WORKING METHOD: Lawrence Ball
The electronic music composer brings Pete Townshend’s ‘Method’ to life.
BY ROBERT FULTON

Who guitarist Pete Townshend had a concept.

That statement on its own is not surprising. The British songwriter has penned some of the most ambitious music in rock history, such as the concept albums/rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia. But what might be his boldest concept was the never-completed Lifehouse project.

Lifehouse was to be the album that followed Tommy. Set in the future, the story involved a world that was falling apart, and rock music didn’t exist. While Lifehouse never came to fruition – though it spawned such classics as “Baba O’Riley,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – an outgrowth from the project was the Lifehouse Method. Townsend envisioned a future where people could input personal data into a machine to create an individual musical portrait. The intro to “Baba O’Riley” is an example of what this might sound like.

Sound far fetched?

Enter Lawrence Ball.

In 2007, Ball, an English composer, math tutor and founder of the Planet Tree Music Festival, along with Townshend and programmer Dave Snowdown, created a website called The Lifehouse Method. Active for 15 months, more than 10,000 unique works were created on-line by users having their data translated into music.

From this experiment came Ball’s own two-disc album Method Music (in stores this week), which he composed and recorded in parallel to the Lifehouse Method website, though he didn’t tap any of the users’ creations. The first disc – Imaginary Sitters – is a collection of 11, five-minute long tracks using the Lifehouse Method. The second disc, Imaginary Galaxies, expands on this concept with three meditative, ambient 20-minute songs.

BLURT recently spoke by phone with Ball, who was on holiday in Santa Fe. He helped clear up exactly what Method Music and the Lifehouse Method are and what it was like to work with Pete Townsend. And he shared one of his favorite jokes.

BLURT: What exactly is the Lifehouse Method?
LAWRENCE BALL: Pete had an idea 40 years ago now, that there could be a way for someone’s music to be created. You’d basically create the music of the person. There was no Internet then. Everyone thought he was nuts, as often happens to people with foresight. About eight years ago, he asked me, could I do it. So I said yes. It took awhile, but we got the system up on the web that would take a photograph, two sound files and a tapping of a rhythm.

When you say a person’s personal data is translated, what do you mean?
We had different ways we could have made these portraits. In the end we settled with something that’s more like an oracle than a psychological test with a questionnaire. We decided simply to ask people to input some things that were meaningful to them that would act as a personal interface to them, so that the program created a piece of music in a way that was connected to them.

When did you first meet Pete?
Pete and I have a common interest in wonderful California composer Terry Riley. He’s one of the most important composers of the last century. He turned contemporary classical music into something much more approachable. Pete and I both love his music, and I brought Terry over to my music festival in 1998, and approached Pete about sponsoring my festival that year, and he was delighted to do that. After that, Pete and I got to talking, and after five years of talking and discussing various things, he proposed I do this project for him.

Were you a Who fan or a Pete Townshend fan before all this?
Oh yeah. I grew up with the Who, and Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine, and all kinds of other things.

This might be a better question for Pete, but is what resulted what he envisioned?
Yes, he’s very happy with it. There was an email we got back when we first got it online, and we were able to input data and get pieces of music out. After 30 years of waiting, he was just enthralled.

Pete produced Method Music?
He co-produced it. I did some of the production, and his chief engineer Myles Clarke, who’s a brilliant engineer. It’s hard to know where engineering stops and production starts.

What was it like to work with Pete?
Well, he’s very intense. The meetings we had were really long and very exciting. He was very enthusiastic about the whole thing. He’s got a lot of energy. He doesn’t always agree with one. He’s quite tenacious. The experience as a whole was quite wonderful.

What was the role of Dave Snowdon?
He’s a brilliant programmer and computer systems guy, and he knows a lot about how to do things on the Internet. The Lifehouse Method was created with my musical design and his implementation skills. But he also made some very creative suggestions about how we should decide on certain things.

How long did it take to get the album put together?
The album was running in parallel with the portrait system. It took me about 20 months to create the music, and after that another 20 months was spent making the sound quality really, really good. It’s basically the same quality for my album [Pete] expects for the Who of his own music. It’s one of the most ambitious recordings ever made, actually.

On Galaxies, why did you choose to dedicate the songs to Syd Barrett, Hugh Hopper and Gyorgy Ligeti?
They’re people who have been hugely inspirational to me. Ironically, they all passed away during the time I was working on those pieces. As they passed away, I felt I needed to do something to mark my gratitude to them, and that seemed the best way to do it. For me, they all have a very important contribution to contemporary music.

Why was the site taken down? Why not leave it up in perpetuity?
One is cost. The way we had it set up was actually very expensive to run. Another one was Pete felt that it had had a good run and it was time to take it down. It wasn’t new any more. We’re hoping that at some point in the future the site will go up again and Pete will do what he’s been talking about on and off – what we call  a Method Concert, which is where people who’ve had their portrait done come along to a large concert and they hear their own piece made into a song.

Is what you’ve created here something that you can take on the road? Can you perform this? Do you plan to tour?
I have actually performed it. I performed in Austin this summer, and Santa Fe. They’re rather difficult to replicate with musicians or even with backing tracks. What I did was to perform with the album track itself, but to put new layers over it, which were improvised. That was extremely well received. I wasn’t initially convinced   that it could be performed live, but now I’m becoming convinced that it can be. But nothing’s arranged yet. It’s all up in the air at the moment.

Would you like to see this project continue? Would you do another Method Music?
That probably depends on Pete. It wouldn’t have tuned out the way it did were it not for his input, artistic and financial. It was a very ambitious recording, expansive recording. I expect maybe the possibility of doing another Method Music, particularly if this one sells well.

The reception and also to help finance another go at it.
I’ve calculated the relatively small percentage of Who fans that are willing to get as excited about what I do as they are about what Pete and the Who do is probably around 5 or 10 percent. But that’s still a large number of people.

Five to 10 percent of Who fans is a lot of people.
These days they’re getting more Google searches than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

One last question. You have a number of jokes on your website. Do you have a favorite?
There are two goats on a rubbish tip, and they’re chewing through pieces of old rubbish, like tires and boots, just old junk, soft junk. One of them comes across a cannister of film, and he gets the plastic strip of the film out of the metal case and starts chewing through the plastic strip, having a great time. The other goat calls across to him and says, “Are you enjoying that film?” And he says, “It’s pretty good, but I really preferred the book.”

http://blurt-online.com/features/view/1073

If Robert Johnson were alive…he’d be stealing licks from this cat.

Feeling the bite of 21st century ennui? Hell with it. Strap in, turn on and tune down with some dark-as-a-black hole Delta blues. With 2012 here, the Mayan calendar coming to a close and Planet X swinging over the horizon, you may as well ride it out with some swamp infested, pass-the-Prozac slide-Dobro guitar.

And there’s no better way to ride out the end times than jamming some Brother Dege tunes – the Deep South’s best kept secret since the Georgia Guidestones. Brother Dege (aka Dege Legg – Louisiana born, swampland mad genius, and also frontman for the Lafayette, LA-based rock band Santeria) is on a strange roll: working in a homeless shelter (file under: “Gnarly Career Moves”), recording the follow up to Folk Songs of the American Longhair in a empty warehouse, and disappearing for days in the backwoods of his native Louisiana.

Brother Dege recently teamed up with Louisiana filmmaker Brian C. Miller Richard for a beautifully pro-shot, mini-epic video for his song “Black is the Night.” Shot at various locations, the video – like some haunted nocturne – is a dark meditation on the spooky breed of loneliness, solitude and isolation that characterizes Louisiana.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW & POST BROTHER DEGE’S NEW “BLACK IS THE NIGHT” VIDEO

It’s a big departure from the cult favorite, grainy, zero-budget videos that populate Brother Dege’s YouTube channel.

In other news, Brother Dege will once again be pulled from his reclusive environs to perform at the 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 6th along with other acts that day such as Foo Fighters, Bonnie Raitt, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, as well as fellow Louisiana legends like The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Wild Magnolias, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins and many others.

HERE’S WHAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT BROTHER DEGE:

“[Four Stars] In lesser hands all this might easily sound contrived, but instead it’s genuinely powerful and compelling stuff. ‘The Girl Who Wept Stones’ and ‘Dead & Gone’ might have been ripped from the Son House songbook, though the seven-minute epic ‘House of the Dying Sun’ is the real keeper.” – UNCUT

“Dege Legg is the Robert Johnson of the 21st century.” –  ROOTSVILLE

“Both ancient and modern, like an indie rock cover of something Lomax may have recorded a hundred years ago.” – BLOGCRITICS

“Fans of slide guitar, Southern gothic, or plain old rock & roll attitude need to run, not walk, and check out Brother Dege ASAP. Brother Dege is a case study in how one guy with a steel guitar and minimal accompaniment can out-rock a roomful of electric bombast, given the right songs, the right skills, and the right voice. Brother Dege has‘em all.” – POPMATTERS

“Brother Dege brings the ghosts of kudzu-covered swamp rats to life in your speakers.  Find the darkest spot in your backyard, light some candles and turn it up.” – THE BIG TAKEOVER

“Those willing to step into the Brother Dege abyss will likely reap its rewards.” – OFFBEAT MAGAZINE

BROTHER DEGE – BORN ON THE BIO

Louisiana born and raised Brother Dege is one of the best kept secrets in the Deep South – a writer, musician, artist, and a one-man band, pushing the resonator and slide guitar into the 21st century like some mad lovechild of Robert Johnson and Lou Reed. Mixing the traditional slide playing of the Mississippi Delta Blues masters (Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White) with the post-modern expressionism of Sonic Youth, along with some world-class songwriting, Brother Dege’s critically acclaimed songs veer from haunted slide-guitar scapes to raw, Delta blues barn burners that take the listener on a trip into the south’s swampy rural past and the great unknown of the future. His most recent full-length album Folk Songs of the American Longhair was voted one of the top blues and roots albums of 2010 in Europe and the U.S., and his song “Hard Row To Hoe” from this album was also used as the opening theme song for Discovery Channel’s popular show After The Catch last year (click here to view).

RELATED LINKS:
Brother Dege http://degeleggnews.blogspot.com
Director: Brian C. Miller Richard http://www.briancmillerrichard.com
Cinematographer: Natalie Kingston: http://vimeo.com/nataliekingston
Brother Dege YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/santeriaband?feature=mhee
Santeria: http://officialsanteria.com

FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS
Tony Bonyata
Pavement PR
p: 262.903.7775
e: bonyata@wi.rr.com
https://pavementpr.com

Tune into the nationally syndicated radio show “Nights with Alice Cooper” this Thursday evening (Jan. 26th) when rocknroll’s Prince of Darkness will be spinning Buffalo Killers’ awesome track “Lily of the Valley” from their recent full-length 3 on Alive Records on his show.

The show runs from 7pm-midnight (central) and you can find a station where it will be airing in your area by clicking here.

Tune into one of our favorite radio shows, The Electric Ballroom on WRAT Radio in New Jersey, this Sunday night at 10:45pm (est) where host Keith Roth will be talking with composer and mathematician Lawrence Ball about his new album Method Music and his involvement with producer Pete Townshend on this fascinating effort based on Pete’s longtime “Lifehouse” project.

You can tune into the live audio stream of Lawrence’s segment on the show at around 10:45pm (est) this Sunday, Jan. 22nd here: http://www.wrat.com/listen  But we recommend tuning into the whole show, which starts at 10pm, as Keith & co-host Aimee Kristi spin some of the coolest new underground tunes along with ’70s punk, Alternative, Glam, Stoner Rock and just about everything else that matters.

If you’re in Nashville this Friday (Jan. 20th) be sure to drop by Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in Nashville (1604 8th Ave. South) at 6pm (est) to catch Radio Moscow’s live in-store performance before their Exit/In show later that evening. The Music City’s not gonna know what hit em!

Radio Moscow + Graveyard Live at The Bowery Ballroom

Thursday night was a good evening to be stoned in Manhattan. That is if you were lucky enough to be at the sold out Graveyard and Radio Moscow show taking place at The Bowery Ballroom. The opening night of the month long tour found New York’s stoner rock community out in full force, and the anticipation could be felt from the moment doors opened. Daniel Davies of Year Long Disaster opened the show with his solo band that consisted of CKY’s rhythm section, Jess Margera and Matt Janaitis. The music was enjoyable but nothing particularly impressive or memorable, instead offering a familiar stoner rock sound to help set the mood for the evening while the crowd began filling in.

Radio Moscow took the stage next, mere days after a highly publicized on stage melt down between the trio that involved former drummer Cory Berry hurling Peter Griggs’ guitar right into his head, splitting it wide open in the process. You can read more about the melee and see footage HERE. Griggs was rushed to the hospital to receive stitches, and the band has since reformed with a new bassist and drummer in the wake of the turmoil. Sporting his lengthy new scar, none of this week’s trauma seemed to effect Griggs, as it’s always been clear where the heart and soul of Radio Moscow lies. Having played together for a total of three days, the band blazed through tracks from their latest offering The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz and the stellar Brain Cycles. The band’s music offers blues licks and rhythms delivered at their dirtiest and most raw. Griggs’ guitar work is on a level entirely his own as he soars through riff after riff of explosive blues tinged noise running the length of the fretboard and back again.

Opening with the dissonant “Luckydutch” from their self-titled debut, the band quickly pulled out fan favorite “Broke Down” with its stomping Black Sabbath inspired dirge and distorted blues licks. Think The Black Keys without the studio gloss or J Mascis with an intense interest in stoner blues rather than indie guitar rock and you can begin to imagine the passion and talent Griggs possesses. “Densaflorativa” followed with it’s psychedelic flourishes and squealing solo as the other members joined in on percussion with a seated bongo performance from new bassist Billy Ellsworth. The guitar heroics quickly returned on “The Escape” and “Black Boot,” the later a stomping swampy blues instrumental with stunning slide guitar work that’d make Jimmy Page proud.

The guys continued their onslaught of guitar fury jams with “Deep Blue Sea,” the rowdy hollering “Speed Freak,” and the down home front porch blues of “Creepin,” before ending the set with a blistering extended version of the slow burning “250 Miles”. Griggs used the final hoorah as a chance to blow the minds of anyone in the audience yet to drop their jaws, and he accomplished just that. The song opens with a calm blues lick that explodes and never looks back in the wake of its destruction. This has always been Griggs’ band, and the fact that Radio Moscow sounded as triumphant as they did with only three days of practice for the two new members is a testament to his vision and stunning guitar work.

Graveyard hail from Gothernburg, Sweden and have become one of stoner rock’s greatest hopes over the past few years since releasing their debut album in 2007. The band are as retro as can be, reviving the sound and look of the early 70’s in an intense time-warp fashion. The quartet opened with my personal favorite “Blue Soul,” a smoky blues folk freakout that permeates slowly under the grooving guitar line before picking up with lead vocalist Joakim Nilsson’s pristine howl. His voice takes center stage in the mix, and is hard to deny as it controls the aggressive peaks and soul of their sound. The band played a majority of last year’s Hisingen Blues including “Buying Truth,” “Ain’t Fit To Leave Here,” “Ungrateful Are The Dead,” “Hisingen Blues,” “The Siren” as well as b-side “Granny and Davis”, mixing them with early album highlights “Thin Line,” “Satan’s Finest” and fan favorite “Evil Ways”.

http://www.explodinginsound.com/2012/01/eis-show-review-radio-moscow-graveyard.html

10 Questions with Martha Berner
by Thomas McAleer
Austin Local Music Examiner

Martha Berner is a Chicago based songwriter who combines a modern rock flavor with roots music to fashion her own unique sound.  Last month she released her 2nd album with her band The Significant Others, “Fool’s Fantasy”. Her well received debut album, “This side of yesterday” was released 6 years ago.  Fool’s Fantasy was recorded at Chicago’s premiere digital recording studio Stranded On A Planet with producer & Significant Others’ guitarist Scott Fritz, and was mastered by four-time Grammy Award winner Gavin Lurssen (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Cat Power, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, etc).  It’s sure to make some top ten lists, as the CD is a pleasure to listen to.  Martha recently answered 10 questions for me.

Who are your songwriting influences?

Everyone and everything I listen to influences my writing, whether for lyrics or rhythms and melodies. Inspiration for songs also comes from reading and journalling. I don’t have one or two specific songwriting heroes. I’m often influenced by whatever I’m digging into at the time.

When and where was your first public performance?

15 years ago. I was working in a restaurant and the hired performer would lend me his guitar and microphone and let me perform later in his set, after my shift. I loved it.

What was the first record or cd you purchased with your own money?

The Black Crowes “Shake Your Money Maker” The first tape I ever owned I won off of a Mars bar. I was about 9 and it was Chicago’s Greatest Hits. Later in my adolescence, I went on a spree of stealing cassette singles from Wal-Mart. They were my prized possessions.

What was the first live concert you attended?

Lollapalooza 1991

Which venue would you most like to play that you haven’t yet/ and which is your favorite venue to play?

My favorite venue is any outdoor venue in he summertime. That being said, playing the Chicago Theater would be pretty fantastic.

What is the best career advice you’ve been given, and by whom?

I’m still waiting for it.

Who are you listening to now?

NPR. Wilco, Bon Iver. Phoenix. Rogue Wave. Black Keys, Vandaveer – in no particular order.

What recordings are available to the public and where can they be purchased?

We just dropped a new album, Fool’s Fantasy, which can be found at just about any digital shop, as well as our website www.marthaberner.com

When and where are you playing next?

Lincoln Hall, Chicago Saturday Feb 4th.

Martha Berner & The Significant Others were just featured on the Chicagoland PBS television show “Live at The Alley” where they performed their songs “Cry” and “Brave” from their new album “Fool’s Fantasy.”

Click on the photo below to watch this great performance….

The Who’s Pete Townshend Produces New Album Based On His Lifehouse Project
Michael Leonard
12.21.2011

Shortly after The Who conceived, produced and recorded their rock opera Tommy, Pete Townshend started work on a follow-up “sci-fi rock opera.” Parts of Townshend’s Lifehouse project have occasionally seen the light of day, but he has now produced a new twist on the tale.

London-based composer and mathematician Lawrence Ball’s forthcoming double CD-set Method Music was not only produced by Townshend, it was also the direct outcome of Townshend’s ongoing Lifehouse project.

Ball says: “Method Music evolved from Pete Townshend’s question to me about generating unique pieces of music from the input of personal characteristics as data, a question related closely to his ongoing project Lifehouse. I wanted to see what the music could sound like prior to designing the proposed system of portraiture, and I created the tracks on Disc One: Imaginary Sitters, as a touchstone towards designing the software which would eventually execute the task itself.”

Townshend’s original Lifehouse story was set in a futuristic world where rock ’n’ roll no longer exists – but a secret concert is staged where audience members enter their personal characteristics into a computer grid.  A unique piece of music – based on the audience member’s personal data – would then be generated.

Some may joke that Townshend foresaw iTunes/Spotify/Last FM playlists 40 years ago.

Townshend’s idea was that this would lead to one “perfect” musical note culminating in mass nirvana: “a kind of celestial cacophony,” according to Townshend. Lawrence Ball’s Method Music album also includes Disc Two: Imaginary Galaxies, that “expand the forms into larger structures with greater permutations, variables, and variety.”

Lawrence Ball’s Method Music, produced by Townshend and Bob Lord, will be released on January 31.
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/The-Who-1221-2011/

Check out the new “House Arrest” commercial for FIAT’s new 500 Abarth car, featuring not only bad-boy Charlie Sheen but also bad-ass rockers HENRY’S FUNERAL SHOE’s new song “Dog Scratched Ear” from their recent Alive Records album “Donkey Jacket”!

Click on the image below to view the video:

Martha Berner and the Significant Others: Fool’s Fantasy
(Pop Rock Records)

The first things you notice on Fool’s Fantasy, the new release from Chicago’s Martha Berner and the Significant Others is how quickly her dusky alto draws you in with an easy, familiar air.

Reminiscent of Natalie Merchant and Margo Timmins, Berner has allied herself with a group of fantastic players to back up her musical dreams with depth and skill. Scott Fritz leads the “Significant Others” as the albums producer and with his tasty guitar, adding just the right amount of twang and burn to be a perfect foil to Berner’s dynamic vocals. As the album unfolds you realize there is more to this than your average alt country record as Will Sprawls adds fine keyboard playing and Tyson Ellert gives clever percussion accompaniment to Berner’s fine folk pop songbook.

Highlights include the infectious “Brave,” the classic country train beat of “Cry,” and the rocking “People Are Crazy.”  Let’s hope it doesn’t take Berner another six years for this fine singer songwriter to make another album now that she has her Significant Others.
http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/cd-review-martha-berner-and-the-significant-others-fools-fantasy

NEW YORK TIMES (NYC daily) –  Show preview.
Camper Van Beethoven (Saturday) Professional pop-folk-ska split personalities since 1983, this Northern California quintet marks 13 remarkably placid years reunited. Wait for its famous remake of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” a no-holds-barred take on one of the best, most succinct riffs in 1960s rock. With Cracker. At 7 p.m., Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th Street, Chelsea, (212) 414-5994, highlineballroom.com; $22 in advance, $25 at the door. (Anderson)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/arts/music/pop-and-rock-listings-for-jan-13-19.html?_r=1

VILLAGE VOICE (NYC weekly) – NYC “Recommened Events” show preview
David Lowery has been pulling double-duty with his two bands, quirky indie-rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven (“Take the Skinheads Bowling”) and alternative-era MTV darlings Cracker (“Low”), at concerts and in the studio since 1999. Somehow he’s kept it all straight, even putting out a solo album last year, despite the differences between the groups but thanks to a few common threads: his sardonic wit, the groups’ unpredictable solos, and catchy choruses. Tonight he’ll be in be sputtering out his tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Euro-trash girls and other forms of ear candy with both groups.
http://www.voiceplaces.com/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-new-york-3281492-e/

NY DAILY NEWS – Show preview with Cracker file photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven
Saturday, Jan 14 (2012) 7:00p
at Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
CRACKER
In the mid-’80s in Santa Cruz, California, singer-songwriter David Lowry formed Camper Van Beethoven, and the band’s track “Take the Skinheads Bowling” became an instant college radio staple. When CVB disbanded on tour in Sweden following its second major label release, Lowery formed Cracker with his longtime friend, guitarist Johnny Hickman. Cracker’s emergent sound had less in common with Camper’s exotic excursions and was more in sync with the Kinks and Southern roots music.
Cracker released its self-titled debut on Virgin, and following the No. 1 modern rock hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” the band became a minor commercial sensation. The platinum-selling Kerosene Hat (1993) contained the enormous, era-defining hit single “Low,” as well as “Get Off This” and “Eurotrash Girl.” When the dust settled, Cracker found itself with an ever-growing, devoted following both in the Us (where fans refer to themselves as Crumbs) and throughout Europe. Today, the band stays well-connected to yet another generation of fans via internet, many of whom were kids when these alt-rock godfathers were first ruling rock radio. The group’s latest release, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009), weaves decades of influences into an eerie yet strangely soothing story of escapism, apocalypse, and renewal that is still relevant as ever today.
CAMPER Van BEETHOVEN
At the time of its 1985 debut, Camper Van Beethoven’s merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was truly a revelation. Self-described as a “surrealist absurdist folk” outfit, the band formed in Santa Cruz, Ca, and the 1985 re-release of its debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, made the Top 10 in the 1986 Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. The group’s next albums, II & III (1986) and Camper Van Beethoven (1986), followed suit. After two major releases on the Virgin label – Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988) and Key Lime Pie (1989), CVP had taken the music as far as it could go and disbanded.
In 2002, CVP reunited for a nationwide tour on what seemed like a whim. The tour must have gone really well, because unexpectedly, the full band trooped into the studio to record a new album, titled New Roman Times – a release that, surprisingly enough, stands with the group’s finest work. A loosely connected semi-rock opera telling the story of a Texas teenager who joins the military after a 9/11-like event, becomes disillusioned, and joins an anti-government militia, the disc is the most explicitly political record of Camper Van Beethoven’s career, resurrecting and amplifying the themes that colored the band’s previous two albums. The album is proof that CVP pulled off an exceptional trick. It not only reunited – it picked up exactly where it left off.
http://events.nydailynews.com/new-york-ny/events/show/216858885-cracker-camper-van-beethoven

THE L MAGAZINE  (NYC free daily)– Brief show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven
Sat., Jan. 14, 6 p.m.; $22, $25 at the door
212-414-5994
Music: Rock, Pop and Hip-Hop
But before getting completely swept up in a year’s worth of here-today-gone-tomorrow buzz bands, let us remember that the songs “Euro-Trash Girl” and “Take the Skinheads Bowling” are about as good as they come.
Highline Ballroom
436 W 16th St., between Ninth and Tenth Aves (map)
Chelsea
212-414-5994
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/cracker-camper-van-beethoven/Event?oid=2202394

TIME OUT NEW YORK  (NYC weekly)– Brief “Must See” positive preview
The weekend’s must-see concerts
SATURDAY
Cracker + Camper Van Beethoven at Highline Ballroom
Tonight David Lowery bounces freely between his ’80s outfit, Camper Van Beethoven, and his more straightforward ’90s band, Cracker.
http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/own-this-city-blog/2479775/the-weekends-must-see-concerts

BROOKLYN  ROCKS (NYC music blog) – NYC show preview with CVB photo.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Camper Van Beethoven Will be Debuting New Material @ Highline Ballroom on Sat., Jan. 14th
DOWNLOAD: Camper Van Beethoven – Live at The Independent, San Francisco, CA 12-28-11
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven’s annual year-end California trek is underway and the last night of this run of shows is Dec. 29th in Petaluma. After which, Cracker heads further north to Portland on December 30th for a special one-off with bluegrass jam band Leftover Salmon, where the two bands will perform their highly-lauded 2003 album O Cracker, Where Art Thou? together in its entirety.

The following night, Cracker & CVB will be in Chicago for a celebratory New Year’s Eve bash at Chicago’s House Of Blues. Camper Van Beethoven will open, followed by Cracker ringing in the new year, and then Big Head Todd & The Monsters playing into the wee hours.

Then Camper Van Beethoven will start off the year with their own headlining shows in Milwaukee, Madison and Iowa City, before hooking up with Cracker again for shows in St. Louis and Minneapolis. The two bands will then head east for their annual winter run through the Northeast. As David Lowery (frontman for both bands) told the Boston Herald earlier this year,”We always do it in January when it’s really cold and not many bands go up to the Northeast. It started from the fact that it was the only time that was slow for the Camper Van Beethoven guys who have real careers. Then we accidentally figured out nobody else is touring, so it’s seen as this mid-winter cabin-fever kind of party.”

Both Cracker and CVB will be running through their career-spanning canons of hits and fan favorites, while, perhaps even more exciting, Camper Van Beethoven will be performing a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album – their first in over seven years!
http://brooklynrocks.blogspot.com/2011/12/camper-van-beethoven-will-be-debuting.html

NEWSDAY (Long Island, NY weekly) – Simple show listing in their best of the week column “BACKSTAGE PASS: THE LIST”.
CRACKER/CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, “Teen Angst.” At HighLine Ballroom Saturday.
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/backstage-pass-1.811987/intro-1-9-12-videos-from-lights-resolve-patent-pending-lemonheads-and-more-1.3438180

DNA INFO (NYC online A&E site)– “Gigs of the Week” show preview
Gigs of the Week
Saturday  January 14
Also tonight: Scratch that late-’80s-early-’90s itch with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at The Highline Ballroom. Remember Cracker’s 1992 hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)”? The common thread between these two bands is singer/guitarist David Lowery. He formed the more straight-ahead rockers Cracker after spending the ’80s leading the self-styled “surrealist absurdist folk” band Camper Van Beethoven.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20120111/manhattan/kaki-king-santigold-girls-play-manhattan

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK (NYC A&E site) – NYC show preview with Cracker photo.
CRACKER / CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN
431 West 16th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Saturday, January 14, $22-$25, 7:00
212-414-5994

In what has become a very welcome annual event, David Lowery will be doing double duty on January 14 as he brings both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven to the Highline Ballroom. The evening generally begins with a rousing look back at the history of seminal indie rockers CVB, dominated by Lowery’s politically tinged lyrics and Jonathan Segel’s virtuosic violin playing. Expect such favorites as “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” “Eye of Fatima,” and “Joe Stalin’s Cadillac,” along with some cool covers, including the Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” which was an MTV hit for CVB more than twenty years ago. Then Lowery switches gears for the more amiable, freewheeling Cracker, the Virginia-based band that has scored such hits as “Teen Angst,” “Low,” “Get Off This,” “Turn on Tune in Drop Out with Me,” and one of the great live songs of all time, “Euro-Trash Girl.” Lowery will tell some funny stories, guitarist and cofounder Johnny Hickman will look resplendent, and then the two groups will jam out on an interstellar finale. Nothing but good times, guaranteed.
http://twi-ny.com/blog/2012/01/14/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-2/

LONG ISLAND PRESS (Long Island, NY weekly) – Dave Gil de Rubo confirmed a show preview.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER (Philadelphia daily) – Brief show preview.
Cracker
Led by Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Cracker’s post-punk, country-tinged songs earned some hits in the early ’90s with ‘Low’ ‘What the World Needs Now’ and ‘Get Off This.’
Also appearing: Camper Van Beethoven
Where:
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
http://www.philly.com/philly/calendar/135534358.html

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY – Stock show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
A brief rundown of Cracker’s history: Lowery, in the mid-80s, in Santa Cruz, California, formed Camper Van Beethoven, and their “Take the Skinheads Bowling” became an instant college radio staple. When CVB disbanded on tour in Sweden, following their second major label release, Lowery formed Cracker with his longtime friend Johnny Hickman. (The pair had met on the local music scene as teenagers in Redlands, CA.) Cracker’s emergent sound had less in common with Camper’s exotic excursions and was more in synch with the Kinks and Southern roots music. They released their self-titled debut on Virgin, and following the #1 Modern Rock hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” the band became a minor commercial sensation (complete with then significant MTV exposure). The platinum-selling Kerosene Hat contained the enormous, era-defining hit single “Low,” as well as “Get Off This,” and “Eurotrash Girl.” When the dust settled, Cracker found themselves with an ever-growing, devoted following both in the U.S. (where fans refer to themselves as Crumbs) and throughout Europe. Today the band stays well connected to yet another generation of fans via internet, many of whom were kids when these alt-rock godfathers were first ruling rock radio.http://tickets.worldcafelive.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=3297
Friday, January 13, 2012
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia PA 19104
215-222-1400
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/events/135963311.html

THE ONION / AV CLUB (Philly weekly) – Stock AV Club show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker
Also Playing: Camper Van Beethoven
Cracker’s David Lowery is getting to the age where it’s customary for modestly famous rockers to drag themselves out on tour looking bitter and bloated. Instead, Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman have done basically the opposite lately, touring as a stripped-down (but non-seated) rock duo and preserving the smart-assed songwriting voice Lowery established with Camper Van Beethoven. It helps that the band’s most recent work, including 2009’s Sunshine In The Land Of Milk And Honey, beefs up the setlist with songs that work well alongside the early-’90s stuff, and that they don’t seem to mind playing hits like the not-entirely-characteristic “Low.” After taking most of the ’90s off, CVB reunited in 1999 and has toured periodically with Cracker, giving Lowery fans the chance to hear all their favorites in once convenient place.
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia PA 19104
215-222-1400
Fri Jan 13
http://www.avclub.com/philadelphia/events/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven,281399/

BOSTON EXAMINER (Boston online A&E site) – Feature w/ David interview and photo to preview show
Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker at the Middle East, Sunday 1/15/12
Dan Davis
Boston Indie Rock Music Examiner

David Lowery’s two bands, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, make their annual mid-January visit to the Middle East this Sunday night.

The bands (who share not just Lowery but also drummer Frank Funaro, and have in the past shared bassist Victor Krumenacher) have braved the New England winters and played the Middle East on MLK Day weekend for the past several years. A year ago, they performed an album show, with Camper performing their underrated gem “Key Lime Pie” in its entirety, and Cracker following with their biggest hit album, “Kerosene Hat.”
David Lowery’s two bands, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, make their annual mid-January visit to the Middle East this Sunday night.

The bands (who share not just Lowery but also drummer Frank Funaro, and have in the past shared bassist Victor Krumenacher) have braved the New England winters and played the Middle East on MLK Day weekend for the past several years. A year ago, they performed an album show, with Camper performing their underrated gem “Key Lime Pie” in its entirety, and Cracker following with their biggest hit album, “Kerosene Hat.”
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This time the both bands will be playing songs from their respective catalogs, and Camper might even have some new material in their set list. Lowery said that the band have written enough songs for an album, their first since their 2004 reunion rock opera “New Roman Times.” Camper has been performing on weekends and recording the new material during the week when able, and Lowery expects the new album to be released later this year.

“Camper has always had an element of prog rock, and with this album, we’re not hiding it,” he said. While known more for their faux-ethnic instrumentals, post-punk attitude and clever songwriting, Camper Van has also been known to cover Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” in concert, so the prog direction isn’t unprecedented.

Lowery released a solo album last year, “The Palace Guards,” and Cracker’s “Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey” came out in 2009. After this year’s new Camper release, Lowery said another Cracker album should be next in line.

Lowery noted that the bands try to play some different songs each time they come back to town, going back over past setlists and making changes to keep the show fresh and surprising. Both bands have deep catalogs of album tracks and indie rock staples to choose from, so it should be interesting to see what they come up with on Sunday.

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at the Middle East, Sunday 1/15. 18+ $20 Advance / $22 Day Of Show. Doors at 8pm, Camper Van Beethoven should hit sometime around 9:00, Cracker following at around 11:00.
http://www.examiner.com/indie-rock-music-in-boston/camper-van-beethoven-and-cracker-at-the-middle-east-sunday-1-15-12

BOSTON PHOENIX (Boston weekly) – “Editor’s Pick” show preview Cracker
Cracker + Camper van Beethoven
Jan 15
Middle East Downstairs
David Lowery is going to be pretty busy tonight. He’ll be doing double-duty, playing with both his bands — Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker — at the Middle East. But we suppose he’s used to it by now. Neither the genre-straddling ’80s underground rock vets nor the ’90s alt rockers have released a new album within the last three years, but that only means you’ll be treated to old chestnuts like Camper Van Beethoven’s signature wry hits “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and “Club Med Sucks.” Let’s just hope Lowery has maintained his rock-and-roll stamina after all these years.
http://events.thephoenix.com/Boston/Events/147234-Cracker-Camper-van-Beethoven/

BOSTON MUSIC SPOTLIGHT (Boston A&E site) – Show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven plot co-headlining tour
Boston Music Spotlight, Staff

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have revealed plans for their annual co-headlining tour. David Lowery will lead both bands back to Massachusetts for a show at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge on Sunday, January 15. Tickets for the show are now on sale through TicketWeb for $20.

Fans can expect both bands to perform career-spanning sets of hits and fan favorites. Camper Van Beethoven will also preview a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album. The new release will be their first in over seven years. Cracker s last studio release was 2009 2s Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey. Lowery, who fronts both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, released his first solo album The Palace Guards in February.
http://www.bostonmusicspotlight.com/news-cracker-camper-van-beethoven-plot-co-headlining-tour-massachusetts-concert-january-2012/

THE PATRIOT LEDGER (South Boston daily) – Brief show mention in ‘Upcoming Best” shows
Sunday night has the always interesting two-fer of David Lowery’s most iconoclastic bands, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, at the Middle East in Cambridge.
http://www.patriotledger.com/entertainment/x117256880/IN-THE-CLUBS-Parties-shows-and-nightlife

“With the release of the third LP, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz, Radio Moscow bring their original brand of hard blues rock with a psychedelic tinge and take it to new heights.”  – GHETTOBLASTER MAGAZINE

Alive Records founder Patrick Boissel on his label’s new compilation, Where is Parker Griggs?
by Nick Spacek

This Tuesday, Alive Records releases the compilation Where Is Parker Griggs?, featuring many of the label’s current acts, like Radio Moscow, Buffalo Killers and Black Diamond Heavies. The label is tied into the legendary Bomp! and is celebrating 17 years in existence. Label head and founder Patrick Boissel was kind enough to talk with the Pitch recently via e-mail about the current state of Alive.

The Pitch: How did Alive come to be? I know it’s affiliated with Bomp!, but I’m not quite sure of its origins.

Patrick Boissel: My other half happens to be Suzy Shaw, Greg Shaw’s lifelong partner in the business and now sole owner of the label. I moved to the U.S to be with her and helped out at Bomp! by handling production, distribution, marketing, and many other things for more than ten years. Alive started in 1993 but became a priority for me only after Greg passed away.

Tying into that, what became of Disaster Records?

It folded a while back. Disaster was Duane Peters’ label, we were mostly providing manufacturing, distro and so forth. I think it is still going under a different name, but I’m not sure, we pretty much lost contact with Duane.

The flavor of Alive seems to be tied to that garage-rock aesthetic that Bomp’s always had, but with more of a roots sensibility. How do you see the label?

I see Alive as a rock ’n’ roll label first and foremost, and as you say it is certainly more roots-oriented than Bomp ever was. The influence is also philosophical — being a small independent label gives you the freedom to release what you want, it’s something that you cannot have with a big structure.

Alive is nearly twenty years old. What’s the label gone through in that time?

We have enough stories to write a book. We have worked with cool artists and we’ve met amazing characters over the years, from the sweetest to the wackiest. We have also managed to survive the bankruptcies of various distributors, both domestic and overseas. This is a rewarding business but it can be challenging as well. This said, it has been really great so far. We work hard and we make a living doing what we love, it’s a privilege, as far as I’m concerned.

There’s not a lot of your more well-known acts on Where Is Parker Griggs? Is this new compilation meant to be a look forward at what’s to come, rather than a look back?

Where Is Parker Griggs? is a snapshot of the current roster, it introduces new bands such as Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Brian Olive and Henry’s Funeral Shoe, and it showcases current artists who are starting to get some attention, most notably Hacienda, Radio Moscow and Buffalo Killers. It’s a follow-up to Never Give Up On Your Hallucinations, a similar release that features The Black Keys, among others.

What can folks expect?

A lot of unreleased material and a mix of garage rock, psych, punk, deep blues, Tejas garage-pop and rootsy psyouthern soul.

http://www.pitch.com/wayward/archives/2012/01/12/alive-records-founder-patrick-boissel-on-his-labels-new-compilation-where-is-parker-griggs

PETER CASE & PAUL COLLINS REUNITE FOR A SPECIAL FULL-BAND SPRING 2012 TOUR, WHERE THE TWO WILL PERFORMING SONGS FROM THEIR BACK CATALOGS WITH THE NERVES, THE BREAKAWAYS, THE PLIMSOULS AND THE BEAT!

The Plimsouls embodied rock & roll in its purest, undistilled form in the era when post-punk droned and new wave popped. Whether on record or onstage, this foursome unleashed urgent, white-hot performances of expertly constructed songs by frontman Peter Case that effortlessly straddled the perfection of British Invasion pop, the raucous, edgier side of early punk and garage rock, and the foundational elements of maximum R&B and wailing soul.

All of this is documented perfectly in one moment – or one night as the case may be – on the latest Plimsouls live album, Beach Town Confidential.  Recorded at the height of their onstage power at The Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, CA on August 13, 1983, this recording captures Peter Case, Eddie Muñoz, Dave Pahoa and Louie Ramírez ripping through these 16 tracks with a youthful and reckless abandon. Six of these songs have never been recorded before by The Plimsouls (“Making Time,” “Fall On You,” “The Price Of Love,” “Who’s Gonna Break The Ice?,” “Jumpin’ In The Night” and “You Can’t Judge A Book”), plus it also features the only live recordings of “Magic Touch,” “Oldest Story In The World” and “Hobo.”

The Plimsouls’ Beach Town Confidential was produced by Peter Case and mixed by Peter and Andrew Bush. It will be released Feb. 7, 2012 though Alive Naturalsound Records on LTD. Edition Vinyl (w/ mp3 download card), CD and Digital formats. In addition, Alive is also producing an extremely limited run of 200 pink vinyl LPs (w/ download card) exclusive to mail orders only.

FEEL FREE TO DOWNLOAD AND SHARE THE PLIMSOULS’ SONG “MAGIC TOUCH”
http://soundcloud.com/pavement-pr/the-plimsouls-magic-touch

BEACH TOWN CONFIDENTIAL TRACKLISTING:
01. Introduction
02. Shaky City
03. Makin’ Time
04. Zero Hour
05. Hobo
06. Who’s Gonna Break The Ice
07. Fall On You
08. Oldest Story In The World
09. Magic Touch
10. A Million Miles Away
11. Jump, Jive and Harmonize
12. Jumpin’ In The Night
13. Now
14. How Long Will It Take
15. In This Town
16. Price of Love
17. You Can’t Judge a Book

Prior to Peter Case forming The Plimsouls, he was part of two other influential mid-to-late ’70s bands with Paul Collins  – The Nerves and The Breakaways (Paul would later go on to form his own highly-respected group, The Beat). Both Peter and Paul have enjoyed successful solo careers on record and on the road, but this spring they’ll once again be reunited for a very special North American tour. The two frontmen (along with bassist Timm Buechler and drummer Amos Pitsch) will be performing classic numbers by their bands, The Nerves and The Breakaways, as well as material by The Plimsouls and The Beat. For fans of energetic live performances, visceral rock & roll, and raucous, hook-laden songs that draw as much from the golden age of ’60s pop as they do from punk, these shows should prove to be nothing short of nirvana.

PETER CASE AND PAUL COLLINS 2012 TOUR DATES:
Thursday, March 1 Low Down & Dirty Presents at Iron Road Studios, Vancouver BC

Friday, March 2 The Funhouse Seattle WA

Saturday, March 3 The Star Theatre Portland OR

Monday, March 5 Red Devil Lounge San Francisco CA

Wednesday, March 7 The Echo Los Angeles CA

Thursday, March 8 Bar Pink San Diego CA

Friday, March 9 Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown TBA CA

Sunday, March 11 Club Congress Tucson AZ

Tuesday, March 13 Rhythm Room Phoenix AZ

Friday, March 16 TBA SXSW Official Showcase Austin TX

Saturday, March 17 Alejandro Escovedo’s Taco Party at Maria’s Taco Express Austin TX

Saturday, March 17 Freddie Steady’s 12 Annual FRONTIER A GO GO AND ROCK & ROLL HOOTENANNY Austin TX 5:30 PM

Sunday, March 18 The Blue Door Oklahoma City OK acoustic duo

Monday, March 19 The Record Bar Kansas City MO

Tuesday, March 20 TBA or Lafayette IN

Thursday, March 22 The New Amsterdam Saint Paul MN

Friday, March 23 TBA Lafayette IN

Saturday, March 24 Shank Hall Milwaukee WI w/ Chuck Prophet

Sunday, March 25 Empty Bottle Chicago IL

Monday, March 26 TBA Cincinnati OH

Tuesday, March 27 Ace of Cups Columbus OH

Wednesday, March 28 Beachland Ballroom Cleveland OH

Friday, March 30 Stage on Herr Harrisburg PA

Saturday, March 31 Bridge Street Live Collinsville CT

Wednesday April 11 TBA NYC NY

Thursday, April 12 Bat Shea’s Public House Troy NY

Friday, April 13 WXPN “Free At Noon” concert

Friday, April 13 TBA Philadelphia PA

Saturday, April 14 TBA Washington DC

Sunday, April 15 TBA Richmond VA

Monday, April 16 TBA Raleigh NC

Wednesday, April 18 Hi-Tone Memphis TN

Thursday, April 19 The High Watt Nashville TN

Friday, April 20 JJ Bohemia’s Chattanooga TN

Saturday, April 21 The Star Bar Atlanta GA

Sunday, April 22 TBA Asheville NC holding

Tuesday, April 24 TBA Jacksonville FL

Wednesday, April, 25 TBA Gainesville FL

Thursday, April 26 TBA Tampa  FL

Friday, April 27 TBA Miami FL

Saturday, April 28 TBA Orlando FL

July 27-July 29 TBA Western CAN

FOR MORE INFO ON PETER CASE:
http://www.petercase.com
http://www.alive-totalenergy.com/x/?page_id=2345

FOR MORE INFO ON PAUL COLLINS
http://www.thepaulcollinsbeat.com
http://www.facebook.com/paulcollinsbeat

FOR MORE INFO ON THE PETER CASE & PAUL COLLINS TOUR:
http://www.facebook.com/peterpaulcaco

FOR BOOKING INQUIRIES:
roggie@rajiworld.com

FOR MORE INFO ON ALIVE RECORDS:
http://www.alive-totalenergy.com

FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
Tony Bonyata
Pavement PR
p: 262.903.7775
e: bonyata@wi.rr.com
https://pavementpr.com

BOSTON PHOENIX (Boston weekly) – “If You Want Blood” news story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related links.

“Last song with this lineup ever!” Radio Moscow draw blood on stage in Iowa; Cambridge gig still on, but with new dudes

This week in Anton Newcombe-esque epic onstage meltdown news: The former drummer of psychedelic marauders RADIO MOSCOW fucked singer/guitarist Parker Griggs up something gnarly immediately after their tour kickoff Saturday in Iowa. Shit gets real about 35 seconds into this clip when Griggs chucks his guitar in the general direction of the drum kit, prompting disgruntled band mate Cory Berry to hurl the ax back at Griggs’ skull with deadly accuracy.

But all’s well that ends well. According to the exceptionally entertaining press release: Griggs got his forehead sewn back together with 14 stitches, swiftly rounded up a fresh rhythm section (his bassist also quit that night), and didn’t even miss the next scheduled tour stop in Chicago a day later. Catch ‘em at the Middle East Downstairs tomorrow night, opening for Swedish retro-prog outfit Graveyard.

Let’s hope the new Radio Moscow drummer has a gentler disposition than the old one…or, at least, shittier aim.
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2012/01/12/quot-last-song-with-this-lineup-ever-quot-radio-moscow-draw-blood-on-stage-in-iowa-cambridge-gig-still-on.aspx

STYLE WEEKLY (Richmond, VA weekly) – Feature with Parker interview and band photo to preview show

The Big Come Up
Radio Moscow brings the ’60s back to life.

When a band passes off an unsolicited demo to a record label, nine times out of 10 it doesn’t receive even a cursory listen. In the case of the Black Keys, however, mailing the head of Alive Naturalsound Records a rough copy of “The Big Come Up” earned the duo a contract and an official release.

When Radio Moscow frontman Parker Griggs handed the group’s demo to the Black Keys’ merchandise guy, he had no idea that the Keys’ Dan Auerbach was going to pay it forward. After falling for the power trio’s heavy psychedelic blues, Auerbach brought Radio Moscow to Alive Naturalsound and offered to produce its eponymous debut.

“It was all recorded on his vintage ’60s reel-to-reel,” says the Iowa-bred Griggs, on the phone from his current home base in Northern California. “We recorded it pretty quick without much overdubs, so it’s simple and to the point.”

Folks who think Blue Cheer is chronically underrated or that Fleetwood Mac peaked in 1970 with its 24-minute, live version of “Rattlesnake Shake” quickly caught on to the band’s swampy, zigzagging guitar jams, pounding percussion and vocals reminiscent of Cream’s Jack Bruce. Subsequent touring brought Radio Moscow through Richmond a handful of times to perform at the cozy, now-defunct venue Nara Sushi. “(Nara) was usually packed, the crowd was right in front of the band and they got into it,” Griggs says.

To record the follow-up to their second full-length, “Brain Cycles,” Griggs and bassist Zach Anderson moved out to Prairie Sun Recording, a secluded ranch in Cotati, Calif. “The area doesn’t get phone reception or much of anything, so we were out here being loner mountain men trying to make music,” Griggs says. The result was 2011’s wild and grizzled “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz,” a record that landed on many year-end top 10s. If Jimi Hendrix had stretched the opening feedback on “Foxy Lady” completely over that song’s chunky riffs, waxed the screeching wah-wah, and tossed in harmonica, sonically it would resemble the latest songs from Radio Moscow. “I think the new record is a little more intense, more in your face,” Griggs says.

Currently on tour with like-minded Swedish act Graveyard, Radio Moscow recruited a member of the ’60s psychedelic scene to help flesh out its performances visually. Lance Gordon, as Mad Alchemy, originally projected his liquid light shows onto venues like the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. For this tour he’ll be creating a chemical-induced backdrop for Radio Moscow’s sizzling sets of rock ‘n’ roll. Says Griggs, “We’re really going for it.”

Radio Moscow will appear with Graveyard on Jan. 17 at Strange Matter. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets cost $12. For information, go to strangematterva.com.
Graveyard, Radio Moscow @ Strange Matter
929 W. Grace St. http://strangematterrva.com
o Tue., Jan. 17, 9 p.m.
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-big-come-up/Content?oid=1653534

BLURT (national print and online music magazine) –  “If You Want Blood” news story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related link.

Radio Moscow Implodes w/Onstage Fight
Frontman Parker Griggs after receiving 14 stitches to the forehead last Saturday night.
By Blurt Staff

Last month we reviewed the mighty Radio Moscow’s recent album The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz (Alive), noting that it “feeds from the teat of late sixties and seventies Nuggets comp forefathers, vocal effects and hallucinogens dripping from the speakers and the psychedelic, heavy, effects-driven guitar of Parker Griggs.”

Apparently all that heaviness and aggression went into overdrive Saturday night at the start of the band’s North American tour when the members had, in the label’s words, “a physical meltdown onstage during their hometown record release show in Ames, IA. With internal friction between the threesome apparently boiling over, the band made it to the final song of their setlist before things came to a head. Literally. The drummer grabbed Griggs’ guitar and, according to Griggs, hurled it as hard as he could at the guitarist, leaving a gaping wound in his forehead and blood everywhere. Griggs was then rushed to the local emergency room, where he received 14 stitches.”

Interestingly, if you check the viewer comments below the video at YouTube, some of the notes were apparently penned by fans who were in attendance and saw the events go down. For example, “BluesPills” wrote, “Nice editing… you left out all the parts where parker was bashing his band on stage on the mic to all the friends and family in the audience. You also left out the the guitar actually hit Cory in the neck, Cory just reacted, there was no time for aim are you serious… oh one more thing… just so its clarified. The night before Parker threw a beer can at a womans face. That woman being The bassists girlfriend. That woman being the singer of Blues Pills.”

Another commenter, “somewhere646,” added, “I think you should post the uncut version from Saturdays second set. Let people hear all the shit parker was saying about the bassist and drummer before he threw the guitar at the drummer. Can tell your friends with Parker. Because everyone else who was there thought Parker was the ass.”

So clearly there is a divergence of opinion here. But that’s none of our business, and besides, Griggs has already put together a new version of the band. According to the record label:

“Needless to say that was the end of this particular incarnation of Radio Moscow (but then Parker always has toured with an ever-changing set of guitarists and drummers in the past, not to mention that he plays all of the instruments on Radio Moscow’s albums).  With only one day before their Chicago show, Griggs enlisted two new musicians into the band – bassist Billy Ellsworth from San Diego and drummer Lonnie Blanton from Salt Lake City, who flew into Chicago yesterday and arrived at the venue just hours before their gig. Radio Moscow is reborn and once again ready to rock the nation… hopefully now with a lot less bloodshed.”

As the tour will continue, Alive is also offering a previously unreleased Radio Moscow track, “The Stranger,” which is featured on Alive’s new various artists sampler Where Is Parker Griggs. Good luck to Radio Moscow, and here’s hoping they make it through the tour. Dates are below.
http://blurt-online.com/news/view/5876/

THE VINYL DISTRICT (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related link.

Radio Moscow’s Psychedelic Soap Opera
By Mike Newman | Published: January 12, 2012
Psychedelic blues rockers, Radio Moscow, start their tour with heavy psych rock Swedes, Graveyard tonight at the Bowery Ballroom with a brand new rhythm section.

The trio was playing a few shows to get warmed up on their drive out to NYC to meet up with Graveyard. And here’s what happened at show number two on January 7th before they made it out of their home state of Iowa…
So, who’s to blame in this psychedelic soap opera?

The next night, Radio Moscow mastermind, Parker Griggs flew out a new bassist and drummer and the band didn’t even miss the show the next night in Cedar Rapids. Below are the Graveyard/Radio Moscow tour dates and be sure to catch the trio on my Beyond Beyond is Beyond show on East Village Radio today from noon to 2pm EST. Maybe I can get to the bottom of the drama!

And be sure to check out the former bassist and drummer other killer band, Blues Pills. One of my favorite new bands!

Thu/Jan-12 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
Fri/Jan-13 Boston, MA Middle East
Sat/Jan-14 Philadelphia, PA Northstar Bar
Sun/Jan-15 Baltimore, MD Golden West
Mon/Jan-16 Washington, DC DC9
Tue/Jan-17 Richmond, VA Stange Matter
Wed/Jan 18 Charlotte, NC Casbah @ Tremont Music Hall
Thu/Jan-19 Asheville, NC Asheville Music Hall
Fri/Jan-20 Nashville, TN Exit/In
Sat/Jan-21 Atlanta, GA Masquerade – Hell Stage
Sun/Jan-22 Memphis, TN Hi-Tone Café
Mon/Jan-23 Texarkana, TX Dave’s Skate Park (no graveyard)
Tue/Jan-24 Houston, TX Fitzgeralds
Wed/Jan-25 Austin, TX Mohawk
Fri/Jan-27 Tempe, AZ Yucca Tap Room
Sat/Jan-28 Los Angeles, CA Bootleg Bar
Sun/Jan-29 Santa Cruz CA The Catalyst, (no graveyard)
Mon/Jan-30 San Francisco Cafe Du Nord
Tue/Jan-31 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
Wed/Feb-01 Seattle, WA Tractor
http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/newyork/2012/01/radio-moscows-psychedelic-soap-opera/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=radio-moscows-psychedelic-soap-opera

EAST VILLAGE RADIO / BEYOND BEYOND IS BEYOND (NYC RADIO STATION) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with band photo, Ames live video, tour dates, album art and related links.

Radio Moscow Go Beyond Thursday…With a New Lineup

OK, so this WAS Radio Moscow. Led by singer/guitarist Parker Griggs in the center. Drummer Cory Jack Berry (right) and Zack Anderson (left) left the band on January 7th on the second night of their tour after a bit of inter-band violence. Watch the psychedelic soap opera unfold here…
Like psychedelic sands through the hourglass…

So Radio Moscow are slated to play live on Beyond Beyond is Beyond on East Village Radio on Thursday, so we’ll see what goes down. Hopefully they’ll come rock for us. Their new album, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz on Alive Naturalsound Records, was one of my favorites from 2011.

So tune in the EVR.com on Thursday from noon to 2pm (EST) as Radio Moscow’s new lineup goes BEYOND…

* Radio Moscow on Alive Records
* East Village Radio
* Beyond Beyond is Beyond archives
http://beyondbeyondisbeyond.com/archives/3688

METROMIX DES MOINES (Des Moines, IA online A&E site) –  “If You Want Blood” story with band photo, Ames live video and related links.

Radio Moscow’s Ames show was short, interesting

I didn’t make it up to Radio Moscow’s show at DG’s Tap House in Ames, but it was an important one for the band. Near the end of the set singer/guitarist Parker Griggs threw his guitar at drummer Cory Berry’s kit. In response, Berry threw it back. Into Parkers’ face.

It was captured pretty well for Youtube:
Needless to say, Berry is no longer a part of the band. Bassist Zach Anderson (who is Berry’s step brother) is also gone. Anderson and Berry had been a steady part of the band for several years.

According to Radio Moscow’s website, new members Lonnie Blanton and Billy Ellsworth were flown in last night for a show in Chicago.

So the next time we see Radio Moscow, they’re going to be looking pretty different.
http://desmoines.metromix.com/music/blog_post/radio-moscows-ames-show/2977316/content

LEICESTER BANGS (UK music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story (from press announcement), with Parker photo and related links.
http://leicesterbangs.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-you-want-blood-radio-moscows-got-it.html

BMAN’S BLUES REPORT (Blues music blog) –  “If you Want Blood” story (from press announcement), with Parker photo, album art and related links.
http://www.bmansbluesreport.com/2012/01/radio-moscows-previous-lineup.html

THE LANTERN (Columbus college weekly) – Feature with Parker interview and band photo to preview show

Radio Moscow hopes to woo American audience in Columbus gig
By Caitlyn Wasmundt

Hoping to overcome one of its biggest obstacles, Radio Moscow members are eager to attract a crowd with their ‘60s-influenced psychedelic blues music.

The band is scheduled to play at Ace of Cups bar at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Parker Griggs, frontman for Radio Moscow, said the largest challenge the band has had to face is playing the music it loves for this generation.

“There’s not that big of a fan base for our style (of music),” Griggs said.

Radio Moscow’s psychedelic sound is inspired by many influences such as British blues and acid rock, Griggs said.

The band doesn’t follow music trends, Griggs said.

The band, which started out as Griggs’ solo project, has added two members, with drums played by Cory Berry and collaborative songwriting by bassist Zach Anderson.

Griggs said they are now able to put forth a better show for their audience.

“It’s been a lot better to have the real thing (drums) — it’s louder, and it’s better to see,” he said.

Even though the biggest challenge for the band has been gathering a fan base, it has also been one of its greatest achievements.

The members have been able to attract their idols, such as Johnny Ramone of The Ramones, and other musicians from the ‘60s and ‘70s to their music.

“Its cool to know that other psychedelic rockers are digging what we’re doing,” Griggs said.

It’s not only psychedelic rockers of the past who have seen potential in Radio Moscow, but contemporary artists also. Dan Auerbach, of The Black Keys, discovered the band and facilitated a record deal for them from Alive Naturalsound Records.

Since then, Radio Moscow has been compared to The Black Keys, who are also set to perform in Columbus, with a tour stop scheduled for Mar. 4 at the Schottenstein Center.

“Griggs’ vocals are soulful and tastefully gritty, similar to contemporary blues outfit Black Keys,” wrote Dan Rankin, for “Blare Magazine.”

Nathaniel Barbone, a second-year in art, said Jimi Hendrix sound is one thing that attracts him to Radio Moscow’s music. He said he has listened to the band for two years, and is excited to see it live.

“He (Griggs) sounds like Jimi Hendrix, I think. I like that fuzz tone on a guitar, it’s like old school rock ‘n’ roll vintage, but now-a-days,” Barbone said.

Most of Radio Moscow’s inspiration comes from boredom and seclusion. The band members live in the middle of nowhere, and “the songs are inspired by loneliness,” Griggs said.

The show in Columbus will be part of the band’s North American tour promoting its newest album, “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz.”

Griggs said the set list has yet to be established, but he is expecting a mix from all three of the band’s albums, with some of its newest songs such as, “Little Eyes” along with some of their older works.

Even though Radio Moscow has never played at Ace of Cups, Jeff Kleinman, booking manager for the venue, said he is expecting a pretty large crowd.

After its Ace of Cups debut, Radio Moscow will be joining Swedish band Graveyard .

Griggs said he is looking forward to being paired with a “like-minded band.”

Presale tickets have already sold out for the show. Local musicians, Eye and TK Webb (of Sundown), will be opening acts. Tickets are $10 at the door.
http://www.thelantern.com/a-e/radio-moscow-hopes-to-woo-american-audience-in-columbus-gig-1.2739280

DONE WAITING (online music site) – Positive Staff Pick show preview with band photo

Staff Pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups

Dear Mr. Clapton –

I know that you’ve probably retreated to one of your homes situated in a warmer client. However, if for some reason the warmer-than-usual winter has kept you and your family in Columbus, I’d like to invite you to Ace of Cups on Tuesday night to bear witness to the fuzzy, psychedelic blues sounds of the Iowa (yes, Iowa!) trio Radio Moscow. I know you’ve been seen around town taking in performers that have been influenced by you and I think … no, scratch that, I KNOW that Parker Griggs owes a great deal of gratitude to the likes of you (particularly your work with Cream), Hendrix, and Blue Cheer for inspiring his playing style.

Current Rolling Stone cover boys The Black Keys are also fans of Radio Moscow and BK’s Dan Auerbach signed the band to AliveNaturalsound in 2008 after seeing them perform. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

So, Mr. Clapton, will I see you there on Tuesday night? The show should be over by midnight, so you can get home at a reasonable hour (at least in the world of rock n’ roll where many shows aren’t over until 2am). I bet I can get you on the guest list if you’re so inclined. -Chip

TK Webb (of Sundown) and EYE open the show. Music starts around 9pm. Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 at the door.
http://www.donewaiting.com/2012/01/08/tuesday-radio-moscow-ace-of-cups/

COLUMBUS ALIVE (Columbus, OH weekly) – Day-of-show “ Concert Pick” with band photo

Tuesday concert pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups

Looking to rock this Tuesday? Look no further than Ace of Cups, 2619 N. High St., where Iowa psych-blues slammers Radio Moscow headline a bill also featuring like-minded locals EYE and a solo appearance by Sundown’s TK Webb. For more info, check my staff pick from the most recent issue.
http://www.columbusalive.com/content/blogs/sensory-overload/2012/01/radio-moscow.html

COLUMBUS ALIVE (Columbus, OH weekly) – The A-List Staff Pick show preview

Staff Pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups
By Chris Deville
The Columbus Dispatch

Like Sabbath with soul or Dan Auerbach fronting Cream, Radio Moscow magnificently blazes through the bluesy raunch of heavy metal’s afterbirth. The touring circuit suffers no shortage of back-to-basics psych rock, but few are quite so gnarly as the band that banged out last year’s rock-solid “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz” on Alive Naturalsound (no relation to this fine publication). Add Eye and TK Webb of Sundown to the equation and you’ve got yourself a rock show of repute.
Ace of Cups
8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10
2619 N. High St., North Campus
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2012/01/05/9a-bits05-g1bfetac-1.html

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH (Columbus, OH daily) – Brief show preview.

Radio Moscow : Throwback sounds are key for the modern Iowa psych-blues trio, whose music has been compared to that of Cream and the Allman Brothers Band.
DOORS OPEN 8 p.m. Tuesday
TICKETS $7
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2012/01/05/9a-bits05-g1bfetac-1.html

LITTLE VILLAGE (Iowa City weekly) – Positive show preview with video.

FRIDAY
Radio Moscow, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions // Gabe’s // 9:00 PM // $10

Radio Moscow continues the weekend’s face melting with some heavy psychedelic blues-rock. What started as a solo project by frontman Parker Griggs, quickly became a full band affair personally endorsed by perhaps the biggest rock band in American right now, The Black Keys. These dudes can shred. Hailing from Story City, IA, Radio Moscow has played SXSW a few times and has released three albums in the past four years. Their latest, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz was released in October, 2011 and they’ve been touring the world to support it. Iowa City band, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions open this one.
http://littlevillagemag.com/weekender/iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7

PRESS-CITIZEN (Iowa City daily) – Brief critics pick show preview.

Play: Events not to miss this week
Radio Moscow
Radio Moscow, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions and Johnny Scum will share the stage at 9 p.m. Friday at Gabe’s. The Radio Moscow trio is touring on the heels of its second studio album, “Brain Cycles.” Tickets are $10 through www.icgabes.com.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120105/GOIOWACITY/301050001/Play-Events-not-to-miss-this-week

RAG ON THE ROAD (Spanish music site) – Positive review in Spanish.
http://ragontheroad.blogspot.com/2012/01/radio-moscow-great-escape-of-leslie.html

AMES TRIBUNE (Ames, IA daily) – Positive feature/interview to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow returns to roots with Ames show
Chad Taylor

Radio Moscow is kind of a big deal. Coming from a state with a “middle-of-nowhere” reputation, Radio Moscow is probably Iowa’s best opportunity to contribute something real to the greater musical landscape.

Trends come and go, but the idea of a bunch of guys getting together in a garage and playing the kind of music that makes the neighbors call the cops — that’s forever. And it’s that idea that’s crystallized in the form of Radio Moscow, more so than any other local product.

There’s no hipster lo-fi. No digital manipulation to muddle the sound or Slipknot-style gimmicks to distract from it. Radio Moscow is rock music as the gods intended: recorded straight to tape and full of dirty amps, manic drums; syrup-thick bass lines and some of the best modern-day guitar hooks this side of Buckethead.

Parker Griggs – the magician responsible for those licks and pride of Story City – is not just a cheap homage to dervishes like Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Rather, he’s a direct descendant, cobbled together from whatever pieces of cosmic cloth were left over from their creation and handed a guitar.

The band plays live as a power trio but are, for all practical intents and purposes, a two man operation. All three of the group’s studio albums have featured bassist Zach Anderson, with Griggs pulling duty on most everything else.

“I write the drum tracks myself,” Griggs said. “The guys we play with live play most of the songs pretty close. But for the albums, there are just some things that I want done a certain way, so I just do them.”

Signed to Alive Natural sound Records by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach (Auerbach also produced their self-titled debut), Radio Moscow’s production level has been as consistent and unrelenting as their sound, with an album coming out just about every 18 months.

Griggs has no immediate intentions of altering that pace, either.

“Since the album [‘The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz’] came out, I’ve written about another half album worth of songs,” he said. “We’ll finish this tour out, and probably be back in the studio in early 2012.”

Radio Moscow returns to Ames this week for a concert at DG’s Tap House, 127 Main St., Saturday night. The band will also give an interview and perform at KURE 88.5 earlier that afternoon. The concert is the second of five Midwest performances before Radio Moscow begins its U.S. tour with Graveyard.

Event: Radio Moscow, DG’s Tap House, 127 Main St., 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, $10
http://amestrib.com/articles/2012/01/04/ames_tribune/news/entertainment/doc4f038e1a21de3661555889.txt

DES MOINES CITYVIEW (Des Moines daily) – Positive feature/interview  with band photo to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow’s Parker Griggs carries the torch for psychedelic rock
By Michael Swanger

Radio Moscow’s frontman and founder Parker Griggs doesn’t just play stoner rock; he is stoner rock.

The proof is in his wafer-thin frame and long hair, his pot-inspired album artwork, his imprisonment for possession of hash and his unapologetic devotion to classic psychedelic rock and proto-metal blues inspired by Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple and Cream. It is so ingrained in every fiber of his being that one could argue that he arrived on the scene 40 years too late.

Yet before anyone accuses Griggs of being the musical equivalent of an acid flashback, consider the modest success Radio Moscow has earned in its short life during a time when boring, predictable, corporate-backed musicians rule the roost. To be sure, the “new is old philosophy” that applies to retrogressive predecessors like The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Amy Winehouse and Raphael Saadiq applies to Parker.

“When we started, there wasn’t anything like us going on,” said Parker, 27, from his California home. “There’s more of the old school influence starting to pick up now, but there’s still not a lot of it out there.”

When Parker began his musical journey in his parents’ basement in Story City, Iowa, he did so with the encouragement of his father who played guitar and the inspiration of the 1990s grunge and alternative rock movements.

“I got into that and started playing guitar and drums at the same time,” Griggs said. “I liked the rawness of it. It was something I could relate to.”

Griggs began recording under the solo alias Garbage Composal before adding bassist Serana Anderson to form Radio Moscow. The singer/songwriter/guitarist/drummer would pre-record drum tracks for the duo to play along to at shows.

“I recorded the drum tracks because we couldn’t find a drummer to play with us for such a long time,” Griggs said. “There’s not a lot of people to jam with.”

That would change after Griggs moved to Colorado in 2005 and attended a concert by The Black Keys. After the show, he gave the band’s merchandise manager a copy of his demo of instrumental tracks and his phone number. Later that night, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach called him back to inform him that he dug it and wanted to work with Radio Moscow.

“I was pretty surprised the dude from The Black Keys was calling my phone that night. I’m glad he checked it out,” Griggs said.

Soon afterwards, Auerbach signed Radio Moscow to Alive Naturalsound Records, and Griggs and new bassist Luke McDuff traveled to Auerbach’s home in Akron, Ohio, to record the band’s self-titled debut album that would be released in 2007. Griggs said the experience was enjoyable and informative.

“He’s a pretty no-nonsense guy. We got it done in a few days and he helped me with my vocals, getting me to be more confident to sing,” he said.

That growing confidence can be heard on the band’s 2009 album “Brain Cycles” and 2011’s “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz.” The latest album features bassist Zach Anderson and Griggs on tunes like the wah-and-phased delirium of “Little Eyes,” the UK blues-rock of “Creepin’” and the Middle Eastern-inspired “Densaflorativa.”

This year might prove to the be the band’s most prolific and newsworthy to date. On Jan. 10, Alive Naturalsound will release a compilation of exclusive tracks from Radio Moscow and their label mates entitled “Where Is Parker Griggs?” to be followed later this year by an album of basement recordings Griggs recorded during his teen years in Iowa.
After concluding a tour next month with Swedish hard rockers Graveyard, Griggs will recruit replacements for Anderson and drummer Cory Berry because “they want to stay in the Midwest, and I want to stay in California.” He will also continue working on new material for an album he hopes to release later this year, while squeezing in a tour of Europe this spring.

“I guess I always wanted to try as hard as I could to make good music. I always wanted it to work out,” he said. CV
Radio Moscow performs Saturday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. at DG’s Taphouse in Ames. Admission is $10.
http://www.dmcityview.com/2012/01/05/music/sound.html

THE AUSTIN CUT (Austin, TX weekly) – Brief show preview

Graveyard w/ Radio Moscow
Wed, 01/25/2012 – 6:30pm
Mohawk Outside

Four dudes with long hair and random mustaches usually put on a good show. Graveyard seriously rocks, but still claims to play folk/blues/classic stuff. Radio Moscow is more hair, and more psychedelia. “Psychedelic blues for your soul!”
http://austincut.com/event/2012-01-25/mohawk-outside/graveyard-w-radio-moscow

DES MOINES REGISTER’S THE JUICE (Des Moines daily) – Positive feature/interview  with band photo to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow back to civilization
The psychedelic blues band has been spending time off the grid
by Erin Randolph

Where is Parker Griggs? The 27-year-old lead singer of psychedelic blues band Radio Moscow may as well be off the grid entirely.

Griggs created Radio Moscow in his hometown of Story City, though it was relocated to Colorado, then back to Iowa, and now to a secluded cabin in an unincorporated area of northern California.

“It’s a strange mix of folks out here,” Griggs said. “It’s quite different.”

It’s the kind of seclusion that hardly exists in the 21st century: no Internet access, spotty phone reception and few neighbors. But it is an ideal practice space and home for a band looking for the freedom to play music on its own terms and disappear for a few months to create a new album. The band is currently on a North American tour in support of its third album, “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz,” including a stop in Ames at DG’s Tap House on Saturday night.

“The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz” was released in October on Alive Records, the original label of The Black Keys — who helped Radio Moscow get signed after Griggs passed a cassette tape to the band’s merch guy at a show. The album was recorded in a studio north of San Francisco and fed through old tape machines to give it a vintage vibe, referencing genre idols such as Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The songs on the album are the product of the loneliness and eccentricities of the band’s temporary home in remote Rancho Tehama, where the songs were written.

Though Griggs has a difficult time explaining exactly how the isolation of the ranch impacted the sound of the album, he acknowledges the presence of this outside force in the creative process.

“This place is pretty secluded and it’s kind of lonely,” Griggs said. “It’s quite different than most places in America. We can’t really get phone calls or get online. It gave the album sort of a different weirdness than the previous albums because we were so isolated.”

It’s that same isolation that inspired Alive Records to release a compilation called “Where is Parker Griggs?” It’s an apparent acknowledgment of how difficult it is to get a hold of Griggs in his remote locale, not to mention the difficulty of attempting to reach the band while touring extensively in Europe, which Radio Moscow has done multiple times and to bigger fanfare than in its homeland.

“Our shows are twice as big over there as opposed to the average American gig,” Griggs said. “The promotion is better and more people go out to rock and roll shows.”

Though Europe has its own appeal, Griggs is looking forward to returning to Iowa, where his family still resides. Griggs cut his teeth in Ames as a teenager with dyed-blue hair playing drums in a punk rock band. His dad introduced him to British blues rock, and Griggs hasn’t looked back since. When Griggs pulls into town this time, it will be in support of the music that inspires him: blues-meets- garage rock with a psychedelic spin. And if playing that music means living in a remote cabin in Northern California, unreachable to much of the outside world, then so be it.

Radio Moscow
Where: DG’s Tap House, Ames
When: Saturday, 8 p.m.
Cost: $10, at midwestix.com
http://dmjuice.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012301030060

THE AQUARIAN WEEKLY (NYC / NJ weekly) – Positive show preview with band photo.

Radio Moscow: Storm’s Brewin’
—by Roz Smith, January 9, 2012

On Jan. 12, Sweden’s Graveyard and Iowa natives Radio Moscow will be tearing up NYC’s Bowery Ballroom. The psychedelic garage-rock trio is currently touring the country with the Swedes in support of their latest release, The Great Escape Of Leslie Magnafuzz, which is out on Alive Naturalsound Records. Tickets for the Jan. 12 show are $13 in advance and $15 the day of. Doors are at 8 p.m., and the show is 18+. Don’t miss the blues-rock power trio as they show the East Coast what the Dust Bowl has been stirring up.
http://www.theaquarian.com/2012/01/09/radio-moscow-storms-brewin/

EXAMINER: CENTRAL IOWA (online A&E site) – Positive Ames show preview with band photo and related links.

Radio Moscow comes to DG’s Tap House on January 7
Radio Moscow will play a show at DG’s Tap House (127 Main Street, Ames) on Saturday, January 7.  Doors open at 8 pm, and the show starts at 9 pm.  Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online through MidwesTix.  Bright Giant is slated to open.  You must be 21 or older to attend this show.

Radio Moscow is a psychedelic blues rock band that got its start in Story City, Iowa.  Though the band has moved around some and turned over some members, founder Parker Griggs still has the band on the cusp of breaking big.  The band currently features Griggs on vocals and guitar (and also drums when recording) and Zach Anderson on bass.  The band uses a variety of drummers when they tour.  The band is currently on a tour that has them playing nearly every single day in January, and includes dates in 16 different states from coast to coast during the month.
http://www.examiner.com/music-scene-in-des-moines/radio-moscow-comes-to-dg-s-tap-house-on-january-7

ALAN CROSS: A JOURNAL OF MUSICAL THINGS (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Parker photo, Ames live video, and related link.
http://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/1/11/radio-moscows-bloody-breakup.html

PLUG IN MUSIC (online music site) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Parker photo, Ames live video, The Stranger mp3, tour dates and related link.
http://www.pluginmusic.com/news/article/radio-moscow-suffer-physical-meltdown-on-stage-during-show

DSM VIBE (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Ames live video.
The break-up and rebirth of Radio Moscow
Posted on January 11, 2012 by dsmvibe
In case you haven’t heard, or were curious about our cryptic tweets from Saturday night’s Radio Moscow/Bright Giant show, the video below should explain everything behind the break-up and rebirth of Radio Moscow.
http://dsmvibe.com/2012/01/11/the-break-up-and-rebirth-of-radio-moscow/