The Black Lips, Snarky Puppy, RJD2
New Mountain Asheville
04/24/2015 05:00 PM EDT
$60.00
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Supporting Acts: Slow Magic, The Fritz, The Tills, RBTS WIN, Kansas Bible Company, The Shine Brothers, Cure For The Common, Southern Fried Funk, sol cat
The Black Lips
Atlanta's beloved sons the Black Lips(Jared,Ian,Cole, and Joe) entered last year through a screaming cloud of sweat, smoke, blood, and beer mist. After a spring and summer of exciting audiences across the world, the Lips embarked on a month-long fall tour of the Middle East. They were tailed by Georgia rock-doc royalty Bill Cody, of Athens, GA - Inside/Out fame, who filmed the band playing for Egypt who had just overthrown their government, kids in Iraq who barely have a government, and kids in Dubai who finally get to see a band that isn't in the top 40. As Cody assembled his footage into the feature Kids Like You and Me, the band returned home from the New Year's maelstrom and began settling into album mode.
Recording for Underneath the Rainbow was split between New York with Thomas Brenneck, who was recommended by Arabia Mountain producer Mark Ronson, and Nashville with the the Black Keys' Patrick Carney, who offered to help produce in a Mexico city hotel room just before dawn.
"It was one of those super-late-night/super-early-morning drunk-talk sort of situations, so we weren't sure if he meant it," explains Jared. "People do that all the time."
Early internet conjecture pegged Underneath the Rainbow's sound as a blend of southern rock with throwback C&W and blues, based on the lead single 'Boys in the Wood', which is a weird description for a record containing the first Black Lips' song with a prominent synth ("Funny"), and even less apt for an overall album that owes just as much to the kiwi pop of New Zealand's South Island and the Chicago South Side's Crucial Conflict as it does the standard American South. It never strays far from the traditional roots music that has always found a comfortable home with the Black Lips, but invites enough curiosity with its approach to attract even the most unlikely listener.
'Underneath the Rainbow' can only guarantee one thing; that the kids will be Smiling, Waiting for the Dandelion Dust to make things Funny at the Dorner Party while the Boys in the Wood Make You Mine as they Do the Vibrate. The morning will break and the passenger will say, "Drive-By, Buddy… I don't wanna go home. Damn these dog years…"
Snarky Puppy
Snarky Puppy is truly a different kind of musical animal.
The once Texan, now New York-based quasi-collective has gone from the best-kept secret to one of the most respected names in instrumental music. Although still "underground" in many respects, the band has earned high praise from critical stalwarts like the BBC, Village Voice, Guardian, and Boston Herald, and has performed at some of the best venues and festivals in Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America.
The band has always used live performance as its chief form of evangelism, and maintains a more intense tour schedule than almost any band in the idiom. Over the course of 2013, Snarky Puppy will give almost 200 performances and workshops on four continents, including North Sea Jazz, Monterey Jazz Festival, Jazz á Vienne, Blue Note Tokyo, and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. The band's 2012 release, the live DVD/CD "GroundUP," reached #14 on the Billboard Jazz Charts and #3 on the ITunes Jazz Charts in 2012, topped only by Grammy winners Robert Glasper and Esperanza Spalding. Their 2013 release "Family Diner, Vol. 1" debuted at #1 on the iTunes Jazz Chart in the US, Canada, UK and New Zealand and was in the top 5 in a handful of other countries. It stayed in or around the top spot for almost 2 months and the lead single " Something" featuring the powerful vocals of Lalah Hathaway has over 1.6 Million views on YouTube.
Snarky Puppy seamlessly fuses a deep knowledge and respect for musical tradition with sonic and conceptual innovation in a way that is able to reach the most critical- or most carefree- audience. The convergence of musicians from white and black America (who also perform regularly with artists like Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Kirk Franklin, Justin Timberlake, Roy Hargrove, and Marcus Miller among others), which occurred while the band was in its adolescence at the University of North Texas, has naturally established a system of balance that instantly draws listeners to the music- raw funk and sensitive dynamics, relentless pocket and lyrical melodicism, lush harmony and soulful simplicity, and most importantly, a delicate mixture of composition and improvisation.
The group is led by award-winning bassist/guitarist/composer/arranger Michael League, whose creative grass-roots approach to a tougher-than-ever industry has created a new model for independent artists. Snarky Puppy is a three-headed creature: first, and most obviously- an original music ensemble. Second- a production team and session band for individual artists. Third, and probably most importantly- Snarky Puppy is a group of musicians enthusiastically committed to music education and community outreach. Working with groups like ROAM (Roots Of American Music) in inner city Cleveland and the Music Lab at Jefferson Center in Roanoke, as well as giving clinics at hundreds of colleges, high schools, and middle schools worldwide, the band has made a strong commitment to spreading their love of music and general positivity to a young generation looking for something real to be inspired by.
RJD2
The major labels are crumbling. The deficit soars. Your neighbor came home with SARS. Teenage youth are more armed than Ted Nugent. There will never, ever, be a new episode of "Friends". Clay out-sold Reuben. Odds are you are about to enter another four years of Bush-brand terror. Not to worry, though. Rjd2 has a new album.
On his breakout solo debut, Deadringer, Rjd2 sent listeners on a musical foray into instrumentalism, feasting on styles both old and new, and in the process creating a sound that's emerging as one of the most interesting and exciting new voices in instrumental music. In a genre filled with ambient spacemen and droning techno fromage, Rjd2 brought a sense of song structure and vitality that was sorely missing, harkening back to a time when instrumental groups like Booker T. and the MG s got radio play (no joke). And the accolades rolled in. From industry luminaries like Chris Blackwell, to members of Radiohead and The Strokes, to ?uestlove of The Roots (who nominated Dead Ringer for the prestigious Short List awards in 2003), to DJ Shadow, Rj soon became a favorite of those in-the-know. Dead Ringer was an incredible success globally, appearing on many a year-end list, including Spin's Top 40 Albums of 2002. In '03, he followed up the success of his debut with The Horror, an EP of B-sides that played closer to an entirely new album than a collection of leftovers, and cemented Rjd2 as one of music's most talked about new artists. Touring from Japan to Amsterdam, Rj caught wreck with a dizzying 4-turntable reconstruction/reconfiguring/reinterpretation of the album for fans worldwide, sharing the stage with the likes of DJ Shadow, El-P & the Def Jux crew, David Lynch, The Roots and Prefuse 73, amongst others.
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While Rj soon became the name to drop in hipster circles, he made his bones in the underground, playing a major role in that mid-west power surge better know as Columbus hip hop. After setting it off in 1998 with the mighty Mhz crew on Bobbito Garcia's legendary Fondle Em Records, he caught the attention of El- P and in 2000, he locked in with the Definitive Jux camp, and soon after made his DJX debut on Def Jux Presents I, co-starring with Company Flow, Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock. Then came the now classic "Good Times" white label 12-inch, and the rest has been indie hip hop history. Over the past few years, Rj's profile as a producer has grown immensely as he's clocked time on the boards producing or remixing Mos Def, Massive Attack, El-P, Aceyalone, Polyphonic Spree, Elbow, Cannibal Ox, and others, wielding a versatility rarely seen in music today. His prolific nature has brought him the unique accolade of 'freelance producer/remixer extraordinaire' in Urb Magazine's Best of 2003
issue, amongst others. As one half of the duo Soul Position, he's the ultimate team player, taking a back seat to his MC, Blueprint, and letting him do the talking, while RJ's music keeps the heads nodding. Their 8 Million Stories LP was received in 2003 to rave reviews and continues to nod, and turn, heads. ---------
2004 brings a new, self-titled album, a more focused and cohesive effort than Dead Ringer, while still maintaining the vitality and soulfulness that made his debut so enjoyable. Like a modern day Quincy Jones in the abstract, RJ truly orchestrated his new record, creating a multitude of new songs from all angles, writing music and lyrics, arranging vocals and melodies, auditioning singers and even experimenting with a vocoder. He cut out any fat or filler, and in an industry virtually afloat on the concept of the guest appearance, the album features none (well, maybe one). It's strength instead lies in the meticulous programming, lush instrumentation and solid song arrangements. In many ways, an artist's sophomore album is when their true colors are shown (or exposed), and when their real career begins (or begins to end). In the words of Jimmy Castor, it s just begun.
Venue Information
New Mountain Asheville
38 N. French Broad Road
Asheville, NC 28801
http://www.newmountainavl.com/