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Archive for September, 2006
Drive-By Truckers & Bobby Bare Jr.
Published by September 29th, 2006 in Meta-Chatter and Concert. 4 Comments
A week has passed and I am just about recovered from my mini-tour with the Drive-By Truckers and Bobby Bare, Junior. Okay, I didn’t tour with them, but I did venture out three nights in a row and rocked along with them in New York City, Philadelphia and Hoboken, Thursday through Saturday night. On Sunday morning I was wiped out and was relaxing for a few minutes and listening to Boot Liquor radio through iTunes as I heard the song “7 Nights to Rock, 7 Nights to Roll”, which Bruce has covered many times but I never actually heard the original. It goes like this: “I got seven nights to rock, I got seven nights to roll, Seven nights, I’m gonna have a whirl, Seven nights with a different girl” Alright sans the part about the different girl, change seven to three and I felt like that was my song for the weekend.
On Thursday night The Truckers played Webster Hall in NYC with Bobby Bare, Jr as their opening act, who we unfortunately missed because of the early start time. We decided, (I’ll admit, it was my call) that it would be wiser to eat than to rock. So we chowed down some fantastic Po-boys at Acme on Great Jones. As we walked into Webster Hall a little after 9:00, DBT were already on stage and in the middle of their first song “Lookout Mountain”. Not 30 seconds in, a friend who came along, who never saw them before said to me, “Hey they sound like the Charlie Daniels Band” which is a comparison that no one who has spent more than a minute listening to the lyrics, would realize is completely untrue. Ever since I have been seeing the Truckers, now going on seven times or eight times I realized they are the real deal. This is not a nostalgia or a gimmick, they perform songs they want to sing about and answer to nobody but themselves. They’re not afraid to speak out about what’s wrong with our society such as our government. This is why and how their fan base has grown over the years but with a slow ease. At first glance (and listen) they do seem like some an ordinary ass-kicking Southern rock band. That is just part of the palette they use, to express in their songs that not only glorify southern folklore, deal with the plight of the working-class, but are call-outs to everyone no matter what part of the Mason-Dixon line we reside on. The night’s full set list is up at the DBT fan site Nine Bullets.
On Friday I headed down to Philadelphia to see the show again at the Theater of Living Arts. My wife, Lori came along this time for a night out and for her first Trucker’s show. We met our friends Joe and Nancy, who also traveled from Jersey, at the New Wave Cafe for a drink and we quickly headed over to Dimitri’s, which usually has long lines for a nice but speedy dinner before the show. We made it to TLA on time as Bobby and the band had just got on stage. Their set consisted of mixture of old and brand new songs from all his albums with his band the Young Criminals Starvation League, basically a rotating cast of stellar musicians. Every tour I see him on, he has a different line-up with great support artists backing him. This time around the band was Richie Kirkpatrick from Ghostfinger, Corey Younts on keyboards and Van on drums. Bobby knows how to light up on stage, he commands it the way you would imagine a seasoned rocker from Tennessee would. His recorded music may be classified as alt-country, or folk-rock but live he is unclassifiable because of the depth he extends himself and the band.
Drive-By Truckers put on another fantastic show, that was lot different from the night before, in that it was more of Jason Isabel night than a Patterson Hood one. Although each member clearly lets their personality and talent manifest on stage they respect each other and don’t try to outshine one another. These guys (and gal) just love playing and they rock hard. Although DBT didn’t completely win my wife over she enjoyed their show but felt like BBJ kicked major ass on stage. While we were in the hotel, I read a little blurb that R.E.M. had reunited Bill Berry for a benefit, the week earlier in Athens, GA. Not till I got home did I find out that Patterson Hood and Brad Morgan also performed, because they still reside in Athens. There are bunch of photos and also clips on You Tube.
On Saturday morning we had to leave Philly early to make it to Joe’s surprise party where Bobby Bare, Jr. himself was coming to make an appearance. Months ago, Nancy managed to get Bobby to play the party. She explained to his manager that the party would consist of mostly friends and family not a large group of fans. She also told him the story about how when we saw Bobby earlier in June at Maxwell’s, that we didn’t bother seeing the main act The Bottle Rockets, but hung out with the Young Criminals instead. He thought that was cool, so he asked Bobby if he’d be interested and he agreed to play a set acoustically for her. As the surprise of the party itself was still lingering, Joe was walking around talking to his guests, he never noticed that there was a little stage set up in the corner. Bobby arrived about 2 hours after the party started and Joe was stunned as Nancy and I walked him towards Joe. Although there were over hundred people at the party, the set was small and intimate, without the band. He was little hesitant to sing his songs straight through and took most of the cuss words out, because there were small children there. Before he started we told him, they wouldn’t pick up on it and most of them were running around the yard anyway. He’s a very quiet guy who doesn’t like to talk too much and the stage is his forum. He always plays barefoot, will turn down a Pabst for a Stella and will turn that down for, of course a Maker’s and Coke. For an hour he played songs from the first three YCSL albums and then sang Happy Birthday with Joe’s mom, who Like Bobby is also from Tennessee. Don’t ask for video clips because I kinda blew it and didn’t set up the camera before hand.
I left the party around 8:30 and made it down to see him again at Maxwell’s in Hoboken by 11:00. I met another friend also named Joe from the party there. The Young Criminals became Ghostfinger for the opening band, with Van and Corey making their first appearances with the band. I missed them but talked to Richie later and he said their gig went pretty well for their first time as a band together. The Films were on stage when I walked in around 11:00 and they were great. Three vocalists with the main lead singer in the middle as the other two singers chanted along with him in that updated Cars/Clash sound that is going around a lot lately. Bobby came on stage around 11:40 and played a similar set to what he played on Friday night, but to a much smaller crowd which seems to get him more excited. By 1 AM I was wiped out and was glad we didn’t have to wait 5 minutes for an encore as Bobby has a routine that I have seen him do once before, but I have never seen any other act do. Rather than walking off stage he asks the audience to pretend he has and imagine they are in the back room with with all of Nashville’s greats sipping drinks as the roar of the crowd must draw them back to the stage. Before I left I thanked Bobby for coming to Joe’s party and picked up a copy of the his CD, The Longest Meow which I have already read a couple glowing reviews. Next, I am off to see Yo La Tengo tonight in Jersey City.
Willowtree - What a Way to Go!
Published by September 28th, 2006 in Free Tracks, Album, Review and 2006. 0 Comments
I have a suspicion that David and Scott are corrupting influence as these last few weeks have been spent listening to more rock acts than I have in the past few years. Between them and my rampant nostalgia for sounds that mine memories some fifteen years in the past I’m losing sight of the House and Jazz that usually dominates my playlists. Anyway, Willowtree released their sophomore effort, What a Way to Go!, earlier this year and it is a bright, upbeat pop album that rips through ten tracks in just over thirty minutes. Joel Ekelöf dulcet vocals are supported by a rhythm section seemingly joined at the hip that adds quite a bit of swing to each song, particularly with Andreas Hollgren’s crisp and gunshot like drum work.
“Berlin-Helsinki” Is the best example of the band’s lockstep approach to performing as the song, while minimal in composition it features several tempo shifts from verse to chorus with each voicing taking a different approach. From the snaking bassline and swaying drum work to the staccato and angular guitar riffs, the band projects an air of confidence in each other and comfort in what each will do. Ekelöf is at his strongest, projecting a radio friendly voice that is at once powerful but tinged with a sense of plaintiveness. It is a finely crafted pop song that is instantly mix ready as it the the more indie leaning “Summer TV” with its layers of guitars building up and washing out over the reverb dampened vocals.
What a Way to Go! is a fine album to cap off the summer, leading you by the hand into autumn. The album makes me pleased that I have been succumbing to my partners rock-centric ways, so if you are looking for a fun nugget of Pop than you can do no better than Willowtree. Highly recommended. Grab You Know It for free from their website along with some videos or stream four tracks over at Myspace.
The Contingencies - Viva Ole
Published by September 26th, 2006 in Album, Review and 2006. 8 Comments
The Contingencies debut album has this amazing ability to pull me back some fifteen years, dropping me back into my freshman year at college when the world was a little sharper, brighter, and I felt eager to jump into each day. Viva Ole, in a crisp set of fourteen tracks, wrapping up into a tidy package much of the music I was introduced to at the time when I work the over night at the college radio station. There are elements of Sugar, Dinosaur Jr., The Bog Men, and even glimpses of The Pretenders and the 70’s work of Elvis Costello, all of which the band’s label admits might be considered a touch anachronistic in todays indie-rock scene. That aside the album is a nice backward-leaning yet forward-moving album that mines the best of the college rock scene that defined the Alternative genre in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Dead center in the album are the best examples of The Contingencies brand of bright, shimmering rock with reverb damp guitars and chorus soaked vocals. “Up In The Clouds” presents a tight guitar line that struts about the song like a hopped up folk riff shining in all its sharp angularness. Towards the end of the song the direction shifts to a more sprawling and slightly grittier feel that alludes to how the band might come off as a live act: loose and and largely unconcerned with conventional structures, instead opting to play to the mood of the audience. “Nameless” follows offering moody vocals that drift outside of the composition buoyed on waves guitar with the treble boosted to the point of sounding like a series of shattered mirrors. “Ruthless Prix” sees them shift up to a sound reminiscent of The Bogmen circa “Closed Captioned Radio” with grit beginning to push aside the brighter tones.
While I’m not as well informed as my partners in crime here at CP headquarters, I have a decent handle on what makes my heart race and this album does. For the sheer nostalgia factor Viva Ole easily makes my Best of 2006 list with its shimmering guitars and crisp production the album tossing me back to those days when almost everything I was listening to was new, exciting, and important. You can stream two tracks over at Myspace or read up on the band over their label’s website and to spice up your next mix throw “Proud As Punch” onto and impress your friends and family with your taste.
Usually I try to compare an album to the artist in question’s previous works or to musicians who have mined similar territory in the past. Starflyer 59’s new one actually strikes me as a halfway point between two other albums that came out this year, Irving’s Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers and Starlight Mint’s Drowaton. It’s not as new wavey pop as Irving’s effort nor does it have the artsy weirdness of the Mint’s latest. But My Island’s brooding alterna-rock does have a similar, albeit more straightforward, tone to both of those albums. With crisp drumming, meat and potato bass lines, restrained rock guitar, and detached vocals, one-man band Jason Martin manages to paint a foreboding sheen over his palatable sound, much like those other bands.
As per my usual modus operandi for reviews, I played My Island during my weekly commute as well as a few times in the evenings. From the start I thought favorably of it, as in, “Yeah, this sounds good!” But even with all of those repeated listens I was having trouble recalling individual songs when it was not playing. I think at least part of the reason for this is that all of the songs have the same midtempo drive to them, causing everything to kind of blur together in retrospect. Finally, after about ten listens (it’s only about a half an hour long) things started to click and I was able to anticipate parts of songs while the album played and could recreate the sounds in my head when it was over.
Not to give the impression that it’s a bland album. My Island is actually very good and I have no qualms about recommending it. Besides, there’s no way I could have listened to it even half as many times if it sucked. Life’s too short and I’ve got an almost sickening amount of musical alternatives to devote my time to. This one just took a while for its subtle hooks to dig in.
Mixtape tracks- Nice Guy, Mic the Mic
Freebies- No downloads but you can stream “Nice Guy” and “I Win” at MySpace.
C.R. Avery - Chainsmoking Blues
The Be Good Tanyas - Scattered Leaves
Published by September 22nd, 2006
in Free Tracks, Album, Review and 2006.
0 Comments
Like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, C.R. Avery’s music is built upon his lyricism with a heavy focus on poetry and performed with a gravelly vocal delivery but with a lot less years of oral torture. The Ontario born artist is known for his slam poetry, which he infuses into his songs along with his human beat-box, harmonica, guitar and piano. Now based out of Vancouver, CR has been competing in slam poetry contests since the late nineties and is a member of a Vancouver slam poetry team. He is also a member of Tons of Fun University and The Fugitives both featuring members who are multi-instrumentalist, rapping poets. I would compare CR’s mixed-bag of hip-hop and jumbled genres to the sounds of another young Canadian hip-hop, multi-genre artist, Ridley Bent as well as Buck 65. Although the beats are influenced by hip-hop, his poetry originates more from Ginsberg and Kerouac than Jay Z or G Love.
I recently, accidently downloaded his latest release Chainsmoking Blues from eMusic after it was released as an exclusive. One track was offered for free and I clicked the “download all” button. I noticed in a review on the site, another member did the same thing, so I guess it’s a common occurrence at eMu which sometimes turns out to be a fortunate mistake. I am not going to get Richard Scarry on you and claim it was “The Best Mistake Ever!” but I after testing the newly purchased tracks I was satisfied and now a couple months later this album is rapidly building up the numbers in my playlists.
“East Van Business Plan” opens the album simply with three guitar chords that at first seem like a Seventie’s pop number. Once the catchy harmonica, beat-box hits the tune is put into drive and raps about leaving his home country, traveling on the road and hanging in San Francisco. A friend on RYM made me aware that The Be Good Tanyas provide the excellent background vocals to a few of the album’s tracks such as the “Door By The River” and “When I’m Gone” a sad and dreary piece featuring CR’s scruffy, torn voice backed by their beautiful vocals. “Commercial Drive” is the album’s most accessible number, although it lacks the poetic substance contained in the other songs it’s the one that is the most shout-out fun.
Through his lyrics, CR dispatches names and artists he admires such as The Suicide Kings, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and on his song “News Travel Fast” (mislabeled as Train Whistle on eMusic) he refers to R.E.M., Leonard Cohen, KRS One and Dylan through the lyric “Napoleon in Rags”. CR also pays tribute to “Bill Hicks” the comedian who was not afraid to speak his voiced by suggesting “What this world needs now is another Bill Hicks” since he passed away in 1994. Like Hicks, CR is not afraid about touchy subject matters in his lyrics letting loose challenging lyrics such as this verse from “Door By The River”
They say act like your Roman peers when in Rome
but ain’t that the trouble with hip-hoping gang-bangers these days
originality can single handily make that stop
like a free clinic is doing abortions with clothes hangers
There are a bunch of Freebies for the grabbing. Three from the album available from his official site Disclosure, Door By The River, News Travels Fast and one non-album track Postcard From New York. The album’s final track, “Pocketknife” is also availble free on eMusic; it’s a chilling spoken-word ode which the narrator tells a tale of teaching his young daughter in very harsh terms to challenge authority at all costs. To get a feel of his live act and who CR is check out this five minute video on You Tube featuring a playful interview and short, but vivacious live performance clips from a street festival in Vancouver. CR can also be found on two tracks on the album Vagabond Lullabies by Po Girl, which features Trish Klein of the Be Good Tanyas. Also available on his My Space Site is “Eye Of the Storm” which features (I am guessing) Samantha Parton of the Good Tanyas again providing sweet soulful harmonies.
Speaking of the The Be Good Tanyas they have a new release that just came out; albeit a short three song EP which most likely is a preview of their upcoming album due out this October. The title track “Scattered Leaves” and final track “Back Back Train” are twangy, backwoods numbers that dispense a sense of mystery but will make you wanna pitch a tent in the middle of the woods and wait till the rest of the album is released. Nuzzled in between the two is the slumbering lullaby “Song for R.” You can pick up Scattered Leaves at eMusic or on iTunes.
Over the next couple of days Candied Pop might be a touch fickle as we go through the process of upgrading our hosting package. The process is less than painless for us as we need to make sure everything is backed up as the data will be getting the old heave-ho during the move. So please bear with us as we get settled into a our new faster home.
Thanks!
