We don’t cover enough hip hop. And it’s not as though I don’t listen to it. Mos Def’s The Ecstatic has been one of my go-to albums for the last couple of weeks.
And the Ohio angle isn’t a tough one here at all. You may already be familiar with Chip Tha Ripper.
Chip Tha Ripper – Light One Up from illRoots.com on Vimeo.
And do you know Stalley? Because he’s worth your time.
Stalley – The Autobiography from Stalley330 on Vimeo.
So, hip hop: I should do more of that.
Scott H. Biram is coming to the Grog Shop this Friday, June 24, and I am freaking excited. Even though it took me a while to sit down and listen to a Biram album, I knew from the first moment I heard of him that he was my kind of guy. A tattooed, foulmouthed, drankin’ Texan who amps up a mix of country, blues and punk and survived a collision with an 18-wheeler only to get back on stage a month later. (And that accident wasn’t any damn love tap, either.)
And his music?
Ho-lee…
Tickets are $8 advance, $10 the day of the show. Grog Shop doors open at 8 PM. Heelsplitter and Not So Good Ol’ Boys open.
And as much as I hate to wish ill on a hardworking musician, I’m kind of hoping Biram breaks a string Friday night so I can catch something like this in person.
People often get the name of this blog wrong, especially on Twitter where I use the handle nowthissound. It makes me sad. Not because I feel it means the blog is not well-received but because it means people don’t know the source material. One of the reasons I call Joe Strummer the patron saint of this blog is because I took the name from the Clash. “This is Radio Clash” to be exact.
Though the biggest reason Joe is the patron saint is his life-long belief in the power of music and his joy in finding new and weird music and sharing it around. From his BBC radio series to his encouragement to “Go out and buy something weird today!” Joe kept an ear out for new sounds. The results could be heard from his early days with the 101ers, through the Clash and right on into the last Mescaleros album.
It’s that musical ideal, that desire to go out and find something great, no matter where it comes from, that I hope comes through on Now This Sound Is Brave. As the man sang, the stars go in, the stars go out, and punk rock’s what it’s all about.
Some artists are practically uncoverable, by virtue of wild technique, extreme virtuosity or uncompromising personality… but that never stops other artists from trying. Sometimes you just have to watch and shake your head as you watch trainwreck after trainwreck. Sometimes you weep and gnash your teeth. Sometimes it helps if you come in from the middle.
Aside from just being a great band, T. Rex had a larger-than-life personality, sprinkled with glitter and sex. Every T. Rex song was imbued with this personality, sonically represented by shake-your-ass beats and Marc Bolan’s suggestive vocals. Nobody has ever had quite the same sparkle and stomp.
Though if you want to talk bands with comparably unmistakable and inimitable personalities, there’s always the Violent Femmes. This is where I came into this song stream. Like many of my generation, the Femmes permeated my adolescence, for good or for ill, making me simultaneously queasy and excited. To this day, I still have unhealthy and confusing feelings about Gordon Gano (preacher’s kids will have that effect on people). On their album The Blind and the Naked, the Femmes had the gall to cover T. Rex’s “Children of the Revolution”. Well, maybe not so much covered as kidnapped and beat it until it was so broken and bruised that it barely resembled it’s original state (which is always the right way to do a cover, if you ask me).
There have been other attempts at covering “Children of the Revolution”, and most of them have ranged from forgettable to laughable (there is something so wrong and so right on about Bono singing “I drive a Rolls Royce because it’s good for my voice” on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack), but the cover from Neon Indian, while not everyone’s cuppa, feels faithful to the original cosmic sex shimmer of Bolan and his boys.
I don’t usually like to use PR blurbs, but I couldn’t get it better than Bloodshot’s PR already has it on Whitey Morgan.
Outlaw’s always been the rough-around-the-edges, tuff guy uncle at the country music family picnic. Denim and leather, not Stetson and Nudie. Hair by Pennzoil, not Pomade. But, in the right hands—Haggard, Paycheck, Junior, Willie and Waylon and now Whitey Morgan—Outlaw is more than beards and bandanas, ink and attitude, it’s goddamn folk music. It’s about doing the best you can, about getting by and about cold beer and colder women—everything that keeps the honky tonks full on a Saturday night. It’s about standing up when it’d just be easier to fall down.
Coming from Flint MI, the always forgotten civic little brother to Motown but no less a hard town with empty factories and emptier prospects, loaded Whitey Morgan & the 78’s with that survivors’ f.u. mentality. The self-titled debut Bloodshot album was recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock NY, and while their antecedents are pretty clear, Whitey and the boys play with a muscular attack and energy that makes us think they HAD to learn to play it that way to be heard over the din of the stamping plant and its ghosts.
Here’s a taste of what Whitey does.
You can see Whitey Morgan & the 78s at the Beachland Tavern tonight for a 10-spot. Doors at 8, show at 9. Jason Patrick Meyers, Robbie Jay Band and Guggy’s Rock-n-Roll Party 101 open.
The Imperial Rooster returns to the porch where we first found them during Couch By Couchwest. Well, clearly, they were on the porch while the rest of us were on the collective couch. But we were all drunk, and that’s what matters.
The Imperial Rooster is going to sing you into the weekend with a selection of songs from their new album, Decent People. When you’re left wanting more, you can click that Bandcamp link at the end of the post and get you more.
Anything Goes At A Rooster Show (Rooster Anthem)
Korhn Sirup Sundae
McGinty’s
Booze, drugs, deer people, suicide, internet pornography, fire, brimstone, L. Ron Hubbard and domestic violence… that’s right, it’s time for a new album from the Imperial Rooster.
On Decent People, the Imperial Rooster once again mixes the sublime with the absurd to create the perfect soundtrack to your damnation. Check out my favorite track, “The Vintage.”
The band recently played Frogfest 6 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they rocked another new song, “DWI Marijuana Blues”.
This Saturday, June 11, the Imperial Rooster will be playing the Thirsty Ear Festival alongside the Handsome Family, Calexico, the Cedric Burnside Project and others.
Decent People is available now via Bandcamp.
I don’t remember now how I first discovered Trio, the record Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmyloud Harris put out together in 1987, but I know I bought it on tape because I can remember both the garish pink cover, and the number of times I carefully cued up various tracks for mixes. I acquired it again recently – digitally, this time – when I went on an Emmylou Harris collecting tangent and realized I had missed it, somehow, when I was filling in other digital gaps.
I liked the whole thing, by and large – I can also remember singing along (hand stapled firmly to forehead) to The Pain of Loving You and Those Memories of You at various times in high school – but my favorite track is, was, and ever shall be Wildflowers. If (when) I get a tattoo, “no regrets for the path that I chose” will be a part of it. Of course that’s now, when I’ve been walking a while and had some time to actually make some choices; then, it was more about the hope of invoking the appearance of the path.
In any case, bursting with enthusiasm and keen to share it with all of y’all, I then went to YouTube to find a video and on first skim it seemed like there were precious few for the original song. (The two quasi-live performances are 1) a clip from a movie and 2) a clip that appears to be the result of pointing the camera at the tv set and pressing record.) A little bit of further digging pulled up this, which at least as a slideshow of pictures of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt through the years:
http://youtu.be/aDxrQFrGipo
Because I am a magpie, though, I got distracted from my main search by all of the cover versions that I found. The following are a few of the highlights:
This version, by The Clear Branch, is probably the most faithful to the original overall, and the beautiful voice you are about to hear belongs to Signe Salvesen, who moved from Norway to the hills of East Tennessee to study mountain music. She’s accompanied by Clint Riddle (guitar, banjo, mandolin), originally from Decatur, Alabama, with a background in Delta blues.
In this version, which features just Ginny White and her guitar and was recorded at the New Harmonies Exhibit, Culp Building, Johnson County Historical Society in Warrensburg, Missouri, it’s stripped down to its barest essentials and transformed into something quite like a hymn.
http://youtu.be/-DZH58V8D6A
This one, performed by Tuva and The Far-Out Orchestra, and recorded in the Privaten Cafè in Holmsbu, Norway, occupies the patch of ground where indie rock and bluegrass overlap, and tends to slide more towards the indie rock end of the spectrum. Tuva Andersen has a rich, full and flexible voice, and it shines here.
This one, by the Sandy Bottom Bluegrass Band (according to YouTube, they are: Neil – Mandolin, Ken – Guitar, Steve – Dobro, Wayne – Banjo, Rick – Bass, and Denise – Autoharp), of Florida, is a solidly bluegrass rendition; the instrumental underpinning is perhaps a hair or two richer than the original.
As I was exploring, I also got to thinking about who I’d like to hear cover this song. Gillian Welch and Dar Williams sprang to mind first, and I spent a good ten minutes contemplating who I’d make the third part of that trio before I decided on Lucinda Williams, though I think Neko Case and/or Alison Krauss might also work well there.
And then my thoughts took a more critical turn. You know it is kind of plinky. Couldn’t we fuzz that up a little bit? Give it some muscle? said I to myself, and IÂ shuffled my mental deck of voices some more, and came up with Courtney Love, which was actually kind of a stumbling block because the pairings that seem to me to be obvious there (Kim Gordon and Kim Deal) are, shall we say, complicated. Though on further reflection, I’ve decided swapping in, say, Pink and Shirley Manson might produce just the right kind of fireworks.
Now tell me, dear readers, who would you pick?
Shouting Thomas Torment
Sometimes you go to a show just hoping the opening act won’t be unbearable. Then sometimes you get something like Shouting Thomas Torment.
While sometimes situated in a group, Shouting Thomas and the Torments, Shouting Thomas was doing it one-man band style at the Beachland Tavern Saturday night. He immediately lived up to his name by shouting, showman style, from the moment he stepped on stage to the moment he stepped off. In between, he thumped the bass drum, drove the hi-hat and took the guitar from fuzzed-out punk blues to rockabilly twang, shook it all together and broke it all down. The set kicked off with “Struggle (Scratch That Itch)”, hit on a number of highlights like “Slave for My Cave”, “All Grown Up Wrong”, “Trouble Doll” and “Swamp Witch”, and closed out with “Shakey Shake #1”. There was also a Bo Diddley beat and a very respectable imitation of a chicken on the guitar.
(Shouting Thomas also made sure to mention a couple of 45s he had for sale: “Slave for My Cave” on a split with Wolfboy Slim and “Black Cat Bone” b/w “Trouble Doll”.)
I went in not knowing a single thing about Shouting Thomas Torment and came out an enthusiastic fan.
T-Model Ford & GravelRoad
One of my regrets from the Great Mississippi Sojourn I took last summer with co-blogger Jennifer and our friend Cam Rogers is that I didn’t spend an evening or two in a juke joint. Well, now I feel a little better because James “T-Model” Ford brought the juke to the Beachland. Aside from being about the right size and aesthetic for a Mississippi juke, the tavern also had about the right heat and humidity Saturday night. But it took T-Model to fill it with the right vibe and sound.
GravelRoad – this night being comprised of just guitarist Stefan Zillioux and drummer Martin Reinsel as bass player Jon “Kirby” Newman was under house arrest for undisclosed reasons – took the lead, playing a couple of their own numbers, showing why they make a great complement to Ford with their low, rough, electric blues-drag sound. Then Ford, who drew a crowd that covered a wide variety of ages and classes, took the stage, strapped on Black Mattie (his trusty Peavey guitar) and got hips to rolling in short order.
Best estimates place Ford’s age at 90, he has a pacemaker and has survived a stroke in recent years, but you’d hardly think it from watching him play. While a couple of his songs this night lasted less than 3 minutes, most of them ran well beyond the usual 5-minute mark, playing on the classic blues tradition of not letting a good groove go once you’ve got a hold of it. And groove is what it’s all about. Just fast enough to get your ass to swaying, but not too fast to keep your partner from holding on tight. This is why they call him the Tail/Tale Dragger. (And this is also probably part of why he calls himself the Ladies Man, because you can bet he was taking in as much of the body-grooving females in the audience as he could.)
While Ford was undeniably the star of the show, the support of GravelRoad should not be underestimated. Zillioux stayed tight in Ford’s wake through tunes like “I Love You, Baby”, “Hip Shakin’ Woman”, “Chickenhead Man” and “Train I Ride”, while Reinsel pummeled a tide of heavy beats that were more than a little responsible for the shaking of hips through the night. Not to mention, Reinsel looked like he was having the time of his life.
Now if there had just been some fried pickles and sweet tea…
For some absolutely beautiful shots of T-Model Ford’s recent show in St. Louis, Missouri, check out our friend Nate Burrell’s Flickr set.
The beautiful Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday.
If I was into making Best Of lists, GSH’s I’m New Here would have been high atop my list for 2010. But, of course, his legacy stretches much further back than that, at least back to 1970 with the release of Small Talk at 125th & Lenox, which contained the iconic “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.
If you’re not as familiar with GSH as you’d like to be, you can check out a documentary about him at Self-Titled or read a sketch of his life and career at The Telegraph.
Gil Scott-Heron: On Being New Here from Iain & Jane on Vimeo.
