouncy indie rock bass lines in the title track, ‘The Corner of Uncool and Care Avenue’, its easy to see that this is a band that isn’t out to change the world or boost their bank accounts, but simply take what sounds good to them and share it with whoever will listen. For that, we’d like to say thank you to these city dwellers and look forward to what they’ll bring to the table next.
The men that make up Moses Cleveland (Adam Rowings, Tom Owen, Chris Adamescu and Paul Bork) sat down with us to talk,among other things,about their future plans, favorite bands, and the worst shows they’ve ever been to.
Reviewsic: How did Moses Cleveland start?
Adam Rowings: Back in the day, Tom and I used to play as a two-piece. He was actually a bartender at a place that had a really good deal on barbecue sliders, and I used to go in there a lot because they were really good, only a $1. So I got to know Tom, and I was playing acoustic shows at the time, then thought “Hey, why not. Let’s do a White Stripes, Black Keys kind of thing.” So we played around like that for a while in the city of Chicago. Then decided it was time to expand. Meanwhile our friend Chris, was this friend of a friend while still living in Cleveland, and we were out drinking-
Paul Bork: Which is a common theme…
Adam Rowings: haha yeah! But he was like,”if I ever move to town, we should jam sometime.” And when he did move to town we decided we wanted to fill out the band, and go beyond this two-piece we had been playing. Then we started to work on this album, just shut ourselves in for three months.
Chris Adamescu: Yeah, I ended up playing with them once and then just heard nothing from them for like…those three months. Then all the sudden on facebook I get this message saying, “Oh hey, are you still interested in playing?”
Adam Rowings: Pretty much haha We did the album, brought in some friends of ours as studio musicians and then gave Chris a call and shortly there after gave Paul a call, who was another person we met out at a bar-Apparently I like picking up band members at bars, just something I’m into I guess? Haha And that’s how we got the nucleus of our last album, and we’ve been using that as a stepping stone towards the future. We’re working on our second album already and doing it as a unit this time.
Tom Owens: It was pretty much just the two of us for the first album, but this next one we’re looking to make it the band as a whole.
Adam Rowings: Exactly. And what’s really great is that our live shows have evolved past what that album was too, by having different musican’s and their take on it. The first album is me playing all these different guitar parts, which is well and good, but it’s great to have them do their take on it and have an actual lead guitarist, and an actual bassist.
Reviewsic: Tell us a little about the new music you’re working on.
Adam Rowings: The new stuff we’re working on has been a great evolution for us. It’s got a much fuller sound, more atmosphere. The last album was very much straight forward rock and roll, not a lot of a effects, really simple ‘get in, get out’, just make it happen. This next album Chris put a huge influence on because he has a very atmospheric type of guitar sound, and that’s really coming through. But we’ve taken the core of those rock and roll type songs and started mixing in some modern influences and more effects, producing the sound a bit more, to be a little more indie rock than just straight rock and roll.
Reviewsic: That leads us to our next question…what has Moses Cleveland been up to as of late?
Paul: We’ve been playing around Chicago a lot, and we did our first out of town show in January, in Cleveland, which was a lot of fun because some of us are from Cleveland and there were a lot of people who actually knew us and came out, so that was pretty cool. A Nautica commercial using one of our songs just went live, which was awesome because there was really no effort on our part.
Reviewsic: How did that come about? Paul: I believe they found us on eMusic? Adam Rowings: Yeah! I swear this kind of thing never happens to us, but we released our album on the Internet and the very next day got the offer from them. Did nothing. It was the most random thing!
Reviewsic: What would you say your major musical influences are as individuals?
Chris Adamescu: Mine change way too much. I used to be obsessed with punk music when I was little, then blues all the sudden, and now I can barely listen to blues because I get so bored with it. So if I say I love Stevie Ray Vaughn you automatically thing one thing, and I can love one person as a guitar player, but not a whole band, you know what I mean? It’s really hard to say.
Paul Bork: I would say my tastes have really evolved. The first time I picked up a bass was for high school show choir, and from there I played in jazz band. So my basis for learning music was all blues/jazz stuff. Then the music I listen to is really eclectic. I listen to Howie Day, Elliott Smith, and then there’s Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and Slipknot haha. So I’m all over the place, almost doesn’t make sense.
Adam Rowings: Oh yeah, I heard Howie Day and Slipknot were collaborating. It makes perfect sense!
Tom Owens: I’m a classic rock nerd. Pretty much anything from the 60’s, early 70’s- The Jimi Hendrix Experience is my all time favorite, has been since I was like 13. Mitch Mitchell is my drumming hero. Also, I’m a jazz fan, and I’d say grunge too. I love Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction- probably the first bands I discovered on my own, without my older brothers help. I saw an ad in a skateboarding magazine and thought “oh this is a cool t-shirt” and bought a tape haha. So pretty much straight forward classic rock, and I’m also an old school hip hop fan. When we were recording the album and I was hearing my beats by themselves it dawned on me that they were just kind of straight hip-hop without me even knowing it. So yeah, I’m old; I like the old school stuff.
Adam Rowings: I got addicted to classic rock early on, but I’ve keep a little more current with some of the indie stuff, and solid Midwestern rock bands. Stuff like The Black Keys, I love the White Stripes and The Hold Steady. That band is just electric live, I love the energy they bring to their shows and the way people will connect with the musical stories that they tell. And lately I’ve been getting a little more into Wilco, who I honestly didn’t appreciate for a long time because it seemed like such a cliché indie band to like, but more and more now I’ve started to like alt-country, so stuff like Wilco and Blitzen Trapper, that kind of sound, has started to grown on me.
Reviewsic: Is the new sound you’ve been progressing toward something you went into the studio with the mindset to do, or is it something that just sort of grew on its own?
Tom Owens: There’s definitely sort of an overall theme within the songs.
Adam Rowings: I think it was more about what we were trying not to do haha Which always a recipe for success…
Reviewsic: Alright, then, what is it that you’re trying not to do?
Tom Owens: Well I know I’m trying not to make my drum beats sound like the same old drum beats, with that same kind of hi-hat all the time.
Adam Rowings: We’re trying to make songs that still sound like our band, but with as much variation as possible. So like on the last album, a song like ‘Terrorize’ is very much a straight forward hard rock sound that almost is like Metallica in that it’s got those deep, crunchy guitars. And then you take a song like ‘Unmodest Marilyn’ that’s more a classic ballad, with heavy reverb and acoustic guitar. We’re trying to throw things out there and see what sticks, and the reason behind that is to push each other and see how far we can go. I think a a lot of the bands I really appreciate try new things, and will always be the ones that shake it up so it doesn’t all soundjust the same. The goal is to make an interesting album as opposed to an interesting song, something that you can listen to and hear different things instead of the same thing five different ways.
Reviewsic: What are you top three favorite venues?
Chris Adamescu: Metro. I saw Stereophonics there right when I moved here and I just love that place. I constantly say, “I want to play there, I want to play there.” It’s a big a goal. Liam Gallagher always says that the best shows to play are the small clubs in Chicago, and I love Oasis, so inevitably I agree haha.
Tom Owens: I would like to play Schuba’s, I’ve seen quite a few shows there and the sound is always fantastic.
Paul Bork: The best show I’ve been to in Chicago was probably at The Riv. And as far as places I’d like to play, there’s a cool club in Indianapolis called First Avenue, which is tiny, but I’ve seen people like John Mayer and Howie Day there.
Adam Rowings: A couple placed we have play that I’ve really enjoyed were The Empty Bottle and The Double Door. It was so cool to take the stage knowing how many great bands have come through there, and that’s half of it. The other half is the sound system, bands just sound good there. I know they made us sound better than we are, and that’s just great haha It’s a lot of fun to play when there’s such a great sound system. But when it comes down to it, the show makes the venue; the venue doesn’t make the show. You could be playing in a closet and if it’s a good set, it’s going to be a good time no matter what.
Reviewsic: Best and/or worst show you’ve seen?
Adam Rowings: I once bought tickets for a show that was supposed to be Block Party, Jack’s Mannequin, and Panic! At the Disco, because I really wanted to see Block Party…and then they cancelled, and got replaced by The Plain White Tees, and I couldn’t sell the ticket, so I ended up just going to the worst show I’ve ever seen. The teenage girls were everywhere and I just felt so out of place and uncomfortable.
Paul Bork: I could put down the best and the worst thanks to John Mayer. The first time I saw him it was before anyone really knew who he was, at this little 500 person venue in Minneapolis, and since no one knew his songs he could just sit there and solo for ten minutes because he’s such an amazing guitarist. So then I see him in Chicago with Guster, and expect a similar experience but instead it was terrible because it was all teeny-boppers. He didn’t do any improv stuff, it was just “let’s get through all my songs to please the crowd.” It wasn’t exactly bad as much as it was disappointing, it didn’t seem like he was playing to play it was just to appease the girls.
Tom Owens: I went to see Kool Keith, who is this sort of lesser-known hip-hop artist. I drove from Chicago to Cleveland to see this show and it was THE worst show- it was so bad that I didn’t even know it was him on stage. Like “Who is this? Where’s Kool Keith? Wait…this IS Kool Keith? This is horrible!” And he would say some stupid lyric, and then stop the music to laugh at his own joke. It was the most disappointing show ever, not to mention the 12-hour drive.
Chris Adamescu: I haven’t really been to any terrible shows, but I’ve been to shows I really didn’t want to be at because of girlfriends. Like I’ve seen O.A.R. like four times and I hate O.A.R. But when I was in fourth grade I saw Rancid with my cousin and I thought I was a cool punk rock kid. Then I almost peed my pants when this whole mosh pit started and I was this little 8 year-old kid that didn’t know what to do haha
Reviewsic:What are your plans for Moses Cleveland in the future?
Paul Bork: We’re looking to tour some, definitely head out and play more festivals. One of the things I’m really excited about, because I’m a huge nerd, is our music being used in a video game. I wasn’t even looking for music opportunities, I was just looking up video game stuff because I love them, and I found this thing about submitting music to be part of All Points Bulletin, this new game by Realtime Worlds Inc. So that’s definitely one of the bigger things I’m looking forward to.
Reviewsic: How did you get your individual starts in music?
Chris Adamescu: My Dad played guitar in this garage rock band in the 60’s and I used to run around the house with his guitar, a 1965 Epiphone Olympic that I still play now. Then when I was 6 or 7 he sat me down and taught me to play along to some songs by The Beatles, and from there I would just kind of mess around and figure things out. But I didn’t really discover that I wanted to be a good guitar player until I was in college, and I started listening to a lot of blues and sort of grew from there.
Tom Owens: I started playing with I was 18, but I also did a lot of air drumming in high school. All I had were sticks, because my parents wouldn’t let me have a drum kit. But I got my first kit when I was 18…then had to sell it when I was 19 and poor. Then I was working at this library in Cleveland where I met some really great musicians, and we’d meet over at someone’s house, grab a couple 40’s and just jam. We were pretty big in to experimental jazz, and sometimes we had a couple of MC’s that would come free style over our beats. Besides that I never played in a really structured band until Adam and I got together, but that library experiment definitely broadened my horizon.
Paul Bork: The first instrument I played was the euphonium, in the 5th grade. But I really didn’t enjoy it that much, but then my brother started playing guitar and that is what influenced me to try it. So I started with guitar and transitioned to bass. I never had a real band that I actually performed in, so this is the first time I’ve done something really real.
Reviewsic: What was the process of recording the album like for you guys?
Adam Rowings: It was very humbling, because we tracked during a five day session and three days in had to switch engineers because the guy we had been working with, Neil Strauch had to go next door to work on something Andrew Bird. So he went from recording with us, first time recording an album, to Andrew Bird…then back to us. So poor Neil…haha it was just a good learning experience, because working with real professionals who pushed us and kept us from just saying “yeah that was good enough” Then we did our mixing at Uptown Recording with Dan Stock, and that was really good.
Tom Owens: Our album art came from our friend Jill, who was a regular at my bar and does professional photography. I had the mastered copy of the cd and was playing it at the bar, and she really liked it, so she asked what we were going to do for album art, and at the time we didn’t really know. Then she asked if we would mind if she took some photos for us. She came back with three really great photos that she took over in Pilsen, and just really bailed us out, because we didn’t know what we were going to do haha But yeah, she’s great, very talented.
Reviewsic: What about the name? Where does that come from?
Adam Rowings: Well, we had been out drinking, pretty drunk actually. And we were looking for Paul, who was our driver that night, but we some how lost him and his phone was dead. The ran into a homeless guy, who started bugging us for change and he thought Chris was named Moses…just started yelling it.
Chris Adamescu: And then he asked where I was from and I said Cleveland, and suddenly he was just going on about Moses Cleveland, and there it was.
Reviewsic: If you were to do a tribute album to a specific artist, who would it be? Tom Owens: Well the first tape I ever got was M.C. Hammer, and I just feel like it’d be cool to do a rock some rock versions of M.C.
Chris Adamescu: The first tape I bought was Robert Palmer, and he was a bad ass, I could redo some of his songs. There was also a band my Dad went to High School with, from Mansfield, Ohio that had this song ’Little Bit of Soul’, that went gold. I learned it as a kid and to this day I still play it all the time. I would love to do a cover of that.
Paul Bork: AC/DC Powerage, that whole album, could be cool.
Adam Rowings: Once Tom had a great idea to do that Blondie song, “One Way or Another”. Its a great song when she does it, but if we had a guy, just real deep, almost metal voice, it could easily become the creepiest song ever. “One way, or another, I’m gonna find you, I’m gonna get you, get you, get you…” haha,
Reviewsic: What are the last few bands you’ve listened to?
Chris Adamescu: That’s not a fair question, because I’ve been listening to a lot of U2 lately, and I don’t exactly LOVE U2, but that’s how its going to look now.
Reviewsic: Nope, you made your bed, now you have to lie in it. How about the rest of you?
Adam Rowings: I’ve been listening to Muse, Silversun Pickups has a sweet unplugged set they did, so I’ve been listening to that and Blitzen Trapper.
Tom Owens: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell- my 12 year-old niece got me it, and because it’s been winter, Bob Dylan’s Self-Portrait has been on a lot.
Paul Bork: The new Muse album-gearing up to see them soon. And I’ve started getting into Porcupine Tree again.
Reviewsic: If you could book a tour with any current band, who would it be?
Adam Rowings: The Hold Steady, because they put on a really great show and I would love to play with them. It’d be a fun environment-their fans get really drunk at shows, but in the good way, not the sad ‘I want to kill myself kind of way”.
Paul Bork: I would say Jane’s addiction.
Tom Owens: I would like to play with Arcade Fire.
Chris Adamescu: I have no idea. But maybe if I could bring Oasis back together…
Adam Rowings: Oh, and naturally we’ve talked Led Zeppelin into doing a tour with us. They didn’t want to do it, but we’ve convinced them otherwise. They’ll be opening for us Summer of 2010.
Good Problems is honestly one of the most interesting records we’ve heard in our time reviewing albums.
Now, as readers of Reviewsic know full well, it’s not often that we skip the basic formula of introduction and flowery adjectives to describe a band in favor of simply cutting to the chase, but New York state residents Summer People have made us do just that. This six piece group has put together a 13 track full length that somehow manages to touch base with every genre from folk country to 70’s rock, jazzy acoustic to experimental- all without sounding like a jumbled mess.
Good Problems starts out with a rough recording akin to the vibes you’d hear around midnight at a country western karaoke bar, full of whistling, group vocals, hoots and hollers. Then, “Two Hearted River” ends and “Shallow Water People” kicks in, delivering a sound traveling the same path as Thursday or Finch, with pop punk inspired vocals and driving guitars. In track three, “Broken Bones”, yet another genre change occurs- suddenly it’s 1976 and you’re listening to a bar band down south that has all the rollicking bass and grittiness of 70’s rock, but is fronted by a man who’s seen the future and knows that 90’s emo and grunge is coming.
Needless to say, one listen to Good Problems will throw you for a loop, making its listener wonder, “Is this a full length or a compilation CD?” While some might insist that this incongruity is sloppy, it’s anything but. Without a doubt, Good Problems has awide range of styles within it, but it also has cohesiveness amid its musical chairs-like track listing. Songs like “For Giving In” and “See Ya Later, Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya” feature the same barely audible vocals hidden beneath a spacey, instrumental focus, while others, such as the title track “Good Problems” explore that experimental side through the use of fusing styles, like this songs big band era percussion and near spoken word vocals.
There’s also a subtle bongo like drumming slipped underneath the rest of their instrumentals in a few tracks, creating a distinct off-tempo contrast between their rhythm sections that alludes to the bands experimental tastes. Traditional indie rock is apparent in Good Problems as well, from the female assisted vocals in “Curtained Rain” to the Death Cab for Cutie-esque “Glossy-Eyed”.
One of our personal favorites from this album is “Great Northern Driver” which manages to take the unique elements found among these tracks, such as the spacey echo of their guitars and slight alt country vibe, and pair them with a great chorus and infectious variety of percussion.
As a whole, Good Problems is an album we’re sad to say will probably slip under the radar of most listeners, but now feel is our personal duty to praise and share. If you’re a fan of variety and intricacy then we urge you to check out this laudable release from Summer People.
“L-O-R-E-N, M-U-Double R-E-Doubl L: That’s how you spell, Loren Murrell.” is a rhyme we took away from the first time we met multi-instrumental musician Loren Murrell, roughly three years ago at the Jstreet Radio studio in Round Lake, IL. At the time Murrell had recently uprooted himself from his life in Michigan, having sold almost all his belongings (save for his guitar) and headed out to explore the wide open spaces of the United States. In the short span of a few hours Murrell impressed the Jstreet Radio staff with his bohemian logic, free spirit, and avant garde folksiness, and now a few years later he’s doing the same to music fans of the south where he’s taken up residence in the Big Easy. Loren’s sound is one that’s a little hard to put your finger on- inspired by everyone from Freddy Mercury to Elliott Smith, good beer and cheap wine alike, this singer/songwriter has a distinct set of pipes that croons out folksy ballads laced in blues and pop at different junctures. While as of late he’s been spending most of his time in NOLA, Murrell does have plans to tour the Midwest and return to his native North this May. Be sure to keep tabs on this musician and see a show or two as the tour takes place- we promise you won’t be disappointed.
Loren and Reviewsic’s Sam Gordon had a reunion of sorts as the New Orleans resident was kind enough to interview with her for the second time in their careers. Read their talk about Murrell’smusical plans, creative direction, and “dream tour- among other things.
Reviewsic: Can you give us a recap of what you have been up to musically?
Loren Murrell: Lately I’ve been writing my face off down in New Orleans with a new muse. I’m preparing for heading into the studio this spring to release a new album for my May Midwest tour up north so I’ve been demoing and fine-tuning arrangements for another acoustic album. I’ve had a lot of pressure from friends in NOLA to put together a full band but it’s incredibly difficult to do here considering everyone and their mother is involved in twelve thousand different regular gigging groups. So I’ve taken it back to the pickles and am concentrating again on my solo act
Reviewsic: Top three favorite cities/venues to play?
Loren Murrell: New Orleans, duh.
Reviewsic: If you could book a tour with any 3 bands/artists, past or present, who would they be and why?
Loren Murrell: I’m really digging those Swedish sisters First Aid Kit right now, they have voices of angels! It would be rad to tour also with my buddy Chase Pagan from AR, he’s been blowing my mind with falsettos and vibratos for years now. Lastly I’ve been on a Bon Iver kick so definitely definitely.
Reviewsic: Give us some background on the current songs you include on your set lists and the releases you have. Is there a specific creative direction you’re aiming towards with them?
Loren Murrell: As far as creative direction goes for these new songs I’m angling more in a pop folk direction. Lullabies and ballads abound! I’m drawing from recent happenings here in NOLA with an observational and somewhat analytical eye, still telling a story but I’m seeing a lot of it I’ve been focusing on my family.
Reviewsic: What are your top three musical influences?
Loren Murrell: My top three musical influences are my father, this beautiful city New Orleans, and this present life.
Reviewsic: Give us a little history behind Loren Murrell as a musician
Loren Murrell: I started playing piano as a kid and went through the horns and arranging classical romantic pieces, over to hip-hop surprisingly and only within the past few years have I picked up singing and playing guitar. My friend Adrienne Breaux did a cute little documentary on me up on YouTube called “A Ramblin’ Man” that sums things up fairly well I do believe.
Reviewsic: What are your plans for your music in the next year? Beyond that?
Loren Murrell: As I said I’m planning on touring up to the Midwest in the Spring, but as far as releases go I’d like to hammer out at least three albums this year. I’m also tossing around that full band idea in my head as a serious thing but I think that’s going to have to wait until the summer but I’m incredibly excited about doing something a little more high energy.
Reviewsic: Is there any instrument you don’t play already, but wish you did?
Loren Murrell: I always had a knack to pick any instrument up and be able to play it but certainly my favorite instrument I’ve never toyed around with too much is the violin family of instruments. I wish I could rock the cello out like nobody’s business, heh.
Reviewsic: What other projects have you been a part of?
Loren Murrell: I’m always projecting here or there with musicians in the city. I sing with Silent Cinema on occasion and every Sunday I do a singer/songwriter showcase with Micah McKee and Luke Hudleston of Silent Cinema as well as Ms. Peg Roussel, another talented and beautiful New Orleans singer.
Reviewsic: What three words would you use to describe your music to someone who has never heard it?
Loren Murrell: Dramatic folky ballads!
Reviewsic: Who was the first band/musician you saw live?
Loren Murrell: I think I was fourteen with my older brother on 311’s Soundsystem tour, so that would’ve been Incubus haha.
Reviewsic: If you could team up with anyone in the music industry, who would it be and why?
Loren Murrell: Again I believe that would be Mr. Chase Pagan from Arkansas. He’s super talented and a wonderful songwriter and arranger.
Chicago darlings Canasta recently debuted the music video for “Mexico City,” their latest single from The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather. Conceived and directed by the brilliant Eduardo Cintron, “Mexico City” combines sharp, modern camera work with good old fashioned lyrical storytelling. Check it out below and if you find yourself falling in love, download the song [...]
Record releases, reunion shows, poetry slams and school of rock benefit shows make up this weekend’s list for some of our favorite venues. Pick your poison, head out to support the local scene and check back with us Monday for your weekday shows list.
Release shows, local favorites, touring acts and lots of jams this week in Chicago. Scope out the list and check back with us Friday for your weekend shows.
Free shows, much loved locals and badass school of rock chicks make up our weekend line up- get out there and enjoy your music metropolis, Chicagoans! Check back with us Monday for you weekday list.
2pm CT The Mongoloids New Jersey straight edge band The Mongoloids go live from Sound and Fury to answer your questions! 4pm CT Smoking Popes Chat with Chicago pop-punk band Smoking Popes while they take a break out of their summer tour with Alkaline Trio to go live via webcam from Los Angeles! 8:30pm CT Brother Bear Live chat [...]
