About Jeff
A NY born boy with a great drive for all things alternative. Throughout his career to date, Mr Rosenstock has gone from strength to progressive strength. His time with the bands Bomb The Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches through the mid to late 00's was in no way lazy, releasing upwards of 6 LPs collectively with the bands and in his (what I can presume little) spare time starting the first donation based record label Quote Unquote Records. QUR has been steadily releasing brilliant music ever since its creation, from bands such as the amazing Hard Girls which I am a recent and extremely grateful convert to.
Now lets get into the proper juicy stuff, his 3 solo releases; I Look Like Shit, We Cool? and WORRY (pictured chronologically below). ILLS and WE show the honing of his craft, each LP growing in style and finesse, taking whats brilliant and carrying that forward. His latest release which came out just last October was how I first got to find out about his music, mainly by the track Festival Song which popped up on the ever current KVRX. Keeping all the Pop-Punk goodness from his previous releases and delivering just short of 3 minutes of bouncy, passionate tuneage for your ears. One of the lead singles Blast Damage Days is featured below so be sure to check it out. Overall WORRY shows that his talent is no where close to slowing down and I'm 100% behind wherever he chooses to go next. Keep up the good work!
This months Artist Showcase is a bit of a throw back to the early 10's which (to my grand realisation when researching this piece) right now is well over half a decade ago, boy do I feel old, it truly seems like last week. So the band in question is General Fiasco, a Northern Irish four piece consisting of the brothers Owen and Enda Strathern, Stephen Leacock and Stuart Bell.
My first experience with them is when I was but a boy and I went to see One Night Only live at a small cramped little venue in Birmingham and who would have thought that ONOs supporting band would have been so good, some would even say they overshadowed the headliner but that's just crazy talk. They did a shortish set of the big tunes as you do and something special stuck with me and I couldn't get them out of my head. They are are still in there bouncing around to this day.
To date they have only released two albums and boy oh boy what albums they are. Buildings was their first release in 2010 and this was one of those LPs that seemingly never left my CD player. 10 songs of absolute joy and if you hunt around a bit on the internet there is a fantastic acoustic version of Sinking Ships out there.
Unfaithfully Yours was their second LP released in 2012 and I remember first going into it not knowing what to expect. I should not have been worried because the boys did not disappoint, more of the same quality rock songs with the added bonuses of the occasionally heavier tune. Check out The Age You Start Losing Friends video below. Happy days all round. Lets just hope they come back out of their hiatus soon.
You can stay up to date with the bands goings on HERE so far they seem to post a couple of times a year.
For this months Artist Showcase, I wanted to shout about The Superjesus. This 4 piece are from Adelaide, Australia and have released 3 albums to date from the late 90s through to the early 00s. The lead singer is one Sarah McLeod and for me is the power house that draws me into the tracks. Her vocals really show off her accent and unique tone which is something I find amazing to hear.
All of the albums that there have released so far (Sumo, Jet Age & Rock Music) have been masterpieces and things I could listen to at any time of day but the progression from Sumo through to Rock Music has definitely been in my favour because RM has to be my favourite release from these guys so far. The highlights being the often varying of emotion from track to track with the slower more aggressive tracks blended in perfectly with the more upbeat poppy rock songs. A couple of my top songs are Stick Together which I have listened to an embarrassing amount of times on repeat and Over & Out which you can listen to yourself in the video below.
They have also released the single for a new album that will be released at some point in 2016 which I am super pumped for. Keep up with the band HERE or check out their Facebook HERE You could even throw them a bone of a Like or two if you want. 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!
I have been thinking about doing this feature for a while now and the time has finally come. I wanted to do a new type of post that highlights and shares great bands, not just on their latest releases or a specific album but over a whole body of work, both current and older artists included in the mix to keep things interesting. Th aim will be to post these once month but occasionally it may double up if the mood takes me.
It just so happens that the first band I want to showcase is The Wild Feathers has just released their sophomore album 'Lonely Is A Lifetime'. The Wild Feathers are a 4 piece Alt-Country band from Nashville, Tennessee. Members consisting of Ben Dumas on drums, Joel King on Bass & Vocals and both Ricky Young and Taylor Burns on Guitar & Vocals. They released their first self titled album back in August 2013 and their latest was released just in this great month of March 2016. The blend of soulful country rock and roll that they make has worked perfectly across their body of work so far and really hope they come play at The Deaf Institute sometime in the future. Speaking of live dates, they are currently doing a bunch of shows for SXSW then following that with a big tour around the US. No signs of any UK dates as of yet but we wait with hope and fingers crossed. Below is a brilliant live performance of one of the latest singles 'Happy Again'
I hope you like these guys music and even this new music showcase feature thing. It will improve with time and a little practise just like everything else. Enjoy!
