Appendix E-J

The first half of today was spent listening to my Arrested Development (Speech, not Jason Bateman) Pandora station whilst helping on bar. Business meetings soundtracked by The Fugees, Digable Planets, De La Soul, and Tribe among others. For a short while, hip-hop took over 144 S. Mason.

Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Our friend Listener has played the Everyday Joe’s stage several times, most recently in May opening for Aaron Strumpel & taking part in the Elephants extravaganza.

Listener has a new video out to an old song. That washing machine isn’t a prop, folks, it’s an institution.

FURTHER:

• Official Listener Site
• SALE! at the Listener store

Popularity: 9% [?]

Not trying to turn this into a Candy Claws fanblog, but you have to report the news that fits and give credit where credit is due. Plus, it’s always a nice time to see members of the EDJ family move up and up.

Our longtime pal-os in Candy Claws are turning up in quite a few places. In October they were the subject of Pitchfork’s Forkast. It now seems the once-hipster-now-career-holder listeners are ready for them, or so I would guess from a tweet by NPR’s All Songs Considered:

RT @nprobin: Today’s free download from our Second Stage: Candy Claws! http://tinyurl.com/yhx2hmf

Well, isn’t that tasty? So are the kind words from the writeup:

“After two years of writing and recording, the band self-released the stunning album early this year and were signed to the Irish label Indiecater in the fall…It’s impossible to pinpoint all of the sounds going on at one time, but digging in further yields even more surprising noises and little details that really make the music beautiful.”

You can read the rest of those kind words here, as well as listen to the featured song “Catamaran.”

Everyday Joe’s is proud of you, Candy Claws. Proud like when your child gets stitches for the first time and doesn’t shed a tear.

FURTHER:

• Follow Robin Hilton (@nprobin) on Twitter
• Follow All Songs Considered on Twitter
• Read the rest of the Second Stage piece
• Dig yourself some Candy Claws

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hello dear ones.

This time of year sometimes brings out generosity in people. Sometimes not…but it should bring out the generosity in our hearts for those who may need something to lift them up.

From the hearts of our friends in Candy Claws & Firebreather come songs for you to listen to and download and be merry by.

Also, it would behoove you to remember that Candy Claws is one of the bands featured on this years’ Love, Everyday Joe’s compilation, which you can download for free. It makes a great Christmas present in the stockings of the ones you desire to feed good audible things to.

Merry Christmas, from all of us. Enjoy the Candy Claws/Firebreather treats below. Then enjoy the treats your mom pulls out of the oven.

Snow Girl by Candy Claws

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Tonight I Belong To You by Firebreather

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Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s here!

Your digital Santa Claus has arrived. The third installment of our annual compilation CD – Love, Everyday Joe’s - is now available for FREE DOWNLOAD. Not for a limited time, mind you, but for always. Our gift to you for being the community and family that we love to bits.

Volume 3 – entitled Wake Up, Oh Sleeper – is made up of 18 tracks donated by 18 artists that we love very much who donated tunes to this project just for you. Would you like to know who they are? Here you go:

You & Yourn, You Me & Apollo, Aaron Strumpel, Shadows On A River, Candy Claws, The Changing Colors, The Blackthorn Project, Danielle Ate The Sandwich, Paper Bird, Katie Herzig, Cody Crump, Midwest Dilemma, Paean, ABoyandHisKite, John Common & Blinding Flashes Of Light, Karli Fairbanks, Sara Swenson, and Oh Starling (Dan Craig and Jessica Sonner).

That’s a dandy, eh? A free dandy. Of course, you can always donate to the cause if you see fit. All donations will go to paying our music licensing fees that make it possible to have musicians play at Everyday Joe’s. This is all explained at the download page, which you can get to by clicking here or on the cover art below. Happy listening!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Our longtime friend Aaron Strumpel is headlining our annual 90/10 Benefit this coming Saturday. Were you aware of that or have you not been listening to the good things your uncle has been trying to teach you? If you are not aware and want to be, read about the benefit here and then listen to Aaron’s critically-acclaimed Elephants, which he will be performing it’s entirety as part of his set.

The companion album to Elephants – Birds – is getting the finishing touches put on it in Aaron’s mountain laboratory. Out of those finishing touches has come and alternate version of a new song titled “Grandma.” Aaron’s words shall take it from here:

Friends!

Well, just a note. I’m hard at work at the new album, almost. Since you’re in the inside loop, thought i’d jot downn a bit more about this song then what i’ve written elsewhere…

I wrote it a few years back after visiting my grandmother. She always loved to give me gifts when I came, and this time she had a chocolate bar or some snack for me…she lives in a nursing home! Anyway, she said she wished she could give me more and was really actually sad about it. I told her I didn’t want anything more than to see her smile and be with her. It’s a crazy thing this life is…we’re born and everything is brand new for 25 years or so, then things get normal and I feel like a lot of us experience a dead zone of plateau if we’re not careful…then we get older and can’t quite do the things we do…but all through it, love from and to family can just immerse and give meaning and beauty to our times and seasons. Anyway, i wrote the song as an inner conversation with myself about being ok with the passing of time and life here.

I’ve never shared it with grandma and now she’s getting a bit older…gonna turn 98 in a couple of weeks! She doesn’t remember me when I visit, but loves it that I come and seems to know what it means when I tell her I’m her grandson. She wears a rosary i gave her a few years ago everyday and I tell her I gave it to here every time I see her. This last time, my dad visited her the night before, saying she was going to have a special visitor the next day and asked her if she knew who it was gonna be…she answered in her 98 yr old voice, ‘is it our dear Lord?’ She was excited to see me and my folks and said, ‘Will you come everyday, can it always be like this?’ and gave me a bag of chips to have on my drive home. She’s so lovely and I hope I get to see her again.

I hope you enjoy this song. It’s a different version from what will be released.

love,
aaron

Oh that Aaron Strumpel. When he opens his heart it can move one two sizes two small. He is a good man.

Listen to “Grandma (Crazy Version)” below and download the track here to hold with you until the Birds can fly home to you and nest next to the Elephant tracks on your heart.

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FURTHER:

• Buy tickets to the 90/10 Benefit
• Buy Elephants

Popularity: 1% [?]

The hipster media has discovered a good thing of Fort Collins.

Today, our good and long-time friends in Candy Claws are part of Pitchfork’s daily Forkast. CC’s beautiful song “Catamaran” is featured and described as a “warm/sunlit” sound. The album In The Dream of Sea Life is both warm and sunlit, though not always both.

Congrats to our Candy Claws pals. Perhaps the 4k will have you take the stage in Chicago come summer of twentyten. If so, road trip. Until then, you can catch Candy Claws when they open up for Paper Bird at Everyday Joe’s on Halloween.

Read Forkast- Candy Claws: “Catamaran”

Popularity: 3% [?]

Musicians are nice when you are nice to them. That is not always true. Sometimes, you just have to be nice to them because it is the thing to do. But other times, being nice is met with treats.

In this case, the treat is a new song from our dear Brooke Waggoner. The e-mail that came with it claimed it as exclusive, but I think that probably went out to many folks. However, it is quite nice.

Her younger brother Phil is a good man, part of the Everyday Joe’s family, and steady musician. Brooke is also a steady musician (methinks it is in the blood) and that steadiness is well portrayed in “Chromates Soft Love” from Brooke’s upcoming release Go Easy Little Doves. Smart brains must also run in the Waggoner blood, because that song title makes my brain hurt. The music, however, does not. Listen below, check out tour dates below that, and then buy Brooke’s new album come Oct. 6

“Chromates Soft Love” by Brooke Waggoner

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Tour Dates
w/ Owl City

Oct 8, 2009 – Des Moines, IA @ People’s Court – Buy Tickets

Oct 9, 2009 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room – SOLD OUT!

Oct 10, 2009 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater – SOLD OUT!

Oct 11, 2009 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue – Buy Tickets

Oct 12, 2009 – Boise, ID @ The Venue – Buy Tickets

Oct 13, 2009 – Spokane, WA @ Big Dipper – SOLD OUT!

Oct 15, 2009 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret – Buy Tickets

Oct 16, 2009 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos – SOLD OUT!

Oct 17, 2009 – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre – SOLD OUT!

Oct 19, 2009 – San Francisco, CA @ Slim’s – SOLD OUT!

Oct 20, 2009 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour – SOLD OUT!

Oct 22, 2009 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues – SOLD OUT!

Oct 23, 2009 – San Diego, CA @ Epicentre – SOLD OUT!

Oct 24, 2009 – Scottsdale, AZ @ Martini Ranch – SOLD OUT!

Oct 25, 2009 – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad – Buy Tickets

Oct 27, 2009 – Tulsa, OK @ Marquee – SOLD OUT!

Oct 28, 2009 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues – SOLD OUT!

Oct 29, 2009 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues – SOLD OUT!

Oct 30, 2009 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s – SOLD OUT!

Oct 31, 2009 – Houston, TX @ Meridian – SOLD OUT!

Solo Show’s

Nov 12, 2009 – Greenville, SC @ Furman University w/ Tyler James

Dec 2, 2009 – Vienna, VA @ Jammin’ Java

Dec 3, 2009 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live

Dec 4, 2009 – New York City, NY @ The Living Room

Popularity: 2% [?]

This is pleasant and savvy.

If you follow our friend Katie Herzig on Twitter (@katieherzig), then you may have read the rumblings of a “live” studio album she was recording with her most-of-the-time tour mates Claire & Jordan. I enjoy “live” studio albums. I also “like” using quotation marks. Guns N Roses recorded “Paradise City” in one take. At least I think it was “Paradise City.” Either way…rock and roll.

This Acoustic Trio album that Herzig has recorded may not rock or roll, but it is free until November 1. You can download the album below. Katie, Claire, & Jordan (plus the rest of Katie’s band) will return to Everyday Joe’s on October 12. Tickets are $12 in advance or $15 at the door and are on sale now at Everyday Joe’s or by clicking here. Gregory Alan Isakov will be opening the show up, so be hip or square but just make sure you’re there.

I wrote that in one take.

FURTHER:

• Buy tickets to see Katie Herzig & Gregory Alan Isakov
• Listen to Gregory Alan Isakov on MySpace

Popularity: 1% [?]

If the music entering my earholes this year gets any better or even continues to be streamed at me at its current rate, my sensory chambers are going to explode.

Sleeping At Last (one of Everyday Joe’s favorite bands/group of favorite people) has been working hard over the past few months on their new album. Rumors have been swirling and swirling and swirling over the past few days via tweets and the like that they were planning on a special immediate release. Well, compadres, that swirling has been put in the fridge and solidified into a beautiful digital download jello mold.

If you head over to the official Sleeping At Last site, you can pre-order the album for $14. You get a digital download immediately (mine will be complete in 2 minutes) and the physical disc mailed to you once it arrives from the factory…assembled ever so gently by cherubs and winged lions. Not really…but maybe.

Here, perhaps this explains things a bit better:

See how easy that is? Do it. My download just finished. Off to spend some quality time in my headphones.

FURTHER:

• Pre-order “Storyboards”
• Official Sleeping At Last studio blog

Popularity: 72% [?]

I told you this was going to happen.

For a while, it seemed like Appendix E-J had turned into a place for all things concerning Aaron Strumpel. His album Elephants just excited us to no end and we knew it was going to make its way to other ears and other places and both those ears and places would pass Elephants on to other ears and places far beyond the reach of a Everyday Joe’s.

It is starting.

How about a full review by noted writer Andy Whitman in Christianity Today?

“…in the hands of many contemporary musicians, the Psalms have been neutered, transformed into wispy, ethereal sighs and coos. The powerful drama so evident on the page—the tug of war between intense pain and fleeting hope, the wrestling with injustice and senseless death, the crying out for mercy and forgiveness—has largely been absent. Aaron Strumpel’s new album, Elephants (Thirsty Dirt), intends to restore the blood and desperation.”

MmmmmmHmmmmmmm. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Read the rest of that review here.

Then you can go ahead and wash down that little word snack with some verbage from the small start-up publication USA TODAY:

“Here’s a fresh reminder of the literary and musical beauty of the Bible — no matter what, or whether, you believe…a new, surprising album of psalms set to music.”

In 5th grade, USA Today was my go-to source for articles to complete my current events reports…mainly because they reported on things like space toilets. Now they are reporting on Aaron Strumpel and people who love his music. Read the rest here.

FURTHER:

• Christianity Today review
• USA Today Mention
• Andy Whitman’s Blog: Razing The Bar

Popularity: 98% [?]