TheBig3

I hope you don't mind me reaching into the way back Machine here, but when and why was Peter Mulvey compared to Bob Dylan?

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I've moved to a new address

Gavin B.

When Mulvey was a fixture on the Boston folk music scene in the early 90s a few local music critics made the Dylan comparison. I'm guessing that his songwriting gifts lead to the comparisons. I'm not a person that completely agrees with that assessment and those comparisons were made before he recorded his debut album Rapture in 1995. There are some similarities to middle period Dyan songs on that album.

Mulvey himself claims to have been influenced by Dylan and has done covers of Dylan songs in live performances. He has also recorded at least three Dylan songs that I'm aware of, Mama You've Been on My Mind, Buckets of Rain & Moonshiner.

It's not really possible for me to explain why somebody else tags an artist as "the next Bob Dylan" because I generally disagree with those comparisons. Bruce Springsteen lived through the Dylan comparisons for his first three albums but his music, singing voice or songwriting did nothing to suggest Bob Dylan to me. In the early Seventies music opinion makers were overly preoccupied with discovering the next Dylan and many artists were unfairly pigeon-holed as Dylan's heir apparent. In fact there will never be another Dylan because his unique talents are completely his own.

The point of my piece on Kristian Mattson was to point out that he's the rare "next Dylan" type who really does write Dylanesque music and sings a lot like Bob Dylan.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

On Hiatus Until Thursday



Be patient dear readers... I'm still catching up on some much needed post-holiday sleep. Nonetheless, I've got three different writing projects for my Music Banter blog going:

1. I'm working on a profile of Suzanne Vega
2. I've got a truckload of recently releaseed songs to share
3. I've got most of the material together for a delta blues feature

If anybody has a preference of which piece I should post first let me know. I should have all three done by tomorrow and I'll post one of them on Thursday. Meanwhile sit back relax and enjoy this rendition of Parachute by the amazing Shugo Tokumaru.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Badlittlekitten

Suzanne Vega.

Great journal by the way.

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'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt.

https://soundcloud.com/bad-little-kittens
My Top 100 LPs
My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)

Gavin B.

Three Songs from New Gang of Four Album!


Cover of Content, the new Gang of Four album.

For those of you who wonder where I've been the last month... I've been on hiatus from my Music Banter blog and hard at work on a couple of projects since the beginning of the year. I should return to posting regular blog messages now that things have settled down a bit.

I can't think of a better way to return than to present three selections from the new Gang of Four album, Content, which was released yesterday, February 2, 2011. Go4 has periodically reunited and toured since their official breakup in the mid Eighties but this reunion feels real. The two Go4 charter members, guitarist Andy Gill and Jon King are still in their musical prime and they blew the roof off of every venue they played during their 2005 reunion tour.

Content is the album they should have made after Solid Gold, way back in 1981. It took thirty years, but it was worth the wait.



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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

My Latest Video Project

I recently put together this you YouTube video set to the music of the Smashing Pumpkins' song To Sheila. I've always be mad about Belgian fashion model Elise Crombez and got the idea for the video when I came across some old video footage of Elise on a photo shoot. I edited the video footage and added the Smashing Pumpkins song as the soundtrack. It's turned out to be quite good, if I do say so myself... mostly because Elise is such photogenic eye candy. You can see more of my stuff at my YouTube channel @ http://www.youtube.com/user/NunzOnDrugs?feature=mhum

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

New Album from Young Galaxy


Shapeshifting is the new album from the Montreal based band, Young Galaxy

Shapeshifting is an appropriate title for Young Galaxy's third album ( released Fed. 8th, 2011 via Paper Bag Records). Going from an art-rock band hitting epic highs with their previous work, to a band channeling their love of New Order, the Knife and the Eurythmics. The result is unlike anything the four-piece have done before.



Ex-Stars touring guitarist Stephen Ramsay founded space rock outfit Young Galaxy with girlfriend Catherine McCandless. The two got started in Vancouver and relocated to Montreal to live and record. They were brought onboard by Stars' label, Arts & Crafts, and released an EP and limited-edition 7".

For my part, I'm happy to share three new tracks from Shapshifting as well as Young Galaxy's March touring schedule. If you live in any of the cities below go out and see Young Galaxy... They're a wonder to behold.

Touring Schedule- Young Galaxy for March 2011

March 17 Boston MA – TT The Bears *
March 19 Brooklyn NY – Knitting Factory *
March 21 Philadelphia PA – Ku Fung Necktie *
March 22 Washington DC – Red Palace *
March 23 Pittsburgh PA – Brillobox *
March 25 Chicago IL – Empty Bottle *
w/ Winter Gloves

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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Hilarious Footage of 1980 American Bandstand Appearance by Public Image Ltd.



PiL's, hilarious, and now infamous, 1980 'performance' on the prime time US pop show was broadcast on national tv. Pre-recorded on 3rd May, PiL was to lip synch Poptones and Careering. Long time American Bandstand host D1ck Clarke introduced the band as, "a memorable moment in rock n roll, something special and interesting". The longstanding mainstream music show was thrown into chaos as Lydon invited the entire audience up to dance with the band on stage! John barely pretends to lip synch the songs, while PIL band members merrily are swapping around musical instruments. Lydon later commented, "I forgot the words to the song, and I was miming really badly, so I had to act quick." And he did. Another moment of inspired chaos from the UK's most beloved son of anarchy.

When asked to introduce themselves Mr. Clark. Jah Wobble replies, "Wobble. THE Jah Wobble". The pair have actually already met backstage, apparently Clark walked in on Wobble while he was trying to have a quick sleep. "I'm Wobble, who are you?" he's reported to have asked, "I'm D1ck Clarke" he replies, "Good" Wobble snaps, "Well f*ck off"! Rumour has it that Clark had asked Larry White before the show "What can I expect from this assh*ole?"

Despite the chaos, Clark later claimed, "(Lydon) told me he was going to be rambunctious. I said 'be my guest'. We were in total control." Yup, it sure looked like it from the video.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

My Latest Video Project Vol. 2

I love the German electronica band Alphawezen's song, Speed of Light, but a couple of things about the mix have always annoyed me: 1) The bass is mixed at such a high volume that my house reverberated every time I played it. 2) The vocal track gets drowned out by the overly loud and muddy bass mix. So I remixed a 320 kbps master with less bass, amplfied Asu Yalcindag's lovely vocal track and sharpened up the general clarity of the music tracks using my Power Sound editing software. If you've heard this song before, I think you'll notice a big improvement in the sound quality.

For the video footage I added a mix of old N.A.S.A. videos and animations of deep space and supernova explosions. I think the footage works well with the themes of Alphawezen's song.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Cleverly Dumb


An album art shot of Electric Six for the release of Zodiac (2010)

The Detroit based Electric Six sound a little bit like every dumb band that grated on your nerves in the 70s and 80s. What's unusual about E6 is they subvert the music by playing it from ironic perspective. Clearly E6 loves the music they parody which makes their cleverly dumb perspective so entertaining. Jack White of White Stripes is a big fan of E6 and he contributed backup vocals on their early album Danger! High Voltage.

Let's face it... the music wasn't as nearly as bad as we remember it. The problem was that the popular hits of the Seventies era got incessant airplay on Top 40 AM radio. A rational person can become a candidate for a straight jacket fitting if forced to listen to Play that Funky Music White Boy, 900 times in a row. The Geneva Accords have laws against that sort of torture.

Since their first record release in 2003, E6 has enjoyed more success in the UK than in their native United States. It took until 2006 for E6 to finally sign a recording contract with Metropolis Records in the United States, which has released their back catalog of UK released albums and singles. Even so, Electric Six is hardly a household name in either the UK or the USA, but they're developing a word of mouth, cult following in both nations.

Electric Six follows Detroit's long tradition of producing kick-ass rock and roll bands like Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Amboy Dukes, MC5, the Stooges, Alice Cooper, Brownsville Station, White Stripes & Kid Rock. E6 has all the furious sound and power of a classic Motor City rock band in their live performances.

The video below, Dance Commander, has gotten 1.4 million YouTube hits since being posted. E6's charismatic singer D1ck Valentine is hilarious as he parodies the fascistic impulses of both metal and disco fans:



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Below is Electric Six's metalized cover of the Spinner's 1976 hit, The Rubberband Man. This song is usually the barn burning finale song for most of Electric Six's live shows.



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As a contrast, I've embedded a live television performance of the original 1976 version of The Rubberband Man with the magnificent Philippe Wynn on vocials. It was the last songwriting contribution Wynne would make to the Spinners before climbing aboard the Mothership with Parliament/Funkadelic. As it turned out, The Rubberband Man was the last significant hit song for the Spinners.




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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt