Okay, so I'm having serious trouble reviewing this in a clever, quotable way so, as one of JoAnna's card carrying top 5 fans, let me just drop a tangent on you. I effing love this record. Jo and I have spent countless hours in Boston coffeehouses or sprawled across municipal lawns arguing the finer points of lyric writing, and in my awkwardly verbose nature we have traded hundreds of pages worth of emails on the subject, even if that quantity is weighted heavily in my favor. Tracks like "Closer To You" and "Shut Out The Lights" clearly demonstrate her intuitive storytelling, single lines filling out the scene like a deliberate pan across the room before settling on the action.

But lets get down to why I keep coming back to listen to JoAnna, and it's not because we're friends. Jo sings from the gut in a way that is almost unsettling for such an unassuming little girl. She's goofy, skinny as a rail, and can't weigh more than a buck o' five, but start her singing and she blows down houses like a hungry wolf. Yeah, she can ball you up on the floor when she sings:

I turn the key, make a wish, flip the switch
Is this all that there is, is this it?
And I slide down the apartment door
I'm alone. Nothing to go home for any more.

But she doesn't need the power of a strong lyric to empty your last box of kleenex. Wait till she hit's the chorus in "Christina" and just repeats that name over and over again. I even knew what was coming on this song, I probably read down 10 drafts of it as she filled a small collection of notebooks trying to finish it, but I still wasn't prepared for the impact the first time I finally heard it. Even on the 20th listen it's still leveling. When she hits that first B in the chorus and lets it drag just a moment before breaking into vibrato, you can hear the microphone begging to redline, you can hear the dimensions of the room, and you can hear the frustrated cry of a woman who has entirely let go.

Order the EP, the poster, and other goodies online from JoAnna's Myspace.

11 Songs - Liz Pappademas

If you were introduced to Joni Mitchell chronologically, or if you were lucky enough to have lived during the anticipation of each of her releases, then you are aware of the moment when you were listening to Ladies of the Canyon that it suddenly became clear Joni was not just a "good" songwriter. That in fact something special was happening. It only took her one album to answer those promises with Blue. I first heard that promise in Liz Pappademas (2) a couple years back, when I picked up a copy of her first EP 5 Songs From Laurel Street, after a professor we shared in school introduced us.

I recall sitting at dinner that night and our professor asking her if she had found a solid group of writers in town. She responded that no one was as technical. Ultimately, that is a word I may have chosen in an attempt to describe her skill. Liz can write lines I would have deemed unsingable and turn them like Dylan Thomas. In "Neighbor Boy" from the aforementioned EP she sings a line that still levels me every time it curls out of my stereo, "where did you come from/where did you come from/the tree in your yard/its roots in my basement/breaking up my foundation."

Since her last effort with trio Hurts to Purr (2), Liz has systematically been stripping the excess from her music. At times this even includes discarding rhythm, or functional harmony, or both to properly accent phrases. Some of it disturbing, often clever, and occasionally reminiscent of the young childhood Liz seems to spend so much creative time reliving.

The sparse appointments of her new record, 11 songs, provide a window into the unique space she has built around herself. Almost an intrusion into her life at times, this is her Nebraska, or her New York Tendaberry. The program is uncompromising, and emotionally engulfing. Going back to Joni, Blue has always been a record that demanded no less than 3 full listens before it can conceivably come out of my stereo, and in the past several weeks since I pulled the shrink wrap off of 11 songs, the Joni standard is one I am finding once again applies to Liz as well.

Long awaited Bad Habits EP release!!

My good friend JoAnna Lynne plays at The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, VA tonight to celebrate the release of her debut EP Bad Habits. For everybody on the inside, this has been a long time coming. I watched a lot of these songs take form through the endless drafts she emailed me and our friend Justine for revisions, and I can't tell you how excited I am to finally hear them coming out of my stereo. Jo is one of my favorite singers and I don't think you'll get deep into these 5 tracks before she tops your list as well.

Stay tuned for a forthcoming review which I'm finding difficult to write because it's about my friend (you should have seen how long it took me to write the bio for her upcoming website) and also online ordering information for all of us not lucky enough to live on the beach.

This weekend is cause for celebration, for mourning, but most of all, for remembering. Sunday, April 1st marks the 23rd anniversary of Marvin Gaye's murder, one day before his 45th birthday. On Monday, April 2nd, Marvin would have been 68.

I believe Miles hit his peak at about 45 years old, and to hear some of the things he did after that point it becomes even more saddening to realize how early Marvin left us.

Even so, Marvin's legacy remains great, and I have immersed myself in his records so much that only a handful of artists even approach the time I have spent with his music. So thank you Marvin for what you created for me and for every one. Happy Birthday. We love you and miss you.

My good friend Kenny is on VH1! Check out the dreaded-out black guy playing keys. His brother Tony shows up at the end in a red track jacket. Look for Nya Jade on tour to see Kenny playing.

If the youtube link is down, try VH1.

I just posted a new, semi-finished demo on my myspace page. I tracked most of it in mad dashes between my audio hardware crashing. As I was mixing though things kept crashing so much that I upgraded my whole system. Cool except that now my OS is too modern for my music editing software which means I can't even open the damn thing. So until I figure out a solution, here is my progress so far.

On a side note, I had planned to fade out this track until my computer crashed. So now with the full version you can hear me snatching Stevie Wonder lyrics out of the air at the end. Don't laugh, I improvised the end on like half a dozen takes and there's one where I was singing Usher.

When I was about 13 I heard this track called "Jazz (We've Got)" on a sneak preview of Groove Productions VG2. When I got back to Waco I couldn't find that song but I did find the artists newest release, "Beats, Rhymes & Life." I still remember pulling it out of a box below the display shelves in Wherehouse Music. That record is probably the earliest root of my musically elitist and snobbish tendencies.

It just so happened that A Tribe Called Quest emcee Q-tip had a cousin named Consequence he brought in on that album. Quence appeared on about half the cuts including helping to co-write one of my favorite songs to this day, "Stressed Out." Then Tribe broke up and a decade passed. Last week I got to talk with Consequence about his second chance at fame in a long quest to realize his dreams.

Here is the interview.

My choice for Okayplayer's 2006 Best of list. Read my comments here. My editor tagged my entry with a line from an email I sent her about Amy, but I guess they are still my words.

It's a UK release still unavailable in the states. I ordered the Canadian version from Dusty Groove and it is missing the last track from the UK version. I've heard rumors of a March release in the US.

Monday I caught Howard Tate at the Continental Club down on South Congress. Howard is a much lauded soul singer from the late '60's among collectors but basically unheard of by anyone else. I discovered him through an article in the annual Oxford American southern music issue (2005 ). Still, I've never stumbled on any of his records. Apparently after the mid 70's he basically fell off the face of the Earth and has only in the past few years reemerged and begun recording and touring again. He's older and a little scary when climbing the rickety half staircase to the red curtained stage, but his voice still holds an audience in suspense even if it has become thinner over the years. And he holds a genuine appreciation for his audience, which he displayed by shaking every hand deep into the second row during his final number. Most importantly, very few torch bearers of the soul legacy still tour and it felt like crawling out of Michael J. Fox's Delorean to see Howard on that tiny stage in a dive bar in south Austin.

Jill tried to drag me back stage after the show to talk to him and I refused. I feel stupid for that now. How many 25 year olds are there in the world that understand how important the social contributions of soul music were to America? I should have just gone back and said, "Thank You."

So lately I have been inseparable from George Harrison's early 70's output. Obsessive to the point that I spend entirely too much time analyzing every available configuration of guitar slides to try to find that clean sparkly sound he gets on his lead lines. Oh, and my ringfinger is the lone digit with dishpan hands from essentially sitting inside a jar for hours while I perfect the tag solo from "The Lord Loves The One." Of course, the only detailed info I can find on his guitars is during his Beatles tenure. Either way, as a slide melody master tribute here are 4 Fab solos from the man himself.

1. "I'd Have You Anytime" - All Things Must Pass

2. "How Do You Sleep" - Imagine (John Lennon)

3. "The Lord Loves The One" - Living In The Material World

4. "I Dig Love" - All Things Must Pass

Continuum: First Listen
There's a chance this new record may be JM's best yet. Either way, it is without question his most cohesive and acomplished after having only played it through a couple of times. Continuum is the logical evolution of the scented candle reflection of 2003's Heavier Things merging with the Hendrixian posturing of the JM Trio's live release Try. The pyrotechnics are toned down here (save for the "Bold As Love" Hendrix cover) in favor of sizzling late night grooves more in line with his previous studio efforts. Essentially, this feels like a lost Clapton or Sting record from the 80's. Think Nothing Under the Sun or Slowhand and you're pretty much on target. So much so that I have read that same sentiment in several reviews of the record including the same album comparisons. The music is John a little more grown up and stretching his legs within the Adult/Alternative Rock genre more than ever. The lyrics still hold a tinge of the cocksure boy that wrote Inside Wants Out but lean more towards the overarching twists on generalization that made "Daughters" a hit. What is most suprising is the almost uncharacteristic acousitc work. Sure, John is known for his acoustic hits, but "The Heart of Life" lacks his signature sound in favor of a lo-fi lope that very closely resembles McCartney's "Blackbird". "Stop This Train" also draws more from the tone of JM friend and admired artist Teitur than the strummed ballads of Room For Squares. Still, these offerings are strong as well as the album standout "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room," a Bonnie Raitt style heartbreak groove, which may be John's most mature offering to date.

Yeah, so this would be the ultimate goal. I don't even need a kitchen or anything, just give me this room, a stereo, and a matress.

A personal tour of Questlove's infamous 'Record Room'

 

Vinyl is a fairly new obsession, but I spent the better part of college in used record store basements digging up obscurities and imports. This looks like the beginning of something promising until you see Questlove in his library. Note the ever expanding Miles Davis section second shelf top left. He's the only artist who gets his own category in the filing system. My most exciting find lately was a pair of James Blood Ulmer albums from early 80's New York loft scene albums.

These went out of print in the mid 90's and will run anywhere from $25 to $60 on Ebay or Gemm. I picked them up separately used at Waterloo Records for $9 apiece. Still missing 'Tales of Captain Black' though, that's the record that got me started digging for these.