Music of the Moment – January 2019
If your New Year’s resolution is to find more amazing music, you’re in the right place. Check out this month’s Music of the Moment reviews by Iaan, then take a listen for yourself.
Artist: Molly Burch
Album: First Flower
Label: Captured Tracks
Molly Burch has a vocal range that mostly sits deep in her chest. With the barest trace of a lightly greased rockabilly singer she almost warbles, almost but never quite hiccups, but then she suddenly jumps into a high and crystalline lilt as if refining all those old vocal tricks and tics until what’s left is something new, something unheard before. There’s a certain air of detachment to First Flower. It’s love as untouchable as Holly Golightly; as delicate as cigarette smoke that looks so romantic shot in black and white between the fingers of the brokenhearted. It’s an album to listen to while reading Nathanael West, who, like Molly Burch didn’t “need to scream to get a point across.” Neither would bother.
Artist: Charles Bradley
Album: Black Velvet
Label: Daptone
One of the great retro-soul voices was prematurely silenced in 2017 with the passing of Charles Bradley. For fans of the Screaming Eagle of Soul Black Velvet is a welcome collection of unleased songs, covers, and singles that bookend his improbable career in a way that’s both sweet and touching. Backed by the Menahan Street Band, who fit his natural rhythms and gruff voice perfectly on the Neil Young classic “Heart of Gold” (those horns!) and Nirvana’s “Stay Away,” there’s much here to display his talents. There’s not necessarily new ground covered here, but it hardly matters. Bradley’s voice is so alive, so crackling that listening to the album it’s easy to forget that he’s gone. When he asks “what you gonna do with my heart?” it feels like a challenge, a passing of the torch to you and me. Handle it with care.
Artist: Jamie Lin Wilson
Album: Jumping Over Rocks
Label: Self
If you love, and perhaps have been missing, the dry voiced lyrics of past troubadours like Guy Clark and Joe Ely then you should check out Jamie Lin Wilson’s Jumping Over Rocks. High praise, indeed. But for her second solo album the songs crystalize beneath simple country arrangements and around her clear and bright Texas voice. This is country music about as far removed from the junky commercial fodder that sells out the stadiums as possible; raw, honest songs, that glitter like hard rocks against a desert landscape. If you know her at all, it may be from the Gougers or the Trishas, both fine bands, but maybe it’s the years or maybe it’s the miles, but the level of simple sophistication on this album showcases an artist with something to say about life who also has all the tools to say it right.
Artist: Jeff Tweedy
Album: Warm
Label: dBpm Records
Jeff Tweedy is one of those unlikely rock stars; often bespectacled and wearing a Stetson he looks more like your neighbor than a multiple Grammy winning raconteur of roots rock turned alt rock god. That’s what he undeniable is though. He’s like the Cubs of the rock world, a bit downtrodden, rumpled and still easy to forget they went and won the World Series a few years ago. Tweedy has also been a consistently great and inventive songwriter, even if the lyrics are sometimes murky. Warm is a companion to his recently published memoir Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), but it’s also a return to his earthier roots from his Uncle Tupelo days and first Wilco ventures A.M. and Being There. At times it feels wonderfully roughshod, an evening of music accidentally captured on tape. A return, yes, but not a step back.
Artist: Norma Waterson & Eliza Carthy
Album: Anchor
Label: Topic Record Limited
Under the category of ones that got away, comes the 2018 release Anchor. Mother and daughter duo, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy, both celebrated English folk musicians, team up once again for a surreal and beautifully unkempt collection of traditional songs, songs of the sea, and well placed covers. After their last album, 2010’s The Gift, Norma Waterson became gravely ill which left her in a coma. Since those darker day she has taught herself once again to walk and talk and, fortunately for us, to sing. The album begins with a cover of Tom Wait’s “Strange Weather,” which sets the vibe. From there we hear Nick Lowe’s “The Beast In Me,” perhaps most recently known by Johnny Cash’s version. The gender switch is poignant and bittersweet. On the other end of the cosmic spectrum comes a new interpretation of Eric Idle’s “The Galaxy Song,” which surely contains a few assorted meanings of life. There’s also a marvelous cover of the pop standard “Lost in the Stars.” Taken from the perfect voices of Abbey Lincoln and Frank Sinatra, Norma and Eliza reinterpret it into a barroom weeper, that could happily, if not a bit blearily, close out any night of revelry imaginable.
Sandy Macdonald
Early Tuesday morning, January 1st, much-loved KBCS family member, Sandy Macdonald, passed away unexpectedly.
Sandy grew up in Seattle an avid music fan of both folk and rock and roll. He studied Radio-TV-Film at UT-Austin, where he ran a camera on early Austin City Limits shows. After moving to Colorado he hosted folk music and jazz shows in Grand Junction. In 1991 Sandy returned to Seattle and began hosting the Lunch with Folks show.
Professionally, Sandy worked for 18 years in King County’s Office of Civil Rights and Open Government. He has been active in the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, a concert producer for The Seattle Folklore Society, and played guitar in the wonderful band Happy Campers. Yet, he never lost the passion to make great radio. For many years now, Sandy has hosted Sunday Folks, bringing to the show an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary folk musicians with a special emphasis on local music.
The first song Sandy played on our airwaves back in 1991 was Arlo Guthrie’s version of “City of New Orleans,” an artist that will surely make long-time Sandy fans smile. The last song he played was Anne & Pete Sibley’s version of “Silent Night,” on December 23rd. He was forever humble and gracious with his broadcasting and performing gifts and he will be deeply missed.
We will share memorial information here as it becomes available.
DJs’ Favorites for 2018
There are top ten lists and best of lists and then there’s the KBCS DJ Favorite’s list: check out over 200 of the best albums released in 2018! Find your favorite KBCS DJ’s list here.
Music of the Moment – December 2018
KBCS’s Gordon Todd recommends the new Iron & Wine, and the latest Beatles reissue. (more…)
Volunteer Spotlight – December 2018
Host: DJ Niko
Program: Nothing but 90s
How long have you volunteered at KBCS:
I’ve been a volunteer music host since 2013, spinning rock and roll records in early morning hours for years before winding up at the Tuesday 11 p.m. slot with my current show, Nothing But ’90s.
What was the first song you played on KBCS:
The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” from a live Lou Reed album—since my first show at the station, Art Rock Confidential, occupied the coveted Sunday 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. slot!
Your First Concert:
The Beach Boys, in full-on “Kokomo” revival mode, at the Jones Beach Theater on Long Island, New York.
What album do you own and love that would surprise your listeners:
A ten-disc vinyl boxset focused on the big bands and crooners of the 1940s. I blast enough alternative rock on the air and while preparing for my show; when I’m around the house, more often than not I’m listening to Benny Goodman or the Andrews Sisters.
What album changed your life:
Kid A by Radiohead. For late 90s alt-rock teenagers and young adults, this was the most hotly anticipated album ever. Word was Radiohead was changing everything. It leaked early on something called “the internet.” A friend of mine secured a copy from this mysterious “internet,” dubbed it to a cassette, and we all gathered around like the apes in 2001 to listen to what the obelisk had in store for us. And, somehow, it lived up to the hype—not by satisfying our desires, but by challenging our expectations. I doubt that I will ever be that excited by a new record like I was with Kid A. They stripped away basically all of the “rock band” b.s. and made a record that sounded like the future. It taught me an invaluable lesson about creativity. Real artists, the ones worth following for a lifetime, always push forward and never rest on their laurels—and there’s never been a less “resting on your laurels” record than Kid A.
Favorite KBCS Show (that’s not your own):
Chairman Moe’s 80s show on Wednesday nights. I love new wave, 80s indie and underground, postpunk, and good old-fashioned synthpop, and Moe has got me covered.
Volunteer Spotlight – November 2018
Mary Anne Moorman, aka, Auntmama
Host of Sunday Folks
How long have you volunteered at KBCS:
I’m going with 15 years cause I really can’t remember
What was the first song you played on KBCS:
The first story I told was Daddy Bird and segue was Little Birdie so Little Birdie off a Smithsonian Collection might be it as for Sunday Folks, Mark O’Connor’s Emily Reel…and been opening with it ever since or I’d never remember…repeat 15 years. Or was it 16?
Your First Concert:
I’m thinking the Louvin Brothers about 1952. A guy named Elvis opened for them—Roanoke American Legion Auditorium
Favorite Saturday Night Album:
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dead Heads, on KBCS Currently Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Bobbie Blue Bland oh and in order to have Sat night at home Dejah Leger’s Kids/Family and Lullabies
Favorite Sunday Morning Album:
Jimmy Rogers, Miss Kitty Wells, Kate Campbell, Dori Freeman, Johnny Cash (you didn’t mean just one?)
What album do you own and love that would surprise your listeners:
La Traviata or Carmen, Bach Cello Suites and on the flip side….Lusine, Fresh Espresso (Glamour), Tatum Greenblatt’ “Imprints”
Music of the Moment – November 2018
Recommended new releases from Elvis Costello, Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief), Portland R&B legend Ural Thomas, and more. (more…)
Music of the Moment – August 2018
Each month Iaan rounds up a handful of notable albums for review, then shares his thoughts with KBCS listeners. Here are Iaan’s picks for this month.
Artist: Kamasi Washington
Album: Heaven and Earth
Label: Shoto Mas
Kamasi Washington’s take on the Bruce Lee Fists of Fury theme is the cover you didn’t know you needed this summer. Complete with a pounding rhythm section from bassist Miles Mosley and twin drummers Tony Austin and Ronald Bruner Jr. who never forget to groove, to Washington’s own mind bending saxophone freak out, to the refrain “our time as victims is over / we will no longer ask for justice / instead we will take our retributions,” the song is nothing short of epic. Not just some weak plea for social justice, but a feet planted stance against oppression. And that’s just the first of sixteen songs. If you aren’t deeply immersed in Jazz, you may know, or at least have heard, Kamasi Washington through his work with Chaka Khan and Raphael Saadiq or on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.” Make no mistake, the album is long and at times unwieldy and overwhelming, but it is also at turns fiery, spiritual, and marvelously joyful.
Artist: Neko Case
Album: Hell-On
Label: Anti
It’s been five years since Neko Case has released a solo album – not that she hasn’t been busy with case/lang/veirs (both lang and Veirs make appearances on this record) and the New Pornographers – but still a welcome release from a favorite. Hell-On is musically dense and perhaps the closest an album has yet come to mixing the music with her voice, rather than beneath it. Taken as a listening tip, the murk creates an unblinking rawness, not confessional exactly, for that can come off as apologetic, but also not positioned as some sort of emotional outburst. Lyrically, even the dark stuff, is presented matter-of-fact, conversational. One of the album’s nice surprises is hearing her voice mix with Mark Lanegan on “Curse of the I-5 Corridor,” and then later with Eric Bachmann on his gorgeous “Sleep on Summer.” Set to the backdrop of her home burning down while she was working on the album, the songs on “Hell-On” take on a rich mythology of bad luck, our dysfunction with relationships, and even the classic lit. crit. people vs. nature theme. The album closes with the lines “When I am dark and I am down as dark and down as I am now / The only thing that makes me smile is to remember / That I’m beloved of the wild / And may you ever return /To the warmth of your species,” which is the best possible way to focus on the fade.
Artist: Alejandro Escovedo
Album: The Crossing
Label: Yep Roc
“I saw the Zeros and they looked like me / this is the America that I want to be…”sings Alejandro Escovedo on “Sonica USA.” Sure, The Zeros had two of Escovedo’s brothers in the band, but the deeper cultural mirror of the son of Mexican immigrants absorbed into a scene that reflected his own experiences cannot be denied. The Crossing is a concept album that traces the paths of two immigrants, one from Italy and one from Mexico, who meet while working in Texas restaurant. America, as it turns out, isn’t exactly the place they had dreamed about as they learn to navigate deeply entrenched racism. As the song “Something Blue” wryly alludes, even the hearts for sale in this America are broken before purchase. Musically, the album is mostly gritty and rockin’ with Alejandro Escovedo’s crunchy guitar chops in full display. A mixture of groovy garage rock organ and some blown brass snakes naturally through the songs grounding the music to its roots while giving it texture beyond just another rock record. Though guests like Joe Ely and James Williamson from the Stooges are pretty nice additions in their own right.
Artist: Amanda Shires
Album: To the Sunset
Label: Silver Knife
Amanda Shires’ fifth album To the Sunset shimmers and shakes unlike anything she’s released before. Her voice hasn’t lost the Texas just yet, but the album’s brooding toughness brings in a whole new world of song and texture and worldly experience. If you’re a longtime fan, it’s a moment to let go of those clunky pre-conceived notions of what she should do or sound like. Take it as a challenge. Start at the beginning – an unusual concept in this new (old) world of singles. Turn it up loud. Really loud. And then let it wash over you a couple times. We can’t say we weren’t warned: “I did a parking lot pirouette…I’m not done with you yet.'”
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Artist: Jerry Garcia
Album: GarciaLive Volume Ten: May 20th, 1990 Hilo Civic Auditorium
Label: JGF
The Jerry Garcia Band was always a more relaxed pop affair than the heady vibes of The Grateful Dead, never more on display than this sweet show from the Hilo Civic Center on the Big Island in 1990. With the usual mix of tasty covers like “Evangeline,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” originals like “Run for the Roses,” “Deal,” and a heavy dose of Dylan the two disc live set is energetic and bright. The interplay between Garcia and Melvin Seals’ masterful organ moves between groovy and rapturous. For long time fans it’s hard to argue that there’s anything new here, but that said the feeling is there and the band is hot.
Music of the Moment – July 2018
Each month Iaan Hughes reviews several albums that bring something special to the table. Here are his picks for this month.
Artist: Fatoumata Diawara
Album: Fenfo
Label: Montuno/Shanachie
It’s been seven years since Mali’s Fatoumata Diawara’s debut release Fatou, perhaps due to collaborations or simply the strength and giving of that record it comes as something of a surprise that Fenfo is her sophomore follow-up. Fenfo translates to “something to say,” but with the lyrics mostly sung in Bambara many of us will have to take her word on that. This was on purpose, too, as she chose to not sing in English or French, but rather to respect her African and Malian roots; to encourage the younger generations to be proud of who they are and where they are from. The grooves and hooks here are funky and plentiful, never pressing to hard, but instead finding a sweet rhythm space. Beguiling and earthy, Fenfo should be on your summertime playlist.
Artist: Charles Lloyd & The Marvels, feat. Lucinda Williams
Album: Vanished Gardens
Label: Blue Note Records
Vanished Gardens is one of those albums you just stare at for a moment. You have to let it sink in. First there’s the two legends on the cover, Jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. Then there’s the Marvels: Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland. Lloyd and Williams have circled each other musically for a number of years, both using parts of The Marvels as session and touring musicians. When they finally met each other Lloyd called it “a deep Southern crossroads connection.” That describes Varnished Gardens about perfectly. Mostly mellow and reflective, the band and singer do as much listening to each other as they do playing. There is touchstones on the album from an instrumental cover of Roberta Flack’s “Ballad of The Sad Young Man,” to a beautifully weary version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Angel.” The album’s combination of instrumentals mixed with vocal tracks gives it a throwback feel; a classic groove record sensibility that could easily fit within the Jazz and Beat partnerships of their era. It’s hard not to consider Fate’s hand when tracing the roads that led these musicians to cross at this point in time.
Artist: Jim Lauderdale
Album: Time Flies
Label: Yep Roc
Jim Lauderdale, simply put, is one of our most ridiculously prolific and talented songwriters. He is lyrically inventive, musically adventurous, and rarely repeats himself, yet somehow he still manages to slide beneath mainstream awareness. He’s country music’s Starchild, surely the next evolution, though he’s been that for close to thirty years now, so perhaps instead he’s a slip in our continuum, a glimpse into a parallel country, er…universe. By our count, which could easily be short, Time Flies is Jim’s 30th album. With the additional release of a long lost collaborative album with Roland White recorded in 1979 in the basement of Earl Scrugg’s Nashville home, this will be yet another treasure trove of great songs for fans and an opportune time for new ones to tune in and turn on.
Artist: Cowboy Junkies
Album: All That Reckoning
Label: Proper Records
Like a well-worn stone gazing out from the middle of whitewater, The Cowboy Junkies improbable thirty year music career (and counting) has held a reflective, steady hold at the intersection of rock, folk, and blues. Amidst the changes in pop music and the ebb and flow of roots music, the four band members out of Toronto, all original, three siblings and a close friend have followed their own muse. They first made their mark with their second album, 1988’s stunning The Trinity Sessions. Since then, and over the course of almost thirty albums, the Cowboy Junkies have acted as quiet social critics with weary vocal originals and a knack for choosing the perfect cover. All That Reckoning continues their exploration of “empty hearts empty nests, lost paths…and personal reckoning.” An album for these troubled times and something to hold onto in these rapid waters, no doubt.
Music of the Moment – June 2018
Warm up your playlist before summer gets underway. Check out Iaan’s reviews of albums that won’t disappoint in this month’s, Music of the Moment.
Artist: Leon Bridges
Album: Good Thing
Label: Columbia Records
The new album from soul singer Leon Bridges is a master class in how take something old and make it fresh again. Too often musicians who get saddled with the revivalist tag struggle to get beyond simply being a reenactor; a shadow performer of the classic sound. If Mr. Bridges had followed up Coming Home with another purely vintage outing he could have easily been pigeon-holed, but instead he stands upon that sturdy foundation and builds upward, crafting a gorgeous and sumptuous soul album that honors the past, but refuses to be stuck there.
Artist: Charley Crockett
Album: Lonesome as a Shadow
Label: Son of Davy
Born in Freddy Fender’s hometown, San Benito, TX, modern day wanderer has subsequently lived in so many places it’s difficult to know exactly where he would call home. Beyond any doubts though he’s rooted in the deep south. Lonesome as a Shadow is a near perfect mix of country blues, honkytonk and R&B, all delivered with Mr. Crockett’s slightly Cajun drawl. These twelve original songs tell the story of musical suffering and redemption, but you can also just listen to it and dance with your best pal.
Artist: Damien Jurado
Album: The Horizon Just Laughed
Label: Secretly Canadian
Damien Jurado, last troubadour standing or unreconstructed crank from the nineties who doesn’t understand streaming services? Both are compliments because there’s something to be said about longevity and artistic stubbornness. The Horizon Just Laughed might be Mr. Jurado’s most evocative album yet and that’s considering the 17 quite good albums he’s released previously. There are moments during the album that sound almost as if Jurado forgot he was making a record, pauses, silences, raw expressions of emotion that push the listener beyond just another group of songs and into rare moments of emotional connectivity and reaction.
Artist:Haley Heynderickx
Album: I Need to Start a Garden
Label: Mama Bird Recording
There’s a moment in the mostly easy vibe of the song “Oom Sha La La” from Haley Heynderickx’s debut album I Need to Start a Garden where the Portland based musician screams the album’s title as a solution to what ills her. It feels like a movement, an anthem, a raised fist off in the wilderness, a way to create sustainable refuge out the craziness of life. As a whole the album is a finger-picked acoustic songwriters affair, but punctuated with moments of coarseness that will keep it from your coffee store’s soundtrack the album remains willfully independent and wild – not unlike the best gardens.
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Artist: Dom Flemons
Album: Black Cowboys
Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Any cursory look at American history will teach the observant reader how prevalent othering remains in the story. It’s not just that stories of people of color aren’t told, but often they’re actively written out of the narrative completely. For his latest solo album Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys Mr. Flemons strikes out to correct and improve upon the traditional narrative of the lonesome cowboy troubadour. Flemons is, perhaps, best known for being a founding member of the all black string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. Here he has taken the old-time work of those years and built upon it a continuing narrative of the African American legacy too often missing, stolen, or footnoted from our shared history. It also happens to be an immaculately produced album with sharp picking and gorgeous vocals that blows the dust off of many old cowboy classics.