THE WHIGS- In The Dark Review

THE WHIGS

In The Dark

ATO

 

The Whigs have been on a slow, steady climb towards national stardom for four years now, ever since Rolling Stone named the Athens-based band one of “10 Artists To Watch” in the wake of their independently released 2005 debut, Give ‘Em All A Big Fat Lip. Within a year they had been signed to Dave Matthews’ ATO label, and by 2008’s Mission Control the band had become more confident in their blend of classic garage rock and more modern alt-rock influences.

 

After replacing original bassist Hank Sullivant (who joined MGMT) with Tim Deaux, the band embarked on a series of memorable late night talk show performances and high-profile tours. Returning home a much tighter trio, the group began writing and recording their third album in Athens with producer Ben Allen (Animal Collective). The result, In The Dark, represents another big step forward in The Whigs’ artistic evolution.

 

The first difference you’ll notice is an increased focus on the rhythm section of Deaux and Julian Dorio. According to frontman Parker Gispert, nine of these 11 songs began as drum and bass grooves, with Gispert’s guitar and vocal melodies woven in around them. The result is a tighter, more propulsive sound, with the opening “Hundred/Million” rollicking along for 54 seconds before the first guitar riff comes crashing in like a tidal wave and takes the track to a whole ‘nother level. When the guitar stands front and center on a song like “Kill Me Carolyne,” it recalls the Replacements and R.E.M., establishing The Whigs as heirs to that college-rock throne.

 

In The Dark is not a perfect album, but it is a very good one, suggesting the band may soon be headlining the same big venues where they supported Kings of Leon and Drive-By Truckers not too long ago. –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS- The Big To-Do Review

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

The Big To-Do

ATO

Twelve years after the release of their debut album and nine years after the conceptual genius of Southern Rock Opera established them as the 21^st century’s Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Drive-By Truckers are more prolific than ever. In the last two years they’ve released a studio album, a live album and a B-sides compilation, collaborated with Booker T Jones and Neil Young on the Grammy-winning Potato Hole, and recorded frontman Patterson Hood’s solo album, Murdering Oscar.

 

With so much recorded output, the band’s trademark Southern-style storytelling and 3-guitar attack has long since been established as a bona fide brand. So the only question at this point is whether or not you’re buying into their twangy country-rock sound. For fans, The Big To-Do will likely come across as the band’s most rocking album since Southern Rock Opera.

 

Hard-driving songs such as the opening “Daddy Learned To Fly” and “The Fourth Night of My Drinking” are classic DBT, but the stripped-down grooves of the slyly humorous “Drag The Lake Charlie” and the off-kilter “The Wig He Made Her Wear” are as warped and colorful as the distinctively Southern stories they tell. Bassist Shonna Tucker continues to cut her compositional teeth, contributing two of the album’s 13 tracks. The piano-driven balladry of her “You Got Another” borders on breathtaking, while Jay Gonzalez’s organs and John Neff’s haunting pedal steel give the closing “Eyes Like Glue” a high lonesome appeal.

 

The increased contributions of the other members not only takes some of the pressure off Hood and Mike Cooley’s shoulders, it allows the band’s sound to expand in an organic way. Ten albums into their career, the Drive-By Truckers remain one of rock’s most consistent bands, and The Big To-Do is another strong feather in their creative cap. –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

BUTCH WALKER- I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart review

BUTCH WALKER & THE BLACK WIDOWS

I Liked It Better When You Had No Heart

One Haven

 

If you need proof that the music industry has shifted far away from the major label focus that prevailed for decades, look no further than Butch Walker. The Cartersville native has produced and/or co-written hit records for Pink, Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry and Weezer in recent years, emerging as one of the hottest names in the recording field. Yet for his fifth solo album, we find the hitmaker signed to upstart indie One Haven Music, started in 2009 by A&R veteran Michael Caplan.

 

Whether by choice or circumstance, the reality underscores the irony that the former Marvelous 3 frontman is making the most accessible music of his career. Over the past two albums he’s all but abandoned the Bowie/Bolan glam fetish of the Let’s Go Out Tonites in favor of a more classic rock sound. The combination of turning 40, witnessing the birth of his first child and losing all his personal possessions and master recordings in the Malibu wildfires appears to have had a profound impact, and I Liked It Better’s mature lyrical themes reflect great personal growth.

 

The string-laden “Pretty Melody” would sound like some long-lost Motown song were it not for Walker’s lyrics, which chronicle a fateful bar meeting between a gorgeous girl and “just another tattooed tragedy,” who promises “I’ll be your open tab, you’ll be my favorite sin.” The pastoral “Don’t You Think Someone Should Take You Home” has a back-porch bluegrass influence, while “She Likes Hair Bands” sounds like a 21^st century Tom Petty and “Be Good ‘Til Then” is achingly pretty folk balladry. It may be too sedate for old school fans, but Butch Walker’s latest is a fantastic rock album made for grown-ups who understand the joy of beginnings, the sadness of endings and the difficult journey that lies between.  –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

DAVID BERKELEY- Strange Light Review

DAVID BERKELEY

Strange Light

Straw Man/Thirty Tigers

 

Equally influenced by Nick Drake and Damien Rice, this promising singer-songwriter’s third album has a an achingly melodic sense of melancholy that should appeal to fans of Elliott Smith, Joshua Radin and their modern folk ilk. Produced by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse), with a guest appearance from Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins, the album pays tribute to landmarks from the nomadic Berkeley’s past and present hometowns, from the dynamic build of “Willis Avenue Bridge” (which connects the Bronx and Manhattan) to the sweet, soulful horns that adorn his paean to Atlanta’s “Sweet Auburn.” A Harvard grad who studied literature and philosophy before working as a river rafting guide in Idaho and a writer in Alaska, Berkeley’s led an intriguing life. Though he may be settled with wife and child these days, you can hear the richness of his experiences in every intimate, well-crafted track. – BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

JOHN MAYER- Battle Studies Review

JOHN MAYER

Battle Studies

Columbia

 

It seems like an eternity since John Mayer came to Atlanta a wide-eyed Berklee College of Music dropout, partnering with Clay Cook to peddle his sensitive singer-songwriter shtick on the local coffeehouse circuit. But ever since Cook left in the late ‘90s to join the Marshall Tucker Band (he’s now working with Zac Brown), Mayer’s been refining an increasingly radio-friendly pop-rock sound, trading his funkier, more stripped-down jazz and blues influences for an adult contemporary smoothness designed to go down easy like Sunday morning.

 

It’s no secret that Mayer has emerged in recent years as pop music’s most formidable lothario (or douchebag, depending on how you see it), bedding a string of sexy sirens (including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, Minka Kelly, Jennifer Aniston, etc.) that have made him a regular tabloid staple. So perhaps it’s no surprise that his fourth studio album, Battle Studies, boasts a strong seductive vibe squarely aimed at the fairer sex.

 

As if his personal life wasn’t enough to convince you that the former Atlanta folkie has “gone Hollywood,” the album was recorded in a house near Topanga Canyon, with Mayer claiming he wanted to get a “hazy, rustic, California, Don Henley, Fleetwood Mac feel.” The resulting record fits squarely into the adult-oriented rock tradition, channeling legends like Sting, Dire Straits and Eric Clapton. Its mood is perfectly suited for romantic evenings with a good wine and a warm fire, but from the U2-lite vibe of the opening “Heartbreak Warfare” to a tepid cover pf Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads,” it’s not terribly exciting.

 

Still, from the teary-eyed balladry of “All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye” to the soulful “Edge Of Desire,” this album is clearly aimed at the ladies. And if Mayer’s mandate was to hit the female of the species (or at least the kind most likely to be sipping on a merlot at Chastain Park) square in the heart, Battle Studies is mission accomplished. – BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

OTIS REDDING- The Best See & Hear

OTIS REDDING

The Best See & Hear

Shout Factory

 

The loss of any artist is tragic, but it seems all the more difficult when a legend-in-the-making is taken before their talent has had a chance to fully flourish. Dawson, Georgia’s favorite son was 26 when he died– old enough for his gritty Southern sound to make him one of the world’s most influential soul singers, yet too young for his formidable songwriting skills to have reached full maturity. We’ll never know what Otis Redding might have accomplished had he lived into his thirties or forties. But The Best See & Hear offers a wonderful portrait of the greatness he managed to achieve in his short life.

 

There have been dozens of posthumous albums released over the 42 years since Redding’s untimely death. But this Shout Factory set distinguishes itself by including both a CD of his greatest Stax/Volt hits and a 12-song DVD directed by D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop).  Recorded live in concert in Oslo, Norway (April, 1967) and Monterey, California (June, 1967), with Booker T. & the MG’s serving as his backing band, the DVD shows Redding just beginning to reach his peak.

 

He attacks songs such as “Shake,” “Satisfaction” and “Respect” (which he recorded before Aretha Franklin hit the charts with her version) with a joyous fervor before letting labelmates Sam & Dave deliver a short, inspired set. Then he returns to bring down the house with a sweat-drenched take on “Try A Little Tenderness,” whipping the respectful European crowd into a frenzy.

 

There’s nothing new here that Redding fans haven’t heard before, but seeing one of Georgia’s finest artists pouring his heart and soul into a riveting show reminds us what a cultural treasure the state lost in that plane crash on December 10, 1967. –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

STS9's Ad Explorata- CD Review

STS9- Ad Explorata  (1320 Records)

Sound Tribe Sector 9 was founded in the late ‘90s, when their unique brand of dub-influenced, improvisational breakbeats established them as peers of rising jam bands such as Disco Biscuits and Lake Trout. They quickly attracted a national following, and by 2001 they’d relocated to northern California and taken a deeper interest in spirituality and mysticism.

With Ad Explorata, STS9 has also taken an interest in shortwave radios, as the album was inspired by (and features samples of) transmissions found while tooling around with one. They reportedly stumbled onto an artificial female voice counting off numbers, then learned these transmissions came from numbers stations designed to transmit coded messages from government organizations to spies overseas (in 2001 the U.S. tried the Cuban Five for spying using info received from a Cuban station).

Enlisting the help of a crypto-hacker friend, STS9 found that the numbers corresponded with the coordinates of a military installation in Big Sur. Following a trail to an abandoned bunker, they found a rusted metal box containing several items, including the photo that became the cover of their “Atlas” single and a black ops military patch for a unit that gathered signal intelligence from other countries and, perhaps, galaxies. Their motto: “Ad Explorata, Forward Into The Unexplored.”

Whether you believe this extraordinary story or not, it’s hard to argue with the conceptual impact on Ad Explorata’s blend of jazz, funk, IDM, prog rock and spaced-out psychedelia, which creates some of the band’s most dynamic jams to date. From the Aphex Twin-like alien vibe of the opening “Phoneme” and the metallic guitar thrust of “Heavy” to the hypnotic dub groove of “Crypto City” and the tweaked-out glitch-hop of “Central,” this is the deepest, most intriguing effort of STS9’s career. If there is life on other planets, you can only imagine that this might be just the sort of transmission they’d love to hear.  (B)  –Bret Love

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

DRIVE BY TRUCKERS- The Fine Print

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities & Rarities 2003-2008

New West

 

Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood has been exceptionally busy of late. After releasing five classic albums (from 1999’s Pizza Deliverance to 2006’s A Blessing and A Curse) of Southern-rock brilliance with his band, he somehow found time to produce albums by Bettye LaVette and former DBT guitarist Jason Isbell, provide backup for the legendary Booker T. Jones, record his second solo album and reunite with the Truckers for 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.

 

With so much recorded output over the last few years, you might think you’d already heard the best music Hood and Co. had to offer. And, well, you’d be right. But as The Fine Print’s dozen tracks prove, even the Drive-By Truckers’ detritus is better than most bands’ best.

 

Comprised of four covers, alternate versions of two previously released tunes, and six songs that simply didn’t work on the albums for which they were originally intended, The Fine Print can’t match other DBT albums in consistency. But with the exception of the crazy Christmas ditty “Mrs. Claus’ Kimono,” most of the tracks have no issue with quality. The re-recording of “Uncle Frank” (which first appeared on their 1998 debut) improves on the original, while the foreboding air of “The Great Car Dealer War” proves that The Dirty South’s loss is The Fine Print’s gain. Speaking of loss, “TVA” and “When the Well Runs Dry” remind you how much Isbell brought to the band, while Mike Cooley’s “Little Pony & the Great Big Horse” insists the band still has its fair share of kick-ass songwriters.

 

So what if The Fine Print isn’t yet another instant DBT classic? It’s miles better than most bands’ oddities, and should keep fans happy until the Truckers’ eighth proper LP is released in March. –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

SWEET SOUTHERN SOUL- Atlanta's Tragar & Note Labels

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Eccentric Soul: The Tragar & Note Labels 

Numero Group

 

There are some people who do it for the free schwag, some who do it for the opportunity to hobknob with rock stars, and some who do it for the modicum of fame you get when your name is seen in print by thousands of people. But for my money the best part of getting to write about music for a living is the opportunity it affords you to hear great music you might not ever have known about otherwise, and to share the joy of that discovery with like-minded individuals. Eccentric Soul: The Tragar & Note Labels is a perfect case in point, offering up 50 sizzling soul tracks by a bunch of artists you’ve never heard of.

 

The 2-CD compilation is really the story of ATL native Jesse J. Jones, a saxophonist-turned-producer who headed up the little-known Tragar and Note record labels. In spite of the Jim Crow laws, the first half of the 20^th century had been a relatively productive time for black business in Atlanta, with the Sweet Auburn district producing the nation’s first black-owned newspaper, the biggest black-owned insurance company, hotels, office buildings and restaurants. The City Too Busy To Hate was the heart of the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” with clubs such as the Royal Peacock and the Magnolia Ballroom peaking at the city’s most swinging hotspots, yet there were relatively few independent black records out of Atlanta breaking out on the national scene.

 

Jones, who left home at 17 to tour with blues screamer Jimmy Witherspoon (eventually hiring a young Ornette Coleman for his first pro gig), moved to the West Coast in 1956 to avoid gambling debts he’d racked up in after-show high stakes card games. He wound up working as an arranger with Robert “Bumps” Blackwell, who had discovered Ray Charles and Little Richard, and later hit the jackpot with Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me.” Jones subsequently wound up at a series of failed labels– Ebb, Lita, Four-J– before his inexperience and greed found him persona non grata in the insular L.A. industry.

 

Returning to Atlanta, Jones’ next venture was bankrolled by white music lover Jean Wallace. Named after his wife Tracy and son Gary, Tragar Records set up shop in the West End, a perfect location for recruiting local talent. Whether due to Jones’ blacklisting in the music business or simple lack of promotion, these excellent singles never got the attention they so righteously deserve. But like most of the other albums in the Numero Group’s Eccentric Soul series, the anthology unlocks an embarrassment of riches for fans of the ‘60s/‘70s soul sound, uncovering a deep and rich Atlanta music scene that has never really gotten its due credit.

 

Tee Fletcher’s furiously funky “Down In The Country” opens the set appropriately enough, taking time to shout out to R&B legends like James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Sam & Dave, and underscoring the reality that many of the Tragar and Note artists could’ve been contenders had Jones’ business savvy matched his ear for artistry.  But it’s primarily the women who shine brightest here, from Franciene Thomas’ rollicking “I’ll Be There” and dynamically emotional “Too Beautiful To Be Good” to Eula Cooper’s soaring voice on the brass- and string-supported “Try” and the exhilarating “Let Our Love Grow Higher,” which is arguably the set’s finest moment.

 

In the end, while offering a cautionary reminder that talent alone is not enough to ensure showbiz stardom, the fantastic compilation also serves to remind us that the ATL’s status as a hotbed of urban music talent goes back decades. –BRET LOVE

(originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)

THE GOSPEL TRUTH- Two killer compilations

VARIOUS ARTISTS- Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music & Photography 1890-1950 (Dust-To-Digital)  &  VARIOUS ARTISTS-Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare + Otherworldly African-American Gospel [1944-2007]  (Tomkins Square)

 

Growing up in Atlanta as a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s, it seemed like the soul of gospel permeated the culture of the South. Even as a white kid growing up in a mixed-race neighborhood in Dekalb County, it seemed like gospel music was everywhere, from the Sacred Harp singing at my grandmother’s church and the Holy Rollers whose services would frequently spill out onto the sidewalks next to my neighborhood’s grocery store to the massive immersion baptisms we’d stumble onto at Stone Mountain’s lake and the church services that dominated local TV stations every Sunday morning.

 

The sage Joni Mitchell (or was it Cinderella?) once sang “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” and as the South’s cultural paradise was paved over with parking lots and high rises, gospel music on the whole became a slicker and more polished beast. But these two excellent compilations– one from Atlanta’s premiere boutique label, Dust-To-Digital, the other benefiting the New Orleans Musician Relief Fund– pay tribute to the raw, traditional gospel that permeated the fabric of my childhood, accurately summarizing the music form’s past century of evolution in the process.

 

You can read elsewhere in this issue about Dust-To-Digital’s impeccable reputation, and Take Me To the Water is yet another in the local label’s uninterrupted stream of exceptional releases. Already nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Historical Release category, the exquisite package offers 25 tracks of gospel music recorded between 1924 and 1940 as well as a gorgeous book featuring vintage photos and informative essays.

 

Opening with “Baptize Me,” featuring Atlanta’s Rev. J.M. Gates backed by his congregation, Take Me To The Water captures the unbridled passion and power of songs sung purely in the spirit of praise. There’s a broad representation of the gospel sound here, from the bluesy influences of Washington Phillips’ “Denomination Blues Part I” and the Appalachian country of the Carter Family’s “On My Way To Canaan’s Land” to the barbershop approach of the Southern Wonders Quartet’s “Go Wash In The Beautiful Stream” and the Western sound of Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers’ “Sister Lucy Lee.” Partnered with the book’s vintage immersion baptism photographs and essays by Jim Linderman and Luc Sante, it’s easy to see why the set is up for a Grammy.

 

Equally impressive both in scope and style (with Art Direction by Atlanta’s Susan Archie, a frequent DTD collaborator), Tomkins Square’s Fire In My Bones is a 3-CD set designed to collect some of the more neglected sounds of black gospel music recorded between the genre’s post-WWII heyday and the present. Produced by Mike McGonigal, the compilation veers among various gospel traditions, from solo performances to congregational recordings to hellfire-and-brimstone sermons that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It also veers from major label tracks to field recordings and from rural Georgia to urban California, showcasing the sheer diversity of the gospel sound.

 

From The Phillips’ Specials’ furiously funky “I’m A Soldier” and Precious Bryant’s folk-blues take on “When the Saints Go Marching In” to the Georgia Fife & Drum Band’s bizarrely militaristic “Why Sorrow Done Passed Me Around” and Grant & Ella’s version of the slave-era spiritual “John Saw,” the Peach State is well represented among the 80 awesome tracks collected here. But if there’s one central message that both of these killer compilations convey, it’s that it ain’t about where you’re from so much as it is where you’re going after you’re gone. – BRET LOVE

(Originally appeared in Georgia Music Magazine)