// Category Archive for: Music

Best of 2012: Danny R. Phillips

My editor at this fine publication has informed me that I need not stick to 2012 releases for my “Best Of” list. With that in mind, I have made a list of new releases & “classics” that I have gone back to in the last year or so.

Shall we begin?

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New Trailer: Sound City, A Film By Dave Grohl

By Danny R. Phillips

As a fan of rock ‘n roll and music in general, many recording studios are deserving of the documentary treatment: Electric Lady (NYC), The Quonset Hut (Nashville) Abbey Road (London), Sun Records (Memphis), Ardent Studios (Memphis), Electric Audio (Chicago), and Motown (Detroit). Now, for those of us that love history and happen to be music nuts, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana, a thousand other projects) has made his directorial debut with film on a studio that has a storied history of its own: Sound City.

The Los Angeles recording studio has borne witness to some of the greatest albums in the history of music. The roster of talent that has walked through its doors and blew up the soundboard is staggering: Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Rage Against The Machine, Bad Religion, Evel Kneivel, Nine Inch Nails, Neil Young, Cheap Trick, Carl Perkins, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, The Breeders, the list could go on for days.

Sound City is Grohl’s love letter to a place that means so much to him and to anyone that has ever dropped the needle in a vinyl groove or obsessed over a CD. Sound City is one film I cannot wait to experience.

Sound City will debut at Sundance 2013 in January, but you can pre-order a copy in advance of the film’s February 1 premiere on HD digital download and stream at the movie’s official website. Sound City will open theatrically via Variance Films on February 1. Like the film’s Facebook page and stay tuned for cities and dates to be posted in the near future.

The Vince Guaraldi Trio, A Charlie Brown Christmas

By Chelsea Spear

The tinkling piano lines, rolling brushed drums, and sprightly tempos of Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to the classic TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas are a welcome sign of the holiday season. Guaraldi’s keyboard treatments of classic Christmas songs like “Greensleeves,” “O Tannenbaum,” and the classic children’s choral arrangement of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” give these classics a new sound. Some of his originals, such as “Christmas Time is Here,” portray the loneliness and melancholy of the holiday season though a few minor chords and a contemplative melody. Other new songs, like the bright, upbeat “Linus and Lucy,” sound like the rush of energy you sometimes felt as a kid around the holiday.

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Random Rant: Music To Make You Human

By Paul Casey

Michael Jackson was responsible for my first musical memory. Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous were the first albums which were as important as my miniature Batmobile, and that thing was pretty boss. Moonwalker, which was mostly quite bad, did have the great benefit of featuring an extended version of the “Smooth Criminal” video in between weird claymation sections and Joe Pesci as an evil Joe Pesci. This was directly responsible for fueling a life long, and probably ill advised, love for performance. Michael Jackson was a pure expression of not only a severe musical talent, but of the thought that it may be possible to dance so well that verbal communication would no longer be necessary.

For an introverted young sort, and later a socially anxious older sort, Michael Jackson’s music was a reminder that sometimes you just have to get out there and lay it down. Whether this is a groove, some excessive vamping, or a tricky foot shuffle, even the most egregious wallflower has to step up when “The Way You Make Me Feel” comes on. “I Can’t Let Her Get Away” insists that you get into a New Jack Swing, whether you are aware of Teddy Riley or not. “Human Nature” still brings on tears.

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Assemblog: December 7, 2012

Despite The Gods

New this week on Popshifter: Danny is not very fond of the film 360, out now on home video; Chelsea is over the moon about the new Big Dipper album, Big Dipper Crashes on the Platinum Planet (and shares their new video for “Robert Pollard”); Lisa voices unpopular opinions about It’s A Wonderful Life; Cait raves about the new white vinyl 7″ from Concrete Blonde; I express admiration and frustration for Take This Waltz; and Elizabeth talks about Community, Disney, Netflix & Verizon in a new installment of “TV Is Dead, Long Live TV.”

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New Vinyl: Concrete Blonde, “Rosalie” b/w “I Know The Ghost”

By Cait Brennan

From their circa-1980 Dream 6 post-punk bona fides to their genre defining alternative rock gems like “God Is A Bullet,” “Joey,” “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man,” and “Everybody Knows,” Concrete Blonde has made an enduring career of mixing the sacred and the profane, the earthy and the unearthly, a mosaic assembled in light and blood. Now 30 years into a truly iconoclastic career, singer/songwriter/bassist/artist Johnette Napolitano makes her home deep in the Mojave desert, and the ghosts of Joshua Tree haunt all seven inches of the group’s eminently cool new white vinyl spinner “Rosalie” b/w “I Know The Ghost.”

The limited edition 45 was originally pressed for the band’s 2011 Texas Halloween tour, and now a handful of the records are available at the band’s Official Website.

“She wraps herself in firelight, and dances in the sand like a ghost,” Napolitano sings on “Rosalie,” all low and mournful like a lost coyote. It’s a great country-infused old west tune, the kind you’d spin at midnight on Dia De Los Muertos. The flip side, “I Know The Ghost,” is a rave-up that hearkens to the band’s punk roots, buzzing with the kind of Madame Wong’s energy that only authentic survivors of the era could conjure.

Both tunes feature founding Concrete Blonde guitarist Jim Mankey (ex-Sparks, and himself a Joshua Tree resident) and drummer Gabriel Ramirez-Quezada, one of the brothers in LA rock en español standouts Maria Fatal and a ten year veteran of Concrete Blonde. The disc was recorded at Stagg Street Studios in Van Nuys with the band’s rock-steady engineer Anne Catalino. Videos for each of the songs are in the works.

The band is about to launch an East Coast tour, kicking off at Boston’s Sinclair Music Hall on Dec. 12 and heading to NYC’s Irving Plaza (12/13), Asbury Park’s Stone Pony (12/14), Washington DC’s 9:30 Club (12/17), Carrboro, NC’s Cat’s Cradle (12/18), Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse (12/19), Chicago’s Park West (12/21) and Minneapolis’ Variety Theatre (12/22). The band will also perform on WXPN Philadelphia’s “World Café Live” radio show on December 15.

One of the most unique and enduring bands of the alternative rock era, Concrete Blonde is still getting it done with passion and fire. These “songs of the spirits of the desert” are a welcome reminder of the band’s strength and Napolitano’s singular voice.

New Video: Big Dipper, “Robert Pollard”

By Chelsea Spear

There’s no one way to age gracefully while simultaneously rocking out. Just ask Big Dipper.

The perennially underrated purveyors of jangly pop returned to the limelight with Big Dipper Crashes on the Platinum Planet, an album of richly melodic and wryly funny pop songs. How do they balance their lives as rock stars with maintaining desk jobs, parental duties, and other attendant responsibilities of middle age?

In the video for “Robert Pollard,” Bill, Gary, Jeff, and Tom show you how they find their happy medium.

Music Review: Big Dipper, Crashes On The Platinum Planet

By Chelsea Spear

Of all the bands from the Boston Rock Class of 1990, Big Dipper weren’t the first candidates for the “Most Likely to Succeed” superlative. They wrote songs with undeniably catchy melodies and witty lyrics, and their shows at mid-sized East Coast clubs never failed to attract an audience.

Unfortunately, they had signed to Homestead Records, whose history of poor distribution and corrupt business practices restricted their reach to all but their most diehard fans. Though they jumped ship to Epic at the close of the decade, a series of shakeups at their label left them with little support. By the middle of the ’90s, “Dippah” (as their local fans called them) had joined fellow Beantown heavy-hitters Tribe and O Positive in the great cutout bin in the sky.

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Assemblog: November 30, 2012

Dark Skies

New this week on Popshifter: I give thanks and praise to “Echoes From The Sleep Room,” the last lecture in The Black Museum’s series and explain how shaking off the movie Excision is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

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Upcoming Release: Dawn McCarthy and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, What The Brothers Sang

By Less Lee Moore

Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Dawn McCarthy

Even if you don’t think you’re familiar with The Everly Brothers, you probably are. Known for topping the Billboard pop and country charts for their 1957 version of “Bye Bye Love,” their unusual, lovely harmonies and straddling of the lines between pop and country were remarkable then and now. And that was just their first popular single, which was followed by “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Till I Kissed You,” “Cathy’s Clown,” and “When Will I Be Loved,” to name a few.

If you’ve heard Dawn McCarthy (of Faun Fables) or Bonnie “Prince” Billy (also known as Will Oldham of Palace Brothers and others) then you’re familiar with each of their unique vocal talents as well those for creating music that weaves in and out of traditional pop, folk, and Americana.

The upcoming What The Brothers Sang, which will be released through Drag City on February 19, 2013, is an album of Everly Brothers songs interpreted by and filtered through both McCarthy and Billy’s distinctive talents.

Drag City’s press release remarks that these new versions “rethink The Everly Brothers for the audience of listeners today, who naturally might have no knowledge or experience with those songs.”

In the meantime, here’s their cover of The Everly Brothers’ 1972 track, “Christmas Eve Can Kill You,” which is a nice antidote to the forced cheer we’re subjected to for the final months of every year.

You can purchase the “Christmas Eve Can Kill You” single directly from Drag City.