By Matt Harness

* The Deadstring Brothers‘ Sao Paulo hits American shelves on February 23rd. Here’s what the band’s hometown critic writes in the Metro Times:
“Throughout their career thus far, this band has been regularly compared to such whiskey-sotted rockers as the Stones and the Black Crowes, and it’s fair to say that they’ve never sounded more like Exile on Main Street than they do here on the title track and the phenomenal “The River Song.”
* On the literary front, Andre Williams is out with the juiced-up memoir Sweets. He took some time to talk to the Village Voice:
“It took a couple of days to get Williams on the phone because of his emergency trips to the hospital. During the wait, this quote from Marah Eakin, one of his recording label’s publicists, took on new meaning: ‘Andre is truly a mystery to us all. He just graces our presence with his suits and cologne and songs.”

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Posted on February 5, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

1. THE GRAMMYS: I feel like I’ve been reading this article my whole life. Anyone who takes the Grammys seriously as a measure of musical greatness is a tool, a dupe, or both. Paying attention is only important insofar as the ongoing importance of monitoring the enemy. Just consider: Neil Young won his first Grammy ever last night – and it was for the packaging of his boxed set. As several observers have noted, that ties him with Britney Spears – whose win was actually for a recording.

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Posted on February 1, 2010

By Don Jacobson

In this installment of Chicago In Song, two great country singer/songwriters highlight one of the city’s most characteristic portrayals in song lyrics – its status as a magnet for poor, often homeless, migrants. Call them tramps, hobos, bums or economic refugees, Chicago’s continuing attraction to the country’s (and the world’s) down-and-out gets an artistic workout from Merle Haggard and Dwight Yoakam.
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Merle Haggard/I Take a Lot of Pride In What I Am
Usually when we’re talking about Chicago’s place of infamy in song lyrics in this space, it’s something along the lines of poverty, despair or some other offshoot of misery. One rich vein in that category that we look for the first time here is the city’s longtime identification with homelessness, courtesy of Merle Haggard and his 1969 classic, “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am.”

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Posted on February 1, 2010

Back in the day, Martin Atkins was a drummer on the front line of the British punk invasion of America, playing with some of the genre’s seminal figures, including Johnny Rotten.
After living in New York and Los Angeles, Atkins settled in Chicago in the late 1980s just as the industrial music scene was in its infancy. His first place was a 14th-floor crib with a rooftop view of Lake Michigan.
Now, Atkins, with the Windy City as his adopted hometown, is in his early 50s and he continues to add eggs to his basket. From punk drummer to record-label owner to worldwide lecturer, Atkins is a man with a wide tool belt with many loops. With his newest project Revolution Number Three staging one of its three-day educational weekends starting Friday, Atkins took some time from his Bridgeport base camp to talk to the Beachwood Music department about the road he’s traveled so far.

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Posted on January 29, 2010

By The Beachwood Oughts Affairs Desk
A comparison.
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Pitchfork’s Top 20 Albums of the Oughts.
20. Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol
19. Kill the Moonlight, Spoon
18. Late Registration, Kanye West
17. Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem
16. Illinois, Sufjan Stevens

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Posted on January 26, 2010

By The Beachwood Zoo Affairs Desk
The Scorpions – a band that has truly seen a million faces and rocked them all – are supposedly calling it quits. Supposedly because they are planning to release an album in March and then tour “for the next few years.” Still, here are some highlights from their show in August 2008 on Northerly Island.
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1. Another boring day.

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Posted on January 25, 2010

By Don Jacobson

I never really thought of ’60s country music icon Dave Dudley as a sensitive kind of guy. Most of his songs were rollicking odes to gear jammin’ truckers and, as the decade progressed, turned awfully heavy on the pro-war flag-waving. I just assumed it was pretty hard to get in touch with your feelings when you’re popping “little white pills” and constantly rhapsodizing about Ol’ Glory.
So imagine my surprise when I found Lonelyville in the bargain bin. Dave Dudley’s 1966 LP veers right off the turnpike from his usual formula of truck stops and hippie-bashing and gives us 12 songs of mostly crying-in-your-beer laments about, as the title suggests, loneliness. It’s the achy-breaky Dave that I never knew even existed, so it’s really cool to find this – but how well does it work?

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Posted on January 20, 2010

By The Beachwood Music Desk
“Dannie Flesher, who oversaw the internationally acclaimed Wax Trax record store and label in Chicago during the ’80s and ’90s, has died at age 58,” Greg Kot of the Tribune reported last week.
“Flesher died [January 10th] in his home town of Hope, Ark., of pneumonia. He had dropped out of the music business after Wax Trax folded and his life and label partner Jim Nash died in 1995. Flesher had returned to Arkansas in 2005 to live with family members.
“Nash and Flesher opened a Wax Trax store in Denver in the ’70s, then moved their operation to Lincoln Avenue in 1978. Their store, stocked with imported punk and electronic music, defined the cutting edge and was like the city’s island of misfit toys, where punks, freaks and outsiders gathered to buy music, advertise shows and plot their futures.
“In the ’80s, the store expanded into a label that became the world headquarters for boundary-pushing artists who bridged disco, electronic music, rock, and the avant-garde. Some dubbed the sound ‘industrial disco,’ an umbrella term that included Ministry, Front 242, Underworld, KMFDM, and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, underground acts who went on to sell millions of records.”

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Posted on January 19, 2010

By Matt Harness
Let’s take a look back at Bloodshot’s nine releases in 2009. Ten in 2010?
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Artist: Ha Ha Tonka
Album: Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South
Review: “Ha Ha Tonka, meet Kings of Leon,” Blurt Online wrote. “Kings of Leon, meet your competition. While the latter band’s Southern-rock mix has helped them break big after years of meandering in obscurity, Ha Ha Tonka is banking on a similar musical sound and a healthy shot of charisma to mimic Kings of Leon’s success. And with the follow-up to 2007’s Buckle in the Belt, they may do it.”

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Posted on January 14, 2010

By The Beachwood Buzz Desk
Chicago’s Kid Sister hit it big in 2009, landing on many critics’ best-of lists as well as the radio and TV. Let’s take a look.
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“In three years, Melisa Young went from public aid to rapping with Kanye West,” Chicago Public Radio reports. “From growing up on the southside, to gracing stages at Pitchfork, Lollapalooza and Coachella, ‘Kid Sister’ as she’s known in the music world, achieved serious cred before she ever released an album.”
*
“So, there she was during a recent interview with 77 Square, pulling out of a car wash in Chicago’s Logan Square juggling dog, purse, coffee, cell phone and driving (“People who make bad traffic decisions, I don’t criticize them for it – but if they’re going to do it, they need to get it done with!”),” Madison.com reports.
“Kid Sister, aka Melisa Young, also never set out to be a rapper. She studied film in college and spent years working low-pay jobs in retail. Her music career – at first a hobby that percolated up from her deep involvement in the Chicago club scene – just seemed to happen organically.
“About four years ago, she started hosting dance parties with her younger brother Josh, aka J2K, and Autobot of the DJ duo Flosstradamus. Her popularity mushroomed beyond Chicago after a single with Kanye West in 2007 (‘Pro Nails’); she released her debut album Ultraviolet last month.”

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Posted on January 14, 2010