Tag: spanking charlene
Another Clinic in Searing Lead Guitar and a Williamsburg Show From the Great Eric Ambel
Eric Ambel is an artist who ought to be playing record stores – because he makes vinyl records. Spectacularly good ones. His most recent studio album, Lakeside, sent a ferocious, guitar-fueled shout out to his beloved East Village club, Lakeside Lounge, forced out of business in 2014 in a blitzkrieg of gentrification. His latest record, Roscoe Live, Vol. 1 – streaming at Bandcamp – captures him in his element, onstage at a summer festival in upstate New York in 2016. The backing band is obviously psyched for this gig: alongside Ambel, there's Spanking Charlene's Mo Goldner on rhythm guitar, Ambel's old Yayhoos bandmate Keith Christopher on bass and Phil Cimino on drums. Ambel's playing an unlikely early weekday show tomorrow, Feb 6 at 8:30 PM at Rough Trade; cover is $10.
Ambel has a vast bag of hot licks, but most of them are his own. If you asked him to play like Neil Young, or Buck Owens, or Ron Asheton, or David Rawlings, he would, but he'd rather be himself. And although he's a connoisseur of every possible sound you can get out of a guitar amp, he's got a noisy side too. There's pretty much all of that on the live record.
Just the way that he edges his way into the set's opening number, jabbing around the harmonies of the first chord of the brisk shuffle Girl That I Ain't Got is typical. As are the nasty, string-stretching first solo and a tantalizingly slashing second one. Here Come My Love, by his Del-Lords bandmate Scott Kempner, comes across as an amped up Jimmy Reed number. The blend of the two guitars is especially tasty; Ambel's solo out is unexpectedly carefree and chill.
Hey Mr. DJ, a sarcastic dig at the kind of clown who'd pay a cover charge to hear some other clown plug his phone into the PA, is a co-write with the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Jimbo Mathus and one of several tracks from the Lakeside album. Over the slow, slinky beat and a buzzsaw backdrop, Ambel turns the sarcasm loose: "Crank the drums, crank the bass, crank that shit all over the place."
The slow waves of the warped blues Don't Make Me Break You Down keep the smokering intenstiy going, through lingering phrases that Ambel takes into the grimy depths, then up again.
"Just to show you I'm not anti-cisco, I have a disco song," Ambel tells the crowd, then launches in to the strutting Have Mercy, which is actually more of a simmering take on vampy early 70s psychedelic soul.
The band follow Let's Play With Fire, a shuffling mashup of honkytonk and Lynchian Nahville pop with a slowly crescendoing take of the David Rawlings/Gillian Welch hit Look at Miss Ohio, a staple of Ambel's live show back in Lakeside's glory days in the 90s and zeros.
Massive Confusion, the loudest track on the Lakeside recod, is a more swinging take on a familiar Ramones formula. Ambel then closes the show with two of his best songs. Buyback Blues, the centerpiece of the Lakeside record, is a slow, evil rollercoaster in a Cortez the Killer vein. The night's last number is Total Destruction to Your Mind, the Stonesy Swamp Dogg cover that was Ambel's signature song as a solo artist for years. For anybody who got to hear Ambel blast his way through this one back in the Lakeside days, Christopher making his way up the fretboard as the chorus kicks in, it's a real shot of adrenaline. How long do we have to wait until the real estate bubble finally bursts so somebody can open up a place like Lakeside, with cheap beer and great bands every night? The closest thing we have to that in New York these days, Barbes, won't last forever,
Eric Ambel Brings His Expert, Purist Tunesmithing and Sizzling Lead Guitar Back to Brooklyn
If a clinic in spine-tingling, dynamic. expert lead guitar is your thing, you could spend hundreds of dollars and make Ticketbastard rich and go see Richard Thompson at a place like City Winery. Or you could go see Eric Ambel and his band for free this Saturday night at 9 upstairs at Hill Country Brooklyn. The Brooklyn branch of the bbq franchise is 180 degrees the opposite of the Manhattan location. The staff are friendly and seem happy to be there, the crowd is local and multicultural, and while they don't nceessarily come to listen, a lot of them do. That way, the band doesn't have to try to drown out the touristy din like they do in Manhattan. And the Brooklyn branch's sound system is better, too.
Ambel has been on tour this summer with his band – Brett Bass on bass, Phil Cimino on drums and Spanking Charlene's Mo Goldner on second guitar – so they should be stoked to be back on their home turf. Ambel's most recent New York show was here on this same stage at the end of June, and it was amazing, one of the year's best. Switching between his custom Telecaster and Les Paul, "Roscoe" delivered searing, string-bending intensity, judicious jangle and clang, choogling four-on-the-floor grooves, a couple of stomping detours toward punk rock, even some plaintive wee-hour C&W. All that in two sets, about two hours of music where the band finally ran out of rehearsed material and blasted through a couple of old R&B covers to close the night.
There were so many high-voltage moments, it's impossible to separate one from the rest. The band opened the second set with a searing take of Song for the Walls, the first track on Ambel's second solo album, Loud & Lonesome, part psychedelic Beatles, part acidic Kevin Salem rock. Lou Whitney's defiant Thirty Days in the Workhouse ("If I'd been a black man, they'd have given me thirty years") resonated especially with this audience. There was roadhouse rock like Scott Kempner's Here Come My Love. country-flavored material like Jimbo Mathus' Let's Play with Fire, and a couple of snarling, Ramones-influenced numbers, the best of them being the snide Hey Mr. DJ. Introducing that one, Ambel told a hilarious story about the first time he saw the Ramones, as an eighteen-year-old party animal in Illinois. That story's too good to give away here.
Spanking Charlene frontwoman Charlene McPherson came up to duet on a swampy take of Have Mercy, which she co-wrote with Ambel. Mary Lee Kortes – Ambel's wife and an equally skilled tunesmith, whose long-awaited forthcoming full-length album The Songs of Beulah Rowley is awe-inspiring – lent her crystalline voice to a couple of numbers too. The night's longest and most darkly simmering epic, Buyback Blues – a bittersweet look back at Ambel's well-loved and dearly missed East Village venue, Lakeside Lounge – was as good as anything Neil Young & Crazy Horse could come up with. If memory serves right, the band ran through just about everything from Ambel's latest solo album, also titled Lakeside.
Later in the second set Ambel entertained the crowd with his funniest song, I Love You Baby – if you don't know it, the lyrics are also too funny to give away here. The show this Saturday night should be something like this, who knows, maybe even better. If we get lucky they'll play Garbagehead, the ultimate Lakeside Lounge Saturday night party anthem.
A Clinic in Purist Guitar Rock from Eric Ambel and Esquela
"Who needs pedals?" Eric "Roscoe" Ambel asked the party people in the house at a private event at Bowery Electric last week. His pedalboard was acting up, so he pulled the plug on it. Running straight through his amp, switching between a vintage black Les Paul and his signature Roscoe Deluxe Tele model by Stonetree Custom Guitars, Ambel put on a clinic in lead guitar, playing a mix of old favorites and material from his new gatefold vinyl album, Lakeside. Behind the guitar icon and head honcho of the late, great Lakeside Lounge were Brett Bass on bass, Phil Cimino on drums and Spanking Charlene's Mo Goldner taking on a Keith Richards role on second guitar. They kicked off hard with Song from the Walls, the angry, acidic riff-rock opening track on Ambel's 1995 Loud and Lonesome album.
It's amazing how few notes Ambel uses, considering what kind of chops the guy has. Everything counts for something: the lingering bends on the simmering, amped-up Jimmy Reed groove of Here Come My Love; the gritty, enveloping roar of the anti-trendoid broadside Hey Mr. DJ; the sunspotted, precise blues bite of Don't Make Me Break You Down. Spanking Charlene frontwoman Charlene McPherson lent her powerful pipes to the vocal harmonies on Have Mercy, a soul-infused number that she wrote with Ambel. They sent a shout-out to the Ramones with Massive Confusion, then chilled out with Gillian Welch's Miss Ohio. Ambel's playing the album release show on April 29 at around 8:30 PM at Berlin (in the basement under 2A). He's doing double duty that night: after his set, he'a adding "power assist guitar" with the ferociously funny Spanking Charlene.
The opening act, Esquela – whose album Canis Majoris Ambel recently produced – were excellent too. They work a country-oriented side of paisley underground twang and clang. The push-pull of the two guitarists, Brian Shafer's snaky, sinuous leads against Matt Woodin's punchy, uneasily propulsive drive had an intensity similar to great 80s bands like True West and Steve Wynn's Dream Syndicate. They also hit hard with their opener, Too Big to Fail (as in, "too rich for jail"), frontwoman Becca Frame's big, wounded wail soaring over the twin-guitar attack and the four-on-the-floor drive from the band's main songwriter, bassist John "Chico" Finn and drummer Todd Russell.
From there they hit a wry Del Shanon doo-wop rock groove with It Didn't Take, went into stomping mid-70s Lou Reed territory and then rousing Celtic rock with Need Not Apply, a snarling look back at anti-Irish racisim across the ages. Their best song was a bittersweetly swaying dead ringer for mid-80s True West, but with better vocals and a careening, shoulder-dusting Shafer solo. Or it might have been an echoey psychedelic number that they suddenly took warpspeed at the end. They brought up harmony singer Allyson Wilson, whose soulful intensity was every bit the match for Frame's – which made sense, considering that she usually can be found singing opera and classical repertoire at places like Carnegie Hall. Her most spine-tinging moment was when she tackled the Merry Clayton role on a slinky cover of Gimme Shelter.
The band closed with Freebird, a sardonically funny, Stonesy original that Finn wrote to satisfy all the yahoos who scream for it. Perennially popular indie powerpop road warriors the Figgs – who haven't lost a step in twenty years – were next on the bill. Which was where the whiskey really started to kick in – this was a party, after all. Sorry, guys – for a look at what they sound like onstage, here's a snarky piece from Colossal Musical Joke week, 2012.
Eric Ambel's New Lakeside Record Captures the Guitarmeister at the Top of His Game
Eric Ambel is well known in Americana rock circles and something of a legend in New York. He's played with everybody. He did a lengthy stint as Steve Earle's lead guitarist back in the zeros. Before that he fronted the influential Del-Lords. For more than a decade, he ran the East Village's coolest bar and music venue, Lakeside Lounge. And he continues to produce artists at his Williamsburg studio, Cowboy Technical Services.
He's also got a new album, also called Lakeside, a fond over-the-shoulder look at the kind of edgy, purist retro sounds that could be found onstage during his old venue's heyday. Interestingly, rather than producing this himself like his other solo albums, Ambel brought in Jimbo Mathus. formerly with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, who also contributes guitar and bass – and drums on one track. The result is a gatefold vinyl album (that comes with a couple of download cards), available in a limited edition of 500 copies, signed and numbered. This is one of those records you'll probably want to tape and then play the caasette til it self-destructs. Seriously – if you own a turntable, you probably own a tape deck too.
Ambel's longtime rhythm section, bassist Keith Christopher and drummer Phil Cimino show up on most of these tracks. As dirty and messy as Ambel can get, there's a level of craft in what he does that's rarely seen these days. That isn't to say that there aren't guys dedicatedly spending hours hunched over their laptops trying to get the right sound or the right mix, just that Ambel does it with quality gear. And while he's known first and foremost as a guitarist, he really hit the vocals out of the park here. Other guys get old and reedy and raspy; Ambel sounds about 25, full of piss and vinegar.
The opening track is Ambel's old Del-Lords bandmate Scott Kempner's Here Come My Love. It's a ba-bump roadhouse rock number with that band's signature sardonic, surreal sense of humor and a tasty acoustic/electric backdrop. Mathus' first number, Hey Mr. DJ is a sludgy, coldly amusing look at groupthink among the entitled sons and daughters of the idle classes on the demand side of the current plague of gentrification.
Have Mercy, a co-write with Spanking Charlene frontwoman Charlene McPherson, revisits that theme, an update on Creedence swamp rock with plenty of Ambel's signature, offhandedly savage riffage. Let's Play with Fire, another Mathus number, mashes up shuffling C&W and Orbison noir, with an absolutely Lynchian lapsteel solo by the bandleader. Side 1 concludes with Don't Make Me Break You Down, an Ambel/Mathus co-write with a glowering Neil Young/Crazy Horse vibe.
Side 2 opens with the Ramones-tinged Massive Confusion, a Mathus tune. Gillian Welch's Look At Miss Ohio, which always seemed to pop up somewhere during Ambel's shows on his old East Village turf, gets a lingering, nocturnal Sticky Fingers treatment that builds to a mighty psychedelic peak. Ambel does the old soul hit Money as a haphazardly prowling Neil/Crazy Horse burner. The album's best track is the slow, brooding minor-key Buyback Blues, drenched in an ocean of reverb and guitar multitracks."It takes a special kind of understanding for a man to live in the nighttime," Ambel sings dryly and knowingly. The record winds up with Ambel's twangy, bittersweet, distantly Lynchian instrumental Crying in My Sleep.
Is this Ambel's best solo record? It's definitely as good as any of the other three. From the perspective of having caught the cult classic Roscoe's Gang album back in the day when every bar in what used to be a happening neighborhood was playing it, it's hard to tackle that question with any real objectivity. Ambel's next show is at Berlin (in the basement space under 2A; enter through the door on the right, midway down the bar on the first floor) on April 29.
Briana Layon & the Boys Bring Their Menacing, Heavy Intensity to Arlene's
Briana Layon's bio at her web page compares her to both the Runaways' Cherie Currie and Jinx Dawson of Coven, which is ok for starters, but it doesn't tell the whole story. The trouble with the current crop of women with big voices – and Layon has an epic one – is that so many of them are American Idol-ing it, all show, no substance, one watered-down gospel riff after another. Or even worse, they do the dorky SING-song-EY her-KY-jer-KY up-AND-down Tourette's thing that spewed out from emo into the dogshit pile of Disney autotune pop. Briana Layon doesn't go for that – it seems she'd rather be her own person. Which is why she's not on American Idol. Briana Layon & the Boys, her smart, ferocious, blues and metal-infused heavy rock band, have a killer album, Touch and Go streaming at Bandcamp and a show at 7 PM on August 20 at Arlene's for $5.
What's coolest about the album is that a lot of these songs are long, with plenty of room for Layon to hit a bitter, gale-force wail and hang there, or for brilliant lead guitarist Chris DiBerardino to scorch the earth with a deep arsenal of stylistic assaults. The opening track is All Yours, a catchy three-minute bluesmetal tune, Layon bringing to mind two other distinctive, charismatic frontwomen, Spanking Charlene's Charlene McPherson and then Ann Wilson of Heart, rising to a searing wail at the end. The title track has DiBerardino delivering vamping, clustering early 70s riffage with a hint of funk and some cool, evilly chromatic Buck Dharma glissandos.
Pistolero could be a standout track from the first couple of AC/DC records, bassist Josh Castellano's chords lurking at the bottom with solid drummer Vlad Hancu, who trades off with DiBerardino on the chorus. Teach Me is unexpectedly subtle, DiBerardino channeling Keith Richards with his catchy chords on the verse and then going to an Angus Young growl on the chorus, Castellano delivering a rare snappy bass solo that doesn't suck.
Cut My Man opens with an icy, watery lead over a sketchy, muted riff, Layon joining in the ominous ambience and then rising toward murderous rage, airing out her wounded low range and in the process channeling the Sometime Boys' Sarah Mucho. They take it out as a waltzing danse macabre – this is just plain awesome, one of the best songs of the year.
Playing Dead is a menacingly elegant noir soul ballad in the Clairy Browne vein, Layon rising from an aptly ghostly purr to a roaring peak. Rope blends sludgy Spanking Charlene-style punk and fuzzy early 70s style metal riffage – ironically, it's as close to "R&B" as Layon gets here. Sticky Wicket (meaning tight spot, a term taken from cricket, the British empire's ancestor to baseball) is the closest thing to funkmetal here, DiBerardino capping it off with a gritty wah solo.
Castellano's pitchblende Geezer Butler lines anchor a sweet, vintage Iron Maiden-style hook on Vanagloria – it would make a good three-minute-thirty track from Number of the Beast. Tell Me I'm Good blends jaunty flamencoesque flourishes from DiBerardino, a dancing pulse from the bass and Layon channeling her usual luridness.
Dear Friend starts out as a 6/8 soul ballad with organ lurking in the background, Layon putting a teens update on pensive Vera Beren-style theatrics – her shivery, low-key outro is just as chilling as her fullscale wail. The album peaks out with Looks Like Rain, which is not the Grateful Dead song but an eerily atmospheric art-metal piece that if you listen very closely sounds suspiciously like it might have had another life as a trip-hop pop song. It's amazing what a tricky time signature and a great band can do for a tune.
Video Dump Day, Part 2
Every month, literally thousands of people send links to their videos here. Everybody seems to want their song to be the next Gangnam Style. What's funny is that what was supposedly a completely organic, global response to a silly guy dancing to a song in Korean turned out to be fueled by a corporate marketing campaign. And aside from the first week when the video went viral, all of those millions of hits on Youtube turned out to be fake. So before they get stale, here are some videos and cool tracks that aren't fueled by phony populism driven by corporate money. For some reason, most of this stuff is pretty dark.
All-female Portland, Oregon band La Luz share Sure as Spring, agorgeously creepy surf/dreampop hybrid (soundcloud). Ghost & Gale's Nashville gothic Take Me to the Fire has the same kind of creepiness (youtube). Italian postpunkers Soviet Soviet have a similarly dark post-Joy Division stomp (soundcloud). And Roadkill Ghost Choir's Beggars' Guild adds menacing funeral organ to a highway rock groove with a touch of newgrass. New sound. Very cool (youtube).
Sun Angle's Diamond Junk is totally 80s goth art-pop – a soaring bassline, layers and layers of guitar and catchy as hell (soundcloud).
Irresistibly charming all-female quirk-rock trio the Debutante Hour have one for their single Doo-Wop Girl (youtube).
Mike Rimbaud's philosophical, politically inspired Slow Down to Get Ahead suggests we take the A train and maybe see Paris (youtube).
And for a big laugh, here's the Fortissimo Show Choir doing Spanking Charlene's Dismissed with a Kiss a-cappella (youtube)!
The Del-Lords' First Album in 23 Years Picks Up Like They Never Stopped
In the case where a band releases their first album in 23 years, it's typically either a reissue, a grab-bag of rarities or a half-baked attempt to revisit the group's glory years, assuming they had any. In the case of the Del-Lords, had they never made their new album Elvis Club- their first since 1990's Lovers Who Wander- their place in rock history would be secure. They came up as a fiery highway rock band with deep roots in Americana, in an era when theose roots were being rediscovered and a four-star review in Rolling Stone actually helped a band sell records. If it's possible to say that a band had a huge cult following, the Del-Lords had one. Their live performances are legendary, including a series of 1987 New York shows where they opened for Lou Reed and his band and blew them off the stage. The new album – as well as two albums' worth of rarities and esoterica – is streaming at the Del-Lords Bandcamp page. Much as it might sound extreme to declare it the ballsiest Del-Lords album ever, it just might be. The band is playing the album release show on June 27 at 9 PM at Bowery Electric with excellent female-fronted Americana punk rockers Spanking Charlene opening the night at 8; advance tickets are still available as of today but won't last much longer.
The irony is that this probably wouldn't have happened had a promoter not contacted them in 2010 and persuaded them into doing a brief Spanish tour. The quartet – guitarists Scott Kempner and Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, bassist Manny Caiati and drummer Frank Funaro – reunited, played a handful of reunion gigs at the now-shuttered Lakeside Lounge to warm up for the tour (under the pseudonym the Elvis Club, which explains the album title), and decided, what the hell, let's pull some new songs together. It's a good thing they did. Kempner's tunesmithing is as strong as ever and as it turns out both he and Ambel have never sung better. The songs run the gamut from anthemic Willie Nile-ish janglerock to fiery riff-rock to various rootsy styles, with a choice Neil Young cover to cap it off.
The music is a rich blend of jangle, twang, clang and roar. Layers of guitar get tweaked artfully for just the right tinge of reverb or distortion or tremolo; the playing is terse and powerful. This time around, Ambel handles all the leads except one; almost all of them go on for no more than a couple of bars. He always leaves you wanting more. He also produced the album with his usual purist touch (the inside cd cover shot is an early morning view of the East River from inside Ambel's Cowbow Technical Services studio, home to scores of great albums in the years since the Del-Lords first disbanded). That has a lot to do with why it sounds as good as it does: strong as the band's albums from the 80s were, there's a distinct 80s feel to them, while this one sounds timeless. The rest of the band is as strong as they were 23 years ago, in the case of Kempner maybe stronger. This time out, Caiaiti wasn't available, so a rotating cast of bassists including Ambel's Yayhoos bandmate Keith Christopher, Jason Mercer, Steve Almaas and new fulltime member Michael DuClos share the four-string chair.
The opening track, When the Drugs Kick In sets the stage for what's to come with its wickedly catchy four-chord hook and beefed-up janglerock vibe. The second track, Princess might be the strongest one: the beat is deceptively funky, the reverb-fueled minor-key riffage burns and slashes, with a couple of searing Ambel solos fueled by resonant chords and nonchalantly savage tremolo-picking. The sardonic Chicks, Man is one of those classic one-chord songs (give it a listen, it's true), while Flying works some vintage Memphis licks into a gorgeous, midtempo anthem in the same vein as Kempner's classic Forever Came Today (from the 1986 Roscoe's Gang album), with a sudden, explosive crescendo midway through.
Fueled by more of that soul guitar, All of My Life is a casually celebratory ballad from the point of view of a survivor who never expected to get as far as he has, Rob Arthur's lush Hammond organ picking it up out of a thoughtful Ambel solo. Everyday – co-written with early rock legend Dion DiMucci – is the closest thing to Willie Nile here. Ambel takes over the vocals on Me & the Lord Blues, an evil, slinky, slow-burning tune that builds to a sunbaked Ron Asheton-like wah guitar solo.
The low-key but catchy Letter (Unmailed) sways along with a hint of Tex-Mex and a subtle reference to the Church, followed by You Can Make a Mistake One Time, which has the feel of an oldtime chain gang song set to raw, electric rock, Ambel getting a rare opportunty to cut loose for more than a couple of bars and making the most of it, Funaro's snare drum like a sniper in the dark.
Silverlake evokes Steve Wynn with Kempner's brooding lyric – "It's just a matter of trying, it's just a matter of crying, it's just a matter of lying to yourself" – and forceful, jangly tune. The album winds up with a take of Neil Young's Southern Pacific – the best song from the 1981 Reactor album – which turns out to be a lot more sonically diverse than the original while maintaining an angry mood all the way through. Considering that it's told from the point of view of a guy who worked his whole life only to get laid off, it's an apt way to wind up an album released in these new depression days. It's inspiring to see a bunch of guys who've been going as long as these guys have continuing to put out music that's as vital and entertaining as what they were doing almost three decades ago.
About five years ago, people were saying that the album was a thing of the past. How wrong that turned out to be! This year's crop of albums was so absurdly good that it felt criminal to whittle it down to a hundred, let alone fifty. And the only way of getting it down to that number was to cut out all the "world music," including reggae and Afrobeat and most of the gypsy sounds, because there was so much of that and it was all so good.
Bookmark this page and return often. Virtually all of these albums are streaming (click the links) or are available as free downloads: consider this your place to discover some amazing sounds that were too smart for the Bushwick and Wicker Park blogs, and too dangerous for corporate radio and tv.
1. Ulrich Ziegler – their debut album
Dating back to the 90s, guitarist Stephen Ulrich has been New York's most distinguished noir composer. When he wasn't writing film and tv music, he was leading the ferociously creepy instrumental trio Big Lazy. When that band broke up (the drummer left to join Gogol Bordello), Ulrich eventually teamed up with Itamar Ziegler from Pink Noise, and then released this haunting, reverb-drenched, surf/skronk/jazz/soundscape masterpiece. Stream it
2. Chicha Libre – Canibalismo
Chicha Libre's 2008 debut album Sonido Amazonico landed in the top ten and this one is arguably even better, a trippy, wickedly dub-influenced mix of Peruvian surf rock, slinky Andean and latin grooves, and surrealistic psychedelic rock. There is no more fun, or more danceable, band in New York than Chicha Libre. Band info and audio/video
3. Raya Brass Band – Dancing on Roses, Dancing on Cinders
This fiery Brooklyn crew distinguish themselves from the hundreds of other excellent Balkan brass units by virtue of their long, scorching jams: nobody does that better. Stream it
4. Botanica – What Do You Believe In
This era's pre-eminent art-rock band's most brooding, haunted album, a rich blend of gypsy-tinged melody, raw, roaring guitar, edgy piano and spooky organ. Stream it
5. The Universal Thump – their full-length debut
The final and concluding installment of the most massive, richly orchestrated album on this list, a lushly symphonic double-cd mix of chamber pop, art-rock, psychedelia and quirky, theatrical indie pop. Stream it
6. Rachelle Garniez – Sad Dead Alive Happy
The iconic, eclectic accordionist/chanteuse – who has sort of become the Dorothy Parker of underground rock – took a deep dive into soul and gospel sounds, with richly soaring results. Stream it
7. The Japonize Elephants – Melodie Fantastique
One of the original gypsy bands, this enormous, theatrical circus rock crew took their game to the next level with this one. Stream it
8. Lianne Smith – Two Sides of a River
An iconic presence in the New York Americana and rock scene since the late 90s, Smith's debut album was legendary before it was finally released – and it's as eclectic, psychedelic, haunting and funny as anything else on this list. And her amazing voice is better than ever. Stream it
9. Bobtown – Trouble I Wrought
Nobody writes more cleverly creepy acoustic Nashville gothic and bluegrass than Bobtown. With four first-rate songwriters, their sound is as diverse as it is dark. Stream it
10. Jan Bell – Dream of the Miner's Child
One of the great voices in Americana music, Bell made this into a concept album that linked British folk with the American country and bluegrass sounds that grew out of it with a vivid sense of history and a tantalizing mix of classics and originals that sound like Appalachian standards. Stream it/free downloads
11. M Shanghai String Band – Two Thousand Pennies
The mighty eleven-piece Brooklyn acoustic Americana crew's most lush, haunting, diverse and ultimately best album, ranging from gypsy and chamber pop to brooding Appalachian ballads and the rousing singalong songs they're best known for. Stream it
12.. Love Camp 7 – Love Camp VII
An expertly wry, tuneful, catchy janglerock concept album looking at recent history through the prism of the Beatles, with a jaundiced eye and expertly labyrinthine polyrhythms. Given up for dead after the tragic loss of brilliant drummer Dave Campbell, the band has recently regrouped and is as playful and fun as ever. Stream it
13. Hannah vs. the Many – All Our Heroes Drank Here
Ferociously literate, white knuckle intense female-fronted punk and powerpop, with some noir cabaret and Jarvis Cocker-style art-rock thrown in for good measure. Stream it
14. The Larch– Days to the West
The follow-up to their 2010 masterpiece Larix Americana finds the Brooklyn retro new wavers sounding more psychedelic and more savagely lyrical than ever. Stream it
15. Lorraine Leckie and Anthony Haden-Guest – Rudely Interrupted
A blackly amusing, gorgeously orchestrated chamber-pop collaboration between the caustic social critic and the Canadian gothic rock siren. Band info and a/v
16. Black Fortress of Opium – Stratospherical
Lush, roaring, darkly psychedelic Middle Eastern-tinged art-rock from this powerful, female-fronted Boston band. Stream it
17. Matt Keating – Wrong Way Home
The respected Americana rocker's best single-disc album, a brooding, offhandedly menacing blend of classic soul, country and elegant chamber pop. Stream it
18. Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores – Sister Death
Not to have this album in the #1 spot is pretty absurd: the Rhode Island band's swirling, psychedelic, gypsy-tinged art-rock masterpiece is the most downright macabre collection on this list. Stream it
19.. The Sometime Boys – Ice & Blood
The second album from cabaret siren Sarah Mucho and art-rocker Kurt Leege's sharply lyrical acoustic Americana project finds them funkier, more lush and more intense than ever. Stream it
20. Animation – Transparent Heart
As historically important as it is richly arrranged, saxophonist Bob Belden's collection of cinematic instrumental themes traces the decline of New York over the past couple of decades, centered around 9/11 and the fascism that ensued. Band info and a/v
21. Tift Merritt – Traveling Alone
Marc Ribot's guitar is amazing beyond belief, and Merrritt's pensive Americana songs and nuanced vocals are as vivid as always. Band info and a/v
22. Out of Order – Hey Pussycat
The loudest album on this list is by this assaultive all-female Long Island noiserock/punk trio, raw but richly produced by John Sharples. Stream it
23. Changing Modes – In Flight
With three keyboards and edgy lead guitar, these women and guys play biting, lyrical art-rock and new wave-influenced sounds. Stream it
24. Chris Erikson & the Wayward Puritans – Lost Track of the Time
Erikson has been one of the great guitarists in Americana for years, in other peoples' bands. This is his long-overdue debut as a leader, a careening, gorgeously twangy mix of Americana, paisley underground psychedelia and riff-rock. Stream it
25. Marissa Nadler – The Sister
The Nashville gothic/noir cabaret chanteuse/songwriter's most haunting and atmospheric album since her debut, a darkly nebulous, allusive gem. Stream it/free downloads
26. Spanking Charlene – Where Are the Freaks
Female-fronted Americana punk band with powerful, intense lead vocals, hooks that run the gamut from the Stooges to X and a potently snide, sarcastic, spot-on worldview. Stream it
27. Frankenpine – In That Black Sky
Creepy original bluegrass, Appalachian ballads and elegantly dark acoustic sounds from this diverse Brooklyn band. Stream it/free dowloads
28. Choban Elektrik – their debut album
A side project by members of Zappa cover band Project/Object, they take classic Balkan and gypsy themes and make trippy psychedelic rock out of them. Stream it
29. Slavic Soul Party – New York Underground Tapes
The wildly popular Brooklyn Balkan brass band at the top of their funky, surprisingly eclectic, intensely danceable game. Stream it
30. Saint Maybe – Things As They Are
A throwback to the paisley underground bands of the 80s like True West and the Dream Syndicate, this project by a Patti Smith guitarist and Bob Dylan's drummer mixes surreal, apocalyptic imagery and raw, surreal, psychedelic Americana rock. Stream it
31. Mike Rimbaud – Can't Judge a Song By Its Cover
The New York underground rocker – who also put out an excellent album of originals last year, and constantly releases video singles – puts his indelibly New York spin on politically charged classics by Phil Ochs, Dylan, the Stones and others. Stream it
32. When the Broken Bow – We, the Dangerous Weapons
A surreal, fearlessly political, apocalyptic concept album by this Oregon band that runs the gamut from soul-pop to careening art-rock to goth and gypsy sounds. Stream it
33. Tim Foljahn – Songs for an Age of Extinction
Grimly lyrical, pensively psychedelic noir chamber pop and Americana-influenced songwriting. Stream it
34. Demolition String Band – Gracious Days
The well-loved New York Americana/bluegrass/rock twanglers' best electric album, an intoxicating blend of guitars, mandolins, banjo and Elena Skye's velvet vocals. Stream it
35. The Brixton Riot – Palace Amusements
Sort of the missing link between the Jam and Guided by Voices, this New Jersey band blast their way through a series of hard-hitting, swirling, lyrically biting three-minute songs. Stream it
36. L'il Mo & the Monicats – Whole Lotta Lovin
Americana chanteuse Monica Passin's most intimate and eclectic album to date, with soaring harmonies from fellow Americana siren Drina Seay. Song samples
37. Leigh Marble – Where the Knives Meet Between the Rows
Brooding, bitterly lyrical songwriting with a mix of hypnotically psychedelic and Americana-flavored tunes from the Portland, Oregon bandleader. Stream it
38. Eilen Jewell – Queen of the Minor Key
Truth in advertising – Jewel excels at noir Americana, ghoulabilly, garage rock and oldschool psychedelic sounds. Band info and a/v
39. Mucca Pazza – Safety Fifth
A characteristically high-voltage mix of short but sonically titanic gypsy punk and gypsy rock songs from the brass-heavy Chicago dance orchestra. Stream it
40. Chicago Stone Lightning Band – their debut album
With a raw, guitar-fueled edge, their twin-Gibson assault covers classic 60s style Chicago blues, riff-driven stoner rock, original soul and funk. Stream it
41. Emily Jane White – Ode to Sentience
Intense, broodingly lyrical, intricately orchestrated Nashville gothic and art-rock sounds. Band info and a/v
42. My Education – A Drink for All My Friends
The Austin postrock/instrumental band have never sounded more lush or guitarishly intense on this mix of desert rock and cinematic themes. Stream it
43. Tom Shaner – Ghost Songs, Waltzes and Rock n Roll
That such a great album would be this low on the list attests to how amazing this past year was for music. The former Industrial Tepee frontman has never written more richly or lyrically than he does on this southwestern gothic gem. Band info and video
44. Jon DeRosa – A Wolf in Preacher's Clothes
The Brooklyn crooner comes across as sort of a cross between Jarvis Cocker and Leonard Cohen, with a mix of lush chamber pop, Americana and 80s-influenced gothic art-rock. Band info and a/v
45. The Sweetback Sisters – Lookin' for a Fight
This amazing two-frontwoman honkytonk band not in the top ten? How can that be possible? Take a look at the rest of the list. Stream it
46. Band of Outsiders – Sound Beach Quartet
The 80s psychedelic punk legends are still going strong, with a richly jangly, snaky new ep that evokes Television as well as the Jesus & Mary Chain, both groups whose careers they've now eclipsed. Stream it
47. Mighty High – Legalize Tre Bags
The funniest album of the year blends roaring Motorhead-style biker rock with woozy stoner riffage and some of the best weed jokes ever put on vinyl. Stream it
48. The Weal and Woe – The One to Blame
Gorgeously harmony-driven oldschool honkytonk and 1950s style proto-rockabilly sounds from this wonderfully retro Brooklyn band. Stream it
49. Guided by Voices – The Bears for Lunch
Agelessly energetic, prolific indie surrealist Robert Pollard hasn't lost a thing: this is the third and best release in the band's incredibly productive 2012, not including Pollard's own solo releases. Band info and a/v
50. Ian Hunter – When I'm President
Last but hardly least on this list, another ageless rocker from an even earlier era put out an album that could be the great lost Stones classic from 30 years ago. Band info/free downloads
Reliving October
Who in New York would want to relive October, 2012? Actually, if you can make the big, stormy elephant in the room disappear, it wasn't such a bad month – and there were plenty of good shows happening, right up until a couple of days before the hurricane. This month's account is part of an ongoing feature on concerts that for various reasons escaped front-page coverage here. Although most of the artists involved have already gotten plenty of space here before, it wouldn't make sense to neglect what they're doing because in one way or another, it's important.
Early in the month on a deliciously cool Saturday, Tom Warnick & the World's Fair played their usual careening mix of haunted, noir rock and contrastingly sunny oldschool soul songs at a gig at Freddy's in Brooklyn's south slope. Warnick is a keyboardist; he stands deadpan, sometimes with just the hint of a smirk and intones surreal, historically-inspired lyrics while the band motors behind him. This particular version had the blazing guitars of both Ross Bonadonna and John Sharples plus tenor sax and a rhythm section. Other than the utterly blissful soul sway of My Troubles All Fall Apart, the songs had a persistent unease. Catchy as the pulsing new wave of I'm a Stranger Here and the slower but equally catchy Lost in Place were, they both spoke to youthful alienation. Likewise, The Great Calamity didn't shy away from potential disaster – Warnick has walked away from several in his life – and delivered a persistent defiance.
Other songs were considerably darker and ran the gamut from reggae, to bluegrass, to an a-cappella cover of an old chain gang song from the 30s. Cop Car, a stomping blues tune about a stoner being tailed by the po-po, had the guitars gleefully sirening in unison on the bridge – yikes! A Little Space worked a leering Tom Waits vibe, while Keep Me Movin' rose and fell with a moody, Doorsy-y ambience. This time out, the big hit was The Impostor, with its chromatically-fueled menace and macabre crescendo on the chorus. As strange a segue as these guys made with the opening act, Beefheart cover band Admiral Porkbrain, they kept the surreal energy going.
Onetime Dog Show frontman J. O'Brien has hardly been idle since the breakup of the band late in the zeros. His Vibedeck page has tons of name-your-price goodies, including both new songs and newly stripped down, mostly acoustic versions of Dog Show classics. He also has a monthly gig at Zirzamin, Manhattan's newest and most exclusive venue for A-list songwriters. His October show featured a lot of his more pensive, darker material, including a welcome return of the offhandedly savage, bitter kiss-off ballad All About Wrong, as well as fueling pre-election unease with the politically-charged Black Eye and Hold Me Down. His November show was more upbeat and drew more heavily on his more recent songs, notably Cottonmouth, a hilariously snide litany of characters on the train between Manhattan and south Brooklyn. He'll be back at Zirzamin, solo on twelve-string guitar, on Dec 10 at 7.
Spanking Charlene, leaders of the scene at the late, lamented Lakeside Lounge, made a rare trip uptown to the Ding Dong Lounge for frontwoman Charlene McPherson's birthday. The band's new rhythm section – Patti Rothberg's bass player and Drina Seay's drummer – gave them extra punch and kick, and semi-permanent lead guitarist Eric Ambel got plenty of opportunities to sear and burn with a noisy, bluesy menace. Their long set mixed in a few covers along with many of the roaring Americana-punk songs on their latest album Where Are the Freaks – notably the stomping, sludgy title track, inspired by a drunken walk through increasingly yuppified Stuyvestant Town. McPherson wailed with her usual high voltage against the squall of a huge tenor saxophonist who looked like he'd just come in from Giants practice, as the band made their way through the sarcastic crash and roar of You Suck, Secrets, Tie Me Up and Stupid Me. As the show wound up, they made the connection between Black Sabbath and the Sonics and then a version of Heat Wave that owed more to the Martha Reeves original than the Jam. Spanking Charlene's next show is on the road, on Dec 8 at the Record Collector in Bordentown, NJ.
A day before that, Niall Connolly played the weekly acoustic series at the American Folk Art Museum a few blocks north of Lincoln Center. He's a band guy at heart and writes like it, buildling to anthemic choruses and leaving plenty of space for guitar breaks and other interesting stuff. In an all-too-brief set, he alternated between gloomily sardonic, spare, fingerpicked reflections on relationship dysfunction, and more upbeat, politically-fueled acoustic rock. Connolly is Irish by birth and not a fan of the post-9/11 American police state, and has plenty to say about it that's both amusing and insightful. Connolly plays a LOT of shows; he's at Caffe Vivaldi tomorrow night at midnight and then on Tuesday (officially, early Wednesday) at one in the morning at the Red Lion on Bleecker Street, where the tourists might have actually cleared out by then.
Closing Night at Lakeside
How do you play your own funeral? Obviously, Eric "Roscoe" Ambel and the Roscoe Trio have plenty of life left in them, as they made clear last night when they played the closing night at Ambel's beloved Lakeside Lounge. An East Village fixture for sixteen years, Lakeside was home to literally hundreds of excellent New York bands: its absence leaves a gaping hole in the New York rock scene. Still, it's no wonder that Ambel – someone whose muse is not booze – had already gone through three pints of red wine (ok, somebody kicked one of them over) by the time their practically three-hour performance was over. The energy onstage bristled with raw anxiety, echoed by the crowd packed into the back room and lingering on the sidewalk outside: people were not happy to see their favorite rock club being priced out of the neighborhood for yet another effete, shi-shi gentrifier bar. Neither Ambel nor the band – Alison Jones on bass, Phil Cimino on drums and Ambel's pal Chip Robinson on guitar and also vocals – alluded to rage or resentment: they just let the songs do the talking and gave the club the sendoff it deserved. Taken out of context as an especially raucous Lakeside show, or as a harbinger of possibly worse things to come, this was something people will be at least thinking about for a long time.
They opened with Girl That I Ain't Got, a twangy country-rock number from Ambel's cult classic solo debut, Roscoe's Gang, and closed with Cinderella, an obscure riff-rocking R&B song from Lakeside's famous jukebox. Was it deliberate when Ambel's wife Mary Lee Kortes, singing a rampaging version of Tangled Up in Blue (which also appears on her iconic 2002 live recording of Blood on the Tracks), gave special ferocity to "all the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now?" Who knows. Ambel did make a point of giving shout-outs to Lakeside regulars now gone, notably Ff bandleader Tom Price and multi-instrumentalist genius Drew Glackin, who, "If he would have lived, would have played more gigs here than anybody."
Guitarist Mark Spencer, originally with the Blood Oranges, added some seriously searing rock leads on a couple of tracks. Lenny Kaye memorialized the place as "a place for musicians, and people who like to hang around them," then led the band (with Ambel moved behind the drumkit, replaced on guitar by Demolition String Band's Boo Reiners) through "the national anthem of rock n roll," Gloria, with an interlude where he imagined the girl lifting her shirt in Lakeside's photo booth for the benefit of Ambel and co-owner/jukebox archivist Jim Marshall, a.k.a. The Hound. John Mellencamp lead guitarist Andy York also beat a path through the crowd from the bar to the stage several times, notably for an absolutely luscious cover of Raw Power where he switched to bass and played wave after wave of Ron Asheton melody.
The New Heathens' Nate Schweber sang Thousand Dollar Car, by the Bottle Rockets (who'd played the opening night party here on April 10, 1996 if memory serves right). Robinson delivered a subdued, pensive one from his Mylow album [memo to self – must dig that one out again] that picked up with one of an endless series of growling, sideswiping Ambel solos. Spanking Charlene's Charlene McPherson took centerstage for a volcanic take on I Wanna Be Your Dog. And was that Schweber singing the night's most brooding, downcast song, Dylan's I and I? That's the problem of not having any video to go with the audio, 24 hours later.
With Ambel out front, they blasted through familiar favorites like Garbagehead – written in five minutes for a particularly high-energy New Year's Eve show – as well as blistering versions of the angry, overdriven, Beatlesque Song for the Walls along with Ambel's inimitable version of Swamp Dogg's Total Destruction to Your Mind. But this wasn't just the hits. Ambel's shows here with his trio have always been a party, part live rehearsal, part focus group for new material, and as usual he brought some of that, including a particularly hard-hitting, riff-rocking new collaboration with Kasey Anderson. The band had never played the Kinks' Where I Belong – the anthem that Ambel had picked out specially for the night – but they made it through that one without embarrassing themselves thanks to Ambel somehow managing to play lead guitar and simultaneously signal chord changes via sign language (musicians understand those things).
Jimbo Mathus, who's currently recording with Ambel, joined the band on mandolin for a killer honkytonk song about homeless people on the streets of Hollywood who should be diamonds rather than lumps of coal. As the set went on, Ambel called up Alex Feldesman, the club's tireless soundman and gave him a guitar in appreciation for his years of service. "Now I have to learn to play the thing," deadpanned Alex (he was being sarcastic, as usual – maybe this is what he needed to get a new band going).
Whoever ends up taking over the Lakeside space, you can be damn sure they won't be handing out guitars to loyal members of the staff. Nor is it likely that they'll be there sixteen years like Lakeside was. Back in 1995, a friend may have responded to Ambel's news that he was the proud owner of a New York State liquor license by telling him, "That's like giving a monkey a gun." That comment would later become a song title; going on twenty years later, the guy would have to eat his words. By the time the show was over, the line to the bar was five deep and growing and at this point, at least from a blogger's perspective, there was no reason to stay: anything that anyone might have said or drunk at that point is strictly personal business. Thanks for the memories, Lakeside Lounge.
By the way, if anybody has video, please don't keep it to yourself and hide it on Facebook where nobody can see it: put it up on youtube, or on your blog, and send a link over here!