THE WEDNESDAY MUSIC SCENE, October 29 2014

.
.
Here’s a short but very complete edition covering tonight only. If you’re not getting Game Sevened or you’re looking for some post-game musica, we’ve gotcha covered.


<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
♪ WEDNESDAY’s CONCERTS,
JAMS, ETC.:
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>


Wed, Oct 29, in Torrance:
6-8:30 pm ANDY & RENEE play the Buffalo Fire Department, 1261 Cabrillo Av, Torrance.

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, in South Pasadena:
7 pm Weekly “WINE & SONG SERIES” brings acoustic music by BRAD COLERICK and his performing guest recording artists, at the Firefly Bistro, 1009 El Centro St, South Pasadena 91030; 626-441-2443.
+
No cover, but tell them you are there for the music and you will order food so you can get a seat where you can hear the performers.

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, in South Pasadena:
7:30-10:30 pm Weekly “IRISH TRAD SESSION” at Griffins of Kinsale, 1007 Mission St, South Pasadena; 626-799-0926.

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, in VC (Simi):
7:30-11 pm SONGMAKERS twice-monthly “SIMI VALLEY HOOT” in Simi Valley; location and info at www.songmakers.org

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, in Echo Park (L.A.):
8 pm ROBERT ELLIS & JONNY FRITZ play the Echo, 1822 Sunset Bl, Echo Park; 213-413-8200. www.attheecho.com.
+
Tix, $10 & $12, at: http://ticketf.ly/1Dn6ji1
Show is 18+.
+
JONNY FRITZ (formerly JONNY CORNDAWG) is an immaculate, hilarious and downright awesome folkster. Combine him with Robert Ellis this Wednesday and you've got yourself a fine evening at The Echo.
+
About ROBERT ELLIS…
+
“I want this record to be more about the Paul Simons and the Randy Newmans and the other half of my upbringing, which is very much rooted in pop.” – Ellis recently told Rolling Stone.
+
Robert Ellis is the kind of songwriter who only comes along once in a great while. With his first two albums, a promise was made. With his new record, The Lights from the Chemical Plant, that promise has been delivered and fully realized. The music, like the artist, refuses to accept the confines of a box, and burns white-hot from the inside out. But what seems even more striking about this record, this musician, even at a first glance, is that feeling of unyielding authenticity.
+
With every remarkable cut, with every twist and turn, Robert’s life and his experience, shine through. His days growing up in a small industrial town in Texas, his move to Houston, and now as a 24-year-old man, when not on the road performing around the world, living with his wife in Nashville.
+
The Lights from the Chemical Plant, produced with great care and precision by Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones), and recorded at Eric Masse’s Casino studio in East Nashville for New West Records, is an album that has a way of grabbing you by the hand and pulling you in so that it can play with your soul. Alive with memories and innovation, you become absorbed in the world Robert paints with his smoky lyrics, his hypnotic voice, and his masterful work on the guitar. But then something happens. Something new. Something special. And it begins with the very song for which the album is named, “Chemical Plant.” You realize that Robert’s building layer upon layer of different sounds from different places and different times. A synthesis of sounds and textures that pick you up and pull you in even deeper.
+
R&B, bossa nova, fusion, free jazz – from the rousing beat of “Good Intentions” to the floor stomping bluegrass anthem “Sing Along,” you’ve bought your ticket and you’re in for the ride. And so it goes, the floodgates standing wide open. The quiet, unexpected feel of a jazz guitar in perfect union with a steel guitar in the ballad, “Steady as the Rising Sun.” And so it goes. The soulful wobble of a saxophone in “Bottle of Wine,” and the dreamy pedal steel that draws you into “TV Song.” These are songs about love gained, about love lost, about growing up in a place where nobody stands too tall for fear of being knocked down (“Sing Along”). These are songs about lives broken, lives healed, and moving on.
+
As if that weren’t enough, Robert gives us his interpretation of Paul Simon’s classic, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” which is pure elegance, cut against the song “Only Lies” with its quiet pulse, its dusky blue lyrics, and the story of a man trying to help a friend who refuses to believe that her husband is cheating on her…
+
Only lies can comfort you,
Only lies will see you through.
Just because a thing’s convenient,
That doesn’t make it true.
Only lies can comfort you.
+
Ellis’ growth as a man and musician is clear on The Lights From The Chemical Plant. And while some may call it a musical departure from his past, The Houston Chronicle best explains: “Ellis doesn’t place limitations on his music. Any perceived departure is just part of an ongoing creative journey.”
+
More at robertellismusic.com
+
About JONNY FRITZ…
+
Nashville songwriter Jonny Fritz's work ethic and boldness have paid off in spades. It's been a big year for Jonny, with opening stints for Alabama Shakes, Deer Tick, Dawes, Shooter Jennings and rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson and kudos from CMT and Rolling Stone, among many others. He's signed a deal with indie label ATO Records (he actually signed the deal with gravy at Nashville landmark Arnold's Country Kitchen), and his third full-length album, Dad Country, is set for release on April 16, 2013.
+
Produced by Jonny and Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith, recorded at Jackson Browne's Los Angeles studio and finished up in Music City, USA, this is a breakthrough album, balancing Fritz's earthy trademark humor and unfiltered worldview with some of his darkest material to date. The album has a Nashville sound kept aloft on a sure Southern Californian wind, no doubt from the influence of his backing band: Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, Tay Strathairn and Wylie Gelber of Dawes, Jackson Browne, and his Nashville band of Spencer Cullum Jr, Joshua Hedley, Taylor Zachry and Jerry Pentecost.
+
Dad Country is also his first release under his real name, Fritz, with
Jonny ditching the "Corndawg" moniker he'd carried since his early teens.
Now a music veteran with a decade of touring under his belt, he's grown into an accomplished, mature voice in country music. Says co-producer Goldsmith, "Funny as they can be at moments, his songs access realities and experiences that we're all familiar with but sometimes fail to consider the depths of. I was really honored to work on the record. We tracked for two days and arranged the songs on the spot. Everyone really responded to each other's ideas and the whole experience was really inspiring and easy. I chalk it up to the quality of Jonny's songs on this record."
+
After nearly a decade spent on the road (since his late teens), it was well-earned luck that brought Jonny together with dream team that would bring Dad Country to life – including none other than Jackson Browne. Originally scheduled to record at another Los Angeles studio, Jonny and co-producer Taylor Goldsmith were left scrambling for a backup plan when their original producer flaked. As it happened, they were playing a show in Hollywood that week and Browne was in attendance. After the show, Browne approached Jonny and, learning of their troubles, generously offered up his studio. Just three weeks later, they were all holed up at Browne's, recording the new record.
+
Fritz and Goldsmith had rehearsed most the songs together, but the rest of the band had to learn them run-and-gun style in the studio, nailing many of the songs on the first time ever playing them together. In just four days, they pounded out 14 tracks in one long, inspired rush and this excitement pervades the results. "It was really spontaneous," Fritz says.
"We just pulled it out of our proverbial asses as we went along." Fritz later re-recorded two of the songs that had evolved significantly on the road since the studio session – the Red Simpson-esque "Fever Dreams" and down-home lament "Ain't It Your Birthday" – using his own band back in Nashville. With these, the record was ready and dead-on with Jonny's vision of Dad Country.
+
Like his songwriting heroes Tom T. Hall, Michael Hurley, Roger Miller and Clint Black, Jonny can turn phrases 'til you're dizzy, all while plucking your heartstrings or capturing a sharp, lonesome vulnerability that never seems lost or brooding. For Jonny Fritz is no tear-in-the-beer sap moaning over his lost love and troubles. He'd rather cry running marathons than sitting on a barstool. Rather than Outlaw Country, he prefers we think of him as "someone's weird Dad" and a musician of his own bent. He writes his every song with that deep country-music impulse to turn real experience into lyrical form.
+
Born in Montana and raised in Virginia, Jonny grew up in the middle of mountains and weirdos of every allegiance, developing a blind man's ear for the slightest turn in a tale or human voice. He dropped out of school and left home early, totally undaunted, and toured the country on his motorcycle, selling just enough music to keep his freedom and stay ahead of bitterness. "If I could sell three CDs a night, I would have enough for gas and to make it to the next town."
+
Cramming six lifetimes into six years and collecting triumphs and heartaches every corner of the globe, he eventually wound his way toward Tennessee. "Not because I wanted to break in over on Music Row and 'make it,' because I knew I didn't really belong there," he says. "I wanted to learn the ways of country music ... to get my education in this cool old world that exists only in Nashville."
+
While immersing himself in the music world, Jonny began running marathons from Philadelphia to Barcelona and pounding out his signature leather works- the dog collars and guitar straps- seen all over Nashville and half the musical universe. He found himself in NYC for year trying to save a relationship, and its slow, painful unraveling (and demise) inspired Dad Country's bleakest, heartrending tracks, including "All We Do Is Complain" and "Have You Ever Wanted to Die."
+
These days, life has never been better for Jonny Fritz. He's back in
Nashville again and putting down roots- and has even gone and bought himself a house. "It just keeps getting better. Now, the band is getting paid, I'm getting paid, everybody's happy, and we're packing 'em in when we play."
+
"This is the dream life. I couldn't really ask for anything else."
+
More at jonnyfritz.com/music
+
More about tonight and the venue at: http://www.theecho.com/event/670013-robert-ellis-jonny-fritz-los-angeles/

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, in SFV (Chatsworth):
8 pm HOLLYWOOD HILLBILLIES perform the first of two nights, plus, it’s the venue’s annual “POOL TOURNAMENT” starting at 7:30 pm, at the Cowboy Palace Saloon, 21635 Devonshire St, Chatsworth; 818-341-0166.
+
“POOL TOURNAMENT” is double elimination, blind draw partners; $5 per person (amount can change by players); $5 from Cowboy Palace per entry. Sign up with the bartenders.
+
This is L.A.’s last real honky-tonk, and always fun. Go early for the free dance lesson. No cover, full bar.

++++++

Wed, Oct 29, near LAX:
8 pm Weekly “GUITAROLOGY” brings various performers to the Melody Bar & Grill, 9132 S Sepulveda Bl, Los Angeles 90045; 310-670-1994.


<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>


<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
More, soon, as always.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>

We know, you may be reading this on another site. If so, check-in with us and let us know that all is good on that site, or that there’s questionable content there, if that’s the case.

Direct to the current editions /
.
MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY editions load quickly at
.
www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
.
CONTACT US at / send Questions / Comments to:
.
Tiedtothetracks (at) Hotmail (dot) com
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
Contents copyright © 2014,
Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
All rights reserved.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
.
The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS and views of interest to artists everywhere, more specifically to musicians and the creative community, and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music, both traditional and innovative. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues, and schedules of performances in Southern California venues large and small. We cover workshops and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kids o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to proto blues.
.
The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. We’re back. And we’re on it.
.
<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>-<^>
.