Here are videos for “I’m Amazed” and “Evil Urges,” the two songs MMJ played in their debut performance on SNL….

MMJ- I’m Amazed (SNL)

MMJ- Evil Urges (SNL)

Download the songs here (courtesy of Mystic Chords of Memory)

Backseat Sandbar turns 1 on May 23rd & we’re having a little party to celebrate. For the occasion,  The Zero Element, Skyscraper Stereo, The Instruction, and DJ duo Azns n Bnzs are going to play at The Pour Haus.  The show is meant to provide a cross section of the Louisville Music scene genre-wise, and we specifically chose each band as the embodiment of this scene…whether you’ve heard of any or all of these guys or not….

For the evening, the already incredibly cheap drinks are going to be even cheaper at $1.25 PBR & $3.25 well drinks. The Instruction is going to head on stage first right at 9. I know its the first band an all….but we only chose bands we really liked and you’d be missing out by coming late. These guys recently won a local “Battle of the Bands” at Headliners. When we met them & received their CD, we were instantly hooked. We reviewed it HERE. Everyone we’ve played the album for asks if it is Matt Berninger of The National singing. Interested? After that, we’ve got The Zero Element. The Zero Element just got two forms of shoutout from People Noise. The first was in our Take 5 series, when Zeke answered that The Zero Element was one of his favorite Louisville bands, and the second was asking them to open last Friday’s show at The Pink Door. Next up is local hip hop heads Skyscraper Stereo who rap about more than guns and drugs, and are known to occasionally do it over 8-bit beats. Lastly, our good friends Azns n Bnzs, whose last show we promoted was the incredible Clay Buffett in March, where they performed alongside Skyscraper Stereo. Cheap drinks, good music, good venue, and free admission should make for an all-around awesome night…

For an idea of how far we’ve come…our first post on May 23rd, 2007 was a youtube video about a talented beer pong player. Louisville has embraced Backseat Sandbar far more than we ever anticipated & we intend to keep going strong….going to more and more shows and doing more and more concert reviews, and bringing all the information that you actually care about to one spot.

We hope to see all of you kids out at The Pour Haus on May 23rd…in the meantime, have a sampling of the talent…

Zero Element- XOR
Skyscraper Stereo- 1up
The Instruction- Hello Darlin’
Azns n Bnzs- Lately Misunderstood

Nashville’s Heypenny is playing at The Pour Haus on May 16th with locals Yardsale and Broadfield Marchers. Under the Rotunda caught Heypenny’s show in Chicago earlier this year and had this to day about their performance:

“As I mentioned just the other day, Heypenny were awesome live. I had never heard of them, but they instantly made me a fan by putting on an infectiously fun live show. Their music is a wonderful blend of jazz, pop, and rock, featuring kooky and upbeat music stylings. There are so many interesting musical fills throughout their songs to keep you more than interested through the length of the song. Not only that, but their songs are catchy as well. You’ll find yourself happily singing along long after the music stops. And you’ll only want to hear more. I promise we’ll be hearing more good things from these gentleman in the future.”

Check out one of their songs below and then come check out the show.

Cover is $5 bucks.

Heypenny- Parade

The first thing I do when I get a new Paste Mag in the mail is flip to the month’s CD sampler and see who is getting hyped.  Picture my surprise when I opened June’s issue (the one with ScarJo on the front) and saw “Laromlab-Return of Da Stomp” listed as Track 9 (squeezed between Flight of the Conchords and She & Him).   Laromlab aka Brandon Harrod, has recently been revealed as a fraud (i.e. he stole all his music from Dubmood, Crazy Q, DMA-SC, Lotek Style and YM Rockerz).   Obviously I saw this as a huge oversight  on the part of the Paste editors, so I dug a little deeper.  In the mag, in the section describing the artists on the sampler, Paste corrected its error, replacing Laromlab with the actual author Crazy Q.  Paste provided the following notice:

“The CD Sampler and Sleeve list track 9 as Laromlab -”Return of Da Stomp.”  At the time of the CD’s pressing, both Paste and MushPot Records believed Laromlab to be this track’s auther.  The real author is Crazy Q and the song is “Local Hero.”  For more info, visit mushpotrecords.com/news.  For original MP3 by Crazy Q, please visit micromusic.net.”

Paste wasn’t the only one riding the Laromlab train.  We contacted him for our “Take 5″ interview series featuring local artists and he was nice enough to answer our questions, even though his fame was built on smoke and mirrors.  You can read the interview here (it is a pretty funny read looking back with 20/20 vision)…

Larormlab Takes 5 for Kentucky

To date, there have been six Terrastock festivals. The first took place in Providence, Rhode Island, in April of 1997; the second in San Francisco, California, in April of 1998; the third in London, England, in August of 1999; the fourth in Seattle, Washington, in November of 2000, the fifth in Boston, Massachusetts, in October of 2002, and the Sixth back in Providence again in April, 2006. Terrastock 7 is scheduled to take place here in Louisville, Kentucky on June 19th -22nd, 2008!!!

Each Terrastock Festival builds on the successes of the previous ones. The events are conceived in a spirit of peace, love and co-operation purely in order to celebrate the music championed by the The Ptolemaic Terrascope magazine and the Terrascope Online web community.

Terrastock is not an indie-rock A&R feeding frenzy. Bands and artists are there at the personal invitation of the organisers because they love their music and they love the way the organizers do things. It’s simply about the music, and about the whole Terrastock spirit.

Tickets

As of May 1st 125 full festival passes remain ($85), so get yours asap. There are also a limited amount of day passes for $25 bucks, but you need to get them before the fest, as they will not be sold on the day of (and probably will be sold out anyway).

You can get tickets here.

Interview with Terrastock Festival Directors:

Interview with Festival Directors Erica Rucker and Rob Codey

Bands and Sample MP3s:

Oneida (sample)
Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno featuring Pikachu (Japan) or Makoto Kawabata (sample)
Rob Sharples (UK)
Ignatz (Belgium)
MV & EE (sample)
Grails (sample)
Plastic Crimewave Sound
Parlour
Hush Arbor
Sleeping Pill (not real name)
Three American Revolution
Simply Saucer
The Entrance Band
Antietam (sample)
Tanakh (sample)
Bevis Frond (UK) (sample)
Wooden Shjips (sample)
Insect Factory
Dead Maids (formerly Monster Bastard, UK)
United Bible Studies (Ireland) (sample)
Linus Pauling Quartet with special guests (sample)
Motorpsycho (Norway) (sample)
The Photographic (sample)
Marissa Nadler (sample)
Mono (Japan) (sample)
Sharron Kraus (UK) (sample)
Bardo Pond (sample)
Pelt
Major Stars (sample)
Windy and Carl (sample)
Kinski (sample)
Paik
Jack Rose (sample)
Tara Jane O’Neil (sample)
Damon and Naomi (sample)
Black Forest/Black Sea (sample)
Sapat (sample)

Venue

The map below shows all three spaces. The market (event room 1, Terrastock Stage 3) is 10,000+ sq. ft. The smaller event room (Stage #2) is 4500 sq ft., and the lawn where Stage 1 is based is ridiculous - probably 20,000 sq ft in total.

Full Schedule (still tentative)

TONIGHT….

Cougar Express w/ Consume Consumer and Amherst

TONIGHT!!!

Scott Weiland, along with thet newly reunited Stone Temple Pilots are coming just across the river, to Caeser’s Casino in Indiana on August 16th. I can’t help but wonder though whether having Scott play at a Casino is a good idea when the man can’t quite seem to control his vices. Not even 2 weeks ago, Scott was arrested for his second DUI & sentenced to 192 hours of community service to be served before May 28th (and their tour starts in 8 days!). Not to mention his drug use…

That said, growing up in the 90s, Stone Temple Pilots is one of my all-time favorite bands. Albums like Core, Purple and to a lesser extent, Tiny Music were all fantastic albums. I think allegiance to STP and changing personal preferences never really let me appreciate supergroup Velvet Revolver.

That’s why I’m glad to see this 10 year hiatus come to a close. The suddenness of it all is what is so shocking…it was just over a month ago that word had gotten out that Velvet Revolver was breaking up (and some pretty hilarious in-fighting via blogging to go along with it) & already a full-length STP tour is set to go in just over a week. Sounds like a cheating girlfriend…but I’m perfectly ok with it…Scott belongs with STP anyway…

STP - Interstate Love Song

We are a little late in getting this one up, but better late than never. Brett Dennen came back to town for the second time this year (Brett Dennen was just here last month playing the Hard Rock Cafe) to help celebrate Derby Week with WFPK and crowd of people gathered at Waterfront Park. If I had to guess, most people there were to see Mason Jennings playing later that night, or just there to partake in the festivities. Brett came on stage to a luke warm applause and a few hoots from a largely seated audience. I was interested to see how Brett would perform in front of such a large audience, as I had only seen him in more intimate venues (i.e. The Dame and Hard Rock Cafe). A lot of his show revolves around interaction with the audiences and we were separated by a pit of 5-10 feet and a stage that was about 8 feet off the ground. It was clear that his visits to major festivals such as Langerado, SXSW and Coachella paid off because Brett was right at home on the large stage and looked just as comfortable as he did sitting in a chair in front of 20 people. Song after song the number of people standing and dancing increased until the entire area in front of the stage about 10 people back were on their feet. He made people laugh, clap, and sing-a-long. Of the three times I have seen him, this was my favorite. I’m glad so many people got the chance to see Brett and hopefully become a new fan. Brett has shown that he likes to play in Louisville, so I don’t doubt that he will be back. The video below turned out really well (minus my shaky hand…think Blair Witch Project), so check it out for a taste of the performance…

Brett Dennen- Ain’t No Reason

Brett Dennen -”She’s Mine” (plus a few comments on the Derby festivities)

More pics below the break…

Videos of MMJ playing Evil Urges Live

Evil Urges Album Art and Track List

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges (Live)

My Morning Jacket - 2008 Tour Dates
06/20: New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
08/16: Louisville, KY @ The Great Lawn at Louisville Waterfront Park
08/18: Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theatre
08/19: Council Bluffs, IA @ Stir Cove
08/21: Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheater*
08/23: Dallas, TX @ Palladium Ballroom
08/24: Austin, TX @ Stubbs
08/27: Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre-Atlanta
08/29: Miami, FL @ The Fillmore Miami Beach@ the Jackie Gleason Theater
08/30: Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues- Orlando
08/31: Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues- Myrtle Beach
09/02: Charlottesville, VA @ Charlottesville Pavilion
09/03: Washington, DC @ Constitution Hall
09/05: Philadelphia, PA @ Festival Pier @ Penn’s Landing
09/06: Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion
09/19: Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
09/21: Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
09/23: Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee
09/24: Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint
09/25: San Diego, CA @ SDSU Open Air Theater
09/27: Portland, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield
09/28: Seattle WA @ McCaw Hall
10/02: Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre
10/03: Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
10/04: Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
10/09: Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
10/10: Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre

All dates are “An Evening with Morning Jacket” except * = w/The Black Keys

Zeke Buck of People Noise  took a few minutes to answer a few questions. Zeke, of course, was one of the founding members of VHS or Beta, but decided to leave in 2006 to start up People Noise with longtime friend Matt Johnson (of Boom Bip). These guys have put together a continuous series of exhaustive tour after exhaustive tour since their inception and emergence as People Noise, setting a perfect example for how to make a name for yourself in the oversaturated music market of today.  You might imagine that 10+ years in VHS or Beta might cause one’s “new direction” to lend itself heavily to the style he’d grown accustomed to in VHS or Beta, but that isn’t the case at all.  Not to mention Matt Johnson, having spent years sharing the stage with the likes of LCD Sondsystem and other disco-punk bands.  Instead, these guys have gone from disco to shoegaze DIY noiserock…and it is incredible…

These guys will be playing this year’s Forecastle Festival, but in the nearer future, they’ll be playing this Friday at the Pink Door along with The Zero Element (who you’ll see mentioned below) and Six White Horses.

Why trust us? You can get the debut album, Ordinary Ghosts, as a free download, or you can just check out their first single, The Killing Fields

Questions

1. What neighborhood did you grow up in?

Grew up in the highlands. 2200 Village Dr. A great place for block parties and big wheeling. Matt grew on Long Fork out between two hollers, riding horses & catching crawdads.

2. When did you start playing together? Did you have a different band name?

Had a few ideas for band names but none of them seemed to work really well. Started playing together about 12 years ago, but only fairly recently as People Noise

3. First show you played in Kentucky (plus any details you remember about it)?

We were lucky enough to land the show at the Brown Theater w/ TV on the Radio. A little worried preparing for it since it was nearly our first show as a band but it turned out pretty well.

4. First show outside of Kentucky…how did you book it?

I started booking a lot of shows before the record was completed in order to force a deadline for everything. Plus there’s always a million reasons why being on the road isn’t practical. I spent about 3 months building a database of venues and promoters and just went from there. If any Louisville bands are looking for help outside of the city, have them myspace me with their email and I can send them some over. I’d hate to have anyone else have to deal with that work load.

5. Favorite Kentucky band?

My Morning Jacket, Wax Fang & Joe Manning, plus we’ve got a great friend and ex-guitarist in Zero Element. Louisville never seems too short with good bands though.