Technology, for all its advantages can be a real pain in the ass. I have just spent the last 90 minutes trying to connecting to a network that may or may not exist anymore.
I miss the days when a dj simply had to drop a needle on a piece of wax and turn up the volume.
Anyway, without further adieu, here was my playlist for the week.
You can always listen live on 100.3 Sound FM every Friday at 6:30 (EST)
Drag The River - Having A Party (From Bad At Breaking Up)
Joe Strummer & The Mescalaros - Silver and Gold (From Street Core)
Tex Ritter - Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie (From Blood On The Saddle)
Neko Case - South Tacoma Way (From Furnace Room Lullaby)
The Old 97's - Old Familiar Steam (From Wreck Your Life...And Then Some)
Rumbleseat - Trestles (From S/T)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Fallen Angels - We Run (Dan Padilla Split)
Street Dogs - The General's Boombox (From State Of Grace)
The Gaslight Anthem - I'da Called You Woody Joe (From Sink Or Swim)
The Clash - Tommy Gun (From Give 'em Enough Rope)
Condo Fucks - The Kid With The Replaceable Head (From Fuckbook)
The Gruesomes - The Witch (From Hey!)
Jay Reatard - It Ain't Gonna Save Me (From Watch Me Fall)
The Cramps - Zombie Dance (From Songs The Lord Taught Us)
The Evaporators - Gassy Jack (From Gassy Jack & Other Tales)
The Vindictives - ... And The World Isn't Flat Anymore (From The Many Moods Of The Vindictives)
The Replacements - Alex Chilton (From Pleased To Meet Me)
Archers Of Loaf - Greatest Of All Time (From Vee Vee)
Superchunk - Detroit Has A Skyline Too (From Here's Where The Strings Come In)
Samiam - Super Brava (From Astray)
Jawbreaker - Chesterfield King (From Biovac)
Crime In Stereo - Bicycles For Afghanistan (From The Troubled Stateside)
The Loved Ones - 100K (From S/T 10")
The Lillingtons - You're The Only One (From Death By Television)
The Riverdales - I Will Make It Up To You (From Storm The Streets)
The Mr. T Experience - Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba (From Love Is Dead)
Tiltwheel - Texas 10 (From Hairbrained Scheme Addicts)
Witches With Dicks - Fuck All Lindseys (From Manual)
Nothington - This Conversation Ends (From Roads, Bridges & Ruins)
Fucked Up - No Epiphany (From The Chemistry Of Common Life)
Friday, March 26, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Topic Of Conversation - March 19, 2009
Here is tonight's set list.
Remember, you can always listen online at Sound FM starting at 6:30 (ET) of Fridays.
Remember, you can always listen online at Sound FM starting at 6:30 (ET) of Fridays.
Fugazi - Turnover (From Repeater)
Jawbreaker - Big (From Biovac)
Leatherface - Diego Garcia (The Stormy Petrel)
Mission Of Burma - 1,2,3 Party (The Sound The Speed And The Light)
Superchunk - Detroit Has A Skyline Too (From Here’s Where The Strings Come In)
Sinkhole - Burning, Itching, Irritation (From Space Freak)
Archers of Loaf - Web In Front (From Icky Mettle)
The Super Friendz - Karate Man (From Mock Up-Scale Down)
The Smugglers - Especially You (From Selling The Sizzle)
Thrush Hermit - North Dakota (From Sweet Homewrecker)
Violent Femmes - What Do I Have To Do (From S/T)
Cub - Pillow Queen (From Box of Hair)
Shonen Knife - Top Of The World (From The Birds & The B-Sides)
No Bunny - Somewhere New (From Love Visions)
The Sonics - He’s Waiting (From Boom)
The Ugly Ducklings - Hey Mama (Keep Your Big Mouth Shut) (From Somewhere Outside)
The New York Dolls - Personality Crisis (From S/T)
The Riff Randells - (I Wanna Be Your) Maitre D’
The Supersuckers - That Is My Rock n’ Roll (From Hai Karate Split 7”)
Teenage Bottlerocket - Not OK (From It Came From The Shadows)
The Mr. T Experience - Thank You (For Not Being One of Them) (From Love Is Dead)
The Groovie Ghoulies - Lookout, Here Comes Tomorrow (From Monster Club)
Naked Raygun - Bughouse (From Understand)
Hot Water Music - Trademark (From Fuel For The Hate Game)
American Steel - Love & Logic (From Destroy Their Future)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck - Survival & Defeat (From Goodbye Debris EP)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck - Hollow Graves (From Goodbye Debris EP)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck - Orphans Of A Storm (From Goodbye Debris EP)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck - Brooklyn, NY (From Goodbye Debris EP)
Propagandhi - Dear Coach's Corner (From Supporting Caste)
Until next week...
Frank Turner @ The Horseshoe Tavern
At is appears in Razorcake:
If there is one stereotype of Toronto audience’s over the years, it is that they don’t dance. They don’t sing. They just stand around, tap their feet, and try to look cool. It is something I have heard countless times, and like most stereotypes, there is a basis for it.
By in large, Toronto, being Canada’s biggest city, it is also one of its most self conscious. I am not sure whether it has to due with kids not wanting to ruin their new shoes, purchased from boutiques on Queen St. West, or whether it has to do with a general complacency from knowing that bands will always come, regardless of how enthusiastic the crowd is.
The fact is, Toronto is one of this country’s touring stops. If a band is to play north of the 49th parallel, they usually, if not always, stop in Toronto. Go to a show in any other smaller city, and the crowds are much different. Gone is the Canadian politeness, and in its place, by in large, is an audience auditioning for another concert; for another tour.
The point of all this is simple. If you are in Toronto, and you happen to actually find a show with an emerged, and engaged crowd, you take note. It will likely be a concert to remember.
On January 26, 2010, England’s Frank Turner was lucky enough to see one of these crowds.
Playing the legendary Horseshoe Tavern as part of local radio personality, Dave Bookman’s, weekly indie-concert series, Turner put on one of the best sets I have seen in a very long time.
For years now, every Tuesday night, the ‘Shoe—as it is typically referred to—opens its doors up, free of charge, and puts on a show of up-and-coming artist. Usually the bands that play don’t become huge, but upon occasion, you can see someone who is about to break. It was the case when The Strokes played before Is This It was released, and it was the case when Turner took the stage.
By the time I got to venue, it was about half packed, but by the time Newmarket’s Cavaliers! finished their set, the bar was as packed as I have ever seen it.
Turner hit the stage, acoustic guitar in tow, and jumped into “I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” from his great record Love, Ire & Song. It was obvious from the first note of that song that the show was going to be something special. The last time he was in Toronto, Turner was opening for the Offspring at an outdoor amphitheater, so this was essentially the first show he ever played for his fans.
The crowd pushed forwards, fists in the air, singing as loudly as any I have ever heard before. At points, I was literally five feet from Turner, and I had a hard time hearing him sing. People weren’t just singing, they were letting go of everything they had. It was the easily the most passionate crowd I can ever recall seeing.
Turner’s set list played heavily on Ire as well as his 2009 release Poetry of the Deed, much to the chagrin of some of his older fans wanting to hear songs like “Once We Were Anarchists” and “Casanova Lament”
“I guess some people think I take requests!” Turner joked.
He didn’t miss a step all set. Between songs he joked about the origins of his songs and maintained his control over the crowd, even going as far as pulling a member of the audience on stage to play harmonica.
Having just come in from England the day before, Turner talked about suffering from jet lag. If he was, no one noticed. He played folk music with a fury reserved for hardcore bands.
By the time he got to his cover songs, he could have just about played anything, but the true showman he is, he sang, acapella, a three-hundred-year-old, English folk tune, and pandered to the Canadian crowd by jumping into his take on The Weakerthans’ “Watermark”
In all, he played most of his last two records, and did eventually play a few older tracks to satisfy everyone, before closing the set off with “The Ballad of Me and My Friends.” Before the song, he talked about wanting to get everyone singing in unison, because, as he put it “music isn’t about a singer with an ego complex”.
That night, we sang, we drank, and we celebrated. Music, love, death, and freedom were all on display, with Turner leading the orchestra.
After his set, the exodus began, even though there were two bands to play. I am not sure how many people stayed, but after Turner, it would be hard task to follow up with anything that good.
Leaving the bar that night, my voice was strained, but I felt great. It was the release that was needed to get me through another week of mindless labor.
Here’s to hoping he comes back soon.
If there is one stereotype of Toronto audience’s over the years, it is that they don’t dance. They don’t sing. They just stand around, tap their feet, and try to look cool. It is something I have heard countless times, and like most stereotypes, there is a basis for it.
By in large, Toronto, being Canada’s biggest city, it is also one of its most self conscious. I am not sure whether it has to due with kids not wanting to ruin their new shoes, purchased from boutiques on Queen St. West, or whether it has to do with a general complacency from knowing that bands will always come, regardless of how enthusiastic the crowd is.
The fact is, Toronto is one of this country’s touring stops. If a band is to play north of the 49th parallel, they usually, if not always, stop in Toronto. Go to a show in any other smaller city, and the crowds are much different. Gone is the Canadian politeness, and in its place, by in large, is an audience auditioning for another concert; for another tour.
The point of all this is simple. If you are in Toronto, and you happen to actually find a show with an emerged, and engaged crowd, you take note. It will likely be a concert to remember.
On January 26, 2010, England’s Frank Turner was lucky enough to see one of these crowds.
Playing the legendary Horseshoe Tavern as part of local radio personality, Dave Bookman’s, weekly indie-concert series, Turner put on one of the best sets I have seen in a very long time.
For years now, every Tuesday night, the ‘Shoe—as it is typically referred to—opens its doors up, free of charge, and puts on a show of up-and-coming artist. Usually the bands that play don’t become huge, but upon occasion, you can see someone who is about to break. It was the case when The Strokes played before Is This It was released, and it was the case when Turner took the stage.
By the time I got to venue, it was about half packed, but by the time Newmarket’s Cavaliers! finished their set, the bar was as packed as I have ever seen it.
Turner hit the stage, acoustic guitar in tow, and jumped into “I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous” from his great record Love, Ire & Song. It was obvious from the first note of that song that the show was going to be something special. The last time he was in Toronto, Turner was opening for the Offspring at an outdoor amphitheater, so this was essentially the first show he ever played for his fans.
The crowd pushed forwards, fists in the air, singing as loudly as any I have ever heard before. At points, I was literally five feet from Turner, and I had a hard time hearing him sing. People weren’t just singing, they were letting go of everything they had. It was the easily the most passionate crowd I can ever recall seeing.
Turner’s set list played heavily on Ire as well as his 2009 release Poetry of the Deed, much to the chagrin of some of his older fans wanting to hear songs like “Once We Were Anarchists” and “Casanova Lament”
“I guess some people think I take requests!” Turner joked.
He didn’t miss a step all set. Between songs he joked about the origins of his songs and maintained his control over the crowd, even going as far as pulling a member of the audience on stage to play harmonica.
Having just come in from England the day before, Turner talked about suffering from jet lag. If he was, no one noticed. He played folk music with a fury reserved for hardcore bands.
By the time he got to his cover songs, he could have just about played anything, but the true showman he is, he sang, acapella, a three-hundred-year-old, English folk tune, and pandered to the Canadian crowd by jumping into his take on The Weakerthans’ “Watermark”
In all, he played most of his last two records, and did eventually play a few older tracks to satisfy everyone, before closing the set off with “The Ballad of Me and My Friends.” Before the song, he talked about wanting to get everyone singing in unison, because, as he put it “music isn’t about a singer with an ego complex”.
That night, we sang, we drank, and we celebrated. Music, love, death, and freedom were all on display, with Turner leading the orchestra.
After his set, the exodus began, even though there were two bands to play. I am not sure how many people stayed, but after Turner, it would be hard task to follow up with anything that good.
Leaving the bar that night, my voice was strained, but I felt great. It was the release that was needed to get me through another week of mindless labor.
Here’s to hoping he comes back soon.
Friday, March 12, 2010
A date with Frank Turner
In January, Epitaph recording artist Frank Turner stopped by Toronto, and we sat down a night after a raucous concert at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
Below is a piece I have done for !Earshot Magazine:
Everything is coming up Frank Turner
English punk-tuned-folkie Frank Turner didn't trade in his punk attitude when he took up the acoutic guitar
Photos and Story By Scott Thomson
Frank Turner has had a string of great fortune, all the result of hard work, since his old band Million Dead broke up in 2005. Over the past three and a half years, the English singer-songwriter, who is currently on a U.S tour with veteran celtic-punks Flogging Molly, has released three full-length records, one EP, various seven inches, toured the world countless times, and in 2009, signed to the iconic independent punk label Epitaph Records. It's a pace he is not sure he will be able to maintain.
“I have done an album a year, for the last three years, and I don’t think I am going to be able to keep that up.” he said, while ordering a burger in a local Toronto joint. “I am going to make up for that by releasing two next year.”
Tired from a night of drinking and performing at Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Turner provided some insight towards how 2011’s plans are shaping up. “I want to do an album (of his personal material) and I have an idea of doing an album of traditional English (folk) songs. No unlike what Springsteen did with the Seeger Sessions.”
My mom still thinks that the day I got into Iron Maiden was the beginning of the end.
“There is a lot of traditional English music, most people don’t know anything about it at all.” he said. “It is one of the lesser known brands of folk music and it is my cultural heritage, so I am interested in it.”
Outside of his extensive touring, he will spend part of 2010 working on a dvd, which should be released later in the year.
Turner, a self professed lover of history, grew up in a house without the influence of rock and roll, or even folk music, which may seem strange based on the style of music he plays now.
“My parents are into classical music and are of the general opinion that music ended around the 1820’s.” he said. Eventually, however, Turner’s expose to modern music started to change. “I grew up with metal. I got into Iron Maiden and then everything went downhill from there.”
“My mom still thinks that the day I got into Iron Maiden was the beginning of the end.”
He said his love of folk was something that just developed.
“I just started listening to a lot of more acoustic and folky, county, singer-songwriter type stuff.” he said “I am intrigued by the history angle to it (folk music) because history is my other passion in life. I was a late comer to everything. Stuff like Dylan, for example. I didn’t have that status in popular music of the 20th century growing up. I came at everything from the wrong angle.”
Eventually, Turner’s exposure to Iron Maiden led him to punk rock, where he fell in love with Black Flag, going as far as tattooing their iconic four-bar symbol on his wrist.
After playing with the post-hardcore band Million Dead for around five years, he started writing what has since become a rather large collection of solo material, and while the music may not be as aggressive as his former band, he is hardly shying away from his connection to punk.
“Punk rock is like Catholicism.” he says. “If you are brought up in it then you will never escape it. Even at those times when you are totally un-punk, you are still defined by punk.
Turner says he doesn’t “have any problem with that.”
“At the end of the day, I have a lot of love for it and what it stand for. It taught me how to play, how to tour and how to live.”
Yet, there are days when he tires of the genre and the culture that surrounds it.
“There are days when I get bored of it.” he said. “Particularly the message boards, or certain message boards, that shall remain nameless. They get fucking tiresome after a while.”
“The thing that I dislike about punk the most is punk rock guilt.” he goes on to say. “As much as it wasn’t supposed to be this, in origin, and everyone says it isn’t, there is a degree where punk rock makes you feel guilty for being successful. I really hate that because I want to be successful and I am fucking proud of being successful.”
Turner has toured the last few years almost exclusively in the punk rock circuit, acting as an opener for many bands, and has seen some of this backlash from fans firsthand.
““When Gaslight (Anthem) played with Springsteen people were flaming them about it and I thought, what the fuck is wrong with you people? My response to it was that someone from our corner, our little scene is on stage with Bruce Fucking Springsteen. Let’s throw a party.”
His response to those fans: “Just fuck off. Call me back when you don’t live in your parent’s basement.”
Yet even with this discontent he still has many positive things about the genre.
“I am slightly wearing of saying this because I don’t want to be so chauvinistic about my musical origins, but, the friends of mine who grew up with indie rock, now have a lot of records and a lot of work.” Turner said. “The kids who grew up with punk rock have a lot of records, but they also have an ethos about how the world should be. I think that is really really cool.”
He said he first picked up a guitar at the request of his sister, who wanted him to learn songs so she could sing along with.
“In 1993, when August and Everything After by The Counting Crows came out, which I still think is one of the best albums ever done. My sister really liked it, and wanted to sing along to it, so she made me learn it.” He said. “It is basically how I learned how to play guitar, playing along to that record. I definitely would say the feeling I got doing that is the feeling I want to create now.”
Co-operative music and crowd interaction is a big part of Turner’s live show. At the Toronto gig the evening before, Turner did not have his backing band with him. Instead he pulled a member of the audience on stage to assist with the harmonica playing, while he got the remainder of the audience to sing along to the words.
“I liked being the person with the guitar, because it was like I was the facilitator. It was leading the congregation in a way, which to me is a cool way to look at music. It is a thing that you can experience. When I play a show, I don’t want it to be ‘everyone shut up and fucking listen,’ ” he said.
When people sing along and connect with the music, he said “it becomes transcendent. Then it becomes interesting. It is not a monologue. Monologues are boring.”
He does admit that his music can turn some people off. “I am not complaining but I seem to be somebody who people are either fucking into or they are not,” Turner says. “People don’t seem to be so-so.”
Turner, who has spent a large portion of the last few years on the road, has plans to do much of the same in 2010.
““My (current) tour schedule runs to middle May. The most exciting part about that for me is going to Australia” He said. He is on the Revival Tour, which is a semi-annual tour featuring a variety of solo acts by members of punk bands. The Australian tour will feature Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan, Avail singer Tim Barry, Lucero’s Ben Nichols, as well as Turner. “Everyone says that Australia is the promised land of touring. Once you tour there you never want to tour anywhere else.”
As for his current tour, with Flogging Molly, he will have his backing band with him on the road, which is the first time he has ever done that. Turner said the band played a large part in making his 2009 record Poetry Of The Deed.
“I always feel like there is two approaches with backing bands.” He said. “There is the Dylan and Neil Young approach, which is really ramshackle, and whatever, whenever and then there is the E Street band. It is a set lineup that is totally drilled, with mercury precision type of band. I am much more the Springsteen type and so the guys I play with are amazing musicians. They are almost better then me!”
He says that playing solo, him and his guitar, is “the skeleton” of what he does. “It will be nice to have them (the backing band) around.”
When asked if fans can expect a different style of show when the full band is on stage, Turner said they “don’t wear matching costumes and do pyro. Yet”
Turner said that he “loves touring” and looks at the old American blues musicians, who would spend 300 days a year on the road, for inspiration.
“I just had three weeks off, which was the most amount of time I have had off in six years and the first week was great.” he said. “After that, it was like ‘Agghh, get me the fuck out of here’. It can be stressful and it means that you cannot have a normal love life but it is also indescribably awesome as well.”
Touring, he said “is like being a pirate. You travel from place to place reaping and pillaging.”
On the Billy Bragg Comparison:
“I don’t like seeing myself as just being a sound alike for an artist. I must say, Neil Young, and After The Gold Rush, plays a much bigger part in my sound then Billy Bragg does. As much as I love Billy Bragg, and I really do, we stand pretty far away from each other, politically speaking.”
“My point is, Billy Bragg is an influence on me, and he is also great, and I am happy people say Billy Bragg rather then going around the world having James Blunt put as a reference. I am not really going to complain about it too hard.”
Below is a piece I have done for !Earshot Magazine:
English punk-tuned-folkie Frank Turner didn't trade in his punk attitude when he took up the acoutic guitar
Photos and Story By Scott Thomson
Frank Turner has had a string of great fortune, all the result of hard work, since his old band Million Dead broke up in 2005. Over the past three and a half years, the English singer-songwriter, who is currently on a U.S tour with veteran celtic-punks Flogging Molly, has released three full-length records, one EP, various seven inches, toured the world countless times, and in 2009, signed to the iconic independent punk label Epitaph Records. It's a pace he is not sure he will be able to maintain.
“I have done an album a year, for the last three years, and I don’t think I am going to be able to keep that up.” he said, while ordering a burger in a local Toronto joint. “I am going to make up for that by releasing two next year.”
Tired from a night of drinking and performing at Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Turner provided some insight towards how 2011’s plans are shaping up. “I want to do an album (of his personal material) and I have an idea of doing an album of traditional English (folk) songs. No unlike what Springsteen did with the Seeger Sessions.”
My mom still thinks that the day I got into Iron Maiden was the beginning of the end.
“There is a lot of traditional English music, most people don’t know anything about it at all.” he said. “It is one of the lesser known brands of folk music and it is my cultural heritage, so I am interested in it.”
Outside of his extensive touring, he will spend part of 2010 working on a dvd, which should be released later in the year.
Turner, a self professed lover of history, grew up in a house without the influence of rock and roll, or even folk music, which may seem strange based on the style of music he plays now.“My parents are into classical music and are of the general opinion that music ended around the 1820’s.” he said. Eventually, however, Turner’s expose to modern music started to change. “I grew up with metal. I got into Iron Maiden and then everything went downhill from there.”
“My mom still thinks that the day I got into Iron Maiden was the beginning of the end.”
He said his love of folk was something that just developed.
“I just started listening to a lot of more acoustic and folky, county, singer-songwriter type stuff.” he said “I am intrigued by the history angle to it (folk music) because history is my other passion in life. I was a late comer to everything. Stuff like Dylan, for example. I didn’t have that status in popular music of the 20th century growing up. I came at everything from the wrong angle.”
Eventually, Turner’s exposure to Iron Maiden led him to punk rock, where he fell in love with Black Flag, going as far as tattooing their iconic four-bar symbol on his wrist.
After playing with the post-hardcore band Million Dead for around five years, he started writing what has since become a rather large collection of solo material, and while the music may not be as aggressive as his former band, he is hardly shying away from his connection to punk.
“Punk rock is like Catholicism.” he says. “If you are brought up in it then you will never escape it. Even at those times when you are totally un-punk, you are still defined by punk.
Turner says he doesn’t “have any problem with that.”
“At the end of the day, I have a lot of love for it and what it stand for. It taught me how to play, how to tour and how to live.”
Yet, there are days when he tires of the genre and the culture that surrounds it.
“There are days when I get bored of it.” he said. “Particularly the message boards, or certain message boards, that shall remain nameless. They get fucking tiresome after a while.”
“The thing that I dislike about punk the most is punk rock guilt.” he goes on to say. “As much as it wasn’t supposed to be this, in origin, and everyone says it isn’t, there is a degree where punk rock makes you feel guilty for being successful. I really hate that because I want to be successful and I am fucking proud of being successful.”
Turner has toured the last few years almost exclusively in the punk rock circuit, acting as an opener for many bands, and has seen some of this backlash from fans firsthand.
““When Gaslight (Anthem) played with Springsteen people were flaming them about it and I thought, what the fuck is wrong with you people? My response to it was that someone from our corner, our little scene is on stage with Bruce Fucking Springsteen. Let’s throw a party.”
His response to those fans: “Just fuck off. Call me back when you don’t live in your parent’s basement.”
Yet even with this discontent he still has many positive things about the genre.
“I am slightly wearing of saying this because I don’t want to be so chauvinistic about my musical origins, but, the friends of mine who grew up with indie rock, now have a lot of records and a lot of work.” Turner said. “The kids who grew up with punk rock have a lot of records, but they also have an ethos about how the world should be. I think that is really really cool.”
He said he first picked up a guitar at the request of his sister, who wanted him to learn songs so she could sing along with.
“In 1993, when August and Everything After by The Counting Crows came out, which I still think is one of the best albums ever done. My sister really liked it, and wanted to sing along to it, so she made me learn it.” He said. “It is basically how I learned how to play guitar, playing along to that record. I definitely would say the feeling I got doing that is the feeling I want to create now.”
Co-operative music and crowd interaction is a big part of Turner’s live show. At the Toronto gig the evening before, Turner did not have his backing band with him. Instead he pulled a member of the audience on stage to assist with the harmonica playing, while he got the remainder of the audience to sing along to the words.
“I liked being the person with the guitar, because it was like I was the facilitator. It was leading the congregation in a way, which to me is a cool way to look at music. It is a thing that you can experience. When I play a show, I don’t want it to be ‘everyone shut up and fucking listen,’ ” he said.
When people sing along and connect with the music, he said “it becomes transcendent. Then it becomes interesting. It is not a monologue. Monologues are boring.”
He does admit that his music can turn some people off. “I am not complaining but I seem to be somebody who people are either fucking into or they are not,” Turner says. “People don’t seem to be so-so.”
Turner, who has spent a large portion of the last few years on the road, has plans to do much of the same in 2010.
““My (current) tour schedule runs to middle May. The most exciting part about that for me is going to Australia” He said. He is on the Revival Tour, which is a semi-annual tour featuring a variety of solo acts by members of punk bands. The Australian tour will feature Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan, Avail singer Tim Barry, Lucero’s Ben Nichols, as well as Turner. “Everyone says that Australia is the promised land of touring. Once you tour there you never want to tour anywhere else.”
As for his current tour, with Flogging Molly, he will have his backing band with him on the road, which is the first time he has ever done that. Turner said the band played a large part in making his 2009 record Poetry Of The Deed.
“I always feel like there is two approaches with backing bands.” He said. “There is the Dylan and Neil Young approach, which is really ramshackle, and whatever, whenever and then there is the E Street band. It is a set lineup that is totally drilled, with mercury precision type of band. I am much more the Springsteen type and so the guys I play with are amazing musicians. They are almost better then me!”
He says that playing solo, him and his guitar, is “the skeleton” of what he does. “It will be nice to have them (the backing band) around.”
When asked if fans can expect a different style of show when the full band is on stage, Turner said they “don’t wear matching costumes and do pyro. Yet”
Turner said that he “loves touring” and looks at the old American blues musicians, who would spend 300 days a year on the road, for inspiration.
“I just had three weeks off, which was the most amount of time I have had off in six years and the first week was great.” he said. “After that, it was like ‘Agghh, get me the fuck out of here’. It can be stressful and it means that you cannot have a normal love life but it is also indescribably awesome as well.”
Touring, he said “is like being a pirate. You travel from place to place reaping and pillaging.”
On the Billy Bragg Comparison:
“I don’t like seeing myself as just being a sound alike for an artist. I must say, Neil Young, and After The Gold Rush, plays a much bigger part in my sound then Billy Bragg does. As much as I love Billy Bragg, and I really do, we stand pretty far away from each other, politically speaking.”
“My point is, Billy Bragg is an influence on me, and he is also great, and I am happy people say Billy Bragg rather then going around the world having James Blunt put as a reference. I am not really going to complain about it too hard.”
Friday, March 5, 2010
Topic Of Conversation - March 5, 2009
It’s Friday. It’s beautiful outside. LETS HAVE SOME FUN TONIGHT.
Here’s what I played tonight:
LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends (From Sound Of Silver)
The Handsome Furs - Radio Kaliningrad (From FACE CONTROL)
Windom Earle - Kitten V. Pegasus (From Gold Wave)
The D’Ubervilles - We Are The Hunters (From We Are The Hunters)
The Dwarves - Over You (From Come Clean)
Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (From Hidden World)
Gwar - Hate Love Songs (From 7” Single)
Black Flag - Jealous Again (From The First Four Years)
D.O.A - Slumlord (From Hardcore 81)
Circle Jerks - World Up My Ass (From Group Sex)
Leatherface - God Is Dead (From The Stormy Petrel)
Naked Raygun - Bughouse (From Understand)
The Bomb - The Rescue (From Speed Is Everything)
Dan Padilla - Mamie Is Free (From Split w/ The Tim Version / Hidden Spots / Tiltwheel)
The Loved Ones - Drasitc (From S/T 10”)
Tiltwheel - Boat In Boiling Water ((From Split w/ The Tim Version / Hidden Spots / Dan Padilla)
Latterman - If Batman Was Real, He Would Have Beaten The Crap Out Of My Friends (From S/T)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Fallen Angels - I Know I Said I Loved You, But I Guess I Don’t (From Ain’t It Funny...)
Nothington - Where I Stand (From S/T)
The Parasites - Real Real Good Time (From Solitary)
Teenage Bottlerocket - Without You (From They Came From The Shadows)
The Queers - Debra Jean (From Love Songs For The Retarded)
Pinhead Gunpowder - Once More Without Feeling (From Goodbye Ellston Avenue)
Squirtgun - Social (From S/T)
Junior Battles - Basements (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Major Label Bidding War (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Update Your Resume (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Roads? Where We’re Going We Definitely Need Roads (From S/T 7”)
Here’s what I played tonight:
LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends (From Sound Of Silver)
The Handsome Furs - Radio Kaliningrad (From FACE CONTROL)
Windom Earle - Kitten V. Pegasus (From Gold Wave)
The D’Ubervilles - We Are The Hunters (From We Are The Hunters)
The Dwarves - Over You (From Come Clean)
Fucked Up - David Comes To Life (From Hidden World)
Gwar - Hate Love Songs (From 7” Single)
Black Flag - Jealous Again (From The First Four Years)
D.O.A - Slumlord (From Hardcore 81)
Circle Jerks - World Up My Ass (From Group Sex)
Leatherface - God Is Dead (From The Stormy Petrel)
Naked Raygun - Bughouse (From Understand)
The Bomb - The Rescue (From Speed Is Everything)
Dan Padilla - Mamie Is Free (From Split w/ The Tim Version / Hidden Spots / Tiltwheel)
The Loved Ones - Drasitc (From S/T 10”)
Tiltwheel - Boat In Boiling Water ((From Split w/ The Tim Version / Hidden Spots / Dan Padilla)
Latterman - If Batman Was Real, He Would Have Beaten The Crap Out Of My Friends (From S/T)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Fallen Angels - I Know I Said I Loved You, But I Guess I Don’t (From Ain’t It Funny...)
Nothington - Where I Stand (From S/T)
The Parasites - Real Real Good Time (From Solitary)
Teenage Bottlerocket - Without You (From They Came From The Shadows)
The Queers - Debra Jean (From Love Songs For The Retarded)
Pinhead Gunpowder - Once More Without Feeling (From Goodbye Ellston Avenue)
Squirtgun - Social (From S/T)
Junior Battles - Basements (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Major Label Bidding War (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Update Your Resume (From S/T 7”)
Junior Battles - Roads? Where We’re Going We Definitely Need Roads (From S/T 7”)
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