Friday, April 30, 2010

TVD's The Idelic Hour with Jon Sidel


Hate to Feel | I’ve seen that Courtney Love has been in the news of late. I’m a friend and fan of Hole guitarist, Eric Erlandson. For me there is no Hole without Eric. Nonetheless Courtney has just released a new album, she’s calling it Hole, and it’s in this week’s Idelic mix.

Being the former proprietor of one Hollywood’s rock n roll haunts, Small’s (bar) I had been friendly with the smart, gregarious, and trouble-making Love even “pre-hole” 90’s.

To be honest I’ve avoided Courtney these past 10 ten years. I’ve always enjoyed her company but can’t deal with the “drama and pills.” That was until a couple of week’s ago when I responded to her friend request and emails on Facebook. She was asking about a specific time period, post Nevermind, when she and Kurt were living in LA. It brought back the memories of my brief encounters hanging with Kurt and that decade serves as my muse for this week’s Idelic Hour.

The 90’s is a decade of rock n roll I have very mixed feelings about. Certainly the 2nd half of the decade gave rise to some of the least inspiring music in rock n roll history. I tired to stay focused by keeping it “real” with a sense of irony. The rise of computers, Napster the MP3, feels far more influential than the songs of the day. The story of Kurt and his tragic loss is the decade’s defining digest. It’s with a smile that I can picture Kurt and Lane Staley smoking cigarettes in heaven.

New songs of note in the mix from Band of Horses, The Hold Steady, cool Norwegian rockers Pirate Love and of course the “Queen of Grunge” is back.


Enjoy,

xosidealer

idelicsounds.com | @sidelic

The Idelic Hour [4/30/2010] (Mp3, 88Mg)


It's a streaming Dead Weather vinyl listening party. (Yep, you read that right.)


Because we think you should constantly be in the know:

Starting Today at 12pm CST, Thirdman Records will begin a 24-hour listening party for the new killer Dead Weather album “Sea Of Cowards.” As we like doing things a bit different, this listening party will consist of a camera focused a turntable playing “Sea of Cowards”. I know what you’re thinking “Bor-ing! That’s not a listening party…that’s a screensaver.” First off…that would be a killer screensaver. Secondly, that turntable is located in the metaphorical heart of Third Man Records in Nashville (with eventual baton-passing to the hep folks at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles) and we will be doing everything we can to make this video feed interesting. Maybe a cat will crawl on the turntable and start scratching like Grand Wizard Theodore. Or maybe we get some special guests in house just to flip the records, in spite of our usual disdain for record flippers. Maybe we change it up and just start playing some disco records (not really). Or maybe you get a sweet sneak preview of an album that completely slays. Either way, the audio stream of the album will be coming directly from the record player you see in the shot. We’re calling it Screaming Vinyl Live because “Streaming Vinyl Live” seemed, as you the judgmental fan so clearly pointed out, sounded boring.

Read more here...and aw, hell. Watch it below.


Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

TVD's The Ardent Sessions Presents: John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives


I have been lucky enough to get to work in Ardent Studios on a couple of occasions, and I can attest that it is a very special place. They just don't make 'em like Ardent anymore.

Usually, a studio falls under one of two categories: A.) funky and cool but a little less than state-of-the-art, or B.) top notch technologically, but sterile, with no atmosphere. Ardent Studios is the only one I've ever worked in which is both first-class sonically and incredibly cool, vibe-wise. You feel like you can get as artistic and esoteric as you want, without compromising any sound quality. That's a very rare combination.

We recorded part of our debut album there, 'Spills And Thrills,' and we tracked completely live in the huge, almost church-like A-room. We wanted that “high ceiling” room sound on the drums, which would not have been possible in a smaller studio. I was in a vocal booth and my guitar amp was isolated with baffling, but other than that, we were all in the same room at the same time, cutting live just like at a gig. The intention was to overdub nothing but backup vocals, if at all possible. Of course, we did end up overdubbing a few things, but all in all, those tracks are still about 80% live. We could have done that in other studios, but certainly not with the relaxed, artist-friendly attitude you get from all the Ardent staff.


We live in an era when most recording is being done at home, on computers, and one of the arguments for this is that the artist is completely empowered and independent, and is not forced to sell an arm and a leg to pay for studio time. While this is certainly true, it is a tradeoff. For one thing, there's no substitute for the kind of classic analog equipment and acoustically tuned rooms found at Ardent. And recording the way we did, with the full-band-live-in-the-studio approach, would be impossible to do in a home studio.

At Ardent, you feel just as free to get creative and take risks there as you would in front of your demo rig at home, but you can do it with a full band, live on the spot, and the results you will get on tape (or hard drive) will have all the warmth, richness, and complexity of the classic records we all grew up on. And no other studio gives you that almost mystical feeling of being close to greatness; if you're a Big Star fan like I am, it's always in the back of your mind while working there. (Of course, it's hard not to think of Big Star when Jody Stephens drops by the session to say hi!)

For some kinds of music, you have to use a real studio. And for those kinds of sessions, I've never encountered a better facility than Ardent. It was an honor and a pleasure to get to work there.
—John Paul Keith



The Ardent Sessions Presents: John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives | The Vinyl District Podcast [103Mgs] (Mp3)

Enter to win John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives' 'Spills and Thrills' on vinyl by simply leaving a comment, your name, and a contact email address in the comments to this post. We'll choose one winner each Friday for that week's giveaway which ALSO includes the entire Ardent Music catalog. (That's just 2 artists at this point, but who's counting?)

To hear more great Ardent Sessions please visit Ardent Presents.