“This thing is bristling with big-credit guests (Ty Segall, Nora Keyes, Jack Name, Shannon Lay … see below for complete list!) but more importantly it’s bristling with charm, personality, originality, commitment and—because this record never stops at four things when it can try five—conviction, too.” – LA Record
Empty Cellar Records and the Earth Girl Helen Brown Center for Planetary Intelligence Band are pleased to announce the summer installment of the E.G.H.B.C.P.F.I.B. 2017 seasonal series, MARS. Featuring Heidi Alexander, Tahlia Harbour, Sonny Smith, James Finch Jr., Jamin Barton, Tim Presley, Ty Segall, John Dwyer, Jack Name, Dave Sitek, David Cousin, Warren Hugel, Dylan Hadley, Mikal Cronin, Nora Keys, and Shannon Lay. MARS is concerned with the topic of war.
Available from Empty Cellar Records on limited edition 100% post-consumer recycled cassette tape 7/28. All proceeds benefit organizations committed to the cessation of violent conflict, the promotion of peace, and the dissolution of the military industrial complex.
Though Ryan Wong’s boyish charm might be obvious to anyone who’s seen him perform solo or with his group the Cool Ghouls, what might not be obvious about the artist behind More Milk is that he is, in fact, lactose intolerant. What’s up with that? What kind of milk are we talking about anyway?
Photo by Michael Bordelon
Well, sometimes a songwriter in a rock group has a jolt of creativity that results in some great numbers for the band (that’s the milk), and then even more ideas that might have to find their way into another icebox (more milk). While there’s a delicate acoustic sketch or two on this home-recorded cassette, don’t let Wong’s easygoing attitude or vocal style belie his ability to turn a great idea or two into a fully ambulant creature of a tune. Ryan—handling guitar, bass, and keys with a rotating cast of bandmates and roommates filling in on percussion and woodwinds—makes it happen. Just try to listen to the two-note, triple time trill that drives “Good Lovin” without imagining approaching an overcast San Francisco day with a Mr. Natural stride.
If you should stroll into a club in the Mission on a chilly evening or find this tape in your dealer’s deck, why not slow down and take it in for a moment? There’s a little something in these six songs for the deadheads, for John Cale obsessives, and for tough rockers in derby jackets and boots who like to eat mushrooms, sit in the grass and listen to the Emerson Brothers. I’m willing to bet there may even be something for you—Ryan’s probably holding and has plenty to go around.
-E. C. Wald
Ryan Wong – Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Casio
Alex Fleshman – Drums, Percussion
Richard Harkins – Drums
Seth Snyder – Flute
Life With Dick is the new album by Grace Sings Sludge (The Sandwitches, The Fresh and Onlys). It’s the continuation of a world Grace Cooper began illustrating as one of the lead songwriters of the San Francisco band The Sandwitches, and on her previous three collections of solo home recordings (released as limited run cassette tapes). As with the other solo albums, Grace does the artwork for Life With Dick. Her delicate yet disturbing pen and watercolor creations are the perfect accompaniment for her songs, and seem as though they’ve emerged from the same troubled dreams.
“A Man Doesn’t Want” is a deeply haunted, yearning lament, Grace’s eerie, pained vocals wafting like a heartbroken ghost’s moan through rundown motel walls. – Gorilla vs. Bear
Though understated, there is a sense of urgency that permeates this record. Grace’s voice dances through the songs with a chameleon quality that’s sultry and commanding on “In Spite of Doom” and desperate, vulnerable and sharp on “Can’t Play” and “Everlasting Arms”.
Her lyrics contain the weariness of a woman giving in to a love requited, and the unsettling realities of maintaining love. In some places it seems she no longer knows where to direct her endless yearning. She observes on “Bad Timing Pt. 2”, “Two boats they don’t meet up in the night, they glide by each other and forever out of sight… they might just be the lucky ones.”
The spookiness of Grace’s sound — a sound influential in some The Sandwitches’ best songs like “Joe Says” and “In the Garden” — is still present here and especially on the darker B side of this record. Piercing guitars and heartbeat drums on “Everlasting Arms” warn us as Grace gently sings, “Something’s growing in the basement,” and of something that comes “from within”. The recording quality of Life With dick is raw but it is far from being a “garage record.” It is a recording brought down from the attic, with no date and with no intended audience, and is best listened to alone.
Performed and recorded at home by Grace Cooper with Nick Russo on drums.
Track Listing:
01 A Man Doesn’t Want
02 Runaway (Bad Timing)
03 Bad Timing Pt. 2
04 Can’t Play
05 In Spite of Doom
06 Everlasting Arms
07 U.C.B.
08 Dedicated 2
Empty Cellar is pleased to announce the forthcoming Earth Girl Helen Brown release, MERCURY, featuring The Boogeyman (Emmett Kelly), Sunshine Lady (Sonny Smith), Loro Valiente (Tahlia Harbor), Ziggy Spec (Ty Segall), José Deseo (John Dwyer), L.F.F. (Tim Cohen), Jim Win (James Finch Jr.), the Former Future (Sean Smith), and Jasmine Ivanov (Jamin Barton).
MERCURY is the first in a seasonal series tributing our fellow solar satellites Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Venus, and benefiting organizations committed to popular planetary intelligence, energy management, communicative freedom and love.
Announced today on the vernal equinox Mercury will be released April 14th on our planet in limited edition post-consumer cassette and digital (along with EGHB apparel). There will be a party and performance by Earth Girl Helen Brown and more that night at HM157 in Los Angeles
All proceeds from the sale of Mercury benefit, in equal parts, the following organizations in their commitment to the cessation of fossil fuel use, the protection of shared resources, and the preservation of physical health on Earth:
Empty Cellar Records is proud to release the newest album by Magic Trick, Other Man’s Blues. This offering from the band finds songwriter, Tim Cohen at a crossroads. It was written and recorded during a year that split his time between two lives, in two worlds. The newer of these worlds was on a horse ranch in the northern Arizona desert where he and his partner spent their first year with their newborn daughter. The other was the music world. The latter took place on the road, on tour with Magic Trick or with the Fresh & Onlys. And in the case of Other Man’s Blues, it took place for one week at Phil Manley’s Lucky Cat Studios in San Francisco.
Tim arrived at the studio with a color-coded composition book of songs he’d been writing while bouncing to and fro. This book would have to suffice in lieu of rehearsal time with the 13 other musicians who appear on the tracks. About half of the tracks feature James Kim on drums, the other half James Barone (Beach House). Alicia Van Heuvel (Aislers Set) and Paul Garcia split time on bass. Joel Robinow (Once and Future Band / Danny James) contributes on keys. Emmett Kelly (The Cairo Gang / The Muggers / The Double) provides a couple stunning guitar solos. There are omnipresent vocal harmonies from Alicia, Noelle Cahill and Anna Hillburg, the latter of whom also plays some trumpet. San Francisco standbys Dylan Edrich, Tom Heyman, and Marc Capelle all contribute. It was a loose, largely improvised affair.
The album’s roster is less the product of grand ambition, and more the result of an open-door policy at the studio. These sessions also served as an opportunity for Tim to hang out with friends while in town. He’d see who was around, they’d swing by. Allegedly tequila was centrally involved. A “hit the joint and come up with a bit” approach. “Here’s a chord chart. Go.” And guest appearances are more than just a little icing on top here. It’s the principle that warranted giving this project a band name five years ago: when Tim’s non-onlys oeuvre stopped being credited to Tim Cohen and instead was attributed to Magic Trick. Especially in the case of Other Man’s Blues, the players on the album define what shapes these songs take.
And it’s a wide variety of shapes you’ll find on this album. Take this less as a conscious display of versatility (although it does demonstrate Cohen & Co.’s ability to shape-shift) and more as a result of the freewheeling, haphazard recording environment described above. A ghostly choir of female voices open the album like a seance. And the spirit they conjure proceeds to flit about over the course of the ensuing ten tracks, animating various stylistic forms, from the baroque pop of “Forest of Kates” to the icy post-punk of “I Held the Ring.” There’s the air-tight R&B groove of “Startling Chimes,” the krauty “Purest Thing,” a jammy side-to-side trot that moves “First Thought” along, taking a detour into country before culminating in a glorious Grateful Dead indebted coda. But throughout, it’s Tim’s lyrics that are pushed to the front of the mix. This album is a display of solid songwriting – collectively fleshed out, but from Tim’s composition book, and with Tim’s lyrics about family and about himself. These songs are the sound of his friends helping him suss through the conflicts of his new dual existence as father and musician, between old self and new.
Magic Trick’s 2013 offering, River of Souls, opens with Cohen asking, “Should we live from the mirrors other side?” Maybe, what you have here on Other Man’s Bluesis an attempt to do just that. You can hear that his scope is widening, is being forced to widen by his circumstance. These songs are full of empathy. They reckon with notions of sacrifice and devotion, acknowledge the “winds of desire” and admit that “musings come from below” like a force of nature. Our protagonist is mid-transformation or maybe even pre-transformation. He is able to “regard his gruesome self” only because he is becoming a new man. Both sides are present. Which is the Other Man? Who is Tim Cohen? What is this magic he is trying pull off? Is it a trick? Or true sorcery? Either way, he must evolve.
1. More
2. Forest of Kates
3. I Held the Ring
4. Scorpio
5. First Thought
6. Mockingbird
7. Eternal Summer
8. Purest Thing
9. Startling Chimes
10. Oysters
Magic Trick Dates
8/3 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop w/ The Cairo Gang (Tim Cohen Solo)
8/18 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel (Record Release Show)
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