Scott Lucas & The Married Men – new video, new tour dates

Low budget? Looks like no budget but still an entertaining “life in the van” video.

March tour dates for Local H, April and May tour dates for Scott Lucas & The Married Men. It’s just the cost of doing business these days. The Married Men dates are with Empty Mansions, a new group featuring Sam Fogarino (Interpol), Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard), and Brandon Curtis (Secret Machines).

4/24 Washington, DC- DC9 *
4/25 Philadelphia, PA – The Barbary *
4/26 Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory *
4/27 New York, NY – Mercury Lounge *
4/28 Allston, MA – Great Scott *
4/29 Buffalo, NY – Tralf Studio Stage
5/1 Detroit, MI – Garden Bowl *
5/2 Grand Rapids, MI – Founders Brewery, Co
5/3 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle *

* dates with EmptyMansions

Happy Birthday, Veruca Salt’s ‘Eight Arms to Hold You’

The fine fellas over at the Dig Me Out podcast noted in a Facebook post that Veruca Salt’s second album – and the last featuring Nina Gordon – ‘Eight Arms to Hold You’ was released on this day in 1997.

After releasing the Brad Wood-produced ‘American Thighs’ in 1994, Veruca Salt embraced its inner arena rock dreams and hired Bob Rock (Metallica, AC/DC) to produce their sophomore album. The money was well spent as ‘Eight Arms to Hold You’ is a glossy, sparkly, blistering rock album with songs like “Straight”, “Volcano Girls”, “Shutterbug”, and “Venus Man Trap” that were played in arenas (the band spent time on the road following the release playing hockey and basketball arenas opening for Bush).

It stands in stark contrast to the (intentionally?) lo-fi debut but it’s more of the sound Veruca Salt really wanted to make and it still stands out as one of my favorite fist-pumping rockers.

Happy 16th birthday, ‘Eight Arms to Hold You’.

New Local H video, “Another February”, arrives just in time

Consequence of Sound premiered the new Local H video, “Another February”, today.

As someone who hates winter too, (I know, Fyffo, you don’t hate it) this video hits home.

According to the CoS feature:

“Another February” is the centerpiece of a forthcoming EP. It also includes covers of Rush and The National, as well two alternative versions of cuts from ‘Hallelujah, I’m A Bum.’

Can’t wait.

Everything Everything’s “Cough Cough”

Damn you, crazy Brits for this infuriatingly awesome earworm – it’s like tUnEyArDs-meets-Gotye-covering-Peter-Gabriel. That combination makes my head spin!

Everything Everything’s U.S. debut EP, Cough Cough, is out on Feb.5.

Dates in the U.S. are starting to take shape – LA (3/19) and NYC (3/25) are confirmed as is a SXSW appearance. No word on whether or not there will be more dates but the betting man says there will be.

Happy 30th birthday Pyromania!

We were 6th grade kids, playing tetherball on the school playground. Somebody had an older brother or sister that bought cassettes at Caldor or listened to WPLJ and was into this band from England and spelled their name in a way that confused 6th graders because it didn’t look right. I have to imagine that a lot of us wrote “Deaf Leopard” on our school notebooks until we learned better.

Rush, Van Halen, and Ozzy were established rock bands by 1983, but even though Def Leppard had already released two albums (‘On Through the Night’ and ‘High & Dry’), my friends and I thought ‘Pyromania’ was the band’s debut. And we loved it. We all bought the cassette. We all tried to decipher the opening of “Rock of Ages”, we all wanted sleeveless Union Jack t-shirts and we all started our lip-syncing careers in front of the mirror to songs from this album.

Happy 30th birthday ‘Pyromania!