New Tom Petty: Big Weekend
Well, I’m excited. ‘Highway Companion’, the new Tom Petty solo album – produced by Jeff Lynne, along with Petty and Heatbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell – will be released on July 25th. I’m enjoying the first single, “Saving Grace”, but hearing “Big Weekend”, another track off the album, has really got me fired up.
“Big Weekend” has that Jeff Lynne production signature sound that made ‘Full Moon Fever’ and the Traveling Wilburies albums such great guitar strummin’, carefree and loose records. “Big Weekend” certainly brings me back to ‘Full Moon Fever’, which came out in 1989 (anyone else hear a little “Yer So Bad” in there?). That was the year that my high school sweetheart and I split, and I hit the road on a long road trip with a friend (Graceland, South Carolina, Virginia, Philly, Ohio, back up to the thriving metropolis of Racine, Wisconsin). ‘Full Moon Fever’ accompanied me through both of those very different adventures. I don’t know how many times I sang “and I’ll probably be feelin’ a whole lot better when you’re goooone.” Ah, to be 19 with a broken heart.
I’m thinking that ‘Highway Companion’ is going to play that role in many people’s lives this summer. “Big Weekend” is definitely one of my top candidates for song of the summer. I’ll be jamming it on my 8 hour road trip in a few weeks, where I’ll really find out if ‘Highway Companion’ lives up to its name. I have a feeling it will.
Tom Petty: Big Weekend (Quicktime) | Big Weekend (WMP)
- Pre-order ‘Highway Companion’.
- Check out the video for “Saving Grace” here in Quicktime or WMP
- Check out Tom’s very cool Official Site.
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An Ode to eMusic
Yeah, I figured it’s time for a shameless plug. Hear me out though… eMusic.
eMusic is an online music store that focuses on independent record labels. I had never signed up for one of these subscription music services (Napster, Rhapsody, etc.), but when I found myself paying a buck per song on iTunes or MSN Music a bunch of times per month, I decided to give eMusic a try (especially given their support of the indy labels).
I signed up for the basic plan, $9.95 per month for 40 downloads. I find that to be a pretty sweet deal. If you’re a regular music blog reader, you like to be exposed to new music. The cool thing for me is it’s exposing me to a bunch of new artists. I just recently started running again, so my new favorite thing is to download a bunch of tunes I’ve never heard off of eMusic, load ’em up on my iPod, and hit the treadmill. Now I actually can look forward to my exercise because I know I’ll be checking out new music in the process. Today I listened to the new Raconteours (awesome), old Fugazi (one of those bands that I’ve never really exposed myself to), the Black Keys, and A.F.I. (great for bursts of energy).
Anyways, enough of my sales pitch, but I’m serious, you’ll love it. You can check them out for free and get 25 free downloads in the process. If you don’t like it (and you will like it, trust me), you can cancel and keep the tunes. Yes, I do get a couple of bucks if you sign up, but this will definitely benefit you more than it will me. Try it out…..
Woes is Me
Led by singer, songwriter, and banjoman extraordinaire Osei Essed, the Woes have been a staple of the NYC music scene since they formed in 2002. Described by Essed as “post-apocalyptic traditional music”, the Woes employ a number of unique instruments to lay down their brand of folk / blues: banjo, banjo-mandolin, french horn, accordion, melodica, and Fender Rhodes keyboard, among others.
So the instrumentation alone is a reason to dig their tunes. But it’s Osei’s voice – low, guttural, heartfelt and pure – that really pulls me in. Listen to this song for a taste. It’s available as a free mp3 download on the Woes official site. They have some other songs streaming on their site as well. I recommend “That’s All, Good Night”. You can also check out their MySpace site here. MySpace: for bands, teens, and the Dateline NBC-featured perverts who chase them.
The Woes: The Best is Yet to Come (mp3) – from their latest release, That Coke Oven March (available on their site here).
The Jam in San Fran
Stuart over at A Cultured Left Foot has been kind enough to bestow upon the blogosphere an additional live Jam show, from the Warfield in San Francisco, March 15th, 1980.
The Jam: Live at the Warfield (from A Cultured Left Foot). Stuart knows his football too (soccer to us Yanks), as you’ll see on his blog. A very good read, and another fine WordPress blog.
1980 Jam
Over the last few months, I’ve posted live performances by the likes of the Clash, the Sex Pistols, and the Style Council. Therefore, I’d be foolish not to explore the live experience of the Jam. Made up of guitarist Paul Weller (who later went on to form the Style Council, and is still a huge solo act in the UK), bassist Bruce Foxton, and drummer Rick Buckler, the Jam rose out of Woking, Surrey, England in the mid-70’s.
They were influenced by the mod culture of the 60’s (the Who, the Small Faces), the punk ‘revolution’ of the mid-70’s (the Clash in particular), and, increasingly, the Motown / soul sound (which would become increasingly apparent on their later albums, and the work of the Style Council). While they are often lumped in with coming out of the same ’76-’77 UK punk revolution as the Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, and the Damned, they definitely insisted on maintaining their own style and identity, always sharply dressed in mod-style suits and ties.
This show took place on November 30, 1980 in Dortmund, Germany. They had just released their fifth album, ‘Sound Affects’, which Weller likened to a cross between ‘Revolver’-era Beatles and Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall.’ The Beatles influence is apparent in the opening bassline of “Start!”, which is the same bass riff that opens “Taxman.”
The Jam disbanded in 1982, when Weller decided to call it quits to form the Style Council. The other two members apparently still hold some bitterness toward Weller about the break-up. They wrote a Jam biography in the early 90’s which contains some vicious attacks on Weller (has anyone out there read it?).
So here is a 75 minute set from The Jam, at the height of their popularity. Enjoy…
The Jam
“Set The Skies Ablaze”
1980-11-30
Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany01 –
Dreamtime
02 –Thick As Thieves
03 –Boy About Town
04 –Going Underground
05 –Pretty Green
06 –The Man In The Corner Shop
07 –Set The House Ablaze
08 –Private Hell
09 –Liza Radley
10 –Dreams Of Children
11 –The Modern World
12 –Little Boy Soldiers
13 –But I’m Different Now
14 –Start!
15 –Scrape Away
16 –Strange Town
17 –When You’re Young
18 –In The City
19 –To Be Someone
20 –David Watts
21 –The Eton Rifles
22 –Down In The Tube Station At Midnight- The Jam’s All Music bio.
- The Jam on Amazon.
- Paul Weller’s web site.
Stars and Stripes Forever
Happy Independence Day to my country, the United States of America. Granted, these aren’t the best of times politically, environmentally, etc., but she will endure. A step in the right direction would be to insert George W., Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Washington bozos into the cargo hold of the space shuttle that launches tomorrow from Cape Canaveral. Drop ’em off at the moon. Thanks.
So allow me to queue up a John Phillip Sousa classic march. Composed by Sousa on Christmas Day, 1896, it soon became Sousa’s magnum opus. 110 years later, the march is just as moving and inspiring as ever. Sousa (1854-1932) was a very interesting man: freemason, trapshooter, horseman, and writer. He wasn’t too excited about the emergence of the phonograph (that’s a record player, young ‘uns) in the early 20th century. He submitted the following to a congressional hearing in 1906:
These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy…in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.
An interesting thought. What would he think of the iPod? The Blackberry? The fact that Paris Hilton has a hit single on the Billboard charts? Speaking of the Billboard Charts, here’s the most recent Billboard Hot 100…
I’m at least familiar with 4 out of the 5 (they lost me at Yung Joc). Nelly Furtado and Shakira at the #1 and 2 spots? Approved! (on aesthetic quality alone).
So back to the 4th of July. Crank up the talking box and get in the spirit!
John Williams & the Boston Pops:
Stars and Stripes Forever(mp3)Emmylou and Mark Make Beautiful Music
For those of you who caught Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on tour, I envy you. I’ve been playing and replaying the last show of their tour over the weekend. It took place Friday night at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, Cal. Yeah, things move fast around these internets. We’re spoiled.
Check out the last four tunes of the show. Two classics from Brothers in Arms, “So Far Away” and “Why Worry”. One from Knopfler’s last solo LP, Shangri-La, and a beautiful, tear-inducing ballad, “If This is Goodbye”, from Knopfler and Harris’ 2006 release.
Emmylou is the perfect compliment to Knopfler’s live show. Her sweet silky voice fits into his soft finger-picking style like hand in glove. The whole show is great, but it’s these that really blew me away. I can only imagine how great it must’ve been in person.
Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
Live at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, Calif. (final show of the tour)
June 30, 2006So Far Away(mp3)
Our Shangri-La(mp3)
If This is Goodbye(mp3)
Why Worry(mp3)01. Right Now
02. Red Staggerwing
03. Michelangelo
04. I Dug Up A Diamond
05. Born To Run
06. Red Dirt Girl
07. Band introduction
08. Done With Bonaparte
09. Romeo & Juliet
10. Song For Sonny Liston
11. Belle Starr
12. This Is Us
13. Boulder To Birmingham
14. All The Roadrunning
15. Speedway At Nazareth
Encore
16. So Far Away
17. Our Shangri-La
18. If This is Goodbye
19. Why Worry- Buy All the Roadrunning
- Mark Knopfler’s Official Site.
- Emmylou Harris’ Official Site. I’m not convinced this is her official site, but I couldn’t find anything else remotely “official.”
Chris Whitley and the Bastard Club
Last July, my brother and I headed up to the Rhythm Room in Phoenix to see Chris Whitley. As I wrote not soon after, it was very sad to watch. Chris was part wasted, exhausted, emotional, and enraged. It was ugly to see. The show ended after a handful of songs, with Whitley being helped off the stage. Four short months later, he was dead of lung cancer. It’s impossible to speculate what was going through his head that night I saw him, so I won’t.
What we do have left is the music. Earlier this year, the Red Parlor label released ‘Reiter In’ by Chris Whitley & the Bastard Club. The entire album was recorded in the first few days of June 2005 (just a month before I saw him), with Chris being joined by a bunch of his friends in a NYC studio. I haven’t had a chance to hear the whole album yet, but I have heard this one tune, and I’m drawn more and more to it each time I hear it. It’s hypnotic, shuffling, dirty blues. Harmonica, fiddle, snare & cymbal, and Whitley’s signature National Steel bottleneck guitar. Chris’s vocals are sparse but still powerful.
Chris Whitley & the Bastard Club: All the Beauty Taken from You in This Life Remains Forever (mp3)
- Buy ‘Reiter In’.
- Chris Whitley’s Official Web Site
I’m off to eMusic to pick up some more tracks off this album. Other songs include covers of Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, the Flaming Lips “Mountain Side”, and Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric”.
