SPECIAL EDITION: look who's back where, and a pair of reviews

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Tied to the Tracks
ACOUSTIC AMERICANA
MUSIC GUIDE
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Special edition, August 3, 2009
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What’s in here:
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** RONNIE MACK'S BARN DANCE goes to a new night in a new (old) home. When something legendary makes a move, it’s news. And we don’t want you to look for it where it isn’t, anymore.
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** Plus, we bring you TWO FRESH REVIEWS of recent live performances.
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** AND DON’T WORRY: you can still read the CURRENT REGULAR EDITION OF THE ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE, with all its nice, chronological and detailed event listings, at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2009/07/acoustic-americana-music-guide-first.html
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and use the basic url to check for the latest updates; we publish often, at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com
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NEWS…
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RONNIE MACK'S BARN DANCE busts a move. When the current edition of the Guide was published (url just above) we didn’t know about the impending changes. Here’s the scoop:
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Mon, Aug 3, first Mon, every month:
8 pm-1 am “RONNIE MACK'S BARN DANCE” with a full lineup of guest performers and THE BARNDANCE BAND has MOVED to Monday’s and is now at Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill (at the old Crazy Jack’s), 4311 W Magnolia Bl (between Cahuenga Bl & Pass Av), Burbank; 818-729-0905; venue info, www.danceatjoes.com/barndance; series info, www.myspace.com/421889964. Since 1988, Ronnie Mack has marshaled forward the Los Angeles roots and alt country scene with his once-a-month Ronnie Mack's Barn Dance. It’s simply amazing who has played the series. In 2003, Jim Hollander filmed his documentary, "First Tuesdays at Ronnie Mack's Barndance," featuring performances and interviews with series alumni Dwight Yoakam, Dave Alvin, Rosie Flores, Big Sandy, James Intveld, Mike Stinson and more. It’s available at www.hollandermedia.com. In addition to each month’s lineup of guest performers, there’s always the BARN DANCE BAND. That brings Ronnie Mack on lead vocals & rhythm guitar (with a lead here & there), Skip Edwards on the keys, Marty Rifkin on Pedal Steel, Harry Orlove on lead guitar, Paul Marshall (I See Hawks in L.A.) on bass, Dave Raven on drums (or on occasion John Palmer). More on Ronnie Mack and his legendary Barn Dance at www.electricearl.com/BDance.html
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Tonight’s lineup is:
BIG NAY MCNEELY, DAVID SERBY, 50 CENT HAIRCUT, THE VAQUETONES, QUENBY & THE WEST WAYLAND BAND, GRANT LANGSTON AND THE SUPERMODELS. As David Serby says, “Come out and support Ronnie Mack in his first month back at the old Crazy Jack’s – Joe’s Great American Bar & Grill.”
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REVIEWS of recent live performances…
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We’re bringing you a pair of ‘em, from shows in the past few days.
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First is THE BOHEMIAN SOUL RUSTLERS in a cb floyd review of their July 29 show.
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Second is THE HOUSTON JONES BAND in a Larry Wines review for the Live Music Alliance (http://livemusicalliance.wordpress.com) from their August 2 show.
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REVIEW:

THE BOHEMIAN SOUL RUSTLERS, July 29, 2009, at the Coffee Gallery Backstage, 2029 N Lake Av, Altadena; reserv 626-398-7917; info www.coffeegallery.com.

by cb floyd

Imagine if you will, what is must have been like in the early ’60s...hanging out in a little coffee house in "The Village" after work, sipping on a hot, dark, aromatic beverage while devouring maybe a bagel or a pastry (to counterbalance the caffeine), chatting about philosophy or politics to whomever would listen. When suddenly, up to the open mic steps this scrawny, blue-jeaned, dark brown-mopped adolescent named Robert Zimmerman, with guitar in front and a harmonica wired to his jaw. And with the most nasally voice imaginable reaches into the depths of your soul and scrawls out images of his poetry on the canvases of your mind.

Well, that same phenomenon took place a week ago at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena, California. Only this time, it was the Bohemian Soul Rustlers. And from their first moments, with their blend of bongos, pan flutes, guitars, bells, three-part harmonies and even a didgeridoo, they tore open a portal to another world and threw the audience wholesale from the confines of that room.

Duane Thorin, his partner Michael Puccini, and their special guest Brandon Williams, ripped open a hole in the time-space continuum and submerged us all in a heady brew of eclectic musicianship. Mixing Maynard G. Krebbs with Marion Anderson, they added a little Louie Prima and Al Jolson, threw in some Paul Robeson and some Lerner and Loewe, stirred in some vintage Cream, and then sprinkled it all with Cat Stevens and the Smothers Brothers as they took the classics and standards of old and remade them into their own image. Blending fresh with familiar, they created their unique “Bohemian” sound. Along with their inimitablesavoir faire, they made their set one of my most memorable musical experiences in decades and left the audience mesmerized and enthralled yet screaming for more.

I loved their act, I loved their improvisations, I loved their wit and wisdoms and monologues and repartees, and I really loved their musicianship. Don't miss these guys. They are special.

Reviewed by cb floyd.

cb floyd, who prefers lower case, had his first book (his “autobiography, as it were”), published in January. It’s entitled “Dreams, Ghosts and Miracles.” He has “been around the folk music scene for all of my adult life...starting in North Carolina when I was at Duke (the bluegrass bands are outstanding there).” He continues, “One of my earlier beloved spiritual moments was when I got to see Dotty West sing ‘500 Miles’ at McCabe's. And another was when I got to see Malvina Reynolds sing ‘Little Boxes’ up at Amherst College. And of course, there was ‘Alice's Restaurant’ that Duane and I did for Thanksgiving some years back...that was a moment, for sure.”

(Editor’s note: Venue impresario Bob Stane has been making rather frequent use of the Bohemian Soul Rustlers as an opening act, since their debut earlier this summer. Duane Thorin, the band’s guitar-playing vocalist, goes waaaay back with Bob Stane. He worked for Bob when Bob owned and operated another legendary venue, The Ice House. It was there that Bob Stane essentially gave birth to the comedy club movement. In those days, that venue was half comedy, half folk music, and booked such young whippersnappers as Jay Leno, David Letterman, Gallagher, The New Christy Minstrels, and Duane Thorin. A quick note about the other regulars in the band: Michael Puccini is a fine pianist, and his multi-instrumental repertoire includes the pan flute. Often, Bill Burnett (Bill Burnett & the Backboners) joins them. The inclusion of Brandon Williams spans the generations, since he is quite young. Of course, all of them sing.)

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REVIEW:

HOUSTON JONES BAND, August 2, 2009, at the Coffee Gallery Backstage, 2029 N Lake Av, Altadena; reserv 626-398-7917; info www.coffeegallery.com.

by Larry Wines

This evening, I went to see the San Francisco Bay Area-based Houston Jones Band at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena.

Now, I’m immediately going to interject something. Wait for the superlatives. I want to share this as it unfolded.

Having been among the first radio shows to play their music a few years back, I knew them to be a good Americana band. Their first set tonight was about what I remembered from three or so years ago, when last I saw them perform. I had always found them to be instrumentally solid, quite good, actually, but somewhat deficient in lyrical substance. Had I left tonight’s show at halftime, that's still what I'd think of them.

But, during the break, Glen "Houston" Pomianek played a duo mini-set with his son, who turns out to be a fine mandolin player. (The son is not in the band. In fact, he lives in San Diego, and the band has no mando player.) That was when I saw the true virtuosity of Glen "Houston" on the guitar.

That interlude mini-set is quite uncommon at the venue, which takes the mid-show break to allow patrons to satiate themselves with excellent coffeehouse fare from “out front.”

The band returned for the second set, and devoted it, almost entirely, to the originals on their upcoming CD. Wow. Depth, breadth, a spectrum of Americana from blues to bluegrass to Django-style gypsy jazz, with plenty of brilliantly interwoven incorporations of everything from rock anthems to Broadway. No, not some goofy omnibus of soup-to-nuts, because they could. Rather, a set brimming with surprises of fresh motifs woven one into another, and all working so well -- in such inspired arrangements -- that even as you were surprised, you were saying to yourself, "of course, THAT works."

Along with that, their lyrical songwriting has taken a quantum leap. One bluegrass gospel original is so good I told the writer to pitch it to Ricky Scaggs. It's perfect for his band and his hardcore gospel audience, and musically far better than 99% of today’s rather one-dimensional mainstream gospel songs. It sounds like a 75-year-old classic.

When I wrote the description for the show for this week’s Acoustic Americana Music Guide (http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com), I added, without hesitation, a “Show-of-The-Week” pick notation. In part, that write-up reads, “Houston Jones is a high-octane Americana quintet... The band performs a mostly original repertoire that ranges from bluegrass and folk to blues and gospel. Featuring the mile-a-minute flatpicking of guitarist Glenn ‘Houston’ Pomianek (voted ‘best guitarist for 2009’ by the Northern California Bluegrass Society); the band delivers the honky tonk vocals and guitar of Travis Jones; there’s Henry Salvia on keyboard and accordion; Chris Kee on standup bass, cello and acoustic guitar; and, Peter Tucker on drums and percussion. Tonight, they are joined by special guest Chojo Jacques on fiddle and mandolin.”

That pre-show write-up continues, “It's worth noting that Chojo, Chris, Peter and Glenn are all alumni of the WAYBACKS, and that Houston Jones were voted the ‘best discovery’ of the Fall 2005 Strawberry Music Festival.”

And it notes, “Jim Lee, writing in Dirty Linen Magazine, says ‘No one delivers the goods quite like Houston Jones....Houston Jones remains one of the West Coast's most talented and entertaining bands.’”

Clearly, there’s reason to expect a lot. So let’s return to tonight’s show.

Some may find it odd that they're a five-piece wherein guitarist Jones and drummer Tucker both look like old t-shirted bikers, while Houston and Kee look better, almost like jazz men, in their button shirts. But musically, they play as a tight unit and they thrill a room.

At one point tonight, they were playing as three acoustic 6-strings, plus keyboard in piano mode, and their percussionist had detached a cymbal and was strolling through the audience, playing it with a brush. Totally engaging, and each element of that worked to perfection.

On a personal note, perhaps you can imagine that, as a music journalist, editor, and radio host who often emcees at festivals, I get hit-on all the time with requests to review CDs. While that’s humbling, I don’t often succumb to it, because the time requirements would be overwhelming; so, I must (almost always) try to extricate myself in some hopefully delicate manner. This time, I jumped right in, telling each band member that I want an advance copy of the new CD in time to have my review available when they do their publicity.

Even before I received the request for this review, I had already written a friend who operates a venue, telling her, “You should book them anytime after the new album is out this fall. There are multiple songs there that should make the Americana Top Ten chart, and win Americana Music Association top awards.”

The Houston Jones Band has made a quantum leap, and that will surely be apparent in their soon-to-be released new album. If you get a chance to catch a live show, do it, and request all the new songs you can get them to play.

~ Larry Wines, programmer-producer-host, “Tied to the Tracks” acoustic Americana radio, syndicated from Los Angeles, with live in-studio performance-interviews, included in “The Best of L.A. 2006” radio lineup by Los Angeles Magazine; editor, “Acoustic Americana Music Guide & News” at http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com and
www.nodepression.com/profile/TiedtotheTracks and additional “TttT” news is on the No Depression page and at www.myspace.com/laacoustic; Larry is a consultant to artists, musicians, songwriters, festivals, and the music biz, and a feature writer and columnist for FolkWorks (www.folkworks.org).

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The MOST RECENT EDITIONS - the GUIDE’s event calendars with descriptive write-ups, AND the Acoustic Americana Music News Features – are available at
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http://acousticamericana.blogspot.com
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News of the “Tied to the Tracks” radio show is probably here somewhere, or maybe it’s at www.myspace.com/laacoustic and / or, on No Depression, at http://community.nodepression.com/profile/TiedtotheTracks
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Questions? Comments? Contact us at tiedtothetracks@hotmail.com
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