Abetted by a tight band featuring alumni of P-Funk, Prince, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, the guitar maestro polishes off an 11-night residency at The Joint at the Hard Rock & Hotel & Casino on Feb. 20.

By Hal Bienstock

Santana's 1999 comeback album, Supernatural, which has just been reissued in an expanded 20^th anniversary edition, was a blessing and a curse. On the positive side, it brought him to a larger audience than he'd had in decades. But it also positioned him as a pop star, a role a person with his musical ambition would never feel completely comfortable with.

Ever since then, Santana has tried to walk the line between giving new fans hits like "Smooth" and "Maria Maria," pleasing classic rock-heads with "Oye Como Va" and "Black Magic Woman" and giving himself the space to explore jazz, Latin music, reggae, R&B and Sinatra-style standards. 

Even his current band reflects the dichotomy. A quick look at their credits reveals people who've played alongside Miles Davis, Prince and Dizzy Gillespie sharing the stage with others who point to working with Jon Secada and Gloria Estefan as career highlights.

This can create a sense of dissonance. On this night, Santana and his tight and versatile band, anchored by drummer Dennis Chambers (formerly of Parliament/Funkadelic) and bassist Benny Rietveld, blazed through an array of styles, at various times nodding to Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Bob Marley and John Coltrane. But their impressive work was occasionally undone by a pair of vocalists, who while technically proficient, have an almost complete lack of soul or grit. At times, it was like watching one of the world's best bands backing up singers at a karaoke bar.

Fortunately, vocals never mattered much in Santana's music. And Carlos himself was on top of his game as he wrapped up an 11-night stand at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. (He returns for another run of eight shows beginning on April 21). Just when a song like "Aye Aye Aye/Para Los Rumberos" or "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen" was about to dip into Vegas lounge territory, he'd take over with a fiery solo, contorting his body and showing why he's earned his status as a living legend.

If Santana's live show today lacks some of the raw power of his late ‘60s/early ‘70s heyday, he makes up for it with pure mastery. The ten minutes of "Soul Sacrifice" that kicked off the encore are practically worth the price of admission alone, especially when you consider that you could lose twice that much at the blackjack table in that amount of time. And it sure beats the hell out of a night with Celine Dion or The Lion King.

The prolific  finger-picking genius had just completed an album for Thrill Jockey at the time of his death. See a pretty amazing video, below.

By Jennifer Kelly

Jack Rose, who died last December at the age of 38, was one of America's leading acoustic guitar players, an heir to the finger-picking genius of John Fahey, the mystical orchestrations of Robbie Basho. His career, though short, was far from unproductive. He released more than 20 full-length albums over a two-decade period, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with others. Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey) is his last recording, recorded just months before his death.  

Rose was fascinated with the sounds of pre-war blues, gospel, ragtime and folk. Alongside lyrical raga-blues-flamenco odes like his lovely "Cathedral et Chartes" he would juxtapose jaunty old-time cake-walk tunes. He could astonish you with the pure luminous beauty of a guitar flurry left to hang in the air, but he could also make you tap your foot in time to a strong but archaic sense of swing. On this album, the third in his self-deprecatingly named Ditch Trilogy, recorded live and quickly with friends, Rose drew upon his arcane knowledge of early 20^th century blues. He resurrected classics like Dennis Crumpton and Robert Summers' "Everybody Ought to Pray Sometimes" and W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues". He composed new songs imbued with the rough country swagger, dedicating the gorgeous opener to "bones" player Percy Danforth, and distilling the backwoods like 40 proof liquor into "Lick Mountain Ramble." He brought friends - Fahey scholar and guitar player Glenn Jones, old-time picker Micah Blue Smalldone, Harmonica Dan and his frequent abetters the Black Twig Pickers - in to supplement his dazzling skill. As a result, Luck in the Valley has a lived-in, friendly feel, despite its considerable technical accomplishments.   Whether coaxing oil-slicked rainbows of ambiguous overtone, as on solo cuts like "Tree in the Valley" and "Blues for Percy Danforth", or bouncing along over all-hands hoe-downs like "Lick Mountain Ramble", Rose made the difficulty disappear into a texture of transporting beauty.

Jack Rose died far too young, in the very midst of turning into one of our best guitarists. His last record cannot help but be tinged by melancholy. And yet there's a joy here, too, that comes from hearing an extraordinarily gifted musician working over his craft, surrounded by well-loved fellow-travellers, and making the complex and difficult sound casually, unpremeditatedly wonderful.

[Photo Credit: Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography]

Titled Heaven Is Whenever, it's out on Vagrant May 4. Tour dates below.

By Blurt Staff

The Hold Steady's new album 'Heaven Is Whenever' will be released by Vagrant on May 4 in the U.S. and May 3 in the U.K. and E.U. The album was produced by Dean Baltulonis, who engineered the band's 2004 release 'Almost Killed Me' and produced the followup 'Separation Sunday,' and was recorded at Dreamland Recording Studios in Upstate NY and Wild Arctic Studios in Queens, NY, with mixing also happening at Wild Arctic.

In a statement, HS frontman Craig Finn said that 'Heaven Is Whenever' is about "embracing suffering and understanding its place in a joyful life.  The lyrics speak a lot about struggle and reward."  Piano and keys take a backseat to guitar on the new record, which also gets production help from guitarist Tad Kubler.  "I really believe the album exposes new elements of the band that we hinted at on other records but weren't able to fully realize until this one," said Kubler.  "Rather than just concentrate on changes in the instrumentation, we made changes to the song writing process."

Recorded in several smaller sessions spread out over a long period of time, the songs on 'Heaven Is Whenever' received the benefit of being tested on the band's recent tours.  There was also a makeshift recording booth set up on the back of their tour bus so songs and musical ideas could be documented as they developed.  Finn said this allowed them to "see what was working and what wasn't.  I believe this record benefits from us working at a more deliberate pace."

Following the release of 2008's critically acclaimed 'Stay Positive,' which gave the band it's highest Billboard chart position to date, The Hold Steady toured relentlessly, playing to some of their biggest audiences to date. The band will kick off a string of tour dates in early April, followed by selected shows in May (including the Sasquatch! festival) then it's over to the UK and Europe in June.

Tracklisting:

1. The Sweet Part of the City

2. Soft in the Center

3. The Weekenders

4. The Smidge

5. Rock Problems

6. We Can Get Together

7. Hurricane J

8. Barely Breathing

9. Our Whole Lives

10. A Slight Discomfort

Tour Dates:

Fri        April 2 Ardsley, NY   LIFE the place to be

Sat       Apr 3   New Haven, CT          Toad's Place

Mon     Apr 5   Burlington, VT            Higher Ground

Tue      Apr 6   Northampton, MA      Pearl Street

Wed    Apr 7   Albany, NY    Linda Norris Auditorium

Thu      Apr 8   Woodstock, NY          Bearsville Theater

Fri        Apr 9   Jermyn, PA     Eleanor Rigby's

Sat       Apr 10 Syracuse, NY  The Westcott Theater

Mon     Apr 12 Rochester, NY            The Club at Water Street Music Hall

Tue      Apr 13 Cleveland, OH            Beachland Ballroom

Wed    Apr 14 Pittsburgh, PA            Diesel Club Lounge

Thu      Apr 15 Morgantown, WV       123 Pleasant St.

Fri        Apr 16 Harrisburg, PA            Appalachian Brewing Company

Wed    May 5  Los Angeles, CA        El Rey Theatre

Thu      May 6  San Francisco, CA      The Fillmore

Sat       May 29            George, WA    Sasquatch Festival

Sat       Jun 12  Newport, UK  Isle of Wright Festival

Mon     Jun 14  Paris, FR                     Fleche D'Or

Mon     Jun 21  Amsterdam, NL          Melkeg

Tue      Jun 22  London, UK   HMV Forum

Sat       Jun 26  Manchester, UK          Academy 2

[Photo Credit: Judson Baker]

Full national tour with Imaad Wasif kicks off in late March.

By Blurt Staff

Psychedelic as fuck combo Dead Meadown have just announced the details surrounding their upcoming record release party / film premiere for their upcoming new album and original film, The Three Kings, out on March 23rd.

Taking place at the historic location of Hollywood Forever Cemetery on March 25th, the event will include the premiere of the DM movie The Three Kings as well as a live performance by the band. The night will include an open bar, free admission and giveaways, special DJ appearances, and a yet to be determined opening band.

There will also be an art showing of low-brow art scene artist Charles Wish. Charles has been a major contributor to DEAD MEADOW art including an animated sequence in The Three Kings and will be showing pieces from the movie.

In addition, Dead Meadow have also announced that any fan who orders an advance copy of Three Kings will be guaranteed a spot on the list for the band's film premiere in Los Angeles. Just email the band at contact@deadmeadow.com and write "get into the gig" as the subject.

Incidentally, if you go to the band's official website www.deadmeadow.com you can hear a pretty smokin' continuous music stream...

Tour Dates:

Premiere:

March 25 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Forever Cemetery - Record Release / Film Premiere

(w/ Imaad Wasif)
Fri Mar-26 Brookdale, CA Historic Brookdale Lodge
Sat Mar-27 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
Wed Mar-31 Eugene, OR Wow Hall
Thu Apr-01 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
Fri Apr-02 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret
Sat Apr-03 Seattle, WA Studio Seven
Wed Apr-07 Denver, CO Larimer Lounge w/ Pack AD
Thu Apr-08 Lawrence, KS Riot Room
Fri Apr-09 Omaha, NE Slowdown
Sat Apr-10 Sioux Falls, SD Nuttys North
Tue Apr-13 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
Wed Apr-14 Madison, WI Annex
Thu Apr-15 Detroit, MI Magic Stick
Fri Apr-16 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
Sat Apr-17 Athens, OH The Union
Mon Apr-19 Columbus, OH The Basement
Wed Apr-21 Buffalo, NY Mohawk w/ Buffalo Killers
Thu Apr-22 Toronto, ONT Lee's Palace
Fri Apr-23 Montreal, QUE Club Lampi
Sun Apr-25 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom

Comedy-rap is normally a tool for clueless tools and that's what makes Raaaaaaaandy's mission of a mixtape so righteous.

By Blurt Staff

It's the alter-ego of Aziz Ansari's complex mind-first seen in Judd Apatow's Funny People-is hosting a hip-hop mixtape of epically-funny proportions. Produced by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, with help from Baltimore's DJ Granwizerd and LA's The Have...the beats are as good as the jokes. It's no longer funny when the music is this good.

The mixtape's first leak-"Aaaaaaaangry"-puts every rapper in the game on blast for making Raaaaaaaandy & Sitek await their contributions. Bottling every rap fans' angst over Detox's delays, no emcee is safe from Raaaaaaaandy's scathing disses. Whether they laugh or not...it's up to them. But the Internet is fueled behind the comedy/production duo.

A preliminary version leaked onto the web yesterday, so the duo's handlers are sending out "official" versions to the media, complete with new lyrics and quality mastering. According to those in the know, "It doesn't change RZA's outro though...because no stamp of approval is more official than the Wu's."

We'll have the track for ya soon as we're allowed to share it with you, but trust us, it smokes.

 UPDATE: A snippet of the track's on YouTube now.

Massive triple-album collection comes awfully close to being perfect. We're telling ya, almost perfect. She's a voodoo chile, baby, lord knows - she's a goddam voodoo chile.

By Meryl Trussler

If you want to know you know by now, because the floodgates have burst, and you were all there waiting and bracing yourselves for the deluge. Joanna Newsom is a happening. The initiated cannot quite believe we have this happy little anachronism breathing the same California air as, say, Real Housewives. She is our unreal heavenwife and we will be as precious about her as we wish. (Cynics, take this as a warning for what follows.)

So. The third album, itself three albums. Of course it's good, it wasn't going to be anything else; this girl has been a public prodigy since the tender age of 22 and a private prodigy for years untold before that, with her reams of fervid poetry and, if my imagination is configured correctly, probably a thousand cute precocious sayings a day. Joanna Newsom is a state of mind. But I digress. Have One On Me (Drag City) is good but thank the stars it isn't punch-for-punch perfect every second because that might have something of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest factor, or a very potent smack of Stendhal syndrome, and would entertain us to death.

As is only natural with an album spanning two hours, not every song is the sort of distilled bliss that each fifth of Ys provided. Newsom marks a few returns to the 3-minute pop-song, to the shipmatey sass with which The Milk-Eyed Mender was dotted, and to the occasional bouncing piano. Good. Good. But it's a combination of the two previous albums' characteristics which really grabs the heart with two hands and shakes. Harp-led epics with excruciatingly turns of phrase and melody, but with less of a wildhorse quality about the structure than Ys. These songs are both instantly hummable and enduring. ‘'81' does so in 4 minutes of high notes spilling down to low in a traditional, majestic time signature as she trills: "meet me in the garden of Eden, bring a friend, we are gonna have ourselves a time." It's in this moment that that cool floodwater of expectation is really felt. ‘Baby Birch', at 9 minutes, builds more slowly, prettiness repeating, repeating, little scuzzy gasps of guitar behind, until a sudden leap upwards, an offbeat drum, vocal harmonies, and a burst of oriental flowers for the finale.

I first encountered Joanna Newsom in 2005 at Patti Smith's Meltdown festival, for which Smith had chosen to arrange a homage to Jimi Hendrix. Thusly Newsom came onstage, a speck from the nosebleeds, ears and eyes reporting a twelve-year-old. And she sat and played ‘Angel (Sweet Angel)' and ‘Little Wing' on her harp. It seemed an inventive and difficult translation then. Five years later I see how fluid it was. Something about Newsom's compositions proves her a Hendrix child: something about the bluesy warmth, the climbs towards transcendence. Try ‘In California'. It seems to reduce all the lat- and longitude of the state, and all the flavours of Axis: Bold as Love into one anthem. Mountains and deserts and prairies and beaches and Native Americana, a broader scope than most CA songs can manage. Cawing and big bass drums. Joanna Newsom is a miniaturist.

But music criticism must be metonymist. So here. The third disc summarises its partners. Joanna Newsom, it states simply, is the kind of composer who kind of redeems the world in which she lives. ‘Esme' breaks and breaks and breaks; it smashes a galaxy against the rocks to fall in fragments in the river; it reassures its newborn subject that "kindness prevails".  If these 124 minutes can be reduced to one sentiment, which they ostensibly cannot, really - let that be it. That's the feeling you can't deny when you're bonechilled and gasping after the wave.

Brand new offering from the writer who previously blew wet kisses in the direction of Sassy magazine actually gets it right.

BY CRYSTAL K. WIEBE

One part memoir, two parts cultural history book, Marisa Meltzer's Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music (published earlier this month by Faber and Faber) traces the prominence of women in popular music from the riot grrrls to the Spice Girls to all-girl rock and roll camps for tweens, ruminating along the way on the effectiveness of the message of female empowerment inherent within (or at least claimed by) each music and cultural phenomenon.

Although admittedly an avid fan of many of the acts she writes about, Meltzer - who previously co-authored the 2007 book How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time - manages to contemplate the cultural relevance of all of her subjects with fairness and objectivity. For instance, she considers that the riot grrrl bands that boycotted the media may have been a little too idealistic. While being more open may have risked the media further misconstruing the point of the movement, more press would have at least meant that more girls - especially in the Midwest and other pop culturally dry places in the pre-Internet age - were exposed to the themes of self-empowerment and sisterhood that riot grrrls embraced. For, while the "girl power" promoted by the Spice Girls lacked much substance and emphasized consumerism, at least its ubiquity meant that a message of female pride reached the masses. And Meltzer cites scientific findings indicating that even the Spice Girls' watered down version of girl power had some positive impact on the group's young female fans. Along with the riot grrrls and Spice Girls, Meltzer examines the trends of women's (or womyn's) music festivals in the 1990s, female singer songwriters and the rise of sexy pop tarts like Britney Spears.

The author acknowledges that her portrait of the era is biased toward her own tastes. "This book will have a narrow and highly selective focus by design," she writes in the preface. "It's a discussion and an analysis as viewed through the lens of personal experience." Fortunately, the memories she weaves in - like when she felt she was the only long-haired teenage girl in the crowd of a close-cropped Bikini Kill fans - help the academic analysis from becoming too dry and, more importantly, drive home the message that what women do on the musical stage can have a profound effect on the girls in the mosh pit - even after they go home.

If you scratch in cyberspace but no one hears it, can you call it hip-hop? The legendary Skratch Piklz turnbalist has got the answer.

By Blurt Staff

QBert, born Richard Quitevis, often referred to as the Jimi Hendrix of the turntable, is celebrating 25 years at the forefront of scratching and turntablism in 2010.  And in recognition, he is stepping out with the revolutionary ArtistWorks company to offer his services as a Master Teacher of the instrument to anyone, anywhere in the world online at QBert's Skratch University.

What this means out there in the physical world is that no matter where you live, you can study DJing from Qbert. Students watch the hundreds of short, HD videos QBert has posted, then upload video themselves practicing the patterns and techniques, at which point Q offers advice and critique via his own video response.  

The cost is $60 for three months, which as Qbert's handlers are quick to point out, "is less than you'd pay to trek up to Qbert's house for private lessons." Boy howdy to that!

Doing a full career overview + passing out some free goods.

By Fred Mills

Australia's The Church have just announced the "An Intimate Space" tour of North America for April and May. The acoustic outing isn't merely to promote the recent Untitled #23 (Second Motion Records) album, however, as the plans are to cover, in a rather unique fashion, their full 30 year career.

At the shows the band will do a track from each of their albums - but in reverse chronological order. Or, as the band puts it, "This original show will have the audience gliding softly down through the years, opening with a track from Untitled #23 before embarking on a fantastic voyage through time ultimately arriving at the first Australian album, Of Skins And Heart where it all began."

But wait, there's more. The band has put together an exclusive EP, Deadman's Hand, which features the title track plus unreleased material, and concertgoers will all receive free copies of the EP at the shows.

Check out the Church at BLURT:

Untitled #23 album review

 No Certainty Attached Steve Kilbey biography review

Tour Dates:

APRIL
2 - San Juan Capistrano, CA - Coach House
4 - San Diego, CA - Anthology
5 - Los Angeles, CA - The Roxy
6 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
8 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios
9 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox
13 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Café
14 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
15 - Chicago, IL - Park West
17 - Cleveland, OH - The Winchester Tavern and Music Hall
18 - Ferndale, MI - The Magic Bag Theatre
19 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Café
21 - Boston, MA - TBC
22 - NYC - City Winery
23 - Bay Shore, NY (Long Island) - Boulton Center for the Performing Arts
24 - Sellersville, PA (Philadelphia) - Sellersville Theatre
25 - Falls Church, VA (DC) - State Theatre
27 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage

MAY 1 - Atlanta, GA - Center Stage

Mingering Mike-approved soul/funk combo also gets the thumbs up from legendary producer.

By Blurt Staff

A couple of weeks ago the BLURT office was abuzz with the news that outsider artist Mingering Mike had returned and had been commissioned to do the sleeve art for the upcoming album by smokin' Milwaukee soul/funk combo Kings Go Forth, due April 20 on Luaka Bop. We also posted an MP3 of the band that should have further whetted your appetite for the rec.

Now comes more juicy news on the Kings. Shortly after a string of lauded 7" singles set soul music blogs buzzing, the band received an out of the blue call from legendary producer Tom Moulton - the originator of the remix and 12" single format - asking if he could add his magic touch to one of their songs.

The resulting track "Don't Take My Shadow" (A Tom Moulton Mix) appears on the album The Outsiders Are Back and as a 12" containing three mixes out now.

Grab an MP3 of the song - it's a six-minute-plus killer - here at their Luaka Bop artist page.

Tom Moulton originated the remix in the late 1960's with a self-made tape of overlapping songs he created for the Fire Island bar where he worked. He went on to become one of the most influential record promoters and producers of the 60's and 70's and is credited with pioneering the 12" single as a popular format. He's widely quoted as saying "I never made a dance record, I made records you can dance to," which the tune clearly illustrates.

Kings Go Forth are confirmed to play at SXSW in March with additional tour dates to be announced. And yeah, that looks like some trademark Mingering Mike artwork above, too. Sweet.