Michael Butler - Will the world
please make this guy a "star"! Wait, he sort of already is...
New Releases on
RARadio: Trouble in Mind 2011
label sampler;
Black Box Revelation Live on
Minnesota Public Radio;
Apteka "Striking Violet";
Mikal Cronin's "Apathy" and "Get
Along"; Dana deChaby's
progressive rock
Joseph Seif -
Shoegaze/New Wave/Art Rocker from SF on Art Direction and
Cinematography
The Hopeful Romantics
are
a Martinez, California-based Americana outfit, about as grounded
in musical devotion as one could possibly be while dividing
their attentions between thematic issues as diverse as religious
conversion, death, loneliness, love, and murder. They are like
the Arcade Fire of Americana Sundays at the popular venue
Armando's in Martinez, an irreverent blast of satirical wit and
wood music excellence fueled by a set of character-laden voices
that gift the whole enterprise with lift well above what one could
possibly imagine. The Hopeful Romantics are a real delight, a
great find for the "pure" music lovers among us. No artifice at
all here, just thoughtful, humorous, and wonderfully-executed original
music. Testimony to their range and excellence is that I
couldn't decide which of their videos to feature, each
successive review of alternatives yielding wonders exceeding
those of the previous offerings, all of which are great. Check
out the one above and then look for them on YouTube and listen
to more at
their ReverbNation site. - RAR
Blame Sally
San
Francisco's quartet of female songwriters who go under the
shared pseudonym of Blame Sally - Pam
Delgado, Renee Harcourt, Jeri Jones, and Monica Pasqual -
has released a new album, Speeding Ticket, and they
are touring in support of that CD. In performance the
players switch off lead vocals and trade instruments,
creating music marked by funky, melodic rhythms, skilled
instrumentation, and beautiful, intricate harmonies. Over
the near-decade since they formed their band, Blame Sally
has gained an ever-growing following that stretches far
beyond their home turf, filling concert halls in Boston,
Philadelphia, and across the pond in Europe.
________________________
______________
Cyndi Harvell
and Folk Rock
“There are few things more satisfying than a beautifully
sung folk song, and Harvell is more than qualified to deliver.”-
AbsolutePunk.net
Cyndi's songs are classic heart-on-sleeve tunes, part
Americana, part pop and part folk, defying any one specific
genre. She was part of 2008's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (a
festival drawing over 100,000 music-lovers), included twice on
Bay Area KFOG's Local Music Compilation and has been played on
Americana radio programs across the U.S. and Europe.
Harvell played Armando's in Martinez in mid-September, on a
bill with Lucas Ohio Pattie.
Not many entertainments out there can cause one to wince
with pain at the sound of the name (re the skillet licking
thing) and grin like an opossum at the expectation of sounds
to hear. Lavay Smith and this band have been great for
seemingly ever, like a Duke Ellington-inspired whale that
lives on jazz and sucks up all the cool breezes along the
coasts where yesterday's Harlem big band meets with those
alluring mists of nostalgia, blowing inland, hard. Sometimes
you need to stick your tongue to the griddle to remind
yourself just how for real some things are.
Tongue this below.
- RAR
David Thom Band
T-Bone Burnett's "Soggy Bottom Boys" got nothing on these guys.
The David Thom Band has been a fixture on the
Bay Area Bluegrass scene since they started playing together 15 years ago. David
Thom, lead vocals and guitar, is passionate about the traditional sound but
allows his band to range out into new musical territory from time to time. For
this band, tradition means respecting the intentions of the original artists
while maintaining a unique identity. The hard driving 5-string banjo of Andy
Shaw and the rock solid foundation and playful highlights of Mary Shaw’s bass
round out the band. Everyone contributes to the vocal mix as well, bringing
variety and intense, chilling harmonies. David Thom, himself a masterful
instrumentalist, is highly regarded as a talented and creative singer. The David
Thom Band has played at Strawberry, Grass Valley, The Great American Music Hall,
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and a long list of smaller festivals and
fairs. The central lineup includes: David Thom – guitar, vocals; Andy Shaw –
banjo, vocals; Mary Shaw – bass, vocals.
Amber Rubarth
Singer-songwriter
Amber Rubarth is
well-known to San Francisco Bay Area music fans, particular
those who have followed house concert impresario Drew Pearce
over the years. Rubarth is a devoted song stylist, an
explorer of the form, and the video presented here does a
nice job of exploring her writing process, and her recent
recording experience. Her new album "A Common Case of
Disappearing" was recorded with Grammy-Award winning
producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Tom
Waits) this Spring.
Sal Valentino
Beau Brummels
and Isolation
By RAR
The San Francisco Band The Beau
Brummels, who scored two hits, "Laugh, Laugh" and
"Cry Just A Little", were important to the
soundtrack of my youth. Visit this link
for more on that... I loved the loneliness of their
tremelo-drenched sound, and I loved the voice of their lead
singer, Sal Valentino. Valentino
was a kid from San Francisco's North
Beach neighborhood who took has last name from that of a boxer that
his dad liked. Born Salvatore Willard Spampinato in 1942,
Sal Valentino achieved success
in his early 20s, and then went down hill from there. San
Francisco music writer Joel Selvin traced the entire arc in
a 2006 piece for the Examiner (read
here).
Around 2002, Valentino started a
slow comeback playing open mic nights as a solo acoustic act
in the Sacramento area. There he met
Jackie Greene, a dude in his mid-20s at the
time, who has since scored successes as a solo artist (his
2003 Gone Wanderin' CD stayed on the Americana charts
for over a year) and been a band member of Phil Lesh and
Friends. Greene, who has modeled himself after a young
Bob Dylan, has an affinity for classic rock figures and he
has helped champion Valentino's comeback. In fact, he wrote
a song for Valentino, a live performance of which is shown
in the video in the right column, shot at The Palms venue in Winters,
California (Sacramento area).
Sal Valentino at The Palms in Winters, California
_________
____________________________________
__________________
_________
JINX JONES
Jinx Jones left Colorado years ago for life on the
West Coast where he morphed into one of the great Rockabilly
players working anywhere today, not that Rockabilly is
currently in vogue. Good music played well is always in,
witness this video from a recent Rockabilly show in Vegas
featuring the subject of our hot roddin' guitar devotions.
______________
VOLKER STRIFLER
Bluesman's Originals Survey
Musical Landscape
German-born Northern California club staple Volker
Strifler has a 10-song LP available for free
download from his ReverbNation site. Eight of these songs are Strifler
originals, ranging in feel from Rag Time Jazz to Caribbean Calypso to Blues, the
latter being Volker's main calling card. Strifler, whose musical associations
have included Robben Ford, The Ford Blues Band, and Chris Cain, always comes
across as a true believer, a guy who grew up listening to American Blues and
Americana in general, and incorporated those influences into his being. His
authentic American Blues wail always comes across as a surprise, but a good one,
and he is a knowledgeable composer, which sometimes seems like the greatest of
his considerable skills.
JT Taylor Passes Away
Musical
communities tend to consist of
closely-knit contributors who
recognize in one another a
common love of what they do to
make sounds people want to hear.
In the East Bay of the San
Francisco Bay Area, a fellow
named
Obert Sonsten
organizes veterans of the East
Bay music scene, who have
included big names such as
Norton Buffalo, for regular
musical reunions, and he
maintains a
Facebook page commemorating
those who have passed. Among
the most recent was soundman JT
Taylor (right), of which Rockets
band member John Cuniberti
posted this to the site (Nov 8,
2011) - "We lost our live sound
engineer John Taylor today to
dreaded lung cancer. This is a
photo I took of John in 1973
driving The Rockets to a gig in
his Exchange Linen truck. “JT”
had installed a couch in the
truck to haul around both the
band and their gear. John later
went on to work with Sound On
Stage for the next 35 years. A
very sweet guy with a wonderful
sense of humor. Rest in Peace
John - The Rockets — with John
Jt Taylor."
