Showing posts with label The Black Crowes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Black Crowes. Show all posts

Mar 4, 2022

Mixed Music Action, Vol. 1, No. 1


Welcome to the inaugural edition of Mixed Music Action, a hybrid back-and-forth between Jeremy Pinnell and Kevin Broughton that touches on the worlds of music and mixed martial arts…and whatever else may suit them.

When Kevin interviewed Jeremy last fall in advance of the release of his phenomenal album, Goodbye L.A., he was delighted to learn that Jeremy practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and, like himself, is a big fan of the UFC. Two guys, two great topics and a platform like FTM? To quote UFC ring announcer Michael Buffer – though much more succinctly – “It’s time!”

KB: I caught a show with an artist last weekend -- the second-to-last show on this tour. He was really struggling with his voice, and I didn't envy him on the next night's show. That has to be a common problem in your line of work. Do you have a go-to, emergency throat remedy, beyond gargling salt water?

JP: First of all I want to say I’m happy we’re doing this. Gonna be fun.

So, losing your voice happens a lot. When you’re singing two hours a night -- and we’ve done four-hour nights -- it’s unavoidable. I supplement while on the road: Vitamin C, Vitamin D… I try not to smoke cigars. Throat Coat has been proven to work when necessary. But you have to go hard.

KB: When I recently asked you what's good to listen to these days, your first answer was the new Cactus Blossoms album. They remind me a lot of the early Jayhawks, right down to the Minneapolis roots. What about them do you find so appealing?

JP: I just dig their Everly Brothers sound. The harmonies, the hooks, the songwriting, etc. I also dig the Jayhawks and have seen them twice. Once when I was 16, they opened for The Black Crowes at Riverfront Coliseum 1993. The lights were on and people were strolling in when The Jayhawks played.

KB: Two poignant answers there. In a subtle way, you let me know that I’ve got a decade-plus on you, and now I’m jelly that I never saw the Jayhawks open for the pre-implosion Black Crowes. Whose idea was this feature, again?

Anyway, what's up with JP these days? You touring, raising young 'uns, rolling in the BJJ studio? A little of everything?

JP: I’ve been able to hit the Carlson Gym a little more, but touring is picking up quite a bit. I’m looking forward to summer. Yesterday was open mat at the gym, and my son and I went down, and some surrounding gyms showed up and everyone rolled for a couple hours. It was really cool seeing my son use the things he’s learned and enjoy himself. He’s seven, by the way. He and I have been enjoying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu quite a bit.

KB: Looking ahead to this weekend's UFC 272 card: The main event has "must see" written all over it, and to say there's bad blood between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal is like saying Jon Tyler dabbles in conspiracy theories. Covington is a sizeable favorite, and his only recent losses are to Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman. Jorge is a fan favorite who needs a win. 


Your thoughts on the matchup, please, and give me the winner and method of victory. I'll even go first and say Covington by unanimous decision; his wrestling's too much.

JP: So I talked to my BJJ instructor and asked him his thoughts. I’m a Jorge fan obviously, but he said Colby will probably wear him down by using his wrestling, and probably win by decision. But the cool thing about a fight is, anything can happen! I think Jorge is fighter’s fighter. I don’t think anyone will like Colby even if he does win. 

KB: Hmmm. Going to a ringer for advice on picks? I mean, I’m not calling Brent Cobb or Leroy Virgil for advice on what music questions to ask, but whatever.

Finally, pick me another winner on this fight card.

JP: I like Kevin Holland, but Alex Oliviera is fierce. I’ll take Alex. I’m also taking Edson Barboza over Bryce Mitchell, even though I like Bryce more. But who knows?*

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*Solid, underdog picks from the Kentucky Troubadour here, ladies & gents. Serious value plays.

--KB



Apr 7, 2021

Top 10 Biggest Jerks in Southern Rock


Most of these “jerk” lists have been surprising. This one, not as much. Rock stars are well known for ego and snotty behavior. Even though they may put off good vibes online or when meeting fans, here are some of Southern Rock’s most egregious offenders.


10. Gregg Allman

Only married Cher to piss off southern rock fans. Kept bus fridge stocked with clean urine despite never actually having to take drug tests. 


9. Wes Bayliss (The Steel Woods)

Thinks turn signals are for the weak. Has a side job as one of those people who calls you about your car’s warranty. 


8. Marcus King

Still draws dicks on sleeping bandmates like it’s a 1997 frat house. Insists upon a state trooper entourage walking him to the stage. 


7. Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites)

Only plays “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” in a medley at concerts. Hangs the toilet paper “under.” 


6. Cody Cannon (Whiskey Myers)

Puffs, puffs, puts it out. Secretly a hit pop-country songwriter under the alias Corey Crowder. Burps and blows in your face. 


5. Susan Tedeschi

Only allows mainstream country stations to be played over the tour bus speakers. Makes band sign non-disclosure agreements so no one knows about her Red Man habit. One member is being fired at this moment.


4. Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke)

Talks in a fake Southern aristocrat accent for interviews. Doesn’t flush. Doesn’t put his grocery cart up. 


3. Dale Krantz Rossington (The Rossington Band, Skynyrd)

Used to hide rotten fruit in Leon Russell’s beard while he was asleep. Cheats at Words with Friends. Hollers “Play Free Bird!” while actually on the stage with Lynyrd Skynyrd. 


2. Derek Trucks

Never responds to text messages. Intentionally uses poor grammar and spelling on Facebook posts to trigger perfectionists. Personally selects the pre-show monitor music: all Ricky Martin hits. Doesn’t pick up after his dog.


1. Chris Robinson

Whoops. Actually is a jerk. Sorry for ending this on a downer. 


Mar 24, 2020

Album Review / Trigger Hippy / Full Circle & Then Some

By Travis Erwin
The title of Trigger Hippy’s latest album, Full Circle & Then Some is fitting in so many ways given the journey that the individual members have taken to find each other and form this collective. And, the title also is indicative of the band’s sound which often circles back to replicate sounds of other, memorable music which gives these tracks a jam band kind of vibe, that showcases the talent at hand without fully establishing a definitive essence for Trigger Hippy themselves. On this, the sophomore album for the band, it still feels at times as if the band is trying to establish precisely what they will become. That is not to say the insane amount of talent does not deliver a richness of sound and the strength of this collection is the obvious musicianship and the variation delivered both vocally and in the musical styles.
The album opens with Don’t Wanna Bring You Down, a track with a Southern Rock and Roll Funk vibe, complete with a lively groove and layered harmonies. A hard drum beat ushers in The Butcher’s Daughter which for me conjured thoughts of Dusty Springfield with its narrative soulful vocals.


Strung Out On The Pain is my favorite track among the dozen making up this album. Delivering the aura of old school country song from the late 80’s or early 90s this is a song that you can either two-step through the pain to, or kick back with whiskey in hand and reflect while your body goes numb.
The jam band spirit lands hard on Born To Be Blue. This eight plus minute track is long on ethereal intro mood setting, before the harmonies roll in like ocean waves some two minutes in. Overall, this one felt a bit like Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride and hit me as a song meant to fire one up and burn it down without ever having to change grooves. The end of the track settles into what I’d describe as a nice underwater conversation with a friendly whale.
The Door opened with a vocal style that brought to mind Harper Valley PTA before layering in a melody reminiscent at times of the recently departed, Kenny Roger’s Love Will Turn You Around and it was such blends of recognizable elements of music past, that kept me from ever completely settling into this album.
The title track, Full Circle and Then Some lands square in the middle of the cuts and as I stated in the opening paragraph is spot on in capturing the theme. The focus lyrically is on an old relationship and comes via a rocking soulful style that is as smooth and easy to listen to, and sing along with. A bluesy harmonica and low, lazy days of summer vocal style, clean and pure and direct delivers Dandelion.
Adding to the plethora of sounds, Goddamn Hurricane comes with a bluegrass vibe that feels a lot like a new track from the deeply missed band, The Gourds. That funky string arrangement vocal style made this my second favorite song among the twelve offerings. Long Lost Friend gives us tinkle keys and a honey sweet vocal groove. Fans of The Tractors and Confederate Railroad will enjoy One Of Them for its boogie beat and harmonious bounce.


Ironically, Low Down Country Song just might be the purest rock song on the album. That said it is still far more real, genuine, and thereby country, than damn near anything you will hear on Mainstream Country radio where everyone is hell-bent to be a Hip-Hop Pop star while dancing in bedazzled jeans on a jacked up truck’s tailgate as they sing about cliched dirt roads. Speaking of roads, Paving The Road closes out the album with an entirely different sound vocally.
Where exactly the road leads for Trigger Hippy remains to be seen, as the band has now given us two albums each with a slightly different lineup. There is promise of a bright future given the incredible talent present across this spectrum of styles and sounds. The harbingers of these talented musicians’ pasts lingers within these songs and while I appreciate the difficulty of launching new creative projects without bringing some elements of that with you, I found myself often comparing the tracks here to something that came before it. Talent and experience are great things to have, and as this band forms more of an identity tied solely to their existence, I expect Trigger Hippy to take aim with even more precision.  
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Travis Erwin is an author and freelance author. His work ranges from the comedic memoir, THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES to the emotional novel WAITING ON THE RIVER, and includes the Townes Van Zandt inspired TWISTED ROADS. You can contact Travis via Twitter @TravisErwin or find his music reviews across a number of outlets.

Nov 19, 2019

The Black Crowes / "She Talks to Angels" / Howard Stern Show

(Yes, they're back together... at least the brothers and some other dudes are ... and touring in 2020)

Nov 8, 2019

Hard To Handle: page-churning Black Crowes memoir pulls back curtain on dysfunction, wasted potential


By Kevin Broughton

The Black Crowes could have become the greatest American rock and roll band of all time, or at least in the conversation with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. Around the time the scourge of hair “metal” was fading and the fad that would become grunge was just kicking up, the band from Georgia revived Stones-style, blues-based rock in a way only Aerosmith had done (and then, briefly) before them. 

Fans of the band saw the potential immediately; within a few years and albums, though, they became vaguely aware of the dysfunction that would cripple the band. Sure, Chris and Rich Robinson didn’t get along, but how bad could it be?

Worse than anyone could have imagined, it turns out. And thanks to former drummer Steve Gorman’s enthralling memoir, Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of The Black Crowes, fans get an intimate look at a slow-motion train wreck. Think of Almost Famous in real life, with fist-fights.

Gorman, the youngest of eight kids from Hopkinsville, dropped out of Western Kentucky University in the late 1980s to move to Atlanta and join a band – a band that didn’t yet exist. He didn’t own a drum kit; bought his first one about a week after arriving. He had only “air-drummed.”

It was also about a week into his Atlanta residency that he met Chris Robinson, then fronting Mr. Crowe’s Garden. When Drivin N Cryin poached drummer Jeff Sullivan, Chris (who had recently gone cold-turkey off his antidepressants after his therapist committed suicide) gave Gorman the hard sell. He soon relented and along with Rich (still in high school), formed the core of what would become the Black Crowes.

Steve Gorman
Fortune smiled on the band early. It was a different era in the music business, obviously, but they were on the fast track after being signed to Ric Rubin’s label, Def American. George Drakoulias prudently informed the band they needed to tour and practice more before hitting the studio. Before heading back to Los Angeles, Drakoulias gave them some sage advice: Start listening to the Stones, like Beggars Banquet- and Exile-era Stones. And to young Rich Robinson: Learn to play in open G tuning, like Keith does. This, without question, impacted the Crowes’ sound on their first three albums – and their overall sound -- more than anything else. Gorman, incidentally, refers to Rich as a guitar savant; the same applies to himself behind a drum kit. Those two were the instrumental backbone of the Black Crowes.

Drakoulias produced the first two records, Shake Your Money Maker and (to this day the band’s masterpiece) The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. So, after massive record sales, universal critical acclaim and touring all over America and Europe, what’s the next move? Chris decides the band doesn’t need a producer anymore. Oh, the hubris that ensued.

Quick, what’s the first thing that comes to mind about their third album, Amorica? Probably the album cover: a young lady’s midsection clad only in American-flag bikini bottoms, with, uh, some grass showing on the field.

Gorman: “Chris, what the hell are you thinking? Places like Wal Mart and K-Mart will never carry this album.” (They didn’t.)

Chris: “I don’t care. Black Crowes fans don’t shop at those places.”

Predictably, album sales absolutely tanked as a result. (It’s a shame, too, because Amorica is probably the band’s second-best record.) It would be the first of many times Chris Robinson would presume to speak for Black Crowes fans, and over the years he’d be proven wrong manifestly and continually. At one point Gorman, sick of the presumption, told him, “You have no idea how to relate to our fans. How much money would you say you spend on weed in a year?” Not batting an eye or catching the gist, Chris deadpanned, “About a hundred grand.”

Over the next dozen years, Chris would – time and again – drop a grenade into the band’s midst. There’s a clinical term for someone who is incapable of empathy and engages in destructive behavior when success would otherwise abound. Gorman never calls Chris Robinson a sociopath, or even bipolar. But he’s surely thought it. The Robinson brothers were toxically codependent, and it spread through the band. Rich had been bullied by his older brother all his life, and rather than stand up to him, he took it out on his band mates in passive-aggressive fashion. Gorman, the runt of his own (much larger) familial litter, exasperatedly gave Rich some advice: “Next time, take a folding chair and smash Chris right in the f*cking face with it. Send his ass to the hospital, and I promise you, this will stop.” If Rich had taken it to heart and followed through, Gorman’s book would be alternate history.

But he didn’t. Many, many times, Gorman – after enduring a Chris Robinson tantrum of verbal abuse – offered him a free first punch. Had Chris taken him up, we’d again be looking at a different Crowes retrospective. He’s a bully who’s never endured a good ass-whipping, and Black Crowes fans are the worse for it.

Gorman would leave the band after the 2010 tour and return a few years later in response to the pleadings of the Robinsons and the band’s manager. This time, they promised, it would be different. And it would, for a little while. Then, in 2014 it was all over again. Rich released a letter explaining that the band was done, seemingly taking the high road: “I love my brother and respect his talent, but his present demand that I must give up my equal share of the band and that our drummer for 28 years and original partner, Steve Gorman, relinquish 100% of his share, reducing him to a salaried employee, is not something I could agree to.”

Oh, the irony. Several years earlier, the Robinsons – both of them – had written Gorman and demanded he give up his ownership in the band they’d formed together. The drummer called their bluff and was ready to walk until they quickly relented.

Each of the book’s 40 chapters are packed with vignettes that will leave fans shaking their heads at what might have been. No spoiler here, but the one that sums it all up involves Jimmy Page. You remember they toured together and made a double album, right?


Of all the infuriating episodes in Gorman’s tell-all, it’s the one that will piss you off the most.

Still, it’s a book you can’t put down. As in, buy it on a Friday afternoon and you’re up till 3:30 a.m. reading.

And you’ll finish it while watching your favorite team the next day…in between plays.

Gorman says, “This isn’t the story of the Black Crowes, but it’s my story of the Black Crowes.” It’s one well told, but ultimately sad. I hope the movie isn’t a letdown. Meantime, let’s remember what was, and what could have been.


Sep 27, 2019

Whiskey Myers: A Self-Titled Masterpiece

By Kevin Broughton

When Whiskey Myers front man Cody Cannon got the call last year, the band was in the studio working on what would become their fifth, self-titled album. The pitch: Would the group like to appear in Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone? Not just on the soundtrack, but in an actual scene? 

It was a no-brainer, and a decision that had nearly immediate – and retroactive – benefits for the Palestine, Texas-based Red Dirt rockers, as noted by Saving Country Music:

In the aftermath of the episode, the band’s most recent album, Mud, went to No. 1 on the iTunes country chart, and Top 20 all-genre on the hourly-updating aggregator. Also, their album Firewater came in at No. 3 in country, and the album Early Morning Shakes came in at #9. On the iTunes country songs chart, the song “Stone” was in the Top 10.

In an ever-evolving music business, independent artists often find a shot in the arm of exposure from film and television; Colter Wall, Chris Stapleton and Scott Biram all got boosts from appearing on the soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water. But Whiskey Myers’ catapult ride from relative obscurity to the forefront of commercial success was almost otherworldly. The Yellowstone appearance landed three previous records – dating back seven years – in the country Top Ten. That momentum set the stage perfectly for the band’s self-titled album released today. 

Their two previous offerings, 2016’s Mud and Early Morning Shakes from 2014, were both helmed by all-world producer and Grammy machine Dave Cobb. For their fifth release, though, the band decided to produce it themselves. Lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist John Jeffers emphasizes how a sense of collaboration and experimentation really defined their whirlwind eighteen days of recording at the Sonic Ranch studio, outside of El Paso. “There’s never a right or wrong answer when it comes to ideas,” he says. “We would run every single idea from everyone — some work and some don’t, but we give them all a shot. And then there’s that magical moment when the whole band hears it, your eyes get a twinkle — ‘That’s it, that’s us!’”

Their do-it-yourself result is a Southern rock masterpiece.

The album kicks off with “Die Rockin’.” Cannon’s raspy, proud vocals are right in your face – and you definitely feel the influence of co-writer Ray Wylie Hubbard. 


Over the course of fourteen tracks, though, songs expand, moods change and songs like “Bury My Bones” and “California to Carolina” explore different stories and emotions. “You want an album to be like a rollercoaster,” says Jeffers. “Does it really take you for a ride, with ups and downs and some loops and sometimes you’re upside down?”

There are indeed shifts in the album’s momentum and flow. “Bitch” is the best indictment of Bro-country you’ll ever find

Collaborative writing with Adam Hood (“Rolling Stone”) and Brent Cobb (“Running”) provide balance and country texture. Ultimately, however, this is a Southern rock album in the very best tradition of the nearly forgotten genre. “Houston County Sky” channels The Marshall Tucker Band, and “Little More Money” and “Bad Weather” are right out of Dirty South-era Drive By Truckers. “Hammer” is a sultry, swampy reminiscence of early Black Crowes.

Whiskey Myers has positioned itself on the cusp of rarified air; can they enjoy widespread mainstream success without benefit of commercial radio in the way, say, Jason Isbell has in recent years? We’re about to find out. This album is a triumph. 

Whiskey Myers is available everywhere you consume music today.

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