A review of the second full-length disc by Seattle pop-rockers Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity at Bullz Eye.
A couple of entries in this month's edition of West Coast Performer Magazine, including a small part of their Noise Pop feature, and an online-only review (scroll to the bottom) of a February show at the Hemlock Tavern featuring the Speakers, Correatown, and Chris Robley and the Fear of Heights (pictured above, photo by April Chick).And speaking of Chris Robley, he will be appearing at Cafe du Nord next Sunday, April 20, with fellow Portland-ites Norfolk & Western, along with openers Weinland. If you haven't seen him yet, this will be a nice, intimate intro.
And in the spirit of shedding light on the absurd, since all but one of the artist links above are Myspace links, I'd like to point you in the direction of Lila Nelson's side-splitting song about Myspace, called "I Accept Everybody," which you can hear... on her Myspace page, of course. Lila is from Aracta, and I heard her perform this song at her early set at Portland's Mississippi Studios back in February, prior to Rachel Taylor Brown's headlining trio set that evening...
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Finally got my hands on a copy of The Last Waltz on DVD. After hearing one of my coworkers talk it up fairly consistently since I've known him, and then recently finding out that he was actually at the '76 concert in question, I had to check it out. Plus I had seen Scorsese's other big concert film, Shine A Light, last week, so it was due to happen. My appreciation for The Band has been upped since watching it. It's very easy to forget, without actually seeing them, that they were all pretty much multi-instrumentalists and singers. I found myself wishing that they were the full-time backing band for all of the artists who appeared at the show. Of course they did their time with Dylan, but would that they had longer associations with Van Morrison, Neil Young and Emmylou Harris. Neil Diamond, eh, he could have toned himself down a bit. I like him much better now as an old vet working with Rick Rubin and the Heartbreakers. But if The Band were all alive and active today, they would have been the ideal choice for Diamond's comeback records.
Now at some point I need to finish watching Alejandro Jodorowsky's Fando & Lis. WOW. I don't know how I'm going to distill that one into a short synopsis, but I will try once I've absorbed it all...
1 comment:
The Last Waltz is a classic. It influenced me heavily and still moves me greatly. But Levon Helm's autobiography shot a few holes in it. The movie was the brainchild of Robbie Robertson and Scorsece and none of the other guys wanted to break up The Band.
All the vocals are re-done. Except for Levon's because he told them all to go to hell and left. Robbie's mic isn't even ON in the movie. And they don't show much of Garth or Richard Manuel.
But then by that point, Richard was in BAD shape. And Neil doing Helpless? He came out with a giant chunk of blow hanging out of his nose and they had to remove it somehow from the film.
I think my favorite bit outside of the concert is the studio version of The Weight. The instruments they are playing are so cool. What the heck is that bass Danko is playing?
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