Category Archives: Bands/Artists

Blackalicious @ Paradise Rock Club

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I was in Boston last week for LinuxWorld. This is the second time this year that I have been in Boston for work– and I will be in Boston again in June for Microsoft TechEd. Seems the tech conferences are all moving there this year. I really like Boston. From a music perspective there is quite a bit to do there.

While I was there I saw Blackalicious with Pigeon John and the Lifesavas at the Paradise Rock Club. They also had Pharcyde MC Fat Lip and Leftcoast up-and-comer Omni on the bill. I went to the show with a couple of guys that I work with.

We got to the venue for the door opening at 7PM. Unfortunately, it was raining on and off all day and in the 30’s for temps. We stood in the will-call line for a long time periodically hopping up and down to stir up some heat. Judging by the others in line, I was the oldest person there.

When we got inside I went over to the merch table to see what stuff they had for sale. Lots of nice Blackalicious stuff– tees, CD’s, and some vinyl. There was stuff from Pigeon John, too. Manning the table was a couple of guys one of which I would find out was Omni himself. I picked up a 12″ of breakbeats. Omni helpfully explained that what I had in my hands was used by DJ’s. I nodded, consumed by looking at the stuff. At that point he shoved a record in my face– his record and announced that it just dropped and indicated that I should buy it. When I showed no interest he said that “maybe it’s too hardcore for you.” I nodded ironically and said that maybe it was. I headed to the bar. We snagged a nice corner table that gave us a great vantage point the whole night.

Before the bands started we got to hear DJ See Brown. He ran through a set of funk and HipHop with a little disco mixed in. He seemed to be warming up. He would be the DJ for Pigeon John, Omni, and Fat Lip.

First up was Pigeon John. I knew that he was signed to Quannum and I knew there was a bit of chatter going on about him. I frankly didn’t know what to expect from him. What we got was a fun and energetic set from someone who genuinely wanted to be there. He interacted with the crowd a lot and ran through his catalog including a couple of tracks from his forthcoming Quannum release due in the fall. His lyrics were very tongue in cheek and self deprecating. His set hit a peak when he had the voice of “god” telling him that him that no one in the audience liked him. He fell to his knees to great crowd shouting. Funny! A very good set. I look forward to seeing him in the future. I guess he tours constantly.

Next up was Omni. He did a thankfully short set. That is about all I remember from him except that he was wearing a Lifesavas teeshirt that confused a number of people who wanted to know if he was in that group. Based on that set, I certainly wouldn’t be buying his record.

Next up was Fat Lip. I hadn’t heard him before. I was roughly familiar with the Pharcyde. Based on what I heard this was mostly a set of Pharcyde stuff plus a new track called “Writer’s Block.” He was pretty entertaining. He flows a bit off beat, reminding me of Biz Markie. The crowd was full of fans. By this time the floor was pretty much filled up.

Next up was the Lifesavas. I had heard them before on a couple of other Quannum records as a supporting artist. Their set was very energetic. It reminded me of the Latyrx show I saw a number of years ago in Minneapolis. They did tracks from their upcoming release Gutterfly which seems pretty promising.

After Lifesavas was done, there was a break. I went up to the merchandise table. Pigeon John was manning his area of the table. I congratulated him on a fun set. I told him I liked MC’s with a sense of humor. He agreed and said he did too. I signed up for his mailing list. I asked him which of his CD’s I should get. He handed me Pigeon John Is Dating Your Sister and said that this one was the one that Lyrics Born heard that made him sign John to Quannum. I also picked up a mixtape (are they mixtapes when they are on CD?) done by the Rev. Shines who is the turntablist for Lifesavas called Today’s Good News vol. 1. This was done as a tribute to the late JayDilla.

Finally, it was time for Blackalicious. I have seen DJ Shadow a couple of times, and Lyrics Born with Lateef as Latyrx, but I hadn’t seen the Gift of Gab with Chief Xcel. Now, I’ve seen the entire original Solesides/Quannum crew! Onstage with Gab and the Chief were two background singers– a guy and a girl. There was some concern voiced by some of the people I talked to in line as I guess that due to health issues, the Gift of Gab wasn’t able to make their last show in Boston, and evidently Lyrics Born filled in. No sign of that. While the Chief manned the turntables, the Gift of Gab prowled the stage like a bull in heat spitting out rhymes with precision and speed you just don’t hear from MC’s these days. They did all of the great tracks from Blazing Arrow and Nia, plus a handful of tracks from their new release The Craft. They also did “Puttin’ on the Ritz” off of the Gift of Gab’s solo record 4th Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up. The crowd went nuts during the couple of freestyles that he delivered. I think that the Gift of Gab is still one of the best MC’s around. In fact, the MC’s on Quannum all set the bar for style and skill. High points of the night included “Chemical Calisthenics” and also “Deception.” On Deception Gab had the crowd singing along to the “La De Da Da Dee Dee Da” part. They wrapped up the night with an encore that included all the MC’s from the night.

It’s pretty clear to me watching all of the acts tonight that the years of working have added a certain polish to Blackalicious’s set. They approached the stage with the confidence that comes with the seasoning of years of work. They knew how to work the crowd and had the whole place rocking.

Coming Soon… plus Get your Swerve On!

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Greetings! It’s been a bit since I’ve done a post. Since the last post I’ve been in Boston and Minneapolis for work and personal. I’ve got a couple of posts I’m working on for both trips, plus I have a couple of reviews I’m working on. I hope to have most of this up this weekend.

In the meantime media mogul Rob Galgano is posting the phenominal Raise album by shoegazer alums Swervedriver. Rob posts great out-of-print stuff one track at a time under his “Hard To Find CD’s” category of posts. I highly recommend at least checking out the “Son of Mustang Ford” track. While you’re there you might consider subscribing to his aptly-named podcast “All Over The Place.”

Tapes ‘n Tapes – The Loon (review)

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The tendency for reviews is generally to compare whatever artist is being reviewed to other artists– especially established ones– to help describe to the reader what a particular band is like. This helps guide the reader to a particular sound or aspect of a sound. Unfortunately, it also has the effect of possibly pidgeonholing the band.

And, so it is with Minneapolis band Tapes ‘n Tapes. I started listening to this album last week. Frankly, I can’t stop listening to it for long. I’ve been swimming though a lot of albums from bands lately, and I’m always hoping for a complete work– strong songs from start to finish. In some cases, I get it, in some I don’t. I think this record is a winner on every track. Pitchfork reviewed this album and gave it a glowing review (in Pitchfork terms– an 8.3!). The reviewer pulls the reference right away– Pixies, Pavement, Wire and the Beach Boys. I’d agree with the first three anyway. The track “Insistor” is clearly a Pixies prototype down to the boom-chuck-boom-chuck Mexican style drums and surfy guitar tone. The lead singer spitting out reverbby vocals. Surfer Rosa, anyone? Come on Pilgrim!

My problem is I love the Pixies. So, I hear this as a derivative of that style and it feels really good. It isn’t fair to just peg them this way, but that is where it starts for me anyway. Every song on this album stands on its own as a gem. All songs seem to be executed with an urgency that I sincerely hope they will hold on to for their future works. It’s a bit astonishing to me how tight these tracks are– colored with precision and tone. In the track “In Houston” the song changes between verses in time and style. Alternating buzzy synth and guitars and post-rocky marimbas.

Tapes ‘n Tapes played SXSW this year and were invited to play a broadcast set for KXEP. The interviewer seemed to be in the same position I was in. She just got the CD one day and was amazed by it. This band seems to be just coming out of the blue with this record. And, their live shows seem to sound as good as this album! They said they’ve been together for three years. It looks like they had an EP or album out earlier before they released the Loon. She asks them if they had a big pile of songs to choose from, or if they just had this great set of songs to work with. Kind of a back-handed compliment, I guess. But, I know what she means. How is it possible this band has all of these songs so polished? In an interview with the band they state that they’ve been working on these songs for a while and “get what we had down on record.” She also points out hesitatingly that the band sounds a lot like the Pixies. Their response: “Yeah, we listen to a lot of Pixies records– what can you do?”

Take a listen to some tracks from The Loon

Insistor

Cowbell

Omaha

Here is the KXEP Show on the Austin City Limits stage served up by Fresh Bread complete with interview segments.

Tapes ‘n Tapes will be playing The Mill in Iowa City on 3/31 as part of the Mission Creek Midwest Festival along with local favorites Death Ships, Golden Birds from San Francisco, and The Attic Recordings from Chicago. I haven’t heard any of these groups before, but I know that Death Ships is a typical “bill filler” for the Mill.

City of Brotherly Love Celebrates their Love of R&B Brothers Hall and Oates

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I was in Philadephia this week on business and heard on the news that Philly Mayor John Street declared March 18th “Daryl Hall and John Oates Day.” The duo will be celebrating the honor with a show at the Tower Theater tonight. They were quoted on WXPN as saying the only thing that would have topped this honor would be a lifetime supply of Philly Cheesesteaks. In this article in the Philly Inquirer, we find out that Hall and Oates liken themselves to an R&B Grateful Dead due to their diehard fans attendance to their shows and the fact that they change up their setlists every night. In the article we find a typically silent Oates outspoken in his resentment of accusations of his playing Andrew Ridgley to Hall’s George Michael. Evidently Oates has thrown down the gauntlet for Conan O’Brien and will kick his ass if he ever sees him. What kind of brotherly love is that, now?

Ryan Adams Fans Face Jail Time for Leaking mp3’s

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Rob at The Great Leap Forward has an entry from Pitchfork on a couple of Ryan Adam’s fans who leaked Jacksonville City Nights tracks before the album came out. Unfortunately, they face some hard time for this under the new Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. Watch where you put your mp3’s, kids! Posting mp3’s on websites is really stupid, especially if they aren’t released, yet!

DJ Shadow Bio

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In 2001 when I was helping DJ Shadow bring his website on line he asked me to write a bio to include on the site. I was pretty excited for the opportunity and a bit nervous. Although I had been writing for my endtroducing.com website rather prolifically, I hadn’t tried to write a concise piece– FAQs and “posts” only. So, I spent about a week on it. Josh had a couple of revisions he wanted. In my original version, I implied that the label was at fault for the failure of Psyence Fiction from becoming a huge hit. Reasonably, he toned that down. He liked the final product, and it was the bio on the website for over a year before the site was reconstructed. It was the bio on the Quannum Records site without the last paragraph until the last revision of that site. Since neither site is using it, I decided to post it here for posterity.

Read “A Lifetime of Vinyl Culture” here.

It’s the Tone! The Diplomats of Solid Sound @ Martini’s in Iowa City

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Yesterday was Sherry’s and my Six-Year Anniversary, so I planned a dinner at Joseph’s Steakhouse in Iowa City after some shopping. I was looking at some other things on-line and happened to notice that The Diplomats of Solid Sound were playing at Martini’s, which is in the Ped Mall as well. I also noticed that there was a 7″ that I was missing from my collection: “Grease Monkey” b/w “Loaf and Jug.” It is a Spanish import on a label called VampiSoul. So I shot Doug from DOSS a quick e-mail asking if I’d be able to get one from him. He promptly replied and said he’d have some there. Bonus!

Some History: The Diplomats of Solid Sound is the latest project for longtime Iowa City musician Doug Roberson. Doug has been in a number of bands in Iowa City over the years. The first time I ever saw him in a band was in the Dangtrippers. This was in the late ’80’s. The Dangtrippers were signed to DogGone Records which was started by the then-manager of REM Jefferson Holt. Unfortunately, the label collapsed soon afterwords. Doug was in another band called Head Candy. Head Candy won a battle of the bands which gave them a record deal with Link Records, which was distributed by Hollywood/Elektra/Warner. This band had Jim Viner from Dubuque, IA, who is the current drummer for the Diplomats as well as Mike Sangster who came from the band The Hollowmen who had a couple of records out in the late 80’s. This band sounded a lot to me like some of the shoegazer bands like My Bloody Valentine due to its use of layered guitars and unique tunings. The resulting album Starcaster (released 1991) is an album I still consider to be one of the better efforts of this period. I still pull it out to give it a listen. Doug told me once that I might be the only person still listening to it. At the time there was a lot of speculation that Iowa City was going to blow up like another Athens or Seattle. Head Candy even had a video shown on MTV’s 120 Minutes (I think it was “Part of the Earth”). Jim and Doug resurrected the South/East Records label and started working on a compilation of Eastern Iowa bands as a vehicle to showcase the regions talent. I was in a band called Gust at this time and submitted a tape for consideration. I think that we were on the short list to be included for a while, but ultimately didn’t make it. The criticism we got back was that we needed a drummer. Some of the other artists that made it to The Third Times a Charm would go on to some notariety– Tripmaster Monkey from the Quad Cities got a major label signing and released a couple of albums. The scene never really achieved the recognition that I had hoped it would. Head Candy put out a couple of other songs on some compilations including one for an Alex Chilton tribute that I’d like to find some day. Mike Sangster left Iowa City for Minneapolis. Doug formed another band called The Bent Scepters that was a period-type band like the Diplomats. The Scepters were more in the vein of ’60’s Nuggets/garage type rock like the Kingsmen. A fun band, I saw them play the Silver Dollar in Dubuque on Holloween one year. The Diplomats were started in 1998 as a side project to the Scepters. The Scepters broke up in 1999 after member Patrick White move to France, and the Diplomats are Doug’s primary music gig today. White moved back to the US in 2001 and the Bent Scepters have played some reunion shows since. I have seen Dangtrippers reunion shows advertised in recent years, too.

I’ve got to hand it to my wife, she’s really patient when it comes to my music obsession! The show was supposed to start at 9:30, and we finished dinner around 7:30. So, we decided to hit Martini’s early. The upshot to that was that we got in before the cover charge took effect. The downside was that the place was packed with “Mother and Daughter Weekend” people wearing the same teeshirts– some sorority deal, I guess. Once the band came in and set up, most of them cleared out, thankfully. The band got a late start, but kicked things off with what looked to be some kind of jam that they were working out the chord changes on stage. They moved into some of their normal stuff like “Holdin’ The Money” and another song that seemed to be called “Do the Bacon.” Typical decent B-3 fueled R&B instrumentals like the Meters or Booker T & The MG’s. At one point Jim Viner got up from behind the drum kit to announce that one of their songs “Who’s Got the Grady?” from their 2003 release Let’s Cool One was used on the MTV show “There and Back” during a scene and that everyone in the band made $37 for it. They then played that song. Most of the crowd except me and another guy were ignoring the band. It surprises me that Iowa City can have a band the caliber of DOSS, and it surprises me even more that people don’t realize it! I really like this style of jazz/R&B. I grew up with Booker T & the MG’s– “Green Onions” is one of the best instrumentals ever next to “Walk, Don’t Run” or “Classical Gas.” I became interested in this type of music when I picked up the “Lost Grooves” series on Blue Note records which is based on the late 60’s Funky B-3 sound that a few of their artists had.

I’ve seen the Diplomats a half a dozen times or so over the years. This was the first time I’ve seen the lineup with Dave Basinger their new Sax player. Dave is the brother of Nate the keyboardist. By the time the set was over the bar was starting to fill up, and we needed to get home to the dogs who’d been in their kennel all day. I walked up and introduced myself to Doug with “Nice Tone!.” He remembered who I was from the other times we’d talked in the past. He replied with “That’s what is important!” We chit-chatted for a bit about Joseph’s and his guitar for a minute and he went out to get the 7″ for me. $5! Whatta deal! I left wishing I could stay a bit longer, but I’ll have to catch them later. They will be opening for Wilco at their Des Moines show– maybe I’ll see them there.

Update: The Bent Scepters will be playing Gabe’s Oasis on March 17, 2006.

Download Holdin’ The Money from Destination… Get Down!

Cat Power – The Greatest (review)

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I had read a few reviews of Chan Marshall’s new album as Cat Power called The Greatest. Some of the reviews praise the record as an attempt to become more accessible. Others bemoan the loss of the Cat Power that was risky, edgy, and underground. Chan (pronounced “Shawn”) packed up and went to Memphis to record this record at Ardent studios. Ardent is where Big Star did all of their greatest work. She worked with Memphis veterans such as Mabon “Teenie” Hodges and Steve Potts. These guys played with the likes of Al Green, Tina Turner, Neil Young, and Booker T and the MG’s. Teenie co-wrote “Take Me To The River” and “Love and Happiness” with Green. Pitchfork gives the record a 7.9/10– which is quite a compliment from them, however, their comment is that is sounds “outdated” or “musty” instead of timeless. They praise the album as one that will widen her audience.

So, I guess I stand in the widening row. I have heard some Cat Power in the past. I even have a live show that I traded for some Tortoise live show a couple of years back. I had always meant to listen to her covers record that she released in 2000, as I guess it was pretty good. I’ve sat through this album three times in a row (which I don’t usually do). I’ve come to the decision that I really like it. Sure, it isn’t really edgy or confrontational. It sounds like a record made by someone who was having a good time hanging out with some old school R&B guys. It is nice and laid back slightly jazzy with a really intimate small bar feel. The recording feels live to me, very little editing. The songs that stand out for me are “Moon” and “Love and Communication.” I really recommend this record. One of the reviewers for this record said that if “Adult Alternative” was going to include this kind of music then they should sign her up. The trouble with reviews is that all the best that anyone can do is compare the reviewed record to other records. Evidently she doesn’t have anything in her catalog that compares to this. At times it sounds more like a smoky, angry Dido record, or maybe a Natalie Merchant record after a night at the bars. I’d recommend this one. I plan to get the vinyl version, I think. Thanks to Matador’s very cool vinyl friendliness, we have a vinyl version! Also, there is a 7 inch single available for $.99!

Here is an mp3 of the first track on The Greatest.

The Pines on Live from Studio One

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One of those happy accidents happened tonight. I happened to be listening to KUNI on my way home from work and they announced that The Pines were going to be live on Studio One at 7PM. This was pretty good news because it would give me a chance to record it. The Pines are Benson Ramsey and David Huckfelt. They are living in Minneapolis today, but are both from Iowa. Benson Ramsey is the son of Bo Ramsey— who is pretty well known in Eastern Iowa as well as a noted producer for artists like Lucinda Williams and Greg Brown.

So, I recorded it to cassette on the compact stereo up in our bedroom (I need to get a receiver down by my workstation) and listened to it. They seemed humble and appreciating. They did an acoustic guitar duo set. They did a couple of Pines songs, a couple songs from Benson’s upcoming solo album The Light Under the Door which is supposed to be out this spring, and some other folk covers. They sound a lot like Bob Dylan’s acoustic guitar period. Observational stories. Really good stuff for a couple of young guys. I guess they met each other in Tulsa.

I bought the Pines first album last year and really enjoyed it. I haven’t seen them live yet, but I really am hoping to sometime. This spring we will have the solo Benson Ramsey album, as well as a Pines 7-song Folk EP.

So right now, I’m ripping the tape to .wav and will probably burn CD’s for everybody I know who likes the Pines. I wonder if I should torrent this?