This mix is about the music I've been listening to lately but also the people I've met in Nashville. I'm amazed by how much great music gets made and is only heard by a few folks. In the building that houses my office, there are dozens of musicians - all doing work that isn't music. Bakers, interior designers, clerks, and architects - all making interesting, thoughful music that reaches a very small audience.
I was going to include a song from Cardi B's new record, but the way it's produced just didn't fit the mix. It would be like a recording from the 1930s in here - the sound is just strikingly different than everything else. (My mixes will never win the loudness wars).
Here's the video for the first song by the dudes from the bakery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_NbV_nAwQ
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American Roommates / Michael Jordan
Two of these guys also work at the bakery next door.
More Info from Last.FM
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Amy Rigby / From Philiproth@gmail to rzimmerman@aol.com
I tweeted about this song back in March: @AmyRigby waves at the old guys, but it's all her on this tune. A bass line evokes "Street Hassle," a melody winks at Petty. Lyrically, it might be a companion piece to @RodneyJCrowell "Beautiful Despair" only it's Philip Roth feeling it here.
More Info from Last.FM
Amy Rigby (born Amelia McMahon in Pittsburgh in 1959) is an American singer-songwriter. During the late 1980s and early 1990s Rigby began recording with New York bands The Shams and Last Roundup. She began her solo career in 1996 with her album Diary of a Mod Housewife. The album Til The Wheels Fall Off followed in 2003, and Little Fugitive in 2005. In 2008 she recorded an album as Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby with her second husband, Wreckless Eric. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Guided By Voices / Space Gun
Saw them in '95, again in 2010, and just two weeks ago. Still wonderful.
More Info from Last.FM
Guided by Voices is an indie rock band formed in Dayton, Ohio, United States in 1983. The band's lineup has changed several times throughout the band's history, with its only constant member being singer/songwriter Robert Pollard. The band's current lineup consists of Robert Pollard (vocals, guitar), Bobby Bare Jr. (guitar), Doug Gillard (guitar), Mark Shue (bass) and Kevin March (drums). The band's 31st and most recent album, Mirrored Aztec, was released on August 21st, 2020. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Eve Maret / No More Running
Eve works at the bakery next to my office. She's decided not to go to grad school in electronic music because she's found a strong electronic music community in Nashville. Who'd have thought?
More Info from Last.FM
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Wreckless Eric / Gateway to Europe
This guy's been at it for 40 years. I saw him play recently in Nashville in front of about 20 people. He tours the US in his Buick LeSabre.
More Info from Last.FM
Wreckless Eric (born Eric Goulden on the 18th May 1954 in East Sussex, England) was part of the pub-rock scene before he became one of the earliest artists to be signed to Stiff Records. Even as a singer-songwriter with a distinct singing voice, his records failed to chart but his live shows were his main successes, winning him a faithful audience to whom he continues to play to this day. Most recently he has been recording with his wife Amy Rigby (an American singer-songwriter) as Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Spiral Stairs / Trams (Stole My Love)
More Info from Last.FM
There are two artists using the name Spiral Stairs. 1): Scott Kannberg of Pavement and Preston School of Industry. 2): A rock band from Lidköping, Sweden. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Red House Painters / Katy Song
More Info from Last.FM
Red House Painters was an alternative rock band from San Francisco, CA, United States, formed in 1989 by singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek, who is currently active in the band Sun Kil Moon, with part of the original RHP line-up. The band is described, along with Low and American Music Club, as one of the linchpins of the slowcore movement in alternative rock. Kozelek used this group primarily as a vehicle for his very personal and emotional songs of despair, pain and suffering. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Don Gibson / Games People Play
From a recent compilation of his work from the 70s. You might hate it, but this guy wrote some towering country classics.
More Info from Last.FM
Donald Eugene Gibson (April 3, 1928 – November 17, 2003) was an American country musician. Gibson was born in Shelby, North Carolina into a poor working-class family, he dropped out of school in the second grade. Gibson's first band was called Sons of the Soil, with whom he made his first recording in 1948. Among his greatest hits were "Oh Lonesome Me" (later recorded by both Ray Charles and Neil Young) and "Blue Blue Day" (both No. 1 hits in 1958); "Don't Tell Me Your Troubles" (1959); "Sea of Heartbreak" (1961); "Lonesome No. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Essex Green / The Late Great Cassiopaeia
More Info from Last.FM
The Essex Green are a Brooklyn, NY band formed in 1997 from the remains of defunct Burlington, VT band Guppyboy, featuring vocal harmonies by guitarist Chris Ziter and keyboardist Sasha Bell. Their sound is heavily influenced by pop music from the late 60s and 70s and is described by the band as "neo-psychedelic pop". The Everything is Green was released in 1999, and soon after the band signed to the famed Elephant Six collective of Athens, GA at the behest of Robert Schneider, with whom they recorded a self-titled EP in 2000. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Wussy / Gloria
These guys are great.
More Info from Last.FM
Wussy is a four-piece rock and roll band comprising ex-Ass Ponys frontman Chuck Cleaver (guitar, vocals), Lisa Walker (guitar, vocals), Mark Messerly (bass, keyboards) John Erhardt (pedal steel) and Joe Klug (drums). They formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 2000's with original drummer Dawn Burman. Cleaver and Walker began playing together in 2001 as a result of Cleaver’s stage fright when asked to perform a brief run of solo shows. The duo’s first performance was largely unplanned and yet went without incident. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Mark Eitzel / The Last Ten Years
More Info from Last.FM
Mark Eitzel (born January 30, 1959) is best known as lead singer of the San Francisco band american music club. He was voted Rolling Stone's Songwriter of the Year in 1991. Eitzel's first solo album was the (now elusive) cassette-only 'Mean Mark Eitzel Gets Fat' (1982), which pre-dates his AMC work. He released a solo live album, songs of love live in 1991, featuring raw and emotional acoustic versions of his best AMC songs. His first solo album proper was 1996's 60 Watt Silver Lining, a highly personal, jazz-inflected work. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Lilly Hiatt / Trinity Lane
The most interesting country stuff is happening among the women. I saw Lilly open for Robyn Hitchcock (she's also John Hiatt's daughter).
More Info from Last.FM
Lilly Hiatt (born Lillian Alice Hiatt on April 26, 1984) is an American songwriter and performer based in Nashville, TN. She is the daughter of singer-songwriter John Hiatt. It is said that she has an affinity for tambourines, late night ruckus, and foot stompin' fun. She would love to play you some songs sometime (anytime). performing with pops on the Craig Ferguson Show. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Pylon Reenactment Society / Beep
Pylon is an important Athens, GA band. An important post-punk band. The current incarnation is the original vocalist with other backup musicians. I love that they've named themselves a "reenactment society" to acknowledge this ain't the real thing. If they come to your town, check it out. (they probably won't)
More Info from Last.FM
Pylon Reenactment Society is a group of stellar Athens, GA-based musicians fronted by original Pylon vocalist Vanessa Briscoe Hay. Members include guitarist Jason NeSmith and bassist Kay Stanton from indie-pop band Casper & the Cookies, drummer Joe Rowe from legendary band The Glands, and keyboardist Damon Denton. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Jessica Lea Mayfield / Sorry is Gone
More Info from Last.FM
Jessica Lea Mayfield (born on August 27, 1989, in Kent, Ohio) is an American singer-songwriter. She first performed with her family bluegrass band One Way Rider at the age of 8. At age 15, Mayfield recorded her first EP White Lies in her brother's bedroom, printing only 100 copies. One of those copies fell into the hands of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. After an introduction, Mayfield and Auerbach hit the studio. A featured vocalist on The Black Keys' Attack and Release Read more on Last.fm more...
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Margo Price / Heart of America
More Info from Last.FM
Margo Rae Price (born April 15, 1983) is an American country singer-songwriter based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fader has called her "country's next star." Her debut solo album Midwest Farmer's Daughter was released on Third Man Records on March 25, 2016. The album was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, and was engineered by Matt Ross-Spang. The album was recorded in three days. On tour, she is backed by her band the Pricetags. Price grew up in the small town of Aledo Read more on Last.fm more...
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Work / Photograph
More Info from Last.FM
There are three groups called Work/WORK a. Work comprises of Mike Perera, Dave Harvey, Martin Moore and Jamie Perera. They are currently active in London having supported the likes of The Thirst and The Indelicates. b. Work is a Belgian band: Frederic Lyenn Jacques, Bert Dockx & Fabrice Havenne/Ivo Sans c. WORK is Amos, Jeff Cloke, Mike McInerney & Tony Moore. A UK-based improvising group last active in South Devon in 2003. d. Work is another band, signed to Origami Music. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Can / Waiting for the Streetcar
We listen to this in the car. Jack can imitate the vocalist perfectly. It repeats (a lot), but listen for the way it changes slowly. So good - every sound is a rhythm instrument.
More Info from Last.FM
Can was an experimental rock group founded in Cologne, Germany in 1968. Describing themselves as an "anarchist community", they constructed their music largely through improvisation and editing, in a way similar to several avant-garde composers of the time. They had only occasional commercial success, but exerted a huge influence on subsequent rock and electronic music. They are generally held to be one of the finest of the original Krautrock bands, and are among the most important experimental artists in recent music history. Read more on Last.fm more...
