zaterdag 29 juni 2013

Chicago,IL

Our Glass

Led by 2011 jazz studies graduate Chris Goranson (guitar/vocals) and David Click (guitar/vocals), a self-proclaimed DeKalb townie and founder of local music festival, Stompkee, Ourglass is complete with Matthew Judson (drums/vocals), junior jazz percussion major, Mark Walters (bass), senior elementary education major and Danielle Guilini (violin), 2011 classical violin performance graduate.

Sharing influences from the vast ‘90s alternative rock scene (from Nirvana to Radiohead), Goranson and Click branch out from there. The former brings to Ourglass his love for the modern blues of My Morning Jacket and the Black Keys, the latter, his nostalgia for the psychedelics of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. As if this juxtaposition wasn't intense enough, vocal melodies are complimented by Guilini, German classical violin scholar, and the beat is kept by Judson, aka Mot Juste, world music avant-garde.

"You definitely need to have an awareness of things around the world rather than just being egocentric," Judson said. "It's something we're not used to, and people fear what they don't know; but, at the same time, it's all just something that came to those people naturally at that point on the globe. Some things, to us Americans, come so naturally, but to them it's totally unnatural. The blending of two worlds is really a beautiful thing."
There is also a duality in the band's lyrics. Because blues is an introspective style of personal suffering and the keystone of the ‘60s tune is its rally cry, Ourglass approaches grunge from a variety of angles.
"Maybe not so much protest songs like Bob Dylan or Rage Against the Machine, but some of our lyrics can defiantly be interpreted as being about government issues," Judson said. "Grunge kind of derives from the whole Punk rock thing and the whole punk rock thing was all about ‘eff the government.'"
Normally loud, Ourglass will be unplugging for a free acoustic set at Tapa La Luna 9:30 p.m. Saturday. On Aug. 19, they'll be turning the volume back up at Stompkee music festival.
Their album, As Above, So Below - described by Goranson as "humanity and earth's relations from an astronaut perspective," - will be available in September.




Chicago,IL

Green Mill


Alfonso Ponticelli and Swing Gitan
- Chicago’s premier gypsy-jazz band  (music of Django Reinhardt) -


           

The group plays the 1930s-style music of guitarist Django Reinhardt. It's a blend of the jubilant swing of early jazz with the feisty passion of gypsy music, plus a strong dose of guitar pyrotechnics and virtuosic improvisation.

Formed in 2001, Swing Gitan features bandleader Alfonso Ponticelli on lead guitar and a world-class lineup of musicians on violin, rhythm guitar and upright bass, with the occasional special guest. Over the years, they've played with many of the great contemporary gypsy-jazz players from around the world, including Bireli Lagrène, Stochelo Rosenberg, Moreno, Angelo DeBarre and the Robin Nolan Trio.

Alfonso has studied gypsy-jazz music for more than a decade, having traveled several times to the annual Django Reinhardt festival in France. He introduced gypsy-jazz to Chicago in the 1990s, when he began teaching a weekly Django-style class at the renowned Old Town School of Folk Music, and he is often invited to teach his popular workshops at festivals around the country. A multi-instrumentalist, he won the 1994 U.S. National Mountain Dulcimer Championship and plays both banjo and guitar with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. He's also a gypsy flamenco guitarist, having been to Cordoba, Spain, to study with the great flamenco guitarist Rafael Riqueni. At the Iridium in New York, Les Paul invited Alfonso to play as a special guest with his trio.



It was a great concert. The musicians were very schooled in the gypsy music and you could tell they are playing this music for a long time. It was a good gypsy night and the Green Mill is an amazing place for a concert, small and nice dark venue with a great sound. I really enjoyed my first real concert in Chicago. The music was good and they did several sets which is nice. Gipsy meeting jazz was interesting to see! Thanks gipsy kings it was a great night! 



Indianapolis,OH

Hillsong United




It was a great and nice surprise for me. Nice to see so much devoted people and the good feeling I got from singing the songs with thousands of people is amazing!
I the glory for the One who gave it all. All I am is yours! Amazing!!! 

zaterdag 22 juni 2013

Nashville,TN

Open mic @ The Bluebird (06.17.13)

Corinne McKnight (16 years old)

Video Click here

Concert @ The 3rd Lindsey (06.17.13)

The Time Jumpers



The Amigo's


Open Mic @ CafeCoco (06.18.13)

Chris Davell (Australian musician)

Video Click here

Nashville,TN

RCA Victor Recording studio - Studio B

 RCA Studio B is a noted recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Originally known simply as RCA Studios, it became famous in the 1960s for being a part of what many refer to as the Nashville Sound. A sophisticated style characterized by background vocals and strings, the Nashville Sound both revived the popularity of country music and helped establish Nashville, Tennessee as an international recording center.

The National Park Service list it on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
Built by Dan Maddox in 1956, it was constructed at the request of Chet Atkins and Steve Sholes to facilitate the needs of RCA Victor Records and other record labels. According to Chet Atkins, the plans for the studio were drawn up on a napkin by Bill Miltenburg, RCA's chief engineer and recording manager.
Construction took four months, and the studio was opened at the cost of $37,515. The recording studio is a single-story building with offices occupying the front but the area of the studio and control room has a second story that contains an echo chamber. The studio itself measures 42.5' by 27' by 13'. In 1960 and 1961 an addition was built to provide office space and rooms for tape mastering and a lacquer mastering lab. A larger studio was built on 17th avenue in 1964 that became known as Studio A; the existing studio was referred to as Studio B from that point on.
The first chief engineer was Bob Ferris—a man with a prickly personality who managed to make Atkins angry enough to have him moved elsewhere. Bill Porter replaced him at the end of March, 1959, and by June had mixed a number one hit: "The Three Bells" by The Browns. Porter considered the studio's acoustics problematic, with resonant room modes creating an uneven frequency response. To lessen the problem, he took some $60 from the studio's petty cash and bought fiberglass acoustic ceiling panels which he cut into triangles and hung from the ceiling at varying heights; these were dubbed "Porter Pyramids". Porter also marked Xes on the floor where he discovered, by careful experimentation, the resonant modes to be minimal. Porter positioned lead vocalists, background vocalists and acoustic guitarists at microphones placed directly over his marks. After these improvements, Don Gibson recorded his album Girls, Guitars and Gibson in the studio. Porter later told an interviewer: "Everybody said, 'God, what a different sound!'"
In her 1994 memoir, My Life And Other Unfinished Business, Dolly Parton recounted how she was rushing to her first recording session at Studio B in September 1967 (shortly after having signed with RCA) and, in her haste to make the session on time, drove her car through the side wall of the building. She noted how the spot where her car impacted the building is still visible.








It was a very nice studio. It was also nice to see a studio that still does recordings for musicians. The tour guide was very good and he knew a lot about the history of the studio and had a lot nice stories about it. In the recording studio al the musicians are in one and the same room and are separated by the panels which makes it more interesting for me because it's like the studio we're building in the house where I live. They also made the walls accordion shaped to make a better sound. The piano is the centre piece in the studio here. A lot of famous people played and jammed on it. 
The lightening is very special and were a demand from Elvis. He wanted different light for different kind off songs. It's very nice to see that you can change the atmosphere that easy just by changing the light. a very simple but nice idea from Elvis. He was always before the time of recording so he could have a jam with the other musicians which I found very interesting and nice. So if everything is in the same room it's very easy to do and try out things with different musicians.
It was one off the nicest recording studios I've see so far and it was also in a aria where there are still a lot of big other recording and producing studios.
After that I went to the Country music hall of Fame, not really my cup of thee but it was nice to see the evolution and the story behind it. They only did the evolution on the country story and they had a lot to show but more is coming! The guide told us there're going to be two more levels in the future which is really amazing! If you're in to country music you should stop here once in your life.
They also have Elvis his Golden car and some history facts about Folk and Gospel music.








vrijdag 21 juni 2013

Memphis, TN_ Levitt Shell


Todd Snider


Singer-songwriter Todd Snider was born October 11, 1966, in Portland, OR, and lived there until his family moved to Houston. When he was 15, he ran away from home with a friend and went back to Portland. After high school, he moved to Santa Rosa, CA., to be a harmonica player. Then his brother, who lived in Austin, Texas, bought him a ticket to move there. 
After seeing Jerry Jeff Walker in a local bar, Snider decided that he didn't need a band to be a musician.


After moving to Memphis in the mid-1980s and establishing residency at a club named the Daily Planet, he was discovered by Keith Sykes, a member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. A longtime acquaintance of John Prine and Walker, Sykes began to work with Snider to help advance his career. Prine hired him as an assistant and then invited him to open shows. In time, Buffett heard Snider's demo tapes and signed him to his own label. On his music, Snider has said "I was just trying to come up with the best... most open hearted ... well-thought-out lyrics I could come up with. I wanted every song to be sad and funny at the same time, vulnerable and entertaining at the same time, personal and universal at the same time.
I wanted every song to be as uniquely written as possible and then I wanted to perform them in a studio loose and rugged and hopefully as uniquely as I could. My hope is to be hard to describe and/or new…I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that's the hope."


Snider's 1994 debut album on MCA, entitled Songs for the Daily Planet, was named for the bar where Snider used to play regularly in Memphis. On that album were the minor hits "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues"—a folk song about the early '90s grunge scene, featuring a band that "refused to play" —and "Alright Guy", which later became the title cut of Gary Allan's 2001 album.

He released two more albums for MCA, Step Right Up and Viva Satellite before moving to John Prine's Oh Boy Records where he made Happy to Be Here, New Connection, Near Truths and Hotel Rooms, East Nashville Skyline, and Peace Love and Anarchy. That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994–1998 was released on the Hip-O Records label in August 2005.

Snider's next studio album, The Devil You Know, was released in August 2006. It marked his return to a major label, New Door Records, a subsidiary of Universal Records. The Devil You Know was named to several critics' year-end "best" lists, including a No. 33 ranking in Rolling Stone magazine's top 50 albums of the year, a No. 25 ranking by No Depression magazine, and No. 14 by Blender magazine.
Snider's album, Peace Queer, was released on October 14, 2008, and reached No. 1 on the Americana Airplay Chart on October 27, 2008. 
His album, The Excitement Plan, was released on June 9, 2009, on the YepRoc Label and was produced by Don Was. Snider contributed a cover version of "A Boy Named Sue" to the 2010 Sugar Hill Records album Twistable Turnable Man, a tribute by various artists to songwriter Shel Silverstein.

Snider's songs "Late Last Night" and "I Believe You" have been recorded by the Oklahoma red dirt band Cross Canadian Ragweed. He co-wrote the song "Barbie Doll" with country star Jack Ingram.


In February 2011 Todd Snider released a double disc live album called The Storyteller on his own record label Aimless Records. The album features live versions of songs spanning much of Snider's career along with some of the stories that have become a staple of his live show.
In April 2012 Todd Snider released two albums. The original, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables, and a tribute album, Time As We Know It: The Songs Of Jerry Jeff Walker. The latter album is an homage to country singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker. American Songwriter claims, "Snider has been carrying on Walker’s scraggly Texas-styled country/Americana tradition since he started."
The album Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables was listed at #47 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 50 albums of 2012, saying " One of the sharpest, funniest storytellers in rock, Snider keeps the indictments coming."










It was a very intense concert and the crowd was very enthusiastic about the music. It was not my cup off thee but it was nice to hear the local folk blues kinda music. The singer really gave it all. It's a true performer! Some lyrics I found even rude or very weird but that's probably because I'm not a local. The folk or country lyrics I found very offensive to certain people. But maybe they just tell it the way it is and how they think or fell about certain things.
They were fine but I wouldn't call it very creative or outstanding. It's nice for a night in the park! I didn't like the violin intermissions in the songs, I liked it more without the violin. But that's just me, I thought she was out off key a lot off times! But I have to say, the music I've seen so far was different and from a high level to compare with. The people had a great time and that's already a good thing.
Thanks and good luck with the music but it's not my cup off thee! 

Memphis,TN_ STAX


STAX Museum of American soul Website



The story of Stax Records is one of a cultural phenomenon that changed the culture of music forever - locally, nationally, and internationally. The success of Stax was perhaps, as Steve Cropper has said, "an accident. Many factors were involved with the success of Stax."


What began as a tiny record store in an old movie theater at the corner of McLemore Avenue and College Street in Memphis, Tennessee, grew to become one of the most important music recording studios in the world. When the modest Capitol Theater in the heart of Soulsville USA was transformed into Stax Records in 1959, it began launching the careers of unknowns who would become icons, cranking out a massive catalog of smash soul hits by the likes of Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, Luther Ingram, Albert King, the Bar-Kays, Booker T. & the MG's, Johnnie Taylor, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and dozens of other artists whose influence remains vital in the music of today. On its many and varied labels, Stax Records also recorded such legends as Big Star, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, Moms Mabley, and the Grammy-winning comedic genius Richard Pryor.


Today, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located at the original site of Stax Records, pays tribute to all of the artists who recorded there with a rare and amazing collection of more than 2,000 interactive exhibits, films, artifacts, items of memorabilia, and galleries designed to keep Stax alive forever. Because it is the only soul music museum in the world, it also spotlights America's other major soul music pioneers, including the sounds of Muscle Shoals, Motown, Hi, and Atlantic Records, spotlighting the contributions of such soul pioneers as Ike & Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, The Jackson Five, Ann Peebles, Al Green, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ray Charles, and many others.