(Free Download) Pieta Brown’s New Full Length “One & All” Out April 6th

This week we have been treated to some news about Pieta Brown’s follow up to her Shimmer EP from the folks at Red House Records. Pieta’s new album and first full-length for her new label home, titled One & All will be released on April 6th!

Co-produced by Pieta and Bo Ramsey the record is a culmination of material she’s been performing live since the release of her last full-length Remember The Sun which came out in 2007. She started performing “Calling All Angels” during that solo tour, and I first heard it when she played it on Nic Harcourt’s Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW.

In November, Pieta did a three-night artist-in-residence at The Mill Restaurant called “This Land is Your Music”, which she used as a way to try out different band configurations– solo, duo and full band. She also took the opportunity to perform some of the songs which would become part of One & All, including “Other Way Around,” “Prayer Of Roses,” “Calling All Angels,” “Faller,” and “It Wasn’t That.”

Right now on Pieta’s MySpace page she has “Out of the Blue,” “El Guero” and “Faller” in her music player. Additionally, Red House is making “Faller” available for download. At the first This Land is Your Music show Pieta said that “Faller” is based on meeting Tom Petty when she opened for JJ Cale at McCabe’s Guitar Center. Apparently JJ Cale ran into Petty and Mike Campbell at a bar across the street from McCabe’s and invited them to join him on stage. So, Pieta and Bo met Petty and Campbell. Here is a picture of Bo talking to Petty.

Pieta is going on a 28-date tour with Mark Knopfler who is out supporting his new album Get Lucky, which should gain her some new fans. Bo will be on tour with her and I think that Knopfler and Bo have complimentary music styles so it would be interesting if they’d perform together!

Red House Records will start taking pre-orders for One & All on March 30th and pre-orders will be autographed! Also, you can preorder One & All from Amazon.

Tracklisting for One & All

Wishes Falling Through The Rain
Other Way Around
Out Of The Blue
Prayer Of Roses
Calling All Angels
El Guero
Faller
Flowers In The Kingdom
Shake
Grass Upon The Hills
Never Did Belong
It Wasn’t That

Pieta Brown on Tour With Mark Knopfler (from The Rosebud Agency)

4/8/2010      Seattle WA      Moore Theatre
4/9/2010     Vancouver BC CANADA     Queen Elizabeth Theatre
4/10/2010     Portland OR     Keller Auditorium
4/11/2010     Eugene OR     Hult Center for the Performing Arts
4/13/2010     Oakland CA     Paramount Theatre of the Arts
4/14/2010     Santa Rosa CA     Wells Fargo Center For The Arts
4/15/2010     Temecula CA     Pechanga Resort & Casino
4/16/2010     Los Angeles CA     Pantages Theatre
4/17/2010     Los Angeles CA     Pantages Theatre
4/18/2010     Phoenix AZ     Dodge Theatre
4/20/2010     Denver CO     Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre
4/21/2010     Kansas City MO     Midland Theatre
4/22/2010     Saint Louis MO     Fox Theatre
4/23/2010     Chicago IL     Chicago Theatre
4/24/2010     Milwaukee WI     Riverside Theater
4/25/2010     Minneapolis MN     State Theater
4/27/2010     Ann Arbor MI     Michigan Theater
4/28/2010     Buffalo NY     University of Buffalo – Center For The Arts
4/29/2010     Toronto ON CANADA     Massey Hall
4/30/2010     Montréal PQ CANADA     Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place Des Arts
5/1/2010     Mashantucket CT     MGM Grand at Foxwoods
5/2/2010     Washington DC     Warner Theater
5/4/2010     Boston MA     Orpheum Theatre
5/5/2010     Red Bank NJ     Count Basie Theatre
5/6/2010     New York NY     United Palace
5/7/2010     Upper Darby PA     Tower Theater
5/8/2010     Atlantic City NJ     Caesars Circus Maximus
5/9/2010     Albany NY     Palace Theatre

Click Here to download “Faller” from One & All.

Click Here for Pieta’s Website

Click Here for Pieta’s MySpace Page

Click Here for Pieta’s Facebook Page

Mojo Nixon to Burn Down The Malls By Making Entire Catalog for Free Download for Three Weeks!

According to Digital Music News, in celebration/honor/whatever of Mojo Nixon’s new album Whiskey Rebellion which comes out on October 7th, 2009 he and Amazon.com are making his entire catalog free for downloads for three weeks starting October 7th!!

You might recall Mojo Nixon from his halcyon MTV days when he seemed to host every other week and his videos for “Burn Down the Malls,” “Elvis is Everywhere,” and “(619) 239-KING” played very frequently. He also had the video for “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child” which starred Wynona Ryder as Gibson banned from the network, which precipitated his slow decent from the public eye. You might remember his song “Don Henley Must Die” as well.

Nixon has continued to record under various side bands and projects over the years after sucessfully wrenching his catalog from the Enigma/EMI/IRS deathclinch. He is apparently as onery as ever and during this economic recession is hoping that his package of free mp3’s will stimulate everyone.

Click Here for Mojo Nixon’s website

Click Here to purchase Mojo’s catalog on Amazon.com
for free for three weeks starting October 7th!

New Fan-assisted “Mash-up” Video of “Salt & Cherries (MC5)” by Wendy & Lisa

One of the great records of this year for me is the new Wendy & Lisa joint White Flags of Winter Chimneys. It is a self-released record, and the promotion and distribution is handled by their little-but-mighty camp. Talking with them earlier this year I could get the sense that this release and their truly-independent approach to managing their careers was going to be a developing blueprint that other acts could look to for inspiration. They twitter, they blog, they podcast, they Facebook, they Amazon.com.

Today they released the video to the rawking “Salt & Cherries (MC5)” which features Wendy & Lisa in a live setting interspersed with fans lip-synching to the song. They asked for submissions from fans and they apparently got some really creative results!

Majors Celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the 45 Single With “Digital 45” Campaign

In what seems to be a gobsmackingly obvious move, the major labels in conjunction with digital music retailers like Zune Store, Amazon, Rhapsody and iTunes have announced “Digital 45s” on the 60th anniversary of the 7″ 45 record.

The big announcements are really in conjunction with Apple’s iTunes Store that they are calling “D45” and use that nifty logo pictured on the left. Digging through the press-releases shows that Warner Music Group is represented by Rhino which should represent the full compliment of WMG labels which includes Atlantic/Atco, Elektra/Asylum, Warner Brothers, Reprise and Sire– so this should bring a very wide and deep catalog and the first releases are already showing some promise.

EMI stepped up with a press-release as well although they don’t have a site dedicated to their Digital 45 initiative. EMI stable of labels include EMI, Apple, Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note, Manhattan– and interestingly, Caroline, Mute, Definitive Jux, and Astralwerks making for some potentially interesting releases.

The Concord Music group has titles released as well, but no press release. According to the Wikipedia article on  Concord, UMG handles the physical distribution of Concord, but I don’t think that would apply here. Concord includes Fantasy’s labels– Fantasy, Stax/Volt and a number of jazz labels (Riverside, Prestige). There is a Sam & Dave Digital 45 of “Soul Man,” I hope this means we see some interesting Creedence Clearwater Revival releases– they were on Fantasy. There has been a long-standing Stax/Volt Singles box set with b-sides, but these Digital 45s would allow someone to pick and choose if they released the whole Stax catalog.

SonyBMG have brought some Digital 45’s as well, but I couldn’t find a press release on it. SonyBMG is a significant collection of labels as well with Sony, Epic, Columbia, RCA, Arista and all of their associated spinoff labels. One of the first Digital 45’s is a Michael Jackson single for “Billie Jean” b/w “Can’t Get Out of the Rain.”

A quick review of the online retailers shows a pretty impressive participation– iTunes, Amazon.com, Zune Music Marketplace, Rhapsody mp3 store, but eMusic seems to be the lone holdout– or shut out. Sony just signed an agreement with eMusic to be able to sell older titles, but apparently this doesn’t extend to Digital 45s, yet.

Comparing the offerings between the retailers shows that mostly everyone is adopting the $1.49 for 2 tracks, with the individual tracks at standard pricing of $0.99. Zune Marketplace has the 2 tracks at $1.69, with individual tracks at $0.99. The Sony titles seem to be priced differently– “Billie Jean” 2-track is $1.99 with “Billie Jean” at $1.29 and the b-side at $0.99. Right now it looks like iTunes is the only retailer who has the SonyBMG titles. I’m not sure what the future holds about this situation, since all of the retailers have other SonyBMG titles.

All of that detail aside, there are some pretty cool titles available already and based on an interview with Rhino Marketing Veep David Dorn by Billboard, they will be releasing “bundles” of Digital 45’s monthly, so there will be many more to come!

Some releases of interest to me:

Prince and the Revolution- “Kiss” b/w “Love or Money” (Warner Brothers) This is a single I own in 7″. Interestingly this was a B-Side left off of the 1993 3 CD compilation The Hits/The B-Sides, so its existence here is welcomed.

INXS – “What You Need” b/w “Sweet As Sin” (ATCO) During their heyday, INXS used their b-sides to provide songs that were a bit more experimental. “Sweet As Sin” is a two-steppish country tune. Not a bad track, but certainly didn’t fit on Listen Like Thieves. One of my favorite b-sides from INXS from this period is the jazzy instrumental “Begotten” and the really out-there “I’m Coming (Home)” from the “I Need You Tonight” single.

Erasure – “A Little Respect” b/w “Like Zsa Zsa Zsa Gabor” (Warner Brothers) Another great bubbly dance track from Erasure. Could have easily been on  The Innocents, really.

The Cure – “Just Like Heaven” b/w “Breathe” (Elektra) The Cure is a veritable treasure trove of b-sides. This is most evidenced by the amazing 2004 Rhino/Fiction box set Join the Dots : B-sides and Rarities, 1978-2001. I had this on cassette single. According to one of the reviewers on iTunes, the “Just Like Heaven” mix is the mix by Bob Clearmountain used in the video.

Steve Martin and the Toot Uncommons – “King Tut” b/w “Hoedown At Alice’s” (Warner Brothers) I have this 7″– in fact you can see it in the header picture on this blog. With Martin’s new 5-string banjo album The Crow out, it makes sense for this b-side to show up as it is a banjo workout by Martin.

The Cars – “Let’s Go” b/w “That’s It” (Elektra) The lead single from Candy-O in 1979 had the non-LP track “That’s It” with Benjamin Orr on lead. This track was included in the 1995 Just What I Needed : Cars Anthology.

What I would like to see for singles (which is really about the b-sides)

INXS – “Listen Like Thieves” b/w “Begotten” (Elektra) I mentioned this one above.

Terence Trent D’Arby – “Sign Your Name” b/w “Greasy Chicken (Sony) My brother Steve was a big fan of TTD when Introducing the Hardline came out. He had the cassette single to “Sign Your Name” with the really funky workout “Greasy Chicken” as the b-side.

Bruce Springsteen – “One Step Up” b/w “Roulette” (Columbia) The Boss is pretty famous for having some really great songs “in the can” that eventually showed up as b-sides to singles or elsewhere. “Roulette” is a great example of this. Recorded in the Spring of 1980, it is a galloping song about nuclear holocost that just never made it to an album. This song eventually showed up on the very cool Tracks boxset. In fact, you can download it now from Amazon.com and other places.

Men At Work – “Who Can It Be Now” b/w “Anyone For Tennis” (Columbia) Another favorite around the house. My brother had this 7″ and played the b-side all the time. For some reason Sony Legacy omitted this song from the bonus b-sides appended to their 2003 remaster. “Anyone For Tennis” is a quick-tempo slightly ska-ish track demonstrates how much Men at Work owed the Police.

The Rolling Stones – “It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll (But I Like It)” b/w “Through The Lonely Nights” (Rolling Stones Records) When you’re a kid and your mom picks up records for you– you play the crap out of them. In my mind the flip side of the rocker “It’s Only Rock N’ Roll” is as notable as the A side. “Through The Lonely Nights” is a slinky, almost funky country rocker. Mick does his best American drawl. An absolutely gorgeous classic and largely ignored. This song was resurrected in a 2005 remaster done for a Starbucks compilation that is now out-of-print called Rarities 1971-2003. Really, I think that a box set of singles similar to the Singles Collection : London Years should be done for the post 1971 period.

Prince – All of the Warner singles! While it’s true that the 3 CD version of The Hits/The B-Sides is relatively available, they don’t seem to be available for digital download! So, this would be an inventive way to remedy this! Plus, there are still songs that didn’t make that 3rd disc– “Alexa de Paris” for one. In fact, maybe it’s time to reissue the Prince protegee bands’ singles as well!

Click Here for Rhino Records’ Digital 45 Page

Click Here for the press release from EMI which lists the initial singles they will be releasing.

(Almost) Free Download : Paul Westerberg 49:00

When I stumbled into this during my daily diet of music blog cruising I went out and immediately purchased Paul Westerberg’s new recording 49:00 from Amazon for $0.49!!!

As one track clocking in at a confusing 44 minutes, it is apparently the “tip of a really large creative iceberg.” The songs were recorded  The recording is a cut-and-pastishe of new songs, older songs and samples of classic rock songs. It’s lo-fi sensibility and Westerberg’s signature vocals gives it a feel that reminds me of the early Replacements. The jarring editing of the recording has songs sliding in and out sometimes edging the previous song out of the speakers from the left or right which might be why they are suggesting that you don’t listen to this while driving (LOL). The snippets of songs reminds me of Lolita Nation’s little soundscape. The Classic Rock mix at 40:00 or so is pretty great– especially since he would likely have recorded full versions of these songs to create this.

I stopped following Westerberg– who at one point was kind of a personal hero of mine– some time after his second album Eventually in 1996 completely missing his Grandpaboy catalog (BTW: Eventually is available used from Amazon on CD for $0.37!!!!)

Anyway, Paul is a genius and this is an amazing gift to his fans and would-be fans. For $0.49 what are you waiting for?
Download the whole damn thing from Amazon

Update: Likely due to the cover songs included, this has been unceremoniously yanked! He has provided an addendum track called “5:05” at TuneCore that gives us the missing minutes and kind of an explanation.