Recently in music Category

I do the white man’s overbite. Please @kentbrew, point that camera over at @cynk. ah. better. thnaks!

Seaside Jazz Fest 2007
Originally uploaded by andytnisbet.

B’s brother Andy took this really nice picture of my sweetie and me. We spent Sunday down in Seaside (right next door to Monterey). Good food, great people, fantastic music (with a rotating cast of players), not too many speeches, birthday wishes to B’s sister Peg, anniversary memories of B’s mom, cold weather, no sunburn, fine beverages, did I mention the good food?

UPDATE: Andy’s photo above links to all of his photos from the party at Flickr. You can also see B’s photos from the same event there.

My first article at a new music blogzine called Stuck Between Stations went live today. It’s called Goodbye, Ruby Grapefruit. Joe Bob says check it out.

Been meaning to do some recording at Vortex Studios and last weekend I finally got the chance. Cecil played me his song, “Styrofoam,” and then recorded me singing it with his backing tracks in my ears to guide me.

So far, so good. then Cecil added harmony vocals, additional guitars and keyboards and drums ‘n’ stuff and just generally whipped it up into a beautiful little track. Suddenly my plaintive reedy voice is fronting the Cecil Vortex Experience, an experience I heartily recommend.

Go listen to Styrofoam now. It’s just over two minutes, just over two megs. What have you got to lose?

Overall it was a musical week for me, as I got a chance to sit in with the Gloria Monday’s farewell SF show at Ireland’s 32 on Tuesday night. I have footage of that as well, but it will stay firmly in the vault as a reminder that I need to rehearse my uke licks bigtime.

Adina Levin sent me a head’s up (discussed on her blog: BookBlog: Dianne Feinstein wants to ban mp3) about the resurrection of the PERFORM act (why am I not surprised Lieberman is a co-sponsor?):

Hi, all. Don’t know if you’ve seen this, but Senator Feinstein has just re-introduced the PERFORM act, a bill that makes it illegal to record music from the internet and bans the use of mp3 by online music services (!). The EFF has information and a handy action alert. Please sign it, pass it on, and blog it.

I did it. It’s kind of funny sending Feinstein a letter asking her to oppose her own bill! But it also got sent automatically to Boxer too, who may be somewhat less likely to ignore it. I may mail it as well as I hear emails are often ignored. (EFF also faxes your letter for you.)

In the past I’d have blogged this at Edgewise so here’s an example of the sort of blog-consolidation I was talking about earlier.

Driving back to my office on 101 North from Santa Clara I hit the button for KCSM and caught most of "Jam Blues" by Charlie Parker and an all-star crew. I'm going to have to get me that record. It was a perfect California moment, sailing up the freeway with Bird blowing in my ear.

Barney Kessel's guitar solo was particularly sweet. Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster, Benny Carter, Charlie Shavers, and Johnny Hodges all took turns as well, each one burning up the tracks without cutting each other or showing away.

Nice interlude in the middle of another hectic workday.

I started off the long weekend right by seeing Brian Wilson's crack band (orchestra?) perform a long show with the entire SMiLE album nestled in its middle. They let us out of work early, which was nice, and I met up with my friends Non and Roo and Non's brother Bob for some Japanese food on northside before we hiked down to the Greek theatre in Berkeley in time to find our seats and get settled before the beginning of the show.

The first set was full of great tunes, including a few of my favorites from Pet Sounds. The second set was SMiLE in its entirety - the record really comes to life when you see it performed - and a long encore set focused on Chuck Berry style rockers. Finally Brian came out one final time, read a message of love and support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and closed the show with Love and Mercy.

Overall, a very satisfying night even though B couldn't make because the poor thing was on an airplane to Heathrow (and ultimately, Palermo).

Here's the setlist from a post at Brian's official website:

Do It Again
Dance, Dance, Dance
Breakaway
Then I Kissed Her
In My Room
Surfer Girl
Drive In
When I Grow Up
Do You Wannna Dance
Little St Nick
Please Let Me WonderDarlin'
Help Me Rhonda
California Girls
Sloop John B
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Pet Sounds
God Only Knows
Sail On Sailor
Marcella

Our Prayer/Gee
Heroes and Villains
Roll Plymouth Rock
Barnyard
Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
Cabin Essence
Wonderful
Song for Children
Child if Father of the Man
Surf's Up
I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop
Vega-Tables
On a Holiday
Wind Chimes
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
In Blue Hawaii
Good Vibrations

Johnny B Goode
I Get Around
Barbara Ann
Surfin' USA
Fun, Fun, Fun

Path of Life
Love and Mercy

Ed Ward reminisces about Bob Marley and the Wailers and the rock music journalism scene of the mid 1970s, a reverie triggered by an old photo sent to him by an old friend. Great stuff.

So xourmas and I debuted our duo last night (May 23) in New York at an open mic at the Bowery Poetry hosted by the O'Debra Twins (aka, Your Psycho ex-Girlfriends). There is a lottery to perform and each act gets seven minutes. We went on around 12:45 and did our arrangements of two standards. Here's the setlist (for posterity):

Salty Dog
Take Me to the River

I am now officially addicted to applause.

Went to Stubb's barbecue last night with Syrup and her beau to hear the Gourds and Old 97's. Tried to eat there but there was 45-minute wait so we went to Jaime's across the street and I had - wait for it - tex-mex again! Shrimp enchiladas were excellent, as was the top shelf margarita.

The Gourds were really great. It turns out I'd heard them once before (they do a killer cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin 'n' Juice - but they didn't do it that night). They use at various times a fiddle, a mando (two guys play it), a banjo, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums, and accordion and keyboards. This is just five guys. Great sound. Often somewhat down-homey but always rocking and at the end even a bit shreddy. They also covered the Standell's "Dirty Water."

Old 97's were ok alt-country radio friendly rock, but I was getting tired so walked the four or so blocks back to my hotel after about six of their tunes.

Tonight, on the recommendation of Fresh Air's Ed Ward I'll be checking out the Resentments at the Saxon Pub.

For a few months I've been wondering why my upper arms have been aching. Did I lift something? Is it referred pain? Today, it dawned on me. I've been practicing guitar and ukulele for about an hour or so a day for almost a year. No wonder! Now I don't even mind. It's just like the way you get used to the tips of your fingers burning.

Scalzi is spreading a meme:

1. Open up the music player on your computer (if you have one -- the music player, I mean. Clearly you have a computer, because otherwise you couldn't read this).
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the "shuffle" command.
4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That's right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It's time for total musical honesty.

1. "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling" - Righteous Brothers
2. "Junco Partner" - James Booker
3. "Down in the Cockpit" - XTC
4. "Cryptical Envelopment" - Grateful Dead
5. "Cup of Kindness" - Emmylou Harris
6. "Japanese Folk Song (Kojo No Tsuki)" - Thelonious Monk
7. "Pleasant Moments" - Scott Joplin
8. "Satellite" - Robyn Hitchcock
9. "All We Have is Now" - Flaming Lips
10. "A Soft Seduction" - David Byrne
11. "Dear Prudence" - Jerry Garcia

Spread the word. Let's help them get their equipment back.

(via MZ, who adds: "This stinks.")

>Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 11:07:59 -0700 (PDT)
>From: "J. Segel"
>Reply-To: jsegel@magneticmotorworks.com
>Subject: [BA-NEWMUS:14634] stolen gear
>To: "Bay Area New Music Discussion"
>
>hey i don't know if anybody knows anybody up here in montreal, but:
>
>all of camper van beethoven's guitars and violin and our merch got stolen last night in montreal. if anybody has any contacts up here, tell them to look for our stuff in stores. or hunt down the robbers and kill them.
>
>jonathan's violin with stickers all over it
>jonathan's 1971 strat (sunburst) (with a couple stickers, etc.)
>victor's 1969 precision bass (natural finish)
>david's green charvel surfcaster
>david's black jackson surfcaster
>a couple ibanez acoustics
>johnny's black eric clapton strat
>greg's frankenstein strat (black) and tele (tobacco sunbusrst) (warmoth esp or something)
>plus mike duclos' precision bass and ezster balint's gibson sg and danelectro semi acoustic.
>maybe more.. not sure yet.
>a few tshirts and a road case of cds. including the email list we collected last night, preventing this from going out to montreal fans!
>
>and i liked this city!

MAGNETIC -- Jonathan Segel PO Box 460816 S.F. CA. 94146-0816

It seems that I'm not the only one out there who sees the ukulele as the perfect punk rock instrument.

This article, Punk Uke: The four-string Underdog rudely rocks by Christopher Arnott from last year describes an eerily similar path to my own:

[Y]ou can wake this restless monster up gently with a quaint strum, then by the second verse start slamming the strings with more abandon, until by the end of the song you're scraping and scratching the barest and brashest notes out of the instrument like a demented Dashboard Confessional car crash.

Now that punk itself is the province of hit-making conglomerates and prefab teen sensations, where can we turn for some gutsy, unadulterated chords that don't remind us of the crap on the radio? I say it's the ukulele, and I'm not alone. A new breed of punks has brought revolution, raw roots and cultural controversy to the uke community.

The ukulele's Hawaiian origins as an ornate small guitar to accompany beautiful island warblings was long ago warped by the American and British desire to use it to play drinking songs. The riot-uke or uke-punk contingent is the next obvious step in a dishonorable but highly entertaining tradition.

Adapting rock and punk songs to the ukulele is not so much a deconstruction as it is wanton destruction. Feeling those tough nylon strings sproing and churn under the savage swipes of fingernails, holding on while the hollow reverberations shake that vulnerable little wooden body, hearing the chords bend out of tune and into their own realm of acoustic feedback.

Filtered through the four twangy strings of a ukulele, every song becomes a brittle shell of its former self, knocked down to its barest punk essentials. There's a perversity to this, but also a divine purity. Folk, bluegrass and blues influences come to the forefront. So does a chirpy, silly glee.

The first song I learned from the gleefully bizarre songbook Jumpin' Jim's '60s Uke-In, one of many useful uke guides prepared by the hyper-enthused uke evangelist Jim Beloff, was Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." Beloff's arrangement of this deeply moving soul classic transforms the song into a travesty of its former self. And how could it not? You're playing a doom-laden, world-weary Motown-tinged lament on a jolly little instrument best suited to pep songs like "The Varsity Rag." It's impossible not to add cheery "do-be-do-be-do"s to "Dock of the Bay" when you're playing it on ukulele.

I raided guitar-tab Web sites for the chords to the most unlikely uke fodder I could think of[.]

Stripped of its echoing drums and rampaging vocals, Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" reveals its hidden kinship with "I'm Henry VIII I Am."

A little more quotage and some good links below the fold (but read the whole thing, you'll want to get every drop).

words and music by Robyn Hitchcock (email downstyle of capitalization mine all mine mine mine):

linda ryan in the sky
i seen her laughing
but i never seen her cry
she took her fireman
it was her half-empty flight
he brought his hose and
everything just turned out right
i'm just watching...

german leather
a german tongue
lapping pleasure
when's he's rubbery and young
he played the oboe
i thought he would
he does it better
than a guitarist like me could
i'm just watching, don't mind me...
i'm just watching on my own...

flesh cartoons
flesh cartoons

life is easy
life goes by
linda ryan
she's still up there in the sky
thank you linda
she doesn't age
despite the weather
she looks the same on every page
i'm just watching, don't mind me
i'm just watching on my own

i got no feelings
i got no friends
i've got insurance
and i despise those who pretend
life's a movie
life's a dream
i love you baby
things are always what they seem
i'm just watching, don't mind me...
i'm just watching on my own...

flesh cartoons
flesh cartoons

"loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh"
yeah, i said, "loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh"
whoah, i said loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh""
yeah, i said "loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh loony, oh"

I'm not a huge Phish head but I really like some of their material and I love their whole approach to making live improvised rock 'n' roll together.

They also share some contemporaneous New Jersey-in-the-mid-'80s experiences with me in their origin stories (the Rhombus, the miniature guitars, the strange period in 1985 where the Dead head scene in Princeton was awash with acid).

Also, I represent The Mockingbird Foundation as their literary agent for their Phish Companion series with Backbeat Books.

We are shipping the second edition to the printer any day now, so this news of the band's breakup caught us short. With touring bands there is always the temptation to hold off a little longer to add the next run of shows, especially if it's about to be the finale (supposedly), but the truth is it probably makes more sense to come out on time and immediately start work on a retrospective third edition to come out in 2006 or so and be "Phish complete."

It's not my decision, of course. I'm just a consigliere on this deal, but I like all the people involved (and the band), so I care how it works out.

Here's the text of the announcement:

AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TREY 05.25.04

Last Friday night, I got together with Mike, Page and Fish to talk openly about the strong feelings I've been having that Phish has run its course and that we should end it now while it's still on a high note. Once we started talking, it quickly became apparent that the other guys' feelings, while not all the same as mine, were similar in many ways - most importantly, that we all love and respect Phish and the Phish audience far too much to stand by and allow it to drag on beyond the point of vibrancy and health. We don't want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet, a nostalgia act. By the end of the meeting, we realized that after almost twenty-one years together we were faced with the opportunity to graciously step away in unison, as a group, united in our friendship and our feelings of gratitude.

So Coventry will be the final Phish show. We are proud and thrilled that it will be in our home state of Vermont. We're also excited for the June and August shows, our last tour together. For the sake of clarity, I should say that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize ourselves. We're done. It's been an amazing and incredible journey. We thank you all for the love and support that you've shown us.

--Trey Anastasio

Still behind on taking notes, but here are my photos from Saturday.