JIM SULLIVAN

Neil comes to Fenway

JIM SULLIVAN — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:09:19 GMT

Hot Diamond-on-Diamond action
First song: “Sweet Caroline”— that Fenway anthem that booms throughout the park in the middle of every eighth inning. An hour later, Diamond played the thing again “for anyone who came late to the show.” And then, one more time .

Lucky, beautiful, and, now, holy

JIM SULLIVAN — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:26:27 GMT

Rev Run runs straight
He was the king of rock, there was no higher . The sucker MCs, they should call him sire .

It was the mid 1980s. He was the king of rock, there was no higher. The sucker MCs, they should call him sire.

He was Run, and his co-rapping partner was D.M.C. Along with DJ Jam Master Jay, they put Hollis, Queens, on the map and made Run-D.M.C. the crossover act of the first rap/rock era. “It was cool. I enjoyed it,” says Run. “It was new, it was great, it was happening. I was lucky, it was beautiful.”

Run — born Joseph Simmons, younger brother of rap mogul Russell — is now Rev Run, who hosts the popular MTV show Run’s House (Wednesdays at 10 pm), a Father Knows Best for the hip-hop generation. On August 23, he’ll travel to Brookline Booksmith to speak and sign copies of Take Back Your Family: A Challenge to America’s Parents (Gotham), a book he and wife, Justine, co-wrote with Chris Morrow.

Later that night, he’ll rap with his pal Kid Rock at Comcast Center. But rapping is now the smaller slice of Rev Run’s pie. The big piece is being a husband, father, and reverend, as evidenced by his show.

“This is my ministry to the world,” says Rev Run. “We have to serve in some way, in a different capacity, which happens to be a family ministry. Let’s show people how we pull together, show the love in our house.”

He sees the obvious comparisons to The Cosby Show — “professional black people making it and taking care of their kids.” But his literature is not unlike the good doctor’s, too.

In Take Back Your Family — “a by-product of what we’re already doing” — Rev Run discusses his youthful hijinks, which included weed, women, and wildness, and offers parenting guidelines. Among his pearls of wisdom: get rid of clutter, don’t spoil the kids, and run the house with a firm but loving hand.

He’s fortunate that his six kids (from two marriages) are not drawn to the vices he once pursued, he says, and follow the example of their now-mature father.

“That’s pretty crazy going from rapper to reverend,” says Rev Run. “Maybe I am the new Al Green on the hip-hop level.”

As for his transition into a holy man, he says he turned to God after 1988’s Tougher Than Leather album failed to match the sales of ’86’s Raising Hell, and he felt Run-D.M.C. was foundering.

Interview: Shane West

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:20:15 GMT

Too late to stop
The actor discusses the Germs . . . and ER.

Born in Baton Rouge in 1978, Shane West was raised by punk-rocker parents. His earliest memory of punk is humming along to a Jam song at age three. At 18, he picked up a guitar and moved to Los Angeles. Around the same time, he started auditioning. In 1998, he formed a band called Average Jo, later called Jonny Was; at present, it’s on hiatus. The acting was more successful — he played Evan Rachel Wood’s brother Eli Sammler in the ABC-TV show Once and Again from 1999 to 2002. In 2004, West signed on as the lead actor and executive producer of What We Do Is Secret, a bio-pic of the late-’70s LA punk band the Germs and its bi-sexual, nihilistic, and ultimately suicidal lead singer, Darby Crash. The indie film — titled after a 44-second Germs song — started, ran out of money, stopped, and restarted. Last year it played the LA Film Festival; now it’s finally getting national release. West plays the antagonistic, confrontational Crash, who overdosed, Sid Vicious–like, on December 7, 1980. Further mixing real and reel life, he sang lead with the Germs on tour (they played Axis in 2006), and he’s still a Germ, whenever guitarist Pat Smear is off from his other gig with the Foo Fighters.

These days, however, West is best known for quite a different role: On ER, he plays Dr. Ray Barnett, a double-leg amputee during this final season, whose job includes tending to bloody wounds. In What We Do Is Secret, as Crash, he slashes his bare chest, Iggy-like, in concert. And so . . .

Do you prefer to bleed or be the guy who stanches the bleeding?
You mean be a victim or taking care of someone? Being the victim’s a lot more fun when it’s pretend. It was fun to do it in What We Do Is Secret and put on fake gashes. But as to being the caretaker, I’ve always been that with my friends and family. It’s kind of bred in me.

It’s hard to think of more-opposite roles.
Honestly, ER fits in wonderfully. The first year I started with the Germs, we were trying to raise money and learn songs, I wasn’t on ER, and then ER came along and gave me this opportunity. It helped me out financially, and also career-wise. It helped me get acknowledgment that I can play an adult. It was a blast to join a very successful show. During those three years of hell, when I was trying to put together What We Do Is Secret, eight months out of the year I was able to go to the finely run machine that was ER to relieve my financial worries and help me stay sane.

Club-to-theater update

JIM SULLIVAN — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:20:19 GMT

Venue shifts
“If you take the biggest 100 names in comedy, you’ll see 90 of them here in the next couple of years.”

We are Devo

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:03:23 GMT

The return of Akron’s finest
It’s been almost three decades since five guys in baggy yellow industrial clean-up suits sporting the letters D, E, V, and O took the Paradise stage, jerking about like robots, playing clipped, caustic art punk.

It’s been almost three decades since five guys in baggy yellow industrial clean-up suits sporting the letters D, E, V, and O took the Paradise stage, jerking about like robots, playing clipped, caustic art punk. In “Jocko Homo,” they asked, “Are we not men?”; their answer: “We are Devo!” Formed in Akron, but soon relocated to LA, Devo used video, theatricality, synthesizers, irony, and cynicism to suggest “de-evolution,” whereby humanity was in regression. They became early MTV favorites, and they scored big with “Whip It.” Devo’s creativity waned in the mid ’80s, and by 1991 they were done.

Sort of. Co-founding singer Mark Mothersbaugh composed music for TV, film, and commercials. Co-founding bassist Gerald V. Casale moved from directing Devo’s videos to directing other bands (Foo Fighters, Soundgarden). Devo re-formed sporadically and worked on a Disney disc as Devo 2.0 — kids singing Devo classics. This summer, Devo are touring with Mothersbaugh and Casale joined by Mark’s brother guitarist Bob (Bob 1) and Jerry’s brother guitarist/keyboardist Bob (Bob 2). The classic front four. Josh Freese takes over for drummer Alan Myers. They’re at Bank of America Pavilion with Tom Tom Club next Friday, June 27. I spoke with Casale from LA.

Are you still not men?
Unfortunately, we are men — it became all too obvious. All the ravages of the band who fell to earth.

Yet, Devo lives. How did this happen? A short history?
We worked in basements and garages, ’74 to ’78. Then we got signed and proceeded to put out records pretty regularly until 1990. At that point, Mark was scoring Rugrats and some other TV shows, and he didn’t want to collaborate, or tour, so Devo was in suspended animation. Other than doing some songs for films and occasional special appearances, we did nothing. Then they asked us to do Lollapalooza in ’97. That brought back an awareness of Devo, and then the Internet created a brand new audience. People couldn’t believe it because we seemed contemporary. Everything went in our direction: de-evolution turned out to be real, so we turned out to be right, and now we’re not far out or anything. We didn’t want it to be true. It was a warning, a posture, but over the last 30 years, you can see a downward spiral of Western society pretty clearly. I think if anybody had a crystal ball in 1980 and you said, “Here’s what the world will be like in 2008,” they would have thought you were presenting this hideous dystopia from science fiction.

Boston music news: May 9, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:47:11 GMT

Notes on Unbusted and the Dresden Dolls
The album recorded in 2005 by Unbusted— the Martha’s Vineyard core of the Billionaires — has indeed seen the light of day.

Toeing the Party Line

JIM SULLIVAN — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:49:36 GMT

The B-52's at Paradise Rock Club, April 23, 2008
The B-52’s may have surfaced during the new-wave storm of ’79, but they’re not on the oldies circuit quite yet.

Boston music news: May 2, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:01:00 GMT

Notes on Girls Guns and Glory and new happenings in Worcester
Girls Guns & Glory celebrate the release of their third CD, Inverted Valentine , May 2 at the Middle East downstairs, with support from the Everyday Visuals.

Boston music news: April 25, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:42:11 GMT

Notes on Revolutionary Snake Ensemble and the Unseen
“As far as I know,” says saxophonist Ken Field, “ Forked Tongue is the only CD ever released to include songs by both Ornette Coleman and Billy Idol.”

New bottle

JIM SULLIVAN — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:58:40 GMT

Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed’s vintage sounds
“A lot of today’s music is a little bit ironic," says Reed, and I don’t have any of that. It’s not about irony.”

STRAIGHT SHOOTER: “A lot of today’s music is ironic,” says Reed, “and I don’t have any of that.”

Eli "Paperboy" Reed, "The Satisfier" (mp3)

Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the True Loves are rehearsing at Q Division Studios in Somerville, picking songs for an upcoming gig. Reed, in his impassioned tenor, is scream-singing, “Come back, I need you!/I love you!/I want you!” The band are ripping through a classic-sounding R&B/soul song. Reed digs it: “It allows me to work the crowd.”

Does it make the cut? They vote. Six yeas, one abstention from guitarist Ryan Spraker. “It sounds too much like we’re playing an old song,” he says. Well, it is an old song. It’s a cover of “Oo Wee Baby I Love You,” which R&B singer Roscoe Robinson cut 42 years ago.

Fact is, a lot of Reed’s own songs — he’s got 11 on his upcoming (April 29) CD, Roll with You (Q Division) — sound like old songs, if by that you mean classic ’60s soul and R&B. Think Al Green, James Brown, Otis Redding. There are pumping Stax/Volt-like horns, crescendos galore. Songs of hurt and desire, pledges of love everlasting. Of Reed — who with his True Loves joins Death Cab for Cutie and a host of other bands at the WFNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll concert on May 10 — no less an authority than Nick Lowe has said, “It’s so exciting to hear someone so young playing old-fashioned R&B. . . . Could he be the male Winehouse? Why ever not?”

The 24-year-old Reed was no more born on the Delta than John Fogerty was born on the Bayou. Eli Husock was born and raised in Brookline, and he now lives in Allston. His father, former Phoenix writer Howard Husock, exposed Eli to blues and soul as a kid, giving him a harmonica at 13. Reed later taught himself guitar.

The story of his soul-and-blues apprenticeship is by now familiar — the “series of bizarre coincidences” that began with a college scouting trip to Memphis and ended with a nine-month stay in the Mississippi blues mecca of Clarksdale. “I didn’t even go there to play music. I found there was this thriving blues and R&B scene. I knew a lot of songs, I was eager, and I didn’t care that much about money.” The first band he played with asked Reed to be their singer/guitarist/frontman. That, by the way, is where “Paperboy” came into it. “I used to wear a scally cap all the time, and everybody’s got a nickname down there. I don’t wear the hat anymore. But I liked the nickname.” Soon thereafter, he adopted Reed as a stage name. He spent nine months in Clarksdale.

Boston music news: April 11, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:03:20 GMT

Notes on the future of the Paradise Lounge and more

Kink appeal

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:54:11 GMT

Ray Davies hits the road
We’d go through a lot of ups and downs, and I’d think sometimes we could have achieved less and been just as happy.

“A promoter once said, ‘If there’s a recession, book the Kinks.’ ”

Ray Davies, 63, and his brother Dave, 61, fronted the Kinks from 1964 to 1993. They’ve been at odds with each other even longer. During the mid-to-late ’90s, Ray took his songbook on the road with another guitarist, playing stripped-down Kinks songs and telling stories. Two years ago, Ray — who’d been shot in the leg by a mugger in New Orleans in January 2004 — re-emerged with the Other People’s Lives CD and toured with a band. He’s just released Working Man’s Café (both CDs are on V2), which often considers a world in disarray and decline. Ray, with a backing quartet, is at the Orpheum Sunday, and they’ll likely play half a dozen songs from the new album. I talked with him by phone from San Francisco.

There’s a rumor that the original Kinks — you, drummer Mick Avory, and bassist Pete Quaife — might get together to record and/or play live, but Dave is the holdout.
That’s about it, as far as I know. My brother’s recovering really well. [Dave suffered a stroke in June 2004.] He’s done some recording. He just doesn’t want to spend a long time in the studio or on tour. I think we’re going to have to sit down and talk about it. I know the others really want to do it. I’d like to make something new as well as play the old songs. But Dave is the stumbling block, partially because of a genuine recovering issue and secondly, his state of mind and whether he feels he’s comfortable doing it.

And, of course, there’s your relationship.
Yes. But I think at some point in life you’ve got to try and bury some of these old things. There are things you can’t put your finger on, why people get annoyed with each other. It’s like anything else to do with family, and the Kinks are a family.

This band, how do you compare with the Kinks?
Obviously, it can’t recapture the Kinks records, but it [the music] is done with different emphasis. What is great is that new songs really have a life of their own. As players, they feel they’re bringing something new to it.

Boston music news: April 4, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:20:26 GMT

Notes on Beehive and Shred
The hip South End restaurant/club the Beehive is indeed a hub of activity.

Film @ Noir

JIM SULLIVAN — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:18:42 GMT

Opening night at the Boston Underground Film Festival
“It’s called The Wizard of Gore, it’s with the Suicide Girls in it. What did you fuckin’ expect?!”

Boston music news: March 28, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:57:32 GMT

Notes on Erin Harpe and Banned in Boston
Erin Harpe has stepped out of her role as lead singer of the electro-funk band Lovewhip to record Delta Blues Duets .

Bred in the bone

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:24:05 GMT

Joe Perry’s kids get their rocks off in TAB the Band
Sometimes the apples don’t fall far from the tree.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED Ben Tilestone and Adrian and Tony Perry wanted to offer their own update on the vintage Aerosmith/Stones sound of the early ’70s.

Rock and roll may be about rebellion. But sometimes the apples don’t fall far from the tree. At least that’s the sense you get with TAB the Band, a blues-influenced hard-rock trio whose “apples” are two of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry’s kids, lead singer/bassist Adrian Perry, 26, and guitarist-backing vocalist Tony Perry, 21. It was not, the Perry brothers say, inevitable that they would end up in a band together. Or even in a band at all. Adrian is at Georgetown University Law School; Tony just transferred to Boston University after studying film for two years in New York. (Drummer Ben Tileston, 20, is a long-time friend and neighbor of Tony’s — he’s also attending BU.) But it’s clear that rock and roll is in the Perry blood.

TAB the Band, who play Bill’s Bar this Friday, released two EPs last year and their debut full-length, Pulling Out Just Enough To Win, which they recorded at Aerosmith’s Vindaloo studio in Hanover, this past January. At the end of February, they played a private charity gig with their dad at the Hard Rock Café — doing a few of their own songs, Aerosmith blues-rockers, Joe Perry solo numbers, and a ripping cover of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” “It’s great to be here with my boys and my next-door neighbor,” said Joe from the stage.

The new CD is chock-a-block with classic-sounding rock influenced by Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. The songs have a whiff of raunch, a little snarl, and a parcel of hooks. “Secretary’s Day,” the single, is a sizzler, but the entire album kicks ass in a smart way — with short, sharp shocks. Was there an over-riding theme? Adrian: “It deals with the celebration and tabloidization of the celebrity lifestyle. It’s become ubiquitous. The songs take various perspectives criticizing it, celebrating it, or both.”

The Perry boys formed the band about 16 months ago. Their mission: to offer their own updated take on the vintage Aerosmith/Stones sound of the early ’70s. “When we got together we just said we want to rock out,” says Adrian. “Make it really organic. There’s no superfluous parts. We don’t shove guitar solos in.”

Tony adds, “I think we put a nice little spin on classic rock, modernize it, shorten it up. People nowadays don’t have the patience — they like their short pop songs, and people want to rock, too.”

Boston music news: March 21, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:11:25 GMT

Notes on Brian Viglione, the Unseen, and Girl Authority
When Trent Reznor made the new Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV available as a download earlier this month, all the hype was about the method of its release.

Celtic tigers

JIM SULLIVAN — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:17:07 GMT

Interview: the Chieftains at Symphony Hall — again
At 69, Paddy Moloney is still the world’s foremost uilleann-pipes player.

At 69, Paddy Moloney is still the world’s foremost uilleann-pipes player. He started playing at 10, around Dublin. In 1962 he co-founded the Chieftains, who would spread traditional Celtic music throughout the world. They’ve released 45 albums — the latest a two-CD compilation called The Essential Chieftains — and won six Grammys, an Emmy, and an Oscar, They’ve played with Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, the Corrs, Marianne Faithfull, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, and the Boston Pops, to name a few. I caught up with Moloney — the remaining original — on the phone from Princeton, New Jersey, where the band had just played the 12th date of a 17-date US tour.

So, you’re playing Boston on March 14, right around St. Patrick’s Day. This is not a shock.
I think 1975 was when we first played in Boston, and we’re 46 years together now as the band. To come to Symphony Hall again, there’s magic about that place. This year, it’s a big show. It’s not just the four old Chieftains bashing away anymore.

It’s called “The Celtic-Scottish Connection Tour”?
We’re going down the road this time with the Scottish. Alyth McCormack comes from one of the islands off the West Coast of Scotland [Lewis] and sings in Scots Gaelic and English. She’s with two great musicians, Brian Mcalpine and Jonny Hardie, who play fiddle, accordion, guitar, and keyboards. They’re on stage from the word go, right at the top of the show. We have a guest singer nobody’s ever heard, Siobhán O’Brien. She has a magic voice. We lost our dear friend [harpist] Ding Dong [Derek] Bell five years ago, and this lovely girl Tríona Marshall has come in and gone through the roof. We’ve been having the time of our life on this tour.

You’ve become the international ambassadors of Irish traditional music. Did you ever envision that?
No, that first album we made in ’62, you might say was a one-off. We never expected this to happen. But I did have that dream. I said there was something there for this music, that I wanted to put it on a major stage throughout the world. We desired something bigger and better than music that people play in pubs. Radio programmers like the late John Peel used to play the odd track from the Chieftains in with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and he just loved what we did. And Melody Maker voted us group of the year in ’75. That kind of attention we were getting, I thought we were all going mad.

Gotharama

JIM SULLIVAN — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:37:04 GMT

Greetings from the dark side
It was a dark and stormy night . . . which made for a veritable holiday in the sun for the folks attending “Gotharama — New England’s Dark Music Festival.”

Boston music news: March 14, 2008

JIM SULLIVAN — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:57:34 GMT

Notes on Black Fortress of Opium, Embrionic, and some reissued T-shirts
The psychedelic goth trio Black Fortress of Opium are moving up in the world.