If you didn’t get to Joe’s Pub last night to see Stew & The Negro Problem and grab a copy of the new album, Making It, all is not lost.
Stew in his breakup show, "Making It," at St. Ann's Warehouse in February 2010. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)
The cover of Making It features a photo by Stew's daughter, Bibi.
First of all, let’s say “welcome black” to Stew & The Negro Problem.
It’s been 10 long years since Stew (born Mark Stewart in 1961) and his band The Negro Problem made a proper, official album: 2002′s Welcome Black. But on Tuesday, Jan. 24, the wait is officially over when Making It gets its official release.
Thank goodness. It’s long overdue. But you’ll surely find it worth the wait.
It’s a crazy, creative look at the breakup of Stew’s relationship with his longtime girlfriend and musical collaborator Heidi Rodewald. The breakup came in the run-up to the pair’s amazing theater project, Passing Strange, which briefly thumbed its nose at the Broadway establishment from the Belasco Theatre over six months in 2008. (It also lives on in a Spike Lee film of the show’s final performances.)
Heidi Rodewald and Stew. (Copyright 2009, Steven P. Marsh)
Stew and Heidi managed to survive the breakup and continue their artistic relationship, albeit not without some problems. This album documents the breakup, and in some ways, the promise of their continued collaboration.
This is Stew’s fourth album under the rather provocative name of The Negro Problem, though on this release on TNP records, the band is billed as “Stew & The Negro Problem.” And even though Stew seemed to abandon the band name in favor of his own moniker, Stew and Heidi haven’t released a rock album since 2003′s Something Deeper Than These Changes, billed simply to Stew. (Yes, there was a Passing Strange soundtrack in 2008, but that wasn’t a Stew record, let alone a Negro Problem record!)
Let’s just say it’s about time! It’s always seemed to me that Stew needs The Negro Problem to fuel his angry-not-as-young-as-he-used-to-be-man persona. (Truth be told, he’s used The Negro Problem name occasionally in recent years, but this seems to be a definitive return home.) Continue reading
As Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? told you on Friday, Wilco‘s Solid Sound Festival v.3 won’t happen until next year. But in announcing the one-year hiatus, the band also announced that it’ll be performing a benefit concert at the festival venue, MASS MoCA this summer.
While no date for the concert has been announced, you can get first dibs on information and tickets if you’re willing to front some cash to become a MASS MoCA member. (Or you can just keep your eyes on Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?)
Up to you. But click here for MASS MoCA membership information.
Posted in Art, Concerts, Folk, Humor, Music, News, Recordings, Theater, World Music
Tagged MASS MoCA, Solid Sound Festival, Wilco
Wilco's first takeover at MASS MoCa. (© 2010 Steven P. Marsh)
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? is never happy to be the bearer of bad news. But you need to know that Wilco announced today that the band is taking a year off from presenting the Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA, the awesome art musuem in North Adams, Mass.
Jeff Tweedy and his Wilco bandmates have with great success presented the three-day Solid Sound Festival for the past two years, bringing music, art and friends together on the low-key industrial campus in Western Massachusetts.
We’ve been watching since before Christmas for an announcment of the dates of the next three-day music fest. Finally, around 1 p.m. today, came a tweet from @WilcooftheDay listing the long-awaited info:
#SolidSound Update: The next Solid Sound Festival will be held June 21-23, 2013 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Ma.
2013? Huh? What happened to 2012? Before we could ask the question, almost as if somebody could read our minds, came this tweet:
The 3 day event will take a 1 year hiatus, but Wilco will perform at the North Adams museum this summer in a benefit concert for MASS MoCA.
And when will that concert happen? Came the reply to our unasked question:
not announced yet
Sigh.
Stay tuned for details on why Wilco’s taking a year off and details about the benefit concert at soon as they become available.
Posted in Concerts, Folk, Humor, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Punk, Recordings, Theater
Tagged @WilcooftheDay, Jeff Tweedy, MASS MoCA, Solid Sound Festival, Wilco
Bimbo's 365 Club (© 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? made a pilgrimage to the West Coast a couple of weeks ago. And this time, we were determined to hit a San Francisco music club we’d missed previously. It’s the supper club and music venue with the potentially provocative name: Bimbo’s 365 Club.
OK, we admit we weren’t put off by the name — it’s what Tuscan immigrant Agostino Giuntoli’s boss at a San Francisco restaurant called him because he couldn’t pronounce the kid’s name. (“Bimbo,” pronounced beem-bo, is Italian for boy.) Giuntoli was a smart guy, who apparently didn’t have any problem with the nickname. And it turned out to be a much catchier name for the nightclub he opened with Monk Young, his name-challenged s former boss, now his partner, in 1931.
We really didn’t know much about the place until the advent of singer Chris Isaak‘s Showtime network sitcom, The Chris Isaak Show. If you don’t remember the show, it ran from 2001-2004 and pretty much purported to be a fly-on-the-wall look at Isaak’s life in San Francisco — although the show was actually shot in Vancouver. One of the show’s most endearing and curious features was Isaak’s regular pilgrimage to Bimbo’s basement to visit Mona, who in the show played the club’s mermaid Dolphina, for advice about his love life.
The mermaid — created through projections, not real women in tanks of water — was and still is a feature of the real Bimbo’s. Mona (actress BobbyJo Moore) appeared nude on a turntable in the basement. Her image was projected into a “tank” in the club’s lounge.
We needed to see Bimbo’s and check out the mermaid. And luckily, it turned out that Laura Marling was performing there while we were in town. (Don’t be misled by the “365″ in the club’s name. It comes from the club’s former address at 365 Market St. and doesn’t refer to being open every night of the year.)
Laura Marling and her band at Bimbo's 365 Club. (Photo © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
It was great fun. Laura Marling was awesome, delivering a confident, rocking set. And her opener, Alessi’s Ark, a singer-songwriter with one backup player, did a surprisingly lovely performance.
Alessi's Ark at Bimbo's 365 Club. (Photo © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
But we couldn’t find any sign of the “real” Dolphina. Sure, there was a statue in the swanky lobby. But we couldn’t even immediately figure out where the mermaid tank was based.
Before the evening was over, we finally — and to our slight disappointment — discovered that Dolphina appears only occasionally at Bimbo’s, projected into a faux aquarium that spends most of its time behind curtains on the back bar. The rest of the time, there’s a small aquarium with some fish in it behind bar in the retro-elegant lounge.
The club has a no-cameras rule that they did try to enforce, so we had to rely on crappy BlackBerry photos inside the place. But here’s the tiny fish tank that had to suffice on Sept. 18:
The resident fish tank at Bimbo's is behind the cash register in the cocktail lounge, providing a point of reference to show how small the tank is. (© 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
By the way, don’t forget to check out music from Laura Marling, Alessi’s Ark, and Chris Isaak, who has a new album, Beyond the Sun, a tribute to the classic recordings of Sun Records of Memphis, out this month.
Posted in Concerts, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Recordings, Review
Tagged Alessi's Ark, Bimbo's 365 Club, Chris Isaak, Dolphina, Laura Marling, mermaid, San Francisco, Showtime, The Chris Isaak Show
If you can’t picture yourself at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J., at 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, it’s time to make an exception.
Tomorrow, Aug. 13, that’s exactly where you should be. If you’re there, you’ll be helping young adults who have aged out of New Jersey’s foster-care system through the Roots & Wings foundation and listening to four great bands in the process: Speed the Plough, Yung Wu (a side project of Feelies percussionist Dave Weckerman), Wild Carnation (which includes Feelies bassist Brenda Sauter) and Charlotte Sometimes.
Of course this is just one of three shows, featuring 12 bands, being staged at the legendary Hoboken club this weekend as part of CamelFest 2011 in support of Roots & Wings. It’s sponsored by Great Meadows, N.J., -based Dromedary Records.
Speed the Plough (Photo by Katie Demeski)
Tonight’s show’s, which starts at 8, features Richard Barone, Robbers on High Street, Readymade Breakup and The Mommyheads. Tomorrow night, also at 8, it’s The 65′s, The Library is on Fire, Varsity Drag and Stuyvesant.
Tickets are $10 per show. They’re available online (click here for tonight, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow night) and at the door.
Posted in Benefit, Concerts, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Recordings
Tagged Brenda Sauter, Charlotte Sometimes, Dave Weckerman, Dromedary Records, Hoboken, Maxwell's, Readymade Breakup, Richard Barone, Robbers on High Street, Roots & Wings, Speed the Plough, Stuyvesant, The 65s, The Library is on Fire, The Mommyheads, Varsity Drag, Wild Carnation, Yung Wu
Speed the Plough (Photo by Katie Demeski)
It’s a great weekend for New Jersey rock and roll. In one fell swoop, three Jersey bands, all with links to The Feelies, are performing on a joint bill in NYC tonight and New Jersey tomorrow.
Shine is due out Aug. 16
Speed the Plough is using the shows to preview the sounds of its wonderful new album, Shine, which as Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? has been telling you, is due out on Aug. 16. STP is a real family affair, fronted as it is by the husband-and-wife team of Toni and John Baumgartner and includes their son, Mike and STP co-founder Marc Francia and his sons Ian and Dan. New member Ed Seifert, another fixture on the New Jersey music scene, is the only person in the band who, as far as we know, isn’t related to anyone else in STP.
You can get a sample of the warm, rhythmic and familiar sounds of STP’s new work with the first single, “Something to Say,” which is streaming on the band website and on the Dromedary Records site.
STP is inextricably linked to The Feelies, in part through former member Brenda Sauter, who’s the longtime Feelies bass player and also a member of Wild Carnation, another band on this weekend’s bill. STP grew out of the ashes of another legendary band, The Trypes, which also included Feelies members.
Wild Carnation bills itself as “the best Feelies spin-off band you never heard of,” is also on the bill, along with Montclair’s The Thousand Pities – which includes Michael Carlucci, who plays with Feelies singer Glenn Mercer.
Shows are 8 p.m. today (Friday, July 29) at at Piano’s, 158 Ludlow Street, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side ($10, tickets available here), and tomorrow (Saturday, July 30) at 8:30 pm tomorrow at Tierney’s, 138 Valley Road, Montclair, N.J. (No price announced.)
The Chapin Sisters: Lily and Abigail Rose (Photos © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
Abigail Rose Chapin and Lily Chapin have been playing as the Chapin Sisters since 2004, when they followed family tradition and started making music as a trio with half-sister Jessica Craven.
That family tradition runs deep. Their dad is popular folksinger Tom Chapin. He and his brothers, Steve and the late Harry, performed as the Chapin Brothers from the late 1950s into the ’60s before venturing into their own musical worlds. The Chapin Sisters’ grandfather, the late great jazz drummer Jim, was also in the Chapin Brothers band for part of its existence. Their cousin, Jen Chapin, is also a contemporary folksinger.
Abby and Lily grew up in Rockland County, N.Y., which Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? calls home. Their mom, Bonnie Chapin, even named her longrunning women’s clothing shop in Piermont, N.Y., Abigail Rose and Lily Too, after her daughters. But they got their careers rolling in Los Angeles seven years ago. So while they’ve toured and played the East Coast before, we hadn’t gotten around to catching them live.
Proud dad Tom Chapin listens from the bar, leaning against the pillar, right.
Last night (Friday, July 15) we got our opportunity to hear the duo at Rockwood Music Hall on Manhattan’s Lower East Side Rockwood Music Hall. And although they have other gigs coming up in the area — one of them just steps from the family home, at The Turning Point in Piermont at 8 p.m. July 19— their proud parents showed up to lend support.
The lightly attended set was a great treat — and far too short.
The sisters have really perfected the vocal harmonies so closely identified with the Everly Brothers and the Louvin Brothers, tackling classic folk themes and timeless relationship-troubles issues in their songs. Both of them have distinctive, strong, well-controlled voices that can come to the fore at a moment’s notice and then effortlessly dive back into seamless harmony. Lily’s voice is the lower of the two, and she’s a more physically expressive performer than her sister, who takes the high parts and has a sweeter, slightly more subdued approach to her performing.
Posted in Blues, Country, Folk, Music, Recordings, Review
Tagged Abigail Rose Chapin, Bonnie Chapin, Everly Brothers, Harry Chapin, Jen Chapin, Jessica Craven, Jim Chapin, Lily Chapin, Louvin Brothers, Piermont, Rockland County, Rockwood Music Hall, Steve Chapin, The Turning Point, Tom Chapin, Wes Craven
Sharon van Etten at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in April. (Photo © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)
Powerful singer Sharon van Etten, whose great strength is in the directness of her lyrics and singing, has signed a new recording deal with Jagjaguwar Records, her publicist has announced.
Congratulations are in order. It’s a great career move for one of the best, most honest singers active today.
The move puts Sharon in the company of top indie acts such as Bon Iver, Okkervil River, Black Mountain and Dinosaur Jr. Jagjaguwar will release her third album, being produced by The National‘s Aaron Dessner, in early 2012.
The National's Aaron Dessner performing with Sharon Van Etten at the Northside Festival in Brooklyn in June.
Sharon is the second hot artist to part ways with Brookyn’s Ba Da Bing label in recent months. Ba Da Bing released Epic, an album that really boosted her profile, last year. Her connection with the label is even deeper, though. Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? first met Sharon as a Ba Da Bing publicist, who was representing noise-rock duo WOOM.
Longtime Ba Da Bing labelmate Beirut announced in June that its next album would be self-released rather than on Ba Da Bing. The band is continuing under Ba Da Bing’s management aegis, however. It’s unclear whether Sharon will do the same.
It looks like Sharon, an amazingly talented and genuinely nice person, is living up to our early expectations. This year alone she’s already played Bonnaroo, Sasquatch, and MusicNow. And she has dates scheduled later this year at Bumbershoot, Musicfest NW and at the Hollywood Bowl with The National and Neko Case.
We’re thrilled to see Sharon’s continuing success.
Speed the Plough: John Baumgartner, Dan Francia, Ian Francia, Michael Baumgartner, Marc Francia and Toni Baumgartner.
There are some big doings at Speed the Plough HQ. The latest incarnation of the band, a part of network of bands linked to The Feelies, has announced a deal for their new CD.
They’ve signed with Great Meadows, N.J, -based Dromedary Records, which will issue the band’s new disc, Shine, in August. The lineup for the new album will feature the great guitar and vocal work of new Plough-man Ed Seifert (of Ed Seifert and the Stimulus Package, though you may also recognize Ed as The Feelies’ tech) and guest appearances by two former STPers and current members of Wild Carnation, Brenda Sauter (who’s also in The Feelies) and Rich Barnes.
What’s more, a compilation of tunes from The Trypes, another part of The Feelies’ family, is also nearing completion.
Click through to the jump for the full announcement. And be sure to check out the Speed the Plough website for updates. Continue reading
Posted in Music, News, Pop and Rock, Recordings
Tagged Brenda Sauter, Dan Francia, Dromedary Records, Ed Seifert, Ed Seifert and the Stimulus Package, Ian Francia, John Baumgartner, Marc Francia, Michael Baumgartner, Rich Barnes, Shine, Speed the Plough, The Feelies, The Trypes, Toni Baumgartner, Wild Carnation
