The Heavy— Classic Soul— Modern Twists

In Noid, a tiny hamlet situated to the south west of Bath, some of the most dangerous and ill sounding beats and riffs are being created by four wolf like personalities. The Heavy started out ripping and chopping beats from the likes of Bo Diddley, Little Walter and The Parliaments and fusing them with their now patented brand of high grade dirt. Guitar riffs that intoxicate, bass lines that reverberate around your head like a King Jammy dream and vocals that will challenge any of the genres they decide to take on. The Heavy continually cross genres as they as a unit are proud to be completely musically schizophrenic. From country to rhythm and blues, garage punk to rock and roll, Studio one to the slums of shaolin, you’ll inevitably discover that The Heavy are indeed like a pack of artistic chemists with the way that genres get cooked up, blended, stirred and then mixed, to create their own unique style of rock and roll. 

The album Great Vengeance and Furious Fire released on Counter Records in late 2007 generated a great deal of interest with songs like That kind of man, Girl, Set me free, Coleen and Dignity, firmly laying foundations for the house of dirt that they are building at present. There is no other band that sound as raw as The Sonics while holding soul in a headlock and frequently wrestling rock to the ground with the weight of Mr 808 as tag team partner. Listen, then try and tell Louis different.

You will not experience another band like this… So dirty. So much weight. So much energy and laced with a soul that you just don’t hear anymore…The Heavy have indeed created a monster. The music is enthralling as it takes you on a journey on which you will never be certain… about the destination. The basis of The Heavy sound is a combination of the pronounced backbeat of hip-hop with late-60s soul.Tracks like “How You Like Me Now” and “Love Like That” sound a lot like a few instrumentals on Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. You will enbrace The Heavy’s inherent understanding of what it takes to endure this world… and all of the “supernatural” worlds as well. 

The band was asked to record a cover of the song “And When I Die” for the fourth season finale of True Blood. The soundtrack for the third season of HBO vampire drama True Blood was eventually nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Award. In our opinion, this was the BEST track on the CD. Unlike Blood Sweat and Tears’ version of the song, The Heavy takes it to the core of what it means to die.The track also appeared on the third True Blood soundtrack. “Who Needs The Sunshine?” and was featured in the penultimate episode of the fourth series of Being Human, “Making History”. We are predicting great things for this band.

Toadies— On The Tour Path

Toadies are kicking off the new year right by announcing plans to release the first of two new EPs as well as a jaunt across the country opening for Social Distortion starting in April. The EP, entitled PLAY.ROCK.MUSIC. to be released May 8th was recorded at The Bubble in Austin and produced by Chris “Frenchie” Smith. The writing of the EP was hot off the heels of last year’s Dia De Los Toadies (The 4th annual!) The festival last year was the most successful yet— two days and the strongest Texas line up they’ve ever had including The Sword, Black Angels and Ume. The 5th Dia De Los Toadies is slated for Labor Day Weekend later this year. Front man Vaden Todd Lewis on the new songs “It was fun experimenting with some new sounds and variations for this EP. This is some of the strangest and catchiest stuff I’ve ever written.” Guitarist Clark Vogeler elaborates on the EP “I’m anxious for people to hear the new tunes. The new EP definitely still sounds like Toadies, but the way Todd writes and the way we play has continued to evolve.

The lyrics that Todd wrote for this record are some of his best while the overall delivery vocally and musically show more teeth than usual. This is also the first time that we’ve had Doni Blair play bass on a record and he’s just a machine, so I think this record sounds more like a band than the previous couple. He goes on to talk about a collaboration with The Honeybear Horns brass section on the EP” ”I love the horns that The Honeybear Horns brought to Rattler’s Revival. I was worried that it might sound out-of-step with what we do, but we were all pleased to hear that horns sound right at home in the mix. I can’t wait for those guys to join us live at some point.” Drummer Mark Reznicek adds “The new stuff might be the most rockin’ set since Rubberneck.”

“There’s a certain uneasiness to the Toadies,” says Vaden Todd Lewis, succinctly and accurately describing his band— quite a trick. The Texas band is, at its core, just a raw, commanding rock band. Imagine an ebony sphere with a corona that radiates impossibly darker, and a brilliant circular sliver of light around that. It’s nebulous, but strangely distinct— and, shall we say incorrect. Or, as Lewis blatantly says, “wrong.”

“Things are done a little askew [in the Toadies],” he says, searching for the right words. “There’s just something wrong with it that’s just really cool…and unique in a slightly uncomfortable way.”

This sick, twisted essence was first exemplified on the band’s 1994 debut, Rubberneck (Interscope). An intense, swirling vortex of guitar rock built around Lewis’s “wrong” songs— like the smash single Possum Kingdom, subject to as much speculation as what’s in the Pulp Fiction briefcase, it rocketed to platinum status on the strength of that and two other singles, Tyler and Away. Its success was due to the Toadies’ organic sound and all encompassing style.

Upon the EPs release the Toadies will take their show out on the road, hand picked to open for Social Distortion. “The Toadies haven’t toured as opener in over 15 years. I couldn’t think of a better better band to tour with (short of ZZ Top or AC/DC). I’m looking forward to playing some of these bigger venues we haven’t played before and hitting a few cities in Canada that I’ve never been to. It will be interesting to play 45 minute sets compared to the 90 minutes we usually do. It will be like get in, rock them hard, then get out, all by 10:00!”  —Guitarist Clark Vogeler

With lots of new news to announce, Toadies have had a change of plans regarding their upcoming release PLAY.ROCK.MUSIC, originally slated as an EP release for May. The band will now release a full length with the same title on July 31st via Kirtland Records. The change stemmed from the vibe during the recording session says vocalist Vaden Todd Lewis: “The plan was just to record some demos with (producer) Frenchie Smith. It went so well we decided to compile the songs into an EP. But then we were having such a good time with the whole process, we decided to keep the ball rolling and make a full-length record. A lot of this material was written on the fly in the studio. It was a very exciting and scary process.”

The Lion The Beast The Beat

The Lion The Beast The Beat, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals’ fourth studio album for Hollywood Records, will be released June 12th. The musically powerful and conceptually dazzling work was produced by Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Wilco, the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s 2012 Grammy winner Revelator) and Potter at Scott’s studio PLYRZ in Santa Clarita, CA, with the exception of “Loneliest Soul,” which was produced by Dan Auerbach and engineered by Collin Dupuis at Easy Eye Sounds in Nashville, TN. David Campbell (Beck, My Morning Jacket, Jackson Browne) arranged and conducted the strings on the album. The album was mixed by fellow Vermonter and Grammy award winner Rich Costey (Foo Fighters, TV on the Radio, Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball) and mastered by Grammy award winner Bob Ludwig (David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Foo Fighters). The first single from The Lion The Beast The Beat  is “Never Go Back,” written by Dan Auerbach and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. The track went to radio on March 23rd for an April 9th impact date. GPN’s debut performance of “Never Go Back” is set for April 5th on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. A companion video for the track will be shot in Los Angeles in April.

“I think there’s a Lion and a Beast within all of us— as humans. There’s also true goodness, and the appearance of goodness…” says Grace. “Maybe I’ve watched too much Mad Men, but I’m in love with the idea of a story with no heroes and no villains. I’ve never really even dipped my toes in the whole ‘concept album’ thing but these themes just kept creeping into all the new songs and I didn’t fight it. I decided to embrace it.”

Among the song titles are Stars, The Divide, Steady, Parachute Heart, Never Go Back, and Loneliest Soul, both co-written with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, as well as the title track The Lion The Beast The Beat.

“Each song stands upright on its own, but these songs really belong to this album. The way we’ve always made records is to put together a list of 30 or so songs, pick the best ones, throw them together and hope it congeals. I didn’t wanna do that this time. I came up with the track order before we recorded so we could really bring you in and out of these songs like scenes in a movie. I want to bring the listener into our weird fantasy and keep them there.”

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST

SnagFilms, one of the world’s leading distributors of independent films for digital platforms, announces the U.S. pay-on-demand release of the highly anticipated, groundbreaking feature documentary, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2012.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST takes viewers on an action-packed voyage with the world’s most wanted environmentalist heroes, Captain Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society— the stars of Animal Planet’s Emmy-nominated hit series “Whale Wars.” Seen through the eyes of director, activist and longest serving Sea Shepherd crew member, Peter Jay Brown, the film features 30 years of never-before-seen insider footage of the most exciting, dispairing and triumphant eco-campaigns in the world. During their voyages they’ve been engaged in dramatic conflict including the boarding of ships, arrests, being fired upon by the Norwegian Navy and successfully ramming and/or sinking illegal whaling and fishing vessels worldwide. The group is also credited with stopping drift-netting worldwide and saving the lives of millions of marine wildlife. ”We are extremely excited for audiences in the U.S. to be able to experience CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST and its unmistakable environmental message,”stated Stephanie Sharis, COO of SnagFilms. “Earth Day is the perfect time to premiere this truly revolutionary documentary.”

The film will be available on video on demand on Comcast, FiOs and iNDemand affiliates including Time Warner Cable, Cox and Bright House Networks, as well as digital platforms, including iTunes, VUDU, Amazon and Xbox Live ”Everyone has a unique talent that can make a difference in this world,”said Brown. “30 years ago hardly anyone knew what ‘ecology’ meant, now oil companies are trying to be green. We’re the guys who started the modern environmental movement and have pretty much won the revolution, now we need the right people to govern it before we reach a tipping point,” he continued. Brown recently returned from Sea Shepherd’s most recent campaign (Operation: Divine Wind) to stop illegal Japanese whaling in an Antarctic whale sanctuary. Whale Wars Season 5, premiering this summer on Animal Planet will cover the voyage in great detail.

“There have been many films made about Sea Shepherd but none as hilarious and revealing as CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST, which was three decades in the making.” Captain Watson said. “Peter Brown, a Sea Shepherd insider expertly exercises aikido with his camera by turning a negative accusation into a positive confession of influential activism.”

For more information on CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST and to view the trailer, please visit www.confessionsfilm.com

Norah Jones— Little Broken Hearts

Norah Jones is unveiling something new at South By Southwest— again. Ten years after she shook Austin and the music world with “Come Away With Me,” the 25 million-selling debut she released just weeks before the 2002 conference and festival, she returned to play her entire new album “Little Broken Hearts” at La Zona Rosa in Austin on Saturday night. “It seemed to make sense to come back to my new record,” Jones said. “I’m just going to play the new record. I’m not even going to play any old songs because it’s South By Southwest.

It doesn’t seem wrong to do it that way. It’s fun. This is a festival. It’s for new bands but it’s also just for new stuff, so it feels right to do the new record. “The stylish yet deeply emotional 12-song collaboration with Danger Mouse is due to be released on May 1st. In an interview Friday, Jones described “Little Broken Hearts” as a concept album of sorts that examines a difficult breakup. She said she and Danger Mouse, the producer whose given name is Brian Burton, wrote most of the songs as a team, working out lyrics and the instrumentation together. It’s something of a departure for Jones and another step in her evolution away from the jazz of the Grammy-winning “Come Away With Me.”

Jones came back to SXSW in 2006 with her side project The Little Willies, a group she played two shows with on Thursday. The experience performing as a solo artist will be a little less discombobulating this time around. “It was kind of crazy,” Jones said. “I remember 10 years ago when I came… and it was insane. It was like we were doing four shows a day or something. I don’t know. It felt very strange, but it was fun.”

An Open Letter to Lucy Lawless

Dear Lucy—

I felt the need to compose a letter thanking you for being the remarkable human being that you are. It was [as it always is] both an honor and a pleasure talking with you during your Green Peace protest against Shell Oil. I’ve interviewed, gotten to know and became friends with a sleuth of actors and actresses in my lifetime. An entire lifetime… and I can say with the utmost sincerity that I have never felt compelled to call any one of them a hero. But thanks to your selfless actions aboard that ship, I can finally bestow the title of hero upon YOU… with great pride and admiration. As much as I love Fiona Hutchison [as we are sisters], I CANNOT see her boarding that ship and climbing to incredible heights to send a message to Shell Oil, just one of the many corporate giants who prey upon this planet like parasites. You are a hero Lucy, not just to me or millions upon millions of fans all over the world… but for those generations yet to come.

I know for a fact that you do not have an egotistical cell in your entire body and that you would totally disagree with everything I am writing. You would tell me in that infamous Kiwi accent, “Bridget, you’ve gone completely mad because I’m not special. I’m just a Mom who cares about her children and the planet.” But what you do not see… is that you ARE so much more than special. You, my humble friend, are far more heroic than the character you played for six seasons. Xena Warrior Princess, sword in hand, couldn’t come close to who you REALLY are on her best day.

You see Lucy, by nature; the United States of America is a very pessimistic society. We seem to have great difficulty believing in the good nature of most people. Everyone has skeletons buried in their closets. We seem to have the need to dig them out. How many times have we heard the words uttered “It seems too good to be true they must be hiding something”. So we take whatever heroes we may have and tear them down. We are more concerned with tragedy than we are with hope. You defy this logic  and in doing so, you have set an example, a true precedence for the rest of us. We need to consider the process of learning to add courage to our faith.

Many people have faith, or at least they say that they do, but it does not seem to reveal itself in the outworking of their lives. The problem is the absence of courage and “courage is the muscle that faith uses to hold its ground.” So many people today do not seem to have the ability to courageously live out their faith in humanity and what is best for our future. Now I am not talking about those instantaneous heroes who make the headlines because they happened to be at the right place at the right time. I’m talking about TRUE heroes like you Lucy… who make daily conscious decisions to respond courageously to life’s dilemmas. The Webster’s Dictionary defines courage as: “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” Courage is putting our faith into action, adding sweat to our convictions, doing what is hard to do because we know it needs to be done. This is precisely what you did, without a bit of hesitation.

Perhaps the simple acts of kindness that we all perform need to be taken just a little further. Maybe all it takes is the belief in ourselves, and the courage to face reality fearlessly. We all want to make a difference, to be someone Lucy… but you have given all of us an example to follow, to believe. This is my challenge to everyone who reads this, become a hero to others. Have the courage to stand up for your convictions and stop living in fear.

And Lucy? Please accept my compliments and this letter as a testament to what it means to be a hero and a heartfelt thank you for your wisdom and courage.

Much Love,

Bridget Petrella

Nicollette Sheridan Case— Twists & Turns

The trial over Nicollette Sheridan’s firing from Desperate Housewives featured one last twist Monday with the disclosure of a mystery witness who has indicated show officials tried to cover up correspondence related to the actress. A judge ordered the man to appear in court Tuesday morning to determine whether he will become one of the final witnesses that jurors considering the case will hear from. The man, who was identified as Michael Reinhart, left a message for Sheridan’s attorney on Sunday afternoon stating that he mistakenly got an email that suggested that messages related to Sheridan’s departure would be purged. The man on the message said he didn’t want to become involved in the case, but by day’s end had becoming the latest intriguing thread in a trial that has featured a behind-the-scenes look at Desperate Housewives and conflicting testimony on whether Sheridan was struck by show creator Marc Cherry during a September 2008 dispute.

“There was a definite conspiracy to cover up the correspondence on email-wise in regards to Nicollette,” the caller is heard saying on the call, which was played in court outside the presence of the jury. Adam Levin, an attorney for Cherry and the ABC television network, dismissed the claims. He noted in court that he had not spoken with Reinhart. “Today’s antics by the plaintiff, conjuring up mysterious emails, appears to be a last ditch effort to save her case,” Levin said after Monday’s proceedings. Closing arguments are likely to begin on Tuesday as both sides call their final witnesses. Sheridan’s attorney Mark Baute, who received the message Sunday, said he would like to call Reinhart as a witness. Sheridan, 48, is suing Cherry and ABC for wrongful termination and battery and is seeking $6 million in damages. All of us here at UPBEAT think that Nicollette deserves a small fortune for having to put up with Marc Cherry. That’s right ABC, we/ believe that Marc Cherry doesn’t really deserve another show let alone all of the dubious “ass-kissing”, similar to the same empirical treatment given to ex-ABC Daytime Head Brian Frons!

In the end, the character, Edie Britt’s death came after she escaped being strangled and survived a car crash only to be electrocuted by a downed power line. Baute, in opening statements, called it a triple homicide that reflected Cherry’s animosity toward Sheridan. Cherry told jurors that he had contemplated killing Sheridan’s character at the end of season three, but studio and network executives didn’t approve. As he began to plan season five, he said he wanted to kill Britt as part of a “risky but potentially effective change to the series.”

And of course, ABC, made sure that numerous witnesses for the show’s creator and network testified that the decision to kill off Sheridan’s Edie Britt character was made in May 2008, four months before her dustup with Cherry on the show’s set. Cherry maintains he tapped the actress while trying to give her direction for a scene, but Sheridan claims he struck her hard on the left temple, leaving her stunned and humiliated. For the record, we believe Nicollette Sheridan, not only is she a superb actress, but we’ve spoken with and interviewed her several times and she’s an extraordinary person. Maybe it’s time for ABC to grow a set and take better care of their TALENT and the SHOWS as opposed to guys like Cherry and Frons!

As Harriet Ryan from The Los Angeles Times summed it all up in her brilliant piece, “Underscoring it all was the absurdity of asking a group of strangers to care deeply about the minor travails of the very rich and semi-famous.” Her entire article can be found at:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0313-desperate-housewives-20120313,0,3547030.story