MUSIC UP CLOSE WITH JANIE – JULY 2009

I’m back, Skope Readers! Welcome to Music Up Close. Let me introduce you to some new musicians and give you some deeper insights into familiar ones.

This July, I’m focusing on the artists of the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes MN later this month. The Main Stage will tell you all about this year’s jam-packed fest and point you to some artists you should not miss at that event. Club Ladies features Kathleen Edwards, a creative singer/songwriter from Canada. Backstage offers a look at  Cloud Cult’s film, No One Said It Would Be Easy, a moving insight into the heart of this touring band. The Studio this month reviews Harper’s Day By Day, Parlor Mob’s And You Were a Crow, and Tim Sparks’ Sidewalk Blues. And in the SonicBids Lounge, we’ll kick back and meet some new musical faces. 

So, come on in and let’s get up close with music.

 

Main Stage

10KLF 2009—Who’s Hot
This year’s 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, MN will be a festival music fans will not soon forget. Not only will the Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, and Wilco be headlining this event, but there are also 49 other stellar bands playing on four stages in the Concert Bowl, as well as 37 regional bands playing two campground stages, offering up bluegrass, rock, jazz, jam, and a lone DJ.

What I did notice this year, though, was a big helping of singer/songwriters of all stripes, including bands that are very lyric-driven. Many of them are going to perform on the more intimate Saloon Stage, which is the only indoor venue on the site. But a couple of very well-known songwriters, Kathleen Edwards and Todd Snider, will be on the Barn Stage, and Minneapolis-based artist, Mason Jennings, will appear on the Main Stage. 

Of course, I’m scratching my head at why the Minneapolis band, the Honeydogs, will be appearing just before Jennings on that premier stage. (I’ve always found Adam Levy, the frontman for the Honeydogs, to be a writer of cerebral songs that could use a good editor.) I even wonder why Jennings got slotted on that stage when I see Railroad Earth on the Field Stage and Garaj Mahal on the Barn Stage, prior to them. These two bands have toured nationally and have huge followings. Likewise, I wonder why Harper was put into the Saloon and Akron/Family was slotted to the Barn Stage. But, hey, I’m not the genius who pencils in the schedule.

Another change this year is having two big Main Stage acts on Wednesday, July 22, the opening night of the event. This evening has grown from just the Barn and Saloon Stages  being open, with no access at all to the Concert Bowl, to having all stages humming with entertainment at the stroke of 6 pm. Widespread Panic and Gomez will headline that evening, with Panic headlining on Friday with the Duluth speed bluegrass band, Trampled By Turtles. (Now, this decision  I get because Trampled By Turtles has been attracting fans all over the country since their debut at 10KLF in 2003.)

On Wednesday, too, the two campground stages at Lake Sallie and Blue Ox will start their acts in mid-afternoon with a mix of genres in what they are calling the Grab Bag. Each day, each stage will have a different themed genre.

There is so much talent to listen to, you’d have to clone yourself into four or five people in order to take it all in. So, I thought I’d toss out my faves for each day of the fest that don’t necessarily include the headliners.

[As an additional aid, check out Bands By Groove list at Refrain Magazine, my latest little enterprise:  www.refrainmagazine.com . The list will be up by July 15.]

 

Wednesday, July 22
Carney at the Saloon Stage at 12 midnight. (These guys will rock you into the wee hours.)
Zach Deputy, Saloon Stage, 10 pm—(roots rock from one heck of a creative guy!)
Rock Plaza Central, Saloon Stage 6 pm (an ambitious roots rock band who’s reinterpreted Faulkner)
Widespread Panic

 

Thursday, July 23
Railroad Earth, Field Stage, 4 pm (killer jamgrass with intelligent songs)
Garaj Mahal, Barn Stage, 4 pm (always tasty)
Mifune, Saloon Stage, 5:30 pm (Afro-Latin beat with funk and a killer horn section)
Public Property, Saloon Stage, 7:30 pm (the best in rock reggae in the region)
Junior Brown, Barn Stage, 11:30 pm (the guit-steel wizard!)
Harper and Parlor Mob (see The Studio below)

 

Friday, July 24
Cloud Cult, Barn Stage, 2 pm (cinematic rock—with a live visual artist on stage!) (see Backstage)
Enchanted Ape (lyric-driven rock—These guys are tight!)
Steve Kimock’s Crazy Engine (teamed with Melvin Seals on Hammond from the Jerry Garcia Band—Killer!)

 

Saturday, July 25
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Field Stage, 11:30 pm (the best old-style R&B you’ll ever hear)
North Indiana All Stars, Barn Stage, 11:30 pm (Willie Waldman, members of Umphrey’s McGee, and more)
Ozomatli, Field Stage, 4 pm (friendly Afro-Latin band with other world influences)
Turbine, Saloon Stage, 12 noon (creative and always tight)
Paper Bird, Saloon Stage, 7:30 pm (female vocals that recall the Squirrel Nut Zippers)
All of the singer/songwriters:  Kathleen Edwards (see Club Ladies), Todd Snider, William Elliot Whitmore, Evan Watson, Joe Pug, and Honeyhoney

 

And, if you get to only one campground stage, catch The Johnson Family Band at the Blue Ox campground, Saturday, July 25, 9 pm. (This old- time/grass group has more energy in their eyebrows than most bands have in their flying fingers. Their mountain hollers are not to be missed!)

This year’s 10KLF is a live music sampler. Go see your favorite bands and take in the headliners. But also check out a couple of new bands you’ve never heard before. I promise that you’ll be very glad you did. For more information, go to www.10klf.com

Club Ladies

 

Kathleen Edwards: A Lady with Something to Say
10KLF Set Time: Saturday, July 25, Barn Stage, 4pm, with Colan Cripps, who joins her on guitar

All her life, Kathleen Edwards has been surrounded by instrumental music. The daughter of a classical pianist, Kathleen studied violin earnestly and was headed toward the classical performance track. She would have gone down that road—and been miserable—if it hadn’t been for her older brother who came home from summer camp and begged for a guitar so he could play Neil Young songs. Needless to say, the folk bug bit Kathleen with a vengeance.

“It was part of that classic Canadian folk story of sitting around the campfire in the summers and learning how to play songs,” she says. “I started going to summer camp, too, and learning to sing along to Joni Mitchell songs and Leonard Cohen songs. Then, as time went on, when I turned 13 or 14, I was the one who was the guitar player at the campfire! … There were a lot of songs I knew before I even knew who had written them. I fell in love with those songs.  Then, a camp counselor  said to me, ‘Have you ever thought about playing songs once you’re done with school?’”

That question stunned her, but opened a  big door for her creativity. “Really, the only option for me to go to school musically was to go into classical performance, and I knew that I didn’t want to do that,” she admits. “Suddenly, the more creative side of my nature came out, and I started playing songs and learning how to play guitar.  I learned how to play Ani Defranco and de-tune my guitar. I taught myself everything by ear. It just morphed into something else.”

Living in Canada, which seems to have a more thriving real folk scene than we do in America, she was well supported. “I  knew people in my hometown who did the same thing. I just sort of struck it lucky about who I met and who I surrounded myself with. They ended up being hugely supportive of me and encouraging and that just kept the ball rolling,” she says. 

But it was her love affair with lyrics and melodies and songs that said something that drove her—and still does.  “When I listen to a song and keep listening to it and I still have no idea what it’s about, it makes me crazy! You should have left it in your journal because I’m not with you on this one,” she says. “I think that’s the one thing about songwriting that is the essence of folk music—you’re connecting. The song is deep-rooted in folk history, and the folk history is conveying an  experience, an idea, an event.” And that is one thing she is trying to do with her own work.

In her latest album,  Asking for Flowers, which is her third recording with Rounder Records, she writes about Alicia Ross, a young woman who disappeared and made national headlines. “I wanted to write a song about  her life and her mother who was doing everything she could to find her child and how all this played out in Toronto in the media…For some reason that story really struck home to me because I realized that it could have been me, it could have been my mom standing there begging for someone to come forward with information about where I was.”

She also wrote “Oh Canada,” a song whose intention was to raise awareness. “It’s about the things that bothered me about our lack of social compassion for people and the judgments we pass on people and our not taking care of the people who need more care and compassion in our society.”

Asking for Flowers also has more up-beat material. There’s the country-colored “I Make the Dough and You Get the Glory,” the alt-rock tune “Buffalo,” and the real rocker “The Cheapest Key.” But laced throughout the 13-songs on the album is the deeply folk creation of these songs in the sense that Kathleen is reacting to something or pulling something from the world that sparks more from her. “I want to write songs that make you want to drive fast, and I also want to write songs that you listen to.”

That dichotomy could freeze a lot of artists or make them spew out every little ditty that comes into their flighty little heads. But not so for Kathleen. “I am not a prolific writer. I don’t have 30 songs that are in the vault, waiting for the next project. I’m just not that talented. I actually really envy people who can write large quantities of music. It just doesn’t come naturally to me,” she says. Having a smaller song portfolio has prompted some critics (even some other songwriters) to say that she is being “too precious” about her work.  “I just call it being particular about what I’m doing. I’m just not interested in working on material I don’t believe in.  I don’t know how I’m supposed to go about playing it or performing it if I don’t really believe it.”

Also, Kathleen is in search of a great song and appreciates the great songs of others. “I don’t care if you’re in a metal band or you’re in a bluegrass band. A great song is a great song,” she asserts. “ ‘Ace of Spades’ by AC/DC is a great song. There were a million bands back then, playing songs like AC/DC, and they all had great grooves and had great energy. But AC/DC wrote great songs. Sometimes the verses are like filler, but you know what the song’s about……I think that a lot of people writing songs today have really nice voices. There’s a lot of raw talent there, but sometimes what loses me is what happened to the song. That’s the music. That’s the X factor. A great song is a great song. There’s a reason why people have one-hit wonders. It is because they stumbled onto something great in one moment, and people got it, people connected to it. I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to have a one-hit wonder. I haven’t even had one hit, so having one would be really great, and then I could disappear for all eternity.”

I think Kathleen need not worry about writing that one great song. She already is writing music that will last, music that makes you feel good and music that makes you ponder life’s lessons. Her audiences are growing with every tour and every album release. She has toured all over Europe, and gigs more in the US than in Canada. She also went to Afghanistan last Christmas to play for Canadian troops. “It was not an experience like playing a USO tour where you’re in and you’re out,” she says. “I was there for seven days and had the most incredible experience. I got to really see what that life is like.” And, I’m sure she brought her gift of music to many there.

If you get a chance, catch her at 10KLF this month or check out her websites.
http://www.kathleenedwards.com
http://www.myspace.com/kathleenedwards

Backstage

 

No One Said It Would Be Easy: A Film about Cloud Cult
10KLF Set Time: Friday, July 24, 2 pm, Barn Stage

The 2008 release of the DVD, No One Said It Would Be Easy: A Film about Cloud Cult, directly by John Paul Burgess, is a deeply personal and poignant look at a Minnesota band that is incredibly prolific and visually creative, but has also been deeply wounded. The film delves deep into the background of Craig Minowa, a once reclusive singer/songwriter who is also an environmental scientist, who started Cloud Cult in 1995 as a purely solo project that has evolved over the last decade and a half. A beautiful and touching film, it explores the early years of the band, the challenge of getting the music out to a wider audience, and Craig’s creation of a earth-friendly record label, Earthology. It also explores his marriage to visual artist Connie Minowa in 1998 and the tragic loss of their only son Kaidin in 2000. Their profound grief and the unfathomable circumstances surrounding Kaidin’s passing propel the Minowas toward deeper creative exploration. At first immersing themselves individually into their respective creative realms, they soon come together and attract others to their musical, artistic, environmental, and spiritual endeavor.

Soon after their marriage, Craig released his first CD, The Shade Project, something he had been working on for many years. The album had complex songs with multiple layers of different instruments that Craig played himself. He pulled in Sarah Young to play cello and Dan Greenwood to play drums. It was a dismal failure live, and Craig was terrified to play on stage. Dream Music for Little Wizards followed after Kaidin’s birth and Who Killed Puck? in 2000 before Kaidin passed. These albums were well received, but they also were difficult to perform live.

After Kaidin’s death, Craig and Connie spent months working through their grief. Craig surrounded himself with images and vocal recordings of his son and wrote. Connie painted. Both Connie and Craig used their creative tools to try to reconnect with their child. As the months drew into years, Craig soon had a multitude of songs for a new album, They Live on the Sun, which was recorded in 2003 as musicians Craig knew came in to record parts with him. Slowly, the band was reforming and growing. When band members urged him to let the world hear this new work, he sent it to college radio stations all across the country.

Cloud Cult began to tour again and, for the first time, Craig wasn’t afraid to be on stage. Initially, he  felt that he could only experience his son’s energy in the studio. However, when he heard a song from  They Live on the Sun on the radio, he had a profound insight. “I felt I could bring Kaidin back and be with him and share the experience with audiences,” he says on the film. So, Craig began a great spiritual experiment and quickly found that when Connie painted on stage, she also could call out to her son spiritually and be with him in the live moments on stage as the music unfolded.

Five albums later, a lot of touring miles, and some band personnel changes, Craig and Connie are realizing that Cloud Cult has become a way of life, a means to celebrate life and love, to embrace grief and elation. “There is a level of spirituality here that I can’t step back from,” Craig says. Each performance is incredibly exhausting for the band members because it is emotionally cathartic. But the performance has become more than playing music. “The performance is sacred territory,” Craig explains, “where we set the self aside.”

The grief is easing—or at least they are developing the means to cope in better ways. Craig still writes about deeper questions of being, but wants to put something out that is optimistic. The band has broadened to include Craig, Sarah Young (cello), Shannon Frid (violin), Shawn Neary (bass), and new drummer Arlen Peiffer. In addition to Connie Minowa, Scott West joins her on stage, creating his own painted visions from the music. The paintings are usually auctioned off at the end of each evening.

Audiences are finally responding. Many are connecting to the Minowas because of their own personal tragedies. And Cloud Cult is now playing for extremely large crowds. 

Cloud Cult also continues to be a roll model for greening the music industry. Earthology Records has consulted for Universal, ASCAP, and many national recording artists. Cloud Cult products are made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled resources, and all tours are greened with energy offsets through NativeEnergy.com. Earthology has planted trees, and it has even partnered with Esurance to green  the Sasquatch Festival and the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks. In addition, the Minowas operate an organic farm and studio in Minnesota that is powered by geothermal energy, and Connie Minowas continues to advocate for children’s environmental health issue

If you’d like to see the film,  No One Said It Would Be Easy: A Film about Cloud Cult, it is available from the Cloud Cult website. There also is a link there to a Weather Channel broadcast on the Minowas’ farm. See http://www.cloudcult.com

The Studio

The Studio features three CDs by artists you might not have heard before. They will all be performing at the 10,000 Lakes Festival this month. I’ve noted their set times in case you’re trekking to the region for the fest.

 

Harper
Day By Day
Blind Pig Records

10KLF Set Time: Thurs July 23, 3:30 pm, Saloon Stage

Harper, a blues veteran, has been winning over audiences for several years, but is bringing a new world fusion sound to the mix. Born in England, but growing up in Australia, Harper discovered folk and blues and eventually the harmonica. He released six albums in Australia before American audiences found him in 1996. Harper has toured the world, winning numerous Australian music awards along the way. Eventually, he was signed by Blind Pig Records and debuted Down to the Rhythm, his first Blind Pig recording, in 2005.  His latest, Day by Day, was released in 2007 and serves up his mix of rock and blues, highlighted by his strong vocals, his powerhouse harmonica work, and underlaced  the aboriginal didgeridoo. 

The twelve songs on this CD reflect Harper’s concern with deeper issues affecting human beings. His lyrics, though, fall to the background because of his spot-on harmonica riffs and great instrumentation by his crack backup band. Gregg Leonard, Tyler Mac, and Andy York offer very tasty guitar work. Paul Randolph does bass duties, and Dane Clark keeps everything on track with drums and percussion.  But Al Hill’s organ and keyboards adds a very sweet funk! Additional help on the last track, an instrumental, comes from Chuck Mauk on drums and Luke Sayers

The opening cut “Do What Is Right” sets the tone for this album. “Watch Your Back” has echoes of “Woke Up This Morning,” the theme song for the Sopranos that features William S. Burroughs deep voice over. But Harper’s song quickly moves into something less dark and more uplifting. His “Just What You’re Looking For” is a bouncy indictment of drug suppliers (legal and illegal). Then there is “I’ll Go Home,” which has the inventive use of didgeridoo underneath the moody melody, and “You Can’t Hide,” with its mix of percussion, didgeridoo, harmonica, and vocals becomes an infectious song about honesty. Though “Get Out of This Mess” is a Harper song, about becoming politically active, it has a sound a lot like the New York band Turbine.

Harper does tuck in a bright love song called, “Feels Like Sunday Morning,” as well as the breakup song, “I Must Be Dreaming.” And, there is the multilevel “Face the Truth,” which could be about a relationship or about one’s world view.

Day by Day carries an intimacy wrapped in a big sound that will leave listeners wanting to enjoy this disc over and over again.

http://www.harper.biz
http://www.myspace.com/harperband
http://www.youtube.com/harperband

 

Parlor Mob
And You Were a Crow
Roadrunner Records

10KLF Set Time: Thurs July 23, 1:30 am, Saloon Stage

This New Jersey band has a big power-rock sound, reminiscent of much older, road-worthy powerhouses of the past. Parlor Mob’s lead singer, Mark Melicia, has a tremendous vocal instrument that could be a 21st century Robert Plant.  Parts of their debut CD, And You Were A Crow, especially “Hard Times” (which also has a Southern rock feel) and “Bullet,” could have come straight out of the Led Zepelin songbook, but they didn’t. This band can also do a rock ballad like “When I Was an Orphan” and the contemporary, almost alt-folky, “Angry Young Girl.”

But it is “My Favorite Heart to Break” that shows off Melicia’s incredible vocal range. He swings into Robert Plant delivery and out to Steven Tyler and then back to pure Melicia.

In cut after cut, Parlor Mob delivers large helpings of rock. Guitarists Dave Rosen and Paul Ritchie absolutely shred without slipping into ego or distortion for effect. They are just flat-out pros.  Nick Villapiano keeps this rock monster on track with his bass, and Sam Bly is a god! Bly’s drums just don’t keep everything in time, they add their own blistering creative edge. I’m sure John Bonham is looking down and grinning like a maniac! And, Bly can play a crack harmonica!

If a rock band can translate into an acoustic act—and still be interesting and powerful, then they’re the real deal. Not surprisingly, “Can’t Keep No Good Boy Down,” an acoustic track on  And You Were A Crow, is sooooo fine!!!!

My only question is why did the people at 10KLF put this power rock band (and Carney, an equally big sounding pro band) onto the tiny Saloon Stage. Once their music hits the festival grounds, you won’t be able to find a place to stand anywhere near these guys! 

If aren’t making it to 10KLF, then look these guys up on their website and get a copy of And You Were A Crow before there isn’t a copy left!!!  Parlor Mob will appear on Austin City Limits on October 2.
http://www.myspace.com/theparlormob
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/ParlorMob

 

Tim Sparks
Sidewalk Blues
Tonewood Records

10KLF Set Time: Thurs Fri July 24, 1:45 pm, Saloon Stage

Tim Sparks is a well-kept Minnesota secret. He won the US National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship in 1997 and has been refining his technique for the last decade—though you would wonder how a guitar champion could ever get better! He performs in North America, Europe, and Asia, and teaches workshops and master classes at colleges and arts facilities on all three continents. He also has produced eight instructional books, released seven solo albums, and recorded with a number of other artists. In recent years, he has built a repertoire of Jewish music.

His new CD, Sidewalk Blues, is a 17-song collection of his takes on classic blues, jazz, and gospel tunes. It’s a cleanly produced recording that allows Sparks’ intricate fingerstyling to shine. The record veritably sparkles. His acoustic guitar work is full and as expressive as an experienced vocalist, able to tackle any repertoire with style and grace, and sometimes with great humor.

His rendering of Eubie Blake’s “Oriental Blues” is chock full of musical jokes, drawn not only from classical guitar but other symphonic sources mixed with Delta and Spanish influences. It’s a sweet track.

But it is his arrangements of the gospel tunes that I found the most fascinating. His noodling around the melody of  “How Great Thou Art” makes it a totally different experience than most people would expect. By combining a number of different techniques from Andalusian flamenco to bluegrass to complex jazz fingerings, he moves a simple melody into something very intricate. He continued this movement away from the melody in his version of “Amazing Grace,” which has some suggestion of the original melody, but speeded up. It’s a fine, gospel number, but to my ears, it almost sounded like a whole different gospel tune.

Sparks, however, keeps closely to the melody line of “I’ll Fly Away,” adding embellishments that ring, almost making the cut seem as if two guitarists are playing—though there were a couple of moments I felt he got lost in his additions.

What Sparks also does is use a number of different guitars and recording techniques. His versions of Jelly Roll Morton’s “The Pearls” and James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout” preserve the feel of early recordings of echoing gut-box guitar, only this time played by a virtuoso. In contrast, Sparks’ tinkering with Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” is recorded more conventionally, but always with the guitar up front and very crisp.

Sidewalk Blues was recorded at different locations over several years and is a compilation of what Sparks felt were most in keeping with this album’s concept of early American roots music played on the guitar. It is an exceptionally fine album of adventurous guitar stylings.
http://www.timsparks.com
http://www.myspace.com/timsparks

SonicBids Lounge

This month I offer a motley bunch of emerging artists from SonicBids hanging out in this little lounge area of my column. Like any little intimate club, there are all kinds of folks here to get to know.  Most are from the US and Canada, but one brave soul made it here from Downunder. As we work the room, you’ll find these artists run the gamut from singer/songwriters to a one-man extravaganza to spoken word to Loud Rock to alt-pop and even Celtic punk. So, grab your favorite refreshment and let me introduce you.

 

That brave soul from Australia I told you about is Ross Arundale who performs under the name Night Artery.   Having done the band thing, Arundale became a one-man studio. He sings (even his own backbround vocals) and plays guitar, bass, piano, and drums. And, he did all of his own recording, photography, and design work for the EP and album he released. His musical efforts are a mix of genres, combining pop with alt rock, with intricate guitar noodling, melodic piano, and vocals that range from lyrical to bordering on hardcore. All of it is very well done (instrumentation, vocals, recording quality, and lyrics). I’ve heard a quite a few self-recorded artists, and, believe me, Night Artery is slickly professional!

 

Now, over here is this the indie/pop songstress Casey Desmond, who hails from both coasts here in the US. Though she’s accomplished on guitar and keys, it’s her voice that is pushing her into female rock history. It’s a big instrument that has edginess and power like Joan Jett but is softer, allowing her to deliver nuances that audiences are lapping up. Backed by a top-notch band, her original songs have been all over TV and film, including Bad Girls Club, America’s Psychic Challenge, and three MTV shows: Human Giant, Road Rules—the Real World, and My Super Sweet 16. She’ll also have a song running on an upcoming 90210 episode. Casey has three CDs and two EPs out. Look for her new video, “Tilt Me Back” on Utube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GmE1wNV6f8  And, look for her signature on soundtracks for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions.

 

Rich Driver, over here, is a singer/songwriter from Sacramento, who is trotting out alt-Americana songs sprinkled with his own version of country rap. This is not your ordinary Cowboy Troy. Driver has tossed in some pop and R&B stylings, all wrapped up in the fresh California outdoors. Performing since he was eight, Driver has roots in blues and acid jazz, which makes his current work more plumped out than most singer/songwriters. His lyrics range from quirky love songs to social observations, but always he puts his listeners in a great mood. He has two CDs out and is working on a new EP, which is due out at the end of summer.

 

Farther along, is Chip Greene, a singer/songwriter from Tennessee. His debut album, Exactly and Approximately, came out two years ago, and his audiences have been hounded him to give them another. His sound is an edgy mix of pop and indie rock  A keyboard player, Greene is backed by Howie Adams on drums, Andrew Sovine on guitarst, and  Matt Arcaini on bass player. Sovine and Arcaini also add background vocals.

 

If you’re really into new songwriters, you really have to meet, +Spanx T. Urguhart from Florida. The exotic ethnic musical styles of Japan and the West Indies and the encouragement of supportive parents helped shape +Spanx’s musical tastes and his skill with with electric bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards, and sequencers. Like Casey Desmond, it is his versatile vocal instrument that allows him to deliver tender, soulful  pop ballads, classic-rock sounding originals, and hip hop tunes. +Spanx has has been commissioned to write the soundtrack for Dollar Ben, a new educational program for kids. But you have to hear his satirical, “God Luv Ya, G. Dub’ya!,” with its barbershop, gospel sound. Just clear the floor because you’ll be rolling on it!

 

And over here is Greg Wood, a songwriter fromfrom Alberta, Canada. But don’t be fooled by that boyish grin he’s sporting. Sure, he’s celebrating the release of his first full-length self-titled album that came out this May. But that album isn’t a sweet little collection of folkish pop songs. He has a big rock sound with rich vocals that have a deep, Eddie Vedder quality and are equally as powerful. Greg has toured all over Canada and the US, playing and writing songs. He also is equally accomplished on electric and acoustic guitars, bass, and drums. Now, repeat after me: Greg Wood, Greg Wood, Greg Wood.  You’ll be hearing a lot more from him. He is most definitely a talent to watch!

 

I’d love to linger, but there are so many more musicians for you to see.  Yoo-hoo, over there! That’s another bunch of rockers from Canada—this time from Toronto, Ontario. They’re The Common Color. That’s Lu Qiao, the frontman and bassist, Sean O’Neill who’s the guitarist, and Dani Soerensen, their power drummer. They do a mix of originals and loud covers.

 

Hurry now, I want you to meet these other Canadians from London, Ontario. They are my personal faves. They are the bomb!  An eight-piece funk, soul, blues, and R&B band, The Elemeno Peas are fronted by singer Jenn Kee, who is so frackin’ versatile! She sometimes shares vocal duties with Steve Glowala, who plays some funked-up keys, and Dave Curto, their creative drummer.  They are backed by an innovative guitarist (Steve Curto), an in-the-pocket bassist (Dony Bullen), and a killer horn section (Glenn Waugh, J.J. Perlingieri, and Dan Hickey). They always bring the party– a wide range of covers and originals. The Elemeno Peas have two EPs out.

 

Another great party on a stage is The Mighty Regis. Six guys and a lone woman comprise this seven-piece Celtic punk band from Los Angeles. Typically irreverent, The Mighty Regis all sing and play like a house afire, and nothing is sacred, including that chestnut, “Danny Boy,” that morphs from a sweet ballad to a punk-turned-bluegrassy sort of Cossack drinking song!  You’re as likely to hear echoes of the Beastie Boys, Jerry Reed, 50-Cent, and the Pogues and you would The Clancy Brothers. As Franky McNorman, frontman for the band says, “At a Mighty Regis show, EVERYONE’S Irish.” The band has two CDs out.

 

Finally, it is my honor to introduce you to this beautiful, talented lady. Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo is a poet and singer from Boston. Combining lyrical vocals with heartfelt spoken word delivery, Iyeoka entrances her audiences, while she brings them hope and social and spiritual awareness. She received the 2008 National Performance Network/NCCC Artist of Color Residency Award, the 2007 Massachusetts Industry Committee Hip-Hop Award for Spoken Word Artist of the Year, and the 2006 New England Urban Music Award for the Best Female Spoken Word Poet of 2006.  Performing with the four-piece Rock by Funk Tribe, Iyeoka often blends hip-hop with spoken word, joining the traditional with the modern. In addition, this inspiring woman is a New England States Touring speaker, encouraging college students who want to pursue careers in the Arts as she tells how she transitioned her life from being a retail pharmacist to being a performance poet. Iyeoka will be performing at the Kennedy Center at the end of August. You have to catch her live sometime. It will move you and may even change your life!

Well, I guess it’s Last Call, Skope Readers. Come on back next month, and we’ll get up close with music.

By Janie Franz – janie_58201@yahoo.com