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Every month, Cosmik Debris brings you many CD and record reviews, but the writers manage to find a little time for other pursuits, like reading, going to movies and watching videos. That's where Everything Else In Review comes in.
CONCERT: Jazz Is Dead - "Workingman’s Dead" Tour
Roseland Theater,Portland, OR - 3/9/01
Wild Duck, Eugene, OR - 3/11/01
Reviewed by Tim & Ananda Owen
Dubbed the "Workingman’s Beauty" tour, this Jazz is Dead outing features the music from two early Grateful Dead albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, and a few other scattered gems, such as picks from the Dead's probably most jazz inflected album, Blues For Allah.
In their latest incarnation Jazz is Dead is joined by newest recruit Jeff Pevar on guitars. As refreshing and innovative a player as one could hope for, or even imagine for that matter.
Originally intended to be an acoustic tour to match the nature of the two featured albums, it became obvious they had to pull out all of the musical stops, particularly with the dynamic combination of drummer, Rod Morganstein, and guitarist/multi-string instrumentalist Pevar.
Jeff Pevar, current and founding member of CPR (Crosby, Pevar and Raymond), has a very impressive resume including a long stint with Ray Charles, and touring or recording with the likes of Joe Cocker, Bonnie Raitt, Crosby & Nash, Phil and Friends and Jackson Browne just to name a very relative few. Ace keyboardist T Lavitz, (Dixie Dregs, Widespread Panic), wreaks havoc on his B3 as well as providing beautifully lilting melody runs, keen chord changes and amazing interplay. Rod Morganstein, (also with The Dixie Dregs for the past 25 years), is a complex powerhouse drummer and nothing less than astonishing to watch, enthralling audiences with surprising rhythmic patterns, fills, crescendos, and riveting onslaughts. Completing the ensemble, outstanding bassist Alphonso Johnson whose illustrious career credits reads like a who’s who of jazz and fusion, including work with The Weather Report, George Duke, Wayne Shorter, Flora Purim, Quincy Jones, John McLauglin, Sarah Vaughan, on and on. Way beyond holding down the solid bottom, Alphonso’s innovative playing is of monster proportion.
With this tour project being an exploratory works in progress, we've decided to blend highlights of both Oregon shows in this review.
Solid lead vocals were provided by Pevar on the numbers such as "Casey Jones", "New Speedway Boogie", "Ripple", and "Easy Wind", with Rod and Alphonso providing (unlike) Dead-on harmonies. Jeff delivered a beautifully haunting, if not angelic version of "Attics of My Life" to end the second set in Portland. He moves effortlessly between Hawaiian Lap Steel, his trusty strat, and mandolin, as well as assorted other electric guitars throughout each night, burning holes in the stratosphere over a rollicking wall of rhythm full of delightful twists and turns.
There were some great jams happening in Eugene as well. "Trucking" featured an incredible bass/drums duet. They morphed their way from song to song on several occasions, such as "Help On the Way/Slipknot! into "Black Peter" and "Crazy Fingers", into "Cumberland Blues", as well as a couple of intro teases ("Dark Star" comes to mind), to keep us on our toes. Between the two shows, other songs included, "Dire Wolf", Uncle John’s Band" and "Sugar Magnolia".
You could truly feel the creative tension and flow of the momentary improvisational forces of this immense collective talent at work. By the complex interplay amongst them, it was clear that there was conscious intent to bring new life, then and there, to some great songs, and they delivered in full.
The spaces throughout glistened with every bit of color that shines from the notes played. Aside from heavily flowing creative juices, these guys are obviously having a lot of fun. You certainly don't have to be a deadhead to appreciate this band.
Photos by Tim Owen (c) 2001
Review by Ananda and Tim Owen
TV SHOW: That's My Bush
Comedy Central, 10:30pm PST
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
After the disgusting way the republicans used friends in the supreme court and family ties in Florida to rip off the election, it's only fair that Resident Bush should bend over and take one for his team. Our team looked around, wondering who'd give it to him best, and we picked Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park. Hey, who else? They, in turn, created That's My Bush, a new half-hour sitcom that airs immediately after South Park on Comedy Central. That means it's not available in every household in America, but if it's in yours, and if you're not a big fan of the Resident, this is something you've got to see.
Played by Timothy Bottoms, Dubya actually comes off less a buffoon than a luckless, henpecked, deer in the headlights who wants to do some good things that frankly can't be done. In the opening episode we watch as he tries, with all good intentions, to bring the leaders of pro choice and pro life together for a dinner at the white house. Three problems: the pro-choice leader is a very tough, butch woman, the pro-life leader is a 30-something guy who survived abortion but never developed and is just inches tall (I didn't write the script, don't send cards and letters here, please), and Laura Bush is demanding a private dinner with the Resident. Being a sitcom, he's required by the code of ensuing hilarity to attempt both dinners simultaneously.
That much is predictable. What happens afterward, when Laura comes down the stairs to meet her man for a tryst on the table and throws open her parka (parka??), exposing her naked bod to both the pro-lifers and pro-choicers, is not. At least I didn't see it coming.
First episodes are usually stiff because they have to introduce characters and explain them to the viewers. This leads to weighty lines like "Now Bobby, take it easy on your Grandfather. Don't forget he lost a testicle in the war and was accidentally shipped out to an enemy surgical hospital and has never fully recovered and sometimes has flashbacks that can be rather funny in a sad way." No such clunkiness in the first episode of That's My Bush. We met the characters, but they just came in, did their bits as if we'd seen them a thousand times before and made their exits. There's Larry, Dubya's next door neighbor. Think about it. It's funny because hey, it's a sitcom and all sitcom characters have neighbors that walk in, say wacky things and walk out, but this is the damned White House. Are there Secret Service men around? We're talking surreal in a Chris Elliot "Get A Life" kind of way. We've only just met the Res' personal sexretary, Princess, but something tells me she's gonna have more lines in the future to go with the curves. Dubya's chief strategist is Karl Rove, and so far it seems like his plan is to bury Dubya. A man to keep both eyes and the sight of a gun on. For my money, the best character of all is Maggie, the White House maid. She's been there for many years and has seen every president pull every trick in the book. Every time Dubya tries to scheme, Maggie calls him on it, and not in a whisper. Played by Marcia Wallace (Bob Newhart's secretary, Carol and the voice of Mrs. Krabapple on The Simpsons), Maggie is clearly looking forward to a fun-filled 4 years.
Will That's My Bush have the same kind of run? Who can say after one episode? I only know a few things so far: Never piss off either side of the right-to issue, if your maid talks too much she probably needs a cost of living raise, and I'm buying my wife a parka. I also know this show will infuriate republicans and a whole lot of other people. Give it a shot, though. You might surprise yourself and do a lot of laughing.
(C) 2001 - DJ Johnson
CONCERT: David Lindley
WOW Hall - Eugene, OR - 3/20/01
Reviewed by Tim & Ananda Owen
Multi-instrumentalist David Lindley returned to Eugene this past month with his long-time drummer and comrade, Wally Ingram. With an array of stringed instruments of diverse ethnic origins, the King of Polyester delighted the crowd with his usual goofiness on stage and his uniquely blended sound, drawing on influences from around the world and combining them effortlessly.
With fingers flying, Lindley opened the show with "King of the Bed," a song he dedicated to long time friend, Fuzzy Fuller, who wrote the song "Quarter of a Man".
The show highlighted several more songs off the new CD Twango Bango 2, including "National Holiday"- this one dedicated to GW Bush, played on the Irish Bouzouki and featuring some wonderful harmony vocals. Lindley got the crowd on their feet with "Meat Man" played on Hawaiian Lap steel. Other songs included "Jody", "Sport Utilities Suck", a reggae groove with audience participation, (which was inspired by a near accident with a man on his cell phone), and "Little Green Bottle" -a song about Excedrin, co-written by Dave, his daughter and Ry Cooder. They played a few other favorites such as "Cat Food Sandwiches", a silly song about back stage food on the road. You never know what will inspire a creative tune out of the man but you can be sure it will have it's share of light hearted, adventuresome humor and always makes for a unique listening experience. It is this usual demented sense of humor and uncanny vocal style of "Mr. Dave", that continues to make his onstage banter a highlight of his shows. The musical genius within tends to eat his instruments, exploring the possibilities of each thoroughly. David himself doesn’t know how many stringed instruments he even owns or is able to play,but he appears to limit himself to a selection of 9 or10 to use on the road for his acoustic shows.
Top-notch live drummer Wally Ingram makes up one-half of the show being promoted as “Mr. Dave Meets the Wally Llama”. His drumming and back-up vocals, as well as his shared sense of humor, compliments Dave's style to a tee. Wally's drums were an impressive sight. His kit, eccentric and whimsical, was intertwined with an elaborate array of percussion. He looked like a pirate at the helm surrounded by dozens of bells, assorted hand drums, even a soldiers helmet mounted on a stand, topping it all off with the Jolly Roger big and bold on his kick drum. His unusual one stick, one hand drumming technique was a treat to watch and even more so to hear.
The sound Lindley is able to attain on stage has a bigger than life feel to it, filling any size hall, mainly due to the refined stage set up he uses. He runs his basic lines from his instruments through a splitter box and runs half the signal through a reworked Ashly preamp that has a Klark Teknik graphic EQ loop in it so it’s ultimately controllable for frequencies. The other half goes into an old Roland Jazz Chorus 120 amp, which has a mic on each of the two speakers. It’s mixed to the house with the direct signal in the center and the JC 120 speaker mics split left and right. The signals don’t get to the audience’s ears at the same time, and it makes a huge sound.
Lindley has successfully broken out of the mold musically since his earliest days, and pretty much entirely sidestepped the whole music business, by putting out his own CDs and maintaining control over his music. With a long and distinguished career, he continues to break new ground and share his gift of eclectic live music. as well as remain one of the most in demand and well respected session players of today.
(C) 2001 - Photos by Tim Owen
Article (c) 2001 Review by Ananda and Tim Owen
BOOK: Beck
by David Quantick (Thunder's Mouth Press)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
Though on the surface Beck would seem to be a bit young to get the Kill Your Idols treatment (the series has featured such pop greybeards as Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and the like), he's certainly lived an interesting life and created some interesting music, so, well, why not.
On the other hand, why not hire a writer who is at least as interested in relating that life than he is demonstrating exactly how hip and above it all he is. David Quantick has written the first book in the Kill Your Idols series that I can't unreservedly recommend, and it's not the fault of his subject. A British music and comedy writer of some repute, he might be better suited to writing about an artist who is a product of British, rather than American, pop culture, because his generally low opinion of culture in the states and his abject ignorance about the American pop culture influences Beck has drawn on make the narrative portion of the book nearly painful to read.
It's not a total loss, because when he's not busy cracking wise about subjects he's ignorant of, Quantick does get the essential details of Beck's life and career down on paper, and when it comes time for the comprehensive discography that each KYI volume includes he is thorough and provides an informed discussion of the recordings. There's another brief downturn when he gets to the closing section, The Legacy, which calls upon predictive powers that Quantick lacks, but on balance it's a volume that the hardcore Beck fan will probably want. At about 14 bucks American, though, it's one that all but that hardcore should take a pass on. Spend it on one of the other books in this generally excellent series.
(C) 2001 - Shaun Dale