cabin fever edition

last sunday’s post regarding exploring music documentaries during ‘the great hunkering down’ was quite popular, and a number of commenters suggested some additions. i have since watched a few more and thought of some others i have seen in the past that still bear watching again.

i am also working on a post to suggest some new music that has been recently released that is worth considering. most from lesser known artists that could use some financial support right now.

until then, here are some things to watch this weekend:

‘amazing grace’ – aretha’s album of the same name was recorded live in a church. this contains much of the footage as it was recorded, and the process they went through. be prepared to be moved, whether you are religious or not.

‘ i’m trying to break your heart’ – documents the making of wilco’s ‘yankee hotel foxtrot’ album. a look into their creative process, but also the turmoil that was surrounding the band at the time.

‘the kids are alright’ – brad recommends this classic look at the who.

‘birth of the cool’ – dave c. recommended this exploration of the life of miles davis.

ms. redeyegin and i watched it last night. a must see.

‘the quiet one’ – explores the career of bill wyman, bass player for the stones. bill documented the early years of the stones with film, and much of that is used here to great effect.

‘classic albums, aja’ – if you like steely dan, this is a great behind the scenes look at their musical genius. again, you could binge watch these all day, or at least i could. also check out ‘dark side of the moon’ and ‘who’s next’.

‘classic albums – rush’ – greg w. recommends this one, and i concur. i had seen it before, but watched it again on the day we learned of neil peart’s death.

‘long strange trip’ – the ultimate guide to the phenomenon that was the grateful dead. be prepared to settle in, as it is four hours long.

‘the grateful dead movie ‘ – an oldie but a goodie.

‘classic albums – from anthem to beauty’ – a look into the making of ‘anthem of the sun’ and ‘american beauty’.

that’s enough for now. be safe out there.

quarantine edition

what a week this has been. while our nation and the world grapple with this novel coronavirus, it has become abundantly clear that our daily lives have been uprooted for the time being. to be sure, not all of the upheaval will be felt equally by everyone. the redeyegin household has so far been minimally affected by it (although my neighbor just got quarantined). but many individuals and businesses will be taking the full blunt of it. how does this relate to the usual topics of this blog? well, the live music industry is being decimated right now. major music festivals are being cancelled and/or rescheduled left and right. i myself have tickets for all four days of the new orleans jazz fest in early may, and by all accounts it will be cancelled some time this next week. touring musicians are suspending their events – either because the artists are looking out for the safety of their fans and themselves, or because the venues are shutting down for various reasons. here in ohio, the governor has put restrictions on public gatherings of over 100 people, which makes running a small music venue nearly impossible. i have tickets to two upcoming shows at my favorite local club. the first has already been rescheduled to the fall, but the other has not. unless things change for me this week (and lord knows they might), i intend to go and tip the bartenders well.

what to do in the meantime? get yourself outside and go for a long walk, and then when you come inside, go to your favorite music website and buy a new release from an up and coming artist. they need you now more than ever.

after that, consider expanding your musical horizons and knowledge base by hunkering down with a nice beverage and explore some of the great music documentaries out there. i have mentioned a few over the last couple of months (‘bluebird’ , ‘echo in the canyon’), but i will provide a few more below that i have been watching over the winter.

here they are, in no particular order:

‘twenty feet from stardom’ – a great view into the world of female background singers.

‘rolling thunder revue’ – explores the legendary tour promoting the ‘desire’ album.

‘classic albums- the band’ – one of the best of the old vh1 series. by the way, you can really go down a rabbit hole with these. i have watched at least a dozen of them. just a teaser here until robbie’s movie ‘once were brothers’ is available to stream.

david crosby ‘remember my name’ – a look at his turbulent life.

linda ronstandt ‘the sound of my voice’ – the life and times of her career.

drive by truckers ‘the secret to a happy ending’ – chronicles the genesis of the band, including the early career of jason isbell.

‘the wrecking crew’ – the story behind one of the great group of studio musicians from the sixties and seventies. see also ‘muscle shoals’ and ‘the funk brothers’.

‘gimme shelter’ – an accounting of the disastrous altamont concert.

‘fyre’ – how not to plan a music festival.

zz top ‘that little ol’ band from texas’ -the history of one of classic rock’s greatest bands.

that’s enough for now. if you have suggestions for others to watch, leave them in the comments section. take care out there.

billy strings, ‘home’

billy strings has been on the outside of my peripheral vision for about 6 months or so, but i hadn’t taken the time to explore his work very much, until now. as i have mentioned before, i get tips on new music from lots of places. when i had four different people send me something about him in the last two weeks, i figured it was time to devote more time to this young phenom.

my first glimpses of him were when i would see him sitting in with other bluegrass musicians i was following, and often it would be dead cover songs. he has cut his teeth on the jam band festival scene, and has gradually built up his following by offering two set marathon sessions where he and his band will rotate covers of bluegrass icons like bill monroe, the stanley brothers and doc watson, to jam band heroes like the dead and phish, to unconventional bluegrass treatments of artists like the stones and jimmy cliff.

billy (born william apostol) grew up in northern michigan, where his stepfather was a local bluegrass musician and taught him the instrument at a very early age. he turned to heavy metal at one point, but that changed one day when he ‘borrowed’ his mom’s 72 chevelle and went for a ride in the country with a bottle of vodka. he was curious about a tape that he saw in her tape deck and put it in. ‘rank stranger’ by the stanley brothers started to play, and he just pulled over and listened to the song. soon he was getting back with his stepfather and returning to the genre.

his guitar prowess soon started getting the attention of people like del mccoury and david grisman, and he started opening shows for fellow michigan residents greensky bluegrass.

his latest was released in september and it features all original music. i got it the other day and listened to it on a recent roadtrip (to michigan, no less). it is solid, all the way through – and not just the music, as his songwriting is also great. much of the material draws on his experiences, both bad and good, growing up in small towns in the midwest. ‘enough to leave’ is about losing two high school friends to heroin overdoses within a week of each other.

quite a talent, and worth putting on your radar. he will be opening for jason isbell this summer. check him out.

neil peart

it is with a heavy heart this morning that i help share the news that neil peart has left us. neil and his music might seem a bit out of scope for my usual writings, but keep in mind that i have been listening to rock and roll for going on five decades now, and my formative years were definitely influenced by the prog rock genre. i think it is fair to say that at one time rush was my favorite band, and neil was by far my favorite drummer. i was a drummer (still am to a certain extent), my best friends in high school were drummers, and we all revered him. i saw them three times – the ‘2112’, ‘motion pictures’, and ‘permanent waves’ tours. the band was hugely popular in northeast ohio in the seventies, more so than other parts of the country, mainly due to getting considerable airplay on the dominant rock station of the time, wmms. wmms was not only the locally dominant fm station, it was considered one of the best fm stations nationally, winning rolling stone magazine’s annual survey of best station something like seven years in a row in the seventies. legendary dj kid leo was instrumental in bringing the canadian trio’s sound down across the border, much like he had helped bring springsteen’s music west from new jersey.

after my brother texted me last night with the news, i read a few articles about him before settling down with a tall cocktail and watching a few documentaries i found on netflix. all of them referenced the notion that he was one of the great rock drummers of all time. of this i think there is little doubt. his hero growing up was keith moon, but other than the fact that they both beat the shit out of their drums, i don’t think they were all that similar. keith had more of a wild and reckless style of playing, whereas neil’s style was more of a machine gun precision. stewart copeland of the police said he ‘was the most airdrummed drummer ever’, and i confess to being a part of that tribe. but very few could come close to his level of talent, and he was a wonder to behold.

on top of that, he was the band’s lyricist, and his writings often belied his personal philosophies. he was a big fan of ayn rand at the time – ‘2112’ was roughly based on her novel ‘anthem’, and was mentioned in the credits. now that i think about it, i am sure that is why i read ‘the fountainhead’ when i was in high school. that book influenced my young mind, and although i drifted away from her philosophy as i grew up later (as did neil), the individualism aspect of it still runs deep in the way i look at the world today.

i hadn’t thought about him for quite some time. i knew he had left the band a few years ago, citing the fact that he just couldn’t do what he once did physically. but it became clear last night that he had been battling brain cancer for three years now, finally succumbing on tuesday of this week. his death brought back a flood of memories, and i had to just get it all out. thanks for listening.

rest in beats, dude.

‘bluebird’

as my friend dave c. once told me a couple of decades back when i was getting all uppity about not being a country music fan, his reply to me went something like ‘i get what you are saying, but the best songwriting comes from that genre’. i now understand there is a lot to that notion. ‘three chords and the truth’ is a phrase from the fifties that attempts to describe the simple nature of a country song. i am not sure why country has such an underpinning of great songwriting – we could argue that it usually comes from rural areas and hard scrabble life, the rough nature of the honky tonks, and so on. ken burns’ recent documentary ‘country music’ spent a lot of time on this and i think got to the core of it. but at the end of the day i am not sure we really need to analyze it. it has always been true, and i see no sign of it fading. you could argue that country has gotten too commercial and there are a lot of bad songs out there, but that has always been true about country over time, and has been true of many other genres. i am not denying that aspect of country, but i feel pretty confident in saying that we are currently living in an incredibly vibrant period of access to great songwriting, and most of it comes from the americana/country/ folk universe.

if you find this topic compelling, i urge you to check out a new documentary about the bluebird cafe. i was familiar with its existence, and i have some albums recorded there, and i generally knew about the status as a songwriters mecca. but this movie goes into great details about its history, and offers some very good live playing from tons of artists – some you will know, and many you will not. when mrs. redeyegin suggested to watch it last night, i was intrigued by the prospect of learning more about this club, but i told her i was turned off by some of the names in the marquee – namely taylor swift, garth brooks, and faith hill. don’t let that scare you off. all three were discovered there, but they all play small cameos, and it is clear that they are not the true story that is being told here. this is a story about a hole in the wall joint in a strip mall outside of nashville, that somehow became the place to go if you wanted to get your story out. it is also about how songs get written in nashville, and how it is rather unique in the fact that it is not unusual when more appreciation is given to the songwriter, rather than the singer. getting to the bluebird is now on my bucket list.

my only small beef is that it spent most of the time showcasing how just about anybody can audition to play there, and have a chance at being a taylor swift. it didn’t spend much time on people who came there just to get their song heard, and be appreciated for that. songwriters who needed to tell a tale, and didn’t want to get ground down by the nashville musical industry. can you just imagine being there to see these three playing together?: