Let's see the normal pressures were there... the band was running late... a few people called late and said they couldn't make it... twice during the day I ran into people who thought it was an outside concert and it was raining all day... I thought all these things spelled doom... even Allison admitted later she was having a day leaving her sister after two short days... but all the hassles evaporated and a great night was had by all!
I loved the fact that Allison, Matt and Phil fell in love with Claudia Schmidt's version of Spoon River and covered it as a surprise to me... the recording worked out fantastic... what a piece of gold from the night.
I even had my nephew and his neighbor drive 2 1/2 hours to catch the second set; that plus a few new guests I hope we made a lasting impression with and join us for many more concerts. Here are a few pictures from the night.
Yes... the house is in order for tonight's house concert... I thought I should get a shot of them to get me pumped... and you if you are in the area....
This great cover of Bob Dylan's song is brought to you by Aiofe O'Donovan and Chris Thile in what was described as:
From the just held Pagosa Springs 4 Corners Festival. Sat. late night jam with the Bellville Bearface Crooked Punchdusters. you'll see many familiar faces here and I'll be naming names as I'm able; fiddle break is Phoebe Hunt(Bellville Station)and Odessa Jorgensen( Biscuit Burners) banjo thruout by Chris Pandolfi, mando by Thile and Jesse Cobb and Jason Norris (an mazing mandoist from the band Bearfoot). Of course, the IBMA nominated Andy on dobro, and the soon to be nominated Andy on guitar, along with Mike Mickelson (Bearfoot). Angela Oudean from Bearfoot takes the second fiddle break.- Motnovak
Now all I can tell you is that Aiofe must be watching Chris closely to stay in harmony. While I can't sing harmony worth a darn, I suspect it would hard to concentrate with that pretty smiling face looking me straight in the eyes.
I don't know yet about the poster of the video, but found this one his site too... great Statesboro Blues cover by The Devil Makes Three.
I was just telling Clay last night that artist are coming out of the woodwork just like ants in spring. Vanessa Peters had emailed me about an October date, and after she sent me her cd... I really want to, but I'm concerned about of all things... an audience.
People of LaCrosse, Onalaska, and Holmen... I am willing to open my house if you show up more.
Boy "Born to Explore" should be a song ... but it's a book
and it's written by a pretty famous person I just met thru my meanderings at work. We sold him some nylon and it was delivered to the wrong address. I was ready to ship him some more, but it was found. In the process of going back and forth, it was the application that intrigued me first.... but now the gentlemen, Richard Weise does equally. Do these wonderful outdoor people really exist. Handsome, thoughtful, intelligent, world travelers... well all I can say was that he was nothing more than a true gentleman for the little dealing I had with him. He writes a blog, and he's even all over YouTube.
I wanted to give him a shout out, and also tell you this nylon hammock idea is cool. Because we're selling off the nylon cheap on ebay, it'll cost you likely under $15 plus rope. He describes, "the easiest projects in BORN TO EXPLORE is making a hammock out of 4 or 5 yards of fabric. Just tie a knot at each end of the fabric and tie some rope(lark knot) to a tree and you have an instant floating station of comfort." Now run over to Ebay and get some great deals on our fabric.
I'm not shy about most things as I've hit the over 50 mark, but a one on one teacher student relationship was a step I was very apprehensive about. I did put my card out at church and thank goodness I haven't been buried with students. I'm still learning myself who to teach. I love it though because I'm cheap, I don't want to do it each week, and if the student doesn't have the passion to play... why am I here, we'll cut it off. Ok this isn't an advertisement, it's to show a little thing like putting yourself out there as vulnerable to talk about what you yourself are passionate about is ok. And it's ok to be apprehensive, just try it, it inspired me to re-learn in detail and tape these two songs.
Enjoy my rendition of Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven and Randy Travis's Three Wooden Crosses.
Dave
p.s. as always my eternal apologies that God didn't bless me with a good voice while he took away my shyness... HA
Hey I still think I discovered them.... HA. I know, I know... you are all convinced I'm a push over for a woman with a violin; and while I resemble that remark.... look at the cute one tucked under the speaker playing piano. Oh yeah they play pretty well too.
Tonight Lori and I were lucky enough to have a night off and a push from a friend from Steven Point, and blink we had tickets to see Tracy Grammer. Oh how wonderful she was. Yes as a solo act she is comfortable telling us stories the stretch the time but captivated the moment. She was with Dave Carter for over 7 years and what a writer he was. I didn't hear them until a few years ago after he was suddenly taken from us with a heartache. Now thanks to YouTube, I can see that a concert of the two together must have been a treat to the senses.
A honky-tonk angel and devil, all wrapped up in one? It appears so with Boston singer-songwriter Eilen (pronounced "EE-len") Jewell. The slow-drawling ambassador of old-timey sounds and rustic reveries offers equal measures of small-town charm and sassy backtalk on last year’s sublime Letters from Sinners and Strangers (Signature Sounds).
If you’ve ever been seduced by the potent country cocktail of twangy sweetness and “my man’s done me wrong” vinegar - think Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn for classic examples of such barstool tell-alls - then Jewell will surely get you good ‘n' drunk. See for yourself - she’ll be hootin’ it up Wednesday, June 11, at the Rickshaw Stop.
Blessed with a pristine, uncluttered production - ably handled by Jewell and her band - Letters from Sinners and Strangers approaches the sounds of pre-suburban America with reverence and genuine affection. There’s no attempt here to modernize these country/folk/blues idioms, nor is there any sort of ironic distance being created between the singer and the subject. Rather, this is quite authentic, no mucking-about stuff. Other than the contemporary fullness of production, the album feels like an artifact from yesteryear, much in the same way that the work of Jolie Holland and Gillian Welch has also defied easy decade-classification.
Jewell has made some terrific choices for cover material here, but her originals shine just as brightly - thanks to sly turns of phrase and plainspoken, emotionally direct subject matter. Everything from the references to trains and rambling to the glove-fitting colloquialisms of her nothin’-fancy confessionals comes across as incredibly real. Obviously, she has done far more than merely studied the work of her inspirations. Jewell has absorbed these influences so thoroughly that she’s actually building upon them instead of simply re-creating them. She might not be a child of the Deep South, having grown up in Boise, Idaho, and lived in Los Angeles and Santa Fe before ending up in Boston, but the listener could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, so convincing is her magnolia-and-moonshine aesthetic.
Of course, much of Jewell’s ear-grabbing mastery must be attributed to her voice. Living proof that slowness doesn’t necessarily sacrifice strength, she frequently elongates syllables and stretches out phrases in a manner befitting a steamy, sticky front-porch afternoon. Sure, it’s a more restrained form of power, but it’s evocative as hell, and often capable of hitting squarely in the poor unsuspecting heart.
If the description sounds a bit like Billie Holiday, it should: Jewell at times recalls Lady Day in her unhurried delivery, occasionally even administering a similarly lovely slur-and-purr to a word or two along the way. Still, for all of her indebtedness to the jazz singer, Jewell's vocal style is clearly her own, having also drawn from Bessie Smith and Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn but never exactly sounding like any of them in the process. It’s a tremendously affecting voice, bringing the sadness and self-reflection of jazz and blues while still giving up the spunk and spitfire of country - or is it the other way ‘round?
As much as Jewell is more than willing to share her heartaches - or, the heartaches of the unlucky-in-love characters in her songs, anyway - she counters the pain with another message entirely: you’d best not mess with me, or I’ll fix you up real good. It’s the same state of fed-up-and-not-having-it which made Lynn classics such as “Happy Birthday” and “Fist City” so energizing, and Jewell has created a few worthy additions to the kiss-off catalog. My favorite: the quick-shuffling album-closer “Blue Highway," a swinging, stinging fare-thee-well dispatched from behind the steering wheel as she leaves her ne’er-do-well in the dust. “I don’t need you to help me lose my way / I’m gonna roll, roll, roll,” she yells out the window on her way out of town while furious fiddles and rockabilly guitar provide the exit music.
“High Shelf Booze” - a playful country swing number whisked along by jazzy clarinet twirls and a thumping upright bass rhythm - revels in the freedom of being dumped by a scoundrel lover. Rather than feeling sorry for herself, Jewell decides to go with her girlfriends to celebrate - and how better to whoop it up but to hit the bar and get lit on the good stuff? No $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon specials tonight. In moments like this, only the good stuff will do. So, the high shelf booze it is, along with a few one-night stands to clear the head: “Well it’s one man on Sunday, another on Monday / two on Tuesday afternoon / Easy come, easy go / You won’t hear me sing no lonesome tune.” It’s all delivered with a deliciously defiant nonchalance, and there’s something in Jewell’s unhurried phrasing and the swishing brushed-drum tempo that gives the track a sweltering, sticky-clothes summer night feeling.
And if “High Shelf Booze” might sweat a little, then “Too Hot to Sleep” is fevered and frenzied, a reverb-guitar rumba in which she strokes her night visitor with the come-on, “It’s too hot to sleep anyway, so you might as well stay.”
Jewell’s covers are equally engrossing: her take on Eric Anderson’s “Dusty Boxcar Wall” deftly balances apology and regret with the cold disregard of having just abandoned a lover. Having convincingly settled into the character of a gambling addict who keeps others at a comfortable distance, she approaches the lyrics with a brittle-hearted false-bravado similar to that of the late great Townes Van Zandt. The Charlie Rich tune “Thanks a Lot” is given a true tear-in-your-beer makeover, combining Jewell’s on-the-brink delivery and exquisitely weepy guitar, courtesy of bandmate Jerry Miller.
Listen closely, and there’s a beautifully pregnant pause between the sigh, “No matter what you do,” and its completed statement, “I will always love you.” Pull your ears a bit closer to the mic, and surely you’ll have witnessed the exact moment when a heart slowly comes undone. But don’t you worry about Eilen - she’ll be just fine: by the time she tackles the traditional stomper “If You Catch Me Stealing,” she’s back to sass and swagger. “Have you ever seen peaches growing wild on a vine?” she asks not once but twice over a shuffling Sun Records rhythm before topping the question off with an invitation: “Well just climb in my orchard and get a taste of mine.” Hmm, whatever on earth could she possibly mean?
Itching for some country swing? Catch this clip of Eilen kickin’ it up on “Heartache Boulevard”:
So didn't that infamous movie Body Heat have a great kitchen scene? Well tonight Rachel Pearl got me started in a different way. And yes it's kind of clean... Ha...
Funny Rachel is not my normal kind of music, or like my wife likes to say, "David you don't like that".... but I do just in small doses.. acoustic jazz beebop music. And Rachel is fun and great at the style. Here's her kitchen video:
Then my response had to be Tittabawasi Jane that I learned from Art Theime. Yes it's a sassy name, but it's really a river in Michigan.
Now while I've been making a big deal about getting a mid week stop between the Twin Cities and Chicago, I just want to scream from the cliff tops, "People you just don't know what you're missing not to stop by..."
So ... stop over to www.myspace.com/bluffview or email me at dave@theroseriverband.com ... just do it already.
A few years back they announced at the Great River Folk Festival that Dave Carter died of a sudden heart ache.... Lori and I looked at each other like, "Who?"... since I've appreciated how wonderful a writer he was and his wife has continued on to sing his songs, hers, and others... and we're going to see her at the Pump House on Friday night.
Here's a song that I was playing one day and my opinionated teenage son came in the room and said, "Cool song".. that's high praise.
Tracy Grammer, Jim Henry and Guy DeVito perform at Middle Earth in Bradford, Vermont on March 30, 2007.
Ha.. bouncing around and found this band,,, and more fiddle, more fiddle; but Toini is an incredible singer too.... check out her MySpace and the rockin' tunes from Norway.
I Wanna be a Cowboy's Sweetheart as performed live by Toini Knudtsen & Rio Bravo at the breakfast show at NRK (Norway) 2006.
Charline Arthur's Soft Hearted Gal done live at a breakfast show on TV2 (Norway) 2006.
Of course after all that, I can't find out who the fiddle player is... HA.
Sarah Borges is a country alternative rocker I ran into thru MySpace awhile back. Tonight this video popped up as new... She must be a lot of fun live.
Sarah opened for John Doe and the Sadies on May 5, 2009. What a great lineup. Sorry for the sound quality, but having Lyle Brewer and Jimmy Ryan on the same amp and playing with Sarah had to be one of the better nights this year.
"You And Tequila" - Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters & Suzy Bogguss (Wine, Women & Song - live from The Anvil in Basingstoke, UK May 27, 2007. See www.myspace.com/winewomen for detai...
Ok I posted too much today and not enough yesterday... so there is nothing in my head today but the love of the Gypsy life so why not a song by a trio that can play any time, any day in my dreams,.... John Gorka, Kathy Mattea, and Mark O'Connor. They weren't specific when they played together, but I bet it was pretty informal. God I love music and musicians.
As a life long Packer fan, the thought of Brett Favre playing for the Vikes puts a hollow in my pit, and venom in my spit.
But the thought of Chuck being cancelled, makes me sad.... Say it's not so... NBC
Chuck likes Sarah alot and she secretly likes him. But she wont be open about it as to not jepordize the mission. he confronts his sister and Ellie says that she has seen the way the Sarah looks at him and that she does like him. Chuck and Sarah almost kiss in Weinerliscious but then Sarah closes up again. Chuck gets tired of this and cuts it off leaving Sarah all alone. They still have to work together even though they aren't dating anymore. More compromising situations occur which lead to Chuck finally asking her a question that could change their lives forever? Will she say yes or no... Clips from 2forever.com.
Some one told me recently, Dave you should look in to Taylor Swift... you are missing it. Since The Zemmy Show aspires to be the next Johnny Cash Show... I saunter out to find the most passionate life filled Taylor Swift song...
Hey I found it... And I have subscribed to Haley & Shawn do... they are wonderful.
The other ones sounded like over produced country hype... sorry... she is a nice looking girl, great voice... can't stand the hype.
What does Adam Levy, Norah Jones and Neil Young have in common?
You got to watch to answer that question.
YouTube Source kinkradio Joined: May 15, 2007 Last Sign In: 7 hours ago Videos Watched: 2,664 Subscribers: 50 Channel Views: 3,769 Music interviews and performances from Kink.fm Name: KINK.fm Portland, Oregon Radio Station
From the MusicFog.com stage at Threadgill's south in Austin, Eilen Jewell performs during SXSW 2009. So who is she...
A couple reviews said:
LA Daily News: Sometimes as darkly damaged as Lucinda Williams, at others as defiant and teasing as prime Peggy Lee and always authentically Americana in the Gillian Welch tradition....She's mighty good.
Independent Weekly (NC): Eilen Jewell's Sea of Tears has the feel of a breakout record. The Boston-by-way-of-Boise singer/ songwriter already has built an avid following with three rootsy recordings teeming with songs that sound born of speakeasies and honky-tonks and train rides, all without—and this is the truly impressive part—a whiff of contrivance. But Sea of Tears seems sparked by a crush, a new old-soulmate called early rock 'n' roll, and a glorious take on Johnny Kidd & The Pirates "Shakin All Over" is love-letter exhibit A.
From her bio:
On April 21, Signature Sounds will release Eilen Jewell’s third album, Sea of Tears, a recording that fills in a vital, hitherto missing element of her musical persona. “Before I discovered Woody Guthrie and folk music,” she explains, “I was listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and, later on, the Animals and the Kinks. I love that stuff, and I love to play it.”
And of course again Music Fog is outstanding way to find new music...
Ok, I'm not in love yet, but I'm headed to iTunes.
Boy I resemble that remark while being comfortable in all today's internet savvy conversation about pinging or bandwidth... I do think if you don't reach inside and grab the simple melody of life you are missing something.
Of course it's weird having a play button right over my groin area... HA.
This weekend at the Freight House I turned on the iMix I made for the breaks and Amos Lee's Supply and Demand came on, and Todd said, "Wow who's that?.." Yes I forget that music is so fluid, one person's superstar is another's no name. Where I discovered Amos Lee was on a dvd included with a Paste magazine subscription. I have since dropped the subscription because I'm finding a wealth of new music through MySpace.... still this video makes me want to re-subscribe. Gems like this are out there, and I haven't found them yet. All you music lovers, keep prospecting.
Dave
Again they don't allow embedding, so here's the link.
