American Water by Silver Jews

SILVER JEWS
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Spotlight on Beth Bombara

It's hard for me to imagine a musician on the road with a bigger heart than Beth Bombara and that shines through in her live performance. In the last few short years Bombara's dreams of reaching audiences around the country have come true. 

And with each journey, experience and show Beth becomes better-armed with life material for new songs. Her quietly amazing self-titled debut was the launching point for me. Bombara deftly followed it with a stellar collection of songs called Map & No Direction in 2017. Today, she's still touring like her music heroes before her and making new traditions to follow.

July 31- Ripon WI, The Heist
Aug 1-3-Appleton WI, Mile of Music
Aug 6- Columbia MO, The Blue Note 
w/Old 97's
Aug 8- Nashville TN, City Winery 
w/Erica Blinn
Aug 9- St. Louis MO, Old Rock House 
w/Lilly Hiatt
Aug 11- Madison WI, The Winnebago 
w/Sway Wild
Aug 13- Minneapolis, 7th Street Entry 
w/Sway Wild
Aug 15- Chicago IL, Hey Nonny
Aug 16- Holland MI, Park Theatre
Aug 17- Muskegon MI, Unruly Brewing
Aug 29- Kansas City MO, Knuckleheads 
w/Kevin Galloway

IN HER OWN WORDS - With a folksinger’s head and a rocker's heart, Beth Bombara has built her career on an evolving sound that blurs the lines between genres. To those who make their living onstage, she's a musician's musician — a road warrior who writes her own exemplary material, plays multiple instruments, and fronts her own band, often a duo with her husband - guitarist and producer Kit Hamon.

Beth Bombara
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The Claypool Lennon Delirium

“Ideas always come quick for us, and I think that’s why we like working together. But playing with Les is like knowing you’re gonna be playing tennis with Rafael Nadal – it makes you wanna brush up on a few things before you get on the court,” Sean Lennon on playing with Les Claypool of Primus. 

The pair have been making music for a couple years now during Claypool's available dates with Primus. But now The Claypool Lennon Delirium are at center stage. The psychedelic Batman and Robin, Claypool and Lennon are touring dates with Flaming Lips in support of CLD's sophomore album, South of Reality. The duo unveiled the animated music video Little Fishes this week.

The Claypool Lennon Delirium
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RIBS drop Too Long

FIRST LISTEN - Chris Oquist and Keith Freund - the dark rock duo RIBS unexpectedly dropped another new song today. Too Long is a mesmerizing, mechanical beauty with a creative lineage that reminds this listener of both vintage Deftones and NIN. Pay attention. The fact that another track has dropped and so soon is a positive turn for the act and could mean a full album is on the way.

RIBS
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Five Songs from Jesse Malin

FRIDAY SPOTLIGHT - Long one of my favorite singers and songwriters, Jesse Malin just announced dates with Justin Townes Earle. If you're in the path of one of these shows, you are advised to arrive early!  Jesse's new album, Sunset Kids (which was produced by Lucinda Williams - who sings with Jesse on new song "Room 13") has an August 30 release. 

IN THEIR OWN WORDS - Already a veteran of the NYC hardcore scene by the time he was a teenager, Jesse Malin first rose to fame with the influential punk band D Generation, a group Rolling Stone called "the best thing to happen to New York noise in the Nineties." Malin traded in his electric for an acoustic in 2002, though, shedding his skin and embarking on an acclaimed solo career with his Ryan Adams-produced debut, ‘The Fine Art of Self Destruction.’ Hailed by Uncut as “an instant classic,” the record was stripped-down, raw, and intimate, earning comparisons to Neil Young and Tom Waits for its ragged, poetic beauty.

In the decade-and-a-half that followed, Malin would go on to blur the lines between singer-songwriter and punk rocker with a string of similarly celebrated solo albums, including his most recent back-to-back releases, ‘Outsiders’ and ‘New York Before The War.’ Malin has recorded with Bruce Springsteen and Green Day, performed on The Tonight Show, Conan, and Letterman, and shared stages with everyone from The Replacements and The Hold Steady to Bob Weir and The Gaslight Anthem. A prolific writer and relentless road warrior, he continues to circle the globe with his band and has finished his seventh studio album, a collection produced by American roots icon Lucinda Williams.

JESSE MALIN
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Rutger Hauer RIP

A tip of the hat to actor Rutger Hauer who passed away this week. Hauer is best know for his portrayal of replicant Roy Batty in the Ridley Scott sci fi masterpiece Blade Runner. We honor him by sharing Hauer's legendary delivery at the end of the film. Hauer rewrote the script for this scene himself and executes it perfectly. This is one moment that will never be lost in time.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

All those moments will be lost in time,
like tears in rain.

Time to die.

Rutger Hauer & Blade Runner
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The Actual Goners

THE MAILBAG - Everyone has a chance to shine. A couple of times a month, I spin fate's wheel and listen to unsolicited music from the inbox. Today I found "Temptation" the new single from a Toronto duo The Actual Goners and - wow, this track is pretty much magic! I closed my eyes and within moments the track had transported me back to 2002 when Ryan Adams was playing songs from three different new albums at the time. ("Temptation" could have easily been plucked from Rock N Roll, Demolition or Love is Hell.) This is a band you need to know!

NEW SONG!

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: The Actual Goners are award winning Canadian songwriters Tristan Armstrong and Duncan Symonds. With a passion for live performance that drove them across the country from Vancouver Island to their current Toronto home base, the long time collaborators deliver personal and ageless tunes that capture and celebrate the compelling moments found in the unglamorous day-to-day.  

“Temptation” was recorded at Toronto’s Lincoln County Social Club with John Dinsmore. "We always have such a blast in the studio – always track live off the floor, always an opportunity to learn," writes the band. "The song describes someone who is walking home through oppressive heat, wearing the prior night’s clothing, experiencing the aftermath of the decisions that were made while in an uninhibited state of mind. The refrain speaks to the conflicts we confront in knowing that indulgence goes hand in hand with consequence."

The Actual Goners
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