ABOUT RAR: For those of
you new to this site, "RAR" is Rick Alan Rice, the publisher
of the RARWRITER Publishing Group websites.
Use this link to visit the
RAR music page, which features original music
compositions and other.
ATWOOD - "A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliverance"-AVAILABLE
NOW FOR KINDLE (INCLUDING KINDLE COMPUTER APPS) FROM
AMAZON.COM.Use
this link.
CCJ Publisher Rick Alan Rice dissects
the building of America in a trilogy of novels
collectively calledATWOOD. Book One explores
the development of the American West through the
lens of public policy, land planning, municipal
development, and governance as it played out in one
of the new counties of Kansas in the latter half of
the 19th Century. The novel focuses on the religious
and cultural traditions that imbued the American
Midwest with a special character that continues to
have a profound effect on American politics to this
day. Book One creates an understanding about
America's cultural foundations that is further
explored in books two and three that further trace
the historical-cultural-spiritual development of one
isolated county on the Great Plains that stands as
an icon in the development of a certain brand of
American character. That's the serious stuff viewed
from high altitude. The story itself gets down and
dirty with the supernatural, which inATWOOD
- A Toiler's Weird Odyssey of Deliveranceis the
outfall of misfires in human interactions, from the
monumental to the sublime.The
book features the epic poem"The
Toiler"as
well as artwork by New Mexico artist Richard
Padilla.
Elmore Leonard
Meets Larry McMurtry
Western Crime
Novel
I am offering another
novel through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing service.
Cooksin is the story of a criminal syndicate that sets its
sights on a ranching/farming community in Weld County, Colorado,
1950. The perpetrators of the criminal enterprise steal farm
equipment, slaughter cattle, and rob the personal property of
individuals whose assets have been inventoried in advance and
distributed through a vast system of illegal commerce.
It is a ripping good yarn, filled
with suspense and intrigue. This was designed intentionally to
pay homage to the type of creative works being produced in 1950,
when the story is set. Richard Padilla
has done his usually brilliant work in capturing the look and feel of
a certain type of crime fiction being produced in that era. The
whole thing has the feel of those black & white films you see on
Turner Movie Classics, and the writing will remind you a little
of Elmore Leonard, whose earliest works were westerns.
Use this link.
EXPLORE THE KINDLE
BOOK LIBRARY
If you have not explored the books
available from Amazon.com's Kindle Publishing
division you would do yourself a favor to do so. You
will find classic literature there, as well as tons
of privately published books of every kind. A lot of
it is awful, like a lot of traditionally published
books are awful, but some are truly classics. You
can get the entire collection of Shakespeare's works
for two bucks.
Amazon is the largest,
but far from the only digital publisher. You can
find similar treasure troves atNOOK
Press(the
Barnes & Noble site),Lulu,
and others.
ARTIST NEWS
Morrissey at Madison Square Garden
Back on Top
Morrissey
is on the road, doing a U.S. summer tour that started in New Orleans on
June 11 and is moving from the east to west coast, culminating in a show
in L.A. on August 23rd. He is the headliner for the final day of the
two-day FYF Fest. Now in his mid-50s,
Steven Patrick Morrissey remains the same challenging figure that he has
always been; a big ungainly, somewhat fey, miner type who sings like a
50s-era nightclub crooner, and writes the smartest songs anybody has
written in the last 30 years. Morrissey, in all his cheeky dourness,
gave hope to the '80s music scene, first with
The Smiths, and then as a solo artist. He has never been a
compromiser. In fact, he hasn't even been respectful of others, for the
most part, though he told a fan site that he is a "humasexual". (He
loves people, it is explained, just not many.) Morrissey's sexuality has
always been a topic of interest, because he sounds gay, writes with
sensitivity about rarely explored issues, including feelings of
resentment over being misunderstood. It would take a clever guy - an
Oscar Wilde - to do what Morrissey does and not make himself a
self-absorbed laughing stock, an object of derision. Somehow Morrissey
makes being Morrissey a messy delight for his devoted fans. He is a
brilliant emotional expression wrapped in his own enigma, and perhaps
the most significant writer of his generation.
- RAR
Taking the Piss
Andrew Jackson Jihad
On that day two bill with Morrissey at the FYF
Festival is the folk-punk band Andrew Jackson
Jihad. This is a duo-led band, distinguished by songwriter
Sean Bonnette's voice-breaking vocals and his machine gun
guitar strumming style,
and bassist Ben Gallaty's rhythm
work. They are a little like the
Violent Femmes used to be, a challenging alternative music outfit
that sounds like they might be trying to be funny, but carries a sneaky
lyrical punch. Out of Phoenix,
Arizona, they have been around since 2004. These guys are worth
watching, not so much as a musical collective but more as a fascinating
contemporary cultural exhibit. They represent a relatively recent
development in American counter-culture, the troubadour who comes to rat
you out for not getting the meme of the moment.
- RAR
Rebelution
No Worries in 2015
Rebelution
is a UC-Santa Barbara college band that started as an Isla Vista house
party in 2004 and over time morphed into a professional unit. On one
level, they are a kind of phony reggae act, an outgrowth of youthful
California's marijuana culture, but on another they are just a really
solid performance outfit with a devoted following. Certainly part of it
Eric Rachmany's voice, which is one
of the more pleasant sounds available on the current sonic landscape.
Rebelution also packs a solid horn section, which adds a lot of punch to
their world sound.
Crack in the Boomer's
Cosmic Egg
Breaking News: Young People
Disregard Old People
By RAR
Yesterday
I mentioned, to my 20-year old daughter, some story that I had read on
the Huffington Post - something to do with some story of violent
expression and social injustice - and her question to me was: "What age
group is the Huffington Post aimed at?"
That question struck me as so loaded with
information as to be profound, or at least profoundly tied to what
people of the Baby Boom generation likely perceive as a fundamental
shift in our societal orientations. Not only is yesterday gone, but some
of the legs upon which it once stood have been left to rot, like old
three-legged stool analogies.
It is everywhere you look:
Bill Maher berating a
Huffington Post columnist as a
"little shit" for daring to put comedy in a newly defined social
context, songwriter/producer Linda Perry
saying young people aren't interested in "deep" music, and
Donald Fagan telling an interviewer
that, when he looks into his audience and sees young people staring into
their smart phones and taking pictures of themselves, that he wishes
they would "just die". (Of course, Fagan also says that when he plays
county fair dates that he can no longer discern which of his aging
audience are people and which are livestock, so he may just be grumpy.
Make that "old and grumpy".)
Young people aren't going to die though -
not for another hundred years or so, the way medical technology is
developing - though they will be replaced in 25 years, or so, by a new
breed of "little shit". People in my grandparent's generation used to
call them "whippersnappers", but people of my generation became
comfortable with vulgarities, though they still make us feel a little
naughty, which is why the mentally addled comedian Maher can get a laugh
with a line in which he calls a young person "a little shit". Were the
writer only a "whippersnapper" he would be defined as "a young and
inexperienced person considered to be presumptuous or overconfident".
That Huffington Post columnist, a San
Diego State student named Anthony Berteaux,
had dared to confront comedian Jerry Seinfeld
for Seinfeld's opinion that young people have become so politically
correct in their thinking that they have become an impossible audience
for whom to do the kind of provocative humor that has always been one of
those legs that support the "comic stool". Aw God! I'm old! Still using
that stupid stool analogy, which probably dates back to my grandfather's
time, when you had to go out and milk a cow before you'd had your
breakfast; except that his generation of milk stool only had one leg,
which makes it not a stool at all, but more of a pedestal.
The pedestal on which today's young
people are building societal norms are not totally whacked. Here is the
logic, written by columnist Berteaux, that got Maher so upset:
"It isn't so much that college students are too
politically correct (whatever your definition of that concept is), it's
that comedy in our progressive society today can no longer afford to be
crass, or provocative for the sake of being offensive. Sexist humor and
racist humor can no longer exist in comedy because these concepts are
based on archaic ideals that have perpetrated injustice against
minorities in the past."
In truth, in this exchange the "little
shit" Berteaux seems a little smarter than "old fart" Maher. In fact, my
17-year old son likens Maher to "Schrödinger's Douchebag".
Schrödinger's
Douchebag: (From the Urban Dictionary) One who makes
douchebag statements, particularly sexist, racist or otherwise bigoted
ones, then decides whether they were “just joking” or dead serious based
on whether other people in the group approve or not. (See
Schrödinger's cat.)
So, like, when is somebody going to stand up
for the lowly "douchebag"? Not the individual, but the product, which
seems to put up with a lot of "bunk"; an old word (from 1900) meaning
"nonsense", probably in response to the term as devised in 1758, when it
referred to a "sleeping birth", but became an accusation, probably as
the grumpy result of the word user's experience with sleeping in
attached beds (bunks). "Bunk" is cool now, though, a thing young people
call a "low rent apartment".
There
was a time when Rock music was still young, but extraordinarily good.
Best example: Gypsy. A progressive
rock quintet that was, by turns, both fierce and sweet, featuring
extraordinary musical compositions, excellent musicianship (featuring
drummer Bill Lordan, who would go on
to fame with Sly & the Family Stone and the
Robin Trower Band), and beautiful vocals,
Gypsy lorded over L.A.'s Sunset Strip as the house band at the Whiskey
A-Go-Go around 1970. Pure Rock music never really got better than this.
Diana Olson talks with documentary
filmmaker Aaron Goodyear, who is
doing his best to rectify the error committed by history in allowing
this stellar unit to slip from its rightful place in the pantheon of
musical greats. After you read Diana's piece on the film project, spend
a little time listening to the music of Gypsy. It will remind you of how
filled with promise Rock music once was, even outside of The Beatles!
Go to the Gypsy article.
Colorado:
Lenny Charles
Guitarist and Indie News
Figure Returns to Boulder for a Two-Night Tavern Stand
By RAR
Colorado
music fans were treated to the return of guitarist
Lenny Charles, who came from his home in New York City to play a two-night stand, June
19 and 20, at the 28th St. Tavern (2690 28th St.) in Boulder. Charles
was joined by drummer Billy Hoke, Jamie
Polisher (The Lionel Young Band) on sax, guitar and vocals,
guitarist Gerard Burk, and bassist
Bob Tiger. The group has played
together before as The Drunken Bum Blues Band,
so this is something like a reunion.
The name
Lenny Charles leaped out at me, when I saw this listing, because I knew Lenny Charles back in the
early 1980s, when we both lived in Boulder. I have written about this
before in a piece on the bassist Jaco Pastorius
that spawned a short spinoff titled “The
Mysterious Case of Lenny Charles”. (That archived story, by the way,
is worth reading as a time capsule piece, not just for Lenny Charles
information, but also for an interesting exchange regarding Jaco
Pastorius.) That bit of tongue-in-cheek, referencing the
"mysterious" nature of the guitarist Charles, turned out to be more
prescient than one could have imagined.
Years passed, and I sort of forgot all about
Lenny Charles, until one day a few years back I was contacted by an
“investigative reporter” named
Christopher Bollyn, who had seen my
Lenny Charles story, and wanted to confirm that it was the same Lenny
Charles who was co-founder of the International
News Net (INN) World Report. In truth, this was the first I
had heard of INN, which until a year or so ago was a New York City cable and
Internet-access independent news service. And, in fact, it was
co-founded by
Lenny Charles LaBanco – he uses "Lenny Charles" as his stage
name – and funded using the inheritance money of a wealthy supporter of the
9-11 Truth Movement. That person was
on the Board of Directors of the INN World Report and he put up a
considerable amount of money to establish an INN news bureau at 56 Walker
Street in TriBeCa. (The photo above was taken of Lenny in his TriBeca
building by Dave Sanders, The New York Times.)
Lenny had become sort of an urban legend in
New York City through his street-music exploits with Jaco Pastorius.
Pastorius, who was an extraordinary physical talent, was a basketball
nut and he would regularly hit the streets in the area where Lenny
parked his van to get involved in pickup games, in which he excelled.
One hears stories of Pastorius and Charles jamming music together on the
roof of the van, trading off instruments and just generally putting on a
wild piece of street performance art. It is like a "bromance story" that
I totally accept based on my own memory of Lenny Charles and his strange
powers of attraction.
Lenny was destined to become that
special breed of human who, by the force of his own engagement with
life, becomes a notable outlier in the world of notable people.
Personally, I root for this guy as someone might for the Enrico
Salvatore character in Midnight Cowboy. They share an Italian
heritage, a New York accent, and a sort of shabby idealism that, under
all the rough exterior, is uplifting in its optimism.
Lenny made his living as a jazz guitarist
for a couple decades after he was first in the Boulder area in the early
'80s. During that period he returned to Boulder from time-to-time and
put together a couple bands (Stone Charles Band, Puzzle Palace)
with bassist
Kim Stone (Spyro Gyra). In
those years, Lenny Charles, who could play anything, was a funk and
jazz-fusion kind of a guy, and in that he was sort of a traditionalist,
using sweet jazz intonations in his playing. Personally, I deeply
admired this cool muted thing he would do that was so evocative of Herb
Ellis and that era of jazz guitarists. In more recent times, Lenny has embraced the synth
guitar and expanded his voice quite a lot.
Around 2000, Lenny experienced a renewed
interest in politics. You will recall that 2000 was a special year in
U.S. elections history: the G.W. Bush-Al Gore year, when politics fever
was at a boiling point. Lenny's financial backer took out a lease on the
building in Tribeca, which needed refurbishing, and Lenny imagined rebuilding it as a
performance space. After he co-founded INN, the building served as an INN conference center and a
studio from which to broadcast interviews with political figures.
He showed up on the independent news scene just as history was about to happen.
He was
at Ground Zero, walking around with a shirt that made him look like a
firefighter, and a video camera, covering that extraordinary event of
September 11, 2001. He claims to have provided, to
CBS News, the first footage of the
Trade Center rubble, which was subsequently broadcast
around the world. In fact, he claims to have been told, by a firefighter
on the scene, in advance of
the actual event, that the infamous Building 7 was going to collapse,
though it appeared to have suffered no significant damage beyond
ordinary office
fires.
Christopher Bollyn seemed
to have Lenny LaBanco, the newscaster, all wrong. Bollyn had become
convinced that LaBanco, who is married to a Jewish woman from Brazil,
was working as a mouthpiece to support the notion that the 9-11 attacks
were the work of Al Quaeda-associated airplane highjackers. He quotes
LaBanco's wife as claiming that those so-called thermate discoveries
were in reality samples of paint chips. In fact, Bollyn has accused LaBanco
of being an Israeli Mossad agent whose role since the 9-11 event has
been to put disinformation into the media.
This is
perfectly in keeping with the types of mysteries that have attended
Lenny Charles LaBanco, who initially bought into the explanations for
what happened on 9-11, but has since become a staunch supporter of the
9-11 Truth Movement. In the video
below, taken at an Architects & Engineers for
9-11 Truth rally in New York City in 2013, Lenny LaBanco
talks about the accusations of Christopher Bollyn, and he talks about the
management of news messages. It is quite interesting and worth a listen.
INN was shut
down last year when the funding that had been promised for the
refurbishing of the Tribeca building failed to materialize, and the
building's owner lost the building to a foreclosure. This may explain
Lenny Charles' renewed interest in the music profession. I must admit
that my first take at looking at this video below is that he looks
younger than he did 30 years ago. How does a guy do
that? Whatever, he's a dynamite musician, and a warrior for truth, and if you are in the Boulder
area this weekend you should check out The
Drunken Bum Blues Band.
The Christopher Bollyn
Connection
This
story above, with independent investigative reporter
Christopher Bollyn contacting me about
another independent media figure, Lenny LaBanco,
was really the catalyst for my renewed interest in the events of
September 11, 2001. Beyond being opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, that the Bush administration justified by exploiting the 9-11
attacks, I had not given much thought to the details of what happened
that day until I was contacted by Christopher Bollyn, and I started
looking into his story. It now seems inconceivable that anyone could
have ever believed the official account, in which 19 Al Qaeda-trained
terrorists flew stolen commercial airliners into the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center towers. Somehow a suspension of our reference to
reality was achieved through media manipulation, which is what Lenny
LaBanco alludes to in the video above. Never in the history of
steel-frame building construction has a building ever collapsed straight
down into its own footprint, creating a pyroclastic cloud in the process, other than
through engineered demolition of the structure. And yet it happened three times on 9-11, all at the same place and the same time,
and in one instance involving a building that did not suffer significant
exterior damage from the plane crashes. It has not happened again since,
though skyscrapers do catch fire occasionally, and sometimes more
dramatically than what we saw with the World Trade Center on 9-11. The
date of the event, and the title immediately bestowed upon it by the
media, referencing an emergency call for help, seem calibrated to evoke
a fear response, and even a period of disorientation in an entire
population. For a time thereafter, the nation fell into a lock step
acceptance of the explanation of what happened. There are now loud voices, like
those of the Architects & Engineers for 9-11
Truth, who are waking people up to the most important story
of any of our lifetimes, and one wonders if it would have happened
without independent news investigators like Christopher Bollyn and Lenny
LaBanco, oddly matched as they are as a pair.
Use this link to go
to the stories I did on Bollyn and LaBanco earlier. I now look at those
pieces as a starting point in my own evolution of understanding. (See
Revolution Culture
Journal for more).-RAR
Ike Reilly Assassination
Ike Reilly has a new album out. I
agree with Tom Morello: Ike Reilly is one of the best songwriters in the
country. Check it out on the Chicago Links.
L.A.:
Lawrence Novick
Composer-Guitarist Considers Boulder, CO
In keeping with
the return-to-Colorado story on the left, regarding Lenny Charles, it is
worth noting the interest of another former Boulder, Colorado musician,
who left the college town 36 years ago for L.A., who tells me that he is
considering a return to the Rockies. What is it with New Yorker's and
the Rockies?
Lawrence Novick
is one interesting guy. He holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, and he
is an Aikido master, with a dojo in Santa Monica. His long study of the
martial arts, and most notably his commitment to Ki energy training and
a concept called Kinesthetic Invisibility, has contributed to his
development as a Shaman. He does educational consulting designed to
infuse grounded spirituality into his clients' personal, professional,
and creative behaviors.
Lawrence is from New York City, but he came
to the University of Colorado as a freshman to study creative writing.
While in Boulder, around 1974, he was a 19-year old lead guitarist in a
band called Slumgullion. They played
an eclectic set that ranged from rock to bluegrass, which was somewhat
characteristic of bands coming out of Boulder, Colorado at that time.
Colorado people might tell you that Slumgullion came on the heels of
Chris Daniel's band
Magic Music, which is currently the
subject of a documentary film production. Slugmallion would have been
early contemporaries of Dusty Drapes and the
Dusters, which was outside of the norm in its own way,
playing Country-Swing using a horn section.
There was a golden period that took place in
Colorado music between mid-60s, when The
Astronauts put the scene on the map, followed by
Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids,
and the 1970s, when Firefall emerged
as a national act. A robust bar scene flourished at a time when there
was an influx of professional musicians moving to the Rockies for its
relaxed lifestyle, which at the time included ridiculous amounts of
drugs of all kinds.
There was also a robust New Age influence. Boulder
was blessed by the influence of Naropa Institute, now Naropa University,
which was founded in 1974 with a faculty that included Allen Ginsberg,
Anne Waldman, John Cage, and Diane di Prima. This brought a certain vein
of musician to the Boulder area, including Californian
Robben Ford, in 1976, who for most people had
burst onto the scene as the guitarist backing Joni Mitchell on her live
Miles of Aisles LP (1974) as a member of Tom Scott's L.A.
Express.
Lawrence Novick was among those Boulder
guitarists of that time who played with Ford and were influenced by that
exposure.
Check out this clip of Lawrence Novick
recorded live with his Blues band in Santa Monica.
If Novick's guitar skills aren't impressive
enough - and if they aren't, you should have your neural receptors
checked, along with your ears - check out this orchestral composition,
"Coming of Autumn", which is astonishingly beautiful. Have a heart
checkup if this doesn't work for you.
For you home studio buffs, Lawrence was
gracious in sharing that he recorded "Coming of Autumn" on his home
PC-based digital audio workstation. The orchestral sounds, which sound
great, are produced using samplings of the Miroslav Philharmonik
Orchestra. Lawrence should get an endorsement deal.
"There are many stories from the early '70s
music scene…." Lawrence told me recently. "I spent a fair amount of time
with Robben Ford when he spent the summer of '76 there, that was
interesting…. Boulder has certainly changed, but to me it will always be
Boulder…. much better than LA, where I've been for the last 36 years…"
So there you go: Boulder is better than L.A.
I am not sure if these are the bread crumbs
of Lawrence's recollections of his youth, or if that's an accurate
judgment, but I am absolutely certain that he could do something
beautifully musical on the subject either way.-RAR
Sometimes life has this way of
slapping one across the side of the head so that one can see the
corrupted nature of one's own ways. I had this happen this week, when I
was reviewing an all-girl band from Minneapolis,
Sick of Sarah. I had not known of them
before, and my first reaction was that their band name was just so
lesbian. I listened to their tunes and watched their videos and they
are just as gay as their band name sounds. And so I sort of took them in
without really taking them in, because I have been around lesbians only
a little, and they never really offered much for me to connect with. So,
I didn't really connect with Sick of Sarah
and I moved on to another female artist, who I have listened to in the
past, and who is thoughtful but not very good. But I find myself
listening to her and thinking this girl has gotten remarkably better!
Her songs have become real songs and she has become a spot-on vocalist.
Where did these pro chops suddenly come from? And then I realized that I
was still listening to Sick of Sarah,
but hearing them honestly as opposed to through my unconsciously biased
mind. Sick of Sarah is really quite
spectacular. Check out the Minnesota Links.
- RAR
Composer | Musician | Creative
Christof R. Davis
The video below is of
Christof R. Davis playing with
his band at The 100 Club in London. Born in the early 80′s to
musical parents, Davis has begun to make a name for himself
composing musical theater pieces, along with film soundtracks.
One critic wrote this about his musical direction of a stage
adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities": "On first
hearing it is more than slightly reminiscent in style musically
to some elements of 'Les Mis'." (Editor's Note: English speakers will not
dare take up the challenge of voicing the name of that play, not
even in print!) Anyway, Christof is an interesting composer,
which is evidenced by his live performance video below. "It was
pretty much inevitable that I would go into a career in the
creative industries," he writes on his website. "I went on to
study music at the Royal Northern College of Music and now work
as a composer, musician, musical director, educator and creative
chap." Learn more about Christof R. Davis by visiting
www.chrisdaviscomposer.wix.com You can also find him on the
Stage 32 site.
Take a few minutes to
listed to the track below, "Feeling Like Running", from
Chris Marshall and the August Light's
new full-length album, Some Kind of
Dream. If you are like me, you hear Bruce
Springsteen. This is a well-constructed song, with a strong
chorus, and it has the general qualities of late Springsteen,
which is really pretty high praise for this Portland, Oregon
band. They might want to have their agent place a call.
Some Kind of Dream is produced by
Patti King (The
Rentals, Radiation City), who is also a member of the
band and its musical director. The players include
Ryan Reetz on keys,
William Joertz on bass, and
Joel Swift on drums. The band's publicist describes
Some Kind of Dream as "a
genre-bending punch that proves Marshall is a songwriter able to
meld atmospheric rock, spacious melodies, and folk traditions
into songs that are both gorgeous and poignant". Click the link
below to stream
The
Walking Guys (Benjamin Butler, Christopher Kessenich, Will
Stevens, and Riley Moore)
are set to begin their one-of-a-kind music/adventure tour in
Portland, ME on July 8, 2015, with performances that combine
original music and stories of their 1600-mile walk. Yes, walk.
The four performers plan to walk from gig to gig, sharing their
music in venues ranging from highly esteemed theaters to dive
bars and around campfires. Representing the best of Southern
Folk Americana, the Walking Guys will create a musical
experience that will allow fans to join in their adventure of
covering miles every day on foot, becoming immersed in the
culture of each area they enter, and sharing their story with
those who will become the next characters in it.
During their journey, the Walking Guys will
rely on the hospitality of strangers, acquaintances, and their
camping gear to provide lodging. They will walk 15 miles a day,
stopping every three to four days for rest and/or performances.
The Guys are especially excited to document their transformation
in a web series they will release along the way. The series will
allow fans to connect to the tour in (near) real-time. Upon
completion of the tour, the series will be released as a
full-length documentary along with a complete live album of
performances from the tour. The tour will span a four-month
period, with dates in many major cities on the East Coast
planned. A short break in the walking tour will see the group
traveling by car to Appleton, WI for a performance at the
Mile of Music Festival in
August, with the walking tour picking back up where it left off
in New York City several days later.
______
The Last Year
The
Last Year is a duo
from Baltimore, Maryland featuring singer-songwriter
Niki Barr and guitarist/bassist
Scott Ensign. They do a high
energy Pop-Rock that is at the high end of that genre. But
they also do intimate acoustic work, so they are a fully
developed music machine. Working with Armed Forces
Entertainment, they have taken their show to 40 countries and
shared stages with artists as diverse as Joan Jett, Paramore,
Vice Gill and the GoGos, among many other big name acts.
Ancient
Warfare
Ancient
Warfare were once the girls who smoked behind the high
school gym. They were from distant shores; they spoke in code.
They borrowed your brotherʼs Velvets records and talked about
bands you wanted to know. They werenʼt going to stay too long.
They buried themselves in drones of words and found guitars,
mapping an intimate apocalypse along the way.
Based in Lexington, KY, with roots in both
Savannah, GA and the California coast, Ancient Warfare are
currently promoting their August 11, 2015 Alias Records release,
The Pale Horse. Since 2011, they have developed a fierce
reputation for hard work and dynamic performance, sharing stages
with artists such as The Raveonettes, Richard Buckner, The War
on Drugs, Chelsea Wolfe, Scout Niblett, Mr. Gnome, and Lucius.
Ancient Warfareʼs live show ebbs and flows from hushed harmony
vocals to austere, tube-driven waves of sound.
In the winter of 2010, lead singer/guitarist
Echo Wilcox approached
Duane Lundy of Shangri-La Productions
with a compilation of loosely established songs. At the time a
student of photography and motion graphics at the
Savannah College of Art and Design,
Wilcox's composition process was heavily informed by translating
traditional visuals into conceptual soundscapes. Lundy, a
long-time friend and collaborator, remained producer/engineer of
the project as Wilcox fleshed out her original pieces into a
wholly realized full-length album. Over the following few years,
the studio became home and haven to the various permutations of
Ancient Warfare.
Throughout the bandʼs debut record, The Pale
Horse, singer/guitarist Echo Wilcox voices a vast landscape:
last trials and bones, visions and paths to golden fields. Her
lyrics are shared secrets, fevered dreams – all anchored by
multi-instrumentalist Emily Hagihara
(Chico Fellini, Jim James and solo work), classically
trained violinist Rachael Yanarella
(Oh My Me), and recently recruited bassist
Derek Rhineheimer (Oh My Me).
Ensconced in a place of dynamic artistry, Wilcox and her
bandmates were able to develop the distinctly cinematic,
genre-bending sound of their debut album.
"The apocalypse seems the most appropriate
subject," said Wilcox. "Not in an epic sense, but in a sense
that it is all-encompassing." Indeed, The Pale Horse
lures the listener into a golden dreamscape only to darkly
demand resolution to the inescapable, universal plagues of love
and death. This apocalyptic thread running throughout reminds us
that everything good and true can end; the wild beauty of a
crashing wave will inevitably become the succumbing regress of
the tide. Such polarizing themes are pervasive throughout the
record; expansive skies versus one small soul, our eternal quest
for answers versus a relieved embrace of cyclical, unavoidable
truths. Wilcox's yearning vocals fluctuate in kind, emitted
sometimes as a howl as on "Dreamcatcher Bull," sometimes as a
macabre rollick as on "Gunsmoke." The resulting sound is of a
gothic renaissance breed, evoking images of tribal eccentricity
and dramatic decay.
Talented Siblings
Tim and Mollie O'Brien
Brother and sister
Tim and
Mollie O'Brien are about as
authentically talented as any singing duo anywhere in the world.
Tim has been a Nashville luminary for some time, a founding
member of the Colorado-based band Hot
Rize, which is one of the premiere Bluegrass and
Americana quartets in the industry. Mollie is based in Denver,
and regularly tours and performs with her husband, guitarist
Rich Moore, as a duo. Together
they have released one studio album, Saints and Sinners
and a live CD, 900 Baseline. Mollie has regularly
appeared on shows such as A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain
Stage, and contributed vocals to the Grammy-winning album
True Life Blues:The Songs of Bill Monroe. She is
known for her interpretations of classic songs by artists such
as Tom Waits, Memphis Minnie, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, Si
Kahn, Terence Trent D'Arby, and Kate MacLeod. Searching her out
on Youtube and listening to her perfect vocals is a fine way to
spend one's time.
The
Amazing - A Swedish supergroup who sounds like
if Fleet Foxes and Foxygen took a weekend stroll through the
streets of Stockholm with stars in their eyes.
BØRNS
- Garrett Borns recorded in a treehouse-cum-home in the Los
Angeles canyons. He sounds like the Where the Wild Things Are
soundtrack spliced with mushrooms and rainbows. Find his Candy
EP.
Eskimeaux - Gabby Smith is an established player in
Brooklyn’s DIY community. She sounds like K Records meets Kant,
the Blow, Frankie Cosmos. Find her tunes “Broken Necks” and
“Littoral Lullaby.”
COLIN
JOYCE - Aly Spaltro ia a Brunswick, Maine native
currently based in Brooklyn who sounds like Angel Olsen. Find
her single “Billions of Eyes”.
Twerps
- They are Australian college-rock revivalists who sound like
the Bats, the Clean, the Feelies, and the Go-Betweens organized
their own School of Rock.
Blinddog Smokin'
Carries on the Funk
Blinddog
Smokin’s larger-than-life new album High Steppin’
is a kaleidoscopic romp through the wild side of roots music.
The disc’s nine songs ricochet from rock ’n’ roll to juke joint
blues to New Orleans jazz to raw Americana, all supported by the
band’s twin pillars: hot ’n’ greasy funk and frontman
Carl Gustafson’s epic
storytelling.
High Steppin’ follows 2014’s
Decisions, a collaboration with soul-blues legend
Bobby Rush that earned a Grammy
nomination for Best Blues Album. Decisions includes the song
“Another Murder in New Orleans,” which enlisted another legend,
Dr. John, to tell its tale of street violence. The tune was
widely played on Americana and blues radio, and was used by the
New Orleans Crimestoppers organization to raise awareness.
Blinddog Smokin’s imaginative video for “Another Murder in New
Orleans” mixes performance footage, cartoons and live action
actors, and has received more than 110,000 views on YouTube.
All-Time Top Film Composers List
The Sun of Gainesville, Florida
recently ran a story that sought to name the 10 greatest film
composers of all time. Below is who they came up with. What do
you think?
No. 10:
Elmer Bernstein
Bernstein makes this list for his work on “The Magnificent
Seven”, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Great Escape”, “The Blues
Brothers,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Animal House”. No. 9: Michael
Giacchino
Giacchino's breakthrough came with “The Incredibles,”
“Ratatouille” and “Cars 2.” and “Up.” No. 8: Danny Elfman
Elfman’s best known piece of music is probably the theme from
“The Simpsons,” but he’s done consistently great work for movies
with Tim Burton’s “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,”
the “Spider-Man” movies, and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” No. 7: James Horner
Horner has worked a great deal with director James Cameron,
scoring big with “Aliens,” “Titanic” and “Avatar," as well as
with "“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Apollo 13.” No. 6: Howard Shore
Shore showed plenty of promise early in his career with moody,
sinister scores on thrillers like “The Silence of the Lambs” and
“Seven.” His masterwork is the score for “The Lord of the
Rings.” No. 5: Bernard Herrmann
Herrmann spent much of his career working alongside Alfred
Hitchcock. While he did great work on films like “North by
Northwest” and “Psycho”. No. 4: Jerry Goldsmith
Goldsmith's work includes “Planet of the Apes,” “Patton,”
“Stagecoach” “Chinatown,” “Alien,” “L.A. Confidential”, and the
theme from “Star Trek.” No. 3: Hans Zimmer
Zimmers scores include “Inception,” “The Rock,” “Gladiator,”
“Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” No. 2: Ennio Morricone
Morricone's Spaghetti Western tracks include “The Good, The Bad
and The Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in the West”. No. 1: John Williams
Williams wrote the music for “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost
Ark,” “Superman,” “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,”
“E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park”, “Home Alone,”
“The Empire Strikes Back”, and “Superman: The Movie”.
When Rock music emerged in the 1950s, the best
of it dripping with sexual energy and double entendre, it seemed
obviously to be a new force for social change. It helped to
energize the Civil Rights movement, creating a cutting edge
comprised of artists like Little
Richard and Chuck Berry,
and even Cookie and the Upcakes
(see Swamp Pop on the Louisiana
Links), that contributed greatly toward bridging racial divides,
and opening minds. Out of that sweaty, lustful brew developed
some over-arching ideals that, on the high side, found their
ultimate form in the "Peace & Love" movement of 1967. On the low
ideal spectrum, it produced a nihilism that has been destructive
to our society.
For many Baby Boomers, the music of 1967 (the
hub of a uniquely messaged era of music beginning in 1964 and
ending in 1970), carried an ideal that stamped their souls in
ways that would affect the rest of their lives. They were
imprinted with a message of universal "love and tenderness"
that, in their later years, would cause some to commit
themselves to New Age thinking, some to resent the choices they
would make in life - for living idealistically in a competitive
society pays a low hourly rate - and some to repel from the love
ideal, using their evolved sense of the absurd wretchedness of
it all to
justify their devotion to money and self interests.
Everything in music changed in 1970. The
Beatles became legend and myth, as opposed to just being a
working band. And that cleavage in peoples' views of life,
mentioned above, began to become starkly apparent.
The Rolling Stones' Altamont
Raceway show in 1969 had been a harbinger of the changes to
come. The Stones themselves embraced an "ideal" that was the
exact opposite of the "Love & Peace" generation that they had
lived through. With Brian Jones, their original leader, dead and
gone, their songs turned dark and lurid, filled with hedonism
and misogyny. The Beatles were dead and the Stones were the new
spirit of Rock'n Roll.
They spawned generations of whores who would
do almost anything if the money was right. In fact, they became
whores themselves, turning Rock into a corporate enterprise, the
mirror image of what the Summer of Love people wanted Rock to
be. For years, The Beatles refused to let any of their material
be used in commercials and advertising for non-Beatles products.
By 1980, when the Stones got tour sponsorship from
Jovan, no one was thinking that
way anymore. The western world had become populated by "me"
types and their lust for riches. That had the affect of
galvanizing anti-West sentiment in those parts of the world
where gluttony is considered vile.
This all crosses my mind every time I see a
story such as the one appearing in the press this morning about
water restrictions in Rancho Santa Fe,
California. That is a gated community of wealthy
people with multi-acre estates, whose properties are plush with
green lawns and water features. The average annual income there
is $189,000 per year - that's for each adult and child.
California is in deep trouble
environmentally. The current severe drought is in its fourth
year, and climate experts expect this trend to continue for a
long time to come. All of the lawns are burned to gold because water
restrictions have limited their feeding to once per week, and
now that is being curtailed. The electronic messaging devices on
California's highways, put in place for Amber Alerts, now urge
people to stop using water. The state's Almond farmers, who
require a gallon of water to produce a single almond, are under
attack. Farmers with "Senior" water rights, established in the
1800s for central valley farmers, are being redefined, and for
the most part Californians are learning to live in xeriscape
environments.
That is, everyone accept those types who live
in Rancho Santa Fe, who have turned a desert area into an
exclusive oasis, and who actually increased their water usage
during the last measured period.
Now they are under tight restriction, and some
are furious and using spurious logic to justify their
irresponsible lifestyles. Here is my favorite, from an interior
designer named Gay Butler
(and that name is not fictitious): "You could put 20 houses on
my property, and they'd have families of at least four. In my
house, there is (sic) only two of us. They would be using a hell
of a lot more water than we're using."
Otherwise put, Gay feels
justified in using all of the water that would be used for 20
families of four people each, if they existed, though they don't
because she bought up all the land on which there may have been
houses for this community of non-existent families.
That is pretty much the logic of the denizens
of these rich, largely Republican, California enclaves. One of
them - financier Ralph Whitworth
- paid The Rolling Stones $2
million to play one night in a club in Rancho Santa Fe last
month.
You are known by the company you keep, and
whores will be whores. These are sentiments that don't mean much
anymore, other than to those aging Hippie types who still
remember the feeling of optimism and hope that once existed, the
ghost of our spiritual Camelot, now burned to dry and brittle
West Coast gold. - RAR
____________
Could
Facebook Get Any Creepier?
It
seems awful enough that Facebook
works with the National Security Agency (NSA),
providing the largest face recognition database in the world,
along with the most ambitious behavioral tracking and data
analysis operations known to exist in private industry. All but
abandoned by young people, Facebook has
become a place where old people go to post messages of
conformity to group norms. You get "don't hurt me"
messages: photographs of pets and parents and grandparents and
children, and for some reason you get pictures of food. People
post a lot of pictures of themselves, which they then comment
on. And you get a lot of profile picture changing; Facebook
pages need to remain active to get anyone to notice them
because, other than the activities mentioned above, there is
nothing going on with this site. It has
become like a Stepford community of old robots, programmed to
repeat the same messages over and over, reinforcing belief
systems that adjudicate against change. That and data
collection are really the only services this social networking
provides, and it isn't really something designed for the benefit
of its users. - RAR
___________________
BBC Lancashire's
Grand Ole Opera (sort of)
The Country Show
While
doing serious research on the Internet recently, I came across a
BBC Website showing a playlist for "The Country Show" program
broadcast from Lancashire. To an American audience, listening to
this station would be just like studying a bug preserved in
amber. There are a few incongruities, but it is largely the
playlist of the country radio stations that U.S. Baby Boomers
grew up with. It provides a certain window into what U.K. folks
find valuable in America's country music culture:
Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard - Its
All Going To Pot
Theresa Rodgers - The Cold Hard
Facts Of Life
Niamh Lynn - Sing Me An Old
Fashioned Song
Hank Williams - Settin' The Woods On Fire
Derek Ryan - Cecilia
Gene Watson - Cowboys Don't Get
Lucky
Eilen Jewell - Worried Mind
Frankie Laine - Moonlight Gambler
Susan McCann - The Old Man On The
Porch
Ronnie Milsap - When You Wish Upon
A Star
Merle Haggard - The Immigrant
Don Williams - Fair Weather Friends
Sam Hunt - Take Your Time
Kitty Wells - It Wasn't God Who
Made Honky Tonk Angels
Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell -
You Can't Say We Didn't Try
Ferlin Huskey - Wings Of A Dove
Mark Collie - Even The Man In The
Moon Is Crying
T.G. Sheppard - War Is Hell On The
Homefront Too
Johnny Brady - Something About A
Woman
Eric Paslay - She Don't Love You
Lefty Frizzell - If You've Got The
Money, I've Got The Time
The Railsplitters - Sweet Little
Blue Eyes
Johnny Cash - Forty Shades Of Green
Reba McEntire - That's When I Knew
Nathan Carter - Lay Down Besides Me
John Fogarty + Zac Brown Band - Bad
Moon Rising
Raymond Froggatt - Maybe The Angels
Isla Grant - Living In My Mind
Porter Wagoner - A Satisfied Mind
Gary Quinn - I Love To Watch You
Leave
__________
Songbird -
Scarlett Johansson's Cease and Desist Order
I may be the only person in the
world who was not aware of actress Scarlett Johansson's singing
career. She has actually made several network appearances,
performing with the likes of Pete Yorn, and she has occasionally
piped up within the context of movie roles. She is no Katy
Perry.
In fact, Johansson
received some negative publicity earlier this year when she
formed a band with Este Haim (of Haim),
Holly Miranda, Kendra Morris, and
Julia Haitigan they dubbed The Singles. They put out
a single, "Candy" and were promptly served with a cease and
desist order from the Los Angeles-based band of the same name, The
Singles.
Below is a video
released by Johansson a couple years ago, a cover of "Boys Don't
Cry". It is sort of like a video-selfie Karaoke performance, the
merits of which you may determine for yourself.
The Best in Folk in
2015?
Martin Chilton, Culture
Editor of the Telegraph Folk Music Facebook Page, chooses the
following recordings as the "class of 2015", at least so far.
You are encouraged to search these albums out on YouTube and
elsewhere.
HARRY HARRIS: SONGS ABOUT OTHER
PEOPLE (WILD SOUND RECORDINGS)
FINDLAY
NAPIER: VIP VERY INTERESTING PERSONS (CHERRYGROOVE
RECORDS)
SAM LEE
& FRIENDS: THE FADE IN TIME (THE NEST COLLECTIVE
RECORDS)
THE
UNTHANKS: MOUNT THE AIR (RABBLE ROUSER RECORDS)
ANOTHER
DAY, ANOTHER TIME: CELEBRATING THE MUSIC OF INSIDE
LLEWYN DAVIS (NONESUCH RECORDS)
JOE
TOPPING: THE VAGRANT KINGS (FELLSIDE)
THE
DECEMBERISTS: WHAT A TERRIBLE WORLD, WHAT A LOVELY
WORLD (ROUGH TRADE RECORDS)
ALTAN:
THE WIDENING GYRE (COMPASS RECORDS)
KATHRYN
ROBERTS AND SEAN LAKEMAN: TOMORROW WILL FOLLOW TODAY
(ISCREAM RECORDS)
TOM
KITCHING: INTERLOPER (FELLSIDE RECORDS)
WHO HE?
IAN CARR AND VARIOUS ARTISTS (REVEAL RECORDS)
ALAN
KELLY GANG: THE LAST BELL (BLACKBOX MUSIC)
THE
MOONBEAMS: WATCHING WILDLIFE (MOONBEAM RECORDS)
MATT
McGINN: LATTER DAY SINNER (MATT McGINN MUSIC)
FAIRPORT
CONVENTION: MYTHS AND HEROES (MATTY GROOVES)
JIM
CROCE: THE STUDIO ALBUMS COLLECTION (DEMON RECORDS)
INDIA
ELECTRIC CO: THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME (SHOELAY
MUSIC)
BELLA
HARDY: WITH THE DAWN (NOE)
THE F
SPOT: FEMMES FATALES (FOLKSTOCK RECORDS)
BALLAD
OF CROWS: BALLAD OF CROWS
BRENDAN
McCAULEY: THE McCARTNEYS OF PENNYBURN 1865-1912
(COPPERPLATE)
MERRY
HELL: THE GHOST IN OUR HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES (MRS
CASEY RECORDS)
PAUL
BRADY: THE VICAR STREET SESSIONS, VOL1 (PROPER
RECORDS)
FABIAN
HOLLAND: A DAY LIKE TOMORROW (ROOKSMERE RECORDS)
LUKE
JACKSON: THIS FAMILY TREE (FIRST TAKE RECORDS)
THE
CHANGING ROOM: BEHIND THE LACE (THE CHANGINGROOM)
NATALIE
MacMASTER AND DONNELL LEAHY: ONE (LINUS
ENTERTAINMENT)
THE
BARKER BAND: THE LAND WE HOLD DEAR (BB RECORDS)
OLIVIA
CHANEY: THE LONGEST RIVER (NONESUCH)
________________
Break Out
Acts?
Eighteen
months ago, these were among the acts that the music press was
watching as possible break out artists. How are they doing?
East India Youth
- Eccentric English electro-pop:
London producer/singer-songwriter William Doyle is a rare
talent.
Laura Jurd
- Minimalist jazz with flourishes of folk, free improv and
contemporary classical. Impressive maturity in trumpeter
Laura Jurd's debut LP,
'Landing Ground'.
Joey Bada$$
- Hip hop like mama used to make.
Aged just 17, Joey Bada$$ released the '1999' mixtape last year
to great acclaim.
Nadine Shah
- Glowering piano ballads-cum-industrial rock from a former jazz
vocalist of Norwegian and Pakistani parentage.
Night Works
- Bassist Gabriel Stebbing
does urbane and metropolitan pop – funky like Chic, as soft and
catchy as Hall & Oates.
Novella -
Thrilling psych-pop with echoes of Can, early My Bloody
Valentine and Jefferson Airplane.
Petite Noir - Yannick
Ilunga offers a lush electro, slathered in a sultry
baritone.
Post War Years
- They've been hailed as the future of indie-pop since 2008.
Public Service
Broadcasting - Drums and guitar, a whole load of WWII
radio samples.
Serafina Steer
- Harp-led modern prog-folk from Jarvis Cocker.
Skaters -
This decade’s answer to The Strokes. Channeling the Voidoids and
occasionally the Velvets, Skaters are garage revivalist.
Theme Park
- Summer-themed lyrics and perpetual references to the lands of
balmier climates.
Hot in the South
Ten top Southern bands to watch
in 2015:
Great
Peacock (Nashville, TN) - Arena rock Ryan Adams
style. Check out their Making Ghosts LP.
Futurebirds
(Athens, GA) - Like R.E.M and Neil Young, with Beach Boys-like
harmonies.
Lilly Hiatt
(Nashville, TN) - John Hiatt's daughter just released Royal
Blue.
Caleb
Caudle (Winston-Salem, NC) - Paint Another Layer
On My Heart was one of the most highly regarded records of
the last year.
Bohannons
(Chattanooga, TN) - “A hotshot Nashville music writer once
declared that Bohannons were the ‘best thing to come out of
Chattanooga since Bessie Smith.’
Holy Ghost
Electric Show (Oxford, MS) - Their debut album The
Great American Holy Ghost Electric Show introduced a whole
other type of "wall of sound".
Ruby The
Rabbitfoot (Athens, GA) - “The queen of Athens, Ruby
Kendrick (a.k.a. “Ruby The Rabbitfoot”), released one of the
finest pop records of 2014, New as Dew.
Have Gun,
Will Travel (Bradenton, FL) - “Florida’s finest are
working on their fifth album, Science From An Easy Chair,
a concept album that commemorates the 100th anniversary of Sir
Earnest Shackleton’s famous 1914-1917 expedition in Antarctica.
Water Liars
(Water Valley, MS) - With lyrics that harken Flannery O’Connor
and Larry Brown, and a sound that is reminiscent of Neil Young’s
Crazy Horse at its loudest.
Blue Blood
(Athens, GA) - Critically acclaimed fly-fishing guide Hunter
Morris teamed with members past and present of MGMT and The
Whigs.