Combining Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, and Led Zeppelin legend John Paul Jones, Them Crooked Vultures are as super as supergroups come.
While the trio’s collaboration has been rumored since 2005, it was only in the last few months that it surfaced fully formed — first through a series of teaser videos, then with live shows, and now with the release of its self-titled debut album, featuring the groove-heavy lead single “New Fang.”
Visit Them Crooked Vultures on MySpace, check out their official site, become a fan on Facebook, and buy the album
Vagrant Records will release EELS’ eighth studio album End Times on January 19. EELS is the ever-changing project of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Oliver Everett (aka E). End Times follows on the heels of EELS’ critically acclaimed 2009 release Hombre Lobo, hailed by Vanity Fair as “anti-anthems that get your dopamine pumping instead of your fist” and praised by Rolling Stone for its “muddy roadhouse rockers.” Largely self-recorded on an old four track tape machine in the basement of Everettt’s Los Angeles home, the “end times” he writes about isn’t “Mayan calendar conspiracy theory bullshit,” says Everett, but, “the state of the desperate times we live in. The bottom line-ness of it all.”
While Hombre Lobo was written from the point of view of a fictional character (namely, the Dog Faced Boy of EELS’ 2001 album Souljacker), End Times is purely real life as Everett sees it: a “divorce album” with a modern twist. He equates his personal loss with the world he lives in losing its integrity. This isn’t Everett’s first break-up record. His 1993 solo effort, Broken Toy Shop, chronicled the broken heart of a young man in his twenties. End Times focuses on the loss of a middle-aged man growing as an artist. The loss has more weight.
As for the timing of the release, “I felt guilty about the long gap between the last two albums so I’m making up for lost time,” Everett says. The longest gap between EELS albums (four years between the 2005 release Blinking Lights and Other Revelations and the 2009 Hombre Lobo) is being followed by the shortest (six months between Hombre Lobo and End Times).
During the four years prior to Hombre Lobo Everett embarked on a number of projects including his acclaimed book Things the Grandchildren Should Know and the BBC produced multiple-award winning Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives documentary film about Everett and his quantum physicist father, Hugh Everett III, which was broadcast on PBS’ Nova series in the fall of 2008. Everett says he’s now “back to my real job: making music full time.”
'Hustler's Son' Produced By Jason Boesel and Jonathan Wilson (Elvis Costello / Jenny Lewis) With All-Star Guests
For the last 15 years, LA-based drummer Jason Boesel has been planted firmly behind the kit, keeping time for the likes of Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, The Elected, and more recently, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band. Boesel was inspired to pick up the guitar and write his own record after his friends raved about the first song he ever wrote: 'Hustler's Son.' Now, a few studio sessions later, Jason Boesel announces his solo debut for Team Love Records: 'Hustler's Son,' out January 12, 2010.
Boesel headed into the studio in March of 2009 with a core group of collaborators: Mystic Valley Band member Nik Freitas, Blake Mills (Band of Horses, Julian Casablancas), and producer Jonathan Wilson (Elvis Costello 'Momofuku' and Jenny Lewis 'Acid Tongue'). He eventually sought out the additional talents of Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Orenda Fink (O + S, Azure Ray), David Rawlings (Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), and fellow Rilo Kiley member Blake Sennett.
The result is an 11-song Americana album filled with powerful imagery and a sound that brings new colors to the sonic palette of country-folk greats like Townes Van Zandt, mid-'70s California rock, and the alt-country scene of today.
Listen to the first single- "Hand Of God" - available for download here: http://bit.ly/JBoesel_
While "Hand of God" is nearest to Boesel's breezy alt-country leanings, the entirety of 'Hustler's Son' is a road trip of an aural and emotional experience. Boesel isn't shy to admit his soft spot for the Southern California sound, but his sonic inspirations are as diverse as the places he's visited on the road. The music proves it: Dark "Black Waves" rolls in with West Palm Beach's "hurricane sand" and psychotropic guitars, "French Kissing" rocks to allusions of Santa Barbara's shores, "Burned Out And Busted" finds Boesel stranded in the desert, and the insatiable jam "I Got The Reason #1" - a fan favorite played by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band on tour- leaves Jason in the lobby of a hotel, waiting for the next surprise.
Sure, Boesel owes a lot to the road that inspired a moving album with many startling turns, but he'll return the favor in February on a national tour in support of 'Hustler's Son.'
Jason Boesel on the Web:
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.shorefire.com/
'Hustler's Son'
Team Love Records
U.S. Street date: January 12, 2010
