A recent cold winter night, with snow falling, Henry Lee Summer was on stage at a northside bar, there to sing a few songs, play some guitar, have a bit of fun. Continue to get himself into musical fighting shape. Just another gig, and a bit more than that, too.
“What I am trying to do is go back to square one,” Summer says, talking about his career today. “First and foremost, I am taking care of myself and my family. Musically, I am writing and using the past few years’ experiences for material to write about. My goal in one year is to have a full time band that can play my old and new music and sustain my living and support my family.”
When NUVO interviewed Henry Lee Summer 20 years ago, for our debut issue, his story came across as that of a Hoosier homeboy – all blue jeans and cafeteria food (the first interview was at an MCL Cafeteria). The talk at the time was a new album and what he believed bands needed to do to succeed.
“I prefer to hear originals,” he said at the time. “When a band is playing their own stuff, they are much more alive.”
“In Indy there were places to play (back then) if you were a musician of any caliber,” he now remembers. “Starting out, I got to play six nights a week for several hours. There were lots of opportunities back then that aren’t there now. There were battle of bands, Ramada Inn, Holiday Inn, sock hops – it was great.
Has it really been more than 20 years since Henry Lee Summer broke big? “I Wish I Had a Girl,”, “Hands on the Radio” and “Darlin’ Danielle Don’t” come 1-2-3 on the debut record. An anthem, a pop-rocker and a power ballad with some grit. It is late 80’s rock and roll, filtered through Top 40 AM radio and smoky bars. It is the sound of the Midwest.
“‘I Wish I Had a Girl’ was a number one record for a few weeks,” Summer remembers. “I always wanted to have a hit record, so I was lucky and thankful. It was in heavy rotation and saturated MTV and the radio so people remembered it. ‘Hey Baby’ was a big hit, but ‘Wish I Had a Girl’ was everywhere.”
Way Past Midnight (1990) and Slamdunk (1993) were his last two major label releases, as the business was changing and grunge had arrived. With 1999’s Smoke and Mirrors and then a live album, Summer released records to a regional audience. Two of his cover bands, the Alligator Brothers and Candybomber, took much of his time.
Then, a pair of well-documented arrests brought Henry Lee Summer to where is today. First was a 2006 drunk driving charge and then a methamphetamine arrest in 2009. After that, he went into rehab.
If that was the end of the story, then it would be like hundreds of other musicians who burned brightly and then faded away. But there has always been a little more to like with Summer. Legendary show, full of energy and passion; great heartland rock made better live. Seeing him was an event. We loved Henry Lee Summer. And that’s why it’s been has been tough — though more for him than us.
It’s early in this new chapter of his life, but the story seems to be unfolding as a hopeful tale. His support has come from his family, and he says he feels the fans’ influence too.
“Most people have been very forgiving in general. They know that I am working hard to stay on track,” he says. Summer says he’s touched by the support. “Mom and Dad, my wife and immediate family, Mike Denton and Jimmy Ryser at Methodist Hospital in the Substance Abuse Recovery Program. It means a lot that my family has stood by me through all of it.”
His career is again being managed by Blonde Entertainment’s Lisa Sauce, and she says Henry is more engaged in his life and career than he has been in a long time.
“We have had some very real conversations since his sobriety,” Sauce says. “In the past, I felt like he was distant and closed off from me and others. I think that it’s ‘one day at a time’ for him right now. He needs to keep building up his stamina and health. If he continues to do that, then he will do great. I can see him getting a new record done and performing original shows and tapping into his loyal fan base. I do think that his fans are aching for his original music and shows,” Sauce says.
“I feel no pressure with a timeline,” Summer says. “I didn’t write for a while. Everything feels fresh to me again. I have been writing more than I ever have, and I want to put out a record that captures some of the experiences that I have had over the last 10 years. Lately it has been really good to write. It is hard to raise your bar high and write good songs. I am enjoying the process now.
“I am very hopeful. I don’t need a big house on the hill. I want to stay on the recovery side of my addiction,” he says. “There is no room for error with me now.”
Indiana
Indiana Album: Finest Grain – "In the Story – The Adventures of Kid B"
The new album from Indianapolis band Finest Grain, “In the Story – The Adventures of Kid B”, plays as part song-cycle about growing up and, taken individually, the best tracks resonate as pop-rock gems, sharing sweetness and crunch and lyrics that stick.
Finest Grain – an Indianapolis duo of Sean Jackson and Kent Vernon (Jackson was a member of the Housemary’s, the two teamed up to release one album as Dooga La Brown in 2000, and this record is a follow-up to Finest Grain’s 2005 debut “One More Shot”) – use an acoustic guitar base that drops in strident but tasteful rock drums and cutting rock and roll guitar. Let the album play, because the early idea that the sound will be lightweight and atmospheric goes away. It never falls into that trap, instead driving hard enough to hit your gut as much as your head.
The record opens with tough acoustic guitar strumming and welcomes those drums. There’s some echo of Neil Young and U2 guitars in “Oceans Between (The Wayside)”, and the album takes flight with the fourth and fifth cuts, the melancholy “Thanks Anyway” and churning, anthemic “Better?”. While the sounds are familiar (think vocals reminiscent of a band like The Church or even one-hit wonders The Dream Academy), the album unfolds nicely, revealing a sound akin to an Midwest American version of Coldplay or a listener-friendly and accessible Radiohead. Every song loads up at least one little pop hook to keep a listener involved musically, and Jackson and Vernon craft many a chorus that earworms its way into your head.
They work to make the lyrics smart and music that lands below the waist consistantly enough to balance the cerebral and visceral. It’s a record that ends up feeling hopeful, helped along by redemption-seeking album closer “Coming Home”.
You can listen to the album online, as they are streaming it at finestgrain.com, and see them play at Locals only on May 21.
Santacular Christmas Countdown – #12 – John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp – “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” – In 1987, Mellencamp was at the height of his musical trajectory. His “Lonesome Jubilee” album synthesized rock, country, folk and old-timey instruments into a peculiar (though accessible) piece of art. The shows that supported the record put on display one of the best bands I have ever seen live, and I’ve seen hundreds, both great and crappy. I saw John first in ’85 at Detroit’s Cobo Hall during the “Scarecrow” tour and it was my first real taste of what kind of power a band that behaved like that could have; it was the combination of 60’s Mitch Ryder-like rock and roll, Kinks-via-America blue collar lyrical poetry and really loud g
uitars and drums. Two years later, in ’87, that same band had become even more nuanced without losing its power or its garage rock backbone, while adding a fiddle and accordian to the mix. So when I found myself deep in the lawn at Pine Knob Music Theater (again, Detroit) for the second leg of that tour, the intensity, James Brown-ish polish and the momentum of a bunch of radio singles made it one of the best five shows I have seen in my life. The “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” video was recorded during that tour, before one of the shows. It captures that unique-for-the-times Mellencamp sound – rustic, rootsy rock and roll. I would call it brilliant. It is a Mellencamp era that I miss to this day.
He’s had a helluva career, still does what he wants – with integrity – and has moved into a more traditional rock sound for his live shows, though the fiddle still plays an important part in defining the Mellencamp concert sound. Rewind to a era captured on video, of an Indiana punk grown up just enough to build himself one of the great, underrated live bands of the rock era, successfully reinventing a holiday classic.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsat4e8jgHA]
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]
Indiana Music: Gamblin' Christmas
The opening track of the Gamblin’ Christmas album “Alaska” earned its way onto my list of favorite discoveries of last year – “Blue Lights” a piece of Americana that is anthemic, in the way James McMurtry or Joe Ely can drawl and then fire a song into your consciousness.
Make no mistake, the magic possessed by Patrick Flaherty and Kurt Franke – the duo that are Gamblin’ Christmas – is in their harmonies; Cutting, beautiful, unique moments that blend Flaherty’s throaty Texas-influenced foghorn with Franke’s upper-register and distant siren. The two are a little more than a year into a musical reconnection that followed each getting married, the addition of two kids for Patrick and a year-long stint for Kurt in Austin, Texas. But it makes sense for them to be play music together, if for no better reason better than damn good harmonies.
Gamblin’ Christmas brings their Americana/folk/alt-country sound to Bear’s Place in Bloomington on September 4.
Ball State grads, both now living in Indianapolis, are about to commence work on a follow-up to the 2007 release “Alaska”, a minimalist-yet-powerful effort, showcasing their voices above Patrick’s strident acoustic guitar playing and Kurt’s nimble bass guitar.
“We have seven or eight new songs that haven’t been played live or recorded, and another 12 or 13 that we do play that also aren’t recorded,” Flaherty revealed. “We are going to get ready to record another album and have been playing the songs out live. The energy is there.”
Kurt, who has a degree in Music Engineering, adds they are looking for something even more organic this time.
“Interlochen (in Michigan, where they recorded “Alaska”) was amazing, but I want to capture the sound of us in a room where we are very comfortable, rather than a studio,” said Franke. “Its really a struggle balancing a folk approach to performance with classical training in theory and recording, but it is exactly that which keeps me interested”.
The folk approach stems from a mammoth multi-record album of songs they both listened to while in college.
“We both sort of started to take an interest into the ‘Harry Smith Folk Anthology’,” Flaherty said. “It is a collection made in the 1950’s, by someone going all over the country, with a really basic recorder, catching people singing, before they died. Really hardcore folk.”
“When you first listen to the album, it is sort of disorienting, because it is so raw. That kind of music resonated with us.”
It led to playing some Muncie gigs and open mic nights. Sharing a house after college, beginning in 2004, their combined skills and musical strengths began to blossom.
“We were renting a house on Central Avenue and lived together for a year and a half,” Flaherty says. “That it was a time that was amazingly productive, “ Flaherty remembers. “We’d practice and record.”
Eventually, Flaherty got married and moved out, and Kurt and his fiancé (now wife) moved to Austin in late 2006, bringing and hiatus to their partnership.
“My wife and I were expecting a child and we didn’t really want to leave the safety net of family,” Flaherty said. “The plan was for all of us to go down there, and not necessarily relocate. Just to see Austin. It was sort of this mecca. Townes Van Zandt lore. Then when he came back last year, we picked back up again.”
And picking back up meant relearning old songs, writing new songs, and finding that vocal harmonies were still intact.
“I think when the Silver Dollar Family Band (a former four-piece band were both in) was whittled down to Gamblin’ Christmas, we started to realize that our voices sounded really good together.” Franke said. “It has taken a long time to develop the harmonies though, and it was about the time we recorded “Alaska” that it finally all sort of fell into place.
“I think we are worlds beyond that in terms of singing, plus Pat has started to sing harmonies on my songs, which is a huge addition to the sound.”
Steadfast in pushing their own writing and music, their live performance at a recent Sunday night at Melody Inn appearance still mixed in a couple public domain-type covers and one Simon and Garfunkel song (the brilliantly chosen “Duncan”). At that show,. Flaherty, pounding the chords out on his acoustic guitar, frequently grounded his feet twice shoulder-width apart, and bounced his back foot as he sang, sounding equal parts McMurtry, Robert Earl Keen with a bit of Gordon Lightfoot. Kurt leaned in and nudged the songs to a higher place with his high and lonesome harmonies.
“We want to have that vocal chemistry,” Patrick says “The new songs are more mature. More than just relationship gone wrong. More about life. More complicated, with more layers.
“But it’s like the guy who asked Neil Young if he had written the same song at least a 1,000 times. Well, maybe,” Flaherty says. “It’s not like there are a whole new system of rules.”
“I feel like every new song we write keeps getting better and better,” Franke says. “Knowing that the longer we stick with it, the more fun it is, the better it sounds, and hopefully people will feel as strongly about it as we do.”
Concert Review: Bodeans Rock and Roll the Vogue – Again
While there are no guarantees in rock and roll, a BoDeans show at the Vogue is something that rarely fails to inspire an audience with the joy of rock and roll. And there’s always a little bit of muted pain too, because just below the surface of many of Kurt Nuemann’s and Sammy Llanas’ songs are bits of melancholy, rejection and loss.
And because this is a band that may deserve a little more success than the music business has given them.
The two singer/songwriters, who are the BoDeans, pulled into Indianapolis on Friday night, and had, by the end the 16-song, 110-minute show, given the mostly 40-something roots rock fans a reminder of where the buzz started for the band. The songs and music off of the band’s 1986 debut album “Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams” carried the most musical weight and lyrical resonance, and the bands performance helped remind why that album deserved it’s remastering and re-release earlier this year.
Opening with the ethereal “Pretty Ghost” from 2008’s “Still “album, the band proceeded to then knock out two from 1993’s “Go Slow Down”, with the blending of the singer’s voices shining on “Idaho” and then getting the audience bouncing with “Texas Ride Song”, highlighting Bukka Allen’s accordion playing. He was featured prominently on that instrument throughout the evening, giving a uniqueness of sound to add to the harmonies and Kurt’s’s guitar playing, always a integral part of the gig.
After “Everyday”, from their new record, came a surprising early set inclusion of one the band’s regular show closers. “Good Work”, from 1989’s “Home” with it’s Chuck Berry riff and breakneck pace was the first spot for the band to get sweaty and dirty, hear the drums crashing, and crank both the crowd and band energy levels.
Subtly, the sound mix was short of great. While the band would end up trumping what Lucinda Williams had done with her encore three days earlier at the same venue, her house sound mix was superior to the less distinct and at times boomy sound on Friday; simply not as crisp for the BoDeans, though never bad enough to hinder the performance. I moved around to numerous spots in the theatre, searching for a “best” spot. To the right of the soundboard proved to be as good as it got. Within 15 rows of the stage, the volume coupled with band and crowd energy was also a good position, making up for nuances not in the mix.
From LHSD, Sammy introduced “Still the Night” by asking how many had seen them before (big cheer), thanked the audience for being their “little family on the road” and promptly jumped into the song that never fails to get a BoDeans crowd excited. Smartly, they dropped in a lyrical and musical snippet from “Hey Pretty Girl”, from their 1996 “Blend” effort, and was a sweet little teaser for hardcore fans who picked up on it. By the end of the song, the band was again chugging hard, something they did throughout the night – extending the songs, not with noodling, but finding another rock and roll gear.
“She’s a Runaway”, also from the first album, was recast at half speed, as Sammy, who began the song slapping his palm on his acoustic guitar strings, told the audience after playing it that “sometimes Mary needs a new dress”.
Following the sweet harmony showcase of “Stay On”, it was again back to the first record for “Fadaway” and then the sugary melody of “First Time” from their new record – It’s a pretty pop song, memorable in it’s simplicity.
After the slow dance version of “Naked”, they played “Feed the Fire”. The rocker from “Go Slow Down” is usually overshadowed by the same album’s more familiar upbeat burner “Closer to Free”, but on this night provided a podium for the band to drop pieces of classic rock songs onto the end of it. “Gimme Shelter”, “In the Midnight Hour”, “Gloria”, “Light My Fire” and Sly Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher” found places on the back end. The aforementioned “Closer to Free” closed the set, giving the 600 or so at the Vogue a pairing to keep them wanting more.
Unlike Williams’ trio of encore songs that had fallen a bit flat, the BoDeans used their set coda to do what Sly Stone wanted.
“Misery”, one that sits in it’s groove and burns, kept the connection between band and crowd working, with a spot-on audience effort, shouting back on the call-and-response chorus.
“You Don’t Get Much”, from the excellent “Home” record started with Kurt’s best Edge/U2 channeling (the group had opened for U2 ‘s stadium tour before recording the album) and ended with Kurt and Sammy facing each other at center stage, then heading to stand on the front monitors. They did the same with “Good Things”, shredding the song as they finished, and again six inches from each other’s face before talking, smiling and finally simultaneously jumping up and down to the beat to bring the tune to a crashing finale.
Sam and Kurt and the rest of the band were having obvious fun, sweaty and grinning at the end. It’s what we have come to expect from the BoDeans. They delivered again.