The Needy Sons – Vis-A-Vis

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I thought I should also share some new music that I love on this so called blog birthday (ok, it’s past midnight already so I’m a little late), because that’s what this blog is all about. Besides The Needy Sons fits quite well to this little 15 years celebration, because Bill Janovitz’s other band Buffalo Tom was quite a big thing to me around the time this website was born 15 years ago. Yeah, I was clueless in the mid-nineties when the classiest albums came out and got my Buffalo Tom education somewhere around 1999-2001. In case you haven’t heard of Buffalo Tom, listen to an all-time favorite of mine Taillights Fade and work your way from there to the whole excellent catalog. The other stuff like that Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria album is also great and way too underrated at least in this corner of the world.

Anyway, enough with the nostalgic stuff. The Needy Sons has some new stunning music for you. That first paragraph might make you believe that this is a one man show, but that’s not true. The Needy Sons is a band that consists of Bill Janovitz, Mike Gent, Ed Valauskas, and Eric Anderson. Bill Janovitz and Mike Gent (The Figgs) share the songwriting duties and both do a really good job. The album Vis-A-Vis is now out on Bandcamp (CD/digital) and other digital outlets should follow within a few weeks. Here’s one excellent song from each songwriter. The Swimmer from Bill Janovitz and Majoring in Slow from Mike Gent. Listen/buy the whole thing on their bandcamp.

The Needy Sons at Facebook

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Onechord.net strikes 15 today: Viljami Kukkonen – Mörönsyötti

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One Chord to Another is now 15 years old. Huge thanks for everyone who has been with me on this little journey through music. No matter whether you’ve red this blog the full 15 years or just browsed through a couple of post somewhere along the way. It means a lot to me that you’ve visited this and it makes the countless amount of hours I’ve put to this worthwhile.

I had this little anniversary thing going on for the past few weeks. I seriously run out of time, because I meant to do one or two each day, but I just didn’t have the energy to keep that going during 50+ hour work weeks. So very significant ones like Ochre Room, Daniel Markham, John Moreland, Topi Saha, Frontier Ruckus, Small Houses, Myriam Gendron, Lac Belot, Ilona V, Hezekiah Jones, The Deep Dark Woods, Koria Kitten Riot, Chris Bathgate are still missing. Maybe I continue doing these posts during the rest of this year. Not that anyone else than myself care that much if some significant onechord.net favourites are missing. Oh and the biggest inspirations behind this blog were mostly covered during the 10 year anniversary. The Sugarrush, Bridget, Cats On Fire, Office Building, The Rollstons, Penniless still rule my world.

It was clear from the start of these anniversary posts that I wanted to post something about Mörönsyötti by Viljami Kukkonen on this birthday. I’m forgetting my rules here a bit, because I couldn’t pick just one song from this wonderful album. It’s a friend to me that has been with me during the longest nights that thanks to Mörönsyötti always led to daylight. This album knows things about me that I might not even recognise myself by the time the morning comes. Sure the album has its fair share of sadness, but it’s presented is such a way that for me Mörönsyötti has always been a kindhearted shoulder. I so needed that when I had some heavy medical worries. Still do on some level, but Mörönsyötti and thyroid medication has significantly helped the situation.

Onechord.net has never been about music critique or writing analytic pieces about music. That is important and relevant too, but I don’t have the skills for that. Onechord.net is just about loving songs and albums so wholeheartedly that I want to tell the world or the 7 regular readers about them. Mörönsyötti by Viljami Kukkonen is an album that I’ve loved the most during these 15 years of One Chord To Another.

Viljami Kukkonen at Facebook

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Wesley Randolph Eader – Highway Winds

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I’ve lived the past couple of days under the guidance of the new Wesley Randolph Eader album Highway Winds. It’s been a good place to be, because this is rather spectacular songwriting. I think I’ll stick around here for a while and make this my home.

Wesley Randolph Eader is a Portland-based country-folk songwriter and Highway Winds is his second album. I completely missed the 2012 debut Of Old It Was Recorded, but I’ll correct that mistake once this gorgeous new album has left me off the hook. That might not happen very soon, because I’m very fond of this after a couple of days of listening to it. Man should be very wary of comparing anyone to the late great Townes Van Zandt, because he sure was one of a kind. However, there’s a couple of songs that remind me a lot of Townes. Sorrows For A Song and Waitin’s What We Do especially fall into that that category. These might also be my early favourites on the album, but there’s so much more to love. There’s a bit of old-time, bluegrass and even gospel too.. and a whole lot of amazing songs. All in all. It’s a really magnificent record filled by great songwriting. Blitzen Trapper frontman Eric Earley also features heavily on the record as a musician and co-producer, but of course it’s Wesley that is under the spotlight right now. Here are a couple of excellent songs from Highway Winds. You can buy and/or listen to the whole album on his Bandcamp.

Wesley Randolph Eader Website

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