The Felice Brothers Concert Review from Altohio.com

Album Review
Brian Ahnmark
Q: What do you get when you combine five hyperactive Americana musicians straight out of the Catskill Mountains, copious amounts of booze, and a stage measuring roughly 10 feet by 10 feet?

A: Assorted debauchery, off-key singalongs, and the wanton destruction of property.

And a damn good time.

The Felice Brothers invaded Rumba Cafe in Columbus on April 28, bringing their homegrown brand of classic American songcraft in tow. The loose gig felt like an impromptu backyard party with family and friends; fitting, since the band got its start playing porch concerts during barbecues at their father's house.

There was no opening act, and no need for one. Since 2006, The Felice Brothers (Ian Felice on guitar/vocals, James Felice on accordion/keyboard/vocals, Christmas Clapton on bass, Dave Turbeville on drums, and Greg Farley on fiddle/washboard/kitchen sink) have released five independent or limited albums – one of them recorded in a converted chicken coop – and two major label records. The band opened appropriately with “Greatest Show On Earth” from 2008's The Felice Brothers, igniting a slow burn of songs about love, loss and alcohol that would soon erupt into a full-on blaze.

The band launched into “Frankie's Gun!” - perhaps their most-beloved tune - eight songs in. Farley, a gifted multi-instrumentalist, broke out the washboard much to the crowd's delight. From there the insanity only escalated. James Felice shouldered the accordion for “Goddamn You, Jim,” then introduced the next piece as “a very serious song with serious themes.”

Its title: “Whiskey In My Whiskey.” Although James technically handled lead vocals, in truth the audience took the reins.

The Felice Brothers made no attempt to contain their youthful vigor within the confines of Rumba Cafe's ridiculously small stage. James and Farley routinely swapped instruments; at one point, James stepped off the stage to play an organ that simply wouldn't fit on the riser; Ian repeatedly leaped onto the bass drum while playing guitar, swatted at the cymbals with his bare hands and toppled mic stands; “Run Chicken Run” featured some interpretive dance from Ian during a spirited accordion break by his brother.

It all boiled over during set-closer “Helen Fry.” Busted accordion keys ended up on the ground while Ian dragged screaming feedback out of his guitar by aiming a microphone directly at the pickups. Meanwhile, Farley wielded his washboard like a sledgehammer, absolutely beating the shit out of Turbeville's drum cymbals. It was an electrifying scene of primal, savage release.

Incredibly, the band managed to return to the stage for a one-song encore, performing Townes Van Zandt's “Two Hands.” As Ian sang, “I got two hands, I wanna clap my hands together... And I ain't gonna think about trouble anymore,” it felt like a musical tonic extinguishing the embers of fury that had just ravaged the stage.

Altohio.com

Nothing Gold Can Stay gets another positive review

The Duke & the King, named for the duo of confidence tricksters in Huckleberry Finn, will steal your heart.
Nothing Gold Can Stay, their debut release, is shot through with sweet melancholy. Listen closely enough and it will tear your soul -- or just sing along and enjoy the ambience. There aren't any pyrotechnics here, mostly just straight country songs and, although it's a crowded field -- The Avett Brothers, The Felice Brothers -- to name but two, Duke bring a quiet understated elegance to the genre. Simone Felice left his famous brothers in 2009 and formed the band with Robert "Chicken" Burke. Felice delivers his lines in a downbeat manner and the record sounds a bit like you're listening them outside their rehearsal room. Water Spider is a wonderful song with the memorable line "Jesus walked on water, but so did Marvin Gaye/ And Harriet didn't you hear they never caught her, she just slipped away, she skipped away ..." which could be a homage to Harriet Tubman, an African-American Union spy during the American Civil War. There's hardly a bad song on the record but the best is saved for last in One More American Song. Sentimental, sure, but never mawkish. -- Matthew Burbidge Toronto Mail and Guardian

The Felice Brothers at Mountain High Music Festival

Mighty High Mountain Fest
The Mighty High Mountain Fest 2010 will take place Friday-Sunday and will feature the Dark Star Orchestra, New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Felice Brothers, among others.

Friday's lineup includes Reflections, Unexplained Bacon and the Mixtape. Saturday's includes the Felice Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Peter Rowan, Rob Cannillo & Friends, the Big Takeover and the Ronnie Penque Band. Sunday's acts are New Riders of the Purple Sage, Peter Rowan, Commander Cody, Reflections, the Johnny Markowski Band, Basement Generals and McMule, among others.

Hours for the three-day, two-night festival are 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday and noon-11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tent camping passes and RV parking are available. Glass bottles, pets, firearms and fireworks are not allowed in the park.

The Felice Brothers and The Duke and the King This Weekend

The Felice Brothers will be playing at the Mighty High Mountain Festival on Saturday in Tuxedo NY, and the Duke and the King will be in North Adams, Ma on the same night playing at the Hunter Center at Mass Moca.

It'll be a good night in a very slow summer tour wise with both acts.

I'll be attending the show in North Adams.

Video for Dean Jones (with the Felice Brothers)" Isthmus be the Pirate Waltz"

The Felice Brothers get compared favorably to Rolling Stones Exile on Main St

In London Telegraph's music blog
here is the relevant text in Neil McCormack's review of the reissued "Exile on Main St"

Digital recording techniques favour perfection, where every beat and note can be separated and brought into perfect sync with every other, so that even commercial rock bands now (from U2 to Coldplay to Kings Of Leon) tend to sound slightly automated, with only the singer really bringing a human dimension. I’m not saying you can’t find those qualities on contemporary records (check out, for example, The Felice Brothers, whose virtues I have often extolled in this blog) but, for some reason, you don’t hear them on mainstream commercial radio anymore. Its as if programmers think such messy humanity might scare off their listeners. And yet, here the Stones stand, number one again, with their greatest and most glorious mess.
link

Simone Felice pays tribute to Levon Helm on his Birthday

“Levon Helm is the patron saint of Woodstock. So much more than a groundbreaking musician/drummer or a voice on the radio. He’s a back-mountain mystic, an enduring force of nature, like a kung fu master or a heavy rain in the Catskills. In my wildest pipe-dreams as a kid growing up here, doing music, writing songs, I could never have imagined him smiling up at me from his wooden kit after being asked to sing ‘The Weight’ with him and Larry and Co. to my great suprise after opening a ramble. How lucky are we to have his drums still beating, his big heart beating strong, his voice still echoing off these funky old mountains of ours after all these years?

Link

"Forever Green", The Felice Brothers, Stagger Lee, Stagolee, and Freedom

I've been listening to a lot of old blues lately, most specifically Robert Johnson, and have grown to appreciate the sense of freedom in his songs. They are really the very first rock and roll songs, and have gotten me rediscovering other familiar blues songs like Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee". Stagger Lee is a urban myth, legend whatever about a black man "Stagger Lee" who shoots Billy Lyons, because he snatched Stagger Lee's Stetson Hat. The hat is a symbol of "freedom" and ever since "Forever Green" was released i thought about the connection.

I found this article on Stagger Lee and figured i would post it. Stagger Lee or some version of this story has been covered by dozens of great artists over the past 100 years including Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

The Symbolic Meaning of the Stetson Hat

Copyright © 2002-2009
by James P. Hauser except where otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

What is the significance of the Stetson hat which was at the center of the dispute between Stagger Lee and Billy DeLyon? In his book Stagolee Shot Billy, Cecil Brown explained that, during the late nineteenth century, African American men wore Stetsons as symbols of masculinity, status, and power. In other words, these hats were symbols of manhood. I would take this idea a step further and argue that the Stetson was not just a symbol of manhood, but also of freedom. I make this assertion because the black male's manhood is closely intertwined with his freedom and his struggle for freedom. Slaves were not permitted the status of manhood by their slave owners--an adult male slave was considered to be a boy, not a real man. Therefore, if the Stetson was a symbol of manhood, a Stetson on the head of a former slave or son of a former slave certainly must have also been a symbol of freedom. By displaying Stetson hats on their heads, African American men were proudly showing that the days of slavery were over and they were now free men.

But even after the slaves were emancipated, they were not truly free as they faced an oppressive system of segregation which became the law of the land. White people thought of blacks as inferior and whites degraded African American men by referring to them as boys. Bluesman Big Bill Broonzy wrote a song of protest about being treated this way. He titled it "When Will I Get to be Called a Man?" Of course, Broonzy's real concern was not with being called a man, but with being treated like one.

It's clear that, even after slavery was abolished, the black man's manhood continued to be tied to his struggle for freedom--a struggle which would become quite violent during the 1960s. If we again look at the Stetson from the perspective of it being a symbol of manhood and freedom, and this time change the focus of our attention from the late nineteenth century to the twentieth century's Jim Crow era, we can see the fight over the hat between Billy and Stagger Lee as representing the African American man's fight for freedom from white oppression. And Stagger Lee's defeat of Billy may be seen as symbolizing victory for African Americans, as Stagger Lee regains the symbol of manhood and freedom, the Stetson hat.
I find the song "Stagger Lee" to be an excellent metaphor for the civil rights struggle. Let me explain. Billy's theft of Stagger Lee's symbol of manhood, the Stetson, may be viewed as the establishment of the Jim Crow system, a set of laws and customs which stole the freedom of newly emancipated African Americans and subjected them to a system of oppression which virtually amounted to a new form of slavery. And the fight between Stagger Lee and Billy for the hat would then correspond to the many violent confrontations between blacks and whites during the civil rights era. Stagger Lee's defeat of Billy may then symbolize victory for African Americans, with the Stetson serving as the victor's prize of freedom. To complete the metaphor, Billy's death can be seen as the death of Jim Crow and the abolishment of segregation.

and the lyrics to "Forever Green"

My shirt is sweaty
in my smokey cheverolet
reelin from cocaine
i hear crickets talking
now hear pool sticks chalking
i must be in some barroom baby

well the band thats following me
i can hear them hollerin'
dying to catch me
i could run forever
if youd undo this leather
strap around me
oh please
take me up
to your room

grandma was a country singer
id have loved to have seen her
making some barroom swing
i could see you doing that
gotta stetson hat
and electric guitar to sing with

may you stay forever green
like the country between us
far after our hands unfold
and i bid farewell
and that old stare, well
lead into the narrow room

oh please
take me up
to your room

Quote of the day

A self made man is boring, a self made king, is fabulous-Greil Marcus

The Felice Brothers at Mighty High Mountain Festival

Mighty High Mountain Fest
Category: Music
..Mighty High Mountain Festival in Tuxedo New York has a special on this week. Buy your one day Festival pass for Saturday, May 29 to see The Felice Brothers and pay no service fee. Ten day forecast reads sunny weather! http://tickets.createavibe.com/

From The Felice Brothers Myspace Page

Undercover.Com on Simone Felice Touring Australia

Simone Felice (Felice Brothers/Duke & King) Heads To Australia

by Tim Cashmere - May 20 2010
link

It’s a never-ending flow of exciting tour news today, with Simone Felice of The Felice Brothers and The Duke & The King heading to Australia in June.

Felice is a brutally honest singer/songwriter with a steady fan base that has followed him through his various projects and is renowned for his powerful solo performances.

Last year his duo The Duke & The King cancelled their Australian shows due to illness, but now fans will get the chance to see this upstate New Yorker in the flesh playing songs from his entire back catalogue.

Be sure to check him out at one of the following gigs:

JUNE
9 - The Annandale Hotel, Sydney
10 - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
11 - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne

And for those of you who want more, here’s a fancy little teaser of what he’s all about:

Two Felice Brothers Shows Added

at-Jul-24 Cooperstown, NY Brewery Ommegang

Show is at the Belgium Brewery with a lot of camping space.

Link to Brewery site



Wed-Jul-28 Montreal, QC Il Motore
The bands first headline show in Canada.

Simone Felice Live at Drew's

LIVE@DREW'S
Ringwood, NJ   

Simone Felice
Saturday, May 22 @ 6PM
Less than one week to go until Simone Felice makes his journey down from the Northern Catskills. As always, Simone will be bringing his great songs, stories and charisma. If you haven't seen Simone before, either with The Felice Brothers or The Duke and The King, you owe it to yourself to be here.

His songs are magical. . . destined to become part of the 'Americana' landscape. His stage presence will captivate you. He's the real deal. Last year's Duke and The King show was overwhelmingly voted to be the best show of the year. Saturday promises to be a great one as well.
Remember it's a $20 donation in advance and $25 at the door. The very well-received tee shirts are also available.
Hope you all can make it.
-Drew

Drew Eckmann
247 Cupsaw Dr.
Ringwood, N.J. 07456

 

 



PRESS

"The performers he presents, tend to attract fans devoted enough to travel to New Jersey from neighboring states as well as from Ohio, Michigan, California, Canada and even England...his living room might even become legendary. "  NY Times


UPCOMING SHOWS

Simone Felice Ringwood, NJ Sat May 22 10 06:00 PM  
Willie Nile Ringwood, NJ Sat Jun 05 10 06:00 PM

Positive Review for The Felice Brothers Mix Tape CD

From 24Kevin



http://24kevin.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/cd-review-the-felice-brothers-mix-tape/



The Felice Brothers are differentiated from most popular music by their use of nontraditional instruments like accordions, washboards and fiddles.  They are defined by a lead singer with a striking vocal resemblance to Bob Dylan.  They are elevated beyond most other popular music by the quality of their songwriting.

In a lot of modern popular music, artists seem content to write lyrics that rhyme and fall into a standard rhythm.  The Felice Brothers give their lyrics much more attention and the quality comes through on their tracks.  The lyrics on their recently released Mix Tape are not their strongest songwriting performance but remain miles ahead of plenty of other, more popular, artists.

The CD was born as a collection of cut tracks from the band’s previous studio album, Yonder is the Clock, to be given to fans for free at shows.  Predictably, the band’s label, Team Love, caught wind of this and decided that the album should have be commercially released.

After listening to both Yonder and Mix Tape, it is hard to argue that many of the cut tracks should have been left on the album.  Both the music and lyrics of the former are generally superior to the latter.  That is not to say that Mix Tape does not include great examples of both.

The lyrics feature alliteration and internal rhyme not usually found in popular music, but instead reserved more for poetry and other literature.  Additionally the Felice Brothers demonstrate a great awareness of the lyrical meter and a willingness to play with it.  An obvious example would be the track “White Limo,” which chugs along at a lively rhythm reminiscent of a hoedown and features similarly energetic lyrics.  Ian Felice wails the chorus with the power of Roger Daltrey, energy of Prince and the strain of Stevie Ray Vaughan.  “White legs, white lies, white wedding gown/just a little red to paint the town,” exemplifies the Felice Brother’s style and the fun they have with their music.

Overall, the Mix Tape CD is not the best  material the Felice Brothers have ever put out, but it is certainly more compelling than the majority of popular music.  The instrumentation, rhythm and lyrics combine to create complexities that most artists are not capable of while the narrative style of most of their songs keeps them accessible to a large audience.

One More American Song gets notice in Australia

One More American Song – Simone Felice

"Another rare commodity is Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers, The Duke & The King). Felice, like Vlautin, is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, who has also had great success as a poet and experimental novelist (Goodbye Amelia, Hail Mary Full of Holes). One More American song is an example of Felice’s lyrical richness. In the song he remembers Johnny, a boy from school with fiery red hair, who, thanks to the horrors of war has become the king of bottle tops, pushing shopping carts in a parking lot. It is this kind of raw narrative that Felice pens so well. And like Vlautin, Felice is making his way to Australia for the first time too, but unfortunately Brisbane is not part of the tour… Sydney and Melbourne only. Maybe next time…"

One More Shark
Australia
http://grahamnunn.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/the-new-folk-xiii-vlautin-felice-lanegan/

Rock n Roll Quote of the Day

Music should never be harmless:

Robbie Robertson

Poster available from the Harrisburg Show

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46792023/felice-brothers-screen-printed-gigposter

check it out!

More good Pix from Harrisburg

link

the photographer is named Erin McCrackin

The NTSIB Review 5-10-10

Now This Sound is Brave


Cassette & the Felice Brothers at the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland, OH, 5.10.10
Cassette



(I'm not very familiar with their songs, so I wasn't able to construct a playlist.)

Cassette has a violinist and a cellist. These are good things. Cassette also has a keyboardist who seems to enjoy the hell out of himself and a singer whose voice really shines from time to time. These are also good things. Their songs are of the softer, more subtle variety, which A) doesn't seem like the best fit for a Felice Brothers opener and B) is not my favorite kind of music, to be honest.

Perhaps it was because they were on their last night of their tour with the Felice Brothers, but Cassette's music lacked oomph and many songs seemed not so much to end as peter out. Their set ended, however, on a highlight as the band, especially the cellist and keyboardist, let go and played their hearts into a burning crescendo. More fire like that throughout Cassette's set would serve them well.

The Felice Brothers



Playlist
(?)
Greatest Show on Earth
Love Me Tenderly
Katie Dear
Murder By Mistletoe
Stepdad
River Jordan
Fuck the News
Run Chicken Run
Goddamn You, Jim
Whiskey in My Whiskey
Honda Civic
White Limo
Endless Night
Take This Bread
Frankie's Gun!
Two Nickels (? - Farley song)
Ballad of Lou the Welterweight
Two Hands
-encore-
St. Stephen's End
Dancehall
Helen Fry

As soon as the Felice Brothers took the stage, it was obvious they were several sheets to the wind. This is not a bad sign where the Felice Brothers are concerned. If you want a neat, orderly show, the Felice clan was never going to be your best bet. Still, no one fell off the small stage, and the only casualties were some booze and a key from James Felice's accordion (leaving the instrument on the floor near a dancing Ian Felice was probably not the greatest idea).

I've been to a few Felice shows now and can tell you they are consistent in their chaos. They pepper their always crowd-pleasing rabble-rousing tunes like "Frankie's Gun!" and "Run Chicken Run" with sing-a-longs like "Whiskey in My Whiskey" and their cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Two Hands" with new songs, like "Dancehall" and the funked-up "Honda Civic" and slow numbers that showcase Ian Felice's stellar songwriting. This night's "Greatest Show on Earth" was the most spirit-raising version I've witnessed so far, and I was immensely pleased to hear my new favorite, the as-yet-unreleased "Endless Night", which is a bit of a departure in sound and just beautiful. Always a family affair, whether blood or adoptive, the lead duties were shared by James Felice, Greg Farley and Christmas/Josh/whatever-he's-calling-himself-now, though the majority of tunes are always carried by Ian Felice - and rightfully so with his aforementioned songwriting skills and worn, dusty voice. They also brought Cassette singer Samantha Jones on stage to share vocals on "Ballad of Lou the Welterweight".

The Tavern at the Beachland is a just a small bar with a stage at one end, making it an ideal setting for a Felice Brothers show as they always excel in intimate quarters where they can feed off the vibe of the audience. This night's crowd was into it, and there were a number of avid fans littered throughout the room, which was heartening for the Brothers' first show in the CLE.

Felice Brothers shows are always a good recommendation if you want a ramshackle good time and are especially illustrative of the joy and abandon that music can (and should) encompass if you are used to more removed shows in larger venues.
Posted by Now This Sound Is Brave at 9:35 AM 2 comments

Mixed Review From The Wiltern Theater

The review was written by Dylan ballwasher Gustavo Turner for LA Weekly, who was likely going through an epileptic seizure waiting for
Jakob to hit the stage. The whole show was reviewed very well, Jakob is not the worlds most charismatic performer, and a victim of a near career croaking mic jacking 15 years ago.

Here is the text of the Felice Brothers related part of the Review:

The juvenile Felice Bros. have a very distinctive, if slightly melodramatic, vocalist in Ian Felice, a relaxed keys man in his brother James, and a manic fiddler who acts as a kind of jocky hype-man ("How about that Jakob Dylan??? Uhhhh???"). Their act is somewhere in the ramshackle intersection of Tom Waits, The Pogues and somebody's dad's vinyl collection of the works of Dylan the Elder from 1963 to 1980.
They couldn't pull it off at the sit-down Wiltern, though one can imagine they would be a fantastic bar band. The Felices work best when kicking up a beat and singing their age ("Run Chicken Run": "She's the fairest of them all/ She loves her Adderall"), than when trying to get all Biblical and deep.

Baltimore Pics are in of The Felice Brothers at The Ottobar

LINK to PHOTOBUCKET

The Felice Brothers Get More Raves from Our Folk Blog

THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2010

The Felice Brothers
Straight from the Catskill Mountains, the racous and calloused sound of The Felice Brothers has been ripping through the Capital Region and beyond for the better part of the past decade. Writing about them in here seems almost redundant as all of my friends know them well already, some of them personally. Nonetheless, they put on the best show I've ever seen at Valentines the last time they came to town. To me, they are one of the most original bands to come out of the area. The folk-loreish lyrics and stripped down instrumentation mixed with the energetic rhythm section make for a uniquely raw listening experience. All the drunken sing-alongs and "sha na na" anthams set this band on the fast track to becoming huge, and not just in the underground. Though I am partial to the old self-titled album, the new record, Yonder Is The Clock, is starting to grow on me as well. I've posted some old live videos here for those who haven't seen them before to get a taste of what The Felice Brother's experience is like. Cheers!

Link

Cleveland Setlist is In

1. Opening number... No clue what this song's called. Never heard it before. It had the words "fire on the mountain" in it, but wasn't the Grateful Dead or Bill Monroe songs. Guessing it's an Ian original? 
2. Greatest Show on Earth
3. Love Me Tenderly
4. Katie Dear
5. Murder by Mistletoe
6. Stepdad
7. River Jordan/Fuck the News
8. Run Chicken Run
9. Goddamn You Jim
10. Whiskey in My Whiskey
11. Honda Civic
12. White Limo
13. Endless Night
--Band just told the crowd to shut the fuck up
14. Take This Bread
15. Frankie's Gun
16. Farley's Song
17. Ballad of Lou the Welterweight (w/ the girl singer from Cassette)
18. Two Hands
 
Encore
St. Stephen's End
Dance Hall
Helen Fry

thanks Kate.

Another Dublin Review is In

The Duke & And The King were in Dublin for the last show of their British/Irish tour. And so it was off to The Academy to find out it was actually the underground part that we, and the band, were corralled in to. Simone Felice wasn't happy but, after letting his feelings been known about his London agent putting everyone into the pit of Hades, things went heavenly.

It's hard not to use religious imagery when describing my first time seeing The Duke & The King (and Simone since The Felice Brothers' magnificent show in The Sugar Club in 2008). After hearing the main man singing "If You Ever Get Famous" back-to-back with "The Morning I Get To Hell" I could have finished my pint of stout, grabbed my coat, and went to the next pub happy. However, the other members had even more to bring to the congregation. Even though there were only three more persons in the band, and maybe 100 people in the audience, you had to look around and wonder who was making whichever angelic sound was resting on your ears. Every voice had that kind of spooky. Of course, you could also be asked for a dance and a twirl by whichever band member didn't have a part to play at that particular time. The spirits were always high.

Apart from almost all the "Nothing Gold Can Stay" album there were also cover versions of Felice Brothers' songs alongside a spiritual version of the Neil Young song Helpless.

A quite beautiful night.

http://keeponkeepingonnicodemus.blogspot.com/2010/05/duke-king-academy-2.html

Loves Me Tenderly from Harrisburg

thanks to Link