Tag Archives: album

Little-Feat-Waiting-For-Columbus

At number 29 in my countdown of the 30 best live albums in history, I have chosen Waiting for Columbus by Little Feat.

Many considered Little Feat to be over their golden age by 1977, but I think this live album shows them wrong. This is a band at its peak!

Willin’ 1977, Rockpalast:

Waiting for Columbus is the first live album by the “swamp rock” band, Little Feat. The album was recorded during seven performances in 1977. The first four shows were held at the Rainbow Theatre in London on August 1–4, 1977. The last three shows were recorded in George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium on August 8–10 that same summer in Washington, D.C.

Little Feat Waiting 2

The band was backed by the Tower of Power horn section with whom they had recorded in previous studio sessions. And they really fill out the sound!

Dixie Chicken (w/Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt and Jesse Winchester):

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Concert Review, Live, Photo, Rock

Monster Magnet live in Haugesund, Norway 2012

November 14, 2012 Hallgeir

Photo special

‘It’s A Satanic Drug Thing – You Wouldn’t Understand’ – warning on the album, Spine of God

Monster Magnet is an American stoner rock band. Hailing from Red Bank, New Jersey, the group was founded by Dave Wyndorf (vocals and guitar), John McBain (guitar) and Tim Cronin (vocals and drums). The band first went by the names “Dog of Mystery”, “Airport 75”, “Triple Bad Acid” and “King Fuzz” before finally settling on “Monster Magnet”, taken from the name of a 1960s toy made by Wham-O, which Wyndorf liked when he was a child. (Wikipedia)

Monster Magnet had managed to become one of the most successful and influential bands associated with the so-called underground “stoner rock” scene. And yet, their influences span much further than that scene’s foundations in ’70s hard rock and metal, delving into space rock, psychedelia, and beyond. (Allmusic.com (by Eduardo Rivadavia))

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Concert Review, Country, Live, Rock, Singer Songwriter, Video

Ida Jenshus live in Haugesund

October 28, 2012 Hallgeir

We had a fantastic night at Høvleriet in Haugesund last night. We want to come back, what a venue and what an atmosphere! Thank you.
– Ida Jenshus (on her webpage)

Ida Jenshus has recently released her third album, Someone to love. The album is a departure from the country on her two previous records, into a more airy sounding country/rock/songwriter style. The obvious comparison is Emmylou Harris’ collaboration with super-producer Daniel Lanois, but I can also hear Kathleen Edwards and Mary Gauthier in the quiet stuff, and Lucinda Williams in her more uptempo stuff. I like the direction she’s taken. I like the first two records but I think her concerts have showed a truer Ida Jenshus, and finally it is reflected in her recorded work.

The wonderful Tender Leaves:

We saw Ida Jenshus with a great group of musicians at Høvleriet in Haugesund last friday, there she dedicated a very fine version of Tender Leaves to Chip Taylor. An artist that Jenshus has worked with lately and have played with on several occasions. Chip Taylor is the man who wrote Wild Thing and Angel of the morning.

It was a lovely show that varied from tender moments into full blown guitar jams, never dull and, man, what a great group she’s touring with! The audience clearly liked what they heard, quiet listening and attentive, and it was great to see this many people coming out to see Ida Jenshus. Country flavoured music isn’t always the biggest audience puller.

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Concert Review, Indie, Live, pop

I Was A King live in Haugesund

October 26, 2012 Hallgeir 2 Comments

Last night I saw I Was A King(IWAK) for the fourth time. It is a fantastic band and they just keeps getting better. They still sound a bit like a Teenage Fanclub and Byrds mix, and that’s a good thing.

The New album is a fine mix of powerpop, guitar walls and great song writing. The guitars are “byrdsy” jangly and this time they flirt even more with the American side of indie-americana-pop. So you see, they’re kinda hard to describe. But they sound terrific!

IWAK has gotten together with two fantastic popmusic masters this time, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub vocalist, yes him!) and Robyn Hitchcock (Power-pop godfather, The Soft Boys member and solo artist extraordinaire), what a dream-team!

When i first read about it I really couldn’t believe it, it’s a match made in heaven.

IWAK once wrote a fine song called “Norman Bleik” (on the second album, 2009), about one of their inspirations, just as Norman Blake once wrote a song about one of his own heroes Neil Young, called “Neil Jung”. Fun fact.

The result of this collaboration is IWAK’s best album, a fully realised record with great songs. It sounds so big and it is full of air, but it’s not pretentious at all. They sound more mature and more pop. The Playing is better than ever and the songwriting is spectacular, I realy love this album (You guessed that, eh?) and it is a quintessential pop album. A love letter to music, no less.

Best on the album: Frozen Disease, Superhero and Leave

Best live in Haugesund: Food Wheels and A Million Signs (with The One I love snippet as intro!)

I Was A King gave us a lesson in harmony induced pop music in Haugesund last night. I’ve never heard them better. Normally they’re not very talkative with the audience, but this night was a bit different. Anne Lise Frøkedal had several fammily members in the audience and the atmosphere was very friendly. Of course there were no sing-alongs, but it was a fun and relaxed interaction.

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Classic Concert, Funk, Great albums, James Brown, Soul

James Brown – Live at the Apollo was recorded 50 years ago today

October 24, 2012 Hallgeir 1 Comment

“When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don’t go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.”
– James Brown

“Our whole thing was based on James Brown. We listened to Live at the Apollo endlessly on acid. We would listen to that in the van in the early days of 8-tracks on the way to the gigs to get us up for the gig. If you played in a band in Detroit in the days before The MC5, everybody did ‘Please, Please, Please’ and ‘I Go Crazy.’ These were standards. We modeled The MC5’s performance on those records. Everything we did was on a gut level about sweat and energy. It was anti-refinement. That’s what we were consciously going for.”
– Wayne Cramer, MC5

Recorded	October 24, 1962
Genre	R&B, soul
Length	31:31 (Original LP), 40:47 (CD reissue)
Label	King, Solid Smoke, Polydor
Producer	James Brown (original), Harry Weinger (Polydor reissues)

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