One of the most vivid collection of month’s in my mind’s past life was kickstarted by a christmas gift Concert to see Bright Eyes in Raleigh NC. It was a quiet kind of show - unlike the anticipated debaucherous affair full of funny boys and girls smashed up against a stage so hard that your chest fills like it will cave in as you give in to the gravity of a crowd that is responsible for your uprightness. Nah, this was much different, an assigned seat from which I sat and just had my my mind blown to pieces sequentially by the two opening acts. And I don’t know if you can relate to this or not, but I took those bands home with me so hard that they came to define that time period on my life. And so these bands accompanied me from start to end of the tragic and gut-wrenching breakup story that I was to live day in and day out for the next few months. Maybe you can relate to this too, but once it all faded I had to shelve those bands b/c I couldn’t detach the memories that I had associated to the melodies.

Since that time though - I’ve often referred to both CocoRosie and Tilly & the Wall in conversation and I can’t deny the excitement that wells up inside of me when I think of their appearance on that Raleigh stage even now. Particularly Tilly & the Wall. It was just totally fresh to me, unlike anything I had seen and amateurish in a way that I really admired. It just felt really genuine and I remember feeling really nostalgic for this simple freedom and wild rebellion that they were singing about. The band’s percussion is 100% stomping and tapdancing which turbocharges the coolness of their sound. Plus, they were brand new back then and riding the wave of Bright Eyes success that was becoming overwhelming with the dual release of Digital Ash and I’m Wide Awake. That was an exciting time in music for me.

So Yeah, I finally got around to compromising my melo-tragic association and I have the latest album BOTTOM OF BARRELS to explore now. It was released over a year and a half ago but I just got it a few weeks ago and I’m getting used to a more packaged/trained sound to their music. I think its growing on me.

So, check it out. I’ve provided the video to illustrate the tap-dancing element but also a couple of tracks from this album and one from the first.

The Freest Man - from Bottom of Barrels

Lost Girls - from Bottom of Barrels

Buy Tilly and the Wall’s Bottoms of Barrels at Amazon.com

Fell Down the Stairs - from Wild Like Children

Buy Tilly and the Wall’s Wild Like Children at Amazon.com