:: Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings ::

:: Ogden Theatre ::  September 28 ::

By Timothy Dwenger

The ’60s was a magical time for music in this country. It was the decade that saw The Beach Boys mesh ’50s harmonies with rock and roll, the Stones and The Beatles lead The British Invasion onto our shores, and the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane brought the psychedelic San Francisco scene to an entire country of hungry young people desperate to rebel against authority. All the while, soul music was enjoying its heyday and there were two record labels, Stax and Motown, pumping out hit after hit by the likes of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Booker T. & The MG’s, and Stevie Wonder. Though both studios folded in the early ’70s, their legacy lives on.

Today, musician, producer and label owner Gabriel Roth is carving out a career molded in the spirit of those classic labels and carrying the torch for soul, funk and R&B musicians. Roth ran his first record label, Desco Records, with partner Philip Lehmann for several years. “It was an independent label where we made our own records and we put out 45’s and there was a lot of vinyl around,” Roth said in a recent interview with The Marquee from his home in Los Angeles.

In the early days of Desco, Roth and Lehmann found that music lovers who were into soul, funk and R&B weren’t interested in buying new records by current bands, instead preferring to dig up old releases. In an effort to get this music they loved out there to people who would no-doubt appreciate it, the brains of Desco hatched a plan to get these “purists” to buy their records. “Early on, we did a record and released it as a reissue of the soundtrack to this kung fu movie we had made up called The Revenge Of Mr. Mopoji. That record sold great, it sold thousands and thousands of copies. When people asked questions about that record, we just wouldn’t really answer them and then people would start to bullshit us, they would tell us, ‘Oh, I got the original,’ and a few people even told me things like, ‘Oh, my cousin has the videotape,’ and I was like, ‘Great, I’d love to see it.’ Anyway, we were so surprised at how many we were able to sell that we kept the same band name, The Soul Providers, put out another record, took it back to the same people who bought the first one and said, ‘Guess what, we are a legitimate, modern band.’ I think it was a much better record but it only sold maybe two or three hundred. We couldn’t sell them, nobody was interested.”

Despite facing that kind of resistance, Desco pushed forward and slowly built up a stable of artists who were beginning to attract attention in the New York scene and beyond. As things began to pick up speed, Desco disintegrated and Roth moved on to form Daptone Records with saxophone player Neal Sugarman. Together, the pair formed a “house band” in the tradition of Motown and Stax made up of members of The Soul Providers and another Desco band The Mighty Imperials. With Sugarman on tenor sax and Roth holding down the low end on the bass and serving as band leader, The Dap-Kings were born.

Though The Dap-Kings have backed up numerous other musicians the most notable combination features “Soul Sister Number One” Sharon Jones as the band’s lead singer and frontwoman. Jones is a commanding performer who honed her skills singing in church and, for years, with a wedding band. Her first real break in the music business didn’t come until she was 40 years old and got the opportunity to sing background vocals on a Lee Fields record that Roth was recording while with Desco. “Our saxophone player at the time said, ‘Oh my girlfriend can come in and sing the background parts,’” Roth said. “We thought she was going to bring a couple girls with her, but Sharon came in by herself and did all the harmonies. She sounded great.”

It was at that moment that Roth realized a very special talent had wandered into his studio and decided to give her a try on another track they were working on. “There was this track called ‘Switchblade’ and we wanted her to do the backgrounds on it and our idea for the lead was to have this other guy, Rhett Clarke, do this whole funny rap he had been working on about how he got out of jail and he had this switchblade. I guess he wasn’t there yet or something and we told her about it, and when we went to record her backgrounds she just started vamping and she was so funny she cracked us up. So we set up a tape machine and she did a whole rap right off the cuff and we ended up using hers. So the first thing I ever recorded with her leading wasn’t even her singing, she was just talking shit,” said Roth.

Since that day, Roth and Jones have had their wagons hitched to the same star, and while The Dap-Kings are a top notch ensemble of some of the best soul and R&B musicians in the business, Roth was adamant that the reason Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings are playing to packed houses across the country is because Jones is out front doing her thing. “She sang in church and she sang in a wedding band. If you think about those two things it is pretty revealing. There is nobody that has the kind of energy and the ability to connect with people in a live venue the way that she does,” he said. “In a wedding band your job is to get up there and make everyone have a good time, from the old folks to the little kids. There is a certain humanity in that, an almost proletariat commonness. You’ve got to get down on the floor and do the Chicken Dance with some old lady and it’s that kind of an attitude that is a really big part of our performances. We like to make the audience a part of the show. Anybody that has really toured with us before, even in the crew, could tell you that the crazy shows we do, where everyone is sweating and crying and dancing and puking and making babies, those are the shows where the audience gets really into it and gets heated up. That’s when Sharon will go nuts and the band gets heated up ’cause everyone is feeding off each other. That’s wedding band stuff but that’s also church stuff.”

While their live shows are the stuff of legend, Jones has put out four albums with The Dap-Kings that are equally impressive. The most recent, I Learned The Hard Way, was released in April of this year and was produced by Roth under his pseudonym ‘Bosco Mann.’ Recorded in Daptone’s own, all analog studio in Brooklyn, Roth’s style aims to capture the essence of the band’s live sound while keeping everything as tight as possible. “Making a record is about the musicians. The equipment is a lot less important than the people who sell it make it out to be. It’s the performance, and you get a different performance from people when they are in a live situation and feel like they are doing something permanent,” explained Roth. “If somebody goes to play something and they know that their part is isolated, controllable, can be retuned and moved into rhythm, and they can do eight different passes at the solo and the best notes will be put together, they don’t play the same way as they do when they get onstage in front of a few thousand people. When we use an 8-track tape machine and record something and somebody says ‘ok, I think I’d like to try and do that solo again,’ you can do that but you are going to permanently record over what’s there. It’s that idea of permanence, that kind of liveness, that forces musicians to be better and producers to be better and engineers and arrangers all to be better.“

Clearly, this is a process and a mindset that is working for Daptone Records and for Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings. They are a current band that is successfully harnessing an old school work ethic and old school techniques to make their music sound the best that it can. It’s been an uphill climb but at this point it’s safe to say that Roth, Jones and Sugarman have succeeded in their efforts to bring the essence of ’60s R&B, soul and funk music back to the fans in a truly pure form.

:: Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings ::

:: Ogden Theatre :: September 28 ::

Recommended if you Like:

• The New Mastersounds

• Amy Winehouse

• Raphael Saadiq

:: Jenny and Johnny ::

:: Supporting Pavement ::

::  Ogden Theatre :: September 9 ::

By Brian F. Johnson

When your career resumé reads like a list of some of the most pivotal pop culture TV shows, bands, brands and moments, you’d expect a sort of been-there, done-that swagger. But for Jenny Lewis, who started her career in a Jell-O commercial at age three, acted on shows like “The Golden Girls,” “Baywatch” and “Growing Pains” (mostly in small roles, but who cares?), and went on to front the band Rilo Kiley, perform with The Postal Service and Elvis Costello and now fronts a new band with her boyfriend, a swagger would just be too much bullshit to try to pull off. Lewis is more content to focus on content than she is on frilly nonsense like self-importance.

That, precisely, is what makes her, as Bust magazine put it, “one of the best-loved and most respected female solo acts in the indie scene, a rare example of true talent in the hype-heavy music world.”

It’s also, most likely, that attitude that has made her so prolific over the years. When artists put aside the ego, the art tends to pour out of them more freely. “It’s important to know that when Jenny goes through writer’s block, that she still writes a lot,” said her boyfriend and bandmate Jonathan Rice, during a recent tandem interview of both of them with The Marquee.

Rice is the “Johnny” in their new project Jenny and Johnny, who in late August released their debut album I’m Having Fun Now. While the album truly is a debut for Jenny and Johnny, calling it that is a bit of a misnomer since the two have worked together in multiple other projects for several years.

While Jenny and Johnny actually first met in a stairwell in New York City in 2003, it was in 2005 that they found themselves in a studio together vying for the same recording time. “When Rilo Kiley went to Omaha to make More Adventurous, Jonathan was there finishing up his first record. There was a bit of an overlap. So we rolled intotown and we were ready to start making our record. Jonathan was there and so we were pissed. We started loading amps and stuff while Jonathan was doing his solo stuff. It was very rude of us,” Lewis laughed. “We were bullies in that moment, but that’s where we sort of reconnected.”

Maybe “reconnected” isn’t the right word there; “gelled” might be better. Because from that meeting on, the two have been playing music together. “Actually, Jenn has been part of every record I’ve ever made and ever since she went solo, I’ve been playing with her,” Rice said.

Rice toured with Lewis for her latest solo album Acid Tongue and in spending that time together on the road, a new batch of songs emerged that didn’t fit a Rice release, or a Lewis release. “We were always within just a few feet of each other and the songs just started melting into one another. It became the most collaborative batch of songs we’ve written,” said Rice, who went on to explain what writing with Lewis is like.

“Have you ever seen the television show ‘Hoarders,’” he asked, while Lewis laughed in the background. “It was kind of like a hoarding experience, where you come in and you’re like, ‘How many unfinished songs do you have around here? Let’s finally clean these out.’ And some of them you get rid of and some of them you set free. And like a hoarder, Jenny was there saying, ‘But some of these poor songs only have three legs, how can they possibly survive in the world?’”

The two worked to comb through everything and then took the raw material to Rilo Kiley’s recording engineer Pierre De Reeder, who helped them track some demos. Then, last winter, the two took a “cathartic” drive to Omaha, Neb. to record with their old friend Mike Moglis, who, as an engineer/producer/performer, has worked with both artists on multiple albums. Lewis said that Moglis, who is also a member of the supergroup Monsters of Folk with Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward, helped them to create the sound that became Jenny and Johnny. “I think with Pierre it was all very carefree and recorded very quickly. So we knew that going to Nebraska, that Mike is a very detail-oriented man and that he would give it his full attention. And he helped us to sort of complete the whole idea that we had started out in L.A.,” Lewis said.

The result, I’m Having Fun Now, is a personal, exuberant album that showcases love songs, and dark tales. And the couple/band couldn’t be happier about it and their relationship, even if they don’t publicly discuss the latter. “I don’t want to say that it’s not relevant to what we’re doing, because that would be false, but there are some things in this world, where you can see Snooki’s tan lines, and there are some things that are just for us,” Rice said.

:: Jenny and Johnny ::

:: Supporting Pavement ::

:: Ogden Theatre :: September 9 ::

Recommended if you Like:

• Hüsker Dü

• The Comas

• The Replacements

:: Jamie Lidell ::

:: Bluebird Theater :: September 7 ::

By Timothy Dwenger

In 2008, Jamie Lidell burst out of the shadows of the underground music world with the release of his critically acclaimed soul record, Jim. The album transported listeners back to the early ’70s and had many people comparing him to ‘Blue Eyed Soul’ singers like Van Morrison or Steve Winwood. While the album was a relatively big success and has allowed him to share the stage with Prince and headline European festivals over the likes of Elvis Costello, his new record, Compass, proves that it was only a small step in the musical evolution of an extremely talented artist.

As he discussed the genesis of Compass in a recent interview with The Marquee, Lidell revealed that much of the album was born out of a more personal place than any of his previous work. “As things wound down after Jim I had a lot on my mind and I had been through some crazy changes in my life. I thought it was time to talk about some of that stuff more openly in my music and to try and find out what kind of artist I wanted to be,” he explained. As these kinds of thoughts were going through his mind, and some of the songs that eventually made their way onto the album were beginning to take shape, he got a very exciting phone call from a like-minded artist.

“The whole record started to some extent with a phone call from Beck,” Lidell revealed. “He was curious if I wanted to make a record and I was thrilled that he wanted to do something with me.  We’ve done a few bits and pieces here and there but nothing really concrete in the studio. That was just the right kind of motivation that I needed. I am prone to hanging around and procrastinating, so that call from Beck gave me a really good ass kick, and really just motivated me to get going.”

It wasn’t long before Lidell was on a plane to Los Angeles to sit down with Beck and discuss the project they were about to embark on. “Fiest was there when I arrived and some other freaks were there to do the Record Club thing. So there I was all of a sudden, doing Record Club and starting my own album, and all kinds of crazy stuff started to happen, it was completely unexpected and amazing. The record got off to a flying start and after that I tried to make some sense of it all. It was really like a hurricane — a whirlwind of creation. When the dust settled I realized I needed to concentrate a little bit more on making it my own, so I went back home to New York and tried to piece together the rest of the album.”

After a brief period of listening to recordings that he had worked on in L.A., Lidell realized that he was at a musical crossroads of sorts. “At the time of Multiply I was praised and, at some points, criticized for being so eclectic in my tastes. I made Jim partly as a response to that, as it was much more of a focused record and concentrated on one branch of my interests in music,” he said. “I’ll admit that it did leave me a little hungry and I was kind of missing some of the other stuff that got left out. On a simple level, Compass was a response to that, but it was more of a reflection of my life. I realized that after making Jim I had ended up at an interesting place in my career. I could have carried on by making another ‘easy,’ or ‘approachable’ retro soul record and continued down the path that I had started down. While that would have been palatable and maybe a smart financial move, in my heart, as a musician, I knew that if I did it I would really be typecast as the ‘new soul guy’ and I know that I have a lot more in me.”

For fans of Lidell’s 2005 project Multiply, Compass will signal a return to the electronic roots that spawned much of the musician’s creativity and were largely left behind on Jim. Songs like “Your Sweet Boom” and “Coma Chameleon” in particular, feature big beats, effects and processors galore. While they also weave in some well placed keyboard, bass or horn riffs, they don’t sound like they would have made the cut if an album like Jim was the intended end product.

A wildly eclectic record, at times Compass comes across as somewhat glitchy and lo-fi just seconds before sweeping into a soaring vocal line that sounds as if it could have been sampled from a Stax record in the ’70s. Lidell has crafted an album that cherry picks some of the best elements of his previous work to create a truly unique listening experience. He admits it’s a more a challenging listen than Jim, but it’s clear that this is much more satisfying to him as an artist. “It’s more wide-ranging since you’ve got 14 songs that are, to an extent, all different genres. That’s not for everyone. A lot of people just want music to wash over them and be a ‘feel good’ experience. I would never judge that because I completely understand it, but as a fan, I love to have a little challenge with my music. I like to have some sour in with my sweet,” he explained. “I am really happy that I pursued this the way I did because now I feel like I’m being truer to myself, and I’m happy with that.”

:: Jamie Lidell ::

:: Bluebird Theater :: September 7 ::

Recommended if you Like:

• Beck

• Fiest

• David Byrne

:: Dead Confederate ::

:: with Alberta Cross ::

::  Larimer Lounge :: September 18 ::

:: Fox Theatre :: September 19  ::

By Brian F. Johnson

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what equipment you use. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what studio you’re in. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter who wrote the song. Because, when it comes down to it, sometimes it’s weather that influences the feel of an album more than anything.

When the Athens, Ga., quintet Dead Confederate left the South last winter to travel to the highly revered Water Music Recording Studios in Hoboken, N.J., they had a loose idea of how they wanted their new songs to sound. But after days upon days of being stuck in a studio due to a blinding nor’easter, the southern grunge rockers emerged with their sophomore album Sugar and a whole new idea of how their songs could sound.

“For our last record, we had played those songs — well, some of them — as long as two years before we ever recorded them,” said vocalist Hardy Morris in a recent interview with The Marquee. “We didn’t actually start to learn all of the songs until just before we went up there. We wanted it to be something more malleable, so we kind of waited on purpose. But there were major blizzards and so we were stuck in the studio the whole time and that made us move things along more than if we wouldn’t have been held up there.”

The resulting thoughtful contemplation lead to an entirely different recording experience than the band, known for its loud style, had ever been a part of before. “Our recording experiences in the past had that loud noise kind of vibe, you know, where everybody is just hammering away. Well, what we found is that works live and they’re fun to play, but when you put the mic on it and record it, it kind of turns to mud.”

Working with veteran producer/engineer John Agnello (The Hold Steady, Son Volt, Dinosaur, Jr.), the band found a way to turn their approach to recording on its end. Morris explained that on past albums, to get out of that “muddy” situation, they would end up having to strip elements of the tracks away, so that the music would translate to recording. “That’s fine,” said Morris. “But it doesn’t make for the most creative process or the most constructive recording session. You want to do it this way to make it more positive — add this, build this, not take away. It just makes the whole vibe better and it’s a better recording session.”

That approach made it so much better, in fact, that when the band sent out a press release last month to announce the new album, it said, “For the band, that makes Sugar feel like their first true album, with Wrecking Ball [the band’s debut release] as more of a collection of their early songs.”

The tracks on Sugar are, with the exception of one, all new material. Morris, who writes half of the band’s material, with bassist Brantley Senn taking the other 50 percent of the writing credits, said that these songs weren’t sitting around for a while. “We did have one song, ‘Run from the Gun,’ which was kind of an acoustic song that I had written a couple of years ago. We never actually had the intention of making it a Dead Confederate song. It was just kind of a song in my back pocket — something I’d play when I play by myself. Well, John [Agnello] heard it, he said, ‘This has to be on the album.’ So that was the only one we kind of pulled from the past. Everything else is brand new,” said Morris.

Without abandoning the driving guitar work that first drew attention to the band, Sugar gives nods to bands that they have toured with, like Dinosaur, Jr., and the Meat Puppets. The songs cover a broad musical area from epic jam moments to classic rock to shoegaze, but perhaps there is nothing on the record that is as relentless and as merciless as “Quiet Kid,” a straight-up shock rock song of distorted rage.

But not all of the songs are like that, and Morris said that their ability to change their sound while recording these tracks lead to the tunes finding what worked for each of them. “There was nothing ingrained already, you know? It wasn’t like we were standing there and saying, ‘This is my guitar tone on this song. This is what I always use.’ You know, it was more like, ‘What tone should we use?’” he explained, again giving Agnello credit for helping the band to approach their songs like that. “Simply put, we have more room to breathe. You have to be honest and natural about the whole thing. This is special to us and that’s where we get our gratification.”

:: Dead Confederate ::

:: with Alberta Cross ::

:: Larimer Lounge :: September 18 ::

:: Fox Theatre :: September 19 ::

Recommended if you Like:

• Dinosaur, Jr.

• Sonic Youth

• Meat Puppets

:: Rose Hill Drive ::

:: Fox Theatre :: September 25 ::

By Brian F. Johnson

From 2003 through 2008, Boulder’s own Rose Hill Drive was riding high on a wave of success. They toured the world and opened for some of the biggest names in rock and roll, like The Who, The Black Crowes, and Van Halen. They drove two tour vans into the ground criss-crossing the country, and released two albums.

But when the reverb faded from their amps following their annual New Year’s Eve show at the Boulder Theater on December 31, 2008 — a show in which they covered Led Zeppelin II in its entirety — it looked like the band was done.

The band members were exhausted from the constant touring. They weren’t happy with the label that had helped them to release their second album, and they needed to get out of that damn van.

The band announced an indefinite hiatus and shut down the machine that had been controlling their lives for the previous five years. “We’d been on the road for so long, pushing this idea of touring until you make it, and that was becoming a lifestyle that wouldn’t let up,” said Jake Sproul during a recent interview with The Marquee. “It felt very alliterating. I mean, life was happening, but it was happening in this weird way, where we knew the van as our house and we knew each other as our immediate family.”

Drummer Nate Barnes, in an interview later the same day, agreed, adding, “When we finished that Boulder Theater show we needed an extended break. We were just over the way we’d been doing things, and we kind of felt a bit pigeon-holed into a genre that we didn’t necessarily feel like we were trying to be in. It became well known that we could play Zeppelin and Band of Gypsies really well, and it got to the point where people would be calling out those songs more than they called out ours. We just really needed a fresh start,” Barnes said.

So the boys took time. Jake went to school at CU for some time. Nate taught private lessons, was a camp counselor at Dog House Music’s rock and roll summer camp for kids in Lafayette, and played in another Front Range band, the Dualistics. And guitarist Daniel Sproul (Jake’s brother) took up a habit more addictive than heroin — golf.

A year later, Jake had decided that a state college was “not for me,” and that “music is my life and has been my life and it feels so good when it’s the right situation. So realizing that, I could start creating in a process that is totally different and less confining. Less confining because what we were doing was perhaps not as natural as an expression as we had intended it to be. And in that, this release of songs just started coming out,” he said.

The biggest difference between Rose Hill Drive a few years ago and this Rose Hill Drive 2.0 version is the addition of a fourth member. While Jake Sproul has long held down the bass and vocal spots for the band, he’s now on guitar, and they have invited bassist Jimmy Stofer to take on the low end. Stofer, who has toured with a slew of local bands, from Hello Kavita and The Flobots, to his project with Barnes, The Dualistics, brings a new element to the band’s sound that they could not capture as a three piece.

“Adding Jimmy is this whole new experience for me, because he’s just this straight, pure bass player,” said Barnes. “Just having him back there to groove with and play off of each other is a huge difference.”

Daniel added: “Not just having a fourth person, but also having his creativity has pushed the sound to a more accessible level. It’s allowed the freedom for Jake to open up and not be doing math equations on his bass and singing at the same time. I’ve released myself as part of the rhythm section and I feel like I can explore a little more,” he said.

While the band has upwards of 35 new songs ready to roll, they aren’t planning a full release any time soon. Instead, the band plans on dolling out tracks a little at a time, starting with drop cards that they will be giving out to ticket purchasers for  their Fox Theatre show this month. The drop card will give fans two new studio recordings to download for free.

The songs, according to Jake, still have the elements of classic rock that Rose Hill Drive is known for, but they also incorporate some more modern elements. Jake said that he’s super appreciative of the patience of the fans who gave them time to find themselves musically and get to a place where these new songs could not only be born, but also released.

“You know, we were going crazy before, trying to do something that, to me, was a lot like a chicken with its head cut off. Now, we’re a fully functioning chicken,” he said.

:: Rose Hill Drive ::

:: Fox Theatre :: September 25 ::

Recommended if you Like:

• Queens of the Stone Age

• Foo Fighters

• Stone Temple Pilots

This festival is almost as if someone opened the doors during a soldout show at Cervante’s Masterpeice Ballroom, spilling hippies out into the street. With a two-day lineup that looks a bit like a killer month of shows at the historic venue, the club will essentially move operations and three stages outdoors for the weekend. And after sundown and curfew have come and gone, late-night acts back inside will feature some of the bigger acts of the weekend.

Promoters are adamantly encouraging attendees to use public transportation, as a light rail stop is right across the street from the festivities. Electric Avenue takes place September 4 and 5 on Welton Street between 25th and 26th streets.

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe

:: Saturday, September 4 – 9 pm —  Welton Street Stage ::

Five years after Karl Denson and his mates created The Greyboy Allstars, the former Lenny Kravitz horn player branched out on his own with the desire to emphasize vocals while blending funk, R&B and hip-hop sounds into a jazzy, jammy melting pot. In 2009 KDTU released its first CD in seven years, Brother’s Keeper. Miles away from his work with Greyboy and with his jazz-funk trio KD3, Denson’s newest focus is a retro-soul sound that bears influences of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye.

Kyle Hollingsworth Band

:: Sunday, September 5 – 5 pm — Five Points Stage ::

Last year, right around this time, Kyle Hollingsworth, keyboardist for the jam giants String Cheese Incident, released his second solo album Then There’s Now — a tight, concise, non-jammy, but very groove-oriented album. That same month, the musician/homebrewer also unveiled his Hoppingsworth IPA at the Southern Sun Brewery in Boulder. Following Cheese’s three-night soldout Red Rocks run this summer, Hollingsworth returns to his solo band for the Electric Avenue Festival.

Anders Osborne

:: Saturday, September 4 – 5:15 pm — Five Points Stage ::

Swedish-born Anders Osborne rose to popularity in 1995 with his release Which Way to Here. The traveling troubador, who toured recently with Robert Walter and Stanton Moore on a double-bill tour, is a sought-after songwriter who has penned tracks for Tab Benoit, Jonny Lang and Jimmy Thackery. But his song “Watch the Wind Blow By” is his most well known, having been recorded by country superstar Tim McGraw. The song went to number one on the country charts and stayed there for two weeks, selling over three million albums.

MTHDS

:: Saturday, September 4 – 4:30 pm — Welton Street Stage ::

MTHDS stands for “Music That Heightens Different Senses.” Based out of Denver, the band combines the fury of punk, the street-wise soul of hip-hop and funk with an over-the-top bombastic roots party groove. MTHDS have played alongside a whole host of heavy hitters and they also rocked the Honda Sessions ’08 snowboard competition in Vail and the Mountain Dew Tour ’09 in Breckenridge — a good fit for the musician/snowboarders. The band’s name is even a nod to their slope addiction, as a “method” is a snowboarding trick where a rider grabs the heel edge of their board with their leading hand.

Washboard Chaz

:: Sunday, September 5 – 6:30 pm — The Other Side Stage ::

A New York native who spent nearly two decades living in Boulder, Colo., Washboard Chaz Leary moved to New Orleans in 2000. After only a short time in New Orleans, Leary established himself as the go-to guy, and developed a sound that was so Louisiana Bayou, it’s still shocking that he’s not originally from there. In addition to teaching percussion workshops around the country, he’s played on Grammy nominated songs with a list of musicians that reads like a dream lineup to the city’s annual Jazz Fest.

:: Fillmore Auditorium :: August 29, 2010 ::

:: By Brian F. Johnson ::  Photos by Mike Hardaker / www.mtnweekly.com

I’ve seen a LOT of Black Crowes shows over the years. I’ll spare you the actual number — mostly because I’m lazy enough that I don’t want to dig out the old tour books and count them all — but rest assured I’m a bit of an expert on the band.

Back in the day the Crowes billed themselves as “The world’s most rock and roll, rock and roll band,” but recent years have shown them to be a bit more like “the world’s mot rock and roll jam band.” Sunday night at the Fillmore however saw the Crowes at their rocking finest. Yeah, there were some jams, but it wasn’t the show’s focus.

Sunday night may be the best Black Crowes show I’ve seen since 1996. It was an awesome set list that was superbly executed, and appropriately appreciated by the crowd.

Now remember, this tour for The Black Crowes could be one of their last ever. The band is currently on its Say Good Night To The Bad Guys Tour, which is scheduled to be followed by a “lengthy hiatus.” The shows are being billed as “Acoustic Hor D’oeuvres followed by an Electric Reception With The Black Crowes,” and each stop on the tour consists of a full hour-and-a-half acoustic set followed by a full hour-and-a-half electric set

In a press release, leading up to the tour, founding drummer Steve Gorman had written, “We are all in agreement (no, seriously, we are!) that this is the right time to spend time with our families, friends, outside musical and non-musical projects, and of course, our personal lives. So, we’re going out swinging with all we got.” What would you have expected him to say; that they were going to phone-in one more tour, before calling it quits? It almost sounded like the words of a person not expecting to give it 100 percent.

Not the case.

The show started off with the acoustic stage looking like a less rustic, and larger version of the Crowe’s 2009 DVD “Cabin Fever” — recorded at Levon Helms’ famed studio in Woodstock, N.Y. The five-night recording process shown on the DVD eventually became the band’s 2010 releases Before the Frost and Until the Freeze.

The band is somewhat divided these days on stage, with sound bafflers between each musician. Luckily, though, the stage at The Fillmore is much larger than the one at Levon’s barn, so the dividers were only prevalent in the sound quality and not in the performance itself.

The show began in somewhat standard fashion, at least for an acoustic set, with “Soul Singing” and “Hotel Illness.” They were solid performances for sure, but nothing mind-blowing quite yet.  The band followed those openers with a great version of “The Last Place That Love Lives,” from their most recent album Before the Frost, but it was their return to their 1994 Amorica material that really began to show that the concert was going to be way above average. “Ballad In Urgency” directly morphing into “Wiser Time” was a phenomenal jam. Though the jammiest part of the show, it was what good jamming should be — building up tension and paying the audience off with cosmic releases. It wasn’t jamming just to make the set longer, it was jamming that told a story and went somewhere.

“She,” a beautiful song by Gram Parsons came next. I still remember exactly where I was the first time I ever heard this song. It was July 20, 1996 Asbury Park, N.J. at the Stone Pony, the famed venue where Bruce Springsteen used to play, and the Crowes were finishing a backyard BBQ style party when Chris Robinson said, “If you don’t know who Gram Parsons is, go listen. Trust me.” I did and 14 years later, I’m still a huge Parsons fan.

The rest of the set built and built with each song outdoing the other.

Set break was fast and furious, and when the band came out with “Remedy” — usually a show closer — it threw everyone for a loop. Normally, any time I get a “Jealous Again” during a set I hate it and think of all the other good non-hit songs that could have gone in there, but this one was appreciated and powerful.

The “Thorn’s Progress > Thorn in My Pride” was heavy and heady. But a cover of Velvet Underground’s great track “Oh Sweet Nuthin’” was phenomenal. The song is a great choice for a cover by The Crowes. Every time I hear them doing it, I think of what a perfect song it is for them. “High Head Blue” was standard, but not bad, at all.

As the band started down the backward slide toward the end of the show they launched into “Sometimes Salvation,” one of the most blistering songs in their repertoire. The song takes Robinson to the outskirts of his vocal range — like watching a pro driver take a car to its limits on the track. He has to be in top form to pull the song off well, and I’ve seen nights where it’s been too taxing on him. For this performance, he nailed it.

“Halfway to Everywhere” and a super solid “No Speak, No Slave” ended the second set.

Then it really happened. “Title Song” started the encore. The track, which has only appeared on the band’s Live release, but never on a studio album, is a gorgeous rocker — a great love song with a heavy drive.

They finished out the night with their second Gram Parsons song of the show “Hot Burrito #2.” Two Gram songs in one night? Perfect!

Say Goodnight To The Bad Guys Tour could have been a wash. It could have been a ho-hum tour and a sad goodbye to the band after 20 years of rock and roll. But the power and execution of their sets thus far, and especially Sunday night in Denver, seem to hint at the fact, that this is just the start of a hiatus, and not an official good bye, by any means. At least I hope so.

One gripe: The Black Crowes should learn a lesson from their hippie counterparts, Phish. The Crowes have always had a dedicated taper base, but the fact that they’re not doing instant live is a pisser. I would have easily plunked down the cash to immediately hear this show again in soundboard, or matrix quality. No band should be without that option these days, especially one that is playing so damn well.

- acoustic set -

SOUL SINGING

HOTEL ILLNES

LAST PLACE THAT LOVE LIVES

BALLAD IN URGENCY ->

WISER TIME

SHE

UNDER A MOUNTAIN

WHOA MULE

MY MORNING SONG

SHE TALKS TO ANGELS

- electric set -

REMEDY

SEEING THINGS

JEALOUS AGAIN

THORNS PROGRESS ->

THORN IN MY PRIDE

OH SWEET NUTHIN

HI HEAD BLUES

SOMETIMES SALVATION

(ONLY) HALFWAY TO EVERYWHERE

NO SPEAK NO SLAVE

- encore -

TITLE SONG

HOT BURRITO #2

Thank you to Mike Hardaker of the Mountain Weekly News for photos.

Just when we all thought our country’s space program was as dull as life in a nursing home, NASA has proven that it not only has a pulse, but that the pulse has rhythm.

NASA announced last month that they are hosting a songwriting contest to help pick wake-up music for its astronauts in space. Yes, that’s right — NASA is actually soliciting songs that will, if chosen, be played beyond the scope of our atmosphere. Call me a total dork, but I think that’s awesome!

Anyone can submit a track for the contest and the winner’s track will be played via mission control to the space shuttle on a mission sometime next year. And while I’m not certain about this, I’m pretty sure that if they play your song, you can boast that your music has been played “around the world.”

In the spirit of “Rocket Man,” “Space Oddity,” “Spirit in the Sky” and many others, NASA is looking for songs that, of course, relate in one way or another to human spaceflight.

I want a Colorado band to win this! I’m personally calling on all Colorado musicians to flood NASA with submissions. I don’t care what kind of music you play, or how you play it, but damn it, I want you to enter something into the contest.

For those who aren’t musically inclined, NASA is also offering the chance to vote from a list of 40 songs for the wake-up music of a flight later this year. Their list has some of the aforementioned tracks on it, but what’s really interesting are some of the other songs that have already been played in space: Cake’s “The Distance,” Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again,” Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” even Colorado’s own Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ “Blue Sky” has been played for the astronauts.

NASA’s website lets viewers go through and hear not only the clip of music that was played, but the conversation between ground control and the astronauts, right afterwards. Each mission kind of has a theme, or at least a likeness in the musical selections.

Apparently, they have been doing this since the days of the Apollo program, but the music has always been chosen by friends and family of the crew, or by mission control. This is the first time that they are opening up either submissions or suggestions to the public.

So please, for all of the details, go visit www.songcontest.nasa.gov — the site even has a fun intro that’s a spinoff from the opening of Star Wars and ends with the quote, “Help us everyone. You’re our only hope.” I’d love to see someone from Colorado bring home that ultimate prize. Good luck.

See you at the shows.

The Derek Trucks Band

Roadsongs

Sony Legacy

4.5 out of 5 stars

Some bands are better in the live experience than on studio efforts and The Derek Trucks Band is no exception. Led by the 31-year-old slide guitar master, Derek Trucks, the band has quietly become the elder statesmen for the blues-rock movement over the past 16 years — keeping blues tradition alive through aggressive touring while gracefully merging that blues with elements of jazz and rock. And for those of you not familiar with Trucks, who are trying to figure out that math, yes, Trucks, whose musical pedigree is as shining as stage lights, has been shredding for that long.

Currently on extended hiatus, The Derek Trucks Band’s latest live release, Roadsongs, is a proud reminder that on a good night the band can put on one of the best live shows, period.

Recorded in April, 2009 over a two-night stand at Chicago’s Park West, the double CD features the classic Derek Trucks Band lineup of Trucks (guitar), Kofi Burbridge (keyboards, flute), Todd Smallie (bass), Yonrico Scott (drums), Mike Mattison (lead vocal) and Count M’Butu (percussion). A highlight of this latest release is the presence of the stellar horn section made up of Paul Garrett (trumpet), Mace Hibbard (saxophone) and Kevin Hyde (trombone), who joined the band for the Chicago shows from which this live album was compiled. The result is the most exciting and well-crafted Derek Trucks Band live release to date.

The Derek Trucks Band has always been smart in their selection of cover songs. For a band that relies more on instrumental prowess and improvisation than on writing original material, cover songs have become a very exciting part of their live show and they have always tried to stay away from the obvious.

Roadsongs does a great job of documenting some newer cover choices for the first time on a Derek Trucks Band official release, including a scorching take on Allen Toussaint’s “Get Out My Life Woman,” and an awe-inspiring, 14-minute run through “Afro Blue,” a song popularized by John Coltrane.

“Afro Blue” is simply magnificent. Based on a funky, laid-back bass groove, the instrumental structure of the song allows the entire band to shine as they transition through various solos, including three staggered guitar solos from Trucks with flute, saxophone and keyboard solos sandwiched in between them. This one track alone would be a show highlight for most touring bands and is definitely a highpoint on the album.

The band also pays tribute to other artists as well, through an 11-minute take on Bob Marley’s “Rastaman Chant,” Bob Dylan’s “Down in the Flood,” Toots and the Maytals’ “Sailing On,” and their 9-minute Derek and the Dominoes closing tribute “Anyday,” which is another album highlight and features a scorching outtro solo by Trucks.

The few Trucks Band compositions on the album are also strong and include the album opener “I’ll Find My Way,” the shuffling “Already Free,” and the high energy romp “Get What You Deserve.”

For a group that got together because of a shared passion for improvisation and musical exploration, Roadsongs is a perfect summary of a band firing on all cylinders.

It’s a damn fine live album by any standard and a reminder that the live setting is where most good bands thrive.          — Jonathan Keller

STS9

Axe The Cables

1320 Records

4.5 out of 5 stars

On December 29 of last year, STS9 did something that many of their fans didn’t think was possible:  they stripped their music down to its bare bones and played an acoustic show in an opera hall on the campus of Denver University. Fans and critics alike approached the night with some trepidation, but if the thunderous applause that explodes between each track on their recent Axe the Cables album is any indication, the performance exceeded most people’s wildest dreams.

Throughout the record, the band flirts with jazz, classical, and rock and roll as they interpret songs that have stood the test of time in their catalog alongside songs that are brand new to most listeners. Of the 19 songs that were performed that evening (and included in their entirety on this album), only five were interpretations of songs that had been previously released on an STS9 album. While the acoustic renditions of old favorites like “Satori,” “Equinox,” and “Lo Swaga” are enthralling, a stand-out moment of the collection comes when the band welcomed sax player Dominic Lalli, of The Motet, Juno What?! and Big Gigantic, to the stage for a smooth and jazzy take on “Between 6th & 7th.”

With fewer effects and less electronic wizardry than their past releases, the essence of the music comes through clean and pure. The argument that this wasn’t the way the music was intended to sound is sure to surface, but David Murphy counters that early on in the performance when he says, “We thought we would just invite you into our studio, we thought we would be candid tonight … this is how we write music, we sit around and play like this, contrary to popular belief.”

On that evening, the band invited their fans into their inner sanctum to give them a peek “behind the curtain” and see where the magic happens, and as this recording illustrates, it was indeed a magical night.

Simply put, STS9 took a chance, went out on a limb, and defied the odds with an incredible performance that redefined the depths of their talents as a band.  Best of all, they captured it in pristine audio and have released it for anyone to hear.

While it’s no wonder the band has been booking more of these so-called “Axe The Cables” shows, there may never be one that replicates the raw energy and focus of the very first.

— Timothy Dwenger

Leonard Cohen

Bird On A Wire (DVD)

MVD Visual

5 out of 5 stars

I feel like I just discovered and fell in love with Leonard Cohen all over again for the first time.

The re-issue of this 1972 classic European tour film is a long overdue homage to Cohen, who still stands as one of this country’s greatest songwriters, ever.

But what makes this release extra special is the fact that it almost never happened. The film was originally released in 1974, had a limited run and then seemingly disappeared. But in 2009, British filmmaker Tony Palmer received 294 cans of film — some so poorly weathered that they needed to be hammered open — after Frank Zappa’s manager found them in a Hollywood warehouse and shipped them to Palmer. The cans did not contain the negative (still lost), some of the prints were in black and white, and much of it had been cut to pieces or scratched beyond use. But the original sound dubbing tracks were there and so with the help of digital technology, Palmer painstakingly pieced the film back together, very close to its original form.

It’s an unbelievably up close and personal portrait of Cohen at one of the heights of his career, and a testament to the poetry he’s created.

— Brian F. Johnson

Michael Adam

The Maybe EP

Independent

4 out of 5 stars

This album would be good for a seasoned vet, so it’s amazing that this is Michael Adam’s debut.

The offspring of missionary workers, Adam was born in Guatemala and lived there until he was a teenager, when his family moved to Denver. He spent time away from Colorado attending school in Boston, before returning to the state to complete his masters’ in Spanish literature. On the day of his first PhD course this summer, Adam decided instead to roll the dice with music.

It must be all that worldly knowledge that gives Adam’s music such a full and rich tone, that feels so far beyond an up and comer.  Take the first single “NYC,” which starts off sounding like a soft almost Death Cab for Cutie kind of tune, and transforms into a Ryan Adams and the Cardinals rocker just when the song reaches the one minute mark. It’s catchy, country, poppy, folky and rocking all at the same time.

This EP is just meant to be a taste of things to come, as Adam has a full length he’s working on for release early next year, and if this is any indicator, that album may be awesome.

— Brian F. Johnson