A Capella sensation SONOS transforms Radiohead, the Jackson Five, others at the Iron Horse Mon 2/8 at 7PM

SONOS makes their Iron Horse debut on Monday, February 8^th at 7PM. Graduates of the US college choral scene, they’re giving a capella a contemporary makeover turning songs by Rufus Wainwright, Fleet Foxes, Imogen Heap, Björk, Radiohead, and others into strange steam-punk Gregorian chants and solemn mantras for sonic cathedrals.

It's been said that voice is the original instrument. The a cappella group Sonos, UCLA grads who’ve gone pro, takes this idea to a new level. Sonos isn't your typical glee club. They formed out of America's flourishing college a cappella community. Aside from its novel vocal techniques, and even some electronic manipulation, they’ve also cultivated a modern repertoire: unique renditions of music by Radiohead, Fleet Foxes, Bjork, Imogen Heap and more. Prepare to be stunned by these stripped-down, sparse, white winter hymnals. Their rendition of the Jackson 5's “I Want You Back” comes from a different place, transfigured, trip-hopped beyond all recognition.

After a short set as part of the Northampton Arts Council’s annual Silver Chord Bowl (always a sell-out) on Sunday at Smith College, you’ll have a chance to see SONOS in a full concert on their own in their Iron Horse debut on Monday, February 8^th at 8PM.

Tickets are available at Northampton Box Office (NBO) at 76 Main St., by phone at 413-586-8686, and online at IHEG.com.

Hey, look. SONOS is not only a palindrome but reads upside down too.

Legendary UK progressive rockers YES perform at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton Monday, February 8th at 8PM

As a dominant force in music for more than four decades, YES has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, stretching the boundaries of progressive art-rock with their dynamic instrumental contrasts and abstract lyrics. Their symphonic use of sound and innovative musical styles have stood the test of time and assured their place as one of the most successful groups in rock history even as they add new and younger fans to their following.

Yes formed in 1968 by Chris Squire and Jon Anderson from a mutual interest in vocal harmonies and classical song structure. Adding drummer Bill Bruford, guitarist Peter Banks and keyboardist Tony Kaye, the newly minted YES, earned a residency at the famed London venue The Marquee Club, where they played with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Their eponymous debut hit in 1969.

Guitarist Steve Howe, who came from British psychedelic band Tomorrow and went on to play in Asia and GTR, brought an experimental edge to YES for 1970’s The Yes Album, their first to top the UK charts. Drummer Alan White, who had been hand-picked to play on John Lennon’s “Imagine” and George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” joined in 1972. YES then went on to conquer America and played at some of the largest paid attendance concerts of all time, including JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in 1976 to a crowd of over 130,000 people.

Original members Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White. Plus Oliver Wakeman (son of Rick) on keyboards, and Benoit David on vocals.

YES perform at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton Monday, February 8^th at 8PM. Tickets are available at Northampton Box Office (NBO) at 76 Main St., by phone at 413-586-8686, and online at IHEG.com. Click here to buy tickets now.

She's Back and Brilliantly Beautiful. Spend Valentine's Day at the Iron Horse with Laura Veirs and the Hall of Flames.

Laura Veirs (above). Looking for a date for Valentine's Day?

After 2009’s mass success of the wonderful Dame Florence of the Machine 2010 looks to be another year of great female singer songwriters. Both Marina & the Diamonds and Ellie Goulding are set to blow the new decade wide open, and now US born Laura Veirs adds another string to that bow, with her beautiful new album July Flame.

Kicking off a great start for the US born singer’s seventh release, BBC Radio 6 made her latest LP “Album of the Day” last week. Not bad for something that began as simply a name of a peach. After Ms Veirs stumbled upon the so named peach in a Portland farmers market in 2008, she suggested a friend and her each write a song with that title; and so started July Flame.

Much like a summer time mooch through a field, July Flame is soft, warming experience, that bubbles spectacularly in the background. It’d quite happily be at home playing quietly on your kitchen stereo as it would gently pumping in your headphones. Opening tracks I Can See Your Tracks and July Flame glide upon a Fleet Foxes like form. Whilst Summer Is The Champion and Sun Is King tip toe along, tapping into your heartstrings with a sun-baked charm. Little Deschutes and Make Something Good are tender, loving songs like a mother cradling a baby after a bath; the latter featuring Jim James of My Morning Jacket.

It’s a folk sound, stripped to the bare essentials for each track. Veirs’ has moved away from her previous full-band efforts floating back in time to her roots, trusting her finger picking guitar and strings. She borrows from Laura Marling in sound, but not sentiment, infusing an intimate Regina Spektor style of music at times and a touching Bon Iver at another; she weaves a wonderful and touching patchwork to wrap your iPod in an enchanting cocoon of affection.

This is easy listening in essence. But there’s something more than that buried beneath. All you have to do is scratch the surface and the lovely world of Laura Veirs beams through the cracks. It is the sun rising on a summer’s day. It is something that your mother may like. But most importantly, it’s beautiful, joyful and everything that everybody’s favourite season is in a nutshell. So forget the rubbish January snow, July Flame will melt and whisk away your worries with a warm breeze. ----Matt Hamm

Laura Veirs and the Hall of Flames, Old Believers, Led to Sea. Sunday, Feb. 14th, 7PM at the Iron Horse in Northampton. Get your tickets here.

Enduring folk-rock duo Aztec-Two Step return to the Iron Horse Saturday January 30th at 7PM.

In 1972, Aztec Two-Step, whose name comes from a poem by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, burst upon the scene with their self-titled debut album on Elektra Records. Since then Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman have spent a lifetime making music together. Their albums for RCA Records were staples of progressive FM and college radio and helped to bring the music of the 1960s into the 70s. The Boston Globe says “fans of the duo’s harmony-driven tunes and easygoing acoustic guitar riffs will recognize their James Taylor-meets-Simon & Garfunkel sound.” Aztec Two-Step continues to impress audiences with intelligent songwriting, dazzling acoustic lead guitar, and inspiring harmonies. They are one of acoustic music’s most popular and enduring acts.

Oddly I just came across a copy of the Ferlinghetti poety book at the Montague Bookmill this weekend and now here I find it's the source of their name. Here's an excerpt:

See

it was like this when

we waltz into this place

a couple of Papish cats

is doing an Aztec two-step

And I says

Dad let’s cut

but then this dame

comes up behind me see

and says

You and me could really exist

Wow I says

Only the next day

she has bad teeth

and really hates poetry.

Aztec-Two Step return to the Iron Horse Saturday January 30th at 7PM. Tickets here.

And don't miss the Pousette-Dart Band the following Saturday, February 6th at 7PM.

Nada Surf's majestic power pop comes to Pearl Street on 3/31. New palindromic covers album can only be had at their shows for now.

Nada Surf play the Pearl Street Ballroom on Wednesday, March 31^st (tickets here) with their new covers album in hand. On if i had a hi-fi their trademark harmony and musical craftsmanship is applied to 12 of their favorite songs from such artists as Kate Bush, Dwight Twilley and the Go-Betweens. They're particularly proud of the title, which is both a callback to the musical platform of their youth and a palindrome. Fans who attend shows during the spring tour will be able to get their hands on the record before it’s in stores, offering true believers the opportunity for a double-first: hearing the songs for the first time and being able to take them home.

Although a great deal of thought went into the song selections, the band’s intent is not to make an overarching musical statement. Singer-guitarist Matthew Caws says, “We really just wanted to do it organically, whatever we felt like covering in the moment, rather than trying to sum up our influences or something. It’s whatever we were excited about in the months before making it. And I think we got to everything we wanted to.” The result is both inspired and casual, like a conversation with a friend who shares your taste but also pushes your musical boundaries. A vintage Moody Blues tune, the proto-prog tempo-shifting “Question,” shares space with The Soft Pack’s blissfully rudimentary “Bright Side,” Depeche Mode’s grand “Enjoy the Silence,” and experimental music icon Arthur Russell’s terse but sweet “Janine.”

Fan interest spurs covers album from Carrie Rodriguez who plays the Iron Horse this Wednesday 1/20 at 7PM

(David J. Prince-Billboard) - Texas singer-songwriter Carrie Rodriguez took the covers route for her third studio album, "Love and Circumstance," recording material that includes tributes to members of her family.

"I've got quite a few covers that I throw into my set every night," says the one-time sidekick of "Wild Thing" songwriter Chip Taylor. "It seems like every single time I do that someone will come up to me and say, 'Where can I get the album that song is on?' That was the impetus for making it."

Produced by Lee Townsend (Bill Frisell, Loudon Wainwright III) and due in April on the new Opus Records label, "Love and Circumstance" includes Rodriguez's versions of Lucinda Williams' "Steal Your Love" and Townes Van Zandt's "Rex's Blues."

Rodriguez also honors her father, fellow troubadour David Rodriguez, with his unreleased "When I Heard Gypsy Davey Sing," and her great aunt, singer Eva Garza, with "La Punalada Trapera" from the Mexican-American performer's repertoire.

Rodriguez augmented her band with guitarist Frisell and Greg Leisz on pedal steel. She also put together full-scale string arrangements for some of the songs.

"This record is like taking a step back from what I've been doing and figuring out what kind of songs are important to me," Rodriguez says. "Hopefully for my next record I will have learned something from that and take it with me."

Laura Veirs-mania!

• On Sunday, July Flame was featured on NPR's Weekend Edition. Listen to Laura's interview here.

• “It’s full of texture… You almost want to run your hands across it and feel the nicks in the wood grain, or order it off the appetizer menu in your town’s new warehouse-district restaurant run by a ruddy-faced genius with a beard. It’s full of layered folk and indie-rock bucolia and plain-spoken but stretchy-thinking language, wherein everyday energies or objects transubstantiate into other, metaphorically richer ones. There are some great, seemingly unforced, séancelike moments here…” - The New York Times

• "It is, in no uncertain terms, Veirs' best work—a recording that travels effortlessly on the groundwork laid out by her six previous albums." Read the in depth profile from The Portland Mercury

• "July Flame takes its title from a type of peach, and its content is just as sweet and irresistible" - Rolling Stone

• "This is an obliquely beautiful record, as they tend to be. Poetic and simple." - The Independent

•"I struggled with [the] songwriting more than I used to,” says Laura Veirs, from Colorado, of her seventh album, yet it sits together like an unbroken rhapsody." - The London Times

• "July Flame is her seventh, and parts of it are so extravagantly beautiful that it will send you scurrying back to its predecessors, particularly 2004's Carbon Glacier. Recorded at home with new partner and long-time producer Tucker Martine, it has such an unassuming, homespun quality that you're constantly surprised by how expansive and richly textured its songs are." - The Gaurdian

JULY FLAME VIDEO:

Vancouver, B.C.-based artist Doug Savage put together an amazing video for the title track of the new album. You can watch it here.

Laura Veirs and the Hall of Flames, Old Believers, and Led To Sea play the Iron Horse on Valentine's Day, Sunday 2/14. Bring a date! Tickets here.

Cheryl Wheeler Double-Header at the Iron Horse Fri/Sat 1/15 and 16

Having long been hailed as a song writer's songwriter (her songs have been covered by Peter, Paul & Mary, Suzy Boggus, Dan Seals, Bette Midler, Juice Newton and Garth Brooks, to name a few). Pointing at The Sun is Cheryl Wheeler's first release on her own label. The disc is filled with delightful, insightful musical gems, including some favorites from her live shows. The title track tackles the big questions of life, love, and purpose. Other highlights include "Summer Fly" and the long awaited Cat Trilogy! “White Cat,” “Cat Accountant,” and “My Cat’s Birthday.”

Cheryl's concerts are filled with humor. Her set list is often a crumpled piece of paper that serves as a list of possibilities at best, but if somebody calls out a request, and her guitar is in the right key, she might try it, even if she hasn't done it in a while. She’s also a great storyteller; lyrically and between songs.

Opener Kenny White is a singer-songwriter from New York City. Originally known mostly as a writer of music for radio and TV commercials and a producer and session keyboard player, in 2002 he released his first album, and began touring to promote his albums. White frequently tours with Cheryl Wheeler, performing as her opening act, and then accompanying Wheeler during her set.

Tomorrow's stars today, Carrie Rodriguez, Ben Sollee co-bill at Iron Horse Wednesday January 20th

Not yet 30, and with a critically-acclaimed solo record and several well-received duet records in her wake, classically trained singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez is still figuring out how far her talents will take her. If you're looking for someone playing it safe and sticking to tried-and-true ways of music making, as the title of Rodriguez's daring new album aptly states, She Ain't Me.

Long before Carrie Rodriguez was a fiddle-toting, mandoguitar-slinging Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, she was a junior violin student in Austin, Texas, absorbing the influences of an opera-obsessed mom and folk-singing dad. "In kindergarten, we had a pilot program at my public elementary school to teach five year olds Suzuki violin lessons," Rodriguez recalls. "They would give the lessons during naptime, and I must have gotten out to go to the bathroom. And I remember walking down the hallway and hearing these violins scratching out 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' I was immediately drawn to that and came home and told mom I wanted to take violin lessons." Also," she adds, "I really hated naptime.”

Group lessons soon led to private lessons, which led Carrie to a conservatory program at Oberlin. Enter Lyle Lovett, a family friend, who invited Carrie to sit in with his band at soundcheck in Cleveland, an experience that was both inspiring and frustrating. "My feel was awful and I knew it," she recalls. "But I was mesmerized by [Lovett fiddler] Andrea Zonn. I wanted to do what she was doing."

Rodriguez transferred to Boston's Berklee College of Music, where she found no shortage of resources for transforming "violin" into "fiddle." "Casey Driessen is now one of the greatest American fiddle players on the scene (plays with Bela Fleck, Tim O'Brien), and he was my roommate," Rodriguez recalls. "He taught me one of the first fiddle tunes I ever learned."

Berklee also set the table for a love of collaboration, which led to three duet records (and many touring miles) with singer/songwriter Chip Taylor, who was instrumental in helping Carrie to realize her debut album, Seven Angels On A Bicycle. The Associated Press raved, "...her voice has a character few achieve. Rather than a support player taking a minor turn, she uses her first solo album to mark her ground as a singular talent." For She Ain't Me, Rodriguez knew it was time to form new collaborations and she ended up with an impressive list of co-writers, including Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Dan Wilson (Semisonic), Jim Boquist (Son Volt) and Mary Gauthier.

Lucinda Williams wasn't among the co-writers, but she makes her presence felt, singing backup on "Mask of Moses" while singing Carrie's praises elsewhere. After receiving a copy of Seven Angels On A Bicycle from Chip Taylor, Lucinda told the New York Times "...I have to say I am very impressed. She's got something unique in her voice that's very subtle and a little smoky and sweet. I detect a certain wisdom in her, and yet a sense of wonder as well." Rodriguez recalls, "Lucinda had sent me this beautiful email, saying how much she loved my record, and how she really saw something special there. And if I ever wanted to open up for her, that'd be great. It was like, wow! Merry Christmas!"

Rodriguez subsequently toured with Williams, and also sat in on fiddle during Lucinda's sets. And it was on the heels of a night out with Williams that Rodriguez met Malcolm Burn-whose work she'd admired on Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball and Chris Whitley's Living With The Law for an early chat about her next record. "I was pretty hung-over that morning, in my pajamas, looking like a train wreck," Rodriguez admits. "And Malcolm comes over, looking all dapper in his vintage three-piece suit."

Appearances were quickly dismissed as Malcolm made spot-on suggestions about Carrie's songs, and offered production ideas that made her feel her own project would be a worthy addition to the "desert island discs" Burn has already recorded. "I knew immediately that this was the guy," she recalls. The result is a record that lives up to its name-an expectation-confounding statement, equal parts organic folk and expansive atmosphere, yet one that comes closest to revealing what Carrie Rodriguez is all about.

Born and raised in Kentucky, the young cellist and singer-songwriter Ben Sollee is changing the way people think of the cello. While Ben has studied classically, his voice and style of playing reflect his connection to American roots music. His cello playing is a unique alchemy of fiddling, percussive bow work, and three-finger style plucking. His performances around the world with artists like Abigail Washburn, The Sparrow Quartet, and Otis Taylor reflect his diverse abilities.

There is hardly a need to define Ben Sollee's music; it is, by nature, a fluid and versatile thing. He is just as likely to be found performing with a contemporary dance ensemble as with a bluegrass band. Ben's songs honestly address social issues, faith, and love with a soulful voice that transcends his 23 years. There are hints of influence by Sam Cooke, Paul Simon, maybe Ralph Stanley, but none tie Ben to a singular approach.

In 2006 Ben Sollee performed in China with The Sparrow Quartet, an ensemble featuring vocalist Abigail Washburn, fiddler Casey Driessen, and banjo-master Bela Fleck, and the group became the first-ever Official U.S. Cultural Mission to tour Tibet. In four performances the band played for nearly ten thousand young students.

Ben Sollee's newest album, Learning to Bend, is evidence of his broad musical perspective. With guests such as Rayna Gellert and Bela Fleck, the music sways from a driving, fiddle-fueled song about Americans' infatuation with their cars, to a playful song on growing up as a boy. The title track, Bend, poignantly addresses our need to accept difficult change and features a striking harp accompaniment composed by Ben.

Ben's first independently released solo album, Turn on the Moon, is a collection of original songs with the exception of a singular version of Prince's When Doves Cry. His poetic songwriting addresses everything from Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland, to Americans' infatuation with their cars. Carrie Rodriguez and Ben Sollee perform at the Iron Horse on Wednesday, January 20th at 8PM. Tickets here.