Jonathan Wilson and his band have confirmed a short run of dates with Aussie acid rockers Tame Impala. It’s a West Coast sprint, but you’ll be able to smell the psychedelic exhaust fumes from this pairing all the way to NYC. 

5/26 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
5/27 - Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore Ballroom
5/29 - Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
5/30 - Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater
5/31 - San Diego, CA @ House of Blues

There’s a special acoustic Jonathan Wilson show with a string section at Largo in Los Angeles planned for June 21. 

I can’t wait to hear “Desert Raven” with live strings. Looking forward to this.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Tame Impala’s psychedelic sex trip

If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Wilson yet, you will

 
Yahoo Music recently posted a fucking fantastic full-length performance from Jonathan Wilson and his band that was shot at Bob Weir‘s TRI Studios in Marin County, California during “Move Me Brightly,” a tribute to Jerry Garcia in honor of what would have been his 70th birthday. It’s sixty-five minutes of pure rock snob bliss taped in August of 2012.

Almost exactly a year ago, in a post called If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Wilson yet, you will, I wrote of his then-new Gentle Spirit album:

Trying to describe music in words is like doing a sketch of a novel, but Wilson’s guitar can exhibit the inventiveness and precision of Stephen Stills or the fiery, almost architectural lines of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, often in the same song. It’s been said that his music sounds like CSNY jamming with Pink Floyd and this is, I think you’ll agree, quite an accurate description. Another way to get your head around Gentle Spirit is that it often sounds like a “Southern California” version of Radiohead.

Of all of the hundreds of shows I’ve seen in my time, the ones that stand out the most for the sheer quality of the musicianship and the psychic mind-meld interplay between the musicians, I’d have to say that the finest ensembles, the ones who really stood apart, were the players backing Roger Waters, Joe Jackson and Gordon Lightfoot. I would certainly add Jonathan Wilson’s band to that short list. They are musician’s musicians.

This is one of the best live bands playing anywhere in the world. The recording here is top notch, too. Dig the chime of those guitars!

Right before Christmas, Jonathan Wilson organized a “goodwill jam-a-thon” at the Troubadour in Los Angeles with Jackson Browne, Bob Weir, ELO’s Jeff Lynne and Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, billed as the “Merry Minstrel Musical Circus.” The four-hour-long show was a benefit concert for Little Kids Rock (an organization that supplies instruments to schools) and the Tazzy Animal Rescue Fund.

Wilson put out an EP titled Pity Trials and Tomorrow’s Child for the last Record Store Day which is now available digitally from Amazon or iTunes. The EP contains a cover of George Harrison’s “Isn’t It A Pity” with backing vocals by Graham Nash.
 

 
Tonight, if you are lucky enough to be in Los Angeles (I love saying that) Jonathan Wilson and his band will be playing a very special show for family and friends in Venice, CA at the Del Monte Speakeasy.

This intimate performance will be the band’s last show stateside before beginning their summer-long European tour with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Highly recommended.

No cover, but space is very limited. Doors at 9. Music at 9:30.

The Del Monte Speakeasy, 52 Windward Ave., Venice, CA. 21+

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Wilson yet, you will

Jonathan Wilson live at SXSW, a Dangerous Minds Exclusive

Below, the video for “Desert Raven” from Jonathan Wilson’s critically acclaimed Gentle Spirit album.
 

Art by Dimitri Drjuchin

New video from Father John Misty’s critically acclaimed Fear Fun album on Sub Pop Records.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on here—although the final moments make the intention a little bit clearer… I think—but I like it.

Knowing Josh Tillman, I don’t really wonder what kind of mushrooms are topping his pizza and neither will you when you watch this…

Directed and produced by Grant James. A divine guitar solo courtesy of Jonathan Wilson comes in at the 2:30 mark.

Click here for more Father John Misty on Dangerous Minds
 

Photo: Mirgun Akyavas

Uncut magazine’s 2011 New Artist of the Year, Jonathan Wilson, is already making a pretty big name for himself in Europe. Coming into SXSW in support of his critically acclaimed Gentle Spirit album (#4 in Mojo’s Top 50 albums of 2011), Wilson and his band performed some of the standout shows of the festival, including a blistering set at the Hotel San Jose and the Bella Union showcase at the Continental Club, where one attendee was over-heard describing an onstage guitar duel as “Like being at the Fillmore East in 1969 and I was there!”

Wilson has been referred to as “the new king of Laurel Canyon,” although he now lives and works in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles. Prior to his almost instantaneous critical acclain in England when Gentle Spirit came out last Fall, Wilson was a much in-demand perfectionist music producer. Old-timers like David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Robbie Robertson, Elvis Costello and Graham Nash all want to buddy up to Wilson, hoping some of his magic rubs off on them. 

I’ve raved about Jonathan Wilson’s music here in the past:
If you haven’t heard of Jonathan Wilson yet, you will .

Buy Gentle Spirit on Amazon.

In the video below, Jonathan Wilson and Omar Velasco perform “Ballad of the Pines,” “Can We Really Party Today” and “Rolling Universe” during SXSW.
 

 
Wilson and his band take the stage and launch into their first number at the Hotel San Jose last Saturday in Austin. They were so shit-hot I felt like I was levitating. The best crew of “musicians’ musicians” I’ve seen on a stage in the past decade, other than, say, Joe Jackson’s band or Roger Waters’ touring band. The musicianship is incredibly high here. Bill Murray was in the audience, too.

Video shot by Dangerous Minds’ Marc Campbell.
 

Austin street art. Photo credit: Mirgun Akyavas
 
Greetings from sunny Austin, TX. Well at least it’s supposed to be sunny today and tomorrow, but never mind that persistant pouring rain, Dangerous Minds will be covering the SXSW music festival all this week. I got in last Thursday and Marc Campbell and I have been roaming around Austin trying to take it all in and report back about a little of what’s going on here. It’s a loud, colorful food truck-strewn chaos of a city right now, that’s for sure. Every single square inch of Austin seems to have some sort of corporate branding.

I’ve eaten some great food, seen some amazing films and soon enough the music part of the festival wil start. In the coming days, we’ll be bringing you movie premieres (Small Apartments with Matt Lucas and Johnny Knoxville, the epic new Bob Marley documentary, the charming Grandma Low-Fi, the Bad Brains doc and many more), interviews with Indian Rope, Cloud Nothings, Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller and some “unplugged sessions” that have been scheduled with Jonathan Wilson,Father John Misty, Jenny O, Bee vs. Moth, Madi Diaz, Chelsea Wolfe, Poor Moon and the premiere of a new music video from Bay Area druid spacerockers Lumerians.

Click here to see Mirgun Akyavas’ photo gallery of Austin street art.

More music and film coverage at Tap Into Austin 2012.

 
Last year, I read Barney Hoskyns’ excellent history of the Laurel Canyon music scene of the 1970s, Hotel California (thank you Paul Gallagher!) and through its pages, I ducked into a folk-rock rabbit hole that I’m not even close to wanting to move on from. In this past year the albums in the speed rack have been by CSNY (especially the “Y” but David Crosby’s godlike If I Could Only Remember My Name, in particular), the Byrd who could not fly, Gene Clark (I simply cannot get enough of his No Other masterpiece. If it was chocolate, I’d eat it until I got sick, then keep eating), Judee Sill, The Flying Burrito Brothers and the criminally overlooked Michael Nesmith.

The other thing I’ve been listening to recently is 70s Pink Floyd. I mention all this by way of trying to impart that I was quite ready to receive what Jonathan Wilson’s Gentle Spirit album has to offer.

Although Jonathan Wilson has become quite the critical darling in the UK—his debut album Gentle Spirit ranked #16 on Uncut’s year end best of list and #4 on MOJO’s—his profile is much lower in his native US. Wilson was also Uncut’s 2011 New Artist of the Year, but I haven’t even seen a review on Pitchfork yet.

I can’t imagine that it will be too much longer before Wilson’s fellow countrymen start to catch up to his prodigious talents. Wilson is “the new king of Laurel Canyon” (although he now lives and works in Eagle Rock). Prior to his almost instantaneous critical acclain in England when Gentle Spirit came out in August, Wilson was a much in-demand perfectionist music producer who records everything on analog tape (the recording studio equivalent of a master guild craftsman in these days of Pro Tools). He knew exactly how to make whatever “classic rock” sound he wanted to before this album came about (it took four years to record) and the results are familiar-sounding—and notably “authentic”—but still wholly original performances.

I’m not one to go in much for top ten lists, but if I did Gentle Spirit would certainly be in my top five albums for 2011, if not my top two (Not coincidentally, the other album, by J. Tillman (Fleet Foxes), was produced by Wilson, but it’s not out until May, so more on that later).

I’ve pushed Gentle Spirit repeatedly on all of my rock snob friends. Wilson is a musician’s musician. The real deal. Guys like David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Robbie Robertson, Elvis Costello and Graham Nash all want to buddy up to Wilson, hoping some of his magic rubs off on them. The great Roy Harper invited Wilson to perform at his 70th birthday bash in November at the Royal Festival Hall.

Did I mention that I really, really love this album?

Trying to describe music in words is like doing a sketch of a novel, but Wilson’s guitar can exhibit the inventiveness and precision of Stephen Stills or the fiery, almost architectural lines of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, often in the same song. It’s been said that his music sounds like CSNY jamming with Pink Floyd and this is, I think you’ll agree, quite an accurate description. Another way to get your head around Gentle Spirit is that it often sounds like a “Southern California” version of Radiohead.

Exhibit A, the music video for “Natural Rhapsody” directed by Michael Graham:
 

 
And here’s the one that will really slay you, “Desert Raven,” which will be forever stuck in your head before it’s even finished playing.