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Rachel Brooke: A Killer’s Dream

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Rachel Brooke

 

I developed a kind of crush on Rachel Brooke in the spring of 2011 when she released Down in the Barnyard, and now Brooke back with A Killer’s Dream and even better. Upon listening to A Killer’s Dream, it was immediately impressive how Brooke has expanded her band, her sound, and her talents. The clear, strong voice and compelling stories now paint their pictures with more vibrant shades of honky tonk, rhythm and blues, and fiery torch songs. Brooke strides with appealing confidence through songs both sultry and sentimental, knowing and spirited.

If an artist’s albums are like the growth charts that tracked our heights when we were kids, Brooke has shot up like a weed.

 

“A Killer’s Dream” – Rachel Brooke

 

“The Black Bird” – Rachel Brooke

 

Rachel Brooke Official Website

Rachel Brooke @ Twitter

Rachel Brooke @ Facebook

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Camilla Sparks: I’ll Teach You to Hunt

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Barbara Lehnhoff, the unique but engaging voice from Peter Kernel, has a new project called Camilla Sparksss. The first single from Camilla Sparksss dives into much more retro synth waters than Peter Kernel has, bringing to mind new wave dance music of the early ’80s.

 

“I’ll Teach You to Hunt” – Camilla Sparkss

 

On the other hand, this live video of “Europe” is angry and angular and instantly compelling.

 

 

You can pick up the single of “I’ll Teach You to Hunt” – backed with the punishing “For You the Wild” – at the Camilla Sparkss Bandcamp page, which offers digital, vinyl 7″, and Polaroid packages. Camilla Sparksss has upcoming shows in Switzerland, Italy, and France – check the official site for details.

 

Camilla Sparksss Official Website

Camilla Sparksss @ Bandcamp

Camilla Sparksss @ Twitter

Camilla Sparksss @ Facebook

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Video: Mail the Horse, Do You Still Come Home?

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I reckoned I should start the new year by sharing some NEW music with y’all. Or at least new to me; this song is from Great Kills, a record that Mail the Horse put out this past September.

They’re from Brooklyn via New Hampshire; I learned about them because they were one of the openers for the Felice Brothers’ New Years Eve show at the Mercury Lounge. They were a little bit jammy, a little bit bluesy, a little bit country and all delicious.

I’ll be posting pictures from the show soon, but until then, here they are with Do You Still Come Home? via the TinyRadars Cow House Video Sessions:
 

Mail the Horse: Do You Still Come Home? (TinyRadars Cow House Series)

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Jeff Buckley: Everybody Here Wants You

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I was a massive fan of Jeff Buckley when his album Grace came out. Obssesive. I remember much about the day I bought the album, which is unusual for me. I had picked it up mostly on a feeling, based on just one song I had heard, the title track, on a Rock Video Monthly tape (who remembers those?). I was hooked immediately and listened to the album repeatedly (“Lilac Wine” via headphones, do it). I was able to see Jeff play live once, at the Agora in Cleveland, and met him briefly after his set. My lingering impression was that he was small, quiet, and had a heavy sadness about him. I remember when the news first came across that he had gone missing in the Mississippi River, and how I was glued to the computer for days, waiting for him to be found.

I learned of this BBC documentary today via Open Culture (if you haven’t heard of the site before, you’ll want to bookmark it now – they share tons of fantastic free content from around the internet), and wanted to share it here.

 

 

Like any portrait of Jeff, the documentary leaves out a lot. Here, Glen Hansard shares his own experience with Jeff.

 

 

Here’s a a little live Jeff to play you out.

“So Real” – Jeff Buckley

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Bah Humbug

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You know the best thing to do on Christmas day? Stay home and watch horror movies. May I suggest choosing titles from this fine holiday-centric list?

But if you need a weightier excuse for foregoing Christmas activities than a Bartlebian “I prefer not to”, the Wind-up Birds have a suggestion (and the song is available at a “name your price” rate).

 

 

Or, if you can’t find it in your heart to be festive this year because some cold, selfish lover stole that heart and then tossed it like so much discarded wrapping paper, Daniel Knox has set his warm baritone to work on a love-torn carol some of you may recall from that foreign land known as “The ’80s”.

“Last Christmas” – Daniel Knox (Wham! cover)

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Strummer Week: Joe Strummer, R.I.Punk

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Here we are, on the 10th anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer. I still miss Joe so much that it’s difficult to believe it’s a decade since he died… but maybe that’s because his presence is still so strong in the world. Things that Joe said and did still inform a good deal of what I do here and now, and I know it’s the same for people all over the world. He wasn’t perfect, no, but on his good days, he inspired more people than most of us will in our entire lives.

In Chris Salewicz’s biography of Joe, Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, director Jim Jarmusch had this to say about his friend: “He talked a lot about the bad times that ended the Clash. He seemed to feel guilty. He felt really bad about Cut the Crap, said it was crap. I said, ‘You only learn from your mistakes. You can’t learn things without fucking up.’ We had a lot of discussions about mistakes and accidents, how circumstance and fate affects our lives, how if you want to find your dream lover, you’ll never find it, but as soon as you dismiss the possibility, then it arises again. I was trying to relate that philosophy to him when he was down. I was throwing back his own attitude, because he was very good when people were down – just give them a few little words. He was very good at picking you up again.”

Joe went out just when his star was ascending again, getting better and better with the Mescaleros, and its heartbreaking to think of all that he had left to give that he didn’t have the chance to share with us. But he left a lot with us already, including a huge spirit that we can carry on in our own lives and share with others.

 

“In fact, punk rock means EXEMPLARY MANNERS TO YOUR FELLOW HUMAN BEING.”
-Joe Strummer1

 

Below, I’ve collected some of my favorite songs from Joe. I encourage you to share your own favorite Joe songs and memories in the comments.

“Clampdown” – The Clash

 

“Know Your Rights” – The Clash

 

“This Is Radio Clash” – The Clash

 

“Brooding Six” – Joe Strummer, Walker soundtrack

 

“Shaktar Donetsk” – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

 

“Cool ‘n’ Out” – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

 

“Get Down Moses” – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

 

1Perfect Sound Forever, Interview by Jason Gross, January 2003

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Strummer Week: The Pogues

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We continue our week-long Joe Strummer tribute, leading up to the 10-year anniversary of his death on December 22, with a bit about the Pogues. The lives of the Pogues weaved around Joe’s for a number of years, beginning before the Pogues even existed. In the late ’70s, young Shane MacGowan was a visible fixture on the London punk scene, but more as a fan than as a music maker. The first known intersection in the lives of Joe and Shane came on October 23, 1976, at the Clash’s first headlining gig in London at the ICA on the Mall. Part of the reason the date is so memorable involves Shane.

 

Cannibalism at Clash Gig - news clip featuring young Shane MacGowan

 

Yes, you recognize him: that young man in the pinstriped jacket, with blood later streaming down the side of his head is the same person who would later go on to pen literary and poignant tunes like “Fairytale of New York” and “A Pair of Brown Eyes”.

A true punk, Shane wouldn’t let a little bloody tussle keep him away from gigs, and he was captured again at a Clash show in 1977.

Clash gig 1977, with Shane MacGowan in the audience

 

In 1984, the Pogues toured in support of their first album Red Roses for Me, and a few of those gigs found them opening for the Clash. (This was during the end times of the Clash, after Mick Jones had been kicked out, and the band was collapsing in on itself.)

In 1986, a tour of Nicaragua was planned that would include Joe, the Pogues, and Elvis Costello. Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy – the soundtrack to which Joe composed much of, and the Pogues composed the rest) was set to film the tour for a documentary while also scouting for locations for an upcoming film (that film would be Walker, to which Joe penned a beautiful, Latin-influenced score – Joe also had a bit part in the film). The tour never came together, but the musicians were recruited for a new idea: the sublimely ridiculous 1987 film Straight to Hell (named after the Clash song).

Straight to Hell excerpt

 

The Pogues were set to tour the U.S. in 1987 when guitarist Phil Chevron fell ill with a stomach ulcer. Pogues manager Frank Murray asked Joe to fill in.

“London Calling” – The Pogues with Joe Strummer

 

Joe was brought in to produce the Pogues’ album Hell’s Ditch in 1990. It was a tumultuous time for the Pogues as Shane seemed to be at odds with the rest of his bandmates and was at one of his low points at the hands of drugs and drink. Joe is said to have handled the situation with a fairly keen understanding of Shane’s temperament, sometimes recording the reluctant singer word-by-word, and then splicing the performance into a whole.

“Summer in Siam” – The Pogues

 

Shane left the band partway through the tour for Hell’s Ditch , and Joe was once again tapped to fill a space. Joe was understandably hesitant to jump into the fray the second time around, but he eventually overcame his doubts and threw in with the Pogues once again.

“If I Should Fall from Grace with God” – The Pogues with Joe Strummer

 

Joe became good friends with Pogues multi-instrumentalist Jem Finer over the years, and they had talked of recording together, but the talk never came to fruition.

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Strummer Week: The Family

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This Saturday, December 22, will mark a decade since Joe Strummer died of an undiagnosed heart defect. As Joe is the “patron saint” of NTSIB (our look riffs on Clash imagery, our name is drawn from one of his lyrics, and his attitude about and love for music fuels our mission), we will be featuring bits and bobs from Joe’s life and music this week.

Joe’s spirit is carried on still by the women who called him family: ex-wife Gaby Salter, daughters Jazz and Lola, widow Lucinda Garland, and step-daughter Eliza.

 

“Strummerville” – a film by Don Letts

 

Lucinda began Strummerville soon after Joe’s death, and it has grown into a foundation that continues in Joe’s vision of punk as a do-it-yourself revolution of people helping people by doing everything from supporting UK artists (Frank Turner was a Strummerville beneficiary) to aiding musical education for children in Africa. While Strummerville has always been a part of the Glastonbury festival, where Joe set up a campfire every year and dubbed it Strummerville, the foundation put on its own festival this past August, Strummer of Love. Artists like the Pogues, Billy Bragg, Mick Jones and the Justice Tonight Band, Alabama 3, Seasick Steve, The Jim Jones Revue, Frank Turner and a ton more played to raise funds to continue the Strummerville mission.

“To Have and Have Not” – Billy Bragg, Strummer of Love

 

Read an interview with Lucinda at The Independent from the lead-up to the festival. She recalls her life with Joe and shares some personal photos.

In the aforementioned interview, Lucinda speaks of his daughters and how they are “so like him”, even step-daughter Eliza. Here is Eliza singing with Alabama 3:

“Bulletproof” – Alabama 3, featuring Eliza Mellor

 

Joe’s daughter Lola, who has a clothing line called She Vamps, also sings. She leads her own band called Dark Moon.

 

Email newsletters for bands at ReverbNation.com

 

Joe’s oldest, Jazz, is a crafter and writer, founder and president of the Shoreditch arm of the Womens Institute, Shoreditch Sisters WI, and gave birth this year to Joe’s first grandchild, a girl named Boudicca.

This past summer, The Guardian featured an interview with Jazz and Lola that will bring a few tears to your eyes.