As the google search indicates, Australian four Luke, David, Jess and Alex are among several bands that named their band Mona Lisa Overdrive after William Gibson’s novel. In todays alienating world, many readers seem to find a shelter in cyber-reality and super-powers of Matrix that in Gibson’s novels has god-like powers. So you’d expect some futuro-escapist crap from these guys… Contrary, Mona Lisa Overdrive echoes White Light White Heat era Velvet Underground and lists pretty much an alphabet of rock’n’roll on their myspace page.
The Up-tight Sessions, their impromptu EP is available over there for a free download and it contains five intense tunes to rattle your cold rock’n’roll bones. Finding a truly good band on myspace is like looking for a needle in a haystack so stumbling upon the Mona Lisa Overdrive is a real fortune.
Chick Graning
(Written long time ago for the old site) Chick Graning has one of those bizarre rock’n’roll biographies which make your head spin. He started in Boston and hung out there with all the great underground names in the late eighties. Then he formed his own band Anastasia Screamed that recorded a couple of singles and one lp (Laughing Down The Limehouse) in the season 1991/92. It was the time of grunge, and Anastasia Screamed was one of the best representatives of its softer, more contemplative side, the one that was coming from Boston area.
The band enjoyed a moderate success in Europe and England, but in the USA nobody paid too much attention. Nevertheless, Anastasia’s groves were some of the most interesting and most progressive tunes at the time. The sound was very emotional and the lyrics were clever. Chick Graning even made it to the pages of cheap magazines as husband of the rock’n’roll beauty Tanya Donnelly of The Throwing Muses and Belly.
The marriage was fine initially, but Chick met Joyce Rasin. He artistically got along with her much better than with Tanya so his marriage soon fell apart. He formed a new band with Joyce – Scarce.
Major distributors were very interested in Scarce. Their sound was very much nineties, complex and catchy. After a few singles, A&M signed them and they started working on their first album Deadsexy. Just before they finished it, Graning got a brain hemorrhage which not only postponed and jeopardized the release of Deadsexy, but it also caused amnesia to his memory. He had to relearn everything in life, starting with his own name to how to play guitar. Needless to mention, band stopped its existence.
Recent news are that Chick Graning is back as a solo artist. The new demos are very promising.
Wanda Jackson And The Rubes
Wanda Jackson is one of the legends of rock’n’roll. Possibly the very first woman rocking out in the 50’s when the whole thing was a “man’s game”. With her raspy southern accent and attractive looks she definitely left a mark. Still, after all these years she is recording and touring. She recently put out an album dedicated to Elvis Presley and is on a busy schedule touring United States. She doesn’t have a steady band though. When she booked shows in Denver and Idaho, she sought for a good band to back her up. And she found
the right band in Salt Lake City’s own The Rubes. They could be her grandchildren, or even grand-grandchildren considering they’re from Utah where people have kids at a very young age compared to the rest of the world. I asked them how did the collaboration happen…
“Our manager booked her appearance up at Idaho State. He books lots of shows up in Pocatello [in Idaho]. She didn’t have a touring band in the Mid-west so our guy pitched us as the back up band. Sort of random, really” says Greg, the pianist in the band. Themselves, Rubes seem to be more than great backup for Wanda as they are very young gents who are not afraid to underline their influences playing a medley of 50s rhythm and blues standards on their own live performances.”
Indeed, they seem extremely honored to play with Wanda… “Wanda is a good entertainer and most of the crowd was people who were young when Elvis blew up in 1955. We played mostly her rockabilly hits like ‘Let’s Have a Party’, ‘Rock Your Baby’, ‘I Gotta Know’ and some Elvis Presley Sun records tunes. Of course, Wanda wants to make a witness so we did ‘I Saw the Light’. On the footwear tip Wanda has fresh velcro shoes that cut our Anchor Bays from K-mart.”
Still, band had to tune down their amps… “Lemmy [from Motorhead] was right when he said that only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud. We are used to playing louder and the sound guy [that was engineering the concert with Wanda] was used to Peter Breinholt. I think our amps were on half of
‘One’. So it was kind of challenging to get all shook up. We played in a very extravagant acoustically perfect concert hall; The first 12 foot Steinway I’ve ever played. This was the second time we’d backed her up with about an hour rehearsal. Our first gig (in Denver) was a little shaky; This time it went 10 times smoother.”
The band definitely had a royal treatment in presence of rock’n’roll royalty. Greg says “I think the crowd had a good time. The Rubes most enjoyed the Del Taco delivered gratis to our dressing room. The fans are really cool in Pocatello, they paid for a cab so we could sing karaoke and bar hop after the show. I remember performances of ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Three’s Company Theme’.” And they would like to do it again: “If we can back up Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley next time that would be ideal.” No shit, Greg!!
Peter Breinholt is a family friendly folk musician beloved by the Mormons.
Flashlite #8
One of the first things you probably noticed when you opened up our webpage is the new design. You might think I decided to switch for easier editing. That’s not the case, I had a very quick and painless way of editing my old site. The reason was searchability of the site on the Internet crawlers and also within the site itself. I hope it will not be too confusing. Also, I will slowly transfer some of the old articles and perhaps this will make me want to write more. We’ll see. In any case, the eight episode of the Flashlite edition is ready for your downloads. We have a brand new album The Evangelist for the former Go-Betweens member Robert Forster. In some ways it’s a return to the quirkiness of his nineties solo efforts. Another quirky artist, Jonathan Richman is also back with a new record called Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild. Check it out, he’s again fascinated by painters. The Nits from Netherlands continue 30 years of steady record making with the new album called Doing The Dishes.
Bettye Lavette – It Ain’t Easy;
Wayne County And The Electric Chairs – Fuck Off;
Coachwhips – That Bitch Is Gonna End Up Dead;
Thee Oh Sees – Quadrospazzed;
Kak – Lemonaide Kid;
Kak – Flight From The East;
Jonathan Richman – I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar;
Jonathan Richman – No One Was Like Vermeer;Rickie Lee Jones – It Hurts;
Pieta Brown – Sonic Boom;
Bob Dylan – Lay, Lady, Lay;
Robert Forster – Tell Me That It Isn’t True;
Robert Forster – Demon days;
Go-Betweens, The – Wait Until June;
The Nits – Tutti Ragazzi;
The Nits – Five & Dime;
The Nightingales – Paraffin Brain;
Umjetnici Ulice – Humana revolucija.
March 20, 2008
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.
Blondie – Dreaming;
Cobra Verde – Don’t Burden Me With Dreams;
Willie Nile – She’s So Cold;
Iron City Houserockers – I Can’t Take It;
Golden Smog – Glad & Sorry;
Ian McLagan & The Bump Band – Glad and sorry;
Billy Bragg – Glad & Sorry;
Thee Oh Sees – Block of Ice;
The Intelligence – Block of Ice;
Blossom Toes – Peace Loving Man;
Salvation – Think Twice;
Salvation – GI Joe;
Michal Kahan – Baby Escapo;
Lee Dorsey – Occapella;
Slavic Soul Party – Occapella (Have a Beer);
Bluto’s Revenge – Good Friday.
March 13, 2008
This time we bring you Dirtbombs with the new album We Have You Surrounded. Mark Lanegan takes the front page. We feature him in two fresh incarnations, as a member of band/project entitled Soulsavers and in duet with Isobel Campbell.
Steaming Beast – Jesus, Satan, Gene Beeman, His Car and Pizza Hut;
Compulsive Gamblers – Bad Taste;
Reigning Sound – Drowning;
Dirtbombs – I Hear The Sirens;
The Sirens – High School;
MC5 – High School;
Jackie DeShannon – Too Far Out;
Soulsavers – Kingdom of Rain;
Mark Lanegan – Back Burner;
DR John – Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya;
Evangelista – Lucky Lucky Luck;
Waylon Jennings – She’s Looking Good;
Chuck Prophet – She’s Looking Good;
True West – Throw Away The Key;
Pylon – Feast On My Heart;
Death of Samantha – Roses Rejoice;
Hosnfefer – K.M. (Give Me Some Air).
Rickie Lee Jones
(Written long time ago for the old site). The story of Rickie Lee Jones starts in the late seventies, when she appeared on the cover of Tom Waits’ Blue Valentine. At the time, she, Tom and saxophonist Chuck E Weiss were unseparable friends sharing everything – talks, music, poetry, booze… One day Waits phoned Rickie saying, “Hey, babe, Chuck E’s in love…”. That was the end of trio’s close friendship, but the start of Rickie’s fruitful career. After Waits hung up, she sat down and wrote Chuck E’s In Love one of the most beautiful anthems of the seventies singer-songwriting scene in Los Angeles. One other Rickie’s song, Easy Money caught attention of the famous slide guitar player Lowell George (ex Little Feat, huge influence on Dixie Chicks). George’s reccomendation assured Rickie a contract with Warner Brothers and her first phenomenal album called simply Rickie Lee Jones was out. It included both Chuck E’s In Love and Easy Money and other 10 excellent songs, each better than the other. Rickie charmes everybody with her songs and her very sensual voice. Her singing includes a unique type of miaowing, wich makes her sound in moments like a little girl, and like a sexy diva at the same time. Rickie Lee Jones had an open road to have career as a popular singer, but she took some other roads
Her second album, Pirates surprised evrybody, as her songwriting technique achieved full maturity. Album included lengthy odes to the bohemian street life, full of wonderful images and great instrumentation by the old wolves of the Los Angeles scene, Nick De Caro, Russ Titelman, Lenny Waronker and Donald Fagen. The result was one of the artiest and most rounded records of Laurel Canyon scene.
After that point, Jones established herself as an respectable artist, and she stopped publishing records regularily. Two years after the Pirates, Rickie published a 10″ record Girl At Her Volcano, mostly filled out with covers, and audience waited one more year for a regular album Magazine. Critics never accepted the album, but I think that they were too harsh. The “A” side of the album contained Rickie in a little more easy listening manner, and “B” side was most complex Rickie’s work up to that time, and those two sides made a nice little contrast on the aestetical canvas of this album.
One of the interesting characters with whom Jones colaborated closely throughout the career was Sal Bernardi, who contributed in some of the structurally most interesting Rickie’s songs Western Slopes from Pirates and song triology Rorschachs out of the Magazine. Strangely, I’m not familiar if Sal worked with anyone else or if he had some solo projetcs, but I’m curious about his work
Five years after Magazine Jones made another master piece Flying Cowboys which reminded many of us on Laura Nyro’s work. This was a great way for Rickie to pay a tribute to one her obvious influences. This time, Jones worked with Walter Becker behind boards, so the goregous sound was guaranteed.
Rickie Lee Jones likes to play other people’s songs, but she pretty much keeps a straight line between her own songs and covers. After the Girl At Her Volcano, she made two more cover only albums Pop pop and the most recent one It’s Like This. It is always a big pleasure hearing her strange performances and unusual sellections.
Jones’ moves are hard to predict. In 1997 she published her last album consisted of her own songs, Ghostyhead, which was a strangest little thing that came out in 1997. Rickie likes exploring music, so after listening to a lot of Bristol based trip hop bands, she made a trip hop album full of great poetic pastiches. I heard people calling her a trip pop beatnick, which was a great characterisation. Rickie also colaborated with Mike Watt on several of her live shows, and I’m very unpatient to hear more from two of them…
Mark Lanegan: Bubblegum
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When Lanegan left us early this year with his mini album called Here Comes The Weird Chill it was just for a brief period to quickly hint what might be a creative peak of his career. On this new album he took only one song off of the Here Comes The Weird Chill (Methamphetamine Blues) and added a busload of new ones. Sonically, Bubblegum is an immediate continuation of Here Comes The Weird Chill, but with even more focus and even more great songs. His past solo albums were all somehow downbeat and it seemed that the crazy rocking days of early Screaming Trees (where he was a singer) were long gone. But, this one changes it all! If songs are not raw full with energy a-la The Stooges, then they are full of suspense, waiting to burst out of your speakers. Production is raw and Mark did it himself. I can’t help thinking that Mark was influenced by the new blues scene and all those crazy garage rockers from Memphis along with obvious influences in Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. But don’t be scared – this album is good for everyday listening in every place, every occasion, suitable for any mood – bubblegum in one word! Another interesting appearance is backing vocal of PJ Harvey. I was never too impressed by her solo albums, but whenever I heard her as a backup singer (here and recently on Giant Sand and Gordon Gano records), I totally love it. http://www.marklanegan.com/ is his official site, but much more interesting stuff is on his fan page http://www.onewhiskey.com/. His label streams his latest video on-line – it’s really worth checking out.
Mark Lanegan: Here Comes That Weird Chill
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(Written in January 2004). The year just started and we already got an album that will definitely play an important role in the year’s best selection! This is a new one by Mark Lanegan and it’s louder and stronger than any Screaming Trees album, let alone his solo albums. It’s rough, it’s tough, it’s experimental, but still it rock and moves just like it should. His voice is still recognizable even though it often distorted by various studio effects. Drums are raw and guitars cut like razor blades. This is for the first time in years that Lanegan doesn’t collaborate with his long time companion Mike Johnson, so that in itself indicates a significant stylistic move. This is a unique represent of this loud new blues style that can be found for example on Christ Whitley’s album Terra Incognita, or Tarbox Ramblers, but it also has a favor of raw garage sound such as we know from Detroit and Memphis scenes – but perhaps in a little nicer package plus Tom Waits poetics. The album runs for only 30 minutes, but that’s cool – it just makes you wanna play it again. New cd-albums normally last too long anyway. LPs used to be much more carefully thought of. They say this is only a teaser before the full length album comes out! Woohoo!
http://www.onewhiskey.com/
Mark Lanegan
(Written for the old site.) SST in the eighties was home for every punk-rocker in USA. And they aslo grew their special breed of longhair punkers who drew their influences not only from early punk, but also from hard rock and psychedelia. One of the most notable bands of that breed were the Screaming Trees. Three chubby guys and a babe magnet Mark Lanegan gave us a little bit of fresh air when they in late eighties made great three albums for SST. That part of their career is also wonderfully compiled on Anthology: SST Years.
But then came 1991, Nirvana and grunge… Of course, Screaming Trees were a perfect grunge band already and CBS signed them and they really hit it big with Sweet Oblivion in 1992. Paradoxically, Sweet Oblivion was lyrically their weakest album up to date. Moreover, Lanegan started his deep exploration on more traditional forms like country and blues and decided to start a parallel career as a solo artist.
Actually, in 1990. came out firt Lanegan’s album entitled The Winding Street, but his career really started to overshadow Screaming Trees when he came up with Whiskey for the Holy Ghost in 1994. That was a delicious album full of bluesy bar atmosphere.
Like after a big hungover, his album I’ll Take Care of You came out in 1999. Here we find Lanegan performing his favorite standards like Little Sadie. You can find there many cool songwriters, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Bobby Blue Blend and Buck Owens. The nicest surprize is a wonderful bluesy cover of Carry Home, which was originally done by a death punk band The Gun Club.
Just now, Lanegan came up with a new album, and a new hairdo and he’s more than welcome. Album is entiled Field Songs, and represents Mark in a new light. It all looks like Lanegan got influenced by gypsy music, and there’s much of that nomadic feel in his new songs. However, the list of guest musicians is quite interesting… Except for his old buddy Mike Johnson (ex Dinosaur JR), also Duffy (ex Guns’n’Roses) delivers some quite impressive drum attacks, Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden also shows she can play some serious guitar. Duffy is also now a part of Mark’s new touring band, so god help us… Anyway, great low key records and a nice bluesy break in usually jolly good atmosphere of The Little Lighthouse.