JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Dave Grohl’s 54th birthday.
Category: Alt-rock
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Michael Stipe!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Michael Stipe’s 63rd birthday.
Rising Brooklyn-based quartet Razor Braids — Hollye Bynum (she/her) – lead vocals, bass;
Janie Peacock (she/her) – lead guitar; Jilly Karande (she/her) – rhythm guitar, vocals; and
Hannah Nichols (they/them) – drums — is a queer, all female/non-binary indie rock outfit that combines the vulnerable, self-awareness of indie rock with the dynamic instrumentation of 90s alt rock paired with soaring harmonies and a driving rhythm section.
The Brooklyn quartet’s full-length debut, 2021’s I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted Me To was warmly received. Building upon a growing profile, the band released two singles last Spring, “Kelloggs” and “Megachurch,” which received praise from BrooklynVegan while landing on several Spotify Fresh Finds playlists.
Since then, Razor Braids embarked on their first tour through the East Coast, Midwest and South — and played Music Hall of Williamsburg, Sultan Room and Elsewhere as openers for the likes of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Jigsaw Youth and Anna Shoemaker.
For the new year, the band plans to release new music, which will expand on their unique sound with more confidence and sense of purpose. But before they moved forward with new material, the members of the band felt it necessary to take a look back at some older material with fresh eyes: “one is our own and the other a throwback favorite,” the band says.” The first single “Nashville, Again” is a thorough reworking of their debut single “Nashville” that turns the rousing rocker into a slow-burning, honky tonk centered around the act’s gorgeous harmonies and shimmering guitars. “Nashville, Again” was the first song we released as a band and in revisiting the single we got to breathe new life into a song that always feels like coming home when we play it live.”
The second single sees the rising indie outfit covering Weezer’s 1994 smash hit “Buddy Holly.” Interestingly, the Razor Braids cover begins as a lovingly straightforward cover rooted in the act’s gorgeous harmonizing paired with the original’s rousingly anthemic hooks. But unlike the original there’s a trippy and expansive bridge that reveals the band’s love for the original — and their sense of humor. “As for ‘Buddy Holly,’ mid-90s alt-rock is a big inspiration for us and ‘Say It Ain’t So’ tends to show face at every Razor Braids-attended karaoke so we thought it’d be fun to try our hand at another Weezer classic,” the band explains. “We wanted to call it ‘Buddy Hollye’ but didn’t. But please know that we wanted to.”
The band will be embarking on a month-long tour next month and it includes a stop at this year’s SXSW. Check out the tour dates below.
TOUR DATES
2/23/2023 Asbury Park NJ Bond Street Bar
2/24/2023 Philadelphia PA MilkBoy
2/25/2023 Washington DC Pie Shop
2/27/2023 Asheville NC The Grey Eagle
3/1/2023 Atlanta GA Vinyl
3/2/2023 Charlotte NC Snug Harbor
3/3/2023 West Columbia SC New Brookland Tavern
3/4/2023 Tallahassee FL The Bark
3/7/2023 New Orleans LA Gasa Gasa
3/8/2023 Houston TX House of Blues – Bronze Peacock
3/13 – 3/18 Austin, TX SXSW
3/22/2023 Nashville TN The Basement
3/24/2023 Chicago IL Subterranean
3/25/2023 Toledo OH The Ottawa Tavern
3/26/2023 Ferndale MI The Parliament Room at Otus Supply
3/28/2023 Cleveland OH Beachland Tavern
3/29/2023 Pittsburgh PA Club Cafe
Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Eddie Vedder!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Eddie Vedder’s 58th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 64th Birthday, Mike Mills!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Mike Mills’ 64th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 66th Birthday, Peter Buck!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Peter Buck’s 66th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, Bjork!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Bjork’s 57th birthday.
Throwback: Happy Belated 53rd Birthday, PJ Harvey!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates PJ Harvey’s 53rd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 54th Birthday, Thom Yorke!
JOVM celebrates Thom Yorke’s 54th birthday.
New Video: The Afghan Whigs Share a Glittery Visual for “A Line of Shots”
Since their formation in Cincinnati back in 1986, The Afghan Whigs — currently Greg Dulli (vocals, guitar), John Curley (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and the band’s newest member, Blind Melon’s Christopher Thorn (guitar) — have a long-held reputation for refusing to play by convention: During the flannel and plaid of the early 90s grunge era, the members of The Afghan Whigs stood apart from their contemporaries for wearing suits and for being far more likely to slide into a soulful groove than a power chord-driven riff.
Reuniting after an 11 year hiatus in 2012, the JOVM mainstays released two critically applauded albums, 2014’s Do to the Beast and 2017’s In Spades, that found the band writing and recording music that furthered their story together, while pushing their sound in new directions.
The JOVM mainstays ninth album together — and first in five years — the Christopher Thorn co-produced How Do You Burn? is slated for a Friday release through Royal Cream/BMG. The album reportedly picks up on the sound and approach on the Whigs’ last two albums and sees them pushing it either further.
With the pandemic forcing Greg Dulli to abandon plans to support his critically applauded solo album Random Desire, the band began working on How Do You Burn? in September 2020 and continued over the next 14 months in remote recording sessions: Dulli, Thorn and Keeler in California; Curley, Jon Skibic (guitar) and Nelson laying down and engineering their own parts in Cincinnati, New Jersey and New Orleans respectively. “Once we got the system down, we started flying,” Greg Dulli says.
The album features guest spots from a collection of frequent and longtime collaborators including — the late Mark Lanegan, a collaborator of Dulli’s in The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins, as well as a close friend. Lanengan sung backup vocals on two album tracks. “It was Mark who named the album,” Dulli says in press notes. Susan Marshall, who contributed to 1998’s 1965 contributes vocals on album track “Catch A Colt.” Van Hunt,who toured with the band in 2012 and contributed to 2014’s Do to the Beast, contributes vocals on “Jyla” and “Take Me There.” And last but definitely not least, Marcy Mays, lead vocalist on Gentlemen‘s “My Curse” contributes vocals to “Domino and Jimmy,” a song that Dulli had specifically written with Mays in mind.
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
- “I’ll Make You See God,” which is arguably one of the hardest and aggressive songs they’ve written and recorded in close to 30 years.
- “The Getaway,” a widescreen ballad that pairs Dulli’s whiskey and cigarette-like croon with a gorgeous string arrangement, twinkling keys and Dulli’s unerring knack for crafting earnest, lived-in material with enormous, arena rock friendly hooks.
How Do You Burn?’s third and latest single “A Line of Shots,” is a woozy yet anthemic ballad featuring heavily distorted and delay pedaled guitars, Greg Dulli’s imitable croon paired with a slow-burning groove and the band’s unerring knack for rousing, fist-up-in-the-air choruses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, “A Line of Shots” was so much of a crowd favorite during the JOVM mainstays’ May 2022 US tour that the band decided that the song needed its own moment in the sun.
Directed by Patrick Pierson, the accompanying video for “A Line of Shots” continues on some of the space-related imagery of “The Getaway” including the spacesuits and lights that are shot to look like stars and planets — but while set at a roller skating rink, punningly called The Cheap Skate. Fittingly, we also get some gorgeous young skate dancers of color doing their thing; but at its core is a nostalgic and swooning fever dream of youth and young love.
Throwback: Happy (Belated) 56th Birthday, Shirley Manson!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates Shirley Manson’s 56th birthday.
Throwback: Happy (Belated) 55th Birthday, Layne Staley!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates the 55th anniversary of Layne Staley’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Pat Smear!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Pat Smear’s 63rd birthday.
Throwback: Happy (Belated) 64th Birthday, Bill Berry!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belated celebrates Bill Berry’s 64th birthday.
Since their formation in Cincinnati back in 1986, The Afghan Whigs — currently Greg Dulli (vocals, guitar), John Curley (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson and the band’s newest member, Blind Melon’s Christopher Thorn (guitar) — have a long-held reputation for refusing to play by convention: During the flannel and plaid of the early 90s grunge era, the members of The Afghan Whigs stood apart from their contemporaries for wearing suits and for being more likely to slide into a soulful groove than a power chord-driven riff.
Reuniting after an 11 year hiatus in 2012, the JOVM mainstays released two critically applauded albums, 2014’s Do to the Beast and 2017’s In Spades, that found the band writing and recording music that furthered their story together, while pushing their sound in new directions.
Slated for a September 9, 2022 release through Royal Cream/BMG, the JOVM mainstays’ ninth album — and first in five years — the Christopher Thorn co-produced How Do You Burn? reportedly picks up on the sound and appraoch of 2014’s Do to the Beast and 2017’s In Spades and pushes it even further. With the pandemic forcing Greg Dulli to abandon plans to support his critically applauded solo album Random Desire, the band began working on How Do You Burn? in September 2020 and continued over the next 14 months in remote recording sessions: Dulli, Thorn and Keeler in California; Curley, Jon Skibic (guitar) and Nelson laying down and engineering their own parts in Cincinnati, New Jersey and New Orleans respectively. “Once we got the system down, we started flying,” Greg Dulli says.
The album features guest spots from a collection of frequent and longtime collaborators including — the late Mark Lanegan, a collaborator of Dulli’s in The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins, as well as a close friend. Lanengan sung backup vocals on two album tracks. “It was Mark who named the album,” Dulli says in press notes. Susan Marshall, who contributed to 1998’s 1965 contributes vocals on album track “Catch A Colt.” Van Hunt,who toured with the band in 2012 and contributed to 2014’s Do to the Beast, contributes vocals on “Jyla” and “Take Me There.” And last but definitely not least, Marcy Mays, lead vocalist on Gentlemen‘s “My Curse” contributes vocals to “Domino and Jimmy,” a song that Dulli had specifically written with Mays in mind.
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
- “I’ll Make You See God,” which is arguably one of the hardest and aggressive songs they’ve written and recorded in close to 30 years.
- “The Getaway,” a widescreen ballad that pairs Dulli’s whiskey and cigarette-like croon with a gorgeous string arrangement, twinkling keys and Dulli’s unerring knack for crafting earnest, lived-in material with enormous, arena rock friendly hooks.
How Do You Burn?’s third and latest single “A Line of Shots,” a woozy yet anthemic ballad featuring heavily distorted and delay pedaled guitars, Greg Dulli’s imitable croon paired with a slow-burning groove and the band’s unerring knack for rousing, fist-up-in-the-air choruses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, “A Line of Shots” was so much of a crowd favorite during the JOVM mainstays’ May 2022 US tour that the band decided that the song needed its own moment in the sun.
The JOVM mainstays are about to embark on a UK and European Union tour that starts on July 23, 2022 and ends on August 10, 2022. The band will take a few weeks off and then go on a month-long US tour that includes a September 15, 2022 stop at Brooklyn Steel. They’ll cap a big year with a return to European Union and UK. Tour dates are below.
EUROPEAN SUMMER TOUR DATES
07/23 Brighton, UK Concorde 2
07/24 Suffolk, UK Latitude Festival
07/26 Frankfurt, Germany Batschkapp
07/28 Vienna, Austria Flex
07/29 Prague, Czech Republic Lucerna Music Bar
07/30 Berlin, Germany Metropol
08/01 Oslo, Norway Parkteatret Scene
08/02 Stockholm, Sweden Debaser
08/03 Copenhagen, Denmark Amager Bio
08/05 Hamburg, Germany Uebel & Gefährlich (Half House)
08/06 Nijmegen, Netherlands Roosje Live In Park @ Openluchttheater Goffert
08/08 Stuttgart, Germany Im Wizemann
08/09 Cologne, Germany Luxor
08/10 Lokeren, Belgium Lokersee Feesten
U.S. FALL HEADLINE TOUR DATES
09/09 Minneapolis, MN Fine Line Music Café
09/10 Chicago, IL Metro
09/11 Cincinnati, OH Bogarts
09/12 Detroit, MI St. Andrews Hall
09/14 Washington, D.C. 9:30 Club
09/15 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Steel
09/16 Philadelphia, PA Underground Arts
09/17 Boston, MA Paradise
09/20 Charlottesville, VA Jefferson Theatre
09/21 Asheville, NC The Grey Eagle
09/22 Birmingham, AL Saturn
09/24 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jacks
09/28 Austin, TX Mohawk
09/29 Dallas, TX The Echo Lounge & Music Hall
10/01 Denver, CO Gothic Theatre
10/02 Salt Lake City, UT The Commonwealth Room
10/05 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
10/06 Seattle, WA The Showbox
10/08 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
10/09 Dana Point, CA Ohana Encore
10/11 Tucson, AZ 191 Toole
10/12 Los Angeles, CA Belasco Theatre
EUROPEAN FALL HEADLINE TOUR DATES
10/22 Madrid, Spain Teatro Barceló
10/23 Barcelona, Spain Apolo 2
10/25 Milan, Italy Santeria
10/26 Rome, Italy Largo
10/28 Munich, Germany Freiheitshalle
10/29 Zurich, Switzerland Bogen F
10/30 Luxembourg Den Atelier
11/01 Amsterdam, Netherlands Paradiso
11/02 Antwerp, Belgium De Roma
11/04 Manchester, UK Cathedral
11/05 Glasgow, UK St. Lukes
11/06 London, UK KOKO