In case you were wondering, there is still great music being made in Athens, Georgia. When I stumbled on New Madrid's Yardboat album today I thought, "Jeez how much more stuff like this is out there that I don't know about??" If your iPod is full it might be time to delete Tres Hombres and make room for something new, fresh, and really really good.
Like many of today's new bands, New Madrid does not fit neatly into any single pigeonhole. Check out some of their Bandcamp tags: alternative, cosmic Americana, southern noise rock, post folk regional, cosmic boat swirl, ambient, and dirt shine rock. I'm not sure what some of those things are. If I had to put New Madrid into a single genre, it would be "Southern Dream Pop." Whatever the heck that is!
Fountains of Gold is my new favorite song. Start with a solid blues-rock riff, soften it up, throw in clean-n-fuzzy guitars, and layer on one of the best vocals I've heard lately. Doesn't tell you much, does it? So listen below!
Summer Dream Sigh is a six-minute pop song without obvious hooks. Featuring wonderfully layered guitars, harmony vocals, and a blending of rock, country, and jazz, this may be the best song on the album. Like Fountains of Gold, this is one of those songs that sounds instantly recognizable and at the same time sounds completely fresh. I'm tempted to say something lame like "think Allman Brothers Band meets Pink Floyd with vocalists who can actually sing" but that doesn't do the song justice. Let's just say, "This is Good Music and you will Feel Good when you listen to it."
Yardboat is available for download at yardboat.com. Name your price, anything over $10. You can download Fountains of Gold and Summer Dream Sigh for free. But c'mon, buy the whole album. Too many bands are having to give away their best stuff just to get enough buzz to be booked for a $300 show in a bar with a drunk sound guy. If you don't have $10, go out and collect Coke bottles and cash 'em in at Krogers. What? They don't do that anymore? Jeez no wonder this country is going broke! OK, well, buy what you can. It's Good Music.
Like any Southern band worth an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, New Madrid isn't afraid to stretch things out. Four of the album's eleven songs are over five minutes, and the entire album is just short of an hour. So you will get your money's worth (see previous paragraph).
If you look for videos on YouTube, be sure to search on "New Madrid band." If you search on "New Madrid" you will find about [infinity] videos by some very spooky folks who heard someone say that Obama is trying to split the country in half and took it literally. They say Obama is trying to re-activate the New Madrid Fault Zone in order to divide the US in half and create a deep-water port in Kansas City. And they have a map by the US Navy to prove it. But if you know where to look you can find this video for Houseboat. And there's more where that came from.
Like many of today's new bands, New Madrid does not fit neatly into any single pigeonhole. Check out some of their Bandcamp tags: alternative, cosmic Americana, southern noise rock, post folk regional, cosmic boat swirl, ambient, and dirt shine rock. I'm not sure what some of those things are. If I had to put New Madrid into a single genre, it would be "Southern Dream Pop." Whatever the heck that is!
Fountains of Gold is my new favorite song. Start with a solid blues-rock riff, soften it up, throw in clean-n-fuzzy guitars, and layer on one of the best vocals I've heard lately. Doesn't tell you much, does it? So listen below!
Summer Dream Sigh is a six-minute pop song without obvious hooks. Featuring wonderfully layered guitars, harmony vocals, and a blending of rock, country, and jazz, this may be the best song on the album. Like Fountains of Gold, this is one of those songs that sounds instantly recognizable and at the same time sounds completely fresh. I'm tempted to say something lame like "think Allman Brothers Band meets Pink Floyd with vocalists who can actually sing" but that doesn't do the song justice. Let's just say, "This is Good Music and you will Feel Good when you listen to it."
Yardboat is available for download at yardboat.com. Name your price, anything over $10. You can download Fountains of Gold and Summer Dream Sigh for free. But c'mon, buy the whole album. Too many bands are having to give away their best stuff just to get enough buzz to be booked for a $300 show in a bar with a drunk sound guy. If you don't have $10, go out and collect Coke bottles and cash 'em in at Krogers. What? They don't do that anymore? Jeez no wonder this country is going broke! OK, well, buy what you can. It's Good Music.
Like any Southern band worth an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, New Madrid isn't afraid to stretch things out. Four of the album's eleven songs are over five minutes, and the entire album is just short of an hour. So you will get your money's worth (see previous paragraph).
If you look for videos on YouTube, be sure to search on "New Madrid band." If you search on "New Madrid" you will find about [infinity] videos by some very spooky folks who heard someone say that Obama is trying to split the country in half and took it literally. They say Obama is trying to re-activate the New Madrid Fault Zone in order to divide the US in half and create a deep-water port in Kansas City. And they have a map by the US Navy to prove it. But if you know where to look you can find this video for Houseboat. And there's more where that came from.
For more videos, downloads, band news, and show dates, visit the New Madrid home page.
Note on pronunciation: I haven't heard anyone say the band's name. But if it is named for the Missouri town (and the fault zone), then it ain't pronounced like the city in Spain (muh-DRID). It should be pronounced "New MAD-rid" though most folks get the "D" in the second syllable ("MA-drid"). Here is a Wilco video with Jeff Tweedy getting it almost right.
Postscript: I'm trying to avoid playing Name the Influences. But I can't help but think that the boys have given Mac Gayden's Skyboat album a few spins. No? They haven't? OK my bad.