Album Review: Michelle Malone, Debris

Artist: Michelle Malone
Title: Debris
Writer: Rick Galusha

In a world where ‘chic rock’ in now its own category; few really do. That’s not to denigrate the artform – but often the bar is lowered to compensate…but then I feel that way about most “rock” records released in this new millennium. With the release of her last album, Debris, Georgia based Michelle Malone has laid down a wall-to-wall rock n’ roll record that defies such petty niche labels as ‘chic rock.’ Malone has a sharp Southern rock flavor more akin to the Black Crowes and Tom Petty than Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet. Malone plays a lyrically rich guitar style under the influences of Rich Robinson and Keith Richards; where biting counter-licks sneak in behind verses and choruses with impressive subtly. Her songwriting shows great texture and depth as she moves from overt rocker, ‘Chattahoochee Boogaloo’ and ‘Feather in a Hurricane’ to the FM friendly sing-a-long, ‘Yesterday’s Make Up.’
This is not a good ‘chic rock’ record: this is an excellent rock n’ roll record in the finest sense…and these are getting to be few and far between.

As an independent artist, Malone’s songwriting will immediately appeal to roots rock fans albeit ‘Debris’ has a fully produced sound that includes Malone’s slide guitar and harmonica playing behind her intelligent lyrics. On the album’s eighth track, Weed & Wine, Malone recalls a time familiar to most baby boomers when she sings, “Remember when we used to sneak out. Remember when we howled at the moon. Radio cracklin’ with, ‘Sweet Melissa,’ on a steamy summer night in June. You always wore that corduroy jacket; and them bell-bottom patched up jeans. Well baby put’em back on and meet me at reservoir by the statelLine. We’ll cause a scene. You bring the weed – I’ll bring the wine. Crawl in the backseat honey and have a real good time.”

On June 3rd Malone brings her tasty blues-base rock sound to Omaha’s Barfly at 114th and Dodge Streets. With nearly twenty road harden years under her belt, and at least twenty albums for sale on her website (www.michellemalone.com), Michelle Malone’s “overnight success” could easily become the surprise gig for the summer of ’09. You’ll be able to hear Malone’s music every Sunday on Pacific Street Blues – yeah, it’s that good.

Album Review: John Mellencamp 'Life, Death, Love and Freedom'

Artist: John Mellencamp

Title: Life, Death, Love and Freedom

Writer: Rick Galusha

It’s a human trait to dwell on mortality: it’s where religion is rooted. Since recorded history began musicians have released recordings of this pondering; perhaps none so much as those of the roots genres including blues. However, like political criticism, it is an easily fumbled message and few can carry the torch beyond one, maybe two songs in the span of a career.

After finding commercial success early in his career John Mellencamp dropped the ‘Cougar’ moniker and began to turn his music-making towards a more roots based sound. While musically snobby 40 something’s may have written off Bloomington’s sage as “a hack” long ago, in 1985 Mellencamp released an album, ‘Scarecrow’ which lent a Midwestern credibility to the cultural landscape that heretofore had been rooted on coastal seaboards. Bruce Springsteen made New Jersey a state with romantic ballets in the streets: Mellencamp sang of farm foreclosures, national pride and growing up in 50’s seeing life from a ‘rumbleseat.’ Suddenly the lure of the living within spitting distance of Los Angles and New York City was not as bright as it had been and, finally, being from the Midwest, and its small town manners, was kinda cool.

When Mellencamp fully embraced a ‘roots’ sound to his music is debatable; however, by the 1993 album, ‘Human Wheels’ it was clear that writing hits was off the agenda. Although the title track was radio friendly, the voice of the album spoke of deeper thoughts and the music took on a rawer edge. Radio and retail no longer asked what had happened to John, we all knew, he’d pulled a Neil Young and chose art over commerce… finally put the finishing fork in the pop star, “Johnny Cougar.” Casting aside any lingering fears, Mellencamp ventured into liberal activism, whether political or social (ala’ founding Farm Aid along with Neil Young and Willie Nelson), Mellencamp’s new personification, ‘Lil’ Bastard’ had taken over.

With the release of his latest album, ‘Life, Death, Love and Freedom’ (LDLF) Mellencamp fully realizes this transition with, perhaps, his strongest artistic statement to date. At first glance the album is full of morbidity: apparently the ‘Lil’Bastard’ is afraid of something. LDLF is a 14 track testament to one man’s midlife reconciliations. The opening track, ‘Longest Days’ sets the tone as the Mellencamp sings,

“So you pretend not to notice,
That everything has changed,
The way you look,
And the friends you once had.
So you keep on acting the same,
But deep down in your soul,
You know you got no flame.
And who knows then which way to go?
Life is short even in its longest days.’

It has been a long time since a lyric resonated as when he sings,

‘Sometimes you get sick,
And you don’t get better,
That’s when life is short,
Even in its longest days.’

While the subject matter is heavy, and the music is compelling, Mellencamp’s latest effort is the finest full length album from one of Classic Rock’s pantheon. While other’s struggle to find a new voice that fits with their aging bodies, Mellencamp saddles up and bangs away with a album that shows, finally, that aging and music can remain symbiotic. It is as if the age-old struggle between Jagger and Richards has finally been settled; you can be “great” and release exceptional music even though “midlife” is now in the rear-view mirror.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Mellencamp hoists up the social commentary albeit using a thinly veiled analogy in the song, ‘Without a Shot.’ He takes a swipe at false nationalism.

“We open our eyes at midnight,
Seeing the setting of the sun.
Foundation are crumbling; The inner structure’s gone;
Used up by corruption,
And the passage of time.
We hope we got some fight left,
Cause our children, our children are dying.”

Within the same tune he rails against false piety with resonation.

“So we think that forgiveness,
Is a God given right.
And equality for all,
Is just a waste of time.
With our nickel-plated Jesus,
Chained around our necks;
Handing out versus of scripture,
Like we wrote it down ourselves.”

A compact disc is the equivalent of a double album set. Over the past 50 years you can probably count, now on two hands, the number of studio-recorded-rock-double-albums that maintain a high level of quality throughout ( Exile on Main Street, Quadrophenia, Electric Ladyland, London Calling, Blonde on Blonde are a few). I readily suggest that, ‘Life, Death’ Love and Freedom’ be added that select group of records. ‘Life, Death, Love and Freedom’ is a thinking man’s roots album that is rich in textures with carefully crafted songs and arrangements; it is a brilliant musical statement…albeit by a “hack” from Indiana.

Book Review - Laurel Canyon. The inside story of rock n' roll's legendary neighborhood

Book Review

Title: Laurel Canyon, The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood

Author: Michael Walker


When rock music was young and yet to be infiltrated by hard drugs, MBA’s and big BIG money, there was a hippie enclave holed up in the hills and valleys behind the Sunset Stripe in Los Angles. After the Beatles came in and decimated the musical landscape, numerous artists on the verge of fantastic success congregated in the Laurel Canyon area – buying inexpensive homes with proximity to the developing music center of Southern California. Included in this cavalcade of rising stars were the Byrds, Joni Mitchell & Graham Nash, Frank Zappa, Mama Cass Elliott, Neil Young, Jackson Brown, The Eagles and others. The Doors hailed from Venice Beach which was across town and a million miles away. In his tell-all-book Michael Walker talks about the unique artist community that lived on Laurel Canyon road in central Los Angles.


The book recounts how Cass Elliott brought together Graham Nash (of the Hollies) with Stephen Stills (of Buffalo Springfield) and David Crosby (of the Byrds) in her living room, “…she pulls up in this convertible Porsche. I got in and she drove me up Laurel Canyon to this house” says Nash. ‘Waiting there were Stills and Crosby, who sang for Nash the Stills composition, ‘You Don’t Have to Cry.’ “That was a moment that is indelibly etched on my soul,” Nash recalled.


Walker is sure to dish the dirt including Robert Plant’s (Led Zeppelin) fancy for 16 year old groupies and the, ‘L.A. Queens’ that catered to, “provide the fulfillment of fantasies of these men [who] were older than me” recalls Morgan Welch. Walker recalls the now infamous, ‘Riot at the Hyatt’ hotel on Sunset Strip and the debauchery that seemed to go on nightly as rock bands target Los Angles for much needed breaks from the road.


Walker talks about Charles Manson getting thrown out by Gail Zappa and his suspected reasons for the murdering Leno & Rosemary LaBianca and Sharon Tate. “Sally Stevens, an L.A. record executive who lived on Lookout Mountain at the time, recalls, ‘I was kind of wandering about this party and there was a door slightly open and I could see people sitting in a circle. There was a candle in the middle of the floor, and there was this guy sitting in the corner. He was kind of holding forth to everyone and they were all sitting like a bunch of sheep. And as I looked in the door, he said, ‘Come in, come in.’ I just got a bad feeling from him and said, ‘No, that’s okay.’ Later on, when they arrested Manson, I went, God, that’s the guys.”


As cocaine overtook marijuana as the drug of choice, Laurel Canyon’s innocence fell away behind a shroud of paranoia and the onslaught of Glam Rock. “A young misfit named Frank Ferrana, at the time being a transient being raised at the Sunset Tower apartment building on the strip, was obsessed with the Sweet’s vocalist, Brian Connolly, and why, among other matters, Connolly had, ‘bangs that curled under,’ Ferrana would change his name to Nikki Sixx and found Motley Crue…”


To lift from Charles Dickens, ‘it was the best of times’ and the future was tomorrow rather than yesterday. This is an easy read that is fun, packed with lots of known music names of when innocence was the norm and baby-boomer youths were hitting their teens and early 20’s. Yes, its fun. No, it’s not explicit. And best of all, the Omaha Public Library has it on hand…so it is free!

Album Review: Hague

Artist: Hague a/k/a Mark Stenton
Title: (self titled)

A few folks have heard the bromide, “Taking coals to Newcastle.” A substantially smaller circle will know that Newcastle Upon Tyne, a northeast English town, was “home” to significant rock music talents including; Sting (The Police), Brian Johnstone (Ac/Dc), Brian Ferry (Roxy Music), Eric Burden (The Animals), Lindesfarne, Splinter, Nic Armstrong, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Andy Taylor (Duran Duran). Much like the midwest American cities of Omaha or Detroit, Newcastle has a perchance for rust-belt rock n’ roll that leans towards metal. So it a tribute to the internet that, ‘Hague’ has been able to muster any accord amid the heavier sounds that Newcastle is known for.

As an avid music fan, I lost my muse. Where it went I could not say. Perhaps it was the grind of 24 years in the pre-recorded music retail business – an industry that is literally less than half the business it was five years ago. And more than a few musical muses have been pilloried on the rail of radio’s endless blah, blah, blah. Having celebrated the twentieth anniversary of, ‘Pacific Street Blues & Americana’ (www.KIWRblues.Podomatic.com) I’d become a part of that dinge albeit trying to convey art over amassing an audience. I lost my rock n’ roll heart…so much so that I’ve resorted to trolling the internet listening to obscure LPFM (low powered frequency modulation) radio stations that recent legislation in Britain created. One day I found a heartbeat. Lionheart Radio, a real community station, located in Alnwick, Northumberland: a mere hamlet on the North Sea coast between Newcastle and the lowlands of Scotland. It was art. Oh, it’s not that their air-talent is that “talented.” One day it’s a conversation about Mrs. Thompson’s fresh garden tomatoes and the next it’s a choir of school children. Host Ally Lee is perhaps the most spontaneous deejay I’ve heard since KQKQ died in May of 1978. Lionheart is a come-to-life ‘Petticoat Junction’ that streams across the internet. It’s a community and you’re welcome to listen in.

It was on Lionheart that I heard the musical project by forty year old Mark Stenton’s. In a world where tits sell toothpaste, this was all together different. ‘Hague’ is at once a nostalgic memory you never had and the lilting smell of mom’s hug after coming in from the cold. It is the simple interplay between vocal, acoustic guitar and rich backing textures that allow the listener to focus on the well written music that sweeps you away with mental images and rendering lyric lines. The used of space is brilliant. Whether a keyboard, flute or super low bass, Hague builds a audio soundscape that is immediately friendly. Stenton’s sound is a bit ‘Bare Trees’ (Fleetwood Mac), a tad ascending English sing-a-long and a less palliative David Gray.

This five track EP opens with the track, ‘Fool.’ Stenton juxtaposes a flute against a strumming guitar as he sings, “You act like a fool, so they think you’re a fool. You want to fit in but I don’t know where on earth to begin.” It is a powerful song with layered texture and solo-era Lennon bite. “You say many things, without saying anything. Who’s in the mirror staring at you? What are trying to prove, when you act like a fool?”

“These northern stars flicker in silence, and the moon is burning red.” The album closes with the near cinematic song, ‘Northern Blues.’ Stenton uses space among a sonic pallet that harkens Townshend with, ‘See me, hear me, come on talk to me. Feel me and heal me, come on home to me.” A kick drum emulates a heartbeat as the song’s character bemoans a departed lover or the death of a dear someone. “These northern lights, they dance awhile, like the spirits breaking free. I’ll sing to you, my northern blues. Till you’re resting with me.” At 2:21 this is a powerful and moving artscape that is dramatic, underplayed and wrenchingly beautiful. This five track EP “has no filler.” Hague can be heard at; http://haguemusic.co.uk/

Putumayo's tasty Christmas albums

Title: A Jazz & Blues Christmas
Title: New Orleans Christmas

Label: Putumayo
Writer: Rick Galusha


Long know for their colorful covers and faux-ethnic artwork covers, the Putumayo Recording label is a leading record label for compiling world music artists together onto an album that is both interesting and often entertaining. In 2006 they Putumayo released an album of Christmas songs fashioned out of the New Orleans genre. This year (2008) they are back with an equally interesting foray entitled, “A Jazz & Blues Christmas.” As a pairing these are the only Christmas albums to get repeated listening on my turntable this time of year.

Often Christmas and Holiday albums are rehashed efforts to modify traditional carols which, for me, are limited and lack freshness. How many versions of “Jingle Bells” can the average human withstand? Now I get to eat my own words as Ray Charles version of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ is a marvelous interpretation from Florida’s street savvy master of soul – it is at once languid, bluesy, horn driven and captivating. Also featured are mainstay artists such as B. B. King, Charlie Brown, Ellis Marsalis and the New Birth Brass Band.

Thankfully Putumayo uses it strength in the market to introduce new artists with interesting additions the roots Christmas category. As a fan of roots music in nearly all of its genres there is a sassy quid pro quo when the performing act, Randy Greer and Ignasi Terraza Trio, perform, ‘Wrap Yourself in a Christmas Package.’ To find a Christmas album that is entertaining and seasonal is a rare gem.

These are two diamonds to consider for your December festival making.

Rick Fowler Back on My Good Foot album

Artist: Rick Fowler
Title: Back on My Good Foot
Writer: Rick Galusha

Rick Fowler’s latest album, ‘Back on My Good Foot’ is a well performed album. Fowler’s voice compliments the style and his high energy playing is tasteful and not over-bearing. He can play: he can sing… but like so many twang-bar kings, Fowler’s apparent weakness is his songwriting. From the opening bass lines of, ‘Infected with the Blues’ Fowler delves into blues clichés including; preachers, crossroads, devils and demons. It shows that being a very good guitar playing does not make you a songwriter.

On, ‘Running from the Truth’ Fowler tries his hand at political commentary, taking a cynical stance towards our two party-system while offering no solutions; simply bitching. I can’t cite the source but, “Democracy is an absolutely terrible government – but it the best form of government on the planet.” In many ways cynicism is a cop out and makes for bad lyrical filler.

This is a fan’s album. It is very well played and arranged. The best track on the record is a cover of the Savoy Brown tune, ‘Hellbound Train’ where Fowler stretches out and showcases his chops. As a sideman Fowler has an impressive list of friends and employers. Occasionally a vanity project is a diamond in the rough but, ‘Back on My Good Foot’ is not cutting any new ground here.

Gary Moore - Bad for You Baby

Artist: Gary Moore
Title: Bad for You Baby
Writer: Rick Galusha


Irish Bluesrocker Gary Moore is no newcomer to the idiom. Before there was a Sebastian Bach, Moore and Phil Lynott formed ‘Skid Row’ in the early 70’s. Shortly after that Lynott would leave to form Thin Lizzy and Moore would maintain a dalliance with Lynott until Phil‘s death in 1986. As a young man Moore took guitar lessons from Peter Green – founder of the Fleetwood Mac Blues Band. When Green opted out of the music industry he bequeathed his famed Les Paul to the young Belfast player. In 1995 Moore would pay homage to Green with the critically acclaimed album, ‘Blues for Greeny’ where Moore covered Green’s music; using the slow blues technique of Green to launch an album of rapid fire solos and meandering wondrous fret work.

While Green’s influence on Moore is apparent, equally obvious is Moore’s fascination with B. B. King and his perchance of holding a single note for numerous measures and making the tones and shadings fill the recording. Over the stretch of his four decades of recording, Moore has sharpened his tasty albeit up-tempo ax slinging that is sure to attract fans of Joe Bonamassa, Mato Nanji or Jeff Beck. And while song writing is historically a short coming for wunder-players, Moore’s vocals compliment his style and his albums historically have included a mix of covers and self-penned tunes with strong melody lines. Moore relies on blues textures and structure as he creates a sound that is easy to embrace and yet full of depth.

Moore’s latest album, Bad for you Baby, is a plain good record. Admittedly, his version of the blues, while widely embraced, is not aligned with most critics and other assorted purists. However, for the Everyman in each of us – this is an album with depth and variance that includes languid ballads like, ‘Trouble Ain’t Far Behind’ and the screaming guitars of ‘Umbrella Man.’ Moore’s covers two Muddy Waters songs, ‘Walkin’ Through the Park’ and ‘Someday Baby.’ He also follows Johnny Winter lead by covering J.B. Lenoir’s, ‘Mojo Boogie’ as well as Al Kooper’s Blood, Sweat & Tears era, ‘I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.’ Denver’s Otis Taylor pays back the favour by appearing on Moore’s album by playing his African banjo on the track, ‘Preacher Man Blues.’

Fans of the afore mentioned Joe Bonamassa, Jeff Beck and Mato Nanji(Indigenous) will enjoy Moore’s romp through the blues genre; his tender emoting notes and fiery finger fretted runs. Radio hosts might look at the smokin’ ‘Umbrella Man’ or the slow and emotive, ‘Did You Ever Feel Lonely?’