John Mellencamp announced the first leg of the No Better Than This Tour will begin in late October. The tour will be “an evening with,” type of show, and will play mostly theater-sized venues, although one of the most interesting bookings announced is a November 11 show at Hinkle Fieldhouse, one of five Indiana shows. The tour, anticipated to continue through the Spring of 2011, will begin on October 29 in Bloomington.
The format of the show is three pieces: an acoustic set, Mellencamp fronting a small combo, and a full rock band segment. The tour’s opening act is a documentary film by Kurt Markus called It’s About You. Shot on Super8 film over the course of last year’s Bob Dylan-John Mellencamp-Willie Nelson tour of minor league baseball stadiums, it chronicles the creation of the album No Better Than This. which comes out August 17.
TOUR SCHEDULE
Oct. 29 – Bloomington, IN – Indiana University Auditorium
Nov. 1 – Cincinnati, OH – Music Hall
Nov. 3 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
Nov. 5 – Kansas City, MO — The Midland
Nov. 6 – St. Louis, MO – The Fabulous Fox Theatre
Nov. 8 – Indianapolis, IN – Clowes Memorial Hall
Nov. 11 – Indianapolis, IN – Hinkle Fieldhouse
Nov. 13 – South Bend, IN – Morris Performing Arts Center
Nov. 16 – Fort Wayne, IN – Embassy Theatre
Nov. 17 – Cleveland, OH – Palace Theatre
Nov. 19 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
Nov. 20 – Pittsburgh, PA – Heinz Hall
Nov. 22 – Minneapolis, MN – Orpheum Theatre
Nov. 23 – Minneapolis, MN – Orpheum Theatre
Nov. 26 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
Nov. 27 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
Tickets to all shows except in Pittsburgh and Chicago go on sale this Saturday (August 14) at 10am.
mellencamp.com
Indianapolis
Video – Will Hoge (live performance)
One of the best roots rockers of his generation (there’s a statement that is unfair, eh?), Will Hoge has a new album (“The Wreckage”) out on September 29th. Here’s a video from the CBS Early Show that is a nice little introductory piece on him – a performance and short interview. He had a terribly severe accident on his way home from the recording studio last August, and it has taken him almost a year to recover.
I saw him in Indianapolis last summer – a free (no shit!) outdoor show at the terrific Rathskeller Biergarten. Dan Baird, of Georgia Satellites fame, played guitar for him. Killer performance. It was, without hestitation, the best show I saw all summer. Springsteen comparisons are apt, but he’s more like a younger Tom Petty – insightful, soulful, heartfelt rock and fuckin’ roll.
He’s back in our town Indy on November 21 at Radio Radio.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX5PsU0mgVY]
Farrar, Son Volt Carry On Alt-Country Legacy
The legacy of the Uncle Tupelo – it’s what will follow Jay Farrar for the rest of his musical career. As he takes his band Son Volt on the road in support of their 6th studio album, American Central Dust, they rolled into Indianapolis for a show at The Vogue.
Farrar continues to play music far closer to the classic sound and feel of his years with Uncle Tupelo than any group today, including former bandmate’s Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco. Not that we’re here to start a tired conversation about who is better, Wilco or Son Volt or Uncle Tupelo, but to remember Farrar is important because of his history and the way Son Volt has carried on that legacy
Farrer, on the phone from St. Louis as the band gears up for a three-day early August Midwest trip, is simultaneously understated and forthcoming. He admits there is a reason the new record sounds like a band playing together.
“We tried to capture the essence of the band with as much live recording as possible, in the same place at same time,” he says. “Analog was preferred method of recording; direct to analog and then switch over to computers to mix. This record reflects to coalescence and chemistry of playing eight months on the road before recording.
During our conversation, Jay stops to ask what venue they are playing when the band comes to Indianapolis. When I tell him, you can hear him take a breath of familiarity.
“Oh, yeah. Good,” he says.
I ask what comes to mind when he thinks of Indianapolis. He tells a story I knew but had forgotten.
“In the early days of Uncle Tupelo touring, our van broke down once in Indianapolis. Brian Henneman (of the Bottle Rockets) was our guitar tech at the time and immortalized that experience in one of his songs, called Indianapolis.”
I found the lyrics on the web. Here are the first four lines of the infectious, mid-tempo country rock tune:
“Got a tow, from a guy named Joe,
Cost sixty dollars, hope I don’t run outta dough.
Told me ’bout a sex offense put him three days in jail,
Stuck in Indianapolis, hope I live to tell the tale.”
Luckily, they all did. Son Volt’s new album came out July 7. The Bottle Rockets have “Lean Forward” out August 11, and Tweedy’s latest incarnation of Wilco released their self-titled new record out this summer.
Son Volt’s first record, “Trace” was one of Rolling Stone’s Top 10 albums of 1995, and the song “Drown” got the band on rock radio.
Some writers have noted that the new Son Volt release echoes the sound of that debut record, even though the band features – other than Farrar, – a completely different lineup. The writing is more accessible than on “Trace” – more populist in a sense – and the feeling may rise from not just the lyrics but the instruments in the mix. In a change from his past efforts, Farrar played acoustic guitar for the recording, instead of strapping on the electric.
“I began to realize the emphasis – the fuel that makes everything go – in a live setting maybe that wasn’t the best approach on the record,” Farrar admits. “I felt like the best way to make this a focused, cohesive record was to play acoustic guitar and that’s the way in ended up transpiring. There are also two soloists – Mark Spencer on pedal steel and Chris Masterson on electric, so that is a different approach for Son Volt, in the dual leads sometimes going on.”
Farrer has a surprising answer to what excites him most about the album – surprising coming from the guy who builds albums on cutting little lines like “love is a fog and you stumble every step you take,” from “Dust of Daylight” on this record.
“Bringing back the emphasis to a more familiar aesthetic, especially with the pedal steel guitar. Having that instrument is where it’s at for me,” he says. “I’m actually trying to learn how to play myself. I have a more of a starter version with two little palm levers, to bend the pitch, so it is actually a lap steel with string benders. Mark was a lap steel player prior to recording this record, so he pretty much woodshedded to bring the pedal steel to the forefront.”
Some inspiration for the music also seeped in from Farrar’s habits. He mentioned that he and the band started listening to Mexican radio, especially when they were touring the Southwest last year.
“It is sort of cleansing and cathartic to hear something different. We were trying to dissect the music and instrumentation and the way these guys were playing – It just kind of blew our mind,” he recounts. “Takes you to a place you haven’t been before. Ultimately, we did incorporate part of that sound on this album.”
For listeners, “American Dust Central” brings to mind Middle America, as Farrar regularly does, and the record’s subject of downtrodden but hopeful people weaves throughout the effort.
“I always try to find words that are recurring in songs that are representative,” he says of the album title. “I pulled three words from three songs. I feel that is always the best way to come up with a title that’s most representative of all the songs, as opposed to last record (2007’s “The Search”) where pulled a song title as the album title.
The music rides along at a pace that goes along with telling stories of heartbreak, but Farrer says it’s not an album filled with pessimism.
“Someone described it as dire optimism,” he says about the record. “In my interpretation, it is optimism more than anything else. It was written in summer of 2008, so it just felt like the country was breathing a little easier and headed in a little different direction; at least that’s the way I was looking at it when these songs were written.”
Old 97's / Live in Minneapolis – 2009
In honor of the Old 97’s and Rhett Miller coming to Indianapolis for a bar show this Thursday night, here is a nice audience-shot video of their encore earlier this week from Minnesota.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUi2bxNOId8]
BoDeans Try to Recover Lost Opportunity
There’s a moment, early in every show, when the BoDeans connect with the crowd. It might be during the slow chorus of “You Don’t Get Much.” Or the refrain, “I might never, no never let go – whoa-oh” from “Still the Night.” But sometime during the first few minutes of every BoDeans show I’ve been to, fans will start to sing loudly. And that’s when I know the rest of the night is going to be good.
The BoDeans – the band that made Waukesha, Wis., famous – are songwriters Kurt Neumann and Sammy Llanas. Always known for performing a soul-stirring rock and roll show, they had a fluke hit song (“Closer to Free”) in 1995 before being derailed by a lawsuit in the middle of what would be their only real shot at bigger things. Still trying to make up for lost opportunity, they were back in Indy for a show at the Vogue June 12.
“We have played a lot of shows all these years at the Vogue. And always had a lot of just crazy, crazy packed houses full of people – always had a good time,” Neumann, on the phone from Austin, Texas, says when asked about Indianapolis. “And I think of [drummer] Kenny [Aronoff], because he played a lot of shows with us and he is from there.”
Out from under struggles against management and record companies, Neumann says they have been making an effort to release more music and push forward. The band has become a part of the eclectic Austin music community after spending 30 years in Waukesha. Through the move and all the legal tumult, the band has never stopped performing, but it has been more difficult to find the time and resources to record albums.
“We spent about eight years where management kind of sat and didn’t do much. We went through a big fiasco around 2004,” Nuemann remembers. “We had been dropped by Warner around 1998. My perspective was, ‘Let’s go get another label.’ But the management kind of went on hiatus and we could never get them to work again, though we were going into the studio to make demos because we kept hearing they weren’t good enough.
“It got to a point I finally said to Sam that we were going to have to take things in our own hands. We knew there was going to be big litigation, but we had to go through it to break free and start releasing stuff again.”
The band’s first album, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, was recently re-released. The re-mastered version with bonus tracks helps to put the band’s legacy in perspective.
“The record had always had a lot of warmth and not many people heard it on vinyl because they were buying CDs by then. I just wanted to take another shot at it,” Neumann says.
T-Bone Burnett, mostly unknown at the time, produced the album, long before he became one of the top-shelf producers in rock music.
“I think he likes us because of the authenticity of sound. We also seem to have a common sense of humor,” Neumann says. “There are a handful of people out there who go up on stage and sing songs. And it’s not about a bunch of frills or not about image at all. The BoDeans have been kind of an imageless band – by choice really. We just want it to be about the music. We are not necessarily going to bring a lot of attention to him.”
The re-release is paired with a concert video, recorded in 1985 at the legendary First Avenue in Minneapolis just weeks before the band signed to Slash records.
“These people contacted us, and had found a bunch of footage down in the basement of First Avenue from a concert we had done in 1985,” he says. “It was right around that time we were talking to the labels and talking about hooking up with T-Bone.”
While the extended hiatus in the late ’90s prevented some projects from being realized, since 2002, the band has released a live album, two studio albums and a live acoustic record through their Web site. The album, Still, released in 2008, reunited the band with Burnett.
“I think we will be remembered for our singing and harmonies and the sound we created together. It was one of the things that defined us and when you heard it you knew it was us,” Nuemann says. “And the live shows were also important, because of the energy we tried to create. So that would be a great thing to be remembered for too.”
Roots Rock: Shooter Jennings, Rob's Shuffle and Pete Seeger
ROOTS ROCK TWANG NEWS: No, I’m not live from SXSW. Would be cool, I’m sure. Austin is righteous. But get this: Metallica played a show at Stubbs BBQ Friday night. Metallica at SXSW? That ain’t right. The word that they were going to play the festival even reached Indy before the show. Still, what was billed as a secret gig at South By Southwest on Friday night (March 20) had the band buzzing through a 13-song set. And the tie in? It was part of the Guitar Hero: Metallica showcase. Just over 2,000 fans were allowed in. Reports had the joint guarded by a dozen police officers and 75 security guards. Yep. Secret gig….
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THREE MORE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: Nickel Creek’s singer-songwriter and fiddler Sara Watkins is releasing self-titled debut. It is interesting for the wide range of collaborators for its 14 tracks, among them Elvis Costello drummer Pete Thomas, Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Led Zep’s John Paul Jones produced the album in L.A. and Nashville. Sara Watkins hits stores April 7.
Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, John Mellencamp, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen are among the dozens of musicians who will celebrate American folk music legend Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday with a gala concert at Madison Square Garden on May 3. Other performers will include Kris Kirstofferson, Tom Morello, Billy Bragg and Ben Harper.
Max Weinberg’s 19 year-old son Jay will fill in on a “small number” of Bruce shows, replacing his Dad, who has a new old gig as the Conan O’Brien “Tonight Show” bandleader when Conan debuts in his new time slot. This will no doubt see a continuing “the world is ending” frenzy among Springsteen fans with too little other stuff, like real life, to do. Our lesson? That’s just the way life is; you make decisions based on what you can do and make the best of situations that will never be perfect. It’s only rock and roll, for goodness sakes. It’s the Hippy Hippy Shake.
ROB’S “FIRST 5″ IPOD SHUFFLE EXPERIENCE – Week 3
Inside the randomness that is my digital library. It put the ipod on shuffle and the first five songs that come up each week I share. Comments always welcome between friends…
1. “For No One” -Beatles
Not a hit, right? Yep. Just another Beatles song, right? Well, this one little song makes me remember just how freakin’ brilliant these guys were. I really think nearly every song off of every album (exception? “Revolution #9”) was worthy of being a hit song, or played on the radio or said something profound. Many times, it did all three. This song, from Revolver, speaks of lost love and failed opportunity more accurately than nearly all the 2,369,000 songs on the same subject that have come since it was originally put on vinyl.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQCi6ASHVUM]
2. “Open Cages” – Jethro Easyfields
From his Elixir album, I put this on the ipod as I was getting ready to write the story on him for NUVO. I have come to relish the slow build and the delayed gratification of his songs. I haven’t a problem with the live feel of the recording and the non-slickness (OK, roughness) of the phrasing. But his writing says something about people who live in Indiana. To me, it says we are not too city and not too country. We are Midwesterners. Like us or move along.
3. Battleship Chains” – Georgia Satellites
While “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” was the well-deserved money song from the band’s self-titled debut album, it was “Battleship Chains” that was the record’s secret bubble gum pop song, rolled in raunchy rock dirt, a little too loud for radio. But I think it has always sounded good loud. And elicits a volume knob clockwise turn when it comes on. Rick Richards, not Dan Baird, on lead vocal.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQr7RxYec-0]
4. ”Welcome to Chinatown” (Live)” – John Mellencamp
Johnny Cougar playing at a club called Four Acres from a bootleg version that refers to a radio broadcast. The song would appear on his John Cougar album. BONUS: This is shortly before he formed the complete, most important band of his career – the one that would tour and record for the Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee records. DOUBLE BONUS: The Little Bastard dumps in parts of “My Sharona”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and tries to get the audience to yell something dirty on the radio. Power chords, Larry Crane’s rock and roll guitar and even a piano solo paired with that classic Mellencamp “screw you” attitude. A mediocre song given new life live. A gem of a bootleg.
5. “Wicked, Twisted Road” – Reckless Kelly
One of the very best of the Red Dirt genre – bands mainly from of Texas and Oklahoma that are Americana and alt-country with even more twang and in-your-ear guitars. This one is one of the more intimate numbers. From the Reckless Kelly Was Here live album. Think Steve Earle, if he was 30 years old and off of heroin.
Here’s what it all looks like…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpUXrDrUfDM]
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GOOD WEIRD NEIL
In a previous blog. we told you about Neil Young’s new album Fork in the Road, due April 7.
Watch great interview with Letterman about the car:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_vzNH0nkX4]
Neil now has a bunch of videos related to the record’s release. And Neil’s weird, man. A good weird. Like the “I don’t give a shit, I’m right” dude who really is right…
Watch the “Johnny Magic” video here in all its lo-fi brilliance. Neil in a car…singing.
AND FINALLY…
CMT Crossroads featuring Shooter Jennings and Jamey Johnson premieres Monday, March 23) at 10pm on CMT. I saw Shooter at the Music Mill a couple years ago. He rawks…
Shooter listed his top 10 songs and albums on CMT.com.
Songs
1. “Seed of Memory,” Terry Reid
2. “Belle of the Ball,” Waylon Jennings
3. “The Writ,” Black Sabbath
4. “She Shook Me Cold,” David Bowie
5. “Sea of Japan,” Earl Greyhound
6. “Astronomy,” Blue Oyster Cult
7. “Feelin’ Better,” Hank Williams Jr.
8. “Wild and Blue,” Jessi Colter
9. “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around,” Black Mountain
10. “Black Helicopter,” Matthew Good
Albums
1. White Mansions, Various Artists
2. The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails
3. The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie
4. Ol Waylon, Waylon Jennings
5. White Album, the Beatles
6. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
7. Seed of Memory, Terry Reid
8. Phases and Stages, Willie Nelson
9. The New South, Hank Williams Jr.
10. Consolers of the Lonely, the Raconteurs
Bonus Shooter: country-frying the Dire Straits…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts2TjN6uatc]