A Tom Waits Listening Party will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise). As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
The listening party will be preceded by a Katie Herzig in-store — come early and hear some live music! Full details HERE.
Tom Waits’ highly-anticipated new album Bad As Me hits the streets Oct. 24, and The Record Exchange is celebrating with a listening party and prize giveaways, including a deluxe version of Bad As Me autographed by Tom Waits!
Throughout his career, Tom Waits has created milestone albums that serve both to refine the music that has come before, and to signal a new phase in his career: Rain Dogs and Mule Variations are both counted by fans as among these pivotal works.
Now comes Bad As Me, his first studio album of all new music in seven years, which finds Tom Waits in possibly the finest voice of his career and at the height of his songwriting powers, working with a veteran team of gifted musicians and longtime cowriter/producer Kathleen Brennan. From the opening horn‐fueled chug of “Chicago,” to the closing barroom chorale of “New Year’s Eve,” Bad As Me displays the full career range of Waits’ songwriting, from beautiful ballads like “Last Leaf,” to the avant cinematic soundscape of “Hell Broke Luce,” a battlefront dispatch. On tracks like “Talking at the Same Time,” Waits shows off a supple falsetto, while on blues burners like “Raised Right Men” and the gospel tinged “Satisfied” he spits, stutters and howls.
Like a good boxer, these songs are lean and mean, with strong hooks and tight running times. And there is a pervasive sense of players delighting in each other’s musical company that brings a feeling of loose joy even to
the album’s saddest songs. Bad As Me is a Tom Waits album for the ages.
This is the line for wristband holders for tonight’s Youth Lagoon in-store, and this is the door it’s in front of. Other logistical info may be found HERE.
If you are attending or planning to attend tonight’s Youth Lagoon in-store (8 p.m.) at The Record Exchange, please read the following (and yes, as of 4:30 p.m. wristbands are still available):
The Record Exchange is closing (sort of) at 7 p.m. to set up for the in-store.
The music side of the store will be closed off at 7 p.m. so we can set up the stage and make other preparations for the event. However …
The Record Exchange Gift Shop will remain open and wristbands (if still available) will be sold at the coffee counter after 7 p.m.
We will rope off the Gift Shop promptly at 7 p.m. If you don’t have a wristband, you will be able to purchase The Year of Hibernation on CD or vinyl in the Gift Shop and you’ll get a wristband (if we still have some).
If you have a wristband, you can line up at the music side door and we’ll let you in at 7:30 p.m.
The first 100 wristband holders will receive a free Youth Lagoon poster. You can line up as early as 7 p.m. after we lock the doors.
If you don’t have a wristband, you still might be able to get into the show — maybe.
Wristband holders pre-purchased the CD or vinyl to guarantee their admission to the show. If you don’t have a wristband by 7 p.m., you have two options:
• You can purchase the CD or vinyl in the Gift Shop and get a wristband, then go stand in line with the other wristband holders and we’ll let you in starting at 7:30 p.m.
• Or you can take your chances and wait in the Gift Shop, and if we haven’t sold out of wristbands by show time, we’ll lift the ropes and let you in. Wristbands holders will be allowed in first; if you do not have a wristband, you will have to wait to get in until after all of the wristband holders have been admitted (and that’s if we still have wristbands left).
Youth Lagoon will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Trevor Powers (aka Youth Lagoon), the Boise breakout artist whose critically-acclaimed Fat Possum debut The Year of Hibernation (full stream HERE) hit stores Tuesday, Sept. 27, is back in Boise for his only hometown show between fall tours. Please join us to welcome Trevor back, hear some live music and celebrate the release of The Year of Hibernation!
We’re expecting a big crowd, so we will be closing the store early (7 p.m.) and a wristband will be required for admission to the in-store. Anyone who purchases The Year of Hibernation on CD or vinyl (vinyl available Tuesday, Oct. 11, the day of the in-store) will receive one wristband. The first 100 wristbanded customers at the in-store will receive a free Youth Lagoon poster!
• Autographed Andrew BirdUseless Creatures vinyl LP
• Autographed Band of HorsesInfinite Arms poster
• Autographed and framed The WalkmenLisbon flat
• Vinyl LPs from Mellowhype, Bass Drum of Death, Bolan’s Zip Gun and Lost Sounds
• Much more!
ABOUT YOUTH LAGOON
Twenty-two year old Trevor Powers, whose musical venture is called Youth Lagoon (facebook.com/youthlagoon), has had a long year. Not because he’s been endlessly touring or pursuing some wild dream, but because of life – the life of a kid going to college, being in love, dealing with heartache, and just living.
“Youth Lagoon isn’t me.” says Powers. “It’s merely a part of me. I was in and out of different bands in high school and always tried to define myself by what music I played. I tried to find a sense of meaning by being in a band. But it wasn’t until this last year – when I realized I was more than just music – that I was able to create music that means something to me. And that is Youth Lagoon.”
Throughout the course of 2010, Powers began to write an album about things he had a hard time talking about. He claims that when he tries to talk about it to people, he doesn’t make sense. So he wrote an album about it titled The Year of Hibernation.
“For my whole life I’ve dealt with extreme anxiety.” says Powers. “Not anxiety about passing a test or somewhat normal things, but weird, bizarre things. Things that only I know. I sometimes feel like I’m literally being eaten up inside. So I started writing these songs. Not just songs about my anxiety, but about my past and my present. Songs about memories, and all those feelings that those bring. I know that if I can be honest about what is inside my mind, there will be others that will be able to relate to it.”
Although his music seems somewhat dreamy with the first listen, the lyrics show a different side to the matter. Hidden beneath the melodies is a voice that is eerie yet nostalgic. Powers claims his music is like letting people read his journal. “I don’t think I could ever write a completely happy album. It’s not that I’m not a happy person,” claims Powers, “but I just have too many things in my mind that haunt me.”
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter also will headline The Record Exchange Alive After Five Season Finale on Wednesday, Sept. 28, on the Grove Plaza in Downtown Boise. The free, all-ages concert kicks off at 5 p.m. Low-Fi will open.
Preview tracks from Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter’s critically-acclaimed new album Marble SonHERE.
Sykes and guitarist/vocalist Phil Wandscher took on full production duties for Marble Son, recorded entirely in and around their hometown of Seattle (engineered by Mell Dettmer and mixed by Martin Fevyear). Marble Son exemplifies a band at their creative pinnacle—heavier and more complex than previous records, the music resonates among the parallel worlds of the avant-garde and the timeless. Sykes’ voice and sometimes-mystical leanings (the former described aptly by Magnet as “sounding less like a performer and more like a sage”) and her band’s incomparable musical rapport culminate in what the New York Times has described as “spellbound music, rapt in fatalism and sorrow.” Syke’s trademark thematic darkness and acclaimed songwriting have never been more present; yet Marble Son speaks of evolution, which Sykes describes as, “a sonic mirror of the most chaotic, turbulent times of our lives, where beauty triumphed, and the tears that spilled became this record.”
The album begins with ‘Hushed By Devotion,’ an 8-minute, swelling, rock opus — reminiscent of 1960’s San Francisco inspired psychedelia, which provides Wandscher (who co-wrote more of this record then previous) the sonic space to explore the depths of his guitar genius. Characterized by an emblazoned guitar solo, ghostly layered-vocal murmurings and trademark lyrical poignancy, it’s a brilliant, ambitious statement of intent that commands attention.
The record is an extension of their previous work, influenced in part by an association with the art-metal movement centered around Los Angeles label Southern Lord. This “unlikely” musical friendship between Sykes and influential underground bands SunnO))) and Boris was immortalized on the 2006 album Altar (in which Sykes sang and co-wrote the much beloved underground classic “The Sinking Belle”) culminating in a headlining performance of Altar at the ATP festival last summer. The band has also toured with Earth, a group commonly acknowledged as one of the major progenitors of heavy-doom (and another member of the Southern Lord roster), psych-rock maestros Black Mountain and recently appeared at Holland’s Roadburn Festival, curated by SunnO))) themselves, this past April.
Their musical kinship is audible in Marble Son — an utterly unique, yet subtle genre crossover. Marble Son is a journey—a gutsy romp laced with moments of shimmering, retro beauty, underpinned by pastoral images of Syke’s interior world unfolding. Listen to the standout track ‘Pleasuring the Divine,’ a gritty roar of a song, fed by Wandscher’s frenetic riffs and sludgy feedback and combined with frantic drumming—it’s entirely unexpected and totally mesmerizing.
That’s not to say that there aren’t moments of hushed acoustic wonder amongst the 11 tracks. ‘Be It Me, Or Be It None’ is a glorious four minutes of hazy, Tim Buckley-esque folk, while album closer ‘Wooden Roses’ is an ethereal meditation on finding love only too late—guitars sparkle, strings stir and Sykes’ voice swells and creaks beautifully right up until the final second.
Marble Son is the sound of a band evolving—urgently expanding to mirror the chaos of modern culture while not forgetting the beauty of the tender and mercurial world that exists within us all—the result is more relevant than ever … and, as Jesse puts it: “We have never been closer to sounding like ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ then we do here.” What a sweet sound it is. V.K.
“I liked the idea of something beautiful that may or may not be appreciated in its own time … of course a statue comes to mind … they seem to last forever in human terms, and they still are considered beautiful and viable even as they disintegrate. Some were built so well that their dissolution is almost more powerful than the pristine form—as it disintegrates, it exposes the creative process, the bare essentials … and in the fragments left — an arm, a torso, speak volumes in their decaying state. There’s a line in the song that goes “Oh marble son, why can’t I love you more? I wish I’d found you beautiful before.” That line reflects where I’m at in life … many things I didn’t appreciate when I was young, I find beautiful now and vice versa. I think about relationships and how people can ‘miss the boat’ in their lifetime, but if we need to wait another lifetime to understand a certain kind of love, then so be it. For some, it might take many lifetimes to discover, for others—well … they luck out and have a love that transcends time! We all have our evolutionary path to understanding our capacity to love and to understand beauty. The idea or image of a marble son just spoke to me on all these levels … strong, forgotten, loved, beautiful, sad … eternal.” — Jesse Sykes
PRAISE FOR MARBLE SON
“Alternative country, no … more like alternative universe … a sprawling psych rock vision …” — Spin
“This is a complex, fascinating record that punches the shoulder for attention. As subtle as it is hypnotic, mixing delicacy with confidence and hope with fear …. unlock your senses, and wrap yourself in this intricate web of aural imagery.” — Consequence Of Sound (4-star review)
“It’s the child of some Faustian pact between Karen Dalton and Jimmy Page born at some secret southern crossroad. The counterculture furies of ‘69 reborn, eternally ‘hiding from the daylight.’ You’ll be drawn to the glow of their bluesy-country embers, but eventually you’ll find yourself miles from home, dancin’ into the flames, out of your head, covered in warpaint and doing a witchdance. It’s true, throughout its hour-long spell, I had the unmistakeable feeling I was being groomed for some devious southern death cult and what’s worse, I liked it. Come, join us.” — Matt James, PopMatters
“A country-western, psych rock, shamanic, folk masterpiece.” — The Stranger
“Flush with cavernous sonics and complex soundscapes, it’s 58 minutes of aural cinema for the ears and mind.” — TONE Audio
“Whether the sonic setting is one of doomy distortion or fragile fingerpicking, Sykes remains a truly unique vocalist whose dusky voice is capable of imparting a transcendent, almost spiritual quality to almost any tune it touches.” — All Music Guide
“Terrific … A roaring, psychedelic tempest.” — Uncut (4-star review)
A Tom Waits Listening Party will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise). As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Tom Waits’ highly-anticipated new album Bad As Me hits the streets Oct. 24, and The Record Exchange is celebrating with a listening party and prize giveaways, including a deluxe version of Bad As Me autographed by Tom Waits!
