BergALERT

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Eric Berg

(Listen to some soundbites and my comments about Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s last three excellent solo albums by clicking on the above audio link. The middle album, Buckingham’s GIFT OF SCREWS was cannibalized, retooled and released several years after it was originally recorded, because Warner Bros Records wanted some of the songs for use on Fleetwood Mac’s 2003 SAY YOU WILL comeback album.)

Anybody who went to see Lindsey Buckingham’s packed Friday night’s May 11^th “Smallest Machine” performance (as he calls it) at the Rio in Santa Cruz, expecting to hear Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits, must have blown away by the wealth of under the radar material he’s penned over seven solo ablums in 20 something years. I forgot to take my notebook pen and my iPhone, but Buckingham did perform two of the Big Machine’s hits. After a very tidy 90 minute set, the guitarist left no doubt that the Stevie Nicks-Buckingham edition of Fleetwood Mac was really “Lindsey Mac” eighty percent of the time. Track down a copy of Buckingham-Nicks from 1974 on the Polydor label and give it a listen. You’ll see how those two saved a run out of gas Mac from going to the junkyard permanently, the minute they joined the band.

Standing alone in front of a small bank of amps with a covey of his custom made guitars to one side, Buckingham successfully walked “the kiss of death – one guy with the electric guitar plank”.  Although Buckingham is exceptional at playing rhythm and lead simultaneously, he did flesh out a band sound with some very ultra subtle sample and hold loops and beat tracks manipulated by his guitar tech who also swapped out a different custom axe on every song.  Buckingham is a very precise guitarist with few wasted notes and a total perfectionist in the studio and so it goes on stage. His tenor voice still hits those wonderful high notes that are at times buried by his tendency to attack his guitar strings at a much higher volume than called for.

Buckingham culled a mix of songs from all seven solo albums on acoustic and electric guitar. I was a bit disappointed he did not do a few more from his brilliant Under the Skin or any of the Rolling Stones covers he does so well. Buckingham ended the evening with the title song from his latest, the highly recommended Seeds We Sew. A thoroughly enjoyable show from one of the most innovative guitarists and songwriters in rock.

You too, can learn how to play “Landslide”!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

September 26, 2011: Rosanne at the University of Louisville for the Kentucky Author Forum. Photo by Stephen J. Cohen. source: roseannecash.com

By Eric Berg

Roseanne Cash, daughter of Johnny Cash from his first marriage, cemented her own place in country music with “The Seven Year Ache”  in 1981 as well as numerous number one singles since.  She performs this weekend at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz. The event is organized by the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

"Blunderbuss" album cover

“Blunderbuss” is Jack White’s first solo album since abandoning the White Stripes duo format and leaving Meg behind in the dust. For the record, a blunderbuss is an old style antique flared rifle powerful enough to knock down walls or mow down a line of elephants with one shot. And that’s what White has done here: knocked down all previous misconceptions about his future as a pioneering rocker- guitar wanker and made a huge leap forward.

Radiohead's Tom Yorke at Coachilla 2012

RADIOHEAD AT THE SANTA BARBARA BOWL 2012

 Last Thursday afternoon, April 12, I hooked up a longtime music buddy who lives north of Berkeley who put in a short work day and drove down to meet me at the Starbucks alongside 101 in Salinas. Leaving my car in the lot, we sped off to see Radiohead at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Thank god for radar detectors.

What was I thinking?  Driving all the way down to SB with a predicted 90% chance of rain,  pursed by a supposed nasty storm coming from the north when I could have seen Radiohead the night before at the HP Pavillion over the hill? For one thing,  the sound at the Shark Tank is so horrendous I wouldn’t go there if Jesus and God were having a one on one with Muhammad! The outdoor SB Bowl is legendary for it’s natural superb acoustics ranking among a handful of accousticly perfect amphitheatres like Red Rocks in Colorado, Wolf Trap in Virginia and The Gorge Amphitheatre on Washington’s Columbia River  and the Greek in Los Angeles.  The SB Bowl has a capacity of 4,500 seats goers whereas the Tank can stuff as many as 18,000 in there.

We wore our rain gear and lucked out as it didn’t start drizzling until mid way through Radiohead’s two and a half hour show.  Eventually everbody got mildy soaked but nevermind, it was well worth the discomfort, as once again, Radiohead bowled us over with an exquistely brilliant show. The sound was so perfect it was like wearing imaginary studio headphones. And the video light show? Incredible!

A lot has happened since I last saw Radiohead’s mindblowing performance at Outside Lands in San Francisco four years ago. 2012 digital advances have raised the bar again with RH’s real time lights and moving video screens syncted directly to the band that are possitively awesome. Best I have ever seen.

Compared to the HP show the night before, Radiohead 23 song list was completely different. Both shows opened with Bloom and each show ended with different encores. At the Bowl, Radiohead finished with Paranoid Android. For this tour, Radiohead brought on board, Portishead drummer, Clive Deamer, so the band could flesh out the dense beats from THE KING OF LIMBS, their latest album. It took a full year of rehearsing to get it down. And they sure did.  Lead singer Tom York was in a terrific mood and it looked to me like Radiohead was having a lot of fun and not as serious as past tours. So far, the best concert of the year. But then,  I didn’t go to Coachilla.

Awake at 7 the next morning, we roared back to the Bay Area as my friend had to catch a 4 pm flight to Paris. Tough life. All hell broke loose on Hwy 101 as that nasty storm that came through the Monterey Bay hit the Santa Barbara with a fury. I was back in front of my computer by 11 am.

Here are several videos from the show of varying quality but the sound is fine.

NICKI BLUHM AND THE GAMBLERS’ VAN CONCERTS

As we drove back to Santa Cruz on 101,  I watched the Van Concerts on my laptop. This series features Nicki Bluhm and her band The Gamblers (members of Mother Hips and Broke Down in Bakersfield) singing as they drove their tour van from the Bay Area to Denver and back and recorded an entire acoustic road concert while driving and taking turns at the wheel in between stops.

All they did was stick a camera on the dashboard and went for it. It’s a refreshing idea and a must watch.

I really like this kazoo cover of Hall and Oats “I Can’t Go for That”. Check it out and you’ll want to watch the rest

ELVIS COSTELLO – STILL AT THE WHEEL

 Sunday night April 15,  Elvis Costello and the Imposters played a sold out show at the Warfield in San Francisco. Elvis brought along his notorious spinning song wheel that has about a hundred  titles on it.

Audience members were invited up on the stages to spin the wheel and wherever it stopped, the band launched into the song. The stage included a small wet bar and a 60’s Go Go dance cage. The spinners were offered a glass of wine and got to hang on the bar stool with a glass of wine and made good use of the cage.

Costello treated them all like royalty.

Costello was in a fine mood. He even walked up to the balcony and sang right in front of us.

Costello ripped on guitar and cranked thru at least fifty 3 minute “hits” over the course of this hella lot of fun three hour show.   The ever dependable Imposters featuring Steve Nieve on keyboards, Davey Faragher on bass and Pete Thomas were superb as always, proving once again, there is nothing like  a weekend of LIVE MUSIC!

Watch Elvis and The Imposters spin the wheel at their recent April 10th show in Vancouver, Canada.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Like I said in the above audio clip, I randomly picked Happy Book out of the pile of incoming but usually disappointing promo cds that flood the offices of KUSP daily in hope that someone at the station will listen and play a track on the air. Maybe it’s the ultra plain jane cover that turned me off so much I decided I had to give it a chance. On the other hand I am always suspicious of albums with cheery titles.

However… the music within is a very welcome and surprising blast of freshness from a band that’s been playing together for almost two decades. So  That’s how I got introduced to Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons and Happy Book. I played the cd about about five times I liked it so much before  days before I realized it was a two cd album and I had been listening to disc 2 the whole time, thinking 8 songs total was it. Uh uh. There’s 15 varied tracks spread across the two discs.

Go to  http://jerryjoseph.com/  and listen to the full version of the title song Happy Book that kicks it off and you’ll have a damned good idea this how solid this album is. Joseph writes the kind of  interesting, often grimey lyrics with clever and memorable pairing of words that grabs your attention. He’s no kid either. Joseph has been there, done that, almost got it, lost it, and finally got it back again. He knows he’s a lucky guy and grateful. It’s sort’a like this: you have to die first to want to live. That’s what makes Happy Book so interesting.  As I listen to Jerry Joesph’s vocals, I am reminded of Graham Parker, Willie DeVille and Chuck Prophet.  Oh, did I say Wally Ingram (who used to tour with David Lindley) is all over Happy Book?

I’m happy to recommend it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

(The above audio clip is an edited version of a conversation  with Santa Cruz high school rocker Tess Dunn about her new album “Honesty Box”, prior to her band’s appearance at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Friday April 6, 2012)

Monterey Bay’s gurrl rocker, Tess Dunn has just released a new six song album titled  Honesty Box. Her second. This feisty 17 yr old Santa Cruz high school senior can do it all: writes her own songs, sings, plays keyboards, makes a video and performs with her high energy band while juggling school and prepping for college at the same time. On top of all this, Tess has cystic fibrosis and epilepsy and is continually dealing with health problems, but that didn’t stop her from recording the new album in LA in just three days back in November.

Honesty Box has a great caffinated garage sound not too dissimilar to the punk bands of  30 years ago. For someone of her age, Tess’s lyrics are brutally mature honest observations about friendship, love, sadness and romantic breakups. Honesty Box ends on a high note with Tess singing that 2012 is going to be her year.It certainly looks that way.

Related: http://tessdunn.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Singer Mark Lanegan has out done himself with Blues Funeral, his latest solo piece coming 7 years after his last album, Bubblegum, released in 2004.  A self admitted vocalist for hire, Lanegan was the voice behind Seattle grunge band The Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, The Breeders and UK electronica duo, Soul Savers, just to name a few.  This time around Lanegan is working with his own band instead of relying on guest musicians as he has done in the past.  The songs on Blues Funeral are self penned and plumb the depths of vast distances between life and death and what happens in between,  fleshed out by his ghostly baritone vocals. This electronica with guitars flavored album is peppered with poignant lyrics like “down here the winter will cut you quick/these tears are liquor and I’ve drunk myself sick”. (“St Louis Elegy”).  Another: “leviathan waits in the water/skeletons hide in the trees/the hours crawl by like a spider/hangman is following me” (“Leviathan”).  Lanegan has created a moving and somewhat disturbing vision of life that makes Blues Funeral his masterpiece, of which each layer unfolds with repeated listenings. Blues Funeral is destined to be a classic.

RELATED:

http://marklanegan.com/

(A friend emailed me this amusing chart on the left showing the evolution of rock concert audiences over the decades. Missing is the Bic lighter craze of the first half of the 70’s only to be replaced by mosh pits in ‘76. Notice where the arrow ends up. This got me ranting)

The world’s obsession with the need to keep in touch with somebody/something at all times 24/7 has changed the way people listen to live music. Sorry if I sound like the late Andy Rooney, but please, do I really need to watch that video the guy next to me just shot with his cell phone is replaying for the third time at only god knows how many lumens?

And what’s with all this texting and emailing photos while the music’s happening? Are you trying to make your friends who couldn’t be there, jealous?  Or just making a set list?

About that flash setting on your camera. Turn it off. Do you have any idea what it is like to be on stage, trying to get deep into your music with flak-like flash bursts going off in front of you?

How come whenever I score the hundred dollar seats, there’s always that one person who stands up blocking the view? And what’s with “screw you” business after I graciously asked you to sit down so we all could see?  Excuse me, but at these ticket prices, I want to see what I paid for.

Yakity yak. Why all the loud talking throughout someone’s performance, especially during quiet vocal and  instrumental parts? Are you listening to who you paid to see or are you just “there” for the hell of it?  (General admission venues and clubs are prone to this! Bars are excused.) If you must talk  during performances, why not go to the back, the bar or outside?  When I saw Imelda May last summer at the Independent in San Francisco with a particularly noisy crowd, at one point she had to stop and tell someone to shut up.

At a Rupa and the April Fishes club gig in San Francisco, five women stood next to me loudly conversing from the minute they arrived,  working their phones on the way in. The closest told me this was their “girls night out” and that someone had told them this was a cool place to check out. April who? They kept talking and I kept moving.

That’s just it. Why should I have to move in the first place?  For one thing, it’s a smarter these days to move than risk getting punched out. No one likes to be told to shut up or sit down. Even if they know they should.

And this last observation: over the years the reporter in me finds me asking club patrons why they are there. Many people have no idea who’s playing and have different reasons for being there like those mentioned previously. Here’s another one: I interviewed three people who arrived together at a Was Not Was show at Moe’s Alley. They had never heard of the band.  Nevertheless, they each plunked down the $30 cover charge because “they just wanted to go out for the evening where they could dance.” Fair enough. Me? I never plunk for anything unless I know what I’m getting.

So maybe going out to “see” music has become a social thing and not about your ears. Perhaps I need to be more forgiving, but I often wonder…

Anybody listening?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

(The above audio clip aired on KUSP in conjunction with The Inciter’s album release party at the Rio Theater, Saturday, March 10, 2012. The piece features an interview with Inciters’ bandleader and trumpet player, Rick Kendrick and track samples from the band’s new album, “Soul Clap”.)

Monterey Bay soul band, The Inciters have a great new cd out titled Soul Clap with more half the tracks penned by various members of this 11 piece band. Recorded in Santa Cruz, the album includes a catchy instrumental called “100″ using family and friend shout outs taped live at Poet & Patriot Irish Pub. Not Motown, but Northern Soul made popular in the mid 70′s in the UK, the Inciter’s three lead vocalists – Betsy Jane Kniffin, Lizzie Shipton and Rosie Jones – have unique singing styles that set them apart from what we’re used to hearing. The Inciters. who recently reformed with new members after a five year break, opened for Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings at Santa Cruz’s Rio Theater last November 2010 and delivered a knockout although short performance. The Inciters’ new recording,  Soul Clap grabs you from the get go. Highly recommended.

Related Links:

http://www.facebook.com/theinciters

http://jumpuprecords.com/blog/?p=2374

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

(The above audio clip features extra artist tracks not included in the original aired review.)

One of the most talked about album releases of 2012 so far is the 4 cd set Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International.               

Already reviewed by MOJO, Rolling Stone, NPR, et al and played late at night and on the weekends here at  KUSP, this is my two cents.

Not surprisingly, there are numerous sub par performances along with the great, sprinkled among these 76 tracks. 76 makes wading thru 300 plus minutes of Dylan a real chore. Somebody should have exercised common sense and  edited Chimes Of Freedom  down to the  perfect five star 2 cd set it could have been. I give it three and five-eights.

RELATED VIDEOS: