Our good friend PJ Sykes shot the awesome cover photo for Lambchop‘s brand new live album which came out digitally this week (Nov 17) and will be released as a limited edition CD and high def video download next week (Nov 24) exclusively via the Merge Store.
Lambchop – Live at XX Merge (Cover photo by PJ Sykes)
As Merge fans know, Lambchop has been on the label since 1993, releasing a string of widely varied but consistently brilliant records. But the live Lambchop experience has been somewhat elusive in the U.S. While the band has toured the gilded theaters of Europe and elsewhere for nearly two decades, the Nashville group has seldom toured their home country. Kurt Wagner has performed solo on a recent Yo La Tengo tour, and Lambchop supported their recent album, (OH) Ohio, as an intimately stripped-down quintet in a couple of short bursts over the last year. To help celebrate Merge’s 20th Anniversary the band showed up in one of their largest lineups in recent memory “” 11-strong, including multiple guitars, keyboards, piano, and a horn section. Lambchop performing live is always a powerful proposition, but on this night they started quietly with “I Will Drive Slowly” from their first album (I Hope You’re Sitting Down) and accelerated from there, each song seemingly faster and more intensely played than the last, building to a furious finale of “Up With People” and an epic “Give It.” By the end of their set, everyone in the packed Cats Cradle – band and audience both – was levitating a few inches off the ground”¦
Lambchop’s set at XX Merge was professionally recorded and filmed, and is available now for those who missed it, or for those who want to go back again.
If you’d like to see some more live video from XX Merge, you can check out the treasure trove of exclusive footage from the festival (including The Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Conor Oberst, Polvo, Spoon, M. Ward, Destroyer, Wye Oak, and She & Him) over at www.babelgum.com/merge.
In honor of this new release, I’m giving away an XX Merge T-shirt, an XX Merge button, and a couple of limited edition XX Merge postcards by PJ Sykes. To enter this contest, fill out the entry form after the jump. US entrants only, one entry per household, contest ends on November 24, 2009.
Pictures of the prize pack goodies, Lambchop Live at XX Merge track listing and a video for Lambchop’s “Give It” after the jump.
Ltd Edition XX Merge Postcards by PJ Sykes
Pictured: Superchunk (as seen in Spin Magazine) and Lambchop (album cover photo)
XX Merge T-Shirt and Button
Lambchop – “Give It” (Once In A Lifetime)
Lambchop – Live at XX Merge Track Listing
1. Jon Wurster: Introduction 00:51
2. I Will Drive Slowly 05:37
3. The New Cobweb Summer 06:32
4. Grumpus 04:14
5. Sharing a Gibson with Martin Luther King Jr. 04:01
6. What Else Could It Be? 03:15
7. Tony Crow: Joke 01:48
8. National Talk Like a Pirate Day 05:03
9. Hey, Where’s Your Girl? 02:12
10. Your Fucking Sunny Day 03:23
11. Up With People 03:57
12. Give It (Once In a Lifetime) 06:33