I love Lost. A lot. I've been one of those fans that drives their friends nuts with their theories of how it ties all together, and have been since the beginning. But, the thing about Lost, you see, is that the DVR is our friend. SO, when Sondre Lerche comes to town in support of his new record, Heartbeat Radio, then I set Lost aside (for a brief time), go see Sondre rock out by his solo self at the House of Blues, thoroughly enjoy it while occasionally wondering if the bomb that Juliet set of at the end of season five really did reset the timeline.

I've had the opportunity to see Sondre before, and you can hear recordings of this show from Houston supporting his brilliant first record, Faces Down, back in 2003, and this show supporting the two records he released in 2007, Phantom Punch and Dan In Real Life.

Well the new record doesn't disappoint, possibly his strongest contender since Faces Down, featuring his signature pop melodies and some nifty production (check out the video for If Only below.)



I wasn't sure if the tour was going to be full band Sondre, or solo Sondre. Solo is what we got, and it was interesting to hear the new tracks sans all other instrumentation. The good news is that Sondre keeps it interesting, with slightly different variants of the track to play up the solo nature.

Check him out if he's coming near you on this tour - great date option. Side note, his opening band JBM (Jesse Marchant) was also excellent. I'd never heard of him before - check out his site and be sure to show up early.

Tour Dates:
The Parish Austin, TX 02/03/10
The Meridian Houston, TX 02/05/10
The Parish at the House of Blues New Orleans, LA 02/06/10
Club Downunder Tallahassee, FL 02/08/10
The Social Orlando, FL 02/09/10
The Earl Atlanta, GA 02/11/10
Workplay Theatre Birmingham, AL 02/12/10
12th & Porter Nashville, TN 02/13/10
The Old Rock House St. Louis, MO 02/15/10
Record Bar Kansas City, MO 02/16/10
The Varsity Theatre Minneapolis, MN 02/17/10
Lincoln Hall Chicago, IL 02/19/10
The Frequency Madison, WI 02/20/10
Shank Hall Milwaukee, WI 02/21/10
Mac's Bar East Lansing, MI 02/22/10
Majestic Cafe Detroit, MI 02/23/10
Zanza Bar Louisville, KY 02/25/10
Club Cafe Pittsburgh, PA 02/26/10
Castaways Ithaca, NY 02/27/10
Carnegie Hall Manhattan, NY 03/02/10
Johnny Brenda's Philadelphia, PA 03/04/10
Rock & Roll Hotel Washington, DC 03/05/10
Maxwell's Hoboken, NJ 03/06/10
City Winery New York, NY 03/23/10

Labels: dallas, house of blues, sondre lerche, tour dates

If you've never heard of Bitter:Sweet you've been missing out. To crib their own self-description, "Portishead meets Zero 7 with a bit of Serge Gainsbourg and Everything But The Girl mixed in for good measure." That's a decent start, but doesn't even begin to describe how good they are.

What's surprising is how many people have actually heard Bitter:Sweet without even knowing that they've heard Bitter:Sweet. This studio duo has been featured on... everything including TV, movies, commercials, theme songs, and when you hear them you realize why. They are silky, sexy, smooth, jazz, trip-hop, rolled into the most sultry songs you have ever heard.

Shana Halligan provides vocals/lyrics, and Kiran Shahani, produces and writes the music. Kiran was previously in Supreme Beings of Leisure, another fun electronic band.

Check out their MySpace for a taste of their studio recordings, then immediately go out, or log on, and buy their debut album, The Mating Game, savor it for a while, then buy their follow-up, Drama. While at their MySpace be sure to check out the non-album Serj Tankian version of Drama... Good stuff.

The good news is, that they are just as good live. I had a chance to check them out in Dallas last year at the House of Blues Cambridge Room, and it was the perfect venue to watch Shana strut up and down the stage in a captivating evening gown, singing her heart out, and hypnotizing every man in the room. We were with a pretty big group, and everyone, guys and girls, left a happy camper.

Here's a couple of tracks from the show - looking forward to them coming back to Texas!

Live MP3 MP3s:
Moving Forward
The Bomb

Labels: dallas, house of blues, indie, live mp3s, soundboard mp3s

Quick note for the evening.

This was an extremely random but welcome recording. We were walking between venues at SXSW in 2009, and my wife wanted to pop into Design Within Reach, an extremely nice (and pricey) furniture store.

Being that it was SXSW, there was a singer-songwriter playing an acoustic guitar in the store, and while my wife wandered around to look at furniture, I recorded local Austin artist Mandy Rowden performing her track, Sweet, that came out quite well!

Check out Mandy at her website and hope you enjoy the song.

Live MP3 MP3s:
Sweet

Labels: austin, live mp3s, mandy rowden, sxsw

Quick post on the 2009 SXSW set from O+S, the Birmingham, Albama based band from Orenda Fink (of Azure Ray, Little Red Rocket, Art In Manila) and Cedric LeMoyne (bassist from the still amazing, wish-they-would-get-back-together Remy Zero.)

I'd had previous, extremely pleasant, encounters with both Orenda (check out this Azure Ray recording from 2004) and Cedric at previous live shows (in fact if it wasn't for Cedric, one of my favorite live recordings of all time wouldn't exist... listen here), and was pumped to hear they had formed a new band, O+S (O plus S) whose record was going to come out the week after their SXSW performance - buy it here.

To be honest, I would have much preferred to hear them at another venue at SXSW, as the club they played at was extremely dark and didn't have the best set up - but they still managed to play a great set, and I wouldn't have missed it (in fact we had to catch a little bicycle cab to make it the 10 blocks from Cedar Street Courtyard to make the show).

Here's my favorite track from the show.

Side note - the picture above is one of my favorite photos that I took at SXSW in 2009.

O+S O plus S Live MP3 MP3s:
Lonely Ghosts

Labels: austin, indie, live mp3s, o plus s, o+s, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

Another SXSW 2009 set from Austin Texas, this time from Los Angeles based rockers, Great Northern, featuring vocalist/guitarist Solon Bixler (formerly of 30 Seconds to Mars) and vocalist/keyboardist Rachel Stolte.

I'd had the pleasure of seeing Great Northern play at Good Records in 2007 (set here) and was a big fan of their first record, Trading Twilight for Daylight, especially the track "Low Is A Height" which I still think is one of the most beautiful tracks of the last five years.

Their SXSW set exclusively featured tracks from (at that point in time) their forthcoming record, Remind Me Where The Light Is... After all SXSW is primarily intended to be showcases for press, distributors, etc.

Enjoy!

Great Northern Live MP3 MP3s:
Intro
Story
Houses
Fingers
Snakes
Warning
Numbers
Mountain
Outro

Labels: austin, cedar street courtyard, great northern, indie, live mp3s, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

Here's the companion show to the N.A.S.A set from this year's SXSW set. Another sweet afternoon DJ set from the Filter showcase at Cedar Street Courtyard.

Flosstradamus (as you can see from the pic) are two DJs from Chicago - J2K (Josh Young) and Autobot (Curt Cameruci). It was a fun set - about 10 minutes in a spontaneous circle formed in the crowd and a couple of guys started break dancing, fairly impressively I might add. Not something you see often in Austin at SXSW... at least not at the shows I attend!

Flosstradamus Live MP3 MP3s:
Flosstradamus SXSW 2009 Cedar Street Courtyard Set

Labels: austin, cedar street courtyard, flosstradmus, live mp3s, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

N.A.S.A (North America, South America) is heading out on a US mini tour this month (see tour dates below) and so I thought I'd post their Austin Texas SXSW set at Cedar Street Courtyard from earlier this year.

As I'm sure you can guess from the photo above - the set was awesome, and hilarious, all at the same time. I can safely say that I have never, ever been to a show before where a couple of girls who were covered in green make-up, in bikinis, gyrated on stage to a couple of DJs mixing and mashing tracks on stage.

Oh, and it all starts off with one of the greatest sci-fi samples of all time. Nice.

Live MP3 MP3s:
N.A.S.A SXSW 2009 Cedar Street Courtyard Set

Tour Dates:
8/11 Reno, NV @ Nikki Beach
8/12 Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey
8/13 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Gallivan Center
8/14 Denver, CO @ Beta w/ Hollywood Holt
8/15 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
8/20 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

Labels: austin, cedar street courtyard, indie, live mp3s, N.A.S.A, soundboard mp3s, tour dates