We have found ourselves holding t0ugh recently in the court of Joseph Arthur.  Arthur has been on a roll, with his paint-by-music performances and other offerings.  Comes now JA has co-opted Mike Mills (REM) and Bill Dobrow for a new leg of his tour entitled The Ballad of Boogie Christ Act 2.  This band is an animal of a different color, with Arthur, Mills and Dobrow together limning the archetypal blues-boogie-rock trios of the ’60s and early ’70s.  Check it out below when the threesome hits its stride in Pennsylvania last Thursday on I Am The Witness, with Arthur and Mills bouncin’ bass-guitar lines and vocals off of one another.  It’s a throwback pleasure to behold.

“The world is in me, I am not in the world.  There is bliss beyond this world of pleasure and pain.”  Indeed.

Here are the upcoming dates in the East and Quebec for your winter concert enjoyment.

Miraculously, we’ve flipped the December switch and moved into holiday mode.   Each year it seems to get harder and harder.  Last year we were mired in serious Grinchdom until that magical, mysterious tour of Christmas by Sufjan Stevens and his talented elves at the Henry Fonda Theater in LA.  On that night, as he has done for years in December with his Christmas Songs and video offerings, Stevens and troupe brought forth the joy and uplift that the season can, but oft-times doesn’t, entail.  It was one of the Best Concerts of 2012 and definitely the most entertaining of the year (this year’s most entertaining concert award goes hands down to Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express for their show at the Make-Out Room in October–if you missed it, an even more festive possibility is Prophet’s impending New Year’s Eve show at the Starry Plough in Berkeley, CA).  When Stevens and band segued during last December’s show mid-song from Christmas Unicorn into Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, we experienced Christmas catharsis in full.

A year later we covet a return engagement by Sufjan, but it doesn’t seem to be in the offing or in the stocking.  So to survive the season we are listening non-stop to Stevens’ Songs for Christmas Volumes 1-10.  You can stream Volumes 6-10 below with accompanying seasonal background.  Or go to the Silver & Gold widget below it (song 58, Christmas Unicorn, is the Christmas bomb).  ‘Tis the season folks!

And if you’ve been really nice, the coveted Silver & Gold Vinyl Boxset is available anew HERE on Asthmatic Kitty.

As mentioned here previously, Dan Bejar (Destroyer) has released the new Five Spanish Songs EP.  Bejar also appeared last weekend at this year’s Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Holland.  Watch an excerpt of Bejar’s set there below courtesy of 3voor12.  As is his cantankerous wont, in light of the new Spanish language EP Bejar naturally first performs two songs in English (a brand new, untitled one and another from Kaputt) before breaking out one of the new Spanish EP songs Bye-Bye. Check it out below.  We love his savory vocal savoir faire.  You can see videos of other performances at the Festival HERE.

In the Fall of 2012 we managed to catch Band of Horses at the tiny Troubadour in LA, and it was one of the Best Concerts of 2012.  What really wowed us that night were the quieter, acoustic moments and the symbiotic harmonies of the band’s gifted singers.  The Band must have sensed that others also sensed this magic since they are soon to release a new album, Acoustic at the Ryman, which is a 10-song compendium of acoustic renditions of the best of their songs, all as recorded at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium earlier this year.  You can check out the first released track, Neighbor (off of Infinite Arms), below.  After check the album’s tracklisting and the band’s March-April “Acoustic” tour dates.  These will be nights to remember folks.  Don’t you miss ’em.

Track Listing:
1)            Marry Song
2)            Slow Cruel Hands of Time
3)            Detlef Schrempf
4)            Everything¹s Gonna Be Undone
5)            No One¹s Gonna Love You
6)            Factory
7)            Older
8)            Wicked Gil
9)            The Funeral
10)          Neighbor

Tickets go on sale this week for their 2104 Acoustic Tour as follows:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have been seriously remiss.  We don’t know how we missed it, but unbeknownst to us one of our favorite songwriters and performers, Mark Mulcahy (formerly of legendary Miracle Legion) released a critically-acclaimed new album this summer entitled Dear Mark J. Mulcahy.  Based on what we have heard so far from the album, it should be at the top or our and your Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza lists.

Our attention was drawn to our negligence when we discovered a new Fresh Air episode on NPR in which the ever-talented Terry Gross interviewed Mulcahy and Mulcahy performed with his favored collaborationist/guitarist Ken Maiuri.

As we’ve mentioned before, Mulcahy has gone through tumultuous times since his wife passed in 2008 and he was left to raise three-year old twin daughters.  You can here more of his story, some uplifting events in the songwriter’s life, and the new album HERE.  And for heavensake, go buy Dear Mark J. Mulcahy HERE.

Two of our musical favorites, Dawes and opener Blake Mills, are coming to the newly renovated Lobero Theater a week from today.  If you like well-crafted songs, emphatic (but deft) playing and heavenly harmonies, you’re going to want to be at the Lobero next Wednesday.  We have written repeatedly about Dawes and raved in particular about their superb local live sets.  We have also written and interviewed songwriter and outstanding guitar-player Blake Mills.  Given that Mills used to be in a band with Dawes’ Goldsmith brothers, the combination of the two is a particularly potent musical mix. Don’t miss it (you can get tickets HERE).  Who knows, maybe both artists’ pal Jackson Browne will show up?

Both artists have been busy recently, with Dawes helping out The Killers on the latter’s new Christmas benefit song, and Mills coming off a well-received collaborative tour with Fiona Apple.

To view another example of Dawes‘ exemplary live performances, watch below their delivery of Most People (off of their critically-acclaimed 2013 album Stories Don’t End) on Conan last night.

Following on the heels of their fantastic 2011 album Slave Ambient, Philadelphia’s The War On Drugs will release their third  album, entitled Lost In The Dream, on March 18, 2014 via Secretly Canadian.  The album was apparently written and recorded in Philadelphia, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey. The band has made a new song, Red Eyes, from the album available to listen to. Check it out below, followed by the album’s tracklist and their 2014 (mostly) tour dates.

We love this song, with its Springsteen elements and Adam Granduciel’s swagger and emphatic delivery.  Red Eyes bodes incredibly well for the new album.  We can’t wait to get lost in their dream.

Lost In The Dream is available for pre-order now. Red Eyes is available as instant download with pre-order purchase on iTunes.

LOST IN THE DREAM:

1.   Under The Pressure
2.   Red Eyes
3.   Suffering
4.   An Ocean In Between The Waves
5.   Disappearing
6.   Eyes To the Wind
7.   The Haunting Idle
8.   Burning
9.   Lost In The Dream
10.   In Reverse

THE WAR ON DRUGS’ TOUR DATES:
Sat. Dec. 28 – Melbourne, AU @ Northcote Social Club [Tickets]
Sun. Dec. 29 – Wed. Jan. 1 – Hobart, AU @ The Falls Festival [Tickets]
Sun. Dec. 29 – Wed. Jan. 1 – Melbourne, AU @ The Falls Festival [Tickets]
Tue. Dec. 31 – Fri. Jan. 3 – Byron Bay, AU @ The Falls Festival [Tickets]
Mon. Jan. 6 – Sydney, AU @ Oxford Art Factory [Tickets]
Tue. March 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer [Tickets]
Thu. March 20 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom [Tickets]
Fri. March 21 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg [Tickets]
Sat. March 22 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Altar [Tickets]
Sun. March 23 – Chicago, IL @ Metro [Tickets]
Wed. March 26 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater [Tickets]
Fri. March 28 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune [Tickets]
Sat. March 29 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret [Tickets]
Sun. March 30 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom [Tickets]
Tue. April 1 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent [Tickets]
Fri. April 4 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour [Tickets]
Sun. April 6 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah [Tickets]
Mon. April 7 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom [Tickets]
Tue. April 8 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress [Tickets]
Thu. April 10 – Columbia, MO @ The Blue Note [Tickets]
Fri. April 11 – Cincinnati, OH @ 20th Century [Tickets]
Sat. April 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop [Tickets]
Sun. April 13 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom [Tickets]
Mon. April 14 – Toronto, ON @ Legendary Horseshoe Tavern [Tickets]
Thu. April 17 – Boston, MA @ Paradise [Tickets]
Fri. April 18 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club [Tickets]

Having grown up listening incessantly to their formidable Pagan Place and This Is The Sea albums, one of our most highly anticipated sets at this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival was The Waterboys set. Leader Mike Scott and fiddler-extraordinaire Steve Wickham did not disappoint. To get a feel for this great Irish band’s full-band performances on the tour through North America this Fall, check out their set below on KEXP. Mike Scott still moves with his vocals and delivery.  The band recently released a deluxe, seven-disc box set entitled Fisherman’s Box, which you can purchase HERE.  Christmas anyone?

We had encountered various official videos and other performances by Waxahatchee, but hadn’t been able to get beyond the bluster.  So we were pleasantly surprised by the band’s (here, essentially Katie Crutchfield) just-released Tiny Desk Concert from NPR.  The solo acoustic setting finally enabled us to parse her well-formed verses and hear the worth of the songs.

You will be seeing them on lots of Best Albums of 2013 lists for their second album, Cerulean Salt.  Consider this a soft introduction to the band as we continue to wrap our ears around their music.

To get a feel for the full-band versions of their songs, after the Tiny Desk Concert check out the official video for their song Misery Over Dispute, followed by NPR’s capture of their live SXSW set earlier this year.

Tiny Desk Set List:
“I Think I Love You”
“Bathtub”
“Tangled Envisioning”