• Hip Hop,  Old School,  Pop,  Rock n' Folk

    Thursday Variety Hour

    til tuesday

    WordPress, the blogging software behind this blog, has a cool feature that snatches comment spam and tucks it away so I can delete it. I have a question. Who are the people that spend their days creating this stuff?? What low-life wastes of space get up in the morning and look forward to a day of carpet bombing the internet with this trash?

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    What the hell is hentaipowerpuff?? On second thought, I don’t wanna know. It just mystifies me that there are people that do this. Obviously $$$ is the driving force, but holy cow, what a way to make it.

    Thank you. I guess I needed to get that off my chest.

    So before I post another Springsteen tour update, I thought I’d spice it up a little. These songs have absolutely nothing to do with eachother. Or do they? I guess, like the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, that it wouldn’t take too many steps to connect them up. Hmm, Til Tuesday, Billy Bragg & Wilco, and Boogie Down Productions. Maybe they all played the same festival in Finland one year. Entirely possible.

    Boogie Down Productions: Criminal Minded (mp3) – from Live Hardcore Worldwide.

    Til Tuesday: Coming Up Close (mp3) – from Welcome Home.

    Billy Bragg & Wilco: Walt Whitman’s Niece (mp3) – from Mermaid Avenue.

    Oh, and here’s a YouTube link to a 4 year old banging away on the drums like a pro.

  • Rock n' Folk

    (Not So) Quiet Faith from the Woes

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    More goodness from NYC band The Woes. For a powerful, stompin’, folky-Poguesish romp, listen to this tune off of their latest CD, That Coke Oven March.

    The Ickmusic Stamp of Approval is rendered upon this one (dingggg)… Start your day right, crank this one while you’re in the shower first thing in the morning. Tried and tested! Better than an Iced Venti Mocha!

    The Woes: Quiet Faith (mp3)

    Now be a good boy or girl and buy the CD.

  • Acoustic,  Laid Back,  Rock n' Folk

    Pete Droge, Part 2

    Skywatching

    I like it when this happens. You know when you hear a great song for the first time, a tune that just connects with you? Where you have the innate ability to know that you’ll be listening to the song 5-10-15 years down the road? And for me, in this digital world, the kind of song that goes straight to the CD burner so you can carry it around with you, listen in the car, etc?

    I found that song of the moment yesterday. “Things Will Change and Go My Way”. Pete Droge. Song 6 on 2003’s Skywatching. Great tune, and a great album, and I can tell you this after owning the album for just over 24 hours.

    I’ll be reviewing Pete’s new album, Under the Waves, very soon. For now, travel back 3 years in time and put your ears to this gem.

    Pete Droge: Things Will Change and Go My Way (mp3) – buy Skywatching on eMusic, the United Musicians store, or from his web site.

  • Rock n' Folk

    Notting Hillbillies in Newcastle

    notting hillbilies

    Reading the paper this morning, I was informed that it’s Mark Knopfler’s 57th birthday today. I’ve been meaning to get this show posted, so what better opportunity than today? The Notting Hillbillies was Knopfler’s post-Dire Straits group that he formed with old friend Steve Phillips. They started playing gigs in 1986 and didn’t release their debut (and only) album until 1990. This gig is from 1993, after Dire Straits had released their final studio album in 1991 (‘On Every Street’). Their 1990 album, ‘Missing: Presumed Having a Good Time’, explores traditional country territories, and is a great listen (I particularly like “Blues, Stay Away From Me”).

    So here they are performing Dire Straits & Hillbillies tunes in Newcastle during the summer of ’93.

    THE NOTTING HILLBILLIES
    Swan Hunter Shipyard

    Newcastle, England
    July 6th, 1993

    1. Intro
    2. Calling Elvis
    3. So Far Away (Calypso version)
    4. Your Own Sweet Way
    5. Run Me Down
    6. Why Worry
    7. Railroad Worksong
    8. Feel Like Going Home
    9. Setting Me Up
    10. Outro

    >> Buy Missing: Presumed Having a Good Time.

  • Rock n' Folk

    Rag Mama Rag

    the band

    For those curious to hear the Seeger Sessions take on The Band’s “Rag Mama Rag”, look no further! Bruce debuted it May 30th in Columbus, Ohio. I also heard it in Phoenix on Saturday night, and to be totally honest, I wasn’t that blown away by it. It was enjoyable, but I think it paled in comparison to “Ramrod”, which preceded it, and had the whole joint going crazy. But still very cool to see and hear Bruce pull out these gems along the tour.

    Bruce & The Seeger Sessions Band: Rag Mama Rag (mp3) – Live from Columbus, OH, May 30th, 2006

    The song, written by Robbie Robertson, originally came out on the Band’s second album, ‘The Band’, in 1969. All Music has this song review:

    One of the most popular songs in the Band’s catalog, “Rag Mama Rag” is a wonderful, swinging song with some of the Band’s most perfect playing (which is saying something) and great, funny, almost nonsensical lyrics. The success of this song, unusually on The Band, is not due to Robbie Robertson’s lyrics but to the music. Garth Hudson creates an amazingly intricate rolling piano line, while bassist Rick Danko plays a wonderfully country-influenced fiddle, weaving in and out of Levon Helm’s always subtle drumming. Indeed, singer Helm believed the song could have been a hit single, arguing that it “swung like ‘Blue Suede Shoes’.” Although it was not a hit, and is not one of the deepest songs in the Band’s repertoire, it is enormous fun, and the group played it regularly in concert throughout the 1970s. The song received a reverential cover version from Little Feat, although there are no other major recordings of the song.

    The Band: Rag Mama Rag (mp3) – from The Band

  • Rock n' Folk

    115 Degrees and Bruce

    heat

    No, you’re not hallucinating, it’s going to be 115 degrees here in the Phoenix area today. This is the time of year when we desert dwellers seriously question our sanity. On top of that, it’s Springsteen time tonight at the Glendale Arena, and having General Admission floor tickets, my wife and I get to line up early for the ol’ wristband lottery! The show should be great if the entire GA floor isn’t passed out from heat exhaustion. Ahhh summer time.

    Some Springsteen items….

    • AOL Music is featuring a video performance from each stop on Bruce’s US tour. You can check out what’s up so far right here.
    • Reader Brad from Bristol forwarded me this link showing what is undeniably Bruce Springsteen busking in the street in Sweden (I think) in 1990, singing “The River” in front of a stunned and appreciative crowd. I can’t read French, so if anyone cares to translate some of it, great.
  • Laid Back,  Rock n' Folk

    Marvin’s Temple and Shrine

    Marvin

    If you listened to AAA radio in the mid 90’s here in the U.S., you probably heard this tune by Marvin Etzioni.

    Etzioni released three solo albums under the name ‘Marvin’ after leaving Lone Justice. He was one of the founding members and the bass player. Since then, he’s produced albums by Toad the Wet Sprocket, Sam Philips, and Peter Case (among others), and done a lot of session work (his All Music bio is here).

    I’ve always liked this tune. It’s a simple, sweet love song: “If you were mine, I would treat you like a temple and shrine.”

    Marvin: Temple & Shrine (mp3) – from Weapons of the Spirit (1994)

  • Rock n' Folk

    Mellencamp’s Big Daddy

    mellencamp

    Damn the torpedoes, tonight my attention turns to John Mellencamp, and a couple of gems off his 1989 release ‘Big Daddy’. I’ve always paid attention to John’s work, and have several of his albums, though I really haven’t paid much mind to the last 10-12 years. On every album, there would always be a song or two that I got very excited about, but most of the time the rest of the tunes just didn’t stack up for me.

    But man, he’s had some great tunes over the years: the early stuff obviously… “Jack & Diane”, “Tumblin’ Down”, “Authority Song”… and later on with tunes like “Key West Intermezzo”, “Last Chance”, and “Now More than Ever.”

    But it’s these couple of tunes from ‘Big Daddy’ that rank right up there as my all time JM faves. “Jackie Brown” is my favorite. Beautiful acoustic guitars, and haunting lyrics about a down and out and desperate man…

    Is this your grave, Jackie Brown?
    This little piece of limestone that says another desperate man took
    himself out.
    Is this your dream, Jackie Brown?
    Going nowhere and nowhere fast
    We shame ourselves to watch people like this live.
    But who gives a damn about Jackie Brown?
    Just another lazy man who couldn’t take what was his.
    One helluva life Jackie Brown.
    Forevermore, Jackie Brown
    Amen and amen – Jackie Brown?

    The last hidden track on ‘Big Daddy’ is a cover of the Hombres’ “Let it All Hang Out”, a barnburnin’ rocker that get your feet a-shakin’.

    John Mellencamp: Jackie Brown (mp3) | Let it all Hang Out (mp3) – both from Big Daddy

  • Rock n' Folk

    Bruce goes back to Freehold

    ticket

    In November of ’96, Bruce returned to his hometown, Freehold, New Jersey, to perform at a benefit for the St. Rose of Lima School. It was his first performance there in nearly 30 years. He wrote a song especially for the occasion: “In Freehold”.

    He pulled the song out a few years later on tour w/ the E Street Band. This one comes from a July 18, 1999 performance at the Continental Arena at the Meadowlands. It’s a loose, witty, hilarious, and ultimately bittersweet tune. There’s a good deal of crowd noise here, but it doesn’t take away from the quality, it only enhances it, as you really feel the intimate interaction with the crowd.

    Bruce Springsteen: In Freehold (mp3) – recorded live, Meadowlands, NJ, 07-18-99

  • Rock n' Folk

    Listen to my Banjo (The Woes & Marah)

    So I download a helluva lot of music from MP3 Blogland. So much so that sometimes I don’t actually hear the tunes until months later when I’m kickin’ back listening to my mp3 collection on shuffle. It was recently that I came across a tune by The Woes that was posted on Bars & Guitars back in the spring. The tune is “That’s All, Good Night,” and it features a banjo, an accordion, harmonica, bass, and gravelly voiced singer Osei Essed. The banjo and the chord changes reminded me of another tune by Philly’s Marah: a song called “Phantom Eyes”, from their amazing late 90’s debut, ‘Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight’.

    So I put ’em together for your listening pleasure. Compare, contrast and comment.

    I call it… Black Phantom! (mp3)

    00:00 – 04:06 :: The Woes“That’s All, Good Night” – from a 7 song EP entitles ‘Coalmine’ – apparently not to be found for sale, but check out their My Space site, where they have a few additional tunes you can stream.
    04:07 – 06:35 :: Marah “Phantom Eyes” – from ‘Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight’ [Buy]

    2021 update… that mp3 is long gone, but here are the tunes. 16 years later, still worth a listen!