Never shying away from a musical challenge, Boiled in Lead, who has been together since 1983, embraces an eclectic mix of Celtic, folk, rock, punk and traditional music.
The Minnesota folk rockers released their latest four song EP in February, The Well Below. Although Boiled in Lead's lineup is constantly rotating, the release of the EP features the the return of original lead singer Todd Menton, along with guitarist Dean Magraw and drummer Marc Anderson.
The Well Below opens with the Roscoe Holcomb cover “Wedding Dress," infusing bluegrass and Celtic sounds, with a bridge reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s “Dancing Days.” They follow it up with the Irish folk song “The Well Down Below," a brutal tale of incest and murder, boasting such lyrical gems as: “There’s two of them buried beneath the floor at the well below the valley.”
They try their hand at country with “Western Borders” where singer Todd Menton asks, “These broken pieces, what do I do?” And they finish strong with “Transylvania Stomp,” an instrumental that pulls from a tradition of Hungarian and Romanian dance music.
Boiled in Lead will be heading back into the studio this summer to record another EP and preparations are under way for their 30th anniversary celebration in 2013.
(Elford Alley has had plays produced and read across the United States and his sketch comedy featured in several shows in Chicago. He also writes for cracked.com. He currently resides in Dallas with his wife and daughter.)
On April 19, 2012, the world lost a brilliant musician. With the passing of Levon Helm after a long battle with cancer, the public is reflecting on Helm's long and influential career. A great drummer with a soulful voice, he’s left an amazing catalogue of Americana behind.
Here are just five things that make Levon Helm great:
5. He Published an Autobiography
Helm’s 1993 autobiography This Wheel’s On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band gives his fans a glimpse at his childhood, being raised in the deep south, to his discovery of music, and the formation of The Band. Helm also accuses Robbie Robertson of conspiring with record companies to steal songwriting credits from the rest of the members of The Band.
4. He Performed in Berlin After the Wall Came Down
After the Berlin Wall came down, former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters organized a special live performance of Pink Floyd’s magnum opus The Wall. Levon Helm, along with Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, performed as The Band to an estimated half a million people.
3. He was an Accomplished Actor
Helm didn’t act in many films, and despite his appearance in Steven Segal's Fire Down Below, he gave incredible performances in Coal Miner’s Daughter,The Right Stuff, and the unique and disturbing film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.
2. He was the Glue in The Band
Don’t let The Last Waltz fool you! Levon Helm was the heart and soul of The Band. Playing drums and mandolin and performing vocals on “The Weight,” "Up on Cripple Creek," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," and “Ophelia," it was his unique fusion of country and blues that made The Band legendary.
1. He was a Musician Until the End
Levon Helm never slowed down, either performing solo or with The Band, he toured and performed right up until this year. He received the first ever Grammy for an Americana album for Dirt Farmer(2007) and released Electric Dirt in 2009 and the live album Ramble at the Ryman in 2011.
(Elford Alleyhas written plays, sketch comedy, and short stories. He currently lives in Dallas with his wife and daughter. Follow Elford on Twitter.)
In our Writers and Musicseries, authors either discuss the music that has been included in their most recent novel or the influence music has had on their work overall.
(Joshua Malbin is the author of Soap and Water, a novel about civil war in a near-future American West, echoing our decade-long occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He can ride a horse and wrestle a steer to the ground for branding, but he can’t throw a rope so he could never make it as a cowboy.)
I lived out West for two years in the mid-1990s, on a ranch in a corner of California nestled up by Nevada, an hour from the nearest town.
For the first six months I had an afternoon job as a mechanic’s assistant—but I’d been assigned to him, he didn’t especially want me or trust me to fix anything. I was allowed to perform oil changes, sweep up, and hand him tools. Otherwise I listened to the radio. The only signal we got was the AM country station, KIBS. This was the first time in my life I had ever listened to any kind of country music.
It was more or less the country equivalent of Top 40, meaning that most of what it played was terrible. But every now and then they played something I liked. I bought the cassingle of Sammy Kershaw’s “Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer” and continue to think it’s catchy. I also bought the Reba McEntire album with her cover of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." Even better was when they played real country classics, which they’d do maybe once an afternoon.
Growing up I had assumed that all pop music was for kids, by kids, but this was music made for grownups, by people grown up enough to have left behind their resistance to looking weak or foolish in public. I loved rock and I loved hip-hop, but vulnerability wasn’t a big part of either one. Even in blues and R&B the strain of self-abasement that you can hear in, for example, Bill Withers’ “Use Me” or Etta James’ “Fool That I Am,” that was fading too, if it wasn’t gone already. But country music was still full of dirtbags and losers, drunks, cuckolds, dumpees, and piners, all laying their weaknesses bare. It’s a genre that has no use for nonchalance.
I don’t think I ever listened to country radio again after I came back East, but I still listen to and love the saddest of the oldies: Patsy, Hank, Willie, Dolly. I listened to them all again—and many more—when I was trying to find songs to insert in certain places in my novel Soap and Water, a story about the West. I wanted something that embodied the West’s feelings of resentment, failure, and nostalgia all at once. But for a long time I couldn’t find anything that really fit, until at last I stumbled across Merle Haggard and knew he was perfect.
Merle Haggard is a giant asshole. He’s a reactionary and a chauvinist and proud of it. He’s also broken, mourning, and defiantly proud of that too. It was exactly what I’d been looking for, all that loathsome, heartbroken, defiant meanness delivered in a laid-back, honeyed vocal style.
The first of his songs I used was “Carolyn,” in which he coos a verse about visiting a brothel in the big city, and then in a rollicking, angry chorus informs Carolyn that “a man will do that always/when he’s treated bad at home.”
This brand of "it’s-your-fault-I-cheated" bravado probably explains why so many of Merle’s songs are about having just been dumped. Take, for example, “I Don’t Want to Sober Up Tonight,” which I use much later in the book:
I don’t want to sober up tonight / I don’t want to act like things are alright / And I don’t want to change just to make you think I’m happy / That’s my right, I don’t want to sober up tonight
He’s a drunk, he knows everyone thinks he’s crazy, and he doesn’t care: “I don’t want to change just to make you think I’m happy."
The same attitude shines in “It’s Not Love,” which I have playing on the radio during a sex scene. It’s a little on the nose, but I couldn’t resist it.
She was always there each time I needed you / Holding on to me like I held on to you / We still don't have what you and I once had / No, it's not love, but it's not bad.
This is a man who knows he’s supposed to be better and refuses to care. He’s sad about how things are going, no doubt about it, but he’s still not willing to change his nature one iota. He’d rather beat you up than concede anything about his terrible self-destructiveness, and that’s exactly the American stance I wanted to convey.
And of course I had to use his reactionary anthem “Okie from Muskogee.”
Today the asshole reactionary torch is carried by Toby Keith, but Toby Keith just doesn’t have anything like Merle’s poetry, and he certainly doesn’t have his charm. The really alluring thing to me about Merle’s songs is that buried in all that attitude are these perfect little observations that remind you that assholes are human, too. Attitude or no, “It’s not love, but it’s not bad” is a fucking great lyric, and he sings it with all the heartbreak of classic country.
Why is it that whenever an actor tries his or her hand at music they usually go down in a ball of flames? Some work out, like Jeff Bridges, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of grizzled country music veteran Otis Blake, which led to the release of two decent albums. But for every Jeff Bridges there are hundreds of Corey Feldmans and Gwyneth Paltrows waiting in the wings.
Here are five random musical actors.
William Shatner
We’ve all heard William Shatner’s bizarre, spoken word version of Elton John’s “Rocket Man," but he truly surprised everyone with his 2004 album Has Been. Produced and arranged by Ben Folds, it was critically acclaimed. Seriously. An album by William “halting cadence” Shatner was critically acclaimed. The album featured a popular cover of Pulp’s “Common People” and the original song “What Have You Done," which deals with his wife’s tragic death in 1999. While he's not the only Star Trek alum to try his hand at a musical career (if you’re brave, google “Leonard Nimoy's Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”), but he’s definitely had the strangest.
Mr. T
This guy went from being a bodyguard who was so renowned he was sought out for assassinations to a punch line relegated to commercials and reality shows. But for a brief moment in 1984, Mr. T was more than a walking cartoon character; he was a walking cartoon character who released two albums, Mr. T’s Commandmentsand Mr. T’s Be Somebody…or Be Somebody’s Fool. Both of which were meant to inspire kids to stay in school and not do drugs. Eh, still better than anything Nickelback has ever released.
Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal is a man of many terrible talents. He’s made terrible movies, terrible energy drinks, a terrible reality show about his terrible law enforcement career…so why not throw in some terrible music? Mr. Seagal has two albums, 2005’s Songs From The Crystal Cave, featuring a duet with Stevie Wonder (which means either Mr. Wonder has a great sense of humor or truly, truly hates his fans) and 2006’s Mojo Priest. Seagal’s music is a mix of country, blues, and terrible.
Kevin Bacon
In 1995, Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael formed the folk rock duo, The Bacon Brothers. They’ve released six studio albums, been featured on countless soundtracks, and even performed a charity concert on top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado. They’re currently touring and have even released a greatest hits collection. So, while most actors mentioned in this article have burned out in a blaze of failure, Kevin Bacon makes it work.
Joaquin Phoenix
In 2009, we saw the rap debut of Joaquin Phoenix. At the time most people were pretty sure his music career and retirement from acting were nothing more than an elaborate ruse. And they were right; it was all staged for the mockumentary I’m Still Here. But just think at what a glorious world it could have been, where a disheveled, hoboesque Joaquin is stumbling on stage night after night, sputtering lyrical poetry and fishing bread crumbs from his beard.
That’s just a small sample. The list of actors-turned-musician is seemingly never ending. There’s Eddie Murphy’s disastrous album, Lindsay Lohan’s train wreck of a record, Bruce Willis’ painfully mediocre bar band, Kim Kardashian’s sad, sad attempt at singing, and god help us, even Kevin Costner has taken a stab at it.
(Elford Alley has written plays, sketch comedy, and short stories. He currently lives in Dallas with his wife and daughter. Follow Elford on Twitter.)
The Band's second album, the eponymous The Band, features a photograph of all five musicians looking a bit rustic on the cover. Elliott Landy's photograph is the image most closely associated with the group.
Landy, who began his career photographing the anti-Vietnam War movement and the underground music scene in New York City, was the official photographer of the Woodstock Festival and then became The Band's official photographer in the late 60's.
Landy spent a great deal of time with the group at their home in Woodstock, Big Pink: "The guys in The Band were different from the other musicians I had been around....They knew about life and about people. You couldn't fool them. They had been around and had seen it all with a really deep comprehension. I liked all of them a lot and felt really comfortable around them-like a kindred soul."
In 2009, the National Recording Registry preserved The Band which is considered "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or informs or reflects life in the United States."
If The Replacements and Spoon had a love child, it would be Deer Tick. On their fourth and most recent album, Divine Providence, the indie band from Rhode Island sheds its alt-country, folky roots in favor of a punky, garage band sound.
On the first single, the rowdy "Main Street," John McCauley croons like Paul Westerberg over Ian O'Neil's abrasive guitar and Dennis Ryan's heavy drum beat that's reminiscent of The Ronette's "Be My Baby."
I can't sleep, I can't close my eyes Blinked one second, the whole world pass you by Yeah, I guess I'm in All the days you spent
I can't eat, I can't use my mouth Miss one day and the whole world cast you out Yeah I guess I try All the times a lie "This song is about quitting drugs and not wanting to grow up," McCauley said. "I wrote it in one sitting to spite one of my closest friends."
According to Cecil Thyme, Divine Providence "has a little Exile [on Main Street]; it's got a little In Utero; it's got a little Nilsson Schmilsson, but it's 100% Deer-Fucking-Tick in their purest, and most carefree form....The songs are there. The delivery is in your face. There's no studio magic. There's no hiding the fact that Deer Tick is just five regular dudes."
Since the band's formation in 2004, it has undergone several incarnations. The most recent line-up is:
(In our Writers and Music series, writers either discuss the music that has been included in their most recent novel or the influence music has had on their work overall.)
Linda East Brady is a novelist, music journalist and radio host. She is the music writer for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, and has also written about music for numerous other publications. Linda also co-hosts an Americana radio show, “Sunday Sagebrush Serenade,” for KRCL FM.
Her fiction appears under the name L. E. Brady. Her short story, “Continental Club Graffiti,” appeared in the Mid-South Literary Review. Her first novel, “Lone Star Ice & Fire,” was published in 2004 by Coral Press. Her follow-up book, “The Pedigree Blues,” is due out soon from the same publisher.
She lives with her husband and family in Ogden, Utah.
I wanted my central character to explore the literary and lyrical territory born in Texas, where rock and country shake hands and agree to tell an unvarnished truth. Steve Earle is a direct link to Austin’s outlaw country roots. He was a ne’er-do-well 8th grade drop out when he pestered Van Zandt to the point that the older troubadour relented to letting him hang out. Earle, who recently recorded a tribute album to Van Zandt called “Townes,” sucked it all in, good and bad. He famously called his mentor “a great teacher but a poor role model.”
In the documentary about outlaw country, “Heartworn Highways,” Earle is captured, still a goofy teen, jamming on Christmas 1975 with heavy-hitters like Van Zandt and Crowell and Guy Clark, a child marking territory among the weather-beaten geniuses. While getting a grip on these characters, I also watched “Be There to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt.” I listened to a ton of Earle’s and Van Zandt’s music, and others of their ilk.
I realized Cody needed a mentor, a Van Zandt figure. But I didn’t figure him out until I went to Texas on a trip to promote my first novel. That was fall of 2004, just before the election that is central to “The Pedigree Blues.” I heard the music happening there firsthand, felt the combustible conditions nurturing it.
And on a stream-of consciousness drive in the Hill Country one day, my mentor figure came to me. Remington was his name, a legend in his own right — Cody’s loving, mad, misguided father. He morphed into a literary figure, rather than a musician — part Kerouac, part Van Zandt, with a good dose of James Dean’s Jett Rink turn from “Giant” thrown in the mix to lend him cowboy bona fides.
The hard part came when I had to actually write some verse for Cody to sing within the story, and also leave snippets of Remington’s works throughout the book. I had to ask myself questions about genius and writer’s block and creative madness.
And I listened. In my job as a music journalist, I get to ask songwriters directly how it is they work. Do they have secret mojos and disciplines, fears and avarices?
Thus armed, I felt secure enough to let go. I gave the task over to the real experts — my own characters. The book got what it needed when I turned the poetry and prose that belonged to them over to them. I think that is the real trick to the nuts and bolts of fiction writing, musical or otherwise. You have to let the characters become so real to you that they are who they are, be they songsmiths or poets, devils or cowboys. Get to know them, and they will do what they need to, in order to tell their own tale.
(In our Writers and Music Series, writers either discuss the music that has been included in their most recent novel or the influence music has had on their work overall.)
Linda East Brady is a novelist, music journalist and radio host. She is the music writer for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, and has also written about music for numerous other publications. Linda also co-hosts an Americana radio show, “Sunday Sagebrush Serenade,” for KRCL FM.
Her fiction appears under the name L. E. Brady. Her short story, “Continental Club Graffiti,” appeared in the Mid-South Literary Review. Her first novel, “Lone Star Ice & Fire,” was published in 2004 by Coral Press. Her follow-up book, “The Pedigree Blues,” is due out soon from the same publisher.
She lives with her husband and family in Ogden, Utah.
Like love, music is not easy to capture in words. But I try. I have put myself to the task of making music into stories in a series of musical novels that follow a group of colorful Texas musicians.
My second novel, The Pedigree Blues, due out soon from Coral Press, is not so much a sequel to my first, as a continuation, in the same setting, a decade and a half after the fact. I want the second book to be something like revisiting a neighborhood you once lived in. The skyline may have changed almost beyond recognition, but the surviving characters and destinations still remind you of a time when you called it home.
The time frame of the book is the months before the contentious presidential elections of 2004. A new guy arrives in that old neighborhood — a comeback kid himself, really. Cody Spicer is a singing/songwriting scion of an old Texas family. He had a pinch of success with his music before a trumped up charge sent him away for a decade. Out for three years at the book’s beginning, Cody wants his time inside to have meant something. He sets out to write and make music that matters, giving voice to frustrations from those not heard by those in charge.
Whereas my first book had dealt with youth’s easy talent and drive, as well as its impetuous mistakes and rough romance, this one deals in cautious second chances, in coming back in mid-life from disgrace with bones older and wiser, and ghosts, both real and imagined.
This book also deals with a craft that mystifies and strikes wonder in me. Songwriting — that of the Texas school in particular, songs of love and death and the troubles and pleasures that come in between.
Though many artists inspired me along the way, it was the music of the mad maestro, Townes Van Zandt, and his scarred-but-brilliant disciple, Steve Earle, that actually made me write this book.
Even in our world of reinvention, Steve Earle’s return to fame was something of a miracle. He’d already made a meager music splash before addiction ultimately landed him in prison in the 1990s. But while inside, he got straight and strong in a way no one had imagined. He not only came back to make great music, but also became an activist, as well as a playwright, an actor, and a fiction writer.
After the attacks of 9/11, he wrote an album for the ages in 2002’s “Jerusalem.” As a journalist, I picked it for my best album of the decade in part because it planted a seed for the musical movement that my second book examines. After that album came out, a faction of journeymen lyrical songwriters started to remark on their times in a way not seen since the 1960s or the music of Woody Guthrie and The Weavers before the Red Scare. Noteworthy songwriters like Butch Hancock, James McMurtry, Steve Poltz, Rodney Crowell and The Dixie Chicks, to mention a few, were suddenly singing about what was happening around them.
I'm old enough to remember when MTV took to the airwaves - August 1, 1981. It didn't take long before MTV assaulted all of us with its slogan, "I want my MTV." I remember the cheesy promotional photos of the Apollo 11 moon landing, with the flag featuring MTV's logo. I even remember the original five VJs - Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn - and thinking none of them had an ounce of talent but at least Martha Quinn was adorable.
I didn't see the first two videos that were aired, The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" and Pat Benatar's "You Better Run," because my family didn't have cable. Both videos are merely mediocre, but here are five killer videos that I have had the opportunity to view.
Song: "Hurt"
Artist: Johnny Cash
Director: Mark Romanek
Romanek's video captures a beleaguered Cash at the end of his tumultuous life. The video accomplishes what great videos should - it enhances the singer's performance.
Song: "Buddy Holly"
Band: Weezer
Director: Spike Jonze
Who's the coolest fictional character of all time? That's right, Fonzie. Well, The Fonz is the star of Spike Jonze's video, so that makes Weezer's video the coolest of all time.
Song: "Once in a Lifetime"
Band: Talking Heads
Director: Toni Basil
Remember Toni Basil? She had one that annoying hit in the 80's called "Mickey." She also directed and helped choreograph this video that managed to capture David Byrne's bizarre brilliance. Even though "Once in a Lifetime" didn't receive much radio play, it was in heavy rotation on MTV.
Song: "Jeremy"
Band: Pearl Jam
Director: Mark Pellington
One of the most artistic videos ever. The final scene still gives me goose bumps. Mark Pellington stated, "I think that video tapped into something that has always been around and will always be around. You're always going to have peer pressure, you're always going to have adolescent rage, you're always going to have dysfunctional families."
Song: "Sledgehammer"
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Director: Stephen R. Johnson
In 1986, Stephen R. Johnson's video for "Sledgehammer" was considered groundbreaking for "its innovative use of claymation, pixilation and stop-motion animation." Today, it's still impressive.
It's not a year end list that I look forward to compiling, but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge some notable musicians who have passed away this year. Riffraf has blogged about a few throughout the year - Amy Winehouse, Jerry Leiber, Don Kirshner, Hubert Sumlin, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Nick Ashford, and Clarence Clemons - so in this post we'll take a look at four we overlooked. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a few more.
Gil Scott Heron (4/1/49 - 5/27/11)
Heron will be remembered for "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," but perhaps his greatest contribution is the cumulation of spoken-word poems that helped pioneer hip-hop.
Gary Moore (4/4/52 - 2/6/11)
Moore played with Thin Lizzy, but the guitar virtuoso never really found the spotlight on his own. His solo records, however, have influenced generations of guitarists, including Kirk Hammett of Metallica.
Mike Starr (4/4/66 - 3/8/11)
Starr was the original bassist in Alice in Chains whose battle with drug addiction eventually led to his departure from the band in 1993. Later, he appeared on Celebrity Rehab, but ultimately was unable to conquer his demons.
Dobie Gray (6/26/40 - 12/6/11)
Dobie Gray's "Drift Away" was a huge hit in 1973. He had a handful of minor hits throughout his forty year career, but the singer claimed that he could have been more "popular had the music industry known how to market a black man performing country music."
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