kind of a hoot listening to Tito playing bossa nova on the marimba/vibes such as on Joao Gilberto's "El Pato"

Review: Pearl Jam at Bristow, Virginia (Jiffy Lube Live) May 13, 2010

I think its vox populi by this point- 20 years into their career- that with Pearl Jam you know you're going to get a very solid show every single time. If you don't like their music well they can't do much about that but they're going to take care of business and give you new songs, classics, surprise covers (who else ...will play snippets of George Clinton, the English Beat, a cover of the Dead Boys, toss you a lyric from U2's "Bad" in the middle of one of their bigger hits and end the evening with a fellow Seattle musician's- Hendrix- solo rendition of the star spangled banner on guitar ALL on the same night?), some Eddie Vedder opinions:"If you're a lobbyist why don't you do us all a favor and kill yourself?" (He took it back but..), dedications of songs to sick but recovering children and Sean Penn ("Better Man" for his work in Haiti) etc... All of this within a very unpredictable set list delivered by five consummate professionals-Ament, Gossard, Mcready, Cameron and Vedder- who will give you 100%. No 90 minute show here folks. Nope.. you get 29 songs and if they stopped its cause the promoter turned on the house lights and told them it was time to end it (curfew). Vedder will even throw in a comment about how hard it was for you to get out there and the long drive back you face; a veiled reference to what a nightmare it is getting out to and back from the venue?... This from a band that will arrange deals for fans with local hotels for discount rates while hooking up their sizable fan club with pretty much all the great seats. There's a lot to like with these guys and worse ways to spend a Thursday night. And they didn't even play "Rearview Mirror"! Oh and why was Eddie Vedder wearing a PiL shirt you ask? You silly, cause he was at the 930 Club the night before with the rest of the DC cool kids checking out Johnny Lydon aka Sex Pistol Rotten with Public Image Limited,of course!

The Buzzcocks at the Black Cat (Washington DC) May 11, 2010

The Buzzcocks are one of those bands that I never in a billion years expected to see perform live. Then came word they'd be flying in from across the pond to the Black Cat- a great choice given the club's punk roots and aesthetic (club owner Dante walks the talk)! They'd be playing their first two albums in their entirety plus tacking on a few contemporaneous sides eventually assembled for one of the great Greatest "Hits" out there ("Singles Going Steady"). When you haven't heard anything the band has done in the past 30 years or even looked at a picture much less seen a youtube video you go into it not knowing what to expect. Perhaps you are even a bit worried: can they hack it or is this a "take the money and run" affair?. For me the Buzzcocks are the third greatest punk band (1 & 2 have to go to the Clash and Sex Pistols not in that order) that came out of the UK in the heady days of 1976. They were a bit different from pretty much all the others I've heard (no expert) except perhaps Ireland's Undertones: less political, poppier with lyrics concentrating on being a teenager and growing up. They were from Manchester before Manchester had so much to answer for and Madchester, touring extensively with other local bands like Joy Division... Well of course hearing Pete Shelley who wrote most of the tunes singing Sixteen Again, written and originally sung from the perspective of a 21 year old, as a 50 something -from five feet away- is pretty bizzare. I found myself being able to more fully appreciate the performance- at times earlier in the show- by simply closing my eyes because Pete Shelley Version 2010 looks a bit like that relative thats kind of let himself go, put on some weight, used to wear the cool clothes but now wears something resembling a bad Tommy Hilfinger knockoff from Walmart. A bit into the show as tends to happen in these cases you grow up in a hurry, accept the reality that even rock gods age, forget about such silly things, and join the fiesta which after all is being given in your honor. In any case, that distinctive Shelley voice with its strange pitch and intonation is still quite there. Thankfully next to the water bottle sipping rather staid Shelley we had the other original Buzzcock the frenetic Steven Diggle who did more windmills than Pete Townsend and chugged champagne between songs all the while managing to look about 15 years younger than Shelley! His songs unsurprisingly also tended to more closely resemble the classic anti-establishment English punk ("Autonomy" and my personal favorite "Harmony in my Head" which he rocked all the way to Tibet). This was the tour opener and it was clear Diggle was there to party like a rock star and could you blame him at a sold out tour opener in front of a happy raucous crowd of all ages? One could sense certain tension between Diggle and Shelley (ying and yang) and it really was a case of the true Punker with the Pop songwriter that happened to get going when Punk was the only game that mattered. The originals were complemented by two capable kids (including a Prince Harry look alike on bass) who one hopes are having the time of their lives. Buzzcocks songs are short and sweet and the live performance was no different flying by surprisingly quickly for two and a half albums. The songs compiled on "Singles Going Steady" from the two albums and on the five song encore were the one that got the crowd moving and excited but they were all excellent to some degree and if you didn't particularly care for one it was over pretty soon (no jam out of hell to worry about here). If you closed your eyes you could kind of imagine yourself being at punk show in 1977 but not at the punk show focused on the outside world ("White Riot", "Anarchy in the UK", etc.) with spit flying around you. A punk show more a la Ramones if you will, that is to say focused on the same things and issues that young kids have focused since time began ("Orgasm Addict", "Ever Fallen in Love (with someone you shouldn't have)", etc.). Getting Shelley and Diggle to autograph my LP from the stage as they said goodnight was the icing on the cake for what was a privileged glimpse at a bygone era but by a band still firing on all cylinders and very relevant. No less a band than Green Day has cited them as their biggest influence. 

"New" old Roberto Bolano novel

Bolano's "Third Reich" apparently written in 1989 and discovered amongst his papers after his passing has been published and released today. I've got my copy courtesy of Amazon (issued in Spanish in the US) and am excited to read it!

Toots and the Maytals (live video) at the 930 Club July 22 2009

Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals 7-22-09 at the 930 Club!

Ween @ the Bottle and Cork in Dewey Beach July 17, 2009 "What Deaner was talking about" live video

The Dead Weather (live video) 930 Club July 13 2009 "Cut like a buffalo" (Jack White)

Raul Alfonsin has died

So Raul Alfonsin Argentina's president from 1983-1989 has just died.. His legacy: gross incompetence and complete failure.. He goes down as one of the most pathetic democratically elected president's in Argentina's modern history.. The only one since 1862 that was worse is Fernando de la Rua.. Alfonsin was so pathetic that he had to leave power early amid inflation and riots..Other than lasting a few years in power I'm hard pressed to think of any achievements... Compared to him Carlos Menem, Duhalde and even Nestor Kirchner are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams...

The lesson for Argentina is clear: do not ever elect a member of the UCR party as president.. these people cannot govern.. they talk nice about politics and the value of institutions but they will leave you cleaning up rioted streets and hunting for day old bread...

Thoughts on Alex Rodriguez ESPN interview

its very interesting watching the entire ESPN Gammons/Arod interview.. the press for some reason is only focusing on the first minute but there's another 29 minutes...and there's a lot of interesting things said!....it does seem pretty clear Arod did take stuff and it also seems clear that he's a pretty smart guy and knows how to "talk" and how to say he's sorry..too bad for him no one is even remotely interested in what he has to say.. All the columns and reactions are of the immature "BURN HIM!" variety...his credibility may be shot but if people are really as intersted as these poseur journalists say they are about the game of baseball perhaps they could actually watch the interview.. you can learn a lot not only from what he says but from what he doesn't say....and how he says things...

maradona (argentine soccer great) had a very interesting phrase years ago (he's always coming up with these phrases) "la pelota no se mancha" (ie., "you can't stain the ball" ..Meaning you can't "stain" the sport of soccer no matter what you as an individual may do.. the sport is the sport.....i'm not sure why US sports "journalists" are so bent in trying to turn this into a "baseball is ruined" thing... to me the fact that there was an era where steroid use became more widespread doesn't mean baseball is not a great game.. it doesn't mean that those games we watched weren't enjoyable..it doesn't mean that every home run these guys hit they wouldn't have hit...or even that the summer of 98 wasn't fun!....The fact that records/stats- such an integral part of the game- have been turned on their head is very unfortunate but it is what it is and what was WAS...

I'm not sure why no one is trying to be a bit more positive... its a race to the bottom really.... I mean if we love baseball as much as these journalists say we do then why do we want to act as if the game is now worthless because some players used certain substances...even admitting some players cheated I still don't see why that makes the game a bad game... Life is imperfect.. Many other players have cheated in the past.. Are we forgetting all the amphetamine use or the junkball pitchers using grease or what have you or the corked bats or whatever....Are we to believe no one hit a home run cheating ever before steroids? baseball is not perfect... its this constant need to believe it is that is problematic.. thats why Bouton was so crucified when he pointed out some albeit now considered mild imperfections in his book "Ball Four"

I find sports journalism leaving much to be desired on this issue.. I said so when the witch hunt on Bonds was on and I will say the same thing now... I would welcome players no longer use steroids although i believe developments in terms of masking for testing the use of performance enhancing substances means that its likely people will continue to use these things..its a competitive world and people will do what they feel they need to do to make a living..lets not even talk about genetic engineering... but I don't think its the end of the world.. I could use all the performance enhancing drugs in the world and I wouldn't even make contact with a 90 mph fastball! Why don't journalists focus more on some real solutions like creating a mechanism to fund an independent testing agency financed by a tax on player salaries and team profits or some such? with state of the art testing.. you better believe its going to take money to keep up with masking...and ballplayers knowing baseball means business with respect to testing would provide at least some limited deterrent...

Its also a big fiasco how this whole thing has played out..These results would have been destroyed as they should have been had it not been for the fiasco of the never ending Bonds witch hunt wherein the Feds apparently seized computers with these results and then now someone has released Arods info and not that of the other 103 players... This is pretty low and criminal anyway you look at it!. Lets think for a moment that Arod failed a test when there was a legal agreement- for the good of the game as determined by MLB and the players union- to test players but not reveal the results in order to gain information to see I suppose how to move forward with instituting some sort of testing regime...(negative interpretation: cover up).. Well if a player tested positive and he had no recourse to even appeal its always possible that a mistake could have been made.. I doubt it but what I'm saying is that the player such as Arod was tested under the agreement that the result would not be released and because of this there was no real reason for the player(s) to insist on an examination/appeal/clarification or even an explanation of what had been failed... If you failed and knew there were no consequences would you ask for a report and leave a paper trail about having failed?? would you call and expose yourself to someone perhaps taping the call??.. What happened to Arod is not the same thing as say the guy who won the Tour de France and then had an additional "B" sample tested and then there was an appeal etc... It just seems to me that there are some issues of due process here and I don't really like it...It would seem to me that if you were going to damn an entire ballplayers career and even the entire game of baseball it would take more than that kind of testing...

Joe Harley, Steve Hoffman and the gang at Music Matters

I was over at the Steve Hoffman board and its amazing how dismissively people speak of the job Rudy Van Gelder did in recording the legendary Blue Notes/Impulses etc.. I wrote a response but they do not take kindly to differing opinions so I will just post it on my own blog here:

But the original impulses sound so GOOD!

I guess someday I'll pay $50 for one of these reissues and check it out but I have to say I have many original impulses and they sound- to my ears- simply wonderful....A record like Lorez Alexandria the Great, or Coltrane and Hartman.. those are some of my favorites and I just love the way they sound.. ANd when I read some of the stuff on this thread its almost like "Is there something wrong with my ears?" I mean I have some records that sound horrendous but I would never say that about the Impulses..those were well done jobs IMHO.. Same with Blue Note..Right now I'm listening to Hodges "Creamy" (original Norgran) and it too sounds good to me..

And I guess what people are saying is that they can sound EVEN BETTER and thats cool but there's something to be said- at least for me- about playing the original LP that came out in 1955 and Johnny Hodges himself took a copy of it home. I understand someone like me is not the market audience for these reissues and thats cool.. I appreciate anything that gets more vinyl out there...These classic albums deserve to be reissued forever... I wouldn't call myself a just a collector but more so an "originalist".. I like the classic stuff.. Sometimes stuff was done well the first time around and there's value to be attached to an item/product that still can give one great pleasure 54 years later. Its the real deal to my mind.

Also it would be interesting- because I do read some stuff about Van Gelder - if people think they could have done a better job if they had been in his shoes.. To my mind his contribution to recorded jazz is incredible. He was basically recording - I think- two or three jazz classics a week for a long stretch... Albums that I think its fair to say at least in some small part owe their classic status to the fact that they sound really good... There's a reason people love those Blue Notes and part of it is that they sound darn good. Now a new generation of sound engineers or whatever they are called spend their time reworking Van Gelder's original work and of course they say they are doing it better... But Van Gelder's contribution to the recording of jazz I don't think will ever be even close to touched and it would be nice to see him get a little more recognition instead of having him kind of dismissed as being "clever" in dealing with the rickety limitations of recording technology at the time.. I think he did a great job! Those old Blue Notes sound great. period.

Finally, the endless repetition about how great the Music Matters reissues are and how they blow the originals out of the water seems to me excessive. I mean is there a need to say it in every single thread about jazz LPs?

Live Wire AC DC Tribute band video footage (Jailbreak/Walk All Over You/Have A Drink On Me) January 31 State Theatre Falls Church Virginia

Live Wire AC DC Tribute Band at the State Theatre Falls Church Saturday January 31 2009 photos

Dean Martin- Everybody Loves Somebody & Dean Martin Hits Again

There's something about Dean Martin singing that I find very relaxing...I guess he didn't sweat the small stuff much... Anyways Dean Martin had recorded for Capitol Records and when Sinatra started his Reprise label he jumped ship like many other Sinatra friends (Sammy Davis, Nelson Riddle, Keely Smith, Rosemary Clooney,etc.).. From what I've read he also invested in the company.. Anyways, by 1964 the Rat Pack had probably lost a bit of its Kennedy Era glamour but Dean Martin still had a few tricks up his sleeve like the monster hit single "Everybody Loves Somebody" which in August 1964 took over the top spot on the pop charts from none other than the Beatles "Hard Day's Night"! Prior to this Dean had recorded a couple of great albums that had not sold particularly well although they sure sound great (proof they didn't sell much is the fact that you never find them in the bins while the stuff pictured here is a dime a dozen)... I'm thinking of albums that featured Dean singing country songs or french songs or of course italian songs.. ANyways by this point in 1964 I think Dean hadn't experienced much in the way of hits but that changed with Everybody Loves Somebody which was actually a re-recording of a song he'd originally cut for Capitol Records.. I suppose also that Jimmy Bowen the producer had something to do with developing a sound for Dean that worked on the charts.. After this hit single Dean recorded incredibly prolifically. He cut almost 20 records in the next five years! And you can tell listening to these albums just how relaxed, loose and comfortable these recording sessions were! Legend has it Dean would come in record a few songs and head to the golf course and the entire album would basically be completed in a weekend! Easy-going is what comes to mind when I think of Dean.. I've read many descriptions of him as the King of Cool but I tend to think of him more as easygoing... Shortly after he hit with Everybody Loves Somebody this album was released probably culled together from a few singles etc to capitalize on the situation (on Reprise R-6130) and it charted all the way at number 2 on the album chart... Then a few months later (following another release sandwiched in between and released November 1964) Dean Martin came back with "Dean Martin Hits Again" on Reprise 6146 which featured another hit in a very similar vein to "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You", released February 1965 and which charted at number 13..I mean this was how quickly Dean was cutting albums! By this point producer Jimmy Bowen had found a formula for producing and framing Dean's voice working with Ernie Freeman as arranger/conductor..the formula is described by William Ruhlmann of the All Music Guide as "employing a 4/4 beat, piano triplets, female backup vocals, and swooping string effects to the songs."...Dean would release another three albums in 65 and another FIVE in 1966..Most critics nowadays tend to be fairly dismissive of the albums but to my ears they hold up.. They're not too ambitious and yes they are fairly similar but its a good formula for Dean Martin and helped him lengthen his career until the early 1970s no small feat for someone that had begun performing in the 1940s! I found these two LPs for the taking in front of a record store. Free/Free

Frank Sinatra- Swing Easy and Songs for Young Lovers

Allright SINATRA!!!!!!! Can't get enough of this guy and while he sold a billion records they got play and there are a lot of considerations when buying Sinatra used LPs and trying to get that true first original pressing... For example from what I understand the system used by Capitol Records was such that in the deadwax you can see a stamp that at the end will have a number starting with either a "D" or an "N".. "D" means it was pressed in the West Coast where Capitol Records was based while "N" is not supposed to sound as good... Now the number following the letter tells you something - from what I can tell (this stuff is really discussed much better at the Steve Hoffman Music forum) - about the stampers used with the lowest number- presumably "1" being the original stampers.. Now in the case of this LP which really was a compilation of two separate 10 inch albums that had come out the previous year in 1954- "Songs for Young Lovers" which had kickstarted Sinatra's musical comeback and has been discussed elsewhere on this blog and its follow up "Swing Easy!" both produced by the great Nelson Riddle who was rewriting the book on production/arrangement- and came out in 1955 as catalog number W587 or only six issues behind Sinatra's first actual 12" original LP release which was "In the Wee Small Hours" at W581 (and had has from what I understand a concurrent release as two 10 inch lps and 4 45 eps).. Anyways, the original label is of course the gray label with circular gray line on the label framing the song titles and the word "Long Playing" below it.. Criteria met by this LP as pictured but here's where it gets a bit more interesting: 1) I had never seen a Capitol LP with the sticker (as pictured) on the opening reading "Sealed-In Quality" and on the back "Cut Here with Scissors" and "To Remove Seal, Peel Tape Carefully Start 'Peel'ing from Corner".. I'm not sure what this means? Was this a used copy? I don't believe labels where shrinkwrapping LPs at this time although they may have been bagging them..2) The record itself came in a rice paper sleeve which I believe was present only up to a point relatively soon after this when Capitol Records began using sleeves which would advertise either Capitol Records, other Capitol releases or both and 3) The stampers read "D1" on Side A - i.e., the first and earliest possible numbering and "D3" on Side 2... In other words I believe this copy dates from the initial release run about April 1955.. The label and record looked to be in near mint condition but unfortunately when played it turned out to have some surface noise but them's the breaks.. I don't think I need to say much about the quality of the music itself.. This is about as good as it gets from "I get a kick out of you" perhaps the first Sinatra song I fell in love with- on an 1980s cd reissue of this which proved my introduction to Frank Sinatra- to stone cold classics such as "get Happy" , "All of Me"... I note the presence of many songs that had been also performed by Billie Holiday (i.e., "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter", "My Funny Valentine", "Violets for Your Furs) both before and after Sinatra's version... While it was more common for Sinatra to perform songs that Billie Holiday has first performed its also true, for example on "Violet for your furs" which Billie Holiday performed on what was by her own account her favorite album- the string laden Lady In Satin the final album released in her lifetime- that Billie Holiday as was the case for Dexter Gordon was listening to Frank Sinatra..at least I think so..$10

Solid State Presenting Thad Jones Mel Lewis &"The Jazz Orchestra"

Here's an interesting one...ALthough it should be catalog number Solid State 16003 this was apparently put out by the Capitol Records Record Club as SMAS 90890.. In 1966 producer Sonny Lester (who had been producing for other labels) sets up his own record label with Phil Ramone and calls it Solid State..It was distributed by United Artists which provides the inner sleeve for this recording.. The idea it seems was to record jazz in a high quality audio setting and with deluxe gatefold packaging..Sort of an Enoch Light Command Records except with a little more highbrow jazz music... This release introducing what amounts to a Thad Jones Mel Lewis big band- in an age where big bands were largely not viable (only the Clarke Bolland big band recording in Europe comes to mind) and what a big band it was! First of all there's the great trumpter/flugelhorn player Thad Jones who had been around for a while and recorded a few amazing albums on Blue Note including "The Magnificent Thad Jones" but check out some of these names: On saxophone Jerome Richardson, a very young Joe Farrell, Jerry Dodgion, Eddie Daniels and no less than Pepper Adams, Bob Brookmeyer on the bone, Richard Davis on bass, and on piano the still kicking Hank Jones..The record has a few notes on the technical recording credited to Phil Ramone who was obviously the engineer but is listed as the "Audio Director"..Sonny Lester would go on to put out some great records on Solid State including the more critically acclaimed Mel Lewis Thad Jones Orchestra with Joe Williams LP..In the 1970s Sonny Lester would found another label - Groove Merchant- which specialized in funky music particularly organmeisters like Jimmy Mcgriff and Richard Groove Holmes..Mcgriff recorded on Solid State (i.e., The Worm) too and in fact his "Electric Funk" LP I think was produced for Solid State and I'm not sure why it came out on Blue Note..$1

Mary Wells- Greatest Hits

Mary Wells' "Greatest Hits" on Motown 616.. Mary Wells is the one great Motown artist that got away from the label... From what I've read she was their first big hitmaker and when she turned 21 she left the label for what she assumed would be greener pastures and a nice record advance but I guess you can't replace songwriters like William "Smokey" Robinson or the Holland-Dozier-Holland team.. Truth be told what I find most interesting about this album - and it sounds great much like most of the early Motown mono LPs (this was originally released in 1964)- is that the last song "Bye Bye Baby" I've heard a million times performed by Detroit garage rock revivalists the Detroit Cobras "Life Love Leaving" LP from 2001 which is to this day one of my favorite records.. Anyways on the Cobras LP lead singer Rachael Nagy kicks the living daylights of "Bye Bye Baby"..$1

Don Ellis- Music From Other Galaxies and Planets

Don Ellis, a jazz trumpeter, recorded the first "jazz" version of Theme from Star Wars in the middle of the Star Wars craze that had swept the world on the Atlantic SD 18227 LP from 1977.. According to the All Music Guide's Scott Yanow "This LP is the only complete misfire of Don Ellis' career.... In addition to "Star Wars" and "Princess Leia's Theme" (also from the film), Ellis performs eight rather lightweight originals, all of which were given outer space names to try to capitalize on the movie's success. Ellis' big band has little to do other than play mundane ensembles and take occasional short solos. This is the one Don Ellis record that should be skipped." Enough said. $0.25

The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix

This is an interesting album on RCA CPL1-0667 from 1974 that has always peaked my curiosity.. The story goes that Gil Evans had spoken with Jimi Hendrix about recording an album where Hendrix would play his guitar while Gil Evans would create orchestral arrangements to back him up.. Given Gil Evans' track record for example creating the highly succesful partnerships with Miles Davis (i.e., Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain, etc.) this would have seemed like a very interesting partnership..Its also of note that supposedly Miles Davis himself had been talking with Jimi about working together.. In any case Jimi passed on before either partnership could happen.. Fast forward a few years later and Gil Evans put together an album of orchestral versions of the music of Jimi Hendrix... Its always interesting to hear these adaptations of material one is so familiar with...I note that the arrangements for most of the songs were done by members of the Gil Evans orchestra and not the svengali himself who only arranged "Castles Made of Sand" and "Up From the Skies".. I've never enjoyed Gil Evans' work and find his critically acclaimed work with Miles Davis to be snoozer and this album did nothing to change my opinion... Fun to listen to once or twice and put away..maybe if I were a DJ it would be fun to place this somewhere in the set and wait for people's faces to light up with "I got it!" recognition but thats about it..$5

Jamiroquai- Cosmic Girl Promo 12" inch single

Its hard to remember but there was a time in the mid 1990s where Jamiroquai's brand of environmental hippie acid jazz dance funk was commercially popular and even got the occasional critical props...One of my bigger regrets is having passed on a Jamiroquai show at the intimate 930 club here in Washington DC.. I was essentially at another party and chose to sell my ticket and return to my friends... In retrospect it was a rare opportunity and I should have seized it..Pretty quickly though Jamiroquai, after the ubiquitous cat in the hat videos featuring ferraris and gorgeous models, became very unhip very uncool.. Particularly in the United States for some reason people turned against him and his fans seemed to move on.. In other countries like Argentina though his new single is always to be heard pumping from the local radios and truth be told his music hasn't changed that much in quality or style...Its just that in the US many of his fans it seems to me where more of the jam band Dave Matthews birkenstock wearing variety and they "grew up" and became boring people in the suburbs raising their boring offspring and hardly ever even listening to music anymore.. at least thats the way I see it...This 12 inch single on Sony S2 XPR 3087 may have been a promo only release which helped kickstart along with the more important MTV videos Jamiroquai's conquering of America... The sticker on the cover says the single is provided by the "Compliments of Promotion Lift The Promotion Alternative" from New York City..Wonder if they are still around?... I like the Classic Mix remix version on this...$1