Greetings, Earthlings! Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and by sheer coincidence we have three female-fronted songs for you this week. Seriously, total coincidence. On Saturday, Vancouver’s Granville Magazine posted this picture on their Twitter feed of a great banner seen at the Women’s Day March along Commercial Drive.
In that spirit, we hope you’ll enjoy this week’s selections from Big Tree, 50FootWave and Belle Plaine.
Big Tree moved from New York to California last year. They were already a freaky hipster-hippie melding of Vince Guaraldi and the Mamas & the Papas, and they’re fiercely talented, so we’re looking forward to finding out what they become on the West Coast. The first tracks from their forthcoming second album have emerged and they’re planning a major tour for 2011. Will there be a Regina date?
This New Year by BigTree
50 Foot Wave is one of several groups led by Kristin Hersh. Best known for her super awesome, super influential, alternative pop group Throwing Muses, Hersh is also, among many other things, an author, a mother of four, and a digital music innovator. Her CASH Music project is a non-profit open source initiative that allows artists to distribute their music online while maintaining some autonomy from third parties like Facebook or iTunes. As well as Hersh’s projects, CASH Music has hosted projects by Calexico, the Swell Season and Brendan Benson. Hersh has made the entire catalog of her harder-edge band 50 Foot Wave available for free download.
mp3: “Radiant Addict” by 50FootWave
Belle Plaine needs no introduction here. Readers of prairie dog named her “Best Vocalist” last year, and this new track should put her in contention again in 2011. BP is backed up on “Advice From a Vicar” by the Lazy MKs. We’re big Lazy MKs fans here at Bang the Drum, and we hear they’ve got a new album coming out soon. If they wanna, you know, use BtheD to release an exclusive teaser from the new album or something like, the email address is at the bottom of the page, just sayin’. Belle Plaine opens for Mark Berube at the Exchange on Wednesday, March 9.
Emmet Matheson is a freelance hobo detective who blogs at A Bulldozer With a Wrecking Ball Attached. You can e-mail him at: bulldozerDOTwreckingballATgmailDOTcom