A.A. Bondy Premiers "The Heart Is Willing" from Forthcoming Disc "Believers" // Headlining Show at Bowery Ballroom on Nov. 22nd

AA Bondy - The Heart Is Willing by fatpossum

(photo: Ted Newsome)
A.A. Bondy premiered the first song, "The Heart Is Willing," off his upcoming third album Believers earlier this week on NPR Music's All Songs Considered blog. Believers will be released September 13th, 2011 via Fat Possum and a pre-order is now live on the label's website (click on the photo above to go to the pre-order site).

Bondy has also announced an extensive month-long US headlining tour in November, launching on the 1st at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, UT, and wrapping up at the Bowery Ballroom in New York, NY, on the 22nd. He's already confirmed to play a handful of West Coast shows in late September and early October. A full itinerary is below and more dates will be announced soon.

Believers offers ten new songs by Bondy, "conjured during and between dreams, in bare rooms, and on the late night streets of America." The album was recorded in spring 2011 by Rob Schnapf at Mant/Kingsize Studios in Glassell Park, California, with help from musicians including Ben Lester (drums, piano, pedal steel) and Macey Taylor (bass). Believers is the follow-up to Bondy's 2009 album When The Devil's Loose, which was praised by American Songwriter, Filter, NPR, Nylon, Relix, SPIN, Time Out New York, and V Magazine, among many others. American Hearts, his debut, was released in 2008.

A.A. Bondy Tour Dates:
SEPT. 28 -- SAN DIEGO, CA -- THE CASBAH
SEPT. 30 -- LOS ANGELES, CA -- EAGLE ROCK CENTER FOR THE ARTS
OCT. 4 -- PORTLAND, OR -- MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS
OCT. 6 -- SEATTLE, WA -- TRACTOR TAVERN
OCT. 7 -- VANCOUVER, BC -- MEDIA CLUB
NOV. 1 -- SALT LAKE CITY, UT -- URBAN LOUNGE
NOV. 2 -- DENVER, CO -- HI DIVE
NOV. 4 -- OMAHA, NE -- THE WAITING ROOM
NOV. 5 -- MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- 7TH STREET ENTRY
NOV. 7 -- MADISON, WI -- HIGH NOON
NOV. 8 -- CHICAGO, IL -- LINCOLN HALL
NOV. 10 -- NASHVILLE, TN -- MERCY LOUNGE
NOV. 11 -- LITTLE ROCK, AR -- STICKYZ CHICKEN SHACK
NOV. 12 -- DALLAS, TX -- PROPHET BAR
NOV. 13 -- AUSTIN, TX -- THE PARISH
NOV. 15 -- OXFORD, MS -- PROUD LARRY'S
NOV. 16 -- ATLANTA, GA -- THE EARL
NOV. 17 -- KNOXVILLE, TN -- PILOT LIGHT
NOV. 18 -- CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -- THE SOUTHERN
NOV. 19 -- WASHINGTON, DC -- ROCK 'N ROLL HOTEL
NOV. 21 -- PHILADELPHIA, PA -- FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
NOV. 22 -- NEW YORK, NY -- BOWERY BALLROOM

There is no opening act (currently) listed for A.A. Bondy's show at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are $15 the Bowery Ballroom's site lists doors at 8PM and the show at 9PM.

Links:
A.A. Bondy

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The Residents - "Dolor Generar" CD Review (Ralph)

Before shuttering Ralph Records last year, The Residents’ final limited-edition release was Dollar General, which contained the music the played over the PA before and after shows on the Talking Light tour. This sixteen track / 48 minute disc follows in the same vein as Ten Little Piggies and The Ughs! and is a collection of experimental instrumental tracks. The first half of the disc predominately focuses around some creative percussion work and the various Eskimo-style clangings and bangings are coupled with jazz-flavored, polyrhythmic instrumentation which makes some of these tracks sound like King Crimson gone industrial. Intermixed across the disc, The Residents pull out some dark-hued atmospheric/cinematic numbers but never completely step away from the disc’s percussive core.

This latest release from the band, Dolor Generar - Una Noche Lost en Van Horn Texas, is a reissue of Dollar General, but this release includes two additional songs which brings the total running time up to 57 minutes. This new disc is available as a CD-R through Amazon/Ralph Records and is described as “[a]n abstract instrumental album of strange beauty, Dolor Generar is the soundtrack for an unusual night in Texas. Used as pre-show music for the Residents' TALKING LIGHT touring show, this album set the mood for the bizarre stories of ghosts and the missing Carlos.”

It is hard to write an in-depth review of an ambient album (Eno's Ambient series kept coming to mind when listening to this disc) as the overall album is about tones, textures and moods rather than individual songs. Like the aforementioned Eno series, this disc is pleasant listening experience, and there are a couple tracks that are somewhat distinctive but there isn't enough substance to keep most of the individual tracks memorable once the disc is done. Fans of the band probably have both versions of this disc already but other discs (like Meet the Residents or Eskimo) are probably more interesting places to start for novices.

Dolor Generar Track List:
1. Black Scars
2. Burning Madrone
3. Mary Achi
4. Memory of Transgression
5. Rats Fight for Water
6. Restrained in the Ward
7. Carlos Buys a Round
8. Dollhouse
9. Last Rites for Bilibago
10. Blow Row
11. The Red Powder
12. Shoeless Thorn Game
13. Temple of the Dragan
14. War Zone
15. Hassled by Mamasan
16. Drunk Again in Van Horn Texas
17. Oil Jobber
18. Una Noche Lost

Links:
The Residents

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Marissa Nadler & Faces on Film - Photos & Review from Littlefield, Brooklyn, NY 7-31-11

Faces on Film - Manitoba (Acoustic) by mikefiore333

Faces on Film (which is the musical alias of multi-instrumentalist Mike Fiore) opened the show for Marissa Nadler at Littlefield. I wasn't that familiar with Faces on Film's music prior to listening to Mike's acoustic set but his rich, emotive voice reminded me of Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters) or Ours' Jimmy Gnecco. One of the standout tracks from his set was "Manitoba" and a full-band version of this tracks has been added to the iTunes reissue of Faces on Film's second disc, Some Weather.





Marissa Nadler started her set by reaching into her back catalogue for the songs "Hyacinth" and "Salutations in the Dark" before coming coming back to the present with "Little King" (from the new self-titled disc). Marissa switched between a 6- and 12-string acoustic but it was her beautiful, haunting voice that was the focal point of each song.





Mike Fiore returned to the stage midway through Marissa's set to play guitar and add backing vocals which gave Marissa a chance to free herself from her guitar. Some of the standout tracks from the second-half of the set were "The Sun Always Reminds Me of You" and "In Your Lair, Bear" (both from the new self-titled disc) and a solo cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat".







Links:
Marissa Nadler

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Win Tickets for Rooftop Films' "Dangerous Docs & Whisker Wars" (Short Films) on August 4th

Win a Pair of Tickets to Rooftop Films' showing on August 4th - "Dangerous Docs and Whisker Wars" (Short Films). The showing is at Crown Vic, 60 South 2nd St. in Brooklyn so you obviously have to be local to win. To enter, send an email to mike.brooklynrocks at gmail.com with the subject "Rooftop Films" and I'll draw winners at random on Wednesday night (August 3rd).

THE FILMS
SASQUATCH BIRTH JOURNAL 2 (Zellner Bros. | Austin, TX | 4 min.)
An unprecedented peek at the mysteries of nature.

IRMA (Charles Fairbanks | Lexington, NE | 12 min.)
Irma is an intimate musical portrait of Irma Gonzalez, the former world champion of women’s professional wrestling. Filmed in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl – a notorious district of Mexico City – Irma contradicts everything we have come to expect from stories reported from Mexico. Featuring original music written and performed by Ms. Gonzalez, Irma’s story surges with love and deceit, masculine strength, feminine charms, and an extraordinary sense of humor.

WHISKER WARS (Thom Beers)
"Whisker Wars" profiles a group of men as they travel the country in search of top honors in a host of competitions, from the National Beard and Mustache Championship in Bend, OR to the World Competition in Norway. With Germany the reigning champion, over 80 local U.S. chapters attempt to come together to form Beard Team USA. - IFC

NEGATIVIPEG (Matthew Rankin | Canada | 15 min.)
Rory Lepine gives a personal account of his fateful and infamous encounter with The Guess Who's legendary lead singer, Burton Cummings, in a Winnipeg 7-Eleven in 1985. [Sundance]

SATAN SINCE 2003 (Calos Puga | New York | 19 min.)
For Emmy Award-winning documentarian Carlos Puga (True Life, MTV), three months' access to The Hell's Satans (Richmond, Virginia's premier moped gang) produced enough material for not only an eye-popping peek into this otherwise reclusive society, but also a satirical jab at the process of documentary film-making. [SXSW]

DECLARATION OF IMMORTALITY (Marcin Koszalka | Poland | 29 min.)
Polish documentary veteran Marcin Koszałka returns to a forgotten genre: the mountain film. The protagonist of his story is Piotr “Mad” Korczak, a legendary mountain climber who revolutionized the art of mountain and rock climbing and figured out how to scale some of the most impossibly steep natural rock structures in the world. Featuring gorgeous and vertigo inducing cinematography and Koszalka’s magnificently stoic observations, Declaration of Immortality is a thrilling trip to the edge of the abyss and a poignant portrait of a man driven by an insatiable desire to live as large and as long as humanly possible.

The schedule for the night is:
8:00PM - Doors Open
8:30PM - Live Music
9:00PM - Films Begin
11:30PM - After Party at the Crown Vic

Links:
Rooftop Films

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Soul Power: "Lost" '74 Concert Film with James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners Screens at the IFC Center on Aug. 2nd

This footage sat in the vaults for over thirty years due to legal disputes and was assembled as a labor of love by When We Were Kings editor Jeffrey Levy-Hinte. The film Soul Power chronicles the Zaire '74 concert with James Brown, Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, and others that took place alongside the Ali / Foreman fight documented in When We Were Kings.

Zaire ‘74 was the brainchild of South African musician Hugh Masekela and American record producer Stewart Levine, a three-day music festival that took place in Kinshasa in 1974. The event assembled America’s biggest rhythm and blues talents – including James Brown and the Mighty JBs, Bill Withers, B.B. King, and the Spinners – along with top African acts such as Miriam Makeba and Afrisa. The festival was held in conjunction with the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” The promoters hired a team of esteemed documentary cameramen to film everything, including street life in Kinshasa and behind-the-scenes footage of the show being assembled. And then the footage sat unedited for over thirty years.

The festival and film were financed by a Liberian investment group that became mired in legal disputes. Eventually, the rights were settled to facilitate the completion of the 1996 film When We Were Kings, which focused on the Ali-Foreman fight, and it won an Academy Award®. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was an editor on that project, and recognized that another film about the twelve-hour concert was waiting to be made. With Soul Power, he finally brings this work to fruition. None of the footage has ever been seen, including new sections with Ali. The film plays like a time capsule, with no contemporary interviews to interrupt its cinéma-verité sensibility.



This one-time showing on August 2nd features a Q&A with director Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte. Tickets are $16 and the show starts at 8PM. The IFC Center is located at 323 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10014

Links:
Soul Power

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Jim Ward - "Quiet in the Valley, On the Shores the End Begins" CD Review (Tembloroso Creative Lab)

Sparta / Sleepcar mainman Jim Ward’s latest release, Quiet in the Valley, On the Shores the End Begins, combines his three solo acoustic EPs (which originally came out as a limited edition pressings on Ward’s Civil Defense League label) with a new 6-song EP that contains electric versions of selected tracks from the EPs.

The disc starts with the five tracks from “Quiet” (2007) which finds Ward occupying a similar space to A.A. Bondy / James Apollo and telling road-weary tales of relationships and breakups, accompanied predominately by his acoustic guitar. Maura Davis (Denali / Ambulette) adds some sparse backing vocals on “Take It Back” but this portion of the disc doesn’t really start to open up until the gospel-tinged “Coastline”.

While both “In the Valley, On the Shore” and “The End Begins” both have dark edges, there is a bit more energy behind these songs which, coupled with additional instrumentation and backing vocals, adds some rays of hope behind the darkness. Tegan Quin (of Tegan and Sara) sings harmony with Ward on “Broken Songs” and this song also brings in the use of a cello. “My Town” (also on “In the Valley, On the Shore”) is another stand-out track that bustles with almost the same energy that is found on the electric version of this track (which is on the bonus disc). Both the instrumentation and energy ramps up for “The End Begins” and one of the standout tracks is the liltingly bouncy “Waves in Spanish”.

In a MySpace blog post, Teagan Quin talked about hanging out with Jim “when his band Sparta [was] opening for Velvet Revolver”. While the electric disc doesn’t have the same intensity as Sparta did, one can feel the fires still burning. These six tracks sound like a great “lost” roots-rock album from the mid-80’s and captures everything that was right with college rock/radio after the new-wave bubble burst. The electric version of “Take It Back” shines with harmony vocals and ringing guitars and “Mystery Talks” is the sort of song that U2 forgot how to write after The Unforgettable Fire.

Quiet in the Valley, On the Shores the End Begins comes out August 2nd through Tembloroso Creative Lab.

Track List:

“Quiet” EP
1. On My Way Back Home Again
2. Take It Back
3. Mystery Talks
4. Coastlines
5. Easier Said Than Done

“In the Valley, On the Shores” EP
6. All That We Lost
7. Broken Songs
8. My Town
9. The Newest One
10. This Love Has Gone Away

“The End Begins” EP
11. Lake Travis
12. Waves In Spanish
13. Decades
14. The Beginning Of The End

“The Electric Six” EP (Disc 2)
1. Take It Back (Electric Version)
2. Mystery Talks (Electric Version)
3. Coastlines (Electric Version)
4. Broken Songs (Electric Version)
5. My Town (Electric Version)
6. Decades (Electric Version)

Links:
Jim Ward

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Huff This! (Alison Clancy) Posts New Song "Lovin You" As Free Download

DOWNLOAD: Huff This - "Lovin You" (from tuff love, out Fall 2011)

Alison Clancy and her dream-thrash band Huff This! have just released a video for the new song "Lovin You", which will be on the band's forthcoming album tuff love which is set for release this fall. The video was directed by Nick Atkins and captures band-leader Alison Clancy dancing on a trashed Coney Island shore as a lightning storm rolls in.

Huff This! is vox/piano-Alison Clancy, cello -Chris Lancaster and drums -Molly Allis.



Alison’s wild physical and vocal abandon ricochets through our hearts. Conventions are shattered. She makes people nervous and breathless. Alison has even has even been banned from a few NYC venues due to her habit of jumping off pianos and knocking shit over. She recently opened for The Kills and TV On The Radio at the SXSW SPIN Magazine Party and BackstageAxxess.com wrote that she "[s]tole the show, with a second stage performance that had sugar, spice, sunglasses and shiny gold spandex....combining music with visual imagery and dance for an eye catching, mesmerizing experience."

When not wreaking musical havoc, Alison works as a classical and contemporary dancer with The Metropolitan Opera and tours internationally with the critically acclaimed Israeli choreographer Zvi Gotheiner. Alison has also performed at the Guggennheim Museum, Robert Wilson's Watermill Center, Lincoln Center Theater, Baryshnikov Arts Center and Alice Tully Hall. All this "uptown" pressure is furiously unleashed in her HUFF THIS! performances. Her primary band-mate, cellist Chris Lancaster, is a renowned composer for dance and film who's music is performed in the top theaters and opera houses around the world and who's collaborators include Bill T. Jones, Jiri Kylian, and Larry Keigwin.

Links:
Alison Clancy
Huff This!
Electric Child

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