Dawes - Contemporary Laurel Canyon Folk Rock

Dawes - That Western Skyline

Anyone checking out Sugartown can easily see that my tastes run towards rock music as it was made in the '60s and'70s. Not all that many bands these days are riding that particular musical train. So although there are not a whole lot of contemporary bands that really do it for me, I like to highlight the ones that do grab me. I definitely have an appreciation for the Laurel Canyon sound of the late '60s, being a big fan of Gram Parsons, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, Chris Hillman, etc., and mellow Southern California rootsy folk rockers Dawes seem to be right up that alley. I'm not sure I'm completely won over by all their music (its a little too laid back for my tastes and could stand a little bit more rock), but their song That Western Skyline (video in link above) definitely got my attention. Songwriting has to be really strong for me to get excited with music from this genre and I think they've hit one out of the park on this particular song. Lyrics and lead vocals by Taylor Goldsmith (sounding a little bit like Stephen Stills) are particularly strong and the music achieves a bittersweet vibe nicely, starting out gentle and soft and gradually building to a good crescendo, giving the earnest emotions a bit of dynamic ebb and flow. Good stuff. Check out more at:

http://dawestheband.blogspot.com/

The Mother Hips Return To The Fillmore

Next month, on September 18th, The Mother Hips return to one of the greatest rock music venues in the world, The Fillmore in San Francisco. The band has a solid history at The Fillmore, having played there many times in their career, both headlining and opening for luminaries like Johnny Cash. They had a truimphant show there in 2002 (seen in the photo above) celebrating the release and success of the Green Hills of Earth album. The show next month promises to be full of stoked and appreciative hardcore fans, both old timers and many newcomers that the Hips have attracted in the last few years since returning from their hiatus. Word is that they will be in rehearsal especially for this show, causing speculation that some old chestnuts will be busted out. You can't go wrong with one of the Bay Area's greatest bands playing at the fantastic Fillmore!

Wilco - Ashes Of American Flags

We're getting ready for a road trip to Aspen over Labor Day weekend to finally catch Wilco again. They've been in Europe for most of 2010 and we missed them last year in Tucson, so we're really excited to catch them in one of their few US shows this summer.



I've been singing the praises of this live rock concert film ever since I got turned on to it about a year ago or so and had a rock 'n' roll epiphany about what a powerhouse rock band Wilco has become live. I'd written them off after seeing what seemed like a very boring show on the rooftop of the Gibson Guitar Factory on a very very cold fall night in Memphis, TN in 2002, so this realization was a complete turn-around for me. We've watched this DVD over and over and over and always seem to be blown away, even though we know what is coming. In the above song Monday, you get Glenn Kotche's hand-pummeling pounding on the drums, the pumping horn section, Tweedy's Chuck Berry riffs and the whole band riding the fadeout hard, rocking out with abandon; this is great rock 'n' roll to my ears.



The title track of the film is a Tweedy melancholy masterpiece with a gloriously dissonant and climactic guitar solo from Nels Cline.

Wilco, at the end of this decade, have become a more balanced band. I think they've found a perfect balance between the ambient, "deconstructed" art-rock of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the early '00s (that I found boring on that Memphis night in 2002) and a more soulful sound rooted in classic American songwriting and arrangements.

For me, they really shine live. They are a true rock ensemble and its hard to hear it in their studio recordings. Their power comes from the way the parts fit together rather than from the brilliance of any individual band member's musical performance. They listen to one another and they have created tight live arrangements by playing a relentless tour schedule of 2 hour + shows for many years. The current line up is the most stable and longstanding that they've had since their beginnings in the mid '90s. Guitars (they sometimes have three at one time depending on whether Pat Sansone is playing guitar or keyboards) weave in an out of one another, hitting perfectly synchronized unison parts before Nels Cline breaks off into a frantic solo while the rhythm guitars stay synched and songs spiral up into dizzying climaxes, exploding into power rock riffing and then drifting into lyrical denouments. There is a lot of musical drama going on in their music, folks.

If you think you don't like Wilco based on their studio records, you owe it to yourself to check out this fantastic film and see what they can do live when they are firing on all cylinders.

Manassas live

Its fairly safe to say that Manassas is an underrated rock band. I wasn't really much aware of them until The Black Crowes started covering a few of their songs in 2005. We recently watched this live DVD from German TV in 1972 and were impressed at their jamming, tight rhythm grooves and the diversity of musical styles they hit on in just a handful of songs. They've got the weepy country ballad, the Latin-flavored jam, blues rock, and folky singer-songwriter stuff. Its clear after watching this just how much influence The Black Crowes have drawn from Manassas. Stephen Stills is a far better lead guitarist than I had given him credit for. He's smoking Hendrix-style on that Les Paul in the song Jet Set. Al Perkins on pedal steel is like a secret weapon and holds his own on guitar and pedal steel in the jams and rockers. What a treasure to have former Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman on vocals, he sounds great with Stills, although he does look a little bit out of his element when the band starts jamming.

If you like 70s rock and you haven't listened to Manassas, this DVD is well worth checking out.

Black Crowes' Say Goodnight To The Bad Guys tour has begun!

...and if you wanna go crazy keeping track of the tour night by night in one convenient spot, this blog looks promising for being both a one-stop compendium of setlists, photos, fan reactions and YouTube videos as well as having some witty and amusing commentary on the whole Black Crowes fandom experience from an insider.

Tom Petty "I Should Have Known It" video

Photo By Chris Tuite for Rolling Stone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_iBKacXIA4

Can I just say this video footage rocks? Getting to see the whole record-live-with-no-headphones thing REALLY brings home what a tight hard rocking band the Heartbreakers can be. I still get blown away by the power of this band when they decide to unleash it. However, being reminded how great they can be is bittersweet for me because too often in their live shows, they aren't great. I think they tend to kill their own live show by playing boring versions of the same old hits night after night, year after year. There is no spontaneity and the band certainly don't look passionate any longer when I have seen them in the past 10 years. I strongly believe that TP and the Heartbreakers have fantastic potential to be one of the best live bands of all time (like they were on the 1997 20-night Fillmore run), and IMO, they mostly throw it away when they do an arena tour. It seems to me they are playing it safe, trying to leave no fan disappointed, playing all the hits every night. Its been virtually the same concert for all tours from the past 10 years with just a handful or less of new songs thrown in each tour to differentiate them. If they'd only play live like the Black Crowes do and the Grateful Dead did (keeping a large repertoire of songs that gets greatly changed up from night to night and tour to tour) , the Heartbreakers would be one of the most smoking rock 'n' roll shows you could ever see. The recent all-live box set is ample proof of what this band is capable of. It shows that the Heartbreakers, like the Crowes and The Dead, are masters of most of the major American popular music styles (rock 'n' roll, blues, country, soul, folk). But you'd never know it if you went to see them in an arena. Its truly baffling to me why they choose to downplay their strength in favor of doing the same thing over and over and over in their live shows.

RIP Ronnie James Dio

Another musical hero has fallen and the response from the metal world has been an outpouring of appreciation and praise for both the music and the personal ethos of the great Ronnie James Dio, former lead singer of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own band Dio.

Even though my metal years for the most part are far behind me, I have always held Ronnie James in the highest esteem for his powerful, operatic metal vocals and songwriting. To me Holy Diver is still the best metal album ever made, period. His work with Black Sabbath on Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules is not far behind, either. And before that, he formed Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore. Plus he is credited for inventing the "devil horns" hand symbol that has become synonymous with the entire genre of heavy metal. That's quite a legacy, none of which is surprising. What does surprise me is how well loved he was by so many. I had no idea guys like Lars Ulrich from Metallica and Brian May from Queen were such appreciators and fans. Apparently he had such a good heart that it seems he doesn't have a single enemy.

Certainly the music of Dio appeals only to a particular kind of music fan, the metalers who are not put off by the medieval imagery that RJD loved so much, but even so its hard to deny the metal power of the band on the Holy Diver and Last In Line tours. Check out this live take of "Stand Up And Shout" with Vivian Campbell absolutely shredding while Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain on drums and bass brutally pound out the rhythm.

Stand Up And Shout - Dio Live in 1983