Category: Videos

Saturday Matinee – The Dirtbombs, Al Green & The Hard Times, The Chase Walker Band and Chicago Blues Union

Motor City afropunk:
“Since the band’s inception in 1992 The Dirtbombs have won over dozens of fans. In more recent years, they’ve been named Spin magazine’s #10 best live band in the world.” – YouTube description (2009)

Al Green & The Hard Times (aka Piper & The Hard Times) mixes roots rock, blues and soul performed by “pro-level players covering bass, guitar, keyboard/organ, and horns for a big rootsy vibe,” and fronted by Al “Piper” Green on vocals.

The Chase Walker Band is a blues roots rock and soul band from Riverside, California.  Despite his young age (26 as of this posting) Walker has already attracted the attention of many in the industry, and he’s going places.

Straight outta Hungary: Chicago Blues Union is a project of T. Rogers & Jenő Fekete as a tribute to the 50’s and 60’s Chicago electric blues scene. ( I couldn’t find much solid information about them, other than that Fekete is on guitar and vocals.)

The Labor Day weekend is upon us, so do Labor Day things on Labor Day. Tomorrow we’ll be attending to our regular duties on the porch, watching the world go fry. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – The Fearless Flyers, Manou Gallo & The Steady 45s

The Fearless Flyers showed how to make a music video in 2018. The quartet was a spinoff / side project of funk group Vulfpeck (who recorded the quietest grooves ever on Sleepify).

Afro Groove Queen Manou Gallo is a singer, songwriter, bandleader and 5-string bass slapper from West Africa, and plays a variety of regional and world music styles.

The Steady 45s are a retro reggae / rocksteady / ska group founded in Los Angeles in 2012. I like this groove, better than the original.

Glad that the DNC finally had their party so we can get back to the important things in life, like quality porch time. See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – BALTHVS, Johnny Rawls & Dan Patlansky

BALTHVS is a Colombian psychedelic funk surf rock group consisting of Balthazar Aguirre / guitar; Johanna Mercuriana / bass; Santiago Lizcano /drums. Four albums and over three dozen singles in only four years, plus world tours makes for a busy schedule and a lot of spacey retro vibes.

Johnny Rawls is a true soul-blues renaissance man. He’s been recording and performing for over fifty years, winning many awards in the process. Ten of his recordings have been nominated for Soul Blues Album of the Year and two of them won in that category (which didn’t exist until Rawls showed up).

Dan Patlansky was voted the No. 4 Best Guitarist in the world and remains the only artist with two worldwide No.1, and two worldwide No.2 Best Blues Rock albums to his name, as voted by Blues Rock Review USA.

Great googly moogly, the weekend his here already. Too many time flies buzzing about, and that means we have some serious porching to attend to. See you tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Jimmie Vaughan, Ruzz ‘Guitar’ Evans Blues Revue & Los Lonely Boys

“Stevie had the intensity, but Jimmie had the feel; Custodian of a genre, master and eternal student, genius born of passion for honoring those who came before.” – YouTube comment
Jimmie Vaughan & The Fabulous Thunderbirds  – Extra Jimmies (ca. 1980).

From Bristol, UK, Ruzz ‘Guitar’ Evans Blues Revue cranks out a variety of  blues styles, from big band swing to rockabilly to western space retro rock. Evans won the Guitarist Of The Year award and was nominated Artist Of The Year (runner up to Jimmie Vaughan!) in The Blues Lounge Radio Show 2021 Awards.

Los Lonely Boys:
“Leveraging the power of their connection, brothers communicate in their own vernacular understood by one another, yet alien to the rest of the world. Scaling one mountain at a time, they have summited unprecedented heights.”
Whew. Seems like someone’s girlfriend wrote that description, but these guys rock. San Angelo, Texas, brothers Henry (vocals, guitar), Jojo (bass, vocals) and Ringo Garza (drums) have been performing since 1996.

Time compression kicked in for me again this week, exacerbated by ad-libbed napping and the leftovers of a drive-by head cold. Be back here tomorrow, porchtime-ish, and we’ll discuss variable speed quantum hypotheticals and, you know, stuff.

Saturday Matinee – The Raveonettes, Fred & the Healers, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers

Award winning indie retro post-punk noise rock duo from Denmark channels Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. The Raveonettes are Sune Rose Wagner on guitar, instruments and vocals, and Sharin Foo on bass, guitar and vocals. From the album Chain Gang of Love, the lineup includes Manoj Ramdas on guitar and Jakob Hoyer on drums.

Belgian blues band Fred & the Healers cover Junior Wells‘ classic from 1960. Current lineup is Frédéric Lani / guitar and vocals; Bertrand Lani / bass; Nicolas Sand / drums.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers performed at Mayall’s 70th Birthday Concert, Liverpool, England ,on 19 July 2003. Dubbed the Godfather of British Blues, Mayall passed away on 22 July 2024 at the age of 90.

Anyone watching the Olympics? If so, keep it to yourselves because I’m not interested. Tomorrow’s porch time shall commence promptly at whenever so see you then.

Saturday Matinee – The Electric Device Orchestra, Reverend Peyton, The Luca Giordano Band w/ Jj Thames, and Dirty Sweet

Electric Device Orchestra: Electric Toothbrush 1 / lead vocals, Electric Toothbrush 2 / bass, The Four Credit Card Machines / backing harmonies, with Typewriters 1 & 2 / percussion. [h/t Mme. Jujujive.]

Reverend Peyton (sans his Big Damn Band) in the cotton gin at Dockery Farm in the Mississippi Delta, the place where Charley Patton was raised.

Hurricane Jj Thames backed by The Luca Giordano Band at the Cafe’ De Amer in Amen, Netherlands November 2023. In 2005 Giordano left Italy for Chicago, made a name for himself backing various blues greats, and eventually returned to Europe where his trio spreads the word.
Jj Thames is nothing but amazing. Born in Motown, moved to the Delta, and has an impressive style (and resume). Apparently she had a rough time in the music business and announced her retirement in 2020.

San Diego based Dirty Sweet is/was a roots rock blues band who took their name from a lyric in T.Rex’ Bang A Gong.

A lot of disturbing history happened this week and it ain’t over yet. Interesting times indeed. I’ll be on the porch by the time I get out there. See you then.

Saturday Matinee – Hermeto Pascoal, Sugaray Rayford & The Rhythm Shakers

Known as o Bruxo (the Sorcerer), Pascoal often makes music with unconventional objects such as teapots, children’s toys, and animals, as well as keyboards, button accordions, melodica, saxophones, guitars, flutes, voices, various brass and folkloric instruments. [Wiki]

Brazilian improvisational avant-garde musician Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo play with water in Música da Lagoa, a scene from the 1985 movie Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira by Ricardo Lua.

Texas born Caron “Sugaray” Rayford grew up in starvation-level poverty. His mother struggled to raise three boys alone while battling cancer; when she died, the siblings were relieved. “She suffered and we suffered. Then, we moved in with my grandmother and our lives were a lot better. We ate every day and we were in church every day, which I loved. I grew up in gospel and soul.”

From The Rhythm Shakers‘ website:

As red hair is flailing and double bass pounding, Marlene Perez of the Rhythm Shakers closes out another show in Los Angeles. Ripping wails and howling vocals are rocketed from her torso more reminiscent of Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse than the echo dripped hiccups of the 1950’s rock and roll genre the band exists within.

Happy weekend to all, and tomorrow porch time shall commence promptly at whenever. See you then.

Gary’s in a damp parking lot and he’s getting down to business.

Couldn’t save this for the Saturday Matinee post for obvious reasons.
The video is the full album; click the forward buttons to find your favorite.
More about Gary, aka Gary Solo, aka Dr. Gary Soloman here.
[h/t Pam M. via FB.]

UPDATE:
Gary’s at No. 8 on this album cover rating site. Let’s get him to No. 1. He deserves it. https://classicovers.sprucemoose.digital/album/getting-down-to-business.html

Saturday Matinee – Fatboy Slim, Lucky Chops, Tom Mansi & the Icebreakers, and Big Monti Amundson

Not my favorite musical style, but the video amused me.
Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, specializes in big beat / techno / dj rock. In 2008 he reportedly held the Guinness World Record for most top-40 hits under different names.

Formed in 2016, Lucky Chops began as a group of subway buskers from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, New York City, and now they perform world-wide. Reminds me of New Orleans second line parades.

Tom Mansi & the Icebreakers kick rockabilly in the UK. Can’t find details about the group other than their own description: “Rock n roll blues alternative originals 3piece fronted by howling doublebass player with drums and guitar.”

Big Monti Amundson backed by Bart Kamp / bass and Henk Punter / drums. Amundson definitely has the Texas blues sound down. I hear Jimmy Vaughan / Fabulous Thunderbirds, others compare him to SRV.
(More about Amundson on WikiP, but be careful with his website – Malwarebytes flagged a trojan.)

Wrapping up what for many is a four-day weekend what with the 4th landing on a Thursday and all. Hope you still have all the fingers you started out with, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow whenever the porch wakes up.

Saturday Matinee – Joanne Shaw Taylor, Altered Five Blues Band & Ana Popovic

When she was 16, U.K. blues rocker Joanne Shaw Taylor was invited by Dave Stewart  (of the Eurythmics) to join his supergroup DUP  (Da Universal Playaz). Since then Taylor has recorded several albums and has won numerous awards, including Best Female Vocalist at the British Blues Awards two years in a row.

Award winning group from Milwaukee, Altered Five Blues Band features frontman Jeff Taylor with Jeff Schroedl / guitar, Mark Solveson / bass, Alan Arber / drums and Steve Huebler / keyboard.

Called “one helluva a guitar-player” by Bruce Springsteen and nominated for seven Blues Music Awards, Ana Popovic was added as the only female guitarist to the 2014 -2018 all-star Experience Hendrix lineup, a nationwide tour celebrating the music and legacy of Jimi Hendrix.

Tomorrow’s scheduled porch meetup may be postponed as I have important business to attend to regarding Bunkessa’s birthday. Help yourselves to whatever’s left in the cooler and I’ll see you when I get back.