Entropy and this damned sunshine surround Olentangy John now, here in Los Angeles. Olentangy John, an Ohioan with Ohio’s name, not sure what he’s doing here. Where are the dying leaves? Who is anyone? Whence, exactly, this unshakable sense of foreboding? One answer to which questions might be: Olentangy John is in the right place. It is this troubling, after all, that inform and preoccupy his songs. And it is from specific troubling he derives broad if inexplicit truths about everywhere – even the places where the leaves die, sense is makeable, and homebound familiarity dampens the disquietude. Before here, Olentangy John spent three years in New York, first as actor, then musician, culminating in his first full-length, O! Be Joyful (Trailer Fire), which L.A. Record would describe shortly after his emigration as suggesting “solitude as the solution to desperation.” He’s now at work on his second full-length, on which he’ll run expanding if recognizable themes through an emerging toned-up aesthetic. Over the course of his brief-yet-productive music career, Olentangy John has been an essential member of Indianola, The Elephant Army, and Born At Sea, and an occasional supporter of numerous others who seek him for his multi-instrumental and singing proficiencies.
Sample Track Here: Olentangy John-Angry Little Town
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Storehouse is the improvising blues ensemble gathered around UK / New Zealand guitarist Tom Rodwell, “Sheffield’s answer to Lightnin’ Hopkins,” according to the NME. Built on Rodwell’s bassy electric guitar and stomping foot, their sound is purposefully austere, but full of enough suggestive rhythms and audacious rearrangements to make brain surgeons do the limbo and wheelchair users to shake it, in ruined Swiss castles to smoky cellars in Ogden, Utah, playing over 700 shows since 2003. The band head down unusual alleys – slave chanteys, calypso smut, street preacher rave, vivid female blues from singer Coco – but there’s a spontaneous spirit that marks them as that rare beast – living blues not weighed down by either cliche or puritanism. If you imagined a subgenre of world music that evolved parallel to rock and roll, but that retained blues intimacy, improvisation and sense of social function (dance rhythms) you might conjure up Storehouse. Returning to LA for the fourth time, their new album “Live Humble” is due soon from Fireplace Recordings.
Sample Track Here: Tom Rodwell-07 Bang Bang Lulu
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McDougall is a noble little grizzly with precious old timey wisdom. His songs of travel, discovery, and perseverance will purify your every day lifestyle and ring adventure when driving home from another day at the office. As the bush bearded road wrenched McDougall quietly sits down at his humble set up of kick drum, high hat, harmonica and simple stringed instruments, the fans making up his growing national following begin taking turns shouting “McDougall!” His toe tapping, punk infused old time songs bring fury to the dance floor, and poetry to your record player. Don’t fight it…this is the way.
Sample Track Here: McDougall-18 Days of Rain