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.

When Words Are More Than Words.....

I have had this idea in my head for some time--- a rundown of the importance of lyrics in rock music.  I was going to title it Lyrics 101: The Bottle In Front of Me or Frontal Lobotomy, the purpose being to show how important it is to get lyrics right and how few have the patience to do it.  It should be simple, I thought.  String together lyrics of a few songs which are enhanced by lyrical structure and compare them to the many that fail.  Well, simple it isn't.  To write lyrics or to critique them.  If it was simple to write them, the world would be buried beneath albums of worth.  If it was simple to critique them...  ah, but it is not. 

Have you ever thought about what it is that makes a song important to you?  Do you even know?  More importantly, do you even care?  For most of us, music is the background of our lives--- no, not soundtrack, but background.  Music is the white noise which makes everyday life a bit more palatable.  It is a variation on the hum of tires or the clacking of train wheels.  For most of us, when life is good, the music is good.  It doesn't seem to matter which songs or genres.  Good equals good.  For some of us, songs are benchmarks.  A song played enough today will inevitably create nostalgia tomorrow, regardless of quality--- formula music and mundane lyrics acceptable.  

For myself and others like me, music takes on an importance beyond the norm.  Each song becomes more than an entity, in fact almost a person, with a personality and a life and a reason for being.  My mother told me when I was very young that some people are good and some people are bad for various reasons.  So it is with music.  When it is everything good--- when lyrics and music work together--- it becomes a favorite uncle or a best friend.  When things don't exactly mesh, it becomes the annoying cousin or the bully down the street or even the person you fear because he or she is just downright creepy.  The difference between the extremes can be slight, but it doesn't matter.  A near miss is as unpalatable as a clunker.  When it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

Here's the rub, as they say in Jollye Olde:  What doesn't work for me could easily work for you.  You want simple?  Music is not always about the song.  It is about what you bring to the song.  If there is a reason you like a song at first listen, it is more than likely because of something you heard in the past.  You may not realize it, but that new song you can't get out of your head may have that Beatles sound in the chorus or a guitar riff that you swear you've heard someplace but can't quite pinpoint.  It could be that opening line, that emotional grabber, or the voice.  It could be the sound or the production.  More than likely, though, it won't be the lyrics.  Appreciation for lyrics usually comes later.  They sink in after a number of hearings.  They grow on you and make a good song great.  They have to be absorbed rather than heard.  Good lyrics.

Unfortunately, really good lyrics are rare and because we have been trained by the media to cling to something new as much as something good, we as humans accept the mediocre.  It is so much easier to accept that thrown at us than to find the good and the great, is it not? 

But I'm getting away from my point, that being that we all have lines drawn in the sand regarding every facet of life.  When it comes to music, my lines are drawn a bit closer than others'.  I use what I call the Cringe Factor when critiquing music.  If it makes me cringe, I steer clear.  If I was a normal critic, I suppose, I would wade in and verbally destroy those giving us heavy-handed or mundane words to accompany otherwise quite acceptable music.  I would destroy words with words, ideas with words, songs with words.  But I don't.  I learned long ago that what I hear is not what everyone else hears and I have learned to accept that.  No, I have another way of handling the mediocre or downright bad.  I ignore it.  I cringe once, maybe twice, and throw it on the scrap heap.

When I hear the good and the potentially great, though, I grab onto it like a nicotine addict to his last cigarette.  I fondle it and nurture it and savor it and make it last.  I listen less than I might normally, and enjoy the anticipation.  And, yes, I feel the high and maybe the low when I allow myself the pleasure. 

There is no high in music with words which do not fit.  I want to tell songwriters that they are missing the chance, that different words--- better words--- might be the difference between one listen or more.  As egotistical as this may sound, I want to say this song is not ready, that they can do better.  But all I can do is think it is not ready for me and bemoan an opportunity lost.  Of course, in my less egotistical moments, I accept what is there.  And I ignore it.  There are too many great songs to hear and critique to waste my time with the mundane. 

Which brings me to the real reason I am writing this.....

I read a blog this morning by one Christien Gholson and I was carried away.  Gholson is a writer and a poet, which normally would have had me running for the woods (who needs poetry. right?) but for his insights into words and his love for them.  I started reading expecting to stop at the end of each paragraph and click away, but something kept me scrolling and the next thing I knew, I was done.  There was something in the way he wrote which got under my skin and the more I read the more I understood. 

You see, Gholson's love of words parallels my love of music.  He didn't start out to be a poet or a writer, but words kept blocking his path toward a safe and accepted position until he broke down and accepted fate.  He tells of his acceptance of that fate, his existence before and after that acceptance.  He traces the paths that led him to poetry and beyond:  Gary Snyder to Kenneth Rexroth to Ezra Pound; Denise Levertov to William Carlos Williams to Robert Duncan.  So many paths with so many false endings.  And he uses his words so expertly that it is a pleasure to just read (I had the same experience reading Susan Casey's astounding account of life on The Farallones (The Devil's Teeth) and the sharks who inhabit the ocean surrounding them--- her ability with words painted much more than just pictures). 

My immersion in music paralleled that of Gholson's in poetry.  My paths, though, were from The Blue Sky Boys to Leroy Anderson to The Living Strings to every fathomable rock-related artist and band I found the need to pursue.  It wasn't words, no, but music included lyrics most of the time and, man, when it was done right, the music was every bit as important to me as Snyder and Rexroth and Duncan is to Gholson. 

The point being that as much as I know lyrics are important to music, I mostly forget.  I live for the guitar riffs and the soaring organs and the driving rhythms and appreciate when the lyrics fit, I guess, but let me play that guitar riff again.  Until someone like Gholson reminds me.  Words are sometimes more than words.  Gholson and I share that much.  I think we share more.  I shall endeavor to find out through Gholson 's works and future blogs.  I do believe I shall learn something in the process.

A Side Note:  I became aware of Christien through a Facebook post by his sister, Kirsti Gholson, who is presently torturing me by holding back release of a much anticipated album.  I have been waiting a good two years and Kirsti has been kind enough to provide me with rough cuts (probably hoping to curtail stalking tendencies and keep me at a distance), but those have only fanned the flames.  She released what she deems a demo back in 2000 or so, a collection of songs written only in what I can describe as Gholson.  She has a touch all her own.  Does Kirsti understand the importance of lyrics?  Oh, yeah.  Check her out at cdBaby and watch for her impending release.  It is going to be worth the wait.  Well worth it.

BRAAM--- The Power (and Magic) of the Demo

Tom Braam is a friend of mine.  Well, he is more an acquaintance, a "Facebook friend".  What little I know about him has been filtered through the Internet.  I know that he is a musician and that he formed a band with his brothers (Braam), that they have released five albums and are at present working toward a sixth, that he is an avid supporter of music in all forms and does not exclude the true indies (not surprising, considering that he and his brothers' band is a true indie).  I know that he loves Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers almost as much as do I (He would more than likely say that I love them almost as much as does he). 

Beyond that, I know little, other than the fact that he and his brothers are either egoists of the first order or fearless.  A little over a week ago, Tom posted a link to a Soundcloud page on which were posted twenty demos, basic song arrangements of tunes being considered for the sixth album.  Some were as basic as it can get--- rough vocals, an acoustic guitar and nothing else.  Some were basic but with overdubs or added instruments--- bass, more than one guitar, and did I hear a mandolin on Fists?  The key to this is that they were demos in  the true sense of the word--- songs in the rough and some, barely ideas.  Sure, they were recorded in a studio (probably home) and didn't have that dreaded garbage can sound, but I can't say that they were ready for prime time.  Yet he posted the link and asked that people visit the page and make comments in hopes that it might help Braam whittle the twenty down to an album-sized number.  Now, allow me to emphasize that he asked people he doesn't know and whose yardstick for comparison might well be Miley Cyrus or The Beatles to make comments on songs not ready for public consumption and, in fact, mostly in embryo form.  I remember Dan Phelps, who produced and played on Jess Pillmore's outstanding Reveal album, telling me that working with musicians sometimes took a psychologist's touch, the songs created as much "little babies" as songs.  Random Facebook acquaintances hardly qualify as psychologists and if you know anything about the Internet, you know that a large percentage of its denizens use every open port to bolster egos and what better way to prove yourself than to denigrate others.  For that reason alone, I lean toward fearless.  Heavily.

So I sit here listening to twenty rough demos when I should be working, the workload growing along with angst, and I find that I can't stop.  As rough as they are in places, there is something in these songs that will not let me stop.  And I'm finding myself taking notes.  Notes like This Changes Everything--- Laurie Biagini because I can hear this song recorded by Biagini with her magic Annette Funicello/girl group sound.  I'm making notes when I should be working and they are notes which are meaningless.  What am I going to do?  Send Biagini a link and say, hey, you should consider this as a cover on your next project?  Okay, yeah.  If I was producing her next album, I would ask her to consider it.  I'm sure it would turn out as far from Braam as it could possibly be, but there is something there that tells me This Changes Everything + Biagini = winner.

Do you understand what is happening?  I've moved from music lover (and, unfortunately, critic because that is what I am) to producer.  If you've ever wondered what a producer does, that is it.  Oh, it is not all that he/she does, but helping pick songs for a recording session is a  large part of it.  In my head, I'm in the big-time!  I'm doing what the big guys do!  And I want to say that you, too, can do it--- if you want.  Braam has opened the door.  Here are twenty songs in their demo stage.  Listen closely.  Beyond the basic guitar chords and the sometimes strained voices.  Beyond the sound (in thinking Biagini, I overlapped her impressive retro pop sound onto This Changes Everything) and beyond any criticism you may have.  The secret sometimes is not hearing what is there, but what could be there.  And sometimes it is hearing what is there and realizing that that is enough. 

I've heard twenty demo tracks this morning by a band I had heretofore not heard.  I want to visit their webpage and hear more, but I am reluctant.  I am reluctant because I heard more in these twenty rough cuts than I might in any of Braam's finished product.  I liked what I heard.  Some of these songs are good and maybe even better than that.  Sometimes it takes more than one listen to hear a song or an album.  Sometimes it takes many.  In spite of pending work, I will more than likely end up visiting their Soundcloud page a few times before checking out their albums.  Not that you should.  You like what you hear, check out their albums.  I will, too, eventually.  Right now, though, I think I will enjoy immersing myself in the demos.  I did like what I heard and with all the music I listen to day after day, that does not happen often. 

The photo of Braam taken by Silverella.  I have not yet asked for permission to use it and should anyone wish it removed, I will do so immediately upon request.

Speaking of Demos.....

I was digging through my tapes the other day and found demos handed me by the drummer for my pick of the grunge era bands--- Son of Man.  That drummer, referred to as "Top Jap" on their only (to my knowledge) release, a European 45 (The Dummy and Me b/w Temporary Altercations), handed the demo tape to me after getting the okay from the other Sons and only on the condition that I not share it with any other human being or Android.  Seattle was in the midst of the Grunge era, Mudhoney and Soundgarden and especially Nirvana on the cusp of taking over Seattle and then the world.  I wasn't sold on the music yet, but I was listening.  It took Son of Man, in fact, to open my ears. 

I listened to the seven-track demo last night for the first time in years.  I am surprised that the music stood the test of time so well.  Seven songs-----  Security Force, Lucky Dave, Bound In Chains, Slick Willie, Hard Life, Come In, and Electrolux.  Of the seven, my favorite is Bound In Chains, guitar-driven crunch that to my ears is right up there with anything Seattle produced during that period.  Why did they not make it?  Who knows?  I do know that they were being considered by one and maybe more major labels, that they lost all of their equipment in a house fire, that many other bands tried to hold fundraisers to put them back in the game.  Somehow, it didn't happen.  They did end up releasing the 45 mentioned above and that's a good thing, but they never had the chance to see what might have happened if.....  The lineup was (as listed on the back of the 45 sleeve) Tal Goettling (vocals), Nick Cash (bass), Brad Kok (guitar/vocals) and the aforementioned Top Jap (drums).  Anyone knows where any of these guys are, send me a note.  I'm curious as to what their real story is.  I wish they had had their chance.

And speaking of Jess Pillmore, I know that sometime in the near future I will go on a Jess Pillmore rant.  When her knockout Reveal album found its way into my mailbox some years ago, I picked it as my Album of the Year and I'm sure that the pick was ignored and discounted by most who knew about it.  But it was an honest pick.  It shoved all other albums to the side, did Reveal, and I followed up the review with interviews with Jess and producer/musician Dan Phelps.  My thought was to enlighten the masses as to the processes which made the album what it was and as outstanding as it was.  Unfortunately, every attempt at writing has been doomed to failure.  Maybe it was too personal--- the music and the story.  Maybe it needed to ferment in my mind and soul until I was ready.  I don't know.  What I do know is that the urge to write the story is slowly working its way to the surface again.  The album is a gem.  The story is one which, if told right, would give insight into the processes whereby good music becomes better and even great.  Stay tuned.

Music--- Its Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated.....

and yet you clowns have found and are finding a way to kill off some of its best parts.  Just last night, I pulled out a CD I hadn't heard in a few months and was stunned by the beauty of it.  The CD was Amelia Jay's Like a Kite.  You killed it.  Never mind that you are not immersed in music like myself and never mind that it was as indie as it could get and was buried beneath tons of muck, much of which you did have the energy to find.  You killed it.  You killed it with your blinders-on approach to media.  You killed it because it didn't have a flashy video with the gimmick of the moment.  You killed it with your I-know-what-good-music-is-just-look-at-my-Led-Zeppelin-and-Beatles-collection attitude.  You used to be young once.  You used to listen to music closely and take it to your heart.  Now all you care about is you.  Guess what?  I'm sticking a fork in your sorry asses.  You're done.  Thank the gawds the young aren't done.  They get it, the same way you did when you were young.  They will save music.  Watch them.  Because they care.  Well, some of them do and in a world stuffy with aging music "lovers"--- corpses, really, most of them content with Beatles Remasters and Led Zeppelin box sets and Lady Gagas and the country flavor of the week--- they are the real hope.  With major labels grasping at straws while their empire crumbles, a large percentage of the youth are leading the way back to the roots that they don't really have--- their parents' roots, when music was as important as the musician and discovery was as close as your radio dial.  These days, the dial has been replaced by YouTube and Vimeo and the various Internet funnels through which we get our music, but it is the same.  Or is it?

Does it matter?  Not really.  Today, as in the past, the important thing is still the music--- to the people who really love it anyway.  To those who say they do but are stuck in their own past and are basically biding their time until the music's over, I say turn out the lights.  For those filled with the adventure of music, here are some suggestions in the form of videos, hand-picked and handed to you on a silver platter.  As that Welk fella used to say on that there TV, A-One-and-a-two.....

Oh, before we get started, here is an example of what you killed.  It isn't the best example maybe, because it is even more laid back than the rest of their laid back album, but it is the only example I could find.  Oh, to have videos of  Feel It In Your Soul or Fading Breath--- songs which could squeeze blood from a turnip, so to speak.  Amelia Jay (now Seafare), where are you?

ZOE MUTH & THE LOST HIGH ROLLERS

I can see my friends' eyes rolling up in their heads right now.  They have suffered through my endless raves about this band and, in a way, I apologize, but in the most important way I do not.  You see, I am not really a country fan, especially since Nashville became the virtual center of the music industry.  I find most of the horses backed by that city boring and mediocre and formulaic, to say the least, but even in the worst of times (like now, for instance) there is hope.  My hope is the array of talented and country-fied (but not really country) artists who dot the map, most from outside Nashville--- artists like Jubal Lee Young, who just released his best album to-date (Take It Home); Old Californio, ready to launch Sundrunk Angels and as good a mix of rock and country as I've heard since Cowboy and Heartsfield (No, I won't say Eagles because I've heard them way too much for one lifetime); and Pat Anderson, who has country but not Nashville in his soul.  And Zoe Muth & The High Lost Rollers..

Zoe Muth &  The Lost High Rollers hail from Seattle, my home for thirteen and a half years before life transplanted me elsewhere.  When I hear them, I am confirmed in my belief that country music is best served away from Music Row South.  They capture the feel without the formula and, what can I say?  Muth is one hell of a songwriter and The Lost High Rollers are one hell of a band.  Their self-titled release knocked me on my ass when I discovered it last year (it was released late in 2009) and the new release, Starlight Hotel, is keeping me there.  In the spirit of the music, let me just say by way of introduction, Help!  I've been knocked on my ass and I can't get up!  No.  Not now.  Let's wait until the song is over.  Ladies and gentlemen, from their latest album Starlight Hotel, Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers.....

RESEARCH TURTLES

There go the eye-rolls again.  But I tell you, when you find something you love as much as I love these guys, you feel like a born-again Christian in that spreading the word (or, in this case, the music) becomes an obsession.   My buddy Rick Benedict, tongue in cheek, calls Lake Charles no man's land due to its juxtaposition to East Texas, but I can't really agree.  Any region that produces a band of this quality is to me a mecca.  Research Turtles are young, exuberant and full of everything I love about rock 'n roll--- melody, guitars (crunchy and otherwise), attitude.  They put me in mind of so many bands and songs I've heard and loved throughout my travails in the music business.  One Research Turtles can almost offset the rest of what the "major labels" (are they down to one yet?) are handing us.  They have a new EP, Mankiller Part 1 of 2, five songs strung together like they couldn't be presented otherwise.  They aren't just your daddy's power pop band anymore.  They've graduated.  But just to show you what they can be, here is a video of a live performance of one of the tracks from their previous, self-titled album.....

SYDNEY WAYSER

I spent half a summer painting my house to Sydney Wayser and Goldie Wilson.  Goldie (it's a band) had flashes toward the musical past that got under my skin and Sydney had--- well, The Colorful had a creativity and uniqueness that just plain freaked me out.  The album was peppered with musical phrases and movements which normally would not have worked but in this case worked beautifully.  Sydney has a new album ready for release tentatively titled Bell Choir Coast, but before we go there, let us look at what made The Colorful an album of musical distinction.  Listen to the "percussive effects" of drill and toy (?) xylophone and one of the real unique voices in music (her phrasing is amazing).....

OLD CALIFORNIO

 I remember the first time I heard Old Californio and how much they impressed me.  It was long ago, right after the release of their Westering Again album (from which the song in the video comes) and I was just beginning to immerse myself in the true indies (meaning those who play, record and market their own music, sans label).  At first I was intrigued by the band's mixture of influences but later decided that with these guys, genre was irrelevant.  They stretch their songs wherever they seem to go, it seems, and the results are sometimes downright exhilarating.  I received their new CD, Sundrunk Angels, only two weeks ago and it is already tired of being played, I'm afraid.  I want to see these guys live.  I want to see these guys live.  I really want to see these guys live.  Watch the video and see why.....

ISRAEL NASH GRIPKA

Sometimes I ask myself, who is Israel Nash Gripka and why is he haunting me so much?  I'm not complaining, understand, but I'm amazed at the number of times I listen to his Barn Doors and Concrete Floors as opposed to the number of times I have the urge to listen to it.  Sometimes I get upset at the lack of time in my life and yearn for the days when it seemed I had all the time in the world to listen to music.  This album is one I cannot seem to hear enough and while I can't quite put my finger on the reason why, it has something to do with the depth.  I hear bits and pieces of the seventies in Gripka, a time when music was an exploration of self as much as a search for the right chord and the perfect lyric.  The music on Barn Doors captures the feel of those times while making it sound new.  It is new.  It is Gripka.....

SHAUN CROMWELL


I first met Shaun Cromwell at a folk festival in Sisters, Oregon playing guitar and banjo outdoors next to The Sisters Coffee Company and singing through a small two-horn speaker system.  He impressed me enough to stick around and meet him and tell him just how impressed I was.  There was something in the way he sang, in the way he wrote his songs, which made me want to hear more.  Since that day, I have followed him closely and was absolutely ecstatic when I found out that he had asked Devon Sproule to sing on I Am Undone, a track from his latest album, Folk-Worn Prose.  I was ecstatic, again, when Devon put the song on video and posted it on YouTube.  She heard what I heard.  Cromwell is more than the norm.  He plays music that more people should be hearing.  Hear it here, with thanks to Devon and the time she put in to make this worth hearing and watching.  The mere fact that she felt compelled to do this is quite a tribute to Cromwell and his music.....

NATALIA ZUKERMAN

 I don't know where I've been, but I haven't been listening enough to Natalia Zukerman, for sure.  Oh, I'd heard of her, but didn't know her music.  When her marketing company sent me a copy of her new CD, Gas Station Roses, the only thing that came to mind was how I got on the mailing list.  One listen to this and it changed to how in the hell did I miss her?  I had always thought her a folkie and, while not dismissing her, slotted her unfairly without as much as a listen.  Well, I'm listening now.  Gas Station Roses turned out to be a stunner of an album, wrapping blues and rock and jazz around the folk for which she is somewhat renowned.  I should have known.  She sells slides on her website.  Odd things like that speak volumes.....

KIP BOARDMAN

Kip Boardman is one of those guys you could easily toss by the wayside and never miss except that you would be missing a lot.  Not unlike artists the stature of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, he lives in the world of the true composer, each song he creates a microcosm of that world.  He is a lyricist of the first water, a composer of strength and a performer worth seeing and hearing.  If, as with Newman and Nilsson, it takes a soundtrack to get people to listen, give him a soundtrack.  He is worth hearing and then some.  The song is from his recent album The Long Weight, an album as impressive as any I've heard of this genre (singer/songwriter).  Thanks to Kimberely Grant and The Grande Ole Echo, whose support of indie music is a morale-raiser and a half, for making sure this video made it onto the Net.....

ALOUD

Aloud reminds me of bands which have something beyond the norm and struggle to gain  a following through no fault of their own or their music.  Like The New Pornographers, but for Neko Case (Man, I'm going to take flak for that, but the amount of publicity afforded Case transcends that of the rest of the band, regardless of how good they are collectively and individually).  Like The Green Pajamas, who unfairly can't seem to break the barriers of their hardcore following.  Like so many bands which have the goods but are forced to scrap to get their music in ears in spite of quality.  I was sent a copy of Exile in the mere hope I would listen at all, I am sure.  Well I listened and I'm still listening.  This is the kind of music people like me feed off of--- creative, fresh, taking chances.  The video's pretty good, too.  Watch, listen and learn.....

HYMN FOR HER

Hymn For Her is gaining a name for themselves just for their use of cigar box guitar, which seems to rank right up there with ukulele in terms of fad instrument of the month.  Thing is, it is one of their main instruments and they utilize it in such a way as to give their music that little extra something.  Or, in the case of many of their songs, that big extra something.  They came out of a three man (uh, person) group called Maggi, Pierce & EJ which put out a number of albums over a fifteen year period before Hymn For Her declared their birth.  Maggi, Pierce & EJ were one of my favorite musical entities, having a creative edge not unlike that of another favorite, Gruppo Sportivo, and are a core of my music collection.  Hymn  For Her have likewise taken me in.  They make me laugh and they soothe my soul, but more than anything they amaze me with their ability to make two people sound like four or five.  That's right.  Scope out their latest album Lucy & Wayne and The Amairican Stream.  They play it all live.  If you get a chance to see them, I heartily recommend that you do so.  In the meantime, scope this out.....  And in case you're interested, they live and record in that trailer.  It's an Airstream.  Get it?

AMY SPEACE

In the indie world, some musicians get by and some musicians work their asses off trying to get their music to the right ears.  Amy Speace is among the latter.  It has to be frustrating and exhilarating at the same time, the constant being a form of mild exhaustion.  Speace is a trooper, though, and balances the occasional bum gig against the highs of sharing the stage with musicians she holds in high esteem.  I know this because she writes a blog about anything and everything that strikes her enough to matter and I read it.  It is personal and as revealing as her music, which reveals the Innerspeace, so to speak (also the name of her blog).  Here, she performs, absolutely solo, a track from her latest album, Land Like a Bird.  More often than not, she records with "a band" (meaning other musicians) and the album reflects that beautifully, but I was so impressed with her performance of Ghost and its very, very folk structure that I decided to share this.....

THE DIXIE BEE-LINERS

I hate it when a band gets pigeon-holed by their past and I do believe that is the case with The Dixie Bee-Liners.  They are basically a bluegrass band of sorts, having recorded their best albums with a bluegrass label (Pinecastle) and having the genre a core of their performances, as far as I can gather.  Their latest album, 2009's knockout Susanville, steps beyond the structure musically, though, and is just plain hard for me to define.  To my ears, they play Dixie Bee-Liners and that is all there is to it.  Steeped in harmonies and instrumental riffs and melodies like you can hardly believe, they take you on a musical journey other musicians only dream about.  Yeah, there's bluegrass, but there is also rock and country and folk and a string of other influences you will find you can and cannot pinpoint.  They are so good, their core audience are musicians.  If that doesn't say it, I don't know what else to say.  Except watch this.....

HANNAH GILLESPIE

A week ago, I was asking who Hannah Gillespie was, too, but Ken Stringfellow of The Posies had planted her name in my head and I finally followed through.  Hannah had asked Stringfellow, you see, to produce her latest album and he did.  All The Dirt.  While I would like to call it Americana, I don't tnhink that would be fair.  Australiana, perhaps?  She is from Australia, after all, and they have their own roots, though it is hard for me to separate the two countries, musically and ideologically.  Listening to her, she sounds like she could be from Indiana or Kentucky, but she is in fact from Canberra.  I am amazed that two continents could be so far apart and share so much, musically.  Cases in point:  Kasey Chambers, who is slowly overtaking America with her string of country-inflected rock and folk;  Bill Jackson, who has found Nashville and surrounding areas as much a home as down under.  Gillespie fits right in with them and others who are slowly making their way across the waters to share their music with us Americans.  I just started listening to All The Dirt and am already impressed.  Her voice is strong and fluid, her songwriting outstanding and Stringfellow's production thumbs up.  While this video is a bit raw, you can hear what I am saying.....

UPCOMING AND FINALLY HERE

Liz Pappademas & The Level's release is finally making the rounds.  Television City is a concept album based on life on the tube, I guess, and is Pappademas' second LP, to my knowledge.  A little more adventurous than her earlier (and very impressive) 2007 release, 11 Songs, it is her own Day In the Life, as it were--- a musical representation of life inside the people who live inside the Tube.  I hadn't planned on doing this, but what the hell.  This is already rampant with videos.  Here is the music video of Your Favorite Game Show.  I dig it.....

Laurie Biagini

Vancouver BC's answer to Annette and surf, Laurie Biagini, is working on her next album.  Her previous albums, Ridin' the Wave and A Far-Out Place, are peppered with girl group sounds, Annette-like songs and a little surf music for seasoning.  On the new album, she says she is leaning a bit more toward the Go-Go theme.  It should be intriguing, at the least.  In the meantime, you can feast your eyes and ears on this little video, the song culled from A Far-Out Place.  Stay tuned.....

 

Devon Sproule

Devon Sproule is in a musical world all her own.  Starting out as a pop singer of the ilk of Fiona Apple and the like, she has progressed far, far beyond that.  She grabs ideas and influences like a child capturing fireflies and instead of copying, makes them her own.  Few musicians have impressed me as much or as deeply.  She has a new album ready for release titled I Love You, Go Easy, for which I am excited even though I have yet to absorb my fill of her previous, Don't Hurry For Heaven.  Devon plays future music today, meaning that what you don't get today, you will tomorrow (and don't come yelling at me because you were too dense to hear it).  Here is a live video of Devon with The Paul Curreri Band playing one of my favorites from Don't Hurry For Heaven, Sponji Reggae.  It's a bit rough, but what a version!

Lisbee Stainton

Lisbee Stainton has spent the past number of months wowing the crowds in Europe, first with Joan Armatrading and more recently with Paul Carrack.  Her Girl On An Unmade Bed album caught me totally off guard a couple of years ago (Jeez, has it really been that long?) and made me a superfan.  If I was rich, I'd fly to the UK or Europe just to hear her live.  Not usually my kind of music, but Lisbee is a cut above.  She is just now finishing up a new album.  Not too soon, as far as I'm concerned.  Here she is performing Harriet, one of my favorites, from her last album.

Fiery Blue

Paul Marsteller is a songwriting machine, my friends, and it doesn't hurt that he has teamed up with Gabe Rhodes and Simone Stevens to put those songs on record.  Last year's self-titled album was one of my top picks, Big Moment right up there in the running for Song of the Year as far as I was concerned.  Their newest album, Our Secret, follows along the same lines--- melodic, poppy, emotional.  Plain good stuff.  Here is the video from last year's album--- Turn.  Well-performed, beautifully photographed.....

Bill Jackson

 Jackson is another of those Aussies.  I swear, they breed like Kangaroos!  Kidding aside, Bill Jackson is one of those musicians you want to bronze and put in a museum.  His music, solidly folk, is a cultural treasure not unlike that of a Townes Van Zant or a Mickey Newbury.  He put out a fine album a couple of years ago titled Steel + Bone which garnered high praise in and outside of Australia.  His last EP, The Nashville Session, caught him at his folkie best.  Here is a live performance of a track from that EP, CSS Shenandoah, which tells the tale of Australians and their involvement in the U.S. Civil War.  Sometimes you have to go to Australia to learn about the States, evidently.....

The Dementians

Being's how I've gone this far, allow me to shove something in here I consider a real guilty pleasure.  Last year I stumbled upon The Dementians, thanks to a promoter in the UK.  The band (ahem, the guy) is Canadian and works out of Toronto.  What I heard was some of the best and in places downright laugh out loud music I've heard in some time.  I leave you with this video of Cosmic Cheese, as cheesy as it gets and yet downright catchy.  (I would have posted Middle Class Revolution, an hilarious song about the reaction to a guy being allowed to cut into traffic and refusing to acknowledge the favor, but there doesn't seem to be a real video of that available).  Do yourself a favor if you like stuff like that, though, and check out The Dementians' MySpace page.  It's worth it.

The Future

Music is popping out all over, my friends, and next time I hope to have a ton of updates, release dates and music to go over.  Maybe, if I can get it together, I might even have a bit of historical wisdom to pass around--- like why the music industry deserves what it's getting and why the paradigm has shifted so drastically toward the indies.  Until then, then.

The Wailers vs. The Sonics--- Battle of the Bands!

I had the headline locked in and was gearing up to write this when the news that Kent Morrill of The Fabulous Wailers had left this mortal coil.  Normally, I am not one to glorify artists beyond what they deserve and I hope this doesn't sound like one of those 'boy, he was swell' after-the-fact pieces, but it will be hard for me to hold back the enthusiasm.  You see, I saw Kent perform one night at the Albany Guard Armory, The Wailers double-billed with The Sonics.

Today, one might think that the armory would have been overflowing with overly exuberant teens ready to kill for a seat, but you have to understand that when anyone played the armory circuit they were playing dances and not concerts.  You also have to understand that The Sonics were not then the Rock Gods that they have since become.  They had records, sure, and received a lot of airplay on numerous stations in the Willamette Valley and that did translate into teen admiration, but stars were who you saw on TV or played the Portland Coliseum and not the bands who carted equipment up and down I-5 to satisfy the results of hormones that floated like pollen on a warm Spring day.  Pacific Northwest musicians like Morrill and Gerry Roslie and Jimmy Hanna and even Mark Lindsay spent a portion of their time packing and unpacking vans and hearses and pickups in order to hock their musical wares and sell a few records.

Yeah, I saw Kent Morrill.  Man, I saw The Wailers!  When I close my eyes, I can see them still, spread out across a stage three platforms wide and drumming the crowd into a fury--- okay, more like providing music for teen gyrations.  See what I mean?  I get carried away.  But it is hard not to when you're sixteen or seventeen and you fall in love with every girl you see and have as background music some of the best rock to ever come out of the Pac NW.  Practically impossible.  Man, I had the car too!  That's right.  Dad let me drive the car two towns over  (a good 30 miles!) and handed me a twenty to boot.  In my world, it didn't get any better than that.

The Armory-----

I drove past the armory just the other day and it's still there, right where I left it.  Unlike many of the other armory buildings which were little more than glorified quonset huts, the Albany armory is a two-story building which could have been a bank building in earlier times, if it had had more windows anyway. Constructed of stone and brick, it seemed huge back in the day.  As I passed in my car, I was surprised to see this square gray structure which may have had a dance floor to accommodate 300 comfortably, 500 if you packed them in like sardines.  The entrance is offset toward the southeast side of the building with two steps leading from the sidewalk to the ticket window.  The door, directly to the left is average size.

As a teen, though, it looked formidable and the guy who took tickets could have been a bad guy from a James Bond movie.  The line was short--- it was a good hour before the music--- and it was still light outside.  I bought my ticket and whoever it was who went with me that night bought theirs as well.  A few steps and a torn ticket later, we were inside.

The stage was there, lit mainly from behind though there was a semblance of overhead lighting.  The chrome on the various guitars and amps were star shells from a distance and the drum set anchored them all.  Kids were already beginning to break into groups and a line formed at the snack bar, tables set up along the back wall.  Needless to say, I wasn't there for the girls, though I certainly enjoyed looking because there were girls from schools outside of my domain and  that was always intoxicating.  I was there for the music.  And judging from the equipment, there was going to be some music, for sure.

Pegged pants, crewcuts, ratted hair and short skirts (some even above the k nee!) were the fashion of the day.  One hundred, maybe two hundred teens gathered in groups of two, three or four, chattering away like one does in such settings.  I guess.  I was too enamored of the amps and guitars to pay much attention.

The Sonics-----

Paul Revere & the Raiders had gone national, The Wailers struggled to have hits (though Out of Our Tree had done very well for them, thank you).  Don & the Goodtimes were turning into a Raiders farm club (Jim Valley and Charlie Coe  were two Goodtimes to make the jump), The Live Five (not to be confused with The Liverpool Five) could not get to the next level in spite of an outstanding pair of regional hits (Yes You're Mine and Hunose) and The Viceroys were on the cusp of heading to the Bay Area for rejuvenation.  The Sonics drove through the hole created by the chaos and built on the amazing radio success of The Witch and Psycho to become the new regional favorite.

When they took the stage, the kids were scattered, many hanging around the snack bar visiting with friends and acquaintances.  The thump of drum and honk of guitar, typical tune-up noises, had them looking stageward and slowly they moved that direction.  Before they could gather, the race was on.  A few plunks and bangs were all The Sonics needed before filling the armory with a powerful, muddied sound.  No mikes on the drums, no mikes anywhere except onstage in front of Roslie.  You didn't make music with a PA system.  You made it with amps and power.  The PA just upped the ante.

I can't remember the order of songs.  There were a couple of instrumentals and a lot of what are now considered classic Sonics tracks:  The Witch, Psycho, Strychnine, Boss Hoss.  It didn't matter.  What mattered was the booming sound and the pounding rhythm.  When these guys played, it was hard not to move.  They blasted through a 45 minute set, maybe, giving the kids little chance to change dance partners between songs.  Pegged pants strained and ratted hair bobbed and weaved and legs stomped.  It was a glorious sight--- hormones on speed dial.  Standing directly in front of the stage toward the right side was just short of painful, the sound loud and brash and at times alternating staccato and whatever the opposite of that is.  The four University speakers on the two PA stands could barely handle Roslie's shrieks and screams and when they tore into Boss Hoss and Strychnine, I remember a chill down my spine.  I expected this--- at least this--- and the whole scene scribbled itself onto my psyche in indelible ink.

All too soon it was over, like the aftermath of an explosion.  Two roadies hit the stage--- the one for The Sonics scrambling to get mike stands and equipment off the stage, the one for The Wailers shifting the instruments and amps from the back of the stage where they had been stacked to the front.  A half hour passed, maybe more.  Then the moment arrived.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Wailers...

I have no idea who introduced them.  Maybe a disc jockey or maybe Ed Dougherty himself, the king of Willamette Valley showcases.  Under the guise of EJD Enterprises, Dougherty had been bringing bands to the teen masses since the advent of the armory circuit.  He worked out of Salem where he was rumored to be a high school teacher,  but we didn't care.  All we cared about were the bands he brought.  Now that I think about it, Dougherty may not have been involved with this at all, but it seems unlikely.  He owned the Willamette Valley when it came to concerts.  But I do seem to remember Etiquette having its own production and booking wing around this time.  Don't quote me.

But I digress.  The point is, The Wailers were introduced in fine fashion and, man, I was floored!  I had just seen one of the better bands I'd ever seen tear the roof off of the place.  Five seconds in, I was seeing a band to raze city blocks!  Hard to tell what the difference was.  The experience.  The confidence.  The years of sharing stages.  Whatever it was, it was definitely on a different level.  You could hear it.  You could see it.  More than that, you could feel it!  And the kids responded.

As the evening progressed, some quit dancing to watch the band, some danced harder--- they all sweated more.  Set list?  Hell, they blew through so many songs so fast, I could barely remember after the dance let alone 40+ years later.  There was a hellacious rendering of Dirty Robber that fried my brain, and the obligatory Tall Cool One.  Of course, Louie Louie (The Wailers' version was the first I'd ever heard, even before The Raiders' and Kingsmen's--- On the single, Rockin' Robin Roberts putting his classic voice over what was one of the sparsest versions ever recorded).

The songs ran together as the night progressed until, finally, they ripped into Out of Our Tree and everyone hit the dance floor.  I even danced, though I never took my eyes off the stage. I mean, The Wailers were wild!   Dave Roland was a monster on the drums, pounding and hammering and almost slashing his way through the song (After the set, I saw Roland backstage leaning against a National Guard truck taping his blistered and swollen knuckles with masking tape, attempting to stop the bleeding).  The rest of the guys were all over the place, stomping and dancing and squeezing as much music as they could out of their voices and instruments.

But Morrill!  Kent Morrill stole the show!  He played a huge Sunn organ with this strange leg system which looked like car exhaust pipes woven together, and he hammered it mercilessly.  Bouncing from side to side in time with the beat, the longer hair on his right side alternately flared out from his head before slapping back and he was smiling and even laughing at times.  He kept the roadie busy just keeping the keyboard on the stage, his incessant pounding causing it to skitter forward with every chord until it was ready to slide into the dancing mass.  More than once, the roadie got there just in time, grabbing it and pushing it back onto the stage, Morrill not missing a beat.

The Aftermath.....

I stayed for awhile after the dance.  I wanted to watch them bag the equipment and load up for the long drive to their next gig.  To say it was anticlimactic is understatement.  My ears rang from the now quelled music, the only sounds muffled because of it (I could barely hear people speak).  I watched the various Wailers pack up their gear, talking little and moving quickly.  They were obviously sweaty and tired and not looking forward to the long ride ahead.  They talked with people who approached them, but they had tunnel vision.  They wanted to go home.  The gig was over.

I looked back at Dave Roland as I turned to exit.  He was peeling the shreds of masking tape off of his now swollen knuckles, tossing the bloody pieces onto the floor.  I noticed he was having trouble making the tape stick when he retaped because of the blood.  His hands looked like he had been in a bare-knuckle fist fight with someone whose head was rough granite.  It was painful to watch.  I decided not to.

I wish I could be sure that that was what actually happened that night.  I can't be sure.  Too many dead brain cells and re-imagined scenes, maybe.  Then again, that's how I remember it.  Man, I dig The Sonics and always have.  They put sounds on record no one else did.  They were great.  But that night, The Wailers were kings!  If Morrill were alive today, I would tell him that.  You guys were kings.....

An aside:  While I have no idea who took the picture of The Wailers used in this piece, I do know that the Sonics photo was taken by Jini Dellaccio, who took pictures of many of the Pac NW bands of that time.  If anyone knows who took the others, please let me know and I will adjust the credits accordingly.

Zoe Muth Live at the Axe & Fiddle, Rusty Willoughby Live in the Studio

Listening to Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers is not unlike sliding into a hot jacuzzi after a good workout.  There is something in the music--- the texture of the voice, the shuffling brushstroke of the rhythm, the relaxed cohesion of the musicians--- which puts me at my ease while making me smile.  It doesn't hurt when the venue is Cottage Grove's Axe & Fiddle, a restaurant/bar which is a bit more than a restaurant/bar.  I saw Zoe and band there last summer and the return last Saturday (April 9th) was a bit of a return home. 

Zoe had contacted me regarding her newly minted album, Starlight Hotel, and mentioned casually that they were playing the Axe & Fiddle should I be interested.  Of course, I was more than interested.  Their show last year, played to a crowd mostly ignorant of the band and their music, was the kind of show I embrace (I also like sitting in a theater all alone watching somewhat unknown or unpopular movies).  That was a good night and I talked with Dave Harmonson and Greg Nies as well as Zoe before and after the gig, trying to get their take on the bar and the music biz.  It was their first tour and, of course, everything was new and exciting.  Even playing to a small audience which on the whole had no idea who they were.  (Read my review here)

They knew who they were on the 9th.  A number of people showed up specifically for the band, grabbing seats and chowing down on the food long before showtime.  I ordered a Reuben sandwich (grilled to perfection, I might add) and headed upstairs, hoping that one of the two tables on the rail would be empty.  One was.  I sat down.  Someone approached and said something which I missed.  I looked up and saw Zoe herself and heard the hellos of the rest of the band, settled in at a table on the other side of the room.  And we talked.

We talked about the music business and her new label, Signature Sounds, and the Doe Bay Music Festival they had played last summer, directly after the Axe & Fiddle gig.  We talked about money and how hard it is to survive in music these days and how much fun it was in the studio working on Starlight Hotel.  We talked about audience response and the differences between good and bad venues and how you really never knew unless you had played them before.  We talked about a number of things, music and otherwise, and they brought her food and then they brought mine and before I knew it, we were done eating and it was time for the band to gather.  Hear me here:  I am a positive guy who believes that the new music business paradigm is exponentially better than the old one and I try to show that.  But when a band the caliber of The High Rollers is faced with a gig in a small bar in an out of the way town playing for peanuts, though, I find it hard to support that stand.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the Axe & Fiddle.  The brews are excellent, the service is topnotch and the food is great.  It is a wonderful place to see live music.  But The High Rollers should be playing bigger venues in bigger cities to bigger crowds.  They should be breaking out of Nashville or Austin.  They should be gaining the attention of major media.  They are that good.   So I talked between sighs and bemoaned the fact that the band isn't a household word among media pundits and spewed my frustration to Zoe, who surely had frustrations of her own, and I probably bummed her out to a degree.  Yeah, I know.  Good job, Frank.  Headslap.  I'm hoping that she and the band realize that my frustrations have to do with a business I have not quite been able to unravel yet, a business in chaos and with no easy answers.  A business which should have welcomed them with arms wide open, knowing what they are.

Well, after a set by a Eugene group called Apropos (pronounced Apper-poe) who came off as close to the old Up With People of the sixties as I've heard in some time, Zoe and crew took the stage and turned on my musical jacuzzi.  The opening track was the lead-off track on their first album, You Only Believe Me When I'm Lyin', and by the end of the song, the sound man was getting it down and it was gravy from there on out.  They worked their way through tracks off of the new album (Let's Just Be Friends For Tonight, If I Can't Trust You With a Quarter (How Can I Trust You With My Heart) and the outstanding Starlight Hotel), a number of songs from their first (Not You, Middle Of Nowhere, Such True Love and Hey Little Darlin') and Zoe gave the band a short break while she performed, solo, one of my favorite tracks from the new album, New Mexico.  By the end of the set, only a handful had left (it was Saturday night and when you're young, hormones dictate your moves) and the crowd demanded an encore.  The band provided it and the evening, as it were, was over.

The sound was excellent, though the PA system could have handled the vocals a bit better.  The band played with the ease of professionals, Greg Nies and Mike McDermott laying down excellent rhythms, Ethan Lawton weaving his mandolin in and out while looking at the stars it seemed, and Dave Harmonson pedaled his steel with elan when he wasn't working wonders with an outfit he called the SDG Vintage, a guitar/amp system which spewed sounds you seldom hear from even the best.

I left after thumbs-upping the band for a job well done, shaking hands with the sound man (no ringing in my ears this night, thanks to him) and flipping a few dollars on the bar counter on the way out (did I mention that the service was excellent?).  In the car, I slipped Starlight Hotel into the CD player and listened to it all the way home.  It's a killer, as was their first.

It is hard to be negative about music after something like that.  The really good ones float to the top, right?  Well, Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers are better than really good.  They have that something that many of the stars don't have.  If I could figure out what that is, I'd bottle it and make a fortune.

I give you this video because, alas, I could find no live video of exceptional quality.  There are some good ones out there, but after a buildup like I gave the band, good just won't do it.

Rusty Willoughby--- Where have you been hiding?

Two days ago, my buddy Howie posted a video on my Facebook page, asking if I'd seen it yet.  Not only had I not seen it, I had barely heard of the artist--- one Rusty Willoughby.  Evidently, he was in a band out of Seattle called Pure Joy, a name I knew only in passing.  After watching the video, I wondered how I'd missed it.  Someone should have brought it to my attention.  Well, Howie did, but a bit after the fact.  If you don't know this guy, I suggest you scope him out.  Another musician who deserves more attention than he's getting.

Rusty Willoughby - Too Early/Crown of Thorns - Live @ Crackle & Pop! from Andy Smith on Vimeo.

Mariana Bell--- Charlottesville's Queen of Pop

Mariana Bell is another of those Charlottevillains you hear me rave about now and again.  She's a generation down from the likes of Danny Schmidt, Devon Sproule, Paul Curreri, Keith Morris, Shannon Worrell and the seemingly unending line of outstanding musicians who call C-ville home and she's a different weave of cloth (Mariana is a true Pop maven, swimming in a pool of melody, harmony and full-on production a la--- ahem, who was that lady who sang Perfect Day?).  Her new album is called Push and it is stunning.  The more I hear it, the more I love it.  I will be reviewing it on my site, Rock & Reprise, soon, but in the meantime, here is a video of the making of the album.

A Reminder---

Research Turtles  will be making their single available for free download starting May 3rd.  It's a bit smoother than their hard-edged tracks on their excellent self-titled album, but it is more great pop nonetheless.  The album will be available for sale at the end of May.  Check them out!  Bob Segarini said that if he was 20, he would kill to be in this band!  What's that, Bob?  Gotta Have Pop?

Liz Pappademus & The Level----

Here's something you might want to check out.  Liz Pappademus recently released an album titled Television City, which she put up on bandcamp for download.  At $5, it's a steal.  A concept album revolving around TV and its penchant for game shows, it tells a story I find intriguing.  About time someone turned the tables on the media clowns and looked into their workings, for a change.  Stop by and take a listen.

Lots of new things to go over on the next installment.  Lots of links to new releases and the odder side of the business.  Stay tuned!

The Re-emergence of Nick Holmes, Research Turtles Update, Gary Heffern's Beautiful People Video and upcoming albums you should check out.....

 Nick Holmes--- The Soulful Crooner

It's the early seventies and the whole world of music is blowing up.  Musicians are becoming stars (a precursor to stars becoming superstars) and music itself is getting serious.  FM is changing the way we listen, AM is adapting to a changing culture and it means something because music, like they say, is the background for our lives.

In NYC, an obscure group of musicians, jazz and otherwise, are taking part in an experiment which will spawn a number of session men and musicians of no small stature in this new world and out of this will come an album which will go pretty much unnoticed in spite of its excellence.  The band is tagged White Elephant as is the album, a double-disc rule-changer regardless of its obscurity.  The songs, rehearsed and recorded over a period of time, feature no less than The Brecker Brothers (Michael &Randy), Michael Mainieri (who produced and arranged the sessions), Steve Gadd, Tony Levin, Hugh McCracken and a raft of others.  They vary from straight rock to intense fusion, at the time a mere germ of a genre, and they changed the way I listened.

Up to that time, jazz was to me a genre to be avoided.  I wanted loud and I wanted electric and I wanted melody and harmony.  I wanted something other than lounge music or free-form noise (I called it squawking geese music in my lack of experience and ignorance).  I wanted--- well, I didn't really know what I wanted but I knew I'd know it when I heard it.  I heard it on White Elephant.

I heard raucous jazz jams and hippie anthems and the oddest version of Auld Lang Syne I'd ever heard.  I heard drumming to rival the best of the rockers and guitar that stretched the boundaries and horns--- oh, those horns!  But mostly I heard Nick Holmes.

Nick Holmes was an unknown quantity, but for me he brought the music home.  He wrote songs like I'd never heard and sang them like no one I'd ever heard, though there was this strange aura of John Martyn and Nick Drake in his phrasing which captivated me.  His songs were laced throughout the album and, at first, I skipped from one Holmes song to another, avoiding the others.  They were gems--- melodic, poignant, magical--- and Holmes sang them to an imperfect perfection.  I listened to them so many times that they became ingrained in the brain and to this day I can hear the music in my head and get a rush whenever it happens.  Others had their chosen hits of the day, but I preferred Battle Royal and Gunfighter and More To Love and Right Back, all (to myself) Holmes classics.

Without Nick Holmes, I would have missed the rest of the album.  Through the process of dabbling between Holmes tracks, I slowly developed an appreciation for the more jazz compositions--- The Jones, with its manic Bob Mann shredding of the guitar and overamped Tony Levin bass, and the other strange conglomerations that I came to call "hippie jazz" for lack of a better term.  Through repeated listenings, I learned to love the whole album and, from there, opened myself more to jazz.  White Elephant was a landmark album for that reason alone. 

A year or so later, Holmes released a solo album, the outstanding but ill-fated Soulful Crooner.  Again produced by Mainieri, it had that jazz edge but toned down and not unlike the Holmes tracks on the White Elephant album.  Of course, by that time I was sold, but Holmes upped the ante.  He wrote and Mainieri produced a musical treasure.  From the first notes of Only a Human, I knew this was special.  Behind Holmes was a combo version of White Elephant--- Donald MacDonald on drums, Tony Levin on bass, Mainieri on keyboards & vibes, and Hugh McCracken on guitar.  And the guest appearances!  Few, but fitted to the music and the moment. 

By now, you can fathom that I am a Nick Holmes fan.  Indeed, since the epiphanies of the aforementioned albums, I have searched for any and all information I could find about him.  I scoured used record bins, talked about him when I could get people to listen, listened to the albums on a lesser but regular basis to get my fix and never gave up.  A few years ago, I ran across a MySpace page which I was pretty sure was the right Nick Holmes (there are other musicians out there by that name) and tried to contact him through that but nothing came of it.  Sometimes when I would search for that page, it wasn't there--- not in the place I was looking anyway.  Holmes was like a ghost--- this elusive Casper-type entity whose existence I would have begun to doubt but for the physical proof I could pick up and listen to when the need arose.

But if I am nothing else when it comes to my music, I am persistent and a couple of weeks ago I hit the jackpot.  I found him.  I had been putting his name in search engines fairly regularly and to no avail, but this last time, there he was.  Well, not him, but his website.  I learned more about Holmes in one sitting than I'd ever been able to find out--- his attachment to The Serendipity Singers and Gamble Rogers, the release of an album on United Artists Records titled Hunger Is the Best Sauce (in all my years scouring record bins, I don't believe I have ever seen a copy), his involvement with the White Elephant gang.  In the '90s, he played in a band called The Neurosurgeons and worked with Diane Keaton and others.  He had a studio (I assume he still does) and recorded music.  Hell, he has other albums!  What the hell?

I sigh.  How talent like Holmes goes missing for, what, decades?  But I found him.  With luck, I may be able to get him to talk about his story.  It's a sure bet that I will be picking up all the music I can get my hands on.  And there is a little.  He has four songs posted at present on his website (just follow the link and click on "music"), three albums available through cdBaby (Soulful Crooner, The King of 26th Street, and Low Ball) and, if I can talk Holmes and Mainieri into it, we might see a release of another Mainieri-produced album, Freedom Slave.

I know there are a few people looking for Holmes out there.  Hopefully, they will fall upon the info I did and find their way to the music.  Michael Mainieri, by the way, has a ton of great jazz albums available through his NYC Records label, including the White Elephant album (with an additional Nick Holmes track).  There are some true classics by the likes of Steps Ahead and others and, of course, Mainieri's solo albums as well.

Research Turtles Update-----

My boys from Lake Charles are getting ready to unleash Mankiller Pt. 1 on the world, an EP of their latest tracks produced by Justin Tocket at the same studio where they recorded their self-titled album (one of my all-time favorites already).  The plan is to allow free downloads of their "single", Bugs In a Jar, beginning May 3rd and continuing through that month.  Release date for the full EP is May 31st.  Like all good plans that could change, but until it does that's the plan.  In the meantime, for those who don't know, Research Turtles knocked down the song of 2010 honors from the UK's Radio Six International.  Here's the video:

Jill Stevenson-----

We break into what I already had planned for a short announcement regarding the impending release of Jill Stevenson's latest project.  Her last two, The Jill Stevenson Band and Where We're Not (with Adam Widoff), worked their way into my psyche enough to place them on a number of my "best of" lists (here is my take).  If the new one is anywhere near as good as those, it's going to be a killer.  You can check out Jill's music at her website where it is streaming 24-7.

Gary Heffern-----

I knew Gary back in the days which would lead to The Penetrators, the golden days of San Diego.  He was a kid then, exuberant about the music he loved (mostly punk during that phase) and convinced that he would soon be fronting a band.  I left SD for Seattle and the next thing I knew, a Penetrators album crossed my desk and, sonofoabitch, there was Gary.  He made it.  A lot of water has run under the bridge since then.  Gary had some ups and downs, but his music kept him going.  He has just wrapped up an album of music which deserves more than a cursory listen.  Gary's older now.  Life for us both is not the same carefree life we had led in SD.  You can hear it and feel it in his latest work with Gary Heffern's Beautiful People.  Check out this video--- Hand of the Devil.  It makes my point.  Album available soon from Glitterhouse Records.

Mariana Bell-----

I admit to having a bit of a crush on Mariana Bell, but it is a musical crush.  I listen to music all day long and it can be a bit wearisome at times, but I am always in the mood to hear Mariana.  She's a modern pop type singer and songwriter and another one of those dreaded Charlottesvillain's you hear me rave about at odd times.  She has a touch for melody and writes as pure a modern pop song as I've heard and did just that on her upcoming release, Push.  It is a solid album (I stole a CD-R and have been listening since) and will be available April 26th.  Here is a video of "the making of" the album.  You can hear bits of the album as background music but you'll have to take it from me, it's not enough.  Hearing the whole album convinces me that 2011 is another great year in music.  God love the indies!

Wrap Up-----

This is going to be one hell of a year, musically.  Bright Giant is slowly piecing together its next project, Nine N Out just released theirs (their best yet), and holy crap!  I almost forgot!  Ash Ganley recently finished another in a string of fine albums (this one's titled Magic Season).  Dennis Crommett's (The Winterpills, whose Tuxedo of Ashes fries my brain) In the Buffalo Surround just hit the shelves and I am doing my pee-pee dance awaiting Zoe Muth's next offering.  There are too many releases of real import to keep up with, but I will do my best.  If you want to see where I've been, you can log on to my website, Rock & Reprise, for a rundown of music I think worth checking out.  I don't take solicitations, by the way.  I search out and write about only the music I deem worthy.  FYI.

I know it sounds like a Madison Avenue slogan, but let me say, buy indie and support the indies.  These guys aren't getting rich and they're every bit as good as anything the labels will hand you.