Abigail Washburn Live
Manchester, Band On The Wall, 24 May 2011
For over a decade Abigail Washburn has been a singer/songwriter and, more recently, clawhammer banjo player. In 2008, Washburn and three virtuosic comrades — cellist Ben Sollee, fiddler Casey Driessen and three-finger-style banjo player Bela Fleck — presented Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet, a set of seemingly boundless compositions sprouted from seeds of American and Chinese folk. The album extended an imaginative musical bridge between East and West. The world had never seen a chamber ensemble, stringband or bluegrass group quite like the Sparrows.
Her latest album, City of Refuge, is something completely different, even for her: a marriage of old-time
and indie-pop. “This new project,” she says, “incorporates what would’ve in the beginning of my career seemed like an unexpected move, but now feels like a really natural progression of working with people that reach into other genres and other spaces musically.”
With the exception of old-time fiddler Rayna Gellert — Washburn’s former bandmate in the all-female stringband Uncle Earl — her cast of collaborators is entirely new. Among them are Turtle Island Quartet’s Jeremy Kittell, who arranged the strings and played a small orchestra’s worth of violin and viola parts; My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel (pedal steel and electric guitars); The Decemberists’ Chris Funk (bowed and plucked dulcimer and guitars); atmospheric jazz guitarist Bill Frisell; veteran Nashville studio percussionist Kenny Malone; Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and Morgan Jahnig (backing vocals); Wu Fei, master of the guzheng (think of it as a Chinese zither); and the Mongolian stringband Hanggai, who managed to contribute ambient throat-singing from halfway around the world.
There are two particular new faces, though—one only new to Washburn’s orbit, the other new to the national music scene in general — who were with her every step of the way: producer Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, Tift Merritt, Mudhoney) and singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kai Welch, who she stumbled upon playing keyboards with the Nashville band Tommy and the Whale.
Martine framed the album in an expansive palette of supple, modern textures, some coaxed from acoustic sources, others from the sort you plug in, and all remarkably harmonious. “I knew I wanted to go outside of the folk community that I was used to,” she explains. “He had worked extensively with people who do sort of go back and forth between the folkier elements and the more indie rock world.”
In Welch, Washburn found a co-writer and singing partner whose sensibilities, though they compliment hers, aren’t the slightest bit old-timey—which is precisely why she wanted to work with him; Smart AM pop is his native territory. “There were song ideas that I took to him that I thought I would have a handle on myself,” she says. “But I just thought I’d try it out with him and see if he thought of anything right away, and in so many instances he really would have an initial instinct that was extremely beautiful and applicable to the songs. He would think of chord structures that were different than things I would usually think of.”
Washburn relates, “I like the idea of City of Refuge, because it kind of feels like ‘Is this a place I can go?’ It makes the record into the city of refuge, in a way.” Delivering on the promise of its title, the album is rife with vignettes about people from all corners of the globe trying to find where they belong. The songs bear real hope; hope that’s in touch with reality and profoundly collective. “It really is so strongly about that, I mean, from the immigrant in “Dreams of Nectar,” to the rich girl trying to figure out how to be happy in “City of Refuge,” to “Last Train,” where a troubled soul is trying to figure things out, wondering if the last train will come and carry him home finally.”
Liverpool Sound City Preview
Liverpool Sound City 2011: Bigger, Better, Fitter, More! But don’t just take our word for it. Sound City this year welcomed “the new breed of music business entrepreneurs” including Darkhollow / Shakenstir who “don’t play by the old rules – they don’t see any rules”. Listen to The Radio Special Sun 22nd: 8pm
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Drive-By Truckers in Liverpool
O2 Academy, Liverpool, 10 May 2011
For a band to have survived and prospered for over fifteen years indicates that there’s something pretty special goin’ on… Add to this no less than nine studio albums, including two in the last two years (it was 2010’s wonderful A BIG TO-DO that alerted me to the band), and it’s no surprise that even in these difficult economic times (with very fews gigs actually selling out) a good sized, enthusiastic audience was guaranteed. However, one thing stood out like a sore thumb and that was the nature of the audience which generally started at around 30 years and finished in the 50s, with young faces as rare as hens’ teeth. This is really no surprise at all given the fact that the band can’t get arrested on UK commercial radio stations, and are criminally absent from BBC’s Radio 1 and 2 playlists due to the stations’ preference for the manufactured, medicocre, with beats…
It’s a crying shame because as this Georgia, United States band proved on the night they should have much wider appeal through a veritable dictionary of subject matter (dark, light and occasionally funny) and southern rock vibe. Josh Pearson (of Lift To Experience fame) was supposed to provide support but had to bow out due to illness and rather than let fans wait around the Truckers started their show at around 8:20 pm and continued through to 10:30pm. That’s a pretty long gig but one that the band handled so easily and well, including twenty-four songs drawn from fifteen live and studio years.
Opening the show Mike Cooley performed ‘Carl Perkins Cadillac’ which was written to celebrate Sun Records’ boss Sam Phillips who promised a cadillac to the first label artist to achieve a Gold Disc, which Perkins won, much to the surprise of company execs who thought Elvis Presley would walk it… It proved to be a storming opening gambit before things got more emotive and dark with a tale of problematic modern living called ‘The Righteous Path’.
This compelling two-hour show included six songs from the band’s new album and disappointingly for me only one from last year’s cracking album A BIG TO-DO. That said, I was more than happy to become aquainted with both brand new and older songs like ‘Ray’s Automatic Weapon’, the gorgeous ‘Everybody Needs Love’ and tale of a ’professional lady’ called ’Birthday Boy’.
In vocal terms Patterson Hood dominated the evening punctuated by a very different vocal style from Cooley. Sadly Shonna Tucker only sang a single song (’Dancing Ricky’) which is a real shame since she has a distinctive voice which is shown in all its glory on the slow-burning 2010 song ‘You Got Another’. I admit a large number of songs I did not recognise, however, whether rocking out or in calmer contemplation Drive-By Truckers proved to be one of the finest country-rock bands I’ve seen, with a back-catalogue second-to-none.
During the performance I had to dash downstairs to catch the NME new bands show which underlined the massive difference that skill, experience and great song-writing can make. Needless to say I stayed only very briefly and returned to the Truckers for some real talent, real music. It was one helluva show folks…
SETLIST
1. Carl Perkins’ Cadillac
2. The Righteous Path
3. Birthday Boy
4. Ray’s Automatic Weapon
5. Sounds Better In The Song
6. Your Daddy Hates Me
7. Get Downtown
8. Dancing Ricky
9. Everybody Needs Love
10. A Ghost To Most
11. Heathens
12. Cartoon Gold
13. Box Of Spiders
14. 3 Dimes Down
15. Buttholeville
16. Marry Me
17. Dead, Drunk, and Naked
18. Guitar Man Upstairs
19. Mercy Buckets
20. Zip City
21. Used To Be A Cop
22. Self Destructive Zones
23. Let There Be Rock
24. Lookout Mountain
Buffy Sainte-Marie UK Shows
Photo by Trevor Brady
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE, one of the most enduring of North American singer-songwriters, makes a rare visit to the UK in June 2011 to play two live shows. They are:
THURSDAY, JUNE 30th - THE UNION CHAPEL, ISLINGTON, LONDON (http://www.unionchapel.org.uk/) Tickets available from: See Tickets: 0870 264 3333
FRIDAY, JULY 1st - CORNBURY FESTIVAL, GREAT TEW ESTATE, Nr CHARLBURY, OXFORDSHIRE (http://www.cornburyfestival.com/ )
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE has enjoyed a musical career that stretches back almost fifty years now. By the age of twenty-four, she had appeared all over Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia, receiving honours, medals and awards, which continue to this day. Her song Until It’s Time for You to Go, was recorded by Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Barbra Streisand and Cher, and her Universal Soldier became the anthem of the peace movement. For her very first album she was voted Billboard’s “Best New Artist.” Other career landmarks include playing on the soundtrack of the legendary Mick Jagger starring movie, Performance, as well as writing and performing the theme song to the massively successful movie, Soldier Blue.
Despite being the subject of an ‘unofficial’ US government blacklist, her fame only grew. Buffy Sainte-Marie continued to appear at countless grassroots concerts, AIM events and other activist benefits. She made 17 albums of her music, three of her own television specials, spent five years on Sesame Street, scored movies, helped found Canada’s “Music of Aboriginal Canada” Juno Awards category, raised a son, earned a Ph.D. in Fine Arts, taught Digital Music as adjunct professor at several colleges, and won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award Oscar for the song, Up Where We Belong.
Sarabeth Tucek Live
Band On The Wall, Manchester 9 May 2011
Okay, so I was nervous, worried even, that Sarabeth Tucek live would not sound as good live as on her wonderful album GET WELL SOON. Oh me of little faith! You see it’s such a stupendously moving and beautiful album; a potentional Shakenstir album of the year; one wonders whether anybody could be this good in both writing and performing.
The venue couldn’t have been better. The Band On The Wall is a not-for-profit venue with good acoustic quality and an intense feeling that the people running it really care about music and musicians. On the night Sarabeth was playing a support role to The Leisure Society in her quest to meet and greet UK music-lovers, with some success judging by the number of people who had followed her to this venue from a previous event.
My attention was initially drawn to Tucek by her latest album called GET WELL SOON released in April. Its primary subject matter is the death of her father (“an impressionistic rendering of a time ruled by grief”) and she explained its creation as follows: “It’s odd how placid a lot of music seems now; so washed out in sound and feeling. It’s like antidepressant music to take antidepressants to. I don’t give a shit. I’m more likely to buy a new book now than a new record” says Tucek.
The record’s narrative ends with the title track and a resolution of sorts. “I feel like I’m either the patient or the doctor, somebody always has an ache,” she says. “When I wrote the title track I had a friend of mine on my mind. She was so sad… just inconsolable and it was painful to see her like that. The title is a reminder to keep myself well. It’s hard to explain the ferocity of the grief I experienced when my father died. I really felt like it was going to kill me, so to be here… well, I just wanted to remind myself of what I survived.”
Bizarre Ball: 21 May, London
The Bizarre Summer Ball 2011: Saturday 21st May @ The Scala, London N1, 8pm – 3am
Featuring:
The Futureheads
Kunt and the Gang
Flay & Devilles Circus of Marvels
Bizarre ‘Battle of the Bands’ Winner
Plus:
Dee Christopher (magic)
Chris Cross (contortionist)
Post Modern Sleaze and The Sedition Girls (suspension artists)
Hosted by:
Bizarre’s own Alix Fox
The legendary Des O’Connor
DJs:
Mark Jones
Scarlett Nymph
DJ Trebor
DJ Bod
Tickets:
Standard £22 (+bf)
Subscribers/students £17 (+bf)
For more tickets and information visit:
www.bizarremag.com/bizarreball
Clear your diaries, freaks and geeks. The glorious Bizarre Ball – The Greatest Show On Earth – is coming back to London on Saturday 21 May 2011 for another night of prodigious performance, delirious dancing, luscious live music and perverse partying!
Staged once again in the decadent Scala near King’s Cross – the site of last November’s Bizarre Ball carnage – the May event promises to be another unforgettable evening of musical mayhem, deranged alt.performance and costumes so damned hot they’ll scorch your retinas, including smoking live sets from the hottest new bands and fabulous freak show oddities peddling acts so weird they’ll make you question your sanity.
In four years the Bizarre Ball has grown into the UK’s wildest party, so start planning your costumes right now and steel yourself for London’s most extraordinary night out!
Devil Wears Prada: Live: UK
The Devil Wears Prada are: Frontman Mike Hranica guitarist/vocalist Jeremy DePoyster, guitarist Chris Rubey, bassist Andy Trick, keyboardist James Baney, and drummer Daniel Williams, They’ve appeared on the covers of Outburn, HM, AMP, Revolver and Alternative Press and released albums in 2006 - “Dear Love, A Beautiful Discord” ; 2007 - “Plagues” and 2009 – “With Roots Above and Branches Below” .
Frontman Mike Hranica “We’re lucky that we’ve had the success that we’ve had sounding the way we do,” DePoyster adds. It’s sick to be able to keep doing that. I’m just trying to chill and not take it in too much or else I’ll freak out.”
The Devil Wears Prada’s third studio album “With Roots Above and Branches Below” debuted at No 11 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts. For most bands, going the concept record route can be a tricky proposition. There’s always the potential you’ll get bogged down by that one idea and end up taking the whole thing way too seriously. You risk coming across as trite when you churn out epic full-lengths with a dozen tracks about unicorns and minotaurs. But leave it to a band like The Devil Wears Prada to take the concept album model and raze it. Leave it to The Devil Wears Prada, voted Band of the Year by the readers of Alternative Press, to make concept records bad-ass again. They have been confirmed for the main stage at the 2011 Download Festival.
Before that in April 2011 the band hit the UK tour circuit as the opening act for Bring Me The Horizon, Shakenstir wanted to know what the fuss was about…
50 long minutes it took on the coach to Manchester. 50 minutes for the excitement to build up. The minute we stepped out of the taxi to the Apollo I could feel the electricity in the air. Thousands of fans lined up, the queue halfway round the block, screaming girls with huge smiles on their faces.
As I entered the venue crowds surrounded the merchandise stand and gangs were at the bar waiting in anticipation for the show to begin. I took my seat upstairs on the balcony, I had a perfect view of the stage. The Devil Wears Prada were first to kick off the show and what a way to begin! One word… INCREDIBLE – I can’t think of a better band to start off Bring Me The Horizon. They had the crowd in the palm of their hand, channelling every single persons energy.
The tension was built with a dark stage and a projection of their awesome new album cover for the backdrop as the atmosphere grew. As soon as the first note hit the guitar screams erupted from the crowd. By the end of their epic set the crowd were well and truly hyped up and ready to rock some more and although they were the support band they played a gig worthy of the lead slot.
Alice Lundon
AC/DC Live At River Plate
“AC/DC attended the World Premiere of their Live at River Plate concert film on May 6th 2011 at HMV Hammersmith Apollo “
AC/DC devotees from all over the globe descended upon London’s legendary HMV Hammersmith Apollo for the exclusive world premiere of AC/DC Live At River Plate on Friday May 6, 2011. PRESENTED BY DELEÓN TEQUILA. Shot entirely in HD with 32 cameras, fans experienced the thunderous excitement and intensity of AC/DC Live At River Plate on the UK’s largest movie screen (roughly the equivalent of 4 double decker buses stacked). AC/DC Live At River Plate definitively chronicles the band’s massive Black Ice World Tour and the history of one of rock music’s best live acts.
AC/DC Live At River Plate, a definitive live concert DVD documenting AC/DC’s massive Black Ice World Tour, . Shot in December of 2009, it marks AC/DC’s triumphant return to Buenos Aires where nearly 200,000 fans, and 3 sold-out shows, welcomed the band back after a 13 year absence from Argentina. This stunning live footage of AC/DC underscores what Argentina’s Pagina 12 newspaper reported by saying “no one is on the same level when it comes to pure and clear Rock ‘n Roll.” Directed by David Mallet and produced by Rocky Oldham, The concert was shot with 32 cameras entirely in HD. Live At River Plate features 19 songs (110 minutes) as well as ‘behind the scenes’ footage of this massive production coming together among the excitement of anxious fans (see below for full track listing).
AC/DC Live At River Plate will be available on DVD, Blu-Ray and Ltd Edition collector’s edition with exclusive t-shirt. Additionally the DVD contains a bonus feature titled “The Fan, The Roadie, The Guitar Tech & The Meat,” features interviews with AC/DC, their crew and fans among the excitement of the shows and the city of Buenos Aires. Live At River Plate is available at www.ACDC.com and Amazon.
Live At River Plate captures the intensity and power of the band’s critically acclaimed world tour in support of their most recent album Black Ice, which debuted at #1 in 31 countries. The Black Ice World tour took AC/DC on a 20 month trek around the globe playing to over 5 million fans in 108 cities in over 28 countries. The Black Ice World Tour earned AC/DC a Pollstar Award for Major Tour of the Year in 2010.
** Shake Verdict** Over the last few years there has been a huge influx of DC’ Dvd’s onto the market, which if you are a fan ain’t no bad thing, especially if like me you still have dusty VHS tapes with clips recorded off tv which are poor in quality and in sound, but at the time you got what you could. The ‘Family Jewels’ dvd kicked off a whole new desire to be able to crank the Young brothers up and witness scene’s most of us had never seen…
Many would argue that AC/DC were/are best witnessed ‘Live’ and we have had the ‘Donington’ and ‘No Bull’ sets (both of which i own) and just around the corner is ‘Let There Be Rock’ but right here, right now we have a concert film of the band in River Plate Stadium in the capital city of Argentina, taken from the ‘Black Ice’ world tour, and we get quite a few tracks from the latest and greatest DC’ album. Two hours of the ‘Thunder From Down Under’ playing to a huge sold out crowd and still at the top of their game after all these years, if rock is dead, nobody told AC/DC…
The Brian Vs Bon debate will rage on forever, Fuck that shit, Bon is dead, deal with it, we miss him, we loved him, he was incredible, but Brian is alive and kicking, the man has a voice to die for and still gives his all and delivers every single time and here at River Plate it’s no exception, Phil, Cliff & Malcolm provide a backing rhythm section that’s still second to none, they have a groove that’s like the needle on the record, once down it’s faultless and grabs you by all the right places… Then there is Angus… What can I say that hasn’t, nothing… This is one of the greatest guitar players ever… Up there with Clapton, Page, Halen, Iommi and all the rest, arguments may rage that he can’t do what they do, well my answer would be, let me see them do what he does…
Is this better than the donington or madrid sets? it depends on if you were there, or saw them on the specific tour, for me it’s far superior to the no bull one because of the tracklisting and vibe of the band, and the Black Ice album is one of my favorite albums from the band ever, it’s not as good as Donington, because that day was special, the band were so on fire and i was there, but then in one definitive way it’s better because this is a better line up, having Phil Rudd behind that kit for me is the major difference, like Charlie in the stones, no other drummer has ever fitted like a glove in DC’ Simon was good, Chris was good, but Phil is the man!
I guess it’s another ‘Ronseal’ AC/DC release, it’s live, they kill it, the sound is amazing, the cowd is outstanding, south america loves to rock, ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin’. if you love DC’ then you will buy this regardless, if you love rock, buy it anyway if only to see a band that’s been kicking in the door with boogie blues for almost 40 years doing it better and bigger than most… I salute them xxx Jj
AC/DC Live At River Plate track listing is as follows: 1. Rock N Roll Train 2. Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be 3. Back In Black 4. Big Jack 5. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap 6. Shot Down In Flames 7. Thunderstruck 8. Black Ice 9. The Jack 10. Hells Bells 11. Shoot To Thrill 12. War Machine 13. Dog Eat Dog 14. You Shook Me All Night Long 15. T.N.T. 16. Whole Lotta Rosie 17. Let There Be Rock 18. Highway To Hell 19. For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)
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