This week’s Alive After Five headliner: Hey Marseilles
Go Listen Boise local opener: Junior Rocket Scientist

ABOUT HEY MARSEILLES:

The thing about traveling is that you always end up back where you started. Ashes to ashes and all that big-picture stuff.

For Hey Marseilles (heymarseilles.com), travel is as much a state of mind as location of body. This is a seven-piece Northwest band deeply rooted to its place of origin but equally anxious to get away, to see it all. Not escapism, but expansion: Listen closely to To Travels & Trunks and you’ll hear faraway places named not so much as a wish list but as incantation. The broader your horizon, the deeper your longing, the more genuine your experience.

And so, in 2008, three guys embark on a musical adventure instigated by one’s first melody on his brand-new used accordion. And, some months later, seven guys—the original trio plus a few old friends—get together in a garage in Seattle and record an album. To Travels & Trunks is both Hey Marseilles’ mission statement and its hazy dream put to music.

The Hey Marseilles sound is immediate, evocative, mostly acoustic, always emotive. It’s classically-trained brothers Sam and Jacob Anderson on cello and viola, their strings grand and mournful on To Travels & Trunks‘ sweeping title track. It’s the wheeze and moan of Philip Kobernik’s accordion, simultaneously the gawkiest and most romantic of all instruments, opening the gorgeous “From a Terrace,” and his kid-at-a-carnival Rhodes on the 6/8 spin of “Gasworks.” It’s Nick Ward’s electric guitar on the epic “Calabasas,” stretching into the distance like an open road. It’s the Dixieland swagger of Patrick Brannon’s trumpet on uptempo lead single “Rio”—recently Song of the Day at NPR, Spinner.com, and KEXP. It’s a songwriter’s urgent expression via vocalist Matt Bishop, expanded with huge singalong choruses, unraveled by a virtuoso band’s sinuous arrangements. It’s modern vintage, a folk-pop jam session at a vanished cabaret on the Seine, an indie rocker’s fantasy of his grandparents’ first kiss.

By developing this sound—a process captured on To Travels & Trunks—Hey Marseilles discovered that the band isn’t any one of these things but all of them. And none of them, too: When Hey Marseilles headlined a holiday party at Neumo’s in Seattle, nobody expected MC Thomas Grey of local party-hop outfit Champagne Champagne to spit a few bars over a Christmas-song medley, but there he was, and somehow it made sense. Just like the inclusion of their cover of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You in the End” in the Starbucks-compiled Sweetheart 2010. Moments like that—and more, during Hey Marseilles’ headlining slots at local clubs and winning appearances at major Northwest festivals like Bumbershoot, Capitol Hill Block Party, Doe Bay Fest—keep fans guessing while rendering them true believers.

Because really, this is just a bunch of guys making the music they wanna hear. Because really, with a palette this colorful, anything—and anywhere—is possible.

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This week’s Alive After Five headliner: Anders Osborne
Go Listen Boise local opener: Travis McDaniel Band

ABOUT ANDERS OSBORNE

Anders Osborne‘s story (his life, his career) is not unlike those of the other great songwriters and artists that he’s been compared to by critics and roots purists (Dylan, Guthrie, and Van Morrison). By the time he found New Orleans (or maybe it is the other way around) by taking the long way trekking through Africa and Egypt, working odd jobs to get to his next destination, he had the miles and music down to begin his career in his new home.

“Oftentimes the most true portraits of America have been rendered by those who have come from outside its borders, yet somehow seem to understand and inhabit our culture more than those of us who have lived here all our lives.” — Jambase

Anders has spent most of career since honing his songwriting, at the same time creating a solid fan base by touring the East and West coasts as a performer, while dividing time between New Orleans and Nashville as a staff writer for the Universal Music and Razor and Tie publishing companies.

He’s worked his magic for other performers, writing “Watchin the Wind Blow By,” a number-one hit for country superstar Tim McGraw, and “I Was Wrong” and “A Better Man,” both Grammy-winning songs from Keb’ Mo’s album Slow Down. Anders has written songs for Brad Paisley, Jonny Lang, Tab Benoit and Jimmy Thackery, to name a few.

“Anders Osborne artfully blends blues, rock, soul and classic R&B to create his own distinctive synthesis and original style.” — All Music Guide

Anders hit the national scene with the 1995 release Which Way To Here. He and his band began to tour the country and later that year he was signed to Okeh Records, which had just been revived by Sony’s Michael Caplan. The record received rave reviews world wide and became Osborne’s first commercial break with two top-five singles on the national charts, “Favorite Son” and “Pleasin’ You.” Both were featured on movie soundtracks, the latter later recorded by Jonny Lang. Anders also recorded a second CD for the label, titled New Madrid, which remains, unfortunately, unreleased.

Three other independent-label releases — Live at Tipitina’s, Living Room, Ash Wednesday Blues — were issued. The following year Anders emerged as producer on two historic recordings, Bury the Hatchet, on which he and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux are double billed, and Monk’s Mr. Stranger Man, both distributed by Shanachie Music. In 2007, MC Records released Osborne’s critically acclaimed Coming Down. Osborne’s Alligator Records debut album, American Patchwork (2010), is a moving collection of soul-baring roots rock, blues and ballads. Many of the songs on American Patchwork deal with healing and redemption, spirituality and acceptance. Paste Magazine says, “Osborne has an impossibly great voice and the songs to match.”

His performances have been described as equally spiritual as musical, creating the elusive connection between artist and audience. His emotive guitar complements the message and the music, enticing listeners into his heart and soul. His life is transformed via his song performances into a vehicle to take you to his destination, let you linger awhile, and bring you home a bit better than you left it to step into his world. He is able to refine and relate to the ordinary, making you feel a bit extraordinary in the process. No wonder he is in demand by perfomers of all stripes as a songwriter.

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This week’s Alive After Five headliner: John Nemeth
Go Listen Boise local opener: Hokum Hi-Flyers

ABOUT JOHN NEMETH

John Németh (johnnemethblues.com) is a rising blues star; a singer steeped in the tradition and reminiscent of B.B. King, Ray Charles and Junior Parker, and a harmonica player of riveting intensity and virtuosity. His decade long career has found him opening for Robert Cray, Keb Mo’, and Earl Thomas. Performing major music festivals around the United States, Europe, Canada and Asia has brought him critical acclaim.

John’s origins are an unlikely breeding ground for such an impressive blues talent. A 30-year-old native of Boise, he grew up singing in a Catholic church and started playing in local bands as a teenager.

Németh was a featured artist with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets in 2005 and 2006 as well as a featured artist with The Junior Watson Band in 2002. The Cascade Blues Association selected Németh as a crowd favorite at the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival in 2002, and the Washington Blues Society called him the show stealer at the Winthrop Rhythm and Blues Festival in 2003.

John recorded Come And Get It with the Junior Watson Band in 2004. The album received rave reviews and scored well on the independent blues radio charts. When John signed a multi-record recording agreement with Blind Pig Records in 2006, label head Jerry Del Giudice expressed “how impressed I was with John’s performance the one time I got the chance to see him. In our nearly 30 years in the business we have never before offered a new artist a recording contract on the strength of one performance.”

The buzz around John Németh is substantial, and his Blind Pig debut, Magic Touch, delivers the goods in spades. From the opening track, an ambitious and fully realized reworking of Junior Wells’ classic “Blues Hit Big Town,” John’s emotive, smooth voice and stellar harp playing introduce a virtuoso of rare depth and power. John’s uncanny blend of retro-modern blues and soul music will delight purists and young hipsters alike.

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