Jackie Greene

World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA

A World Cafe taping as part of the 2008 Non-Commvention.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine Wheel, Geneva, Feline

Image
Tradewinds, Sea Bright, NJ..... Catherine Wheel exploded onto the music world in 1992 with a 7-minute rock opus called "Black Metallic." This song synthesized the dance-rock of the Stone Roses, the moody riffing of Sisters of Mercy, and the simplified indie coarseness of the Jesus & Mary Chain into one epic expression of loosely-opaque lyrics. Its effect was anthemic on the alt-rock crowd, still reeling in the months after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has dashed previous anthems to splinters. The band recognized the power of returning to full volume after its 90-second breakdown section, which stripped everything down to drums plus a little lead guitar and vocal noodling. The crashing conclusion of this breakdown was the song's secret weapon, the stunning amendment to the dance-rock Constitution put forth by the Stone Roses and ultimately the missing ingredient to "Fools Gold." I never had a chance to see the band live during the years immediately fol...
Read more

Echo & The Bunnymen/Leather Nun

Image
Bailey Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY I first heard Echo & The Bunnymen on record when I got to college and stated working at WICB in the fall of 1984. I fell in love with the 1983 Porcupine LP, especially the two lead-off tracks, "The Cutter" and "The Back of Love." Oh, and the live version of "Do It Clean," on which frontman Ian McCulloch starts singing The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" during an instrumental break that DJ John Webber would often play on his "Radio Wave" show. This was my first opportunity to seeing Echo live. My strongest memory of the show is a brief but powerful moment halfway through the concert. McCulloch was smoking cigarettes on and off throughout the show. While he was in the middle of singing one song, he stuck his arm out behind him and to his left, fingers dangling down. A stagehand crept swiftly out from the wing and tucked a lit cigarette into his fingers. And without even a glance behi...
Read more

Gnarls Barkley, Spoon, The Raconteurs, Bob Dylan

Image
South Side Works, Pittsburgh, PA.... New American Music Union festival The festival was two days long, featuring a lot more bands than listed above, but due to childcare these four were the only ones I was able to see. Of them Gnarls Barkley and Spoon were terrific. The Raconteurs and Bob Dylan not so much. Gnarls Barkley was already on stage when Betsy and I arrived, running through their great cover of Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone." Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo were wearing tan jackets over a white uniform (Cee-Lo quickly removed his, due to the summer heat) and their band all had maroon-looking vests over their dress whites (the drummer gussied up his uniform with a bowtie). Other highlights were "Run," a set-closing "Smiley Faces," and even their ballad (which I'm not as into on record) "Who's Gonna Save My Soul." Naturally, "Crazy" was great to hear live, but I was a little surprised that the crowd didn't go, well, c...
Read more