Little bird, above in a tree,
Don’t treat me like your enemy.
The stuff that dropped from your tiny end
Should not be aimed upon a friend.
While trimming branches, I did my best
To not disturb your fragile nest.
Perhaps I know why you’re upset.
My morning breakfast: an omelet.
If an apology’s due, it’s to you I beg
If a relative of yours was in that egg.
— By Bill O’Neill, 3/21/11 (inspired by a close call)
Let’s skip an intro about the state of music in 2010 and get right to it.
1. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” by Kanye West – Forget about hip-hop. There aren’t many performers in any genre who’ve started a career with five CDs as strong as West’s. Jackass of the year? Maybe. But for this ranking, we’re talking about the CD, and no one else made a disc as clever and addictive as this one.
2. “Archandroid” by Janelle Monae – But Janelle came mighty close. She definitely had the best half of a disc of anyone in 2010. Mixing a bizarre sci-fi storyline and killer R&B songs, Monae dazzled on her first-full-length CD.
3. “The Lady Killer” by Cee-Lo Green – Not as inventive as the discs by West and Monae, but every bit as entertaining. The lead singer of Gnarls Barkley shows that he can make some crazy-good dance songs on his own.
4. “Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook” by Bettye LaVette – The comeback continues for LaVette, a soul singer who hit the charts in 1963 with “My Man (He’s a Loving Man).” This time out she rips through and reinvents some old favorites by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals and others. One of the great vocal performances of the year.
5. “Have One on Me” by Joanna Newsom – A wispy-voiced singer playing the harp? Not my usual cup of tea, but Newsom’s 2006 CD, “Ys,” really grew on me. This three-CDs set is a lot to take in, but it’s worth the exploration.
6. “How I Got Over” by the Roots – Best rap band? Yeah, sure, but these guys are in the running for best band … period. Just check them out any night on Jimmy Fallon’s show. The Roots’ collaboration with John Legend was solid, but this CD shows them at their best … tight, tough and talented.
7. “Preservation” by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band – A collection of ragtime and traditional jazz songs with guest vocals by Richie Havens, the Blind Boys of Alabama,, Steve Earle, Ani DiFranco, Tom Waits, Dr. John, Angelique Kidjo and others. Jazz is not my area of expertise, but this is just plain fun.
8. “The Promise” by Bruce Springsteen – Of Springsteen’s first eight studio albums, “Darkness on the Edge of Town” is the one I’ve listened to by far the least. But this two-CD set of resurrected songs from the “Darkness” recording sessions is enough to make me dive back into that era.
9. “Chandler Travis Philharmonic Blows” by the Chandler Travis Philharmonic – Add up the solo stuff, the Incredible Casuals, the Philharmonic and his other output, and Chandler Travis has put out a mammoth body of work. This one stands with any of them.
10. “Odd Blood” by Yeasayer – This sounds like Duran Duran on acid, which, surprisingly, is a good thing.
Honorable mention: “New Amerykah, Part 2: Return of the Ankh” by Erykah Badu, “White Crosses” by Against Me! “Astro Coast” by Surfer Blood, “Scratch My Back” by Peter Gabriel and “Downtown Church” by Patty Griffin
A few songs I never got sick of: “Fuck You” by Cee-Lo Green; “Airplanes” by B.o.B., featuring Hayley Williams; “Monster” by Kanye West, featuring Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and Bon Iver; “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha; and “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem, featuring Rihanna
Looking for another look at the year’s best? Check out Ken Capobianco’s blog. Our lists overlap more than in years past, but that’s just because the top three CDs were just so far ahead of the pack.
Best-known as the front man for the Shotgun Bandits and Tripl3 Crown, Brian Sances of Sandwich recently released his first solo CD, “Here Today.” The cover shows him sitting on a rock at the end of a jetty, playing his guitar. Listening to the disc, it’s easy to picture him sitting out there on a warm day, surrounded by water, as he works out some new songs.
His tunes have an appealing variety – sometimes folky, sometimes a reggae or ska vibe, sometimes a hip-hop beat. He keeps to a mellow groove – not a sleepy kind of mellow, but that relaxed kind of mellow that sweeps over you … when you’re sitting on a rock surrounded by the ocean.
While the sound is laid back, Sances is relentlessly upbeat in his lyrics. The ballad “Still In Love” is as romantic a song as you could ever hope to hear. On other songs he sings the praises of the ocean, his hometown and the power of living in the moment. That could tumble into schmaltz, but Sances puts enough oomph into the music that it comes across as inspiring.
Sances recorded, mixed and produced all the songs, and wrote them all except for one on which he got some co-writing help from some friends. The production is impressive; a friend listening from the next room stuck his head in and asked if I was listening to a Los Lonely Boys disc.
Highlight tracks: “Still in Love,” “In the Blink of an Eye” and “Judgement Day Remix” (featuring Ceej)
In addition to performing on his own, you might catch Sances playing with Ceej or the Adam Hoffman Revival.
For more information, visit www.briansances.com.
If you went to Dr. John’s concert at the Cape Cod Melody Tent Aug. 28 and arrived too late to catch the opening act, you were in the right place at the wrong time.
The show openers, the Blind Boys of Alabama, weren’t just the best opening act I’ve seen among dozens of shows at the Melody Tent over the years. The gospel group put on a performance that was better than anything I’ve seen by all but one or two headliners at the Tent. At the end of their hour-long set, I said to the person next to me, “If they came out and said Dr. John had the flu and the show was over, I’d still feel like this was an amazing show.” He agreed.
But we got to see Dr. John, too. More on that in a moment.
The Blind Boys of Alabama formed in 1939 at the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf and Blind in Talladega, Ala. Since then the group has recorded on everything from 78s to 8-tracks to CDs, with an evolving membership. Jimmy Carter is the last founding member to tour steadily (Clarence Fountain goes on the road as his health allows). They’ve recorded with everyone from Solomon Burke and Aaron Neville to Ben Harper and Lou Reed
The three vocalists these days are Carter, “Bishop” Billy Bowers and Ben Moore (they and drummer Eric “Ricky” McKinnie” are blind). Each of the singers has a distinctive style. Bowers is a soul belter, Moore is more of a smooth soul & R&B singer, while Carter has a more gritty sound. They take turns on lead vocals and back each other up with some harmonizing that shows the results of years of touring together.
The opened with “Up Above My Head (I Hear Music in the Air),” which appeared on last year’s “Duets” CD (on the disc, they perform it with Randy Travis), but things really took off with the next song, a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” From there it was just one jaw-dropper after another: a rocking version of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” a funky twist on Tom Waits’ “Way Down in the Hole” (used as the first-season theme music for HBO’s “The Wire”), a mind-blowing version of “Amazing Grace” set to the tune of “The House of the Rising Sun.”
During one song, an aide helped Carter off the stage and he made his way up and down aisles and across rows, shaking hands and singing all the while. It was impressive and inspiring stuff.
That’s a tough act to follow, and Dr. John’s laidback effort was a letdown after the high energy of the Blind Boys of Alabama. His delivery of “Right Place Wrong Time” was far less frenetic than the recording that was a Top 10 hit in 1973.
Dr. John and his band, the Lower 911 (he called them “the funkiest band this side of heaven”), opened with “My Indian Red,” turning it into a medley with snippets from “Iko Iko” and “Down By the Riverside,” offering an instant introduction to his style of New Orleans R&B. “The show-closing “Potnah,” one of four songs from the recently released “Tribal” CD, had a cool “Take Me to the River” vibe.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina and months after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, “Save Our Wetlands” and Black Gold, two protest songs on Dr. John’s 2008 CD, “The City That Care Forgot,” have more resonance than ever. He got more playful later in the show with “Let the Good Times Roll” and “Accentuate the Positive.”
It was a solid performance, but it was one of those rare nights when the opening was so startlingly good that the headliner ended up being a second thought.
Comedian Lewis Black jogged to the stage as Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” blared over the speakers. When the show was over, the song of choice was the Grateful Dead’s “U.S. Blues.”
Those two titles pretty much sum up Black’s performance Aug. 20 at the Cape Cod Melody Tent and his comedic style in general. He has a bleak take on the state of the country, and he’s not subtle about pounding home his message: Politicians and pretty much everyone else have totally screwed things up; we’re insane or delusional if we don’t see it that way; and things won’t be getting better soon.
“I know that things have gotten worse because I’ve become a mainstream comedian, and that’s wrong,” he said. “I hear the things that come out of my mouth and I’m appalled.”
His is not exactly a feel-good message, but Black’s style of over-agitated anger makes it easy to laugh anyway. Part of it is that he’s as willing to put the blame for his blues on himself as anyone else. “You’re more excited to see me than I have ever been to see myself,” he said when he started. “I get up every morning and look in the mirror and say ‘(Forget) it. It’s you again. I guess it was all a dream.’”
He said a Utah paper described his act as containing “mental breakdowns” and that’s not a bad two-word description of what he does. During a bit about politicians’ ineffectiveness at fighting terrorism, he got so wound up that he said, “I’m starting to scare myself.”
Black doesn’t get why some people celebrate New Year’s Eve with the thought that the coming 12 months will be the best year ever. No way, he says. “It could be less (lousy). It could be more (lousy). But I guarantee you this: It’s going to be (lousy).”
One of his rants was about Valentine’s Day. “I believe there should be a holiday of love, but not in February. … Why would you pick the most depressing month of the year to remind many Americans they’re alone?”
From a rant on his iPhone woes: “AT&T is a carrier in much the same way a mosquito carries malaria.”
From a rant on celebs in their 60s (he’s 62) who go on talk shows and say, “I’ve never felt better”: “When you were in your early 20s, were you living in an iron lung? Did your parents cover you with ticks and you just got the last one off yesterday?”
Black got plenty of support when he said the government should legalize marijuana. He disputed the theory that pot is a gateway drug to harder drugs. “Pot is a gateway drug to the kitchen,” he said. “Legalize pot and the government can make money the old-fashioned way – with a bake sale.”
Opener John Bowman had some funny lines about people who take their kids to Las Vegas. Their rationale: “It’s like the measles. We have to expose them while they’re young, so they don’t get the shingles when they’re 70.” His response: “If you really feel that way about them, put them in a big silver balloon and call CNN.”
He talked about his Polish-American friends who “hang out in large groups and screw in light bulbs.”
Bowman has some experience as an actor and appeared in “Miami Vice,” “L.A. Law” and “Seinfeld.” He showed his gift for physical comedy when he compared President George W. Bush to a bobblehead, saying, “Dick Cheney hit him on the head once in the morning and he kept going all day.” But he collected his biggest laughs when he did a spot-on imitation of Lewis Black’s sputtering response when Bowman asked the headliner for a raise. Sounds like Black’s as volatile off-stage as he is on-stage.
Last night’s Peter Frampton concert kind of reminded me of hanging out in a van when I was in high school. There were some people I knew, some people who looked kind of familiar and some people I’d never seen before. Most of the guys around me were playing air guitar. There was the smell of pot in the air, at least until some guy wearing way too much cheap cologne sat next to me.
But high school was a long time ago. How long ago was that? I was in high school biology class when my best friend told me about this great new album – a double album! – his older brother had bought, something called “Frampton Comes Alive!”
And how long ago was that? Frampton’s bass player, John Regan, has played with him for 31 years, but still joined Frampton’s band too late for the glory years.
Not that there haven’t been some high points along the way. Frampton’s 2006 CD, “Fingerprints,” won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Frampton played four songs off that CD, including a cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” that was one of the night’s highlights.
Frampton drew from the start and most recent parts of his career. The show began with a Humble Pie song (“Four Day Creep”) and ended with another (“I Don’t Need No Doctor”). Along with the songs from “Fingerprints,” Frampton played two from “Thank You, Mr. Churchill,” a new CD released in April. “Restraint,” he says, is a song about “greedy pigs,” and it’s a little heavier sonically and lyrically than anything on “Frampton Comes Alive!” while “Vaudeville Nanna and the Banjolele” is a sweet memoir about his youth.
But of course, what people came to hear were the songs from his monstrously successful 1976 double album, and he delivered, playing eight of its 14 songs during two hour-long sets. Frampton seemed a little sluggish during some early songs, and it wasn’t until the fifth song, “Lines on My Face,” that (to borrow a phrase) Frampton came alive.
As talented as he is, Frampton’s not a show-off. His keyboard player, Rob Arthur, who played a third guitar on some songs, offered more dramatics than his boss. Frampton let backup guitarist Adam Lester play the lead parts at times. Drummer Dan Wojciechowski also deserves a nod for his sometime frenetic playing.
While Frampton engaged in some amusing chatter, he seemed happiest when he was letting his guitar do the talking; the extended shredding on “(I’ll Give You) Money” was another of the show’s highlight. The audience went nuts when he used the Framptone talkbox on “Show Me the Way,” “Black Hole Sun” and “Do You Feel Like We Do.”
Frampton doesn’t go for visual flash. He wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a large grey peace sign on it. His hairline is receding and what remains is closely cropped and white. He looks like any other semi-gracefully aging Baby Boomer.
But all you had to do was close your eyes and it was 1976 all over again.
(Warning: R-rated humor ahead.)
Lisa Lampanelli knows how to put her audiences to the test. The Queen of Mean is funny, but she builds her jokes on a foundation of offensive viewpoints: Arabs smell bad. Black men are lazy. Gay men perform repulsive sexual acts.
With a different style of delivery, Lampanelli’s routine at the Melody Tent on Aug. 5 would constitute a hate crime. But she’s so far over the top, that it was hard not to laugh – even if you were simultaneously thinking, “I shouldn’t be laughing at this.”
Lampanelli’s rude humor was only amplified by her use of language that would make George Carlin blush. Most of her jokes couldn’t be printed in a newspaper, like when she rattled off a series of punchlines about her fiance’s “nutsack” (its unusually large, she says) or said that male genitalia looked like Foghorn Leghorn.
Lampanelli managed to skewer just about every ethnic group. “The only thing shorter than a Jew’s penis is a black guy’s to-do list,” she said. Picking on different audience members, she made a distinction between “slurpee Indians” and “casino Indians.”
Gays are one of her favorite targets. Pointing at one audience member, she said, “He’s so gay, he shits skittles.” Then she added, “I love the gays. Thank you for showing up. I guess there’s nothing on Bravo tonight.”
She also poked fun at herself and her fiancé, a muscular Italian guy. “We made love under an airline blanket,” she said. “The woman in between us was a little put off.”
Lampanelli plugged her appearance in a comedy roast of David Hasselhoff (debuting Aug. 15 on Comedy Central) by saying the “Baywatch” star’s “liver is so fat and broke it could have starred in ‘Precious.’” She also poked barbed fun at Michael Jackson, Gene Simmons, Flavor Flav, George Hamilton and other celebs.
But no matter what, she couldn’t coax a boo from the crowd. After making a wisecrack about Sarah Palin’s youngest child, who has Down syndrome, she said, “That joke always gets one or two moans. But not you, you evil people.”
The surprising thing is that there’s a tiny chance her show at the Melody Tent was toned down just a little bit. She introduced a couple in front-row seats as her parents.
Opening the show was Mike Morse. Some of his punchlines were a bit predictable (when his wife gave birth, he was “locked in a room with no booze, no TV and an angry woman”), but he also scored some laughs. He started out by saying that the wind-chill factor represents a concept that could be used elsewhere. “I’ve worked for 45 minutes, but because of the ‘(jerk) boss factor,’ it feels like nine hours. I’m putting in for overtime.”
He’s not nearly as outrageous as Lampanelli, but he delivered some lines that made you laugh and cringe. He said his 5-year-old son has ADHD, “which means he’s really hyper, but he gets great television reception.”
I was a rock and roll guy before I started listening to George Throrogood. When I was a teenager, about the only blues song I knew was B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.”
But then the Boston radio stations started playing Thorogood’s first two LPs and through his blues-rock I became familiar with Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Elmore James and John Lee Hooker, who became one of my blues favorites.
Throrogood went on to break out of the Boston scene. He toured as an opening act for the Rolling Stones in 1982 (a live recording from a post-tour show back in Boston was recently released by Rounder Records), the same year that his “Bad to the Bone” became a monster MTV hit.
Nearly three decades later, “the worldwide touring machine” (as he was introduced) still knows how to win over a crowd. In front of me at the Aug. 4 show at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, two young women who spent the night doing sultry dances to the music had seats adjacent to a family of four that included a father and son wearing matching “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” T-shirts.
Thorogood took the stage wearing sunglasses (which he took off midway through the first song), a bandana, a black sleeveless shirt, black pants and white cowboy boots – an outfit that pretty much screams “I’m a badass musician.” And if you didn’t get the point, he moved around with duck walks and twirls and jabbing steps. It’s barely an exaggeration to say he had a different gesture for every note he played.
Midway through the show, he stared into the reflection of the bass drum, combed his hair and pursed his lips. He introduced “Born Lover,” a Muddy Waters song that’s on Thorogood’s latest CD, “The Dirty Dozen,” by saying his guitarist dedicated the song to all the ladies in the house, his bass player and drummer dedicated it to all the girls in the house, but he dedicated it to all the women in the house. Bad to the bone, indeed.
Thorogood doesn’t just expect an audience reaction; he demands one, using hand motions to coax a little more noise from his fans. He served up “Who Do You Love” with rattlesnake tongue flicks and mock stuttered his way through the “bad” in “Bad to the Bone.” While he saved that song for last (“Foreplay is over. It’s time to get down to business,” he said as an introduction), it was an earlier song, “Move It On Over,” that was the highlight of the night, as his band, the Destroyers, provided a churning backdrop for Thorogood’s guitar fireworks.
Opener Tom Hambridge has worked with Thorogood, Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, Meat Loaf and others as a writer and producer. One of his songs, Gretchen Wilson’s version of “I Got Your Country Right Here,” is being released as a radio single this week.
Hambridge played a nice range, from some blues-rock in the styles of Thorogood and ZZ Top to the Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque “Nineteen.” His backing band, the Rattlesnakes, included Sal Baglio (formerly of Boston legends the Stompers) and Jim Scoppa, who added some swampy style on one song. Judging from the line at the merchandise booth after his set, Hambridge made a big impression on Thorogood’s fans.
Those of us who went to Barnstable High in the ’70s or ’80s know the McGarrys, a family with 10 kids. Kate’s a jazz singer who earned a Grammy nomination last year. Eddie is a firefighter who put out a terrific CD of original folk-rock songs. Neil is an actor who’s appeared on many Cape stages.
Then there’s Allen, who recently returned from a hiatus and is performing 6-8:30 p.m. Fridays at the Island Merchant in Hyannis.
I haven’t been able to get there in time for a full gig, but I’ve caught the end portion of three shows. Do yourself a favor and get over there some Friday.
Some years back it seemed like half the pubs in Hyannis had a guy who stood up at one end of the room and played songs by Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor, along with an obligatory cover of “Brown-Eyed Girl.”
Allen McGarry is not one of those guys.
He plays songs by some of the great contemporary songwriters, but he digs a little deeper. He covers the Boss, for example, but it’s “One Step Back,” a gem from Springsteen’s under-appreciated “Tunnel of Love” album. It’s a bold choice, because McGarry’s playing to a Friday night dinner-date crowd, and the song is all about romantic pain.
Some of McGarry’s other covers include Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” Bruce Cockburn’s Pacing the Cage,” the Waterboys’ “Fisherman’s Blues” and Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “From the Beginning.” He’s experimenting with different arrangements of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” (another fine date night selection!), giving it a Spanish guitar feel the last time I heard it.
McGarry has a soothing voice and an impressive but understated touch with the guitar. On and off-stage, he’s a charming, likable guy. His shows are a great way to kick off a Cape Cod summer weekend.
The brother act at the Cape Cod Melody Tent on July 22 was a chance to see contrasting styles of comedy. Opening act Dennis Regan delivered more belly laughs in a 20-minute than his famous brother Brian Regan did in 70 minutes, but in the end, it was Brian’s act that was more satisfying, with a more constant level of amusement.
Let’s start with Dennis, whose credits include a writing stint for “The King of Queens.” He’s a solid stand-up in the churn-out-the-punchlines mode – and there were some good ones:
“I just gained 20 pounds for a part in a movie, a vampire movie. So if any of you folks are making a vampire movie, I’d like to audition.”
From a bit on mumbling McDonald’s workers: “I like to screw with them. ‘I’d like to get a McWhopper with mashed potatoes and a Heineken.’ If you change your order, it’s like you asked them to rewire the Pentagon.”
“I just spent a week in Luxembourg – not Luxemboug, Mexico. I was really bad in geometry – not geometry, algebra.”
It’s funny stuff, but not much of Dennis’ persona came through.
With Brian, it was a different vibe. A frequent guest on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” he’s looser and more animated than his brother. Coming across as a toned-down version of Jim Carrey, Brian zooms in on the absurdities of day-to-day life. He’s the kid who cracked you up at inopportune moments in school – and managed to squeeze out of trouble by making the teacher laugh, too.
Brian’s greatest gift is in physical comedy, which can’t be rehashed as easily as a punch line. His bits about dancing beneath a strobe light, gorillas discovering a city, shadow polo (as a response to a shadow boxing) and climbing on the back seat of a buddy’s motorcycle were highlights.
But in a meandering fashion, Brian delivered plenty of chuckle-worthy lines.
“We’re from a big family – eight kids, nine parents.”
“My wife and I have two wonderful kids – and another kid.”
“Whoever invented the bagpipes, I don’t think he’s finished.”
“Irish people aren’t known for their dancing, except from the shins down. ‘You’ve got some talented ankles.’”
As a pirate PR person: “I have a prepared statement. It comes directly from the pirates: Arrgh!.”
Forget about dog tricks, like fetching a ball. “I want a dog that does illusions. I want a dog that will levitate, get up to eye level and look just as surprised as I am.”
He threw in an occasional Steven Wright-kind of line: If you were to second-guess your decision to book a visit to see a Native American community? “That would be a reservation reservation reservation.”
The two brothers’ acts made for an interesting comparison in comedy styles, but one thing’s for sure. A family gathering at the Regan house must be a mighty good time.