With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: Rick Trolson, Stoo Odom, David Brandowski @ SidePorch NOLA
SideBar New Orleans has started up a SidePorch series to deliver socially responsible porch concerts in a town that desperately needs live music to return.
The shows will be staged at 611 South White St. New Orleans, LA and will kick off tonight with Rick Trolson, Stoo Odom and David Brandowski. Actual live jazz going down tonight starting at 7pm CST at SidePorch if you are in town.
A release that has been in the works for a long time, Wildflowers & All The Rest Deluxe Edition collects Tom Petty's classic Wildflowers album with a second album of outtakes recorded at the same time. The Deluxe Edition also offers up home demos of these songs and live recordings, and while it may be interesting to hear, it seems the original release managed to truly captured the sound, style and substance of this fertile era the best. All The Rest is a fine listen, but is not needed if Wildflowers is already owned.
The original Wildflowers itself is presented here in the 2014 remastered fashion. While louder and perhaps with a bit cleaner instrumentation, the original release still sounds enchanting and no sonic upgrade was needed. The original album remains one of the true highlights of Petty's recording career, essential listening, but already well known and loved.
The main draw for this release is the All The Rest second album which was rumored for a longtime as a possible double album to be released with the original but was scaled down by Rick Rubin, Petty and Warner Brothers. The opening "Something Could Happen" fits Petty's songwriting of the time perfectly with a split of being half hopeful and half full of despair as Petty was dealing with a painful divorce during the writing and recording of Wildflowers.
The searching for something new, swirling with pain bubbles up lyrically in a few odd offerings including "Leave Virginia Alone" which also deploys excellent warbling guitar work and "Hope You Never" which is a clunky mixing of stoned light blues rock and some hateful thoughts in "Positively 4th Street" style.
Tracks like the easy acoustic strums of "Confusion Wheel" and the dueling versions of "Climb That Hill" both acoustic and hard driving electric would fit excellently into the original album while "Harry Green" musically would slip in, but the oddball tale of high school vehicular suicide would change the flow of the original album greatly.
Other efforts like the cliche filled "California", the strung out harpsichord flavored drug ditty "Hung Up and Overdue" and the hugely produced Jeff Lynne inspired "Somewhere Under Heaven" could have worked on other Petty albums, but are out of sync with the hazy Wildflowers.
The third album of demos and the live album are fine additions for fanatics, but will not be in regular rotation anywhere and including them in any release where the new outtake album is include does seem like overkill. As with his recent box set American Treasure, Petty's family is cashing in on releases, but the majority of the unearthed music is only for die hard fans at this point, not truly illuminating a lost era.
Perhaps it is just that the original album has always been a favorite of ours, but these extra offerings are for completists only. While Wildflowers found Petty funneling personal pain into artistic gold, this expanded Deluxe Edition doesn't add a whole lot new to that idea. The extra songs, live offerings and demos are nice, but never raise this release higher than that.
With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: The Metropolitan Opera - Free Opera All Week
To celebrate the Maestro Nézet-Séguin there will be a full week of live streaming opera from the Met:
More info can be found here and to get into the mood here is a bit a of video from the Faust: Love Duet an excerpt with Jonas Kaufmann & Marina Poplavskaya.
In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's artists, Linda Hedström performing a live cover of "Most of the Time"
Thoughts on Dylan Original From our first cover take on this tune: One of the best songs in Dylan's repertoire from any of his era's and also one of the most important, "Most Of The Time" proved Dylan was far from done as an artist. Showing up on the return to form album Oh Mercy, "Most Of The Time" is a revelation with it's descending bass line and powerfully stark lyrics. There is a palpable sense of desperation, longing, sadness, a nervous sense of things are falling apart around me; this tune touches a nerve and makes you stand up and take notice. Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist: Linda Hedström is a young folk singer from Sweden who posts on youtube. This is the first time we have heard her play/sing. Thoughts on Cover:
A simple straight ahead cover that allows Hedstrom to dig into the melancholy of the lyrics with her soft vocals. Great cover.
With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: Save Tips! A Benefit for Tipitina's
Tomorrow, Saturday November 14th, will be a unique benefit for Tipitina's, one of the best clubs in the country.
We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Jeff Buckley!
This week we travel back to 1995 and across the Atlantic to Frankfurt, Germany for a live show from Jeff Buckley. Pro shot and sound with a full set list below. Enjoy:
With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: Kim Gordon talks with Carrie Brownstein
Kim Gordon discusses her new book No Icon with Carrie Brownstein tonight at 8pm EST on Zoom.
RtBE has not read the book yet but it is on our list. To get in the mood for the discussion here is a tune from Kim Gordon's last album, 2019's No Home Record which we reviewed for Glide.
With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: Gloria Gaynor
The disco queen will be playing NYC's #SummerStageAnywhere concert series at 5pm EST:
Since this is a music site we will pay homage in that way. Our friends in the great NYHC band Billyclub Sandwich recorded a song titled "Veteran's Day". You can listen to bad ass tune below following the perfect Patton quote that the group used to intro it:
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
"I choose to fight for what I live for" Well said fellows. Well said.
The debut single from the new New York City death metal outfit Knights of the Black has been released.
"Black Harvest - The Horror of Haddonfield" is a pummeling display of aggression, technique and power from the five piece Bronx based rampaging marauders. The song lyrically uses the horror movie "Halloween" as it's inspiration and future tracks will find other horror classics as fuel for their violent fires.
The band is comprised of ex-NYHC members of Irate as well as family and friends. Knights of the Black are Vox - Phil Vibez, Lead/ Rhythm Guitars - Jay Vibez, Lead/ Rhythm Guitars - Nando Redrum, Bass - Tommy Tulotta with Session Drummer - Chason Westmoreland.
Listen to "Black Harvest - The Horror of Haddonfield" below and prepare for more from the band in the near future:
On July 4th, in 2017 Public Enemy unexpectedly dropped a free album Nothing Is Quick In The Desert (Except Death) which saw PE ranting against the music industry (and society in general) with more power than was to be expected from a group celebrating it's 30th Anniversary. That album was very good and raised expectations for this follow up for RtBE who have been life long fans of the band. A return to Def Jam Records for the outfit sweetened things even more for the release of What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? Then a funny thing happened, those desert songs didn't die, in fact they got a second life with even the cover art doing double duty.
About half the new album ("Toxic", "If You Can't Join Em Beat Em", "Beat Them All", "Yesterday Man", "Rest In Beats" etc.) originally saw the light of day back in 2017, and the past album has been removed from bandcamp. While it isn't necessarily a bad thing if more people are exposed to them in this manner, it is odd that the bands last album raged against the music industry and this album goes and recycles songs...
That point out of the way, the driving force on this record is the current shit-uation in our government and Chuck D and Flava Flav (back in the band or having never left) have never been shy about voicing opinions. "State Of The Union (STFU)" is a punk rock direct fuck you to Trump and crew with DJ Premier providing the beats while "GRID" pulls in Cypress Hill and George Clinton into the Armageddon fray.
Chuck does sound older but his flow was never his main weapon, his message was, his lyrics are the ammunition and they are honed in, even when he drops off the politics and pals around with old school friends Adrock, Mike D and Run DMC on "Public Enemy Number Won".
The centerpiece of the album is "Fight The Power: Remix 2020 [feat. Nas & Rapsody & Black Thought & Jahi & YG & Questlove]" designed to update the bands classic anthem before a vital election as each artist gets to contribute modern lyrics addressing vital issues over the classic beat. Chuck D has always felt like a rock front man and he has done his best work over crazy wild guitars and flying drumbeats, "Smash The Crowd" is the most energetic track here inspiring Chuck and Ice-T while PMD joins for a smooth injection.
Overall, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is an odd combo release, however if you never heard the majority before, these are songs that are trying to reach out to people in desperate times, few can do it better than PE...even if we liked them better the first time we heard most of them.
With live music on lock down (like everything else currently in New York City) live streams and old concerts have become essential for live music junkies like RtBE. While this current state of pandemic separation is in order we will highlight various shows/streams/virtual events for your viewing and listening pleasure and you can always check out or weekly Full Show Friday series for concerts from the past. Please support the artists any which way you can.
Today we highlight: Emmylou Harris & Friends featuring The Red Dirt Boys in the Music City Wine Garden
Emmylou Harris & Friends will be playing for the next two nights at the City Winery in Nashville. You can get tickets if you live in town or stream the shows if you don't:
In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a live cover by First Aid Kit playing "With God On Our Side"
Thoughts on Original From the first time we talked about around Veterans Day as well: Perhaps the most poignant and lasting song Dylan has written and that speaks volumes. Lyrically it is perfect; using history, the warping of religion and politics to get across the point that man will rationalize anything, even war. Only played live 30 times since it's debut at Dylan's historic Town Hall show the song has added weight and meaning when it is played.
Morality and War, Religion and Righteousness, all just words when it comes down to it, hold life inside those letters. Musically stark Dylan uses his impressive lyrics to express the confusion perfectly. Should be mandatory listing in every history classroom. Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist: We found out about First Aid Kit when they covered a different Bob Dylan song in this series. Thoughts on Cover: We have talked about this song on Veterans Day (or the week of) every year since we started doing this series and we will continue to until we close up shop. This is a strong straight ahead acoustic live cover, showcasing the soaring vocals of the group and the lyrics from Dylan expertly.
Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of Goodie Mob's debut release, Soul Food.
Soul Food was RtBE's first introduction into southern hip hop and to this day it remains one of our favorite albums. This was before Outkast rose to fame, and in 1995 we were as into hip hop as we ever were and this album scratched all itches by using killer dark beats, excellent word play and conscious messaging while remaining hard hitting. It was clear the band was speaking from their heart throughout and it sounded great then and still sounds great 25 years later.
While their friends and contemporaries went on to superstardom, outside of Cee-Lo Green the band never hit those heights however Soul Food is an all-time great hip hop record that seems to get overlooked when discussing the greats in the genre. We were lucky enough to catch the band at SOB's live early in their career and loved the show that the MOB put on.
We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...The Presidents of The United States of America!
This week these guys felt appropriate for our Full Show Friday Series.
This set comes from their May 24th, 2006 show at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. They sprinkle in a bunch of covers with their poppy hits. Pro shot, pro sound, full set list is below. Enjoy:
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