This Week's Reader Favorite Post

Zac Harmon & The Drive - Live - New Release Review

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 I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Live , from Zac Harmon & The Drive and it's super! Opening with soulful, NTRO , Nate Robinson on bass and Gino Iglehart on drums set a solid foundation, with Corey Lacy building on keys and lush guitar work by Zac Harmon and Kingston Livingston really setting the bar. Terrific opener. Blue Pill Thrill has super movement and soulful vocals by Harmon. Lacy on keys works the rhythm with Robinson and Iglehart and Livingston and and Harmon play stinging riffs on guitar really giving this track some kick. Deep blues track, Feet Back On The Ground features Albert King like stinging riffs and super soulful vocals by Harmon. Keeping the music floor low allows Harmon plenty of space to go dynamically from soft to wow quickly adding real emotion to the track. Excellent! Boogie Down is a strong jam with a firm piano base by Lacy giving Harmon plenty of headroom for vocal corralling. Lacy lays in some real tasty keyboar...
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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


Please email me at Info@Bmansbluesreport.com

Banditos announce new album + premiere new single "Fine Fine Day"

BANDITOS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM VISIONLAND
+ PREMIERE NEW SONG “FINE FINE DAY”



For much of the last two years, the Banditos have been on the road, relentlessly showcasing their critically acclaimed 2015 self-titled debut album. In late 2016, the six bandmates hunkered down at Plum Creek Sound Studios and democratically poured out sonic influences and emotionally charged personal experiences for their new album Visionland. The pre-order link is here: https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/visionland

In celebration of the announcement, Banditos have launched the album’s first single “Fine Fine Day”: https://soundcloud.com/bshq/fine-fine-day-by-banditos






Produced by Israel Nash and Ted Young, the Birmingham/Nashville-based group’s second full-length - out on June 23 - has one foot firmly planted in reality as the other tip-toes in and out of mental complexities, self-perception and altered-state illusions. The results are revealing, exhilarating and profound.

The album-titled track reveals these defining, cohesive thematic intricacies. “Visionland” is named after the defunct $60 million theme park that was built in the late ‘90s near some of the band members’ childhood homes in Bessemer, Alabama. The park was shut down after only five years and the schizophrenic glimmer of hope it offered local residents connects to a greater overlying optimism for life present at the album’s core, an eerily relevant theme in contemporary complex times. Jeff Salter’s sweeping guitar strums swell at the song’s intro, lifting through the murky haze into the warm and sunny clarity of a duet between singer Mary Beth Richardson and singer/guitarist Corey Parsons.

Banditos will be performing music from Visionland all over Austin at this week’s SXSW: https://www.bloodshotrecords.com/tours-events/8827




The members of Banditos first met playing in various punk and rock ‘n’ roll projects around Birmingham at D.I.Y., all-ages venues. In 2010, Parsons and Stephen Pierce (banjo/vocals) began busking around town and were soon asked to perform at their favorite local bar. Without a full band they invited friends Randy Wade (drums), Salter (guitar), and Richardson to join them. Danny Vines (bass) joined the band later.

The group has been praised by NPR (“Three vocalists, a wicked guitarist who also plays pedal steel, a banjo, an upright bass and a hot-footed drummer guarantee that every song they play is stuffed with crazy rhythms and melodic energy.”), Rolling Stone (“Equal parts alt-country twang and garage rock bang...recalling everything from ZZ Top's greasy boogie to the Alabama Shakes' coed soul”), and Garden & Gun (“These six keyed-up twentysomethings mix a hodgepodge of sounds. Sometimes it’s barroom country backed by a rogue kazoo, and other times it’s a chicken-picking version of slow-burning soul behind the Janis Joplin–esque wail of Mary Beth Richardson”). They have performed across the world supporting acts like St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Blackberry Smoke and Old 97’s, and notably at prominent events like Newport Folk Festival, Hangout Fest, and Rachael Ray’s Feedback.

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