By The Beachwood Been To The Mountain Affairs Desk
Highlights.
1. This is a hard life, baby.
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Posted on June 15, 2010
Prince in Chicago
By The Beachwood Purple Affairs Desk
With Prince celebrating his 52nd birthday this week, we thought this was a good time to look back on his live performances here since the 90s, via the reviews of Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis.
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Date: August 18, 1992
Author: Kot
Venue: Hyatt-Regency
Headline: Prince proves his star hasn’t lost any of its luster
Review Excerpt: “‘Hey, check me over, do you like what you see?’
“By the time Prince closed a private show late Friday at a Loop hotel with ‘Baby I’m a Star,’ the answer to that question was already sealed.
“With just a hint of a beard, a new ‘typhoon’-style hairdo and an array of form-fitting costumes that accentuated his feral sexuality, Prince sure looked like a star as he wowed a gathering of industry high-rollers and fellow entertainers-from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Oprah Winfrey-at the centerpiece event of the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic empire’s annual conference . . . The cuts ranged from stripped-down funk to florid, neo-psychedelic ballads-in other words, a typically varied Prince menu.
“What’s different is how these tunes, new and old alike, were performed. Eschewing electronic gimmickry, the diminutive, high-heeled one from Minneapolis kept things raw, visceral and organic: real drums, gutsy voices and booty-bumping bass to accompany the splashes and jabs of keyboards that have become his signature.
“While digging closer than he has in years to his roots-Sly Stone, Stax Records, George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix-he also incorporated contemporary touches such as house dance rhythms and hip-hop vocals into his new music.”
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Date: April 5, 1993
Author: DeRo
Venue: Chicago Theatre
Headline: His Royal Badness Is Only Half-Bad At Best
Review Excerpt: “The goal of Prince ‘s current tour is to prove that His Royal Badness is back with a vengeance.
“‘My name is Prince , and I am funky,’ the Minneapolis singer announced as he stepped onstage in Chicago for the first time in five years.
“Unfortunately, his set only lived up to that boast part of the time.
“The first of Prince ‘s sold-out three-night stand at the Chicago Theatre opened with an elaborate funk-rock opera that drew almost entirely from his last album, which is untitled save for its cryptic symbol.”
Posted on June 9, 2010
Division Done
By Steve Rhodes
On Monday we featured the mesmerizing stylings of the Do Division appearance by Angela Mullenhour and Sybris. Here are a few more performances by other bands at last weekend’s street festival.
1. Warpaint.
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Posted on June 8, 2010
Sybris Does Division
By Steve Rhodes
Though they’ve been around since 2003, I only saw Sybris for the first time at the Do Division street festival on Saturday and it was hard not to be captivated, mesmerized and charmed by singer Angela Mullenhour’s big voice and soul-affirming enthusiasm and passion.
1. Dead, Dead, Dead.
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Posted on June 7, 2010
RockNotes: The Jayhawks, Jesus, Queen & M.I.A.
By The Beachwood Leaving Chicago Affairs Desk
1. Alternacountry roots pop poster boys.
“The Jayhawks have, without question, been one of the most influential and highly respected bands in modern Americana/indie roots music,” No Depression writes. “From their 1986 self-titled debut (aka the Bunkhouse record), through their mid-’00s hiatus and the work Mark Olson and Gary Louris have done since then, it’s safe to say the band has produced some of the finest music in this genre.”
Tell No Depression your top five Jayhawks songs and you might win an autographed copy of the Bunkhouse debut.
Posted on June 3, 2010
Bloodshot Briefing
By Steve Rhodes
1. Rosie Flores: One-armed bandit and self-professed health nut.
“Rosie Flores is hardcore,” according to the City Paper of Rochester, New York, where the Bloodshot artist is scheduled to play tonight.
“She’s been on the road forever and is familiar with all its charms. Broken fan belts, detours, claustrophobia, and truck-stop grub – nothing slows her down. Even a broken arm couldn’t sideline this sensational Austin-based roots rocker.
“‘Basically I fell out of bed,’ Flores says. ‘But you should’ve seen the other guy.’
“Ba-dump-bump. But Flores digresses. ‘Some kind of varmint woke me up in the middle of the night, a flying cockroach or something – one of those big Texas wild bugs. I rolled over and 360’d and fell right on the tip of my shoulder and broke my humerus in half and split the bone down the center.'”
Posted on May 28, 2010
Song of the Moment: Heaven and Hell
By The Beachwood Bringer Of Evil Affairs Desk
We finish Dio Week here at the Beachwood honoring the late, great Ronnie James Dio with a look at a song that is purportedly his favorite – and ours. It was from his debut with Black Sabbath, after the departure of Ozzy Osbourne, and it was a classic, crystallizing the morality play of our existence that marked Dio’s lyrics through his career.
Released: 1980
Length: 6:59
Label: Vertigo/Warner Bros.
Charts: No. 81 on VH1’s list of the top 100 hard rock songs.
Posted on May 21, 2010
The Tao of Ronnie James Dio
By The Beachwood Rock Philosophy Affairs Desk
Between the velvet lies
There’s a truth that’s hard as steel-yeah
The vision never dies
Life’s a never ending wheel
– Holy Diver
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You’re just a picture – just an image caught in time
We’re a lie – you and I
We’re words without a rhyme
– Rainbow in the Dark
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Hanging from the cobwebs in you mind
It looks like a long, long way to fall
No one ever told me life was kind
I guess I never heard it, never heard it all
– Straight Through the Heart
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Posted on May 19, 2010
666 Words For Ronnie James Dio
By Andrew Reilly
I.
Here’s the thing about the devil horn salute Dio made famous: it wasn’t a devil horn salute at all, but an Italian gesture of safety meant to ward off evil spirits. When normal, less-cultured men throw the horns, they mean it as a way of calling out to Satan; when Dio did it, he did it because he loved you.
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Posted on May 18, 2010
Dio in Chicago
By Steve Rhodes
“Heavy metal lost one of its icons Sunday when singer Ronnie James Dio died at 67. He was being treated in a Houston hospital for stomach cancer,” Greg Kot reports.
“He fronted some of metal’s most revered bands, including a Deep Purple offshoot called Rainbow, the second incarnation of Black Sabbath and his namesake group, Dio. As a result, he had a hand in a half-dozen of metal’s greatest albums, including Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell and Dio’s Holy Diver. Most recently he was heard fronting a Sabbath offshoot, Heaven and Hell, which released a fine 2009 album, The Devil You Know, and toured extensively in 2008-09.
Plus, he invented (“Invented? No. But perfected . . . “) the devil’s horns.
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Here are some excerpts from Dio’s (mostly) recent Chicago appearances.
Posted on May 17, 2010