January 12 - Release Highlights

While not a complete list here a a couple of releases I am excited about:

Ray Wylie Hubbard - A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkment (Hint: There Is No C) (Bordello) Here is an excerpt from the press release. (I'm sure it will be the dark but entertaining effprt we expet from him.)

Ray Wylie Hubbard will release A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no C) on January 12, 2010 on Bordello Records with marketing and distribution provided by Thirty Tigers/RED. The album was produced by Hubbard with help from George Reiff. With a keen eye for observation and a wise man's knowledge, Ray Wylie Hubbard composes and performs a dozen songs that couldn't spring from anywhere else but out of his fertile rock and roll bluesy poet-in-the-blistering-heat southern noggin. "I like to look at both enlightenment and endarkenment," he declares. "I feel comfortable observing each." A. Enlightenment
B. Endarkenment demonstrates the kind of talent that every great songwriter yearns for. Throughout the album, his focus remains on the song- constructing and performing stories set to music that resonate in a way that is completely his own.

Vampire Weekend - Contra - The best new indie band of 2008. This should have the quirkiness and understated World Music influences fo there previous release.

Cousins:

The Band of Heathens

The Story of how The Band of Heathens came together is testimony to how music can and often does create community. The buzz from Austin around these guys has grown organically from Wednesday night gigs at MoMo's. As the story goes they orginally started as the three principle songwriters (Colin Brooks, Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist) playing three sets on Wednesdays. Then they started sitting in with each other and eventually started playing as a group. Apparently one night a local paper mistakenly said a band named The Heathens was playing at MoMo's. As a joke that night they referred to themselves as a "Band of Heathens" and it stuck. So a band that wasn't together and had no name is now a band with a name. It is as simple as that.

How much of the above tale has been altered by the folklore of the Austin music scene I have no idea. I do know this. The reason they are together now is because fans showed up and loved their music every Wednesday night. An unsolicited loyal fanbase built them from the ground up. Tht is the music "scene" at its best. They were created on stage in front of a live audience, and not by a major label hype machine in a corner office. Howe popular are they in Austin? They won Best New Band at the 2006 Austin Music Awards, before they even had a studio album out. The new self-titled release was produced by Ray Wilie Hubbard and features appearances by Patty Griffin, Gurf Morlix and Stephen Bruton among others. It was released on May 20th.

STAY TUNED FOR A GIVEAWAY CONTEST. THE BAND HAS BEEN NICE ENOUGH TO PROVIDE A FEW COPIES TO AWT.

Check out Jackson Station and their Website.



This Review also appears on: Twangville

Band of Heathen New Record

The Band of Heathens new record will release on May 20th. I missed this when highlighting new release last week and will make up for it with an MP3 (used as always by permission.)and a video. The buzz from Austin Around these guys has grown organically from Wednesday night gigs at MoMo's. They won Best New Band at the 2006 Austin Music Awards. The self-titled release was produced by Ray Wilie Hubbard and features appearances by Patty Griffin, Gurf Morlix, Stephen Bruton.

Check out Jackson Station and their Website.