Now Playing on Festival Radio
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Frosted Sugar Bombs, My Love is a Fever, and Plowing to the End of the Row
It's not folk music, but it sure is good...
I was lucky enough last week to see Over the Rhine live for the first time in a couple years at a small local club. Man, are they good. The band was tight and they pulled out some chestnuts from the deep vaults, including "Within, Wihtout" from Eve, and "Rhapsodie" from Patience. One of the traditions of an Over the Rhine concert is a new arrangement of "My Love is a Fever" that sounds absolutely nothing like the original - this tour's version was old school funk - brought the house down. Karin Bergquist continues to expand her musical horizons, adding keyboards to rhythn guitar and vocals. Her solo keyboard version of "Ohio" was one of the high points of the show. No Linford vocals this time - I was a little disappointed.
Frosted Sugar Bombs for Everyone!
A little web investigating while listening to radiowayne on Sunday night led me to the fact that Tom Meltzer of the late, lamented 5 Chinese Brothers (I am so pissed off that they broke up before I could see them live!) now has another project, The Frosted Sugar Bombs. Even better - they've posted some mp3s. You might catch one on the Online Festival this week if you're lucky.
Plow to the End of the Row is the name of the new release from Adrienne Young that I just added to the OFF. I knew when I saw Will Kimbrough's name on it as a producer and co-writer on a couple tracks that it would be quality work. This is a really well-done acoustic collection that veers from old-timey to mainstream country. Adrienne Young has a fine voice and writes well. It's Good Stuff.
Michael Johnathon and the FolkBoy Orchestra - Live is another new add. Very strong collection from the host of WoodSongs. Some very nice full-band arrangements, and playing before an audience gives the music an urgency that seems missing from some of his studio work.
I was lucky enough last week to see Over the Rhine live for the first time in a couple years at a small local club. Man, are they good. The band was tight and they pulled out some chestnuts from the deep vaults, including "Within, Wihtout" from Eve, and "Rhapsodie" from Patience. One of the traditions of an Over the Rhine concert is a new arrangement of "My Love is a Fever" that sounds absolutely nothing like the original - this tour's version was old school funk - brought the house down. Karin Bergquist continues to expand her musical horizons, adding keyboards to rhythn guitar and vocals. Her solo keyboard version of "Ohio" was one of the high points of the show. No Linford vocals this time - I was a little disappointed.
Frosted Sugar Bombs for Everyone!
A little web investigating while listening to radiowayne on Sunday night led me to the fact that Tom Meltzer of the late, lamented 5 Chinese Brothers (I am so pissed off that they broke up before I could see them live!) now has another project, The Frosted Sugar Bombs. Even better - they've posted some mp3s. You might catch one on the Online Festival this week if you're lucky.
Plow to the End of the Row is the name of the new release from Adrienne Young that I just added to the OFF. I knew when I saw Will Kimbrough's name on it as a producer and co-writer on a couple tracks that it would be quality work. This is a really well-done acoustic collection that veers from old-timey to mainstream country. Adrienne Young has a fine voice and writes well. It's Good Stuff.
Michael Johnathon and the FolkBoy Orchestra - Live is another new add. Very strong collection from the host of WoodSongs. Some very nice full-band arrangements, and playing before an audience gives the music an urgency that seems missing from some of his studio work.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The Clumsy Lovers and Some New Adds
Was fortunate enough to see Vancouver, BC's The Clumsy Lovers at an outdoor concert Sunday evening. If you can't enjoy The Clumsy Lovers, then you don't have a pulse. They play an engaging blend of bluegrass/folk/rock/Celtic with great skill and efficiency. Both the fiddler and banjo player are of remarkable skill on their instruments.
The most amusing part of the concert was when Andrea, the fiddle player, decided to start tossing shakers made of soda and beer cans to the youngins in front. Pretty soon there was a horde of shaker-crazed youngins rushing the stage, which turned into an impromptu preteen mosh pit, or at least as close as one can get to a mosh pit where preteens and bluegrass are involved. (I say bluegrass, but I am fully aware that since they have a drummer, they are not bluegrass as the purists would have it.)
One of the cool things about this group is that they generally mix a wide variety of contemporary cover tunes in with the traditional and original tunes. This concert's cover surprise was a version of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" with a walking fiddle part. Excellent stuff. Most of the material was drawn from their most recent album, After the Flood, which is their first CD to get wide circulation, as it was recently picked up by Nettwerk (the same label that Sarah McLachlan is on). I saw it the other day at Best Buy, so I'm pleased that it's getting out there.
I've also decided to start blogging new adds to the Online Folk Festival here on the Folk and More blog, so I'll start with tonight's batch of new adds.
New Adds
Steven Spence is a fiddler from the Shetland region of Scotland, and has a local reputation for fiddle excellence and the willingness to compose a tune for a special occasion. He's compiled them on an album entitled, appropriately enough, Spencie's Tunes. This CD is a really fine display of tuneful fiddling. If you dig danceable fiddle tunes, then check this out. I particularly like the wedding waltz tunes.
Eleanor McEvoy has gained more public notice from a song she wrote before her first album came out then for the outstanding work she has done since. Eleanor McEvoy wrote the song "Only a Woman's Heart", which inspired the A Woman's Heart compilation, which spent a year in Ireland's Top Ten in 1992 and is STILL the top selling album in Irish history. She has since put out five really strong albums, which don't seem to have gained the same level of acclaim. Her most recent CD, Early Hours, was just released in the States today. Picked it up at lunch. Early Hours continues the trend started on her previous CD, Yola, towards a more jazz-influenced, less-produced sound. This album, however, has a little more stylistic range than Yola, including a fiddle tune (McEvoy is a classically trained violinist), a couple folk/rock tunes, a slow blues shuffle rendition of Chuck Berry's "Memphis Tennessee", and a traditional tune sung in Gaelic, plus some more conventional piano based pop music. This is good stuff. Too bad it looks like visa problems will keep Eleanor from touring the States soon. Eleanor will be the featured artist on the Online Folk Festival next week.
The Clumsy Lovers, Live: it was the only one of their recent CDs that I didn't have, and I was pleased to pick it up at the concert. High energy raging bluegrass Celtic stomp.
Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch, You Can't Save Everybody is really fine acoustic music from a couple really fine singer/songwriters working together. I predict that this CD will end up on a lot of Americana critics' top 10 lists at year's ends. It features crisp songwriting and playing in sparse acoustic arrangements that let the songs breathe. Particularly fine are the gospel-influenced title track, and the social commentary of "Everybody's Working For The Man Again" lamenting the takeover of small town America by corporate megagiants. The publicity material did not include a release date. It's being co-released by Compass and Dead Reckoning Records, so it should be widely available.
The most amusing part of the concert was when Andrea, the fiddle player, decided to start tossing shakers made of soda and beer cans to the youngins in front. Pretty soon there was a horde of shaker-crazed youngins rushing the stage, which turned into an impromptu preteen mosh pit, or at least as close as one can get to a mosh pit where preteens and bluegrass are involved. (I say bluegrass, but I am fully aware that since they have a drummer, they are not bluegrass as the purists would have it.)
One of the cool things about this group is that they generally mix a wide variety of contemporary cover tunes in with the traditional and original tunes. This concert's cover surprise was a version of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" with a walking fiddle part. Excellent stuff. Most of the material was drawn from their most recent album, After the Flood, which is their first CD to get wide circulation, as it was recently picked up by Nettwerk (the same label that Sarah McLachlan is on). I saw it the other day at Best Buy, so I'm pleased that it's getting out there.
I've also decided to start blogging new adds to the Online Folk Festival here on the Folk and More blog, so I'll start with tonight's batch of new adds.
New Adds
Steven Spence is a fiddler from the Shetland region of Scotland, and has a local reputation for fiddle excellence and the willingness to compose a tune for a special occasion. He's compiled them on an album entitled, appropriately enough, Spencie's Tunes. This CD is a really fine display of tuneful fiddling. If you dig danceable fiddle tunes, then check this out. I particularly like the wedding waltz tunes.
Eleanor McEvoy has gained more public notice from a song she wrote before her first album came out then for the outstanding work she has done since. Eleanor McEvoy wrote the song "Only a Woman's Heart", which inspired the A Woman's Heart compilation, which spent a year in Ireland's Top Ten in 1992 and is STILL the top selling album in Irish history. She has since put out five really strong albums, which don't seem to have gained the same level of acclaim. Her most recent CD, Early Hours, was just released in the States today. Picked it up at lunch. Early Hours continues the trend started on her previous CD, Yola, towards a more jazz-influenced, less-produced sound. This album, however, has a little more stylistic range than Yola, including a fiddle tune (McEvoy is a classically trained violinist), a couple folk/rock tunes, a slow blues shuffle rendition of Chuck Berry's "Memphis Tennessee", and a traditional tune sung in Gaelic, plus some more conventional piano based pop music. This is good stuff. Too bad it looks like visa problems will keep Eleanor from touring the States soon. Eleanor will be the featured artist on the Online Folk Festival next week.
The Clumsy Lovers, Live: it was the only one of their recent CDs that I didn't have, and I was pleased to pick it up at the concert. High energy raging bluegrass Celtic stomp.
Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch, You Can't Save Everybody is really fine acoustic music from a couple really fine singer/songwriters working together. I predict that this CD will end up on a lot of Americana critics' top 10 lists at year's ends. It features crisp songwriting and playing in sparse acoustic arrangements that let the songs breathe. Particularly fine are the gospel-influenced title track, and the social commentary of "Everybody's Working For The Man Again" lamenting the takeover of small town America by corporate megagiants. The publicity material did not include a release date. It's being co-released by Compass and Dead Reckoning Records, so it should be widely available.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Folk Music from the Home Front
The best anti-war CD I've heard recently doesn't contain a single piece of hostile rhetoric. Carol Noonan's Somebody's Darling: Songs of War, Loss, and Remembrance, testifies simply about the effect of war on regular people: the girlfriends and wives left behind and the grief of those who have experienced life changing horrors.
The album is an intriguing mix of originals with a selection of well-thought-out contemporary covers and traditional tunes. Most of the originals have to do with the heartbreak of remembrance of those who will never return home. Particularly effective among the originals are "Emma", a song about starcrossed lovers (he's too poor and she's too young) set in the Civil War period, and "Medal of Mine," the story of a soldier and the two women who loved him.
The covers, both contemporary and traditional, are particularly well-chosen. "Tom Traubert's Blues" by Tom Waits and Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" both blend in seamlessly with traditional tunes like "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier" and "Somebody's Darling".
The last two songs on the album bring it full circle. "In Flanders Fields" is a new setting of the classic poem about the fallen of WWI, tastefully rendered with droning banjo, Hammond organ and Irish whistles, giving it an Irish dirge feel. The album closes with a stunning rendition of "Amazing Grace" with Noonan's voice soaring over simple Hammond organ chords and tasteful pipes that ranks with Judy Collins' famous a capella rendition.
Throughout, the arrangements let the songs breathe and put the focus on Noonan's remarkable voice, one of those voices that makes you stop and say "Who IS that?" Here she sings the songs without ornamentation, tastefully, reverently.
The subtlety of this album is that it deals with the particular by approaching it from the universal. It doesn't talk about this war, it talks about all wars with a very simple message: Good people go and don't come back and they leave empty places of darkness and grief in their place, and if they come back, they come back changed.
I'll let Noonan sum things up with some quotes from the CD insert:"Our country has always been divided about war, but ironically it is the casualties of those wars that unite us. No matter what side you are on, what time in history, or what ocean borders you, the loss is still the same. These songs will make you sad. But these songs will hopefully make you remember...and we need to remember."
"We can start by facing the walls, looking up at the names, and then praying for peace."
Amen.
The album is an intriguing mix of originals with a selection of well-thought-out contemporary covers and traditional tunes. Most of the originals have to do with the heartbreak of remembrance of those who will never return home. Particularly effective among the originals are "Emma", a song about starcrossed lovers (he's too poor and she's too young) set in the Civil War period, and "Medal of Mine," the story of a soldier and the two women who loved him.
The covers, both contemporary and traditional, are particularly well-chosen. "Tom Traubert's Blues" by Tom Waits and Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" both blend in seamlessly with traditional tunes like "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier" and "Somebody's Darling".
The last two songs on the album bring it full circle. "In Flanders Fields" is a new setting of the classic poem about the fallen of WWI, tastefully rendered with droning banjo, Hammond organ and Irish whistles, giving it an Irish dirge feel. The album closes with a stunning rendition of "Amazing Grace" with Noonan's voice soaring over simple Hammond organ chords and tasteful pipes that ranks with Judy Collins' famous a capella rendition.
Throughout, the arrangements let the songs breathe and put the focus on Noonan's remarkable voice, one of those voices that makes you stop and say "Who IS that?" Here she sings the songs without ornamentation, tastefully, reverently.
The subtlety of this album is that it deals with the particular by approaching it from the universal. It doesn't talk about this war, it talks about all wars with a very simple message: Good people go and don't come back and they leave empty places of darkness and grief in their place, and if they come back, they come back changed.
I'll let Noonan sum things up with some quotes from the CD insert:"Our country has always been divided about war, but ironically it is the casualties of those wars that unite us. No matter what side you are on, what time in history, or what ocean borders you, the loss is still the same. These songs will make you sad. But these songs will hopefully make you remember...and we need to remember."
"We can start by facing the walls, looking up at the names, and then praying for peace."
Amen.
