This story was featured in NUVO in August. Nice little interview piece I did with Don Main, who fronted The Late Show/Recordio/Rockhouse; essentially the same band, with different names. He and the main lineup is back together and playing shows in Indianapolis. I first saw them at a 150-person venue in Madison Indiana – I think it was 1989 or 1990 – so was nearing the end of their run. Best band the club booked in the Electric Lady in the two or three years that I lived down there. Also saw the Rockhouse version of the band, but my recollection was they were burned out by then, and the Rick Clayton Band (Late Show guitarist) was around in the ashes of the band separation, but not for long. So it is good to hear they are back and power-popping…and working on a new album.
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The Late Show had a shot at national success.
In 1974, the band went to New York City and worked with producer Jack Douglas — known for his work with John Lennon, Aerosmith and, appropriately, The Knack — at the Record Plant. Major labels CBS and Epic offered them record deals.
The band, who created a potent mix of power pop vocals, guitars and reverberating drums, said no. They thought there were better offers to come. But, none came.
So why is their independent debut album Portable Pop now getting acclaim, more than 30 years after its original 1980 release? The band can thank the record label Trashy Creatures Records. They re-released the record in late May, and it picked up airplay on more than 70 radio stations of varying formats and dial positions.
The Late Show is playing a number of Indianapolis shows in 2012 and according to leader Don Main, prepping a new record. NUVO caught up with Main — who went on to own the Puccini’s restaurant chain — to talk about the albums, his other band and how the hell this all happened 40 years after The Late Show got together.
Rob Nichols
John Paul Keith brings a Booker T/Buddy Holly/Stones-y stew
John Paul Keith played a gig in Lafayette last weekend. Here’s a piece written before the show – good stuff and a dude worth listening to if you like the rock and roll three different ways…
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His name is enough to get me interested.
John Paul Keith. Like two Beatles and one Rolling Stone.
Turns out he’s a singer/songwriter/guitarist from Memphis with an American rock and soul sound.
Where did the Booker T/Buddy Holly/Stonesy stew come from and why is he trekking to Lafayette, Indiana to play a late night, two-set show for free? He played on August 18 at Hunter’s Down Under in Lafayette.
Matchbox Twenty has their best single – ever.
I wasn’t trying to love it, but the the new Matchbox Twenty single is the best thing they have ever done. “She’s So Mean” is thrilling, stuttering, rocking ower-freakin’-pop. Great drums, Tele guitars, and Rob Thomas’ confident swagger is nicely understated. Video is good too. Song is a part of their new album North, coming in September. One of the pop/rock bands that lost their way. “3 A.M.” was a killer little pop song, and they had a handful of radio hits. But the new one is better than all of them. Trust your friend Rob on this one… And remember, guitarist Kyle Cook is from Indiana. Shout out to Frankfort.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8WLa6umgdw&feature=player_detailpage]
Deep Purple Keyboardist Jon Lord Dies; created one of rock's signature sounds
Who was Jon Lord?
The name might ring familiar to early 70’s stoners and bluesy brit prog-rocker fans. Lord was the keyboardist who enveloped Deep Purple (and later Whitesnake) with a deep, muscular over-driven organ sound.
He died Monday. He was 71. A statement on Lord’s official website says he died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Here’s what I know of Lord, and why he mattered in rock: Lord co-wrote “Smoke on the Water.”
Isn’t that enough?
Deep Purple was Lord, singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover. And it was Lord who wielded a Hammond organ that drove “Smoke on the Water” “Hush,”and “Lazy” and ”Highway Star.”
A signature sound. Wrote one of the iconic rock songs of the past 50 years.
RIP Mr. Lord.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTkKD8BNZgo]
Plug pulled on Springsteen in London
On a night that began with Bruce Springsteen jumping in during John Fogerty’s set to sing “Rockin’ All Over the World”, and ended with Paul McCartney on stage doing Beatles rave-ups, the show was killed a bit early for Springsteen, as someone with access to the on/off switch shut down his show at Hard Rock Calling Festival in Hyde Park in London.
Bruce had pushed well past the three-hour mark during his show with the E Street Band, headlining the Saturday night schedule in front of about 80,000. Curfew was 10:30pm and he was more than 10 minutes past the cutoff.
Up to that point, reports on the web say Fogerty had returned to duet on “Promised Land” and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello had joined for a trio of songs, supplying incendiary guitar solos. But the big surprise was when McCartney ran on to do “I Saw Her Standing There’ and a raucous “Twist and Shout”.
And here’s where it gets ugly.
After “Twist and Shout,”, as McCartney was leaving the stage, Bruce motioned the band back to their positions after a bow. They wanted to play one of the signature songs of the tour, the Clarence-remembrance “10th Avenue Freeze Out”. According to witnesses, Bruce tried to count off the song, but the PA had been shut down. Backstreets.com reported that “Bruce’s monitor engineer had to come on stage to advise that the PA had been cut off, though the stage monitors were on. Unwilling to just walk off without doing something else, Bruce sang a few lines of the folk standard ‘Goodnight Irene,’ audible only to those near the stage, before leaving.”
From the Archives: Untold Stories Series – BoDeans return to Indy, minus a founding member
NOTE: For whatever reason, there are columns/stories I write that never get published on the Rockforward blog. Why is that? I have no good explanation. I mean, it’s my blog. All I have to do is write it, spell-check it and hit publish. Weird, don’t you think? In the face of such insanity, I have created a series called “Stories Untold: The Mysteriously Unused Works of Rob Nichols“ (I am nothing if not a little bombastic when it comes to series titles). So enjoy the first in the series. It’s one written last fall, preceding the first Indy appearance by the BoDeans since Sammy Llanas had abruptly left the band. We came to find out it was a long-simmering breakdown between Kurt Neumann and Sammy. (Read Kurt’s terrific Q&A with the Pollstar website or Chicago Tribune’s interview for Sammy’s version) The band soldiers on, embracing the name and the history, and released an album (American Made) this year – the first minus one of the two distinct voices of the band’s 25 years together. Take a listen here.
And if the story below feels a little dated, it is. But it’s now part of a series, man.
(originally written October, 2012)
When the BoDeans make an appearance at the Vogue on October 6, it will be the first time that the band will play an Indianapolis show without founding member Sam Llanas. The singer – one of band’s two singers, along with Kurt Neumann – is no longer part of the group.
Llanas, a high school friend of Neumann’s, didn’t show up for a BoDeans show in Winter Park, CO, and officially left the group five days later.
According to their Wikipedia entry, the split was due to “differences of opinion” that had been “going on for years”, said Neumann.
Nuemann will continue under the BoDeans moniker, and has added Jake Owen to take the spot of Llanas. Their website (bodeans.com) has new pictures of the band – minus Llanas – and have five shows scheduled through November 4.
According to the web, the group is working on a new studio album for 2012. Llanas has a new solo album titled 4 A.M., which came shortly after the latest BoDeans album, Indigo Dreams, was released this summer.
So what do we make of the split? As I wrote in Nuvo in July, 2010, “I can’t remember walking away (from a show) thinking that the band hadn’t worked hard at making a connection. The sound they make is unique.”
At the time, I wrote that the new album, Mr. Sad Clown, was thoroughly BoDeans, and the unique blending of two voices the reason they survive.
REVIEW – Mr. Sad Clown – Rob Nichols – July, 2010
Without the Everly’s like harmonies, it is difficult to imagine the band not changing it’s sound; the BoDeans morph into the Kurt Neumann Band. And I am good with that.
But the BoDeans in my head is Sammy and Kurt, teaming up to harmonize through “(She’s a) Runaway” and “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Good Things”.
That will be gone.
We will get a chance to see an early version of the new lineup, with the Indy show the first of the aforementioned five shows. The band has used Indianapolis as one of their regular stops over the past 20 years and the local fan base seems loyal and always appears by showtime to fill up the Vogue.
It is BoDeans name on the marquee. In Indy, there is value in that brand. It will be up to the remaining membesr, especially the remaining, likeable frontman Neumann, to make the new lineup work.
The show will surely contain the rock and rolling deep catalog of familiar, midwest-flavored BoDeans songs, and it will probably be a little bittersweet for fans
But carry on, my man. Carry on Kurt. Because we still need American rock and roll. It will be different, and it will be the same. Played with some heartland passion and with a band that is a little sweaty and confident, it will work.
Check back in a year. My guess is you will still be on the road, and just maybe, happier than ever.
(editor’s note: The band has continued to tour, and came back around to Indy for a show in June, 2012 -still rocking and still singing BoDeans songs. And that’s a good thing.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zflA0uTOL4E]