Lollapalooza is happening this weekend in Chicago.  Most of the festival is now streaming HERE.  Crystal Castles are on right now. Our anticipated highlights are Band of Horses (at 5:30 Pacific on Friday), Local Natives (at 2pm Pacific on Saturday), The National(at 4:00pm Pacific on Saturday), Alt-J (at 3:30pm Pacific on Sunday), Vampire Weekend (at 5:00pm on Sunday) and Phoenix (at 8:15pm Pacific on Sunday).  You’ve been warned. Enjoy.

We love everything we’ve heard from Athens, Georgia’s Futurebirds. They wowed us in May with their jangle-y performance of Serial Bowls off of their resonant recent album, Baba Yaga (review upcoming).  As we wrote before, their sound is a masterful mix of real country (assisted by the pedal steel playing of Dennis Love and the four vocalists’ discernible twangings), harder rock elements and four-part harmonies.  And their lyrics are just like we like ’em:  oblique, but evocatively heavy, and left largely to the listener’s interpretation/application.  Now comes their performance of Death Awaits live in-studio for HearYa.com below.  Listen in to this sad-but-true song that will appeal to fans of My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, Neil/Crazy Horse and others.  Afterwards, you can download mp3’s from the HearYa session for free HERE.  By all accounts, the band shines brightest live.  They are just finishing up a leg of their tour and will head back out in September.  Check out the dates HERE.

Check out a song excerpt from the upcoming Live at the Artists Den performance by The National. Watch below as the augmented band performs This Is The Last Time from their fantastic album Trouble Will Find Me.  Superb, as usual.

One of our favorite indie bands, Deer Tick, is set to release its first new album since 2011 with Negativity on Partisan Records on September 24th.  To get a feel for their new songs, watch  an endearing unplugged version of their song The Dream’s In The Ditch from the album (for Esquire nonetheless).  After, check out the recorded version just released by the band.  And at bottom, watch the  official video for big-band (with horns no less!) rocker The Rock released last month.  All bodes positively well for Negativity.  Uh, something like that.

Atoms For Peace’s worldwide tour in support of their album AMOK is in full swing.  You can watch the band’s shows and download tracks courtesy of Sound Halo. For a sample, check out Thom, Flea, Nigel and the boys below in full tilt on Harrowdown Hill as recorded live in London last week.  The song explodes from the four-minute mark on.  They play the Santa Barbara Bowl on October 17th.  Be there or be atomized.

Turns out it’s Location Day.  To go with the Kopecky Family pool room video, we’ve got video below of the talented Solange (Knowles; you know who’s sister) performing her song Bad Girls in a Brooklyn laundromat.  As we’ve written before, this Knowles can sing!  And move.  And David Letterman concurs.

We’ve written previously about the copacetic Kopecky Family band. Now comes another compelling vignette of the band performing for Out Of Town Films.  The session was filmed in an indoor hotel pool room after WXPN’s XPoNential Festival got flooded out last Sunday.  Another perfect reverb sound chamber to echo their great song Are You Listening? off of their latest album Kids Raising Kids (which you can listen to HERE).  Check it out below.  They’re playing all over California starting next week on August 10th at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival.  Check out the tour dates HERE.  They’ll also perform on The Tonight Show (Chin-O) tomorrow night.

Recent events have put us in the doldrums and left us wallowing in nostalgia in July’s dwindling days.  As we’ve said repeatedly (to the oldster wankers in particular), this is a dangerous mode (you know, that “he not busy being born is busy dying” thang).

Nonetheless, here we go again.  We promise to come current near-term.  But back in the mid-’70s New York City was busy birthing punk rock.  One band that contributed mightily to the movement was The New York Dolls (more about them another time), out of which came The Heartbreakers and their mainstay, Johnny Thunders.  Thunders was a raging three-chord rock n’ roll guitar player who lived life hard, modeling himself after his hero Keith Richards.  Another dangerous mode.  Sadly (and predictably) Thunders would die of an overdose in 1991, but along the way he churned out albums that after-the-fact stood as storyboards for his demise via heroin.

The apex of Thunders’ discography would come in 1978 with his album So Alone, which was recorded with rock-stalwarts Chrissie Hynde, Phil Lynott, Peter Perrett, Steve Marriott, Paul Cook, and Steve Jones.  The album’s masterpiece is the song You Can’t Put Your Arms Round a Memory, a stark ballad in which Thunders chillingly foreshadowed his own demise.  Yep, it’s been that kind of week.

Nonetheless, the song is sensational, and one which deserves to be covered by more artists (that weak-sauce version by Guns ‘n Roses doesn’t come close to doing it justice).  Musically, the song is quintessential Thunders, with its devil-may-care, attitudinal guitar-playing and world-weary vocals.  One of our favorites of all-time.  Check it out below.  The lyrics follow the song.

“It doesn’t pay to try,
All the smart boys know why,
It doesn’t mean I didn’t try,
I just never know why.
Feel so cold and all alone,
Cause baby, you’re not at home.
And when I’m home
Big deal, I’m still alone.

Feel so restless, I am,
Beat my head against a pole
Try to knock some sense,
down in my bones.
And even though they don’t show,
The scars aren’t so old
And when they go,
They let you know

You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
Don’t try, don’t try

You’re just a bastard kid,
And you got no name
Cause you’re living with me,
We’re one and the same

And even though they don’t show,
They scars aren’t so old
And when they go,
They let you know

You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
Don’t try, don’t try

You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
You can’t put your arms around a memory
Don’t try, don’t try”

Musicians are beginning to pay their respects to the masterful JJ Cale, who passed away last week.  Below are fine examples from Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses and long-time Tom Petty guitar-player Mike Campbell.  Clearly Mr. Cale, you are sorely missed.

Ben Bridwell (Band Of Horses) (emphasis added):

“JJ Cale is my hero. John Weldon Cale was still making great music well into his 70’s, which makes it even sadder to hear of his passing. To lose a dude as cool as Cale is not only a loss for fans of great music, but a loss for those who rail against egoism and pompousness. The fact that he was still creating incredible albums in his 70’s that rival any of his earlier work adds an extra sting for his many devoted fans. I beg you to check out his 2009 album Roll On.

Just the other day, I was wondering when we might get a new batch of J.J. Cale songs. Sadly, that is no longer possible, but the great news is that we are left with a trove of incredible records to carry on with.

If you are new to J.J. Cale’s music or want to educate yourself further, I’ve added this playlist of some of my favorite J.J. Cale music. This is my personal mix tape that I made for myself a couple years ago: http://spoti.fi/12t6Rq2

Some of the tracks weren’t available, and I skipped some of the obvious big songs for my own enjoyment. If this gets people riled up enough to whine, “Where’s ‘Cocaine’?” then that’s just funny as hell.

I once interviewed Mr. Cale for FILTER Magazine. That was the most nervous I hope I’ll ever be. He was so incredibly cool, smart, and sweet about doing it. Let his answers resonate in your soul here: http://bit.ly/1e6EsWx

Also [below are] a couple J.J. covers our band has done. If anybody has us covering “Don’t Go To Strangers” from Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa in 2012, please post it!

Leaving in the Morning:

Thirteen Days:

I’m forever indebted to Sam Beam for turning me on to J.J.’s songs.

Roll On J.J. Cale,

-Ben”

And from Mike Campbell (pictured at top, on the left and playing with JJ Cale and Tom Petty), long-time guitar player in Tom Petty’s band (emphasis added):

“Losing JJ Cale is losing an American musical treasure.  Always under the radar, he has been, and will always be, a huge inspiration to me and the band.

Luckily, I had the pleasure of playing with him several times.  He was always gracious and treated me like a friend.

Whenever I listen to music, it is nearly always one of his records.  He had a gift for the sweetest groove, the sweetest guitar phrase, and the coolest lyrics- understated, but deep.  “I’m not a homeless man – I’m a gypsy by trade and I’m traveling this land” is one of my favorites.

His guitar tone and touch were magical in their simplicity.

I will miss him terribly, but I cherish all the music he left for us.

Thanks, JJ, we love you.

-Mike Campbell, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers”