I love the Sound Opinions podcast from music critics Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot and listen to it every week.  Last week they did a great show where they broke down their favorite live albums of all times.  As usual I learned a few things and discovered some music (in this case the Ani Difranco album).  But guys, how do you not even mention the live music that promoter extraordinaire Bill Graham gave us from his Fillmore East Club in the East Village?

We still have great albums coming out of the re-opened Fillmore West – check out Lucinda Williams Live @ The Fillmore double CD, and the 60s produced some killer stuff by Santana, Chuck Berry and the Jefferson Airplane on the west coast.  But to me the Golden Age of Live Recordings occurred in New York at the Fillmore East in the roughly year and a half after New Years Eve 69-70 when Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsies the  recorded their incredible live album Live At The Fillmore East.  Two months later Alvin Lee and Ten Years After made a seminal live album Live At The Filmore East, and in March Neil brought his new band Crazy Horse down to work the kinks out of Down by the River and Cortez the Killer, which was only released  recently as Live At The Fillmore East as part of Neil’s archive project.  Later in the year Clapton came by and recorded his amazing Derek and the Dominos Live album Live At The Fillmore.  In April of the following year the Dead recorded 5 shows there that turned into Ladies And Gentlemen…The Grateful Dead: Fillmore East, New York City, April 1971. Frank Zappa brought the Mothers and closed out the run in June 1971 with a solid live album shortly before the venue closed.  And of course what is in my opinion the greatest live rock and roll recording ever made – The Allman Brothers Band “At Fillmore East” (rereleased as The Fillmore Concerts) which was recorded in March 1971.

Other notables who made great live records at the Fillmore were Aretha, John Mayall, John and Yoko, Miles Davis and the Byrds.

Some of the greatest live guitar solos ever recorded happened on Second and Sixth in Manhattan in that 18 month period, and damn it Jim and Greg, you blew it by not including them in your show.

Derek and the Dominos – Why Does Love Got to be So Sad?

Band of Gypsies – Hear My Train

The Allman Brothers Band – Done Somebody Wrong

Ten Years After – Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

Posted: May 9th, 2009 under digital music, live music, portable devices.
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Jason Isbell is a singer/songwriter from Muscle Shoals Alabama who is best known for his 3 album stint with the Drive-by Truckers (he left the band last year). I’ve seen him live before 3 or 4 times with the Truckers and I caught his phenomenal acoustic show last week (with Browan Lollar on guitar and vocals) at the Mint in Los Angeles presented by an Aquarium Drunkard.

Isbell’s music is both easy and difficult to categorize. Easy: He’s an alt-country singer songwriter from Alabama. Hard: He’s a little bit of Townes Van Zandt (imagery), Bruce Springsteen (symbolism), the Band esp Danko (brawling musicianship), Willie Nelson, Tom Petty (hooks), Dylan (songwriting). With the release of Sirens of the Ditch he’s got a shows worth of great songs to perform, going back to his early Truckers’ songs (Outfit, Goddamn Lonely Love) and before (TVA). He’s also not afraid to do a cover – Dylans The Man in Me was a real highlight last night. He made mention that there “probably aren’t too many cover bands in Los Angeles”, like he was the only one in on the joke.

Another highlight of the evening was the young Marine from Jason’s hometown of Greenhill, Alabama who had driven up from the proving grounds at 29 Palms to see the show. Juxtaposed against Isbell’s poignant intro to Dress Blues where he talked about the empty space a dead soldier could leave in a small southern (anywhere?) town that inspired the song, the young soldier’s presence was moving.

It was a great performance that left me really looking forward to his 2nd solo album which is due out in early ‘09. He mentioned last night that the album is in the can and seemed really happy with it.

If by some Google’s chance in hell the guy taping last night’s show stumbles across this post – hit me up I’d love a copy.  Also MickO leave a comment when you get your film developed and up on Flickr.

Jason Isbell – Dress Blues

Drive-by Truckers – Outfit

Drive-by Truckers – Goddamn Lonely Love

Sirens of the Ditch on Amazon

Posted: November 16th, 2008 under digital music, live music, moblog, mp3blog.
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Congrats to my friends at Topspin Media for helping David Byrne and Brian Eno release their new album today.  I’ve been a fan of David Byrne since he wore oversized jackets (“geek is chic”).  I drove 2.5 hours to Indianapolis to see him in college in an old van that had no business being on the road – his music was way ahead of its time and totally blew us away.  And is his show last summer at the Bowl was epic.  Good times.  And I have listened to Eno’s Music For Airports on headphones in coach coming back from somewhere east (and a few times west) of California more times than I can count since my brother-in-law Sam introduced me to it probably a decade ago. I listened to the new album this morning, and I agree with everyone else – it’s great.  You can stream it here for free, and then there are a bunch of options for purchasing direct from the artists’ site itself.

Ambient 1: Music For Airports 1/1

Amazon – Ambient 1/Music For Airports

Posted: August 18th, 2008 under digital entertainment, digital music, live music, mp3blog.
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There are so many great ways to discover and enjoy music that didn’t exist 10 years ago.  Internet radio, music blogs, social networks, recommendation technology.  The prevailing wisdom is that we need all these new forms of music discovery because Clear Channel killed terrestrial radio in the 90s by rolling up all the good old stations and programming them from an office park in Dallas with lowest common denominator corporate schlock.  Which they basically did.

But it turns out you can’t kill great radio completely.  We Angelenos are fortunate to have an incredible station in Indie 103.1.  Ian Rogers (who knows I dig the alt-country and other forms of cool roots) first tuned me into Chris Morris’s excellent Sunday morning show Watusi Rodeo a few years ago.  Its still my favorite program.  Excellent week in and week out.

Dwight Yoakum – Close Up the Honky Tonks

Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band – Harlan Man

Johnny Adams – Hell Yes I cheated

Another solid program on 103.1 is Big Sonic Heaven weeknights from 10-12 PM.  I usually tune in a few nights a week while reading or playing Wii.  Its heavy on the Sigur Ros, Portishead and other chill out type stuff.  I bet Mick O tunes in regularly.

Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols has a show called Jonesy’s Jukebox at noon and 6PM. He gets some great long format interviews and guest DJs (Robert Plant, Public Enemy, Spoon, OK Go, Harry Shearer as of late) and plays some great R&B, soul, etc. as well as pre through post punk.

There is also a great DJ (forgot his name) who plays around 7 or 8PM midweek who is totally geeked about rareties, the vinyl-ier the better.  He doesn’t pre-announce the tracks he is going to play,  but he gives a great post-play synopsis including how to find the rare tracks.  They don’t appear to have a page for him on the site so I’m not sure what the show is called, but he’s turned me on the some great rare stuff in the past few weeks.  His setup for Makanda Ken McIntyre’s Cosmos was “get prepared for 5min and 26 sec of sonic perfection.”  I thought so too – check it out (loud works better).  It’s off an Complete United Artists Sessions compilation which is only available new on Makanda’s site (the vinyl is amazing and also hard to come by).

Tenor Saw – Ring the Alarm

Makanda Ken Mcintyre – Cosmos

If you are like me and had given up on ad-supported terrestrial radio, start tuning into 103.1 on your stereo or checking out their live stream on their site.  They run fewer ads than most stations by a longshot, and a lot of the ads they do run seem to be promoting local music events and festivals – like this tribute to Johnny Ramone in Hollywood next weekend that I want to attend (as long as it doesn’t interfere with Broken Ocean’s gig that night at Viper Room).

Amazon links:

Dwight Sings Buck

The Mountain

Hell Yes I Cheated

Tenor Saw Lives On

Posted: July 25th, 2008 under digital music, internet radio, live music, mp3blog.
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Sometimes art and music makes you scratch your head   I didn’t think I much liked The Replacements all this time.  I even went to college in the midwest while they were still together in the late eighties and had lots of friends from the Twin Cities.  I bought their studio greatest hits compilation a bunch of years back and listened to it a few times and basically thought it was unremarkable.

Then last week I pulled a DownThemAll from Aquarium Drunkard straight to a playlist on my ipod for a flight to Denver last week. (Highly recommended quick iPod refresh technique – we can call it Raymonating your iPod).  Luckily for me it included the entire Shit, Shower and Shave compilation, which is a “long-traded compilation” from some live 1989 shows opening for Petty (which wikipedia calls a disastrous tour for an unknown reason).

Holy shit shower and shave, I’m a huge fan!  Sort of a Springsteen everyman point of view (switch out Asbury Park for Sheboygan) with a Waits gift for turning a great metaphor, combined with a Drive-By Truckers brawling drunken coming straight at you live personality and a Ramones intensity.  I can’t get enough of it.  How did I miss these guys for so long?

Chalk up another victory for the mp3blog era – I will definitely be rounding out my collection from some timely reissues of their studio stuff – a positive activity music economy-wise the lousy label greatest hits compilation didn’t trigger 10 years ago.  But I’m preaching at the choir.

I’m not going to bother to rehost the tracks, head over to the AD if you want to check them out.

Posted: July 2nd, 2008 under digital music, live music, mp3blog, portable devices.
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Rodrigo y gabriela

Originally uploaded by Steve R’s screen.

Chicks who can jam at guitar are so much fun.

Here is some video – I will definitely be checking them out again at Coachella. This one has embeds disabled for some reason but its from the KCRW show where I took the above photo.

Posted: April 14th, 2007 under live music, moblog.
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Cold war kids

Originally uploaded by Steve R’s screen.

Posted: April 14th, 2007 under live music, moblog.
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