Seattle Pre-Show Press

[LaurieBlue]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/298418_nightlife05.html?source=rss

Friday, January 5, 2007

My Morning Jacket moves up to the Moore, but still feels at home

By MIKEL TOOMBS
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

It's not as if My Morning Jacket is short of places to call home.

There's of course Louisville, their old Kentucky home, where the rockers recorded their first three albums on a farm belonging to a former guitarist's grandparents.

And then there's Manchester, Tenn., where another farm hosts the annual Bonnaroo Festival, the Woodstock of the jam-band generation. My Morning Jacket's appearance at Bonnaroo last year, when the band came on at midnight and announced it would play for more than three hours -- and then did -- is already the stuff of legend.

And don't forget San Francisco, a city well suited to the Jacket. The band closed out 2006 with three nights at the historic Fillmore Auditorium, also the setting for the current concert DVD, "Okonokos."

Still, when My Morning Jacket rocked The Showbox in November 2005, frontman Jim James called Seattle "our second home."

"We have lots of homes," My Morning Jacket drummer Patrick Hallahan said by phone from his residence in Louisville. "But there's something special in Seattle. We always plan one or two days off around Seattle, go out to Snoqualmie Falls. It's just such a great town."

The band has "played The Showbox so many times, those people are family. It's so great to feel such at home," Hallahan added. "I can go on and on about it: great restaurants, good walking. The Pacific Northwest is one of my favorite places in the world."

The Showbox, where My Morning Jacket first appeared as a support act in 2002, remains a special place for Hallahan. "I love that room," he said. "I remember going in there when we opened for Guided By Voices and I was like, 'It's enormous.' "

"Now we can't play there anymore. It's very strange. We've had a lot of that going on lately."

These are good times for My Morning Jacket, which moves up to the larger capacity Moore on Monday. (Elvis Perkins, the son of "Psycho" actor Anthony Perkins, will open the concert.) Once championed by the likes of Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, the band earned its burgeoning success through its epic live shows, showcased last year on a tour with Pearl Jam. "We are all fueled by music," James said in a 2004 interview, speaking by phone from the farm. "We love music. I think there are few things as exciting as music, and loving it and sharing it and talking about it with your friends,"

The quintet's concerts recall vintage Southern rock, or Neil Young-style guitar jams, but there's also more than a hint of twang. Meanwhile, James' vocals, usually enhanced by reverb, hint at classic soul and even the dreamy harmonies of the Beach Boys.

Add to that the rather obvious influences, ranging from The Who to the Replacements, found on the Jacket's current studio album, "Z." (It's the band's second CD on ATO Records, co-owned by occasional Wallingford resident Dave Matthews.) It's easy, then, to understand My Morning Jacket's broad appeal.

"We're blessed enough to have such a diverse audience participation," Hallahan said, "seeing 40- and 50-year-olds along with 16-year-olds. Nerds and jocks and hippies and preppies, indie-rock kids and punk-rock kids, they all seem to come out to the shows.

"I don't feel a particular exclusive allegiance to any of them. I think it's part of a greater musical collective."


Mikel Toombs is a Seattle writer. He can be reached at mikeltoombs@gmail.com.

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/01/05/100ae_ae15musiccol001.cfm

My Morning Jacket: The band was named after a discarded coat found by lead singer Jim James in his favorite (but burned out) bar. In the last year, the musicians have collected a lot of air time, including "Austin City Limits" and "The Late Show with Conan O'Brien." In April, James won an Esky for best songwriter in Esquire's music awards. Once called the Pink Floyd of Dixie, MMJ can be all rock one song, strangely gentle with the next. Their last album, "Z," made Rolling Stone's Top 10. Monday, Seattle

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/ae/story/6310378p-5502097c.html

They're morning people


THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: January 5th, 2007 06:54 AM (PST)

The average hipster has heard of Kentucky indie rockers My Morning Jacket. But here's a short primer on Monday's main attraction at Seattle's Moore Theatre.
Hometown: Shelbyville, Ky.

Lineup: Singer-songwriter and guitarist Jim James, bassist Two-Tone Tommy, drummer Patrick Hallahan, keyboard player Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel.

Style: James' haunting, reverb-slathered falsetto draws a few comparisons to Radiohead. But the music behind it is Southern-fried psychedelic jam rock. And did we mention these guys like reverb?

Partial discography: Along with several EPs, the band has released the full-lengths "The Tennessee Fire" (1999); "At Dawn" (2001); "It Still Moves" (2003); "Chapter One: The Sandworm Cometh" (early recordings, 2004); "Chapter Two: Learning: (early recordings, 2004); "Z" (2005); and "Okonokos" (live album, 2006)

What's in a name? The legend is that after learning that his favorite bar had burned down, James found a jacket emblazoned with the initials "MMJ" among its charred remains. He imagined that it meant My Morning Jacket.

Favorite gig: Sure, they've done Coachella and Bonnaroo. But Two-Tone Tommy prefers Lebowski Fest, a festival inspired by the cult flick "The Big Lebowski."

"Lebowski Fest. It's full of bowling, costume contests, movie screenings, bowling, celebrity appearances, white Russians, bowling and, of course, What-Have-You," he tells Thrasher magazine. "And it's in the greatest city in the world: Louisville."

Show details: Elvis Perkins is scheduled to open Monday's show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and available through Ticketmaster.

Ernest A. Jasmin, The News Tribune

Originally published: January 5th, 2007 01:00 AM (PST)

[NoVa_NoLa]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2003509628_morning05.html?syndication=rss

The first section may be a reprint of a Post article???  Concert preview seems new-ish.

Live CD is latest step in quest for innovation
By Richard Harrington

The Washington Post

A My Morning Jacket concert from November at the Fillmore West in San Francisco is captured on the band's DVD, a companion to its new CD "Okonokos."
 
"Okonokos," the title of My Morning Jacket's live double CD and companion DVD, is as mysterious as the setting for the concert both capture: a surreal fairy-tale forest likely to be as hospitable to trolls, demons and hobbits as to a Louisville quintet known for epic, expansive, guitar-powered explorations. Into those woods we'll gladly go, to get lost or to be found, and it hardly matters which comes first.

"Music has always been the only thing that I ever understood, the only thing that I really have cared about since I've been a conscious, thinking human being," says Jim James, MMJ's co-founder, guitarist and soulful singer. "For me and my friends, it's always been the one true passion, the one true state, the one true vortex where you can climb inside this thing with other people and really just let it all out."

For James, a good — make that a meaningful — performance is one "where you make everybody in the room forget whatever problems they might be having. ... When you can forget about life and the world, that's the best time — you're lost, your personality doesn't really exist anymore."

The elaborate forest set, the magical lighting (by Pink Floyd lighting designer Marc Brickman), the passionate and intricately structured songs — all contribute to a mind-bending journey that is intentionally nonspecific about the where or when; neither CD nor DVD identifies the actual location of the concert, San Francisco's Fillmore West. According to James, "That was exactly the point I wanted to make: It was an experience that could have been any time, any place."

Concert preview


My Morning Jacket, 8 p.m. Monday, the Moore Theater, 1932 Second Ave., Seattle; $25 (206-628-0888 or www.ticketmaster.com; information, www.themoore.com or www.mymorningjacket.com). That's part of the magic of a live album, James says. "I've always liked live records because they transport you to a place and time. An album is a different world — the tone and the pace is different. ... You can just close your eyes and hear the crowd screaming — it's just really cool."

MMJ fans have been clamoring for a live album pretty much since the band started touring in 1999, but it may be just as well that they had to wait so long, given the transformations within the band, not only in personnel but in sonic approaches. MMJ used to rehearse and record in a grain silo on a family farm in rural Shelbyville, Ky., owned by the family of guitarist Johnny Quaid (James' cousin). The silo probably accounted for the echo and reverb on MMJ's first two albums, effects that became signature elements of the band's jam-heavy, delightfully unpredictable live sound as well.

That MMJ's ambitions transcended any genre tags became clear with "Z," one of 2005's most acclaimed albums, a collection of melancholy meditations and ecstatic epiphanies, harmonized guitar showcases, dub reggae giving way to surging metal, anthemic rock to sweet soul music and, always, the exploratory jams. By "Z," the band's lineup had changed: Quaid and original keyboardist Danny Cash had quit amicably in 2004 (they hated touring as much as James loves it), replaced by guitarist Carl Broemel and keyboardist Bo Koster. Bassist Two-Tone Tommy and drummer Patrick Hallahan remained aboard.

Songs from "Z" make up the bulk of the "Okonokos" album and DVD, with many of its best moments benefiting from expanded arrangements.

"We wanted the live record to be really long, as long as it could," James says . "We always wanted to make a live record that will stand the test of time, because nobody lives forever. I'm so glad that lots of my favorite artists made live records that documented what they were all about at certain ages and points in their careers. Once people are gone, those things are so valuable. ...

"I know that we're trying as hard as we can [to be innovative]," he says. "I feel I'm inspired more from the past than I am from the present, but there's also a lot of inspiring stuff happening now. Sometimes I question what is really true innovation, but I'm really proud of what we've done."

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company