Wolfgang’s Vault is one of the Internet’s greatest treasures for music lovers. The site hosts thousands of concerts that are available for free streaming, as well as vintage memorabilia that includes t-shirts, posters, photographs, tickets, and other items of interest. Thus far, only a limited number of the shows in the Concert Vault have been available for download. That’s about to change tomorrow. Last week, I had a chance to speak with Wolfgang’s Vault President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Johnson from his office in San Francisco.
Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?
Wolfgang’s Vault began in 2003 with the acquisition of the Bill Graham archives. Bill’s real name was Wolfgang Grajonca. That’s how the site got its name. Our founder, Bill Sagan, originally acquired these assets from Clear Channel as they were spinning off Live Nation. The Bill Graham archives contained the collection of what he had amassed over his 30-year career in the music business, and then ten years after he died. Bill Graham was one of the early inventors of the rock concert, and in this archive was posters, tickets, handbills, you name it, from classic shows and classic venues like the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, Winterland, Graham’s Day on the Green shows. There were also audio and video recordings of some of these legendary bands like the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, the Who. It was just a who’s who list of what was out there.
Bill Graham was one of the first to present certain artists. On the site you can get Elton John playing his first show on the west coast. It’s just an amazing, awesome raw show. In addition to that, we’ve acquired another dozen or so archives that include different collections of both memorabilia, vintage posters and photography, and recordings. So we have the recordings of the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Silver Eagle Cross Country, which is the country version of King Biscuit, the Ash Grove, which was a club that was open in L.A. from 1958-1973 with just amazing early folk and delta blues performers, and the Newport Festivals. It’s just a huge array of music spanning 50-plus years, and about 20 different genres of music. (more…)
E Street Band saxophone player Clarence Clemons, known the world over as the “Big Man,” has written a new book with his friend Don Reo. As the subtitle, “Real Life & Tall Tales,” suggests, the book is a wildly entertaining blend of autobiography and a substantial amount of myth. You can read Pete Chianca’s review for Popdose here. The mythmaking comes via tall tales that Clarence calls “Legends.” Whether he’s riding big waves with Oprah, playing pool in Havana with Fidel Castro, or hanging out with Bruce Springsteen in a remote area of Hawaii, it’s clear that Clarence Clemons has led an extraordinary life. I had a chance to speak with him on the telephone last week.
Hi, Clarence. Are you there?
I’m here. I didn’t do it. I’m innocent. (laughs)
Are you on the road today?
I’m in Philadelphia. We have two more shows here, then I’ll go back to New York. (more…)
When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a rock star (as did many of you, I imagine). While my friends were off breakdancing, playing with marbles, or arranging elaborate battles between G.I. Joe dolls, I was spinning my mom’s old Billy Joel, Elton John, and Eagles records on a Fisher-Price turntable, daydreaming of a life of hotels, screaming crowds, and platinum sales. It is, as I said, not an uncommon dream, and although I followed it longer than most (and probably longer than I should have), I never came anywhere near the kind of success I imagined, for two reasons: One, I wasn’t very good, and two, that life doesn’t really exist.
Well, I don’t know. Maybe it does if you’re Eric Clapton, or Barbra Streisand, or one of the very few artists who have sold a ton of records and/or haven’t been divorced often enough to ever have to worry about money. But really, for most stars — even the ones who have been lucky enough to score some hits and earn some name recognition — music is still a job. It’s a really cool job, but still, it doesn’t keep you from having to worry about ordinary stuff like professional security, career advancement, and financial stability. It isn’t very glamorous, but it’s about the best anyone who’s dreaming about “making it” in the music business can hope for — a rewarding life, but one not without many of the same workplace anxieties the rest of us experience. Most of us don’t know what it’s like to hear ourselves on the radio. We do, however, know what it’s like to look for work, or lose a job without warning; it’s a nerve-wracking ordeal, to which many of the people appearing on our favorite albums can relate.
It’s a side of the dream we don’t think about or discuss much, and in order to explore it, I reached out to three musicians who have experienced the ups and downs of a career in music, and they were all gracious enough to take some time to discuss what it’s like for a rock star to lose a job — and where to go from there. (more…)
The new benefit album from Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide collective, The Sun Came Out, doesn’t aspire to the sorts of Grand Gestures that mark so many multi-artist charity compilations. Instead, its charms are subdued and homespun, and its songs (such as “Learn to Crawl”) are intoxicating in their low-key tunefulness. Those same qualities, along with an enormous generosity of spirit, are the ones that have sustained Finn through three decades as a recording artist — perhaps the most underrated artist of his era, as wearepronetosuggestfrequently here at Popdose.
The album comes by those characteristics naturally. Finn and his family opened their home (and his home studio) in New Zealand for three weeks last Christmastime to most of the crew from the previous 7 Worlds incarnation — Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg, Lisa Germano — as well as newbies including Wilco, KT Tunstall, and down-under singer-songwriters Don McGlashan, Bic Runga, and Glenn Richards. The sessions were, by all accounts, full of frivolity, on-the-spot collaboration, and various forms (this being the holiday season) of good cheer; they also marked a musical reunion for various Finn family members including brother Tim, sons Liam and Elroy, and — singing on record for the first time — Neil’s wife Sharon.
In addition to preparing and publicizing The Sun Came Out (which emerges tomorrow in the U.S.), Finn has been readying a new Crowded House album for release this winter and has recently found time to play a few gigs (with and without his 7 Worlds compatriots) in London and Los Angeles. His interview with Popdose, patched in from New Zealand through his U.S. publicist’s office (thus saving your intrepid interviewer a whopping phone bill), found him answering queries about the minutiae of long-past Crowded House gigs as well as reader questions ranging from the profound to the ridiculous. (Sadly, dear reader who calls himself “maxus,” he had no answer whatsoever for the question, “Imagine if writing songs in flat keys suddenly became a major felony. How would you imagine a day in Neil Finn’s Violent Life of Crime, circa September 2010?”) Here’s a live clip from the first 7 Worlds Collide project:(more…)
Janis Ian is in career-retrospective mode lately, but she’s handling it – as usual – in thoroughly modern fashion. The confessional singer/songwriter, creator of the boomer-icon hits “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen,” has long since abandoned the major-label merry-go-ground – she’s been releasing new music on her own Rude Girl imprint for more than a decade. Nevertheless, she is getting the “Essential” treatment from Sony/Legacy with a two-disc anthology that arrived in stores and online last week. But there’s a twist: The Essential Janis Ian is essentially a reprint of a compilation titled Best of Janis Ian: The Autobiography Collection, which she self-released last year in conjunction with her critically acclaimed memoir, Society’s Child: My Autobiography.
The book begins with a clear-eyed portrait of her troubled upbringing as the child of leftists under constant FBI surveillance, and her early blossoming as a songwriter – her first song, a haunting Childe-ballad update titled “Hair of Spun Gold,” was published in the folk-music periodical Broadside when she was 12. She recorded the controversial, interracial-romance drama “Society’s Child” when she was 15; the single had to be re-released twice before it became a Top 20 hit in 1967, despite being banned by radio stations across the South, and Ian recounts a live performance that engendered so much racial hatred that she briefly feared for her life. Here she is performing the song on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. (more…)
Ever since George Clooney lip-synched his way through Dan Tyminski’s version of “I am a Man of Constant Sorrow” in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou, Bluegrass and American Roots music has enjoyed a mini-renaissance, with venerable old lions like Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson, and current artists like Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Norman Blake and the Old Crow Medicine Show being exposed to a far wider audience.
Riding the crest of that wave was Nickel Creek. A young trio which wedded strong instrumental and vocal technique and bluegrass sensibilities to modern pop music (their short career included covers of songs by Pavement and Britney Spears, a tour with Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket in a “supergroup” called Mutual Admiration Society, and a tour opening for Fiona Apple and serving as her backup band). Nickel Creek went on indefinite hiatus a few years ago, leaving one of its members, fiddle player Sara Watkins, without a regular gig. Sara has now returned with her eponymous debut solo album, produced by John Paul Jones and featuring a veritable who’s who of the roots/folk/bluegrass scene. All of this is to say, if you enjoy roots music and bluegrass, and have not yet heard Sara Watkins, you should most definitely check her out.
Sara was kind enough to speak with us about her solo record on May 29. In addition to educating me on the existence of something called a Hardanger Fiddle, she spoke about her songwriting process, her other projects, the differences between being a member of Nickel Creek and a solo artist, and showed what I consider to be a remarkable degree of humility with respect to her own talent. (more…)
Best known for the political thriller The Contender (2000), which received Oscar nominations for Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges, filmmaker Rod Lurie had not one, but two good movies ready to go in December. But when their distributor, Yari Film Group, went bankrupt just as they were set to launch, Nothing But the Truth, which he wrote and directed, and What Doesn’t Kill You, which he produced, vanished. Outside of press screenings, festival exposure, and abortive weeklong Academy Award-qualifying releases in New York and Los Angeles, their reappearance on DVD this week qualifies as a premiere.
What doesn’t kill Rod Lurie, though, makes him stronger—or, at least, receptive to a Popdose interview. I met Lurie in an unusual way: On my blog, I called his 2007 movie Resurrecting the Champ the work of a “middlebrow hack.” A few months later, I nearly fell off my chair when he sent me a note praising me for my review. (If only all this critic’s critics did the same thing.) Intrigued, I began a correspondence, and—full disclosure—have him as a Facebook friend. (He updates frequently for a boldface name, often about sports.)
This backstory, however, didn’t affect my judgment of the two films. I caught Nothing But the Truth, which was inspired by the Valerie Plame affair, at a screening, and was impressed, not least with the strong central performances by Kate Beckinsale and Vera Farmiga. What Doesn’t Kill You is equally hard-hitting and affecting. Director, co-star and co-writer Brian Goodman based the film on his misspent youth in South Boston, and it digs more realistically into its criminal subculture than either Mystic River or The Departed. It’s the story of two friends, Brian (Mark Ruffalo) and Paulie (Ethan Hawke), who after a lifetime of petty crimes dream of bigger scores. Paulie wants to rob an armored car, a caper that only the truly foolhardy attempt; Brian, meanwhile, would like to be more of a husband and father, but the easy money and his hard-to-break cocaine habit trip him up.
Lurie is a former film journalist who still practices his craft, and he comes out swinging. For The Huffington Post, he attacked The Reader for its gross historical distortions as Oscar season was in full swing; for The Wrap, he went after slipshod independent reporter-bloggers like Hollywood columnist Nikki Finke, who had gotten the facts wrong when he switched representation. It’s interesting interviewing a fellow journalist; he started by asking whether this was going to be in Q&A or prose format (so as to gauge how careful he should be with his answers), asked me questions (which is always slightly unnerving when you’re marching through your own agenda), requested that for your benefit as potential viewers we go off the record when discussing the ending of Nothing But the Truth, and came up with his own -30- to our session, which I retained. He is foremost a storyteller, and he had some stories to tell, about the fate of the two films, his upcoming remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (sacrilege!), middlebrow hackdom, and winning the presidential seal of approval. (more…)
Ian McLagan is one of rock’s most revered performers. He was a member of the Small Faces, as well as the Faces, and has played with a who’s who of rock and roll, including Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and many, many others. His unique keyboard stylings can be heard on hundreds of recordings, including such classics as Stewart’s “Maggie May” and the Stones’ “Miss You.” He currently resides in Austin, TX, where he performs weekly with his band, the Bump Band. His latest album, Never Say Never, is available on 00:02:59 Records.
You’ve been living in Austin since 1994. What brought you there in the first place?
It was actually an earthquake. The earthquake in L.A. on January 17 felt brutal, and I’d been promising my wife that I’d consider leaving L.A., but was getting so much work there. After the earthquake I just said, ‘let’s get out.’ We did a little research. It didn’t take long. There’s really only one music city in America. I mean, Seattle’s cool and everything, but it’s got English weather, and New York is fine, but it gets a brutal winter. It was just checks and balances. It’s obviously Austin, and we moved here a few months later, in May of that year, almost 15 years ago.
At some point you put together the Bump Band. When was that?
I’ve had a Bump Band since ‘79. Obviously the L.A. versions were different. I toured Japan with Ronnie Lane in 1990, and we rehearsed here in Austin, at what was then the ARC (Austin Rehearsal Complex), and that was run by Don Harvey and Wayne Nagel. Don Harvey was the drummer on that tour, so he was the first person I called when I was going to move here. He found me (guitarist) “Scrappy” Jud Newcombe, and from there the three of us have been together 15 years.
And when did (former Spirit, Jo Jo Gunne) Mark Andes join?
(Laughing) It’s funny you should mention that. He joined in June, five years ago, and left two or three weeks ago.
I’m sorry to hear that.
I saw him … actually there was a party at the ARC. It was the 10-year anniversary since it closed party, and Mark came from Houston for that. So it was nice to see him. So, I mean, we’re still pals and everything. I think he’s just focusing on different stuff. He probably doesn’t want to tour anymore. (more…)
In an ongoing series, Dw. Dunphy takes an occasional look back at Christian contemporary music (CCM) of the past and makes the case for a new audience to rediscover the best of it as great, lost pop music.
Next year marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Adam Again’s Gene Eugene. Born Gene Andrusco, he found fame at an early age as a child actor, most memorably as the young Darren Stevens on the TV series Bewitched. Later in life he was able to combine full-blooded funk, rock chops, a love of classic R&B from the likes of Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye, and the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and make it all stick in his version of CCM, probably the most unique and underrated in all of that subgenre’s history.
The band’s second album, Ten Songs by Adam Again (1988), was a bullhorn to staid and button-down listeners that this probably wasn’t their dad’s idea of Christian rock. If the cover of Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” wasn’t an indicator, the groove of “Tree House” and the sheer mournful weight of the closing “The Tenth Song” certainly was. Homeboys (1990) went even farther in describing through song some of the city’s dark side as the title cut detailed memories of a relatively happy childhood, even in the worst of landscapes. Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” gets a respectful but certainly not pedestrian run-through. The funk of “The Fine Line” tends to deceive. Listen to the lyrics about a man trapped inside his drug addiction and you get a vastly different impression than the fat party groove might impart.
It’s your third album. You’ve written and performed songs that recall the best tunes from simpler, more fun times, yet they reveal true songwriting talent and a desire to do more than flog the studio gimmick of the moment. You’ve also somehow found yourself working with pop-music gurus Mike Viola and Adam Schlesinger. If all of this strikes you as oddly familiar, you might just be Kelly Jones, and at this moment Popdose is catching up with you.
Popdose: You’ve just released your third CD, SheBANG! and you’ve found yourself in this pretty impressive pop collective, considering Mike Viola, Adam Schlesinger, Ducky Carlisle and the people they’ve worked with. How did you come together with them?
Kelly Jones: It all started very organically with Adam Schlesinger. Sometime in 2004 while out to see a show, I recognized him and introduced myself. I had only discovered Fountains of Wayne in 2002 or 2003 so I was very excited to say hello and gush over his music. We exchanged info and I visited his studio (Stratosphere Sound). He came and watched me perform, and we became friends! Then sometime in 2007, he introduced me to Mike Viola. Coincidentally Mike and I were both playing the same night at the Living Room in NYC. I saw the tail end of Mike’s set and was hooked. I thought he was brilliant. He had another show the following week so I went to that and we chit-chatted afterward and also became fast friends. I started sitting in with him during his sets and the more we worked and sang together the more I decided he would be the perfect producer for the pop record I wanted to make. Then I met the famous Ducky Carlisle when we traveled to Medford, Mass. for our first recording session at (his studio) Ice Station Zebra…
Could you give a little background on your career so far and what brought you to this point?
I’m originally from a small town just north of Portland, Oregon. As a child/teenager, I was a dancer and trained in classical piano. I moved to New York City in 2003 to get closer to the action and decided it was my chance to really pursue a life in music. I completed my first record called Brave Heartache at the end of 2003.  it’s alt-country for lack of a better term. Country music was one of the genres I was most familiar with growing up and went hand in hand with gospel music which I sang a lot of in church. It seemed to be the natural first step for me as I was writing my first songs and I think it served me well at the time. After completing that record, I got a great band together here in NYC (which I still work with), we started playing a bunch of shows and I started to build a little following. (more…)
Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?
![JohnnyHatesJazzShatteredDreams1987A[1]](http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/JohnnyHatesJazzShatteredDreams1987A1.jpg "JohnnyHatesJazzShatteredDreams1987A[1]")
When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a rock star (as did many of you, I imagine). While my friends were off breakdancing, playing with marbles, or arranging elaborate battles between G.I. Joe dolls, I was spinning my mom’s old Billy Joel, Elton John, and Eagles records on a Fisher-Price turntable, daydreaming of a life of hotels, screaming crowds, and platinum sales. It is, as I said, not an uncommon dream, and although I followed it longer than most (and probably longer than I should have), I never came anywhere near the kind of success I imagined, for two reasons: One, I wasn’t very good, and two, that life doesn’t really exist.
The new benefit album from Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide collective, 
Janis Ian is in career-retrospective mode lately, but she’s handling it – as usual – in thoroughly modern fashion. The confessional singer/songwriter, creator of the boomer-icon hits “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen,” has long since abandoned the major-label merry-go-ground – she’s been releasing new music on her own Rude Girl imprint for more than a decade. Nevertheless, she is getting the “Essential” treatment from Sony/Legacy with a two-disc anthology that arrived in stores and online last week. But there’s a twist: 
Ever since George Clooney lip-synched his way through Dan Tyminski’s version of “I am a Man of Constant Sorrow” in the Coen Brothers’ 
Best known for the political thriller 
Ian McLagan is one of rock’s most revered performers. He was a member of the Small Faces, as well as the Faces, and has played with a who’s who of rock and roll, including Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and many, many others. His unique keyboard stylings can be heard on hundreds of recordings, including such classics as Stewart’s “Maggie May” and the Stones’ “Miss You.” He currently resides in Austin, TX, where he performs weekly with his band, the Bump Band. His latest album, 
In an ongoing series, Dw. Dunphy takes an occasional look back at Christian contemporary music (CCM) of the past and makes the case for a new audience to rediscover the best of it as great, lost pop music.
The band’s second album, Ten Songs by Adam Again (1988), was a bullhorn to staid and button-down listeners that this probably wasn’t their dad’s idea of Christian rock. If the cover of Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” wasn’t an indicator, the groove of 
It’s your third album. You’ve written and performed songs that recall the best tunes from simpler, more fun times, yet they reveal true songwriting talent and a desire to do more than flog the studio gimmick of the moment. You’ve also somehow found yourself working with pop-music gurus Mike Viola and Adam Schlesinger. If all of this strikes you as oddly familiar, you might just be Kelly Jones, and at this moment Popdose is catching up with you.