Dirty Glitter 2013 In Review: The Record Company, Louis London, Ceasefire, Mona & James Bay

Here we are nearing 2013's end and isn't this the by-the-book time of the year for year end lists and stuff? Best ofs, worst ofs, highlights, lowlights and trends that- for better or worse- defined this annual cycle. Get ready for the inevitable onslaught of references to blurred twerking and if that's what you're looking forward to, then you'd best look elsewhere. No really, fuck that noise, it's a waste of time and space.

It's been a full year of a rock solid collaboration between High Voltage and WGBU-FM's radio show Dirty Glitter hosted by the fantasatical Brody Ramone. What began as an experimental hook-up every Thursday night (8pm PST/11pm EST) turned out to be a brilliant match because our goals just happened to be in perfect alignment: helping listeners find their new favorite band or artist. We're all about new music discovery that's worth getting excited about as opposed to pushing/promoting artists who are already established and on the map. Seriously, I love Queens of the Stone Age and Soundgarden as much as the next person, but they don't need a damned thing from me as far as coverage when Rolling Stone and NME are underfoot. It's the creative and diverse sonance being made underneath what is on the Top 40/Billboard charts, mostly by bands/artists who are still busting their asses at club shows, still hustling for your *Like* on Facebook, slinging their own merch and deserve to be heard. So we try and get you to hear them.

So here's the first in a series of recaps of the songs and artists that I personally selected for our High Voltage segments on Dirty Glitter w/ Brody Ramone this year.

November 21, 2013
The Record Company- "Baby I'm Broken"
We're paying a return visit to the Los Angeles blues/rock revivalists that High Voltage loves called the Record Company because Tuesday (Nov. 19th) brought a new EP from the trio called Feels So Good. By nature of the seasoned musicians that they are, Chris Vos, Marc Cazorla and Alex Stiff do fantastic work in honoring the old school but are finely adept at freshening it up and serving it new with hearty rock and soul. As is tradition with the blues, love is hard work so here's Chris wailing on his harmonica and guitar while Marc on drums and Alex on bass are the rhythm of trying to do right with "Baby I'm Broken."


Louis London- "We're Not Alone"
From Sydney, Australia we have the 5-piece pop/rock outfit, Louis London. Relatively young in band-years, Ed Saloman, Nick Ingall, Karl Fernandes, Jack O' Donnell and Jack Kiddell conceived Louis London in 2010. In 2012 their debut EP, On Your Lips We Roared, did just that with tracks like "Hardly Hear You" putting the band on the music radar in Australia with great song structures and Saloman's soaring and flexible vocal style. Their second EP called The Big Deep came out Nov. 11th and from that EP, here's "We're Not Alone."


Ceasefire- "Wake Up"
From Orange County, CA we have Ray Alexander (vocals), Kamren Alexander (guitar), Tristan Montgomery (bass) and Anthony Hainsworth (drums) of Ceasefire who are all about reaching and anthemic songs that move the head and the heart. They formed in 2011 and their music channels and even pays homage to 80s new wave, 90s arena rock and their wide stretch of influences that range from Joy Division to Oasis, Morrissey to Pink Floyd and the Cure to ELO. These guys are ambitious down to who they work with and earlier this year Ceasefire went into the studio to record their In The Dead of the Night EP with serious music muscle: Josh Mosser (Eminem, Imagine Dragons, Christina Aguilera) and Mark Needham (The Killers, Imagine Dragons, Neon Trees, Pink). Here's a track from the EP: "Wake Up."


October 31, 2013
MONA- "Cross The Line"
Mona aren't new; they've been around since 2007 but we don't feel like enough ears are aware of their goodness. A little 50's retro swagger, cigarettes, guitars blazing and some blue collar Mid-Western and gritty Southern attitude and charm, Nick Brown, Vince Gard, Zach Lindsey and Jordan Young sound like that band your mother warned you about but only because she knows how good bad boys can be: musically and otherwise. Now based in Nashville, the foursome throw down scorching and rugged rockers of honesty, then can flip to something gospel-touched or ballad pretty all carried by Nick's soaring vocals: The guy can sing. In July came their sophomore album, Torches & Pitchforks,  which speaks of the tug between good and evil and is a worthy addition to your 2013 record collection.

James Bay- "When We Were On Fire"
Most 22 year-olds don't have anywhere near the vocal command and presence as James Bay does but we're not complaining; he's from the UK and a singer-songwriter who creates a certain magic between him and his guitar. In the vein of a John Mayer or a Ray Lamontagne, the earthiness and expressiveness of James' voice along with his lyrics convey a sensual warmth. This track, "When We Were On Fire" is from his Dark of the Night EP which is a very stripped showcase of this young man's talent of which there is plenty of. He's toured with ZZ Ward, Beth Orton and even opened for the Rolling Stones. Keep an eye on this one.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Dirty Glitter recap!
Signed,
Diary of a Concert Whore  aka @dharma69

Track-By-Track w/ The Silent Comedy: Friends Divide EP

A band’s success or career trajectory is one of those disturbingly unpredictable aspects in music…and then sometimes it just feels like a fucking no-brainer.

Where San Diego’s the Silent Comedy are concerned, it’s been of the ‘no-brainer’ variety in my very partial brain since I met these guys in 2009. From my initial and accidental introduction to brothers Joshua and Jeremiah Zimmerman, Justin Buchanan and Chad Lee one random night at the Los Angeles venue, Spaceland (yes, back when it was still called Spaceland), as I went there to see two other bands on the bill and wound up floored by this bunch of dapperly vested dudes in fedoras channeling a bygone era of fashion, finery and a love of whiskey. Their live shows do nothing short of pull you in, pull no punches and their fusion of folk, rock & roll and Americana encourages the abandon of dancing, stomping, hand clapping, hoe downing and even the occasional head bang (see Justin and his banjo for a course in Head Banging 101).

But dig a little deeper beneath the rowdy good times, the hair and the handsome faces and in this band you’ll find particularly astute storytellers of varied shades of light and dark borne of their collective and individual pasts as men, brothers, lovers and musicians: if you're familiar with songs such as "Exploitation," "Blood on the Rails" or "Gasoline" then you're well aware. June 10th saw the release of their latest EP, Friends Divide. Often a body of music bears more weight than the mere fact that they’re clumped together, so in the words of the songwriters themselves, Joshua and Jeremiah Zimmerman dig into the Silent Comedy’s Friends Divide EP, track by track:

“The concept of division among friends is a theme in everyone's life.” says Joshua. “At some point, everyone that is close to you will hurt you. For a band, that concept seems to be even more blatant. This happens to everyone who pursues the arts as doggedly as we have, and it gets more intense the further you go. Because this has been such a present force in our lives, it seemed like a timely title for a project. It also kind of foreshadows what we are hoping to call our next release...”

As for what the songs themselves represent, Joshua explains:

"This EP represents a real milestone for the band. It has been three years since we put out a real collection of songs. We have grown a lot personally and musically in that time, so we are looking forward to presenting this "new improved" version of the band. For a while, we weren't the biggest fans of what we were writing. This collection of songs are ones that we really enjoy and carry deep meaning for us. My brother and I put more of ourselves into the writing of these songs, and that really connects when we listen back to them."

1. God Neon
“When you spend as much time in major cities as we do on tour, they start to take on a personality of their own. Collections of houses, business, and people start to meld into what can seem like a single living entity. Often, that entity can take a negative toll on the people living within it. When we get off tour, it's easy to feel like you need to escape the city and regain your sanity. That's the frame of mind that "God Neon" was born in: The desire to escape, but knowing that the city will always have its claws in you to some degree."

Oh hey, for a visual aid here's their brand new, slick and sexy video for "God Neon."

Jeremiah, the elder Zimmerman, chimed in with some first-person perspective:

2. Always Two
"Always Two" is about a situation I was in when I was younger and talking to a friend about an almost identical situation and this song came out of it. Wanting what you can’t have is a theme that always works its way into my songs, whether or not I want it to, and in this song it’s a girl that has someone obsessed with her but she’s caught up with someone who couldn’t care less. I tried to stay ambivalent about it so the song isn’t really saying go one way or the other; it’s an attempt to get into the situation and describe it neutrally.

3. Light of Day
"Light of Day" came out some very dark depression and hopelessness that gave way to a better time. I think we forget good when the bad is at its worst. I have to remind myself to endure and the song is an attempt at that.

4. Simple Thing
"Simple Thing" started as song about lying to yourself when your motives are terrible but you won’t admit it. Then it turned more into a song about being honest about who you are. My goal was to make it a happy sounding song about being unhappy with yourself and it ended up a sort of hybrid.

5. You Don't Know Me
"You Don’t Know Me" is a simple sketch about parting ways. Sometimes it’s best to cut losses and move on and it doesn’t need to be a big deal. That’s why I wrote this.

6. Ghosts
"Ghosts" was one of those songs that just happened in five minutes. Josh and I lived in so many places growing up and not all were where we wanted to be. We meet people on the road that feel trapped in their lives or their cities and they see no way out. Having felt that in the past and (occasionally) the present, I wanted to dive into that feeling and see what I thought and this song came out.

               

It's in the lyrical heft where you tend to find a great deal of a band's soul and it is definitely one of the Silent Comedy's  strongest assets. What are the others? Get to one of their shows and you'll find out as tour life is in effect for the Silent Comedy. Summer 2013 has them on the road (once again) with their homies from the UK, the Heavy, so dig out your dancing shoes because you'll need them. Tour dates are right HERE. You're welcome.

A Rare Child: Danielia Cotton

 These days in the realm of music, an air- that rarified air- of authenticity often feels harder and harder to come by. The popular, packaged and big-box music machine churns out more and more for us to listen to and look at but less to actually hear and see, let alone feel. One cure for so much malaise and mediocre offerings goes by the name of Danielia Cotton.

From the mostly White and small town of Hopewell, New Jersey, Danielia covers many musical bases, some of which don’t often cross over: female, singer, songwriter, guitar player, Led Zeppelin fan, hard rocker, Black. One minute the richness, rasp and howl of her voice is taking you on a soulful journey, the next it’s inciting the urge to headbang. She does rock and roll, not  R&B so general/stereotypical expectations tend to need revision. Thin Lizzy to Nona Hendryx to Tina Turner: these are some of the formidable footsteps that Danielia is walking alongside as opposed to merely following in.

Some of the best singers are the ones who are especially deft at using their lifetime of experience as fire and fuel. In that respect, Danielia can be considered a raconteur of sorts: her voice connects with the honesty of life’s real struggles with love, pain, loss, joy and darkness with a vengeance and emotional ferocity that’s as blunt as it is beautiful. Vocal talent is one thing that Danielia has in spades, but how she uses it is what impacts the mind and heart. Her third album, The Gun In Your Hand, dropped in October and is representative of her pushing through the unimaginable lose of miscarrying twins and just as she does with demographics, the album crosses many genre lines.

If you want to know the who, what, where, how and why of the music, ask. So I did and Danielia was kind enough to dig into and shed some light on a few of her songs on the album including her downright devastating cover of Prince's "Purple Rain."

"Boy Blue"
"This song really unfolded in a beautiful way. Me and one of the co-writers, Shelby Gaines, were in a rehearsal space and he literally played three beautifully haunting notes and I said "STOP" and we were off to the races. I had recently learned that my high school friend Lisa Sprague's son had committed suicide and it really struck a deep chord in me. As I began to write the lyrics, I saw a boy trying to free himself and began to write the story. I was very familiar with the idea of trying to keep one's head above water through difficult times. Anyway, I love this song and the haunting melody. I think it is uplifting but telling of how we struggle to survive hard times and keep our head above water."

"The Only Reason"
"I love this song as it is just a pure and simple ode to great love. Love is not safe, it's everything but."

"Save Me"
"I have always struggled to understand my darkness so to speak. I think it's okay to embrace the crazy in you. It keeps you sane. I love this song as I believe it's about asking to be saved and the struggle to save yourself at the same time. We need both sometimes. Grungy rock has a way of being the perfect vehicle for life's tolerable insanity. This is my ode to old school 70's rock, but where a female rock vocalist gets to kick ass."

"Purple Rain"
"I have done other covers and I am careful in my choices. However, I only pick songs where the story speaks to me and am absolutely positive I can make it my own. This song came across to me as an apology. First line, "I never meant to cause you any sorrow". I sang it like I was apologizing to someone who really didn't care to hear me, so I had to really get them to listen. I had to mean it. There are many things I am sorry for in my life, so there is always a place to go when I sing this song. I am also celebrating one of my heroes."

I don't think that you can ever have too many girls with guitars or ones who don't care to fit into pre-designed boxes. Fortunately for us, Danielia Cotton is both. See this live performance of the title track from her album Rare Child.

To treat your ears to more of what Danielia has to offer, listen to and download the her uplifting track "Lighthouse Keeper"  from The Gun In Your Hand.