Luxury Wafers Session

MP3: These United States - “Everything Touches Everything”

WOXY Session

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR EVERYTHING TOUCHES EVERYTHING:

“TUS’ intoxicating third album brilliantly captures the overwhelming joy of simply being alive.” - Spin (8 out of 10 stars)

“One of indie-rock’s - no, make that American rock’s best kept secrets.” - Bruce Warren, WXPN

“These United States are on the cusp of it all. My Morning Jacket status. Blog darlings. Tour heroes. The whole nine yards.”- WFPK

“Urgent, intimate, and hopeful, “I Want You To Keep Everything” is the kind of song that makes you want to get out and live.” - LimeWire

“It is a crowning achievement of sonic curiosity and chief songwriter Jesse Elliott should now be considered amongst the best in the art of songcraft.” - Marquee Magazine

Receiving massive advance praise on their third album, DC-Kentucky- psych-folk-lit-pop rockers These United States are rumbling surely towards the next benchmark in a long string of critical acclaim, including the highest debut on CMJ last week with a #21 spot this week, 8 out of 10 stars in Spin, several Best of 2008 mentions and even a Best of 2009, and features on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Spin, Paste, Filter, Village Voice, Brooklyn Vegan, Daytrotter, My Old Kentucky Blog, The Onion, Jambase, KEXP, WOXY, KEXP, KCRW, and WXPN. They play tonight at New York’s Mercury Lounge.

Bio:

With their third full length release in 18 months, These United States surrender themselves to unbridled rock and roll exuberance: ringing guitars, thundering drums, desperate yearning bordering on hope. Everything Touches Everything, out Sept. 1 on Colorado-based United Interests, came together the week of January 20th, 2009, as 4 million new friends descended on the city of Washington, DC (one of two places, with Lexington, KY, the band calls home). Laughter, belief, chaos, history, frigid cold wild mercury winter morning sunshine - it was a good place to be making music.

By turns larger-than-life and disarmingly intimate, this is 42 minutes of folk in the truest sense - a record of the moment, of the cultural and emotional forces that animate everyday existence somewhere down below the headlines. (But never apart from them. Bandleader Jesse Elliott had two different albums in mind; he let the November election decide which one the group would record.) And These United States — Elliott, Robby Cosenza, J. Tom Hnatow, Justin Craig, and Colin Kellogg — play it the way folk was meant to be played: hard, fast, big, slow, long, loud, loose, at last unburdened. They play like they mean it. Like there’s never been a better time to be alive.

They’ll celebrate all that living the only way they know how this summer, with a coast-to-coast tour of the festival circuit. From Chicago to Brooklyn to Big Sur, Los Angeles to Louisville and back New York way again, they’ll share stages with everyone from Crosby Stills & Nash to The Mother Hips, The Black Keys to The Black Crowes, DeVotchKa to Deer Tick, Del McCoury to Dr. Dog. Sure enough, everything touches everything. Almost 500 shows into their adventure together, the five very reinvigorated members of These United States are determined to reach a decent amount of it all.

THESE UNITED STATES

08/27/09 New York, NY Mercury Lounge
08/28/09 Brooklyn, NY Union Hall - early acoustic show with Vandaveer + late electric show with Motel Motel
08/29/09 Washington, DC Black Cat w/ Hoots & Hellmouth, Junior League Band
09/04/09 Lexington, KY Buster’s w/ Chico Fellini, Wax Fang
09/08/09 Nashville, TN The Basement
09/09/09 St. Louis, MO Firebird
09/12/09 Denver, CO Monolith Fest
09/14/09 Santa Fe, NM Corazon
09/15/09 Tucson, AZ Plush
09/16/09 San Diego, CA Beauty Bar
09/18/09 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour w/ Everest, Parson Red Heads
09/19/09 Davis, CA Sofia’s
09/20/09 San Francisco, CA Cafe Du Nord
09/21/09 Ashland, OR Stillwater
09/22/09 Bend, OR Silver Moon
09/23/09 Boise, ID Downtown summer series
09/24/09 Portland, OR Mississippi Studios
09/25/09 Seattle, WA High Dive
09/25/09 Seattle, WA KEXP - Live Session
09/26/09 Yakima, WA Yakima Center
09/27/09 Moscow, ID John’s Alley
09/29/09 Salt Lake, UT Urban Lounge w/ Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
10/01/09 Omaha, NE Slowdown
10/02/09 Grinnell, IA Grinnell College
10/03/09 Madison, WI Der Rathskeller
10/04/09 Minneapolis, MN 7th St. Entry
10/06/09 Iowa City, IA The Mill
10/07/09 Chicago, IL Subterranean
10/09/09 Louisville, KY Skull Alley w/ Jessica Lea Mayfield
10/09/09 Louisville, KY WFPK - Live Lunch
10/11/09 Athens, OH NPR’s Mountain Stage radio show at Ohio Univ. w/ Southern Culture On The Skids
10/21/09 New York, NY Pianos CMJ Showcase w/ Evan Dando

These United States
Everything Touches Everything
(United Interests)
Street date: Sept 1, 2009

1. I Want You to Keep Everything
2. Will It Ever
3. Everything Touches Everything
4. Night & the Revolution
5. The Secret Door
6. Conquest & Consequence
7. I’m Gonna Assemble a City
8. Good Bones
9. The Important Thing
10. End
11. Good Night Wish

THESE UNITED STATES LINKS:

MySpace - www.myspace.com/theseunited

Label Page - unitedinterests.com

MP3: Music Go Music - “Warm In The Shadows”

The members of ‘Music Go Music’ met at a party in the home of a man who was, at that time, called “The Condor.”[1] Over the rager’s din we made a connection. It was mild at first, but fermented for a couple of weeks until Torg invited me and Gala Bell over to make a song together. We met several days later and, in the space of an hour, the first Music Go Music song was written. We recorded it over the next few days and went our separate ways, but reconvened enough times over the course of the following year-and-a-half to record eight more songs.

Initially, I thought that we’d play these recordings for our nearest and dearest and then lay them aside, but circumstances conspired against these plans, and now they’re working their way out into the world. Though unexpected, this is a welcome turn of events. No happier thought passes through our minds than that of a bevy of middle-aged women dancing to our music,[2] and now it seems like our vision may be within reach.
Something must be said here about the music itself.[3] Music Go Music make pop music but, fortunately, the term means very little these days. What kind of pop music is it? Rock and Roll, Disco, Metal, Boogie, Trans-Hand, Psychedelic? How does it work? Perhaps this will mean something:

As we move through life, there is a “curtain of fantasy”[4] with which we cover a murky reality, a curtain on which we project a clear and comforting image of ourselves and the world. The slightest shifting of it fills us with dread. But imagine that the curtain is raised to reveal a more profoundly resonant version of what was on it in the first place; a “Technicolor” reality. So enchanted are we by this scene that we fail to notice the second, dark curtain in the background.[5]

Music Go Music’s immediate plans are to continue to make music that’s visual and funks. Hopefully we will meet you where you live.[6]

-Kamer Maza, Summer 2009

[1] What happened to this man? He disappeared from us, like some wayward angel
[2] This may change
[3] This kind of thing must be talked about in abstract terms - why describe music that can be so easily listened to? Just go to a site and listen. There is no reason for me to waste your time banging on cauldrons, when an mp3 can bring the stars to pity…YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
[4] Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York: Norton, 1957), pp. 156-157
[5] Even if we do catch a glimpse of its folds, we are too fixed on the foreground to give them much thought
[6] You know what I mean

What the press has already said about Music Go Music:

“When people talk about the rebirth of disco, this is how it should be, manic zombifications reanimated from the Abba songbook, wired with Philip K Dick paranoia and Donna Summer euphoria.” -NME

“They begin with a bright-eyed Scandinavian sashay and end with a ten-minute Mediterranean disco romp featuring programmed drums, making detours along the way into rainy day ballads and guitar infernos. The cumulative effect plays like the greatest hits of dance saviors that never existed…and indeed, they probably should only be performed from inside an aquadome at the bottom of the Caspian Sea, or at least during a summer-long residency in Ibiza.” -The Fader

“Music Go Music could be the 21st century answer to ABBA. The LA trio’s sharp articulation, flamboyancy and brilliant ability to create timeless disco-pop is totally irresistible.” -The Fly

“There is a late seventies, post-’I Feel Love’ disco feel to ‘Warm in the Shadows,’ and, whethter or not it was their ambition to find that sound, it’s nonetheless a mightily refreshing dose of looseness and euphoria…One thing is for sure: the ambition for a long-lasting dynasty of overblown, slightly crackpot pop excess is there.” -Stool Pigeon

MUSIC GO MUSIC

08/27 Los Angeles, CA The Bordello w/ Rainbow Arabia
09/18 Los Angeles, CA The Roxy w/ Little Boots
09/19 San Francisco, CA The Independent w/ Little Boots

Music Go Music
Expressions
(Secretly Canadian)
Street Date: Oct. 6, 2009

1. I Walk Alone
2. Thousand Crazy Nights
3. Light of Love
4. Reach Out
5. Explorers of the Heart
6. Love, Violent Love
7. Just Me
8. Warm in the Shadows
9. Goodbye, Everybody

MUSIC GO MUSIC LINKS:

Label Page - www.secretlycanadian.com/artist.php?name=musicgomusic

Press Materials - secretlycanadian.com/press/musicgomusic/musicgomusicpress.php

MySpace - www.myspace.com/musicgomusic

DOWNLOAD: Princeton - “Shout It Out” via KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune

MP3: Princeton - “Calypso Gold”

Los Angeles-based Princeton is releasing their debut record, Cocoon of Love, September 29th on Kanine Records. Growing up on Princeton Street in Santa Monica, the group now lives in an aging green house on a hillside in the Eagle Rock district of LA where their album was recorded.

Among the many detrimental effects that love has on the mind, one of the more subtle is the way it litters the memory with a batch of misplaced associations - places, figures, products and (especially) music that, through chance, become invested with deep personal significance. This detritus of love is scattered all over Princeton’s, Cocoon of Love, right down to its title, taken from a chance line on a long-ago-cancelled children’s show. Stacks of herbal tea, a glow-in-the-dark monument, paperback writers, the Wall Street Journal, a departing Mercedes, The Metamorphosis, a series of Cambridge-commissioned paintings, video arcades, graffiti, and a cyclist on the Autobahn all figure prominently into Princeton’s musical sketches.

Princeton is twin brothers Jesse & Matt Kivel, Ben Usen and David Kitz. In anticipation and support of their debut album, they’ll head out on tour with Ra Ra Riot and other touring acts through the rest of the year.

PRINCETON

Aug 29th Pehrspace Los Angeles, CA +
Aug 31st Kilby Court Salt Lake City, UT
Sep 1st Hi Dive Denver, CO
Sep 2nd The Waiting Room Omaha, NE #
Sept 3rd Picador Iowa City, IA
Sep 4th The House Cafe Dekalb, IL #
Sep 5th Frankie’s Toledo, OH #
Sep 6th Garfield Artworks Pittsburgh, PA #
Sep 8th Sonar / Talking Head Club Stage Baltimore, MD
Sep 9th Union Hall Brooklyn, NY %
Sep 10 Castaways Ithaca, NY $ &
Sep 11 Lee’s Palace Toronto, ONT $ &
Sep 12th Mohawk Place Buffalo, NY &
Sep 13th Grog Shop Cleveland, OH $ &
Sep 14th The Basement Columbus, OH $ &
Sep 16th Schuba’s Tavern Chicago, IL $
Sep 17th Varsity Theater Minneapolis, MN $ &
Sept 18th The High Noon Saloon Madison, WI * $ &
Sep 19th Krannert Center / Pygmalion Fest Urbana, IL $
Sep 20th The Firebird St. Louis, MO $ &
Sep 21st The Bottleneck Lawrence, KS $ &
Sep 23rd Granada Theater Dallas, TX $ &
Sep 24th Emo’s Austin, TX $ &
Sep 25th Warehouse Live Houston, TX $ &
Sep 26th Spanish Moon Baton Rouge, LA $ &
Sep 27th Bottle Tree Birmingham, AL $ &
Sep 29th The Masquerade Atlanta, GA $ &
Sep 30th Cat’s Cradle Carborro, NC $ &
Oct 1st 9:30 Club Washington, DC $ &
Oct 2nd Trocadero Philadelphia, PA $ &
Oct 3rd Paradise Rock Club Boston, MA $ &
Oct 4th Knitting Factory Brooklyn, NY &
Oct 8th Terrace Club Princeton, NY
Oct 10th Duke Coffee House Durham, NC

+ = w/ Fol Chen, Surprise Guest
% = w/ Phil and the Osophers
$ = w/ Ra Ra Riot
& = w/ Maps and Atlases
* = w/ Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s

Princeton
Cocoon of Love
(Kanine)
Street Date: Sept. 29, 2009

1. Sadie and Andy (feat. Meredith Metcalf)
2. Show Some Love, When Your Man Gets Home
3. Calypso Gold
4. Korean War Memorial
5. Stunner Shades in Heaven
6. Martina and Clive Krantz
7. Shout it Out
8. Sylvie
9. I Left My Love in Nagasaki
10. Worried Head
11. The Wild

Princeton
Shout it Out 7″
(Kanine)
Street Date: Aug. 25, 2009

1. Shout it Out
2. Moonbeams

PRINCETON LINKS:

Label Page - www.kaninerecords.com

MySpace - www.myspace.com/princetonmusic

Luxury Wafers Session

MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage - “Don’t Haunt This Place”

About The Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage was born out of singer/songwriter Nils Edenloff’s exodus from the province that inspired the band’s name and many of the songs from their enthralling debut album, Hometowns.

Edenloff grappled with homesickness after his move from Edmonton, Alberta to Toronto, Ontario in 2003. To cope with his loneliness and isolation in the ‘big city’, the shy songwriter penned a series of odes to his former home, celebrating the country’s wild rose, the purple skies and the “dethbridge in Lethbridge.”
On the urging of his fellow ex-pat musician friends, Edenloff took his songs to a struggling weekly Open Mic night in early 2005 to perform them for an audience. In a matter of weeks, he was handed the job (paid in beer and 2-for-1 pasta specials) of hosting the night alongside drummer Paul Banwatt. The two quickly formed a musical bond, with Edenloff’s plaintive folk songs backed by Banwatt’s raucous, razor-sharp percussion. As the Open Mic night faltered, the two found themselves playing hours’ worth of songs per night, and developed a solid “set list” for their weekly routine.

The twosome’s arrangement became permanent as a series of other local musicians joined and left the project (by now dubbed “The Rural Alberta Advantage”, courtesy of a provincial slogan co-opted by Edenloff’s brother). The pub that had been home to their Open Mic night closed down (their final night featured a classic barroom brawl involving overzealous motorcycle gang members/would-be karaoke stars), but the Rural Alberta Advantage continued to perform, now playing shows in and around Toronto. A demo was recorded in late 2005, featuring Edenloff, Banwatt, Amy Cole, Ken Farrell and Anissa Hart (Ohbijou). By the completion of the demo, the RAA settled into its current, three-piece formation, with Cole becoming a permanent member of the band.

In 2006, the Rural Alberta Advantage recorded a five-song, self-titled EP. Shortly thereafter, the group was invited to play a show with local indie rock superstars Henri Faberge and The Adorables at their weekly residency at Kensington Market hotspot The Embassy. As official an initiation into the indie-rock community in Toronto as there could be, The RAA played the show to great acclaim from the Adorables’ faithful. Thanks to their exciting live performances and gritty, honest songs, a loyal following for the RAA began to grow. The band continued to play in Toronto and throughout eastern Canada, steadily increasing their fanbase with a performance on MTV Canada and a slot at the Pop Montreal festival in 2007.

As well as playing live, the band spent much of 2007 in the studio, recording their debut full-length record, Hometowns. Originally scheduled to be the inaugural release of a new record label formed by a local producer, the band found themselves label-less when the producer decided to abandon his plan. The RAA began selling copies of Hometowns themselves at shows in early 2008, without an official release.

Hometowns began catching the ears of bloggers across the country on pure word-of-mouth. Herohill.com proclaimed the RAA “the best unsigned band in Canada”, and I Heart Music.net deemed Hometowns “a near-perfect album”. The band’s reputation for stellar live shows garnered them a sellout crowd at the 2008 North By Northeast festival, and the band played similarly successful showcases at the 2008 iterations of the Halifax Pop Explosion and Pop Montreal.

The band’s big break came in November 2008, when major digital music retailer eMusic.com selected the Rural Alberta Advantage, from a fan recommendation, as an eMusic Selects artist. This honour gave the band publicity and exposure to over 400,000 music fans and subscribers worldwide. Repeating, and surpassing, the successes of past Selects artists Crystal Stilts and High Places, the RAA sold thousands of copies of their record in mere weeks, an astounding feat for an unsigned act. Hometowns became the highest-selling Selects album in history and a critical darling overnight, appearing on dozens of “Best of 2008″ lists in newspapers, blogs, and radio podcasts across North America and Europe.

The inspiring DIY success story of the Rural Alberta Advantage has continued to gain momentum and attract fans and followers, with a breakthrough performance at eMusic’s showcase at the 2009 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, getting the seal of approval from Pitchfork (”This band could be huge”) and a nod as a “buzz band” from the Associated Press. More glowing press reviews and sold-out club dates in major cities throughout the United States have followed, and the trio of kids from Canada now find themselves signed to US indie giant Saddle Creek. Hometowns was released properly for the first time on Saddle Creek in Summer 2009, and more tour dates throughout the USA and Canada are planned.

THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE

08/26 Cleveland, OH Beachland Tavern
08/27 Mount Pleasant, MI Rubble’s Bar
08/29 Oro-Medonte, ON Virgin Festival Ontario / Burl’s Creek #
09/06 Ithaca, NY The Positive Jam / Stewart Park $
09/22 Columbia, MO Mojo’s *
09/23 Urbana, IL The Canopy Club (Void Room) *
09/24 Des Moines, IA Vaudeville Mews *
09/25 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry *
09/26 Chicago, IL Schuba’s *
09/27 Columbus, OH Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State
09/29 Athens, GA Tasty World %
09/30 Tallahassee, FL Club Downunder (at FSU) %
10/03 Durham, NC The Duke Coffeehouse (at Duke University) %
10/04 Washington, DC Rock N Roll Hotel
10/06 Pittsburgh, PA Garfield Artworks %
10/07 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
10/08 Cambridge, MA Middle East Cafe Upstairs %

$ = w/ the Hold Steady, Deer Tick, The Felice Brothers, etc
# = w/ The Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, Grizzly Bear, Mates of State, etc
* = w/ The Love Language
% = w/ The Lovely Feathers

The Rural Alberta Advantage
Hometowns
(Saddle Creek)
Street date: July 07, 2009

1. The Ballad of The RAA
2. Rush Apart
3. The Dethbridge in Lethbridge
4. Don’t Haunt this Place
5. The Deadroads
6. Drain the Blood
7. Luciana
8. Frank, AB
9. The Air
10. Sleep All Day
11. Four Night Rider
12. Edmonton
13. In the Summertime

THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE LINKS:

MySpace - www.myspace.com/theraa

Band Page - www.theraa.com

Saddle Creek: saddle-creek.com