retroblog.net

as a lifelong Paul McCartney fan, it’s great seeing all the buzz about his latest release Memory Almost Full. the new album’s getting great reviews from fans and critics alike. plus tons of press and even a music video by the great Michel Gondry featuring Natalie Portman. wonderful stuff. it’s still a bit surprising to think that the man is a grandfather and he can still rock with the best of ‘em. what is the source of his drive and inspiration? how can he still come up with great melodies and ear catching hooks after all these years? obviously there’s no stoppin’ Macca.

with Memory Almost Full, you’ll find McCartney’s strongest set of songs in years. Now, I personally wasn’t all that impressed with McCartney’s last effort Chaos and Creation in the Backyard even though most critics hailed it as a McCartney classic. I thought the songs were a bit uninspired and the vocals captured for the record just made him sound tired and old. On Memory Almost Full on the otherhand, McCartney sounds as youthful as ever with renewed enthusiasm and energy. Just take a listen to him singing Only Mama Knows, a rocker that sounds like it was recorded back in the 70′s and not by a man who’s well into his sixties!!! amazing stuff. the album is pretty solid from start to finish. i do have to admit i personally feel the first two songs at the start are the weakest of the bunch- the opening mandolin chords on Dance Tonight sound like they were taken straight off of The Traveling Wilburys’ End of the Line. and part of the melody in the verse of Ever Present Past is the same as the old standard, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (which McCartney covered back in 1987). but once the listener gets to See Your Sunshine, the music and lyrics become sweeter and much more memorable.

highlights of the album include: Only Mama Knows, See Your Sunshine, Mr. Bellamy and The End of the End.

amazing work by an artist that still knows how to surprise and delight even after all these years.

(more…)

you know, as a longtime fan of singer-songwriters like Todd Rundgren, John Wetton, Neil Finn and Ben Folds, i’m well aware that without financial support from a major record label, it’s more than likely that an artist would lose money touring around the country with a full band and sound/stage crew in tow. and so artists like Rundgren, Finn and Folds end up touring alone with minimal equipment in order to keep expenses as low as possible. so when i watched Glenn Tilbrook – One for the Road recently on DVD, i wasn’t at all surprised to see in the documentary that Tilbrook was touring across the U.S. in an old beat up 1988 RV with no band. sad but true, it this day and age, legendary singer-songwriters like Tilbrook can only fill up small clubs and can only afford to bring along a couple of acoustic guitars with him on tour. how unjust! the man wrote Tempted, Black Coffee in Bed and Hourglass for goodness sakes!! Tilbrook along with tons of other working musician/songwriters are in the same boat and they are fighting to stay afloat in an industry geared only toward selling millions of units of easy to market music to impressionable teens. The DVD is an interesting glimpse at a middle-aged musician happy to travel across the country and sing for his supper. I love Glenn Tilbrook’s music and his live performances but…unfortunately the actual documentary was poorly done. the person responsible for the documentary, Amy Pickard, is just a fan of Tilbrook’s and not a skilled filmmaker. So yes, it’s a nice little video memento from a fan’s perspective but I really believe she missed a big opportunity here. Pickard never goes into any depth with Tilbrook about his life or his view points about music, Squeeze or songwriting. and the video is edited in a way in which Glenn never gets to say more than a few sentences before another abrupt jumpcut to a performance or another clip about the infamous RV. yes, yes i’ve heard all about Pickard’s sob story about the little financing behind this project, her being unemployed during the filming and the four years it took to edit the footage down etc. but that’s no excuse for her downright awful interviewing skills. just watch one of the extra segments on the DVD where she interviews ex-Squeeze member Chris Difford. you’ll get to experience a whole slew of cringe-worthy and totally banal questions from Amy Pickard interspersed with a whole lot of “uuummmm….”, “you know what i mean?”.. “like… uummm” … “and like I said to Glenn …” and such. after enduring 40 minutes worth of lame assed questions, a viewer’s brain turns to mush, i swear! how did someone this incompetent get this fantastic opportunity to spend time with one of pop’s most talented songwriters??? that’s the question that continually pops up during the viewing of this DVD. and can us fans finally get a properly produced DVD of this legendary musician sometime soon? anyone? anyone? bueller? …yes, it’s sad indeed.

Who knew The New Cars would still be around touring after last year’s string of under attended shows. with low ticket and CD sales i would have thought that The New Cars were long gone and done with by now. surprisingly they are now out on the road for another spin. i’ve got mixed feelings about the whole thing and i have to say a lot of it has to do with their crummy (mis)management.
problem #1 – they didn’t get their CD released until the band was well into their summer tour last year. … without a new product to push, the New Cars just felt like an old has-been nostalgia act.
problem #2 – management priced tickets a bit too high especially those meet and greet packages. that was a big turn off for fans and concert goers.
problem #3 – after cutting the summer tour short (due to Elliot Easton’s injury) the group lost all the momentum they had going for them and they weren’t able to gain any of it back by the time they got back on the road in the winter.
problem #4 – management failed to promote the winter tour so attendance was even worse than before. most fans weren’t even aware The New Cars were even out on the road in Nov and Dec.
problem #5 – at this point it seems that there’s not much promotion behind this summer’s tour as well. no press about the tour and no buzz on the ‘net about the group.
problem #6 – The New Cars’ bassist Kasim Sulton is currently touring with Meatloaf so he won’t be available this summer. There’s absolutely nothing about his replacement on the official website (as of 10May07).
problem #7 – The New Cars is simply a lame name for a band. a bit of a hinderance from the get go i must say. talent like Elliot Easton and Todd Rundgren deserve better than this. the lack of promotion and not really having any new material to support is just bad news all around.

and what’s even more confusing is that Todd Rundgren just recently completed a successful short tour of the east coast with Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta and Jesse Gress. I think at this point going out as “Todd Rundgren” is a better career decision than being a member of a dead project called the New Cars. you know, it was a fun experience for one summer but it really feels like they are overstaying their welcome. time for Todd, Elliot, Greg and Prairie to move on to something else. don’t get me wrong, if they end up in my neck of the wood (unfortunately the tour isn’t coming anywhere close to where i live) I’d go out and support the band since I’m a fan of Todd’s but in general, I really don’t see the point of Todd being involved with this anymore.

go see them while you can. from the look of things, they ain’t going to be around for much longer…

Fri 05/11/07 Kinder, LA Grand Casino Coushatta
Sat 05/12/07 Cypress Gardens, FL Cypress Gardens
Mon 05/14/07 Prior Lake, MN Mystic Lake Casino
Fri 06/22/07 Napavine, WA Napavine Amphitheater
Sat 06/23/07 Walla Walla, WA TBA
Sun 06/24/07 Tulalip, WA Tulalip Amphitheatre
Thu 06/28/07 Agoura Hills, CA Canyon Club
Fri 06/29/07 Coarsegold, CA Half Dome Chukchansi Casino
Wed 07/04/07 Lenox, MA Tanglewood
Sat 07/07/07 Milwaukee, WI Summerfest
Sun 07/08/07 Muskegon, MI Heritage Park
Tue 07/10/07 Lansing, MI Adado Riverfront Park
Wed 07/11/07 Rama, ON Casino Rama
Fri 07/13/07 Walker, MN Moondance Jam
Thu 07/19/07 Cadott, WI Rock Fest
Sat 07/21/07 Stillwater, MN Town Square Park
Thu 07/26/07 Stamford, CT Stamford Park Green
Sun 07/29/07 Saint Louis, MO Scottrade Center
Thu 08/02/07 Westbury, NY North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Sat 08/04/07 Greenville, WI Lions Park
Tue 08/07/07 Vancouver, WA Clark County Fairgrounds
Sat 08/18/07 Sparta, WI Fort McCoy Army Base
Wed 08/29/07 Shawnee, OK Firelake Casino
Thu 08/30/07 Lincoln, NE Nebraska State Fair
Sat 09/01/07 Rockford, IL Davis Memorial Park
Sun 09/02/07 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre

from the music vault: Jenni Muldaur (originally released by Reprise 1992)

daughter of musicians Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Jenni released her one and only major label album back in 1992. On paper it probably looked like a sure thing: Jenni with her musical heritage, collaborating with big time producer Russ Titelman and recording her songs with major studio heavyweights like John Robinson, Paul Buchanan, Jeff Bova and David Sanborn. it was bound to be a classic, right? right???

So what happened?

listening to the CD now after all these years i have to say that there are a couple of things that come to mind. for one, the pristine pop production by Russ Titelman was pretty ill suited for Jenni’s voice. in my opinion, a more basic acoustic folk approach would have complimented her vocal style a bit more. another approach would have been the “Kate Bush” eclectic piano based style which they successfully did on the song Together Far Apart, a highlight on the album. unfortunately it was the only song performed in that style, the rest are in the bland studio pop vein. this leads me to the other weakness of the album, the material itself. Jenni wrote or co-wrote most of the songs here and her inexperience as a writer is apparent throughout with unremarkable, non-descript words and chord changes. the few exceptions in terms of songwriting are the aforementioned Together Far Apart (which was cowritten by Vince Welnick of the Tubes) and What Goes Around (cowritten by Lyle Workman and Larry Tagg of Bourgeois Tagg) which features a nice jazzy feel. but two songs plus filler doesn’t really add up to much so the album quickly got relegated to the cut out bin.

so why do i still have this album?

it is indeed mediocre at best but i have a soft spot for Jenni Muldaur. her voice isn’t really my cup of tea but she toured with Todd Rundgren on his Nearly Human Tour and appeared on his Second Wind album so that counts for something i guess.
Bonus cut: Secret

From the Music Vault: The Dream Academy- Remembrance Days

Bio (from AMG): The airy, baroque British pop trio dubbed the Dream Academy emerged in the mid-’80s as one of the leading lights of the psychedelic revival movement. The group was led by vocalist/guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, a former member of the short-lived Act; also comprised of multi-instumentalist Kate St. John (an alumna of the Ravishing Beauties) and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel, the Dream Academy issued their eponymously titled debut LP in 1985. Co-produced by David Gilmour, the atmospheric lead single “Life in a Northern Town,” an elegy for Nick Drake, quickly reached the Top 20 of the U.K. charts; issued in the U.S. the following year, it became a Top Ten hit.
The trio’s follow-up single, “The Love Parade,” failed to repeat the success of its predecessor, however, and the Dream Academy’s commercial momentum stalled. After 1987′s Remembrance Days quickly dropped from sight, the group went into seclusion; when their 1991 comeback A Different Kind of Weather failed to restore their chart luster, the Dream Academy promptly disbanded. In subsequent years, St. John was the trio’s most visible graduate; in addition to touring with Van Morrison, she teamed with Roger Eno, Bill Nelson and others in the group Channel Light Vessel, and in 1996 issued her solo debut Indescribable Night.

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Their debut album was an undeniable classic. the follow up however, Remembrance Days, doesn’t really match the standard that was set on the debut but i still enjoy listening to the album every now and again, even to this day.

Indian Summer is sort of a retread of Life in a Northern Town but the strong melody and storyline help the song stand on its own. the other highlight for me is their cover of Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime. i love the mood and overall arrangement of the track. very well done indeed. Lindsey Buckingham had a hand in producing that song as well as Indian Summer so i’m guessing that’s where some of the creativity came from. unfortunately their downfall on this album is letting producer Hugh Padgham (genesis, phil collins) steer them toward the “80′s pop sound” which diluted what made them unique in the firstplace. listen to The Lesson of Love and Doubleminded for examples of some heavy-handed production. the synth patches used in Doubleminded sounds too much like Human League’s Keep Feeling Fascination for my tastes. not that i don’t like Human League, i *do* in fact, it’s just that it’s not what Dream Academy is about.
anyway, i miss the group and now that we’re in the midst of *reunion fever*, i’m hoping for some sort of Dream Academy comeback.