The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Every now and then someone asks me where I get my music from.  I have to say multiple sources.  Vinyl, CDs, friends and sometimes the internets.

For the most part I purchase music through legal channels because it’s the right thing to do.  But sometimes I’m just forced to do things through not so legal channels for the simple reason that the proper channels don’t have what I want.

Case in point.  A few years back my boss and I went to India on business and were horrified that we were going to miss the new episode of Lost.

“No Biggie!” I said “We’ll just watch the stream on the ABC website!”

Wrong.  When we tried, all we got was a message informing us that ABC’s streaming media was not available in our host country.   My boss was disappointed, but I said “Wait!  We can download it off iTunes! Problem solved! Yay!!!”

Wrong again.  Different website, same discouraging message as before: Service not available in your country.  Fuck.

But do you know what service was available in my country? Bit Torrent.  And an hour later we were gathered around the warm blue glow of my laptop watching Lost.  My point is, we made every effort to give money to the right people and go through the proper channels…but in the end only piracy gave us what we wanted when we wanted it.  The day the media fully embraces that concept will be a great day indeed.

Another great day was the day Montreal’s  The Arcade Fire dropped their sophomore effort “Neon Bible” on the world.

Although I’m somewhat annoyed that once again a non-American rock band has out-rocked us again, I can’t help but love their sound.  That’s just the way things go sometimes.

Originally formed at Phillips Exeter Acadamy by brothers Win and William Butler, the band lineup went through a lot of changes before finally solidifying in 2003 around Butler and his new wife Régine Chassagne.  In it’s early incarnations, the group sold copies of the now unavailable “Us Kids Know EP” while playing local shows.  If anyone has a copy of this, let me know cause I need it.

Their first full length album, “Funeral” was released in late 2004 after a recording session plagued by the deaths of several bandmate’s relatives (Thus the title. ) They garnered the attention of David Bowie who loved their sound, but it was the internets that really made The Arcade Fire into stars.  The band’s mini tour was rapidly expanded into a mega tour, large venues replaced small venues and the band soon sold out of it’s stockpile of self released albums.

It was around this time I first heard the band and was happily surprised that the hype wasn’t exaggerated.  They have a lovely indie baroque sound that I could say was close to The Killers, but a lot dreamier.  If you don’t have “Funeral,” consider that your extra credit if you like “Neon Bible.”

After the success of “Funeral” the band purchased a defunct old church outside of Montreal and spent the first half of 2006 converting it into a recording studio.  The band also made some great decisions like trying out new instruments and sounds, and deciding to self produce their new album.

I think “Neon Bible” should have been 2007 album of the year.  Why it wasn’t was a mystery to me.  Maybe because it was a sophomore effort. But regardless this album will move you…emotionally or even physically to shake your ass.  Which to me is what a good album does.

You can hear how much work went into making the album, and how much attention to detail was put into each song.  That’s a rare feeling in most of today’s music.  And while their music is kind of hard to categorize, the quality isn’t.

BONUS: You know it’s good when Spike Jones uses a song for his trailer for “Where The Wild Things Are.”  Lets hope the movie is as good.

Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run

The problem with growing old is that the older you get the faster time seems to speed up.  Today my girlfriend commented that the first decade of the new millennium was almost over, and I had to pause a second before I realized that she was right.

How in the hell did that happen?  It seems like the Bush-9/11 years went by in such a rush…not that I’ll miss them. I remember when I was young and a night could last indefinitely, a year as a lifetime and a decade was forever.

It makes you wonder if it’s time that’s changing or merely our perception of it, although I’ll  put my money on the latter…and no other artist that  I know of has been able to capture that feeling of expanded time quite like Bruce Springsteen did in his 1975 masterpiece, “Born to Run.”

Born in 1949 in New Jersey, Bruce had a hard time relating in school, but like most music legends of the time he heard Elvis Presley and knew he had to rock…getting his first guitar at age 13 for a whopping $18.  Three years later his mother would take out a loan to buy him a $60 Kent.  He languished in High School…never really fitting in to the point that he skipped his own graduation.  He spent some time in community college before deciding that school wasn’t for him and dropping out.  In 1965 he went to a local couple with a reputation for sponsoring new young bands, Tex and Marion Vinyard, who got him his first gig as head of a group called The Castiles where he was lead guitar…and soon became lead singer as well.

BY the late 60’s he was making waves with a power rock trio called Earth, where he earned his nickname “The Boss” for being the guy in charge of getting the bands money from the club owners and distributing it to the band.  Let it be noted that Bruce hates this nickname, so if you run into him try and refrain from calling him “The Boss” since he hates bosses. From 1969 to 1970 he played with a band called Steel Mill which included many future members of the E Street Band, but despite great reviews and a cult following in New Jersey Bruce was not satisfied.  He was a man in search of a sound who wouldn’t stop till he found it.

For the next few years he formed a number of bands as he hunted the sound and formed his core band…groups like Dr Zoom and the Sonic Boom, the Sundance Blues Band, and The Bruce Springsteen Band.  As word of his talent grew, he garnered the attention of Columbia records who signed him in 1972.

In the studio, Springsteen brought out the still yet to be named E Street Band to help record his debut album “Greetings From Ashbury Park, NJ” The album was a critical success, but was easily dismissed by many to be just another Dylan or Van Morrison knock off.  In 1973 he released his next album “The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle” with the songs getting bigger and better and the band hitting a more soulful R&B vibe.  But as much critical acclaim as he was gathering…commercial viability still alluded Bruce and it was slowly draining him.

But in early 1974 Bruce found a new ally in music critic Jon Landau, who after seeing the band perform declared “I saw the future of rock and roll, and it’s name is Bruce Springsteen.”  Landau became Bruce’s new manger and the producer who would help him finish his last chance album “Born to Run.”  Bruce was given a huge budget but had gotten bogged down in the studio searching for the Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” feel. It took 14 months to record the album, with six of those months devoted to the title track alone.  A release of an early mix of the album to progressive rock stations was already beginning to grow the buzz, and Bruce was determined to get it right…becoming angry and frustrated by the fact he couldn’t translate the sounds in his head to the recording.  Steven Van Zandt came in the nick of time to help Springsteen polish his sound and get some of the sounds in his head on tape, but even the finished product didn’t please Bruce who chucked the album into an alley.

Luckily it didn’t stay there.  On August 13th, 1975 Bruce and the E Street Band began a five night ten show run at the Bottom Line Club in New York.  Broadcast on FM radio, the shows silenced any detractors once and for all and let everyone know that Bruce Springsteen was the real thing.  When the album dropped a few weeks later, the commercial success he had been searching for finally arrived with it.

I always knew I liked Springsteen, I just didn’t know much about him growing up because my sisters really didn’t listen to him and that was my only influx of modern music in the house.  Now after years of listening I feel safe pointing all non believers in the direction of this album because it’s such a pure example of  rock and roll.  I defy you to listen to it and not feel good.  Some may say “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was a better album, and I’d be inclined to agree with them…but it just doesn’t make you feel like “Born to Run.”

BTW: These videos are from Bruce’s performance at the Hammersmith Odeon Theater from November of 1975.  You should own that too.

I’m just sayin.

Joe Cocker – Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I really wish more bands would learn a few cover songs to add to their repertoire.

When you go see The Rolling Stones, they obviously don’t need to ’cause they have 50 some odd years of material to play with…but with the newer bands out there it would really help.  It’s really disappointing to go see a hot new band and all they can play is the songs off their only album. I’ve sat through a couple of shows that ended like this:

“Sorry, that’s all the songs we know!  Goodnight!”

And I’m sitting there in the audience thinking “Really?!?! What kind of musicians are you???  You only know ten songs???” It’s at this point that the concept of the cover song becomes necessary.

So, if you are a musician in a band that is touring, learn some extra material.  Not only will it help stretch out your set and show your range, but it also gives you an encore when your album set is over. It’s such a no brainer that I have a hard time figuring out why more bands don’t do it.

And no one understood the concept of covering a song better than Joe Cocker.

Born in Sheffield in 1944, he made his first public performance on stage at age 12 with his brother’s skiffle band.(Is it just me, or was every UK musician required to be in a skiffle band at the time?)  A few years after, Joe formed his own band, The Cavaliers, but broke it up after a year when Cocker left school to pursue music full time.

By 1961, Cocker had taken on a new stage name and was playing local venues under the moniker of Vance Arnold and the Avengers…mostly doing covers of Chuck Berry and such. They reached their apex in 1963 when they opened for The Rolling Stones at a concert at City Hall.  Cocker was soon signed to Decca Records and released his first single, a cover of The Beatles ‘I’ll Cry Instead,’ but despite a huge promotional push by the label,  the single fell flat and he was dropped. This led to Joe’s dropping of the Vance Arnold name and forming a new band, Joe Cocker’s Big Blues…but after a tour of France, that band too was disbanded for lack of funds.  Cocker decided to take some time off from the music scene.

By this point Cockerwas well known for his gravelly vocals and high energy performances, and in 1966 he formed The Grease Band with friend Chris Stainton. After a string of local Sheffield performances, The Grease Band caught the attention of Procol Harem producer Denny Cordell, who brought a solo Cocker into the studio to record another single, ‘Marjorine.’ Soon the Grease Band was disbanded and Cocker and Stainton had moved to London where they would soon have a residency at the Marquee Club.

‘Marjorine’ proved to be a modest success, but Cocker soon hit paydirt with his classic rendition of the Beatles ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ which featured Jimmy Page on guitar and Steve Winwood on drums.  I’ll say this much, when Joe Cockercovers a song, he covers a song. The band went on tour with The Who in 1968, and after a early 69 tour With Gene Pitney, Joe and his band headed to the states for a tour of their own. His album “With a Little Help From My Friends” was released around the same time and soon went gold.

While on the tour, Cocker and his new Grease Band hit some big name shows like the Denver Pop and the Newport Rock Festivals, and so they were likely candidates to play at Woodstock. When the band arrived, they had to be flown in by helicopter due to the crowds, and played a legendary set that culminated in a rainstorm.

Cocker was on a roll.  Almost immediately after Woodstock he released his second album “Joe Cocker!”   His work on “Friends” won him fans like George Harrison and Paul McCartney who were happy to let him use ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window’ and ‘Something’ for his latest work. He hit the TV circuit and soon cemented his reputation as a dynamic performer…but by the end of 1969 Joe was burnt out.  Not wanting to do another tour, he dissolved the Grease Band again.

Unfortunately for Joe, a US tour had already been booked and He had only days to get a band together. Luckily, Leon Russell heard of his plight and offered to help put the group together.  By days end they had a band of ten people…including Russell and Stainton.  After four grueling days of twelve hour rehearsals and the addition of eleven back-up singers, someone suggested they film the tour.  The result was “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.”

Filmed on March 27th and 28th at the legendary Fillmore in 1970, the album captures not only Cocker’s energy, but the feel of the merry band of 43 musicians, family, and crew that made up the group as a whole.  This is the way Joe Cocker was meant to be heard.  You get all the hit’s: The Beatles covers, ‘Delta Lady’ and ‘The Letter’… but also quieter pieces like “Bird on a Wire’ and the Russell song ‘Girl From The North Country.’

The group disbanded two months later…as tensions in the band and Joe’s drinking began to get out of hand.  It’s a fitting close to the Woodsstock era…but the album captures that brief moment in time when it seems like it was all going to be alright. 

The album is a must…and so is the DVD if you’re into that sort of thing.

Jive Bunny and The Mastermixers – The Album

Sorry I missed posting this last week, but I had a friend in town and we went out on Thursday night…till 2:30 in the morning.  At least that’s when I passed out.  Drew and Pete went home and drank Harvey Wallbangers till 4:30.

The point is that very little got done on Friday.

One of the hardest parts of DJing is the time constraint’s.  If you think about it, you have to be ready to do something awesome and delicate every three or four minutes…which leaves little time for conversations or anything else.
 
Like peeing for instance.

I once got stuck in a corner of a house party with about 150 people around my booth, and I was really considering turning around and peeing out the window the urge was so bad. Even though I had a track to throw on that was five and a half minutes long, it left me with only five and a half minutes to fight my way through the crowd, fight my way to the front of the bathroom line, pee and get back through the crowd to my booth.

It was a close one, but in the future I made sure to pack a good supply of medleys when I went to a gig.

Medley = Pee Pee time.

Drew has an awesome collection of records called “Stars On 45,” where they take all the Beatles, Rolling Stones or Fifties hits and have some sound-alike band re-record them into a seamless medley.  I’m not sure how many of these records they made, but I think they stopped around the eighties.  The last hurrah for this strange little genre came with the inception of “Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers: The Album.”

Truthfully, this is kind of a novelty record, but it’s exceptional in it’s selection and execution. Just listen to my favorite ‘Do You Wanna Rock’ above and see if your answer isn’t “Yes!”  Besides, Jive Bunny was the first ‘novelty” album to turn out three number one singles in a year. The idea started at the Mastermix DJ service in the UK, when Les Hemstock came up with the concept. The execution and management were left to the father son team of Andy and John Pickles. 

Drawing from a large amount of original material instead of sound alike bands, the Pickles created a series of concise and elegantly designed medleys structured mainly around the Glenn Miller Big Band sound, like their hit ‘Swing The Mood’ but also dig deeply into fifties pop and classic rock as well. 

When all the other DJs were digging for black music, Jive Bunny began to mine the depths of the pale face music…and found something awesome.  It’s pretty easy to listen to it now and see where the techniques would eventually become mash-ups or B-More remixes. Either way, it’s a good little history lesson that shouldn’t be missed.

Faith No More – Angel Dust

It’s been one of those weeks when a quiet moment of inactivity has been hard to come by, and last night was no exception.  I headed up to Santa Monica to support my friend Sean’s big show at the Temple Bar.

I like the Temple Bar.  It’s dark, well appointed, and they usually have a lot of great music. It’s a shame they’re closing down after ten years of success, but that’s how the scene goes.  Start with a bang, do a decent business and close it down when it starts to get stale…so you can remodel and open as an entirely new space!

Such is the life cycle of the LA Club.

But I digress.  I was over at the bar taking pictures, because having my camera gives me something to do, when this Asian girl walked up to me.

“What are taking pictures of?”

I explained I was trying to take a picture of the TV.  She started talking cameras with me and laughing at my jokes.  Suddenly I thought to myself:  “Is she hitting on me?”  I already have a girlfriend, and I really didn’t find her attractive, but I was flattered and was mentally patting myself on the back thinking:

“Oh yeah…you still got it!”

Then (as if on que) she stopped laughing, handed me a flyer for a band she was promoting and walked off to the next guy.

So, I guess I don’t still have it.  And that’s the news…humbling isn’t it.

Anyways, such happenings often leave me wistful for the glorious past. And the glorious past makes me think of the nineties, and the nineties make me think of Faith No More.  It should come as no surprise that someone who likes Mr Bungle also likes FNM, they practically go arm and arm…although FNM was the more mainstream of the two bands.  And in 1992 they reached their peak with their fourth studio album “Angel Dust.”

Personally, I like to think of it as their second album since the band never really took off until Mike Patton joined the band, and this was his second album with them. Their pre-Patton days were not very pretty.

Originally formed in 1982 as Faith No Man (gag) with Mike “The Man” Morris as singer, but by all accounts he was a bit to much of an asshole, so they dumped him and became Faith No More.  The band tried out a number of singers, including a young Courtney Love, before finally going with Chuck Mosely on lead vocals.  They released their first album “We Care Alot” in 12985 on the small Mordam label before getting picked up by Slash records and putting out their first full length album “Introduce Yourself” in 1987.  The only hit was a revamped version of their single from the first record ‘We Care Alot,’ which wasn’t too bad and got some time on the MTV video rotation.

But the band was not doing well, despite their modest success. Plagued by friction and fighting, the band had descended into sheer collective hatred.  Mosely was fired for his crappy behavior and guitarist Jim Martin suggested a young kid named Mike Patton to replace him.  Patton was still playing with Mr Bungle at the time, but soon dropped out of college to join the band.  All the music was already recorded, but in two weeks Patton had written all the lyrics for what would become the bands biggest album to date, “The Real Thing.”  Soon the band was a household name, and now the hated nemesis of The Red Hot Chili Peppers who felt that FNM has stolen their sound…to which I say “In your dreams RHCP!”

But it was their next effort that really hit me on a hard gut level that “The Real Thing” didn’t.  As “The Real Thing” was dominated by Patton’s singing and songwriting, 1992’s “Angel Dust” would find the whole band becoming more involved in the recording process and Patton experimenting with new sounds and direction for the group.  Where most bands would have followed the success of their previous album by sticking to the same formula, FNM decided to take a risk…and it paid off.  Mirroring the album artwork (a snowy white egret on the front and a butcher shop window on the back) the sound would run the gamut between beauty and barbarism. It would be the known as the final album before Jim Martin left the band.

The new found cohesion in the band made for great listening with songs like ‘Midlife Crisis,’ ‘Be Aggressive’ and ‘Land of Sunshine’…but the album also does a great job with their cover of ‘Midnight Cowboy’ as well as super heavy tracks like ‘Crack Hitler.’ Not only was the music heavy and raw, but also made use of samples from such a varied array of artists as Simon and Garfunkle to the Kronos Quartet.

“Angel Dust” finds a sonic balance that few artists or their albums could ever hope to achieve and it does so extremely well.  The group would make two more albums after this…each more experimental than commercial, before they called it quits, but the influence of the album  cans til be heard in music today though the likes of Korn and Linkin Park to name a few.

Pulling it off my shelf the other day, I was surprised how well the music had stood the test of time, especially when so much from that era has now been tossed in the novelty music bin.  But the part of me that knows better, knows that it won’t be long before college kids are hosting 90’s parties, and music like this will be heard once again.

If I didn’t like it so much, I’d shudder at the thought.

Sixto Rodriguez – Cold Fact

Wednesday night ended up being much drunker this week than I expected…but I’ve really come to enjoy the idea of the mid week tension breaker. Billy and Brian showed up around 9ish and started in on the beers and Sailor Jerry. Then Deven appeared after 11 with two old friends Crum and Tyo (their last names…not their first.)

Tyo is what we call a magnificent asshole. The kind of guy who will tell you exactly what he thinks, regardless of the situation…then tells you to fuck off. I love him anyway because he has one of the sickest collections of sixties era furniture I’ve ever seen, and he collects the most disgusting high-end audio equipment you could imagine. The kind of shit that was designed in Germany and costs several grand.  Jeff buys that stuff like groceries.

But Tyo has a real thirst for funk and jazz, like myself…and Wednesday night found us deep in my loft digging through said sections for treasure and playing a little game of “have you heard this?” One of the albums I pulled out was Sixto Rodriguez’s 1970 album “Cold Fact.”

Unless you’re one of the crate diggers over at Soul Strut, or fan of finding obscure music, you probably don’t know Sixto, but that’s why I’m here, and why I write about this kind of thing. It deserves to be known. It doesn’t seem to fall into any particular genre, but seems to borrow a little from the latin, funk, folk and psyche categories and forms a unique creature of it’s own.

Sixto was born in Detroit, the son of middle class Mexican immigrants.  In 1967 he released his first single ‘I’ll Slip Away’ under the name of Rod Riguez on the Impact Label.  It would be another three years before he released anything else, and not until he signed on to Sussex records where he cut two albums: “Cold Fact’ and ‘Coming From Reality’.  But although of high quality, neither album took off.  Most critics didn’t get it and the album sold poorly, leading the label to drop Sixto who subsequently gave up his career as a musician.

But then something strange happened.  He albums began to gain steam over seas in countries like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. By 1975 the original run of “Cold Fact’ was sold out and an Australian label called Blue Goose Music bought the Australian rights to Sixto’s catalog, giving both albums their first major label release.  This was all news to Sixto, who discovered that his album had gone platinum in South Africa.  He toured Australia twice, once in 1979 then again in 1981 before he went home and resumed a normal life.

With a voice somewhere between Cat Stevens and Jose Feliciano, Sixto’s music definitely falls under the label of ‘deep’ with his semi political leanings and social commentary.  The best album cuts include the smooth ‘Sugar Man’ (which you may recall from the Heath Ledger movie: Candy ) my favorite ‘This Is Not A Song, It’s An Outburst’ and ‘Rich Folks Hoax.’

And of his two albums, “Cold Fact” remains the best.  Sixto can still be found playing occasionally under the name Rodriguez…although mainly in Australia.  Check it out, folks.

Black Kids – Wizard of Ahhhs

You know what sucks?

I mean aside from house fires, speeding tickets, and being mauled by bears.

Trying to stay on a diet.

Not to say I’m pushing maximum density or anything, I can still see my genitals and all, but I am heavier than I’d like and I have clothes that don’t fit as well as they did say…eight months ago. So I’m trying to buckle down and drop a few pounds.

The only obstacle seems to be my friends.

All I want to do is eat a healthy lunch, hit the gym for an hour, eat my Lean Cuisine and be done with it. But with my circle of friends it’s harder and harder to do so. Never mind the fact that I’m a partner in a Bar and Grill and therefore have access to free buffalo wings and burgers whenever I want. My friends always want to BBQ somewhere and always want to drink.

On Monday I was settling down when Billy called me (we were going over our new menu at the bar) and asked if I’d eaten. I told him I had and was taking it easy, but if he wanted to cook for himself on my grill he was welcome to.

The next thing I know, he shows up with four huge fresh sausages and two giant stuffed portobello mushrooms. Then, the next night he showed up with fresh foccacia and olive tapenade and two excellent cheeses as well as some wine!

I know this doesn’t sound like something to complain about, but fucking-A! How’s a man going to stay thin with shit like this going down on a nightly basis?

Well, the one thing I don’t have a problem doing is listening to The Black Kid’s album from last year, the highly acclaimed “Wizard of Ahhhs.” This is what you’d hear on the radio if radio wasn’t a repetitive wasteland where hit’s go to die.

Formed in early 2006 in Jacksonville Florida, the band consists of siblings Reggie and Ali Youngblood on guitar, keyboard and vocals; Kevin Snow on drums, Owen Holmes an bass and Dawn Watly on keyboard and vocals too. That’s a lot of vocals and keyboards!

At first the band did pretty well as an opening act for larger bands that toured through the area, but soon hit it big after a stunning performance at the Athens Popfest in Georgia that August. With a flurry of favorable reviews and coverage they released this EP for free download off their MySpace page soon after, showing once again that giving away music for free isn’t the career suicide that it was once accused of being.

Their sound is kind of indie, but as I’ve said before it’s more good than anything else. Catchy and uplifting. Check out the awesome ‘I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You’ or my other favorite ‘I’ve Underestimated My Charm (Again).’ I find it no wonder that they were picked up by Quest management who also manages the equally badass Arcade Fire. 

(I’ve heard a lot of peolpe hating on their music lately, but I take it as a backlash to the overhype they’ve been getting as of late. This is pop music.  What do you want from it anyway?)

They’ve recently released their first full length album “Partie Traumatic” which is not up for free download, but you can still find “Wizard” online at their MySpace page. I haven’t gotten a chance to check it out yet, but I figure it probably rules.

Go get it, people.

G Love and Special Sauce – Coast to Coast Motel

I remember the first time I saw G Love and Special Sauce back in 1994.  Their self-titled debut album had just dropped, they were getting a lot of good press and the streets were hungry for what they were laying down.  We managed to get tickets to catch their show at the American Legion Hall on Highland, just south of the Hollywood Bowl.

After getting over my initial shock at what a broad spectrum of Angeleno’s had shown up for the show,  and being a little pissed that my key chain pocket knife had been confiscated at the door, the band pretty much proceeded to blow my mind. I’ve seen a lot of shows in my day…and only a very few rank up there in the “Freakin’ Amazing” category…but this was one of them.  The energy in the room that night was unparallelled.

I got on the horn the next morning to alert my friends in the Bay Area of what was coming, exclaiming:

“G Love is coming!!!  Get tickets now!!!”

They had no idea what I was talking about, or who G Love was…but I gave them my personal musical guarantee (I don’t give that out very often) that their money and time would be well spent… after which, they all agreed that I had been correct on all counts. 

Because G Love puts on a helluva show.

The band consists of G Love, (a Philadelphia native whose real name is Garrett Dutton III) on harmonica, vocals and guitar; Jimmy “Jazz” Prescott on stand up bass, and Jeffrey “Houseman” Clemens on drums.  Their sound hovers in a twilight area where blues, hip hop, folk and jazz all combine into an entirely new animal.  And after their audacious debut, it was thought they might be the second coming.

The following year, the band had gone to New Orleans to record the follow up album titled “Coast to Coast Motel,” and when it was released it fell flat. 

I was puzzled…and confused. 

I would read the bad reviews, go back and listen to the album again.  Were they listening to the same album I was?  What the hell was going on?  Where did my drink go?  A few people liked the LP, but it seemed to get no press.  I would drop it at parties and people loved it, but none seemed to know about it.  It made no sense that an album this good had pretty much gone unnoticed.  WTF?!?

Even more confusing was the almost complete absense of any of these songs from G Love’s live show.  I collected his live tapes for a while and you were hard pressed to find any “Coast to Coast” material on any of them.  Did he really want to sweep this under the rug?  I never got to ask him.

more about “MySpaceTV Videos: G.Love & Special Sa…“, posted with vodpod

The band had matured in sound, pulling more from New Orleans funk and folk roots while still retaining their original hybrid aesthetic.  The songs like ‘Kiss and Tell,’ ‘Soda Pop’ and ‘Sweet Sugar Mama’ are literally dripping with soul and a laid back good time funk that catches you off guard.  And the New Orleans vibe pours out so think, you’d think you were at Mardi Gras.

Once again, the critics missed the boat on this one.

But now you don’t have to.