Cruising around the other stuff on garageband I've come across some excellent tracks for which their authors really deserve praise;
'You're the Girl' by Dan Farrow, a great simple go-ahead fun song if ever I heard one.
'Billboard' by Grain USA is another beaty up-tempo fun song that's extremely catchy.
'Resurrection Day' by the Jim Hubbard Band out of Honolulu is notable for some fantastic vocals by the eponymous singer
and
'Heart Attack' by GTO from Sydney Australia is very contemporary power-pop. It should be on the radio now in my opinion!
Finally 'She Waits' by Matthew Harrison from Las Vegas is a great song with a soaring refrain.
All these songs are world class records. They deserve to live long and prosper, but with the current state
of the industry? who knows?.
I talked to Dan Farrow about 'You're the Girl' and this is what he said; "I'd ask you to mention me on your website if I knew what I wanted you to mention. Right now I am in musical and domicilic (if that's a word) limbo, moving from one place to another and then another after that. The guys I did the recording with for You're The Girl are in different places and I have gone back to just doing stuff at home. But if I think of something I'd be honoured. Let me know if your band is ever planning any tours across the ocean. I was quite impressed with that one song in particular (You made me sing the Blues) and a few others as well. I might be in the UK next spring maybe I'll catch a show there... Anyhow, I'm babbling. Thanks for the review and the info." Come on Dan , lets hear something to top or even match 'You're the Girl' in terms of bouncy groovy popster fun and I'll be happy!
Meanwhile in LA Jesse Nason tells me he's currently working on an album for Chris Karns Decca Tree and Wonderlove are currently finishing up their latest, to be called 'My Submarine' and released soon. They're off to europe shortly to film a video in Tuscany. What a life!
However, in our case the phrase relates to the end of a rather pleasant holiday in California. We had a smashing time travelling around and quite a bit of good music came our way as well. We met up with Jesse Nason (now with Chris Karns' Decca Tree) and the Wonderlove gang and heard a few other thing as well. Check out the reviews section for a couple of reviews of our musical nights out.
In addition to the new talent we came across, we also took the opportunity to see Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young. - something which (due to Youngs vows never to work with people with drug 'issues' and Crosby's long term illness) I never dreamt would ever happen. A magnificent evening, I'm so glad that my borderline dyslexia was spotted by victoria and we didn't book NSYnC instead.
More Great News, Slateroof are on garageband.com., - look for the badge in the slateroof section for a quick link to the slateroof page there. Garageband.com (gb) were recommend to me by the mental drummer from 'Cute goldfish' a local Northampton band. Garageband are good in that before you can upload a track you have to listen to a minimum of 20 tracks submitted by other people. Now you may think thats a bad thing, but I don't mind wading through the dross to find the treasure. Boy did I wade. Never mind, I didn't get splashed once. I've managed to review 70 tracks now and uploaded one off the Slateroof collection, - 'Strange Houses'., btw this caused my PC to crash in a fairly spectacular fashion, don't know why.
I submitted 'Strange Houses' and its beginning to get some good reviews (Its reached No 4700 in the Pop Rock Chart y'know) and then later "You made me Sing the Blues" which has put in a stellar performance so far - Its up to No 3200 in the Pop/Rock chart - check a couple of reviews out in the Slateroof section or chug on over to garageband.com and see if you can find it!
Well its been a bit of a 'Whistle Test' Xmas. Firstly from my girlfriend came the excellent Double DVD Whistle Test retrospective and then from my sister came Bob Harris' autobiography 'The Whispering Years'.
Taken together these two items provide a first-class insight into the sights and sounds if not the smells of the Seventies. Heralded by the famous AC615 theme 'Stone Fox Chase' there's a wealth of great footage from great bands from the seventies on the DVD including some revealing interviews, particularly precious is a great John Lennon interview which conclusively puts to bed the notion that the John/Paul rift was anything other than temporary. Another highlight for me is to see Emmylou Harris (of these very pages) with not only Rodney Crowell on guitar but also Telecaster-meister James Burton doing his magic licks on the same guitar he used with Elvis! Meanwhile Bob's book gives a great written insight to the backstage life of a journo, broadcaster and above all a fan of all those acts.
A few things I didn't realise before, - Well firstly I didn't know that Bob came from Northampton (Turns out I know people from the street he was brought up in), secondly it was Bobs' father who arrested P.J. Proby after a trouser-splitting appearance at the local ABC Cinema. Thirdly it became apparent why he's outlasted so many in his field, - hard work, the respect of many a rock luminary, a genuine enthusiasm and sticking to his guns, he still hand-builds his shows and maintains a huge private collection. In other words while other jocks give in to pre-formatting and computerised playlist selection, he's the real thing with a show that is 100 percent his own. He continues working on Radio 2 and has a good website www.bobharris.org
The back-from-obscurity boysJames are back again with a new album 'Pleased to meet you'. A sterling effort with some great obscure sound-bite lyrics and funky production. As always Mr Baynton-Powers' drumming is truly excellent and Mr Booths singing is at times truly soaring. A definite thumbs up. This and Wonderlove's 'Getting off the Revolution' are the only two albums of 2001 that I can't fault in any significant way. Many of the production values here seem very close to those of the New Order album mentioned below. Does that mean they're both really contemporary, or does it mean that they've finally defined the essence of mock-hip corporate rock. Whatever, its a pretty good sound.
Whats else is in the In Tray?, well I do declare it's New Order, reunited and with their first album in eight years. Titled 'Get Ready' I think eight years is plenty long enough to achieve a state of readiness and very welcome its final arrival is. I've read some rather guarded reviews, but I'm personally very happy with what I hear. The first single 'Crystal' is immediately centered in their distinctive sound and currently you can hear it all over the TV, I even spotted it as background music on this evenings episode of Coronation St. Fame at last. Highlights for me are 'Primitive Notion' and 'Someone like you' both superbly produced and as good as anything they've ever done to date. It all puts me in mind of the good old days (of Joy Division, mind you)when you used to hear John Peel playing stuff like 'Transmission' and 'Love will tear us apart' on weekday evening Radio 1. Fantastic.
Jeff Gemmill's Old Grey Cat site appears to be no more. This is a shame as it was a great resource for Neil Young, Maria McKee, and CSN&Y including concert and bootleg reviews and also original interviews with people like David Crosby and his long time engineer Steven Barncard. It also renders one or more of my links inactive. Come on Jeff , how about putting the site back up!
More good news - Wonderlove's eagerly awaited new EP popped through the letterbox yesterday, I'm getting to grips with it right now but the initial signs are very encouraging, here's an e-mail I sent off to Jesse after a couple of quick listens. Wonderlove's new EP "Katherine Montgomery the Invalid"
Oh finally anyone remember Love and Money - classy band from the late '80's - did one fine album then disappeared?, Me, Victoria and her brother Tim were reminiscing the other day. Wonder what they're doing now.
The second track that got the big thumbs up from me was 'Nightbloom' by Mama Zeus out of Nevada. A seriously good open tuned guitar riff with Heart-esque vocals and a great almost psychedlic, Zepp-esque riff, a majestic band sound, quite magnificent. Why not check them out - they're all there on 'gb', filed under Pop/rock. Their website is at www.mamazeus.com
Funnily enough I've listened to the top of that particular chart and don't reckon much to it apart from 'Popular Teenage Disease' by Pet Engine which I have playing presently and is definitely rather good. Shows I'm out of fashion once again.
What else then? Well the other day I fished out an old cassette tape that I picked up from the office when I worked for BMG Records in the mid 90's. It was an internal copy of what turned into the first Brian Setzer Orchestra Album. Its great. Just at the dividing line between swing and Rock n Roll Brian has found room to innovate. I thought that most of the tracks must be covers, but no, one of the best, 'Ball and Chain' is a Setzer original. Later on is another fine track 'Drink that bottle down', Surfing around on cdnow.com informs me this is a Slim Phantom original complete with one of the best guitar quiff-outs that I've ever heard. Again this is outstanding writing, it more or less blows Harry Connick Jr away, cos it has that gritty edge, whilst the horn and string arrangements are spot on throughout. Highly recommend, my tape seems to be missing a track from the album, and has a fairly lame number 'Honky Tonk' tacked on the end instead. I guess they fished this one out pre-release. Once again I find I've got buried treasure all around me in the house, but this time I'm just reminded of Setzers' talent., - I've always maintained that if he'd been around in the 50's he'd have been a megastar, and when you remember that they were quite a phenomenon when they came out in the 80's it just shows how good they were a) to have success in what was by then a dead and buried genre and b) that no-one has managed to write an innovative yet 'right' sounding rock and roll song since.
Last week it was a date playing rock'n'roll and blues guitar with Jacen and the Racketeers. It's great to get some of those old riffs out and the amp turned up to just where it starts to cook. I went to the bother of thogoughly learning the part for "Stray Cat Strut" and that paid dividends in terms of comfort factor once up and playing. Bassist for the night was Martin Jerrom who recorded Jacens album and is into loads of old stuff that I am as well, e.g. Joe Meek, Cat Stevens, analogue recording, and whats more I found out that he knows my old guitar teacher (Cliff Newell, whom I haven't seen for about 20 years) from when he worked worked at Steve Jolly's shop 'Holiday Music'. I remember when that shop had a bulk deal of the early 80's Rivera designed Fender amps for sale. If I had bought the lot I could be retired by now...
Back to last months quest for information about "Why ask Why" from the AC615 album. I got confimation from Elliot Mazer that Ken Lauber had indeed written the track, here's what Elliot had to say;
"... Why Ask Why was composed by an old friend of mine, Ken Lauber. I produced an album with him before 615 with some of the same players. It is his only LP and it was on Polydor. It is very nice to know that my work is appreciated years later and by someone who bought it rather than those that just grab things from napster."
Later on Ken himself got in touch and here is what he had to say
"Good of you to write and be so kind with the words. It's been a life time of music and if you want to check out my site go: kenlauber.com You can download some music for free and enjoy. By the way Norman Gimble wrote the lyric that never has been recorded and has received half my royalties for all these years. So goes the life of a composer. W.A.W was composed for the paramount feature film,"Fade In" starring Burt Reynolds, Johanna Petite and Barbara Loden. It was directed by Judd Hirsh. That's all I remember about that one. Somewhat of a 'b' movie but i still tried to write my ass off on that one. Maybe, by now, there's a video out of it but I haven't found it as of yet."
Ken actually played keyboards on the AC615 album. I've checked out his website and he's still an active writer So it turns out that Ken is not a forgotten writer or rock business casualty but has enjoyed a long and succesful career scoring movies. From the evidence of 'Why Ask Why' I would say deservedly so.
Run CnW - I've only been told about this collection of country versions of popular songs and don't even have an album title. My friend and redoubtable bass player Steve Musgrove tells me of these guys, but I have not found any mention of them on the web. Watch this space. No not now, what I mean is you should come back later and look here, well look further up the page later. Go away now please and stop gawping you're making me nervous.
Oh and lastly peoplesound.com have told me the Slateroof CD is 'accepted' and will be online from 'late April / Early May' so come on guys, get to it!, people want to hear it on-line! Area Code 615 and Why ask Why My continual quest for old and great music took a bizarre twist tonight as I dusted off an old vinyl record by Area Code 615 without its original cover. I think I must have bought about 20 years ago, hoping that it had the theme tune to 'Old grey whistle test' on it. I must have played it once and cast it aside. I put it on while checking my e-mails and was stunned when a number called 'Why ask why' came on, its simply a stunningly beautifully peice of music, definitely with my much vaunted x-factor, - the hairs on the back of the neck go up when this track comes on. I've since done a bit of surfing armed with the credit "gimbel-lauber" and it appears to be the work of Norman Gimbel and Ken Lauber, couldn't find much about Norman, but Ken has his own site, kenlauber.com. So I've e-mailed him to say how much I love that peice of music. After all, credit where credit is due!
My dansette collection has been recently been bolstered by another expedition to Revolution records (Diss), where I loaded up with; Memphis Tennessee - Chuck Berry, Everything I own - Ken Boothe - A track I love and have performed many times, The Letter - The Box Tops (Did someone else do a version of this), Hold your head up - Argent (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!)
On the subject of Whacky music, This week I are mostly listening to George Thorogoods' 'I really, really, really , really like girls'. Its a hoot.
I'm considering putting the Slateroof CD up for adoption by those kindly people at peoplesound.com I've heard that they are fairly straight and will take your stuff off their stie whe you ask them. I may have to face up to the need for exposure and send my babies off into cyberspace. God knows where they'll get to.
Indie Blues have reviewed it too - Issue 43 - and a very reasonable review too. At least when they call it a 'Big Work' that is complimentary isn't it? On my list of stuff to do is a scan of the full review for attachment to this very site.
Arse of the year so far - Danny Scott for giving Pearl Jams' fine album 'Vs' only two stars and referring to Eddie's lyrics as 'sixth-form'. You can do better then eh Danny?
Been listening to Counting Crows 'This Desert Life' and currently really into it. I liked it when it first came out. At the moment I love it - 'All My Friends' is truly inspired, as is 'I Wish I Was A Girl',(stop tittering in the back row!), whilst stuff like 'Amy Hit The Atmosphere' is merely brilliant lyric poetry.
Dec 2000;
Latest Leads - Check out Coldplays 'Parachutes' - A good slightly trippy debut in the old style, give 'em a few pills and they could be the next Pink Floyd.
Giant Sand - my mate Mr Sefton gives this lot a big thumbs up and is promising me a copy of the latest Lambchop CD to review, he says its gone down the soul route started on "What another man.." and gives it 9/10. Looking forward to that one.