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CMJ 2007, Night Three: Tiny Masters Of Today, 1990s and British Sea Power

One thousand or so bands (give or take a few shaggy haircuts) hit New York City every fall for the CMJ Music Marathon, a five-day band-a-palooza where new acts get noticed (see Arcade Fire) and scores more get drunk at open-bar showcases. For the next few days, Rock Daily will be bringing you reports on the bands we consider most worthy of your time after CMJ has packed up and moved on: One night after Dan Deacon metaphorically brought the house down, the Bowery Ballroom played host to another anticipated CMJ showcase. First up on the bill were the Tiny Masters of Today, featuring two siblings, thirteen-year-old guitarist-vocalist Ivan and eleven-year-old bassist-vocalist Ada, and a father-figure-like man on drums (yes, folks, we know it’s onetime Jon Spencer Blues Explosion kitman Russell Simins). The wear-and-tear of CMJ showcases seemed to drain the youngsters, as the duo seemed lethargic throughout their performance, like they’ve been staying up way past their bedtimes. When they were on, they sounded like pre-teen Ramones playing Paddy Cake, especially on songs like “Hey Mr. DJ” and the Ada-sung anti-George W. rocker “Bushy.” The band closed out their set with a Kidz Bop-esque version of House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” Yeah, they were cute, but hopefully this band’s sound continues to mature or they might grow up and no one will like them anymore, like Frankie Munoz. Next up was the decade that spawned the Tiny Masters, the 1990s. While their name conjures up images of grunge and Bill Clinton, the Glasgow trio is more indebted to the late Seventies/early Eighties, especially given the Buzzcockish riffs and Elvis Costello bounce of their songs. Singer-guitarist Jackie McKeown, who was once in a band called the Yummy Fur with Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, delighted the steadily-increasing Bowery crowd with songs from debut album Cookies. U.K. single “You’re Supposed To Be My Friend” and “Enjoying Myself” (with a Modern Lovers’ “Road Runner” tease)

Published: 2007-10-20
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: CMJ

Fricke’s Picks: Parallel Guitar Universes, British Folk Hero, and Revenge

Parallel Guitar Universes There was a wide world of guitars at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival in Chicago in July– but not the whole wide world. Altitude (Thirsty Ear), by the duo Groundtruther, is a pair of parallel universes unto itself. On one CD, guitarist Charlie Hunter, drummer Bobby Previte and guest keyboardist John Medeski play miniature pieces of watery, free improvisation. More grounded and thrilling is a second disc on which Hunter — well known for playing a seven-string instrument, not famous enough for what he does with it — rips through the air with superrock fuzz and fusion mettle. Asmodeus (Tzadik), guitarist Marc Ribot’s power-trio setting of John Zorn pieces, is just as furious, a shotgun union of Jimi Hendrix¹s Band of Gypsys, Sonny Sharrock¹s free-blues ecstasy and Zorn’s radical Jewish-music explorations. Then there is the elusive Massacre. Ex-Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith and bassist Bill Laswell formed the free-rock trio in 1980, then revived it in 1998 with This Heat drummer Charles Hayward. Lonely Heart is live and hairy, mostly recorded at the 2003 Roskilde Festival, where the band opened for — yes — Metallica. All you have to do is ride the lightning. Clapton’s British Folk Hero At Crossroads, when I asked Clapton whom he forgot to invite, he replied, “Bert Jansch. God, the heart of the English folk scene. Why did I not pick up on that one?” Jansch, with John Renbourn, were in turn the twin-guitar heart of Pentangle, a British quintet that, in the late Sixties and early Seventies, made a daring, remarkable folk music of its own. With a quietly powerful rhythm section, drummer Terry Cox and bassist Danny Thompson, and the golden-spear voice of Jacqui McShee, Pentangle fused traditional balladry, modern jazz, raga and the North African fundamentals of American blues. The Time Has Come 1967-1973 (Castle Music) is a deep, captivating four-CD study of their original studio

Published: 2007-08-24
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Fricke's Picks

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Coachella Day Three: Rage On

“Good evening,” Zack de la Rocha said on Sunday night, looking out at the 50,000 or so people gathered in front of Coachella’s main stage. “We are Rage Against the Machine, from Los Angeles, California.” With that, guitarist Tom Morello –- wearing a baseball band emblazoned with the word “Unite” — kicked into the winding riff of “Testify,” beginning Rage’s first concert in seven years. De La Rocha rapped with so much force that his microphone distorted as he enunciated every word of the lyrics, which were written about the first Gulf War but sounded eerily current: “Baghdad is burning… The war is right outside your door!” Their were signs that this reunion may be fragile: the band didn’t display much affection for each other on stage, with Morello and de la Rocha never quite making eye contact. While they didn’t add anything new to their their hip-hop Zeppelin sound, they did pick up right where they left off, playing with a fierce sense of mission. De la Rocha, who cut off his dreads and grew a modest afro during his years in the wilderness, was short on small talk: One of the few signs that he might have been enjoying himself came when he yelled, “Yes indeed!” during the opening of “Guerilla Radio.” “What better place than here,” he rapped on that song, letting the crowd supply the all-too-appropriate next line: “What better time than now?” During the final pre-encore song, “Wake Up,” de la Rocha finally spoke to the crowd at length, spitting a furious political rant that began by suggesting that every U.S. president should have been hung for war crimes. “This current administration is no exception –- they should be hung and tried and shot,” he said, during the song’s breakdown. “But the challenges we face go beyond the current administration… It’s not a system that changes every four years.. It’s a system we have to tear down, generation after generation.” The band moved back into the main riff, while de la Rocha screamed “Wake up!” The set concluded with R

Published: 2007-04-30
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Coachella 2007

Jack Johnson: Coachella’s Night One Headliner on His Upcoming Tour and Laughing at His Own Mellow

How intense is the anticipation for Prince’s Saturday night headlining set at Coachella this year? Even Day One headliner Jack Johnson risked being scolded by security and sneaked around to hear the Purple One soundcheck Thursday night. “It was rad,” grinned Johnson backstage a scant hour before his own set Friday night. “They did a Radiohead cover at soundcheck, ‘Creep.’” Though it may seem like Johnson would be more at home at Bonnaroo (where he’ll also be playing next month), the laid-back singer-guitarist, who’s performed at Coachella twice before, says he’s a big fan of the desert fest’s mostly rock-oriented lineups. “The last time we played I was right between Sonic Youth and the White Stripes. I felt sandwiched, like we were the ginger between sushi or something,” he said after raving about the Raconteurs set. “I’m definitely honored to be up on stage with all these bands,” he added with characteristic humbleness. “They ask you way in advance will you headline, then they start adding bands it’s like, oh wow, should I really be a headliner?” Johnson isn’t just headlining Coachella and Bonnaroo this year — he’ll also be anchoring New Jersey’s All Points West and San Francisco’s Outside Lands. “We weren’t sure if we were going to do a full tour, so we said yes to a lot of festivals,” he explained. “We thought that would be the only thing we did, and then we slowly added other shows. But yeah, we’re doing a lot of festivals. It’s fun, because I don’t get to see that much live music — I’ve got a four and a two year old — so it’s nice to be able to come to these and catch up, see Vampire Weekend and all these bands I’ve wanted to see.” (One thing he’s bummed he won’t be able to catch is Roger Waters’ Sunday night set — Jo

Published: 2008-04-26
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Coachella

Breeders’ Long-Awaited “Mountain Battles” Due April ‘08

The album Kim Deal has been working on since 2002 is nearly ready for release: The Breeders’ fourth full-length, titled Mountain Battles, will hit stores April 8th, 2008 on 4AD, the label she started out on as a member of Pixies. In an exclusive interview with Rock Daily, Deal revealed the band — which now consists of herself, twin sister Kelley, drummer Jose Medeles and bassist Mando Lopez — has been recording on and off for the past five years with Steve Albini in Chicago as well as Erika Sharkey and Manny Nieto in Los Angeles and her Dayton, Ohio, hometown (Lopez’s Fear bandmate, guitarist Richard Presley, has left the band to “sell Porches in L.A. — he loves his job, by the way”). Deal says the new album doesn’t deviate far from the Breeders’ classic sound, though there were more moments of experimentation. “We did a little bit more overdubs,” she says. “Title TK is the five of us playing basically. That’s how the practices sounded, that’s what we played. But I found I didn’t want to do that this time. I was okay with, oh, let’s have a guitar part that obviously nobody in the band can be playing right now.” Kelley sings a cover of “Regalame Esta Noche” in Spanish (”Okay, she doesn’t speak Spanish,” Deal admits, “But she knows the words because she’s singing them”), and “German Studies” features Kim’s vocals in, yes, German. “It was just this little riff I made up on the four-track,” she says of the latter. “It sounded really cool, really simple. But it would be so cool if instead of me going in my stupid English voice if I could be [sings mock German in gruff tones].” Kelley called the University of Dayton and got the name of a German expert nearby; the sisters were soon plopped down in the woman’s living room working out new lyrics. As for “Regalame,” Deal says she heard

Published: 2007-12-05
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News

Is Your Band Fake? The Complete RS Guide

Hey you! Yes, you, the second cousin of that Guess Who guitarist who’s trying to book gigs playing “American Woman”? The jig is up. In twenty states – most recently Nevada – it is now illegal to perform using a band name if you don’t have any of the original members. Some veteran artists have been outspoken in this band-banning crusade. The loudest voice has been Bowzer from Sha Na Na, whom we barely knew existed outside of our mothers’ vinyl collection and Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song.” Along his journey, he gathered the support of Mary Wilson from The Supremes, who claims that at one point, there were five different fake-Supremes touring the country. So who’s banned from playing the Las Vegas Strip? Read on: The L.A. Guns Despite the fact we probably wouldn’t see them if they were playing for free in our backyard, L.A. Guns offer an interesting case study. Currently, there are two L.A. Guns touring the country. One contains the founding member, Tracii Guns. The other employs singer Phil Lewis, who wasn’t a founding member, but he was the lead singer on the debut album, which was largely penned by Paul Black, who now is the lead singer of the Tracii’s L.A. Guns. But Lewis established himself as the voice of L.A. Guns, and he’s joined by a rhythm section that played on the majority of the albums. The Paul Black L.A. Guns, which have been touring as The L.A. Guns, may have to change their name in the event they play one of the twenty states with the law. The Beach Boys The ongoing legal battles between Mike Love and Al Jardine is what inspired us in the first place to investigate the sordid world of band names. Al Jardine, who’s technically a founding member of The Beach Boys (he took a year off in ’63), had been sued for touring under the name Beach Boys Family & Friends. Mike Love insisted that he had ownership of The Beach Boys name, rewarded by Brothers Records, the trademark holder, which Al Jardine is a minority shareholder.

Published: 2007-06-08
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: General

Police Drummer Stewart Copeland Calls Reunion Show “Unbelievably Lame”

“It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig,” Police drummer Stewart Copeland writes on his blog (yes, he has a blog). “But we’re The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule.” Thus reads the self-eviscerating post in which the drummer describes exactly how bad the band’s much-heralded reunion shows have been sounding to him. He explicitly details his take on the band’s second major reunion show in Vancouver with a blow-by-blow of his onstage musings (read Charles Cross’ review of the first show here). Oh, and he calls Sting a “petulant pansy.” Here are our favorite snippets from Copeland’s post: “I collect myself in the dark and start to warm up the gong with a few gentle taps. But I’m overdoing it. It’s resonating and reaching it’s crescendo before the stage has fully reached its position. Sort of like a premature ejaculation. There’s nothing for it so I take a big swing for the big hit. Problem is, I’m just fractionally too far away and the beater misses the sweet spot and the big pompous opening to the show is a damp squib. Never mind.” “I stride manfully to my drums. Andy has started the opening guitar riff to MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and the crowd is going nuts. Problem is, I missed hearing him start. Is he on the first time around or the second? I look over at Sting and he’s not much help, his cue is me – and I’m lost. Never mind. “Crack!” on the snare and I’m in, so Sting starts singing. Problem is, he heard my crack as two in the bar, but it was actually four – so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho.” “There is just something wrong. We just can’t get on the good foot. We shamble through the song [”Synchronicity”] and hit the big ending. Last night Sting did a big leap for the cut-off hit, and he makes the same move tonight, but he gets the footwork just a little bit wrong and doesn’t quite achieve lift-off. The mighty St

Published: 2007-06-01
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: General

Plain White T’s Tease NYC With So-So Pop Punk

The Plain White T’s are the latest in a slew of bubblegum pop-punk bands to gain popularity in the wake of Fall Out Boy. The bubblegum moniker here is entirely appropriate, as it applies to their genre as well as their music, which is best described as chewy, catchy, elastic and ultimately flavorless. So it was no surprise to anyone who showed up Tuesday night at New York’s Fillmore at Irving Plaza when the band led off its set by dedicating a song to every girl in the audience, and then extended that dedication to every guy in a band who writes music for the girls in the audience. (Did they realize they were dedicating the song to themselves?) Yes, the Chicago quintet truly brought new clumsiness to the cannon of sloppy “I-need-you” lyrics. A sampling: “You and me, we like the same kind of music/That’s why we, make a good you and me,” from the song — you guessed it — “You and Me”. But hoards of teenaged girls in braces and backpacks didn’t seem to mind. They used the pauses between songs as efficiently as they could, counting off and then collectively proposing to lead singer Tom Higgenson: “Marry me, Tom!” It was like a living, breathing MySpace comment. Plain White T’s gained some mainstream popularity last year after filling in for Bloc Party to open for Panic! at the Disco on their U.S. tour. Although still relatively unknown to the world (they only have 378,603 MySpace fans-Psh! Flavor Flav has more than that), they were able to pull together a modest, small-venue tour in support of their latest album Every Second Counts. (The bill also featured Boys Night Out, Lovedrug and Dear and the Headlights.) On stage, Higgenson alternated between two movements-the wet dog shake and the invisible jump rope. In other words, as dynamic as a plain white T. Guitarist Dave Trio was also a bit of a snooze, and De’Mar Hamilton gave a mediocre effort on drums, boasting an “eh” solo halfway through the song

Published: 2007-04-20
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Live Shows

Picture: Levon Helm Leads An All-Star Lineup in NYC

Led Zeppelin Roundup: Backstage and Beyond

By now you’ve probably read about what happened onstage during Led Zeppelin’s show last night, but else happened at the concert of the year? For one, Pete Townshend, despite reports to the contrary, did not perform: “I pulled out of the Ahmet Ertegun benefit the day I heard Led Zep were performing,” Townshend wrote on his blog. “They really don’t need me.” Many in the audience probably wished the other openers had taken Townshend’s stance, but they gave a polite reception to the other acts. The show began with a prog-rock supergroup composed of Yes bassist Chris Squire, Yes drummer Alan White, Emerson and Lake and Palmer’s keyboardist Keith Emerson, doing a progged-out version of Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare For The Common Man.” Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman took the stage next with his longtime group The Rhythm Kings, serving as the house band for the remaining openers. Paul Rodgers performed joined them for “All Right Now” and Foreigner’s Mick Jones came out for “I Want To Know What Love Is.” All of the acts had been signed by the late Atlantic Records co-founder Ertegun, and Robert Plant made sure that the audience didn’t forget it, announcing “Ahmet, we did it!” after Zeppelin performed “Stairway to Heaven.” Backstage at the main gig was one gigantic A-list conclave, featuring Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, David Gilmour, Dave Grohl, Marilyn Manson, Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, Michael J. Fox, Pink, Juliette Lewis, Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher and Steve Winwood. After the show, VIP’s headed over to the nearby Club Indigo to check out a post-show featuring soul stars Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Percy Sledge and Sam Moore. The club was jam packed, and even the most intrepid of reporters didn’t manage to get in. If that weren’t validation enough for Jimmy Page and Robert P

Published: 2007-12-12
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Led Zeppelin Reunion

Linkin Park Announce Summer Tour With My Chemical Romance

Watch Queen Rock “Tie Your Mother Down” at a 1981 Montreal Show

CMJ 2007, Night Three: Tiny Masters Of Today, 1990s and British Sea Power

Fricke’s Picks: Parallel Guitar Universes, British Folk Hero, and Revenge

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