In honor of Small Business Saturday, how about a short film about Cleveland record-pressing plant Gotta Groove Records? Mmm, vinyl biscuits…
Gotta Groove Records – “Groove With Us” from Nick Cavalier on Vimeo.
No comments
Author: April
An Update with Austin Lucas
NTSIB’s good friend Michelle Evans checks in with road report on Austin Lucas. Midwestern Ohio NOTE: Austin is playing Zanesfield TONIGHT. More details below.
I was able to catch up with Bloomington, Indiana musician Austin Lucas this past weekend before his set at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, where he and his back-up band for the past couple of weeks, Glossary, opened for alt-country Tennessee rockers Lucero. It was a line-up made in heaven, for which people from all over the country drove and flew in. We talked about what it was like for him touring with Glossary, his European fan base, and what’s ahead.
You can catch him with his family band in Zanesfield, Ohio this Friday, November 25th at 7 p.m. at the Mad River Theater Works Studio, and/or next Friday, December 2nd at The Bishop with Murder by Death in Bloomington, IN. I don’t recommend missing these shows; he won’t be touring the U.S. again till next year.
How’s it been touring with Glossary?
Amazing. It’s like being on tour with five stand-up comedians. We just laugh a lot, and I mean a lot. Usually, I laugh a lot on tour, but it’s not often I go on tour with a band that’s been together 15 years and really knows each other and really gets along and also has so much camaraderie between them, and they’re dynamic is really good. They’re all really funny people and all really sweet people. Fitting in with them could’ve been really daunting, ya know, like a 6th wheel, but in this case, the 6th wheel runs real smoothly. It was the most natural tour experience I’ve had with another band.
How long have you been on tour with them now?
Two weeks. It was a short little tour.
How did y’all mesh musically, like with them playing your songs?
For me, great. In my way of thinking, really great. A lot of people at the shows were like, “Holy shit, I wish they were your band all the time.†At least the people who said anything to me felt that way. I’m sure there were people who thought, “He didn’t play any of his old songs,†or “He didn’t play very much acoustic,†but that happens.
Now, Todd Beene was with you that entire time, correct?
Yeah, of course. He was with Lucero up until our tour and then with us, and now these two shows with both of us. He prioritized Glossary and Austin Lucas. It was very sweet of him.
What’s ahead?
A lot of resting. I’m going home. I don’t have any dates, really, until I go to Mexico and then Europe, so I don’t have anything going on till then. I’m going to write songs, get in the studio maybe around January, something like that. We’ll see.
And you’re bigger in Europe, right?
Definitely.
How does Europe generally treat you? Like what are your favorite spots?
Finland’s my most favorite place to play in the world, without a doubt. Finland, the UK, and Germany are my three biggest markets, and in the UK, it’s really the south where I do well, like in London, Brighton, and pretty well in Leeds, but I haven’t really broke in the west and the north as well. In Europe, I sell out quite a few venues. At least I have on my other tours.
Which folks do you or have you toured in Europe with? Anyone we would know?
In the past, usually, I’ve packaged up, like with Chuck Ragan, Mike Hale, and Josh Small. Also Drag the River and Cory Branan. The last tour was with Digger Barnes. He’s a German guy, and he was Chuck’s bassist for a while. He was originally my bass player in my band Austin Lucas and The Pressmen, my back-up musicians. Then he met Chuck, and he played with us on Bristle Ridge and was on the first several tours. He’s awesome. He’s amazing, and he’s got his own solo stuff. We did a tour together last year.
So who’s playing with you on this upcoming European tour?
I’m just going to bring my back-up band, The Bold Party. We don’t have anybody supporting. It’ll be the first tour I’ve done over there in a long time where I wasn’t packaged up and ensured that the music quality was really good every night. There aren’t a lot of acts over that that play what we play or Americana or alt-country or whatever, so we’ll see. Should be a great time no matter what.
James Leg is Coming to Cleveland (and Other Cities, Too)
Solitary Pleasure is ingrained with James Leg’s extensive knowledge of the rock and roll canon and the album displays his passion and originality to full effect. Granted, Leg’s gargled-with-goat vocal style could be an acquired taste, but it’s also a quality instrument that, like his keyboard work, will prove powerful, yet supple and dextrous over the course of the album. Imagine Tom Waits doing Bobby “Blue” Bland covers.
– DEEP BLUES
“Long live rock and soul and pianos and devil horns.â€
– POPMATTERS
If you’ve been reading NTSIB for a while, you know that I freaking love James Leg (a.k.a. John Wesley Myers of the Black Diamond Heavies) and that his album, Solitary Pleasure, is probably my favorite album of 2011. If not, here’s a little memory refresher.
I already have two James Leg shows under my belt this year, and I’m excited for a third. Sitting down at the keys, Leg generates more energy on stage than most of his more mobile counterparts, leg flailing to the beat and hair flying in his face as he pushes his foghorn howl through the microphone to blast you out and then settle down in the center of your pelvis. But he doesn’t stop there, setting that pelvis to sway, shake and grind as he makes his trusty Fender Rhodes talk like a guitar and growl like a junkyard Rottweiler. The man puts so much effort into making you move your ass that he’s usually sweated through his shirt by the 2nd or 3rd song.
James Leg will be turning Cleveland’s Now That’s Class into a sweatbox on December 5th at 9 PM for $5 a head. Openers will be northeastern Ohio bands White Buffalo Woman and the Buffalo Ryders, as apparently, buffalo are the new indie band animal of choice. Please grab your free copy of the sleazy-in-all-the-best-ways “Do How You Wanna” below and join me on the 5th.
And if you don’t live in the CLE, do what you can to catch James Leg at one of the stops below.
Dec 01: Nashville, TN @ The 5 Spot w/ Blackfaces (members of Immortal Lee County Killers, Soledad Brothers and Be Your Own Pet) and D.Watusi
Dec 02: Huntington, WV @ The V Club
Dec 03: Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
Dec 04: Cincinnati, OH @ Junkers Tavern
Dec 05: Cleveland, OH @ Now Thats Class
Dec 06: Detroit, MI @ PJ’s Lager House
Dec 07: Ft. Wayne, IN @ The Brass Rail w/ Left Lane Cruiser
Dec 08: Lafayette, IN @ Lafayette Brewing Co.
Dec 09: Chicago, IL @ Morseland
Dec 10: Columbia, MO @ The Bridge
Dec 11: St Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
Dec 12: TBA
Dec 13: Kansas City, MO @ Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club
Dec 15: Omaha, NE @ O’Leaver’s Pub
Dec 16: Bayport, MN (Minneapolis) @ Bayport BBQ w/ Molly Gene’s One Whoaman Band
Dec 17: Bayport, MN (Minneapolis) @ Bayport BBQ w/ Molly Gene’s One Whoaman Band
Dec 18: Green Bay, WI @ Phatheads
Dec 19: Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
Dec 20: Dubuque, IA @ Off Minor
[West Coast March 2012 tour dates to be announced soon]
Rebirth of the Cool: …Baby, One More Time
It’s been too long since we’ve had a Rebirth post, but I’m sure some of you have taken a look at the title and are already wincing in anticipation of this one. Let’s get the difficult part out of the way now.
I know, I know… Back in the early 2000s, while I was accumulating a collection of “Ring of Fire” covers, my boyfriend at the time, in his perverse nature, took to collecting “…Baby, One More Time” covers.
Hey, we’ve all made bad choices in partners, okay?
But there was one stand-out gem in this perplexing collection, that being the complete piss-take version by Mr. Bungle.
Speaking of perverse, I found this version by Frank’s progeny, Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa, over at Cover Me and actually find it… kind of… sexy… (This may have something to do with the fact that I wore out Dweezil’s My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama album when I was a teenager.)
Thus concludes this episode of Unfortunate Confession Theater.
Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase: Church before Church
Music doesn’t have boundaries. We impose things like genre, or let a marketing department impose a genre and then just go along with it, and then say short-sighted things like, “I love all music… except country/hip hop/hated-genre-of-the-moment.”
Music does have power. Songs can speak and speak to us. Songs can move and move us. Songs can embolden us.
I don’t go to church – I don’t hold beliefs that draw me in that direction – but I am as vulnerable to a good gospel song as any devout worshipper. The clap of hands, the boom of a voice raised in full heart, the rhythm that stomps or the held note that draws a thread tight from the soul… it encompasses the best of what music can do.
From the early ’60s through the early ’80s, Sid Ordower (a Jewish man who felt the power of gospel) brought that boundary-less power into the homes of Chicago television viewers with a show called Jubilee Showcase. Sunday mornings, viewers could sit down and experience powerful performances from gospel stars like James Cleveland, Andrae Crouch, the Soul Stirrers, the Staple Singers and more and still have time to get to church. The show not only shared the music of the brightest stars in the gospel firmament, but also launched careers of fledling artists.
A new DVD, Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase, brings this wonderful show out of the past and out beyond Chicago. The disc contains four full episodes picked from thoughout the show’s timeline. From early black-and-white footage of the Staple Singers (with the ever-lovely Mavis Staple opening up those spectacular pipes) and the Soul Stirrers (the group from which Sam Cooke launched, though Cooke does not appear in this DVD) to later performances of Jessy Dixon, Inez Andrews, another appearance from the Soul Stirrers and a whole program of gospel mega-star Andrae Crouch, this DVD displays the range of gospel music, from high church hymns to stomping spirituals. The highlight of the collection for me is when the Soul Stirrers perform “Oh, What a Meeting” with powerful lead vocals from Willie Rogers. (I don’t have a clip to share, but you can hear a different recording of the song here and see what the performance looked like it all its technicolor glory below.)
The disc extras contain short, but often illumnating, documentarian bios of Ordower and some of the featured artists. And if you become as interested in the history of the show and its creator, Sid Ordower, you can look forward to a documentary of the show. Producer of the upcoming documentary, Steven Ordower says:
“Currently in development, Jubilee, is a documentary film featuring rare performances from a local Emmy award winning Chicago gospel music television show that aired from 1963-1984, called ‘Jubilee Showcase,’ the brainchild of civil rights activist and producer, Sid Ordower. Jubilee will feature exclusive footage – never before seen by a national audience – from many of gospel’s greatest singers. Ordower’s history as a participant in the struggle for equal rights will be interwoven with the historic performances from his show. This approach is intended to contextualize gospel music within the civil rights movement specifically, and the African- American experience in general. This documentary will consist of contemporary interviews, still photography, originally shot footage, and archive clips from what some have described as ‘the greatest single collection of gospel music in the world.’”
For more information on the DVD, including ordering information and to see some of the informational clips about the artists appearing on the DVD, visit the site:
Saturday Matinee: Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks the World
Featuring interviews with everyone from the inventor of the pedal to Buddy Guy to a lot of dudes you haven’t even heard about since hair metal went out of fashion the first time, this great documentary tracks the life and wide-reaching influence of the Cry Baby Wah-Wah guitar effect pedal, one of the most singular and iconic sounds of modern music, from its conception to the present time.
Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Jimmy Dunlop on Vimeo.
One Fathom Down: Psychosurf
Further to yesterday’s King Mob post, check out the noisy, heavy, sick-ass shit coming out of King Mob guitarist Tony “Sixteen” Fathom’s other outfit (with Jonny One on drums and Dan Down on bass), One Fathom Down.
King Mob: Make the Black Sun Rise
I get a little nervous when I see the term “supergroup” thrown out. It’s been used so often in recent years that it’s become synonymous with “disappointment”. So, when I opened my e-mail and started reading about a “supergroup” caled King Mob, I was ready to delete and move on… until I saw the name Glen Matlock1. Then there was mention of Martin Chambers of the Pretenders. Alright, I’ll listen to that.
Hell, I’ll listen to that twice (actually, I lost count of the number of times I listened to it).
Rounding out King Mob are Chris Spedding, best known as a versatile session guitarist who has worked with Roxy Music, Harry Nilsson, Brian Eno, Tom Waits and on and on; Stephen W. Parsons (a.k.a. Snips), who was in the Sharks with Spedding and has composed music for films; Sixteen, a young guitarist who also has a psychosurf outfit called One Fathom Down.
King Mob’s album, Force 9, is out now, and if you’re living in the right place, you can get a free download of “Selene, Selene” (if you’re in the U.S., you’re S.O.L.). If you’re living in the right place, you can also see the band performing live at 229 the Venue in London this Thursday, November 17 (tickets available here).
If you’re not living in the right place, well, here’s another video as a consolation.
1 You know that band the Sex Pistols, yeah? You know that guy Sid Vicious, yeah? Well, before and after Sid, there was Glen.
Give: Daniel Knox and John Atwood
NTSIB friend and Couch by Couchwest (the internet-based answer to South by Southwest for the lazy and the poor) alumnus Daniel Knox and photographer John Atwood could use your help.
Atwood writes:
Songwriter/composer Daniel Knox and I were recently selected by the Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation to be artists in residence this fall at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center in Watermill, NY.
Through the course of the residency, Daniel will expand, develop, and complete a long-form piece of music written and arranged for piano, voice, horns, strings, and percussion, based on my photography.
The residency will culminate in a premiere performance of the final piece alongside an exhibition of the integral photographs at the 92YTribeca, New York, NY on 26 January 2012.
Your support will “help cover production expenses for the exhibition: framing, printing, and equipment rental, accompanying musicians, publicity materials and costs.”
Atwood’s photographs have graced the covers of Knox’s Disaster and Evryman for Himself albums, and this further step in their collaboration is an exciting one. Check out the Kickstarter video below, then visit the site to see how you can help.
Daniel Knox – Disaster from Daniel Knox on Vimeo.
Saturday Matinee: The Future is Unwritten
Apologies for the absence, my babies. I’ve been battling the flu from hell the past couple of weeks, but I’m ready to get back on top of things. So, here’s a tribute to the NTSIB patron saint, Joe Strummer, from filmmaker Julien Temple.
After watching this, I highly and enthusiastically recommend getting a hold of Dick Rude’s wonderful documentary of Joe’s last tour, Let’s Rock Again!. And if you’re in the mood for the absurd, Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell Returns is free to view on Hulu.
Joe Strummer – The Future Is Unwritten (Documental) from hardcorepunkarg7 on Vimeo.