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94.9 FM THE RIVER PRESENTS ED SHEERAN LIVE AT THE RECORD EXCHANGE SUNDAY, APRIL 29!

April 29, 2012 - Live Shows , Live@RX - by - No Comments

94.9 FM The River presents Ed Sheeran live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St. in Downtown Boise) at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 29. As always, this Record Exchange in-store performance is free and all ages. THIS IS SHEERAN’S ONLY SHOW IN TOWN!

No doubt you have heard the UK singer-songwriter’s latest single “The A Team” on 94.9 The River. Sheeran created a lot of buzz for himself coming out of SXSW recently and The River is bringing him to Boise for this special free concert! His new album “+” will be coming out June 12 and this is your chance to see a new artist who will fast become a rising star in the music scene!

ABOUT ED SHEERAN

Ed Sheeran is blessed – he seems to know exactly where he is going, and exactly how to get there. Where countless others fail to make an impression amid today’s information overload, Ed’s music and talent cut straight through.

He has a poise that is as welcome as it is unusual in someone so young. He’s both utterly self-assured but still charmingly open. He has a confidence that’s built not on being able to sing someone else’s song quite nicely on a teatime TV show, but on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gigs where it’s just him, his guitar, a loop pedal and a crowd.

Above all, Ed’s got this voice with buckets of soul and these incredibly affecting songs that despite being played on acoustic guitar are far removed from the standard singer-songwriter fare. In fact, Ed’s songs are as informed by Jay-Z as much as they are by Damien Rice. They talk about the city he loves and the people in it and of it. They talk about the people made by it, and those damaged by it. They are about love and loss, but are also joyful when you need them to be. He is a unique talent whose combination of skills is frankly quite startling.

Ed grew up in Suffolk, where he learnt to play an old guitar given to him by an uncle. Spurred on by a chance meeting with the aforementioned Rice when he was 11, Ed started writing songs. Aged 16, he moved to London – into a flat above the T-Bird pub in Finsbury Park – with only one thing on his mind: playing gigs, as many as he could and as often as he could.

“I was playing every night,” he says, “sometimes three times a night. I played every open mic night going. At first the crowds weren’t interested, but I learnt how to make them interested!” A thousand audiences from acoustic shows to hip-hop nights, or, indeed, any other genre, will agree with that.

One night Ed played a tiny bar in North London whose website listed every young promoter in town. That night Ed Myspaced them all and a few days later he had nearly a hundred new gigs lined up. A pattern began to emerge – all day in the studio, all night playing gigs. From the early days Ed would sell CDs of his songs out of his backpack, putting cash in his pocket to get to the next gig, but also planting a flag in people’s minds that here was music that was worth paying for. Not satisfied by CDs alone, fans have flocked to his website to pick up everything from hoodies to jewelry.

When Ed was told by his then management that he would need to conform to succeed – including dying his hair, and giving up his unique delivery – Ed responded by writing the cult song, ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’. Over the next year he released five EPs, each one totally different, each one totally him. There was a singer-songwriter one, a live from The Bedford one, one written with singer Amy Wadge. Each sold better than the last.

In February last year, after two years of constant gigging and sofa surfing, Ed recorded a live version of ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ for leading urban YouTube channel, SBTV. The clip got 100K hits in two days and is now approaching 1.5M views. A few days later, he wrote what would become his first major label release, ‘The A Team’: a story about a girl he met whilst working at a homeless shelter. The video for that has just surpassed 1M views.

By the time Ed released the final EP – ‘No. 5 Collaborations’ in January, which featured the who’s who of UK hip hop and grime: Devlin, Wretch 32, Dot Rotten, P Money, JME and Wiley, the support was so strong it propelled Ed to Number 2 in the iTunes album chart after just 24 hours. The only artist selling more copies was Rihanna. When Elton John called his mobile to congratulate him, Ed realized quite how big things had got. Amid interest from numerous labels Ed shortly signed with Asylum – part of Atlantic Records.

“Collaborations was the peak of my independent career,” Ed says. “Now I am beginning my signed career. You have to pass the barriers, go to the next level. Some independent people do it well, but some never progress far enough. Signing to a label is the smart thing to do if you have the right deal. And I have the right deal.”

So now there is the album, entitled ‘+’. “I’d like to say it’s all about positivity,” Ed laughs, “but really it’s just a cool sign that I love. It is also one step on from all the independent releases I have done.”

Ed’s album features a host of very special songs. ‘Small Bump’ is a true story, with the most heart-wrenching twist, about a friend and her baby. ‘Lego House’ is a love song that imagines a world where you can “pick up the pieces and build a Lego house, and if things go wrong we can knock it down!” ‘Wake Me Up’ was written while sat, really drunk, under a tree by Jamie Foxx’s pool (that’s another story). ‘Grade 8’ (“your body is my ball-point pen/ and your mind is my new best friend…”) sees Ed as a worrier/warrior with bloodshot eyes, his heartstrings being twanged by a virtuoso guitarist. The truth is, there’s not a bad song on it, precisely because Ed wouldn’t dream of allowing there to be a bad song on it, he’s that type of guy. As you will soon see.

“I have slept on a different sofa every night for two and a half years so I can do this,” Ed says. “But the sofa thing can get lonely. I’m ready for my own place now; I’m ready for the next level.”

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CURTIS STIGERS RECORD STORE DAY ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT APRIL 21 AT THE RX; WRISTBANDS AVAILABLE NOW!

April 21, 2012 - Live Shows , Live@RX - by - No Comments

Curtis Stigers will perform a special Record Store Day album release concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 21, at The Record Exchange, 1105 W. Idaho St. in Downtown Boise. (Note: The Record Exchange will close at 7 p.m. to set up for the event.)

Wristbands guaranteeing admission to the concert are available now at The Record Exchange with preorders of Stigers’ new album Let’s Go Out Tonight (one wristband per CD preorder). Let’s Go Out Tonight will be available on Record Store Day at The Record Exchange, three days before its official U.S. release on Tuesday, April 24.

ABOUT LET’S GO OUT TONIGHT

An epic work: 5 Stars … Let’s Go Out Tonight is perhaps the most impressive genre crossing release for the year. — Critical Jazz

His eye for classy material is as sharp as ever … Stigers remains one of the most thoughtful and uncategorisable of artists. — The Sunday Times

… Nocturnal, jazzy but modern. Spare treatments of Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” and “Into Temptation” provide other highlights. — The Mail

On April 24, 2012, singer/saxophonist Curtis Stigers will release Let’s Go Out Tonight, his seventh album on Concord Music Group. A departure from Stigers’ previous projects, Let’s Go Out Tonight sidesteps the Great American Songbook completely.  Rather, it includes a vibrant cross-section of pop, folk, country and soul songs from songwriters ranging from Bob Dylan, Eddie Floyd and Richard Thompson to Jeff Tweedy, Hayes Carll and David Poe, whose “Everyone Loves Lovers” was crafted expressly for Stigers.

Though jazz has been integral to Curtis Stigers’ musical vocabulary throughout his career, his transformation from rock/pop headliner (of the sort that filled stadiums and made Leno and Letterman appearances) to jazz vocalist is barely a decade old, dating from the release of his debut Concord album Baby Plays Around in 2001. Stigers is often placed at the forefront of post-millennial jazz singers, but isn’t a pure jazz artist in the tradition of, say, Mark Murphy or Mel Tormé. Nor does he want to be. Critical to his unique vocal style and his inimitable interpretative skills is his ability to draw upon his checkered professional past and his wide-ranging musical tastes to synthesize myriad influences, coloring tracks with various shades of pop, country, folk, blues and classic R&B. Stigers’ genre-blurring instincts have never been never been more defined than on his latest album, Let’s Go Out Tonight.

Stigers also describes the new project as “probably the most autobiographical album I’ve ever made. It hits so many places I’ve been and things I’ve gone through and am currently going through.” Ironically, given its deeply personal nature, Let’s Go Out Tonight is the first album since 2003’s You Inspire Me that includes no original Stigers songs.

While shaping the playlist with producer Larry Klein, Stigers says he “played him a few songs I’d written, but I hadn’t been writing that much. It’s been a tumultuous year, and I haven’t been able to focus on songwriting. He didn’t think the ones I played fit in with what we were going for, and I had to agree with him.” Instead, Stigers and Klein each drew up long lists of song possibilities. “Then,” Stigers explains, “I started flying down to L.A. [from Boise, his birthplace, and once again his hometown, after many years in New York] every couple of weeks and we’d play songs for each other. He came up with a lot of songs, but I came up with a lot, too; and we ended up using more of my suggestions, which I’m very happy about. They’re songs I’ve had in my back pocket for years and have always wanted to record. So, in a way, it feels like I wrote the album anyway.”

The set opens with Stigers’ rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed,” Dylan’s Oscar-winning song from the film Wonder Boys. From the Eddie Floyd canon, Stigers selected the relatively obscure “Oh How It Rained,” originally recorded by Floyd in 1971.  “You Are Not Alone” was written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy for Mavis Staples. Another standout is the Neil Finn/Crowded House song, “Into Temptation,” about which Stigers says, “Give me a song about sex any day of the week.”

The David Poe song, “Everyone Loves Lovers,” on which Poe sings harmony, is, says Stigers, “A song I wish I’d written. Instead, David wrote it for me to sing, after hearing me with my band at The Blue Note in New York. It’s sweet and romantic, until you get to the part where it kicks you in the stomach. I love that brutal twist. We’ve all been there. No matter how perfect a relationship seems, there’s always a place down the road where it’s going to get rocky.” Another highlight is Steve Earle’s harrowing “Goodbye,” of which Stigers says, “We all spend periods of our lives numbing ourselves to block out what’s going on around us. I spent an unhealthy amount of my adult life doing that in different ways. It was a little scary how easily it fit.”

Stigers closes with the title track, The Blue Nile’s “Let’s Go Out Tonight.” “I’ve been a fan of The Blue Nile since their first album. Everything they’ve recorded is so understated and haunting. Basically, this song is about that unfortunate place that a relationship gets to, where you know everything is broken but all you want to do is pretend that it’s not. I spent years doing that. It’s about the saddest thing I can think of, and every time I hear it, I get choked up.”

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THE RAVENNA COLT RECORD STORE DAY EVE IN-STORE FRIDAY, APRIL 20; FREE PAYETTE BREWING CO. CRAFT BEER!

April 20, 2012 - Live Shows , Live@RX - by - No Comments

The Ravenna Colt will perform a Record Store Day Eve in-store at 7 p.m. Friday, April 20, at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise). As always, this Record Exchange in-store performance is free and all ages.

We will be serving free craft beer (21 and older with I.D.) during the in-store courtesy of our partners Payette Brewing Co.!

ABOUT THE RAVENNA COLT

The Ravenna Colt is the alias of Kentucky-born musician Johnny Quaid, a founder member of My Morning Jacket. The Ravenna Colt creates dreamlike Americana sounds that range from folk to rock while maintaining a cosmic connection. With a collective-like structure, Quaid is joined by musicians and artists that help create his vision of stories and soundscapes as told from the eyes and ears of a carpenter and troubadour.

In 1902, University of Pennsylvania professor Dennis Magner wrote The Art of Taming and Educating the Horse. In it, Magner describes an interesting case of The Ravenna Colt, a virtually untamable, yet not necessarily barbarous animal.

The Ravenna Colt, in today’s incarnation, is Quaid finally realizing and returning to his troubadour roots. He first conceptualized the group’s approach to alternative country more than a decade ago. Quaid was well immersed in music, from his own songwriting and performing to his work as a recording engineer at Above the Cadillac Studios — chops that would serve the young songwriter well.

In 1998 Johnny joined Jim James, a.k.a. Yim Yames, on a project that would change their lives — My Morning Jacket. The group worked feverishly touring and recording and has not slowed down since. Quaid lends his guitar licks and engineering style on the first three albums, The Tennessee Fire, At Dawn, and It Still Moves, as well as a barrage of EPs and singles.

Quaid departed from the group amicably at the start of 2004. He left his native Kentucky, headed west to California and worked as a carpenter while keeping a writer’s pen at hand.

He addresses this immediately on “South Of Ohio,” singing “I lost my drawl in California.” It was upon moving back east that Johnny not only picked up where he left off with Above the Cadillac, but also felt it was time to get The Colt running free.

You hear a myriad of influences in The Ravenna Colt’s debut album Slight Spell (Karate Body Records). “According to the Matador” combines the Flying Burrito Brothers’ dark, spacious twang with a traditional folk in the vein of Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan. The reverberated swamp boogie “Forsake and Combine” evokes southern rock with a delicate, thinking man’s edge. The dreamy and windswept “Loner in Disguise” truly highlights the cosmic in Gram Parson’s description of insurgent country as “cosmic American music.”

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HEARTLESS BASTARDS IN-STORE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11 (6:30 P.M.)

April 11, 2012 - Live Shows , Live@RX - by - No Comments

Heartless Bastards will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 11. As always, this Record Exchange in-store performance is free and all ages. The band is performing at Neurolux later that night and we have tickets for sale here at the store!

ABOUT HEARTLESS BASTARDS

Brimming with confidence and creativity, Arrow sees Heartless Bastards pushing their distinctive sound forward with their most eclectic, energetic collection thus far. The album – the Austin, Texas-based band’s first release with Partisan Records – is marked as ever by singer/guitarist/songwriter Erika Wennerstrom’s remarkable voice, at turns primal and pleading, heartfelt and heroic. Songs like “Parted Ways” and the searing “Low Low Low” expertly capture the Bastards’ multi-dimensional rock in all its strength and spirit. Following upon the difficult introspection of 2009’s acclaimed third album, The Mountain, Arrow stands as a powerhouse new beginning for the Heartless Bastards.

“The Mountain was me going through some things after being in a relationship for nine years,” Wennerstrom says. “This album is kind of like me being comfortable again.”

Arrow serves as the recorded debut of the Heartless Bastards’ current iteration, their latest and greatest line-up since Wennerstrom first convened the band back in 2003. Drummer Dave Colvin and bassist Jesse Ebagh – both of whom played on the Bastards’ first-ever demo recordings – returned to the fold in order to play live behind The Mountain. Soon after embarking on tour, Wennerstrom decided to put more meat on the band’s raw bones by enlisting guitarist Mark Nathan, who had ostensibly come aboard to handle the live sound.

‘I wanted to add another guitar,’ Wennerstrom says, ‘so I asked Mark, ‘What do you think of joining the band?’ and he was into it. I’ve always planned on being a four-piece, but it just takes a while to find somebody that you feel you click with. I’d rather have it be stripped down than just have somebody there for the sake of having them there.”

The expanded line-up brought additional color and dynamism to the Heartless Bastards’ already colorfully dynamic rock ‘n’ roll. With their sound honed to a razor’s edge by night after night of playing live, the Heartless Bastards were soon ready to record for posterity. But having spent so much of the past year on tour, Wennerstrom knew she needed some downtime in order to turn her musical ideas into fully-fledged songs. In Fall 2010, she embarked on the first of what would be several solo road trips designed to clear the cobwebs and help focus her songwriting. Wennerstrom visited friends and family in Ohio, hung out at All Tomorrow’s Parties in the Catskills, spent alone time in Arkansas, a lake cabin in the Allegheny Mountains and at a ranch in West Texas.

“It was really nice,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I was getting much done, but I realized that a lot of that experience ended up being reflected in the songs. I didn’t get a lot of the writing done right then, on that trip, but I feel like getting out there really helped me later on.”

2011 saw the Heartless Bastards hitting the highway once more, taking the opportunity to road-test Wennerstrom’s new songs on a bare-bones “acoustic” tour as well on a series of dates supporting Drive-By Truckers. The band set to work on Arrow just two short days after their return to Austin, a revved-up, well-oiled rock ‘n’ roll machine.

“We just went right in,” Wennerstrom says. “There’s a definite sound that comes from a band that’s been on the road and I really feel like it’s translated on the album.”

The band spent the next month with producer Jim Eno at his Public Hi-Fi home studio. Eno – known far and wide as the drummer in Spoon – guided the Bastards through the recording process, helping them to infuse their myriad influences and ambitions into the songs.

“Jim was really great to work with,” Wennerstrom says. “He asked me what kind of approach I wanted to take towards each song and we’d take it in that direction. It was like, ‘What were you thinking for each song, as far as inspiration?'”

Arrow showcases the depth and breath of the band’s indelible sound, with songs like “Got To Have Rock and Roll” and “Down In The Canyon” lighting upon spaghetti western film scores, Seventies soul, psychedelia, funk, blues, glam, and mudhole-stomping hard rock. Two years of nearly non-stop touring resulted in an astonishing musical telepathy among the Heartless Bastards, with all four players intuitively able to craft Wennerstrom’s songs into maximum form.

“I’m so in synch with this band,” she says. “Songs seem to go where I want them to go and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time. Even though I’m not very communicative, they know me well enough and get it.”

Kicking off with the widescreen vision of “Marathon,” the album is more wholly fleshed than anything in the Bastards’ prior oeuvre, while simultaneously securing the band in all their straight-on, unadorned majesty. Arrow is the glorious sound of a four-piece rock ‘n’ roll outfit in full flight, with little outside accompaniment bar conga player Matthew “Sweet Lou” Holmes’s performance on the evocative “Skin and Bone.”

“It’s a pretty stripped-down album in a lot of ways,” Wennerstrom says. “There’s really not a lot added to these tracks, they’re really mostly live takes. We talked about adding things, but when we listened back, we thought, ‘I don’t know if this really needs more.'”

With Arrow complete, the Heartless Bastards are now itching to get back out there. Inveterate road warriors, the band is at their electrifying best while on stage, making deep connections with both their audience and their music.

“It can be hard at times,” Wennerstrom says, “but I love it. I love playing on stage. It’s that hour and a half, that time that we’re up there, that I love most. There’s a lot of sitting around, trying to find things to fill in the time, but then we finally start to play, it’s so worth it and rewarding.”

Arrow sees the Heartless Bastards doing what all great bands do – furthering their artistic scope with each successive effort. With its impressive range and undeniable vigor, the album flies straight, honest and true, the finest distillation yet of this extraordinary rock ‘n’ roll band’s fiery, unforgettable sound.

“I feel like this is the strongest record I’ve ever done,” Wennerstrom says. “I feel like playing with these guys, us all being so connected, really helped make it so fully realized. I’m really, really happy with it.”

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THE BELLE BRIGADE IN-STORE TUESDAY, APRIL 3 (6PM); FREE AND ALL AGES!

April 3, 2012 - Live Shows , Live@RX - by - No Comments

The Belle Brigade will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 3. As always, this Record Exchange in-store performance is free and all ages. The band is performing at The Venue later that night. (FYI, Good Old War canceled its in-store appearance and Venue performance due to illness.)

ABOUT THE BELLE BRIGADE
Like many siblings, Barbara and Ethan Gruska had their ups and downs over their years growing up together in Los Angeles. “Oh, we hated each other as kids,” Barbara says with a laugh. “And by hate, I mean ‘love dearly,’ but we could never get along. We started to become friends for the first time when Ethan was 15 and I was 21. Then we became best friends and four years later we started writing songs together and formed The Belle Brigade. Listening to The Belle Brigade’s self-titled debut album, you could never tell that these two were ever not in perfect sync. The Gruska’s familial chemistry, not to mention their obvious songwriting gifts, have resulted in one of the most thrilling debut albums you’re going to hear all year. Inspired by the duo’s love for Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, and Stevie Wonder, their artfully arranged, freewheeling songs brim with breezy, California melodies and bracing pop harmonies, fueled by the driving rhythms Barbara plays on drums.

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