July 2011
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Buddy's Birthday
Last month I was cleaning the garage and blasting that Buddy Guy career compilation, Can’t Quit The Blues (Sony Legacy). Man, I forgot just how expressive his singing is. The 75-year-old may have made his bones on being the most versatile guitarist to come out of the Chicago blues scene of the ‘60s, but his vocals parallel the passion of his ax work, no doubt. Which is hard, because...
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Newport Folk Festival
YOUNG & OLD
Got a chance to start the summer by checking the Decemberists’ live show, and as Colin Meloy and company rolled through their set on an outdoor stage, an evening rain subsided and a golden moon arose. Several of the band’s nature references helped enhance the experience. I especially liked the song about the thrushes and the wrens and the ways of training jasmine how to vine....
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Music For Yr Staycation
Sancocho E’...
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Amy On Amy: 2008
My personal Amy fixation had kicked off two years earlier with Frank, originally an import-only debut (released domestically this past fall) with a smiling, curvy, weave-less Amy on the cover. Much like Back to Black sans the throwback sonics, the record articulated a wise-beyond-her-years wisdom with smoky jazz phrasings and hip-hop/r&b shadings. (Think Lauryn Hill without the preachiness.)...
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WatchTake that, Naked City
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Big Band Wyatt
And the jazz adventure through the rock canon continues, this time with the provocative songbook of a British prog icon being bent to fit the clever arrangements of an intrepid French tentet. RobertWyatt, the inventive singer-composer with the leftist stance and the ghostly voice, has become one of art-rock’s most fetching characters in the last four decades (he began his career as the drummer...
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Whatever Happened to the Hives???
They made a fun live record and then took off the bolo ties. I talked to Pelle Almqvist once about the live records they held dear. The singer thought about it for a half-sec, and knocked out five key titles.
1. James Brown Live at the Apollo It’s him at the top of his game. Sometimes the instrumental parts lose me, if I’m not dancing, if I’m just listening at home. But when...
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Kelvin Williams Talks To Tom Ze
If you were looking for an entry point to the music of Brazilian maverick Tom Zé, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine cash registers. We’re not talking figuratively, as in the overheated commerce of a Gaga or an Adele, but rather literally, as in the ch-ch-ching that’s a cousin to the peck-pick-peck and carriage return of a pre–computer age Smith Corona. Zé’s singular place in Brazilian pop...
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Patti Covers, Praises Adele [24bit]
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Steven Wright, Of Course
“I was walking my dog around my building … on the ledge. A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.”
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Kathleen Edwards: Where'd She Go?
here’s a 2004 interview I did with Lady Edwards. Still love Failer. Why no music from her lately?
KATHLEEN EDWARDS: HOCKEY RINKS AND LOTSA DRINKS “i have the biggest crush on andrew w.k.!” laughs kathleen edwards. “hook me up with that guy! all my canadian girlfriends think i’m nuts. they’re like, ‘what,him?’ he looks like he stinks and he’s...
John Wood On John Martyn's Solid Air
As with Bless the Weather tracks were recorded live with few overdubs, in around eight days. Many artists I have worked with since find it difficult to believe that an album of this musical stature and integration could have been made so quickly. Fortunately John was working with musicians who quickly understood the shape and form of his songs, not easy when you realise that John’s guitar would...
copycats:
God Only Knows - Dale Earnhardt Jr....
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Rocket In My Pocket
Shirley: Tell me more about “I Got A Rocket in My Pocket.”
Terry: OK. I was in the backyard and my dad was washing the car in the front yard, and the sound either came over the roof of the house or around the sides (laughs), but it got to me, and I ran from the backyard up to where Dad had the car radio on, washing the car with the radio on. Back then you could have the car radio...
WatchSufjan’s “Get Real, Get Right”
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Warpaint Holds Their Breath →
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Talking Twang With Willie
When Willie Nelson’s instrumental album Night & Day was released, few fans were surprised. A love of jazz and swing has been evident in Willie’s music for years. He’s a devoted follower of gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, and he hears both flash and fun in the bouncy tunes of Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys. Night & Day contained tunes by both, plus Fats...
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Two Sisters of Sound
Working the ethereal side of the street is a risky business for musicians. If things get too wispy, the performance may seem slight. That, however, doesn’t stop Tara Jane O’Neil and Nikaido Kazumi from keeping things on the dreamy end during this program of keenly sculpted abstractions. From whispered coos to plinked strings to fuzzed dissonance to thumping drums, the 13 tracks trickle...
“1:46 to 2:19: So here we go: The look in Robert Plant’s eyes say, “I...”
– Klosterman Deconstructs “In the Evening” on Grantland.
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“I’ve been using the streaming service Spotify for the last few months, and it’s...”
– Eno Interview, L.A. Times
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Scooter and Pal
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“You’ve talked in the past about having premonitions: do you still have...”
– Rickie Lee Talks To The Guardian
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WatchThey Take A Whiskey Drink…
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Flying Lotus Offers Us A Summer Present →
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Ives On His 4 Of July Music
“I did what I wanted to, quite sure that the thing would never be played, although the uneven measures that look so complicated in the score are mostly caused by missing a beat, which was often done in parades. In the parts taking off explosions, I worked out combinations of tones and rhythms very carefully by kind of prescriptions, in the way a chemical compound which makes explosions would...
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WatchEn Garde!
