Friday, September 17, 2010

TVD's The Ardent Sessions Presents: Jump Back Jake


"Several of my friends have pointed out that my more recent and more personal material like "Call Me Your Man" or "Tara" sounds much less like a character than the songs that make up our first record Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle. Re-watching the videos of Jump Back Jake on the Ardent sessions I can see so clearly who this character was.


Though only a couple of years ago, I looked and sounded so different than I do today. If I was playing a character, it wasn't simply a mask I wore for performances or recording, but a person I inhabited. I think I was trying to become a Memphian—perhaps an impossible task for a New York City born yankee like myself, but I did try.



I lived in a house with a huge back yard where I would throw massive barbecue parties on July 4th and Labor Day that usually involved slow cooking a pork shoulder on an oil drum barbecue smoker. I had a hound dog named Jim that I would walk around the neighborhood every day after finishing a shift at my job cleaning houses.



The day we recorded the Ardent Sessions was my 27th birthday and Jump Back Jake was a road weary soul band (we'd just come back from gigs in Shreveport and Little Rock) with a full horn section and a B3 organ player. This is one of the better documents of that moment in time before our music and lives changed.

Six months later, I would hit the road indefinitely with Francis and the Lights, returning home whenever possible to rehearse and record new material with the JBJ. The music borne out of that moment makes up the songs on our new EP, and there aren't any horns or keyboards on it. Just the four of us banging it out in Studio A with the knowledge that the next day I'd be on a plane not knowing when we'd all get together to play again.

But the idea to record live in that room with no isolation at all only doing a couple of takes was borne out of the experience I had listening back to our Ardent Sessions. I was on the road somewhere listening to a captured moment of what Jump Back Jake sounded like in November of 2008 and using it to construct a vision of what we might sound like in the future. Now we can listen to both recordings and figure out where to go next."
—"Jump Back" Jake Rabinbach
9-12-2010

Enter to win Jump Back Jake's debut LP "Brooklyn Hustle / Memphis Muscle" 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 hey, who's counting?)

To hear more great Ardent Sessions please visit Ardent Presents.


TVD's Idelic Hour with Jon Sidel


Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

OK it’s “back to school” time for the Idelic Hour. Actually the playlist for this week’s Idelic Hour has nothing to do with school. It was really just back to school for my kids and thus; yours truly along with them for the ride.

Both my kids started new schools this week. My daughter is a hip teenager entering 10th grade at a new high school and my boy is two years old experiencing his day 1! One of the great things about having kids is getting to re-live childhood events. I love getting that nervousness that one gets on the first day of school—that mix of apprehension and excitement.




For this week’s Idelic Hour I thought I’d try and carry that “day 1 feeling” into my playlist of mostly new artists and releases. In many ways it’s just a cop out. The truth is I don’t always have a weekly music inspiration. That's ok, I’m cool to be purely inspired and blown away by watching my kids and grow.

Along with that the music is still pretty fucking cool! The list contains new songs from Black Mountain, Interpol, The Black Angles, Sufjen Stevens and more. Be forever young and hug your wife, kids and parents—and oh yeah, be free to make mistakes. It’s free form.

The Idelic Hit of the Week:
Margot And The Nuclear So So’s - Lunatic, Lunatic, Lunatic (Mp3)



xosidealer

idelicsounds.com | @sidelic


The Vinyl District Takeover | Those Darlins


It's our last day hanging out with Those Darlins and in particular Linwood Regensburg who tackles one of those big, cosmic questions as he departs TVD HQ:


Best Album Ever? HA. | These sort of lists are a drag to try to make. How are you supposed to answer something like that anyway? I'm not gonna make that statement that these are the greatest albums of all time or even my favorites or anything like that. I just listen to them a lot.

The Young Rascals - "Groovin" | The Rascals don't seem to get the cred they deserve. So many great ones on this record, "Been Lonely Too Long","Find Somebody" "If You Knew" etc.



Iggy Pop - "The Idiot" | I like to put this on when I'm cooking. Nothing like hearing the drum beat for "Nightclubbing" kick in while you're smashing up garlic. I bet Iggy and David did plenty of cooking when they made this one. After all, they were in Germany.



The Ventures - "Ventures in Space" | Space Surf. Astronaut Rock. Whatever you wanna call it, the Ventures nailed it.





Alex Chilton - "Like Flies on Sherbert" | This album is a big mess and I love it for that. Especially the fire up tape roll sound they left on before some of the tracks. Alex does some great covers, especially amazing are Earnest Tubbs' "Waltz Across Texas" and Jimmy Newman's "Alligator Man." "Rock Hard" has some killer lyrics ....."rock hard...ripples, rock hard.....nipples...."



Rolling Stones - "Beggars Banquet" | I absolutely love the Rolling Stones. I guess most of the human race does at this point. Either way, neither Martin Scorcese nor classic rock radio can ruin "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Street Fighting Man" for me. The only track on this album I ever have to skip is "Salt of the Earth." I wish Keith would have sang the whole song, might seem more believable.



Sound Dimension - "MojoRockSteadyBeat" | A Soul Jazz reissue. These guys are like the Jamaican Booker T and MG's. Backing up whoever recorded at Studio One, and cutting lots instrumentals, the Dimension made what some might refer to as the "Jamaican" sound.