Tis The Season For New Music! Falalalalala!

I have some great friends. Have I ever mentioned that? During this holiday season I am reminded how blessed I am to not only have so many amazing friends but ones who love music like I do. My friend Valery sent an email out a few weeks back to myself and several music lovers about Christmas music. She was looking for suggestions and wanted to share her favorites with us:

“Hey Music lovers~
Every year (the husband) and I go on a hunt for the perfect Christmas soundtrack(s). Each year I find that my taste changes just a bit and this year I found that I am leaning a little more modern/funky and a little less cheery/traditional. However I have Christmas music on constantly which requires me to have a few different CD’s to switch through. It’s hard to find good stuff!! So I was just thinking since I am always searching for fabulous Christmas music, others might be as well.” ~ Valery

I of course loved this idea of sharing our Christmas favorites and so did several others. Valery has made me some amazing mixed CDsfor me so I know I'lllove her suggestions! Here is what we came up with!

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Valery:
-The Hotel Café presents: Winter Songs. This CD is the bomb, however not traditional so might not be loved by all. It features Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlile, Lenka, Fiona Apple, Kate Havnevik: are you excited already or what?!? Every song is awesome except #5 Silver Bells by Alice Smith- the last few minutes of the song are soo off key I grimace every time I hear it.
-Christmas Eclectic. Really fun tecno/drum/base beats. AH-mazing!
-Kohala Christmas: This is Hawaiian instrumental. SO beautiful. (Allegra introduced me to this band when i started doing massage... they are wonderful and chill)
-Ella Fitzgerald Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. Ella: Enough said.
-Holiday Dinner Party Music by the Santa Ana Players. Traditional but not too cheese.
-Ultra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails (1&2). Makes me wanna have a christmas dinner party NOW!

Allegra of Frenchie & Flea
I'm a freakishly huge fan of Rosie Thomas's Christmas CD and as a Christmas classic for fond memories in my heart, Amy Grant's Tennessee Christmas album :)

Jennifer of The Style Geek:
- Michael Buble Let it Snow EP
- Sarah McLachlan- Wintersong
- Amy Grant- Home for Christmas
- Kenny G- Miracles

Mary of… well you know where I’m from:

Some of my favorites have already been listed. Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong is an album I could listen to all year long it is so good. Anything Michael Buble releases I love because he’s my main man (in my dreams) as well as Rosie Thomas who can never miss in my mind. Some other favorites both new and old are:

- Nat King Cole – His Christmas album is legendary and his voice that sounds like butter (if butter could sing) made “The Christmas Song” famous. This album is probably my all time favorite.
- Holiday Noise Vol 1-3 is a collection of holiday tunes by various Nashville artists. http://www.holidaynoise.com/
- A Fine Frenzy Oh, Blue Christmas EP is the perfect collection of holiday songs and holiday themed songs with a broken heart center.
- Josh Groban’s Noel was the highest selling album of 2008 and even if you don’t favor his music style his duet with Brian McKnight is amazing.
- There are a couple other favorite artists such as Joy Williams and Mindy Smith who have some great Christmas music as well so I've included them in a Christmas music playlist for all of you to enjoy this season.

Free Music Alert!!!

Every day in December until the 25th Amazon is putting up a free Christmas song to download. You can still get all the previous releases. Who doesn’t love free music!! You can even get Joy William’s Christmas EP for free if you tell 5 friends (link is in the right hand column).

Merry Christmas Everyone!! May you have a blessed and safe Christmas. 

Crystal Thomas

This week’s artist was born to sing. Crystal Thomas comes from a long line of women singers in her family. She is the fifth generation of female performers and she knew it was her turn to carry on the tradition. Crystal is based in Nashville and created her EP The Touch of My Skin while working as a pastry chef. She sounds like a friend I’d like to have!

Crystal released her EP last April and you can get it for free by telling 5 friends about it or pay what you want. The link is in the right column with all the other music downloads.

Her touring schedule is mainly in the Nashville area but I have a feeling this new artist will be making her voice known in the months to come. You can find her music on Brite Revolution as well.

http://www.myspace.com/crystalthomas

http://www.last.fm/music/Crystal+Thomas

Check back later this week for a Christmas music midweek feature!!

City And Colour

There is something I don’t always understand in the music industry. Solo Projects. Beyonce, Chris Cornell and many others have left their bands/groups to do their own solo projects. To me it just seems like a move to get more attention and fame and not share the credit and acknowledgement with others. Especially when the solo projects don’t really differ that much from the group. Not that the solo projects aren’t good, I still enjoy them. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine but there are a few exceptions. Justin Timberlake’s solo efforts were definitely better than his boy band days and I grew to appreciate his musical talents. Of course Eric Clapton and Sting cannot really be criticized for their solo efforts either. For the most part though you really have to show me that you can do something really different in your solo project in order to impress me. Well, City And Colour has done that leaps and bounds.

City And Colour is comprised of Dallas Green who didn’t just go solo he did a 180 and went for a completely different genre. Dallas was the lead singer of a hardcore alternative band out of Canada called Alexisonfire and if you are streaming his music right now hardcore is not really what comes to mind when describing City And Colour. Dallas went folk acoustic, which is currently my favorite genre! He also didn’t want his solo project to go by his own name (already winning points with me) and decided to release his music with an alias. (I’ll give you ten points if you can figure out why he chose that name).

Dallas started writing and recording his music in between Alexisonfire gigs and started making it available to the band’s fans and started a huge buzz about the new directions he was taking. With the fans supporting him Dallas released his first solo album titled Sometimes, in 2005 which was soon followed by a live album in 2006 and a sophomore album in 2008 titled Bring Me You Love. I can only imagine the reaction of Alexisonfire fans hearing City And Colour for the first time. Its not what you expect out of a tattoo covered alternative rock singer but it makes me appreciate his work so much more.

http://www.myspace.com/dallasgreen

http://www.cityandcolour.ca/

I hope you are enjoying this new shift for Dallas Green as much as I am. I love comments so feel free to let me know what you think.

Erin McCarley

It has amazed me lately the community of artists in Nashville. Everyone seems to know everyone but not only that they collaborate, tour together, co-write songs together and are each others back up for shows. I realized this while researching this weeks artist, Erin McCarley. The first song of Erin’s I heard was “Pitter-Pat” on an amazing mixed CD a friend made me and I loved it immediately.

Click on the player below to hear some of Erin's tracks.

As I looked into this artist I discovered that she is also basing herself out of Nashville as are many of the other artists featured here. Not only that but she is buddies with them! As I was watching a video of her performance on Craig Ferguson I recognized Matthew Perryman Jones on the guitar, K.S. Rhoads (soon to be featured here) on keyboard and possibly Andy Davis on the keys as well but there wasn’t a clear shot of him but he wore the same hat Andy seems to always wear and had the same moves I saw in him live. Erin also co-wrote one of her songs with Greg Laswell, another one of our features here.

Erin is currently touring with Ten out of Tenn which is a group that does a collaborative tour with Nashville artist such as Joy Williams, Andy Davis, Andrew Belle, Griffin House, Matthew Perryman Jones and Katie Herceg. Do those names sound familiar? They should because they have all been featured on this blog. All these artist and many more cycle through the tour so they are not all performing at once. It is an ever-changing collaboration and they are coming to Los Angeles tomorrow and I sadly will not be able to attend.

Before Erin started pursuing a career as singer/songwriter she was a sheltered girl from Dallas, Texas who was given a quick awakening to the ways of the world after she left the comforts of her safe family environment. Erin started out as just a singer but later discovered her skills in song writing while living in San Diego. She decided to take her career to the next level and moved herself to Nashville with all the many aspiring artists there. She has been setting herself above the rest making waves at the South By Southwest conference last year and has had her songs featured on several hit TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy (known for his great song choices), One Tree Hill, Kyle XY and several others.

Erin McCarley released her debut album, Love, Save The Empty last winter and the title track was featured in the film He’s Just Not That Into You and was the only song from the soundtrack that was given a music video to go along with the film. You can check out the full album on iTunes and Amazon.

http://www.erinmccarley.com/

http://www.myspace.com/erinmccarley

 


I hope you enjoyed the feature this week after the unplanned break last week do to technical difficulties with the flash player. Let me know what you think of this week’s artist and remember I love comments! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Here is a little taste of mine. This was the view I got to wake up to every morning in Lake Tahoe.

Flash Player Meltdown

UPDATE!! Thanks to my good friend Aaron, who is my savior when it comes to computers and all things technology related, I now have a new flash player system!! Of course the old one came back but too late, I'm done with you disappearing player!! Working on changing them all over now and will have a new artist next week. Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for all of you!

Well I don't know what happened but the flash player I have been using has disappeared off the internet like some illegal drug scam. The website doesn't exist anymore and all the players on my previous posts are gone!!

So now I'm on the hunt for another system and will have to redo all my previous posts. Let me know if you have some suggestions.

In the mean time enjoy some music off the old player and check out the free music downloads when you tell 5 friends or pay what you want. Joy Williams has a Christmas EP! I'm so excited!

On a side note: I should have know this was going to be an interesting day when I almost walked out of the house holding one running shoe instead of my water bottle... 

Sincerly,

Frustrated with technology Mary

Andy Davis

This week’s featured artist wasn’t on the schedule for this week but after seeing him live Friday night at the Hotel Café in Hollywood I couldn’t resist. Andy Davis has quickly become one of my favorite artists coming out of Nashville and there are so many talented artists trying to make it in Music City. Andy is another Brite Revolution find (I swear I don’t work for Brite but I’m starting to think I should!) and they are supplying two exclusive tracks each month. At his concert he performed several new tracks that Andy hasn’t made available yet but guess what? I have them complements of Brite. If you haven’t signed up for a Brite Revolution subscription I would highly recommend it.

Andy Davis is a powerful performer and it was all I could do to resist dancing during his show but I was afraid I might embarrass my friends. He started off the concert behind the keyboard then switched to the acoustic guitar but it was behind the keyboard that Andy was really shining. He was absolutely electric on the keys and his stool could not contain him. It was so much fun watching him perform. After the concert he came out and made the rounds meeting people and I got the chance to introduce myself and wanted to ask for a picture with him but I felt like a dork asking even though everyone else was doing it too. I regret not asking but I can’t change that now. Oh well…

Andy Davis comes from a musical family in Baton Rouge where his dad played guitar and his mother played the piano (now I know where he got his multiple talents). Andy moved to Nashville for college and started writing songs and performing and had such a great response from friends and was later asked to open for his friend Dave Barnes (another favorite of mine). His homemade CDs were doing tremendously well and Andy caught the attention of Runway Network who helped him release a newly mixed version of his first recording titled, Thinks of Her. Andy’s most recent album, Let The Woman, is where all but one of the tracks on the playlist are from. "Chicago, City of Shoulders" is from his EP Fine China.

All of Andy’s albums are available on iTunes and Amazon. You’ll find a better deal on Amazon and they have a simple downloading tool that will put the music and artwork straight into your iTunes library.

Also I would highly recommend this video of Andy covering Etta James’ “At Last” in what appears to be and impromptu shoot in a stairwell. I was completely rapture by this version of one of the greatest love songs of all time.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s artist. Let me know what you think of Andy’s music. Also I promise next week to feature an artist not from Brite Revolution. Happy Monday!

Photo Credits

Photo 1 - Kyle Barnes Photography

Photo 2 - Mary's I Need A Better Camera Photography

Photo 3 - Micah Kandros Photography

The Silver Seas

Music can be intense. Filled with emotion and heavy hearts from artists who have a therapeutic outlet in the music they write. There is a time when I enjoy that music but sometimes I just need something happy and carefree. The Silver Seas are one of the bands I go to when I need that kind of music. Their music tells a story and I feel like I’m listening to a classic tune even though they are a new band.

The Silver Seas started out as The Bees (U.S.) but due the fact that there was a UK band with the same name they decided to change it with the release of their second album, High Society in 2006. Their first album, Starry Gazey Pie was released in 2004 under their original name. All the tracks featured are from that first album so when searching iTunes you have to look under The Bees or join Brite Revolution where they have been posting their older tunes. The band is working towards releasing their new album this year titled Chateau Revenge.

The band comes out of Nashville, TN and consists of four members. Daniel Tashian is lead vocals and guitar. Jason Lehning is piano and backing vocals. John Deaderick is electric bass and David Gehrke is on the drums as well as backing vocals. I don’t have an exact date for their new album but you can grab their first two on iTunes as well as on Brite Revolution. Hope you enjoyed this week’s feature!!

http://www.myspace.com/thesilverseas

http://www.thesilverseas.net/