In 1994, outside the special effects warehouse where I worked, a cat had delivered a litter underneath a pile of lumber directly next to the open area where we used fiberglass chemicals. To save these babies from cancerous fumes they were moved to a safer location, but the mother never returned. A group of us divided up the kittens and when the runt, a squeaky fur ball with white fur and black and white gray patches one her back and legs, was the only one unclaimed, Julie and I adopted her. We named her Doodle.
The first night the two of us woke up periodically to feed Doodle from a syringe. She was so tiny that Julie could put her in the front pocket of her overalls. Over the next week or so she slept on the bed with us, or on my chest where she would knead my chest with her claws. When she was hungry she would “mew,” which was pathetic and sweet at the same time. This all took place in our first apartment, a one bedroom sweatbox located in North Hollywood. It was a big place, but the AC didn’t work, thus the summer days were almost unbearable from the hundred-plus degree heat in the San Fernando Valley. Couple that with the class bells from nearby North Hollywood High during the school year, and you can understand why the rent was pretty cheap. (more…)
She was a major pop star for about 15 minutes back in 1997. Before and since, she’s been one of the leading lights of “Americana” music and perhaps the most important singer/songwriter – male or female – of the last 20 years. She’s a big favorite of ours at Popdose; you can read some of our many thoughts about her here, here, and here — and those links don’t even include the brilliant Idiot’s Guide that was lost in the Jefitoblog Disaster of 2007.
Last week Popdose horned in on Colvin’s downtime at home in Austin, TX, following the July 3 conclusion of the high-profile Three Girls and Their Buddy tour – on which she matched songs and wits with Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller. Starting this week, Colvin is hitting the road on her own throughout the summer and fall. After opening a couple shows for Jackson Browne this weekend in New England, she’ll be headlining smaller venues armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and her catalog of folk-pop gems. She’ll no doubt perform some of the songs that appear on her newLivealbum, which she considers her first proper in-concert recording.
What made this the right time for a live album?
No other reason than the fact that I haven’t really done one. There were some live cuts on [1994’s Cover Girl] record, but for someone who’s been playing live for so long, and doing it solo in a way that audiences have always seemed to appreciate, it seemed like, why not now?
Well, there was the Live ’88 CD.
Oh. I’d kind of forgotten about that…
Sounds like you don’t consider it a major part of your catalog.
(laughs) ’Spose not, huh?
I never heard much about the circumstances of that release [which was an expanded version of the Live Tape she sold at gigs before signing with Columbia in 1988]. Were you involved much at all? Do you have any rights to the material, or receive any royalties from it?
Well, I have rights to the material … My recollection is that it was a release on a small label [Plump Records] that belonged to my manager at the time. It was sort of a favor to him.
I was at one of the gigs at the Bottom Line [in New York] where you recorded the live tracks that appeared on Cover Girl.
You were there? Huh! Well, those were solo performances, but they got added onto. I had an A&R guy at the time who was also a musician – and that’s a bad combination. He said he wanted to “semi-produce” some of those live tracks, so it didn’t turn out to be purely what I had envisioned. I mean, the studio tracks on that record were what I wanted them to be, but some of the live stuff didn’t come out the way I would have liked it to. (more…)
If you’ve ever ventured into that thicket of sweetness and stress known as Planning A Wedding, you’ve probably at least considered buying one (or five) of those awful compilations of “wedding music.” They come in all sorts of flavors – classical, country, Contemporary Christian, pop standards, classic R&B – and they’ve got icky titles like A Day to Remember, or Songs That Say “I Love You.” They tend to feature a lot of the same songs, like “Always and Forever,” and “Three Times a Lady,” and “Wonderful Tonight,” and Pachelbel’s Canon, and “The Way You Look Tonight,” and that horrible Boyz II Men song “On Bended Knee.” And, just like the Book of Common Prayer, they’re all diabolically designed to make your nuptials sound just like everybody else’s.
My wife Gwen and I wed 15 years ago today, and to celebrate that occasion – along with the onset of the June wedding season – I thought I’d give Popdose’s loyal readers an anniversary present: a mixtape of wedding songs and stories from some of our columnists, and an opportunity to share your own remembrances and ideas in the comments. These songs aren’t your garden-variety bridal standards; in fact, a few of them are downright bizarre. But even if you don’t find them suitable for your own purposes the next time you get hitched, hopefully they’ll inspire you and your betrothed to follow your own muse, and not some music conglomerate’s. Click here for a compressed file of all the tracks featured here, and read on! (more…)
Paul Simon And Friends: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (2009, Shout Factory) purchase from Amazon: DVD | Blu-ray
I’d somehow blocked this out before sitting down to watch Paul Simon and Friends, but I think my earliest musical memory relates to Simon — specifically, of picking up There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, seeing the Warner Bros. logo on the album, putting it on the turntable expecting to hear some Bugs Bunny music, and being really pissed off when I got something completely different.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this experience is what kept me from caring about Paul Simon’s music until I was in my 20s. I mean, sure, I had my Columbia Record House copy of Graceland just like everyone else, but before the mid ’90s, my interest in his work began and ended with “You Can Call Me Al,” which is now an almost physically painful admission — Capeman aside, I don’t think he’s ever released anything I couldn’t cherrypick at least two wonderful songs from, and even though I’m fairly confident that his best (or at least most approachable) music is behind him, he’s written some of my all-time favorites.
Which isn’t to say I’m not aware of his many flaws, one of them being his nigh-total lack of stage presence. Having seen him live, I can tell you that if you’ve watched a Paul Simon concert video and thought to yourself, “his shows can’t possibly be this boring in person,” you were wrong, because they totally, totally are — which is most of why I wasn’t expecting much going into Paul Simon and Friends, and part of why it ended up being such a wonderfully pleasant surprise. (more…)
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…)
By the time Shawn Colvin signed with Columbia Records in 1988, she was a beloved figure at folk-music clubs around the nation – and particularly on the East Coast, from the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., to Club Passim in Cambridge. She had been kicking around the scene for years, first fronting rock bands during the ’70s and then emerging (along with her friend Suzanne Vega) as perhaps the quintessential Girls With Guitars for the ’80s. She usually (though not always) toured without a band, and she got her piercing songs across with nothing more than her emotive alto and the astounding colorations she coaxed from her acoustic instrument.
The cassette Colvin sold at her gigs while she was still an unsigned artist – which she creatively titled Live Tape – had become something of a sensation, as soundboard recordings sold at folk clubs go. It showcased a fully formed artist with a trove of terrific songs, and it got passed around so much that its audience far surpassed the number of people who had actually seen her perform. (I obtained a copy of it from a friend a couple months before attending my first Colvin concert, an opening slot for k.d. lang at the Birchmere during the summer of ’88.) Her ascension to major-label status was clearly just a matter of time, and the folk community was understandably thrilled when reports surfaced that she had signed a contract and headed into the studio with her boyfriend, John Leventhal, producing.
They weren’t quite prepared for the album that would emerge in October ’89. (more…)
My father was admitted into the hospital this week complaining of chest pains; because he’d had bypass surgery in 1992, the doctors were very concerned about the condition of his heart.Let me tell you that as a 71-year-old man, he’s a strong and stubborn as he was when I was growing up.My updates came from my mother, who called me from her cell phone, and in her voice was the same tension and impatience she’s always had with doctors; years of nursing experience will do that to you.My parents have been married for 46 years and as they get older I’ve come to appreciate the tough times they endured, and how strong their love is. I didn’t always think that way.It wasn’t until my father’s heart surgery in ’92 that I really saw how much they do care for each other.
Looking at their relationship, I can’t help but think about my own marriage to Julie.I hope that when Sophie and Jacob reflect on their childhood, they’ll have good recollections of how much their dad loved their mom.Julie and I laugh and kid each other, we’re always hugging and kissing, and we are always there to comfort one another during the troubling times.At times I shake my head when I pause to think about the 15 years we’ve been married.That number seems like a long time, and yet it’s flitted by as a feather in the wind.Like a feather, there have been moments when we’re very high and the joy of life carries us along — and then there are those days when the wind has calmed and the feather lays on the ground, waiting for something to come along and carry us onward.
Music has always been a way in which we’ve bonded.We share our musical tastes and turn one another on to artists and sounds that we might not have otherwise listened to.I forced Springsteen upon her (she’s a big fan now, just ask her) and she brought into my world many beautiful female singers such as Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and Bonnie Raitt.More recently, she has fallen in love with the music of Brandi Carlile.Okay, maybe not all of her music, but one song, “Tragedy,” which was featured in a heartbreaking episode of Grey’s Anatomy a couple of seasons ago.On this song Carlile sings like an open wound, so sad and passionate; it’s chilling.I sought out more of Carlile’s music and came across her 2007 album, The Story.It’s a CD of bluesy, polished rock that bears the rootsy trademark of its producer, T-Bone Burnett.Among the songs, the title track immediately spoke to me on musical and emotional levels. (more…)
Mainstream Rock: The Rolling Stones, “Mixed Emotions” (1989)
Scott Malchus: This was the album when Keith and Mick supposedly started liking each other again. In truth, I think Mick suddenly realized the money-making potential of a group of ’60s and ’70s icons touring endlessly. “Mixed Emotions” began the endless cycle of soulless Stones albums put out for the sole purpose of trying to make them seem relevant. I have never found much of the current music remotely interesting. However, since Rolling Stone gives every Rolling Stones record five stars, I must be in the minority.
Darren Robbins: Is this a Stones or Fabulous Thunderbirds video? I must say, it is difficult to differentiate between the two, but if the singer is shown in full-on Olivia Newton-John aerobics attire (circa Perfect), it’s a Stones video.
Beau Dure: You’re not the only one with mixed emotions, but you’re the only one who listened to this song more than once. The Stones have some solid material in the MTV era, and this isn’t horrid, but it’s not particularly memorable except that I kept thinking “suction my lips” instead of “button your lip” would be a funny opening line.
Dw. Dunphy: I’d imagine longtime Stones fan breathed a sigh of relief when they first heard “Mixed Emotions.” I’d imagine, just the same, that they had their own on the second listen. Why? Because they realized that from here on out, they weren’t getting anything new from the boys (giggle, tee hee, snort.) Don’t get me wrong, if this or any other song from Steel Wheels comes on the radio, I don’t mind. But this was the clear proof that they were only going to recycle the sights, sounds and smells of Some Girls and Tattoo You from then on.
David Lifton: Everything decent the Stones have put out since, say, Tattoo You is basically a recycling of things that they did better years earlier. We get it by now: Keef with the I-IV on an open-tuned Telecaster, Charlie playing that drum pattern that says that he can’t be bothered to come up with anything interesting. The other single, “Rock And A Hard Place,” was basically “Brown Sugar.” But it works on this song because, well, it’s the Stones, dammit. It’s the musical equivalent of when James Bond says, “Shaken, not stirred,” and you still love it no matter which Bond says it. It helps that it’s got a fantastic chorus.
She was a major pop star for about 15 minutes back in 1997. Before and since, she’s been one of the leading lights of “Americana” music and perhaps the most important singer/songwriter – male or female – of the last 20 years. She’s a big favorite of ours at Popdose; you can read some of our many thoughts about her 
Paul Simon And Friends: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song (2009, Shout Factory)
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.
The cassette Colvin sold at her gigs while she was still an unsigned artist – which she creatively titled Live Tape – had become something of a sensation, as soundboard recordings sold at folk clubs go. It showcased a fully formed artist with a trove of terrific songs, and it got passed around so much that its audience far surpassed the number of people who had actually seen her perform. (I obtained a copy of it from a friend a couple months before attending my first Colvin concert, an opening slot for k.d. lang at the Birchmere during the summer of ’88.) Her ascension to major-label status was clearly just a matter of time, and the folk community was understandably thrilled when reports surfaced that she had signed a contract and headed into the studio with her boyfriend, John Leventhal, producing.
My father was admitted into the hospital this week complaining of chest pains; because he’d had bypass surgery in 1992, the doctors were very concerned about the condition of his heart.
