If you’re one of those brave souls who shows their face in public on South Congress on Sunday morning, you probably go to the Sinner’s Brunch at Jo’s. This Sunday from 12:30-3pm, a special performance benefits our beloved Jon Dee Graham and the myriad medical expenses that came after his car crash in July.
The folks at Sweet Leaf Tea Company will be selling “Something Wonderful Lemonade” and “Big Sweet Life Tea,” with youthful vendors Henry Ames (age 9), Oliver Ames (age 5), and Patch Pape (age 9) to dole it out. Amy’s Ice Cream created “Jon Dee Honey Graham” ice cream and will offer it to attendees. Tina Rose & the Jo’s Band perform, and a Jon Dee merch table will have CDs for sale. All proceeds from the event benefit the Graham family.
When I read that Jon Dee’s accident occurred after he fell asleep while driving home from a gig, my blood iced. It’s the nightmare of all musicians, and no one talks about what it’s like to drive home late after a gig, drained of energy, tired of the day, distracted by what’s next, and lulled into sleepiness by the white lines dotting your route. “Playing for fun” is the way most folks view musicians, even those they intellectually know work hard and make little money at it. I always think of the late Ginger Shults, VP of the local musicians union, who said, “If you think this is fun, you try loading out of the Elephant Room at 3am!”
“I certainly don’t sit around and think about things that happened 15 or 20 years ago,” he shrugs casually. Yet two decades after cutting Mudhoney’s debut 7-inch “Touch Me I'm Sick” b/w “Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More,” a crude, Stooges-inspired anthem that practically sealed the fate of the grunge movement, life is coming full circle for Arm.
Sub Pop reissued Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff to commemorate both parties’ platinum anniversaries, and Arm reunited with Seattle stalwarts Green River for the label’s accompanying bash. (The band’s Dry as a Bone EP was the indie’s first non-compilation release.) He even found time to crank out a new LP with his garage-blues side project the Monkeywrench. Most importantly, Mudhoney’s latest, The Lucky Ones, is perhaps the band’s most stripped-down and lethal work since 1991’s Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. Arm’s time is now.
DJ Derezon and Illfated Tre have this new jam out on the Soundscan Mixshow called 14 Deadly Secrets. The Berlin-based DJ and his right-hand man bring in guest producers for the stories behind some of their deepest cuts. Part one included a 36-minute session with DJ Premier, and week two reeled in the RZA for a study in Wu lexicon. He also digs up the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Long Kiss Goodnight Remix” and Cypress Hill’s “Killer Hill,” plus you get to hear RZA and Primo reminisce about how the tracks came about. A sampling after the jump.
One of the all-time great pop bands, Squeeze has gone through its share of tumultuous times. Despite breakups and various lineup changes, the songs of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, often and reasonably compared to Lennon and McCartney, stand up to time better than most bands that emerged in the New Wave era of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
With John Bentley (Squeeze’s bassist for Argybargy, East Side Story, and Sweets from a Stranger), and Simon Hanson (drums) and Stephen Large (keyboards), from Tilbrook’s solo band the Fluffers in tow, they play La Zona Rosa on Friday with local popsters Fastball opening. What follows is a conversation with Difford about the band’s songs and longevity, record label difficulty, and the easy task of getting their audience to sing-along.
Those who know me well know I put Fela Anikulapo Kuti on the highest of musical pedestals. In my home office, four framed photos of the Afrobeat pioneer adorn the walls, including the one above my desk, where a shirtless Fela – face painted as if preparing for war – places a chain around the neck of his bowed head. As I write this, Fela watches over. In my ears only James Brown rivals the radical Nigerian rabble-rouser. From the playful wit of “Gentleman” and “Expensive Shit” to the scathing indictments of the military government on “Zombie” and “Coffin for the Head of State,” Fela’s marathon polyrhythmic funk jams are utterly hypnotizing.
The Afrobeat torch is now in the hands of Fela’s sons Femi and Seun who, like Damian and Stephen Marley, are burdened with introducing their father's enormous legacy to a new generation. Femi is a phenomenal live performer but I’ve never been enamored with his studio albums. The modern R&B and hip-hop touches don’t always work and too often sound like Afrobeat lite. If you’ve had similar misgivings about Femi allow me to introduce you to Seun Anikulapo Kuti, youngest son of Fela.
Seun (pronounced Shay-oon) Kuti’s debut album, Many Things (Disorient), finds him fronting his father’s Egypt 80 ensemble, a band he first played with at age eight. The youngest of the Kuti clan doesn’t run from the shadow of Fela, proudly wrapping it around his shoulders like a sorcerer’s cloak. With tracks clocking in at an average of seven minutes, Seun takes aim at Nigeria’s government and big oil corporations over classic Afrobeat grooves. Songs like “African Problems” and “Don’t Give That Shit to Me” tend to bludgeon social issues rather than prod them with the wry humor present in Fela’s best work. Of course, Seun is only 25 and with years will come nuance. More importantly, he shares his father's unflinching intensity and fierceness of spirit that is at the heart of Afrobeat.
“We women are vulnerable. We get lonely and weak in our lives and we get careless. But we have to keep our guard up. Now that I'm older, I definitely keep my guard up.”
– Lavelle White
About ten years ago, I wrote about women in music and their choices regarding having children. It was a phenomenally profound experience for me, because the subject was so deeply felt by those with whom I spoke. I found the quote above from Lavelle White in that story and found a lot of comfort in it lately.
I also thought about that story when I picked up Austinite Mary K. Moore’s The Unexpected When You’re Expecting: Clear, Comprehensive Month-By-Month Dread, advertised as “The pregnancy guide that has terrified millions.” The book is a parody, of course, at least that’s what it says in bright pink ribbon across the back. Moore is hosting a book signing and discussion at By George (524 N. Lamar), 6pm Thursday, for her new arrival.
Here’s some appropriate, end-of-summer listening: until 1963, Jan & Dean were an unremarkable duo churning out middling chart-sitters such as “A Sunday Kind of Love” and “When I Learned to Cry.” The distinctive choirboy sound of the Brian Wilson cast-off “Surf City” changed all that in 1963, setting their crash course on a road that literally wiped out.
Jan & Dean: The Complete Liberty Singles is the first effort to compile the Southern California pair’s ride up the charts via their Liberty releases. The 2-CD set tracks them through 42 songs celebrating the trifecta of American 1950s boyhood: surfing, cars, and girls. The good fortune of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence being in the right place at the right time meant they had stellar accompaniment from the Wrecking Crew, and Wilson was a chief collaborator/songwriter/singer on some of their best-known hits.
The last time Sam Beam took to the ACL studio stage was more than two years ago, when he joined Calexico for part of an epic 90-minute taping and delivered songs from their 2005 collaboration In the Reins (Overcoat Recordings). Then, Beam was still playing the dusky balladeer, just beginning to find comfort with Iron & Wine’s popularity. Looking back, the Calexico collaboration foreshadowed where Beam wanted to take his own work: jamming, expansive compositions that came to fruition on last year’s The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop).
While the album struggled to find the balance between Beam’s contemplative verses and the ambitious arrangements that incorporated more styles and rhythms than could be contained, Iron & Wine has since honed the jam sessions on the festival circuit and become an impressive force live. Add to that the intimacy of the ACL studio, which, unlike last year’s ACL Festival set or December show at La Zona Rosa, allowed for full appreciation of the quieter passages.
"I played with James Brown for a couple of shows but I smacked his ass so bad he paid me to get away from him. "
“I want somebody to tell my mother and go down yonder in Georgia and tell my father that I’m way over here crawling in these trench holes covered with blood,” yearns the Mighty Hannibal on his devastating 1966 anti-war anthem. “But one thing that I know … there’s no tomorrow, they’re burying me.” In a just world, “Hymn No. 5” would have made the Mighty Hannibal a household name rather than another obscure footnote in the book of lost soul legends.
Born James Shaw in Atlanta, 1939, Hannibal had the outlandish personality of a superstar and the talent to back it up but his career was often derailed by drug addiction. After breaking the chains of crack and heroin, Hannibal found Jesus and released the only full-length LP of his career in 1972. Titled simply Truth, it’s righteous, defiant, gritty, and funky as hell.
The last time Hannibal was here, in April 2007, TCB had a lively chat with the man before his show at the Scoot Inn. Bump & Hustle catches up this time around, rapping about Barack Obama, upstaging James Brown, and how much he loves Archie Bell’s big, fat butt. Hannibal, Bell, and Barbara Lynn play the Continental Club Saturday.
Ronnie James Dio, 66, wins. And Tony Iommi, 60, with the silver crosses inlaid into the neck of his ancient SG. Don't forget Geezer Butler, 59, and his lithe basslines. Even baby Vinnie Appice, 50, rocking his drums until they nearly crashed down upon him. Now billed as Heaven and Hell, the four deserve metaldom’s highest accolade: Black Sabbath.
That is, of course, the name they recorded both 1980’s Heaven and Hell and ’81’s Mob Rules under. One black t-shirt at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Sunday summed it up in simple white script, with “got ronnie james dio?” on the front, and “ozzy who?” on the back. Ronnie James Dio still roars down from high atop Mt. Olympus, while gods of the underworld Iommi and Butler peal the skin off molten doom blues – here at electric chair speeds – in lashing tides of primordial void.
Testament got 30 minutes at 5:30pm, Motörhead 45 at 6:30pm, and headliner Judas Priest hogged 90 minutes that ended at the stroke of 11pm. That left two New York Italians and two mustachioed musketeers from the industrial forests of Birmingham, England, exactly 75 minutes to reiterate The Rules of Hell.
A friend got lucky on the only day $10 lawn seats went on sale for Verizon Amphitheater shows earlier this summer, so I was able to sneak into last night’s Tom Petty/Steve Winwood show in Selma for cheap. The low price probably says more about the state of the touring industry, because everything but the free parking was ridiculously priced. I mean, come on, $9 for a plastic cup of Budweiser? But I digress.
Steve Winwood opened with an hour-long traipse through his past with a couple of side steps into latest Nine Lives (Columbia). Deftly managing to hit all the high points of his career, he performed songs from the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith, and his solo life with verve and polish. Tropical rhythms met blue-eyed soul augmented by expansive saxophone and the flute work of Paul Booth, making time fly. “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” featuring Winwood's extended guitar workout, was a crowd-pleaser. As a whole, it made me wish he would play Austin sometime soon for a more extensive visit.
Monofonus Press' latest double release is the perfect end-of-summer punch. Clear Violet, by local author Karen Davidson, is the all-too-Austin tale of a vegetarian restaurant and all the amulet-clutching, chakra-aligning, aura-reading yahoos it attracts. Davidson reads excerpts Saturday at Cafe Mundi, 7pm.
The night before at the Compound, you can catch the other half. Local quartet Pillow Queens releases Kookoolegit, a collection of equally absurd tales set to big, fuzzy, stompy hooks. Shapes Have Fangs and Human Milk jump in as well. Check out the excellent video for "Real Cool Head" below for a little taste.
“I’ve heard it described as 40 minutes of perfect hip-hop,” a friend said to me halfway through high school. I wasn’t so sure what he meant. At 16 I knew very little about hip-hop besides what came across the public mediums: quick stops on Baltimore’s 92Q and MTV served as my sorry education. Still, I was interested and could think of no better way to dive in than at the top. Illmatic was mine that afternoon.
“The Genesis” was foreign to me. Street dreams of a 20-year-old looking for his way out the Queensbridge projects spoken over his first jump – Main Source’s 1991 cut, “Live at the Barbecue.” It’s his mission statement, an unadulterated exposition of why Illmatic was necessity. I sat idle in the record store parking lot working my way through “N.Y. State of Mind,” a track riding so cold on DJ Premier’s subway slum you’d think Queensbridge rarely saw the sun.
