In the middle of her set at the Independent in San Francisco, Thursday night, Nicki Bluhm removed the green sweater she was wearing over a black backless shirt and began to belt out Linda Ronstadt’s country hit “You’re No Good” from when Ms. Ronstadt was a country artist. It wasn’t Linda Ronstadt that I thought of though. I mean, sure the hair is similar, she has the singing chops, hell the vocals may be even better than Ronstadt’s, but it was someone else with more of an edge that came to mind. When Nicki Bluhm was writhing on stage while Dave Mulligan dutifully strummed the acoustic guitar and Deren Ney shredded the electric, it was Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders that came to mind.

Nicki Bluhm is an artist that has become an Internet phenomenon with her “Van Sessions” cover songs used to pass the time while on the road. It was a brilliant idea, but on Thursday she showed she was more than that. She performed songs from her debut album, Toby’s Song, and her sophomore effort, Driftwood, (set to be re-released in July) and the Gramblers, her backing band, were so in sync with her that you’d think they’d been together for 10 years instead of the measly three they've been.

It's hard to categorize the singer and that’s to her advantage. When you think she's a country artist, she’ll sing a song like “Burnt” off her debut album, a soulful Regina Spektor style track. Bluhm gets on stage and belts out tunes with so much style and charisma that it’s a wonder that it took YouTube to really put this artist on everyone’s radar. When Mulligan and Bluhm started into “Santa Fe Runaway” off of his six song EP, Runaway Blues, the energy was off the charts while Bluhm slithered around the stage with a tambourine and Mulligan showed John Sebastian style smoothness to his voice.

When they played what I consider to be their best song, “Jetplane,” the patrons swayed in unison and the ease with which the vocals emitted from her with such emotion and precision was unlike anything I’d seen before. It is rare to see an artist with such confidence in themselves without making it seem arrogant or phony, but Bluhm is so natural on stage. The song has a ‘70s country kind of feel to it. It’s laid back, comfortable and when Bluhm sings, with her effervescent charm, the audience listens intently to the lyrics, “I don’t know my brother, I don’t know their pain. Each one will tell you the same damn thing, life is like a jet plane.”

In the world of Nicki Bluhm, things are going nowhere but up. Internet phenom, be damned, this is an musician that conjures up images of artists with staying power, star power and the ability to turn an otherwise indifferent audience into a whooping, hollering group of maniacs. What she does is remove any suspicion that she is a gimmick. What Nicki Bluhm does is capture the hearts and souls of people who have long forgotten they had such things.

The floor was shaking, hands were raised to the sky and the man on the microphone was pontificating emphatically as sweat rolled down his furrowed brow. Was I in the Abyssinian Baptist Church celebrating a revival? I might as well have been, but instead, I was at the Delta Spirit show at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

The show was sold-out and opening act Tijuana Panthers were a great band to open. They sounded like a mix between the Tornadoes and the Misfits or Ramones. There were some definite surf rock influences, but a lot of punk rock chord structures. They were interesting musically, but lacked charisma. Still, I found them to be a delightful way to start off. It was a long half hour to forty five minutes until Delta Spirit came on, but once they did it was well worth the wait.

Lead singer Matt Vasquez came on stage in what looked like a painter’s cap then almost immediately threw it off and it really began. It was fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! No wait that’s Ghostbusters, but still it was that crazy. The crowd’s energy was so overwhelming that the venue’s floor shook as if it were a trampoline.

Everyone knew every song. I stood there in wonderment as hipster girls and college guys were dancing like soft, mad children. To say it was a good show is to say Santa Claus is a giver. This was a built-in audience to a group that catered to them. They showed vast amounts of love by playing the songs people came to hear. They didn’t talk too much, they played the music and they played it in the same thrashing way that Nirvana used to, albeit in a very different style. Vasquez’s vocals were raspy and superbly on key as he even screamed with a tuning fork style pitch. He is the front man that writer’s live for.

As they left the stage and the crowd began singing, “Ole, Ole, Ole” Vasquez ran back and danced like a hippie on Mescaline and repeated the refrain back to the crowd, then he wiped his drenched brow, smiled to the crowd and ran behind the piano. The crowd erupted as the band started into “Trashcan” from their Ode to Sunshine album. They howled as he screamed the refrain and then climbed on top of the piano, moved around like a belly dancer and then jumped off the piano sticking the landing. As the band exited the stage and the crowd left, the buzz was still palpable as we shuffled off to our various destinations like herds of buffalo. We watched a lead singer that is reminiscent of Joe Cocker at Woodstock and a band that plays musically tight, but physically loose. The electricity coursed through the veins of the masses and won’t soon be forgotten in a city that was built on music.

Years from now, when Las Vegas-based Imagine Dragons are playing to sold out arenas and aren’t considered a new band; fans will look back on nights like Tuesday at the Independent in San Francisco and wonder why they weren’t there. They’ll wonder how they could have missed out on such a ridiculously talented band and notice that back in 2012, Imagine Dragons opened up for Australians The Jezabels.

They’ll see this new band at the peak of their powers with the same raw talent and emotion we witnessed tonight, but much farther away and wonder what it was like to see them in a place where the occupancy can’t be more than 250 people. What we witnessed Tuesday was nothing short of a diamond. It was shiny, awe-inspiring and perfect. There was front man, Dan Reynolds, who has the charisma of a Mick Jagger and the voice of Roland Orzabal (Tears for Fears) standing on the stage for the entire world to see and fearing nothing.

Up until a week ago I hadn’t even heard of the band and to my eternal shame, they hadn’t even registered a blip on my musical radar. This is a band that has been performing for four years and released four EPs over that time. It was completely fortuitous that I discovered them. Amoeba Records in San Francisco, gave tickets away on Twitter and I happened to be the first one to respond with Imagine Dragon and I was introduced to a great band.

Imagine Dragons, light it up. They make you feel something and that’s what you aim for when you go see a show. You want to know that they have fun, that they’re giving you a piece of themselves and that they not only have a connection with each other, but with you.

The chemistry with the band was unmistakable, laughing and sharing the microphone so close that they could have kissed each other and patting each other on the back during the show. These aren’t merely men playing instruments for money. These are brothers sharing the joy of music with a crowd that loves them. They shared their art with us and loved every second of it. Imagine Dragons are a band that has the type of sound that belongs at Staples Center in L.A. They rattled the windows and ruined the hearing of the patrons too self-conscious to wear earplugs. It was loud and beautiful and when the last song came on and we knew they were leaving, we collectively thought this might be one of the last times we get to see this band so intimately. We’re okay with that.

I’ve recently heard a lot of buzz about a new band, but I hear buzz about a lot of bands. One of the reasons I ignored the buzz on this particular band was because of their name, Trampled by Turtles. It’s a name that screams shitty indie band. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What a revelation! I’ve been listening to their latest album, Stars and Satellites, on a maddening loop for the past few days. This month Amazon has this album for five dollars, and what a steal.

Bluegrass has become a sort of an all-encompassing genre for anything with a banjo or a twang now. Modern country music is more popular than ever and that is directly attributable to the awful musical tastes of the American public at large. In reality, so-called country music is nothing but pop music with a twang. It’s a hybrid of the two that shits on the roots of country music much in the same way that modern punk music does to its predecessors. The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and now Trampled by Turtles are essentially throwbacks to the times of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline.

The album is beautifully constructed and goes from ballad style songs to instrumentals flying at a frenetic pace like a meth addict in New York for the first time. They simply are too good to be this unrecognized. This is a band that’s been together since 2004, released several albums and has played such festivals as Coachella, Bonnaroo and Lollapolooza. Yet, not a peep did I hear. They’ve been on Letterman and the AV Club, but nada. So I’ve gone back and looked at their lexicon and wow, just wow. From their cover of the Pixies, “Where is My Mind” to Palomino to Songs From a Ghost Town, Trampled by Turtles are phenomenal.

Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, they are influenced by the greats of folk music, but not necessarily country/bluegrass. Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zant and Neil Young are just a few of the names they’ve mentioned and the Van Zant style is the most prevalent. That style seems quite prevalent even in indie bands like Dawes, who has a distinctly similar vocal tonality to Trampled by Turtles. They have a unique style of recording their albums live, which is one of the reasons I am falling in love with this band. Treating a recording session like a live performance gives the impression that we’re there with them. It lets us in on the process, the sound they plan on sharing with us when the lights are low, the smell of weed in the air and the unity of a shared experience being the only thing that hangs in the balance.

Taking Alcatraz is the second track off Field Report's forthcoming debut album. Field Report happens to be an anagram of Porterfield, the lead singer and mastermind behind Field Report. With the kind of coverage they're getting, they're sure to be great. You can download Taking Alcatraz in advance of its release here.

Hailing from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Porterfield is a former band mate of Justin Vernon from Bon Iver and even recorded the album at Vernon's home in Wisconsin. So enjoy, tell your friends that you're the first on your block to know about Field Report and its true meaning. You'll seem like a music savant.

 

Of Monsters and Men, a clever play on Of Mice and Men are a fun band. They exude fun, there’s really no better way to put it. They’ve been all over our site recently and with good reason. The group's album, My Head Is an Animal, dropped April 3rd and it is absolutely beautiful. For a debut, it is amazing. It is so reminiscent of Arcade Fire that I had to check to see if there were any cross-banding members. There aren’t.

If you haven’t heard of Of Monsters and Men, they’re from Iceland, and are quite talented. They consider themselves a folk act, but that doesn’t jibe with what I heard. It was more on the indie pop side, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I found them to be like the aforementioned Arcade Fire with a touch of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and a floater of Bjork.

There is something going on in Iceland that I don’t think people are in the States are paying enough attention to. When bands are coming out in droves, maybe that’s overstating it, but like the Irish invasion a couple decades ago, the Icelandic revolution has begun. Ignoring the tiny island is no longer an option and I can see it now as record execs will invade the white covered lands to find the hidden talent that lies beneath the snowy surface.

Of Monsters and Men are comprised of co-singer/guitarist Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, co-singer/guitarist Ragnar “Raggi” Þórhallsson, guitarist Brynjar Leifsson, drummer Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson, piano/accordion player Árni Guðjónsson, and bassist Kristján Páll Kristjánsson, and they all play a role in shaping the outfit's sound. In many bands, it’s the lead singer, lead guitarist and then everybody else. In Of Monsters, however, we feel the cacophony of noise that sounds like it emanates from smoke filled rooms and eager hearts where people sweat their cares away as they become one with their instruments. This is a band based on feeling and it shows. This is a band that pushes those feelings through the tiny speakers of my laptop at such a furious clip that one could be not blamed if they were moved to tears, not knowing why they cry, but feeling the joy and beauty of a record that moves them.

Perhaps the names are not pronounceable to the uninformed American, myself being the foremost in that conversation, but the band name will not be easily forgotten. It isn’t every day that a band hits the scene with a debut album that is universally well received. It isn’t every day that a band comes along and you realize almost immediately that this band is destined for great things. If a band can do things like this on a debut album, what does the future hold for this six-member band from an island that, up until that volcano a few years ago, was most famous for exporting Bjork and not much else? That’s the question, isn’t it? Now we have expectations, we have a litmus test to hold them up against. We have excellence personified and we’ll expect more of it in the future. I suspect Of Monsters and Men will be more than up to the task.

Justin Vernon has had a hell of a year. He produced his girlfriend’s album (Kathleen Edwards), started his own label and announced the first release, won a couple Grammy’s and his former bandmate Chris Porterfield has just come out with a couple of tracks from his upcoming debut album which sounds like it’s going to be amazing. Porterfield is the front man for Field Report, a band out of Wisconsin, and formerly of DeYarmond Edison a band that not only featured Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, but also featured the guys from Megafaun.

Porterfield has big steps to follow, in regards to the success of those two acts. Perhaps, that’s the reason this album was six years in the making. Recorded at Vernon’s studio, the album is due in July and was mixed by Paul Kolderie (Pixies, Radiohead, Warren Zevon, and Uncle Tupelo). They played SXSW, but before that hadn’t even performed live, but still attracting a swell of attention, partly because of Vernon and Megafaun, but mainly because of the “leaked” tracks from the upcoming album.

Their website is minimal, but has a number to text the band directly and upcoming tour dates. If I were you I’d definitely check them out, as they look to be one of thenext big acts on the indie circuit. You can listen to the tracks here.

Daytrotter has been making waves for years in the indie rock community with their no-nonsense, stripped down versions of unknown or little known artists. We've written about the site on BestNewBands.com before and when I was given the opportunity to interview founder Sean Moeller, I jumped at it. As you’ll see, he is engaging, intelligent and in a way, a no nonsense guy as well. When Daytrotter started out, it seemed like nothing more than a lark or another blog, but after years of growth and interest it has become an industry staple. Here now is our interview with Sean Moeller.

Matt De Mello: What was the impetus for Daytrotter?

Sean Moeller: It was really started on a bit of a whim. The general idea was to try and do something unique, to feature and help expose truly great artists that were floating too far below people's radars. It was an idea to marry this amazingly vibrant digital world with those artists out there pounding away and old school, analog sensibilities. To move quickly and to do interesting things -- both aspects that print media was failing horribly at. Some would say, still are.

MD: As the site is starting to get more and more relevant, you sell a controlling interest to Wolfgang's Vault. Why not wait?

SM: To be very clear, I still run everything about Daytrotter. The move to bring in a partner was because we were essentially at a point where we needed to make things happen to grow the site and we wanted to work with someone who could help us do that. At that point, four years ago, we weren't sure how we were going to keep going, doing what we do.

MD: You once said "People are stubborn when it comes to poning up and not just stealing all the music they can get their hands on." Then after Wolfgang's Vault took over, Daytrotter went from a free site to a pay site why the change?

SM: Daytrotter was a free site for 5 1/2 years. It would have been great if we could have remained that way, but the advertising model was a great failure for us and we were losing all kinds of money every month -- have been for years. Every month our traffic was increasing (hence our costs were increasing dramatically) and advertising revenue was decreasing. We made a decision to offer our service and resource simply as a way to continue doing this, to continue helping the great artists that we'd been helping for almost 6 years gain more ears. Had we not done what we did, we would have died. We determined that we would see if the people who love and appreciate what we do would support this thing that we created. We are simply looking to keep the lights on so we can continue to shine them on great music. We came up with a monthly number -- $2 -- that we feel is extremely fair for what we offer. And, like I said, it was our last shot or we were gonna be history.

MD: You were a sports writer before you started Daytrotter. What's your favorite sport and who's your team?

SM: I was a cross country and track runner at the University of Iowa, so I love the sport of running a bunch, but as far as spectating, it's baseball and tough as it is, I'm a Cubs fan. University of Iowa football is my jam too.

MD: Explain the process of how getting the bands, having them come to your studio and then recording the session goes.

SM: It's really just a matter of asking. I do all of the discovery and booking so it's just really what I like. I invite bands in that I think are great. It's that simple. We have coffee and beer usually at the ready and it's just a simple process, stripped of all the stupid artifice. These recordings that we do are the songs at their most natural.

The Daytrotter Crew

MD: Who is your dream band to have on the site?

SM: Willie Nelson, Radiohead and Neil Young.

MD: You've branched out to hip-hop recently. What other genres do you want to have on the site?

SM: We already have everything on the site. We've been taping hip-hop for a while; there just aren't that many hip-hop artists who tour the country the way that indie rock bands tour the country. It's hard to get them on the roads and out of planes. I would like to have more true country/bluegrass acts in and more hip-hop and soul would be great.

MD: You've said previously that you like to read, what kind of books do you like reading & what're you currently reading?

SM: I like Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, Nathanael West, Richard Yates, Barry Hannah, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut, that sort of stuff. I'm currently reading "Crimes In Southern Indiana" by Frank Bill. It's great and gruesome.

MD: Interest on doing another Barnstormer tour?

SM: Hopefully we'll have another tour in the fall. That's the plan right now, I think.

MD: What would you like the site to accomplish in the future? Do you have any interest in starting a label?

SM: We just want to keep doing what we're doing -- helping great artists get exposed to music lovers -- to make great art. We have enough to think about there -- just keeping the site going. We think we're on the right path though.

 

 

What Bonnaroo does better than any other North American festival is purvey that communal atmosphere of Woodstock. As great as the festival's atmosphere is, let’s talk about some of the bands we’re most excited to see.

They’re not exactly a new band, in fact, they’re the complete antithesis of that, but we’d be remiss if we didn't at least give a passing mention to the Beach Boys in their 50th anniversary.  Bonnaroo could be an amazing place to see the rock legends perform live. Imagine the rain sweeps through Tennessee, Mike Love starts into “I Get Around” as the puddles accumulate and you, a rugged individual concertgoer starts sliding through the mud. That would be the experience of a lifetime.

You want newer bands? We got Grouplove, who as you aware of, are one of the best new bands to hit the scene in years. What they’re doing is almost criminally good. Sure, they’re a bit weird and a bit disjointed, but don’t we seek a bit of chaos in our musical joy? Having never seen them live I can only imagine the amount of energy that it takes to play at such a high level.

The Avett Brothers are a band I have had the pleasure of seeing in person. They’re so good live that they’ve made it onto my top five concerts list. They drip sweat the way Bruce Springsteen does after a show. You would half expect a digit to fly with the sheer speed that they play their respective instruments. With a new album coming out sometime this year, they’re sure to play some songs you’ve never heard and perhaps, if you’re lucky, a cover or two like the backyard YouTube video they did of the aforementioned Springsteen’s“Glory Days.”

Who is Bon Iver? Or for those unadoring haters, Bonny Bear. He’s the Grammy winning Best New Artist, but that doesn't mean shit. I didn't love his last album, but mostly because it wasn’t particularly my style. The album so many people that considered it one of the best albums last year that I felt like I was in the minority of those that didn't have it in the top five. Even if you don’t like Bon Iver what you can’t deny is that Justin Vernon is funny, engaging and a wonderful talent in a scene that seems thoroughly bereft of much of it these days.

If you thought I was going to leave out hip-hop, you thought wrong. Childish Gambino is gonna get on that as tags and destroy all the preconceived notions you had of a rapper, actor and a celebrity all in one fell swoop. I already thought he had one of the best albums last year and knowing that he’s about to blow the tarp off the Bonnaroo stage makes me shaky with anticipation.

If you’ve budgeted for one festival this summer, for one trip, make this the one. Get on a plane, take a train, find a bus, gas up the Prius and get your ass to Tennessee in June. Kudos to the organizers of this amazing festival, you’ve done it once again.

Saturday was a day of great excitement in the Bay Area. Dr. Dog was playing at the Regency Ballroom, the Chinese New Year Parade was in full effect and Social Distortion was coming to the Fox Theater in Oakland for the second night in a row. That’s the one that intrigued me most, because of the opening acts Sharks and Frank Turner. Frank Turner has long been a favorite of Mike Ness’, touting his exploits for several years now and I was excited to see him live.

Sharks, on the other hand, are a relatively new band. Despite having performed for five years their debut album has yet to come out and they’ve been touring here for about a year. There was some speculation that they may not make the show due to their statement on Twitter that their van broke down on the way to their San Luis Obispo show.

I got to the theater early and coordinated an early interview so that I wouldn’t miss any of the show and could give a full and proper review. Again, the tour manager pushed back what was supposed to be a 7:00 interview to 9:00 and thus I missed most of Frank Turner’s performance. The audience was filled to the brim with zoot suits, tatted up hoodlums and curiosity. Curiosity for what the opening act Sharks would bring to the table.

It turns out the set was a bit disjointed. The band attemped to cover a Social Distortion song, while opening for the punk icons, which many found to be sophomoric, and in the midst of that, forgot some of the lyrics. They simply couldn’t energize the crowd and that’s the job of a warm up act. It wasn’t all a disaster, though; they did have a few moments that showed the potentiality of future greatness. Whether they get it together or not is entirely up to them and the direction they choose to take. If they continue to miss gigs, then they will fail miserably. However, if they stick to the formula that got them to where they are and make that a priority for the fans then they’ll have a long, fruitful career. As I said, because of their insistence that I move the interview up to 9pm from 7:00 I have no review or real frame of reference to judge Frank Turner’s performance, but from the few songs I did see he was amazing.

Social Distortion has been around for over 30 years. They’re hardly a new band and are widely considered to have been the forbearers of the tattoo resurgence of the past decade. Lead singer and only original member of Social D remaining, Mike Ness, appeared on stage wearing a Zoot Suit, hat and all. Looking like '20s mobster, he thrilled the crowd with all the favorites they’ve come to expect from the illustrious band.

When a fan threw a shirt on stage Ness, in his classically acerbic style, retorted, “I’m not your fucking mother; she’ll be at home waiting for you. Until then keep your fucking laundry off my stage.” This drew huge applause and cheers from an allied audience. This was the band they all came to see. This was the band that they’d been following since they were born. Coming out of the OC punk scene so long ago, Social D has been a symbol of musical consistency.

While the members have certainly changed or passed on the style and flair with which Ness composes his music and appearance has not. He caters to an audience he knows wants to hear the classics, but that also has a vital interest in the survival of the band. In this place in Downtown Oakland these elements converged and despite the hiccups of the opening act, which again could be an easy fix, found the love for a band that’s been showing it to them for a very long time.

Before the show, BestNewBands.com caught up backstage with Sharks' lead singer James Turner and here's what happened: