The Lazy Sway

Q&A: (Stephen Kellogg)

2008-04-02T15:35:00.007-05:00

As the frontman of a well-oiled, American roots rock ’n’ roll quartet, Massachusetts native Stephen Kellogg is no stranger to the road.

The singer/songwriter/ guitarist and his sidemen, The Sixers — drummer Brian “Boots” Factor, bassist and pianist Keith “Goose” Karlson and guitarist Chris Soucy — are so at home on the bandstand that they spent exactly nine days recording the tracks to their latest album, “Glassjaw Boxer.” That’s not to say they don’t like being at home, spending time with friends and family, but it just so happens that the group, in recent memory, has traveled the country, and in fact, racked up nearly 300 shows in a year.

Kellogg said his biggest regret is feeling like he hurried through a project that usually takes a bit more time; nonetheless, the result is an untreated collection of songs with a style evoking a kind of musical realism, which is to say most of the songs on the album don’t disappoint when played on stage. The songs’ recorded textures as heard through an iPod or stereo are easily recreated when played live because they don’t stray into a world of slick productions.

Mike Daly, of the band Whiskeytown, produced “Glassjaw Boxer,” which features guest contributions from Caitlin Cary (also of Whiskeytown) and Marc Roberge (O.A.R.), among others.

The Beach Reporter recently sat down with Kellogg and talked about his work.

The Beach Reporter: You spend a lot of time on the road … so is the road for you a lonely place?

Yes. Next question (laughs). No seriously, I think any place can be a lonely place. Being at home can sometimes be as lonely as being on the road. It’s really just about balance, so the answer is absolutely it can, but I think it’s also a really, really fun place when you have the right balance.

The vocal harmonies on the album are in the style of a band like Counting Crows. Tell me a bit about your band singing backup vocals.

Well, we have ‘Boots,’ who sings a lot, and Keith. We’ve got three really different voices, but I kind of like those harmonies when you can hear those different voices. In more conventional pop music, you tend to hear the singers singing with themselves, so it sounds like you hear five versions of one person. I kind of grew up on Crosby, Stills and Nash and I love Counting Crows, so that’s been a facet of the band we’ve really tried to develop, and with our next record I hope to feature it more.

I really like the compositional qualities to your song ‘Father’s Day.’ Tell me about that. Do you happen to have a daughter yourself?
I do, two little daughters — two very young, very sweet little girls. There was some speculation (as to whether the song should go on the album) because we have a fair amount of fans that are not at that age when they are having kids. But I thought, ‘Everyone comes from a family,’ and at some point you have to be who you are. That’s where I’m at and that’s what we’re singing about.

There are quite a few songs you co-wrote with Daly. Tell me about your musical relationship with him.

I like Mike. He is a hard working, energetic, optimistic guy and understands what it’s like to be depressed for no good reason (laughs). He has a sense of humor. I was a big fan (of Whiskeytown), one of my favorite albums of all time is ‘Pneumonia.’ He played a lot of the instruments on it, and I knew of him before I met him. So, we got together and wrote a song on the last record, and just stayed in touch and remained friends for a long time. Working with him is very casual, very fun. (For this album) he flew out to my house for a week and sat around in my living room while I played him 20 songs. We then talked about which ones would work. He asked me what is the record about and I wanted it to be about family (that’s the big change that’s happened in my life, the focal point, why I’m doing what I’m doing) and friendship. He’s not a ‘Hey-play-this-song-that-I-wrote’ kind of guy, but instead a ‘Help-you-finish-your-unfinished-song’ type of guy.

California Sounds

2008-03-06T15:33:00.003-06:00

What are the odds that the first name of a musician is the exact adjective one would use to describe his work? Well, for Sunny Levine, who grew up in Los Angeles and now makes his home in Venice, this is just the case whose music seems to soak up the temperature, color and landscape of California's southern region and its mild blue-skied days with the kind of fervor trademark only to a native.

“People say my music has a California sound, a new California sound, and I think definitely geography has a big influence over me,” said Levine. “I think the music sounds sort of easygoing - stuff that would work outside in the sunshine and late at night with the palm trees blowing.”

Growing up as the grandson of the iconic Quincy Jones, son of music producer Stewart Levine (Simply Red, Joe Cocker and B.B. King, to name a few) and nephew of QD3, who has produced albums for rappers Tupac Shakur and Ice Cube, Levine was destined for a career in the industry.

“As a kid, I never thought I would do anything else other than be involved in music,” said Levine.

Released this week, Levine's solo album “Love Rhino” came pouring out of the young musician, who recorded it in between his work on other projects as a producer.

“I think on this record, more than anything else that I've worked on, I didn't overthink it,” said Levine. “I didn't try to lock it down to one style or genre - I just tried to make it a real and honest of a record - even the musical parts.”

The term “Love Rhino,” originally an inside joke, developed into a metaphor about the emotional wreckage left in the wake of love gone wrong and the confessional tales that came out of the experience.

“When you're a love rhino, it's not always that you're hurt from love, you can also be a love rhino because you believe in love,” said Levine. “So I feel like when you are a love rhino it just means you're open to the possibility of love and that's why you can get hurt also.”

While some of the lyrical content may be a bit melancholy, the music is layered with all sorts of upbeat and quirky sounds that make the record a symphonic tale straight out of the Southland.

“The way this record was written (lyrically), it was from actual events that happened so it was all about trying to give them a voice,” said Levine. “It was very easy because the words just flew out. Normally it's a little harder.”

The opening sounds of the first song “Relations” are the unmistakable dreamy guitar lines from Ry Cooder, who plays on the album as a guest musician, which coupled Levine's narrative - the matter-of-fact outlook on the beginnings of what could be love - and the exquisite vocal harmonies from a few female friends on the chorus (Levine's other guest musicians are Amir Yaghmai, Holly Palmer and Joachim Cooder) make for a tender and hopeful tune that sways like a beach-loving guy, clad in a T-shirt and jeans, skating around Venice on his Sector 9 longboard.

A Jersey Girl

2008-02-28T15:31:00.006-06:00

Nicole Atkins is the hottest singer no one has ever heard of. Sort of. The New Jersey native has performed on David Letterman's show while Rolling Stone dubbed her an “Artist to Watch,” not to mention she is considered a precious gem within the artistically bejeweled city of New York.

The 29-year-old's debut album with Columbia Records is inspired by her hometown and shares its name with the New Jersey seaside enclave: “Neptune City,” just down the road from Asbury Park in a state known as the musical land of Springsteen and Bon Jovi.

“I wrote this whole record at a time when I was just moving back to New Jersey after not living there for eight years,” said Atkins, “So it was all about trying to make myself OK with living there again. It's actually getting a lot easier for me to be there because I'm on the road all the time so when I get home, that familiarity is really intoxicating.”

The album, recorded in the height of winter in Sweden, seems to encapsulate the love/hate relationship Atkins once had with Neptune City and the kind of opaque and nautical qualities of the Jersey shore that give the music textures and sounds that feel like the soundtrack to the sea. It also exemplifies her stylistic mood she calls “pop noir.”

“There are a lot of dark, melancholy moments,” said Atkins while adding that the instrumental conclusion of “Cool Enough” - which could pass for a Sigur Rós tune - is her symphonic interpretation of the weather and landscape in Sweden's city of Malmö.

These days, Atkins has come to appreciate her roots and anticipates her visits home following her touring stints. At the age of 13, Atkins found a weathered guitar in the attic that once belonged to an uncle who died when she was young. She learned to play it and eventually left for college in North Carolina where she studied illustration at U.N.C., Charlotte and played three years in the band Los Parasols. She finally returned to the East Coast to make a name as a solo artist within the New York City music circuit playing in pubs and living back at home in Neptune City.

“I grew up right across the street from the river, the Shark River estuary, and a couple of blocks from the beach, too,” said Atkins. “The river is really frightening at night and you can get so many inspirations and stories just by looking at it and being there in the moment with it.”

Aussie Invasion

2008-02-21T15:30:00.002-06:00

The Australian-born singer Missy Higgins, who first took to the piano at the age of 6, has discovered a new method of writing songs: the guitar.

For her latest work, “On a Clear Night,” Higgins composed the majority of her tunes on the stringed instrument and from the first notes you can hear the emergence of a new direction - in terms of tempo, lyrical content and a newfound sense of clarity - as compared to her last work “The Sound of White.”

“I usually sit down at the piano when I'm feeling somber and I feel like writing a ballad, and I usually pick up the guitar when I want to write something a bit more angst-ridden because you tend to write with rhythm when writing on a guitar,” said Higgins.

The Melbourne native actually wrote most of the songs for the new album while on the road in support of “The Sound of White” and had only the portable guitar to express her musical ideas.

“I wanted these songs to tell a story in the most beautiful way possible,” she said. “All of my songs have a sense of a narrative to them, I guess, and I wanted to really put that in the forefront and allow the songs to build and allow the songs to kind of speak for themselves.”

Higgins, 24, has had much success in her homeland where “The Sound of White” was Australia's best-selling album in 2005.

“There's something really great about starting from scratch in a new country where I don't have a name for myself over here,” said Higgins about playing in the United States. “The people who have come to my shows so far have been those who have heard of me through word of mouth and not necessarily from the radio or an advertisement. So at the moment, I'm just really enjoying playing these intimate-style shows and playing to people who don't know my stuff as well.”

In her earlier days, Higgins took a break from the piano for the guitar over a period of a few years and joined her older brother's band around the age 13. She won a national songwriting contest sponsored by a local alternative radio station while still in high school. Two years later, following a backpacking trip in Europe, Higgins put out an EP that shot up the indie music charts in 2003. The Los Angeles independent station KCRW got a hold of her music and began playing it, which led to a record deal in the States. By 2005, Higgins was touring America and the United Kingdom, opening for Ray Lamontagne, the Finn Brothers and Howie Day.

By September 2006, Higgins was working with producer Mitchell Froom - known for his work with Elvis Costello, Crowded House and Paul McCartney - in his Los Angeles studio. One result of the new record is the varying textures of sound due to Higgins' interest in experimenting with new instruments.

“The last album was completely acoustic, but I wanted to experiment a little bit while still keeping the songs very raw and stripped back,” recalled Higgins. “It was kind of the idea to put in little things that you might not necessarily hear the first time around but on the second or third you kind of discover more and more about the songs.”

Q&A:(Terence Blanchard)

2008-01-10T15:28:00.005-06:00

Marking its 50th anniversary in 2007, the Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest running events of its kind with a notable history in which everyone who's everyone in the jazz world has made an appearance.

The event was the brainchild of its co-founders Jimmy Lyons, San Francisco-based radio disc jockey, and Ralph Gleason, and debuted in 1958 with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Shelly Manne, Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Harry James, Max Roach and Billie Holiday. The festival, which takes place at the Monterey Fairgrounds, has grown over the years to showcase music on nine stages. It also offers panel discussions; workshops; exhibitions; clinics; and a myriad of food, shopping and activities scattered throughout the 20-acre space.

This year, a piece of the festival will come to fans across the country in the form of a touring group, featuring trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophonist James Moody, vocalist Nnenna Freelon, pianist Benny Green, bassist Derrick Hodge and drummer Kendrick Scott. The tour commences in early January with dates in 52 cities in 22 states, including a stop at UCLA's Royce Hall Jan. 18, and commemorates an event synonymous with historic jazz performances, which this September, drew 45,000 fans with all three days sold out, setting a record.

Even the band that will take a piece of the event on the road has strong connections to the festival. Moody's first appearance occurred in the 1960s with Gillespie, Freelon has performed at the festival since the mid-1990s, Blanchard was named the festival's artist-in-residence in 2007 and Green was a student in the event's educational programs during the 1970s.

Blanchard, a New Orleans native who comes from a impressive line of Big Easy horn men - King Oliver, Armstrong, and contemporaries Wynton Marsalis and Nicholas Payton - is not only well-known for his contributions in education (the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz), but also for his career as a jazz musician and his film scores, particularly ones written for Spike Lee Joints such as “Malcolm X,” “25th Hour” and “Inside Man.”

The Beach Reporter sat down with Blanchard to talk about the tour and his latest album on the Blue Note label entitled “A Tale of God's Will: A Requiem for Katrina” in which some of the music was taken from his score for Lee's HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” Blanchard was actually interviewed for the documentary, which includes footage of him accompanying his mother back to her broken and battered home in the post-Katrina New Orleans. Blanchard still resides in the birthplace of jazz, and has been living there since early 2006.

The Beach Reporter: Being a son of New Orleans and as part of Spike Lee's documentary, did you find writing the score, which part of it later became your album, difficult because it was about something so personal?

Terence Blanchard: Yeah it was hard to write. It was hard to write because - how do I say this? - musically I wanted to make a strong statement, but at the same time I didn't want to get into crowding the stories so I had to find a balance between writing something that was melodic and poignant but also writing it in such a way where it would still give room for all of those narratives to be heard.

Some of the members of your band wrote some of the songs for the album. Was this a collaborative effort?

Well, firstly, it's not the first time that these guys have written music for any of our albums. I've always tried to encourage that with these guys because they are great writers. The thing that was amazing was that they were writing music about the aftermath of Katrina at the same time that I was, unbeknownst to me.

When did you begin writing the music for the documentary?

Well, we were working on the music to the ‘Inside Man,' actually, when I was interviewed for the documentary so musically, my mind was someplace else. It wasn't until Spike had the first two hours of the documentary cut together that he brought it to me and I started to come up with the music for the documentary. It was some time after that, after we finished the score, that I even thought about doing the album, and doing the arrangements for the album, which are very different from the score.
What is your approach to writing a score?

Well, you obviously have to watch the film first or actually read the script before you see the film to get a sense of it, and have a conversation with the director so you kind of know what the director's looking for. Then just proceed accordingly. I think with any film score I've done, it's very important to have those close working relationships with the directors because we all have varying opinions about anything and impressions about anything. I can always take any story and go into any direction so I always make sure I get a sense of what the director is looking for.

Tell me a bit about the Monterey Jazz Festival tour.

It was a great honor to be asked to be the artist-in-residence this past summer, to be a part of that festival, given its 50th anniversary. Then Tim Jackson (the festival's general manager) talked to me about putting together a group to take on the road. We actually put on a couple of concerts at the festival and they went well, and now we are just looking forward to going on the road and doing our thing.

All-Natural Music

2008-01-04T15:25:00.003-06:00

“He talked of the way of the world and where we are going-it was probably the most amazing situation I've ever been in, spiritually,” said Aussie troubadour Xavier Rudd about his session time with First Nations Cree elder Kennetch Charlette - one of several guest singers on the musician's album entitled “White Moth.”

Rudd met Charlette, a member of the Cree Nation and resident of Sandy Bay, Saskatchewan, Canada, through an Australian medicine man during a past tour to the North American country. Charlette, during his three-hour visit in the studio, sang traditional prayers with one in particular to Mother Earth, which made its way into the song “Footprint”- a contribution that Rudd feels is the most poignant part of the record.

Rudd, a surfer extraordinaire, produces musical moods that wade in the ocean with those of Jack Johnson and Ben Harper. The guitar-driven songs blend a myriad of genres with lyrics about the environmental state of the world, among other things. Rudd broke onto the American music scene in 2004 with his album “Solace.”

As for his live shows, Rudd works in the same manner as contemporary Keller Williams, performing as a multi-instrumentalist. He plays instruments like the bongos, a slide guitar, stomp box, harmonica and an assortment of didgeridoos - the latter instrument invented by Australia's Aboriginals about 50,000 years ago, which Rudd has been playing for about 15 years. For “White Moth,” the blond hair, blue-eyed singer/ songwriter enlisted the vocal prowess of Aboriginal singers in a similar fashion to a musician he heard as a child: Paul Simon. Simon featured South African singers on his work “Graceland,” and both albums capture a heightened sense of the divine because of such singers.

“There is a very strong, spiritual protection of the land,” said Rudd about the Aboriginal presence in his native country, “and you can feel that when you go to Australia. Whether one's understanding of it is that it's beautiful, whether you get sick in certain places, whether you feel warm, whether you feel like time doesn't matter anymore - you get these kinds of feelings around this country. These people just like those in the U.S. and Canada are people who have lived here for thousands of years who can really communicate with the Creator.”

“White Moth” also showcases the sounds of the Aboriginal musical group Yothu Yindi, drummer/percussionist Dave Tolley, bassist James Looker, and pianist and organist Panos Grames.

Rudd, a native surfer to Bells Beach - along Australia's south coast near a town called Jan Juc - has been in the ocean since he was about 5 or 6. Growing up with all of the nature in Australia, Rudd has developed an extraordinary close relationship with living things all around.

“We are no different than a leaf on a tree,” said Rudd. “We are just a little more twisted - that would be my understanding. We've been given powers that we've misused.”

The album, primarily recorded at the studio, The Farm, in British Columbia, Canada, is Rudd's fourth work, and represents the musician's growth of his spiritual self over the last few years. Over this period, Rudd traveled the world on tour, along the way garnering fans with a liking for music that combines folk, reggae and rock. The lyrics for Rudd's songs draw upon times with friends, trips to Australia's historic Aboriginal territory Arnhem Land, and memories with his wife and their two children, which also inspired the title of the work, on the 30th birthday of Rudd's wife - the family was vacationing on an island off the coast of Sri Lanka.

“That day, a white moth came to our 6-year-old, a beautiful white moth and stayed with him for about three hours,” recalled Rudd. “We thought it was the spirit of my wife's grandmother, which is often with her. It sort of reflects that day, which was a really positive day, and my wife, who has been the backbone of this whole career of mine for years.”

Inspired by Duke

2007-03-08T15:22:00.002-06:00

It is sweet sounding but also aggressive. It can support a song in a percussive and rhythmic way or can create a vibrant sense of harmonic and melodious colors. It is the vibraphone - an instrument invented in the United States in the early 1900s and popularized throughout the history of jazz by the varied styles of legends like Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Bobby Hutcherson, Cal Tjader and Terry Gibbs.

As a gifted vibes man, Stefon Harris follows in the footsteps of such predecessors and as a jazz musician is part of a rich cultural and musical heritage that is truly American, a legacy he indelibly rejoices in with his new work “African Tarantella: Dances With Duke,” on Blue Note Records. The album celebrates what is the genius of Duke Ellington by way of pieces from his “New Orleans Suite” and “The Queen's Suite,” and the immense growth, skill and emotion of Harris by way of excerpts from his original composition, “The Gardner Meditations.”

Harris, in his 30s, who has an ear for creating brilliant colors and an expansive palette of sound, enlists the talent of only nine players - Harris (vibes and marimba), Junah Chung (viola), Louise Dubin (cello), Anne Drummond (flute), Greg Tardy (clarinet), Steve Turre (trombone), Xavier Davis (piano), Derrick Hodge (bass) and Terreon Gully (drums) - to establish a textured and orchestral sound trademark of Ellington.

Harris was born in Albany, N.Y., and began playing piano at the age of 6. By the time he reached middle school, he not only played the clarinet but percussion instruments as well. In high school, he garnered the esteemed principal chair as percussionist with the famed Empire State Youth Orchestra.

Harris later earned his bachelor's degree in classical music and his master's degree in jazz performance from the Manhattan School of Music. Since then, he has earned several Grammy nominations and Jazz at Lincoln Center's prestigious Martin E. Segal Award.

Harris is also deeply committed to music education, conducting more than 100 clinics and lectures each year at schools and colleges across the country.

In 2002, he was the resident artist at the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and fills the same role at San Francisco Performances.

The Beach Reporter recently spoke to Harris about his new work that highlights his talent as a composer and arranger.

The Beach Reporter: How do you view the differences in arranging as opposed to composing?

Stefon Harris: There is definitely a difference, particularly on this record. When I was working with Ellington's music, I was consciously trying to maintain the general character of his music and in arranging it I tried not to change things too dramatically. There were things here and there that have my sound on it as well, but the idea behind the record was to make sure there was a juxtaposition of Ellington's writing with my own.

There are musicians who are always playing Ellington's songs and dedicating entire albums to his compositions. What is your approach to recording songs written by someone as talented and popular as Ellington?

For me, the reason I am doing this is obviously musically based but also culturally based, I think, in that as an African-American jazz musician, I recognize that I am really part of a great lineage not only musically but culturally. That was my initial reason for digging into the music of Ellington and finding a lot of common ground there. Because I feel I am part of a lineage, I feel that I don't have to do it the same way it was done in the past. So, when I get a group of musicians together I tell them to play it how they would play any other piece of music - bring all of your personal experience and expressions; I never would say this is the way Ellington would play it on the piano or something like that. A lot of it has to do with a certain amount of freedom in your mindset when approaching the music.
You seemed to have picked Ellington's compositions that were similar in theme to your pieces.

I picked the Ellington pieces that I gravitated to most naturally, the sound of the pieces I feel very at home with as an improviser, playing in the middle of that harmonic environment that Ellington created.

The album has a large, orchestral sound but it is a relatively small ensemble. Was that kind of your intent?

Well, there are always budget concerns (laughs). I absolutely tried to take nine musicians and at times make them sound as large as I possibly could and there are arranging techniques that I experimented with to create that type of effect. But also the selection of instruments, I think is a very interesting combination of sounds that breeds a lot of variety. Normally you have sections and I tend to not like sections of anything - I don't want three trumpets, I don't want three trombones, I don't want five saxophones, I don't like the sound of it, it's overwhelming. Music to me is about color and nuances and emotional energies, and when I have strings, woodwinds, brass, the vibraphone and all the percussion, it's a very wide palette for me to draw upon. Ellington, for me, is the epitome of elegance and grace, so of course I needed strings to express that.

The Rocking Homebody

2007-02-15T15:20:00.002-06:00

“I don't really ask too many questions and later on I can apply it to my own situation to see where it fits into my life, but normally when I write songs I write down whatever comes into my head, and I try not to make it too linear,. I'm not a big fan of writing about what's going on in my life,” said Texas-based rock 'n' roll singer Bob Schneider about the songwriting process.

His latest album entitled “The Californian” is a collection of 14 songs recorded live - with the exception of a few vocal and guitar overdubs - in Austin at Jack Rocks studio, and are part of 27 songs recorded over a period of about four days. The work documents Schneider's band - aptly called The Bob Schneider Band - before the departure of its guitarist Billy Harvey who left once the group wrapped on the work. Schneider originally convinced Harvey to play with the band - Bruce Hughes on bass, Derek Morris on keys and Rafael Gayol on drums - for three weeks in 2001, which turned into four years.

“We have been playing as a band for a few years now and touring nonstop so we knew the material pretty well,” said Schneider about recording “The Californian” released in 2005. “We just went in and blasted through it. It was pretty crazy.”

The latest recording process was a refreshing transformation for Schneider, who on his past solo albums, has focused on the production value, which forced him to slave away in the studio. Schneider, who is based in Austin, wrote all of the songs on the album, which became musical odes to the old-school recording process as the players took advantage of the use of vintage recording gear at Jack Rocks. Even the album's cover art is reminiscent of a classic rock record jacket.

“I'm a perfectionist and I would second guess everything in hearing the songs so many times that after a while I couldn't stand hearing them,” said Schneider about his past recording method for albums like the 2004 “I'm Good Now.” “This album was much more fun.”

Born in the small town of Ypsilanti, Mich., and raised in Munich, Germany, Schneider, who also plays the drums, backed his musician father as such for a series of moonlighting gigs as a child in the European country. He later moved to Texas for school, majoring in visual arts. Prior to taking the solo artist path, Schneider meandered in the music world as a member of various bands. He initially dropped out of the University of Texas at El Paso to take on full-time musicianhood with the funk and rap band, Joe Rockhead that Schneider likens to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Joe Rockhead released three independent albums from 1991 to 1993. With the breakup of Joe Rockhead, Schneider joined the Ugly Americans that signed a record deal with Capricorn Records in 1995. Schneider founded the musically raunchy group The Scabs in 1996, which released four albums between 1998 and 2001. He turned solo around 1998, and with his band, Lonelyland, scored a deal with Universal Records in 2001. The self-titled album shattered retail records at Austin's historic Waterloo Records shop, beating out the sales of teen pop stars and boy bands popular at the time.

“The Californian” is today's quintessential rock album with its beguiling melodies, compact grooves and lyrics about a varied bunch of raucous people looking for a good time, whom Schneider describes as characters, adding that he finds it “fun” living vicariously through them within his own imagination and on stage.

“I live a very boring existence - I sit at home all day and write songs, sit on my computer and draw pictures,” said Schneider. “I don't like to go on vacation or go out and party, so I end up living in this imaginary world, and I'm sure when my life is over I will look back and think I've wasted my whole life trying to get people to love me with my music instead of just going out and living life.”

Musical Melting Pot

2007-02-08T15:17:00.001-06:00

Whether you call it Latin hip hop or a kind of dark soul jazz or orchestrations in electronica, there is no doubt the music of the New York City-based group Si*Sé is nothing short of rousing, provocative and ingenious.

Founded in 2000, by its singer Carol Cárdenas and DJ U.F. Low (a.k.a. Cliff Cristofaro), Si*Sé (pronounced see-seh), also features Ryan Farley on drums, Morgan Phillips on bass, Neil Ochoa on percussion and Jeannie Oliver on viola who has since been replaced by Tarrah Reynolds on violin.

“I think from the time we started the band to now, we've seen a lot of growth in Latin lounge and electronica music,” said Cárdenas “It's always evolving and it's nice that a lot of it is being heard now more than ever.”

Cárdenas is not only a singer/songwriter, but also a well-known DJ within the house music scene and met Cristofaro through a mutual friend. Soon enough they were in the studio together recording a five-song demo that eventually fell into the hands of Talking Heads singer David Byrne and founder of Luaka Bop Records.

“I think we are both very picky about sounds because we listen to records constantly,” said Cárdenas on her and Cristofaro's shared passion for DJ-ing. “We are shopping for records and we are DJ-ing and constantly to listening to different styles and sounds, so I think it makes us definitely very open to music and because of that, we love to explore different genres.”

With the completion of their studio collection, the duo then decided to put a live group together and enlisted their friends - Cristofaro knew Farley from college while the remaining members were initially friends of Cárdenas. As New York City-based players, their influences pervade the music of Si*Sé with the diverse urban culture commonplace in the quintessential American city. Cristofaro, who grew up in Brooklyn, came to appreciate the fertile and thriving underground hip hop and DJ music atmosphere.

“The way we write I think is a little unconventional, but a lot of it will start with tracks I will be playing around with. Basically I'll give those outlines to Carol and then she and I will sort of flesh out the meat and potatoes of the song. Then from there we kind of bring it to our studio - we have a place in Queens - and we all get together as a band and throw it in a pot and see who brings what to the table,” said Cristofaro.

At 14, Farley began to teach himself how to play the drums in his basement in Madison, N.J., and as a student at Fairfield University expanded his style up to jazz, hip hop and reggae from his childhood rock influences such as Pink Floyd, the Police and Led Zeppelin. Cristofaro met Farley in 1999 while they were students at the university. Phillips, a native New Yorker, met Cárdenas at a drum & bass party. Ochoa, who is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, moved to New York in 1995 while Oliver, who was born in Queens, is a classically trained musician.

“I was pretty clear in my head when we put the band together exactly want instruments I wanted,” said Cárdenas. “I wanted a string kind of on the lower range, either a cello or viola, and now we play with Tarrah, and I really like the way the vocals and strings blend together; it is like another vocalist to me.”

Si*Sé released its sophomore album “More Shine” in 2004 - a follow-up to its popular self-titled debut that sold nearly 100,000 copies worldwide. The founders of the Fuerte Group, Jerry Blair and Rich Isaacson, saw the band play live in New York and courted the group, which ultimately signed with the label and released “More Shine.” Both albums showcase tunes sang by Cárdenas in both Spanish and English, accenting her hauntingly beautiful tone that reflects a captivating balance between Middle Eastern and Latin vocal phrasings with traces of an operatic flare.

Lemonade from Lemons

2007-02-01T15:15:00.002-06:00

“I've really enjoyed the people I've been working with, so on the creative side of it, it's been really wonderful,” said singer/songwriter Glen Phillips about his career as a solo musician.

Phillips, formerly of the group Toad the Wet Sprocket, released his new work “Mr. Lemons” in 2006, and recorded it in east Nashville with a group of local players and some dear friends.

“There is definitely a character to players in Nashville and that has, I think, a really big effect on things,” said Phillips. “It was a really great group of people to be around, and that part was exciting. In Nashville, people just want to play, they are all about just working, and know they will get a job today and get a job tomorrow, and it's great to have people who will come in (to the studio) and do whatever it takes to make things sound good.”

The acoustic-based “Mr. Lemons” is a divergent stride in direction to Phillips' 2005 “Winter Pays For Summer.” However, Phillips knew he wanted a stripped-down sound for “Mr. Lemons,” which he said proved to be more of a challenge in certain ways because instead of adding to make a better song, he was faced with taking elements out.

“The stuff before was kind of very produced and ‘pop-y' and was jumping up and saying, ‘Look at me, look at me, look at me!' So, the new stuff is a little less aggressive that way,” said Phillips. “I just wanted something correct for when I went on tour so people wouldn't end up wondering who this guy was, and where is the big band and backup vocals and everything.”

The album showcases Phillips' songwriting collaborations with producer Neilson Hubbard and guest vocals from Kim Richey and Garrison Starr.

Phillips returned from a sabbatical that took him to the cities of Amsterdam, Berlin, Bath, London and Barcelona.

“My family and I, we were out traveling, and it was really good to get out of my habit - I had been in such a routine, going out on the road, coming home only to leave again, so I was feeling kind of homeless and so it was good to reprioritize,” said Phillips.

With its origins in Santa Barbara, Toad the Wet Sprocket was named after a Monty Python comedy sketch, and its four original members were high school friends who formed the group in 1986. The band garnered mainstream success with songs like “All I Want” and “Walk on the Ocean.” It played more than 300 shows during its 1991 “Fear” album tour that culminated with throat surgery for Phillips. In 1998, the group eventually parted ways.

Age Old Music

2007-01-18T15:11:00.003-06:00

With more than four decades of musical experience under their belts, the members of the Irish Celtic band The Chieftains have quite a few interesting stories to tell, to say the least.

The band has either collaborated or performed with numerous artists from country darling Allison Krauss, jazz princess Diana Krall and her husband, Elvis Costello, to Sting, Van Morrison and Bela Fleck. Paul McCartney even danced a little Irish jig to their music when they played a few special tunes at Krall and Costello's wedding, where they exchanged jokes with Elton John.

“We often have that,” said Chieftains founder Paddy Maloney on surprise guest appearances. “You never know who's going to pop up.”

Other famous fans include The Boss himself, guitarist Ry Cooder, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings.

“I was disappointed that I couldn't nail down Bob Dylan for ‘The Journey Home,'” said Moloney about a special collaboration that never came to fruition. “I had a song he was going to do, but we couldn't get together at the same place, same time. That was the one I missed out on, but maybe in the future something will pop up. He is always there doing great things.”

The Chieftains recently embarked on its annual U.S. winter tour, marking 33 years of touring North America. So what's the secret of keeping a band together?

“I think the magic is in the music,” said Maloney. “At the same time all these guys are great musicians, individual soloists and they have their own things, done their own albums and they appear separately beside with The Chieftains. I am just very lucky about the way it turned out - our little trip for the last 45 years - I wouldn't have had it any other way.”

You know you've made it when your home country puts out a postage stamp of you, as Ireland recently did for the band which initially formed in 1962 by Moloney, who plays the uillean (pronounced illi-an) pipes and the tin whistle. Uillean translated from Gaelic means elbow. The double-octave range instrument, that one has to sit down to play, originated in Ireland about 400 years ago.

“It's kind of the thing we have been doing over the years,” said Moloney on working and collaborating with other artists. “I've been working a bit with Ry, he has a album coming out and it's going to be brilliant altogether.”

The Chieftains - Moloney, Matt Molloy, Seán Keane and Kevin Conneff - lost a dear friend and longtime band mate Derek Bell in 2002, who had joined The Chieftains in 1974, and was not only known for his work on the harp, but also on the oboe, horn and keyboards, among other things. The group's album, “Live From Dublin: A Tribute To Derek Bell” was nominated for a 2006 Grammy in the category of Best Traditional Folk Album.

“There is that sound of The Chieftains that is peculiar to us, everyone knows it's us when they hear our sound; they are able to recognize it, and I still think we have it,” said Maloney. “We have a good way of putting across a show, the music itself being a priority of course. We don't depart from who we are and that is traditional Irish musicians.”

In the early days, in order to support his musical career, Moloney took a nine-to-five job in accounting with Baxendales - a building firm where he met his future wife, Rita.
Moloney named the group The Chieftains, inspired by Irish poet John Montague, and in 1968 - with a few albums under his belt with The Chieftains - left Baxendales to work as the managing director of Claddagh Records. In 1975, The Chieftains began performing full time, marking the endeavor with a historic show at Albert Hall in London. The group underwent several lineup changes and finally jelled with its trademark members in the late 1970s.

Over its career, The Chieftains have released 35 albums, won six Grammys, an Oscar (for the 1976 Stanley Kubrick film “Barry Lyndon”), an Emmy and a Genie (Canada's equivalent of the Oscar). Keane joined The Chieftains in 1968 as a master fiddler, who was classically trained at the Dublin School of Music. Conneff sings and plays the bodhrán (pronounced bow-rawn), an ancient frame drum with a wooden body and a goatskin top that is hit with a double-headed stick called a cipín. Molloy plays the flute and moved to Dublin in the early 1970s to work for a national airline as an engineer. He became a member of The Chieftains in 1979. He and his wife also run the famed pub Matt Molloy's visited by such stars as Twiggy, Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, and the late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.

Over the years, The Chieftains have played a few key and momentous performances such as being the first Western group to play on the Great Wall of China and the first group to perform in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The band also performed during Pope John Paul's visit to Ireland in 1979 in front of roughly 1.35 million people. Most recently, Moloney played at a 9/11 memorial service in October in New York City. The Chieftains have also performed with numerous symphony orchestras and worked on collaborations including ones with the aforementioned musicians.

In 2006, The Chieftains recorded “Further Down the Old Plank Road” - a follow up to “Down the Old Plank Road.” Both works showcased a collaboration between The Chieftains and some of the best American country and roots and Nashville musicians around today like Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, John Hiatt, Allison Moorer, John Prine, Vince Gill, Martina McBride, Lyle Lovitt and Patti Griffin.

“The music - it's old country music, of course - it would have come over with the Irish in the last few hundred years, and made it's mark,” said Moloney on the song selections for both albums that are both Irish favorites and country standards. “I did a bit of research and I came up with about 40 or 50 songs that either have the musical connection or the lyric connection.”

The Many Shades of Colour

2007-01-11T15:05:00.003-06:00

“There is definitely a spirit of danger and boldness to it, but it seems like no one knows what it means anymore,” said Nathan Warkentin, drummer in the Los Angeles-based band The Colour, on the term rock 'n' roll. “To us, rock 'n' roll is marked by the culture of the times, but also the good songs that have become timeless that people still sing today.”

The Colour is currently playing a January residency at Spaceland in Silverlake every Thursday with its debut album “Between Earth and Sky” set for release in February on the new EMI imprint, Rethink.

Formed in 2003, the quintet - singer Wyatt Hull, guitarists David Quon and Luke MacMaster, bassist Derek VanHeule and Warkentin - took to the road for extensive tours of both the U.K. and the U.S. over the past three years with bands such as Jet, Interpol and the Futureheads. In between past tours, the bandmates, who met when they were all around 18, spent time at their less-than-humble Hollywood abode rehearsing and writing songs in their home studio.

“We kind of write all together - Wyatt generally writes all of the lyrics - even on some of the melodies, so each person contributes their instrumental parts, but we collaborate on that stuff as well, trying to feel what's best for the song,” explained Warkentin. “The two things we really focus on are rhythm and melody.”

The boys actually met in school as art majors yet somehow - with their seemingly distinctive set of musical predilections and outlooks - have managed to create a sound that embodies their collective sentiment of rock 'n' roll.

“I think the major theme of our record and even our experiences as a band in general is very much about journey and story,” said Warkentin. “We have gone through a lot of different changes and difficulties in the last few years as a band, and it's kind of all part of one story. The idea of between earth and sky came from the flag of the Roma people (a subgroup in the country of Romania). The top half of the flag is blue and the bottom half is green with a red wagon in the middle, which represents constant travel. It all ties into the life of a musician and how we gain inspiration. A lot of the songs talk about our journey - the highs and lows, the light and the dark.”

Honing its animated live show via its penchant for the rock 'n' roll of the 1960s - the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Doors - The Colour had thoroughly found its voice and flair for communal song composition by the time it entered Quad Recording Studios (formerly Quadraphonic) in Nashville to record “Between Earth & Sky.”

“It was a really unique experience because we actually lived there for three months,” said Warkentin. “Our whole lives were wrapped up in that and it was very inspiring being there. It was a holistic kind of thing, it was very different than what we expected, but in a good way. You think of Nashville as a country kind of town, but there is a really cool rock scene there with a lot of different kind of artists. We got a chance to really remove ourselves from our normal environment and I think that had a major impact on how the record came out.”

Sounds Inspired by the Sea

2006-12-29T15:03:00.001-06:00

Hailing from Laguna Beach, singer/songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter seems to love music just as much as surfing, and in the same vein as Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, his sun-kissed love of nature as well as a good guitar melody emerges within his tunes like a promising swell out in the ocean.

Frankenreiter's passion for surfing began earning him money and took him all around the world by the time he was 16. Frankenreiter then decided to learn how to play guitar and by his senior year in high school was a member of the popular local band Peanut Butter and Jam.

Frankenreiter's sophomore work, “Move By Yourself,” which is his debut on Lost Highway Records, combines soul, pop, rock 'n' roll and a bit of country in the spirit of the Allman Brothers with a dash of Jamiraquoi, Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and a bit of Van Morrison. The laid-back grooves hint at Motown and 1970s funk with their great use of the wah-wah pedal. Frankenreiter's first album was on Johnson's label Brushfire Recordings.

“Jack and Mario (Caldato) did a great job on that last record and I had a beautiful time making it. I just felt like I needed to make a change, and there were definitely no hard feelings involved,” he recalled. “I wanted to succeed or fail on my own merits and I jumped at the opportunity to be part of a roster like Lost Highway's.”

Frankenreiter produced the new record and it was released over the summer. Mixer Neil Pogue suggested that he get in touch with Benjamin Wright who ended up composing the string arrangements for the song “The Way It Is,” which prove to be an enthralling touch to the dreamy, lighthearted, earthly rhythmic song.

“We went into the studio up in L.A. and there was a 30-piece string orchestra. They laid it down live to the track and that was the first time I've ever done anything like that, but it was really cool,” said Frankenreiter.

Frankenreiter notes the importance of his band mates - Matt Grundy (bass), Eric Brigmond (keyboards) and Craig Barnette (drums) - who helped in the song collaboration both musically and lyrically. The latter ranges in subjects from home, to family (his wife and toddler son), unrequited love (“Fool”) and a spot of meditation near his house that is nestled in a canyon - an ideal atmosphere for reflection (“These Arms”).

“Whenever I am at home it's nice because I am never there,” he said while on tour in upstate New York. “There is a lot of wind that blows our way and (the locale in the song) it is a place that I can stand out there, take it all in.”

Along the way in the recording process, Frankenreiter did seek out suggestions from both the band and Pogue.

“For me, I am really into collaborating on songs, and working on lyrics with other people,” he said. “That is kind of the thing with me - I have a lot of songs, but I kind of get stuck on the lyrics. I don't want to repeat myself; and there are only so many scenarios, scenes and situations I can describe. Other people have different words to describe things. But on the other hand, you always exist in that realm and things happen. The music part just comes easier for me, the melody comes to me and then I think, ‘What am I going to say?' That's why I like working with other people on the words.”

For the next album, Frankenreiter would like to see his music taken in a new direction with a different producer at the helm. He added playing the producer role is a lot of responsibility because at the end of the day, the work from “Move By Yourself” rested on his shoulders. But he said he wouldn't have had it any other way, calling it a “great experience.”

“I want (the producer) to take it somewhere,” he explained. “All my songs are definitely written on the acoustic guitar, so you can take them anywhere really. The song is there and you can frame it any way you want. I think it would be good for someone else to take their interpretation of where they think the music needs to go. I don't know what the next record will be, but I definitely don't want it to be like the same record I just made.”

Under the Radar

2006-11-30T15:01:00.001-06:00

It's great to know that a musician as artistic and engaging as singer/songwriter Randy Weeks is a local.

I first discovered Weeks at the downtown Hermosa Beach club Café Boogaloo where he often plays and with the thrilling guitarist Tony Gilkyson. It was around the time Weeks was preparing to go back into the studio with a follow-up work to the marvelous “Sold Out at the Cinema” released in 2003.

Well, the time has finally come as Weeks at the tail end of summer released his new work, “Sugar Finger.” Weeks completed three albums as a solo musician - the first was “Madeline” in 2000 - and soon after began his biweekly residency at the Cinema Bar with Gilkyson and Mike Stinson who have also played on his albums.

“I have been playing with Tony the longest and I met him in a bar six or seven years ago,” said Weeks. “I sort of asked him if he wanted to play with me and to my surprise he agreed because he is such a top-notch guy. I have no idea what possessed me to ask him.”

Weeks is not only admired by listeners but musicians - Lucinda Williams covered Weeks' song “Can't Let Go,” on her “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” album - and filmmakers - Peter Farrelly heard Weeks at the Cinema Bar in Culver City, which led to many appearances on soundtracks like “Shallow Hal,” “Sunshine State,” “The Ringer,” “Jack Frost” and “Stuck On You.” Even club owners like Stephen Roberts of Café Boogaloo and Rod Castillo of the Cinema Bar dig Weeks.

“I was playing with Ramsey Midwood. We had recorded together and had a band together and he knew about the place and so we went down there,” remembered Weeks about first playing at the Cinema Bar. “It wasn't real busy at the time so it was easy to get in and play there. So we just started doing it on a regular basis and it sort of took off. It was kind of a small bar and that made it easy to fill the place.”

Since his teens, Weeks has worked as a professional musician, playing the drums at 16 in a country band that toured the Midwest. Subsequent to a six-month stint in the manufacturing industry for the Toro Company based in Windom, Minn., Weeks came to the realization that a musician's life was for him, and used the money he saved during his short-lived corporate career to move to the Twin Cities (from the small town of Windom) where he played in hard rock bands and transitioned over to playing the guitar.

Weeks, who lives in Santa Monica, relocated to Southern California from Minnesota in 1979. Within a few years of his arrival, he became one-half of the duo Lonesome Strangers with Jeff Rymes. The group sprouted up from the fertile ground of American roots music famous in Los Angeles during the 1980s where artists like Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores and Buddy Miller emerged as trademark players of the scene.

“The first thing that I saw that impacted me was The Blasters, a revelation of roots music for me, they were doing old rock 'n' roll but they were steeped in the blues, old R&B, so that what was going on back then and I guess you could say it's still going on,” said Weeks. “Things are little more country, I guess. When I first moved here it was The Blasters and punk music, which was like going back in time because punk music was kind of rootsy in that it was simple and raucous. Then there was kind of a bit of country scene that came after that, which I was a part of. You'd think I had moved to Texas or something.”

The Lonesome Strangers seemed to be musical brethren as the harmonies they sang, recalled Weeks, came very natural, and out of the collaboration came classic country and roots styles and sounds with a unique and unexpected interpretation in the punk genre. The duo's debut on record came in the form of a track on the 1985 compilation “A Town South of Bakersfield.” Lonesome Strangers then followed up with its album “Lonesome Pine.” A song on its second album, a cover of Johnny Horton's “Goodbye Lonesome, Hello Baby Doll,” scored Lonesome Strangers a Top 40 country hit in 1989. The band took a break in the early 1990s when Rymes moved to Georgia but later recorded “Land of Opportunity” in 1997.

Although Weeks had been refining his songwriting skills since moving to the West Coast, he really began to focus on the craft and moved beyond the styles associated with Lonesome Strangers. Weeks has become a full-blown musician in the genres of roots, soul, rock, pop and the blues, all the while penning some of the best lyrics around.

“I feel like I welcome things that are outside what I may have done previously so if I bounce off in some different direction, I am pretty comfortable with it,” said Weeks.
Being that Weeks lives in town, it's nice to know that you can check him out most any time of the year. For more information on Weeks' upcoming shows, visit his Web site at www.randyweeks.com.

A Chat with Walter Blanding

2006-10-26T14:58:00.001-05:00

When you think of one of today's best jazz trumpeters, one name rarely escapes the world's musical consciousness: Wynton Marsalis.

The New Orleans native follows a historic line of Big Easy horn men - Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong - and grew out of the scene with a few contemporaries like Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard.

Marsalis' passion for jazz is known through his work as the artistic director and member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and for his work in the context of a quintet and septet all over the globe.

In the context of a live setting, Marsalis speaks to his fans about the songs performed for the evening in a soft-spoken tone and eloquent manner, quite a contrast to the blaring high notes that end up coming out of his horn. Whether it's the orchestra or quintet, Marsalis and his band members look the part - donning Brooks Brothers suits, shined shoes and neat haircuts - and play the part - performing originals, standards and jazz classics as some of the most proficient performers in the current jazz scene.

His Los Angeles- and perhaps Orange County-based fans are now gearing up for his return as he is back on the road, miles from his New York City, performing with his quintet at the Disney Music Hall Oct. 30. The quintet consists of the maestro himself, Ali Jackson, Dan Nimmer, Carlos Henriquez and Walter Blanding Jr.

“Generally, one of the things that makes a difference from venue to venue is the people, the interaction between the audience and the performers; that's what really makes it special,” said Blanding, tenor saxophonist.

Blanding, 35, a native of Cleveland, began playing the saxophone at age 6 and moved to New York City in 1981 with his family when he was 16. He began playing professionally still as a student at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts. Blanding earned a bachelor's degree from the New School for Social Research and lived in Israel for four years, teaching in the country's schools and touring the countryside with his ensemble.

“I love the guys in the band,” said Blanding about the quintet. “Wynton has done a great job of choosing the musicians. We are like a big family and we have known each other throughout the years. That camaraderie is very special.”

The quintet's drummer Jackson, 30, began his musical journey on the piano at age 5 and by the time he was 7, was playing with his father on the streets of Detroit. In his early 20s, Nimmer is the youngest member and a native of Milwaukee. Henriquez, the quintet's bassist, is in his late 20s and was born in the Bronx. He also attended LaGuardia High School and became a member of the school's concert jazz ensemble.

“In the orchestra it's interesting, it's a larger number of people and everybody can play,” said Blanding who is also a member of the LCJO. “When you are in the smaller group, you get a chance to stretch out because there are less people. So, that is really the only difference for me, personally. The music is based on improvisation and so there is improvisation in both the orchestra and the quintet but it's like having a conversation with 15 or just five people. So there is more space in a smaller ensemble.”

Born in 1961, Marsalis began his classical training on the trumpet at 12 and as a young musician learned various genres and styles as a member in local marching, jazz and funk bands, along with classical youth orchestras.

“As a human being, he is an amazing person, he is very intelligent, he has an amazing vision and he is very competitive,” said Blanding about working with Marsalis. “As a bandleader, those qualities still come through, the healthy competition is always there. He is a serious man but he also likes to have fun. He is a very warm and generous person whom almost anyone can talk to, he is very down to earth.”
In 1979, Marsalis enrolled in the prestigious Juilliard School in Manhattan - the campus at Lincoln Center - when he was 17. The same year he joined Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Marsalis made his recording debut as a bandleader in 1982 and since then has produced dozens of both jazz and classical albums that have won him nine Grammy Awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to earn a Grammy in both classical and jazz categories, a accomplishment he repeated the following year. In 1997, Marsalis won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his Lincoln Center-commissioned work “Blood on the Fields.”

Aside from his rigorous tour schedule, Marsalis still finds the time to compose works commissioned by Jazz at the Lincoln Center, sometimes in collaboration with the New York City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Orion String Quartet with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also a stout proponent of music education, teaching classes at the Lincoln Center by way of its educational component and the recipient of honorary doctorates from more than a dozen universities.

Country Sound in a Big City

2006-09-28T14:53:00.001-05:00

If you only had to go on the music of Jonah Smith, chances are you'd probably think he lives in Nashville or New Orleans, but in reality he resides in New York City - a city that has a little or even a lot of everything when it comes to music.

Smith, 30, who rocks out as much as one can on a Fender Rhodes, is the songwriter behind some of the most expressive, serene and soulful compositions of the year all on his self-titled debut album on Relix Records.

“I didn't really have a specific thing in mind, like I wanted to play American roots music when I moved to New York,” said Smith. “I moved to New York to be a songwriter and to be a musician. This is my first national record, I guess you could say. I've recorded two other albums before (one jazz-inspired and the other classic R&B) independently and each record is pretty different from the last one.”

The works feature his band - Ben Rubin on bass, David Soler on steel pedal guitar, Marko Djordjevic on the drums, Bob Reynolds on saxophone and Andy Stack on guitar - along with famed jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, Garth Hudson of The Band on accordion, and Texas fiddler and singer Carrie Rodriguez, the former who played at the request of Lee Townsend, who was a dream producer come true.

Smith now lives in Brooklyn, moving there from nearby Boston. With a nasal ebb and flow in his vocal repertoire reminiscent of Van Morrison and even Ben Harper, Smith sounds nothing like his singing version when in conversation and cites a library of influences. Smith wrote all of the album's songs (one co-authored by Soler) with the exception of one: a cover of Malcolm Holcombe's “Dressed in White.” The album was recorded at the Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, N.Y., where Smith met local resident and member of The Band, Levon Helm.

“I grew up listening to a lot of different music. I have just always been fascinated with American music and the roots of American music, everything from blues and a lot of jazz up through soul and R&B and classic rock,” said Smith. “But I have just kind of tried to follow my muse and go where it takes me, and it takes me to all sorts of different places. It's not like it's real drastic, I'm not going to be doing a gothic metal album any time soon. It is all based in American roots.”

The record is a sincere illustration of American roots music combining elements of jazz, blues, gospel and even country, fused with Smith's low, Southern vocal drawl stretching over a collection of deep, moving lyrics. The band is conscious of working as a collective whole the way a group of clouds come together for a rainstorm, and the end result is a set of polished, mid- to slow-tempo songs rich in their melodies with lingering harmonies and involved rhythmic patterns. One can't help but imagine how the songs translate to the stage, chances are twice as good as on record: an authentic mark of an accomplished band.

Far From Skid Row

2006-09-21T14:51:00.001-05:00

Who says beautiful things can't grow out of Skid Row? With its debut album “Self Help Serenade” recorded in 2002 and now out on the streets in the U.S., the Los Angeles-based band Marjorie Fair has come a long way from its roots in Skid Row and will soon embark on a tour, opening for Sheryl Crow and John Mayer.

According to Evan Slamka, vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the quartet, he and his band mates - Dain Luscombe (keys), Scott Lord (bass) and Mike Delisa (drums) - once lived in a loft in what the city technically deems as Skid Row and what Slamka calls “one of the strangest neighborhoods” in town.

“Living in L.A. is great, the weather can get kind of boring,” said Slamka, who now lives in Echo Park, “But as a musician you have to live in a city because it's hard to stay focused and busy when you're not around other musicians and art. It's pretty lively and vibrant here.”

In fact, Slamka, now in his early 30s, was born and raised in New Jersey and tried his luck in the New York City music scene before relocating to Los Angeles where he had always felt a much better vibe during past trips. Capitol Records soon came knocking on the band's loft door (literally) in the less-than-glamorous part of Los Angeles where some representatives with the label chatted and heard a few songs by a group whose name is a kind of rose. Since then, the group has developed close ties with a few quintessential L.A. clubs like Spaceland, Genghis Khan and the Fold - all of which it mentions in the album's liner notes.

“I know a lot of artists and musicians, and where I came from, it's just not as encouraged or something like that. I think a lot of people come to L.A. to express themselves for their art and there are a lot of outlets here,” said Slamka. “Comparing it to other cities, I couldn't really say, New York is the same way, too. L.A. is very creative and small in terms of everyone knows everyone else and it's more sociable in that way because the weather is so inviting.”

Rob Schnapf, who has worked with Beck, Elliott Smith and the Foo Fighters, produced the album, which boasts a list of talented session musicians like Jon Brion, Joey Waronker, Billy Preston and Jim Keltner, and received much critical acclaim in the United Kingdom (MoJo magazine called it a “candidate for debut of the year”) before being released in the States in mid-July of 2005.

“Working with Jon was great, he is such a smart guy and very musical and a lot of what we worked on didn't make the album because of a time issue. We sort of went off on some tangents that didn't work with the record,” recalled Slamka of the recording sessions.

Slamka is surely influenced by the likes of Neil Young, Dusty Springfield, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and John Lennon. The work mostly comprises midtempo folk-based songs (Slamka seems to have a deep passion and nostalgia for the 1960s despite the fact he was born in the 1970s) transformed into rich, expansive, dramatic compositions, some with melodies like golden streams of light flowing over textures of guitar grit and melancholy harmonic lines that like to linger around.

“The songs are kind of what we were doing at the time and what our live show was comprised of. In general, I'd say it's more kind of what we do,” said Slamka about the group's sound. “I used to pretty much have all of the song 100 percent written because for me I don't feel confident in the studio and I feel like I have a lot to learn there. But what I would do is bring a song to rehearsal and the guys would play behind me and come with parts if ones weren't working out or improvise on those that did work. These days the parts have come up so much more naturally and now what I'll do is bring a sketch to the guys and it gives them a chance to be more proactive in a song. I consider it like we are writing together.”

As for the lyrics, Slamka is able to identify with his listeners, expressing to them an underlying theme that they are not alone and to find comfort in a collective consciousness of the trials part of life - lyrics such as, “He lives in a halfway house/his mother doesn't tie his bootstraps down/they found him by the highway side/with bloodstained boots and glass in his eye,” the opening lines of “Halfway House,” or “I don't want to go, but if I die young/Fill my empty room with the sun,” from “Empty Room.”

Live Sounds Caught on Tape

2006-09-20T14:55:00.001-05:00

In what seems to be its most political album to date, Gov't Mule has not only created a work that is a sign of the times, but has also captured the effervescent and vigorous sound trademark to its live shows.

Gov't Mule - Warren Haynes (vocals, guitar), Danny Louis (keyboards), Andy Hess (bass) and Matt Abts (drums) - is coming to town next week performing at the Wiltern Theater in support of its new record, “High & Mighty,” now out on ATO Records.

“We've always had subtle political statements on our albums, but not to this obvious of an extent,” said Haynes about the new work.

In recording “High & Mighty,” all four band members sat around in one room to record the 12 original songs. Some were recorded in New Jersey, but most in Austin, Texas, miles and miles from New York where most of the band resides (Haynes, Hess and Louis live in Manhattan, Brooklyn and upstate New York, respectively). The album marks the second trip into the studio with the current lineup; the last was for the album “Déjà Voodoo.” Based in the rock idiom, the songs reflect a jazz sensibility in terms of the instrumentation with hints of Latin, reggae and blues sounds mixed throughout.

“We try and capture the spirit of where we are at the moment,” said Haynes about recording an album. “The new record covers a lot of musical ground, it explores a lot of different genres. We like for the live shows to be like a roller coaster ride, a journey that takes you somewhere and the records are meant to be a shorter version of that. We like to be powerful, subtle and sensitive and incorporate a lot of dynamics into one listening experience, so to speak.”

As to the lyrics, Haynes, who pens the words first and then puts music to them, wrote all of the songs.

“The lyrics are the spark that inspires me to write the song in the first place,” said Haynes. “I tend to write a lot of stream-of-consciousness-type lyrics at the beginning stages and fill up pages with lyrics, and then go back later, decide what it is I am really trying to say and what sums that up the best, and do a lot of editing. Not that it's the only approach I take.”

The title track is one of Haynes' many fictional character sketches. In the song “Like Flies,” Haynes uses the song's title as three different metaphors with one delving into the careers of self-proclaimed musicians/artists who have sold their fame to the public based on appearance rather than talent, explaining that the notion of excelling in one's craft is not as valued as it once was in the past.

“It was the day that Little Milton, the great blues artist, had passed away and I wrote ‘Like Flies' while traveling in a car,” said Haynes. “A lot of it was stuff I had been thinking about, the ‘dumbing down' of our society and culture, and in using the title in three different ways I knew it was a good song.”

Gov't Mule began as a power trio in 1994 with its self-titled album released in 1995 and in 1997 the group became full-time musicians. Original bassist Allen Woody died in 2000, and Haynes and Abts recorded with more than 30 bass players on Gov't Mule's “Deep End” projects. Longtime friend Louis joined the group on keys in 2002 while Hess became the permanent bassist a year later. In 2003, Gov't Mule reached its 1,000th live show and in 2005, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Haynes 23rd in a list of all-time top guitarists.

The Story Of Ollabelle

2006-09-08T14:49:00.001-05:00

“Ollabelle came together because of these musicians' love of this music, without thought of success or career or any of the other trappings of the modern professional music business. It has great value to our culture, adding new life to a tradition that is an important part of who we are. But mostly, they sound great. They sing great and they play great, and they are wonderful people,” said legendary producer and musician T-Bone Burnett of the band Ollabelle.

Named after Ola Belle Reed, a traditional North Carolina Appalachian singer born in 1916, the quintet of New York City transplants (with the exception of singer Amy Helm) all met at the Nine C club in Manhattan's East Village now called Banjo Jim's. One of its members, Tony Leone, a Connecticut native, migrated to the big city of dreams to work as a jazz drummer, and met bassist and former Indiana resident Byron Isaacs; guitarist and singer Fiona McBain, from Sydney, Australia; and keyboardist Glenn Patscha, originally from Winnipeg, Canada, who spent about 10 years living in New Orleans.

“It's just a little dive bar on the corner (Ninth Street and Avenue C) and I don't think it holds more than 75, but I think we have gotten about 120 in there,” said Ollabelle percussionist and drummer Leone. “The décor of the place when it was Nine C had 1950s and 1960s pin-up girl posters and a great jukebox with classic country, R&B and soul, and classic rock and some metal in there, too. We all used to kind of hang out there a lot. One night in particular Fiona was doing some gospel music and some time down the line they made Sundays old-time gospel music nights and it was a hot thing people were into with the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?' album. For me that was a way in since I was playing only jazz for a while.”

All of Ollabelle's members were playing in various groups and with each other in some way, and out of the Sunday night gospel scene emerged the group that started playing old gospel tunes without any rehearsals and began to draw a crowd. The group then got a mutual friend to record its gospel renditions free of charge in his studio.

“What we thought were going to be demos ended up being our first record after the songs were sent to T-Bone Burnett, who had his own label imprint, DMC, on Columbia Records, and took our stuff to the head guys at Columbia,” said Leone. “The first album, the material on it consisted of all new treatments of old southern gospel and delta blues songs, so a lot of people gave us this name of being a gospel band, but it actually just kind of happened.”

The group serendipitously fell into American roots music even deeper and more collectively following its self-titled traditional gospel album on the Columbia label and with its Verve Forecast Records follow-up work “Riverside Battle Songs.” On the sophomore work, Ollabelle moved out from under breathing life into new classics and composed most of the 13 songs with a few covers recorded throughout such as the Nina Simone song “See Line Woman” and Reed's “High on a Mountain.” Guitarist Larry Campbell produced the album and contributed musically, playing guitar, lap steel, pedal steel, banjo, cittern and fiddle while T-Bone Burnett and Mike Piersante mixed it. Several Ollabelle members rounded out the vintage yet fresh sounds on “Riverside Battle Songs” as Helm played the mandola (a fretted stringed instrument that is part of the same family as the mandolin), Isaacs on the Dobro (a resonator guitar) and Patscha on the accordion. The work, one of the best albums of the year, showcases the group's stunning vocal harmonies and melodious arrangements with all members taking a part in writing and singing on the songs, which they finished together as a group.

“We wanted to make it a point with this record to highlight everyone's writing,” said Leone. “The songs came to us in a variety of different ways depending on who brought it in and the reason why the band's name is attached to each song is because the way the song is on the record is the result of the effort of the entire band regardless of who started the song.”

The Many Facets of Jade

2006-08-30T14:46:00.001-05:00

With the release of her debut album “My Denial,” San Francisco-based artist Nya Jade is taking the music world by storm as her music is already garnering the kind of attention common to a no-nonsense female troubadour.

“My Denial” acts like an iPod shuffle in the sense that every song reflects Jade's penchant for the glorious rock sounds of U2 on her song “Molasses,” the social consciousness of a Natalie Merchant on “One Pill,” or the soulful acoustic love song of a Sarah McLachlan on “Next to You.”

“I didn't want to put out a record where every song reminds someone of the last song,” said Jade. “People want a variety, so I thought of what would be cool to put in your car for a road trip from San Francisco to L.A., and not get bored.”

Born in Ghana, Jade (her first name “Nya” means “purposeful” in Swahili and “illustrious” in Gaelic), grew up partly in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Canada as her father traveled the world as a doctor with UNAIDS - a joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS.

Jade attended Stanford University and was soon following in the steps of her father by majoring in pre-medicine. She also auditioned and was accepted into arguably the most elite of Stanford's nine a capella groups, Talisman, which participated in competitions and performed at the 1996 Olympic Games.

Two years later, Jade, now 28, left the group in order to devote all of her time to the academic demands of a pre-med student. During the winter of her junior year, while crossing the street, Jade was hit by a car on the university campus. Her head hit the windshield and she landed on her shoulder. Only 20 at the time, Jade suffered several injuries including a dislocated shoulder. While taking a semester off for physical therapy, Jade turned to the guitar for comfort in the healing process and soon her priorities began to shift.

“It was one of those here today, gone tomorrow moments where I was like, ‘What do you really want to do? What you are passionate about?' I am really passionate about the concept of feeling and realized that medicine wasn't the way to go,” said Jade. “I flirted with the idea of really following music and then decided to go for it.”

Jade then changed her major to economics, earned a bachelor's degree from the Palo Alto-based school and stuck around to earn a master's degree in sociology. Throughout her academic career, Jade played at Stanford's coffeehouse and at cafés in San Francisco. Even with positive support and feedback, Jade still felt the life of a musician was a path to follow in her spare time, and after graduation, took a job with a start-up company in the Silicon Valley. Bored beyond belief, Jade soon put a band together by way of the Craig's List Web site and recorded some demo songs, some of which caught airplay on a local radio station. Jade was soon sharing the stage with the Donnas, Evanescence, Ben Kweller and Maroon 5, and impressed an audience during her side-stage performance at the Dave Matthews Band's Sacramento show.

Jade is very proficient at putting a musical mood to the lyrics; the latter comes to her first, and then she goes back and forth with creating the kind of mood she wants to put to a song. She talked about recording the song “Next to You.”

“It was a challenge because it was more intimate, it was one of those things that I kept going back to, wondering if it was right because when it's that bare, it's definitely just raw emotion. I did it this way because I felt it was the purest love song I had,” she said.

When it came time to record “My Denial,” Jade traveled to Los Angeles to record in the Westlake Audio studios with a group of session players like bassist Dan Rothchild, guitarist Rick Dufay and drummer Dan Potruch. “My Denial” was released this summer on her own label, Katako Records, Katako is derived from the initials of Jade's family members. The new single “One Pill” opens the record.

“I was up late watching some television show and I swear within the span of 10 minutes I was just bombarded with ads for medications and that quiet voice at the end of the commercials that lists all of the side effects for it, I just thought it was ironic that there is that one pill to cure whatever, but then it gives you all of these side effects that you didn't have before, so what's the point,” said Jade. “So I scribbled down ‘One Pill,' chuckling to myself and it just kind of evolved into that commentary of pharmaceutical culture and nostalgia of a quick fix.”

Q&A: (Matthew Herbert)

2006-08-24T14:44:00.002-05:00

To say that Londoner musician Matthew Herbert is unhappy with England's Prime Minister Tony Blair is an understatement. So it's no surprise that he channels his protests - the war in Iraq, corporate globalization, the western world's dependence on oil, to name a few - into his music that began around 2000 and includes his most recent album, “Scale.”

Herbert, a classically trained pianist, is a true darling within the electronic music world and has remixed songs by artists like REM, Björk and Serge Gainsbourg. Herbert began playing both the violin and the piano at age 4, and began singing and performing in orchestra at 7. The son of a BBC sound technician, Herbert studied theater at Exeter University and later made the 1998 work “Around the House” which is a collection of household sounds - the toaster, washing machine and a toothbrush - that he sampled and transformed into actual songs with grooves.

Herbert welcomes human error within his work and feels that mistakes in either the recording or programming process are “Šthe welcome intervention of random humanity in a sterile world.” Coincidentally, Herbert founded his own record label called Accidental Records. Since 1998, Herbert has recorded several more albums and in 2003 made a big-band record “Goodbye Swingtime,” which was recorded at Abbey Road studios with 16 session musicians.

Over time, Herbert's work has become more political and his latest album “Scale” is not only filled with pop, jazz and house rhythms and melodies but also touches upon the current economic and sociopolitical climate. Herbert incorporates an array of diverse sounds - closing coffins, gas pumps and someone getting sick - along with drum instrumentation played in the most unusual places - a cave, in the water and in a hot air balloon.

The Beach Reporter recently spoke with Herbert about his new album, “Scale” and some of his favorite “sounds.”

For your work ‘Scale' - drums in the car, in a hot-air balloon, in the water and in a cave - what do you feel was the most dramatic situation as far as altering the sound of the drums?

The hot air balloon was quite intense as the basket was barely enough room for one person, let alone three and a drum kit. I'm sure we could think of something more full-on - maybe next time. Leo Taylor, and me, the drummer, had a lot of fun doing it. I won't pretend we weren't scared though.

What are your thoughts on the traditional recording process?

I understand it from a technical point of view. However, from an artistic perspective it is very safe, very predictable. You are relying on the musicians to tell the story. The real stories from the outside world are kept out behind thick double glass doors and concrete walls.

It seems to me that the arrangement/composition process requires a whole different kind of technical aptitude than playing an instrument. Do you find this to be the case?

You rely on those around you more. So for example, Pete Wraight, the arranger, knows much more about orchestral harmonics than I. I give him the melody and countermelodies along with the harmony, and he makes informed decisions about what is the best way to convey them. The same is true with the recording process: You ask professionals. The engineer's experience is one of the reasons you use a studio like Abbey Road.

You really have that kind of timeless, hip, swanky, groove-oriented sound that reminds me of Quincy Jones in terms of the openness of your songs, if that makes any sense. Are you a fan of his work?
I am a fan, albeit a distant one. I am an admirer of the way that he applies the rigor of professional playing and orchestration to the spontaneous idioms of pop music.

It seems like you embrace almost any kind of sound. Do you ever find it a challenge to have a focus when putting together a song simply because anything can go? Does it take you ages to finally complete one, with so many layers of sound being weaved together?

It can get hairy sometimes, but at the end of it, the story comes first. If you think that the war in Iraq was wrong in the first place, and badly handled now, then you find sounds to represent that. The songwriting should be telling that story anyway, so it's just a case of putting it all together. You wouldn't have the sound of a toaster on a track about the Iraq war, not unless you were telling a very specific story.

What are some of your favorite noninstrumental sounds?

The sound of George Bush and Tony Blair being led out of office in handcuffs;

The sound of fresh bedclothes on my skin;

The sound of car drivers riding bikes to work;

The sound of a ripe apricot grown in my own garden coming off in my hands; and

The sound of the arms industry paying the same taxes as every other business.

The Many Sides of Ben Harper

2006-08-02T14:41:00.001-05:00

Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain once said something to the effect, “I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.”

Like Cobain, tour-driven troubadour, singer and guitarist Ben Harper doesn't want to be anybody but himself: A man who appeals to a truly diverse array of people from surfers, reggae buffs and the working class to the politically minded, environmental activists and other musicians, just to name a few.

Harper and Damian Marley will embark on a summer tour that begins in Phoenix next week and concludes in mid-September at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The duo will play two shows at the Greek Theatre Aug. 11 and 12.

“I've been a fan of Damian's music for a long time, and all the Marley brothers” said Harper.

The summer tour came about after Harper put out some feelers to see who else was touring during the season and found out that Marley was planning one as well. Coincidentally, Harper's first concert was in 1978 when his father took him to see Bob Marley.

“It is a mental twist of fate, to put it mildly,” said Harper. “Whenever I see Damian, it reminds me of that moment of seeing Bob on stage for 2-1/2 hours that night. It is a full-circle moment and I don't say that lightly.”

Harper will have a chance to return to two of three of his favorite venues - the Greek in Berkeley and the Santa Barbara Bowl (the third is Red Rocks outside of Denver).

“You have to put in as much energy into the last song as you do the first,” said Harper on touring. “I have never enjoyed playing guitar, especially slide guitar, as much as I am now. On an instrument there are peaks and valleys, and when you are in a valley, there is no talking your way out of it, you can only play your way out of it, and I have come out of a place of almost musical redundancy. I have come out of it and now I am finding a whole new language on the slide guitar, which I didn't have at my disposal, and a new attack on the instrument. So now I am running to it every chance I get. It is another opportunity to really dig into my tone and sound and find something new to say on it. ”

Harper has completed seven studio albums with his latest works being the gospel-inspired 2005 release “There Will Be Light” with the Blind Boys of Alabama, and the 2006 two-disc project, “Both Sides of the Gun.” The recording experience of the former, Harper said, reminded him of the importance of capturing the first-take experience in all of its emotion and perhaps imperfections. Harper also mentioned that one of the original members, George Scott, deemed Harper an honorary Blind Boy before he died.

“They redirected my musical focus in a way that I don't think anything else could have,” said Harper on working with the veteran group. “When they were in the studio, they really handled their business in the most efficient way I've ever heard or seen. They don't take a long time in the studio, if they are there for three hours; it's been a good run because they have been doing this since '39 - putting music on tape. They are from the school that when you sing, you're making a record, you don't get second takes because you are cutting the record at the same time - that's the school they come from, you get a take and you're done, so when they are on the mic, it's for real. It's for keeps and there is no looking back.

As for “Both Sides of the Gun,” Harper had no idea when entering the studio that he would emerge with a two-sided album, and the reason for it was that Harper had a strong and sizeable collection of songs. Some were written beforehand and some written in the studio like “Black Rain,” based on the mortifying response among elected officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The album comprises 18 songs - one side the electric tunes and the other side the more light, ethereal, string-oriented compositions. Harper said it was a creative choice to make a double-disc work, and that all of the songs were necessary to make what Harper considered a “complete body of work.” In fact, both Virgin Records (his label since his 1994 work “Welcome to the Cruel World”) and Harper took a pay cut to release it as a single record. The work once again features Harper's band, The Innocent Criminals - Oliver Charles (drums), Juan Nelson (bass) and Leon Mobley (percussion); and its two new members, Michael Ward (guitar) and Jason Yates (keys). It also showcases Harper on the drums, bass, piano and a whole other musical slice of studio players: cellist

“My band is my band, and they're gonna be my band for a long time to come,” said Harper. “They play with other musicians and in other bands from time to time, and it's really healthy to experience music in different ways. For this record, I have a specific style and when it comes to bass and drums it's very visceral, it's unlearned and you can't have great musicians play in an unlearned style. But a lot of these songs called for the nastiness and rawness in the style I play them in so I wanted to serve that. Then there are other guys whom I have been saying for 10 years, ‘We are going to play something together. I want to record with you.' The songs on this record seem to provide this opportunity. In all honesty and fairness, the Innocent Criminals have made every song on this record better through touring them.”
The album, depending on what side you're catching can be private, unrefined, delicate, political, quiet and soulful, consistent with every other Harper work that draws not only from current events but also his private world.

“I am greatly influenced by all of my relationships but none as much as the relationship closest to me, that one being with my wife,” said Harper, of his wife, actress Laura Dern. “She is an incredible inspiration, and she has got great musical ideas and tastes, and she has got her own musical side of the fence that she guards and has introduced me to. Music is big in our household and she is a very big influence.”

In terms of style, Harper has said that a mood is what dictates a song and an ability to “feel it.” He then becomes committed to one style as if it's the only style he's done his whole life. Because Harper has always drawn from so many genres - rock, pop, reggae, folk, blues, soul and jazz - it was at first hard convincing a record label at the start of his career to sign him, and that Virgin was really the only company to take a chance.

“Now it's a case of having done it wrong for so long, that it's a style,” he said.

These days, Harper's biggest challenge is trying to figure out what to do next, and although he's been on the scene for the last 12 years, Harper, now in his mid-30s, feels he is just beginning to carve out his niche; he still feels new in the world of music when he compares himself to someone like Neil Young who has released more than 30 albums. He does write on a daily basis, spends a good portion of the day jotting down portions of conversations, and then works late at night when “people are asleep and the phone's not ringing” to take the time putting words to music. As a listener, Harper turns to everyone from Coltrane to Emmy Lou Harris for comfort.

Although he has graced numerous magazine covers such as Rolling Stone, Performing Songwriter, Relix, Guitar Player and Los Angeles City Beat, Harper still exudes a sort of graciousness common to up-and-coming artists appreciative of the press. Furthermore, he enjoys speaking with writers who actually come prepared for their Q&A session on everything from music to career to life, dispelling a common misnomer that he dislikes interviews or journalists. Like any successful, hard-working person, Harper expects the same out of those around him whether it's the guy selling his merchandise or the newspaper writer, and he hopes that people have respect in their work, understanding that being good at one's craft takes time and effort.

“Questions coming from journalists should come from the music, from listening to it and their response to it,” said Harper. “It shouldn't be about waiting until the night before and trying to pull questions off the Internet, asking questions about old quotes like ‘What did you mean when you said, blah, blah, blah?' It's unprofessional, and it would be like me hitting the stage and doing all covers.”

Harper recently got together with Ry Cooder to write a song for the new Mavis Staples record, along with Willie Nelson for a song called “Peace on Earth.” He hopes to one day work with Wilco, a band that he considers one of his favorites. In the next five years, Harper hopes to put out a reggae record and a work that he calls a “real significant representation of the Innocent Criminals as a band and myself.”

Q&A: (Soul Asylum)

2006-07-06T14:26:00.002-05:00

Within an eight-year period, the veteran rockers of Soul Asylum have basked in a long-deserving break from life on the road, bid farewell to their drummer, grieved the death of one of its founding members and recorded a new album, appropriately titled “Silver Lining.”

Of Soul Asylum's remaining originators - guitarist Dan Murphy and singer Dave Pirner - the return to the studio - this time in Minneapolis - came with the blessing of bassist Karl Mueller, who died of throat cancer in 2005, but actually played on about half the tracks on “Silver Lining” released on Legacy Records last week.

Michael Bland took over on drums for Sterling Campbell who left the band to play on David Bowie's tour while bassist Tommy Stinson (the only friend of the band that Mueller could endorse for his replacement) rounded out the group for its studio sessions. “Silver Lining” marks Soul Asylum's ninth full-length album.

The Beach Reporter spoke with Murphy about the group's sabbatical, the new work and recording in Minneapolis.

The Beach Reporter: So where have you guys been for the past eight or so years?

Dan Murphy: Well, you know, we kind of got tired of it. Our drummer, Sterling Campbell, left the band; we just kind of wanted to take a break but we didn't know it would turn into eight years. Actually, we started working on this record two years ago, so I guess it was a four- to five-year break before we got serious about recording, which we kind of needed. By the time we finished a record, it had turned into a really, really long break.

So, did you have a lot of new material to work with?

Yeah, we probably demoed 70 to 80 songs, so the 12 on the record we picked over pretty well over other options, and it seems like that was kind of the thing for us - we wanted to make sure that there was really strong material. We didn't want to make a record just to make a record. We wanted it to really be pertinent and it just seemed like it had to be the right kind of record - when the material started to come together, that's when we got excited about recording.

Do you think you'll end up using any of the remaining songs?

I'm sure, there is some stuff we will use, and with My Space and LimeWire (a music-sharing Web site and program, respectively), and all that crap, it'll be out there before we can even say it (laughs), that's just the way the world works now - anything that is left over people find and duplicate. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, most of it will be fans listening to it anyhow.

With Karl's death, did that affect the process at all in a musical sense?

We were going to go in (the studio) right before he got diagnosed, and his cancer went into remission, and that was the organizing factor: Karl was well enough to do it and he wanted to, so it kind of lit the fire under us. Then when he got cancer again - he got another tumor - and passed away, it kind of tested our resolve. When we had the record finished, we went in and recorded a few more songs like we always do because we try to get a representative batch of material, so we went in and cut a couple of things after he passed, but I still think that the whole project had Karl's blessings and it was really important for him to be on it and important for him to make this record, and I am glad we were able to do that.
How did the idea of recording in Minneapolis come about?

We've done the high-budget records in California and New York and none of us live in California or New York, so on this record, Dave and I took out a loan to make it. We didn't have a record label when we started, we just wanted to do it autonomously and not have an A&R guy, per se, or a label that wanted a certain type of record, we just really wanted to take back that independent feeling we had, just do it for ourselves. We are pretty critical of ourselves. We've been doing this for a while and made a lot of records, and we wanted to get away from it all. Minneapolis was a good place to do it because there are no record labels but there are an abundance of studios that are kind of on the cheap.

So do you think the city provided any kind of inspiration during the recording sessions?

I think so; it's a funny thing. Flight Time, which is owned by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the studio was going out of business - it was just a shell of a studio - they had all of their equipment up but there was no receptionist, it was not a functioning studio and the business was even on the market. We kind of snuck in there and did it on the QT when no one was looking and I thought it was a great way to start a record. It felt kind of “commando,” no one knew we were in there, so it was very keeping with doing it our way. It worked out really well, it was a pretty cohesive process, and it was nice doing it in Minneapolis. I think we all have a love/hate thing going on with that city, but I think all of us - Karl, myself, Dave and Michael - are all Minneapolis people so for us, when the band starts out, you want to be successful enough where you can leave town. When you are a younger man it seems kind of foreboding in a way - you just want to get the hell out of there. But then it's nice to come back after spending 15 years on the road. It's a weird town, though. If you're there too much it drives you crazy, but it is nice to come back at some point and feel a part of that city again.

Some have said that the music is a merging of punk and folk; do you see similarities in those two styles?

Absolutely, Woody Guthrie and a political song by The Clash don't seem like they are that different to me. I know Dave as a writer embraces the story-telling thing in our songs, a kind of narrative. You don't always want to do that with an acoustic guitar, so you try to come up with music that is more visceral. I think the band is not really scholars of music, but definitely fans, and I think we've absorbed so many things. Some things you hate, but just hit you over the head so much it just becomes a part of pop culture and you take that in, even. I think that there is a Johnny Cash/Woody Guthrie element to the band and there is also Sex Pistols/The Clash/The Ramones element, too. So, it seems like there is a ton of influences that you try to absorb them all and accommodate them.

Going Solo

2006-06-29T14:23:00.001-05:00

Ray Davies, former frontman for the Kinks and arguably one of the most influential songwriters of rock 'n' roll, set sail on the seas of solitude earlier this year with the release of his first solo record, “Other People's Lives.”

“My strengths as a songwriter, I think I've got a fairly good fix,” said Davies. “I can hone in on detail with people, all right. I do go for the details. You know, it's like little things people do, habits that people have, the way they walk. I do love that sort of observation with my writing, which leads to be sometimes a bit quirky.”

The work, some songs inspired from his time living in the U.S. - an Englishman in New Orleans - also covers subject matter from good and bad breakups to traveling to the media. V2 Records released the long-awaited album in February, which was written, produced and arranged by Davies and recorded in London.

“The Kinks' work was very diverse. I'm not as visible as my peers. I've stayed away simply because I'm not (evasive) and I don't really do, in comparison to others. I'm talking about Mick Jagger and people like that,” said Davies.

Davies said he returned to New Orleans where he mixed a few of the tracks for the album, but said he hasn't been back since Hurricane Katrina.

“A lot of the people I knew down there are back, but it's going very slowly, and (basically) the musician friends I have there were quite devastated by, you know, some of them were on zero when it happened, and they went back and were quite devastated by what they saw,” added Davies. “I've tried to keep touch there, and I'm trying to get down there at the end of this tour.

“I think it's the lack of musical snobbery down there,” recalled Davies about the historic city. “It's kind of a mounting part for so many different types of music, and I can't - it's something inexplicable. It's everything - I'm not just talking about music.”

Davies is now living in North London, within a mile of where he grew up with his family. The Kinks grew out of the 1960s, but never gained the world recognition of its contemporaries - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who - with its last release occurring in 1993. Davies eventually relocated to the U.S. to finish the album where he was shot in the leg during a street robbery in January 2004 after all the material had already been written.

“His getaway car - it was classic movie material - pulled up about 20 yards away,” said Davies. “ He took a classic shot, two hands on the gun, crouched slightly, got his aim together and shot, and I ducked. I saw the flash come out, and it was just like a movie, but it really did hurt. So I don't remember much after that. Anyone who has been shot will know it's just the absolute coldness that goes through your body.”

Q&A: (Smokey Robinson)

2006-05-04T14:19:00.003-05:00

When a member of the press once asked the iconic Bob Dylan who were some of his favorite poets, he replied with a list of the usual suspects - Allen Ginsberg, W.C. Fields and Charlie Rich - and one some may think of as less of a poet and more of a singer - Smokey Robinson.

For most baby boomers, Robinson became synonymous with what music critics and fans termed the Motown sound that came out of Detroit in the late 1950s.

Most members of Generation “X” surely know of Robinson and the Motown sound through their parents, but may also know of him and his poetry from a more current artistic platform, the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.” I first saw Robinson recite a piece of work on the cable show that features various readings of original works written by poets from all over the United States. Robinson read the transcendent verse composition entitled “The Black American.”

Robinson, who became the vice president of Motown Records in 1961, met the label founder, Berry Gordy, in 1958 who was then writing songs for Jackie Wilson.

Robinson's first name is William and he got the nickname “Smokey” as a child because of his love for western films. Robinson was born in Detroit in 1940 and formed his first singing group The Five Chimes in 1955 which became The Matadors in 1957.

Robinson and Gordy wrote the song “Got a Job” and Robinson's high school-based group eventually changed its name again to The Miracles. Robinson convinced Gordy to establish the Motown label and The Miracles were one of the first groups signed in 1960.

Over the years with Motown, Robinson penned thousands of songs for groups such as The Temptations, the Supremes and Mary Wells who made famous the song “My Guy,” and became Robinson's most successful protegee.

Robinson married one of The Miracles members, Claudette Rogers, and the couple had two children.

The Miracles remained a successful act with the Motown label until around 1969, and Robinson quit the group to concentrate on his family and his duties as label vice president. However, when the song “Tears of a Clown” became a hit in 1970, Robinson stayed on with the group until 1972.

Since 1975, Robinson pursued a solo career and recently recorded an album of old standards entitled “Timeless Love” due out on Universal Records June 20.

The Beach Reporter spoke with Robinson last week about his career and the new work featuring songs that first inspired the musical prodigy.

The Beach Reporter: Some people know you for both your poetry and music. Do you feel there is a distinction between writing poetry and songs?
Robinson: To me, songs are just poems with music, and the biggest difference in writing a poem as opposed to a song is that in a poem, you don't have to have a chorus, something that repeats itself back in order to familiarize the person with what you're saying. A poem can just go on and on without having a repetitive sentence or part, but other than that, songs are just poems with music.

Do you write about certain subject matter for your poems that is different from the subject matter of your songs?

Not really. I write songs all the time and I write poems all the time, and I just think that it's my gift. God gives everybody a gift, and so it's not a labor for me and even in those times when it is a labor for me, it's a labor of love. I'm not one of those writers who has to take two months to go off to the mountains and isolate myself so I can write or go down to the beach and rent a little hut. Writing happens for me all day, every day, man. In fact, I've been writing a book of poetry for about 15 years which I've never finished. I really keep telling myself I'm going to get around to finishing it.

You've really been in one group or another since 1972. Was it difficult to leave that world and enter into the solo artist world?

Well, actually, yeah, that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in my life - to leave the Miracles - they were my brothers and I had grown up with them as a child. We were from the same neighborhood. That was a rough decision for me, but at the time, my two - adults they are now - babies had been born and I got tired of being away from them all the time. The Miracles and I had done everything that a group could do; we had done it three or four times. So that was a decision I had to make. I was vice president of Motown at the time, and I figured I'd just do that and I had no inkling of coming back to show business, no desire to return. But after three years of going to the office every day, I was climbing the walls, and that's why I decided to come back and be a solo artist.

I've had a chance to tour Motown and the environment was very democratic in which people working at the label had a vote on what songs should be recorded and other similar decisions like that. Do you think that made you a better artist?

Well, absolutely, because what we had at Motown was competitive love. We were all competing against each other but we all loved each other so we all helped each other out but at the same time all competing against each other.

Did the process vary in terms of writing songs for The Miracles as opposed to writing songs for other artists such as Mary Wells?

It was the same thing for me, whomever I had the idea to write the song for; it was the same whether it was the Supremes, the Temptations or the Marvelettes.

How do you think the music industry's evolution has changed the recording process from your time at Motown?

When I started as a teenager, before Motown, we would use other recording studios in Detroit and everybody who was going to be on that record had to be in the studio at the same time because they just recorded you on one track and the producer and engineer mixed at the time it was recorded. Nowadays, most of the time people who record on the same record may never even see each other. Many people now have home studios, Pro Tools is the recording king now as far as method of recording.

How did you record your “Timeless Love” album?

Well, it's a CD of standard tunes - Gershwin, Porter, Cohen and people like that - because I've been singing their songs in concert in my life for about the last 14 years. It was the music that I was first influenced by and the first music I ever remember hearing in my home. How I recorded was to get a big studio room and we recorded everybody at the same time, and it was a blast. We had like concerts; it was so much fun.

How did you breathe new life into these old standards?

It's just the way I feel them. That's the best answer I can give, it's my interpretation of those songs. My conductor is a guy by the name of Sonny Burke, and he and I got together and I mapped out how I wanted a song to be and then he did the arrangements.

The Mythical Music of Jackie Greene

2006-04-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

Whether it's about a socialite with an expensive drug habit, a movie star crashing his car on the Santa Monica freeway, a woman who commits suicide by jumping off a bridge or a man finding his gal in bed with his best friend, there is no doubt that singer/songwriter Jackie Greene has a penchant for the unlucky, the disenchanted.

Greene's new album “American Myth” released last month on the Verve Forecast label is the latest installment from a musician who has began to make quite a name for himself as a true American troubadour.

“These songs are all intended to paint a picture of America, in sort of a nonspecific way,” said Greene.

Not only does Greene write lyrics that feature many different walks of life but he also expands upon his many influences to create songs with interesting and melodic hooks that have a taste for the blues, rock and country.

“I try and incorporate all of what I like into my songs, I don't try to censor myself,” said Greene on his wide range of influences that sneak into his work. “I only can make the record I am happy with. I do what I can to try and keep it coherent, but I'm not killing myself over it.”

Greene grew up in Cameron Park, a small town 30 miles outside Sacramento where he taught himself music on the piano in the house. Greene then transitioned over to the guitar, one his father left after his parents split.

As a boy, Greene first took notice to bands like Metallica, Nirvana and Pearl Jam but then turned a corner the summer prior to his freshman year in high school when he discovered his parents' LPs of rock, country, blues and R&B like Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.

Greene's recent work “American Myth” constitutes his second album with the label and displays a shift in the recording process in that the record has a live, first-take ambiance as opposed to the overdubbed yet still just as superb “Sweet Somewhere Bound” released in 2005.

“The last album, it just wasn't possible for me to play everything at once, and it was a little bit more meticulous,” said Green about “Sweet Somewhere Bound.” “I had to lay down the guitar parts and drum parts and so on. This new album was recorded better in that we had a much bigger budget so we had better musicians, a lot better gear. At this point in my life, I enjoy playing with a group. There is a whole aspect when you have other people in the room playing with you, it's not just one brain, it's four brains working on one song. They bring to the table all these different elements that you wouldn't get by doing yourself.”

For “American Myth,” Greene recorded with a stellar cast of players including Elvis Costello's borrowed rhythm section bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas, along with Val McCallum, who Green said is one of the “best guitar players” he's ever heard “in his life.”

“A lot of the songs, at least half of them if not more, are live vocals, I had this thing about sitting in a room and recording with a band, a lot of my favorite records are done that way,” said Greene. “It's a way to tap into that burst of discovery and energy, and somehow you lose that when you keep going over things. There are benefits to both methods now that I've done it both ways.”

Both albums are packed with soulful renditions of Greene's original compositions in which the lyrics not only focus on the downtrodden but also a discontentment in life, lost love and regret, the kind of issues common to all people from a mayor to a drag queen to a waitress or a sailor - a few of the characters in “American Myth.”
“You can find those kind of people anywhere, but in particular like places like Hollywood it seems like they are a little more abundant there, maybe,” said Greene about his song “Hollywood.” “That is just the way it seems to me. I'm not from there so I don't know but as far as down-and-out people, and whatnot, it's more that everybody has a void, and they deserve to be in songs too, I guess.”

Q&A: (Willie Nile)

2006-04-20T14:14:00.001-05:00

Country artist Lucinda Williams once said, “Willie Nile is a great artist. If there was any justice in this world, I'd be opening up for him instead of him for me.”

Nile, who is a favorite among many songwriters, has yet to garner the kind of mainstream commercial recognition as his contemporaries Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom he is likened to.

Nile's most recent release, “Streets of New York,” has earned him acclaim from the likes of Lou Reed, Bono, Graham Parker, Jesse Malin and Adam Duritz.

Nile was born in 1949 in Buffalo, N.Y., where he grew up in a musical household thanks to his Irish-Catholic family members.

“My brothers would bring home rock 'n' roll records like the Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Stones, Dylan and in my home there was a lot of classical music so I was really blessed with a lot of music around,” he said.

His parents observed a policy in which houseguests from all over the world came to stay with the family for extended periods, which had a profound effect on Nile.

Growing up on the East Coast, Nile developed a penchant for the ocean from family vacations (a tradition maintained through the generations beginning with Nile's grandfather) to the coast of New Hampshire.

“The ocean is magical,” said Nile. “Years back when my kids were little, my youngest son, someone gave him a teddy bear that had the sound of the mother's womb in it, so I was curious to hear it and when I did, it sounded just like the surf coming in and out. It was identical and that's one of the reasons why the ocean is so hypnotizing. I couldn't believe it.”

Nile also loves literature and philosophy, and reflected on English poets John Keats and Percy Shelley who had an impact on him in high school. He later became enthralled with the work of William Blake, Alexander Pushkin and Walt Whitman, and considers “Song of Myself” very “hip” and “current.” Nile graduated from the University of Buffalo with a degree in philosophy and was one course short of a bachelor's in literature.

Within his lyrics, Nile offers references to William Shakespeare, Shelley, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and Busby Berkeley, a Los Angeles-based director known for his complex musical productions. He also paints romantic images of Manhattan through character studies of Bo Diddley and a retired Broadway star. Nile's other songs range in subject matter from the 2004 terrorist train bombings in Spain to wealthy globetrotters.

“I think we are really talking about things that are inspiring whether it be a certain neighborhood tree or the clouds passing by on a spring evening, things of beauty, such as songs ‘Like a Rolling Stone' to ‘No Woman No Cry' to ‘Police on my Back,'” said Nile. “Whether you're writing about a small boy pushing a paper boat across a puddle or alluding to a nation mistakenly going into conflict - an illusory ideal - I love when I can make the leap. I don't do it as a conscious thing but I am aware if I am writing something if it has more than one meaning, which is all the better.”

In the same vein as Allan Ginsberg and Dylan, Nile arrived in the creative community of Greenwich Village as a starving artist, attracted to the city's poetic electricity, hoping to find inspiration among the diverse mixture of New York's masses. He does believe that New York City still has its place among the starving artists in the same way he was drawn to it.
“I'm sure that now as we speak it's still the home of struggling artists, and geniuses and brilliant people looking, searching and doing their work,” said Nile. “Much like the Pacific or the Atlantic, it is an ocean of people living in such close proximity.”

Nile said that the title track is his love song to the big city of dreams that he characterized as “big,” “dark” and “fascinating.” From its art to music to the mixture of people from the very rich to the poor, Nile compares it to Paris in the 1850s or London during the time of Charles Dickens and believes it to be a very enriching environment for writers.

“I didn't set out to make a tribute album or a New York concept album, it was just a collection of songs. Early in the process as I gathered the demos together, I realized there was a lot of New York imagery. I then realized all the songs kind of reflect my experiences of living here,” said Nile on the phone from his home in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood he has lived in for the past 30 years. “ The songs wouldn't have been written had I not lived here all these years, so it is a very New York album. I love New York, but I never set out to write one.”

Nile took about two years to complete “Streets of New York” and shopped it around for another year. Nile's work features many musicians including guitarist Andy York who plays with John Mellencamp, and said the work took longer than expected because York was only able to record during certain periods of the recording process due to tour schedules and ordinary happenings such as moving.

“I was able to keep the thread, the live sound and the present tense that it has. It never got stale, which is great,” said Nile who also noted that a number of the songs are live. “‘Back Home' is a live performance I did in my apartment, my piano was a little out of tune, but I wanted to get it down while it was fresh. I sang it top to bottom and when I played it for the band to record it, they said, ‘Well, no way are we doing that, it is done.' They liked the piano and the vocals, and I later added a few things to it like an upright (bass). It's telling a story, really,”

Two other live versions include “Bo Diddley in Washington Square” and “Streets of New York,” which has Jakob Dylan from the Wallflowers on backup vocals. Another Wallflowers member, Rami Jaffee on keys, played on the song “Game of Fools.”

“I met Jakob many years ago when he was younger, but also a few years back at a Mellencamp show where the Wallflowers were opening,” said Nile. “ He was really nice, played me demos for the new album and said, ‘We've got to sing together sometime.' So when I was making this, I thought it would be great to get Jakob. So I called him up and asked him and he said, ‘Just say when and where and I'll be there.' He was so nice about it.”

“Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead” was written after the devastating terrorist attack on train travelers in Madrid that killed 191 people.

“I live about a mile from the site of the World Trade Center and after 9/11, I was on one of the first flights out of JFK going to Spain for a tour,” said Nile. “I get to Spain and the reaction, I was really struck by the compassion and concern and how sincere the Spanish people were about New York at that time. So in 2004, when the Madrid train bombing occurred, I was shocked like everyone else and it brought that memory back to me of how nice the Spanish people were. Two days later I read a headline in one of the New York newspapers that said, ‘Cell phones ringing in the pockets of the dead.' I read it and discovered that cell phones were going off inside the body bags lined up along train tracks and the workers were having a very difficult time. It was a riveting image, and I immediately started writing and it was my way of fighting back, reacting in anger or sarcasm to this mad world, very dark-aged notion that man still hasn't gotten it together, there are still wars.”

Nile, who is now in his mid-50s, recorded his debut album in 1980 and later “Golden Down” on the Arista Records label. He then moved to Geffen and later Columbia where he recorded “Places I Have Never Been.” In 1999, Nile made “Beautiful Wreck of the World” on River House Records.

“Streets of New York” also has a cover of the Clash's “Police on my Back” and “When One Stands,” a reggae-inspired tune by both Nile and Frankie Lee. Nile wrote it by asking himself what would Bob Marley write about the current world if he were alive today.

For those Nile fans out there, stay tuned for more as Nile said that he already has written two more albums.

Q&A: (Jose Gonzalez)

2006-04-06T14:11:00.003-05:00

Born in 1978 to Argentinean parents and raised in the southwest region of Sweden, Jose Gonzalez grew up listening to a diverse array of music.

He lived in the country's second largest city, Gothenburg, which is situated along the western coast with a population of more than 800,000 - a metropolitan area home to a large immigrant population. Off the coast of the city sit a group of car-free islands known as the Southern Gothenburg Archipelago.

As a child, Gonzalez was influenced by his father's taste in Latin American sounds along with American and United Kingdom pop music.

Gothenburg is the center of a music genre known as melodic death metal and bands that reflect it such as At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity and The Haunted. It also boasts pop and indie rock spots as well and is home to the group Ace of Base. Coincidentally, Gonzalez was a member of several bands, some of which reflected the city's music scenes.

Gonzalez recently signed with Mute Records and the label re-released his highly acclaimed album “Veneer” April 4.

The work, originally released on Hidden Agenda Records in September 2005, went gold in the UK.

In 2004, Gonzalez won a Swedish Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Gonzalez initially signed with the London-based label Peacefrog, which put out his debut “Crosses” and “Veneer” in April 2005.

Critics have compared Gonzalez to Nick Drake, primarily, but also Cat Stevens and Elliot Smith.

The music, stark and minimalist folk, gives each song its deserved negative space. Gonzalez plays classical guitar-influenced melodies and has a great sense of his stringed device, aware of the diverse tones that arise from finger picking, strumming and a hollow cavity that can come in handy as a makeshift percussive instrument.

The songs, quiet and gentle, feature Gonzalez on vocals and guitar with the occasional percussion work. Trumpeter Stefan Sporén is the only other musician on the album. The most notable quality about Gonzalez's voice is its sense of emotional urgency reminiscent of the legendary Bill Withers while his most striking lyrics come from the song “Lovestain.”

Gonzalez wrote the music and lyrics of each song on “Veneer” with the exception of The Knife's “Heartbeats.” The Knife is a Swedish-based electronic pop group.
The Beach Reporter talked with Gonzalez by phone about his album and his thoughts on Withers.

The Beach Reporter: You have a very unique style and make good use of the guitar. How did you learn how to play?

Gonzalez: I started playing guitar when I was 14. I started by teaching myself but after a year I went to a private teacher to learn how to play classical guitar and I did that for three or four years. That's how I learned all of the techniques.

Do you think playing sparse music has taught you to be more creative on the guitar?

Yeah, playing classical guitar, a lot of the time, it's just one guitar and it's about how to make the most out of it. At least the pieces I like to play are kind of like two melodies playing at the same time, I always like that aspect.

Do you listen to Bill Withers?

That's so funny because I was listening to Bill Withers when I called you. I really like the way he sings in combination with the drums, it's just amazing.

Can you tell me about how the Bossa Nova-influenced song ‘Remain' was created?

It is just guitar and vocals but there is one line that is repeated in a style of music I heard about six years ago, and I wanted to kind of copy it. I don't know exactly what I wanted it to mean, I just put words in the melody that I found.

So the melody sets the tone of what you'd like to write about.

Yes, exactly. I always start with the guitar. The melodies come pretty naturally and then I write the words. It's more like the mood of the music that sets the standard.

You selected the song ‘Heartbeats' by The Knife. What is it about this song that prompted you to cover it?

It's one of my favorite songs when it came out in 2003. I already knew their music from before and I thought it was fun to take something that I really liked and something that was a fun thing to do but mainly because it is in the top 10 of my all-time favorite songs.

The album features the trumpet player Stefan Sporén. Where did you find him?

I didn't know him, I just called around and asked people if they knew a trumpet player. The only thing I said was that I wanted it to sound a bit Chet Baker-like. He recorded in my kitchen in two hours and it was done.

Q&A: (Brian Bromberg)

2006-03-16T14:06:00.001-06:00

It was in 1977 when jazz musician Brian Bromberg, then 16, purchased what most people would consider an antique in his hometown of Tucson.

Thanks to a friend's discovery in a music store, Bromberg bought, relatively cheap, an Italian upright acoustic bass crafted in the 1700s, which should have sold for a significant chunk of money. The precious Matteo Guersam has been with him ever since, throughout his auspicious career.

If only that bass could talk. It might tell you about its creator who assembled it by hand, perhaps in a dark wood shop with only the light of a nearby candle.

It might also say that since becoming Bromberg's prized instrument, it has been in the presence of legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Arturo Sandoval, Carmen McRae and Herbie Hancock while emitting notes of songs as diverse as Bromberg's style.

Bromberg, born in 1960, got his first well-known gig in 1979 when he joined the Stan Getz Band and spent nearly a year touring with the famed sax man. He has since either toured or recorded with a laundry list of jazz musicians some of whom, his contemporaries and others, are icons of the genre.

In 1986, Bromberg burst onto the scene as a solo artist with the release of “A New Day.” His most recent work, “Wood II” is the sequel to the 2002 “Wood.” Both albums are symphonic homages to the sometimes-underrated acoustic bass. The album plays out in the setting of a trio with world-class drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and pianist Randy Waldman.

“Wood II” is a fusion of funk, bebop, standards and rock songs from Earth Wind and Fire's “Shining Star” and “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas to “Butterfly” by Herbie Hancock to Paul McCartney's “Let Him In.”

The album commences with one of my favorite Ellington tunes “Caravan,” in which Bromberg begins the piece with a few notes that invite the opening feathery spray of what sound like drum cymbals.

Colaiuta, a master at his craft, exhibits a rich sensitivity on the cymbals that he oftentimes employs when nothing else is needed.

Waldman, a comprehensive pianist, displays many tones from the ethereal qualities of Bill Evans to the playfulness of Cedar Walton.

Bromberg goes so far to express his diverse musical tastes with the triple-overdubbed recording of “Shining Star” in which you can't help but smile at what seems like a nightmarish endeavor, but with stunning results.

In a rare performance, the trio will get together for Bromberg's CD release party tonight at Catalina Bar and Grill for two sets.
The Beach Reporter sat down with Bromberg and talked about his new work.

With all of the different kinds of songs you're playing, do you consider yourself a jazz bassist?

Jazz has such a big terminology now because there are so many different styles of jazz, but, yes, I'm definitely a jazz bassist. When people think of me they think of me as a jazz artist, although I do love all different kinds of music. At this point, I like everything. As long as it's real and it's honest and if comes from the heart, it's undeniable.

You play on a 300-year-old Italian acoustic bass; does it surprise you that something can last so long?

Yeah, it's remarkable when I think about this instrument. It was built before electricity, before plumbing, before the car. It's pretty amazing when you think about what this bass has gone through and I wish I could travel back in time and meet the person who made it. If something is made well and you take care of it, it'll last. It's already this old so it can certainly outlast me.

The bass really feels like the centerpiece of this album. Do you usually always pick songs that feature the bass well?

It really depends on the music that I'm recording. When I do real acoustic jazz records like this, the acoustic bass really is the center of the music and for me it is anyway because it's the instrument that I play but it becomes the feature just because I'm a bass player making records. It's nice for me, to be able to feature the bass as a lead instrument is really cool. I think that people are more open to bass players being leaders, but if you think about it, the bass is the center and the core of all modern music. It's nice to be able to put it up front and let people know that you can have a voice on this instrument. It's a beautiful instrument.

What is your approach to a record like ‘Wood II'?

It's pretty loose; the whole point of jazz for me is the spontaneity of it. The thing about jazz is that it is completely free-spirited improvisation with a structure. For an album like this, I like to underarrange vs. overarrange, that's what I love so much. If it's more of the commercial smooth jazz, then it's much more arranged and orchestrated.

Is that because smooth jazz needs to be more accessible in that you have listeners who aren't traditional jazz fans?

Absolutely. The thing about smooth jazz is that it was given that name. There really is no smooth jazz, it's just a radio format, a different terminology to sell and package the music, and I understand that's what the music industry has to do. Some people who listen to smooth jazz listen to it at work and they have no idea what they are listening to and for them it's background music. They have never heard John Coltrane. Most of what they hear is instrumental pop music, which is fine, I love it. I make those records because I love the music. I think the cool thing about it is that if you can reach some of those people then they might actually be open to learning and listening to jazz that is more traditional and straight ahead and more open to listening to some of the masters. I think it's a great way of getting people who aren't into jazz, into jazz.

How would you describe your CD release parties?

I don't know how much of a party it will be but we just thought it would be fun to do just because we get a chance to play and we don't get a chance to play that much. Randy is just an unbelievable pianist and Vinnie is the most in-demand drummer in the world today. So for us it was just more, what the hell, let's just have some fun, the record's coming out. It's not really going to be anything major other than the three of us getting together but they are so good at what they do. It will certainly be a night of virtuosity, let's put it that way.

The song ‘Shining Star,' seems to have a few overdubs on it. How much did you think about how you wanted this song to turn out?

What I've always tried to do for solo pieces is pick songs that a lot of people know. I always try to find a balance between real traditional jazz songs and yet pop music songs that everyone knows. Earth, Wind and Fire is one of my favorite bands, and that's a group to me that had huge pop success but it was still about the music. The songs were great. With “Shining Star” there was no way I could do it solo the way I wanted to. I could not physically play everything that I heard and wanted to play in one shot so it ended up becoming a trio of me to play all the different parts I wanted to play. I have no idea how I'm going to play it live but it was just one of those things that was really fun to do.

A Geography of Southland

2006-02-16T14:01:00.000-06:00

What do Lakers coach Phil Jackson and the Los Angeles-based group The Southland have in common? Nothing really in particular, except I was introduced to both inside the Hollywood club King King about a year ago.

Jackson, boasting the frame of a superhero with the broadest shoulders I've ever seen, was rumored to be there to check out the quintet's performance as the venue's headlining act.

“Our keyboard player is from Chicago and he (Jackson) knows about us through that, I guess,” said Jed Whedon, the band's lead singer and rhythm guitarist, who co-founded the group with longtime friend Nick Gusikoff, the band's lead guitarist.

“We are old, old friends and we've played together for years. We went to high school together, so it's just sort of a best friend thing, and everything kind of stems from that,” said Whedon on his collaborative relationship with Gusikoff, who co-wrote many of the songs on the band's album, “Influence of Geography.”

In 2002, the duo got together to record a few tunes on a CD that became a Christmas gift for family and friends, one of whom was the son of well-known manager Joe Ruffalo, who was in the midst of establishing his own independent record label, RuffWorld Records.

“We all have gotten a little bit past the part of being a musician where you really want to prove something so we just sort of trust our tastes,” said Whedon about the songwriting process with his band mates. “It's more of a question of taste than a question of creative ability. There are a lot of options at any point. You just try to pick the one that everyone feels is right.”

With offices based in New York City, Los Angeles, the UK and Sweden, RuffWorld Records offered a deal to Whedon and Gusikoff who became its first signed artists. Ruffalo, who has been in the music business for more than 20 years, is the former manager of Prince and a producer of the film “Purple Rain.”

The group's taste in music ranges from John Coltrane, Tony Williams and Stevie Wonder to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction to Bob Marley, Sly and the Family Stone, the Beatles, Tupac, Randy Newman and, of course, Steely Dan.

“The way that we write music in the band is sort of reactionary. You come up with something and you play off it and see where it would lead,” said Whedon on comparing writing lyrics vs. writing music. “Whereas lyric writing is of the soul, a process that is more of a tortuous experience, but the lyrics are important and usually the lyrics come from the music.”

The duo formed The Southland with former members of Welsh-born singer Jem's band - bassist Ethan Phillips, keyboardist Danny Chaimson - and drummer Andy Crosby, who was working for Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger at the time.

“We all have the ability to play in different projects, and it seems like everyone is in a band in high school and then as you go through life you get down to the people who really want to do it forever,” said Whedon about the group. “We are all at that point when we want to do something you care about and just sort of happened that way in terms of finding all of the guys, we lucked out and we all dig on the same stuff. We all do try and play with other people but this is the band when we play the songs, we really mean it or something.”

“Influence of Geography” consists of 13 songs, some based on real life, like “Creatures,” and others inspired by character studies of fictional people or of friends such as “Debris,” which is about a defunct relationship one can't seem to see past when stuck in it.
“There is no way that we can only write from personal experience, especially now that all of our experiences are going to be the same as every other band,” said Whedon with a laugh. “One of the things that I've always been obsessed with is picking a mindset or a person and writing from their point of view.”

The Southland also likes to create variation between the music and lyrics as evident with the song “Shining Sun,” which juxtaposes a brilliantly upbeat melody with less than optimistic lyrics.

“That's one of our favorite things - happy music with sad lyrics,” said Whedon. “Anyone can write a sad song but if you have, musically, a sad song with positive lyrics, then it adds hopefulness or nostalgia to it and on the other end, if you have a really happy song with really dark lyrics then it becomes a Trojan horse in people's minds.”

The album also features the 1950s hit “I Only Have Eyes for You” made famous by the Flamingos.

“The keyboardist Danny (Chaimson) said ‘Why don't we do this.' We listened to the song, it's a very eerie song which you don't really notice when you listen to the oldie version,” said Whedon. “The Flamingos' version is haunting and as soon as we went into the (recording) room, it sort of became what it is in terms of the building choruses, the power of that chorus is so cool, so Danny gets MVP on that song.”

Canadian Exile

2006-02-02T13:57:00.000-06:00

For Canadian-born guitarist and singer Steve Reynolds, Los Angeles - a town stereotypically known for its film industry, shiny cars and palm trees - was the last place he thought he’d find a haven of talented musicians.

“L.A. in general is kind of a paradox,” he said. “I remember driving down here with girlfriends and they’d ask if I would ever want to come to L.A., and I’d always say, ‘Not a hope in hell, you’re not getting me inside L.A.’ because I had a perception of L.A. and all the cliches that go along with it.”

Reynolds relocated to California in the late 1990s and now resides in Echo Park, which many describe as a bird’s nest of talented musicians, many of whom relish in the notion of establishing an unfettered, eclectic enclave of troubadours that many outsiders wouldn’t normally associate with Los Angeles.

“My neighbors were in the Warlocks, and I just went down to local club Spaceland the other day and Daniel Lanois is playing, and the guy who opened for him is a good friend of mine,” said Reynolds describing life as an Echo Park resident. “Then you’re in the lineup and then there’s Gus Black and you realize how good everyone is. There is just an amazing melting pot of talent here.”

Reynolds’ current album, “Exile,” was released on 429 Records last month after he inked a deal with the label that is a pop imprint of Savoy Records.

“I’ve been gone eight years. Vancouver, I don’t have a huge connection to it,” he said. “I’m fortunate enough that my uncle has a big place on the water and a cabin set back in the woods that he gives me. I probably go up there once every six months to write, it’s just a beautiful idyllic setting with deer walking by and hikes to the beach. I take my laptop and some instruments and hole up for a week at a time, and that’s how I’ve been doing most of my writing lately.”

Reynolds keeps his brain active in terms of songwriting by jotting down musical ideas and playing the guitar in some form or another for a few hours each day.

“Songwriting is a crazy, unruly animal, especially the more your career unfolds there are the pressures that you put on yourself to do better and better stuff,” said Reynolds. “Playing live is the payoff, that’s where I really shine and feel the most connected to what I’m doing.”

What is most unique about Reynolds’ musical presence is his varying guitar tunings and impressive finger picking. He brings a subtle pop flare to songs that taste of quaint folk and searing guitar rock, along with percussion-based ditties reminiscent of Irish jigs. He is a young man with a big acoustic guitar sound that has the ability to melt the hearts of some of the most hard-core rock fans.

“For me, I tune the guitar many different tunings and that really dictates the melody to me, so once I’ve got something locked in then I will usually sing utter rubbish until something sort of captures me,” said Reynolds. “I remember writing ‘Miner’s Lamp’ and saying that phrase, I have no idea why, and that was all I needed, just one visual, and I can write the song around that.”

Reynolds’ melodies have a kind of romantic and nostalgic quality remindful of Bruce Springsteen and a voice that has a passionate yet delicate tone similar to Josh Rouse.

“Growing up in Vancouver with the rain and nature, it really armed you to sort of be engaged in the world and it’s a great place to sort of ground yourself whereas L.A. brings out the world of possibility and I really enjoy sunny days,” added Reynolds. “It’s sort of clich/ but you really do feel things are possible here.”
Reynolds is playing at Fingerprint Records in Long Beach Feb. 4 at 1 p.m., a show sponsored by radio station KCRW, and March 7 at 9 p.m. at Hotel Caf/ in Los Angeles.

Q&A: (Charlie Haden)

2005-12-08T13:53:00.001-06:00

Mark Twain, writer of the great American novel, was once quoted as writing, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”

If Twain’s sentiments could be translated into musical terms, chances are it would sound very much like bassist Charlie Haden’s recent album entitled “Not in Our Name” - a truly original and American work that hints at all the beauty and rich history of a country in how it has evolved, where it is at present and what it can become in the future if given the chance.

The new record out on Verve Records is the fourth in a series of recordings by the Liberation Music Orchestra. The first album, “Liberation Music Orchestra,” was created in 1968 during the Vietnam War and the bombing of Cambodia. The second came in 1981 entitled “The Ballad of the Fallen” on ECM Records and the third in 1991 was “Dream Keeper” on Blue Note Records.

“Not in Our Name” features songs all written by American composers such as a medley of “America the Beautiful” and “Amazing Grace.” The orchestra also performs the title track, a Haden original, not to mention Ornette Coleman’s “Skies of America” and a song scored for the film “The Falcon and the Snowman” written by Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays and David Bowie called “This is Not America.”

Carla Bley, a notable composer and pianist, arranged and conducted all of the songs for “Not in Our Name,” and is reunited with Haden as she has worked on all four of the Liberation Music Orchestra projects. Bley also wrote the song “Blue Anthem” for the work and her prodigy is especially recognized on “This is Not America” with clever excerpts from three quintessential American songs - “Dixie,” “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The orchestra recorded the work in Rome last summer at the end of a European tour.

Bley, who makes good use of minor keys and symphonic dissonance in her arrangements, ironically underscores the opinion held by many that America has reached an all-new low thanks to the current Bush administration, but has the potential to regain its once-respectable reputation if under new leadership.

Several years ago, Haden also felt compelled to record songs for the album “American Dreams” following Sept. 11, 2001, as a way to offer up to his listeners a musical healing in the wake of such tragedy.

“I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty,” wrote Haden in the album’s liner notes. “…This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence and a respect for the preciousness of life - for our children, and for our future.”

Haden was born in Iowa in 1937 and began playing the bass when he was a teenager. He left the Midwest for Los Angeles in 1956. Haden began playing with legends like sax men Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and pianist Paul Bley (Carla’s husband). Haden eventually became a member of a band with Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins. In 1959, the quartet moved to New York City, and became pioneers in and synonymous with the free jazz movement. The quartet recorded one of the first avant garde albums ever with Coleman’s release of “The Shape of Jazz to Come.” Haden has also worked as a sideman to Cream drummer Ginger Baker and collaborates quite often with guitarist Metheny that includes their 1996 work “Beyond the Missouri Sky.”

Haden eventually moved back to the West Coast and in 1982 established the jazz studies program at the California Institute of the Arts.

Over his career, Haden has collaborated or worked with numerous artists from John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane to Brad Mehldau and John Scofield to Beck, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano and Ringo Starr. The Liberation Music Orchestra has garnered numerous music awards and nominations, and has won three Grammys.

The Beach Reporter sat down with Haden this week to talk about his new work and the inspiration behind it.
The Beach Reporter: At first listen without reading the liner notes, the theme of this album seems to me to kind of represent an America of today but in a slight way compared to what it used to be.

Haden: Yeah, I actually say in my liner notes in a previous album, “American Dreams,” that was recorded right after 9/11. I talk about the America that should be and that could be and what’s supposed to be. If that was what was existing here, we would be seen differently throughout the world and 9/11 may have never happened, but that’s not the way it is. I feel a need every now and then to voice my concerns about what’s going on, and that’s what I do. I’m not a politician, I’m a musician, so the only way I can feel like I’m doing something about what I’m concerned about is by making a recording.

How did you form this orchestra?

Well, each orchestra was formed at the time with the musicians that I heard playing the music in my mind and they are all close friends. On the first recording are Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and a lot of great musicians from New York. Actually, the orchestra mostly has musicians who live in New York, and I lived in New York 20 years. The first two recordings of this series were made while I was living there. This new recording includes all New York musicians besides me. So, yeah, these are all great young musicians who live in New York City.

Do the players in a sense share the same kind of political views on the world and within this country?

I think most people who are sensitive to life and have compassion for life feel the way I do, whether they are artists or whether they are just people going to work. I think anyone who really values life and justice in the world feels that way. All the musicians I chose for this recording feel the way I do.

I really feel that this album is a real tribute to America not only from the songs ‘America the Beautiful’ to ‘Amazing Grace’ but to little things like the little lines in ‘This is Not America.’ It seems like this band really went into this project with the same mind-set. Did you talk to the band members about what you wanted for the project beforehand?

Well, we did a tour in the summer of 2004 and the musicians that I usually chose to make a recording with me I don’t have to tell them anything, they know what do to.

In touring cities outside the United States and meeting so many people from other countries, do you think you’ve really gotten a feel about the general sentiment toward Americans?

Well, a lot of people in Europe do not like the Bush Administration, that’s for sure. They don’t agree with what’s going on. The name of the album, “Not in Our Name,” I saw on banners unfurled from balconies in Spain and Italy and other places in Europe when I was over there with Pat Metheny right after Iraq was invaded. The saying “not in our name” was everywhere. So they feel very strongly about it and they also love great music.

What is the biggest lesson music has taught you over the years?

Well, I think it teaches you to remember to be humble, to strive to be a good human being, to be appreciative, to try to be positive and give to others.

Record Pile: The Legend of Johnny Cash

2005-11-17T13:50:00.000-06:00

The life and times of country icon Johnny Cash, who died in September 2003 at the age of 71 and was admiringly known as the “Man in Black,” has not only surfaced on the silver screen in the biopic film “Walk the Line,” but also in the form of a new album featuring songs that span his entire career from 1955 to 2003.

The 21-track disc and 16-page set of liner notes showcases Cash’s prolific career with songs like “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” “Ring of Fire,” “I’ve Been Everywhere” and the tune “The Wanderer” - a duet with U2 and taken off the group’s album “Zooropa.” The new Cash collection, which came out in late October, is a preview to the new film “Walk the Line” due out this week starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Cash is famous for his smoky baritone voice and writing songs with bare acoustic guitar lines and combined elements of not only country but rock ’n’ roll and folk.

Cash was born and raised in Arkansas, and began writing his own songs at the age of 12. Following his college graduation, he enlisted in the Air Force at the onset of the Korean War and it was then that he bought his first guitar. He later left the Air Force, married a woman from Texas in the mid-1950s and moved to Memphis.

Cash signed with Sun Records and the label’s founder billed him with the first name “Johnny” which annoyed Cash because he thought it sounded too young. Cash’s classic hit “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line” ranked in the country Top 5 and No. 1, respectively, and some of his hits crossed over in the pop music arena. He wore all black when he performed, earning his famed nickname. Cash eventually left Sun Records and signed with Columbia Records in 1958.

With a continuous influx of hits and playing about 300 shows each year, Cash began taking amphetamines to keep up with his grueling schedule. His career went downhill with his increase in drug use. By 1963, Cash had moved to New York City and had a few run-ins with the law. Cash got back on top with the song he co-wrote with June Carter, “Ring of Fire.” His bout with drugs publicly sprang up again when he was arrested in Texas for trying to smuggle in amphetamines in his guitar case. His wife later divorced him and he then became close friends with Carter, whom he eventually married and who helped him kick his habit.

In 1963, Cash released his most recognizable album, a live recording at Folsom Prison, and over the years he has recorded with Bob Dylan, performed for President Richard Nixon and starred with Kirk Douglas in the film “Gunfight.” His wife Carter Cash died in May 2003 and Cash died four months later from complications from Diabetes.

“The Legend of Johnny Cash” is a single disc treasure that reflects a series of hits from a longtime career without the price of a box set. It is a smart buy for both the Cash aficionados and the novice listeners.

Live Report: Foo Fighters with Weezer in Long Beach

2005-10-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

Playing a second straight night at the Long Beach Arena, brash rockers of the band the Foo Fighters made it their mission Sunday night to win over a few of the more devoted Weezer fans, who were there to see their beloved and polite quartet play just prior as co-headliners.

“Our goal tonight is to convert some of the hard-core Weezer fans into drunken, sloppy Foo Fighters fans,” said lead singer and guitarist Dave Grohl who also mentioned that he’s never seen anyone pound a beer bong faster than Weezer’s frontman, Rivers Cuomo.

The foursome - Grohl, drummer Taylor Hawkins, bassist Nate Mendel and guitarist Chris Shiflett - ended the show and dedicated all of the set’s love interludes to their friends in Weezer, who have been touring with the Foo Fighters. The members of Weezer, with their unassuming collared shirts and black-rimmed glasses, are the kind of men you’d invite to an intimate dinner party with perhaps the demure Mendel and Shiflett. However, you’d have to stick Grohl at the kids’ table and ask Hawkins outside to work the valet.

After playing several opening songs including the hit “My Hero” and “Best of You” to a crowd of general admission attendees and the remaining with assigned seats along the arena’s upper levels, Grohl unleashed a robust and loud belch into the microphone.

“I’m a little hung over tonight but I’m feeling a little better and I came into work today, into the office feeling a little sleepy, a little dizzy,” he said.

Throngs of parched teenagers and young college kids put their bodies through the ringer by squishing them up against barricades lining the front of the stage, and with mosh pits forming and security guards grabbing crowd surfers every few minutes, the audience was almost as entertaining as the band.

The group went on to play the romantic ballad “Up In Arms” for those in the nosebleed sections complete with the swaying of floor-level arms that became, “The first and the last arm sway at a Foo Fighters concert,” said Grohl, followed by a short rock ditty for the people in the pit. They also played “Learn to Fly” off the 1999 album “There is Nothing Left to Lose” and the raucous “Stacked Actors.”

Grohl also made light that the Long Beach Arena has been a venue of some “legendary rock concerts,” including the time when Blue Oyster Cult opened for Led Zeppelin, and then went into “DOA” off the new record “In Your Honor.”

Hawkins, behind the drum kit for the entire show, walked out to the front, looking like he just returned from the gym, his thin frame glistening of sweat, wearing a tank top, cotton shorts, white Adidas shoes and the comically colored black socks while smoking a cigarette. Grohl took Hawkins’ place while Hawkins strapped on a red guitar, took a few more drags the same way he did before kicking off the show and sang “Cold Day in the Sun.” The two switched back into their respective spots as Grohl reflected on his years as a drummer (with Nirvana).

“That’s a workout, you got to be in shape. It’s easy being a lead singer,” he said. “I’m glad I gave up that crap.”

The show’s most poignant moment came in a moving rendition of “Everlong” off the 1997 “The Colour & The Shape,” which Grohl sang with only his guitar, showcasing the song’s haunting and striking melody and fleetingly starry-eyed yet tender lyrics that he dedicated to all of the “mellow, old-school fans.” Grohl’s performance culminated when the rest of the band walked back out on stage and finished up the song playing the last four lines of the song (I wonder if everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again/The only thing I’ll ever ask of you/ You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when) in wild, earsplitting Foo Fighters fashion.

A Slice of Revolt

2005-10-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

For many musicians, the idea of recording five albums in five years can seem daunting or, for some, insane. But for San Francisco-based artist John Vanderslice, it’s just one of those things.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have low self-esteem,” explained Vanderslice about this five-year effort.

In his latest work, “Pixel Revolt,” Vanderslice recorded songs that touch upon issues such as the war in Iraq from the perspective of a Western journalist and a soldier, a musical love letter to an ex and the fascination with the Golden Gate bridge as a well-known locale for suicidal jumpers.

“For me I kind of have to have an idea of what the song will be about before I write it,” said Vanderslice. “I’m not very good at sketching out ideas on my guitar. For better or for worse, I wish I didn’t necessarily have to do that.” Vanderslice began writing songs for the album last September and finished in March. So the first batch of songs were deemed as highly political, a way for Vanderslice to work out his feelings stemming from the 2004 election and beyond.

“The record started out really political. I wanted to write a whole war record, but other things happened to me that became more important than writing abstract narratives, so I steered away from writing songs about politics even though I’m very interested in American imperial involvement,” added Vanderslice. “It’s hard to ignore and it fascinates me on a lot of levels.”

The lyrical tides changed when Vanderslice experienced a rough year of touring and fell deeply in love that later dissolved into a break-up. He said he usually doesn’t put his personal life on record, as the thought of it is not all that exciting to him.

“I would much rather not write about my life,” he said. “I don’t think people are necessarily that fascinating. Marcel Proust is fascinating. Oscar Wilde is fascinating. I live in a one-bedroom apartment and I walk to get a burrito every day. I’m not some workhorse. I have a very mundane life, by choice.”

Vanderslice is a quirky experimental pop solo musician who has made fans out of indie-rockers like Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie. He enlisted the talent of friend and longtime collaborator John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats who acted as a co-writer for “Pixel Revolt.”

Product of Chicago

2005-10-13T13:39:00.001-05:00

One of its members is making avant-garde jazz records with his quartet; another is part of the group The Sea and Cake; another is the founder of a one-man band featuring guest musicians from Yo La Tengo, Calexico and Stereolab; another is out recording solo projects; and yet another is at home creating mutant jam musicals. So how exactly do the members of Tortoise find the time to record their albums, let alone tour together?

“Our scheduling is pretty ridiculous,” said member Dan Bitney. “But it is really special when we are together and we’ve been pretty active in doing these nearby weekend shows. But it’s tricky as far as writing and scheduling is concerned because we are so involved in other things.”

Spanning 10 years, Tortoise is one of those groups that is a bit hard to categorize and that is just fine with Bitney and his fellow members, John McEntire, John Herndon, Jeff Parker and Doug McCombs, who all don’t just stick to one instrument. They play everything from the six-string bass (McCombs) to the baritone saxophone (Bitney).

“It’s a strange band, I don’t know too many other bands where people’s role aren’t defined,” said Bitney. “It gets confusing sometimes during composition. When we write music, we usually have to learn how to play after we’ve made it in the studio, so sometimes that gets a little confusing as to who picks up what voice in the song.”

The Chicago-based group’s latest work is the 2004 “It’s All Around You,” its fifth full-length album. The album, like those of the past, was written in the studio and done so over a year’s time. The group took its time and used McEntire’s Soma Electronic Music Studios, and like in the past, one again produced the work. The electronic equipment available to Tortoise allows it to create lush rhythms, layered tones, orchestrated arrangements and complex melodies.

“There is a lot of building then reconstructing and rebuilding is kind of the simple way to say it,” said Bitney.

The 2004 project follows its 1996 benchmark work, “Millions Now Living Will Never Die,” and the intriguing 2001 release “Standards.”

“One of the things we have going for us is that we can play anything from a jazz festival in Frankfurt, Germany, to an electronic festival in Japan to a rock festival in Austin, Texas. We kind of have that adaptability. That, I think, comes from the diversity of our music,” added Bitney.

Aside from their Tortoise work, McEntire has recorded and mixed the work of bands like Chicago Underground and Neil Michael Hagerty; Herndon completed work on his first solo album; McCombs recently released his third one-man band (Brokebak) project with several guest players; Parker just finished up on a recording session with famed sax man Joshua Redman; and Bitney recently produced a series of home studio jams for the band Spectralina. The group will also be contributing to an original soundtrack for the documentary “Moog” about the life of electronic music pioneer Robert Moog.

Q&A: (daKAH )

2005-09-15T13:34:00.001-05:00

Question: What happens when you get more than 60 L.A.-based musicians playing hip-hop in the context of a classical symphony orchestra with the spontaneity of a jazz group? Answer: daKAH - a hybrid ensemble of strings, brass, woodwinds, MCs and DJs, among others.

Conceived by its conductor and primary composer Geoff Gallegos a.k.a. "Double G," daKAH and its music fuse the grooves and swing of Duke Ellington's songs, the compositional influence of Charles Mingus and Igor Stravinsky, and the dynamism of hip-hop with the wide palette of sounds common to classical instrumentation.

Not only does daKAH consist of woodwinds (alto to baritone saxophones and a bassoon), brass (trumpets and trombones), cellos, violas and violins, but also a harp, two guitars, bass, percussion, drums, keys, turntables, singers and MCs.

Gallegos was born in Hawaii and grew up in Colorado from the age of 5. He moved to Los Angeles as a young adult to pursue his dream of living in the big city, and becoming a studio player, performing and writing music within the context of film scores.

Gallegos, who is also a baritone saxophonist and attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, had thought of creating a hip-hop orchestra for many years but the idea only solidified during his apprenticeship with the director of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Prior to delving into the classical music world, Gallegos grew up on jazz, hip-hop and funk as a woodwind player. He has been deeply inspired by jazz groups like Groove Collective and hip-hop groups like the Roots, GangStar, The Pharcyde and Public Enemy.

Gallegos worked with the symphony during the day and would hang out at the club So What in Denver at night where he would bring his saxophone and play with the DJs in a hip-hop setting. He was soon playing classical melodies inside hip-hop rhythms and the rest is history.

In 1999, daKAH debuted in Los Angeles with 23 musicians with the co-founding assistance of bassist Kaveh Rastegar who helped Gallegos book its first few gigs.

Since then, daKAH has grown to 63 players who have traveled outside L.A. and toured various U.S. cities such as New Orleans for this year's jazz festival, Austin for the South By Southwest music conference, Chicago, Las Vegas and San Francisco, which is quite a feat considering it costs upward of $80,000 to $90,000 (hotels, food, airfare and daily allowances) to move the orchestra.

The Beach Reporter talked with Gallegos and talked about the band, which has a new album out, a remixed version of an original album entitled "Unfinished Symphony" out on Kufala Recordings.

The Beach Reporter: As the founder of daKAH, how did the idea of creating a hip-hop orchestra come about?

Gallegos: Well, from concept to reality took a long time. The ensemble debuted in 1999 when a couple of us made some phone calls to friends and we asked 23 musicians to commit to two gigs. It was kind of those things that we would try out. A trombone player, Dan Osterman, and myself wrote out some arrangements, so the musicians all showed up at the club and it went pretty well. We asked if we book another gig will everyone show up and they said 'Yes,' so it's been going pretty much like that since then. As far as the concept, I grew up playing the saxophone, and I have always played a lot of jazz and funk, but not a whole lot of classical just because there aren't a lot of saxophone parts written for a traditional orchestra. I was really into classic music and I learned a lot as a composer, and so it seemed like a no-brainer to combine it.

As far as the songwriting process, are songs created through a classical map or are they created through an improvisational jam session like a jazz ensemble?
The music is all orchestrated, it's all written out on sheet music, which is ironic because there are some people in the group who don't read music. So it really lends itself to a really cool sound and that is where the jazz composition comes in because with jazz composition you write out the sheet music and it'll have sections where it's letters instead of dots and those letters correspond to chords. So, one part, for example, I'll say that we are playing an E-minor groove and then it gives the player a little room of how they are going to walk through the changes. Sometimes if I have a specific idea, I'll write it down or sing it to them. There is definitely input from the musician but in terms of the compositional process, I pretty much lay that one down.

Because you have so many musical influences, how does that work when it seems like anything can go? Is it hard to get that focus?

Yes, absolutely. I think one of the things as an artist who becomes more mature at some point you have to find out what you are trying to do, and where your record is going to be put in the record store. So there is definitely a direction in the music of daKAH and that direction is dance, which is a big term anyway. So I listen to a lot of hip-hop records I like and find out what I like about them, and that influences me as far as writing the stuff for daKAH. For daKAH, I really want to have everything we play be something we can bounce your head to.

What is it about classical music that drew you in enough to create a kind of music inspired by it?

The sounds of the instruments, the way they all blend together - the woodwinds, strings and brass create such an incredible combination. There are all kinds of different things you can do with it. I'm also really interested in film scores and I love how composers use the sounds of an orchestra to evoke certain emotions. As a saxophone musician, I really got a free jazz, hip-hop and funk education, but with classical I really had to research it because I wasn't just able to throw myself into an ensemble and play as a sax player. It's the same way for a violin player who usually just plays classical music. That's what is kind of cool about daKAH. We have violinists who are really learning about hip-hop, and then we've got the MCs and DJs who are learning about classical music, so it's a really cool exchange of information.

How would you define hip-hop?

I don't think I can, I feel like it's indefinable. I mean you know where it's at in a record store, but what really attracted me to hip-hop is when I heard Public Enemy and what they were saying - I felt like the whole genre could be a real forum for challenge and debate. The "Stolen Moments: Red, Hot + Cool" album that came out was the single biggest influence for the concept of daKAH - when they started combining the jazz people with the hip-hop people and it was all done using a live band.

North Dakota on the Mind

2005-09-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

For many people who leave their hometown to start anew, the nostalgia and appreciation for it only comes after they've been away for a time. Such an experience is what inspired a series of musical snapshots imprinted on folk singer and songwriter Tom Brosseau's new album, "What I Mean to Say is Goodbye."

Born and raised in North Dakota, Brosseau moved to California after college and first settled in San Diego before becoming a permanent Los Angeles resident.

"The long and short of it was that I had never seen the ocean, and it was such a thrill to come out here and live near it," remembered Brosseau as to the reason he migrated to California. "All my family, they all play music on both sides. I think everyone plays music back in North Dakota, it's such a tradition."

The instrumentation, stark and spare, is set under Brosseau's delicate and gentle voice, and makes every song richly beautiful, informing the listener about the kind of poignancy and emotion that is possible in simple music. In true Bob Dylan fashion, Brosseau's lyrics take center stage like a symphonic poem. It's American folk music at its best and every song is worth one's quiet and relaxing Sunday afternoon time.

"To me, people like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are first and foremost writers, they are observers, and so I think it's very important to read and sing other people's work, so I've always had great passion for reading," said Brosseau.

Brosseau's lyrics range from loneliness on the road to the poetic beauty of North Dakota in the winter and the thrill of new romance.

"The first song is like little anecdotes of North Dakota and one of the lines deals with the flood of 1997," said Brosseau in his soft-spoken and welcoming voice. "It can be hard sometimes because you want to make a song sound personal but at the same time you want other people to be able to identify with it,"

Sam Jones, who produced the Wilco documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," also produced Brosseau's album. Brosseau is also a regular guest artist at the local hot spot Largo. Several guest musicians sat in on the album with the 28-year-old Brosseau including Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, harmonium and piano; Sara Watkins and Gabe Witcher of Nickel Creek, violin; and Elvis Costello's drummer, Pete Thomas, accounts for the songs' percussion. L.A. musician Jon Brion accompanies Brosseau on the guitar for the song "St. Joe St."

"My friend John Doe calls my work prog-rock. I think the songwriter I am is that I concentrate on the story first and I'm not too concerned about structure, but more so about meter," said Brosseau. "So in the end I think it's kind of progressive, so, who knows, maybe I'm starting a new genre: prog-folk."

Q&A: (Mocean Worker)

2005-08-26T10:29:00.001-05:00

Adam Dorn, known to his fans as Mocean Worker, has been involved in the music business in one form or another since he was a teen.

Son of legendary producer Joel Dorn, who has worked with the likes of Roberta Flack and saxophone virtuoso John Coltrane, Mocean Worker left high school at the age of 16 to work as an assistant to bassist/producer Marcus Miller, a producer to jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and singer Luther Vandross.

Growing up listening to jazz and Motown records shaped not only his life in an organic sense but in a technical sense as well. Since then, this electronic wizard has established his own record label and recently finished work on an album that took four years to complete. Dorn collaborated with musicians like guitarist Bill Frisell, flutist Franck Gauthier of the French rock group Rin™�/r™se, members (including trumpeter Steven Bernstein) of the avant garde jazz group Sex Mob, keyboardist Les McCann and jazz singer Jane Monheit. Dorn also incorporates the talent of a few artists who are no longer with us like Nina Simone and Rahsaan Roland Kirk in samples and entire songs taken from older recordings.

Dorn's latest work entitled, "Enter the MoWo," comprises 12 songs and spans 49 minutes which was partly inspired by single pieces of vinyl that had an "A" and "B" side. It begins with the work's most rowdy grooves up in front ("A" side) and winds down with its calmer pieces placed at the end ("B" side).

Among the dozen tracks, Dorn remixes Simone's heart-wrenching version of "Blackbird" with such sophistication and simplicity as only to augment the song's mood which exhibits his obvious admiration for one of jazz's greatest singers.

While working on the album, which follows his last work "Home Movies from the Brain Forest" completed in 1998, Dorn remixed the song "Explosivo" by Tenacious D and scored the Sundance selection "The Doe Boy," along with two documentaries for HBO. Dorn's music has also been featured on Baileys Irish Cream and KIA car commercials, and the HBO's original series "Six Feet Under."

Dorn had the opportunity to work with electronic pioneer Brain Eno in his involvement in the soundtrack for director Wim Wenders' film "Million Dollar Hotel."

The Beach Reporter this week talked with Dorn about his new album, the independent record label business and the software program ProTools among other things.

The Beach Reporter: What did working with the producer Marcus Miller teach you?

Mocean Worker: I was very young when I worked with Marcus, young enough that I actually left high school at the opportunity to be in the studio with him. Interestingly enough, I didn't really learn how to play any musical instruments or any of the technical sides of music, I kind of learned the etiquette in the studio. I spent such a large amount of time watching him make records that every day was like watching a therapy session - I learned how to deal with an artist in the making of an album more than anything. He has such an even keel of a personality, and I'm much more talkative and louder and obnoxious than he, and with that he imparted me Obi-Wan Kenobi information. As a producer, that was the main reason why I wanted to be around him. He's got great people skills and even at a young age, I knew that if I wanted to work in the music business and be around people with tremendous egos, I knew that I would have to shelve mine to get work out of them.

Brian Eno?

Brian Eno was interesting because we worked in a very frantic and short amount of time. It was over the course of nine days in Dublin. Most of the time, there were at least seven or eight musicians playing all at once while we were looking at a screen in scoring the film. He doesn't stop making noise or music so the tape is constantly rolling. For me, I sort of think of working with Brian as playing a very rough pickup basketball game. You have to muscle your way in and be hyperconfident about what it is you're playing in order for it to make it onto the recording because he takes up so much space with what he's doing. He's kind of an audio bully (laughs). The first day was tough and then I went at it with him. It was funny, when he left the studio he actually called me from the airport to tell me he had a great time working together. That was a great compliment since there aren't many people I hold in more regard in the music business than him. From an artistic angle, he is a genius.
You spent weeks on the making of your previous albums but with this one you spent several years. In looking back, do you prefer spending that much time on a recording?

No, I'm not going to wait as long as I did to make another album - no way. But in the theory of turning lemons into lemonade, I don't look back at that experience and feel angry about it, it kind of ended up working out nicely. Now I own the label and I'm in control of things that I wasn't in control of before. It's not that I'm a control freak or anything but it makes it just that much easier to put out an EP or a single or go on tour, I don't have anyone telling me I can't do that. A record every 18 months makes more sense than a record every year or every four years. I feel like with this record, I'm almost a new artist. In the electronic music world, it's such a fickle, fly-by-night atmosphere. A lot of artists happen for one album and then they are gone. I'm really happy with how this album has worked out.

As the owner of a private record company, do you see a resurgence of independent labels?

Well, there's definitely been one for a while. I will tell you one thing, the coolest thing for indie labels right now especially for me is that iTunes music store. Getting your record up there and making it so that anyone in the country can listen to it without some sort of preconceived prejudice is great. I'm not fighting for positioning with anyone in that store. It's not like walking into Tower Records and you have to dig for a Mocean Worker album. It's sitting there and you can listen to every track, and the proof is in the pudding - people listen to it, they like it, they buy it. I'm not competing against anyone and I don't have to pay for positioning, I'm right up there with the big boys - Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim - but I don't have to spend big-boy money.

In recording with musicians like guitarist Bill Frisell, singer Jane Monheit and members of the Sex Mob, how much of each song was completed before their recorded parts/solos and how much after?

I added a lot after the fact. What I wanted to do was if I was going to add real people I wanted to give them a base to play over, and I wanted to be able to chop up what they did and react to it. So for example on "Chick A Boom," the sax solo was played over an eight-bar loop of a section I had written. I had "Fathead" (David Newman) play over it a few times and then I put together a solo out of all of his performances (five or six solos) that I liked. Then I built horn hits and rhythmic patterns around it. The only solo on the record that is one take without any chopping up of it is the trumpet solo on the song "Right Now" by Steve Bernstein of the Sex Mob.

You obviously embrace the technological advancements within the medium of music but you also appreciate the old jazz albums that are recorded live and are usually first takes. What are your thoughts on the ProTools program that is often used to make a person sound better than they really are?

Well, I'm an absolute proponent of the technology and I think that if you are a songwriter or a singer you're going to be as good based on what you bring to the table. If you're a manufactured pop star like ... what's the perfect example? Who's that woman who was going out with Ben Affleck who is just a horrible singer?

Jennifer Lopez.

Yes, if you're a manufactured pop star, your record is going to be made by your team. There have always been tools to make people who can't sing be able to sing so I don't think ProTools enables anyone to make music. I think when it's all said and done, you're only as good as your ideas and your ability to translate music to an audience. I don't think ProTools is a good or bad thing concerning the ability for the masses to make music, I think that ProTools in the hands of the wrong person can be just as bad as a guitar or a piano in the hands of the wrong person. Let me tell you one thing that might change your mind about some of the jazz albums, too. For example, some of the Miles Davis records, Teo Macero (producer) put together based on edits and choices from pieces of tape. Obviously not "Kind of Blue" or "Round About Midnight" but the later Miles records like "Bitches Brew" and "In a Silent Way" are not one performance, they are patchwork performances and they are edits that Teo did with half-inch tape machines and no one would know unless they were told. The Beatles is another example of a band that wrote songs that were put together with technology but it also happens that they wrote some of the best pop songs of all time. I think sometimes people just confuse technology for electronics, coldness and stiffness but a lot of records that we really love were put together by using tricks and tools that you wouldn't expect.

Do you remember the first song you ever heard?

Yes, I can remember standing next to my grandmother at the age of 5 and it was "ABC" by the Jackson 5. What a great record, it still is such a great record. My first overall memories are Motown memories - that makes me happy.

You remixed Nina Simone's version of "Blackbird." The lyrics to this are so sad and she does such an incredible job in conveying those emotions, and you do a wonderful job of I guess not messing with the song's vibe with your piano phrases and such. Do you find it more challenging to remix or to write your own pieces?

I'll be real honest: I hate remixing old songs. I hate that it's become such an overdone thing. It's funny, a good buddy of mine and I were talking about this last night. There are just far too many remix records right now - it's like, 'Please! I don't need to hear Billy Eckstein with a trance groove. Leave it alone.' The only reason I remixed this song is because I love the original so much. I had it sitting around for years and I always wanted to do something with it. The original version is just her voice and the handclaps, and I wanted to put something beautiful around it. There has been a huge attention put on these remix records and the only ones that do older songs justice are the "Verve Remixed" albums because there is such a specific intent and the albums set out to recontextualize jazz. Everyone just sort of started to copy those.

You use the work of some deceased musicians like Simone and a few others. If there is one person of the past whom you could bring back to life to work with you, who would you want it be?

John Coltrane, oh, see I can't answer that. Or "Cannonball" Adderley, probably more ... you know what, "Cannonball" that's the answer. Because with Trane it would probably be like dark, depressing work where "Cannonball," he's all about the groove. I would want to work with him so badly.

What are your top-five all-time favorite records?

Ah, I can't answer that over the phone. It's too difficult. I can guarantee you that none of them are Carpenters records.

What about a few albums that have significantly affected you over the years?

Miles Davis, "Kind of Blue"

Massive Attack, "Mezzanine"

Wow, I'm so hip. I'm just picking the most hip, most unknown stuff.

Sly and the Family Stone, "Best Of..."

U2, "Unforgettable Fire"

Peter Gabriel, "So"

Q&A: (Shelby Lynne)

2005-08-11T12:09:00.001-05:00

Ever since the advent of longtime popular expressions, people have managed to transform the original intent of common phrases by using them in a scenario that isn't exactly the most appropriate to its true meaning.

One example is the term "suit yourself," which frequently appears in conversations conveying a tone of disagreement. One person may wish to go, for instance, to a tailgate party before a football game while another doesn't, and might subsequently hear, "OK, suit yourself," which seems to infer that by disagreement one is missing out on something.

The phrase, in all of its proposed meanings, seems the most appropriate when used in the context of neutrality - a statement that someone should accommodate one's self by acting in a manner that best fits one's own disposition exclusive of anyone else's actions.

The term seems to have been used as intended in the case of musician Shelby Lynne. She aptly titled her latest work "Suit Yourself" based on what one can only assume was how she wrote and recorded an album to her liking, which is now out on Capitol Records.

Lynne, a native of Alabama, wrote all of the original compositions (nine in all and two covers belonging to Tony Joe White) alone within the confines of her Palm Springs home.

About half the songs on the album Lynne recorded by herself in Palm Springs and the other half she recorded with a band in home studios in Nashville.

Among the tunes she submitted as demos, Lynne opted to keep the first takes of several songs including her musical ode about the death of Johnny Cash.

Coincidentally, Lynne plays Cash's mother in a biopic film about the country legend called "Walk the Line" that also stars Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix.

"Suit Yourself" follows up 2003's "Identity Crisis." Both are two of Lynne's most recent works in a professional music career spanning roughly 15 years.

Signed to a record deal as an 18-year-old from a small town in Alabama, Lynne had much to write about after being left an orphan a year earlier when her father shot and killed her mother and turned the gun on himself in the family driveway.

Lynne and her younger sister, Allison, moved in with their maternal grandmother following their parents' deaths. Shortly after, Lynne met another musician who asked her to sing on some of his demos. Those demos ended up in Nashville where Bob Tubert, a well-known industry player, heard them and offered to represent Lynne.

She moved to the Mecca of country music with her new husband, both of whom were 18. Shortly after her arrival, Lynne performed on Ralph Emery's "Nashville Now," a nightly television music and interview program. Several record producers caught the appearance and Lynne was offered four record deals within a week.
She initially signed with Epic Records and cut several albums under the label. After years of artistic differences and conflicts, Lynne got out of her contract with Epic and signed to the independent Morgan Creek label based on the West Coast. There she recorded a Nashville favorite, 1993's "Temptation."

Morgan Creek eventually went out of business and transferred her contract to the independent Magnatone. She then recorded 1995's "Restless" which never lived up to its predecessor. Feeling like she was hitting rock bottom, Lynne rented a $250-a-month room near the waterfront in Mobile, Ala., where she spent nearly a year staring at the Mobile Bay under the influence of various substances.

She eventually started writing songs again. MCA Nashville heard the material and offered her a contract, but she turned it down.

Rather, she sent her demos to producer Bill Bottrell, whom she liked for his work on Sheryl Crow's debut album.

Lynne later traveled to Bottrell's home in Northern California and the two worked on the acclaimed 2000 release "I am Shelby Lynne," an album that earned her a 2001 Grammy for Best New Artist.

Lynne immediately followed the work with "Love Shelby," a record cut under the production guise of Glen Ballard who is mostly known for his celebrated work with Alanis Morrisette on "Jagged Little Pill."

Recording and touring for both albums took five years and by the end, Lynne settled into her home for a much-needed break. She later began writing tunes that would make their way onto "Identity Crisis."

In terms of yielding a first-take, spontaneous musical imprint, "Suit Yourself" begins where "Identity Crisis" left off, which is the reason why Lynne did not want to re-record some of the songs she first archived in Palm Springs. On the other hand, "Suit Yourself" differs from "Identity Crisis" in that it speaks to the listener more as an album by a band than an album by a solo artist using studio musicians. It appeals to the listener with the same allure that a Miles Davis Quintet album does. One doesn't buy a Quintet album just to hear Miles Davis. They also buy it for the interactions among group members and their unique individual styling who play a song composed or arranged by Davis.

Lynne and Davis have a similar approach to recording sessions by limiting a song's rehearsal, and attempting to capture the song's emotion and groove while maintaining certain technical standards by trying to get most everything right on the first take.

Lynne, who plays guitar on every song, recorded with drummer Bryan Owings, guitarist Michael Ward (a former member of the Wallflowers), bassist and engineer Brian Harrison, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' keyboardist Benmont Tench, along with pedal steel guitar player Robby Turner. Lynne's close musician friend White also lent his voice and guitar playing to a couple of songs. She also covers two of White's songs - "For Ol' Times Sake" and "Rainy Night in Georgia."

Lynne further enhances the album's intimacy by including session chitchat that acts as the album's prologue, sounds of ice cubes bouncing off the rim of a glass during "You and We" and instructions to stop the tape after finishing "Sleep." Both songs feature Lynne's first-take vocals while songs like "I Won't Die Alone," "Rainy Night in Georgia" and "For Ol' Times Sake" were recorded with the band.

The Beach Reporter this week spoke with Lynne about recording a "suit yourself" album half in solitude and half with a band.

The Beach Reporter: The songs on the album definitely have a 'first-take' feel. How well did you know these songs before you sat down to record them vs. the rest of the band?

Shelby Lynne: I knew the songs pretty well myself but they were really pretty new to the band. I guess somebody needs to know it pretty well going in. It's kind of what makes it fresh is that the boys - I didn't give them much time to rehearse them. I showed them how they went and I pushed the record button.

You spent a lot of time at your house in Palm Springs writing these new songs. Does that region provide you with some kind of creative energy?

Well, it's my house, really. I don't go out a lot, I don't do anything, I just have a house that I love and I have a studio in it and it's at my fingertips so if I'm inspired I write it and put it down in the moment. I'm kind of a hermit, so it's not really the environment that's inspirational but the motive behind the material.

Is there any reason then as to why you picked Palm Springs to live?

I didn't want to live in Los Angeles. It was something close by and I don't mind the heat too bad, even though it's pretty miserable right now but I go on the road soon.

It seems as though you and Tony Joe White have a successful musical relationship. How would you characterize it and his contributions to your music?

Tony is a good friend. He's just one of those rare individuals who has a patent on a certain sound and a certain vibe. He's inspirational to me because he's so unique - there's no one like him and I'm proud to know him.

On this album you cover versions of his songs 'Ol' Times Sake' and 'Rainy Night in Georgia.' What was your reasoning for selecting these two songs in particular?

I am a big fan of the first song which not a lot of people know about and of course, the second song - you can't go wrong there. It's probably one of the greatest classic standard songs of all time.

In terms of their arrangements, what was your vision?

I wanted to let the songs do the talking; nothing fancy, just allowing the song and the production to breathe and give it lots of space and air. I took a little bit of a different approach to "Rainy Night" by creating a really relaxed, slow, kind of dreamy setting.

The album exudes a strong sense of comfort in terms of its overall vibe, especially in your singing. Was that the general mood during the recording process?

Yeah, we purposely recorded at home studios to get that classic feel. By using the analog equipment, which is really warm and my preference of making records - it feels like a group of buddies having a good time. The reason the album feels like it feels is because it's truly what it was - friends getting together and giving our talents to hopefully pretty good songs.

You recorded some songs off the album at your home in Palm Springs as demos but when you arrived in Nashville to re-record them along with the songs recorded with the band, you decided to keep the original versions.

Yes, most everything I had written prior to getting together with the band is on the record now as the first take that I recorded at the house. There was just no way to get the emotion down again. 'Johnny Met June' I wrote the day he died and the record you hear is the record I recorded that day in my house by myself. There was no way to rekindle that emotion so I just left it alone and added to it.

In the song 'You're the Man,' you take a position on the idea that the earth's natural resources are not shared in the most communal sense and that people living here do not have equal say as to what happens with them.

Yes. What angers me more than anything is that we have no choice, we have no say in the matter. Corporations and the government do with it what they please and we suffer the consequences when we walk out into a smog cloud everyday. It's not fair but it's just one little way of kind of protesting what we have no control of.

The song 'Sleep,' is that autobiographical? Do you have trouble finding sleep?

No, I just go through times when I don't really sleep a lot and that was written when I wasn't doing a lot of sleeping.

You spend a lot of time by yourself writing songs and recording them, and at the same time you have said you set very high standards for yourself. Does the combination of solitude and creating songs that rise above mediocrity pose as a challenge in determining the good from the bad?

I usually know if it sucks. I'm lucky that way and I try not to isolate myself so much that I take myself too seriously. My manager is my springboard and she is pretty damn honest; she will tell me if something is not right. I think it's only fair to do it to yourself because when you start getting so attached and intertwined with yourself, you don't have any view of what's really going on in the world. That's something I don't ever want to happen to me. I'm always interested in opinions from other musicians and people whom I trust in terms of taste.

Live Report: Brendan Benson @ El Rey Theater

2005-07-28T12:07:00.000-05:00

It's always worth a trip into Los Angeles to hear a set of songs that maintain the same spirit as their recorded selves, but within the context of a quartet.

The set of songs belonged to Detroit native Brendan Benson's show at the El Rey Theater this past Tuesday.

Benson's albums carry immense musical charm and that is enough even if you don't get to hear the sound of a school bell in his song "Spit it out Now" - its video I recently saw broadcasting in Nordstrom's juniors department - or the patchwork of vocal patterns at the end of "The Alternative to Love," which is the title track to his new album out on V2 Records.

Benson is currently plowing through the last leg of a long-winded tour promoting his new record.

He played tunes ("Tiny Spark," "Metarie," "You're Quite") off his last album "Lapalco" released in 2002 (StarTime Records). He recorded his major label debut "One Mississippi" in 1996 under the Virgin Records label and was subsequently dropped.

According to legend, Benson used the last of his advance money courtesy of Virgin Records to buy a house in Detroit, turning part of it into a studio and pockets of creative spaces where the keys might stand.

The tiny Benson, wearing a V-neck white T-shirt, reflected off the crowd like a well-tuned jazz man, although not as tuned up on his acoustic guitar - the crowd waited dizzyingly as he fixed it.

The group of men playing bass, keys, two guitars and drums also played "Metarie" - the delicate drumming on the chorus had a little more meat on its bones that the recorded version.

Benson did give a "shout out" to Los Angeles with the line "I know a guy, lives in Los Angeles," and then substituting the next line, "Sometimes his life there makes me so jealous" with "I can't figure out why" on the song "Metarie."

Benson continues with a progressive maturity in the department of love in all different forms - from the demise of a relationship to a friend's betrayal to the delusions of an obsessive fan - with "The Alternative to Love" compared to "Lapalco."

Benson has a talent just like Joni Mitchell for creating a sense of identity between their music and the listener through a brilliant rush of lyrics that voice applicable situations, tendencies and personalities expressed by relatable characters speaking in first-, second- and third-person musical narratives. When Benson stands up in front of a crowd and sings, you can't help but feel compelled to stick around after a show and ask him which tunes are actually autobiographical. He so easily slips into the perspectives of various human creatures with all of their flaws and virtues. Like a good piece of fiction, he evokes sympathy in the unsympathetic.

Aside from the lyrics, Benson has also shown his knack for basic composition, writing songs that are brimming with melody, and as once again evident on the new album, the beauty of a rousing arrangement.
Benson, born in 1970, left his birthplace of Detroit with his mother and settled a poor neighborhood in New Orleans. He left for Los Angeles when he was 18 and returned to the Big Easy to record "One Mississippi."

If you like Benson on record then you'll probably dig him live and at the end, only wish he played longer.

Peaks & Valleys

2005-06-30T12:05:00.001-05:00

Like the hopeful saying goes, "Good can come from bad," and that is no exception when it comes to composing songs. Just ask pianist and songwriter Charlotte Martin, who turned her bouts of depression into picturesque musical snapshots for her debut album "On Your Shore."

"I was pretty depressed when I wrote the song 'Every Time It Rains' with label troubles and such, and my record was just shelved," she said. "A lot of the songs on the album were written on my couch where I was pretty upset."

Martin's full-length debut is now out on RCA Records and covers the emotional gamut with songs that touch upon romantic breakdowns, professional setbacks and memories of fleeting friends.

"Not all of the songs are about romantic relationships, a lot of them had to do with breakups with friends," said Martin. "They are about how there are people who move in and out of your life for a certain period of time, and sometimes they come in and drown you, and it's so intense. You look back five years later and you can't believe you were as close as you were with that person, and realize they were there for a reason or I was there for them for a reason."

Martin, originally from Charleston, Ill., moved to Los Angeles to actually break into the music business about five years ago. Before leaving for the big city, Martin attended East Illinois University to major in opera, an art form she's studied since the age of 7. Her interests changed while at school where she met a group of friends who hailed from Chicago and exposed her to the music of Kate Bush, the Cure, Joy Division and Depeche Mode.

While a student, one of Martin's close friends died, which is what became the impetus for a career in composing.

"I never really had anything tragic affect my life," said Martin on her friend's death. "I wrote my first song for her funeral and I kept going from there."

Martin, who is in love again, has over the years relied on sadder times as both inspiration and material for the new work, and said that the darker times are what prompted her prolific songwriting.

"I have always been obsessed with bodies of water, maybe it's because I grew up around flat cornfields," said Martin about the album's seashore theme. "Even when I was writing in college, I wrote a lot about water. I don't know why, but those seemed to be the songs that kept coming out."

For the work, Martin and company, including bassist Justin Meldal (Beck, Macy Gray) and drummer Joey Waronker (Nelly Furtado, Air), recorded about 20 songs, 13 of which made their way onto "On Your Shore."

"I actually don't understand people who can write who are happy," said Martin. "There are a few people who do it well. Bono does it well, but there is still an underlying melancholy that I love in his music. I wonder what would happen if I were completely utopia happy, I don't know if that's possible being a human being in this terrible yet at the same time wonderful world."

Many people have heard of Martin as an opener touring with musicians like Damien Rice, Howie Day, Liz Phair, the Cardigans and Jason Mraz. She was just finishing up her own tour as the headlining act when she spoke with The Beach Reporter.
"It's been going really well. I'm pretty surprised, it's my first headline tour ever and the turnout has been amazing. A lot of the shows have sold out," said Martin. "Whether you have 50 people or 250, it's your house and I think opening, a lot of people didn't know who I was and so I hoped that the crowd would like me. But when it's your own show and people know the songs, it's just a different energy. Every show is so different, but it's not like a show as an opener of 'Please like me before you see Howie Day or Damien Rice.' There is an advantage to both but I certainly like headlining more."

With her fianc/, Ken Andrews, Martin is a member of a cyber band called the Los Angeles Digital Noise Academy, LADNA, for short. Andrews is Martin's co-producer for "On Your Shore" and actually produced her four-song EP "In Parentheses" also on RCA.

Andrews has also produced works by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Pete Yorn, Jimmy Eat World and Tenacious D. Andrews is also a member of the band Year of the Rabbit, among others. LADNA comprises 20 of Martin and Andrews' friends who either maintain their own studios or possess the online recording capabilities to place pieces of a potential collaborative song on the Internet. The group is currently creating its first album that will most likely be completed by the fall.

"The music is the thing that takes you, you don't take the music," said Martin on the songwriting process with either LADNA or as a solo artist. "At a certain point if you ever get a big head as a composer and forget that you're just kind of the interpreter then I think things become unbalanced and that's not good. So I'm always very humbled and thankful when I can get something down on paper that is good. I don't believe in writer's block but I think the songs actually worth listening to are really rare and really hard to write whether it comes in two minutes or two years."

With the new work "On Your Shore," Martin envisioned a specific sound inspired by her heavy listening of Peter Gabriel's "Security" and Kate Bush's "House of Love."

"I really wanted big, huge drums, and I wanted to record on all different kinds of keyboards and lots and lots of background vocals because I sang in choirs all throughout college," said Martin. "I really wanted my personality and what I like musically to be on this first major record. Where I go from there, who knew. I know now because I am recording, but at the time it was going to be my debut and I wanted to put everything in a blender in terms of what I liked sonically."

Q&A: (Frankie Valli)

2005-06-23T12:02:00.001-05:00

The musical life of the 1950s pop group The Four Seasons, and later Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, sounds like a story for a New York City stage. With a singer from a jazz background with impressive range, an introverted keyboardist who was the co-writer of many hits, and with the help of a talented producer and childhood friends as band mates, The Four Seasons were very popular during the heyday of doo-wop and Motown acts. The quartet created a musical career of so much worth that it will now be played out on a Broadway stage in the near future.

The story began in a rough and tough blue collar Newark neighborhood where Valli, born in 1937 with the name Francis Castelluccio, formed the band that later became The Four Seasons. Valli's father worked as a barber and later for a train company while his mother, also of Italian descent, exposed him to music at an early age. Mother and son were thought to make the drive into the city to listen to big bands and jazz artists performing at Manhattan theaters like the Paramount. Valli taught himself how to sing by copying the styling of singers Dinah Washington and Rose Murphy. He conceived of the Varietones with neighborhood pals Nick and Tommy DeVito and bassist Hank Majewski around 1954. The group changed its name to The Four Lovers in 1956.

By 1960, Bob Guadio and Nick Massi had replaced Nick DeVito and Majewski. In 1961, the group changed its name to The Four Seasons after a bowling alley in Union, N.J., where they were turned down for a cocktail-lounge job.

The group later signed with Vee-Jay Records with the assistance of writer and producer Bob Crewe who acted as one of the principal songwriters with member Guadio.

The group gained widespread popularity with Guadio's hit song "Sherry" in the summer of 1962. Crewe and Guadio's co-writing chemistry flowered in the form of hits that many generations have come to know like "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Walk Like a Man," "Candy Girl," "Stay" and "Alone."

According to one account, the recording of the song "Sherry" was actually a piece offering from Crewe who incensed Valli by allowing Elvis Presley to record the subsequent smash "Don't Be Cruel."

In 1964, contractual disputes at Vee-Jay records prompted The Four Seasons' decision to sign with Philips Records where they enjoyed a pop song Renaissance with six songs - including "Dawn," "Rag Doll" and "Big Man in Town" - that ranked in the Top 20.

In 1965, Massi left the group but Valli continued with the rest of the band members through 1968.

Its 1966 arrangement of Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" became a hit for Frank Sinatra, a friend of Valli's, and the 1967 hit "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" made it to No. 2 on the charts.

The Four Seasons faced a hard year in 1968 with "Genuine Imitation Life Gazette" that was considered to be a commercial failure and it was also around this time that Crewe ended his longstanding collaborative efforts with the group.

The Four Seasons did not record together again until 1975 but prior to that Valli had experienced success as a solo artist with several hit singles including the No. 1 hit "My Eyes Adored You."

The Four Seasons returned with their first No. 1 hit in more than a decade in 1976 with "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)," which was co-written by Guadio.
The Four Seasons broke up in 1977 and the group's achievements were recognized in 1990 as an inductee into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame with The Who and the Four Tops.

The Beach Reporter this week sat down with Valli to talk about the new production "Jersey Boys" heading to Broadway with an expected start date of September that ran for a record-setting world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse, along with his life's work.

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons will perform at the Greek Theater July 9 with Three Dog Night, The Spinners and The Turtles.

The Beach Reporter: From what I understand, a musical story of your life has come to fruition in the production 'Jersey Boys' which first premiered in San Diego and is now headed off to Broadway. Did you have a chance to see it down south?

Frankie Valli: Yes, I did. I saw it a couple of times. I thought it was terrific. The first time I saw it, it was a little strange - you know watching someone portray you is not always easy but then I saw it the second time and I liked it better. I don't know what I was expecting the first time, it could have been that I was looking for an exactness - the way I saw my life which everybody sees everyone else from their own point of view. So, there is no such thing as a specific way of playing anyone. It is a believable performance? That is what I go by.

You grew up in a tough working class neighborhood. How do you think those experiences affected the songs and the emotion behind them?

Well, I think it was kind of street music, is what it was. It was trying to see everything from the point of view of those who weren't as fortunate in life, who didn't have a college education waiting for them, and trying to say things in a way that they would say them.

In watching 'Jersey Boys,' I was very surprised as to how many songs I actually know, being a child of the 1970s. Are you surprised at how your songs have kind of survived through the generations?

I am. We've had somewhere in the vicinity of 60 or 65 chart records, anything from No. 1 to No. 20, and we actually had a lot of hits that aren't shown in that particular show. It always amazed me that we had as many hits as we did. I guess it was a lot of things - the chemistry of the group, a lot of luck, great writers when we needed them - and they were probably the reasons we had so many hits. Another thing is that we continuously changed direction without changing the sounds. We went from being self-contained with "Sherry" and "Big Girls" and "Walk Like A Man," and then we started using orchestras in some cases with "Dawn," "Let's Hang On" and "Working My Way Back to You." Then I had the opportunity to do "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and they were all different, and maybe that was one of the reasons. But I was always a firm believer that if you were a singer, limitations as far as songs were concerned - there weren't any.

Do you think people were pretty accepting of those different directions?

Yeah, I mean because not everything that anybody releases is a No. 1. But if you're still hitting the charts there is something to what you're doing, and you shouldn't be making music and trying to figure out what the audience wants to hear. From a creative place, you should go where you need to go and do what you need to do, and hopefully the audience will like what you do. That's the best or the worst that you can do.

The song 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' was one that those involved in the music industry were somewhat weary of putting out there. Is that true?

Well, it was in the can for a couple of years at Phillips Records, which was the record company we were with at the time. I don't know if it was because they didn't believe in it or if they were afraid I was going to leave the group, which was never the plan. It was just an extension, something I wanted to do. We played around with different things and in a period of time we did an album that had six Bob Dylan songs and Burt Bacharach - how different are they? Out of that album came a hit, we did a version of a song that Bob Dylan wrote called "Don't Think Twice" and we had a smash with it.

In looking back at your career, what are some of your own favorite songs?

Well, I started out not really wanting to be a pop singer was the way this whole thing began for me. My big thrust was, I was very early on into jazz, and that's what I wanted to do. I had the total opportunity so I did versions of what I liked and some of the people I was into. Very early on in my career, I was emulating a lot of Dinah Washington, Little Jimmy Scott, Billy Eckstine - it was just a number of people I was into. My favorite singing group at that particular time was the Four Freshmen. I also liked the Hi-Lows and The Modernaires. I've had a taste for all of it and as I've said I never really wanted to be a pop singer. I wasn't doing incredibly well as a jazz singer and listening to the radio one day I heard some music that was being played. I said to myself, 'I can do this stuff.' I started doing it and not long after that we started to have hits.

Do you think listening to jazz music at an early age really helped you to hone your voice and musical sensibilities?

Oh, there is no doubt. There is absolutely no doubt at all. It taught me to hear intervals when you're singing, stretch my voice a little bit more and that everything I recorded didn't have to be two or three chords. We were looking for modern chords; "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a combination of what was my favorite band at the time, which was Stan Kenton's. I used to go to Bird Land and sit in the bleachers for a buck and saw every important jazz artist there ever was.

You're so lucky.

Kids today really don't know what they've missed. They don't get it. It's not that everything that they are doing is so terrible but early rock 'n' roll, the stimulation as far as writers were concerned, came from theater and people came from that background. Tin Pan Alley was listening to what was happening in the theater. Great writers like Carol King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Wild, and Guadio and Crewe, all had that background. I think that is why a lot of that music still survives today. I think "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is probably in more films than anything I've ever heard. We call them standards - Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, and Rodgers and Hart - that music will live on forever. It's clear to me in my mind, unless I'm just totally so far off I don't know what's happening, but great is great, and it's not just great for six minutes, it's great forever. There is a lot of music that is being done today that will just be totally lost.

How do you think the music scene changed for you with the British invasion?

I'm not sure whether it did or didn't because we continued to have hits through it. The music business has certainly changed in the last 20 or 30 years. Everything is different about it - radio stations just play one kind of music and when I was a kid growing up, it was top 40 radio and DJs played 40 records. A lot of conglomerates have come along and bought up radio, and they make all the decisions and it's not on a local level anymore the way it used to be - DJs don't have the autonomy they once had as far as playing records and listening to music. I think it's a lot harder to get a hit today or for a guy or a gal to get started today. Every disc jockey had the autonomy to play what they wanted to play, and some people have violated that privilege and created a lot of problems. I think that's why today we have program directors who actually program music for the station. But who has a better feel for what radio plays than the person who's playing the music? They are the ones who are speaking to an audience on a daily basis and are getting feedback. I think everything that's going on with music in the record business is way off.

Do you think that kind of grass-roots, independent mindset within the industry and with DJs helped in launching your career?

Yes, it was more creative. Records broke in certain parts of the country, caught on and went right across the country. How can the public like anything if they don't hear it? You have to start from hearing or seeing something.

Is Sherry from the song 'Sherry' a real person?

A real person? I don't know, I think Sherry is everybody. I think that is what the intent was from the very beginning. I think a lot of it had to do with the sound of the name. I don't think it would have worked if the name were Angelina or Barbara or Lillian or Ruthie. It was something about the sound of the name that was really special.

Q&A: (Vernon Reid)

2005-06-22T14:28:00.001-05:00

For most people, the search for one's identity and purpose in the world is a lifelong ambition; and whether it's manifested in the field of education, science, art, writing or activism, the general consensus is that it involves a force bigger than one's self.

For guitar virtuoso Vernon Reid, the task of answering the ubiquitous question of “Who am I?” has been on his mind his entire career.

Although born in England, Reid grew up in one of New York's five boroughs, Brooklyn, where he listened to a variety of musicians and later attended Brooklyn Tech where he studied with jazz legends Rodney Jones and Ted Dunbar.

In the 1980s, Reid founded the trio Living Colour, a two-time Grammy Award-winning group, and has also sat in with musicians as diverse as his tastes from Carlos Santana to Mariah Carey to the Ramones to Public Enemy.

In 1985, Reid established the Black Rock Coalition with journalist Greg Tate and producer Konda Mason, a group of creative, like-minded people who support and gain exposure for “black artists who defy convention,” according to the coalition's Web site.

Reid also dabbles in visual arts and his work was on display in a New York City gallery this past winter. He enjoys writing poems and essays, and being a father to his 3-year-old girl.

Reid's latest album, “Other True Self,” which is the second installment with what one would assume is the name of the ensemble, Masque, was put out on the Favored Nations label. The first album with Masque titled, “Known Unknown” followed Reid's debut work “Mistaken Identity.”

The songs from “Other True Self” range in grooves, melodies and flavors synonymous with reggae, Latin and Middle Eastern compositions. Reid even incorporates a few covers on the work, including Radiohead's “National Anthem” off its “Kid A” record, a band that reignited Reid's interest in alternative rock since the breakup of Soundgarden.

Reid, who is playing at the Catalina Bar & Grill this weekend, recently spoke with The Beach Reporter about his work, style and covering Radiohead.

The Beach Reporter: How do you create a balance on your albums that has interest for both guitar buffs and the average listener?

Reid: Part of it is being connected to what I am a fan of, things that I like, in players of the instruments and hoping that I can do some of what that is. I think you have to have a context. I really don't like the idea of existing only to show shredding. I think it's so very old. The instrument is interestingly taken in so many directions and there are so many styles. The thing that has always interested me is the people who have done something that transcend what the style is. There is something about Jeff Beck's playing in that you know he is a rock guy, but there is something about what he does that is magical. With Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton, the thing that I like about those guys is that whatever was going to be was going to be. With Jeff Beck, he is showing it real raw, as himself. I think there is a sense of carefulness now, not to look bad and to make sure your playing is kind of perfect, and I don't know about that, I came up with people like Beck, Hendrix and Santana. I don't want to sidestep the fact of playing with passion or getting emotionally caught up or playing fast, it is thrilling, but they say there is a balance and tension between that.

What has been the biggest lesson that music has taught you?
Well, it's that music is bigger that any musician and I can speak for myself in this regard. It's a combination of really preparing and then letting go and then getting out of the way. It's sort of like you practice, you rehearse and all of those things, and then letting go and getting out of the way. When I go on stage, I want to play well and I want people to like me, those are all kind of razor-wire obstacles to ‘the thing' actually happening. Some people manage to get around that because they do everything controlled and tightly choreographed so there is no chance. But in playing with such great musicians, I've seen that chance in the abstract is part of it. We also know in life, there are bizarre unexplainable things that happen and we can't explain why, and so you can't abide by trying to control every little thing.

You cover Radiohead, and over the years the group's songs have been covered by a number of diverse musicians. For you personally, what does the music of this group do to you?

It's funny because with Radiohead, if you think about a work like ‘Creep' and go from there to ‘Amnesiac,' that is an extraordinary evolution. They are a very musical ensemble, one of the very few that have evolved and changed so radically. I remember reading something from a critic, who was not a fan, talking about how Radiohead was simply Pink Floyd. I just thought the comment was ludicrous, but I thought interesting because when you think about Pink Floyd records like ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn' or ‘Umma Gumma' the band evolved from this into a much more pop sort of thing by the time they got to ‘Dark Side of the Moon.' In fact, Radiohead has had an almost opposite evolution.

I agree, and what's incredible is that the fans just go nuts for all of it.

Yes, that is the extraordinary thing. After Soundgarden broke up, I was kind of done with rock, that was my favorite band, and it just kind of crushed me. Of course, there were things going, the new metal thing was rising up, all the post-Korn bands were emerging. But Radiohead, ‘OK Computer,' they just came up with something so incredibly mournful, so elegiac and so musical. I think (guitarist) Johnny Greenwood is an extraordinary musician, and I think they brought back the idea that these things are possible. I am an unabashed fan and I think that ‘Amnesiac' has not gotten the kind of ‘props' that it deserves. The songs on it are outstanding and I have to admit that I didn't get it at first.

Well, then what happened for you?

I had an epiphany. That's the thing about music, I feel like we are so trained to get it immediately, ‘I want to get it and I want to understand it.' Š I think that musicians who dip back into mystery - not explaining everything and not doing focus groups on every single is what's it's all about. I think music has to get back to that.

The Journey of a Spiritual Awakening

2005-06-16T11:59:00.000-05:00

After earning a degree in graphic design from a university in Long Beach, soul singer Vonyse (pronounced VON-eese) embarked on a journey in the real world as a career woman working for several advertising agencies and start-up companies during the dot-com boom.

"The last company I was at, I was driving home from work, part of the same routine I'd had, and I just decided that this wasn't my calling - it was meant to be a backup plan," she said on her decision to become a full-time musician.

The theme of her new album, "When Sleeping Giants Wake," serves as a representational snapshot of Vonyse's spiritual and intellectual awakening she experienced while working a 9-to-5 job. The songs address issues as diverse as her music tastes - Meshell N'degeocello, Peter Gabriel, John Mayer's early independent work, Fiona Apple, Rolling Stones, the Staple Singers and the Doobie Brothers.

"I feel like my songs symbolize our need to stop and think about what we are doing - if it's right, what works and what we are creating at the end of the day, and what that will yield," said Vonyse.

"I wanted to acknowledge those countries/continents/a group of people that have a deep-rooted history," she added about her mentions of places and people with rich and long histories like Asia, Africa and Latin America and Native Americans in the song "Dr. Frankenstein." "I wanted to look at these places and what their contribution was originally, and when do we love them instead of having the generations of offspring that come from those groups and places feel like a minority. They are just as part of the majority as anyone."

Vonyse, disillusioned with her corporate career, decided to follow her passion within the musical world and recently recorded, produced and designed the album cover art for "When Sleeping Giants Wake."

"I was on a couple of advertising campaigns and we were told to use any means possible to stimulate the customer to buy things that we don't need," stated Vonyse on her epiphany. "I think one of the last major campaigns I was on with an advertising agency was for liquid packets that were supposed to change your can of soda into a soda fountain drink, but it was just pure sugar. None of us would drink it ourselves, but we were supposed to sell this to mothers and their kids, and it was just like, wow!"

Vonyse's matters of the heart range from her early sexual experiences as a victim of molestation and her own spiritual awakening to the effect of mainstream media and corporate corruption to good old-fashioned love that not only reflects her professional life but also her personal life.

"I had a lot of experiences good and bad - molestation as a child early on exposes you to sex too soon and you tend to associate the feeling of sex with love and it's not always that," said Vonyse. "I think young girls have to realize how to not identify the act as a way to fill up their spirits but to understand that it's a choice, a gift. It was gradual for me and it was actually falling in love with someone who didn't make sex a priority. That was what distinguished my love for them."

Vonyse spent her youth in Indianapolis, but sensing her young daughter's discomfort in an Indiana lifestyle, her mother posed the idea of relocating to Northern California when Vonyse was a freshman in high school. She finished high school as a member of an award-winning gospel choir in Pleasanton. Vonyse's mother later moved back to Indiana when she enrolled in college.

"This album is about a fresh start and the idea to waking up to life. I don't want to say there is a particular age group, but I think there is a generation right now that I feel like my mom and some of the people of her generation were handing off the baton to," said Vonyse.

Vonyse created the new album independently and wrote the song using an acoustic guitar, her laptop and a digital 16-track recorder in the comfort of her own living room.
"I feel like a lot of those movements in the 1970s they kind of started to fizzle out, and the last generation were handing it off to us, but it doesn't seem like we picked up from where they left off," added Vonyse about the idea of waking up a metaphorical sleeping giant. "It took me realizing that I was on automatic pilot - going to work as a way to get the car and the house - and I thought what am I doing and what is this life all about?"

Q&A: (The Wallflowers)

2005-06-03T11:57:00.001-05:00

For the first time in its career, the 1990's roots rock band the Wallflowers traveled outside its hometown of Los Angeles to record its latest album, "Rebel Sweetheart," in the southern city of Atlanta.

The group - singer and lead guitarist Jakob Dylan, keyboardist Rami Jaffee, bassist Greg Richling and drummer Fred Eltringham, formerly of the Gigolo Aunts - opted to work with producer Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen) for its new creation completed in 2004. It just so happened that O'Brien enjoys working out of his home studio, Southern Tracks Recording, based in Atlanta.

"Rebel Sweetheart," distributed by Interscope Records, is the group's fifth studio and as usual the songs were written by Dylan. Jaffee and Dylan, both of whom were born and raised in Los Angeles, have remained in the group since its inception in 1991, and over the years have seen a few other members come and go. Richling, however, joined in 1993. The Wallflowers started out on the Virgin Records label, but later got out of its contract and signed with Interscope in 1994.

In 1995, the band began work on one of its more popular albums among mainstream audiences, "Bringing Down the Horse," produced by T-Bone Burnett and featuring a variation of guest musicians such as Sam Phillips, Adam Duritz and Jon Brion. The album contains hit songs like "6th Avenue Heartache," "One Headlight" and "Three Marlenas" that subsequently earned the band two Grammy awards.

The group took a long-needed break following the success of "Bringing Down the Horse," eventually returned to the studio in 2000, and later released "Breach" and "Red Letter Days."

The Beach Reporter this week chatted with Jaffee about the new album and the band's evolution over the years. The Wallflowers will perform at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula June 24.

The Beach Reporter: What was the experience like recording in Atlanta compared to L.A.? Do you think characteristics of the city slipped into the music?

Jaffee: Yeah, that's an interesting thought because in the past I've always in the back of my mind thought we should be in the Caribbean. Or not even the Caribbean because I'd be outside in the sun all day, but in New York just to see if the city has more attitude. Not only that, just to be somewhere besides your hometown where you say things like, "Ah, tomorrow can we start a little late because I have a dentist appointment or I have to pick up my daughter." It's sometimes frustrating because I'm making a record, but you do have certain things that come up when you are in your hometown. That was always on my mind when we would record, and I thought wouldn't it be great to focus on the record only. That's what we do usually, but from experience, I know I've said things like I have to pick up my daughter during recording. What going to Atlanta really brought besides some Southern rock, which I don't really hear anyway, was the need to stay in the studio. We went to Atlanta in July - it was the most disgusting weather, which was great. Atlanta is a cool city, I'm not going to knock it, it's actually one of my favorites in the South for sure. But it's not like there was so much to do - you got to go to that club every night, when are we going to be done tonight - there was none of that. Since during the day it was so disgusting out, you didn't even want to take a break to go to Starbucks. So it just kept us so in the studio. I think it worked to our advantage. I thought it was the best recording experience the Wallflowers have had.

It's interesting that the music for some of the songs is upbeat but when you listen to the lyrics, they aren't so upbeat. The album title is kind of a paradox in that way as well.

Yeah, Jakob came up with the title and he writes all the songs. What I did notice is that kind of upbeat song with some pretty scary lyrics. The truth is, that is what I love about his writing. Now it's always been there, that sense of, "God, it's so deep and wrong and that maybe there is a sense of humor about it somewhere." Knowing him, I think more along those lines, but hearing this record and how it came out, it stands out more. It's actually really cool because some songs lyrically seem to be on the depressing side but then the song is punchy with major chords, you can take it with a grain of salt and maybe see a little comedic sense behind it. Even the most depressing songs in history you can see a little tongue-in-cheek comedy sometimes. I think on this record the Jakob Dylan songwriting is really focused.

A few songs seem to be about the concept of time and how people kind of evolve or the idea that people are constantly looking for some better state of mind or location or future. As a band member, and because bands obviously evolve over time and sometimes listeners don't always get that the people who are playing the music are also evolving, do you think your fans understand the concept of the Wallflowers' evolution these days?

I think so. We seem to have a certain core of fans that are really synced up with what's going on behind the scenes. Jakob and I have been in the band for almost 15 years and Greg almost 13 years, and we have a semi-new drummer and guitar player. Yeah, I don't doubt Jakob's sense of writing about relationships in any way now because between friends and bands and other things, there is so much material to write about. It just seems his songwriting seems to evolve on every record in a way that shows the history of a band being made. Every record seems so much better than the last. He just does it every time and I always think how will he top the last one. Somehow he does and that's a good thing.
Jakob refers to you as his stage-right guy, like how Keith Richards is to Mick Jagger. How would you in your own words describe this role?

It is kind of like that. I'm honored to be the Keith Richards of the band. I'm the guy with the cigarette hanging out of my mouth and always trying to stick my head close up in all the pictures (laughs). No, really, I can relate to that because the Rolling Stones members have changed throughout the years with rotating guitar players and things. When there is one crazy personality that is not the lead singer, that space always needs to be filled in a band (laughs). We have a good rapport together and it's a good little rock 'n' roll relationship.

I know this happens with other bands, for instance Counting Crows in which there is so much attention focused on the singer, Adam Duritz, but it should really be about the whole band. I can see that happening with the Wallflowers in which so much attention is focused on Jakob. Are fans, however, beginning to realize that it's not just one person who makes up a band?

Yeah, I mean, gosh, especially with a Jakob Dylan in the band. We've definitely been announced at shows by random people as "Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers!" Did you read the ticket stub, sir? I lurk on fan Web sites and the fans definitely love the band aspect rather than focusing all their craziness on the singer. Jakob does write all the songs and he is up there singing them, and he is a damn good looking guy, more pictures of him and all that stuff, the more the merrier. If that's what lures them in - the songs, Jakob's blue eyes - the band members will keep them there. Right now, it's just great to be in a band with my favorite musicians.

Live Report: Ben Harper/Trey Anastasio

2005-05-19T11:54:00.000-05:00

As a way of bringing the spirit and thrill of the Tennessee-based Bonnaroo Festival to the rest of the United States, headlining musicians Trey Anastasio and Ben Harper will kick off a series of summer concerts across the country dubbed the Zooma Tour, featuring a group of rotating support acts beginning in mid-June.

"It came up and when I heard it was with Trey I jumped at it," said Harper. "Personally, I thought it sounded great, and with the second stage and rotating groups coming on every few days, it just sounded too good not to do."

Harper and Anastasio will begin the tour in New Jersey June 16 and hit 29 cities throughout the season, ending July 31 at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington.

"You know the motion when you're on tour, they take on a life of their own," said Anastasio. "It's a living, breathing thing. At the beginning you're excited, then you go through emotional waves on the whole thing and so this is a change that happens automatically. Location has so much to do with music, so it's going to be different at the Gorge than it is in Cleveland."

The Zooma Tour will showcase music on two stages and an "activity village" with vendors and attractions. Locally, the tour will hit Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater July 28 and includes performances by G. Love & Special Sauce and Galactic.

"What's really cool is Trey and I, we have our own directions of musical interests and appreciation, but we also have a place where we meet dead center," said Harper. "Like our appreciation for, say, Jerry Garcia and Jerry's appreciation for the blues and for Hendrix and for Dylan and for Gillian Welch and Alison Krause. We both have a passion for people like Elizabeth Cotton and Woody Guthrie, all the way to modern music. It would be impossible for us not to musically collaborate and get together on some things.

"I just love making music anywhere any time, and when I'm with Trey, it just feels like the summer has a fresh feel to it. This tour has a fresh feel to it, the way it's structured, the bands that are on it. It draws you in, music pulls you in. There's nothing more seductive than music and love."

Creators of Bonnaroo- Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment - are organizing the Zooma Tour. According to promoters, between 20 and 25 bands and solo artists such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Gomez, Toots & The Maytals, Jurassic 5, Galactic, G. Love & Special Sauce, Black Keys, Brazilian Girls, Ray Lamontagne, Xavier Rudd and Donavon Frankenreiter will perform as rotating guest acts along the tour. Anastasio, Harper and his band the Innocent Criminals will serve as the headlining acts of each show.

"My experience in spending so much time at Bonnaroo is that you've got sort of an informed audience and that this festival is representative of that with all the different kinds of bands, so they wanted to take it on the road," said Anastasio. "That was a natural progression. I know, for myself Phish - my career with Phish was - we did a lot of festivals alone ... and we didn't have a lot of warm-up acts and I'm craving the experience of going out and collaborating with people, right now, at this stage of my career. Ben is somebody I'm dying to play with."

Anastasio, former guitarist of the now-defunct band Phish, played a farewell tour with the group's three other members in 2004 and subsequently began writing new material for his solo effort with his new band, 70 Volt Parade - Peter Chwazik on bass; Les Hall on keys, guitar and synths; Skeeto Valdez on drums; and Ray Paczkowski on keys.

Harper, originally from Claremont, Calif., this year put out the album "There Will Be A Light," collaborating with the Blind Boys of Alabama, a group founded in 1939.

"It's the first record I made that was of one style of music because I tend to jump around a bit. This record reeled me in and showed me the beauty of making a record with that type of synthesis and flow to it of one style and sound," said Harper, "When you're with the Blind Boys, you have to step up in a soulful way that doesn't always serve all the music, so I find myself having to reel myself in from super soul back to just sort of a straighter singing style."
Harper is famous for his slide guitar work and soulful crooning while Anastasio has become popular as a virtuoso guitarist.

"The beauty of a jazz festival or the beauty of this kind of a festival, like a Zooma, you know, is you walk around the corner and it's the person you didn't expect to see who'll kick your ass," said Anastasio. "Like Ray's band, my keyboard player, Borgia. They're going to play a couple of shows. They're amazing and nobody knows that they even exist. Gabe Jarrett, Keith Jarrett's son, plays the drums and it's like a jazz trio."

Live Report: Maroon 5 @ the Honda Center

2005-05-12T11:51:00.000-05:00

When conjuring up images of the small, economic and reliable Honda Civic, one can't help but think of a car mostly driven by teenagers, college students or young adults entering the real world. So it only seems fitting that Honda would want to sponsor a tour featuring the popular rock band Maroon5 as its headlining act since its music and the Civic appeal to the same demographic.

The Los Angeles-based quintet this past Sunday performed at the Anaheim Pond as part of the Honda Civic Tour with supporting acts Simon Dawes and The Thrills. The tour ends this Friday in Santa Barbara before starting up again when the group heads off to Europe at the end of the month.

Although the band - frontman Adam Levine, guitarist James Valentine, keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, bassist Mickey Madden and drummer Ryan Dusick (substituted for by Matt Flynn as he's still recovering from a shoulder injury) - played its hit tunes like "This Love," "Harder to Breathe" and "Sunday Morning," it did incorporate choral bits of the Police's "Roxanne" and Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" in what appeared to be an improvisation interlude on one of my favorites, the sultry and mischievous "Secret." They also played another favorite "Sweetest Goodbye" that Levine said was a song that almost didn't make it onto the album and has since grown on him.

Levine, who's also rather accomplished on the guitar, ran and danced from one end of the stage to the other. He would oftentimes drag the tips of his shoes along the way and stop to bounce up and down while holding the mic in his right hand while retracting his left into the sleeve of his sweater and clutching it from the inside. One can't help but wonder if Levine is heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson based on his unique syncopation and vocal phrasing.

Just in the same way Max Weinberg of the E Street Band can somehow evoke robust and heavy rock beats out of a jazz kit, so can Flynn who played with the same amount of toms - one floor and one rack.

Even though its fans go crazy when they play the hits, Maroon5 is probably sick and tired of playing them, so it was refreshing to hear a couple of new songs - "Wasted Years" and "I Can't Stop Thinking About You." The latter is a dynamic change in terms of lyrics since much of the content from the debut album "Songs About Jane" address the emotional upheaval one girl - presumably Jane - can cause for one boy - presumably Levine. "Wasted Years" once again exemplifies the band's knack for writing into the songs a series of infectious breaks and further exhibits its forte as being a tight band when everyone drops out of the song except Madden working the bass, a few notes strewn across the quietness by Carmichael and Levine's ethereal vocals. Each member eventually comes back into the song like a sonic tsunami. Maroon5 has shown that it can juxtapose textures and phrases of polar moods and sounds - the streaming of the delicate with the heavy, the dainty with the raw. "I Can't Stop Thinking About You" exhibits the punk/ indie rock side of a band, but still maintains great melody, which is the formula that has reaped the band so much success in the context of their musically mainstream pop tunes.

For the encore, the boys returned to the stage with Flynn laying down the opening drum lines of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" for a few moments, but opened with "She Will Be Loved." They ended the set with the next song, ACDC's "Highway To Hell" sung by Dusick. Levine got behind the drums hammering out eighth notes on the high hat, quarter notes on the snare and a thrashing, unpolished drum ending battering it against the distortion of three guitars - Dusick, Carmichael and Valentine.

All in all, the concert was lively, especially when checking out a band that actually sounds better live than it does on its album and did so among many young fans, mostly girls, all of whom could have been extras for the "O.C."

Q&A: (Sam Prekop of Sea & Cake)

2005-04-28T11:48:00.001-05:00

Five years after recording his debut solo album, songwriter and singer Sam Prekop, frontman of the band The Sea and Cake, has returned to his solo efforts with the release of his second work, "Who's Your New Professor," on Thrill Jockey records.

In the time since the release of his self-titled solo endeavor, Prekop recorded two full-length albums with The Sea and Cake band members Archer Prewitt, John McEntire and Eric Claridge. The group was formed in 1993.

Prekop enlists some of the same players he used on the first work - bassist Josh Abrams, Prewitt (guitar), drummer Chad Taylor and cornet player Rob Mazurek - and recorded it in the same locale, his Chicago apartment. As a way to keep overdubs to a minimum, Prekop and his band played the songs live while sitting in a room together.

The album features Prekop's knack for layered and exotic arrangements but is a work based more in the blues idiom as opposed to Brazilian rhythms that were so popular on "Sam Prekop."

Aside from music, Prekop has made a name for himself in the art world over the last decade. His paintings have been exhibited in the Clementine Gallery in New York, the MCA in Houston, the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Modern Institute in Glasgow, among others.

The Beach Reporter this week talked with Prekop about his new work. He will be in Los Angeles at the Troubadour May 19, playing with the band Pit er Pat.

The Beach Reporter: This album sounds different than your past work. Were you listening to a certain type of music that perhaps you hadn't listened to all that much in the past before making this record?

Sam Prekop: I don't think so, but one of my goals is to be careful in trying not to repeat things that I've done before. I'm happy to hear you think it sounds different from all of the other stuff because it seems like most people feel like it sounds like what I do all the time, which I would disagree. I hope this stuff ultimately doesn't sound like too much of anything besides what I do. The album sort of arrives in a haphazard way in terms of what ends up being on the record. I come up with a lot of stuff, and the songs that start to work out and become interesting end up being on my records. The other ones, I forget what it was I was doing with them and they fall apart.

This album really captures the notion of the blues in its backdrop and moves away from the Brazilian sounds that you've highlighted in the past. What was it like shifting gears?

It was something I was definitely trying to stay aware of. To me, it was allowing a lot of old blues ideas to happen, and it may not immediately sound like it but some of it sort of works with the standard sort of blues framework. I was careful to tone down my Brazilian influences, which have been cited often. Each new work poses difficulties in terms of trying to make the best record that you can. Also, you never want to feel like you're repeating yourself in doing stuff you already know how to do, so it's like a process of exposing what you've learned this time around while making this record. I hope that sort of shows up and it's not always like cataloging your ideas exactly. You sort of hope that the whole is greater that the sum of its parts in terms of influences and what I might be interested in.

Because you wanted to do something different, did the thought that your fans might like it ever cross your mind while you recorded the album?

It seems like that happens more after the fact. While I'm actually working on it, I really just focus on the task at hand. The last solo record I made, it was only recently that I realized the people really seem to like that record. So there was some of that baggage hanging around whereas I felt like people really liked that first record. I certainly didn't want to disappoint by coming out with something that was so radically not related to the past, which I knew was impossible since I invited the same people to play on it and wanted to maintain continuum between the two without having stagnated during that time. But it was definitely on my mind that people really liked that first record and I was hoping that this new one wouldn't disappoint those people, but I think it would be pretty hard to make a record worrying about who's going to like it or not.
On this album, the vocals seem to really take center stage on this album and the music kind of serves as a cushion.

Yeah, I think the singing this time is much more up front, sort of the main focus, which is definitely different than most of The Sea and Cake stuff, and the first Sam record. While writing tunes, I usually don't worry about the vocals until the music's completely done and I just sort of directed to the finished tracks. This time, I was coming up with the singing not so much in terms of the lyrics, but definitely working in concert with the music in how I am going to approach the vocals on top of the chords. I felt like I didn't have to overcompensate the guitar playing because I wanted to leave room in the song and not clutter it up with unnecessary stuff. Because I was thinking vocals right off the bat I was able to have some of the guitar stuff simpler and open, and chord changes that would facilitate the singing.

Do you like this approach more?

I think I realized I wasn't able to do it this way in the past so much, but rather I had to reach this point where I felt like the vocals could be more of a central focus point. It's not like I disliked the vocals on all the other records but I always worked a way in which I was interested in treating the vocals as an element of the ensemble rather than the band just supporting the vocals. I'm still interested in that but this time around I thought it would be good to change that up a bit and I think that makes the record feel quite different.

It seems like many musicians are into photography and art like you. What do you see as being the link?

I don't think there's any kind of real practical link that's terribly useful except for designing record covers and stuff. I feel that both the music, the art and the photography is just me trying to faithfully express my sensibilities and if the work is happening correctly I think you can discover an aesthetic link between the paintings and the music I make. I think the sensibility is definitely shared, it's not like I turn into someone else to make the music from when I make the paintings. The creative impulses, I guess, come from somewhere else but at this point, I've been doing both for a really long time that on this level it's sort of interchangeable. The photography I got into pretty late. That sort of started from being on tour a lot and that was a way for me to be visually active while traveling and doing music. It's r

Q&A: (Ulrich Schnauss)

2005-04-14T11:46:00.003-05:00

As a native of a small fishing port in Northern Germany, DJ Ulrich Schnauss made the life-changing decision to relocate to Berlin in the mid-1990s in the hopes of pursuing a career in music.

Schnauss, who was born in Kiel in 1977, moved to Berlin in 1996 with an impressive repertoire of work under his belt. He came to the realization that the big city would offer him much more opportunity in the music industry than his small hometown.

By the time he arrived on the scene, Schnauss had already caught the attention of the Berlin-based electronica label CCO, and recorded the album "Far Away Trains Passing By."

In 2001, he recorded the popular "A Strangely Isolated Place" on the independent label Domino Records, which has also brought listeners works from bands like Clinic, Four Tet and Franz Ferdinand.

Schnauss, who will perform at the Knitting Factory April 29, spoke to The Beach Reporter about this new album and his perspectives on the world of electronica.

The Beach Reporter: At what point in your life did you realize that you could be a composer/ DJ and actually make a living at it?

Ulrich Schnauss: I was never too much into the DJ thing, but I always wanted to make music. To try making a living out of it wasn't that much a question of choice - I quickly realized that I simply wouldn't be able to do anything else anyway.

What are your top-five all-time favorite albums?

Tangerine Dream, "Force Majeur"

Chapterhouse, "Blood Music"

My Bloody Valentine, "Loveless"

Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
Cocteau Twins, "Heaven or Las Vegas"

What is the biggest lesson music has taught you over the years?

I don't think music itself has taught me anything specific, but trying to work in this industry has definitely brought up a couple of unpleasant issues. The biggest disappointment for me was to find out that some of the indie labels that are usually considered to be of great integrity and credibility can behave as bad or even worse (restrictive, oppressive) toward an artist than most major labels would. To say it in a more general way: I was probably quite naive until I found out how many people really are just in it for money and to celebrate their egos.

How would you characterize the difference between remixing and writing original pieces? Which is easier in both a technical and emotional sense?

I don't think one thing has got to do that much with the other. Of course it's "easier" to remix an already existing song rather than composing and arranging an entirely new one, but emotionally it certainly is much more satisfying to produce an original piece of music.

How would you describe the contrast between the American and the European electronica music scene?

Especially the German electronica scene has a tendency to be quite narrow-minded or even arrogant toward other music styles. My impression is that the American underground scenes generally seem to be a lot more open-minded and flexible. There's a huge amount of American/ Canadian music I really like at the moment. In my opinion, one of its greatest advantages is that a lot of these projects and bands already have a wide range of influences in their music. Maybe that's what automatically prevents a scene from getting too purist or elitist.

On your most recent album, what did you find was the hardest song to create and why?

"On My Own" took me ages to mix because it had the highest amount of tracks I'd worked with up to that point.

How do you respond to the notion that many people have about electronic music being cold and unemotional?

There's good and bad stuff within every genre, but if you wanted to come up with a generalization on the state of electronic music I think it's a fair comment to describe it as "cold and unemotional" because a lot of it simply is.

When was the first time you remember music deeply affecting you? What are the circumstances surrounding that memory?

There was a woman working at one of the kindergarten places I went to as a child who would occasionally invite kids to her home. She played me Vollenweider's "Behind the Gardens." I listened to that on headphones and it completely blew me away. It was the most beautiful and inspiring thing I had ever heard, and afterward I suddenly started to come up with my own ideas and melodies that I sang to myself and later tried to play on the piano.

You spent your earlier years in a small town and eventually moved to Berlin. In retrospect, how do you think the time there influenced your perspective on music and perhaps your style, if at all?

I don't think Berlin had any influence on my music. I certainly would have tried to avoid that. Kiel as a specific town probably didn't have a real influence either, but I spent the biggest part of my childhood there. If you've got the "wrong" music taste, "wrong" opinions, etc., growing up in a small town isn't necessarily a positive experience.

What do you feel is your biggest ambition as a musician?

Putting as much emotion into every song as possible.

Q&A: (Adam Green)

2005-04-07T11:44:00.002-05:00

His work deemed as "pure genius" by Rolling Stone magazine, New York native Adam Green has no reservations about singing what's on his mind.

The 23-year-old founding member of the Moldy Peaches secured a record deal with the label Rough Trade as a teenager. The group that started out as a music duo, the other half being Kimya Dawson, took an indefinite hiatus in 2001. Since then, Green has created music as a solo artist.

Green's career in music strays somewhat from the family calling in the field of science and medicine in which both of his parents are doctors and his brother is an astrophysicist.

Green's father is a clinical professor of neurology at Columbia University, and his mother is a psychiatrist and works at the Museum of Natural History. Green is the first person in his family who opted out of attending college.

Green recently recorded his third solo album, "Gemstones," on the Rough Trade label. He and his backing band played the songs live with a Wurlitzer, bass, drums and guitar. His backing band comprises members of the group the Gnomes, which is opening for Green during his current U.S. tour. Green wrote the songs while on the road touring and would practice them during sound check.

The album is significantly stripped down compared to 2003's "Friends of Mine" with its layer orchestrations that feature a string section. It was on the 2003 work that Green received mainstream attention on MTV with the surprising hit song "Jessica" inspired by pop star Jessica Simpson. On the song, Green takes a few jabs at Simpson by examining the shallowness and trickery of show business.

Over the years, Green has gained a worldwide following in countries in Europe, along with Japan and Canada, and has toured with Badly Drawn Boy, The Strokes and Ben Kweller.

Rough Trade released the album last month and Green will perform at the Troubadour in West Hollywood to support the work this Friday, April 8.

The Beach Reporter talked with Green about his life in New York and about a recent "Dateline" interview in which he talked about his hit song "Jessica" for a segment on the Simpson sisters.

The Beach Reporter: You mention the subway a few times on the new album. Has it been a good source of inspiration for you?

Adam Green: Yeah, the subway is definitely a class thing. There is only a certain class of people who ride the subway. You're never going to see people from an upper class on it. Everyone kind of has to be clumped together in close proximity checking each other out even if they don't want to. I guess there is something kind of sacred about it. But it's a terrible way to travel, I mean, people aren't supposed to be traveling underground with rats. But at the same time, I'd say, how do you guys live out there in L.A. without one? New York is a street culture - tall buildings, the subway where I used to play guitar, a lot of strangers and fine women - and the place where people congregate is outside and strangers talk to strangers all the time. You meet people, it's not like people are driving in their own car and listening to their own radio.

Do you think you could see yourself living anywhere else?
I don't think so. I mean, I'm not a fan of the winters here, but I like the 24-hour aspect of New York. Just knowing that I can get some Oreos at four in the morning makes me happy.

Where do you live?

I live in Brooklyn.

You seem to kind of make fun of the band the Beachwood Sparks on one of your songs. What are your thoughts on this group?

(Laughs). Well, I will say that I'd see their CD lying around the office and I fell in love with the name, it's so evocative.

You seem to have no qualms about writing anything into your songs. Do you consider yourself an intense songwriter?

Well, I think it's important for a song to have depth. I don't settle on a song until I feel like I can sing it comfortably. The truth is that my songs are more about feelings than events. So, it's more about when I have an emotion that I want to express I try guiding it into music, making sure that it's presentable. The raw emotion isn't enough to make a song, for me. I need to find a way to fit that emotion into a form that is palatable to people and becomes something they can digest.

You recorded all of these songs live, which is a much different approach from your last album.

Yeah, I wanted to do something different on this album and I also wanted kids out there to know that you can make something nice out of not that much. So, you don't need all that much stuff to make a record. Last time I did my album with a string section that was more expensive. I just figure you can't do the same thing all the time because it gets boring.

You make reference to prescription drugs a few times on this album. Does that have anything to do with the fact that everyone in your immediate family is somewhat involved in the medical/science field?

Yeah, my parents are both doctors so I've grown up around drugs my whole life. I used to draw doodles on my dad's prescription pad. So I know about every kind of drug.

I heard you did a 'Dateline' interview that somehow relates to Jessica Simpson and her sister, Ashlee. How did that go?

Interesting. They wanted me to say all of this stuff that I didn't want to say. They kept on trying to get me to sing the song for them and I just didn't feel like it, but I think it went all right.

I think it's even more interesting that 'Dateline' finds the popularity of the Simpson girls as having news value.

Yeah, that's what I said to them. I asked everyone there if anyone could name a song by Jessica Simpson. There were about 10 people in the room and no one could, so I asked why they were even doing it. I asked the woman who was interviewing me if she could name a song and she didn't even know. It's just this false hype generated by publicists. Even if 5 million people bought her record, does it make it important? If 5 million morons buy crystal clear Pepsi does it make that product important? If a thousand smart people buy something, I think it's more important than 5 million morons buying something. I see this kind of hype a lot. I've gone to concerts where there really wasn't anyone there and it sucked, and I've read the review of it that said it was packed and that girls were going crazy. It happens all around you and when you read something you should always be cautious because there is a lot of money in faking it these days.

Q&A: (Paul Brill)

2005-03-31T11:42:00.003-06:00

The first time The Beach Reporter interviewed musician Paul Brill in January 2004, he'd already embarked on a different kind of musical pilgrimage in the writing of songs for his new album, "New Pagan Love Song."

At the time, Brill attributed his shift in symphonic direction as a departure from his past singer/ songwriter endeavors - "Sisters" and "Halve The Light" - and rooted himself in a solo exploration of the world of electronica, transpiring within the confines of his New York City apartment.

Since then, Brill has released the new album on his label Scarlet Shame Records, which achieves an intriguing and distinctive stylistic palette by incorporating samples, loops and beats from the electronic side with live acoustic instrumentation.

Of course, the method of fusing two stylistic palettes is nothing unique for either listeners or musicians, but the element that sets Brill's work apart from others on the market is his delicate approach to a new sonic medium and his strong footing in live performance. This kind of mindfulness is what creates the sentiment that he built the songs from the bottom up.

Aside from the engaging arrangements and charming melodies, Brill also illustrates his clever knack for writing poignant songs, which stream like miniature stories, augmented with keen imagery as he has demonstrated so impressively in the past on previous songs.

Brill, a native of New York, labored over the songs in his home and eventually recorded them with a group of rather impressive musicians whom he has collaborated with on prior recordings.

Brill this week talked about the new work and some of the stories behind the songs. He will perform at the University of Southern California April 5 and at Spaceland in Silverlake April 6.

I heard you were in the band SF Envelope while living in San Francisco. What ever happened with that group?

We were in California in the mid- to late-1990s and we had some good success in San Francisco. We had a nice following and we started to grab the attention of a lot of labels but we just decided to do it on our own and tour a lot. We were getting a lot of interest and by the end there were a few offers that were getting close but our hearts weren't in it as much. Personally, the music that we were doing didn't jive with what I was listening to and the stuff that I wanted to be doing, and it was hard to try to make that whole band change because it wasn't just me.

What kind of music was it?

It was rock. It was kind of loud and heavy at times, and sometimes it was really soft and ethereal. It was a very important and formative time in terms of getting to know the road and see if it was something that I would want to do, if I could hack it and get a taste for what the business is all about.

Is this time when you got into the whole country and bluegrass scene?
Yeah, pretty much. It wasn't just country but a lot of old-time traditional, American roots music, black and white and western swing and old country blues. But just not the straight-ahead heavy electric guitar with a Marshall stack. I haven't really done a lot of live electric work since then.

Did your opinion of the heavy stuff change for good?

No, I definitely love it still and I'll always lean back to that period. There was so much good music made then and a lot of stuff that is still being done now that I love. I'm still a sucker for a great pop rock song in an AC Newman kind of way, Fountains of Wayne, even.

Did this change in music alter your approach to songwriting?

Kind of. I think I pretty much have the same approach to songwriting initially up until this last record actually. I would still sit down with an acoustic guitar or piano, write a song, work out the words and come up with its structure. If I was in a professional studio environment there was always that limitation that I'm rushing through because of time and budgetary restraints, and we'd end up recording it very literally according to the way it was written. This last record, which I recorded myself, I had afforded myself a much broader and greater length of time and freedom to experiment.

The idea of telling a story in the context of a song has always been really important to you just like in many old country songs.

Yeah, especially on this record. I've always attempted to tell a story in a song and I think some of my earlier stuff was a little bit more oblique in the writing. I made a conscious effort on this record to try to be a little bit more literal and more direct with the narrative. Sometimes, I think it worked (laughs), it still has its oblique moments. I still got to keep a little mystery in it.

You're from New York City and live there now, but you have lived in the woods of Vermont for a couple of years, too. What do you think living in the city versus living in the country does for your creativity?

It's tough to say. I think I was too young to know any kind of difference in the inspiration or creativity. At this point, I think I'm a little too wedded to the lifestyle, buzz and rush of the city and its cultural assimilation. You walk down the street and you're bombarded with all of these images of culture and language, and it's overwhelming. It's also inspirational, eye-opening and mind-boggling - it's every emotion mixed into one. It's kind of a natural environment for me. There was a time when I was going to try and move back to Vermont and live that life, and I just don't think I could do it now. It's a little too homogenous, but there are elements of that life I do still miss. It was so bucolic and ideal, but that is the continual urge to get away from where you are, the grass-is-greener notion.

The last time we spoke, you mentioned how much time you were spending alone making music in the comfort and solitude in your own home. Did you ever find when working alone that you kind of got sucked into a space in which after a while you had some challenges in determining what was good, decent or something considered a dead end?

Sure, that's a great point. That's exactly what happens. I feel terrible for writers, it's just so much harder and a far nobler pursuit in my mind. Generally, when you do a record in a collaborative situation, there are people around you who are going to give you your feedback along the way and you do get a sense that you are accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. But when you're sitting at home for eight months laboring over tempos and moving things around - I was doing stuff that I had never done before with this record - and I remember thinking that people might not like this. I just thought that was where my heart was since I was listening to a lot of electronic music. I was reaching for something and I still am but I just had to try because I couldn't do another singer/songwriter record. It was killing me.

With this album, I think I was most impressed with the synthesis you've created between electronic textures and acoustic instrumentation. They blend so well together and it's nice to hear that kind of continuum.

A lot of it is happy accident. I really did think that I was going to be doing more of an electronic record, to me it was an electronic record, but then I listened back and it was my version of an electronic record. I didn't want to abandon songwriting or the organic side of what I do. I thought it would be interesting and fresh if I could somehow mix what I had been doing in the past, and bring in instruments and sounds that could elevate it and give it a distinctive voice. Each time you've got to step into the breach and just say, 'To hell with it," and go with what sounds good at the moment.

The song 'Weekday Bender' sounds like it was written on the beach somewhere about you and friends back in the day.

Yeah, that's way true, definitely. That's when I was living in San Francisco and it was a great time. I had just gotten there and my friends and I, none of us had jobs, and we would tour and rent out our apartments and hit the road for two months. We'd come back, live off the little money we made off the road and then go back out. We'd go on these trips during the week and let it rip. Those are some of my greatest memories and I made a conscious effort to capture that dusty California feeling in the song.

From this song you transition to a song like 'Power Lines' which I don't know if it was written in the winter but it definitely feels like a winter song.

Yes, it was and it is a wintry tale. It is a very autobiographical song, probably the most I've ever written. It was really satisfying to record and I struggled with it because I didn't want it to be a sappy acoustic guitar ballad. No disrespect to anyone who does that, I've done plenty myself. I feel like I hit something new with myself.

One of my favorite songs is 'Everything I Believe In' which has a beautiful sound to it but with some sad lyrics.

That song is loosely based on a friend of mine who was killed. It's just a horrible story. He called me to say that he was moving to New York, he had just got a job here and the first day he was here, he went out with his sister. They came home really late and a little drunk, and he and his friend went to an ATM to get money for the cab. They were held up and details are pretty sketchy, but the story his friend tells is that he was going to fight the muggers and they just shot him, but there was a big investigation and they actually arrested the friend on suspicion. It's still an open case.

Q&A: (Pat Martino)

2005-03-30T14:09:00.001-06:00

It was June of 1968 when jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery died of a heart attack at the age of 43.

Montgomery first started playing in his late-teens and recorded some songs with his brothers Monk and Buddy in the late 1950s. Montgomery was signed to Riverside Records from 1959 until 1963, and jazz historians and musicians alike consider the work he accomplished during his time with the label as his most influential.

One such musician is guitarist Pat Martino who met Montgomery when he was 14 at a jazz club in his hometown of Philadelphia where Martino's father offered to buy Montgomery a drink - he ordered an orange juice.

Now at 61, Martino has honored the man who has remained so instrumental in his life with his latest work “Remember: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery” out on Blue Note Records April 4.

For Martino, the title serves as a double meaning. In the 1980s, Martino underwent neurological surgery after doctors found a brain aneurysm that left him in a coma for several days and wiped out his memory.

He did finally decide to play guitar again, and relearned his craft that took about 17 years, which drew him back into his memories of childhood that included Montgomery.

The tribute primarily focuses on his earlier work with the Riverside label before he signed to Verve Records in 1964 for a two-year stint.

Martino selected some of his favorite songs by Montgomery and others like Carl Perkins and Sam Jones.

The compositions come from albums such as “Groove Yard,” “Full House” and “The Incredible Jazz Guitar.”

The Beach Reporter recently spoke with Martino about his new album and the impact Montgomery has had on his life.

What does the album mean to you?

It's more than only a tribute to Wes, it's leading me back to a period and a decision and a dream come true that most adults forget about and the only thing that replaces it that in their opinion is of any value is retirement. So it's brought me back to the very beginning in a childish way and it's creatively magnificent.
A lot of these songs are from Montgomery's Riverside period?

Yes, they are the earlier years of his public presentation. It was a time that really affected me and it was also a time that was prior to his gold records, his affiliation with Verve Records, prior to the years of success that took place for Wes. These were the initial releases that came out that I think are the roots of what he was all about. By the time he began to produce a more commercial repertoire, I was already on my way in my own career and I didn't have time to follow him because I was busy with mine. So this brought it back to authenticity with regards to just part of my own evolution as well as just the favorite things I've learned from a brilliant artist.

Do you have a favorite Montgomery album?

Well, I have a couple but from my album, my favorite is one that the Montgomery Brothers put out called “Groove Yard.” It is my favorite because that was when I met Wes when the Montgomery Brothers were promoting that album. They came to Philadelphia at a place that is longtime gone, Pep's, that and the Showboat were the biggest jazz rooms in the city at that time. My dad took me to see them and that's when I met Wes.

The album in the sense that not all the songs are written by Wes but many people think of Wes when they hear them, did you know right away the songs you wanted to record?

Yes, I did. Each one of these songs comes from some of my favorite records of Wes. These were the source of my excitement and my commitment and my dedication to this way of living.

Q&A: (Sylvie Lewis)

2005-03-24T11:41:00.001-06:00

Not only is British singer Sylvie Lewis an admirer of songs written by both great American and European composers, but by looking at her and listening to her music, she could have easily lived in an era (1930s through 1950s) considered the heyday for classic standards.

Lewis, who attended school in both Italy and Switzerland, recently finished work on her debut album, "Tangos and Tantrums" on Cheap Lullaby Records. It was co-produced by Lewis and musician Richard Swift.

The work - which not only makes good use of staple instruments like guitar, piano, bass and drums, but also strings, horns and a harmonica - offers up a myriad of different sounds from jazz to ragtime to cabaret to salsa.

Raised in London, Lewis became interested in European cabaret legends like Kurt Weill, Noel Coward and Lotte Lenya; and American composers like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin. Lewis now resides in Los Angeles after first coming to the United States to study music at the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1995. Lewis took a year off from school to travel in East and South Africa. In 1999, she relocated to Los Angeles where she has since become a resident musician at venues like Hotel Caf/.

The Beach Reporter this week sat down with Lewis, who speaks four languages, to talk about her earliest memories of music, the new record and her influences. Lewis will perform at Tangiers in Los Angeles April 5.

The Beach Reporter: Where do your songs off this album come from?

Sylvie Lewis: Well, I definitely think that my songs are sort of mosaics of my experiences. All sorts of things get in there like things that have happened to me, along with books that I have read, conversations that I have had with people and paintings that I have seen inspire me. So a lot of it is from my life and some of it you have to make more interesting.

Is it harder for you to talk about your own life compared to things that you haven't experienced?

The things I haven't experienced, there is always imagination, which I rely heavily on. Things from my own life, the really personal things, I need to take some time to process them and make them palatable to other people. Certain experiences I've had are too raw to talk about, so I definitely think there is a process of digesting before I can write about them in an eloquent way that will be interesting to people.

You were born in England, but went to school in Italy and Switzerland. How do you think this has shaped your exposure to music?

Well, in a funny way, I guess ... when I was in Italy I listened to a lot of Paolo Conte whom I just love. He is just brilliant, sort of like the Italian Tom Waits. I was pretty young when I went to both of those countries and not really sure that I was going to be a musician at that stage so it was more about learning languages to me. But I think that my music is very much rooted in the past - the great American songbook and also the parallel, which I think, is the great, the European songbook. Just living and growing up in Europe definitely gave me my roots in terms of European jazz.

I think in most ways learning music is just like learning a different language and because you speak a few different languages, is the learning process the same?
Yeah, I think it is. I think languages and music or playing an instrument are very similar in that if you don't practice you forget. If you don't practice guitar, you forget how to play; and if you don't speak Italian, you forget vocabulary and phrases.

You play guitar for the first time on this album. Any challenges along the way?

Yeah, it was a bit nerve-racking for me because previously I always hired people to come in and play for me because I felt like I wasn't a good enough player or technically proficient enough. But with this album, I wanted something more honest. It wasn't necessarily about being perfect. It was about being real, so I played a lot of guitar on it. It was really challenging to record anything because when you play live, the music is there and then it disappears, it's gone in the air and any mistake is gone with it. When you're recording something, you get to listen back to it over and over again; and you have to be sure that you are really happy with what you did.

Was music on the mind when you were away at school? When did the whole interest in music come about?

It started when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I was kicked out of school when I was 7 for being very misbehaved and my mother had to pick me up the day I was kicked out. She came in, dragged me down the corridor and passed all of these scowling faces of teachers. She heard a voice saying, "Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Lewis." My mother was like, "(Bleep) it, I'm not doing this anymore, I'm not going to listen to one more complaint about my daughter, I'm not hearing it." Finally the woman who caught up with her was my piano teacher and she told her, "I just wanted to let you know that Sylvie is musically gifted and you should really pursue that with her." My mother just kissed her and walked off (laughs). So my mother enrolled me in a school where I could sing a lot in a very strong music department.

Is there a memory that stands out when you first realized the effect of music itself?

Well, I love the "Sound of Music" and when I was 5 years old I thought I wanted to be a nun because I thought nuns got to sing all the time and kiss Christopher Plummer, and that was kind of all right with me. But it wasn't too long before I realized that perhaps it is not the life of a nun and it might be another life I was looking for. I used to cycle around the park singing "Sound of Music" very loudly to all the trees and the birds, and hoping to be discovered at age 5 by Christopher Plummer. No such thing happened.

What are your top-five favorite albums?

Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Paolo Conte, "Greatest Hits"

Rufus Wainwright, "Poses"

Richard Swift, "The Novelist"

Ute Lemper, "Berlin Cabaret Songs"

The last selection, who is that?

She is a German cabaret singer who is outrageously brilliant and beautiful, and is probably in her 40s now. She sang "Chicago" on Broadway and in London I think in the 1980s. A sixth choice, if I could have one, would be anything by Serge Gainsbourg. He's just one of my huge heroes, he's brilliant. He's a French guy who's been making albums since 1959. He's a living legend in France but no one has heard of him outside of the country.

How would you compare American composers to European composers of the 1940s and 1950s?

Well, I think in the great American songbook, the songs tend to have more of a happy ending and they also tend to be a little bit cleaner. The most ill-mannered you got was "Love for Sale" but it's not definitely about a prostitute, I mean yes it is, but it's kind of ambiguous. Whereas you have Edith Piaf singing songs about a prostitute who just murdered one of her clients. I wonder if it was because of the immediacy of war in Europe that things were not quite as nice and neat and clean. Lyrically speaking they would get dirty on you, and tell you when things were broken and messed up. I think the American tendency was to make things look beautiful. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I want to let you know when things are messed up but I also want to make them sound beautiful to you (laughs).

Q&A: (Robyn Hitchcock)

2005-03-17T11:37:00.002-06:00

If you were a fan of college rock during the late 1970s, chances are you've heard of The Soft Boys. Since the group's dissolution in 1980, once-member Robyn Hitchcock has made waves in the music world as a solo artist.

Hitchcock, who relocated to the small college town of Cambridge, England, as a young adult, formed The Soft Boys, a band that recorded only a few albums but has influenced many musicians and bands like R.E.M.

On Hitchcock's latest work, "Spooked," he enlisted the talent of producer/musician David Rawlings and musician Gillian Welch, and recorded the album in Nashville in a very short time frame. He is currently on tour in the U.S. supporting the new record.

Hitchcock sat down with The Beach Reporter this week to talk about "Spooked," the dangers of television, Condoleezza Rice and Bruce Springsteen, among other things.

The Beach Reporter: I first interviewed Gillian Welch when her album 'Soul Journey' came out and your album really reminded me of that record in the sense that it's all about really stark arrangements, and it has what I call a 'first take' vibe to it. So, was that something you were kind of looking for and that's why you collaborated with Dave and Gillian?

Hitchcock: No, I think that is one of the byproducts of working with them. They like to do stuff that way. They're the kind of people who, pretty quickly, get a very close feel in terms of the way you play the arrangements. You don't have to sit there and say "No, no, no, it's not like that." Whether you knew what you wanted or not, they tend to get it.

Did it pose more of a challenge singing to these songs, most of which are acoustic-based and a slow tempo? For me, songs like these really showcase the emotion and technicality of a singer.

Well, I've written slow acoustic songs for years. It's been a long time since I wrote anything up-tempo and electric. It's one of the sides of what I do, and it definitely coincides with David and Gillian. I've always been as much a folk musician as a rock musician. I think if you look closely at (David and Gillian), you can see that they are rock musicians in drag in a lot of ways. They gravitate toward country music, they gravitate toward Nashville and they have a very strong sense of tradition, but they are also indie kids. They used to listen to me when they were in college where they met each other. Gil was a big R.E.M. fan and Dave was a Pixies fan.

How did you all meet each other?

I met them at one of their shows in London. My wife gave me one of their albums and I really liked it so we went to see them, and it turned out they knew my stuff as well. So it was very coincidental. I had a small part in "The Manchurian Candidate," Jonathan Demme's film, and we were filming that in the beginning of last year in New York. I had some time off after it, I went to Nashville and that's how we got to make the record.

Do you usually record in England?

No, I can record anywhere. Really, it doesn't make much difference where I record. I've never recorded in Holland or France, but I've recorded in L.A., San Francisco and Seattle - mostly I've recorded on the West Coast. I think about half my records have been made in America. I can't tell listening to them where they were made.
When you are there actually recording do you think the city becomes a character in a sense and inspires the songwriting or recording process?

I don't know how much it comes through. I made an album in L.A. that was very slick but that was partly because there was a lot of money around. But, of course, now it sounds very dated because it all happened with the state-of-the-art late 1980s, early 1990s sound - you know the one in which the drums sound like they are making an album on their own. I made a very acoustic solo record in San Francisco, but that was one I paid for myself. In Seattle, it's been pretty natural-sounding. I guess whenever I record in L.A. it tends to be more slick but that may be because it's on a record company dime.

How long were you there making it?

Well, we did the basic thing in six days. Then we went back in the studio in April and spent another 10 days tidying it up, recording a couple of tracks with drums.

I really like the song 'Television.' It's interesting - all the things you can do with the TV these days with the invention of Tivo. People's lives kind of revolve around it and some people have it on just for the sake of having 'company' around. What kind of effect do you think it's having on people?

Well, TV is just like any other drug, really. Only at the moment its use is unrestricted but like most drugs it makes you feel good for a while but you feel kind of rotten afterward. But people are addicted to the television as much as someone is addicted to morphine, tobacco, codeine, cocaine or whatever; it doesn't physically enter the blood stream, but it's definitely an addiction. I think in that respect it's quite easy to relate to.

How often do you watch television?

I watch very little, but you can just understand the way it is, especially if you are on your own. In my instance, it would be that I'm on my own in a hotel. I think people develop a one-to-one relationship with the TV. You live on your own and you want to have some other noise in the household. You turn on the radio like my wife or you can turn on the TV and have it flickering away in the corner. I've got friends who do that. They have that sense of a presence. It's very one-way; the television doesn't take any notice of you. The same with putting a piece of music on, really, but the TV sort of has this other artificial relationship with you.

After listening to 'Everybody Needs Love' and your cues on that song, I was wondering, how much of a role did spontaneity play in this recording?

It was quite a lot on this song. I actually took it back to England, overdubbed it and added the sitar. We played around with it a lot and I think I was making up the words to it as I went along. I didn't have the real words in front of me, so it was stuck together.

You dedicate the album to the Dark Princess. Who is the Dark Princess?

Yes, yes. Who is the Dark Princess? Ah, boy, well, the Dark Princess it very dear to me, really. She is the central core (laughs). I can't really describe her, but she's a dark princess. You can't reduce it to anything more exact, really. But she is a dark princess, rest assured.

But it is an actual person?

Oh, yeah. She is actual all right, more actual than God. With God, you can't reduce God to anything smaller. You can say what is God. God is whatever causes the trees to grow, or whatever helps me park my car. I suppose the Dark Princess has similar functions in a way.

An American Girl ('Creeped Out') vs. an English Girl ('English Girl') - you give two varying perspectives on the two. In your opinion what do you feel are some similarities and some differences?

I don't think they are necessarily types, there could be a creeped-out English girl. I think the English girl on this album is a middle-class type; she's quite distant, if you like. I hope the songs aren't too stereotypical. I think that women have sharper antennae than men do, and so women possibly get more creeped out than men do. That could be from watching too many films. You know the frightened woman alone with the flickering candle under her face. It's always more disturbing when women are vulnerable compared to men. So, if you want to set up a picture of human vulnerability, it's usually a woman on her own who is the creeped-out one.

Yeah, it's interesting because I know that I feel like that sometimes when I am by myself. I'll admit that when I'm home alone about to get into the shower, I'll sometimes think of that scene in 'Psycho.'

Yes, there you are. God knows what "Psycho" had done for shower sales. Think how many women must feel like that and probably quite a few men as well. If someone is going to sit up frightening themselves at night with scary movies then in a way that's their responsibility.

After listening to 'We're Gonna Live in the Trees,' I really thought animals do know what's going on, they just don't feel like telling us plus they don't speak human, but their existence in a way makes more sense in terms of the use of the environment.

Right, the thing is they don't talk and we're just animals that talk. The problem is that we don't think of ourselves as animals but we are, we are just speaking animals. We have other diabolical talents as well, but in the end we are no better than they are. They are able to do what they do in a much simpler way. Our lives are incredibly complicated; we can't just go off and exist. Other animals, generally given the right ecosystem, they can keep going and all they have to do is eat each other or bugs or eat whatever is growing. They don't have to import food from thousands of miles away. They do have their complex roots, but on the whole are less torturously interdependent.

On the comedy sketch 'Welcome to Earth' that is modeled after an automated system, what option (famine, pestilence, Condoleezza or death) would you choose if you had to pick one?

(Laughs) That's a hard choice. I don't know. Condoleezza has been upgraded. I supposed famine would be all right, pestilence is going to kill you and death you get anyway. It's like would you jump out of the burning building or into the fire. What would you go for?

I think I'd have to take Condoleezza.

You'd take Condoleezza? She's a Scorpio. I don't know, she's a musician as well, that sort of pulls me. It's tough isn't it? Where's Bruce Springsteen when you need him? He's a nice guy.

Is he?

Yeah, apparently he's a very nice bloke and he's also risked the wrath of a lot of his audience by coming out against Bush. It's all right for me; my audience is 100-percent liberal Democrat, book-reading, dissident, intellectual, psycho-hippies. Bruce connects with real people in ways that I don't feel I have to or don't believe I can. He's risked alienation, and I know people who met him and say he's a really good egg. So, that's good, they are not all garbage. I mean Condoleezza and Bruce, in 300 years time will both just be people from the late 20th century.

Live Report: Steve Earle @ Henry Fonda Theater

2005-02-17T11:34:00.002-06:00

If you're someone who's satisfied with the policies of the current administration, support the war in Iraq and voted for George W. Bush this past November, chances are you skipped Texan native and rock veteran Steve Earle and his band The Dukes performing Friday night at the Henry Fonda Theater.

Earle, from a small town outside San Antonio, played most of his songs off his new album "The Revolution Starts ... Now," a collection of musical stories that personify his disdain for the current political climate in America and his stance against the invasion of Iraq. The album interestingly weaves his personal opinions by telling the tales of an array of personalities (including himself and his family's history), some based in fiction and some in reality, who observe war from varying perspectives.

During the recording process, Earle and The Dukes - drummer Will Rigby, bassist Kelly Looney, guitarist Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, percussionist Patrick Earle and several others - worked 12- to 14-hour days inside a studio in Tennessee. In between breaks, they would talk about "the war, the election, baseball and women, in precisely that order," he said. The album was recorded in the spring of 2004 since it was Earle's goal to put out a record that would weigh on issues affecting the country before the presidential election took place last fall.

"The Revolution Starts ... Now" is dedicated to the late Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon and released on Artemis Records. It's the 16th album of Earle's career that spans 30 years.

The work just earned Earle a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album at Sunday's 47th annual awards ceremony. Earle has been nominated for nine Grammys throughout his career.

Born in Virginia where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller, Earle relocated to Texas with his family, grew up in a small town about 17 miles north of San Antonio and received his first guitar at the age of 11. At the age of 19, Earle left Texas for Nashville. Since then, he has been married six times to five different women and hit rock bottom as a junkie when he was arrested and sent to prison for possession of narcotics. He was paroled in 1994 and finally resurfaced as an alt-country legend.

On Friday, Earle, who is no stranger to writing socially and politically significant tunes, pontificated on the power of the working class, his fondness for Marxism and his beloved state of Texas.

Just as the recorded version of the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron faded out, Earle opened the show with the new album's title track. Its chorus is one which stays in the head because of its unique emphasis on certain syllables (Yeah, The Rev-O-Lution Starts Now.)

Earle then shifted gears and sang the country "Home to Houston" with a vocal twang that fits the character he becomes - a Texan soldier who seems disillusioned with the war and prays for home. Earle's tone captures the naivete of a young man questioning the Iraq war who then adopts a new appreciation for life and swears he'll do different if he can safely return to his country - "And I offered this prayer to my lord/I said, "God get me back home to Houston alive/And I won't drive a truck anymore."

Just in the same way Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" argues those without resources to attain upward mobility join the Armed Forces, sometimes become soldiers of war and inevitably pawns of white rich men, so does Earle's song "Rich Man's War."

"I have a lot of money for a borderline Marxist," said Earle. "This war was started by white rich men who are not going and their kids aren't going." Earle touched on the issue of the draft and said as long as there are young poor men who want a job or an education, there will be an endless supply of fire for the Bush administration. He then dedicated the song to the troops overseas.

Earle also performed the spoken-word lines of "Warrior" in a gritty tone on matters like the lack of media coverage of those who have died in Iraq. His verbal syncopation makes one think he's an avid listener of Tom Waits' "Nighthawks at the Dinner." Sitting underneath the loaded poetic lines came an opening and continuous guitar line reminiscent of The Doors' "The End," a drum pattern on the snare that one can't help but think of something from a military song and an instrumental hook line.
Rigby appears to appreciate both the delicacy of a shaker and the boldness of his base and floor tom drums, the latter sounds especially on tunes that have a heavier rock groove like "Ashes to Ashes" that seem to cushion Earle's singing. The song comes from Earle's 2002 release "Jerusalem," which critics also consider a political album.

Rigby also possesses a delicate touch on the brushes that he used on his kit with melodic care and precision for the acoustic "The Gringo's Tale" as Earle's guitar picking slipped beautifully in between.

The crowd - a notably eclectic one ranging from cowboys, to soldiers to indie rock folks - attempted to softly sing the chorus to the ode to Woody Guthrie called "Christmas in Washington" off Earle's 1997 "El Corazon."

Earle invited opening act Alison Moorer whose voice blows most recent Grammy winners out of the water. Moorer, originally from Alabama, is a country singer who has incredible range, pitch and a strong pulse on the emotion behind every word she belts out.

He returned to the stage for four encores and singing two Rolling Stones covers including "Time," the Beatles' "Revolution" and "New Companion" by Townes Van Zandt.

Q&A: (Beep Beep)

2005-02-10T11:32:00.003-06:00

Amid all the yelling and screaming, there is some semblance of theme to the music of the Omaha-based quartet Beep Beep, and that is: When you're stuck in a job that you can easily criticize, it can become the primary inspiration for your debut album.

Much of the lyrical content on Beep Beep's new work "Business Casual" is based on the experiences and observations from member Chris Hughes' five-year career in Nebraska's social welfare industry.

Founded in 2001 through the collaborating efforts of Eric Bemberger and Hughes, the band expanded from a duo to a foursome when drummer Mike Sweeney joined later that year and in 2003 bass player Joel Petersen joined after the original bassist Katie Muth left the band to pursue a master's degree in art.

The group still resides in Omaha where members have become a full-fledged touring act now on a 6-1/2-week nationwide tour. More importantly, Hughes was able to quit his job as a caseworker at the Nebraska State Department of Health and Human Services to pursue a career he considers as a bit more cathartic and interesting.

The Beach Reporter caught up with Beep Beep this week, and briefly chatted about the new album and life in Omaha.

The Beach Reporter: So what's the cultural/music scene like in Omaha?

Hughes: I don't think the cultural community of Omaha is really very significant at all. I think that it's pretty much an anomaly that there are these bands that have come out of there. A lot of it has to do with the fact that there is nothing to do in Omaha. That's why people are making this music.

Bemberger: I would say the music scene is big in that it seems to be that the community tends to support music more than a lot of other cities in Nebraska which, of course, isn't the best state to reference. I think it's a combination of there not being much else to do and it being a Republican state so there is no funding for art so you kind of create your own entertainment. People have been very supportive and because of 1% Productions (an Omaha-based booking agency), I think Omaha has changed quite a lot for the better over the past five years or so.

Is it a place where you plan on staying?

Bemberger: Sure. I don't think the music scene is a reason to move to Omaha. Every city has its guild of bar bands and L.A., of course, has no shortage of that, but I also have a hard time trying to think of musicians in as far as a huge collection of making interesting music currently living in L.A. I don't know though. I guess I don't have enough experience with the L.A. scene.

Did you and Chris co-author the songs for 'Business Casual'?

Yes, We both have a place where we can record on a computer. We, for the most part, create a structure and work together to map out vocals over it. Once that is kind of roughly laid out we take it to band practice where we work out the kinks, get input from the rest of the band mates, refine it and what not.
Is there some improvisation when fleshing out the song?

Absolutely. There are a couple of ways we approach writing. But as far as the actual music is concerned, a lot of times it's us just trying not to think about anything, playing whatever we end up playing, recording all of that and having these pieces that eventually fit together.

Since you are screaming on some of the songs on the album, how long can you play live?

There are certain songs that have to be at the beginning of the set for me to perform, otherwise my voice kind of goes out on me. We usually play between 30 and 40 minutes.

There seems to be a strong autobiographical element to the songs.

For Chris definitely. He was a caseworker and had to determine welfare eligibility. That was a job where it was Chris versus the loopholes of the state.

Have you guys always been in bands over the years?

Yeah, for the most part. We've both been making music for something to do. All of us in Beep Beep really like music to the point where it's not enough to just listen to it. We make it whether or not anything is going to happen. We've all been or tried to be in various bands and what not. At least for me personally, I haven't found anybody I work with better than Chris.

What was one of the more challenging songs to record?

We kind of had a dated approach to "Misuse Their Bodies" and that was a song we were least excited about recording because we had a change in perspective after writing. In order for it to feel like part of the catalog, we really had to reassess what we were doing with it. We changed perspective with lyrics. It really helped us re-present it and we actually ended up enjoying the outcome of that. We switched it from being a song judging another human to a song about a human confessing certain actions. Changing it to first person really helps. It removes the "preachiness" I guess.

Q&A: (Jason Moran)

2005-02-03T11:29:00.003-06:00

Mark Turner, a great jazz pianist in his own right, once described his contemporary, Jason Moran, as possessing a musical voice "...unique among an onslaught of talented pianists. Exhilarating, challenging and animated are just a view of the ways to describe his delivery."

For Moran, a virtuoso on the keys, an instrument he's played since the age of 6, and his group the Bandwagon - bassist Tarus Mateen, drummer Nasheet Waits and latest edition guitarist Marvin Sewell - continue to explore the musical waters on Moran's brand new work, "Same Mother."

With this album, his sixth for Blue Note Records, Moran furthers his technical know-how on the piano and did so in the context of the blues.

The name of the work has double meaning for Moran since he recorded the album around the time his mother was dying from cancer. However, the title, in fact, came from a comment Moran's wife, Alicia, said in a discussion about famed dancer Savion Glover, saying that both jazz and blues dance movements come from the same mother.

With that in mind, Moran created a work that honors the emotion and composition of the blues within the jazz idiom by playing covers that he defines as containing aspects of the genre and original pieces that are reminiscent of his hometown, Houston, Texas.

Moran teams up again with Andrew Hill for a song he co-wrote with the jazz great entitled "Aubade" that he approached especially with his mother in mind.

It's no shock that Moran, who listens to virtually everything, considers some of his favorite albums John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and essentially anything recorded by Thelonious Monk. However, one might be surprised to learn that Bjork's "Homogenic" also made the top-five list.

His expansive and divergent tastes show up on "Same Mother" with his selection of covers by musicians ranging from blues legend Albert King to jazz pianist Mal Waldron to Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. The latter cover features a resophonic slide guitar played by Sewell.

Moran left Texas for New York City fresh out of high school in 1993 to attend the Manhattan School of Music. There, he studied under the tutelage of Jaki Byard. Moran still resides in Manhattan, a city he feels serves as an endless well of inspiration.

The Beach Reporter sat down with Moran this week to talk about his new album which arrived in stores this past Tuesday.

The Beach Reporter: You brother wrote a beautiful dedication of sorts to your mother as part of the album's liner notes. Did you ask him to do this for you?

Jason Moran: Yes, I did ask him. He has written for my liner notes for my first and second records also. He likes writing and I always enjoy giving him projects like these. This album was a bit loaded because of the situation that was going on with our mother at the same time. She was sick with cancer and she passed away. So, you know the music was recorded at a really interesting point. My brother hadn't written anything while she was sick so this was one of the first things he was able to write. He always comes through with a perfect way of saying things.
Are you the only musician in your immediate family?

Yes, but we were all were playing instruments at a time. My older brother was playing guitar and violin and my younger brother and I were playing piano, and I kind of stuck with it. I was really the only one to continue to pursue it as a career.

Because you were recording at the time your mom was sick...

Yes, the day after I was down in Houston visiting her in the hospital, I came back to New York and we then did the record. So everything was very fresh. The images, the emotions, continued for a couple of months after the recording. But she got to hear the recording and she got to really talk about it with me. So I was glad she was able to be a part of all my projects that have come. She never missed anything - my No. 1 fan.

Are some of these songs based on your memories and experiences with your mom?

Some of them and in other pieces I think a few of them just reminded me of what I knew she would like. A piece like "Aubade" (pronounced O-baud), which is something that I wrote with Andrew ... I know she would enjoy - a moody piece that is kind of easygoing in a way. I knew that she would like that and the piece that my wife wrote, "The Field." That was her type of thing and it's always important for me with any record to put something on there that at least my mom would like.

Part of the title for the first and last song you use the term 'Gangsterism.' Did you come up with this word?

Actually, I stole it from Jean Michel Basquiat from one of his paintings (Basquiat was a major figure in the New York art scene in the 1980s and died of a heroine overdose in 1988). It's written on his painting called "Hollywood Africans." He has a lot of words inscribed in the piece and this word is one of them. Just as a visual artist works in varying mediums - clay, metal, canvas, etc. - I wanted to create Gangsterism within a different medium by using two different parts of a day - "...on the rise" and "...on the set."

Since you can play anything, how much focus do you have when recording an album?

Anything can go, but the common thread is the musicians and myself. I think when we approach a song, we all have our own traits within the music. I will address or not address a certain aspect of a song. I usually don't cut off where something can fall in line with a concept. In this record, the main focus is the blues. I really wanted to think about the blues in the broader sense. So, things that I thought to be appropriate like Alexander Nevsky's "Field of the Dead" (the score from director Sergei Eisenstein's epic "Alexander Nevsky" written by Prokofiev) is just as appropriate as "I'll Play the Blues for You" by Albert King. What King and Prokofiev have in common is that their music can be very hard yet very genteel at the same time. They are musicians from different worlds and different eras, but with similar emotions and they were able to convey that through pieces that they would write or perform. So, this is what I tend to think about when putting together pieces to record for an album. I want to find that thread within me and that thread with each other absent of me.

Something like 'Jump Up,' that is some blues.

Yeah (laughs).

That's why I asked the question about your mom and how much she inspired you with this work. I heard this song and thought of a memory maybe when you were a child sitting in the living room or something listening to music your mom put on the player. This album kind of creates a balance between musical ups and downs, the sad and the hopeful, the dark yet romantic. Is that always your intent to create a balance of opposite emotions?

Well, that's the goal. Whether it's achieved is something else (laughs). You should hopefully be able to listen to the entire record and have it really take you somewhere just as a novel would. That's definitely the goal and also as a musician/artist you want to also kind of exhibit what you can do, what you are capable of.

Your wife wrote the song 'The Field.' Does she play an instrument as well?

She is a classical singer. This piece was actually written for piano and voice, and I just did an instrumental version of it. She occasionally writes these amazing art songs and I've always been in love with them so now I'm finally recording some of them. This is the first one I've recorded. She plays the piano very well and what impressed me about her most was that she was able to sit down at the piano and I would sit at another and we would improvise back and forth. She was just phenomenal.

So for someone who is as good on the keys as you are, when you record an album are you thinking this song is for the musician and this song is for the average listener?

Um, well, maybe, hmm ... (pause) ... yeah, you're right because a song like "I'll Play the Blues for You" or "Jump Up," I think those may be the first pieces that you can halfway dance to it for most of it. That's a pivotal part of what I thought the blues is. A piece where we kind of jump around and travel into different areas like "G Suit Saltation," those are probably strictly musician songs. But I have found that most of the time when I think that's the case, they are as equally successful among a lay person. A couple of albums ago, I recorded a song that I thought was very complex and I had this really bizarre theory of how I came up with it. It ended up being one of the pieces that my mom thought was the most lyrical and became her favorite song of all time. She has a keen ear also, but you never can really tell what a person will like. That's the beauty of putting something out there, everybody is going to have an entirely different reaction.

Has any recent music really hit you?

The last De La Soul record is really amazing for a band that has been in hip-hop for so long. They are doing it for me still and Ghostface Killah is still doing it for me. His record came out maybe six or eight months ago. These artists have really blasted me.

Live Report: Wynton Marsalis @ Royce Hall

2005-01-27T11:23:00.000-06:00

Today, Wynton Marsalis is only three years older than the legendary John Coltrane was when he died of liver cancer. Coltrane left behind some of the most influential music in the history of jazz including his most notable work, "A Love Supreme."

The album resonates with a surrender to a higher power throughout the four-part suite titled "Acknowledgement," "Resolution," "Pursuance" and "Psalm." Although the piece is deemed elementary in structure, it is arguably the most honest and seemingly unaffected jazz recording in the genre's history.

The last movement Coltrane intended to serve as a musical articulation of the written passage enclosed in the album's liner notes. Most every jazz listener who has or hasn't heard the album can usually recognize the four simple notes - "A Love Su-preme" -- that make up the opening bass line and continue throughout the piece.

Coltrane's spirit reverberated off the walls at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA this past Saturday evening when Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, all donning Brooks Brothers suits, played "Psalm," along with a dazzling array of charming standards.

Coltrane, who died at the age of 40, experienced a religious awakening of sorts by exploring aspects of Judaism, Christianity, and some elements of African and Eastern mysticism.

"During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life," wrote Coltrane in the liner notes of "A Love Supreme," an album that was recorded and released seven years after this epiphany. "At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. All praise to God."

It was this experience in which Coltrane locked himself in his bedroom for nearly a week and only drank water in an attempt to kill his addictions to alcohol, heroin, sugar and cigarettes. He overcame his habits with the exception of smoking tobacco from time to time.

From 1957 to 1964, Coltrane immersed himself in non-Western music and philosophy by exploring music from West Africa and India and also began to read books on Hinduism, Islam, astrology and yoga.

Coltrane said he remembered dreams in which he thought God was communicating musical concepts to him and on one such occasion, the composition of "A Love Supreme" came to him in its entirety. Coltrane and his group - drummer Elvin Jones, bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner - recorded the piece in December 1964 in the exact order the movements are listed on the album.

It would be daunting for any musician or group to perform a selection from "A Love Supreme," but for Marsalis, who is the director of the LCJO, it only expanded his virtuoso technique and penchant for the arrangement of songs within the context of a large ensemble. In fact, the band recently recorded its version of the classic Coltrane album, which is now out on Palmetto Records.

Playing a movement from a piece first performed by a quartet was no easy feat for the orchestra's drummer Herlin Riley and bassist Carlos Henriquez who probably over the years have adapted to the nuances of a big band environment - 16 pieces. Marsalis dedicated the performance to Coltrane's drummer Jones.

New Orleans native Marsalis, who attended Juilliard at the age of 17 and later joined Art Blakey's group The Jazz Messengers, has always surrounded himself with incredible talent. Over the years, he has earned nine Grammys and in 1997 became the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer Prize in music for his work "Blood on the Fields."
Marsalis opened the evening with Benny Carter's piece "Kansas City Suite: The Wiggle Walk" as if to declare, "Wake up folks, we are here to play you some music." Marsalis then led the band into Mary Lou Williams' "Big Jim Blues" with a few minutes of greasy soloing as he walked from the back of the bandstand to the front of the stage.

Alto saxophonist and personal favorite Ted Nash welcomed his father and trombonist, Dick, on stage for their duet on the standard, "All the Things you Are."

The orchestra played in true form Saturday when it came to rhythm - stopping on a dime at one point and nailing down intricate time signatures.

Marsalis and company played one more song each from Carter and Williams' repertoire, and ended the first set with a few movements from Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown and Beige" but not before reminiscing about his experiences playing with some of Ellington's oldest band members. At one point, Marsalis and the rest of his trumpet section began clapping the melody to one of the pieces and looked at the audience as if we should all join in, as if it were that easy.

The most notable solos came, of course, from Marsalis. But Nash, tenor sax man Victor Goines, trumpeter Ryan Kisor, saxophonist Wess "Warmdaddy" Anderson, trombonist Ron Westray, Riley and pianist Aaron Goldberg, who apparently filled in for regular pianist Eric Lewis (a disappointment since he is such a delight to watch and would have been especially intriguing on "Psalm"), also shared moments in the spotlight.

In true Los Angeles fashion, the concert began a bit behind schedule with empty seats to a sold-out show popping up here and there. The audience, although giving a somewhat wholehearted standing ovation at the end of the second set, emptied out of the hall the moment the players walked off the stage without the chance of an encore in sight - a stark contrast to that of my experiences with Marsalis in San Francisco.

The Best of 2004

2004-12-30T10:58:00.008-06:00

Like most years, 2004 saw a lot of bad and good music. Here are my favorite picks for this year classified into categories a bit more creative than the typical genre sections.

Albums your parents probably dug

Aerosmith, 'Honkin' on Bobo'

The band that first got together in the late 1960s released an album this year containing explosive covers like Bo Diddley's "Road Runner" and the Dixon's "I'm Ready" that serves as a tribute of sorts to the passion of the blues and thrill of 1960s British rock.

Anita Baker, 'My Everything'

Baker's work after a 10-year hiatus.

Tony Bennett, 'Cloud 7'

Jimmy Buffet, 'License to Chill'

Ray Charles, 'Genius Loves Company'

The world mourned his death this year at the age of 73 and just prior to it, Charles requested the presence of some of his closest musical friends for the recording of his last work. Charles sings duets with the likes of Elton John, Norah Jones, B.B. King, Van Morrison and Willie Nelson.

Eric Clapton, 'Me and Mr. Johnson'

Clapton's tribute to blues legend Robert Johnson.
Robert Downey Jr., 'The Futurist'

Elton John, 'Peachtree Road'

The first time John produces his own work. He teams up with his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin.

Norah Jones, 'Feels like Home'

Jones showed more of her country influences this time around and even sings a duet with country icon Dolly Parton, along with drummer Levon Helm and organist Garth Hudson.

Diana Krall, 'The Girl in the Other Room'

Lyle Lovett, 'My Baby Don't Tolerate'

Loretta Lynn, 'Van Lear Rose'

Tift Merritt, 'Tambourine'

Joni Mitchell, 'Dreamland'

A collection of Mitchell's most beloved songs all on one album.

Willie Nelson, 'It Will Always Be'

Rod Stewart, 'Stardust: The Great American Songbook Vol. 3'

Cassandra Wilson, 'Glamoured'

When it comes to singing a classic James Taylor, Joni Mitchell or Muddy Waters tune within the jazz idiom, no one does it quite like the sultry and passionate Wilson. The musical compositions slip into the mind like a delightful dream like the sultry version of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" and the breathtakingly sensitive "Fragile" written by Sting.

Brian Wilson, 'Smile'

For the songwriter

in us all

Paul Brill, 'Pagan Love Song'

This time around, Brill mixes the world of electronica created from a solo experiment of sorts with his always-intriguing band to create a very calm and practically indistinguishable atmosphere between sound machines and live instrumentation. As always, his lyrics are ones you think about hours after you've listened to the album just like his last work "Sisters.'

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, 'The Delivery Man'

The Cure, 'The Cure'

Ani DeFranco, 'Educated Guess'

Steve Earle, 'The Revolution Starts Now'

Finn Brothers, 'Everyone is Here'

Griffin House, 'Lost And Found'

Mason Jennings, 'Use Your Voice'

The singer/songwriter's work is what one might consider a throwback to a simpler time when musicians used to record albums in a matter of days or weeks without the use of computers or overdubs. The 28-year-old wanted to record a raw and intimate experience for the listener. The work was partially inspired from his love for Morrison and Dylan, along with another favorite by famed jazz singer Nina Simone recorded in 1969 called "Nina Simone and Piano!"

Tom McRae, 'Just Like Blood'

This latest work is even darker and more romantic than its predecessor, and serves as a musical testament to his exploration into a more expansive sound and style. He explores his affinity for themes stemming from displacement and unhappiness based on the yearning of escape.

David Mead, 'Indiana'

One of my favorites of this year.

Phish, 'Undermind'

REM, 'Around the Sun'

The title track is inspired by Galileo and Copernicus, and comes with the enticing ballad "Leaving New York," the silvery "Boy in the Well" and the musical response to the war in Iraq called "Final Straw." What more could a left-wing liberal want?

Ron Sexsmith, 'Retriever'

His best work to date that was recorded in London during a heat wave in which much of Ed Harcourt's excellent piano playing was recorded while in his underwear. Sexsmith's lyrical content ranges from his admission of sympathetic tendencies for someone who is usually to blame in a situation (I feel for the driver/In the aftermath/Of a child who chased a ball/Across his path) on "For the Driver" to his musical journal of sorts about finding love again in songs like "Happiness" and "Tomorrow in her Eyes."

Elliott Smith, 'From a Basement on the Hill'

Assembled after the 34-year-old's death, the album features 15 new songs.

Patti Smith, 'Trampin'

Sonic Youth, 'Sonic Nurse'

Steel Pulse, 'African Holocaust'

Toots & The Maytals, 'True Love'

Tom Waits, 'Real Gone'

Wilco, 'A Ghost Is Born'

Keller Williams, 'Home'

After listening to this, Williams' life can best be described as simple, genuine and humorous with songs inspired by his love handles, his two dogs and the good old saying, "You are what you eat." The guitar playing ain't bad either.

Albums probably owned by the avid KCRW listener

Air, 'Walkie Talkie'

Aside from Radiohead, the best band at this summer's Coachella Festival.

Bjork, 'Medulla'

The Blue Nile, 'High'

The band's first album in eight years and only fourth in 21 years.

Kasey Chambers, 'Wayward Angel'

Cake, 'Pressure Chief'

Derek Trucks Band, 'Live at Georgia Theater'

DJ Shadow, 'In Tune and On Time'

Drive By Truckers, 'The Dirty South'

Fatboy Slim, 'Palookaville'

Franz Ferdinand, 'Franz Ferdinand'

Interpol, 'Antics'

Iron and Wine, 'Our Endless Numbered Days'

Jem, 'Finally Woken'

Junkie XL, 'Radio JXL'

Ang/lique Kidjo, 'Oyaya!'

Rilo Kiley, 'More Adventurous'

The Killers, 'Hot Fuss'

Kings of Convenience, 'Riot on an Empty Street'

The Libertines, 'The Libertines'

Mocean Worker, 'Enter The MoWo!'

Known as Adam Dorn, the DJ's work comprises 12 songs and spans 49 minutes which was partly inspired by single pieces of vinyl that had an "A" and "B" side. It begins with the work's most rowdy grooves up in front ("A" side) and winds down with its calmer pieces placed at the end ("B" side). Among the dozen tracks, Dorn remixes Simone's heart-wrenching version of "Blackbird" with such sophistication and simplicity as only to augment the song's mood, which exhibits his obvious admiration for one of jazz's greatest singers.

Scissor Sisters, 'Scissor Sisters'

Stereolab, 'Margerine Eclipse'

UNKLE, 'Never Never Land'

Paul Van Dyk, 'Reflections'

Van Hunt, 'Van Hunt'

His new self-titled record is an album that critics are categorizing with the likes of the neo-soul crew - Erykah Badu, India Arie, D'Angelo - with influences like Ray Charles, Sly and the Family Stone, Prince, Al Green and Stevie Wonder.

John Vanderslice, 'Cellar Door'

Charles Webster, 'Remixed on the 24th of July'

Zero7, 'When it Falls'

The British duo, Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, and its freelance group of collaborative singers - including Sia Furler, Sophie Barker and Tina Dico - recently followed up 2001's well-received debut album, "Simple Things," with this sophomore work. It is a bit more on the folk side but still retains the slow- to mid-tempo electronic atmospheric and soulful grooves that have made their songs so popular among mainstream audiences.

A handful of folks known around the world

Ryan Adams, 'Love is Hell'

Green Day, 'American Idiot'

Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, 'There Will Be Light'

Alicia Keys, 'Diary of Alicia Keys'

Jimmy Eat World, 'Futures'

People tend to define the music of this band as either fervent emo-core punk, a modern indie-rock marvel with the kind of noncommercial underground appeal synonymous with Nirvana, or as a modern pop-rock festival of chord-pumping adrenaline surges. Given such disparate impressions, the question of whether Jimmy Eat World dwells in a hallowed punk-rock heaven or a fickle pop-rock hell is endlessly debatable.

Los Lonely Boys, 'Los Lonely Boys'

Maroon 5, 'Songs About Jane'

John Mayer, 'Heavier Things'

Sarah McLachlan, 'Afterglow'

Prince, 'Musicology'

Gwen Stefani, 'Love, Angel, Music, Baby'

U2, 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb'

Usher, 'Confessions'

Velvet Revolver, 'Contraband'

Music you can always dance to

Black Eyed Peas, 'Elephunk'

Cee Lo, 'Cee Lo Green is a Soul Machine'

A former member of the Goodie Mob is at it with this year's work exhibiting his penchant for soul and country roots

De La Soul, 'The Grind Date'

One of this year's best - this trio is so underrated

Eminem, 'Encore'

The legend at it again.

Floetry, 'Floacism Live'

Two gals from England, one of whom flows and the other sings, coming together for a fantastic live show experience.

Jay-Z, 'The Black Album'

Mos Def, 'Sex, Love and Money'

NERD, 'Fly or Die'

The Roots, 'The Tipping Point'

Slum Village, 'Detroit Deli'

Kanye West, 'The College Dropout'

Complicated cats

Chick Corea, 'To The Stars'

Jan Garbarek, 'In Praise of Dreams'

His first new album in six years and features the drumming skills of Manu Katch/ (Peter Gabriel and Sting)

Al Green, 'I Can't Stop'

Charlie Haden, 'The Land Of The Sun'

Roy Hargrove, 'Strength'

Trumpeter Hargrove's album is a homemade patchwork of well-known and emerging artists who sew together their interpretations of soul, blues, rock, gospel, world sounds and freestyle poetry with guests like D'Angelo, rapper Q-Tip flows, Erykah Badu and saxman Karl Denson.

Stefon Harris, 'Evolution'

Harris and his band Blackout - Casey Benjamin on alto saxophone, Marc Cary on keyboards, Darryl Hall on bass and Terreon Gully on drums - transform the face of jazz mostly due in part to the group's wide array of musical influences - Latin, hip-hop, R&B and electronica to name a few - into what they define it as in present day.

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, 'The Out-of-Towners'

Joe Lovano, 'On This Day ...At the Vanguard' and 'I'm All For You'

Lovano is one fine example of a tenor player who has absorbed all of what the jazz of the past has to offer him, all the while remaining focused on honing his own individual style and tone throughout the years.

Charles Lloyd and Billy Higgins, 'Which Way is East'

Wynton Marsalis, 'Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson' and 'The Magic Hour'

Brad Mehldau, 'Live in Tokyo' and 'Anything Goes'

Medeski, Martin and Wood, 'End of the World Party (Just in Case)'

Greg Osby, 'Public'

The work is a recording of the first set of an evening with Osby and a group of like-minded cohorts - among them are trumpeter Nicholas Payton and singer Joan Osborne - at Jazz Standard in New York City. Osby is one who could drive some listeners to the edge of insanity. It's fast, oftentimes chaotic and freely dissonant. However, underneath the technical atmosphere of those wildly flying notes lies something strikingly profound - a rather sensitive man whose musical presence slips past the radar at times and whose emotional range is frequently overwhelming. Osborne sings on the cover "Lover Man" with an intrigue in her voice that maintains a compelling blend of necessity and autonomy. If anything, Osby and company have captured a translation of life onto a recorded live session.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba, 'Paseo'

John Scofield, 'En Route'

Joss Stone, 'Mind, Body and Soul'