Jan 24 : "You've Become A Witch" - The Electric Mess (Brooklyn)

Topping off the evening at Mercury Lounge was Brooklyn band "The Electric Mess", which was another band whose show I liked a lot.

The Electric Mess is a dynamic five piece. Their music has played to international acclaim. Here is an excerpt from a UK review that appears on their page: "Shindig! (UK): "The Electric Mess? Nothing could be further from the truth! Fronted by the mercurial vocal talents of androgynous lead singer Esther Crow aka Chip Fontaine and backed by four intuitive musicians... the New York City-based outfit produce tight, inventive, white knuckle ride garage-punk."

Some of the lyrics and song titles push the over-the-top envelope. I always vote in favor of that haha.lol. Here are examples of some of the song titles: "He Looks Like a Psycho", "The Girl With the Exploding Dress", and "Don't Take Your Bad Trip Out On Me", to name a few.

Another is "You've Become A Witch", the video version of which is playing right here: (Watch it FULL screen to the very "The End").

"You've Become a Witch" (official video) by The Electric Mess from THE ELECTRIC MESS on Vimeo.

To visit The Electric Mess on line, here is the click to their main web page ::: The Electric Mess (CLICK HERE)

Jan 19 : "Sweet As They Come" - The Piggies (Brooklyn)

The opening band playing at Mercury Lounge that night was Brooklyn band "The Piggies", which came on stage after One Chord Progression DJ's started the night.

I liked The Piggies right off. They were my favorite that night. The melodic lines drew me in right away. The rough around the edges style, but, at the same time, the way their sound was mixed had such an amazing clarity.

There were also vibrant lyrics, sparked with humor in the right places. And the good melodic lines, a little bit blues-infused.

The band is a four piece. Last week I had a conversation with Andy, who does vocals and guitar. He fills us in on their background and their creative process. ::: It's kind of hard to separate the band from our personal friendships and relations, but to make a long story short, I'm married to Kris (the drummer.) Brad (the other guitar player) and Matt (the bass player) are two of my oldest and best friends. We all happen to live within a square block of each other.

About five years ago, Kris and I were in a band called the Underthings and wanted to start something new. We were jamming at our practice space, getting some tunes together, but not having much luck finding other people to play with. We really were looking for a bassist. I wasn't thinking about having a two guitar band, I was kind of going for a power trio. Even so, after a while we asked Brad to come down and play guitar. Brad had never been in a real band before, but I knew he was a good guitar player from hanging out with him. We played for a bit without a bassist, and finally, after a couple of weeks we asked Matt, who was also in the Underthings to come down and it all started to feel good. We just naturally played well together, as easy as if we were just having a conversation, or joking around.

Generally speaking, I write the songs. What I mean by that is, I write the words, and the chords, and whatever melody there is. Then we work it out as band, with everyone adding their part, suggesting possibilities , having opinions, and coming up with arrangement ideas. It's all done as a group. We hammer away at a tune and it all falls into place (for the most part) rather easily. I'm very lucky to have people who freely give as much as Brad, Kris and Matt. We're all big music people, so if anyone of us brings up a reference point as an idea for a song, we all know (to pick a few names out of a hat) who Elmore James is, or the MC5, or Hank Snow, or Clifton Chenier, etc. It makes for a very natural, and comfortable environment. Our tastes (somewhat miraculously) run along the same lines, though there isn't any kind of the snobbery or elitism that I have seen with a lot of musicians. I can talk to these guys without worrying about being judged. They know their sh*t.

We're working on getting a record out, it's going to be a full length album with ten songs. We're just about to start mixing. I'm very excited about it, because even at this stage, it sounds fantastic. We'll probably press 500 copies.We have to do everything on a pretty small scale.

We actually have something out on Norton Records, it's part of their series of Rolling Stones cover 45s. We do the song Parachute Woman. The other side of the record is La La Brooks doing Play With Fire.

I enjoyed The Piggies' music at Mercury Lounge. One of the songs with a more unique style was "Sweet As They Come", which features the vocals and guitars speaking back and forth, with the guitar first playing four descending notes, then followed by a vocal phrase, then repeating this sequence back and forth. This song is playing below right here on my blog page. While you can certainly hear the contrasts in this recorded version, they were much more pronounced when done on stage. ... But here is the recorded version of "Sweet As They Come" :::

Some bands sound better on stage; some sound better recorded. As good as The Piggies may sound here, they're even much better on stage, and I would urge you to follow them and watch for their next live show. They're not on Facebook, but you can find them on Facebook. Here is the click ::: The Piggies (CLICK HERE)

Jan 12 : One Chord Progression (Brooklyn)

CURATORIAL PROWESS

I'm pretty sure this is my first ever post about DJ's.

Up until last Friday night I considered DJ's to be superfluous interlopers playing between live band sets, and playing music that was too often not quite as good as what the venue or the sound guy would normally play themselves.

Until last Friday night when I was given an attitude adjustment. … big time.

Last Friday I went to Mercury Lounge and the first music playing as I walked in the door was some intriguing vinyl spinning by "Tony LoFi" of Brooklyn's "One Chord Progression". This was something different. Each song he played seemed like an individual little gem that begged to be listened to.

I talked with Tony that night and then later with his partner, "Anna Anabolic" to find out some background information and how they went about picking these songs! A lot of thought went into these selections. The passion they have and the care they take in selecting their music is clearly evident as you listen.

Anna tells us ::: Tony and I launched OCP March of 2012. It's a blog where we post interviews and rock n roll news, although we've let it slide a bit lately due to being too damn busy at work! We mostly just book shows and DJ these days under the OCP name. We'll revive the blog soon though.

Regarding the songs we play...we go record shopping all the time, it's a big hobby of ours. Any song with a food title is gonna be awesome, nine times out of ten...also, anything with 'twist', 'hop' or 'boogaloo' in the name is almost certain to be a winner. We got one of those nifty battery powered portable turntables recently so we can finally listen to records before we buy em, cutting down what we buy by about 50% (and making us 50% nerdier in the process). We have our favorite singers and bands of course but we're always trying to learn about new singers, bands and labels to check out. Tony's really into French and Quebec 60s records too, often french covers of soul or girl group songs (but lots of originals too). I'm obsessed with 60s soul, R&B and girl group - mostly just the real high energy stuff - and also love finding cool covers. I just bought a 45 of Solomon Burke doing 'Maggie's Farm' that I'm pretty psyched about. And Etta James doing "Security."

The duo has a Bandcamp page with two volumes of free downloadable songs. Here is a sample, the lead song on "One Year Regression Vol 2". The track is titled "Conjure Man", and it's by Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds :::

If you'd like to hear more, here is the click to their One Chord Progression on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE).

Jan 10 : Monday Appreciation Society (Philly)

Philly Music!

Another project created by a Long Walk Home (featured in Jan 4 post) member is "Monday Appreciation Society." At the big show at North Star, Monday Appreciation Society played right after Bird Watcher and right before Long Walk Home.

Monday Appreciation Society's direct connection to Long Walk Home is drummer Mark Rybaltowski. Mark's partner in the newer project is Dan Wisniewski. However, Mark and Dan describe themselves as "Two dudes from The Quelle Source", which is another band that both of them were in previously. But The Quelle Source also had Kevin Ryan from Long Walk Home, so there's a second more roundabout connection. The sounds are intertwined.

Mark and Dan have music posted on Bandcamp, on which they say that their initial music has been recorded on a 4-track cassette recorder. They have a 5-track ep, "Time Travel EP" posted on their Bandcamp page with a promise that an 11-track album is in the works!

If you visit their Bandcamp page, you'll see that the lyrics are posted for each song, which is still a little unusual. Not all bands do that, although they probably should.

This is about the point where I would normally feature a particular song of the band and have it posted right here. But, alas, Bandcamp wouldn't cooperate, and I can't repost anything from their Bandcamp page. So the best I can do is to tell you to go their page and listen. Here is the click ::: Monday Appreciation Society (CLICK HERE)

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Jan 16, 2014, Added On ::: ::: Problem Solved! I mentioned above that I wasn't able to post any music from Monday Appreciation Society's Bandcamp page. I think in the end that must have been a browser problem, because now it seems to work. Listen to "Red Snow", which is the fourth song on the band's "Time Travel E.P.".

The band's lyrics are not as direct as some others that we often hear. There's some beautiful imagery in Monday Appreciation Society's lyrics, and I think especially in this one particular song, "Red Snow". Again, go to their page and check out the lyrics!

Jan 08 : "The Great West, or 'Old Black on the Elk'" - Bird Watcher (Philly)

Philly Music!

The guys who play in Long Walk Home (from the previous blog) have ventured out into other music projects. One of them is "Bird Watcher" which was the opener on that big night at North Star. Julian Booker from Long Walk Home does the vocals, guitar, and mastermind at Bird Watcher. Here is a sample of their music, "The Great West, or 'Old Black on the Elk'"; this song also features LWH's Mark Rybaltowski playing drums.

The song is Julian's tribute to his friend and mentor, Dave. Take a minute to read the full story on Bird Watcher's Facebook page ::: Bird Watcher on Facebook (CLICK HERE)

Jan 04 : "On My Way Down" - Long Walk Home (Philly)

Philly Music!

THEY PLAYED EVERYTHING

What a great show. Long Walk Home's annual holiday "reunion" concert you could call it. It was their best show "yet".

I first saw Philly band Long Walk Home do a live show when they played the Tritone on November 23, 2007. After that I was hooked and saw them in frequent concerts playing all over the city, up through May 21, 2110, which was when they did a "farewell show" at Grape Room. OH, NO! But after graduating from Temple and St Joe's, life was calling them to move in different directions and to go separate ways.

That was an awful day to see them break up. But lucky for me and other fans their absence was to be short lived, for they subsequently did a "reunion" show which has now evolved into an annual event.

Last week was this year's annual show, this time at North Star Bar. The first thing I noticed when I arrived was the large crowd. What a change as attendance has steadily grown each year.

Shortly after I arrived the other night, I got a sneak peak at the playlist for the evening and I immediately saw that they had EVERYTHING and More on their list. All the songs from their most recent full length 2009 album, "Heavy Sand", as well as all the songs from their previous full length, "Long Walk Home". Plus covers. Wow, that was ambitious. ... Mark gave me a copy of the playlist; here it is :::

The band played non-stop for two hours, including all their standards and some exciting and surprising new covers, such as the Stones' "Not Fade Away". The music is not just a repetition of what they previously played but a revisiting of works with new arrangements and enhancements. One of the interesting new takes on a previous standard was their new rendition of "Murder By a Family Man", which was from the earlier album.

One of the main things that has always drawn me to the music of Long Walk Home is the complex instrumentals, and it was good to see that the new arrangements are not showing a thinning out in the composition as we see with too many other bands, but are showing enrichments. Make no mistake, the band rocks hard, but at the same time demonstrates more complexity and nuance in the composition and performance, and doing it all with such confidence and ease.

The lyrics of the music are right in tune with the uncertain times in which we now live. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, there's always some optimism, but still a feeling that we're on the edge and try to keep from falling. Many references to the Fall and Winter months.

Last week the band started off the show with their song "On My Way Down", which is also the opening track of their newer album, "Heavy Sand". It's one of my favorites. Here it is ::: (NOTE ::: THIS MUSIC IS SOURCED WITH THE BAND'S PERMISSION, BUT NOT FROM THEIR WEBSITE. WAIT A MINUTE AFTER YOU CLICK ON THE LINK; YOUR BROWSER NEEDS A MINUTE TO LOAD THE SONG)

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6/27/20 UPDATE! ::: OOPS! Couldn't bring this music forward. Sawry !!! :)

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You should friend Long Walk Home now so you can be alerted to their next reunion. Here is the click ::: Long Walk Home (CLICK HERE)

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"On My Way Down" © 2009, Long Walk Home. All rights reserved. Used with permission.