New Felice Brothers video :: "Frankie's Gun" (plus tour dates)

I saw New York's Felice Brothers perform this weekend at Outside Lands, and what an explosion! I never fancied myself as a massive accordion fan, but yeehaw. It's all good. Also, any song that has the lyric "Spit make a fender shine, Frankie's a friend-a-mine / Got me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died" (and isn't a Dylan song) gets props in my book. See my original write-up about them here, and a slew of headlining tour dates were announced today:

FELICE BROTHERS TOUR

SEPTEMBER 2008
04 - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground
05 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse
06 - Cambridge, MA - Club Passim
07 - Great Barrington, MA - Club Helsinki
11 - Albany, NY - Linda Norris Auditorium*
12 - Ithaca, NY - Castaways*
13 - Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's*
14 - Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere Bandstand*
16 - Atlanta, GA - Smith's Olde Bar*
18 - Nashville, TN - Exit / In*
19 - Lexington, KY - Christ the King Oktoberfest*
20 - Chicago, IL - Abbey Pub*
21 - Iowa City, IA - The Mill*
23 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room*
24 - St. Louis, MO - Billiken Club at St. Louis University (Open to the Public)*
25 - Notre Dame, IN - Legends of Notre Dame (Student's Only)*
26 - Cincinnati, OH - Midpoint Music Festival at the Know Theater*
27 - Rutland, OH - Reclaim Festival*
29 - Knoxville, TN - Barley's Taproom*
30 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506*

OCTOBER 2008
02 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church*
09 - Princeton, NJ - Terrace F. Club (Princeton U - Student's Only)#
10 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Café#
11 - Louisville, KY - Palace Theatre%
13 - Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Café#
15 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry's#
16 - Birmingham, AL - Workplay Theater#
17 - New Orleans, LA - Maple Leaf#
18 - Alexandria, LA - Alexandria Music Project#
22 - West Hollywood, CA - The Troubadour#
23 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall#
24 - Portland, OR - Mission Theatre#
25 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey#
27 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Paladium#
28 - Boulder, CO - Fox Theatre & Café#

NOVEMBER 2008
02 - New York, NY - Spiegeltent#

* = w/ A.A. Bondy
# = w/ Deer Tick
% = opening for Old Crow Medicine Show

The Felice Brothers & Bright Eyes :: "Walls" (Tom Petty cover, live in Delaware)

Bruce loves The Felice Brothers just as much as I do, and I found this cover he posted to be jubilant and electrifying.

I cannot help but smile wide at the loose, rough joy they exude in their musical jam (even if Conor is dressed kinda like he just stumbled in from post-work happy hour karaoke):



That is live music at its absolute best.

Sit for a spell with the Felice Brothers

Over recent months, a few trusted friends have recommended the Felice Brothers from New York as a group that I simply must listen to. I haven't done so until now, and I am wondering what the heck took me so long.

A band of (mostly) actual brothers from the Catskills, there's a raw and unfinished sound to their storytelling brand of folk-americana. I find that as you sit with them, the colors of their music start to come out in a warm rich burn, like a campfire at 2am. Very few artists write stories like this anymore, except for folks like Ray LaMontagne or the Hold Steady, in very different sounding ways.

Their vivid music is populated by characters with names like Long-Legged Brenda and take the listener along on all kinds of wild narratives that echo Dylan in their complexity and seeming unsingability. Both of these introductory tunes have a thoroughly warm, communal singalong feel to them, and the first tune in particular seems like it would be perfect behind the closing credits rolling on a really good movie.

Frankie's Gun - The Felice Brothers
[from The Adventures of the Felice Brothers, Vol 1]

Roll On Arte - The Felice Brothers
[from Tonight At The Arizona, 2007, Loose UK]

Fresh off shows with Bright Eyes, David Gray, and Levon Helm, they're playing tonight with Son Volt in Chicago, and then on tour in the coming months with artists like the Drive-By Truckers and North Mississippi Allstars.

Recently signed to Team Love Records (the label co-founded by Conor Oberst), the Felice Brothers will release a collection of new tunes combined with older hard-to-find tracks from the tour-only full length The Adventures of the Felice Brothers Vol 1. Their self-titled American debut will be out on March 4th 2008.

Given that "felice" means happy in italiano, they make me happy inside to have found them.