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Slackday: Hip Hop, Ya Don’t Stop

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Hi, I’m white. Very, very white. As the subtitle of this post has probably already informed you. But I grew up in the time when hip hop was breaking into the mainstream, when Run-D.M.C. was as big as any rock band. It was just as divisive a genre then as it is now, and some people – those who didn’t know that the roots of hip hop went much deeper – were convinced it was only a novelty that would fizzle out after a year or two. But then, as now, there was really good music to be found for those willing to listen.

I’ll admit, I’ve never been as into hip hop as other genres, but there have always been MCs I’ve been excited about. I’ll be seeing one of those MCs in my first non-festival hip hop show when GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan hits the Grog Shop Saturday, and I’m fucking jazzed about it. In tribute, Slackday is about some of the hip hop songs that stuck with me from my youth.

First up, it’s gotta be Run-D.M.C. I still think “King of Rock” is pretty badass.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXzWlPL_TKw]

This next clip is dedicated to my friend Amanda because, as we are linked at the brain, when I brought up the idea of an old school hip hop Slackday, we both thought of this admittedly terrible song – “I Got a Man” by Positive K. (And Amanda informs me that K did both the male and female vocals.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYIpa1Ulvw]

A Tribe Called Quest’s “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” stuck with me from the first time I heard it playing at a friend’s house back in 1990.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILyWmT2A-Q]

Enter the Wu-Tang Clan. (Yes, I know that was cheesy. It’s Slackday. Shut up.) Along with predecessors like Public Enemy, N.W.A. and Ice-T, Wu-Tang came stronger and more aggressively than the hip hop the mainstream was used to hearing. They scared the shit out of white people. That’s right: Ice-T used to be scary. But unlike many “gangsta rappers”, these artists had depth and style.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDPZpRmTg0]

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: Butch Walker and the Black Widows/Locksley

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This week, Jennifer takes a chance on Butch Walker, with some lovely results.

Butch Walker and the Black Widows/Locksley, Webster Hall, 5/20/2010

I kind of decided to go to this show on a whim. Up until relatively recently I’d been neutral to indifferent about the music of Butch Walker, but then he came out with I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart and I developed a fondness for Pretty Melody, because, well, it does have a pretty melody. And it kind of sounds like a backwoods orchestra creaking to life, one instrument at a time. So when his name popped up in one of my concert alerts I thought all right, let’s go see what this is all about.

I am really, really glad I went, because it was an incredible evening. He played a variety of instruments, including a banjolele – an actual cowbell also made an appearance, though it was played by guitarist Chris Unck – and we danced in the pit, singing along and clapping. He covered Weezer and Hall & Oates, and at one point towards the end, jumped in to the crowd and led us in a variation on the Twist, in order to drown out the muffled sounds of disco coming from the floor below us. It was crazy, and hilarious, and one of the best shows I’ve been to for a while.

But to begin, properly, at the beginning, the first band on the stage was Locksley . Their MySpace genre is “garage/pop/rock”, but apparently they have also previously classified themselves as “doo-wop punk” which I think is far more accurate. They have the three-part harmonies down, and also they look like they might have just wandered off the set of a remake of Grease, from the top of their rolled sleeves right down to the curve of Jordan Laz’s ducktail.

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Jesse Laz and Jordan Laz

Live they tend to drift more towards the “garage” and “punk” end of the spectrum, with excellent results. They put on a great high-energy show, which last Thursday included a particularly good cover of The White Stripes’ Hotel Yorba and an instrumental snippet of Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll No. 2.

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Kai Kennedy and Sam Bair

And then it was time for Butch Walker and the Black Widows.

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Butch Walker

He played the first two songs a) on the piano and b) practically in the dark, and none of my pictures of it came out very well. This one is from somewhere around song 3 or 4, after he had moved to the middle of the stage. I was particularly fond of the use of the fairy lights on stage.

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Chris Unck and Fran Capitanelli

I was on the rail on the far left, so a good many of my pictures are of these two gentlemen. In addition to the guitar, Chris Unck also played the lap steel, maracas, the tambourine, and, as noted above, the cowbell.

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Jake Sinclair

I spent most of the evening thinking of Jake Sinclair as Jake the Elusive Bassist, although by “elusive” I really meant “standing on the other side of Butch Walker where I can’t get a clear shot of him.” This is one of the better pictures I did manage to take. The gentleman behind him is Dr. Pat the Tour Doctor, who came out in the middle of the show to sit in and join the fun.

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And, in conclusion, two more of Butch Walker. The one above is him perched on the edge of the stage at the end of the main set, after a raw and powerful performance of Best Thing You Never Had. I do love the stark stillness of it, but the show didn’t end on that note. So in closing, I give you the one below, from the encore, from not long after he informed us that “Tiny guitar means party!”:

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— Jennifer

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Bits: free Jay Bennett album, Hell and Half of Georgia and The Famous shows, listen to Peter Wolf Crier, the Black Keys on late night

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  • The Jay Bennett Foundation, an organization supporting music and education started by the late musician’s mother and brother, will be releasing Bennett’s final solo album, Kicking at the Perfumed Air, as a free download on July 10 (a portion of physical album sales will go to the foundation). You can take a listen to two of the songs from the album at Pitchfork.

  • NTSIB friends Hell and Half of Georgia and the Famous have shows coming up. HaHoG will be playing Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, California, on June 5, and the Famous will be playing at the first annual Brewfest, hosted by the San Francisco Giants, on May 29 at AT&T; Park in San Francisco.

  • Inter-Be, the debut album by Peter Wolf Crier, is up for free listening at Spinner.com. They’ll be playing the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on July 22 with the Builders and the Butchers and Heartless Bastards. There’s no way that show could be anything but killer.

  • Because you know we can’t help ourselves mentioning them right now, the Black Keys will be playing The Late Show with David Letterman tonight and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tomorrow. If you’ll be in NYC tomorrow, you can enter the Band Bench Sweepstakes for a chance to hang out in the bleachers on stage for the performance.

This sweet-ass video of the excellent “Too Afraid To Love You” from the new Black Keys’ album, Brothers, gives a glimpse into Dan and Pat’s time at the historic Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11883860&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

“Too Afraid To Love You” by The Black Keys from Jorge Ortiz on Vimeo.

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Futurebirds & Jessica Lea Mayfield at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 5.19.10

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Futurebirds

With six members playing pedal steel guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin and drums – switching off instruments and vocals throughout the set – Futurebirds have a hell of a lot of strings, but you wouldn’t mistake them for a string band. You might mistake them for a really big bar band, though. I’ll just be honest and say that their music didn’t do much for me, but their sense of humor did. A band who can play to a nearly-empty hall and still enjoy the hell out of themselves is okay in my book. The crowd was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they were rewarded when the band kicked in three great songs at the end of their set, one led by drummer Payton Bradford who came out from behind his kit to strap on a Fender and go.

(One song was dedicated to LeBron James. “This one’s for LeBron. Maybe he’ll stay,” they said, perhaps in a bid to further endear themselves to the crowd. “He won’t,” came the reply out of the audience. The blacklash has begun. Have fun with that, King James.)

Jessica Lea Mayfield

Jessica Lea Mayfield is so laconic in speech and movement that you may sometimes feel as though you’re watching slow-motion film when you see her. This has led some to deem her bland. But Mayfield’s true talent – that of holding a microscope up to emotion, whether good, bad, ugly or indifferent – doesn’t require glitz or stagey charisma. But don’t think for a moment that Mayfield doesn’t know how to capture a catchy tune. The wordless refrain of “Kiss Me Again”, as one example, will lodge itself in your brain the first time you hear it.

Mayfield, who is impressively pale and is all skinny arms and legs, seems shy between songs, bowing her head bashfully as she thanks the audience for their cheering appreciation. But in her song subject matter and in her voice, Mayfield is bold. Though only 20 years old, she has long had an old soul self-awareness, and while she seems her age between songs, once she is playing and singing, Mayfield becomes an ancient sage, holding up a mirror to all of us as she holds one up to herself.

But a Jessica Lea Mayfield show is not a solemn occasion, partially thanks to her support band which, this evening, consisted of her brother, David, on upright bass, Richie Kirkpatrick (in unnervingly tiny shorts) on electric guitar and a drummer whose name I didn’t catch (not Anne Lillis). Kirkpatrick is sometimes caricaturish, but entertaining, in his rock and rolling, and David Mayfield is a powerhouse of energy and vitality. During the scorching crescendo of “I Can’t Lie to You, Love” (don’t let it be said that Mayfield and company don’t know how to kick it), the Mayfield brother could be seen laying on the stage, holding the bass up with his feet as eh played, then laying the bass down and beating percussion on the strings.

Perhaps Jessica Lea Mayfield’s music is not for everyone, but it’s still surprising – and disappointing – how small the audience was for the northeast Ohio native’s show. But , as seems so often the way within our little cradle of civilization, Mayfield will gain more recognition and success ass he continues to tour with friends like the Avett Brothers and the Black Keys, and then NEO will embrace her with open arms after the rest of the world warmly embraces that which was right under our noses the entire time.

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Notable shows in the greater Cleveland area & GZA at the Grog Shop!?

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Shows worth checking out this week in and around Cleveland:

The Beachland Ballroom & Tavern

  • Sat, May 22| 9 PM (8:30 PM door)
    Benefit for the Waterloo Feral Cats
    Prisoners
    Rainy Day Saints
    Kyle Sowashes
    $5.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Mon, May 24| 8 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Trampled By Turtles
    One Dollar Hat
    $10.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Tue, May 25| 8:30 PM (8 PM door)
    April Smith
    & The Great Picture Show
    American Swill
    $8.00
    Tavern | All Ages

  • Thu, May 27| 8:30 PM (8 PM door)
    The Dust Busters
    Roots of American Music Trio
    $10.00
    Ballroom | All Ages

  • Thu, May 27| 8:30 PM (7:30 PM door)
    Members of Morphine
    and Jeremy Lyons
    $15.00
    Tavern | All Ages

Grog Shop

  • Mon, May 24| 9 PM
    Mono
    Twilight Sad
    $12

  • Tue, May 25| 8 PM
    Good Old War
    Yukon Blonde
    Audra Mae
    Teddy Novotny
    $8 adv
    $10 dos

Happy Dog

  • Sat, May 22| 9 PM
    Brian Olive
    The Clovers

GZA is coming to the Grog Shop on May 29th. The Grog Shop? What? For $15 a pop, I won’t argue.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyt0tAwDAPc]

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Slackday: Deeper Shade of Soul

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This day has left me haggard, and it’s not even half over yet, so this week’s Slackday is going to be full of soothing soul sounds of the ’60s and ’70s.

Well, of course there was going to be a Black Keys tie-in. I was excited when I learned that the Keys would be covering Jerry Butler’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, and they didn’t disappoint me. Here’s the original, with Butler in a stylin’ suit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-PKQHNXPRI]

I will drop whatever I’m doing whenever I’m doing it to listen to “Me and Mrs. Jones” by Billy Paul. (Stick with this one. Paul starts out a little weak, but he ends strong.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgautjFHHgg]

I couldn’t find a clip of the more recent performance of “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” by Mel Carter that I’ve seen, but you can get a very good idea of just how impressive Carter’s voice still is here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45_8zWktVNE]

And I can’t end this post without including the song that gave us today’s subtitle. Please don’t sue me if you get nostalgia whiplash off of this one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5PNYNQqnvk]

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Rebirth of the Cool: Video Killed the Radio Star

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Follow me, children, back to the long-forgotten oh-how-we-wish-we-could-forget dawn of the 1980s. It was all about geometrics, big shoulder pads and bright colors. Everything was flashy and bold. The music video, instead of just being a novelty promotional tool, was becoming a commodity in the music industry. If you didn’t have a music video for each of the three singles from your album, you might as well not bother breaking out the Moog because no one was going to be interested in your songs. When MTV launched on August 1, 1981, the first video to play was for a song recorded in 1979 that seemed a prescient tale: “Video Killed the Radio Star” by Buggles.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ]

In 2005, Ben Folds Five put their typical piano arena anthem stamp on the tune.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UBNBgE2lg]

More recently, vibrant bluegrass act Cadillac Sky orchestrated the song, in a lovely and near-ironic twist, with the instruments of their genre, making the tune warmer and more joyful than one might have thought possible. Here they are performing the song with friends at the midnight jam at Merlefest in 2009.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4l8I-ejQ1M]

In this age of the internet, the idea of a video star seems as quaint as did the idea of a radio star back in the early ’80s. Perhaps someday in the future, someone will rewrite this song as “The RFID Chip Killed the Internet Star”.

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Photog: An NYC Hodgepodge

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Today, rock ‘n’ roll photog Jennifer shares a collection of her favorite locals (her locus being New York City).

A selection of my favorite New York City bands:

Atomic Tom (Brooklyn)

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Luke White


These were taken at the Canal Room last fall, and I was actually too busy dancing to take that many pictures. I’ve picked my two favorites to share today: the lead singer, striking a classic rock star pose, and the drummer, because I’m particularly fond of the light in that picture. The music is more rock than pop, and they have a new record coming out sometime soon. In the meantime you can listen to their new single at their MySpace.
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Tobias Smith


Black Gold (Brooklyn)
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Eric Ronick


These are from a show at the (new) Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. Also on the bill: Hunter Valentine, Des Roar (more on them below), and Girl in Coma. I really didn’t know much about the other bands, and was for some reason expecting a mellow show. I was pleasantly surprised to be totally wrong. All of the bands, but especially Black Gold, brought the high-quality, high-energy rock and roll to the stage. The songs on their MySpace are a reasonable representation, though live the guitars and the keyboards roll and soar in a much more muscular way. In any case, I’m looking forward to seeing them again this summer, when they go out on tour with The Young Veins and Rooney.

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Than Luu


The Crash Moderns (New York, NY)

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Danny Roselle


I first encountered this band last summer at an acoustic evening at Angels and Kings. The pictures I took of them that night are kind of god-awful. These are from a later show at the Canal Room – the same night as the Atomic Tom pictures above – and while their aesthetic is kind of gothy, their sound is pure fun pop. They will definitely be on my road trip play list, as it is the best kind of music for driving around in the sun with the windows open.
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Mikey Vranek (guitar), Tommy Eichmann (keys)

Des Roar (New York, New York)

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Ben Wolcott


And now for something completely different . . .

Unlike the other three bands, Des Roar has much more of a rockabilly feel, kind of like the Reverend Horton Heat, if the Reverend were singing songs about Ted Bundy and not bales of cocaine or the virtues of steak. I also spent a lot of time dancing and not taking pictures during their set.

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Alan O’Keeffe


–Jennifer

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Bits: Happy Black Keys Day!, Alan Moore box set, Dio lost, Curtis remembered, Conrad Plymouth travels

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  • I’m tempted to make this an all-Black Keys Bits post, but I won’t. That being said, holy shit, the new album drops today and it is glorious. And they’re giving away a copy of the deluxe, limited-edition CD over at HearYa.

  • Comic book genius Alan Moore is in music news again as he collaborates with photographer Mitch Jenkins and a roster of musicians, including Mike Patton, on a box set that includes a story written by Moore, illustrated by Jenkins with an accompanying score on CD or vinyl.

  • Metal legend Ronnie James Dio lost his battle with cancer on Sunday, and today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

  • Our friends Conrad Plymouth give a brief glimpse of their journey to SXSW.

  • And back around to the Keys. In concert with the official release of Brothers is the premiere of the video for the lead single “Tighten Up”. The guys continue their fine video tradition of hilarity and violence. With no dinosaur puppets in sight.


The Black Keys “Tighten Up”
http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=104927443,t=1,mt=video
The Black Keys | MySpace Music Videos

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Suckers & Local Natives at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, OH, 5.11.10

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Local Natives (in-store performance at Music Saves)

Playlist
Wide Eyes
Cards & Quarters
Warning Sign
Airplanes

I may be a big puss and a little too easily affected by music, but as soon as Local Natives broke into their trademark harmonizing at the beginning of their Music Saves pre-gig in-store performance, I felt a little moisture trying to escape from my face. I wasn’t crying – just… leaking a little awe.

This was quite a turnaround considering it hadn’t been that long ago that I was finding myself unable to get into the Local Natives groove (it was that backyard SXSW performance captured by Yours Truly that finally got me to tap in). Lucky for me that there’s no expiration date on good music.

It struck me that Local Natives’ performance was almost the antithesis of the Felice Brothers’ performance I had just experienced the night before. I am a big fan of slopping, emotional music, which the Felice Brothers are pros at creating, but there is certainly something to be said for the ability of a band like Local Natives. As a unit, they are so tight and their talents s complement each other so well that it’s easy to tell that some of these guys have been playing together half their lives. Though that’s certainly not to say that Local Natives’ music lacks emotion. Their song subject matter often sprouts from a very personal level and the musical accompaniment can tap straight into the listener’s center. Plus, Kelcey Ayer has a howl that makes you want to give him a hug and ask if he’s okay.

Experiencing the music of Local Natives in the small space of Music Saves, with acoustic instruments and no mics, mere feet from where you stand, accentuating their immaculate vocals and the warm heart of their music, is extraordinary. If you have the chance to hear them this way, jump on it.

Suckers

A guy who looks like he just escaped from a John Hughes movie casting call walks out on stage. He’s wearing a striped shirt with a red tie screen printed on the front, red sneakers, and he has straggly designs markered across his face.

“My name is Brian, and my talent is drumming.”

He sits down behind his kit (also red) and goes to work. After a little showing off, his compatriots take the stage. There is another refugee from the John Hughes extras pool (guitarist Austin Fisher), someone’s dad (bass player Pan) and a spectacularly colorful grunge glam rocker (singer Quinn Walker). This is Suckers, and they’re going to go straight to the good stuff with “Before Your Birthday Ends”.

I had heard Suckers around the ‘net thanks to the likes of Daytrotter and Stereogum and liked what I heard, but by the time I was standing in front of the stage, I had forgotten what they sounded like. I couldn’t have been more happily reminded when they broke into “Birthday” with its bouncing groove and Walker’s falsetto vocals (not to detract from his normal voice, but I almost wish Walker sang in falsetto all the time).

Keeping up the groove through the show, the band members did double- and sometimes triple-duty on vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion percussion percussion and even a little brass, Fisher being the only one who didn’t seem like he was going to jump out of his skin with ebullience. Even without Walker telling us what a “great space” we had in the Beachland and how much fun he was having, their joy was apparent. The audience felt the joy and returned it, giving the band some of the biggest parting cheers I’ve ever heard for an opening act. If Suckers aren’t headlining their own tour the next time around, it’ll be a surprise.

Other songs played (in lieu of an actual set list): “Black Sheep”, “It Gets Your Body Moving”, “Roman Candles”.

Local Natives

Playlist
Camera Talk
World News
Wide Eyes
Cards & Quarters
Shape Shifter
Warning Sign
Cubism Dream
Stranger Things
Airplanes
Who Knows Who Cares
Sun Hands

After experiencing the beauty of the Music Saves acoustic performance, there was a little part of my mind concerned that the big, plugged-in show would not be as invigorating. But when Local Natives took the Beachland stage, they proceeded to give that little part of my mind a smack in its metaphorical face. Like their tour mates, Local Natives bring a lot of percussion and a lot of joy to the stage. Their amplified performance, while three times more energetic than their acoustic performance, is no less tight and no less affecting.

There was a little instrument switching off between songs, Ryan Hahn putting down the guitar for drums for a little while and Taylor Rice and Kelcey Ayer trading off guitar and keyboard duties (Ayer sometimes playing keys and percussion while singing), while bass player Andy Hamm and drummer Matt Frazier kept mostly to their posts (though Hamm did join Frazier a couple of times to add to the percussion). His time behind the keyboard was the only time Rice stopped bouncing around the stage, sweating all over the place.

While their songs benefit from quieter, stripped down playing, their versatility means they also benefit from big, loud amplification, keeping the crowd bouncing along throughout the show. And you can bet everyone was shouting along to the big chorus on “Sun Hands”.

The drawback of being a headlining band with one album is that you’re left with no songs to encore with, and even though the audience really wanted Local Natives back for some more, there was no more to give. But there was no feeling that we hadn’t been given our money’s worth and then some.

Here’s a video from the Local Natives’ in-store performance of my current favorite from them, “Cards & Quarters”:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJEF3nZUFk]