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Stuff Musicians Should Know: Ralph Jacodine and Friends Open the Doors |
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Jan 21, 2012 at 12:00 AM |
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Sat. Jan. 21 What the world needs now ... Thinking back to the Cracker song "Teen Angst," about and the line "What the world needs now is another folksinger/Like I need a hole in my head." Thought triggered by “Unplugged & Uncensored: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Industry” at Boston Center for Adult Education noon to 4 Saturday Jan. 21. There are lots of music symposiums - hell, I've been to dozens - but this one is being helmed by Ralph Jacodine, co-founder of the Boston Manager’s Group and Black Wolf Records. Jaccodine, who has worked with musicians such as Shea Rose, Antje Duvekot, Ellis Paul, The Push Stars and Vinx. He's a smart dude and, yes, a pal. So we put it to Ralph: Why should someone go to another music seminar, namely this one? He e-mailed: "When I started out in the business of music, I had limited, hands-on experience and at first learned everything from going to music conferences/seminars all over the country. I would fly all over the place, rent a hotel room, find my way to the parties with an open bar and hopefully soak everything in, ask questions and network like hell. It was great... and wasn't cheap... even with the free booze.
I found that this was a very expensive way to learn. Ultimately I was in huge conference rooms with thousands of others just like me wanting to be in the music game, so my time with the 'experts' was limited and the competition to get attention from the panelists was practically impossible.
Jump ahead 20 years, I've been running my own artist management- record label business, |
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Punk's Not Dead: Young Kids Cover the Clash & Pistols |
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Jan 21, 2012 at 12:00 AM |
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Sat. Jan. 21 & Sun. 22 Something about this is very wrong and, yet, very right. Our local branch of the School of Rock - yes, the folks that inspired the Jack Black movie, whether the moviemakers cop  to it or not - are launching some of their students on a gig called "The Sex Pistols vs. the Clash." That's right, kids born more than two decades after the Pistols proclaimed anarchy in the UK and sneered the Queen "ain't no human being" and the Clash urged you to cheat a corrupt system and clamored for "a white riot, a riot of my own" are putting on a show. How does this agitated music of a particular time and place work 30-plus years down the road, where it's part of a music history lesson? The flip side of that, as Joe Strummer told me during our first interview on the Clash's first US tour (backstage, Harvard Square Theatre, 1979, "The beginners have gotta have a chance," adding how no one starting could hope aspire to like the guys in Yes. (Note: Popular prog-rock band of the '70s.) The best punk rock still moves me, but punk belongs to the young. It's youthquake music. The original punks were in their teens (X-Ray Spex, Undertones) or early 20s. Of course, these kids are mostly tweens and teens, 17 of 'em, 8-16 we're told.
What's on tap at Ryles Sat. Jan. 21 and at the Hard Rock Cafe Sun. Jan. 21? |
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Mission Continues: Mission of Burma Rage on in 2012. On Their Own Terms. |
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Jan 20, 2012 at 12:00 AM |
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Fri. Jan 20 & Sat Jan. 21 It hasn’t been 33 straight years for Mission of Burma. No, there was about 20 years where the guys – guitarist/singer Roger Miller, bassist/singer Clint Conley and drum mer/singer Peter Prescott – had other gigs. They packed it in the first time because of Miller’s worsening tinnitus. They came back, basically, because he learned to live with it (playing with ear protection) and, he likes making noise. So while Burma lives, they all still have other gigs – Miller’s in Alloy Orchestra, Conley’s a producer for WCVB’s “Chronicle,” Prescott just recorded a solo album and is working the album resale beat on e-Bay. As to Burma, they became a whenever-they’re-in-the-spirit band, both in concert and in the studio. It revved up again in 2002, with a brilliantly titled album, “OnOffOn.” At present, they’re finishing rough mixes on their first album since 2009’s “The Sound, The Speed, The Light.” We spoke with them in their Allston rehearsal studio on Sunday for an interview that airing Friday on the WBUR-FM (90.9) program “Radio Boston.” http://radioboston.wbur.org/2012/01/20/mission-of-burma They’re playing Brighton Music Hall Friday Jan. 20 and Saturday Jan. 21. We thought we’d give you some out-takes here.JSInk: Let’s start at the end of first round. How were you feeling?Pete: We went on a high note and I skated into another band in a year or two. … I kept going with rock bands and the rock bands took the things I was really fond of about Burma, which was sonic overload and a sense of confusion, with a little peace mixed in, and added a lot more silliness to the whole thing. Later on I played guitar in a couple band sand didn’t expect to play drums again, so it’s weird that I slid back to that place again. Clint: It was definitely sad in a way. We really enjoyed our time together, the four years, and like Peter said, we were ending on kind of a high note or hadn’t overstayed our welcome or we didn’t have that feeling. At the same time, Peter and I were philosophical about it. I don’t remember any wailing or gnashing of teeth. We were ready for the next thing, wondering what the next thing might be. So when the band ended I had designs on probably continuing in music, so I did in fact write a bunch of music the following year but never quite took the step of launching another band, and gradually morphed into another life.One thing that kept Burma in the public eye was when Clint, your song “Revolver” got covered by Moby. I know it (you said royalties) paid for your septic system. How did that feel? A good thing to happen?
Clint: It was a good thing to happen. From time to time, we’d hear about bands that were covering our songs or something like that. We seemed to still be in the conversation five years after we broke up and ten years after we broke up and even 15 years after we broke up. Bands would be doing our songs and I think we were surprised and happy that the music we made in the early ‘80s seemed to still be holding up in the mid-90s, and people were interested in it, didn’t seem to have fallen that far out of the front edge of our little world, our little sub-genre of indy guitar rock kind of thing. To be still relevant 10, 15 years after you’ve made your music, it was more than we probably hoped for when we started in 79. It was gratifying. |
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Jan 16, 2012 at 12:00 AM |
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Mon. Jan. 16 The Museum of Fine Arts always does something neat on Monday holidays. That is, they open the place to the public at no charge. This means you have (probably) a day off and no excuse not to expose yourself to culture. The re's no football on TV. Nope, today's a day to learn, explore, grow ... all that good stuff. And since it's Monday January 16, it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, maybe a day to honor Dr. King and not go shopping, and check out the 5000 new works up at the new MFA wing. At 3:30, you may want to check Berklee College of Music presentation, a premiere concert performance by Women of the World (in photo) —an ensemble of exceptional women from various continents around the world. Hailing from Japan, India, Italy, Greece, Brazil, and the United States, the five core singers and their diverse band create rich tapestries of culture and sound as they perform both original and traditional songs. (Free tickets available at Remis Auditorium beginning at 2:45 pm.) There's all sorts of quilting and painting and drawing workshops and, of course, the many galleries showing "Avedon Fashions," "Modernist Photography," a space devoted to European artists 1825-1925, embroideries from Colonial Boston,Jean-Fracois Millet's rural paintings and much more. It's open 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Check website or call for more info. 465 Huntington Ave., 617-267-9300 www.mfa.org |
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Camper and Cracker: The Twin Peaks of David Lowery and Friends |
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Jan 15, 2012 at 12:00 AM |
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Sun. Jan. 15 David Lowery (in photo) will be pulling double duty at the Middle East Downstairs Sunday - a year to the day after last year's double-bill. First, he’ll be singing and playing guitar with Camper Van Beethoven, the quirky California band he co-founded in 1983. Then, he’ll be  doing the same with Cracker, the more straight-ahead rock group he-co-founded in Virginia in 1990.
The genre-scrambling Camper had underground hits like “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and a cover of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” Cracker hit the semi-mainstream with “Low” and “Teen Angst.” On this tour, four of Camper’s five members are originals and half of Cracker’s four are.
Lowery, 50, has been doing this dual tour annually for the past five years and this will be their third local stop. Not only that, his solo album, “The Palace Guards” comes out Feb. 1 and he play a couple tunes from that between sets. Oh, and he’s recovering from a broken hand he suffered in England a while back.
We spoke to Lowery from the Athens, Ga. home he shares with his wife and manager Velena Vego.
JSInk: This tour seems like a lot of work. Why the undertaking? And why come to this part of the country now?
Lowery: We always do it in January when it’s really cold and no bands go up to the Northeast and Canada. It started from the fact that it was the only time that was slow for the Camper Van Beethoven guys who have real careers. Then, we accidentally figured out nobody else is touring, so it’s seen as this mid-winter cabin fever kind of party.
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