Simone Felice to release new project in April

January 28, 2009 From LOOSE MUSIC

Debut Single 'If You Ever Get Famous' released in the UK & Europe on March 9th 2009

The track was recorded in Bearsville, New York by Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers / author of "Hail Mary Full Of Holes" Uncut Book Of The Month March '09) and Robert 'Chicken' Burke (George Clinton) and then taken down The Hudson to be mixed in Brooklyn by their friend the Grammy award winning hip hop maestro Bassy Bob Brockmann (Notorious B.I.G's Ready To Die).

If You Ever Get Famous is the first single from The Duke And The King's forthcoming debut album for Loose. Two further digital releases are slated for April 6th (accompanied by double A side 7" single) and May 11th before the album is released on June 22nd (CD/LP/Download - UK & Europe). Details of a Summer UK tour will be announced soon.

~ THE CAST ~

The Duke .......... Simone Felice
The King .......... Robert Chicken Burke

~ PLACE & TIME ~

Bearsville, Woodstock NY
- Winter 2008/2009

Simone had just come home after three straight years of touring on a handful of widely acclaimed albums with The Felice Brothers. As fate would have it, his best mate Robert Chicken Burke had also landed back in their favorite woods after a whirlwind of soundtrack work for french cinema, writing, producing and touring with the likes of George Clinton and the legendary gospel choir Sweet Honey and The Rock. With over a decade of brotherly love up their sleeve, the duo finally had the chance to settle in for a long winter's nap in a little timber-heated cabin in the mountains, catch up, drink tea, maybe write a few songs together, a tradition of theirs.

But in the cock-eyed world of The Duke & The King, nothing ever quite goes according to plan.

What actually happened on those snowy, candle-lit, home-cooked nights is a bit of a mystery, even to them. What is clear is that they didn't get much rest. Something intended as a golden slumber somehow turned itself into days and nights of reckoning, guilt-ridden fables of love and loss, honest self-exposure, disarming with a sad smile. And what to do with all that they had stored inside the remote cabins of memory? The two did what they knew best: hit record. So from conversation to revelation to frozen pipes to old mic to tape machine The Duke & The King came clean. Oh come let us adore them, or abhor them, whatever you please.

So where'd the name come from? The Duke & the King are the two roving charlatans from The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, (which Simone read for the thirteenth time as Chicken scratched out his signature vocal harmonies by the woodstove), a couple classic American grifters who's lay was to masquerade as European royalty, put on bad accents, find a bandstand, dress up like Romeo and Juliet, stage on an obscene parody and skip town after the first act, ultimately getting them tarred and feathered. And so the name is a reminder, a sort of scarlet letter they'll happily paint over their hearts to help them keep it honest, the music, the poetry.

These songs speak of a time just out of arm's reach. Days when kids rocked to We Are The World on a new thing called the Walkman, shooting BB guns into the sky only to see The Challenger come crashing down, tweaking bunny-ears cause boy do I want my MTV. A time when pop wasn't a dirty word, when the golden era of 60's and 70's radio still sailed from the boom-box, still echoed in people's heart. If it's true that nothing gold can stay, well no one bothered to tell these dreamers. Or maybe they just don't care. The Duke and The King are putting on a show and you don't need no ticket, you just get on board. Come one, come all!

Listen to the Felice Brothers new single Penn Station

Penn Station

sounds really good.

Notes from Tampa Theater

Setlist

1. Hey Hey Revolver
2. Run Chicken Run
3. Whiskey in my Whiskey
4. Murder by Mistletoe
5. Big Surprise
6. Loves me Tenderly
7. Buried in Ice
8. Ruby Mae
9. Penn Station

Show was on fire. They won over many fans. Christmas sang lead on Buried in Ice. Farley was unusually fiesty on stage gyrating like a combination of Flava Flav and the retarded kid from Gym class.

With OCMS:
Tennessee Pusher
Rock you like a Hurricane
Salsa time?
Wagon Wheel
Tell It to Me
We are all in this Together
Frankies gun
Tonight's the Night

The Venue in Gainesville

The Felice Brothers opened up strong and played a much stronger set than in Charleston. Ian looked rough but performed brilliantly.
Searcher? Provided the drumming in place of Simone, who is back home with Family

1. Run chicken Run
2. Lou the Welterweight
3. Goddamn You Jim
4. Saint Stephen's end
5. Memphis flu
6. Penn Station

With OCMS:

Wagon Wheel
Tell it to me
Ziggy Stardust

Charleston Setlist

1. Run Chicken Run
2. Murder by Mistletoe
3. Whiskey in my Whiskey
4. Big Surpise
5. St Stephens End
6. Penn Station

Guys seemed like in good spirits, although Simon was not with the band, apparently.

the guys played Wagon Wheel and Tell it to Me with Old Crow Medicine Show.

Brothers open tour in Johnson City, Tennessee

The February 5 tour opener in support of Old Crow Medicine Show was huge success. The Felice Brothers stole the show according to reviewer AppyLove Blog, who called the Felice Brothers "sloppy and gritty" , which is why they are great. She was amazed by Frankies Gun, called Farley a "mike D incarnate" , Ian a "Devil" and their music "blasphemous, angry, needing to me heard over the noise of modernity."


Bang bang.

Next stop Winston Salem.

Songs on New Album

Some of these tunes we have heard on the last tour, and they sounded very promising.

Here are some clips:
Memphis Flu

Penn Station

Run Chicken Run

Chicken Wire

Ambulance Song was also played but have no video of that performance.

Team Loves Details on new record

HOME / RELEASES / TL039: THE FELICE BROTHERS - YONDER IS THE CLOCK

1. The Big Surprise
2. Penn Station
3. Buried In Ice
4. Chicken Wire
5. Ambulance Man
6. Sailor Song
7. Katie Dear
8. Run Chicken Run
9. All When We Were Young
10. Boy from Lawrence County
11. Memphis Flu
12. Cooperstown
13. Rise and Shine

Release Date: April 7, 2009
PURCHASE DETAILS CD, 2xLP, iTunes
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT The Felice Brothers

The Felice Brothers (Simone, Ian, and James) and their long time friends and bandmates Greg Farley and Christmas Clapton, come to us from the Catskill Mountains, where a homegrown sound has been working its way through the bloodlines for generations. Their rambling journey so far has brought them from busking in New York City subway stations, to tours across the world that have included enthusiastically received performances at major music festivals including Bonnaroo, All Points West, Outside Lands, and Langerado.

A defining memory to date might be their appearance at the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. A summer afternoon thunderstorm rolled in and began to douse the land. While it electrified the atmosphere, the rain had the adverse effect of cutting power to The Felice Brother’s stage. After many assurances that power would be restored, they were informed it was a lost cause, and that they’d have to make due acoustic. Without hesitation the band jumped down into the crowd and began playing acoustic while stomping around barefoot in the mud that had formed on account of the ongoing downpour. What might have led some to call it a wash and leave was turned into another epic show that drew upon the familiarity and casual ease of the backyard bbq sessions that took place at their dad’s porch on Sunday afternoons during their first days as a group. The audience that day, like others before and after, left utterly converted.

Titled with a phrase drawn from the pages of Mark Twain, Yonder Is The Clock is a nod to all of the American ghosts that lend their narrative and characters to the Felice Brothers’ forthcoming April 7th release. Their studio was built from the remains of an abandoned chicken coop and it was there over the summer and fall of 2008 that they wrote and recorded this new collection of songs. Presented by Team Love Records, Yonder Is The Clock is teaming with tales of love, death, betrayal, baseball, train stations, phantoms, pandemics, jail cells, rolling rivers and frozen winter nights. This is music that hasn’t lost sight of the history of the land from which it came, and that quality alone makes The Felice Brothers the next great American band.

New Album Due out!!!!

THE FELICE BROTHERS ANNOUNCE RELEASE OF “YONDER IS THE CLOCK”

Team Love Records is proud to announce the release of The Felice Brothers’ latest full-length, Yonder Is The Clock. Due out April 7th, the album is the follow-up to their critically acclaimed self-titled record released in 2008, which was their first for Team Love.

Yonder Is The Clock is the band’s fourth record, including their 2006 self-released debut Through These Reins and Gone and their 2007 release Tonight At The Arizona. With Yonder Is The Clock, the Catskill Mountain natives look to build upon the praise heaped upon them in the past.
“You won’t find more American music than that of The Felice Brothers,” wrote the New York Daily News. “With their wheezing accordions, broken-down pianos, flinty acoustic guitars and creaky vocals, the brothers capture the history – and mystery – of rural America.”

In February The Felice Brothers hit the road for a nine-date run with Old Crow Medicine Show, and continue on with headlining dates throughout the spring. Highlights include a record release party at the Bardavan Opera House in Poughkeepsie, NY on April 7th, and a swing through Austin, TX for SXSW 2009. -team love

Uncut Review Of Felice Brothers

The Felice Brothers have a great backstory. It goes like this: three brothers from the Catskill wilderness pick up a crap-shooting runaway called Christmas, pack themselves into a rusted old schoolbus and head out for Brooklyn, busking ‘til nightfall, and living the hobo dream.
It may be a tad liberal with the truth (bassist Christmas was actually a family friend), but it’s all in keeping with a sound steeped in the myths of American folklore. The campfire ballads of last year’s debut Tonight At The Arizona drew from late-‘60s Bob Dylan and The Band, helped along by photos where the band appeared dressed like frontier gold prospectors. This time around, the Brothers have fully thrown themselves into an imagined den of vice.

A mad celebration of life on the margins, here the songs are peopled by the same pool of raffish drifters, outlaws and sinners as a Richmond Fontaine song. But while Willy Vlautin’s subjects often seem hopeless, The Felice Brothers make them flawed heroes of their own peculiar world. There’s the murderous master of disguise in “Helen Fry”, Tracey the junkie whore dreaming of Reno in “Don’t Wake The Scarecrow” and the jilted lover of “Whiskey In My Whiskey”, snuffing out Eleanor with three rounds in his .44, before making for the railroad tracks and doing the decent thing.

But the wonder of this music is how robustly it’s delivered. No doubt he’s tired of the comparison, but Ian Felice sings with all the nasal insouciance of ’68 Bob, aided by great splashes of bordello piano from sibling James, along with sudden gusts of brass and accordion. The marvellous “Frankie’s Gun!” sounds like a wonky New Orleans street parade, while the scratchy harmonies of “Love Me Tenderly” are direct descendants of “Million Dollar Bash”. And hats off for rhyming “fender” with “long-legged Brenda”. Rowdy, vivid, moving and playful, The Felice Brothers is just glorious.