The First Half of 2011--- The Best and the Yet To Come

What can I say?  The music just keeps getting better and better and there seems no end in sight.  I feel like Scrooge McDuck diving into his pool of money, except I have no pool and I'm diving into music  and not money--- music good enough to make me pretty much forget about the past.  Pretty much.  Oh, I occasionally revisit my roots--- mostly through the YouTube type channels the Net provides--- but there is just too damn much great music in today's world to spend much time in the past.  So without further ado, let's check out what the music gods have given us in 2011, starting with a real discovery and a reason to smile if not laugh outright---

HANNAH GILLESPIE/All the Dirt.....

Words are going to fail me here and there is a reason.  I have been writing and talking about Gillespie since Ken Stringfellow (The Posies, etc.) posted a link on his Facebook page a month or two ago and I'm plain running out of adjectives to describe her.    In recent reviews, I have compared her to Marianne Faithfull during her Broken English phase and while I believe that is a fair comparison, I think it a bit unfair to both Gillespie and Faithfull because though their voices are similar to a certain degree, their worlds are far apart.  Faithfull lived then in a darker world than does Gillespie--- one filled with, to borrow a song from that period, Guilt.  Gillespie is more roots-oriented, drawing inspiration from her world rather than her angst and you really hear it on beautiful folk-oriented songs like Just a Man and There Are Songs.  There is another side to her, though, a side leaning more toward an angst different than Faithfull's--- an angst of her own.  You hear it in the stark black-and-white portrait of Headlights, with its haunting jazz brush strokes and tonal heartbreak.  You hear it in the chord progressions and the strings, electronic or otherwise, of Tales From the Tote (Vinnie), a song which would have fit Faithfull perfectly in her earlier folk days.  The truth is, I hear this and I hear what Faithfull might have done back then if the world had been then what it is today. 

If you want a review, here's what I posted on my website.  If you want the music, head to Gillespie's bandcamp page (stream the full songs) or scope her out at cdBaby. 

RESEARCH TURTLES/Mankiller Pt. 1 of 2.....

I want to say, I wait for a year and a half and all I get is five songs?  What I will say is that if every band out there put out songs as good as are on the Mankiller EP, it would be enough.  The Boys from Lake Charles nailed it on this one, stepping beyond the crunchy Power Pop of their previous self-titled album (It, too, is a killer) into the more mature but equally exciting world of Pop Rock. One listen to the excellent Bugs In a Jar convinced me.  Back in the old days, they called music like this "radio-ready".  In other words, it is ready for radio.  And, no, they didn't desert rockier roots.  Mankiller and Rhinestone Gal may be a bit smoother, but they still have plenty of punch.  They also have plenty of Pop.

MARIANA BELL/Push.....

Mariana Bell is an anomaly in my world.  She is one of those singer/songwriters people without open minds are tossing to the curb merely because of genre (if I have to label her music, I'll call it Mainstream Pop).  This is the kind of music you hear behind Target and Resort ads.  This is the kind of music that makes you sway with the melody and dance to the beat.  This is Perfect Day in places and a  bit of Michelle Branch in others.  There is melody in Bell which can be almost viral (I'm saying it's catchy, folks--- help me out here a little).  My attitude is what's good is good and what's great is great regardless of genre and, man, this is as good as it gets.  She went in to the studio expecting to come out with four or five good songs.  She stayed to complete ten beauts.  I don't want to say that it surprised me (I knew she had it in her), but it did.  From Book (her previous album) to Push.  It's not that big of a jump, but it sure sounds like it.

ISRAEL NASH GRIPKA/Barn Doors & Cement Floors.....

I had not heard of Israel Nash Gripka until this release and I have to wonder why.  The guy has talent and a way of looking at music that takes me back to the early seventies when bands like Cat Mother and Country Funk and the Crazy Horse phase of Neil Young ruled my turntable.  There is grit in his music reminiscent of The Band in their youth, moments which sound like they could have been taken from the beginnings of Capricorn Records with a Muscle Shoals sensibility on the more soulful tracks.  Did I say in my review that this album could be the sleeper of the year?  If I didn't, I should have.  The following clip is from a documentary they filmed of the recording process.  Of all of the films being paraded out at film and music festivals, this is the one I want to see, start to finish.

NATALIA ZUKERMAN/Gas Station Roses.....

Until this album (and Winterbloom, the gathering of women to celebrate the Christmas holidays), I had never heard Natalia Zukerman but thought I had her music pegged.  Every picture I had seen showed a mild-mannered, dyed-in-the-wool folkie ready to sing Kumbayah at the drop of a hat or any song from the Joni Mitchell Songbook, if requested.  So imagine my surprise when those pictures turned to confetti upon hearing Gas Station Roses.  No mamby-pamby folk here, folks.  This lady does everything but.  And when she picks up the slide, man!  Sells them through her website, too.  That is very cool.

ZOE MUTH & THE LOST HIGH ROLLERS/Starlight Hotel.....

I have a problem.  I'm not really into country music but I can't get enough of Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers.  They are country, I know, but hardly fit the mental images being pumped out of Nashville these days.  They don't fit the music, either, most of it being everything but country--- at least, country as I know it.  Zoe and band completely knocked me over with their excellent self-titled 2009 album (which I missed until 2010, damn it!) and have returned with Starlight Hotel, an album of equal or greater value, and you have to trust me when I say that it was not easy to do.  It is packed with country roots music presented simply and honestly, Zoe laying out her stellar song stories with a unique voice and the band supporting her with just enough oomph, but no more.  Flash isn't in this band's vocabulary.  They don't need it.  Neither do I.  Watch and learn.

OLD CALIFORNIO/Sundrunk Angels.....

In spite of the fact that this album is scheduled for a mid-July release, I include it here because I have an actual copy in my possession and I can't wait until mid-July to pass the word along.  Old Californio is back, sports fans, and whether you know them or not they are well worth knowing.  Sundrunk Angels adds a Brit Pop twist to their solid country rock and folk roots base and propels them into my limelight, if not that of the music media on the whole.  It's coming, though.  You can't keep a band this good down for long.

JUBAL LEE YOUNG/Take It Home.....

Jubal Lee Young is the son of Steve Young, a musician who deserves way, way more than he's gotten, and Terrye Newkirk, a singer and songwriter who is re-entering the music business after spending decades doing everything but.  Most will know Steve by the Eagles' live recording of his Seven Bridges Road (a version bested by the earlier Ian Matthews version, to my mind).  Steve's fans might know Terrye as Cheryl A. Young, the writer of My Oklahoma, recorded on Steve's Seven Bridges Road album.

Well, damned if they didn't go off and have a kid, Jubal, who took up guitar and decided he, too, was going to make music for a living.  He's been doing it for a number of years now and has released a handful of albums worth hearing.  He started as a rock 'n roller but has slowly been getting back to his roots.  Take It Home is as rootsy as he has gotten thus far, covering three songs his dad recorded plus a bunch of originals.  Country, rock, blues, folk--- he works them all in with a flair all his own.  You don't believe me?  Check out his music here.....

FIERY BLUE

When Paul Marsteller contacted me about listening to the first Fiery Blue album (self-titled), I told him straight out that I would listen, but no promises.  It didn't take me long to realize that the combination of three (he is joined by Simone Stevens and Gabe Rhodes) was something special.  Stevens' voice and Rhodes' instrumental work and production was impressive, indeed (Read the review here).  Well, Marsteller comes back with thirteen more beauties on Our Secret, proof that the first album was no fluke.  This is Pop music with slight roots flavor, produced to perfection.  Here is a taste from their first album.....

ERIC CORNE/Kid Dynamite & the Common Man.....

Technically, this is a reissue of a 2008 album, but Eric Corne  decided  to reissue it because it didn't gain any traction when it was first released.  The album is stacked high with high profile players and the music shows it.  Kid Dynamite/Rancho Mirage freaked me out when I first heard it, and the rest of the album is almost as impressive.  I say 'almost' because it is one of those 'anchor' tracks around which other songs float no matter how good they are.  You have to hear it to believe it.  I heartily recommend you visit Corne's Bandcamp site to stream what I hear as an overlooked classic.  And he put out a pretty fine video to support the reissue as well.....

 GARY HEFFERN & BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.....


This one's personal, but still deserving.  I've known Gary Heffern for many years, having suffered through his tirades against the music establishment when he used to visit my store in the late seventies.  He was young, brash and full of attitude--- an attitude which carried him through a career of pushing the musical and artistic envelope at every turn.  He told me he was going to have his own band one night and I laughed because in spite of  his certainty, I had my doubts.

Gary quelled those doubts when he fronted The Penetrators, a San Diego band of no little repute, and went on to front a number of bands as well as becoming a beat poet or whatever they call poetry performance these days.  While Gary's artistic career has had its ups and downs, his music has remained fresh, edgy and, at times, outside the box.  He continues pushing that envelope, this year with an impressive group of cohorts known as Beautiful People.  Seriously, you have to see this.....

I really need to get more organized.  I should have been keeping notes.  I know I missed someone or some band and probably not only one.  I know I missed finding another hundred or two albums of note, some of those worth including.  You can bet, though, that I won't be missing the Yet To Come, the albums scheduled for release the second half of this year.  Here are a few I have been downright anxious to hear/see released:

KIRSTI GHOLSON.....

I don't have the album title yet, but Kirsti has promised me that it is close to being ready for release.  She caught my attention with a very under the radar self-titled album which she released as simply Kirsti Gholson.  I was impressed with her voice, songwriting and unique style.  That was, let's see..... 2000?  A decade's worth of water has passed under the bridge since then, I know, but I have heard the rough cuts and I'm just plain tired of not writing about it.  It will contain two tracks I play on a regular basis just to recharge my batteries--- Sing Hallelujah, a beautiful song which means something different to me every time I hear it, but always a reflection of the joy in life--- Dr. Lemmon, a musical slam at an icon of research using live animals.  I know it's a slam when she sings "Makes me wish there is a hell and it's where you're listening from." 

I keep  reminding myself the album is coming, but I won't believe it until I have it in my hands.  I've just plain waited too long.  I mean, I don't want to put any kind of pressure on Kirsti, but.....

SYDNEY WAYSER/Bell Choir Coast.....

I'll make this short and simple.  Sydney Wayser's last album, The Colorful, is one of my favorite albums of the last few years (read what I wrote at that time).  I have expectations that Bell Choir Coast will equal or better that album, but I find it hard to fathom.  The Colorful is full of such unique twists and turns and was so well recorded, it will be very hard to match.  Still, I have faith.  I think Wayser has only just begun to tap her reserves of talent.  On the way is good.  On the streets is even better.  Coming very soon--- but if you want to hear some amazing music, check out The Colorful first and keep your eyes open for Bell Choir Coast.  Oh, before I forget, Sydney has placed The Colorful on a pay-what-you-want scale through mavaru.com.  Follow the link and be ready to be impressed.....

BRIGHT GIANT.....

Bright Giant is right up there with Research Turtles in the band which deserves to make it category.  They are four man crunch with a side of Pop and a Black Crowes/early Stones base.  Their five song EP, self-titled and released in 2009, showed a boatload of potential.  Singer Josh Davis once told me that they didn't want to be stagnant, that they wanted to progress on a constant basis.  It's been two years. I already know I dig where they were.  I just want to hear where they've gone.....

KEITH MORRIS.....

Keith Morris  (not the Black Flag/Circle Jerks guy) is one of the funniest guys I know.  I mean, I'm still laughing at things he wrote to me a few years ago.  When it comes to his music, though, Keith is dead-on serious.  His followup to Songs from Candyapolis has been in the works for some time and may be slow in coming, but it will be well worth it.  I begged Keith for a sample and he sent me three rough cuts.  They are the three best things I've heard out of him yet and that's saying something. 

AMONG THE MISSING.....

is Carrie Biell.  I know that people have other things to deal with in life, but when it affects my music collection it is hard for me to understand.  Biell crushed me with When Your Feet Hit the Stars eons ago (2007) and I've been standing in line at the Biell store since, awaiting the elusive next album.  Until it happens, I take solace in the songs on When Your Feet (it is a magnificent album), but every once in awhile I can't help hankering for something new.  I know you're out there playing, Carrie, but where is that new album?  I'll take anything--- outtakes, sound effects, comedy--- I'm easy.

The Personal Side of Music..... Brian Cullman & Nick Holmes

... Or Why Some People Avoid Me Like The Plague.....

I sit here amped up on caffeine listening to a 2007 release by Brian Cullman titled All Fires the Fire and feeling the steam build pressure as it always does when I hear music that falls by the wayside while Gagas and Biebers sweep the masses away (though to be fair, the sales numbers are but a small portion of what they were at their peak and more comparable to figures when I started in the music business some forty-plus years ago, something the media rarely addresses).  I should know better than to overdrink coffee (I have curtailed my consumption recently, but now and then feel the need to over-imbibe for one reason or another) and the results can be ugly (I have been compared to a violent drunk on occasion, though I have never knowingly struck anyone).  Consider yourself lucky that I am somewhat apolitical or this could be tornado-speak about all that is wrong with the world, and as far as I can see there is plenty. 

No, I am not political, but I am musical.  At one time, I was a drummer and played in an honest to God rock band back in the mid-sixties and thought that I might even be a musician (or a music teacher) because since birth, music has ruled my life (One of my earliest memories of my mother is of her picking me up and dancing me across the room singing along with Jo Stafford's Shrimp Boats, the song a reflection of the joy of that moment)  I played in band at school, tried to compose (a monumental task considering that I had no conception of music theory and struggled with the very basics of composition itself).  When college presented itself, I opted for Music until the bureaucracy at the University of Oregon refused to attach me to the School of Music, stating that if I was going to teach and not perform, the School of Education was for me.  In the midst of chaos (registering at a university in those days was manual and on a strict time schedule), I trekked across campus to be reassigned a faculty advisor from the dreaded School of Education (you had to have one before you could be assigned classes) and stood in line for what seemed like days (it might have been half an hour) and was pissed enough about the delay that by the time I got to the desk and was asked about my major, I closed my eyes and put my finger on a sheet of paper which listed the possibilities and opened them to find I was from that moment on a Radio & Television Broadcasting major.  Damn bureaucrats couldn't tell me what to do.  They handed me a note to my new advisor, stamped my forms and I headed back to the dorm to turn on the radio--- KASH my station of choice because of the three rock stations in Eugene, KASH rocked the hardest and the loudest and played songs no other station did.

Like I said, music has ruled my life.  Let me rephrase that.  Music is my life.  It is the one constant, outside of family and a handful of close friends.  And no, I'm not stupid.  I know that makes me seem eccentric and I sometimes notice when acquaintances cross the street when they see me coming, but acquaintances are not my friends and my friends seem to accept me the way I am.  I don't want to change, see, but more importantly, I can't change.  If music were a crime, I'd be all over television--- reality and otherwise. 

So anyway, I received an email about a month ago from this Brian Cullman guy who had read one of my columns about Nick Holmes, a musician we both hold in high esteem.  Not too many people write about Nick, he said, and he was happy to see that he was not alone in his appreciation.  A few emails later, I found that Cullman was and is a musician himself (and, no, he had not contacted me for publicity of any kind--- I had to beg for his music and would have bought it if I was rich enough, but there is just too damn much great music out there and my pockets are barely deep enough to keep me in domain name and coffee).  He sent me some links (Internet links, not sausage) and I set to finding out about Mr. Cullman.

I found that besides being a man of excellent taste in music (anyone who loves Nick Holmes' Soulful Crooner as much as myself is indeed a person of discerning taste), he has released a handful of musical projects, all worthy of attention, which somehow faded as time passed (I'm guessing here because while I had not heretofore heard of Cullman, it is possible that he has a large following somewhere outside my limited realm).  More than likely, though, he simply slid under the radar as did Holmes.

Hence, the steam.  How is it that All Fires the Fire slips through the cracks?  How is it that Soulful Crooner slips through the cracks?  Both are exceptional albums.  Both kick ass on 99% of the albums out there.  Both should have found a wider audience than they did.  What, I keep asking myself, is wrong?

I wish I had an answer.  In a large way, it saddens me to see music like this ignored.  I mean, I'm not saying that everyone should be listening to it.  I am saying that someone should be.  I am saying that there are large numbers of people looking for music like this but just have yet to find it.  I wish I knew who they are.  I'd email them the info.  Call, if necessary.

The music?  You have to hear it to understand it.  Nick Holmes put Soulful Crooner together with jazz great Michael Mainieri shortly after they worked together on the exceptional (and historical) White Elephant project.  Holmes does on Crooner what Nick Drake did on Pink Moon, except on the jazz/rock side.  I wish I could tell you what Cullman does on All Fires, but I can find no comparisons even though there must be some.  It is soft, textural, cinematic and even majestic (No God But God is vocal and orchestral majesty at its best).  There are light jazz, exotica and Latin influences.  There is calm. It could be the three A.M. album you have been waiting for.  I will be writing reviews on each for my website.  I don't know if you need to read them, but I know I need to write them.



The upside to this whole connection is that not only do I have someone with whom I can share the music of Nick Holmes (I and my few Holmes' buddies revel in the companionship of his music), I have someone new who musically stands on the same level to listen to.  This is a good thing.  All because of Soulful Crooner.  I tell you, if I could only help some of the musicians out there find an audience and help an audience find the music, this would be the best job in the world.

This may seem like an afterthought, but here is what I do know about Cullman.  He played in a band known as OK Savant with Vernon Reid (Living Colour) in '87 and '88.  Reid, in fact, is quoted in Cullman's bio, writing "Brian Cullman is that rarest of singer-song-writer-instrumentalist-composers -an artist whose intelligence doesn't overwhelm his humanity; an artist whose sensitivity doesn't  undercut the fierce mind at work. Cullman knows the star stuff that we're made of; our nobility, and our treachery, the way we deceive ourselves -- how our greatest loves go unrequited, the funny way our tears turn into laughter -- and back again."  I print this because of my admiration of Reid's work as a musician.  That is high praise, indeed.

And should you want to know about Cullman's musical past, here is what he has to say--- again, from his bio:   “When I was 15, I met Lillian Roxon, author of The Rock Encyclopedia, and decided to ask if my songs were any good.  She said I should play them for her friend Danny Fields. So she dragged me & my crummy guitar down to his house in Chelsea. Danny was the house hippie at Elektra Records, he'd signed The Stooges & The MC5, and he knew everyone. We walked in, and it was dark, there were candles everywhere. Edie Sedgwick, Danny’s roommate, was in the corner, in her bra & panties, cutting out pictures from Vogue Magazine. Jim Morrison was passed out drunk on the couch. Nico, I was told, was in the bedroom, hiding from Morrison. The phone kept ringing. Once it was Leonard Cohen, looking for Nico. Danny told him to go away. For all I knew, the Beatles were in the kitchen, fixing a snack. That was my introduction to the music business.”  Read the full bio here.

Nick Holmes' Soulful Crooner available on CD from cdBaby and Amazon.

Brian Cullman's All Fires the Fire available from Amazon.