Daily Loaf

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

On Tues., Oct. 20, the Routes Music crew rolled into St. Augustine. “It’s a quaint drinking town with a fishing problem,” as one local described it.

With the help of Mitch Cheney, our St. Augie ambassador, we hooked up with several scene stalwarts. One of them, Ryan Dettra, is the city’s premiere promoter.

After graduating Flagler College with a business degree, Dettra had a risky idea for a small beach town of 12,000: Open a profitable music venue that would bring regional and national acts to St. Augustine.

In 2002, he opened Café 11 inside a former convenience store off A1A. Although his first concerts brought only handfuls of people, Dettra kept at it, booking acts like Against Me! that would sell out shows. Then, six months after opening, he received his break.

The New York City-based art rock band, Les Savy Fav, was touring near St. Augustine. The five-piece was known for putting on wild shows, so Dettra booked them and they did not disappoint. At the encore, frontman Tim Harrington whipped the audience into a frenzy: Read the rest of this entry »

In a day and age when glitz and glamour are the necessary ingredients to make it big in country music, it’s nice to be treated to an evening of pure, unadorned entertainment from one of the architects of the genre. For a lesson in “how it’s done,” there’s no one out there nowadays who exemplifies that better than the original Texas outlaw, Willie Nelson. [All photos by Sam Goresh.]

Anticipation was high for Willie’s first visit to the Tampa Bay area in four years … especially since this show was originally supposed to take place last March but was postponed due to illness. Fans were urged to hang on to their tickets purchased for the original date  as they’d be honored for the rescheduled show. And judging from the enthusiastic response from the anxious sellout crowd of the 2,180 packed into Ruth Eckerd Hall, Willie is definitely worth waiting for. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s another Tuesday night and there’s not one, not two, but three shows to choose from featuring three very different artists.

Outlaw country music icon and good-natured, pot-loving, bandana-wearing Willie Nelson kicks out so many albums that it’s hard to keep up — 31 the last time I checked, the most recent a collaboration with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. This show makes up for a canceled date back in March, and is Nelson’s first show in the Bay area in four years. 8 p.m., Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater; call for ticket info.

The rapid-rising all-girl Brookyn trio Vivian Girls combine surf rock, Ramones-raw punk and jangly garage pop with three-part vocals that drone in girlish harmony. The two-year-old band just released their sophomore album, Everything Goes Wrong, in September. Sleepy Vikings open. 8 p.m., Crowbar, Ybor City, $10 (all ages).

The Nashville singer-songwriter and harmonica rager Jason Ricci [pictured] brings his fiery, blues-infused roots rock back to the Skipperdome; rumors are his last show was “un-fucking-believable” and he’s sure to tear the roof off the sucker at this one, too. 8 p.m., Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa, $10.

Video of all three after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

VINYL:

Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty
Now available on HQ-180 gatefold double vinyl.

Fugazi – End Hits
Fugazi – Steady Diet of Nothing
Remastered reissues, with each containing a bonus download.

Mudhoney – Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge LP+MP3
Mudhoney – Mudhoney LP+MP3
Mudhoney – Superfuzz Bigmuff LP+MP3
Reissued on HQ-180 vinyl with MP3 download..

Willie Nelson – Phases and Stages
Nelson’s first “concept album,” the Jerry Wexler-produced (at Muscle Shoals) Phases and Stages, provides both a man and a woman’s viewpoints on a crumbling marriage.

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band – Between My Head and the Sky
Between My Head and the Sky is resplendent with mind-melting blend of styles and sharpening themes while, like its forward-thinking author, plunging into the always-mysterious future.

Pearl Jam – Backspacer
Available on deluxe double vinyl.

Various Artists – Wheedles Groove: Seattle Funk & Soul 1965-1975
On the quality Light in the Attic label.

CDs:

Basement Jaxx – Scars
They have remixed the likes of Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliot, N.E.R.D, Daft Punk, and are back with a new album.

Beastie Boys – Hello Nasty
Digitally remastered. The CD includes a bonus disc of B-sides and rarities including seven never before released tracks. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s recommended releases as well as a breakdown of other worthy albums available now.

Vinyl:

Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
The band’s third album is a set of songs both heavier and lush than in previous efforts but still full of the Monkeys’ punch and vitality.

Jeff Beck – Beck-Ola
Jeff Beck – Truth
Exact replicas now available on pristine HQ-180 vinyl. Taken from the original analog master tapes.

Chocolate Watch Band – No Way Out
Chocolate Watch Band – Inner Mystique
Hailing from San Jose, Calif., the Watch Band — featuring the pouting, Mick Jagger-influenced lead vocals of Dave Aguilar, the thrilling guitars of Sean Tolby and Mark Loomis, the solid bass of Bill Flores and the thumping drums of Gary Andrijasevich — made all the right scenes in San Jose, including appearances with the Syndicate of Sound and Count Five.

John Fogerty – Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again
Among the special guests are Bruce Springsteen.

Fugazi – 3 Songs 7″
Remastered.

Woody Guthrie – Woody, Cisco And Sonny
Woody Guthrie – Woody The Agitator
Woody Guthrie – Woody’s Roots
Woody Guthrie – Woody’s Greatest Hits
Classic Guthrie vinyl reissues — now available.

Jet – Shaka Rock
bass, drums, guitars and vocals.

Willie Nelson – American Classic

Pearl Jam – The Fixer 7″
Two new tracks from their upcoming album on white vinyl with glow-in-the-dark ink on the label!

Chuck Ragan/Brian Fallon split 7″
They of Hot Water Music and Gaslight Anthem fame, respectively.

Reigning Sound – Love and Curses
New release — now available on vinyl.

The Smiths – The Smiths
The Smiths – Meat Is Murder
The Smiths – Queen is Dead
The Smiths – Strangeways Here We Come
180 gram vinyl reissues. Remastering supervised by Johnny Marr. Read the rest of this entry »

Recommended New Releases for August 11, 2009

We’re doing something a little different and recommending some of what we consider to be the better and/or more unusual new music you’ll find at Vinyl Fever this week.

Del Close & John Brent – How To Speak Hip

I’d been on the hunt for this record ever since hearing “Basic Hip” on The Beat Generation box set that Rhino put out 20 or so years ago. Finally found one on eBay last year for a mere $80 only to have Vinyl Feverite Gabe E. tell me, “I think I have that.” And he generously gave it to me!

Timeless while still very much of its time, this brilliant disc both satirized and cashed in on the “How To…” and “Teach Yourself…” album craze that hit America in the late 1950’s, combining some great “knowing” humor with a couple of fantastic characters and concepts.  John Belushi called Del Close “My biggest influence in comedy“

Del Close plays the “square” instructor who relies on the guidance of a Mr. Geetz Romo, beatnik. Here’s a clip: “Ladies and gentlemen … each hip word or phrase carries with it an implication of the speaker’s background and involvement in hip society. In other words the phrase, ‘I dig’ not only means ‘I understand,’ but ‘I am a special sort of person who understands in a very special way.’ In other words saying, ‘I am hip.’”

The CD even comes on with a “mini-book,” the “Hip Manual,” which came with the original 1959 side. It’s a ball, and nutty to imagine that this album is FIFTY years old!

Fall in — here’s a stream.

Some other recommended CD releases of this week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Top row: Forest Service Law enforcement Officers Walt Bliss, Mike Casey. Bottom row: Ramon Polo, Chiwa, and Matt Knudson receive national award for marijuana eradication. In 2006 the team eradicated 405,399 marijuana plants from 55 illegal marijuana sites on the Mendocino National Forest.

February is the month when we reflect on Black History; we celebrate both the physical and metaphysical hearts; with spring break closing in the condom companies begin their public service to encourage those hedonist college hipsters to wrap that rascal.

February is also WEED month; POT month. It is my opinion that we really don’t need a whole month to consider Marijuana.  The stoners over at NORML consider marijuana every day at 4:20.  The research on Marijuana is based on smoking habits akin to cigarette smoking and so, like cigar smokers who inhale, pot smokers who smoke at the frequency used in these terror statistics, are in the minority.  What has always bothered me about the prohibition on pot is that when something is outlawed the law can not touch it.  We have not made a dent in the drug war on pot in thirty years.

I can speak with authority on the pot war as I was a participant.  I was very in to retiring smugglers.  I was on the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Sagebrush when we arrived in Jacksonville with a prize ship named the Heidi.  In every compartment on the Heidi there was pot and after the GSA and Customs and the DEA got finished keeping each other honest, the published weight of the content was 137 tons.  That is the record for marijuana on the east coast of the USA.  The reason the record haul was way back in 1979 is that there is no reason to import bulk marijuana anymore.  North eastern Kentucky is to pot what the Napa valley is to wine.  Mexico imports truck loads of pot into the States – a benefit of NAFTA.

Photo Phil Cameron, US Coast Guard Cutter Sagebrush W399; 10 tons of pot

Most of the best pot on earth comes form the USA.  I know there are those who have toured the Middle East and were in Vietnam who will challenge me but I must say that great pot is grown in every state by the best science known to the world; and it is much stronger than even the legendary pot from Vietnam and Cambodia back during the war.  The coveted Colombian Gold of the early to mid ‘70s is rat-pot compared to the stuff being raised in grow-houses in quiet neighborhoods.  Now with so much surplus property sitting empty, grow houses are springing up with the added advantage of ganging their power demand among four vacant houses on a block and delivering the power to one address.  This makes it tougher to look for power spikes as evidence of a grow-house operation.

But the point of my reflection on pot is not to talk about the Yankee ingenuity used by pot heads to further their buzz lust; it is to consider how much money we have spent to irritate a market that could, if managed properly, deliver heavy taxes to the National Debt.  The subterranean economy of pot is expansive.  I debated this issue with the late Governor Lawton He-Coon Chiles as he was insistent that pot is an advent drug.  That is to say that people who shoot crystal methamphetamine were encouraged to it by hippies at Grateful Dead concerts who were selling balloons of nitrous oxide and joints (The interview was a long time ago).

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead with a Blunt

We have spent a butt load of money on keeping pot out of the USA when it is in the USA that most of it is being produced.  We have spent money on something that should be protected under the first amendment like any other thing that might impress the Darwin theory into play.  Willie Nelson is the poster child for NORML.  He is old.  He is real old.  He’s still here, that’s all I’m saying.

I don’t think pot is good for a person but if we are so bent on being free that tobacco and alcohol are legal we should consider the profit in it, and stop considering the loss.  So what if your kid smokes pot?  Mine kid doesn’t so why should I be deprived of the tax profit as a result of your poor parenting?

Just some thoughts on Pot since, it’s February and all.

KCO’D