Monthly Archives: September 2018

Damn right I have a grudge against John Mayer. I’ve never forgiven him for 2002’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” the not so anodyne (it’s been linked to fatal brain aneurysms on every continent) bit of aural foreplay that followed me from gym to car radio to supermarket when it came out.

Then what does he do? He follows “Wonderland” with the equally despicable “Waiting on the World to Change.” There’s a reason I cover my cat’s ears every time a John Mayer song comes on; his estimation of human beings is low enough as it is.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking; you’re thinking “Sure, Mayer has produced some real pablum, but he also happens to be a talented blues guitarist of impeccable taste who has played alongside such legends as B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Eric Clapton, and you really owe it to yourself to give him a listen.”

So that’s what I did. I girded mine loins and turned on 2006’s Continuum, which received mucho plaudits for its blues and soul touches. Mayer was expanding his musical palette, went the spiel, and beginning to show off his guitar chops, and in short evolving into a bona fide musical renaissance man.

So I listened, and what did I get? A sensitive singer-songwriter’s album of exquisite whiteness, that’s what. Sure it’s relieved by a few brief moments of high-quality (but tightly reined in) blues guitar, and a few of its songs don’t make me want to scour my ears clean with Ajax afterwards. But for the most part Mayer plays the wimp with his earnest caucasian croon, which he backs up with the kinds of limpid tunes that pass for funky if your tastes in funky run to Train.

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Thelonious Monk was not only one of the most innovative pianists in the history of jazz, he additionally remains one of the vast form’s most well-known figures, though artistic achievement and height of profile still doesn’t guarantee that your live tapes won’t somehow end up in a dumpster. That’s reportedly what occurred with the documentation of the Monk Quartet’s March 5, 1963 performance at Odd Fellows Mansion in Copenhagen, Denmark. Along with the pianist, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse was on the bandstand. So were bassist John Ore and drummer Frankie Dunlop. Thankfully, the evidence was rescued, and it’s getting a multi-format reissue as Mønk on September 28 by Gearbox Records.

In pop, rock, and related genres, the live recording can occasionally encompass something great, but most often, the contents are eminently skippable, sometimes even by fans of the artists represented. In jazz however, performance documents are essential. Ellington at Newport. Coltrane’s Live at Birdland and his two sets from the Village Vanguard. Bill Evans’ Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. Wes Montgomery’s Smokin’ at the Half Note. Sun Ra’s Live at Montreux. A half-dozen by Mingus. Dolphy’s Live at the Five Spot. Shelly Manne’s At the Black Hawk volumes. Kirk in Copenhagen.

As the 20th century progressed, playing live (touring) in pop and rock became increasingly a promotional tool for record sales, but in jazz the gig (often extended residencies at specific clubs) was and remains integral; yes, as a way to pay the bills, but also as an endeavor in the betterment of the art. And as jazz’s commercial prospects diminished, players often went where the gigs were.

Europe was a common destination, even during jazz’s heyday, with Denmark especially receptive to the music. As listed above, Roland Kirk played there, and of course so did Monk, along with thousands of others; the amount of cash made by numerous small but dedicated labels in the reissue of recordings from Copenhagen alone would likely fill a few steamer trunks.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Forty years ago today, each one the four founding members of KISS — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss — released their respective solo albums all on the same day to much fanfare, chart success, and platinum sales. And now, four decades later, all four of these pioneering albums are celebrated in KISS: The Solo Albums – 40th Anniversary Collection, a limited-edition 180-gram 4LP box set by Casablanca/UMe that’s earmarked for release on October 19.

Preorders have commenced for the limited run of 2,500 vinyl box sets, available exclusively through KISS’s artist webstore and The Sound of Vinyl. Each heavyweight 180-gram LP features a unique color to match its associated cover art; Gene Simmons appears in red vinyl, Paul Stanley sports purple vinyl, Ace Frehley contains blue vinyl, and Peter Criss is in green vinyl. All four albums are housed together in a deluxe black-matte slipcase that features glossy black images of the four artists’ faces surrounding a silver-foil print of the infamous KISS logo.

Also included in this set are four 12-by-12-inch posters of each album cover, plus an exclusive turntable slipmat that shows all four of artist Eraldo Carugati’s iconic, painted album-cover face images all connected together.

All four of these solo albums served to showcase the wide range of talents of each KISS bandmember. Gene Simmons, co-produced by Simmons and Sean Delaney, features the band’s bassist and co-lead vocalist switching over mainly to acoustic and electric guitar duties for songs that highlight his penchant for Beatlesque melodies, funk, and hard rock. Highlights include a remake of “See You In Your Dreams” (initially found on KISS’ 1976 benchmark album, Rock And Roll Over) and a cover of the 1940 Disney classic from Pinocchio, “When You Wish Upon A Star.” Guest musicians include Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Bob Seger, Cher, Donna Summer, and Katey Sagal.

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“There’s a time and place for each music listening medium. There are a few albums that will likely never sound as good to me as they did when they were dubbed onto blank cassette and blasted through my teenage car stereo. Hell, I’m even kind of an apologist for CDs, but I know we’re talking about vinyl here.”

“I love the warm audio quality and big cover art as much as the next guy (maybe more than the next guy, who knows?), but I think my love of records has more to do with the fact that spinning vinyl makes listening to music a dedicated act. It isn’t portable, you can’t take it with you, and you can actually hold it in your hands.

I’m not usually home on weekend mornings, but there are few things in this world that make as much sense to me as a pot of very strong coffee and Hazel & Alice or John Wesley Harding on the turntable while my blood unthaws and I re-align myself with the things that made me love music in the first place.

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Paul Collins is no stranger to this column. That’s because in the annals of power-pop, he’s one of the greats. But he’s also a cult figure, so the spotlight isn’t exactly preaching to stadium-sized choirs. Cult music can often be esoteric or challenging, but not Collins’; this is power-pop, after all. Cult subjects can also ooze loads of thorny personality, but the man seems like a nice, together guy. As an intro, one can check his classic stuff with The Nerves and The Beat, but Out of My Head, his latest available September 28 on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Alive Naturalsound Records, won’t disappoint. In fact, by any yardstick through which melodic guitar action is measured, it’s a stone winner.

The thing, well, one thing about cult figures is that it’s often damn near impossible for them to conjure up new music that gets into the neighborhood of quality that spurred the belated “but have you heard” buzz in the first place. As said above, Paul Collins’ chosen genre works in his favor, as does the fact that he never had a Third/Sister Lovers period that leaves listeners agape with the tortured brilliance of it all.

Instead, Collins just dishes out rocking songs loaded with catchiness and most importantly depth, which keeps the music from wearing thin after repeated play. Backing this up: Out of My Head sounds better to these ears on the sixth consecutive play than it did on the first. It’s also quite the classically informed LP (in the pop-rock sense of classicism) without being belabored about it. That is, while certainly recalling the ’60s, it’s not retro (or even neo) in comportment, but as it plays, more than a couple of the songs might lead one to wonder if they are covers.

They are not. For the record, Collins sings, drums, and handles most of the guitar playing, while Paul Stingo contributes bass, harmonies, and most-notably, is the writer of the trim set’s first track “In and Out of My Head,” which springs from the Everly-Orbison-Pitney-influenced wing of ’60s garage rock, with the guitar big and the solo ripping; in another way, it’s a bit like the Beau Brummels on a Duane Eddy kick.

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PHOTOS: LAURA KILGUS JENKINS AND CHRIS JENKINS | Dispatch rocked a packed Blue Hills Bank Pavilion situated on Massachusetts Bay on September 20, as part of the first evening of a two-night stand to wrap up their American summer tour. Beginning in Vail, CO in June, Dispatch’s Summer Tour 2018 spanned the US where they played the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Central Park’s SummerStage in NYC, and two nights in Boston.

One of America’s most successful independent groups played to a packed hometown crowd which consisted of family, friends, and fans from a decades-long career. This heartfelt performance consisted of songs that have not been performed in many years, such as “Cover This” with newer tracks like “Wild Ones” which became an instant classic to their catalog of songs. Location 13, a collection of songs written during their previous album Location 12, will be released on November 16, 2018. The Boston crowd was treated to a cut off this unreleased album called “Don Juan Tango.”

Known and dedicated advocates of gun control, Stokes addressed his concerns and hopes that the country continues to seek effective efforts to reduce gun violence in America. In February, Dispatch released a new song titled “Dear Congress, (17)” following the fatal Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. “We just don’t want to see it keep happening,” said Stokes. “ We want to call for universal background checks and just gun safety laws that make sense.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In a record thirty minutes, RISE: The Story of Augustines sold out both its world premiere screenings at the 26th Raindance Film Festival in London. In an unprecedented occurrence for the Festival, given the overwhelming demand, Raindance is now showing the documentary on the largest screen on Thursday 27th September, 2018.

In August of 2009 singer William McCarthy’s younger brother James, in the midst of a lengthy incarceration on charges of attempted murder, was found dead of an apparent suicide inside Napa State Hospital. Just one week later, McCarthy’s band Pela imploded, leaving both him and band mate Eric Sanderson devastated, in financial ruin, and with a half-finished album that may never see the light of day. Four years in production, and after a decade as a musician and songwriter with UK band The Boxer Rebellion, Todd Howe (@todd_boxer) makes his directorial film debut, with documentary film RISE: The Story of Augustines.

RISE: The Story of Augustines chronicles the journey of two musicians, William McCarthy and Eric Sanderson. They faced their demons, refused to fall and established a lifelong brotherhood as they struggled to finish their seminal debut record. Against a backdrop of trying to maintain their own sanity and pay tribute to McCarthy’s brother, James, McCarthy’s song writing during the toughest year of his life, would come to be known as his defining work. The album Rise Ye Sunken Ships stands as a testament both to the pain of loss and the celebration of life. The two resurfaced with a new name – Augustines – and together with drummer Robert Allen, who shepherded William and Eric through their darkest of times, rose up to become one of the most celebrated independent bands in the world.

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Making Vinyl, the premier event for the vinyl record industry returns to Detroit’s Westin Book Cadillac Hotel next week, October 1 and 2, with a keynote address from Little Steven Van Zandt. What better time to look back at our talk with the man from a little over one year ago. —Ed.

Between his work with Springsteen and the E Street Band, his championing of both old and new music through a one-in-a-million satellite radio station known as the Underground Garage, and, more recently, his return to fronting a band of his own, Little Steven has as much right to James Brown’s old title as anyone else in show business.

After roughly eighteen years of being occupied with two-thirds of the above items (to say nothing of his lauded turn on The Sopranos or his actor-writer-director capacities on Lilyhammer), Van Zandt reemerged onto the solo circuit this past May with Soulfire. With the Disciples of Soul on backing duties, the record is a veritable genre smorgasbord that runs the gamut from doo-wop and Chess blues to country and Tamla soul. In other words, Little Steven provided a strikingly thorough showcase of the rich traditions that led him to the altar of rock and roll in the first place. No small feat for the most famous practitioner of rock-as-religion.

We were able to catch up with Little Steven amid the final weeks of his US tour to talk his return to being a bandleader, the importance of rock and roll education as exemplified by both the Underground Garage and his foundation, Rock and Roll Forever, and his dream compilation record.

So Soulfire was your first solo LP in eighteen years. With that in mind, did you notice any discernible difference in your approach to the recording process itself, whether that be compared to your previous solo albums or your work with Bruce and the Asbury Dukes?

Interesting question. Not really, I’ve always done things kind of live and analog, and I still am, but it’s a little bigger now. I really have fallen in love with the jigsaw puzzle of arranging horns, strings, and background vocals. Basically what I got into with Darlene Love’s album last year, and I continued that with this album. I used to do more with the strings but I added the background vocal this time around. Other than that, no real difference in the recording.

I think the only other difference may be that I can’t use streetwise rock musicians anymore. You start off using rock musicians in a rock band. Now, the stuff has become a little sophisticated to the point where I really need session guys to be more precise, and then finding sessions guys who can also go on the road and actually perform has been the biggest challenge. There’s only a handful of guys who can handle stuff like this, I mean, I’m playing ten different genres of music during these live shows. They have to play with authenticity and have a sense of history, and there’s not a whole lot of folks who can do that, so they’re in great demand.

On this tour, which is only about eighteen weeks long, I’ve changed personnel several times, so different people are coming and going even on a four-month tour. It’s been an adjustment with that but I’m a bandleader so it’s always going to be a great band. In the old days, I think people were just less busy.

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NYC’s No Wave movement was short-lived, very loud, and ugly, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to witness it. But Brian Eno was there, and we have this mucho abrasive 1978 document–which allots four cuts each to scene makers the Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, and D.N.A.–to prove it.

Sheer dissonance–both musical and cognitive–was the order of the day, and if you’re normal and looking for some music that you can, you know, sit around and listen to without having to carbo-load on Xanax first, fughetaboutit. These songs range from the challenging to the flat-out off-putting, and if you’re not a fan of deliberately confrontational avant-garde experimentation or the kind of person who likes to hang around jackhammers, you’re probably best off giving No New York a pass.

The No Wave crowd didn’t just want to kill rock stars; they wanted to kill rock music period. Fuck the pop aesthetic of New Wave: No Wave was atonal, nihilistic, apocalyptic even; these folks wanted to put an end to things altogether, and the world did what it always does to end of the world advocates–just laughed ‘em off.

As for me, I can honestly say I enjoy some of the music on No New York, albeit in small and very carefully measured doses. I may put it on twice a year when I’m convinced the world has it in for me, and it does the trick–I walk away so nerve damaged I don’t much care if the world likes me or not.

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