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The Neville Brothers were at the Birchmere, this was the second time we saw them there and the third time overall.  They always have put on a very fun, high energy performance, and its always great to see someone as iconic as Aaron Neville perform just a few tables away.  They played about 2 hours, and we were really impressed with the solo work Aaron did at the end; he was well warmed up and knocked a few songs out of the park.

Their version of Iko Iko was fun as always.

Tags: Birchmere, music, Neville Brothers
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This is a review in absentia. Because of travel, a friend of mine went to the show. Her report made me sorry we missed the show. More than two hours of playing, including an encore with six songs, followed by another with three. Lots of covers of old Elvis tunes with the new band, Stones, country tunes, etc. She reports tremendous music, and a very entertaining presence on stage. The Warner Theater is also a great venue for music.

Tags: Elvis Costello, music
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This is the song stuck in my head today.  It pushed out the “Give Me Back That Filet-O-Fish” jingle.  Finally.

YouTube – KT Tunstall – Suddenly I See [LIVE 2005]

Tags: music, songs stuck in my head
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Nice article on Jeff Beck on USA today.com.

After vegging out, guitar god Jeff Beck takes a sharp turn – USATODAY.com.

We’re looking forward to his tour this summer!

Tags: Jeff Beck, music
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We hadn’t been to the Kennedy Center for a long time.  It’s a great venue to walk around – very recognizable from television (at least in the DC area).  A top tier venue for performances.  The down side is that its about the hardest place to get into if you haven’t been there before.  It’s surrounded by several protective layers of highways with poorly marked entrances like many areas in downtown DC.  It took us three tries to actually get into the parking lot.  We were glad we left plenty of time to get there.

We had great seats, 10th row, and its always very cool to see someone as recognizable as Wynton Marsalis be right on the stage in front of you.

Two sets, first one was mostly Basie tunes. I expected museum pieces, but they were lively and spontaneous. The second set was an original suite inspired by artists (a Monet movement, a Van Gogh movement, etc.). Some were a little too experimental for me, but others were great composition and performance.

The big surprise was how much an ensemble experience it was.  Wynton was the MC for the performance and took a few solos.  But, he was a member of the band and not the star of the show and I think all the players had a chance to solo throughout the night.  It was very cool to see him in this role and we enjoyed the performance very much.

Other perk; the audience was much better behaved than most DC area performances.  Very little moving in and out during the performance and the common distractions of public events.

Tags: Kennedy Center, music, performances, Wynton Marsalis
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Saw him perform multiple times with Hall & Oates, as well as Saturday Night Live.  Most recently, he was with Hall & Oates when we saw them last year.  Talented, and a great presence on stage.

T-Bone Wolk Dies From Heart Attack | undercover.com.au, Music, News, Entertainment.

Tags: Hall & Oates, music, T-Bone Wolk
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Brian Setzer at Strathmore Hall

After avoiding Strathmore Hall for years (a taxpayer protest), this is the third event we’ve been to at Strathmore in two months.

Brian Setzer was there with his big band for a concert billed as a Christmas Extravaganza.  While there were a number of Christmas tunes done up in that Rock & Roll/Big Band/Rockabilly style he’s been doing for a while, there were also a number of his recognizable hits including a few numbers done with the Stray Cats trio of Brian, Bass, and small drum kit.  And, the stage and costumes were all Christmas themed, including a snow machine for the grand finale.

This was our first time seeing Brian live, and we were real close to the stage for an easy view of his playing.  While the style he plays in is somewhat narrow from an electric guitar standpoint, you’d be hard pressed to find a better player as he effortlessly cruises between vintage rock and roll, rockabilly, surf, and swing styles.  He does this with a beautiful vintage guitar rig and a long cable, moving (sometimes running, sometimes almost duckwalking) all across the front of the stage and making great connection to the audience.

The martini glass backdrop, Vegas style lounge jackets, emphasis on swing music, create a very high energy performance that we enjoyed from end to end.  We really enjoyed the hits like Rock This Town and Sexy and Seventeen, and the swing arrangements of the Christmas songs were a lot more fun and a lot less annoying than the endless repetition that drives you insane by the actual holiday (although it is early in the season).  The swing arrangement of the Nutcarcker Suite was fun and creative, and his tribute to Danny Gatton was a great connection to a local player which we enjoyed.

The crowd was a funny mix which we are seeing for this venue, most likely due to the crowd being a mix of fans and theater patrons who are there on a subscription package and not necessarily familiar with the music.  Vocals were a little muddy and hard to hear, which we’re now seeing as typical for this venue, unfortunately.

Tags: Brian Setzer, concerts, music
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Shelves of old stuff...

I’ve gotten into a bit of a project, which I’ll be providing the technical details of in a few days.  But, some personal thoughts…

While we resisted (far longer than most) the migration of our music collection to digital, we eventually felt we had no choice as the vinyl format started to disappear and the CD-ROM took over.  So, we started buying CDs like everyone else, and lamented the loss of the large album art and the liner notes in a font size larger than “4 pt”.  We also moaned as we purchased favorites already owned on vinyl so we could listen to things in the car.  Now, we’re going through this again as we start migrating to MP3/AAC downloads, purchasing things we have no physical evidence of owning.

Partially motivated by cheapness, and partially motivated by the inability to find out of print items, I started thinking about converting all the old things to MP3 myself.  After some research (translate as “Google”) and some experimentation (translate as “plug in old hardware”) I discovered that it’s not too hard to convert to MP3 from old sources like vinyl.  So, I’ve embarked on a project to convert everything we have so we don’t have to repurchase.

This is not a short term project.  Over the years we’ve collected hundreds of pieces of vinyl, dozens of vinyl 45s, hundreds of audio CDs, dozens of cassettes, and concert VHS tapes and DVDs.  If you total it all up its more than 1,000 hours of audio.  And, there’s no short cut to spending all that time spinning the audio into a computer to convert it.  So, this project will literally take months and months.  So, we start.

And, it’s turning into a wonderful walk through personal history.  There are all kinds of recordings that have been part of our lives as far back as we can remember.  There are recordings that we have no idea why we purchased them.  There are out of print items.  There are audio cassettes of performances of mine from various groups that are poor recording quality, poor performances, and priceless things to possess.  Listening to everything is a parade of friends, places, times, experiences, memories almost forgotten and easily retrieved with a drum beat or guitar chord.

It’s going to be a fun two years…

Tags: music
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Hall & Oates at Wolf Trap, August 2, 2009

From August 2, 2009.

Most likely, everyone from my high school from near my age feels a connection to the music of Hall & Oates.  Daryl Hall went to my high school, and they were becoming famous while I was in school.  They became huge when I was in college with three monstrous selling albums during the early days of MTV when videos had a big impact on music sales and pop culture.

I saw them once before, when I was in college they played at the school’s arena where I worked.  I not only got to see the show promoting their Voices album, but my vantage point was from the left corner of the stage and was able to get tickets for friends from high school.  It was an incredibly exciting show, and had a big impact on me in terms of what large shows were about and the magic creators of music generate when they create songs that are loved by many.

So, here we were 25 years later going to see Hall & Oates again.  I knew I would love the show regardless just based on nostalgia.  So, consider this an extremely biased review.

Hall & Oates Ticket

Here was the cool thing about the show.  They opened up with Man-eater, a huge number one hit.  Most bands would save a song like this for the end, or for the mandatory fake encore.  Hall & Oates are able to open with a song like this because they can follow it up with another dozen top 10 songs.  The only negative about a show like this is that the crowd is filled with people that love and know all these songs and have that urge to sing along with every song.

The only thing that was missing for me was that I hoped G. E. Smith would be there from all those classic albums.  However, nothing was lacking – Daryl and John where there, along with some of the others from those classic albums.  And, the somewhat small lighting production gave the show a more intimate feel, similar to the vibe of the web show Live from Daryl’s House (which is really great, if you haven’t seen it).

(Picture quality poor – must have had the camera set wrong)

Tags: Hall & Oates, music, performances, Wolf Trap
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We knew some of Chris Isaak’s songs, and knew who he was, and knew he put on a great show.  Now, we know all of this from first hand experience.

Part of what made this event fun was that the band has played together for 20 years or so, and had that tremendous tightness that only comes about from knowing each other well and trying to get to the same place musically.  There were very spontaneous moments that only come about when the band can look at each other and do something that is not on a controlled script.  Whether faked or not, it felt very real for Chris to walk out into the audience with a radio mike, finish the song before he got back, and call out “do an Elvis tune” and continue to wade through the audience.

A lot of his material is dark – sad – melancholy.  But well written and well performed and highlighted with a pretty slick light show.  There was a retro looking TV screen behind the band that played images through some kind of LED display, and those automated lights up top that can do so many things with color and lenses.

We walked away very impressed, and would go see Chris Isaak again when he comes to town.  And, downloaded a dozen or so songs from iTunes the next day.

(Sorry the picture is bad.  Taken with the cell phone camera which is easily fooled by stage lighting)

Tags: Chris Isaak, music
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