photos by Sarahana, words & photos by Chris La Putt, SXSW shots by Graeme Flegenheimer

"Was asked to have my picture taken at the She&Him show because "I dress like Zooey" compliment of a lifetime" - Brandi Bullar.

She & Him @ SXSW

She & Him, backed by The Chapin Sisters, played the first of their two sold-out shows at the Bowery Ballroom last night, March 29th. They're celebrating the release of their second album, aptly named Volume Two. The crowd was a full of Zooey Deschanel look-alikes with floppy hats and fancy bows adorning their heads waiting for some sunny vocals and a blue-eyed beauty (and her partner and expert guitar player M Ward). I was hoping (unrealistically) for a guest appearance by Tilly and the Wall who contibute to "In the Sun" on the album, but no such luck. They did play the song though. Full setlist below.

The Living Sisters (sans Inara George) @ Bowery Ballroom

Opening for Zooey and M. Ward at the Bowery were the the Living Sisters who started the show off with wonderfully offbeat old timey standards with modern lyrics (something to the tune of asking their boyfriends to tie them up in double knots). The band is made up of LA's Eleni Mandell, Inara George (of Bird and the Bee fame), and Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond), but Bird and the Bee backing vocalist and lead singer of Obi Best, Alex Lilly filled in for the Bee as Inara is in LA expecting a baby. Their debut album Love to Live is out today on Vanguard Records.

She & Him finish their March tour tonight (3/30) at the Bowery (The Chapin Sisters open this time), then play scattered days in April, May and June including Coachella, Sasquatch and Bonnaroo. All dates, more pictures from the first night at the Bowery and some from SXSW with a video of Zooey hopping around onstage at the El Rey, below...

Continue reading "She & Him played SXSW & Bowery Ballroom (pics, setlist) w/ the Living Sisters (Becky Stark, Eleni Mandell, Inara George)"

photos by Tim Griffin

"The show was in two parts. The first consisted of the band, with the addition of two performers - Becky Stark and Shara Worden, playing the entirety of the Hazards of Love album without even a break between songs...

After the intermission, the second (and more whimsical) set consisted of...

Continue reading "The Decemberists @ Radio City Music Hall in NYC - pics"

Colin Meloy in Ohio, June 1st '09 (unruly badger)

Ah, yes, young Meloy....Colin, isn't it? Yes, yes...jolly good. I must say he is a springy lad...most flexible...hewn of wands, you know...they splice them down by the river...he was part of a group that lost contact with the main tribe, and drifted to Montana. I found him in the bushes, whistling to a frog. He later said it was me, perhaps he was right. A majestic performer, at ease with himself, his audience and his material in away that makes me quite...envious. He is...well, he's not old, you know...still green of leaf and...always springy, did I mention? Oh yes, well, the thing is: he's young but he goes back a long way. That's right - he leads from the old path. The deeper your roots, the broader your branches, I always say. Especially if you're a tree. Colin has magnificent roots, he showed me them in a forest. What did you say? Prog Folk? Or Fog Polk? In San Francisco, probably, I know he was there...or was I there?...yes, we were both there, but not at the same time. I get confused with the other chap...not Dr Partridge...he's sitting over there, I think it's him...no, Colin is very...to me he's the ultimate British rock star...in a way that he couldn't be if he was from Britain, because he's have to come from some sector of society that the other sectors would resent him for....(Canon Morrisey, that's the fellow - or is he dean now?)...no Colin has it in perspective and can be it in a way that only an outsider can. So he has the brogues, and the lamps, and the canvas...the pavilion...the lashes and the brand...although he's most careful with them both...and most of all, he has the voice. With a little technological help, he could yet be duetting with
Sandy Denny

- if he hasn't already. Hmmm? Did I say he was springy? Ah yes...young Meloy....

- Robyn Hitchcock [to Paste]

The Decemberists are still on the road, playing their new album Harzards of Love from start to finish -- they'll be touring North America (with some time off) till August. Updated dates are below. The band visits NYC's Radio City Music Hall on Wednesday, June 10th (TONIGHT). Tickets are still on sale.

"Apropos, the stage backdrop was a silk screen draped with tumbling, gauzy cocoons and lit in blood and chlorophyll. Meloy, dressed like he wanted to borrow just a moment of your time to discuss the Good News, played the role of Narrator/William the Forest Prince. Becky Stark, as Margaret, wore a white sequined gown of the sort usually found in a giant trunk in the attic; I'd bet anything it originally came with a giant cone-shaped hat. Shara Worden, as The Forest Queen, dressed in a loose black dress and silver tights, leaving her free to steal the show with some body-rocking that was extemporaneous and silly and improbably sexy." [Washington City Paper]

Becky Stark and Shara Worden are reprising their guest spots on Hazards of Love, and more, live. See a video of Stark, Worden and Meloy cover Heart's "Crazy On You" on tour, below.

Speaking of guests, Robyn Hitchcock, who played some guitar on Hazards, is opening select dates for the Decemberists with his band, the Venus 3. That group consists of Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows) and Bill Rieflin (Ministry). They'll open the Decemberists' Radio City gig.

The guys in that band -- McCaughey and Buck, specifically -- are also in The Minus 5. That group will release an album called Killingsworth on Yep Roc on July 7th. From that record, the song "Scott Walker's Fault" features Colin Meloy on lead vox. Meloy also sings on Robyn's newest disc.

Robyn Hitchcock has his own NYC headlining show on Thursday, June 11th (the night after the Decemberists gig) at the Bell House. Tickets are still on sale. The openers for that show will be Ken Stringfellow and Takka Takka.

Takka Takka's singer and guitar player Gabe Levine was recently interviewed by MC Steinberg on NY Noise, and Gabe recently went solo - playing and recording under the name Samuel Izdat.

Storefront Hitchcock, a 1998 concert film directed by Jonathan Demme and featuring Robyn Hitchcock, is now streaming online. See that video, and an exclusive interview with Hitchcock from SXSW earlier this year, with all Decemberists tour dates, below...

Continue reading "The Decemberists are here - Radio City tonight w/ Robyn Hitchcock who is in Brooklyn w/ Takka Takka Thursday"

The Decemberists have announced the first leg of their Spring 2009 North American tour in support of The Hazards of Love, their ambitious new album to be released by Capitol Records on March 24th. The 16-date run will kick off May 19th at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, and include a June 10th performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York, as well as a set at the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Tennessee.

A limited number of pre-sale tickets go on sale today to the public on a first-come, first-served basis at http://www.decemberists.tickets.musictoday.com. General ticket on-sales begin on Friday, February 13th. Full venue and ticketing information is available at The Decemberists' website. More upcoming tour dates will be announced shortly.

On tour, The Decemberists will present a full performance of the album, a 17-song suite that tells the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake. Joining the band on stage will be Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden who deliver the lead vocals for the female characters. The band announced last week that they will give the debut live performance of The Hazards of Love when they headline NPR Music's South by Southwest showcase at Stubbs in Austin on March 18th.

30 seconds after I posted the Radio City date, the whole tour appears in my inbox. All dates below...

Continue reading "The Decemberists - all of their 2009 tour dates & a presale"

On March 24th, Capitol Records will release The Decemberists' The Hazards Of Love, the follow-up to the group's 2006 breakthrough, The Crane Wife, which NPR listeners voted their favorite album of the year. With their fifth full-length album, the Portland-based quintet of Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query and John Moen solidifies its standing as one of the most innovative creative forces in music today. In an age when singles rule and the death of the album has been pronounced by many, The Decemberists - who will be featured in a live session on NPR's "World Café" today - have fashioned an anomaly: a record that demands to be listened to from start to finish and reveals more with each subsequent play. The 17-song suite, recorded with the band's longtime producer, Tucker Martine, is rooted in ancient language and imagery, yet entirely modern and accessible.

Eager to share a bit of the new music with fans before street date, The Decemberists are making "The Rake's Song" available as a free download beginning today at www.decemberists.com.

The album began when Meloy - long fascinated by the British folk revival of the 1960s - found a copy of revered vocalist Anne Briggs's 1966 EP, titled The Hazards of Love. Since there was actually no song with the album's title, he set out to write one. Soon he was immersed in something much larger than just a new composition.

The Hazards Of Love tells the tale of a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake, who recounts with spine-tingling ease how he came "to be living so easy and free" in the aforementioned "The Rake's Song." Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden deliver the lead vocals for the female characters, while My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Robyn Hitchcock and the Spinanes' Rebecca Gates appear in supporting roles. The range of sounds reflects the characters' arcs, from the accordion's singsong lilt in "Isn't it a Lovely Night?" to the heavy metal thunder of "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing."

"There's an odd bond between the music of the British folk revival and classic metal," says Meloy. "A natural connection between, like, Fairport Convention and Black Sabbath - of course, Sandy Denny from Fairport even sang with Led Zeppelin on 'The Battle of Evermore.' I think there's a shared sense of narrative and ambience, of moving beyond the first person in your writing. And I thought it would be interesting to mess around with that."

The Decemberists will tour this spring, playing The Hazards Of Love straight through for the show's first half and older material for the remainder. Ambitious, yes - but this is a band that doesn't shy away from major stage productions, having performed The Crane Wife with full orchestral accompaniment on several 2007 dates, including a stop at the historic Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Upcoming tour dates will be announced shortly.

The Decemberists also have another new song on the Dark Was the Night comp, as does My Brightest Diamond who recently played a show at (le) poisson rouge.

Jim James's most recent NYC show took place at Madison Square Garaden. Robyn Hitchcock's was at Symphony Space.

Stay tuned for those tour dates (Terminal 5 again probably?). The track listing for The Hazards Of Love is below...

Continue reading "The Decemberists - new MP3, new album details w/ Jim James, Shara Worden, Robyn Hitchcock, Becky Stark..."

Human Highway @ Cake Shop - Sept 15, 2008 (Jonny Leather)

How were the shows? How was Becky?

Becky Stark & Amanda Palmer as Citizens Band members (Dese'Rae L. Stage)

Lavendar Diamond's Becky Stark opens both Human Highway shows. Those are Monday/tonight @ Cake Shop & Tuesday @ Joe's Pub.

THE CITIZENS BAND presents "The Panic is On" - Sept. 7th / 8th / 9th @ Spiegeltent

Visionary musical troupe The Citizens Bandare taking over the Spiegeltent for a three-night extravaganza. The Citizens Band is a sexy, ribald musical troupe renowned for their dazzling song and dance performances. "The Panic Is On," their sixth original show in three years, finds the troupe trapped in a makeshift bomb shelter, where they're forced to find common ground and hope in a terror filled world. Performing a spirited mix of classic songs and original compositions, they ponder such issues as fear mongering, war, immigration, xenophobia, poverty and their own dreams for political change. These shows also mark the troupe's debut performance with director Gordon Greenberg (Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, Assisted Loving), and features special guests Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls.

The good news: Nina, Becky and Amanda. The bad news: neither CB regulars Craig Wedren or Angela McCluskey appear in this show.

Craig is probably too busy working with Nina's husband.

Amanda Palmer also performed her own show at the same venue earlier this year.