Country, Americana, Folk, Power Pop, Indie Pop
The song Fighter from the forthcoming Bonnie Whitmore album Fuck With Sad Girls that is due out 28th of October has been a big favourite in this household during the past week. This and the earlier outtake She’s a Hurricane are both gorgeous and I have really high hopes for the album. I’ll get back to this closer to the release date, but here’s the excellent Fighter.
I thought I should also share some new music that I love on this so called blog birthday (ok, it’s past midnight already so I’m a little late), because that’s what this blog is all about. Besides The Needy Sons fits quite well to this little 15 years celebration, because Bill Janovitz’s other band Buffalo Tom was quite a big thing to me around the time this website was born 15 years ago. Yeah, I was clueless in the mid-nineties when the classiest albums came out and got my Buffalo Tom education somewhere around 1999-2001. In case you haven’t heard of Buffalo Tom, listen to an all-time favorite of mine Taillights Fade and work your way from there to the whole excellent catalog. The other stuff like that Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria album is also great and way too underrated at least in this corner of the world.
Anyway, enough with the nostalgic stuff. The Needy Sons has some new stunning music for you. That first paragraph might make you believe that this is a one man show, but that’s not true. The Needy Sons is a band that consists of Bill Janovitz, Mike Gent, Ed Valauskas, and Eric Anderson. Bill Janovitz and Mike Gent (The Figgs) share the songwriting duties and both do a really good job. The album Vis-A-Vis is now out on Bandcamp (CD/digital) and other digital outlets should follow within a few weeks. Here’s one excellent song from each songwriter. The Swimmer from Bill Janovitz and Majoring in Slow from Mike Gent. Listen/buy the whole thing on their bandcamp.
I’ve lived the past couple of days under the guidance of the new Wesley Randolph Eader album Highway Winds. It’s been a good place to be, because this is rather spectacular songwriting. I think I’ll stick around here for a while and make this my home.
Wesley Randolph Eader is a Portland-based country-folk songwriter and Highway Winds is his second album. I completely missed the 2012 debut Of Old It Was Recorded, but I’ll correct that mistake once this gorgeous new album has left me off the hook. That might not happen very soon, because I’m very fond of this after a couple of days of listening to it. Man should be very wary of comparing anyone to the late great Townes Van Zandt, because he sure was one of a kind. However, there’s a couple of songs that remind me a lot of Townes. Sorrows For A Song and Waitin’s What We Do especially fall into that that category. These might also be my early favourites on the album, but there’s so much more to love. There’s a bit of old-time, bluegrass and even gospel too.. and a whole lot of amazing songs. All in all. It’s a really magnificent record filled by great songwriting. Blitzen Trapper frontman Eric Earley also features heavily on the record as a musician and co-producer, but of course it’s Wesley that is under the spotlight right now. Here are a couple of excellent songs from Highway Winds. You can buy and/or listen to the whole album on his Bandcamp.
Hold the press, we have major news! There’s new music from Joey Kneiser & Kelly Smith. Seven inch split single coming up 23rd of September on Different Folk Records. Joey wrote both songs and sings one side and Kelly sings the other side. Kelly’s side is called Lost in The Wind and it’s already available in form of a magnificent music video. It’s an incredibly powerful song dedicated to everyone who has lost a sibling. Even though I knew it’s going to be special even before hitting the play button, it still took my breath away and stopped the time. Ever since I heard it, I’ve just been listening to it over and over again. You can watch the video below and pre-order the 7″ from Different Folk Records.