Being a weeklie podcaste from Madison, Wisconsin featuring several remarkable curiosities therein occurring being a compendium of live music from divers artistes
Follow DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Skrillex, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music. From the classical perfection of the Berklee Symphony Orchestra to the bayou jams of New Orleans jazz, our five distinctive DJs collaborate with some of today’s biggest musicians to discover how our musical past is influencing the future.
Skrillex meets Robbie Krieger of The Doors while Pretty Lights plies his trade with Ralph Stanley. Sounds interesting.
It’ll be playing here in Madison for one night only on 16 February at Eastgate and Point Cinemas.
An old but interesting article from the Houston Press called “Companions Unobtrusive” noting how Rush has a fair number of black fans. It starts off amusingly.
The evening was approaching midnight, and the music of many a Dirty South rapper had ridden the airwaves during the past two hours. Then, suddenly, a rock song found its way onto this show’s playlist.
“What is that?” one girl asked the other as the tune blasted out of the overhead speakers. And she didn’t sound intrigued — nope, she sounded pissed that a hard-rock tune was taking up radio time that another crunk Lil’ Jon joint could’ve easily filled.
A guy who was also in the lobby, let’s call him, um, me, went into the booth to ask who and what the hell was playing.
“Rush,” said the DJ working the turntables. ” ‘Tom Sawyer.’ ”
“Tom Sawyer”? Rush? On a rap show?
“I usually start off my mixes with that,” the DJ said.
And that is how my search for black people who like Rush began.
I heard this on All Songs Considered and thought it was a hoot. Mitchmatic is from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and this song is about trying to woo a young lady. It’s like the Bewtiched theme with a beat.
I try to start every new year here with a Genesis show. In 2012 the first show that I’ll post features the music of Genesis but not the band itself. Instead I’m going with a fine show that I recently got a hold of by Rewiring Genesis.
Rewiring Genesis is the brainchild of Nick D’Virgilio and Mark Hornsby. D’Virgilio was the long-time drummer for Spock’s Beard and shared duties behind the kit with Nir Zidkyahu for Genesis’ last album Calling All Stations. Unfortunately, I can’t find much out about Hornsby. In 2008 they recorded A Tribute to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Enlisted for the occasion were several Nashville session players. I’ve not yet heard the album but, if this show is any indication, the song structures were left more or less intact. However, the tunes were given a pretty thorough make-over with lots of different instruments that Genesis probably never thought of using. No Mellotrons here. In their stead we have strings, brass, accordion, banjo, et al. Plus a couple ladies came in and did background vocals ala Pink Floyd. (They absolutely kick ass on “Grand Parade”.)
I love how D’Virgilio and Hornsby have recast classic prog. The horns accentuate the snippet of The Drifters that ends the title track; accordion does the “Pharaohs going down the Nile” honors on “Fly on a Windshield”; “In the Cage” features sax taking over for guitar while the accordion and the rest of the brass do Tony Banks’ solos. This is great stuff and it just sounds like everyone was having fun.
This recording is of a show from 4 January 2009 at The Basement in Nashville. I don’t know how many times RG played live but it seems that this is the lone performance they gave as all the phots and YouTube videos I’ve seen come from it. D’Virgilio manned the drums on the album but he bring in Steve Ebe on this occasion. Aside from him and Randy Diego, everyone was involved with recording A Tribute…
Line-Up
Vocals: Nick D’Virgilio
Drums: Steve Ebe
Guitar: Don Carr
Keyboards/Accordian: Jeff Taylor
Backing Vocals: Kat Bowser
Backing Vocals: Carolyn Martin
Trombone: John Hinchey
Trumpet: Steve Patrick
Sax/Flute/Clarinet: Sam Levine
Baritone Sax: Doug Moffet
Sax/Bass Flute/Accordian: Randy Diego
Setlist:
MC Introduction
Nick’s greeting
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Fly On A Windshield
Broadway Melody Of 1974
Cuckoo Cocoon
In The Cage
The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging
Nick’s Recap
Back In N.Y.C.
Hairless Heart
Counting Out Time
The Carpet Crawlers
The Chamber Of 32 Doors
Nick Recaps again and explains skipping a few songs at this point
Here Comes The Supernatural Anaesthetist
Pause for Drummer Exchange
The Lamia
The Colony Of Slippermen (Arrival – A Visit To The Doktor – Raven)
In The Rapids
It
Like Gil Scott-Heron, I know little about Captain Beefheart. I have certainly listened to some of his music and know of his association with Frank Zappa and that Trout Mask Replica is generally considered his masterpiece but that’s about it. This being the case, I’ll quote some of the recollections from this evening that came with the recording.
Steve: Opening act was a guy with 4-5 real monkeys at one point riding bicycles seated on their heads peddling with their feet. Was the Captain trying to set the mood?
Milton Moore: The curtain rose at the Fenway Theater to reveal a most astonishing event. The marquee out front billed Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, but onstage, amid the array of equipment, stood one lone magician, bassist Rockette Morton (Mark Boston), clad in bright orange with a panama hat and an amazing moustache. He dipped low, pointed his bass menacingly at the audience, and began to swing. Rockette sailed into a free flowing, melodic bass solo, not the farting, one-note syncopations that a rock bassist would perform, but full chords, falling into each other in a delicate cascade. He swayed and played and danced around the stage for a full five minutes before ending casually, as if he had scarcely noticed he had been playing at all. The audience, to a man, was mystified.
Only a few months after this concert Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band would be supporting Jethro Tull on their east coast tour of the States. Those must have been some crazy, fantastic nights.
This was recorded at the Fenway Theatre in Boston on 22 January 1972. Here’s the line-up that my show notes have although the webpage where I grabbed the above photo indicates that Roy Estrada was not yet with the band at this point.
Taper’s Intro
Hair Pie: Bake III
When It Blows Its Stacks
Japan In A Dishpan
Click Clack
Grow Fins
I’m Gonna Booglarize You Baby
Old Black Snake
Peon
Abba Zaba
Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop
Alice In Blunderland
Spitball Scalped A Baby
Gil Scott-Heron died this past spring. Most people know him for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” but his oeuvre is much larger than that single song. Honestly, I didn’t know much of his music beyond “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” until his death when I heard more of his work in podcast tributes to him.
And so I’m no expert on the man or his music. What I have gleaned from obits by Greg Kot and others was that Scott-Heron’s career got sidetracked in the 1980s when he developed a drug addiction. Still, he had released 13 albums prior to drugs getting the better of his recording career and his socially conscious mix of jazz, soul, African & Latin American music, and poetry influenced many rappers and hip-hop artists.
This is a nice performance of Gil Scott-Heron’s Midnight Band from Berkeley, California on 16 January 1978. It’s probably a soundboard recording.
Line-up:
Gil Scott-Heron (Vocals, Guitar, and possibly Piano)
Brian Jackson (Keyboards, Flute)
Alan Barnes (Saxophone, Synthesizer)
Delbert Tailor (Piano, Trumpet, Congas, Flugelhorn, Vocals)
Barnett Williams (Congas, Percussion)
Sigi Dillard (Bass)
Reggi Brisbane (Drums)
Setlist:
Intro
Gil’s Opening Speech
“The Spirit of the Drum”
Hello Sunday, Hello Road
95-South (All of the Places We’ve Been)
Racetrack in France
We Almost Lost Detroit
Home is Where the Hatred Is (cut/fade out)
Song of the Wind (aka Blow Wind Blow)
Band Introductions > The Bottle
Johannesburg
Blues guitar legend Hubert Sumlin passed away earlier this month at the age of 80. Although he was born and raised in the South, he moved to Chicago in 1954 to join Howlin’ Wolf’s band where he became a fixture of the Chicago blues scene. While he defected to the Muddy Waters camp for a short time, he earned his reputation by playing on some of the Wolf’s best known songs.
I had the pleasure of seeing Sumlin in 1996 at Summerfest in Milwaukee. (At least I think it was 1996.) If memory serves, it was in the Sprecher tent which means my buddy Kias and I drank great beer while seeing a fantastic show. It was truly something else to be standing so close to a legend. This was the guy who played on “Killing Floor”!
I found a nice soundboard recording for this show. Here Sumlin is surrounded by Norwegians at Famous Dave’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Butanes, a Twin Cities outfit, backed him up. The notes I got with the show indicate it was from 9 July 2002 but the source for the picture above dates it 7 September 2002. Somebody got their 7 and 9 transposed somewhere along the line.
The Butanes played on their own for some of that night and I’ve edited things so that we get Sumlin’s second set.
Setlist:
Hubert intro / Hubert’s Swing
Howlin’ For My Darling
This Is It
Jelly Roll
Improvisational blues / talk about 9-11
Have You Ever Loved A Woman?
Sometimes I Play the Blues
I Did What I Could
Things I Got
How Many More Years
I Didn’t Know
“Killing Floor” from April 2002. This is from the Natu Blues Festival which, as near as I can tell, takes place in Brazil. The André Christovam Trio is the backing band.
