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Home , Breaking Us in Two, Graham Maby, Joe Jackson (musician), Ken Tucker, Marshall Crenshaw, WFIT

RIGHT ARM RESOURCE UPDATE JESSE BARNETT [email protected] (508) 238-5654 www.rightarmresource.com www.facebook.com/rightarmresource 1/9/2019 Guster “Overexcited” The first single from Look Alive, in stores 1/18 Most Added early with over 25 stations on board immediately including: WFUV, WXRV, WNCS, WRNR, KJAC, WEHM, KVNA, WXCT, WTMD, KVNV, KTBG, WZEW, KYSL, WBJB, KMMS, KNBA, KMTN, WCNR... WXPN Free At Noon this week! CBS Saturay Morning coming up National tour kicks off the month and runs through April The Devil Makes Three “Paint My Face” The new single from Chains Are Broken, out now Early adds at KYSL, KRML and KSLU Catch them on tour now: 1/16 Saxapahaw NC, 1/17 Asheville NC, 1/18 Atlanta GA, 1/19 Knoxville TN, 1/20 Nashville TN, 1/23 Penscaola FL, 1/24 New Orleans LA, 1/25 Houston TX, 1/26 Austin TX, 1/27 Dallas TX, 1/30 St. Louis MO, 1/31 Madison WI... “Friend Better” The first radio single from Fool, in stores January 18 New: WFPK, KPND, WCBE, WMWV, KNBA, WBZS, WZLO, WYCE... Early: WXPN, WFUV, KCSN, WEHM, KTBG, KVNA, KVNV, WAPS, WYEP, WDST, WBJB, KYSL, WNRN, WFIV, KROK, WKZE, KUMT, KBAC, WVOD and more 2019 marks 40 years since the release of the Look Sharp 40 Years Of Music tour dates kick off in February Citizen Cope “Justice” The first single from Heroin and Helicopters, in stores March 1 Mediabase 50*, BDS Monitored Debut 37*, Indicator Debut 25*, FMQB Public Debut 44*! Tour kicks off March 1 First week: WPYA, KTHX, KVNA, KTBG, WCNR, WEXT, WMWV, KCLC, KNBA, KHUM, XM Loft... Early: Music Choice, WRNR, WRLT, WXPN, WFUV, KJAC, WFPK, WYEP, WDST, KPND, WTMD, WBJB, WNRN, KVWF, WFIV... Sean McConnell “Here We Go” The first single from Secondhand Smoke, in stores February 8 New: WCBE, WEXT, WBJB, KCLC, WBZS Early: WFIV, KLRR and WHRV “I am very taken with, and have spent my life listening for, that voice that speaks to you in the silence... I am a firm believer in signs and following them. This is a about that kind of listening and watching.” - Sean on the single Headlining tour in March and May, support for Needtobreathe in April Aaron Lee Tasjan “End Of The Day” The second single from Karma For Cheap, out now New: WTMD, WCBE, WJCU, WUSM, WYCE, WDVX Early: WRLT, KJAC, WBJB, WNRN, WFIV, KPIG, KRML, KUWR Cheap Trick tour in February NPR Tiny Desk taped in December “Nashville’s most eclectic singer- returns with a trippy stunner full of swirling, immersive rock that evoke both the effervescence of the Sixties and the grit of today.” - Ron Gallo “Love Supreme (Work Together!)” From Stardust Birthday Party, out now New: KHUM, WYCE, KSLU ON: WXRT, KVNV, WYEP, Music Choice, KUTX, WDST, WPYA, WTMD, KJAC, WNRN, WFIV, KLRR and more Daytrotter, Paste and WFUV performances online now New tour dates start January 31 “His infectious yawp and party-starting rhythms exude an authentic, urgent sense of exuberance.” - Consequence Of Sound Greta Van Fleet “You’re The One” The new single from Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, out now SNL 1/19!! Mediabase 38*, BDS Monitored 28*, BDS Indicator 20*! Grammy nominees - Best New Artist! New: WMWV, KHUM, KSLU, WFIT, MSPR ON: WXRT, WXRV, KCMP, KINK, WRLT, WERS, WYEP, WPYA, WXPK, KPND, KVNA, KRSH, WZEW, WTMD, WAPS, WCLZ, KTBG and more The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Jungle “Smile” The new single from For Ever New: KRML, MSPR ON: WYEP, WXCT, WNRN, WAPS, WVOD, KLRR, WYCE, KMMS, WFIV, KRCL, KCLC, KSMF, KRVM, WMNF... Massive national exposure via the Uber commercial campaign More US tour dates in March 2019 “Kicks things off with a tribalistic beat that drives the song into a volcanic eruption of vocals. It’s an instant highlight.” - Hot Press Sister Sparrow “Gold” The title track from Gold, out now FMQB Tracks 46*, Public 34*! New: WBJB, WEVL ON: WRLT, WFUV, WXPN, WTMD, Music Choice, WFPK, KVNA, WAPS, WDST, WYEP, KRSH, WZEW, KPND, WUIN, WEXT, WMVY, KROK, WYCE, WFIV, WSGE, KNBA, KMMS... “Arlene Kincheloe has one of the biggest voices in the business. Prepare to be blown away.” - Baltimore Sun morgxn “home” (w/Walk The Moon) From his album Vital, out now Mediabase Alternative #19, AAA 25*, BDS Monitored 27*! New: CIDR, KBCO, KDTR ON: WXRY, KGSR, WXRV, KRVB, WRLT, WMMM, KINK, WWCT, WPYA, WNCS, KPND, WZEW, KVNA, KVNV, KYMK, WXCT, WAPS, WRSI, WFIV, WCNR, KCLC... This stemmed from their appearance together at Lollapalooza Played Kimmel last night! Tons of licensing for the track already Barns Courtney “99” From his upcoming album Mediabase 17*, BDS Monitored 14*, Indicator 14*, Mediabase Alternative 14*! New: WXRV, WNCS, WQKL ON: KGSR, WTTS, Sirius Spectrum, WRLT, CIDR, WRNR, KINK, WPYA, KTHX, KVNV, Music Choice, WXPK, KPND, WAPS, KXT, KVNA... Dates with The Kooks: 2/11 Oakland CA, 2/12 Los Angeles CA, 2/14 Dallas TX, 2/15 Austin TX, 2/16 Houston TX, 2/18 Nashville TN, 2/19 Atlanta GA... In case you missed it, check out Fresh Air’s take on Aaron Lee Tasjan , HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Aaron Lee Tasjan is a singer-songwriter currently residing in Nashville, but he’s not a country artist. Claiming to be heavily influenced by rockers like David Bowie and , Tasjan recently told Rolling Stone he hopes his new album, “Karma For Cheap,” can help to comfort or uplift somebody. One of the people he’s uplifted is our rock critic Ken . Here’s Ken’s review of “Karma For Cheap.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “STRANGE SHADOWS”)

AARON LEE TASJAN: (Singing) Strange shadow is painted on her eyes. She’ll lose it when she cries in the rain. Strange...

KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: With his yearning vocals and strong guitar lines, Aaron Lee Tasjan has a kind of passion in his plaintiveness, an urgency in his anguish. It’s the sound of a man who’s eager to fall in love and unafraid of having his heart broken because it might teach him something about the person he fell for or about his own shortcomings. Also, he knows he might get a good song out of it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE TRUTH IS SO HARD TO BELIEVE”)

TASJAN: (Singing) It’s all in your head. There’s no race to be won. The world that you’re in is a beautiful one. With the sun in your eyes through the golden haze, yeah, you’re doing all right in so many ways. But the truth is so hard. The truth is so hard to believe. And when you see yourself as somebody else, it’s more than the mind can conceive. But the truth is so hard. The truth is so hard to believe.

TUCKER: You listen to Aaron Lee Tasjan and start picking up on his influences - the very tart George Harrison guitar tone on that song, “The Truth Is So Hard To Believe,” for instance. Tasjan lives in Nashville these days, but this Ohio-born musician did a stint in City, playing in the neo-glam band Semi Precious Weapons as well as a latter-day version of the . The echoey, sometimes slightly distorted vocals remind me of T. Rex and Harry Nilsson with a hint of . It wouldn’t add up to much of course if Tasjan wasn’t supply- ing his own original melodies and hooks.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “END OF THE DAY”)

TASJAN: (Singing) Is that the sweet angel I used to know? She traded her heart for a mansion on Music Row. A little devil on my shoulder gives me a smile. And I can’t tell you if he’s been there for a while. I’ve lived on the both sides of the river. I’ve been both a saint and a sinner. And I’m here to tell you there’s nothing you can really say. All comes down to how you’re living at the end of the day, at the end of the day.

TUCKER: “Karma For Cheap” is Tasjan’s third album. And as yet, no one seems to know where to categorize him in the music industry. His previous album, “Silver Tears,” earned him a nomination for an award from the Americana Music Association, and he’s played in bluegrass festivals. He’s toured as the opening act for the punk band Social Distortion and, quite separately, for Sheryl Crow as well. Indeed, if you listen closely, you’ll hear Crow singing harmonies on the refrain of “Crawling At Your Feet.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CRAWLING AT YOUR FEET”)

TASJAN: (Singing) Woe is me for my heart is on fire. It burns like a tire, and there’s nothing I can do. Oh, my beast - chain it to the radiator. I’ll show you how it feels when there’s evil on your heels. Crawling at your feet with the hustlers and thieves, come to cut you at the knees - there’s something in the sheets, and it’s crawling at your feet. Every night...

TUCKER: I went on a long vacation car ride recently and took along a bunch of new CDs. Yes, I still listen to CDs as one way to get my music. When an album holds up to hours of repeated plays, I know it’s a keeper. And “Karma For Cheap” only grew on me more as the hours went by. This is where the kind of music that Aaron Lee Tasjan makes proves its worth. Now, if only his kind of was more popular.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for Yahoo TV. He reviewed Aaron Lee Tasjan’s new album, “Karma For Cheap.” (Fresh Air, 9/19/18) Joe Jackson talks to Billboard about Fool and four decades of music “It’s funny that now people look back and say, ‘Oh, I like your early stuff, like Look Sharp! and Night and Day,” confides Joe Jackson about the that made ‘70s new wave history and expanded ‘80s pop’s boundaries, respectively. “It seemed to me at the time that they were radically different.” Jackson’s plans for 2019 will offer a chance for new perspectives on these milestones and more — his projects include both a 40th anniversary tour and a new album with ties to his rocking past. Jackson releases Fool on Jan. 18 and begins his Four Decade Tour on Feb. 5. Over the last 40 years, his mercurial muse has led him through jump , symphonic music, , rock, film scores, and more. The tour is an opportunity to create a kind of live highlight reel, and the straightforward rock-band format of the new album bears a bit of the energy of his early efforts, albeit tempered with a well-earned maturity. The set list for Jackson’s tour focuses on one album from each decade of his career, with 1979 debut Look Sharp! lead- ing the charge. England was overtaken by new wave at that point, and that energy infected Jackson, even though his skills were well beyond most of his peers. “When I was 22, 23 years old in London in the late ‘70s I was very influenced by what was going on around me,” remembers Jackson, “even if I was already overqualified to be a punk rocker. I was a Steely Dan-loving piano player. And I was interested in jazz, and I had classical training as well, so I was a bit of a misfit.” Nevertheless, hits like “Is She Really Going Out With Him” and “It’s Different for Girls” (the latter from his second LP, I’m the Man) connected with the zeitgeist in a major way. “I would say that probably those two albums are the closest I ever came to fitting in with the musical climate of a specific time and place,” Jackson reckons. It didn’t take too long for Jackson’s artistic restlessness to take him elsewhere both musically and geographically. By the early ‘80s he was living in New York soaking up new sounds that would inspire the cosmopolitan pop of Night and Day, which eschewed guitars (and rock n’ roll entirely) and focused on keyboards and Latin percussion. “New York at that time was a very exciting place to be,” remembers Jackson. “What was happening musically was very interesting. Not just the CBGB connection but what was happening in Latin music. And you had the beginnings of hip-hop then, too. It was a very interest- ing place and time, like London had been in the late ‘70s.” Between the synth-pop sparkle of “Steppin’ Out” and the lush balladry of “,” Night and Day became Jackson’s biggest album ever, but it was far from a sure thing. “I really was nervous about putting that album out,” he confesses. “I thought there was a pretty fair chance that everyone would hate it.” Jackson pragmatically enumerates what he sees as contributing factors to the record’s success. “The fact that I was still seen as a relatively new artist that the media was interested in, to the extent that if I did something rather different they would pay attention. The fact that I was with a record company who were hot at that point [A&M], and who decided to prioritize that record and really give it a big push. The fact that MTV was still quite new and we made videos for the album, which got played a lot. The fact that we toured for a whole year to support the album…and the fact that, I hope, that it was a pretty good album too.” It was inevitable that Night and Day would represent the ‘80s on the Four Decade Tour, and 1991’s Laughter and Lust stands up for the following de- cade. It was actually Jackson’s only conventional pop album of the ‘90s. “Later in the ‘90s I went through a phase where I was fed up with writing songs,” he explains. “I went into what a lot of people probably see as my mad scientist phase. It was kind of a weird time, because after I did Laughter and Lust I had serious writer’s block, I didn’t write anything at all for a couple of years. And when I came back to making music I didn’t just want to write songs.” Dur- ing that period, Jackson crafted such complex, classically influenced albums as Night Music and Heaven and Hell. “I’m quite proud of them,” he says, “but they are definitely not pop mainstream and I didn’t really expect a lot of people to like them. And I was right.” 2008’s Rain is the record occupying the 2000s slot on the tour’s set list. It was Jackson’s most small-scale production up to that point, and it found him backed by his original rhythm section of bassist and drummer Dave Houghton. “All I wanted to do was write the most classic songs that I could,” recalls Jackson, “in the simplest, most stripped-down way that I could possibly do. And that turned out to be just voices, piano, bass, and drums. Another reason why I like the idea of zeroing in on that album with my current band is that I can actually reinvent the songs a bit by adding the guitar. So that makes it a bit more interesting.” Like Rain, not to mention Jackson’s first few albums, Fool (which features Maby, guitarist Teddy Kumpel, and drummer Doug Yowell) is a visceral small- band record bursting with immediacy. “It’s very much a band album,” agrees Jackson, “I hadn’t really done that for a while. I had such a good time touring the last three years or so with this band, I really wanted to record something with them.” “I think every track is fucking great,” Jackson admits. “I don’t believe in false modesty [laughs], I feel that if I put something out in front of the public, then I should feel that it’s great, because I have no guarantee that anyone else will. And I shouldn’t expect them to, unless I think it’s great in the first place.” Tunes like “Fabulously Absolute” and the title track are the most raucous cuts Jackson has released in a long time, but as always, there’s a lot of lyrical sophistication at work as well. Over the almost Beatlesque piano pulse of “Big Black Cloud,” he satirizes what he sees as a disturbing trend. “It’s the politics of fear and a general kind of paranoid mindset where people seem to be scared of their own shadows a lot of the time,” he explains, “People in positions of authority, all kinds of authority, seem to try to legitimize or bolster their authority by frightening us one way or another, by basically saying, ‘The sky is falling but if you support me and vote for me and do what I say you’ll be OK.’” “Fool” itself advocates for the sociopolitical power of a more lighthearted mindset. “I imagine this character the fool as the personification of humor,” Jackson explains, “and he’s like a superhero. He’s got this power to make people laugh and he’s invulnerable, you can’t kill him, and he lives forever, he’s never gonna go away, at least I hope not. Every totalitarian regime has tried to suppress humor, because tyrants can’t bear to be laughed at, but you can’t stop it in the end. I think it’s one of the most amazing things about human beings.” Jackson decided to release Fool in January of ‘19 to keep with the chronology of the 40th anniversary idea, Look Sharp! having been unveiled in January of ‘79. As much as anything else, his Four Decade Tour underscores the maverick nature of his music. “I don’t really think in terms of genres or fashion,” says Jackson. “I never did, particularly, but at this point I’m really way past it. I mean, I’ve been past my sell-by date for a long time when it comes to being cool and fashionable and so on -- I just don’t give a damn. “I think I wrote in my book [1999 memoir A Cure for Gravity] somewhere that the only way to really get the upper hand is to really not give a shit,” he laughs. “I don’t care about that stuff, I care about the music. I care about making the album as good as it can be. And I care about putting on the best show I possibly can, every night making it great, really connecting with people and having a good time.” - Billboard, 1/8/19 Coming up... 1/22: Ryan Bingham “Jingle and Go,” Catfish & The Bottlemen “Longshot”... 1/28: Kurt Vile “Rollin With The Flow”... 2/4: Lily & Madeleine “Can’t Help The Way I Feel,” Robert Ellis “When You’re Away” RIGHT ARM RESOURCE WEEKLY UPDATE - 1/9/2019