The Right Now

Cover Up #6: “How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore” by Prince

chris — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:47:02 +0000

Stefanie Berecz. We in the band call her Breezy sometimes, and here’s one reason why. She and I knocked out this burning Prince tune in the middle of our set at The Ritz Theatre in Tiffin, OH. And uh….Tiffin U had some singers in the audience that night! Best spontaneous backups…maybe ever.

This song comes from the way-underrated Girl 6 Soundtrack album, which is one of my favorites. Since he’s so obsessed with keeping his music off the internet, here’s the best (legal) thing I could find. Highly recommended.

-Chris

Warm Up Wednesdays continue in March

Brendan — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:37:06 +0000

We’ve had so much fun during our February residency at The Back Room that we decided to extend it through March! To celebrate another month at The Back Room we’re doing 1/2 off the cover charge the first week. Just reply “yes” to our Facebook invite here.

We’d like to thank DJRC for holding it down on the turntables last month as well as all the amazing guests that came out: Brandice Manuel, Danny Fernandez of Kings Go Forth, Nathan Graham from The Lucky Dutch, Aryk Crowder, and Lucas Ellman from The Heard. We’ve got some AMAZING guests lined up for March so stay tuned!

“Call Girl” remixes are downloadable!

chris — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:41:58 +0000

The vinyl has been out for a couple weeks, but now Deep & Disco has released the second round of “Call Girl” remixes as mp3s on all the popular music-downloading sites of the day. We’re hugely grateful to Jason Kriv, who we’ve worked with in various projects like Tortured Soul and Escort, for putting this project together. His Deep & Disco label is responsible for some hot stuff, and we’re proud to be a part of it. That Hot Toddy mix in particular is a party-starter, and many of you have heard us integrate it into our live show.

Grab one of these links to heat up your winter and kick up your dance party. There are even bonus tracks unavailable on the 12″ vinyl…

“Call Girl” remixes on iTunes

“Call Girl” remixes on Amazon

“Call Girl” remixes on eMusic

“Call Girl” remixes on Juno

What I Learned from Watching the Grammys

Brendan — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:30:08 +0000

Stef’s thoughts on the 2013 Grammy Awards:

1. While running in place and performing a song that references Forrest Gump make sure you have warmed up. It could go terribly wrong.

2. When giving an acceptance speech always thank the swap meet!

3. Deep side parts on men aren’t so bad after all.

4. Butterflies being projected onto an oversized white prom dress is a letdown.

5. You can stop the entire show by walking out in a black hoodie, black shades, and a cane.

But your name has to be Prince.

6. There is a country version of Justin Beiber. Yikes.

7. John Mayer looks like Edward Scissorhands more than ever! Bigger YIKES.

8. You are golden if you get asked to do a tribute.

9. Finally, I STILL want one of my own!
LL said it best at the beginning of the night.
“A Grammy isn’t a shiny thing to hold onto. A Grammy is a dream come true.”

Cheers to all of the inspiring performances and congrats to the winners.
Till next year…

Stefanie

Cover Up #5: “Wrong Side Of A Love Song” by Melanie Fiona

chris — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:52:25 +0000

We’re switching up the format this week a little bit. Instead of the normal behind-the-scenes video from our rehearsal space, we thought we’d take this one right to the stage and share it with you from there. From last night’s show at Martyrs in Chicago (thanks to a fantastic crowd, btw), here’s Melanie Fiona’s “Wrong Side Of A Love Song.”

Call Girl Remixes Part 2

Brendan — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:32:49 +0000

Deep&Disco is releasing part 2 of the “Call Girl” remixes on vinyl this coming Monday, 1/28. We really enjoyed Part 1 when it came out last June–the second half won’t dissapoint. The 12″ includes three remixes plus the original from Gets Over You. My personal fave is by UK’s Hot Toddy. Check it out:

We’re already getting great reviews on the remix package. Piccadilly Records in the UK had the following to say:

*STOP PRESS* These guys are gonna be huge, you heard it here first. Following on from Dave Walker’s ‘if Goat don’t make the end of year chart I’m running down Market St. wearing nothing but a Goat’s head’ challenge. Then if this 12″ isn’t one of the twelve’s of the year, then I will, in turn, be ‘a call girl’ – for one night only though.

Shucks Preview all the tunes and pick up the 12″ from Juno records here.

2012: Wrapped Up!

chris — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 22:51:55 +0000

Taking some time on this New Year’s eve to lay down a bit of what The Right Now did this year. We’ve been doing these year-end wrap ups since 2008 or so, and I’m thinking we can probably be more concise as the years go by. The first years consisted largely of “We played a gig! And people clapped! And then we drove a few hours and played another gig! And people clapped again! Can you believe it?!” They were basically 7-page essays that affirmed that yes, we are in fact a band doing things that bands do. This year will be wildly, dramatically different, I’m sure. I’ve got my Seasonal Ale from Anchor at hand, Cody Chesnutt’s new Landing On A Hundred album on the stereo, and hopefully you’re equipped similarly. Let’s get to it.

For starters, The Right Now Gets Over You came out this year and we saw it hit the radio waves and grow in some new ways. There were a few remixes of “Call Girl” courtesy of Jason Kriv, Scott Wozniak, and a few other DJs, and there are plans for more. Hearing your own music remixed by someone else is an interesting experience – hearing what bits they highlighted, how they took apart your Lego project and built a new one with the same pieces. We started incorporating some of the remixed grooves into our live performance of the song – and that moment, switching from the original arrangement to the remix, was always a show highlight for me. One of those “Woo!” moments.

Making Gets Over You was a huge departure from the way we made our first album, Carry Me Home. With a minimum of overdubs and more of a live-in-the-room feel, there was a bigger emphasis on the performance. People mostly reacted well to the change; I’m sure the third album will take yet another approach. Radio stations like 88.9 Radio Milwaukee, CHIRP, KDHX, and WNCW really got behind the album, and we’re really grateful for that. While that was happening, we started hearing reports of Carry Me Home songs showing up in all kinds of places – an episode of 90210, overhead speakers in Talbott’s, Kohl’s, Applebee’s, and tons of other spots. Crazy what a publicist and a placement specialist can do for a band!

The other exciting development around Gets Over You was the distribution that we worked out with United Record Pressing. Not only did they help us get our “He Used To Be/Good Man” 7-inch single listed as an official Record Store Day release, but they helped distribute the album to brick-and-mortar stores all over the US and in Europe.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already seen our first music video for “He Used To Be,” which came out earlier this year. We started out with a tiny budget and very modest goals – basically, just use some live footage from one of our Double Door shows, cut it with shots of Stef lip-synching the song, and have something that we could pass around youtube. Stef herself headed up the creative process, and with the help of Cameron Yergler, ended up with an actual video with a storyline and ever’thang. It was way beyond what we originally envisioned.

Hey, nice work, Stef and Cameron! Cheers to doin’ somethin’.

We played only 48 shows in 2012 – way fewer than we’ve played in past years – but man, what great shows they were. We definitely traded quantity for quality, at least in terms of career advancement, accommodations, and overall niceness. The summer consisted mostly of festival gigs which were sweaty, but had some of the best audiences we’ve ever seen. Along the way, we got to share the stage with some really great acts – let the name dropping begin: Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 (who put on a stupendous show), Lee Fields & The Expressions, Escort (featuring Jason Kriv of our Call Girl remixes on bass), Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Soulive, Souljazz Orchestra (don’t confuse ‘em), and at one festival, we played an afternoon set and caught Mr. John Legend later that night. We also opened for Grammy winner Ryan Shaw – and Stef got to sing “We’ve Got Love” as a duet with him, nearly 5 years after The Right Now (then known as Eli Jones) covered it at one of our shows. We also got to play a couple gigs with some of our favorite soul comrades: Bashiri Asad and DeRobert & The Half Truths. That particular triple-bill is just killer; hopefully we’ll do more of those. There was the Record Release Party for Gets Over You, the MCA/Beastie Boys tribute show, a killer session at Audiotree with some real pretty video, and our first gigs on the west coast including a wedding attended by Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Surprisingly, Kyra’s the better dancer. No, we didn’t play Footloose.

We dipped in and out of using in-ear monitors onstage, courtesy of TRN family and FOH engineer Joe Shambro. For our Record Release show at Lincoln Hall, we had 12 musicians all with their own mix on in-ear monitors…no small feat, but it worked beautifully. Shambro!!

Behind the scenes, we had plenty going on too. While catching the Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues, Stef (along with others) got invited up to sing with the choir, and then she (sans the others) got invited to join the choir – so now when anyone hits Chicago’s Gospel Brunch at HoB, they’ll see Stef as part of the Determined choir. Killer! And Brendan, our keyboardist and bandleader, is going to be a father early next year; a role he’s seemingly been preparing for for years.

Did I say something at the beginning about conciseness? Did I make this exact same apology in last year’s write-up? Shit.

Well as we’re fond of saying every year, we met so many great people in 2012, and we can’t wait to meet more in 2013. If you came to a show, heard us on the radio and checked us out, told a friend, bought our album, or anything - we feel all of that and we appreciate it more than we can say. Next year, it’s a big format switch for The Right Now, into youtube-only K-Pop releases!

SONG OF THE WEEK: DALEY’S “ALONE TOGETHER”

Brendan — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 18:37:55 +0000

What’s up with these amazing British soul singers? Someone add Daley to the list. “Alone Together” combines great production & stellar songwriting with a solid vocal performance–it’s contemporary R&B at its best. Dig it.

SONG OF THE WEEK: GARY CLARK JR.’S “BLAK AND BLU”

Brendan — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 21:36:01 +0000

I shied away from Gary Clark Jr. initially. He seemed like another blase guitar hero heralded by Eric Clapton, Rolling Stone, etc, and that didn’t really interest me. Man was I wrong. I love his album Blak and Blu (especially the title track which is my song of the week pick).

I don’t really know how to describe this guy: he writes songs for Alicia Keys; guests on stage with the Stones; does awesome covers of Hendrix; has RIDICULOUS guitar tone; does the worn blues rock thing incredibly well; incorporates R&B production worthy of John Legend or Frank Ocean; and on and on. He appeals to old dudes (sorry dad & Bob Lefsetz) that miss straight-ahead rock n’ roll from the 60s and 70s and to fans of contemporary R&B. Simply, it’s the shit. He writes great songs, plays well, and sings well. If this guy is on a major then there is still hope, folks. Check it:

SONG OF THE WEEK: CODY CHESNUTT’S “I’VE BEEN LIFE”

Brendan — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:33:16 +0000

Cody Chesnutt burst onto the national scene in 2002 when his song “The Seed” was remade for The Roots’ LP Phrenology. That was one of the feel good jams of that year and brought a lot of exposure to Cody’s The Headphone Masterpiece. He dropped off the radar in the last ten years, but he’s back with an excellent album called Landing On A Hundred. I was surprised (although I shouldn’t be since this is 2012) that the record was crowd-funded via Kickstarter. He recorded it at the infamous Royal Recording Studios in Memphis, which gave birth to the big hits of Al Green, Otis Clay, Syl Johnson and countless others. Cody’s album has a warm retro feel without being derivative. It’s excellent.

“I’ve Been Life” is one of my favorites from the new material. It’s a tribute to the African continent and the lyrics are heartfelt:

Since the change I’ve been a prisoner of a prisoner
A free hand as a prisoner
A believer and a teacher
Since my birth I’ve been the greatest

Here it is:

- Brendan