Category: Music

Record Review: James Keyes – Ruminations

I get a lot of music submissions, in the hopes that I’ll review the record here or at GoodSongs.Com (which is now here also).  Assuming a submission is reasonably targeted to my taste, I listen to at least part of it, though I am horribly backed up at the moment.

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Tonight I received a copy of James Keyes’ new record Ruminations (purchase at CD Baby).  Something- I can’t say what exactly- made me queue up the record right away, while I was working on something else.

Man, am I glad I did.  This is good stuff.  Sort of a gritty, but melodic alternative country sound, at least at the start.  It reminds me a little of the Hangdogs, which is high praise.  But that’s not a perfect description either.  It’s alt. folk, with a little rust around the edges. Or something like that.

It’s the kind of music you want to listen to on the back porch, with a bottle of Maker’s Mark in your hand and a good dog at your feet.

And it has range.  Maybe too much range for some, but it spans several of my genres.

Hardliner starts off with an Uncle Tupeloish guitar riff and then blends into a Clarence White vibe that I really, really dig.

Two Mirror keeps to the alt. country path, with guitar and harmonica, and a sad story and a subtly upbeat sound.  The arrangements on this record are consistently excellent.

It’s All Easy is a gritty folk blues number, that channels good, cosmic Ray Wylie Hubbard.  I wondered about the Tom Waits comparison I read somewhere until I heard Dream Endless and Work Song.  Either would sound right at home on Heart of Saturday Night.  Back when Tom was making great music.  And not just random noise, but I digress.

Things take a definite turn off the alt. county path in the middle of the record, with more of a driving, bluesy folk sound.  More Son Seals than Son Volt, but that’s OK.

There are still some alt. country moments to be had, though, as James turns in a rocking Slobberbone sound on SSG.

This one will make the jump to a CD-R so I can listen in my truck, along with the vintage Charlie Daniels and bootleg Drive-by Truckers that are already in my CD player.  That’s pretty good company.

Rancho Review Ratings:
(5 point scale)

Music: 4
Lyrics: 3.5
Consistency: 3
Artwork: 3
Overall: 3.25
Purchase: @ CD Baby

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GoodSongs: A Fine Alt. Country Mix

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As a part of my online simplification and consolidation project (more on this later), I am moving our music recommendation blog, GoodSongs.Com, to the Music category here at Newsome.Org.  We’ll post a GoodSongs music recommendation list no more than once a week, where we’ll feature a wide variety of off-the-beaten path music.

Here’s the first installment of our hand-picked music recommendations.

Purchase links are at Amazon unless otherwise noted.

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Steve Pride – Big Time.  Steve Pride and His Blood Kin do the excellent Welcome to the Big Time off of the also excellent Pride on Pride.

Star Room Boys – Angel Flying too Close to the Ground.  Maybe the best country band ever doing a live one (via the highly recommended music blog, Southern Shelter).

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South Filthy – Sandra Lynn’s Blues.  One of my favorite songs, from You Can Name It Yo’ Mammy If You Wanna.

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Gosdin Brothers – There Must Be Someone I Can Turn To.  The excellent Gosdin Brothers, from the best country rock record you’ve probably never heard.  With the great Clarence White on guitar.

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Four Year Bender – New Orleans Lament.  Four Year Bender does an excellent song about the Crescent City.

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Sixty Acres – Saint Rose.  Great song from their excellent record, Good Ethel.

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Okra All-Stars – She’s Taken All My Toys Away.  From from their excellent self-titled 1999 album.

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The Buckets – Postmarked Virginia.  My buddy Ray’s band.  Buy their records at CD Baby. 

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Mount Pilot – 3 Years in October.  Off of the great but hard to find Help Wanted Love Needed Caretaker album.

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The Figments – Feel the Fields, off of All the Gone Days.  Available at CD Baby.  This is as good as a song can get.

These are great records, by some fantastic bands.  Go buy these records and support people who make this great music.

Artist Notice: I am a musician and songwriter.  I do these posts to draw attention to great music in the hopes that our readers will buy these records and allow these artists to continue making great music.  If you don’t want us to feature your music, let us know and we’ll take the song file down immediately.  On the other hand, if you are an artist who does the sort of music we feature, let us know.  We’re always looking for new artists to feature.

Record LPs to CDs Without a Computer

As most of you know, I’m a big music fan, having bought records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and MP3s pretty much non-stop since I bought my first LP (Glen Campbell) back in the mid-sixties, and having been a songwriter and (starving) musician for years.

The combination of music and evolving technology means I often find myself with some great records on outdated media.  Generally, this means great LPs that aren’t available on CD or MP3.  I’ve converted quite a few records, and did a tutorial that remains one of my most viewed posts.

The approach I describe in that tutorial is as workable today as it was the day I wrote it.  But recently I decided to try another approach.  I wanted to bypass the computer altogether, and record directly from LP to CD.  Then, and only then, do I want to move or rip the songs to my MP3 library.

The tool I chose to do this is an Ion LP2CD turntable.  This is one versatile turntable.  It will connect to your receiver or your computer (via USB), and it has a built-in CD burner that will burn the LP directly to CD.  Or, actually, to its internal flash drive, and then to a CD.  This intermediate step is a good thing, since you can trim the song files, correct any glitches in the automatic song splitting and even reorder the songs, before you burn the CD.

Sweet, huh?

Unboxing

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The turntable is fairly compact for one that includes a built-in CD burner.  I was able to put it together without reading the instructions.  Two hints: look closely for all the small pieces (the 45 insert, the counter weight for the arm, the needle, etc.), which come taped to various parts of the packing styrofoam; and don’t forget to pull the rubber drive belt around the spindle (see page 5 of the Quickstart Guide).  It took me less than 5 minutes to get the turntable put together,  plugged in and ready to rock and roll.

Picking a Test Record

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One the the best records you’ve never heard is The Charlie Daniels Band’s 1974 record, Way Down Yonder.  This is pre-Devil Went Down to Georgia Charlie Daniels, and sounds much more like the Allman Brothers or good, early and bluesy Elvin Bishop, than later era Charlie.  Sadly, it’s not available on CD or MP3.  But I have the record, and decided to use it to test the turntable.

Recording

The turntable has a handy headphone jack, so you can hear what you’re doing.

To record an album, put it on the turntable, play it a bit to get the sound levels right.  There’s a recording level knob and a level indicator on the led screen.

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Once you’re ready, put the turntable in “INT” mode (internal flash drive), put the needle where you want to start, press Record button (the red light will come on), press the Play/Pause button, and then immediately the Start/Stop button, to begin the recording.  The turntable will attempt to automatically split the tracks based on gaps.  It does a good job, unless the record has a fair amount of scratches.  Fear not, it’s easy to manually split tracks once you’ve finished the recording.

In my test, Side A, which had a few scratches, didn’t split perfectly, but Side B did.

Splitting and Trimming

After you’ve recorded the record onto the flash drive, you can split tracks by navigating via Fast Forward or Reverse to the desired place and pressing the Split button.  You can also easily split out and erase long silences between tracks, if necessary.

In sum, this process works very well.  It’s easy, and even fun.

Recording to CD

Once you’re ready, recording to a CD is as easy as putting a blank CD-R into the CD drive and pressing the Burn CD button.  It literally could not be any easier.

The Results

The CD sounds great.  Sure, you can hear the same scratches you hear when you play the LP, but the reproduction is excellent.  Ripping the CD to your MP3 library is quick and easy.

My only wish would be that the device record to the CD in MP3 format.  It would be great to save a step and avoid having to rip the CD.

But It Ain’t Cheap

The biggest, and just about only, drawback to the LP2CD turntable is its price: $321 (at Amazon).  If you have one or two records to convert, it’s definitely not for you.  If you have- or would like to buy- a lot of hard to find LPs, it just might be your ticket.

It’s going to be mine.  Time to browse eBay for some classic vinyl.

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The inside cover of this excellent record

2009 Record of the Year

Well, I guess under the better late than never theory, let’s announce the Newsome.Org record of the year for 2009.

This will surprise no one who knows me well or has ridden in my truck in the past 9 months or so.  In my semi-humble opinion, the best record released in 2009 was Let the Lead Fly (purchase and download @ Amazon) by the Wrinkle Neck Mules.

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This record is alt. country in its finest form.  Not that crappy Americana stuff that has invaded XM-12 and other so-called outlaw radio.  This is the real deal, in writing, playing and singing.  If Son Volt had stayed together in its original form, they would have eventually gotten around to making this record.

The record starts off with a bang, literally and figuratively, with the title track, Let the Lead Fly.  This is about as good as a song gets, and the fiddle at 2:35 sends a shiver down my spine, even after a hundred or so listens.  As a hunter and sporting clay enthusiast, this song has a special attraction for me.  In fact, I used it for a video largely comprised of pictures of me and Cassidy shooting clays.

Other great songs are Medicine Bow, which really channels early Son Volt, and One Hand in the Furnace, which has a lead banjo track that really, really works.  Things drag just a tad in the middle, but pick back up nicely with the fantastic Cracks and Seams.

And just when you think it couldn’t get any better, the record ends with maybe my favorite song, Before the Rise and Fall.

I’ve bought every record the Mules have released, and they are all excellent.  Great songwriting, great playing, fantastic singing.  Very few filler songs.

If you like alt. country or good music in general, you absolutely owe it to yourself to check out this excellent record, as well as the rest of their work.

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More Record Reviews.

How About a Free Copy?

I really want to support the Wrinkle Neck Mules, so here’s what I’m going to do.  Leave a comment telling us your favorite record from 2009-date.  In a couple of days, I’ll randomly pick two of the commenters (three if we get more than 15 recommendations) and buy them a copy of Let the Lead Fly via Amazon.

Share some record recommendations, and get some free music.

Newsome.Org Radio

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Update 2:  Newsome.fm is now managed and hosted via Spotify.

Update:  Our official and most curated radio station is now Newsome.fm.

If you want good music via Pandora or Slacker, our old stations are still available and rocking along.

We have numerous handcrafted Pandora and Slacker Radio stations to choose from.

Pandora Stations

Newsome.Org Country Rock Radio
Newsome.Org Alt. Country Radio
Newsome.Org Blues Radio
Newsome.Org Jukebox Deluxe Radio
Newsome.Org Zydeco Radio
Newsome.Org Early Reggae Radio
All Station QuickMix

Slacker Radio Stations

The Rancho Room (Alt. Country)
Classic Vinyl
Blues Mix

You can easily access these stations via the menu in the left hand column of these pages.  Enjoy!

For more great music try:
Errbear Music: Kent Newsome’s original songs (RSS)
Goodsongs.Com: Newsome.Org’s music recommendation page (RSS)
Kent’s MixCloud page: Great, themed, streaming playlists (RSS)

Good Music: (I’m Hungover In) The Walmart Breakroom

First of all, the best music blog in all of the universes, known or unknown, express or implied, is A Truer Sound.

Now that we have that settled, let me give you an example of why.  I know a lot about music.  Really, I do.  So when I first hear a band that blows me away, that’s a rare and special thing.  Well, guess what showed up in my feed reader tonight?  This absolutely excellent, hilarious and highly recommended video by a band called D. Striker.

Not only am I considering basing the rest of my life (or at least the rest of my night) on this excellent video (which supplanted Four Wal-Marts by my buddy Baker Maultsby as my all-time favorite Walmart song)

I can also report that you can download an entire album of wonderfully named songs via D. Striker’s web site, on a name your own price basis (Not Funny Anymore, Last Resort, Broken Strings Again and Comfort Inn being excellent songs). I’m too currency-challenged to pay much, but to make amends for my economic shortcomings, I’m going to Tweet my new Twitter pal Bill and ask him to buy a copy for a million or two bucks (preferably a million). I say a computer on every desk and D. Striker on every Zune. Wait a minute. . . does Steve Jobs use Twitter? Just kidding Bill. We love our Zunes. All ten of us do.

D. Striker is absolutely worth a listen or ten.  For their next record, I’d love to hear them rock-up a cover of Sandra Lynn’s Blues by South Filthy (hint, hint).

You can follow D. Striker at Twitter.  And you should.

Great Allman Brothers Show at Wolfgang's Vault

This weekend, we’ve been listening to a 12/31/73 New Year’s Eve show by the Allman Brothers, via Wolfgang’s Vault.

This set, from San Francisco’s Cow Palace, is full of highlights, including a magical, half-hour version of Les Brers In A Minor, with Jerry Garcia and Bill Kruetzman sitting in.  But as a huge fan of the Chuck Leavell-era Allmans, I have to share this excellent version of Southbound.

Wolfgang’s Vault is a great place to find some great, live music from back in the day when the music actually mattered.  Back when the Monkees were the exception, and not the rule