When I first wrote about The Weight I described them as equal parts Drag The River and Lucero, but this time around that description no longer applies. While the band maintains the line-up of Joseph Plunket, Uncle Will Noland, Jay Ellis, Fletcher “Poor Boy” Johnson, and Johnny Carpenter, the ‘punk kids making Americana music’ framework has been dropped for a more classic ‘country meets a good time’ sound. Funny what a stable lineup of a couple of years will do to a band.

Are Men is honest, pure and exactly what I was wanting from Shooter Jenning’s mega-disappointment, The Wolf. Thank you, The Weight. It’s been awhile since I was able to type this but, Are Men is most definitely Essential Listening. Check it out.

The Weight - Johnny’s Song
The Weight - Talkin’

The Weight’s Official Site, The Weight on myspace, Buy Are Men

I swear to God…ninebullets can’t seem to catch a break. After being mildly ignored for the past month while I painted and moved I thought ninebullets would get back on track as my life started to find it’s routine again this week. Then came Saturday morning…I was outside playing fetch with my dog. Bent down to pick up her soccer ball and BLAMMO! stabbed in the cornea by a sage palm spine…white hot heat…tears and snot (who knew eye trauma caused sinal flushing?) all over my face. The result:

So. I have one eye that can not focus on shit and this makes staring at computer screens a real bitch. Plus, I have no depth perception and the one clear eye/one blurry outta focus eye makes me pretty dizzy sometimes. What does that mean for the site? Well, the doctor said it could be this weekend before my vision clears up so it means another week of hit and miss posting. Maybe some more Michigan hipster shit from the new ninebullets.net contributor Marci. I dunno. I am gonna try and write some stuff up tonight. Till then:

Possessed By Paul James - Cold and Blind
Tom Waits - Blind Love

And you gotta be crazy thinking I’m gonna let a post about blindness pass without this one:

Manfred Man - Blinded By The Light

The Cure is one of my favorite bands.  Sure, I wasn’t yet 5 years old when they released their first album, but that didn’t stop me from falling completely in love with them in my early teens.  I’ve lost a little of the fire over the last few years with their most recent releases, but I still can’t pass up a chance to see them on tour.  So, after fighting rush hour traffic and parking without incident, I got a drink for just under the price of a barrel of crude, rolled my eyes at the $45 concert shirts, and headed to the seats that I bought almost a year ago before they rescheduled much of their tour.  I had missed the opener, 65 Days of Static, but it seems most around me had as well.

It wasn’t long after we sat down that The Cure hit the stage to raucous applause, and 5 songs in as they went from “Fascination Street” to “The Walk”, I remarked to my boyfriend how relieved I was that they weren’t playing all new stuff.  He simply responded, “They know better.”  They must have, because the concert spanned their full 30 year history with a heavy emphasis on earlier stuff.

Porl Thompson definitely won Best Dressed for the night as he bopped about the stage like a man half his age, sporting head tattoos and a pair of fabulous glittery red heels that would have made Dorothy proud…and a little slutty.  Robert was Robert with the same baggy clothes, red lipstick, and black eye makeup that has been his trademark for so many years.  Simon Gallup looked like a kid on stage next to bald Porl and smooshy Robert as he strutted around like Billy Idol’s younger brother.  Jason Cooper was pretty hidden back there on the drums, and while I haven’t been impressed with anything they’ve done since he joined the band during the recording of Wild Mood Swings, I don’t blame him for those albums, and he did a great job on every song he played on.

My boyfriend isn’t a huge Cure fan, he was there as my date and to take pictures, but he did want to hear “Pictures of You”.  After “Lovesong”, I told him it wasn’t likely they’d play it, as that marked three songs already from Disintegration and we were only 6 songs in.  Because I can never win a damned argument with my boyfriend, they played “Pictures of You” two songs later, and I started to wonder if I’d warped back in time to The Prayer tour.  When he reached an arm up and clutched at the air, his fingers barely peeking out of his ridiculously long sleeve, during the chorus to “Catch”, I giggled like I was 15 again, staring at his poster on the ceiling over my bed.

As the show went on I heard so many favorites, “Push”, “Inbetween Days”, “Just Like Heaven” to name just a few, and I started to wonder what the heck they were going to do for the encore.  I had no freaking idea what I was in for, but as the third and final encore began I was verging on delirium, and when Robert and Simon’s guitar jam session at the end of “A Forest” ended, I was ecstatic.  There have been lots of rumors that this is going to be their last tour, and if that’s the case they definitely went out on a high note.

Here is the setlist for the show:

Main Set:

• underneath the stars
• prayers for rain
• fascination street
• the walk
• the end of the world
• lovesong
• to wish impossible things
• pictures of you
• lullaby
• catch
• the perfect boy
• from the edge of the deep green sea
• the kyoto song
• hot hot hot
• the blood
• sleep when i’m dead
• push
• inbetween days
• just like heaven
• primary
• shake dog shake
• the only one
• wrong number
• one hundred years
• baby rag dog book

Encore 1:

• the lovecats
• let’s go to bed
• freakshow
• close to me
• why can’t i be you?

Encore 2:

• boys don’t cry
• jumping someone else’s train
• grinding halt
• 10:15 saturday night
• killing an arab

Encore 3:

• a forest

Lot’s more pictures are available here.

I can’t say I’m a huge Ladytron fan, and I had only heard Datarock a few times before, but I knew that I liked both groups enough and so many friends were rabid fans of Ladytron that I was pretty excited about the show.  As it was a work night, doors opened at 8p and Datarock went on not very long after that to a steadily building crowd.  Right away I remarked about how these guys were either in witness protection or were hideously ugly, as they all had on matching outfits of red hoodies and sweatpants with their hoods up and with big, black sunglasses on, and the stage lights were limited to a handful of red lights pointing stage-ish.  It didn’t take long to distract me from the mystery of their disguises, though.  Datarock put on one hell of a fun show, from choreographed dance moves on some songs, to aggressively working the crowd during others, to singalongs with the audience.  And then just when they’d thoroughly impressed me, they outdid themselves when they wrapped things up with a karaoke-inspired performance to the Dirty Dancing classic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” that started playing at the end of their set…complete with a brilliant saxophone solo. 

By the time Ladytron was set to come on the Imperial Ballroom was packed.  As I watched the crowd buzz in anticipation, I was informed that the club had brought in a generator to handle the light show that was about to happen, something about how the light displays draw 100 amps and would blow every breaker in the joint in one pulse.  I’m glad someone brought some electricity to their show, because Ladytron didn’t.  With lights blinding and synths blazing, they put on a decent enough show, but I don’t know if they chose too good of an opener or if they put on too poor of a show.  Either way, I would have liked more Datarock.  Guess we should have stuck around, as I hear they put on a hell of a dj set after Ladytron.  However, we decided halfway into Ladytron’s set that it wasn’t worth calling in to work in the morning and headed out.

If you haven’t heard these Norse hip kids before, check out a couple Datarock tunes

Datarock- Princess
Datarock- Fa Fa Fa

Datarock on MySpace
Ladytron on MySpace

I came to know of Lyrics Born via his guest spots on Blackalicious’ albums, N.I.A. and Blazing Arrows, as well as through his remixes of R.L. Burnside’s “Goin’ Down South” and “Someday Baby” on A Bothered Mind. While I’ve know of Lyrics Born for years, I’d never managed to pick up any of his albums, so with the recent release of Everywhere At Once I decided to remedy that.

Lyrics Born comes outta Berkley, California with (imo) one of the best rap voices/deliveries in the game.  That, matched with tight beats, and then fused with hiphop, funk and a dash of electro/rock resulted in an album that is as fun as I wanted it to be and makes me wanna start scooping up his back catalog. LB, Blackalicious and the entire Quannum Projects label are what’s right with hiphop. The fact that hardly anybody knows who they are is what’s wrong.

R.L. Burnside - Goin’ Down South (Lyrics Born remix)
R.L. Burnside - Someday Baby (Lyrics Born remix)

Blackalicious - Do This My Way (feat. Lyrics Born)

Lyrics Born - Don’t Change
Lyrics Born - I Like It I Love It

Lyrics Born’s Official Site, Lyrics Born on myspace, Buy Everywhere At Once

Funny thing about heroin and rock and roll…it’s a parasitic relationship. Even while destroying the person, it’s toll and the mental anguish of addiction tends to find itself surfacing in wonderful and tortured songs…or sometimes, as is the case with RHCP, a bunch of awesome party music. While the Chili Peppers have experienced a tremendous amount of commercial success since kicking their habits, I think it can be argued that they made their best music when they were high.

I first came to know of the Chili Peppers in the 8th grade when Uplift Mofo Party Plan came out. The guy that sat in front of me in my economics class had it on cassette and let me take it home and copy it one day (that’s right kids, the double cassette boombox…the original Napster). I had never heard anything like that at the time and I was instantly in love with the band. That love has never fully vanished and to this day I buy every album they release but, outside of a handful of tracks on Californication, I’ve been largely unimpressed with anything post drugs Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic.

I’ve been packing up my house for the move (this Friday!), and while putting away my cds Uplift caught my eye and I decided to throw it in. Listening to it for the first time in years I was surprised to see how much of my passion for the album had stood the test of time. Easily the best thing the Peppers ever did. It really makes you wonder what would have come from these guys if Hillel would have lived and Jack would have stayed with the band. Uplift has pretty much been my de facto packing album this week, and it inspired me to toss Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar in the cd changer, too, for some random action.

Turns out, my passion for Mother’s Milk really hasn’t stood the test of time as well as Uplift did, but hearing Blood, Sugar makes me feel like an 18/19 year old all over again. I can remember hearing “I Could Have Lied” for the first time and thinking the guitar solo in that song was the greatest guitar solo ever written. It does such a fabulous job of capturing the pain of the song, while keeping the simplicity of it intact. I still love to hear it.

I’ve pulled a few other cds from my rack that I have not listened to in 5+ years so maybe there will be a few more of these memory lane posts in the future.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Backwoods
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Walkin’ On Down The Road
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Organic Anti-Beat Box Band

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I Could Have Lied

Festival ticket? CHECK!
Hotel Reservations? CHECK!
Plane ticket? CHECK!

That’s it. There is no doubt about it now. I am most definitely going to the Deep Blues Festival this year. I was a little worried once the house thing started happening and we started hemorrhaging cash, but it’s all done now. To say I am excited is to certainly understate things. I am probably gonna heavily feature bands that are gonna be at the festival here on ninebullets over the coming month. Speaking of the festival, it’s a month and some change away in Lake Elmo, Minnesota (20 minutes from the St. Paul airport) and it’s gonna be great. If you are within driving distance or have the ability to hop a plane, you should make a great effort to attend. Also, if you’re going, holler at me and let me know. I would love to find someone to share my hotel room/split the bill with, and I’m always in need of fellow drinkers.

One have the bands playing DBF 08, Chris Cotton & The New Hokum 3’s, have just released their new album, The Big Sea. The Big Sea and DBF are an excellent testament to what the relationship between this scene’s artists and its fans is all about. See, when Chris wasn’t able to cover the mastering and pressing costs of the album in advance, he issued a simple request:

I need 250 people to commit/and buy my new album in advance for me to be able to Mix, Master, And duplicate my new album. It is done being recorded onto analog tape and is completely unmixed. The financier’s up to this point of the album is a friend of mine, and myself, and both of us are done as far as money goes.

Sometimes the “Y” in DIY just isn’t enough, and in this case the fan base stepped up to the plate and The Big Sea got to see the light of day. A great many artists at the DBF are doing the DIY thing. There really isn’t anything original about that, but The Big Sea is the first cd I’ve ever felt like a played a role in the release of, so I decided to feature it first as well.

According to Chris’ web site he prefers to not try to pigeonhole his sound into a specific genre, but if you have to he doesn’t care what you call it as long as it ain’t blues. Fine, The Big Sea ain’t a blues record. It’s a folk record with a heavy hill country/blues lean to it…songs that sound like they’ve come from an era long since passed, preserved in sepia prints and analog tapes.

He’ll be playing Friday afternoon at the festival…perhaps we’ll see you there.

Chris Cotton - The Gambler
Chris Cotton - What Would You Do
Chris Cotton - .44 Pistol Mama

Chris Cotton’s Official Site, Chris Cotton on myspace, Buy The Big Sea

The lady responsible for turning my run-on and fragmented sentences into a cohesive enough thought to be placed on the internets for y’all to read, Marci Richter, is gonna be doing a recurring piece on ninebullets with regards to this years Lollapalooza line-up. Today we’re featuring the first 4 parts.

Enjoy

————————————————————————————-

PART 1: The Intro:

The Raconteurs are making me going to Lollapalooza. No, I don’t know Brendan, Patrick, or either of the Jack’s. Rather, I was just bummed when I found out that they aren’t going to be coming to Florida on this tour, so I started looking at good places to go see them. I saw that they’d be at Lollapalooza, and then I saw that a ton of other artists I love will be there, too, like Bloc Party, Girl Talk, Radiohead, Santogold, and The Black Keys to name just a few. I also have family and friends in the area that I can stay with, so the trip planning started.

I’ve been to festivals before where I wasn’t familiar with all the bands, and then later I hear something from one of them and realize I probably missed a great set. I decided that I’d try and avoid that happening again and have planned to try to listen to every artist that will be there beforehand. After listening to the music on their websites or their MySpace sites, I have weeded out 34 artists that I have no interest in seeing and am still left with 73 that are possibilities. This festival is over the course of just 3 days (August 1-3), so since I’m sure some performances I’m interested in will conflict with each other, I’ve decided to rate my interest in seeing them, to make it easier to schedule my weekend once the schedule is released.

I have definitely discovered some great music (and some mediocre music) this way, so I figured I’d share what I found, along with my ratings in case anyone wants to try and change my mind about whether this is a set I should see or skip.

Lollapalooza Website

PART 2: The Black Keys:

Yeah, I know they’re not new to many of you, and you probably already know that they’re brilliant, but I have to make sure that you specifically understand that the song “Lies”, off of the album Attack and Release, is black silk, hair pulling, and a warm drunk in musical form.

That is all.

The Black Keys on MySpace

PART 3: Dr. Dog

Dr. Dog is one of the biggest surprises of my little project so far. I honestly thought this was going to be a hip hop act. I guess my subconscious paired Dr. Dre with Snoop Dog, and since Kanye West and Kid Sister are on the lineup, I figured this was another act along those lines.

I was so very wrong. We All Belong is the fourth album from this band out of Philly, and I can’t believe I missed them before now. According to the wikipedia article about them, they’ve toured with both The Raconteurs and The Black Keys. Funny enough, it also says I’m apparently not the only one confused by their name, which makes me feel a bit better about my subconscious.

The album is soulful, bluesy, lighthearted and fun, with earnest vocals and beautiful harmonies. There is definitely a 60’s rock influence which fits just right with the blues feel. I can’t wait to check out their prior releases and will definitely be awaiting their planned 2008 release. Dr. Dog gets 8 out of 10 ponchos on my festival must-see scale.

Dr. Dog - The Way The Lazy Do
Dr. Dog - Keep a Friend

Dr Dog on Myspace

PART 4: Does It Offend You, Yeah?:

Did it bore me? Yeah. Seriously. Obvious I know, but it’s what I kept thinking as I listened to You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into. I mean, with a band name that comes across that pretentious, you’d better put some mustard on it, and I was not feeling the mustard.

This is the debut album from the Reading, England electro-punk band, and I suppose the beats are catchy enough, but there is also the tendency to run a decent thing into the ground in many of the songs. I got an overall generic feel from the album and with the exception of a couple tracks that sounded a bit more original and standout, there was nothing I hadn’t pretty much heard another Nu Rave act do already.

Overall, these guys get 5 ponchos on my scale. I won’t run to catch the set, but I’ll listen if they’re on stage near the portapotties while I’m in line.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Let’s Make Out
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Epic Last Song

Does It Offend You, Yeah? on MySpace

I was checking out the fantastic blog, HearYa this morning and they’ve started a new feature about cover songs that are better than the original and the most recent one features Jason covering Patterson’s song, The Assassin, from his solo album, Killers and Stars. Like HearYa, The Assassin, has always been my favorite track from the album and hearing Jason’s electric version of it makes it even better.

Maybe Jason will cover it on his next album…That! Would be awesome.

Patterson Hood - The Assassin

Jason Isbell: Live @ Mercy Lounge in Nashville, Tn:

Many things have changed since Jason last came through Tampa. People have finally quit linking Jason so tightly with DBT (something he never will and shouldn’t want to totally escape), the price of gas has increased by two dollars a gallon, I became a homeowner (the day before this show, so I was appropriately out celebrating), and Jason has gotten much more comfortable with being “the man” on stage. Last time through Jason seemed shy, timid and almost came off as the reluctant front man, so much so in fact that he even allowed fellow guitarist Browan Lollar to completely steal the show. Such was not the case this time. Jason was loose, he joked and communicated with the crowd, and while Browan was his completely awesome self, all eyes were on Jason this time around.

Playing to a much larger crowd than last time through, the band played a good mix of songs from Sirens, spiced with all the DBT familiars you expected, and a few covers to round out the set. The crowd favorites were obviously Jason’s old DBT tracks “Outfit” and “Never Gonna Change”. Last time walking in, I wanted to hear two songs, my very favorite Isbell song, “Goddamn Lonely Love”, and my favorite track from Sirens “Try” and he managed to get both in, so I went home drunk and happy. This time I just wanted a solid performance from the band…well, that and I really wanted to hear “Never Gonna Change”, since I was out in full party mode. I got both, so now Jason is two for two when it comes to me going home drunk and happy.

Jason Isbell - Try
Jason Isbell - Dress Blues

Jason w/DBT - Never Gonna Change
Jason w/DBT - Decoration Day

I have pictures from the show. I’ll post them tonight when I get home from work.