My sister introduced me to the most amazing alternative bands in the late ’80s/early ’90s including Buffalo Tom, Juliana Hatfield, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Cure, R.E.M. & The Lemonheads.
If there’s a job to be done in the live music biz, Peter Costello has probably done it at some point. Production? Check. Audio engineering? All the time. Road managing legendary musicians? He’s wrangled them all. Yet, what we love is about Pete is that he’s still a fan and hasn’t lost his passion for the music. We’re honored to welcome Peter to the Hidden Track team to share his thoughts on last Saturday night’s Some Cat From Japan show.
[All photos by Greg Aiello]
As Scotty B wrote late last week, “There are some supergroup lineups that impress and some that blow you away. The lineup for Some Cat From Japan – Will Bernard, Nigel Hall, Scott Metzger, Ron Johnson & Eric Bolivar – is one of those mind-blowing lineups.” I already allowed my own personal expectations to skyrocket & friends called it “the sleeper show of the year” – all of this before any of us heard them play a note.
Clearly the quintet had something to prove as they filed on stage at Sullivan Hall just after midnight Saturday night / Sunday morning. About 11 seconds into the opener, Them Changes, with a Nigel Hall organ swell announcing the the familiar melody, all five of them jumped into the deep end of the pool & set out to do just that. Quickly locking into a groove that felt well rehearsed, but really wasn’t, the band set the stage for Nigel’s vocals. With his familiar – to me – blend of aggressive soultastic leads, Nigel’s vocals soared over the groove, filling the relatively crowded room.
In the spirit of the project, Nigel doesn’t try to sound like Jimi – nor does the band remain completely faithful to the original arrangements – and that’s a good thing. Its more like Donny Hathaway singing Jimi tunes. Some Cat doesn’t seek to fit the mantle of a “cover band” but, rather, works to reinterpret the songs & put their own spin on things. Think of it more as a “Tribute” band than a cover band. When you combine that vibe with the talent on stage, you get what we had here last Saturday night, which is the way I want it. Well, I got it.
READ ON for more from Peter on Some Cat From Japan…
What stories did we miss today? Look no further than glidemagazine.com, jambands.com and rollingstone.com for the latest stories of note… Umphrey’s to Release Songs on Rock Band Network Glidemagazine.com News
After a shortage of GSW news and recordings over the last few months of 2009, 2010 begins with tons of hope and promise. Longtime HTer Randy Ray penned an article
For this month’s Track x Track, welcome guitarist/singer/songwriter Giles Corey of Chicago blues meets funk act Lubriphonic who will share an anecdote or factoid about every track on their latest release, Soul Solution.
Mixin’ in the Kitchen – Wrote this in 20 minutes. I know it was that long, because at the time I was teaching guitar at a music store, and one of my students was a no show, so I wrote it in between lessons. I remember when my next kid showed up I was playing the chord riff, and he said, “Wow, that’s awesome! Who is that?” So, I decided it was worth showing to the rest of the band.
That song is a live staple for us because it’s probably the most “pop” friendly thing we do. Johnny Cotton, as he always does, wrote some of the catchiest, funkiest, hornlines around. Joewaun Scott and Rick King on drums turned the riff and melody into something really infectious. This is how all of our songs worked on that album– I came in with the skeleton, Rick and Joewaun fleshed it out, and our horn section sealed the deal.
READ ON for the lowdown on each track from Lubriphonic’s Soul Solution…
As we listen back to selections from live shows of the previous week, we’ve got solo performances from Reid Genauer and Panda Bear, Beatles and Floyd covers from Jackie Greene and The Machine plus Umphrey’s McGee constructing an almost half-hour combination of an original and a jazz cover.
[Thanks to Craig T for this week’s photo]
Artist & Title: Jackie Greene – Taxman > Mexican Girl
Date & Venue: 2010-01-16 Catalyst, Santa Cruz CA
Taper & Show Download: lou
I have featured Jackie Greene a couple of times in this feature and I have always selected tracks from his incredible 2008 album Giving Up The Ghost. This week, I have selected a combination of a Beatles cover and the fan-favorite original Mexican Girl. Greene is currently in Jamaica playing with both The Radiators and Ratdog. When he gets back, he does 11 dates in the US that takes him from Utah to Brooklyn.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/jackiesauce.mp3]READ ON to stream the rest of this week’s selections…
With their name appearing near the top of this year’s Coachella bill, rock-metal-funk act Faith No More will play their first American show since calling it quits back in 1998.
Change is always scary, but a painful process of upheaval can often lead to vastly improved circumstances. Such is the case with Dweezil Zappa’s absurdly talented septet, Zappa Plays Zappa. When perpetual Zappa purveyor Ray White unceremoniously left the band last spring, he left a huge vocal gap – he did, after all, lend his unmistakable vocals to dozens of Zappa classics for decades. Having severed ties with both White and another pillar of Zappadom, vocalist/saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock, ZPZ faced the unenviable task of finding someone to absorb the often complex and dynamically demanding vocal aspect of their shows.
Enter Ben Thomas, a guy who, even when performing, looks a little more like a bartender than lead singer for one of the world’s best bands. Able to emulate a wide range of vocal styles and even infuse his own ideas into the proceedings, Thomas has enabled the band to draw from a wider swath of Zappa material than ever. This has led to drastically different set lists and a rapidly growing community of fans that rabidly discuss every move the band makes. Dweezil himself has embraced the role in the spotlight, giving back the obvious love that the fans have for the music.
Music fans new and old hunger to hear Zappa’s music presented in a live setting, and it’s no wonder. On stage is where the material is taken to the highest peaks and is able to inspire the most magnificent feats of musicality. The audience at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre stood enraptured for the majority of the 2-plus hour show – you couldn’t tear them away from the stage for anything, and there was little shuffling amongst the crowd, which was pleasant. The show was comprised of one jaw-dropping moment after another, and most of the overwhelmingly attentive audience left baffled by the level of skill displayed throughout.
READ ON for more from Bryan on Zappa Plays Zappa…
Vandaveer is the alt-folk song-singing/record making/globetrotting project penned and put forth by DC-by-way-of-Kentucky tunesmith Mark Charles Heidinger. Vandaveer’s debut album, Grace & Speed, a mostly live, stripped down affair, swiftly entered this great big dusty world in the spring of 2007. Touring continually on both sides of the Atlantic ever since, Vandaveer has played 250+ shows, sharing stages with a host of artists including Bon Iver, Vetiver, Alela Diane, Alejandro Escovedo, Vashti Bunyan, Bill Callahan and Fleet Foxes. Vandaveer’s sophomore effort, Divide & Conquer, touches upon similar themes found in its elder sibling, winding timeworn themes of love & death, malice & goodwill, sin & perseverance into (mostly) four-minute vignettes.
This Saturday night, New York City’s Sullivan Hall hosts the tenth annual Freaks Ball, aka Freaks Ball X, featuring longtime Freaks’ favorite Scott Metzger with drummer Eric Kalb and bassist Ron Johnson, New Jersey natives The Black Hollies and roots rocker Anders Osborne starting around 9PM. Freaks Ball X celebrates ten years of the influential NYC-Freaks e-mail list which has helped launch the careers of Robert Randolph, The Duo and the American Babies among others in its decade-long existence.
We recently spoke with NYC-Freaks list creator – and one of the original Hidden Track contributors – Aaron Stein about how the e-mail list started, how the first Freaks Ball came together, his favorite Freaks Ball moments and much more. Here’s what Aaron had to say…
Scott Bernstein: How did the NYC-Freaks e-mail list start?
Aaron Stein: The story is long and not that interesting. The back story was moving down to the area, living way out on Long Island for graduate school and having to schlep into the city to see music. I knew a handful of people who were occasionally interested in seeing live music with me, but more often than not I went by myself or my girlfriend/wife. After a while I’d start to recognize people at shows and it was quite clear there was a community out there waiting for something to bring it together.
There was a small number of people on the WSP list (Spreadnet) who lived in the city and we got together once or twice or bumped into each other at a few shows in the city, or pre-Panic get-togethers, etc. Finally, one night in January of 2000, we all went out together to see the Justice League of America (w/ Jimmy Herring, T. Lavitz et al) at Wetlands and had a raging, debaucherously good time. I took one day to sleep it off and then started the Freaks list (on the now-gobbled up eGroups site). Around the same, other regional Panic fan list groups were popping up in Atlanta and Chicago.
Even though the list started with a bunch of Widespread fans, I think one of the keys to what it became and what it is and isn’t today is that I made a conscious effort not to make it the “NYC Panic fans” — it was the NYC Freaks from day one. The second major factor in what made the Freaks list the Freaks list is that it wasn’t *just* an email list with the normal shade of anonymity and blowtorching of each others opinions. The point of the list was to get together with other people in the real world and see live music.
READ ON for more from Aaron about Freaks Balls’ past and future…
