DC Larson has a Listen to Scott Kempner’s Saving Grace and Likes What He Hears

(Ed. Note: The Rock and Roll Report is proud to welcome the first contribution from DC Larson. DC is the CD Review editor for Rockabilly Magazine and writes the “Letter From America” column for England’s online Crackerjack. Other writing credits include Goldmine, Rock&Rap Confidential, Blue Suede News, Counterpunch and No Depression. He’s also penned liner notes for Rockat Barry Ryan’s new solo disc and written for Robert Gordon’s website. Hopefully this will be the first of many articles for The Rock and Roll Report. You can find more of DC’s writing on his blog located at http://www.dclarson.blogspot.com)

Scott Kempner
Saving Grace (00:02:59 Records)
by
DC Larson

A photo of Scott on his 1992 “Tenement Angels” depicted the former Dictator and Del-Lord
kicked back on the fire escape outside an apartment window: playing a guitar, oblivious to grimy reality.

Apt, indeed.

Scott is a True Believer in the transformative power of rock’n'roll, a six-string apostle for whom the music is more than a mere collection of notes, chords, progressions and melodies. In the hands of the sanctified it is a vital, breathing articulation of every joy and upset that jumps in the animal night.

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Scott Homewood Connects with the Soul of Betty Harris

Betty Harris - Intuition
Evidence

Great soul music is like tonic for what ails you, I find. Whenever I am in a depression about something in my life that’s been dragging me down I like to put on same great soul music and just about instantly I am joyful once again. I am not completely sure why my mood changes so suddenly but there has always been a great statement about blues music that may relate: that it’s great to listen to when your mood is sour because you listen to all of the bad things the singer is singing about and you feel a little better about yourself and your own life. Blues is not feel bad music, it’s feel better about your own situation music and since soul is just a generation removed from blues, it seems to have the same affect, at least on me.

The effect is a great juxtaposition about the lives of the very musicians and singers who create soul music. While many, if not most, of them have come from deep poverty and end up returning to it due to musical tastes changing, bad business deals, drug problems, what have you - the music which they’ve created makes me feel great though it may not always have served their lives well. Not that they may be sad, but there are so many sad soul stories it would make Badfinger’s story seem like a fairy tale.

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Rock and Roll Report Podcast #16 - We’re Going Out Tonight!

Podcast 16 to me makes me want to hit the town and just blow off steam. I don’t know if it is Kat and Sugar (pictured above), the Sex Slaves track “We’re Going Out Tonight” or the fact that this was recorded on a beautiful summery day, all I know is that I wanted to head downtown and paint the town red after recording it.

Email me at rockandrollreport@gmail.com and let me know what you thought of the show or drop me a comment on the Listener Line at 206-206-339-3646. Some of the tracks on this show came from the Podsafe Music Network, a very cool resource that bands should take advantage of to make it easier for podcasters to play and promote their music.

If you want to subscribe to the podcast, just click either of the links below:

Subscribe to The Rock and Roll Report Podcast

Here is what I played:

1. Rock and Roll Report Intro by Kat & Sugar from Hot Pink Productions
2. We’re Going Out Tonight by the Sex Slaves
3. Allergic To You by Trashlight Vision
4. Backstage Baby by the High School Motherfuckers
5. Don’t Talk by Basia Lyjak
6. Pimp My Life by The Crash Moderns
7. Boys! Grab Your Guns by My American Heart
8. Squeeze by The Moves
9. Superqueen by Jet 68
10. Forget Me Not by Red Plastic Buddha
11. Rock and Roll Report Outro by Featured on Fridays

And don’t forget to rate the podcast on the iTunes Podcast Directory!

Thanks for listening.
Mark

Rock Media Reads

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Scott Gets Jazzy With Reverend Organdrum and His Hi Fi Stereo

Reverend Organdrum - Hi Fi Stereo
Yep Roc

Let me tell you, I am just a pure fiend for organ trio records. Even before I started delving deeply into jazz a few years ago the sound of the Hammond organ has held a certain sway over me. I am not really sure what it is about it that makes me swoon but I love it and when I started collecting jazz records in the recent past I immediately started picking up whatever I could find by originators and innovators Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Larry Young and a host of other organists who took the organ and turned it into one of the most popular instruments in jazz. The common sub-genre of jazz these kinds of artists and their records fall under is known as “groove jazz”. Needless to say, my collection of these types of records has swelled beyond my original expectations and groove jazz is my newest musical weakness. Whenever I come upon these records I just have to buy them.

How fantastic it was for me when I recently discovered one of my favorite psychobilly artists Reverend Horton Heat has just put out one of these kinds of records. Though I should have seen it coming as all psychobilly bands are devotees of ’50’s rockabilly and rockabilly is only a short space of time previous to the ascent of the popularity of groove jazz, which started itself in the ’50’s but didn’t gain its’ real peak of popularity until the mid-60’s up to about 1972 or so. I am guessing Reverend Heat wore out all of his rockabilly records, decided to check out a couple of jazz discs and fell in love with what he heard. It’s not really that farfetched, is it? I mean, it happened to me!

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The Rock and Roll Report Checks out The Avatars

Sometimes when you see a band or musician in concert and it is the first time you are being exposed to their style and sound, it can either be a blessing or a bad thing, depending on if they have a good stage presence. Back in 2005, it was during a chance meeting that I got to see the Ann Arbor, Michigan band The Avatars live in concert.

In 2005, Cleveland was host to the first CMJ Rock Hall Fest. The Rock Hall Fest was a musical event that brought many bands, some known, some unknown, to the Cleveland area to have the bands perform for people in the music industry as well as for crowds of old and new fans alike.

Ann Arbor, Michigan’s The Avatars was just one of the many up-and-coming bands that took part in the first Rock Hall Fest. The band took to the stage in the Festival Village for the event where they performed for the Friday afternoon crowd of music lovers. The short but entertaining set by the rock quintet was the perfect way to introduce the people at the festival village and myself to their style. It was a great way to discover what the band was all about.

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A Look behind the scenes of Sloan’s upcoming CD Parallel Play

Sloan are one of my all time favourite bands because every release is like a rock and roll history lesson. They have mastered the art of “the hook” whether it be vocal or musical and they always are fun to watch and listen to and their upcoming Parallel Play sounds like it is no exception. Their MySpace page has a little behind the scenes “rockumentary” of how some of the songs came about and as always, the band’s humor is infectious. You can check it out at this link:

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=34301191

By the way, it’s nice to see that the band have reactivated Murderecords.

Later.

Mark

Rock and Roll Report TV - CrashDiet - Falling Rain

Here is the video for the new Crashdiet single Falling Rain….

Unsigned Band Opportunities: Bubba the Love Sponge and MyBandsMusic

UNSIGNED MUSIC SOUGHT FOR SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO SHOW

Each week Sirius Satellite Radio’s Bubba The Love Sponge Show presents “Unsigned Band Review,” a segment that evaluates the merits of artists and bands who’ve submitted their music to the site’s review area. Show host Bubba, his sidekicks and occasional guests listen to a few cuts and offer their unbiased, unbridled opinions. Co-host Spiceboy coordinates the segment from week to week. The Bubba The Love Sponge Show is a regular offering on Sirius’ Howard Stern channel, Howard 101, the most listened to channel on the satellite network. Artists or bands interested in submitting music to this national weekly showcase should visit http://pm.btls.com/music/.

MYBANDSMUSIC LAUNCHES MUSIC NETWORKING SITE

MyBandsMusic recently launched an indie music and social networking site, where fans and bands can meet. Now, MBM is offering a business model with a 100% pass-through sales structure for downloaded tracks and CDs. Previously, MBM announced that downloaded tracks would give100% profit to all artists on the site; now they are taking it to the next level and including CD sales as well. The only cost would be the shipping and handling charges, for mailing the CDs. The site claims that all the tools an artist or band needs to implement full-blown viral marketing campaigns can be found at www.MyBandsMusic.com.

Rock and Roll Report Blitz! Lick and a Promise

Sex. Rock and roll has been obsessed with sex since Elvis thrust his hips into our face in the ‘50s and things haven’t changed much since. Now singing about sex either works or it doesn’t, there is no half ways about it and Lick and a Promise does a good job of it.

Natives of Germany and named after an Aerosmith track, Lick and a Promise have laid out their cards on the rock and roll table and they make no bones about what’s on their mind! You can use the term sleaze rock, raunch rock, sleaze grind or heck even plain old simple hard rock to describe the band but at the end of the day these guys just rock. Citing influences such as AC/DC, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and the Beatles, they manage to bring their own sneering fuck you attitude to their brand of rock and roll and make it work. And Going Down Slow has one of the best drums and bass intros to a song that I have heard in a rock song.

Head over to their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/lickandapromiseband and have a listen, just don’t play these guys too loud at work or you will have Human Resources breathing down your neck in no time! And based on the unreleased track they sent me (I have played them both on the podcast and radio show. Check out Podcast # 6, the Sex and Rock and Roll episode and Podcast #9 as well as the March 17th edition of Rock and Roll Report Radio) they are just getting better.

Later.
Mark

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