WYEP Music Blog

ADD Surf Rock?  Jazzercise Punk? Joy-Thrash?  Baltimore’s Ponytail creates music that is hard to define but pure fun to experience.  The foursome constructs beautiful, churning waves of melody that simultaneously evoke the technical proficiency and experimental vocals of jazz, and the aggressive and independent spirit of punk. 

(Clockwise from top: Jeremy, Molly, Dustin, Ken)

Their new album, Ice Cream Spiritual, sees the band adding to its high-energy approach with new sounds and multiple-movement song structures.  The four members passed the phone as I spoke to them while they travelled to New York for a concert.  An excerpt of that discussion after the jump.

-Dave, host of WYEP Afterhours: Monday

Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodo’s are a band that is getting alot of critical praise this year for their release “Visiter”. It’s totally deserved. They’re a duo from the San Francisco bay area, made up of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber, who seem to enjoy harmonies, percussion, and rock n’ roll with their folk music. That’s at least what I keep reading, and it’s all true. I would just add that like most good music, it holds elements of a lot more than that. I’m not going to join the superlative bandwagon on this one. I’ll just say I find it highly enjoyable.

Long is apparently rather interested in the West African style of percussion know as Ewe drumming. It’s very rhythmic, and you can hear this throughout their music. Pounding drums mixed in with Longs finger picking, that reminds you almost of bluegrass at times, makes for a rather unique sound.

I had a chance to see them this past spring at the Garfield Artworks, and their just as good live. They were playing as a trio that night, with the third member adding more percussion to the mix (xylophone, trash cans, toy pianos, etc.). It created a sound in the small venue that pounded against your chest, while the great melodies stuck in your head.

If I had to pick the best album of 2008 right now, so far, this would be it.  You can hear them on my show from time to time.  Tuesday evenings from 8pm-12am.

-Andy, Tuesday Evening Mix

As the sun was setting over Burgettstown, John Mayer and his seven-piece band (including sax and trumpet) entered the dark pavilion stage to perform a two-hour show.

The fans at the John Mayer concerts seem to be getting younger.  Or, maybe, I’m just getting older.  The young ladies in the crowd were screaming loudly how much they loved John - I’m sure I will regain my hearing soon.  We have family in town from CT, and my 17-year-old nephew (who will be seeing John in his home state of CT) seemed impressed that I not only knew who John Mayer was, but that I was attending my 3^rd John Mayer concert.  Maybe old Aunt Barb is more hip than he originally thought.

The fans seemed to know every word of every song that John sang.  I just hope they are getting the message too.  John’s lyrics are quite sophisticated for someone who will be turning 31 in October.  In the 2 years since I’ve last seen John live, he has matured as a performer, but there’s still some polishing left to do.  The pregnant pauses in between songs could be a bit shorter.  Yes I realize they’re changing guitars and setting up for the next song, but it breaks up the “Continuum” of the show.  In 2007, John was named one of the “New Guitar Gods” and nicknamed “Slowhand, Jr.”, and he showed why he deserved that honor during his 16-song set.  Nice additions to the band were sax and trumpet players.  The lighting on stage was also very effective.

One of the songs I was hoping to hear was “Free Fallin”, which John sang and gave credit to Mr. Tom Petty (do the young fans even know who Tom Petty is?).  I was also thrilled to hear the new release “Say”, which really comes to life live.  Another highlight was “Stitched Up”.  It was a very nice touch for John to sign someone’s program before leaving the stage, prior to the encore.

During the show, John did not talk to the audience much, but he made up for it during the encore.  The Grammy Award winner shared insights about the final three songs.  On John’s website, the fans are invited to “pick the encore” song they would like John to sing.  The top vote getter for Burgettstown was “Man On the Side” (for the record, I voted for “Stop This Train”).  At first, it seemed that John didn’t remember how the song went (noting it was the 2^nd song he wrote) and then proceeded to tell a story about meeting a girl in the Berklee College of Music cafeteria in Boston and how she stood him up.

Check out the set list here.  http://www.johnmayer.com/tour/show/454

Perfect August weather, made it an even more perfect night for the music of John Mayer live.

Barb S. - Sunday Mix Host

There’s a free download of The Duhks “Mighty Storm” available on their label’s website. Their new CD, “Fast Paced World”, is being released on August 19th.

http://www.sugarhillrecords.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=910

The Duhks will be in town in September!

Barb S. - Sunday Mix Host