ROLLING STONE

Loretta Lynn, Desmond Child Inducted Into Songwriters Hall of Fame

While the rest of the show-biz crowd gets its annual ya-ya’s out at over-the-top affairs like the Grammys and the Oscars, songwriters celebrate themselves in a comparatively understated (but equally impressive) manner at the yearly Songwriters Hall of Fame inductions. For the 39th songsmiths’ shindig, honorees ran the gamut from country queens to pop princes: Desmond Child, Albert Hammond, Loretta Lynn, Alan Menken, John Sebastian were inducted, while Paul Anka, Anne Murray, John Rzeznik and Milt Okun were honored.

Joan Jett presented hitmeister Desmond Child with his award after he opened the show with a medley of blockbusters he penned for others, from Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” When pressed, Child admitted his favorite child is “a song I wrote with Hanson called ‘Weird,’ because it’s about being different, and I grew up poor, I grew up being Latin, I grew up being gay, and now I’m fat!” Lovin’ Spoonful leader John Sebastian backed the Naked Brothers Band on his own “Do You Believe in Magic,” and offered a light-hearted perspective on the writing process, musing, “The best part about songwriting is that it’s something you can do that requires no raw material and creates no waste.”

Danny Aiello and former New York Yankee Bernie Williams turned up for Towering Song Award winner “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” John Legend crooned an estrogen-stirring version of Paul Anka’s “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” and Natasha Bedingfield performed Menken’s “Colors of the Wind.” But it was Loretta Lynn who wound up stealing the show with her classic “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” returning at the crowd’s insistence for an unplanned encore of “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”

Jim Allen

PREFIX

Yoko Ono Interview
by: Jim Allen

Yoko Ono has spent nearly 50 years on the front lines as a challenging, provocative artist, from her early-'60s work as a visual artist on the New York avant-garde scene to her legendary work with third husband John Lennon up through 21st century collaborations with everyone from Cat Power to DJ Spooky. Now, for the 39th anniversary of Lennon's “Give Peace a Chance,” Ono has released a series of remixes based on her re-recording of this classic tune. Here, the veteran world-shaker talks about her undying idealism, her peace-promoting web presence, and how it all fits into her multifarious musical activities.

How do you view the artist's role as a catalyst for sociopolitical change?
I think all the people who are participating in the art world have a very good chance of doing a lot for the world. And of course scientists, they have a very good chance of changing the world for us in a good way, and they're doing that. They found the stem cells; they found out about DNA. Where are we going? It seems like we're gonna be in a place where nobody has to die unless they want to, and we'll just be young forever. We don't have to be scared about that, it's a beautiful world we're stepping into.

What do you think our prospects for peace are now, compared to 1969?
At that time, all of us expressed our feelings for peace and the war did stop. This time, I don't know. Of course there's a lot more people in the world, and things are on a larger scale. It's not a time when you can just walk around the block with flags and say “peace.” You have to think about so many angles about how to deal with this thing, and that's what we're doing. Click into Imaginepeace.com and you'll see what we're doing.

Why did you decide to release the “Give Peace a Chance” remixes on the song's 39th anniversary rather than the 40th?
Well, we can start now and really celebrate on the 40th. A lot of things are going to happen on the 40th. But whether it's 39th or 40th, this is the time that we need to give peace a chance. That's how I feel about it. And I'm still on the peace side, so I'm gonna keep on promoting it. I'm really promoting Imaginepeace.com, and people are really clicking in there -- incredible numbers of people.

You're making the remixes available as downloads. Do you believe digital media is the future of music?
Well, I don't know if it's the future of music. Everything keeps on changing, so I can't say exactly, but it seems like it's going that way. Of course it's easy to say, “This is just free music.” But you don't say that about somebody making a car in a factory. This is something that we really put all our efforts into -- making good music. So music is also a commodity in that sense. You can't just say, “Let's get it free.” But one day maybe everything's gonna be free. That's understandable, because civilization would get to the point where we share everything together. We didn't get to that point yet. It's good if music is going to keep on communicating, and I think people are starting to see that we have to have control over it. I think that wherever it's going is going to be a healthier direction.

You started out on the avant-garde art scene. How does that inform your musical methods?
I was always avant-garde, even when I was a little girl. My mother took me to a kind of early education in music when I was 4 or 5 in Japan -- a very special school. And the first thing I was doing was learning music, harmony, and writing songs. This was in the '30s. The homework we had was to listen to different sounds and noises of that day and transpose them into musical notes. Isn't that amazing? In the 1930s! Japan had a very advanced avant-garde scene, from the 1920s I think -- the Russian influence. So the first art that I was into was music. I think most people think of me as an artist before a composer. Of course, I'm one of those people you might think jack of all trades: Whenever I'm inspired I just do it. So sometimes it comes in the form of a painting or sculpture, or classical music, or whatever it is. But I don't stick to one thing so much.

What made you choose dance remixes as your medium for a political message?
I chose that instead of being confrontational. Being confrontational, there's a backlash each time. And of course, I'm a very confrontational person. People say, “What is she talking about?" But I'd like to think that we can keep on dancing, and dance through life. It's very important, the rhythm of it: Even if there's no music, there's music in your head. That doesn't mean just physical; there's conceptual dance as well. Even when you're doing business or trying to make a deal or something, there's a certain rhythmic dance in your mind that makes it easier.

Did having other artists remix your songs for your Open Your Box project point you toward ideas like this one?
Of course, Open Your Box did it. I used to criticize myself for being so rigid about things in terms of other people remixing things. Most of them wanted to remix “Walking on Thin Ice,” and I felt very protective about that song, because John and I did it together. There's an incredible memory of that, and I didn't want people to touch it and remix it and all that, so each time I'd say “No, no.” And then somebody came and said “Well how about 'Open Your Box'?” And I was making my next album at the time, and I was very busy in the studio, thinking about music and concentrating on this thing called Blueprint for a Sunrise. And I just kind of said “Okay, do it, do it.” But then, just around the time that I had forgotten totally about it, people said “You want to listen to it?” And it was incredible. I was starting to cry; I couldn't believe it. For the first time people were starting to understand my music -- that's how I felt. It was so beautiful. And then I realized that the songs -- most of the songs were originally like three-minute statements -- the remixers were trying to put air in it -- air and wind, beautiful spring air, beautiful summer air, that kind of thing, into the song by elongating it into dance music. I'd just like to say, “Let's dance, and let's keep dancing. Don't stop, we'll just keep dancing.”

MTV DIGITAL

Q&A: KEITH URBAN
Australian for "Country"

by Jim Allen

Keith Urban is the quintessential modern Nashville star: He's got a badass image, a sizable debt to '80s rock, and a knack for writing pure pop hooks with a down-home twang. His career was kicked into hyperdrive in 2004 when his third album Be Here hit #1 on the Billboard Country Album charts and scraped the upper reaches of the Hot 200, making him the only Australian artist besides Olivia Newton-John three decades ago to achieve such lofty heights. And when in mid-2006 Urban married Oscar-wining actress (and fellow Aussie) Nicole Kidman, the photogenic singer/songwriter/guitarist completed his transformation into an American household name.
But it's not easy being a superstar in the modern world. Four months after the wedding kicked off a media feeding frenzy and just two weeks before the hotly anticipated November '06 release of Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing, Urban checked himself into a rehab program, where he cleaned up whatever habits drove him there. The new, improved Keith has come back stronger than ever, launching a successful tour in support of an album that's shone even brighter than its predecessors, and stepping onto the world stage as part of the international Live Earth event, where he broke even more musical boundaries by lending his voice and guitar to a duet version of The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" with Alicia Keys. In the midst of his triumphant return to the spotlight, Urban gave URGE the lowdown on what makes him tick and how he handles the demands of stardom.

URGE: How is the music you're making now different from what you've done in the past?

Keith Urban: The songs are just an evolution from the previous record. I think the two albums before this had a lot more in common with each other, a certain sound, a spirit about them that, to me, made them sound fairly bookend-ish. If there is one thing that we did with this record, it was take into account how some of these songs might be extended live, and consequently, we put those on the record just like they are. So there are a couple of seven-minute songs on the record which normally would be little three-and-a-half-minute songs on the album and we'd extend them live. In that respect, we're trying to blur the boundaries a little more between what you would see live and what you're hearing on record.

URGE: The kind of extension you're talking about has a lot do with your guitar solos. As a guitarist, who are some of the players that lit your fire when you were getting your chops together?

Urban: Early on, it was probably just the session players, the Reggie Youngs and the Brent Masons. I was copying their licks without really knowing who they were. But when I turned 15n, a friend turned me onto Dire Straits. It was really Mark Knopfler and his tone and his melodic sensibility that I just absolutely loved. From there, [Fleetwood Mac's] Lindsey Buckingham. I loved the rhythm pocket of [AC/DC's] Malcolm Young; I think he's one of the greatest rhythm guitarists ever.

URGE: How does an Australian kid wind up getting interested in American country music?

Urban: That was through my parents' record collection. My dad had all these American country records like Charley Pride, and Merle Haggard and lots of Don Williams. When I started playing guitar, those were the songs that I gravitated towards.

URGE: How did your passions for rock and country develop alongside each other?

Urban: In the pubs in Australia. I started touring when I was about 13, and playing in the pubs, man, you've just got to play what they want to hear. I did my fair share of "Free Bird" and those sorts of songs. When I went to see John Mellencamp in 1988 on the Lonesome Jubilee tour, it was a real defining moment for me. I'd grown up playing all this country up until I was in my late teens, and then all of a sudden I'm playing in these bands that are doing a lot of rock. I spent about two months playing in this heavy-metal band before I got fired, doing Whitesnake, Scorpions and Judas Priest [songs]. But at the time I was into Ricky Skaggs, so I was doing all these chicken-pickin' guitar licks in heavy-metal songs. I just couldn't figure out where the hell I was supposed to go. And I went and saw Mellencamp, and it had a profound effect on me because I saw this guy with this badass rock band, and there was a fiddle in it, there was an accordion. It was just the best mix of everything I loved. I didn't so much set out to emulate what John was doing, but he really inspired me to find my own thing and meld all the styles that I loved into my own thing. In that way John was a big influence.

URGE: Some people have said that 20 years ago someone doing what you do might have been considered a rock artist rather than a country artist. How do you feel about that?

Urban: I think it works the opposite way too ó if Bob Seger would have put out songs like "Against the Wind" right now, they'd probably be [considered] country songs. It just evolves. It's natural that country artists have grown up listening to just as much rock ó particularly Southern rock ó and that's going to come through in the music. At the same time, country has always crossed boundaries too. I look to the country artists I grew up listening to ó say, Glen Campbell or Johnny Cash ó and you're talking about pop-mainstream artists as well, [and about] songs that defied genre. So, I don't really see much difference today than there was back then. It's just relative to the time.

URGE: How did it feel to play at Live Earth, and to sing with Alicia Keys?

Urban: We certainly had a great time. Playing with Alicia, especially, was a blast. I couldn't imagine doing that song without that voice. My manager suggested doing "Gimme Shelter," which I thought lyrically was just fantastic. And then we were looking for who could sing the part, and Alicia's name came up. So we just contacted her and she was totally up for it; she was performing on the show anyway. We got to soundcheck [the song] in the morning, and just go for it.

URGE: Is the message of Live Earth something that's close to your heart?

Urban: We've got 12 trucks on this tour and they're all biodiesel. We weren't able to get the buses fitted out in time. I was happy with at least getting that done in time for the tours. It's certainly something that's becoming more and more the way that I look at my life, for sure. I'm not the perfect green guy by any means, but I think what I'm becoming aware of is places in my life that I can start to change some of the things I'm doing.

URGE: Did the huge scale of the Live Earth show affect your perspective on live performance?

Urban: No, not really. I've been fortunate to play a few of those stadium shows with Kenny Chesney. We did Live 8 in Philadelphia, as well. They're their own sort of thing, when you get to play to massive numbers like that. You can only play to so many and then it's just a bit of a CGI blur anyway. The day was more powerful for me for the significance [rather] than the amount of people involved.

URGE: The last year or so has been a whirlwind for you: getting married, following up a hugely successful record ... did you feel like a wrench was thrown into the works when you went into rehab in the midst of it all?

Urban: I took time away from my career to go and work on myself. And it was really, you know, it was a needed opportunity for me.

URGE: Now it seems like you've come through that time to even more success: a big new single and video, and a major tour. Do you feel like you've turned a corner?

Urban:Oh, no doubt. It's definitely a new life. It's just a much healthier, more balanced life than I've had previously.

URGE: How has your marriage changed things for you?


Urban: It gives more balance in my life. It makes me not so obsessed with the touring, like I used to be. I guess touring used to fill more of a hole in me than it does now, which is just part of finding balance. That's just evolving based on all kinds of things; marriage would be one of them. Obviously marriage will have some effect on [my music]. That answer is probably more about when I make the next record.

HARP MAGAZINE

Waco Brothers:
Cowpunk & Disorderly
By Jim Allen
Since 1994, Anglo-American roots rockers the Waco Brothers have been charter members of Bloodshot Records’ “insurgent country” army. The Mekons offshoot’s alcohol-fueled, sometimes-shambolic onstage antics have become the stuff of legend, and their new live album Waco Express: Live and Kicking at Schuba’s Tavern captures them in all their cowpunk glory. For the occasion, frontmen Jon Langford and Dean Schlabowske and drummer Steve Goulding offer reminiscences from 14 years of musical mayhem.

Bloody New Year
Lounge Ax, Chicago, Ill.
Casualties: Alan Doughty’s head and bass guitar

On New Year’s Eve at the late, lamented hotspot, bassist Alan Doughty engages in one of his “highly choreographed and usually brilliantly executed bass moves” after a little too much imbibing, whereupon he smashes himself squarely in the forehead with his instrument. He earns himself an injury of emergency-room proportions, but carries on regardless. Langford: “Blood ran all over his face. By the end of the song he looked like a great grinning beetroot.”

Punching out Uncle Sam
Bloodshot Records’ SXSW showcase, Austin, Texas
Casualties: Deano, Jon, and Tracy’s knuckles and patriotic standing

The band is “fairly well-lubricated on Guero’s margaritas” and pulling off a blistering set despite inebriation. Without warning, a mysterious marauder in an Uncle Sam costume complete with giant head leaps onstage. Langford, Schlabowske, and mandolinist Tracy Dear engage in pugilistics with the patriotic icon before he disappears into the night. Schlabowske: “It was only a year or two ago that I found out it was [labelmate] Jon Rauhouse!”

Kind of a Drag
Park West, Chicago, Ill.
Casualties: hometown rep and macho image

The Wacos dress in drag as backing band for Brigid Murphy’s Millie’s Orchid Show. Several cocktails into the evening, most of the band decides to wander provocatively about town in their finery. Returning hours later, they find Goulding, still in wig and dress, trying desperately to accompany Murphy alone in an ad hoc vocals-and-drums duet. Goulding: “Even after a futile attempt to sneak onstage and pretend they’d been there the whole time, the group were not asked back.”

PREFIX MAGAZINE

Mark Eitzel
Interview by Jim Allen

The original kings of sadcore, American Music Club started bringing their blend of beauty and tears to enraptured indie-rockers in the mid-'80s. The band disintegrated in 1994, reuniting a decade later to release Love Songs for Patriots (Devil in the Woods). And now American Music Club singer Mark Eitzel and guitarist Vudi have assembled a revamped lineup for another new one, The Golden Age, released in February on Merge. Here, Eitzel talks about the band's current tour, the departure of longtime rhythm section Dan Pearson and Tim Mooney, and his spiritual debts to '70s soft rock and Jerry Lewis.

You and Vudi have been recording and touring with a new bassist and drummer. What happened to Dan Pearson and Tim Mooney?
It's a long story. We did that [previous] American Music Club record, and it was basically me, Tim, and Danny working in San Francisco and flying Vudi and the keyboard player up on the weekends. We'd fly Vudi up and he'd do fifty takes and I'd edit them into a part, and I really didn't want to do that again on this record. Vudi is a slow burn: He comes up with ideas after a while, and you really want those ideas, because he's a genius. On the next record, I basically said, "Well, I don't want to make a record like we did last time. I want to make a record with Vudi in L.A.”

Why couldn't Vudi come to San Francisco?
Because Vudi drives a city bus, and he couldn't move. And those guys [Mooney and Pearson] were like, "Yeah, sure, great," and then I couldn't get them on the phone for about eight months for various reasons. I finally called Vudi and said, "Look dude, I'm coming to L.A. I've got these songs and I want you to hear them." The thing with Vudi is that he just gives me so much hope when I play him my songs, he's like, "Oh! Oh, we can do this . . . ." Even my shittiest songs -- like a song I had called "You're So Eva," "So very Eva Braun....” It was a horrible song, but even that one, he was like, "Oh, this works!" As long as Vudi is in the room it kinda works. It had to be Vudi. He got these two guys [bassist Sean Hoffman and drummer Steve Didelot]. As soon as I played with them it felt more like a band than American Music Club had felt in years.”

So did you give up on Danny and Tim at that point?
Another six months passed, and these guys won't answer my phone calls. Finally I just thought, "I've gotta do this record. I've gotta make it the best record I can. I'm gonna go with these other people. Sorry." We were gonna call it MacArthur Park Music Club, because Vudi lives in MacArthur Park, and because I love that song [Jimmy Webb's “MacArthur Park”]. And my manager in England said, "You know, Mark, you can get paid this level if you call yourself Mark Eitzel. You can get paid a much lower level if you call yourself MacArthur Park Music Club. And if you call yourself American Music Club, you can get paid this level!" I was like, "Oh shit, right. It's a brand thing, isn't it?" And because I had various American Music Clubs before I ever worked with Tim and Danny, I thought, "Fuck it, I'll just call it American Music Club."

Is it a different feeling having two new musicians onstage instead of the guys you've played with for years?
It's very different. It's funny, you always live sort of obedient to the fans. They seem to record every single show and download it and talk about it. I think most people like the new band. Everyone sings, and they remember how to play the songs, more than me and Vudi even, and it's a more positive thing.”

Do Sean and Steve replicate any of Tim and Danny's old parts?
They won't let me change them. "Blue and Grey Shirt," [Sean and Steve] listened to the record and said, "No, Mark. You have to play it like this, you have to play it just like the record." The bass player is really a guitar player, he does commercial music, he does all the shredding guitars on the Fox Sports Channel, and he won't ever admit it to himself but he's a real genius on bass. And the drummer, he's a great songwriter himself, so he knows how to play drums with songs. He's another one of those people who doesn't know how good he is, but don't tell him.

How is the music you're making now different from what you did with the old version of the band? There's less of that heavy, intense feeling on the new album.
What you say is heavy and intense some people say is self-pitying and annoying. I had an epiphany. I was in Basel and I went to the art gallery there. There was this one painting and [when I saw it] I thought, "Those are all the mistakes I ever made, where I'm too much in the middle of the music, where my pain is all amplified and all present." And I don't want to do that anymore. If I make that kind of super-dark music, I need to be really healthy and there has to be some other goodness happening in my life. But at this point if I make that kind of dark music it's like I'm locking myself in a dark room with a lion, and I don't want to do that.


So this is the kinder, gentler American Music Club.
Kind of a Bread album, yeah. I don't want to make hard music, I want to make easy music. The next album I'm writing, people are gonna hate it -- [it's] even more corny and simple. When I go see music now, if I have to see some indie rock fucker stare at his fucking shoes and whisper into the microphone something that is not about my life -- I hate that shit now. I like pop music. As much as I love indie music, there's very few. Bon Iver, that stuff's beautiful, I love it. It's about my life. But I can't really point to a lot of other people that play the same kind of music. Am I being a bitch now? Yes. I'm just sick of it, so I don't want to do that music. I want to do balls-out embarrassing, corny stuff.

In the old AMC days, the audiences sometimes seemed like they were waiting to see you self-destruct in an explosion of angst onstage.
One of my pleasures in life is Cat Power. I think she's a fucking genius. I went to one of her shows in San Francisco, and it was just this strangely quiet room of people who were waiting to see her die, and I thought, "No, that's not her at all. She's a very cheerful, nice person. That's bullshit. And I kind of felt like I don't like that kind of audience.

So what effect do you want to have now on an audience?
You know what I want? I want applause, that's all I want! [laughs] I want applause, I want people to buy the merch. To be honest, I don't care. You can't cherry-pick what kind of reaction you get; all you can do is do your best and hope that you entertain people. I sound like Jerry Lewis when I say this, but I actually am very much like Jerry Lewis.

Will you continue to work under the American Music Club name in the future?
I don't know. I hope so, if the band stays together. Everyone has to have a life and earn a living, so I don't if Vudi can afford to do this, or Sean or Steve can afford to do this. It's not like we're making tons of money. It's really economics.

Well, say if you had your druthers.
If I had my druthers, I would have a beautiful swimming pool, and I'd be in it right now.

CMJ NEW MUSIC MONTHLY

JAPANCAKES: The Sleepy Strange
By Jim Allen
Unlike many bands that fall under the post-rock banner, Athens, Georgia's Japancakes generate considerable warmth and an undeniable organic quality. While there are no vocals on their second full-length album, and the purposefully minimalist approach to composition generates little in the way of conventional forward motion, The Sleepy Strange draws the listener in with its sunny tones and earthy touches (note the swaths of gorgeous pedal steel that coat the album-opening "The Waiting"). Cellist Heather McIntosh - who also works with Elf Power and Of Montreal - is a key presence throughout, providing thick drones in more austere moments and semi-classical counterpoint to the keyboards in the airier sections, and she's the perfect mate for the naturalistic pedal-steel flurries. Guitarist Eric Berg is the leader of Japancakes, which is actually something of a side project for many of its members, but he remains a Zen-like presence in the background, providing a chordal framework for the band's post-rock adventurism and earthbound Americana.

AMPLIFIER MAGAZINE

JOHN ZORN
ABRONS ART CENTER - NEW YORK CITY - 2/22/08
FEATURING LOU REED AND LAURIE ANDERSON

Legendary avant-jazzman John Zorn's two-evening stint at the Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement was a quintessential New York event.

For many years, saxophonist/composer/bandleader Zorn, stalwart downtown/underground jazz experimentalist, has been known for pieces with Jewish-oriented themes, and for this appearance on the Lower East Side (itself once a haven for Jewish immigrants), he decided to go for the gusto with an adaptation of the biblical Shir Ha-Shirim, or Song of Songs. Also known as the Song of Solomon, it's a section of the Old Testament that depicts--in colorful, romantic prose--an exchange between two lovers. Who better to call upon for the lovers' recitatives than Lou Reed and his longtime paramour Laurie Anderson? The two sexagenarians (no pun intended--Reed is 65 and Anderson 60) are both New York institutions, and both are known for their sprechgesang vocal delivery, not to mention the fact that Reed is of course one of NYC's most seminal Jewish rockers.

On the first night, for the piece's debut, Reed sported a loose-fitting white shirt sans jacket, giving his presence a classic romantic flair. The erstwhile Velvet Underground front man being one of rock's most notoriously unromantic artists, the image (not to mention his very participation) created an interesting dichotomy, as did that of the artfully affectless Anderson. Nevertheless, when the pair, facing each other from opposite ends of the stage, brought their renowned deadpan delivery to bear in giving voice to the sensuous text, the sonic impact proved a fruitful one. Anderson and Reed batted their lines back and forth like a postmodern version of a biblical Tracy and Hepburn; midway through, at the piece's most playful point, they engaged in repetition of urgent whispers in tandem, creating a crucial element of tension.

Instead of backing his leading man and lady with a pack of skronky instrumentalists, Zorn made the inspired decision to accompany those very distinctive voices with five more voices. Standing in a row towards the rear of the stage were five elegantly attired young ladies who supplied the piece's sole melodic content via clusters of wordless vocal harmonies. Zorn achieved an artistic triumph in crafting a complex-yet-organic latticework of melodies for the singers, constructions alternately sonorous and discordant that sometimes darted in and out of each other and sometimes combined for clear, sharp bursts of sound. The women's pure, vibratoless voices betrayed no more overt emotion than those of Anderson and Reed, but their tonal colors and appealingly melodic (even at their most avant-garde) effect created the contrast upon which the entire piece hinged.

Between the pointillist sonic tableaux of the singers and the expertly unsentimental approach of the readers, Zorn (who stood beneath the performers, conducting from the foot of the stage) succeeded handsomely at bringing an ancient Hebrew text into the present day, redefining its eroticism for the modern age and illuminating the inner music of its stanzas with an inveterate iconoclast's ear.

--Jim Allen

BARNESANDNOBLE.COM

Machito:
Kenya: Afro-Cuban Jazz

Machito's big band was one of the first and best exponents of Afro-Cuban jazz as we know it today. This 1957 effort focuses more on the African side of the Afro-Cuban equation; the album title/concept was chosen because Kenya represented the "New Africa" at the time, which dovetailed nicely with the new sounds Machito and company were laying down. The set opens with the heady rush of "Wild Jungle," a frenetic rumba with staccato horn punctuation cutting up the time atop a bed of fierce polyrhythmic percussion. The substantially more sedate title cut pursues a more conventional jazz melodic line until the coda, where a frantic rumba is again introduced to crank the tension level back up. "Oyeme" is a lesson in the possibilities of Afro-Cuban modality, as the rhythm and melodic variations are all wrung over a static, one-chord harmonic framework. The appropriately titled "Frenzy" makes good use of Machito's percussion section, pitting brass interjections over some unfettered percussive fury. Kenya's contrast between Machito's Afro-Cuban soundscapes and the solos of legendary U.S. jazzmen Cannonball Adderly and Doc Cheatham makes for a swirling stew of jazz con clave that no aficionado should be without. Jim Allen

MUSICTODAY.COM

Nick Lowe
Bowery Ballroom
New York, New York

Review by Jim Allen

Whither the power-poppers of yore? Those skinny-tied, smart-suited gents whose Beatlesque hooks and snappy beats put them at the vanguard of pop culture for one brief shining moment circa 1979/80. By and large, they've gone the way of the "where's the beef?" lady (anyone heard from the Shoes, Rubinoos, or Records in the last couple of decades?). It's all the more astonishing, then, for a rocker of that vintage to grow into a musically mature artist whose work not only endures but keeps getting better, a la Nick Lowe. For the last ten years, the man formerly known as the Jesus of Cool has been turning out introspective, heart-on-sleeve albums heavy on soulful ballads displaying both expert craftsmanship and true passion.

For his first visit to the States in many moons, Lowe decided to keep things low-key, mostly performing in acoustic troubadour mode. This kind of scenario isn't always complementary to former rock 'n' rollers, but it fits like a glove in Lowe's case. His mellifluous voice, grown huskier with age, is the ideal vehicle for delicately rendered tales of heartbreak; Lowe comes off more like a British Sam Cooke than a guy who once produced an album for the Damned. And with his natty look and witty repartee, he's a natural-born crowd-charmer, perfectly suited for one-on-one communication with audiences like the rapt, reverent crowd at the Bowery Ballroom, where a pin drop would have sounded like a gunshot during Lowe's exquisite set.

Singer/pianist Geraint Watkins, who has played in Lowe's band for years and would accompany him on a few songs at the end of the latter's set, opened the show with a mix of soul and jazzy blues, channeling Mose Allison and Ray Charles via Georgie Fame. Watkins' compelling voice and trenchant ivory pounding bespoke a lifetime spent absorbing American roots music, and he even went to so far as to add a surprisingly effective R&B tinge to the Beach Boys chestnut "Heroes & Villains." With little ado, Lowe soon took the stage to rapturous applause, launching into a set that leaned heavily on his last three albums. From his whispered vocal on the jazzy "You Inspire Me" to his forlorn croon on "What's Shakin' On The Hill" and his ominous growl on "The Beast In Me" (best known from a rendition done by Lowe's ex-father-in-law, Johnny Cash), Lowe expertly deployed the soft end of live-performance dynamics. Even when whipping out a favorite from the power-pop glory days, like "Heart Of The City," he refined the feel from breathless rock 'n' roll to mid-tempo bounce, successfully transmuting the energy of youth to the wisdom of age with aplomb.

Some striking new songs were unveiled as well, including one with a relatively subtle political bent and a good-natured, decidedly non-PC romp about a serial heartbreaker. One hopes these will soon see the light of day as part of a new album. For as much of a master tunesmith as Lowe is — churning out a seemingly endless string of soul-stirring songs with startling ease — he's self-effacing enough to tip his hat to some of his own favorite songwriters. To that end, Lowe turned out an invigorating take on former Little Village bandmate John Hiatt's "She Don't Love Nobody," which also turns up on his 1985 album Rose Of England, and an encore found him covering the late American R&B legend Arthur Alexander's "Lonely Just Like Me."

Ultimately, one can't help but be struck by the overwhelmingly sad lyrical content of Lowe's latter-day material. For a man who's rhymed "ghastly" with "Rick Astley" and gloried in good-time nonsense songs like "Shting-Shtang," there's an almost unremitting catalogue of loneliness and heartache in the contemporary Nick Lowe's work. The sterling songcraft he employs in these tragic tales of love and loss, not to mention his consistent onstage effervescence, would ostensibly seem to put the lie to his woeful utterances, but in fact the reverse is true. One walks away with a sense that Lowe has found a way to play musical alchemist, turning heartbreak into bewitching beauty for all to hear. Can there be a higher aspiration for a singer/songwriter of any style or vintage?

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ROSANNE CASH: SUBVERSIVE & SEXY SONGS

She may be country royalty, but she still gets down and dirty. Check her list of fave tunes both political and pretty.

by Jim Allen

Starting with 1979's Right or Wrong, Rosanne Cash helped forge a new kind of country music. Singer/songwriter introspection and a contemporary pop/rock sensibility combined with her natural country roots to produce indelible hits like "Seven Year Ache." The fact that she was Johnny Cash's daughter may have opened some doors, but she's always been her own woman. Critics are saying her new Black Cadillac, a meditation on the passing of her parents, is her most eloquent work to date. Cash chatted with us about some of her favorite songs and two themes cropped up: here are tunes either subversive or sexy.

Steve Earle "Condi, Condi" The Revolution Starts...Now

"I like the ska kind of feeling, and how completely tongue-in-cheek it is...a sexy song about a woman who's like Donald Rumsfeld, I just love that. She's the ultimate ice queen."

Mike Doughty "Busting Up A Starbucks"
Haughty Melodic

"It's awesome; it's my favorite song right now. Number one, his voice is so sexy...and this song grooves so deep, and it's so subversive, what could be more American than a Starbucks?"

Lucinda Williams "Hot Blood"
Sweet Old World

"Lucinda and I did a tour of Australia once and she did that song every night...I always came to the wings to listen to that song...it just dripped with sex. And the subversive part...it's her, she's naturally subversive."

Tori Amos "Taxi Ride"
Scarlet's Walk

"I love that song, it's about a gay man who died and there's just a lot of fury in it, and there's a lot of fury in love. When she goes to those high notes it gives me goose bumps."

Damien Rice "The Blower's Daughter"
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"It's just so pretty. I guess it's not terribly subversive, but it's sexy to me."

Joni Mitchell "Night Ride Home"
The Complete Geffen Recordings

"When I was listening to it, I had just fallen in love with my husband and I was thinking about him all the time, and I played this song obsessively. Second, because it was the first time I heard her voice change, and I thought, 'how cool is that?' Her voice dropped three octaves and she still sounds amazing. And also, it was so intimate, that song is very cinematic to me. You see them in the car, you see the night sky. Subversive because she is, and sexy because of what I was thinking about when I was listening to it."

Beck "Jack-Ass"
Odelay

"He's got attitude in spades, and yet that song was so sensual. A really great combination of attitude and sensuality."

Bright Eyes "When the President Talks to God"
Motion Sickness: Live Recordings

"Subversive for obvious reasons, and sexy because he had the balls to play it on Leno."

Jane Siberry "Calling All Angels"
When I Was a Boy

"Jane, more than anyone I know, can make spirituality and sex come together in this incredibly beautiful way that makes sense. Gorgeous song."

U2 "Love and Peace Or Else"
How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

"U2 defines subversive and sexy, and I just chose that song out of many I could have chosen."

Creedence Clearwater Revival "Who'll Stop the Rain"
Cosmo's Factory

"That song kind of harkens back to the old protest songs to me. Like a direct child of Woody Guthrie. I love that kind of subversion with authority, and you know, John Fogerty's got an incredibly sexy voice and delivery."

Patty Griffin "Peter Pan"
Flaming Red

"Patty has a fire in her that just always inspires me, and this song was just so sexy...she also has the voice of authority, she really just embodies who she is. To me that's the ultimate sexiness."

Rosanne Cash "Like Fugitives"
Black Cadillac

"Subversive because it kind of indicts the church and lawyers, and sexy because...(coquettishly) I can be sexy..."