Music Blogger

Rykarda Parasol

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Hi there
I just wanted to give you a heads-up. SFBG misprinted the wrong date for my band’s show. Not playing on the 5th, but 25th. CafeduNord.com had their site setup where 2007 came up and not 2008. We played on Jan 5 in ’07 so it’s very confusing. I made the same mistake! Below is the press info I sent a week ago.

I posted a notice on my myspace and web site.

Nooooo biggy. We appreciate the nod and the pic is nice 🙂

Happy 2008,
Rykarda Parasol

PS: new presskit PDF is downloadable here: http://hivesf.com/music/Press_Kit.pdf

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Rykarda Parasol and the Tower Ravens are pleased to announce this next show with Mellowdrone from Los Angeles:

Friday January 25th, 2008
Café du Nord, San Francisco
Rykarda Parasol and the Tower Ravens (headline)
Mellowdrone (from LA)
Excuses for Skipping
10pm, $12, 21+

Cheers!
Rykarda Parasol
www.Myspace.com/rykardaparasol
www.RykardaParasol.com

Very Recent News: “Our Hearts First Meet” was just released by Glitterhouse Records in Europe and will be touring in Europe next spring. Rykarda and band are in the process of putting a new album here in the states as well. If you’d like to receive a press kit, please contact rykarda@hotmail.com. OR you may download photos and information from the following: http://rykardaparasol.com/hi-res.html

Description:
William Faulkner meets Ingmar Bergman. Rykarda Parasol describes her music as underhanded and stark. Comparisons to Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, and the Velvet Underground come to mind. Her album, “Our Hearts First Meet” on Three Ring Records is a haunting escape into dark hearts and isolation. Rykarda and her band, the Tower Ravens have a bombastic and dramatic live presence.

DIY-not? Music meet food – food meet music

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By Chris DeMento

“There’s nothing glamorous about having shows in your kitchen,” says Brianna Toth, 24. Crediting the likes of George Chen (and Club Sandwich) for the inspiration to program all-ages concerts at somewhat unconventional spots, Toth extols the simplicity of the monthly event she puts on at her 22nd Street apartment. Her abode sits atop an overpriced tapas joint, across from a lame happy hour, down there in the somewhat unconventional Mission.

The series is called Music in My Kitchen. No red tape, no velvet rope, no plus-one waistoids mugging about, mostly. Mostly it’s about new sounds, good food, and sharing. Local caterer-chef Leif Hedendal cooks the spread. The musicians play for free, and donations are placed in a plastic jug, and the suggested price is never more than $10 per head. It’s usually $7 – enough to cover the cost of the food. She programs all kinds of performers, anything from soupy folk to harsh-noise acid-gravy. The audience brings its own Sunny D or whatever.

What could be better than discovering some kid’s sound while dispatching strangely flavored bean curd, profiling in a metal folding chair, making eyes at the pretty bangs across the room, sharing two-tone-tile floorspace with the other cool kids while polishing one’s climbless karabiner ego? A win-win-win, really: cheap eats and music treats for the audience, nodding heads for the band, street cred for the homemaker-promoter.

High on Nicole Atkins

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By Todd Lavoie

Cue the strings! Fire up the mellotron! Roll out the timpani! There’s always room for more melodrama in my life – just as long as it’s strictly of the musical variety – and lucky me, new discovery Nicole Atkins is making everything pretty blood-and-thunder in my house, thank you very much. It’s all smoke and fire and shadows and oh-so-devilishly noir, and I don’t ever want to leave. How could I, when she makes the darkness so damn romantic?

The self-described Jersey girl just released her debut, Neptune City (Red Ink/Columbia), and I’ll be damned if it ain’t one of the most compelling, thrillingly promising first albums on a major label this year. I could easily offer a dozen different points-of-comparison for the full-throated chanteuse – and chances are, I probably will by the time I’m done here – but Atkins seems to be out there on her own with this one. And yeah, that’s a compliment – of the highest order, in fact.

Neptune City is an ambitious piece of wide-screen-seeking theatrical pop, offering an alluring re-interpretation of ’50s/early ’60s sounds: Phil Spector, Roy Orbison, and Patsy Cline rolled into one, then sent packing on the coldest night of winter into the cruel neon of a heartless city. They might be mean streets, but she sure manages to make them seem inviting nonetheless.

Killer Mike signs with local hip-hop label SMC

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Local rap imprint SMC is going strong, picking up all kinds of action in Atlanta: they recently signed Killer Mike. A new album is expected in February or March. Pretty big fish for SMC to land, for sure – and rumor has it the OutKast-afilliated rapper has broken his ties with that camp in addition to Sony. Southern hip-hop group Trillville also recently got together with SMC, so look for more noise in general from the label soon.

Caution, Ang Lee crossing: a roundtable with the “Lust, Caution” director and star

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Ang Lee – the future of Hollywood-Chinese cinema? The filmmaker certainly displayed the analytical acuity and actorly touch required for the position, as he was interviewed about his film, Se, jie (Lust, Caution), shortly after its October release, alongside his star, newcomer Wei Tang, at the Ritz-Carlton in SF. Here’s a portion of the roundtable interview with various other journalists, with less shrift given to the questions and more to Lee’s thoughtful, rambling responses. Spoiler alert: major plot points are discussed.

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Q: May I start with the obvious question? Why did [Wang Jiazhi, played by Wei Tang] do it? Why did she make this decision to let him go?

Ang Lee: That is the question. [Chuckles]

Sonic Reducer Overage: yuletide sensory overload starts now…

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A cuppa Cafe Tacuba.

It’s the most insane time of the year – but why not stop and, er, smell the big sweaty rock bands coming through town. I kid because I love the way the next week looks: so busy and full of intriguing sounds.

CAFE TACUBA
Whoa, if there was a more shockingly inventive, stylistically agile, and altogether impressive LP this year, I can’t think of it. Sino (Universal) may translate as “But Instead,” but there was no stopping the range of pop styles coursing through this musically multilingual recording en esponol as the Mexican rock vets decided to start dreaming in epic U2-y radio rock textures, Beach Boys-style Cali-choir harmonies, and grand Nascimento-esque overtures.
With Bengala. Wed/28, 8 p.m., $36.50-$49.50. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 775-7722.

FAUN FABLES
The SF medieval proggists join Gong/Soft Machine vet Daevid Allen for a certain unquantifiable magik.
With Daevid Allen and Wymond and his Spirit Children. Wed/28, 9 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

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YOUSSOU N’DOUR
The Senegalese master surges beyond the traditional music of his homeland with his hybrid, Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch).
Fri/30, 8 p.m., $25-$75. Masonic Center, 1111 California, SF. (866) 920-JAZZ.

Viral felines: now that they have a platform, they won’t shut up!

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Sorry, but I am being pushed by my own resident fleabag to share: you have to love how a cute, innocuous little clip of mouthy kitties can turn into a Lebowski-like mini-YouTube phenom.


Classic Coke.


Mach II.


The F-word spinoff.

Fall for the Soulsavers

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By Todd Lavoie

It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land – a dead-on appropriate proclamation, indeed, for Britain’s pre-eminent emissaries of unsettled downtempo electro-soul and whiskey-and-gin street corner spirituality, Soulsavers, whose breakthrough Red Ink/Columbia release glows like divine inspiration wafting out of the darkest gutter. Consider the title a riff on the whole “it’s not the journey, it’s the destination” mantra – only in this case, the daily affirmation comes from a rough-and-ragged 12-step program that says failure is inevitable but redemption is possible. Redemption with style – ah, even better.

And what style it is. Producers-electronic wizards-consummate tastemakers Rich Machin and Ian Glover cook up languid rhythms, rawboned organ arrangements, and ominous string samples – along with bringing in some evocative lap-steel guitar and weepy six-string twang from session musicians – to create brooding, occasionally post-apocalyptic soundscapes that could speak plenty of lurid truths all by themselves, as evidenced on their mostly instrumental debut, 2003’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance (San Quentin). The recipe’s been improved on their latest, thanks to the lead-vocal contributions of Will Oldham, Jimi Goodwin (Doves), and – the greatest coup of all – the gravel-wrapped-in-velvet baritone Mark Lanegan, whose eight contributions inform the album’s duality of forbidding menace and soothing sanctity.

Even better, they’ve upped the ante with the addition of gospel heroics from backing vocalists Wendy Rose and Lena Palmer – perhaps best known for setting fires behind Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on their last album and tour. The result is a potent futuristic-gospel – witness opener “Revival,” a thundering transmission from the River of Jordan, Lanegan leading Rose and Palmer in a tearful baptism while the flames rise around them. Cover-lovers, begin your rejoicing: Lanegan’s and Oldham’s duet on Neil Young’s “Through My Sails” is pure lip-biting heartbreak. Soulsavers, you’ve made a believer out of me.

Soulsavers, with Mark Lanegan, appear Saturday, Dec. 1, 9 p.m., at the Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. Great Northern opens. $18. (415) 771-1422.

Loving Blanche

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By Todd Lavoie

Yeehaw for more twang-age! At last! Detroit’s delightfully skewed goth-country crackerjacks Blanche have finally seen album number two receive an American release, nearly a year after its European release, nearly a year after their former label V2 shut its doors suddenly and left its roster in the lurch. Happy endings have never been synonymous with these folks – murder ballads, yes, and odes to wronged love, certainly, but good news? Hardly!

But here we are, endless months after they got screwed over by Mister Record Company Man, and Little Amber Bottles (Original Signal) is finally available in the States. The wait’s been worth it: no “sophomore slump” for this nattily attired mob of medicine-show revivalists and Flannery O’ Connor torch-bearers. Dare I say it? Aw, shucks, why not? Little Amber Bottles is a quantum leap forward for the band – hell, it had quite firmly settled into my Top Ten of 2007 within its first half-dozen spins, even. Christ knows how many times I’ve listened since, but I remained just as intoxicated by it as I was the day I’d skinned it of its shrinkwrap and handed myself over to its many gauzy, dusty charms. Truth is, I could probably get drunk just from looking at it. Won’t you join me, then, in some good old-fashioned inebriation?

I’ll pour the first drink: Blanche is a quintet of old-school country-devotees who think like punks, write like O’Connor or William Faulkner, and sing like snake-oil salesmen, saloon floozies, and end-of-the-road auctioneers. Frequently performing in early 20th century vintage-wear, they very much look and sound like a mob of country-folk who high-tailed it to Birmingham or Chattanooga or Lynchburg and got themselves “citified,” so to speak. And it’s all entirely convincing, I should add. No mere dress-up here, Blanche manage to inhabit the world of 78 records, magic elixirs, and old black-and-white Sears & Roebuck catalogs straight from the printing press. It’s as if they just hiked down from Walton’s Mountain and hit the studio – only these folks are less John Walton/Olivia Walton and more Ike/Corabeth Godsey, the fancy-schmancy owners of the general store who left the mountain more than once every couple of months.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Less turkey, more digestible sounds

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D’yer Rademacher?

Yes, we never have enough black-and-white-and-read-all-over print matter to fill with all the music we wanna catch. So welcome to Sonic Reducer Overage – the stuff deemed extremely fit to print, but alas, I failed to cram in the allotted space. Why not check these worthies out, when you’re not stuffing your turkey hole with holiday grindage?

Old Grandad
These days the fearsome SF metal daddies are bringing the magik on a monthly basis. With Dickdusters and Walker Brothers. Wed/21, 9 p.m., $8. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market St., SF. (415) 861-5016.

Phenomenauts
The costumed Oakland super-punk fire-starters are always a rowdy good time. And who can forget their guerrilla take-over at Vans Warped Tour so many kicks ago? With Sore Thumbs and Helper Monkeys. Wed/21, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $8. (415) 621-4455.

Caetano Veloso stirs up Nob Hill

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O Caetano. Photo by Fernanda Negrini.

By Benedict Sinclair

Despite his age, Caetano Veloso refuses to slow down. Showcasing his latest album, Cê (Nonesuch), on Nov. 17 at the Masonic Center, Veloso clattered around on stage – dancing between verses, jogging in place, invigorating each section of the audience with jumping and waving. You’d think he was younger than his bandmates, none of whom appeared to have passed the 25-year mark.

And maybe that’s the best possible thing he could have done: surround himself with a trio of hot young musicians, positively seething with chemistry and chops, clearly still having fun, still discovering music and the world it inhabits. His trio – a drummer, an electric guitarist, and a bassist who doubled on a twinkly old Fender Rhodes – navigated from delicate bossa to surf-infused pop, bouncing across minimalist polyrhythms.

Back in the day, Veloso mixed traditional Brazilian samba sounds with the most adventurous strains of American and British ’60s rock and pop, and in the process, he carved out – and fused – a new genre: tropicalia. He hasn’t stopped working on it since he started in the mid-’60s. Songs linked swiftly to each other throughout the show, further exploring a mood or abruptly changing styles. The group went from rockier tunes to those with softer arrangements: mallets on drums, hushed keyboard textures.

Hot for krautrock? New club Sauerkraut premieres this weekend

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All us krautrock lovers have been hurting for far too long – no more: this weekend will see the launch of a new krautrock and cold wave club, Sauerkraut, at Retox Lounge. Expect Erase Errata’s Jenny Hoyston – a creative powerhouse if there ever was one – to take the stage as Paradise Island and Weed Wolf on Sunday, Nov. 18. Also up: DJs AC (Donuts, Klaus to the Edge) and Rob Spector (Spector Protector, Bronze). Expect drink specials and free weiners for all you hot dawgs out there – as well as visuals by Cliche Molestations.

Retox Lounge is at 20th Street at Third in SF; the door is $4. Wallow in the schnitzel.

Robert Wyatt – love, sadness, love!

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By Todd Lavoie

The saddest music in the world? I still haven’t finished watching the 2003 Guy Maddin film of the same name – wherein legless beer-company baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) hosts a contest to find the single most sob-inducing melody in the world – but if such a match were to be held, I’d reckon Robert Wyatt would leave his competition sweating. He’s been practicing quite a bit: the recently released Comicopera (Domino) carries enough emotional heft to even send the bitter, joyless Lady Helen herself whimpering underneath her platinum wig.

Lest I give the wrong idea, Comicopera – as sweeping and ambitious as it is in its depictions of the human experience in the era of the so-called War on Terror (copyright 2001, Bush/Cheney Mafia) – offers much more than just sadness and loss. Any such meaningful analysis of life in the 21st century would be seriously limiting itself by failing to consider the rest of the emotional spectrum, and so Wyatt has injected the album with a considerable amount of whimsy and wide-eyed wonder at how heart-stoppingly beautiful the world can be. It’s a quality he’s brought to his recordings ever since his 1971 solo debut, The End of an Ear (Sony Import) – and even before then as the drummer and occasional vocalist for jazz-art-prog fusionists Soft Machine and Matching Mole – but it’s perhaps on his latest that these juxtapositions are best-articulated. Comicopera is a laugh, a cry, a wince, a raised fist, and awestruck sigh all at once. I’m not sure how many other albums this year can say the same about themselves.

But back to that “saddest music in the world” tag: the first thing you’re bound to be hit by on a Robert Wyatt record is his voice. It’s the sound of a disappointed angel, perhaps – still capable of shining a bright light upon all that is worthy of wonderment, but tempered by a sense of world-weariness and frustration with how we mortals never seem to get it right for too long before messing it up all over again. His frail tenor frequently cracks and wavers around the notes, and can be quite devastating. And the falsetto? Even the most jaded of hearts would have a rough time fighting off the ache induced by a Wyatt falsetto. Exhibit A: “Shipbuilding,” a moving Elvis Costello-penned lament. As much as I adore Elvis – and his version which came out afterwards was mighty fine as well – I’ve always been partial to Wyatt’s interpretation, which became a small hit in Britain. Here’s a performance from BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test:

Giving you the Big Business

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By Ben Richardson

The spotlight will be on Isis this Sunday, Nov. 18, at Slim’s, and deservedly so – surviving as a band for a decade is quite an accomplishment. While many concertgoers will wonder if the retrospective mood will inspire the group to trot out some of their older material, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the opening band, who have the unenviable task of greeting somebody else’s party guests.

If anyone’s up to the challenge, it’s Big Business. Having cut their teeth this summer opening for Tool, the LA-by-way-of-Seattle pair is poised to burst out of the avant-garde annex of underground metal and make their butt-rumbling mark on the world. Bassist Jerry Warren and drummer Coady Willis are a dynamic duo of low-end, hewing huge riffs out of slabs of E-string and floor tom.

Warren and Willis have been moonlighting in the Melvins, surely a dream come true for any fan of heavy music, and they appeared on A Senile Animal, the seminal sludgemasters’ most recent disc. Their own material hasn’t flagged, however, and Warren’s distinctive, frenzied vocals were recently joined above the hard-grooving fray by the guitar and Minimoog stylings of David Scott Stone, who joined the band for the recording of their second album, Here Come the Waterworks.

Another reason why: Psychedelic Horseshit and Pink Reason at Hemlock tonight

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Oh, you need another reason to go out tonight, Nov. 14? How about Pink Reason, who I missed at this year’s SXSW but who royally tore schitte up, from what I heard. They play along with, for the first time ever in the Bay Area, Psychedelic Horseshit, at the Hemlock Tavern, on the bill with Goldies winners Wooden Shjips. Horseshit, I saw down in Austin, Texas, and they were superfun: cantankerous late ’70s-styler NYC rock-punk with plenty of good stage patter — me thinks at this point in the evening, Mr. PH announced, “This song is about Deerhunter and their samplers.” Snark!

Spiritualized at Bimbo’s – and glad about it

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By Todd Lavoie

Oh, I got me some religion Sunday night, Nov. 11, let me tell you: Spiritualized slipped into town for a stop on their North American “Acoustic Mainlines” tour, and the visit was nothing short of revelatory.

Playing to a full house (and perhaps the most attentive, appreciative crowd I’ve seen in eons, for that matter), Jason Pierce/Spaceman and his companions in post-millennial gospel may have never left their seats during the entire show, but that didn’t keep them from lifting us all into rarely realized states of bliss. And yes indeed, while we were all given chairs as well – and a Bimbo’s filled with candlelit tables always sets the tone for a perfect night out, as far as I can tell – I seriously doubt very many of us could say for certain that we were actually sitting down the entire time. I’m not even sure we remained earthbound, to be honest.

After all, this is the band who declared Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Arista) on the cover of their third album (and universally accepted masterpiece), so the idea of keeping so humdrummingly terrestrial for too long feels like a losing prospect. Don’t fight it – feel it, right? The thing is: up until now, Pierce and co. have mainly relied upon a decidedly rockist approach, fashioning dense layers of sound into narcotic-and-feedback-flavored sanctity.

RIP Cotton Hill, beloved TV curmudgeon and WWII vet

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A meeting of the minds: Hank Hill, from left, Jimmy Carter, and Cotton Hill

By Erik Morse

On Sunday night, Nov. 11, FOX’s King of the Hill committed the ultimate cartoon sin when it saw the demise of cranky septuagenarian and war hero Cotton Lyndal Hill. A cruel gambit by the animators made all the worse as it was committed on Veteran’s Day, Cotton’s death illustrates a rare moment when an animated series has transgressed “Wile E. Coyote” immortality and confronted the loss of a central character. The following obit was released on the television show’s official Web site shortly before the episode’s debut:

“Cotton Hill, age unknown, World War II veteran, died Sunday in a Texas VA hospital. Hill suffered from several injuries ranging from four rusty bullets lodged in his heart from his military service, a broken hip and torn ligaments in his ankle-knees, to an infection in his esophagus and severe burns caused by a freak shrimp accident that occurred earlier this week at Tokyaki’s Japanese restaurant. Hill leaves behind sons Hank Hill and G.H. (short for “Good Hank”); daughter-in-law Peggy Hill; grandson Bobby Hill; ex-wife Tilly; second wife Didi; first love and former Japanese lover Michiko; an illegitimate Japanese son, Junichiro; and nephew Dusty Hill (of band ZZ Top).”

Texas redneck patrician, misogynist, gun lover, American hero, and war amputee, Cotton proved to be one of the most controversial and loveable television characters since the inimitable Archie Bunker. Representing the best and worst qualities of the “Greatest Generation” – its narrowmindedness, prejudices, simplicities as well as its patriotism, courage, and fraternity – Hill was a surrogate grandfather to many of us who had lost our own so many years ago. As a Texan and an obsessive viewer of the series from the beginning, I was startled by the news – Sundays have now lost a bit more of their juvenile innocence.

Seeing Stars

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By Todd Lavoie

Breaking up, breaking down, pulling yourself together, and plunging back into the dating scene to start all over again – sound familiar? Most of us have trod down that road before – the avenue leading us through the entire tumultuous cycle of doomed romance. Oh, the drama! While there certainly are stops along the journey that can be a real hoot – the thrill of discovery, the razzle-dazzle of courtship – later on, many of the landscapes can turn rather damn ugly for a while before things start looking up again.

Eventually, with a bit of persistence, the road will loop right back to the beginning, up with the pretty scenery which lured you within in the first place. Canadian popsters Stars are the audio-tour equivalent of this trek, but here’s the thing: these guides tend to skip right on through the picture-postcard stuff in favor of focusing on what lay farther down the road. The tussles, the tugs-of-war, the tongue-lashings, and then ultimately the breaking up and breaking down and moving on – that’s their turf, their area of authority. So how the hell do they make all of that strain and strife so appealing, so breathtakingly rip-roaring? How do they convince so many hopeful romantics to hop on such a bumpy ride? Get your answers this Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 13 and 14, when Stars storm the Bimbo’s stage and explain it all.

As a longtime member of one of those oh-so-sickening “happy loving couples” Joe Jackson sneered about all those years ago from his new wave bachelor pad, maybe I’m no longer an expert on the peaks and troughs of the dating scene – if I ever possessed that sort of wisdom, I gave it up long ago when I met my match. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been single in the city, and yet a spin of a Stars album can send me back to those days quicker than anything, and – here’s a bonus – without resorting to banal chick-flick-isms and the like. Honestly, why does so much so-called “sensitive” art (and maybe I’m being generous here by calling it “art” in the first place) sacrifice intelligence in the process? Me, I’d much rather dip my ears into something a bit more substantial. And that’s the draw of these Montrealers: we’re talking about clever, heartfelt, literate indie-pop here, hurtling from their five fiery souls with such urgency and conviction that even little old domestics like yours truly can pump their fists along to the “love is war” manifestos without feeling the slightest bit out of place. If you’ve ever loved – or, hell, tried to love, even – than any of their four albums will surely speak to some wounded corner of your heart, given the chance. Best of all, you’ll feel better afterwards – a good ‘n deep scrubbing of the insides ain’t ever a bad thing. Whose heart couldn’t benefit from a metaphorical enema now and again?

The Dan Wilson peppermint latte, or how it feels to be free

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By Benedict Sinclair

Sometimes there’s a mood. One where dessert must coat the human drama. You need a pleasure, perhaps a guilty one. The kind of sublimity you’ll find in the songwriting of Dan Wilson, Grammy Award-winning craftsman behind the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice” and frontperson for alt-rockers Semisonic. Wilson once penned the Grammy-nominated radio classic “Closing Time” with the band. Nowadays he’s mechanically churning out sweet, catchy, safe, comfortable songs about the ladies of his pop life.

His latest release, Free Life, is mixed in the direction of lite Nigel Godrich: its clean and balanced sonic landscape focuses on a sparse set of pleasing soft-rock ballads about relationship politics. There’s a dash of lush country, a sprinkling of candy chords, a hint of Coldplay, and a smidgen of chorus harmonies. For better at times and worse at others, Wilson also reveals a ’90s alternative attitude beneath his polished top layers.

As traditional as the album is there’s something to be said for its professionalism. Wilson’s a born performer, as he will surely prove on Sunday, Nov. 11, opening for the equally lush folkalist Sondre Lerch at the Swedish American Music Hall, above Café du Nord. Yet Wilson’s lyrics aren’t written or placed in a terribly evocative way – definitely his weak spot here. “Runnin, all around all around / all kinds of beautiful,” he sings between verses composed of toss-away free advice on “All Kinds.”

Can I get a diva? Roisin Murphy to the rescue

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By Todd Lavoie

Looking for something sass-alicious to wrap your ears around? Something deep and soulful and dripping with attitude? Former Moloko vocalist Roisin Murphy has just released her second solo disc, Overpowered (EMI), and it’s a floor-burner. What a way to spend an hour and work off some cold-weather calories – looks like Murphy is several steps further into divahood.

I’m picky about my divas. Sorry, but a set of bottomless lungs and an octave-leaping vocal range ain’t always a sure-fire point-of-entry into Divaland for me – otherwise, I’d have to include the likes of Mariah Carey as part of the soundtrack to my quest to get in touch with my more feminine side. Nah, the Glitter girl can keep her bird-squawks to herself, and while we’re at it, a great big pass on J-Lo and Whitney (is it even relevant to bring the latter up at this point, I wonder as her shame-spiral/ future Lifetime movie fodder lifestyle keeps her careening further and further from the mic). All style and no substance – and even the notion of style is up for debate in these cases – makes for a pretty lousy diva recipe, the way I see it. Where’s the depth? Where’s the soul? Don’t we deserve more than just mere artifice?

And don’t even ask me about Fergie.

Feeling one’s bones with Ghostface Killah and co.

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By Chris DeMento

One can’t help heaping expectations upon a show like this – the Nov. 2 appearance by Brother Ali, Ghostface, Rakim, and the Rhythm Roots Allstars at Mezzanine: three big-name emcees, a 10-piece backband, a sold-out venue. It turned out to be fairly low-key evening, what with all the civility, the smoky supplication of so many mature hip-hop fans.

Brother Ali opened with a lot of righteousness, hyped Rakim and Ghostface, validated himself, then closed with a very clean, very tight freestyle. Ghostface made the most of his well-recognized Fishscale material and turned out some welcome oldies: 30 seconds of “Daytona 500” satisfied a craving that had been gnawing at me ever since some asshole ate my Ironman disc like eight years ago. Likewise, Rakim’s third-act performance called up more memories for me: the fragment of “Mahogany” he played was a real treat, same with versions of other decades-old rhymes like “Microphone Fiend” and “Don’t Sweat the Technique.” I was sated, but I can’t say I was exactly inspired by the music. Despite the spot-on efforts of the Rhythm Roots Allstars, who did a thorough job of imagining all the live tracks for each of the three MCs, it sounded like the same old hip-hop you knew and loved – the same old hip-hop that you still know and love, but at a greater distance.

Not to say old is bad… just old. Ghostface himself asked the crowd how many thirty-somethings there were in attendance, and the crowd returned a roar that probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Then he encouraged all to remember the late ODB, taking pause to reflect on the “‘All I Got Is You’ days.” This sort of nostalgia helps preserve the history of the art form. Indeed, much of the show seemed suspended, freshly dipped (thanks to the band), in a glass jar of formaldehyde labeled “hip-hop classic.”

Porter Wagoner RIP: Death of a country showman

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By Erik Morse

Grand Ole Opry mainstay and sartorial icon Porter Wagoner, one half of the great duet Porter and Dolly team, died of lung cancer in Nashville on Oct. 28 just days before Halloween.

The country musician was the epitome of the “hard workin’ man,” whose declining health in recent years failed to sideline a career that continued to entertain young and old through 50 years at the Opry. In addition to the critically received comeback Wagonmaster (Anti), a darkly psychedelic album released this summer, Wagoner made a one-time appearance in July at Madison Square Garden opening for the White Stripes. On his death bed he was surrounded by family, musicians and friends, and his one-time singing partner Dolly Parton. According to an Associate Press article, Opry vice president and general manager Pete Fisher said of Wagoner: “His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable.” Wagoner’s funeral ceremony was appropriately at the Grand Ole Opry House this past week.

Much like another recent passing musician, Lee Hazlewood, whose incredible career was often reduced to a footnote in the rise of partner Nancy Sinatra, Wagoner was similarly touted as the man who discovered Parton in the late 1960s. In truth, his work in country-western extended to the post-WW II days of Louvin Brothers-style folk with a local Missouri band, the Blue Ridge Boys, and on TV’s Ozark Jubilee.

Coheed and Cambria heed the “Alien” call

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By Ben Richardson

November is upon us, and cult prog-emo masterminds Coheed and Cambria (Coheed for short) play the Warfield this week, touring behind their new album, Good Apollo, I’m a Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow (take that, Fiona Apple). The album – their fourth – serves as the concluding chapter in a sweeping back-story that has served as the fundament for the entire Coheed catalog, which chronicles the abstruse adventures of a pair of put-upon intergalactic badasses, “Coheed” and “Cambria.”

Hearing Coheed for the first time is a divisive experience, and I’ll confess that without something specific to latch onto I would have written them off based on the singing alone. Frontperson Claudio Sanchez favors a dulcet falsetto that often elicits comparisons to Geddy Lee, the similarly polarizing vocalist of Rush, and I was lucky to stumble upon a track on their first release that enabled me to allay my falsetto fears and gradually learn to appreciate Sanchez’s high-register crooning. The track is called “Delirium Trigger,” and it begins with this verse:

We’re now / Up here alone / Terror on the intercom / Can someone save us?
Systems malfunction / Blast it this damn machine / Over and out captain.
Something lurks / Creeps on the counter top / Somewhere behind you
Parasitic cyst / I can’t stand to watch / It’s coming up and out of your chest.

These lyrics combine with an eerie, plaintive 6/8 groove to create an atmosphere of dread, and, on the strength of that last line, start to sound a hell of a lot like the original cast recording of Alien: The Musical. As a huge fan of the Ridley Scott movie and its attendant sequels, I found my attention immediately piqued. Sure, the whole chest-bursting thing was a little derivative, but if you’re going to crib, shouldn’t you crib from the best?

The Plant ‘n’ Krauss Show: Makes good listening!

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By Todd Lavoie

Bet you didn’t see this one coming. I sure as hell didn’t, not even in my wildest music-nerd tag-team reveries. Yep, I might’ve floated off into la-la land over the what-ifs and fancy-thats of pairing such unlikelies as PJ Harvey/Del tha Funkee Homosapien or Dolly Parton/Spiritualized or even Bryan Ferry/CocoRosie, but somehow I’d never gotten around to scratchin’ my noggin over what would happen if Robert Plant and Alison Krauss ended up in the same studio for a patch of time. Somehow a Neko Case/D’Angelo collab seems like a perfectly reasonable expectation from your humble Guardian blogger, but a meet-up between the sweetest voice in bluegrass-pop and Mr. Banshee-Wail himself? Ah, that’s just crazy.

Or is it? Call it a lark, call it a sign of the apocalypse, call it a coup for the rest of us, but one of the greatest who’da thunks of our time has arrived: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss recently released Raising Sand (Rounder), and it’s breathtaking. No kidding. It’s almost as if they’ve always worked together – yep, it’s that good.

Much of the credit should be given to producer T-Bone Burnett, he of the miracle sepia-tone touch, the man behind the rustic charms and warm glows of Gillian Welch’s Revival (Acony), Elvis Costello’s King of America (Columbia), and the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack (Mercury). (And no, don’t let that last one put you off. Sure, maybe you too found yourself maxed-out on the banjo-and-holler-fest after every single coffeehouse and café played the sweet holy hell outta that thing back in 2000 and 2001, but enough time has passed to be able to listen again with a fresh pair of ears. Go on, give it a play. It really is a marvel.)

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