CD Review: Live It Up by Lee DeWyze

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American Idol has introduced us to some amazing – and some not so amazing – vocal talent over the years. Lee Dewyze, the current American Idol, has a great raw voice and is a talented multi-instrumentalist, but the production on his latest CD, Live It Up is polished so slick that you could slip just by listening to this while walking. It clashes with his voice at nearly every turn. DeWyze would be better suited to record an album live with minimal production.

The genre of music is a little off-putting also. Most of the songs carry kind of a poppy John Mayer type sound. I personally think DeWyze’s voice would be better suited for a rawer, more soulful, New Orleans/Delta Blues type album. If he went the musical direction of someone like Marc Broussard instead of John Mayer I think he could turn out some great music.

As far as this album goes the production takes away from the impact of his voice. If you like John Mayer’s slow stuff, you’ll like this album. “Earth Stood Still” is a promising song but it’s overproduced to near death. I can’t really recommend much of this album because it sticks DeWyze in the wrong genre and I think it pretty much neuters his vocals. He’s capable of more and I’m sure he knows it.

leedewyze
Lee DeWyze – Live It Up (RCA)

Review by Chris Senn

Interview: Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes

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Blood Red Shoes are a Brighton, England-based duo made up of Steven Ansell (drums/vocals) and Laura-Mary Carter (guitar/vocals). Their second EP, Fire Like This (follow-up to 2008’s debut EP Box of Secrets) came out in 2010. I recommend both CDs. Though they differ from each other they are excellent, forward chunks of British rock. I interviewed Ansell in December 2010, and I wanted to know about the band’s videos, how they met (which involved donuts!) and how they arrange their awesome songs.

What was the mood like on the set of the video for “Heartsink”?

Steven Ansell: It was quite strange actually. People travelled from a lot of places, about 6 different countries in fact, to be in the video – but most of them travelled either in pairs or alone. So there were 70 or so people who barely knew each other, and definitely had never shot a video before or had a director barking instructions. So it was amazing to see all these people gathered and find out what items they’d brought, but it was also really awkward.

In what ways do you differ from other contemporary British bands?

SA: Well I think there are other bands that come from a similar mindset to us, just not many. Generally speaking a lot of English guitar music (except for the metal scene) has been dominated by a kind of Libertines/Franz Ferdinand style which is really tame and limp to my ears. And those bands seem to go hand in hand with a quite commercial view on their music and a willingness to play the game, it’s all a bit careerist. We’re from a punk rock background; we’re just as ambitious as those other bands but we don’t want to soften our sound out or just do ANYTHING to get there. We want to make music that has good hooks but also something that has aggression and power and big fucking riffs. I think English bands can be a bit shy of that.

You two met in a donut shop? Where was it?

SA: It was on Upper Street, in London, near a few venues like the Garage.

What were your first impressions of Laura-Mary?

SA: My first impression of Laura-Mary was that she was the singer/screamer in this really cool riot grrrl band, and that she was way too cool to talk to me. Turned out she was just really quiet!

How did you find the director for “Light it Up,” James Lees?

SA: James Lees was awesome. Actually that’s my favourite video we’ve ever made. We felt like James listened to us and incorporated our ideas into the video, and the editing of the video, more than anyone we’ve worked with. He’s also the most expensive director we’ve used which is why we haven’t been able to use him as much as we’d like.


Laura-Mary Carter & Steven Ansell of Blood Red Shoes – photo by Steve Gullick

How do you decide which of you will sing each part in a song?

SA: It’s just instinct really. Usually the way we write, we’ll jam on a song and whoever starts singing first ends up singing those parts. Very occasionally we change it around – for example [in] “This is Not for You,” I originally sang the verses, but Laura did it better so we changed it around.

What kind of jobs did you have before you were in Blood Red Shoes?

SA: I used to work in a venue in Brighton called the Freebutt, doing the sound. Before that I was a cleaner. Laura-Mary did all kinds of jobs, working in shops, bars, offices – she would work for 3 weeks then have to quit so we could go on tour, then try to get another job as soon as we got back.

I read one of you has a philosophy degree -­ is this right? What did you find interesting about that topic?

SA: Yup that’s me. I don’t really know what drew me to that. I just find those sort of studies interesting. I was always really academic in school but I didn’t want to do a degree that had any practical application, I wanted to study something that would make me think.

You did semi-nude shots with Dark Daze. Would you do more of something like this? What would it involve?

SA: We did those photos a long time ago, with a friend, before our band was really known at all. The photographer had the idea and it had no relation to our band or what we are. I regret doing those photos because they won’t fucking go away and they don’t suit our band at all. They’re great photos, but it’s just not us.

What hobbies do you have?

SA: We both just live and breathe music, there’s very little outside of that. I mean we both appreciate film, and have been getting into photography recently. Laura-Mary was an art student before the band and she’s always maintained an interest in visual arts but we don’t really have much time for it!

How do you think the vocals differ between the albums?

SA: I think [on] the second album they sound much better. I mean, they have more depth to them and aren’t always buried in double-tracks. I think they sound more honest, and more emotive and a lot more like the “real us” than on the first album.

Did you make an intentional sound shift from more to disco to more rock in the two LPs?

SA: Yeh we felt like we didn’t really hit the mark as well as we should have with the first record so we put a big emphasis on getting our inner Led Zep across on the 2nd album. [for] A LOT of people the first album didn’t capture what we’re like as a live band; they said it sounded a lot more pop and less heavy and aggressive. So that was a big target for the 2nd album.

Would you use synths in any of your songs? Why/why not?

SA: We don’t set any rules about what we do or don’t use. We’ve written some new songs using keyboards although they’re not particularly “synth”-like sounds. Generally speaking that instantly conjures up images of nasty sounding cheap ‘80s sounds, which we are firmly NOT interested in. But we’ll use anything we think sounds good. We’ll never end up doing anything like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s 3rd album though, we’re pretty firmly a guitar rock band, that’s for sure.

I read about you getting quite sick at/before shows ­ do you still get nerves like this?

SA: Actually it wasn’t nerves it was heat exhaustion, I used to get so hot from drumming and singing in tiny clubs, that I’d black out and puke a lot. I’ve got a lot better now – for one thing i can actually play properly now so i don’t get so worked up. I also invested in a couple of fans to stop me overheating [laughs].

Show Review & Photos: Sugar Blue @ Jazz Alley

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Sugar Blue @ Jazz Alley, 1/10/2011
by Marianne Spellman

Seattle R&B fans came in from the cold last night to hear one of the masters– Sugar Blue. One of the world’s top blues harpists, the versatile Blue (born James Whiting in Harlem) packed the house at Jazz Alley on a Monday early set with a crowd ranging from hep 4-year-olds to equally-hep 70-year-olds. Familiar to most rock fans for his signature harmonica on the Rolling Stones’ 1978 hit “Miss You,” Sugar Blue assembled a fine group of musicians behind him (Rico Mc Farland (guitar/vocals), Ilaria Lantieri (bass/vocals), James Knowles (drums), and a mystery man on keyboards), who seemed to be having just as good of a time as the enthusiastic crowd. The set was well-paced, covering a broad range of styles from gritty city blues to smooth, contemporary jazz. Blue’s strong voice and affable stage manner kept the audience groovin’, and his skill on the harmonica inspired bursts of spontaneous applause throughout the night.

More photos can be seen here.


Sugar Blue

Interview: Michael Gira of Swans

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Swans are not dead. That’s what the band’s MySpace account states, and from their new CD, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, they thrive, pound and astonish. Singer and writer Michael Gira wants you to know this is not a reunion. The lineup this time around features two founding Swans members Gira and Norman Westberg, plus bandmates from Gira’s other project Angels of Light. If I were going to make a list of my favorite CDs of 2010 My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky would surely rank way at the top. It’s unsettling in ways that Swans’ earlier music is. Gira’s vocals are low and terrifying. I like that. I talked with Gira (who’s got a wicked sense of humor) about the new album, how he decided to have his daughter sing on the track “You Fucking People Make Me Sick,” and his experiences as a tearaway in Europe.

How did you decide the songs you put on this CD were Swans’ songs?

Michael Gira: It wasn’t so much the songs themselves as the way that I decided to record them and arrange them. Just getting a song together is a miracle these days. I had this collection of songs, say ten songs, and I had this band for a long time called Angels of Light. I’ve been thinking, over the last five years or so, of wanting to make more overwhelming, static, electric guitar music. And I used the songs as fodder to reactivate Swans, which is what I wanted to do in my secret mind. The first song, “No Words/No Thoughts,” that’s written specifically as a Swans song. “You Fucking People Make Me Sick,” that’s also a Swans’ song – but the others were just sort of written along the way.

You have your daughter singing on “You Fucking People Make Me Sick”. How did that come about?

MG: Yes she’s singing on that. Devendra [Banhart] is singing the lead vocals. That song had an odd genesis. It’s a collection of random loops and sounds. I was going to make a transition piece on the record, with no title or anything in mind or anything, and the more I added to it I thought, this is becoming something. All it needs is a little nursery rhyme in the midst of this. I went home and I was distractedly staring at the computer, looking at these fancy music websites. I started thinking about how I’d like to either murder or rape most of these children. So I wrote the lyrics from the point of view of an obsessed stalker. I was singing it and I thought, it doesn’t sound like me, I sound like Devendra. I called Devendra and told him the title and he laughed and asked if he wanted to sing it. He said sure. So I had him sing instead of me.

How’d you find him?

MG: Under a rock I guess. A while ago my wife was playing drums in a band called Flux Information Sciences and they were in LA. This was a loud, noisy band and somehow Devendra was the opener. My wife’s an aficionado of Americana, and heard his voice while she was smoking a cigarette outside when they were soundchecking. She went and talked to him and got this CD-R which is barely audible. She brought it home to me and I was astounded. It’s like going up into someone’s attic and finding this hidden trove of 78 recordings. I wrote him a long letter and he moved to New York to be on the label.

What’s pleased you the most about the new album?

MG: I like that it’s leading on to something else. I have trouble hearing my own music when it’s done because it’s reversed in so many ways. It’s like a dead cow in the middle of the road. It’s not really vibrant anymore. When it’s finished it’s exciting – I can recite in my head and I don’t have to listen to it anymore. It goes from writing the songs, working on them over and over, and thinking about how to arrange them, recording them, then mixing. By the time you’re done editing and mixing them it’s just a cycle. I become more interested in how to arrange and play the songs live. I’m not very faithful to recorded versions.

I read an interview with you where you talk about the audience as victims in a live show.

MG: I’m a victim too. You create a beast of sound and I just want it to pummel your body into submission until you see God. The audience comes along for the ride. In the early ‘80s there was quite a hostile relationship between us and the audience. We were met with either indifference or scorn for the first five years. It was not a love-hate relationship, it was a hate-hate relationship. In a way it’s a source of energy too.

You ran away to Europe as a teenager?

MG: I was living in Germany, working in a factory when I was fifteen. My father had placed me in this factory as sort of a test to discipline me – if you’re not going to behave you’re going to work in a factory. He was in Germany – his second wife was German. He was a business executive. I could go to this school in the Swiss Alps or work in the factory. I did that for a year and then he said, you’re going to school. And I ran away. I hitchhiked through Germany down to Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey – I was running out of money so these older hippies I was with knew some people in Israel. We spent our last money going to Israel. I spent a year in Israel panhandling, selling my blood, working in a copper mine. I finally got arrested selling hashish and spent three and a half months in jail. Then they booted me out of the country.

The song “Jim” is just beautiful. What’s behind that song?

MG: Thanks. I was thinking about my friend Jim [J.G. Thirlwell] from the band Foetus. He sent me some of his music. I was overwhelmed by what a genius he is. It was an inspiration to keep going. He’s a similar age and we came up together. I wrote it based on memories of us and our time together. It’s an homage to him.

Have you had any vocal training?

MG: No. I know how to sing from my stomach and not my throat. Jarboe taught me that. I used to destroy my throat every night. I used to smoke two packs of Camels unfiltered a day. I have a lot of lung power just from singing in really loud rock bands. I do vocal exercises but I don’t really have any training.

The portrait Simon Henwood made of you is amazing.

He’s one of my very best friends. I’m proud of him. He’s having a show in Paris and London. It’s a two-person show with portraits by Francis Bacon.

That’s a wonderful combination.

He took a headshot of me after we’d been carousing all night. That’s how I looked the next morning.


Michael Gira – portrait by Simon Henwood

Do you have any memorable injuries from performing onstage?

MG: When I was younger. I knocked out half of my front teeth on the microphone. I used to break my ribs. I used to have to wear an ACE bandage. I was always throwing myself on the ground. You don’t really feel it when the music’s inhabiting you – and then later you pay the price.

No jumping into the crowds.

MG: I never did that anyway. [One time] in Chicago everybody else was listening and moving but they weren’t slamming into each other. There were these four imbeciles moshing. I almost stopped the song but I got their attention and grabbed one of them by the hair and yelled at him to stop. He finally stopped. I don’t want to be a party to that – it’s so ludicrous. It’s such a knee-jerk, Pavlovian reaction at this point. It means nothing.


Swans 2010

Swans will appear in Seattle for a show at Neumos on Saturday, February 26th.