Showing posts with label pokey lafarge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pokey lafarge. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

POKEY LAFARGE JOINS BROOKLYN FOLK FESTIVAL LINEUP FOR APRIL 8 PERFORMANCE

10TH ANNUAL FESTIVAL TO LAUNCH APRIL 6 AT ST. ANN’S CHURCH IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Pokey LaFarge will join the Brooklyn Folk Festival’s 10th annual iteration, performing April 8 at St. Ann’s Church. He joins a lineup that features The East River String Band with R. Crumb, Spirit Family Reunion, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Innov Gnawa, Radio Jarocho, and Elizabeth Mitchell & Suni Paz. A St. Louisian, LaFarge has performed on PBS’ American Epic, TBS’ Conan, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, The Late Show with David Letterman, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, and RFD’s Marty Stuart Show. Pokey has played with the likes of Jack White, The Raconteurs, Wanda Jackson, and Old Crow Medicine Show. He has performed at Newport Folk Festival, Red Rocks, Radio City Music Hall, Third Man Records, and Stagecoach. He is a Rounder Records recording artist.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Brooklyn Folk 2018 photos

 Above: Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton
  Above: Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton
 Above: Innov Gnawa

Above: Spirit Family Reunion
Above: Radio Jarocho
 Pokey LaFarge, credit: Nate Burrell
  Pokey LaFarge, credit: Nate Burrell
  Pokey LaFarge, credit: Nate Burrell

 Pokey LaFarge, credit: Nate Burrell


Above: Elizabeth Mitchell & Suni Paz

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

BEHIND BEST OF THE YEAR PRAISE, JAKE LA BOTZ’S NEW ALBUM ‘SUNNYSIDE’ SAW BOOST FROM PRODUCER JIMMY SUTTON (JD MCPHERSON, POKEY LAFARAGE)

 
MERCURY LOUNGE, KUNG FU NECKTIE, HIDEOUT CONFIRMED AS PART OF ALBUM RELEASE TOUR
 
SESSION CONFIRMED WITH NPR’S WORLD CAFE
 
“One of the year’s best Americana albums.”
– Sarah Zupko, Pop Matters, May 4, 2017
 
“One of our favorite albums of the year.”
– Robert McCormick, Inked Magazine, May 9, 2017
 
NPR asked JD McPherson about the making of his album ‘Signs & Signifiers’ and JD told them, “When we were making this record, Jimmy, the producer, he walked around with a metronome and he'd mess with the metronome and dance around until he found the most danceable beats per minute and that's what we record at.” He’s applied similar magic behind the dials at his own Hi-Style Studio in Chicago to Jake La Botz’s ‘Sunnyside,’ out last week on Hi-Style Records and the result earning raves as a potential best album of 2017.
 
“How I Wish She Was Mine” embeddable single
 
Jimmy, who also co-produced Pokey LaFarge’s breakthrough ‘Something In The Water,’ confesses that scaling up to those golden early rock & roll grooves on ‘Sunnyside’ took some work, "The biggest challenge for me was figuring how to translate Jake: I always knew him as a stripped down solo act. Discovering how to capture the solitude and emotional depth of Jake's solo artist sound while enriching it with musical accompaniment was a challenge."
 
Jake recalls, "I learned a lot about developing my songs by working with Jimmy. I've always been a kind of loner type – in everything, not just creating – but giving over to collaboration with the arrangements I found a lot of discoveries happening for me. I began to really appreciate Jimmy's sensibilities and looked forward to his input. I even started to write songs with his arrangements in mind as well as the sound of the Hi-Style studio."
 
Sutton, along with Alex Hall, had built the Hi-Style Studio to capture sound with all ribbon, tube, and dynamic microphones passed through tube mixers and preamps onto ¼-inch tape.
 
Demoed years, earlier, the title track’s demo formed the basis of the vulnerability on its final rendition. Jimmy reveals, “I wasn't crazy about the guitar sound. But we added some piano and listened to it and I started to love it. When we came back to the demo a couple of years later we realized we had something great to build around. We added drums, bass, backing vocals and it became, what I think, is one of the best songs on the album."
 
NPR World Café has confirmed a performance/chat.
 
Jake La Botz Tour Dates:
 
May 31 – Music City Roots - Franklin, TN                       
June 3 - Kiki's House of Righteous Music - Madison, WI                          
June 4 - Record Release Show at The Hideout - Chicago, IL                       
June 5 - Raccoon Motel - Davenport, IA                             
June 6 - The Southgate House Revival-The Lounge - Newport, KY           
June 8 - Record Archive - Rochester, NY                            
June 10 - Atwood's Tavern - Cambridge, MA                                 
June 14 - Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA                     
June 19 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Jake La Botz Melds a Colorful Lifetime Into Gritty, Grooving Early Rock 'n Roll Gold on New Album "Sunnyside"

DRIFTER, ACTOR, BUSKER, FORMER PUNK, DEEP WELLED AMERICANA ARTIST JAKE LA BOTZ READIES FIRST ALBUM IN FOUR YEARS
 
PRODUCER JIMMY SUTTON (POKEY LAFARGE, JD MCPHERSON) HELMED NEW ALBUM 'SUNNYSIDE', OUT MAY 12 ON HI-STYLE RECORDS
 
FROM TATTOO TOURS TO ‘TRUE DETECTIVE’ PART, NASHVILLE-VIA-LA-FROM-CHICAGO ARTIST MELDS COLORFUL LIFETIME INTO GRITTY, GROOVING EARLY ROCK 'N ROLL GOLD
 
"From the first time I heard him playing guitar and singing his songs in a smoky bar on La Brea and Sunset, I became a devoted fan of Jake La Botz. Effortlessly blending authentic blues, rock, country, and gospel, he's created a sound and style that is original and yet instantly familiar. Soulful, personal, painfully funny and sad, he's a true American classic, a gift, and a musical resource that is a joy to be discovered time and time again.”  - Steve Buscemi
 
Cats have nine lives, they say. If that’s true, Jake La Botz must be a cat. A teenage punk, a juvenile delinquent, an actor ( including a part in the classic ‘Ghost World’), a drifter, an apprentice to blues elders growing up in Chicago, self-educated reader, an addict in Los Angeles, a musician in a gospel church, a Buddhist, a meditation teacher, a songwriter touring a circuit of tattoo parlors nationwide. Now, he’s taken all of those experiences and synthesized them with producer Jimmy Sutton (Pokey LaFarge, JD McPherson) for ‘Sunnyside,’ coming May 12 on Hi-Style Records. It’s his first album in four years and finds the new Nashville transplant recounting his past and present atop an irresistible, driving groove. Jimmy Sutton recorded La Botz in his original hometown of Chicago at an all-analog studio, teasing dynamite performances out of the heavily tattoo’d artist.
 
A master storyteller from time spent at the feet of his grandfather and other elders, La Botz infuses his songs with gritty, deeply imagined characters. The album runs along an axis of spirituality on one side and materialism on the other, with La Botz spinning metaphors and subtle dual meanings throughout. Stories include the absurdity of filling one's life with"positivity" (the title track), a portrait of a decrepit hotel with addicts seeking fixes (“The Hotel [Fix Me Now]”), a prisoner searching for a way out (“The Trees in Cali”), a mystical hobo’s description of freedom (“Hobo On a Passenger Train”), a street musician trading art for spare change in the subway (“For Nickels & Dimes”), and the carefree feeling that comes with the arrival of summer (“Feel No Pain”). La Botz has opened for greats like Ray Charles, Dr. John, Mavis Staples, JD McPherson, Etta James, The Blasters, and Tony Joe White.
 
Let some of his peers and media tell it:
 
"Jake La Botz is a creator of dark poetry and haunting song, the kind of music that gets in your bones and rides you for days, a sound and vision only those who've been to the bottom and clawed their way back up can generate. Not everybody will get this music - because not everybody is ready for the truth." -Jerry Stahl (author of Permanent Midnight)
 
“Music from a deep well, a blues with country, folk and sharply observed lyrics... as affecting as a shot of overproof rum on a hot day." -Tattoo Magazine
 
LA Weekly said, “Jake La Botz came up the right-proper, fucking hard way: a teen renegade on the streets of Chicago, dabbling in a mixture of antisocial activities (from car theft to jabbing up his own rudimentary tattoos) and exploring the rich, deep blues tradition as a street singer (with Chi-town legend Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis) and beside Delta-blues originator “Honeyboy” Edwards. That lovely, lurid background forged a musical power that… demonstrates not only an innate mastery of the blues, but also displays what he calls a ‘condensed rock & roll mythology.’

Monday, February 6, 2017

BUOYED BY NPR CONVERSATION & POKEY LAFARGE PRAISE, BETH BOMBARA SET TO RELEASE HIGH WATER MARK ALBUM ‘MAP & NO DIRECTION’ MARCH 3

MUSIC CITY ROOTS, NASHVILLE SHOWCASE, FOLK ALLIANCE OFFICIAL SHOWCASE ALL CONFIRMED
 
Powered by early buzz from NPR All Things Considered, The Boot, Impose, and Pokey LaFarge, Beth Bombara’s ‘Map & No Direction’ (March 3) represents a musical high point for the rising Americana and rock & roll artist.
 
Rounder Records artist and fellow St. Louisian Pokey LaFarge, with whom she has shared the stage, shared, "Recall the times you were so filled with melancholy you couldn't help but singing. We rarely have the words to describe these feelings and it can leave you in a daze. Beth Bombara's words and the desperation with which she so honestly conveys them will leap like sunshine into your heart."
 
Bombara spoke with NPR about the effect the Affordable Care Act has had on her and her husband and the larger community of musicians she knows while NPR played excerpts from two new songs.
 
She has confirmed an official Folk Alliance showcase on February 15 at 9:15pm as well as a taping of Music City Roots on March 22 and an additional Nashville concert at the Family Wash March 16.
 
In premiering the first single and title track “Map & No Direction,” The Boot said, “The St. Louis-based Bombara has been slowly building buzz as a new Americana artist.”
 
Meanwhile, Impose Mag talked with her, saying, "St. Louis, Missouri artist Beth Bombara creates holistic music that resonates with an earnest glow that shines through the dour storm clouds of today's complicated times... Winning hearts up & down the festival circuits, Bombara makes music that mirrors the various highs & lows of creativity, destruction, successes & failures that are acknowledged as honest observations of our shared human orders of daily, moment to moment existences."
 
The title track and first single “Map & No Direction’ is out now on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere with the full album to follow March 3.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

FROM THE EMOTIONAL WILDERNESS, BETH BOMBARA FINDS HER ‘MAP & NO DIRECTION’ (MARCH 3)

OFFICIAL SHOWCASE AT 2017 FOLK ALLIANCE CONFERENCE

ALBUM PROMPTS COMPARISONS TO KATHLEEN EDWARDS, NEKO CASE, GEORGE HARRISON

Beth Bombara – the Americana artist who’s opened for Pokey LaFarge, Waxahatchee, Madisen Ward & Mama Bear, and Joe Pug – has found her way with the new album ‘Map & No Direction,’ out March 3. After serving as a side-woman with Samantha Crain, she’s found her voice as a frontwoman on the new album. And after battling depression – as Beth puts it “a couple months of a can’t-quite-get-out-of-bed, always-tired-but-can’t-sleep kind of depression” – she’s found her clarity as a songwriter. The result is equal parts George Harrison-influenced hooky Americana and rock & roll and mixed with "a bourbon-warmed Neko Case" as her hometown Riverfront Times put it in naming her best Americana artist in St. Louis, MO. She’s also drawn comparisons to Kathleen Edwards.

It’s not the only acclaim the hard-touring artist has earned. Pop Matters said, “Honed songwriting… honest… Bombara mines emotional depths, naivety and personal shortcomings” and Glide called her “easily engaging… penetrating… insightful." She’s already headlined Whitaker Music Festival (MO) (to over 10,000 in the audience), Brooklyn Americana Festival, Tucson Folk Festival, and Mile of Music festival (WI) and will have an official showcase at the 2017 Folk Alliance Int’l conference in February.

She has a companion for her frequent tours: husband, multi-instrumentalist (bass, drums, strings), and producer Kit Hamon, a topic she writes about in the Phil Spector-esque song “Sweet Time.” She tackles other topics as well on ‘Map & No Direction’: the pensive “Lonely Few” was written in response to racial divide and violence against black civilians by police and subsequent protests in her hometown.

Monday, September 22, 2014

DOM FLEMONS ANNOUNCES TOUR DATES SUPPORTING OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW, ON TOUR NOW WITH POKEY LAFARGE AS SUPPORT AND EMCEE, HEADLINING IN OCTOBER

MUSIC CITY EMBRACES DOM FLEMONS

The American Songster Dom Flemons has thirty tour dates this fall, in September with Pokey LaFarge on the revue-style Central Time Tour, headlining in October, and newly announced dates in November supporting Old Crow Medicine Show.

Photos of Dom: http://nicklosseaton.blogspot.com/2014/04/dom-flemons-photos.html

Flemons just played Nashville, TN where the Nashville Scene called him an “Americana master” and Peter Cooper wrote a profile for the Tennessean, writing, “Everything Flemons does as an entertainer is informed by his deep listening and study. But ‘study’ sounds like something academic, and Flemons trades on something more fun than academia. He internalizes his learning, then externalizes it, and then we hear it and tap our feet and smile”: http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/2014/09/12/dom-flemons-mines-annals-american-song/15362357/

NPR Fresh Air recently aired a full-length performance/chat on the American Songster: http://www.npr.org/2014/07/30/336577946/dom-flemons-holds-onto-that-old-time-root

Flemons performed at Lincoln Center last month and was the subject of a New Yorker illustration.

Dom Flemons Tour Dates:

September 23 - Iowa City, IA - The Englert Theatre *
September 24 - Columbia, MO - The Blue Note *
September 27 – Peninsula, OH – G.A.R. Hall **
September 28 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe **
September 30 – Lancaster, PA – Tellus 360 **
October 1 – Washington, D.C. – The Hamilton **
October 3 – Arden, DE – Arden Gild Hall **
October 4 – New York, NY – Madison Square Park
October 5 – Providence, RI – Columbus Theatre **
October 7 – Philadelphia, PA – Tin Angel **
October 8 – Hamden, CT – The Outer Space Ballroom **
October 9 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse **
October 10 – Cambridge, MA – Club Passim **
October 11 – New York, NY – SubCulture **
October 13 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground **
October 15 – Rocky Mount, VA – Harvester Performance Center **
October 17 – Black Mountain, NC – Lake Eden Arts Festival
October 18 – Black Mountain, NC – Lake Eden Arts Festival
October 19 – Charlottesville, VA – The Southern
November 14 - Louisville, KY - Palace ***
November 15 - Memphis, TN - Orpheum ***
November 20 - Athens, GA -The Classic Center ***
November 21 - Birmingham, AL - Alabama Theatre ***

* Central Time Tour with Pokey LaFarge; Joel Savoy, Jesse Lége & The Cajun Country Revival; The Tillers; and The Loot Rock Gang
** With Grace and Tony
*** With Old Crow Medicine Show

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

THE AMERICAN SONGSTER DOM FLEMONS ANNOUNCES 31-DATE TOUR AS ESQUIRE, CMT EDGE, PASTE, XPN THE KEY PREVIEW ‘PROSPECT HILL’ (JULY 22 / MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION)

“CENTRAL TIME TOUR” WITH POKEY LAFARGE ANNOUNCED THIS WEEK, KICKS OFF SEPT 10

Dom Flemons – the founding member of the GRAMMY-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops who has left the band to go solo – has announced a 31-date tour, including a date at Lincoln Center and thirteen tour dates with Third Man Records’ Pokey LaFarage on the “Central Time Tour.” The new album by the American Songster ‘Prospect Hill,’ comes out July 22 on Music Maker Relief Foundation. Here’s a behind-the-scenes teaser video.

Esquire called ‘Prospect Hill’ “finger-pickin', good-old-fashioned tin-cup barn-dance fun.”

Paste said, “Flemons’ harmonica-heavy, foot-tapping folk makes for the perfect hot summer soundtrack.”

XPN The Key blog said, “Flemons adds some spunk with crisp instrumentation and upbeat syncopation… classic frontporch twang.”

CMT Edge says, “Dom Flemons satisfies” in its premiere of the East Nashville-inspired original song “Hot Chicken."

Dom Flemons Tour Dates

June 13 – Eden, NC – Charlie Poole Music Festival
June 14 – Telford, PA – Xfest
June 27 – Walton, KY – Stephenson Mill Tavern & Grill
June 28 – Buchanan, MI – Buchanan Common
July 2 – Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts
July 12 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Pour House
July 17 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Museum of Industry
July 19 – Winchester, VA – Dancing Beagle Events
August 2 – Madison, WI – Sugar Maple Festival
August 8 – Fall River, MA – Narrows Center for the Arts
August 10 – New York, NY – Lincoln Center Out-Of-Doors
August 15 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Caffe Lena
September 10 - Tulsa, OK - Cain’s Ballroom *
September 11 - Kansas City, MO - Knuckleheads Saloon *
September 12 - St Louis, MO - Old Rock House (outside) *
September 13 - Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge *
September 15 - Charleston, IL - Dvorak Concert Hall at Doudna Fine Arts Center *
September 16 - Middletown, OH - Finkelman Auditorium at Miami University *
September 17 - Louisville, KY - Headliners Music Hall *
September 18 - Bloomington, IL - The Castle Theatre *
September 19 - Chicago, IL - Old Town School of Folk Music *
September 20 - Stoughton, WI - Stoughton Opera House *
September 21 - Minneapolis, MN - The Cedar Cultural Center *
September 23 - Iowa City, IA - The Englert Theatre *
September 24 - Columbia, MO - The Blue Note *
September 27 – Peninsula, OH – G.A.R. Hall
September 30 – Lancaster, PA – Tellus 360
October 3 – Arden, DE – Arden Gild Hall
October 4 – New York, NY – Madison Square Park
October 9 – Northampton, MA – Iron Horse
October 10 – Cambridge, MA – Club Passim

* Central Time Tour with Pokey LaFarge; Joel Savoy, Jesse Lége & The Cajun Country Revival; The Tillers; and The Loot Rock Gang

Dom Flemons in...

The Central Time Tour