July 28, 2008

Cool twangy Brit humor Led Apple goodness

A few cool tidbits that I've stumbled across during the past few weeks. Not claiming any of this is new, but it was new to me ...

Shameless -- This might be the coolest thing I've ever seen on TV. Part soap, part British comedy, totally hilarious and always off-the-wall. At times, even I'm appalled and offended. That ain't easy to pull off. Kudos to Sundance for having the balls to air it in the U.S.

Mad Men -- I stumbled across this in the iTunes store when I was looking for something to download to my iPod to ease a mind-numbing flight to Montana. It worked. The second season just started on AMC, but I'm only about half-way through the first season, thanks to my iPod and Apple TV. It hooked me with the Pete Campbell character. It would have been so easy to make him the stereotypical oily villain, but the writers gave his character complexity and actually manage to make you feel sorry for him at times. It's also amazing how different today's world is from the 1960 Madison Avenue setting of the show. The characters are constantly drinking and smoking in a creepy patriarchy that makes you wonder how anyone ever came to idealize the '50s and early '60s. Great stuff.

Hayes Carll -- I've been hearing his stuff on WDVX and never seemed to be able to catch his name. During a drive from Crested Butte to Denver, "She Left Me for Jesus" came on XM's X Country station and I caught his name and realized he's the one who also sings "Good Friends" and "Chickens" of WDVX fame. I've been downloading his stuff ever since. Twangy-ass country goodness.

iLife '08 -- I resisted buying this upgrade for a while but finally broke down when I wanted to synch photo libraries between my laptop and desktop. I didn't realize how much cooler iMovie is in the upgrade. They've finally taken the same approach with iMovie that iPhoto has been taking almost from the start. It allows you to create a library of all your video. That alone was worth the price of the upgrade.

Led freakin' Zeppelin -- I loved these guys when I was a kid, but I grew tired of them and drifted away. My rediscovery came from the strangest of places -- John Baker. I never thought Zeppelin would be his thing, but he's a total convert, preaching the gospel of Plant and Page while sipping a Cold Smoke microbrew. I was dubious at first, but then I burned a few of their CDs, including a copy of "Jimmy Page & Black Crowes Live at the Greek" and "How the West Was Won." (To show how far I'd drifted from Zep, my iTunes library had only Led Zeppelin III in it.) I'd forgotten how good this band could be when they were hitting on all cylinders. Total rock. I even had to dust off my air guitar ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2008

Sing it, Buddy

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2008

Don't fear the cowbell

blueoyestercult.jpg


Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

No, it isn't 1979. And this isn't Blue Oyster Cult turning the entire band loose with guitars during a mind-numbing "Don't Fear the Reaper" encore. It's RiddickFest, an army of guitarists who know half of every song ever written.



Really, though, it was a blast having a bunch of my closest friends in town for the weekend to float on the lake and make music on the back porch. And some of the music was downright transcendental. Even without the cowbell ...



RiddickFest photos here ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

June 4, 2008

Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind

I was crushed when I read on Monday that Bo Diddley had died. I came to him through a circuitous route that started with a searing Grateful Dead version of "Not Fade Away," then to Buddy Holly and finally to the source, big bad Bo.

Most of the tributes I've been reading have focused on the famous Bo Diddley beat that's that's spine of so many rock songs, but this homage on Literary Kicks focuses on Bo's verbal prowess. Great read and right on the money. To wit:

"Ellis 'Bo Diddley' McDaniels lived to tell stories and create characters. His songs are what made him famous, even more than his beat. His words were as simple as his guitar playing, and just as strong."

Funny that author Levi Asher also refers to the Live at the Ritz CD that features Ronnie Wood. That was the first Bo Diddley CD I bought, and I knew it wasn't quite on target. Asher's assessment of it is right on. Glad I tried again and got to know the real Bo.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:39 AM | Comments (1)

April 14, 2008

Bootleg Butthole Surfers ...

I was wondering if Butthole Surfers classics like "Hairway to Steven" and "Locust Abortion Technician" were available somewhere on the Internet. I'd lost my copies long ago when I abandoned my cassette deck. So I started Googling around and quickly found the official site of Gibby and the boys. It has the perfect proportions of creepy, bizarre and off-the-wall to reflect the Butthole Surfers experience. And even better, it has free MP3s of several classic bootlegs.

I highly recommend the bone-crunchingly psychedelic Double Live, recorded sometime around 1988. And while you're at it, download a copy of the bootleg Tejass for a taste of their mid-'90s incarnation.

Boy howdy. They don't make music like that no more ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:51 AM | Comments (1)

April 1, 2008

Just when I thought I'd seen everything ...

Via BoingBoing, here's one of the most bizarre things I've seen in a while: A Finnish new wave band and the Red Army Chorus belt out a pretty bodacious version of "Sweet Home Alabama." Go comrade, go.

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)

March 20, 2008

Rock bottom flashbacks

Not sure why, but I've had the riff from UFOs "Rock Bottom" ricocheting around in my head for the past several days. Yesterday, I finally broke down and downloaded "Strangers in the Night" from iTunes. It's truly one of the great live albums of the '70s, and it's largely forgotten. Michael Schenker's guitar work is amazing. The dude was a whack job, but he could shred. And he had a sense of melody that many speed demons lack.

I've been listening to the album nonstop almost since I downloaded it, bringing back memories of Pittsburgh teen angst, Iron City beer and the parking lot of a dilapidated skating rink where we spent way too many nights blasting UFO from a boom box, taking particular pride in the fact that we were sitting in a former stone quarry that used to be called Rock Bottom.

Posted by Bob Benz at 11:09 AM | Comments (1)

January 20, 2008

Buddy blows away the windy city

Lara and I just returned from another pilgrimage to Chicago to see Buddy Guy at his Legends club. Incredible. Every time I see him I'm astounded by his showmanship, and when he's on his home turf, all hell breaks loose.

It was mind-numbingly cold, so frigid it took our breath away when we stepped out of the hotel. We went over to a sushi place before the show, where we met Mike, one of Buddy's disciples. It was Mike who instigated our first pilgrimage to see Buddy, and he secured our tickets for this show.

When we got to Legends, the place was packed, and Buddy blew the doors off it. He rolled off one searing guitar solo after another and spent a lot of time moving through the crowd, going up to the bar, even wandering back into the bathroom. The crowd loved it. We loved it. And I think that's the best Buddy Guy show I've ever seen. He was wailing.

I posted a few photos here on my Flickr account.

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2008

Never mix umlauts and heroin

I can't explain why exactly, but I recently read "The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star." Ostensibly, I did it to see what it would be like to read a book on the Kindle reader. I guess I chose it for the same reason people read stories about Britney Spears and then whine about the media being filled with such crap.

Nikki Sixx, the bassist and songwriter for Mötley Crüe, is clearly a raving asshole if you go by this autobiography. But he has an amusing side, a snide sense of humor and an awareness that he's really a bit of a wanker on many fronts. On some levels, it's the typical junkie purge, a nasty vomit of bad deeds, blackouts and burning addiction. Mommy didn't treat me right. Daddy abandoned me. It's so hard being a rock star.

One thing I did like, though, was the use of counter stories that punctuate Sixx's story. After his journal entries, he includes quotes from other folks who were there to witness his misdeeds and deviations, including this gem from the band's manager that follows a whiny Sixx entry about how evil management was running the poor Crüe boys into the ground with a grueling tour schedule:

"I always had a real problem with this line of argument of Sixx's. Sure, the tours were too long for them, but only because of the way they behaved on them! Don't forget, these were guys in their twenties who were only being asked to work two hours a day. What about all the guys who get up at 5 a.m. to lay bricks and only get two weeks a year off? If Mötley Crüe was burned out on the road, it was purely because they had stupid fucking drug habits. It's not rocket science."

Amen. But at the end of the book I did have a begrudging respect for Sixx. He's clearly a smart guy. Can't say the same about Mötley Crüe though. I still think they were charlatans and it doesn't take much work to find far better metal ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:42 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2007

Virtual Bonnaroo

Can't make it to Bonnaroo this year? Never fear ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:50 AM | Comments (1)

October 11, 2006

Totally Blotto

A few recent discoveries of the musical variety ...

-- John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, made one of his infrequent blog posts the other day. This one was extolling the virtues of Dr. Blotto, a Chicago band that Barlow stumbled into and ended up writing lyrics for. I downloaded their new album, Barlow Shanghai, and it's definitely worth the $12.50 I paid. I've only listened to the whole thing once, so I'm not sure if the lyrics are all that. But the music has a definite hook and I'll be listening to it a lot over the next several days.

-- I heard a woman singing on WDVX the other day who sounded wildly familiar but that I couldn't place. When they announced it was Carrie Rodriquez, I was stymied. I'd never heard of her. But I found several of her CDs on iTunes and downloaded her latest, "7 Angels on a Bicycle," and one she did with Chip Taylor, "Red Dog Tracks." Her music really is resonating with me. Downloaded these CDs on Saturday and already have listened to them a bunch of times. I'll probably go in and grab more of her music ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:35 AM | Comments (2)

January 18, 2006

Ten Years After

Sonic Pollutions just uploaded a very crunchy video version of Ten Years After slicing through "Good Morning Little School Girl" from the Beat Club TV show. It aired in 1969.

If you're a fan of Alvin Lee, you gotta check it out ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2006

Recent tunes ...

I heard a stunning version of the Grateful Dead's "Brokedown Place" on Prairie Home Companion the other night, but I didn't catch the name of the woman singing it.

Thank god for the Internet. Tracked it down there. It's Adrienne Young. And amazingly, iTunes had her "Art of Virtue" CD, which I downloaded. I've only listened to it a few times through, but it's a keeper.

Also found a recommendation in the Wall Street Journal of all places. The Dreadful Yawns. Again, iTunes had it, so I downloaded it. Odd mix that sounds like Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young. It has sections that are reminiscent of Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name."

And finally, I found a copy of Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters at Barnes and Nobel the other day for 10 bucks, so I snapped that up.

Good stuff, overall. My iPod is smiling.

Now Playing: My Love Will Keep from the album "The Art of Virtue" by Adrienne Young & Little Sadie

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:54 PM | Comments (2)

September 10, 2005

The Ace of Spades ...

I didn't think it possible, but there's actually a bluegrass version of Motorhead's Ace of Spades. And it's pretty damn good.

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:21 PM | Comments (1)

May 5, 2005

The elusive Bap Kennedy

After hearing several cuts from Bap Kennedy's "Domestic Blues" on the greatest bluegrass station on Earth (WDVX), I was determined to get a copy of this 1999 CD.

But couldn't find one anywhere. The Irish guitarist's CD is apparently out of print, and the only used copies I was able to find are on Amazon, which I boycott for obscure personal reasons, and on Ebay, where bidding was consistently driving it up into the $30 range.

But last week, I saw a copy on Ebay with only 2 hours left in the auction, so I put in a $20 max bid and managed to reel it in for $15. Worth every penny and proof that patience pays in Ebay auctions. It's almost always worth waiting for the high bidders to wear themselves out on early offerings before swooping in and getting it for a reasonable price later.

The CD is produced by Steve Earl and also features him on several cuts, as well as Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan and Nanci Griffith. My favorite cuts are "Mostly Water" and "Unforgiven." If you stumble across a copy of this, snap it up. If you e-mail me, I might be benevolent enough to burn you a copy.

Now Playing: The Shankill And The Falls from the album "Domestic Blues" by Bap Kennedy

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:06 PM | Comments (7)

April 24, 2005

On apples and islands

Lots of good stuff on the music/book/Internet front in recent weeks.

Last night, NPR did a piece on a jazz band called Happy Apple. I liked the samples they played in the piece, not to mention the band's general attitude. So I jumped over to iTunes and download "Youth Oriented." Loved it. So much that I went back to iTunes and grabbed both of the other CDs that were on there: "The Peace Between Our Companies" and "Afternoon in Marrakech." The latter is a 34-minute meditation that's really a departure from the other two works.

I think my favorite tune so far is "Paulie's Quick Temper" from the "Peace" CD. Can't help but wonder if it's inspired by Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos. There's one part where it sounds like a CD stuttering, that maddening sound you get when the disc is scratched. Then it hops into an incredible jam. Really nice stuff. I'll be spending a lot of time exploring these discs ...

On the novel front, I'm well into Andrea Levy's "Small Island," which is a marvelous book. She's Jamaican, and the novel focuses on Hortense and Gilbert, who move from Jamaica to England after the Second World War. The contrast between the two islands is stark, and Levy does a wonderful job of breathing live into the characters, both Jamaican and English. I really like the scene where Hortense is having her first encounter with the English winter and its bleak, truncated days. I can only imagine how she must miss that year-round 12 hours of daylight in Jamaica. I know I do ...

And online, I've been reading a lot of travel sites, especially Travel Blog. There's a lot of drivel there, but if you sift through it (I use my RSS aggregator for this) there's at least one gem a day. Neat stuff about real people doing real stuff on the road. For something a little more off the wall and irreverent, I'm also checking Gridskipper daily.

And last but not least, two momentous TV events loom. Fetch, Tivo. Fetch:

1. Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!" begins its new season on Showtime Monday night.

2. The Family Guy returns on May 1. I can only hope and pray this resurrected version is as cool, irreverent and offensive as the first three seasons ...

Now Playing: Lincoln At Nevada from the album "Leftover Salmon" by Leftover Salmon

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:44 PM | Comments (4)

February 13, 2005

Eyes and ears ...

I've stumbled into some great tunes and reading material lately. The combination makes those long plane flights infinitely more bearable.

Gillian Welch, by far one of my favorite musicians these days, is now set up so you can download CDs and songs from her site. I used this opportunity to flesh out my Gillian collection, adding Soul Journey and Revival to my iTunes library, along with several singles, including a live song from a show in Minneapolis. All I can say is this is very cool. I'll probably download everything she tosses up there ... (And Soul Journey really is a stupendous piece of work. David Rawlings' guitar work is so nice.)

On the reading front, I followed a recommendation from my bossman and picked up a copy of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. I'm still reading it, but it's really fascinating. In essence, Peter Bernstein argues that it wasn't until we developed a mathematical ability to calculate and manage risk that society as we know it could develop. Everything from gambling to insurance actuarial tables are based on this, and our ability to calculate these factors came relatively late in human history. He traces the history of the mathematical calculation of risk. And it's not nearly as dry as it sounds. It's well written, and at one point where he dives down into the weeds to explain complicated mathematical formulas, he provides a note saying readers who aren't interested (or are overhwelmed) can skip to page xx without losing anything in the narrative thread. Nice.

Favorite quote so far:

"Who has placed me here? By whose order and warrant was this place and this time ordained for me? The eternal silence of these infinite spaces leaves me in terror."

Sounds really existential, but it's just Pascal going on about why he turned into a religious zealot.

Now playing: One Monkey from the album "Soul Journey" by Gillian Welch

Posted by Bob Benz at 6:45 PM | Comments (1)

November 15, 2004

On the road again ...

More travel. Two interesting stops ...

New York City, Greenwich Village: We had dinner at Otto Enoteca Pizzaria last week. It's owned by the Food Network's Mario Batali. When a friend suggested it, I was worried it might be pretentious or culinary overkill. Nothing could be further from the truth. The food was incredible and the wine list was extensive. Price wasn't too bad, either. We had several pizzas, all fantastic, and finished the meal with a sampling of gelato. My favorite was, surprisingly, a pumpkin gelato. While in New York, we also stopped by the Chelsea Market. What a great place. Not something you'd expect to encounter in the middle of New York.

Fort Worth, Texas: We went to see Willie Nelson at Billy Bob's in the Stockyards. I had high hopes but was sorely disappointed. Willie was phoning this one in, and Billy Bob's was horrible. It claims it's the world's largest roadhouse, but it was really a sprawling shopping mall of a place. Terrible venue. Thank god we went to the Loon that afternoon. Now that's a real bar ...

This week, it's Stuart and Naples in Florida, then on to Memphis. Maybe I'll get some decent barbecue there. Or at least bump into Elvis ...

Now Playing: Restless Wind from the album The Earth Rolls On by Billy Joe Shaver

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:46 PM | Comments (1)

October 31, 2004

My kind of trailer trash

A package from Dave Shaffer showed up in my mailbox recently. Normally, that would terrify me. But I took all the proper precautions and opened it in a well-ventilated area with a first-aid kit nearby.

What popped out is his latest, and to my knowledge only, CD.

The band is Abandoned Trailer. The CD is Under the Giant. It's freakin' awesome. He and Fred Reading collaborated on it. Don't know much about what they're up to here or if they're selling copies of it. If they are, I'll try to track down a place where you can buy it. If they aren't, I'll burn you a copy (with their permission). Just send me a note. The coolest thing about it is I really can't say what "it's like." The sound is distinct. The harmonies soar. I particularly liked "The Bellwood Reel/Lilac Wednesday." But I hate to play favorites.

Posted by Bob Benz at 6:39 PM | Comments (0)

October 3, 2004

Shut up and play your guitar ...

I've lost all respect for iTunes music store.

I was filled with demented glee on hearing that a bunch of quadraphonic stuff has emerged from Frank Zappa's vault. Apparently, surround sound systems are perfect for playing this stuff. But when I went to iTunes and searched "Zappa," not only did I fail to find "Quaudiophiliac," but those Apple wankers had NO Zappa albums.

It's freakin' criminal ...

Now Playing: Stronger from the album Wayward Angel by Kasey Chambers

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 25, 2004

Kill Your Idols

I read Kill Your Idols a while ago, but it's worth a mention. It's a series of essays by Generation X and Y rock critics. The premise is pretty simple. Take aim at classic rock icons and open fire.

It's a lot like shooting trout in a barrel. The essays range from fun to obvious to annoying. The best one (and I'm prejudice here) is by my friend Leanne. She takes on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Pronounced" album. But she turns it more into a commentary on Southern culture, which is incredibly on the mark. To quote:

"I'm here to tell you that the definitive Southern rock band is handing you an F-350 truckload of bombastic, sentimental bullshit. Its vision of the South as a land of rebels resisting all things modern, intellectual and Northern is as outdated as hoop skirts, and was even when the band made its debut in 1973."

Other essays tackle everything from the Dead Kennedys to the Byrds. It's fun in the way top 100 lists are fun. I didn't even realize some of these albums were part of the canon. There were several I'd never heard. And when you look at the critics' favorite albums in the back of the book, it's amusing to note some of them list music that's targeted in "Kill Your Idols."

Definitely worth picking up for anyone who grew up with classic rock as their soundtrack ...

Now Playing: Long Black Veil from the album The Pizza Tapes by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman & Tony Rice

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:29 PM | Comments (6)

September 18, 2004

Wireless tunes ...

I finally broke down and bought an AirPort Express, Apple's cool little wireless base station. I put it off for a while because I bought an AirPort Extreme that I was never able to get to work properly.

This was a completely different story. I purchased it so I can stream music from my computer to our stereo. The setup went flawlessly, and now I'm listening to the new CDs I purchased and loaded onto the computer. It's much cooler and easier to access music through iTunes and stream it to the stereo than it is to sift through hundreds of CDs and load them into a CD player. My iTunes music collection is now more than 4,600 songs (about 14.5 days worth of music), and I have quick and easy access to all of it.

During a recent flight, I listened to CSN&Y's Deja Vu through my iPod and was floored by what an incredible CD it is. It had been a while since I'd listened to it. That's put me on a CSN&Y binge, during which I purchased:

-- "If I Could Only Remember My Name," a solo album by David Crosby that includes most of the members of the Grateful Dead, several folks from Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young and Graham Nash. It's awesome. I'd never heard of it until I caught a tune from it on WDVX. It's now on regular rotation.

-- Manassas by Stephen Stills. I've only listened to it once, but I like it already. I really wanted a copy of Super Session with Mike Bloomfield but CD Universe didn't have one (is it even out on CD? If not, it should be. Their version of Donovan's Season of the Witch is incredible.)

-- Four Way Street by CSN&Y. Another great purchase.

And one departure from my binge:

-- "Shuffletown," by Eric Taylor. He's right up there with Townes Van Zandt in my book. Incredible songwriter.

Now Playing: Cowgirl In The Sand from the album Four Way Street (Disc 1) [Live] by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Posted by Bob Benz at 2:13 PM | Comments (3)

July 5, 2004

There's a Mingus among us ...

Snapped up a copy of Charles Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" the other day. It's incredible. This is the remastered version with some new stuff added. I highly recommend it, even if you have only a passing interest in jazz.

Other cool, recent finds:

Trailer Park Boys: This Canadian show on BBC America is a scream. After three episodes, I'm officially hooked. It's shot like a reality TV thingy, and the characters are constantly talking directly to the audience and making reference to the sound and cameraman. Keep an eye out for Bubbles, the Trailer Park Buddha behind the Coke-bottle glasses.

During one of my regular surfs of Cruel.com, I came across IWorkWithFools.com. Some pretty amusing stuff in there, and I get the frightening feeling it's not fiction.

Now Playing: Ooh Bop Sh'Bam from the album Charlie Parker Carvin The Bird by Charlie Parker Carvin The Bird

Posted by Bob Benz at 1:56 PM | Comments (9)

April 9, 2004

Fate's Right Hand

I finally got around to downloading Fate's Right Hand, Rodney Crowell's latest CD. Really good stuff. Like John Hiatt, Crowell is doing his best stuff as he gets older. His songwriting is phenomenal. Saw him at the Opry last fall and he was impressive. One of the highlights of the show.

Posted by Bob Benz at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)

February 28, 2004

A monkeyhouse on their backs

Picked up a the Dandy Warhols most recent CD, "Welcome to the Monkeyhouse." I've listened to it a few times and it's just not grabbing me the way "13 Tales from Urban Bohemia" did. The songs are sleepy, whispered, almost somnabulant. There's nothing with the power of the Godless/Mohammed/Nietzsche opening of 13 Tales or the humor of "Bohemian Like You." "Monkeyhouse" isn't a total loss and it has its moments, but overall, it was a letdown.

I think the Dandy's have been too long on the island of the lotus eaters. Get to a methadone clinic. Clean up. Try again.

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:28 AM

February 8, 2004

Driving all night ...

I spent 15 hours in my truck during a recent two-day trip to and from Ohio University, which gave me a chance to test my iPod's FM tuner gizmo. It worked very well, better than I expected. There are a few spots where I was catching a bit of fuzz, but overall, it was clear and made the drive much more bearable.

It plugs into your cigarette lighter and allows you to listen to your iPod on one of four FM frequencies. It also keeps the iPod charged.

Driving home Friday night reminded me of several of the long-haul late-night trips I made in my younger days. Driving back to Edinboro from a 1981 Dead show at the Capitol Center in D.C. only to run out of gas at daybreak a mile from our exit. Driving from Birmingham to Destin in the middle of a muggy summer night in 1986 and freaking out at the stars and insect accordion hum during a piss stop somewhere south of Montgomery.

And this time, driving through rainy central Ohio swarming with swollen creeks, hoping the temperature wouldn't drop below freezing and having my entire CD collection at my fingertips. Loading all my CDs into the iPod has given me a chance to revisit stuff I haven't listened to in a long time. Returning home, I listened to Mazzy Star, the Breeders, Natalie Merchant and Phish. The more I use this thing, the more I love it. I'm now into the "S" CDs in my collection (Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys ...) and think I'll have the whole thing loaded on the iPod within another week or so.

Here's a link for iPod freaks with too much time on their hands ...

Now Playing: From Gagarin's Point Of View from the album Somewhere Else Before by Esbjorn Svensson Trio

Posted by Bob Benz at 3:53 PM | Comments (7)

January 25, 2004

Dancing Bob ...

Lots of travel during the past week or so. I flew out to San Diego for a conference, where one night found me with a cigar in one hand and a Maker's Mark in the other while I was dancing the way only a drunken white boy can dance. Not a pretty sight.

Drove from San Diego to Ventura after the conference and skated through L.A. with hardly any traffic grief. That was nice. Then I got a first class upgrade on the way back to Knoxville. Very cool.

After a brief night back in Knoxvegas, Lara and I flew up to Chicago to see Buddy Guy at his Legends club. It was incredible. And once again, Dancing Bob was unleashed on the unsuspecting masses. It amazes me how all those folks can stand stockstill while Buddy is wailing the blues.

Perhaps the coolest part of the weekend was the return home. We stepped into a blustery Chicago morning looking for a cab and stumbled into a limo that agreed to take us to O'Hare for the same price as a cab. The driver turned out to be a blues harp player who was pretty impressed when he found out we'd flown in to see Buddy Guy. We were talking about the blues, and he whipped out a harp and blew a few notes to explain what a diatonic harmonica is. When I asked who his favorite harp player is, he said Howard Levy . I'll have to give him a listen.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:02 PM | Comments (1)

December 30, 2003

Songs of Sahm

Just downloaded the Bottle Rockets' Songs of Sahm, a tribute to the late, somewhat obscure Texas songwriter Doug Sahm. It's a keeper. These guys never fail to blow me away. If you've never heard them, start with The Brooklyn Side. Great songwriting, especially Idiot's Revenge, Welfare Music and Thousand Dollar Car. Not a bad cut on the whole CD.

Here's a review, though I don't really agree with the premise: That Songs of Sahm is somehow an aberration in the Bottle Rockets' catalog. I've always liked the diversity of their sound, and these takes on Sahm's work don't strike me as being out of sync.

An odd thing about iTunes: Not sure how they're setting up their database, but the music often sorts by the first name. So Bob Dylan sorts under the "B"s. Also, they have The Bottle Rockets and Bottle Rockets. They need to field that data. Kinda quirky ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 11:42 PM | Comments (4)

August 1, 2003

media matters ...

Hit a triple with the three CDs I bought last weekend, and "28 Days Later," the zombie film I went to see, kicked ass. I love it when a plan comes together.

-- 28 Days Later: I saw the version with the alternative ending. Not surprisingly, I like the bleaker approach better. But I think it better fits the nature of the film. I also was amazed at how much it pays homage to Romero. The shopping spree harkens Dawn of the Dead, with all its shopping mall antics. The captured zombie and military angle are very similar to Day of the Dead. And the alternative ending brings a bleakness that Night of the Living Dead invoked. But 28 Days still goes its own way. I particularly like the whole rage thing, and the fast-moving zombies really are creepy. Not sure what effect they used to capture that, but it worked.

-- "Electric Bath," The Don Ellis Orchestra. This CD is awesome. Stumbled across a piece on Ellis and decided to check him out. He plays a lot of off time signatures -- 5/4, 7/4, 19/4 -- and gives jazz a dip in psychedlia that's really interesting. I'll be buying more of his stuff.

-- "Chinatown," The Be Good Tanyas. These three women are incedible. I have "Blue Horse" already and fell for it immediately. This CD is just as good. Great version of Townes Van Zant' "Waiting Around to Die," and the originals are really solid, too.

They can play.

-- "The Three Pickers: Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs." Another winner. Scruggs, to my mind, is the father of bluegrass music (and he was way cool on the Beverly Hillbillies). Alison Krauss also appears on a few tunes. Very nice. And thanks to Tivo (all praise Tivo) I also found a "Great Performances" of this show, so I got to see the video, too.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:31 PM | Comments (1)