Anything that keeps Woody Guthrie alive and kicking against the pricks of this world is fine by us. Hence, our instant affection for New Multitudes, a super group of sorts with an eponymous album of lyrics from Guthrie’s unpublished works they’ve put to new music. The band is comprised of Will Johnson (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel), Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Anders Parker (Varnaline), and Yim Yames (My Morning Jacket). While the album is plenty nice, it seems the songs are really growing in the live setting, as witnessed by this video from Philadelphia’s Union Transfer shot earlier this month by DI super pal Jake Krolick. We love the freakout about three minutes in, especially when it shifts perfectly to slow-mo, image dancing with sound, a celebration of change instead of fear of it.
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These nice young men are Megafaun, a truly stellar forward-minded rock combo that dips into all sorts of music really. You can read more about them and their thoughts on music making here, and you’re just missing out if you don’t dig into their albums and live shows with lusty gusto. They’re so nice that when DI asked them to flip us off for posterity they didn’t hesitate for a moment even though they’re much too sweet to do this sort of thing normally. We have a groovy love thing that started in a Stanford dorm a few years back (though none of us were students or residents) that only grows year by year, leap by bound. Like we said, groovy, babies.
Megafaun
In this edition: Theo Bleckmann, I See Hawks In L.A., The Phantom Halo Band, Bruce Springsteen, Isidore and Earth.
Railroad Earth wears their souls close to the surface. One picks up on a faint incandescence to them when they inhabit a stage, some internal poetry emerging through their bodies and flowing out of their instruments. Suzy Perler captures this glow nicely in her photos of RRE’s performance at the Best Buy Theater in NYC.
Setlist:
Set I: Mighty River, Saddle Of The Sun > Head, The Good Life, For Love, Right In Tune, The Hunting Song > Hard Livin’
Set II: Happy Song, Seven Story Mountain, Chains, Daddy-O, Elko, Potter’s Field, 1759 > Goat, Any Road, The Green Roofs Of Eireann > Like A Buddha > El Cumbanchero
Encore: Everything Comes Together
The best cover tunes tilt familiar material on its ear, offering us new angles on what we thought was well-trod space. Bunny West does just that with this piano and voice reinvention of Iron Maiden‘s signature tune. In West and Brother Sal‘s capable hands, the fist pumping original is transformed into what might have been an Elton John-Bernie Taupin 70s Native American themed number. If this is West’s calling card, we’re definitely interested in hearing more. Folks in Los Angeles can catch Bunny West live on March 17th at 12 pm at The Econdite as part of their St. Patrick’s Day shindig.
This gathering of fingered force occurred backstage at The Fillmore in SF during ALO’s recent gig. On the left, Bo Carper of New Monsoon, in the middle it’s Dirty Impound’s Head Water Buffalo Dennis Cook, and on the right you’ll find Bay Area roots-rocker Huckle. All three love the banjo, the song stylings of ALO, and copping an attitude for ace photographer Susan J. Weiand. Y’all can catch New Monsoon at The Fillmore this Saturday, March 10, when they open for another DI fave, Railroad Earth.
Bo Carper, Dennis Cook, Huckle by Susan J. Weiand
Two-wheeled sons & daughters of the road – non-gas powered variety – gather ’round for the Sons of Science got some mad lingo to ring ya ears.
Sharing my aggression is what that I do
Every day I’m riding the ‘Tour de Fuck You’
Banging on hoods and kicking in fenders
a right-of-way-aholic on a permanent bender
Pick up the song for, well, a song here, and prepare to chuckle. Anyone who’s spent a little time in a college town or San Francisco or New York City is gonna feel this one.
In this edition: Punch Brothers, Black Country Communion, Pop. 1280, The Men, Terry Malts and John Wesley Coleman.
