I don’t want to put a date on it as that will tempt fate but we should have boxes of Laura Marling’s ‘I Speak Because I Can’ in Diverse HQ within the next two weeks. They will then be shipped out to a record store near you. Unless you’ve ordered it from Diverse in which case you’ll get it a little quicker.

In the meantime, Laura picked up another award, NME’s best solo artist of 2010. She really is racking them up now.
Congratulations again!

Diverse Records are thrilled to be bringing Chuck Prophet to Wales for the first time in about a billion years. His album ‘Let Freedom Ring’ is being released on vinyl by Diverse in May (hopefully in time for the gig, there’s been a couple of delays), it was described by New York’s Village Voice as “Born in the USA for our times.”. We thought it was only fair that we promoted this show too as he’s as thrilling on stage as he is on record. He’s an amazingly entertaining performer and with his band, The Mission Express, produces bluesy, country, Tom Petty like music with balls. That’s right, balls.

Prophet first attracted attention in March 1983 on joining Los Angeles band Green On Red. His exciting, highly skilled, technique added a new dimension to this already excellent group, although critics initially dubbed his work derivative of Neil Young. Successive releases by the group established Prophet as one of the era’s finest musicians, whose skills were enhanced through jams with the cream of San Francisco’s rock fraternity. In 1990 the artist released Brother Aldo, a largely country rock selection. This superior set featured several vocal duets with Prophet’s partner Stephanie Finch and included support from R&B pianist Spooner Oldham and Durocs’ drummer Scott Matthews. Prophet’s guitar work was, however, also prominent, particularly on “Scarecrow”, the album’s most intense offering. Following Green On Red’s demise in 1992, Prophet was able to concentrate on his solo career, establishing himself as one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the 90s. He has collaborated with several legendary songwriters, including Jim Dickinson, Billy Swan and Bob Neuwirth. In 1997, Prophet delivered Homemade Blood, a live studio set that contains several of his finest songs to date. He made an excellent contribution to Kelly Willis’ 1998 album What I Deserve.

Support on the night comes from Gallowbirds who plough a similar rootsy rock furrow to Chuck. Tickets are £12 and are available from Diverse Music, Spillers and here.

The good news is that there is a number etched into the run out groove of the album.  This is your password.  Enter this at www.diverserecords.co.uk/secret and you’ll have access to a free download of Chuck covering Waylon Jennings’ album ‘Dreaming My Dreams’.  It’s out on CD soon but you can download either MP3 or hi-res WAV files from our site.

It’s a little thank you to you for continuing to support Diverse Records and we’d like to thank Chuck and Decor Records for allowing us to give it to you.

We saw Carrie Rodriguez (He liked her, so did I), Triple Cobra (they had show girls in basques and sounded like a glam Aerosmith, that’s right, a glam Aerosmith).  At this point Richard left me to it as he had college work to do and was in danger of staying out and getting drunk.  I stuck around for Grady, Ivan Julian, Lenny Kaye and Chuck Prophet (excellent) but flaked out and got a cab back before Michael Monroe and Alejandro Escovedo.  There’s only so long you can stand in a venue by yourself without losing the will to live, besides, early start in the morning.

MJ

1.  Chad Huff

2.  Caine O’Rear

3.  Matty A. Grumbles

4.  Bridget Sticker

5.  Trey Covington

6.  Larry Curry

7. Fletcher B. Goode (OK, middle name was Brendon but it’s funnier this way)

8.  Randy Schefer

9.  Sunday Paterson

10. George Jungringer

Honorary mentions to a few that failed to make it such as Judson Weaver, Molly Conklin, Sven Sorhus and Cyndi Goretski.

At 11am we headed for breakfast with the wonderful Vicki and Stan who’s apartment we’re staying in.  We were taking them to see Jimi Alexander play at Jon Langford’s shindig at the Yard Dog.  Cool place.  We watched Jim and then Viv Albertine and shot off to downtown for a new release related meeting.  More details will emerge when ink is dry on contract.

After the meeting we went to the 40 Watt party that the guys invited us to a few nights earlier.  3 stages and bands of varying genre and quality!  Here’s a quick rundown.

Camper Van Beethoven – Totally different set to the other night, still brilliant.

The Tenant – OK, middle of road, fairly forgettable.

Twin Tigers – Had something about them.  Clattery indie rock, really liked 2 songs but the rest wandered off too easily.  Fancied bassist despite her looking a bit like a boy.  Worrying times.

Dead Confederate – Was looking forwarded to these as I liked the album when we had it in work.  Paul ruined it 90 seconds in by saying they sounded like Placebo.  He was right.

American Cheeseburger – Thrash punk.  Good facial expressions.  Shit band.

Ponderosa – Brilliant.  One of my top bands of the week.  Proper Southern rock played by hairy guys clearly having the time of their lives.  Apparently they’re on New West and have an album out in August.  Check out their Myspace.

After that quick fire band fest we met Erika and went to see Lancaster’s The Lovely Eggs.  These people are bonkers.  They have a song that namechecks author Richard Brautigan.  As it happens, I’d brought one of his books with me, Erika got the band to sign it, they then dedicated the song to her.  She was a happy camper.

We had a bit of a free hour then.  I won the ‘who shall we go and see next’ competition and dragged the others to Stubb’s to see Minus The Bear.  I wish I hadn’t.  I used to love this band and saw them once in Clwb.  I thought they were boring but put it down to my bad mood on the night.  It would appear my first judgement was correct.  Pity.  To escape both them and the freezing temperature (less that 40 degrees with wind chill fact fans – four layers of clothing.  In Texas. Four.) we went inside and caught The Candle Thieves.  They were worse than Minus The Bear.  ”Wet” – Paul Hawkins.

We had higher hopes for the Bloodshot Records night in Red Eyed Fly.  The first band we saw were called Whitey Morgan and the 78s.  The were entertaining in a country rock kind of way and the singer was a giant.  If he ever reads this tepid review of his band he will crush me.  “I am the Pope.  This is why I do not have a credit card.  I wear a dress.  You love me.” So went Newport boy Jon Langford’s soundcheck for The Waco Brothers.  They were brilliant.  Jon was clearly hammered.  Despite their advancing years they rocked harder than anyone else at SXSW.  The was also a man in the front row hitting the monitor with his own shoe.

Mad dash to the Amsterdam Cafe to see Carrie Rodriguez.  I love Carrie Rodriguez.  She doesn’t mess around live either, great voice, great fiddle player.  Played her own songs and a few from her forthcoming album of covers which I’ll be shortly recommending to all of you.  After Carrie was Band Of Heathens.  My heart wasn’t in it by then but it did mean we’d completed a hat-trick after seeing Band Of Skulls and Band Of Horses this week (and Jakob Dylan who’s dad played with The Band.  That’s reaching at best though.).

MJ

We started the day thinking we had to rush around but we had a meeting postponed so ended up with a bit of free time.  Firstly though, we went record shopping.  We had a look around the massive record convention, there was almost too much to look at.  We left and went to a special Third Man Records ‘pop up store’.  This was in a hot dog restaurant, myself and Paul bought t-shirts with today’s blog title on it.  They rule.  Aside from that we bought some 13″ White Stripes records.  They’re bigger in Texas you know.  From one record shop to another, we travelled to Waterloo Records on 6th Street, gave them a few of our releases and I bought a couple of albums.  Shopping done.

We went home.  Briefly.  Myself and Paul had a meeting with a guy from Sony Legacy about some records.  We had 20 minutes to kill beforehand and wandered into a question and answer session with GWAR.  Yes GWAR.  We left when they started questioning the crowd rather than the other way around.

From  the we picked a pub and caught the end of a female fronted band.  No idea what they were called.  Myself and Paul just stood at the bar having a beer and suddenly realised that there was nobody else left in the venue.  Everyone had been ushered out except us.  Clearly we looked important.  Eventually a man who assumed we were with the bands, ushered us into a VIP area.  This amused us.  It also led to me missing Metric and I couldn’t get out!

Band Of Horses it was then.  Paul loved them, I thought half their songs were boring.  It was in a very hot church with no beer.  We left with 2 songs to go to make sure we got in to see Justin Townes Earle.  We queued and made it into the venue about 30 seconds before he started.  He was brilliant.  Deer Tick followed and were very good, totally ramshackle and quite, quite mad.  After them came the evening’s headliners, Lucero.  I love Lucero anyway but when there’s eight of them onstage and they’re performing at their own show, they were bound to be good.  Horn section and all.

Before Lucero came on we got talking to Justin Townes Earle.  What a lovely guy.  I also fell in love with a friend of his called Nicky (yes, she was female, as was Bryn Davies, Justin’s double bass player!).  Bryn had lost the car keys so we just stood chatting to Justin as she rushed around the venue frantically checking every corner, guitar case, pocket, nook and cranny for them.  Presumably she eventually found them as they left about 40 minutes later.

A good night was had by all.  Bar possibly Erika who queued to see Shearwater, left afterwards and couldn’t get through to me or Paul due to American mobile reception being strangely rubbish.  We found her sitting forlornly on the wall of the Raddison car park.  Apparently Shearwater were good though so everything was OK.  And we got a cab easily.  For once.

MJ

We did make it in for a very interesting talk on vinyl though.  Guys from Sub Pop, Third Man and Warner were there discussing the vinyl industry and it’s place in the future.  We managed to catch up with Billy Fields from Warner afterwards.  Lovely guy and very interesting conversation.  After that, we ventured to Feargal Sharkey’s talk about UK Music.  Again, very interesting.  Looking forward to reading UK Music’s report at the end of the month.

A brisk walk to the Wales showcase followed, a marvellously drunk (it was 3pm) Sweet Baboo opened, followed by Polly Mackey and the Pleasure Principal, Straight Lines and Cate Le Bon.  Witnessed the biggest Welsh flag outside of the Celtic Manor and rambled an interview to Bethan Elfyn, something about moustaches.

Paul and Erika then went their separate way from me, they saw John Hiatt, Ray Davies and Roky Eriksonn with Okkervil River.  I wandered the streets of Austin on my own and had a great time.  Caught Gordon Gano with The Ryan Brothers, he was great and ended with Blister In The Sun.  Ambled up the road and caught Wizzard Sleeve before crossing the road to Stubb’s for Besnard Lakes, The Soft Pack and Drive-By Truckers.  I befriended the merch guy who happens to run the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia.  He’s called Craig and was awesome.  Also bumped into Tom from Loose and had a chat about how the new Duke & The King stuff was sounding.  Amazing apparently.  Can’t wait.

A short walk from there got me to Encore Patio for Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker.  Cracker ended up only playing about 4 songs as David Lowery help up the gig due to the microphone nearly electrocuting him.  He wasn’t a happy bunny.  After an extended rant at the venue and praising other establishments for not trying to kill their artists, the sound guy got on stage to argue.  This was a mistake.  He was berated for drinking on the job, had his beer grabbed from him and poured over the front of stage and when he stood there looking defeated was asked by Lowery if he intended singing backing vocals, if not, to get off the stage.  Very entertaining.

MJ