Incoming: Gaslight Anthem, Citizen Cope
My next two shows are in the books…
The Gaslight Anthem – September 15th – Martini Ranch, Scottsdale | I’m not crazy about the venue – right in the heart of Old Town Snottsdale – but for Brian Fallon and the boys of Gaslight Anthem, I will endure the surrounding douchery. They’re fresh off a summer festival season highlighted by a couple of guest appearances by fellow Jersey boy Bruce Springsteen, and hallelujah, they’re back in Arizona for their second appearance in 6 months. Bless you boys.
The Gaslight Anthem – Boomboxes and Dictionaries (mp3) | Official Site | Tour Dates
Citizen Cope – September 25th – Marquee Theater, Tempe | About as laid back of a stage presence as you’ll find, Citizen Cope brings the cool with a really unique mix of earthy soul & roots music. I really enjoyed my first Cope show in the same venue a year and a half ago. Part of what made it great was the presence of sexy soul songstress Alice Smith. I think she’s still tagging along with Cope – here’s hoping she’s part of it again.
Citizen Cope – Hurricane Waters (mp3) | Official Site | Tour Dates
New Brian Setzer Orchestra: “Trouble Train” / “Lonely Avenue”
To remind us all that time marches on, Brian Setzer turned 50 this year. But he shows no signs of slowing down. Brian’s definitely one of those artists that a lot of people take for granted. He’s out there year after year, touring his ass off, playing his Christmas shows with his Orchestra, and keeping that rockabilly / Big Band style alive. Bless ‘im for it.
Brian, together with his Orchestra, are slated to release a brand new album, Songs From Lonely Avenue, on October 13th. But there’s already a sneak peek at a couple of the tracks, and a couple more to come soon. Go cat go!
Listen:
“Trouble Train” – The cover for the single above is totally fitting. The tune cooks like a locomotive steamin’ down the frickin’ frackin’ tracks.
“Lonely Avenue” – Brian channels his 50-60’s cool Vegas crooner. Nice.
Check out: Brian’s Official Web Site
It’s Live, It’s Purple: Musicology in Phoenix
A couple times a year, I slip into my Prince-only phase – three, four, five weeks of obsessive listening. To spur it on this time around, it was the Spin issue commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Purple Rain. The movie and album pulled me into Prince’s purple universe in the latter half of 1984, and I haven’t left since.
What I could use right now is some live Prince – something I haven’t experienced since April 2002, when he was touring behind The Rainbow Children album with his ‘One Night Alone’ shows…
Unfortunately, I missed the Musicology tour. I was moving from Denver back to Phoenix that Spring of ’04. He stopped in Denver a few weeks after I left, and he played Phoenix a week or two before I got there. Great luck.
I’m still assuming that Prince would want to tour behind his latest albums, Lotusflow3r and MPLSound, but we’re still waiting. Over the last few weeks, he’s played the Montreux Jazz Festival and a fancy-pants show in Monaco. But let’s hope he gets back stateside for some normal gigs for everyman and everywoman. You know, the fans who’ve supported him for decades?
I missed a good show in Phoenix that Spring of ’04. Hear for yourself…
Musicology Tour
Glendale Arena | Phoenix, AZ
March 31st, 2004Part 1
1. Intro
2. Musicology
3. Let’s Go Crazy
4. I Would Die 4 U
5. When Doves Cry
6. 1999 – Intro Baby I’m A Star
7. Shhh
8. D.M.S.R Incl. The Way You Move
9. A Love Bizarre – The Glamorous Life – I Feel 4 U
10. Controversy
11. Interlude
12. God
13. The Beautiful Ones
14. Nothing Compares 2 U
15. InsatiablePart 2
1. Sign ‘O’ The Times
2. The Question Of U – The One – Fallin
3. Let’s Work
4. U Got The Look
5. Hot Pants
6. Soulman
7. Kiss
8. Take Me With U
9. Outro
10. Purple RainBonus Tracks:
San Antonio, TX | SBC Center | June 9th, 2004
11. D.M.S.R.
12. A Love Bizarre
13. I Feel For You
14. ControversyPrince & Lenny – American Woman
If you do a little digging, it is possible to track down some quality Prince video action online. This comes from the Pay-Per-View concert (Rave Un2 the Year 2000) that Prince broadcast on New Year’s Eve 1999. It was a few months after Prince had released the disappointing Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. The album was released on Arista, and was conceived by Clive Davis as a comeback/collaboration album, similar to what Supernatural had done for Carlos Santana a couple years earlier. It featured artists like Chuck D., Gwen Stefani, and Sheryl Crow, and well, it didn’t turn out to be the smash hit they were looking for.
As for Lenny, he had just contributed his version of the Guess Who classic “American Woman” to the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack.
And here, the two sashay to the stage in dramatic fashion, and do proceed to rock the house.
[dailymotion id=x66l3y]Incubus & the Roots do justice to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”
?uestlove warned us to set our DVR’s to catch Incubus perform Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” with the Roots on the Jimmy Fallon show. Only thing is, my computer is upstairs and my DVR is downstairs. If that doesn’t define laziness, I don’t know what does.
Thankfully, Okay Player has the video available, and it has yet to be yanked by the Purple One and his web police goons. I just watched it, and I think this version kicks ass. Lead singer Brandon Boyd clearly knows the song inside and out, and does the song great justice, along with all the great players. Kudos too to Mike Einziger, who nails the guitar parts – including the classic finale solo. Obviously the kids along the railing didn’t grow up with the song like us older farts – they think the song’s over when Einziger starts his solo. Kids…
Good Times at the Telluride Cajun Festival
The nature of vacations is that they fly by way too quickly. And my first 2 week vacation since, well, since I started working for a living, is about to draw to a close. After I celebrate my 39th year on earth tomorrow, it’s back to the grind on Tuesday.
My family and I just spent 11 great days with my mom and my dad in Telluride, Colorado. My folks live up there during the summers, and it has become a yearly tradition to strap the car-sick-prone kids into the vehicle and brave the 9+ hours to the San Juans of southwest Colorado.
As fate would have it, along with the hiking, fly fishing, restaurantin’, Smugglers Brewpubbin‘ and such, I managed to catch some quality live music during our visit. Early on, it was James McMurtry playing for free in Mountain Village. And Friday, for our final day in town, it was the Telluride Cajun Festival, featuring Louisiana native Papa Mali, with new BFF (and drummer for the Dead) Bill Kreutzmann in tow…
Dead Weather + Diplo
A pair of rhetorical questions:
1. When does Jack White sleep?
2. When will he create a project that I don’t like?Jack White‘s latest project has our man behind the kit and on vocals, fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence, Kills singer Alison Mosshart and Queen of the Stone Age Dean Fertita. Due to my ongoing obsession with Jack White, the Dead Weather’s debut, Horehound was one of my most anticipated releases of 2009, and it doesn’t disappoint. Frankly, I have yet to be disappointed by any of Jack White’s projects. Sure, some are better than others, but overall he’s a fairly consistent dude.
After one spin, I can tell you this – it rocks. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard White play drums before, and he does a pretty stellar job. The music is fairly straightforward rock, though some tracks veer into bluesy terrain, all solidly executed.
The group’s first single, “Treat Me Like Your Mother” comes with a video directed by Jonathan Glazer:
The tune also received the remix treatment from Diplo (who is responsible for another of my faves this year, Major Lazer). The seemingly disparate styles of the band’s music and Diplo’s production style actually make for a pretty great marriage:
Check out the Dead Weather:
Official WebsiteBuy Horehound:
AmazonThe Boss Rolls on – debuting 10 songs in just 2 shows
While I enjoy some much needed vacation time – away from work, and away from staying current on ol’ Ickmusic, I had to pass on some gems from Bruce’s European tour. On July 21st and 23rd, the Italian cities of Turino and Udine got treated to some really special shows, where 10 songs made their tour debuts (six in Torino, four in Udine). You can check out my tour tracker for the details, but here are a couple highlights.
First off, “Drive All Night” is in my top 3 all-time Boss tunes, and the folks in Torino got to hear it from the E Street Band for the first time since 1981 2008. [Correction: “Drive All Night” made an appearance on the Magic Tour, see the comments]
“Drive All Night” | July 21st | Torino, Italy
And then there’s the definitive Boss song. The tune that lifted his icon status to a whole new level – “Born in the U.S.A.”. We’ve heard the darker acoustic version over the years, but I’m not aware of the full-band album version rearing its head very often. Cool to see (and a great quality video!).
“Born in the U.S.A.” | July 23rd | Udine, Italy
New from The Heavy: Sixteen
The pride of Noid, England, The Heavy hit my radar back in January ’08 with a hard funkin’ tune called “That Kind of Man”. So when I heard they were getting set to release a new full length album, The House That Dirt Built, my ears perked up. The record doesn’t drop until October, but we do have a chance to hear the first single – “Sixteen”. If this tune isn’t heavily influenced by the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins version of “I Put A Spell on You”, I don’t know what is, people.
Listen: Sixteen (mp3)
Watch: Video of “Sixteen”
Visit: Official Site | MySpace
Motivation
So I’m in the early stages of getting back in the gym groove. With all this dying in the celebrity world lately, and all this talk about failing hearts, it was time to drag my sorry ass back into some sort of routine. I started last week.
You see, I’ll turn 39 next month…
I eat like a horse.
I love Mexican food.
I love pizza and wings.
I love ginormous plates of spaghetti with garlic bread.
I love Crunch Berries, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp, and many other cereals of the junk variety.
I enjoy an occasional beer or four.
And I haven’t exercised regularly in a good 5 months.I’m 6’4″, and roughly 270 pounds. 250 is my target, though I guess my optimal weight is less than that.
Point being, I’m scared shitless of dying, and I’d like to stick around for a while with my wife and two daughters. Hence the self-ass-kicking that is the gym. The one highlight of my gym experience – like many of you – is the chance to hear and feel music in a totally different perspective. The pairing of energetic music with exercise is a match made in heaven, and is always something to look forward to.
In my few trips to the gym this go-around, these are some of the tunes that have kept the blood pumping. Wish me luck in this latest endeavor, and may the motivation stick around for good this time. By the way, that corporate logo up there? There’s something to it. It’s such a simple & powerful mantra, and it’s what I tell myself over and over when I even think about blowing it all off…
Lotus – Age of Inexperience – The only song I can think of that has a chorus of “I stone teenagers for fun” – at least that’s what I hear. This is a great album. If you like electronica, funk, with a bit of that jam band vibe, you’ll like it too.
Velvet Revolver – Sucker Train Blues – Would you believe I hadn’t heard either of the Velvet Revolver albums until a few days ago? “Sucker Train Blues” has everything I love about the Guns n Roses Use Your Illusion era.
Aceyalone feat. Jah Orah – Master – Indie L.A. rapper’s reggae/rap fusion record. Jah love.
Reverend Horton Heat – Marijuana (mp3) – I won’t endorse the mary jane before or during the act of exercise. But the song? Absolutely. God Bless the Rev (and Jimbo).
RJD2 – Sweet Piece (Cadence Weapon Remix) [mp3] – This sweet little groove will make you move schmoove.