Party Dolls, an Athens/Atlanta pop-rock ensemble led by The District Attorneys‘ Drew Beskin and also featuring area notables Tedo Stone, Jeremy Wheatley, Walker Beard and Frank Keith IV, is gearing up to release its debut LP, Love Wars Baby. The album is filled with what Beskin calls “dark, honest, therapeutic and true” songwriting, personal tales of triumph and loss. READ MORE
Sometime last summer, Lily and the Tigers decided to record their third studio album. They chose a studio far outside of town, gassed up the car, and packed it full of instruments… then threw in some tents and camping gear, too.
For a week, the band tracked songs in a Vermont studio during the day and camped under the stars at night. It was cheaper than renting a hotel, but for a band that specializes in ramshackle, flea-bitten folk songs, it was also a stylistic move. The Hand You Deal Yourself is the product of that week spent in the New England wilderness. It’s a raw, ragged campfire album, full of guitars that twang and drums that clang. On the title track, you can almost hear the summer wind whistle through the maple trees. READ MORE
The Song: “Vampire,” a languid, introspective ballad off the upcoming LP Love Wars Baby.
The Artist: Party Dolls
Who’s That: A semi-obscure supergroup combining like-minded members of The District Attorneys, Tedo Stone, Moths, Ruby the Rabbitfoot and the Archers of Loaf side project Crooked Fingers.
Sounds Like: Driving in the rain with the radio cranked up.
Fun Fact: The band got together last year when only half of The District Attorneys were available to play a Valentine’s Day gig in Athens, Georgia. Love Wars Baby, featuring a bevy of therapeutic post-breakup songs, drops on Valentine’s Day this year. Feel the love.
Songwriter says: “‘Vampire’ was an attempt to write a Valentine’s day song and not feeling up to the challenge,” admits Party Dolls’ Drew Beskin. “It was literally written while staring out of a window. I had to call it ‘Vampire’, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I called it ‘Out My Window’.”
Emotional Traffic, Tim McGraw’s much anticipated studio album debuted January 31, 2012 on Billboard’s Country Album chart at #1, featuring the songs “The One” and “Only Human,” co-written by EMI singer/songwriter Angie Aparo. Mr. Aparo has had his compositions recorded by McGraw before as well as by Faith Hill and Miley Cyrus, among others, and has appeared on stage and recordings with Hill, Edwin McCain, Matchbox20 and The Zac Brown Band to name but a few.
In 1999, the Atlanta-based singer/songwriter released his first major label record The American produced by Grammy-winning producer Matt Serletic. The album included “Cry” a song that was later recorded as title track of a hit album by singer Faith Hill. Hill went on to win a Grammy for her performance of Cry. Hill’s husband Tim McGraw then recorded Aparo’s “Free Man” from The American for the soundtrack album for HBO’s documentary about the election of Barack Obama.
Aparo first began playing the Southeast with his acoustic guitar in hand. He released his first solo album Out of the Everywhere in 1996, recorded at David Briggs Studio in Nashville, Tennessee with Jim Stabile as engineer and David Briggs at the piano. This was followed by The American, his label debut for Arista Records.
Running into problems with his label, Angie released Weapon of Mass Construction (2001) (later re-released under the title One With the Sun), a collection of cover songs taken from varying artists from Beastie Boys to Neil Young and Elton John, as well as two previously unreleased originals. In his own words, “I had been playing these cover songs “unplugged” in clubs and thought it would interesting to record those arrangements”.
Following in 2003 was For Stars and Moon, an album heavily influenced by the Beatles. Angie then released the live album 9Live in 2004, a recording from a performance for Atlanta radio station 99X featuring many songs from The American.
Angie’s music started moved in a new direction first apparent on El Primero Del Tres (Spanish for “The First of the Three”) recorded with producer Dann Huff. He continued moving forward stylistically with his most recent release Praise Be.
Angie has a new solo album and book in the works, and a cartoon in development.
After leading several popular ‘80s cult bands in and around his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, Chuck Mead landed on Nashville’s Lower Broadway where he co-founded the famed ‘90s Alternative Country quintet BR549. The band’s seven albums, three Grammy nominations and the Country Music Association Award for Best Overseas Touring Act would build an indelible bridge between authentic American Roots music and millions of fans worldwide. With BR on hiatus, Chuck formed The Hillbilly All-Stars featuring members of The Mavericks, co-produced popular tribute albums to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, guest-lectured at Vanderbilt University, and became a staff writer at one of Nashville’s top song publishers. In 2009, he released his acclaimed solo debut album, Journeyman’s Wager, and toured clubs, concert halls and international Rock, Country and Rockabilly festivals with his band The Grassy Knoll Boys.
As Music Director for the Broadway smash Million Dollar Quartet, Chuck began crafting the music arrangements during the show’s original Daytona and Seattle workshop productions, supervised the musical performances for its 2008 Chicago opening, created new music material for the show’s Tony-winning Broadway run, produced the original cast album, and oversaw the music for its smash 2011 premiere at London’s Noël Coward Theatre.
Chuck’s new album, Back At The Quonset Hut, was recorded at Nashville’s legendary Quonset Hut Studio where Patsy Cline, George Jones, Merle Haggard Roger Miller, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash and more cut some of country’s greatest tracks. Produced by original BR549 producer Mike Janas and with the participation of students from Belmont University’s College of Entertainment and Music Business, the album of classic covers features surviving members of Music Row’s original ‘A Team’ studio musicians as well as guest appearances by Old Crow Medicine Show, Elizabeth Cook, Jamie Johnson and Bobby Bare. “It’s been incredibly liberating to do all these things I’ve never done before,” Chuck says. “I’ve already gone from the bars of Lower Broadway in Nashville to the Broadway stage, and the upcoming album is one of the most unique and rewarding projects I’ve ever been a part of. I’m looking forward to where it all brings me next”.
Bio“We’ve spent the better part of the last five years criss crossing the deepest dirtiest beautiful American South. We are here to entertain. In the bars, so filled with smoke you could hardly recognize a true fire. People have come to see what you got. We show up for the show and wade through a crowd as diverse as the music we’re gonna play tonight. There’s a girl with a tattoo of Dale Earnharts number 3 on her neck. Drifters, grifters, gonna be’s and has beens. Country folk. City folk. Workin’ folk. ‘Remember you can’t be a folk singer if you got no folks to sing to.’ I said that… And these folks expect music all night long… three sets… and requests…
This is where you learn your ‘chops’… tried true and set. It’s where the legends begin. Jimi Hendrix with Little Richard at the Royal Peacock on sweet Auburn Avenue, the Allman Brothers in underground Atlanta, The Satellites at Hedgens. And if you want it, there it is, go get it and you play all night till you can hardly breathe and fingers hurt and you can hardly think through the heat and the there’s ten drunk people talkin’ at you at the same time. Your grace is tested. But there’s always too, that couple in the back sitting quietly at a booth and you can tell from their glances toward you they get it. This is where this album comes from. And I love it. One of the easiest records I ever made, just doing what you do. When in doubt just be yourself.
The opening track ‘Comin’ Round Again’ is an observance of the Katrina disaster on the Gulf Coast of America. A place the band and myself know well. It, I think, echoes the frustration I felt on my visits on conversations. Listen on to the end to feel the rumble of the hurricane and the walls of water breaching the levees. A lot of what I write is about how I think America is better than this. I think people always look at their own communities and countries and feel like it could always be a little better. These reflections can be found in songs like ‘Tell Him Something For Me’ and ‘Covered By An Underground Umbrella’. There are a few different styles on ‘Comin Round Again’ as will be obvious on the second song, a country song entitled ‘The Country Song’. A song for those at home that wait. Lovers, miles from each other but comforted by the fact that looking up to the night sky’s stars, is something they can see together. A song for soldiers, truckers and circus folk.
‘Kinda Like You’ is a song about a writer who’s trying to write the perfect love song. A personal favorite featuring Bryan J Howard’s euphonium recording debut. It is my hope that I’ve captured the feel of the Southern Appalacian mountain range on ’40 Miles Of Mountain Road’ and ‘Chattahoochie Coochie Man’. The Chattahoochie river begins at the foot of the Appalachians and runs through Georgia and Alabama. The lyrics for ‘Forty Miles’ were written by my older brother Mikel, who walked the Appalachian trail as a boy and is now one of America’s best kept secrets, now working on his second album. He’s kind of a cross between Hoagie Carmichael, Fats Waller, Scott Joplin and Django and Stepan combined. An obvious mentor of mine.
‘I Thought By Now (That You’d Figure It Out)’ is one of the audience favorites, a simple dancable ditty with, as always, a conscience. Inspired by a cross between The Who and The Allman Brothers. ‘Sometimes I Wish I Didn’t Care’ and ‘I Wonder’ are acoustic reflections, an example of songs I sing to myself, be it on the stage or in the bed. Another favorite at the live shows is a neo gospel rave up ‘Blues On Top Of Blues’. We get the whole crowd singing… ‘ got blues on top of blues sometimes you feel like the whole world’s comin’ down around you, but I’ve got LOVE on top of LOVE, it’s gonna help me rise above from these blues on top of blues, on top of blues, on top of blues…’ It is our hope that for 45 minutes we have brought into our world. Music is our world and we love it. We see ourselves as a band influenced by our personal idols such as The Who, The Kinks, the Memphis and Detroit Stax Motown experience and as always in a little of the staples like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and, yes, a little John Denver. We do it for the love of it and I think it shows.”