Lambchop

A full list of dates as well as links to purchase tickets are included below, and be sure to visit the Merge tour page for updates.

It’s been nearly two decades since Lambchop released its first album, at the time pronouncing itself “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band.” Provocative it may have been, but the description made sense: at the heart of all that ruckus was a band at once defying and embracing the musical legacy of its hometown. Since then, Lambchop has evolved into an accomplished ensemble, adding palpable depth and substance to singer-songwriter-guitarist Kurt Wagner’s songs—and the band sounds as commanding as ever on its 11th album, Mr. M, a collection of meditations on love and loss and the detritus of everyday existence.

Pre-order Mr. M now on CD or limited-edition dbl-LP in the Merge store to receive a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring Kurt Wagner’s original paintings used in Mr. M‘s liner notes and a Lambchop coin purse while supplies last.

Visit the Merge blog to watch an album trailer for Mr. M, too!

Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow by Merge Records

Lambchop US tour:
Apr 13 Asheville, NC The Grey Eagle
Apr 14 Durham, NC Motorco
Apr 15 Arlington, VA IOTA
Apr 16 Annapolis, MD Ram’s Head
Apr 17 Boston, MA Paradise
Apr 18 Philadelphia, PA World Café Live
Apr 19 New York, NY Le Poisson Rouge
Apr 21 Pittsburgh, PA Club Café
Apr 22 Cleveland, OH The Beachland Ballroom
Apr 23 Ann Arbor, MI The Ark
Apr 24 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
Apr 25 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon
Apr 26 Minneapolis, MN The Dakota
Apr 27 Omaha, NE TBA
Apr 28 Boulder, CO The Fox Theatre
May 01 Seattle, WA The Tractor Tavern
May 02 Portland, OR Doug Fir
May 04 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
May 05 Santa Monica, CA McCabe’s
May 06 Tucson, AZ TBA
May 08 Dallas, TX TBA
May 09 Austin, TX The Cactus
May 11 Birmingham, AL Secret Stages
May 12 Nashville TN TBA

Find Lambchop on Twitter, Facebook, and at Lambchop.net.

Lambchop

Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow by Merge Records

Pre-order Mr. M now on CD or limited-edition dbl-LP in the Merge store to receive a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring Kurt Wagner’s original paintings used in Mr. M’s liner notes and a Lambchop coin purse while supplies last.

Visit the Merge blog to watch an album trailer for Mr. M, too!

Pre-order Mr. M now on CD or limited-edition dbl-LP in the Merge store to receive a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring Kurt Wagner’s original paintings used in Mr. M’s liner notes and a Lambchop coin purse while supplies last.

It’s been nearly two decades since Lambchop released its first album, at the time pronouncing itself “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band.” Provocative it may have been, but the description made sense: at the heart of all that ruckus was a band at once defying and embracing the musical legacy of its hometown. Since then, Lambchop has evolved into an accomplished ensemble, adding palpable depth and substance to singer-songwriter-guitarist Kurt Wagner’s songs—and the band sounds as commanding as ever on its 11th album, Mr. M, a collection of meditations on love and loss and the detritus of everyday existence.

Recorded at Mark Nevers’s Nashville Beech House studio cum bungalow and dedicated to Vic Chesnutt, Mr. M includes the usual core of musicians- Scott Martin (drums), Matt Swanson (bass), Ryan Norris (guitar, organ), Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar) and guests include original co-founder Jonathan Marx, delightful Cortney Tidwell (who shared vocals on 2010’s KORT project) and fiddler Billy Contreras (who has worked with all from Charlie Louvin to Laura Cantrell) – and with spectacular string arrangements shared between Peter Stopschinski and Mason Neely, it stretches out sonically as promised. (Incidentally the paintings, thickly layered black and white portraits forming a series called Beautillion Millitaire 2000, feature on the album sleeve and throughout the full artwork).

The core of the music remains the cyclical picking of Wagner’s guitar and the soft, warm croaking of his voice. The songs are spacious, even dreamy, as on the Countrypolitan instrumental “Gar,” while the lyrics and titles are rich with allusions, some of them obvious, others seemingly unknowable.

Listen to the first track “If Not I’ll Just Die” and pre-order Mr. M on CD or LP now in the Merge store. While supplies last, preorders will include a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring the album’s cover art, an original painting by Kurt Wagner.

Lambchop – “If Not I’ll Just Die” by Merge Records

Follow Lambchop on Twitter, Facebook and at their official website, Lambchop.net.

Thursday, Sep. 8 @ 11 pm:
The Love Language – The Lincoln Theatre

Friday, Sep. 9 @ 12:30 am (Saturday morning):
Hospitality – The Union

Saturday, Sep. 10 @ 6:45 pm:
Superchunk – City Plaza w/ The Flaming Lips and Dreamers of the Ghetto [tickets]

Saturday, Sep. 10 @ 12:30 am (Sunday morning):
Times New Viking – The Union

Saturday, Sep. 10 @ 12:30 am (Sunday morning):
KORT (Kurt Wagner of Lambchop and Cortney Tidwell) – Kings Barcade

In addition, there will be a few FREE Merge-related daytime activities:

Friday, Sep. 9, 2-4 pm: Foundation will host a Wild Flag listening party. Come by for great music, drink specials, and door prizes.

Friday, Sep. 9, 3-5 pm: Stuart McLamb of The Love Language will participate in an artist-and-author discussion panel called “Simple Words: The Power of Narrative Songs” at the Raleigh City Museum. Seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

Saturday, Sep. 10, 11 am-5:30 pm: Hopscotch presents The Rosebuds & Friends, a block party outside the Lincoln Theatre. The seven-band lineup concludes with a performance by The Rosebuds at 4 pm. Food will be provided by Ashley Christensen and AC Restaurants, the proceeds from which will benefit the Frankie Lemmon Foundation.

And finally, SHOPscotch, a temporary pop-up store, will be open in Raleigh’s historic City Market every day during Hopscotch and on Sunday the 11th. This is the place to get Merge releases as well as records, t-shirts, and other merchandise from some of the festival’s participating bands. Business hours and more details can be found here.

Kurt Wagner holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine art from the Memphis Academy of Arts and Montana State University, respectively.

Visit the Merge Store for all your Lambchop needs.

The limited-edition Destroyer 12-inch “Archer on the Beach” is out-of-print in the Merge store, but you can now buy the songs via digital download!

Don’t miss out on Swim Remixes—Caribou’s answer to what happens when you put one of the year’s hottest dance records in the hands of some of the world’s best DJs! With reworks of some of Swim’s hottest cuts by Junior Boys, Fuck Buttons, Nite Jewel, DJ Koze, Walls, Gold Panda, Gavin Russom, and more, Swim Remixes contains over an hour-and-a-half of new, fresh takes on Caribou’s latest opus.

Let’s Wrestle bring us a tasty piece of next year’s sophomore record with the “Getting Rest”/“When I Was In Hospital” digital single. Be warned: these young Londoners are not to be missed.

Shout Out Louds’ Fall Hard EP expands upon Work’s catchy first single with non-album cuts “Fall Hard Pt. 2” and “Can’t Explain.”

Lou Barlow + the missingmen’s = Sentridoh III is Lou’s first recorded output with new backing band the missingmen. Described by the band as “an almost live representation of the Lou Barlow + the missingmen live show,” this mini-album breathes new, rocking life into Sebadoh and Sentridoh classics, Lou’s solo material, and even a haunting cover of the timeless Skip James song “I’m So Glad.”

Tracey Thorn followed up this year’s gorgeous Love and Its Opposite with a pair of digital EPs, Why Does the Wind? and Opposites, that offer up wildly creative remixes of some of the album’s most-loved songs. Why Does the Wind? pairs the album track of the same name with remixes by Morgan Geist, Michel Clies, and André Lodemann, along with a radio edit and dub version. As for the Opposites EP, Tracey herself probably says it best: “If the remixes for the last single ‘Why Does the Wind?’ were aimed at the dancefloor, these are perhaps aimed more at the head.” Visionquest (“Swimming”), Walls (“Kentish Town”), and Blue Daisy (“Late in the Afternoon”) provide penetrating new takes presented alongside the originals.

Let’s also revisit Lambchop’s magnetic Live at XX Merge performance; Portastatic’s Make It Sound In Tune EP; digital reissues of Richard Buckner’s landmark albums Impasse, The Hill, and Bloomed; and The Ladybug Transistor’s fantastic Here Comes the Rain covers EP.

Our Holiday Coupon applies to digital releases, too, so download away!



To help celebrate Merge’s 20th Anniversary Lambchop showed up in one of their largest lineups in recent memory — 11-strong, including multiple guitars, keyboards, piano, and a horn section. Lambchop performing live is always a powerful proposition, but on this night they started quietly with “I Will Drive Slowly” from their first album (I Hope You’re Sitting Down) and accelerated from there, each song seemingly faster and more intensely played than the last, building to a furious finale of “Up With People” and an epic “Give It.” By the end of their set, everyone in the packed Cats Cradle – band and audience both – was levitating a few inches off the ground…

illustration by Johnnie Cluney

Daytrotter took a trip to Nashville a while back and invited Lambchop to play a session at Signal Path studios for them. The results are lovely! Visit Daytrotter.com to stream and download songs from the session.

Video and audio of Lambchop’s transcendent performance at XX Merge is available for digital download in the Merge store.

As always, you can find new albums from all of these artists and more in our handy Merge store.

Free Merge 2010 digital sampler track listing:
1. Radar Brothers – Horses Warriors (from The Illustrated Garden)
2. Let’s Wrestle – I Won’t Lie to You (from In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s)
3. Destroyer – The Very Modern Dance (from Streethawk: A Seduction)
4. Shout Out Louds – Fall Hard (from Work)
5. Spoon – Written in Reverse (from Transference)
6. Lou Barlow – Don’t Apologize (from Goodnight Unknown)
7. She & Him – Thieves (from Volume Two)
8. Superchunk – Learned to Surf (from Leaves in the Gutter)
9. Alec Bathgate – Glide (from Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox)
10. The Clientele – I Wonder Who We Are (from Bonfires on the Heath)
11. Caribou – Odessa (from Swim)
12. The Clean – In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul (from Mister Pop)
13. Wye Oak – I Hope You Die (from My Neighbor / My Creator)
14. Lambchop – Give It (from Live at XX Merge)

Join the 92Y Tribeca (200 Hudson St.) in New York City on Wednesday, March 31 for a special screening of the concert film, with a Q&A moderated by Anna Thorngate, an assistant editor at the Criterion Collection. The concert film will be preceded by Buttons, a 7 minute short film featuring Kurt Wagner playing a song at Friendly Barber Shop in Carrboro, NC.

Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox is available for download now from the Merge store and our usual digital outlets. The 2-CD limited-edition release will be available in stores on February 23, but you can pre-order it today and receive the digital download via email after your order is complete!

Visit the fantastic Stroke website for updates on Chris Knox, information on all of the artists who contributed their versions of Knox’s songs, and for previews of many of the tracks—originals and covers.

Tracklisting:
*Tracks are arranged chronologically

Disc 1:
1. Jay Reatard – Pull Down The Shades
2. The Checks – Rebel
3. The Bleeding Allstars – Ain’t It Nice
4. Peter Gutteridge – Don’t Catch Fire
5. The Chills – Luck Or Loveliness
6. David Kilgour – Nothing’s Going To Happen
7. The Crying Wolfs – All My Hollowness To You
8. Stephin Merritt – Beauty
9. Portastatic – Nostalgia’s No Excuse
10. The Mint Chicks – Crush
11. Jay & Sam Clarkson – I’ve Left Memories Behind
12. Sky Green Leopards – Burning Blue
13. Shayne Carter – The Slide
14. Pumice – Grand Mal
15. Hamish Kilgour – Knoxed Out

Disc 2:
1. Boh Runga – Not Given Lightly
2. Red & Zeke (Feat. Bill Doss and Neil Cleary) – Bodies
3. Jeff Mangum – Sign The Dotted Line
4. Bill Callahan – Lapse
5. Genghis Smith – Growth Spurt
6. Yo La Tengo – Coloured
7. AC Newman – Dunno Much About Life But I Know How To Breathe
8. Alec Bathgate – Glide
9. Don McGlashan – Inside Story
10. Sean Donnelly – The Outer Skin
11. Lambchop – What Goes Up
12. The Mountain Goats – Brave
13. The Tokey Tones (and friends) – Round These Walls
14. The Bats – Just Do It
15. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – My Only Friend
16. The Finn Family – It’s Love
17. Jordan Luck – Becoming Something Other
18. The Verlaines – Driftwood
19. Lou Barlow – Song Of The Tall Poppy
20. The Nothing – Napping In Lapland
21. Tall Dwarfs – Sunday Son

Even if you weren’t there you come away from the viewing experience floored by the band’s prowess, exhilarated by the collective joy that resulted, and more than a little transformed.

-Blurt

Buy Lambchop – Live at XX Merge in the Merge Store.

Live at XX Merge is available in the following formats from the Merge store:

• Limited Edition CD + high definition QuickTime download (1280×720) of the concert film – $12.98 (CD preorders before November 24 will also receive an MP3 download code via email on November 17)
• MP3 + high definition QuickTime download (1280×720) of the concert film – $12.99 (Available November 17)
• MP3 + standard definition QuickTime download (400 × 225) of the concert film – $9.99 (Available November 17)

As Merge fans know, Lambchop has been on the label since 1993, releasing a string of widely varied but consistently brilliant records. But the live Lambchop experience has been somewhat elusive in the U.S.  While the band has toured the gilded theaters of Europe and elsewhere for nearly two decades, the Nashville group has seldom toured their home country. Kurt Wagner has performed solo on a recent Yo La Tengo tour, and Lambchop supported their recent album, (OH) Ohio, as an intimately stripped-down quintet in a couple of short bursts over the last year.  To help celebrate Merge’s 20th Anniversary the band showed up in one of their largest lineups in recent memory — 11-strong, including multiple guitars, keyboards, piano, and a horn section. Lambchop performing live is always a powerful proposition, but on this night they started quietly with “I Will Drive Slowly” from their first album (I Hope You’re Sitting Down) and accelerated from there, each song seemingly faster and more intensely played than the last, building to a furious finale of “Up With People” and an epic “Give It.” By the end of their set, everyone in the packed Cats Cradle – band and audience both – was levitating a few inches off the ground…

Lambchop’s set at XX Merge was professionally recorded and filmed, and is available now for those who missed it, or for those who want to go back again.

Lambchop – Live at XX Merge
Recorded by Nick Peterson
Mixed by Mac McCaughan
FOH Engineer: Mark Luecke

A Show Cobra Film
Directed by Matt Boyd
Produced by Jason Ross

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brian & Shannon Vetter

World Cafe can also be heard worldwide online at the WXPN/Philadelphia stream on weekdays from 2pm to 4pm EST.

Lambchop’s latest album, OH (ohio), is available in the Merge store on CD and digital download.

Kurt Wagner visited OPB Music in Portland while touring the northwest earlier this month! The session is now up, so take a minute and check it out here: OPBMusic

Set list:
Sweet Marie (Crooked Fingers cover)

Slipped Dissolved and Loosed

Please Rise

I Threw It All Away

Check out other Black Cab sessions including Spoon at blackcabsessions.com.

email & photos sent to Merge from Wye Oak

Hey Pals,

I’m sure everyone over at Merge HQ has had a spring in their step in the last few days. We each breathed a huge sigh of relief when the election returns came in. As it happened, we were on a ferry boat between England and France when the election got called. We (Jenn and myself, and the members of Dr. Dog) all huddled around the only television we could find, in the commercial truckers’ lounge on the boat, and watched Obama make his speech. And who should we happen to run into in that lounge but Kurt Wagner and his Lambchop team! They were on the same boat, headed for continental Europe to play some shows. We all shared a drink in the spirit of hope and then parted ways. Since then, everyone over here at our European shows has been in high spirits about the shift in US politics. It’s a great time to be American!

xo

Andy + Jenn

Order OH (ohio) now!

All the action is below – come say hi if you are in Texas!

2 shows not on the postcard:
Lambchop + The Tosca String Quartet @ Habana Calle 6 Annex (708 East 6th Street) on Thursday, March 15th at 9 pm!
Oakley Hall @ The French Legation Museum (802 San Marcos Street) on Friday, March 16th at 6pm!

Click to make larger!

Spread the love!
Christina

Listen & Watch!

First up, M. Ward will visit his friends at KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic for a live session + interview. Airing Live Today at 11:15 PST/2:15 EST.

Next, Lambchop will be perform at KEXP in Seattle today at Noon PST/3pm EST. Listen Live. And if you miss it, you can find the streaming archives here.

And much later tonight, M. Ward and his kick-ass band will be on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson tonight at 12:35 am EST.

Lambchop is on tour, and as Martin pointed out in his blog post, it’s just not to be missed!

I gathered up some of the great press and radio happening around this tour. Enjoy!

Christina

Philadelphia Inquirer Feature.
Toronto Globe & Mail Interview with Kurt & Willy.
Newsday Live review of the NYC show.
WNYC’s Soundcheck – Live performance & chat with Kurt.

Lambchop will be on KEXP Seattle this Thursday – 9/28 at Noon PST/3pm EST. Listen Live

And if you missed the great NPR story that inspired “Paperback Bible” – listen here!

On Tuesday night we, along with 600 hundred or so of our closest friends, were treated to an evening of music that holds no equal in recent memory. The Cat’s Cradle was packed to the gills for a mini-Mergefest: Portastatic; Lambchop and M. Ward. I doubt I could ever muster the words to aptly describe the awe, excitement and pride I felt as I watched these three bands put on performances that simply had my mind, my body, my heart and my soul reeling. It was one of those nights you never forget. One of those nights that helps remind me why I do what I do.

Portastatic kicked things off in high form with Mac and Margaret doing stripped down versions of songs old and new alike. But soon they were joined onstage by a revolving cast of musicians that seemed to turn each successive song into it’s own little universe. M. Ward finished the night off with an incredibly rocking set that had my jaw on the floor. I had the same reaction the first time I saw Matt onstage, alone with his guitar, 4 years ago. This time the tenor and energy was completely different, but no less engaging, as he and his stunning band ripped and roared through a set that seemed to leave the crowd exhausted but elated, wringing every ounce of energy from the room.

Both Portastatic and M. Ward were stunning and either set on their own would have been in the top 5 shows I’ve seen all year. But the main purpose of my post here today is to try to tell you about Lambchop, whose performance on this night was so powerful that I almost found myself moved to tears…

(CONTINUED: Click on jump to permalink below to read more)

You almost never know what you are going to get in a Lambchop performance. How many people are going to be onstage? (I’ve seen performances with anywhere from 5 to 18 band members) Will it swing you like an R&B revival, or sooth you like a lullaby? Will Kurt Wagner actually stand up at some point (I’ve seen this happen exactly twice in 13 years)? The one constant always seems to be the quality of the performance. On this cool September evening in Carrboro, NC they managed to exceed already high expectations.

Tuesday’s performance featured 8 Choppers, with the Tosca String Quartet bringing the total number of musicians on the crowded Cat’s Cradle stage to 12. The thing that always amazes about Lambchop is that all those people can blend so seamlessly together, presenting layer upon layer of sound that draws you in as you try to enjoy every intricate nuance, every flourish. Playing a healthy dose of songs from Damaged, as well as digging into the treasure chest for a few golden nuggets, the band was tight and on point all night long. The Tosca String Quartet added a dimension that we don’t always get here in the States but that European audiences have probably grown spoiled by. I know I could get spoiled by it in a hurry.

All in all I can’t recall a more powerful night of live music in my recent experience.

Lambchop is heading through the northeast this weekend with shows tonight in Boston (Paradise Club), tomorrow night in Montreal (Le National) and Sunday night in Toronto (Mod Club).

Portastatic ends their stint opening for M. Ward with shows tonight in Denton, TX (Haileys) and tomorrow night in Austin (The Parrish), while M. Ward heads westward on the final leg his tour.

Me? I’m off to see Richard Buckner / Eric Bachmann tonight, and will probably get blown away all over again.

If you have the chance to check out any of these shows in the next week or so, I couldn’t recommend them more.

Lambchop tour dates HERE.

M. Ward tour dates HERE.

Portastatic tour dates HERE

Richard Buckner tour dates HERE.

White Whale tour dates HERE.

-martin

(photo courtesy of Enid Valu)

Lots of great reviews coming out about the Lambchop record that was released yesterday!

Don’t forget to enter the Damaged photo contest, too!
And about the tour dates!

Cokemachineglow
Tiny Mix Tapes
Drowned in Sound
Music OMH
Play Louder
Faster Louder
Metacritic
Sunday Observer/Music Monthly
Entertainment Wise
The Guardian
The Onion AV Club
eMusic
All Music Guide

There’s also a great interview/feature in last week’s Nashville Scene. Check it out.

-martin

Lambchop gets a track review From Damaged on Pitchfork.

(Actually, “Paperback Bible” was originally comissioned by NPR as a companion piece for an audio-documentary on radio swap-shops, produced by Dan Collison And Elizabeth Meister as part of their Heartland Chronicles series. The piece aired on All Things Considered on April 14th, 2006. You can listen to it HERE.)

-martin