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dave Madeloni


Last Updated: 11/21/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 55
Sign: Scorpio

City: NORTHAMPTON
State: MASSACHUSETTS
Country: US
Signup Date: 12/29/2005

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Friday, November 20, 2009 

An enigma wrapped in a nightingale Neko Case gets her diva on -- but critics are still swooning over her latest CD


NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
This past week was a revealing one for Neko Case -- and a perplexing one for her fans.
The increasingly popular alt-pop-Americana singer opened her show in Boston by announcing to the packed house "I’m angry right now; we just had a big fight with the promoter." She then added, somewhat cryptically, "We are gonna sing weird, but we are very happy to be here."
By all reports she and her co-vocalist Kelly Hogan sang quite well.
Then, despite a week full of cautions by a local DJ of possible diva-like behavior, Case was generally well-behaved at her musically-satisfying, yet somewhat detached, performance at The Calvin Theater last Friday night. She allowed her counterpart Hogan to engage the crowd with her wit, while adopting a more serious business-like approach (except for the smiles when her rescued dog would amble by onstage periodically, meandering through her crack five-piece band), letting her Patsy Cline-meets-Patty Griffin voice carry the night.
She did, however, take a moment to skewer a fellow in the audience who had the temerity to shout out a question about how much food Case consumed before the concert at the Northampton eateries she and Hogan bantered about visiting. "I bet you don’t have a girlfriend!" she countered, eliciting numerous chuckles from the predominantly female audience.
There were a lot fewer shout-outs after that.
Sunday night, things reportedly got a bit more puzzling
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at a tour stop in Montclair, N.J. There, the songwriter, who now calls a Vermont farm her home, caught a couple of electric shocks onstage from her microphone then shocked her fans by significantly shortening her up-until-then uninspiring set -- then refused calls for an encore by her hardcore fans -- but not before dropping the F-bomb on another shouting-out dude, who incurred the singer’s wrath by yelling "Go!" while she was putting on a sweater between songs.
The Neko-fan blogosphere is currently grappling with their usually affable idol’s pissy performance. As of this writing, one could peruse 65 responses posted in response to a review at www.brooklynvegan.com. Most who attended the show expressed disappointment and confusion, others were more directly upset: "definitely her at her worst -- she may have lost more than one fan"; "was just punching her ticket"; "a diva who’s been reading too many of her own press clippings"; "plain nasty and pissy"; "one of the strangest shows I’ve seen in a long time"; "Someone ought to kick her ------ !"
Overheard outside after the show: "Any bitch T-shirts left?"
My guess is that there were plenty still left.
Hmmm. ... What is up with Neko, who was better known for her love of nature then her bad-natured behavior? Could her growing legion of adoring fans ever have seen this coming?
Perhaps. Those who made the effort to immerse themselves in the lyrics in her stunning new release "Middle Cyclone"(one that is likely to make this and many other critics’ Top Ten of 2009 lists), might very well have predicted all this.
Take the excruciatingly beautiful title track. "Did someone make a fool of me ‘fore I could show ‘em how it’s done. ... I can’t give up actin’ tough/It’s all that I’m made of." Or the radio-friendly and ominous "People Got a Lotta Nerve": "Everybody tells me this is crazy, yes I know /But I’m a man-man-man eater But still you’re surprised-prised-prised when I eat ya."
Or how about these sweet lyrics from track No. 2? "The next time you say forever/I will punch you in your face/Just because you don’t believe it/Doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it."
If there was a track that cuts to the heart of the album’s theme, it would have to be "I’m An Animal." "You could say it’s my instinct/Yes I still have one/I don’t second guess it ... I do my best but I’m made of mistakes ... But let’s not waste our time thinkin’ how that ain’t fair."
Is it fair to expect our music stars to always act like saints?
The yin/yang, sweet/spiteful dichotomy that is today’s Neko Case can be summed up in the opening lines of "This Tornado Loves You" "My love I am the speed of sound/I left them motherless, fatherless/Their souls dangling inside-out from their mouths/But it was never enough. I want you."
Case has become a bit of a lovably scary tornado. You sure don’t have to like what she has become, but you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Dave Madeloni writes a weekly music column for Ovation. He can be reached at madeloni@aol.com.
2:23 AM 
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Friday, November 13, 2009 

A return to roots


My interview with Maria Muldaur lasted just one question. I simply asked "America’s First Lady of Roots Music" why she decided to return to the jug band music that she played at the outset of her career 46 years ago. Over 2,000 words later, I was wishing well on her tour that will be stopping this Saturday at The Bellows Falls Opera House.
Here is a mere snippet of what she had to say:
"I was a young beatnik walking around Greenwich Village, where I was born and raised. I was very active in the folk revival scene that was going on there in the early ‘60s, involved in old-timey music, bluegrass, blues, all kinds of music. I was in a bluegrass band with David Grisman called Maria and the Washington Square Ramblers, but nobody knows that. It was a quick-lived band!
"I had gone to North Carolina to spend so time with Doc Watson learning to play old-time fiddle and when I came back I ran into David and our pal John Sebastian in Washington Square Park and they told me they had formed a jug band. Victoria Spivey, who was a classic blues queen that had survived into the ensuing decades from the classic blues era, lived up in NYC and was the first artist I know of savvy enough to have started her own record label. She was always out there on the scene scouting talent for her label and had seen my friends fooling around with some jug band music and she said she would sign them. She told them (Mulduar then speaks in an exaggerated Southern twang), "Now,
you boys sound real good but, you know, y’all need some sex appeal up there. Why don’t you get that gal I saw playin’ the fiddle and get her in your band, then y’all will really have somethin’.’
"They came runnin’ up to me and said they were forming a jug band and they needed some sex appeal and would I join them. Hey, It was way before women’s lib, and I didn’t know I should have been insulted, But it sounded like big fun, so I said I’d love to do it. They played some of the music for me and I loved it. It was blues-based, you know, a little happier and zanier, more syncopated, more lively ...
"Then, Victoria Spivey took me under her wing. When I look back on it, I can’t believe that I was mentored by one of the blues queens herself. I was impressed enough at the time but looking back, I really feel like I was blessed with a very special gift to have her take an interest in me and want to groom me Š. She would say, ‘Now honey, I’m gonna tell you somethin’, I’m gonna tell you all my secrets. You see, when you get up there it ain’t enough to sound good, you got to look good too! You got to get up there and strut your stuff and make all eyes be on you. That is what they call stage presence.’
"She taught me well.
"So anyway we found a bunch of cool songs to do and recorded the Even Dozen Jug Band record then shortly there after I got involved in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. The Even Dozen didn’t last very long, not too many club owners could afford to hire a 13 piece band. Most of the guys were still going to college. At that very moment, once I had a recording contract I decided college wasn’t for me. I had an epiphany that what I really wanted to do was spend my life making music. It all worked out great. But that is how I first became interested jug band music.
"As for the new album and tour, I had decided to do this strictly for nostalgia. This spring I was listening to the radio and I heard some great old jug band music and it just sounded so funky and so good I thought, ‘Why don’t I do a jug band album?’ I called my old pal David Grisman, then John Sebastian, and I told them about my wacky idea, and they just loved it, and were definitely onboard, very enthused about it. Then I got Dan Hicks whose music really lends itself to the jug band aesthetic-he was happy to participate.
"So I got together with the old jug veterans and the new jug generation and we made this little album. And we have been having the best time taking it out on the road and playing it for people. Even though this music originated in the 1920’s and early ‘30’s it seems to be striking a chord for people now. Right after John and David said, ‘hey yeah, great idea,’ I drove home and pulled out my entire vast collection of early blues records, looking for songs that would be cool to do for the project. The very first CD I picked up was a compilation of early women blues singers. Jumping off the back cover was a title that was written and recorded in 1929, by Martha Copeland, a song called "Bank Failure Blues." A light just went on and I knew I was really onto something. It is a very poignant song about the horrible situation of working and scraping and saving all your life and ending up with nothing, cause the Banksters got it all. And that is exactly what people are going through now. So, everything old is new again.
"I don’t play music that ain’t fun, but this has fun written all over it. It is wacky, it’s zany, it’s humorous. You can’t be in a bad mood when you play or listen to this music Š I think that is why this roots music has proliferated, and is alive and well in 2009 when it originated in 1920.
"This kind of music all the main issues that concern the heart and the soul. Stylistically, it is beautiful, its timeless, and it has not gone out of style. It is proliferating in a grassroots way, just under the radar, with absolutely no help or attention from the mainstream media. It is music of the people, by the people, for the people-the kind of music that gets people through the hard times."
Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. Michael Veitch opens. Tickets are $24 in advance, and $27 at the door. Tickets are available at Village Square Books, Fat Franks, and Boccelli’s in Bellows Falls, Misty Valley Books in Chester, VAULT and Radio Shack in Springfield, and at www.bratteborotix.com. For more information, call 802-463-9595.
Dave Madeloni writes
11:53 AM 
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Thursday, November 05, 2009 

Local duo makes debut opening for Lonesome Brothers on Friday


By DAVE MADELONI
WILMINGTON
I know Sharon Levenson as a music enthusiast of impeccable taste -- impeccable since her taste and mine are pretty much aligned.
Our orbits first intersected through her sporadic e-mails promoting some cool local shows. The one I received in early October from Levenson started out much like her others -- exhibiting her exuberance and ear for the good stuff. "I hope all is well with you and that you are finding lots of good live music to check out! There are some great shows coming up in the next couple of weeks: Bottle Rockets, Richard Thompson/Loudon Wainwright, then John Prine in December. And of course there are the Lonesome Brothers tonight at McFadden’s!"
Ah yes, our beloved Lobros. When I happened to finally run into Levenson for the first time this summer at The Green River Fest, we quickly learned of our mutual adoration for the region’s premier purveyors of alt-country.
Her e-mail went on to promote another Lonesomes gig, this one on Friday, at a place in Wilmington with a decidedly alt-restaurant name: Smokin’ J’s. "There is going to be a big benefit for Wholeness Works, a very cool nonprofit outfit out of Jacksonville (www.wholenessworks.org). Because the executive director has impeccable taste in music, she invited the Lonesome Brothers to headline the event, which they are glad to do."
Then, in what looked like an afterthought, Levenson mentioned that the show’s opening act would be an unfamiliar duo that call themselves Kim and Sharon. It turns that it would be their very first public performance. It also turns out that the Sharon of "Kim and" is Levenson herself.
I asked the fan-turned-promoter-turned-performer about her new band of two. "Kim Decell and I met at work at our workplace. He is a prolific songwriter and phenomenal guitar player ... and would bring in recordings of his original songs for me to listen to. One of his songs in particular ‘Why Don’t You Stop By,’ is brilliant, and I happened to play it for my brother Mark who said ‘Wow, that guy is good. He reminds me of Townes Van Zandt.’"
After Levenson shared this high compliment with Kim, the pair decided to dive into the legendary Van Zandt catalogue, and the next thing you know, they are jamming out his "No Lonesome Tune," which eventually became Kim and Sharon’s first recording. "Kim came up with a beautiful arrangement of it on his acoustic guitar with his amazing vocals," recalled Levenson. "I added backing vocals and mandolin, we recorded it, sent it to Dave Billiel, of Dave’s Indie Music Hall (www.TuneIntoDave.com), a fantastic Internet radio station that plays Americana/roots music with a focus on local talent. The next thing we knew, it was being played regularly with the highest rating of all the songs on this station. Another station in Chicago is also playing it, and asked for more of our work, so we decided we’d better get serious about this and record some more and play out some more. We are working on recording some of Kim’s original songs right now."
Levenson and Decell are first and foremost roots music fans, but both have respectable, if brief, performing resumes. "Neither Kim nor I come from families of musicians" said Levenson. "We both spent our lives listening to the music of others. Kim used to play in the local band Retrospect and as a solo musician has opened for other local bands, one of them being Spike Dogtooth, the band that played the Farmers Market at Roots on the River in Bellows Falls this past June and had everyone up dancing!"
For Levenson, there is an important link with Spike Dogtooth’s Christina Mancini, "a phenomenal guitar/mandolin player/singer," said Levenson. "(She) taught me how to play mandolin, and subsequently invited me to join her band."
Levenson is clearly of fan of her musical partner’s writing and playing. "He was most entranced with the guitar style of BB King, which is evident in Kim’s guitar playing which weaves bluesy riffs in with his alt-country style. Some of Kim’s best songwriting is when he sits in front of his recording equipment late at night with a guitar, presses ‘record’ and just sings and plays whatever is in his heart and head at the moment, resulting in the creation of beautiful, unique songs. It is pretty standard for people in his audiences at the occasional open mike events he does to say ‘Your songs are great; can I be your agent?"
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10:34 AM 
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Thursday, October 29, 2009 

Independent’s day: Douglass pays the price, happily, for his artistic freedom


BRATTLEBORO
When Gregory Douglass performs live -- as he did last Friday night when his "Northeast Recession Relief Tour" rolled into PACE in Easthampton, Mass. -- there is a striking divide between his bubbly, exuberant stage persona and his achingly somber, heartache-drenched songs. His playful banter with the audience and beaming smile contrasted with what he calls his "Dark Cabaret" or what I might label his Soaring Emo-folk.
Switching back and forth from electric piano and acoustic guitar, the Burlington-based singer was accompanied by the haunting cello of Monique Citro (whom he nicknamed "Yo-Yo Mo") adding even more darkness and emotional depth to the performance. When an audience member asked Douglass to play a Halloween song, he responded "It’s my whole set!"
In an e-mail exchange, I asked Douglass -- who will be appearing this Friday at The Hooker-Dunham Theater -- about his approach to playing live. "All of my albums are full of production from layered harmony tracks to unlikely instrumentation at times, and there is always a pretty diverse collection of songs on each album."
He explained. "Performing live is a different beast because it gives me a chance to connect more intimately with the audience as a solo performer. I do have a full-band configuration on occasion, but I generally prefer the stripped-down performances in ‘listening room’ type venues. There’s no better way to reach through to someone at a
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core level than performances like these given the type of songs I write and the addition of Monique on cello adds another dimension to the shows that is parallel to my vocals and broadens the raw emotion of each song."
The musical and personal chemistry between Douglass and Citro was quite evident throughout the PACE performance, and their pairing turned out to be a bit of good fortune, according to Douglass. "I was in the thick of recording my latest independent full-length release "BATTLER," when I realized that the only good cellist I knew -- Martha Colby in New York City, who I had worked with on past albums -- was unavailable. I literally panicked over needing another cellist and out of the blue, received a fan e-mail from Monique Citro a few days later that read ‘I love your music and if you ever need a cellist, I’d be honored to be on board.’ It was all too serendipitous to ignore!"
"BATTLER" is Douglass’ seventh independent release, one that was recorded after a bout of depression brought about in part by the state of the music industry and the pressures endured by being a full-time independent artist. Douglass took a break from touring and withdrew for a long, dark Vermont winter. "Life felt like such a masquerade during that dark period," said Douglass. "I tend to be most prolific during difficult times, and I think that’s true with many singer-songwriters. It’s kind of an inherent source of therapy, I think, so it was no surprise that most of the songs on ‘BATTLER’ resulted during difficult times."
Douglass emerged rejuvenated and has also just finished an EP of Christmas songs, which his hardcore fans probably found find a bit surprising. "I admit, it’s a bit out of character for me to pursue a holiday EP ... but several of these songs are songs that I fall in love with again every year. I think of it as a ‘holiday collection for the rest of us’ as I’m always personally looking for moody music as an alternative to the same old ‘Jingle Bells.’ ... I made sure to approach things in true Gregory Douglass fashion, so it’s not too far off my usual path. Four of the five songs are covers, but there is one original song called ‘What A Long Year It Was,’ which is the happiest of them all -- go figure."
Judging by his onstage demeanor, Douglass has emerged from that dark period a lot more content, with "BATTLER" indeed serving its therapeutic purpose while buoyed by the support of his devoted fanbase.
"It amazes me how diverse my demographic is and in many cases, it’s an entire family of fans I have somehow cultivated. It also amazes me how willing my dedicated fans are to help support my music in various ways like pre-ordering and/or donating to production costs towards the making of a new album. Lots of folks book me to perform house concerts as well, and it doesn’t get anymore intimate than a performance in your very own living room.
"I’m proud to have come this far as a certified independent artist. Lots of people are claiming to be ‘indie’ these days but many of them haven’t a clue about what it takes to work from the ground up. It’s been nearly a decade of hard work and with seven full-length albums under my belt, along with steady grassroots promotion and touring, I’ve finally earned my place on the map I hope. ... It’s not a very big place on the map, yet -- but it’s earned me a full-time living as a musician and that’s all I’ve ever really wanted."
9:42 AM 
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Thursday, October 22, 2009 

The recipe for Brilliant Mistakes: Dumb luck, smart songwriting


By DAVE MADELONI
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
"We practiced the hard parts and studied the big charts/There were days when we thought we had it in the canŠ/We’ll never give up/Now we’re leaving it upŠ.to dumb luck"
These lines from the title track of The Brilliant Mistakes’ 2003 release capture the dilemma faced by an interesting and intrepid indie band that very few people know. The New York City-based trio creates meticulously melodic pop records that critics love, (and compare to the likes of Squeeze, Wilco, Crowded House, Steely Dan, Ben Folds, The Kinks and Elvis Costello, to name a few), but not nearly enough people hear.
Gifted singer-songwriters Alan Walker and Erik Philbrook along with their trusty drummer Paul Mauceri surely deserve a dose of dumb luck.
Count me in as one of those adoring critics -- "Dumb Luck" made my top 10 list six years ago. And I eagerly awaited the Brill’s follow-up, which finally landed in my CD player late last year. My rudimentary math skills compute that with just 10 tracks on their third full-length studio effort "Distant Drumming," Walker and Philbrook cranked out on the average about one song each per year since "Dumb Luck." The five-year delay turned out to be a function of the complications of balancing intense day jobs, new homes, marriage and family obligations as well as the group’s painstaking approach to crafting songs.
But oh, those songs. "Distant Drumming"
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contains catchy, and clever gems that were well worth the wait. And since the band will be making a rare appearance this Saturday night at The Basement, a tiny club across from the Iron Horse in Northampton, I figured I would do my part to get the word out about this buried treasure.
In a phone interview, Alan Walker was philosophical about his group’s lack of commercial success. "To me, it is amazing that we are still doing it, and we are only still doing it because we can’t not do it. As you get older and all the things that make the process difficult, whether it is rehearsing or scheduling things, and all the time it takes to do it right ... it is tough to be an independent act. But we are just happy that we do what we do the way we want to do it. That is the tradeoff as an indie. Follow your gut. Follow your heart."
The Brills certainly took their time to get "Distant Drumming" just right, spending a year tinkering in a basement studio in the Bronx, working with producer/bassist Lincoln Schleifer -- who has collaborated with the likes of Levon Helm, Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen and Solomon Burke.
According to Walker, the band took a more scrupulous approach to the recording process. "This time we did a lot less arranging before entering the studio and didn’t have such a preconception of how the songs were going to turn out. Instead of going to a rehearsal space which is the traditional way to bang out songs, the three of us basically spent a lot of time in Paul’s apartment where we figured out the songs but not exactly where they were going to go -- we left a lot of space, a lot of room for them to grow and have it be a little more of an organic process once we hit the studio. ... This kind of process is a little more labor intensive but more creative, because you get the feeling that anything might happen to a song. It can become something you didn’t expect."
For "Dumb Luck" The Brills used just one guitarist. This time they indulged in having five different players put their stamp on the tracks -- including Larry Campbell, best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello. "That was purely accidental" recalled Walker, who plays keyboards. "He was at the studio and heard one of the cuts and said we should put some acoustic on it -- We asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’ He said ‘sure.’"
A touch of dumb luck
Album highlights include Philbrook’s haunting ballad, "Water Falling Down" which was completely transformed in the studio, according to Walker. "That could have been a very straight pop song but it took on its own life. It is such a great song -- the apparent simplicity of it -- but there is a lot going on. Š We could have added some background vocals, in a Beach Boys mode, but it went in totally the opposite direction, and ended up this raw, personal, intimate, sad love song. It is my favorite on the record."
One of my favorites is the elusive "Good Year For a Change," a Walker composition that he admits is difficult to pin down. "I love the lyrics -- they are a little out there. Even as the writer of that song, it is not quite easy to explain exactly what it means. One of my favorite quotes is by Elvis Costello, when someone asked him what a song meant, he said, ‘If I could describe what it meant I wouldn’t have written the song.’ I can say it is a personal song, it is about a relationship, it could be about a marriage, it could be about a friendship, it could be about anything really. It is a song with a very uplifting side and a very dark side as well. It is very hard for me to say what inspired it."
A dynamic that makes The Brilliant Mistakes so brilliant is having two distinct but complimentary songwriters who share a common musical vision. "What draws us together is really mutual fondness or love for a certain kind of melodic pop writing, a mutual interest in the same kind of bands, the same kind of music over the years," added Walker, "I think we are just lucky."
1:13 PM 
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Thursday, October 15, 2009 

Erin McKeown’s new CD comes in like a lion ... and a lamb


By DAVE MADELONI
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
A couple of weeks ago, Erin McKeown played a live concert on NPR to introduce fans to her brand new studio CD "Hundreds of Lions." Early in the show, the Northampton-based Virginia-born singer-songwriter explained that her latest project was about "the bad behavior within, the animal within."
But that does not tell the album’s full thematic story. After a close listening, I found enough human vulnerability to balance out the animalistic fierceness. In a phone interview earlier this week, McKeown agreed. "I should qualify the animal bad behavior comment. For me, it is the way we as humans try to deny our more instinctual selves, covering up that vulnerability, pretending we don’t have attractions, putting too many rules on ourselves-sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t."
"Hundreds of Lions" balances modern sounds with simple, old-school acoustics. McKeown was quick to credit producer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Kris Delmhorst) for shaping the sound. "Sonically, I put a lot of it in Sam’s hands. In some ways, that is where my vision ended. I have been so involved in so many of my records ... to trust someone else for me was an exercise in itself."
Although McKeown allowed the producer lots of autonomy, she did not hesitate to put her own sonic stamp of "Hundreds of Lions."
"My taste was involved, because if I didn’t like
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something, it didn’t stay, that’s for sure. The idea was really to get back to a really simple, clear sound and to use some instruments I never used before, to use the strings and the woodwinds, primarily.
"I also wanted to use electronic beats. The way we carried that out was to begin with what we called ‘creative click tracks.’ We would make tiny drum machine beats would have a little pattern to they would use different sounds. I would play the song, vocal and guitar, something simple and skeletal. That is how we built the record, from the top down, from the intimate vocal performance. Then if the song needed to spread out further, it did, and if it needed to stay small, it stayed small. Those click tracks that we played to often stayed in the final mix of the song, That is unusual for click tracks-usually they get erased or played over. We kept them since they were so integral to the song."
That formula works particularly well on "For a Hammer," the clever opening track, one of the many on the CD that examine wanting something you cannot have. "The inspiration came about four years ago on Thanksgiving," McKeown recalled. "My friend said ‘Well, you know, to a hammer everything is a nail.’ Two things struck me about that. The aspect that we just do what we do, and there is nothing we can do about it. The other aspect that really influences the rest of the writing of that song is kind of like mother’s well-worn advice, the aphorisms like ‘The sun always shines’ -- you know, they are kind of ridiculous that you hear all the time. I spun that out and tried to come up more of these ‘bits of wisdom’ ... They sound like they are supposed to mean something, but what do they really mean?"
At that NPR show, McKeown announced that her spare and intimate ballad "You, Sailor" was a reflection of the singer’s career arc. I asked McKeown to expand on that. "I wouldn’t exactly call it a career arc -- more like a career ramp. Or career luge." She laughed. "I wrote that song on tour. I was kind of stepping away from hero worship for lack of a better term. When I was a younger musician there were several artists that really meant a ton to me. Something of what they did was still mysterious. That song is also about getting older and growing older and my own priorities change."
As one grows older, dealing with the passing of loved ones is inevitable, something the McKeown explores on the playfully titled "(put the fun back in) The Funeral." "That song is digging underneath the more instinctual feelings for me," said its writer. "The title just makes me laugh every time. I think it is also a tango, and it wasn’t originally. When I wrote it, it was more of a slamming electric guitar kind of song. And it was Sam that made it sort of tip-toe."
McKeown assured that when she plays that song live -- as she is likely to do when she plays The Iron Horse this Saturday night -- it will both slam and tiptoe, a dichotomy that Erin McKeown fans have embraced since she started out over 10 years ago.
McKeown admitted that she has to be careful when performing near her home turf to make sure she isn’t too relaxed. "When I play Northampton I really have to remind myself that I am working. Even when I get onstage there is a tendency for me where I have more personal ties to act like I am at a party hanging out! I think people come to a show to be taken away and certainly I like to be taken away ... so I have to remember that I am not just talking to my friends."
9:25 AM 
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Thursday, October 08, 2009 

Notes for Life brings diverse musicians together for a good cause


BRATTLEBORO
Earlier this year, Ken Schneck experienced what he called "by far the most fulfilling week of my life." The Dean of Students at Marlboro College volunteered at the AIDS/LifeCycle, a bike ride fundraiser that raised millions for HIV- and AIDS-related services in California. His contribution: feeding breakfast (at 4:30 a.m. daily!) and dinner (until 9 p.m., daily) to the 2,150 hungry riders making the 545-mile trek from San Francisco to LA. It was a thoroughly exhausting and exhilaratingly transformative experience for just about everyone involved.
On his sleep-deprived flight home, Schneck was still euphoric, his mind churning to find a way to bring the incredible, life-affirming spirit of that event home to the Green Mounain State. "The spirit of the ride was just overwhelming. ... I started to brainstorm ways this event could benefit both California’s now-severely-depleted HIV/AIDS education and prevention budget and my local community," recalled Schneck. "The other piece that was really important to me was to not just ask people for money, but to provide some entertainment in return. Before I landed back on the East Coast, I had named the event and sketched out the evening."
The name: "Notes For Life." The sketch: a highly eclectic and entertaining night of music, which will happen this Saturday night at The Latchis Theatre.
"The bike ride did such an awe-inspiring job of bringing different people together," Scnheck explained.
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"In order to replicate that, I wanted to create a bill featuring three different types of music, bringing together three different audiences for one common cause."
To his delight and amazement, he was able to coral three exceptionally talented acts from three wildly different genres, encompassing classy cabaret (Kate Pazakis), exquisitely harmonic rock (Winterpills) and sassy and savvy New Orleans soul (Samirah Evans and her Handsome Devils).
Schneck used a personal connection to bring a big-voiced diva from the Big Apple theater world. "I’ve known Kate Pazakis for close to a decade, first meeting her during my brief (and none-too-successful) stint as a singing waiter in NYC," he said.
It was a slam-dunk yes for Pazakis, who is known for lending her exceptional voice to "Jerry Springer the Opera" at Carnegie Hall, "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "A Broadway Diva Christmas," "Newsical" and "The Sexless Years." She just released her bold debut album titled "Unzipped: Live at the Zipper."
"Ken told me all about the benefit and how passionate he is and asked if I would perform," she said in an e-mail. "I was thrilled. During the show I will be performing some songs from my album and other songs that I love. When performing in a concert setting I try to connect with the audience like it is a small intimate space. I like to tell stories and bring the audience on a personal journey."
When Schneck invited the mercurial New Orleans transplant Samirah Evans aboard, he did not know how much performing at an AIDS benefit would hit so close to home. "When Ken asked me to participate in this concert I gasped and asked ‘do you know how important this cause is to me and why?’" she recalled. "I had a cousin and two older brothers who have fallen victim to the AIDS virus. Ken had no idea."
For many years Evans participated in the NO AIDS task force in New Orleans, often performing concerts culminating the annual NO AIDS walk and is now eager to continue her support in her new home state.
"I haven’t participated in any AIDS awareness events in quite a while and have thought about getting involved in this area so I was so elated when this opportunity fell in to my lap."
Evans continued with a poignant personal story. "The first song on my debut recording ‘Someone to Watch Over Me,’ was dedicated to my brother because the night that he died -- Christmas Eve of 1990 -- my mother and I were visiting him in the hospital, and he asked me was I still singing that song. My mother nudged me to sing it for him and I did. I’m so glad I did because it was his favorite song and one of the last loving gestures I made towards my brother."
Saturday’s "Notes For Life" promises to be a particularly emotional night for all involved. "I hope the night will be one that is fulfilling for the audience because of their part in giving to fellow human beings who continue to need support and resources in order to live quality lives as best as possible," said Evans. "Many funds have been cut from programs that allow such opportunities for people living with AIDS and awareness regarding prevention seems to have completely vanished.
"I also hope that the audience and everyone involved will leave filled with joy as a result of witnessing three fantastic performances which is our way of giving back."
All of the proceeds for this event will be split between the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Tickets: $40 front orchestra and $25, are available at the Latchis Hotel Desk (cash or check only) and online at www.notesforlife.net Doors open at 7 p.m.; showtime is 7:30 p.m.
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Thursday, September 24, 2009 

Mozart ... Haydn ... Derrik Jordan?
 Composition by versatile southern Vermont musician to be performed by VSO in BF


BELLOWS FALLS
It may have been a bit of a shock to many when Derrik Jordan was chosen to be the featured composer for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s 2009 "Made In Vermont" Fall Festival Tour.
Longtime fans know the multi-instrumentalist best for his adventurous forays into world beat, jazz, soul, pop, and Native American sounds, even Brazilian bossa nova.
But classical? Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a musical omnivore of Jordan’s magnitude would get around to it eventually.
"I am creatively restless and nothing excites me like a good creative challenge," explained the Southern Vermont-based musician. "A couple of years ago I had the urge to write for larger groups and to me that meant orchestra."
Jordan has been scratching that musical itch pretty hard. His first classical composition, "Four Unknowns" was commissioned by the Sage City Symphony and performed in Bennington last February. He followed with a series of chamber music pieces including "Sky Mirror," which he submitted to classical competition in Australia. "To my surprise, it won the contest and the Shakuhachi Chamber Music International Prize in 2008," said Jordan. "’Sky Mirror’ was composed for string quartet, shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) and electric guitar and was performed in Melbourne in December of 2008 as part of the prize package."
It was also performed in February 2009 in New York City as part of The Flea Theater’s
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"Music With A View" series. A few months later Jordan premiered two movements of "Five Gamelans For Brass Quintet," a piece based on Balinese scales and rhythms and performed at "Spotlight Indonesia" at the Latchis Theatre.
Next Thursday, as part of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s 75th anniversary tour, Jordan’s latest project, titled "Odzihozo And The Lake" will be performed at the beautifully restored Bellows Falls Opera House.
Jordan explained that the piece is both a celebration of Vermont’s most famous body of water and an acknowledgement of the state’s indigenous population.
"This year Vermont is celebrating the 400th year anniversary of the discovery of Lake Champlain. ‘Odzihozo And The Lake’ was inspired by the ancient Abenaki creation story of Lake Champlain. The Abenaki tell the tale of Odzihozo, a supernatural being who created himself from the leftover dust that fell from the Creator’s hands. He was pretty good at making himself but somehow forgot to make himself legs. So he dragged himself over the land, pushing up mountains and gouging out rivers and finally made Lake Champlain, which he considered to be his masterpiece. In fact he liked it so much that he turned himself into a rock island so he could stay there and enjoy it for all eternity.
"The piece is programmatic, and it follows the story exactly, and though it is played in one 12-minute movement it has 12 sections that are named for each different part of the story."
In order o give the piece an authentic folkloric flavor, Jordan decided to work some Abenaki music into it so he consulted with Joe Bruchac, an Abenaki poet and storyteller.
"He directed me to some CDs," recalled Jordan. "After much searching I found a couple of musical themes that seemed to work, and I wove them into the piece. ... I’m really excited to be joining the Native Amertican culture of Vermont together with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and their patrons. It seems like an unlikely and unusual mix of people and I’m very happy that I have been able to bring them together for this event.
"It is a tremendous honor to be chosen to do this piece. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. The orchestra is a very powerful musical force, and I’m sure Anthony Princiotti, who is conducting, will do a great job of bringing out their best."
The ever-restless Jordan is already exploring new musical textures, mixing and matching diverse talents and disparate sounds. "I’ve just started playing with a very cool world fusion trio that includes Tony Vacca and Jim Matus. We are doing a show at the Northampton Center For the Arts on Friday, Oct. 30. I’ve played with Tony for years as part of his group World Rhythms, and Jim is an accomplished player of the electric laouto (a Greek lute) and has his own world fusion band Mawwal. The chemistry has been great between us so we are looking forward to performing and recording together. I also met a great flamenco guitarist Billy White (aka Blanco) this summer, who is American living in Mexico. We hit it off very well musically and are planning to do some recording together via the Internet. Lots of fun stuff to look forward to as always."
The VSO will be performing Thursday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m., at The Bellows Falls Opera House. Tickets are $24 for adults and $20 for seniors and students and children under 18 and can be purchased at www.brattleborotix.com or in person at Boccelli’s, Fat Franks and Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls, Brattleboro Books, Misty Valley Books in Chester, and Radio Shack and the Vault in Springfield.
For more information, call 802-463-9595 or visit www.vermontfestivalsllc.com.
Dave Madeloni writes a weekly music column for Ovation. He can be reached at madeloni@aol.com.
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Thursday, September 17, 2009 

Haale returns to lend a hand to Making the Most of I


BELLOWS FALLS
When Nancy Clingan, the director of Making the Most of I (a Saxtons River-based organization that empowers at-risk-women), saw Haale’s intensely emotive concert at the Bellows Falls Opera House last year she was so moved that decided to invite the Bronx-born singer perform a benefit for the organization.
Little did she know at that time that the artist had a history of supporting women in need. "To her surprise, I had been involved in this kind of work myself," explained Haale in an e-mail exchange. "Years ago, I had interned as a counselor in a shelter for battered women on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, and also volunteered as a community educator for an organization in California called the Support Network for Battered Women. So this was an unexpected opportunity for me to contribute again to this type of organization."
Though Haale was quick to point out that she herself has never experienced domestic abuse, her spiritually uplifting, tranformation songs are perfect for this kind of benefit -- which has been scheduled for 7:30 p.m., on Saturday at The Stone Church in Bellows Falls.
Haale let it be known that she is excited about this particular gig -- especially in a place built for worship.
"We’ve played the Church in Brattleboro, and a couple of other music venues in churches across the country. We enjoy them -- the stained glass, the candles, the alters, the pews, the wood paneling. Aesthetically
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they usually surpass clubs. We’ll be playing new songs I’m very excited to debut, as well as tracks from ‘No Ceiling,’ ‘Paratrooper’ and ‘Morning.’ The percussionist Matt Kilmer, who produced ‘No Ceiling,’ and guitarist John Shannon will be joining me onstage -- we’ve all got some new tricks up our sleeve."
"No Ceiling" is Haale’s first full-length CD, released to critical raves in 2008. It made the Top 10 of The Boston Globe, which called it "One of this year’s most memorable releases ... a woozy, swirly little gem of an album ... (balancing) electric-guitar frenzy with the intimacy and alluring elusiveness of poetry."
According to Haale, "No Ceiling" also balances her two personal cultures, mixing Western folk and rock with Persian mysticism.
"I was born in America, to Persian parents, so I grew up learning two languages, absorbing two different traditions," said Haale. "The album sonically expresses both sides of me, with the common thread of course, of my voice, Matt’s drumming and the mystical themes running through it all. A lot of the songs are about transcendance, growth, transformation, the intense passage from anxiety to tranquility. I wrote the English lyrics on the album, while the Persian lyrics are by Rumi and Farrokhzad."
Those interested in the poetic side of Haale should note that she will return to The Stone Church on Sunday for "Medicine for the Heart," a reading from some of her favorite poets. "We’ll be sitting in a circle and I’ll be reciting Rumi and Hafez in English and in Persian. Rumi in Persian is a blast to hear, it’s so rhythmic and musical, and it’s just astonishing that he wrote all that while whirling. Apparently he never put a pencil to paper; all the poems were composed spontaneously and taken down by his friends or students. I might also include a couple poems by Rilke, HD, or Levertov that are related thematically. We’ll be talking about what these poets had to say about growth, fire, losing the obsession with self, bliss, the sea of spirits. We’ll laugh and have a good time."
Haale has been having a good time honing her craft in her new home-built studio, preparing songs for her future projects. "I’m proudest of the new songs I’ve been writing, and the progress I’ve made over the past year as a writer and musician. I haven’t been touring much since August 2008, we’ve done shows only sporadically. So over the last year, I’ve been in the shed -- writing, listening, practicing. I don’t know if there’s any greater pleasure than writing songs and recording them, so I’m happy to keep going with that."
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Thursday, September 10, 2009 

Dave’s top 10: A columnist looks back at a decade of note

By DAVE MADELONI

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
A couple of weeks back, my partner and I made a night of it at Boccelli’s, indulging in good Italian food and for dessert savoring the tasty performance by Eliza Gilkyson along with her amazing guitarist Nina Gerber.
Throughout, I found myself both riveted by the music and having my mind wander between songs -- reminiscing over the 10 years that I have been writing a weekly music column for this newspaper.
Between sets I ran into Will Danforth, a fine local musician and an even finer gentleman. We found ourselves readily agreeing that Gilkyson and Gerber were knocking ‘em out of the park. As we headed back to our seats, I felt a slight tingle in my bones when Will mentioned that the preview I wrote of the show really encouraged him to attend. Eight and a half years earlier, I wrote an article encouraging our readership to venture out to see a performance by that same Will Danforth.
On Sept. 16,1999, The Brattleboro Reformer published my very first article -- a jumbled review of "Pictures From The Big Vacation" by a relatively obscure New York singer-songwriter by the name of Mike Errico. Five hundred or so articles later, I am still getting a huge kick out of putting together pieces for this paper -- with one mission in mind -- to get folks to listen to more music, especially the terrific live performances scheduled right in our communal backyard.
Ten years can feel like an eternity, or a blink of an eye. For
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me, being a music "journalist" -- and I use that term loosely -- has certainly been the latter. And what a ride this decade has been. As I watched Gilkyson chat between songs, I thought back to all the great interviews I ’ve had with many of my musical heroes -- John Hiatt, Alejandro Escovedo, Bruce Cockburn, Guy Clark -- just to name a few.
Although it has been absolutely thrilling to chat with my personal faves, my most memorable interviews have actually been with some lesser-knowns.
I will never forget how my scheduled phone call with Syd Straw happened to interrupt a lively dinner party she was hosting. Straw, who has ties to this region, apologized for the mix-up, then decided when I began questioning her, to pass the phone to her dinner guests, who not only told me how wonderful a host she is, but also filled me in on some good drink recipes. I don’t remember hearing much about her music, but since that series of interviews with Straw’s cronies, I can sure make a mean margarita.
Another favorite was my more recent dialogue with the underrated songwriter/storyteller Jim White. When I mentioned to him that I thought he shared a musical sensibility with David Byrne, he launched into a hilarious tale of playfully harassing the ex-Talking Head frontman on the streets of New York City by shouting at him from the taxi he was driving "super white," then a few years later being offered a recording contract by Byrne. At that meeting, he decided not to bring up that strange incident.
Over the course of the past decade, perhaps the biggest journalistic joy for me has been giving voice to the exceptional contingent of local musicians this region has to offer-artists such as the multi-talented Derrik Jordan, the sultry songstress Lisa McCormick, the wizened alt-country of The Lonesome Brothers, the hypnotic folk-popping Winterpills, as well as young Southern Vermont upstarts like Clayton Sabine, Lisa Schneckenberger and Red Heart The Ticker. And so many more.
As I sat in Boccelli’s intimate listening room, surrounded by area music fans, I realized how lucky and honored I am to be a part of this exceptional musical milieu. Back in ‘99, I never dreamed I would be writing a newspaper column -- let alone interacting with so many talented artists. To think that some of the folks at that Eliza Gilkyson show came out because of something I wrote gives me indescribable joy.
I don’t know if I have another 10 weeks of music journalism left, let alone another 10 years. But it sure has been a great ride -- thanks so much for listening.
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Thursday, September 03, 2009 

New dad Moock gets by with a little help from Woody and Goody

By DAVE MADELONI

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
Woody and Goody -- two names that sure to come up in any discussion of Alastair Moock’s most recent work.
Woody, of course, is the iconic patriarch of the Guthrie Family -- hailed by the gravel-voiced Moock as "the reason I’m a songwriter. ... I read ‘Bound for Glory’ in high school and never looked back."
Goody is producer/guitarist David Goodrich who has put his tasteful stamp on records by the likes of Chris Smither, Peter Mulvey and Jeffrey Foucault.
Woody’s muse is woven into the fabric of Moock’s "Fortune Street," his most intimate and fully realized work to date. In a review of the CD, the Boston Globe wrote "if Woody Guthrie grew up in 21st-century Boston, he’d sound a lot like Moock."
One of the record’s most cogent tracks is "Woody’s Lament " a historical ballad that imagines Guthrie’s struggle to balance his art with his family life -- a theme that hits close to home for the Boston-based singer, who recently became a father of twins.
"I had always wanted to write a song about Woody," he said. "His story and songs are so much a part of my life. But for all that ... maybe because of it, I could never find an entry point. There’ve been so many great songs written about him already. What more was there to say? I read the Joe Kline bio in ‘04 or ‘05. It reminded me what a complicated guy Woody was. A friend to mankind, an authentic
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American hero, a kind of genius. But not so hot on the marriage front. Maybe not always so hot on the friend front. It’s a common theme among our heroes and saviors. There’s a tension between the public and private life when you’re living that much for others. So that became my entry point."
Moock, whose distinctive voice is often compared to Tom Waits’ and Steve Forbert’s, also praised the contributions of Goody, whose old-school style in the studio helped give the tracks a live feel. "Goody has a style of producing that fit what I was looking to do with that record. He approaches the studio like a jazz guy. You pick a window, you get your group and you go in to capture a performance. We recorded the whole thing in five days straight. ... It’s the way albums used to be made. You go in with a good group and just make music."
Moock -- who will be appearing at Boccelli’s in Bellows Falls on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. -- still loves to just make music, especially in front of audiences, but he tends to do it closer to home these days. "I’m not touring a whole lot these days, which has actually made playing more enjoyable. The whole thing for me is about connecting with an audience. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn ’t, but that’s what’s always turned me on."
Early on, Moock was inspired by a pair of great live acts with very different approaches. "When I was a kid, going to my first shows, there was David Bromberg at one end and Pete Seeger at the other. Pete had no artifice, and he created a collective experience, and it was amazing. Bromberg was all artifice, and he created a collective experience, and that was amazing too. I’ll never do it as well as either of them but, as I get older, I find myself more and more drawn to Pete’s approach. There’s nothing more exciting to me than a roomful of people singing a song together."
Recently, Moock has geared some of his compositions toward children and now has a kids record now in the works. "It’s something I always wanted to do and I’m having so much fun working on it this summer," he said Moock. "I’ve been writing these songs for the last few years. A bunch of them, not surprisingly, came after my girls were born. It’s about 2/3 original and 1/3 roots -- Woody, Mississ ippi John Hurt, Leadbelly, Taj Mahal. My wife and the girls just came into the studio this weekend for the first time. We got some great sounds of the girls running around, laughing, doing their thing. Did I say Fortune Street was my favorite studio experience? I take it back."
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Thursday, August 20, 2009 

Here’s looking like you: Transperformance takes on Woodstock


By DAVE MADELONI
FLORENCE, Mass.
Happy Birthday 40th Woodstock! The graying pregnant mother of all rock concerts not only turned the big four-oh she is also about to bear another child -- her fourth.
Like the children of many hippy-dippy parents, Woodstock’s kids are creative, unpredictable and have unusual names -- the oldest is the boisterous 1994, then came the emotionally disturbed pyromaniac 1999, followed by last year’s lovely, well-behaved Brattstock, who was born right here in Southern Vermont.
Next Tuesday a birth is planned for what promises to be the cute and cuddly Lookstock, who will arrive around 4:30 p.m. ready to play.
A host of local musical transperformers will come together to celebrate Lookstock’s arrival as well as the 40th anniversary of peace, love, music and mud at Look Park in Florence, Mass., performing as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, and anyone else who shared the stage back on Yasger’s Farm in that fateful Summer of ‘69.
I asked several of the local musicians involved in Lookstock to reflect on that magical day four decades ago. Only one claimed to have attended the festival.
"I, Jukebox John, was actually there -- and I bought tickets!" recalled the member of Dad Come Home, which will be transperforming The Band. "My friend and I wormed our way closer and closer as the Saturday night/Sunday morning show proceeded. By the time Sly and The Family Stone came on, we were relatively close to the front. They were electrifying. Sly dressed in white, the whole band pumping, dancing. During ‘I Want To Take You Higher,’ I turned around to face the crowd and I was greeted with the sigh of searchlights playing over the crowd of a hundred thousand people or more on their feet, flashing peace signs and singing ‘I Want To Take You Higher! Higher! ... Higher!.’ No drugs, no alcohol, just music and energy and a huge smile on my face."
Well, according to Peter Blanchette, who will be breaking out his sitar as Ravi Shankar on Tuesday, at least one of those fans was on something. "I was 10 years old, and my best friend’s big brother went to Woodstock. I was crazy about Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and knew that he would get to hear them play. When he came back, I was so disappointed when he related his impressions of the festival -- all he could remember was that, having taken a lot of LSD, he had hallucinated seeing hamburgers and cheeseburgers dancing to the music on a grill for hours."
Must have taken that nasty brown acid.
Conor Dowling ba ssist/vocalist for Page 6, which will recreate Crosby, Stills & Nash, was not at Woodstock the festival, but did live in Woodstock, the town for seven years. "Which gives me a slightly different perspective on the cultural impact of the festival," he recalled. "When I lived there from ‘86-’91, weekends and summers in town were often spent answering the unbiquitous tourists’ question ‘So where was the concert?’ They were inevitably disappointed to learn that it was over 60 miles away in Bethel, as Woodstock’s Town Fathers nixed Michael Lang’s initial site choice late in the game."
Tom Kovar, of Rock Panel almost did make it to Woodstock, that festival in Bethel. "I was too young (15) to really have considered attending Woodstock, though my 18-year-old brother and I did at least discuss it, but he didn’t own a car and we were spending a couple of weeks on Cape Cod with the family, so..." said the singer-guitarist who will be imitating Alvin Lee & Ten Years After. "I did meet a guy on the beach, a week or so later, who had been there. It seemed a life-changing event for him. I also remember the first time I saw the movie; it must have been a year later. It was shown in an upstairs auditorium at the Provincetown Town Hall, for free. I wandered in and was mesmerized. I already had a self-concept as a musician, at the time, and my thought was, ‘Wow. I really missed something.’"
Young Rick Murname, who will emulate John Sebastian, came close to attending as well. "My most vivid memory of the original Woodstock festival was being told that my best friend and I were too young to attend. We were 11 and 12 years old, respectively, and my friend’s older sister had offered to bring us, but our parents nixed the deal. She went, and we stayed home. I guess we spent the weekend racing slot cars and listening to records."
Most folks, like King Radio’s Farnk Padellaro understood what they missed from that amazing documentary. "I remember my Uncle Tim showing me the Woodstock movie when I was around 7 or 8. I was really impressed with the Who and Jimi, and I remember that as being an important moment in my life that really shaped me wanting to be a musician.
"Regarding the actuality of Woodstock, I was always cracked up by Pete Townsend’s assertion that it was basically rubbish. Everybody was wasted, often against their will, and they just wanted to go home. Basically, the exact opposite of Transperformance, where everybody is so thoughtful, supportive and wonderful, and I feel like I just want to stay in Look Park forever."
One of the highlights of Lookstock is sure to be F Alex Johnson’s transperformance of Jimi Hendrix. The Drunk Stuntmen’s ace guitarist was born the year a fter the Hendrix played his seminal version of the Star Spangled Banner. "When I hear the word ‘Woodstock,’ I think of a little yellow bird from the cartoons. ... My earliest knowledge of the concert came from the triple album release of the music from the film ... it impressed me in its uniqueness though they -- all three records -- ended up scratched to hell, mixed in with my Bill Cosby LPs. The movie, the record, the TV clips -- all with that light blue background and the sea of people is a personal reference point for me when I think about what the ‘60s must have been like. Strange to think how in less than half a year the ‘70s would be upon us, the innocence would have finally become corrupted and the music would turn to full on prog rock fantasy, then disco, punk, new wave, and finally, lamentably, to the murk and muck of the MTV generation which I am, nonetheless, proud to count myself as a member."
Later in life, Johnson came to understand the full cultural impact of Woodstock "I got that it was one of the first great events put on to celebrate the music of the times. I can only picture how word must have spread -- quickly, but molasses slow compared to today -- and how the highways must have clogged up, potentially trapping countless ‘squares’ on their way home from the market with ice cream in the back seat for hours with no idea what was going on or what that funny smell was. I understood how it was a showcase for the giants as solo artists like Hendrix and Joe Cocker, as well as supergroups like CSNY, who played their second gig ever there. And I understand that the people who were there -- contrary to the popular saying about remembering the ‘60s -- will always have that beautiful feather in their cap, and I will remain eternally jealous."
Transperformance19: LookStock is presented by the Northampton Arts on Tuesday, Aug. 25, from 4 to 9:30 p.m., at the Pines Theater, Look Park, Florence, Mass. Tickets are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors, $3 for Kids under 12. Visit www.northamptonartscouncil.org.
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Thursday, August 13, 2009 

Gilkyson tempers her political songs with a bit more of a personal touch

By DAVE MADELONI

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
During an area performance several years ago, Eliza Gilkyson came pretty close to apologizing for writing so many topical songs -- stating something along the lines of "I’m sorry that I have to do these political tunes but I have to because of what is going on, but I’d much rather be in a world where I don’t have to write this stuff."
Of course, the Austin, Texas-based songbird is still writing "this stuff" as she continues to examine an unjust and confounding world. In a recent phone conversation that was as honest and thought-provoking as her music, Gilkyson addressed her wish to move away from the political and more into the personal and philosophical.
"I really would love to just become more infatuated and obsessed with the other detailia that are all around us. I am still a little obsessive about politics. It could just be my age and being concerned what my grandchildren are going to inherit. It really affects me."
On last year’s sinfully overlooked "Beautiful World" CD, Gilkyson mixed her incisive critiques of our government and culture with a few welcome doses of hope.
"There was a kind of joy in this record -- the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down," she said. "I think you really have to balance those things, If you get too political, too message-heavy, you end up shutting listeners down to it."
A couple of "Beautiful World’s" songs go beyond being merely political
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-- they are uncannily prophetic. Check out these lines from "The Party’s Over": "We danced on the tables midnight til dawn/til all the time was up and the good stuff gone/The party’s over, we had a blast/brought in the lawyers to cover our ass/left a note for the children to clean up the mess/the party’s over/it was a big success."
Gilkyson, who will be appearing on Thursday, Aug. 20, at Boccelli’s in Bellows Falls, Vt., penned this indictment of the excesses of the Bush regime well before an economic meltdown took most everyone else by surprise.
"It was just amazing how synchronistic it was, because the record came out last May, then everything kind of collapsed in, July or August last year," she recalled. "I intuited a collapse for quite a while."
Her intuitive powers have not always translated to big sales, but Gilkyson’s potent combination of Joan Baez-like social justice perspective coupled with the warm accessibility of Shawn Colvin has brought her some deserving attention -- including a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album for her 2005 release "Land of Milk and Honey" as well as having two of her compositions recorded by her hero, Baez.
"I am really proud of the Grammy nomination in terms of getting a little bit of feedback from the world arena," she said. "I think that was really a nice moment for me since I am so under the radar. I just have to go on my faith in myself and in my point of view, my music and my art. But every once in a while when my head pops up in the greater sphere, like Joan Baez covering my songs -- those things are very meaningful to me."
Gilkyson, whose father is legendary songwriter Terry Gilkyson, has surely paid her dues, toiling for years in relative obscurity. About 10 years ago, she seemed to find her voice and a more rootsy sound, which she sees today as a function of mid-life desperation.
"There was a shift in my life where I hit rock bottom, and had to pull myself up by my bootstrap," she recalled. "Then there was a kind of a street thing that happened in my voice, it was just that I had changed. And that changed how I conveyed the songs.
"There was a point about 10 years ago where I realized that I needed to get rid of anything that had keyboards and just get only organic instruments and get this thing a little more straight. It was a real conscious decision on my part to strip it down and take it back to my authentic roots which was plain ole folk music."
Gilkyson’s grittier approach will be on full display when she comes to Bellows Falls backed by an extraordinary guitarist by the name of Nina Gerber. "She is an amazing, stunning musician. It is all about our communication and she is listening all the time, a master guitar player. I think one of the finest in the world. There is nothing she can’t do on the guitar, but it is all weighted with emotion that is tied into what I am doing. She never just noodles. There is a lot of communication between us. It is fun and there is something special about two women really sending out some serious music."
When Gilkyson sends out that serious stuff, she is looking to bring her audience along on an emotional journey. "What I really want to do, what give me the most pleasure, is that we kind of go on a trip together," she said of her concerts. "I’m about breaking down defenses so that we can feel things. I go and put a song out there, and see if people are going to open up the door a crack, and let this feeling come in, and if they do that we will decide together where we are gonna go from there."
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Thursday, August 06, 2009 

A musical marriage


She’s fond of ‘60s folk and old-school Loretta Lynn-style country. He loves Mahavishnu Orchestra-like jazz fusion and indie-pop. She is a reticent performer who is just now coming around to a comfort level in the spotlight. He is a confident, seasoned music veteran who has played at Red Rocks in front of 10,000 fans.
Tyler Gibbons and Robin MacAuthur’s musical marriage, better known as Red Heart the Ticker, has developed into an elegant blend of their diverse talents and tastes, a delicate interweaving of her yin with his yang, a sound that Paste Magazine described as "dim and haunting, full of winter melancholy, wispy melodies and plans for escape."
Even their band name represents the bringing together of two disparate musical forces, with red heart referring to the warmth of pure acoustic folk, and "the ticker" representing their occasional rhythmic flourishes.
In a recent e-mail exchange, I asked the Marlboro-based couple about the duality of their sound. "Having two singers, two writers, two editors, two minds in general, has a lot to do with the dualities in our music -- there’s a constant push and pull in the music that creates a certain tension" explained Gibbons. "Will it resolve into a simple country song or devolve into some glockenspiel passage? I like to think this keeps our songs alive -- we can’t simply copy our heroes, redo genres, when the other voice is saying, ‘But wait, what if we try this?’ ...."
Their highly praised second CD, "Oh My! Mountains Below" is a document not only of the delicious blend of the duo’s disparate sensibilities, it also finds a melding of themes of darkness and light, a result of the couple’s recent loss of loved ones and the arrival of their first child. "Yes, the album has duality in it," explained MacArthur. "’I Lift That Boombox,’ ‘Yellowbird,’ ‘The Ballad of J. Murphy’ and ‘Snakeskin’ are songs of grieving for us -- the death of my grandmother and the death of a friend and other hard things that happened the last couple years. So we went into the recording process thinking the album was going to be a sad, grieving album."
"But we found out I was pregnant mid-recording, and we actually changed some of the songs, wrote new ones, and ditched others Š The idea of having a baby allowed us to put some love songs into the mix -- ‘What I’ve Found’ and ‘Small Sky Country’ are straight up, unrestrained, happy love songs -- something that we were less comfortable recording before we had a baby coming into the world."
Interestingly, the pair -- who will be appearing at this Saturday’s Brattstock festival -- took a while after their marriage to get serious about making music together. "We were wary of playing music together for a number of years," explained Gibbons. "Not distrustful necessarily; more like we each harbored a worry that, because music meant so much to each of us, because we had such strong opinions about it, the ramifications of playing music together could be hard on our relationship. It felt like there was a lot at stake."
Robin and Ty approached collaborating meticulously over time, playing bits of songs at night in their hand-built cabin, then engaging in esoteric discussions about lyrics and chord progressions. Eventually they began to feel like music was an integral part of their relationship, rather than an obstacle to it.
Slowly they began to commit their collaboration to tape. "The weird part was that we recorded our entire first album, ‘For the Wicked,’ before we’d ever performed as a duo," added MacArthur. "Then when we had a full record we realized we’d have to play shows and I had to suddenly learn about 20 new, bizarre, guitar chords and learn how to play and sing those songs at the same time. It was a bit of a rough spell. But we came out the other side of it and found a place in playing music together that is an equal, and satisfying, give and take."
The pair are remain polar opposites when it comes to performing outside of their cabin. "Playing live for me is the closest I get to living in the moment, mind emptied out of clutter, like meditation but with some bouncing around and a smattering of awkward stage banter included," said Gibbons. "Robin and I have near-opposite stage presences and we decided long ago to tinker with that would be unnatural."
MacArthur has learned to embrace the tension. "As uncomfortable as I still am with the spotlight aspect of playing shows, I find that making yourself that vulnerable in front of a crowd of people is an almost spiritual thing. You have to believe in every word you sing, and try to honor the attention you’re being given by making something as beautiful as you can. I like to think of playing as being a gift for the people who are watching and listening, and in order to do that I try to get into a space of presence and gratefulness and reverence for the energy of the moment."
As for performing in her home town, MacArthur is ready for the challenge." It would have been awful when I was 20. Now it’s good -- I like seeing old, familiar faces come out of the woodwork. I like surprising people."
11:23 AM 
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Wednesday, August 05, 2009 

Famous dolphin visits vacationers in Holgate

By NICHOLAS HUBA • Staff Writer • August 5, 2009

LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP — For the past 30 years, swimmers on the eastern seaboard occasionally have been able to catch a glimpse of the famous "Dolphin 56."Deidre Burns and the rest of her family, from Rhinebeck, N.Y., were vacationing in Holgate when they were greeted by a surprise guest this week — the famous Dolphin 56.
Burns' sister, Barbara Madeloni, was doing yoga on the deck last Friday when she heard Dolphin 56 splashing around. Then Madeloni called out the rest of the family, Burns said. They saw the dolphin again on Saturday.
"He was twisting and turning to show the underside of his belly," Burns said. "Several times, he moved playfully, tossed fish in the air and leaped in the air.
"Then he would come in closer. We got the distinct impression he wanted our attention, maybe to be fed."
Dolphin 56's history goes back to August 28, 1979, when he was captured along with five other dolphins by SeaWorld researchers near the NASA Causeway in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida. The researchers assigned them the numbers 55, 56, 57, 58 and 59. Dolphin 57 was female, while the others were male.
Since 1979, Dolphin 56 has been spotted all over the East Coast. Web sites have been dedicated to tracking the dolphin. During the summer, Dolphin 56 has been know to travel up the East Coast to New Jersey, researches have said.
Officials at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine have said that they have seen more sightings of Dolphin 56 during the past couple of years, and always warn people not to feed him.
"Unfortunately, he is frequently seen begging for fish," said director Robert Schoelkopf. "It is against federal law to feed or harass wild dolphins. Dolphin 56 does know how to catch fish, and the begging behavior can be very dangerous for him. "
Madeloni said it was a thrill to see the much talked about dolphin.
"It was thrilling to be among the few that have had the good luck to see such an amazing creature," Burns said. "Our family has been vacationing in Holgate for 12 years. We are used to seeing schools of dolphins in the ocean. It was remarkable to see a dolphin up close in the bay and feel he was actually responding to us - a renowned dolphin right in our backyard."
11:19 AM 
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