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Man, we've got a great night of music planned for you on Tuesday, but first some background:
Motown had one, so did Stax. Three deep soul acts and one smoking hot band to back them up. The triple-header of R&B: the soul revue. Once a mainstay of theaters, gymnasiums and VFW halls everywhere, the soul revue ultimately vanished in the late seventies as recorded sound pushed live performance out of the limelight and onto car stereos and refrigerator-sized boom boxes. The performers returned to their day jobs and the world was the poorer for it.
That is, until April 4th, 2009, when the Numero Group, the world's premier reissue label, mounted the first Eccentric Soul Review, packing Chicago's Park West Theater with soul-hungry acolytes, satisfying them and then some with the real thing: a seventeen-piece band backing, The Notations, Renaldo Domino, The Final Solution, Nate Evans and Syl Johnson, putting on a show that combined seventies slick with revival meeting fervor.
It was a magical evening, as the past lived and breathed and got on down, right here in the present. Those in attendance went home that night knowing they'd seen something that just wasn't done anymore. And they went home wanting more. Well, the wait and the want is over. The Numero Group is taking this show on the road: Syl Johnson, Renaldo Domino and the Notations, backed by JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound are hitting Columbus, Washington DC, and two boroughs of New York City.
Eccentric Soul Revue hits the East Coast in November with the totally explosive Syl Johnson, the silky smooth Notations, and the man with the voice like Domino sugar, Renaldo Domino, plus special guests, a slide show, and an autograph line.
There is absolutely nothing else like The Eccentric Soul Revue. A ticket is a time machine...and we've got a pair to give away for what promises to be one special night—which ALSO includes DC’s resident funk and soul archivist and curator, DJ Nitekrawler, spinning before and after the show.
In addition, the ticket winner will be granted access to the exclusive meet and greet before things kick off AND a 7" gem from the mighty Numero Group: Renaldo Domino's "I'll Get You Back" b/w "2 Years, 4 Days." Some background on the 45 from Numero's site:
Renaldo Domino's "I'll Get You Back" b/w "2 Years, 4 Days" "Renaldo is one of our favorite artists and a great friend and it always brings us pleasure to release his music. Taken from an acetate turned up by Jamie Hodge years back, "I'll Get You Back" was a recording Renaldo thought was long lost. Produced by William Sandy Johnson and Nate Taylor, this was intended for release on Johnson's Sincere label, alongside LaShawn Collins and Wendy Woods. On the reverse is "Two Years, Four Days" which eluded release until last year's Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation. This is the tune's historic first appearance in vinyl form."
To check out the Eccentric Soul Review on us, the rest is up to you! State your case as to why YOU should be picked to attend Tuesday's show, the meet and greet, AND to take home the 45 in the comments to this post (with contact info — important!) and we'll choose the smoothest voice on Monday (11/10) by noon. Step to it!
...and so brings to a close our very first Blog Takeover Week. We’d like to thank Nicole Atkins from the bottom of our Jersey-loving hearts for her time and contributions during the week, for locking up and shutting off the lights to the office each night—and for restocking the liquor cabinet. How about that shit?
We’ll see all of you at The Rock and Roll Hotel tonight when she and The Black Sea roll into town, right?
‘Til then, Nicole’s DJ’d the week’s Final Ten from the road...
We've been fans of Peter Bjorn and John from the first puckered whistle of 'Young Folks' but apparently we're pretty late to the party because the band is celebrating ten years together with a tour that brings them to the 9:30 this Saturday night with El Perro del Mar.
We've got three, count 'em THREE, pairs of tickets to give away for Saturday night's birthday party for the band. Leave your birthday wishes in the comments to this post (with contact info - important!) and we'll choose the most creative three to attend er, ...free.
I'm in Nashville right now, just played the Ryman Auditorium with our dear friends the Avett Brothers. Sang with some ghosts in the dressing room. The feeling of playing on that stage was something between complete humbleness and a supernatural elation.
Anyways, today I met up with my friend Lisa from the band the Poconos and her boyfriend Quinn from the Gay Blades. We set out to do a little record shopping. We started talking about how when it's fun to go record shopping at your local, we do most of our record shopping on the road. The album serves as a reminder of where you were when you bought it every time you take off the shelf to listen to it.
My record collection acts like a memory trigger scrapbook. When I listen to my orange Sopwith Camel record it reminds me of the great little record shop next to the 40 Watt in Athens, GA. That store was the size of a closet yet they had every record you could ever want. When I listen to my "Songs to Read James Bond By" record, it reminds me of the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH. This venue has a wonderful thrift shop and record store in the basement. The backstage also resembles a basement from the 70s and every time we have played there they made us meatloaf and greenbeans and mashies. That record will always recall my moments there.
What would a week with Nicole Atkins on the blog be without a chance to see her kill it live and the opportunity to take home her Columbia Records debut? Well, that'd certainly be an incomplete week.
Being the completists that we are however, you won't need to imagine that dire scenario because Nicole's hooked us up with a pair of tickets to her show at the Rock and Roll Hotel this Friday night as well as the aforementioned debut LP 'Neptune City' on glorious vinyl for one lucky winner.
Nicole's spending the week here at The Vinyl District rummaging through her favorite record stores around the country, so we'd like you to give a shout out to your favorite shop (DC or beyond) in the comments to this post for a shot to win the vinyl and the tickets for Friday night.
Remember to leave us some contact info and we'll choose the best one by Thursday COB for the tickets and the vinyl. Get to it!
For the last 8 years that I've lived off and on in Asbury Park, my friends and I have always been like "when is this place gonna get a record shop?" There's art galleries, bars, dance studios, gay specialty stores, doggie ice cream parlors, yet no record shops. In order to buy a record you literally have to drive 30 minutes into Red Bank to Jack's (which is a great shop but a bit tough on the gas tank these days.)
Finally our buddy Joe Koukas did something about it and opened up Holdfast Records on the plum little strip of Cookman Avenue. Holdfast specializes in used and hard to find Punk, Hardcore, Reggae, Old Country, Jazz and Dub 45's from artists like Barrington Levy and Big Youth. I recently picked up a couple of live Zeppelin bootlegs and an Edith Piaf boxed set. As well as a mint condition John Denver and the Muppets album. Score!
If you're looking for something in particular Joe can order it for you and they also offer a special service that I haven't seen at any record shops before. Personal shopping. So basically you hand Joe a list of everything you're looking for and he sets off to acquire all of it for you. This usually takes between 3 and 4 weeks. It's like vinyl bounty hunting.
Holdfast doesn't just have a great selection of vinyl but they also have great vintage clothes and vintage guitars and amps and pedals for sale. JoJo who works in the guitar department also does setups. He'll fix you up real nice! They also feature an awesome selection of graffiti art, rare prints and paintings from popular local artists such as Porkchop and Bradley Hoffer.
But the secret gem lies in the basement...
Silverball Museum resides in the basement of Holdfast. It's a vintage pinball museum featuring 150 machines in mint condition all available to play for ten dollars an hour. And its BYOB! Meowzers! Record shopping, getting your gear fixed, outfit for later, and an hour to kill on pinball and a couple of tall boys.
Holdfast is a little bit of paradise where the debris meets the sea.
Holdfast Records and the Silverball Museum 639 Cookman Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ
I met Tina Sugandh nine or so years ago and since then her star has not just been on the rise—it's been stratospheric. But events of a more personal nature have taken center stage recently, and in honor of October's Breast Cancer Awareness month, Tina has been giving away a download of what she calls the most important song she's ever written, “Snake Charmer,” free on her website. (...and it's linked a little while longer exclusively for TVD.)
"I started performing with my family, The Sugandh Family, when I was five years old. My older sister, my mother, my father, and I would all have school or work during the week, and then we would fly off and have these magical weekends where we would perform at all types of Indian events! I started singing on stage at age five, and then when I was eight I began to learn to play the guitar, drums, and tabla (an Indian drum). I am so grateful that my mother introduced music and performance into our lives. As kids, she always reinforced the idea that music is a tool used to bring people together, to uplift their spirits, and to make them smile-and I still retain these musical values today.
I began to heavily pursue a solo career in music while I was in college studying biology. This led to me simultaneously graduating with an honors degree in Bio as well as a scoring a record deal! I chose the record deal since music and performance is in my blood! Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to have songs on several Hollywood soundtracks as well as on the Billboard Charts, and I’m in the process of releasing a full length album.
My mother introduced music into my life. She will always be my best friend-and the most radiant, beautiful, genuine, energetic, positive, glowing ray of sunlight that I will ever know. I spent the entire last year watching my mom fight cancer, and I did everything I could to save her. Cancer eventually took her from us. Now, I am using her lifelong lessons of ”positivity” and “focusing on only the good in every situation” in order to only focus on how grateful I am to have had such an incredible mother for so long. I’m doing everything in my power to keep her legacy alive and to empower people with music and to make them smile as she did.
My mom actually grew up singing Beatles songs on the radio in India, and very shortly after my mom’s passing, Ringo Starr invited me to his house to sing and play tabla on his album. My relatives say that my mom set that up - and I would like to believe that’s true!
Last month, I had the incredible opportunity of hosting and performing for 18,000 people at the American Cancer Society. I was so grateful to be able to contribute, and now I am giving away a free download of the most important song I’ve ever written. It’s my song for survivors, called “Snake Charmer”. For a free download, please visit my website. "
As I’ve mentioned quite a few times in the past, I grew up not in DC but at the Jersey Shore, NJ. In a town called Neptune to be exact—in a tiny enclave of this tiny enclave called Shark River Hills.
And while we’re huge fans of her here at TVD HQ, it’s not because she’s our hometown girl, but because she’s making music that’s head and shoulders above SO, so many these days.
Find out yourself when she plays The Rock and Roll Hotel this Friday night, 11/6. (...and more on that tomorrow.)
I guess there’s something in the water in NJ, right Nicole?
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I had a friend while I was going to college at UNCC named Daniel Coston. He was a rock photographer and an encyclopedia. We'd sit at this little diner down there called the Penguin and over a plate of fried pickles and ranch talk for hours about bands. I'd take in everything he said like a sponge.
Right before I graduated he was telling me about a band from NYC called Television and how he was excited for their reunion at the Pop Overthrow Festival. I'd never heard of the band before (thinking of that time now makes me laugh) but they sounded like nothing I've ever heard before. We went to his house and he threw Marquee Moon on his turn table and it felt like my entire world opened up.
A week later I graduated and moved back home to Neptune, NJ with my folks. My room was the same as it was 5 years before, but I realized that that shitty little Sony plastic jambox I had had a record player in it. I went to our locals, the Soundwave in Manasquan (RIP) and Silvertunes in Belmar (RIP) and just spent hours talking with the owners and pouring over the plastic boxes underneath the CD bins. It went from "Hey you got any Television?" to them saying "Sure, if you like that you might like...."
All of my friends had either moved away or were at grad school. I'd just started writing my own songs. And so became my love affair with vinyl.
Bands like Circus Maximus, Love, Can, Otis Redding, and Leonard Cohen became my companions while I whiled away in solitude at my folks house writing my first record. Or mini record as I called it back then. During this time I took a job writing a small music column for a local magazine whose content was mostly about where the $2 Bud Light specials were and which coverband was playing where.
We'd get sent CDs from record labels. Mostly buttrock and forgettable singer/songwriters. Sometimes I'd find a couple of gems in the batch but most of the time I'd take the stacks of CDs and trade it in for store credit at Soundwave to buy vinyl. As my collection grew so did the people I was meeting locally at the time. Sitting on the floor of my room at my parents house listening to different albums with my new friends became the new Friday night hang.
Soon as the summer was closing out, I'd finished around 9 of my own songs and moved part time to NYC. From Monday through Wednesday I'd split my time playing open mics, playing songs with other artists in Tompkins Square Park, and drinking cheap beer at the Library on Avenue A listening to Television on the jukebox.
A month after that I would record that first "mini" album at this great little vintage studio in Red Bank, NJ called Retromedia. The Studio owner John Noll, randomly emailed Richard Lloyd of Televison to come down and play on a couple of my songs. All of this within less than a year. Its really strange how things come full circle.
TVD and Comet Ping Pong are excited to continue a new series of ticket giveaway contests where each month you can see your show of choice at Comet—FREE. Simply because we're looking out for you and your good time.
Here's how it works: each month we'll publish Comet's press release and full schedule right here at TVD. You choose the show you'd like to see and be the first person to claim the tickets for that show in the comments to this post (with contact info!) and you're in FREE—no questions asked.
It's just that simple. No long love letters, nothin'.
There will be just ONE winner for a pair of tickets allowed per show and you can't win more than once in a month. (Hey, we gotta have SOME rules...)
The ticket giveaways for November start...right now:
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4 K Records Evening! Jeremy Jay / Heaven / Black Umbrella / DJ Names Names (Ian Svenonius) Jeremy Jay is a mixture of a storyteller, artist and singer. Following a series of 7" singles, he released his debut LP, A Place Where We Could Go on K in Spring 2008. Currently, he lives in Los Angeles, the dream city of films. Similar to films, Jeremy identifies with the visual stories of life and love, and his music touches on everything human. He draws much of his inspiration from American artists like Andy Warhol and iconic teen filmmaker John Hughes, to European French new wave filmmakers like Truffant and Goddard.
When you listen to Black Umbrella, you usually expect a schizophrenic madness to ensue, as if you’re happily running over a bunch of brand new babies with a lawnmower while eating your veggies like a good boy. However, with this record it’s as if you walked to a grand piano shop, found a discarded Steinway, and tipped it over onto your head, and just laid there. You have nothing to do but think about what just happened, and that’s just the way you want it for now.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6 Americans in France / Foul Swoops North Carolina trio, Americans in France has the good kind of musical ADD—songs zig and zag, with scratchy guitars and anxiously shouted vocals, sometimes in unison, sometimes in response. The Chapel Hill area has set a high standard for this type of stuff and Americans in France live up to those expectations. Foul Swoops, are obvious heirs to the local indie rock throne—once they all turn 21, of course. That youth is apparent in the quartet's songs, which are bursts thick guitar, growling vocals from that redhead drummer while the disinterested looking girl on keyboards makes sure there's some melody throughout.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 Authorization/ Protect U / Maxmillion Dunbar (AFP from Food for Animals) Authorization, if you haven't had the opportunity to hear them yet, is Jeff (from Insect Factory, Plums, Kohoutek) and Dan Caldas (ex-Black Eyes, Horses.) The duo trade off on synth, drum machine, electronics, guitar, and bass. The music they make has elements of dub, kosmische Krautrock, g-funk (of course), with plenty of angularity, and does not disappoint."
Maxmillion Dunbar is one of many positions on this Earth played by Silver Spring Maryland native Andrew F-P. Others include rappin' in MD next-hop trio Food For Animals, DJing and producing in Beautiful Swimmers, and going way way out with Cool Water. He also runs the very graceful Future Times record label. He has a 12"(the "Bare Feet" EP) coming out soon on Ramp Recordings out of the UK. After that he just wants to grow like a plan so be on the lookout.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 George Smallwood Mr. “Mellow” George Franklin Smallwood’s own personal discography dates back to the early 70s when he started a record company out of the garage in Hyattsville, Maryland. Designed to showcase his original music with the group Marshmellow, Smallwood Records had several vinyl releases; Touching Is My Thing, Funk by The Pound, Mr. Sunshine, Lady Disco.
Records were sold at house parties and shows, and never managed to find their way outside of DC, until EBAY. Records that originally sold for a dollar, now sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Several of the recordings have been reissued by Peoples Potential Unlimited (Washington DC) and Jazzman (UK).
Today, George just winterized the pool, got his keyboard serviced and is tearing cardboard beer boxes into fire starter for the home studio hearth. What seem like strange tasks are the routines of a blind man, who has been impaired even before his love of music began. George recalls, "Music never really took to me till I lost my sight..”
Over the years listening to cassettes and radio, Smallwood has amassed over 300 songs for his mental catalog of music. This human soft rock soul database extends from his originals to the hits of Steve Miller band, Christopher Cross, Michael Jackson, Queen, and Prince. All songs accompanied by Mr. Mellow with his Casio synthesizer, “the personal computer” he calls it. The only instrument in the world that has a fade-in, fade-out button.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see the greatest soul artist you’ve never heard of!!! Meet and greet with Mr. Mellow between his sets!
Renaldo Domino's "I'll Get You Back" b/w "2 Years, 4 Days"
