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.
Cover albums are a fad of this millennium. They give an artist a chance to show off their interpretive abilities and taste. Will Oldham’s new record is also an exercise in interpretation, but Oldham doesn’t go back to other people’s songs. He goes back three years behind, to his own album Wolfroy Goes To Town.
Every musical outlet out there has a year-end list. Little Lighthouse is not an exception, although the order should be understood conditionally. It does not rely on objective measurements, it simply compiles feeling towards albums that preoccupied my attention through 2014. Number one is Sweet Apple. Yours truly marginally participated in making of that record, and perhaps there’s a strong bias towards it for me. You would be right about that. But this particular record is a fun collection of songs without much pretension. What more can you ask from an LP? OBN IIIs and Liquor Store are great new bands which made ambitiously sounding records that rock. They even bring out a long forgotten idiom of hard rock, back into the modern rock’n’roll dictionary and it made me realize how much that sound is missed in the music world today. Together with some important reissues, these two albums mark the revival of that lost musical genre. Those two records are so rich with sounds and ideas that live performances of these two bands must be stripped down to a skeleton. Outragous Cherry has an astonishing return, with one of their best records ever. First Base and Strungs go back to the basic three chords and short songs – a formula that oh so often works great. Lydia Lunch calls out the ghost of Jeffrey Lee Pierce like no other artist before. Doug Gillard attempted to make a good easy listening record and ended up with a timeless masterpiece which will be remembered well in his opus. Billy Childs makes a loving tribute to Laura Nyro which borders madness and saccharine. Who’d have thought those two “lands” share a border? Kelley Mickwee and Haden Triplets show interesting ways to keep bluegrass alive and it trips my mind how most folks out there think negatively of this wonderful Haden Triplets record. Bonnie Prince Billy takes some old songs and brings in a new life to them with an incredibly focused interpretation… and so on. All the best in 2015, actually 2014 wasn’t that bad musically as it may appear on the surface.
Friends, a couple of new things this time. King Khan has a new band called Gris Gris and we hear a tune from their new record Murder Burgers. The Shivas are also back with a new record called You Know What To Do. We introduce Groovy Uncle from Britain, Ivory Deville from LA, and a new band from Partibrejker Cane, called Å krtice. They rock – we rock!
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!
This time, we review some of the best live performances in Cleveland in the past year. We have a segment called Live in Cleveland every week in which we feature some of the recent or historical field recordings from the live shows in this town. Today, we review all the shows from the past year and feature some tunes that we did not play yet at The Little Lighthouse. This how is dedicated to the bands who play their hearts out often in front of the sparse audience and to the live halls that persistently keep Cleveland as one of the most important stops on every band’s itineraries. Beachland, Now That’s Class, Happy Dog – you all rock!
We have a couple of new things today. Miss Destiny from Australia are three ladies and one dude: Harriet Hudson, Harriet Stewart, Annie Llewellyn and Brett Bevege. Also from Australia, in Perth, Night Signals have a new EP called Animals. The new single they have on Hozac is on our program today. Rich Hopkins has a new album with his Luminarios, called Tombstone, two years after his great effort Buried Treasures. Also, check out John Murry playing on of his new songs live in Cleveland. We hope to be a soundtrack of your Thanksgiving holiday this year!
Today we check out the new record for the legendary Stooges guitar player James Williamson. He took some old song that he wrote for the Raw Power follow-up, finished them up, recorded with various singers and put them out on a new record Re-Licked. Matthew Smith is back with another Outrageous Cherry album, after a few years of hiatus. We introduce a new band from Sweden – The Youth. Also, check out a cool version of NRBQ tune Magnet, performed live in Cleveland by Natural Child.
First half of our show today is dedicated to the ladies. Jolie Holland was in The Be Good Tanyas and Kelley Mickwee was with Trishas and now they have very strong solo records. Mitski put her record out as well. Pieta Brown also has a new record out and we pay attention. On the other side, Billy Childish formed a new band called CTMF and Steve Wynn put out the record formed out of his recordings ten years ago in Spain.
Welcome to episode 300, ever since we started podcasting from Cleveland! Thanks for sticking around for all these hours of music. We have a new exceptionally interesting and complex record by the New Jersey band Nude Beach, simply entitled 77 and written entirely by their front-man Chuck Betz. Australian band with a strange name King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard are back with a new record. Our old Cleveland friend Derek Deprator has a new EP out, entitled In Motion. We also introduce some new bands, Gino and The Goons hail from Florida and Bloodhouds from Los Angeles.