Hundreds of bands have played and recorded “I Fought the Law” – Hundreds make it rock. Here’ s the song channeled through Green Day… the pop/punk/killer harmonies version. And you can NEVER go wrong with the six snare shots any drummer worth a shit will play following the line “…Robbing people with a six gun”.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TOVkiBE2r4]
Rob Nichols
Seger Back with a New Old Album
Sometimes, the magic can sneak up on you. One of the very best concerts I’ve seen in the past ten years was Bob Seger at Conseco Fieldhouse – no shit – in 2007 . Bought a $60 ticket from a scalper for 15 bucks ten minutes before the show. Went to the back of the arena and found a seat with great sound, straight look at the stage. Upper deck. Seger went old-school, with no video screens; forced the audience to commune with the band and the singer. Who does that anymore? Brilliant move. Great, energetic, connected-to-the moment crowd at the cavernous arena. And he sounded damn good for a man with 40-odd years in the rock show businees, who smokes a little too much. Seger had it that night. Even from the upper deck. That doesn’t happen too often.
Seger’s got a new/old album coming out this week, so I’ve been reading some stuff online, and I’m always surprised when someone writes how they don’t “get” Bob Seger.
He has one of the greatest voices ever in rock and roll, but I get a feeling he’s not really thought of as influential or A-list by some. Yeah, he ‘s in the Rock Hall of Fame. But there’s this nagging reminder that Seger is too, what shall I call it, pedestrian and old-fashioned? Everytime I hear (like twice a year?) a person say Bob Seger ain’t that good, I think “dude, what are you talkin’ about?” I was reading a blog last night about songs that didn’t quite reach the top 40, and how this writer says he can’t listen to Seger. He then goes on to gush over Scritti Politti. So that explains a lot.
For kicks, let’s look at those five 80’s songs that didn’t hit Top 40 for Seger.
“Horizontal Bop” — 1980, #42
“Feel Like a Number” — 1981, #48
“Old Time Rock and Roll” — 1983, #48
“It’s You” — 1986, #52
“Miami” — 1986, #70
The first three are legendary classic rock radio songs, and that’s why we think they were huge songs; because they were. Just not huge on Top 40 stations. “Feel Like a Number” may be one of the ten best rock and roll songs of the decade (though this is the live version), depending on th night, and what youmay be drinking (or smoking). My list changes all the time, but that’s a song can bounce onto my list of all-time faves right now. Underrated. It’s like CCR on steroids – with lyrics of desolation and resignation. Rock lyrics. Sad words hidden by swinging, groovin’, jet-propelled rock music.
“Old Time Rock and Roll” is the re-entry after appearing in the “Risky Business” movie. The last two songs are off the Like a Rock album – and I really like “It’s You” So whatever. You don’t like Seger? Then I don’t like you. Bob was Midwestern rock and roll before Mellencamp. Before REO Speedwagon got big. Before Cheap Trick. Before Springsteen.
Now, he wasn’t a rock star until “Live Bullet” in 1976. (He had released eight albums before hitting with the album recorded at the legendary Cobo Hall). But after that, nobody was bigger than Seger for the next 5 or 6 years.
Seger’s new album, Early Seger Vol. 1, features recently remastered versions of numerous classic Seger songs from the early 1970s and four previously unreleased recordings.
It will be available to Midwestern fans through Meijer in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky.
Starting the following Monday, November 30th, fans can purchase the CD or a full album download at bobseger.com, where the 10 songs can currently be heard.
In September, Seger headed to Kid Rock’s studio in Detroit to re-record elements of four previously unreleased tracks for the collection: “Gets Ya Pumpin’,” “Star Tonight,” “Wildfire” and “Days When the Rain Would Come. Seger also re-recorded much of “Long Song Comin'” from 1974’s Seven.
Early Seger Vol. 1 includes five remastered tracks – “Someday” and his version of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter” Seger’s cover of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider” and “Get Out Of Denver” and “U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class)” , two best known from the Live Bullet record.
Intriguing little collection; I’ve heard much of it and it benefits greatly from the remastering. And you get what are essentially five new songs.
You don’t like Seger? Highly unlikely. You read this far. Now check out the video below the track listing, for some long-haired Dee-troit rock and roll.
The track listing for Early Seger Vol. 1
1. Midnight Rider (remastered from original Back in ’72 tapes)
2. If I Were A Carpenter (remastered from original Smokin’ O.P’s tapes)
3. Get Out Of Denver (remastered from original Seven tapes)
4. Someday (remastered from original Smokin’ O.P.’s tapes)
5. U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class) (remastered from original Seven tapes)
6. Long Song Comin’ (originally appeared on Seven; extensively re-recorded for Early Seger Vol. 1)
7. Star Tonight (Seger recording previously unreleased; first released as a cover by Don Johnson for his 1986 album, Heartbeat)
8. Gets Ya Pumpin’ (previously unreleased; Seger’s earliest version of this song, written in 1973, was entitled “Pumpin'”)
9. Wildfire (previously unreleased)
10. Days When The Rain Would Come (previously unreleased)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbqGubZmgo]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMI98XueaJw]
Concert Review: Will Hoge Brings His Influences to Indianapolis
Will Hoge began the final night of his 2009 tour by sitting in a chair at the front of the stage, playing acoustic guitar. By show’s end Saturday night at Radio Radio, he was in full Pete Townshend windmill, testifying frontman mode. He was sweating, screaming and generally doing what Will Hoge does in a live setting: channeling his inner Petty and Springsteen to create Memphis via Nashville soulful rock and roll. And damn, if he isn’t about the best at what he does.
Ambling on stage in a white dress shirt, back vest, and black tie with an unbuttoned collar, Hoge dotted his 2 hour, 10-minute, 28-song show with songs from his five studio albums, leaning most heavily on his first (“Carousel”) and his latest (“the Wreckage”). Opening with the title cut to the new record – it served as a metaphorical reminder of the nearly year-long battle Hoge fought to recover from a serious scooter accident in August 2008, suffered on his way home from a studio session during the recording of the album.
While the sold-out show (a sign was posted on the front door of Radio Radio just before 8:30pm) pushed showgoers together and created a palpable energy of expectation, Hoge’s initial two songs, played seated, had much of the audience struggling to see the singer and dive into the moment. His voice is gritty, blue-eyed soul when he slows his music down, and his plaintive, tough yet-sensitive lyrics shine.
But with “Highway Wings” from the new record, Hoge stood up, the audience energy came with it, and the rock and roll began. The three song-suite, featuring the ultra-hooky “Secondhand Heart” and the rocker “She Don’t Care”, played to Hoge’s strengths: Petty-esque, anthemic pop/rock, dirtied up with loud Fender Telecaster rhythm and a band that fits nicely and loudly into the mix.
The sound at Radio Radio is always some of the best for any venue in the city, and this night was no exception, treating the audience to clean, crisp instrument separation: just the right thump of Adam Beard’s bass and Sigurdur Birkis’s drums (and they may be the best rhythm section I have seen in 2009), with dueling, jagged guitars, and vocals that rode just atop the mix. Nearly perfect.
Hoge and his band built energy in five or six song bursts, starting with an acoustic song or two before heating up the room with the electric guitars. As the band rocked Hoge would hold his blond Tele above his head, and lean backwards and sideways into the microphone to sing a lyric.
He mentioned how nice it was to have an audience that knew the words, and responded by playing “Heartbreak Avenue”, a song he said the band rarely tries, pulled from the “Carousel” album. “Favorite Waste of Time” had a Smithereens crunch to it, while “Better Off (Now that You’re Gone)” from his underappreciated “Blackbird on a Lonely Wire” album showcased the band’s ability to take a sugary rock song and infuse it with off-the-beaten-Nashville-path twang. Halfway through the show, it was evident Hoge was back. Sure, he sat a few times, either to rest or for effect. Either way was OK, because when he did stand, strap on the electric guitar, and rock, that’s the Will Hoge experience that most seemed to relish.
And you have to be proud of Indy to pack 500 or so into a club for a band whose music doesn’t fit neatly onto the radio in 2009. It’s a shame, a sham, and a pity; Hoge is the guy delivers energy and connection with his rock music, not to mention some great fuckin’ lyrics on top of the guitar snarls and snare snaps.
The staccato riffs of “Your Fool” revved the song and audience up, and the current radio song “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” proved to be anthemic, as expected, singing about the powers of ambition filtered through the radio of a kid. It began a sweep into the back half of the show that found the audience finding their voice, and singing with Hoge.
The crowd knew and sang with “Ms. Williams”, the Elvis Costello-ish “Hard to Love” and laughed along with a story of him breaking into one of the band’s two hotel rooms to find the guitar and bass players on the web, watching video’s of 80’s heavy metal band the Scorpions..
Ending the set by sitting at the piano for “Too Late Too Soon”, Hoge and the band soon came back for a nine-song, end of tour blowout encore, channeling the Georgia Satellites, Todd Snider, The Faces and The Who as they sweated their way through “Just Like Me,” , Long Gone” and a beautiful “Highway’s Home” featuring guitarist Devin Malone on pedal steel.
Near the end. Hoge said the band was going to do a “social experiment” and took them into the back of the room, with only acoustic instruments, and sang and played unamplified, quieting the crowd with harmonies, before he jumped back on stage to perform a sublime, gospel-influenced, “Washed by the Water”. It found Malone moving over to play the keyboard, and eerily emulating a church organ. The audience sang the chorus back to Hoge as the singer waved and walked off the stage.
Will Hoge’s ability to rock and roll with aplomb and walk away with a big smile was a far cry from the days following his accident, after a van driver failed to yield and Hoge smashed into the side of the vehicle. He broke numerous ribs, his sternum, leg, knee cap, shoulder blades, and required more than 100 stitches. So it’s quite a distance traveled for Hoge. Just only once did he quickly mention how “tough it had been” before he fell back into his show, performing like he was glad to be back.
Great, up-close video from the show – November 21, 2009 at Radio Radio
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3PzKRvwaw]
Cancel the Vote: It's the Country Music Song of the Year from Cracker and Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood
They waited until November, but there’s the freakin’ country music song of the year. Love the sound of the recording too, and the killer lead guitar lines. Buh-rilliant. Cracker and Patterson Hood team up to blend their stuff together. And it works.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPuPWapsFz4]
Youngest Cash Still Playing Shows, Keeping Johnny's Music Alive
Tommy Cash is sitting in his car, on the phone, having just pulled into his Hendersonville, TN driveway. From Indianapolis, I ask if he wants to go inside before we talk. Cash, the youngest brother of Johnny Cash says, “no, this is good.”
Who am I to argue with a Cash?
Tommy has crafted a pretty decent country music career. Yeah, he’s Johnny kid brother, a fact nobody could run away from. (Hell, Johnny may be – sorry Hank, Sr. – the biggest country music icon ever). Not that Tommy has wanted to run from his name. Rather, he’s embraced his heritage without seeming cloying or overly opportunistic.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, he charted three top 10 singles – the biggest being 1969’s “Six White Horses”, chronicling the deaths of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now 69 years old, Tommy Cash still hits the road, and was ready to head to Greenwood for a benefit show at Jonathan Byrd’s Ballroom in late October.
Tommy knows he’s not Johnny. He knows his career and influence will forever dwarf the “Man in Black”. But Tommy Cash seems at peace with his place in life.
He’s got a new album (“Fade to Black”, which is a pretty damn good late-career record) that features guitar playing and singing from Marty Stuart and a duet with George Jones. He plays lots of golf in the winter in Florida. He’s raised three successful kids. He’s healthy. And for a little more than three years, has been paying homage to his big brother with his “Johnny Cash Tribute Show”.
“People say ‘oh my goodness, it must be hard standing in Johnny’s shadow’. I don’t look at it that way. I let other people worry about it,” Cash says, as we talk about the obvious. “I am an individual and very active. I do a lot of different things. I know my brother was one of the biggest stars in the history of music. Period. People all over the world loved Johnny Cash and still do. And I realize it, and am very cognizant of that.”
“But I really don’t worry about it,” Cash says “I just go and do my show and do the best I can and am very proud of what I do.”
His biggest successes came from late 1969, through 1973, when the youngest Cash accumulated 12 Top 40 country hits, and built his career no differently than dozens of current country music stars who have mid-chart hits and then jump on a bus to earn their real money, playing gigs.
“I have been to Europe 40 times since 1965 and have a good fan base there. I draw good crowds over there; they love the traditional country music. A year or so ago we did a tour of Scandinavia and Ireland. That was a great tour.”
The upcoming trip to Indianapolis won’t be his first.
“In the mid 1960s, it seemed like I got booked around Indianapolis a lot. I used to play a bar called the Sherman Bar, and there were two or three other places up there I worked. I’ve always enjoyed coming to Indianapolis.
“Back in the 1970s and 80s, when I was having hit records, I toured 250 days a year,” Cash remembers. “Now that I’ve gotten older, I don’t want to do that many dates, and probably couldn’t get booked that many anyway. I work about 75-80 dates a year and that’s really all I want to do. I have been touring for 44 years,”
“And I am not tired of it,” he says. “But don’t want to be gone from home that much even if I could.”
For his show in Greenwood, he’ll bring his longtime backing band “The Cash Crew”, for his “Johnny Cash Tribute Show”.
“We’ve been doing the show for three or four years,” Cash says. “It’s some country songs, some Johnny Cash songs, and stories that only I know about Johnny that I tell between songs. People really appreciate this show. It is my way of showing my love and respect and to honor him and his music. I sing some of my own songs in the show, and we get as close to the Johnny Cash sound as we want; we don’t want to copy or imitate him, but it is close,” Cash says. “People tell me they close their eyes and they can hear him.
“But my voice is a little higher than his.”
Cash sounds sincere when he speaks of his piece of the Cash name. He digests questions, and takes a couple beats before answering. And he occasionally, at the end of a sentence, will pause and start talking again, adding to the story. You can feel him, through the phone, thinking.
We talk about his new album.
“I am very proud of “Fade to Black” – It is my 22nd album. I am proud of the way the album turned out. I asked Marty to do a song on this album, and said ‘You pick it’. He said ‘I have always loved ‘Six White Horses’ and I’d love to have you record that again, and let me play lead guitar and sing on it’. And it turned out really good. George came in and sang on the opening track “Some Kind of a Woman” and my son Mark Cash sang on two songs.”
And isn’t the Cash family country music royalty? – the everyman regime that represents country music roots through sincerity, and sauced with more than a little of tough luck and hard living. Part of that heritage is Tommy Cash.
“As long as I can stay healthy and do a good show, I will continue. When the time comes I can’t do my best on stage, I will quit and do whatever I need to do for the rest of my life,” he says. “Maybe play golf. Maybe see some of the places I have played and not seen. I have been to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of places. I had very little time for sightseeing, because you do the show, go to the hotel, sleep, get up and go to the next town. As I get older I have a yearning to see some of the great sites of the world.
“I have had a wonderful career, and I am very grateful for the success I have had,” Cash says before ending his driveway phone call and heading inside his house.
“It’s nothing compared to Johnny, but I have really enjoyed my life.”
***
Hear Tommy Cash – “Fade to Black” (2:00)
Hear Tommy Cash – “Best of” (2:00)
Upcoming Indianapolis Roots Rock Shows
Some Indianapolis alt-country/roots rock gigs you should know about:
Nov. 13: The Elms w/ Special Guest Henry French and the Shameless, The Vogue 8 p.m.
Nov. 14: David England, Vulgar Boatmen, Old Flames, Radio Radio, 1119 E. Prospect St., 9 p.m.
Nov. 18: The Fox Hunt, Joey Welch, The Complete Unknowns, The Vollrath, 118 E. Palmer St., 8 p.m.
Nov. 18: Carrie Rodriguez, Royal Theater, 59 S. Washington St. Danville, 8 p.m.
Nov. 21: Will Hoge, Radio Radio, 1119 E. Prospect St., 9 p.m.
Nov. 21: Rusty Bladen, Louie’s, St. Rd 37, Fishers, 9:30 p.m.
Nov. 21: Vagabond Opera, Royal Theater, 59 S. Washington St., Danville, 8 p.m
Nov. 22: Alexa Woodward, Elam Abraham Blackman, Adam Kuhn, The Accordions, Earth House, 237 N. East St., 8 p.m.
Dec. 4: The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Jascha, Joey Welch, The Vogue, 6259 N. College Ave., 9 p.m.
You guys know I think The Elms are the real deal, right? They work hard, tour around in a van, playing sweaty, greasy, soulful music for 10 or 100 or 1,000 people at a time. The Elms seem to think rock and roll matters. Gotta get behind that, because it’s the difference between music that means something and all the rest of the stuff out there. Here’ s the new video for the hook-laden “Back to Indiana”. (I think it’s golden when bands make MTV-ish videos today. The new retro…). Rock forward…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AkjV7k1RUE]