Kinda late, but here are some photos of the Bonnie Prince Billy and Bachelorette show earlier this month at Lexington’s The Red Mile. Photos by my bro Chris Reynolds.

Cheyenne Mize in Oldham’s band

Yes, Bonnie Prince Billy’s latest releases, Beware and his Among the Gold collaboration with Chyenne Mize, are excellent. But Bachelorette’s My Electric Family (The Deicbel Tolls review) is next level shit. This is your heads-up to arrive early to the show tonight at The Red Mile in Lexington. Doors are at 9 p.m. Get there at exactly that time, render your $12, and have Annabelle Alpers destroy your brain for 45 minutes (show info).

Congrats to Alex for gripping the tickets in last week’s giveaway. Enjoy this video of “Intergalactic Solitude” from Isolation Loops in Brooklyn. Yay for mushrooms.

And man… I. Just. Can’t. Stop. Listening. To. “Instructions For Insomniacs.” Good gawd, ya’ll. Enjoy this too.

MP3 :::
Bachelorette – Instructions For Insomniacs

Hometown weird beard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is swinging through the area Saturday, June 13th in support of Beware and Among the Gold, and I’ve got a pair of tickets to give away. Even more exciting is New Zealand native and Drag City representative Bachelorette opening up the show. I’m downright in love with Isolation Loops. Her latest, My Electric Family, just dropped last week, and something tells me you’re going to hear a lot more about this album in the near future.

Anyway, to enter the contest, send an e-mail to kb [at] thedecibeltolls (dot) com with your answer to this question: seeing as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Cheyenne Mize dug deep in the crates for some of their favorite duets, what song or songs from the early 20th century would you cover? The lady or gent with the most awesome answer will claim the pair of tickets. I plan to pick the winner over the weekend, so if you want to participate, get your answer in by Friday at 5 p.m. EST. Good luck!

WRFL presents Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy with Bachelorette
Saturday, June 13th
The Red Mile – Lexington, Ky. (map that shizz)
9 p.m.
All Ages

MP3 :::
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Chyenne Mize – Silver Threads
Bachelorette – Doo Wop
Bachelorette – The End of Things

My editor at LEO Weekly runs the label Karate Body Records, and they’re getting ready to drop a gorgeous vinyl 10″ by Bonnie Prince Billy called Among the Gold. Though fresh off the Beware publicity storm, the prolific and mercurial Oldham is never one to stay idle for too long.  The six-song release is a collaboration with Cheyenne Mize of adventurous Louisville folk collective Arnett Hollow – and it’s an authentic historical jaunt.

Oldham and Mize dust off some antique torch ballads, dirges, and steamboat folk written between 1873 and 1915, and claim them all as their own. Though the music is undeniably the touch of Oldham, the melody and intimacy of old American standards and duets is perfectly preserved and documented with delicate prowess.

This is a limited edition record, so if you want one, head over to KBR pretty soon to grip your pre-order.

MP3 :::
Bonnie Prince Billy & Cheyenne Mize – Silver Threads
Bonnie Prince Billy & Cheyenne Mize – Beautiful Dreamer

There’s nothing I love more than a good old fashioned murder ballad.  Maybe it’s the juicy juxtaposition of the details of a grisly crime uttered sotto voce style over a plaintive dirge.  Or maybe I’m just sick.  But this isn’t about me.  This week TDB brings you modern day murder ballads from some of today’s hottest new artists!  You get hangings, stabbings, scorned lovers and much much more.  This very special collection is only available through TDB and is not sold in any stores.  And if you act now, we’ll include matricide as a bonus gift! 

I’m sure there are entire doctoral theses on the distant origins of murder ballads but more recent history almost universally cites Johnny Cash and Nick Cave as pioneers of the modern genre.  Cave’s haunting duet with Kylie Minogue, “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, ends an obsessive love affair Crispin Glover style with a stoning by the river.  Cash is a different breed of cat and in “Delia’s Gone” exemplifies an Appalachian fetish for firearms and the ‘wife as chattel’ meme where you take them out in back of the barn and shoot them for misbehavin’.

Both are brilliant examples of the genre and the quintessential murder ballad paints a vivid portrait of the killer and his crime.  Okkervil River’s “Westfall” is the prison diary of a small-town boy grown up and grown bored enough to kill.  With creepy details like “One was named Lori.  That’s what the story said next week in The Guardian…”, it’s the dispassionate chronicle of a psychopath.  In classic murder ballad style, the song builds to the eventual capture of the killer who, paraded out of the jailhouse, tells the inquisitive crowd that, “evil don’t look like anything.”  Take that, Nancy Grace.

Former Palace Brother, Will Oldham, dons his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy moniker and reaches back to 18th century Ireland with an update of the traditional “Molly Bawn.”  In an episode that makes Dick Cheney look like Annie Oakley, poor Molly Bawn is mistaken for a swan and shot by her fiancé in a tragic hunting accident.  I’m serious.  This is probably more accurately called a manslaughter ballad with the possibility of time served and probation.

And in what starts out as a childhood game but presumably ends in tragedy, Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” is given guitar god treatment by Terry Reid circa 1968.  More metaphoric than literal, it’s representative of an era of artful phrases in music.  Thirty years ago euphemisms like ’squeeze my lemon’ garnered a knowing wink from the hipsters while today we get 20 year old Hillary Duff cooing “touch me boy don’t you make me wait.”  Ah, good times.

- Xavier Van Zandt

MP3 :::
Terry Reid – Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
Bonnie Prince Billy -  Molly Bawn
Okkervil River – Westfall