You want some Latin Boogaloo? We got some Latin boogaloo for ya. Free MP3 + promo video clip, below.

By Blurt Staff

A deluxe 2-disc, 34-track box set of the father of Latin Boogaloo, Joe Cuba, is en route from Fania Records on Feb. 23 - it's to commemorate the passing, one year ago, of the legendary bandleader and master conga player.   A Man and His Music - El Alcalde Del Barrio collects a slew of recordings never previously compiled in album form along with massive hits like "Bang Bang" and "El Pito (I'll Never Go Back to Georgia)." 

Free MP3: "Bang Bang"

The career-spanning collection was selected and researched by Latin music veteran and prominent producer Bobby Marín, and the tracks have been digitally remastered from the original master tapes. The deluxe set includes a 32-page booklet with extensive liner notes in English and Spanish written byMarín, never-seen photos, and the album covers of Cuba's great recordings. The set joins The Man and His Music series that has featured such artists as Tito Rodríguez, Celia Cruz, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón, and Rubén Blades, all on the Fania label, whose catalog Código Music recently acquired. Joe Cuba: The Man and His Music is the second release in this series from Código Music.

The backstory:

Joe Cuba's music embodied a perfect balance of sounds and lyrics (both in English and Spanish) that appealed to both Anglo listeners as well as his core Latin devotees.  After listening to songs like "Swinging Mambo" you can hear how the "mayor of the barrio" infiltrated into the Jewish and Italian markets in New York and eventually nationwide.  As architect of the Joe Cuba sound, Joe was adept at creating pure excitement in all of his 240 recorded titles.  Few entertainers can claim to have performed at Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Palladium, Madison Square Garden, and the Caribbean Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, but Joe certainly could.

Joe Cuba (Gilberto Navarro) was born on April 22, 1931, in Spanish Harlem, New York City, where his Puerto Rican parents moved in the late ‘20's. Captivated by the conga playing of Sabu Martínez, Gilbert took the opportunity to learn the instrument while recovering from a broken leg suffered playing stickball. Gilbert jammed in the street until given the chance to replace Sabu for a few months as part of a local band, La Alfarona, X in 1950.  Shortly after, he joined Spanish Harlem's Joe Panama Quintet, where Jimmy Sabater was a timbales player. After recruiting vibraphonist Tommy Berrios, Gilbert and the band had a falling out with Panama and formed the Cha Cha Boys with Gilbert Calderón as the bandleader. Much to his surprise, Gilbert would soon be billed as "Joe Cuba" by his promoter, Catalino Rolón, and the name would stick.

A generation of Latinos growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1960's were influenced by their parents more traditional musical tastes, but adapted and combined it with the R&B and Bebop of the time to create their own unique style, which became known as Boogaloo.  Joe Cuba was instrumental in the development of boogaloo and had the biggest hit of the 60s with "Bang Bang," which achieved unprecedented success for Latin music in the US in 1966 when it sold over one million copies.  Joe's pivotal role in the boogaloo style had him nicknamed the "Father of Latin Boogaloo," and his leadership in the community had him coined rightfully so, "the mayor of the barrio" (El Alcalde Del Barrio).

Incidentally, coming up next week and the week after are three unique record release parties in San Francisco, Los Angeles and NYC:

2/11 - SF Record Release Party at the Elbo Room featuring Chico Mann performing live Joe Cuba songs.

2/12 - LA Record Release Party at the Mint featuring Chico Mann and The Boogaloo Assassins performing live Joe Cuba songs.

2/24 - NYC Record Release Party - Full Details tba.

Album Artwork (above) Features Photographs of The Large Hadron Collider at CERN (Switzerland), The Largest Machine in the World.(What the heck is a Hadron Collider?!?) Band Features Nels Cline, Scott Amendola & Devin Hoff, While Live Guests Ono Bonus Album Include David Witham, Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), John Dieterich (Deerhoof) & Satomi Matsuzaki (Deerhoof).

By Blurt Staff

The concept of duality has been a defining characteristic of guitarist Nels Cline since he first emerged in the late 1970s. On one hand, there's the harmonically sophisticated, compositionally rich Nels Cline who contributed to jazz recordings by everyone from Tim Berne to Vinny Golia to Julius Hemphill. On the other, there's the more extreme, visceral Nels Cline, who brought unbridled power and reckless abandon to the post-punk, alternative rock of Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, and The Geraldine Fibbers. Thirty years on, Cline continues to explore this dichotomy, whether it's in his role as lead guitarist for famed rockers Wilco or with The Nels Cline Singers, his flagship group for the last ten years. Initiate, the Singers' fourth release, approaches the concept of Yin and Yang with a series of firsts for both the group and its leader.

It's due April 13 on Cryptogramophone Records and comes with a bonus 70-minute live disc taken from a September 2009 performance at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco, the Singers' first live album.

The differences between the two discs are as stunning as they are revealingly demonstrative of the shared language that Cline, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola have built over the years. The studio disc, described by producer David Breskin (Ronald Shannon Jackson, Bill Frisell, John Zorn) as "technicolor, non-naturalistic, hyper-sensuous," explores a variety of musical touchstones that have been an integral part of Cline's DNA from the very beginning but are, in some ways, making their first overt appearances just now. The live disc, contrarily, is "stark, raw, a black-and-white movie,"?-?an incendiary ‘what you see is what you get' document. Here the Singers perform material dating as far back as the episodic avant-bop of "Sunken Song" (from Cline's 2000 Cryptogramophone debut, The Inkling) to the most recent "Thurston County" (from the guitarist's 2009 solo album, Coward) which, with Hoff and Amendola in tow this time, turns into a far more jagged and fiery tribute to the guitarist's occasional co-conspirator Moore.

Initiate is also the first Singers album not recorded and produced by the longstanding Crypto team of engineer Rich Breen and producer/label head Jeff Gauthier. Engineer Ron Saint Germain (Bad Brains, Ornette Coleman, Soundgarden) brings something different to the table, especially on the studio disc, where Cline indulges himself in a program as close to sheer beauty as any he's ever done. The Singers go early-‘70s Miles on the groove-centric "Floored," then revel in the delicately lush ambience of "You Noticed," where Hoff delivers the most lyrical contrabass solo of his career. "King Queen," with guest organist David Witham, cops an early-Santana vibe and Cline's Afrobeat vernacular turns it into a vehicle for his most passionate, soaring guitar solo of the disc. "Divining" features Amendola's mbira, wordless vocals (yet another first: the Singers sing) and Cline's softly strummed guitar gradually assuming more grit and grist, while "Grow Closer" turns to Egberto Gismonti and the rainforests of Brazil, all refracted through the Singers' unique prism.

This is not to suggest that the extremes so endemic to Cline and the Singers are missing from Initiate's studio disc. Even the relentless build to a thundering climax on "Mercy (Procession)," reflecting Cline's recent preoccupation with the passing of keyboardist and composer Joe Zawinul, starts with a gentle whisper. And Cline's command of color - combined with Amendola's excursions into the electronic and Hoff's electric bass (another first) - has never been more comprehensive, bookending the disc with "Into It" and "Into It (You Turn)," two tracks of textural richness utterly new in the Singers' repertoire.

The live disc has its share of firsts, too. In addition to four tracks culled from The Inkling, Coward and the Singers' heralded 2004 release, The Giant Pin, Cline contributes two new tunes. The head-banging pulse of "Raze" is an ear-shattering context for Cline to go places few guitarists are bold enough to go, while "Forge" revolves around a brooding electric arpeggio that builds with absolute inevitability: Amendola's turbulent kit work, Hoff's throbbing low end and Cline's Hendrixian extremes turn it into the sonic equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider's proton-smashing harnessing of 1.18 trillion electron volts.

Nor do the Singers deny their jazz roots, with an expanded version of The Giant Pin's "Blues, Too" paying angular tribute to the great Jim Hall. It may only swing for a nanosecond but, with its largely acoustic bent, it's the Yang to the Yin of "Raze," further proof of this group's encyclopedic range.

Cline's choice of two covers for the live set are the last in this long series of firsts for the Singers on Initiate. Carla Bley's "And Now the Queen"-a rarely heard track only recorded, in fact, by pianist Paul Bley-provides a soft, open-ended, pensive interlude after the assaulting triptych which begins the concert. And the lengthy closer (Zawinul's Weather Report classic, "Boogie Woogie Waltz") reveals Initiate's Apollonian / Dionysian dichotomy in all its richness. As funky as the Singers have ever been, and undeniably reverent to Zawinul's definitive voicings, Cline dispenses with any perceived guitaristic limitations, creating a personal tribute to the late keyboardist that's reflective of Zawinul's distinct orchestral sense.

Initiate is an album of inner and external reflection, a consolidation of the old, the new and the what may well be. What you have here is the definitive Nels Cline Singers set, one that decimates convention and plays off of-just as it unites-opposing forces, emotions, instincts: smashing dualities. 1.18 trillion electron volts and counting.

Ah. So THAT's what a Hadron Collider's all about: rock ‘n' roll!

Former Thee Hypnotic/Black Moses frontman returns with another hotwired combo; prepping to bum-rush SXSW. Check out the video, below.

By Fred Mills

A few years ago I was in Austin at SXSW taking a leak in the men's room of one of the rock dives, and as I zipped up and started to turn to leave I vaguely recognized the gentleman standing at the pisser next to me. Sonofabitch - it's Jim Jones, it dawned on me, with whom I'd shared a very drunken evening back in the late ‘80s when he brought his band at the time, Thee Hypnotics, to town.

He remembered me and greeted me like a proper mate, which sometimes happens when a musician runs into a journalist who has had many a favorable thing to say over the years (and I wrote often and enthusiastically about Thee Hypnotics, let me tell ya - their brand of Stooges-spawned psychedelic overdrive, proto-stoner rock of a sort, was pretty awesome). But his pleasure was genuine, and as it turned out his new band, Black Moses, was about to play shortly, so I got a chance to be knocked outta my socks, sonically speaking, all over again.

Now word arrives that Jones has yet another combo, this time the economically-naked The Jim Jones Revue. They've been described as a "London powerhouse quintet [like] James Brown fronting the MC5 with Little Richard guesting on piano." Well, boy howdy to that. They've already been given the thumbs-up from the likes of MOJO and Record Collector for their self-titled debut and singles collection Here to Save Your Soul, and they've toured heavily, including opening for the Dead Weather in Europe after Jack White personally invited them. Among the band's other high profile fans: Black Crowes' Chris Robinson, and Mick Jones.

You can check out some tunes and videos at the group's YouTube page here - "Elemental" and "Hey Hey Hey Hey" will do quite nicely, ladies. Little Richard, indeed.

The Jim Jones Revue is about to go into Assault & Battery 2 Studio to record a new platter, with Bad Seeds man Jim Sclavunos producing, and then they're off to the 2010 edition of SXSW, so needless to say yours truly will be queueing up in Austin to get a fresh dose of the man's music.

Don't worry, Jim, I'll let you finish your business in the loo before walking up to shake your hand this year.

Latest poll reveals our resident whipping boys the Kings Of Leon rubbing shoulders with Lady Gaga and U2, though not exactly in the way they expected.

By Blurt Staff

The latest BLURT poll results are in, and the readers have spoken: Lady Gaga, U2 and Kings of Leon are apparently among the most-loathed artists on the planet (at least among those who received GRAMMY nominations this year, that is). We asked you:

The 52^nd Annual GRAMMYS Awards Are Jan. 31 at 8pm. Which of these nominees do you wish would, like, just go the hell away?

And the winners, er, losers are, in order of percentage of votes picked up:

Lady Gaga - 32%

U2 - 20%

Kings Of Leon - 14%

Eminem - 7%

Bruce Springsteen - 5%

Coldplay - 5%

Katy Perry - 3%

Black Eyed Peas - 3%

Beyonce - 2%

Colbie Caillat - 1%

MGMT - 0%

Silversun Pickups - 0%

Stevie Wonder - 0%

David Guetta - 0%

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 0%

Clearly the overexposure over the past 12 months or so that Gaga, the Kings and U2 have amassed not only worked IN their favor (they nabbed GRAMMYS as a result, for as we all know a GRAMMY award has nothing to do with actual artistic accomplishment) but AGAINST them (their standings in this poll). We're not quite sure what the rest of the results mean, however; granted, most BLURT readers haven't even heard of David Guetta or Colbie Caillat, but you'd think folks would have some opinion of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Silversun Pickups. What, we wonder, would the GRAMMYS been like this year if the average BLURT reader was also a GRAMMY voter?

Who knows! Just the same, the people have spoken. For those of you about to rock, we salute you!

The new BLURT poll is up now - vote for your favorite music festival of 2010. Just scroll down the left hand side of the home page to view it.

Well, it's not exactly like that - Arcade Fire has licensed a song to be aired during the game, proceeds going to Haiti relief. Then John Mayer has some news as well.

By Blurt Staff

And it's the perfect song to air, too, we think.

Arcade Fire, Partners in Health, the NFL, Merge Records and Bank Robber Music have collectively agreed upon a unique 100% for charity Superbowl licensing of "Wake Up" from the band's 2004 album Funeral. All proceeds from the song's airing on the live Superbowl broadcast and subsequent airings on the NFL Network will go directly to Partners In Health's Stand With Haiti relief efforts.

For further information on Partners In Health's efforts regarding the Haiti crisis, go to http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti or see the information posted at http://www.arcadefire.com/

Meanwhile, professional mook and masturbation advocate John Mayer has also gotten into the act and is letting his 2006 hit "The Heart of Life" to be used by the Red Cross in ads. The guitarist also donated $500,000 to the Red Cross for Haiti relief funds, so don't take our sarcasm too literally: help is help, and money is money, no matter what the source, and that's a good thing.

Cool video clip below. Exclusive interview coming to this very website next week, too.

By Blurt Staff

Allison Moorer's upcoming Crows, arrives next week via Ryko. It's already racking up some great early ink: The Boston Globe calls this 13-track album, produced by R.S. Field (Buddy Guy, John Mayall),  "striking" and says "covering the likes of Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, and Nina Simone on last year's ‘Mockingbird' seems to have rubbed off on her." American Songwriter's four-star appraisal finds the album "coaxingly lovely in its ministrations," and "beautiful" simply describes her performance on a recent New York Times popcast.  And  MOJO magazine's March issue complements her vocal style as "bearing a grave grace and weight-honestly forceful, not showy."  

Watch BLURT next week as well for our own impressions - we've also got an exclusive interview with Moorer that will be posted in our features section.

Meanwhile, her momentum continues to build at radio. The album's first single, "Broken Girl," was the #1 most added at Americana radio during its debut week, and is now #9 on the chart. The song was also #3 most added at Triple A/Non- Commercial and is currently at #19. Check out her interview and performance on New York Times Popcast.  

Upcoming Performances:

Fri, 2/5, Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live - 12PM (XPN Free at Noon)

Mon, 2/8, New York, NY @ Joe's Pub - 7:30pm (Album Release Show)

Tues, 2/9, New York, NY @ Barnes & Noble (Lincoln Center Location) - 6pm (In Store)

Sat, 2/13, Woodstock, NY @ Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble (Album Release Show)

First artist in Weathervane Music's new "Shaking Through" series.

By Fred Mills

So if you're reading this you've probably read our exclusive interview with Sharon van Etten that we posted to the site this morning, right? If not, go here - BLURT contributor Jennifer Kelly talked at length with the songwriter and also attended her recent concert in Cambridge where she opened a very special show for Damon & Naomi (not so coincidentally, big fans of van Etten; the photo, above, was taken at the concert).

So anyway, over at Weathervane Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to working with deserving independent artists and help push their careers forward (artists like van Etten, in fact), they've just posted a free van Etten MP3 at their site titled "Love More". The new recording is part of Weathervane's newly-christened "Shaking Through" series.

As Weathervane director Brian McTear (a Philadelphia producer and musician of no small acclaim) puts it at their site, "Listening to ‘Love More', watching the videos... there's soooo many people to thank. Their names are in the credits below the videos, and among the many sponsors that hooked this all up! Remember that Weathervane Music is a non-profit organization that does ALL of this to simply support and advance the work of great independent artists (9 more artists to come in 2010!). We ask that you share the news of this beautiful new piece of music."

Consider it shared, Brian.

Go here to access the van Etten MP3.

[Photo Credit: Katii Durrell; view more of her images at her Flickr page or contact her via email at katii.durrell@gmail.com]

New album NonStopErotik due March 30 on Cooking Vinyl. Recorded in Los Angeles, London and Brooklyn, it was produced by Eric Drew Feldman and Black Francis, and features 10 original songs plus a cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers track "Wheels".

By Blurt Staff

This just in from Black Francis, aka Frank Black, aka "that dude from the Pixies":

***

I finally came into possession of an old guitar someone had given me at a nightclub in San Francisco awhile back; Eric Drew Feldman had been holding it for me there on Haight Street.  He convinced me that it looked cool (it was black) and had been given in the spirit of benevolence.  Every time I picked it up a nice chord came out and so I lovingly cleaned it with red wine in the dressing room the following night and began to write.  I told the tour manager that we would drive in my Cadillac directly to a recording studio in Los Angeles (and could he book one, oh, and a rhythm section, too?) from the gig in San Luis Obispo which would put us at the studio at about 4am.  It all happened according to plan and we cut the initial tracks there in the wee hours over a few days, and then moved on to an equally haunted studio in London and Eric Drew Feldman joined us there and we finished the record in St. John's Wood.  Like I said the studio was haunted and I wrote many a couplet by candlelight in the studio accommodation, slept very little, and only felt the need to get the fuck out of there fast on the last night.  The spirits had not ever bothered me, other than low drama moral support, but I was informed that they had heard enough and it was time to move on; plus I had a gig in Ireland.

When I was a boy the plant we boys called a fern was code for vagina, and to this day I love fern plants.  In my heart the vagina is almost everything, and almost everything else could be summed up in what cock and seed have to offer; and everything else?  The love of the father, dead or alive, the pain of too much pleasure, till death do us part, the voice of another song man from the other side, with or without God, Teri and the Possibilities, where ever you may be, the smell of sex in the air, seduced, slain, on my knees in prayer, sucking at the only thing that matters, my own personal Meret Oppenheim, I am Man Ray and I want you and to be all the way inside you, the cameras whirring as we put some elbow grease into the scene, the audience watching us in the dark.


Black Francis
January 2010, Central Oregon

Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart, Alan Vega, Tunde Adebimpe, Atlas Sound and others... what's not to like?

By Blurt Staff

We told you the other day about the new Liars album, Sisterworld, out March 9^th.  Now comes word about the deluxe two-disc version. It comes with "very special packaging," we are told

The second disc of the 2CD release sees each track on Sisterworld reinterpreted by a host of artists including Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart and Alan Vega (full tracklisting below) while the unique packaging allows a surreal glimpse into the Sisterworld concertina (visit http://thesisterworld.com/visualaid.html for a Sisterworld packaging visual aid).

Scissor - By Pink Dollaz, Lance Whitaker & Transformation Surprise 

No Barrier Fun - By Duetonal (Alan Vega / Suicide)

Here Comes All The People - By Atlas Sound (Bradford Cox)

Drip - By Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead)

Scarecrows On A Killer Slant - By Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio)

I Still Can See An Outside World - By Boyd Rice (NON)

Proud Evolution - Thom Yorke 500qd Remix 

Drop Dead - By Fol Chen

The Overachievers - By Devendra Banhart & The Grogs 

Goodnight Everything - By Melvins

Too Much, Too Much - By Carter Tutti (Throbbing Gristle)

Liars will tour North America in support of Sisterworld this coming Spring. The tour sees fellow LA band Fol Chen supporting Liars on all dates.

LIARS TOUR DATES:

4/10/10 - El Rey Theatre - Los Angele

4/14/10 - Rock & Roll Hotel - Washington, DC

4/15/10 - Bowery Ballroom - NYC

4/16/10 - First Unitarian Church - Philadelphia

4/17/10 - Paradise - Boston

4/18/10 - Music Hall of Williamsburg - Brooklyn

4/27/10 - Slim's - San Francisco

4/29/10 - Hawthorne Theatre - Portland, OR

4/30/10 - Venue - Vancouver, BC

5/1/10 - Neumos - Seattle

Revisit your video memories, below, all you hoofers.

By Blurt Staff

Some news just MUST be shared with the world: Just certified this week by Guinness World Records, the largest "YMCA" dance ever.

Whew.  We feel strangely... aroused, writing that last line.

But yeah: The Village People sang and 40,148 adoring fans in the stadium danced their way into a world record on December 31, 2008, and Guinness has giving them the certification. The largest "YMCA" dance ever was scored during the halftime show at the Brut Sun Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, presented by Helen of Troy, on that date.

Danny Girton, Jr., Guinness World Records Adjudication Manager, announced today, "On behalf of Guinness World Records, we are delighted to certify such a visual, fun and monumental record achievement. A very worthy effort by all 40,148 participants and we welcome them to the Guinness World Records family!"

As Andy Partridge might put it, let's briefly summarize what we've learned now, shall we?