My Morning Jacket
Event on 2012-08-18 17:30:00
Supporting Acts: Band of Horses
My Morning Jacket
“The new record, Circuital, is named after the title song,” explains Jim James, of My Morning Jacket’s sixth studio album. “On that song I sing about ending up in the same place where you started out. And that makes a lot of sense for this album… I hate the phrase ‘going back to our roots’, but for this record we came home and made it in Kentucky. And it just felt a lot like it did when we were fi...rst starting out...”
My Morning Jacket formed at the tail-end of the 1990s, when Jim James’ group Month Of Sundays folded, and he began recording new songs with ex-members of local rockers Winter Death Club. At Above The Cadillac Studios – in reality, a shed on the grounds of guitarist Johnny Quaid’s grandparents’ farm – the group took shape, drawing upon their rich knowledge of classic rock, country, soul and psychedelia, and spinning these influences into fresh, life-affirming rock’n’roll and aching, haunting balladry. My Morning Jacket made their early reputation off the three sublime albums they recorded at Above The Cadillac – 1999’s The Tennessee Fire, 2001’s At Dawn and 2003’s It Still Moves – and legendary live shows that proved here was a truly magical group for the ages. It Still Moves marked a move to the major labels for the group, while its heavy touring cycle prompted the amicable exit of Quaid and keyboardist Danny Cash from the ranks.
Album number four, 2004’s Z, was a brave step outside of the group’s comfort zone, recorded in New York’s Catskill Mountains with the aid of respected producer John Leckie (Stone Roses, Spiritualized), and with new members guitarist Carl Broemel and keyboard player Bo Koster making their debut appearances on tape, their skilful performances swiftly proving themselves cut from the same cloth as their bandmates. The album also saw James stretch his song-writing chops beyond the familiar reference points of My Morning Jacket’s earlier work, an impulse he furthered with 2008’s Evil Urges, which scattered the group’s ragged rockers and tender, keening ballads with subtly sensual grooves and tracks that sounded like heavy metal laced with psychedelic soul and feral funk. Both albums helped grow ever-swelling following, a grass-roots movement that’s spread like wildfire in the wake of their many long and glorious tours, and already-legendary shows like their 4-hour 2008 Bonnaroo head-lining performance, which captured one of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll groups at their most masterful and alive.
Circuital is the first album the group have made in Kentucky since It Still Moves, recording it in the gymnasium of a Louisville church under the aegis of producer Tucker Martine. Jim bonded with Martine while recording backing vocals for Laura Veirs’ 2010 album July Flame, which Martine, Veirs’ husband, also produced. “We hit it off right away,” says Martine, who later helped set up a home studio in James’ Louisville home, where he’s working on a future solo album. “As a group, we’ve always been hoping to find ‘our guy’,” says James. “And we’ve worked with some great people, but we’d wanted to find someone who was, like, ‘one of us’. And Tucker fit in perfectly, and he had a whole set of skills we didn’t possess. He’s real smart, and fun to be with.”
Converting the gymnasium into a recording studio wasn’t an easy task, says Martine, but the extra effort yielded unique results. “It’s a big project, to record in a space like that. It has so many limitations, compared to working in a modern studio, but they were limitations we were all drawn to. The focus became on communicating and interacting, and not on what modern trickery we could use later.” At the group’s insistence, the album was recorded live, with few overdubs; James’ vocals were recorded at the same time as the band’s performances. “We were going for full takes; we wanted everybody running back to the control room afterwards, freaking out and wanting to listen back to the take,”remembers James. “We’re A Band, and so I want our records to be made that way, with us being A Band. Capturing performances, that intangible thing between us, some kind of soul. When friends have been through as much as we have together… It’s not something I could even describe. We wanted to capture the sound of us just playing, being in the same place and just feeding off each other.”
“This is truly a great band, and they play so well together, it would be wrong not to document that,” adds Martine. For James, the new album finds a sweet understanding between the questing creative impulses of Evil Urges and the more familiar feel of My Morning Jacket’s earlier work. “The album’s like a rolling, gentle soundwave,” he says, in comparison to Evil Urges’ jagged edges. “But I don’t feel Circuital sounds like our earlier recordings. We’re always trying to go in new directions.” His memories of the sessions for Circuital are only fond. “There was no AC, no-one had their laptops. We recorded everything on tape. It was like, we’re just who we are, with what we have with us at the moment, and that’s all we have. It was a beautiful thing, and it really cemented what we all mean to each other, as people and as a band. We’ve learned, slowly over the years, how to function more healthily, I guess, so we don’t all combust. Making this record, it felt like our friendship was only strengthened.”
at Merriweather Post Pavilion
10475 Little Patuxent Parkway
Columbia, United States
ZZ Top
Event on 2012-08-21 19:00:00
Supporting Acts: Nashville Pussy
ZZ Top
ZZ Top plays red-hot Texas boogie and blues, and no one does it better - or has done it longer - than this “little ol’ band from Texas.” The trio’s enduring appeal owes much to their mastery of and feel for rootsy forms. Guitarist Billy Gibbons, bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard were influenced by such blues masters as Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. From the beginning they took a hard-rocking power-trio approach to the blues, cultivating a new audience for it in the Seventies and Eighties with superior musicianship as well as attitude, style and some devilishly funny songs. The genius of ZZ Top is that they’re reverential about the blues but loose and funny about the subject matter of their songs. Their songs are laden with pop-culture references, sexual double entendres and the determined pursuit of a good time. They have written about fast cars, fishnet stockings, sharp clothes, TV dinners, cheap sunglasses and “tush.” They visually connected with the MTV generation by virtue of Hill’s and Gibbons’ long beards and fur-lined guitars. For many, ZZ Top have been the premiere party band on the planet. Certainly, they have been Texas’s foremost cultural ambassadors. ZZ Top formed in 1969 as Gibbons’ psychedelic blues band, the Moving Sidewalks (who released one album, Flash), was coming apart. He hooked up with Beard and Hill, who’d played in American Blues (which cut a pair of albums). The trio bonded around a shared love of basic blues, boogie, rock and all things Texas-related. ZZ Top played its first show in February 1970. Their lean, driving approach helped launch the Seventies on its hard-rocking course. They brought rootsy vigor to the music scene, surviving over the decades by demonstrating an ability to adapt and evolve without radically altering the foundations of their sound. ZZ Top signed to London Records - home of the Rolling Stones and John Mayall, a plus in the group’s eyes. Their earliest albums - ZZ Top’s First Album (1970) and Rio Grande Mud (1972) - staked out their bluesy, no-frills territory and gave them a chart hit, “Francene.” ZZ Top solidified their sound on Tres Hombres (1973) by recording in Memphis. Musically, the union of Texas blues and Memphis soul became a hallmark of ZZ Top. Tres Hombres’key track, “La Grange,” was a growling boogie about the same place celebrated in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. The band built a word-of-mouth fan base on the road, and nonstop touring in turn propelled record sales. Tres Hombres reached #8 and became the first in an unbroken string of eleven gold and platinum albums. The next two albums - Fandango! (1975) and Tejas (1977) - hit #10 and #17, respectively.Fandango! yielded the hard-driving “Tush,” which became ZZ Top’s first Top Forty single. ZZ Top carried stagecraft to elaborate heights with its Worldwide Texas Tour: Taking Texas to the People. For this mid-Seventies extravaganza, which came between Fandango! and Tejas, ZZ Top lugged 75 tons of equipment and animals native to Texas, including a buffalo, a longhorn steer, buzzards and rattlesnakes. They also performed on a Texas-shaped stage. Afterward, an exhausted ZZ Top took an extended hiatus. Three years later they returned on a different label (Warner Bros.) with a fiery new album, Deguello (1979) filled with instant classics: “Cheap Sunglasses,” “Fool for Your Stockings,” “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” and their remake of Sam and Dave’s “I Thank You.” El Loco (1981) yielded another naughty anthem (“Tube Snake Boogie”) and poised them for a phenomenal explosion in popularity. In the Eighties, ZZ Top discovered synthesizers, and MTV discovered ZZ Top. The group’s bluesy, irreverent approach to synths appealed to fans of rock, blues, boogie, disco, and New Wave alike. Eliminator, whose title and cover were inspired by Gibbons’ hot-rodded ’34 Ford coupe, became one of the biggest albums of the decade, selling more than 10 million copies. Three of its songs - “Gimme All Your Lovin’” (#37), “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs” (#8) - were radio, video and club hits. With its leggy, model-strewn video, “Legs” remains the biggest single of ZZ Top’s career. From the release of Eliminator in 1983 until Greatest Hits dropped off the charts ten years later, ZZ Top were international superstars. The group followed Eliminator with Afterburner (1985), which yielded four Top Forty hits: “Sleeping Bag” (#8), “Stages” (#21), “Rough Boy” (#22) and “Velcro Fly” (#35). The trade magazine Pollstar declared ZZ Top the top touring act of 1986. Recycler (1990) completed the trilogy that had commenced with Eliminatorand several instant classics - “Give It Up,” “Doubleback,” “My Head’s in Mississippi” - to the repertoire. Of the title Recycler, Gibbons remarked, “We’ve been reinventing ourselves for quite awhile; in our own way, we’ve made every effort to preserve our precious rock and roll environment.” TheAfterburner tour marked another tour pinnacle, offering cosmic blues and boogie from a Disney-designed stage strewn with futuristic props. The group’s love of the blues went beyond their own music, as they began raising money in 1988 for a proposed Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi. In July 1992, ZZ Top announced that they were moving from Warner Bros. to RCA. They’ve since recorded four more albums – Antenna (1994), Rhythmeen (1996), XXX (1999) and Mescalero (2003) – and to this day they remain one of rock’s most entertaining live acts. After three and a half decades, the “little ol’ band from Texas” just keeps rolling.
at Eagle River Pavilion
815 E Riverside Dr
Eagle, United States
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