The year’s almost at an end, rock stars but here’s another Dirty Glitter with Brody Ramone-review. We’re up to part 7 my High Voltage Magazine-recap of artists to re-discover, the artists and songs that I selected for play. Are you ready? Here we go:
Dirty Glitter 5/30/2013 Edition:
Terraplane Sun: “Get Me Golden”
How can five guys who occupy space in the beachfront city of Venice, CA possibly tap into a river of south of the Mason-Dixon line-sound blended with California sun and soul without sounding- what’s the word…ridiculous? Well, that’s Terraplane Sun for you. Ben Rothbard, Johnny Zambetti, Cecil Campanaro, Lyle Riddle and Gabe Feenberg describe themselves as “blues indie rock folk dance soul”; their sound is a little vintage, a little timeless and a lot of awesome as they truly do flesh out blues, indie rock, folk, dance and soul with full blown musicality and a refined rawness that translates wonderfully from record to their live shows which- whether they’re rocking a local show or on tour with Imagine Dragons- are flat out electric and virtuosity on on display. Here’s there’s sunshine of a track, “Get Me Golden,” which was featured in the 21 Jump Street redo and in a national CitiBank commercial.
Great White Buffalo: “Thanks For Nothing”
For some reason what Graham Bockmiller, Stephen Johnson, Blake LaGrange, and Rich Carrillo aka Great White Buffalo do seems almost effortless and in its ease is the pleasure of listening. Hopefully that makes sense because with Graham’s textured vocals, the choice hooks and melodies and the lyrically well-crafted songs, Great White Buffalo are just a little too solid for their own good. They’ve followed up last year’s four-song Tightrope EP with a self-title one composed of six tight as a drum rockers produced by Grammy winner Phil Allen (Aerosmith, Adele) that stand up to anything that any indie rock band- LA based or otherwise- has dished out in the past year. to check out those songs, see their Bandcamp for further. In the meantime, get to grooving and rocking with Great White Buffalo and “Thanks For Nothing.”
Trixie Whitley “Never Enough”
Trixie Whitley may only be 25 years old but her life experiences have brought a wisdom far beyond her age. Born in Belgium, she’s the daughter of the acclaimed late bluesman Chris Whitley and those genes have passed on some immense talent as she’s been a DJ, a dancer, a waitress…most before she was even old enough to vote. A multi-instrumentalist equally comfortable with a guitar or behind a drum kit, Trixie’s fiercest tools are her songwriting and her voice which is stunningly soulful, haunting, emotive and- also- belies her age. So much so that the one and only Daniel Lanois (who has produced Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and some of U2’s best work) tapped Trixie to be the voice of a collaboration project called Black Dub. Her full length debut album, Fourth Corner, was released in April and shows off what makes this lady so darned special. From that album, this is “Never Enough.”
Vanaprasta: “NineEqualsNine” (honorable mention)(I. Love. This. Band. So. Hard.)
Vanaprasta is Sanskrit for a person who lives in the forest as a hermit after giving up most material desires. It’s also the name of one of my absolute favorite local bands. Based in Echo Park, CA, Vanaprasta are all about dynamic musical elements that shape-shift from psych guitar rock to disarming soul to blues progressive and shamelessly back again carried by Steven Wilkin’s flexible and arena-worthy vocals: he was, after all, an opera singer as a child. Along with Taylor Brown, Collin Desha, Cameron Dmytryk and Ben Smiley, these guys are ambitious with Pink Floyd-ish experimentation to Zeppelin-ish guitar to full blown prog, and yet they aren’t afraid of tripping a little weird. While indie rock is their game, this track, “NineEqualsNine,” is a game-changer due to the lush and sensual current of R&B that runs through it and the song title is indicative of their fascination with numbers, shapes and patterns in life. They’re in the studio working on album #2 as we speak (and I cannot wait for it) but this track is from their 2011 debut, Healthy Geometry.