October 2006

Playin in Travelin’ Band

John Fogerty
The Long Road Home In Concert
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

For more than thirty years, John Fogerty was unable to perform any of the songs that made the acronym CCR instantly recognizable. A lawsuit against Fantasy Records, the small independent label that had fleeced millions from Creedence Clearwater Revival catalogue, kept Fogarty in limbo. Fogerty steadfastly refused to play any of Creedence’s music live, unwilling to pay Fantasy royalties for songs he’d written. On the rare occasions when Fogerty did sing live, he was forced to rely on his solo work, little of which rivaled his seemingly endless stream of hits he’d had with Creedence between 1969 and 1972. Fogerty finally settled with Fantasy in 2005, but felt he also had to deal with former band mates Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, who were playing gigs using the bands name. The resulting compromise (Cook and Clifford now tour as “Creedence Clearwater Revisited”) satisfied no one and quashed any hope of a CCR reunion.

With the lawsuits and Creedence behind him, Fogerty was finally able to tap into his legacy. The question that hung over him as he prepared for a lengthy concert tour was whether or not he still the chops to recapture the swampy vitality that had made Creedence an FM staple. That question is answered emphatically on “The Long Road Home In Concert.” Fogerty tears into every song with the ferocity of a hoodoo chasing a hound.

The two disc CD was recorded on September 13, 2005 at the Wiltern Theater in Hollywood. The six man band, which includes former Fleetwood Mac front man Billy Burnette and underrated bassist George Hawkins, is the tightest unit Fogerty has ever played with. Nearly all of CCR’s hits are here, played with reverence alongside songs culled mostly from Fogerty’s best solo effort, “Blue Moon Swamp.”

Fogerty leaves no doubt about the strength of his voice or his endurance from the start, tearing into “Travelin’ Band,” one of Creedence’s more demanding songs. Hawkins’ walking bass accompaniment proves the equal of Stu Cook’s original take, and 61 year-old Fogerty sings with the enthusiasm and grit of a man reborn. When Fogerty tells the crowd “What I’m about is playin’ rock and roll, so let’s get to it” and the band rips into “Green River,” the party doesn’t stop until the last note on disc two. Fogerty’s vocal on “Green River” and many of the other songs are cleaner than they were on the original L.P.s (thanks to technology and the simple fact he’s playing live.), and he no longer tries to phony up his accent in order to sound like a southerner. What you get here is unadorned, straight ahead guitar-dominated rock with throat-ripping vocals.

The highlights are numerous, including a mini-guitar war between Burnette, Fogerty and Britt on “The Old Man Down the Road,” and “Keep On Chooglin’,” in which Fogerty conjures up visions of harp-God Paul Butterfield with a lung-stretching solo. Fogerty seems to have traveled back in time to his salad days in the 70s for his remarkably emphatic performance of “Have you Ever Seen the Rain,” and “Bootleg” stomps with the type of bayou-infused authenticity found in Tony Joe White’s or Bobbie Gentry’s material. Uninspired in its original form, “Hey Tonight” is vastly improved by Billy Burnette’s rich back up vocal and Hawkins’ muscular bass. “Looking Out My Back Door” remains faithful to its perky studio arrangement, thanks to Burnett’s studied intro, which draws a well-earned compliment from Fogarty -- “Playin' that chooka chooka guitar, that's Billy Burnette!” Fogerty still sounds like he’s singing “There’s a bathroom on the right” on “Bad Moon Rising,’ and develops an unexplained cockney accent mid way through, but the band is spot on. Framed by Bob Britt’s predatory guitar work and Booker T. styled organ from Matt Nolen, “Tombstone Shadow,” exhibits a streak of fiery grit that far outstrips the studio version. When Fogerty snarls “Every time I git some good news, there’s a shaadooh on my back!” there’s no doubt that the California-born Fogerty’s fertile imagination was attuned to the Bayou.

There are few letdowns on either disc, but as one might expect, they come in the form of Fogerty’s weaker solo material, which leads one to suspect that Cook, Clifford and Tom Fogerty had more to do with overall Creedence’s sound than Fogerty has let on in interviews and lawsuits. But even the lesser songs have bright moments. The road song “Hot Rod Heart” chugs along peacefully like a classic Thunderbird on a hot Arizona road, and “Rambunctious Boy” has an appropriately blistering lead from Bob Britt. “Déjà vu All Over Again,” a poignant ballad about the foolishness of war, quietly closes the first CD. A couple of Creedence songs stumble a bit in their more rockin’ incarnations, but are still infinitely listenable. “Run Through the Jungle” loses its menace as a straight rocker and “Proud Mary” pumps along at such a super-heated pace you’ll expect Tina Turner and the Ikettes to dance out chirping “Get up do-do-do-do-do do.” The only outright stinker on either CD is “She’s Got Baggage,” which borrows heavily from the Ramones “I Wanna Be Sedated.” If you’re going to steal a riff John, swipe something good.

The only other misstep is the presence of ham-fisted drummer John Molo. Molo has virtually no skills, beating away at his kit like a caffeine-driven blacksmith abusing an anvil. Sometimes he accelerates the beat to such a dizzying speed you expect to hear Fogerty gasp, clutch his chest and sing “It’s the big one, Elizabeth,” before he crashes to the stage. Fortunately, Fogerty seems to relish the hectic pace and rest of the band makes up for Molo’s elementary skills.

“The Long Road Home In Concert” proves you can go home again. Especially if you’re an artist with as much energy and determination as John Fogerty.

Posted October 30, 2006 Permalink

Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.

Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.
Dwight Yoakam
0 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

According to the liner notes for “Guitars, Cadillacs, etc, etc...” Dwight Yoakam’s music was “too rock” for Nashville. The only rock contained in this Hee Haw-inspired torture fest is the one I threw at both disks after my ears stopped bleeding. Now I know why hillbillies drink so much – they have to listen to Dwight Yoakam’s backwoods homilies. Not only is “Guitars, Cadillacs, etc...etc..” bogged down by trite tales of self-righteous commonfolk and enough wobbly pedal steel to build a still, you get to hear two -- or Lordy -- even three versions of the same colorless, whiny country you used to make fun of on “Hee Haw.”

The deluxe edition is divided into three parts: Demos, Guitars, Cadillacs, etc, etc… and Live at the Roxy 1986. Each section is more agonizing to endure than the last. Part one is made of demos Yoakam recorded in 1981. “This Drinkin’ Will Kill Me,’ opens the CD in frantic, kick up yer boots fashion. Yoakum sounds way too chipper to be so downhearted he wants to drink himself to death. The beat is too active for the downtrodden lyrics to have any affect. If not for the presence of a Joe Dee Manes sickly pedal steel and a fiddle sawing away this would be a polka. Regardless, you’ll want to skip the booze and go straight to the harder stuff if you want to get through it. “It Won’t Hurt” (like hell it won’t), is also dominated Manes, who plays pedal steel with the skill of a psychotic nun running her fingers up and down a chalkboard. Yoakam’s voice on the demos occasionally brings to mind Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers, which is not such a bad thing, given that he uses the same nasal non-descript delivery mastered by George Jones, Merle Haggard and Conway Twitty on parts two and three. The lyrics to “It Won’t Hurt” are from the good ole boys school of she done him wrong: “It won’t hurt when I fall down from this bar stool, and it won’t hurt when I stumble in the street. It won’t hurt ‘cause this whiskey eases misery, but even whiskey cannot ease your hurting me.” Even Stephen King couldn’t write more nightmarish tripe. “Miner’s Prayer” at least has a freight train beat and a bright foray on fiddle spun by Glen D. Hardin, but is derailed by Manes’ queasy solo. Yoakam tries to go the Robbie Robertson/Gordon Lightfoot route by spinning a story of the hardships of working in the mines: “I still grieve for my poor brother, and I still hear my dear old mother cry, when late that night they came and told her, he’d lost his life in Big Shoal Mine.” Sometimes a vivid historic or geographic reference can project the listener back in time and space. When Yoakam slurs with all of the sincerity of a carpetbagger, “I have the love of my sweet children, an old plow mule, a shovel and a hoe,” you’d like to be propelled to the moment in time when you can watch his mule throw him and you can use his shovel and hoe to bury him. He’s equally hard to cipher on “Bury Me’ (why does he keep giving me these straight lines?), another uptempo disaster drowned by mushy pedal steel. In “Bury Me,” Yoakam tries to take on the persona of a God-fearing hillbilly Moses, but pontificates from his smokey mountain retreat with all the clarity of Professor Irwin Corey: “Bury me along big sandy, down in the blue, grey mountains. Rest my soul on those hills of coal, until this old earth does tremble.”. “I Sang Dixie” is so howlingly poor, it will undoubtedly keep the South from rising again. As if his own pedestrian lyrics aren’t enough, Yoakam has the grits to insert a portion of “Dixie’ (yes, “way down under in the land of cotton,” Dixie) into his song. I guess you could say he was ahead of his time – he was sampling way back in ’81.

The second part of the deluxe edition offers up gussied-up versions of the demos that somehow landed him a record deal, including second shots at “I’ll Be Gone.” “Bury Me.” “It Won’t Hurt,” “Twenty Years,’ and “Miner’s Prayer.” There isn’t enough moonshine in ole Virginny to help you get through these hackneyed hosannas twice. “Bury Me” is pulled from the trough again in the form of a duet between Yoakam, (unhappily no longer channeling Dickie Betts), and Maria McKee, former lead chanteuse for the cowpunk/country rocker band Lone Justice. Now it’s Maria who’s channeling. Once a distinctive singer with power to burn, she leaves a weak impression as Dolly Parton sound-alike. The down home feel of the second take on “Miner’s Prayer” brings to mind an Appalachian folk tune from the 1800’s – reinforcing why we should be glad it’s 2006. Striving for authenticity, Yoakam borrows part of the arrangement from “Man of Constant Sorrow,” when he should have just taken the bullet and done his own version. Speaking of covers, his hillbilly hoedown hatchet job on Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is “Gong Show” material, so ragged it sounds like it belongs in part one with the demos. “South of Cincinnati,” with its snail’s pace and oh lonesome me lyrics, guarantees I’ll never set foot in the hometown of the Big Red Machine.

Disk two (part 3 of the deluxe edition) showcases a 1986 radio broadcast performance at the Roxy that supposedly elevated Yoakam to stardom. The producers and agents who eventually signed on to promote Yoakam must have caught an earful of “Rocky Road Blues,” which reflects the Bakersfield sound typified by Buck Owens. Too bad Yoakam fails to capture its energy anywhere else. The crackling fretwork that leaps out of the speakers is courtesy of guitarist Peter Anderson, who sounds as if he studied at the raucous rocking feet of the late Link Wray. Otherwise, the live tracks are workmanlike, the losing effort of a band ducking beer bottles to collect a paycheck. Several tracks, including a disjointed “I’ll be Gone” (“A hillbilly diddy,” to quote Yoakam) and “Heartaches By the Number,” fare slightly better than the studio versions, but that’s like saying death by hanging is preferable to being shot.

Stay with me while I make what at first may seem a disconnected analogy… (Hey, thirty two tracks with only one decent performance would force you into a corner too.) In the movie “Mars Attacks,’ the earth is finally saved from hostile invaders when the hero discovers that country-western music makes Martian’s heads explode. I’m certain the music they used to thwart the Martians came from Dwight Yoakam’s catalogue. Save this CD package for when the Martians attack and you could very well be Earth’s savior. Play it anytime before then and if your head doesn’t explode, anyone within listening distance will certainly attack you.

Posted October 30, 2006 Permalink

Manhattan Transfer

The Symphony Sessions
The Manhattan Transfer
1 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

In all fairness, I’ll have to admit I loathe cabaret jazz. It’s sterile elevator music for triple-figure executives who drink hundred year-old whiskey and wear smoking jackets to bed. But this travesty isn’t even soft jazz, it’s mushy jazz, with oscillating, bland ensemble vocals to boot – and if those factors alone didn’t already make this challenging enough to listen to, “Symphonic Sessions” tries too hard to live up to it’s title, sporting play-by-numbers orchestral charts that would make Percy Faith snap his baton in half.

The Symphonic Sessions “reinvents” songs from previous Manhattan Transfer recordings, putting them through an orchestral meat grinder. The most polite and pithy thing I can say about the CD overall is transfer it as far away from your ears as possible. I will now stopping being even remotely polite.

“Route 66” starts your journey into vocal hell. Wait a minute, this was an instrumental once. Wasn’t it the theme song to a T.V. show starring the immortal George Maharis? It says in the liner notes that the arrangement is by Al Capps. Isn’t that the same guy who penned the comic strip “Lil’ Abner?” It might explain why the style-but-no-substance vocals sound like a parody of singers who take their craft seriously. (By the way, I know Lil' Abner was created by Al Capp.)

It took three people to write “Candy,” which sports such poetic pearls as “Got a sweet tooth for my sweetheart,” and “Candy, it’s gonna be dandy.” That’s three writers too many. Somehow, the Manhattan Transfer also manage to take George and Ira Gershwin’s “Embraceable You” into erasable you -- the moment after you hear it, you’ll forget all about it.

“A Nightingale in Berkeley Square” is an early Christmas present. Here’s some coal in your ear, a perfectly innocuous dose of musical Sominex. You won’t be saying, “Sir? Can I have some more please, sir?”

“Because You Are All Heart (Movement, 2. A Portrait of Ella)” is supposed to pay homage to Ella Fitzgerald. If it did, it would swing. There’s a hint of a pulse thanks to a trumpet solo that momentarily threatens to excite. Let’s hope the next time the Manhattan Transfer wants to recognize Ella that they record a verbal apology to her instead.

There is one song on the CD worth listening to and that’s “The Quietude.” With its “Riders on the Storm” intro, dark tone and vocal turns straight out of Brazil ‘66’s catalogue, “The Quietude” is unique to the CD. It works. The rest of the performances sound as if they were casually knocked off in one session after the polo match – they may have actually put some thought into this one.

If arranger Corey Allen created the ominous atmosphere that dominated “The Quietude,” you would think he would score with “The Offbeat of the Avenues.” Alas, his conscience must have kicked in for only one song. Here, everything the group does quickly implodes. In his attempt to sound like a cool cat, one of the male singers winds up sounding like a very bad imitation of Cheech Marin looking to score. The ladies try to jazz things up by trading vocals, but it’s all downhill after pseudo-Cheech’s appearance. When all four singers take separate parts, singing them all at once, the vocals crash together in a schizophrenic morass.

The Transfer even manage to offend themselves. They revisit their signature tune, “Birdland,” dropping vocal Scud missiles on it like pigeons dive bombing a white Cadillac. Hey, wait a minute, wasn’t this once an instrumental too? Makes them 0-for-2 in the turning instrumentals into vocal department. And Cheech is back too, reminding you to get the telephone number for the Jazz Anti-Defamation League and report these guys.

The Manhattan Transfer is considered the class of the cabaret circuit, which just proves that all dogs have some sort of a pedigree. There’s a reason dentist’s everywhere have removed this kind of dreck from their offices. It puts their patients to sleep. If you’re lucky, you’ll be in a coma shortly after the first vocal turn on “Route 66.” The only reason this CD gets a star at all is because of “The Quietude” and Cheryl Bentyne, one of the two female singers. (Cheryl Bentyne photographs well, which shows you how far I had to stretch to justify the second half of my one star rating.) Take this CD out into a field and shoot it before it reproduces.

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson- Talk about it here

Posted October 25, 2006 Permalink

The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Traffic
5 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

This is far and away my favorite album of all time. You want proof? I bought three copies of it on L.P, wore them out, bought it on CD, upgraded to a mobile fidelity CD when that came out --and yes, now that it's been remastered I bought that one too, just in case you really can wear out a CD. "Low Spark" is one of the few albums I've ever heard where half a dozen or more styles of music are represented -- sometimes you get folk, blues, and R & B -- all in the same song! Another added plus is that there are two vocalists on this album, Steve Winwood (of course) and surprise, Jim Capaldi. Everyone knows Winwood is one of the best singers on the planet. His voice here is angelic, pained, world-weary and downright beautiful. Capaldi is his polar opposite, gritty, soulful, guttural. He sings as if he's got a glint in his eye and his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. The group's third founding member, sax/flute player Chris Wood, contributes the colors that give the songs personality. In interviews long after Wood's passing in 1983, both Winwood and Capaldi continued to say that it was Wood's playing that gave Traffic it's distinctive sound -- (despite the fact that he had only one writing credit after the first album). Fourth founding member Dave Mason is nowhere to be found, another plus. Mason had long been at loggerheads with the group (particularly Winwood, who chaffs at the mention of his name to this day). His me-first attitude had gotten him tossed from the group no less than three times (he managed to quit once too). Another advantage -- and this is huge --is with Capaldi leaving his drum kit to sing, Jim Gordon, a veritable superman on drums, took over. Capaldi was always a serviceable drummer who could help the music chug along, but Gordon drives and shapes the beat. It's not lost on the music that Gordon was an American who brought a sense of R & B to some of the songs and a hard rock beat to others. Add master percussionist Anthony Reebop Kwaku Baah to rhythm section and the music also takes on a third world feel. Throw in Rick Grech, Winwood’s band mate in Blind Faith, a disciple of the Jack Bruce school of playing bass like a lead guitar, and you've got the perfect counterpoint to Gordon, Capaldi and Reebop's percussion.

"Hidden Treasure" the opener, is an extension of Traffic’s definitive interpretation of "John Barleycorn." Wood's lilting flute gives the song a tradition folk feel akin to the approach of Fairport Convention or Pentangle. The song shifts gears in the middle and takes on a Middle Eastern feel before returning to English folk. A long silence follows before you realize there's a sax snaking out of your speaker like a foghorn blowing in the mist. Wood's sax gets louder as Winwood chimes in on piano, launching into the title cut, a mixture of jazz, Latin and rock. A tip of the hat has to go to Capaldi, who wrote the lyrics to virtually all of Traffic's tunes (Winwood usually concentrated on the music). On this song and album he outdoes himself, filling the songs with imagery running the gamut from nature (and man's place in it), to money, sex, and freedom. These aren't the typical "I lost my baby" lyrics, Capaldi's lyrics make you think -- which is rare in rock music.

Capaldi got Low Spark’s title from actor Michael J. Pollard. While sitting at a café in Morocco with Pollard discussing a movie project, a reporter came up to the pair and asked Pollard to describe Traffic’s music. He said the group sounded like “the low spark of high heeled boys” and Capaldi filed the obtuse catch phrase for future use. Capaldi wrote the song’s third verse in the hallway while the group was recording and placed the lyrics on the piano in front of Winwood as he came out of his synthesizer solo: “If I gave you everything that I own, and ask for nothing in return, would you do the same for me as I would for you? Or take me for a ride, and strip me of everything, including my pride, but spirit is something non one can destroy.” Full of spontaneous, intense jazz-inspired riffs, particularly by Winwood on piano and synthesizer, the song’s underbelly percolates, thanks to Reebop’s dexterous runs on congas and Gordon’s unerring ability to change tempo as easily as a race car driver shifts gears . Grech seems to be playing the same subtle bass line for the song’s eleven minute duration, but listen closely and you’ll hear him throw in some impressive runs up and down the fret board during Winwood’s solos.

Less we get too serious, the next song, Capaldi’s "Light Up Or Leave Me Alone,” is a playful Motown romp with a fluid and funky guitar riff by Winwood, a pulsating beat by Gordon and a leering vocal Capaldi’s having such a good time being out in front he practically laughs his way through lines like “Spending my bread like it grew in the trees, you’re tryin’ to tell ‘bout the birds and the bees, the skirt that you’re wearin’ is way past your knees, either light up or leave me alone!” Even the background music shakes with conviction, with Grech’s thumping bass giving James Jamerson a run for his money and Winwood's tasty electric piano playing sounding well, like Winwood.

Side two's opener, "Rock and Roll Stew" is the only song Grech and Gordon ever wrote for Traffic and it's a flat out winner, mixing a reggae beat with R & B. Capaldi handles the vocals again, grunting, shouting and clapping his way through the infectious beat, which is as toe-tapping as anything War ever did. “Rock and Roll Stew” and the “Light Up “ served notice that Winwood was every bit as good a guitar player as he was a keyboard player.

The album's high point, "Many a Mile to Freedom" follows, a deceptively peaceful song that builds and soars toward its finish. Wood's whispery flute and Winwood's shimmering guitar solo are highlights, but it's Winwood's fragile vocal that's the main attraction, conveying Capaldi's melancholy lyrics about nature -- you can practically feel the winter in your bones. “Many a mile to freedom, many smile to turn. Ask my bluebird to sing to you from the heart of a wishing well. If you should ask me to give you, the reason for life as we know, then together we float like the river, and together we melt like the snow.”

"Rainmaker" the final cut, is another gem. Beginning where the album started, with Wood’s flute evoking traditional English folk, Capaldi and Winwood launch into a Druid-like chant pleading for rain. The seemingly simplistic vocal gives way to two stunning solos --Wood, ghostly and gentle on flute, followed by Grech, taking a rare turn on violin, which bathes the song in an exotic, Middle Eastern feel. Wood circles back in on flute, then Capaldi and Winwood return to the chant. Just when you think the song is over, Reebop bursts in on timbales and congas, transforming the song from folk to Latin. Previously subdued, Gordon leads an army of overdubbed percussion. Winwood puts down his acoustic and picks up an electric guitar, and Wood, now on sax, begins to wail like Junior Walker -- a surprising and very pleasant ending to a masterpiece.

Although “Low Spark” proved to be Traffic’s best selling album in America, these days Winwood is the only member of the of the six man group who is still around to hear the applause. Gordon, co-writer of “Layla” with Eric Clapton is still alive, but his drum kit has long been silent. A schizophrenic, he’s been in jailed since 1984, shortly after the voices in his head told him to kill his mother. Reebop’s show-stopping solos in concert eventually drew Winwood’s ire and his occasional absence from stage lead to his dismissal during the recording of the group’s swan song, “When the Eagle Flies” in 1974. He became a highly sought after percussionist for hire, enjoying a stint in the raucous German prog band Can. Tragically he died on stage in his adopted home of Sweden in 1982, a year before Chris Wood passed away, the victim of a brain hemorrhage. Grech’s love for American country music would bring him to America , where he would hook up with Gram Parsons before joining KGB, a supergroup featuring Mike Bloomfield at the apex of his heroin addiction (and the nadir of his guitar playing) and the commanding drumming of Carmine Appice. No choir boy himself, Grech feuded with Bloomfield and both men were sacrificed for the sake of the group. Grech slowly faded from music, ending his days as a carpet salesman before succumbing to liver and kidney failure as the result of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 43. Capaldi went on to a stellar solo career, releasing 14 albums, becoming a five time winner of the BMI/Ascap Award for the "most played compositions in America,” and penned numerous classics such as “Love Will Keep Us Alive,” (covered by the Eagles) and “This is Reggae Music,” co-written with Bob Marley. Stricken with stomach cancer, Capaldi, Traffic’s heart and soul, died in 2005 at 60, shortly after the group was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.

If you have but one Traffic album in your collection, check that, if you have but one album in your collection, "Low Spark" should be it. It’s musical alchemy, lightning in a bottle. If I could give "Low Spark" more than five stars I would.

Writer’s note: The remastered version of “Low Spark” features the bonus cut “Rock and Roll Stew” (parts 1 & 2). Originally a two sided 45 (remember those?), part two, full out guitar-dominated jam, will be of special interest to fans.

Posted October 19, 2006 Permalink

The Very Best of Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia
The Very Best of Jerry Garcia
3 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

“The Very Best of Jerry Garcia” is a misnomer. If Rhino’s two disc set really contained Garcia’s best performances this would be a compilation of Grateful Dead tracks with most of the meandering studio slop exorcised for the benefit of innocent ears. True Deadheads will rejoice over the live tracks on Disc 2. The rest of us will continue to wonder what the heck fans saw in guitar player who often sounded lost within his own band and sang with the energy an ossified hippie on a bad buzz.

Garcia wasn’t as versatile a guitar player as Jeff Beck, didn’t have Eric Clapton’s discipline, Paul Kossoff’s distinctive tremolo or Jimi Hendrix’s fire, but he was prolific, and I’m not necessarily talking about the off-stage habits that eventually killed him. His willingness to experiment and his gentle soul is what endeared him to the many minions willing to stand waist deep in mud in order to hear another out of tune 30-minute version of “Truckin’.” “The Very Best of Garcia” explores, or rather exposes, the many musical personalities that made up the man often referred to as Captain Trips.

No compilation of Garcia’s solo recordings would be complete without “Sugaree,” his best known tune outside of the protective musical cocoon of the Dead. Garcia’s normally somnambulistic vocal style perks up whenever he approaches the lines, “Just one thing I ask of you, just one thing for me, please forget you knew my name, my darlin’ Sugaree!” Billy Kreuztman, one half of the Dead’s drum duo, finally gets to step to the forefront snapping off a lock step rhythm, and Garcia, who recorded all the other supporting instruments, proves to be a capable bassist. “Sugaree” is country rock with a punch, an anomaly in Garcia’s solo catalogue.

It’s no surprise that five tunes from Garcia’s self-titled first solo album make the first CD’s cut -- “Garcia” is one of the few non-Dead recordings worth owning. The harmless “Deal” opens the compilation, propped up by the Dead’s secret weapon -- lyricist Robert Hunter, who ingrains the countrified arrangement with literal pearls such as “If I tell you all that went down, it would burn off both your ears.” “Bird Song,” with its ominous chord changes and wobbly solos has the Grateful Dead’s stylistic stamp written all over it, while “Loser” is an aptly named country-western dud that even Willie Nelson would shun. “The Wheel” is a worthy highlight, awash with breezy pedal steel that weaves in and out like a double-wide on a lonesome road.

The rest of disc one is of the “throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” variety, and most of it misses the wall altogether. Chuck Berry’s “Let it Rock” doesn’t; not even Michael Omartian’s plucky piano or the presence of premier percussionist Bobbye Hall can motivate the drowsy arrangement. “Mission in the Rain” is slow, mournful and as pleasant as a toxic fog, while the Mexicali-flavored “Rubin and Cherise“ suffers from ill-timed synthesizer licks, and the unremarkable “Cats Under the Stars” is derailed by one of the all-time inappropriate lyrics: “Time is a stripper, doin’ it just for you.” Yeech. r “Rhapsody in Red,” which owes a great deal to Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” is one of the set’s curious red herrings. Garcia plays a lively, in-your-face style that’s very un-Dead and actually in tune. Another curious choice is Irving Berlin’s “Russian Lullaby,” with its Mardi Gras horns and down-home fiddling which lends the song a nostalgic feel on par with one of Leon Redbone’s lesser efforts. “Without Love,” done in bombastic fashion by Tom Jones and immortalized by Clyde McPhatter, receives the Memphis Horns treatment. It’s a really painful tune to sit through. If Garcia had managed to stay in key – or awake -- it might have worked. “Might as Well” is a good-time toe-tapper that Garcia may have used as a blueprint for “Alabama Getaway.” Featuring the entire version of the Keith and Donna Godchaux era of the band, “Might As Well” benefits from the familiarity of the musicians. Nothing is forced, fatigued or over stated. “I’ll Take the Melody,” spaces out at 9:28 and turns composer Allen Toussaint’s more animated version on its head, but it still processes a sentimental, melancholy feel that successfully surrounds Garcia’s fragile pipes.

Jerry Garcia earned his bones playing live, but was a mercurial performer, inspired one night, hopeless the next. The live disc captures a bit of both starting off magnificently with 1973’s “Catfish John,” featuring master fiddler Vassar Clemens, who’s so fluid he gets two solos. Garcia displays a noteworthy case of happy fingers soloing on banjo and shadowboxes with David Grisman, who fills all empty spots with gleeful picking on mandolin. The folks at the Grand Ole Opry would be very proud of “Catfish John” and 1987’s “Deep Eleem Blues,” which follows. Kenny Kosek is a little more haywire than Vassar Clemens but no less effective, David Nelson shows he’s as talented on guitar as brother Rick, and Garcia, very much as ease, sounds like he’s found the right genre for his talents. On the other hand, “Ripple,” a Dead staple, falters badly. Garcia sounds tired, raspy and very much on automatic pilot. The late Nicky Hopkins steals the show on “Positively 4th Street,” giving a clinic on piano soloing, while bassist John Kahn displays what little life there is in a 12:00 plus, excruciatingly soulless version of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come.” With its “Sweet Little 16” beat, “Evangeline,” one of Los Lobos’ more forgettable tunes, moves and bops – Egad, Jerry Garcia rocks! But the surprise performance has to be Garcia’s unreleased version of “Dear Prudence.” Logic says even Garcia shouldn’t mess with such a sacred tune, but the bearded one pulls a trump card – Ed Neumeister on trombone and Ron Stallings on sax swagger with such confidence that Garcia snaps out of his stupor ripping off clean, confident solos. He almost sounds as if he’s having as much fun as he did playing “Catfish John” and “Deep Eleem Blues.”

Deadheads will argue that two of Garcia’s best recordings with David Grisman, mandolin dominated versions of “The Thrill is Gone” and “Shady Grove” are strangely absent, but one thing we all can be sure of is there will be another “Best of” and another and another, and those two tunes will likely be repackaged. The “Best of Jerry Garcia” is somewhat like Captain Trips himself, capable of being exhilarating one moment and downright awful the next, worth listening to but not owning.

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson - Talk about it here

Posted October 17, 2006 Permalink

Straight Outta Lynwood - Take 2

Straight Outta Lynwood
Weird Al Yankovic

Just the CD: 2.5 out of 5 stars
The CD & DVD: 3.5 out of 5

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson
Note: See Straight Outta Lynwood - Take 1 reviewed by Dr Mike

There are very few musicians who specialize in comedy, John Valby (a/k/a Dr. Dirty) and Sean Morey comes to mind (stop me if you’ve heard of them). Frank Zappa could very well have been the greatest unintentional musical satirist in rock, except he took himself way too seriously and expected everyone else to as well. Even though cantankerous Franco was a knockout guitarist, it’s hard to take anyone seriously who names his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil and sports titles in his catalogue such as “Hot Poop,” “Help I’m a Rock” and “It Must Be a Camel.”

Weird Al Yankovic takes nothing seriously, particularly his music, and has delivered many side-splitting parodies of classic tunes, including, “Living With a Hernia” (a lampoon of James Brown’s “Living in America”), “Another One Rides the Bus (a gut-busting take-off of Queen’s “Another One Ride the Bus”) and his send up of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” entitled “Eat it,” which sported more one liners than Henny Youngman on speed, including “Eat it, eat it, if it get cold reheat it!”

Al’s latest concoction, “Straight Outta Linwood” is a dual disk containing a CD, a glimpse of Al in the studio, karaoke versions of all the songs (accompanied by chronological photos of Al) and half a dozen videos. The CDs is not as strong as some of his past efforts, but the extras may make the dual disc a worthwhile investment. More on the extras later…

The CD…
With “White and Nerdy,” a parody of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty.” Al takes a few swipes at a genre that often seems to lampoon itself (rap). He pokes fun at a current rock icon (Green Day), aping their Ramones-on-speed approach to music with “Canadian Idiot,” which is tart enough to start a border war – “Don’t wanna be a Canadian Idiot, don’t wanna be some beer swillin’ hockey nut. And do I look like some frostbitten hosehead? I never learned my alphabet from A to Zed.” Two other parodies, “Confessions Part III” (a rip on Usher’s pompous “Confessions Part II”) and “Do I Creep You Out,” which turns Taylor Hicks’ “Do I Make You Proud” into an icky stalker tale are ambitious, but not amusing. “Pancreas” is a dead-on imitation of the Beach Boys. Hints of “God Only Knows” and “California Saga” abound and the multi-layered harmonies rival the Beach Boys’ best material. The irony is the lyrics are gross enough to turn your stomach -- and pancreas -- inside out. “Close But No Cigar” is the tale of a perfectionist looking for his idea of a ten. The lyrics are inventive, who else but Al would think to rhyme Manolo with Buddy Rich solo? --but the music isn’t, so the title fits all too well.

The epic “Trapped in the Drive-Thru,” a take-off on R. Kelly’s slick “Trapped in the Closet,” has moments of comedic brilliance, but slowly chokes to death on it’s 10:50 length. You could probably get in your car, pick up a meal and wolf half of it down before Al’s step by step by step tale is over. “Polkarama!” continues Al’s fascination with the accordion, one of the three most annoying instruments ever created by man. (Glad you asked, pedal steel and bagpipes are the others). Al’s had some success with the old squeeze box in the past, but this time he’s lampooning fourteen artists in about five minutes, spitting out quips faster than a submachine gun. The end result is you’ll be tired, only slightly amused and fully exasperated.

There are two classic Weird Al lampoons that will make you laugh hard enough to hit the replay button and both are originals. “Weasel Stomping Day,” uses the same quaint, pleasant string arrangement you might find on a Perry Como Christmas album, setting it against Al’s biting sarcasm: “Faces filled with joy and cheer, what a magical time of the year, howdy ho, it’s weasel stomping day. Put your Viking helmet on, spread that mayonnaise on the lawn, don’t you know its weasel stomping day?” Animal rights activists will be appalled by the song’s sentiment (or lack thereof), but somewhere Frank Zappa is smiling – and after listening a second time, so was I. “I’ll Sue Ya,” is a swipe at the pretentious heavy metal style of groups like Metallica and Rage Against the Machine and their propensity to litigate: “I sued Neiman Marcus…’cause they put up their Christmas tree out of season. I sued Ben Affleck… do I even need a reason?”

The reasons the CD only gets a 2 ½ out of 5 rating are: 1) I’m really hard to please. 2) It’s hard to sustain musical comedy for an entire album (okay, CD) and 3) I laughed the first time. It’s unlikely I’ll laugh a second time.

The Extras…
When he first burst on the scene in the 80s, Al’s career received a huge boost from MTV, who always seemed to have one of his outrageous videos in its rotation. The six animated videos included on “Straight Outta Linwood” continue Al’s tradition of coming up with creative, oddball vignettes that stay in your memory years later. Two of the videos, “Weasel Stomping Day” and “Close But No Cigar” are side-splitters with first rate animation. If you remember TV shows in the 60s that used Claymation (“Davey and Goliath,” “Gumby”) you’ll really appreciate “Weasel”. There’s a part of me that didn’t want to laugh at smiling blonde clay kids in work boots stomping on helpless critters, but I laughed from the first squish all the way through to animated Al’s emphatic stomp at the end. “Close But No Cigar” was directed by John Kricfalusi, and he pulls out all the stops. The narrator, a lecherous cat, is a cross between Sylvester and that annoying feline in the Paul Abdul videos and the women – ay, carumba – let’s just say Kricfalusi has an imagination to rival Hugh Hefner and now I’ve got issues with animated females. Kricfalusi may be weirder than Al, but his creative visuals take a mediocre song and turn it into a guffaw fest

“I’ll Sue You,” featuring a cartoon Al as an angry slacker performing the onstage then moshing with his peeps, and “Download This Song,” the cautionary tale of a boy whose illegal download leads him to a life of crime elicit a grin or two. “Virus Alert” and “Pancreas” are a waste of film, particularly “Pancreas,” which is comprised of stock footage of scientific experiments and an old radio show with a – you guessed it – pancreas superimposed on the screen.

It’s hard to recommend the CD alone, so if you’ve got a few extra bucks to spare, go for the dual disc -- and leave the weasels alone.

Posted October 17, 2006 Permalink

The Essential Gloria Estefan

The Essential Gloria Estefan
2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

In their heyday, Carmen Miranda and Desi Arnaz were arguably more revered as comedians than singers. (It’s hard to be taken seriously with a bowl of fruit on your head or with your redheaded wife bleating “Waaaah, Ricky!”) The second coming of Latin music found artists like Mongo Santamaria and Carlos Santana mixing in flourishes of jazz or rock to make their sound more palatable. Their jungle rhythms and sweaty, suggestive solos still scared Middle America to death. It took another singer from Arnaz’s home county of Cuba to figure out the formula for success.

Gloria Estefan mixed upbeat, harmless pop tunes with generous bursts of Latin percussion that inspired even the most slew-footed Anglos to get out on the dance floor and “shake their conga.” She had a silken voice, a Svengali for a husband, and was the anti-Madonna, sexy without being sleazy. Thirty-seven, yes, thirty-seven (!) of Estefan’s infectious dance workouts and vanilla ballads are available on “The Essential Gloria Estefan. I’ll bet the majority of non-fans didn’t know Gloria had recorded thirty-seven songs, let alone that she’d had that many hits.

Rather than presenting the tunes in chronological order, “Essential”’s two discs are divided by genre. You’ll find the dance tunes on disc one and the ballads on disc two, which is the only disc I’ll ever go near again without the aide of a foot-long stick. Much of the vapid disco on disc one hasn’t aged well. “Dr. Beat” has a cheesy emergency siren sound effect and lyrics even a ghost writer would orphan: “If you don’t help us soon, gonna lose my brain, go insane.” “The Rhythm is Gonna Get You,” with its brilliant Shakespearian chorus – “oh-ay, oh-ay, oh-ay, oh-wa,” is further hampered by a buzz-killing synthesizer that sounds like a hay fever suffer clearing his nose. A quartet of tunes, the barrio-bound “You’ll be Mine,” “Get Up on Your Feet,” (with percussion that sounds like a beaver thwacking his tail on a mud bank), “Go Away,’ which should, and the mega dramatic “Don’t Let This Moment,’ shouldn’t be listened to without the benefit of generous doses of pharmaceuticals, a revolving disco ball and platform shoes. “1-2-3” is disco’s answer to the 1910 Fruitgum Company’s “1-2-3 Red Light” -- juvenile pop with absolutely no lyrical or social responsibility. Approach it only after a lobotomy. The immensely popular “Conga,’ hitherto referred to as “the dreaded Conga,” rapidly spews out of the speakers like the green pea soup from Linda Blair’s spinning head in “The Exorcist.” Try dancing to it now and you’ll end up in traction. The one tune that will truly make your head spin is the bonus track, “Doctor Pressure.” Remember the first time you heard “Stayin’ Alive” and thought the D.J. was playing the record at the wrong speed? You can relive that horror with “Doctor Pressure,” a tune so doctored, (actually butchered) and accelerated that Gloria sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks. And there’s that bloody fake emergency siren again -- (nice to know that for the sake of history we’ve gone full circle).

All is not lost on disc one, however. “Heaven’s What I Feel,” begins as a smooth ballad before launching into a pulsating keyboard-laden mover that may deceive you into thinking disco actually had some redeeming qualities. Estefan sings with an ease that the super-charged rhythms on the other tunes seldom allowed, and she climbs the register in a manner that would make Mariah Carey jealous. “Bad Boy” is infectious pop with a teasing vocal and punchy horns, and thankfully, Gloria does her own background singing instead of using the chirpy girl chorus that invades too many of her other efforts . Two cover tunes also pass muster – “Everlasting Love” (has there ever been a bad version of this song?) and “Turn the Beat Around,” immortalized by the late Vicki Sue Robinson. Gloria almost blows it up with a near-rap that sounds like a sound bite from a Jane Fonda exercise video (“Turn it up! Turn it up! Turn it upside down!”), but the accelerated pace is exciting instead of embarrassing. It’s still Vicki Sue’s tune, but Gloria does it justice.

The second CD showcases many of the songs in Estefan’s later career, when she spit out her bubblegum, retired her dancing shoes and started recording the type of heartfelt songs you might not be ashamed to sit down and listen to. Not all of them work, but it’s no coincidence that Estefan’s music matured after a near-fatal tour bus crash in 1990 when she began writing solo.(Her husband, Emilio had previously charted her musical direction.) One of the tunes that emerged from the emotional and physical wreckage of the crash was the gut-wrenching, “Coming Out of the Dark,” a pseudo-gospel track in the same slightly disingenuous vein as Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Sometimes a near-death experience can cause an artist to thank God publicly a bit too much, and “Reach” with its hallelujah sister chorus – (“I tried my very best, put my spirit to the test!”) is a prime example. Songs dedicated to her children, “Nayib’s Song” and “Along Came You (Song For Emily),” fare better, particularly the later, with it’s soft exotic arrangement reminiscent of one of Estefan’s most touching performances, “Can’t Stay Away From You,” which leads off the second disk. “Can’t Stay Away From You,” is subdued, taking full advantage of Estefan’s velvety, sensual voice. Another highlight is “Falling in Love,” a swaying, cute performance as wholesome as milk.

So, disc ones a bust, disc two more of a must. Hopefully, after listening to the second disc, you’ll find yourself reliving a pleasant memory of swaying gently on a dance floor somewhere – and hopefully not alone. As for the first disk, well, it may remind you to go to your closet and burn those stripped leotards or flared butt-hugging white pants. The Essential Gloria Estefan is essential -- but only for Gloria’s most rabid fans.

2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson - Talk about it here

Posted October 16, 2006 Permalink

Jane's Addiction

Jane's Addiction
Up From the Catacombs

Though they broke up (for the first time, anyway) in 1991, when their sound was just starting to gain mainstream attention, Jane’s Addiction were a definite influence on the scene that took hold for the years immediately following their demise. This compilation of greatest hits serves as a decent primer for a band that is well regarded as one of the original innovators of the “alternative rock” era of the early-mid 90’s.

Their funk-metal-pop has held up surprisingly well over the years. Unfortunately, since their original recorded output was so small (2 albums and an EP, almost all justly remembered as classics of their time) this package is almost rendered unnecessary. It‘s in a tough spot, because although the song selection is nearly flawless, I would still recommend their first full length Nothing's Shocking (which actually is flawless) over it. About half the songs here are from that great album, and in fact I actually found myself wishing there were more from it. Some songs don’t hold up as well, and I don’t understand the inclusion of “Three Days” from Ritual de lo Habitual. It still sounds like 10 minutes of hookless interminable wankery, it isn’t a “hit” in any way, and basically just serves to disrupt the flow of the album. However, other songs from Ritual (“Been Caught Stealing”, “Stop!” , both of which still get frequent play on modern rock radio) fare better and serve the bands legacy well.

What we have here is a bunch of good songs that make for a nice mix-tape vibe but don’t flow nearly as well as the original albums do. The advantage for long time fans such as myself is that it cherry-picks two of the better tracks (“Just Because” and “Superhero”) from the mostly-forgettable 2003 reunion album “Strays”, allowing us to have the two good songs without stooping to acknowledge the rest of it. Nothing's Shocking remains the best entry point for beginners.

Reviewed for Coffeerooms by G.Mazz - Talk about it here

Track listing-
1. "Stop!" 2. "Ocean Size" 3. "Whores" 4. "Ted, Just Admit It..." 5. "Ain't No Right" 6. "Had a Dad" 7. "Superhero" 8. "Been Caught Stealing"	9. "Just Because" 10. "Three Days" 11. "I Would For You" 12. "Classic Girl" 13. "Summertime Rolls" 14. "Mountain Song" 15. "Pigs In Zen" 16. "Jane Says (Live)"

Posted October 10, 2006 Permalink

The Best of Electronic

The Best of Electronic
Get the Message

Electronic was formed in 1989 as a side project for Johnny Marr (guitarist of The Smiths) and Bernard Sumner (of New Order) as a means for these two UK indie-pop luminaries to take a break from their day jobs and embrace the then-current trends in synthetic dance music and drug-use. It’s rare to see a greatest hits compilation for what is essentially a side-project, and this collection shows why: the songs here for the most part sound like tossed off New Order b-sides with the occasional jangle from Marr to please the fans. It amounts to a whole lot of lifeless disco pop. Mostly it sounds like a couple of guys with too much time, keyboards, and ecstasy for their own good. Little of it is memorable and all of it is bland. “Getting Away With It”, the bands first single and only actual Hit, sounds simultaneously indulgent and uninspired to my ears, and unfortunately is a good example of what the whole set sounds like. Sterile, precise, boring. I honestly fell asleep the first time through this.