Some musings based mainly on my personal musical journey through life.
WARNING! May include the odd mention of Art, Design, Movies & other warblings life may throw up.
Stuck this album on this morning while I was working. It one of the albums that was on an almost constant cycle when I was working my way through university. John Legend's Get Lifted, Tenacious D's self titled album and Tool's Lateralus were others in the collection of maybe 15 or 20 discs that were pulled out when serious work needed to be done to meet a deadline. This usually meant staying up until the small hours in the loft space of our "Wonky"student house.
So when I threw Is This It on this morning I instantly fell back into that mindset. It's a calming thing. Something that relaxes the stressed muscles that appear when deadlines are needing to be met. Now I have no harsh deadlines right now, but jeez it's a good feeling when you find an album that allows you to work without distraction. It's a phenomenal album anyway and I'd probably have to find room in an imaginary "Top 10" for it.
My one small complaint? It's over too quick. All the more reason to stick it on again and play ridiculous air guitar along with Last Night. I think everyone should bring this album back out of their collections and give it a fresh listen. It's bloody gorgeous!
Enjoy.
So I went to heaven, sorry, Amoeba recently and picked up the latest offering from one of my long-time favourite bands, Dave Matthews Band. In my eyes they can do no wrong. One of the best live acts I've ever seen, consistently superb albums and Dave is a truly lovely guy when you meet him.
I say all this, as I'm not as instantly taken with this latest album. I can't put my finger on what it is but it's just lacking something for me. It somehow feels tame. It might be the mix. I'm really not sure. I'm being harsh of course, but I look forward to their new work so much that I've no doubt built this album up to a point where it was always going to disappoint on some level. Maybe it's a grower and I just need to give it some time for it to force it's way into the reckoning of some of my personal favourite DMB albums. If it's time it wants, then time I shall give it. I really want this to be a winning album. I hope it will grow on me. I hope. No I'm sure. It doesn't have to be my favourite or their best. I just need to like it more than I do right now. It will happen...
The sign outside the venue tempting people in for epic food and a vintage mood.
I only found The White Buffalo by chance after seeing his name in LA Weekly and thinking 'that's a cool name, i wonder what they sound like'. So I got straight onto Spotify and gave the album Once Upon a Time in the West a listen. I was hooked after half of the first track. I spoke to my good friend Sareth Ney and asked if he wanted to go. Lo and behold he was covering it for The Examiner and said he'd ask if we could get some extra tickets to join him (I love this guy).
He did so we set off for some grub and a gig that I was VERY excited about. We got there and The White Buffalo were sound-checking. Jeez they sounded good. Excitement enhanced further, we ate outside as the venue filled up steadily. The place has a very Malibu feel to it, which if you've ever been down that way, you understand what I mean. It's such a relaxed atmosphere, the food was good, the beer chilled and the subtle hint of the ocean in the nostrils.
The support band were The Janks. A local-ish band fronted by brothers Zack (vocals and guitar) and Dylan (vocals, mandolin, percussion) Zmed with Leon LeDoux on drums and Paul Inder (Lemmy from Motorhead's son) on bass. Their music was a mix of rock and folk offering a different twist on the genre made popular again by the likes of Mumford and Sons. Their track Ratracers has an element of The Mars Volta mixed with Black Sabbath and Cream. It was a phenomenal track to hear live with Zack's vocals and guitar playing superb throughout. They gave out free sampler albums too which was a great touch. I'd have bought it anyways so I gave a donation. I'm tempted to go and see then again at the Troubadour before we leave in January.
When The White Buffalo came out the crowd went nuts. Jake Smith's voice is a dream. I wish I had a voice like that. It's just so effortless when he sings. We were really close to the front and very excited about what lay ahead. So just my luck that the sound tech had on to forget. The stage monitors didn't work, something the band complained about to him throughout, and the speakers closest to us also didn't work, which all meant that all we heard throughout the entire performance was the fucking drummer (Matt Lynott), who hit the skins as hard as anyone I can remember seeing. But instead of quickly trying to fix the mix and the monitors the sound guy just stayed behind the safety of his desk. I was half tempted to fix it myself. The mix was easily the worst of any gig i've ever been to, and just destroyed the vocal talents of Smith and the steel guitarist Tim Walker. Poor Tommy Andrews' microphone cut after the first track so he just slapped his bass as any good bassist should. On the tracks which either had no drums or required less of a beating, Smith's gorgeous vocal warmth shone through. Acoustic tracks such as I Wish It Was True and his cover of Lynyrd Skynyrds T is for Texas was excellent, mainly due to lack of drums. Ballad of a Deadman and How The West Was Won (the crowd went nuts for this one in particular, with plenty of dancing) and The Pilot were other favourites.
Overall I was disappointed by the gig but I can't lay the blame with any of the musicians (yes, even the drummer) for that. I lay the blame squarely with the sound tech. Whatever happened between sound-check and the gig was damaging to the gig and the fact he seemingly did nothing to resolve it was possibly worse. I'd love to see Jake Smith and his band again at a different venue and I can't sing the praises of his album, and previous EPs, highly enough. There's also a YouTube video (see below) of The White Buffalo playing The Pilot, which shows the kind of sound quality I heard at sound-check and expected throughout. I implore you to check them out. You won't regret it.
Thomas Nicholas Band at The Viper Room (Photo: Sareth Ney)
This was another show that my good friend Sareth was covering for The Examiner, which he kindly put us on the guest list for. Now I know everyone has seen American Pie and most will have seen the sequels too (I gave up at 3), but I never knew that "Kevin" had a band in real life. I used this gig as a chance to see inside the legendary Viper Room on Sunset. The club formerly owned by Johnny Depp and famous for the death of River Phoenix. It was a cool venue but not really much different to many of the smaller rock venues back in the UK. Maybe slightly less sticky under foot.
The first band we saw were The Railways who were a great little rock band. Their lead guitarist looked like someone had shoved a broom up his ass, but musically they were great. Hints of blues, masses of rock and some great vocals. They did a blues track to finish their set which I was most impressed with, but left me wondering why they bothered with the soft rock stuff when they were a pretty tight blues unit.
After a short interval Thomas Nicholas Band came out to play. They were ok as a band. Middle of the road rock stuff. Their bassist was great, and cool as fuck. But they made a mistake trying to cover a Foo Fighters track (I forget which one), before which Thomas introduced himself as Dave Grohl, and just made a hideous mess of it. If you can't do a cover-song justice, don't bother. Nicholas came across as a bit of a prick, but there are plenty of musicians who are pricks so I mustn't let that cloud my judgement. But it's telling that the best moment of the night was going to get an ice-cream cookie sandwich from the store next to the Viper Room. Damn that cookie sandwich was fine!
After seeing Volto on the 20th October, John Ziegler said we should come see his other project, BUBBATRON. How could we refuse?!
Just $25 got us 2 sets of music from the band, and jeez it was worth every penny.
With Danny Carey running late due to his attendance at the Lakers vs Clippers game we tucked into a huge baked potato, and the obvious choice of a few bottles of the finest chilled Sam Adams. After apologizing for the drummers' late arrival, John gave him a bit of stick due to the Lakers losing the game. Then we were underway with the music with John on guitar, Danny on drums, Scott Kinsey on keys, Hadrien Feraud on bass and Doug Webb on sax.
From the word go there was a different feel to the Volto gig. Much more improvisation and more of a traditional jazz-fusion feel to the music, with discordances and off-beat rhythms a-plenty. Now having watched John, Danny and Doug only a few weeks earlier I knew what they were about as musicians. One person really stood out for me and was a joy to watch and listen to. Hadrien Feraud is a French bass player who has some of the fastest fingers i've ever seen. They were a blur at times with both hands up and down the fretboard. He had plenty of solos to showcase his immense talent too. Added to that he looked like we was improvising most of the songs as he wasn't so familiar with the chords. He was watching Scott's hands for clues and also John over the other side of the room. Very impressive.
Every track was a joy. I don't think my foot stopped tapping or stomping all night. I was thrilled when they covered Volto's Grip It but they'd saved the best for last. Now this is the beauty of such a small intimate gig. Knowing who was in the house, John called for David Rozier to come to the stage for a blues number. Dressed in his apron and kitchen garb, the Baked Potato's own chef joined the band on stage with his Harmonica in hand. He looked slightly nervous but the smile was there for all to see. He just wanted to play music. And boy could that man play his harmonica. The whole band had grins on their faces as he set off on his solo at the start of the track until John took a solo which Rozier flitted in and out of as Webb disappeared into the audience.Webb reappeared with Brandon Fields (sax legend) and strapped a sax to him. Fields then took off on an incredible solo before being joined by Webb and Rozier. All 3 played different motifs but it all fitted seamlessly around the other band members who just kept the whole thing ticking along. At one point it seemed everyone was doing their own thing entirely but it just stewed together so well, as though there was some incredible chef blending things together to make this sumptuous musical masterpiece. Afterwards we had a brief chat with Danny, Hadrien and John, who it turns out is a massive Anglophile. He invited us to the next gig again. Something tells me it will be hard to resist.
