• Giveaway,  Jazz

    Ickmusic Giveaway: Miles Davis Quintet on Monterey Jazz Festival Records

    It’s a giveaway frenzy here lately, so I have no choice but to once again bestow quality goods upon you people. The latest item will make any jazz fan happy. Even those who aren’t into jazz know a cool motherf**er when they see one, and Miles Davis was just that.

    Well the Monterey Jazz Festival has launched their own label, aptly named Monterey Jazz Festival Records, and their first wave of CD’s were released today. They launched into their live archives, and are debuting with releases from Sarah Vaughan, Thelonius Monk, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles. Future releases will also feature contemporary artists, projects and special events recorded at the festival.

    So leave a comment down below, folks, and have your chance to win this CD. Did anyone out there ever have the honor to see Miles play live? What’s your favorite Miles Davis album? Are you down with electric Miles?

    Speaking of cool mofos, check out his quintet circa 1963: Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, George Coleman. Sheesh…

    Miles Davis Quintet – Live at the 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival

    (September 20, 1963)

    Miles Davis – trumpet
    George Coleman – tenor sax
    Herbie Hancock – piano
    Ron Carter – bass
    Tony Williams – drums

    1. Waiting for Miles
    2. Autumn Leaves (streaming Quicktime)
    3. So What
    4. Stella by Starlight
    5. Walkin’
    6. The Theme

    Some other streaming goodies:

    Louis Armstrong – Mack the Knife
    Thelonius Monk – Rhythm-a-Ning
    Dizzy Gillespie – Poor Joe
    Sarah Vaughan – Round Midnight

    Monterey Jazz Festival Records: Official Site | MySpace

    Visit Concord Music Group’s Online Store to purchase.

    Good luck!

  • Giveaway,  World

    Ickmusic Giveaway: Sierra Leone’s Refugee All-Stars DVD

    My wife and I just got done watching the newly released DVD Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars. As far as the horrifying subject matter that forms the backdrop of this documentary – which is the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone – I feel much the way I felt after watching Hotel Rwanda: enraged and ashamed at the atrocities that occur, yet filled with awe and admiration for the people who rise above it all to help others. In Hotel Rwanda, it was Paul Rusesabagina who sheltered and ultimately saved over a thousand fellow Rwandans in his Kigali hotel, the Hôtel des Mille Collines. In this inspiring DVD, it’s Reuben Koroma, “Franco” Langba, “Black Nature”, and their fellow members of Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars who use the power of music to overcome their traumatic pasts, and to help others through theirs as well.

    The film follows the All Stars from the refugee camps of Guinea – where thousands of Sierra Leone’s people fled to escape the violence in their home country – to their return to Sierra Leone in 2004. There, they recorded an album, and have since toured the world. They are in the midst of a U.S. tour as we speak, so do yourself a big favor and rent/buy this DVD, buy their album, and go see them live if they’re coming to your area. My wife and I will be seeing them here in Scottsdale on February 17th.

    Here’s the trailer on YouTube. You can view higher quality trailers on this Quicktime link or this Windows Media Player link.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgY6n_ek_g 336 278]

    GIVEAWAY: To celebrate the August 14th release of this amazing film, I have a copy of the DVD available to one lucky reader. Just leave a comment below to be entered. I’ll pick out a winner in a few days.

    Now for some important links:

  • Giveaway

    Ickmusic Giveaway: Elvis!

    August 16th will mark the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I am an Elvis fan.

    Examples of my dedication to the King:

    • If an Elvis movie is located while flipping the channels, normal day to day life is put on hold until the last of the credits roll. It doesn’t matter if it’s Clambake, King Creole, or Roustabout.
    • The summer of 1989 included a pilgrimage to Graceland with my buddy Mark.
    • I sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” to my new bride at our 2003 wedding with my brother on guitar.
    • I also sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” with a full band as best man for my buddy Derek. It was an impromptu performance. I had hit the open bar juuust a bit too hard prior to my toast, and before I knew it, there I was, frozen in front of 500 people with not a coherent phrase in my head. Lucky for me, there was a band behind me. I turned around, asked the guys if they knew any Elvis, and they launched into “Can’t Help..” I went from the tipsy, embarrassed best man to matinée idol in a matter of minutes. My shining moment!

    Elvis’s music has always connected with me. His last years were a tragedy for sure, but behind the troubled “Vegas Elvis”, underneath the uppers and the downers, was the same Elvis – a warm and compassionate spirit.

    So on to the giveaway. On July 31st, Sony BMG released Elvis: Viva Las Vegas, which is a CD collection that “features music from and is inspired by the ABC television special ELVIS: VIVA LAS VEGAS – the visual chronicle of Elvis’s life during the Vegas years with particular focus on his music, his ground-breaking style and his legacy.” The ABC special will air on September 18th at 9pm EST.

    Leave a comment below if you’d like a chance to win the CD. I’ll pick one in a few days.

    Here are a couple of tracks that Sony is streaming…

    Elvis PresleySee See Rider (Quicktime) | Viva Las Vegas (Quicktime)

    For a special treat, listen to this performance of “Are You Lonesome Tonight” (not included on the CD). It’s the infamous “laughing version.” It starts off innocent enough, but as soon as Elvis sings “Do you stare at your bald head, and wish you had hair?”, well, all bets are off, and he basically loses his shit. It’s great!

    Buy Elvis: Viva Las Vegas

    Elvis’s Official Site.

    August 11-18 is Elvis Week in Memphis.

    LONG LIVE THE KING!!

    Elvis: Viva Las Vegas Track Listing

    1)  Viva Las Vegas
    2)  See See Rider
    3)  The Wonder Of You
    4)  Polk Salad Annie
    5)  Release Me
    6)  Let It Be Me
    7)  I Just Can’t Help Believin’
    8)  Walk A Mile In My Shoes
    9)  Bridge Over Troubled Water
    10)  Patch It Up
    11)  You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
    12)  You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling
    13)  An American Trilogy
    14)  Never Been To Spain
    15)  You Gave Me A Mountain
    16)  The Impossible Dream

  • Giveaway,  Rock

    Ickmusic Giveaway: New Crowded House

    Any Crowded House fans out there? It’s time for a giveaway, and this time it’s the new release from Australia’s Crowded House, who, after an 11-year hiatus, are back with the new album and a full tour. Once again, a great band I would go see skips Phoenix on their itinerary. Luckily I’ll catch them at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in September.

    I can’t count myself as a huge fan of Crowded House, but I did buy Temple of Low Men on vinyl back in the day (1988), and I think “Better Be Home Soon” is one of the finer songs to pass through these ears. The original lineup was Neil Finn, Nick Seymour, and Paul Hester. Sadly, Hester took his own life in March 2005. You parents of young children would also recognize Hester as the chef on The Wiggles. You know, the one that sang along with them on “Fruit Salad'”? That was Paul.

    The new album, Time on Earth, was released on July 2nd. I’ve had a few listens and am enjoying it thus far. You can check out some of the tracks at their MySpace page.

    So as is the norm around these parts, leave a comment below to enter into the CD giveaway. Anyone gonna check them out on tour?

    Crowded House’s Official Site | MySpace

    Check out video of their Live Earth performance over at Krup’s Place.

  • BritPop,  Giveaway

    Ickmusic Giveaway: Memory Almost Full

    Let’s give one away, eh mates?

    In my inherently lazy way, I’ve been sitting on a copy of Paul McCartney’s new CD, Memory Almost Full, for a good month now. High time I give it away to one of you fine folks, yeah?

    You know, I’m one of those people who reveres the Beatles as one of the most important, inflential, and best bands of all time. Yeah, I know tastes in music are subjective, but I always felt like most people agreed. And maybe they do. But I work with a couple of guys who sure don’t. One of them, I’ll call him Jim (’cause that’s his name) likens the Beatles to the origin of crappy teen pop. He tells me the Beatles are the reason Britney Spears exists. He has never, does not, and allegedly will never like the Beatles.

    When I was in college, my neighbor one door down was a Beatles fanatic. He told me and a few of my friends one time: “Anyone who doesn’t like the Beatles is in a state of denial.” We all laughed, and made a little fun of the comment later. But looking back, he was right! I mean, how can a human being not like the Beatles after listening to Abbey Road? Or The White Album? Or Meet The Beatles!?

    So back to the giveaway. It’s an easy entry once again. You leave a comment below, and you’re in the running. I’m assuming those entering are fans of the Beatles (or massive Wings fans? who knows). Do you have anti-Beatles people in your life? Do you struggle to understand them? Is it worth trying to convert them?

    Ok, Jim, give me your side of the story. How did you grow into adult form without an appreciation for the Beatles?

    Jewel Case Disclaimer: the original jewel case that the CD came in has been systematically dismantled and rendered inoperable by my 15 month old daughter. Another jewel case will be provided. Jeez, this girl and my CDs!

  • Giveaway,  Oldies,  Pop

    Warmth of the Sun Giveaway

    This Tuesday, Epic will release ‘The Warmth of the Sun’, a retrospective of three decades of Beach Boys music chosen by the Boys themselves – yes, even Brian Wilson (along with Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and Mike Love). To complement the release, there’s an 11-part series of free podcasts filled with interviews and quality Beach Boys tuneage being released over 11 weeks. You can subscribe to them in iTunes.

    So naturally, it’s time for another Ickmusic give-it-away! A comment below puts you in the running. Pretty simple, hey? As always, points for originality. And extra points to anyone who can throw Brian Wilson and “warmth of the sun” into a limerick.

    The Warmth Of The Sun (CD and Digital Album)
    1. All Summer Long (new stereo mix)
    2. Catch A Wave
    3. Hawaii
    4. Little Honda
    5. 409
    6. It’s OK
    7. You’re So Good To Me (new stereo mix)
    8. Then I Kissed Her (new stereo mix)
    9. Kiss Me, Baby
    10. Please Let Me Wonder (new stereo mix)
    11. Let Him Run Wild (new stereo mix)
    12. The Little Girl I Once Knew
    13. Wendy (new stereo mix)
    14. Disney Girls (1957)
    15. Forever
    16. Friends
    17. Break Away
    18. Why Do Fools Fall In Love
    19. Surf’s Up
    20. Feel Flows
    21. All This Is That
    22. ‘Til I Die
    23. Sail On, Sailor
    24. Cool, Cool Water
    25. Don’t Go Near The Water
    26. California Saga (On My Way To Sunny Californ-i-a)
    27. California Dreamin’
    28. The Warmth Of The Sun

    Buy The Warmth of the Sun

    Subscribe to the Podcast Series.

    Check out the Beach Boys Official Site.

  • Funk,  Giveaway

    On the Sly – an Ickmusic Giveaway

    Sly and the Family Stone
    Photo credit: SBMG Archives

    “Black, white, Puerto Rican everybody just a freakin,’ good times were rollin…” – Prince “Uptown”

    Prince sang these lyrics on his 1980 album, ‘Dirty Mind.’ He practiced what he preached with his backing band from the very beginning. Surrounding himself with black folks, white folks, male, female. But it was nothing new. More than a dozen years earlier in San Francisco, Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone, had assembled a band of much the same makeup. In 1967, Sly put together the now legendary Family Stone: Fred Stewart (guitar, vocals), Larry Graham, Jr. (bass, vocals), Greg Errico (drums), Jerry Martini (saxophone), and Rosie Stone (piano), and Cynthia Robinson (trumpet).

    Their mixture of funky, psychedelic, rock & soul shook up the Bay Area, at a time when bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were doing some serious mind blowing of their own. Oh, to be a young person living in Haight-Ashbury in the late 60’s. Loord have mercy… Kaboom! goes the brain.

    Sly and the Family Stone were signed to CBS’s Epic Records in 1967 by one Clive Davis. Between ’67 and ’74, they released seven groundbreaking albums which would go on to influence countless numbers of performers down the road, including our boy Prince. In fact, if you think about it, what band has been more influential overall on Prince? Larry Graham, after all, is the reason Prince won’t curse anymore, and the reason he changed “Sexuality” to “Spirituality”. Yep, Larry’s the one that turned Prince on to life as a Jehovah’s Witness. No birthday for you!

    So Sly’s breakthrough album was 1969’s ‘Stand’, which included such funkalicious staples as “I Wanna Take You Higher”, “Sing a Simple Song”, and “Everyday People.” As the idealism and flower power of the 60’s ended, Sly pretty much lost himself in addictions to drugs, particularly cocaine and PCP. The man reportedly used to carry around a violin case full of drugs everywhere he went.

    Sly pretty much dropped off the map as the seventies came to a close, and has struggled with addiction ever since. He popped up to help The Time’s Jesse Johnson on Jesse’s second album, ‘Shockadelica’, singing on “Crazay” in 1986. Since then, he was pretty quiet until 2006’s Grammy Awards, when he popped up on stage looking about 10 different types of cuckoo. I think he’s stil making an effort to clean up and get back on stage. I think I heard he showed up at a Vegas gig recently? There’s a great place to kick your addicitions…

    So all seven of these albums (listed below) were reissued by Epic/Legacy in early April. I got my hands on ‘Stand!’, and for some reason, I’m going to give it away to one of you fine folks. This reissue has five bonus tracks: three mono singles and two previously unreleased bonus tracks.

    The winner will be selected from the comments using a secret, proprietary formula. Or by having my one year old point to the screen. Or whichever one thoroughly entertains me. Or… you get the idea. No rhyme or reason really. Good luck! And check out some of these tracks and reissues.

    Sly & the Family Stone Streamage – comin’ at ya in Real format! Keepin’ it real! Kaboom!

    Stand!

    Everyday People (single version)

    Stand! Track List

    (Epic/Legacy 82876 75912 2, originally issued April 1969, as Epic 26456)

    1. Stand! (3rd single, R&B #14, Hot 100 #22) • 2. Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey • 3. I Want To Take You Higher (4th single, R&B #24, Hot 100 #60/1969, Hot 100 #38/1970) • 4. Somebody’s Watching You • 5. Sing A Simple Song (2nd single, R&B 28, Hot 100 #89) • 6. Everyday People (1st single, Hot 100 #1, R&B #1) • 7. Sex Machine • 8. You Can Make It If You Try • Bonus tracks: 9. Stand! (single version, mono) • 10. I Want To Take You Higher (single version, mono) • 11. You Can Make It If You Try (unissued/cancelled single version, mono) • 12. Soul Clappin’ II (previously unreleased) • 13. My Brain (Zig-Zag) (instrumental track, previously unreleased). Produced by Sly Stone.

    Note: All tracks recorded 1969, except: tracks 5, 8, 11 recorded 1968.

    Buy it:

    Stand!

    Sly & the Family Stone’s Official Site

    The Reissues:

    • A WHOLE NEW THING (1967)
    • DANCE TO THE MUSIC (1968)
    • LIFE (1968)
    • STAND! (1969)
    • THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON (1971)
    • FRESH (1973)
    • SMALL TALK (1974)

  • Giveaway,  Gospel

    A Johnny n’ Jesus Giveaway

    Johnny Cash

    On March 6th, Johnny Cash – Ultimate Gospel was released on Columbia/Legacy. 24 tracks of Johnny’s favorite gospel tunes, including three previously unreleased tracks. Whether you love you some Jesus, or you love Johnny Cash, or both, leave a comment below, and you may just win the CD….

    Buy Johnny Cash Ultimate Gospel

    Full Tune Stream-age:

  • Giveaway,  Jam,  Miscellaneous

    Dead at the Cow Palace Contest

    Dead at Cow Palace

    If you didn’t win this in Hidden Track’s recent contest (they took the best post title, “A Dead Giveaway”), here’s a chance to pick up Rhino’s recent release of the Grateful Dead’s New Year’s Eve 1976 show at the Cow Palace. It’s a triple CD set, it’s 180 minutes of Dead in their prime goodness, and I think you should have it. There’s a listening party right here, and you can also check out and buy the CD here.

    Leaving a comment below enters you in the contest, and I’ll pick a winner early in the coming week. Because it’s late Saturday morning, and I’m high on 2 cups of coffee and cold medicine, let’s get creative. Whoever comes up with the best Grateful Dead / Jerry Garcia related haiku wins the set.

    About Haiku: “Haiku is an unrhymed, syllabic form adapted from the Japanese: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Because it is so brief, a haiku is necessarily imagistic, concrete & pithy, capturing a single moment in a very few words.”

    so good luck people
    this is a lot of music
    eat asparagus

    February 2nd Update: We gotta winner: Boyhowdy! See here for details.

  • Country,  Giveaway

    New Johnny Cash Releases and a Giveaway too

    cash

    On October 31st, Mercury/UM released Johnny Cash in Ireland, an hour long concert DVD of a 1993 performance at the Olympia Theater in Dublin. He is joined by his wife June, the Carter Family,and Kris Kristofferson. If you’re a Cash fan, then you probably want to have this.

    the approximately one-hour-long concert showcases Cash singing many of his greatest hits–“I Walk The Line,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Get Rhythm,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “(Ghost) Riders In The Sky,” “Daddy Sang Bass” and “Ring Of Fire” plus “I Still Miss Someone.”

    He also sings with wife June Carter Cash (their classic duet “Jackson”), son John Carter Cash (“No Use In Treatin’ Me This Way”), Kris Kristofferson (“Big River” and “Long Black Veil”), and The Carter Family, who perform their own gems too–“Keep On The Sunny Side,” “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” and “Wabash Cannonball.” In addition, John Carter Cash solos Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Irish popster Sandy Kelly joins Cash, Kristofferson and The Carter Family on “Forty Shades Of Green,” the Johnny Cash-penned tribute to Ireland.

    So who wants this DVD as an early Christmas present? Look at me, December 11th, I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping, and here I am giving away a DVD on my site. Ah priorities…

    GIVEAWAY: Leave a comment below. I’ll randomly choose a winner in a few days, and get the DVD shipped off to the winner before Christmas.

    UPDATE: We gotta winner! See here.

    Another cool recent release is Johnny Cash – At San Quentin: Legacy Edition. It contains the full show from San Quentin Prison and a 1969 documentary of the event.

    Here’s a promo for the boxed set….

    cash vid

    Johnny Cash: I Walk the Line (Audio stream: WMP, Quicktime, Real) – live in San Quentin (“man you in the wrong place to bend over, don’t you know it? Get up from there with that camera!”)

    Buy Johnny Cash In Ireland – 1993
    Buy Johnny Cash – At San Quentin: Legacy Edition