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Posts Tagged ‘Ginger Baker’

Sun Eye Candy: John Lydon

January 31st, 2010 | No Comments

HEY, JOHNNY ROTTEN, YOU’RE MIDDLE AGED!

A hearty, happy 54th birthday to John Lydon! As the frontman/shit instigator for the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd. (PiL) he’s shaken up the musical establishment, left bruises on his contemporaries, hawked up more spit on stages than almost anyone but Joan Jett, and coincidentally made some of the most memorable (and forgettable) rock of the past 40 years. Love him or hate him (or perhaps most appropriately, a swirled mixture of the two), but there’s really no way to NOT react to Lydon, who excels at getting a rise out of even the most jaded amongst us. For example, JamBase’s Associate Editor – a Lydon vet since the early ’80s – once saw the man perform two songs before revealing that he had a banana lodged in his bum, which he then gave to a fan in the front row. Such antics are commonplace and intrinsic to Lydon’s, uh, charm. He’s one of those beasts put here to scatter the herd and incite riots, big and small. So, we say screw the Queen, God save Johnny Rotten!

We begin our natal day salute with some sandpaper PiL fun captured in the early ’80s in Tokyo.

Still a dead sexy spot of rebellion despite being covered by some god awful establishment acts in the ensuing decades, “Anarchy In The UK” will be a musical middle finger held aloft around the globe for as long as young men and women have a need to tell off those in charge.

There’s a great many Public Image Ltd. echoes in the current crop of Brooklyn indie acts rising in fame and popularity. Lydon just got to this sound about three decades before y’all!

Here’s Johnny and PiL’s Keith Levene chatting about their high minded notions for the band. It’s hard to know how much of what Lydon says is pure cheek and how much pure inspiration.

Today’s highly lucrative pop-punk acts have done little to improve on this one.

The sessions for 1986′s Album, where these two cuts are plucked from, featured Bill Laswell, Ginger Baker, Nicky Skopelitis, Tony Williams, Bernie Worrell, Jonas Hellborg, Steve Vai and other revered jam/jazz scene luminaries. It remains one of the great distillations of ’80s Cold War fear and apprehension.

And one for the Queen, and we think they really mean it, man.

Fela Kuti Reissues To Begin 2/16

January 29th, 2010 | No Comments

KNITTING FACTORY RECORDS TO RELEASE FIRST SET OF FELA KUTI REISSUES 2/16

Fela Kuti

Knitting Factory Records has announced that the first set of Fela Kuti reissues will be released on February 16, 2010. Since the reissues are being made available in chronological order, these six CDs (containing nine albums total) represent the earliest period of the Nigerian legend’s oeuvre.

The time span of the releases is 1969 – 1974, the era during which Fela first created the sound he was to call Afrobeat, a music he always contended was a modern form of danceable, African classical music that was created out of a cross-breeding of funk, jazz, salsa, calypso, with juju, highlife and African percussive patterns.

The titles that are being released are:

The ’69 L.A. Sessions

Live With Ginger Baker

London Scene/Shakara

Roforofo Fight/+2 Singles

Open & Close/Afrodisiac

Gentleman/Confusion

These records give the listener a fascinating glimpse into Fela’s earliest recordings with his first band, the Highlife group he formed in London called Koola Lobitos, and illustrate the evolution of his Afrobeat sound, his experiments with lengthy improvisation, and his emerging political voice, which was to become more scathing and direct as he got older. All of the titles are remastered and re-released in unique digi-packs with the original artwork.

The reissue series is well timed as it coincides with the critically acclaimed FELA!, the hit Broadway musical that celebrates Fela’s life and music. The play, which is leaving sold-out audiences astonished and breathless at the end of every performance, is directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Bill T. Jones and produced by Jay-Z and Will & Jada Pinkett Smith. The Eugene O’Neill Theatre has been dressed to look like the Shrine in Nigeria in which Fela performed for many years to his loyal local following and the world-renowned Antibalas and other members of the NYC Afrobeat community, under the direction of Aaron Johnson, perform Fela’s music live onstage.

The next group of reissues will be released in the spring.

Fool’s Gold: FoolÂ’s Gold

November 6th, 2009 | No Comments

By: Ron Hart

Given their penchant for incorporating the grooves of Mother Africa into their sound, Los Angeles’ Fool’s Gold has been dubbed the “West Coast Vampire Weekend.” However, unlike their New York City counterparts, this ten-man strong ensemble doesn’t merely whitewash the rhythms of the Dark Continent with silly songs about Oxford commas and Lil’ Jon. Rather, they dive headfirst into the complex Afro-funk grooves and highlife melodies with the aplomb of Naked-era Talking Heads, delivering a tight, thunderous homage to the West African guitar pop of King Sunny Ade on their incredible eponymous debut.

Frontman Luke Top alternates his vocals between English and his native Hebrew, which gives songs like “Ha Dvash” and “Posideon” a unique feel in their sense of ethnicity, while subliminally referencing the deep Jewish history that has existed in Africa within the landscape of such countries as Ethiopia, Egypt, and Tunisia that dates back to Biblical times. Elsewhere, particularly on the instrumental workout “Night Dancing,” the band seems more interested in just breaking off a piece of those restless polyglot boogies cooked up by Fela Kuti and Ginger Baker back in 1971. Don’t be a “Fool.” If you need help in choosing a band from the recent rash of Afro-indie acts flooding the market, go for the “Gold.”

JamBase | SoCal
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Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood:Live from Madison Square Garden

July 21st, 2009 | No Comments

By: Ron Hart

The reunion of former Blind Faith bandmates Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood marks the latest gold brick in Clapton’s path down memory lane that has seen the legendary British rock guitarist rekindle some of his most legendary collaborative partnerships in recent years ranging from his old Cream mates Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker to 461 Ocean Boulevard songwriting partner JJ Cale to fellow Yardbirds alumni Jeff Beck, not to mention his 2000 duet album with boyhood hero B.B. King, the worthwhile Riding With The King (which is long overdue for a revisit, at least in my own rotation).

However, in working together again with Winwood, EC seems more alive (sonically speaking) than he has in years. Well, at least from the sound of the reconvened duo’s immaculate concert recording from their trio of dates at the fabled Manhattan arena in February of 2008. Maybe it’s the sense of extra added love for the material performed at those shows or the genuine impenetrable chemistry these two old mates share together, but Live From Madison Square Garden (released May 19 on WEA/Reprise) arguably stands as Clapton’s finest official live release since the 1974 Rainbow Concert album, or at least since his stint as the lead guitarist in George Harrison’s band for the late Beatle’s long, lost Live in Japan from 1992. It certainly blows away the rather wooden performance he gave on that very MSG stage in 2005 when he got back together with Cream (a reunion commemorated on the CD/DVD release of the trio’s stiff performance at the Royal Albert Hall). At least from where I was sitting in the audience on the night I went, those gigs saw Jack Bruce carry the majority of those reunion shows with his fiery vocal delivery and impeccable bass playing while an unhealthy-looking Ginger struggled to keep up the pace on his drum set and Clapton essentially phoned in the riffs for “Spoonful” and “White Room” with a bored look on his face.

Such is not the case between Winwood and Clapton. Live From Madison Square Garden, released as a two-CD set and a DVD, shows both men sharing equal time on stage and hitting their marks with the enthusiasm and energy of men half their age. Ably supported by a stellar back-up group rounded out by session bassist extraordinaire Willie Weeks, Ian Thomas on drums and Chris Stainton on keyboards, the old friends ramble through the entirety of Side One of the Blind Faith album, highlighted by stellar renditions “Presence of the Lord” on disc one and a phenomenally soulful version of “Can’t Find My Way Home” on the second disc, not to mention BF’s cover of Sam Myers’ “Sleeping in the Ground,” a rarity that made its official debut on the 2001 deluxe edition of the super group’s 1969 masterpiece.

Clapton and Winwood round out the show with an apt sampling of their back catalogs, markedly Derek and the Dominoes’ “Tell The Truth”, Clapton’s own pair of smash hits in “After Midnight” (the original fast version, mind you, not the beer commercial edition) and “Cocaine,” and Winwood’s Traffic anthem “Dear Mr. Fantasy” (a big thanks to both Steve and Eric for avoiding their equally dreadful ’80s material). They also performed a slew of covers that make up almost a third of this collection, including a buoyant tribute to the late Buddy Miles with a brassy spin through “Them Changes,” a solo Winwood crooning his way through Ray Charles’ “Georgia On My Mind” and an ace pair of Jimi Hendrix covers, “Little Wing,” which Clapton originally took a stab at on Derek and the Dominoes’ Layla and other Assorted Love Songs, and a sprawling 16-plus minute jam through Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” (the Side One version) that features some of the most impassioned blues guitar this writer has heard EC burn through in years. In fact, to get the full effect, you might actually want to pick up the DVD, just so you can watch the master at work for yourself.

Any fan of the classic rock staples that both Clapton and Winwood have provided for three generations will certainly benefit from owning this most exceptional concert album.

JamBase | Big Apple
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