Category: Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog

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Video Grab Bag: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

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The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem: Because their records were the ones I neatly extracted from my parents’ collection and played as often as I could.

The Clancys came from Tipperary, Tommy Makem from Armagh, and they started creating a Irish traditional music sensation in America in the 1960s. I was lucky enough to see an incarnation of the band – there were several line-up changes over the years – in the late ’80s in DC, and I brought one of my carefully hoarded records for them to sign. (Which they did, with great ceremony, and perhaps some amusement, but definitely with courtly kindness towards a gawky not-quite teenager.) And as I remember, their voices were as sweet and true as ever.

Time has taken its toll, and as of 2009, they have all passed on. But they are still my favorite, for ever and always.

To add the Clancys and/or Mr. Makem to your own record collection, you can go Amazon and also to eMusic . The latter has Hearty & Hellish! which was the record that I probably listened to the most.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these videos.

 
http://youtu.be/jpjWCSL-utI

 

Rising of the Moon-Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem 6/11

 

Brennan On The Moor - Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

 
http://youtu.be/ONAuo51pTHY

 

Will Ye Go Lassie Go - The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

 
Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem - Whiskey, you`re the devil

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shelf-reading at bandcamp: county antrim

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Shelf-reading has two purposes: one, to make sure everything is in its right place; and two, to discover works you would not necessarily have though to look for, left to your own researching devices.

I decided to take purpose #2 and apply it to Bandcamp’s tagging system, generally, and the Irish music section, specifically. I then decided to use the counties of Ireland (North and South), arranged alphabetically, as a framing device for the experiment.

I begin today with County Antrim, which contains Belfast, which has large, thriving scene, so this time my selections do skew dramatically towards one geographic location.

I’ve also noticed that, as one would expect, artists from further out in the countryside have drifted Belfast-ward, which muddies the waters a bit. With one exception (David C. Clements) I’ve tried to confine myself strictly to artists who have tagged their work “County Antrim.”

Without further waffle, here is what I found that I liked, drawing both from Belfast as well as the county at large:

I last wrote about Mr. Clements back in January. Since then he has added five songs, one of which I haven’t yet extracted from Bandcamp’s clutches (a cover of Devil Town) and the other four which, together with the first two that I wrote about, I listen to on endless repeat for thirty minute stretches at least once a day.

Update Nov. 2013: He’s removed some tunes and moved others, and The Longest Day in History is now a four song ep. Here is my favorite tune:

Next up: Paulie J Fox, who describes his genre as “country experimental surf.” To me it sounds a bit Twin Peaks-y, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Less experimental and more indie-folk is Ram’s Pocket Radio, aka Peter McCauley, who is from Lisburn, just outside of Belfast.

This is his contribution to a compilation called, of all things, Small Town America (Public Service Broadcast 10), which features a totally European cast of characters, all of whom look worthy of further investigation:

This one is from Trajectories, a three EP box set of only his work:

Jumping up the coast a little bit, there’s static white sound, from Ballymoney. They’re heavier and darker, and to my ear draw from the shoegaze tradition but incorporate some of the spirit of Metal Machine Music, in the sense that you can hear them noodling and experimenting and exploring some intriguing musical thoughts.

Also they get an A++ for page design, by virtue of featuring a picture of a cat who has clearly been interrupted in the act of investigating someones pedals.

And then, finally, last but absolutely not least, there is Roysta (also here), aka Lee James. The Facebook blurb for one interview described him as a “Belfast’s mutated version of John Waters, Charles Bukowski, GG Allin and Ice-T.”

The formal name for the result is “dirtcore”; obviously I had to find out what that might sound like. Below are two tracks from Hurrmaster (translated from the broad Belfast accent: Whoremaster). As you would expect, his language is salty and his imagery can be, uh, startling, but he’s got some good beats:

If you’d like to hear more, he’s helpfully uploaded his entire back catalogue (!) to bandcamp.

Or you can explore the County Antrim tag on your own time!

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Alex Greenwald: Balisong (She Told Me So)

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Balisong (She Told Me So) is a teaser from Alex Greenwald’s as-yet-untitled (and unreleased) solo record, which – and I say this with bemused affection – I have been referring to as “Nessie”, since I do sometimes feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a dark Highland loch with a toy radio, waiting for static-filled fin sightings.

And, too, when (if?) I do ever get to write about it, there will be a certain amount of myth and legend (i.e. out-of-date Wikipedia notes) to untangle.

But until such time as it glides to the surface, there is this song, which is a love song for a knife, and is made of many dark, shimmery layers:

BALISONG (SHE TOLD ME SO) by ALECKSU

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Video Grab Bag: The Monkees

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It won’t let me embed, but go and watch it anyway. This particular video for Daydream Believer showcases both Davy Jones’ voice and the daffy fun that was The Monkees TV show, which I know I watched as a small child, either in re-runs or in syndication.

If Whitney Houston made me want to dance with someone, this song made me hope I might get to be the homecoming queen for a daydream believer. That sounded like a good time. I was sure there were frilly princess dresses involved, maybe even a crown.

Last Train To Clarksville was another one of my favorites:
 
http://youtu.be/RUZeZ1e441A
 
And finally I’m A Believer:
 
http://youtu.be/XfuBREMXxts
 
Rest in peace, Mr. Jones. We shall miss you very much.

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Name That Face: Randy Travis vs Randy Newman

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Good morning, NTSIBbers, and welcome to the first installment of Name That Face. It’s a new thing I’m doing, inspired by some of the epic and sometimes (often) ridiculous mistakes I’ve made over the years in confusing one artist with another for a wide variety of reasons. If you’ve got any suggestions (or puzzles you’d like solved), drop me an an email.

Up today: Randy Travis and Randy Newman.

This is Randy Travis. He started out playing country music in the early ’80s and apparently switched to gospel in the late ’90s but then swung back around to secular tunes again in 2008. Here I give you my two favorite songs: Diggin’ up Bones , from Storms of Life (1986) and Forever and Ever, Amen, from Always & Forever(1987).
 
http://youtu.be/VXjYB9tt7yQ
 
http://youtu.be/BLxhbxh6kMY
 
And this is Randy Newman, who has been specializing in pop music and movie scores since the early ’70s, and who I have repeatedly confused with Randy Travis for reasons inexplicable even to me.

The best I can do is it’s possible I decided that Randy Travis looked kind of like the cowboy in Toy Story and also absorbed the idea that someone named Randy had done the theme song for the film, and thus began conflating the two, even though they neither look nor sound anything alike.

In any case, here is Mr. Newman with You’ve Got a Friend in Me, from Toy Story, and I Love L.A., from Trouble in Paradise.
 
http://youtu.be/LXARdPb4YBs
 
http://youtu.be/BBOQiMxwk1o

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Jon Gant & His Band: A Rough Start to the Night

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A Rough Start to the Night is Canadian singer/songwriter Jon Gant‘s eighth album. It was recorded in Calgary with Lorrie Matheson, and Gant’s new band, which is Scott Munro (Chad Vangaalen, Gunther) on upright bass, Chris Dadge (Lab Coast, Samantha Savage Smith) on Drums, Chris Vail (Key To The City) on mandolin and Lawrence Nasen (No River) on banjo.

Gant’s been around for a while and done some hard traveling, and on this record, it shows. Though while these songs are world-weary, only two – Broad Street and That Way Again are really sad.

My favorites are the love songs: And I Always Will and Wild Irish Girl.

The former is wry and sweet – sample lyrics: I used to tell you through the radio / but the radio don’t play my songs anymore / I’m hoping somehow this song will make it to your stereo/I just want you to know / I love you / and I always will – and got me to thinking about both love songs and radio songs and the sometimes fleeting nature of both.

It’s also interesting as part of a dialogue, of a kind, a third voice in a conversation between Courtney Love’s Boys on the Radio and the Felice Brothers Radio Song.

The latter is an “I will always come home to you” song with a clap-and-sing-along chorus, and I have a special fondness for that sort of thing. Here it is so all y’all can appreciate it with me:
 

Plus also some videos. The first one is for Never Gonna See Me Again:
 
http://youtu.be/jTaeRuk-89M
 

And the second one is for Motorville:
 
http://youtu.be/lRNIn3_1j8c
 

If you like what you hear, you can get the rest of the record and a big chunk of Gant’s back catalogue at bandcamp.

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Dolly Varden: Mouthful of Lies

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Dolly Varden is: Steve Dawson (vocals, guitars, piano), his wife Diane Christiansen (vocals, guitar, organ), Mark Balletto (back-up vocals, guitars, lap steel), Mike Bradburn: (back-up vocals and bass) and Matt Thobe (back-up vocals, drums and piano). My favorite fact about them is that they named their band after a “rare and beautiful trout” that was named after a character in Charles Dickens’ short novel Barnaby Rudge and not, as it may sound, after Dolly Parton.

They are from Chicago, and Mouthful of Lies is actually their debut album from way back in 1995, freshly remixed and remastered and returned to the world. It’s a little bit like a time capsule: there’s some grunge echoes in there, some shoe-gaze-y filigree around the edges, and a couple that have some sweet pop shimmer.

This is the title track:
 

Dolly Varden "Mouthful Of Lies"

 
And this is the one I go back to over and over again:
 

 

And you can hear the rest of the record at their bandcamp page!

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Video Grab Bag: Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

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Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears were the 2nd opening act at the Flogging Molly show I went to earlier this week, and they were excellent. Because of a combination of factors (being late because of school and mysterious venue shenanigans) I only got to hear maybe two and a half songs, but those two and a half songs were amazing.

I’d say about 25% of the room was dancing – including me, I was totally doing a slow twist-frug with a stranger – 25% of the room was at least swaying and clapping appreciatively and the rest of them I guess either wanted Flogging Molly or nothing at all or might be dead inside.

Anyway. Here are some videos, as an introduction. Some of these songs are a little slow, but I assure you that live, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears are an electrifying jazzy-funk sensation.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Sugarfoot

 
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Livin' In The Jungle

 
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - I'm Broke

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Postcards from the Pit: TESLA / Built By Stereo, Irving Plaza, 2/17/12

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IMG_5237TESLA, on the 25th Anniversary of the Five Man Acoustical Jam.

 I waited 25 years for this show, and it was worth every minute. The experience was all the sweeter because I made new friends in the line, and they saved me a spot on the rail. So not only did I get to see a band I never thought I’d be able to see live, but I got to be up close and personal with them while I was at it. Best Valentine’s Day present I bought for myself ever!

Built By Stereo opened the show. They rocked as hard as they possibly could without falling off their chairs. I was especially impressed with their drummer, who brought some real power and pizzazz to their set. Here are some pictures of them:
 

IMG_5124The left half of Built by Stereo: Brandon Hood (bass) and Daniel Espinoza (vocals, guitar).

 

IMG_5121And the right half, with part of the left: Daniel Espinoza again, and also Derek Diesen (drums) and Tony Ricker (guitar).

 
And then it was time for TESLA. In the early ’90s they got lumped in with other “hair metal” bands largely, I suspect, because they had long hair. (And because early on they toured with Poison, Def Leppard and David Lee Roth.) But they really aren’t hair metal. They sit at the intersection of Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead – both of whom they covered at this show – and they have a much bluesier, jammier sound.

I got into them somewhere around the original release of Five Man Acoustical Jam (1990), and, while missed seeing them when they toured on that record, their covers of Lodi (CCR) and Signs (Five Man Electrical Band) were on a whole bunch of my high school mixtapes. They didn’t play Lodi at this show, but they did do a rousing rendition of Signs as the final song of the evening.

Before that they played a mixture of old and new material, including Hang Tough , Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out), 2nd Street, Better Off Without You and, of course, Love Song. The cover songs were Comin’ Atcha Live/Truckin’, which is a combination of TESLA and the Grateful Dead; Thank You by Led Zepplin; and I Love You, by the Climax Blues Band.
 

IMG_5150Jeff Keith; his trademark rasp is still intact.

 

IMG_5145Brian Wheat, sitting on his bad-ass acoustic perch.

 

IMG_5136The bad-ass acoustic perch, sans Brian Wheat. My corner of the rail totally wanted one of those for our offices.

 

IMG_5159Jeff Keith and Frank Hannon

 

IMG_5178Dave Rude, who they found on MySpace, after original guitarist Tommy Skeoch left the band. True story!

 

IMG_5194Frank Hannon wearing an electric guitar while playing an acoustic that was mounted on a stand. He switched off between them during the song.

 

IMG_5198Troy Luccketta, in one of my all-time favorite drummer pictures.

 

IMG_5218
Brian Wheat and one of the several basses he had with him.

 

IMG_5213A whole-band shot. Brian Wheat is at the keyboard and hidden behind his Wall of Basses, but he’s in there!

 

IMG_5248Dave Rude and Brian Wheat

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Wasara: Hehku

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Wasara is a death metal/folk hybrid from Finland, and they just recently released a new record called Hehku (“The Glow”). It is a dark, brooding gem of a record, and as soon as I heard it I wanted to know more about both the songs and the people singing them. Here, lead singer/lyricst Antti Ã…ström (lower right corner, above) and I chat about the record and the band:

Where in Finland are you all from?

All of us are from southern part of Finland. I’m from this small town called Lohja, about 50km from Helsinki. At this time of year there’s nothing “southern” in here… 50cm of snow and -20 Celsius – just cold and dark.

How did you get together as a band?

We started this in ’96 with our bass player Ipi and ex-drummer Mikko, we have known each other since childhood. First our music was improvised punk, played as loud as possible in our basement, but it soon developed to more metal-like Finnish rock/punk with influences from every possible genre.

There was a time we had a few songs with synths and techno-beat and on the other hand we had songs that were pure black-metal. We were about 16 when we started this and we all had wide musical backgrounds despite our young age – hence the chaos.

There have been few changes in the Wasara camp along these years, but this line-up (Antti, Ipi, Tuomo, Saku, Harri) has shown its power, like our new Hehku album proves.

First demo was recorded in the year 2000 and it was the first “official” thing under the name of Wasara. It’s been long road to finally be at this point and have our third album in our hands. It was truly a journey with many ups and downs.

The first demo was recorded in 2000?

Yes. It turned out to be too “rock” ‘cos the guy who recorded it was a hip hop guy and didn’t quite get what we tried to achieve soundwise :D Second demo was more what we wanted and that got us the record deal with Firebox Records in 2003. Wasara’s first album Kaiken kauniin loppu was released in the same year.

Your music is a really interesting combination of death metal and folk music. What inspired you to meld those genres?

We haven’t really given it any thoughts . . . we just write the kind of music that we want to listen. And like I said before, every one of us have long history of listening and playing different kinds of music. I, for example, have been a huge death metal fan since I got my hands on Grave’s Into the Grave album.

I also love traditional Finnish music and instruments. One of my favourite Finnish folk bands is Värttinä. They capture perfectly the Finnish atmosphere with different kinds of instruments and with beautiful female vocals. Other bands which have been huge inspiration for me are Amorphis, CMX, Mana Mana, Paradise lost, 3rd and the Mortal, Käsi, etc etc.

Are your songs variations on existing Finnish folk songs, or are they new songs written in a traditional folk-y style?

They are new songs as far as I know. Some of the songs were born in a completely different style than folk or death, but after every one of us had put their own layer on the songs they transformed in their present form. We don’t care if the song is folk or doom or something else, if it sounds like Wasara, then it must be Wasara.

Main thing for us is to achieve the right atmosphere for every song. In the process of Hehku we had all the strings in our hands and we took our time to make it as good as possible, without any compromises. If we wanted to put violin or a piano to a song, we just put it. It took almost a year to record Hehku but it was worth it. Now we just hope that people will find it amongst the endless stream of new music.

Is there a lot of overlap between the death metal and folk scenes in Finland?

Not sure what you mean but there are very few bands that combine folk and deathmetal and sing in Finnish. It is not that common, but bands who go abroad and get some publicity, usually are those who combine folk and other Finnish stuff in their music. In Finland it’s not that popular to play folkish metal.

I was wondering how the song titles translate. I tried Google translate but I have a feeling they got quite thoroughly mangled in the process. (Saatanaiset, for example, is rendered as “Bring Women.”)

And what is the instrument at the start of Saatanaiset, is that an organ? A guitar?

The instrument is an accordion (Finnish: haitari) and it is used almost on every song on the album.

The titles of the album are (roughly translated):

1. Saatanaiset ( she satans or she devils)
2. Ikuset ( eternals )
3. Minulla on monta nimeä ( I have many names )
4. Saunalaulu ( saunasong )
5. Kuollut on kuollut ( dead is dead )
6. Totuudennäkijä ( seer of truth )
7. Unohdetun mielenvirtaa ( mindstrem of the forgotten )
8. Kainista kasvaneet ( risen from Cain or grown from Cain )
9. Kymmenen unohdimme ( We forgot the ten )
10. Hehku ( the glow )

Saatanaiset was most likely written in a post-hangover depression. Saatanaiset as a word translates to something like “she satans”.

The lyrics tells a story where women uses their beauty and looks in general to lure men to their slaves:

They watch without remorse those men those worms /
they sing their songs, they sing to their slaves /
how could they dominate, how could they make their men to be the darkest soil /
They took us with them…Saatanaiset!

 
http://youtu.be/gohrcJWGHE4
 

Two of the songs on Hehku struck me as being more folk than metal: Saunalaulu and Kainista kasvaneet. What are those songs about?

Saunalaulu (saunasong) is a song about my familys sauna which is over 100 years old. It tells a story [about] how boys are turned to men in the sauna and how sauna is the place for truth. Elderly people tell their stories in there. It is a place for cleansing ones body and soul. For me it is the album’s most personal song.

 


 

Kainista kasvaneet is a song about going to hell. We were condemned to hell from the very beginning when Cain turned to the darkside. We are constantly lured by different kinds of things. No one is so pure they could ever get to heaven.

 
http://youtu.be/A7QFU7K4uCg
 

I’ve also gathered from the internet that “Wasara” translates as “Hammer”. Is that right?

Yes, but it is nowadays spelled vasara.

 

Wasara on Spotify.

Wasara on Facebook. (In Finnish)