Bandcamp Day tips!

Bandcamp Friday is back and there’s more options than ever so it can be confusing to navigate, once you’ve caught up on clearing out your email inbox. So here’s some top tips from us.

First up, Sunburned Hand of the Man are offering 85% off when you buy their whole back catalogue. That works out at $27.79 for 155 releases. It’s not just a whole armada of Sunburned jams, but also some incendiary John Moloney/Thurston Moore sets of flamethrower rock n roll, country psyche from Franklin’s Mint and lots more.

Next up, the long standing and every strong VHF Records have made everything pay what you want to download and loads of sweet deals on merch. Here’s a few selected classics:

and speaking of VHF, they gave an amazing offsite tip-off yesterday. Hiroyuki Usui [aka L] had put up a free download of a two CD career restrospective he put together recently. Includes work he’s done under his own name, as L, as a member of Ghost and Azul. An astounding range of stuff here from spectral blues, to psychedelic jazz to some of the finest jams.

James Toth, the artist formerly known as Wooden Wand, has an EP of brand new songs ready ya!

Finally, even we have got in on the action, with a short 15 minute track by new secret collab The Hawkshead Bedroom Orchestra. It’s a wild track that outgrew its intended album and is full of deep psychedelic low end. It’s pay what you want but at the artists request, it will be made private next week and as a result, no longer for sale.

Whatever you do, enjoy the music and please share any top tips of your own

Jack Rose and Glen Jones DVD

Strange Attractors have recently released a DVD capturing the late Jack Rose and Glen Jones displaying their guitar talents:

There are a number of forward-thinking musicians performing today as part of a “new guard” of solo acoustic steel string players, valiantly carrying forward the tradition forged by the likes of innovators John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Sandy Bull, etc. Of these players, leading the way is the music of Jack Rose and Glenn Jones, two people who represent a most unique tandem. Best of friends and collaborators spanning two generations of the idiom, Rose and Jones have influenced one another, sharing many similarities in their styles, but also sharing just as many marked differences. Collectively, their body of work offers the most purely distilled representation of the style as it has transformed over the years. The Things That We Used to Do is a celebration of their art, a moving picture snapshot of two players whose passionate devotion to the solo steel-string tradition is equally important today as their mentors Fahey and Basho were in their lifetimes.

Shot expressly for this project in a loft in Brooklyn, NY, The Things That We Used to Do is a very special, intimate performance DVD of Jack Rose and Glenn Jones, capturing the artists playing solo and together with gorgeously shot visual lyricism. The takes are live, but the performances are not in front of an audience; rather, it was three cameras, two musicians, and a home transformed into a studio for a day which created the perfect backdrop for the players and their very personal music to unfurl. The result is an astounding, one-of-a-kind document of two leading lights of contemporary solo acoustic steel string guitar music in their prime, turning in stellar performances.

*Featuring two full in-the-studio sets by Jack Rose and Glenn Jones, and two duets.
*Lengthy interview of the artists together, conducted by Byron Coley.
*Bonus live footage of Jack Rose and Glenn Jones shot in concert at Plays and Players, Philadelphia, PA, March 22, 2009.
*Beautifully packaged in a cardstock amaray DVD sleeve.

For more info, go to http://www.strange-attractors.com/catalog/saah058.html

and here is a little clip:

Jack Rose tribute album NOW ready

Three Lobed Recordings have put out a six and a half hour long download-only tribute album to Jack Rose.
http://numerogroup.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/jackrose1.jpg

It costs $15 and all the proceeds go to Jack’s estate. “Honest Strings: A Tribute To The Life And Work Of Jack Rose,” will be up soon exclusively from the download portion of the Thrill Jockey site, FINA

You can download the 41-track recording from the following link :

http://www.fina-music.com/catalog/index.html?id=104712

The album features exclusive material from:

Alvarius B.
Elisa Ambrogio
Bardo Pond
Nathan Bowles
Stuart Leslie Braithwaite
Hans Chew
Coach Fingers
Byron Coley with Son of Earth
Luther Dickinson
Chris Forsyth
Danny Paul Grody
Steve Gunn
Heather Leigh
Hush Arbors
C Joynes
Kohoutek
Langtry
MV & EE
Joseph Mattson (reading from “Empty The Sun”)
Jenks Miller
Bill Nace
No Neck Blues Band
Cian Nugent
Charlie Parr & Mike Gangloff
Pelt
Pigeons
Six Organs of Admittance
Spectre Folk
D. Charles Speer
Spiral Joy Band
Sunburned Hand Of The Man
lloyd Thayer
Rick Tomlinson
James Toth, Kerry Kennedy and Jason Meagher
Cath & Phil Tyler
Un
Scott Verrastro / Nathan Bowles
Zaika with Loren Connors
Zaika with Paul Flaherty