OFFICIAL NICK CURRAN COCKTAIL RECIPE:

        3 TBLS – LITTLE RICHARD

        1 TBLS – GLENN DANZIG

        1 TBLS – GERRY ROSLIE

        2 TBLS – JOHNNY WATSON

        1 TBLS – CLIFF GALLUP

        2 TBLS – ANGUS YOUNG

        1 TBLS – ’50s BB KING

        1 1/2 TS – JIMMIE VAUGHAN

        1 1/2 TS – JOHNNY RAMONE

        1 TS – BILLY DUFFY

        1 1/2 TBLS – GRADY MARTAIN

        4 TS – SLASH

        2 TBLS – GATEMOUTH BROWN

        4 CUPS – EARL PALMER

        1 HALF GALLON OF EVAN WILLIAMS BOURBON

        1 BROKEN MISFITS “HYBRID MOMENTS” 45rpm RECORD

        1 BROKEN TINY GRIMES 78rpm RECORD

        AND

        1 CUP – BROKEN GLASS

        Put all ingredients into a high powered blender and turn it all the way up!
        Blend to a delicious cocktail and drink as fast as possible!!!

That is how Nick Curran explains his musical influences.  On his new album with the Lowlifes,  Reform School Girl, like a great bartender, Curran also adds some “secret ingredients” – a squeeze of Otis Rush, a touch of Elmore James and a pinch of Jerry Lee Lewis.  

Reform School Girl is a barn burner of unadulterated blues-based rock and roll. Curran wrote, or had a hand in writing, 12 of the 14 tracks.  Each one is extraordinary and  harks back to that era of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s when the guitar and saxophone were king and segregated African American bluesmen were losing their ASCAP to white, charismatic pianists and vocalists.  It is roots “rock ‘n roll” and that is just what Nick Curran and the Lowlifes deliver.  It will make you dance – you won’t be able to help yourself.

Listen to the voice and instrumentation. Curran has been playing guitar since he was nine. In 2004 he won the W.C. Handy Award (now the “Blues Music Award”) for “Best New Album Debut” for his release “Dr. Velvet,” and then played for four years with The Fabulous Thunderbirds and in his own punk band project  “Deguello.” In 2008 he showed up playing songs on the HBO series “True Blood” before forming the Lowlifes.  This is a man with a massive amount of musical talent and a great gravelly blues voice. 

A lot of analog equipment and vintage instruments were used on the album including a classic Gretsch, a Squier ‘51, and an ’80s Kramer guitar, with tube amplifiers including a Tweed Fender Champ; a Tweed Fender Deluxe from the ’50s; and a Blackheart 5 watt combo. Curran is quoted, “. . . on the title track we actually ran outta tracks on that and had to add a bunch more on. We were really trying to get a Phil Spector-ish sound on that, so we made sure we put too much of everything on that one!” That is a major understatement.

Finally, consider the lyrics. The compositions are highly infectious.  First, your toes start tapping. Then, your head gets to bopping. After a while you find yourself humming the melody.  In no time at all you are singing a line or two from a cut and the music is not even on!  

Don’t miss this album.  It is big fun.

        –  Old School

Buy here: Reform School Girl

http://www.myspace.com/curranrock

In the summer of 1984, I found myself abroad, living and studying at Cambridge University.  Wandering the streets one day, past pubs and cricket fields, walking over the river Cam, I stumbled upon the only true record store I chanced upon the whole time I lived in the city.  And it was glorious, mind-numbingly glorious.   The racks were full, stacked full, of glorious British vinyl of the sort I just never saw in the States.  Given that it was 1984, of course there were tons of fantastic post-punk, goth, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood LP’s, EP’s and singles, but what caught my eye more than anything else was the section devoted to the Zombies.  Sure, I’d heard of the Zombies before, and probably even knew somewhere in the back of my mind that they sang that ultimate psych-pop hymn of the late sixties, “Time of the Season,” but in truth, I really had no idea who they were.  Glancing across the covers of all this archival British vinyl, I was entranced by this quintet of impeccibly clean cut guys with the horrific moniker.  That moment started my love affair with the band that has lasted now over 25 years.

Stepped aside as a mere footnote back in their day, history has proven the Zombies to one of the most influential, gorgeously melodic groups of all time.  Way, way ahead of their time, their combinaton of lush, layered harmonies, stunningly gorgeous melodies, Colin Blunstone’s breathy vocals, and Rod Argent’s influence of jazz and classical piano was just far too adventurous for their era.  Now that has all changed.  No other band besides the Beatles and the Beach Boys could claim to bring such a level of melodic sophistication to their music.  And of their entire career, their one true album, Odessey & Oracle is without a doubt an all-time classic of sublime psychedelic pop.  Released after the band had already broken up, the album was a total flop in it’s day.  Only the posthumous release of “Time of the Season,” kept the album in the music-lovers consciousness.  Since then, as time has past and our ears have matured, Odessey & Oracle has rightfully be garnered a new respect and is now held in the same esteem, nearly the same breath as Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds as a masterpieces of dreamy, devastatingly gorgeous melodic pop.

Captured live on DVD at the Sheppard’s Bush Empire, London 2008, Odessey & Oracle {Revisited} finds the four remaining Zombies (Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, Chris White, Hugh Grundy) joined by the Zombies Touring band (featuring Jim Rodford, former member of Argent) for an absolutely spellbinding concert re-creation of Odessey & Oracle performed live and in it’s entirety.  I gotta admit, I got totally caught up in the emotion of the moment with this show.  When Rod Argent (ever so graceful and humble) announces that, since the band broke up before the album was released, they’d never had the chance to perform these songs live, and that we were witnessing the very first time the band ever could play this album, I got goose-bumps up and down my spine.  Now granted, I’m a Zombies fan, but the thought of watching a band perform an all-time classic album, for the first time, after being apart for 40 years is pretty damn special.

None of this would matter of course if the band didn’t sound so fantastic.  I swear, fantastic.  My wife, walking in and out of the room while I fanboy-ed out on the show, stopped mid-step at one point, stared at the TV and said, “My God, their voices sound so angelic.”  And with those words she captured the entire essence of the Zombies.  Definitively British, their music at its best is a dream-like journey through phases of pastoral British history, all wrapped up and gently floating upon those melodies.  Always those melodies.

No fan of the Zombies should miss this.  From the get-go, the lads (sixty-plus year-old lads) take the stage and claim it as their own.  Starting off with three songs from their earliest recording history “I Love You,” “Sticks and Stones,” and Can’t Nobody Love You,” the band is tight, Rod is energetic (and looking remarkably fit) and Colin show’s that his voice has lost none of its heavenly texture.  They go through a brief set from Colin’s solo career, before ending Part One with a rousing rendition of “Hold Your Head Up,” the rock standard from Argent’s self-named band.  And it’s lost none of it’s power over the years.

As enjoyable as Part One is, the real meat of the concert is the first-ever performance of Odessey & Oracle in it’s entirety, and let me tell you, it’s remarkable.  The stuff legends deservedly are made from.  Taken as a whole, the entire artistic vision of the album is nearly too beautiful to comprehend.   A grand, sweeping, swirling ride across oceans of melodic bliss, angelic soaring harmonies, and musical exploration.  Never before had the true grandness of their mastery of melody been so clear for me.  I’d call them the British Beach Boys based on the glory of their craft, but in truth, I like the Zombies so much more.  They carry so much more depth to their enchantment, a mix of major and minor chords, an entire universe of moods and tones.  For an album I’ve loved for years, watching them perform made it seem as if I was hearing the album again for the very first time.

There’s not a weak track on this masterpiece, but the live renditions of “Care of Cell 44,” “Maybe After He’s Gone,” “Hung Up on a Dream” and “Changes” are breath-stealers.  It’s so hard to imagine them sounding so produced, so tight, so remarkably glorious after all these years.  Meanwhile, songs like “Brief Candles” and “Beachwood Park” spring to life with an entirely new intensity and somber beauty.  Chris White’s vocal performance on “Butcher’s Tale” reaches so deep into the terror that a young soldier feels lost on the battlefield that it can nearly pull a tear from your eye.  Backed by Rod Argent on a 1890’s organ, it’s a song of infinite and remarkable power.  A brutal combination of mesmerizing melody and stark terror.  Truly a remarkable song.

No true Zombies fan, however, would fail to admit that the highlight of the show is to see the original band tearing through a perfect rendition of “Time of the Season,” which hasn’t dated itself at all, and still reigns as one of the hallmark psych-pop songs of the era.  Seeing the joy on the guys faces as they play this, and every song on the album, just warms the heart.  It’s their moment and they seize it, every second of it.

The show ends with two triumphant encores, “Tell Her No,” and a heartstopping version of “She’s Not There.”  Two more magical moments in what can only be described as a magical night.  A night where both the band and the music proved themselves to be ageless.   A triumphant performance of a truly seminal work.

Personally, I don’t like music DVD’s. I listen to music, I don’t watch it.  But this one will never leave my side.  Timeless.  Absolutely timeless.

–Racer

Buy here:  Zombies – Odessey and Oracle: The 40th Anniversary Concert

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But this is the Nation of Alizée and with Alizéemania going on we just have a different way of interpreting Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?

Alizée has the button! Winner, winner chicken dinner.

for Lefty

A solid working unit for many years but operating under the radar of the mainstream jazz world in the Los Angeles area, the Crepuscule Trio represents the most fundamental and vital aspects and values of what came to be termed “free jazz.” Consisting of three outstanding musicians – saxophonist Ken Kawamura, bassist Anthony Shadduck, and drummer Alan Cook – the trio mines the tradition of the music they know intimately while blasting it open into the realm of spacious and multi-directional musical possibility. Loose, intense, subtle, and swinging, the Crepuscule Trio reminds one that free improvisation stemming from the jazz tradition is a fully relevant form of musical expression.

Seattle clarinetist Jesse Canterbury leads Vertigo, an all-acoustic ensemble in a strikingly original mix of chamber music, improvisation, and tune-oriented melodic material informed and inspired by the music of clarinetists Louis Sclavis and Michael Moore. The quartet also includes cellist Joanne DeMars, trombonist Chris Stover, and guitarist Tom Baker.

Wyndel Hunt integrates melody and noise using electronics, acoustic instruments, field recordings, and the occasional piece of amplified trash. His recent work focuses on conceiving narrative, painting, and sculpture as analogues for structuring composition and shaping sound. Since 2005 he has presented his work in galleries, public spaces, and live venues alone and in collaboration with visual artists.

Christopher DeLaurenti debuts new field recordings as well improvisations with software-based sound generation, including phase-based compression, spectral inscription, and databending.

This is quite rare video footage of massively underrated band.
Steve Jansen’s short lived project with Richard Barbieri,called the Dolphin Brothers produced a great album of arty pop with a breezy feeling.Steve Jansen’s voice was maybe even better than his blonde brother that fronted Japan and he looked really cool with sunglasses,even if there wasn’t any sunshine around.