SMM #72: August 2nd, 2024
After a break we're back with some new releases, a blues playlist, an investigation into some questionable Spotify practices, and a review of two recent festivals.
Sorry about the long gap since my last issue of the newsletter but it has been an extremely busy summer so far on my front… has been tough to block out the time to do it… and since the calendar for August and September is looking just as busy, I will probably be on a one-issue-a-month schedule til October…
New Releases
THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS - Struck Down… this Austin TX blues-rock band was formed way back in the mid-70s by guitarist Jimmie Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray) and vocalist/harpist, Kim Wilson… they were one of my favorite bands in the 80s and I saw them live a few times and they always put on a great show… Vaughan left the band in 1990 to go solo and Wilson has since carried on, releasing occasional albums with a series of hotshot lead guitarists… this release is a return to form and features Texas guitarist Johnny Moeller and several special guests including ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal and zydeco artist, Terrance Simien…
WHITE DOG - Double Dog Dare… another Austin TX band, White Dog plays a brand of throwback classic Southern style rock with a touch of psychedelic and progressive rock mixed in… this is their second album and the songwriting is a cut above what you get from most bands in this genre… “Holy Smokes” busts out of the gate with a James Gang-style guitar riff and doesn’t let up… “F.D.I.C.” has a clear Allman Brothers influence in the guitar riffs and leads… “Frozen Shadows” borrows from the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” before breaking into a blazing guitar jam… there are a lot of influences at work here but it is all seamlessly blended into a very enjoyable 70s-style classic rock album…
COLOR GREEN - Fool’s Parade… this is the second album from this Los Angeles based band and the first with their current 4-piece lineup featuring the dual guitars of founding members, Noah Kohll and Corey Madden… they blend influences from all eras on this release “drawing from ‘60s SoCal folk-rock, ‘70s classic rock, ‘80s underground rock, ‘90s psychedelic dance-rock, and any other sound that catches their ears” (per their website bio)… I would say this accurately describes their sound because I can’t think of any artists to compare them to but I like what I hear!
JAMES KING & THE LONEWOLVES - The Mortality Arcade… never heard of King who has been around since the 80s and is “well known by those who know in Scotland, but criminally undiscovered almost everywhere else” according to his Facebook page… based on this album I would say there’s some truth to that… King’s vocals strongly resemble The Kinks’ Ray Davies - which isn’t a bad thing - and other times him and his band remind me of Joe Strummer and The Clash… overall, this is a consistently strong record and I will look out for King in the future…
CAUSA SUI - From the Source… this Danish powerhouse is one of my favorite bands that is definitely out of the wheelhouse of the roots music and rock ‘n’ roll I usually listen to… they only play instrumentals but it’s all very compelling stuff and they have been putting out high quality albums for nearly 20 years… their website describes their music better than I can, saying it “owes as much to electric Miles Davis as to American stoner-rock” and has been described as “the sound of a giant wave rolling up through the last four decades of rock”... if you’re in the mood for something different and this sounds intriguing to you - and you are OK with a 24 minute song that takes up half of the album’s 47 minutes - then check them out!
SPECIAL REPORT: AI on Spotify?
Every Monday Spotify sends me an algorithm-curated “Discover” playlist based on my listening history. It’s usually quite excellent and has led me to “discover” many great songs and artists I wasn’t familiar with or had heard of but never listened to…
A song on the July 22 list caught my ear while I was on the train heading into NYC for a concert… I thought, “wow, this is really good… WHO is this?” I looked at my phone and the artist’s name was Odelette Acheson… never heard of her… the album cover shows a young woman wearing glasses, leaning across a couple big white blocks, with a hazy pinkish red background… all very generic… I did an internet search… NO artist website… I looked for a record label which Spotify has below the album song list along with the year of release… no label, just “Odelette Acheson, 2024”... there’s no record anywhere on the internet of this artist or this album… HIGHLY unusual! In all my years of researching musical artists, you almost always can find an artist website or a Bandcamp profile or, at the least, the album’s label website which will provide some basic info… NOTHING! Texted my son (and SMM editor) Joe and he did a reverse-image search of the photo of “Odelette” and found it was a “stock” photo - no “Odelette”... so basically this person doesn’t exist…
The really scary thing though is the music is VERY good! I listened to it twice and it seems like somebody took a bunch of great rock and blues-rock albums, dumped them in an AI program and came out with this… the vocals sound like Joan Jett meets Courtney Barnett… there are also some very generic male vocals on some songs… musically, I hear the Black Keys on some songs, maybe some Velvet Underground/Lou Reed, New Wave sounds, a dash of Mississippi blues and lots of ripping guitar solos… anyway, it kind of SUCKS if the next great record you hear was NOT written, performed and recorded by real human beings! Not good! Something to keep an eye on…
Playlist: Got the Blues, Vol. 4
I have been sitting on this playlist for a while so figured it was time to get some blues out there! It covers a broad spectrum of artists from very young to very old, from 1950s Chicago blues to recent stuff coming out of England… as one of my favorite current blues bands, GA-20 say, “If you don’t like the Blues, you’re listening to the wrong sh*%”... well said!
Concert Notes: Summer Festival Season
It is summer festival season and I was in attendance at two local mainstays during the past month, the Willie Nelson Outlaw Music Festival and the Great South Bay Music Festival…
Date: June 29th, 2024
Act: Willie Nelson Outlaw Music Festival — Bob Dylan, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Venue: Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, NY
Willie Nelson and friends make stops all across the country with this annual event and it has jumped around to various venues in the NYC/Long Island area over the years… after being held at Forest Hills Stadium the past few years, it returned to Jones Beach Theater after a lengthy absence… when it was announced that rock legends Bob Dylan and Robert Plant with Alison Krauss would be hitting the road with Willie this summer I jumped on tickets the day they went on sale…
We missed the opener, Celisse, but settled into our seats right before Robert Plant & Alison Krauss took to the stage… Plant has been a mercurial artist since the demise of Led Zeppelin, moving from one project and musical style to another… you never know where he’s going to go next or who he’s going to team up with… lately, though he seems to really be enjoying his reunion with bluegrass star Alison Krauss who he had recorded the Grammy-winning album Raising Sand with back in 2007… in 2021, they reunited to record Raise the Roof and since then, they have done several tours together with their superb backing band that combines acoustic & electric instruments to create a unique blend of bluegrass, country, blues, folk and rock ‘n’ roll… the well-honed set included great re-workings of Zeppelin classics “Rock and Roll,” “The Battle of Evermore” and “When the Levee Breaks”… this was my third time seeing them and “Levee” has been the showstopper every time… they turn it into a lengthy jam that showcases the band and in particular, multi-instrumentalist Stuart Duncan who played a killer fiddle solo… overall, Plant and company are a well-oiled machine and if you have a chance to see them, DO IT!
I had seen Bob Dylan six times previously, starting in 1974 and most recently, at the Beacon Theatre in NYC in 2019… that night he put on a stellar performance playing a set loaded with many of his best known songs but nearly five years later at age 83 I didn’t know what to expect… Bob played piano and harmonica and except for longtime bassist and musical director, Tony Garnier, he had a new band consisting of two guys I never heard of on guitars and legendary drummer, Jim Keltner… this was the sixth show on the tour so the word was out that he was playing a very eclectic set list, light on the “hits” and heavy on lesser known nuggets and covers… this was NOT what I was hoping for since I was there with my wife Liz who had never seen Dylan and was hoping for some songs she knew… nevertheless, he did start with the 1965 classic “Highway 61 Revisited” and closed with a great three-song run: a fiery performance of “Ballad of a Thin Man” (the set highlight for me), “Simple Twist of Fate” and “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”... his voice was definitely rough around the edges but the band was tight and professional and it was an enjoyable set overall - even if it was geared towards diehard Dylan fans… if you were a casual Dylan fan or seeing him for the first time and just know the “radio hits” you probably came away disappointed…
Finally, this was Willie Nelson’s festival but the 91 year old legend was under the weather and unable to play… his very talented son Lukas Nelson took his place as the headliner but it was getting late and I have seen Lukas many times… so we were satisfied with seeing a double bill of Dylan and Plant and headed home after Dylan’s set…
Date: July 21st, 2024
Act: Great South Bay Music Festival
Venue: Shorefront Park, Patchogue, NY
The Great South Bay Festival has had its ups and downs in my opinion over its 16 year history… pre-Covid I felt it was not run very well (i.e. nobody paying attention to keeping some kind of order to the main stage seating area) and the quality of the artist bills was inconsistent and included too many has-been acts and headliners like B.B. King and Dickey Betts that were total misfires due to health issues that were widely known beforehand… when the festival returned in 2022, they regrouped and upped their game by bringing in Tedeschi-Trucks Band, one of the best bands around, as the main headliner… they continued this trend in 2023 with Gov’t Mule, Phil Lesh & Friends, Hot Tuna and Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening…
This year they went back to the old formula of bringing in the remnants of great classic rock era bands (Yes, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull) and tribute bands (Talking Heads)... that said, all of the bands put on an excellent to great show, with very professional performances… my favorite, by far, was Start Making Sense who are generally considered the #1 Talking Heads tribute band… they tour a lot in the northeast U.S. but also overseas in Europe and Australia… these guys and girls nail the Talking Heads in every respect… musically all the songs were spot on and they also have the “look” and the onstage moves down to a tee… front man Jon Braun looks and sounds like David Byrne and mimics all of his spastic moves and quirky mannerisms… if you like the Talking Heads, you can’t go wrong going to see this band…
Although I have never seen them live, I’m a pretty big Jethro Tull fan so I was really looking forward to seeing their former lead guitarist, Martin Barre and his band, billed as “A Brief History of Tull”… Barre was in the band for over 40 years departing in 2011 so he was responsible for all that great Tull guitar, including one of the best lead breaks of all-time on the song, “Aqualung”... the band sounded great and featured an Ian Anderson clone, Dan Crisp, on vocals and rhythm guitar but we felt they didn’t play enough of the well known Tull hits… if this was the Martin Barre Band headlining a small theater, I could see playing a bunch of their own songs mixed in with the Tull tracks but for a shorter festival set where the majority of the audience is not there to see them, maybe you should focus on the big hits… they did close with “Hymn 43” and “Aqualung” but, overall, were kind of disappointing…
Next was Justin Heyward of Moody Blues fame… I was never a Moody Blues fan but I am quite familiar with their hits… Heyward wrote and sang the band’s most famous song, “Nights in White Satin” and he was also the main guitarist… at age 77 he’s doing a stripped down, mostly acoustic version of his Moody’s hits that lean on his still excellent vocals… he did crank things up, strapping on an electric guitar, for the final two songs, “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Nights in White Satin”... Heyward definitely still has a big following as many in the crowd stood for his entire set…
The big headliner followed, billed as “Yes Epics & Classics featuring Jon Anderson”... Yes was another band I was not a fan of back in the 70s but of course many of their songs are quite familiar… Anderson’s band, The Freaks, is from Long Island and the stage/light show and production were on another level from the day’s previous performers… the bulk of the crowd was definitely there to see them and gave them a raucous greeting as most rose to their feet and stayed there… alas, since my two friends and I are not Yes fans and it had already been a long day - and they had to work the next day (haha) - we hung around for a few songs and hit the road for the drive home…
In summary, even if the acts they book are hit and miss for me, it’s an enjoyable day and a lot of music for $70 so I’ll likely continue to attend this festival in the future… — SL