If you are a new reader of MCB you are probably wondering how we get all this stuff to give away to on the website...well its complicated - we buy somestuff (usually local bands or artists at a show we hit up) or the bands themselves contact us to offer freebies and then the PR companies and record labels are all over us to provide "coverage" for their artist while in detroitWe all always ask for freebies for the readers and then hook you up!
Here is a good one from our good friends over at Bloodshot Records
FREE CD: DON'T TELL COLUMBUS from Graham Parker
to the 1st reader to email us GONE
Graham Parker Live
Friday September 5th 2008 at Callahan's in Auburn Hills
"You can tell he was inspired in writing these 12 new songs, because they serve up verse after verse, each one sharper than the last, and the bare-bones pub-rock arrangements provide plenty of room for Parker to unleash some of the finest rock and soul singing of his career."
Sometimes an artist is anointed a “legend.” Sometimes this artist’s body of work is so consistently lauded, of such ongoing interest and creativity, the audience might be tempted to take the level of craft for granted. Sometimes such an artist, after a time of flying beneath the radar, emerges with a run of stunning material ascending beyond time and genre. Sometimes this artist casts a shadow large enough they are known by just their initials.
Graham Parker is such an artist and this is his time. Thirty years into a storied career in rock ‘n’ roll that began with his band The Rumour (pre-saging new wave, pub rock and punk) Graham Parker finds himself at the absolute top of his game and in the midst of a extended creative hot streak. Hot on the heels of the Bloodshot releases Your Country (2004), Songs of No Consequence (2005), the seething digital-only single about Iraq—the now sadly outdated "2000 Funerals" - and the blistering live album 103 Degrees in June (2006), Don’t Tell Columbus crackles with desperation and redemption sung with rich, passionate power. And hooks. Lots and lots of effortless hooks. Yes, the new millennium has thus far been very good to GP and music fans reap the rewards. Suffused with the heft of the epic, Don’t Tell Columbus’s lyrical and emotional resonance straddles the Atlantic and evinces GP’s stature as one of the most gifted writers in rock ‘n’ roll.
From the personal and metaphorically grand “The Other Side of the Reservoir” to the overtly political and swinging “Stick to the Plan,” this album ripples with tension between the melancholic, the urgent and the hopeful. Parker’s biting social commentary is in full force here; only GP can have you happily humming along to songs swaddled in desperate loneliness and internal mayhem. It is unhealthy, perhaps even obscene, that someone should be able to come up with an album this good this far into their career."
Friday, September 5th at Callahan's
2105 South Blvd. – Auburn Hills, MI
Tickets $20 ADV - $25 DOS
Showtime 8:30pm