Just heard -- via our good pal (and record mogul behind the Floor Models CD) George Matzkou -- that the great John Wicks, auteur of power pop gods The Records, is seriously ill.
That being the case, George will be donating the proceeds from sales of all remaining stock of The Records tribute album he released last year to help with John's medical needs.
You can (and should) buy the album -- which is one of the best things of its kind ever -- over here. And light a metaphorical candle for John, who on top of everything else is a hell of a nice guy.
Snazzily dressed in my new Hugo Boss suit but looking a tad demented at the wedding of an old friend's daughter this past weekend. Photo courtesy of a certain Shady Dame of my acquaintance.
Nevertheless, a splendid time was had by all. I particularly liked when the rabbi announced that the happy couple's life together "would be awesome." I don't think I've ever heard a rabbi use that phrase before.
Regular musical postings, rather than faux GQ spreads, resume on the morrow.
Holy crap -- I actually love a new album by a young artist that was released in 2015!
Giddens may be old news to you guys -- cut me some slack, I'm a geezer -- but I hadn't heard of her until a month ago when I stumbled across the video version of that New Basement Tapes project that Elvis Costello chaired last year (Giddens steals it, BTW). In any case, it's pretty obvious that she's the real deal.
I should add, however, that I have some kind of a mental block -- perhaps because of the fact that she's named after a Stevie Nicks song -- that forces me to mangle her moniker. The other day, I actually referred to her as Persimmon Gilgamesh.
Went to see the reliably wonderful Willie Nile do a literally unplugged (no amplification whatsoever) set at the Rubin Museum in Manhattan Friday night. It was (unsurprisingly) terrific, with Willie pulling out all sorts of gems from his now ridiculously extensive song catalog; all told, the show was so good that I didn't miss the absence of drums and other loud stuff one whit (and if you know my general lack of tolerance for most acoustic troubadors you will understand what high praise that is).
Here's one of my favorite performances from the show (a studio version of the song can be found on Willie's 2010 album The Innocent Ones).
That said, Willie has a new two-disc live set out (deriving from performances at the Bottom Line in 1980 and 1990) in which he is backed by the aforementioned loud stuff, and at the very least disc one -- with his five-piece original band, featuring Patti Smith Group drummer Jay Dee Daugherty and Television bassist Fred Smith -- is now on my short list of the greatest live rock records ever made.
And here from disc one (the 1980 show) is the completely mind-blowing jangle-riffic assault that is "Vagabond Moon."
Seriously, opening numbers don't get any better than that. Hell, rock-and-roll in general doesn't get any better than that.
I should add that that said 1980 show marked the very first time(!) Willie had performed in front of an audience with a backing band, a fact which still blows my tiny mind after all these years. I should further add that disc two of the new album, with Willie's then band The Worry Dolls, has a much harder rock feel than the earlier show, but it's overall almost as good, and includes a very nice cover of The Who's "Substitue" to boot.
Also -- if you're unfamiliar with Willie, here's a link to the last thing I wrote about him at this here blog -- a sort of career retrospective occasioned by the release of his then (2009) latest album House of a Thousand Guitars, which behooves behearing. The money quote:
Let me get the gushing out of the way up front and stipulate for the record that the man is a bruised romantic with the soul of a poet and the sly heart of a standup comedian, a brilliant songwriter, a riveting performer, and as natural a rock 'n' roller as has ever worn shoe leather.
I stand by that assessment (and everything else in the linked piece) and I will also say, once more and for the record, that Willie's debut album (from whence most of the songs on the first disc of the Bottom Line album derive) is a stone masterpiece that belongs in everybody's collection.
In any case, said debut album (and the rest of Willie's album work) can be found over at Amazon, so what the fuck are you waiting for?
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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