Rob Clarke and The Wooltones: Big Night In DVD

Rob Clarke and The Wooltones like to do things differently. While the whole music biz has embraced streaming and putting things up on YouTube, they have decided to release a DVD to commemorate the release of their Big Night Out album in 2018. Big Night In collects the quirky videos they made for all the tracks of the album. They ransacked the footage of 60s TV shows (Vikings!, The Thunderbirds!), newsreels and commercials, in grainy B&W and faded colour, had a whale of time putting together off-kilter extras and threw in footage of their The Day John Met Paul 60th Anniversary gig on July 9th 2017 at St. Peters Church in Liverpool, with original Quarrymen drummer Colin Hanton joining them as a special guest.

It is a trip to simpler times, when card games and knitting were considered first rate entertainment, and the police had ample time to indulge in stunt driving - watch the video for You're Looking Good for proof of this. It is a fun watch. The band obviously loved putting it together and it is no problem if your are not able to place all the segments and references they used. Enjoy it as is, with some tea and biscuits or any other combination you prefer for watching the telly, after you have managed to get that DVD-player to do its job again.

Sivert Høyem: Live At Acropolis - Herod Atticus Odeon, Athens

Norwegian singer Sivert Høyem fulfilled a lifelong dream when he performed two shows at the 2000-year old Herod Atticus Odeon amphitheater at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece last year. On September 29th and October 2nd he played songs from his solo albums and his former band Madrugada, backed by a full band and a string quartet. The shows were recorded an filmed and are now available as a live album and accompanying DVD. Høyem's music is mostly rather mainstream AOR with a few country licks thrown in (My Thieving Heart, Into The Sea). His vocal range allows him to project various moods (joy, heartbreak, anger).

Høyem comes into his own when he gets darker and his musicians get a little breathing room to turn it up. What´s On Your Mind and Give It A Whirl and Moon Landing sound like Nick Cave in a melloe mood, although Høyem's lyrics are no match for his poetic prowess. Live At Acropolis - Herod Atticus Odeon, Athens is a nice souvenir his fan base. It's entertaining, but rather faceless.

The Aristocrats: Tres Caballeros

photo: Michael Mesker

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Tres Caballeros, the new album by jazz rock fusion trio The Aristocrats, is a bit more relaxed and less in your face than their previous records. This time Guthrie Govan (guitar), Bryan Beller (bass) and Marco Minnemann (drums) entered the Sunset Sound studios in Hollywood after a successful world tour that made them into an even tighter unit, plus they had booked Alvas Showroom in San Pedro, CA for a four-night stand to test the new songs in front of a live audience. Recordings weren't rushed thsis time, because of lack of other pressing commitments. More overdubs, a piano, keyboards and even some vocals on one track (the biggest surprise) signal a subtle change of pace for the band.

Skill and humour are the two corner stones of their music. Right off the bat with the album's rocking Minneman opener Stupid 7 (it's in 7/8) The Aristocrats are pulling the listener into their own world. Longtime followers of the trio will appreciate the second installment of the life and times of small time crook Furtive Jack in Guthrie Govan's Jack's Back. A real life incident inspired Bryan Beller to write Texas Crazypants, after he was cornered on a parking lot by three screaming females accusing him of damaging their car. The Lone Star state gets another shout out in Minneman's ZZ Top, a twisted boogie prog rave up that will turn some heads among music students.

The Aristocrats: Culture Clash Live

photo: Tore Kersten

Power fusion instrumental rock trio The Aristocrats played 105 shows in 28 different countries during their Culture Clash tour. Five shows were filmed for a live DVD, but as it turned out all shows suffered from technical snafus at some point and the band decided to make the most of it by releasing the Culture Clash Live CD/DVD combo as a composite with tracks from all shows plus the audio from a show in Whittier, CA. Taking into account that they had to deal with different acoustics in each venue they were up for a big challenge to create a consistent flow. The camera follows them straight from the cramped stage in Manchester to the impressive hall in Tokyo - quite a feat of daring editing.

Guthrie Govan (guitar), Bryan Beller (bass) and Marco Minnemann (drums) have an on stage chemistry that takes their material far beyond the limits of the studio versions. Composed sections are stretched or turned inside out and there is plenty of room to wander off into uncharted territories. The fun factor is an integral part of the music, like squeezing a plastic pig and a chicken during Get It Like That and plenty of in-between tracks banter explaining the song titles - Marco Minneman is quite proud that naming a song Blues Fuckers earned them a parental advisory sticker on an instrumental album.

Col. Bruce Hampton: Pharoah's Kitchen + Basically Frightened: The Musical Madness of Colonel Bruce Hampton DVD

When you have been a respected musician for 50 years, the blues will coming looking for you and not the other way round. Col. Bruce Hampton was a founding member of The Aquarium Rescue Unit, played with Frank Zappa, Mike Gordon and Widespread Panic, and has been revered as a major force of surrealistic guitar playing.

For his new album Pharoah's Kitchen he stuck to broad strokes and bare-bones blues with a bit of country. The weirdness is in the lyrics, with The Grogans Have Arrived and Manzello Freeze as the prime examples. The Colonel is still without peers, leading his fellow musicians and live audience through his private parallel universe of left of center avant-garde blues.

The Aristocrats: Culture Clash

L to R: Marco Minnemann, Bryan Beller, Guthrie Govan
photo: Jennifer Young

Three musicians contributing three songs each. With their second full-length Culture Clash power fusion rock trio The Aristocrats take equal credits for an adventurous cosmic journey. Guthrie Govan (guitar), Bryan Beller (bass) and Marco Minnemann (drums) can look into groove, move from jazz to rock to metal without blinking their eyes. Prowess and dexterity can get in the way of the actual composition - "look, mum, I can play really fucking fast", but the trio delivers their pyrotechnics with a delicate finesse: not with an axe but with a scalpel. It's loud, but they are not trying to overpower each other. Energy is the keyword.

The Who: Can You See The Real Me?

The 2012 BBC documentary Can You See The Real Me? about Quadrophenia, the greatest album by The Who, has found its way to Youtube. Pete Townshend is funny and to the point discussing the creation of the album, explaining the story of the Jimmy, the "hero" in the musical tale about the Mod culture in England ca 1964.

The documentary is available as a digital download from iTunes (US only, duh).

» thewho.com

Phish: Star Lake 98

There is only one full pro-shot video show available in the Archives from Phish's Summer 1998 tour. On August 11 the Vermont quartet performed at the Star Lake Amphitheatre in Burgettstown, PA. Now available as the Star Lake 98 2DVD -set (an audio only version can purchased through LivePhish.com) viewers can get up close to the band who are obviously enjoying themselves.

The show at Star Lake was an exceptionally good one. It was the first time (and last) that they kicked things off with Bob Marley's Trenchtown Rock. They dug out Little Feat's Time Loves a Hero for the first time since 1988. Set II opener Runaway Jim is a monster with a big explorative jam, with a running time of 35:08, with guitar player Trey Anastasio throwing in a snippet of the West Side Story classic Maria.

Black Country Communion: Live Over Europe

photo: Christie Goodwin

Hard hitting blues rockers Black Country Communion were on tour in Europe in the Summer of 2011. Three shows in Germany (Hamburg, Munich and Berlin) were filmed with 14 HD cameras. Live Over Europe sees them playing up a storm, playing 16 songs songs from their two studio albums, a Joe Bonamassa solo song (The Ballad Of John Henry) and Burn, a Deep Purple cover. Bass player and lead singer has every right to do so - he played and sang on the original way back in 1974.

The seeds for Black Country Communion were sown when Hughes ran into guitar player Joe Bonamassa in Sao Paolo in 1999. They jammed occasionally over the years, nothing serious, but when drummer Jason Bonham and keyboard player Derek Sherinian joined in at the suggestion of producer Kevin Shirley things kinda snowballed. They quickly laid down the songs for a debut album and hit the road. All four are busy guys, but they obviously enjoyed the sessions and subsequent tour and so they decided to do it again this year, after they had released their sophomore album "2".

Phish: Live in Utica + giveaway contest

The Phish show at Utica Memorial Auditorium in Utica, NY on October 20, 2010, went down as one of the most memorable of the band's 2010 Fall tour. The show is released as Live In Utica, a 2-DVD/2-CD Box Set, with the full show on DVD and minus three songs on CD (the first two songs of Set 1 and the Encore are missing).

Phish played a relatively small venue (cap. 5500) and built their first set to Guyute, one of their more challenging composed songs, which was teased throughout the remainder of the set. The Vermont band relied on their back catalog - Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan was the only song of their latest studio album Joy. Ever since Phish reunited in 2009 fans have been clamoring for jams and segues and on this night they got a few pretty good ones. David Bowie was augmented with a few snippets of Wilson and the coupling of Saw It Again > Run Like An Antelope was inspired, with keyboard player Page McConnell leading the way.

Stone Axe: Stone Axe - 2 Disc Expanded Edition / LP

Port Orchard heavy rock band Stone Axe brings back the Seventies, with long hair, guitar solos and a singer who can scream the house down while keeping in tune. Starting out as a duo multi-instrumentalist Tony Reed (of Moss Generator) and singer Dru Brinkerhoff cut a self-titled album in 2009. It created quite a stir in the stoner rock underground and their energetic intimate live shows with Mykey Haslip on drums and Mike DuPont on bass helped spreading the word.

Although Tony Reed prefers the studio for laying down the tracks, he is well aware of the fact that the live shows are were it's at and the expanded re-release adds eight live bonus tracks and a DVD with two music videos and (mostly grainy) live footage that sounds great. Filmed up close with hand held cameras the viewer can easily spot where Stone Axe. Singer Brinkerhoff wears Stones, MC5, Thin Lizzy and Humble Pie T-shirts.

New York Dolls: Dancing Backward in High Heels

photo: Paul Bachman

From the big league to Newcastle. The New York Dolls recorded their new album in the tiny but well equipped Blast Studios in Newcastle. Produced by the engineer of The Killers, Jason Hill (who also plays bass), the Dolls had three weeks to come up with a new album. As per usual singer David Johansen supplied the lyrics and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain came up with the music and some words.

Their previous record, the 2009 album 'Cause I Sez So reunited the band with legendary producer Todd Rundgren, who brought back the Seventies glam and gloss. None of that is present on Dancing Backward in High Heels, which is raw and heartfelt. Obviously inspired by playing a three night stand at the tiny club The Cluny (September 4-6, 2010) they revisited the Sixties doo-wop (I Sold My Heart to The Junkman). Johansen stills projects the raunchy front man (I'm So Fabulous, Talk To Me Baby), but he also realizes that he is older and wiser now, singing as slow song about Kids Like You, on top of an Animals-esque organ played by Sylvain.

Graham Parker & The Figgs: Live at The FTC

Graham Parker has been at it for a little over 35 years, releasing album after album filled with three minute soulful storytelling rock songs. He never released a live DVD until now, which is odd for an performer who can captivate an audience with his performance, not to mention his totally-at-ease banter between tracks, explaining the song's background and cracking jokes. The show at the intimate Stage One of the FTC in Fairfield, CT was filmed, a no-thrills document of the proceedings on stage on Friday April 23, 2010. Backed by The Figgs, a band that he has been working with on and off with since the late Nineties.

On Live at The FTC Parker showcases six songs from his latest studio album Imaginary Television, a collection of songs for TV shows that never happened. With a huge back catalog such as his, he cherry picks gems from the past such as White Honey from his 1976 debut album Howlin' Wind, and Blue Highways the under appreciated Eighties highlight of his career, from The Mona Lisa's Sister album. He may not sound as angry as he did in his early work, but he isn't slowing down. Songs like Beancounter (of his 1997 album Acid Bubblegum and the new 1st Responder, (the story about a dad who has to get his son out of a jam, because he nicked a car, hasn't got a car himself, so he has to steal one himself to save his kid) all draw from the same well: stories about people getting into trouble and trying to deal with the ensuing mess.

Phish: Alpine Valley 2010

Phish captured the August 14-15 shows at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre on film. A box set contains all of the first night on both DVD and CD, while a few tracks of the second night have been added DVD extras. While not the most adventurous of shows the three-part segue of Down With Disease > What's The Use > Scent Of A Mule went down as a memorable one - a jammed Mule is pretty rare. A few day prior to the Alnine tow-night run, the band had unearthed Fuck Your Face, an off-kilter Mike Gordon one-off that had been played at Nectar's in Burlington, VT on April 29, 1987. Fans had been hoping for a second outing for decades and the band gave in during their Charlotte show on August 7. It went down pretty well and they reprised it at Alpine. This blast from the past is followed by Alaska, proof of the more mainstream melodic course that guitar player Trey Anastasio has set for the band.

After the band reunited in 2009 after a 5-year hiatus, musical prowess is slowly evolving. Gone are the long jams - no five or six songs sets, but at least taking risks on stage is no longer avoided. Songs like Run Like An Antelope and Reba are moving again, not wandering around aimlessly. Bass player Gordon is pushing, inviting Anastasio to cut himself loose from the main melody, when he feels like it. Drummer Jon Fishman is more solid than last year, but keyboardist Page McConnell is the MVP during both nights - jazzing it up and singing his head off.

Joe Bonamassa: Live From The Royal Albert Hall

Joe Bonammassa fullfilled a childhood fantasy when he performed at London's Royal Albert Hall on May 4th, 2009. And it became even better when he was joined on stage by Eric Clapton for Further on up the Road (after which he enthuses: "that was the coolest thing I have ever done"). Bonamassa is one of the most respected modern day blues guitarist right now, with a smooth tone that can get rough when he feels it appropriate. Live From Royal Albert Hall was released on DVD last year and is now available on Bluray and 2CD.

Phish: Coral Sky

The Phish show at the Coral Sky Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, FL, November 2, 1996, is one the high points in the band's career. The Crosseyed And Painless > Run Like An Antelope is revered by fans. The show is now available as a 2DVD set, with remastered audio in stereo and 5.1, and as a 2CD.

Recorded two days after their Halloween show at the Omni in Atlanta, during which they covered the Talking Head's Remain in Light album in its entirety, they were once again joined by Karl Perazzo (Santana, Prince) on percussion. The danceable, quirky rhythms are a treat throughout, with guitarist Trey Anastasio using his percussion rack quite a few times. The first set was tight, with a jubilant Julius, a solid Cavern > Stash segue, a note perfect The Lizards. They wrapped things up with Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode. Not as good as the Stones in their heyday, but close.

Mogwai: Burning / Special Moves

Scottish post-rock band Mogwai recorded their three-night residency at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg in April 2009. With an audience hanging on to each drawn out note the band replicated their studio material with great musicianship. And that's the weak point of the new CD/DVD combo Burning / Special Moves.

The B&W film Burningdirected by Vincent Moon and Nathanael Le Scouarnac of La Blogotheque’s Take-Away Shows tries hard to conjure up Weltscherz and a sense of foreboding backed by an in concert soundtrack that is just that - played with care, handled with care. The live CD might as well be recorded in the studio. It sounds great, but it lacks a pulse.

John Cale & Band: Live At Rockpalast

John Cale live at Rockpalast 1984

The two John Cale shows that were broadcasted live in 1983 and 1984 by German TV for the long running WDR Rockpalast series have been gathering dust on the shelves for years. Only a few snippets of the 1984 show that were used in the 1998 documentary directed by James Marsh and the 1990 Words for the Dying video were released officially.

Broadcasting organization WDR licensed the tapes to the newly formed label Made in Germany Music who have released them as a 2DVD, 2CD and 2LP (the later contains all of 1984 - with the exception although Heartbreak Hotel which is edited to cut out some audience noise - and four songs from 1983). Taken from 2005 rebroadcasts the picture and sound quality are rather good for its age. Over the years the 1984 show which started at 3AM October 14 at the Grugahalle in Essen became legendary. It is the first disc in the set, never mind chronology.

Chickenfoot: Get Your Buzz On “Live”

photo: © Christie Goodwin

You are really pushing it as a band when you have released just one album, then did a extended version and recycle your stuff once more with a live DVD and Blue-ray.

The Chickenfoot show at the Dodge Theater in Phoenix, Arizona on September 23rd, 2009 was captured for Get Your Buzz On “Live”. Filmed in high-definition 16 cameras Michael Anthony (bass), Sammy Hagar (vocals, guitar), Joe Satriani (guitar) and Chad Smith (drums) are enjoying themselves immensely on stage. Hagar knows how to handle a crowd, Chad Smith acts as comic relief and Satriani and Anthony go through all the rock poses and moves. Generally following the running order of their album they stretch the set a bit - a bass solo in Soap On A Rope, advanced shredding during Oh Yeah and adding a new intro to Down The Drain. These guys are living their rock dreams to the hilt, grinning like there is no tomorrow. The songs have acquired an edge an urgency that was missing from the studio album - being on stage in front of an audience backed by wall of Marshall stacks obviously helped.

The Heart is a Drum Machine: DVD release

What is music? Simple question, but hard to answer. The documentary The Heart is a Drum Machine collected the answers of, to name a few, Wayne Coyne, George Clinton, Kurt Loder, Jason Schwartzman, Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT, Britt Daniel of Spoon, and John Frusciante.

Director Christopher Pomerenke, who directed Moog in 2006, doesn't have a final answer. Which make perfect sense - it can't be done.

Screening:

• 03/10 American Cinematheque
  6712 Hollywood Boulevard
  Los Angeles, CA 90028
  7:30pm

The Heart is a Drum Machine is released on DVD. Available on Netflix as of April 1.

» theheartisadrummachine.com