Tag: Live

AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS/LIVE AT THE RAMBLIN’ MAN FAIR

Although their name might imply that they may be a Country or Southern Rock band, The Kentucky Headhunters defy categorization. Their sweaty, chest-pounding sound has it’s roots in classic Rock ‘n’ Roll, Country & Western, Blues, and R&B and sounds great in a beer-stained Country roadhouse, a dusty and dry Summer Bluesfest, and in the comfort of your own home. The Kentucky Headhunters play music that sounds like it was grown and harvested deep in the heart of America. The band never plays it safe and always comes out swinging. They are rowdy, rough, and rockin’… and not necessarily in that order. The Kentucky Headhunters are fearless at what they do. And no matter what you call it, The Kentucky Headhunters do it very well.

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AMPED™ FEATURED ALBUM OF THE WEEK: KEITH HARKIN/IN THE ROUND

     IN THE ROUND is an intimate and personal live album recorded by Keith Harkin, best known as a founding member and lead soloist of Celtic Thunder, the Irish sensations who have sold over a million albums worldwide. Prior to the release of IN THE ROUND, Harkin released two solo studio albums – KEITH HARKIN (2012) and ON MERCY STREET (2016) – plus the Christmas album NOLLAIG (2016), which debuted at #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart. While Celtic Thunder’s theatrical live performances are the stuff of legend, Harkin’s live performance on this release is stripped down to acoustic guitar and vocals. IN THE ROUND lets Harkin’s voice and the songs’ melodies do the talking.

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An Exclusive Q&A with NADA SURF’S Matthew Caws!

PEACEFUL GHOSTS:

STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: PEACEFUL GHOSTS is just about to be released. How are you feeling about the journey to make the album and the way it turned out?
MATTHEW CAWS: It feels like a wonderful gift. An orchestral album is something we never would have imagined doing. When the offer came, we were right in the middle of finishing our most recent studio album, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, and didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on it. We learned that Calexico had been asked the year before, which led us immediately to asking our friend Martin Wenk – one of Calexico’s two trumpetists and a Nada Surf collaborator who has played on some of our songs and joined us on many tours – to produce the album for us. That entailed choosing the songs, choosing a composer/arranger and supervising the project’s development. It felt like a distant concept and then, all of a sudden, there we were in Vienna playing these songs for the conductor. Hours later the orchestra arrived. Two rehearsals after that the audience walked in!

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