Monday, November 7, 2011

My Quest for New Music (or music new to me)

WOLF-FRIGGIN-MOTHER!!!
So lately I've been jonesing for some new tuneage.  I do this from time to time.  I the past I usually would go on Rhaposdy, type in a band that I liked, and it would come up with related bands.  This is pretty much how Wolfmother got on my radar like 6 years ago.  Well I no longer wish to pay for Rhapsody, so I needed to find an alternative way of finding new music.

A few weeks back I got the idea of going to Wikipedia, typing in the name of a band, or more importantly a musician that I really liked, and clicking the search button.  With the exception of some really obscure musicians I like, most of the time this produces some sort of write up on the history or discography of the musician.  From there I look at side projects, collaboration efforts, and musical influences that I might not recognize the name of.

Marc Ford
Well tonight I did a search on former Black Crowes lead guitarist Marc Ford and started a journey that ended up with some pretty damn good tunes coming out of my computer speakers.

The first thing that caught my eye was a write up on a band called Blue Floyd that Marc was briefly part of.  This band was described around the web as a blues take on Pink Floyd done by members of Gov't Mule, The Allman Brothers, and the Black Crowes..  Say what?!?!?  That's pretty friggin cool.  So I went over to their Myspace page (who knew this even existed anymore?!??!) and played some tunes.

Blue Floyd's album
On their Myspace page, they do covers of Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Wish You Were Here, Interstellar Overdrive and Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun.  In summary, they were pretty cool covers, not deviating too much from the originals with Shine and Wish, but definitely putting a much more bluesy or rocky spin in Overdrive and Controls.  I see on Amazon they have a few live albums that I'm going to have to check out at some time.

Marc Ford's Fuzz Machine
The next band I was introduced to was Fuzz Machine.  This is Marc Ford's latest effort and available only through download on Bandcamp.com.  Luckily they give you a full listen prior to you making the decision to buy it.  The first few songs on the album were pretty raw.  I was reminded of some Izzy Stradlin meets Soul Asylum type material with a lot less production.  It might just be me, but the album got a lot better after track 2 and I really enjoyed the rest of the tunes on there, especially songs like Future Too and The Way It Goes.  There are even a couple jammy songs thrown in there for good measure.  Pretty cool stuff.

Jason Lomheim
The last one I was taken to was this somewhat unknown (to me only?) blues artist named Jason Lomheim who has Marc Ford featured on one of his songs, Steady Rollin Man.  He categorizes himself as "Blues / Soul / Rock with a bit more Roll".  I think the dude is friggin awesome!  His Facebook page says he has an EP coming out late in 2011 and features 4 songs on there.  I'm blown away by the song Hard Time Killin Flo' featuring Jay Buchanan.  It's gritty, bluesy, soulful, and dark....the way blues was meant to be played.  I'll definitely have to be on the lookout for this one.  It's just some good old fashioned rock n roll with some blues guitar thrown in there for good measure.

Anyways, I think I'm going to try to do this a little bit more and write about it here on this blog.  I found some really good tunes tonight and I'm interested in digging a little deeper into what some of these artists/bands have to offer, especially this Jason Lomheim guy.  This is some remarkable stuff that gave me a great night of jamming out in the MacAloney Man Room.

Cheers!
-Brent