photos by Jacob Blickenstaff

Sharon Jones (and fan) & the Dap Kings @ Knitting Factory Brooklyn

Brooklyn venue Southpaw has two Daptone Records-related shows in its future. Lee Fields & The Expressions, whose new album actually came out on Truth & Soul, will return to the club on December 18th for a show with their T&S labelmates Michael Leonhart & The Avramina. Tickets are on sale. The Budos Band play Southpaw on January 16th. Tickets are on sale for that too.

Lee Fields and The Budos Band shared a not-actually-CMJ bill with their Daptone labelmates Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, and The Menehan Street Band at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on October 23rd. It was a private show that the Brooklyn label set up to showcase its artists while CMJ was in town.

"The headliner, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings along with guitarist Binky Griptite, was truly the anticipation of the night. This frantically dancing and singing queen wasn't afraid to bring the audience on stage or get down and dirty with her sassy self. Bereft of the glitz and glamor of the previous act, Jones was perfectly quaint in her dark jean jacket and slacks. Her voice had more power than anyone that night, and it's no surprise that she is Daptone Records' star. Outrageously genius, Jones and Griptite ripped the stage apart and threw it at the audience with a grin. Good thing this was the kind of audience who knew how to throw it right back." [Performer Blog]

The pictures in this post are from that Brooklyn show.

Naomi Shelton and The Gospel Queens (aka the Gospel Queens of Brooklyn) play every Friday night at Fat Cat.

Sharon doesn't have any NYC shows coming up, but she and the Dap Kings are going on a short tour in December which includes a NJ date. Recently the group performed with Phish in California.

She and the Dap Kings will also be appearing on television TONIGHT (11/24). If you've been near the Bedford L in Brooklyn lately, you may have noticed the mural. Dinner With The Band, "A new series from IFC with tasty meals and rocking tunes", is on IFC every Tuesday at 11pm (starting tonight). Set your DVR.

As previously mentioned, chef Sam Mason will cook not-necessarily-vegan meals with guests that include Final Fantasy, Les Savy Fav, Men, Kid Sister, Flosstradamus, Yacht, and... Sharon Jones.

"Dinner With the Band" started as an online show conceived by Darin and Greg Bresnitz, brothers who were both passionate about music and food. (Mr. Mason is still devising ways to get musicians more involved in the kitchen. "I wanted to help, but he didn't let me," said Kid Sister, a Chicago rapper who appears on a coming episode. "He was real in-control.") When the brothers asked Mr. Mason to host in 2006, they "didn't really know who he was," Darin Bresnitz recalled.

Mr. Mason added, "No joke: they Googled 'tattooed hipster chef', and I came up." [NY Times]

You also know series creators Darin and Greg by their DJ duo name: Finger on the Pulse. The prolific twins seem to be everywhere - that includes their stint as contributors to this very blog. Appropriately enough, one of their posts here included nine remixes of Daptone songs (4 Sharon Jones tracks included), and you can still download every one of them.

The artists that appear on the IFC show play music in addition to cooking. Check out two clips from tonight's Sharon Jones episode, along with more pictures from Knitting Factory, below...

Continue reading "Dinner With The Band on IFC (tonight) w/ Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings + upcoming Daptone shows & Knitting Factory pics"

photos by Jacob Blickenstaff

Openers Aloe Blacc and the Ghetto Brothers helped Lee Field & the Expressions celebrate the release of their new album, My World, Friday, June 5th, at Southpaw in Brooklyn.

The Ghetto Brothers performed their album Power-Fuerza live.

The Ghetto Brothers were a gang (or club) founded in New York City's South Bronx in the late 1960s. They eventually spread to much of the Northeastern United States. Like the Young Lords, they were involved in Puerto Rican nationalism, including, in the case of the Ghetto Brothers, an association with the then-new Puerto Rican Socialist Party.

Ghetto Brothers founder Benjamin Melendez, who left the organization in 1976, was also known as a guitarist. He led a band, also known as the Ghetto Brothers, which included his late brother Victor Melendez on drums. They released one (self-titled) album in 1972, which had only informal, local distribution. [Wiki]

Aloe Blacc performed some new songs, and to quote John Turner Jr Lee Fields "was unbelievable, incredible, epic, awesome, and any other serious adjective you can think of". More pictures from the show below...

Continue reading "Lee Fields & the Expressions, Aloe Blacc, and the Ghetto Brothers @ Southpaw in Brooklyn - pics"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Lee Fields & the Expressions - Ladies (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lee Fields & the Expressions - Love Comes and Goes (MP3)

Limewire Store: Tell us about the upcoming Truth & Soul releases you're most excited about.

Truth & Soul co-founder Leon Michels: We are releasing a Lee Fields & The Expressions full-length entitled My World on June 2nd. This has been a project that has taken us about four years to complete and is probably the best thing we've ever done for T&S. It's a record of mostly hard-hitting slow jams, laced with lush strings and Lee's incomparable voice. Lee is really one of the best singers living in America today and he really shines on this record. He is also an amazing live performer, the type of showman that doesn't really exist anymore, so if he's in your town, please check him out...it's worth it.

Lee Field's new LP, My World, comes out June 2nd on Truth & Soul Records. Check out two tracks from it above.

Leon Michels, the man with the good words for Fields, is co-founder of Truth & Soul Records and bandleader for El Michels Affair. That group's latest Return to the 37th Chamber a disc of Wu-Tang covers, came out in April on Fat Beats.

Truth & Soul, Michels and Fields all have deep roots in the NYC soul revival. Michels used to be a Dap-King before leaving to play with his own group and focus on Truth & Soul. Both Michels and T&S co-founder Jeff Silverman worked at Soul Fire Records, which released Fields and El Michels records before closing in 2003. Through the '90s, Phillipe Lehman (founder of Soul Fire) and Gabriel Roth (who founded Daptone) ran Desco Records, which previously carried the soul and funk torch. Sharon Jones' performance in a Desco Records Lee Fields session is often credited as the Sharon's breakthrough, and the label, and its future incarnations, went on to put out many of her records. Jones and Fields still sing together on occasion, like at Jones' 2007 Apollo Theater gig where the pair performed a James Brown medley.

Stones Throw is another label with Lee Fields connections. The hip-hop label points out that "Madlib recently jacked [Fields'] 'Flim Flam' drums for the TV on the Radio remix he produced." (Though it appears that track didn't make the EP's final cut.)

At the release party for Lee Fields' My World on Friday, June 5th at Southpaw in Brooklyn, both Stones Throw and T&S will be amply represented. The night's stars, of course, will be Lee Fields & The Expressions, accompanied by special guests Aloe Blacc (Stones Throw), The Ghetto Brothers (Truth & Soul) and DJs Akalepse & Jeff Dynamite (Truth & Soul) and Eothen Alapatt (Stones Throw). Tickets are on sale.

Poster for the Southpaw gig, with a video of Fields at the venue in 2006, below...

Continue reading "Lee Fields & the Expressions - MP3, new CD & release show"