www.hearsoundswrite.com: Review of the Felice Brothers at the Pour House

September 28, 2009: The Felice Brothers

The Felice Brothers
w/Taylor Hollingsworth
The Pour House (Charleston, SC)
September 28, 2009

by George Stevens link

About six or seven years ago, a friend of mine who lives in Boulder, CO, trying to make it in the music business, told me he and his band would watch live Pearl Jam DVDs to get them psyched up for playing a live show. "We can't watch Zeppelin DVDs, because they're rock gods. But Pearl Jam just seem like regular guys who made it." I recalled that quote as I watched the Felice Brothers play at the Pour House last night.

Alleging that the Felice Brothers have "made it" is worthy of a dismissive chuckle. Sure, there's buzz. Glowing reviews of their 2009 release Yonder Is the Clock. Co-headlining a tour with fellow purveyors of old-time rags Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, and Gillian Welch/David Rawlings. Decent and steady festival billing. Now headlining their own US/European tour--small venues, bars, but the Brothers are drawing. Success? Definitely. Made it? Not quite.

The regular guys part? That, they have down pat. A quintet of twenty-somethings who wouldn't look out of place pumping gas or busing tables, they don't exactly doll up for the stage. You get the feeling they rolled out of bed just in time for soundcheck. And the band doesn't hide backstage before the show. James Felice mans the merch table, making no effort to schmooze, and dutifully exchanges cash for shirts. The Strokes-looking bassplayer, who's simply known as "Christmas", paces aimlessly and is largely ignored by none-the-wiser fans. Only frontman Ian Felice seems a bit out of place, all rock-star thin and keeping relatively quiet while mumbling to his manager between drags, but even he looks like he could be some blue-collar mechanist there for nothing more than a cold beer to cap the day.

Regular guys, all of them. And it's an impression that's supported by their performance. It's a damn sloppy affair, but that's no insult. Raucous, too. The tiny stage of James Island's Pour House could barely contain the gang. Ian Felice high-kicks in place as he rakes his vintagey Guild semi-hollowbody with metal fingerpicks. Fiddle player Greg Farley explores the stage, waves his arms while not playing, looking every bit like a Brooklyn MC in his Yankees cap and white undershirt, not to mention vaguely hip-hoppish banter (at one point he informed us that things were about to get "Looney Tunes in here!") Hefty, bearded James squeezes the life out of his accordion, or bashes his worn electric piano/organ, bellowing out slightly off-key harmonies. The stage banter wasn't overly calculated, nor charming...it didn't need to be. Most of the band was loose and silly, and embraced the house-show feel.

And yet...I couldn't help but get the feeling that primary frontman Ian Felice wants something more. He's easily the best showman of the group, and the quickest. When a girl screeched the request "Don't Wake the Scarecrow", a tune attributed to former member Simon Felice who left for unknown and perhaps tumultuous reason, Ian grinned and responded "That's right, don't wake him..." Again, Ian seems to fit the artiste mold a bit more than the other members--a bit less approachable, a bit more comfortable on stage, and almost certainly the principal songwriter in the bunch. He's an excellent guitarist in a band that doesn't hold a high standard for musical ability. (During a lenghty pre-show chat with Farley, he told us that he'd only been at the fiddle for a couple of years. Their drummer, a friend of the band who took the place of Simon, has literally played the skins for a few months.) The show, admittedly, grew sloppier towards the end, and Ian seemed to lose a bit of his interest. He sang the last verse and chorus of close-out song "Run Chicken Run!" without strumming his guitar. Perhaps he lost his signal; I couldn't tell. Either way, I think Ian was a little put off by some of the silly-good-time stage antics that his cohorts displayed. He wasn't above stage antics, but his all seemed a bit less like he was monkeying around, and more like a means of conveying his persona. This is all speculation, but I wonder if Ian's apparent ambitions might have had a hand in his brother's departure. We'll have to wait for the memoirs, I suppose.

Some of the stats: The show was heavy on new music--and by new, I mean newer than Yonder. In fact, I believe we only heard three songs from the 2009 release ("Chicken Wire", "Run Chicken Run!", and "Cooperstown".) There were five or six brand new tunes, some muddled by Christmas's insistence on using an annoying bass delay effect. But, for what it's worth, they sounded promising. They didn't shy away from their most accessible release, 2008's self titled effort: "The Greatest Show On Earth", "Frankie's Gun", "Goddamn You Jim", "She Loves Me Tenderly", "Whiskey In My Whiskey", "Take This Bread", and "Helen Fry" were all offered up. We heard the first three tracks from 2007's Tonight at the Arizona, "Roll On Arte", "Ballad of Lou the Welterweight", and "Hey Hey Revolver." "Her Eyes Dart Round", an older tune I've only heard via YouTube, was played as well. The crowd was thick, a lot fuller than I'd anticipated. Opening act Taylor Hollingsworth, who I soon deduced was a member of Conor Oberst's Mystic Valley band, sang some nicely plucked folk tunes in his unique nasally and cracked vocal style. He lent some underwhelming lead guitar to the latter half of the Felice Brothers set.

All in all, it was a rager of a folk show. My eardrums are still fighting off the tinnitus from Ian's trebley guitar, which was blasted through a Fender amp. I don't have any doubt I'll see Ian Felice in Charleston again--hopefully with his brothers in tow

Asheville 9-28

This sent in from an Asheville fan on Frankiesgun.com:

approximate setlist:

Murder by Mistletoe (with nice fiddle/accordian intro)
Greatest Show on Earth
Chicken Wire
Whiskey in my Whiskey
Helen Fry
Hey Hey Revolver
Loves me Tenderly
Forever Green
Stepdad
River Jordan->
Frankie's Gun
Farley Song
New Ian song
Run Chicken Run
New James Song - "Be Easy"
Lou the Welterweight
New Christmas Song
Take This Bread
Goddamn You Jim
Where'd You Get Your Liquor?
White Limousine
Cooperstown

E: Rise and Shine (Ian solo at the house piano - amazing)
Two Hands
Glory Glory - with about 25 people onstage

Amazing show, great crowd, great energy. 2 hrs. 4th time seeing them for me - they keep getting better. Taylor Hollingworth, the opener, played lead guitar from Helen Fry on -- he added some nice touches here and there. I'm probably missing 1-2 songs.

The Felice Brothers (lancaster PA) on Jambase

Words by: Donald Lusk | Images by: Jay Pflanz

The Felice Brothers :: 09.05.09 :: Chameleon Club :: Lancaster, PA


The Felice Brothers :: 09.05 :: Lancaster, PA
The Felice Brothers have become one of the hardest working roots rock outfits around, touring months at a time before a few weeks break and then onto the next run of shows. After their summer tour with Old Crow Medicine Show, the Brothers got back to the small clubs in the Mid-Atlantic area, where they seem most at home.

This was their second trek to Lancaster, PA, and at the first show less than a year ago they drew maybe 75 people. Once we arrived at the glorified basement that is the Chameleon Club, it was clear that their non-stop touring has paid off in new fans as the line was out the door, making for a packed house on a Labor Day weekend Saturday night. Willy Mason opened the show, sharing his singer-songwriter thoughts on everything from pickup trucks to chasing girls. For the last couple of songs he was joined by the Felices, and once they settled in they fleshed out Mason's songs, pushing the sound throughout the room.

The Brothers came out to lots of whoops and hollers. A few friendly fans had set them up with some beers at the front of the stage, and away we went. With dark, ominous tones oozing from James Felice's organ, they tore into "Greatest Show On Earth." It was an impressive performance, full of nuance set against Christmas' big, booming bass. After the strong opener they dipped into "Two Hands," a Townes Van Zandt composition that talks about filling your life with Jesus so you're not "gonna think about trouble anymore."


The Felice Brothers :: 09.05 :: Lancaster, PA
Up next was "Cooperstown," with lead singer Ian Felice and James' accordion taking center stage. A very literal song about baseball and Ty Cobb, everyone paid rapt attention as the accordion wheezed out a tale from 1905. James always seems to have some whiskey on his keyboards, as he did tonight, but he wanted to share, so before he took off on "Whiskey in my Whiskey," he asked the audience to "pass it around the whole room."

Each member got the chance to sing this evening. With Simone Felice gone from the band, it appears as if it is becoming more democratic. Greg Farley, he of the washboard and fiddle and cheerleader extraordinaire, sang his "Song for Gramps." Bassist Christmas remained impenetrable, scowling most of the time onstage except for his turn at the mic on a new song.

With Willy Mason joining the boys for the latter half, playing anything he could find onstage, they drove through some of their most frantic material - "Take this Bread," "Chicken Wire" and "Helen Fry." They did debut a new song, "Marie," which was quite beautiful, and each member sang a verse. They closed the show with "Chicken Run," featuring Farley splashing water throughout the crowd.

It was a pretty standard performance by the group, though with some new songs being added to the mix. While standard, the interplay between the musicians is one of their selling points. Not only are they excellent players and writers, they sure are having fun and it's contagious.

The Felice Brothers are on tour now; dates available here.

JamBase | Pennsylvania
Go See Live Music!

LINK

Another Auction

to benefit the LYN House in Indy from From Nick Roberts.


The LYN House Mission Statement: “With a commitment to Christian love for poverty affected residents of Indianapolis, LYN House seeks to show compassionate hospitality and transformational care.”

The LYN house is located on the near Eastside of Indianapolis directly across from the First Free Methodist Church. The LYN House is an existing community of believers opening themselves to welcome people to come in and be a part of their community. The LYN House will strive to meet the educational, physical,and emotional, and spiritual needs of the community. The ultimate goals of the LYN House are to provide a safe place for the community’s residents, to gather for fellowship, and to help meet the educational needs of the community through tutoring and mentoring.
Here are the auction items:

I have 4 signed copies of “The Big Empty”
7 Duke & The King Album Promo Posters, all signed
1 Duke & The King EP Signed
2 Bush Hall Concert Posters, both signed

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The Duke and The King on Mountain Stage

The Duke & The King On Mountain StageListen Now: The Duke And The King In Concert


http://www.mountainstage.org/




Brian Blauser: The Duke And The King.
Set List"The Morning That I Get to Hell"
"The Devil Is Real"
"American Song"
"If You Ever Get Famous"
September 25, 2009 - Nothing Gold Can Stay is the debut record by New York-based duo Simone Felice and Robert "Chicken" Burke, collectively known as The Duke & The King. Named after two characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the duo is joined here in live performance by "The Deacon" Nowell Haskins. Combining brisk harmony and simple accompaniment, the trio performs four songs from Nothing Gold, all written or co-written by the group's members.

Felice is a noted author and member of alt-country rockers The Felice Brothers; Burke, a noted instrumentalist with Toshi Reagon and a George Clinton collaborator. Both ventured to The Chapel, a cabin and home studio in the woods outside of Woodstock, N.Y., to record Nothing Gold Can Stay. The trio is wrapping up a U.K. tour now.

Alan Jones writes about the Duke and the King again

Willard Grant Conspiracy, The Duke & The King: Club Uncut, The Relentless Garage, September 18 2009
2009-09-21 14:55:04
When The Duke & The King made their UK debut at London’s Bush Hall in May, I seem to remember there being at certain points up to about nine people on stage, including on at least one number four people playing guitars, someone on keyboards, a couple of backing singers and, of course, Simone Felice, late of The Felice Brothers, and his new musical partner Robert “Chicken” Burke on vocals. The evening also included a lot of instrument-swapping, principally between Simone and Burke, who took turns at the drum stool.

Continued...

This was only The Duke & The King’s second show, and good as it often was, there were a lot of early nerves, although by the end the house was duly rocking. You still had the feeling, however, that this was still very early days for the band. After a decent spell on the road, you could only imagine they would be even more fearsomely good.

And this was pretty much the message I got from several Uncut readers who’d caught their recent dates, all of them pretty mind-blowing from all accounts, especially their turn at the End Of The Road festival. What I hadn’t realised from this reader correspondence was that the line-up I saw in May had been so dramatically revised.

They appear at the Garage for Club Uncut, whittled down to a four piece. The guitarists, keyboard player and bassist who’d appeared at Bush Hall have all gone. Burke is on bass and vocals. Nowell “The Deacon” Haskins continues to supply extraordinary gospel vocal counterpoints and now also drums. Simone is still stage centre, on guitar and vocals, and to his left is newcomer, the sensational Simi Stone, on fiddle and additional vocals. Her striking voice adds an even more testifying flavour to the group’s sound, which in its new incarnation is both simpler and more dynamic, their four-part harmonies a sheer wonder.

The set is drawn principally from debut album, Nothing Gold Remains, with notably luminous versions of “If You Ever Get Famous”, “The Morning I Get To Hell”, “Union Street” and “Suzanne”, with Burke taking the lead vocal. They raid the Felice Brothers songbook for two songs – “Don’t Wake The Scarecrow” and a rowdy “Radio Song”, which ends in some mayhem, with Stone’s flamboyant fiddle swirling through the mix as deliriously as anything Scarlett Rivera played on the Rolling Thunder Tour.

At the Bush Hall, they’d done a great cover of The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” that’s no longer part of their set. Instead, it’s been replaced by something even more spectacular – a truly stunning version of Neil Young’s “Helpless”, Stone’s fiddle here a thing of mournful beauty, Felice and Burke’s twin harmonies framed by the soulful exclamations of Stone and Haskins, the whole thing quite breathtaking. As is the closing “One More American Song”, four voices, one acoustic guitar and five or six minutes of sombre perfection.

Willard Grant Conspiracy, whose line-up can sometimes be counted in double figures, are also stripped down to a four piece tonight, with WGC mainstay Robert Fisher joined by a trio that includes guitarist Paul Tasker and vocalist Iona MacDonald from Doghouse Roses. The conversational intimacy of what they play is in many respects as the evening unfolds increasingly ill-served by the Garage’s reputation for rowdiness, the din from the large bar area clearly vexing the many reverent fans gathered at the front of the stage. Their exasperation turns to angry impatience as the noise behind them increases, people around me now getting quite agitated and yelling at the people at the back to shut up, which of course only adds to the general din, which seems somewhat counter-productive.

The Friday night coke-heads in the bar are clearly not as interested in listening to the band as they are to each other and are loudly indifferent to the prim demands to button up and pipe down. As if Uncut is somehow to blame for this general insensibility, I am now asked repeatedly by indignant fans to write an editorial at the earliest opportunity about people talking at gigs. Blimey. With the world in global recession, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, woe everywhere you look and the price of decent weed, you’d think there’d be other things to get so het-up about.

Not that I’m unsympathetic, the racket is as irritating as fuck. And I’m not sure why anyone would want to shell out up to 20 quid for a ticket for a band they don’t especially want to see and pay nearly four quid for a pint of lager when they could as easily have met in a local pub where the drinks are cheaper and you don’t have to pay to get in.

But if these people are indeed prepared to pay that kind of money, what can you do? Make everyone take a vow of silence, impose a gagging order of some kind, or make talking, texting and chatting on mobiles punishable in some way? Whatever, I’d say there are quite a few folk here who won’t be going back to the Garage again, whoever’s playing.

Anyway, amid all this commotion, tonight’s incarnation of WGC, when they can be heard, play many noble things, sublime versions among them of “Ghost Of The Girl In A Well”, “Soft Hand” and a dolorously gloomy “Fare Thee Well”.


Link

The Duke and the King in The Wall Steet Journal

Video is featured from the show at the City Winery

Link

The Duke and The King with Robert Elms on BBC

CHeck it out here

Eat This Music it Tastes Like Chicken: Tiger Weekly

Link
From Baton Rouge LA

Eat this music, it takes like chicken


By Morgan Mitchener

The Felice Brothers are playing at Bogies on September 30 and the smell of sweat, blood and baked beans will surely fill the air. These Northern guys got their start on a front porch, which may explain their backwards talent and uninhibited sense of self.

First and foremost, the band is comprised of five members: Ian Felice (guitar/vocals), James Felice (accordion/keys), Greg Farley (fiddle), David Turbeville (drummer) and Christmas Clapton (no relation to Eric or Santa/bass).

They are all friends but amongst the friends are two brothers, Ian and James Felice. That is where the tantalizing trouble begins.

It was when Papa Felice (Ian and James' dad who lives in a very, very rural area of N.Y. and basically is a mountain man) decided the group was "good as snuff," so he called all the local neighbors to cram onto, "this here front porch and hear my boys play!"

During an interview with Tiger Weekly, James Felice reluctantly recalled, "Yea my dad is sort of a 'show-dad,' I'm surprised we all weren't wearing leather pants and learning dance routines."

Eventually, coming down off the Catskill Mountains and moving to "The Big City" is how the band became city-dwellers or what some would call bums.

James Felice elaborated by saying, "Ian and I fight all the time. When we got a dollar busking in the subways, all I wanted was a piece of gum (it's only 25 cents) but Ian told me to eat one from under the chair I was sitting in, so of course I had to punch him."

After the fighting ceased, Team Love Records happened to walk by and sign them on the spot. The band rigorously wrote demos and trained in a chicken coup until they finally birthed their new album, Yonder Is the Clock.

The album is a mixture of love and barn smells that act as meth to its listener. The delightful tracks will make you desire that the sound never cease. It's a good taste for the ears and is simultaneously powerful and peaceful.

Ten minutes before each performance, the band members require one another (they are very superstitious) to suck on their perspective pebble that each member hand-picked from Papa Felice's front stoop and are not allowed to spit it out until show-time.

They say, if one member does not comply with this tradition, it could be detrimental to their performance, even going as far to say, "If someone (anyone in the band) didn't join in, I dunno, they might forget everything they ever learned, or worse, snap out of the hypnosis that actually got us playing," explained James Felice who shutters at the thought, "I don't even want to think about it."

To buy merch, look at tour dates and hear the beauty of The Felice Brothers, go to their Myspace page, www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers. But beware; you might not be able to leave your computer once you taste this chicken-of-the-music.

New Years Eve with the Felice Brothers in Brooklyn

December 31 at Southpaw.

Get tickets while they last there are a few left.

Show starts at 10:30pm and that gives you time to get a pizza at De fara's and shoot over to the show.

Southpaw

The Duke and The King hit the Mountain Stage on NPR This Weekend

Mountain Stage

here are the Mountain Stage Affiliates:

Listen to Mountain Stage on these Radio Stations
Market Call Letters Freqency Day of Air Start Time
Anchorage, AK KSKA-FM 91.1 Sun 2:00PM
Barrow, AK KBRW-FM 91.9 Sun 2:00PM
Fairbanks,AK KUAC-FM 104.7 Sat 2:00PM
Fort Yukon, AK KZPA-AM 900 Sun 5:00PM
Galena, AK KIYU-AM 910 Sat 2:00PM
Glennallen, AK KXGA-FM 90.5 Sat 2:00PM
Homer, AK KBBI-AM 890 Sat 5:00PM
Kenai, AK KDLL-FM 91.9 Sun 7:00PM
McCarthy, AK KXKM-FM 89.7 Sat 2:00PM
McGrath, AK KSKO-AM 870 Mon 1:00AM
Petersburg, AK KFSK-FM 100.9 Sun 6:00PM
Sand Point, AK KSDP-AM 840 Sat 9:00AM
Talkeetna, AK KTNA-FM 88.5 Sat 2:00PM
Valdez, AK KCHU-AM 770 Sat 2:00PM
Wrangell, AK KSTK-FM 101.7 Mon 10:00PM
Arcata, CA KHSU-FM 90.5 Fri 1:00AM
Crescent City, CA KHSR-FM 91.1 Fri 1:00AM
Sat 1:00PM
Cortez, CO KSJD-FM 91.5 Sat 3:00PM
Sun 10:00PM
Sharon, CT WHDD-FM 91.9 Mon 1:00PM
Tue 7:00PM
WHDD-AM 1200 Mon 1:00PM
Tue 7:00PM
Washington, DC WAMU-FM-HD2HD Radio 88.5-2 Sat 10:00PM
Fort Pierce, FL WQCS-FM-HD2HD Radio 88.9 Sat 8:00PM
Panama City, FL WKCG-FM 90.7 Sat 1:00PM
Panama City, FL WKCG-AM 1480 Sat 1:00PM
Athens, GA WUGA-FM 91.7 Sun 2:00PM
Ames/Des Moines, IA KDMR-FM 88.9 Sa 3:00PM
WOI-FMHD Radio 90.1 Sa 3:00PM
WOI-AM 640 Sa 3:00PM
KUNI-FM 101.7 Sa 3:00PM
Carroll, IA KWOI-FM 90.7 Sa 3:00PM
WOI-FM-HD-2HD Radio 90.1 Sa 3:00PM
Cedar Falls/Waterloo, IA KHKE-FM 89.5 Sa 3:00PM
KUNI-FM 90.9 Sa 3:00PM
Clear Lake/Mason City, IA KHKE-FM 90.7 Sa 3:00PM
KUNY-FM 91.5 Sa 3:00PM
KRNI-AM 1010 Sa 3:00PM
Dubuque, IA KDUB-FM 89.7 Sa 3:00PM
KUNI-FM 98.7 Sa 3:00PM
KSUI-FM 101.7 Sa 3:00PM
Fort Dodge, IA KTPR-FM 91.1 Sa 3:00PM
Iowa City/Cedar Rapids, IA KSUI-FM 91.7 Sa 3:00PM
WSUI-AM 910 Sa 3:00PM
Lamoni, IA KOWI-FM 97.9 Sa 3:00PM
Ottumwa, IA KDWI-FM 89.1 Sa 3:00PM
KUNZ-FM 91.1 Sa 3:00PM
Quad Cities, IA KUNI-FM 94.5 Sa 3:00PM
KUNI-FM 102.1 Sa 3:00PM
Boise, ID KBSU-FM 90.3 Sat 2:00PM
McCall, ID KBSM-FM 91.7 Sat 2:00PM
Pocatello, ID KISU-FM 91.1 Sun 7:00PM
Twin Falls, ID KBSW-FM 91.7 Sat 2:00PM
Glen Ellyn, IL WDCB-FM 90.9 Fri 7:00PM
WDCB-FM 90.9 Wed 10:00PM
Macomb, IL WIUM-FM 91.3 Sun 5:00PM
Macomb, IL WIUW-FM 89.5 Sun 5:00PM
Kankakeem, IL WKCC-FM 91.1 Sun 5:00PM
Lerose, KY WOCS-FM 88.3 Fri 8:00PM
Morehead, KY WMKY-FM 90.3 Fri 8:00PM
Boston, MA WUMB-FM 91.9 Sat 11:00AM
Wed 7:00PM
Falmouth, MA WFPB-FM 91.9 Sat 11:00AM
Wed 7:00PM
Great Barrington, MA WAMQ-FM 105.1 Mon 9:00PM
Newburyport, MA WNEF-FM 91.7 Sat 11:00AM
Wed 7:00PM
Orleans, MA WFPB-AM 1170 Sat 11:00AM
Wed 7:00PM
Sheffield, MA WBSL-FM 91.7 Mon 1:00PM
Tue 7:00PM
Worcester, MA WBPR-FM 91.9 Sat 11:00AM
Wed 7:00PM
Worton, MD WKHS-FM 90.5 Sun 6:00PM
Dearborn/Detroit, MI WHFR-FM 89.3 Sun 1:00PM
Marquette, MI WNMU-FM 90.1 Sun 6:00PM
Ypsilanti, MI WEMU-FM 89.1 Sat 2:00PM
Austin, MN KMSK-FM 91.3 Sun 3:00PM
Duluth, MN KUMD-FM 103.3 Sat 8:00AM
Grand Marais, MN WTIP-FM 90.7 Sat 12:00PM
Mankato, MN KMSU-FM 89.7 Sun 3:00PM
Minneapolis, MN KBEM-FM 88.5 Sat 12:00PM
Rolla, MO KMST-FM 88.5 Sun 8:00PM
Bozeman, MT KGLT-FM 91.9 Sat 5:00PM
Great Falls, MT KGPR-FM 89.9 Mon 7:30PM
Charlotte, NC WNCW-FM 100.3 Fri 8:00PM
Winston-Salem, NC WFDD-FM-HD3HD Radio 88.5-3 Sat 2:00PM
Winston-Salem, NC Sun 4:00PM
Wilkes, NC WBSL-FM 91.7 Fri 8:00PM
Spindale, NC WNCW-FM 88.7 Fri 8:00PM
Grand Forks, ND KFJM-FM 90.7 Sat Sun 5:00PM
Maljamar,NM KMTH-FM 98.7 Sun 3:00PM
Portales, NM KENW-FM 89.5 Sun 3:00PM
Albany, NY WAMC-AM 1400 Mon 9:00PM
Albany, NY WAMC-FM 90.3 Mon 9:00PM
Blue Mtn Lake, NY WXLH-FM 91.3 Sun 6:00PM
Bronx, NY WFUV-FM 90.7 Fri 2:00PM
Bronx, NY WFUV-FM-HD2HD Radio 90.7-2 Fri 2:00PM
Canajoharie, NY WCAN-FM 93.3 Mon 9:00PM
Canton, NY WSLU-FM 89.5 Sun 6:00PM
Geneva, NY WEOS-FM 89.7 Sun 3:00PM
Kingston, NY WAMK-FM 90.9 Mon 9:00PM
Malone, NY WSLO-FM 90.9 Sun 6:00PM
Middletown, NY WOSR-FM 91.7 Mon 9:00PM
North Creek, NY WXLG-FM 89.9 Sun 6:00PM
Peru, NY WXLU-FM 88.3 Sun 6:00PM
Plattsburgh, NY WCEL-FM 91.9 Mon 9:00PM
Rochester, NY WRUR-FM 88.5 Sun 4:00PM
Tue 6:00PM
Rochester, NY WXXI-AM 1370 Sun 3:00PM
Rochester, NY WXXI-FM-HD2HD Radio 91.5-2 Sun 3:00PM
Saranac Lake, NY WSLL-FM 90.5 Sun 6:00PM
Syracuse, NY WCNY-FM HD3HD Radio 91.3 Sun 12:00AM
Syracuse, NY WAER-FM 88.3 Sat 5:00 PM
Ticonderoga, NY WANC-FM 103.9 Mon 9:00PM
Utica, NY WRUN-AM 1150 Mon 9:00PM
Watertown, NY WSLJ-FM 88.9 Sun 6:00PM
Athens, OH WOUB-FM 91.3 Tue 2:00AM
Athens, OH WOUB-FM 91.3 Sat 8:00PM
Cambridge, OH WOUC-FM 89.1 Tue 2:00AM
Sat 8:00PM
Chillicothe, OH WOUH-FM 91.9 Tue 2:00AM
Sat 8:00PM
Ironton, OH WOUL-FM 89.1 Tue 2:00AM
Sat 8:00PM
Zanesville, OH WOUZ-FM 90.1 Tue 2:00AM
Sat 8:00PM
Ashland, OR KSMF-FM Sat 1:00PM
Sun 9:00PM
Coos Bay, OR KSBA- FM 88.5 Sat 1:00PM
Sun 9:00PM
Klamath Falls, OR KSKF-FM 90.9 Sat 1:00PM
Sun 9:00PM
Burney / Redding, OR KNCA-FM 89.7 Sat 1:00PM
Sun 9:00PM
Mt. Shasta, OR KNSQ-FM 88.1 Sat 1:00PM
Sun 9:00PM
Harrisburg, PA WXPH-FM 88.1 Sun 6:00PM
Kane, PA WPSX-FM-HD2HD Radio 90.1-2 Sun 6:00PM
Philadelphia, PA WXPN-FM 88.5 Sun 6:00PM
Schnecksville, PA WXLV-FM 90.3 Sat 6:00PM
Scranton, PA WVIA-FM HD2HD Radio 89.9 Sat 4:00PM
University Park, PA WPSU-FM-HD2HD Radio 91.5-2 Sun 6:00PM
Johnson City, TN WETS-FM 89.5 Sat 3:00AM
Sat 8:00PM
Knoxville, TN WUOT-HD2HD Radio 91.9 Sun 6:00PM
Amarillo, TX KJJP-FM 105.7 Sun 12:00AM
Sat 11:00PM
Bushland, TX KTXP-FM 91.5 Sun 12:00AM
Sat 11:00PM
Spearman, TX KTOT-FM 89.5 Sun 12:00AM
Sat 11:00PM
Chase City, VA WMVE-FM 90.1 Sat 10:00PM
Heathsville, VA WCNV-FM 89.1 Sat 10:00PM
Radford, VA WVRU-FM 89.9 Sat 2:00PM
Richmond, VA WCVE-FM 88.9 Sat 10:00PM
Hayward, WI WOJB-FM 88.9 Sat 5:00PM
Beckley, WV WVPB-FM 91.7 Sun 3:00PM
Sat 8:00PM
Buckhannon, WV WVPW-FM 88.9 Sun 3:00PM
Sat 8:00PM
Charleston, WV WVPN-FM 88.5 Sun 3:00PM
Sat 8:00PM
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Sat 8:00PM
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From Australia: Nothing Gold Can Stay Review

Vulnerable country rockers' cautionary tales of love

Reviewed by Bernard Zuel
September 16, 2009

link

THE DUKE & THE KING

Nothing Gold Can Stay (Chapel/Shock)

DAVID GRAY

Draw the Line (Universal)

Simone Felice, the main half of the Duke & the King, and David Gray seemingly inhabit completely different worlds. Gray, the Mancunian whose late-arriving career turning point, White Ladder, sold by the bucketload at the turn of the century, is mainstream pop radio. His songs get played on love song requests and accompany tearful breakups.

Felice, from the Catskills in upstate New York, is the drummer in the family band the Felice Brothers, and an occasional visitor to alternative or roots radio. His songs get played by music critics who still have a hankering for the Band.

But play these two albums side by side and the similarities start to line up. The reasons why one is likely to be in your face at every wine bar over the next year, while the other slips away unnoticed, don't make much sense.

The comparison is not necessarily in quality, but more on that later.

Sure, Gray has a more studio-processed sound and pop feel, while Felice sounds like he may well have recorded this album in "Big Pink", the house where Dylan and the Band hibernated. And he doesn't mind some mild psychedelic flavourings to the more country-rock shapes. However, there is a shared, slightly quavering, tenor, a common vulnerability in tone, a preference for tales more cautionary than celebratory, a tendency towards the slower end of mid-tempo and a direct connection to singer-songwriters of the 1970s, such as James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot and Jackson Browne. This isn't hard-to-reach music; it's as easy to grasp as it is on the ears.

Where their paths diverge most markedly is in the depth of songwriting. Gray is ordered and professional. His music aims towards, while never actually reaching, some kind of emotional catharsis; his lyrics have just enough of the personal to make it sound as if it could be any man or everyman; his voice emoting ever so.

Felice, on the other hand, never seems to be trying too hard to convince you. He leaves that to the truthfulness of wistful songs such as If You Ever Get Famous, rugged tales such as the street survival of Union Street, sharp lines such as “Jesus walked on the water but so did Marvin Gaye” and a voice that takes you along with it rather than pointing out the way.

Yeah, David Gray can write a song. But Simone Felice is a s

I've Been Away...sorry no updates for awhile

I have been hiking on the Appalachian Trail for a few days. Glad to be back. it was fun, but tiring. Can't wait to start my thru hike in February. I'll be doing another section for training purposes in a couple weeks.\\dig

Consequence of Sound: The Felice Brothers at Skidmore

An Evening with The Felice Brothers at Skidmore College (9/12)

By Drew Litowitz on September 14th, 2009

An Evening with The Felice Brothers at Skidmore College (9/12)

The Felice Brothers have performed at outdoor pavilions, shows with thousands in attendance. They’ve played to large crowds at summer festivals galore. That’s all good and fair, being the great live performers that the guys are. They are certainly suited for playing the likes of Bonnaroo and All Points West with no complaints. But, where they really belong is a place like Falstaff’s at Skidmore College, a tiny venue that was lucky enough to experience the brothers at their best Saturday night. Their ramshackle, twangy, moonshine folk definitely sounds–and for that matter, feels–best in a small, cabin-like upstate venue, where their abundant energy doesn’t have much space to escape; where every clank and pluck can rattle off the walls, and all the hollering and harmonizing can fester. With a fiddle, a guild guitar, a nice drum set, an organ, a washboard, and an accordion, the guys come together to create an undeniably raw, old-time hoedown with every show they play.

Paradoxically so, that disheveled sound is heavily refined. The Felice Brothers have captured the spirit and mood of the music they want to play, the raw and crassness of it all, and cleaned the edges up a bit, without at sacrificing the overall feeling that they convey. They sound like they spent 40 years drinking whiskey and smoking hand rolled cigarettes in damp basements, yet no member is over the age of 30. They are a continuation of who Dylan used to be, and they do a fine good job at keeping up the tradition.

Before The Brothers Felice took to the small stage of Falstaff’s, I had the pleasure of talking with with James Felice, organ/accordion player, for a few minutes. As fans from as far as New Jersey continually approached James as he sat outside finishing his cigarette before our interview, it was clear that Skidmore College–located near the Catskill Mountains in Saratoga Springs, NY–was overly privileged to have such a great band grace the campus. After a last drag, James got up and tried to pick a location to talk with me. We walked to the dark back of the small venue, James asking “How bout over here? An interview in the dark.” That should provide a good enough insight into the way this young band operates. Simply put, they go with the flow… and the flow sounds pretty fucking good.

First off, thanks so much for sitting down with me.

I guess the first thing I have to ask about is the lineup change. Can you shed some light on the situation with Simone leaving for his other project, The Duke and the King, and how it has affected the band chemistry? Is there some bad blood or was it a pretty mutual, understood departure? Does he plan to return?

James Felice: Oh no not at all. He wanted to do his own thing, it was time. He’s getting married and stuff, he wanted to play the music he wanted to play and he’s doing it right now. It was good to have him, but we’ve got a great drummer right now who’s wonderful. No, no bad blood, not at all. He’s my brother, no such thing.

I’ve always wondered, and I’ve wondered this about most bands consisting of siblings, how did you guys become so creatively productive. When did you guys start playing and writing together? Is it ever hard to be in a band with your brothers?

JF: It’s like anybody else, you know. It just happens to be your brother so I guess we’re more sort of in tune with what we’re like and what we’re good at and stuff. But you know, we’re friends too, so we decided we wanted to play music together we just happened to be brothers, it just sort of worked out like that. Not till we were older that we really started playing together at all.

Do you guys get into a lot of fights because you’re brothers?

JF: Fuck yeah, we get into fights. Everybody gets into fights. You know, you got a brother a best friend or your fuckin’ wife or a girlfriend, you get into fights. We get a long pretty good, though.

Mark Twain seems to be present in your work, mostly in the title of your latest album, Yonder is the Clock, and in Simone’s band name, The Duke and the King, where does Twain’s writing fit in with the music of the Felice Brothers? There’s kinda that old time mountain folk vibe in your music.

JF: Yeah, absolutely you know. He’s not really old time, he’s just an amazing writer and he had awesome observations. Towards the end of his life he became a very negative person. His daughter died and he was very pessimistic and “Yonder is the Clock,” that line is from a short story called, “The Mysterious Stranger” which was a very negative sort of outlook about how god just sort of toys with people and doesn’t really give a shit. Which is sort of deep and is not necessarily what we believe or anything, but it just seemed like a good thing to use. But for Mark—and all those great American writers, like um Hemingway and Faulkner, who came around later—it’s just all very inspirational, some of the best artists in the world, and I think we read a lot of them when we were growing up and it sort of influenced what we like. Everything we grew up with influenced us in some way, you know, whether it’s Mark Twain or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or anything. It’s all there somewhere.

New York isn’t really heard in your music sonically, but you seem to have a lot of NY pride (“Penn Station”), wearing Yankees hats while playing, etc. Is it fun to come back to this area to do a show like this?

JF: Yeah, I love playing shows at home. And as for the sound, you know, it’s definitely not New York City sound, but it’s Catskill Mountain Music. And Catskill Mountains are a part of you know, the Appalachians and Woodstock and all that shit. And you know, New York embodies a lot of things, it doesn’t necessarily have to sound like, you know, a Brooklyn indie band or hip hop.

Do you guys feel more connected with upstate New York or with the city?

JF: Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean both. You know, Upstate’s the home that’s where we grew up, that’s where we live, so. New York City is our city home. But, anywhere you grow up is going to influence your sound.

If I were to describe your sound to somebody I might tell them that you guys were like a sort of Basement Tapes revival. Do you think it’s safe to say you draw a lot of inspiration from Dylan and the Band or do you guys sort of get sick of the comparisons?

JF: I’ve never heard the Basement Tapes, so I don’t know what that sounds like. But, we love Dylan and the band of course, you know, Dylan I think specifically is one of our favorite songwriters. He’s brilliant, obviously. He’s the best. So, yeah, definitely. We’re influenced by the same music they were influenced by, the early American music. The Basement Tapes thing I don’t really understand, cause I never heard it, but . . . if that’s what you think it sounds like that’s cool. If you like The Basement Tapes, if you don’t then, you know.

It’s not a sore subject, though for you guys?

JF: Nah, fuck it, I don’t care. I mean, no one wants to be compared to anything. Everyone wants to feel like they’re original in some way, I know we’re not, obviously, but no one really is. Compare us to anyone you want, I say.

Subsequently, you’ve played with Levon Helm, you’ve been at his midnight rambles… what’s it like to play with somebody like Levon Helm, having spent so much time listening to his music as an aspiring musician. Must be a pretty surreal thing.

JF: It’s a wonderful thing, it’s an amazing thing. It’s um, it really is. It’s inspirational, and it’s humbling, cause you realize how much better they are than you. And it was just cool that he had us there, you know. And I think hopefully we’re going to do it again soon. But you know, it was fun man. He loves music, he loves the same kind of music we love. So it was just fun to be a part of it, you kno

Paste Magazine: Getting to Know the Duke and the King

Getting to Know... The Duke & The King
By
Rachael Maddux
link
If you've ever seen
the Felice Brothers

in concert, the sight of percussionist Simone—one of the raggedy band of buskers' namesake fratelli—heaving himself around his drum-kit and springing to his feet to pummel a crash cymbal or leer over his toms at the crowd is likely still etched in your mind. Earlier this year, though, his frenetic, oft-wifebeatered presence suddenly went missing from the band's raucous live shows. After spending the winter writing and recording songs with his longtime friend Robert “Chickenfoot” Burke, Felice was struck with a major personal loss in January and took the tragedy as a sign to re-asses his life—musically and otherwise.

On Aug. 4, Burke and Felice released Nothing Gold Can Stay, their debut album as
The Duke & The King

, on Ramseur Records. A few days later, just after launching a U.S. tour with a few other musician-friends, the new bandmates stopped by the Paste Studios—and, though they were running late for their show at Eddie's Attic that night, graced us with a four-song set that put a barn-stomp spin on the album's AM-tinged, folk-soul feel. A few weeks later, once the tour had wrapped and Felice was nestling back in at home before hitting the road again (the band kicks off a string of European dates today), we spoke with the wild-haired troubadour about Mark Twain, Michael Jackson and growing up in the shadow of Woodstock.
Paste: Where is home?
Simone Felice: I live in the Catskill Mountains, in New York, like a couple hours north of the city. It's where I was born, and it's where my mom is, my family. Now the fire whistle is blowing at the old firehouse because it's noon right now. So that's where I am.

Paste: How long were you guys out on the road?
Felice: Just two weeks. It was a nice trip, though. And it was so nice to stop down at your place, I'd never been there before.

Paste: I hope you guys made it to Eddie's on time.
Felice: [Laughs] Yeah, we got a little bit of a reprimand by Eddie, but it was fun hanging out with you guys.

Paste: It was great to see you play. Tell me about the band you toured with—who are all of those people?
Felice: That's Bobby Burke on the bass, who's my sort of songwriting partner and production partner—we made this record together. And Nowell Haskins on the drums—he's a very very important part of the group, he's our best friend. His dad was in the original Funkadelic Parliament, so he grew up in a singing band, touring around with
George Clinton

and all those weirdoes back in the day, back in the '70s when they were really more of a barbershop band. So it's really nice to have him because what we're doing with this group is making a singing band, a harmony band, all of us singing together. And then Simi is a good friend who is rolling with us on this tour. We just did a trip to England and a couple weeks in Spain and stuff and she played the violin and sings and a little keyboards. So that's pretty much the four-piece core of the group at this hour. It's an evolution, you know, who's rolling with us when and how.

Paste: The Felice Brothers is the only other band that you've toured with—I guess you guys had your own certain kind of dynamic with that group. How has it been traveling with a whole different bunch of people?
Felice: It's been really nice. Half the reason I'm really working with these other people is because they're my best friends, not like a couple dudes—they're not studio musicians or nothin'. They're people that I've traveled with a lot and lived with and hung with, so they're really like family too. I miss my brothers. It's so funny, the last night we played in D.C., two nights ago, we were driving home and I was co-pilot, we were tired, it was like two in the morning, and we came upon this old camper and we're like, “Look at this crazy pirate ship,” and we came up on it and looked over and said, “Oh my God, it's the boys.”

Paste: It was your brothers?
Felice: It was my brothers. On all the highways in all the country at all the hours that could be possible. We didn't even really know we were on the same highway at all, or whatever, and it was like, “Oh my God.” So we pulled up on them and started throwing water at them and they started throwing stuff at us, yelling at each other, “Oh, we love you guys!” So it was really sort of special, unexpected psychedelic communion on I-95 the other night. Really nice. And at the beginning of the tour all those guys came to The Duke & The King's debut in Woodstock. So our paths will always cross and we'll completely love each other and support what we're doing. But it was so cool, just so wild—you can imagine, just psychedelic, two in the morning after being on the road.

Paste: Did you think at first that maybe you were hallucinating?
Felice: Yes, I felt like I was hallucinating, I swear to God. Because that's the same RV that drove us, that I lived in for three years with the band, you know, so it was beautiful. It was really beautiful. It made me laugh and brought a tear to my eye. It was really nice.

Paste: So where do you live now, is that up near Woodstock?
Felice: Yeah, it's up near Woodstock. I live about a mile from the same house that I was born in. I was born in an old house on the creek here, and where I live now I walk down by the creek where I was born and I swim there every summer day that I can, so it's really peaceful. I'm on a dead-end road and I heat my place with just a wood stove and I got an old motorcycle and I go in the mountains when I'm home. It's my sort of Shangri-La.

Paste: I bet it's been nutty this summer, with the big Woodstock anniversary. Have there been, like, streams of tourists up there?
Felice: Yeah, there's a lot of tourists coming through up through Woodstock. There always is, though. Everybody wants to catch a little taste of that magic that's sort of faded away. And you know
Van Morrison

used to live up here, and
Jimi Hendrix

.

Paste: Do run into
Levon Helm

any?
Felice: Yeah, I've been to Levon's a couple times. They asked us, actually, to come do a Ramble with Levon November 7th, so that's such a cool honor to hang out with him at his house and do a little rock 'n roll. It's just a really special thing to be able to do that so I can't wait. Time flies and it's only a couple of months away.

Paste: Tell me about how you got started doing stuff with the new project. I know it was a very intensely, personally rough time, and the songs seem to reflect that, but at the same time they don't seem directly autobiographical.
Felice: Me and the brothers were on a little break and I was recording a bunch of these songs I was writing. And then my lady and I were expecting our baby and in sort of a late-term miscarriage we lost our baby girl. I was really excited about being a dad and having her, singing songs to her when she was in the belly and all that. It was in January. And then when we lost the baby my life all came pretty clear and heavy to me and like, “Man, I got all these songs I'm writing, I gotta go out and sing them.” Half the songs are written inspired by the baby, and then inspired by the absence of the baby. You know, some are born to reign, some are born to sin, some are born to die in the open wind. And a lot of that album is autobiographical, although I hope that it could feel a little bit universal, too, that everyone could feel those things. But yeah, so it was pretty organic, rather than planned. My friend Bobby Bird and I were just recording these songs in wintertime in his cabin, had this old two-inch tape machine. We've been writing songs together for ten years and were just having a nice time writing some tunes, recording, just what we do, and then everything happened with the baby and it just turned into an album, a story, a piece of—you know what I mean? And then there was a story that I had to tell, and you can't really argue with it when it's all out there.

Paste: Did you ever want to kind of not make it so public, not make it so out there? Or did that not cross your mind?
Felice: I'm pretty private in general, but you know, it came down to that a lot of [Felice Brothers] fans were wondering where I was, because I had to stay home with everything to look after my lady, and the boys had to go on tour, and I'm getting all these letters from everybody, “Where are you?” and “We're worried about you.” So I kinda had to write a letter to the fans so that they would know I was okay and not that I wasn't skipping out on them, I just had a real special connection with the fans. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't be able to live our dream, singing songs around the world and doing our thing. So it was kind of out of love for the fans and wanting them to rest assured that I was okay and that I wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere or something. That's why I came out with all that stuff. And I'm glad I did because it was sort of like a healing process kind of thing.

Paste: Tell me how you met Bobby.
Felice: We met like twelve, fifteen years ago in Woodstock, sort of naturally met and saw this crazy look in each others' eyes and said, “Hey, brother,” you know. We became friends a long time ago, even before the twin towers fell. We met a long time ago. We did all the things best friends do, taking hikes and wrote a lot of songs together and sort of writing one-act plays and weird shit that nobody would ever see. Just dreamin', dreamin'. So we would always get together to write songs and record them, and over time it became something more than just for us, it was something we had to share.

Paste: Tell me about the importance of the Huck Finn story to you guys, because I know it comes up a lot—with the title, and I heard you read the book for something like the millionth time while recording.
Felice: When I was a kid, I lived in a racist town. It was really a white-people town. If you were black and you came through town trying to hang out, you would get kicked out—and this was in, like, 1985. So when I was a kid and I read that book in the library or whatever, it sort of blew my mind that a young white kid in the South, where his whole upbringing tells him that black people are the slaves and the savages and the lesser humans and all that horseshit, that he can have this runaway slave Jim and, instead of turning him in, which is his sort of sworn duty as a white person, he became his best friend and they took a raft down the river and lived a free, peaceful life under the stars. And it just shaped my belief in the world—sort of like, “Wow, I don't ever want anyone to tell me what to do, to live by any of these horseshit guidelines.” So the book was very important to me when I was a kid and when I started to grow up or whatever.

It was cool because music in general has been a thing that's sort of healed that weird racial thing I felt in my town when I was a kid. I was fortunate enough to get out and play on that last Avett Brothers record with Rick Rubin—Rick asked me to come play drums on it, which was really cool. It was amazing. So I got to hang out with him and I got to tell him the story about, you know, he produced that song “Walk This Way” with Run DMC and Aerosmith—and this was in the middle of the 80s, and people were having race riots in my town and my high school and all that. And when that song came out on MTV and everybody saw the rappers and the rockers all getting down together, it was like, “Oh.” And I told Rick, I said, “After that song came out, there was no more race riots.”

Paste: People don't usually think of the Catskills as being a hotbed of racial tensions—I think the South definitely gets that burden.
Felice: Yeah, for some reason when I was a kid it was, for better or for worse, just a weird prejudiced thing happening in the mountains where I lived, where black people weren't welcome. It was some old thing that was leftover from back in the day, and I don't know why that happened that way. It's different now, of course. It's changed. But when I was a kid, you know, that's what I heard, that's what people told me—not my family, of course, they were super-cool. But there was an undercurrent of this old-guard racism.

Paste: And that was pretty recent. It's weird to think that your band now would have been a taboo band just twenty, twenty-four years ago.
Felice: 'Cause of Fleetwood Black, you mean? [Laughs] It was an old, leftover thing and it's really hard to fathom that's how it was when I was a little kid. But I'm glad it's okay now.

Paste: Tell me about the characters, the Duke and the King, from Huck Finn—how did they become your namesake for this project? Do you guys see yourselves as grifters?
Felice: No, not really. It's more—the cool part about the Duke and the King was that their hustle was to go set up a Shakespeare camp up and down the river, a Shakespeare theatre. They would do Romeo and Juliet and all these weird sort of bootleg versions of Shakespeare. So I liked that idea of setting up camp and being a traveling sort of theatrical, bizarrety. And that's sort of how the Felice Brothers started, was just traveling and setting up camp at a farmer's market or in the Subway or on the street or wherever, selling what we had to sell—which was songs—and trading songs for a place to sleep or something to eat. So it's kind of that wandering gypsy theatre that sort of inspired the name, to take something from that book that meant so much to me.

Paste: But there's also this sense of, for those characters, self-mythologizing, making up this backstory—which contrasts with yours, which is so true. You know, you're not saying you're the Dauphin or anything.
Felice: No. [Laughing] The rightful heir of
Louis XIV

.

Paste: Maybe next album you can be like, “Oh, by the way, I'm the son of this deceased world ruler.”
Felice: Well, you know, [Twain's Duke and the King] get tarred and feathered at the end. And if we use that as a metaphor for ourselves to always tell the truth, then we won't get tarred and feathered.

Paste: And then the title of the album—this kind of feels like a high school reading list, also—the
Robert Frost

poem, which most people might know better from...
Felice: [Laughing] From The Outsiders.

Paste: From The Outsiders, which I can definitely see in you all.
Felice: And you know, being regular boys in the Reagan times, we had BB guns, that whole thing. The Outsiders was just the shit when you're a kid in the 80s and it's kind of how my town was. Dudes rumblin', you know. Rolling their cigarettes up in their sleeves and rolling a bottle and fighting with it, you know what I mean? Sort of that golden time when I first fell in love with music, first got high on music when I was a kid, and sort of looking back on that, the whole album has that feeling. And “nothing gold can stay,” you know—it's like “castles made of sand melt into the sea, eventually,” you know. For me it's been really important to embrace the idea that everything changes and everything fades and that's why you've gotta grab it while you can and live life while you can and enjoy every day because we're just so many waves in the wind.

Paste: There's definitely a melancholy feeling to it. The song “If You Ever Get Famous”—I was looking it up on YouTube for some video of you guys playing live, and I found this Michael Jackson tribute video, which—have you seen it?
Felice: Yeah, some fan made that, or somebody, and just put it up there. When a fan found it and sent it to me a couple weeks ago, it just blew my mind. It was around when Michael Jackson died. It made me cry. It was also like, “Wow, this is fucking heavy.”

Paste: It was heavy but it was also just bizarre, because I think at the time the video was posted your album wasn't even out yet, so who knows where the song came from, but it felt just so sad but also very strange to me.
Felice: It did, right? It blew my mind. It was just psychedelic. It's fucking weird, right? But it's also like perfect, almost.

Paste: Before we go, can I ask—are you going to be back with the Felice Brothers in the future, or have you planned anything out?
Felice: Well, they're doing their thing, and probably I'm going to be this a while. I'm starting to make a new Duke & King album this fall, starting to write and record, and I'm also working on a new novel, so I'm really doing a lot of the things that I've been putting off for a while. So I'm going to be doing this a while. And me and my brothers will always link up and do a show here and there and record with each other.

Paste: Maybe on the side of I-95.
Felice: Yeah, we'll pull over on I-95. Isn't that a crazy story? You're the first person I got to tell about it. I called my mom last night and she was like, “Wow.”

The Duke and the King on Daytrotter

They Don't Them Like This No More
Sep 9, 2009
tell your friends…

Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Sound engineering by Mike Gentry

TRACKLIST
If You Ever Get Famous
The Morning I Get To Hell
One More American Song
I've Been Bad
Suzanne


Simone Felice, the eldest of the great Felice Brothers of the Woodstock, New York vicinity, told a story upon arrival at the studio here in Rock Island, not all that long ago about a man in the music publishing business that he took a meeting with recently in Nashville, while playing a show there in town. He was being wined and dined and Felice was baiting him - sort of. He was ingesting all of the bullshit that was being lobbed out and into the air, pieces of conversation that would make many and certainly his brothers, even his brother-in-law (the one and only AA Bondy) laugh until their sides split out, and firing right back, upping the ante and delivering the energetic responses that he knew the man on the other side of the table would eat up like cheesecake covered in dollar bills. He told the slick publisher fellow that he just wanted to make HITS, really emphasizing that word, squinting his brows and forming the "h" and "s" sounds as if he clearing his throat with a hack. He named off someone like Hall & Oates as an example of a hitmaker that he meant as an idol and the real funny part about it all wasn't that the man he was dining with told him - "I've always said, 'There isn't anything wrong with a hit," with a snake-like look in his lean eyes - but that Felice was only bending the desires of his heart of hearts. Felice does want to make hits, but these aren't the kinds of hits that people think of as hits anymore. These are hits from a yesteryear, when James Taylor, Bread and The Carpenters were making hits. It's when Neil Diamond was writing things like "Cherry, Cherry" and "Cracklin' Rosie." It's when Gilbert O'Sullivan was charting with "Alone Again (Naturally)," America was doing the same with "A Horse With No Name." With The Duke and the King, Felice has a side project that has he, The King (Robert Chicken Burke) and The Deacon (a man who seems to love Wu-Tang, breasts, old school professional wrestling, the cosmos and the Almighty in the same large amounts) making the kind of graceful and light hits of the early and mid-1970s, during those post Woodstock Festival years, as the ire over the Vietnam War was at its most exhausted and discouraged peak. Felice writes songs from the perspective of someone who not only has a feeling that things are only going to get more complicated, but has already witnessed it all. Many of the tracks on the group's gloriously understated and simplified debut album, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," involve a main character thinking nostalgically, when the music of his or her youth was a unifying fiber between a band of friends. These friends always sound as if they were the friends who drifted apart upon their high school graduation - on to colleges states apart, new girlfriends, buddies from elsewhere, new interests and maturity from out of nowhere and different priorities that are now defining, not extraordinary. Life has moved on exactly as it always does, really how it's meant to. And Felice comes to terms with this easily, in his own way, bridging an adolescence with all of the complexities of adulthood. It's as if the link he makes between his years - from then until now - is based on the music that was on the car and transistor radios, on the Walkman and cassette tapes when he was first discovering them and to bring it all back together again, he dives into what he first starting loving in American music. Felice addresses friends on "If You Ever Get Famous," and warns them to, "Say a prayer for your heart/Keep your eyes open and beware of the sharks/Cause they come out in the dark." He references a personal hero of his - Harriet Tubman - in "Water Spider," "Jesus walked on water/But so did Marvin Gaye/And Harriet/Did you hear they never caught her/She just slipped away," and he shows that he is an expert at slipping through time and country as well.

Link

The Felice Brothers in Jackson Free Press

Relevancy of Roots

Courtesy University of TennesseeThe Felice Brothers play at Proud Larry's in Oxford on Sept. 19.September 9, 2009

Modern roots music has hit a creative low in recent years. Artists have shown decreasing concern for progressing the genre, focusing instead on "authenticity." Of course, valuing authenticity over progress in any genre is ridiculous and counterproductive. It assures that the genre will never attain creative relevance and, worse, reduces it to mere novelty.

Far too many roots songs are written every year about train-hopping during the Vietnam War, or roaming the countryside in search of rest during the Great Depression. Somehow, artists get a pass on these anachronisms because of their fans' similarly dubious feelings regarding genre authenticity. It is a trait unique to this type of music. If a punk band today wrote songs about the scourge of Thatcherism on society, their fans would most likely tune them out.

The Felice Brothers are a challenge to this turn-back-the-clock mindset. While their sound is rooted in the 1950s and '60s, they draw equally from past and present, trying to bridge this gap instrumentally and lyrically. They have the traditional accordion and fiddle, but also feature electric guitar and electric bass. They sing about being stuck in train stations, but note that they have a broken cell phone in their pocket.

When they do play a song about the past, they deliberately frame it as a flashback as opposed to trying to pass it off as the present.

Their most recent record, "Yonder is the Clock," successfully unites the genre's glory days with the new millennium. It feels simultaneously nostalgic and fresh, and offers ample opportunities for foot stomping. The album's high point, "Memphis Flu," has the raucousness and camaraderie of an impromptu jam session, and is even more infectious than the topic disease. "Chicken Wire" is another up-tempo traditional song, but the prominent electric guitar and bass keep it grounded in the present while also producing a decidedly bluesy edge.

Sandwiched between these faster songs are more restrained numbers, which draw heavy influence from Bob Dylan. This inspiration is impossible to ignore when listening to Ian Felice's similarly strained, soulful voice. "The Big Surprise," "Ambulance Man," and "All When We Were Young" could easily have been pulled from Dylan's back catalog. The calculated, yet beautiful harmonies on many of these slower songs evoke the 1967 Basement Tapes sessions on which Dylan and The Band collaborated.

The Felice Brothers are known for their live performances, as they are one of the harder working bands in music. They are coming to Proud Larry's in Oxford on Sept. 19, which promises to be an entertaining and boisterous show. This is one of the rare bands that pays tribute to its roots, yet has a distinct direction in which they want to go. That's an uncommon combination in modern roots music, and it may enable The Felice Brothers to drag the genre back into relevancy.

Mix Tape Fan Promo

From Sean (DontWakethescarecrow.com) Youtube channel

The Duke and The King on NPR

Cornell Daily Raving About The Felice Brothers

Ithaca Heartbeats
Live Music at The Positive Jam
September 8, 2009 - 12:00am
By Ann Lui

link

Here’s the thing about falling in love with a city: it’s all about the complexity. The richness of a place lets the relationship linger and grow over time — people are myriad and varied, the food varieties are endless, the music is always bumpin’.


Sunday was the second of two days of co-sponsored events brought about by Dan Smalls Presents and funded by Ithaca Beer Co. While Brew Fest is widely lauded — if upstate New York constitutes “widely” — Positive Jam is an event that has yet to grow to full maturity. Although it’s less attended and less publicized, I felt on Sunday that I was at the beginning of something big whose potential had not yet been realized.

Nonetheless, bits of Ithaca had been transported to Stewart Park for our enjoyment: in this little microcosm there was the beloved gyro stand from the Commons, Ithaca Brewery’s tasty Pale Ale, local band The Caution Children and that Ithaca dance that everyone here does — tye-dye shirt, moving in a circle, lots of arm movement and kind of a little hop on one foot. More Ray Bans than I have ever seen in one place at one time.

The first headliner (after the local openers and The Rural Alberta Advantage) was Rhode Island band Deer Tick. True-to-heart American music with a kind of dark poetic twist, Deer Tick sounded like the bluesy rock that fuels long nights at the bar talking about your true love, the job you lost, etc. Far from being a stereotype, however, John McCauley’s slightly nasal, drawling voice gave new meaning to any preconceived ideas about country or folk music. The audience, which on Sunday was slow to get going, lingered in the shade during Deer Tick’s set. Their lyrics encouraged a slow roll rather than rambunctious dancing — “I’ve lived lies all my life / and I’ve been living here a long, long time / And it’s been coming down a while now,” Cauley sang in “Art Isn’t Real.” Introspective, indeed.

Makin' sweet, sweet musicMakin' sweet, sweet music

But the audience’s static poses weren’t going to last long: The Felice Brothers came onto the stage like nothing we’d ever seen, wearing face paint, war paint, breaking out into these wild, cross-stage dances as if something was going to explode. They brought out the big guns: an accordion, strange looking guitars, a washboard, a rabid violinist. If you ever doubted that you were going to dance, The Felice Brothers left you no choice.

Fully aware of their presentation and masters of it, Ian Felice and bassist Christmas Clapton – is that a real name? And can I share it with him? – made small talk about picking up indie girls at bars. On stage, they chatted about the weather, made philosophy jokes about Heidegger (“Hi, Digger!” Really?) and played some wild, wild music. It’s like these guys figured out what irony was — learned the genre norms — and decided to say “Fuck it.” “Good days are coming, good days are coming,” they sang — you’re telling me. The Felice Brothers’ set was the best of folk and indie rock, cross-bred with madness.

The Hold Steady, The Positive Jam’s headliners, came to the Ithaca stage with a well-established fan base, having played to a huge crowd at Castaways over the summer. By the time frontman Craig Finn had gotten to the ’80s in his decade-by-decade lyric run-through of the century (that is the start of the title song “The Positive Jam”), the crowd was screaming for more. Especially after two sets of folksy, bluesy rock, The Hold Steady sounded explicitly rock-and-roll.

The Hold Steady is a group of characters. Franz Nicolay, the keyboardist in a Scarface suit, and awesome facial hair, played like nothing we’ve ever heard. Craig Finn himself is the antithesis of what one expects a rock star to look like — until he starts moving, he is just a geeky guy in designer glasses with a sideways smile. But my god, when he starts performing, Finn is a bar room preacher, compassionate and angry by turns. A lyricist at heart, Finn comes off as a history buff (the Kennedys were mentioned at least three times) with a penchant for pop culture and pessimism. We hung on every word. No one’s home town, Americana fetish or local tradition was left untouched by his sarcasm. And yet Finn won us all with this wild, hyper laugh that drove the show — it’s a laugh that says, “I know you in all your failures and inconsistencies — but I love it. And I’m going to make music out of it.”

In “Ask Her For Some Adderall,” Finn told us, “If she asks, don’t tell her that I’ve been living hand-to-mouth / Don’t tell her that I’ve been sleeping on your couch / If she asks just tell her that we opened for The Stones / that’s her favorite band except for The Ramones.” Yes, Finn and The Hold Steady are jaded by love, jaded by life. They’ve done crazy things and deserve to be pessimistic, yet they somehow turn these experiences into anthems. The song that started it all, “The Positive Jam,” which began and ended the set, was the explosive conclusion to the day. “All the sniffling indie kids,” Finn calls out, “Hold steady. All the clustered up clever kids, hold steady. We’re gonna start it with a positive jam. Hold steady.”

Yes, Craig — this Sunday love affair with Ithaca may be the last day of summer, our last day of sharing local beer, green grass and Sundays spent rocking out in the sun. Soon we’ll be consumed by your concerningly precise depiction of life: growing old and jaded, drug addictions, relationships consumed by technology and worse — but we’re going to hold steady, Craig. And stay positive. Your twisted smile, the sunlight through trees over the lake and that feeling of the bass reverberating in my chest is going to last me through the Ithaca winter. By and by, we’ve got to start it off … with a Positive Jam.

Ithaca: setlist and videos

WAITER AT THE STATION




WHISKEY IN MY WHISKEY




WHITE LIMO



The First Band i really saw of the day was Deer Tick who played a nice set from mostly their newest record Born on Flag Day. Jimmy watched the old tourmates from last year from the crowd, and Dave Turbeville watched Dennis Ryans hellacious drumming from behind the stage in apparent astonishment.

The Felice Brothers came out at 400pm and. Ian and Christmas were in Warpaint. and not neatly applied either. Good one hour G, no filler, but really good. The Farley/James comedy repartee on stage is really getting good. They're like the Marx Brothers, and Ian is Groucho. Funny bit about the weather in the set.
Greatest Show
Run Chicken Run
Rioll On Arte
White Limo
Loves Me Tenderly
Whiskey in my Whiskey
Where'd you get the Liquor
Stepdad
River Jordan (Ian says his Gramma says she was a Egyptain in a prior life, he wrote it for her)
Frankies Gun
Godamn u Jim
Take this Bread
Waiter at the Station with Willy Mason (will Put video up on the blog)
Penn Station

Videos from The Chameleon Club in Lancaster

fARLEYS SONG FOR GRAMPS






TAKE THIS BREAD





greatest show
Two hands
Arte
white limo
cooperstown
tenderly
whisky
revolver
liquor
stepdad
River Jordan
Godamn u jim
Chicken Wire
ELECTRIC CHAIR (new Christmas song)
Farley song for gramps
Lou the welterweight
take this bread
St Stephen
Marie
Helen Fry
Chicken Run

Ithaca Journal: wrap up of Positive Jam

The Positive Jam, an all-day music festival held in Stewart Park Sunday, may have drawn its name from a song title by the headlining band The Hold Steady, but seasonably warm weather, reasonably priced local food and a solid line-up of crowd-pleasing rock groups resulted in atmosphere that left the audience of nearly a thousand positively ecstatic. The event was organized by Dan Smalls, the official in-house booker for The State Theatre, and was produced in association with Ithaca Beer Co., which hosted the third annual Brew Fest Saturday with the same stage and facilities. The five bands that performed over the course of the six-hour show Sunday ranged from the furiously energetic classic rock of the headliner to the countrified folk of Providence's Deer Tick, with some indie rock in between. The crowd responded especially positively to the Catskills-based Felice Brothers, who recalled the roots music of The Band. The one local act -- the Ithaca College act Caution Children -- opened with tunes that fit well alongside the rest of the bill. theIthacajournal.com

The Duke and The King: Mission from God

Interview in Yestertday's guardian newspaper



Are they a revivalist folk-soul band or a religious cult? Either way, this charismatic three-piece are on a mission from God
On a late spring evening in west London, on stage amid the restored Edwardian splendour of Bush Hall, Simone Felice was a man possessed – as transfixing as a cult leader, testifying about Jesus, Gandhi and Elvis. This morning, just down the road in Chiswick in the kitchen of his record company boss, he seems a different man.



Not completely different, however. Even sipping chicken stock, the 32-year-old from the Catskills in upstate New York is charismatic – if musicians' jokes are to be believed, a little too charismatic for a drummer. That was supposedly his job in the Felice Brothers, the Americana band he formed with his two younger siblings. His tendency to stray from behind the kit when possessed of the spirit at their gigs meant his departure from the band was, with hindsight, inevitable.

Now Felice has a new title: Duke. That is his role in his new band, the Duke & the King, the latter being 43-year-old drummer and singer Robert "Chicken" Burke. They're joined by new recruit Nowell Haskins ("the Deacon"), a Brooklyn singer of unrevealed age whose father sang with Parliament/Funkadelic. The three call each other "brother"; they kiss, they smile, they look deep into each other's eyes, they high-five; they cry "Amen to that!" when one of them, often standing up, makes a declaration about the band. This really does have all the hallmarks of a cult.

It began casually last winter when, on a break from the day job, Felice got together with Burke, veteran of several funk and soul bands "you'll never have heard of", in his home recording studio. By the end of the winter, they had completed Nothing Gold Can Stay, a beautiful record that takes Felice's evocative, tender lyrics, his soft, rich voice and simple folk melodies, and gives them an undertone of gospel fervour and the deep-burning passion of soul.

The pair bonded over music, but also over pain. Burke brought his love troubles, and for Felice it coincided with the stillbirth of his first child. "Her name was Belle, B-e-l-l-e," he says. "When I met her I saw my own face in her face and it blew my mind. It really changed my life and it was like, 'Life is too short not to listen to the voice in your head. I need to do what my heart tells me.'"

"The Duke & the King is friendship," says Burke, "but it's also a united spirit and focus, about what moves our hearts and what moves other people's hearts." It's also a kind of folk music, he says, but one that embraces Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. "Folk artists as well, but somehow if it was brown it wasn't called folk," he says, rousing Haskins to declare, "Marvin Gaye was as folk as it gets." Felice gives a heartfelt "Amen," then Burke is on his feet proclaiming: "If it's coming out of the gut of America and it's real, you better believe that's folk music." Haskins nods his assent.

"We're building a new little church brick by brick and board by board," Felice says. "That's what I always wanted to do with the Felice Brothers: have a space where, when people come to the show, they feel like a part of it and they're in a little congregation. They can feel free to jump up onstage and sing with us, to testify and to really shake loose the shackles of whatever is holding them down."

So they're a travelling show – troubadours, then, I suggest. Felice is taken with this: "Bringing the songs to the people? Is that what you mean? Fuckin' A – that's what we're doing!" A round of high fives is exchanged between the three. Then he's serious again. "People singing songs have saved my life," he says softly. "That was my psychologist and my Prozac. And I'm just trying to do the same for other people."


From our friend Lonesome Drifter (martin) at Frankies Gun

Positive Jam: Felice Brothers go on at 4:00pm

Fall's Biggest Jam Fest: The Positive Jam
September 3, 2009 - 12:00am
By Julia Woodward link

Some of you may remember my column last Friday when I waxed eloquent about the myriad of musical big-wigs who are en route to our humble town. You may also recall that included in that extra-ordinary line-up were two bands known respectively as The Hold Steady and Deer Tick, and that I gave a shout out to man-of-the-hour Dan Smalls, founder of Dan Smalls Presents, Inc. Well, this weekend, Dan Small Presents … the Positive Jam. Drawing a blank? Please, allow me to explain.

This Saturday, Ithaca Beer Co. will put on its third annual Brew Fest in Stewart Park, complete with live music, over 40 craft beers to taste and Wegman’s catering (specifically attuned to each beer you sample, of course). The event is 21-and-over, however, so don’t even try freshman, or you may join a good friend on the “crappy fake ID” display in Collegetown Wine and Spirits.

BUT, good news frosh, fellow almost-21-year-old seniors! This year, Ithaca Beer Co.’s Dan Mitchell has teamed up with music guru Dan Smalls to add a second day to the festival. So, on Day Two, also known as Sunday, Stewart Park will be open to all ages and there will be some more-than-rockin’ tuneage for your listening pleasure. The idea behind these two events is to revitalize Stewart Park, and as Dan Smalls enthusiastically explained, “show that Stewart Park is a viable venue.” Smalls explained that he and Mitchell had talked about doing something like this for a long time, and that after the sold-out Hold Steady show at Castaways this summer, everything just sort of fell into place. So what’s a little creative ingenuity between Dans? Oh yeah, an awesome festival!

The Hold Steady, an indie classic rock band (is that a genre?), is not only the Jam’s headliner, but also something of a driving force behind its inception. Smalls, who brought the Hold Steady to Ithaca this summer, felt like the college students had been a bit “shortchanged” by the missed opportunity to see the energetic quintet perform live. In a town where bringing the students together with the local talent (which Smalls described as “connecting the dots”) has mega-kryptonic potential, Smalls feels that venues and events that appeal to both groups might be more than even Clark Kent can handle.

The name, Positive Jam, actually comes from a Hold Steady song title, as well as a shared attitude of positivity. The Hold Steady, Smalls says, is a band that’s all about connecting with the audience. The name has meaning for the band, but can appeal to our flower-power culture as well. Birkenstocks forever! The Hold Steady will play at 5:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and I highly suggest that you be there. The music is classic rock with a little indie folk thrown in, in the form of harmonica, accordion and a penchant for storyline lyrics. The Brooklyn-based quintet got their start in 2004, and have since released four rockin’ albums, the most recent of which, Stay Positive, encourages listeners, fans, Ithacans, Cornellians to … stay positive. The band occasionally toes the line between classic and Christian rock, faith being a big part of their lyrics, but their music is for everyone, as their upbeat sing-with-me-won’t-you choruses attest to. If you are familiar with “Sequestered in Memphis,” you know what I mean — the song was definitely not my favorite off the album, but the more I listened to it the more I realized that a song which makes you unable to resist singing the word “subpoenaed” is just pretty much f-ing awesome.

Festival “doors” open at noon, and the music goes all day, baby. The opening band will be local Ithaca College boys Caution Children, another indie rock group, who put on one hell of a rousing live show. Performances will continue throughout the day, with The Rural Alberta Advantage at 1:30, Deer Tick at 2:45 and The Felice Brothers at 4:00. The Rural Alberta Advantage is an Arcade-Fire-esque trio that quite literally hails from rural Alberta — a fun fact that comes out in the band’s lyrics. Features an awe-inspiring drummer, and male-female vocal duets that I have never been able to resist. The Felice Brothers are, no not brothers, but actually a five-piece folk rock band that just wants to get lost in the music and the majesty of small-town New York. Hey! I think we can fit that bill!

Deer Tick is folk-grunge with a highly distinctive vocal lead. The group formed in Providence, Rhode Island in 2007 from singer John McCauley’s solo act. They have released two albums in that time: War Elephant in 2007 and, this summer, Born on Flag Day. The album fit into the somewhat unusual category of country-boy lyricist stuck in classic/indie rocker’s body — you can imagine Keith Urban singing the words, but you can’t quite imagine it like Deer Tick does it. The sound is mournful in a searching-for-something-better kind of way that makes you want to raise your beer and commiserate. Guitar solos and the occasional vocal harmony show off Deer Tick at their best, and the refrains meld the country to the indie to the rock flawlessly. Think rocking drums, alternative indie guitar, melancholy vocals. And, we promise, they won’t give you Lyme disease.

Okey dokey, Cornellians. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to gather all your acquaintances from the Cornell bubble and trek it on down to Stewart Park for some absolutely fantastic music. It is recommended that you plan a reconnoitering trip for Saturday afternoon at the same venue (… there may be beer). Seriously, though, guys: The Dans have a mission, and they want you to be a part of it. As Dan Smalls put it: “The whole experience is humbling. This has never been about me, despite what the company name is. It’s about having a great music scene in the town that I live in.” And really, with five such supercalifragilistic acts on the bill, how can you resist? So, go go go — Drink locally, jam positively!

Review: The Duke and The King at City Winery From TV NY1

Link

Nice video on that link


the music group The Duke and the King recently played music off their first CD, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" at the City Winery in Manhattan. The band is a side project for Simon Felice, who ordinarily can be found in the roots rock alt-country Felice Brothers.

Felice and his two brothers grew up playing music in the shadow of "The Band," the all-star band that featured rock legends like Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters and Neil Young.

The Band's drummer, Levon Helm, lives just down the block.

"Grew up with music and our dad was a carpenter. He had played some tapes and we got hooked and then no turning back," says Felice.

While he grew up in a one-horse town, Felice is quick to point out that it did have a library. It is no accident that his literary background finds its way into his songwriting.

"'Born Again Get To Hell' is kind of just inspired by going to hell. Dante wrote so eloquently about it, but I didn't write as eloquently as him," says Felice. "This [book] was about this thick and ours is about three minutes 45 seconds long."

The band's name borrows from two characters in Mark Twain's novel "Adventures Huckleberry Finn" who are con artists who claim they are the king of France and an English duke. Felice plays the Duke, Robert Burke plays the King, and they share royalties as they co-author the songs.

"Simon and I go back writing songs together for at least a decade and he had a bunch of songs piling up that he wanted to
do," says Burke. "And we started to collaborate on them and we were just having so much fun that we went down that road together."

Fans of the Duke and the King will hear some familiar sounds.

"In Duke and the King we found some nice ways to do some of the older Felice Brothers' songs,"

the Duke and the King: Live at Paste Magazine

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