I'll update with comments tomorrow (today!). "Today", "end of next week" same same.
Well, after a while it becomes redundant to review a JTE show -- I've seen him now three times in two years and what's more to rave that I haven't raved? To paraphrase Brian Clough, if he's not the best singer-songwriter under 30 going round then he's in the top one. In terms of overall performance I'll put Dan Sultan on a par, but there in a class of their own right now. OK, one thing new - Jason Isbell did a great job as sideman for about 3/4 of the show. And that's it really. He was briliant, you were a fool to miss him and I can't wait to show No. 4.
Update. Did a Flatlanders themed 8tracks. Them together, solo and Terry Allen's "Gimme a Ride to Heaven" which they do as an encore sometimes. Bunch of other mixes there since last I mentioned it here too.
I've seen Dr John a few times before and since this time of year is saturated with gigs I might have missed him this time round, except he was at The Basement and the chance to grab the show in such a small venue was too much to pass up. Lead guitarist from the Lower 911 John Fohl warmed up the place with some very impressive blues, which also set an appropriately old school tone. The album they released last year didn't impress me very much, so honestly I was pleased the show was three quarters classics. Iko Iko, I Walk on Gilded Splinters, When the Saints, Goodnight Irene. It was, as the young people say, awesome. Pure New Orleans. Dr John even busted out the guitar which I hadn't seen live before.
Speaking of New Orleans, Lil Band o' Gold are here for Byron. I have their first album and would love to see them but they're only sideshowing in Melbourne and ... Moruya. What the heck is in Moruya??
Marianne Faithfull at the Opera House the other night was a very satisfying affair in front of an engaged and appreciative audience. She went through most of Easy Come, Easy Go plus the old stand-bys "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan", "Broken English", "As Tears Go By" and "Why'd You Do It."
The band mostly stayed out of the way and were good without being dazzling; they were a little heavy handed at times but I was in a box on the side so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that that was a function of the always loose acoustics in that room. There was a low musical point (for me) during "Sing Me Back Home" featuring a musical saw. We can finally answer the question, most robustly in the negative, whether a musical saw is any replacement for a pedal or lap steel. It's a party piece, comrades, not a musical instrument.
There's a fragment of "Broken English" here, questionable phone recording quality but evidence the old trooper is still in fine, passionate voice.
As any Australian music fan (our kind of music, anyhoo) knows late March and April is always a busy time as we enjoy the spillover of acts brought out for Byron Bay. Sometimes you have to make the choice of two rarely seen (on our shores) highly regarded acts whose only local shows clash with each other.
Not Byron-related but kicking off the season in style is Marianne Faithfull only the week after next. Playing the Concert Hall at the Opera House -- ugh, I have a prejudice against it for popular music -- and I only have a seat at the back of one of the mezzanine boxes but still I can't wait.
"Solitude"
Then, Dan Sultan at the Factory on February 27th -- for a measly $20. For realsm his recent album of late 2009 -- Get Out While You Can -- is a gem of soul, rock and country. For twenty bucks you can't afford not to go.
The above dodgy but illustrative video of Dan was taken by me at the Blue Mountains Music Fest the year before last and that will be my next port of call, in March. As well as seeing two of the Bluesfest drawcards for me Chris Smither and Nanci Griffith, the rest of the line-up is superb. My posts from my previous visit. I'm sure there will be a number of new discoveries but I'm also looking forward to revisiting with the boys from Genticorum, who do fabulous traditional Quebec music.
As for the rest of the Byron folk, well The Flatlanders top the list but they haven't announced any sideshows yet. I'll be there when they do (they have to, right?) I've lined up to see Dr John and the Lower 911 at the Basement; seen him a few times before (but not for yonks) and I might have wavered but the opportunity for a show at a joint that size (real small) cannot be passed up. And ... that might be me tapped out for another year ...
Best Dylan Album -- Equal winners: Together Through Life and Christmas in the Heart (I'm with Tom Russell on this gem)
Best Non-Dylan Albums:
I think if you looked at my most played album released in 2009 it would be Leonard Cohen: Live in London but I'm gonna exclude live recordings, reissues and compilations from this ...
1. Easy Come Easy Go - Marianne Faithfull. I got this back in January and here it still is, top of the list.
2. Blood and Candle Smoke - Tom Russell. Typically full-bore TR effort of weaving biography and myth, now with mariachi horns
3. The Bright Mississippi - Allen Toussaint. Refreshing, transfixing, dreamy masterclass
4. Midnight at the Movies - Justin Townes Earle. No sophomore nerves here, proving the first album was not a fluke.
5. Hills and Valleys - The Flatlanders. Slipped a little in list over time but still an album of a grade Americana song to song
6. Traditions in Transition - Quantic and his Combo Barbaro. Genre tinkering with respect and passion, Latin on the wild side
7. One to the Head, One to the Heart - Gretchen Peters. What I said at the time
8. A Friend of a Friend - David Rawlings Machine. Should be higher really, but couldn't drop anything.
9. Mountain Soul II - Patty Loveless. Infectious bluegrassy country, highly polished but full of affection
10. Get Out While You Can - Dan Sultan. Well now, I only got this yesterday so given a few more days it could have really shot up the charts. Brilliant collection of soul, country and blues and heaps more soul. Dan is a star, no doubt.
11. Potato Hole - Booker T From the show in April
12. What Have You Done My Brother? - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. Preach it, sister
13. Dirt Town City Limits - Mat d and the Profane Saints. See Jim's great review.
14 Today, Tomorrow and Forever - Pete Molinari feat. The Jordanaires. Only an EP, but a perfectly formed one.
15. For the Mission Baby -- Malcolm Holcombe.
16. Ready for the Flood - Gary Louris and Mark Olsen. Was rather "meh" on it for eight of the last nine months but sort of started to grow on me ....
17. Animals in the Dark - William Elliott Whitmore. Should be higher also, what can you do? Lists are stupid. Hat tip Phineas, some very cathartic tracks on here believe me.
18. Cotton - Sam Baker. Also needs more time but exceptional story songs and that kind of creaky Texas voice I love.
19. Lucky One - Raul Malo A little bit country, a little bit croony, very pleasant listening.
20. The Soul of Black John - John Black
Update: Bah I forgot about Shemekia Copeland's Never Going Back. Bah! Should be in the top 10, if the top ten could have 15 places.
The Flatlanders -- YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dr John & the Lower 911
Lyle Lovett
Béla Fleck and Oumou Sangaré
Buddy Guy
Jeff Beck
Robert Gordon
Peter Green & friends
Justin Townes Earle
I'll keep an eye out for the Sydney show/s of Orquestra Buena Vista Social Club too but they'll probably play somewhere horrible like the Opera House so I'll stay home and listen to Bebo Valdes records.
I've been listening to the audiobook of Michael Conolley's The Scarecrow and the moral is all about how easy it is for freaky serial killers to track your every move via the Internet. Like, you can know exactly what I'm listening to when via my lastfm page which updates what I'm playing live. Have at it, stalkers! Incidentally, this is the first novel I've read where people actually use the Internet the way I do -- not that I stalk people and hide them in the car boot, but I mean, look any and all things up in Google Image Search as second nature. Anyway.
There were the heady days of 26-28 August where I listened to Nina Simone straight for two days. You can never have two much Nina, but this Philips box set is quite indispensable as the definitive collection of the Nina force, force of personality and force of musicianship. The peak of her vision realised (not that she had troughs) and a sublime listen from beginning to end.
More lately, I had a big raid on eMusic which I haven't done since the changes in July. But a few things showed up I particularly wanted and they started giving people 50 "loyalty" credits - more than a whiff of desperation about that move but I'll take 'em. I more or less get every new Afrobeat or Afrorock release that comes up, the latest is a really fabulous collection calledThe Legends of Benin. The label Analog Africa is always a solid bet. The first track "Dadje Von O Von Non" by Gnonnas Pedro & His Dadjes Band is pretty much the perfect (to me) family reunion between African and "western" funk. Here's Honoré Avolonto - Na Mi Do Gbé Hué Nu on YouTube. More such meetings are on Many Lessons: HipHop, Islam, West Africa from the "world" music specialists Piranha out of Germany (as so many of these labels are), I listen to a bit of hip hop but my tastes are quite narrow (so far) and lean towards the fusiony end of the spectrum and it's good if you like such things.
And then I got Town and Country by Humble Pie. Going through a 60s British blues/rock supergroup phase. Still chucking on Blind Faith a lot. Using this ripper music search engine an eMusic subscriber developed I discovered Humble Pie. You plug in an act and it spits back a heap of similar/related artists. It brings up a lot of artists I know which is good because you can see how well calibrated to the original name it is, but also heaps of new folk. It's optimised for eMusic (clicking on the photos takes you to their eMu page and greyed out photos means no albums on eMu) but it's great just to find people generally. Anyway, Humble Pie, apparently "hard rock" (70s performances on YT bear this out) although this is their acoustic blues-rock album. I don't really know anything about Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott, apart from their names (years of reading Mojo and Uncut cover to cover) but this is pretty good in a generic late 60s British rock blues type way but it's one of the generic sounds I like.
Natural Born Boogie:
El Barrio: The Bad Boogaloo Nu Yorican Sounds 1966-1970 brings the music of Spanish Harlem to you. Features La Lupe, the Queen of Latin Soul.
Also features the track Happy Soul With a Hook by Dave Cortez which I seem to have on about five different compilations by now. For Latin but with a much deeper level of pure funk, try Si Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba. Waxing Deep is/was a great Latin soul/funk podcast, the podcast is in hiatus but they've branched out into being a label. Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume 1 was a great collection of 60s and 70s tracks, and so I immediately bought Volume 2 and even bought a hard copy. Having the liner notes is fine, and it's nicely put together all round.
I've got the new Allen Touissaint record Across The Bright Mississippi on order so I went revisiting his oeuvre, which basically means ... take your pick of any New Orleans music from the 1960s on. Super Bad by Don Covay is according to Herr Doktor Guugle a collection of the soulmeister's 70s cuts and its quite an intriguing mixture of styles from rock (one song sounds like mid 60s Stones), country ballad touches to varying flavours of soul and funk a la New Orleans. Allen Toussaint - Saint Of New Orleans is a compilation with a couple of songs sung by Touissaint and a stack of others written and produced by his. This Lee Dorsey/Toussaint track isn't on there but it's just too good.
And finally, a version of "Sea of Heartbreak" from Rosanne Cash's forthcoming album featuring Bruce Springsteen got released on iTunes this week. Sea of Heartbreak is one of my favourite songs. Cash slows it right down, for a song about how sad, lonely and adrift the singer is, it's usually done in a very bouncy way. Bruce might be trying too hard to croon in the background, let Bruce be Bruce and not Ray Price but I like it more each time I hear it. The chorus is still one of the most singalongable in history.
Country music death beats fear not because I have the new Delbert McClinton, the new Guy Clark, the new Kris Kristofferson and some others coming up in the rotation!
Visiting the Chess Records studio at 2120 S. Michigan Ave in Chicago.
One of the most storied addresses in popular music, 2120 South Michigan Ave is down on Chicago's south side, and is now run by the Willie Dixon Blues Heaven Foundation. Which is fitting because although Dixon is less well known than other Chess figures, he was a crucial part of the label as a songwriter and producer as well as musician. Here's Muddy Waters doing one of Willie Dixon's most famous songs "Hoochie Coochie Man" at Newport and Willie doing one of my fave songs "Built for Comfort." There are various gold records on the walls from the likes of Eric Clapton for albums which have W.Dixon compositions on them. Oh and this one is great (complete with audience of Don Draper impersonators.) And this! In the gift shop I bought his autobiography, I Am the Blues.
Next to the studio building is the Willie Dixon Blues Garden (locked when we were there) where they have free concerts now.
Willie, Muddy, Buddy! A picture taken right here in this room!
View from the old control room into the studio.
Willie Dixon Grammy.
An original inlay from the Chess period. I think it was in pretty bad condition when the Blues Foundation took over the building and its been extensively remodeled and reconstructed.
In the old sorting and shipping room there are various displays of memorabilia and also these casts of the faces of many great blues folk. Here is Phineas inspecting them, and I should also thank him for putting me up (and putting up with me) in Chicago and letting me drag him way across town to places like this.
Their names brings childhood phobias flooding back, but Deer Tick (MySpace) are a pretty cool alt.country band. I don't use that term, alt.country, much but it fits here, and avoids most of the aspects of the genre which irk me the most. That is, there are melodies and no mumbling. There are 50s rock and roll influences as well as country and folk. John McCauley's vocals are smooth as barbed wire and just as likely to get snagged on your cardie. The music has enough country to be country and enough alt to be a bit alt. McCauley's voice though is the chief instrument and the band wisely doesn't overwhelm it.
Here's a solo of one of my faveourites on the album, "Little White Lies"
I was dubious that the streaming would be more trouble that its worth -- watching YouTube on there is fine, but the buffering would get tedious over a concert length experience. Extremely surprised and delighted that on wifi flcking between songs and concerts was no slower than doing so in the iPod where the files are right there. Over 3G its noticebly slower changing songs but still quite alright. So I lay in bed and sampled some Delaney and Bonnie -- with Dominoes trio Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock and Carl Radle, as well as Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge, in the band -- some Bruce from 1977, some George Jones, some Booker T and the MGS. Of course presumably it is a bandwidth hog and so more suited to those unlimited plans Oz telcos decline to give us. But still, four hoofs up.
So in two short (but not, alas, sort enough) weeks I am tripping to the USA. Las Vegas (for The Amaz!ng Meeting), Flagstaff AZ where my sister has been exiled since that unfortunate incident in Canberra (don't fret darl, the statute of limitations ends in 2018), Chicago and Memphis (and one day waiting for a plane in Los Angeles.) Obvs the music possibilities in those few short words are, more or less literally, endless. I chucked 18 or so on an 8tracks:
It ends with "a Sydney song."
As a bonus here are some bits from Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour about Memphis and Chicago. The first two are under 1MB each (spoken word atmospherics only), the third about 4MB.
Countryesque/Folkish/Rawk Hogtied Revisited by The White Buffalo
I bought The White Buffalo's first and only EP off iTunes in 2007 after reading about him in, of all places, MX (the freebie "newspaper" they give you on the train at peak hour) and this is his only recorded output since. So, prolific he is not. But he has an attention grabbing voice and and a nice sound and sometimes weird songs. The Last Pale Light In The West by Ben Nichols Lucky One by Raul Malo
A little bit country, a little bit croony, very pleasant listening. Desert Rose by Chris Hillman Brossa D'ahir by Pep Laguarda
Long lost Catalan 70s psych-folk. With harmonica! Five stars. Dans les airs by Le Vent du Nord
I saw Genticorum at the Blue Mountains music fest last year and enjoyed their traditional Quebec thig very much, Dans les airs do something similar and so I like them a lot too. I'm not at all into Celtic music generally in its more pure forms, and Quebec folk has a lot in common with that but has something else that makes it listenable and indeed compelling. I think it might be the tickity tackity tick percussion thing (technical term.) Dengue Fever Presents: Sleepwalking Through the Mekong by Jean-Marie Riachi
Jean-Marie Riachi is actually the director of Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, a doco about the band Dengue Fever and all the music on the album is by them and some other ungooglable Cambodian acts. Dengue Fever is a Californian band with singer Chhom Nimol who plays surf psych garage rock sung in Khmer. Me love. The new Dengue Fever songs on this are great, particularly "One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula" which has a more greasy funked up type sound than previous records. AND it still makes me crave green chicken curry whenever I hear it.
Jazz/Soul Greatest Hits by Al Green Call Me by Al Green Shakti by David S. Ware Bad! Bossa Nova by Gene Ammons Afirika with Angelique Kidjo by Christian McBride 7 X 7" = Funk by Various Artists - P&P Records Five Peace Band Live by Chick Corea & John McLaughlin
I saw these guys at the Opera House, except with Brian Blade on drums instead of. (Brian Blade incidentally is the brother of Brady Blade, also a drummer, familiar from frequent work in the studio and touring bands of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller and others.) I don't really get it but I like it. Like, when I read a pop sci book on physics and I sort of barely grasp what the sentence is saying while ever my eyes are locked on that sentence, but as soon as I blink, no hope. Good News From Africa by Dollar Brand / Abdullah Ibrahim Henry Stone's Hidden Treasures by Various Artists Night Hawk by Coleman Hawkins Soul in the Hole by Shawn Lee
The new Booker T record Potato Hole with the DBTs (and Neil Young) is not I thought out until the end of April but they had them for sale at the gig, which was mostly a run through of those songs plus the inevitable "Green Onions." I like Potato Hole, it's basically the MGs done rockier. I was, as you see from the pics, right infront of Booker's Hammond B3 and the sound was supreme. Perfect, every feather of his magic fingers came through. He is a connection to a whole musical world that means a lot to me (and I'm visiting Memphis in July) so it was a great pleasure to be there. Surprisingly when I bumped into my friend Austin at the bar in the break he said they could barely hear Booker back there. Which is weird, usually it is the other way round and you trade off sound quality for proximity. When the DBTs came on for their solo set, I was at the back for the most and also found the sound back there was much less easy on the ears than towards the stage. Backwardass acoustics at the Factory! But anyway I went up the front for the last couple of songs and the encore which was cool because "Let There Be Rock" rocked, verily. I will be back there tomorrow night for Rodney Crowell.
Lucinda Williams Enmore Theatre Sydney 6th April 2009
About four years overdue, Lucinda Williams finally took the stage at the Enmore on Monday night and I had my front row centre seat which appropriately had me literally sitting at her feet, gazing straight up. Nice for the metaphor, murder on the neck.
Lucinda's lyrics, especially in latter years but it was always there, are the most comprehensive compendium of modern adult womanhood I know of and this naturally includes a recognition of what you can and cannot compromise on, and an acceptance of any losses that causes. (The way reviewers harp on her loneliness or whatever really irks me as it really elides the complexities.) It's a difficult sensibility for some I guess but really hits home for me and why I get lost in the newer records more than others. The point is: live, her presence mirrors this familiar daily trajectory, laid bare. Nervousness channeling the unquestionable strength of her voice and vision.
A word on the reservations of my comrade, FXH. There hasn't been solid twang - apart from her voice - on any album in the last decade and the current band recreates the gauzy rock she's been cultivating so I don't see any angle for complaint there. Sure, I'd love more of the earlier country rock and more of the ballads, but then I say that about everyone. 1987 is gone and ain't never coming back and that's all you can say about that. It is the same sound as the whole album live shows she did, which I have listened to on CD a fair bit. Mind you Buick 6 were loud, so that they shook my ribcage during their opening set and lead me to stay out there in the foyer rather than take my seat. As one of the Walkman generation my hearing is already headed to an inevitable early demise, and I wince a bit more a buzzsaw guitars close up than I once did. That made me a little wary, but with Lucinda they settled into their complementary groove, without overwhelming. There was a pedal steel layed out, but I don't recall if it got played?
Nice tatt.
But to be the honest the band to me was always going to be, at most, a distraction. It usually is. So sorry, hard grafting musos but I'm a singer obsessive and as long as you don't get in the way of the Voice, you're probably cool with me. After Melbourne I buttonholed Tim Dunlop, late of the blogosphere, for his impressions (especially as he had travelled from Adelaide just for it) and nodded along when he replied it was "all about her voice" and thus, what's not to like? The setlist was a good balance, even a couple of the earliest Folkways songs, through to a few off Little Honey (I still don't think much of "Little Rock Star" I have to say.) Of course there were a dozen others, at least, at minimum, just for a start you'd want to hear but it covered all reasonable bases. She started with "Fruits of My Labor", one of those songs which pulls me in irrevocably and haunts me. And thus as we had begun, we continued.
Bruce Springsteen at the Superbowl -- haven't seen it yet as I was on the road but all reports promising.
But this crotch slide into the camera is hilarious. ROCK ON BOSS. I can't tell you how happy it makes me.
Got his new rekkid in the post yesterday, looking forward to some quality time with it when I feel mentally ready to face something non-LC.
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