What costume shall a sick dude wear…
Daryl P. Brothers brings tears to a clowns - Halloween 2004
Lou Reed would classify him a rock and roll animal.
Our “Cousin” Daryl P. Brothers is a well known WNY music-o-phile/sometimes AV photo contributor/all around good guy who spends an inordanent amount of nights either out at local music shacks or traveling miles and across borders to take in live music.
Like the James Brown of concert attendence, he is the hardest working man in show-going. It’s earned him a reputation as a rock zelig.
Every show it seems, he’s THERE. Somehow he ends up in the front of the stage, too. He has a hundreds of stories from the front lines of the rock music fight.
Back at the annual SXSW 2007, while out in the crowd at Stubbs BBQ for an immolating performance by the reunited Stooges, I glanced at the Igster and there was my friend Daryl up there on stage with him!
Notice the well-traveled AP photo where Daryl is on the far right giving the patented “rock point.”
and YouTube clip where Daryl P appears about 2 minutes in:
Iggy “Stooge” Pop on stage with Daryl Brothers (in striped shirt) at SXSW 2007
Last weekend, he again left his imprint after attending the heralded New York edition of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival.
Speaking to him Sunday from the Catskills hideaway (a place Brothers declared as, “Just like something out of The Shining.”) that hosted the boutique festival, he reported a massive first two nights catching sets that included Built to Spill performing Perfect From Now On and the Meat Puppets performing Meat Puppets II as well asgetting taken for big bucks by Shellac mainman and noted engineer/producer Steve Albini in a high stakes poker game.
That Sunday night was the big dance, however, with sets from Mercury Rev and the mighty My Bloody Valentine.
By the next day it was clear that rock zelig Daryl P had not let us down.
As the indie blogosphere was a rush of reviews from All Tomorrow’s Parties, one of the best - Brooklyn Vegan - not only carried a full on hosanna of My Bloody Valentine’s uplifting if aurally crushing set but it had great photos of Kevin Sheilds and company. Then scanning through them, we quickly noticed a familiar face in a bootleg Van Halen shirt.
from BrooklynVegan.com - Daryl P. Brothers at left during My Bloody Valentine's set at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival
I’ve said it before and I wil say it again: Daryl P. Brothers is a sick dude!
September 19, 2008
Tomorrow we may still be there…
It was 35 years ago today, in a lonely motel room out in the deserts of Joshua Tree, California that the original and greatest light of country-rock quietly flickered out.
Gram Parsons had only reached the age of 26 and his music career - though it included redirecting the flight of the Byrds, founding Flying Burrito Brothers, collaborating with the Rolling Stones and discovering a singer named Emmylou Harris - had largely been viewed as a wash: one with potential that was never fully realized.
These 35 years have proven that completely wrong. It’s hard to imagine Gram Parsons’ legacy looming any larger. Most importantly, the music not only still stands up but so many of his songs have come to be the standards for any rock band trying to play or vice versa.
As the years passed, Gram Parsons almost took on the aura of a Christ-figure of country-rock circles. Time has spun the Parsons story as if he had to come, taught everyone the way and the truth and then had to be martyred, nailed to a cross of booze and morphine. Maybe he was! If not, it sure makes a great rock and roll story.
I’ve spent years poring over Parsons’ recorded legacy and taking in the mythology but when trying to summarize it, I know I can’t quite do it justice.
Luckily, David Meyer can.
After a steady stream of Parsons bios in over the past couple decades - from worthy souls like Ben Fong-Torres, Sid Griffin and even Parson’s own daughter Polly - but Meyer’s Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music (Random House) might be the one to top them all. It’s just out in paperback and is highly recommended for diving into the legacy and lore of one of the genuine pioneers of American music.
For tonight - throw down a shot of tequila and throw on that copy of Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Gilded Palace of Sin, Grievous Angel or whatever your favorite Gram record is. Hell, do yourself a favor and play them all!
September 17, 2008
New? Old? Good!
The amount of music and music-related stuff that crosses my path - whether landing in my mailbox or found via the net - gets overwhelming. My hope with Record Needles in the Camel’s iPod was to give space to this.
Have I been keeping up on that end? Not at all.
So, here’s my first blast at redemption.
A glance of the things that came into my orbit in the last couple days weren’t exactly “all new.” They all had a warm familiarity and that can be a wonderful thing.
In the last couple years, Ani DiFranco has made more local news as patron saint of the corner of West Tupper and Delaware. That’s hardly the whole story, however.
Beyond the rehabbing of the historic downtown church she now calls Babeville, Ani’s also been busy being a mother to daughter Petah (born in January 2007) and not so much slowing down her musical life as balancing it with her new role. 2007’s best of Canon marked a quick stop gap as DiFranco was readying to move ahead. Her new album finally comes out September 30 and some well-placed friends over at Righteous Babe made sure I got a copy of Red Letter Year a little early.
A couple listens in, it has to be her most daring and engaging work in years. In some ways, it feels like the “post-Ani” Ani record. While it doesn’t lack any of the immediacy of her earlier work, it does bear the marks of a record that was slowly and carefully put together over time. Her writing is a naked and honest as it’s ever been but there’s a tempered subtley and a very jazz imbued flair. Ani getting torchy? A little bit and it’s a terrific turn of events. You can see the goings on of all things Ani at her Righteous Babe site.
And on the other side of riot grrrl rock/feminism aisle, Rhino says “We do put out!” to one the greatest punk movies ever. Now, everyone can finally see Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains!
The 1981 cult classic chronicling the rise and fall of an all girl punk band in the seamy world of rock and roll - with a cast including real punks like Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, The Clash’s Paul Simonon and “white punk on dope” Fee Waybill - had about a thirty second theatrical release and would only occasionally pop up on late night cable television in the ’80s, filling hours on the old USA Network’s killer wee weekend hours program Night Flight. Otherwise, it was a coveted bootleg in the days of VHS.
Finally, a very spiffed up digital release is on the shelves as the first installment of Rhino’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Cinema series. The DVD has the usual upgraded sound and picture and includes breand new commentary track with stars Diane Lane and Laura Dern as well as one with director Lou Adler.
It’s a full-on girl punk revival almsot thirty years later. The Stains even have their own MySpace page.
And as I go back through my past, I can admit that I owned Tony! Toni! Toné!’s 1993 new jack swing opus Sons Of Soul highlighted by the irrepresible hit “If I Had No Loot,” complete with its Ice Cube sample. The band issued one more album before Raphael Saadiq went solo. Now, Saadiq on his own was always a bit of a headscratcher. I liked some of his production work but his Lucy Pearl project was lackluster and his solo records sounded - to me - like unremarkable standard fare r&b/soul,pop. What happened to that son of soul?
This time he got it so right it’s as if he stepped out of Hitsville USA studio circa ‘66 into a time machine.
An unabashed homage, with The Way I See It Saddiq has made a record of all new tunes but written and recorded with the stylistic earmarks, cool and sheer power of prime Motown, Stax, Huff/Gamble and the like. Saadiq has never been a straight revivalist. He was always the type to mix a bit of “old school” so as not to scare off modern audiences. This time around, he’s clearly not worrying about that.
One look at the Marvin Gaye-aping cover and you get an idea where he’s going.
The bio reads, “Listening to The Way I See It, it’s immediately obvious that it could have been recorded thirty years ago.”
Thirty years? Try forty!
The entire record is in the vein of ’60s to early ’70s-style soul. It’s a gem and I’m hooked. Listen to some songs here.
