Communion Nashville – August 2012 session on Thursday at The Basement

Lacking a solid have-too-see Monday night show in Nashville.  I thought I would look ahead, and tell you about one of the best things I see on the calendar for this week.  Communion was born in the Summer of 2006 at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. Founded by Ben Lovett (Mumford and Sons), former Cherbourg bassist Kevin Jones, and acclaimed producer Ian Grimble, it quickly grew into a flourishing worldwide community of musicians and fans alike, providing a first independent platform for the freshest young artists. Communion’s Nashville session returns to The Basement on Thursday August 2nd 2012 with yet another stellar lineup!  See all the details below.

Big Surr
Big Surr is a fun band made up of five bbs who like to eat pizza and ice cream. This is why Casey has a stik’n’poke of a skateboarding basketball-playing piece of pizza on his left thigh. Helen just wants to be at the beach all of the time, Evan thinks that he is an ox, Erik can read 500 books in one hour, and Emmett likes to bike and play Natural Child covers…at the same time.

They released their Miss You Most EP digitally at the end of Summer 2010 and on tape in Winter 2011, and they are about to release the Baked + Bruised 7″ through Infinity Cat’s Econoline series. Their sound has been compared to Wavves, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Ty Segall, Best Coast, a Dinosaur Jr. + the Ramones baby, the Velvet Underground, Shop Assistants, Dum Dum Girls. The blog Theoretically Vinyl summed it up as “when sunshine punches you right in your face.”

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Foreign Fields
Foreign Fields is an electronic folk group that hails from the wintry plains of Wisconsin. New Years day of last year they met in their hometown, in an abandoned office building, to begin work on their first full length LP Anywhere But Where I Am. Having no set plan or guide, the album grew naturally as they left their lives in Chicago for hot summer days and skipping stones in the rivers of Tennessee.

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Jessie Baylin

When you hear Jessie Baylin sing for the first time, it takes a matter of moments to realize that she’s intimately familiar with pop’s history – but not at all interested in repeating it. Her songs – and her plangent voice – carry a classic pop tone that evoke memories of the Brill Building and Laurel Canyon in the ‘70s while retaining a decidedly modern, empowered worldview.

That’s exactly the vibe one gets when immersed in Little Spark, Baylin’s third album and first for Thirty Tigers – a relationship she struck up after negotiating her way out of a major label deal that was threatening to mar the clarity of her singular artistic vision. Rather than go with the flow, she went with her gut, gathering what remained of an inheritance from her grandmother – whose nickname Jessie borrowed for the Blonde Rat label moniker – Jessie hired Producer Kevin Augunas, who helped her gather some of the most empathetic musicians she could find, including old-school guitar man Waddy Wachtel,veteran drummer Jim Keltner, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, The Watson Twins on backup vocals and famed Emmy & Grammy winning string arranger Jimmie Haskell (Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, Bobby Gentry). But it was modern-day auteur and multi-instrumentalist Richard Swift who was Little Sparks chief arranger and with Swift, Kevin, and the musicians in place, Jessie had her creative collaborators and co-conspirators.

[youtube_sc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NWCImyV7K4?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Jill Andrews
It starts with the voice. Before you notice the words, before you detect the gently curling melodies tugging them along, this is what hits you first: It’s warm and rich and touched with a soft Southern twang, as likely to swing down into its earthy lower register as arch upwards into a hopeful trill; it’s steady and sure but flecked with a certain weary sadness that stops you dead, draws you near. It’s beautiful. It knows something.

This voice is Jill Andrews, who’s been singing her whole life: as a little girl in Johnson City, Tenn., as a camp counselor plucking out three chords on an acoustic guitar under swaying pine trees, as one-half of The Everybodyfields — and, since 2009, as an increasingly formidable singer/songwriter making her way on her own.

The Knoxville-based Andrews crafts beguiling, startlingly intimate songs that merge her voice with her effortless, classic-pop sensibility and keen eye for human drama — all the unspoken truths between lovers, devastating confessions whispered to friends, silent prayers offered up during the longest, loneliest nights. A smart, subtle tunesmith and a gently wise songwriter, Andrews’ songs shuffle in and settle down with little fanfare, then quietly go about the business of ripping your heart straight out of your chest.

[youtube_sc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amr0VLQMFA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Gold Motel
With GOLD MOTEL, it’s always summer, the bags are always packed, and the car is always running. Beneath tight pop hooks and warm melodies, GOLD MOTEL’s songs are infused with joyous exuberance as well as sweet melancholy. The ten tracks on GOLD MOTEL’s debut album Summer House are snapshots of dreaming, transient youth in constant motion – driving down desert highways, watching fireworks from the boardwalk, wandering the city in an endless summer but, in the end, always searching for the safety of home, friends, and love.

The Chicago-based quintet originated in the warmer climate of Los Angeles during the summer of 2009. Greta Morgan (The Hush Sound) returned from a year in Southern California to her hometown of Chicago, bringing with her what would become the five-song GOLD MOTEL EP. Collaborating with her friend Dan Duzsynzski (This Is Me Smiling), recording began on a set of sharp, sunny pop songs with a decidedly West Coast outlook. Working with Duzsynski, Morgan realized that her pre-conceived solo project could grow into a full band effort.

Through the fall of 2009, GOLD MOTEL transformed into a full-fledged band, adding Chicago music veterans Matt “Minx” Schuessler, Adam Kaltenhauser (both of This is Me Smiling), and Eric Hehr (The Yearbooks). The super group played together live for the first time in December of 2009 with a sold out headlining debut at Chicago’s Beat Kitchen, coinciding with the release of the GOLD MOTEL EP.

Since then, GOLD MOTEL has headlined shows from Los Angeles to New York (and most cities in between) in support of Summer House, and is currently supporting Hellogoodbye on their Winter 2011 national tour. In November 2010, they released a two song 7 inch vinyl, Talking Fiction.

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Doors: 7pm / Show: 8pm / 21+

Adv. tickets available at Grimey’s