Gawddam! Brother Ali and the funk that love brought. US

I don’t do a weekly update because I want to really feel what I have to say.  Deadlines and arbitrary updates result in verbospam uploads that have little to say to anyone.  With that in mind, here’s a thought straight from the hip.  I finally got a chance to wrap my big old headphones about my noggin and allow Brother Ali’s US recording to penetrate my synapses.  GAWDDAM!  I own about three total hip hop albums, and most of them are Beastie Boys.  My big buddy Bear turned me on to Brother Ali about three years ago when the artist was living in the same apartment building with my big hairy buddy.  Bear played several tracks for me and I was immediately taken with the warmth and melodic spin Ali puts into his music.  It’s the best use of language I have ever heard in the genre, period.  His chops cut like machetes and his bounce has aspects of Serengeti. His content is deep and very angular, taking the mind places worth going when you focus and follow the images he’s provoking.  The fidelity of the music is tremendous.  A new adjective needs to be created to replace ‘kickin’ in regards to this element of the recording.  It makes me think of old Stanley Clarke vinyl.  I love the staggering absence of hate in the lyrics.  The love comes out in waves big enough for King King to surf upon.  Listen close to Baby Girl and you will see exactly what I mean all in one track.  Lush multi-part harmonies backed up against greasy analog bass growls.  Frappin reggae dub meets impeccable guitar meets Bad Mutherfucker pt.II oh my god…  My face has a permanent wave from this track.  Get this CD right now.  Have a party and call up all your locals to twist the volume large for Best@it.  When I was a kid, Prince blew my musical preconceptions away, Brother Ali has succeeded in rebuilding them.  I don’t give a good gawddam where you are from.  I’m from Minneapolis, and we got the shit right here.

Boiled In Lead “Silver”

Thank the Great Galoot that Boiled In Lead recorded an album of shiny new Silver.  This is a furious and finessed album.  It is growling, sincere, and mature without losing all those plucky puckish bits that made us all love these cats in the first place.  The new coals raging under the old fire is long time friend, and now band member Dean Magraw. ( http://www.dothedean.com/ )  This guy is so bloody brilliant on guitar, at his live performances young guitar players frequently have to be led from the room by the hand after the third or fourth song as their brains try and process what they have just seen.  Volunteer guitar players more experienced with Dean have started to set up “Dean Out” tents at shows to handle the worst cases.  No permanent harm has come from this, but many young musicians have been inspired to go home and practice their asses off after seeing him.  When you add him to the brilliantly articulated sounds of  Todd Menton on all his favorite toys you get a double guitar attack of lushness that is sonically staggering and extremely pleasant to dive into and wallow like a Pig Dog Daddy.  David Stenshoel has been wailing on a fiddle for some time now and his style is visceral and lyrical all at the same time.  His performance on this recording is raging and lovely.  Drew Miller supports the entire thing on a chrome and silver skeleton of bass that shimmers and staggers in beautiful counter point all the way through.  The production is flawless.  As an audio snob of extreme reputation, I can attest this CD sounds freaking fantastic on headphones.  Robin’s drums come through with fantastic tone and resonance.  His skills are legendary, and this is a case study of his work.  Woody and airy all at the same time.  Fine work Drew!

        We love Dean, we love Boiled In Lead, It’s sorta like that old Reese’s peanut butter cup commercial.  This recording came out 2 years ago, where I bought it at the First Avenue St. Paddy’s day show.  It has helped me in so many ways you cannot imagine.  Go buy it today, and get multiple copies.  Certainly you know someone who would enjoy some tremendously brilliant Minneapolis Music!

http://hearful.com/index.php?contentID=2738&productID=1480

Broken Bells

I have this friend.  He is a Lutheran Minister in Montana.  His name is Tim, and he has IMPECCABLE taste in music.  If Tim likes it, I want it.  He turned us all on to Broken Bells and Dayum if this isn’t like the DIY Sgt. Peppers.  Lush, rolling and very very musical at all levels.  I put it on my headphones and all my bones start gyrating around each other like parts in a big Swiss watch.  Seriously, warm up first.  This whole album is so funky you will dance until you hurt yourself.  Wow.  It has fantastic production quality.  The lyrics move me genuinely.  It has jazzlike brilliance at moments while also throwing out a boyish bravado that is sincere and so fresh it’s like opening a giant window onto a new spring day.  It’s ass shaking.  There are tambourines.  Anthems are in here cats.  This is the jam it album of the summer of 2010.  Surfers everywhere already have this rocking, bet on it.

O’Hanlon Family Mottoes

The O’Hanlon motto This varies from family to family, but the following are known to have been used:

• Sine Macula: translates to “without stain” or “untainted”.
• Le dsais: translates to “By all means”. (Source: website quoting Irish Family Mottoes by Tomas O’Baoill).
• Re Et Merito: translates to “By Reality and Merit”. (Source: 1759 O’Hanlon tomb in County Louth.)

Alicia Corbett

I listen to this recording ALL THE TIME.  She is a local lady here in Minneapolis who is bloody BRILLIANT and deserves considerably more gigs and recognition.  I got to meet her a while back when she was playing with Tea and Sympathy and I found her to be utterly unpretentious and charming.  She is and has always been the real deal.  You can hear a bit of Ireland in everything she does.  LUVVIT!  Fantastic rainy day spring music.  It is sometimes very bittersweet, but I promise you folks that is no affectation on Alicia’s part.  You can tell she has lived every gut twist she expresses here so eloquently.  Her verses fall like rain on moss covered statues in a dead end street in some cases.  In others uplifting enough to cause spontaneous joy and heart choke ups.  Shine on Alicia, you have a very solid fan in this guy’s case.  She is such a no-brainer to play the Mainstage at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.  She would have the crowd in her palm inside 30 seconds.

http://www.myspace.com/corbettinorbit

Grateful Dead Thursdays!

Every Thursday Night is Grateful Dead Night at the Suburban World Theater.  It’s a fantastic room to get to dance and freely express ourselves as human beaings, all together, on a wild spin through space while helping each other out.  People smile, folks actually say hello to total strangers and engage them in conversations.  It’s FUN! and folks should get on down to the show every Thursday Night at 8PM to 12 PM.  Dig out something colorful and loose fitting for fully free dancing fun.  Get a babysitter, take a nap after work before the show.  Drink your tomato juice.  Whatever it takes, get there.

Kites!

Yesterday was the first day where I got to go and fly my kite this year.   It was very still all morning until three thirty or so, then the wind suddenly picked up and got consistent.  Seeing this, my hands started to shake.  I have been waiting for this momoent all winter.  I slapped on my iPod, dialed up Pink Floyd’s Meddle, and flew out the door, pulse greatly accelerated.  My favorite local place to fly is a hillside just above the big spoon and cherry in the sculpture garden.  If you are in the vicinty and see a black, white, and rainbow colored kite with long tails, thats me.  Stop by and say hi.  That hillside is a big long shallow bowl.  At the bottom is a short bit that is very steep thusly tossing rising drafts straight up.  For a kite flyer, it’s like having your own personal take off point.  Instant UP and then the line is singinging and pulling like a living thing. 

All my dendrites fire and my nerves suddenly feel like they are part of the string too.  The thrum begins and I start to go out of myself.  I’m the kite, I’m the wind, I’m the ground beneath my feet and it is all connected.  You see, to keep a kite up and flying, as well as untangled, you have got to MOVE Jack!  Left and down, up and back, reel in the line MADLY when the wind falls.  Every sense is engaged.  I kid you not, this is a way more addicting thing to me than any drug could possibly be.  A few feet of fabric and some string.  Add wind and I am suddenly (and simply), incredibly happy.

I don’t care what the calendar says, the first day of spring will always be the first day I can get out and comfortably fly my kite.

So this is an example of what my lighting looks like. Mind you, this is a still image and the real stuff moves and dances along with the music.

The Grande Olde Lady

SO! I suddenly have this gig, running lights at a local club.  It’s all volunteer time so far, and that’s all cool.  Frankly I need some practice and I couldn’t have a better venue for that oportunity.  The crowd is extremely receptive, and I have had several fist bumps and stop by’s.   All of the above were most welcome and encourage me to work all the harder on newer and better visual fun for future shows.   I did a lot of theater and live show lighting in my youth and thought I would never get to do it again.  This has been the one big shiny thing in a winter that was otherwise mostly pretty shitty.

The theater is awesome.  It’s the Suburban World Theater in Uptown( http://www.suburbanworldtheatre.com/ ).  The inside looks like a gigantic Maxfield Parrish painting come to life.  The staff is all really friendly.  The owner, Don, likes me and appreciates my lights.  He doesn’t try and tell me a THING to do.  I have run 4 gigs so far, totalling about 20 hours, and the owner has not given me one single directive thing he wants me to do with the lights.  It’s all good for him.  Thats amazing.  I have total creative control.  I love how those words taste when they come off my tongue.  My Buddy Ted Kritzler has been joining up for some tandem madness, and I can’t wait for his additional input and spin. Ted is bloody brilliant.

Definitely need to get the camera down there to do a Tanstaafl edition.

Um… Yeah…

You won’t kill my momentum.
You won’t even slow it down.
Friction?  Your efforts are feeble at best.
Twitch at the end of your line.
Flail and kick in the face of realization.
Your ego can’t handle criticism.
Your Id can’t handle being challenged.
I don’t follow idiots, ever, and I won’t
apologize for it.

Just because the gun didn’t fire when you played roulette,

does not make pulling the trigger a wise action.

That is the logic of a psychotic.

I’ve seen four year olds throw better tantrums
and I was equally as unimpressed.
Who do you think you’re fooling?
Me? surely not.
You? even less likely.
Her?  Not a chance.
Good luck with that.
Seems like a great foundation to build your future on.