Hey you’s guys…I’m going on a mancation, like now-ish, with my dad and brother to St. John, V.I.! I can’t wait to get there…I wish we could just skip the waking up at 5:00 am and going to JFK, where we will be molested by security and jacked around by American Airlines, who has been in the news the last couple days for a luggage-losing fiasco. But that’s what one does to travel in these-here post-9/11 days. It WAS nice to hear from Lou Dobbs on the radio that Exxon-Mobil reported record profits today for the last quarter ($12 billion!)… which is the largest quarterly profit EVER reported by a US company! And it was not actually nice to hear that…that was sarcasm.
So now I cheer up and finish packing. But I wanted to leave you all with something before I left, and it is this:
Right now, you can go to Amazon and download a 256 kbps, DRM-free mp3 version of Nick Drake’s classic Pink Moon album for only $2.99! That’s a frickin’ steal for an excellent album. So, if you don’t have it…go get it now!
Anyway, it’s gonna be quiet here for a few days, but I’ll be returning mid-week with some more RT and probably some great St. John pics!
Cheers!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTGTCSGj30&hl=en&fs=1]
What was the Scorpions first LP called?
…you don’t like music that’s ‘self-indulgent’.
Who played guitar on “I Zimbra” on Talking Heads’ Fear of Music album?
Who would have thought that the bass player on Finders Keepers Sadie, The Cleaning Lady, an unassuming single released in 1968, would go on to assume legendary status amongst the rock faithful? Another band, and two albums later, and Glenn Hughes was hitting his stride. Medusa, from Trapeze, hinted at where this rock/funk three piece could take it, You are the Music…We’re Just the Band released a year or so later fulfilled that promise. On the latter, Hughes is simply breathtaking. Handling ALL the vocals, he is unsurpassed. On Feelin’ So Much Better Now, his three-part black chick chorus is pure En Vogue. His gutsy lead vocal soars to incredible heights on Loser, and emotes with raw soul on the classic Coast to Coast and Will Our Love End. The bass playing is blistering rock funk, a perfect foil for the late Mel Galley’s rock solid guitar and Dave Holland’s stylish syncopations. This band had it all. Small wonder then, that Hughes was poached by Deep Purple, and Trapeze soldiered on for a while until Galley was poached by Whitesnake, and Holland by Judas Priest.
Hughes fell foul of the drink and drugs lavished on him as a newly-crowned Purple rock prince. He still managed to turn in classic performances on Purple albums, and his first solo album Play Me Out, is astonishing. But, after a last gasp classic, Hughes/Thrall in 1982, containing one of the greatest funk rock riffs of all time on Muscle and Blood, Hughes plumbed the depths in his personal life. Somehow, he appeared on various albums for the likes of Gary Moore and Tony Iommi, but it wouldn’t be until the 90′s and his brush with death, that Hughes would finally get his life, and his career, back on track. But oh boy, has he made up for lost time! A string of fantastic solo albums followed, plus great rock albums with Voodoo Hill and once again with Tony Iommi. His catalogue is of such a high standard, and so vast, its almost impossible to single anything out. Regular side men include Swedish guitarist JJ Marsh, and, as a perfect foil for the funk, the Chili’s Chad Smith on drums. He is known variously as The Voice of Rock, the White Man’s Stevie Wonder, but above all he’s the funkiest mutha to take the stage.There is, quite simply no-one who can play bass and sing like this man. He stands alone.
On a personal note, he is pretty much the reason I’ve been a bassist/vocalist professionally for 30 years, and I’ve been lucky enough to meet him and tell him so. Listening to Deep Purple’s Burn album, and Glenn’s vocal and bass lines…it was like a light bulb going on in my head – so THAT’S what it’s all about!
To paraphrase his old band Trapeze’s album title YOU are the music, Glenn – we’re just the fans.
RI.P. Mel Galley, guitarist with Trapeze, Whitesnake and Phenomena, who succumbed to throat cancer on July 1st. this year.
Recommended: Trapeze: You are the Music album, Deep Purple: Come Taste the Band, Glenn Hughes: Play Me Out, Feel, Soul Mover, Music for the Divine, F.U.N.K. Hughes/Thrall:Hughes/Thrall
I’ve got an offer that you can’t refuse right here! I found this over at Gorilla v Bear (indie people like animals) and it’s the music deal of the year so far. It’s The Walkmen‘s new album, You & Me, which is supposedly their best yet and one of the best albums of the year for a measley 5 bones. Not only is it only $5, but that $5 will go towards helping kids with cancer. Really, you almost can’t not do this, unless you’re a true grouch who doesn’t like music or kids. This from the press release:
“All donations go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of Luca Vasallo, a friend to the band and a current patient who is seven months old and doing a great job fighting a very difficult disease,” said Peter Bauer of The Walkmen. “This is a very good organization that certainly deserves the attention.”
So, it would behoove you to head on over to Amie St. and make your donation, and receive a fine musical album at 320 kbps DRM-free mp3′s! Oh yeah, and it doesn’t officially drop until August 19th. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m going there now to get mine.
Sample the song “In The New Year” from You & Me… [audio http://www.frannysilverman.com/NewmRadio/04-In_The_New_Year.mp3]
I stumbled on these guys somehow recently and realized I had totally forgotten about them and how I wore out my cassette of their self-titled 1989 album. It was a reminder that there were gritty hard rock bands out there at the end of the nineties trying to revive the genre…and then along came Nirvana’s Nevermind in the middle of ’91!
Anyone remember these cats?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQ0DI3Mar0&hl=en&fs=1]
Their s/t first album still sounds great today. And it’s super-cheap at Amazon. Highly-recommended.
…you voted against Bush twice.
In the early 1960′s , as popular music underwent its huge catharsis, it was not just the kids in the front rooms with their cheap guitars that would make it a force to be reckoned with. A lot of Jazz musos were crossing over, experimenting with the singles and album market that was growing almost daily. One such jazz player was a certain Jack Bruce. A jazz bassist in his teens, Bruce was playing for Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated by 1962, though on double bass. It was here he met Ginger Baker, and they went on to play with The Graham Bond Organisation, where Bruce finally succumbed to the lure of the Electric Bass. However the legendary hostility between him and Ginger soon brought proceedings to a close, and he joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where he first played with Eric Clapton. After a stint with Manfred Mann, playing on several hits, he made his career-defining move, forming the ultimate power trio with Baker and Clapton; Cream. It was in the two short years between 66 and 68 that Bruce cemented his reputation as one of the greatest and most influential bassist/vocalists of all-time, his Gibson EB-3 bass becoming almost iconic. His fluid bass lines, almost solos in their own right, and rich, timbred vocals, singing the fantastical lyrics of Pete Brown, ensure that he’s still worshiped to this day.
His fondness for the Power trio never waned, and he experimented with it in several line-ups, including West, Bruce and Laing, (featuring ex-Mountain men Corky Laing and Leslie West) and BBM (Bruce, Baker and Moore, featuring the Irish guitar legend).
Following an almost fatal liver transplant, he returned triumphantly to the stage with Cream for the Albert Hall reunion concerts in 2005.
Recommended: Sunshine of Your Love – an iconic riff, a great vocal. I Feel Free – Classic Bruce!
West, Bruce and Laing: Why Dontcha? – A forgotten classic
And a note from Newm: It is certainly worth mentioning that our good friends at Esoteric Recordings in England have just released an amazing career-spanning Jack Bruce box set called Can You Follow, and having heard it, it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s got stuff that he’s done with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Cream, West Bruce & Laing, solo, Eric Clapton & The Powerhouse, Zappa, Manfred Mann, and more.
…East Village Radio