Tag Archives: Rock

Celebrate the Racoon Wedding

16 Sep

Racoon Dead on the Side of the Road

Add one more notch on Brantford, Ontario’s belt. The city is the birthplace of Wayne Gretzky and Phil Hartman, and it is where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It also houses the six members of the rising Indie/Rock band Racoon Wedding.  Racoon can be spelled with one C or two. I thought I’d obviate the spelling lesson.

Racoon Wedding is the music equivalent of what I would expect a raccoon wedding to be like: electric eccentricity, amicable drunkenness, poppy humor, and, most importantly, horn-fueled raccoon love. So, yeah, that odd comparison holds true for the sextet from telephone city.

Come tomorrow with the release of the new LP, Racoon Dead on the Side of the Road, the band will have successfully depicted the joy of raccoon passion and friendship (which the name of the band implies) and the harsh inevitability of death at the hand of a metal box traveling at speeds no raccoon can match. Who knew that they were a concept band?

All kidding aside, I’ve grown attached to the bluesy, Dr. Dog/Kay Kay and the Weathered Underground quirkiness and musical whimsicality of Racoon Wedding. With some bands (and I could feel this prior to watching the buddy/buddy bacchanal video below), you just know that friends are making music. And not like friends until some success presents itself and then “I’m going solo” becomes an overplayed comment. Friends who are friends who happen to make good music and have fun doing it. This comes through in the tunes, and it is one heck of a positive with Racoon Wedding.

The band is haphazardly touring throughout Ontario, but I do hope this post helps give them some more play in the States. Fraternal harmonies, New Orleans horns, and pop rhythms, when mixed effectively tend to engender popularity, and I predict good things for Racoon Wedding in the future.

The opening piano riff plays like a more bluesy version of a Jukebox the Ghost piece. The lead vocal is course-grained with a hint of southern cooking. The harmonies come from all angles and are extremely effective. Throw in some drunken horns (in the best possible way) and a taste of jazz/ragtime/period drums and you have a great song. Make sure to check out the rest of the album. Here is some information

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Tubthumping – One-Hit Wonders

4 Sep
If you were cognizant in the late 90s, this creepy baby is implanted in your mind

If you were cognizant in the late 90s, this creepy baby is implanted in your mind

Oh yeah, the “I get knocked down” song. I remember that one. Wasn’t that by Chumbawamba, or something like that? I guarantee that if you are a product of the 90s (like me) you took one look at the purple baby with the huge mouth and thought of taking a “vodka drink” and a “whiskey drink.” Chumbawamba’s 1997 classic “Tubthumping” left an indelible mark on our impressionable minds for better or for worse. While some argue that the song is trash, I’m here to defend its merit as one of the better one-hit wonders.

First, Chumbawamba. Did you know that the band was active for 30 years before breaking up in 2012. 30 years. Yes, that means the British punk band had been together for 15 years prior to the release of “Tubthumping.” Many forget – or didn’t know – that Chumbawamba was a protest band at heart. Most of the band’s music focused on issues like animal rights, class struggle, and feminism, etc. –  the word “tubthumper” is used to describe someone who often jumps on the bandwagon with populist ideas. Thus, the band’s cumulative lyric is far more deep than “He sings the songs that remind him of the good times. He sings the songs that remind him of the best times.” But, it is the simple lyric of the late 90s mega-hit that helped draw so many listeners in.

As a group of talented musicians, though, they could not resist the temptation to sample a few Easter eggs for the careful listener. The “Danny Boy” reference is explicit, but at the end of the song the trumpet samples Clarke’s “Prince of Denmark’s March.” But, let’s be honest, the reason the song gained such immense popularity was because of its repetitive, punk-fueled chorus that proved to be beyond infectious. I can’t imagine many who have not hummed the beat to themselves during the reading of this post.

And that is why “Tubthumping” should be praised. The song has tremendous lasting power. Some may consider that feature to be a grand part of its “annoying” factor, but I think that earworm power cannot be overstated. Plus, come on, it’s not like many songs today that lay down a simple percussion track and a catchy synthesizer riff to maximize catchiness and listens. There are legitimate elements to “Tubthumping.” Enjoy!

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“There will always be a place for rock music!” – Carousels and Limousines Interview

19 Jul

Last week, we brought you Carousels and Limousines, a British rock band with an American heart. This week, their lead singer Sam Gotley tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the band.

 

You’re a British band with a very American sound. Was that a conscious decision?

No, not at all. We just write songs similar to music that we love which are bands like The Doors, Springsteen, Gaslight Anthem and the Rolling Stones. I guess when you listen to a lot of one type of music a bit of it rubs off on you!

 

What inspired your band to start making music together?

A mutual love of music and to be honest I think we were pretty bored in our early twenties. Finn moved in with me and Jay when we lived in Manchester and we started jamming and having a good laugh so we decided to start a band.

You say you’ve started writing songs for your next album; how will these be different from your songs on Home to Andy’s?

Well it’s early days yet, but we think our new stuff will be more characteristic of our live sound, and perhaps a little rowdier in places, also expect some big drum beats!

 

Are you more confident playing live shows know you have a whole album out?

Probably, we’ve played the songs enough times in the studio that we should be! But it’s also nice to know that fans have been listening to your album and know more of your songs when you turn up and play.

 

Looking at the Top 40, it is mostly filled with hip hop and boy bands; is there still a place for traditional rock band in today’s music scene?

There will always be a place for rock music. People blabber on about rock being dead and no good bands being around, but look at festival line-ups over summer and I guarantee 80% of the headline acts will be rock bands, because they’ve got the songs and the stamina to play long shows into the late evening. You ain’t gonna find Carly Rae Jepson or Bieber doing a 3 hour set to close out Glastonbury!

 

Finally, which song would you say you’re most proud of and why?

Probably ‘Greasy Hands’ because you really need to listen to the lyrics to work out what it’s about – it’s fun hearing people’s interpretation of it. And it’s also a bit of a challenge to play live.

If you want to know more about the band, you can find their website here or their Facebook page here. They will be playing a variety of gigs around London and Bristol this summer.

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Airborne Toxic Event – Summerstage Preview

10 Jun

Airborne Toxic Event

There are many reasons to like Airborne Toxic Event. As I have written in the past, the band plays an infectious alt/rock style that pulls influences from the 80s and mixes these influences with theatrical vocals and riffs. This amalgamation creates an intriguing aura of orchestral sound that echoes and pulses.

The music is also “smart” rock. It’s a neoteric genre. Let’s be honest; a lot of music today is, well, nescient – intellectually dumbed down for an audience that just wants to hear a consistent beat. That is not to say that the producers and creators of the music are unintelligent – they are simply playing to what will make money. But Airborne Toxic Event is different. The band is made up of uber-talented musicians who understand how to mix “smart” rock with infectious rhythms.

I initially became interested in the band because of lead vocalist Mikel Jollett. Jollett, a fiction and freelance writer, began seriously writing songs after a string of moribund events in his life. He named the band after a tremendous section of my favorite Don DeLillo book “White Noise.” The life-altering events that engendered the band’s creation are similar to “The Airborne Toxic Event” portrayed in DeLillo’s masterpiece. Thus, as a writer, Jollett’s lyrics are laden with symbolism and passion.

The Airborne Toxic Event, fresh off the release of its new album Such Hot Blood, will join a large Summerstage crowd in Central Park (5th Avenue and 72nd Street entrance) on June 18. Best of all – the concert is FREE. Yes, free as in no money. The band will be joined by The Calder Quartet, a LA-based string quartet, who have been called “outstanding” and “superb” by the New York Times. So, yeah, free Airborne Toxic Event show with The Calder Quartet in Central Park – you should probably come.

“The Fifth Day” is one of my favorite songs off of the new album. The song features one of my favorite Airborne Toxic Event elements. The music is almost subtle. While you can drown in the elaborate instrumentals and production, the music progressively rises and falls like waves before ultimately crescendoing. In this case, the music perfectly matches the melancholic lyric.

Check out more about the Airborne Toxic Event and don’t forget to keep track of the diverse Summerstage schedule!

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Turn Out the Light – Ray Manzarek

23 May
Ray Manzarek

Ray Manzarek

I was shocked when I heard Ray Manzarek passed away earlier this week. Really shocked. Still sort-of shocked. As I was listening to some musicians reflect on the tremendous career of the former Doors’ keyboardist, I tried to understand why I was so surprised. He was 74. In 2013 that is young, but he did fight a long battle with cancer. I think my shock was a product of a Manzarek-Krieger concert I saw at the NYCB Theater at Westbury in 2011. I had seen them once before with my father and brother when Manzarek and Robby Krieger went by the moniker Riders on the Storm. Considering that Riders on the Storm sounds like a cheesy cover band, it is probably a good thing the formers Doors’ members chose a band name of their last names.

Not many people know (or can envision) that The Doors played Westbury Music Fair (the former name of the current NYCB Theater). The Doors, one of the most celebrated and influential rock bands to come out of the 1960s, played a small venue less than a 5k from my house. Manzarek and Krieger celebrated their grand return to Westbury by recreating the set list from their April, 1968 show. It was electric. At the conclusion of the effervescent concert, the band played “Light My Fire.” Here is what I wrote about it back in 2011.

“Think of everything you love about The Doors – the energy, sexiness, ruthlessness, originality, togetherness – and throw it into a pot of boiling liveliness and love. Let that boil for around a 20-minute epic performance of “Light My Fire” that neared mystical levels and you have a great performance. Manzarek stood up from his stool, kicked it over, and swiftly put his right foot on the keyboard! 72 years old, my ass.”

That’s why I am still so surprised. His vivaciousness was striking. His effusive passion for the music was alive and well. While Jim Morrison was the soul of The Doors, Ray Manzarek was the mad genius behind the scenes concocting keyboard riffs on his Vox Continental. But when he got out on stage, it was clear that Manzarek was in love with the music the band was creating. If you have been listening to any of the eulogies of Manzarek over the past few days, I am sure you have heard words like “genius” and “master.” Sometimes these words are thrown around loosely. In the case of Manzarek, though, it would be unwise to understate his musical ability and perspicacity. Every member of the Doors was supremely talented. That is one reason why the band created keen, genre-bending music that appealed to the masses and maintained its canny flavor. But, if it weren’t for Manzarek’s proficiency with the breathy and psychedelic Vox Continental combo organ, low-pitched keyboard bass, and other keys, we may not be speaking about the Doors.

I include “Light My Fire” not because it is my favorite Doors song (that title is reserved for “Roadhouse Blues” or “Waiting for the Sun”) but because of the renowned organ intro. It is arguably one of the best known keyboard riffs ever. It is a riff of pure afflatus. While this may sound overly simplistic, there is just something so introductory about it. Without the riff, the song would not have the same potency. Manzarek’s work on keys on “Light My Fire” was a microcosm for how much he meant to the The Doors. As the elder statesman of the band, Manzarek also acted as an intellectual and sagacious force.

In the wise words of the Doors (from “When The Music’s Over” off of Strange Days):

So when the music’s over 
When the music’s over, yeah 
When the music’s over 
Turn out the lights

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