The Meat Puppets Rugged Legacy

Curt Kirkwood Speaks Out

 

Curt Kirkwood came of age during the insidious lull of 1980. It proved to be a prophetic year. Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. John Lennon was assassinated, Mount St. Helens erupted and the Meat Puppets were born. Curt is the singer and focal point of the band and remains its center of gravity.  Brother-other Cris Kirkwood gives the band its soul. He is a songwriter and an extraordinary musician. They give sibling rivalry a darker hue almost as wickedly contrary as Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis. The Meat Puppets started out as a punk band but quickly shed that label by choosing an eclectic and unique blend of rock & roll, country punk and psychedelia. They gained a lifetime’s notoriety by sitting in as guest musicians on Nirvana’s triumphant performance on MTV Unplugged in 1993. Their 1994 masterpiece Too High To Die, produced by the Butthole Surfers, gave them even greater respect with the rock cognoscenti. The Meat Puppets had their share of success as well as soul numbing hardship including struggles with addiction, violence and imprisonment. They have broken up twice and reunited for good in 2006. The Meat Puppets thirteenth album Lollipop was released on April 12^th, 2011 and they went on a spring tour of Europe. It is the Meat Puppet’s stubborn individuality that makes them unpredictable – a cause of frustration to fans and critics alike.  In the glow of a long career and the wisdom of time, Curt Kirkwood is focused on those things that matter most to him love and family…and music

You’ve had a long storied 30 career and you’ve had a lot of success along with the downside of the business. What keeps you going?

I just love doing it, its fun. Probably sometimes out of the clear blue, you know, but it’s lasted. It has its own strange life, apparently.

I remember reading about the early days in this cow-punk term that seems to be used a lot lately, but it sounded like it was derived from your early stuff. Is it?

Yeah, I guess there’s all kinds of stuff that we’ve done, and people turn on to certain things about it, just to be fair to the band overall. It’s pretty hard to pigeon-hole it outside and say it’s just a rock band, you know, more or less. I don’t know, sometimes more than others there’ve been elements of country but there’s nothing that’s ever been a particular focus. In terms of early influences, there are all those musical forms that I grew up with, listening to live music and the radio.

 You’re really an inventive guitarist who’s not afraid to take risks. You can do so many things from Don Rich-like country to hard rockin’ metal. I just wondered how you developed your unique and eclectic guitar style. Who inspired you? Did you take lessons?

Thanks for the compliment. That’s good question – I loved the Buckaroos and you know, Scotty Moore was also inspiring. I took some lessons for sure. I took lessons early on from a guy that taught classical guitar and a kind of flamenco style and I met some guys that taught me several chords - Jimmy Reed style and guys like Wes Montgomery and Bobby Kessel. Well, that was pretty early on. I was never very motivated in school and the teachers used to give me a lot of crap, you know. So I just started hanging out with people and we started playing the music - that was later in high school and I was kind of rusty but I could like play guitar when everybody else was just starting to learn how to play guitar. I spent a number of years learning the craft, and it was pretty easy to pick it up. But it took me a good number of years before I was comfortable with it.

Who has influenced you musically influence you musically

Nirvana influenced us – their take on our song Lake of Fire was just phenomenal. Nirvana influenced everybody, for sure. The Butthole Surfers are a big influence. I mean I just always loved them. I don’t know how much I’ve gotten, although for sure. It’s hard to tell because those guy s were so long, and it’s just like you know, when you’re close to people that way, it’s hard to tell how much you’re getting off of them.  The people I’ve known longest were in that type of band.

What was it like when you felt the first flush of fame in the 90s? Did that turn your head?

Not really ‘because you can see what it is. When the topic is brought up, it doesn’t make that much difference. You’re still being in music one way or the other. It’s kind of funny to see the fame from the outside. From the inside, you’re still just playin’ music and dealin’ with yourself and the same life. It’s just your life as you’ve been living it. You can only eat so much good food and that kind of stuff. That’s how it becomes. Here is the whole idea of money and the inconvenience of fame, but it’s also fun.

What’s your relationship been like with the record labels? You’ve recorded on a few different labels and now the Mega Force label. Were they forthcoming with royalties and support, artistic freedom?

 I don’t have any complaints in all the places where it counted... I never have. It’s all been real easy, you know. Everybody has different stories, for sure, and you know, we had a real logical progression from indie labels to a major label. The big studios never told us what to record. They just made sure that we stuck to doing it in a cool way that they could get behind which was just getting us used to spending more money than we were used to. The might say, “Go ahead, you can do that, take your time,” and blah-blah. Our producers were all wonderful - it was all great fun. I’ve had a good time with them. Mega Force is great. 

 You released a bunch of studio albums, like 13 or so. Do you have any favorites in particular?

Oh, you know that stuff changes all the time. It just depends on what I’m listening to at the time. I listen to some of those old LPs and I just hear the words and I remember the recording process. I just hear them in different ways. It’s always been hard for me to say that this one is my favorite or that one really stands out. I just put a lot into each one. What I see in them is kind of what I put into them.

Did “Too High To Die” take a particular warm spot in your heart because it started you down that road of wider recognition?

It’s believed I was responsible for the success of that LP but it was really Paul Leery (the producer).  It was a project that we really had a lot of confidence in and we had little support from the label at the time as they weren’t sure how we should proceed. Once we started recording with Paul, it became a career and it was the first time when we’d been just handed a major label budget where everything we needed was all included. So here we all are with a good budget. Its like, “Oh, okay. Cool.” We made the album the way that we kind of felt it should be made, you know, but we also paid attention to this other stuff ‘cause we got money. Yeah, it was rough. It’s hard. I spent a long time in Memphis doing this recording and it was just a tremendous experience.

Do you have a particular producer or engineer that you really liked, that you worked with and you found them to be especially gifted?

I have just been lucky. I haven’t jumped around a whole lot, stayed in one spot. We started with the SSG label and then Steven Stalia and Paul Straight. Paul’s brother, Stuart was our engineer on “Too Young To Die” - and that was awesome. We got to work with Peter Dell at Capitol. He was amazing. He really got us to where we wanted to be. So we’ve been a bit lucky. I haven’t spent a lot of time in studios unless I’m making a record. That’s the thing. I got to focus on what I got goin’ on there and incorporate whatever aspects there were. It all becomes part of the overall theme.

I really like the country feel of Lollipop with those tight, close harmonies. You even include a cool rock-a-billy song in on it (Baby Don’t).  Do you think it’s a musical departure?

Well, you know the first song on that I wrote in probably ’83, and there’s stuff from all over the place on there. The music is related to certain things, you know. Some of it sounds a little bit like a solo record, something with Pete Anderson. I think it gets a little bit more of an acoustic vibe off of that. It probably started out as an acoustic thing, and we tried to make sure that we didn’t overwhelm the sound when we cut the original tracks with the acoustic guitar.

I think you’re an excellent song writer and you had some far-out lyrics from time to time. Do you write from a personal perspective? Does that resonate with you or make the songs more precious to you?

You know, I just like the songs. It’s cool when they come up and remember them and you know, I’ve been lucky that I can write songs because it kind of makes me feel like I have, you know, whatever my personal perspective is, that life experience. I’m generally happy with that. I kind of make sure it gets in there somehow, but mostly I’m just having fun with it. You know, I try to come up with a little bit of a different angle just for myself so it didn’t sound like somebody else very time I wrote something. I tried to come up with just whatever, you know, made it personal. We just didn’t lay a thing in it. You know? Then I just have kind of had fun with it, the stuff that seems to fit with the music and you know, it’s cool to get outside yourself that way. I’ve written plenty of stuff like “this is how I feel,” but a lot of times I end up editing it where you can’t really tell what’s going on. I’ve always looked at it like okay, you’ve got theses thoughts and all this different stuff, and it’s also fun to put it in a way that it’s like, you now, where it’s not so direct. That way it sometimes leads to even further interpretations, and people can make what they want out of it. It’s making sense, but it’s not nonsense necessarily, but it’s coming from the basis that we really use just art, and it’s the real thing, whatever emotion. Art tends to be more than that, more than emotions.

.

How did you happen to name the new LP Lollipop?

The way the album cover started to come out, we started to think that it would be a good album cover and then we thought that we needed to call it “Lollipop” because those were two things that needed to get done, and they just kind of got them simultaneously. It’s like the song goes with the title and then we just proceed like that. So it’ really doesn’t have any meaning beyond that. We just saw that painting, and it was like, “Oh, Lollipop.”

As you’re out touring, are your fans listening to the new stuff or are they clamoring for the older stuff, like “Backwater Like a Dream?”  

They always like the old stuff, for sure. You know, you just slip new stuff in over the years. It just depends on what we want to do. It’s definitely something where we have enough throughout the years to where we can play a few songs and do stuff that they don’t know, and people are patient. The crowds have always been nice that way.

Do you have any surprises in the set list for Saginaw?

I think there are always surprises. I mean they are really only surprises if they’re surprises to me. I’m sure there will be. I’ll allow for just about any. We really don’t have a set list, so you never know what you’re going to get. Something will pop into somebody’s mind at one point and we all concede to it. It happens real fast. It happens between friends.

You know, somebody is thinking, “Well, I want to play a slower song or something like that. They wont’ say much, just something like “Somethin’ slower.”

What do you believe to be your greatest accomplishment?

You know, I would have to say I’m old fashioned. I really love my kids. That’s where I’ve been at for years and years, and my greatest thing has been Scott. You know I love my band. It goes without saying that it’s a great accomplishment to have a cool band like this. And my private life for sure. My private life has been very rewarding. I have a couple of great kids. That’s been the thing that kept me focused in a lot of ways.

You know I was going to ask a question. This is just for me, I guess, because I was such a big fan of Doug Sam, and “She’s about a Mover” and “Mendocino.” I had all his early vinyl albums and Texas Tornado and stuff. Here you got his son in the band. You know, I think that’s really cool. Do Shandon Sam and that lineage have an influence on the band?

Without a question. You know, that’s pretty direct right there. You could talk to Shandon, and he’d fill up a good amount of your time. He knows as much as anybody does about Doug. It was just coincidental that Shandon was Doug’s kid. He knows how to do that stuff, you know. He plays Doug’s songs. Doug was a good friend and an inspiration to us all.

 Do you have any last comments?

I am really looking forward to coming to Saginaw. I know a good number of people in the area, and I think they’re really into it. It’s a strange homecoming to a place that I’ve never been. It should be pretty cool.

Book Review - Life by Keith Richards

Life
Keith Richards

It seems unnecessary for an unknown peripatetic hack to review a book released in May of 2010, especially a blockbuster universally acclaimed by all of the big name publishers like the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time, the New Yorker and all the rags from Washington to San Francisco. I do not for a minute believe I can add anything relevant to the discussion of Keith Richards spectacular autobiographical sketches about his life and times as a rock & roll superstar. I just need to do this. Like a voyeur peeking through a window I’m driven by a need to learn the naked truth about the rock & roll I’ve clung to for most of my life. Perhaps the adventures and foibles of Keith Richards would reveal a truth about myself and answer a question about why on earth would such a simple art form resonate so deeply with me for most of my adult life.
The first chapter forgoes the typical biographical beginnings. Instead of getting a glimpse of Keith when he was only a gleam in father’s eyes, Richards takes us back to 1975 to Fordyce Arkansas and an infamous cocaine bust by the local authorities. This was the age of hopefulness led by President Jimmy Carter. The Nixon/Hoover axis of paranoia was gradually declining in America. The conditions were right for Keith to get off without much of a penalty in this almost surreal keystone cop comedy of errors that included a drunken judge, an enraged police chief, a bag filled with $5000 cash, and worldwide TV coverage. In the end the Judge ordered that Keith and Ronnie wood hold a press conference with their arms around the judge, Case closed; a classic outcome.
The book shifts back to Richards’ early life growing up in the Dartford marshes in England with his quirky yet loveable parents Bert and Doris. Richards readily admits that his childhood experiences were a bit different. He was an only child and his parent broke up quietly as mom took on a live-in lover. Bert eventually left and Keith transformed himself from a choirboy to a school rebel. He was expelled from Dartford High School for smoking, ditching the graduation assembly and simply not doing his work. In an unlikely turn of events Richards befriended an art instructor to help him enroll in Sidcup Art College. The seeds were set for Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones.
The book starts picking up steam in Chapter 3 when Keith meets Mick, Brian Jones, and Dick Taylor (the Pretty Things) and they share their love for American blues and rock & roll. These young upstarts had a purist attitude and approach to music that served them well in terms of the immense learning curve that awaited them.
In 1962, the blues scene was in full swing. One of the biggest groups at the time was led by Alexis Korner. They were booked to do a BBC broadcast on July 12th, 1962 and asked Keith if he could fill in for him at the Marquee Club. This was an historic first performance of the Rolling stones with core members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones with Dick Taylor on bass and Mick Avory (The Kinks) on drums. They did several blues classics including Dust my broom, got My Mojo Working, and Confessin’ the Blues. Richards’ characterized the experience as “flying without a license.”
Richards had the foresight to keep detailed journals throughout his career with the Stones. He also asked family and friends to contribute the correspondence between them to help flesh out the story of his life , to recapture the memory of successes and near misses as well as his unrepentant ironic writing style. His humor and whimsy are supple, dark and laugh out loud funny. It gives the reader the sense that you’re sitting in the kitchen with Keith just lazy talking the truth. We also find out that Richards famous nickname Keef appeared at this time (1963).
The pace accelerates in 1964 when the Stones hook up with Andrew Loog Oldham. Initially and oddly enough, Oldham wanted to remake the stones in the Beatles image – no long haired dirty, rude rock & roll ruffians. This lasted exactly one time, an appearance on Thank Your Lucky Stars, after that the stones embraced the dharma of the unclean rock & roller. In 1964 they released a series of popish ballads Not fade Away, Tell Me, Play With Fire. An American tour was set up and Keith Richards met one of the loves of his life - Ronnie Spector. It was a soul-deep relationship that endured years apart and distance between. They even recorded a song together on 9/11 entitled Love Affair. Richards describes the explosion of creativity within the Stones camp from 1964-66, culminating in the incredible LP Aftermath. He gives Jack Nitzsche credit for his talent, ideas and “enormous importance” at this stage in the Stones career. Then came “Satisfaction” – it elevated the Rolling Stones to Beatlesque superstardom. Mick wrote the lyrics and Richards created the famous riff using a Gibson fuzz tone pedal. Keith revealed that for years he had difficulty playing Satisfaction onstage. He felt that he could never get the sound quite right, it sounded “weedy.”
In 1965, Oldham left and Allen Klein began to manage the Stones career. It worked quite nicely at first with Klein exploiting the Stones “hoodlum” image as a sharp contrast to the clean “mummy’s favorites’ Beatles. Both images were manufactured and both were false. Richards compares the relationship between Klein and the Stones to the micro-management of Elvis by Colonel Tom Parker.
Richards spends some time giving Brian Jones his due – his musicality i.e., the marimbas on Under My Thumb ,the sitar on Paint it Black and so on. But he also minimized Brian’s role in the formation of the band. Other sources close to the band have consistently reported that Jones was the leader of the Rolling Stones in their formative years. He also confirmed his opinion that Mick Jagger is a world class lyricist. I agree.
One of the most interesting segments in the book are the ones that focus on the Stones music and creative process, Richards provides a fascinating discussion about the open tuning method whereby a guitar is simply pre-tuned to a ready-made major chord. He learned this technique from Don Everly (The Everly Brothers) , an adept rhythm guitarist, who used open tuning on Wake Up Little Susie and Bye Bye Love. Ry Cooder showed Richards the open G tuning (though it was used almost exclusively for slide guitar). Richards fiddled with it for a while until he felt constricted by the bottom string, it seemed to just “get in the way.” So he took it off and used the fifth string (the A string) as the bottom note. He states “The beauty, the majesty of the five-string open G tuning for an electric guitar is that you’ve only got three notes – the other two are repetitions of each other an octave apart.” Keith’s discovery is responsible for the sound he created in Honky Tonk Women, Start Me Up, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking and other great Stones songs. In fact, those fans who grouse that the Stones haven’t created an original riff in years are right, at least partially. It’s all due to Richards’ open tuning style.
Richards wrote in length about the Stones’ infamous 1972 Exile on Main Street Tour. It was an incredible success musically despite the excessive use of drugs and alcohol. I had tickets to the Detroit show and was eagerly anticipating it. I had never seen them live and from Beggars Banquet onward I was a quietly devoted fan. But it was Let it Bleed and Exile on Main Street that took me over the edge of rabid fandom. I became a true believer. Unfortunately, I contracted a serious case of mononucleosis. I was in bed for several weeks and lost 25lbs. When my friends came back from the concert, I asked them if they liked the show. They responded, “Best show we’ve ever seen.”
Bastards
Richards recalled a life that had unparalleled ups and downs - dreamy love excursions to Paris, Barcelona, Tangiers, Morocco as well as times spent addicted and shivering in a drug shack and resorting to the use of dirty street drugs. He talks about his intense and passionate relationship with Anita Pallenberg and a nightmarish ending that they both survived, somehow. For Rolling Stones aficionados these love stories may seem like turning down a side street and getting momentarily lost. It is a bit less interesting than the real love story in this tome – the Jagger/Richards relationship. Richard’s criticisms of Jagger are venomous, viscous as if a core wound cut a deep chasm between unfaithful lovers. It is a story about a deep unresolved love. Richards ambivalence toward Jagger runs throughout the book. He seems confused by his own tangle of complex feelings of love and betrayal. But then, Richards also defends Jagger, vowing he would never allow anyone hurt his dear friend, he’s rather do it himself (nudge, nudge). He also hints at a rapprochement, a resolution of the conflict between them.
One the eve of the Rolling Stones 50th year together, the Stones camp is talking about the possibility of an extended tour. I’ll be there
In the meantime, buy this book. It’s one of the most honest and detailed rock & roll biographies I’ve ever read. It is a page turner of the first degree.

Peace
Bo White

The Tosspints - An Irish Red Ruckus

The Tosspints

An Irish Red Ruckus
&
The Fear Of An Empty Glass

It isn’t everyday that one band emerges out of the pack to lead a cultural change that is as astonishing as it is necessary. The Tosspints have been an integral part of the water clock bringing ancient sounds and stories back to the future in perfect calibration with our innate need to hear music and feel rhythm. The Tosspints create music of beauty and discord; love and pain. It is real like a punch in the face or a deep shudder in your solar plexus after chugging a pint of Guinness. It hurts but you like it. Their current disc Cenosillicaphobia is being released on CD and vinyl! Retro is now and vinyl LPs are making a comeback. Thank god we came back to our senses and returned to the sound of music - analog rules! We found out that CD’s don’t have the rich warm sound of vinyl nor do they hold up very well. This time around the Tosspints do not hold back anything,. The medium is the message and punk has a way of cutting to the chase whether is love and infidelity or death and despair. The anti-war sentiments fashioned by Don Zuzula are brutally honest. Zuzula served in the military and he knows only too well the costs of conflict. He was stationed in Iraq and he saw it all. War is hell and war is horrifying and it seems that his sense of humor kept him balanced between stillness and action. It was a form of Zuzula’s alternate rebellion when he painted “No Fat Girls” on his truck when the rest of the caravan painted slogans like “Death to Saddam” or “Kill Al Quaeda.” It was genius threefold. It was a way to survive, to find meaning in suffering.

The first track Drunken Ramblings of a Jealous Man grabs you right at the start with a galloping beat and a cracked whiskey voice. It’s almost as if Zuzula is talking with you at the kitchen table - only the pain is too big and the words are unspoken. He sings about life on the road - drinking himself to sleep and performing to crowds that don’t always get it. He gets by with “bloodstains on my fingers; teardrops from my eyes. This is a song of infidelity and an impulse to murder. The despair is indelibly stamped and there is no satisfying conclusion to the betrayal. Zuzula ends the song with a powerful accapella reading

Whiskey Be My Savior is outrageous high energy rock that owes as much to the Sex Pistols as it does to the Dropkick Murphys. The influences converge to create a perfect storm of combustible booze-filled Punk. It is a Dionysian dream of excess and consumption. In this bleary vision Zuzula is suckling from a toxic breast. He sings, “the only time I feel death is when my bottle’s empty.” It is sung as a mantra for numbness. It is a dissociative response to a life dissolved by pain and self-destruction. Many of us have been there. Zuzula is standing outside the pain and observing his own mastery over it

The third track, Don’t Cry at My Funeral, has an honest unflinching fatalism. It’s an existential horror to discover that your life did not matter. This is a punked up working man’s blues that evokes visions of filthy back breaking and mind numbing work for paltry wages. It can kill your soul. You work for the man and die quietly without fanfare. There is nothing to mourn. The speeded up breakneck tempo mirrors the workaday bustle that robs you of all the sparkle life can offer. The insurance man talks you into a policy and in the heaviness of an unrelenting ennui you realize your passion and taste for life are gone. Suddenly a thought intrudes -I’m worth more dead than alive.

Underclass Zero is a breakup song. Joseph Heller once said, “I only got married to find out what divorce is like.” It isn’t that simple or that cavalier. Heller was out of his mind. In any failing love relationship, a once enduring bond becomes a nightmare of hopelessness and regret. And you may dwell on what you could have done differently. If only…
Zuzula sings,
I think of myself as a working class hero
You think of me as an underclass zero
You threw me away
Zuzula almost chokes on the words as he spits them out with a mix of pain and anger;
You tell me I gotta go
I got to leave my home

Brothers Lament is an incendiary rocker with a million dollar riff. The Tosspints perform it at frantic breakneck speed. This is a “Johnny Piss-off” song about a roller coaster ride that is coming off the tracks – it’s a song about addiction and the despair of the people who love and care about the addict. The Fugs couldn’t do it any better than this. The lyrics are straightforward and righteously angry:
I don’t know what I’m doing here
You look me in the eyes
And mine deflect and look right into the floor
I can’t take it no more


Save Us is classic punk – speeded up, loud and straight to the point. The lyrics are filled up with tales of drunkenness and despair but the underlying message is all about feisty resilience and a big FU to anyone who can’t see that the ship is sinking. The singer sings about an empty life and an empty bottle of gin but he’s just being actively passive and more than a little rhetorical. When he sings, “Who the fuck is gonna save us from our goddam self, he already knows the answer. He must save himself.

Johnny Johnson opens One Last Shot with a dynamic syncopated drum pattern. Johnson is one of the most solid powerhouse drummers on the scene today and he snaps off a beat like he’s part of the drum kit. He is the beat. Zuzula adds in a few minimalist melodic guitar tones that speak volumes. The song shifts from quiet to loud and it takes off like a rocket. Prime Cobain. This is a song about war in a foreign land. It evokes an existential dilemma about right and wrong and explores our worst fears about our soldier boy – a fear that he will never go back home. It is what we might imagine to be a Soldier’s song – cacophonous and quiet; brave and afraid.

Johnson is once again front and center on You Shouldn’t Do This Alone. He changes up the rhythm with a variation of the Bo Diddley beat with an oddly compelling Dick Dale surf guitar. This is solemn goodbye with a hint of longing and regret. It contains the ancient wisdom of our forefathers that acknowledges melancholia as the natural state for a thoughtful person. The lyrics speak of unconscionable loss and forgiveness. It is the voice of a spirit.
I promise I’m not that mad
You are the best friend I’ve ever had
We’ll meet again someday

It is another master stroke creation from the heart and minds of Don, Zak and Johnny.
A perfect closer.

Epilogue: In the past few months, The Tosspints have participated in George Killian’s Irish Red Ruckus Sweepstakes, a promotional contest created by the company to highlight its support of cutting edge music. Killian's has been scouring clubs and concert halls around the country to invite bands for a chance to perform at the Irish Red Ruckus. Bands have been enlisting their fans, friends and family to vote for them to get to the Ruckus. Four finalists were determined by getting the most votes received in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. The winner will open for the Dropkick Murpheys on November 17th, 2011. And the winner is…The Tosspints! Congratulations Guys!

Peace
Bo White

The Esperantos

The Esperantos have been plenty busy gigging heavily around Mid-Michigan and befriending Boston’s premier garage band, The Charms featuring Ellie Vee. The Charm’s manager Steev Ricardo was so enamored by the talents of The Esperantos he signed them to his label Red Car Records and produced their eponymous titled CD. This time around the block (this is their sophomore effort), the Esperantos and the Svengali-like Ricardo have produced an incredible garage sound, 3 minute teenage anthems with frantic beats, squealin’ guitar (hit that E-string, brother) and a pimply preoccupation with your best girl –and maybe just a little on the side Each chorus is an instant sing-a-long punctuated with grunts, groans, yipes and hollers, falsetto screams, and any number of oh-yeah’s. And the verses contain a thematic appreciation for all forms of hangin’ out, hookin’ up, dumping and getting dumped, getting’ some and not getting any at all…ahh the angst. This CD puts the F back into fun and that’s what Esperantos music is all about F-U-N. Let’s take a listen to this non-stop rock fest…

Escort a great high energy rocker with hooks that instantly recognizable and a great slashing guitar riff…
I kiss your lips and gently touch your thighs
we brace ourselves, closing our eyes
But after this we’ll say our goodbyes
You see my girl no-no no-no

cool

I’m you seems like it’s straight outta the Sky Saxon “Pushing Too Hard” songbook, barely decipherable but compelling nonetheless

Prognosis is a break-up song – call the Love Doctor right away… a broken heart ain’t nuthin’ that a little lovin’ won’t cure…teenage angst at its big-beat best with a cool, falsetto vocal at the end that let’s you know it’ll be alright. Oh, I feel so smoochie, baby.
Jesus Saves is punked up rocker with a message about rock ‘n roll salvation - Gospel according to the Lizard King. The vocal is filtered to give it an almost metallic Rick Ocasek feel. It’s a hoot and ends too soon.
Cool it Down is a stompin’ delight that has ya singin’ along. The insistent chorus is all you have to remember. Before you move too fast and hit the ground, you gotta…Cool it Down.
Got What I Need is all about primal urges that lead to pleasure and pain and all kinds of unexpected complications. But in the heat of the moment you can throw good sense out the window. All she needs to do is shake that ass and pucker her lips and you better bet that your little Wendell will be a smilin’. This is good rockin’ tonight, mama that is guaranteed to get it movin’.
Pollute Your Mind starts with a softly thumping bass line and high pitched feedback that crescendos into a heavy metal ambience…reminiscent of Iggy. The protagonist is losing his mind and soul for a thing called rock and roll. Go ahead blow your mind, you just might discover something wild and untamed. But… does it ease all the pain?
Better Treat Me Right is another high energy, pull out all the stops rocker that begs the question what’s a young man to do? It’s thematically consistent and a close cousin to Got What I Need.
The steamy I’ll Be Your Man (You do it to me) has a Nirvana feel, shifting from a soft contemplative vibe to an all out screaming thrash fest. It is a ribald ode to the high art of psychosexual drama.
Media Screen is a funky rockin’ tribute to Mcluhan’s warning - the medium is the message. So turn on, tune in and drop out!
Fuel For Greed has a guitar intro that recalls Wayne Kramer. This number rocks hard and takes a gutsy stance against class inequities and the greed that drives American hegemony. Revolt completes the ending triad of tunes that speaks to social injustice, poverty and racism. It’s a minor chord classic and an anthem for the streets.

The Esperantos have released a disc for the times in which we live. This is rock and roll in its finest hour – fun and sexy but imbued with an awareness of the streets. The Esperantos have succeeded in taking us back to our golden years and giving us hope for the future. Rock ain’t dead…this is the proof.

Peace,
Bo White
9/18/06

Empty Pockets - IDIODICY

I haven’t heard a disc that sounded this good since Moby Grape’s debut in ’67. It’s an 8th wonder, a sonic time capsule that catapults us back to the future and allows us to regain a step we lost a few years back and recover from the dusty torpor of today’s scene with the same 5 bands-in-demand playing original music in rotation, club-to-club, takin’ hard hits from sing-a-long karaoke and the best cover bands in the state. Whew… now everybody’s doin’ it, there’s more and more places to hang yer microphones and belch out yer version of Every Rose Has its Thorn or any other turgid hair-metal nonsense from the eighties, it’s all too much, brother, especially when the street pub cannibals feed on their young and hiss, “you better figure out your priorities.” Everybody gets a serving. And no one can make sense of what is true and right or what’s just the rantings of a musical snob like yours truly. Snob, indeed-gimme a little Louie Louie with a side of the 13 Floor Elevators and I’ll be in rock n’ roll heaven – not the Righteous Brothers’ version.
Gimme the Beatles’ 2nd Album and the gospel of “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.”
Gimme music that matters.
Shake it up with Question Mark & the Mysterians or die you sniveling nincompoops!

The slow dying death of rock n’ roll is upon us like junky blood infecting everyone with HIV...just as Burroughs’ Naked Lunch reveals an anguished cry for truth to anybody who gives a damn. But few ever understood that dilemma between art and commerce and many hated rock & roll without really listening to it just as people today offhandedly dismiss hip hop or rap.

. Rock n’ roll is a stubborn ‘old tomcat that used up eight of its nine lives; it just may be time for its final burial in some doomed post-apocalyptic trash heap in Cleveland. It is gonna happen sooner or later, better not hedge your bets, buy some stuff on credit and pray for a timely death - it’s yer only way out of this cultural purgatory!!

: Except if you’re a true believer like me.
Seems every time I lose hope that I’ll ever hear great new music, someone arrives on the scene to save the day and renew my spirit. It’s happened in the late nineties with the resurgence of Johnny “Boomer” Krogman and the explosive entrance of Sprout & the Orange. Stamp’d rocked my world and more recently Maybe August showed me the path to enlightenment. They gave me hope for the future. Rock hasn’t died yet, there’s nothing quite like it and nothing can replace it.

John Lennon once said, “There’s nothing conceptually better than rock & roll. It was the only thing that could get through to me out of all the things that were happening when I was fifteen. Rock & roll was real.”

And so is the music of Empty Pockets. They’ve been around for several years, releasing a CD every now and again, showing sparks but cooling off…until now. They knocked me out this past summer with a stunning performance at Tittabawassee Park in a benefit organized by the Freeland Athletic Association. It was a lovely summer’s day, fresh and warm and fueled by good wine, cheese and an assortment of sweet culinary delights. A good-feeling communal spirit filled the air. What struck me about Empty Pocket’s performance was not just their glorious rock & roll music but the confident, easy manner in which they involved the audience.
To top it off, lead singer Mike McMath completed a painting of a lavender iris on this huge 4ft by 5ft canvas during the performance, never missin’ a stroke - ooh, baby!

The release of Idiodicy signals the renaissance of Empty Pockets, a commitment to quality and craft yet still making music that is crunchy, melodic and a whole lot of fun.

REM is a minor chord miracle that recalls CSN on Wooden Ships. It’s a powerful ballad that is colored in pain, both in its plain spoken lyrics and its sad musical tapestry. The words convey the absolute sorrow experienced in the loss of someone you once loved:
Now you know my misery
Now you feel my pain
The vocal is emotive and soulful and the extended screaming guitar solo in the coda reveals the misery behind the lyrics. This is a brutally honest and frank portrait of a man with a broken heart.

Desperate Soul is a sweet 12 bar blues with nice economical use of the slide that continues the theme introduced by the previous track. But this time the writer acknowledges this is “living hell” and that acceptance is the only way out. By writing the song, he puts the pain outside of himself and loosens its power over his state of mind. The next step is radically accepting the pain and sorrow. Given the current reality of the loss, how could it be otherwise?

Land Down Under is an elegant cover of a great song by Aussie Colin Hay & Men at Work. The first verse is sung acapella and it segues into a guitar-driven up-tempo rocker. The band’s singers are gifted with some-kinda wonderful pipes. Great singing is their trademark – especially those tight soaring harmonies. The guitarist Rick Manges really lets loose on this sleeper...covers never sounded so good!

15 minutes is a straight ahead blues rocker with some fabulous lead singing that recalls Moby Grape on Miller’s Blues. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek and decries the discreet charm of the bourgeois dilettante as it pokes fun of the instant gratification of the American Idol, You Tube and Reality TV. Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame has turned into a nightmare…everyone’s got the itch

Breath to Flesh is heavy metal rocker reminiscent of the Troggs’ muscular guitar opus Feels Like a Woman. It’s a delightful ode to love, sex and sex and a touch of intimacy and, of course, more sex. It’s written from the perspective of the reptilian brain… which goes something like this:
Can I eat it?
Can it eat me?
Can I have sex with it?

But I have to admit I may over-stating the sex part - just a bit (for my own needs).

A jagged machine-gun guitar riff, with a little wah-wah for good measure, dominates Shake. This is a great toe-tappin’, booty-shakin’ dance number that drops names and takes numbers. J-lo? Horney bastards. The middle eight contains a good lovin’ bring-sexy-back rap:
Relax
Don’t do it
When you gonna go to it
Relax
Don’t do it
When you gonna come
,/B>

Cruel Lady is a cool jazz ballad with some tasteful guitar. This guy Manges is a real player, workin’ up and down the frets, bending that E-string and pickin’ some of the most full-bodied delightful notes since Junior Watson joined the Mighty Flyers. This song is about a kept man who feels he can’t speak his mind. This woman - in a perfect role reversal - treats him like an object. She pays the bills and lives by the “golden rule” – whoever has the gold makes the rules. The song is a form of alternate rebellion; it’s a chance for him to say screw you without getting into trouble.

Hey Carlos is a tribute to Santana and opens with a bass line straight out of the Mann & Weill catalog and segues into the sweetest Spanish guitar work since Carlos blew us away at Woodstock. The guitar work is phenomenal with Manges taking turns with Michael Robertson (Maybe August) and Dave Kellan. These fine musicians really stretch out and strut their stuff...they flat out play their asses off. This track is a standout – it’s SMOKIN’

Fuse is the final statement of loss and longing, the plaintive sentiment is balanced by the powerful music. A fuse has blown, the wish isn’t granted and sometimes he just functions. The squealing full bodied Hendrix-like guitar at the coda provides the sonic equivalent to the lyrical sentiments of the song – powerful!

This is one of the most open and honest musical statements since Alex Chilton bared his soul on his obscure lo-fidelity masterpiece Flies on Sherbert or when Neil Young blew me away with Prairie Wind.

Kudos to Empty Pockets for creating a disc of “real” songs with great singing and playing and a clean crisp sound compliments of wunderkind producer Rick Armstrong @ Big Bear studios. Buy this disc and stand up for good music.

Peace
Bo White

Doug Deming & the Jewel Tones - Double Down

Doug Deming is one of those rare artists that perform and record for the SAKE of the music. A respect so real, so pure, that it simply cannot be denied. And it's reflected in Doug's style and approach to composition and in the way he lays it down on his debut recording for Mighty Tiger Records.

"Double Down" is a musical treasure - a recording of such rootsy eclecticism that it covers just about every form of American Music - from basic 12-Bar Blues, to Jump Blues and Swing, Jazz, and Rockabilly - twelve Deming originals that resonate with conviction and authenticity.
This is the real deal
And it reminds me what is possible when an artist stays true to his muse without being twisted and pulled by trends or gimmicks.
Deming has the looks and personal charisma of a modern day Elvis but he never trades off form for substance. And he doesn't sell out. He simply plugs in a lets the music take over... in a style that combines (Mose) Allison cool with T-Bone flash.
Deming writes in straight forward style and he's at his best when he writes those wonderfully concise and wicked metaphors or when he's "kidding on the square"

The disc opens with "Goodbye Baby", an uptempo slap-jackin' shuffle that jumps and swings like an ol' southbound rockin' & reeling and just about ready jump the track. Deming's guitar work is rich and sweet with nary a wasted note. Like such great guitarists as Emmanuel X Garza, Howard Glazer, Johnny Bassett, and Junior Watson, Deming plays with a musical economy that assures that less is more. Sound Rules this landscape as Deming tells the story of a failed romance. She is drinkin' and staying out all night despite her lover's plea, "please be good to me".

BlackJack" breaks out with some squealing harp from Brian Miller and a funked-up riff with prominent maracas in the mix. Doug sings,


"They call me blackjack baby 'cos I always make 21"
"When I cash in my chips, gonna have them on the run". In the coda, Deming intones like Alex Chilton circa 1987 (remember the Box Tops?)on Lowell Fulsom's "Make a Little Love". He raps some mighty fine smack, "Gonna have me a whole lot a money"
"We going out on the town"
" a big fine car"
" a big black Cadillac"
"ahhh, we gonna be ridin' in style..."


I don't know what it means but I'm sure it's NAUGHTY. A great soul stirrer.

"Bad For You" is a mid-tempo ode to love's mysterious allure. Gregg "Fingers" Taylor's wonderous harp drives the celebratory vibe - the musical equivalent to the excitement and primal thrill of new love. But the real-life tension of human relationships is revealed when Doug sings,
"You got my heart and soul and all my dough".
This blues rocker - like any great blues love song - contains ample amounts of paradox. She may be divine but she just may be doing him wrong. And he knows it - with a wink and a nudge.

"Make It Last" has a "Stormy Monday" vibe - a slow blues with a menacing organ backdrop (courtesy of the extraordinary Chris Codish). Deming sings about some pretty hard-won wisdom,
"When I was a young boy I ran through every door"
Lived every day like there'd be a million more"
"People told me try not to live to fast"
"You better make it last"

"Now that I'm older, thank the Lord for every day"
"See people abuse time in each and every way"
"Never concerned with the future or the past"
"They better make it last"
"I think I know just how it feels to push and not succeed
"You'll never win when you try to beat the clock"
"So take just what you need".

There is a moral in this story and it has a beginning and an end. But it's the journey that counts. Kudos to Brian Miller's exceptional harp work.

"You Don't Even Care" returns to an uptempo jump blues. Here Deming is positioned outside his pain as he sings about his lover's indifference and betrayal. The music's energy and spirit belie the singer's devastating message. This song R-O-C-K-S
And it contains one of the most exciting recorded instrumental jams in recent memory - as it reaches break-neck speed in a crescendo of sound and fury. A kick-ass blast to the sciatic nerve and a throttle to the limbic system.
Makes me wanna get up and jitterbug

"Let Me Be" sounds like it was recorded on a cheap two-track in 1950...a cool production technique that duplicates the sound of some of our earliest and best bluesmen and rockers. It recalls Dave Edmunds churning out "The Promised Land" on his Rockpile album way back in 1970. It's starkness is it's beauty. And Deming's upfront echoed and scratchy vocal is magnificent. The band stretches out on this one with guitar, harp, and piano all taking turns in the spotlight. Great track.

"HDF" is an instrumental that opens with pulsating bass guitar and drum on a Bo Diddley (cum the Troggs' "Gonna Make You") riff. Drummer Don Gruendler is given a prominent solo that is compared to Gene Krupa. I think it's more like Sandy Nelson's "Let There Be Drums".
But what do I know.
The excitement builds as the tempo accelerates and everyone joins in.

"On The Midnight Shift" has a slow syncopated beat and some deep wailin' organ that drives the sensual images provided by the lyrical metaphor.
"Be silent don't move"
"Pay the devil his due"
"Before we groove"
"Build it up make it strong"
"Just because it's wicked"
"Don't mean it's wrong"
"Turn it over"
"Deep and real"
"We're in hot production"
..."On the midnight shift" .

WHEW...I think it moved

"Mr. Blues" has drummer Gruedner pounding out the intro and Doug & the boys keeping the rhythm with a bomp-bomp beat worthy of Brian Wilson's "Don't Worry Baby" as stolen by the Byrds on "Mr. Tamborine Man". Deming is singing about problems with his lover...and it's his fault. He's singin' the blues but is confident she'll come back and give him another chance.

"It's a Crime" is thematically similar to "Goodbye Baby" but this song finds Doug stretching out with some of the purest tonal perfection this side of Junior Watson. This is a showcase for Deming's considerable skills as a guitarist. Roll over T-Bone give Doug Deming the blues!

"All About Digits" is Deming at his satirical best - doing the Mose Allison all over you when you least expect it
"Now your talkin' to a sweet thing at your favorite night spot"
"You wanna get her number 'cos she's lookin' pretty hot"
"You look down at your watch it's almost closing time"
"She's lookin' at your wallet is it worth a lousy dime"

"All about the digits baby"
"She's got no time to waste"

"You've been together for a year now"
"And it's been a real sweet thing"
"She's lookin' at her finger and she wants to see a ring"
"You go to see the banker to get a loan you can't pay"
"But now you've got that diamond it makes everything OK"

"All about the digits baby"
"She's got to no time to waste"

"Well she's lookin' though her planner"
"And she can hardly wait"
"She's finally got a ring"
"Now she wants to set a date"
"You look into your pockets and you pull out lead and sand"
"The preacher calls and says he needs another grand"

"All about the digits"
"She's got no time to waste"

"And now when the party is over she's quiet as a mouse"
"And then they serve those papers that say she's got half the house"
"Now the moral of the story as anyone can see"
"Be careful with those digits or you'll wind up just like me"...
My favorite track

The disc closes with "Double Down" a rockin' coda that combines all the best elements in Deming's considerable repetoire... he rocks and swings to a raucous conclusion.
And leaves us thirsty for another round.

Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones have crafted a sonic testimony to their willful embrace of authenticity. It's a profound statement for a musician to make by mining a balance between craft and talent and eschewing the more profitable potential of flashier styles.
Doug Deming seems almost unstoppable.... touring with swamp blues legend Lazy Lester and gigging up and down the state - from Detroit to all points North, South, East, and West. Deming's music is irresistable - once you hear him play, you become one of the initiated.
A true believer.
So if you haven't had the chance to experience the vibe and voodoo of Doug Deming and the Jewel Tones, the place to start is right here.

Dave Kellan - Truth of the Matter

Dave Kellan is one of the most talented musicians in the Mid-Michigan scene today. That's right. Forget all the rest. GIMME KELLAN.
For Kellan his talent seems a birth right. Undeniable as a breath of fresh air. He is a guitarist blessed with such precision, such concise phrasing and such an astounding range of expression that he ranks with the area's best guitar slingers. Move over Wagner and McCray and make some room for Kellan...our future depends on it. In a time when new artists are intentionally bland and disposable - a variation of planned obsolescence - Kellan offers something substantial and enduring. By GOD I hope talent will prevail. But I must admit it's much cheaper for the suits to squeeze a coupla hits from a formulaic no-name forgettable and call it good. No back catalog or messy royalty scams.
Perfect.
And the public be damned.
They are too STOOOPID to know any better anyway.
You may remember that Kellan became WIOG's Mid-Michigam Idol last year and rocked everyone to the bone at the WONDERJAM.
Uncle Kracker tried but he couldn't do it....
doesn't have the gris gris
I'm hoping that Kellan transforms this opportunity to pure gold to prove (to me anyway) that talent still has a place on the hit parade. I NEED Kellan to restore my faith in what is good and pure. If Kellan succeeds I might be able to TRUST that the American public has some capacity to embrace more than their own reflection. "truth of the matter" is Dave Kellan's third release.
And it's his BEST
Just as his debut with Gutbucket Blues Band layed the foundation and "Open Up" expanded his vision, Kellan's point of view matured with "A Matter of Trust". It's a new "voice"...of someone who is beginning to learn the game. A man who is on the precipice of KNOWING and on the cusp of "radical acceptance". Things as they appear to be but truth is as relative as looking at purple but seeing fuchsia.

The disc opens with the title track truth of the matter
It has a cool-jazz vibe with a wondrous and melodic saxophone riff (courtesy of Jim Rosborough)that creates has a rich melancholy landscape of ambient tones that underscore Kellan's soulful vocal. Matt Cohn slight-of-hand keyboard notations are some kinda tasty. And Kellan's powerful screaming guitar punctuates the anger and longing in the song. Is he better off alone?

Tranquility is anything but. A straight out funky "protest" rocker with plenty of attitude. It has a great hook - with Kellan singing in unison with the guitar riff. Very NICE. He sings,
"Come and go as you please, don't disrespect me". He asks rhetorically,
"Will there ever be a chance...for tranquility"?
Kellan's ambivalence is convincing

Kellan performs a trinity of solo acoustic songs in this set...
Golden Rule, Them Applesand Talk About the Weather

Thematically similar and metaphorically satisfying, these songs are beautifully crafted and executed with humble aplomb. Simple and unadorned, these tunes reveal Kellan's skill in creating songs of stark majesty. And there's some mighty fine pickin' as Kellan proves to be every bit as fluid on acoustic guitar as when he is electrified. "Talk About the Weather" is just Dave and his acoustic....singin' about a broken heart...suffering
"I'm, beggin' darlin please"
"I'm on my knees"
"So lets talk about the weather"
"nothin' left to say...
But I need you"

Sun Shinin' is a blues/gospel anthem. One of the discs many highlights

"If you ask me to do it all over again"
"I would"
"In the greenfields I'd raise my weary head"
"In the greenness I'd make my eternal bed"
"I'll live my life where the sun is shining"

This is an old fashioned spiritual - a song of triumph and redemption.

Kellan and the band shine on the mid-tempo rocker Rainy Day

It combines a tight & mighty rhythm section with moody organ and Kellan's increasingly gymnastic vocals and a fiery McCray-esque blues/rock guitar solo.

Silky Gravy is cool jazz at it's best.
Move over Stan Getz.
Jim Rosborough's magnificent jumpy saxophone riff fuels the vibe. Kellan's intricate finger perfect notations create an aural landscape that draws the listener "inside" the music. This is a superb and compelling side to the band's arsenal of chops. And Kellan doesn't play it straight...he can barely contain his joy in creation as he segues to an electrical romp that pounds ya right in the chest before he brings it back down to the "silk".

High Tides is a jazz rocker that has the vocals pushed back in the mix, allowing the music to dominate and make the statement. It's about relationships - making choices....tough choices.
Can we ever be sure?

You Are is a mantra of discovery. Kellan's scratchy straining vocal captures the zenist vibe of the song. Kellan is outside his pain and in the awareness of the moment he is observing the feelings and thoughts that flow through him. And he is knowing
"You are....
hardly yourself"
And in that very moment he is talking about the other AND himself at the same time.

I Still Care has a simple piano based melody and a Lennon-esque vocal circa 1970/71 during his Plastic Ono Band/Imagine phase. The mellow vibe and sweet vocal masks the heartache in the lyric...
"I've been waiting"
"no more words to say...anyway"
"Why must I be.."
"in your distant memory?"
"I don't Know"
"I don't know"

"BUT I STILL CARE"

Around You seems to be a written form of parallel process. A dual message to an unenlightened, unknowing public - mass popularity is so elusive - and a "heads up" to a friend in trouble.
"You better stop & look around
check out the sights and sounds around you"
"Look in my eyes I can see your disguise"
"and I wonder why"

The CD ends with an uncredited instrumental... just Dave and his trusty acoustic. It's a joyful syncopated release of frustration. And one helluva workout - a wordless statement made more provocative by it's economy and tension.

Kellan's third album is an inspired effort. Like any great piece of music, "The Truth Of The Matter" possesses the unique vision of the author and is not encumbered by trendiness or an eye on what sells on the "hit parade". This may not translate into massive sales but it does suggest a more enduring legacy. REAL music masterfully conceived and crafted that avoids the musical sophistry that now pollutes the airwaves.
Music-lite masquerading as relevance and appealing to the disposable notions of a youth culture deconstructed to ensure conformity and encourage a mass ADHD-like consciousnes that values the very impulsiveness and distractabilty that creates the "bland inconsequence" of modern music.

But Kellan does not fall for it. And he never co-opts his unique voice and vision for a readily definable bag or label. You can call Kellan's music whatever you like...blues, jazz, rock, folk. But ultimately it is so pure and authentic that it's "just what it is".
Music...vision...breath...life