ALBUM REVIEW | ROCK
Iggy and the Stooges, ‘Ready to Die’
By Scott McLennan
April 30, 2013
Essential “Burn”
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Iggy and the Stooges CD review, Boston Globe, April 30, 2013
Billy Bragg concert review, Boston Globe, April 30, 2013
Music Review
Billy Bragg delivers in two-hour set
By Scott McLennan
| Globe Correspondent April 30, 2013 | |
| Billy Bragg |
After opening his concert Sunday at the Berklee Performance Center with “Ideology,” Billy Bragg told the audience that his voice was a little off because of a cold, then recounted how a manager once told him, “Bill, nobody comes to hear you sing.”
They come to hear Bragg find that populist intersection of the political and the personal, which he handily did during a two-hour performance at Berklee.
Sniffles be damned: Bragg has a sharp, country-seasoned touring band; a new album, “Tooth & Nail,” from which he played seven songs in the 20-song set; and plenty to say, commenting on universal health care (for it), modern fascism (against it), same-sex marriage (for it), and Morrissey (against it).
Though typically painted as a radical punk with a folkie approach, Bragg, 55, has always been more complex than that, a point made when he turned to such older love songs as “The Milkman of Human Kindness” and “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood” — the former sweet, the latter bitter.
“Tooth & Nail” is full of mellow, personal
musings. But Bragg does not avoid sharper commentary. For instance, in
concert he played “There Will Be a Reckoning,” a fierce-sounding song
from the album that derides divisive politics. He wove a similar point
into his tale of reacting to the recent death of Margaret Thatcher, whom
Bragg called the UK’s most divisive prime minister of the last 100
years.
Bragg remains a Woody Guthrie apostle, adding Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home” to both the “Tooth & Nail” record and his concert set list, where it functioned as vehicle for Bragg to stump for universal health care and declare that “socialism is organized compassion.” Bragg also performed selections from the “Mermaid Avenue” albums he made with Wilco, on which they set unrecorded Guthrie lyrics to fresh music. These concert choices ran from the rollicking “My Flying Saucer” to the pugilistic “All You Fascists.”
Bragg is more provocative than militant, opening himself up to criticism from the very people coming to see him perform. One heckler tried to shout over Bragg’s discussion of socialized health care. Another howled when Bragg mocked singer Morrissey.
Bragg defused those situations with an easy humor, and ably put across his message to let activism be the cure to cynicism.
Opener Kim Churchill used a barrage of effects to launch his journal-style folk songs into big, haunting settings.
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.
He's My Brother She's My Sister preview, Providence Journal, April 28, 2013
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| He's My Brother She's My Sister |
Here's a feature on He's My Brother She's My Sister done for the Providence Journal
Sunday Music
Colorful, eclectic sound
HE’S MY BROTHER SHE’S MY SISTER
“I’m the impulsive, intuitive one,” says Rachel Kolar, the band’s “sister.” She says her brother Rob is into the details and the fine-tuning.
To illustrate, Kolar explains how she insisted that her longtime friend and partner in theater Lauren Brown be part of this musical troupe as it was just starting to jell a couple of years ago.
“I told him, ‘Lauren is going to tap dance in the band.’ Rob has been a musician his whole life, and says, ‘Tap dancer? You’re kidding me,’ ” Kolar recalls.
But rather than dismiss the idea, Brother Rob worked with Brown on playing drums. So now Brown is a unique rhythm machine, both visually and sonically as she taps and bangs the beat.
Besides a tap-dancing drummer and yin-yang siblings (she shakes the tambourine, he plays guitar and kick drum, they both sing), He’s My Brother She’s My Sister includes lap-slide guitar player Aaron Robinson and upright bass player Oliver Newell. The unwieldy name is something Kolar came up with when she posted the first few song collaborations with her brother online. Some who heard those songs wanted to book the music’s creators for performances, so the moniker stuck.
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister’s live shows and recent late-night TV appearance on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” are captivating for their visual flair. The musicians dress like Technicolor renegades and deliver the tunes with fiery enthusiasm; Kolar maintains that Newell can fly 10-feet in the air, bass in hand.
That you can check out for yourself when He’s My Brother She’s My Sister makes its Rhode Island debut Thursday at Fête in Providence. Doors open at 8 p.m. Jeffrey Lewis and the Rain and Beach Day are also on the bill.
When reached in Salt Lake City earlier on the band’s eastward trek, Kolar explains how it was important for the band to capture some of its live energy on its full-length debut, “Nobody Dances in This Town,” which came out in October. She says He’s My Brother She’s My Sister is trying to follow the Beatles’ example of being raw on its early records and more intricate later.
“We recorded in a living room over three days,” she says. “Rob and I worked with a producer over six months doing some vocals and putting on finishing touches. It was an interesting process, but next time we want to be all together in the studio and take advantage of that environment. This time was like adding limbs to the body.”
The record is as kaleidoscopic as the band itself, blending country and folk traditions with paisley pop and a little punk. Some songs sound cribbed from a zippy vaudeville routine, while the current single “Same Old Ground” has a bluesy drawl. There are nice, quick pivots on the record, like the way the ballad “Wake Your Heart” shifts into the whir and buzz of “Electric Love.”
The folk underpinnings and male/female vocal dynamic make it tempting to lump He’s My Brother She’s My Sister into the mellow wave that swept Mumford & Sons into stardom and lifted the likes of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes and the Lumineers. But He’s My Brother She’s My Sister isn’t really taking the same approach. Actually, there isn’t much an “approach” at all.
“It’s a sound we’re creating ourselves that represents who we are as people. You can’t place it in a category, and we kind of intended to do that. It gives us limitless possibilities,” Kolar says. “Astrologically, I’m a triple water sign. I just want things to flow.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1
Friday, April 26, 2013
"Soft Time Traveler" CD review, The Arts Fuse, April 25, 2013
Here's a review of Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys "Soft Time Traveler" for The Arts Fuse. To see the original, or to check out the online arts magazine, click here.
If I worked in a record store, I’d file Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ album Soft Time Traveler under “rock,” but I would stick a a giant asterisk on the cover.
The instrumentation—acoustic guitar, ukulele, viola, mandolin, double bass, melodica, accordion—suggests folk, but the songs themselves are rippling with a manic energy and lysergic vision; this is modern psychedelic rock stripped of the jam-band baggage and upending current folk-rock conventions.
The Boston-based septet is known for putting on visually compelling live shows, and it even manages to infuse a theatrical air into its studio recordings. Sometimes that is achieved through the sheer bravado of Sickert’s vocal work, sometimes with atmospheric bits, such as the chatter and crash of “Timeworn Animal.”
There is also a cinematic thread through the record’s 18 tracks. The title track comes last, and by that time, Sickert and his army have rolled out enough carnage and dread that the gas masks, fox holes, and mushroom clouds in “Soft Time Traveler” are practically sighs of resignation, especially because Sickert sings about them in an unworried tone.
The first reference to soft time travel comes in the acid banter of “Hypno-Jump Initiation,” an introduction to the Middle Eastern-accented “Little Paper Song.” If this music is all about tripping, Sickert’s doors of perception open up onto some pretty dark places. He begins by conjuring some exotic voodoo on "Devil's in the Details." A country-blues riff is soon sliced with the zip of viola, and then the rhythm arrives in the form of marching feet and clapping hands, which quickly get blown out by frantic drumming. The calm turns stormy in very subtle fashion.
As commanding a presence as Sickert is, the rest of the army—singer and accordionist Edrie, viola player Rachel Jayson, mandolin player Meff, ukulele player jojo Lazar, drummer Tee Jay, and bassists Mike Leggio—is crucial to crafting the album’s collision of world-music, folk, and blues influences. There are no pure strains of music in these songs; instead, there are allusions to everything from cabaret to gypsy jazz all balled together.
Things typically do not go well on Soft Time Traveler. In "Baba Yaga," a creature devours babies' bones and souls. In "Soldiers Came," we hear, "It's too late/We've been burned at the stake. Disasters, both man-made and natural rain down in "28 Seeds."
A lot of the writing is impressionistic, so Soft Time Traveler lands with a lighter touch than its subject matter would suggest. It’s that ironic contrast between tone and content that makes this such an interesting record.
There are a few flights of pure imagination, such as the A Clockwork Orange love song “Droog and Devotchka” and the gender-bending “Glory Box.”
Soft Time Traveler does not fit easily into any category, but the eclecticism works as a listening experience because the band isn’t forcing any of these startling juxtapositions. This is a case of authentic weirdness.
Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ next show in the Boston area is June 1 at Johnny D's in Somerville. The CD is in stores now as well as available online at http://armyoftoys.bandcamp.com/
Fuse News: The Authentic Weirdness of Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys
April 25, 2013
By Scott McLennan.
Soft Time Traveler by Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys.If I worked in a record store, I’d file Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ album Soft Time Traveler under “rock,” but I would stick a a giant asterisk on the cover.
The instrumentation—acoustic guitar, ukulele, viola, mandolin, double bass, melodica, accordion—suggests folk, but the songs themselves are rippling with a manic energy and lysergic vision; this is modern psychedelic rock stripped of the jam-band baggage and upending current folk-rock conventions.
The Boston-based septet is known for putting on visually compelling live shows, and it even manages to infuse a theatrical air into its studio recordings. Sometimes that is achieved through the sheer bravado of Sickert’s vocal work, sometimes with atmospheric bits, such as the chatter and crash of “Timeworn Animal.”
There is also a cinematic thread through the record’s 18 tracks. The title track comes last, and by that time, Sickert and his army have rolled out enough carnage and dread that the gas masks, fox holes, and mushroom clouds in “Soft Time Traveler” are practically sighs of resignation, especially because Sickert sings about them in an unworried tone.
The first reference to soft time travel comes in the acid banter of “Hypno-Jump Initiation,” an introduction to the Middle Eastern-accented “Little Paper Song.” If this music is all about tripping, Sickert’s doors of perception open up onto some pretty dark places. He begins by conjuring some exotic voodoo on "Devil's in the Details." A country-blues riff is soon sliced with the zip of viola, and then the rhythm arrives in the form of marching feet and clapping hands, which quickly get blown out by frantic drumming. The calm turns stormy in very subtle fashion.
As commanding a presence as Sickert is, the rest of the army—singer and accordionist Edrie, viola player Rachel Jayson, mandolin player Meff, ukulele player jojo Lazar, drummer Tee Jay, and bassists Mike Leggio—is crucial to crafting the album’s collision of world-music, folk, and blues influences. There are no pure strains of music in these songs; instead, there are allusions to everything from cabaret to gypsy jazz all balled together.
Things typically do not go well on Soft Time Traveler. In "Baba Yaga," a creature devours babies' bones and souls. In "Soldiers Came," we hear, "It's too late/We've been burned at the stake. Disasters, both man-made and natural rain down in "28 Seeds."
A lot of the writing is impressionistic, so Soft Time Traveler lands with a lighter touch than its subject matter would suggest. It’s that ironic contrast between tone and content that makes this such an interesting record.
There are a few flights of pure imagination, such as the A Clockwork Orange love song “Droog and Devotchka” and the gender-bending “Glory Box.”
Soft Time Traveler does not fit easily into any category, but the eclecticism works as a listening experience because the band isn’t forcing any of these startling juxtapositions. This is a case of authentic weirdness.
Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ next show in the Boston area is June 1 at Johnny D's in Somerville. The CD is in stores now as well as available online at http://armyoftoys.bandcamp.com/
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Metalfest commentary, The Arts Fuse, April 23, 2013
I was curious to see how the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent events would filter into the Metalfest.
by Scott McLennan |
| Opeth's Mikael Arkerfeldt (Photo by Sam McLennan) |
The Newport analogy came to mind years ago as Metalfest hit its stride in the early ’00s. By dint of covering music for the daily newspaper in Worcester, I was seeing a lot of heavy metal and hardcore, styles of music that for years got brushed off by Boston venues and were welcomed to the Heart of the Commonwealth. The music fan in me was drawn to the persistent pushing of boundaries in this music underground. These were young musicians who absorbed the sounds and messages of previous generations’ Black Sabbath and Black Flag then figured out how to make that defiance bolder and brasher. Every now and then you’d hear something slicing through the raw volume as distinctly different. That sense of discovery is music-fan manna no matter how it is packaged.
The Newport fests celebrate the roots of jazz and folk while exposing important new work to audiences that are supportive and curious. Likewise, the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival bundles old and new bands relegated to making records for independent imprints and playing clubs and small theaters. The festival linked the metal and hardcore cultures – akin to bringing bop and fusion together, or the audacity of Dylan going electric – and put together bills that were unique to the event itself.
And like Newport has George Wein, Worcester has Scott Lee, a diehard fan first, smart promoter second. Rarely do you hear bands openly thank promoters, but Lee (like Wein) is praised from the stage throughout the festival. This year a bunch of musicians and staffers even presented him with a trophy and the band Sick of it All went so far as to make a T shirt with Lee’s face emblazoned on the front especially for its Metalfest appearance.
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| Trapped Under Ice's set Sunday (Photo by Sam McLennan) |
The first sense of Metalfest being a community hit Friday. I was curious to see how the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent events would filter into the fest. It began with my Facebook newsfeed displaying “Going to Worcester to blow off steam”-type messages. And blowing off steam meant anything from simply facing a high-decibel barrage to hopping into a mosh pit where combat is turned into dance.
The performers made passing glances at the headlines, and I wasn’t surprised. A lot of metal is built on the premise that the world is an ugly place and bad things happen. The band Exodus, which got its start in 1982 in San Francisco, prefaced its song “War is My Shepherd” with the sentiment that the people responsible for the bombing should be shot in the head, seemingly unaware that one of the suspects was already dead. That sort of bluster is something to weigh in the cost of pursuing cathartic guitar work of the sort Exodus’ Gary Holt and Lee Altus execute.
Later in the night when news broke that the police had indeed captured the remaining suspect, the band Anthrax, another veteran from the 1980s, dedicated “I am the Law” to the Boston PD, and the crowd broke out “U-S-A” chants. That was actually more surprising than the call for blood, given metal’s historic disdain for authority.
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| Dillinger Escape Plan's Ben Weinman (Photo by Sam McLennan) |
But some bands have managed to successfully experiment with hardcore’s rawness, opening up the style’s sound without losing its tight connection to the listener. That was most evident in the set performed Saturday by Dillinger Escape Plan, a band that fuses the frantic to the cathartic. Singer Greg Puciato and guitarist Ben Weinman hurled themselves into the crowd, never missing a beat, well until Puciato crashed into the drums, tossed a cymbal to the ground, and sat in the lap of drummer Bill Rymer.
Dillinger Escape Plan fit the hardcore mold while stretching it to the breaking point. And in the context of the festival, the band’s performance set up the weekend’s most dramatic contrast as Opeth followed Dillinger Escape Plan.
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| Dillinger Escape Plan's Greg Puciato (Photo by Same McLennan) |
With the raw power of Trapped Under Ice’s set on the smaller second stage housed in the theater’s mezzanine, and performances by Suicidal Tendencies, Sick of It All, and D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), hardcore ruled the final night of the festival. That again was a bit of a risk as metal usually outweighs the hardcore in this equation. And again, risk worked, and did so because no matter what your particular taste in extreme music may be, the simple purity of what was being offered was appealing. The above-mentioned bands strip their music of the varnish and hype of the sort that it takes to get on the cover of glossy magazines, and on TV, and on the radio. Instead, they offer manic, passionate sets that proved to be more galvanizing than any light show or stage props ever could.
It is fine when Metallica or Rob Zombie shoots up in popularity and draws attention to a style of music too easily written off as inconsequential when in fact it outlasts trends and caters to a fan base much broader than simply pissed-off teenagers. But when that fan base gathers in Worcester each spring, it has little use for heavy music that’s been lightened up for commercial appeal. Metalfest is one of the few places where being blunt is far more attractive than being pretty.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Morse on Marley, Boston by Beat, April 21, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Cold Satellite, Boston by Beat, April, 17, 2013
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| Jeffrey Foucault and Lisa Olstein |
Talking records, Boston by Beat, April 18, 2013
Metalfest preview, Boston Globe, April 19, 2013
New England Metal and Hardcore Festival rages into its 15th year
By Scott McLennan
| Globe Correspondent | |
| Hatebreed |
Scott Lee sees the Palladium differently, especially this time of year, when the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival takes over the old theater. That’s when the Palladium becomes, in Lee’s mind, “a sanctuary.”
A very loud, aggressive sanctuary, yet still a place where thousands gather in devotion to a style of music that is as cathartic to them as it is abusive to those who have no taste for extreme music.
Lee has been at the helm of the New England Metal and Hardcore Fest since its inception in 1999. Every year since then, he has worked with the rest of the MassConcerts organization to bring a cross-section of bands that represent what’s going on in the heavy-music underground.
For its 15th year, Metalfest once again offers a
careful blend of music that both sticks to the niche but likewise
demonstrates just how broad the heavy spectrum is. The festival, which
runs Friday through Sunday, has “classic” acts Anthrax, Suicidal
Tendencies, and Exodus and rising stars such as After the Burial and the
Contortionist. There is a variety that runs from the experimental
approach of Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die to the nasty
thrash of Municipal Waste. You’ve got folk-metal with Týr,
technical-death metal with Born of Osiris, and straight-up hardcore with
Sick of It All and Terror. You’ll hear songs rooted in everything from
Norse mythology to Christianity to plain ol’ disgust with the human
race. More than 70 bands are on the bill.
“We’re a mall, a great mall,” Lee says.
Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta, who announced his band’s participation in Metalfest during a show at the Palladium last fall, sounded more like a fan than a headliner when talking about sharing the stage on Friday with Anthrax, which plans to perform its landmark “Among the Living” album in its entirety now that original singer Joey Belladonna is back in the lineup.
“I am so inspired by Joey Belladonna. Even in those years that were not looking so great, when he was out of Anthrax and back in clubs, he had heart and was doing it for the love of the music,” Jasta says. “I was in Australia with my other band [Kingdom of Sorrow] and met Joey and we talked about Metalfest. We’ve never done a co-headlining show with Anthrax, so this will be special.”
Making something special is what Lee had in mind when plotting Metalfest after attending the Milwaukee Metal Fest in 1997 with the band Shadows Fall, which he was managing at the time. Lee and Shadows Fall guitarist Matt Bachand both size up the experience in Milwaukee as horrible.
“I was trying to hand out CDs of our music and I’d just watch people
throw them away. It was like nobody cared,” Bachand says. (The reception
will likely be different when Shadows Fall returns to Metalfest on
Friday.)
The festival also draws from metal enclaves around the globe. In 2001, Opeth launched its first US tour at Metalfest. The Swedish band had developed a cult following for the prog-metal albums it began releasing in the mid-’90s, but rarely played live until that first tour launched from the Palladium.
By 2003, Opeth was back headlining Metalfest, which it will do again on Saturday. Opeth is unpredictable, moving from a grinding death-metal influence in its early work to the more melodic sound of last year’s “Heritage” album, which band founder Mikael Åkerfeldt says is in line with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.
“We do challenge our crowd,” Åkerfeldt says, noting that this
upcoming show will cover more of the full Opeth legacy as well as
material from “Heritage.”
At the other end of the spectrum is Texas in July, a band whose members are barely out of high school as they make their second consecutive appearance at Metalfest.
“It’s a legendary festival, something we always wanted to be a part of,” says Texas in July bassist Ben Witkowski.
The Pennsylvania metalcore band recently released its third full-length album and is at a juncture where it is influencing the heavy-music scene with a fresh energy as well as still learning the ropes. Witkowski says last year at the fest he simply watched how bands carried themselves and presented their work.
“You never want to be comfortable. You never want to feel like you’ve arrived or you’re cool because you’re on this stage,” he says. “When you’re playing with a bunch of other great bands in front of that crowd, you have to keep the pressure on.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Lot of ladies rocking, Boston by Beat, April 16, 2013
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| The Deep North |
Monday, April 15, 2013
Black Crowes concert review, Boston Globe, April 15, 2013
Music Review
Black Crowes get back to the basics
Muse concert review, Boston Globe, April 15,2013
Music Review
With Muse, spectacle doesn’t obscure the sound
By Scott McLennan
| Globe Correspondent April 15, 2013
A pyramid of display screens and lights that alternately hovered over the stage and encased the musicians was the visual focal point of the stage design. The futuristic totem flashed song lyrics, displayed graphics and bits of song-video imagery, and lit up like a beacon, effectively illustrating Muse’s ability to draw crowds.
Additional effects were built into the presentation, yet none of the visual flash obscured the music itself. The show is big, but not limiting, as Muse typically plays a different set of songs each night even as it concentrates on material from its most recent release, “The 2nd Law.”
That album’s opening number, “Supremacy,” likewise served as a churning start to the concert (well, after a bit of pyramid glitz). Singer and guitarist Matt Bellamy immediately conjured the theatrical mood that he, drummer Dominic Howard, and bassist Christopher Wolstenholme would sustain over a 90-minute show (aided by touring keyboard player Morgan Nicholls).
“The 2nd Law” and its predecessor, “The Resistance,”
blend romantic escapism and dark social commentary about control,
authority, and eroding humanity. As a frontman, Bellamy stays atop the
big ideas, delivering them with a sense of triumph that inevitably
turned the Garden into a dance party. Even “United States of Eurasia,”
evocative of the nuclear threat in recent headlines, was more of a
bonding experience than a frightening one.
Muse also isn’t afraid to show off its inner geek; “Knights of
Cydonia” is the kind of song that is cool because the band isn’t worried
about how it looks playing a surf-rock-based, cinematic epic prefaced
with a mournful harmonica solo.Muse generally overstuffed its sound, with Bellamy reeling off several frenetic guitar parts, going so far as to play a Jimi Hendrix-style “Star-Spangled Banner” before segueing into the disco throb of “Panic Station.”
The spectacle carried right into the encores, as a sea of smacking lips — Stones aspirations? — lit up the pyramid screens during “Survival.”
Biffy Clyro opened the concert, and, like Muse, covered a variety of textures from the hard edge of “Stingin’ Belle” to the slick pop of “Bubbles.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Rumble watching, Boston by Beat, April 2013
Old Abram Brown CD review, Boston by Beat, April 9, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Brad Paisley CD review, Boston Globe, April 9, 2013
Album review | Country
Brad Paisley, ‘Wheelhouse’
Monday, April 8, 2013
Living Colour concert review, Boston Globe, April 8, 2013
Music Review
Vivid display from Living Colour at the Paradise
By Scott McLennan
| Globe Correspondent April 08, 2013
Living Colour is celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Vivid’s” release with a tour that brought the band to the Paradise Friday night. The sold-out affair reiterated the splendor of “Vivid” and reinforced that Living Colour — even a little greyer — is still a devastating band.
After warming up with a moaning rendition of Robert Johnson’s “Preachin’ Blues,” guitarist Vernon Reid, singer Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun, and bassist Doug Wimbish (who joined in 1992) performed “Vivid” in its playing order. That meant the group’s most popular song, “Cult of Personality,” came first. The delivery was electric, belying the mild-mannered vests-and-ties garb the musicians wore. Glover’s voice brimmed with operatic soul while Reid tore through the first of what would be many lightning-fast solos.
The song’s cynicism toward authority holds up, so that, coupled with the nostalgia of hearing a big hit immediately, set a high mark the band would have to match for the remainder of the two-hour concert. Meeting the challenge without difficulty, Living Colour revealed the depths of both “Vivid” and the band itself.
The album’s sharp commentary on class and race
surfaced on “Open Letter (to a Landlord),” “Funny Vibe,” and “Which Way
to America?” “I Want to Know” and “Broken Hearts” offered sheer pop
appeal. “Middle Man” and “Glamour Boys” aired the band’s satirical side,
while a cover of Talking Heads “Memories Can’t Wait” remained a vehicle
for frenetic exploration. “Desperate People” and “What’s Your Favorite
Color” were textbook room rockers.
Living Colour gave a fresh look to all of those facets. A spectral
“Amazing Grace,” for instance, became the introduction to “Landlord.”Wimbish and Calhoun (a Berklee grad who pointed out former instructor Lenny Nelson in the audience) masterfully worked through the range of rhythms on “Vivid.” But it was Reid who typically tipped the sound into the unreal, deploying flurries of finger-tapped notes and shaping bits of sonic squall into melody.
Living Colour played five additional songs from its back catalog, peaking on “Time’s Up” as it became a punk-funk blowout that interpolated James Brown’s “Sex Machine.”
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Punk VS Metal, Boston by Beat, April 5, 2013
In Boston, punk and metal have a peaceful coexistence. Here's a Boston look at how that
works. Click here for story.
works. Click here for story.
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| Soul Remnants |
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| Razors in the Night |
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Await Rescue E.P. review, Boston by Beat, April 4, 2013
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| Await Rescue |
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Rapplesauce, Boston by Beat, April 2, 2013
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| Rapplesauce |
Here's a link to the post in Boston.com's Boston by Beat music blog about the funk band Rapplesauce. Band leader Sam Ravenna talks about the making of Rapplesauce's debut "Good For You" and gets into some of the group's sprawling banckgroung. Click here.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Herra Terra, Boston by Beat, March 28, 2013
Bad Religion/the Bronx review, Boston Globe, April 1, 2013
Music Review
.jpg) |
| Greg Graffin of Bad Religion |
Bad Religion, the Bronx show punk’s staying power
Blues in Schools feature, Boston Globe, March 29, 2013
Giving kids the blues in Worcester
Hands-on program offers students a musical history lesson
By Scott McLennan
Globe Correspondent
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| Jon Short teaching his Blues in Schools at City View school in Worcester (Boston Globe photo) |
WORCESTER — The fifth-grade students at City View Discovery School working with teacher Jon Short don’t sit at desks or have notebooks and pencils at the ready. Instead, they have acoustic guitars in their laps and copper slides on their fingers.
And Short, who is also a skilled performer of hill country and delta blues, was likewise messing with the norm. He started strumming Robert Johnson’s “Walking Blues” on his guitar, but instead of singing the familiar lines about waking up and looking around for his shoes, Short belted out, “I woke up this morning/ I saw a dinosaur/ He said to me ‘Hello,’/ I said, ‘Let’s go,’ ” lyrics courtesy of students Karrar Daffaie and Jorge Ocasio.
These daily classes at City View are one facet of the Blues in Schools program that the musician and educator started 10 years ago and will be making a presentation on next month during his now-routine appearance at the annual Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Miss.
“I bring my National Reso-Phonic to work with me everyday,” he says, pointing to the steel-body guitar. The instrument — known as “Louise” — helps demonstrate his lessons to the students in his general music classes at two Worcester elementary schools as well as keep the music flowing during the many different Blues in Schools offerings. It’s also the instrument you’re likely to see if you catch Short performing at the various bars and blues haunts he plays.
Short began intertwining his music and teaching while earning his master’s in education. By that point, Short was already an elementary-level teacher in Worcester public schools and a well-known performer of acoustic country blues, a style of music that began to mesmerize him while still a college student in the late ’90s. In 2003, he developed his first curriculum for an after-school blues program.
City View made Blues in Schools among the enrichment classes that are part of the extended-day magnet school’s academic offerings. In the previous quarter at the school, Short taught first-graders how to play bucket drums. Short admits that blues are pretty prominent even when he is teaching music at his other classroom gigs.
Blues in Schools goes beyond Worcester elementary students. Short is also currently conducting a workshop at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, teaching other educators how to use slide guitar and songwriting as learning tools. Short has been to several Massachusetts communities and visited other states with his Blues in Schools, presenting residencies, after-school workshops, and school-wide assemblies that delve into the history and art of the blues.
Short’s work at City View is particularly intensive. There are enough guitars so the class of 25 can work mostly in pairs with the instruments. The guitars come from many sources: gifts from local and national music businesses; deliveries from the nonprofit Guitars in the Classroom; and a few plucked from the largesse donated to the public schools in exchange for Barry Manilow tickets when the performer played last year at the DCU Center in Worcester. Hustling like only an independent musician can, Short even lined up a Worcester smoke shop to kick in a bunch of cigar boxes that the students at City View will be turning into primitive, country-style guitars of their own.
Last week, though, it was slide time. The students rummaged through a bucket of copper pipe pieces that Short cut to various lengths. Once everyone had a comfortable fit, the students mimicked Short. “Open, open, slide, open,” the teacher said as he demonstrated a strumming pattern the students quickly picked up. Without any egging on, the kids realized how the slides made the guitars “moan” like voices, and the cafeteria space used for the class suddenly sounded like an Elmore James echo chamber. Breakthrough.
Short later explains how he is simultaneously employing the Orff pedagogy of music instruction and replicating ancient folk traditions. The Orff approach is performance based, with skills fine-tuned along the way, thus the freewheeling guitar playing. When Short has his students write song lyrics based off of “Walking Blues,” he is simply furthering the folk tradition of “piggy back” songwriting — creating tunes made to mirror other popular songs.
“The hill country blues are a big part of this,” Short says. “The hill country rhythms were from a fife and drum tradition. It’s an oral tradition of drumming, and comes from Ghana drumming. We’re teaching it here the way musicians originally learned it.”
The Memphis-based Blues Foundation considers Short “a good friend and excellent performer.”
“His Blues in Schools work is very important,” says Joe Whitmer, deputy director of the foundation connected to blues awareness and preservation programs around the world. The Blues Foundation has no set school program, instead keeping tabs on individual efforts and helping blues educators share ideas through foundation resources.
“The only way young people will understand the history of this music is through school programs,” Whitmer says. “When you get down to it, all Western music comes from the blues, so this is very important work, and Jon has been very successful.”
However important the work might be, there’s no missing the simple joy transpiring during a 40-minute blues class at City View. Feet are tapping the floor and heads are bobbing all in time to the rhythm. Faces crack into smiles when a simple chord rings sweetly after a few sour strikes.
After class, students Deanna Anderson and Kiary Nieves talked about writing blues songs. “You have to write about stuff you go through,” Anderson says, with Nieves adding, “I wrote a song about breakfast.”
James Montgomery CD review, Boston Globe, March 29, 2013
James Montgomery
From Detroit to the Delta
James Montgomery’s new album is all over the place, and that is intentional. The kingpin of New England blues uses “From Detroit to the Delta” to celebrate the many blues traditions he has explored in a career that stretches back to the late 1960s.
The razor-sharp performance skills Montgomery and his band routinely
display on stage tie together this revue of blues as filtered through
R&B, funk, rock, country, and Chicago styles. Montgomery’s pliable
vocals and harmonica playing smoothly move from the slick, horn-driven
numbers such as “Intoxicated” to the grittier fare represented by the
rumble of John Lee Hooker’s “Motor City Is Burning” and ethereal cry of
the instrumental “River’s Edge.”
Guests along for the trip include slide-guitar ace Johnny Winter, Aerosmith’s drummer Joey Kramer and guitarist Brad Whitford, rapper Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, the Uptown Horns, and blues-harp legend James Cotton.
The added star power makes the stylistic leaps more palatable. But Montgomery’s band — guitarist George McCann, bassist Dave Hull (who also produced the record), and drummer Seth Pappas — provides the confidence and balance necessary to pull off a record like this. The crew is right in the pocket with the boss, adding soulful character to the project whether handling the country lope of McCann’s “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” or turning Willie Dixon’s “Same Thing” into fuzzed-out psychedelia. (Out now)SCOTT McLENNAN
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