The SubVocal Company
2 days ago
Thursday, June 5, 2008
NBN Alumni Katie Herzig Spotlighted in Billboard
NBN Alumni Katie Herzig is featured in this week's Billboard Magazine in the "Now Hear This" section. The magazine spotlights her newly released "Apple Tree" CD and all the attention that disc has been receiving: Herzig will be featured in the July issue of Paste (the song "Hologram" will be included on the Paste compilation CD). Her song "Wish You Well" will also be a part of the excellent Barnes and Noble "Sundaymusic" compilation series.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
MIX Nashville, SXSW, Muzak & Tin Pan South
Greetings from Nashvegas,
MIX Nashville
We are proud to have been a part of MIX Magazine's inaugural MIX Nashville. The event featured "two full days of music production panels, performances, master classes and technology demos" from Digidesign, Logic, Garageband, Meyer Sound, Shure and more. Numerous great Nashville artists - Andy Davis, Courtney Jaye, Ashley Monroe, Perrin Lamb - graced the Garageband songwriter tent and NBN sponsored two panels during the event. The MIX site has extensive footage from the event in case you missed it.
SXSW Day Party
Huge thanks to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau as well as Southern Thread, Tickets Nashville and all of the other sponsors including Audio Technica, Loveless Cafe, Mackie, Toontrack, Elixir, Paige Musical Products and X-Tempo Designs for helping make our inaugural SXSW Day Party such a success.
Caitlin Rose, Justin Townes Earle, Paper Route, Garrison Starr, Megan McCormick, American Bang, Andy Davis, Pico vs Island Trees, Ricky Young and the Clutters all played amazing sets and we couldn't have asked for a better venue (or a better caterer). We're already speaking with SXSW about how we can do more next year.
MIX Nashville
We are proud to have been a part of MIX Magazine's inaugural MIX Nashville. The event featured "two full days of music production panels, performances, master classes and technology demos" from Digidesign, Logic, Garageband, Meyer Sound, Shure and more. Numerous great Nashville artists - Andy Davis, Courtney Jaye, Ashley Monroe, Perrin Lamb - graced the Garageband songwriter tent and NBN sponsored two panels during the event. The MIX site has extensive footage from the event in case you missed it.
SXSW Day Party
Huge thanks to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau as well as Southern Thread, Tickets Nashville and all of the other sponsors including Audio Technica, Loveless Cafe, Mackie, Toontrack, Elixir, Paige Musical Products and X-Tempo Designs for helping make our inaugural SXSW Day Party such a success.
Caitlin Rose, Justin Townes Earle, Paper Route, Garrison Starr, Megan McCormick, American Bang, Andy Davis, Pico vs Island Trees, Ricky Young and the Clutters all played amazing sets and we couldn't have asked for a better venue (or a better caterer). We're already speaking with SXSW about how we can do more next year.
KGSR Interview
NBN's Jason Moon Wilkins was a featured guest on KGSR's Morning Show with esteemed Esquire critic Andy Langer during SXSW 2008. While they didn't deem Wilkins worthy of archiving (c'mon he killed!) they did post a great live performance from Matthew Ryan recorded the same morning as the now infamous Wilkins interview. So y'know, Nashville is still representin' on the interweb.
Muzak Heart & Soul Foundation Winner
Congratulations to Volair, winner of the Muzak Heart & Soul Foundation's Battle of the Bands held at Rcktwn earlier this Spring. NBN's Jason Moon Wilkins was a judge and Volair received a spot on NBN 2008 as part of their prize pack.
Tin Pan South Showcase
We were very excited to be a part of this year's Tin Pan South. NBN hosted a showcase featuring four of the finest female singer songwriters currently capable of making us cry - Butterfly Boucher, Kate York, Erin McCarley and Megan McCormick. Erin signed a management agreement with Mick Management (John Mayer, Ray LaMontagne) shortly after the announcement of her NBN Tin Pan slot and Megan signed with Rondor/Universal Music Publishing the Monday after the NBN Tin Pan showcase. Coincidence? Absolutely, but we'll still take credit for it.
Until "next" time....
NBN's Jason Moon Wilkins was a featured guest on KGSR's Morning Show with esteemed Esquire critic Andy Langer during SXSW 2008. While they didn't deem Wilkins worthy of archiving (c'mon he killed!) they did post a great live performance from Matthew Ryan recorded the same morning as the now infamous Wilkins interview. So y'know, Nashville is still representin' on the interweb.
Muzak Heart & Soul Foundation Winner
Congratulations to Volair, winner of the Muzak Heart & Soul Foundation's Battle of the Bands held at Rcktwn earlier this Spring. NBN's Jason Moon Wilkins was a judge and Volair received a spot on NBN 2008 as part of their prize pack.
Tin Pan South Showcase
We were very excited to be a part of this year's Tin Pan South. NBN hosted a showcase featuring four of the finest female singer songwriters currently capable of making us cry - Butterfly Boucher, Kate York, Erin McCarley and Megan McCormick. Erin signed a management agreement with Mick Management (John Mayer, Ray LaMontagne) shortly after the announcement of her NBN Tin Pan slot and Megan signed with Rondor/Universal Music Publishing the Monday after the NBN Tin Pan showcase. Coincidence? Absolutely, but we'll still take credit for it.
Until "next" time....
OurStage.com Announcement and Submission Deadline Extension
BREAKING NEWS from Music City USA,
The NBN 2008 Artist Submission Deadline has been PUSHED BACK from June 5 to June 17. There are a few reasons for this, but chief among them is that we have a new submissions partner to announce - OurStage.com, and we wanted to give their members, and others who choose to use this new avenue, ample time to submit. You can check it out here.
The Sonicbids deadline has also been pushed back to June 17. A BIG thank you to the hundreds of bands who have already submitted via Sonicbids.
Please note that both submission portals will be treated equally during the selection process.
The NBN 2008 Artist Submission Deadline has been PUSHED BACK from June 5 to June 17. There are a few reasons for this, but chief among them is that we have a new submissions partner to announce - OurStage.com, and we wanted to give their members, and others who choose to use this new avenue, ample time to submit. You can check it out here.
The Sonicbids deadline has also been pushed back to June 17. A BIG thank you to the hundreds of bands who have already submitted via Sonicbids.
Please note that both submission portals will be treated equally during the selection process.
NBN Alumni Gabe Dixon Band Sign with Fantasy Records
We've known this was coming for a while but now it is official. One of the best pop tunesmiths of our time FINALLY has a new record deal in place. Congrats to Gabe and the band. This from Gabe's publicist, Cary Baker -
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Gabe Dixon Band’s new self-titled album, due out on Fantasy Records on August 26, is in fact the group’s third release, following the 2002 album On a Rolling Ball and the 2005 EP Live at World Café. But there’s good reason Dixon, the band’s writer/singer/pianist, considers it the GDB’s debut.
Formed nine years ago by Dixon — then a classical piano major — and his two college roommates, bassist Winston Harrison and drummer Jano Rix, the group added a sax player and spent several years specializing in jazz-inflected, heavily improvised excursions, showcasing the virtuosity of the players. Dixon’s elevated piano chops subsequently led to performances with Alison Krauss, O.A.R. and no less than Paul McCartney who tapped Dixon to play keyboards on his Driving Rain album and back McCartney and others on the internationally broadcast 9/11 tribute “Concert For New York City.”
Offered the keyboard slot for McCartney’s world tour, Dixon respectfully declined to focus on his own band and its then-yet-to-be-released debut album. But after a bout of cutbacks and regime changes at Warner Bros., the band’s original label, the band reinvented itself as a three-piece song-based unit. The band’s rededicated attention to arrangement, classic song-craft, and performance can be heard on the band’s eponymous new album, The Gabe Dixon Band.
The trio cut the album live off the floor during ten days at Nashville’s renowned Blackbird Studios with co-producer/engineer mixer Neal Cappellino (Alison Krauss, Mindy Smith, Jonny Lang) and with bassist Harrison doubling on “mandotar,” a modified guitar he created whose sound somewhat resembles that of an electric mandolin. The album embeds vividly detailed, intensely personal and universally relatable songs in elegant yet muscular settings that draw, unabashedly and expertly, on classic rock.
The Tennessean, the newspaper in the band’s hometown of Nashville, called it early when it stated in 2005 that the young artist “deserves to join the ranks of Jackson Browne and early Elton John in the pop pantheon.” The piano-driven band has also rated favorable comparisons with the Ben Folds 5 and Bruce Hornsby.
Both the material and the supple arrangements result from “the music we heard growing up, listening to our parents’ record collections,” Dixon points out. “Mostly ‘70s LPs by Elton John, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Carole King and James Taylor. It was a magical era, the pinnacle of pop, rock and folk in terms of songwriting and musicianship.” Dixon and his bandmates have not only assimilated those influences but brought them back into the present tense, resulting in music that is instantly familiar both musically and thematically, yet still provocative and in the moment.
Given the band’s innate feel for rock’s glory days, it was fitting that the legendary Henry Diltz, whose unforgettable photos of The Doors and Crosby, Stills & Nash have become an indelible part of rock history, shot the album cover images.
While Dixon wrote all the album’s songs, three were co-written by onetime Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson, whose co-write of “Not Ready To Make Nice” with the Dixie Chicks earned him a Grammy. Two songs were co-written with gifted Nashville songsmith Tia Sellers, who won a Grammy of her own for Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance.” For the ballad “Further the Sky,” Dixon duets with Mindy Smith, herself a Grammy nominee, at her most inspired.
Of the newfound song focus of his onetime jam band, Dixon says, “We love great songs and real musicianship, and we take time as a band to come up with something that isn’t typical, because the arrangement and performance can be just as impactful as the song itself. We’ve become more refined, and to the point, making the impact direct and immediate. The idea is pretty simple, really: We’re dedicated to playing music people like that we like too.”
From this immensely promising vantage point, it’s been quite a journey for a guy who a decade ago was playing Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in downtown Nashville every afternoon from 1 to 5 for tips. The bridge of the song “All Will Be Well” could serve as the credo for Dixon and his bandmates: “You’ve got to keep it up and don’t give up and chase your dreams,” he sings, “and you will find, all in time.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Gabe Dixon Band’s new self-titled album, due out on Fantasy Records on August 26, is in fact the group’s third release, following the 2002 album On a Rolling Ball and the 2005 EP Live at World Café. But there’s good reason Dixon, the band’s writer/singer/pianist, considers it the GDB’s debut.
Formed nine years ago by Dixon — then a classical piano major — and his two college roommates, bassist Winston Harrison and drummer Jano Rix, the group added a sax player and spent several years specializing in jazz-inflected, heavily improvised excursions, showcasing the virtuosity of the players. Dixon’s elevated piano chops subsequently led to performances with Alison Krauss, O.A.R. and no less than Paul McCartney who tapped Dixon to play keyboards on his Driving Rain album and back McCartney and others on the internationally broadcast 9/11 tribute “Concert For New York City.”
Offered the keyboard slot for McCartney’s world tour, Dixon respectfully declined to focus on his own band and its then-yet-to-be-released debut album. But after a bout of cutbacks and regime changes at Warner Bros., the band’s original label, the band reinvented itself as a three-piece song-based unit. The band’s rededicated attention to arrangement, classic song-craft, and performance can be heard on the band’s eponymous new album, The Gabe Dixon Band.
The trio cut the album live off the floor during ten days at Nashville’s renowned Blackbird Studios with co-producer/engineer mixer Neal Cappellino (Alison Krauss, Mindy Smith, Jonny Lang) and with bassist Harrison doubling on “mandotar,” a modified guitar he created whose sound somewhat resembles that of an electric mandolin. The album embeds vividly detailed, intensely personal and universally relatable songs in elegant yet muscular settings that draw, unabashedly and expertly, on classic rock.
The Tennessean, the newspaper in the band’s hometown of Nashville, called it early when it stated in 2005 that the young artist “deserves to join the ranks of Jackson Browne and early Elton John in the pop pantheon.” The piano-driven band has also rated favorable comparisons with the Ben Folds 5 and Bruce Hornsby.
Both the material and the supple arrangements result from “the music we heard growing up, listening to our parents’ record collections,” Dixon points out. “Mostly ‘70s LPs by Elton John, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Carole King and James Taylor. It was a magical era, the pinnacle of pop, rock and folk in terms of songwriting and musicianship.” Dixon and his bandmates have not only assimilated those influences but brought them back into the present tense, resulting in music that is instantly familiar both musically and thematically, yet still provocative and in the moment.
Given the band’s innate feel for rock’s glory days, it was fitting that the legendary Henry Diltz, whose unforgettable photos of The Doors and Crosby, Stills & Nash have become an indelible part of rock history, shot the album cover images.
While Dixon wrote all the album’s songs, three were co-written by onetime Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson, whose co-write of “Not Ready To Make Nice” with the Dixie Chicks earned him a Grammy. Two songs were co-written with gifted Nashville songsmith Tia Sellers, who won a Grammy of her own for Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance.” For the ballad “Further the Sky,” Dixon duets with Mindy Smith, herself a Grammy nominee, at her most inspired.
Of the newfound song focus of his onetime jam band, Dixon says, “We love great songs and real musicianship, and we take time as a band to come up with something that isn’t typical, because the arrangement and performance can be just as impactful as the song itself. We’ve become more refined, and to the point, making the impact direct and immediate. The idea is pretty simple, really: We’re dedicated to playing music people like that we like too.”
From this immensely promising vantage point, it’s been quite a journey for a guy who a decade ago was playing Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in downtown Nashville every afternoon from 1 to 5 for tips. The bridge of the song “All Will Be Well” could serve as the credo for Dixon and his bandmates: “You’ve got to keep it up and don’t give up and chase your dreams,” he sings, “and you will find, all in time.”
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Clutters Q & A
Q & A with Doug Lehman the leader of Nashville garage rock gods The Clutters about their new album, Don't Believe a Word (Chicken Ranch)
JN: You use the word "we "a lot in the lyrics on this album, are you writing from the perspective of the Clutters as an entity or is it a bigger we?
DL: You are a very astute music reviewer guy. I hadn't really noticed that. I tend to wanna start every line with "I" so i think that's me trying to avoid doing that. I don't think there are any songs from the perspective of the band, there are some that "we" refers to myself and another person. Like “On Repeat” (even though it's not really based on actual events, it's make believe) and then there are songs like “Surrender” that are "supposed" to be about a group of people. It's sort of about old friends and romanticizing "the good ol' days.” I can't really throw down and say this song is about this from this perspective, and I was intending this. All I ever try to do is put words together, and somehow they end up serving a common theme or thread, but I don't always know what the point of a song is (remember, I went to art school).
PS: Look at how many sentences I started with "I" it that answer!
JN: Do you have us vs them mentality about the music scene (Nashville and beyond) and the Clutters role in it?
DL: No. We've been pretty lucky. I don't ever think about anything except am I gonna like this music. Afterward, sure we think how can we get people to our shows or are we gonna be able to pay for a hotel out of town, but at the core of it all i ever wanted to do with this band is play at Springwater and record one full length. So we are beyond that and it's all bonus rounds now.
JN:Were any of the songs written as a response to the, understandably, frustrating process of getting your debut noticed?
DL: Again, I never had any expectations of how the album would do, so it really wasn't frustrating. I was just excited that you or Mike Grimes liked it and not just us. The fact that David Fricke and Cameron Crowe got it is awesome, but I'll probably never drink a beer with them. I've seen that sort of mentality in other Nashville bands and I just scratch my head and wonder why they are spending so much time trying to "make it" when they could be making another album.
JN: Musically, this record is different in some ways to T&C, what do you think is the biggest difference musically and how was the approach different in the making of the album this time around?
DL: The songs were obviously written in a shorter period of time. With T&C we had a collection of songs from about 4 years. With DBAW, I think the earliest song came about one year before we recorded. Which means there was a lot less deliberating about it. I also tend to switch styles based on what i listen to and the biggest difference this time is I was listening to classic rock stations and college radio where before I was listening to college radio and The Sonics. Side note - There are a ton of classic rock references on the album that were purely unintentional. (Some were intentional) Mainly, I didn't know there was a Thin Lizzy song called “Don't Believe a Word.”
JN: Was there a conscious attempt to do some things that would position you away from the garage rock tag?
DL: Sort of, but I realized we can't ever do that. At the core we are really a garage band. The way we play together, there is no way we won't sound like we do. I think it's a confusing moniker sometimes but I don't know enough to suggest a more appropriate one.
JN: You use the word "we "a lot in the lyrics on this album, are you writing from the perspective of the Clutters as an entity or is it a bigger we?
DL: You are a very astute music reviewer guy. I hadn't really noticed that. I tend to wanna start every line with "I" so i think that's me trying to avoid doing that. I don't think there are any songs from the perspective of the band, there are some that "we" refers to myself and another person. Like “On Repeat” (even though it's not really based on actual events, it's make believe) and then there are songs like “Surrender” that are "supposed" to be about a group of people. It's sort of about old friends and romanticizing "the good ol' days.” I can't really throw down and say this song is about this from this perspective, and I was intending this. All I ever try to do is put words together, and somehow they end up serving a common theme or thread, but I don't always know what the point of a song is (remember, I went to art school).
PS: Look at how many sentences I started with "I" it that answer!
JN: Do you have us vs them mentality about the music scene (Nashville and beyond) and the Clutters role in it?
DL: No. We've been pretty lucky. I don't ever think about anything except am I gonna like this music. Afterward, sure we think how can we get people to our shows or are we gonna be able to pay for a hotel out of town, but at the core of it all i ever wanted to do with this band is play at Springwater and record one full length. So we are beyond that and it's all bonus rounds now.
JN:Were any of the songs written as a response to the, understandably, frustrating process of getting your debut noticed?
DL: Again, I never had any expectations of how the album would do, so it really wasn't frustrating. I was just excited that you or Mike Grimes liked it and not just us. The fact that David Fricke and Cameron Crowe got it is awesome, but I'll probably never drink a beer with them. I've seen that sort of mentality in other Nashville bands and I just scratch my head and wonder why they are spending so much time trying to "make it" when they could be making another album.
JN: Musically, this record is different in some ways to T&C, what do you think is the biggest difference musically and how was the approach different in the making of the album this time around?
DL: The songs were obviously written in a shorter period of time. With T&C we had a collection of songs from about 4 years. With DBAW, I think the earliest song came about one year before we recorded. Which means there was a lot less deliberating about it. I also tend to switch styles based on what i listen to and the biggest difference this time is I was listening to classic rock stations and college radio where before I was listening to college radio and The Sonics. Side note - There are a ton of classic rock references on the album that were purely unintentional. (Some were intentional) Mainly, I didn't know there was a Thin Lizzy song called “Don't Believe a Word.”
JN: Was there a conscious attempt to do some things that would position you away from the garage rock tag?
DL: Sort of, but I realized we can't ever do that. At the core we are really a garage band. The way we play together, there is no way we won't sound like we do. I think it's a confusing moniker sometimes but I don't know enough to suggest a more appropriate one.
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