The News Review:
- Singer Yoko Noge left Japan for Chicago with nothing but her love of…
- Smashing Pumpkins Sue Virgin Records ver Pepsi Promotion
- Esperanza Spalding: Voice of the Bass
- Home invasion blues
- Hard-driving performance puts music first
- Van Morrison at the New Theatre xford
- Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
Singer Yoko Noge left Japan for Chicago with nothing but her love of…
PopMatters – Mar 25, 2008
”The real thing at the time still existed in real places but barely. By the mid-1980s the blues had become less cultural thread than booming commodity. The city-sponsored Blues Festival in Grant Park started in 1984 introducing packs of young affluent white people to the music and they helped jam North Side clubs give birth to new clubs and make the blues music scene more chic than anyone could have imagined. This was terrific for performers who were used to getting paid as more than one put it “little more than bus fare” but it was also helping wipe out many neighborhood blues bars. In 1985 a man named Gino Battaglia was about to open a place called Blue Chicago on State Street near ak Street. “The original idea was to open as a bar and grill” he says. “But we started talking about other ideas and it hit us that there was a need for the blues in this area.
Smashing Pumpkins Sue Virgin Records ver Pepsi Promotion
Rolling Stone – Mar 25, 2008
”-I’ll give you that Chris Cornell has become lame but not because he lost his sense of “style” or “doesnt make hip video’s” anymore. It’s because his music sucks nowadays. -I’ll give you that Courtney love is creepier than Michael Jackson but she was never accepted by a lot of the “grunge” community anyway…Not surprising nowadaysWhat I’m trying to get down to is that the music of the 90’s was incredible. The 80’s was about fashion and the spoonfed-video revolution. I’ll agree with the fact that it was honest in the 80’s but it was pathetic. During the 90’s the underground was the mainstream and they took advantage of it signing to BIG labels and making the real $$$$$$ playing the comercial game… According to my relevant world CRGAN SUCKS!! Even Motley Crue sell out 9000 plus seats…. Billy only manages what a HUSE F BLUES or so. I lost all respect after the multiple versions of the bullshit album…but this takes the cake. Look billy you had some great moments in the 90s and put out some good music but its long over. go crawl back into your cage.
Esperanza Spalding: Voice of the Bass
NPR – Mar 25, 2008
“I walk into this room and it literally — it’s kind of below street level and light was shining in and the bass was just there with no case on it because they just bought it. And I walked into the room and picked it up and just started playing. “And at the same time my music teacher came in and showed me basically what a blues form was and I just kind of started making anything up” she adds. “And pretty much from that moment I said ‘Wow this is — in these five minutes I’m enjoying this music more than I have the last 10 years on the violin. ‘”Instant CommunicationSpalding says that the spontaneous connection she made that day remains a formative moment for her conception of jazz today. “That’s like the vein of jazz” she says. “It’s that ability to immediately be able to communicate with someone that you don’t know.
Home invasion blues
San Francisco Chronicle – Mar 25, 2008
Bucket is sitting on the railing outside our kitchen door looking like Jehovah himself on his throne of fire. A cat must stand on her own four legs right? A cat must not shrink from battle when all other remedies have been exhausted right? Tell that to BucketI like saying “Simple is the best. ” I like music and singing a song. I like goldfish in a water tank.
Hard-driving performance puts music first
Columbus Dispatch – Mar 25, 2008
The result was a set as taut as the band which began with arollicking The Ties That Bind and finished with a strident rendition of Badlands which evolved into joyous sing-a-long. Along the way Springsteen and the band cultivated an extra hard-rocking theme. Highlights included classic Boss-man stuff such as the working man’s blues The Promised Land and a monolithic extra-gospel-stoked version of Adam Raised a Cain which sounded like a collision of the ld Testament Son House andNeil Young and Crazy Horse. New tunes Gypsy Biker and Radio Nowhere two of the handful of tunes drawn from Springsteen’s 15th studio album Magic arrived as equally boisterous four-on-the-floor numbers. It wasn’t all arena-rattling. Through it all the E Street Band’s leader resembled a guy on a work site slingingauthoritative instructions to co-workers who seemed supercharged just to be at work.
Van Morrison at the New Theatre xford
Times nline – Mar 25, 2008
html”–>Then comes a lengthy run of songs from the 62-year-old Irish legend’s currentalbum Keep It Simple. n record they are tasteful blues tracks in thestyle of his 1970s classic Moondance but so simplistically arranged thatthey feel unfinished. Live they are a revelation. School of Hard KnocksHow Can a Poor Boy and the album’s title track all hark back to Morrison’sheyday and are sung in the warm velvety croon that first made him famous. That’s Entrainment on which he switches from alto sax to ukulele sauntersso close to classic Van the Man that you would swear it was an early 1970sdemo that he had recently discovered in a bottom drawer and finally gotround to recording. The xford crowd however have clearly come to hear hits and one hour inthey are finally rewarded with Bright Side of the Road… Where the three stars in the review comes from I just don’t knowPeter Beynon Ammanford Walesbut people here in the uk don’t allow others to clap and enjoy the gig like it has hapen to me last 2 times i’ve went to a van gig. the first time i’ve watch van was at 1991 in lisbon my home town at a terreble pleace in terms off acustic I was 15 I went alone and i fall in love for is music and is stile. my favorit albuns are. and "make it simple"keep it going van you are a good person!rui pedro colne lancashireReal Van fans know that Van isn’t an oldies act.
Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
Johns Hopkins News-Letter – Mar 25, 2008
“1492″ is the most raw I’ve ever heard Counting Crows sound and frankly they sound quite unlike themselves. It’s churning and angry; a seemingly unusual choice as the first song on a long awaited album. Yet somewhere beneath all the music the pensive and provocative lyrics that Counting Crows are famous for are revealed. “h where did we disappear into the silence that surrounds us and then drowns us in the end where these people who impersonate our friends?”"Los Angeles” is one song I could have done without. Admittedly the melody works really well in that slightly bluesy style and the subject seems to be a favorite of Duritz (“Goodnight LA” anyone?) However somewhere towards the end of the song we hear “We’re gonna get drunk find ourselves some skinny girls and go street-walkin. Duritz what happened to those excerpts of poetic prose I just praised? Rather the Crows used this as an advertisement for L… Like Vines was a poppy catchy album with several standout tracks that got your toes a-tappin’. Lead singer Greta Salpeter’s voice was light and clear though backup singer Robert Morris sometimes made too sharp a contrast. Now on Goodbye Blues the Hush Sound has moved toward maturity while still trying to retain some of its original catchy charm. The first single “Medicine Man” is a more bluesy jazzy song. Salpeter’s voice loses some of its clarity but gains something in growly emotion. I was reminded very distinctly of Fiona Apple’s better work. Salpeter groans deep blues-notes and gives a “whoa-oh” to challenge Amy Winehouse.
