Drink! Drink! Drink! - The Student Prince

It's Friday evening and its a great time for a beer! I mentioned this song in an earlier post and it's great background for the first beer of your weekend. Enjoy!

Robert Plant and the Band of Joy - The Roundhouse, London, October 29, 2010

1st Band of Joy, with Plant (middle) and Bonham (front)

Musically, Robert Plant has been around the block. He and drummer John Bonham were picked out of a band called Band of Joy by a certain guitarist to play in a band that I'm sure a few of you may have heard of.

That band broke up after reaching cult status, and afterward Plant performed in the Honeydrippers, reunited with Jimmy Page in a group curiously named Page and Plant, recorded and toured with the Strange Sensations for a half dozen years or so, and then at the request of  renowned record producer T-Bone Burnett, recorded an album called Raising Sand with country music singer/violinist Alison Krausse of Union Station and did a world tour in support of the album, which won multiple Grammy Awards. Raising Sand was a mixture of blues, folk, country, and R&B and seemingly was a relevation to Plant.

Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, two of the remaining members of that cult band, planned a reunion album and tour but were unable to convince Plant to join them. The Led Zeppelin reunion now appears to be all but a broken dream to many.

Plant on the other hand, seems to have awakened in a huge way to other forms of music. I saw him about 13 months ago in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park during Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Plant walked on stage unannounced during Buddy Miller's set and perform two or three songs. Plant recently recorded a new album of music with a group called he decided to call Band of Joy. It's not like he's trying to forget that other band he's identified with, he's still performing songs first done by them, but with a twist. Plant is simply returning to the his roots, his new roots.

Here's a great sounding show recorded way back earlier this week at the Roundhouse in London. Check out Robert Plant and the Band of Joy.



Like always, either stream it or download it for later by clicking on the Divshare logo.

ZZ Top - Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers

I have a great recording of a ZZ Top show I want to share with you in a minute, but first I've got to tell you when I started thinking about what I was going to write, I realized I didn't know a whole lot about the band. I started listening to them beginning with their second album entitled Rio Grande Mud. I'd thought that was their first until I saw ZZ Top's First Album in the record bins.

While I was doing some reading about them, I was pretty amazed by the history of the band, how they met each other, who they started out warming up for, and was surprised to see that Jimi Hendrix said on the Tonight Show that Billy Gibbons was going to be the next hot guitarist after himself.

I also ran into a video interview of Billy Gibbons that you'll find next that tells the story of ZZ Top much better than I am able to. I'll stop about here so you can watch the interview and afterward, listen to the show.


Musician Billy Gibbons from Texas Monthly Talks on Vimeo.

And now the concert. I left the short beer commercial in, because hey, it's beer!

The Faces - Redefining sloppy, in a good way

In an earlier post I wrote a little about the effects that beer or other forms of alcohol can have on a band and the music the band plays. A little can help and a little more can go a long way. One band that always sounded to me at least to be on the edge of drinking too much was Faces. I'm not certain if they really did have a few before performing or not, but it sure sounded that way to my ears. The Faces were always kind of a guilty pleasure to me. A lot of my friends didn't seem to care for them at all, and I didn't care that much for their singer Rod Stewart, but he sure fit that band well.

I see that Faces just got back together, sans Stewart. Mick Hucknall, formerly of Simply Red took over on vocals and filled in just fine. The review in the Evening Standard says they messed up the lyrics and screwed up the ends of songs but they sounded great.

Just like they did it in their good old days.

The Faces featuring a youthful Ron Wood and a plaid-to-be-alive Rod Stewart

Here's a Faces show from the BBC back in 1971. Enjoy.

Los Lobos - Fighting the boredom of touring

I once had a job as an electrical field engineer. I'd travel from city to city installing newspaper printing presses. The hours were long and you'd spend months away from home. I'd have to work with people that I hardly knew, or had just met on the job. I'd spend many hours at work with these strangers with not a lot to talk about. Many days after work a co-worker nicknamed Skeeter or Pork Chop would ask if you wanted to go someplace to have a beer, and sometimes I'd say yes and wind up at Bud's Country Lounge or some other smelly dive drinking a Pabst and wishing I wasn't there. Most times I'd say no thanks and find myself talking to the hotel bartender, who nearly always was my best friend in town. I'd usually have more in common with him than Skeeter. I know why musicians drink too much while on tour. It's boring as hell out there. Most days seem just like the other. You can only watch so much television. If I made more money I'd have tossed the tv out the window too. I'm glad that job didn't last too long.

Eric Clapton used to get so drunk that he would have to lay on his back while performing onstage.  I  remember stories about more than a couple of musician who during a set would go offstage or behind an amplifier and get sick. Not what you'd call inspiring performances. Too much beer and other libations can spoil a show for everyone present.

Sometimes a band will have a drink or two in the dressing room just to steady any nerves they may have before taking the stage and it really can work wonders. Sometimes a band will enjoy themselves a bit too much and the alcohol winds up affecting their performance, but not to the extent that they have to perform from a supine position. Here's an example of such a show. Los Lobos at the Jam on the River music festival in Philadelphia on May 24th of 1998. This is an enjoyable show and the drinks started to become apparent midway or so into the show. Enjoy.

Mix Tapes at old Drakes Brewing

I mentioned a craft brewery in an earlier post that I used to live nearby called Drakes. For many years they held tastings on Friday's after work and I made many a good friend during those years. The tastings had all the ambiance of a tailgate party at a sporting event because we usually hung around outside in the parking lot, walking around with a pint glass in out hands and chatting with others.

Drakes would let us snake an extension cord into their place so we could plug in a boom box and have some music. For a while we'd play mix tapes/cds so we wouldn't have to hear an entire album of a single artist and bore others. Mixes was easier than shuffling cds, and so it was just that for a time. Just about all my mixes began with a tune from the operetta called The Student Prince and performed by Mario Lanza. This was typically played as the first beers were poured those Fridays.

The mix tapes that I made I hung onto for the most part and I still listen to one if I can't decide on what to play. Here's one I played at Drake's on February 2, 2007:

After a couple we'd start to really enjoy the music

Miles Davis - 40 years ago, more or less

Miles Davis was the most influential jazz musician ever. He was born to a well-off family in downstate Illinois and began taking trumpet lessons when he was 13. While living in East St. Louis his family gave him his first taste of jazz by taking him to see Billy Eckstine who had Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker on tour with him. After he graduated high school in 1946 he went to New York City to attend the Juilliard School of Music. Shortly afterwards he dropped out so he could concentrate on gigging in Harlem with other musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.

The rest is pretty much history. Davis went through several stages in his playing, and in doing so influenced everyone who heard him. Bebop, cool jazz, his Blue period, hard bop were all different stages in his development and the development of others. He had several signature bands that changed jazz by taking advantage of each member's unique talents. By the time the late 60s rolled around, Davis was very aware of contemporary rock and roll and the effect it had on live audiences. He was amazed at the reaction performers like Jimi Hendrix had on their fans. It was while he was at a Sly and the Family Stone show when he decided he wanted to electrify his band so he could also have his audience go nuts. In 1969, Davis formed a new band and then worked on a new album which turned out to be called Bitches Brew. This was his breakthrough work as far as young people of the time were concerned.

Here's a  63 minute fragment of a show that the Miles Davis Septet performed at the Fillmore in San Francisco on October 15, 1970. Performers were:

Miles Davis (tpt)
Gary Bartz (ss, as)
Keith Jarrett (el-p, org)
Michael Henderson (el-b)
Jack DeJohnette (d)
Airto Moreira (perc)
Jumma Santos [James Riley] (perc)




You can either stream this on your computer or click on the Divshare link to download the MP3s for your player. (Unfortunately, the second piece has a voiceover by radio station KPFA)
 

Bitches Brew was such an influence on people that it's carried over even now. The great craft brewery Dogfish Head came out with a beer recently called Bitches Brew. It borrows the artwork from the album as its label. It features ingredients that were used long ago in African brewing like gesho (a hop-like plant grown in Ethiopia) and honey. The bottle I had poured very thick, with a one of the darkest heads I've ever seen. It's aroma was smokey chocolate and the taste was complex, with molasses, coffee and smoke. A very good beer. I believe its classified an imperial stout, but its like some kind of chocolate milk stout. Now I want another.