Kelley Mickwee used to be with The Trishas. With them, she sailed safe and predictable waters of acoustic old-time Americana. This year, she’s back with a new record You Used To Live Here. The new record is by far her most interesting. In just half an hour, she shows us some incredible signing and expands her musical palette beyond the old-time country. Opening tune River Girl is a blues tune with amazing keyboards (I’d swear it gotta be Ian McLagan playing it, but I can’t find the confirmation at the moment). It really gets rocking with a great Eliza Gilkyson tune Dark Side of Town and Kelley’s Hotel Jackson. Mickwee made an album which can be played next to any Gene Clark record and live up to it.
Talking about old-time country, have you heard that Haden Triplets album? Financially, it’s a big flop for the Third Man label. The sisters got booed from TV. But we live in a tasteless world and this record doesn’t fit there…
I’m sure the three Haden sisters, Rachel, Petra and Tanya, sang together on many Haden family gatherings, but the first time wider audience got a chance to hear their old-time prairie-home interpretations was on their father’s Charlie’s album Rambling Boy. Mr Haden is a jazz musician, and it may have been a surprise to some to hear that album back in 2008. Yet, the Haden Triplets performance on that record must have been an impetus for this years album, which is a second subject of this story. A saddens hits you a bit when you have in mind that their father passed away within months from when the new record came out, but I bet he enjoyed hearing it.
In mind-blowing harmony, these three voices, usually associated to rock music, belt out a selection of old country songs, but they spice things around here and there. For instance, one of the standouts on the record is Nick Lowe’s Raining Raining.
The whole record sounds very warm. Every sound, every vocal, every instrument is recorded with mics set up pretty far, so the sounds swim together in a room. They float around and mingle. Of course, a part of the credit for such a nice live set up must go to Ry Cooder who was in charge for the instrumental backdrop of this record.
The Haden Triplets record and Kelley Mickwee record together show some new paths for the old music which is something very interesting to me. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine Haden Triplets singing Blameless from Mickwee’s record.
December 2 and December 3 of 2014 were two devastating days for rock’n’roll. We lost two true greats, Bobby Keys and Ian McLagan. McLagan started in Small Faces, continued with Faces had some amazing solo records, toured with his Bump Band. Bobby Keys played saxophone and greatly contributed to the golden period of The Rolling Stones – their Sticky Fingers and Exile of Main Street. Ian and Bobby crossed paths several times, on Faces, Ian’s solo records and the most recently actually in Cleveland – for the Rolling Stones tribute organized by the rock hall. This show is dedicated to the two of them. Their sounds are part of the very fabric of rock’n’roll. Thanks comrades!
New stuff from the garage rock scene comes from Zagreb, Croatia and Australia. We have Erotic Biljan and His Heretics reunited with an amazing new single that promises to reestablish this band as the leader on the ex-Yugoslav scene. Volcanics come from Perth and Terrible Truths come from Adelaide. We also check out the new indie rockers Gold-Bears. The Auteurs was a new wave band over in London. Luke Haines who was with them is back with a solo record dedicated to the New York City. John Nemeth is another new name for us. He hails from Boise ID and belts out a sound characteristic to the black Memphis scene. Ghost come from Sweden. They are a quite an attraction over in their home land. They scored a good hit last year with a Roky Erickson cover. And finally, Ian McLagan, truly legendary keyboardist of Faces and Small Faces is back with his Bump Band over in Austin TX with the new single.
UK label Acid Jazz has started re-issuing rare ep records and demos of the garage rock legends from England. In today’s show we represent two of those eps, both dealing with the past of Small Faces – Ian McLagan’s Muleskinners and Steve Marriot’s early solo work. Another cool reissue is the legendary Gibson Bros. LP from 1986 Build A Raft together with a busload of extras. Loretta Lynn has a new tribute album that gathered a mottle crew of artists. Logically, the tribute’s title is Coal Miner’s Daughter. Our good friends from the early days of the show, San Francisco duet ing, is back after a few years of silence with a luxurious CD/DVD release of Dial which is a musical that in parts deals with a loss of Mark Smotroff’s life partner Jack. John Wesley Coleman, a singer-songwriter from Austin is busy lately with putting out albums quite frequently. This time we listen to a track from his latest album Bad Lady Goes To Jail. And we also have one brand new band today, they are very loud and their name is Bottle Up And Go. So let’s go!
This show goes to all the gig-goers in Cleveland. I made it inspired by a busy week in which I saw live shows by The Meat Puppets, Ian McLagan, Dinosaur JR and Jack Oblivian. I had to miss Reigning Sound, but from what I hear, it was a great gig. We also have some new stuff. We represent two bands from a new generation of Zagreb rockers. My Buddy Moose, who we know from their self-titled album a few years ago and The Revolts. My Buddy Moose has a new album coming up next year and we hear exclusive tracks from it while they are searching for a publisher. Mike Watt has a new project called Il Sogno Del Marinaio with Italian musicians Stefano Pilia and Andrea Belfi. We also introduce The Revelators for the first time at the Little Lighthouse, although they’ve been around for some time.
Do you remember Velocity Girl, a 90s grungy power pop that had its day on Sub Pop? Well, it turns out the drummer of that band Jim Spellman has a No 1 Song now. At least, that’s the title and the feel of that song, as we know charts don’t matter these days. And Spellman’s new band is called Julie Ocean, named after an Undertones tune (he switch over to the front with his guitar and microphone). This show also brings two new names to the Lighthouse – Bellafea and the Wood Brothers. Bellafea comes from Chapel Hill, NC and delivers an angular guitar tone with great female vocals. The Wood Brothers is that dude from Medeski Martin and Wood on bass and his brother on guitar. Now, if you listen to this show regularly, you probably know I can’t stand the MMW trio, but the Wood Brothers pleasantly surprised me. In other news, looks like The Faces had a session where they decided to reunite for a world tour and a new record. Ian McLagan reports on his page that this is very likely to happen. He also had a nice album earlier this year that went a bit under the radar and I saw his excellent performance in Chicago this summer, so we check out that new album called Never Say Never.
We have two bands with exciting new albums for the first time in The Little Lighthouse: Thee Oh Sees and The Intelligence. Another thing that ties the two bands together is also the song Block of Ice, which appears on both LPs. We also have Slavic Soul Party for the first time in our show with a cover of Toussaint’s Occapella fusing the Gypsy brass sound with New Orleans, which is something I always wanted to hear. Also, while we’re waiting for the new Ian McLagan’s album, we check out three different versions of the Faces standard Glad and Sorry.