Search Results for: jim james

It’s 4 a.m. on the last night of the South by Southwest music conference, and Jim James is belting out Rod Stewart’s “You’re in My Heart.” A few hours earlier, the My Morning Jacket frontman dazzled an intimate crowd at an Austin church with a mostly solo acoustic set, and the full band’s three other performances during the week were some of the most acclaimed of the industry event. But of all the places James could be right now, it’s a cozy terrace suite at Austin’s famed Driskill Hotel, surrounded by a few close friends, a bucket of Miller Lites… Read more »

My Morning Jacket will follow up its performance at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee, with a headlining run, beginning June 20 at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The route includes theaters, large clubs and amphitheaters, and almost all dates will be “an evening with” format, featuring extended sets from the band. The tour is in support of the band’s June 10 ATO release, “Evil Urges.” MMJ frontman Jim James said the band will work plenty of the new material into these shows. “That’s the problem we always have sitting around trying to make a set list,” he… Read more »

Hoboken, N.J. – The brooding kid hailed as rock’s next musical genius slouches next to the bar at a tiny, smoky club. No one notices. Not even this crowd of indie music fans recognizes Conor Oberst, the 24-year-old sensation behind Bright Eyes who’s been pegged as this generation’s Bob Dylan, putting words and melody behind those tormented emotions the rest of us struggle to describe. He pops up on stage to join his friends, Yo La Tengo, for their encore. Then he slides back into the crowd, just another skinny guy in jeans and a black hoodie. But the days… Read more »

Los Angeles – Bright Eyes principal Conor Oberst delivered a finished album to his label last February with an eye on a summer release, but then he had other ideas. He went back into the studio and recorded enough songs for a second set. Unwilling to scrap or combine any of the material, Oberst told his label, Omaha, Neb.-based Saddle Creek Records, that he wanted to release two separate albums – on the same day. “We felt like, ‘Why not kill two birds with one stone and put it all out there?”‘ Oberst says. On Jan. 25, Saddle Creek will… Read more »

Nelly had a fair amount of success earlier this fall when he suckered his fans into buying not one, but two new albums on the same day: the party-pumping Sweat and the slow-jammin’ Suit. You’ve got to have some moxy to pull off the two separate albums released on the same day trick (Guns N’ Roses and Tom Waits – who’ve both pulled it off – aren’t exactly your typical artists). If anything, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst has moxy. The indie rock heartthrob will not only release two albums on the same day (January 25), but he’s planning to launch… Read more »

The Rolling Stones and Radiohead got theirs from song titles, U2 and the B-52’s from military aircrafts and Lynyrd Skynyrd from their old gym teacher. And the stories behind new millennium band names are no less random: Yellowcard According to these So-Cal pop-punkers, “yellowcard” is a take on the ever-popular Frat house idiom, “party foul,” proving drunks can be simultaneously obnoxious and witty. Perhaps Ewan McKegger was already in use. Coldplay Chris Martin and his mates, originally called Starfish, were friends with a band called Coldplay. When that band gave up the name, Starfish asked if they could use it.… Read more »

Lead guitarist Johnny Quaid and keyboardist Danny Cash have quit My Morning Jacket after four years in the band. Both departures were amicable and both Quaid and Cash cited a desire to step back from the rigorous work schedule that the Louisville, Kentucky, troupe took on in support of its third album and major-label debut, 2003’s It Still Moves. Quaid and Cash were on board for MMJ’s debut, 1999’s Tennessee Fire, and its other independent release, 2001’s At Dawn. With buzz from press and other musicians over their high-energy live shows and unique brand of reverb-drenched rock & roll, the… Read more »