Odds are you’ve seen this elsewhere already, but figured I’d go ahead and post it too.

Bob Dylan’s new album (his 46th), Together Through Life, is due out on April 28th via Columbia Records. You can pre-order the CD here, or you can pre-order the deluxe edition, which includes a bonus CD with an episode of Bob’s 60-minute Theme Time Radio Hour, and a DVD of “Roy Silver – The Lost Interview”.

Here’s the first track from the album:

Bob Dylan, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”

I am unbelievably excited for this. Hopefully they’ll come to DC too, but I’m getting tickets to this regardless.

FRI 6/12: 8pm / $18 adv / $20 dos / tickets on sale 3/31

THE BELL HOUSE & THE ONION A/V CLUB PRESENTS
THE POSIES
THE POSIES play FROSTING ON THE BEATER!!!

The Posies are an American alternative rock group. The band was formed in 1987 in Bellingham, Washington by primary songwriters Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. They are best known for their radio hits “Golden Blunders” (from Dear 23), as well as “Dream All Day”, “Solar Sister” and “Flavor of the Month” (from Frosting on the Beater).

So unless something drastic happens, which seems unlikely, my show-going endeavors should be over for March. As mentioned on Twitter, my final tally for the month is 111 bands. And somehow I can still hear.

But I don’t have a whole lot of time to recuperate. April’s show calendar here in DC is just as good as March’s – though don’t expect me to be taking any challenges this month. Without SXSW to pad my numbers, there’s just no way.

Anyway, here are the shows that I plan on seeing this month. I’ve bolded the shows that I’m most looking forward to, and that I hope as many of you come out for as possible!

April Shows
4: Rural Alberta Advantage (RnR Hotel)
5: Obits (Black Cat)
7: Title Tracks, Pash (Black Cat)
8: Comet Gain, Crystal Stilts (Black Cat)
9: Crooked Fingers (Iota)
10: Tereu Tereu (Fredericksburg)
11: Margot & Nuclear So/Sos (Black Cat)
19: Lucero, Titus Andronicus (Black Cat)
20: Foundry Field Recordings (Red and Black)
21: The Jet Age, Mittenfields (DC9)
23: Ponytail, Imperial China (DC9)
30: The Twilight Sad (RnR Hotel)

Still owe some discussion of last night’s Drones/Deleted Scenes show. That, plus discussion of tonight’s show, will come tomorrow. Until then, some pics.

Medications

Edie Sedgwick (w/ Medications)

Pics now, discussion tomorrow.

The Drones

Deleted Scenes

Pretty & Nice

Just saw this great little video over at The Tripwire. Apparently Birdmonster was asked to participate in the Hangin’ On E Street series on BruceSpringsteen.net, and they agreed to cover “Promised Land”.

Here’s the video, followed by several other entries in the series. Josh Ritter’s is pretty fantastic, IMO.

Just wanted to remind everyone about two great shows going on in D.C. this weekend.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) it’s Deleted Scenes, The Drones and Pretty & Nice on the Black Cat’s main stage. I recently became a huge fan of The Drones based on two of their sets that I caught at SXSW, and can’t wait to see them again. Similarly, I’ve also just recently started getting into Deleted Scenes, largely at the insistence of the DC Rock Club guys, who have been raving about them forever.

And speaking of DC Rock Club, here’s a cool Deleted Scenes video (produced by Brightest Young Things) that they posted this morning that I’m shamelessly reposting just minutes later.

Then on Sunday night it’s back to the Black Cat (my 9th time in March) to see Medications with Edie Sedgwick and Played Tomorrow on the back stage. Medications is, of course, the current band of Devin Ocampo and Chad Molter of the dearly-departed Faraquet. I only caught a few minutes of their set at the Radio Room during SXSW, but really enjoyed what I saw. And if this video is any indication of what we can expect on Sunday, I’m pretty damn excited.

Pretty solid show at the Black Cat tonight.

I didn’t know much about openers Ida Maria going into the night, other than that I’d heard a couple of their songs on WOXY. Though, to be honest, I couldn’t really remember any of the songs that I’d heard. Thankfully, though, they ended up being quite a bit of fun. Hell, just try not to have fun listening to a song called “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” (watch the very cool video here).

Glasvegas, on the other hand, are not a band that I’d use the word “fun” with. From their overpowering, shimmering wall of guitars, to their back-lighting, to their smoke machines, they’re a band that seems to take themselves pretty seriously. And, at times, it detracts from their show — especially the beginning of their set, which was reserved for the less interesting, relatively same-y songs from their self-titled debut. Thankfully, though, things picked up in the second half of the set. Not sure if it was merely the fact that they were playing the better songs from the album, or whether I just got used to the pacing of their show, but the second half held my attention quite a bit more than the first. It even inspired a sing-a-long from the largely male crowd, which was pretty impressive, if not a little scary.

So, all in all, a good show that I definitely recommend checking out if they swing through your town. And the best part? Both bands still seem to be on SXSW time. Ida Maria’s set lasted about 30 minutes, and Glasvegas’ about 45-50. Meaning I can actually get to sleep at a reasonable time tonight. Woot.

Here’s a few of the worst photos I’ve taken in my life. Sorry. Wasn’t really in the mood to fight my way up to a close enough spot to take pictures.

Glasvegas

Ida Maria

Well dammitall… how did I not know that the reunited Frodus was playing Murky Coffee in Arlington, VA last week?

For those of you who have followed the blog since I moved to DC, Murky is the place I worked out of for my business for most of 2008. I always saw their small stage upstairs, but didn’t know that they actually booked interesting bands up there.

Here’s a couple videos of the show. Both video and audio quality are fantastic, and the band sounds spectacular.

Frodus@murky from eric hunsaker on Vimeo.

more from murky from eric hunsaker on Vimeo.

One of the bands I saw (and heard) for the first time down at SXSW was London’s Let’s Wrestle.
I’d seen them mentioned on The Battering Room’s list of bands to see at SXSW, but knew absolutely nothing else about them. However, since I tend to like many of the bands that Chris recommends,
I decided to check them out last Thursday night at the Wave Rooftop.

Needless to say, I now have a new band to obsess over. I still don’t know a whole lot about them, other than that they’re all in their late teens, and are on London’s Stolen Recordings label along with the excellent Pete & The Pirates. Their music is a bit all over the map, sounding at times like vintage Guided By Voices (“I’m OK, You’re OK”), and at other times like a more tuneful Art Brut (“Let’s Wrestle”), but everything I’ve heard is catchy as hell and infused with a level of youthful enthusiasm that you don’t hear from enough bands.

Check out a couple of tracks (one audio, one video) below, and if you like what you hear, you can download a bunch of their stuff over at eMusic. The band’s full-length U.S. debut is due later this year.

Let’s Wrestle, “I Won’t Lie To You”

Am I the only one who still gets a kick out of the fact that Lisa’s drummer (and Damien Rice’s before her) is Tomo from God Street Wine? I must’ve seen that band 20-30 times back in the 90s. And my lungs weren’t clean for any of them.

I Don’t Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

So I’m still in post-SXSW mode, trying to learn more about some of the new acts that I discovered down in Austin.

One of those acts was Australia’s The Temper Trap, who I managed to catch right before The Drones at the Aussie BBQ. They play a soaring style of melancholic indie rock, much like many of my favorite bands (The Frames, Hey Rosetta!, Frightened Rabbit at times, etc.), but their singer sounds at times like Aaron Neville. Not that I’m an Aaron Neville fan, mind you, but it works here. And there are some definite nods to early/mid-period U2 as well (listen to the chiming guitars of “Fools”).

Check out the band performing a couple of songs for the BBC’s IntroDucing series below. You can also find two other song performances here.

“Love Lost”

“Fools”

I know nothing about these guys other than what I was able to glean from the email I got from them earlier today – they’re from Finland and just recorded their debut album, which comes out in August, with Malcolm Burn (Dylan, Daniel Lanois, Giant Sand, Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris).

But I’m posting about them because the first track from their album, entitled “Phoenix”, is a wonderful, breezy bit of 70′s AOR. Think along the lines of Midlake. Check ‘em out.

Kaspar, “Phoenix”

So you may have noticed my Tweet a little earlier that I’d decided to skip this Saturday’s Asobi Seksu show at Rock and Roll Hotel in favor of the Deleted Scenes/Drones show at Black Cat. But it occurs to me that this show deserves more attention than a mere Tweet – this is truly one hell of a rock and roll show.

Let’s start with The Drones. I’ve heard the name for years, but only got around to checking out their music a few weeks ago in the lead-up to SXSW, in order to figure out if I should swing by the Aussie BBQ. (Short answer – always go to the Aussie BBQ. Great, free beer, and lots of great, loud bands.) I liked what I heard on their MySpace, so I decided to check them out. And holy hell was I impressed. So impressed, in fact, that I saw them a second time just a few hours later. Just a relentless, driving, sledgehammer of rock and roll.

The Drones, “I Am The Supercargo” (from Havilah)

And then there’s the headliners, Deleted Scenes. I’m fairly certain that I saw these guys by chance about a year or two ago and wasn’t impressed. I’m not sure how that could have been, though – their recent album, Birdseed Shirt, is excellent. I must’ve been drunk or something, because I’ve really come to like these guys recently. And no, it has nothing to do with the recent Pitchfork review, I assure you.

Deleted Scenes, “Fake IDs” (from Birdseed Shit)

And then there’s openers Pretty & Nice… who I know next to nothing about. But the band is streaming it’s album, Get Young, in its entirety here (click “Get Young” on the bottom right), and I like what I hear after the first couple of songs (especially “Tora Tora Tora”).

So I guess my point is this – three great bands playing for only $12. You need to go. I am, and that in and of itself should be enough to convince you to go, right? So go. And we’ll all go see Asobi Seksu the next time they come through town.

Man am I kicking myself for not sticking around to see these guys at the Scottish music party at La Zona Rosa at SXSW last week.

For fans of late 90′s angular emo – Braid, At The Drive In, etc.

Dananananaykroyd, “Pink Sabbath”

You can also hear it on BabyStew Radio.