A new single drops December 11, "Ball and Chain."
Their 2013 album
The Shambles Live at the Casbah is being reissued in January by SNAP Records in an expanded edition, with updated packaging and three bonus tracks as well as some surprises.
In her her seventh Grammy nomination, the British-Indian sitar player and composer has been nominated for Best Global Music Album for
Love Letters.
They were mentioned in the new, rebooted
Animaniacs, season 1, episode 3, with Pinky pondering what would a Steam Powered Giraffe would eat.
Singer-guitarist Frank Lee Drennen and singer Cindy Wasserman have a new single and video for “Revolution In The Garden,” produced by band bassist David J Carpenter. Guests include Matt Lynott of The White Buffalo on lead drums, indie artist Patrick Dennis (lead percussion) and The Section Quartet (strings). The politically charged song (“The voice in our head/The voice on the tube/The voice tellin’ us/We’re all gonna lose”) was written 30 years ago by Drennen and indie rocker Patrick Dennis when they played in a Leucadia duo called The Homer Gunns. "A simple direct to DAT recording was produced by Dave Sharp from the Alarm but never released," says Drennen. "It was written in response to the Bob Dylan song 'When the Ship Comes In,' except ours was a rolling 6/8 folk punk reaction to what the future looked like through our 20-something eyes...we wanted something that sounds epic. Big as life. A sound that reflects the urgency of the lyrics. We wanted a big rock ‘n’ roll sound. We wanted to destroy the idea that Dead Rock West is merely a neat little Americana group from the West Coast."
A new covers album
As If Tomorrow include “Sea of Heartbreak” by Don Gibson, a hit for Johnny Cash, as well as covering famous former neighbor Tom Waits (“Suzanne”), Captain Beefheart, John Denver, Bruce Springsteen, Kris Kristofferson, Big Star, the Kinks, Leonard Cohen, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bob Dylan, and Tim Buckley.
Back in 2010, the defunct Holy Molar -- Bobby Bray, Justin Pearson, and Gabe Serbian of The Locust, Mark McCoy of Charles Bronson, and Maxamillion Avila of Antioch Arrow/Heroin -- released the live DVD
Dentist The Menace, shot by Matt Driscoll (The Pizza Series) on the band's 2003 tour. Driscoll has been unearthing never-before-seen footage from over the years, and now BrooklynVegan is helping him debut ten videos from the 2003 Holy Molar tour, including footage that didn't make it onto the DVD.
Gnade's new pocketsize novel
Float Me Away, Floodwaters is a documentation of the modern American West, of life on the margins of society, in the places forgotten by the city—the honkytonks and interstate campgrounds, the ghosts of cattle-towns, and the desolate strip-malls. According to Gnade, "It’s about ripping all the bullshit from your life and looking for things that make living worthwhile in the midst of poverty, political divisiveness, and a dying empire."
The new solo project from Ricky Schmidt, writer/singer/bassist of Western Settings and writer/bassist in Hey, Chels, drops a solo album called
Palm Trees on November 13. The 11-track album was produced by Tyson "Chicken" Annicharico of Dead To Me, engineered by Brandon Mericle, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and features drums by Shane Hendry and vocals/co-writing by Ricky's partner and Hey, Chels bandmate Jax. Of the album's first single and lyric video for "Escape Artist", Schmidt says, "This song is about needing to step away from the world and allow yourself time away from everything. We all need breaks and especially during a time like the one we are currently all in."
The mod band's seminal "Plan of Action" EP is being reissued by Spain's SNAP! Records on December 1, on black vinyl, blue vinyl, and as a picture disc. It's the first in a 7-inch reissue series from the label, consisting of classic out of print North American mod, powerpop, garage, punk, and rock 'n' roll, releases from the 1970s and 1980s. Others in the first batch are New Jersey's Mod Fun and two bands from Sacramento, the Decibels and the E-Types.
The band has a new
Boneyard EP, which they describe as "Tunes from the crypt, lost gems from the past, back to haunt again. Please enjoy some spookyish songs we used to love to play, but never got their time to shine on our albums. Some dating back to our earliest Cactus Bob origins."
They have a new psychedelic single via Stoopid Records, "See I."
His new single is a jazzy arrangement of the popular song "All I Want for Christmas is You" that features Charles McNeal on sax, James Whiting on vibes, Patrick Hogan on piano, Nick Schmitt on bass, and Jeremy Klewicki on drums.
His first covers album album
By Request contains twelve personally curated covers that traverse decades and genres, includes a cover of the 1970 hit "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps. It's the first album Croce has released since losing his wife of 24 years, Marlo Croce, after a sudden heart ailment, and the first to feature his full touring band: Gary Mallaber on drums (Van Morrison, Steve Miller band), bassist David Barard (Allen Toussaint, Dr. John), and up-and-coming guitarist Garrett Stoner.
By Request also covers Motown artist Shorty Long's “Ain’t No Justice,” Billy Preston’s “Nothing from Nothing,” Neil Young's “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (remade as a gospel track) and Allen Toussaint’s “Brickyard Blues,” as well as piano-driven arrangements of songs by Sam Cooke, the Faces, and more. For the Beach Boys’ “Sail On Sailor,” Croce says “I re-imagined the arrangement, wondering how Willie Dixon would have recorded it if he were on psychedelics.” Robben Ford guests on a version of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee’s “Better Day.”
The third volume of her San Diego-centric cookbook series Listen Local Cooks will be available on November 10.
The band, which combines spoken word and live instrumentation, has spun off a solo single from Brisa L. Johnson, "Ode to the Petty," with a video streaming online directed by Yellow Nguyen.
