Sometimes record labels fall in love with someone at first sight (sound?) too. Danish pedal guitar angel Maggie Bjorklund was weaving steel around blood and whiskey singer-songwriter Mark Pickerel at SXSW, and beloved no-goddamned-depression-at-all super-roots Bloodshot felt their hearts throb as their ears glowed to her holy sounds.

They snatched her up and earlier this year we got the posh buffet of recorded delights known as the Coming Home album. On Wednesday, August 17, she teams up at the Triple Door with players all over the local indie-cowpoke musical map, being CoBirds Unite, Sangster Family Band, Whiting Tennis, and Katie Mullins. (A benefit for the Gilda’s Club, starts at 7:30 pm, doors open at 6, all ages, and I haven’t reviewed a single show for awhile, but this will be the one I scribe about besides festivals this summer.)

Working with smoke-and-velvet voiced vocal artists Mark Lanegan, Rachel Flotard, and Jon Auer, that first solo full length of Maggie’s followed up her earlier European acclaim from playing with original group the Darleens (and for her collaborations with Lennart Ginman, Nils Skousen, Miss B. Haven, and others). The Praying Hands with Mr. Pickerel is still her home room, but she recently toured and recorded with glitter-gutter-goddess Exene Cervanka (of X) too.

Below is a recent chat between Maggie and I about what to expect that night at the Triple Door, where I like to sip my supper and sit through some of the very best shows in town (I’ve ever seen).

more...

Exene Cervenka listened to aching pop gems on the little AM radio in her family's 1959 Dodge as she grew up, soaking in the streams of romantic longing of Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Peggy Lee as the rain hit the windows. That haunted, pine-freshener smelling, cigarette burns on the leatherette seats feel is all over the punk-celestial's new full length, The Excitement of Maybe.

Neophytes might be wondering if the thrift-store crazy gal who co-fronted X with the bass player she met in poetry class (John Doe) deserves a little hootenanny on roots-deep Bloodshot. I mean, she has the pedigree, but can an art-pop raven pull off the chops for love songs and sweeter lamentations? You're asking about it the wrong way, kiddo. On reeling opening track "Already In Love," she reminds that she once herded up The Knitters, which was X gone rodeo even before they recorded and toured as a stripped down acoustic version of the seed band. (Track down their work on Slash Records at all costs.)

more...

Bloodshot Records, a label always known for high quality music as well as eclectic realness, has put out the new album by Steve Fisk and Johnny Sangster guitar/steel guitarist session player Maggie Bjorklund.

It's a dreamy, waltzy, life-in-amber collection of seaside castaway whirls and marches. If you remember Bjorklund's work with Danish band the Darleens, you'll want to pick this up right away. Especially if you've been familiar with her excellent work recently with Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, and weaving a bed of pedal steel as well on songs by The Dept of Energy, Christy McWilson, and the recent album which slays me most, Rusty Willoughby's Cobirds Unite.

more...

{Exene Cervenka plays at Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 at 6pm, at Tyrannosaurus Records (Renton) on Saturday, April 17 at 2pm and at Damaged Goods on Saturday, April 17 at 5pm, all free and all ages.}

Record stores have, like nearly every business, not fared particularly well in the economic climate of the past few years. In fact, they have likely had a much more difficult time staying solvent as the move towards more people getting their music online than at retail stores. At the beginning of this year, the first two albums to hit number one on the Billboard 200 chart this year (Ke$ha’s Animal and Vampire Weekend’s Contra) were the first two albums in history to top the charts with more than 50% digital sales. The lower prices, huge catalogs and fast delivery methods have made iTunes, emusic and Amazon the often first place for people to go to purchase music (and that’s saying nothing of what is obtained via illegal downloading) and has made it that much harder for record stores to stay in business.

One artist who is doing what she can to help record stores is Exene Cervenka. Best known for being the badass frontwoman for punk band X and the alt-country band The Knitters, she has been one of the most prolific and multi-faceted artists over the past thirty-plus years. Not just a musician, but she’s also a writer, poet and visual artist. My favorite quote about Cervenka came from her X and Knitters bandmate John Doe (which I found in Maria Raha’s great book Cinderella’s Big Score), who said “she was such a badass! I pretended to be but Exene was the real thing. She had the ax to grind…the unusual wiring that made it possible for her to throw a drink in somebody’s face and still be right.” She most recently released a gorgeous solo record called Somewhere Gone last autumn. She is currently on a tour, playing in-store shows at record stores on the west coast that will include appearances at three Seattle-area record stores: Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 and on Saturday, April 17, the actual Record Store Day, she’ll be at Tyrannosaurus Records in Renton and Damaged Goods in Belltown.

more...

As a set of songs, they are a testament to all the roads that are traveled, the loves that are lost and the hope that can barely be made out in the heat-waved horizon.

more...

Music starts at 5PM with special guest star Anna, followed by Mark Pickerel, and then the incomparable Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter anchoring the show.

more...

You have to love any band that can cram so much great pop into a nine-track disc.

more...

If you aren't in the neighborhood, be sure to check him out at The Tractor this Saturday!

more...

I was also completely floored by Rauhouse’s quirky, vibrant, and downright masterpiece of an album. Why can’t there be more instrumental albums like this – records that feature such depth, diversity, and pure unfiltered fun?

more...

This is a PISSED OFF album, made by a gin-soaked gaggle of British and American club-crawling punk Godfathers, and it's full of snarling but smart complaints and lamentations about dumb-ass Christians and greedy fucking Texas warlords...

more...