[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTLffvQ9GvA]
I could make supposedly witty remarks about how Infantree is an appropriate name because these guys are twelve years old if they’re a day, but that would belie the maturity of their sound and the confidence of their fully-realized songs. While they’re only a few years out of high school, three of this four-man band from southern California have been playing and writing together since elementary school, and the experience shows in their music.
Their sound encompasses influences from jazz to folk to Spanish classical to rock to blues to… they’re eclectic, let’s put it that way. And they have the skill to translate these influences into whole music instead of the mish-mash such eclecticism could otherwise engender.
Apparently, they also have the skill to make my write like some pretentious magazine reviewer, so why don’t you just listen to them instead. Here’s “Euphemism†from their EP Food for Thought.
Their full-length album, Would Work – produced by Niko Bolas (Neil Young, Warren Zevon) – will be out on September 14.
Taking a roadtrip to Mississippi to learn about the blues… it’s like a post from Things White People Like, but it is indeed what this white girl did. I don’t remember when I first heard Delta blues music, but it was likely as a part of some “history of rock ‘n’ roll” documentary I watched as a music-obsessed pre-teen. What I do remember is being immediately drawn to the emphasis on rhythm and the guttural vocal delivery. In the intervening years, my relationship with the blues was an on-again-off-again affair until the time I realized that all the music I really loved, the music that spoke to me the most, drew heavy influence from the blues, especially the Delta blues. The Black Keys, A.A. Bondy, the Gutter Twins, the Felice Brothers, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (obviously), etc., have all paid tribute to various Delta bluesmen – from T-Model Ford to Skip James to Mississippi John Hurt – and allowed the echoes of these Mississippi artists to inform their musical paths.
Delving into the music that influenced the artists I love, I found even more artists to love (and I may be developing an unhealthy fascination with Skip James, but that’s a story for another time). This slow-growing love for the blues was a significant factor in deciding to spend a week in the hill country and delta area of northern Mississippi.
I’ve heard more than one Northerner say it after a trip “Down South”: It’s a different world down there. While this is true, it’s not necessarily in the foreboding way many Northerners unfamiliar with the American South take it. Sure, it seems like racism and homophobia are still extreme there (though one has to keep in mind the old saying “Squeaky wheel gets the grease” and realize the stories we often see in the news are there because they are news, not of the norm) and there seems to be a lot more crazy there (or the same amount of crazy as there is in the rest of the country, just more out in the open, more accepted), but there is also more friendliness there (Southern hospitality is not a myth, and conversation with strangers is a regional pastime) and much more sweet tea. Mmm, sweet tea…
An aside: Having family in Alabama and Louisiana, I can tell you that you can’t judge one Southern state based on another. Just as Ohio and Minnesota are both considered Midwestern states but are fundamentally different in character and terrain, so, too, the South.
Our roadtrip itinerary was very casual and, honestly, only half-informed. I knew that if I was going to be in Oxford, Mississippi, for a week, it would be a crime not to make a day-trip to Clarksdale. But the only things we knew we’d be doing for sure upon hitting the small town were visiting the Delta Blues Museum and eating.
(In retrospect, I wish I had known about Memphis & the Delta Blues Trail, a music-lover’s travel guide written by Justin Gage of Aquarium Drunkard and his wife, Melissa. I will be picking up a copy for my next trip down.)
We stopped at Ground Zero Blues Club, the painstakingly “run-down” restaurant/club co-owned by Morgan Freeman, just because it was conveniently located a short walk from the Delta Blues Museum. My capsule review: It’s alright. It’s a little try-hard in terms of creating atmosphere, copying Taylor Grocery’s decorating technique of letting people write on the walls (actually, people have written on every available surface – I’m surprised our dinnerware wasn’t covered in magic marker scrawls) and playing a requisitely bluesy selection of background music (on a sound system that began breaking down halfway through our meal). The food itself was only okay, though travel companion Cam fell in love with the fried pickles.
After lunch, we hit the Delta Blues Museum where I spent twice as much time as my travel companions. This is something everyone who visits a music-centric museum with me should be aware of: I will read every placard and muse over nearly every exhibit. Don’t make any plans for the rest of the day is what I’m saying.
The Delta Blues Museum is as humble as the Delta itself. One floor, one room, with an attached gift shop. Many of the exhibits consist of clothing. A jacket from Little Milton, a snazzy suit from Pinetop Perkins, Charlie Musslewhite’s shoes. There are a number of guitars on display, but most of them don’t appear to have been owned by anyone “of note”. Some excellent photography of the musicians and places of the Delta lines the walls. At the time of our visit, the photographers’ work on display were William Ferris, Nathan Miller and a third photographer whose name I have forgotten and is not listed on the museum’s website.
This is not to say the museum is without some very interesting “artifacts” (it seems odd to tack that word to remnants of a breathing art). Some highlights include a bag of flour emblazoned with Sonny Boy Williamson’s (Rice Miller) visage from the height of his popularity in his spot as host of the King Biscuit Time radio program and sculptures created by James “Son” Thomas. But the museum’s undoubted pièce de résistance is the one room left of the cabin in which Muddy Waters was living when he was recorded by Alan Lomax.
It’s kind of a shock to come upon, just sitting there at the far end of the museum, not roped off or enclosed behind glass. You can run your hand over the wood, feeling the splinters come away against your palm. You can walk inside it and sit down to watch a short documentary on Waters while a slightly discomfiting life-size sculpture of Waters stares at you from a small stage and Billy Gibbons’ Muddywood guitar, which Gibbons (ZZ Top) had made from one of the floorboards of Waters’ cabin, sits in a case off to your right.
All of these “accessories” were added when the House of Blues took up the cabin and sent it on tour. And while it wasn’t quite as terrible as I had feared from reading about the display beforehand, it is still a typically gaudy and unnecessary move from the House of Blues. A placard on the cabin notes that it will eventually be returned to its original home on Stovall Farms outside of Clarksdale (without all the schmaltz, one hopes).
Videotaping and photography are prohibited in the Delta Blues Museum, so here’s a clip of Muddy Waters and his band play “Got My Mojo Workin'” to satisfy the visual quotient for this post.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V25iA2XPzuA]
I wasn’t going to post anything remotely Black Keys-related today because it seemed too obvious in light of their Cleveland show tomorrow night (which somehow isn’t sold out, even though several shows on this tour are sold out – no damn wonder Pat moved away and Dan will probably be moving soon) and my inability to shut about them lately. But then the awesome Freddie Gibbs collaboration “Oil Money” turned up yesterday, and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it. Featuring Dan Auerbach along with Chuck Inglish (of the Cool Kids, who will appear on the next BlakRoc joint), Bun B and Cleveland’s Chip Tha Ripper, this is a gorgeous piece of hip hop. You can download the mp3 at It’s A Rap.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJToh1S1ZYc]
And what’s more appropriate for Slackday than a song about feeling goooood from Chip Tha Ripper?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bhpTiaDtrk]
Some people wouldn’t understand. This is not conceit on my part but an observation based on the fact that people were all around, but I was the only one standing at the glass wall, gazing in glaze-eyed wonder. I may or may not have pressed my face to the glass. I was at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and behind the glass was a mixing board from Sun Studio. I was imagining the hands that had turned those knobs and the music that had been monitored through that console. I was transfixed.
About ten years later, driving down Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, I grew giddy with excitement when I spied the huge (and impressively accurate) Gibson guitar sign that now marks the original home of that piece of unassuming equipment I had swooned over at the Rockhall. Walking up to the old storefront studio is a little like stepping into a time vortex for a moment, like straddling an invisible boundary between Then and Now. This feeling is instantly wiped away when you step into the Sun Studio gift shop housed in the adjoining building, crowded with tourists and merchandise, but that’s forgivable enough when you look at the photos displayed on the walls of the artists who recorded at Sun and see things like a reproduction poster announcing a “The Howling Wolf Vs. Muddy Waters” gig ($3.50 advance/$4 door).
At the half-hour, our tour was summoned up the stairs to the museum where a modest collection of photos and artefacts are displayed, and we were introduced to our tour guide, Jason, who was part rocker/part classic deejay/part carnival barker (more about him on NTSIB in the near future). Jason prepped us for our eventual step into the actual studio by giving us a condensed history of the studio (which began life as the Memphis Recording Service where Sam Phillips would record artists and then sell those recordings to labels like Chess Records before he decided to start his own label), sharing interesting trivia (the distortion effect for guitar was born when the guitarist for Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston’s band damaged his amp en route to the studio and repaired it with paper before recording what is considered by many to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record, “Rocket 88”) and sampling some of the msuic (Howlin’ Wolf, “Rocket 88”, Elvis Presley’s very first recording).
http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fnow-this-sound-is-brave%2Frocket-88&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=ff8700 Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston
After viewing Elvis’ controversial, pelvis-swinging television debut, it was time to enter the studio. Descending the stairs and passing through the former office of Marion Keisker, Phillips’ secretary and the first person to record Elvis, I suppressed a giggle as I recalled the Sun Studio scene from Jim Jarmusch’s film Mystery Train in which the tour guide’s rapidfire spiel leaves a young Japanese couple mystified and exhausted. But when I walked into that small, simple, white room, I began to fight back tears. Scholars could argue for ages about where and when rock ‘n’ roll actually started, but I believe I’m safe in saying that if it wasn’t for the events that occurred in that room, NTSIB would not exist. Whether or not the songs recorded there started rock’ n’ roll, they were integral to the evolution-revolution that created the music I love, the music that is sometimes the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. When I stepped into that studio, I could feel the weight and power of that and was overcome in the most invigorating way.
Tour guide Jason continued to tell us about Sun and the great artists who got their start there, but I had a difficult time concentrating as the room itself and the spirit in the room (spirit, not ghosts – that room is alive) monopolized my attention. That small, humble, slightly age-worn room where Wolf, Ike, Carl, Elvis, Johnny, Roy, Jerry Lee and others effectively changed the world.
When the tour was over, I asked Jason, “Do you ever get used to it?”
I didn’t have to explain what I meant.
“Not really.”
I spoke too soon. We have one more post for you before we hit the road.
While in Paris last February, Local Natives filmed their show at le Maroquinerie and will be streaming the show on their Facebook page on Monday, July 12. Here are the details:
Next Monday, Local Natives will stream a complete, never-before-seen live performance on their Facebook page. Powered byLivestream, the hour-long set begins at 3pm EST, and features a gorgeous, multi-camera shoot helmed by the ever-capable Valerie Toumayan. The performance, which includes renditions of nearly every Gorilla Manor favorite, was filmed in February of this year at le Maroquinerie in Paris, France. Earlier today, My Old Kentucky Blog treated readers to an advance preview of the set with a 6-minute version of “Stranger Things.â€
Watch The Preview At My Old Kentucky Blog
Go Here Monday, July 12th At 3PM EST To Watch The Entire Performance
If you haven’t seen Local Natives live, get on this. These guys have great energy, great spirit and are even more impressive live than they are recorded.
It’s been a while since NTSIB has expressed feelings of blog crush-ness, but we have been admiring Rubber City Review from afar for a while. Based out of Akron, Ohio, RCR covers a wide range of classic music: rock, blues, funk, soul, country, jazz… if it’s good, RCR is feelin’ it. Hallmarks of RCR posts include myriad song samples, mini music history lessons and personal recollections/reflections.
Run by Tim Quine, RCR also comprises contributions from Kevin Swan, Andy Moore, Jack Quine, photographer James Quine and Dan Auerbach. What? Oh yeah, did I fail to mention that Tim is Dan’s uncle? Maybe that’s because, even though I was led to Rubber City Review through a post to the Black Keys’ MySpace, I would be crushing on RCR even without Mr. Auerbach’s involvement.
It’s good, people. And while RCR doesn’t spotlight much new music, you will find a lot of great music that is probably new to you. Check ‘em out.
