Hozier put on one heck of a show in St. Louis tonight. Incredible band and incredible show!
Category: Music
Tedeschi Trucks Band put on another amazing show in St. Louis last night. For me, the cover of Dreams and the showcases for the female backup singer were the big highlights.
As in most past years, the band played at the Fox. Don’t get me wrong. The Fox is an absolutely beautiful theater. It is just not a venue that makes any sense for a rock band. There is a perpetual struggle between sitters and standers which often includes each group exchanging barbs. It’s just not the right place to feel rock/blues/jam music.
I do have a very simple solution to resolve all of this. St. Louis Music Park has the same capacity as the Fox. It’s outside and is designed for concerts with a general admission section and designated seating areas. So, the standers can stand, and the sitters can sit all while getting some fresh air. Problem solved.
Listening to XRT’s Saturday Morning Flashback, and they’re featuring 1999. Yep, I did the math, and that’s indeed 25 years ago – more than appropriate for a flashback.
I will say that the music has aged quite well. Most of the rock music from the 90’s used instruments and technology that existed long before that decade and are still in use today.
That, my friends, is how you create timeless music. Tune in, and enjoy!
John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy’s fearless experiment sets a new album ablaze
Coltrane fans, mark your calendars for July 14th! If the single of “Impressions” is any indicator, this album is going to be massively fun to explore.
Two Great Singles Released This Week
It was a really good week for new music from some of the biggest artists of the last 30+ years!
First we have a single from Jay-Z featuring Gil Scott-Heron. “NEW YORK (CONCEPT DE PARIS)” is a rethinking of “Empire State of Mind.” It’s got everything you’d want in a great song – really cool rhythms, trumpet, guitar, drums, and of course, Gil Scott-Heron. In a nod to the original version, we still get a sample of Alicia Keys. Awesome stuff!
The second song that dropped was from Foo Fighters. “Rescued” is the first release since Taylor died last year. The music is unmistakably Foo Fighters, and the lyrics have all of the feels of a band that has been through a lot together. While there has been no official announcement, there are a couple drum licks in the song that I know Dave Grohl has played in Nirvana or Foo Fighters songs so I’m going with Dave on drums for this album. I am so happy the band decided to push forward and keep on rocking!
The Last DJ
As you all know by now, music has been a major part of my life from a very early age. I started playing guitar before I was 10, picked up trumpet at 10, messed around with piano in high school, and decided to learn bass as a junior in college. Clearly, it’s something I like to do, but before actually playing music, I was listening constantly.
Growing up, it seemed like WLS was playing in the background at our house all day long. When they would play the Beatles A-Z over the course of a weekend, the radio would be on and turned up. This was back in The Big 89 and The Rock of Chicago days when WLS was the station for Rock & Roll in Chicago. I even had WLS covers for my school books!
As my music tastes changed moving into the ’90s, I began listening more and more to WXRT. The music overall was more progressive, but they played a great mix of old and new artists that I definitely was not hearing on WLS especially after WLS turned to talk and became completely uncool. I still listen to XRT today thanks to streaming.
Music was, of course, the main reason I enjoyed listening to radio, but there were also some of the best DJs on WLS and XRT over the years. My two favorites were Larry Lujack on WLS and Lin Brehmer on XRT.
These two guys were personable, funny, relatable, and most importantly, picked great music to play during their shows. You could always tell who was spinning the records when these guys were on the air. They told the best stories and made you feel like you really knew them. These guys were different. Lujack really did feel like Uncle Lar, and Brehmer really did feel like your best friend in the whole world.
Both of these radio giants are gone now. We lost Lin recently after a long battle with cancer. His voice is missed. Radio isn’t quite the same. But looking on the bright side as he always did, this one’s for you, Lin.
It’s Friday! It’s great to be alive!
In Appreciation of Stevie Wonder
One of the benefits of having children is not being completely ignorant of the newer artists featured during the Grammys each year. This year’s broadcast had many great performances, but in this post, I want to focus on Stevie Wonder.
The Grammys tends to trot out older musicians, and yes, Stevie is older, but you would never know it. The guy is 72, and his voice and piano work are still exceptional and fresh. He put on a hell of a show and showed all of us how it’s done.
This brings me to the point of this post. I’ve always said that if I went through with becoming a music teacher instead of studying finance, I would play music constantly as part of my teaching. I feel like this was a massive failure of the teachers I had through high school. We have recordings of everything. Why not use them? So, this is my way of helping share some amazing music while Stevie is still with us and performing at an insanely high level.
Between 1972 and 1976, Stevie Wonder produced a string of four straight albums that all can be considered once-in-a-career great albums: “Talking Book,” “Innervisions,” “Fulfillingness’ First Finale,” and “Songs in the Key of Life.” Seriously, how does one guy put together a streak like this?
Following are my two favorite songs from each of these albums. Take some time to listen to the incredible music, and then go back and read the lyrics in the context of the early ’70’s. Stevie wasn’t just making great grooves. He was trying to tell us something.
Song of the Day: April 26, 2020
From time to time during periods of social crisis, a song comes around that puts into music how people are feeling so perfectly that it becomes a marker in history that helps remind future generations what it was like to live through that point in time.
Just think about all of the incredibly timely songs we have from the Vietnam War, Civil Rights movement, and the political turmoil of our current century. Songs from Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Marvin Gaye, and Green Day immediately come to mind. The songs take you back to the time of crisis and paint a picture of what was really happening.
We are living through one of those times now. Of course, we are in the middle of the crisis and have no historical perspective, but that will come with time.
For today’s Song of the Day, I would like to share a song that puts into music how many of us are feeling right now: “i can’t wait to see you again” by Simone.