A couple months ago, while out on a run with The Obsessed and Karma to Burn — Tone Deaf is killing it with the package tours this year — bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik of The Atomic Bitchwax sustained an injury to his arm that forced the band to cancel about half the dates. Sierra filled in, but still kind of a bummer for the stalwart NJ trio, whose 2015 Tee Pee Records album, Gravitron (review here), was among the year’s finest.

No doubt they’d get back out, and this time they’ll be headlining a coast-to-coast stint with Ohio’s Lo-Pan and Memphis blues rockers The Dirty Streets. For Lo-Pan, it will mark the four-piece’s first tour with new guitarist Chris Thompson, who was just announced as having joined the band earlier this week. They’re on the tour from Aug. 19 through Aug. 27 only, it looks like, so presumably the next night will serve as their stop at Psycho Las Vegas. The Dirty Streets, on the other hand, have an off-night as the Bitchwax and Lo-Pan roll into Tucson on Aug. 27, so I guess that’s when they’ll be playing the Vegas megafestival.

In any case, glad to see The Atomic Bitchwax heading off again and continuing to keep excellent company. Dates were posted by the band:

USA!!
Arm is healed up so let’s try this again!!

THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX (ALL DATES)
W/ LO PAN (8/19-9/27) and THE DIRTY STREETS (8/19-9/10 excluding 8/27)
08/19/2016 Charlotte NC The Milestone w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/20/2016 Hattiesburg MS The Tavern w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/21/2016 New Orleans LA Siberia w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/22/2016 San Antonio TX Limelight w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/23/2016 Houston TX White Oak Music Hall w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/24/2016 Austin TX Grizzly Hall w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/25/2016 Ft Worth TX Rail Club w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/26/2016 Albuquerque NM Ned’s Bar w/ Lo-Pan, The Dirty Streets
08/27/2016 Tucson AZ Flycatcher w/ Lo-Pan
08/28/2016 San Diego CA Soda Bar w/ The Dirty Streets
08/29/2016 Los Angeles CA Viper Room w/ The Dirty Streets
08/30/2016 San Francisco CA Elbo Room w/ The Dirty Streets
08/31/2016 Portland OR Dante’s w/ The Dirty Streets
09/01/2016 Vancouver BC Biltmore w/ The Dirty Streets
09/02/2016 Seattle WA El Corazon w/ The Dirty Streets
09/03/2016 Bellingham WA Shakedown w/ The Dirty Streets
09/06/2016 Minneapolis MN Grumpy’s w/ The Dirty Streets
09/07/2016 Chicago IL Double Door w/ The Dirty Streets
09/08/2016 Cleveland OH Grog Shop w/ The Dirty Streets
09/09/2016 Philadelphia PA Kung Fu Necktie w/ The Dirty Streets
09/10/2016 Brooklyn NY Black Bear w/ The Dirty Streets

https://www.facebook.com/The-Atomic-Bitchwax-86002001659/
https://www.facebook.com/lopandemic/
https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets
http://tonedeaftouring.com/

The Atomic Bitchwax, Live in Toulouse, France

Memphis trio Dirty Streets, who dropped a “The” from their moniker with their 2013 third album, Blades of Grass (review here), set their foundation early in a blend of classic heavy rock and blues. Since coming together with the consistent lineup of Thomas Storz (bass, percussion), Justin Toland (vocals, guitar, percussion) and Andrew Denham (drums, percussion) and issuing their 2009 debut, Portrait of a Man, and its 2011 follow-up, Movements (review here), before signing to Alive Naturalsound, the three-piece have pushed toward a style built on organic instrumental chemistry and soulful delivery of their material, put together in a songwriting process traditional in its structure but given a vibrant energy by the three-piece’s performance, rhythms and melodies.

Their latest outing, the easy-boogieing White Horse, runs a bit deeper lyrically than did Blades of Grass, dealing with issues of drugs on “Good Pills” and “White Horse,” loneliness on “Good Kind of Woman” and “Dust” and a general longing for things to be better across opening duo “Save Me” and “Looking for My Peace” and the later “When I See My Light.” None of this is new territory for blues, but it’s darker than Dirty Streets have gone before, though set up in a contrast to the band’s generally upbeat instrumental modus. Even the acoustic-led “The Voices” and “Dust” seem to find some resolve or at least catharsis in their own efficient runs, and in any case, at 11 tracks/36 minutes, White Horse hardly sticks around long enough — either in its individual songs or front-to-back course — to wallow. There’s dancing to do.

That brevity and a general forwardness of purpose — Dirty Streets have always eschewed pretense and their fourth LP is no exception — work greatly to White Horse‘s favor. Denham‘s kick sets the pace immediately on “Save Me” and Toland‘s vocals start the first of several sing-along-ready parts the record has on offer, and before the listener really knows it, the track is underway. Something the band has long excelled at is gracefully walking a fine line between heavy, motor-ready riffing and a generally laid back, good-times atmosphere, and while the Matt Qualls-produced outing pans lead guitar from left to right channels on “Looking for My Peace” and peppers arrangements there with piano and on “Dust” with harmonies and wah-soaked notes from Toland to go with Storz‘s “Freebird” bassline, the songwriting ultimately gains as much from what it holds onto from prior outings as from what it presents as growth from the last couple years and/or elements that otherwise flesh out the material and add variety to the album as a whole.

So, a track like “Accents” (the longest inclusion at 4:09) takes cues from psych rock circa ’68 and through a melding of acoustic, guitar, piano and gang-contributed room-vocals charts a diverse trajectory and accomplishes what it sets out to do without a wasted moment. The same could easily be said for White Horse as a whole, an 8-track-ready groove like “Think Twice” meeting head-on with a percussion jam in its second half before Toland begins “When I See My Light” on solo vocals, a gospel nod maybe, before Storz holds together a relative guitar and drum freakout en route to one of the record’s most resonant hooks.

Denham delivers a highlight performance there and it once again holds true for all of White Horse that while Dirty Streets have more to offer melodically than they ever have before, it’s the rhythm, the groove, that carries the listener across the fervent flow between tracks. To wit, the roll of “Good Kind of Woman” into the relatively minimal “The Voices” — even that has a shaker in behind the acoustic guitar — and the raucuousness following with “Good Pills.” The band covers a lot of ground in under eight minutes, tossing out catchy choruses one after another and winding up even showing a bit of cynical edge as the two-minute “Good Pills” rounds out with the lines, “Don’t forget now to take your pills/I know you won’t because you can’t stop.”

In combination with the closing title-track, a masterful groove in the band’s post-Blue Cheer tradition, the theme of drug abuse is clear — not that they were masking it, given the album’s title — but the raw-rocking “Plain” and Hendrixian-psych-meets-’70s-prog of “Dust” provide a buffer while keeping the flow steady between them. Toland‘s vocal performance on “Dust” highlights the singer he’s become, but really, there isn’t one single member of Dirty Streets you might listen to who doesn’t show progression from where they were even two years ago, and much as White Horse as an entire work benefits from the strengths of its individual tracks, so too does the band become stronger for what Toland, Storz and Denham bring to the material. “Plain” tries to make it sound like this is all very easy and simple in its chorus, “Plain/Gotta be plain/I can’t hide it,” but the truth is that chemistry like Dirty Streets‘ doesn’t just happen, and they do right by making the most of it throughout.

Dirty Streets, “Good Pills”

Dirty Streets on Thee Facebooks

Dirty Streets at Alive Naturalsound

Memphis heavy blues trio Dirty Streets (the The seems to be optional at this point) have finished work on their new album, White Horse. This will be their fourth full-length and their second for Alive Naturalsound behind 2013’s Blades of Grass (review here), which also served as their label debut after their breakout with 2011’s Movements (review here) and their could-stand-to-be-reissued 2009 first album, Portrait of a Man.

Like Blades of Grass, the forthcoming White Horse was tracked at Ardent Studio — where one can see the band performing “Stay Thirsty” below. The band began the process in June, and if past is prologue, a fair bit of the recording will have been done live. That’s been the feel of their past work, anyhow, and the process certainly wasn’t broken last time out.

Their quick announcements and more background from the label follow:

Our new record is finally mastered and now we’re getting ready for a release this fall on Alive Naturalsound.

Our new album “White Horse” will be available this fall on Alive Naturalsound Records.

About Dirty Streets:

Formed by Thomas Storz (bass, percussion), Justin Toland (vocals, guitar, percussion) and Andrew Denham (drums, percussion), and originally from Mississippi, the power trio Dirty Streets now calls Memphis home. That’s where they recorded their second album “Blades Of Grass,” at the legendary Ardent studio, under the guidance of sound engineer Adam Hill. The core trio also enlisted the talents of Lucero’s Rick Steff on keys for that effort.

“Blades Of Grass” is heavy music bathed in blues, folk and psychedelia, with chops to spare and a working class point of view. The band already has two independent releases under their belt, including an album with renown Memphis producer Doug Easley, and has toured extensively in the Southeast, with a couple of East Coast runs, and an eight week U.S. tour with Radio Moscow.

https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets
http://www.alive-records.com/artist/the-dirty-streets/
http://dirtystreets.bandcamp.com/album/blades-of-grass

Dirty Streets, “Stay Thirsty” Live at Ardent Studio

Over the last couple years, Kozmik Artifactz and its close cohort, Bilocation Records, have assembled one of the most enviable label rosters in the world for heavy rock and roll and psychedelia. Their commitment is to vinyl releases in limited quantities, and their stuff usually goes. It’s harder to get in the States with import prices, but their reach includes American acts like Ruby the Hatchet, Bison Machine, Valley of the Sun, Space God Ritual and The Dirty Streets, all of whom are featured alongside European groups Somali Yacht Club (Ukraine), Earthmass (UK), Sonora Ritual (Germany) and Domadora (France) as well as Australia’s Child on the new 18-track Home of the Good Sounds Vol. 2 label sampler, which is out today.

With new music from The Heavy Eyes — “Somniloquy” is the first I’ve heard of their upcoming third LP, He Dreams of Lions — as well as Buzzard, the new project from Place of Skulls and Pentagram drummer “Minnesota” Pete Campbell, and UK trio Mammothwing, the sampler should have no trouble piquing interest among the converted while more familiar cuts from The Kings of Frog Island and Valley of the Sun reinforce a solid mixtape feel. I won’t belabor the point that you’re probably about to spend a decent portion of your afternoon head-to-head with these songs — it’s 18 tracks, after all — but there’s a decent flow from one to the next and it’s clear the label was looking to do more than just toss together something haphazardly. Anyone who’s ever held a piece of their vinyl can probably tell you that’s not how they roll.

Plenty of variety, plenty of heavy, and some brand new stuff to preview what they have coming hopefully before the end of 2015, there’s really no way to lose. If nothing else, you can’t beat the price. Kozmik Artifactz was kind enough to let me announce the comp’s arrival, and you’ll find it on the player below, courtesy of their Bandcamp, followed by their official word on today’s release.

Please enjoy:

Kozmik Artifactz and Bilocation Records are very proud to offer to their new and old followers the second label compilation ‘Home of the good sounds – Vol. 2’. The sampler features 18 bands from all over the planet including 12 tracks that are not published on vinyl yet, three of them are exclusively to be heard here: new stuff from The Heavy Eyes from their forthcoming third album ‘He dreams of lions’, mighty Buzzard (featuring Pete Campbell from Pentagram) with ‘Is you Is’ and Mammothwing with a new track from their upcoming epic album ‘Morning light’.

For further informations to bands and releases visit our website www.kozmik-artifactz.com and our shop at http://shop.bilocationrecords.com/.

Thanks to our artist for creating so exciting music and to our customers and friends for their endless support – It is the music that matters!

The Kozmik Crew.

Kozmik Artifactz on Bandcamp

Kozmik Artifactz on Thee Facebooks

Kozmik Artifactz website

Like they do, Dallas trio Mothership are once more headed out on tour. They’re continuing to support last year’s Mothership II (review here), which came out last fall on Ripple Music, and for what’s been dubbed the “Spring Odyssey Tour,” they’re partnered up with underrated Memphis blues jammers The Dirty Streets. The tour will carry Mothership to their appearance at Psycho California alongside Sleep, Pentagram, Kylesa and many, many others (info here) and cover a decent swath of the West Coast and the Midwest, including Chicago, St. Paul, Boise, Denver, and so on.

Shows start one week from today. Here’s the official tour announcement off the PR wire:

Mothership announce Spring Odyssey Tour with The Dirty Streets across the USA this May

After a storming 2014 following the rerelease of their momentous second album through Ripple Music and European debut at The Freak Valley Festival, supersonic/intergalactic Dallas band Mothership return for what promises to be another busy year for the hard rocking Texan trio.

This May, brothers Kyle and Kelly Juett along with Judge Smith take to the road to recreate live their steaming hot stew of UFO and Iron Maiden inspired metal; southern Molly Hatchet and ZZ Top swagger, and deathly Sabbathian rock. A concoction that for some might prove too heavy to handle on record, those brave enough to bear witness to the full Mothership experience will soon discover exactly what it means to party hard.

Since 2013 the band has travelled non-stop to play live across the USA, Canada, United Kingdom and Europe; taking to festival stages, nightclubs, and under the sun at whatever motorcycle parties they could find. They are for all intents and purposes a heavy rock juggernaut that has only just begun to tear a hole in the cosmos. And guess what? They have no plans of slowing down for anyone.

For the full list of dates on Mothership’s Spring Odyssey Tour with Memphis band The Dirty Streets see below.

1st May – St. Louis, MO – Fubar
2nd May – Dubuque, IA – Vintage Torque Festival*
3rd May – Milwaukee, WI – Metal Grill
4th May – Chicago, IL – Reggie’s
5th May – St. Paul, MN – Big V’s Saloon
6th May – Kansas City, MO – The Scene
7th May – Denver, CO – Moon Room
9th May – Boise, ID – Crazy Horse
10th May – Vancouver, BC – Hindenburg*
11th May – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
13th May – Bend, OR – Volcanic Theatre Pub
15th May – South Lake Tahoe, CA – Whiskey Dicks
17th May – Orange County, CA – Psycho California*
*Mothership Only

Mothership is Kelley Juett (guitars/vocals), Kyle Juett (bass/vocals) and Judge Smith (drums).

http://www.mothershiphaslanded.com/
https://www.facebook.com/mothershipusa
https://twitter.com/mothershipusa
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Mothership, Mothership II (2014)

Late in 2013, Scion A/V sent Memphis heavy rockers The Dirty Streets into the studio to record a new song, and on Feb. 11, they’ll release the resulting track as a split 7″ with Canadian duo Indian Handcrafts. Ahead of that release, I’ve got the pleasure of streaming and hosting a free download of “One for You,” which represents the first audio to come from The Dirty Streets since their 2013 third album and Alive Naturalsound debut, Blades of Grass (review here), which hit last summer at what seemed just the right moment to coincide with its organic, vintage-feeling shuffle.

For anyone who heard that record, the trio of Justin Toland (guitars/vocals), Thomas Storz (bass) and Andrew Denham (drums) sound a bit more spacious on “One for You.” Denham‘s drums start the song and even before Toland‘s guitar echoes kick in with Storz‘s reliably smooth bassline eases the way into the first verse, you can hear the big-room sensibility that plays out through the song. At the same time, The Dirty Streets sound increasingly at home in their sound, not necessarily coasting creatively — Toland‘s vocals are more his own here than they’ve yet been on a studio work from the band — but confident in their ability to do what they do.

And what’s that? Well, boogie. “One for You” is a classic funkified blues groove of the kind that seems to come so naturally to The Dirty Streets and with thanks to the crew at Scion A/V, I’m thrilled to be able to host the premiere for your perusal below ahead of the single’s release next week. Please enjoy:

The Dirty Streets, “One for You”

Scion A/V is offering a free download of the new Dirty Streets’ single “One For You,” which was recorded exclusively as part of the Scion Rock Show 7-inch series.

The young Memphis proto-punk-meets-soul trio released their sophomore album, Blades of Grass, in July.

The Dirty Streets upcoming shows:
1/21 White Water Tavern- Little Rock, AR
1/24 Spring Street Firehouse-Birmingham, AL
2/7 The Heavy Anchor-St. Louis, MO

The Dirty Streets on Thee Facebooks

Scion A/V

Alive Naturalsound

You wouldn’t be wrong to call The Dirty Streets influenced by classic rock, but more than a lot of bands who take cues from the heavy ’70s, the Memphis trio seem less concerned with the aspects of the music that are of that era than of the parts of it that are timeless. You know what I mean? They’re not trying to sound like it’s 1973 so much as they’re translating what worked about that then into something that works now. Their third album, Blades of Grass (review here), came out this summer on Alive Records and they’ve been supporting it with a steady stream of live shows ever since.

The latest batch of gigs finds the warm-groovers headed to the West Coast. Making their way out through Texas and Arizona — one can only hope they’ll make the requisite stop somewhere in the desert to take promo pictures — they’ll wind up out Californey way before swinging back through the Midwest. I’ve had my eye out hoping for some East Coast touring since the record dropped and haven’t seen it yet, but wherever they’re headed, it’s good to know they’re headed out.

Dates follow, courtesy of the PR wire:

DIRTY STREETS on tour!

Hitting the road in a few weeks and heading out west. A few more dates hang in the balance and might be announced soon. See you guys out there!

The Dirty Streets ON TOUR!
Oct 22 @ White Water Tavern – Little Rock, AR
Oct 24 @ Muddy Waters Bar – Dallas,TX
Oct 25 @ Hotel Vegas – Austin,TX
Oct 27 @ Tempe Tavern – Tempe, AZ
Oct 28 @ Soda Bar – San Diego, CA
Oct 30 @ The Satellite – Los Angeles, CA
Nov 1 @ Velveteen Rabbit – Las Vegas, NV
Nov 4 @ Lost Lake Lounge – Denver, CO
Nov 5 @ O Leavers – Omaha, NE
Nov 6 @ Foam – St. Louis, MO
Nov 7 @ PK’s – Carbondale, IL

Dirty Streets, “Stay Thirsty” from Blades of Grass (2013)

Memphis heavy rock trio The Dirty Streets proved their mettle with their 2011 sophomore outing, Movements. Between the album itself (review here) and the quality of their performance during subsequent touring (live review here), it wasn’t much of a surprise that the band were picked up by Alive Naturalsound for the release of the follow-up, Blades of Grass. The third full-length finds the three-piece of Justin Toland (guitars/vocals/percussion), Thomas Storz (bass/percussion) and Andrew Denham (drums/percussion) taking on the role collectively of producer alongside engineer Adam Hill, who recorded and mixed the 11 tracks/39 minutes of Blades of Grass in Memphis. Aside from a guest spot from Lucero‘s Rick Steff with piano on opener “Stay Thirsty” and organ on “Try Harder,” there isn’t much change evident in The Dirty Streets‘ overall ethic, though. Their songwriting remains perhaps the strongest element working in their favor, with memorable hooks peppered throughout the collection beginning with the already-noted opener and running through the title track and the later highlight “Keep an Eye Out,” and the performances of Toland, Storz and Denham come through clean and crisp with just enough edge to them to hold onto the summer-bluesy feel the band presented so naturally throughout the course of Movements. That’s not to say there are no signs of creative growth, however. Both in terms of the overall cleanliness of the production — Hill, who also contributes backing vocals and percussion, has worked with the likes of George Thorogood and The Raconteurs at Ardent Studios — and in the clarity of the band’s intent, Blades of Grass is a step forward from where The Dirty Streets were two years ago, and they seem to have that much more of an idea of how they want to sound moving forward. To that end, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if at some point they picked up a full-time keyboardist/organist, since Steff‘s work on “Stay Thirsty” and “Try Harder” fits so well with the band’s organic, grassroots-feeling heavy blues rock style, Toland‘s vocals keeping an edge of Blue Cheer inflection to them but becoming even more his own than they were last time out.

High points come at frequent intervals. “Stay Thirsty” starts Blades of Grass off strong with a commanding stomp and smooth transition to its hook, which despite being reminiscent of those Dos Equis commercials, is one of the album’s best and complemented suitably by the emergence of a secondary chorus in the bridge. The structure and roots of the band are traditional, but there’s nothing overly retro to The Dirty Streets‘ approach, and if anything, Blades of Grass sounds even more modern than did Movements, second cut “Talk” backing “Stay Thirsty” with affirmation of the record’s approach and a touch of start-stop funk to the lyrics, concerned with social issues but not engaging anything specifically as Storz offers an easy-rolling groove on bass that proves among the most satisfying throughout. Toland steps to the fore on guitar with “No Need to Rest” — not quite a shuffle musically, but close — as the band shifts gears from relying so heavily on the chorus to making the most of their instrumental chemistry, which is more than ample enough to carry them through. A mostly-acoustic reworking of the Movements title-track, dubbed “Movements #2” follows in well-percussed fashion, marking a turn more in superficial style than the underlying structure of the material or the warm, natural sensibility at the heart of The Dirty Streets, and both “Try Harder” and “Blades of Grass” prove standouts of the album as a whole, the former for what’s added to it via Steff‘s organ contribution and the latter because it’s the most accomplished blend of the various aspects of the band’s persona, putting light touches of Americana to work in a vaguely funky context (answering the earlier “Talk” and surpassing it in realizing some of the same ideas) with fluid rhythms, strong hooks and a tossed-off, spontaneous feel at a comfortable, mid-paced push that starts the second half of the album on a note even more striking than that which began the first.

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