The Delta Spirit
I have played this song on my ipod 50 times in the past two weeks.
Check out Motivation by The Delta Spirit. Sounds like the Strokes from Tennessee.
Find more here or at the Rockinsider.
http://www.twitter.com/indiemusicfiltr
I have played this song on my ipod 50 times in the past two weeks.
Check out Motivation by The Delta Spirit. Sounds like the Strokes from Tennessee.
Find more here or at the Rockinsider.
The Arcade Fire. The new track is called Intervention. If you go looking, you can find a whack of versions of this song played live on KCRW.
Here’s a way to hear the studio version. Got to this great music blog You Ain’t No Picasso. This got played yesterday BBC radio 1, someone taped it, and now’s its up on the net. Sound quality isn’t the best, but I think its an amazing song. I wonder which Montreal church organ that could be in the song?? New album in March, start salivating, good luck finding tickets.
Also, apparently you could also hear the track by dailing 1-866-NEON-BIBLE ext 7777. I tried, no dice. Maybe I’m a little late on this one…
Rolf Klausener from The Acorn took some time to answer some questions for me.
Chris >> Where does the name The Acorn come from?
Rolf >> The name is derived from my first solo project I started in 2002 called “Drei Eichel Musik” (german for “Three Acorns Music”). The three acorns are a throwback to my Swiss heritage. Before he passed away, my Father passed along our family’s history which was compiled in an old, cracked leather bound book by my Great Uncle George. The Klausener family dates back to about the 1490’s, and the family’s shield appeared sometime in the early 19th century and features three acorns on a green shield. (i used a hand-drawn facsimile on the cover of my first solo release, a xmas ep out on kelp records – Kp 030| Drei Eichel Musik | A Klausener Xmas).
Chris >> Many people talk about your band being at the center of the Ottawa music scene. What is the Ottawa music scene like and what direction do you see it moving?
Rolf >> First off, I would never claim that Ottawa’s music community has a center, nor a sound as the scene is quite diverse, and spans a lot of genres. For it’s population, the city has a lot of folk and punk acts. Indie rock, experimental music and the avant garde are definitely on the margins here. The overall population in Ottawa is older than say Toronto or Montreal, so you don’t have the sense that people are that interested in trying to push boundaries; artistically, it can be a little deflating at times. But for all the city’s conservative leanings and national capital regalia, it’s still a nurturing scene.
Audiences are smaller for the left-of-center sub-genres, but they’re there. I don’t think it’d be totally inaccurate to call it a true underground scene. House shows are really prevalent and at the heart of the city’s scene.
A lot of the city’s best bands (The HiLoTrons, Fiftymen, The Flaps, Empiricals, Sleeping Pilot, Quebexico, Soft Diaster…) are not known far beyond our borders, yet are on par or surpass anything in the country.
Over the years there have been a handful of artistically and/or commercially successful exports (FurnaceFace, Kepler, The Wooden Stars, Snailhouse, Jim Bryson, Kathleen Edwards), but Ottawa has never been touted as a “hot” scene per se. So, keeping with Ottawa’s long-standing tradition of scathing self-deprecation and overarching modesty (and apparently painful self-awareness), I don’t see Ottawa breaking out of the gates any time soon.
Chris >> Noticed that Tin Fist has been self released. How has it been so far handling the release and what made you make that decision?
Rolf >> I’ve been involved with Ottawa’s Kelp Records for over 7 years now, and have helped promote a number of albums along the way. Kelp has never had money, or grandiose National repute, but its been a great melting pot for some of Ottawa’s most talented and creative artists. After 7 years, and paying for, self-promoting, and marketing our last 2 releases on Kelp, I thought it might be interesting to do the exact same thing, but not put the Kelp label on the album and just see what happens.
So far, we’ve had a handful of larger Canadian indies approach us, but we haven’t made any decisions thus far. It’s exciting to have people outside your world take notice of your work, but being in this label game for so long, we’re not in any rush to latch onto anything yet. We’ve sold a healthy number of discs on our own, and want to make sure that whatever label takes us on will provide us with the logistical resources we haven’t previously had access to. It sounds cold and calculating, but if Kelp were to acquire the resources to help properly promote and distribute its releases, leaving Kelp wouldn’t really be an option. I’ve always been a card-holding member of the DIY ethic but the fact of the matter is, one or two people can only do so much before the workload becomes insurmountable.
Either way, I’ll still work with Kelp’s founder Jon Bartlett, and likely put out other stuff on the label; but right now, we’re exploring every option available to us…’cause that’s how we roll.
Well put. Take a minute to let some new material off Tin Fist sink in. Check out Brokered Heart and Feral Chile. Amazing.
GO SEE THIS BAND. The music translates beautifully and their stage banter is hilarious. The open for Elliott Brood at Lees Palace this Friday night in Toronto (Dec. 15th). The Acorn are on at 11pm, tickets still available.
Thanks Matthew for the heads up about the band you manage and your brothers.
Check out the So So Glo’s from Brooklyn. You won’t find much on the net about these guys just yet. There’s a myspace page, where you’ll see pictures of three brothers who play in this band.? There was a fourth who used to play guitar, until he quit and was replaced by Yolli Lyons. From what I can gather (from some words by Alex on the site) the band name is a way of describing the mediocrity of our existence.
“We stand for nothing, care about nothing, talk a lot, and do nothing. Apocalyptic beings waiting for the end, and exploiting whats left while we are still here. Making sure we look good as the world crumbles in devastation. I am as dim as the lights from the city, just a fucking SO SO GLO. Just as you are. CHANGE SOMETHING”
Take a listen to ‘Low’ on their myspace page. A great rock song which musically uplifts; even though ‘Everyone gets low sometimes’. New Album in 2007.
My favorite track is Black and Blue [audio:BlackandBlue.mp3].
Love the sound of the lead singers’ vocals.
I’ve become quite an avid Dodgeballer in the last year, and so have my friends. Take a look at what we do on Monday nights. This short video was put together by my brother Steve Budd, an editor working in Toronto. He’s got a solid dive as well.