Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

Black Joe Lewis himself brings a classic James Brown howl and a raunchy sense of humor to some great talking blues moments, but what makes these guys much more than just a gimmick are the musical skills that underlie everything they do. They just groove. With another year of shows under their belt, white dude band mates Zach Ernst (guitar) and Bill Stevenson (bass) have ratcheted up their swagger enough to share the stage comfortably with their charismatic frontman.-[Hippies Are Dead]

The above review comes from the March 25th date show at Bowery Ballroom, the first of two shows at the venue for tourmates Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and Those Darlins (they did it again the next night). The pair's trek is still ongoing, terminating soon in Santa Cruz before Black Joe Lewis heads to an appearance at Coachella.

After a couple weeks off, Black Joe Lewis will reemerge in Mississippi at the tail end of April for a few dates before heading out on tour with Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. Those Darlins will still be going strong with their seemingly neverending tour. Both bands will eventually loop back to the NYC-area to play Maxwell's within a day of each other; Those Darlins play Maxwell's on 6/11 (tickets) and Black Joe Lewis hits Maxwell's on 6/12 (tickets). Neither has a NYC show scheduled at that time, but both have plenty of free days right around then (free summer shows TBA?).

Both Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and Those Darlins recently dropped some new material. BJL's new and-Jim-Eno-produced LP, Scandalous, as well as the new Those Darlins LP Screws Get Loose, are out now. All dates and a couple of videos, below...

Continue reading "Black Joe Lewis & Those Darlins still on tour, schedule more shows (including gigs @ Maxwell's a day apart)"

Mutek banner in Montreal - May 27, 2009 (bneely)

Mutek, the electronic music festival celebrating its tenth year, is currently underway in Montreal. The five-day fest runs to Sunday, May 31st, and it's streaming online. Moderat, the Modeselektor & Apparat supergroup, performed at Mutek on Thursday, May 28th; the group plays NYC's Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, May 30th (the show was originally planned for Webster Hall). Tickets are still on sale.

Speaking of parties up North this summer... three other biggies are Ottawa Bluesfest (July 8th-19th), Vancouver Folk Music Festival (July 17-19th) and Calgary Folk Music Festival (July 23rd-26th). Each of those suitably transcend the "blues" and "folk" labels, hosting bands like The Dead Weather and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (in Ottawa), The Weakerthans and Rock Plaza Central (in Vancouver), and The Decemberists, Apostle of Hustle, Kid Koala and Akron/Family (in Calgary). Full lineup for the Calgary Fest (Ottawa in particular is much too massive to post) and ticket info below.

And don't forget about the previously reported Breeders-headlined Sled Island Fest in Calgary on June 24th-27th, Montreal's Osheaga, NXNE, and Toronto's Olympic Island Fest on July 11th, which will host Broken Social Scene and its Arts & Crafts cohorts.

Across the pond, UK's Glastonbury Festival, which runs from June 24th to 28th, has been sold out since February even though the full lineup wasn't announced until this week. Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and Blur will be joined by The Specials, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Spinal Tap, Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Madness, Tom Jones, Animal Collective and many others.

And finally in the States, Monolith Festival, which runs from September 12th to 13th at Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Colorado, has announced its intial lineup, Girl Talk, Passion Pit, and The Walkmen included. The whole thing is posted below.

The weekend before Monolith, Bumbershoot will take place in Seattle (September 5th-7th). That fest's lineup has been updated too. New additions include Vivian Girls, Akron/Family, and Elvis Perkins. All new additions, with previously announced acts, are below. Tickets are still on sale.

In Michigan, the Rothbury Festival over July 4th weekend will feature the only summer fest performance by The Dead, as well as sets by Bob Dylan, String Cheese Incident, Broken Social Scene and more. A few more jam-friendly acts were also just added to the bill. Full lineup below. Tickets are on sale.

Info on all the above fests, with ticket info, below...

Continue reading "Mutek underway, Monolith & Glastonbury lineups, Rothbury, Bumbershoot, Calgary Folk & other festival updates"

NY Dolls @ John Varvatos Store - May 5th (more by Tim Griffin)

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears are on the road until May 24th with Lucero who stay on the road into June when they hit the NYC-area for shows at Maxwell's and the Big Apple BBQ.

On June 2nd, Black Joe Lewis joins up with the New York Dolls for a tour, and though it looks like they may still have some dates to fill in, we do know that the two bands will share the bill at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on June 22nd. Tickets go on AmEx presale on Wednesday at noon, and regular sale Friday.

All dates below...

Continue reading "NY Dolls & Black Joe Lewis - 2009 Tour Dates (MHOW)"

!!! is playing ACL 2009 (more by Chris Graham)

"The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival will showcase a diverse blend of acts both fresh and familiar at the eighth edition of the event in Zilker Park October 2-4. Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, and Beastie Boys are performing for the first time at the Festival, with Kings of Leon, Ben Harper and Relentless7, and Thievery Corporation returning to Zilker Park once again. John Legend, The Dead Weather, and The Levon Helm Band will also make their ACL Festival debut, while Austin's own Ghostland Observatory will no doubt deliver another memorable set for festival goers.

With over 130 artists on this year's bill, the list of acts awes at each note with the likes of Sonic Youth, Mos Def, Toadies, Flogging Molly, The B-52s, Lily Allen, Citizen Cope, Arctic Monkeys, The Decemberists, Coheed and Cambria, Andrew Bird, Girl Talk, and many more.

In the tradition of the TV show from which it was born, the Festival has always aimed to offer musical discovery for the fans. The 2009 lineup is rich with pop, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, indie rock, hip-hop, and gospel, to name a few, spanning cultures and countries from New Orleans to Venezuela to France."

The entire 2009 lineup is below...

Continue reading "ACL (Austin City Limits) - 2009 festival lineup announcement"

Ida Maria @ Union Hall (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Les Paul @ Iridium
* papercranes @ City Winery
* Glasvegas, Ida Maria @ Webster Hall
* Gringo Star, Des Roar @ Glasslands
* The War on Drugs, The Drones @ Union Hall
* Oh Land, Jason Anderson @ Pete's Candy Store
* Sharon Van Etten, Virgin Passages, Regia @ Cake Shop
* DD/MM/YYYY, Wavves, Vampire Hands, Real Estate @ Mercury Lounge
* The Dead @ Roseland Ballroom, Gramercy Theatre & Angel Orensanz
* Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears, miniboone, The Fumes @ Pianos
* The Hold Steady, The Rosewood Thieves, Black Gold @ Irving Plaza

Black Joe Lewis is also opening for Gomez at Bowery Ballroom tomorrow.

All Points West 2009 lineup announced.

Ladyhawke, Ida Maria, Yelle, Thunderheist (whose album is out this week) and others (including Kanye West, but not Lady Sovereign who cancelled) played the Perez Hilton (love him, or more likely hate him...) party at SXSW. A video compilation featuring live performances and interviews from that event, below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

Photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

If not obvious by the 2008 Fun Fun Fun Fest coverage so far, I was having the most fun (fun fun) over the weekend with all the punk, metal and hardcore on stages 3a and 3b (two connected stages to avoid long times between sets). Highlights and pictures from day one are HERE. Highlights of day two (9/9) were DOA, Frightened Rabbit, the ska punk, politics and crowd of Leftover Crack, Cro-Mags (jam) (John Joseph w/ one of Cro-Mags' past drummers, AJ from Leeway on guitar and Craig Setari of Sick of it All on bass), what I saw of St. Vincent and Black Angels, the vegan sausage pizza, and Bad Brains. I managed to catch a few songs of Islands who sounded great, but totally missed Spinto Band and Annuals. Also saw pieces of Kevin Seconds, Chuck Ragan, and Ben Nichols's solo-frontmen sets. Saw Black Joe Lewis and most of Trash Talk, but neither lived up to my expectations in the daytime festival setting. I went back and forth between the pre-headliner sets of Minus the Bear and Bouncing Souls, and ran over to watch one song of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah during a Bad Brains reggae segment. Despite the competition, CYHSY still pulled in a respectable sized crowd. The stages were far enough away in general, but I could also still hear Alec Ounsworth's unmistakable voice at times between Bad Brains songs depending on where I was standing (I watched Bad Brains from various areas throughout their set). Clipse were headlining on the stage farthest away from Bad Brains so I totally missed them, and Kool Keith, who played that same stage earlier. Bad Brains ended earlier than curfew which meant I got to run over and catch about 20 minutes of Tim and Eric which was a great way (laughing) to end the hectic two day fest.

One unfortunate aspect of the weekend was the dust. It was a problem at ACL this year too. Dry dirt and wind meant you were constantly breathing it in. A signifigant portion of the crowd was wearing bandanas or other gas mask-like things on their faces. I didn't, but I should have because I think it made me a little sick. More pictures from day two below...

Continue reading "Fun Fun Fun Fest 2008 - (some of) day two in photos "

Photos by Nathan Miller

"Anytime I've ever seen Okkervil River perform live, they've seemed like the world's most under-slept, under-shaved band coming off a four-day bender, shredding their guts onstage as if it were their last show before their dark demise in an alley. And yet here they are on their brilliant new record with their hippie hair all tamed and their sound semi-polished and pop, as though they spent the summer at rock-hottie camp with Stuart Murdoch learning new dance moves." [EyeWeekly]

Okkervil River, Eric Bachmann's Crooked Fingers and Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears played their second of two nights in a row at NYC's Webster Hall last night (10/7). Crooked Fingers' new album Forfeit / Fortune came out the same day on Red Pig / Constant Artists, Inc.

"If the record took off we would have to re-evaluate and I wouldn't have a problem dancing with the devil," Bachmann said, making a half-joking reference to big retailers like Walmart with whom he shares little in common philosophically. "I don't think the system is innately bad, we're just trying to manipulate the system to where we can keep as much money that's ours as possible." [StarNews]

The first NYC show was 10/6 and that's the night the below pictures were taken. Both Okkervil setlists are down there too....

Continue reading "Okkervil River, Crooked Fingers, & Black Joes Lewis @ Webster Hall, NYC - pics & setlists "

photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Austin's Okkervil River are in the midst of a tour that brings them to NYC to play two shows at Webster Hall this coming Monday and Tuesday with Crooked Fingers (Eric Bachmann) and Austin's Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears...

Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears were one of the really fun, live suprises of SXSW 2008 for me. I had heard mention of this band when they were out opening for Spoon last year, but had yet to hear the recorded work or see a live show. The Club DeVille set was full of big, bold soulful grooves that had everyone dancing. With his soul revival sound, James Brown-esque yells, a fresh face and a big smile, Black Joe Lewis was very easy to love. [My Old Kentucky Blog]

Tickets are still on sale for both shows. This past weekend Okkervil played a show at the Austin City Limits Festival. More pictures from that below...

Continue reading "Okkervil River played ACL (pics, setlist), in NYC on Monday w/ Crooked Fingers & Black Joe Lewis & The Honey Bears"