Futurebirds feature, Providence Journal, May 26, 2013

Futurebirds brings its country-rooted indie rock to The Met in Pawtucket 

The Futurebirds, from left: Brannen Miles, Thomas Johnson, Dennis Love, Carter King, and Daniel Womack.

By Scott McLennan

Special to the Journal

Most records you listen to with your ears; some you feel in your bones. Futurebirds’ second full-length album, “Baba Yaga,” falls into the latter category.

The 13 songs are full of overlapping textures and finely crafted lyrics that bring to life vivid scenes without losing any of the music’s mystery. Yet for all its emotive force, “Baba Yaga” couldn’t find its way into the world.

Futurebirds made “Baba Yaga” more than a year ago, ready to capitalize on the buzz from its 2010 full-length debut, “Hampton’s Lullaby.” But then the band ran into record-label troubles. Futurebirds’ Carter King says there were times when he thought that the record would never get out.

“We talked to different labels, and they wanted to help, and they’d tell us what we wanted to hear, then we’d find out their vision was different from ours,” King says in a recent interview while Futurebirds was on tour with Band of Horses.

Fat Possum records and Futurebirds eventually came together for an April release for “Baba Yaga,” so named after a mythical woodland creature that eats kids.

Considering the bruising ache coursing through the album, it’s either ironic or prophetic that the band had such a hard time releasing such a good album. The details in songs such as “Virginia Slims,” “Death Awaits,” “Keith and Donna” and “Tan Lines” matter less than the emotional resonance these songs conjure. The band isn’t summoning “happy” or “sad,” but rather creating intricate swirls of feelings that more closely echo real life while sounding completely otherworldly.

“All of the reviews have been homing in on different songs and different aspects of the record,” King says. “I love that.”

Futurebirds craft a country-rooted brand of indie rock, so there is an orchestrated collision of the traditional and the experimental. In addition to playing guitars and singing, King plays banjo and drums. Likewise, guitarist and singer Thomas Johnson plays banjo and mandolin. Dennis Love plays pedal steel guitar, giving the songs not only a strong roots-music flavor but also an ethereal, Southern-gothic accent. Brannen Miles is the bass player, and Daniel Womack handles guitars and banjo. Drummer Payton Bradford left the band after “Baba Yaga” was completed. This group, which came together in 2008 in Athens, Ga., spreads the songwriting around, adding to the multi-faceted effect of its sound.

“We spent a lot more time on this record because we could afford to. It wasn’t a case of just putting guitars here, and maybe keys there. We could think about parts and lay it all down in service to the songs,” King says.

So the album ended up with a span ranging from the fairly stripped down (and woefully sad) “Strangers” to the layers of shimmer ’n’ strum on the defiant “American Cowboy.”

Futurebirds plays Tuesday at the Met in Pawtucket. While some of the songs on “Baba Yaga” have lived in the band’s set lists even before they were recorded, others are just finding their way to the stage. King says the band looks for ways to change up songs from their album versions, sometimes out of necessity, though often because he sees the stage and studio as separate environments.

“Some songs have a lot of overdubs, so you can’t do that live. But these songs are strong enough that we can find interesting ways to play them live,” King says. “I always hated shows when the songs sounded just like they do on the record.”

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1
Futurebirds — along with Burlapan and Milk — plays Tuesday night at 8 at The Met, 1005 Main St., Pawtucket. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 the day of the show. Call (401) 729-1005 or go to themetri.com.

 

Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists, Boston Globe, May 23, 2013

Fripp’s orchestra gathers round a singular sound

By Scott McLennan
Globe Correspondent 
May 23, 2013

Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists performing in 2009

 
"When ready, begin.”

That was Victor McSurely’s introduction to the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists. The orchestra’s leader and founder, Robert Fripp, issued that instruction to a room of 70 to 80 guitar players, recalls McSurely, himself a guitarist but on this occasion working among the orchestra’s crew during a rehearsal.

“Everybody was seated, and it was all quiet. Robert said, ‘When ready, begin,’ and it was extraordinary that something just began and sounded so interesting. After about 20 minutes it became silent. And then Robert again said, ‘When ready, begin,’ ” McSurely says, noting that this process unfolded three times, each resulting in a piece of intricate guitar interplay. “The joke afterward was, ‘Well that was unique. Let’s do it again.’ ”

The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists sprung from Guitar Craft classes and workshops that Fripp first developed nearly 30 years ago. Guitar Craft workshops begat the performance ensemble League of Crafty Guitarists and ongoing Guitar Circles, which now exist around North America, Latin America, and Europe.

In 2009, the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists — a really big guitar circle, if you will — went public with a performance in Spain. This week, the seventh iteration of Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists performs three concerts in the Northeast, starting Friday at the First Church in Cambridge. Fripp and his band of guitarists then head to Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley on Saturday and conclude the tour at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery in New York City on Sunday.

Bill Rieflin was among the 70 or so Guitar Craft practitioners coming from around the world to convene earlier in the week at Camp Caravan in Royalston to prepare for the concerts. Rieflin is perhaps better known as a drummer, having performed with Ministry and R.E.M.
Rieflin began studying Fripp’s Guitar Craft in 1989 and became active in a Guitar Circle for players around the Seattle area.

“It’s a lifelong undertaking,” Rieflin says. “Once I stuck my foot in the pool, I just kept on swimming. It’s made me a better musician and a better person.”

McSurely, who teaches music at a Montessori school and performs regularly with the band accompanying Blue Man Group in Boston, heads up the Guitar Circle New England and will be in the orchestra this time rather than listening.

Rieflin and McSurely joined in on a conference call, and both musicians emphasized how Guitar Craft extends beyond the particulars of learning Fripp’s New Standard Tuning or picking techniques.

“For instance, we were working on attention. When you direct your attention one place, you exclude something else. That’s something that happens not just in music but inside us and with other people,” McSurely says.

In this case, music becomes a means to resolve the exclusion problem.

“If you are required to get on a bus with 70 people and play as a unit, you need to understand how to be inclusive on the scale of community, not just the scale of a band. It’s not like you’re riding around in a van on tour with your buddies,” McSurely says.

Bringing these broader ideas into a musical realm inevitably leads to some pretty interesting sounds, and, Rieflin says, “creating something new is a hazardous undertaking.”

“What we ask of the audience is what we ask of ourselves,” Rieflin says. “The audience and the performers work together to bring about something called ‘music.’ If you show up with an open mind, open ears, and open heart, you’ll experience music that is life changing.”

At the very least, it will be unorthodox. The orchestra typically sets up in a spiral of seats, each player armed with a steel-stringed acoustic guitar. Then almost like an actor initiating an improv scene, one of the guitar players launches a chord, and the rest of the orchestra swings into action, applying learned actions and reactions rather than following along to a composed score sitting on a music stand.

McSurely and Rieflin say the work is not wholly improvisational and instead guided by various techniques and “a common vocabulary” learned through Guitar Craft. And while “all points are equal on a circle,” McSurely and Rieflin are quick to credit Fripp for nurturing this approach to playing guitar and performing as a group.

“Robert built the house that this takes place in. He purposefully leaves the house unfurnished so people can assemble it the way they want to,” Rieflin says.

McSurely is struck by Fripp’s devotion to Guitar Craft, recalling an episode from 10 years ago when he watched the founder of King Crimson and collaborator with David Bowie and Brian Eno patiently work with a teenager at one of the Guitar Craft workshops.

As for why this approach to music is guitar-centric, McSurely notes such factors as the instrument’s range of notes; its expressiveness and responsiveness; and, more cosmically, “The instrument acts like a mirror. The quality of who you are is audible in how you play.”

Rieflin had a more practical response to, “Why guitar?”: “You don’t want to hear 70 clarinets.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1

ONEsession's "Dirty Water," Boston by Beat, May 23, 2013

The band Girls, Guns and Glory spearheaded a reworking of the garage-rock classic "Dirty Water" to raise money for the One Fund benefiting victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. For the ONEsession story and to check out (and buy) the track, click here.

Yellowbirds, Boston by Beat, May 22, 2013

Sam Cohen

Yellowbirds' sophomore album "Songs from the Vanished Frontier" is one of my faves so far this year. Sam Cohen, who fronted the Boston indie band Apollo Sunshine, is the creative force behind Yellowbirds. To read an interview with Sam and to sample some Yellowbirds music on the Boston by Beat blog, click here.

Marco Benevento feature, Providence Journal, May 19, 2013

Marco Benevento

Here is a link to and text of a music feature for the Providence Journal about Marco Benevento. To see story layout in Journal, click here.

 

DEFYING  DESCRIPTION

By Scott McLennan 

Secial to The Journal

 
 Jazz, post-jazz, jam-rock. These are some of the labels slapped on keyboard player Marco Benevento’s work.     

Benevento himself simply prefers to call what he does “music.”     


“At this point, there’s no label that seems right,” Benevento says when reached by phone earlier this month. “I did play a lot of jazz rooms when I started, but then it got too loud for the jazz rooms.”     


What would you expect from a guy who has a side gig playing Led Zeppelin covers? More on that later. Benevento is playing at Fete in Providence on Thursday with bassist Dave Dreiwitz and drummer Andy Borger.     

Benevento recently released his fourth studio album, “Tiger Face.” He builds on his patented stylistic fusions by adding vocals to his list of sonic ingredients. Rubblebucket singer Kalmia Traver appears on two tracks, and Benevento explains that bringing her into the mix was not exactly something he had planned on.    

The song “This is How it Goes” began as an instrumental, but, as Benevento explains, “I could hear syllables to the melody.”    

“I wrote some words quickly. My wife and I sang the words over the track, and it was my first time doing something like that,” he says. “I listened to the demo and thought, ‘I should get a real singer.’ I saw Kalmia with Rubblebucket and think that band is at a peak.”     

“Tiger Face” includes both the instrumental and vocal versions of “This is How It Goes,” providing insight into how Traver’s ethereal vocal sprinkled a haunting quality across the pitter-patter of the tune.    

“Limbs of a Pine” is a fuller collaboration between Traver and Benevento, as she cooked up the impressionist lyrics and sleek melody for the more uptempo and funkier one of the two vocal ventures.    

After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1999, Benevento became active in the jazz and experimental-music scenes in New York City. Performing on piano, organ and electric keys, Benevento conjured an array of tones and styles filtered through such projects as the Benevento Russo Duo with drummer Joe Russo, Garage a Trois, Coalition of the Willing and GRAB, also with Russo and Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon. Oh, and then there’s Bustle in Your Hedgerow, the Led Zeppelin cover project he started about a decade ago with Russo, Dreiwitz and guitarist Scott Metzger; that band is actually making an appearance at this summer’s Bonnaroo festival.    

In 2008, Benevento released his first studio album under his own name. On “Tiger Face,” he brings aboard various conspirators, such as drummer Matt Chamberlain, sax player Stuart Bogie and violin player Ali Heinwein.     

Benevento says he is virtually a producer once he gets his hands on the original tracks from a recording session and begins adding keyboard parts to provide each song with a rich texture.    

“It gets tricky because you don’t want too much ornamentation,” he says.     

Likewise, when it comes to the live show, Benevento says he thinks like a DJ, mindful of how songs flow one into the next. And thanks to loops and electric keys, he can replicate the various parts he plays on a particular recorded song. In concert, Benevento and his rhythm section will work through a bunch of songs before landing on one that opens up to a swath of improvisation, then head back into more neatly arranged numbers.     

“You can really lose your focus if you just concentrate on the music,” he says. “I think I’m better now at putting on a good show, playing the right things at the right time.”     
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com  . Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1

The Interrobang, Boston by Beat, May 21, 2013

The Interrobang

Caught up with Boston alt-rock band The Interrobang for Boston by Beat blog. Band has that kinda-crazy undercurrent you feel from the Toadies. Check out the interview with singer Johnny Malone and guitarist Mick Greenwood as well as hear the track "Zirconia" by clicking here.

Boston Pops present "Fantasia," The Arts Fuse, May 11, 2013

Nephews Logan, left, and Mason

As part of the Boston Pops' celebration of the music of Hollywood, the orchestra provided a live soundtrack to scenes from Disney's "Fantasia" and "Fantasia 2000," films that created original animation to classical scores. I brought my two nephews to a Pops "Fantasia" performance, and wrote about their reaction to the concert as well as about the show itself for The Arts Fuse. You can read the column by clicking here.

The Upper Crust, Boston by Beat, May 15, 2013

The Upper Crust

The members of Upper Crust know that they are better than you and me. But that hasn't stopped the band from dropping into rock, I mean roque clubs for nearly 20 years to deliver tales of excess and high society all to a soundtrack that would make Angus Young drop his pants in high praise. I caught up with the Upper Crust's Lord Bendover for an interview for Boston by Beat, which you can read by clicking here.

Soundgarden at The Palladium, May 15, 2013

Soundgarden still riding the wave

Soundgarden did not play "Black Hole Sun" during its concert at The Palladium in Worcester on May 15.

Cool. Bypassing its biggest hit was just one sign that Soundgarden is all the more confident in its attack since releasing "King Animal" late last year and touring like crazy ever since. Even though the band has been technically reformed since 2010, it has really taken until now for it to hit its stride and simply go off with abandon into the metally, trippy directions that distinguished Soundgarden within the lump-sum grunge package sold in the early '90s.

Like its show in Boston earlier this year, Soundgarden drew about half of its concert repertoire from "King Animal" and 1994's "Superunknown," still its masterpiece. The difference between the earlier show and now is that the band did not buffer the top half of the concert with better-known songs.

The  popular "Spoonman" came second, but was sandwiched between the far more rangy "Searching with My Good Eye Closed" opener and tumultuous "Room a Thousand Years Wide" that followed.         

Singer Chris Cornell seemed to get better as the two-hour show moved along, but even when he sounded buried in the mix or stymied finding the groove in "The Day I Tried to Live," it really didn't bring down the show as the rest of Soundgarden is in peak form. Guitarist Kim Thayil manages to sound like multiple players, switching between hooky riffs and nuanced leads. Drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd simply stormed through the playbook, providing a heavy swing even when the tunes tipped toward an airier psychedelic tone.  You caught that contrast best on "Superunknown" and the lava-like flow from "Blow Up the Outside World" into "Fell on Black Days."

The band's punk facet flashed on both old_ "Hunted Down"_ and new_ "Attrition"_ songs. Same with the bloozier jams, as the band peeled "Blood on the Valley Floor" from "King Animal" and plucked "Burden in My Hand" from "Down on the Upside." The overall song selection hammered home how Soundgarden never really backed itself into any particular corners and continues to explore all of the different tones it finds interesting.

For oddball choices, the band tossed out "Big Dumb Sex," its retort from back in the day to hair metal. And among the encores, the band offered "Flower," the psych-metal kick off to its debut full-length put out by SST (Cornell said being on a label that released records by Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, and Black Flag was a bigger deal to him than any of the major-label successes that followed).

Soundgarden is sounding like a real working band, as interested in pushing itself as in reconnecting  with an audience. The best thing that could happen next is another new album and no "20th Anniversary of 'Superunknown' Tour" that forces the band back into the black hole of nostalgia.

Mount Peru CD review, Boston by Beat, May 14, 2013

I found Mount Peru's "Is This Thing On?" to be a great blend of Americana and indie pop. Check out the review in the Boston by Beat blog by clicking here.

Bad Rabbits feature, Boston by Beat, May 13, 2013

Bad Rabbits

Boston's funky Bad Rabbits released "American Love" on May 14, and allowed me to exclusively stream the record on Boston by Beat one day ahead of release. I spoke with bassist Graham Masser about the album, performing at the upcoming Boston Calling Music Festival, and other Bad Rabbits developments. You can check out the story by clicking here.

Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys feature, Providence Journal, May 12, 2013

  A bluegrass band that's tweaking traditional sound

Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys

By Scott McLennan
Special to The Journal

 Don’t let the pluck and strum of mandolin, Dobro, upright bass, acoustic guitar and banjo mislead you into thinking Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys is a bluegrass band. Or at least a traditional bluegrass band.    

On its most recent album “Release Your Shrouds,” Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys take their old-timey instrumentation into some pretty interesting places, from the ragtime pop of “Tied Down to You” to the pastoral folk of “Leaves and Pods” to the contemporary commentary of “The Power.” When it comes to its bluegrass roots, the band plays it straight on “My Side of the Mountain,” and then slaps a Spanish accent on the high lonesome sound with “Querida Tierra.”    


“We are all just lovers of music,” says Lindsay “Lou” Rilko. “Music has taught all of us in the band about life. Music is a system of knowledge.”    

And this young band believes class is in session, constantly tweaking its sound without losing sight of its traditional roots. Just as “Release Your Shrouds” was subtly more progressive than its predecessor, the band is already breaking new ground, Rilko says, especially as it begins adding fiddle to the mix.    

But for the time being the configuration of Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys — Rilko on vocals and guitar, her husband, Joshua Rilko, on mandolin, Mark Lavengood on Dobro resophonic guitar, Spencer Cain on bass and Keith Billik on banjo — is on the road and heading to Cady’s Tavern in Chepachet on Wednesday.    

Singer Lindsay Lou (“Lou” being a nickname bestowed by friends, not a middle name or surname) and the bluegrass band the Flatbellys found each other about three years ago at an open-mic in Lansing, Mich. As the group developed, it tapped into a thriving roots-music scene supported by the Earthwork Music collective that promotes Michigan’s homemade music that is not related to Kid Rock, Bob Seger, or the MC5.    

“When I found out such a thing existed, it changed the world for me. The things I wanted were suddenly possible,” says Rilko of her intent to be both traditional and original. The communal jamming and swapping of musical ideas helped Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys forge its own identity, one that filters a modern world view through jazz, bluegrass and folk.    

Rilko says she believes natural selection is at work in music as firmly as it is in the natural world. She’ll hum a Stephen Foster melody and convince you it is as strong today as it was in the 1800s, which is why she and the Flatbellys are happy to wrap their sound around such a source: it’s proven to work.    

“The music that lasts is good at what it does. It’s good at communicating,” she says.    

Rather than simply covering the old songs, Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys capture the moments of the band members’ lives and times in these trusted frameworks; Rilko points out that a lot of what she writes about has to do with falling in love with her husband (“Writing about love is a great way to connect with people.”). That has helped net an audience, she says, that has as many twentysomethings as longtime acoustic-music followers.     

“One night we’ll be playing a fairly traditional bluegrass night in San Francisco, and then we’ll be at the Head for the Hills festival at the Bluebird [Theater] in Denver playing to all people our age,” Rilko says. “Sometimes we’re in listening rooms playing to older audiences, sometimes we’re playing house parties. That’s the cool thing about acoustic music.”     

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com  . Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1. 

To see how the story appeared in the Journal, click here.

Steve Earle feature, Boston Globe, May 9, 2013

Steve Earle continues down his own road on ‘The Low Highway’

By Scott McLennan

Globe Correspondent   May 09, 2013

Steve Earle describes his latest album, “The Low Highway,” as a “road record,” but cautions against expecting an escapist trip.

“It’s about what I saw just traveling around. Woody [Guthrie] was the first to really talk about the pain he was seeing as he traveled, and I think for the first time since then, times are that tough for a lot of people,” Earle says by phone when reached in Pennsylvania during a stop on a tour that brings him to the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on Sunday.

And though the pain of homelessness hangs over “Invisible,” temptation and desperation waft through “Pocket Full of Rain” and “Calico County,” and disappointment ripples through the “21st Century Blues,” Earle maintains that he is still an optimist. To that end, hope pokes through “That All You Got?” and “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way.”

“The Low Highway” is far more outward looking than its predecessor, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” And that’s not the only difference between the two records.

Earle recorded these tracks over a five-day span with his touring band, the Dukes (& the Duchesses) and reconnected with longtime producer Ray Kennedy after working over a longer period with T-Bone Burnett and several different musicians last time out. And while Earle has very few co-writes in his catalog, “The Low Highway” boasts two songs co-written with Earle’s costar on HBO’s “Treme,” Lucia Micarelli. So in short, this self-avowed baseball nut at 58 and 15 studio albums into it can still throw a curve.

Working with his touring band gives the record an easy groove, even as it moves from twangy rockers to ballads to a banjo tune. Earle’s vocals come across as unburnished as they do in a live setting and set up a nice contrast to the textures and depths of the music.

In the early 2000s, about a decade after reestablishing his music career following the fallout and recovery from his heroin abuse, Earle started acting, landing the recurring role of Walon in the television series “The Wire” and more recently appearing in “Treme.” Earle also had a part in the Tim Blake Nelson film “Leaves of Grass” and will be seen in the forthcoming film “The World Made Straight” playing, in his words, a sociopath.

“It’s not Harley,” he says of the New Orleans street musician he played on “Treme.” Harley mentors the younger Annie, played by 29-year-old Micarelli, who, like Earle, is a musician first and actress second.

These acting experiences have panned out in various ways. Earle says that being on “The Wire” made him a better performer on stage. And Nelson made the haunting video for “Invisible.”
Earle and Micarelli both said that their songwriting collaborations have been life imitating art imitating life. On “Treme,” Harley pushed Annie to write and sing “After Mardi Gras,” a song used in the show and is now on “The Low Highway” (though with Earle handling the vocals).

“Before ‘Treme’ I had never acted. I had never sung,” says Micarelli, a classically trained violinist. “I taught myself a few chords on guitar, copying YouTube videos, and I came up with a chord progression and melody, but I was struggling with the lyrics. I got up the nerve to play the chords and sing the melody to Steve and he says, ‘I love it. Let’s finish it tomorrow.’ And we banged out a song.”

With “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way,” it was Earle who was stuck and showed the tune to Micarelli who came up with the song’s classically inspired violin cadenza. She didn’t perform the actual violin part that ended up on the record, but Earle gave her a songwriting credit, and both say they hope to continue swapping song ideas.

And while Micarelli joins the chorus of those who praise Earle’s insightful, subtle, and empathetic writing, she may be surprised by how uncomplicated the process can sometimes be.

For instance, there is “Down the Road Part II”: Was it meant as a direct, artistically crafted echo of “Down the Road” from his critically acclaimed debut, “Guitar Town?”

Nope.

“It was the last song written for the album. I hadn’t played mandolin on the record, and I wanted to. There’s that line ‘down the road’ that I used before, so I just called it ‘two.’ ”

Still, Earle says a big part of his job is creating empathy, regardless if he is pulling a song from his own life or giving voice to the dispossessed, as he does on much of “The Low Highway.”

He says he learned the importance of that early in his career with the song “Little Rock ’n’ Roller,” a song about a touring musician missing his young son that clicked in unexpected ways.

“The first time I met Johnny Cash, he walks up to me and says, ‘Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.’ And he wants to talk about ‘Little Rock ’n’ Roller,’ and he related to how hard it was seeing his kids when they were young. Then I’d have truck drivers come up to me after a show and tell me how much they could relate to that song.”
 

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.

Littlewolf feature, Providence Journal, May 5, 2013

Littlwolf, Steve Lott and Kristi Clanton

Sunday Music LITTLEWOLF

 Experience and Youth

 

 

By Scott McLennan

Special to the Journal

 

Guitarist Steve Lott has been playing music for longer than singer Kristi Clanton has been alive. Yet somehow these two Texans found common ground to build the band Littlewolf, a blues-based, country-influenced, rocking ensemble blending experience and youth.    

“It’s a partnership,” Lott says. “You have a young person’s point of view on life, art and music. Then you have the old guy. I’ve got time in the business. In Littlewolf we blend that in a way that honors both. We’re not playing pop music, but there’s no reason why an older sound can’t be accessible and given a modern touch.”    

But in 22-year-old Clanton, that “modern touch” arrives with an old soul (want proof? Suss out her rendition of Eddie Burns’ “When I Get Drunk”). Singing around Texas since she was just 4 years old, Clanton had her mind set on singing the blues, and told Lott as much after meeting him in her parents’ barbecue restaurant in Lubbock.    

“I scoffed,” Lott says of his initial reaction to Clanton’s claim. “And then out of this little person comes this great big voice.”    

Clanton further showed her mettle when she wanted Lott to teach her lap-steel guitar in order to further develop a distinctive, yet rootsy sound.    

The veteran — who, after leading his own bands as well as being a sideman to Roy Buchanan and Peter Tosh, decamped to Australia for more than a decade before returning to this country — and the kid holed up in West Texas and developed songs that would appear on a stellar self-titled, self-produced album.    

Clanton says she was surprised how easily she and Lott meshed as songwriters. Their first collaboration yielded the sultry “The Trigger on Your Gun,” a song that became a calling-card single.   

  “I brought him a sheet with some lyrics and little pieces of music, and he showed me some stuff, and it all melted together,” Clanton says.     

Lott sent the finished record to his music contacts in Australia, not really expecting much of a response, when to his surprise he ended up with an invitation to play a big blues festival in Queensland. So Littlewolf spent May and June of last year down under.    

Around the same time, Steve Gaetz, a veteran nightclub manager in Massachusetts, stumbled upon Littlewolf’s video for “The Trigger on Your Gun” on the musicians’ social network website Fandalism. Gaetz shot off an e-mail to Littlewolf telling Lott and Clanton that if they could get to New England, he could supply backing musicians and a string of fall tour dates.    

Littlewolf took the New England blues scene by storm, catching the ear of radio DJ Carter Alan, who helms a popular Sunday morning blues show on WZLX in Boston. Alan championed the Littlewolf album, listing its “Twenty Lies Ago” at number 6 in his Top 25 songs of 2012.     

Littlewolf is back in the Northeast for an extensive run that includes a stop into Chan’s in Woonsocket on Friday. Singer Diane Blue is also on the bill.    

“This isn’t a gimmick,” Lott says, acknowledging the temptation to slap a label on an old-school band with a young frontwoman. “We’re not limited to any one thing. Everything we’ve done has felt fresh and interesting. This band has given me a lot of room to experiment.”     

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com   Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1

Z*L, GBO record reviews, Boston by Beat, May 8, 2013

The Boston bands Z*L and Ghost Box Orchestra released albums that coincidentally accentuated different aspects of psychedelic rock. I reviewed the albums side by side in Boston by Beat. You can read the reviews by clicking here.

Roger Miller interview, Boston by Beat, May 5, 2013

Roger Miller

Roger Miller may be best known for his work work with Mission of Burma. But one band is not enough for Miller, who seems to be undergoing a creative growth spurt. To read about Miller's work with the Trinary System, click here.

This is Boston review, Boston by Beat, May 7, 2013

Keith Bennett with Wrecking Crew

On May 6, the Boston hardcore-punk and extreme-metal scenes came together for a concert to benefit the One Fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. The show, dubbed This is Boston, featured Converge, Slapshot, and a reunited Wrecking Crew. To read my recap in Boston by Beat, click here.

Kingsley Flood concert review, Boston by Beat, May 4, 2013

Boston band Kingsley Flood released its fantastic sophomore disc "Battles" in February, but a blizzard scuttled the originally scheduled CD-release show. The band finally got to celebrate, and a packed Brighton Music Hall was on hand to help out. To read my review in Boston by Beat, click here.

Tallahassee CD review, Boston Globe, May 2, 2013

Noisy Neighbors

Tallahassee, ‘Old Ways’

By Scott McLennan

 Globe Correspondent    May 02, 2013

Tallahassee
Old Ways

For all its loose, peaceful flow, Tallahassee’s “Old Ways” has a dark undercurrent. The kickoff song, “Old Brown Shoes,” is about breaking free from a town that’s nothing more than faded memories. But then the ensuing songs hammer home the perils of hitting the road; at one point, the devil himself warns, “Young man, don’t ramble, you’ll end up alone.” For all its sorrow and heartbreak, “Old Ways” is a smooth listen. Singer Brian Barthelmes subsumes the songs’ angst into loping, cowboy blues, using well-chiseled lyrics instead of lung-busting bravado to make his points. Guitarist Scott Thompson further molds the mood with clean, steely leads that subtly push these folksy tunes into a rock ’n’ roll setting. Nothing gets loud or wild, which is an accomplishment considering the subject matter: “Daggers” is a brutal breakup song (and has Thompson’s most intense solo); the 50-second “Old Ways” is the gospel of repudiation; and “Where Oh Where” is all seeker’s resolve. Tallahassee may not shout amid the tumult, but still easily grabs your attention.
ESSENTIAL “Daggers”
Tallahassee plays May 3 at the Sinclair.

Gozu feature, Boston Globe, May 2, 2013

Scene & Heard

Gozu lightens up the heavy

By Scott McLennan

 |  Globe Correspondent     May 02, 2013

Gozu

 

 

 

 
Gozu takes its rock ’n’ roll seriously, but not too seriously. Using indelible guitar riffs, churning rhythms, and a mystical air in the vocals department, Gozu’s new album, “The Fury of a Patient Man,” chips the calcified crud off of a classic guitar-rock sound.

But masking this assertive push are song titles “Charles Bronson Pinchot,” “Signed, Epstein’s Mom,” “Traci Lords,” and “Snake Plissken,” a who’s who of ’70s and ’80s nostalgia.

“The genre can get a little pretentious,” says Gozu guitarist Doug Sherman. “I can’t write a song called ‘The Dragons Within.’ I can write ‘Here’s Ron Jeremy.’ Some people search for the meaning of the songs in the song titles. It’s just not there.”

Singer-guitarist Marc Gaffney says not only will the titles reveal little meaning, but the lyrics themselves are purposefully abstract.

“The titles are kooky, but there’s a heaviness to the lyrics. I’m getting stuff off my chest,” Gaffney says. “I try and make it so that people can get what they want from the songs.”

Drummer Barry Spillberg and bassist Joe Grotto complete the Gozu lineup. The band celebrates the release of “The Fury of a Patient Man” with shows Friday and Saturday at Radio in Somerville. Each night will boast a different lineup of bands playing with Gozu, and not all of the guest acts are coming from the local loud scene.

Though heavy, Gozu draws from varied sources, which stems from Sherman and Gaffney’s previous work in funk, soul, and R&B.

“I’ve always been into soul music and singers like Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley,” Gaffney says. “This is a fun contrast. A lot of the time I have no idea where I’m going to go with a song, and I’m just vibing off the crowd. Some of the stuff just comes. I’m not even thinking about it. I’m just basing it on how I’m feeling, or how my throat is feeling.”

And Gaffney can get away with that approach because the rest of the band provides a safety net. When Gozu recently performed at the Sinclair, Grotto and Spillberg put down a relentless boogie that Gaffney worked off of, sometimes soaring, sometimes murmuring.

Sherman says he bases the guitar leads on a Helmet-style “less is more” approach, so even though Gozu has its fan base in the stoner rock camp, the band itself has a tougher, more angular sound than the typical stoner band.

In producing and directing a music video for Gozu’s “Bald Bull,” Tim Catz capitalized on the band’s willingness to step outside the norm, going so far as to use a pink-and-black color scheme for the shoot.

“They’re not a heavy band singing about the devil or doing drugs. I wanted to work with vague imagery they use in their songs, make all of the evil implied. There are no upside-down crosses. There are no big-boobie girls,” says Catz, who also plays in Roadsaw and White Dynomite.

Sherman says that Gozu spent more time crafting the songs on its second album in hopes of shaking off the lazy comparisons it often draws.

“Every review mentions Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss. As a band, we’re not turning to that for inspiration,” he says. “I turn to Slayer.”

Maybe Gozu’s covers of D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” and Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years” cut for the vinyl release of “The Fury of a Patient Man” will set things straight. Or confuse them more.


BONUS TRACKS

It’s going to be hardcore heaven at the South Shore Music Hall in Quincy on Monday as Slapshot, a reunited Wrecking Crew, and Converge top the bill of a 10-band benefit concert for the One Fund, helping victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Keith Bennett didn’t intend to make a cross-generational heavy-music summit; it just happened once the PanzerBastard bassist started making calls. Though he did know he’d resurrect Wrecking Crew for this event.

“I’m not about, ‘Hey remember me from 20 years ago?’ but I knew PanzerBastard couldn’t do it,” Bennett says, noting that he and Wrecking Crew guitarist Ralph DiNunzio made the trek to Copley Square every Marathon Monday as kids, so reviving the Crew seemed a personal response to the attack.

Jack “Choke” Kelly is also working with a new band, Stars and Stripes, but knows that Slapshot still has its following. “I said, ‘Why are you even calling me? Of course we’ll do this,’ ” Kelly says of being part of the benefit.

“The punk, hardcore, and metal community usually takes care of itself. But it’s full of intelligent, compassionate people who’ll naturally want to help out when something like this happens,” says Converge’s Jacob Bannon.

And while Converge has vaulted beyond the local hardcore scene, Bannon owes up to being totally enamored as a kid by Bennett and to having the following reaction when seeing Slapshot at the Channel in 1990: “It was an Agnostic Front show, and Jack Kelly walks in wearing the Slapshot Boston jacket, and my jaw dropped.”

The “This Is Boston” benefit starts at 5 p.m. and also includes Dropdead, New Lows, the Revilers, Doomriders, For the Worse, Insult, and Sexcrement. Tickets are available via Ticketfly.com.
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.

Pretty & Nice CD review for Boston by Beat, April 29, 2013

"Golden Rules for Golden People" by Pretty & Nice

Experimental pop troupe "Pretty & Nice" released "Golden Rules for Golden People" on April 30. To read my review of the album in Boston by Beat, click here.