These Alabama Shakes tourmates offer their own loose-limbed take on rootsy Southern rock, with a jam that choogles like the second coming of Creedence.
DEAD JOURNALIST interview with LEE BAINS III & The GLORY FIRES
Exclusive Interview: Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires
by Chuck Norton
My interview with Lee Bains III of Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires is one of the most interesting, insightful, laugh-out-loud interviews I’ve done. And because it’s a little long, I’m going to try to keep this introduction as short as I can. I don’t want to lose you before you get to the good stuff.
Here’s the skinny on Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires:
They are from one of the most music-rich areas of the country: Alabama. It is an area that might prove to have as many break-through artists in 2012 as anywhere this side of New York. Really. Alabama.
Specifically, the band is from Birmingham. Bains III, who returned to the state after going to school in New York, joined legendary Tuscaloosa band, the Dexateens in 2008. After playing with the band for several years, they called it quits, and Bains III played as a solo artist before deciding to look for a band. Pulling from the region’s talent, he recruited Blake Williamson (Black Willis, Taylor Hollingsworth, Dan Sartain), Justin Colburn (Model Citizen, Arkadelphia) and Matt Wurtele to form the Glory Fires.
The band’s combination of rock, punk, soul and country is typical of the sound that comes out of the Quad Cities, an area in North Alabama rich with musical talent going back to the 1960′s – and home of one of the fasting rising bands in music, the Alabama Shakes.
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW WITH LEE BAINS ON THE DEAD JOURNALIST SITE
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ARTROCKER review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
THE GUARDIAN/THE OBSERVER review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
Kitty Empire
The Observer, Saturday 30 July 2011
Under the alias Oliver Henry, Brian Olive cut his chops in bands such as the Soledad Brothers and the Greenhornes: retro-leaning, attitudinal outfits who came to some prominence in the slipstream of the White Stripes. Next up are sax parts on Dr John’s next album, but in the meantime Olive’s second solo offering lends a pleasingly spacey, psychedelic edge to vintage sounds, with sympathetic production provided by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. You could argue retro soul and R&B are two of the decade’s hegemonic sounds, but there’s no vamping here. Rather, songs such as “Go On Easy” glide by in an opiated glaze, while “Strange Attracter” makes unexpectedly groovy use of the bagpipes.
The INDEPENDENT review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
POPMATTERS 8/10 review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
POPMATTERS
Brian Olive: Two of Everything
By Alan Brown 11 July 2011
Almost three years have passed since Brian Olive emerged from the vault of the Cincinnati pawn-shop-turned-recording-studio he helped build clutching his excellent full-length solo debut. Yet it appears the ex-Soledad Brother hasn’t just been busy touring and helping out friends—most recently as guest player on label-mate T-Model Ford’s album Taledragger—but has also been behind the console developing his knob-twiddling skills. Two of Everything is as complex as it is catchy. Adventurous arrangements employ gauzy synthesizers, flutes, punchy Muscle Shoals-style sax and, in one exemplary case on “Strange Attractor”, what sounds like bagpipes. Olive creates atmospheric layers of sound dappled in splashes of dreamy psych-pop sunshine that, on occasion, bring to mind the top-down grooves of ‘60s Chicago outfit the Buckinghams. Soulful glam-orized R&B stomp is still to be heard on songs such as opener “Left Side Rock” and “Back Sliding Soul”, it’s just tempered with a laid-back vibe that finds Olive mellowing down easy.
UNCUT review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
MOJO review of BRIAN OLIVE “Two Of Everything”
