Prince speaks to Euro press

Prince is releasing a new album via cover mount on European newspapers and magazines this weekend and has done a few interviews. I was glad to hear he's only putting it out on CD and not digital download (no U.S. release in confirmed yet).

Apparently, he despises iTunes, downloads and digital devices. Good for him!
But he also hates the internet and has shut down his official website. Not so good.

The link to one of the articles is below, where Prince invited a journalist to Paisley Park in Minneapolis, but as has been the norm over the past decade or so, the guy couldn't take notes or record what transpired:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/05/prince-world-exclusive-interview-peter-willis-goes-inside-the-star-s-secret-world-115875-22382552/

The origin of KROQ-FM/Los Angeles

There's an interesting Q&A on billboard.com with Shadoe Stevens, the second syndicated radio host of "American Top 40" after Casey Kasem left to launch his own show. This month marks AT40's 40th anniversary.

In the interview Stevens - the onetime host of TV's "Hollywood Squares" - briefly recounts how he helped launch "The World Famous KROQ," something I didn't know.

Concrete Blonde concert review 2010

A version of my review originally appeared in the Orange County Register, which can be viewed here: ocregister.com/sections/entertainment/music/

“Twilight” saga fanatics will get their vampire fixes from the “Eclipse” movie. But alt-rock enthusiasts got a musical dose of dark, gothic imagery on Monday night as Concrete Blonde made its first Los Angeles area live appearance in more than five years.

Performing to a full Music Box (formerly Henry Fonda Theatre), the LA trio - which formed in 1982 and spent the latter part of the last two decades apart - recently reunited to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Bloodletting.

Among the band’s best and most popular efforts, the lyrics touched upon such heavy subject matter as AIDS, alcoholism and death. R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Andy Prieboy (Wall of Voodoo) and Gail Ann Dorsey (David Bowie) all made guest appearances.

Concrete Blonde finally hit big when the single “Joey” reached the top 20 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The album has sold nearly a million copies to date. A great deluxe remastered edition, bolstered by half a dozen rarities, comes out on Shout! Factory Records next month.

Although Bloodletting wasn’t performed as a whole in Hollywood, it did get a proper airing and front-loaded the strong 100-minute set. Red roses were strewn across the stage as on that album’s cover. Shrouded in smoke, the musicians entered to the appropriately creepy strains of Bauhaus’ “Bela Lagosi’s Dead.”

Singer/bassist Johnette Napolitano – still looking resplendent in long black hair, silvery top and black dress - slowly plucked the moody, opening notes of Anne Rice inspired “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song),” sang with fervor and cackled.

Surprisingly, “Joey” was dispatched early and the dense mix initially engulfed Napolitano’s lower register, but she overcame that during the dramatic chorus. Band co-founder Jim Mankey did a brilliant, tasteful solo.

Despite being the end of an American tour, Napolitano didn’t have any vocal problems mentioned on her personal MySpace blog a few days ago. From singing the sustained notes on “I Don’t Need a Hero” and “Heal it Up,” getting ferocious amid hard rocking “Days and Days” and humorous “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man” to the more subdued “Caroline” (some scintillating arpeggios from Mankey), she and her bandmates continually impressed.

The Music Box crowd was boisterous, often shouting their approval. Napolitano, in turn, was feisty as ever. She danced around a bit, joked about having a similar sounding name as the U.S. head of homeland security and told her stepmother watching an intense Concrete Blonde gig for the first time that “I tried to warn you.”

Before launching into the searing “Run Run Run” from 1989’s equally solid album Free, the singer recounted a low period – also told in her new book - in the early ‘80s: she scored drugs from a guy at the Formosa Café on Santa Monica Blvd. Napolitano spit out the lyrics, while drummer Gabriel Ramirez-Quezada, a more recent recruit from LA rock en espanol group Maria Fatal, got a mini solo spotlight.

Another tune referencing illicit behavior, longtime Concrete Blonde concert staple “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen, was riveting. Mankey’s played short, surf guitar-styled licks as Napolitano whisper/sang with authority and tweaked the lyric (“everybody knows BP lied”).

On a day when the U.S. Supreme Court extended rights of gun owners, 1989’s blazing “God is a Bullet,” describing assassinations and drive-by shootings, couldn’t have been more topical. Mankey's displayed his razor sharp riffage and Napolitano added Harvey Milk to the list of slain people in the lyrics.

The acoustic encore section, including countryish gem “True” off the 1986 self-titled debut disc, a gorgeous, bilingual “Mexican Moon, endearing “Happy Birthday” (about LA tenement slums) and harrowing Prieboy number “Tomorrow Wendy,” where Napolitano kneeled and fans sang along loudly, were all highlights.

A Perfect Circle/Ashes Divide guitarist Billy Howerdel guested on backing vocals during the final encore of a rousing “Still in Hollywood.”

Concrete Blonde, The Music Box, Hollywood, June 28, 2010
Main set: Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)/Joey/I Don’t Need a Hero/Days and Days/ Lullabye/Scene of a Perfect Crime/Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man/Someday/Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen cover)/Caroline/When I Was a Fool/God is a Bullet/Run Run Run/Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix cover)/Heal it Up/Your Haunted Head
First encore: Mexican Moon/Happy Birthday/True/Tomorrow Wendy (Andy Prieboy cover)
Second encore: Still in Hollywood

Photo by Amber Boggs, courtesy Girlie Action PR.

Josh Ritter wows 'em in LA

I finally saw Ritter headline for the first time a couple weeks ago at Hollywood's Music Box Theatre and wow, what a show! For nearly two hours, the affable singer/guitarist and his crack band captivated and invigorated the large crowd with a major chunk of material from the stunning latest album "So Runs the World Away." Although the sound mix was muddled at times, it didn't detract from the performance.

Ritter played electric guitar for the first half and gradually switched to solo acoustic. He did a stark cover of "Moon River" and an affecting take on John Prine's "Mexican Home" from the new tribute album. LA was also fortunate to get a spirited "Kathleen" - a longtime concert favorite he doesn't do all the time.

Springsteen news in Backstreets

Attention all Bruce tramps:

There's a great rare interview with The Professor, keyboardist Roy Bittan, that includes fascinating details about his collaborations with Bruce on the "Human Touch"/"Lucky Town" albums in the latest (Spring 2010) issue of Backstreets magazine, now on selected newsstands.

Other chats with other E St. members in the issue devoted to longtime keyboardist Danny Federici's passing provide added insights. A lot of the news is dated, including wrap ups of the "Magic" and "Working on a Dream" world tours, but it's worth it just to read the interviews. Up to the minute Bruce news can be found on the website, backstreets.com.

Bonus Q&A with Josh Ritter

Here is more from my way too brief phone interview with Josh Ritter, while heading through Alabama on his tour bus.

How have the new songs been going over live?
It’s always an exciting time - kind of like designing an animal. Then the stage is where they see what they’re going to do. For that reason alone, it’s pretty fun to be playing new stuff.


I read some recent live reviews that mentioned you’ve been tossing in a Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen cover at shows.
On occasion, yeah. We do a bunch of different types of covers from the American songbook.

You toured with veteran country/folk singer John Prine awhile back. What was that like?
I learned so much from watching him on that tour. [One thing was] to go slow and appreciate what’s happening with the people onstage. It’s always good when you get a chance to tour with somebody who’s been doing it longer. You get a chance to see how they manage to incorporate their touring and artistic life into their family life, so they can keep doing it as long as somebody like John Prine has. It takes a lot of effort and work to have your life fully incorporated so you can keep on playing and be happy.

When you have the rare off day on tour, what do you do?
We try and do all kinds of things when we have our days off, just because it’s such an incredible opportunity. We hit the jackpot [this time out]. We’re in New Orleans on a day off and Las Vegas. We had a day off in Chicago and I threw out the opening pitch for the Cubs. Really fun stuff. Always a real change of pace. We live for those kinds of moments.

How have you adapted to the move to Brooklyn?
There are so many things to do and see, from the film forum and Central Park. You take the train up to Central Park and then walk back to Brooklyn and Chinatown...It’s like being in front of a museum with no order to it. You walk and see an interesting thing next to something else that has no relation, but is also interesting.

A couple songs on the new album revolve around travel, which you compare to the journey of songwriting.
It’s the same thing with mythical cities like El Dorado or Atlantis – these places that people look for, but they weren’t really looking for them. They were on a trip. It was sort of an afterthought where they were going. Once found, it wasn’t as important. I think that’s one of the reasons why explorers are solitary figures. They don’t fit in with the world.

You’ve said you wanted to go bigger with the sound on this album and remarked that Zach played instruments you hadn’t even heard of.
Totally. Oh man. We had the omnichord, flugelhorn, bass clarinet.

Plus you play an instrument other than guitar on a track as well.
I grew up playing violin but I was never very good. Nervously playing the violin [on the song], I think I had a couple beers before I played it, so it had a sort of off-kilter feel.

Along with the denser sounding songs like “Rattling Locks” and “Remnants,” you balance them out with quieter ones such as “Lark” and “Long Shadows,” which has a campfire sing along vibe.
I think an album should be a little like a party – you want to stay long enough, but not too long. A song is like that too. Part of the effectiveness of a song is whether you can say what you want to say without totally outstaying your welcome.

Your wife sings background on some songs. Did you feel a feminine vocal presence was needed?
I was just excited to hear her sing. We used her studio for portions of the recording, like the horns. It was great to be able to do that. It worked out terrific.

Referring to the album’s Shakespearean title, you’ve said these songs function like a play. How so?
A lot of the record felt like a play to me. It felt like a story that had the details filled in. A lot of time with the story of a song, you have glimpses of detail that stand for the larger story. With these, I wanted to make sure the glimpses were fully fledged looks. That you could see something. I felt like that was a lot like a play. It’s like the difference between reading a play and seeing one. I wanted that. A lot of the characters felt like they were getting run over by the world. They’re about to be tilled under.

Does the nautical theme on the album artwork, with the oceanic maps and everything, tie into the song “Another New World,” where you sing about Columbus and the voyage of his ships?
Sam took all the photos, including the Natchez [steamboat] down in New Orleans, with a medium format camera. Then with the other illustrations, I felt the symbols and the lyrics were totemic, like tarot cards. I wanted images like that, strong simple images that kind of alluded to the songs. Art designer Matthew Fleming had a beautiful idea how it could all fit together, displaced with the compass and ship.

Where did the phrase on the back of the CD come from?
It was something I woke up with and was the beginning of a song. I always think there’s something special about those phrases you wake up with; there’s something unplanned about them that is important to me. I always try to put one of those on my records somewhere.

Some of your older albums were recently reissued in deluxe editions. Were you glad to have them more easily available to fans?
I was thrilled to be able to do that and record them solo because your voice changes over time. It’s cool to go back and in some cases, change lyrics and arrangements. Then just have a look back over that stuff. That feels great. It also feels great to own my own records again, which is cool.

Were you surprised to discover an Irish Josh Ritter tribute band exists in Cork?
[laughs] I haven’t seen them for awhile, but that was quite cool at the time. They were certainly way better than we were.

It’s a sign you’ve really made it in the music business when tribute bands form specifically to do your music.
Yeah, right. That’s what they say.

Interview with Josh Ritter

A version of my interview originally appeared in the North County Times [www.nctimes.com/entertainment/music] Photo by Marcelo Biglia, courtesy Sacks & Co. PR. Ritter performs on Tuesday at the Belly Up in Solana Beach and Wednesday at the Music Box Theatre (formerly Henry Fonda) in Hollywood.

Unusual characters and scenarios tend to populate Josh Ritter’s literary-minded lyrics.

During the stirring “Girl in the War” (from acclaimed 2006 disc “The Animal Years”), apostles Peter and Paul mixed it up with comedy team Laurel & Hardy. Then there was “The Temptation of Adam” (2007’s “Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”), where a couple awaited the impending apocalypse in an old missile silo.

Not your typical singer-songwriter fare.

Now the Idaho native adds more unique songs to his impressive cannon via the release of excellent chamber folk album “So Runs the World Away,” whose title is taken from the play “Hamlet.”

“I always go to Shakespeare for ideas,” admitted Ritter in a phone interview. “It gives you something to shoot for, you know? I thought that phrase just rolled off the tongue well and felt so true to what I was trying to write about.”

Classic ballad protagonists are brought together in “Folk Bloodbath,” a bleak, gospel-tinged tune partially based on Mississippi John Hurt’s traditional “Louis Collins.” Delia (popularized in “Delia’s Gone” by Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash) and Stackalee (AKA “Stagger Lee”) are both referenced. Other “Bloodbath” versions existed from previous recording sessions, but they didn’t seem like enough of a departure.

“I was just painting somebody else’s picture a different way.” Once he suggested to producer Sam Kassirer – also the keyboardist in Ritter’s Royal City Band – that the guitar shouldn’t lead everything, “he figured out a great way to make it all work.

“I wanted it to be a mash up and have some justice on this record,” Ritter continued. “I crashed the characters together to see what would happen…they live around each other in the lexicon, but never really interact. I wanted them to walk into somebody else’s house and do something. I thought that would be fun.”

Ritter relocated to New York City after getting married last year and hit a wall creatively for several months.

“Moving there has been an amazing, sometimes jarring, switch…the amount of things to do in New York [is endless]; you can follow your interests in any direction. You almost feel guilty if you don’t. It’s a good place to walk around with a notepad.”

Regular visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian wing triggered the album catalyst “The Curse,” a poignant waltz and love story between an archeologist and a mummy come to life. Drummer Liam Hurley directed and crafted the accompanying award worthy music video, which is acted out by marionettes.

Reading about science history – specifically orbital decay – also helped Ritter get back on the songwriting track. “I thought about gravity as being a lot like love. It pulls us together, although we don’t understand it and can’t see it. But we can see the effects.” An upbeat, pop-inflected “Orbital,” where Ritter recites a litany of objects that circle each other, (think: They Might Be Giants) was the result.

The troubadour pushed his band “into places where they wouldn’t normally go otherwise.” The result is a rich sonic tapestry colored by such instruments as omnichord, flugelhorn, bass clarinet, e-bow, glockenspiel, ukulele and vibraphone.

“Other people’s ideas are like standing on the edge of a ship, looking at a continent and as you move closer, it gets more and more defined. That process is really exciting.”

Voyage is another topic that fascinates Ritter, as evidenced by the lush train themed “Southern Pacifica” and mysterious cinematic sweep of “Another New World,” which Christopher Columbus inspired.

“Writing is like a journey,” he said. “You start off with nothing and then travel across the page. When the song is done and you feel good, you’re excited to write the next thing.”

And for Ritter, that next thing is his first novel, “Bright’s Passage,” due out next year on Dial Press, a division of Random House.

Before choosing music as a career, Ritter studied neuroscience (his parents work in the medical field) at Oberlin College in Ohio. After switching majors to folk music, Ritter recorded an album on campus in 1999 and learned more about the genre during a short Scottish college stint. He put out another independent effort the next year, which was subsequently reissued by a small U.S. label and performed steadily at open mic nights in New England.

That’s where vocalist Glen Hansard (The Frames, Swell Season) was impressed enough to offer Ritter a 2001 tour opening slot back in Ireland. A Dublin music press and fan following quickly ensued. Former Frames guitarist Dave Odlum produced Ritter’s third album “Hello Starling”; it debuted at no. 2 on the Irish charts.

Stateside, Ritter’s appealingly verbose writing style led to Bob Dylan comparisons and tours with folk legends Joan Baez (she later covered his song “Wings”) and John Prine.

“He’s an American master,” enthused Ritter, among the artists contributing to Prine tribute album “Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows.” Due in stores on Tuesday, the covers collection features My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst, Avett Brothers, Sara Watkins and others.

On singing Prine’s “Mexican Home,” he said, “it was especially difficult to choose a favorite, one that you can make your own. There’s so much personality to his songs. They’re tailor-made for him.”

Having shuttled between different labels for every album, the pressure’s off for his latest on Pytheas Recordings, a new venture launched by Ritter and his management. The track “Change of Time” is currently top 40 at AAA radio.

“I have nothing bad to say about labels. You play that game and take what you can get. I’m happy the team I’m working with can take credit for all the great things happening right now.”