Breaking: Jamey Johnson

Who: Alabama’s own Jamey Johnson, a shit-kicking, hard-drinking badass who is well on his way to being country music’s biggest outlaw.
Sounds Like: To start, think Steve Earle and Merle Haggard, not Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban. On his album That Lonesome Song, Johnson mixes tender ballads like “In Color” with barnstormers like “High Cost of Living” and raw country tales influenced by booze, drugs and his own divorce. “I was trying to reach that dude at the bar going through what I was going through,” Johnson says of the album.
Vital Stats:

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Download New Kid Sister (Featuring David Banner): “Family Reunion”

We’ve been fans of Kanye West-approved Chicago MC Kid Sister since catching her set at last year’s CMJ fest in New York. Her album Dream Date is out November 25th on Downtown Records, and you can check out the bouncy “Family Reunion” (featuring a sharp verse from David Banner) right here:
“Family Reunion” [right click and select "save as"]

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New Marnie Stern Video - “Transformer”

When posting Marnie Stern’s “Transformer,” I said something about how the way she approaches songwriting feels like she’s stumbling upon something for the first time, blowing her own mind over and over. That “stumble”’s not meant as a knock — I meant it as a kind of ongoing discovery/rediscovery. See, for instance, “Shea Stadium” (poor Mets), “Ruler,” etc. Or, as she shouts in “Transformer,” “I turn this moment into something new … The ancient echoes crawling out from my insides.” You get a good sense of that shape-shifting in the Dylan Mulick-directed clip for the track, Stern transforming — new wave Marnie, metal Marnie, new age Marnie, and ultimately space age Marnie — while a television changes stations. Each time, seems the shift goes deeper.

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Make-Believe Maverick

Make-Believe Maverick

• The Double-Talk Express
• Mad Dog Palin: The Full Story
At Fort McNair, an army base located
along the Potomac River in the nation’s capital, a chance reunion
takes place one day between two former POWs. It’s the spring of
1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home
from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed
him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of
patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort
McNair,…

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Calexico’s Spanish Flavors Cross Borders in Los Angeles

"I’ve always had this idea for a Monday night show where everyone brings in tequila," Calexico’s Joey Burns told the crowd at Hollywood’s Music Box. While it was indeed a Monday night, there was more Bluetooth in the room than blue agave. But thanks to Calexico’s tunes, there was certainly no shortage of anything from south of the border.

More on SPIN.com:
>> Review: Calexico, Garden Ruin (Quarter Stick)
>> Artist of the Day: Calexico
>> Review: Calexico, Carried to Dust (Quarterstick)

Like a crossroads between Wilco-age indie rock and mariachi horns, Calexico’s music offers plenty of shouting words en espanol, smooth acoustic jams, and low-tone singing. There’s also never a shortage of instruments onstage, and throughout their set last night, Calexico utilized everything from a trumpet to a melodica, to a percussive egg. The result, especially on "Two Silver Trees" and "The News About William," both from Carried to Dust, was a thick [...]

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Jack’s Mannequin

What? Andrew McMahon, former frontman of piano-punk outfit Something Corporate, knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of a music career. Shortly before his pop-oriented side project, Jack’s Mannequin, released their debut, Everything in Transit, McMahon was struck with leukemia in June of 2005. Thanks to a successful stem-cell transplant and an outpouring of support from his fans, McMahon made a full recovery and is back with Jack’s Mannequin’s heavily-anticipated sophomore full-length, The Glass Passenger. Ruminating on love, loss, and endurance, The Glass Passenger soars with melodic arrangements and vocal intensity, cementing McMahon’s status as not only a survivor, but also a songwriting success.

Who? While fronting Something Corporate, McMahon decided that he needed an outlet for his songs that didn’t quite fit the Corporate mold. Thus, Jack’s Mannequin was born, taking its name from both a song he penned, "Dear Jack," and "The Mannequins," a band [...]

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New Department Of Eagles - “1997″ (New Song, Stereogum Premiere)

It took Grizzly Bear’s Dan Rossen and his non-Grizzly songwriting partner Fred Nicolaus a good five years to sculpt their second full-length In Ear Park. With “1997,” however, they’re already one track into a third LP. So maybe there won’t be such a long wait this time, all Dan has to do is finish recording the next Grizzly Bear album and not go on tour for like two years again. Here the duo set up in a DUMBO studio for a live take on a non-album cut, of a piece with previous singles “No One Does It Like You” and the new LP title track, fitting somewhere between them with the signature chord voicings that seem tailor made for a Lewis Carroll story, a typically great Dan vocal, and a touch of “On A Neck, On A Spit” to the bridge.

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Built to Spill Clean Up: A Report From NY’s “Perfect From Now On” Show

All hail the mighty Built to Spill, the world’s most beloved purveyors of spaced-out cock rock. Too obscure to be famous and too famous to be obscure, Built to Spill are to connoisseurs of psychedelic mood music what an untapped case of Mad Dog 20/20 is to winos — a cache of treasures to be savored all night long.
“I can’t get that sound you made out of my head.” So goes the opening line of the opening song of Built to Spill’s thoroughly genius Perfect From Now On — and if you’re a fan, it’s an apt statement. I was on hand to see them perform that album, the band’s 1997 major label debut, in its entirety at Terminal 5 in New York City last Thursday. And boy is my face melted.
With yesterday’s alt-rock heroes Dinosaur Jr. and the Meat Puppets as openers, the bill was stacked with ’90s-era comfort [...]

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Murs

What? He may not have either the Democratic or Republican nomination, but California indie-hip-hop mainstay Murs (an acronym for "Making Underground Raw Shit") is throwing his hat into the election ring with his seventh solo album and major-label debut, Murs For President, out tomorrow on Warner Bros. Murs For President finds the underground-rapper-gone-big-time retaining his verbose and engaging flow while sticking to the soulful, jazzy beats that have marked his best records, notably 2004’s Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition.

Who? Before signing to Warner Bros., Murs, a.k.a. Nick Carter, had been a fixture in the California underground hip-hop scene for over a decade, starting with his 1997 debut F’Real. Besides his critically and commercially revered collaborations with producer 9th Wonder on Murs 3:16 and 2006’s follow-up, Murray’s Revenge, Murs has worked with such respected rhymers as Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock, and Jean Grae.

Odd Fact: Murs has also collaborated with Atmosphere’s Slug. [...]

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A Place to Bury Strangers Invade Portland

Like a menacing wave, Brooklyn noisemakers A Place to Bury Strangers washed into Portland’s Doug Fir Lounge Saturday night and won over a small but devoted audience of goths and post-punkers with an impressive combination of mangled, industrial-grade sounds and visually arresting, black-and-white video clips projected against the club’s backdrop.
Taking the stage shortly after 11:00 P.M., lead Stranger Oliver Ackermann offered words of praise for the evening’s opening act, Portland’s own goth-pop outfit the Prids. From there, APTBS finessed their way through a pair of early cuts before finding stride in “To Fix the Gash in Your Head,” an ear-rattling joint culled — as much of the set was — from the group’s 2007 eponymous debut. Successive jams like “Missing You” and “I Know I’ll See You” only raised the show’s sonic intensity to more depraved levels.

More on SPIN.com:
>> Artist of the Day: A Place to Bury Strangers

The band, which [...]

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