Seeker Lover Keeper

There an awful lot of acoustic bands that come around these days. Oftentimes it’s hard to differentiate between them (largely because there’s a factory somewhere that makes most of them). But don’t lose faith! Sometimes good ones come along. They have brilliant lyrics and are incredibly heartfelt. Speaking of good acoustic bands, how bout that Seeker Lover Keeper!

There’s a very bizarre phenomena that happens in the American music scene where a lot of times, bands that have enormous success in other countries fail to even get mentioned in any conversations. That’s why you haven’t heard of Seeker Lover Keeper despite their debut album going gold over in Australia (and Australia’s developed a great music scene! Angus & Julia Stone, The Temper Trap, Cut Copy just to name a few).

Wikipedia describes them as a super-group, which is true in the actual definition of the word, each of the three ladies in the group have careers outside the group, but it doesn’t seem right to call a group that makes sentimental, smart acoustic songs a super-group. Semantics aside, the band is composed of Sarah Blasko, Sally Seltman, Hally Throsby. Between the three of them, they have toured with Lykke Li, Broken Social Scene, and have done lyrical work for some of Feist’s material. I guess you could probably get away with the term “super” with a resume like that. Not to mention the album was produced by Victor Van Vugt who also produced some PJ Harvey tracks and Nick Cave stuff.

They’ve received positive press reviews from places like The Couch Sessions, Spinner, and Folk Radio (because they’re good). So check them out!

Even Though I’m A Woman

We Will Know What It Is

Seeker Lover Keeper on iTunes:

Ani DiFranco

After 20 years in the music biz, self-described “Little Folksinger” Ani DiFranco is still technically little, although her influence on fellow musicians, activists, and indie-minded people the world over has been huge. She still proudly identifies as a folksinger, too, but her understanding of that term has always been far more expansive than a bin at the record store or a category on iTunes, with ample room for soul, funk, jazz, electronic music, spoken word, and a marching band or two. Over the course of more than 20 albums, including the live double CD Living in Clip (1997) and the two-disc career retrospective Canon (2007), as well as the latest one, ¿Which Side are You On? (2012), Ani has never stopped evolving, experimenting, testing the limits of what can be said and sung. Her lifelong tribe of co-conspirators includes everyone from Pete Seeger and the late Utah Phillips to a new generation of twentysomething singer-songwriters who grew up with her songs and shows — and then there’s the motley crew of folks like Prince, Maceo Parker, Andrew Bird, Dr. John, Arto Lindsay, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck D, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Gillian Welch, Cyndi Lauper, and even Burmese activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, with whom she has crossed paths in a myriad of ways.

Born in Buffalo, New York in 1970, Ani spent part of her twenties in New York City, then returned to her hometown where she established first a business office and then a performance venue called Babeville as the twentieth century ground to a halt and the twenty-first one revved up. For much of the last decade she’s been based in New Orleans — but at her core she’s always seen herself as “a traveler,” covering pretty much the four corners of the earth by now, both solo and with her band. (There’s less corner-covering these days, now that she’s consciously slowing down a bit and raising a daughter with partner and co-producer Mike Napolitano, but she still gets around just fine, playing venues like Madison Square Garden for Pete Seeger’s ninetieth birthday bash and another star-studded lineup at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan for Wavy Gravy’s seventy-fifth.)

Early in her career, Ani made a choice that is now so obvious to so many people that it’s hard to remember it was once considered brazen: to say no to every record label deal that came her way, and yes to being her own boss. That decision has earned her plenty of attention over the years, but it has never been what brought sold-out crowds to her shows around the world, fans debating every nuance of her lyrics, and fellow performers clamoring to work with her. No, all that has more to do with another choice she made early in life: To use her voice and her guitar as honestly and unflinchingly as she could, writing and playing songs that came straight from her own experience, her boundless imagination, her sharp wit, and her ever-more-nuanced understanding of how the world works. She did it in noisy bars with nothing but a shaved head and a lone guitar in 1990, and she’s doing it with renewed intensity today.

via Righteous Babe

¿Which Side Are You On?

FREE DOWNLOAD OF ¿Which Side Are You On? FOR FBOMB READERS

Ani DiFranco on iTunes:

Joy Askew

“When writing about myself I would always start by saying that I was ‘originally from the North of England’… in fact that’s not true but I grew up there from age 5 in Newcastle, famous for its coals and shipbuilding. The place was grimy, cold and hard but full of character and culture, with many theaters and concert venues and legendary clubs. Newcastle was frequented by the likes of Bob Dylan (Don’t Look Back) and Jimi Hendrix (his manager Chas Chandler, bassist for the famed Newcastle Band The Animals was a true Geordie and my father was his headmaster!) I love the English movie Get Carter set in Newcastle and starring a young Michael Caine, it really reflects well a lot of what this once Roman Northern garrison town was about.

There was so much legendary live music when I was a teenager and by the time I was 14 years old I was playing and singing around town in a blues band with my brother Roger.

So I went to jazz college and took up the tenor saxophone along with playing the piano and singing. After a few years playing in London and listening to Sly Stone, Parliament Funkadelic and Quincy Jones, I knew I just wanted to be in America….so I came – because I got the chance! My chance was to tour the East Coast with Warner Bros. band Eye to Eye as their keyboard player/backing vocalist and after that tour fell apart I joined fellow Brit. Joe Jackson on a world tour for his Night and Day Record. That tour lasted a year and was a real high. We got to play with the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Grateful Dead and visit Australia and Japan. I was truly devoted to being in New York after that experience!

In 1984 I met and toured with performance artist Laurie Anderson playing keyboards and singing…In the following years I appeared on some Joe Jackson records (Big World, Blaze of Glory, Laughter & Lust, Live) and started writing my own songs…I settled into my own career as an artist and even though I had written songs for many years previously, this is where I feel I really began to find myself and explore my own expression. Tender City was released on BMG in 1996. This record has performances by Peter Gabriel, Larry Klein, Jerry Marrotta and Shane Fontayne, among others.

Three more self released solo albums followed, then I formed a duo with electronic jazz musician Takuya Nakamura named ECHO and our CD of the same name was released on the New Line Records label in 2002…In 2008 I released “The Pirate Of Eel Pie”.

I have been an activist on behalf of farm animals since 2004. I volunteer to help bring awareness of farm animals in dire factory farms across America and to promote Veganism for ourselves, the animals and the planet. My song Poor Man’s greed appears in the film “Peaceable Kingdom – The Journey Home” and several songs on “Drunk On You” reflect this volunteer work.”

via JoyAskew.com
Drunk On You

I Broke The Law

Joy Askew on iTunes:

Vera Chytilova

Vera Chytilová was born on February 2, 1929, in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). She studied philosophy and architecture in Brno for two years, then worked as a technical draftsman, a designer, a fashion model, a photo re-toucher, then worked as a clapper girl for Barrandov Film Studios in Prague. There she continued as a writer, actress, and assistant director.

She was denied a scholarship, or even a recommendation from Barrandov, but she took the admissions tests at FAMU and was accepted. From 1957-1962 she studied film directing under Otakar Vávra, who also taught Jirí Menzel, Milos Forman, Jan Nemec, and Ivan Passer. In 1962 she graduated as director from Film Academy (FAMU) in Prague. Her graduation film ‘Strop’ (Ceiling 1962) and the following film ‘Pytel blech’ (A Bagful of Fleas 1963) were “staged” improvisations with non-actors. In 1966 Chytilova and her husband, ‘Jaroslav Kucera’, made a witty surrealist comedy Daisies (1966), which was immediately banned, but then was released in 1967, and won the Grand Prix at the Bergamo Film Festival. She remained in Czechoslovakia after the events of 1968, when her colleagues Milos Forman, Jan Nemec, and Ivan Passer emigrated. Her films were often “shelved” for reasons of political censorship. For six years Chytilova was banned from making films. In 1976 she wrote a letter of complaint to President Gustav Husak, describing her artistic position. After some behind-the-scenes influence by her supporters, Chytilova was allowed to make a low-budget Hra o jablko (1977), which won a Silver Hugo at Chicago Film Festival.

Chytilova belongs among the foremost directors of the 1960’s Czech New Wave, which was influenced by both the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism. Her films were acclaimed for visual experimentation and for bold unmasking of the moral problems of contemporary society. Her art belongs to what Sergei M. Eisenstein described as “intellectual cinema”, that embraces the mix of “avant-garde”, “cinema verite”, “formalism”, “feminism”, or “happening” and, with a good deal of humor, it spreads beyond definitions. Chytilova’s films often present a multi-layered plethora of visual associations that encourages the viewer to make active interpretations. She survived through the political turbulences in Czechoslovakia and has been a highly original and uncompromising filmmaker.

via IMDB

Trailer for Daisies

Interview with Vera Chytilova

Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was a “second generation” abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era’s few female painters to gain critical and public acclaim. Her paintings and editioned prints can be seen in major museums and collections across America and Europe.

Mitchell was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of James Herbert and Marion Strobel Mitchell. She studied at Smith College, in Massachusetts, and The Art Institute of Chicago. After moving to Manhattan in 1947, she wanted to study at Hans Hofmann’s school in New York but, according to Jane Livingston in her 2002 essay (in “The Paintings of Joan Mitchell”), Mitchell only attended one class and declared, “I couldn’t understand a word he said so I left, terrified.” She traveled in 1948 in France, Spain, and Italy. In 1951, her work was exhibited in the landmark “Ninth Street Show” alongside that of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Hans Hofmann. By the early 1950s, she was regarded as a leading artist in the New York School. In her early years as a painter, she was influenced by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, and later by the work of Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, among others.

She married American publisher Barney Rosset in 1949 in Paris. Rosset is a Chicago-born American entrepreneur and former owner of the publishing house Grove Press, who is perhaps best known as the American publisher of the controversial and sexually charged novel Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. They divorced in 1952. In 1955, Mitchell moved to France to join Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, with whom she had a long, rich, and tumultuous relationship. They maintained separate homes and studios, but had dinner and drank together daily. They first lived in Paris, and then moved west to the town of Vétheuil, near Giverny, Claude Monet’s home.

Her paintings are expansive, often covering two separate panels. Landscape was the primary influence on her subject matter. She painted on unprimed canvas or white ground with gestural, sometimes violent brushwork. Her paintings are highly expressive and emotional.

An admirer of Vincent van Gogh’s work, Mitchell observed in one of his final paintings: Wheatfield with Crows 1890, the symbology of death, suicide, hopelessness, depression and darkness. With her sense that Wheatfield with Crows was a suicide note she painted a painting called No Birds as a response and as an homage.

During the period between 1960 and 1964, Mitchell moved away from the all-over style and bright colors of her earlier compositions, instead using sombre hues and dense central masses of color to express something inchoate and primordial. The marks on these works were said to be extraordinary: “the paint flung and squeezed on to the canvases, spilling and spluttering across their surfaces and smeared on with the artist’s fingers.”
She said that she wanted her paintings “to convey the feeling of the dying sunflower” and “some of them come out like young girls, very coy … they’re very human.”

Mitchell died in 1992 in Vétheuil, near Giverny France.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation awards grants and stipends to painters, sculptors, and artist collectives. It is located in Manhattan at 545 West 25th Street.

via Wikipedia

Lucky Seven

Birdy

You wanna feel like you’ve done absolutely nothing with your life? Just look at what the amazingly talented Birdy has done already. Birdy, at the age of 15, has just released her first studio album. Yeah, at fifteen. She can’t drive yet, but she can sing and cover songs like its her job. If you’re in the UK you’ve heard of her, but for everyone else, here’s a profile.

Jasmine Van den Bogaerde, also known by her stage name Birdy, (born 15 May 1996) is an English musician known for winning the music competition Open Mic UK in 2008, at the age of 12. Her version of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” was released in January 2011, peaking inside the top twenty of the UK Singles Chart and in some European territories. Her self-titled debut album “Birdy” was released on 7 November 2011.

Birdy was born on May 15, 1996, in Lymington, England. Her mother is a concert pianist, and Birdy learned to play piano at the age of four, and began writing her own music at the age of 7. Birdy currently studies at Priestlands School in Lymington, a small state school which specialises in performing and visual arts. She sings and plays the piano. Birdy’s great uncle was the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde.
In 2008, at the age of 12, Birdy won the UK talent contest Open Mic UK, a spinoff of the Live and Unsigned competition. She won both the under 18s category and the Grand Prize, against 10,000 other competitors. She performed her own song at the competition called “So Be Free” in front of 2,000 people.

November 21Brian Capuder
You wanna feel like you’ve done absolutely nothing with your life? Just look at what the amazingly talented Birdy has done already. Birdy, at the age of 15, has just released her first studio album. Yeah, at fifteen. She can’t drive yet, but she can sing and cover songs like its her job. If you’re in the UK you’ve heard of her, but for everyone else, here’s a profile.

Jasmine Van den Bogaerde, also known by her stage name Birdy, (born 15 May 1996) is an English musician known for winning the music competition Open Mic UK in 2008, at the age of 12. Her version of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” was released in January 2011, peaking inside the top twenty of the UK Singles Chart and in some European territories. Her self-titled debut album “Birdy” was released on 7 November 2011.

Birdy was born on May 15, 1996, in Lymington, England. Her mother is a concert pianist, and Birdy learned to play piano at the age of four, and began writing her own music at the age of 7. Birdy currently studies at Priestlands School in Lymington, a small state school which specialises in performing and visual arts. She sings and plays the piano. Birdy’s great uncle was the actor Sir Dirk Bogarde.
In 2008, at the age of 12, Birdy won the UK talent contest Open Mic UK, a spinoff of the Live and Unsigned competition. She won both the under 18s category and the Grand Prize, against 10,000 other competitors. She performed her own song at the competition called “So Be Free” in front of 2,000 people.

After the competition she was then offered a publishing contract with Good Soldier Songs Ltd, run by Christian Tattersfield, chairman of Warner Bros. Music UK and the label 14th Floor Records. Tattersfield previously signed other singer/songwriters such as David Gray. In 2009, Birdy performed live on piano for BBC Radio 3’s Pianothon in London.

In 2011, at the age of 14, Birdy released a cover version of Bon Iver’s song “Skinny Love”. The song became her first hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at 17. The single was chosen as “Record of The Week” by UK radio DJ Fearne Cotton, resulting in it being added to BBC Radio 1’s B-list playlist as soon as it was released in March 2011. The official music video for the song was directed by Sophie Muller. The song was also featured on The Vampire Diaries episode “The Sun Also Rises”, which aired on 5 May 2011. Since then, Birdy has covered the song “The A Team” Ed Sheeran, as well as The XX’s Shelter., which was also featured on The Vampire Diaries episode “The End of The Affair”, which aired on 29 September. Skinny Love peaked at number 3 in the Netherlands.

On 19 July 2011, Birdy performed in BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. In the session, she performed a cover of The XX’s “Shelter” as well as Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team”. Her eponymous debut album was released on 4 November 2011, the album peaked 13 in the UK, 40 in Ireland and top 10 in Belgium and The Netherlands.

via Wikipedia

Skinny Love (Bon Iver Cover)

People Help The People

Birdy on iTunes:

Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style.

Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Christiane (née Pasquet) and Eugene Jean Varda, an engineer. Her mother was French and her father’s family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor.

Varda studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre before getting a job as the official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris. She liked photography but was interested in moving into film. After spending a few days filming the small French fishing town of La Pointe Courte for a terminally ill friend who could no longer visit on his own, Varda decided to shoot a feature film of her own. Thus in 1954, Varda’s first film, La Pointe Courte, about an unhappy couple working through their relationship in a small fishing town, was released. The film is a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave.

Despite similarities to the French New Wave, films by Varda belonged more precisely to the complementary Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. The group was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature and politically was positioned to the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.

Varda was married to the film director Jacques Demy from 1962 until his death in 1990, with whom she had one child, actor Mathieu Demy. Jacques Demy also legally adopted Rosalie Varda, Agnes Varda’s daughter from a previous union with actor Antoine Bourseiller.

Varda was one of the five persons to attend Jim Morrison’s burial in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery. She was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and a member of the jury at the Venice Film Festival in 1983.

via Wikipedia

Cleo from 5 to 7 (the first 10 minutes)

An Interview with Agnés Varda

Carolina Chocolate Drops

It’s time for some, bring out your fiddle, folk music!

The Carolina Chocolate Drops is an old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina, United States. Its 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, and was number 9 in FRoots magazine’s top 10 albums of 2010. Formed in November 2005 following the members’ attendance at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, the group grew out of the success of Sankofa Strings, an ensemble that featured Flemons, Giddens and percussionist/banjoist Sule Greg Wilson, with Robinson as an occasional guest artist. The Drops are one of the two known full-time African American string bands. There were originally three members: Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, and Justin Robinson, who were all in their twenties when the group formed. All of the musicians sing and trade instruments including banjo, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, snare drum, bones, jug, and kazoo. The group learned much of their repertoire, which is based on the traditional music of the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina, from the eminent African American old-time fiddler Joe Thompson, although they also perform old-time versions of some modern songs such as Blu Cantrell’s R&B hit “Hit ‘em Up Style (Oops!).”

The Carolina Chocolate Drops have released at least three CDs (in 2006, 2008, and 2010) and have opened for Taj Mahal. They have performed on Mountain Stage and at the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention. Additionally they have performed on Fresh Air and BBC Radio in early 2010 and at the 2010 Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee . and 2011 ROMP in Owensboro Ky.

On February 7, 2011, the band announced that beatboxer Adam Matta and multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins would be joining the band, while Justin Robinson would be departing.

via wikipedia

Hit ‘Em Up Style

Cornbread and Butter Beans

The Carolina Chocolate Drops on iTunes: 

Polica

CMJ was without a doubt, the greatest week of my life. If you ever have an opportunity to go to a festival such as CMJ or SXSW which have concerts all the time over a one week period, with all sorts of new acts, DO IT. I got to see previously featured Dum Dum Girls (sounded great but were a bit lackluster live to be honest) and An Horse (totally kickass) in this week of music explosion. The best part of CMJ is finding those under the radar bands that sound amazing. Hence I present Polica.

Polica were the first warmup for Dum Dum Girls and played a fantastic little set (I snagged the setlist as to be expected). Polica has a band composition like none I’ve seen before. Polica is composed of lead singer Channy Casselle, her bassist and two, wonderfully talented drummers. The drummers have full sets next to each other and play in perfect concordance, an action which inspires all sorts of wonder from the crowd. Channy really got into the singing. She seemed like she had a very quiet personality, but came alive on stage. The constant drums and prominent bass make it very tribal sounding, but the singing really elevates the package making it sound complete.

Polica has some prominence as an undiscovered band. Channy is the current lead singer of Gayngs. There album was mixed by a member of Spoon and has guest vocal appearances from Bon Iver. So there’s some music talent right there! Polica was touring with fellow New York natives Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and played a capacity show at Bowery Ballroom earlier this year.

Polica has their album recorded, and is set for release soon. In the meantime I recommend heading over to thisispolica.com and checking out the two singles they have up already, you won’t regret it!

Lay Your Cards Out