Lots to say, people, lots.  I totally heart Milwaukee.  Previously, I’d been to this fine city only once to play and had such a great time.  I wondered if it was a fluke.  I now know it was no fluke – Milwaukee may just be the finest place on Earth.

But let’s get to the record store juice, shall we?

I visited Atomic Records and had a lovely chat with Sahan.

JO’C: How long have you worked here?

Sahan: One year.

JO’C: What did you have for lunch?

Sahan: A baked potato.

JO’C: Yum, that sounds good. What’s your favorite place to eat in Milwaukee?

Sahan: Classic Slice.

JO’C: What’s the best music venue in Milwaukee?

Sahan: NOT The Rave.

JO’C: Oh shit! Is there a good music scene here? What are some good local bands?

Sahan: Yeah, I’d say there is. Malachi, Get Rad, Call Me Lightning, Brief Candles. Those are some of the best.

JO’C: Cool, I’ll check them out. What are your favorite new releases?

Sahan: Gregor Samsa – Rest and the Atlas Sounds‘ record.

JO’C: Are you going to any of the big festivals down in Chicago this summer?

Sahan: No, I was gonna go to Pitchfork, but I’m not now. I AM going to see My Bloody Valentine in September.

JO’C: I think that’s a much better choice. Good work.
I really like Milwaukee. Should I move here?

Sahan: Yes.

JO’C: Anything else you’d like to add?

Sahan: Yes, I am not 15…I’m actually 22.

Atomic is awesome. Sahan gave me a great Atomic Records t-shirt, and I bought Aretha Franklin’s I Never Loved a Man…on cd so I could listen in the car. And a $2 Deee-Lite single with some rad re-mixes. I also got the new Magnet magazine…which has a really fucking awesome new Matador ad in it. Really. To top it off – Sahan came to the show that night at the Cactus Club – which was the best show so far I think. I could go on and on, but unfortunately, I have to get in my rented Chevy Impala and drive to Minneapolis now.

Love,
JO’C

It was 85 degrees at noon yesterday when I rolled up to Homer’s Music and Gifts on O Street in Lincoln, Nebraska.   The unsuspecting clerks working were Michael and Ted.

JO’C:  How long have you guys worked here?

Michael: About 6 or 7 months.

Ted:  6 years.

JO’C: Have you had breakfast/lunch yet?

Michael:  Yes, we had bagels from the bagel place next store.  That’s what we do every Sunday.

JO’C:  You’ve got your own Sunday routine…I like that.  What did you guys do last night?  I’m curious what young music-loving people like yourselves do on a Saturday night in Lincoln….

Ted:  Everclear watermelon.

JO’C:  Wow. Really?

Michael:   I watched Welcome to the Dollhouse and drank a couple of cases of beer with some friends.

JO’C:  That’s a lot of beer.  Ok…down to business…what’s your favorite new release?

Michael – Clinic – Do It!

Ted – Gravenhurst – The Western Lands

JO’C – Ok, cool….what are some of your favorite bands in general? Or your favorite?

Michael – There are too many to name.

Ted: Sonic Youth, The Start, Cocteau Twins

JO’C:  Tell me something about Lincoln and what its like to live here?

Ted: It’s comfortable.

Michael: It’s not so good for bikes though…you get called queer a lot.  But we ride our bikes everywhere anyway.  Other than that the people are cool.

JO’C : Anything else you’d like to add for the Matablog readers?

Michael:  Join the Space Station!

Ted:  Matador is a sweet label.

So, there you have it – Lincoln, Nebraska.

I’m gonna try to hit up Milwaukee and Des Moines later this week.  If anyone has recommendations…let me know!

xox

JO’C

Today is the first day of my 10 date midwest run with Son Ambulance.  Right now I’m sitting at The Old Mattress Factory or The Matt Bar and Grill as it says on my pint glass – eating some fish tacos and looking at 13 different large screen TVs showing baseball and golf.  

This afternoon I visited Antiquarium Records.   I got a used copy of Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House on CD for $4 and I spoke with Chelsea.

JO’C:  How long have you been working here?

Chelsea:  About 3 months.

JO’C:  What did you have for lunch today?

Chelsea:  A bagel.

JO’C:  What’s your favorite place to eat in Omaha?

Chelsea:  Amsterdam Falafel & Kebab on 50th Street.

JO’C:  That’s the 2nd time I’ve gotten a falafel joint recommendation in my 3 times asking this question of record store employees.  Hmm…. 

What’s your favorite local band?

Chelsea:  Box Elders  (Jeremiah of  Box Elders was hanging out behind the counter with his geetar).

JO’C:  What’s your favorite record of 2008 so far?

Chelsea:  Times New Viking!

JO’C:  Yes, I’ve heard of them somewhere.  No, I’m kidding – I love their record too.  To continue the Matador theme we have going here, what is your favorite Matador band of all time?

Chelsea:  Pavement!

JO’C:  Good choice.  

Anything else you’d like to add for the Matablog readers?

Chelsea:  Keep buying records and going to record stores!

JO’C:  Wise words.

I would like to note that this was a charming store with very nice people and lots of vinyl!  When I told Chelsea I was on Matador and what I was there to do, she remarked that she wasn’t cool enough for Matador – that I should wait for the owner to come back because he was cooler.  I just want Chelsea and everyone else to know…that they ARE cool enough for Matador.  Matador loves you.  And so do I.

xox

JO’C

PS. I’ll be doing some myspace blogging about the shows and such on my, uh, myspace page.

The next 100 people to pre-order my COMING SOON record HERE WITH ME (on CD or LP) will receive a signed record jacket!!

Matador has ordered 100 extra LP sleeves which I will sign with SILVER SHARPIES for extra beautiful-ness!  They will be neatly trimmed to look like a record flat – suitable for framing!

Several people have expressed to me how much they love the new album cover and so I made this suggestion to Matador and they agreed. They said, “Great idea, Jennifer!”  You see, this is how great music business relationships work.

So, don’t miss your chance to own a piece of JO’C/Matador history.

Love,

JO’C

As promised, I am here to do some blogging about the tour we finished a couple of weeks ago in support of Mr. Jamie Lidell.  I’m just beginning to feel recovered from it -we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time.  Going in to the tour, I thought we were different enough as musical acts (Jamie and I) to make for an interesting (albeit, perhaps slightly odd) show. I was actually really excited about doing something different instead of just touring with another singer-songwriter/song-oriented band.  I thought it would be really cool to have two pretty disparate acts on the same bill.  Today, having been through the experience, I’m not sure if it worked or if it can work. It was truly difficult at times, but completely spectacular and revelatory at others.  In all, I’m really glad we did it and I feel like I learned a lot.  

As a music fan, I love it when I go see a show and there are really different types of music on the bill.  It keeps me on my toes and keeps me from being a complacent listener.  But these types of shows happen so rarely.  Why is that?  And why are people so resistant to it?

In any case, I had a great time playing the new songs with my band and getting to meet some new folks (Jamie and his crew were some of the nicest peeps ever)  and especially, playing the fucking 9:30 club in Washington D.C.  I really should do a whole blog post just about this place.  I have never played a better venue. Better in every way.  Good sound?  Check.  Great staff?  Check.  Treated like a human being and not just like the the opening act slime?  Check.  God, the people that run that place deserve to be knighted or something.  When we were leaving, Jon Langmead who plays drums in my band said….”I wish I could live here.”  Seriously, that’s how great this place and the people who run it are.  

Ok, so here’s some of my fave photos from the tour.  If you’d like to see (many) more, you can go to my myspace page where I just uploaded way, way more than you’d probably ever like to see.

Me and Michael Brodlieb (bass) in the van en route to Chicago:

Lidell & crew soundcheck at Bowery:

Set list, big and little:

The back of Chris Lombardi (and us on stage at Bowery):

Ladies and gentlemen, Jon Langmead on drums:

feeling it:

flashing lights:

That’s it!  More soon….

Love, JO’C

(photograph by Debora Francis)

The most gratifying thing about our feverish preparations for the August 19 release of Jennifer O’Connor’s masterpiece ‘Here With Me’ (LP/CD)?  With the possible exception of the chef Chris had flown in to prepare company lunches*, the best part so far has been the reactions from the lucky few who’ve heard the album.  If I had a nickel for every person who has called or written to say “wow, you guys were right.  Jennifer is a world-class, pop songwriting powerhouse”…well, I still wouldn’t have enough money to buy a copy of Entertainment Weekly. But keep in mind, they keep raising the prices of these magazines and you can read ‘em online, anyway. 

“Here With Me” is the 2nd MP3 we’ve chosen to leak from the album. Between this and the previously sneak-peaked “Valley Road ’86″, we’re hopeful you’ll have a better idea why we’ve only gotten started making noise about Jennifer’s crazy reservoir of talent.

Jennifer will be headlining New York’s Mercury Lounge on August 21, with support coming from Dump. Tickets go on sale June 25.  Here’s a full list of upcoming dates : 

July 11 – The Slowdown, Omaha, NE
July 12 – Box Awesome, Lincoln, NE
July 13 – Record Bar, Kansas City, MO
July 14 – Mojo’s, Columbia, MO
July 15 – Schuba’s, Chicago, IL
July 17 – Vaudeville Mews, Des Moines, IA
July 19 – Aquarium Dempsey’s, Upstairs, Fargo, ND
July 20 – Nuttys’ North, SIoux Falls, SD
August 10 – Grand Opera House, Wilmington DE
August 13 – McCarren Pool, Brooklyn NY 
August 25 – Mercury Lounge, NY NY
 
(July 11-15, July 19-20 supporting Son Ambulance)
(August 10, 13, supporting Wilco)

(preorder ‘Here With Me’ on LP or CD)

* – sorry. I hallucinated that we’d done an office swap with Revolver Distribution.  

Hello Everyone!

I fully expected to do another one of these record store visits sooner, but long drives chasing the Jamie Lidell tour bus kept us from record store adventure #2 until yesterday in the lovely city of Philadelphia.  

We decided on A.K.A. Music after having it recommended to us on various occasions.  Max was working the counter and he gave us some very useful information.

JO’C: How long have you been working here?

Max: Almost 2 years.

JO’C: What’s your favorite new release?

Max: Well, it’s not “new”, but I like the Rayne reissue.

JO’C: (Confused look)

Max: They were a late 70′s garage band.

JO’C: Cool. Where do you like to listen to music?

Max: At home.

JO’C: And what is your preferred format?

Max: Vinyl.

JO’C: Finally, where’s your favorite place to eat in Philly?

Max: Good question. John’s Roast Pork on Delaware Avenue. They have great pork sandwiches and great cheesesteaks too.

JO’C: Thanks Max!

I would also like to note that A.K.A. has a really great bargain bin used cd selection. I got a bunch of greatest hits discs for 2.99 – New Order, Kinks Kronicles, and some weird Prince Greatest Hits I hadn’t seen before. Also a Massive Attack soundtrack and a disc by the Departure Lounge that I didn’t have. I would have spent many hours combing through it if we’d had more time.

PS. I’ll do a blog sometime soon about the actual shows we’ve been playing!

Hi Matablog Readers!

I started a tour today supporting Jamie Lidell and I’m in Chicago at the Abbey Pub awaiting soundcheck. Because I enjoyed participating in Record Store Day so much earlier this year, I’ve decided to visit local record stores in some of the cities we are playing and find out the answers to some important questions. This is my way of continuing to celebrate all the awesome record stores throughout the country. 

Today, we went to Reckless Records in Wicker Park and talked with Dan.

JO’C: How long have you worked at Reckless?

Dan: About 4 years.

JO’C: What did you have for lunch?

Dan: A chicken flatbread sandwich from 7-11.

JO’C: Do you have favorite restaurant in the area?

Dan: I’m not really a foodie, but I like this Middle Eastern place down the street called Sultan’s Market.

JO’C: Do you have a favorite record of all-time and if so, what is it?

Dan: Hmmmm……

JO’C: Am I putting you on the spot? We can come back to this one.

Dan: Ok, let’s come back to it.

JO’C: What record are you guys selling a lot of this week?

Dan: The new Portishead.

JO’C: Any thoughts on your fave record yet?

Dan: I’ll say Daydream Nation, but if you ask me tomorrow, it might be something else.

JO’C: Fair enough. Anything you’d like to add, that you’d like the Matablog readers to know?

Dan: I don’t think so.

JO’C: Ok. Thanks for talking to me. I think those are all the hard-hitting questions I have.

Ok! Tomorrow is Toronto and if we have time….we’ll be hitting up a store there too.

JO’C, record-store-reporter, signing off.

xox

Amazing songs! Generous discounts! A snazzy poster! The feeling that you’re part of something much bigger than yourself!

Well, we’ve got the first 3 covered. Jennifer’s fantastic new LP/CD ‘Here With Me’ is out August 19 but you’re gonna feel so much better if you preorder it from the Matador store, trust me.

“Valley Road ’86″ (mp3)

As we feverishly prepare for the 8/19 release of Jennifer O’Connor’s ‘Here With Me’ LP/CD, we’re pleased to announce that along with upcoming dates supporting Jamie Lidell and Son Ambulance, Jennifer is playing with Wilco on the following evenings :

Sun 8/10 Wilmington, DE 7pm The Grand Opera House
Wed 8/13 Brooklyn, NY Doors 5pm McCarren Park Pool

In addition, “Hopeful” from Jennifer’s fantastic 2nd album, ‘The Color & The Light”, is featured in the upcoming motion picture, “The Strangers”, starring Liv Tyler and loads of freakish people wearing masks and wielding knives. The movie opens May 30, “only in theatres” as they like to say in the TV commericals.

“Valley Road ’86″ (mp3, from ‘Here With Me’)

The pop landscape has been littered with nu Dylans, old Janis Ians (eg. Janis Ian) and any number of generational spokesmodels, troubled troubadours and assholes with bad pompadours.  And those are just the good parts of my record collection.

Occasionally, somebody not only sticks out from the pack, but manages for the space of 3 minutes or 45, to make you forget there is a pack. To make you forget that said (wacky) packs even exist.  At the risk of scaring you with my crude, and poorly taped-up hyperbole stick, I submit that not only is Jennifer O’Connor that kind of artist, but that within a matter of months, you’ll be the one hassling your friends about how fantastic her 4th album is rather than me.  I’ll have already done so.

Jennifer recorded her new LP/CD ‘Here With Me’ (OLE 787-1,2earlier this year with John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth) at Brooklyn’s Headgear Studios.  It’s a breezier, more upbeat work than 2006′s fantastic ‘Over The Mountain, Across The Valley and Back To The Stars’, but I’d be lying if I told you the new album packed any less of an emotional wallop.  Jennifer’s songs have never before sounded this crafted, or hit the listener with such immediacy.

Backed by a crack backing trio of Jon Langmead, Michael Broadlieb and Michael Strandberg (and joined, briefly, by Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay), O’Connor tackles her most evocative pile of relationship-tunes with something approaching surgical precision.  Over the past 6 years, Jennifer’s gotten scary good at this sort of thing, so much so that most other contenders for the hypothetical Nobel prize for Witty Pop Songs W/ Heart are either former members of this label’s roster (we’re thinking Manning/Phair/Daniel but if you wanna nominate someone more contemporary, please go right ahead) or they’ve already been embalmed in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

Jennifer has a bunch of tour dates planned for this summer (see below) with more to come throughout 2008. In the days and weeks ahead, we’ll be selectively previewing more of ‘Here With Me’, along with some exclusive video content.  Until then, here’s the first MP3 from the forthcoming LP/CD, “Valley Road ’86″.

june 4            Chicago, IL                   Abbey Pub
june 5             Toronto, ON                  Opera House
june 6             Ottowa, ON                 Babylon
june 7             Boston, MA                 Paradise
june 8             New York, NY             Bowery Ballroom
june 9              New York, NY             Bowery Ballroom
june 11         Philadelphia, PA         World Cafe
june 12          Washington, D.C.     9:30 Club

(above dates supporting Jamie Lidell)

july 13        Kansas City, MO        Record Bar
july 14        Columbia, MO
july 18        Minneapolis, MN        Uptown Bar
july 19        Fargo, ND            Aquarium/Dempseys Upstairs
july 20        Sioux Falls, SD        Nutty’s North

(above dates supporting Son Ambulance)

Last week, Dump made a rare live appearance at Maxwell’s.  I took a photo as proof.  Regarding the 7″ Gerard so kindly posted about below, you can also get it on the Dump myspace page and in the Matador Store! Love,Jennifer 

shown above, the latest 7″ from Jennifer’s own Kiam label :   Jennifer O’Connor – “I Was A Race Car Driver”, b/w “I Was So Wrong” (Dump remix) and Dump’s version of Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next To You”.  Sleeve art by Mr. James McNew, all copies on beautiful white wax.  Jennifer’s peddling these gems for $5 (+ $2 for U.S. shipping), with full details available at the Kiam MySpace page.

Jennifer O’Connor stopped by our office and gave us a message of love and hope regarding Record Store Day and indie retail. Check out some other Matador artists pitching in for Record Store Day this Saturday the 19th.