Archive for the 'Album Reviews' Category
Utopia’s Last Of The New Wave Riders Hurtles Towards Oblivion
Author: Jeff Boule
Photo By Jeff Boule
Once again, we revisit, review and revise a blog lost to zeros and ones…
As we recover from the last two back-to-back weeks of the Deface Tour, we need to take it easy. With this in mind, we will be doing an abbreviated review (read: not a two-parter this week). We are continuing with our examination of the Utopia box set, Last Of The New Wave Riders. A set of live performance CDs spanning from early in Utopia’s career up to almost the end. This particular show, the Oblivion Tour, is a single disc. The only one in the box set that isn’t a two CD set. VALUE!
read comments (0)Various Artists “Do You Wanna Be In The Show?”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Utopia’s Last Of The New Wave Riders Deface The Beatles Music (Part Two)
Author: Jeff Boule
Photo By Jeff Boule
Picking up from where we (mercifully) left off last week, we are smack-dab in the middle of what is part of the box set from Todd Rundgren and Utopia chronicling their Deface The Music tour. To recap, Deface The Music was Utopia’s tribute to the Beatles. Rundgren and Sulton have frequently stated that the Beatles were tremendous influences on them both. Powell and Wilcox are more comfortable in the jazz realm, but also have Beatle-influence (come on, everybody has Beatle influence, even if you didn’t like them, odds are, many of the artists you DO like were influenced by the Beatles so vicariously, you are influenced).
But this isn’t about the Beatles, it’s about Utopia, maybe for this tour we should call them Beatleopia.
Various Artists – “Staring At The Sun Volume 7″
Author: Beverly Paterson
San Diego, California is one of my very favorite cities. Beautiful beaches, mild temperatures, an awesome zoo, an excellent public transportation system, Mexican food to die for, Sea World, Old Town, a slew of cool museums, haunted houses and hotels galore, and last but definitely not least, there’s the music. For several years now, “Staring At The Sun” has treated audiences throughout the globe to recordings by San Diego artists. I’ve heard every installment of the long running series, and it’s safe to state “Volume 7” is the best of the bunch. No one trick pony, “Staring At The Sun” has always championed diversity, but this time around ringing guitar pop seems to take center stage. Read the rest of this entry »
A Classic Album
Author: Anthony Medici
Although I grew up on rock, in what many believe was the “classic” era of rock (the 60s), I am now far more immersed in the jazz scene than I am in rock. Don’t get me wrong: I still can be engaged and moved and excited by rock music, especially if it pushes the boundaries: boundaries of “good taste,” boundaries of commercial expectations; boundaries that bug the status quo. But very little of what I hear on what remains these days of commercial rock radio meets these criteria. The market now is all for and about “tweens,” the kiddies to teen market that just adores “Hannah Montana,” Justin Timberlake, and a host of other lip-synched, drum-synthed, generic popsters, who come and go with amazing rapidity. Yes, there is a market for alt- and prog-rock, but it, like jazz, has been pushed to the margins, and its audience forced to hunt for the music. Maybe just as well. As has been proven time and again, the commercial process, like the ancient gods, destroys what it first makes great. So what does my little screed have to do with today’s blog? Not much, I’ll admit, except that my post today deals with a rock album, and what I think is a great modern rock album, a classic really, that can stand, if not quite with “Sgt. Peppers,” at least with the Rolling Stones’ “Their Satanic Majesties Request.” (OK, I realize I’m likely in the minority on the latter pick). Read the rest of this entry »
Whole Lotta Utopia Goin’ On
Author: Jeff Boule
Good readers I return from the Grand Parade Of Life-full Packaging (to paraphrase Peter Gabriel) where I am triumphant and have all the scars to show for it. Some of the those scars involve taking a thirteen-hundredth look at some previously published blogs that, for some inexplicable reason just, disappeared from the site. If this seems familiar, you are NOT having a Déjà vu, it is repeating the mantra (again from Gabriel) “Man feed machine, machine feed man”.
Anna Troy Band “Wait Another Day”
Author: Beverly Paterson
An impressive debut album can be both a blessing and a curse. One on hand, how wonderful it is to be accepted first time around. But then again, recording a follow up to such a fine piece of work can be stressful since expectations are running high. However, Anna Troy need not worry, as her sophomore release, “Wait Another Day” is just as good as her freshman outing, “Ain’t No Man,” which hit the streets a couple of years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Ms. Delmhorst and Her Little-Winged Bird
Author: HJ Mills
“I just want to be part of all this beauty, want to be part of all this flight on little wings”, sings the lovely Kris Delmhorst in her song, “Little Wings” I see her as one of the most remarkable musicians I have ever come across. Her lyrics are as beautiful as the leftover drops on bushes after a sweet summer rain. In her song, “The Drop and Dream”, Kris wistfully sings “It’s both our curse and our grace, here in this place to reach for heights that we’ll never climb”. She sculptures her pieces with light, philosophy, self-reflection, cracked bits of robins’ eggs, and broken guitar strings tied in a bow. Yet, her name is only whispered, and according to “Little Wings”, Ms. Delmhorst does not mind that a bit. She confidently professes, “Now I don’t want to be a jet airliner, I just want to be a little bird, I don’t want to rip the skies wide open, I just want my song to be heard” . I heard her exquisite melodies long after one of my favorite music writers unveiled her . Read the rest of this entry »
We Five “There Stands The Door>>”
Author: Beverly Paterson
The old adage of being in the right place at the right time can certainly apply to We Five. Formed in 1964 by Michael Stewart (brother of John Stewart of The Kingston Trio), the San Francisco based group not only proposed a sound that fit in with what was happening on the airwaves, but the city by the bay was also shaking with action then, as a wildly fertile art scene existed and would eventually blossom into something even bigger and more influential. Read the rest of this entry »
Seeing Filligar Live
Author: Eliza Varner
Last Friday I had the opportunity to go to a Live Campus show here at Dartmouth. Held in the commonground of Collis (our student activities center), with a minimal donation, we could go see several live bands as well as get pizza, soda, and free beer (21+ with ID). What a perfect way to spend the first Friday night of Spring Term. Read the rest of this entry »
More Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
My order from Clean Feed came in yesterday. In case you’ve been misled by those pop-jazz magazine polls into thinking the usual suspects (Blue Note, Verve, ECM) are actually issuing jazz recordings of real artistic interest, let me fill you in: Clean Feed, a label based, perhaps rather improbably, out of Portugal, is among the new leaders in creative improvised music. The label, started in 2001, has performed brilliantly, and features some superb artists: Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Tony Malaby, Steve Lehman, Charles Gayle, Paul Dunmall, and many other artists who are continuing to advance the art of creative improvised music. Where the industry “giants” look for the next Norah Jones clone, or pop star in need of a jazz “makeover,” Clean Feed is still about the “sound of surprise.” Blue Note used to be like this, but it has lost its way, depending upon a stream of reissues and pop crossovers to fill its roster and beholden to a corporate titan to adhere to the bottom line. Blue Note is now part of the “industrial-musical complex.” Anyway, the first two Clean Feeds out of the shipping box and into the CD player were Tony Malaby’s TAMARINDO, and Evan Parker’s A GLANCING BLOW. Read the rest of this entry »
The Appropriate Category for Amadou & Mariam’s Music is “Great”
Author: John Moses
I’ve been telling my friends about how much I like Amadou & Mariam’s music. Since they’re not well-known in the U.S. yet, the question that inevitably comes up is, “What sort of music is it? Who do they sound like?” After trying several weakly descriptive, “it’s-sort-of-like-this-and-sort-of-like-that” responses, I’ve settled on, “It’s just great, fun music. You should give it a listen.” Read the rest of this entry »
Vocal Blanketing: Ethereal Music for Rainy Days
Author: Adrienne Brown
Recently, during a rather frazzled moment of negotiating the vehicular nightmare that is Commercial Avenue in New Brunswick, I heard one of the most soothing songs to ever reach my ears. My radio was tuned in to 90.3 The Core (Rutgers University Radio) and the song that was playing was Generosity by Mirah. Not only was her vocal style an unexpected comfort as I weaved through traffic and random pedestrians, but the accompanying violins brought me to a place far from the industrial landscape. As a voracious reader of music magazines, I encountered articles extolling the wonder of Mirah, but had never actually given her music a listen.
“Rufus Huff”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Not an individual artist, but a full-blown band, Rufus Huff features the talents of lead singer Jarrod England, Kentucky HeadHunters guitarist Greg Martin, bassist Dean Smith and drummer Chris Hardesty. Focusing on the sounds they grew up on and motivated them to make their own music, the foursome specializes in the type of heavy rock and roll penetrating FM radio in the late sixties and early seventies. In view of their self-titled debut album, there’s no mistake Rufus Huff has what it takes to recreate such wild and crazy expressions. Read the rest of this entry »
Kyle Vincent “Where You Are”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Growing up in Berkeley, California, Kyle Vincent was seduced by the music bug at a very early age. By the time he was eight years old, he was playing saxophone in school jazz bands and later took lessons from guitar god Joe Satriani. Read the rest of this entry »
Some Other Stuff
Author: Anthony Medici
It arrived on the scene inconspicuously, without fanfare. It had been on my want list for ages. I only came across it online while I was looking for something else. I found out it was released on February 24, 2009 in its current incarnation. A welcome arrival, indeed. What am I talking about (you may well ask)? I am referring to the Rudy Van Gelder series release on Blue Note of trombonist Grachan Moncur III’s laconically titled Some Other Stuff, recorded July 6, 1964 at RVG’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and released initially in 1965 on Blue Note. It is one of the great “inside -outside” albums produced by Blue Note. For some reason, previous issues of this album on both LP and CD had proved hard to come by. Even repeated trips to our dearly beloved PREX failed to turn up a copy. I mulled purchasing the Moncur 3-CD box set on Mosaic just to get it, but I had all the other albums contained on the set and was loathe to pay the asking price just to complete my Moncur collection. Now the Moncur set is out of print (and already commanding high asking prices), but here was the individual album that I sought, complete with Reid Miles original and enigmatic cover art, and with an added annotation by Bob Blumenthal. It did not take long to hit “Buy,” and pop it into the CD player on arrival. Read the rest of this entry »
The Shamey Jays “Four Of Your Pretty Packages”
Author: Beverly Paterson
Pazz and Jop with The Bad Plus
Author: Anthony Medici
The title of the new The Bad Plus (hereafter TBP) CD on Heads Up, “For All I Care,” is as ambiguous, ambivalent, and inscrutable as the rest of the album. Perhaps the band is telling us that it cares for all types of music and things and people, that its approach is determinedly egalitarian and universal. Or maybe it is telling us, defensively, in advance, and in anticipation of the usual TBP criticism, that it doesn’t much care what we think of the album, that they are going to do what they want, not what we want them to do. I suppose that it is both of these things. They want us to hear them; they’re not terribly interested in hearing us. For example, their blog, DO THE MATH, demonstrates their wide interests in things musical and cultural; however, they long since stopped accepting comments from readers on their posts. It’s a High Modernist conception of the artist as creative and aloof, and perhaps more, creative because they are aloof. No matter, for in “For All I Care,” they have created an album that challenges and connects. Read the rest of this entry »
How often do you hear about Iceland these days? Sure, there are a few news stories every so often about their economy, but overall, not much seems to happen in that little island nation. You could ask someone on the street what they know about Iceland, and they’d probably mention Bjork, Sigur Ros, and something about Vikings. So imagine my surprise when I learned that the first metal album of 2009 to truly blow me away was by an Icelandic band. To be honest, I still don’t know what to make of that. All I know is that Reykjavik-based metal outfit Solstafir is simply one of the most exciting artists to come out of that neck in the woods since…well, since Sigur Ros. Read the rest of this entry »
ROGER POWELL, EATIN’ AN APPLE, SITTIN’ ON BLUE NOTE RIDGE
Author: Jeff Boule
Blue Note Ridge is Roger Powell’s fourth solo album. The largest difference between this album and the three preceding ones is that these previous albums were significantly synthesizer-based. As his former band–mate, Todd Rundgren used to say, “you were born, to synthesize”, and this new CD on Fossil Poets Records is largely based on piano. Plain old acoustic piano with maybe a synth note here and there.