NPR know what they are doing with this concert. Personally, they have a great eye for talent, and have proved it numerous times and this Lucy Dacus Tiny Desk is no exception. Again I was a newbie to hearing Lucy Dacus but from the first 30 seconds in I knew I was going to be a fan. She has quite a chilled out sound, which some could list under easy listening. For me, its her vocals that hit me the right way, poetry of the smoothest kind with a great musical balance. Now to delve into her LP. Enjoy!
As I hope you can tell, I have had a bit of a re-brand of this blog. Musicopedia no longer....now The Beacon, I think it looks and sounds nicer, more professional and all that good stuff. I hope you like it too. Anyway, on with the feature:
This month I want the whole world to know about Jessica Lea Mayfield and fall for her music as hard as I have. She is a 26 year old singer songwriter from Kent, Ohio and has released 4 solo and one joint album to date. Yes she is incredibly prolific.
Her first released material back in 2005 was called White Lies and she released it under the name of Chittlin'. The album is very much rooted in folk/roots sounds with a splash of Country here and there. Finding out she made this when she was a teenager shows how talented she was from such a young age.
Following that came her first release under her birth name called With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. The difference between her first and second album (and so far all following releases to date) is the progression and experimentation that is added and grown with each piece of music she releases. WBSH shows JLM keeping the great guitar techniques from the previous but mixing and messing with vocal effects and adding other more electronical sounds and techniques to the music. One of many of my favourite tracks off of the album is Bible Days which has haunting yet melodic vocals that I find oddly hypnotic.
Her next release was Tell Me which was released in early 2011 and is her most commercially popular LP to date. On first listen I noticed a clear difference with the vocals (than from the previous work), possibly how they were recorded, they sounded slightly brighter, definitely clearer, the instrumentation sounds more refined and you can tell she is getting even closer to truly becoming a master of her instruments.
The latest solo release 'Make My Head Sing...' is a turn down a different alley in terms of sound. If the previous LP was JLM sounding slightly 'pop' this has dirty grunge written (or wiped) all over it. Straight off from the first track 'Oblivious' you can tell, everything has a darker, more dulled down sound with catchy chugging guitars and more down heartened vocals. This album has to be my favourite from JLM, I think it includes the bits and pieces that I loved from each of her previous albums and combines them to create this epic piece of music.
JLMs latest musical venture is with Seth Avett (from The Avett Brothers fame) They have released a 12 track album of Elliot Smith covers. Prior to this LP I hadn't really heard much music from Elliot Smith, only references made of him from people in movies and TV trying to sound cool. But these two singers make the songs feel so heartfelt and full of emotion I can imagine that they are in a relationship singing the songs into each others eyes. Beautiful performances all round.
Wherever she goes next, I know it is going to be magical and truly exciting. Check out the video below for some live tunes. She is a talent and hopefully keeps making stuff for years to come. Enjoy!
What better way to bring Autumnal cheer than this three song concert from The Wild Reeds. They visited the NPR space and performed a great acoustic set featuring a track from their début album and a couple of new ones which equally kill it. The thing that I loved the most about this video is that it is rare to see bands with multiple lead singers that have such a high standard of vocals that they could easily front the band by themselves. I think The Staves are similar but The Wild Reeds just have an edge over them with their multi instrumental-ism. It is also nice to hear the harmonica being used not just by a grizzled old man sitting on a wooden crate. Enjoy!
It has been a while since I have seen a NPR Tiny Desk that I have enjoyed watching as much as this one which is why it is my choice this week. The lady herself is Holly Williams and her set includes 3 tracks: Drinkin', Railroads and Waiting On June. Before watching this video I only heard Drinkin' but I was really amazed by the new songs that I heard. Her voice is really strong and holds a lot of emotion and passion, especially with tracks like Waiting On June which is about her personal life with her family (as mentioned) like I am sure the other tracks she sings are personal to her also which helps give the songs heart and not be bland standard tracks. She is obviously well known in the Country music genre but more than that, she should be well known for just being a great musician, songwriter and overall performer. Enjoy!
Last night I went to a Temples gig at my favourite venue (The Library at The Institute just in case you didn't know). It was a great gig and I got there at just the right time to get a great spot on the balcony, beautiful job. The guitar playing from the lead singer in Temples was amazing and the guitars he played were some of the most stylish designs that I have seen and I loved them. I was also pleased to see Childhood supporting them who I haven't seen since Reading festival, and they were brilliant. Also supporting was Dark Bells, who were an unknown to me but I am now a bit of a fan. The gig as a whole was one of the best ones I have been to recently. Brilliant line up and brilliant sound, enough said.
This is a bit of a random post. Basically I wanted to talk about a thing that I have been thinking about recently. It has to do with seeing live music and as of last Saturday when I went to go see Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish and Zebrahead in Birmingham I have decided to cool it a bit with seeing live music once the shows that I have already purchased passes. There are several reasons why I am not going to go to shows as often, some of them personal but the main factor is the money. On average I spend about £30+ easily per show and I have thought that money would be better spent going towards something more long lasting and long term. I am not saying that I am going to stop going to gigs, in fact I hope to keep some sort of regularity but for sure the amount will decrease at least until I start earning beau coup bucks. My reason for posting this is to make it more of a steadfast rule that I will be less eager to break because it is in the world wide web. Lets see how much I can save.
I have only just came across this video last night. Its a set of 3 songs performed by Skinny Lister. All songs were for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert and NPR have produced yet again another good video. I first got into these Tiny Desk Concerts when Tallest Man In The World performed. The sound quality just seems to be at least a little bit better than other live performances I have seen on YouTube. This bands set particularly attracted me because they are another band that sing with such passion and energy it really gets you excited for their music and it really gets you up and into a good mood. Again they are also a group of talented musicians as well as singers. Check it out!
Just a quick post to say how annoyed I am with how impatient I get when purchasing concert tickets for the next gig. A few weeks ago now I purchased a ticket to see Tonight Alive (pictured below) for a concert on the 1st of October and just yesterday I received a notification off of my SongKick app telling me that Laura Marling will be playing Birmingham Symphony Hall on the same date. Sooo annoying that there wasn't even one days difference between the two artists because even the amount that I want to see Laura Marling, I still want to see Tonight Alive. I think their album is a proper killer which I think I have mentioned in a previous post and I think they will proper rock the crowd. Their tickets are not sold out yet but they should be, they are that good. I just hope Laura does more dates in my area. Please.
Last night I went to the sold out performance of Imagine Dragons and performance was definitely the right word for it. Those guys know how to put on a show. To be honest I wasn't expecting a great deal from them, having listened to their EP and thought it was so-so, nothing special. The thing that pushed me to see them live was their support being The Good Natured. A band I randomly found out about through YouTube and liked them.
As much as I wasn't particularly excited by IDs CD I really got into their live show. The lead singer had a seemingly endless source of energy and kept the crowd jumping the entire time. And maybe part of the good energy was from the place being crammed to the max with bodies, with barely room to have your arms by your sides. But it seemed everyone was there for the same reason, to have a good time and like the singer said, to escape and forget about the outside world for a few hours.
I enjoyed The Good Natureds performance slightly less than Imagine Dragons but the lady singer was pretty incredible, with a great voice and groovy dancing to match. Also the drummer was particularly talented. The speed at which he was playing seemed awesome.
Yesterday night I went to see Amy Macdonald at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham. As you can see, my seat location was brilliant, right up in the grand tier a few rows from the back. It was my first visit to Symphony Hall and it is quite a classy affair. I felt a little under dressed when near enough everyone was in formal attire and I was in scrappy jeans and a T-shirt.
As a general rule I do prefer the smaller venue and due to my seat location I was dubious about what kind of sound quality I would be able to hear. And as it turns out, Any can fill the room with supposed ease. She has a much more powerful voice than I expected, and I don't think the quality diminished over the distance at all.
Most of the concert was with her full live band, but just after half way through she did a slightly more stripped back few songs with just a drummer on a smaller kit. A couple of covers were played, Higher and Higher and an acoustic Dancing In The Dark which she sang beautifully. I think there are a few videos on You Tube if you're particularly interested.
Supporting Amy was a chap called Ben Montague who was an artist along the same kind of lines. He performed with just a drummer and him playing acoustic guitar. He came across as a pretty friendly guy, chatting to the audience after each song and even hanging out by the merch stand after the show for signatures, which is a lot less common than other gigs I've been to.
I'm really looking forward to getting my university timetable partly to see what dates I'm free to go to concerts. Up until early December there are lots of gigs that I want to go see. I found out about them thanks to SongKick, one of my favourite apps. Gigs that I want to see in date order are: The Enemy, The Gaslight Anthem, Ahab, Jack White, Jake Bugg, Bellowhead, Sonic Boom Six, The Vaccines, The View, Florence and The Machine and The Black Keys. Lets hope I can go to as many as possible, they should be really good.
I'm glad Impractical Jokers is back on tv. I have just watched the first episode of the second season and it is so so funny. I love it!
