2007

For the second time today, we hand it over to the new guy, Chuck Myers…

Yesterday, that Ace Cowboy fella wrote a suspiciously shortsighted post about the top-selling albums and songs on iTunes. It’s not news that the typical American consumer is a moron. The typical American consumer is, and always has been, musically ignorant. If I am ever on a cross-country car ride with the typical American consumer, I am driving my car through the guard rail and into the Mississippi faster than you can say “Jeff Buckley.”

It’s easy to look at our current surroundings and think, “My God, it’s never been quite as bad as it is right now.” Well, I’m here to tell you, it has been this bad, and it’s been even worse. How much worse? Find out after the jump…

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings will be down at the Fillmore TLA in Philly this Friday as part of the Free at Noon Concert series. Listen online on WXPN.

We couldn’t hide our excitement and our plays on words when Tea Leaf Green announced that Reed Mathis would be taking over on bass for the foreseeable future. Personnel changes have a way of breathing new life into a band’s music, and Tea Leaf Green’s no exception. Mathis played his first two gigs with TLG this past weekend, and luckily a kind taper uploaded Saturday night’s show to the Live Music Archive within a few hours of the concert ending.

Tea Leaf Green 12/08/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]:

Photo by Chris O’Brien

I’m not a big Tea Leaf Green fluffer, so I consider myself pretty unbiased when it comes to analyzing their music. Most of the early reports about new bass player Reed Mathis’ have been overwhelming positive, but I wanted to hear it for myself. Now that I’ve heard him, color me impressed. Not only did the adapting band do a great job with the songs, they also hit some interesting peaks during the jams.

The jam of the night came towards the end of Piss It Away when Mathis led the boys down a dark path for a musical ass-kicking. Both Trevor and Josh came prepared, laying down some nice melodies over Reed’s probing bass lines. Ben Chambers was a solid bass player, but Reed Mathis pushed the members of TLG, rather than just playing along with them. Tea Leaf Green followed up Piss It Away with their Garden trilogy, starting with Part II before segueing into Part I and finally finishing with Part III. Clark earned a roar from the audience when he worked teases of Shakedown Street into the beginning of Garden Part II. Damn heady.

Other highlights from this show include Reed’s bass solo during Hot Dog, and everyone’s playing during what used to be Chambers’ signature song, Franz Hanzerbeak. Supposedly the new incarnation of Tea Leaf Green only had one day of practice as a band before taking the stage on Friday night. If that’s true we can’t even imagine how good this ensemble will be if they stay together for a while. While this audience tape sounds great, treat yourself to the official recording over at livedownloads to hear Tea Leaf Green 2.0. Read on for more GTA…

Ladies and gentlemen, the debut of our newest contributor, Chuck Myers…

Stagger Lee was a bad motherfucker. Depending on who you believe, he might have killed a cop, murdered a bartender, filled a whore’s husband full of lead, fatally shot a man over a dice game and “taken care” of his wife, killed an acquaintance over a stolen hat, or possibly even taken control of Hell from the devil.

So if Stagger Lee Shelton were truly such a mean goddamn bastard, why are so many songs about him completely lame?

It didn’t used to be this way. Songs about Stagger Lee had teeth. They had fire. They had fear and awe and respect and pain and admiration. Songs about Stagger Lee were bad, in the same way Stagger Lee himself was bad. But somewhere along the line, the song “Stagger Lee” became…well, it just became bad.

People in the first half of the 20th century had the balls to take some chances with the song. In 1947, Memphis Slim recalled sitting on his mother’s knee and hearing the story about Stagger Lee and Billy Lyons. Billy was covered in blood from head to toe, and Stagger Lee told Billy’s wife, “You don’t believe your man is dead? Why don’t you look around the corner and see what a hole he has in his head?” That’s some cold-blooded shit that Memphis Slim was singing about. His Stagger Lee was fierce. Read on for the pussification of Stagger Lee…

The White Stripes cancelled the remaining dates on their World Tour back in September when Meg White came down with a case of acute anxiety and couldn’t travel. It seems like Voluptuous Meggers is still wary of getting back on the bus. Jack White recently told the LA Times there’s a chance the White Stripes will forgo touring in the future to focus on studio work a la The Beatles. Because when we think of the White Stripes, we often think of the The Beatles.

Let’s see what else is out there besides the Plant/Krauss at Bonnaroo news…

• SNL’s Fred Armisen lists ten things he bought/got/looked at this year that he loves for Brooklyn Vegan
• Jesse Jarnow recaps Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows
• Brian Wilson’s first foray into the exciting career of Camp Counselor
• Beck might have played a tangential role in a double suicide
• Not surprisingly, Sly Stone continues to underwhelm audiences by leaving early and showing little interest in most gigs
• Tickets are on sale now for the 18th annual High Sierra festival
• The NY Post looks at the best of rock music merch
• Al Schnier, Keller Williams, Marco Benevento and several other folks list their favorite memories of 2007 for Jambands.com

Finally, we’re saddened but completely unsurprised to find out that Quiet Riot’s Kevin Dubrow died of a cocaine overdose. The Riot’s quieter these days.