News: April, 2012

The weekly Chicago Reader feature, Artist on Artist--wherein two artists interview each other, features Paul Burch & the Waco Brothers' Jon Langford.  Their new album hits the shelves today.

Read their freewheeling conversation about Nashville, discovering country, and how playing with the Wacos is like riding a jet engine.  The whole rambling affair is HERE

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The Chicago Tribune calls Great Chicago Fire "Wickedly smart!" And "If the Rolling Stones were still making great records, this would be it."

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AOL Spinner has the new album streaming in its entirety—listen to it now!

It's cold and dreary in Chicago today—but nothing cured our blues like this video of JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound and their muppet friend, Jameson (who also cameos in the JCBUS video for "Sister Ray Charles"), covering Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay":

Justin Townes Earle is currently wowing audiences while touring Down Under, but that isn't stopping him from entertaining us in the US while half a world away—JTE was recently named NPR's Song of the Day for "Look The Other Way," off his new album, Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now. Earlier last week, Justin's recently recorded World Cafe Live performance was broadcast via NPR stations across the country—if you missed it, the archive is available online.

Big news from the boys of JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound—they've been plucked to play this year's Lollapalooza at Grant Park! They'll represent Chicago on the Saturday of the festival. Three day passes are sold-out, but you can buy single-day passes (for Saturday, natch).

Meanwhile, over at GooglePlay, the Magnifier blog premiered the new video for "Sister Ray Charles,'' off the still pretty-new JCBUS album, Want More. Check it out now! (Spoiler Alert: there are hookers and muppets in the vid. Hookers AND muppets, folks).

And if that doesn't satisfy your JCBUS fix, the folks at Epitonic have just posted a live session that the band did back in March at the great, local record shop, saki. Listen now!

Lydia stopped by the offices of Paste Magazine and did a grand little acoustic set that Paste has posted on their mPlayer. She does three songs off Indestructible Machine and a cover of Ke$ha’s “Blind!"

Check it out here.

The results are in!

For it's release week, Justin Townes Earle's newest album Nothing's Gonna Change... was the #1 Vinyl release and #2 CD release at AIMS Coalition independent retailers.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!

Support indie stores!

And remember, JTE will be releasing a limited edition 7" for Record Store Day