Sunday, September 30, 2012

Story Of The Week From Library Of America “An Hour” by Louisa May Alcott

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Story of the Week by The Library of America

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NEW THIS WEEK

An Hour
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)

From American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation
A plantation owner lies on his deathbed while his wife anxiously awaits the arrival of a doctor and his son, recently returned from the North, notices unusual activities among the slaves.

Tribulation Periwinkle. . . As Milly spoke, with a slight motion of the lips that would have been a scornful smile had she not checked it, a faint, far-off cry came on the wind; a cry of mortal fear or pain it seemed, and so full of ominous suggestion that, though inured to sounds of suffering, Mrs. Butler involuntarily exclaimed,—
“What is that?”
“It’s only Rachel screaming for her baby; the last thing old master did was to sell it, and she’s been crazy ever since,” answered Milly, with a peculiar quickening of the breath and a sidelong glance.
“Foolish creature! but never mind her now: tell me who is about that I can send for Dr. Firth.”
“There’s no one in the house but blind Sandra and me.”
“What do you mean? Who gave the people leave to go?”
“I did.” . . . .

 

 

Read the Entire Story

“One hand stirred gruel for sick America, and the other hugged baby Africa.”
Drawing of Civil War nurse Tribulation Periwinkle, the alter ego of Louisa May Alcott in Hospital Sketches. Reprinted from an 1880 edition of Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories, which included “An Hour.”

Missed Last Week’s Story?
Olivia Howard Dunbar, “The Shell of Sense”
The ghost of a dead woman watches her husband and begins to realize that her marriage was not what it seemed.
Click here to read

The Library of America’s newest volume:
Arriving from the printer this week

Antislavery Writings

American Antislavery Writings:
Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation

List price $40.00 • Save 20% • Web Store price: $32.00

Click here for more details and to see the table of contents
In bookstores November 8.

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About The Library of America
The Library of America, a nonprofit publisher, is dedicated to publishing, and keeping in print, authoritative editions of America's best and most significant writing. Best-selling authors published by The Library of America include James Baldwin, Robert Frost, Dashiell Hammett, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Jefferson, H. P. Lovecraft, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Paine, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Walt Whitman.

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

Concert News - Dog Society & Blondie Oct 4 Staten Island St. Georges Theater

Great news for you New Yorkers, Dog Society, who we had the honor of reviewing just a few days ago is scheduled to play the St. Georges Theater, Staten Island New York on October 4th with super star new wave/punk band, Blondie.

BLONDIE FACEBOOK (2)

Dog Society has just released the stunning new album, Emerge which is a major achievement. I called the album, the best rock album I have heard this year. Checkout their Facebook page for ticket info.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Album Review: “Live At Bluesville” by Suzie Vinnick

Live At Bluesville

Live at Bluesville
  • Original Release Date: May 22, 2012 Label: Suzie Vinnick Copyright: 2012 Suzie Vinnick
  • Total Length: 27:27 Genres: Blues  Folk  ASIN: B007YO7MLA

This is a nice piece of acoustic folk/blues from north of the border. A native of Saskatoon, Vinnick is now working out of Toronto. She’s got a powerful and rangy voice that fits the country blues format just beautifully. The 2009 recipient of a Juno nomination for roots & traditional album of the year.

An adept bass player, she is a wonderful acoustic blues player, incorporating some wonderful slide work into her repertoire. Live At Bluesville is a mix of roots and blues tunes recorded by Suzie and her parlour guitar, Mabel – the music will appeal to fans of her 2011 album, Me 'n' Mabel and her earlier, roots-music based album, Happy Here.

After winning numerous awards for playing, singing and writing the blues, Suzie Vinnick  finally put out a blues album under her own name, Me 'n' Mabel . She has been into the blues since her teens, and has been a perennial nominee and six-time winner of the Canadian Maple Blues awards for her work with such blues players as Rick Fines. And while she has three previous critically-acclaimed folk-roots albums under her belt, including one that earned her a 2009 Juno nomination, this was her first solo outing as a blues artist.

The reception of Me 'n' Mabel  led to traveling many of the musical roads that acoustic blues takes her. Recorded live in November 2011 at BB King’s Bluesville, this is a nice sampling of her varied styles and influences.

“Oreo Cookie Blues” Suzie Vinnick

A number of the tunes Vinnick performs here would be gospel blues, songs like “Calling Out Your Name” and “Shelter Me”. One stand out track is the Stevie Winwood tune, from the Blind Faith album, “Can’t Find My Way Home”. Vinnick really shows off her slide abilities and renders this classic tune as an iconic blues.

All in all, a nice acoustic blues album to add to your collection.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Album Review: “Almost Always Never” by Joan Shaw Taylor

Almost Always Never

Almost Always Never

  • Audio CD (September 11, 2012)  Number of Discs:Label: RUF RECORDS  ASIN: B008MEF5LA
  • In-Print Editions: MP3 Music

Fresh on the heels of  White Sugar (2009) and Diamonds in the Dirt (2010), for which she was voted “Best British Female Vocalist of the Year” in both 2010 and 2011 at the British Blues Awards. also garnering a nomination as “Best New Artist Debut” at the 2010 awards Joan Shaw Taylor has been knocking the dead in Europe and America.

It didn’t hurt her popularity when Annie Lennox  asked Taylor to play guitar for her at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee at Buckingham Palace in London on June 4th. Dave Stewarts, of the Eurythmics’ first discovered her as a guitar prodigy while she was only 16 and asked her to join his “supergroup” of the time. Taylor has since relocated to just outside of Houston. Course she’s not home much with constant touring over the last few years, throughout this country, while still maintaining a very active presence in Europe, as evidenced by her critically-acclaimed UK tour in late 2011, which she’ll follow-up with a 13-date return trip to the UK in October.

“Blackest Day” Joan Shaw Taylor from the album “White Sugar”

Taylors voice has that husky blues quiver and her chops on the guitar are fantastic. She avoids the clichéd, theatrics that all too often are embraced by young blues guitarists, concentrating on virtuosic mastery of the instrument.  She recorded her first two albums with Grammy-winner Jim Gaines, and on this outing she’s journeyed further southwest and has hooked up with the acclaimed Mike McCarthy, who produced, recorded and mixed the new album in Austin, Texas. Backing Taylor on the new CD is a group of stellar musicians, each with their own impressive resumes: David Garza on keyboards/mandolin (Juliana Hatfield, Fiona Apple, Blues Traveler); Billy White on bass and acoustic slide (Heartless Bastards, Craig Finn, Dokken); and J.J. Johnson on drums (John Mayer Trio, Tedeschi/Trucks Band, Doyle Bramhall II).

The tunes run the gambit from soul, to blues ballads, to flat out rockin’ blues. While the songwriting is an obvious achievement (11 of the tunes are her original compositions), her guitar work is maturing at an astounding pace. Her dexterity, passion, skill and creativity in establishing the tune on rhythm, are a solid foundation for her soaring lead work. The pain and the joy, the soul and skill are some of the best in the new blues cannon. At times she reminds me of Buddy Guy at his most firey. Other times she can evoke Albert King, but throughout it is respect for instrument and the song that impresses most.

“Goin’ Home” Joan Shaw Taylor

One tune from the new album that really grabbed me was “Army Of One”, which is almost a blues march. The acoustic slide work is simply beautiful. The album show cases a number of styles and there is not a throw away on the album. One song of note is the only non original on the CD and that is “Jealousy” which was written by the late, great and underappreciated British singer Frankie Miller .

“I’ve made an album where I’m starting to hold my own on the guitar,” states Taylor. “I spent a lot of time leading up to these recordings going back and exploring old influences as well as embracing some new things,. I had the opportunity to write the songs I’ve always wanted to write, with an all-star cast to support and nurture them, but also to push me and this album to places I would not have been capable of reaching without them.”

Joanne Shaw Taylor will support Almost Always Never with a series of pre-release showcase dates in the U.S., before leaving for a UK tour and returning for more American shows in the fall. Check her website for tour dates and booking info, but whatever you do, don’t miss this album.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Album Review: “Messin’ With A Fool” by Eliza Neals

MWAF-COVER-RGB-small

Messin With a Fool
  • Audio CD (January 31, 2012) Number of Discs: 1 Label: CD BABY.COM/INDYS
  • ASIN: B0078467VW In-Print Editions: MP3 Music
    This album of “Stiletto Blues” first came out in January, but it keeps finding itself back in the news and for a very good reason. This is some rockin’, sexy, good times blues from the Motor City.

The album  was recently nominated for Six Detroit Music awards 2012. And won the Blues Songwriter category. Eliza Neals first radio spot on NPR 101.9 WDET aired Jan 2012 and now she is on rotation in multiple platforms including 94.7 WCSX FM Detroit, Brazil, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & more every day. Eliza is the current friend/writing partner with Motown Legend Barrett Strong. Strong was the first artist to record a hit for Motown, although he is best remembered for his work as a songwriter, particularly in association with producer Norman Whitfield.

The album is full of blues drivin’ rock and Motor City Soul. Working with producer Martin ‘Tino’ Gross (Kid Rock, RL Burnside) as well as Strong, Neals sultry voice has found a home.

“Misery” by Eliza Neals from the album “Messin’ With A Fool” 1/2012
Barrett Strong wrote such legendary songs as “Money” and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. Adding street cred to the album is an outstanding band, including Tino Gross on guitar, bass, harp and drums, Barrett Strong on Organ, Jimmy Bones from Kid Rock’s band on piano and backing vocals), Leonard Moon from Mitch Ryder, Mike Smith from 770, Johnny Badanjek on drums, Don ‘Doop’ Duprie on guitar and bass, Duke Fakir Jr from The Four Tops, Steve Dresser adding some drum programing and Eliza Neals contributing on guitar.

Barrett Strong says of the new songs, they are drawn from what’s happening in Detroit, right now. These aren’t a collection of oldies, but reflect the Detroit scene in the second decade of the new century.

Neals treatment of some of the older songs (“Misery”, “Money”, etc…) is both new and fresh and proves why these are classics, but also pays tribute to the roots of the music and society that made them possible in the first place. Neals good looks, husky sultry growl, and “Stiletto Blues” stage presence, as well as world class songs are the reason this one keeps finding new spots on the various blues, R&B and rock stations.

 

“Can’t Stop” Eliza Neals

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Friday, September 28, 2012

Book Review: “South By Southeast” by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due & Steven Barnes

South By Southeast

South by Southeast: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel
  • Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Atria Books; Original edition (September 18, 2012) Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1451650639 ISBN-13: 978-1451650631


This is the fourth installment in the Tennyson Hardwick, NAACP Award Winning Series. From the opening lines the reader knows this is not just another thrilling detective story. The writing is deeper, more introspective and literary. Tennyson Hardwick, despite his past and present careers, is not just another pretty face; not just another Hollywood hard body.

Tennyson Hardwick, for those new to the series, is a one time gigolo, body guard, accidental detective and now an aspiring actor hoping to get that one big break that will cast him in a serious role instead of character roles he has been offered for just that; his pretty face and hard body.

Tennyson is about to learn the age old lesson; “Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.” When offered a lead part by Hollywood darling and heavy weight Academy Award nominated director/producer Gustavo Escobar’s next project, Tennyson jumps at the opportunity. When he finds out it is to be a seemingly light weight zombie movie, even that doesn’t dampen  his spirits. He moves his family – step daughter Chela, and his father, long retired L.A.P.D. captain Richard Hardwick and ‘the Captain’s” soon to be wife, Marcela to Miami where the film is to be shot.

But when Chela runs into a friend – Maria - from her past as a teenage prostitute, and decides to explore the South Beach night life with her, things begin to go south. Finding her self drawn to easily into that flame of her previous life, and discovering that she is disappointed in her friend, who was like a big sister to her when she was “in the life”, Chela leaves the party early. But when Maria is found seemingly drowned the next day, Chela is suspicious as her friend was not a swimmer and was truly afraid of the water.

Tennyson, out of love for his daughter, decides to check into the event and not expecting to find anything except a party girl who went for a dip when she was drunk or high or both, discovers that Maria was not the first prostitute found washed up on the Florida beaches in recent months.

“South By Southeast” by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due & Steven Barnes 9/18/2012

What starts as a mystery, quickly turns into a procedural and a readers dream of an intelligent serial killer novel. Tennyson Hardwick, on the surface, seems a trite character. He’s led a bigger than life, life. But Underwood and his collaborators; Tananarive Due and Steve Barnes are too good to allow Tennyson to be trite. Tennyson becomes, swiftly, under their deft pen a very human, very introspective man. Warts and all. Having set his life, finally, on a ‘respectable course’ he is driven by a desire, unspoken or even consciously thought, to make those he loves proud. His course to this task of redemption is set in a need to do what is right, not what is expected or legal or advised. Along the way, in prose beautifully rendered, the reader learns that he is not that pretty face; that hard body. Those gifts are not his motivation, but that the celebration of familial love are what drives him.

The plot is what I like to call loosely taut. It is just tight enough where it needs to be and the narration, comfortable. In short, like a good jazz musician, they display mastery of space The plot is what I like to call loosely taut. It is just tight enough where it needs to be and the narration, comfortable. In short, like a good jazz musician, he is a master of space; sometimes the most important part of a com[position is the space between the notes and sometimes the most important things that are written are those things the writers don’t say but leave to the reader to experience.

I repeat myself, but it is so important that the reader understand that I beg forgiveness; the characters are so well written, even the ‘small’ ones, that you’ll want to take them out for a drink. Every single one of them lives and breathes. They are full of life and conflicting but symbiotic motivations. You’ll even grow to like, or at least understand where the antagonists are coming from. Major achievement, this. The sense of place is also marvelously present, whether that place is on a movie set, a make-up artists cramp quarters, Miami’s art deco self image, a popular ‘only the pretty people get in’ night club, Los Angles (including some prehistorically ‘hot-spots’, or a police interrogation room. five stars to all of them.

The only fault I found with the novel, and since I read from an uncorrected ARC (advanced reviewers copy), was a penchant for dwelling too long on an aspect of a characters past, motivation, or reasoning. I suspect this was to convey to the first time reader of the series all the important parts that were in the first three books and are of importance to this story. And the last criticism would be for more than a little reliance on the deus ex machina in the conclusion. At first I was critical of the novels length, as after the main action, there were more than a few pages used to end the book. But when I had waded through those, I found that it was nearly a perfect ending, since this is not wholly a thriller, but an exposition on the growth of Tennyson Hardwick as a man and as a marvelous character.

Blair Underwood

Blair Underwood is is an American television, film, and stage actor and director. He is perhaps best known as headstrong attorney Jonathan Rollins from the NBC legal drama L.A. Law, a role he portrayed for seven years. tananrivebarnes

Tananarive Due  is an American author, born in Tallahassee, Florida, the oldest of three daughters of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr. Due was working as a journalist and columnist for the Miami Herald when she wrote her first novel, The Between, in 1995 This, like many of her subsequent books, was part of the supernatural genre. Due has also written The Black Rose, historical fiction about Madam C.J. Walker (based in part on research conducted by Alex Haley before his death) and Freedom in the Family, a non-fiction work about the civil rights struggle.

Steven Barnes  is an African-American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician. He has written several episodes of The Outer Limits and Baywatch. He has also written the episode "Brief Candle" for Stargate SG-1 and the Andromeda episode "The Sum of Its Parts”  Barnes's first published piece of fiction, the 1979 novelette "The Locusts", was written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee.  Barnes, a Los Angles high School alum and Communications Art major at Pepperdine University, is also a certified hypnotherapist but His true passion, other than writing, is martial and physical arts. He is a black belt in Kenpo Karate (Aikka style), and Kodokan Judo. But perhaps his biggest accomplishment was in winning the heart of his co-author….the pretty one. he is married to Tananarive Due.

Article first published as Book Review: South By Southeast by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, and Steven Barnes on Blogcritics.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Album Review : “Emerge” by Dog Society

emerge

Emerge

  • Audio CD (Sept.25, 2012) Number of Discs: 1 Label: CDBY

A perfect blend of indie, pop, retro pop-rock and Beatle-esque psychedelia. This Queen’s, NY based collective have turned out an album that should catch the ears of the radio DJs and music fans from “phat slammin” to the barely breathing. One of the best damn albums I have heard all year and I have heard a bunch of them.

Dog Society is an over night sensation from almost 20 years ago that must have been scared of the sophomore jinx. Dog Society released their acclaimed debut album Test Your Own Eyes in 1993 via EastWest / Atlantic Records. Test Your Own Eyes was produced by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf for Bongload Productions. The pair had just produced Beck's Mellow Gold album which um, did pretty damn good. They were coming up with such acclaimed bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Pantera and Sheryl Crowe. The album earned raves from the critics and fans alike. The band toured the nation opening for Crow, Stone Temple Pilots, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. They were seemingly on their way to super stardom. The tracks “Love Is All Gone” and “When You’re Dead” got modest airplay nationally.

Dog Society “Love Is All Gone” from the album “Test Your Own Eye’s” 1993

But the music business can sometimes take the confidence out of an artist. The management and label made decisions that were out of their control. The band went their separate ways in ‘94 and that was seemingly the end of the story. But they were and still are all very passionate when it comes to playing music.

Now the artist has the ability to produce, arrange, record, and sell his or her own music. So they don't have the pressure of writing a hit song, to satisfy a suit who is only interested in $$. They can be true to themselves and that is going to allow for great, unique music to be created. Dog Society remained active on the NYC rock circuit, but avoided the “suits”. They haven’t lost, over the years, that knack for the consistently innovative fusions of contemporary and classic rock influences. You’ll hear the ghosts of The Beatle’s, especially with vocalist Brian Schnaak’s Lennon-esque ability to sneer and weep all in the same syllable. You’ll hear touches of The Who, and more modern touches from SoundGarden, Radiohead and even hip-hop and  country inspiration.

“The Fuse” by Dog Society from the album “Emerge” Sept. 2012

Bassist/Guitarist Rich Guerzon had this to say, “I am always searching for new inspiration. As a songwriter I am always discovering music, whether is from today or 50 years ago. I appreciate all styles from all cultures. So there is plenty of experience to have in one lifetime.” That dedication to music shines through. His bass lines are both inventive and tasteful but also pay tribute to everyone from Beethoven to gospel. He may just be my new favorite rock bassist.

Bruce Erik Brauer shines on the guitar parts, whether playing retro 60s pop/psych/rock or alt-rock/art-rock and grunge. Bruce is the perfect “band guitarist”. He never seems to let his ego over rule the collective direction of the group. And finally, Joe Ranieri is startlingly good on drums and percussion. Whether he is driving the beat on tunes like “Pink Sun” or just riding along on “Shade grown”. Glenn Sherman ads vocals and guitar.

Dog SocietyWithout sounding contrived, the band has a distinct “Strawberry Fields/I Am The Walrus” era Beatles sound, but when you analysis the tunes there is a great deal in the makeup that isn’t Beatles. It doesn’t come out as a deliberate effort to emulate The Fab Four, instead it feels the collective effort to win over the listener, not with in your face bravado, but with a hypnotic presence and the over all beauty of their music. It’s really one of the most interesting and ear catching albums I have heard, filled with catchy melodies and astounding choruses yet edgy rock n’ roll roils right under the surface. They have Vulcan Mind Melded so many great influences from rocks history that they have entered another dimension. It’s sick and its slammin’and its sweet, it’s groovy and it’s right on and oh so damn good.

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

EP Review : “Songs From The Laundromat” by Drivin’ n’ Cryin’

songs from the laundromat

Songs From The Laundromat [Explicit]

  • Original Release Date: June 12, 2012 Label: New! Records
  • Copyright: 2012 Drivin N Cryin Total Length: 14:50
  • Genres:Alternative Rock Format: Explicit Lyrics

This is the first of Veteran Southern alt rockers Drivin' N Cryin'  four EP releases over the next year. Southern college rockers Drivin’ N Cryin’ have been doing their thing for nearly thirty years, and along the way have been honing their sound and reeling in fans. With a nod to Athens, GA friends, R.E.M. this five-song EP is their first new material in three years—and only the second record of new material in a decade.

Formed in Atlanta in ’86, this combo decided to portion their sides in staggered EPs. These five songs represent their rock side. Now a quartet with leader Kevin Kinney sharing guitar chores with Sadler Vaden, they snarl one minute, jangle the next, and pay tribute to southern blues throughout. “Dirty” kicks off the EP and it’s as strong and blustery a track as anything they’ve done. It’s followed by “Ain’t Waitin’ On Tomorrow” and then comes one of the highlights; “REM”.

“REM” by Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ from the EP Songs From The Laundromat June 2012

“Clean Up” closes this set and is straight up country. oddly, coming off “rock” offering of the four EPs, it’s the one that’ll turn the DJs on and should garner some airplay.

Here’s an interesting business plan for a band: release your first new music in more than three years in batches, as EPs over the course of a 12-month period. And, consider focusing each EP on a different facet of your career. Plausible? Possible? Thoughts? Bueller?

In this day of digital downloads and instant e-satisfaction, bands are having to find new ways to hit their core audience and expand their fan base. I think Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ may have stumbled upon something. In their first attempt since the wonderful 2009 release Great American Bubble Factory, the band has embarked on yearlong journey which will benefit listeners with four EPs, each dedicated to various aspects of the approach they’ve been dishing out since the mid-1980s.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Album Review : “Circus Heart” by Rebecca Loebe

Rebecca_4PAN1TSPBCircus Heart
  • Original Release Date: September 18, 2012 Label: Rebecca Loebe Copyright: 2012 Rebecca Loebe
  • Total Length: 37:45

For the past four years, Atlanta-raised, Austin-based “post-brontosaurus, indie folk/crunk” singer-songwriter Rebecca Loebe  has been getting the most for her road tax dollars, averaging 200 shows per year in over 35 states.

For a few years, home was on the road. "Whether or not I have an apartment is irrelevant, because even if I have one I never see it. Eventually, paying rent for a room to keep my stuff in starts to seem like a waste of money, when I'm on the road fighting for every dollar."

It was those long hours on the road that served as inspiration for many of the songs on Loebe's newest release Circus Heart , an album that mixes some marvelous and joyous pop with intimate folk. It was while on the road that she received an email about a new reality singing competition. It would become NBC's hit reality program The Voice.

"It didn't really sound like my kind of thing," she says, "but then again I happened to be home that weekend so I didn't really have a good excuse not to at least go to the audition."

And so Loebe became one of the first contestants to perform for the panel of celebrity coaches. Her decision to re-interpret Nirvana's classic grunge anthem "Come As You Are," into a moody ballad also made her the first contestant on the show to re-arrange rather than merely cover a song. This approach inspired both Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera to offer her mentorship. In the end, she chose Team Adam. She also became an early fan-favorite, ultimately selling over 35,000 downloads of the two songs she performed on the show and charting on iTunes in the US, Europe and South America.

Rebecca Loebe “Circus Heart”

It was during this respite from the highways and byways that she had time to write many of the tunes on Circus Heart. Funded by her fans, who had helped her release Mystery Heart in 2010, and inspired by her success on the show she wanted to push the envelope a little sonically and experiment with some sounds that I hadn't used before." To help tap into this new sound, Loebe called in Matt Sever, AKA Matt The Electrician, an Austin-based
singer/songwriter who tours all over the world.

"I was thrilled when he agreed to produce this record -- this is the first album he has produced that is not one of his own, and it's the first album I have recorded outside of my comfort zone in Atlanta. We were a perfect fit."

Loebe performs most of the instruments on the album but it  also features several guest performances including percussionist Dony Wynn, who has recorded and toured in the past with Robert Palmer, Patti Labelle and Brooks & Dunn, and was recently spotted onstage with Robert Plant. Lex Land, another alumna of The Voice, harmonizes on the haunting afterlife ballad "Georgia" and Loebe's frequent tour partner Raina Rose offers lead guitar and vocal harmonies on the travel ballad "Vagabond Prayer," which closes the record.

The album is filled with folk, pop, Americana with a good dose of indie songs that are at once whimsical, endearing and thoughtful. With the exposure garnered from the show and the new album in the can, you’d think she’d pause an take a deep breath. maybe even find an apartment. But she is now back out on the road promoting the album with a tour. She started out in Maryland on August 2nd and has hit Nashville, Louisiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Austin, TX, California and has just left Reno, NV on the 25th. She’ll be in Carbondale, CO on the 29th, then in Ohio before taking new York by storm. check her website for show dates and venues. While you’re at it, pickup or download the album.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Monday, September 24, 2012

Book Review : “The Cocktail Waitress” by James M. Cain

Cocktail Waitress2The Cocktail Waitress (Hardcase Crime)
  • Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Hard Case Crime / Titan Books (September 18, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1781160325 ISBN-13: 978-1781160329

“James Cain – faugh! Everything he touches smells like a Billy goat. He is every kind of writer I detest, a faux naïf, a Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking. Such people are the offal of literature, not because they write about dirty things, but because they do it in a dirty way. Nothing hard and clean and cold and ventilated. A brothel with a smell of cheap scent in the front parlor and a bucket of slops at the back door. Do I, for God’s sake, sound like that?” – Raymond Chandler

And Chandler was right. While Chandler and before him Hammett wrote what became the hard boiled genre, Cain was lumped into that genre and was considered one of its masters. But looking back, Cain’s books and stories were nothing like the hard boiled detective’s of Chandler and Hammett. Chandler wrote protagonists who walked “...down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything.”  Cain’s protagonists were mean. They were tarnished and often very afraid. They were ordinary people and rarely heroes.

Although Cain vehemently opposed labeling, he is usually associated with the hardboiled school . In actuality he was creating a new genre or subgenre and one that would rise to the top when the hard boiled school was loosing its interest. What Cain did, along with Cornell Woolrich, Dorothy B. Hughes, Jim Thompson, and David Goodis, was  create “noir fiction” or as the French labeled it, “roman noir”.  Black books. Noir often feature sleazy character instead of untarnished knights in fedora’s, they were often very tarnished, very often despicable and very often consumed by those mean streets. As Charles Ardai says in the Afterword, Cain was a dabbler in sin and scandal, a purveyor of the lurid and low.” Carnal and criminal. Cain was a “hoary old sensation monger” said Time magazine.

And that is exactly what we get with The Cocktail Waitress. Joan Medford is the protagonist of the novel. Recently widowed when her abusive husband drove off in the wee hours of the morning, in a borrowed car, drunk and angry and killed himself. He’s left Joan, just 21 years old, in a house that is heavily mortgaged, the utilities disconnected, and a young son who also suffered abuse at the hands of his father. Joan has no prospects, and no job experience. What’s worse is the police refuse to close the case.  They think that there is a distinct possibility that Joan somehow caused the crash.

One sympathetic Sergeant tells Joan that he can get her a job waiting tables at The Garden, and once the owner sees her, she puts her in a skimpy outfit in the cocktail lounge. There Joan meets two men. The first is a young, handsome dreamer with prospects, Tom Barclay. The other is an older gentleman, a pot belly, tall and gangly and not possessing any sex appeal for Joan. But Earl K. White III is rich. He is successful. And he also falls for Joan. But Earl suffers from angina and has been warned by his doctor that having sex would kill him. Still, every night he leaves Joan a $20 tip, that being a tidy sum in the early ‘60s where the novel is set.

The story is told by Joan, as a tape recording, as she puts it, “It’s in the hope of getting it printed to clear my name of the slander against me, in connection with the job and the marriage it led to and all that came after____” . What follows is Joan in an innocent voice, that displays at once naiveté and a conspirators black heart, detailing the events of the next few months. She tries to justify her motives for marrying Earl, in order to provide her young son with a privileged upbringing. And she tries to justify her love affair with Tom. 

Where Cain flourished was in being that Proust in greasy overalls, a dirty little boy with a piece of chalk and a board fence and nobody looking. And that shines through in the character of Joan. Joan walks a line between greed and ambition. She justifies her actions as being a sacrifice for her son, but even as she tries to justify it, the greed leaks through. Cain achieved this ‘dirty way’ of writing in his earlier books, Postman, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity. By the mid fifties his works no longer garnered the commercial and critical success of his writings of the ‘30s and ‘40s. Cocktail Waitress isn’t a rival of that earlier work. Instead, it does display that ability to walk that fine line with his characters. And that part of it is masterful. The story is somewhat original, but don’t look for ground breaking achievements or new twists on this tale of greed and avarice. The character of Joan even bares a resemblance to Mildred Pierce, but this tale is told from her point of view.

cain

At times the plot wanders, and it’s no wonder when you consider that Charles Ardai used numerous manuscripts, notes and other writings to finally present the story to the public. The words are Cain’s but whether he would have put it together this way is something we may never know. At times the narrator seems to change her  voice but it soon comes back to the point at hand. You can almost feel two different versions of the tale being welded together in places. What the reader is left with is a story that differs from most of Cain’s work. It’s not tight, flint-edged and arrow straight. Still, it is vintage Cain and won’t disappoint in the least. And, as if to prove he still had the masters hand, Cain writes an ending that the reader will never see coming. It’s as if that car driven by that drunk, abusive husband was meant to run the reader down. Stephen King called the book a reader’s novel. It is that, and one that fans of noir or hard boiled books will have to have on their shelf. It’s also a novel for the casual fan as the book may just be pedestrian Cain, but it’s still a tale from James M. Cain and a lot of writers today would like to duplicate even pedestrian Cain.

Article first published as Book Review : The Cocktail Waitress by James M. Cain on Blogcritics.

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Story Of The Week From Library Of America

Story of the Week by The Library of America

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NEW THIS WEEK

The Shell of Sense
Olivia Howard Dunbar (1873–1953)

From American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
The ghost of a dead woman watches her husband and begins to realize that her marriage was not what it seemed.

Dunbar at Mark Twain Dinner. . . During all our life together, Allan’s and mine, he had spared me, had kept me wrapped in the white cloak of an unblemished loyalty. But it would have been kinder, I now bitterly thought, if, like many husbands, he had years ago found for the story he now poured forth some clandestine listener; I should not have known. But he was faithful and good, and so he waited till I, mute and chained, was there to hear him. So well did I know him, as I thought, so thoroughly had he once been mine, that I saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, before the words came. And yet, when it came, it lashed me with the whips of an unbearable humiliation. For I, his wife, had not known how greatly he could love. . . .

Read the Entire Story

Photograph from Mark Twain’s 70th birthday dinner at Delmonico’s, New York, December 5, 1905. Olivia Howard Dunbar is in the center, behind the table. A photograph was taken of each table—170 guests in all—and Harper’s reproduced the images in a special souvenir album.

Missed Last Week’s Story?
Mary Bedinger Mitchell, “A Woman’s Recollections of Antietam”
A twelve-year-old girl was one of the overwhelmed amateur nurses for thousands of soldiers wounded during the Battle of Antietam.
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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Book Review : “White Lies” by Jeremy Bates

White Lies

White Lies by Jeremy Bates tells the timeless story that all mothers impart to their children; “you tell one lie and you’ll end up telling another lie to support it.” That it is always better to tell the truth because you’ll remember the truth but eventually find yourself over your head when you tell a lie. The story starts when thirty-ish English teacher Katrina Burton driving to a small and charming village tucked away deep in the Mountains of eastern Washington, where she is to begin a new job and a new life. Kat has recently experienced a number of life-shaking events; her fiancée has died of a rare medical condition, her mother has died and left her financially comfortable, if feeling a profound loss and her only sibling has had some bad reactions to the loss of her mother and has been exhibiting some anti-social tendencies in reaction.

Katrina, driving through a ‘dark and stormy night’  picks up a young hitchhiker who turns out to be drunk and proves to be the epitome of the reason young women shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers. He acts predatory, makes lewd remarks, seems to be paying inappropriate attention to her and displays misogynistic tendencies. Fearful for her safety, she lies about her destination in order to get him out of the car. Continuing on her journey, she arrives at her destination and begins the process of settling in.

Then to her surprise and dismay she discovers on the first day on the new job that the hitchhiker is a new coworker, the somewhat brilliant philosophy teacher, who, though respected for his knowledge and ability to teach, is a well known drunkard, even on the job.

“White Lies” by Jeremy Bates Official Trailer

With its Hitchcock like over tones, White Lies falls into the psychological thriller genre. When the hitch hiker/fellow teacher suspects she was lying about living at the lake, she tells him its her vacation house. After all, she doesn’t have to rely on just her meager teachers salary to live on, her mother left her well off. But when he continues to challenge her, she spouts off that she is going to have a party at the lake house and invite all the teachers.

Soon she meets a tall, dark, handsome man who is just passing through town and they develop a romance. He encourages her to go ahead with the party, that she can rent a cabin easily. But soon, Katrina finds herself caught up in the net of having to tell more lies and it gets easier. Then it catches up with her with a vengeance. When the ever expanding web of lies lands Katrina as a witness to a murder, she must decide to come clean or to abet the cover up.

The story is fast paced and will appeal to readers of both sexes. The plot is somewhat familiar but the deeper it gets into the story it begs the reader to suspend belief as some of the situations and the protagonists reaction to them go against that characters development within the story. To complicate matters, a number of supporting characters are more caricature and seem to exist only to color the scenery.  A bevy of drunken teachers cavorting n the dark around the lake as they are ignorant of a fight, a murder, and violent arguments going on around them seem like scenes lifted from a ‘B’ movie. And Katrina’s love interest seems totally out of character as she learns more and more about her lovers dark past, which is somewhat fantastical in itself.

Still, the scenery and sense of place make for a darkly drawn story and the action moves right along. The climax finally gives pause to answer the question of when a “white lie” turns bad, what do good people do?

 

Article first published as Book Review : White Lies by Jeremy Bates on Blogcritics.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

DVD Review : “Something From Nothing : The Art Of Rap”

 

art of rapArt of Rap

  • Directors: Ice-T Format: Color, Widescreen, NTSC  Language: English Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Number of discs: 1 Rated: R (Restricted) Studio: Indomina  DVD Release Date: September 18, 2012

Director Ice T’s Critically-Lauded Documentary Debuts on DVD, Digital, and Video on September 18th

If you’re a white guy it’s easy to deride rap; “hell, when did a turn table become a musical instrument?” Tom Robbin’s in the great novel Skinny Legs And All had a line that went, “Sounds like somebody feeding a rhyming dictionary to a popcorn popper...while shoving 'em both up a guard dog's ass!" and that was funny as hell.

But to write the art off that easily is becoming your parents. That’s right. You heard me. I want you folks of my age group to think back to when you first heard the Beatles and dug that wild, mop top music. I want you to think of how cool they were with those hair cuts and funky suits. Those Beatle Boots, that you just had to have. Now think of what your parents had to say.

Noise, that’s not music. They’ll never last. And the lyrics are dumb.

But today, even classical musicians pay tribute to their music. Rap, is street poetry. If you’ve read about Rap in the magazines, etc…then you already know that Rap isn’t the music. Rap is the rhyming poetry. Hip Hop is the music, with or without the poetry. Rap has been said to have grown out of the “African American Signifyin’. The ‘call and response’ poetry that often used rhetorical and metaphorical verbal presentation.

That’s all well and good, and indeed, a lot of the practice is absorbed into the Art. But, there are other cultural phenomena and influences. For us old white guys that want to write it off as a fad that will fade – and get over that, its been around for 30 plus years now as a cultural force – here’s a way to clean your brain, and listen a ’fresh. Let’s go back to our heroes, The Beatles. Where the hell did they get that name? Well they were ‘50s rock n’ roll fans, but they were heavily influenced by the black R&B, jazz and the “beat generation” or Beatniks.

Okay, so who were the beatniks? Hello, they were making street poetry in the coffee shops of urban America. They were reciting poetry that spoke to the disenfranchised youth of America and setting it to jazz music being played behind them. Why did this ‘beatnik’ music come about? Well we had a whole generation of young people coming of age and they felt separated from the “dream” they were being handed. They felt disconnected from the establishment. And they expressed that feeling through poetry. Street poetry. This wasn’t Omar Khayyám and his book of verse and thou, its tumbling, hallucinatory style of Ginsburg’s Howl.

That’s what Rap is, it’s street poetry. Poetry for the people, by the people. It comes from a tradition as old as man. It comes from the same place as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Beatle’s. and every cultural phenomena that has risen from the people that don’t live in mansions. And who’d have ever thought that one of the greatest rappers of all time would be a white cat?

“Something From Nothing:The Art Of Rap”

It’s everywhere now, it’s been absorbed into the rock n’ roll of The Blues Travelers. Aerosmith has re-recorded classic rock songs in rap and with rappers. It’s part of the culture and it has made a marvelous impression. And it has it’s regalia. We had Beatle Boots, then Nehru Shirts, leather fringed vests and bell bottoms. Now it’s baggy jeans, and backwards ball caps and ‘bling’.  We had peace signs and smiley faces, now its hand signs. Sure, some of it is offensive. Especially the language. Go to YouTube and search Lenny Bruce and tell me he wasn’t offensive.

Here, you get a serious look at what goes on in the creation of the music. Viewers are taken on a personal journey into the craft and skills of rap, and what goes on inside the minds and erupts from the pens of rap legends, when Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-T’s critically-acclaimed film, debuts on DVD, Digital, and Video on Demand on September 18th. Directed and hosted by rap legend Ice-T, the release of The Art of Rap on DVD follows the documentary’s premier at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and successful theatrical runs in the United States and England.

If you think you’re hip, if you are in touch with the world around you, then you’ll love this video. It’s insightful, but more importantly, it’s a document in the tradition of street poetry everywhere, which makes it as American as apple pie. Dig it.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved

DVD Review : “Something From Nothing : The Art Of Rap”

 

Art of Rap

  • Directors: Ice-T Format: Color, Widescreen, NTSC  Language: English Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Number of discs: 1 Rated: R (Restricted) Studio: Indomina  DVD Release Date: September 18, 2012

Director Ice T’s Critically-Lauded Documentary Debuts on DVD, Digital, and Video on September 18th

If you’re a white guy it’s easy to deride rap; “hell, when did a turn table become a musical instrument?” Tom Robbin’s in the great novel Skinny Legs And All had a line that went, “Sounds like somebody feeding a rhyming dictionary to a popcorn popper...while shoving 'em both up a guard dog's ass!" and that was funny as hell.

But to write the art off that easily is becoming your parents. That’s right. You heard me. I want you folks of my age group to think back to when you first heard the Beatles and dug that wild, mop top music. I want you to think of how cool they were with those hair cuts and funky suits. Those Beatle Boots, that you just had to have. Now think of what your parents had to say.

Noise, that’s not music. They’ll never last. And the lyrics are dumb.

But today, even classical musicians pay tribute to their music. Rap, is street poetry. If you’ve read about Rap in the magazines, etc…then you already know that Rap isn’t the music. Rap is the rhyming poetry. Hip Hop is the music, with or without the poetry. Rap has been said to have grown out of the “African American Signifyin’. The ‘call and response’ poetry that often used rhetorical and metaphorical verbal presentation.

That’s all well and good, and indeed, a lot of the practice is absorbed into the Art. But, there are other cultural phenomena and influences. For us old white guys that want to write it off as a fad that will fade – and get over that, its been around for 30 plus years now as a cultural force – here’s a way to clean your brain, and listen a ’fresh. Let’s go back to our heroes, The Beatles. Where the hell did they get that name? Well they were ‘50s rock n’ roll fans, but they were heavily influenced by the black R&B, jazz and the “beat generation” or Beatniks.

Okay, so who were the beatniks? Hello, they were making street poetry in the coffee shops of urban America. They were reciting poetry that spoke to the disenfranchised youth of America and setting it to jazz music being played behind them. Why did this ‘beatnik’ music come about? Well we had a whole generation of young people coming of age and they felt separated from the “dream” they were being handed. They felt disconnected from the establishment. And they expressed that feeling through poetry. Street poetry. This wasn’t Omar Khayyám and his book of verse and thou, its tumbling, hallucinatory style of Ginsburg’s Howl.

That’s what Rap is, it’s street poetry. Poetry for the people, by the people. It comes from a tradition as old as man. It comes from the same place as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Beatle’s. and every cultural phenomena that has risen from the people that don’t live in mansions. And who’d have ever thought that one of the greatest rappers of all time would be a white cat?

“Something From Nothing:The Art Of Rap”

It’s everywhere now, it’s been absorbed into the rock n’ roll of The Blues Travelers. Aerosmith has re-recorded classic rock songs in rap and with rappers. It’s part of the culture and it has made a marvelous impression. And it has it’s regalia. We had Beatle Boots, then Nehru Shirts, leather fringed vests and bell bottoms. Now it’s baggy jeans, and backwards ball caps and ‘bling’.  We had peace signs and smiley faces, now its hand signs. Sure, some of it is offensive. Especially the language. Go to YouTube and search Lenny Bruce and tell me he wasn’t offensive.

Here, you get a serious look at what goes on in the creation of the music. Viewers are taken on a personal journey into the craft and skills of rap, and what goes on inside the minds and erupts from the pens of rap legends, when Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-T’s critically-acclaimed film, debuts on DVD, Digital, and Video on Demand on September 18th. Directed and hosted by rap legend Ice-T, the release of The Art of Rap on DVD follows the documentary’s premier at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and successful theatrical runs in the United States and England.

If you think you’re hip, if you are in touch with the world around you, then you’ll love this video. It’s insightful, but more importantly, it’s a document in the tradition of street poetry everywhere, which makes it as American as apple pie. Dig it.

 

The Dirty Lowdown

Copyright © 2012 Robert Carraher All Rights Reserved