Category Archives: Video

Ida Jenshus live in Haugesund

We had a fantastic night at Høvleriet in Haugesund last night. We want to come back, what a venue and what an atmosphere! Thank you.
– Ida Jenshus (on her webpage)

Ida Jenshus has recently released her third album, Someone to love. The album is a departure from the country on her two previous records, into a more airy sounding country/rock/songwriter style. The obvious comparison is Emmylou Harris’ collaboration with super-producer Daniel Lanois, but I can also hear Kathleen Edwards and Mary Gauthier in the quiet stuff, and Lucinda Williams in her more uptempo stuff. I like the direction she’s taken. I like the first two records but I think her concerts have showed a truer Ida Jenshus, and finally it is reflected in her recorded work.

The wonderful Tender Leaves:

We saw Ida Jenshus with a great group of musicians at Høvleriet in Haugesund last friday, there she dedicated a very fine version of Tender Leaves to Chip Taylor. An artist that Jenshus has worked with lately and have played with on several occasions. Chip Taylor is the man who wrote Wild Thing and Angel of the morning.

It was a lovely show that varied from tender moments into full blown guitar jams, never dull and, man, what a great group she’s touring with! The audience clearly liked what they heard, quiet listening and attentive, and it was great to see this many people coming out to see Ida Jenshus. Country flavoured music isn’t always the biggest audience puller.


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Video premiere: Mr FROSTY MAN by Sufjan Stevens

“Mr. Frosty Man” by Sufjan Stevens from the upcoming “Silver & Gold” box set
Animation by Lee Hardcastle.

Those of us that preordered Sufjan Stevens’ new christmas box set got the following mail today:

“Halloween is just around the corner. How better to celebrate the ghoulish occasion than with a new Sufjan Stevens Christmas clay-mation video for “Mr. Frosty Man,” a fast and furious tableau featuring a renegade snowman’s battle against flesh eating zombies.

It’s a veritable Christmas bloodbath (made especially not for children) by the infamous clay-mation master Lee Hardcastle, displaying all the gore of a classic horror flick: zombies interrupt an otherwise normal family Christmas dinner but are thwarted by a rebel snowman wielding a chainsaw, a shotgun, and chip off his shoulder. Children (and spoilers) beware: Mommy gets mauled under the mistletoe and Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick gets a hard-knock lesson in weight loss, but, rest assured, Mr. Frosty Man doesn’t go down without a fight. He’s a real American Christmas hero!”

Fantastic!!

– Hallgeir

Dwight Yoakam Top 10 Music Videos

I’ve liked Dwight Yoakam since the late eighties. There was a music magazine here in Norway, Beat, that really championed those new country artists and I was smitten. His first two records really got worn out at my student home in Bergen.

Today I am going to list his 10 best videos (you know he came up at the same time as MTV and he’s always had great music videos). This is my own list and it is not discussed with Egil (the other half of JV) before putting it out here.

1. Guitars, Cadillacs:

2. Streets of Bakersfield (with Buck Owens):

Dwight Yoakam to the magazine Country Guitar in 1994:

‘Bakersfield’ really is not exclusively limited to the town itself but encompasses the larger California country sound of the Forties, Fifties and on into the Sixties, and even the Seventies, with the music of Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, the Burrito Brothers and the Eagles — they are all an extension of the ‘Bakersfield Sound’ and a byproduct of it. I’ve got a poster of Buck Owens performing at the Fillmore West in 1968 in Haight Asbury! What went on there led to there being a musical incarnation called country rock. I don’t know if there would have been a John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival had there not been the California country music that’s come to be known as the ‘Bakersfield Sound’.

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Video Premiere: The Baddest Man Alive by Black Keys and RZA

From The Black Keys’ Facebook page:

World Premiere: “The Baddest Man Alive” a music video by The Black Keys & RZA for RZA’s new movie The Man with the Iron Fists.

…and what a great track it is, AND what a bad (meanin’ good) video!

From Paste Magazine:

The rockers and RZA teamed up to record a sultry track that combines the best of both rock and rap worlds. The video for “The Baddest Man Alive” pays homage to the kung-fu film that it accompanies. Audiences see The Black Keys and RZA sitting at a table in a restaurant when, all of a sudden, they all begin to battle each other. Throughout the fight sequence there are small clips from The Man With The Iron Fists on different surfaces. The bloody aspects that audiences can expect to see from the feature (it was produced by Quentin Tarantino, after all) make their way into the video, including RZA ripping someone’s arm off. (Read more at Paste)

– Hallgeir

Steve Earle’s album Copperhead Road was released in 1988 – 24 years ago

I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash , ´round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan…”

“”This record is definitely going to keep me off the Grand Ole Opry. I think we’ve made a real rock ‘n roll album. People that only know me from Guitar Town  might be freaked out a bit, although anyone who also followed Exit O  and the live thing won’t be taken aback at all. Sonically, the rhythm section’s a lot tougher.” – Steve Earle (to Spectator)

Copperhead Road is an American alternative country/country rock album released in 1988 by Steve Earle. Often referred to as Earle’s first “rock record”, Earle himself calls it the world’s first blend ofheavy metal and bluegrass, while in their January 26, 1989 review of the album Rolling Stone suggested the style be known as “power twang”. (read more at Wikipedia)

Released October 17, 1988
April 29, 2008 (Deluxe)
Genre Heartland rock, Alt-Country, Country rock, Americana
Length 43:36
Label Uni Records (USA/Canada)
MCA
Producer Steve Earle, Tony Brown

Official video for the song Copperhead Road

The songs on  the album are a mix of personal/love songs and political/story-songs. The title track is about a road used for drug/alcohol traffic through generations,  the song “Snake Oil” compares then president Ronald Reagan to a traveling con man.  The title track and “Johnny Come Lately” ( with The Pogues) both describe the experiences of returning veterans.

Steve Earle and Pogues recording Johnny Come Lately:

“Johnny Come Lately” compares the experience of US servicemen fighting in World War II with those in the Vietnam War, and tells about the completely different welcomes  they received on returning home.
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