(Blurt Online) Coming March 13 from Columbia/Legacy: Live at the Carousel Ballroom, a previously unreleased Big Brother and the Holding Company (w/Janis Joplin), recorded June 23, 1968 by legendary soundman Owsley Stanley, a/k/a "Bear," who supervised the mastering of this release before his fatal car accident on March 12, 2011, in his adopted homeland of Australia.  The release of the album marks the one-year anniversary of his passing and is dedicated to Bear.

"Care was taken to preserve and ensure the integrity of the music as well as to present an accurate snapshot of the masterful talent of one of the greatest singers of her generation and one of the hottest live bands in the San Francisco scene," wrote Bear's widow, Sheilah Stanley, in her dedication to Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968.  "This is Bear's vision - how he heard the band live, and how he wanted to transmit that to you... this truly is Bear's presentation of this phenomenal band and inspirational music."

Cited by San Francisco rock scribe Joel Selvin as "truly one of the fathers of today's concert sound systems," Owsley Bear Stanley "supervised the sound at the Carousel Ballroom, a former big band dance palace at the corner of Market and Van Ness in downtown San Francisco that, for a few months in 1968 was operated by a collective formed by the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company, a social/musical laboratory experiment akin to inmates running asylums, whose six-month run may well have corresponded with the height of the whole '60s Haight-Ashbury/San Francisco thing...."

An essential and pivotal figure in the San Francisco counter-cultural scene, from beatniks to hippies to beyond, Bear began mixing live sound with the Grateful Dead in 1966 and ran the sound system for the Carousel until Bill Graham took over and rechristened it the…

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George Jones, a legendary country music singer of our time, recorded the theme song for the upcoming episode of Squidbillies premiering, Sunday, Oct. 2 at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT) on Adult Swim. Watch behind-the-scenes footage of George Jones singing the track with a live band in the Blackbird studio in Nashville, Tenn. George Jones is joined by Hargus "Pig" Robbins who plays the piano on the track who notably played piano on Jones' first number 1 hit from 1957, White Lightning.

 

 

Squidbillies creators, Dave Willis (Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1) and Jim Fortier (The Brak Show) wrote the track and are thrilled to have George Jones record the theme for Squidbillies. Willis has been a fan of Jones for a long time stating, “I grew up with his music playing in my parents' car. I've been trying to get him to do the show for five years. This was my dream.” Willis said George Jones was a pleasure to work with and after the session Willis, “…bought snakeskin boots and a plate of barbecue to celebrate.”

 

The theme has two parts. Part one is inspired by Jones' early music, specifically the track White Lightning. The second part breaks down into a slower song more reminiscent of Jones' hits from the late seventies and early eighties with a lyrical nod to He Stopped Loving Her Today.

 

Squidbillies, the hilarious original animated series takes viewers into the surreal world of backwoods Appalachian squids. Season five promises more of what fans have come to love: big trucks, shotguns, hot ladies, funny hats and lots of good-old down-home all-American pride in the U.S. of A. Squidbillies premieres Sunday nights at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT) on Adult…

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The legendary Bottle Rockets, hailing from St. Louis and extant since 1992, are still going strong and set to release Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening With the Bottle Rockets on Bloodshot on Aug. 16. The record was cut live in a 19^th century schoolhouse in St. Louis and aims to spotlight "a dimension of the band easily overlooked" amid the usual cacophony of blazing amps and twanging guitars.

 

According to the band, "Choosing the right venue is important to the success of any show, and the Lucas School House in St. Louis was our correct choice for two sold out shows. Located on the edge of the historic Soulard neighborhood, the venue was formerly a one-room school built in 1898. The small, second floor gymnasium had been renovated into a concert hall with a beautiful wooden interior, stained glass, plush leather seating and state-of-the-art sound system. Serving as an ideal listening room during its short life, any performance in that space was an intimate music experience."

 

As Bloodshot puts it, "The Bottle Rockets have been making some of the most incisive, literate and lighter-raising American music for going on eighteen years now.  And some of the loudest, with a reputation built on a rough and tumble snarl honed by a thousand nights on stages around the world.  But that only speaks to part of the story of the Bottle Rockets. So many bands, when you unplug the amps, you find that the emperor has no clothes, that the songs collapse in the quiet; it was the thrill of the tables rattling and ears ringing that sold the goods; the cold of the beer, the heat of the moment.'"

 

Pulling from all eras of their catalog, including classics from seminal albums long out of print, Not So Loud "re-casts Bottle Rockets'…

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After a stretch of 11 years since their last studio recording, The Jayhawks have come together for the new album, Mockingbird Time. The album contains 12 tracks and will be released on September 20 on Rounder Records. The album will include all former bands members with songs written by band leaders Mark Olson and Gary Louris. Louris will also serve as the album’s producer.

 

Mockingbird Time was recorded at The Terrarium Recording Studios in Minneapolis over a month in the winter of 2010. When asked about their return to the studio, Lauris reflected, “The difference from then and now is that Mark and I have both experienced different kinds of music and expanded our palates. So this record has moments of experimentation and a bit of worldliness. I like a well-crafted, in-and-out kind of song, but with Mark, the lyrics dictate the music, and he’ll go off into interesting, asymmetrical compositions. So it’s a nice balance. Certain things were meant to be—like peanut butter and jelly—and Mark and I just work well together. And having done a lot of co-writing during the last six or seven years, I’m more appreciative of the magic that we have together. That doesn’t come along very often for anybody.”

 

In 2009, The Jayhawks’ first anthology covering the full length of their career, Music From The North Country, was released. The band’s first albums were re-released in August 2010 on CD, and two of their earlier albums were recently re-released in January 2011 with the addition of rare bonus tracks.

 

Here’s a look at The Jayhawks’ new album by track

1. Hide Your Colors

2. Closer to Your Side

3. Tiny Arrows

4. She Walks in So Many Ways

5. High Water Blues

6. Mockingbird Time

7. Stand out in the Rain

8. Cinnamon Love

9. Guilder Annie

10. Black Eyed Susan

11.…

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