Good Light, the latest album from Nashville's Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors (out on February 26th), is drenched in the sort of Southern comfort that will make you laugh, smile, nod your head and raise your beer in appreciation for every nugget of truth that slips out of the singer's mouth.

More mature than his previous releases, Good Light's songs come from Holcomb's need to be honest with himself and his fans and have no regrets about who he is and where he is going. That's a pretty good perspective to have for a new father, especially since he and his wife, singer Ellie, will be bringing their newborn daughter with them on their upcoming tour. That should make for some unusual tour stories. The bans whose songs you might have heard on Nashville, How I Met Your Mother, or Oprah is setting sail on the Rock Boat XIII this weekend, and we caught up with Holcomb to chat before the ship leaves port.

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Ian Witlen

The S.S. Coachella returned safely Wednesday morning after a relatively wobbly night's sail across the Caribbean Sea. The voyage was a success. The boat didn't sink, and constant forced Purell-ing kept us all from contracting tropical illnesses or just the flu from our diseased shipmates.

Three days, 400 meals, 30 cocktails, 15 clothing changes, and probably like 50 concerts later, arriving back on U.S. soil was a relief but also left us wanting more. Meals, that is. Oh, and concerts.

After a day of reflection, it's clear that there were absolutely awesome things about the trip and some other things that were not so great. Here's the best and worst of the S.S. Coachella.

See also
- Top Ten Finest Fashion Moments on the S.S. Coachella
- S.S. Coachella: Stalking Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
- S.S. Coachella Cruise, Day One: Father John Misty, Yeasayer, !!!, Pulp
- S.S. Coachella: Getting Our Nails Done with Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss
- S.S. Coachella: Drinking Wine With James Murphy in the Ocean

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Ian Witlen

Old punk guys and fancy wines, two things that make sense together only now, mere days before the end of the world.

Nothing is more a "sign of the times" than James Murphy and Justin Chearno hosting a winetasting in the middle of the ocean for a handful of people both able and willing to ride the S.S. Coachella. It has all the elements of things we want as a culture: exclusivity, intimacy, rock stars, and, of course, booze. The two-evening Real Wine talk really captured the oddity of the experience, in a more wholesome way than two people discreetly doing it in the Sky Lounge to a live soundtrack of Cloud Nothings.

See also
-S.S. Coachella: Stalking Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
-S.S. Coachella Cruise, Day One: Father John Misty, Yeasayer, !!!, Pulp
- S.S. Coachella: Getting Our Nails Done with Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss

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Dem der nails

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Andrew Youssef/OC Weekly

No more of this desert shit! We're going on a cruise!

Watching all the bands you ever dreamed of seeing from your dry, dusty, sweat-splattered tent in the high desert is just so earlier this year. According to the New York Times, the massive music festival Coachella has announced plans to launch two cruises from Fort Lauderdale this winter.

There will be a three-day cruise leaving for the Bahamas on December 16 and a four-day voyage setting sail on December 19 to Jamaica. Miami New Times first reported on the S.S. Coachella, and word from the NY Times is that acts including Pulp, Hot Chip, Girl Talk, Yeasayer, Sleigh Bells, and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem will be providing onboard entertainment, as will Sleigh Bells and Black Lips, among others (see after the jump).

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​Let's get down to it. The music cruise concert ShipRocked is bringing a fully rock-heavy, headbanging lineup to the tropics this November.

The four-day voyage sets sail from Fort Lauderdale on November 27 and will feature Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch, P.O.D., Sevendust, Filter, Fuel, Black Stone Cherry, Lit, Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche), Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns N' Roses), and In This Moment. They're calling it the "ultimate" of the rock cruises. Suppose it remains to be seen if this fourth-annual high-seas rock fest will be the ultimate one of its sort.
 

 
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Ian Witlen

Jonas Stein on the mic with Turbo Fruits playing last year's preshow at Grand Central.

​Bruise Cruise organizers Michelle Cable and Turbo Fruits' Jonas Stein suggest bringing a few essentials on the boat this year. 1. a Speedo, 2. sunglasses, 3. a fanny pack ("Even though it sounds unhip, it was actually our saving grace," Cable advises.), 4. vitamins, 5. formal wear, and 6. An open mind.

"You've got to be down for anything," she said. "People just got cheesy and let their guilty pleasures come out. Dancing to Top 40 hits, letting their hair down, and not caring about how they look in their bathing suit anymore." That's right, even grungy rock guys will feel comfortable in their banana hammocks.



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photo by Ian Witlen

a scene from the recent Holy Ship! cruise

​Over the past couple weeks, South Florida benefited from the music-cruise scene when top acts from the annual Jam Cruise and inaugural Weezer Cruise played land-locked kickoff and post-ship shows. It's been an unexpected positive of the booming themed cruise explosion, which has attracted entirely new audiences to cruising and proved a fun way for artists to make some money in the in-flux industry.
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Photo by Ian Witlen

​Holy Ship!
With Fatboy Slim, Skrillex, Buraka Som Sistema, Diplo, A-Trak, Dillon Francis, Rusko, Brodinski, Egyptrixx, Dave Nada
MSC PoesiaJanuary 6-9, 2012

Check out a slideshow from the cruise here.

Better than: All my pre-Holy Ship! expectations -- this was pretty special...

Arriving at Port Everglades on Friday afternoon for embarkation and only the most very churlish could not have felt a sense of event excitement. Maybe there was still a sense of kinetic from the previous night's feel-good Mad Decent pre-party -- which featured somewhat of a coming-of-age performance from Dillon Francis, a brutal DJ Craze set and a stripped down Diplo-lead Major Lazer party. Alternatively it's just the combination of a sense of the unknown and pure expectation of seeing an impressive array of key electronic artists, private island parties and the beauty of the Bahamas.

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