Catchin' Up. Part II

Trombone Shorty- 4.0
This is not an official cd, but since it’s a “wild card”- why not. I downloaded it off of the internet and is a live recording from the 2011 Newport Jazz Festival. He’s only 25 yrs old but already has 9 cd’s to his credit. He also plays trumpet and drums. Talented dude. Shorty calls his music “supafunkrock”. Ok. I’ll go along with that. You can just feel the energy of this serious funk workout- just try and sit still. I know I can’t. This was a great show. I love everything about it- the honking baritone sax, funky basslines, distorted electric guitars, incendiary trombone, percussion, and organ.

Dennis Coffey- 3.5
Keep the funk going! And where has Dennis Coffey been my whole life? Had no idea. But I like it. The guy is 70 and can still rip it. Great balance between funk and psychedelic rock and some pretty good guest appearances make this one a fun listen.

Beth Hart and Joe B.- 3.5
Beth Hart has a great set of pipes and Joe Bonamassa can play the hell out of a guitar. So- what’s not to like here? This is a blues record that pays homage to the greats that made these songs famous. Loved the inclusion of Tom Waits jazz/soul classic Chocolate Jesus and the upbeat rockabilly of Delaney Bramlett’s Well, Well. Great cd.

Jayhawks- 5.0
This one is on my top 10 desert island list. Nuff said.

Queen- 4.0
I think this is the most fun Queen album. Right from the opening track their campiness shows thru. Brian May is truly great throughout and what can you say about Freddie Mercury. Geniuses both.

Warren Zevon
A great songwriter with more than his fair share of demons. Nice set of tunes that certainly showcased that wry, cynical, and often irreverent sense of Zevon style.

Catchin' Up

Ladyhawk- 3.0
Channeling a lot of my favorites here. Son Volt, Replacements, Dinosaur Jr. Lots of fuzzy distorted guitar work combined with some lazy vocals give the album a nice bluesy grunge rock feel. Although a few tracks had too much of a melancholy overtone for my liking. All in all a solid record.

The A’s- 4.0
Any guitarist who has played with/for Roger Waters is Aces in my book. Way to go Rick DiFonzo. This has got to be an Alan selection- great rock band from Philly. I love this stuff. Still sounds relevant today- can’t believe it was released in 1979. Lots of catchy hooks with a great power pop/new wave vibe to the whole thing. And a sense of humor to boot. A fun, energetic record for sure.

Keith TOTP- 4.0
Who would have thought it? My first impression- right from the picture on the front cover to the over the top name of the entire cd- F*ck You! I’m Keith Top of the Pops by Keith Top of the Pops & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band- left me thinking that I was going to hate this. What a surprise to find songs like Two of the Beatles Are Dead, I Hate Your Band, and What’s On Your Mind. This is good music- solid, likable indie tunes that are catchy, honest, and clever. I liked it more with each listen and Try Your Best is a great outro to a really good cd.

Sleeping In The Aviary- 4.0
I thought I was listening to Dr Dog when I heard the title track. And you know I love Dr Dog. I’m a big fan of straight forward indie pop rock- catchy, melodic hooks with solid lyrics to keep it all interesting. And being an old guy, I really liked the nod to the 50’s and 60’s. On first listen I thought too much do-wop and sha-la-la, but subsequent listens proved to be more satisfying. They took something old and made it their own. Nice.

Hayes Carll- 3.5
What a good month for DNY music. Hayes Carll plays what I call Country music- honky tonk, twangy irreverence. This is Texas country music. Not that over-produced crap that comes out of music row. Honest music. John Prine meets Merle Haggard music. And a great duet with Carey Ann Hearst to boot. Good stuff.

Question:
Right now my fav artist is Wilco. Now mind you- I like every thing they’ve ever done- a lot!! So if I have to pick a favorite cd I guess any cd from Summerteeth to Sky Blue Sky would be my favorite. I can’t pick one, sorry. They are all incredibly good. Least fav, but still great would be AM.
Part 2- the swap- Shouldn't Be Ashamed off of AM swaped with Reservations off of Yankee Hotel

Send lawyers, guns and money....

Beth Hart –Good, but frustrating.  There are some great moments on this, notably the Waits cover and the first 6 minutes of “I’d Rather Go Blind”.  Conversely, there were a couple of tracks where I thought Hart overdid the vocal hysterics to the detriment of the song.  Its pretty clear she’s got a hell of a voice in the first few minutes, she didn’t have to keep going out of her way to prove it.  Guitar work is top-notch.  Should have been about 15 minutes shorter. 3.5 stars

Dennis Coffey – Coffey is a talented guitarist, and a couple of these songs settle into some nice funky grooves, notably “7^th Galaxy” and “Ubiquitous”.  The issue I had with this one was the over-production and the vocals at times.  “Knockabout” is a perfect example, it gets started with some nice soul guitar and all of the sudden the extraneous vocals pop in, and completely overpower Coffey and the beautiful Hammond B-3.  In short, good Coffey but too much sweetener.  3 stars

Jayhawks – Man, the first couple of Jayhawks albums are great.  Fantastic vocals delivering sharply written songs that just jump out of the speakers.  The lineup changes and on again/off again state of the band has resulted in a wildly inconsistent recent past, but this one is a classic.  Short and sweet, comfortable groove throughout, and not many bands can match their harmony singing.  4 stars

Trombone Shorty – Good stuff that would no doubt sound better live and with a few beers in me.  So many influences here, the R&B, the Nawlins street march beat, etc, but there’s more than a touch of James Brown and Prince in here as well.  Incredibly tight band that seems to stop and turn on a dime.  Could have done without some of the vocals, but overall, I dug this one.  3.5 stars

Queen – I’ve come to re-appreciate these guys over the last few years.  While “Jazz” isn’t their strongest batch of songs, it’s their most versatile.  The Middle-Eastern influence of“Mustapha”, the dance rock of “Fun It”, and the ballads that the band seemed to be able to turn out unconsciously.  Of course, the strength of Queen is May’s guitar work, and he delivers in spades.  Holds up very well, save for the 2 singles, which through no fault of the band have been beaten into the ground by unimaginative classic rock programmers.  4 stars

Warren Zevon – It bothers me that he’s best known for his novelty hit, which was deliberately left off.  Zevon was a tremendous writer whose songs transition seamlessly from shamelessly romantic to biting irony to Hunter S Thompson-esque flights of fantasy.  Musically, he mostly reflects that 70’s laid-back California sound, evidenced by the presence of Henley, Browne, Ronstadt, etc on much of his early output.   That said, he was not afraid to throw in a full orchestra or the occasional guitar shredding.  One of my all-time favorites, who was gone much too soon.

KB's Real Bad Day Reviews.......YO!

November 2011

Trombone Shorty- Live

Rock-funk-Jazz and good rock-funk-jazz. Elements of Chicago/Prince/JB Horns with energy to spare. Great heavy guitar/bass, horn riffs and funked up solos. Vocals could be nixed because I didn't think they added anything and actually slowed down the performance. Still a (4)

Dennis Coffey- S/T

Who says a 70 year white man can't funk it up. This former Funk Brother can still bring it both in his guitar prowess and his Detroit grooved, hard driving arrangements. The more I listened the more I liked. Take the time to look up his catalogue with the Funk Brothers and by himself- he's played on countless, awesome tracks.  (4)

Queen - Jazz

One of my favorite Queen albums but for me it's still second to News to the World.  Jazz has great songs across many genre's truly showcasing Mercury's vocal depth and range. There's rock, metal, slight country, ballroom, pop you name it and it's all done pretty darn well. "Fun It", "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and "More of that Jazz" don't hold up  but it doesn't completely derail Jazz. (3.5)

Jayhawks- Hollywood Town Hall

IMHO the best Jayhawks album but I find their Americana sound fairly forgettable. "Waiting for the Sun" and "Take Me With You (When You Go)" are great songs but many of the others blend together with the same structure and similar melody. Individually the songs are fine and work perfectly on shuffle, but strung together they get mundane. (2.5)

Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa- Don't Explain

Hart's voice conjures up the devil if ever a voice could and Bonamassa's guitar is just as evil. Want to get fucked up on a sweaty summer night- this is what you listen to. Their performances range from in your face American blues to sweet and mournful blues. The pacing on the disc felt weighted too slow from mid-point on. A little better mix of tempo I think would have helped greatly.  (3.0)

Warren Zevon- I think he is totally underrated and deserves much more respect than lesser songwriters who do.

Rusty Trombone and All That Jazz (Funk)...

Jayhawks – “Hollywood Town Hall”

Solid alt-country effort from these guys…definitely stands up to the past 10 years or so…not a lot to say about it other than I really enjoy a no-frills, guitar-bass-drum sound with smart lyrics and genuine vocals and this is the whole package. 4

Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa – “Don’t Explain”

OK, so this CD was touted as being an inspired work of some great blues and soul classics, and as far as the song choices go, they are some great blues and soul classics, but I didn’t find it terribly inspiring. I liked “I Would Rather Go Blind”, but other than that, it was just a good female voice and a technically proficient guitarist trying too hard to pretend to have soul. 2 ½.

Trombone Shorty

This was a pleasant surprise, though I couldn’t find out when this was recorded or released. It’s not 2004-2008 N.O. Jazz Festival stuff, but whenever it’s from, it’s pretty cool. This has great musicianship, nice arrangements and an awesome lead guitar player to keep it interesting. I didn’t know anything about him, so it interested me to find out that he was played on Lenny Kravitz’s tours and that he’s been out there since 2004 as a 17 year old player. Someone has to tell me where that riff from “Suburbia” came from…it’s making me crazy. Anyway… 3 ½.

Dennis Coffey - Dennis Coffey

It can be either be very cool or very sad when a 70 year old tries to mount a musical comeback…this fits into the “cool” category, although between this CD and Trombone Shorty, that’s more wah-wah guitar than I’ve heard in a month since I cut high school classes in June of 1975 to go see porn movies. Anyway, I was more of a fan of the vocal tracks than the jams, and “Somebody’s Been Sleeping” was a top 40 tune when I was a kid, so it was fun to hear that again. All in all, not something I’d listen to repeatedly, but definitely worth the 39 minutes. 3

Queen – Jazz

I’m a Queen fan, so I was familiar with this CD. I haven’t listened to it in its entirety for many years, so it was a “fresh listen”. I had forgotten both how much this CD rocked, though I also had forgotten how I didn’t enjoy “Mustapha” as much as I did enjoy “Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race” For me, it’s not as great as “A Night at the Opera”, “A Day at the Races” or “News of the World”, but it’s very good Queen, none the less. 4.


Warren Zevon – GH

I have always liked his music and his performances…I didn’t have many of these tracks so it was great to get this compilation. . I also enjoyed the sequencing of these tracks, but felt that by definition of “Greatest Hits” that it should have had “Werewolves of London” on it…the only other track I would have expected was “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”, but knowing his story made “Keep Me In Your Heart” the perfect closing track to this CD. Thanks, Mike.


Topic – Whose i-Pod is that anyway?...

Proclaiming “Jazz Sucks” (Except for Queen’s “Jazz”) Does Not Make Me a Racist!

The Mong / Music Group Commentary / October/November 2011

Dennis Coffey – Self Titled = 2 Stars
Anachronism is an understatement here. In short, whatever. Next.

Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa – “Don’t Explain” = 2.5 Stars
To me, the only thing worse than actual Jazz/Blues is “Commercial Jazz/Blues” destined for a Starbucks Coffee featured music selection of the week. Is “Don’t Explain” tight and well-produced? Yup. Is everyone involved a monster musician? Undeniably. Is it listenable? Sure. Is it relevant? As relevant as Sting’s solo albums, I suppose. Does my opinion on this matter? No, not really, because this album does exactly what it sets out to do. ...I’m just not its intended audience.

The Jayhawks – “Hollywood Town Hall” = 3 Stars
Sadly, the great songs here are easy to miss because so much of the tunes sound the same and there are easily no less than five too many tracks on this album.
[And come to find out at the meeting that this has five bonus tracks so go figure.]

Queen – “Jazz” = 4 Stars
Although not my favorite Queen album (which is “News of the World”), this is still a nearly-perfect album. I think D’Arcey is trying to “Mongillo” his way into the top-ten with this one; I only wish I thought of it first.

Trombone Shorty – Live Somewhere that I’m Glad I Wasn’t = 0 Stars
You’d think an artist named “Trombone Shorty” would know enough to have the horn section tuned-up with the rest of the band before walking out on stage! Oh...it’s Jazz (Jazz-ish, anyway)...so I must be too white to appreciate dissonant chord structures. No, wait, it’s not me: these assholes just aren’t in tune...for the whole fucking recording! This is a fact; not my opinion. WTF?!?!

G’Hits – Warren Zevon
I want to like Warren Zevon more than I do but I don’t. Always interesting to listen to (specifically because his lyrics are usually great) but I probably won’t be revisiting this stuff anytime soon.

October's Late Brilliance

Sleeping in the Aviary
- Another winner from these guys. Better than anything they have done
previously. The uptempo stuff sounds better at first listen, but the slower songs, which tend to border on the uncomfortable sometimes, sound great as listens increase. An album full of non-stop winners that project both a musical and lyrical power that most bands can’t come close to
achieving. 4.5
Keith Top of the Pops - Hard to tell how much of the back story is
real. No rehearsing, no soundchecks
before gigs, a different line-up for every gig, etc., but the resulting album
certainly plays the part well.
Disheveled, unorganized and occasionally brilliant, it sure sounds like
an album put together by the kind of irreverent nut-job nut that Keith TOTP appears
to be. One of the brilliant things he
accomplishes is showing obvious reverence for his heroes, but at the same time
not taking that reverence seriously. 4.0
Hayes Caril - Too country for some of you jamokes I’m
sure,, but this is a great record with just enough twang, just enough humor and
just enough heart to make it a consistently great listen. What separates this from a lot of similar
sounding country is that it is so authentic.
And there is a sweetness to it that belies his reputation as a
songwriter who prefers to project an image of an unapologetic drunk careening
out of control. 4.0
The A’s - By the time this was released in 1979, I had heard so much GREAT power pop music over a 3 year period that this really didn’t
strike me as very exciting. Maybe I was
burned out on this particular type of American power pop or maybe I just
thought they were posers, taking advantage of the success of a shitty band like
the Knack. Whatever the reason, it
sounds like I did them a disservice. This
is well crafted well written pop with plenty of hooks. It was done far better by many before them,
though. 3.5
Ladyhawk - Noisy brooding rock can go wrong in a
heartbeat. Too often it fall flat
because there is either too much passion and you just feel like telling them to
fuckin’ get over it, or it has too little passion and it ends up sounding
phony. Luckily this strikes a good
balance and just happens to be great musically on most cuts. Lo fi and subtle enough to call to mind
certain Pavement songs and obviously there is a Neil influence in here as
well. Pretty cool over all. 3.5
Drummers - Yeah….Drummers. Whatever.
Could have gone the rest of my life without hearing ELP again, but I got
over it. Maybe my primary question is
can good drummers “save” shitty songs like Karn Evil 9? I really don’t know, but I don’t think so. And I really can’t tell good drumming from
bad drumming. Good technical drummers –
the kind that fill this CD – aren’t necessarily good rock drummers. I don’t think many people would consider
Marky Ramone a “good” drummer, but He sounds brilliant in the context of what
he’s asked to accomplish. Compared to
some of the other stuff Gregg has fed us, though, I guess this was a win overall.
Topic – Tough to come up with one particular artist. I don’t have a “favorite artist,” and with
the bands I feel very strongly about, there is generally a fave, but not a
worst. Most of the people I can think of
merely jumped the shark and it’s a number of worsts. Like the Ramones. Rocket to Russia was the best, but the back
end of their career saw a number of worsts.
Same with the Stones. And
Springsteen. And just about any band I
can think of.