By Matt Harness
Dex Romweber’s been around the block.
As one half of the seminal roots-rocking Flat Duo Jets, Romweber made his name throughout the 1980s with his axe, inspiring Jack White, among others, along the way. These days, the Chapel Hill-based guitarist/singer teams up with sister Sara as part of the Dex Romweber Duo. This year’s Ruins of Berlin is the pair’s first record with Bloodshot Records.
Beachwood Music caught up with Dex while he was taking a break from the road and relaxing at his North Carolina country house, not too far from the University of North Carolina campus.

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Posted on July 31, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
The Wikipedia entry for Purple Rain categorizes the landmark album’s genre as “Pop, rock, R&B, funk, neo-psychedlia, new wave, Minneapolis.”
You got that right.
Purple Rain is all of those things and more. It’s a better record than Thriller, as far as 80s blockbusters go, though not always as daring – and mindblowing – as some of Prince’s earlier work.
Sometimes – “let’s get nuts!” – there are moments of schmaltz.
But it is an undeniable record with far more imagination, musicality, and indivdual brilliance than anything Michael Jackson and his team of songwriters ever managed.

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Posted on July 30, 2009

By Matt Harness
In the news.
1. Bloodshot alum Neko Case must have made up with the Grand Ole Opry folks after she was banned for life when she took her shirt off during a performance on the Opry plaza seven years ago. She is scheduled to appear on stage at the famed Ryman Auditorium for the first time as a solo artist on Saturday.
“For an aspiring alt-country singer, Neko Case made a major faux pas,” Rolling Stone wrote at the time. “She took her shirt off at the Grand Ole Opry plaza party. ‘I wasn’t trying to be sexy or rebellious – I was just getting heatstroke up there,’ she says of her now-infamous topless performance last year, which got Case permanently blackballed from the same Nashville auditorium where Hank Williams and Patsy Cline launched their careers.”

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Posted on July 24, 2009

From the Beachwood Music department’s in-box:
With the upcoming blink-182 stop in Chicago this summer, I thought you might be interested in the “Live the Rock Life with blink-182” national sweepstakes.
T-Mobile Sidekick is sponsoring the entire tour and the sweepstakes to celebrate the return of the pop-punk trio. The grand prize will include:
* VIP trip to Los Angeles for the entire group with first class airfare and luxury accommodations at a private Hollywood estate
* Exclusive meet and greet with the band and visit to the closed-set sound check
* $20,000 spending cash
* $1,820 shopping spree at Barker’s Los Angeles store, The Fast Life
* Ride on the official blink-182 tour bus

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Posted on July 22, 2009

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Posted on July 20, 2009

By Matt Harness
* In an effort to return to the town where he started his career, Andre Williams recently wrapped up the recording of his latest album, due out some time next year. From producer Matt Smith, via Metro Times, “Andre’s new material is fantastic – just a great batch of songs. And you can imagine the great stories he told me over breakfast, about working for Motown in the ’60s, spending time the early ’70s hanging out with Ike Turner and Mick Jagger and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Elvis Presley showed up backstage at one his gigs. Just incredible stuff.”

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Posted on July 17, 2009

By The Beachwood Atomic Live Affairs Desk
“For most of the ’90s, the best live band anywhere was the Jesus Lizard,” Greg Kot wrote over the weekend. “Its cutthroat music may not have been for everyone, but the Chicago quartet’s performances were everything a rock ‘n’ roll show should be: a spontaneous blast of personality in which anything could happen, and often did.”
As a public service, we hereby provide you with a sampling of those live performances.
1.

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Posted on July 15, 2009

By The Beachwood Fair Credit Affairs Desk
Michael Jackson’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” is essentially a rewrite/upgrade of the 1973 song “Soul Makossa” by Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango; “Soul Makossa” is often credited as the world’s first disco song. Dibango was not, however, credited on the record.
While the African chant is the biggest giveaway, the distinctive cymbal flow is also obviously cribbed. Here’s the original.

Posted on July 13, 2009

By Matt Harness
* Exene Cervenka, recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, has finished her solo record for Bloodshot, though she is touring with X this summer.
“It has the passion of X without all the loud,” she told her Bloodshot minders.
It’s called Somewhere Gone and is scheduled for release in October.
* Bloodshot is hosting parties across the country to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The first was last weekend in Pittsburgh. Chicago will get its party on Sept. 12 at the Hideout (lineup TBA). Some other party dates:

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Posted on July 10, 2009

By Steve Rhodes
While “Billie Jean” is probably Michael Jackson’s landmark song, and Thriller his landmark record, “Man in the Mirror” has an intimate, autobiographical yet universal quality about it that marks as an anthem of sorts and an appeal of the sort Jackson rarely made; let’s just say few of his songs had a “message.” And while the song annoys quite a few people I know, it’s always secretly been a favorite of mine. While the dance-funk-soul of Off The Wall was probably Jackson at his Michael Jackson-y best, this song, too, I think represents something about him. I was surprised, however, to learn that, like many of his songs, he didn’t write it.

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Posted on July 7, 2009