Month: November 2011

2 Comments

Now Read This: 33 Days – Touring In A Van. Sleeping On Floors. Chasing A Dream., by Bill See

  By ,

When I came to the end of this book, I closed the back cover slowly, and rested my fingertips on it, pulling myself back to the present while the the last image – Bill See, alone in a quiet house with his guitar amid a swirl of cables, contentedly working on songs while his loved ones sleep – slowly settled, and I thought, I really wish I could have gone to one of your shows.

But in 1987, the year Bill See and his band Divine Weeks set off on what was truly an epic adventure, I was too young and on the wrong coast to participate in their rock and roll journey. Reading his account of it now is almost, but not quite, as good as being there must have been.

But I suppose I should back up a little bit and perhaps start over. The year, as I mentioned, was 1987. The place was Los Angeles, where Bill See, Rajesh “Raj” K. Makwana, George Edmondson, Dave Smerdzinski, aka Divine Weeks, a decidedly not glam band (See describes them as “musically [close] to The Who at Woodstock by way of early R.E.M” but ideologically more akin to The Minutemen) have decided, separately and together, that it is time to quit fooling around, rent a van, and take their locally successful show on the road for the very first time. (Their friend Ian Bader came along as road manager.)

33 Days Touring in a Van. Sleeping on Floors. Chasing A Dream. is the story of the barfights, broken strings, breakdowns (van and human), accidental acid trips, encounters with yuppies, skeevy promotors, sojourns in brothels, romantically gifted sound men, pantsless DJs, and other moments terror and rock and roll bliss that followed.

The text is based on a journal See kept during the trip and is written in present tense, which took me a page or two to adjust to, but, once I did, I was entranced.

I  hit the highlights of some of the stories above, but in addition to all of that there were several little moments that made me smile, and possibly actually clap my hands with recognition and glee, like when they saw their video on 120 Minutes, or the time in Portland where they opened for the Dharma Bums and afterwards Jeremy Wilson told Bill See all about a really shy kid named Kurt Cobain who was starting a band up in Aberdeen, Washington, and also the time in Kansas City they played a show with the Flaming Lips and Wayne Coyne shared some of his far-out ideas about what you can accomplish touring in a van. (Sadly, the substance of the ideas did not make it into the text.)

Also endearing were the parts where they grumbled about R.E.M. and the way they alternated between appreciating Jane’s Addiction and fighting about appreciating Jane’s Addiction. True story: Bill See was later asked to sing for Jane’s Addiction, and turned them down. Oh, how the world might have been different . . . !

It’s also worth noting here that  I’ve now read several autobiographies by musicians from bands that were active on the Sunset Strip in the late ’80s. I’m not going to make “real” and “fake” comparisons, because it all happened, and they are all real. But this book feels, for lack of a better term, the most human-sized, and – this might be cheesy, but oh well – it’s also the most inspirational.

It is as much a story of five dudes driving across the country in a van with some musical instruments, having the time of their lives and growing up in the process as it is a story of what can happen when you see an opportunity / the brass ring, and jump for it. You might catch it, you might fall down, you might catch it and then fall down, but you don’t know what will happen until you take the leap.

As See himself puts it in his introduction: “This book is for everyone who’s stood at their crossroads with a dream screaming inside wondering whether to choose the road that goes off the map or fold up their tent and head back home.”

In summary: A truly excellent tale of one bands first tour, which should be required reading for any kid with an instrument and a dream. \m/\m/ (two sets of metal fingers out of two)

And now, here is some audio-video illustration. Here is the band on Day 25, in Saint Louis, with a brief interview, Idiot Child (which was written for Jim Carroll), and Sympathy for the Devil:

http://youtu.be/Y7phE94RDVg

 

And here is Bitterness, playing over a series of still pictures of the band:

DIVINE WEEKS - BITTERNESS VIDEO

 

And finally Idiot Child live and not acoustic, from a reunion show in 2004:

http://youtu.be/7W7R2pM7RHo

No comments

A Conversation with Rick Steff

  By ,

 

Our friend Michelle Evans has another report from Nashville for us, this time with the diversely-talented and widely- and highly-regarded Rick Steff.

 

 


Photo by Brandy Munsell

 

Rick Steff, to me, is one of the best things about Lucero, so I jumped at the chance to speak with him at Mercy Lounge in Nashville. We discussed life in Lucero, his incredible career as a journeyman, and, last but certainly not least, his daddy. (Turns out, his father and my grandfather may have played together with the Ringling Bros. Circus.) Long ago dubbed by yours truly as “The Nicest Man Alive,” Rick is as talented as he is nice. I think you’ll agree.

What have you been working on recently?

Well, I do a lot of records. I’ve been on more than a couple hundred records. Most recently, the records I’ve done outside of Lucero, that I think are of certain note, are the Amy LaVere record, Stranger Me, that’s on Thirty Tigers. John Stubblefield also performed on it, and it’s just a really unique record by a really unique artist that we’ve had out on the road with us before. Her back-up band, at that time, was Paul Taylor, who’s worked with John and went to school with John, and Steve Selvidge, who played with Lucero during Brian Venable’s tenure away, and he’s now in The Hold Steady, who are all friends of ours. They aren’t the guys on this record, but that’s kinda where she comes from. The record was produced by Craig Selby, who did the Arcade Fire record, The Suburbs, that won Grammy of the Year this year, so yeah, Stranger Me is a real great record. It was kinda put together last minute, so we kinda built this record from scratch, so I’m real excited about that.

I’m always working on different projects. Last year, it was Huey Lewis and The News.

Did you, really? I love that.

Yeah, I did the Huey Lewis and The News reunion record, which was really awesome. He was hilarious. Huey was recovering. He had had a stint put in his heart.

It all kinda started in the previous year. I had done this record and movie with a guy named Klaus Voormann, who was the guy that drew the Revolver cover for The Beatles and was the bass player on John Lennon records and George Harrison records. He’s really one of the guys who discovered the Beatles. Anyway, he was 70, and he was going around the country reuniting with all these people he had worked with throughout the years and making a movie. So he came to Memphis to do a track with Bonnie Bramlett, and I played on that. We hit it off, and ultimately I got to play on the tune that he cut with McCartney and Ringo, so that was really cool, and it’s in the movie as well, which is called A Sideman’s Journey. It’s Klaus Voormann and friends, and it’s really just a movie about people who do what I do. Journeymen.

So back to Huey. The cool part is, he was getting his surgery done, and I loaned him the film to watch while he was in the hospital, and I got a voicemail from him – still have it on my computer – “Rick Steff. Huey Lewis. Big fan of your work. Just wanted to call and tell you that I love that you were in that movie.” So I’ve got a voicemail from Huey Lewis thanking me for a movie I was in. It’s, like, really surrealistic shit which doesn’t really happen to me. So, yeah. It was awesome. So, ya know, sometimes you get to do stuff that’s really cool.

So you really keep busy.

Yeah, and that’s not all! [laughs]

Oh! [laughs] Do tell!

Just got through working with a young girl, who’s record I’ll finish next week, called Alex da Ponte, from a band called Yeah, Arturo, and I’m really excited about that. I think she’s gonna be someone to watch. She’s really good.

So yeah, that’s all. I just try to play on… Well, sometimes you play on things for money, and sometimes you play on things for art, and usually the things that you like playing on the most aren’t the most lucrative, but that’s the way it is. But me, I’m just glad to be able to do some of everything.

I don’t think we can do an interview without mentioning your dad, Dick Steff, and his legacy.

Oh, yeah, well Dad, ya know, played on all these great records: Isaac Hayes’ Shaft, Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, Rufus Thomas’ Do the Funky Chicken, Elvis’ Complete American Sound Studios Sessions, which was the “Suspicious Minds”/”Kentucky Rain”/”In the Ghetto” time period. I would go with him to sessions, and I just wanted to be Dad. I just wanted to do what he did.

There’s a gentleman here playing horns for Lucero who studied under your father, correct?

Yup, Scott Thompson. He did our most recent record and played live with us, and he was one of Dad’s main students and worked with him for a long time. He plays probably closer to my dad than anyone else I know. It’s wonderful. It’s a personal thing that’s also nice for me.

Jim Spake also studied under dad. Dad taught Jazz Theory and things like that at Memphis State, now the University of Memphis, so if you were a music major in the ’60s and ’70s, you kinda almost had to take something from him if you were a jazzer, and most horn players tend to be jazzers to some degree.

So it’s incredible. I mean, these are people my mom knows and loves.

As a fan of things in general, and as a fan of you, and as a fan of Lucero, I think it’s really awesome to see you being a fan.

Oh, I’m a super-fan! Are you kidding? I am a super-fan. I have never worked with a songwriter who I respect as much as Ben Nichols in my life. Ever, in my career. I have never worked with a band I am more comfortable playing with, both musically and the integrity of the people involved in this band. So, yeah, I’m an uber-fan, all the way.

How did you first start with Lucero?

Oh, that’s an interesting story. Again, doing journeyman kind of stuff. A guitar player I worked with a lot is a mutual friend of John’s, named David Cousar, who worked on Amy LaVere’s record. John was helping coordinate a session for this poet friend of ours named City Mouse. I didn’t know him at the time, but it was a spoken word thing, and he wanted an accordion, upright, acoustic guitar, and drums, so David Cousar, John Stubblefield, Roy Berry, and I played the backing track at a guy named Chris Scott’s studio. So we did this record, and I hit it off with Roy and John, and they were toying with the idea of having some keyboards, because there had been keyboards on the records in the past, before I came. So we tried it, and I didn’t leave. We just hit it off, and it was awesome, and I felt very lucky. It came exactly through a journeyman type of situation.

When someone you’re an uber-fan of, like Ben Nichols, says how much integrity and talent you bring to Lucero, how does that make you feel?

I’m glad he feels that way, but I’m very not… I don’t know. It’s wonderful. I’m glad he feels that way. I’m honored. I’m totally honored that he likes what I bring to the table, but I’m the lucky one out of this deal, as far as I’m concerned.

 

No comments

Black Diamond Heavies: One Night Only!

  By

 

Aw, hell yeah, this is a cool event, kiddies. On December 7, 2011, at 9 PM EST, Saving Country Music will be streaming the Black Diamond Heavies’ set from the 2009 Deep Blues Festival. BDH performed at the very first DBF, and not only does the 2009 set feature core members John Wesley Myers (a.k.a. James Leg, who will be playing live in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 5 at Now That’s Class) and Van Campbell, but it also includes a reunion with original BDH member Mark “Porkchop” Holder and support from guru/roadie extraordinaire U.S. Justin and BDH buddy Andy Jody (whose long and illustrious resume includes Pearlene, James Leg’s solo album and Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, to barely scratch the surface).

 

 

Be sure to trek on over to Saving Country Music ahead of time and download the live player plug-in beforehand so you’ll be ready when the fun gets going. And stock up on whiskey. It will be fucking awesome, I assure you.

No comments

An Update with Austin Lucas

  By , ,

 

NTSIB’s good friend Michelle Evans checks in with road report on Austin Lucas. Midwestern Ohio NOTE: Austin is playing Zanesfield TONIGHT. More details below.

 

 

 

I was able to catch up with Bloomington, Indiana musician Austin Lucas this past weekend before his set at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, where he and his back-up band for the past couple of weeks, Glossary, opened for alt-country Tennessee rockers Lucero. It was a line-up made in heaven, for which people from all over the country drove and flew in. We talked about what it was like for him touring with Glossary, his European fan base, and what’s ahead.

You can catch him with his family band in Zanesfield, Ohio this Friday, November 25th at 7 p.m. at the Mad River Theater Works Studio, and/or next Friday, December 2nd at The Bishop with Murder by Death in Bloomington, IN. I don’t recommend missing these shows; he won’t be touring the U.S. again till next year.

How’s it been touring with Glossary?

Amazing. It’s like being on tour with five stand-up comedians. We just laugh a lot, and I mean a lot. Usually, I laugh a lot on tour, but it’s not often I go on tour with a band that’s been together 15 years and really knows each other and really gets along and also has so much camaraderie between them, and they’re dynamic is really good. They’re all really funny people and all really sweet people. Fitting in with them could’ve been really daunting, ya know, like a 6th wheel, but in this case, the 6th wheel runs real smoothly. It was the most natural tour experience I’ve had with another band.

How long have you been on tour with them now?

Two weeks. It was a short little tour.

How did y’all mesh musically, like with them playing your songs?

For me, great. In my way of thinking, really great. A lot of people at the shows were like, “Holy shit, I wish they were your band all the time.” At least the people who said anything to me felt that way. I’m sure there were people who thought, “He didn’t play any of his old songs,” or “He didn’t play very much acoustic,” but that happens.

Now, Todd Beene was with you that entire time, correct?

Yeah, of course. He was with Lucero up until our tour and then with us, and now these two shows with both of us. He prioritized Glossary and Austin Lucas. It was very sweet of him.

What’s ahead?

A lot of resting. I’m going home. I don’t have any dates, really, until I go to Mexico and then Europe, so I don’t have anything going on till then. I’m going to write songs, get in the studio maybe around January, something like that. We’ll see.

And you’re bigger in Europe, right?

Definitely.

How does Europe generally treat you? Like what are your favorite spots?

Finland’s my most favorite place to play in the world, without a doubt. Finland, the UK, and Germany are my three biggest markets, and in the UK, it’s really the south where I do well, like in London, Brighton, and pretty well in Leeds, but I haven’t really broke in the west and the north as well. In Europe, I sell out quite a few venues. At least I have on my other tours.

Which folks do you or have you toured in Europe with? Anyone we would know?

In the past, usually, I’ve packaged up, like with Chuck Ragan, Mike Hale, and Josh Small. Also Drag the River and Cory Branan. The last tour was with Digger Barnes. He’s a German guy, and he was Chuck’s bassist for a while. He was originally my bass player in my band Austin Lucas and The Pressmen, my back-up musicians. Then he met Chuck, and he played with us on Bristle Ridge and was on the first several tours. He’s awesome. He’s amazing, and he’s got his own solo stuff. We did a tour together last year.

So who’s playing with you on this upcoming European tour?

I’m just going to bring my back-up band, The Bold Party. We don’t have anybody supporting. It’ll be the first tour I’ve done over there in a long time where I wasn’t packaged up and ensured that the music quality was really good every night. There aren’t a lot of acts over that that play what we play or Americana or alt-country or whatever, so we’ll see. Should be a great time no matter what.

No comments

James Leg is Coming to Cleveland (and Other Cities, Too)

  By

 

Solitary Pleasure is ingrained with James Leg’s extensive knowledge of the rock and roll canon and the album displays his passion and originality to full effect. Granted, Leg’s gargled-with-goat vocal style could be an acquired taste, but it’s also a quality instrument that, like his keyboard work, will prove powerful, yet supple and dextrous over the course of the album. Imagine Tom Waits doing Bobby “Blue” Bland covers.
– DEEP BLUES

“Long live rock and soul and pianos and devil horns.”
– POPMATTERS

If you’ve been reading NTSIB for a while, you know that I freaking love James Leg (a.k.a. John Wesley Myers of the Black Diamond Heavies) and that his album, Solitary Pleasure, is probably my favorite album of 2011. If not, here’s a little memory refresher.

I already have two James Leg shows under my belt this year, and I’m excited for a third. Sitting down at the keys, Leg generates more energy on stage than most of his more mobile counterparts, leg flailing to the beat and hair flying in his face as he pushes his foghorn howl through the microphone to blast you out and then settle down in the center of your pelvis. But he doesn’t stop there, setting that pelvis to sway, shake and grind as he makes his trusty Fender Rhodes talk like a guitar and growl like a junkyard Rottweiler. The man puts so much effort into making you move your ass that he’s usually sweated through his shirt by the 2nd or 3rd song.

James Leg will be turning Cleveland’s Now That’s Class into a sweatbox on December 5th at 9 PM for $5 a head. Openers will be northeastern Ohio bands White Buffalo Woman and the Buffalo Ryders, as apparently, buffalo are the new indie band animal of choice. Please grab your free copy of the sleazy-in-all-the-best-ways “Do How You Wanna” below and join me on the 5th.

 

James Leg – Do How You Wanna

 

And if you don’t live in the CLE, do what you can to catch James Leg at one of the stops below.

Dec 01: Nashville, TN @ The 5 Spot w/ Blackfaces (members of Immortal Lee County Killers, Soledad Brothers and Be Your Own Pet) and D.Watusi
Dec 02: Huntington, WV @ The V Club
Dec 03: Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
Dec 04: Cincinnati, OH @ Junkers Tavern
Dec 05: Cleveland, OH @ Now Thats Class
Dec 06: Detroit, MI @ PJ’s Lager House
Dec 07: Ft. Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail w/ Left Lane Cruiser
Dec 08: Lafayette, IN @ Lafayette Brewing Co.
Dec 09: Chicago, IL @ Morseland
Dec 10: Columbia, MO @ The Bridge
Dec 11: St Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
Dec 12: TBA
Dec 13: Kansas City, MO @ Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club
Dec 15: Omaha, NE @ O’Leaver’s Pub
Dec 16: Bayport, MN (Minneapolis) @ Bayport BBQ w/ Molly Gene’s One Whoaman Band
Dec 17: Bayport, MN (Minneapolis) @ Bayport BBQ w/ Molly Gene’s One Whoaman Band
Dec 18: Green Bay, WI @ Phatheads
Dec 19: Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
Dec 20: Dubuque, IA @ Off Minor

[West Coast March 2012 tour dates to be announced soon]

One Comment

I Will Be Your Light Inside the Dark: New London Fire, The Dirt The Blood The Faith

  By ,

Periodically people ask me what kind of music I like. My default answer is “big drums and dirty bass lines,” but now that I’ve spent some (more) time listening to current offerings in the field of country/Americana I have to add “fiddle and pedal steel.” The Dirt The Blood The Faith, the third and latest (out on vinyl as of yesterday, also available on iTunes!) record from New London Fire, combines all four of my favorite elements.

I’m especially fond of the thudding at the heart of Until the Light Goes Out On Me (turn it up, it’ll rattle your bones in the best possible way), the sweet shimmer of high silvery sound that floats through Arizona, The Jungle, and Ain’t Wagin’ War, and the low, aggressive thrum that slowly expands to a roar in title track The Dirt The Blood The Faith.

New London Fire are: David Debiak, Jon Lam, and D. James Goodwin and they are, collectively, from both Asbury Park, NJ and Woodstock, NY. (D. James Goodwin also produced the record, in his studio in Woodstock.) It’s worth noting here that New London Fire has not always been an Americana band; they actually started out closer to the Britpop end of the spectrum. I did a quick skim through their back catalog, and I can tell you that while this record is technically a whole new direction, it doesn’t sound like that much of a bizarre left turn. It’s more a possibly abrupt but still logical evolution of form.

Old NLF fans, if you’re puzzled and/or concerned, be at ease. They’ve swapped out some instruments but the carefully crafted melodies and sing-along choruses are still there. Those of you who are new to their charms and are now squinting at your screens thinking Britpop??: this record is good. It’s more western than country, it has solid pop-rock underpinnings, and you should put it on and crank it up.

As evidence, I present two videos. The first one is for their first single, The Other Side of Town:

 

And the second, made in the studio, is for Rise:

 

 

Their other big upcoming project is collaborating with New York Times reporter and novelist Bassey Etim to produce a soundtrack for Etim’s multi-platform novel The God Project which will feature hip-hop infused remixes of songs from The Dirt The Blood The Faith. They are all going to be hitting the road together this winter. I’ll keep you posted as events develop!

Or, for more immediate news bulletins, you can subscribe to them on Facebook and Twitter.

No comments

Rebirth of the Cool: …Baby, One More Time

  By

 

It’s been too long since we’ve had a Rebirth post, but I’m sure some of you have taken a look at the title and are already wincing in anticipation of this one. Let’s get the difficult part out of the way now.

 

 

I know, I know… Back in the early 2000s, while I was accumulating a collection of “Ring of Fire” covers, my boyfriend at the time, in his perverse nature, took to collecting “…Baby, One More Time” covers.

Hey, we’ve all made bad choices in partners, okay?

But there was one stand-out gem in this perplexing collection, that being the complete piss-take version by Mr. Bungle.

 

 

Speaking of perverse, I found this version by Frank’s progeny, Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa, over at Cover Me and actually find it… kind of… sexy… (This may have something to do with the fact that I wore out Dweezil’s My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama album when I was a teenager.)

 

 

Thus concludes this episode of Unfortunate Confession Theater.

 

2 Comments

Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase: Church before Church

  By

 

Music doesn’t have boundaries. We impose things like genre, or let a marketing department impose a genre and then just go along with it, and then say short-sighted things like, “I love all music… except country/hip hop/hated-genre-of-the-moment.”

Music does have power. Songs can speak and speak to us. Songs can move and move us. Songs can embolden us.

 

 

I don’t go to church – I don’t hold beliefs that draw me in that direction – but I am as vulnerable to a good gospel song as any devout worshipper. The clap of hands, the boom of a voice raised in full heart, the rhythm that stomps or the held note that draws a thread tight from the soul… it encompasses the best of what music can do.

From the early ’60s through the early ’80s, Sid Ordower (a Jewish man who felt the power of gospel) brought that boundary-less power into the homes of Chicago television viewers with a show called Jubilee Showcase. Sunday mornings, viewers could sit down and experience powerful performances from gospel stars like James Cleveland, Andrae Crouch, the Soul Stirrers, the Staple Singers and more and still have time to get to church. The show not only shared the music of the brightest stars in the gospel firmament, but also launched careers of fledling artists.

A new DVD, Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase, brings this wonderful show out of the past and out beyond Chicago. The disc contains four full episodes picked from thoughout the show’s timeline. From early black-and-white footage of the Staple Singers (with the ever-lovely Mavis Staple opening up those spectacular pipes) and the Soul Stirrers (the group from which Sam Cooke launched, though Cooke does not appear in this DVD) to later performances of Jessy Dixon, Inez Andrews, another appearance from the Soul Stirrers and a whole program of gospel mega-star Andrae Crouch, this DVD displays the range of gospel music, from high church hymns to stomping spirituals. The highlight of the collection for me is when the Soul Stirrers perform “Oh, What a Meeting” with powerful lead vocals from Willie Rogers. (I don’t have a clip to share, but you can hear a different recording of the song here and see what the performance looked like it all its technicolor glory below.)

 

 

The disc extras contain short, but often illumnating, documentarian bios of Ordower and some of the featured artists. And if you become as interested in the history of the show and its creator, Sid Ordower, you can look forward to a documentary of the show. Producer of the upcoming documentary, Steven Ordower says:

“Currently in development, Jubilee, is a documentary film featuring rare performances from a local Emmy award winning Chicago gospel music television show that aired from 1963-1984, called ‘Jubilee Showcase,’ the brainchild of civil rights activist and producer, Sid Ordower. Jubilee will feature exclusive footage – never before seen by a national audience – from many of gospel’s greatest singers. Ordower’s history as a participant in the struggle for equal rights will be interwoven with the historic performances from his show. This approach is intended to contextualize gospel music within the civil rights movement specifically, and the African- American experience in general. This documentary will consist of contemporary interviews, still photography, originally shot footage, and archive clips from what some have described as ‘the greatest single collection of gospel music in the world.’”

For more information on the DVD, including ordering information and to see some of the informational clips about the artists appearing on the DVD, visit the site:

Jubilee Showcase Official Website

No comments

Saturday Matinee: Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks the World

  By

 

Featuring interviews with everyone from the inventor of the pedal to Buddy Guy to a lot of dudes you haven’t even heard about since hair metal went out of fashion the first time, this great documentary tracks the life and wide-reaching influence of the Cry Baby Wah-Wah guitar effect pedal, one of the most singular and iconic sounds of modern music, from its conception to the present time.

 

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Jimmy Dunlop on Vimeo.

 

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks the World Official Website