Galen & Paul (that’s Simonon) – Lonely Town
I’m always curious to find out how former Clash members are spending their time. In the aughts, Mick Jones collaborated with Tony James on the delightfully quirky Carbon/Silicon (moreC/S please!). Paul Simonon released a couple of albums with the Damon Albarn led The Good The Bad & The Queen . And they both contributed to the Gorillaz ‘Plastic Seat Beach’ record. But overall, the twenty-teens and twenties have been relatively quiet.
Photo by @tommyophoto So, a neat surprise a few weeks back when I was scrolling through Instagram and came across this sweet little tune, “Lonely Town.” The short version of the story is that Paul Simonon (bassman for the Clash, and the bass-smashing cover boy of London Calling) was staying on and off in Mallorca during lockdown – resting, painting, writing some tunes – when a mutual friend pointed Paul toward Gale Ayers back in the UK (daughter of Soft Machine’s Kevin Ayers). They knew each other from years past, and hit it off creatively.
Galen moved in with Paul for writing and recording (separate rooms!), and before you know it, they have a major label debut as Galen & Paul with Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day?
The album releases on May 19th, but a couple of singles are already out: “Room at the Top” and the aforementioned “Lonely Town.” It’s a catchy, laid back, simple little number that I’m enjoying. Check it out!
“Drunk Girl” – New from Fred Eaglesmith’s ‘Tambourine’
A nice surprise awaited me this morning on Rdio (and Spotify) when I was greeted with ‘Tambourine’ – a brand new release from great Canadian songwriter Fred Eaglesmith.
“Drunk Girl” is easily my early favorite – and what a surprise, it’s a ballad! Sorry, always a sucker for one. Funny name for a ballad, I know. But the gist of it is that Fred’s had his heart right ripped out of his chest by a lost lover, and tonight – dammit all – he’s looking for a drunk girl to come “sail away” with him – to “weave on down Revelation Hill, down to the old mill street”. I picture a man sitting at the far corner of a dimly lit tavern bar. He’s a couple of whiskeys in, a slight sad smile on his face, as he resigns himself to his fate for the night. You know that smile, the one Bruce Springsteen nails about 2 minutes into his “One Step Up” video.
Reverb-drenched guitar chord strikes and arpeggios, Fred’s unmistakeable vocals, all delivered in an early rock n’ roll era sweetness.
Buy Tambourine on Fred’s Online Store.
Deer Tick’s new tune, “The Rock”
Deer Tick world premiered their video for their new tune “The Rock” late last month, but it took me a while to get around to properly viewing/listening. I heard a handful of new tunes from their forthcoming album Negativity back in March when they played two full sets at the local McDowell Mountain Music Festival, and I’m excited for what’s in store, especially since it’s produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos (also a part of Diamond Rugs with DT’s John McCauley). Negativity releases September 24th on Partisan Records.
Here’s “The Rock”, another quality DT tune that starts out slow and introspective, but soon unleashes a rock-fueled barrage of guitars,keys, John’s raspy vocals and horns (thanks Steve Berlin!). Now, stare into John’s eyes for a few minutes…
Los Lobos: Live at the Furthur Festival, 1996
The first time I saw Los Lobos live was August 4th, 1996 as part of the Furthur Festival, launched by Bob Weir and Mickey Hart (two surviving members of the Grateful Dead) the year after Jerry Garcia’s passing.
Along for the short summer tour was Ratdog (Weir’s band), Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box, Los Lobos, Hot Tuna, and Bruce Hornsby.
Phoenix was the last stop on the tour. It was August. It was hot. And I was there.
The Los Lobos set sparked a lifetime love of the band for me. The set was only 45 minutes long, but the rich and eclectic nature of the music reeled me in. Rock n’ roll, blues, traditional Mexican, a Hendrix cover, and of course what I came to know as their signature Dead cover of “Bertha” (done better than any band outside of the Grateful Dead).
So I was stoked to come across this short but power-packed set (not to mention it’s a soundboard recording) from that very hot summer day in 1996, and I’m excited to share it with you all.
Los Lobos: an American treasure. And they’re still out on the road. I’ll be catching them again in a couple of short weeks – June 15th at Wild Horse Pass Casino here in the Phoenix area. Life’s too short not to.
Los Lobos
August 4th, 1996
Desert Sky Pavilion, Phoenix
Furthur Festival (last show of the tour)Download ZIP of the whole set.
Angel Dance
I Walk Alone
Evangeline
Revolution
Spanish Castle Magic
I Got to Let You Know
Los Ojos de Pancha
I Got Loaded (w/ Lovelight verse)
Mas y Mas
Bertha (w/ Pete Sears on keyboards)New Deer Tick – “Miss K”
It’s brand new. It’s catchy. I can dance to it. And it’s DEER TICK!
come on miss k
wrap your lovin arms around me
talk dirty
turn me on
let’s get goin“Miss K” is the newly released first single from Deer Tick’s forthcoming album Divine Providence, due October 25th on Partisan Records.
Loooving this.
You can get a free download of the song here on deertick.viinyl.com. The boys have been having a great time in the studio – this week they’ve been visited by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and Hardy Morris of Dead Confederate. Their album will feature plenty of other special guests I’m sure. New Deer Tick!! Wahoo!!
♠ Deer Tick’s very active Facebook page and Twitter.
♠ Last but not least, a cool post from Teenage Kicks with a plethora of Deer Tick covers (Stones, John Prine, the Boss, and even Sean Kingston).
Howe Gelb and a Band of Gypsies
As an Arizona resident for the past 18 + years, and a lover of many things Americana/roots, especially with a west coast / southwest vibe, it’s damn silly that I’m not more familiar with the Tucson’s Howe Gelb and his former band Giant Sand. I’m correcting that as we speak by dialing up all of Giant Sand’s early albums on Rdio. I started this morning with 1985’s Valley of Rain
, which sounds like unmistakable precursors to the Pixies, and another Tucson outfit, Calexico (which makes sense – John Convertino and Joey Burns actually started out in Giant Sand).
Yes, I posted many moons ago about a great Giant Sand tune (“Big Fish”) on a Victoria Williams benefit CD. But overall since then, I’ve had – well – my head in the sand about Giant Sand.
So Mr. Howe Gelb has a new record on tap with a new band, A Band of Gypsies. It’s called Alegria, and was recorded in Spain with an actual band of Flamenco guitar-playing gypsies. Featured among them is Flamenco guitar virtuoso Raimundo Amador.
The new album will release stateside on May 10th.
Keep an eye on the Fire Records web site for a chance to order in the U.S. (you can already order overseas).
KMAG YOYO [New from Hayes Carll]
It was just a matter if time before I got around to Hayes Carll. After all, I’m a long time fan of artists cut from the same cloth: Steve Earle, John Prine and Todd Snider in particular. Hayes sounds a lot like Snider, very similar singing voices – and as far as his sense of humor goes, Snider and Prine are blood brothers of Carll (don’t get confused on “Bottle In My Hand” though, that is indeed Mr. Snider joining along).
As a Rdio subscriber, I’m always jumping on the new releases every Tuesday. Today, Hayes Carll’s latest, KMAG YOYO (& other American stories), hit the real and virtual shelves. It was SiriusXM Outlaw Country that played me “The Lovin’ Cup” today, and I headed right over to Rdio to check out the whole album.
The title of the album may be familiar to our military, but silly old civilian me, I had to Google it. It’s an Army acronym for “Kiss My Ass Guys, You’re On Your Own”.
“The Lovin’ Cup” is right up my twang-lovin’ alley – an up tempo, roadhouse shit-kicker of a song…
“I’m sittin’ cross-legged in the heartache tree knowin’ damn well you ain’t a-thinkin’ bout me…”
Buy the MP3 of The Lovin’ Cup, or check out all of KMAG YOYO (& other American stories)
on Amazon.
Check out Hayes Carll’s Official Site | Facebook
Here’s Hayes and his band performing the title track recently at SiriusXM’s studios…
Leave The Window Open
Add Chuck Prophet to the “I Should Have Listened To By Now” List. I know very little about this man. I just know that I’ve heard his name over the years, and heard his music here and there. Given that the words “singer/songwriter” and “roots” are often associated with his name, you’d think I’d have explored his music by now.
But I haven’t.
Luckily, Sirius-XM’s The Loft – my most frequently listened to station of late (after Howard) – has been pushing some great new music my way. Today, after devouring the #4 Chile Relleno / cheese enchilada combo at Los Favoritos, I was on my way back to work when I heard this cool little nugget of coolness from Prophet.
It’s the closing song of his latest album, Let Freedom Ring!, and it resonated with me in a Tom Petty / Greg Brown sort of way. Cool tune.
Here’s the stream from Lala…
Buy Let Freedom Ring!
Robbie Robertson’s Storyville
Not long ago, I unearthed an old cassette of Robbie Robertson‘s Storyville album. I’m trying to figure out my thought process during the LP/cassette/early CD years. Specifically, why I ever chose to buy cassettes – the least reliable and most easily damaged format possible. Well, I know why, actually. It was the car cassette player. Tunes in the car were mandatory – and the cassette was the only way to listen to your tunes on the road.
So I’d walk out of the record store every time with either an LP and a blank tape (later a CD and a blank tape), or the officially released cassette. Storyville was released in 1991, and I opted for the cassette only.
Paying homage to the Storyville section of New Orleans, the album features a who’s who of the Louisiana sound: a handful of Nevilles, the Rebirth Brass Band, George Porter, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Big Chief Bo Dollis… and a bunch of Robertson’s friends also make appearances: fellow Band members Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, Ginger Baker, Bruce Hornsby, Neil Young, Mike Mills, David Baerwald, and on and on and on….
It’s definitely an album to be ingested as a whole, since it sets an atmosphere and takes you on a journey through some great stories and characters. One of my favorites is this tune…
Robbie Robertson – Day of Reckoning (Burnin’ for You) [mp3] – from Storyville
Street Songs
We’ve spent all this time building up our digital music libraries, so why not tinker around with them a bit and have some fun? Last week I explored tunes that clocked in at 2:28. This week, I take it to the streets.
The exercise this week is to locate your street songs. I’m not talkin’ lanes, avenues, roads, courts, and the like. Nuh-uh. I’m talkin’ Streets.
What’s more, I’m looking for songs that are simply names of Streets. “Oak Street”, “Main Street”, “This Street”, “That Street”. So that leaves out a lot of quality tunes obviously (“Positively 4th Street”, “Incident on 57th Street”, to name a couple). I’m interested to see what other “Street” gems are out there. So use the Search area of your favorite media player, look for some “___ Street” songs, and drop some into the comments.
Me? I came up with 17 streets. Here are four of my tops…
- Christian St. (mp3) – Marah | An ode to their hometown of Philadelphia, this is on Marah’s 2nd album, Kids in Philly
. It’s my favorite Marah album – just bristling with life. I spent the better part of the year 2000 with this record.
- Straylin Street – Pete Droge | From Pete’s ’94 album, Necktie Second
.
- Great Jones Street – Luna | Never owned any other Luna albums other than Bewitched
, but this song is a soft stunner. They had me at Great.
- Cherry Street – JJ Cale | From JJ’s latest, Roll On
(a concept album about deodorant. Just kidding.).
The Others…
Alphabet Street – Prince
Boogie Street – Leonard Cohen
Dominick St. – Steve Earle
Grafton Street – Nancy Griffith
Grey Street – Dave Matthews Band
Highway One Zero Street – Joe Strummer
Lonely Street – Bap Kennedy
Love Street – World Party
Meadowlake Street – Ryan Adams
Rain Street – The Pogues
Shakedown Street – Grateful Dead
Shouting Street – Joe Strummer
South Street – The Orlons- Christian St. (mp3) – Marah | An ode to their hometown of Philadelphia, this is on Marah’s 2nd album, Kids in Philly
