Hip. Groovy and tasty like a cold ice cream cone on a hot summer night. Tigersaw, who call Portland, Maine home, are one of those bands that make you feel like taking a long walk under a full moon on a warm summer night.
Ahhh…feel those fresh spring breezes with the hip, catchy grooves from this Portland Maine band that rotates band members to keep things fresh and smooth.
It’s tough not to want to throw on your baddest pair of kicks with your beat up old jeans and get a laid-back strut on. Tigersaw’s refreshing, warm sounds warm you from within.
Visit Tigersaw’s website to find out more about what they are up to and definitely make a point of going to see them live if you get a chance. You can purchase their album online at the Kimchee Records website.
This Soundcentury podcast features The Chills – I Soar > Tigersaw – Kick and Snare, Under the Samba Moon, Distance, Tigers on Fire, The Big Bear Song > Hothouse Flowers – Tell Me.
Every summer my cousins would hold incredible gatherings in a big meadow on their property in Pennsylvania. The afternoon consisted of drinking beer from cold kegs of Yuengling, throwing disk, kickin’ the sack and groovin’ down to all the funky sounds of 90’s jam bands.
A bunch of friends got together and handcrafted a beautiful post and beam rustic stage on one end of the meadow and bands like Grinch and Fat Mama would jam to intimate crowds that often included the folks involved with Phish.
The times were epic. This was a small, classic community music festival full of all the stuff big festivals strive for. A lot of folks have figured out that you can make quite a bit of money from these things. Can anyone say, Bonnaroo?
Small, backyard style festivals are nothing new, and every summer all over the world, meadows in small towns still fill up with beat-up VW buses, home-made stages, poorly tapped kegs, flower dresses, frisbees, dangerous bonfires and dancing dirty feet. It’s just that some of these small backyard shin-digs decide they want lot’s of people they don’t know to show up and pay big bucks to be there.
The Nateva Music and Camping Festival is yet another rookie festival to pencil into your calendar. It is being held in Oxford, Maine July 2nd, 3rd, 4th and is one of the newer fests to hit the North American musical landscape.
It looks like no matter how many actually show up, it will be a rocking time and a great way to spend the 4th of July. According to the Nateva Music and Camping Festival website, “No, this is not the same location as the July 2nd and 3rd 1988 Dead Shows. They performed 3 miles down the road at the Oxford Plains Speedway. This is a much sweeter spot, and not nearly as muddy.”
The other night I was walking down a dark, cold street late at night and down around the bend I could hear something dark and mysterious coming from an alleyway. I had drank a few beers and I was ready to dance…I entered an unknown, loud drinking establishment.
The doors of sound have been ripped off the hinges by Electric Sorcery who routinely electrify Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Towns like Lyndonville, East Burke and East Granville are regularly woken out of their slumber by the by the wicked sound of this power trio.
If you walked into one of their local haunts and you missed the fact they are playing, you are either wearing too thick a wool hat, or you drank way too many beers. They are the kind of band you either dance really hard to, or just stare at in disbelief.
Sounds from far away depths are excavated and thrown around in cosmic swirls weighed down by heavy, dark psychedelia. This is not your momma’s music. In fact, it’s no ones music but Electric Sorcery. They fire branded it on your ass.
Electric Sorcery features: Derek Campbell on guitar, vocals, harmonica, fife and theremin. Michah Carbonneau on drums and vocals. Nathanael Reynolds on bass. Who knew that three people could create such incredible sounds?
Buy Electric Sorcery albums right here. They take donations, but if you are a hoser, and want killer music for free, you can download it at no cost. Just tell your hoser friends about it.
This Soundcentury Podcast Features: Jimi Hendrix – Message of Love>Electric Sorcery – Deeper>Life Goes On>A stitch in 9 Saves Time>The Urge>No Angel>Frank Black – Threshold Apprehension.
Rhode Island has made available $8,395,000 in grants, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), to help fund 25 percent of the upfront costs associated with renewable energy projects for Rhode Island residents, businesses, municipalities, non-profit organizations and academic institutions.
This is good news for Middletown, RI. based Rhode Island Wind Power, Inc., a full service renewable energy company specializing in wind energy and solar systems for home, office and farms.
Owner Tim Hetland, and many others like him are stepping up to the plate creating renewable energy companies that can help us towards a cleaner, greener planet.
In the mountains of northern Vermont grooves the five-piece funk-reggae rockers, the Pulse Prophets who creatively brew up their own unique blend of special reggae sauce.
It’s smooth, unpredictably textured and full of feel-good flavor. It slowly simmers in roots, but it’s full of progressive, far-out spices. You better have a cold beverage, and a cute honey by your side when you hit play, or hit the dance floor. The Pulse Prophets lay it down. Downtown…uptown…anywhere around. After you are done dancing, or if you are a sold multi-tasker, listen to the lyrics. They tell a story often revolved around the plethora of problems plaguing our planet. Yet, revolved around these powerful messages are words of hope, love and peace.
Lead singer Elijah Kraatz lyrics are bursting with soul and wisdom. Rudy Dauth steers the guitar to cosmic new altitudes, and keeps things flowing on harmony vocals. Andric Severance is absolutely radical on the keyboards and synthesizers. Stepping in on the drums and harmony vocals is Rory Loughran, and on the thumping base is JP Candelier. All put together, you get the incredibly original, tight sound of the Pulse Prophets.
This Soundcentury podcast features songs from their album Breathe and Madhouse.
Pulse Prophets Soundcentry Podcast:
Intro: Ziggy Marley – Dragonfly> Pulse Prophets – Did What I Could>Trees>Funk Hop>Breathe>Right Before our Eyes>Disco Party. Ziggy Marley – Good Old Days.
I am not quite sure how bored you would need to get to want to log onto a website to watch 28 wind turbines do their thing, but its now possible to watch New England second largest wind farm live in action.
First Winds 85$ million wind farm project on top of Mars Hill Mountain in Maine has cameras pointed right at it. Each of the towers climb 389 feet towards the sky, and when operating at full capacity the turbines can generate approximately 42 megawatts of power.
This is enough power to run electricity to about 45,000 Maine homes. The Mars Hill Wind Farm helps offset approximately 65,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and over 350 tons of other damaging pollutants every year.
You can watch the turbines fly in the wind by visiting the Mars hill Wind Farm website. While you are there, you can even check out the latest snowmobile trail report, which probably isn’t all that good right now. What a strange, warm winter it has been in Maine.
Here is the new logo that hopefully will remain as the permanent logo for Soundcentury.
Other news…Soundcentury is now primarily focused with the New England Music Scene. Why not? It rocks and I live in Maine. I spent years photographing bands in Vermont and many of these bands will be featured in upcoming podcasts and again, New England rocks. Plus, it’s a big world. There is a shit load of bands out there, and to even attempt to try and stay on top of that is just not happening at the moment.
I am ciked to get down with New England bands in future podcasts. Truly looking foreword to it actually, and it gives this project some focus which is cool. So, thanks to all those subscribed to the podcast. I will do my best to keep delivering a podcast on a weekly basis, and try to keep you all up to date on emerging alternative energy companies that are going to explode in the coming years.
Oh, and I recently upgraded my audio equipment, and so the podcasts are going to be sounding a lot smoother. Thanks for hanging in there for all that annoying feedback that kept happening. Expect future shows to be much better sounding.
I will leave you with a little live Frank Zappa from 1976 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. This funky track is Dirty Love.
Try walking down a busy city street, or stroll through your local grocery and for no more than 30 seconds look around you at the people passing you by. Chances are very good that at least a few of them were punching something into their mobile device, or hugging it to their ear.
Various types of communication devices are everywhere and in order for them to function they need to have power. Batteries can only hold so much juice and electrical outlets are not always at our fingertips.
New Energy Systems Group has looked to the sun and developed a solar mobile charger for a series of iPhone and iPod models for use in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
New Energy Systems Group, a vertically integrated original design manufacturer and distributor of lithium ion batteries and backup power systems recently announced that it has entered into a distribution agreement with A-Solar, a European developer and distributor of solar powered products for charging mobile electronics.
Under the initial one-year agreement, A-Solar will handle the distribution for the solar mobile chargers throughout Western Europe.
Mark LeGrand and his Lovesick Bandits. Photograph by Strainephotography
Honky-tonk by definition is a tawdry nightclub or dance hall. Tawdry by definition means cheap and gaudy in appearance and quality. Mark LeGrand and his Lovesick Bandits are by no means cheap and they certainly do not lack quality, but they have got honky-tonk by the horns and they are picking away at its twangy sound in a style steeped in Americana country roots.
The Montpelier, Vermont based band is a well-known staple in the eclectic, flourishing music scene of the Northeast Kingdom. The Lovesick Bandits feature Mark LeGrand on guitar/vocals, Sarah Munro on vocals, bassist Noah Hahn and lead guitarist/harmony Dan Haley.
It’s difficult not to picture puttering down long, windy dirt roads in the rolling green hillsides of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, while listening to this western-style blend of Vermont roots music. Spacious green fields splashed in wildflowers and dotted with grazing cows fly into your mind.
I shot this photo of Mark LeGrand and the Lovesick Bandits during their performance at the Northeast Kingdom Music Festival in August of 2007. It was a late afternoon set and it got everyone dancing and ready for the night to begin.
Mark LeGrand and the Lovesick Bandits have a number of upcoming live performances throughout February and March in Vermont. Visit their website to find out where they are playing. You can purchase their albums here.
The initial track in this Soundcentury podcast features Robert Earl Keen who will be out supporting the Dave Mathews Band during their summer 2010 tour.
The final track of this podcast features Le Volume Courbe hailing from London, England. The track, Freight Train is beautifully done and I hope to revisit this band for an entire podcast in an upcoming episode.
Le Volume Courbe features Charlotte Marionneau: vocals. Theodore Hall: guitar. Melanie Draisey: violin, glockenspiel, percussion. Philip Smiley: bass guitar, guitar. Wildcat and lasselle lasselles : percussions.
Tracks in soundcentury podcast: Intro: Robert Earl Keen – Feeling Good Again> Mark Legrand and his Love Sick Bandits – The Road home is Long>Shipwrecked Love>When the Lights Turn Low>Nothing Matters> The Volume Courbe – Freight Train
I just discovered this video on the Eames Brother’s bands website, which I thought was very well done. Good audio and video work for sure. They are playing a very soulful version of Stay up All Night and they have drummer Matt Burr, from Grace Potter and the Nocturnal’s, sitting in for the jam.
Vermont is not far from my current home state of Maine, and over the many years I lived in Vermont, I caught the Eames Brother’s Band on many happy occasions. They got the blues going on and truly deliver a sweet-soulful show. They are definitely a band to keep fixed to the radar, and if they end up in a town or venue near you, go see em! You will dig it. They have a show coming up on February 14th, 2010 at the Rusty Nail in Stowe. The show will feature members from the Thievery Corporation.
Try walking down a busy city street, or stroll through your local grocery and for no more than 30 seconds look around you at the people passing you by. Chances are very good that at least a few of them were punching something into their mobile device, or hugging it to their ear.
