CARDINALS

The Cardinals are Ryan Adams, Brad Pemberton, Jon Graboff, Neal Casal, and Chris Feinstein. While Easy Tiger, Adams' new album, is being released under his name, the disc features every member of Cardinals, and they have been making a number of guest appearances to promote the disc. Here's a clip of the group performing "Everybody Knows," the alt-country anthem leading off the new disc's assault on Nashville.



Cardinals will be at The Paramount Theatre October 13th, the show is gonna be awesome as Adams and crew are skilled performers who have been playing together for a number of years. TIXXX

ANTHONY GREEN AT STUBB'S 8-29

Anthony Green of Saosin, Sound of Animals Fighting, and Circa Survive is coming to Stubb's August 29th. Green is a great performer and an amazing vocalist, and I thought that his music would say more than I ever could about him, so here are videos from all 3 groups. Ticket link is below.

SAOSIN:


SOUND OF ANIMALS FIGHTING:


CIRCA SURVIVE:


Anthony's new album is a solo acoustic effort, so the vibe will be decidedly relaxed, emotional, and lo-key. Here's another clip of Green performing "I've Been Dying to Reach You"


Tickets available now.

NAS

NAS GETS FOUR STARS FROM ROLLING STONE FOR "UNTITLED"


Nas is a household name for music fans at this point, so I won't spend much time going over the NY legend's long list of musical accomplishments. Here's what you need to know:

1. Nas is awesome

2. Nas is coming to Emo's this Sunday

3. Nas will be there with Black Star's Talib Kweli

4. Nas will rule all at both the 6pm and 10pm shows.

5. Nas will kill you.

6PM SHOW
10PM SHOW

MATT PRYOR

You may not know who Matt Pryor is, but odds are, if you were into indie, punk, or emo during any of the 1990's, you have heard his music. Way back in 1995, when Dashboard Confessional was just a thought in Chris Carabba's angst-filled mind, when Panic at the Disco were still in middle school, and when Conor Oberst was still playing in Commander Venus, Matt Pryor founded a little band called the Get Up Kids, who are still heralded by many today, along with groups like Sunny Day Real Estate, as one of the original founders of the current wave of indie and emo music. For most musicians, that would have been enough, but Pryor started The New Amsterdams, and toured and recorded with them while continuining to release albums up until the break-up of TGUK in 2005. When Matt entered family life, he started another side project, The Terrible Twos, bringing his experiences as a father into the music world to create children's songs for his kids. And now, in 2008, Matt Pryor is releasing "Confidence Man," his first solo album and a DIY effort in every sense of the word: Pryor wrote, played, recorded and mixed every track on the album, by himself, at his home studio in Kansas. "Confidence Man" will constitute the 15th album that Pryor has released in 13 years. Do yourself a favor and come see him at Stubb's this Saturday, whether its his 4 o'clock show as the Terrible Twos, or his later set with Kevin Devine and Danny Malone. Yes, thats right, he's playing two shows in one night. LEGEND!




MATT PRYOR TICKETS
TERRIBLE TWOS TICKETS

FREEZE!

Hawaii's own Pepper have been percolating the soundscape since 1996, bringing the cool winds and hot rocks of the islands to the world with their solid guitar playing, tight drumming, and innovative mix of reggae, metal, rock, dub, and hip-hop.
Imagine yourself under a bridge, standing under a great highway, landscape a mess of browns, tans, and heat, the sun beating down on everything around it, the ground waving and rising skyward, reclaimed by the tyrannical force of rays and ultraviolet burning its surroundings to an egg-frying desolation. Hearing a small sound, you look left, look right, and creep forwards, the heat radiating, you break into sweat, already gasping for breath, and drag yourself forward, out of your urban burrow, burning, stinging, coughing, desert winds pounding your face, sand like swarms of mineral fleas enveloping you. You fight, you trudge forwards, and just as your last ounce of perspiration trickles from your brow and it seems the red skyward beast will claim you forever, your consciousness is shaken into immediacy by a roar, a clap, and the sensation of raindrops on your face. Instantly cooled, thrown into a glorious trance, relief washes over you and you look up to the sky, laughing. Music pours upward from the freshly soaked soil.

That's what Pepper sounds like.



Pepper @ Emo's, Saturday October 18th, TIX ONSALE AUG 16TH

EXCLUSIVE Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears Lolla Footage!

Check it Out!



Also, our good friends at Quinnstorm.com have an interview posted with Bthe band that you will not want to miss.

They're playing at The Parish this Friday, get tickets here and come rock out!

Melvins, or the Melvins, depending on whom you ask, but Melvins if you ask the band (or at least their Myspace,) have been together for 25 years, and have released 25 albums. That's an album a year for a quarter of a century. While their music over that timeframe is arguably too complex to express in words, if you would please take the following words with you as you listen to them, I think it may help:

Jungle Assault Jet Fighting Wild Summer Camp With Strippers Action Metal

These guys are tight and with all that touring experience under their belts, it stands to reason that their show at Emo's will be off the hook! Come out and find out why bands like Tool and Mastodon owe so much of their sound to this group, and why Kurt Cobain, Mike Patton, and John Zorn praise them.

Friday, August 22nd, with Big Business.

Get Tickets Here.

As a whole, music fans in today's world, in my experience, are fairly open minded. Unlike generations past, most of us are fine blending musical tastes, and staying fairly open to new definitions of the genres we do like. One spin of the vast array of radio stations with "rock" in the name will offer up dozens of different interpretations of the word, with lyrics on every subject from broken hearts to broken televisions, and we, as the music-consuming public, are totally cool with putting it all under the same umbrella. "Electronica" in our world is a word used to describe everything, depending on who you ask, from Nine Inch Nails to the Postal Service to BT to Tapes N Tapes, again, with little demur from the public at large.

But try to call Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, or Bus Driver "Hip-Hop" to the wrong person, and you will have a war on your hands. For whatever reason, the Wild West that makes today's musical landscape so exciting has been slow to arrive in Raptropolis, and, in my personal opinion, a lot of amazing, innovative groups like those mentioned above are pushed into a musical oblivion where they are either embraced by a fringe community, as happened when Slug & co were signed to Epitaph, or left to rot, only to be celebrated years down the line, when the community has caught up to the inventiveness they, at the time, were unable to accept and understand. Even classic hip-hop, great groups like Public Enemy that contributed to Hip Hop in unprecedented ways, are brushed aside by many "heads" for their lack of cultural relevance.

Luckily, there are groups out there that span the great chasm between the hardcore hip-hoppers and the casual crowd, great bands that keep it real while pushing the boundaries: bands like The Roots, Hieroglyphics, and now, the second wave, groups like The Cool Kids, who have taken the classic formula, spliced it with everyday subject matter that makes them instantly relatable, and added in enough butt shakin to satisfy drunken partygoers of any age, and Free Sol, who's IDM-infused variety of hip-hop and soul offers, pure, unadulterated chill in near-lethal doses. Both artists, by the way, at Emo's August 20th, get your tickets here.

Oliver Future @ Emo's

Oliver Future is coming to Emo's with Pudge Zeppelin on Sunday, August 16th. The group is very passionate about their music and I've heard that they put on a great live show. Check out the video below, and if you like what you hear, tickets await!

TOOTS AND THE MAYTALS

They are Toots and the Maytals. They are one of the original granddaddies of the Reggae sound. They are legends. They are at Antone's this Wednesday. If this seems a little short, it's because I can't understand why the entire city is not lining up there already. If Bob Marley was Bob Dylan, the storyteller who moved mountains, and Peter Tosh was John Lennon, the visionary, then Toots and the Maytals are Led Zeppelin. Yes, this show really is that big of a deal. I'm just going to say it: if you are a fan of Reggae, Rocksteady, Ska, Hip-Hop, Funk, or Jazz, and you don't go to this show, you are an idiot.



TICKETS

In Case You Didn't Know...

Does anyone remember back when Fueled by Ramen was that label that Less Than Jake was on?  They've come a way since then, thanks in no small part to Fall Out Boy and Pete Wentz, who, besides his talents for genitalia self-portraits and paparazzi posing, really does seem to have a great ear for talents across all genres.  All of the Radio vs Underground, Major vs Indie stuff aside, its great to find a label that's not afraid to put Tyga and the Hush Sound on the same imprint and encourage kids to do something our parents seldom did: diversify.

And, speaking of the Hush Sound, come show 'em some love when they play Antone's this Sunday, with Steel Train no less.  TIXXX

Wild Sweet Orange

Wild Sweet Orange don't have any songs about fruit, but they do have insightful power-folk-pop anthems that make me feel good inside and get me thinking the way Conor Oberst did, and they are danceable in this surprisingly comfortable manner, which brings me back to Death Cab on the Photobooth album.

Anyway, they're going to be at Stubb's Sunday, August 10th (that's this Sunday,) and if either of the bands I mentioned before are your deal, you should do yourself a favor and come check them out with Electric Touch and Jets Under Fire, and unwind for an evening.

VIDEO:


tickets!