The News: Malin is on the road supporting his latest EP Meet Me At The End Of The World which includes a handful of excellent new originals and a dynamite Big Star cover.  Catch him if you can on a bill with Cheap Trick at the Capitol Theatre on November 18th.

“We always liked bands that had melodic kind of pop songs; groups like The Replacements and Cheap Trick and T-Rex.  You’re taking something really nasty with the melody and the two are fighting against each other and you get something out of it.   Some of our favorite bands live always had a little more edge than their records.  They stepped it up, the rawness, the underproduction of a live show…”      -Jesse Malin

Sitting down with Jesse Malin, Danny Sage, and Howie Pyro shortly before they took the stage at Irving Plaza last summer, I asked  if they had any rituals that they employed while writing the first new D Generation album in seventeen years.  Jesse immediately countered with,  “Is fighting a ritual?”  There then are the twin tensions, musical and interpersonal, that are the heartbeat of this essential New York City band.

Even though they broke up in ’99, Malin, Sage, and Pyro – along with Richard Bacchus and Michael Wildwood – continued to guest on each other’s albums and remain in each other’s lives.  These were the five who made their self-titled debut in ’94 and whose roots together went back to Queens in the early 80s.  Malin and Sage, based in the Whitestone neighborhood, made their first marks on record and on stage together in the hardcore outfit Heart Attack.  The five had done a one-off reunion in 2008 and a tour in 2011/2012.  However sessions for a new record in 2012 with Ryan Adams producing were aborted and months on the calendar kept flipping by.

Nothing Is Anywhere was recorded in the most appropriate place imaginable, a bar in the East Village.  A tiny studio exists within Hifi on Avenue A and that’s where the fellows captured tracks.  It was done with a lot of bleed and a lot of blood as Sage, who produced it, remarked.  Malin noted that they had learned a lot from guys like Ric Ocasek and Tony Visconti (who produced No Lunch and Through The Darkness respectively) but getting back to the garage so to speak resulted in something more raw and more real.  The tracks recorded at Hifi were originally planned to be demos but Sage, working with the group’s front of house engineer Mark Lewis, recognized the album was done and that it’s what we’ve been waiting for.

I had a chance to speak with Jesse Malin in 2015 as he released his album, New York Before The War.  That interview is spread out over the two videos below; the first is the TV piece that ran to announce the album and preview a show, the second a brilliant rant about New York…

Go to #6 The Bad Plus

The News: It’s not official yet but be optimistic that Sharon recorded enough tracks for a posthumous album that may be released before the end of the year.

“Her spirit is driven by music, and this was always her source of inspiration to continue onwards, despite the odds. Sharon makes you believe in anything.”      – Barbara Kopple; director of Miss Sharon Jones

We lost Sharon Jones in November of 2016 at age 60.   As a lover of her music as well as her life story, it was a thrill to meet Sharon Jones in February of 2014.  The occasion was her return to the stage after being forced by cancer to take a break from performing.  We spoke a few hours prior to the curtain going up at the Beacon Theater.  While shooting a little video of the concert, I noticed some other cameras.  What I know now is that Barbara Kopple was in the final stages of filming her documentary that was released in the fall of ’15: Miss Sharon Jones.

I sat down again with the indomitable vocalist in the summer of ’16 as well as the acclaimed filmmaker at the NY1 studios in Chelsea Market.  Sadly the circumstances were not as favorable as our prior meeting.  The first time, Jones was celebrating being cancer-free.   This time Jones was enduring more treatments but powering through to do press for the new movie.  She’s as tough as they come as the flick makes plain.  It’s got to be an inspiration to families dealing with cancer not to mention aspiring musicians, New Yorkers, and well anybody with a heart and ears.  It also gives fans a chance to be a fly on the wall at Daptone Studios in Brooklyn and get to know better amazing figures like Gabriel Roth, Binky Griptite, and Dapettes Saun and Starr.

The soundtrack to Miss Sharon Jones includes a rousing autobiographical ditty she wrote called I’m Still Here.   It traces from her birth in North Augusta, South Carolina to the Civil Rights Era and through her unforgettable gig on Rikers Island as a prison guard and her final fight against cancer.

The above video was originally published on 8-1-16.  Below is a flashback to the conversation from 2014…

Go to #10 Lou Reed

Judith Owen is on road with Bryan Ferry but she managed to steal a few minutes in front of a camera while the tour bus sat idle this week.  

In the Spring of 2014, I had a chance to speak to Judith Owen at her Slipper Room show.  She had recently put together her dream band of Leland Sklar on bass, Russ Kunkel on drums, and Waddy Wachtel on guitar.  These were guys whose names she first saw in the credits to some of her favorite albums growing up by artists like James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks, Carly Simon, Warren Zevon, Neil Young, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.  Owen’s own music was deeply connected to the classic era of singer/songwriters and the Laurel Canyon sound which her chosen personnel had done so much to help create.  Her new album at the time was Ebb & Flow.

The follow-up to Ebb & Flow from the New Orleans based Welsh songstress  is Somebody’s Child.  The album features the same core four as on the previous album and adds flavors from percussionist Pedro Segundo and cellist  Gabriella Swallow.  This Friday night at The Iridium, you can catch Judith Owen and her band featuring Sklar and, on strings, Swallow as well as violinist Lizzie Ball.  The concert marks the end of a month long festival at Iridium celebrating women inspired by Women’s History Month.  Owen remarked that’s she thrilled to be part of the event as she looked up to women who manifested power on stage like Kate Bush, Annie Lenox, and Aretha Franklin as well as the aforementioned Carole King.  Now she follows in a line of impressive talent that preceded her at the Times Square venue this month including Shemekia Copeland, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Dana Fuchs in the series billed as Her Story Her Voice.

Raul Midón landed in town, showed off his chops, and shared some winning new tunes in two appearances last week.   On the album Bad Ass And Blind that came out Friday, he offers a glimpse into his sightless world on Sound Shadows and his mantra for living on Pedal To The Metal.  He also turns in a memorable first on-album rap on the boasting title-track, and puts punctuation on a fine song cycle with a spiffy cover of Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle.  

The New Mexico born artist attended the University of Miami and remained in Florida for about a decade as a session singer doing commercials and backing vocals.  Writing all the while, a publishing deal gave him some cash to finance a move to New York around 2003 where, among other things, he got a gig doing some music for Spike Lee’s She Hate Me.   It took him exactly one year from the time he moved to town to get to Carnegie Hall as part of The Movie Magic of Spike Lee.  (Midón lives in Maryland these days.)

As the likes of  Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, and Herbie Hancock know, Raul Midón is indeed a bad ass as he proved in the Meatpacking District venue The Highline Ballroom on Friday, March 24th.  His guitar playing and singing is complemented by his mad mouth trumpeting that he demonstrates further in the bonus video below.  He told me he has worked hard on the technique and applied everything he knows about guitar to it.  One area he got into on guitar on the new record is what he referred to as heavy-duty hardcore modal chords like those on the song All That I Am.  Here’s Midón explaining the meaning of modal chords and therefore modal jazz!

Thanks to Guitar Center dudes in Times Square for the cool interview room on Thursday before his clinic there.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo elevated the spirits of those in attendance at BB Kings on March 8th with a show that featured generations of singers.  The passing of the torch from the elders of the group to younger members is evidenced by the title of their most recent album, last year’s Walking In The Footsteps Of Our Fathers.  Albert Mazibuko, who has been a member since 1969, explained in an interview before the show that for the first time the ‘junior choir’  led the charge as far as the song selection and the arrangements on the album.   The junior choir includes founder Joseph Shabalala’s sons Sibongiseni Shabalala, Thamsanqa Shabalala, and Thulani Shabalala.

The group whose first incarnation appeared in 1960 resulted from a recurring dream that Joseph Shabalala had which taught him how to blend voices as well as how to breathe properly while mixing dancing with singing.  His vision was unique and Ladysmith Black Mambazo quickly differentiated themselves from other vocal groups rooted in Zulu traditions.  Of course a huge moment in the history of the band, and one that catapulted them to international fame, was teaming up with Paul Simon on the Graceland album released in 1986.  The sessions in London produced Homeless and Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes and led to vastly expanded opportunities for touring and working with musicians from around the world.  

It was not a big part of the conversation but I did ask Albert Mazibuko to offer a kind of last word to those who condemn or condemned both Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the man from Flushing for breaking the cultural boycott of South Africa under Apartheid.  He stated simply that those people were/are confused as the point of the boycott was to prevent artists from visiting the country and making money while the status quo continued.  The collaboration with Paul Simon gave them a platform to talk about the oppression that was going on at that time.  The history of South Africa as well as the group’s friendship with Nelson Mandela until his death in 1999 and their continued role as cultural ambassadors suggest any criticism they received was misplaced.  The Apartheid system was officially abolished in 1991 and, as Mazibuko remarked, the message of Ladysmith Black Mambazo evolved from struggle to development.  

In December of 2015 Dawes played The Beacon as part of the Holiday Cheer for WFUV show which included Brandi Carlile, Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, and Lucius.  While on stage, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes remarked it would be cool to come back and headline the theatre on their own.  On Friday, March 10th Taylor and the rest of the fellas got that wish and clearly were relishing the opportunity.   Dawes is led by the Goldsmith brothers – Taylor on vocals/guitar and Grffin on drums along with Wylie Gelber on bass, and new guy Lee Pardini on keys who took over from Tay Strathairn last fall.  They stretched out and populated the generous setlist with selections from all five of their albums over two sets.  Specifically…

One of Us
From a Window Seat
If I Wanted Someone
Picture Of A Man
Now That It’s Too Late, Maria
Right on Time
Roll with the Punches
A Little Bit of Everything
Somewhere Along the Way
When My Time Comes
Less Than Five Miles Away
Second Set:
My Way Back Home
Roll Tide
Hey Lover (Blake Mills cover)
Coming Back to a Man
Quitter
Time Spent in Los Angeles 
Most People
Million Dollar Bill (Middle Brother song)
Someone Will
When the Tequila Runs Out
Things Happen
From the Right Angle
We’re All Gonna Die
Encore:
All Your Favorite Bands

Dawes is touring behind their latest album, We’re All Gonna Die, which includes vocal cameos by My Morning Jacketâ€s Jim James and the Alabama Shakes†Brittany Howard as well as Mandy Moore and Lucius†Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe.  Jim Keltner and Will Oldham also make appearances.  On the songwriting front, Taylor Goldsmith teamed up with a man he’s known since junior high school and former Dawes member Blake Mills to co-write a half dozen of the album’s ten tracks.  Another old pal Jason Boesel, former member of Rilo Kiley, co-wrote two with Taylor and another one with Mills who also produced the record.   

Dawes will be back for another ‘evening with’ show on June 14th at the new Williamsburg venue Brooklyn Steel!

A tremendous lineup headed by Patti Smith and Iggy Pop has been unveiled for this year’s Tibet House benefit concert happening Thursday, March 16th at Carnegie Hall.  Laurie Anderson, Alabama Shakes, and Sufjan Stevens as well as Bernard Sumner, Phil Cunningham, and Tom Chapman of New Order will all perform along with Philip Glass who – besides being a brilliant composer – has been a pillar of Tibet House since its inception.  If you click on that last link you can see how many cool movies like The Hours, Kundun, Dracula and Hamburger Hill that Glass has written scores for as well as what’s brewing for his 80th birthday concert season. Among the offerings of the octogenary celebration is an appealing opportunity to see and hear members of the Philip Glass Ensemble offering a live interpretation of the music he composed for Jean Cocteau’s film La Belle et la Bête at Town Hall.

The beneficiary of the benefit concert, Tibet House US, is located at 22 West 15th Street and include… a gallery, exhibition space, and the spiffy room where Glass generously sat down with me last year to speak about the event and its reason for being.  As the interview with Glass took place not many weeks after the death of David Bowie, I’ve included a bonus video here as his remarks about him are worth sharing.  His relationship with Bowie was such that he based symphonies on two of the albums –Heroes and Low –that Bowie made with Brian Eno in the Berlin trilogy.  In addition, to which he alludes, he crossed paths with him quite a bit in the first few years of the century when Bowie recorded at Looking Glass Studios in Soho.  Glass reveals he may yet complete a symphony for Lodger to complete the trilogy with Heroes and Low…

The Zombies will make a pair of appearances in New York this month as their mighty Odessey & Oracle approaches its fiftieth birthday. The brilliant rock and pop outfit from St Albans, Hertfordshire in England are experiencing an amazing phase in their career that began in 1961.  I was fortunate enough to speak to Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone the last time they were in town in the Autumn of 2015.  At that time, their album, Still Got That Hunger was just being released and they were beginning a tour featuring new songs aside all the songs from 1968’s Odessey and Oracle. (sic!)  The performance on October 9, 2015 at The New York Society for Ethical Culture on the upper west side was a triumph and it was the first time they had played O&O its entirety in the U.S.  Now they’re back for a victory lap with a show at Town Hall on March 25th as well as a book signing at the Strand on Wednesday the 15th.  (Careful with the dates, the video above is airing on NY1 on the 14th so I refer to the signing happening ‘tomorrow evening.’)  Vinyl mavens will also be pleased to know their greatest hits is back in print on wax beginning next month.  It’ll hit on April 7th.

Even before this week’s (March 17th with bonus tracks) reissue, Odessey & Oracle had been selling more copies than ever before as generations of fans continue to discover its irresistible charms.  However as Rod Argent said to me in Central Park four years ago in another interview, the last thing The Zombies want to do is be a nostalgia band.  It’s crucial to them to continue to write and record new material.  That’s what drives the creative bus but when that bus is in motion, they can fully engage in bringing older material to the stage as well.  Here’s a flashback to that chat in which he speaks about recording Odessey and Oracle, The Zombies visits in the mid 1960’s to New York City and their first wave of success, as well as the creative path forward.  The video below also features some bonus footage of the Central Park show while the video above includes performance bits that I shot at South by Southwest in Austin two years ago.  

The 43rd annual Fest For Beatles Fans brought together an impressive array of super-fans and people in a position to show and tell first hand accounts involving John, Paul, George, and  Ringo.  It was a pleasure to be able to roam around the Hyatt Regency Jersey City On The Hudson with the benefit of a camera and a microphone.  

Louise Harrison is protective about revealing the few years of her brother George Harrison’s life that haven’t been exhaustively documented.  However, she made it clear that in his boyhood, he was definitely not the quiet one!  

Maybe the best evidence of the enduring legacy of The Beatles is how much love they get from people who have worked with them.  Mark Hudson wrote and produced no fewer than eight album with Ringo while Rob Shanahan has been photographer for his record covers, tour books, and t-shirt art since meeting Ringo in 2001 through Sheila E.  They spoke of the surreal aspects of making the transition from huge lovers of the group to being in its inner circle.  They were naturally beside themselves when transcendent moments occurred like Rob photographing Paul showing up at Ringo’s show at Radio City in 2009 or Mark singing harmony vocals with Paul during a session for 1998’s Vertical Man. 

The same is true of Klaus Voormann who was as close as anyone to The Beatles with a history going back to the days on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg ion the early 60s.  He played extensively with John, George, and Ringo from ’69 to ’76 as a member of the Plastic Ono Band and on sessions for albums like Imagine, Walls & Bridges, Rock n Roll, All Things Must Pass, Living In The Material World, Dark Horse, Goodnight Vienna, and Ringo’s Rotogravure which was the last album to feature contributions from all four Beatles before Lennon’s death in 1980.  Voormann generously narrated an executive summary of his spiffy new book,  Birth of an Icon:Revolver 50 while flipping through its pages.  See the bonus video below for more with Klaus. 

Lastly, enjoy another bonus vid with Charles Roberts who invited The Quarrymen to play at a street party in ’57 at which the first photograph ever snapped of that group was taken…

The Quintessential New Yorker will not be erased!  Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed’s companion since the early 90s and wife from 2008 until his death three and a half years ago, spearheaded the effort to present his complete archives to the NYPL.

Lou Reed became synonymous with New York personifying its street smarts, experience, skepticism, and most of all, its cool.  His songwriting was unflinching in its depiction of gritty urban life full of drugs and sex.  New York and its inhabitants were often characters in his songs.  He immortalized the old factory crowd in his most popular song chart-wise, Walk on the Wild Side from the David Bowie produced Transformer in ’72.  He mythologized the city’s seaside resort in the Lower Bay with the song and album Coney Island Baby in ’76 and saluted Brooklyn’s signature beverage, the egg cream, with the opening track on Set The Twilight Reeling twenty years later.  On the New York album from1989, Reed turned his extraordinarily keen eye on the five boroughs like never before; lovingly devastating the town in a brilliant song cycle mixing actual characters like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan with fictional characters like Pedro at the Wilshire Hotel. 

Born in Brooklyn on March 2, 1942 – Lou spent the first nine years of his life in Kings County before moving to Freeport, Long Island at the age of nine.  Lou’s sister Merrill, who spoke at the press conference last Thursday, wrote this excellent article that disabuses some of the misconceptions about his childhood.   He graduated Syracuse university in ’64 and met John Cale in NYC where they hatched The Velvet Underground.  Soon The Velvets were featured in Andy Warholâ€s Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia events.
In ’67, while the summer of love flowered on the west coast, The Velvet Underground and Nico debut album came as from another world. You likely know the quote attributed to Brian Eno that everyone who heard it started a band.  Lou Reed is as inspiring as ever and his archives are safe with NYPL.

Here’s some more with Laurie Anderson who confesses to, at one point, thinking Lou was British as well as re-enacting operas with him!