Monthly Archives: December 2008

A man of more than expected words

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I’ve seen Neil Young give acoustic concerts twice over the years, and he’s never been particularly loquacious in between songs. But on a new release of a concert from 1968, Sugar Mountain — Live at Canterbury House, he’s positively chatty.

There are seven raps interspersed throughout the  set list and most are amusing, if not downright funny, from the laid-back, rambling Young. Perhaps the best is Bookstore rap, in which he talks about his only other job that lasted two weeks.

As for the concert, it’s excellent. It’s better than an earlier release from his archives, Massey Hall 1971, although not by much, from 2007. That one included a video DVD of the show, which is at times brilliant and other times (static shots of a reel-to-reel tape recorder) frustrating. This set comes in a two-disc version, the second being DVD audio.

What’s to like about  Canterbury House is the era. The show is from around the release of his first very under-appreciated solo album The Loner, and many of the tunes are from it. These songs played acoustically makes the set all the more fascinating and rare.

The sound is very dry, very little reverberation, since it was recorded in a small coffee house in Ann Arbor, lending a more intimate air to the proceedings. Massey, recorded in Toronto, has more of a concert hall ambiance.

I have great respect for Young, but honestly haven’t been into his latest ventures. In fact only Freedom with Rockin’ In The Free World and Harvest Moon even scratch the surface with me in the past two decades. I love his early work and The Loner and After The Gold Rush are my favorite albums.

But to hear If I Could Have Her Tonight, I’ve Been Waiting For You, The Last Trip To Tulsa, The Old Laughing Lady and the title track from The Loner shortly after the album was completed makes for a significant document.

In addition, there are Buffalo Springfield tracks, among them Mr. Soul, Expecting To Fly and Broken Arrow, the last two big production numbers on record but here stripped down to the essentials. Also you’ll find an early version of Birds, from After The Gold Rush, done on acoustic guitar rather than piano.

These releases from the archives — they aren’t really reissues although they seem to be classified as such sometimes — almost make up for Young’s reluctance to remaster his early albums. He claims he hates the CD format and it’s unacceptable for the sonic quality he aspires to. Don’t get him started on MP3s. I kind of agree with him there at least on the low bit rates. But he’s scheduled to release the first volume of a long-awaited box set series next year and it’s going to be available on only DVD and Blue-ray audio versions at a ridiculously expensive pricetag of more than $300. Nothing on a CD release of any kind is in the works. It is eight discs but really. That’s a bit much.

Wolfie, Wolfie!

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wolfieOne of the best music sites I’ve bumped into this year has to be Wolfgang’s Vault. If you love live music and you haven’t checked it out, you should. Once you’ve registered on the site, you have access to an amazing array of concerts by major and lesser-known artists. It’s a tremendous resource, easy to use and best of all, it’s free.

The content consists of concerts never committed to CD, some coming from syndicated radio shows such as King Biscuit Flower Hour. It streams effortlessly to your computer, the sound is generally excellent and you can even buy some concerts for about $10 if you so choose, the going rate of an ITunes album. There is also a well-written description of what you’re hearing with insight into the particular concert and some background on the artist, along with a detailed personnel listing.

I recently clicked on a Karla Bonoff concert at the Bottom Line in New York, forgetting that I have a friend that played in her band for a while. When I read the synopsis, he was listed there in the band lineup. For the uninitiated, she wrote some of Linda Ronstadt’s biggest hits.

Artists range from The Doors to Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison to James Taylor, Dylan to Miles, Jean Luc-Ponty to Larry Coryell, Ronstadt to Emmylou Harris, the Stones and on and on. It’s ridiculous. And it’s really wonderful.

I would guess they are paying some licensing fees as it’s been around for a while and doesn’t appear to be in danger of being shut down. You receive an e-mail update sometimes daily on what is new. They appear to add about 25 concerts a week. Go there and listen to some good, and often rare, performances.

A dying breed

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pcmagFor some reason I wasn’t aware, but I just read a long editor’s note stating PC magazine will no longer be printed and will only be available online. This is the last remnant of a bunch of subscriptions I started to stay on top of the industry when I was reviewing software in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It doesn’t surprise me although I believed most magazines were faring better than newspapers. Obviously not this one. I’m coming around to accepting all the new media and saying farewell to the printed page, probably because I’m not involved in the production of the printed page anymore. We are obviously in a period of transition. It just seems to be happening faster and faster.

I’m adjusting to news on my cell phone and other devices. A year ago I was pretty resistant to the Kindle, now I’m looking forward to version 2. The big problem with reading a mag online is that many of us work on PCs, browse for new info and research with PCs, store, copy and manipulate photos with PCs, rip, listen and manage music collections with PCs, so it’s nice to take a break from the eye strain of the PC screen, sit back and hold something in your hands and just relax and read. Always being in front of that PC screen is one of the biggest obstacles to a full-blown wipeout of the print industry. The Kindle offers a more eye-friendly screen, but I’m still waiting for the Japanese prototype of a thin Kindle-like device I can get a newspaper on and roll up and put in my pocket that was promised in the late ’90s.

PC mag is a good one. Because it was printed, slightly dated, but it has some interesting columnists, decent hardware reviews, good free utilities and indepth features. I’ll read it but probably not as much until it’s delivered onto something easier on the eyes.

Connecticut is a prime battleground for new media. Two papers about to go out of business in January, a bunch of Shoreline papers wiped out just the other day, the two largest dailies apparently going bankrupt.

It’s that time of year

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I love the question Adam asked on his This might hurt blog a couple of weeks ago about where you bought your first record. In that spirit, and in the spirit of Mojo mag, which asks these types of things all the time, I’ll list my top five albums of the year and ask you to join in. Don’t feel confined to just five. I like hearing about what other people are listening to.

acid-tongueThe best album I’ve heard this year has to be Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis. It wasn’t reviewed or received as well as her first solo album with the Watson Sisters, Rabbit Fur Coat, but it’s better. The first was very unusual, stark, real basic, a nice blend of country and pop and she shared the bill. Acid Tongue is more conventional with a band or actually two, sort of, bands but it’s executed beautifully and her songwriting is in great shape.

It helps that I saw her play live earlier this fall at the Shubert in New Haven with band members who played on the album, including her boyfriend/producer. I love Carpetbaggers with Elvis Costello, but the topper is The Next Messiah, a nine-minute romp that rocks. She opened with that in New Haven. It’s just a wonderful record.

After that, Steve Winwood’s Nine Lives, his best selling album in years and back on a major label, Columbia. He got quite a boost out of playing at MSG with Clapton in February but you know, he’s been playing live consistently with guitarist Jose Neto with few breaks since his return album About Time in 2003.

iflatheadI, Flathead by Ry Cooder, which has some serious rockers and, of course, exquisitely tasteful playing, with an early countrified rock ‘n roll feel. It’s supposed to be the third in a trilogy, which started with Chavez Ravine, the best of the three.

Shelby Lynne’s Just A Little Lovin’, a semi tribute to Dusty Springfield, who is one of my all-time favs. She does six Springfield tunes, very low key and under produced, which really works. Also included is How Can I Be Sure, the Rascals song.

esperanzaThe fifth is Esperanza, by Esperanza Spalding, an amazing female bassist just out of Berklee in Boston, my old school by the way.

So let’s hear what you liked this year. Just new releases for now. We’ll look at reissues in a later post.

Snow day

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It’s started snowing about two hours ago. I would usually be traveling in this stuff, but being inside is one of the great advantages of not having a job.

Believe me, I’ve had my fill of trekking through this type of New England weather. Not that I dislike the weather. The change of seasons is the great allure of this region and as a journalist I really didn’t mind it at all — once I got to where I was going. Being out on the road in this stuff, that’s another thing altogether because of all the factors not in your control i.e. other drivers.

At any rate, this is the first post as you can see. I’ve been a journalist quite a while but a musician even longer, actually about twice as long. And along with other things such as art, film and family, music is what drives me the most.

Today is a good day to be inside and listening to great music. Of late, I’m listening to a variety of things, as always, but in particular an album by Chris Wood called Vulcan, which is quite remarkable since this is his first solo album yet he’s been dead since 1983.

For the uninitiated, Wood was in a group called Traffic, one of the great yet somehow overlooked bands from the late 1960s and early ’70s. You’ve all heard of Steve Winwood I’m sure. If you haven’t, then you should have by now. He was the creative force behind Traffic. But Jim Capaldi, the drummer and fellow songwriting collaborator, was just as integral.

So where does Chris Wood come into this? He played tenor sax and flute and other various things. When I saw Traffic live he played bass, piano and organ as well. Sometimes well, sometimes not so well. But according to his bandmates he was in many ways the most important member. He brought inspiration to the table. Evidently, he directed the boys to different styles of music, and that is the one thing that Traffic gave to the music community and why it was such a great influence on so many artists.

World music as it is called today. Traffic was there. The group mixed R&B, hard rock, jazz, latin, afro, all types of things into a stew that was unique at the time for a band of second-generation bluesers coming out of Great Britain.

The album is fascinating, good not great, but certainly worth a listen. It’s all instrumental and has many of the qualities of Traffic, in fact one of the tracks is actually Traffic live. It’s probably not available at the big shops, possibly a smaller, older record store if there is one of those near you, but more likely you will need to get it online at someplace such as amazon. But you know what? With these import albums, it’s often better and cheaper to buy it from the country of origin, so try amazon.co.uk.

Oh yeah, why did it take so long for a release. Well, Wood never actually finished the album although he worked on it for about five or six years. He was evidently a substance abuser and it took him at an early age. His sister and a fellow named Dan Ropek were key to the tapes being assembled and released. Nice job all around there.

If you want to hear the Chris Wood influence in Traffic, listen to You Can All Join In, which is actually a Dave Mason tune, or 40,000 Headmen, both excellent tracks.

If you do, let me know what you like or dislike about the album and what are your favorite tracks.

Looks like about two inches so far. On the edge of the woods, things are looking nice.