An Interview with Counter Culture Icon John Sinclair

John Sinclair Interview by Bo White, December 29th, 2010
Responses @ 420 Café, Amsterdam, February 7, 2011

John will be performing @ White’s Bar Saturday April 23rd with guitar wizard Jeff Grand, The Bearinger Boys, the Laverty/Torres Band and John Krogman’s Rustbucket. Sinclair’s DVD Twenty To Life will be screened throughout the evening


“To be literate in today's world is a political statement."
- John Sinclair


John Sinclair
Affiant Sayeth Not

At 69 years of age John Sinclair shows no signs of slowing down. Besides touring the world with a loose and ever changing aggregation of Blues Scholars , Jazz masters and Rock & Rollers, Sinclair continues to release CDs, books, articles and programs and produces podcasts and internet radio programs. John has performed in Saginaw several times and possesses a historic grasp of Michigan culture from an international perspective. Sinclair is a sweet man of peace who is also a realist. From his early days at Trans Love commune, managing the MC5 and befriending John Lennon, Sinclair has kept his hand on the pulse of our crumbling empire. He is quick to point out that that America, like ancient Rome, has lost sight of its democratic principles and given the ruling class carte blanche to rob our coffers. He is also a man of the earth, a happy and contented grandfather who values love and friendship above all else



John – what have you been up to since 20 to Life was released?

The film was released in 2007 and quickly faded into media oblivion. Since then I have continued my travels, performing around the USA and in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Genoa, Rome, Santiago, Tokyo, Seville, Barcelona, Madrid and wherever they will have me. I’m based in Amsterdam and London when I’m not in Detroit, where I just completed a two-year Poet in Residence term at the Bohemian National Home and am now based at the Trans-Love Energies Compassionate Care Center at 1486 Gratiot in Detroit. I now write a bi-weekly column for the Detroit Metro Times called HIGHER GROUND.


It must have stirred up renewed interest in your life and times?

Not so much. The filmmaker made a bad deal to get it completed and the distribution was a big let-down, plus there were no theatrical screenings & very few festival screenings, so not much notice was attracted to the film nor, by extension, to myself.


Have you released any new music, poetry or writings?

As a performer I continue to work with diverse bands in Amsterdam, London, New York City, Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Mississippi. Some of them play my arrangements, some improvise jazz to my texts, some play straight-out blues to my poems. In the past three years I’ve performed in ensembles with David Kimbrough, Afrissippi, the Black Crowes, Marshall Allen, Elliott Levin, Daniel Carter, Ras Moshe, Sabeer Mateen, 101 Runners, Pinkeye Orchestra, Planet D Nonet, Carlo Ditta, Dr. Prof. Barry Kaiser, Tom Worrell, Vincente Pino, Leslie Lopez, Steve Fly, the Dirty Strangers, Gary Lammin, Charles Shaar Murray, Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, Primal Scream, DKT/MC5, Youth, Mark Ritsema, Angelo Olivieri, Raskolnikov, and people I can’t even remember right now. I have bands of Blues Scholars in Amsterdam, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Oxford, Mississippi.

I’ve issued two books—IT’S ALL GOOD: A JOHN SINCLAIR READER and SUN RA INTERVIEWS & ESSAYS with Headpress in London. SUN RA has just been translated into Spanish and issued by Libertos Editorial. My “underground classic” book, GUITAR ARMY, was reissued in a 35th anniversary edition by Feral House/Process Books in 2007 and has been translated now into Italian, Spanish and French. BookBeat in Detroit will be bringing out my poetry & prose collection SONG OF PRAISE: HOMAGE TO JOHN COLTRANE, and Ecstatic Peace Press is planning to issue the completed first half of my Monk work in verse, always know: a book of monk. And Dotty Oliver in Little Rock is publishing my New Orleans prose collection, MARDI GRAS TO THE WORLD, later this year.

I’ve issued three CDs since 2007—TEARING DOWN THE SHRINE OF TRUTH & BEAUTY with the Pinkeye Orchestra (LocoGnosis Records); DETROIT LIFE with the Motor City Blues Scholars (No Cover Records); and VIPER MADNESS with the Planet D Nonet (No Cover). My new record is called LET’S GO GET ‘EM by John Sinclair & His International Blues Scholars and will be released by No Cover in March, and I’m just now completing a new album project with a producer in London known as Youth that I’m calling BEATNIK YOUTH.

I’ve also completed a work begun in 1982: a book of blues verse titled FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES that’s in four sections, each one set to music and recorded with a different ensemble in New Orleans, Detroit, Oxford and Clarksville, Mississippi. I’m assembling the package into a box set as we speak


Are you still involved in radio? Do you see radio as an effective medium to get your message and your poetry and music to a wider audience?

I also program & produce regular podcasts for two internet radio stations, Radio Free Amsterdam and Detroit Life Radio, including weekly installments of the John Sinclair Radio Show, Sinclair On The Air and Jazz from the Hempshopper. I also collect and edit for broadcast blues & jazz programs by deejays present & past that I enjoy. I post one one-hour program each day on each of the two stations.


With the advent of file sharing do you see a shift in the relationship between record companies and artists like yourself?

Yes: basically there is none in terms of what used to be, i.e., with the possibility of getting paid. My best experience is to be able to make the records and get someone to press some of them at no cost to myself.


Last time we talked you seemed to paint a bleak picture of our future based on the ascendance of powerful business-led coalitions and the financial Institutions that control our government. In the past year Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone Magazine, has written several articles and a book Griftopia that has exposed Wall Street’s culpability in destroying America from within. Are you familiar with Taibbi’s work? Why aren’t people in an uproar over the theft of our country?

That’s a question I’m unable to answer. I know exactly how fucked up this country is, but the white people love it this way and they won’t change for anything.


You had a bleak outlook on Detroit's recovery in the BBC documentary Requiem for Detroit. Do you still feel there is no hope for Detroit and other cities that were built on the auto industry?

I don’t know about the other ones, but Detroit is not going to come back. It’s over. What becomes of the fabulous ruins of Detroit may be something interesting but it will not be economically viable again.


What keeps bringing you back to Michigan?

I have a beloved daughter & granddaughter in Detroit and hundreds of friends made over the past 50 years. My estranged wife Penny Sinclair lives in Detroit and I like to see her when I can. Also, I can work in and around Detroit and use it as a base to tour different parts of the country and make enough dollars to maintain my very frugal lifestyle while I’m in Amsterdam & London.



What role could music/poetry play in the recovery of Michigan….the country? Are established artists important to our culture? Should they look for success elsewhere? Can our artists, poets and musicians be heard over the din of mass produced and disposable music that dominates the corporate airwaves?

No.


Over the past ten years, Europe has shown an interest in the downfall of Detroit and the auto industry. Documentaries have been filmed, photographers have come to document the urban decay. Do you feel that their interest is based in aesthetics, or are they sincerely concerned with what seems to be the end of an era? Are they infatuated or concerned?

(A) Aesthetics. (B) They are documentarians.


Do you keep in touch with any of your friends from the days of the MC5 and Trans Love?

Yes. An astonishing number of us are still alive, although we’ve recently lost people like James Semark of the Artists Workshop, Stanley the Mad Hatter of the Grande. Eastown and Second Chance Ballrooms, Bruce Cohen and others. I consider Wayne Kramer of the MC5 one of my closest friends, ditto for Charles Moore of the Detroit Artists Workshop, Pun Plamondon of the White Panther Party, Marton Gross and Johnny Evans of the Urbations, Cary Loren of Destroy All Monsters, and many others whom I see in Michigan and around the country on my travels.


Do you see any signs that our counter culture/peace movement is growing and establishing a wider base of support?

No.

Do you still collaborate with your ex-wife Leni?

I remain a terrific fan of her photography and often recommend her work to people publishing various projects of mine.


Any last comments?

I’m happy to be alive in an old age I never anticipated nor expected, I’m ecstatic to be a grandfather, I only do the things I want to do and don’t do the things I don’t want to do, I’m borne along in life by my hundreds of friends all over the western world and generally speaking I’m happy as a clam. Further, Affiant sayeth not.

Scott Baker & the Universal Expressions

Going Deeper
With
Scott Baker & the Universal Expressions
It’s All in the DNA


Scott Baker is one of those guys that doesn’t take no for an answer. He’s been a musical Sisyphus for years, rock and rolling that boulder to the top of the mountain, only to see it roll down the other side. He’s been as stubborn as he is generous. He will doggedly create music for himself daring the listener to like it or hate it but really only hoping that they listen to it. He has forged an identity as a multi-purpose jam rockin’ sonovabitch who believes in peace and love and the honor of hard work. At heart he’s working class minstrel immersed in a labor of love, building his career brick by brick and never imagining the mansion on a hill. He knows it’s just an illusion but he simply cannot help himself. Baker is in it for the long run…because he is the music he creates. He built it and he will be it. Scott Baker & the Universal Expressions have been around for several years and along the way garnered some well-deserved attention and several Review Magazine Awards (15 and counting). They have opened for Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Larry McCray and Sharrie Williams. Baker has worked alongside our favorite son rock & roll icon Dick Wagner at Downtown Digital Studio Saginaw and helped compile Wagner’s recordings for WMG Records. Currently Baker is busy in the studio putting the finishing touches on his new CD Details & Desire with bandmates Jeff Yantz harp/guitar/vocals, Timmy Scott on drums, and Pete Socha on bass. A quick listen reveals that Baker has been honing his skills as a lyricist and songwriter as well as advancing his craft as a guitarist. Baker rocks solid and the addition of Yantz gives the band a folk/roots sensibility that adds a melodic layer to Baker’s tasty rock & roll stew. Below is an excerpt of conversation I had with Scott Baker about his career, musical vision and the new CD.

Tell me about your new CD Details and Desire. First of all – who is the girl on the cover and is there a reason she is looking back and then away, eyes averted?

That would be my neighbor Taylor Rupp. She’s a senior at Central High and a highly intelligent, beautiful, and musically talented (5 plus instruments!) young woman. While mulling over ideas for a layout poster or CD cover, I thought up this idea that in this new generation there are a few modern day hippies—so driven for peace coming from a whole other angle in time. It became a centerpiece for the record and Taylor was willing to help me try to depict an image that would convey my thoughts on it. While she’s far from a hippie, I took a few photos and that one spooked me enough to use it. Luckily, I get asked often how I found that ‘cool cover.’ It was just Taylor dancing and me in the right spot snapping pics. The black and white of the entire album art goes with some of the lyric to the tune. Taylor is going to help me with some more poster art for the year ahead promoting Details & Desire.

This disc is really an amalgam of styles from raucous rock & roll to folk and pop. Were you intentionally eclectic?

Yes—eclectic was one of the words I wanted to convey. I was going for a ‘songwriting’ album. I wanted different sides of the coin and many textures featured. It seems independent CD’s over the past decade (that cross my desk anyway!) seem to be same-sounding, run-of-the-mill crafted, and have no heart to them. I wanted to make sure there were peaks and valleys, different styles, and a vibe that tied it all together—which is VERY important, like great pieces of vinyl from the ‘60s or ‘70s. There are so many avenues, it’s amazing that in the world of home recording and local studios, it doesn’t seem to be appropriate to experiment a little anymore with the songwriting. Everyone has a style and sometimes that particular style is all you get when you push play, even some good records. There is more to music than that.

Gettin’ There is an old time folk blues feel with harp accents that help drive home the perspective of the singer…someone who has experienced and accepted all the joy and sorrow life can bring. Does your personal experience inform the universal message?

Yes, I drew from my surroundings lyrically. It was actually the first song on the path to writing an album’s worth of material that would be ‘song’ oriented. Having had Jon Portykus in my band for a short period in 2009, his fiddle was meant to be on the track. Jeff Yantz joined after Potrykus departed and he brought the harp and a strong drive to be part of that song as well—Jeff was instrumental in helping my vision of pinning down ‘quality songwriting’ for the project. He and Andy Reed co-produced D & D with me. Our last CD Between Seasons had a nice mix of music that I still am proud of, but it kept with a rocking/jammy vein I usually like to veer towards. Gettin’ There was penned in 2008 and it was an eye opener to play—I was almost embarrassed to play it for Timmy and Pete since I usually don’t perform that kind of personal material, especially acoustically. They jumped on it to be an immediate part of the show

Your singing has changed through the years, a deeper baritone has emerged. Do you feel that you have found your voice?

I think the voice has been found at last. I know singing has been something that never came natural to me, yet performing with it did. Half way through cutting Between Seasons in 2007, a change happened in my voice and I found where I was able to hold a better pitch and keep strength in it like never before. Since then I have been trying my best to polish it more—thanks in large part to working with great musicians over the years in my band—Bob Hausler, John Grundner, Mike Sheets, and Jeff Yantz, they have helped me to develop it. Yantz and Andy Reed worked with me to make the vocals ‘pop’ for Details & Desire—I owe them huge for drawing a very good recorded voice for this album.

In the song Timeless you seem to convey a weariness with an almost whispered vocal. You seem to be saying that the power of love can hold melancholy. What is the message of the song?

That song came out of a memory download one night in 2009. It was all these ideas hitting me at once and it was conveyed to me like with all the troubles we may face day to day in the world, nothing can break true love. When the chords came out on the acoustic, it took a very Pink Floyd-ish turn which opened me up for a soft vocal. Andy Reed worked me into whispering it and getting my message across. Timmy’s drum pace against Pete’s bass work is priceless on there. Jeff surprised us with the fittingly eerie keyboard line.

Tangerine Moon conveys powerful images. Is this a song about wishfulness? A yearning for enduring love? The marching beat and bass string riff toward the end seems to cast doubt on the outcome.

I would say wishfulness is a good way to put it. That one was another writing of an idea download while I was up in Sugar Springs with my wife a few years back. I had my acoustic and the words just emerged, like I HAD to write them down. I love when that happens. It was another crazy idea to put forth to Timmy and Pete, but they loved that one too, like Gettin’ There. The best part is the rhythm section on Details & Desire are almost the highlights of the music for this being a ‘songwriting’ album—Timmy wanted to get some original grooves on all the cuts and Pete wanted to counter them in his own way on bass. They are the total reason that song is so alive and dreamy. Pete even took a tasty solo.

So Aglow seems to tell the story of a working musician, writing original music and surviving in small pockets in communities across the nation. Is this your story?

I never thought of it like that, but that does work! So Aglow has different meanings from different ideas, but it molded itself into that kind of musical situation. A good tune can mean anything to anyone and I am glad you got that feeling out of it. To me, it was a song that could have been on Between Seasons—one of the few rockers on D&D, with that watery groove. Pete and Timmy are responsible for breaking it into the 6/8 section, giving it the ‘Allman Brothers feel’ as Loren Kranz pointed out one night while sitting in on it. Jeff whipped his harp through a Korg B3 floor pedal and it gave it that vibe on the CD. It was a fun track to create.

Son of Jack is a wonderful track with a great riff reminiscent of Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog. It seems to be a tribute to a lost friend. Who is the song about?

My former co-worker and music buddy Dave Strauss of Auburn. He was a super-kind hearted dude that was into classic rock, parties, festival atmospheres, personal freedom and world peace, the Pistons, and best of all his family and friends. He was one of a kind. He moved down to Florida and had his life cut short in a car accident down there. He loved my band and was always the first to buy CD’s or help me to promote the music. The month before he passed, he did call me up, as I sing in the tune, and just wanted to let me know that ‘he missed me’ and to say ‘I love ya man.’ Out of the blue, you know? What a friend. You can’t have enough like him in your life. Musically, I was tipped off about Nazareth after we cut the song a few times now! It does have that feel, I have to admit, but the song was written purposely for Dave right down to the music. The riff is a take on Day Tripper by The Beatles—Dave’s favorite band. I even tease Day Tripper at the very end before the instrumental track Compass takes over. I wrote Compass in the ‘90s and never had anyone that could help put a frame around it. Timmy and Pete nailed the ‘Santana-esq’ groove and I thought it would be fitting for Strauss’ song to go into a jam of sorts. He would have loved it—and the keys of the song work perfectly for the transition. It was all meant to be. ‘It’s all good’ as Dave would say…

My favorite track on the CD is Friends. It is a perfect coda to a well conceived body of music. The lush harmonies recall Brian Wilson…is Andy Reed hiding somewhere in the grooves?

Friends has seemed to be the overall favorite from the album, in popularity so far. I do love that song. I was in the midst of writing that and performed a version to Yantz in the summer of 2009. It just wasn’t working for me—or him at the time. I threw it aside. As we were recording the basic tracks for Details & Desire, I started plucking the guitar line on the acoustic. Timmy and Pete jumped in like they had played it before—we all were freaked out. Jeff was engineering the take and I suggested I pull out some old lyrics to see how they fit. That song fell out and Yantz hit the record button. It was a freak moment in time. I said then and there ‘that would be the way to end the CD’ and Jeff said he had the same thoughts. The take we used was actually cut the very next day with Jeff clapping the groove. When I got to Andy’s for the vocals, I thought it would be cool to have Jeff sing one harmony and I would do the main one that is the core of vocal sounds between lyrics. After we did that, I had Andy double with his voice on my bit and Bob Hausler was in for a session and he doubled Jeff’s bit. That’s how the lushness came to be finished. Pure magic. The real treat is the groove of drums/bass and Jon Potrykus’ simply tasty dobro part he added that dances around my lyrics throughout. I tossed in some counter mandolin in the other channel. Andy added some keyboard magic and Abby Road style bells and the song hit us all between the eyes. I am very proud of it.

Let’s shift from Details & Desire to your longevity on the scene and your work ethic. Rock & Roll is no longer the most popular form of recorded music. It is standing in line with blues, jazz, rockabilly and traditional country music. How are you able to go on and continue to write and perform original rock & roll music after all these years?

I would have to say it’s what is in my DNA. I love all the many styles you mentioned, but to just jump into a style just for the sake of popularity would not be playing from the heart. I just write songs and record them, hoping they fall in line somewhere and people get tickled to hear them. As for my blues side, I would say I have never really done a blues song per se, or project, but my style has always been lumped in with the blues jams and maybe lyric delivery on occasion. It’s a bittersweet thing for The Universal Expressions—we can be lumped into so many musical styles, there is no shelf we can go on other than rock just for the fact that we are a conglomerate that has more rock songs than blues, folk, or country. And we dabble with sounds from them all. I am happy to still be trying out new fresh material. That is what truly drives me. I just wish more venues would open up around the region and people would be more accepting to hear something new. Over all exposure is the main thing we lack.

Who has inspired you as a guitarist? Did you have a mentor?

Outside of the decades of guitarists I could name—even some ‘80s cats that you wouldn’t believe, I have been inspired over the past ten years of my recorded life, by the likes of the guitarist that can write a tune—like Peter Green, Warren Haynes, Trey Anastasio, Marc Ford, Mike Campbell, Adam Levy, Jose Neto, Neil Young and Neal Casal. I was lucky to have some mentors since I started out. I have spent some serious time with Larry McCray, Dick Wagner, and Bob Hausler—all cats that have been to the big show and back again. They have helped in ways you can’t get just by listening to records. The personal experience, stories and hands-on ideals have guided me to be the player I have become. You can’t also ignore the fact that the local original scene itself is so incredible.

As you look back on your career can you talk about the highlights?

In the short eleven years I have been out and about, highlights have been some great shows like recently opening for The Steepwater Band out of Chicago—man, they smoke! Or even having a great night locally. In Muddy Gumbo opening for CCR was a treat in 2003—thanks to promoter Chad Cunningham. We got a slot for the up and coming group Blackberry Smoke at a Bay City Fest about five years back or so. Now they are national. Some of the sit-ins and jams over the years have been highlights—jamming with Sprout, Gutbucket, once with Holy Gun, once with Dick Wagner, Larry McCray, Sherrie Williams, Dan ‘Swival’ Sliwinski, and so many more. The night I got to play with Sprout for The Band Last Waltz on mandolin and vocals—with all the performers there, that night was incredible. I also have many solo acoustic or duo nights that ended up being outstanding from a performer’s point of view.

The CD Release Party for Details and Desire will occur over two big nights in Bay City: March 18th @ Bemos and March 19th @ Brewtopia. For more details check out www.scottbakermusic.com and scottbakermusic at Facebook and Myspace.

Peace
Bo White

Murder By Death @ the Vault in Bay City

Murder By Death
American Roots & Close Encounters

Murder By Death is an American Band in every sense of the word. Their music is an amalgam of country western, jazz, blues, vaudeville and rock & roll. Not content to present as a typical 4 piece, the band uses cello to fill in the parts that were typically reserved for mandolins and fiddles. They are now touring in support of their new CD Good Morning, Magpie, an undeclared American masterpiece that you may not find in the chain stores. Believe me, it is worth an online search. I was able to talk with Adam Turla, the leader of the band as lead singer and main songwriter for the band from his home in Bloomington Indiana. He is casual and friendly and a man of few words. The band has been together for more than ten years, longer than the Beatles. Turla is modest in his response to their longevity. “It‘s all about a good diet and exercise… but more seriously- we have a fan base that is willing to grow with us and let us develop our sound.”

The band is known for its heavy touring schedule, a never ending tour of sorts year after year. Turla admits to a strong work ethic, “We just think of it as our job. A friend once described us as a blue collar band. We just show up for work every day- we are just lucky our work is doing something creative. We take care of ourselves by enjoying our free time effectively so we don't get wiped out from the grind”

“The idea is that we want to travel everywhere and if someone can arrange travel etc to a distant land we will do our best to make it work. I have always had wanderlust- as a kid I could picture nothing better than being Indiana Jones, travelling the world learning about cultures and fighting bad dudes.”

There is a story about Turla’s creative process on Magpie, going into the woods alone, fishing and writing. He admits that solitude is part of the process of creating new music,
“It helped- it was the whole point of the trip! I just needed to get out and focus only on songwriting. I just work on lyrics when they come to me. Once I have an idea it’s a mad dash.”

Turla has an expressive singing voice, a great husky tenor that recalls Nick Cave channeling Dave Mason and just a touch of Michael Nesmith. His voice seems to have matured through the years. It is quietly expressive without being too over-the-top emotive. His inspiration was surprising. “I think it’s just taken me a long time to develop and learn how to use my voice. I've never consciously tried to emulate anyone else but I love the singing of guys like Eric Burdon from The Animals- guys who go from a low growl to a shout.


Good Morning, Magpie is considered by a few in the know as a true American masterpiece, almost an artifact of days gone by when music was performed on instruments and the singer sang real stories about pain and suffering, love and redemption. Turla is humble in response to the praise. “I never thought about it as a masterpiece- but I’m glad you like it! I hope we have many more fine moments.

The disc has a wonderful eclectic feel from the Tijuana trumpets and jazzy motifs that punctuate the rhythmic feel On The Dark Street Below to the use of shuffle beats on Yes and Foxglove , the two-step waltz time on You Don’t Miss Twice and rock & roll on the coda of The Day. There are some dark lyrical themes that suggest Armageddon (Good Morning Magpie), the end of the world (White Noise) or the decline and fall of the American Empire (the Day) - the darkness versus light; good versus evil dialectic that is compelling and thought provoking. Not what you typically hear on the radio. It is an incredible musical accomplishment to create a cohesive body of music through the expression of such diverse idioms. Turla is circumspect about it, “We listen to a lot of different kinds of music - so we try to throw in cool little moments from various styles when appropriate. Eclecticism is kind of our bag.”

Turla and his bandmates Sarah Balliet (Cello), Matt Armstrong (Bass), and Dagan Thogerson (Drums) produced the album themselves. The sound is rich and pure with the vocal on top, the guitars on the right, the rhythm section in the middle and cello hovering above it all, weaving seamlessly in and out of the musical matrix. When this writer praised the pristine layered production, Turla remained humble, almost self effacing,
“Haha you are too kind. We just do what we do! We produced this album ourselves so I’ll take it as a compliment.”
Jim Dickinson one of the true musical geniuses from Memphis (along with Alex Chilton) once said that the best music is never recorded and if it is recorded it is almost never heard. He goes on to state that the best music is co-opted, pre-empted and recycled and then dumbed down for the masses. Pop music and rock & roll have done this quite effectively since original music such as blues, country and gospel became mass produced. It is all based in greed and exploitation. The recycling of musical ideas can be a tribute… and also a sham
It is band like Murder By Death that keeps music alive. Original music is not always an easy sell when you have mass produced Disney inspired claptrap dominating the airwaves and concert stages. Those creeps can even dumb down rap until it’s actually bubblegum music…poorly done bubblegum music. It’s hard to compete and make a buck when record companies look only to the bottom line and the public is willing to download crap for 99 cents. Sample and recycle that riff!
But there is a new reality emerging in which original music – blues, rock, jazz, and gospel - thrives in small pockets across the nation. This seems to be the case for many middle class artists on small independent labels. It’s a better relationship that has promise in keeping our best bands on the highways and the back roads touring across the nation and overseas. It isn’t very often you can see a band like Murder By Death in your own back yard. Don’t miss this chance to see and hear an incredible American band up close and personal.
Murder By Death will be performing at The Vault 505 E. Midland Street in Bay City on April 1st. Tickets are $10 and are available directly from The Vault or online at www.thosephoenixproductions.com. On the day of show, tickets are $12.

Peace
Bo White

Love Songs
Reflections of a Numinous Presence
Romance & Beauty


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or an arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadows and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
Risen from the earth, lives darkly in your body

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
Than this; where I does not exist, nor you
So close that you hand on my chest is my hand
So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep
- Pablo Neruda

Neruda captures the spirit of deep dreamy love in the above Sonnet. He wrote it for his wife but the sentiment is universal and the feeling pure even holy. It is the type of love that intuits the innate loveliness in all human beings.

Songs of love can touch our very soul and captivate our hearts, minds and bodies. Music’s almost mystical power takes to another place. It moves us like a Jungian dance as the dancer goes deep inside herself, the heart pours out love and the mind creates a space of safety. In “Home of the Gentry” by Ivan Turgenev, the protagonist is touched deeply by a piece of music played on a piano. A passage describes its almost mystical power:
“The sweet passionate melody captivated my heart from the first note; it was full of radiance, full of the tender throbbing of inspiration and beauty, continually growing and melting away; it rumored of everything on earth that is dear and secret and sacred to mankind; it breathed of immortal sadness and it departed from the earth to die in the heavens.”

Music’s power cannot be objectified nor studied under a microscope. Its ability to evoke or manipulate emotions is almost inexplicable yet its influence on our feelings is universal. The emotional content of music is quite subjective, it may be emotionally powerful yet it may be experienced in different ways by the people who hear it. Still a love for music is a universal component of our culture and it appears to have importance in an evolutionary sense. It is theorized that music predates language.

Music is a apotheosis, a glorification of human life and the highest order of pure emotional expression along with the written word, oral history, poetry, painting and sculpture. I love all forms music and one of my favorite forms is the love song.

There must be reason for the enduring popularity of love songs
It could be the love song represents an intrinsic biological task to merge with others. And by merging ensure the survival of our species or maybe is fills our senses and lifts our spirits an imperfect world. Cloe Madanes once said that the perspective of a thoughtful and intelligent person is melancholia. Makes sense to me. Love songs often carry that type of dialectic of opposing forces - oneness is bliss; separation is dangerous.

Here is a non-definitive list of my favorite love songs.
Remember…

One of the most to soulful and timeless Beatle love songs is In My Life. The lyrics bear repeating. John Lennon sings:

There are places I remember all my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With Lovers and Friends I still recall
Some are dead and some are living
In My Life I’ve loved them all

But of all these friends and lover
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more


Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys created a masterpiece in 1966 when he penned God Only Knows with guest lyricist Tony Asher. The music is lush yet understated. The complicated melodic structure and harmonics perfectly underscore the message of a deeply felt love. Wilson on utilized a harpsichord and French horns on the song, instruments not typically associated with a rock & roll band. He was only 23 years old at the time


I may not always love you
But as long as there are skies above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you

If you should ever leave me
Life would still go on believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I’d be without you



The Association is a great vocal band from the sixties/seventies.
Never My Love was released in 1967 and went up to #2 in the Billboard charts. BMI has credited the songs with the second most airplay in the 20th century for good reason, It is a great song:

You ask me if there’ll come a time
When I’ll grow tired of you
Never My Love
Never My Love

You wonder if this heart of mine
Will lose its desire for you
Never my love
Never my love

What makes you think love will end
When you know that my whole life depends
On you
Never My Love
Never My Love


Everything that Touches You goes a little bit deeper:

In my most secure moments I still can’t believe
I’m spending those moments with you
And the ground I am walking, the air that I breathe
Are shared at those moments with you

You love for real
You show the feel
Of everything that touches you

In the songs I’ve been singing quite often a phrase
Comes close to the feeling of you
But I never suspected that one of those days
The wish of the song would come true

You love for real
You show the feel
Of everything that touches you

You are of gracefulness, you are of happiness
You are what I would guess to be most like
What I’ve been singing in of
Love, Love , Love


Cole Porter wrote sophisticated jazzed up love songs such as I Get a Kick Out of You. It was featured in the Broadway musical Anything Goes but the definitive “hip” reading came from Frank Sinatra:

I get no kick in a plane
Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do
But I get a kick out of you

Some get a kick from cocaine
I’m sure that if
I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrifically, too
Yet, I get a kick out of you

One of my favorite obscure love songs is Can’t Find the Time to Tell You by Orpheus. It has a beautiful melody and sung in a clear baritone by leader Bruce Arnold.
Ba da da da da da
I Can’t Find the Time To Tell You

I look at your pretty face
And I fall in love with you
Fall in love with you
Every time I see you, yeah

Nightgowns of regal lace
That are flowin’ to the ground
Flowin’ to the ground
In a mist around you

OK – you had to be there,



Ray Davies wrote the definitive rock & roll love song in 1968 with his band the Kinks, Waterloo Sunset has a beautiful cascading sound and lyrics filled with longing and loneliness. Davies is experiencing love and contentment through watching two lovers escape from Waterloo to the other side of the River Thames

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright

But I don't feel afraid
As long as I gaze at
Waterloo sunset
I am in Paradise

Every day I look at the world
From my window
[| From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/k/kinks-lyrics/waterloo-sunset-lyrics.html |]
Chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset's fine

Terry meets July
Waterloo station
Every Friday night
But I'm so lazy don't want to wander
I stay at home with dad

But I don't feel afraid
As long as I gaze at
Waterloo sunset
I am in Paradise
Waterloo sunset's fine

Evanescence “My Immortal” is a triumph, a song of incredible depth and power about love, pain and loss:

I’m so tired of being here
Because your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone

These wounds won’t seem to heal
The pain is just to real
There is just too much that time cannot erase

I have tried hard to tell myself that you are gone
But though you are still with me


The Proclaimers wrote a different kind of love song. Some may not view it as such but I do. For my wife and I, it’s “OUR SONG”. I dig the incessant beat and irreverent lyrics - it is simply irresistible. Here’s a sample lyric:

And I would walk 500 hundred miles
And I would walk 500 hundred more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

When I’m lonely, well I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man who’s lonely without you
And when I’m dreaming, well you know I’m gonna dream
I’m gonna dream about the time I’m with you
When I go out (when I go out), well I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man that goes along with you
And when I come home (when I come home), yes I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man that comes back home with you
I’m gonna be the man who’s coming home to you


The most tender love song I’ve ever heard is the quirky For Emily Wherever I May Find Her. The lyrics evoke poetic images are both obscure and sensuous. It has a dreamlike quality that underscores an existential loneliness. Art Garfunkel’s voice is heavenly.
What a dream I had
dressed in organdy
clothed in crinoline
of smoky burgundy
softer than the rain

I wandered empty streets down
past the shop displays
I heard cathedral bells
dripping down the alley ways
as I walked on

and when you ran to me
your cheeks flushed with the night
we walked on frosted fields
of juniper and lamplight
I held your hand

and when I awoke
and felt you warm and near
I kissed your honey hair
with my grateful tears
oh, I love you
oh, how I love you, girl
Eminem’s Love the Way You Lie is a tortured confessional. It’s Eminem’s voice throughout the breathtaking pounding rap. The minor key bridge sung by Rihanna, Eminem’s alter ego. This is about a deep abiding yet tortured love. It’s too strong, too possessive to survive.
Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now there's a steel knife
In my windpipe
I can't breathe
But I still fight
While I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right
It's like I'm in flight
High of a love
Drunk from the hate
It's like I'm huffing paint
And I love it the more that I suffer
I suffocate
And right before I’m about to drown
She resuscitates me
She fucking hates me
And I love it
Wait
Where you going
I'm leaving you
No you ain't
Come back
We're running right back
Here we go again
It's so insane
Cause when it's going good
It's going great
I'm Superman
With the wind in his bag
She's Lois Lane
But when it's bad
It's awful
I feel so ashamed
I snap
Who's that dude
I don't even know his name
I laid hands on her
I'll never stoop so low again
I guess I don't know my own strength

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie


Now it’s time ladies and gentlemen. For my favorite romantic love songs of all time. Drum roll please…

Johnny Mathis. Wonderful Wonderful. Mathis’ silky smooth vibrato and crystal clear diction is a perfect accompaniment to this jazzed up pop masterpiece. He recorded this song in 1956. Sherman Edwards composed the music and Ben Raleigh wrote the lyrics. The legendary Gil Evans was involved in the arrangement.

Sometimes we walk hand in hand by the sea
And breathe in the cool salty air
You turn to me with a kiss in your eyes
And my heart feels a thrill beyond compare
Then your lips cling to mine
It’s Wonderful, Wonderful
Oh so wonderful my love

Sometimes we stand on top of the hill
And we gaze at the earth and the sky
I turn to you and you melt in my arms
There we are darling only you and I
What a moment to share
It’s wonderful, wonderful
Oh, so wonderful my love

The world is filled with wondrous things, it’s true
But they wouldn’t have much meaning, without you

Some quiet evenings I sit by your side
And we’re lost in a world of our own
I feel the glow of your unspoken love
I’m aware of the treasures that I own
And I say to myself it’s wonderful, wonderful
Oh, so wonderful my love!


Happy Valentines Day
Love
Bo

2010 Musical Highlights: Tales of Technology And The Ascendance of the Middle Class Musician

This was a year of sentinel events that had less to do with music and more to do with technology. Still, the music of 2010 provided an exceptional soundtrack to a country divided along racial, political and class lines. I believe that some of the best music created in the USA never gets released and if it is released, it’s seldom heard by a mass audience. There are exceptions. Lada Gaga’s Bad Romance is an excellent post-Madonna effort filled up with glitz and glamour and high arousal sensuality and Love the Way You Lie has this minor chord bridge sung with just the right nuance by Rihanna with a sharp segue to Eminem’s emotional rap. It is filled with longing and confusion. It’s real - perhaps the best executed performance of the year, if not the decade. Kanye West may argue otherwise as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a stone classic. West is a gloriously demented genius who gets better with each passing year.

Rolling Stone published Jonathon Cott’s long abandoned interview of John Lennon in its December 23, 2010/January 6, 2011 issue. Lennon talked with Cott for over nine hours – just three days before he died. As I read I could sense an audible silence like walking alone through a field of green grass on a sunny day. I miss Lennon and to hear his voice jump off the written pages was an extraordinary experience. I could hear him speak through the stillness.
Thank you Rolling Stone

I grieved the death of Alex Chilton on March 17th, 2010. He was a founding member of the Box Tops and Big Star and he released several spectacular yet uneven solo albums from the seventies until the time of his death. He was a true disciple of original music whether it was rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, or power pop. He was a chameleon of the first order.

And…Ok.. I like California Gurls ‘cos Katy Perry is a hot Lolita and I get all juiced up whenever I hear the song. Bubblegum has never died no matter what the genre – just listen to eeny meanie miny mo lover. It’s so subliminally seductive that you may find yourself singing the chorus even though you hate it. But that’s the allure of bad music. It’s like the cult movies of the fifties and sixties – Planet 9 from Outer Space or the 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (the only film written by Dr. Seuss, thank god) – they are so excruciatingly bad, they’re good…maybe.

The deluxe reissues of The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street, Lennon’s stripped down Double Fantasy and Springsteen’s Darkness at the Edge of Town were like manna sent from heaven. Glorious. If only Rhino or some other reissue dudes could do it up right for The Beau Brummels. Speaking of reissues, my favorite local sixties band The Bossmen are getting a deluxe treatment with a 26 page booklet extensive liner notes, rare photos and three tracks unearthed by our bootleg friends @ Big Beat Records including a slowed down horn based version of I Cannot Stop You (a hit for the Cherry Slush), Easy Way Out and Listen My Girl. It’s scheduled for a 2011 release that will coincide with Dick Wagner autobiography entitled Not Only Women Bleed.

Locally we had a mixed bag musically. Some really great moments of creativity and rebirth mixed with the stasis of cover bands and karaoke.

Saginaw cannot be denied its birthright. We’ve always been wild and wooly. We’ve known hard times before. From the lumberjack days in the 1800’s, prohibition in the thirties, reform in the forties and the unrest and racial strife in the sixties, Saginaw has always fought with itself and today’s conditions seem only too familiar – a sagging economy, poverty and high unemployment. Such extreme misery has affected everything in Saginaw from crime, violence, to protest, the mobilization of neighborhoods and the faith based community and the Arts. Struggle seems to light the fire of our creative passions. Like a scorned lover, our musicians have sublimated their anger and sorrow and immersed themselves into their craft to create some of the best music on the planet.

Thick As Thieves have ascended to the top of the heap with a hybrid of rock, rap and soul that is uniquely their own. Sprout has emerged from an almost year long incubation of refining their vision and creating a new musical persona. The Tosspints have more edge than Burroughs - they are phenomenal. The Thunder Chickens squawk and cluck but continue to make great music and theater and garner an impressive following in towns and cities beyond our shallow borders. Melissa May is a force of nature! The Banana Convention is one of the most innovative bands in the area - they rock hard. Shar Molina is one of the premier vocalists in mid-Michigan. You’ve come along way, baby.
Tim Avram's Elastic fantastic acoustic auto erotic folk punkish rock & roll vision is our saving grace - modern spirituals with one foot in hell. Listen to the gospel. Brody and the Busch Road Trio are displaced Frankenmuth natives that are making a name for themselves. They are close musical cousins to the incredible Honky Tonk Zeros. Silverspork is a one of a kind metal band – smart, sexy and political with a little religion on the side - one of the best bands around. Tension Head is still #1 - OH YEAH! And the world is a better place because of the The Bearinger Boys’ vision and courage to tell it like it is. Matt Heller aka DJ Snakes almost single handedly brought back Hip Hop to Saginaw. Bobby Balderama, the legendary guitarist of Question Mark & the Mysterians, took everyone by surprise when he re-imagined the Mysterians as a cool jazz band.
The result was simply breathtaking. Diversity is the word - it is our heritage.

Perhaps the biggest issue in 2010 is the health of the music business. As it has been pointed out by several pundits in the last few years it’s not the music business that is dying. It is the CD business. Several factors are at work, including the decline in the popularity of the compact disc format, shrinking sales due to digital download services and file sharing, shifting business models and the rise of independent retailers. Ironically, this may create opportunity for our local bands to reach out to a national spotlight through technological advances in delivering music to their fans. This should reduce artists need to sign to a major label for financing and exposure.

In a recent interview Ian Rogers, the former head of Yahoo Music, responded to the fact that sales of CDs declined as the sales of digital files continued to spiral upward: “The lamenting we read in the press is not the story of the new music business. Continuing to talk about the health of the industry in these terms is as if we’d all been crying about the dying cassette business in 1995.”
He goes on to argue for a broader middle class of musicians who can support themselves – to make a living – by using the web to promote their music, live performances and merchandise. This would cause a power shift from labels to artists and create conditions for greater consumer choice.
In an article on the CNN Entertainment site entitled, Is the Death of the CD Looming?, Lisa Respers France noted that the Nielson SoundScan data revealed a sharp drop of CD sales from 147 million last July to 114 million as of July 2010. In 2007 CDs accounted for 90 percent of album sales with digital files accounting for the remaining 10 percent. By 2009 the figures shifted to 79 percent for CDs and 20 percent for digital downloads.
France quotes Billboard Senior Chart Manager Keith Caulfield: “Vinyl was the predominant configuration in the 50’s and 60’s all the way up through the 80’s and then cassettes became the predominant format in the early to mid 80’s to the very early 90’s. Then CDs became the predominant format and cassettes didn’t really go away until a few years ago. It’s a kind of natural progression, to a degree.”
Caufield sees the benefit of digital downloads as they can meet a demand almost instantaneously. He observed that a show like Glee or American Idol make songs instant hits because fans “have already heard and liked the song by the time they download it.”

The music industry is struggling with how music files can be safely stored. A recent article in Rolling Stone, File Not Found: The Record Industry’s Digital Storage Crisis by David Browne warns consumers that digital files are an unsafe storage medium and efforts to restore classic albums by the Cult and The Wallflowers were thwarted by missing data – entire tracks had disappeared! The Cult’s 1985 album Love contained only 80% of the album.
Browne advises us to back up our files on an external hard drive as Hard Drives do fail. He also suggests using quality files such as Apple Lossless and backing up your music on remote online “cloud” systems such as Carbonite.
Oh, and another thing - keep your CDs. Most discs in your collection should last another 30 years. Also…you should never throw away your vinyl collection. You should give it to me.

It is no wonder that the Music Industry is reconsidering its delivery system – how to get music to the consumer. It is a big issue locally. Recently I met with Sean Drysdale, the erstwhile monster bassist for the Banana Convention. We talked about the state of the music industry and the death of the Compact Disc. According to Sean, nobody really wants CDs anymore. He feels CDs are obsolete in the face of new technology – they just don’t give you a bang for your buck or the kind of musical experience sophisticated audiophiles demand. Sean gave this yellow thumb drive shaped like a banana. I inserted it into my USB port and like Alice peering through the Looking Glass I was transported to a magical land of color, music, videos, and photographs. I was able to see, hear and witness Banana Convention’s performances on the Warped Tour and their great show at Bemos. Links to You Tube will connect fans to other obscure BC performances. I listened to their incredible catalog of recorded music including Live @ White’s, Dirty Negatives, Freeze Dried Eclectic Singles, and Taking Back the Fun, and From the Vault (random singles, demos and rare tracks). The Banana Convention is certainly on to something incredibly daring. This multi-media presentation of all their “stuff” was blow-me-away impressive and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to produce - if you don’t include all the expense of making the CDs, art and video production. BC charges only $10 and it includes periodic updates of new content such as the recent uploads of new photos and a great Christmas track, The Bells Will Be Ringing. It’s like having a complete vinyl collection of your favorite artist.

The slow death of the compact disc format will no doubt make small and independent labels more powerful but the CD is not yet down for the count. CDs still make a whopping 7 billion a year. Not too shabby. The big companies are like Wall Street hustlers bidding up on derivatives. They have no clear vision and they aren’t grasping the big issues. It’s like the Titanic boldly cruising in the mid-Atlantic waters, gauging a successful passage in deep waters with state of the art equipment only to scrape past the tip of the iceberg and sink ignominiously. The big companies don’t know how to deal with the advent of file sharing, the growing influence of middle class musicians, and shifting egalitarian business models. The independents are ascending to the thrown.

The King is Dead. Long Live the King

Peace
Bo White

Silverspork - A Release of An Oath

Listening to this new Silverspork CD is like opening a door to a blast furnace and basking in the heavy metal blaze as it seers your brain and melts your face. This band has the raw power of Iggy & the Stooges, the intensity of Eminem, the healing and prophecy of Bob Marley and the lucid political analysis of Noam Chomsky. This is post apocalypse gospel music that leads through the heart of darkness and into the light. Silverspork is like an eternal knight of the senses creating words, images and music that pulsates to the rhythm of the streets. Brian Gretzinger is the singer and lyricist and his songs are pocket essays on the crisis of materialism and the emptiness of modern life. Carl Abila is gifted guitarist who can sustain a stroke of pure thunder and explore up and down the neck like he’s making wild passionate love to a rock & roll goddess. The drummer/percussionist Mario Salcedo is power personified with lightening quick wrists that sets the frantic pace without skipping a beat. Jay Burk fills out the lineup on bass. He’s a monster and his contribution cannot be overstated. A heavy band like Silverspork requires a bottom that comes on strong and Burks is one of the best. He and Salcedo are integral to the overall sound. This disc is an act of courage in its honest depiction of our current hypermasculine, business-led culture.

The Matrix to the Occipital Lobe opens with a metal riff that attacks the body like a slug to the chest. The lyrical themes reveal a fictional universe that appears more real than our own sad reality. Spiritual metaphors are prominent – a portal to the other side, a tunnel that holds the light. In this alternate universe psychedelics are a sacrament and reality is multidimensional. This is a trip you need to take with a seasoned astral traveler. The Spork hits it hard with a sound that is an unrelenting G- force attack that fills the senses to overload until your salivating and begging for more like Fonda taking on # 19 while salivating for # 20 during her final blaze of glory in the Mekong Delta. Mastodon is a clear-eyed nightmarish vision about the end of an empire. The rot has set in and the social control agents are spoon feeding us propaganda through television, pharmaceuticals, marketing, and religion. It is really the ancient allegory of David & Goliath. Our government, led by the educated and elite – the stooges of Wall Street, is crushing us like a mastodon. It controls our thoughts and kills our soul. Gretzinger sings his ass off, sounding like Michael Stipes on the verses and an enraged Roky Erickson on the chorus.

Resilience is the angriest and most political cut on the CD. It hits the mark, an unwavering bullseye on political corruption. Abila’s spoken word verses provide the context to Gretzingers impassioned singing on the bridge and chorus:
Abila: The perpetuation of fear as a means of control is governed by the subjugation of the masses through illusory lies, war, disease, famine, Godlessness, Immorality, prescription drugs, and murder at all levels.
Gretzinger: Resilience and Integrity; It’s all part of the anarchy
Sieg Heil; Sieg Heil!
Powerful – a masterful expose of the fall and decline of the American Empire.

Apparatus rocks like there is no tomorrow. It is a relentless sonic assault with interesting if not obscure lyricism. Gretzinger seems to be writing about love and sex – the somewhat typical and mundane psychosexual dramas that occur on mainstreet. Boy meets girl. Their reptilian brains are activated and the game is on. A deeper meaning is hidden beneath the sensual glow of the lyrics that evokes a more personal vulnerability around the trappings of the music industry, the whims of the critics and tastemakers, and the elusive lucky break. Music is the apparatus. Success is the aphrodisiac.

X-Set opens with just a hint of a metalized My Sharona riff (borrowed several times over from Richard Berry’s 1955 classic Louie Louie) and Gretzinger’s soulful singing. The lyricism is sheer poetry. Thematically precise and lyrically impassioned, the song rolls and thunders with the uncertainty of sudden changes and personal growth through acceptance of pain and sorrow. Splendor is elusive and it’s difficult to be impressive when you’re filled up with doubt. This is a prayer for love and salvation and a tale of human suffering.

Rake opens with a quiet electric/acoustic guitar riff and cymbal play that lulls the listener into a false sense of security. Gretzinger’s muscular tenor reveals an impressive range and control. He can sustain his pitch and then leap to another octave. The music shifts suddenly to a heavy metal industrial blast with savage drums and full-bodied machine gun guitar riffs that recall the best instincts of Randy Rhodes riding Ozzy’s Crazy Train. Bassist Burks is no slouch, in fact he’s rock solid and able to anchor the rhythm section despite the huge wall of sound. The song covers a lot of ground asking questions that have no definitive answers - from alien sightings to the Big Bang and a belief in God. A powerful wall-of-sound unison chorus bolsters Gretzinger’s vision and message. It’s a dialectical dilemma
Stand up, sit down
Put your feet back on the ground
Stand Back. Shut Up
Well, don’t you make a sound…NO
<

Benzene is a warning about the prospects of never ending war and a nuclear winter. Gretzinger decries this holocaust created by states and governments that have no legitimacy to subjugate its citizens. It is a frightening vision…Abila counts it down
1212 TEST
1212 PUSH
Gretzinger sings, “Red buttons that destroy sandboxes”
A prescription for extinction.

Herman is an updated version of a modern Narcissus who is prone to excessive masturbation and an abiding indifference to other’s rights. Herman is a predator who seeks out and exploits the vulnerable. There are more than a few Hermans out there and this angry metal diatribe enlists a dark seething humor to convey and important message about people who forget about value and decency. Some see him as an incubus. Others see him as a genius. Gretzinger is right we hold both the anger and the antidote.

Explosive Bonham-like Zeppelin drumming and a insistent pulsating bass line create the soundscape for Fratricide, a searing tale of betrayal and the broken bonds of brotherhood. The cutoff is complete and the brothers hurt each other in absence of any reasonable strategy to reconnect. Acceptance is the only way out of hell and letting go is the only path to healing. Another great Silverspork song.

InJusta sounds like U2 before the cowboy hats and shades. This is an incredible piece of music with several tempo changes (a Silverspork trademark), explosive drumming, masterful guitar work (hail Abila), tight edits, and the world class vocal gymnastics of Brian Gretzinger. The lyrics speak to the false messages created by the mass media and our consumer culture. Marketing is now the central vehicle to create interest around a brand or product from automobiles, and oatmeal to political candidates. Marketers hire actors to tell lies about a product, as in the Vote For Change campaign that helped catapult Barack Obama to office. A second important message is that we humans have value simply by “being”. It informs the very nature of our existence, that no one is disposable. Silverspork is right. We are the proof. God loves theatre.

Gretzinger sturdy tenor trembles in The Lease as he struggles with a spiritual longing and his struggle between hope and despair. It is his vision quest. The divine is calling out and it can be experienced even when his faith is tested by a profound loneliness and a felt sense of “I don’t know who I am.” A revelation, a smile inward and love, imbedded in his heart unfolds and fills the singer with serenity and healing. A prophecy is restored and a spirit is leased in this temporary vessel. The album was recorded at Random Awesome Recording Studio in Bay City. In the next month Silverspork will be playing weekend gigs in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois before returning to Mid-Michigan to perform shows @ The Hamilton Street Pub and other great venues

You can purchase the new Silverspork CD online @ ITunes, Rhapsody, Napster, and Amazon.

Peace
Bo White

Take That Back, Do the Rewind. The Party’s Poppin’ It’s Social Distortion

I really can’t say I disliked this show but it was a bit disappointing. I was led to believe or, that is, I wanted to believe I was shelling out my hard earned cash for an honest to god, root hog or die PUNK show. Instead I get some impolite rock & roll that is as far away from punk as polka is to cabaret. Don’t get me wrong, the bands were tight and the players are well traveled professionals, going through the motions and stepping on their marks, never missing a beat. But the energy level on the stage paled in comparison to the heavy drinking, mosh pitting, crowd surfing audience. It was standing room only on the main floor and that allowed the crowd to form an amoeba-like living mass, pulsating and pushing each other to and fro - a sea of lunatics, a perfect storm. Bless their heart. I only wish I had the gumption to join them. It looks like fun to Daddy Bo, for sure.

My favorite band of the night was the opening act Frank Turner. He was a snotty British lad with a wicked sense of humor who threw out eff bombs like he was swatting flies and lifted his middle finger with the ease of a seasoned professional. He was like a drunken Ray Davies all Kinked up and telling his brother and the crowd to kiss his ass. He played acoustic guitar throughout his brief set and acknowledged his allegiance to the punk spirit by saying that he only plays folk music in order to destroy it from within. I gotta respect that. He performed rock anthems and shuffles and sing-a-longs, a type of Music Hall Punk. He finished his portion of the show with a great chorus and we all joined in…

I won’t sit down
I won’t shut up
But most of all I won’t grow up

The second act Lucero just didn’t have the goods, the gris gris, the…well, they sucked, kind of. The vocalist sang like Springsteen with a bad case of laryngitis with no tone or pitch, just an unworldly frog-like croaking that was like nails on a chalkboard. This dude was killing my ears and I’m convinced he was singing in an alien language known only to Lucero and the Klingons. Yeah, but…it grows on you, until it’s annoying. There was a pedal steel player that was riffing like crazy but all his efforts were buried in the mix. Too bad. The crowd got heated up and restless during this set and a few fights broke out. For a minute I thought I was watching a Spirits game. Southern rock for the Jerry Springer crowd.

Finally…
By now the dawdling crowd packed the house, the main floor and the balcony. The audience was pumped, pulsating and boisterous. Sullen-looking security dudes could barely keep up with the tangle of bodies surfing up to the front of the stage. The energy was high as the anticipation reached a fever pitch and then - Social Distortion hit the stage, riffing with a heavy metal-amped up, body blasting sound. The vocal microphone produces a muffled sound and we don’t get a clear vocal from Mike Ness until the third song. Still something seemed amiss, the songs are well crafted but slowed down with no super-charged, rapid fire machine gun riffing. Ness did a little pirouette and jumped but he didn’t do it clean. He can’t seem to fly up into the air anymore – it’s like watching an old woman jog. Ness is beginning to show his age but he’s in shape and he is stocky like a body builder. His hair is cut short and he’s balding with a just a hint of a 5 ‘O clock shadow and a smug look on his face. I put on my glasses to get a good look at him. My god, Ness is...no he couldn’t be...yes he is - ERIC SCHANTZ. OMG - it’s like steppin’ in it and trying to scrap it off with a stick but there is still a little bit stuck in the crevices. But eventually I got over it. In fact, I even dug it ‘cos it made Ness more human and accessible. In between songs I yelled out SCHANTZ- HEY-SCHANTZ-ITS ME-BO-WHHADYA DOING but he never answered me. He just texted Laura Girl and the Muscle Man and told her to tell me to shaddup. But by then I was already distracted by this nabob in the aisle who puked up his last gulp of PBR and part of his lung as he stumbled down stairs to the main floor.

Ness was cool and calculated throughout the show. He was so cool that it took him longer to roll up the sleeves of his shirt than to sing the next song. With his clean shaven visage and dress-up white shirt and suspenders, Ness looked more like a Republican fundraiser than a punk rocker.

Social Distortion is no longer a punk band but they are rockers. They did their hits and concert staples - The Creeps, King of Fools, Story of My Life, Ring of Fire, Mommy’s Little Monster as well as new songs such as Alone and Forsaken, Still Alive, Bakersfield, and Machine Gun Blues. My favorite Social Distortion song, Ball and Chain, was slowed down and beefed up and had a cumbersome, dirge like quality like the sound of a boat dredging sludge out of the Saginaw River. Nearby a forty-something bleach blond was freakin’ to the song. It could be an embarrassing moment or a simple act of letting go and having fun. I chose the latter. It’s never too late to get your freak on and have a good time.

Social Distortion does not sound like a punk band anymore. Instead they are a hard working touring band of professional musicians who put on a good show. They play the hits but they also perform new material with an updated sound. They are scheduled to release a new CD, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, on January 18th, 2011 while on an extended tour across the USA and Australia.

So… the story, the real story was the people in the crowd. All those incredible 40 year old fans, punked up and altered, dancing and crowd surfing and acting the fool may be hubris but then again it just may be good clean fun. The reverie of these unselfconscious music lovers inspired me to be more aware of my own body and my energy. They opened me up to a sense of spaciousness that’s been in hibernation for several years. Toward the end of the show I nodded off briefly and awoke with a start. Life lessons can occur in the most unlikely places.

Peace
Bo White