I'm testing out a new file host so I came up with a new feature: "BillyBlog Was There."
I have received a lot of visits from people googling about the Radio City performance in March of Lucinda Williams. Apparently, Rolling Stone magazine reviewed the bootleg and praised it to no end.
My review is here, but I will link in the audio from the closing number, Lucinda's cover of the Skip James classic "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues."
By popular demand (let's hope this works), you can download the whole show as a zip file here.
Full Set list:
Rescue Ventura Fruits of My Labor Drunken Angel Lake Charles Fancy Funeral Pineola Band Intros Righteously Essence Come On Unsuffer Me Joy Everything Has Changed West Where is My Love Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
The music blog ickmusic, has a downloadable, zipped Lucinda Williams concert from Harrisburg on March 28, 2007. Click here. I'm grabbing it 1) to see how good she sounds and 2) to see if I can hear the drunk idiot in the audience from the Radio City gig (refresh thy memory here).
Update: Definitely a nice bootleg. Except for a couple of tracks early on where Lucinda's voice breaks and she is forced to restart the song, the quality is very good and the setlist is phenomenal, including "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," which she played at Radio City.
And, I think I can hear the screamer from NY in the audience!
What can I say? It was a great show. Lucinda Williams has a phenomenal voice and the venue was incredible. Acoustically, it was one of the most aurally stunning concerts I have ever had the pleasure to attend.
BlogPal Jill and I were sitting in the low rent district:
So, the performers looked like this:
But, hey, I knew when I bought the tickets that I wasn't going to be close. It was all about the music, and the cheap seats made me appreciate the sound in the venue that much better. Below you'll get a taste of the sound if you are brave enough to sit through some YouTube clips, where I butchered the photography (read: focused on the ceiling rather than the stage, duh), yet my camera was able to get some nice audio from the show. The fact that it is even audible is a testament to the greatness of the sound.
The opening act was the Heartless Bastards. They played a nice, compact, 10-song set. I liked them generally, and alluded in a live post that they reminded me of a kind of countryish bluesy White Stripes, but with a female singer. Much has been written about them recently, so I'll skip the details. They were a little rough, which was abundantly clear when Lucinda took the stage and the level of songmanship was so abundantly disparate. But then again, that's why they were an opening act.
(Penultimate song) - Couldn't identify this one. Lead singer Erika Wennerstrom did not introduce any of the songs, so I've had to research based on snippets of lyrics I typed into my blackberry. I got all but this one.
"Runnin" from Stairs and Elevators
Lucinda and her band took the stage at around 9:30 and played until 11:00 PM. The Radio City curfew was strictly enforced.
I'll get the negative out of the way first. The drunk woman sitting three rows behind us was an idiot. And probably still is. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that the band can't hear the stupid things you're yelling from ten rows up in the third mezzanine. This blubbering imbecile kept bellowing "See you Wednesday in Harrisburg!" and "Play from your heart!" Maybe her depth perception was off and she felt she was in the third row and just needed glasses. Ok, we get it lady, you're a fan, you're seeing her again Wednesday, it's not like you're yelling "Play Leash!" at a Pearl Jam concert.
That aside, I had sort of psyched myself up for a lot of her old hits, based on a review I read from a show she did earlier in the month in Orlando. Granted, that show ran an hour longer, and the reviewer remarked on how little of West, her new album, was played. We got the opposite treatment here. Take a look at the setlist:
"Rescue," from West (2007) "Ventura," from World Without Tears (2003) "Fruits of My Labor," from World Without Tears "Drunken Angel," from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998) "Lake Charles," from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road "Fancy Funeral," from West "Pineola," from Sweet Old World (1992) "Righteously," from World Without Tears "Essence," from Essence(2001) "Come On," from West "Unsuffer Me," from West "Joy," from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road ---- "Everything Has Changed," from West "West," from West "Where Is My Love," from West "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" (Skip James cover)
Some of my notes from the show.
After finishing the opening song "Rescue," Lucinda stood staring at the house and remarked "The sound is just stunning in here." The crowd roared its agreement.
Here's two and a half minutes of "Lake Charles". Just a reminder, don't click to watch, click to listen:
"Essence" is one of my favorite songs, so I caught the last 2 and a half minutes for posterity. Again, you can't see much, but the music is clear:
After "Essence," she introduced Jenny Scheinman on violin. Ms. Scheinman provided strings on the new album, and remained on stage for the rest of the show. She added another dimension to the band. One of the reviews I read of West, one of the negative ones, faulted the effort for not taking advantage of Ms. Scheinman's talents on the record. The reviewer claimed that her strings were lost in the production. That's one opinion, but they were definitely not lost on the stage at Radio City.
During the first song on which she played, the amazing "Unsuffer Me," Jenny's violin and Pettibone's guitar just wailed and really rocked the house.
The main set ended with "Joy," and Lucinda had Erica from the Heartless Bastards come back out to play with her. The added guitar made the band sound fuller and bluesier. It was quite good. During the brief break, there was some hollering for one of Lucinda's more popular songs "Changed the Locks". I guessed we would get that or perhaps "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" during the encore. Alas, that was not in the plans.
She threw us three more Westsongs. They were very good, but I was surprised at this point that the new album was so strongly represented. And the last song was not a big hit. I was going to be unhappy, but then she explained. They ended with a Skip James song, an old blues cover that I had never heard before. Lucinda explained that this was a tune she had performed in Brooklyn at St. Anne's church many years ago for the director Wim Wenders' chapter in the Martin Scorcese-produced PBS documentary on the Blues. The song appeared in the documentary, but not in its entirety, and did not make it to the soundtrack that was released on disc. That's a shame because, I'll tell you, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" was the coup de grace, a slow-rolling rocker that was just phenomenal, punctuated by some band solos, and a throbbing humming that the audience joined in on. Here's 50 seconds of it:
So, there you have it. Great show. Not perfect, but still seminal. The venue made it more special. Check out Lucinda Williams, if you can, tour dates here.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa had a fight 31 years ago. Now, details are emerging publicly about what the hullabaloo was about. Nice shiner, GGM!
Architect Frank Gehry is close to having completed his first Manhattan building. New York Times article here. Photo:
There's a new Chris Cornell song streaming on his MySpace page. It's called "No Such Thing," from the upcoming release Carry On. He's playing Irving Plaza on Monday, April 16. Hmmmm.
I am excited to see Lucinda Williams tomorrow night at Radio City. Heartless Bastards are opening. Click their name (a cool one, indeed) to hear some of their songs streaming on MySpace. Or listen here: "Into the Open" courtesy of Adzuki Bean Stash.
Mini bookpeeping. I saw someone on the train reading this book today:
Go here for the Girlbomb website. Looks interesting.
I am working on an autobiographical musical post that deals with my failed relationship at the age of 17 with a young lady in Hawai'i who was the daughter of a judge. The main cause of the breakup: the Pacific Ocean and Satan. Betcha can't wait!
It's new music Tuesday, as they say, and I have already listened to most of the new Lucinda Williams album West. (Click title to buy from amazon).
Sparing you any lengthy review, let me just say that this is a very good album. I can already tell, much better than World Without Tears, not as great (if that were even possible) as Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.
Blender gives the record three stars, Rolling Stone gives is four, calling the album opener "one of her greatest songs ever". That's high praise, indeed. There are some low points on the record, but I have yet to identify them on my own.
Astute BillyBlogReader Tony noticed, so I'm giving him props. I recently won a contest over at I Am Fuel, You Are Friends, a blog so cool y'all are probably tired of me yapping about it.
Heather, the brain behind the blog, did three things of interrelated interest. She dedicated a post to the Lucinda Williams reissue of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she ran a contest asking visitors to nominate the best "road" songs, and then she created two discs, posted as zip files on her site, for all of us to enjoy.
This is what I submitted:
Instructions:
1. Get in a Car in Las Vegas 2. Drive to edge of City, facing toward L.A. 3. Stop car 4. Roll down Windows 5. Turn volume up 6. Press play on stereo which has the Joshua Tree CD ready to go 7. Drive West 8. I can't help you with the goosebumps, you're on your own there. It's a religious experience.
Or, if you want to disqualify me for selecting an album instead of a song, get to L.A. and drive on a freeway with the title track from the Doors' L.A. Woman on the stereo. But do it at night, preferably when it isn't raining.
Oh, and I was among four randomly-selected lucky winners of the Lucinda CD. Boy Howdy.
So click on the links above to see what I'm talking about. And do what Tony did, check out the blog for awesome tunes on a regular basis.
Last week I posted about one of my favorite albums, Lucinda Williams' Car Weeels on a Gravel Road.
I recently stumbled across a French blog that has a couple of the songs from her new album West performed live in Europe.
The CD is due out on February 13, but you can get a sneak peak by going over to There's Always Someone Cooler Than You and checking out the tracks. They're a little muffled, but they are live performances from Amsterdam this past November. Check, in particular, "Unsuffer Me," which just sounds like it will be incredible on disc. She introduces it as being "inspired by God and Jim Morrison." Please check it out. Not to mention the blog has a pretty cool name.
Expect me to obsess a little more on the new Lucinda Williams record in the immediate future. You can also listen to an entire concert from '05, which includes "Unsuffer Me" in the encore, here on NPR.
In my slowly-dragged out ongoing series of favorite 25 albums of all time (see the sidebar for #25-22), this next one may raise a few eyebrows.
It falls under the classification of Country music, although the artist in question blends the country genre with folk and rock. Her name is Lucinda Williams and the album, considered to be a masterpiece, is Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.
Rolling Stone's review of the 1988 album is here. The review garnered a high 4 stars out of 5, and when a deluxe version appeared earlier this year, this reviewer upgraded it to 5 stars. That puts it in the same neighborhood as, well, the greatest albums of all time.
I'm not sure how I discovered this record, but I think it was via a famous/infamous 2000 profile of the singer in The New Yorker by Bill Buford.
What I like about this record is that it is not stereotypically country. Nothing against fans of country and western music. It's just not my cup o' tea. Lyrically and musically, this just seems more complicated than what I normally hear in country songs.
And Lucinda Williams has a dark, syrupy voice that sounds like she is singing casually for no one but herself, and it works for me. The songs on Car Wheels... never get old for me and I hear something new in them every time I listen.
The blog Leaky Sparrow recently talked about the remastered disc and linked 3 tunes:
One of my favorite tracks on the album is called "Drunken Angel". It's got some great harmonica and phenomenal lyrics:
Sun came up it was another day And the sun went down you were blown away Why'd you let go of your guitar Why'd you ever let it go that far Drunken Angel Could've held on to that long smooth neck Let your hand remember every fret Fingers touching each shiny string But you let go of everything Drunken Angel Drunken Angel You're on the other side Drunken Angel You're on the other side Followers would cling to you Hang around just to meet you Some threw roses at your feet And watch you pass out on the street Drunken Angel Feed you and pay off all your debts Kiss your brow taste your sweat Write about your soul your guts Criticize you and wish you luck Drunken Angel ... Some kind of savior singing the blues A derelict in your duct tape shoes Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair Looking like you didn't care
Drunken Angel Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart Over the strings of your guitar The worn down places in the wood That once made you feel so good ... Sun came up it was another day And the sun went down you were blown away Why'd you let go of your guitar Why'd you ever let it go that far Drunken Angel Drunken Angel
And lastly, visit Aquarium Drunkard, one of the best music blogs around, for their discussion, and three more tracks, including the title track and a couple of the added bonus tracks from the reissue.
Thanks to those blogs for hosting such great music. Please visit and support them by reading them too. For more info, go visit Lucinda on her website here.For an extra bonus, go here and listen to her father, Miller Williams, reading his inaugural poem, "Of History and Hope" at the second Clinton inauguration in 1997.
