Tuesday, July 15, 2008

what we need is music

hello all,

starting today, all music related posts will be hosted on my new site(s), these sites will be virtually identical in content:
http://whatweneedismusic.wordpress.com
and
http://whatweneedismusic.blogspot.com/

and this site will be more of a personal type blog site.

below is a "mission statement" of sorts for "what we need is music," thanks in advance for your support...

ok, i've had this idea for a while, maybe instead of just an "idea," maybe it's a vision, maybe it's a dream, maybe it's nothing. but it's been stuck in my head and won't go away for long long enough that i thought, "what the hell, give it a shot."

to explain, i started "blogging" a while ago and my ramblings are 90%+ about music, i also frequent the message boards of several bands; over the rhine, cowboy junkies, patty griffin, ryan adams, tom waits, to name a few. Some I’m active on, some I just lurk. personally, i enjoy writing about a concert i just saw, a new cd i just bought, etc and i also enjoy reading and am intrigued about and by others experiences. so i started thinking, with the opportunities on all of these message boards, with fans and lovers of music from all over this country and all over the world, would it be possible to channel those experiences, that love of words and music down to one or two spaces for people to share? imagine if fan of "over the rhine" in colorado could share an experience with "patty griffin" in germany and turn them on to something they were unaware of, or a cowboy junklies fan from hawaii could relate a story to a ryan adams fan in England that hooked them? or someone in louisville recently discovering the music of a new artist
like ben sollee could tell the world about him and share a link with them to hear his music for the first time and let them decide for themselves. could be cool? no?

so here's the idea, dream or whatever...

i have started blogs on blogspot and wordpress, both titled "what we need is music." the idea is to send me your reviews, both concerts and cd's, photos if you have them (linked only please, they would need to "hosted" somewhere). maybe your new musical "finds" and how others can hear them (links to websites, myspace pages, etc) and what you like about them. talk about, help promote or increase awareness of upcoming concerts that you are going to see and/or artists you appreciate. the goal is to talk about music you enjoy, not trash music that you don’t. but by all means, if you see a show that disappoints, invest in a cd that doesn’t deliver, be honest and talk about it objectively and fairly. i see this being all encompassing, it can be whatever we make it, whatever we decide for it to be, whatever we make it...

Saturday, July 12, 2008

the best of 2008 (so far)...

as i noted a few posts back, the year is now, incredibly, half over. so i thought i'd list some of my favorites through the first six months of 2008.

so here they are...

CD's (top ten, roughly in order*)
teddy thompson – "a piece of what you need"
cat power – "jukebox"
shelby lynne – "just a little lovin’ "
kathleen edwards – "asking for flowers"
cowboy junkies – "trinity revisited"
alejandro escovedo – "real animal"
tift merritt – "another country"
ben sollee – "learning to bend"
r.e.m. – "accelerate"
kris delmhorst – "shotgun singer"
honorable mention
steve winwood – "nine lives"

*(order subject to change depending on what i just finished listening to)

CONCERTS
02.10 - cat power @ the vic (chicago)
05.25 - over the rhine / ohio: in concert (cincinnati)
06.11 - alejandro escovedo (w/ben sollee) @ headliner’s (louisville)
04.26 - over the rhine (w/julie lee) @ canal street tavern (dayton)
04.17 - kathleen edwards @ headliner's (louisville)
03.11 - grace potter and the nocturnals @ headliner's (louisville)
*03.14 - over the rhine @ the ryman, opening for ani difranco would have to be my top concert experience and had it been a full set, would have unquestionably topped this list.

if you are unfamiliar with any of these artists, i highly recommend checking out their music and seeing them live if they are anywhere in your general area.

should you be so inclined and/or curious, there are links to their (and many other great artists) websites and/or myspace pages on the right hand side of my blog.

do yourself a favor and give them a listen.

and enjoy.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

restoring a little faith in mankind, one sunflower at a time...


while i was in atlanta this past 4th of july weekend, i spent time with my parents just north of town. only a few years ago, this was "the country," but now is sadly becoming another victim of suburban sprawl in a city thst continues to grow like it's native vine, the kudzu. just another "chain store mecca" with subdivision after subdivision of virtually identical houses on quarter acre lots taking over once beautiful farmland and woodlands.

in one of the few slices left unplowed, their neighbors have acres and acres of sunflower fields. they sell them on the side of the road for $6 per dozen, honor system, self-serve/cut 'em yourself... they have a little stand on the side of the road with several pairs of snips and a cigar box sitting on a counter (and a few dozen pre-cut flowers for those too lazy or in too big of a hurry to wander through the fields to do it themselves). you simply grab a pair of snips, walk the fields as long as you like, choose and cut the flowers you like, then put the money in the cigar box and go on your merry way. after cutting a dozen or so, we opened the box to pay and saw what must have been several hundred dollars in the box, sitting there unattended. it was pretty cool to see that that trust and that trust be respected.

restoring a little faith in mankind, one sunflower at a time...

i wandered thru the fields for a couple of hours w/my camera, it was beautiful.











[sun]flower

Sunday, July 06, 2008

tom waits - "glitter and doom" @ the fox theatre/atlanta (07.05.2008)

still on a great 'post-show' buzz. a couple of posts back i mentioned fearing that i sounded like a “gushing fool." well, here we go again...

the show was last night was absolutely incredible, a great show/set, the acoustics in the fox are amazing and the mix was perfect, kudos to the guy running the sbd.
---
so, about 9:00 PM, the theater goes dark and slowly, dim lights begin to highlight the backdrop on the stage. you can sense, but not really “see” any movement. then, a white hot spot hits center stage, and seemingly out of nowhere… standing on a beat-up riser, in a dark “slightly worn” suit and a dark bowler hat, with a huge smile on his face is the reason that we are there, tom waits. hands straight up in the air, he starts stomping on the riser, the crowd is standing, clapping, whistling and screaming. white plumes of “smoke” start floating up into the lights from the riser. he stomps harder, smoke keeps rising and his smile gets bigger. he stomps and smiles, we clap and whistle, seems to be a fair trade.

and we're off...

there were so many highlights it’s hard to know where to start. vocally, he was "on the mark," with it being the last night of the tour, i guess he didn't feel like he had to "save" his voice ( ;-) ) and before i start rambling too much, it seems appropriate to note that his band was fantastic, all great players (named below), tight and meshing perfectly with each other and with him. he has added a full time horn player and keyboardist and larry taylor had moved from his usual position on bass to "guesting" on lead guitar on a few songs (apparently only @ the atlanta show). other than taylor and his son casey on drums/percussion it was a completely different group of players than when i saw him a couple of years ago. i guess "the" highlight(s) for me would have to be "9th and hennepin" followed by a rocking “lie to me.” during the intro for “9th and hennepin," a single bare unlit light bulb dropped out of (seemingly) nowhere right next to tom’s face. unfazed, he continued talking. as soon as he kicked into the song, the light, much to tom’s "surprise, and shock," flickered on and became a prop which he mastered for the duration of the song, then “poof”…it disappeared much as it appeared.

"chocolate jesus," "hold on" & "get behind the mule" were also pretty amazing and would have to be close seconds for me and the "innocent when you dream/hoist that rag/make it rain" trifecta was also pretty damn sweet. at the end of and extended take on “make it rain,” and with tom chanting (ie: screaming) a command to “make it rain,” glitter began to fall over him like rain (apparently from that same magical place that gave us the light bulb) covering his dark suit and bowler. very cool visually. towards the end of the set, regardless of your beliefs, if you weren’t ready to shout a big, loud "AMEN" or "MERCY" after he took the sold-out crowd of 4,000+ to church with "jesus gonna be here," well then, you just weren’t alive and breathing to begin with.

along the way, he charmed us with a couple of subtle, yet hilarious stories about; $300,000 watches (or $9.95 CVS watches), condiments (or condom-mints) and alphabet soup (or nazi pas-ticas) as only he could, before closing the set with a rowdy and fun “singapore.” after a short break, he and the band returned and kicked off the encore w/a killer, extended ”eyeball kid” where during the chorus, he playfully swapped out his black bowler with one covered with tiny mirrors reflecting the spotlight all over the theatre. at the end of the song there was great little exchange between him, casey and the audience. then he sent us all home happy with the appropriate “anywhere I lay my head.”

he started the show with the big smiles and we left the theatre with them. again, seems to be a fair trade.

what a night. he's as brilliant a showman and performer as he is a writer and musician, which says a lot. there was not a single lowlight/mediocre moment in the evening. hell, it was tom waits!

i found the quote below in "the columbus (oh) dispatch" it seems to describe him perfectly, much better than i ever could...
Waits may be one of the country's best accidental musicologists. He rummages through an assortment of genres — blues, gospel, jazz, folk, Latin, beat-box and cabaret, to name some — and weaves them together into something new. Hearing one of his songs for the first time, one is almost positive that it's an old favorite. Yet everything he does is remarkably original and fresh.

Add to that his unmistakeable lyrics — inspired in part by the Beat Generation and refined by his partnership with his wife, writer Kathleen Brennan — and it's easy to see why he is one of the most important singer-songwriters of this age.

The showmanship is always a direct relation to the music. He opened in the guise of a revivalist preacher, booming out Lucinda, Way Down in the Hole and Falling Down.

His antics reached a peak later in The Eyeball Kid, an oddity of a song in which, for one verse, he donned a mirror-ball hat. As he revolved slowly in the interludes, his head became a makeshift light show.

When the songs slowed down and the thoughts grew deeper, though, he stilled his physical energy and flowed into such profound moments which held the audience absolutely still until their final chords.

In a sense, Waits is a medium, channeling the spirits of long-dead bluesmen, pioneers of rock and traveling minstrels. His voice, while aging, still can travel from a growl to a wail to a whisper in a split second.

Waits doesn't create new worlds; he makes people rethink the past, present, and future. His song Time, sums it up: “… their memory's like a train/You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away/And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget/That history puts a saint in every dream.”

on a personal note, it was also kind of a sentimental journey for me. many years ago, the fox (and atlanta in general) was where “i cut my live music teeth.” in my younger days, there was a time that i rarely missed any show of note there. my friends (and sally, my “ex”) and i were regulars. we saw it all. it was nice to be back there again, it has probably been 20+ years since i have seen a show in that beautiful place and it was just as sweet as i remembered it. lotsa good nights, good vibes and good memories for me in that building, it felt "good." so to top off the night, just for the hell of it it, i decided to detour down piedmont, past the old “broadview plaza” and blew a kiss and say a “thank you” to the corner where the old “great southeast music hall” once stood. i also spent a lot of great nights with friends there and that was where, 30+ years ago, i was fortunate enough to see mr. waits perform for the first time and was introduced to the genius that is tom waits and i’ve been hooked since (btw, he was the opener for the comedian, martin mull who wrote a song about the old music hall called "i've played some shitholes, but this takes the cake" =) ).
the set:
lucinda > ain't going down to the well
down in the hole
falling down
chocolate jesus
all the world is green
cemetery polka
who's been talkin'* > 'til the money runs out
such a scream
november
hold on
black market baby
9th and hennepin
lie to me
lucky day
on the nickel
lost in the harbour
innocent when you dream
hoist that rag
make it rain
dirt in the ground
get behind the mule
hang down your head
jesus gonna be here
singapore
encore:
eyeball kid
anywhere i lay my head

*howlin' wolf cover

the band:
patrick warren - keyboards
omar torrez - guitars
vincent henry - horns & acoustic guitar
casey waits - drums and percussion
seth ford-young - bass
sullivan waits - congas and clarinet (and selling t-shirts and books before & after the show...)

*larry taylor joined in on guitar on several songs.

i had to "stealth" the pictures, so there is nothing particularly "artistic." more just to document the evening...



Wednesday, July 02, 2008

2008 concert update, half a year in review...

wow, it's hard to believe that the year is half over! so far i feel like i'm a little behind schedule with only 15 shows under my belt this year.

what i may lack in quantity, i guess i have made up for in quality...the first show of the year kicked it off properly, cat power @ the vic in chicago on february 2nd. it was -2f
(-42f w/windchill) and that is cold, very cold, numbingly cold. it's hard to describe the enigma that is this woman. she is natural beauty with a voice like no other. indescribable. (imnsho) she, OtR and ryan adams are "the best" out there making music right now, i'm glad i finally got the chance to see her peform live. she and her band were simply amazing. the second the show was over, i wanted more, and i still do. i can't wait for the next time.

alejandro escovedo (with carrie rodriguez) and kathleen edwards both rocked @ headliner's (kathleen rocked louisville so hard she may have triggered the earthquake that still had us shakin' the next morning after her show). and there was a couple of brilliant opening sets by the local phenom, ben sollee (f/OtR & alejandro) and mary gauthier (OtR & cowboy junkies). plus, a great set and a nice opportunity to chat with justin and tasha golden of ellery at the rudyard kipling.

i feel fortunate to have been introduced this year to the rockin', kick-ass blues of grace potter and the nocturnals (also @ headliner's) and the good vibes and beautiful voice of julie lee (accompanied by jake bradley) opening for OtR @ CST. i saw great sets delivered by both and i hope to see them again soon.

i've also been lucky enough to see my favorites; i've had eight over the rhine shows (so far). i was blessed with opportunity to walk the stage and backstage area of the ryman with K&L. "i" stood where johnny, hank, willie, patsy and virtually every legend of american music has stood and peformed, on the hallowed hardwood stage of the ryman auditorium, then watch them, along with jake perform a great set of music on that same hallowed ground (and walk off to a standing ovation). it was an honor to be there that night. a stage and venue that has been graced and revered by the greatest of music legends, artists that helped create and form the art of "american" music as we know it. oh what a night, not only was this the highlight of my year, it is one of the highlights of my life. thank you karin and linford.

i also got to see them with the closest of friends in the intimacy of the canal street tavern, a month later in the vastness of the brand spankin' new national city pavilion, sitting on the banks of the ohio, as they performed "ohio." followed a week later by a night in my hometown of atlanta. and a couple of weeks after that on an indescribable, beautiful night in the incredible, idyllic new harmony, indiana. as for the "other" favorites, i got to see cowboy junkies, who delivered a great set @ the clifton center only about 10 minutes from my home in louisville.

this weekend, over the 4th of july holiday, i get to start off the second half of the year on the right foot too, with tom waits at the fox theatre in atlanta. one of the best ever, in one of the best venues in the country.

and i get to see my mom and dad too.

a good start to the "back nine" of '08, i'd say...

02.10 - cat power @ the vic
02.23 - OtR (w/ben sollee) @ the bomhard
03.07 – tift merritt @ ear x-tacy
03.11 - grace potter and the nocturnals @ headliner's
03.14 - OtR @ the ryman* (w/ani)
03.27 - cowboy junkies (w/mary gauthier) @ the clifton center
04.17 - kathleen edwards @ headliner's
04.25 - OtR (w/julie lee) @ CST
04.26 - OtR (w/julie lee) @ CST
05.25 - OtR @ the national city pavilion
05.31 - OtR (w/mary gauther) @ the variety playhouse
06.09 - OtR @ woodsongs
06.11 - alejandro escovedo (w/ben sollee) @ headliner’s
06.13 - ellery (w/garrison starr) @ the rudyard kipling
06.14 - OtR @ new harmony, in
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07.05 - tom waits @ the fox
07.23 – OtR @ the fraze pavilion