09 (review)

Posted on November 16, 2009 by mike

Last week I posted about the first of the three This Land is Your Music shows at The Mill Restaurant in Iowa City featuring Pieta Brown and selected regional artists. Last week’s show featured Pieta in a solo acoustic setting. This week’s show featured Pieta in her most common live configuration– in a duo with Bo Ramsey. This was a show I was really looking forward to as it also had Bo as the opening act as a solo acoustic performance, which I hadn’t seen before!

As much as I look back fondly on the bar-rocking Sliders days of Bo, it is really interesting to see the “gentleman bluesman” identity Bo has adopted in the last decade or so. Seeing Bo on stage sitting down with his acoustic guitar in trademark attire of suit, boots and straw hat recalls at once both Hank Williams and Robert Johnson.

Bo’s music translates favorably to an acoustic setting and his guitar technique and chops are just as impressive as his electric ones. The song selection for his set spanned his entire career dipping back to the 80’s with “Back No More” and “I Don’t Know.” He pulled out “555 x 2” from Down to Bastrop which drew a favorable crowd reaction. We were also treated to his cover of “Sitting On Top of the World” he recorded for his blues “tribute” album Stranger Blues and my personal favorite from last year’s Fragile, “Buffalo to Jericho.”

Bo also performed two new songs– both of them co-written with Pieta Brown. “No Place Like Home” and “Going Back.” “Going Back” is a chanted lament for a simpler time with the repeated phrase “I’m Going Back.” Both songs are good– I’d heard them when Bo played the Mill back at the end of October. Hopefully this means he’s working on another album of material!

After a very short break where Pieta and Bo huddled in the corner going over the setlist they would play– they started into their set. It’s impressive to think that Pieta and Bo have been performing like this since the beginning of her career dating back to her first record around 2002. Bo as a sideman is a generational tradition started with Bo and Greg Brown and it’s an effective if economical way to perform. It is clearly a comfortable arrangement for both Bo and Pieta and neither of them really overshadow the other.

The set didn’t have much duplicates from last week except for three songs– the new “Faller” which is based on her meeting Tom Petty, “Calling All Angels,” and “Bad News.” The rest of the songs were a good mix of new and old and some choice covers. We also got a new track from the Shimmer EP– “Diamonds in the Sky” which she introduced by saying it was the first time playing it outside her bedroom.

The highlight of the night, however, was when she called Dave Moore up to the stage to perform five songs with them. He stuck to harmonica for most of the songs adding incendiary licks to “Are You Free”– I wish I would have recorded that! He switched to accordion for the Hank Williams song “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

In the backroom gallery was work by Codi Josephson who runs Home Ec Workshop in Iowa City. She showed a collection of print-on-fabric pieces that looked pretty cool. You can see the exhibit in the flickr picture set.

This Thursday, 11/19 is the final show in the series and will have Pieta Brown fronting a full band made up of members of Bo’s band. Having seen her fronting a full band before, I urge anyone who can make it to come out! The first two shows were fairly low-key, but with a drummer there is a good chance people will be out shaking it on the dance floor. The opening act will be Dustin Busch, and the gallery exhibit will be from Sandy Dyas and will be an installation of her photographs– I think it will be based on her “Heaven and Earth” installation at Cornell College. Doors are at 7PM, show is promptly at 8PM and admission is $10– the proceeds of which go to support Public Radio, KCCK, and the Friends of Hickory Hill.

Bo’s Setlist:
Sitting On Top Of The World (Big Bill Broonzy cover)
No Place Like Home*
Going Back*
Tell Me Now
555 x 2
Back No More
Buffalo to Jericho
I Don’t Know

Pieta’s Setlist”
How Many Times
Prayer of Roses*
Even When
Loving You Still
Rollin’ Down the Tracks
Bad News
Faller
I’m Going Away Blues (w/Dave Moore) (Frank Stokes cover)
Are You Free (w/Dave Moore)
Diamonds In The Sky (w/Dave Moore)
I Don’t Want to Come Down (w/Dave Moore)
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (w/Dave Moore) (Hank Williams cover)
Calling All Angels
I’m Over You
Red Apple Juice (standard)

Click Here to visit the Mill Restaurant Website

Click Here to read my review of the first This Land is Your Music show on 11/5/09

Click Here to read my review of the third This Land is Your Music show on 11/19/09

Click Here to view the flickr picture set.

This Land is Your Music Show at The Mill in Iowa City 11/5/09 (review)

Posted on November 7, 2009 by mike

In the middle of her solo performance at The Mill in Iowa City Thursday night, Pieta said to the small crowd, “It’s like I’m playing to you in my living room!” Pieta was referring to the small crowd on Thursday night, but the stage was adorned with a chair and nightstand as well as lamps and an old dress form giving the stage a homey touch with lighting designed by Stan Crocker, who has done a lot of lighting design for TV shows like CMT’s Crossroads.

Last night was the first night of a three-week artist-in-residency at the Mill Restaurant in Iowa City of Pieta Brown. As stated earlier, the This Land Is Your Music series is showcasing Pieta Brown’s music but also includes other musicians from the area as well as other artists. Pieta stated in an interview with Ben Kieffer on IPR’s The Exchange that she wanted to take the opportunity to try out her music– new music and old in different configurations– solo, duo and full-band. She feels that The Mill was is a good place for her to try out new material which will be drawn from her new EP on Red House Shimmer, as well as songs that she is recording for her next full-length to come out next spring.

Last night’s show featured Pieta performing solo with Bo Ramsey’s son Alex Ramsey opening. In the back-room gallery the art of Pieta’s sister Zoe Brown and photographs by Dustin Busch were on exhibit. A last-minute addition to the lineup were three writers from the University of Iowa International Writing Program reading their short stories.

Alex Ramsey has contributed his keyboard skills to a number of Eastern Iowa music releases including a two records from the Pines as well as the last couple of Bo Ramsey albums but to date he hasn’t had much exposure as a solo artist. I made the very incorrect assumption that Alex, like his brother Benson would provide a sound that draws from the folk and country blues that is identified with so many artists from our area. Alex played a set of original piano-driven music that reminded me at times of Radiohead’s piano-focused songs but I would also compare it to the late Epic Soundtracks. It’s the slightly off-kilter but soulful vocal combined with the piano that brought me back to 1991’s Rise Above. Alex’s set was a combination of vocal and instrumental songs– most of which were described as works-in-progress. Alex performed three covers– one by Dr. Dog– “Livin’ A Dream,” a relatively obscure John Lennon track “Mr. Hyde’s Gone (Don’t Be Afraid)” which I think is only included on the Anthology box as a home demo, and he wrapped up his set with “Waltz (Better Than Fine)” by Fiona Apple. He said during the show that he wished he had a CD he could sell us– I do, too!

Following Alex was three participants in the International Writing Program reading their own short stories. I wasn’t able to catch their names, but one of them was Maxine Case from South Africa who read her short story “Homing Pigeons” (exerpt here). Another writer was Garcia Groyon from the Philippines. I can’t identify the first writer from the pictures. I think it was pretty cool that they were able to participate– it reminded me of the incredible resource the U of I writing program is.

Up next was Pieta who set out to do a solo set, but ended up adding in some special guests towards the end of it. I’d never seen her perform solo before, so it was a treat to hear how her guitar work changes to fill in the missing guitar parts typically provided by Bo Ramsey. She’s not a flashy lead guitarist, but I was impressed with her ability to drop in a arpeggiated chord or two to round the songs out. “New songs and new guitars– probably not an advisable combination” she quipped at one point– apparently she had all new guitars in tow. The last time I saw her she mentioned that she was getting her own Reverend Flatroc, so this time the guitar was here. In a pretty butterscotchish color apparently called “Rock Orange.”

The set was a pretty good mix recent songs, older songs and new songs as she set out to do. Curiously, she only did one song from her upcoming EP Shimmer– “You’re My Lover Now”– which seems to be the “single” if there was one. Of course, the Shimmer songs were recorded back in March and she said that she just got back from recording songs for her full length, so possibly these are fresher to her. She told me that she doesn’t really hit the stage with a setlist in mind. Three of the songs were from her self-released Flight Time EP with just one track from Remember the Sun and her arrangement of the traditional “Little Sparrow” from her I Never Told EP. She dropped in her version of the blues standard “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” and “Calling All Angels” which she did as part of her KCRW session back in 2007.

We were blessed with some new songs that all sound like they have some potential in the studio. “The Other Way Around” and “It Wasn’t That” were new songs to me. She also did “Faller” which I had heard when she did her show at the Mill with a full band back in June.

After the first nine songs she decided to invite her sister Constie Brown up to sing on “Remember the Sun” and “Just” and then she invited Dustin Busch up to the stage to provide some slide guitar to “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” and “Harry’s Blues.” Pieta said that her original plan was to play all of the instruments she had on stage by herself as she handed Dustin the Flatroc and a slide. She added that growing up music was always about getting people together to play. Dustin quickly adapted to the guitar and provided some nice accompaniment to Pieta. I’m looking forward to seeing his opening set at the This Land Is Your Music show on 11/19.

The backroom gallery was the back area of the restaurant that could be closed off and I think is sometimes used as a “backstage” area for bands. In its capacity of art gallery it was able to have some lighting to show the paintings of Zoe Brown and the photos of Dustin Busch. The gallery seemed to enjoy a pretty constant flow of people.

I like Zoe’s paintings quite a bit– you can see more of them in my slideshow below or at the flickr.com set. She’s not afraid of big expanses of color. Dustin’s double-exposureish photos were pretty cool, too. I would have liked to see more of them and maybe larger.

Ultimately, I think this is a really cool thing that Pieta is trying to put together. The idea is pure– bring the regional art together in celebration and give back. I think in our Internet-enabled era where we find our art and culture on a nearly boundless territory we often forget that there are artists in our own backyard that are worth supporting.

If you are available on either of the next two Thursday nights– 11/12 and 11/19– make the effort to come out. These are guaranteed to be loose, fun shows as Pieta considers the Mill to be her home turf.

The 11/12 show has Bo Ramsey opening and supporting her in her set with a gallery of Codi Josephson’s work. The 11/19 show will have Dustin Busch opening with Pieta fronting a full band that, billed as “Skyrocket,” I believe will have Jon Penner, Steve Hayes and Al Shares (I think). The gallery on the 19th will be a installation of photographs of Iowa photographer and supporter of the local scene Sandy Dyas.

The cover is $10 will proceeds going to support Iowa Public Radio, KCCK, and the Friends of Hickory Hill. Doors are at 7PM with the show starting at 8PM.

Pieta’s Setlist:

West Monroe
Other Way Around*
Bad News
Faller*
It Wasn’t That*
Calling All Angels
Little Sparrow
Gravel Road Blues (Joe Price Cover)
You’re My Lover Now
Remember the Sun (with Constie Brown)
Just (with Constie Brown)
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ (with Dustin Busch)
Harry’s Blues (with Dustin Busch) (Mississippi Fred McDowell Cover)

*new songs

Here is some video I shot with my iPhone:

Alex Ramsey performs “Waltz (Better Than Fine)”

Here is a link to my flickr.com photoset of the show

Here is a slideshow of the pictures

Click Here to go to The Mill Restaurant Calendar for the details on the show.

Click Here to read my review of the 11/12 This Land is Your Music Show.

Click Here to read my review of the 11/19 This Land is Your Music Show.

Upcoming Show: The Pines at The Mill in Iowa City 11/20/09

Posted on October 28, 2009 by mike

Benson Ramsey and David Huckfelt are collectively known as the roots-folk group The Pines. Based in the Twin Cities and on the Twin Cities label Red House Records, Benson and David are part of the newest generation of the Eastern Iowa sound started by Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey (who is Benson’s dad) among others. In September The Pines released their third album Tremolo— which is their second album on Red House.

I picked up Tremolo when it came out and have been listening to it pretty regularly. I feel that as much of a progression that Sparrows in the Bell was from their self-titled release on the now-defunct Iowa City label Trailer Records, Tremolo is a further refining of their sound.

The Pines will be at The Mill Restaurant in Iowa City on Friday, November 20th. The show starts at 9PM and tickets are $8.

Click Here for The Pines’ website

Click Here to listen to samples from Tremolo and read lyrics

Click Here for the Mill Restaurant Calendar

Ryan Adams – Pax-Am Digital Single No. 2 “Allumette” b/w “What Color Is Rain” (Review)

Posted on September 24, 2009 by mike

It’s week #2 of the Pax-Am reboot and we are treated with another digital single from Ryan Adams’s archives. This time we get a track that was dropped from early consideration for Cardinology and another track that surfaced a bit as a “foggy” video. The third track is another demo from Cardinology.

Side A is the track “Allumette” clocking in at 1:43 and according to the Ryan Adams scholars on the ryanadamsarchive.com site was listed on an early proposed tracklisting for Cardinology.

Apparently the song is in reference to the 1974 book by Tomi Ungerer titled Allumette; A Fable, with Due Respect to Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, and the Honorable Ambrose Bierce. The Ungerer book is a re-imagining of the Hans Christian Andersen story “The Little Match Girl” where the girl this time lives and carries out her wish.

Side B is the track “What Color Is Rain” which showed up as a video on the old version of Ryan’s video blog, affectionately called “Foggy.”

Again we are treated to a home demo of Cardinology– this time “Go Easy.”

All three songs are 160Kbps mp3’s and there aren’t any FLAC’s or cover art.

As you might imagine this caused quite a stir on the boards since this release differred in content from the first single’s inclusion of FLAC’s. Another point that upset some was that these songs weren’t the same quality as the songs on the first single, which were ostensibly multitrack recordings that were mixed for release and these songs were sketches. But for $1.49 who should complain? All of these songs are unreleased and we’re lucky that these songs are seeing the light of day– AND Ryan is excited to release them!

Both “Allumette” and “What Color Is Rain” are relatvely short songs but sound like they might have been written about the same time– both using multitracked guitar picking and utilizing a similar drum track. According to Ryan’s retorts to the complaints he used GarageBand to record them.

Both songs are very pretty songs with Ryan singing in a soft but urgent voice. These are songs that would have fit comfortably on Easy Tiger.

Click Here to purchase Pax-Am Digital Single No. 2

Click Here to read my review of Pax-Am Digital Single No. 1

A Trip through ILAD’s Here//There (Review)

Posted on August 22, 2009 by mike

Richmond, VA quartet ILAD had released two albums before I had heard of them. Their second album National Flags— released in 2007– was recorded at Soma Studios in Chicago and produced by John McEntire of Tortoise and The Sea and Cake.

In an interview with RVA Magazine, singer/guitarist Clifton McDaniel said that they wanted to work with McEntire because they felt a connection with the Chicago scene. In fact, their brand of country folk psychedelics reminds me a lot of Califone, so the affinity for experimentation and working with sonic textures makes sense. Clifton went on to say that after they recorded National Flags and handing the reins of production over, they decided that they wanted to take a different approach with Here//There, their new album which was released on July 28th, again on the band’s own label SYJIP Records. Some of this change in direction lies in a pride in being part of the growing Richmond, VA music scene which I think motivated ILAD to record with local producer Lance Koehler and studio at Minimum Wage Studios.

Listening to National Flags and Here//There side-by-side shows that National Flags has a more cohesive feel to it– certainly the sign of the band turning itself over to McEntire. Here//There seems to show the ILAD’s ability to transform itself for each song. Ultimately this makes for a difficult sitting with the album if you’re looking for a record that has one mood or feel to it.

The band has an impressive array of styles to draw from and I bet a live show from them would be quite an experience. I will say that they did a good job of sequencing and mastering this record because even though they shift stylistically throughout– it isn’t jarring.

Here//There kicks off with an Eastern-influenced “TV Sutra” that reminds me of a raga. Layered percussion and persistent shaker and dreamy almost stream of consciousness lyrics cover long-distance voices. “We’re All Boiled Over” is the mantra. A very smooth complimentary seque to “Conservation” is accomplished by arpeggio-picked guitar in the same beat as the previous song. The 4/4 beat that is introduced here which sets us up for the swirling and driving “Magazine.” The vocals are distorted and urgent with the only recognizable phrase being “Jesus Christ.”

Once we’ve hit the loping “Mexico” we’ve moved into the most conventional part of the album. “We’d all go down to Mexico where the women taste like wine, bathe in sunshine, drunk with hope” the song starts. The song has an aching beauty to it that reminds me a bit of the best songs from My Morning Jacket– but not content with the direction of the song, ILAD at 3:50 or so decides to send the song into a Doors-like jam led with electric piano and nature sounds that carries the song to its 6+ minute conclusion with a fade out.

At this point we are propelled into the driving possessive and pissed-off rant fueled with slide-guitar and shuffle that is “Blackgold.” “Please don’t call me liar– asshole! Please don’t call me liar– asshole!” I don’t presume to know who the narrator is, but clearly his lady has been infringed upon and he’s retaliating with guitar and drums!

But, the anger doesn’t last long as we drop into the floating “I Just Stopped By” with its percussion and guitar lifted deftly from “Over My Head” by Fleetwood Mac. Indeed the song itself echoes its sentiment of “I’m just passing through” as it is a momentary stop before it hits the very proggish and climbing instrumental “Wish For a Flood” which provides the complimentary beat to the following song “Lou Dobbs.”

“Lou Dobbs” kicks off with an interesting driving snare and cymbal that reminds me a bit of “Gotta Jibboo” by Phish but never really delivers on the anticipated crescendo and in fact just falls apart at the end. The lyrics seem to be making a statement about government fueled war, but does nothing but make a weak and unsubstantiated accusation.

We are given another great prog track at the beginning of “I’m Not Mean”– I realize at this song what a great drummer Scott Clark is, and it’s his ability to be amazingly diverse that provides the framework and backbone to the explorations ILAD undertakes. I love the transition “I’m Not Mean” makes at the 2:28 mark. The song switches completely into a jazz workout that is one of the glimmering, unexpected and transcendent parts of the record.

From here we’re moved to a stripped-down, vocal-and-acoustic guitar arrangement in “Everyone Hurts (Everyone). The slightly off tune delivery helps deliver the song’s plaintive meditation– “I can’t tell whose side I’m on anymore.”

This mournful emotion is followed by “Extraordinary Machine” with the opening slightly above a whisper mantra where every line ends with “ary.” “Nature is so imaginary/nature’s so imaginary/machine so extrodinary/, etc.” At two minutes the snare kicks in and helps drive the song, and a 2:43 we get kind of a disco 8’s on the highhat with slinky bass and shimmery electric piano mellow groove. The song doesn’t really ever change keys or even switch in sections– it just builds off the previous one. Around 4:30 that groove breaks and reveals a snippet of a different song with its refrain “I’m coming home.”

“Everybody” is another song that rides a single groove throughout its four minutes. It’s almost a transitional song to get us to “Tiny Dream.” “Tiny Dream” is another chanting song with organ and picked guitar riding on a funky-drummer beat providing a pleasant groove, that builds to a “Bittersweet Symphony-ish” string crescendo. It’s over in a 2:32– I would have liked to hear that song explored a bit further.

The album closer “Church” is a stripped down slow tempo gospel-of-sorts that presents a reflective message to wrap things up. Whoever is singing this song reminds me of Daniel Ash of Love and Rockets a bit on this one.

Taken in total, Here//There is– to coin a cliché– a musical journey. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that this album is a concept album, but all of the songs seem to make more sense in the context of the other songs. It is an album that really demands consuming in one sitting. I can see the challenge the band would have promoting this album in that no one song on the album is really representative of the rest of it.

It sounds like the Richmond, Virginia area is rich with a growing music scene that is trying to make its mark. ILAD shows the DIY attitude of the area and the potential it has. I think ILAD is a band to continue to watch and based on the performances I’ve seen online so far, delivers a great live show and one I’d like to catch if they make it this far inland.

Click Here for ILAD’s website

Click Here for ILAD’s MySpace page

Click Here to listen to “Magazine” from Here//There

Here is the video for “Tiny Dream”

New Fan-assisted “Mash-up” Video of “Salt & Cherries (MC5)” by Wendy & Lisa

Posted on August 12, 2009 by mike

One of the great records of this year for me is the new Wendy & Lisa joint White Flags of Winter Chimneys. It is a self-released record, and the promotion and distribution is handled by their little-but-mighty camp. Talking with them earlier this year I could get the sense that this release and their truly-independent approach to managing their careers was going to be a developing blueprint that other acts could look to for inspiration. They twitter, they blog, they podcast, they Facebook, they Amazon.com.

Today they released the video to the rawking “Salt & Cherries (MC5)” which features Wendy & Lisa in a live setting interspersed with fans lip-synching to the song. They asked for submissions from fans and they apparently got some really creative results!

“This Is Spinal Tap” Released on Blu-Ray Disc (Review)

Posted on August 7, 2009 by mike

“This is Spinal Tap” is one of those movies that people either love or are largely disinterested in. Anyone who is a scholar of or takes an active interest in the history of rock bands dating back to the 60’s are usually fans of this “Rockumentary” by director Marti DiBergi (Rob Reiner) that pokes fun at a lot of stories and mythology of the big rock artists in the story of a washed out metal band who is desperately trying to make a comeback against seeming disinterest and plain bad luck.

“This is Spinal Tap” was released to theaters in 1984. In this time of ultra-mega-smash blockbusters the box office statistics are pretty small– The opening weekend of March 4, 1984 had the movie only playing on 3 screens netting only $30,000. It seemed to have done a slow spread through that spring growing to maximum of 206 screens by the end of April, and then dropping off until July 1st. Total net for “This is Spinal Tap” was $4.5 Million that year. In retrospect it was the promotion that Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer did by making appearances on places like MTV and the fact that they wrote and performed the songs that cemented Spinal Tap the band and catapulted “This is Spinal Tap” to the cult status that it is today. Spinal Tap became a “real” band because it was a real band– the story is fiction, but how different is that from many bands that have a legend about them? The Wikipedia article on Spinal Tap is a humorous one in that it maintains both fictional and actual account. Under band members we get a list of the drummers and their untimely demise as well as actual people who performed or recorded with Spinal Tap. In a similar fashion we are offered a list of fictional and actual records recorded by the band.

2009 is the 25th anniversary of “This is Spinal Tap” and on July 28th it was re-issued on Blu-Ray Disc by MGM. The Blu-Ray edition of the movie is based largely on the excellent DVD version from 2000 that added over an hour of bonus material in the form of outtakes, real and fictional promotional material, TV appearances and an interview “Catching Up with Marti DeBergi.” It is worth sitting through the movie commentary which appropriately has Guest, McKean and Shearer in character.

The Blu-Ray edition of “This is Spinal Tap” is a 2-disc release with one Blu-Ray Disc and a bonus DVD . The Blu-Ray Disc is essentially the same content as the original 2000 DVD with new menus and the movie remastered to glorious high-definition. The bonus DVD includes the “Stonehenge” performance at Wembley Stadium as part of the Live Earth concerts and the National Geographic interview with Nigel Tufnel regarding his theories of Stonehenge. Pretty funny. I only wish they would have been able to include the rest of the Live Earth show that included a performance of “Big Bottom” with a number of guest bass players including Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield from Metallica and Adam Yauch (M.C.A) of the Beastie Boys.

It appears that the bonus material wasn’t remastered to high-definition, but I’m not sure that it would have benefitted much from remastering since most of it is made to look like old television appearances. Comparing the DVD of the movie to the Blu-Ray of the movie certainly shows that the Blu-Ray is providing a much sharper and brighter version of the film. Although the movie was only shot on standard 80’s filmstock, and since it was in a documentary style it isn’t like the cinematography was geared for breathtaking wide shots of landscape or special effects. The audio portion seems to be the same Dolby Digital version from the DVD. But, it sounds fantastic! The live performances in the film sound great. A word of warning– I found myself having to ride the volume button on the remote as the live performances are dramatically louder than most of the movie dialog. A couple of times my wife had to ask me to turn the movie down (sorry, Honey!).

The last time I sat down to watch “This is Spinal Tap” was in 2000 when the DVD release came out. Watching the movie on its 25th anniversary it is interesting to note how much of this film is still funny in a 2009 context. It falls under the “It’s funny because it’s true!” context. The airport security scene where Derek Smalls is trying to smuggle an aluminum-foil covered cucumber is even more funny in these post-9/11 airport security days. The depiction of Polymer Records as a largely clueless organization run by stuffed shirts is an effective commentary as we watch similar stuffed shirts struggle with a new music economy. Bumbling concert promoters and label PR still exist in the real concert landscape. The situation where Sears is threatening to not carry Smell the Glove due to its “sexist” album art which causes the label to release the record with a totally black sleeve echoes the same strongarm tactics WalMart implements on releases it deems to be “not family friendly.”

From a purely guitar-head perspective I’m really impressed with the guitars the guys are playing in the movie. McKean is typically seen playing a white Gibson SG with humbuckers or a Gibson Les Paul Standard in Red Sunburst and at one point playing a goldtop Les Paul with P90’s. Christopher Guest is seen with a large collection of classic guitars in the “This One Goes to 11” scene which includes a beautiful three humbucker black Les Paul with gold hardware and a Shoreline Gold Fender Stratocaster. In a continuity problem, the black Les Paul is the guitar that Nigel Tufnel grabs for the “reunion” scene. If he was out of the band, I wouldn’t assume that his guitar would have been with the band– but whatever, my geek is showing.

“This is Spinal Tap” is one of those movies that has defined how we look at rock music and bands today. As long as there are bands touring and fans that follow them, this movie will continue to be watched. Every day I expect another generation of music fans and musicians are watching the movie for the first time.

David St. Hubbins says in the movie, “It’s a fine line between stupid and clever” which seems to be a good way to sum up why “This is Spinal Tap” is the classic film it is.

“This is Spinal Tap” Blu-Ray Edition on MGM/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is out now with a suggested retail price of $34.99 U.S. / $37.99 Canada.

Click Here for the official Spinal Tap website

Click Here for the Wikipedia Article on “This is Spinal Tap”

The Horse’s Ha – Of The Cathmawr Yards (review)

Posted on June 28, 2009 by mike

There is plague, said Tom Twp. ApLlewelyn in the organ loft reached for the bass stops. The white plague drifted through the church to the music of the savage voluntary. Parson and sinner stood beneath the reflections of the Holy Family, marking in each ginger halo the hair of blood. There was to one the voice of an arming God in the echo of each chord, and, to the other, the horse’s ha.

— “The Horse’s Ha” by Dylan Thomas

Things do seem to take place on this record in dark or darkening places, but that’s where all the interesting stuff happens, right?

— Janet Bean of the band The Horse’s Ha

While I was working on the review of Of The Cathmawr Yards— the debut album by The Horse’s Ha— I took the opportunity to read the namesake short story “The Horse’s Ha” by the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. “The Horse’s Ha” was included in the posthumous 1955 collection of short stories titled Adventures in the Skin Trade and Other Stories. Most of the reporting about the albums release earlier in the year pointed out the Dylan Thomas short story about the fictional Cathmawr Yards cemetery where zombies lived.

The white horse in the story and its associated “raw-headed” rider represents a plague that spreads through the small Welsh village of Cathmawr Yards. The plague seemingly is causing the zombification of the residents. To be “Of The Cathmawr Yards” implies that one is undead.

What does all of this have to do with the album? At first listen, it isn’t really clear. The obscurity of the band’s name and the title of the album is matched to the obscure dark lyrics penned mostly by James Elkington whose other gig is with The Zincs and one song by Janet Bean of Freakwater and Eleventh Dream Day. The CD and white vinyl LP of Of The Cathmawr Yards provide the lyrics to the album, which, when taken out of the context of the music, are impressively poetic. It would take a lot of literary chutzpah to name your band and album after a Dylan Thomas work.

Dead wrong, dressed right
for waltzes in starlight, the
house is dry, the flowers
grieve in their vase.
–“Heiress”

There’s a whirring to a dwindling word,
that fades in waves once it’s heard.
Once it’s gone and you return to numb
You’ll never retrieve, however you plumb.
–“Plumb”

Prior to reading the short story, the repeated listens of the album presented a common thread to me. I reached out to Janet to verify that this was the case, and she said that the album has definite patterns of certain words used.

The quote from Janet about “dark and darkening places” at the beginning of this article does a good job of summing the album up for me. Taken in whole, the album is a series of vignettes taking place on a dimly-lit stage. These stories of conflict and the human condition are presented without context leaving the interpretation up to the listener. In the dramatic structure, these songs are entirely exposition and mood, but the payoff is in the presentation.

Of The Cathmawr Yards is a jazz and folk amalgam that borders on a pop sound that draws quick and pleasing comparisons to The Smiths and later Talk Talk. The instrumentation is a constant acoustic sound implementing smartly-brushed percussion as well as double bass and other strings to carry the Johnny Marr-ish clean electric guitar and the well-matched harmonies of Bean’s pretty soprano and Elkington’s soft baritone voices. This mixture reminds me also of the duet work of Richard and Linda Thompson on albums like their 1982 final work together Shoot Out The Lights. In fact, that could be considered a logical forebear of this album.

Unlike the rocky inter-personal relationship on record and off of Richard and Linda, James and Janet serve only as narrators of these songs, and it’s this almost-dreamy detachedness that provides a reserved tone to the album. A reserve that might not appeal to everyone or every situation. The album is best consumed in whole to appreciate the complete work. To my ears, this is flawless presentation with singular vision and purpose– a collection of verse set to polished music.

In the Dylan Thomas story “The Horse’s Ha,” Mr. Montgomery is presented with the irony of being the undertaker of the Cathmawr Yards, where his clientèle are undead. “Shall I measure the undead?” he asks aloud incredulously from within his own coffin– his boarded up home. It’s the feeling of being trapped in a particular situation and desire for change that is the unifying theme throughout both the short story and Of The Cathmawr Yards.

Of The Cathmawr Yards by The Horse’s Ha is out now on CD, digital download and limited edition white LP on Hidden Agenda Records.

Purchase, download or stream Of The Cathmawr Yards by The Horses Ha at Bandcamp:

Pieta Brown & Dream #9 at the Mill in Iowa City 6-12-09 (review)

Posted on June 14, 2009 by mike

As I reported earlier, Pieta Brown assembled a band to shake up her live performances, which are typically a duo (usually with Bo Ramsey on guitars). This makes for a very intimate performance and Pieta’s music and vocals undeniably shine in this setup, but it’s been my opinion for a while that she should perform in a band setting to more closely approximate her albums. So, I was naturally very interested to see this lineup at the Mill. I wasn’t too concerned about the success of this, since Dream #9 is made up of regular sidemen– Bo Ramsey on lead guitar and Jon Penner on bass. Dream #9 also has Jim Viner on drums. Jim has worked with Bo and Jon frequently, and Jim is also on Pieta’s new self-released EP Flight Time with Bo and Jon.

Friday night was rainy, and the prospects of subjecting my gear to certain watery peril was eating away at my resolve it seemed. Eventually with the coaxing of my wife I made a late departure from Cedar Rapids. The show started at 8PM, and the opening act– Parlour Suite— came with good online reviews, but my late departure meant I would miss most– if not all of their set. Indeed, I walked in at 8:45 and they were just wrapping up their set.

I ran into Jim Viner and his wife Katy eating at one of the booths so I got the lowdown on the Daytrotter session. Jim finished his chicken strips and made for the stage and I ended up sitting with Katy most of the night– when I wasn’t out shooting pictures anyway.

One of the first surprising things about this band lineup is that Pieta is playing electric guitar, too! I sort expected that she’d rock the acoustic, and leave the electric up to Bo. She concentrated on two guitars– a black Gibson SG with a P-90 pickup, and a Reverend Flatroc with a Bigsby. I recognized both of these guitars as being Bo’s. I saw that SG for the first time at Bo’s last gig at the Mill. The Reverend is one he’s had for a while, and is a unique guitar in that Reverend didn’t make many with the Bigsby, and in fact isn’t a standard option. After the show I asked Pieta about the guitars and she said that the guitars she wanted to play hadn’t arrived. She said that she has a Reverend Flatroc coming as well as a white Fender Telecaster! Those will be very complimentary to Bo’s guitars since one of his primary axes is a Telecaster Deluxe, too. Pieta said that she used to play electric guitar out when she lived in Tulsa and had a band– a fact I hadn’t heard before.

Dream #9 is made up of seasoned musicians and are able to pull together a show on-the-fly with little prep. Effectively this band has only been playing Pieta’s songs for a couple of days– but they all found the pocket in Pieta’s songs perfectly.

The show was a quick hour-and-a-half single set. The Mill wraps their shows up pretty early– the show was over by 11PM. So, don’t worry about going to mid-week shows here– you should still be in bed in time for work the next day provided you behave yourself! I was surprised about the low turn out. I guess the rain kept folks home– like it almost did for me.

The set was made up of a nice selection from all of Pieta’s albums and included some new songs that I assume are under consideration for a new album. All of Pieta’s songs benefit from the country-blues sound that I equate with Bo Ramsey and his projects. It gives the songs a similar feel and recognizable to her albums– all of which Bo helped produce. I would have liked to hear more songs from the new EP, but I suspect that as the band plays together more there will be variation in the set list. It was pretty clear that having the two Iowa shows was giving the group the home-court advantage to work out any kinks that might exist with this new arrangement.

I really like Pieta fronting a band like this– it draws natural comparisons to other strong female artists like Lucinda Williams or maybe even Chrissy Hynde of the Pretenders. A good, structured driving rhythm really shows the strength of the songs– and not for a lack of intimacy where needed. On the song “Even When” from the Flight Time EP the band shows knows how to carry a gentle song, too.

Listening to the band and Pieta talking after the show it was clear that they were satisfied with the results, so hopefully we’ll start seeing more Dream #9-fueled shows in the future!

The band did record a Daytrotter show on Thursday, so I hope that session gets released in the near future.

Setlist (1 hour 27 minutes):

Sunrise Highway #44
In My Mind I Was Talking to Loretta
Rollin’ and Tumbin’
You’re My Lover Now
Rollin’ Down The Track
Bad News
Loving You Still
807
How Many Times Do I Hear Myself Say These Things
Faller (introduced as a new song)
West Monroe
I’m Going Away Blues (Frank Stokes cover)
Hey Run
Even When
Fourth of July
Over You
Remember The Sun
Are You Free

Click Here to visit Pieta Brown’s website.

Click Here to visit Pieta Brown’s MySpace Page

The Long Journey of “Country Hai East Cotton” by Hiss Golden Messenger

Posted on June 4, 2009 by mike

Once upon a time there was a little band from San Francisco called The Court & Spark. For seven years they crafted their own flavor of Americana and Rock in relative obscurity. For those people who did hear their music, most– like me– became fans.

I first heard about The Court & Spark on All Things Considered one cold night at the end of 2001 when Sarah Bardeen reviewed Bless You. I had never heard anything quite like it, and the loping clockwork percussion paired with singer M.C. Taylor’s melancholy vocals and slide guitar– particularly on “To See The Fires” had me tracking the album down immediately and I followed their career until they disbanded in 2007 following the release of Hearts– an album I thought was their best effort to that point.

As announced from their website, “seeing as how we’re all involved in different musical projects, it seems best to retire the C&S name for a while.” M.C. Taylor and Scott Hirsch moved to the East Coast and would continue to work together in a new project cryptically called Hiss Golden Messenger. At the same time they announced the new direction, they also announced from their MySpace page a live CD for sale of a show that Hiss Golden Messenger did called Live at the Fernwood Lodge, Big Sur 4/22/07. I ordered that right away since it was a limited hand-stamped run. When I received the CD, I also got another nondescrept CD-R with only a Sharpie-scrawled “HARPO” on it.

The songs contained on this CD were, according to M.C., “very rough mixes” of an album he was hoping to release after he sorted out getting a label and taking to a studio for mixing and mastering. He was very modest about the recording since I guess he felt it wasn’t done, going so far as to suggest I could share it on my site if I wanted.

The music contained on HARPO was mesmerizing. It was really a continuation of the experimentation I’d heard on the last Court & Spark album, Hearts. I was a bit giddy with this secret album and I did share it with a couple of people I knew who loved The Court & Spark as much as I did. I really felt that the modesty that M.C. had about HARPO’s fitness to be released was completely unfounded! If these were home demos on some hissy old 4-track, I would have still been excited to hear it, and would have shared it out– but I saw the potential of these songs to be much more than mere “rough mixes.” The damn thing sounded complete, to me! I know that others who had received HARPO felt the same way.

As it turned out the songs on HARPO would become Country Hai East Cotton remixed and in a different track sequence. I received a review copy of Country Hai East Cotton in early May and have been listening to it in my regular diet of music. The resequencing was a bit jarring at first, since I was so familiar with the sequence on HARPO. The mix was certainly an improvement on Country Hai East Cotton over HARPO, so the effort of taking it to a studio for some polish yielded exceptional results. The levels were pushed up a bit and the instrument head space has been expanded. HARPO was a good headphone album, but Country Hai East Cotton is really an experience on the cans. No more is the remix more evident than on the cover of the Tim Rose song “Boogie Boogie” where we gained prominent breaths and and a wah guitar line! What was a song I didn’t really care for in the original mix, but the Country mix has much more texture and kind of reminds me of “Digging in the Dirt” by Peter Gabriel.

Standout tracks for me have been “Watch Out For the Cannonball” with it’s compressed snare and keyboard patches, and “Oh Nathaniel.” “Oh Nathaniel” is the theme to a vampire story that sounds a lot like an outtake from late-period Buckingham-Nicks Fleetwood Mac. True Blood’s second season starts this month– they could use this song for the soundtrack– “drink their blood when they call on you…Rise up like the moon…” “Resurrection Blues” is a Nawlins funeral march of desperation where the narrator can’t seem to make it to heaven.

Country Hai East Cotton was released this week and is available in a couple formats from either the website of the record label the band formed called The Heaven and Earth Magic Recording Company, or from a number of brick-and-mortar stores– mostly on the coastal regions. The first format– and most desired frankly, is the crazy-limited edition CD pressing seen in the picture above in all its glory. The limited-to-500 CD is encased in a color miniature gatefold cover which was illustrated by Nathaniel Russel and printed on 100% recycled cardstock. The CD is lovingly encased in a woven-fibre inner sleeve and the whole shebang is protected by a mylar sleeve. The picture above also shows the small gold-colored thankyou card that lists all of their intertube access and a haiku by Jaime De Angulo on the flipside.

Alternatively, you can download a 256Kbps version of the album in mp3’s for the price of a donation. Per the press-release from the band, “I realize that Country Hai East Cotton will be easily obtained for free on a host of torrent sites and blogs very soon, if it isn’t already. That’s OK. We appreciate that. But, at the risk of sounding totally romantic and/or naive, we’re hoping that those who have heard HGM and like what we do will choose to spend a little money on a disk or download directly from us.”

Indeed, this form of electronic sales where the consumer chooses what to pay has been attempted before successfully and not. Country Hai East Cotton is certainly one of my favorite releases this year and I can’t recommend enough that you, gentle reader, give this album a shot, and I think you’ll find that the band deserves your donation for this fantastic album.

Click Here to visit the Hiss Golden Messenger MySpace Page where you can hear tracks from Country Hai East Cotton.

Click Here to visit the Heaven & Earth Magic Recording Company to order your copy of Country Hai East Cotton.

Click Here to visit the blog page for Hiss Golden Messenger

Click Here to visit Hiss Golden Messenger Facebook Page

Time to play b-sides

Mike Roeder muses over things musical

Category Archives: Reviews