B-Sides in the Bins #30 – Chicago – 9/12/08

Posted on September 21, 2008 by mike

My wife and a friend of hers wanted to go to Chicago for a Gluten-Free Cooking Conference. This left her friend Sharon’s husband Bob and I with lots of time on our hands. Bob Najouks is one of the Sunday morning jocks on Kirkwood College’s Jazz and Blues station KCCK, so I thought a trip to the infamous Jazz Record Mart was in order. I hadn’t been to JRM in over two years so it was time for me to come back and Bob had never been there!

This weekend was wet. Lots of rain dumping on Chicagoland from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ike pulled out of the Gulf of Mexico. Friday was blessed with small spots of light-to-no rain so hoofing it around downtown was an okay proposition. Our plans after breakfast was to hit Jazz Record Mart, lunch, and then to hit the Art Institute of Chicago then call it a day.

Bob teaches sketching classes at Kirkwood currently, but– in addition to his radio gig– also is a freelance artist. In the early 60’s he did some cover art for Franz Jackson who passed away in May. JRM had a number of still-sealed copies of Good Old Days by Franz Jackson and the Original Jass All-Stars (Pinnacle Recordings: PLP 109) that Bob did the cover art for, which was a neat dose of kismet. Bob picked up a copy to play– he still had the original 1965 pressing of the album at home.

Gorilla – Deal With It (CD, Thrill Jockey, Thrill 003-2, 1993)($5.99) Interesting find. Not Jazz-related at all. The third release on Thrill Jockey from back in the day. The mailing address was New York, so this is before Bettina moved to her current Chicago digs. Seattle Grunge band, I guess. Sounds very early-Nineties. Kind of punk, kind of retro 60’s sound with organ. Not great, but not horrible, really. Mostly a collector piece for me. It would appear that while the CD for this is very much out-of-print, the LP is still available?

George Freeman – Birth Sign (CD, Delmark, DD-424, 1993)($13.99) My first non-Thrill Jockey related Delmark purchase. This was playing on the stereo in the store while I was checking out and I impulse-purchased. George Freeman is the guitar-playing brother of tenor sax player Von Freeman (apparently the more famous of the two). Birth Sign is his debut album. Great album of Hammond-B3 fueled jazz typical of the late 60’s.

John Coltrane – Blue Train (LP, Blue Note, BST-91577, 1993)($11.99) This is the CEMA/Capitol Special Products pressing of the seminal Blue Note release. I own this on CD as well. In fact, my CD pressing of this is on 24-karat gold UltraDisc II from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. This is the album that broke open the gates of jazz for me.

Jeff Parker – The Relatives (LP, Thrill Jockey, Thrill 129, 2005) ($12.99) Wow, a really cool and rare find! The vinyl for this release has been out-of-print for a while, as is usually the case from Thrill Jockey vinyl. According to the price sticker, this has been in the bin since its release. Jazz Record Mart carries most of the Thrill Jockey releases, but it seems that a lot of the clientèle there don’t follow this label, which accounts for the fact that this release is still in the bins. I saw a couple of other rare TJ releases as well. Maybe I’ll come for them later.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Jazz: Red Hot and Cool (LP, Columbia, CL 699, 1954) ($3.99) This is an upgrade for me. My first copy was in pretty good shape, but this one is in much better shape and comes with the original Columbia paper inner-sleeve! The record is in immaculate shape and the cover is also very beautiful. I had never noticed before today that the vivid photograph of a young Brubeck entertaining a young, smoking (literally) woman leaning on his piano was taken by none other than Richard Avedon! Avedon, who died in 2004, took some famous shots of the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe as well as the well-known picture of Nastassja Kinski with a python.

All-in-all a good trip and it was cool to be there with a jazz afficianado. Bob and I will be back, I think.

New Guitar: Gibson Les Paul Studio “Vintage Mahogany”

Posted on September 19, 2008 by mike

Guitar Center had their regular huge blowout “list” sale last Labor Day Weekend. Since last Christmas I had been contemplating picking up one of the Gibson Les Paul Vintage Mahogany guitars. The sale over Christmas was a good one and this guitar was included in it, so I was hoping that it would be included again for this sale, too. This was a guitar that Sherry said that she liked a lot. This guitar has a “thin” nitrocellulose finish and has a matte finish that Sherry prefers on it rather than a glossy one. I had been struggling with selling my somewhat rare Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom that is the “star” of the most-read article on my blog. The fact of the matter is that I just don’t play it. So, if I can move to a new guitar that might fit my playing better, and it was on sale, I thought I’d better jump on it.

On Friday over lunch I hightailed it over to Guitar Center in Cedar Rapids, and found out that the guitar in question was, in fact, on sale! It was on sale for $200 off! This guitar is part of Gibson’s sub-$1000 line of guitars that includes most of the “Faded” line.

This is a pretty interesting guitar in a lot of ways. It seems that Guitar Center/Musician’s Friend has this guitar manufactured specifically for them. Apparently manufactured in large enough numbers that they can sell them very cheaply. On the surface, it looks just like the regular Gibson Les Paul Studio in what they call “Worn Brown” with Chrome Hardware. It’s their no-frills Les Paul which I prefer– no amber “top hat” volume and tone knobs, no gold hardware, no binding. Mahogany solid-body with chambers. The guitar itself is slightly thinner than other Les Pauls. The combination of the chambers and thinner body adds to the relative lightness of the guitar. A key difference of the Guitar Center version of this guitar, however, comes in the pickups. The regular Studio Les Paul, that Guitar Center sells for between $1100 and $1400 depending on options has 490R and 498T pickups, which are based on the original 1960’s “Patent Applied For” humbuckers. Guitar Center’s version of the Gibson Les Paul Studio has Burstbucker Pro pickups which are hotter.

Guitar Center had three of these left on Friday, and only one of them was still fresh-in-the-box. The other two were showing signs of demo floor abuse. Only pick scratches, but I wanted one that didn’t have any scratches on it. Additionally, there are slight variations in these guitars since they are hand assembled and finished in Nashville alongside the other Made in USA Gibsons. This one had a darker rosewood fretboard that I preferred. The neck was slightly wider than the other two, but not dramatically so. This guitar, like all Gibsons, came with a hard case, which is a really nice touch. [Note: it has been recently confirmed that Guitar Center no longer offers a hardshell case with the Vintage Mahogany Studios, only a gig bag. See the comments for more details]

Since I was selling the Jag, I was going to need a box to ship that in and they kindly let me take the box the Gibson was in which yielded me some interesting information about the guitar with the labelling on the box. Gibson calls this guitar a “Les Paul Studio Limited” and lists the options as “Worn Brown” and “Chrome.” It is given a model number of LPSTWBCH1, which would seem to mean “Les Paul Studio Worn Brown Chrome.”

So, having had this guitar for a number of weeks, I can say that this guitar certainly meets my expectations. In fact, it might surpass my expectations for a guitar that is considered the entry-level for the Gibson Les Paul line. Most of the complaints on Harmony Central surround fit and finish of these guitars. Indeed, Ian the sales assistant at Guitar Center suggested that I look at and play a bunch of these to make sure that I get one that feels and sounds to my satisfaction. I feel like I picked out the best of the three they had in the store. I didn’t experience any of the issues that some of the folks on the review site had experienced. It’s quite possible that Gibson has improved this guitar over time, too. It sounds great. I’m playing it through a homebrew tube amp called a P1 that a friend of mine made for me. The Burstbuckers overdrive the EL84 tube nicely adding to enough crunchy distortion for my tastes. The relative short scale of the Les Paul (24.75″) versus my Fender Strat (25.5″) takes a bit to get used to, but I’m adapting, and I find myself reaching for the LP more frequently. The setup was pretty basic, but the strings are a bit higher than I prefer and two of the strings could stand some tweaking for intonation and I’m going to be working on that in the near future. The vintage-style “green key” kluson tuners seem to do a relatively good job of holding the guitar in tune.

Overall, I would recommend this guitar for someone who wants to get into a Gibson LP for less money and the bonus upgrades on this model make it a steal, indeed. You can always go with an Epiphone, but I think the combination of features and looks makes this guitar an instant favorite for me.

UPDATE: After a strange couple of years of rebranding and an unfortunate 2015 model year it appears that Gibson has brought the Worn Studio series back for 2016– almost exactly the way it was in 2012. This is slightly different than my 2008 as it has a maple cap over the mahogany, otherwise it is very similar. Take a look at models for sale at Reverb.com

Hey Love Mixtape Download from Joyo Velarde Has Tracks from Upcoming Solo Album

Posted on September 16, 2008 by mike

The much-anticipated solo release from Lyrics Born-sidekick and frequent collaborator Joyo Velarde has been in the works for literally years and this week we get a teaser in the form of a mixtape. It includes tracks from her upcoming Quannum Projects release Love & Understanding as well as tracks where she lent her amazing pipes for other acts including Lyrics Born as well as some tracks exclusive to this mix.

This mix is pretty similar to the recurring Lyrics Born Show mixes that LB puts out, and this is also credited to his label Mobile Home Recordings.

The mix is available now through Lyrics Born’s download store for $5.99. If you are a fan, like I am, go download this!

Tracklisting:

1. Hey Love Intro
2. Build This World
3. Time To Wake Up – DJ Zeph & Azeem ft. Joyo Velarde
4. I Need You Boy
5. Oh Joy* – Lyrics Born & Proof Positive
6. Rise and Shine – Lyrics Born ft. Joyo Velarde
7. Bay Luv* – Lyrics Born and Joyo Velarde
8. I Can’t Wait For Your Love – Lyrics Born ft. Joyo Velarde
9. Beautiful You – Maroons ft. Joyo Velarde
10. People Like Me
11. Jenny and Georgie*
12. Certain Special Way – Joyo Velarde ft. Trackademicks
13. Those Days*
14. Doobie-Doo*
15. The World Is Calling – Lyrics Born ft. Joyo Velarde
16. Take You Home
17. Spirit of Love*
18. Love Me So Bad – Lyrics Born ft. Joyo Velarde
19. King’s Daughter*
20. We Made It* – produced by Proof Positive

*mixtape exclusives/previously unreleased

Backyard Tire Fire – The Places We Lived (Review)

Posted on September 10, 2008 by mike

My discovery of Backyard Tire Fire is thanks to MySpace. I’d heard of the band– references have shown up in a few of the RSS feeds I follow– but I hadn’t heard their music. Apparently, their enterprising “web guy” saw that I was a fan of Cracker and Johnny Hickman and reached out. Hickman is quoted as saying that Backyard Tire Fire is his favorite band right now. After listening to the streaming tracks from their MySpace page and samples on their website as well as a full album stream of their previous album Vagabonds and Hooligans on Indie911 I, too have become a fast fan of their Midwestern brand of country-tinged rock. Hickman compares them to early Wilco, Son Volt and Flaming Lips.

However, I don’t think that the shades of early Wilco and Son Volt stick around for long on Backyard Tire Fire’s new album The Places We Lived. There is something more at work here. From the treated pianos, chimes, bells, and strings throughout, the plucky bass and the double tracked harmonies– specifically on “Shoulda Shut It.” It at times seems like a darker version of Brian Wilson’s vision and the band toys with some Smile-ish changes in mood and the layering of instruments and sound effects. Is this our Surfer Girl with Seasonal Affective Disorder?

I’m not sure that Backyard Tire Fire would ever claim the Beach Boys as a relative, however. Maybe through a second cousin of Tom Petty or Cheap Trick. Ed Anderson has one of the better voices I’ve heard out of the indie scene with the ability to get very soulful and funky on the stomping “One Wrong Turn,” he evokes his inner Zander with the anti-tribute to the workweek “Welcome To The Factory.” “Bright lights and blank stares through the night,” indeed complete with ratchet and clank over big rock drums delivered by official timekeeper Tim Kramp. This is clearly the sound of a band having fun in the studio playing with all the toys. The album sounds great. I read that Tire Fire likes to work in analog, and this album has a vinyl release to compliment that effort, BTW.

This record seems to owe a bit to Tom Waits as well. Certainly Ed’s voice is easier to listen to, but you can hear it in the slightly boozy songs anchored with treated piano in “Rainy Day (Don’t Go Away),” “One Wrong Turn” and the album closer “Home Today.”

“It’s funny how we forget sometimes,” Ed sings in the album opener and title track, “the places we once lived.” Tire Fire’s new album is as much about the Middle-Class Midwestern perspective of the places they lived that colors the landscape of the songs as it is about the influences of the music that provided the soundtrack to the journey to get to those places. The Places We Lived wears its influences proudly. Each of the songs on the album’s economical 35 minutes stands on its own effectively, but also provides guides to those places they lived from funk and blues to country and classic rock. Mixed together with some impressive studio production we have what I think it one of the standout albums from this Summer! In an interview with JamBase, Ed says that with each album he thinks, “this is the recording that everyone is gonna latch on to” which drives them to “get the job done.” In my opinion, The Places We Lived certainly has the hooks and chops to get them there.

Backyard Tire Fire are currently touring in support of The Places We Lived. Click Here for the updated dates. They are going to be at the Picador in Iowa City tonight (9/10) for an early show and I’ll be there.

Click Here for Backyard Tire Fire’s Website

Click Here for Backyard Tire Fire’s MySpace Page

Click Here for the interview in JamBase with Backyard Tire Fire

Free Downloads: Calexico Secret Show in Berlin 9/6/08 (FLAC)

Posted on September 7, 2008 by mike

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly great free downloads are available on the Internet. This morning at 9:46AM GMT a BitTorrent for a live broadcast from BBC 1 of a show Calexico did YESTERDAY showed up on Dimeadozen! This was a “secret show” that was performed by Calexico as a quartet in Berlin in a small venue. The broadcast part of the show was all new songs and mostly tracks from Carried to Dust which comes out on Tuesday.

To download the FLAC files using your favorite torrent client, click here (requires account on dimeadozen)

Ballhaus Ost, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany

Setlist:
01 [00:28] [starting a new chapter…]
02 [04:38] Frank’s Tavern
03 [05:14] Victor Jara’s Hands
04 [04:55] Man Made Lake
05 [03:28] [slowness prelude] >
06 [05:29] Slowness
07 [04:32] Two Silver Trees
08 [04:14] Above The Branch >
09 [03:42] The News About William
10 [04:39] Writer’s Minor Holiday
11 [05:35] [unidentified title]
12 [06:25] Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)
13 [03:36] Red Blooms

The lineup was:
Joey Burns: guitars, vocals
John Convertino: drums
Martin Wenck: trumpet, harmonica, vibraphone, whistling
Paul Niehaus: pedal steel guitar, electric guitar

Lucinda Williams New Album Little Honey News and Single

Posted on September 7, 2008 by mike

This week Lucinda Williams released a new digital single to Amazon and iTunes of “Real Love” from her upcoming new album due October 14th titled Little Honey (Lost Highway).

Little Honey follows her 2007 release West, which was a favorite here at playbsides last year. On this record Eric Liljestrand moves from the Engineer role he had on West to a Producer role for Little Honey. Lucinda also brings in some guests including Elvis Costello on “Jailhouse Tears” which is being called a “mini drama” (?), as well as Matthew Sweet and Suzanna Hoffs providing vocal duties on “Little Rock Star” — a six-minute song which was apparently influenced by a photo of Pete Doherty in Rolling Stone Magazine. The album also includes a cover of the AC/DC song “It’s A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” Williams describes the album as “eclectic.”

Lucinda and producer Hal Willner were so pleased with the basic demo tracks she recorded for West, that he used them in the final album. The result of this was that there was a lot of “bonus” material available in the form of the basic demo tracks. The Best Buy version of West had a second disc with two tracks, there was a separate second CD available via Indie record stores with two tracks, the Japanese version had two additional tracks as well. I hope Lost Highway again brings the bonus material for Little Honey.

Which brings us to the new song “Real Love” available at Amazon and iTunes. The song is pretty much a classic rockin’ Lucinda track which– intentionally or not– has lifted the main guitar riff from Jackson Browne’s song “Boulevard.” It’s a good song, and worth the $.99, I think.

TRACKLISTING for Little Honey:

Real Love
Circles And X’s
Tears Of Joy
Little Rock Star
Honey Bee
Well Well Well
If Wishes Were Horses
Jailhouse Tears
Knowing
Heaven Blues
Rarity
Plan To Marry
It’s A Long Way To The Top

Produced by Eric Liljestrand and Tom Overby

Free Download: The Cool Kids – “Delivery Man”

Posted on September 3, 2008 by mike

Mountain Dew has a free mp3 download from their “Green Label Sound” website of Chicago’s buzzworthy hip hop duo The Cool Kids. The track “Delivery Man” has sparse drums and an organ hook flowing under lyrics that remind me of De La Soul or Black Eyed Peas at times. Fun and funky.

According to the PR, Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks met on MySpace.

Click Here to Download “Delivery Man”

Upcoming Shows: Wye Oak in Iowa City and… Dubuque?

Posted on September 1, 2008 by mike

Wye Oak is back with another attempt to play Iowa City’s Mill. You may recall that they were scheduled to play the Mill back on June 15th in a bill that had Thrill Jockey new signings Pontiak. Your’s truly was to go and cover this, but the Floods of 2008 (as it will become known) prevented both the bands and me from getting to Iowa City. The route that the Iowa DOT was recommending to get to town took you over 200 miles out-of-the-way!

So, true to their word, Wye Oak is coming back to Iowa City– again at the Mill— on Wednesday 9/17 in a lineup that has Rock Plaza Central headlining and The Lonelyhearts opening.

More interesting than the Mill show (at least to me) is the fact that Wye Oak will be playing at Isabella’s in Dubuque, IA (my other hometown) on Saturday 9/10. Isabellas is a COZY little bar in the basement of the posh-ish Ryan House Restaurant. Since Wye Oak is a two-piece, they would fit on the little stage at the far end of the bar. But, the bar itself probably only holds 100 people or so– it would be a snug affair for certain!

Download four songs from If Children by Wye Oak

See a bunch of live videos of Wye Oak on YouTube

Free Downloads: Pieta Brown with Bo Ramsey at Daytrotter!

Posted on September 1, 2008 by mike

A cool and unexpected offering from Daytrotter– Pieta Brown with hubby Bo Ramsey performing tracks from her fantastic 2007 release on One Little Indian Remember The Sun plus a couple of unreleased tracks.

I think it is really admirable that Daytrotter, which calls its home The Quad Cities (specifically Rock Island) and chooses to occasionally feature regional acts to the watching planet.

I hope that they had the opportunity to record Bo as well. If not, they should try to get him on the schedule.

Click Here to read the article on Pieta Brown at Daytrotter and download yourself some mp3’s.

While I was putting this article together I noticed that Pieta will be playing in Marion, IA at the very cool Campbell-Steele Gallery on October 10th. Campbell-Steele is the home of the funny and musical Liar’s Holographic Theatre. Tickets are 25 smackers, but the art gallery is a very intimate place to see performances and Pieta would be a wonderful artist to see there.

Damp and Cool, Crisp and Warm — The Country Canvas: Pieta Brown

High Places – 03/07 – 09/07 (Review) & Upcoming Show

Posted on September 1, 2008 by mike

The High Places’ first release on Thrill Jockey is a collection of singles and hard-to-find tracks leading up to their signing. This release stands as an introduction to the collaboration of Robert Barber and Mary Pearson. Barber provides a babbling brook of cut-and-paste drum circle riddims propelling the paper boats of Pearson’s innocent iko-ikoish jumprope chants. Daycare psychedelica for the Thomas the Tank Engine set, if you will.

At times the at once atmospheric and Caribbean feel of the songs reminds me of my favorite parts of Adventures in the Ultraworld by the Orb.

The cover art used in this release is exactly the same as the band’s 2007 High Places EP 7″ (only 300 made) on Ancient Almanac that earned an impressive 8.2 at Pitchfork. All four songs from that EP are represented here along with some harder to find tracks including “Jump In” which was a song commissioned for an elementary school music program. It seems to me that this band isn’t entirely inappropriate to play for the little ones, in fact, and certainly a bit more interesting that some of the kid fodder dolled out today.

The band is currently on tour gearing up for their self-titled release on 9/23. You can hear two songs– “Golden” and “From Stardust to Sentience” from that release if you visit the band’s MySpace page. They also have some downloads available, too.They will be stopping in Grinnell College at Bob’s Underground Cafe on Thursday, 9/25 and at The Mill in Iowa City on Friday, 9/26 where they will be with Ponytail and Wet Hair.

Sep 6 2008

8:00P

FREE! East Village Radio Music Festival at South St. Seaport

New York, New York

Sep 11 2008

8:00P

Le Poisson Rouge w/ Crystal Slits, Breathe Owl Breathe, Deastro

New York, New York

Sep 16 2008

9:00P

Brillobox

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania