Paste Magazine described their sound as the musical to a Shel Silverstein poem – so try and picture that. The three-person band, now with the company of Trevor Hobbes, often sing about exactly what you would expect from a Silverstein poem: caves, marshlands, black bears, and ostriches. Their subtle, charming voices layered over top of the amazing background music they create almost gives you two different tiers of sound. It’s a story over music, although the story might not make sense – but then again it doesn’t need to.

“Though spare and beautiful, the albums had a loose, living room–performance vibe, which changed when Trevor joined the mix. Canadian Shield in 2007, followed by Ghost Glacier a year later, marked a deepening of the band’s sound. The music became more textured and tight, while still maintaining a homespun feel.”

“Their songs are covered in the kind of dirt that’s the clean kind of dirt, the kind that – if it’s caking your hands and nails after a long afternoon of weeding the garden – you wouldn’t rinse off before twisting a ripe, red strawberry from the creeping vines and popping it into your mouth. You know where that soil’s been and how it got onto your hands in the first place and you’re okay with it touching your food. It’s the same with these just-born songs, which feel as if they’ve been organically grown, harvested and offered out to us with hands slightly blackened or browned from working with the earth.” – Daytrotter

When asked to describe their sound, band members are commonly known to look up at the sky, or down at their hands for a few minutes before responding with “swimming.” They make music feel like a 3D experience, through storytelling, smart arranging, and creative instrumentation.

Breathe Owl Breathe is currently on the line up of our good friends over at Hometapes records in Portland, Oregon. Judging by their pictures, they look like a pretty fun group of people to hang with.

So lets step back and look at this. It’s 1993, in my opinion, the golden age of hip hop. A time where hip hop slowly and more so took the main stream spotlight. Some could say it was the birth of radio rap. A time where the Notorious BIG and A Tribe Called Quest are ruling the urban airwaves. And then you’ve got Lenny Kravitz, an African American artist hailing from New York that isn’t falling under the hip hop umbrella at all. He’s doing his own thing in so many ways.

In fact, once his family relocated to Los Angeles, where he went to music school, his “own thing” just wasn’t enough. With record labels still telling him his music wasn’t “black enough” or “white enough,” Kravitz decided to record an album on his own. Kravitz had met recording engineer/keyboardist/bassist Henry Hirsch in 1985 when recording a demo at his Hoboken, New Jersey recording studio. The two shared an interest in using real instruments and vintage recording equipment, as well as a love of R&B, jazz, and rock. Kravitz would go on to collaborate with Hirsch on most of his albums.

Kravitz began working on his debut album with Hirsch over the next year and a half, with Kravitz’s father paying for the studio time. Kravitz met saxophonist Karl Denson and invited him to play on the song “Let Love Rule.” Kravitz was so impressed with his playing that Denson played on much of the album. Denson toured with Kravitz for the next five years. In October 1988, after completing most of the recording, Kravitz approached friend Stephen Elvis Smith who had served as the Music Supervisor on Lisa Bonet’s spin-off of The Cosby Show, A Different World. Smith had also worked with Kravitz’ mother Roxie Roker on the hit sitcom The Jeffersons. Kravitz urged Smith to manage his career and assist him in finding a record deal. In less than a month of shopping the recordings, five labels (Warner Bros, Elektra, Geffen, Capitol and Virgin) were in a bidding war for Kravitz.

In 1993, Are You Gonna Go My Way was released, reaching number 12 on the Billboard 200 and Kravitz earned a BRIT Award for best international male artist in 1994. The title track won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video for the video produced by Mark Romanek, in which Kravitz slung his dreadlocks and wore high-heeled platform boots. During the presentation of the MTV Video Music Awards, he performed the song with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass. To watch the full music video for Are You Gonna Go My Way, click here.

Since the release of Let Love Rule, Kravitz has released ten studio albums and is still going his own way. He is a multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor and arranger, whose unique style (f0r the time) incorporates elements of rock and soul that no one else was using. Besides being a a musician, many call him a fashion icon, often wearing incredible outfits on his live shows and in public life. In addition to singing lead and backing vocals, Kravitz often played all the guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and percussion himself when recording.

And if you think all of Lenny’s hits were in the ’90s, then you’re wrong. Though he may not have the spotlight like he used to, he still puts out incredible music. The videos below should sell you.

We love Lenny, seriously.

Mark was the dude though, with his trademark headband and usual colorful shirts, he was the ideal front man. No matter what he wore, his guitar skills set him apart like no other. In the league of extraordinary guitarist (Hendrix, Vaughan, Clapton) that have graced (and still grace) the earth, many easily argue that Mark is included. In fact, Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest guitarist of all time, lists him at a 27.

Following Dire Straits tour with Talking Heads, they embarked on their first North American tour and guess what, they played 51 sold-out concerts over a 38-day period. Not too bad huh? Sultan’s of Swing also caught the eye of Bob Dylan, who invited Mark and drummer Pick Withers to play on his next album, Slow Train Coming.

The 1980s gave way to even more success to the band. With their 1985 release of Brothers In Arms and the hit single, Money for Nothing, Dire Straits were showing now signs of slowing down. Released in May 1985, Brothers In Arms entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1 and spent a total of 228 weeks in the charts. It went on to become the best-selling album of 1985 in the UK. Brothers in Arms was similarly successful in the US, peaking at No. 1 on Billboard 200 for nine weeks, going multi-platinum, selling nine million copies.

Brothers in Arms was among the first albums recorded on digital equipment due to Knopfler pushing for improved sound quality. The album’s title track is reported to be the world’s first CD single. It was issued in the UK as a promotional item distinguished with a logo for the tour, Live in ’85, while a second to commemorate the Australian leg of the tour marked Live in ’86. Containing just four tracks, it had a very limited run. “Walk of Life” meanwhile was nearly excluded from the album when co-producer Neil Dorfsman voted against its inclusion, but the band members out-voted him. The result was Dire Straits’ most commercially successful hit single in the UK, peaking at number two. ”Money for Nothing”, “Walk of Life”, and “Brothers in Arms” immediately became live concert favorites.

So what does this British rock group have to do with dinosaurs? It just so happens that paleontologist Scott Sampson, along with his team, happened to be on the island of Madagascar and listening to quite a lot of Dire Straits when they stumbled upon some bones. “When we dug up the first lower jaw bone, we weren’t even sure it belonged to a dinosaur,” said Sampson. They had discovered the Masiakasaurus knopfleri, a small, carnivorous dinosaur weighing in around 80 pounds.

The name of the new dinosaur is derived from masiaka, the Malagasy word for “vicious” and sauros, which is Greek for “lizard.” Knopfleri honors musician Mark Knopfler, lead singer of Dire Straits. The scientists credit Knopfler’s music as a lucky charm; it seemed that many of their most important discoveries were made whenever they were listening to his songs. -National Geographic

The first rule of the Lunch Beat manifesto is clear—dance or find some place else to eat. Swedes love music and have a rich history of exporting bands that heavily influence the international scene. Swedes also love to dance, so it’s no accident that Swedish DJs, Aviici and Swedish House Mafia continually top international lists of dance music.

In the summer of 2010, Molly Ränge and 14 friends gathered in an empty garage in Stockholm, with a packed lunch and a mix tape. They spent the hour dancing. That fall, the event began to grow organically. More people began showing up and new venues had to be booked to accommodate everyone. The movement continued expanding to new cities in Sweden and beyond, giving everyone a chance to re-energize their afternoon with a bit of sober dancing that helps you make it through the rest of the day.

By 2012, 600 people were coming out to the monthly Lunch Beat events in Stockholm and they have been organized in over 25 cities around the world. Lunch Beats have taken place in cafés, at conferences, in universities and offices—both inside and outside. The movement has finally begun spreading to the US and it’s about time someone started planning the next one.

Organize your own Lunch Beat.

[Photo credits:Peter Magnusson and Vice]

“Barchords are the simplest way to get an idea across. They’re used in country and jazz and punk rock and they’re straightforward and powerful,” says Jurvanen, “I guess I like those ideas representing the album. I suppose I was trying to continue the guitar theme from my last record too, just to further embrace the instrument and, ultimately, celebrate it.”

photos by Dave Gillespie

You can check out Adam Lempel and The Heartbeats, as well as stream their latest EP here.

Adam Lempel and The Heartbeats – Echo [download]

via Everybody Taste

Here sits Gregg in his home in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He is a musician that can do it all. A keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, he was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2006. His voice is one of a kind, rooting deep in the south with not an ounce of that annoying mainstream twang. Since the Allman Brothers, his solo career, starting in 1973, has released eleven albums.

Gregg has worked alongside the greats of The Radiators and T-Bone Burnett and even made an acting appearance in the 1989 film, Rush Week and the Family Guy episode, “Lets Go to to the Hop.” But it was his work with The Allman Brothers Band that allowed him and his brother to break molds.

Duane became employed as a session musician at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and began to assemble the group that would become The Allman Brothers Band: Duane and Dickey Betts on guitars, Berry Oakley on bass guitar, and Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson on drums. In the meantime, Allman had grown unhappy with the Liberty Records arrangement so when Duane called from Jacksonville, Florida in March 1969 to say that he had assembled a band that needed a singer, Gregg jumped at the opportunity and returned to the South.

Think about this: you have a band based out of Georgia, playing southern rock in the early 1970s, and you have an African-American drummer. If that doesn’t break any molds, I’m not sure what does.

He had long wanted to play the Hammond Organ, and was given one immediately upon joining the band, which he had to learn to play in a hurry. Ever since, he has played the Hammond B-3 with a preference for a 1969 issue B3 hooked to a Leslie speaker 122RV and handled much of the lead vocals and song writing for the band, along with occasional piano and guitar contributions. All in all, the man could play it all.

After surviving 6 wives (including Cher) and being a rock star in the ’70s, Gregg is still alive and well today. Our hats off to you, Gregg.

Lord Huron is made up of Ben Schneider, Mark Barry, Miguel Briseño, Tom Renaud, and Karl Kerfoot, and they live happily in Los Angeles. It began as a solo project by Michigan-born Ben Schneider in the spring 0f 2010 when he came home to Michigan from L.A. and recorded three songs that are featured on the Into the Sun EP. In August of that same year, band members were added and Lord Huron, as you hear them today, was formed.

If you heard them, you might easily assume that they were from the foothills of Montana or the creek beds of North Carolina. Nope. They’re from California. But when has location ever stopped musicians from sounding good?

As a listening, you could easily group Lord Huron into the genre of “neo folk” that’s been on the uprise ever since My Morning Jacket. If you like the sounds of Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty, then you’re probably going to like these guys. But Lord Huron somehow seems to set themselves apart from that genre. Not by a large step, but by just enough so that you’ll set their album to the side, making sure to listen to it again.

Their debut full length album, Lonesome Dreams, comes strong the entire way through. I really mean this. It’s incredible. The tone, the sounds, the lyrics, it’s a perfect equation. Before I even sat down to write this post, I listened through it twice. Ben Scheider’s voice flows perfectly over every note that the band hits. There is true magic in this album, there are parts that will deliver Paul Simon-like hums of the Graceland album and others that will float you on a carpet in a Devendra Banhart-style spell.

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore their self-released Mighty EP that they put out in 2010. There are tracks on there that will make you feel like running through a tall field as fast as you possibly can.