City Stages Video Wrap Up

For all the hype Bonnaroo receives just a few hours south, we had a pretty good festival in Birmingham last weekend. For those whoa Aren't familiar with City Stages, it used to be one of the better festivals around. However, years of bad weather and debt trouble hurt the event and made it a shadow of it's former self. But Stages booked a deal with a national booking agency that also books for Bonnaroo and things turned for the better this year. While still not what it used to be, it had a great lineup this year. Here are some highlights of the weekend:

FRIDAY

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - I'll let a quote from my son Charlie be the review here. "Daddy this is cool. It is so loud I feel like I have 2 hearts." In other words he rocked. Also, he gave me one of the best memories ever from a music festival. When they played the DBT song "outfit" and Jason dedicated it to his father and all fathers, my son crawled in my lap and said "Daddy I love you. You are a good dad." Folks it doesn't get any better than that.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - ''Grown,'' live at City Stages


Old Crow Medicine Show - It was late and already way past my son's bedtime so we had to miss OCMS but I heard they were good.

SATURDAY

I had unavoidable family obligations on Saturday. So I missed my 3rd day of Stages in the 18 years I have lived in Birmingham. I will share some video instead. I heard Grace Potter was the best act on Saturday from a couple of people the following day.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - live at City Stages

Griffin House at City Stages

OCMS


Ben Harper on Saturday


SUNDAY

The lineup on the Songwriter stage was: Elizabeth Cook, Pieta Brown, Hackensaw Boys, Shooter Jennings and Robert Earl Keen. Not one of those artists disappointed. Elizabeth Cook got it started with her country flair and Keen closed it out as you would expect with his typical Texas showmanship. However, The Hackensaw Boys may have put on the best show and they certainly picked up a bunch of fans in the Magic City.

All that being said the Flaming Lips generated the biggest buzz of the entire weekend. I ran into a couple of freinds after the festival ended and received rave reviews from them.. Amazingly enough thay weren't even that familiar with their music. Howwever, in order to see the Flaming Lips I would have needed to skip Robert Earl and that would have been sacreligious.

The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips - live at City Stages

More Flaming Lips:

City Stages Preview !!!!

For my local Birmingham readers it is City Stages time. Also, it is time to eat some crow. Last year I predicted the death of the festival. I was so wrong. With a new booking agency helping out, this is the best lineup in years! In fact, on Saturday there are multiple times where acts are playing simultaneously and I am going to need to miss some good acts.

The folks at al.com and The Birmingham News have asked me for my recommendations. Many of the acts playing this year are already familiar to Birmingham. Will Hoge, North Mississippi All-Stars, Marc Broussard, Ben Harper and Robert Earl Keen do not require an introduction from anyone. What about the best of the rest? Here are some other bands that I am most excited about:

Friday:
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Three African-American musicians taking Appalachian music and mixing it with gospel and other traditional styles. Their set will be a musical melting pot. I have a feeling they will be the surprise hit of the festival.

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Many are familiar with his work with Drive-By-Truckers, but he has his own band now. His song "Dress Blues" is powerful live.

Old Crow Medicine Show - They have a high energy set of traditional tunes played with Rock n' Roll angst.

Saturday:
Act of Congress - This is a local New Grass band that is not getting the recognition they deserve. Their musicianship is excellent and they put on a really good live show. I hope It will be worth coming out early to see them on Saturday.

The Dexateens - This Tuscaloosa based band boasts an album produced by Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood of Drive-By-Truckers.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals - This will be show stealer no doubt. A mixture of Blues and Soul delivered with an attitude.

Griffin House - His new album is one of the best singer-songwriter releases of the year.

Sunday:
Elizabeth Cook - Authentic country. She has great personality and a voice as real as Loretta. Her song "It Takes Balls to be a Woman" will be a crowd favorite.

Hackensaw Boys - This bluegrass act is eclectic enough to have shared the stage with Modest Mouse. If you like OCMS on Friday, come see these guys on Sunday.

Shooter Jennings - If you think he is coasting on daddy's name. Think again.

Deadstring Brothers Live @ Zydeco in Birmingham, AL

I always thought how inspiring it must be for a musician to walk on stage in fromt of 12,000 screaming fans. But what about when it is 12 fans? How inspiring is that? Pretty damn inspiring if the Deadstring Brothers are any example. In reality there were more than 12 people at Zydeco two nights before Thanksgiving, but to say there were 25 would be generous. What they gave the fans that night was an inspired set that had the feel of a private show for friends. It is so refreshing to see a band play because they love it, which clearly these guys do.

The cozy setting allowed the band to develop great rapport with the crowd. In fact , they were very curious about the Southern Phenomenon of the fried turkey. Which the lead vocalist Kurt Marschke is apparently willing to "eat the ass out of that bird." I don't think I would want to witness that but I bet they found some fried turkey on Thanksgiving to try. The musical highlights of the show included from the new album "Heavy Load" and "Queen of the Scene," which are consumate live songs. The best song of the evening though was "Sacred Heart" from Starving Winter Report. Another highlight came in the encore when they did a steeple rockin' version of the gospel song "Uncloudy Day."

Check out these video clips I shot at the show. The audio isn't the best but you will get the idea:

"Tennessee Sure Enough"


"Queen of the Scene"


"Singing Gospel"

Peter Case: I wish I was there

I have received 2 Voice Mails in the last week from friends going to the Peter Case show at The Nick, which is going on as I write. Too bad I am out of town. Have a good time gang. Sorry I couldn't join you. Bummer!!!

Jason Isbell Live: Sloss Furnace Birmingham, AL

Jason Isbell put on a great show at the Stokin' the Fire Barbecue Festival in Birmingham this weekend. The festival was held at Sloss Furnace, which can be a challenge for a sound tech. For those unfamiliar with the venue it is a big metal roofed and walled structure with a stage in front of an old blast furnace. It has nice atmosphere and is a big part of the history of the Birmingham area. However, all that metal does tend to create a little reverb; but in this case it wasn't too bad. Something about Southern Rock and Barbecue that just goes together. Isbell mostly played songs from his solo effort Sirens of the Ditch. However he also mixed in a few Drive By Trucker classics he penned, including a great version of "Outfit" one of my favorite Truckers mid-tempo songs.

Isbell's band the 400 Unit do a nice job channelling the Southern Rock ethos. No doubt about it, when they rock it is a full on assault. However, they also do well on the slower tunes which show Isbell's songwriter side. For example, "Dress Blues," which is one of the most moving songs I've heard in years, was great live like it is on the album. My favorite song of the evening was "Try" which was one of those aforementioned full on assaults. For the closer they played the crowd pleaser "Jailbreak," a cover of the Thin Lizzy tune that the Truckers have made part of their live performances.

Check out the link below to My Music Birmingham for almost 12 min of high quality video shot
that evening starting out with the "Try":
http://www.myfoxal.com/myfox/pages/Entertainment/Detail?contentId=4179685&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=7.3.1

Michael McDermott & Pieta Brown upcoming releases

Well Folks, I am back from another round of R&R and I wanted to let you know about One Little Indian Records out of San Francisco, which has two upcoming Singer-songwriter releases that I feel are worth noting. The first on August 28th is Michael McDermott's Noise from Words. McDermott is a Chicago based Songwriter. Musically, the album is fairly standard singer-songwriter fare. Lyrically McDermoot is a poetic and powerful voice. His songs are candid and deal with regret ("Mess of Things") but also redemption ("Tread Lightly"). In "No Words" he expresses hope when he declares "The night has come undone and the world has just begun" He also has a famous fan in writer Stephen King who calls McDermott "the greatest undiscovered rock & roll talent of the last 20 years."

Download the free MP3 below:

http//www.onelittleindian-us.com/freemp3/mcdermott_freemp3/

For my local Birmingham readers Pieta Brown is even more interesting. Her new album Remember the Sun releases on September 25th. She is the daughter of well known Grammy nominated folk singer Greg Brown. After being born in Iowa she and her mother moved here to Birmingham. While growing up in Birmingham Pieta began writing poetry and composing songs for the piano. Her exposure to traditional folk music shows through. However, her gift for composition is really shown with each successive listen to the album. What at first seems very simple is beautifully composed and lands her somewhere between traditional folk and more contemporary female songwriters. The music is rooted in tradition while exploring new boundaries. She is totally mesmerizing!

Download the free MP3 below:

http://www.onelittleindian-us.com/freemp3/pieta_freemp3b/

Kelly Willis live @ Zydeco in Birmingham, AL

Boy am I sorry I missed this one.

Check out the this video for Kelly Willis live at Zydeco July 6th. Thanks to TC for pointing this out to me.

http://www.myfoxal.com/myfox/pages/Entertainment/Detail?contentId=3709509&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=7.3.1

Reluctant City Stages Preview

For readers in Birmingham I am reluctantly doing a City Stages preview. The lineup admittedly is a disappointment this year for City Stages but there are enough notables to mention:

Friday:
Bruce Cockburn- He hasn't been to Birmingham in years. The last time he was at City Stages was absolutely a spiritual experience. Don't miss this if it is the only thing you see at the festival this year.
Willy Mason - See my previous post on him. It is one of my favorite CDs so far this year and one of the few acts that is not a Stages retread or recently performed in Birmingham.
Saturday:
Adam Hood- An Alabama native that is not new to Birmingham but "Different Groove" is a great album. (See my recent review)
Will Kimbrough/Tommy Womack- These two have been around a while. Having them play together was one of the few original ideas the festival organizers had this year.
Matthew Perryman Jones- Heard he stole the show at the Reg's Coffeehouse celebration at the Alabama Theater. I missed the event so I am lookin forward to his set.
Sunday:
Stoll Vaughn- I also missed him at Reg's show but I absolutely love this CD.
Robinella- Probably her third appearance in the city in the last year but she is still fantastic.
Sam Bush- I am glad they signed him this year. His live shows are legendary and he is a virtuoso unrivalled. This is one not to miss. I've seen him many times and never been disappointed.
Ricky Skaggs- Credit to the organizers for the Sunday bluegrass lineup. Sam Bush followed by Ricky Skaggs is hard to beat.

A Sign of the Apocolypse for City Stages:
What no mention of Poison or Ratt headlining the Miller Stage you ask? Of course I am excited about it like an 80's schoolgirl in heat! But I can't bring myself to go. You see my parachute pants are too tight these days and they quit making my favorite hair gel years ago. Goodbye City Stages it has been a nice ride!

Elizabeth Cook Live - Workplay Birmingham, AL June 1st

Three songs into her set at the Workplay Theatre in Birmingham Elizabeth Cook broke into the Merle Haggard tune “Today I Started Loving You Again.” Somehow she took this Haggard composition and channeled Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn simultaneously. There is no doubt in seeing her live that she is every bit as authentic as Tammy or Loretta. Along with her husband Tim Carroll, the crowd at Workplay was entertained by someone that the Nashville music industry brass is not going to be able to ignore much longer.

The show moved seamlessly between honky tonk twang and rock. Tim Carroll also got in on the act rocking the crowd with his on music and covers like his hard driving cover of Randy Travis’ “Diggin Up Bones,” which Cook referred to as an “ironic cover” as he took a slow song and turned it up to “11.” Cook also got the crowd going when she sang Carroll’s “If I could.” “If I could pay all these bills with my guitar then I would pay these bills with some rock and roll,” is a line she sang from that song. Paying bills might not be much of a struggle in the future based the crowd’s reaction. Cook was great with the crowd joking around with good one liners. She got a big laugh when she thanked the folks at Workplay for the “Cheese Log and Carr’s crackers” before the show saying that most places they played didn’t treat her so well.

Cook is also one heck of a clogger. She exchanged her boots for tap shoes and put on a demonstration for the crowd as Carroll accompanied her with his lively guitar work. After the clogging demonstration she launched into the live favorite “Punk Rock Honky Tonk Girl.” Toward the end when she played “Sometimes it Takes Balls to be a woman” she introduced it by saying, “Here is the song that started it all. Let’s hope it doesn’t end it too.” If the crowd at Workplay gets their way, I see no end in sight.

This review also appears on: http://twangville.com/

Willy Mason's Rough Seas

For those of you reading this post in Birmingham make a note to "self" not to miss Willy Mason at City Stages on June 15th. He is playing atr City Stages unplugged Friday afternoon and opening for Bruce Cockburn at 8pm. I personally find it ironic he is opening for Cockburn since my first impression of If the Ocean Gets Rough was reminiscent of a young Cockburn. He has a deep compelling voice and writes lyrics that connect to your soul. Check out the video link to "We can be Strong" in which a man checking himself out of a mental institution declares "in the end they couldn't sell me grace." This is certainly a realization many people in our culture have discovered as they have tried many ways to acquire grace and failed. Indeed many of the characters on this album seem to be navigating rough waters.

Mason is a Martha's Vineyard resident. While he is a great young songwriter, he is more than just a folky troubador with a six string. He is influenced by a variety of traditional Americana music styles and crafts catchy melodies that make his songs grab hold. At 22 years old I have a feeling we will be hearing his melodies for a long time to come.