1,968 page views past 30 days June 11, 2015
As we build our new Top 40 for June keep in mind, we also have a Top 10 list of songs played on Joe Vig's Pop Explosion
http://popexsplosion.blogspot.com
Joe Vig's reviews on Sabotage Times
http://sabotagetimes.com/author/joe-viglione
1)Don't Let Me Down - the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcHrwbnxick
2)FLY AWAY - Fox Pass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZBdkHLIogw
3)Neighbourood - Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxh5krNRs88
June is a work in progress, stay tuned.
Michael J. Roy Eclectricity
Mike Roy's first solo album features fourteen tracks by the long-time guitarist and founding member of pioneering Boston new wave band Fox Pass as well as Mercury recording artist Tom Dickie and the Desires. "Land of Forgotten Dreams" blasts things off at 3:27 proclaiming that the veteran performer has no intention of dropping the rock. The 4:48 of "Barely There" is a luxurious riff (think 2nd side of Abbey Road) that is an instrospective lament while "Stop The Rain" owes nothing to Creedence. More like a John Lennon Starting Over track if Darryl Hall and John Oates were collaborating with the Beatle. Stompes/Fox Pass rhythm section Steve Gilligan (Bass) and Lenny Shea Jr. (Drums) would make you possibly think that this is 3/4 Pass, but it is not. The lethal Gilligan/Shea combo don't always have to play like Yardbirds "...ex-rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja bumped over on bass, Jim McCarty on stiff though effective drumming" which the liner notes to LIVE YARDBIRDS called "twin-steam shovels" - a favorite line of Fox Pass colleague Fred Pineau (who has the same initials as Fox Pass.) The 4 minutes plus of "On a Sunday" bring another brooding moment which blends into the uptempo "Your Own Way." Roy seems to be looking back on these songs, and they would have been nice additions to the Desires albums for sure. "The Difference" and "In a Well" both clock in at four minutes and seventeen seconds each, "In a Well," perhaps, the most likely candidate to be re-cut by Fox Pass for a reunion album sometime in the future. "Wherever You Are" features the background vocals of Nancy Francis (not to be confused with long-time Fox Pass associate Nancy Neon) and that's it for musicians, Shea, Gilligan and Francis buoy this extremely good solo recording from Mike Roy who plays every other instrument himself, a kind of Emmit Rhodes / Paul McCartney break-away
"Heartless" has fragments from the Crowded House hit "Something So Strong" - the first line of "Heartless", "How can I begin" mirroring "Love can make you weep." But it diverts quickly before going into "He's So Fine'/"My Sweet Lord" territory so Tommy Mottola won't have to come calling... Outside of the opening track (3:27,) "Heartless" (3:04), song 11 "Say Goodbye" (not Fox Pass classic "When I Say Goodbye) and track 13, "Wired to Wonderland" (2:38) the material veers mostly into four minute territory. There are many songs that are extremely appealing, but the 5:35 "Water from the Moon" is my favorite, thus far.
With bassist Steve Gilligan releasing multiple CDs, and Jon Macey's Actuality In Process, Intenion and collaboration with Gilligan, Everything Under the Sun, it's amazing that this is Michael J. Roy's solo debut. "You're Own Way" and "Water from the Moon" are catchy and memorable, so much material to absorb in what is certainly a burst of creative energy. Can't wait for the next.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/michaeljroy
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BOBBY HEBB'S 'SUNNY'
ON NEW CD FROM GREEN TEA U.K.
Live at Elixir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvq5jeS-fbQ
Green Tea Live at Elixir
Review by Joe Viglione
1) A Go Go 8:08
2) The Scratch
5:52
3) Cantaloupe Island
8:09
4) Sunny 5:23
5) Red Baron 5:44
6) Take 5 6:45
7) Dear Limmertz
8:17
8) Green Tea 6:31
The exquisite instrumental music played by keyboardist Andrey Novikov, guitarist Jake Pashkin, bassist Damien Langkamer, and drummer Gaetano di Giacomo is a sublime jazz/funk performed with the perfect touch. Not to be confused with the American group – also called Green Tea - which disbanded in September of 2014, the U.K. Green Tea adds a spacey vibration to its eclectic and moody musical presentation, track 5, “Red Baron,” a good case in point off of the CD Live at Elixr’s.
The band seems to be big on John Scofield, former guitarist with Andy Pratt (way back in the early 1970s) opening with Scofield’s “A Go Go” from his 1997/98 album of the same name (A Go Go, track 1) and closing with “Green Tea” – the 7th track from that disc, and clearly where the group found their name. The musicianship is most faithful, Green Tea (the band) giving a lighter version of Scofield though, at times, with cutting instrumental work carving out their own identity. It’s that ebb and flow from smooth to brittle that seems to define Green Tea’s version of the music they like.
“Cantaloupe Island’ changes gears, from Steely Dan-styled keyboards to heavily influenced-by-Hendrix guitar. Where Herbie Hancock’s original from the 1964-ish album Empyrean Isles sounds more like the Doors gone jazz (before the Doors ever put a note to record,) Green Tea take Hancock and bring him into the world of the artists noted above. Azymuth’s classic and sampled-many-times “Dear Limmertz” is delicious here, Green Tea providing ethereal partitions in their space/rock cum jazz flourishes.
The 5 minute 29 second rendition of "Sunny" blasts into the song with dexterity, an uptempo drive which flows from a dancing keyboard solo by Andrey Novikov into (via segue) drummer Gaetano di Giocomo’s vision, giving us 41 seconds of improvisation from 3:16 to 3:57 in the middle of Bobby Hebb's classic, Guitarist Jake Pashkin has style and passion, the sound from his axe reminiscent of Greg Howe's "Sunny" that has permeated YouTube.
Green Tea’s “Sunny” is a welcome addition to the Bobby Hebb collection of “Sunny” covers and worth of your attention.
BOBBY HEBB'S 'SUNNY'
ON FROM GREEN TEA U.K.’s CD
Live at Elixir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvq5jeS-fbQ
PREVIOUS REVIEW
http://bobbyhebb.blogspot.com/2014/11/review-green-tea-uk.html
Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/GreenTeaUK
Greenteaband.co.uk
http://www.greenteaband.co.uk/
Members: Andrey Novikov, keyboards
Jake Pashkin, guitar
Damien Langkamer, bass
Gaetano di Giacomo, drums
County. Dress Code *. Green Tea plays with irresistible energy. Postcode * ... London and UK, including LSE, Bull's Head in Barnes, Barn Church in Kew.Members: Andrey Novikov, keyboards
Jake Pashkin, guitar
Damien Langkamer, bass
Gaetano di Giacomo, drums
ARTICLE ON GREEN TEA bassist Damien Langkamer
http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2013/05/24/damien-langkamer-funksoul-bass-groove-development/
_______________________________________________________
ROLLING STONES
STICKY FINGERS
http://www.amazon.com/Sticky-Fingers-Super-Deluxe-Vinyl/dp/tracks/B00UN9PQN4/ref=dp_tracks_all_2#disc_2
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ELSEWHERE 4 song E.P. plus Radio Edit
__________________________________________________________________________
Met the lead singer/guitarist of Elsewhere, Michael Aroian, at the Model Cafe in Allston for the June 2015 edition of the Rock n Roll Social and he gave me a copy of the new E.P. created with Boston notable David Minehan of Wooly Mammoth Studio (Minehan out on tour with The Replacements at the time this essay is written, June 11, 2015.)
The disc starts off with "Multi-Man," a highly commercial slice of what the group calls "Progressive Punk." Perhaps 'progressive/alternative' is more like it as the guitar, bass and drums all combine for a driving and smart pop tune which fluctuates from the music of Sparks, King Crimson (think "21st Century Schizoid Man" on steroids,) the Romantics, Rush and much more, all put into a mixer to come up with something fresh, new and exciting. "Multi-Man" is the PICK TO CLICK on the Top 40 this month of June, 2015. The full-length that starts the CD off is 5:09, the radio edit clocks in at 4;12 and concludes the disc.
"We've Got a Movement" has cascading guitars to complement the revolutionary theme. With the addition of his keyboards, guitarist/singer Aroian builds a big sound, think Peter Townshend and the Who circa the Who's Next / Lifehouse phase.
Track #3 is a live version of "Waiting Alone for a Spotlight," the studio take on the album entitled 1981 album. Recorded Live at Ralph's Chadwick Diner in Worcester you can hear the studio version of it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK8a5nC6ydI The material is just as strong live as Elsewhere's studio recordings are, a consistent presentation that buzzes along in a fun and entertaining way.
Track #4 "Before the Stars Align" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7L4bDTM0yQ rocks out on the live tape, also from Ralph's Diner More groups should consider putting the emphasis on a couple of new recordings and emphasizing material from a previous outing in a "live," remix or out-take setting. With the glut of new music from so many artists, old and new, it's mandatory to get a song out to as many ears as possible. Revisions of previous work gives those titles another shot at becoming a familiar favorite.
"Multi-Man" - the song - is a standout.
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The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction" 50th Anniversary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE ROLLING STONES’ “(I CAN’T GET NO) SATISFACTION” RELEASED 50 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
ABKCO TO REISSUE SINGLE ON SPECIAL 12” VINYL FORMAT JULY 10
Released during the first week of June in 1965, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones proved to be a monumental single, not just in terms of airplay and chart position (their first U.S. #1), but also in terms of shaping popular music. The song that, according to Newsweek, contains the “five notes that shook the world” has proven itself timeless. A half-century later, the Rolling Stones played the song as their finale on the opening night of their Zip Code Tour of North America 2015.
The idea of writing a song around a riff (a repeating sequence of notes), rather than a vocal melody or chord progression, though not unprecedented at the time, had yet to take rock music by storm. “Satisfaction” was the storm. Over the course of the next several years, the shift in focus towards the riff took hold, and can be still heard in popular music today.
On July 10, ABKCO Records will celebrate the golden anniversary of “Satisfaction” by releasing a limited edition, numbered 12-inch version of the single on 180-gram vinyl. While the smash hit comprises the entire A-side, the B-side consists of both original U.S. and UK “Satisfaction” flip sides: “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” and “The Spider and the Fly,” respectively. The record is housed in a sleeve featuring award-winning photographer David Bailey’s shot of the group, recreating the original 7-inch single artwork. Mastered by Carl Rowatti at Trutone Mastering Labs and cut from the original mono master tapes, the 45-rpm 12-inch format makes this a true audiophile pressing, allowing for wider grooves that yield louder levels, broader range, deeper bass and better high frequency response.
London Records (the Stones’ U.S. label at the time) released “Satisfaction” in the first week of June, less than a month after the track was recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood, CA on May 12, 1965. By June 12, the single had entered both the Billboard and Cashbox charts. Over the course of the next month, “Satisfaction” shot straight to the top, hitting #1 in Record World on July 3, where it held its position for three weeks; Billboard and Cashbox followed suit, declaring it #1 on July 10, where it stayed for four weeks. Sales-wise, “Satisfaction” was an unparalleled success – it became the group’s first RIAA-certified gold record on July 19, 1965.
The UK version of the “Satisfaction” single, released by Decca on August 20, 1965, would become the band’s fourth #1 single in their home territory. The track made its LP debut on July 30 of that year, when it was included on the U.S. version of Out of Our Heads. ABKCO Films’ much-lauded documentary The Rolling Stones Charlie is my Darling – Ireland 1965 features the band’s first ever performance of “Satisfaction” to a paying audience, played Dublin’s Adelphi Theatre on September 3 of that year. (See link below)
The iconic guitar riff that opens the song was composed by Keith Richards who recorded the sequence of notes on a home tape recorder while in a dreamlike state in the middle of the night when the band was on tour in the U.S. After listening to his own recording and devising the song title “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” he played the riff for Mick Jagger by the pool at the Gulf Motel in Clearwater, FL in early May, 1965. Jagger immediately composed the lyrics.
Having scrapped a version of “Satisfaction” that was recorded at Chess Studios in Chicago on May 10, the group re-recorded the song at RCA Studios in Hollywood, CA on May 12. It was this version that would take over the airwaves and shoot up the charts the following month.
Textured by the aid of a Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal, Richards’ riff was originally intended to be replaced by a horn section, but the recording sounded complete to producer/manager Andrew Loog Oldham and engineer David Hassinger. Jagger’s lyrics, simultaneously expressing sexual frustration and disdain for consumerist messages, would strike a nerve with the mostly young, rock ‘n’ roll buying public. Ironically, the only two people in the Stones’ camp who were initially against turning “Satisfaction” into a single were Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
“The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man,” credited to Nanker Phelge (a pseudonym used on compositions written by the entire band), is a lighthearted jab at George Sherlock, an employee of London Records at the time, who accompanied the group on their first U.S. tour. The Stones saw Sherlock as a vain, toupee-topped, seersucker suited music biz flunky who was ultimately harmless. In later years, Sherlock expressed pride in having been the subject of the song. Loosely based on Buster Brown’s hit “Fannie Mae,” it is the lyrical content that gives the tune historic importance; the prodding of authority figures through song was almost unprecedented at the time. In the UK, Decca decided to instead use the country-blues composition “The Spider and the Fly” (also by Jagger/Richards) as the B-side to “Satisfaction,” the company assuming that the abundance of American references on “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” may have gone over the heads of British listeners.
Pressed by Quality Record Pressings in Salina, KS, and limited to 10,000 numbered copies in North America, ABKCO’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” 12-inch single will be released a half-century to the day after the landmark song dominated U.S. charts and helped transform the course of pop music history.'
TOM DICKIE AND THE DESIRES COMPETITION
By Joe Viglione on AllMusic.com
http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/tom_dickie_and_the_desires
Tom Dickie reinvented his formula after the failure of Susan on RCA. He brought half of Boston's underground band Fox Pass on board -- guitarist Mike Roy and singer/songwriter/poet Jon Macey (formerly Jon Hall, who changed his name to Macey to avoid confusion with John Hall, leader of the group Orleans). "Downtown Talk" kicks off the Competition LP and remains the best song by this pop band. Resplendent with drug references, "Downtown Talk" has a hard-hitting riff and catchy melody. The title track's calypso feel is a nice diversion from the rest of the LP. "Waiting, Waiting" has a boss riff and is perhaps the album's best performance.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/competition-mw0000845171
45 RPM
http://www.45cat.com/record/6170088
http://www.discogs.com/Tom-Dickie-The-Desires-Competition/release/3205746
ELEVENTH HOUR
TOM DICKIE AND The Desires
REVIEW BY Joe Viglione
http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-eleventh-hour-mw0001195248
With a crisper sound than its predecessor, the Competition LP, Ed Sprigg's production of The Eleventh Hour helps the revamped Tom Dickie & the Desires, but not enough. Singer/songwriters Tom Dickie and Jon Macey as well as guitarist Mike Roy are all playing synthesizers, replacing Gary Corbett from the first album. Mickey Currey has departed, and Chuck Sabo handles the drums and percussion on this disc. With the band having a chance to jell since Competition, the songs are more concise, perhaps even a little more determined,
http://www.cdandlp.com/en/tom-dickie-desires/artist/
A New Era for Fox Pass
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x1849236576/New-era-has-arrived-for-the-band-Fox-Pass
_____________________________________________TOM DICKIE AND THE DESIRES COMPETITION
By Joe Viglione on AllMusic.com
Tom Dickie reinvented his formula after the failure of Susan on RCA. He brought half of Boston's underground band Fox Pass on board -- guitarist Mike Roy and singer/songwriter/poet Jon Macey (formerly Jon Hall, who changed his name to Macey to avoid confusion with John Hall, leader of the group Orleans). "Downtown Talk" kicks off the Competition LP and remains the best song by this pop band. Resplendent with drug references, "Downtown Talk" has a hard-hitting riff and catchy melody. The title track's calypso feel is a nice diversion from the rest of the LP. "Waiting, Waiting" has a boss riff and is perhaps the album's best performance.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/competition-mw0000845171
45 RPM
http://www.45cat.com/record/6170088
http://www.discogs.com/Tom-Dickie-The-Desires-Competition/release/3205746
ELEVENTH HOUR
TOM DICKIE AND The Desires
REVIEW BY Joe Viglione
http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-eleventh-hour-mw0001195248
With a crisper sound than its predecessor, the Competition LP, Ed Sprigg's production of The Eleventh Hour helps the revamped Tom Dickie & the Desires, but not enough. Singer/songwriters Tom Dickie and Jon Macey as well as guitarist Mike Roy are all playing synthesizers, replacing Gary Corbett from the first album. Mickey Currey has departed, and Chuck Sabo handles the drums and percussion on this disc. With the band having a chance to jell since Competition, the songs are more concise, perhaps even a little more determined,
http://www.cdandlp.com/en/tom-dickie-desires/artist/
A New Era for Fox Pass
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x1849236576/New-era-has-arrived-for-the-band-Fox-Pass
MARTY BALIN LIVE ON THE BOSTON ESPLANADE, JUNE 14, 2008
Produced and Directed by Joe Viglione
Article by Ed Wrobleski
DVD Review: Marty Balin Live On the Esplanade
on May 27, 2015
I really have to start off by saying that I enjoy Concert DVDs
immensely, although some of them don’t give you that full concert
experience. With Live on the Boston Esplanade, June 14, 2008 I actually
felt like I was there because of the multiple cameras that were used
for this particular performance.
It was a very high energy show. Marty covered a good portion of his well-known catalog from the Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and solo material including such masterpieces as “Runaway,” “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit,” which features Didi Stewart from Boston area favorites Girls Night Out and Didi Stewart & The Amplifiers on lead vocals, the Berklee College professor doing a fine job on these two giants from the ‘Summer of Love.’ And what vocals!…so amazingly close to Grace Slick. It gave Marty a breather so that he could counterpunch the crowd with his voice on classics like “Count on Me,” “Miracles,” “Volunteers,” his Top 10 solo hit “Hearts” plus a few more.
I
thought that not only the performance was fabulous but the bonus
footage was superb as well, such as Marty rehearsing for the gig, a
splendid rendition of the Essra Mohawk/Duke Williams tune “Shaping the
Night,” a one hour interview with Marty , interviews with Signe
Anderson the original founding lead singer of the Airplane predecessor
to Grace Slick, along with interview footage of the two Airplane
biographers, Jeff Tamarkin and Craig Fenton. What more could we ask
for? You get a lot of bang for your buck here you won’t be
disappointed it’s a fine two and a half hour monumental piece that will
stand the test of time in years to come.
In this reviewer’s opinion it deserves five stars all around the board for content and nothing else is yet out there “solo” on this Iconic Rockand Roll Hall of Fame legend. You can find Marty on J.A. and J.S. DVDs, of course, but this film, produced and directed by Joe Viglione, is the initial blast of Marty Balin live on DVD.
Special Thanks to Guest Contributor Ed Wrobleski
It was a very high energy show. Marty covered a good portion of his well-known catalog from the Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and solo material including such masterpieces as “Runaway,” “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit,” which features Didi Stewart from Boston area favorites Girls Night Out and Didi Stewart & The Amplifiers on lead vocals, the Berklee College professor doing a fine job on these two giants from the ‘Summer of Love.’ And what vocals!…so amazingly close to Grace Slick. It gave Marty a breather so that he could counterpunch the crowd with his voice on classics like “Count on Me,” “Miracles,” “Volunteers,” his Top 10 solo hit “Hearts” plus a few more.
I
thought that not only the performance was fabulous but the bonus
footage was superb as well, such as Marty rehearsing for the gig, a
splendid rendition of the Essra Mohawk/Duke Williams tune “Shaping the
Night,” a one hour interview with Marty , interviews with Signe
Anderson the original founding lead singer of the Airplane predecessor
to Grace Slick, along with interview footage of the two Airplane
biographers, Jeff Tamarkin and Craig Fenton. What more could we ask
for? You get a lot of bang for your buck here you won’t be
disappointed it’s a fine two and a half hour monumental piece that will
stand the test of time in years to come.In this reviewer’s opinion it deserves five stars all around the board for content and nothing else is yet out there “solo” on this Iconic Rockand Roll Hall of Fame legend. You can find Marty on J.A. and J.S. DVDs, of course, but this film, produced and directed by Joe Viglione, is the initial blast of Marty Balin live on DVD.
Special Thanks to Guest Contributor Ed Wrobleski
http://www.tmrzoo.com/2015/66439/dvd-review-marty-balin-live-on-the-esplanade
_________________________________________________________________
An Interview with Peppy Castro
http://www.tmrzoo.com/2015/66376/an-interview-with-peppy-castro-of-the-blues-magoos
An Interview with Peppy Castro of the Blues Magoos
on May 19, 2015
Q: When did the idea for Psychedelic Resurrection come to be?A: Over the years and decades people have always been suggesting a reunion. It actually took years to put into place. Once it was decided that we would attempt it, I (Peppy) came up with the CD title. I wanted to have the word Psychedelic in the title as this has been part of the groups legacy.
Q:It’s
fun to see Mark Lindsay with a splashy, colorful CD cover, as well as
current “garage bands” utilizing neo-psychedelia – perhaps pastel meets
psychedelic. Who did your cover art and who came up with the concept?A: The Cover was a combination of two friends and myself. Kenn Lubin who is an iconic Art Director started it off and then Scotty McAloon took it from there and did the majority of the lay out and design. They both are with a company called King Displays in New York that do all the signage for the Broadway Shows among other things.
Q: Do you know what TV show this clip of We Ain’t Got Nothing Yet is from?
A: Sorry I did survive the sixties in tact but haven’t a clue anymore as to where that one was. I want to say a local TV show in Texas?
Q:What was the “Demo That Got The Deal” for the 45 RPM on Verve Records and/or was it a live performance that got the contract for”So I’m Wrong and You Are Right” b/w “The People Had No Faces”
A: Really The Magoos on the streets of New York playing the Nite Owl Cafe got us the attention but I would say both songs were independently produced and that secured the Verve Deal.
Q:Were guitarist Dennis LePore and drummer Jon Finnegan onboard for the Verve single or had they already been replaced by Geoff Daking on drums and Mike Esposito on guitar?
A: Yes we never went to records with Dennis and John.
Q:What is the current 2015 line-up of Blues Magoos?
A: Ralph Scala (Keys voc Orig) Geoff Daking (Orig drums) Peppy Castro (Orig Guitar/vox Mike Ciliberto (New Member Guitar
Peter Stuart Kolhman (New member Bass).
Q:What was the Demo that Got The Deal for Mercury Records or was it a live show?
A: I’d say more based on the group live.
Q:Did you know other Mercury/Philips acts like Spanky & Our Gang, Bobby Hebb and Buzzy Linhart?
A: We were on the same bills with Spanky and knew them as label mates and casually at shows. I didn’t know Bobby Hebb but was very close with Buzzy.
Q:Did the Blues Magoos ever play onstage with Jimi Hendrix?
A: Never with a professional gig. He did come in and jam with us at the Nite Owl.
Q:Ralph and/or Peppy, did you fellows know Jimi Hendrix well?
A: We knew Jimi in passing and hanging out in the same places in the Village. The Tin Angel etc.
Q:Did you and Buzzy Linhart ever jam together with Hendrix?
A: Not all three. Separately. Again Buzzy was very close to all of us but I have to say more so with me. We spent a lot of time together.
Q:How does a group in 2015 launch a single in this climate? Internet radio, YouTube, traditional terrestrial radio?
A: All of the above. Sadly intellectual property and the sanctity of ones creative recorded works seems to be public domain these days.
Q:Are there plans for a follow-up to Psychedelic Resurrection?
A: At the moment it is a gargantuan effort to even play out and gig. The logistics of being a working band is much harder these days. So it is more a labor of love and reunion. We are taking things one day at a time. The creative juices are there though.
Q:The Vanilla Fudge play their self-titled hit album in its entirety on tour, will the Blues Magoos be performing Psychedelic Lollipop and/or Electric Comic Book on tours?
A: Not in it’s entirety. Oddly enough Basic Blues Magoos our 3rd Lp is a fabulous record and we even do some songs from that as well.
Q:Are you considering a live album from this tour?
A: It hasn’t been discussed. I think we are testing the waters.
Q:Do you have live tapes from previous years, and would you consider a vintage Blues Magoos Live album from tapes made back in the day?
A: We haven’t really done that much. One offs here and there. I don’t think recordings exist with any kind of quality. If we keep performing, that would be an option. The band is very musical live and the more we play out the tighter we become.
Q:What do you think of the CD vs Vinyl and the new Vinyl craze?
A: Vinyl is always welcomed to the purists. CD’s bring in a younger audience. I think both are pretty obsolete in the big picture because people just rip off the music and records sales are way off.
In 2011 Sundazed Records reissued Psychedelic Lollipop and Electric Comic Book on limited edition (1000 copies) vinyl and CD from the first generation Mercury master tapes with greatly improved sound quality compared to earlier reissues. (from Wikipedia)
A: The people at Sundazed are dedicated Audiophiles and keep the music alive and much appreciated.
Thanks for your time, Peppy!
My Pleasure Joe. All the best.
Peppy to be interviewed on BostonFreeRadio.com 2 pm on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. The Blues Magoos will appear at Johnny D’s in Somerville on Thursday, May 21, 7 PM
Here are the dates for Somerville/Boston, Connecticut and New York for this upcoming weekend.
May 21 – Somerville, MA – Johnny D’s
May 22 – New Haven, CT – Café Nine
May 23 – New York, NY – Bowery Electric
Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has
written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com,
Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal,
and a variety of other media outlets. Joe also produces and hosts Visual
Radio, a seventeen year old variety show on cable TV which has
interviewed Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael
Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried,
Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad,
Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix
Cavaliere of The Rascals, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds
of other personalities.
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Director Gil Kenan sets up a spooky scenario with Poltergeist 2015, child actor Kyle Catlett as the terrified Griffen Bowen makes the small house look so much larger. He, a lost soul a la the small alien from E.T. the Extra-Terrestria, is the center of the hysteria that is to follow, and it is that fear and sense of dread and wonder that director Kenan failed to elaborate on. A 3-D film that appears to have tricks made specifically for the 3-D glasses, poor Sam Rockwell can’t come to grips with the character he’s supposed to be playing, down and out dad Eric Bowen. After such striking work in Duncan Jones 2009 celebrated sci-fi flick, Moon, as well as his paranoid / schizophrenic Guy Fleegman in the 1999 Star Trek send-up, Galaxy Quest, this should have been a walk in the park for Rockwell. It’s his out of sorts demeanor that pulls the film one way while the novice Kyle Catlett gives the film its life. Actress Rosemarie DeWitt fares no better than Rockwell, her out-of-touch mom routine as Amy Bowen.
Hiring the older Will Robinson from 1998’s Lost In Space, Jared Harris sixteen years later, to be the “new” Tangina Barrons (played brilliantly by Zelda Rubinstein in the first three Poltergeist flicks.)
POLTERGEIST 2015
THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN
Director Kenan beats us over the head with the “this house is clean” line, never once bringing something equally memorable to the updated version. It’s not a reboot, it’s a remake thirty-three years later, and while showing promise, the film fizzles terribly at the end, all the suspense and jolts evaporating like a ghost into thin air.
COME INTO THE LIGHT
EX MACHINA
Written and Directed by Alex Garland
As with Duncan Jones’ celebrated sci-fi mini-masterpieces, Moon and Source Code, Garland creates a compelling and quite interesting film, yet another perspective on artificial intelligence, and one that succeeds if you suspend your belief and watch the interplay between the characters.
The first question, of course, is why would some multi-billionaire owner of the “Blue Book” search engine (as thinly a veiled Google as the Michael Douglas/Demi Moore mini-classic Disclosure’s DigiCom appeared to be about the Digital Corporation) not have a bevy of human security around him and keep sober with so much at stake? The second question, one ignored by The Avengers Age of Ultron and The Matrix is that if these artificially inseminated machine gods really were plugged in to all of cyberspace, there would be absolutely no stopping them.
The term “Deus ex machina” – god (f)rom the machine – is a theme as well, one repeated in science fiction. From Stephen Spielberg’s A.I. to the Terminator and Matrix series, The Avengers Age of Ultron and now Alex Garland’s “Ex-Machina” – it coming on the heels of Ultron – these films being the most obvious of many, many other extensions of imagination into a world where the counterfeit is, somehow, supposed to be superior to the creator.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None notes “I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” Science Fiction overrides Nietzsche’s man-into-god routine and forsakes mankind for a world where robots – even if microscopic and unseen by the human eye, are in control.
Where Will Smith had to fight off thousands, and then one, in I Robot, 26 year old Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson – who played Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is in a modern day catacomb which, despite the trimmings, is as stark as anything in THX1138, the 1971 George Lucas/Francis Ford Coppola classic. The cat and mouse game – with Caleb as the mouse and both the android, Ava (as in the first letter of the alphabet Eve, or the counterfeit Eve, played well by Alicia Amanda Vikander) and her creator, Nathan Batgeman (Oscar Isaac who played the exiled Outcome operative, Number Three in 2012’s The Bourne Legacy) as the cats, engage in some kind of mind game triangle, just as Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington and Clive Owen did while working out the puzzles throughout Spike Lee’s “Inside Man.” Isaac and Jeremy Renner had great chemistry in The Bourne Legacy, but here there’s an intentional distance between Bateman and his ten-year junior employee Caleb Smith. And what’s with yet another use of the name Smith a la the main agent in The Matrix? Where Renner and Number Three were in the wilds of Alaska when Edward Norton decided he needed to eliminate them, Bateman and Smith are in a similar claustrophobic retreat filmed in Valldalen (or sometimes just Valldal), Norway.
The internet mogul has a harem of robots, quite predictable for the viewer when they first see Kyoko (the acting debut of Sonoya Mizuno, playing a servant with the name of Yoko Ono’s once-lost daughter, actually said to be a very common name in Japan.) Caleb Smith seems oblivious to Kyoko’s mechanical history, and Nathan Bateman’s aloof attitude, and descent into alcohol, is the antithesis of Victor Frankenstein, the modern Prometheus.
_________________________________________
LIVE YARDBIRDS
Lifted off of the web
was its obvious cash-in on Led Zeppelin’s then-gigantic popularity. The
inclusion of “White Summer” and “I’m Confused” (itself the Jake
Holmes-penned predecessor to Zeppelin’s own “Dazed And Confused”) must
have been temptation enough for die-hard Zep heads who purchased it
quickly, for it was immediately met with legal injunctions from Page
himself and whisked off the market within a week of its release. And
when Columbia Special Products saw fit to re-release it in 1976, it was
once again met with legal action from Page and subsequently re-deleted.
https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/the-yardbirds-live-yardbirds-feat-jimmy-page
_________________________________________________
Richard Berry LOUIE LOUIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-2CKsaq5r8
vs
BLACK FLAG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6MWxuWD2Oo
_______________________________________________
STEVE GILLIGAN
Steve Gilligan's Winter Rain doesn't believe in sorcery, at least that's what he says on track 2, "All That You Are." The CD Baby site notes that this CD is a " blend of contemporary acoustic based music, with hints of Celtic within an Americana framework." And that it is, "The Dawn of Bitter Moons" is not from the repertoire of John Philip Sousa, less military and more old world, permissible in the wild west when the minstrels hail from the emerald isle. "Tangle" is also gentle, Gordon Lightfoot, Kenny Rankin with Gilligan's enormous talents and imagination taking it into new territory. Where colleague Mike Roy offers 14 tracks, there are 13 on this 2014 release where its predecessor, 2012's Jacob's Well, gave the world 15. That's 28 songs between Jacob's Well and its sequel. "Lesson In Gray," track 11 off of of the Jacob's Well release fits nicely into "Tangle" from this disc, while "Change," track 10, is sort of like The Band backing Dylan if Dylan had as good a voice as Gilligan. "The Thunder Rolling By" has the authenticity with European flavors while "I Let Her Go" is pure Americana. Where multi-instrumentalist Peter Calo took songs of the old west and gave them his perspective on the CD Cowboy Song, Gilligan creates his own compositions, and - when put alongside his work in Fox Pass, the Stompers and Mike Roy's solo cd, Eclectricity - one can see just how brimming with talent and creativity the members of these respective groups are, and how distinctively different the album releases are from the music presented onstage when unique personalities combine to do something different.
How an artist takes special performances and brings them to the world when their known for playing rock clubs is the challenge, and with NPR, libraries and a plethora of streaming online radio stations, there are new outlets for this kaleidoscope of classy vocals and accompaniment.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/stevegilligan2
____________________________________________________________________________
COWBOY SONG PETER CALO
Peter Calo is known as both a jazz performer and session man, but on Cowboy Song ("Contemporary Arrangements of Songs From the American West") he turns his attention to traditional songs of the American frontier. The liner notes explain that the artist was inspired by the composition "Red River Valley," with its theme of parted lovers. Calo found many of these tunes in a book published in 1910 by University of Texas professor John Lomax, as well as in poet Carl Sandburg's collection The American Songbag. What he's created is an extraordinary 13-track collection of new interpretations of timeless melodies. Both ambitious and commendable, the artist flavors these renditions with his impeccable timing, sparse but eloquent instrumentation, and a sense of adventure. "Shenandoah" starts the album off, followed by a medley of "I Ride an Ol' Paint"/"St. James Infirmary." These are the performances with the most jazz influence, but things get decidedly more Old West with "A Cowboy's Lament," featuring Antoine Silverman's very nice violin work. Calo essays his thoughts on much of the material in the liner notes, and the eight-page booklet is very detailed. The musicians attack this material as if it is their own, and that's the beauty of Cowboy Song -- sincere reworking of music, much of which came from a time before tape recorders. In probably the same fashion as classical music has floated down the rivers of time, so too "Red River Valley" is reborn with cello, violin, and Calo's acoustic guitar.
read more here
http://www.allmusic.com/album/cowboy-song-mw0000586500
__________________________________________________
KENNY RANKIN
When Sunny Gets Blue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrt8Y-F3U14
http://www.kennyrankin.com/
______________________________________________
Elsewhere 1981
_________________________________________________________________________________
Duel Movie Review: Ex-Machina vs Poltergeist 2015
POLTERGEIST 2015Director Gil Kenan sets up a spooky scenario with Poltergeist 2015, child actor Kyle Catlett as the terrified Griffen Bowen makes the small house look so much larger. He, a lost soul a la the small alien from E.T. the Extra-Terrestria, is the center of the hysteria that is to follow, and it is that fear and sense of dread and wonder that director Kenan failed to elaborate on. A 3-D film that appears to have tricks made specifically for the 3-D glasses, poor Sam Rockwell can’t come to grips with the character he’s supposed to be playing, down and out dad Eric Bowen. After such striking work in Duncan Jones 2009 celebrated sci-fi flick, Moon, as well as his paranoid / schizophrenic Guy Fleegman in the 1999 Star Trek send-up, Galaxy Quest, this should have been a walk in the park for Rockwell. It’s his out of sorts demeanor that pulls the film one way while the novice Kyle Catlett gives the film its life. Actress Rosemarie DeWitt fares no better than Rockwell, her out-of-touch mom routine as Amy Bowen.
Hiring the older Will Robinson from 1998’s Lost In Space, Jared Harris sixteen years later, to be the “new” Tangina Barrons (played brilliantly by Zelda Rubinstein in the first three Poltergeist flicks.)
read more here
http://www.tmrzoo.com/2015/66418/duel-movie-review-ex-machina-vs-poltergeist-2015Duel Movie Review: Ex-Machina vs Poltergeist 2015
on May 25, 2015
POLTERGEIST 2015THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN
Director Kenan beats us over the head with the “this house is clean” line, never once bringing something equally memorable to the updated version. It’s not a reboot, it’s a remake thirty-three years later, and while showing promise, the film fizzles terribly at the end, all the suspense and jolts evaporating like a ghost into thin air.
COME INTO THE LIGHT
EX MACHINA
Written and Directed by Alex Garland
As with Duncan Jones’ celebrated sci-fi mini-masterpieces, Moon and Source Code, Garland creates a compelling and quite interesting film, yet another perspective on artificial intelligence, and one that succeeds if you suspend your belief and watch the interplay between the characters.
The first question, of course, is why would some multi-billionaire owner of the “Blue Book” search engine (as thinly a veiled Google as the Michael Douglas/Demi Moore mini-classic Disclosure’s DigiCom appeared to be about the Digital Corporation) not have a bevy of human security around him and keep sober with so much at stake? The second question, one ignored by The Avengers Age of Ultron and The Matrix is that if these artificially inseminated machine gods really were plugged in to all of cyberspace, there would be absolutely no stopping them.
The term “Deus ex machina” – god (f)rom the machine – is a theme as well, one repeated in science fiction. From Stephen Spielberg’s A.I. to the Terminator and Matrix series, The Avengers Age of Ultron and now Alex Garland’s “Ex-Machina” – it coming on the heels of Ultron – these films being the most obvious of many, many other extensions of imagination into a world where the counterfeit is, somehow, supposed to be superior to the creator.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None notes “I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” Science Fiction overrides Nietzsche’s man-into-god routine and forsakes mankind for a world where robots – even if microscopic and unseen by the human eye, are in control.
Where Will Smith had to fight off thousands, and then one, in I Robot, 26 year old Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson – who played Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is in a modern day catacomb which, despite the trimmings, is as stark as anything in THX1138, the 1971 George Lucas/Francis Ford Coppola classic. The cat and mouse game – with Caleb as the mouse and both the android, Ava (as in the first letter of the alphabet Eve, or the counterfeit Eve, played well by Alicia Amanda Vikander) and her creator, Nathan Batgeman (Oscar Isaac who played the exiled Outcome operative, Number Three in 2012’s The Bourne Legacy) as the cats, engage in some kind of mind game triangle, just as Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington and Clive Owen did while working out the puzzles throughout Spike Lee’s “Inside Man.” Isaac and Jeremy Renner had great chemistry in The Bourne Legacy, but here there’s an intentional distance between Bateman and his ten-year junior employee Caleb Smith. And what’s with yet another use of the name Smith a la the main agent in The Matrix? Where Renner and Number Three were in the wilds of Alaska when Edward Norton decided he needed to eliminate them, Bateman and Smith are in a similar claustrophobic retreat filmed in Valldalen (or sometimes just Valldal), Norway.
The internet mogul has a harem of robots, quite predictable for the viewer when they first see Kyoko (the acting debut of Sonoya Mizuno, playing a servant with the name of Yoko Ono’s once-lost daughter, actually said to be a very common name in Japan.) Caleb Smith seems oblivious to Kyoko’s mechanical history, and Nathan Bateman’s aloof attitude, and descent into alcohol, is the antithesis of Victor Frankenstein, the modern Prometheus.
read more here
http://www.tmrzoo.com/2015/66418/duel-movie-review-ex-machina-vs-poltergeist-2015_________________________________________
LIVE YARDBIRDS
Lifted off of the web
Released 1971 on Epic
The Seth Man, March 2001ce
https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/the-yardbirds-live-yardbirds-feat-jimmy-page
_________________________________________________
Richard Berry LOUIE LOUIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-2CKsaq5r8
vs
BLACK FLAG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6MWxuWD2Oo
_______________________________________________
STEVE GILLIGAN
Steve Gilligan's Winter Rain doesn't believe in sorcery, at least that's what he says on track 2, "All That You Are." The CD Baby site notes that this CD is a " blend of contemporary acoustic based music, with hints of Celtic within an Americana framework." And that it is, "The Dawn of Bitter Moons" is not from the repertoire of John Philip Sousa, less military and more old world, permissible in the wild west when the minstrels hail from the emerald isle. "Tangle" is also gentle, Gordon Lightfoot, Kenny Rankin with Gilligan's enormous talents and imagination taking it into new territory. Where colleague Mike Roy offers 14 tracks, there are 13 on this 2014 release where its predecessor, 2012's Jacob's Well, gave the world 15. That's 28 songs between Jacob's Well and its sequel. "Lesson In Gray," track 11 off of of the Jacob's Well release fits nicely into "Tangle" from this disc, while "Change," track 10, is sort of like The Band backing Dylan if Dylan had as good a voice as Gilligan. "The Thunder Rolling By" has the authenticity with European flavors while "I Let Her Go" is pure Americana. Where multi-instrumentalist Peter Calo took songs of the old west and gave them his perspective on the CD Cowboy Song, Gilligan creates his own compositions, and - when put alongside his work in Fox Pass, the Stompers and Mike Roy's solo cd, Eclectricity - one can see just how brimming with talent and creativity the members of these respective groups are, and how distinctively different the album releases are from the music presented onstage when unique personalities combine to do something different.
How an artist takes special performances and brings them to the world when their known for playing rock clubs is the challenge, and with NPR, libraries and a plethora of streaming online radio stations, there are new outlets for this kaleidoscope of classy vocals and accompaniment.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/stevegilligan2
Winter
Rain is the follow up to my debut CD, 2012's 'Jacob's Well'. This
collection is more acoustic based, with beautiful violin/fiddle work,
cello, and heart felt vocals to convey the lyrical stories.
My music making career has spanned over 30 years, first as a member of Mercury and Boardwalk recoding artists The Stompers and then branching out with the folk trio City of Roses, the pop-rock band Fox Pass, and the Americana duo Jon Macey & Steve Gilligan. All of these artists have music available from CD Baby, iTunes, many and other music distribution outlets. Thanks for listening! Peace - Steve
My music making career has spanned over 30 years, first as a member of Mercury and Boardwalk recoding artists The Stompers and then branching out with the folk trio City of Roses, the pop-rock band Fox Pass, and the Americana duo Jon Macey & Steve Gilligan. All of these artists have music available from CD Baby, iTunes, many and other music distribution outlets. Thanks for listening! Peace - Steve
____________________________________________________________________________
COWBOY SONG PETER CALO
AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione
http://www.allmusic.com/album/cowboy-song-mw0000586500Peter Calo is known as both a jazz performer and session man, but on Cowboy Song ("Contemporary Arrangements of Songs From the American West") he turns his attention to traditional songs of the American frontier. The liner notes explain that the artist was inspired by the composition "Red River Valley," with its theme of parted lovers. Calo found many of these tunes in a book published in 1910 by University of Texas professor John Lomax, as well as in poet Carl Sandburg's collection The American Songbag. What he's created is an extraordinary 13-track collection of new interpretations of timeless melodies. Both ambitious and commendable, the artist flavors these renditions with his impeccable timing, sparse but eloquent instrumentation, and a sense of adventure. "Shenandoah" starts the album off, followed by a medley of "I Ride an Ol' Paint"/"St. James Infirmary." These are the performances with the most jazz influence, but things get decidedly more Old West with "A Cowboy's Lament," featuring Antoine Silverman's very nice violin work. Calo essays his thoughts on much of the material in the liner notes, and the eight-page booklet is very detailed. The musicians attack this material as if it is their own, and that's the beauty of Cowboy Song -- sincere reworking of music, much of which came from a time before tape recorders. In probably the same fashion as classical music has floated down the rivers of time, so too "Red River Valley" is reborn with cello, violin, and Calo's acoustic guitar.
read more here
http://www.allmusic.com/album/cowboy-song-mw0000586500
__________________________________________________
KENNY RANKIN
When Sunny Gets Blue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrt8Y-F3U14
http://www.kennyrankin.com/
______________________________________________
Elsewhere 1981
PEPPY CASTRO INTERVIEW
http://www.tmrzoo.com/2015/66376/an-interview-with-peppy-castro-of-the-blues-magoos
___________________________________________________________________
THE BEE GEES LIVE IN AUSTRALIA
This is a terrific concert, check it out.
___________________________________________________________
MORE INFO SOON!
Dennis Dunaway's Book
The Good Luck Cat
______________________________________________________________
Jim Peterik on Joe Vig's POP EXPLOSION
https://www.mixcloud.com/joevigpopexplosion/jim-peterik/
