Rush Hour, released in 1995, was a collaboration between the American jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano and longtime composer/arranger Gunther Schuller, featuring compositions by Ellington, Mingus, Monk, and Schuller. Schuller coined the term "Third Stream", referring to a music composed and performed using jazz and classical music techniques.
Skeleton Tree is a somber LP, even for Nick Cave. Its's very atmospheric, with songs that defy the usual verse-chorus-verse of most pop tunes in much the same way as his last release, Push Away the Sky. The lyrics were written by Cave and the music by Cave and Bad Seed Warren Ellis, his chief collaborator since the mid 1990s. While the songs are dark and often sad, reportedly they were written before Cave’s son Arthur passed away unexpectedly in July 2015. The album was released in September 2016 in conjunction with the film One More Time with Feeling, which Cave used as a promotional vehicle rather than doing interviews. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds just stepped off on a world tour last week and will be appearing in Nor Cal on June 24.
KDRT broadcaster Dug Deep will host New York City trio Moon Hooch for an interview in the KDRT studio on Thursday, November 10 at 4:00 pm. Moon Hooch are saxophone players Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen, and drummer James Muschler. The group’s live performances make avant-garde music seem fun and approachable and spark a raw, transcendent energy that blends elements of jazz, groove, funk, and – at its core – the pulse-pounding tribal urgency of electronic dance music. The trio has gone from playing on New York City subway platforms to selling out major venues around the world. The Davis Live Music Collective presents Moon Hooch with special guest Honeycomb on Thursday, November 10, at Odd Fellows Hall in Davis, CA. Doors open at 7:30p.
Dug Deep hosts a pre-Halloween Americana double-header edition of Live DiRT with the T Sisters and Kuinka (formerly called Ra!!it Wilde)! Both bands play live in the KDRT studio on Sunday, October 30th, at 4:30 pm, just ahead of their appearance that evening at the Graduate thanks to the Davis Live Music Collective.
This week's Album of the Week features a classic you may well have never heard of: Lubbock on Everything by Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band from 1979, a record that has over the years become known as a seminal Americana recording. Lubbock on Everything is visual artist Terry Allen’s love letter to the hometown that he left the day after he graduated high school and drove out to LA with his wife, artist/writer Jo Harvey Allen. It rocks some, but it swaggers plenty…and jigs…and two-steps. It’s really an autobiographical snapshot of West Texas culture, with a couple of stories about Terry’s early experiences in the bigtime art world tossed in for good measure. Rolling Stone called it one of the most important records of the 1970s. We are pretty sure Terry knew that when he recorded it. The deluxe reissue treatment is being re-released this week!
Hip-hop/jazz/funk band The Lique (pronounced "leek") will be stopping by KDRT on Friday, Sept 30th, at 1:00 pm to talk with host Dug Deep about the recent release of their debut album, Democracy Manifest. They'll also tell us about some local shows they have lined up, including a performance Friday night at Harlow's in Sacramento.
The Lique hails from Las Vegas, but vocalist/poet Rasar Amani is a native of Sacramento who released 10 albums of hip-hop fused with social commentary and politics while living hereabouts. The Lique gives Rasar's image-filled lyrics a whole new dynamic, and the result is poignant, raucous, and always danceable. Tune in and hear for yourself.
Dug Deep hosts this week's edition of Album of the Week, featuring A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado, the third album by Brazilian rock band Os Mutantes. The album was originally released in 1970. The title translates to The Divine Comedy or I Am a Bit Disconnected. "I am a bit disconnected" in this sense means "I feel a little spaced out." The album as a whole is characterized by a mix of psychedelic and religious imagery. Os Mutantes were influenced by a blend of 60s rock -- the Ventures to the Beatles, whose Sgt. Pepper expanded their understaning of what recorded music could achieve. Os Mutantes were subversive, fun, poetic, melodic, playful, noisy, and much more. They also became a part of the Tropicalia movement in Brazil, along with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Tom Ze. Tune in Sep 1 at 5 pm PT for a strange musical journey on Album of the Week.
Jonathan Segel spent a good deal of his childhood in Davis and is best known for being the violin player in Camper Van Beethoven, but he holds a master's degree in music composition and has a LONG list of collaborations and solo material, much of which is truly exceptional. Tonight we will highlight his 2003 solo release Edgy Not Antsy. It's at different times trippy, minimalist, dreamy, poppy, flourishing, and experimental—and always lots of fun. The songwriting is largly observational, and the subject matter ranges from alienation ("Losing Touch") to "Civil Disobediance" to mindless consumerism ("World of Suckers") with lots of wry humor tossed in. Tune in at 5 pm PT tonight. Dug Deep hosts.
In 1990, experimental avant-garde jazz saxaphonist John Zorn released the album Naked City, a fun, schizophrenic and noisy collaboration with Fred Frith, Joey Baron, Yamatsuka Eye, Bill Frisell, and Wayne Horvitz. Naked City (as the group became known) was about the most far out you could get, and Zorn’s exploration of what he “could come up with given the limitations of the simple sax, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums format” became the pinnacle of avant coolness. The result was a post-modern hybrid that cut up sequences as he saw fit and treated all genres equally: jazz, grindcore, country & western, and much more were allowed to coexist, even in the same song. The album has 26 cuts, several that clock in at under 30 seconds. Naked City is melodic and dischordant, familiar and unpredictable, sweet and explosive.
This week’s album of the week will be Camper Van Beethoven’s New Roman Times. A true concept album, New Roman Times was the band’s 2004 reunion/comeback record after having been dormant for 14 years. The concept was strange (what would you expect from CVB?), but intriguing, involving a plot about a fictional America divided into smaller republics (most notably the secular Republic of California and the Fundamentalist Christian Republic of Texas) that are at war with one another. The band employs some none-too-disguised political jabs as well as indulges their taste for 1970s-style prog rock, mixed with Middle Eastern melodies and ska-based rhythms...All in all, a very fitting selection for KDRT’s Album of the Week in this very lively election season. Dug Deep hosts this edition of Album of the Week.
