Alex McMurray Nominated for 5 Offbeat 'Best of the Beat' Awards
Alex McMurray has been nominated in five different categories this year!
Alex McMurray - Best Song of the Year
Alex McMurray - Song Writer of the Year
Alex McMurray - Best Country/Folk/Roots Performer
Alex McMurray - Best Country/Fold/Roots Album
Happy Talk Band - (Alex on guitar) - Best Rock Performer
Go Vote on the Best Of The Beat.
http://www.offbeat.com/BoB09/
Vote Early!
Vote Often!
The Making of A Very Threadhead Holiday
The adults are sitting around a table on the back porch, some with beer, some with coffee. They’re swapping wisecracks and stories while the kids are upstairs. Coats are tossed in a corner, and the Christmas lights are strung with semi-deliberation in one of the rooms of the house. It could be Christmas, but it isn’t. The house is Susan Cowsill and Russ Broussard’s home on the West Bank, and it has become the studio where A Very Threadhead Holiday is being recorded. Mike Mayeux’s mobile recording unit is out front; there’s an amp in the hallway with producer Paul Sanchez’ hat on it. The lights are hanging from Broussard’s drum kit.
Offbeat 01-Dec-09 - http://www.offbeat.com/2009/12/01/what-will-santa-say/
A Brand New Who Dat!
Update: When the song is available for sale, a portion of the proceeds will go to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic.
Last Minute Turkey Day Gig -dba Thursday Night!
The Pilgrim Fairies have smiled on us: I'll be playing DBA Thanksgiving night.
I'll be joined by Carlo Nuccio, Matt Perrine and Bob Andrews. We start at 10.
Shake off that narco-turkey haze and come hang.
Also, don't forget The Tin Men will be doing our usual duty at DBA on Wednesday from 7-9. T-day eve is always a big night in these parts...
Hope you can make it out.
Cheers,
Alex McMurray
New Release - A Very Threadhead Christmas
Threadhead Records, the first fan-funded, volunteer-run record company to focus entirely on the music and culture of New Orleans, has just released their very own Holiday CD. The CD was produced by Paul Sanchez and features a number of their artists including John Boutte, Shamarr Allen, Susan Cowsill & Russ Broussard, Matt Perrine & Debbie Davis, Craig Klein, Alex McMurray, Glen David Andrews, Mary Lasseigne, Margie Perez, Ingrid Lucia and Paul Sanchez performing both original and standard songs of the season.
Alex plays guitar on seven of the 13 songs and performs his soon-to-be-a-Christmas-classic Santa, Let Me Call You A Cab.
10% of the net proceeds raised from this project will be donated to the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. The other 90% will be split between the Threadhead Records General Fund and the Threadhead Records Foundation. The money raised for the General Fund will...
Free Download!
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'I Am In Hell' - Get it
A Memorial for McNee
Alex McMurray, Davis Rogan and Dave Sobel, McNee's collaborator on record, wielded bass drums. Sousaphonist Matt Perrine directed the band with his usual effervescent panache- signaling changes and directly solos. Carlo Nuccio played snare drum along with Hart's son, Felix. The music was solid, frenetic and bordering at times on cacophony- but this was no amateur band just blowing ... http://neworleansmusiconline.
Alex is now on Facebook
Alex McMurray makes a splash with his 'Cannonball' CD
Alex McMurray is everywhere... But many fans first discovered McMurray April 30. On the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival's Lagniappe Stage, he performed to the largest crowd of his career...
New Cannonball Review
www.nola.com
Alex McMurray makes a splash with his 'Cannonball' CD
Alex McMurray is everywhere... But many fans first discovered McMurray April 30. On the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival's Lagniappe Stage, he performed to the largest crowd of his career. Reviews were across-the-board ecstatic.
Read it here
New Diary Entry
Alex does not make it home unscathed....
Oshkosh did not inspire. But, strangely, Atlanta did. Here's how.
I've never really thought about gun violence before, but what I want to do is rush a TSA rep, seize his gun, shove it in my mouth and yank the trigger. I hope they carry big guns, like 45s, so I can get a big arc of blood and brains behind me. A cone of skull fragments and gray matter and purple clots around seventeen feet long and nine feet wide at its largest point. I want to do this as close as i can to the security checkpoint. But a better scenario has my death ritual taking place in the queue for customer service. That site of extreme disregard. That dantesque endpoint of nullity, frustration and rage. When the brain-snot flies, this shall be a fitting arena. They say the forty-five is a loud gun, and I hope they're right. I want to wake people up and get blood on their shirts. Up to now I've been more interested...
New Diary Entry
Alex does NEW ORLEANS, DUBAI, NEW CD/THREADHEADS, CHAZFEST/JAZZFEST, OSHKOSH, OGDEN, NORTHEAST TRIP...
Well golly it has been a while, hasn't it? Which is a good thing because so much has been happening, there's just no time to write it down. I've been working just about every night throughout the spring with all the various projects--Tin Men every Wednesday at the DBA, Tom Paines every Tuesday at the Circle Bar. Matt Perrine's Sunflower City has been playing here and there, as have the Happy Talk Band. I hear Schatzy is thinking about making another CD, and the Geraniums have gigs coming up real soon. Ingrid Lucia and Paul Sanchez both keep me pretty busy, and even 007 rears its head once in a while. We just did an "Alex McMurray" show last weekend where I was joined by Carlo, Matt and Bob, so we did a lot of the old stuff as well as stuff from my new CD and it was a hell of a time. That band (what to call it? the Retired Bowlers League? Fingerpuppet?) will be returning to the DBA...
Jonathan Frelich interviews Alex about Chaz Festival
Listen to the four part interview with one of the masterminds behind Chaz Festival Alex McMurray.
ChazFest Video/Music Page
Train Whistles and Flies Wings
(How To Be a Cannonball review )
Offbeat MagazineAlthough New Orleans has a reputation as a brass/jazz/funk playground, it has been a home to songwriters since the beginning of the 20th Century. From Clarence Williams to Jelly Roll Morton to Dave Bartholomew, from Allen Toussaint and Earl King to more recent tunesmiths such as Paul Sanchez, Anders Osborne and Ed Volker, there's a history of musicians putting words and notes together in profound ways. With How to Be a Cannonball, Alex McMurray takes his place in those ranks.
Alex McMurray's long awaited new album, How to Be a Cannonball, could be the record that gives him the recognition as being one of the best songwriters working today.
Offbeat article and Cannonball review
Train Whistles and Flies’ Wings
Offbeat Magazine - www.offbeat.com
Although New Orleans has a reputation as a brass/jazz/funk playground, it has been a home to songwriters since the beginning of the 20th Century. From Clarence Williams to Jelly Roll Morton to Dave Bartholomew, from Allen Toussaint and Earl King to more recent tunesmiths such as Paul Sanchez, Anders Osborne and Ed Volker, there’s a history of musicians putting words and notes together in profound ways. With How to Be a Cannonball, Alex McMurray takes his place in those ranks.
read the whole article
How to be a cannonball review - Offbeat Magazine
Alex McMurray’s long awaited new album, How to Be a Cannonball, could be the record that gives him the recognition as being one of the best songwriters working today.
read the whole article
Fest Reviews
"Alex McMurray made a big impression at Jazz Fest "
Times Picayune - Nola.com
The crowd that showed up for his Lagniappe Stage set -- in the high hundreds, at least -- caught him off guard. "I'm just not used to playing for so many people," he said. He should be. Read the rest of the article
French Quarter Festival, New Orleans
Jazz Times
This raw, funky street trio, a crowd favorite, delivered a wealth of rich material ranging from McMurray’s sea chanty
"The Ballad of Cap’n Sandy" and Danny Barker’s "Palm Court Strut", a naughty N’awlins classic full of sexual innuendo,
to covers of Chuck Berry’s "Maybellene" and Cab Calloway’s "The Man From Harlem". Read the rest of the article
From Shaky Start to Enduring Tradition - Jazz Fest 2009 article
New York Times
Jazzfest is a one-stop gathering of nearly every ranking local act. This year there were brass bands like the Dirty...
Jazzfest: Behind Threadhead Records
Threadhead sounded like an odd name for a record company when I mentioned Glen David Andrews’s gospel album, “Walking Through Heaven’s Gate.” And there’s a story behind it. Threadheads are members of an online social community born out of message threads on the forum at nojazzfest.com;
From Shaky Start to Enduring Tradition
" and Alex McMurray, a droll, raspy singer playing nimble jazz guitar."
Threadheads give up-and-coming musicians a boost
The concept was simple: Fans usually pay for records after they've been made by purchasing them in stores or online. But if the fans put in the money upfront, they could make sure that the records they wanted to hear got made.