Monthly Archives: June 2012

Some say Neneh Cherry is back. Nonsense, she and her vastly impressive talents never left. Some say The Thing play a load of formless racket. Hooey, they’re as methodical as an unusually suave trio of Chess Club presidents. Some say The Cherry Thing is a strange curiosity. Baloney, it’s a first-class record that details one of the strongest and most sensible collaborations of recent years.

As concerns The Cherry Thing, there are the obvious correlations and symmetries. Neneh Cherry was the step-daughter of the late great trumpeter/cornetist Don Cherry, he of the now legendary Ornette Coleman groups that basically defined an early dominant strand of free jazz.

And Scandinavian jazzmen Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love, and Ingebrigt Håker Flaten play free and hard in an extremely modern context but are also sensibly informed by the innovations of the past; therefore it’s not a bit surprising their name derives from a tune found on Where is Brooklyn?, Cherry’s 1966 Blue Note LP.

But Neneh is far more than just a flesh and blood conduit between a musically innovative ancestor and his young descendents. Some only know her through “Buffalo Stance,” her rather excellent 1988 single or the album that included it, the highly enjoyable Raw Like Sushi. Others are familiar with her follow-up albums’ Homebrew and Man, the latter featuring “7 Seconds” with Youssou N’Dour, an enormous hit nearly everywhere in the world except the United States, presumably because a big portion of Americans find the sound of voices singing in a foreign language either distasteful or unappealing.

It’s also no secret that Cherry began her career in association with post-punk cornerstones The Slits and through the formation of her own band Rip Rig + Panic. Too few have heard that group, for they were at times very good, but even fewer realize the band’s name derives from a masterful 1965 LP from Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

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Metal icon Lita Ford is on a roll. She’s back with her eighth studio album, Living Like a Runaway, an album that’s unmistakably Lita. It’s brash, guitar-driven hard rock, lots of F-you attitude, and unabashedly personal. Its release coincides with her massive “Rock of Ages” tour with Def Leppard and Poison, which will take Lita across the US this summer. When we chatted with Lita, we got the low-down on the new record, life on the road, who her guitar heroes are, and even the status of a possible Runaways reunion.

As a little girl in the ‘80s, I wanted to grow up to be a mix of Sally Ride and Lita Ford. They seemed completely compatible to me, each one trailblazing in her own way. Lita Ford got her start as the 16-year-old lead guitarist for the Runaways, but by the time I wanted to be a rock star astronaut, Lita was the undisputed queen of metal, writing songs with Nikki Sixx, singing with Ozzy Osbourne, and playing guitar better than damn near everyone else.

Today she’s got a brand-new record, Living Like a Runaway, which is a raw, start-to-finish catharsis inspired by her recent divorce. If this isn’t an official “comeback” album, it’s definitely Lita at her most Lita — smart, witty, and totally kick-ass.

We made it! [Laughs]

Who’ve you been talking to today?

God, I did a marathon! I talked to Russia, Belgium, Switzerland, London, and Nashville!

Well, let’s just jump right in.

Right on!

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Chain & the Gang have just released their third album, and it displays and expands upon the musical and thematic attributes that have come to define the work of Ian Svenonius over the course of the last twenty plus years. Taken individually, In Cool Blood is a solid collection of stripped down rock highly influenced by 1960s R&B and early ‘80s post-punk/DIY. But it grows substantially when considered with the rest of the band’s discography, and especially Svenonius’ oeuvre at large.

When Ian Svenonius first burst onto the scene around the turn of the 1990s with Dischord Records’ post-harDCore heavy hitters Nation of Ulysses, he wasn’t particularly identifiable as a figure that would be around for the long haul. NoU (as they were sometimes abbreviated) were boldly conceptual, fiercely polemical, and some felt flat-out arrogant.

And above all, they were divisive. Detractors considered them to be a flagrant example of gratuitous playacting, an over-elaborate put-on. Those in favor loved them in the manner some display for sports teams and grand old flags. Svenonius was declared “Sassiest Boy in America” by Sassy Magazine before they even had a record out, though their blistering live show surely did precede them; they came on so strongly that it all seemed destined for brevity, just another in a labyrinthine museum maze of rock music short timers.

But occasionally these brief explosive vessels prove unexpectedly destined for longevity while artists/bands seemingly built to last end up fading out or fizzling away. Following Nation of Ulysses’ disbandment, Svenonius played the front man role in The Make-Up, an equally conceptually audacious entity that produced a surprisingly large body of recorded work and flaunted a live prowess that’s now legendary. The music hotwired mod/freakbeat high style to a platform of youth-centric social consciousness dubbed by the group as Gospel Yeh-Yeh, all before winding to a halt around the close of last millennium.

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In tandem with the release of The Mynabirds’ brand new LP Generals, front woman Laura Burhenn has embarked on an ambitious portrait project entitled “The New Revolutionists,” the purpose of which is to “pay tribute to the vast web of women who do various types of important work: artists, community organizers, doctors, mothers, women who embrace their lives and work to help and empower those around them. It is an awareness campaign for non-profits, women and works of art that empower.”

Last week we turned TVD over to Laura to delve a bit deeper into the lives and inspirations of 5 of the many revolutionary American women the project serves to spotlight who are making a difference in their own communities across America. We saved the last installment for today for reasons that will be clear as you read onward.

I promised Laura we’d add this final quote as The Mynabirds’ tour bus rolls out of DC. “We had so much goddamn fun being back home in DC — particularly at the Black Cat. DC will always be my home…” —Ed.

“Two years ago, I had the honor of introducing musician Rosanne Cash and author, psychologist and neuroscientist Dan Levitin for a joint talk they did at the Kaneko, a multi-platform space for art and intellectual exploration in Omaha. To prepare, I studied up on Rosanne’s music, started following her insightful and hilarious Twitter feed, and read her memoir, which was then only recently released, “Composed.”

As most of the rest of the world, I had known her very simply as “Johnny Cash’s daughter who is also a musician herself.” But the more I read and listened and uncovered, I realized that was barely scratching the surface of who she is. She’s insightful, kind, funny, ridiculously talented, and resilient. She is outspoken and protective of her family and friends. Her memoir contains some of the most gorgeous prose and insights I’ve read. It’s really that good; I highly recommend it.

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