It’s a music filled day on the blog today! Continuing on with The Cuban Heels Album of the Week, here’s two more tracks from their self titled cd for your listening pleasure! For more information visit yesterday’s post about the band.
Mr. Brannam
Where Do We Go?
Want to turn $12.41* into something much, much better? For exactly that, you can help The Yalla Yallas finish production and release their second album Diamond In Dirt.
(*£8/$12.41 US/$12.70 CN, courtesy of your friendly blog currency converter!)
At that price, you’ll also in essence be pre-ordering a downloadable copy of the album when it’s ready. Add a few more dimes and you’ll be in line for a hard copy of the cd.
After hearing the demos when the album was first being written (a review of the demo tape from earlier this year can be found here), and now after listening to a reviewer’s copy of the album in it’s almost-finished state, I can assure you, you would much rather be listening to The Yalla Yallas than holding those twelve dollars and some change in your hands.
Through PledgeMusic, your contribution at any level (with many other perks to go along with your contribution, including an option for £20/$31.14 for your name in the cd credits) will help make this second album a reality. As of this writing, only 13 days are left to reach their goal so they can proceed with production.
As of this writing they are at 27%, so I implore you to one or more of the following to get to know The Yalla Yallas:
As for the album itself, it’s been an amazing process to witness the writing, recording and evolution of the songs. A quick review will have me telling you that from demo to current state, the tracks from Diamond In Dirt are now fully caffeinated. The energy level has risen to Full Steam Ahead, and is punctuated by Rob Galloway’s wonderfully growling voice. The beauty of the songs lie in the fact that they can easily lend themselves to being played fully plugged in, on stage full guns, and yet I can also picture them stripped down, acoustic around a campfire. The bones of the songs are lovely indeed, but with tough skin around them. I’ve never been so closely involved as a witness in the composing and releasing of an album, so this has a special place in my heart, and I’m really hoping to see them make their goal. If you’re interested in helping out with a worthy creative project and have a few bucks to spare, please visit The Yalla Yallas’ Diamond In Dirt project profile on PledgeMusic, it will be most appreciated!
The Yalla Yallas will also be included within today’s Trash City Radio Show transmission, so if you can try to catch the show live, and if that’s not possible you can find it later on in the archives right here on the blog.
(Photos courtesy of Sara Brooks)
Well howdy do! to whoever is reading this post this morning, which comes to you in the wake of a very fun and action packed weekend (Baking! Boggle! Geocaching! Merrymaking!) with my aunt and cousin who flew in from Seattle. It’s Monday now, and to wake myself up I thought I’d start with a Song of the Day. Except, today’s Song of the Day is going all haywire and turning into Album of the Week! Thanks to the recently acquired audio capabilities of this blog, and the permission of guitarist Chris Venables, I am pleased to share two songs every day this week (Monday-Friday) from the self titled album by The Cuban Heels.
So who are The Cuban Heels? you might ask. I’ll assume you did, and I’ll tell you a story of a quest for musical gold, filled with many ups and downs and more ups (got your cuppa ready?).
The Cuban Heels are a band I discovered upon my first ever foray onto the Strummerville website sometime last year. I was poking around the site listening to some of the music posted there, and stumbled across “11 Little Secrets,” and it prompted me to go digging deeper for more information and more of their music.
The first thing I discovered, thanks to “asking the Googe” (nod to Genie for the use of her term), was that there are a few Cuban Heels out there in the world. I weeded out the ones who were not the ones I was looking for (The Cuban Heels of the Netherlands, of Scotland, and of Australia). The Cuban Heels I was looking for were from Bristol, England.
I searched a little more and finally found their presence on MySpace (Happy!) and more tunes that drove me to look even harder for a full fledged album (“Garden Song” in particular fueled my search to a frantic level). I then came across a disheartening piece of information: The Cuban Heels were no longer active and were on an indefinite hiatus (Sad!). However, I also discovered they had played a reunion show not too long before I had learned of them, so I continued my quest. A few more bits of information were found (mind you, this was all in the space of less than 30 minutes, gotta love the internet), and eventually came the best bit of all. I found a post that Chris had made saying that anyone interested in some Cuban Heels music could send an email about a remastered cd he had put together (HAPPY!). So naturally my musical addiction tendencies and my frantic search for anything Cuban Heels culminated in a reply from me. The result? Not long after I received into my possession a full 17-track album by the Cuban Heels.
I’ve been wanting to share my spoils, and now with the blog’s abilities to upload and post music and the a-ok to share it with you, I thought I’d do just that via the first Tulip Tree blog Album of the Week. I’ll start by posting the first song off the cd, “Coming Around” followed by “Garden Song,”the song that drove my search to fever pitch. The first CH song I laid my ears on, “11 Little Secrets,” can still be found on their page on the Strummerville website.
The Cuban Heels – “Coming Around”
The Cuban Heels – “Garden Song”
Many many thanks to The Cuban Heels for their collective creation of the musical gold, and especially to Chris Venables for allowing me to post the music here. More to come tomorrow!
Happy Friday my friends! I’m excited to close the week out by sharing some more music with you, this time coming at you via Phoenix, Arizona by way of Los Angeles, California, by way of both of our hometowns of good ole northeast Ohio. The duo, comprised of Donny Taylor (Donny grew up in the same area as Ady and I, and has been a close friend of Ady’s from early on in life—our “brotha from another mother” as we all like to say) and Teddy Semaan, from Lebanon, have concocted a totally groovy, funky vibe that comes together in the music of Dame un Beso.
In another in the string of interviews I have been conducting (which has quickly become one of my favorite parts of doing this blog) I bring to you the sights and sounds of Dame Un Beso, and so, heeeere’s Donny!
Before you start reading, I’m going to start you off with a few new songs, so click play and read the interview to a Dame un Beso soundtrack! So put on your dancing shoes, have a listen and a read, and when you’re done leave some feedback for the guys either here on the blog, or on their website, Dame un Beso.
in it & of it:
lovesoul:
TT: Take it away Donny! Tell us a little about who Dame un Beso is.
Dame un Beso: Donny Taylor and Teddy Semaan
DT:
Donny Taylor~vocals, keys, guitar, bass, RC-50, percussion
Teddy Semaan~ drums
Right now we are in Phoenix having our “desert sessions” writing, arranging and putting the set together. Teddy is from Lebanon and I’m from Northeast Ohio, we met in Akron.
TT: Tell us about the name, “Dame un Beso”
DT: “Give me a Kiss” I was trying to figure out a name for a few months and living in San Diego at the time enriched in the latino culture. For some reason I wanted a translation name and then one day my latina girlfriend said what she would always say…”dame un beso” and I said, “THAT’S IT!”
TT: In five words, describe your sound.
DT: Vibrational, dynamic, affectionate, perpetual, conscious.
TT: In what way did our hometown (northeast Ohio) have an influence on your sound, if any, and has it changed with your location changes?
DT: I’m not one to blame environment but truthfully it seemed to come out more depressing there, I think I was younger and it stemmed from ego and the “feel sorry for me” vibe. I do believe environment is extremely important to artist it is directly representational. Now I’m a lil older and I live in the sun……now I write for the collective!
TT: What music has influenced your style?
DT: I was very lucky to have brothers ten years older. I got introduced to tons at a very early age. Early on it was my brothers classic rock stuff, Rush, Queen, ELO etc… while my other brother was turning me on to The Gap Band and more funky stuff. I then made some of my own choices leading into The Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash & Whodini. The next year it went straight to the punk rock scene out on the west and east coast, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat and then I found Fugazi, life changing for me. Now it’s anything sincere, Fela Kuti, Antibalas, old jazz, old funk etc. I really appreciated open minded artist that cross genres like Johnny Cash, Ray Charles & Les Paul
TT: What is at the root of Dame un Beso?
DT: These days politics don’t even come close to being part of the message, it’s more about the collective and bringing people together in the moment. We are not really trying to judge anyone or anything, leave that shit at the door and “Let’s Dance”!
TT: What other creative outlets do you have besides music?
DT: For me music has inspired me to become a painter, I also LOVE to cook and drink wine with the cool kids. Teddy is in another band with his girl “Desert Figues” and wait, wait…..I see him working in his garden as I type! I would say communication is a huge outlet for both of us.
TT: Guess what’s coming next? The super hero question! What would your super hero name, costume and power be (you know you want one!)?
DT: Love it!…I would be DJ D and my head would be a turntable and my power would be putting people in a trance and making them dance!………ahhhh world peace.
On Tuesdays from 6-8pm GMT listeners in the Exeter, England area have the distinct privilege of being able to tune their radio dials directly to 106.8. Elsewhere in the world they can point their iPhone or browser to Phonic.fm at the corresponding time (1pm EST in my corner of the world). Those of us that do this are rewarded with a treasure box filled with two hours of diverse music presented as Trash City Radio Show with host Joe Rebel. Joe, a long time music-o-phile, takes us on a genre hopping ride underscored with his encyclopedic-like knowledge of music he includes in his show, including anecdotes, factoids, and in some instances first hand accounts from a man who has been on the UK punk scene from it’s earliest years.
So how did some girl in the middle of America learn of a local radio show all the way across the Atlantic? Much like other discoveries, I first learned of Trash City via the string of serendipitous events surrounding the Mick Jones Rock n Roll Public Library, which has been chronicled here on the blog in earlier posts (see side panel to the right on this blog for all the info you need on that!) Long story short, I recognized the “Trash City” reference along the way (I being a fellow Clash/Strummer affectionado, and Joe likewise, as well as he being a friend of the late great Joe Strummer), and so it was a given that I should tune in. My first passing thought was a “hmm, this could potentially be a good one, I should check it out.” (more…)
Sisters Dissonance 