A Saturday on the Rhine

Here is an article I wrote on the band Over the Rhine a couple of years back...

(click on the picture below)

Album Review: T-Model Ford

T-Model Ford
The Ladies Man
[Alive Natural Sound]

Some people in this world sing about the blues, and other people actually sing the blues. T-Model Ford is neither…he is the blues. And on his latest album, The Ladies Man, the 90 year old Ford (who didn’t learn guitar until he was 58, and didn’t release his debut album until 77), tells the stories that brought him to sing the blues.

What’s there to say about a blues album this good? It’s authentic…it’s stylized…it’s beautiful. But it doesn’t break any new ground, as well it shouldn’t. And this is less a batch of whole new material, and more a stripped down collection of old standards. But when you have an artist as genuine as T-Model Ford – growth can’t be tracked in musical measure as much as in his own self-realization. And on The Ladies Man, he seems to be reaching ephemeral plateau of swamp that made him the blues singer that he is.

He obviously knows that he’s not just a cliché, but rather he is the man they based the cliché on.

The album is mostly acoustic, mostly just Ford pickin’ away and telling stories of a life spent plowing fields, working sawmills, and driving trucks. Recorded in one three hour session, with no overdubbing and minimal mixing – Ford bounces between music, spoken word tales, and banter with people in the studio lucky enough to witness the sessions. Hearing him tell tales of another time, how he doesn’t know his actual birth date on account of his wallet and his passport being stolen by two different women, is fascinating to those of us who come from a very well documented age.

His stripped down take on old classics like “44 Blues”, “Sallie Mae”, and “Hip Shaking Woman” exist to remind us that the blues aren’t dead; its body is just being ravaged by fakers.

My MOKB Interview with Backard Tire Fire

If you would like to read the interview I did with Backyard Tire Fire for My Old Kentucky Blog, click on picture below...

Album Review: Spoon

Spoon
Transference
[Merge Records]

I’m not exactly sure why, but there is something about Spoon that makes it hard for them to stay in our consciousness. But when they put out a new album we all remember how much we love them, and three months later they return to the abyss from which they came; until Britt Daniel and co. reemerge later a new record. And as with 2005’s Gimme Fiction and 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Transference is just another notch on Spoon’s storied musical bedpost.

Every note of Transference is raw and urgent, constantly exorcising demons that swirl from the band’s ever-maturing musical landscape. The arrangements are a jumble of influences that shake out with no self-indulgence or over-importance – kinda like a late 70’s Tom Waits album.

The pounding rhythm and Britt’s snotty vocals make “Written in Reverse” an endearing love song for the emotionally detached generation to which he sings and of which he belongs. It’s as if Spoon is slowly evolving into the Velvet Underground of a disenfranchised era that’s been ravaged by divorce and armed only with iPods. Musically “Trouble Comes Running” is so caustic it leaves you confused, but the lyrics are so poignant and direct you never get lost in the confusion. While a ballad like “Goodnight Laura” proves that Spoon doesn’t have to push boundaries to remain relevant, and that simplicity is best when called for. And “Got Nuffin” rolls and builds to an unexpectedly subtle crescendo, reminding us of Britt’s unstated promise that he has everything under control.

And the final song on Transference, “Nobody Get Me But You” seems to be a secret handshake between the depressed, down-hearted, and disenfranchised.

Throughout the album Britt’s scratchy guitar lines and Eric Harvey’s keyboard bounce off drummer Jim Eno’s percussion like a basketball off a gym floor. The rest of the record, smeared with echoing harmonies and tense lyrics, reestablishes Spoon as the most enduring, creative force in independent music.

Barenaked Ladies @ Hard Rock Cafe

Barenaked Ladies

2/24/10 Hard Rock Café

Louisville, KY

I wasn’t sure what I was walking into when I showed-up for the acoustic mini-set BNL were doing last night, but to be honest I was very surprised. Still being leery since the departure of singer Steven Page last year, I must admit that the Ladies have far exceeded even my most cynical expectations. How can you not wonder what a band will do without one of its two defining voices?

The band bantered back-and-fourth on stage, in the irreverent way they’re notorious for as they rattled off some of their more beloved songs like “Testing 1,2,3” from 2003’s Everything to Everyone; and “Pinch Me” from 2000’s Maroon. The highlight was the acoustic re-imagining of the band’s notoriously scattered 1998 hit “One Week”. The band also debuted a couple of songs from their upcoming album All in Good Time, which will be released March 30^th. The new songs seem to take on a more introspective, if not a little darker tone than what the Canadian quartet usually puts out. And of course the set had an even more jovial, being in such an intimate setting.

It did feel a little remiss to have the guys on stage with acoustic guitars and to not hear some of their songs that lend themselves to such a medium perfectly. “Brian Wilson” or “If I Had $1,000,000” would have made the set spectacular – and it would answered the question for the last time…Steven who?

***BREAKING NEWS*** The Toxic Twins, Together Again

I think we need to celebrate the fact that Steven Tyler rejoined Aerosmith tonight! Because I'm sure a Steven Tyler solo album would have just been the most amazing piece of amazing ever - and Aerosmith fronted by Billy Idol would have been a rock fusion for the ages. Our grandchildren would have said, "Aerosmith was good for the first forty years...BUT it wasn't until Billy Idol joined the band that they embarked on an all new creative renaissance that the world has yet to paralleld." We must now kiss goodbye the career glory(hole) that might've been.

Read the whole story on Yahoo News, here...

Live Review: Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore @ Ear X-Tacy

Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore
2/16/10, Ear X-Tacy Records (in-store performance)
Louisville, KY

Dear Companion is an album that exists as a sum greater than its considerable parts. Both Moore’s and Sollee’s debut solo albums were critically acclaimed on their own – but now both artists follow-up my merging their musical powers. And to send this release into greater orgasmic overdrive – is the fact that it is produced by the musical virtuoso behind My Morning Jacket, Jim James. There are already hundreds of reviews for Dear Companion all over the internet that will tell you how good this album is (including one I wrote for My Old Kentucky Blog, here).

After and impassioned introduction from Ear X-Tacy owner John Timmons, Sollee and Moore took the floor somewhere between the Alt. Country and Jazz sections.

The question has been how will the collaboration work live? The answer is beautifully. During their abbreviated set, in the hardly optimal acoustics of a record store, Sollee and Martin worked their way through over half of the album – with a passion and intensity that can be rivaled by few. There’s a raw quality to the voices of both men, this allows them to resonate on record and haunt in person. There is a caustic feeling to Sollee’s cello that challenges the whimsical sound of a studio and makes every note seem more urgent.

Drummer Dan Dorff, who toured with Stomp in a past life, brought fun to the set when he dusted off his stompin’ shoes for the percussion on the album’s title track, through hand claps and foot taps. And the way their voices caress “My Wealth Comes to Me”, a song which is already the most heartbreaking on the album, is a quiet reminder that we are all victims of our own optimistic sacrifice.

EMI Sobers up...

EMI tested the waters last week to see if they could get by with closing down the Wailing Wall of music geeks...Abbey Road Studios.

Needless to say - everyone was outraged. While sympathetic to EMI's finacial plight, the demise of Abbey Road seemed a bit reactionary and insanely extreme.

Apparently, however, Yahoo News is reporting this morning that in the face of public outrage, EMI has reconsidered.

Read the whole story here.