9:00 PM
to 2:00 AM
Celebrating the Beauty of the Web, hosted by the Internet Explorer 9 team
97 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Party, Interactive
event::about
Free drinks and great music performances from Yeasayer, The Head and The Heart, and Fences.
7:30 PM
to 8:30 PM
Brett Dennen
71 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Brett Dennen
event::about Brett Dennen is a talented folk/pop singer and songwriter from Northern California. Named by Rolling Stone Magazine as an “Artist to Watch” and identified as one of Entertainment Weekly’s eight "Guys on the Rise," Brett’s narrative-rich and timeless songwriting has garnered instant critical praise and the adoration of music supervisors who have featured his music on popular television programs such as House, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scrubs. Brett has headlined every major city in the United States, Europe and Australia and has been hand-picked by a "who's who" of his contemporaries including John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and Dave Matthews to support tours. His fourth album, Loverboy is due out in April 2011.
event::tags 18+
8:30 PM
to 9:30 PM
Matt Nathanson
82 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
9:30 PM
to 10:30 PM
Moneybrother
41 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Moneybrother
event::about Moneybrother - Real Control - April 2010 Stockholm Sweden's MONEYBROTHER is the solo project from Anders Wendin (originally of Monster fame) where he creates a soul-oriented blend of music styles like reggae, punk, rock'n'roll, pub rock, and even disco. Named after the two words that his baby brother could pronounce in English, MONEYBROTHER walked straight in to people's hearts with his gold selling, Grammy award-winning, striking 2003 debut album Blood Panic. Since then, Wendin has continued to reach new successful heights throughout Europe with the three releases that followed, not to mention a tomato soup brand that bears the MONEYBROTHER name. Now the artist has set his sights stateside with his first US full length release, Real Control, which includes four reworked and rerecorded tracks that are different from the Scandinavian release of the album. It didn't take long for touring American bands to take notice of MONEYBROTHER'S distinct sound. Against Me!'s Tom Gabel often talks about MONEYBROTHER'S music when asked about his favorite bands. Sabot Productions released a US sampler of b-sides and tracks off of MONEYBROTHER’s debut and sophomore releases after Jordan, Sabot owner and Against Me! tour manager, and his band mates fell in love with MONEYBROTHER'S music. MONEYBROTHER also captured the interest of Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady and World/Inferno Friendship Society, who invited the artist to open for a recent US tour. With Real Control, MONEYBROTHER continues to utilize elements of 60s and 70s soul, like call and response vocals, sweeping string arrangements and dramatic lyrics, or what LA Weekly describes as “a Scandinavian stew of reggae, disco and roots-rocking thrash.” From the Bjorn Yttling (Peter Bjorn & John) produced opener, “Born Under A Bad Sign” to the soulful epic closer of “Showdown,” MONEYBROTHER paints with the same pallet as Stiff Records era pub rock bands, Dexy's Midnight Runner, Thin Lizzy, The Clash, Sprinsteen, and, of course, the northern soul greats that so deeply inspired him. Press Quotes: "With a soulful voice that often strikes as Joe Strummer’s sonic doppelganger, Wendin shows this nomadic side in his music, too, with measures of punk, rockabilly and disco often appearing within the same song." - Paste “A Scandinavian stew of reggae, disco and roots-rocking thrash.” - LA Weekly “Integrated into this EP are flares of the aforementioned disco, soul, folk and straight-up rock. It's all packed together into a package that continues to floor me.” ...” According to some, this is Sabot co-conspirators Against Me!'s favorite band. Shocking, but I can totally see why. This has definitely taken the top spot for EP's released this year for me.” - Punknews.org "“Born Under a Bad Sign” is a great showcase of the mix of ’60s soul, ’70s punk and ’80s pop that makes Moneybrother someone to look out for in 2010." - Ice Cream Man “The best songs -- and there really are too many to mention here -- are intense and soulful pop/rock mini-symphonies of the kind Bruce Springsteen used to make in the mid-'70s: the grand piano pounds, the saxophone lines soar, and the dramatic string arrangements underpin Anders Wendin's wonderfully scruffy voice...This is every bit as good as classic, soul-tinged pop/rock gets. Period.” - All Music Guide
event::tags 18+
10:30 PM
to 11:30 PM
DeVotchKa
375 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists DeVotchKa
event::about For more than a decade, DeVotchKa has been melting its sweeping collection of influences into an authentic and totally original blend of rock 'n' roll. With the release of the band's fifth album, "100 Lovers" (Anti-, February 2011), the band has headed back to the romantic influences of the Arizona desert with producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Neko Case) to create a compendium of short stories inspired by the varied moments the band experienced since the release of A Mad & Faithful Telling (Anti-, 2007). Like many bands, DeVotchKa spent much of their early years traveling the highways and byways searching for gigs and a musical direction. As time went on, the band began to foster important musical collaborations with the unequivocal Calexico and the seminal gypsy punks Gogol Bordello. International tours with Gogol and recordings with Calexico have helped spread the band’s sound around the globe. DeVotchKa's first big break happened when Nic Harcourt, former music director for KCRW, introduced his listeners to a then unknown rock band of worldly sounds on his daily radio show, "Morning Becomes Eclectic". Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, who were listening that day, stumbled upon the sound for their movie, "Little Miss Sunshine". A critical and box office hit, the film was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and, for DeVotchKa's soundtrack, a Grammy. The little gypsy wedding band from Denver was suddenly known all across the nation, playing large venues and major music festivals, including Coachella, Bumbershoot, Lollapalooza, and Mile High Music Festival. After years of toiling in obscurity, the band was selling out shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco and First Avenue in Minneapolis, with breakout performances at Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits Music Festival. The love spread to Europe, which has become a yearly destination for the band. "100 Lovers" is the album DeVotchKa had always wanted to make. "How it Ends" was recorded and mixed in only nine days, mainly due to lack of funds. On "A Mad and Faithful Telling,” the band had more time and conducted complex arrangements and experimental recording techniques. For "100 Lovers", DeVotchKa spent over a year defining their sound, taking multiple trips to the desert studio to craft twelve new recordings. The final product is the bands strongest album to date, filled with songs fans will love, songs to draw in new listeners, and exciting numbers that fit nicely into their rousing live sets. Guests on the album include members of Calexico and Mauro Refosco, David Byrne and Thom Yorke’s go-to percussionist. With a full tour lined up for the spring and dates booked all over the world, 2011 is gearing up to be the biggest year for DeVotchKa yet. DeVotchKa is: Nick Urata: Vocals, guitars, Theremin, trumpet, piano Jeanie Schroder: acoustic bass, sousaphone Shawn King: drums, percussion, trumpet Tom Hagerman: violin, viola, accordion, piano
event::tags 18+
11:45 PM
to 12:45 AM
Flogging Molly
300 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Flogging Molly
event::about What makes a band truly remarkable? Insightful lyrics? Memorable melodies? Blow-your-mind live performances? The truth is that it takes all of those things along with a boundless enthusiasm, an infectious energy and a supreme devotion to the fans. With this rare combination, a band may ascend past "good," - or even the record industry's Holy Grail, "marketable" - and reach sublime. Drawing on the hardships and joys of their own lives and a musical history ranging from old world Celtic to modern day punk rock, the seven members of Flogging Molly do just that, and they do it with a charm and an ease that makes them one of the most accessible bands performing today. "We're not a traditional band," explains Dublin born singer/songwriter, Dave King. "We are influenced by traditional music and inspired by it, and we put our own little twist on it." Founded in Los Angeles in 1997 by the expatriate King, Flogging Molly got its start and its name from a local bar called Molly Malone's where the band played and grew and laid down the blueprint for its eventual success. As every member of Flogging Molly will emphatically explain, there were no predetermined expectations for the band's sound. From night to night playing to a packed house at Molly Malone's, the sound evolved organically. Traditional Celtic instruments like violin, mandolin and accordion blended seamlessly with grinding guitars and pounding drums. Without consciously attempting it, Flogging Molly merged the music of King's childhood in Dublin with the music of his adulthood in L.A. "If it didn't have mandolin, accordion, fiddle and whistle, it would be punk rock, and if it didn't have guitar, bass and drums, it would be traditional Irish music," King admits. With a sound anchored in such diverse influences and with band members ranging in age from their 20s to their 40s - a decidedly non-MTV-friendly demographical mix, Flogging Molly was not embraced by the mainstream music industry. The band simply didn't fit any preconceived notions of what a "successful" band was. Not deterred in the least, Flogging Molly embraced a DIY philosophy. Their amazing work ethic and rapidly growing fan base led them to DIY-style record label, Side One Dummy, and the two fit hand in glove. In 2000, their Side One Dummy debut, Swagger, featuring the anthemic "The Likes of You Again" and "Black Friday Rule" along with the best ode to a hangover yet, "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" (which later found its way into the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt film, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), obliterated initial expectations before Flogging Molly headed back into the studio to record their 2002 follow up, Drunken Lullabies, which included instant classics like the rousing "Rebels of the Sacred Heart" and the doleful "The Son Never Shines (on Closed Doors)." 2004's Within a Mile of Home once more showcased the band's ability to play driving rock and roll on one track then slide effortlessly into lilting, pastoral harmonies on the next and contained a beautiful duet between King and Lucinda Williams on "Factory Girls." Flogging Molly's latest album, Float, recorded in King's native Ireland, delivers still another iteration of the band's sonic evolution. More mature yet retaining the immediacy that marks all of their work, Float may find the widest audience acceptance of any Flogging Molly album. Hard charging tunes such as "Requiem For A Dying Song," "Paddy's Lament" and "You Won't Make a Fool Out of Me" give way, as listeners have come to expect, to more sober ruminations on tracks like "Float." The overall effect is a symphonic layering of sound that possesses a unique rhythmic flow from boisterous to bereaved and back again. Long time fans and new discoverers will be equally astounded. Spend 10 minutes in a room with the members of Flogging Molly, and you will have no doubt about their passion for their music. As mandolin and banjo player Bob Schmidt describes it, "We're deadly serious about what we do. As much as it's a good time and a fun thing, it's no joke to us." Guitarist Dennis Casey echoes that sentiment, saying, "I just give it all I've got because I just believe in it that much." Flogging Molly isn't a mere band, they're a seven member nuclear family. They are as devoted to one another as they are to the music they create. It's no wonder their extended family - the legion of loyal Flogging Molly fans - keeps growing every day.
event::tags 18+
7:00 PM
to 8:00 PM
Bob Geldof
79 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
8:15 PM
to 9:15 PM
The New Mastersounds
36 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists The New Mastersounds
event::about The New Mastersounds are a four-piece band based in Leeds, England, whose modern take on vintage soul-jazz, funk and rock draws influences from Jimmies McGriff, Smith, and Hendrix, as well as their most closely-associated mentors, The Meters. Try to imagine Grant Green and Lou Donaldson having a fight in a Hammond Organ shop while James Brown holds the coats, and you have some idea of what to expect from this band. Their first single, One Note Brown, was released on Blow It Hard Records in 2000 and was passionately championed by acclaimed Northern Soul and funk DJ Keb Darge. To date, the band has released four studio records: 102%, This Is What We Do, Be Yourself, Keb Darge Presents… as well as The New Mastersounds Re::Mixed, and Live At La Cova. Also of note: their single, “Your Love Is Mine” featuring Corinne Bailey Rae, was used in the 2007 Warner Brothers movie Feast of Love. Having toured throughout Europe, Japan and the USA, the NMS have earned global recognition as a key band in the ‘New Funk’ scene. But purists beware: their unique blend of funk, rock, soul and dance music is hard to sum up and doesn’t fit neatly into any one genre. Headed soon to a city near you, The New Mastersounds deliver gritty grooves and deep rhythms in clubs, theater venues and festivals alike. Their live shows will get you up dancing and hold you there intoxicated by the funk until last call- when you’ll stagger home, sweaty and exhausted, on a wave of euphoria. Led by guitarist and producer Eddie Roberts, The New Mastersounds feature Joe Tatton on Hammond, Pete Shand on bass and Simon Allen on drums.
event::tags 18+
9:30 PM
to 10:30 PM
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
123 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists The Preservation Hall Jazz Band
event::about The Preservation Hall Jazz Band derives its name from Preservation Hall, the venerable music venue located in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, founded in 1961 by Allan and Sandra Jaffe. The band has traveled worldwide spreading their mission to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans Jazz. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, for British Royalty or the King of Thailand, this music embodies a joyful, timeless spirit. Under the auspices of current director, Ben Jaffe, the son of founders Allan and Sandra, Preservation Hall continues with a deep reverence and consciousness of its greatest attributes in the modern day as a venue, band, and record label. The building that houses Preservation Hall has housed many businesses over the years including a tavern during the war of 1812, a photo studio and an art gallery. It was during the years of the art gallery that then owner, Larry Borenstein, began holding informal jam sessions for his close friends. Out of these sessions grew the concept of Preservation Hall. The intimate venue, whose weathered exterior has been untouched over its history, is a living embodiment of its original vision. To this day, Preservation Hall has no drinks, air conditioning, or other typical accoutrements strictly welcoming people of all ages interested in having one of the last pure music experiences left on the earth. The PHJB began touring in 1963 and for many years there were several bands successfully touring under the name Preservation Hall. Many of the band's charter members performed with the pioneers who invented jazz in the early twentieth century including Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bunk Johnson. Band leaders over the band's history include the brothers Willie and Percy Humphrey, husband and wife Billie and De De Pierce, famed pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, and in the modern day Wendall and John Brunious. These founding artists and dozens of others passed on the lessons of their music to a younger generation who now follow in their footsteps like the current lineup.
event::tags 18+
11:00 PM
to 12:00 AM
Widespread Panic
137 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Widespread Panic
event::about Everybody loves surprises, that feeling of not knowing what might be around the next corner -- and that’s exactly the vibe that Widespread Panic gives off every time they unleash a new album. Sometimes that means taking listeners on a nice, smooth ride, and sometimes it means making ‘em hold on tight, but either way, it means the trip is gonna be worth it. On Dirty Side Down, their ATO debut and 11th studio offering overall, Widespread Panic offer listeners the sonic equivalent of a dip in a cool mountain stream. At once bracing and cleansing, invigorating and soothing, the album is something of an emotional travelogue, its ebb and flow evident in every aspect of the instrumental interplay -- skittering rhythms, fanciful guitar flights and low-slung melodies alike -- as well as the pensive-but-not-ponderous lyrical tone. “We didn’t necessarily have an overall vision for the album going in, because we never really have things that cut and dried,” says singer-guitarist John Bell. “We all came in with some ideas, and had a few bits of subject matter that we really wanted to touch on, but the one thing we all agreed about was the fact that we wanted to make sure we could play every song live and really enjoy playing all of them.” The sprawling, serpentine “Saint Ex” sets the tenor of the album beautifully, with guitarist Jimmy Herring unspooling indigo-hued lines that weave gracefully around Bell’s impressionistic short story -- a tale that uses the life of Little Prince writer Antoine St. Exupery as the foundation for a poignant tale of the thin lines that connect us as people and the circumstances that sometimes put a kink in those lines. Such twists and turns permeate Dirty Side Down, from the title track -- a breathless excursion that reminds us that life is more about the journey than the mere act of getting from point A to point B -- to the breezy instrumental voyage laid out in “St. Louis Jam,” a piece that’s long played a part in the sextet’s live performances. “Quite a few of these songs had been around for a while, like ‘St. Louis’ and ‘Visiting Day,’” says Bell. “But a lot of them, people might not recognize from the live sets because they’ve changed a lot -- some of them with different tempos, some with different chord structures. That’s the beauty of working with these guys, there’s never a sense of that song is my baby, you can’t mess with it.’” There’s a lot of subtle messing going on throughout Dirty Side Down, from drummer Todd Nance’s gritty lead vocal on “Clinic Cynic” to the alternately fierce and friendly guitar sparring that veins the closer, “Cotton Was King,” a tune redolent of the Band at its sepia-toned best. “Everybody in the band has a really broad musical vocabulary, and sometimes we use certain parts of it, sometimes we keep certain parts on hold,” says Jimmy Herring, who, at four years worth of service, is the newest Panic recruit. “Every song is donated to the cause, I like to say. It’s almost subconscious after a while.” Widespread Panic cut its teeth, like so many of its forebears, on the southern bar circuit, where winning fans and influencing patrons takes a unique combination of musical panache and from-the-gut persistence. John Bell and Michael Houser had spent the better part of five years writing, playing and racking up life experiences as collaborators and friends by the time the fully-coalesced band’s first official show took place in 1986. From there, the Panic spread stealthily but immutably, via disc -- their first full-length, Space Wrangler, followed in 1987 -- and, even more importantly, the constant gigging that shaped them into one of the era’s most extraordinary live bands. Panic separated themselves from the crowd by working both ends of the sonic spectrum -- crafting tightly-wound and memorable songs and using those as jumping off points for improvisations that turn heads and then keep them bobbing. “People have recorded tapes of us doing a song for 20 minutes live and sometimes when it will come out on a record, they’ll say ‘why is it just five minutes long?,’” says bassist Dave Schools, with a laugh. “That’s kind of cool, though, I think that most people don’t have a pre-conceived notion and they like the air of mystery. I know we do.” The 1992 arrival of keyboardist John Hermann added another layer to the thickly textured Panic canvas -- as was evident in the funky, sinuous grooves that dominated classic albums like 1993’s Everyday and Ain’t Life Grand, which followed a year later. For the next several years, they’d seldom stay in one place long enough to gather moss, criss-crossing the country and putting notch after notch on their collective belt -- like playing what’s widely considered to be the biggest record-release party of all time (a 100,000 strong hometown gathering to mark the release of Light Fuse, Get Away). Panic weathered its share of ups and downs as the new millennium broke, and the highs were very high -- like their headlining slot on two nights of the inaugural Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2002. But the same year, Widespread Panic endured its darkest period, as co-founder Michael Houser was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer -- an illness he battled bravely, following his musical passion, until he passed away in August at the age of 40. While the band soldiered on, taking a break to pursue solo projects for a goodly bit of 2004 and spending time nurturing one of their pet charities, the Tunes for Tots program, it wasn’t until longtime friend Herring signed on in late 2006 that the band really got back in gear. “All I ever wanted was to be in a band, and not just with a bunch of guys who get together and play,” says Herring. “And with this band, it’s a band. No one person is more important than the others, and in my mind, that’s what music should be.” That communality runs through every aspect of Widespread Panic, in their many socially-driven efforts -- like the band’s efforts in rebuilding homes in their beloved New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina -- and most importantly, in their music. It positively radiates from their plaintive version of “This Cruel Thing” (a previously unreleased song from the pen of frequent collaborator Vic Chesnutt, who passed away at Christmas of 2009) as well as the hard-scrabble tone of the steely-eyed “North,” on which percussionist Sunny Ortiz turns up the heat measurably. It’s a seamless thing, and that’s just the way they like it. “We’ve always considered the camaraderie of the band to be as important as anything else, more important, actually,” says Nance. “There are bands where guys only see each other when they’re on tour, and then maybe even only when they’re at the shows. This band isn’t like that. It really is like a family and I think that comes through in the music. I hope so.”
event::tags 18+
8:05 PM
to 9:05 PM
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
240 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
event::about Joe Lewis is stuffed into a van with his six bandmates and one stranger, as they hurtle across Texas to a gig in Marfa. Most of the guys are sleeping now, content in the knowledge they've just made the record of their lives. All killer, no filler, the fittingly titled, take-no-prisoners Scandalous (Lost Highway)'once again produced by Jim Eno, moonlighting from his main gig as Spoon's drummer'is a churning slab of rock & roll, blues and funk, laced with a double shot of 100-proof punkitude. This band has gotten tight as a gnat's ass through nearly two years of barnstorming without a break. ÂWe've grown a lot as a band, and so has our fan base, the lanky, enigmatic Lewis acknowledges. ÂHopefully it's still going up, but it will ultimately be what we make of it. As the shows get bigger and we get bigger, we have to keep improving to meet the demand. If we can't do that, it won't go anywhere. From the look in Joe's eyes as he glances at the one-stoplight towns and endless open country of central Texas whizzing past, you can tell he knows whereof he speaks. While on the road, they also eagerly soaked up the worldly knowledge of touring mates the New York Dolls and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm. ÂThe Dolls covered Bo Diddley and Sonny Boy Williamson, and so do we, says guitarist Zach Ernst, riding shotgun in the van, as he does in the band. ÂThat youthful, aggressive, unschooled thing is really appealing to us. That's what we like to listen to and what we're shooting for. We've had some lineup changes since the first record, but at its core, it's still the same band, and everyone's excited to move on to the next stage. Like his forebears, Lewis writes from direct, often bitter experience with unflinching veracity. The songs of Scandalous are littered with the debris of age-old issues: hard times and one-night stands, lying and cheating, redemption and revenge. Gritty, raunchy and real, his music is not for the squeamish, but experiencing it fully can be genuinely cathartic. The album opens with the funky fantasia ÂLivin' in the Jungle, as Joe wails with tonsil-shredding abandon over a rhythm section erupting like a tropical storm and horns honking like hyenas in heat. ÂI've always said that if I ever got rich, I would go buy a bunch of land in the Congo or the Amazon, build a nice house and have an Amazon woman to hang out with, he explains, straight-faced. On the following ÂI'm Gonna Leave You, the band sends a jolt of electricity through a Mississippi hill country blues template. ÂIt's about leavin' a girl, just gettin' out while you can, before the shit gets too thick, he says, punctuating the line with a wicked cackle. From there, it's all hands on deck, as one sonic assault after another rips into the eardrums and the pelvis all at once. The instant-classic highway boogie ÂMustang Ranch recounts, in sordid detail, an overnight drive between Salt Lake City and San Francisco, Joe spinning out the narrative as a revved-up talking blues. ÂIt was a long, ridiculous drive, and we got the idea of stopping at the Mustang Ranch, he recalls. ÂWe were like, 'Let's go, man'we got nothin' better to do.' So we stopped in there, and it was a really odd experience. Here, another quick laugh escapes Joe's lips. ÂWe figured out that we don't fit brothels that well, and the girls are all fuckin' busted. But nobody caught anything. Then we left, and we stopped in Reno at six in the morning. It was a freaky experience. We went into a casino and got a cheap breakfast, and all the burnt-out gamblers were walking the town like zombies out there in the early morning. There were even weird lights hovering in the sky. That song's a true story, pretty much. Lewis seems to be channeling Robert Johnson on ÂMessin', which turns on his spooky, low-down vocal and acoustic guitar. ÂI'm just an old-style blues fan, and I'm tryin' to do that kind of thing with it, he says, reeling off the names of his favorite practitioners: Lightnin' Hopkins, Junior Kimbrough, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf and Magic Sam. The album's biggest surprise is ÂYou Been Lyin', a torrid, politically-themed workout in the tradition of Parliament-Funkadelic and late-'60s Temptations. Featured on this track are the group vocals of the Relatives, a Dallas gospel funk band that made some criminally under-exposed records three decades ago. ÂThey're like the greatest band ever, says Joe, Âand I'm glad we got them on there, 'cause they made the track really sweet. Here and elsewhere, you can also pick up the influence of the Stooges, another of Lewis' touchstones, in the confrontational physicality of the performances. ÂPeople call us a soul band, but we're more of a rock & roll band, he points out. ÂWe feel like what we're doing is different from the soul bands with horn sections that are out there right now, Ernst adds. ÂWe always joke that we would do that kind of music, but we're not good enough: our guitars are too loud, we're too primitive on our instruments, and Joe is more of a shouter and a talking-blues guy than a smooth soul singer. So we're carving out our own thing because it's the only way that we can do it. We can't play it any cleaner or smoother'and we don't want to, either. Growing up in Austin and Round Rock, Joe took it all in'Delta and Chicago blues, Memphis soul, Detroit garage punk'and what came out the other end was, and is, unlike anything else out there. ÂI don't know, man'I just kinda dove into it, Lewis continues. ÂThese neighbors of mine were in this country band and they got to go on tour all the time, and I had to go to work in this stupid factory. I was like, 'Man, I gotta get in on that.' So I pulled a guitar down off the wall of a pawn shop where I was workin' at the time and learned stuff as I went along. The people I was playing with wanted to practice all the time, and I was like, 'No, man, let's get out there'I wanna try to do this shit.' I pretty much learned on stage. After years of struggle to get heard, things started moving fast for Lewis after he and Ernst put together the earliest incarnation of Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, naming themselves after a crusted container of honey they found on the floor of their Âdisgusting rehearsal room. They went out with Spoon after Britt Daniel caught a set, and their subsequent, Eno-produced EP caught the ear of Lost Highway's Kim Buie, who signed them to a record deal. Eno then helmed their 2009 debut album for the label, Tell 'Em What Your Name Is!, much of it cut live off the floor. ÂThe album manages to maximize every incendiary second of sonic sexuality the band is putting out, raved PopMatters' Christel Loar. ÂMake no mistake, Lewis knows his history, but he also knows his moment, too, and it's now. The Honeybears aren't afraid to mine the past to make music for the future. That spot-on assessment goes double now. ÂWe pride ourselves on keepin' our own style and staying true to the guys we look up to, says Lewis. ÂWe play the music that we like listening to. It's always about the music first. As night falls, the van pulls into Marfa, the musicians rub the sleep from their eyes and stretch their muscles, which will soon be put to use unloading their gear. This is what they live for'another night blowin' the roof in front of a houseful of boozed-up locals looking for a thrill. For the paying customers, it's a few hours of sweet relief. For Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, it's another long day and hot night in the life of a working band'seven hungry guys with their eyes on the far horizon.
event::tags 18+
9:00 PM
to 10:00 PM
Hayes Carll
97 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
10:00 PM
to 11:00 PM
Special Guest
55 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
11:00 PM
to 12:00 AM
Robert Earl Keen
85 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
12:00 AM
to 1:00 AM
Lucinda Williams
168 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
6:00 PM
to 7:00 PM
Nervo
3 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Nervo
event::about NERVO are Mim and Liv Nervo. This feisty sister tag-team have already started making waves. Best known for their collaboration with David Guetta on his recent Grammy winning smash hit "When Love Takes Over" (performed by Kelly Rowland), they are quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with on the dance music scene. Based in both London & L.A, these globe-trotting Australian-born DJs are making serious noises on both shores of the Atlantic with their infectious blend of chunky electro-house. With a distinctive style and sassy image - NERVO's DJ style is beat driven, bold, sassy, deep and dirty. They have already played main stage at Miami's Ultrafest, smashed it at Lolopolooza, spun the opening of Space Ibiza, opened at F*** Me I'm Famous for David Guetta and Will.I.Am. Most recently, they were the guest DJ's at the prestigious ARIA's, televised prime-time across Australia. Unsurprisingly, the media there adore them; press includes a 12 page spread in January's InStyle magazine. The talent doesn't stop with their DJing. As songwriters NERVO have been busy behind the scenes for years with their great sense of melody and clever lyrics. The girls have co-written three songs on David Guetta's current album 'One Love', written and produced several songs on Ke$ha's debut album 'Animal' and have a cut on Kylie's Aphrodite. Their passion for dance music has now led to a host of studio collaborations with a list of acts that reads like a who's who in dance music, including, Deadmau5, Roger Sanchez, Aviici, Kaskade and Armin Van Buuren as they work on their forthcoming artist album for Virgin Records, set for release in 2012. Watch this space for more exiting music from this dynamic duo.
event::tags 18+
7:30 PM
to 8:30 PM
8:05 PM
to 9:05 PM
Selah Sue
1 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
8:40 PM
to 9:40 PM
9:15 PM
to 10:15 PM
Kids Of 88
12 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Kids Of 88
event::about Some kids are just different. Jordan Arts and Sam McCarthy knew it from their first, strange meeting of minds at school. Asked to bring their favorite song to class, most 12-year-olds naturally dug out Backstreet Boys or Britney CDs. To their mutual surprise, Sam and Jordan both lugged in Jimi Hendrix LPs. An alliance of outsiders was forged that day. As fashions shifted from dance to nu-metal and hip-hop, the two Auckland teenagers evolved from hitting tin pots to coaxing beats, buzzes, cheeky rhymes and killer tunes from any combo of gadgets fit to plug in and twist to their own often wicked ends. "Jordan and I were both born in 1988," says Sam. "The name Kids of 88 sort of captures what we're doing, picking up bits and pieces of pop culture, sifting the debris from yesteryear and making something new." "I could trace the dance influence back to playing pots and pans in the living room, banging along to a Stereo MCs video," Jordan adds. "But we both went through all kinds of music, played in all kinds of bands to get to this point." "I think our first recording was a live desk track Jordan's dad took off a DAT recorder," he says. "It was the most amazing thing to have one of our own songs burned onto CD. It sounded horrible, probably, but it was pretty cool to hear your first MP3 at the age of 14 or 15." Armed with a precocious store of musical history, rough-edged performance skills and state-of-the-art digital recording know-how, Kids of 88's frenzied home production unit was in full swing before they were old enough to vote. "My House" hit the New Zealand Top 10 in 2009, and the duo's irreverent take on teenaged sexual politics was suddenly on the global pop radar from Sydney to New York and Los Angeles. An international blur of handshakes and backslaps culminated in a deal with Sony Music in mid 2010. Meanwhile, somewhere in the USA, the Kids landed a remix for Ke$ha's single of the moment, "Tik Tok". In turn, Cobra Starship came knocking for a similarly sexy treatment for their "Hot Mess" single. Before their own album was halfway finished, they'd earned a reputation as an outfit that could mash anything to anything else and come up roses. Back in Auckland, they put the finishing touches to their now hotly anticipated debut album for the Dryden Street label. Between the steamy club-floor insinuation s of "Just A Little Bit", the mysteriously intimate groove of "Downtown," which both also hit the Top 10, and the opaque character sketch of "Feed The Birds", their debut album SUGARPILLS slowly defined its sordid allure. "What would a movie be like if this was the soundtrack?" Sam muses. "That's what often directs the lyrics. They might range from really cheeky things that we won't disclose to more specific things, like the bitter side of relationships, or little niche things in pop culture we like to run with." "What surprised us about the album was how much of a melting pot it is," says Jordan. "We feel like we pulled off a four-on-the-floor stomp with 'My House' so that released the pressure and allowed us to be bit more eclectic, go off on tangents." "That moment when you show a song to another person and they get excited, it can just bounce off in any direction," says Sam. "That's the moment we live for. It's that energy that makes a track really take off." Having just supported Passion Pit in Auckland and Scissor Sisters in Australia, Kids of 88 are operating as a four-piece band in a sweaty club near you, which has recently included a stop at the CMJ Music Marathon in NYC. In fact, the U S of A features heavily in the Kids’ plans for 2011. Their new single, “Just A Little Bit,” was released in the states in November, and in February Sony Music is taking the band’s debut EP to college radio in anticipation of a late spring U.S. release of SUGARPILLS. A U.S. tour is also in the works for early 2011. Additionally, Kids Of 88 were chosen to support Ke$ha on her December 2010 European tour which hit the following markets: Zurich, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid & London.
event::tags 18+
9:55 PM
to 10:55 PM
Liz Phair
30 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
10:45 PM
to 11:45 PM
The Pretty Reckless
6 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
event::about One night several years ago, Taylor Momsen's father took his daughter to a White Stripes show. 'Before that, the only concert I'd been to was Britney Spears,' says the singer, songwriter, and guitarist. 'But once I saw Jack White onstage, that was it. I grew up as a dancer and I thought you had to dance to be a girl in the music industry. Then I saw the White Stripes and I was like, 'No, you don't. I can do that.'' Momsen was nine. Jack White's raw power and deceptively simple guitar-and-vocal attack proved to be highly influential on the now 16-year-old Momsen, who began humming melodies before she could talk and writing songs at the age of five after falling in love with The Beatles. 'I was obsessed with them,' she says. 'I also loved Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Audioslave, Soundgarden, Oasis, and Nirvana. That's what I listened to. My rock idols are all men.' So it's not surprising that Momsen channels a lot of masculine energy on LIGHT ME UP, her rock-and-roll-heroine-in-the-making debut album with her band The Pretty Reckless. The songs, all written by Momsen and Ben Phillips with their producer Kato Khandwala, run the gamut of emotions, alternating at times between seething rage and a bruised vulnerability. With Momsen's inky vocals, pummeling riffs, and swaggering attitude, LIGHT ME UP sounds a bit like what might have happened had Led Zeppelin been fronted by 'a chick.' The album's ferocity could raise an eyebrow from those expecting a pretty, blonde teenager to gravitate toward straight-up pop songwriting. 'It's heavier than people might expect from me,' says Momsen, who is best known as the actress who plays Jenny Humphrey on The CW's Gossip Girl. 'But this album is the most honest expression of who I truly am.' Momsen is a smart, emotionally complex young woman who has developed a strong identity despite growing up in the notoriously critical and fickle entertainment industry. Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Taylor spent much of her time in NYC and at thirteen, she relocated to Manhattan. At two years old, Momsen signed to a modeling agency and a year later she began acting professionally appearing in commercials as well as films such as The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. In 2007 Momsen was cast as a lead in the CW show Gossip Girl. 'I didn't choose acting or modeling, I got thrown into it,' Momsen says. 'I liked it, so that wasn't a problem, but music and songwriting are what I've always really wanted to do. I've been working with producers and hanging out in recording studios since I was five, I just couldn't put out an album when I was eight,' she says with a laugh. 'Now I can.' LIGHT ME UP is an unflinchingly honest chronicle of Momsen's experiences, filtered through her unique point of view. 'The record is about life,' she says. 'It covers everything: love, death, and music itself. It's rock and roll. It's sex. It's drugs. It's religion. It's politics. Each song tells a story about the trials and tribulations and emotional struggles that I've experienced or observed. It's not a happy pop record, but it's not Satan-worshiping either. The lyrics aren't meant to be taken literally, they are open to interpretation.' The songs tackle everything from romantic insecurity (the full-throttle rager 'Make Me Wanna Die,' which also appears on the soundtrack to the film Kick-Ass), to despair ('You'), to how working non-stop can you make you feel like one of the un-dead ('Zombie'). Momsen pushes back against the haters on 'Light Me Up' and asks how far you have to go to get forgiveness on 'Going Down.' With her growly, world-weary alto, Momsen can do it all: garage-rock rave-ups ('Miss Nothing'), punchy blues-rock stompers ('My Medicine,' 'Since You're Gone'), as well as emotional power ballads ('Just Tonight') and lovely acoustic guitar and string-driven numbers ('You'). 'I'm not just writing something because I think people might like it,' Momsen says. 'I hope they do, but I'm writing it because I have something to say. So many feelings go into the lyrics that it's hard to explain what they're about. Momsen first hooked up with Khandwala (Blondie, Drowning Pool, Paramore, Breaking Benjamin) and partner and songwriter, Phillips in October 2008. By the spring of last year, they felt they had hit upon a sound that felt authentic to her. 'The three of us have similar musical taste, so it was easy to find that singular vision,' Phillips says. 'Kato and I worked very hard to help Taylor reach her potential because we could see how talented she was right off the bat. She went into the vocal booth and began to sing and we turned to each other and went, 'Holy sh*t, she's f**'ing great.' Her voice was astonishing. So many artists these days let their voices be discombobulated by computers. Taylor doesn't do that. She doesn't need to. She can walk into a room and kick your ass.'
event::tags 18+
11:30 PM
to 12:30 AM
Oh Land
23 schedule::attendees
Location
ACL Live at The Moody Theater
eventtype Music
Artists Oh Land
event::about "What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it look like? How does it feel? I always ask myself these questions when I'm writing," says singer and producer Nanna Øland Fabricius. "I think that Oh Land has a unique landscape all on its own. I strive to make the possibilities endless and to have all the senses collide in to a language on their own." Her multi-sensory approach to songwriting has been present from the beginning. Before Oh Land had a name, or even songs, she was a restless child on the outskirts of Copenhagen, where she wove together imaginary languages, characters, and magazines. Though she didn’t know it then, this sense of play would develop naturally into the skewed and rich aesthetic of Oh Land’s music and performance style. She is the product of extremes. A disciplined ballet dancer who was educated with the Royal Danish and Royal Swedish Ballet schools coupled with a “circus-like” upbringing courtesy of a family of creative souls. Their unique and individual talents have left deep imprints on how Oh Land experiences and interprets the world around her. Performance has always been a part of her personal expression as nurtured by the performances of those closest to her. Whether she was learning to see from a sister who designs clothing, to hear from her opera singer mother, or to touch from her church organist father; the mixture of this unique upbringing has contributed to the multi-faceted layers of an ever evolving Oh Land. Oh Land’s music bears the fruit of this incredibly stimulating childhood. She has created a soundscape that dreams as hard as it dances. Her performance style confronts the audience with elements as sonically and visually diverse as drum pads, an omnichord, and a front projector system that broadcasts homemade visuals across balloons. "I want my music to feel like 2050 meets something really classic, like meeting a stranger that feels as familiar as an old friend." says Oh Land. Her approach to songwriting reaches beyond melody to touch on shared experience; her music simultaneously incorporates the whirrs, tics, and thumps of machinery and the soft, human tug of strings and delicately layered vocals. It was this dual quality of her music – human, yet otherworldly -- that landed this peculiar, talented, and determined artist on the radar of Epic Records during a 2009 showcase at SXSW at the end of a brief US tour that Oh Land booked herself. Used to pushing the boundaries of her talent, Oh Land relocated to Brooklyn at the beginning of 2010 to write the latest chapters of her whirlwind story: an ever-evolving album that features speaker-panning samples, honeyed hooks, and the knob-twiddling skills of Dan Carey (The Kills, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip) and Dave McCracken (Depeche Mode, Beyoncé, AFI). The jungle drumming and layered vocals of “White Nights” evokes a quest to find peace and a sense of home in the chaos of a city that never sleeps. She sings, “There’s a restlessness in me/Keeps me up ’till the dawn/There is no silence/I will keep following the sirens,” alluding to both the noise and throb of the city and the mythological seducers that call to lonely sailors. “I wanted my new album to strike a balance between the big city and nature,” she explains, “because they’re both pulling me in different directions all the time. I live and grow in the eye of the storm.” That duality is also at play in the steady pulse and lavish loops of “Sun of a Gun,” which layers literal references to the sun (“a symbol of the divine that we’re now afraid of”) over unflinching comparisons to the twilight of an ill-fated relationship. Oh Land’s lyrics evoke storybook imagery that is both rich and moving, inviting the listener to step to the edge of the rabbit hole and plummet. For instance, “Wolf & I” works as both a trippy, heart-stirring ballad as well as a “modern fable about doubt and fear” that tells the tale of a love triangle between a wolf, the sun, and the moon. If her music contains an allegorical element, her connection to performance is almost spiritual. “Even when I was really little and feeling angry about something,” she says, “I knew to shut up the second I went backstage. There’s this magic about performing that’s very holy to me.” That spell was broken ever so briefly when a major back injury caused her ballet career to come to an abrupt halt after being told by a doctor that she would never dance again. “I was like a black hole during that period,” admits Oh Land. “The only thing that got me through it was music, because I felt like I could still dance through it; like I could lie down, close my eyes, and figure out melodies without moving.” This dark period led her to discover that the entire reason she danced in the first place was because of music and that was the creative medium she wanted to mold as her own. This discovery manifested itself in Oh Land’s self-produced debut album, Fauna. Released in 2008 by Scandinavian tastemaker/producer/DJ, Kasper Bjorke, the album featured Oh Land’s first 10 tracks as an artist - lush otherworldly soundscapes that wouldn’t sound out of place alongside the Bjork LPs and trip-hop tracks that she obsessed over while growing up. Her recovery and seamless transition to songwriting is revisited in the new track “Break the Chain,” a heady but hopeful reflection on Oh Land’s journey to reclaim her self-expression and bring to light the ideas that have flooded her subconscious from the start. To try to wrap your head around her disparate influences and patchwork influences might sound complicated, but if you ask Oh Land, what she’s doing now isn’t all that different than the years she spent “styling” clothes her mother made, or teaching younger dance students new routines behind the backs of their teacher. She has always taken the raw materials of expression and used them her way. “When I was younger,” says Oh Land, “We didn’t think, ‘Let’s play with our Barbie dolls or a board game today.’ We were building our own universes. And nothing’s changed, except now I have an audience beyond my parents.”
event::tags 18+
12:00 AM
to 1:00 AM
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