18

On my 18th Birthday, my amazing mom assembled a package of many things "18." Among the gifts was Moby's album called, you guessed it, 18. A High School Senior and budding music snob I barely took the time to listen to it. That was 10 years ago. 

Then the other day I decide to listen to it out of nowhere and discover this incredibly appropriate song, considering tomorrow is my birthday. What are the odds? 

Probably 1 in 18.

Moby - Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)

The Sheepdogs: Southern Dreaming, Saskatoon Style

The Sheepdogs (L to R): Sam Corbett, Ewan Currie, Ryan Gullen and Leot Hanson 

Did you know that Canada is the second largest country in the world? You just know a country that big has got to have some secret gems. No, I'm not talking about Ogopogo, the Canadian Lake Monster, I'm talking about our nifty neighbors from up north, The Sheepdogs. 

Hailing from the Potash Capital of the world, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, these feel good troubadours spent their days becoming extremely well versed on the principles and procedures of sweet, sweet Rock and Roll. Now they are touring our side of the border and collecting legions of fans along the way. As #EDAS readers know, music speaks louder than words, so check out the gnarly crunch on this kickin' live performance. 

The Sheepdogs - Who

I was fortunate to meet these guys after their Sold Out show at Mercury Lounge in May and I was instantly hooked. Don't call it Boogie Rock, they tunes they create are closer to  to the time honored tradition of Southern Rock. Their performances pay homage to the Blues and Rock greats, who laid the foundation for their current sound. I bumped into them again at Catalpa and I talked to lead singer Ewan Currie about how he and the guys balance borrowing from the old, with keeping things new.

"If we went out and just played 12-bar blues, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. I like when the Blues influenced Rock and became something else. I think the best music of that era was Blues-influenced, but also incorporated singer/songwriter elements and harmonies. We don't just want to be a Blues Band, or just a Jam Band... You gotta put your own twist it, you can't just go out there and try to be John Lee Hooker or Leadbelly. Those guys already did it, and they did it way better than we'd ever do it if we tried to be like them, so we gotta try and do our own thing."

If have ever tapped your toes to the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Rolling Stones, Derek and the Dominoes or any classic bluesman, you owe it to them to see the next great band in line, The Sheepdogs.

Your opportunity awaits... You can catch them this Saturday, September 22, at the country's most influential concert venue, Bowery Ballroom (Click here for tickets and info). I've included a few additional pictures of their rain-filled performance at Catalpa below. Also, buy their brand new album on iTunes while you're at it.

Now... the fun part, my favorite video of the extended summer. As a former Little Leaguer myself, I find the concept extra hilarious.

The Sheepdogs - The Way It Is

Collective Soul Cat

This amazing cat has been making the rounds. Get him a van and take him on the road.

Collective Soul - Shine

Ben Folds Five Friday

Up until recently, I had never been a fan of Ben Folds. In terms of Singer/Songwriter I had put my energies into much more solemn examples like Elliott Smith, John Lennon, Jim Sullivan and the occassional Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam. My girlfriend however, SWEARS by her adolescence on a copy of Whatever and Ever Amen. When the news broke that Ben Folds Five was reuniting for their first tour since the 1999, I knew I had to buy tickets.

A few weeks ago I burned this album onto a CD and took it on a road trip up to Boston. DAMN was I impressed. Talk about being 15 years late to the party, but in this case (as in most cases) better late than never. Something about the hard percussive piano and raucous fuzzy bass played over jazzy drums just brings Folds' storytelling to a beautiful life. Here are a few jams from one of the better Composers of our generation. 

I am beyond excited for tonight's show in Central Park. 

Ben Folds Five - Underground

Ben Folds Five - One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces

No Need for Words: Ronnie Foster

In a previous EDAS lifetime, I featured instrumental tracks as a "Last Minute" afterthought. It's time they get their own featured header. You can still find the previous wordless jams under the LMI label but from now on they will also be categorized under No Need for Words. Drink up a cup of Mystic Brew.

Ronnie Foster - Mystic Brew

9/11 Part XI

9/11/01 From Space

I'm pretty sure I got all my thoughts out in my rant from last year and the year before it, but there is just something about this September day that make things so painfully somber and introspective. Through this psychosomatic plume, I can barely get my fingers to type and the only thing swirling around in my head is this one line from the refrain of the most beautiful Blind Melon song. 

"I can't tell you how many ways that I've sat and viewed my life today" 

 It just feels applicable.

Strength to all from #EDAS.

Blind Melon - St. Andrew's Fall

Deerhoof Drops Their New Album, "Breakup Song." Will You Catch Their Rebound?

Posted By Megan

Maybe it's because of this lackluster, grey, jungle weather, or the fact that it's Thursday of the longest short week ever, but this new Deerhoof album is precisely what I needed. Breakup Song, released earlier this week is diverse, significantly more accessible than their other work, fun as hell, and a perfect end of summer album. It's all here, from Sleigh Bells-esque grunty guitar riffs in jams like "We Do Parties", "There's That Grin" is dramatic and dynamic and funky with bursts of world drums, airy and sweet vocals from Satomi Matsuzaki on "Fete D'Adieu", vintage sounding sax on the latin vibed "The Trouble with Candyhands", and zonk-out speedy tech bleeps on "Bad Kids to the Front."

My favorite track is "Flower", dancey and catchy as hell with a hook that is straight off a Jackson 5 single.

Catch Deerhoof at Music Hall of Williambsurg on September 17th with Mirel Wagner and the fantastic, gritty and creative Buke and Gase. Tickets here.

Deerhoof - Flower

Full Moon Party with Yacht!

Last night, under the full moon and the best view on this island, Portland duo Yacht played the perfect set at Beekman Beer Garden to celebrate summer’s end. It was fantastic to get my feet in the sand one last time, especially amidst glowing couches, Brooklyn skyline, and a lot of incredibly good looking people. Strong, delicious, dark and stormy’s from event sponsor Sailor Jerry and the perfect weather kept my inner old-lady from kvetching about the late-ish (after 11 p.m. on a school night?!) start time.

The set itself was fantastic - energetic, fun, and significantly more polished than I expected. I mean, just when you think a girlcrush can go no further, Claire L. Evans comes out in ying-yang bike shorts! The set crescendoed with their sing-along anthem, Dystopia, but it was fantastic to hear some older jams. (I’ve been a fan since I heard Yacht remix Hock It by The Blow.) It was an excellent dance party to behold, in the glow of incandescent triangles and the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Check out more pictures on the EDAS Facebook Page

My only gripe? I think it’s so weird that Beekman has bottle service going on on the beach while shows are going on. Serious cognitive dissonance: watching bottles of absolute with sparklers taped to them being served while a Yacht, band who advocates for free technology, and anti-consumerism sings ironically, “We want all that stuff, all that stuff that costs too much.”

All in all an amazing evening. Matte really knows how to throw a party. Yacht really knows how make that party, party HARD!

Do It Til You're Satisfied

Love at first note... It doesn't happen often… but when it does, it’s a very special feeling. Symptoms may include Goosebumps on the arms, butterflies in the stomach, chills down the spine, and the uncontrollable urge to move like you've been hypnotized.

B.T. Express

I fell in love with this song the very second I heard it while sitting in the back of the most influential music class of my life, I just happened to be sitting next to our founding father of EDAS. 

B.T. Express’s debut album of the same title had this effect on millions in 1974 as it spent weeks as the #1 on the R&B charts. The popularity and timing of “Do It” could claim it as disco but to me this leans way towards funk. The song quickly builds from bongos, to a funky guitar riff, to a bass line that speaks the chorus. That chorus tells you to enjoy life, find the things that make you happy, than do it again. Horns and organ join in later to complete the circle of this funk jam.

Stay hungry for the finer things this world has to offer. Art, love, music, friends, nature…. Whatever it is, Do it ‘til you’re satisfied.

B.T. Express - Do It 'Til You're Satisfied

Noah

Noah Novello is a vinyl junkie and live-music enthusiast from Cleveland who enjoys promoting his favorite local venues: The Grog Shop and The Beachland Ballroom. A serious back injury 6 months ago has filled his days with music, morphine, battles with worker's comp, and plenty of time to spend with his best friend Friday, a skateboard-loving Chugg dog (or is it Pughuahua) that he rescued from the streetz.

Kitty Pryde & Lakutis take on Santos

Kitty Pryde will be at Santo's Party House tonight (8/22) and EDAS will be covering of course. Hopefully I'll be basey and not creepy and get to talk to her! Upcoming NYC Rapper, Lakutis will be opening.

Lakutis in the house

Just saw this cat last night at The Moon's 72nd Show at Union Pool. His set was pretty tight considering the audience was mostly white people who do not like rap. Dude opened with Death Shark off his "I'm in the Forrest" EP which was mixed by Lynas at Brooklyn's famed Ishlab Studios.  Next he treated us to a couple new tracks from his up coming album, Body Scream (produced by Ratatat) and Too Ill for the Line (Produced by Kynan Williams). He told me the name of the album but I got drunk and forgot! Whoopsie! 

Keep looking at the site OR JOIN THE BRAND NEW #EDAS FACEBOOK PAGE for pics and a review of the show. Here's today's song, Death Shark.

Lakutis - Death Shark

By  THE BASED DOG

Happy Birthday Charles Bukowski

Happy Birthday Charles Bukowski
1920-1994

I became infatuated with Charles "Hank" Bukowski a little bit ago after reading his first novel Post Office. The book is an ode to a lifetime of menial work. Bukow's barely veiled protagonist works every day in the Postal Center, and his job consists exclusively of sorting envelopes into different boxes. It let me know that there is no escaping hard work. Even if you are spending your life writing about the music you love, you are still just putting things into other things. In fact I believe they just opened a Post Office themed Whiskey Bar in Williamsburg. Maybe I will stop by there tonight on the way to the Buffalo Killers show.

After researching his attitude towards music, I discovered he makes several references to Jean Sibelius, a finnish composer of the Romantic Period. I am not an expert in Classical music, but there is certainly a very special quality to it. If you have a drink tonight, pour a little out for ol' Hank. 

Jean Sibelius - Valse Triste

UPDATE:

After another Youtube search,  I have discovered a fan-made Bukowski tribute video that features one of my absolute favorite songs by one of my absolute favorite groups of traveling minstrels. Here is Dr. Dog with a song that juxtaposes all too well with the guy they called, the Dirty Old Man.

Dr. Dog - The Girl (Bukowski Remixxxx)

Buffalo Killers 8/16 At Glasslands Gallery

Finally my prayers have been answered! Tomorrow night the Buffalo Killers mosey on over to Williamsburg to bring their fuzzed out Cincinnati Rock to the New York audience. Click the epic poster below for last minute tickets and more info. Check out the single "Get It" off their newest album Dig. Sow. Love. Grow

Catalpa Recap // Festival Faces

 

Click Any Photo to view Slide Show

 

Music festivals seem to bring out the inner fashionista (or whatever the male equivalent is) in all of us  and the Inaugural Catalpa Festival was no exception. Just like music, clothing is a form of personal expression. Even with the temporary inclimate weather, some music fans were treating Randall's Island  more like a runway than a concert. Here are some of my favorite characters from the amazing weekend. Click any photo to see a larger slideshow with tons of extras.   

The song today is one of the most high energy performers of the fest, Girl Talk. Needless to say, the crowd really enjoyed his set. 

Girl Talk - Play Your Part (Pt. 1)

Full Moon Fever with YACHT

I have been kicking myself for almost a year for missing Yacht at Dekalb Market's Brooklyn Night Bazaar last fall (It was an epic beach day, in OCTOBER.). (Side note: Can Brooklyn Night Bazaar please come back?) Luckily it looks like I'll have a second chance to see my favorite band on Instagram under the stars and a big ole' moon next month.

YACHT

Beekman Beach Club and Beer Garden will host the LA duo along with Sneaky Sound System and Tesla Boy. The Full Moon celebration takes place on August 30th at the South Street Seaport and is set to  include glammy electro dance jams, fire dancers, delicious food and outstanding views. I am hard pressed to think of a better way to round out summer than dancing with a beer in hand, on a tiny man-made beach under the Brooklyn Bridge, and blaming all of the evening's bad decisions on the lunar phase. You can count me in! Poster and Song below.

YACHT - Distopia (The Earth Is On Fire)

Megan Moore is a grad student with an increasingly serious day job who writes mostly about food, but sometimes about music, and sometimes about food AND music. She thanks her parents for giving her Sand in The Vaseline when she was 7 and one half, and relives the time she drank a girlie gin drink with James Murphy daily.

View more of Megan's work at FoodieCantFail.com