Phil’s Faves: Videos

Posted on July 26, 2011 by PhilMaq

Phil’s Faves: Videos

This will be a personal weekly Top Ten list of what I consider to be the best videos currently available on TV. I don’t, as a rule, go searching for old music videos, so that’s why it will focus mostly on current or recent videos.

Top 10 Videos for the week of July 24, 2011

1. Walk – Foo Fighters
2. Mean – Taylor Swift
3. Honey Bee – Blake Shelton
4. Today Is Your Day – Shania Twain
5. Arms – Christina Perri
6. Stand – Lenny Kravitz
7. Flower – Amos Lee
8. Best Thing I Never Had – Beyonce
9. Am I the Only One – Dierks Bentley
10. Unwritten – Natasha Bedingfield

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“Q” Bombs: July 24, 2011

Posted on July 26, 2011 by PhilMaq

A “Q”bomb, like an “H” bomb, will be my term for a music video that I consider to be subpar in music, video, or both. This will be a recurring weekly list that will focus on the worst videos that are currently on TV. I don’t, as a rule, go searching for old music videos, so that’s why it will focus on solely on current or recent videos.

I hate to be so negative about music, but when an artist takes a “bad” song and then brings more attention to it by creating a “bad” video to support it, it will appear on this list. I honestly hope, and it could happen, that this list will be less than 10 items, but I have serious doubts that that possibility will happen. We are, after all, talking about an industry that uses art for huge profits. The companies can’t help themselves.

However, at this point, I will not do a 10 worst music list. I see absolutely no reason to waste time reemphasizing bad music. Once is enough.

Worst Videos for the week of July 24, 2011:

1. Don’t Wanna Go Home – Jason Derulo
2. Dirt Road Anthem – Jason Aldean
3. Country Girl (Shake It for Me) – Luke Bryan
4. Homeboy – Eric Church
5. Good Life – One Republic
6. Tomorrow – Chris Young
7. Teenage Daughters – Martina McBride
8. The Lazy Song – Bruno Mars
9. Keep Your Head Up – Andy Grammer
10. Not Over You – Gavin DeGraw

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Random “Q”sings: Shockwave

Posted on July 26, 2011 by PhilMaq

OK, here’s another review from the week of endless music!

A week before last Wednesday was possibly the most beautiful afternoon of the summer. The temperature was a very comfortable seventy-five degrees and the sky contained only a couple cumulus clouds floating about aimlessly. It was here, at Campus Martius Park in downtown Detroit, with the Hard Rock Café looming over the park stage, that I may have glimpsed the future of Rock N Roll .

Appearing for a lunchtime gig were three diminutive (only because they are still in high school and are probably still growing) musicians that packed a wallop that was disproportionate to their size. They are known as Shockwave, and the band consists of lead singer and drummer Angelo Coppola, bassist Dylan Frankel, and lead guitarist David Frankel. No member of this band is older than sixteen, but they have several generations of rock history that must be part of their DNA. I don’t get the impression that Mozart was the music of choice when these guys were in their respective wombs.

Shockwave

Anyway, they were electric! Playing mostly covers of classic rock bands from Kiss to Alice Cooper (in effect, doing a version of “I’m Fifteen” instead of “I’m Eighteen”), they poured themselves into their music impressing the lunch crowd that gathered.

The music was flawless and not just rote covers. David shredded on guitar for two hours. Angelo even got out from behind the drums to start a song with an acoustic intro, by moving to the front of the stage to work the crowd, before winding up behind the drums for when the song kicked into high gear. Unbelievable! You can give someone stage direction and say that it would be cool to do something like that but still have it appear hollow and meaningless. But to do it right takes charisma, and these guys have it!

I sat there with a perpetual smile on my face because they were just so good! They even played Aerosmith’s “Train Kept A Rollin” better than Aerosmith played it the last time I saw them. I don’t even like that song—but I did when Shockwave roared through it.

The experience of watching Shockwave has to be comparable to what it would have been like to watch Silverchair, a 90’s Australian hard rock band consisting of three 15-year-olds, at the time of their first release. The question will be whether they can write new rock songs that can measure up to the old ones they play. I think they have the talent to do so. A very proud and beaming Grandpa Coppola told me that the band was working on at least an EP for release. They even played a couple of originals during the show. I feel confident that these guys may be the next worthy torchbearers for Rock N Roll. Check them out if you get a chance. They play frequently in the metro Detroit area and I highly recommend them!

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: “Weird Al” Yankovic

Posted on July 26, 2011 by PhilMaq

Wow! Last week sure was a banner music listening week –even for me. It started with George Bedard on Sunday (already reviewed), and then continued on Tuesday with “Weird Al” Yankovic at Meadow Brook Music Festival.

It was another incredibly comfortable warm summer evening in Rochester Hills. About seven thousand of Al’s faithful followers made the trek to the show and they were not disappointed. For some reason, every time he has come to town over the past several years, I have been tied up doing something else, so this was my first time seeing him. Touring in support of his recent release “Alpocalypse,” the concert was a multimedia event that was interspersed with an incredible amount of video snippets from his old TV show and music videos, as well as any reference made to him on any other program from the past thirty years. Some of these were flat out hilarious and if you didn’t laugh at least several times, I have absolutely no idea why you were there in the first place. The crowd knew many of the clips word for word as well as the words to the parody songs –which is astounding to me because it’s sometimes hard enough to know the words to the original versions.

Anyway, the clips were pretty much a misdirection so that Al and the band could change their costumes without bringing the show to a complete halt. (I honestly think that he changes his outfit more than Katy Perry does in her show.) There was a long medley that featured most of his major parodies (He really did try to fit them all in.), and a couple of the highlights were from the new album: “Perform This Way” (a parody of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”) and “Party in the CIA” (a parody of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA.”). My favorite of the show was “Canadian Idiot,” (a parody of Green Day’s “American Idiot”) complete with exploding red and white streamers!

Just like his albums, the show also featured several original numbers written by Al. I like a lot of these and I think he is a better than average writer on his own. Lots of them are hilarious, and without the guide of a “known song,” that makes them even harder to be funny. I think that playing music is difficult enough without having to make people laugh. For this alone, I think that Al is way above most musicians trying to play normal songs. I don’t think he gets enough respect for his own craft.

If I have any complaint about the show, it would be that the starting time was too early because the light interfered with the viewing of the video clips. There were stretches of the show where the video screen was not used. I would have altered the lineup to allow for those songs to be done earlier and push more of the clips to be shown later in the show under optimum viewing conditions. With the daylight around for at least a good hour plus at the beginning, it gave the impression of going to a bad drive-in where the owner was too stupid to show the movies at the right time.

But the hypnotized faithful probably never noticed.

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: George Bedard and the Kingpins, Jamie Galimberti, Wendy Smith, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr

Posted on July 17, 2011 by PhilMaq

What a difference a month makes. The last time I saw George Bedard and the Kingpins it was cool and gray. But this time, it was a beautiful sunny Sunday evening in July at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s Top of the Park Series. The temperature was in the mid-80’s with a slight breeze, and there was only an occasional cloud in the sky. Performing on an elevated stage in front of the Rackham Building – resembling the ending scene from a never released film, “George Bedard and the Kingpins Go to
College,” George  was there along as his fellow Kingpins and other invited “All-Stars,”
to help him launch his new CD, “Pickin’ Apart the Past.”

George Bedard

Last time, the band brought their own heat source. This time they brought their own energy source – of the nuclear kind. Using a nuclear reactor as a metaphor for the band – George Bedard, looking college suave in a sports jacket and blue jeans, a sleeveless, suntanned Randy Tessier, and, looking very cool behind his dark aviator glasses (I
think he was using water-cooled fusion as compared to the fission process that the other two were using.), Rich Dishman, were the fuel rods of the reactor.

George Bedard and the Kingpins

The energy started immediately as the band came out blazing by opening with one of their own songs, “La Day Oh” from their first CD “Upside.” Sounding like the best Chuck Berry song that you’ve never heard, it happened to be the first song that I ever liked by The Kingpins. The band smoked through an opening 45 minute set emphasizing the best of their catalogue that felt like five minutes.

After a short break, the second set, played as the sun began to set, mostly featured the all-stars on the new CD. These guests included Steve Nardella, Mark O’Boyle, Carl Hildebrandt and Brian Delaney – all artists who played on the new CD. Jim
King, filled in for Al Hill on keyboards. For the next 45 minutes, the all-star band played as much of the CD that they could. The audience response was great as the “street” continued to fill with more and more dancers. Eventually, George disappointedly had to announce that the time was up but he had six more songs that he still wanted to play. Instead, he quickly rallied the group to play a smoldering version of “Okie Dokie Stomp” as well as an ending jam session for “Flip, Flop, and Fly.” As much as I
would have liked to have heard the remaining five songs, it might have been best not to play them. As frenetically as the dancers were dancing and the band was playing, the “reaction core stage” would probably have melted down and broken through the containment vessel. Oh well, there’s always next time. It was a great performance by all involved!

One last thing I’d like to say about the show. George announced that his next album was going to be an all blues one. Great! I love to hear that plans are being made for a new project before the old one has gotten cold! (And if I may make a request, please consider “Long Distance Call”, a song that you have played very infrequently over the years, if the muse moves you.) But George. Enjoy the accolades! Take at least a short victory lap before you jump back in. You’ve earned it!

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE NEW CD!    

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A follow up to the album cover of “Pickin’ Apart the Past”:

George Bedard Pickin' Apart the Past

After I posted my last column, Wendy Smith contacted me to let me know that, like anything that is truly great, it usually involves more than one person and is often a team effort. Such is the case of her photo for the album cover that I described. She asked that I mention the GREAT work that Jamie Galimberti did on the graphics and the album cover. He is the one who put the color into George’s guitar in the photo! (It’s alive!  Alive!!!!) Hey, everything that I said about that picture goes for you, too, Jamie! It is a remarkable cover and anything that you did to enhance it and make it what it is, is appreciated! So thank you both Wendy and Jamie for one of the best album covers I’ve seen in years. I can’t see how it could have turned out better since I’m still talking about the picture and not the music!

And I’ll even go one further for Jamie. According to George’s facebook, you are responsible for the way the new George Bedard website, www.georgebedard.com looks. Another
superb job! It is cool and classy at the same time! It looks like a vintage guitar, and if it had a smell I’m sure it would smell like a vintage car! And you’re just in the early stages! Excellent job and thank you for a GREAT looking website!

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Speaking of new CD’s, according to Dennis Mitchell’s Breakfast With The Beatles, Paul McCartney is going to join a continuous line of musicians recording an album of standards. Normally, in general, I would not find this exciting. But if it’s anything like his cover version of the standard “Summertime” (You know. The one that Janis Joplin  recorded with Big Brother & the Holding Company on “Cheap Thrills”) on his “Back in the U.S.S.R.” release that was recorded exclusively for the Soviet Union – otherwise known as “Chuba y PPX”, uh, I mean “Chobby N ZZZM,” (Alright I’ll look
it up. I can never remember the name!), “Choba B CCCP”, sign me up! That was a great slooow blues version of a song that no one remembers him doing!

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One more new and upcoming CD that is worth mentioning, is a new Ringo Starr album. Joe Johnson, host of Beatle Brunch, let it be known that Ringo has a new CD ready to go and that it should be released towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
His last two CD’s have been outstanding, capping off a string that he started in 1990 with “Time Takes Time.”  With very few exceptions, Ringo continues to improve with age – especially as his music becomes more personal!

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: George Bedard, Wendy Smith, Shania Twain

Posted on July 10, 2011 by PhilMaq

Well, the day is finally here! July 10 is the official release date of George Bedard’s new CD “Pickin’ Apart the Past! The opportunity for you to get your hands on the brand new disc occurs when George and The Kingpins, as well as other special guests, conclude the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s Top of the Park Series. These guests include Steve Nardella, as well as Mark O’Boyle, Carl Hildebrandt and Brian Delaney – all artists who play on the new CD. I will be attending and I’m looking forward to it!

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George Bedard: Pickin' Apart the Past

Cover for George Bedard new CD courtesy of George Bedard

Let me step back for a second and discuss something that is currently burning a hole in my brain, and interestingly enough this time, it’s NOT music. It’s the cover photo for “Pickin’ Apart the Past” shot by Wendy Smith. When I first got my hands on the CD, I, of course, was immediately drawn to the music because that’s where my interest lies. I wanted to hear the tunes and I couldn’t hear them quickly enough. Then, I was all over the liner notes – which are GREAT, written by George himself! But even as I was doing those things, I kept being pulled back to the cover artwork. It’s kind of an “eerie” picture. George is sitting in a graveyard-yes, a graveyard, on a headstone, playing his guitar. It is primarily a stark black and white photo. Bedard is in the foreground and most of the background is out of focus. It is as if George went to the cemetery to conjure up the spirits from the past that had inspired him for his new album. Even he is in black and white, perhaps symbolizing that one day in the distant future, he himself will also become one of the “past masters” that he so admires.

There is a “burst” of color in the photo. The only thing that is “alive” in the picture is George’s guitar. George isn’t in color because he is just a conduit between the “past masters” and his guitar that he uses to bring this outstanding music to you, the listener! Also, as a conduit, he has to bring the music to you because he can’t help himself.

In an age when music appears to not have any intrinsic value whatsoever and doesn’t have a very long shelf life, and therefore the artwork that accompanies the music usually has even less value, this is a CD cover that is on a par with the music on the disc. It is the best cover I have seen in years! It is a brilliant piece of art. Thank you, Wendy, for such a beautiful picture. (Apparently, you were a conduit, too!)

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I am delighted to see that Shania Twain is back making music. Her new song “Today Is Your Day” is starting to get some attention. The song is only a slow shuffling collection of platitudes and clichés, but I am so happy to have her back from her self imposed exile that I’ll give her a pass this time. Welcome back, Shania! You’ve been missed!

Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: George Bedard, Taylor Swift and Jason Derulo

Posted on July 4, 2011 by PhilMaq

A brand new website is up and running for George
Bedard! It’s at www.georgebedard.com. It has a calendar with a schedule for all things George as well as some interesting things to read. Check it out!

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Taylor Swift currently holds the #1 video slot on both the CMT
Top 20 Countdown and the VH1 Top 20 Countdown-and with different songs! I can’t ever remember the same artist holding down the #1 position with different songs. “Mean” is the one on CMT, while “The Story of Us” rules on VH1. Talk about a precision cross over. That’s really knowing your audience. I prefer “Mean” and I’ve written about it before here. What I also find interesting is that I could see it being played on VH1 eventually after “story” fades, but I can’t see “story” being played on CMT. I mean “Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars went deep into the Top 10 on both networks, as well as Lady Antebellum and other country artists on VH1 over the years. The only artists that seem to consistently cross over from VH1 are Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I think it would be fascinating to have  both songs transfer over to the other network.

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Have you heard Jason Derulo’s new song, “Don’t Wanna Go Home?” He takes the chorus from the campy classic “Day-O (Banana Boat Song) by Harry Belafonte, both melody and words, and substitutes “don’t” for “me.” So instead of “Daylight come and me wanna go home” his version has “Daylight come and me don’t wanna go home.” Seriously? This is what passes for creativity these days? Jason takes arguably one of the worst songs (that became a monster hit), from one of the best albums that came out of the 50s. “Calypso,” is a creative tour-de-force that blends traditional Caribbean musical styles alongside smooth lounge jazz that created the blueprint for a World Music album thirty years ahead of its time! He works it over into a cheesy “new song.” ODWITS! I thought his debut had some promise and “Ridin’ Solo” was very catchy. But please don’t encourage him by buying this one.

Harry Belafonte Calypso

Speaking of “Day-O,” can this song be retired from sporting events? It has nothing to do with any of the action and I hate hearing only the little piece of it that they play. And while we’re on the subject, let’s also retire “We Will Rock You” and “Rock and Roll, Part Two.” I am so tired of hearing these songs as well as being annoyed at watching fans who have no idea what a downbeat is and continue to clap on the wrong beat. Come on DJs. Come up with some new stuff!

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: George Bedard and the Kingpins

Posted on June 29, 2011 by PhilMaq

The weather was unseasonably cool at last Friday’s Northville Arts and Acts, but that did not deter George Bedard and the Kingpins from providing their own heat source. Against a backdrop of quaint local businesses and a dreary monochromatic sky (I’ve always wanted to write something like that!), the band brought both heat and color by playing two very polished sets. Several songs from the upcoming “Pickin’ Apart the Past” were highlighted and they sounded GREAT! The band sounds in top form for the CD release party on July 10.

The crowd was a varied mixture of adults, children, and……dogs! The Kingpins interacted with a group of children throughout the show. Bassist Randy Tessier even boldly offered a quarter to the kids, for the one who could dance the best! Ah, a heart of gold!

The highlight of the night had to be, and I’m a little hazy on this one, when the band played “I’m My Own Dog” from their first album, “Upside,” either for the dogs in attendance or by a special request from a partying group of canines. Regardless, a splendid time was had by all terrestrial life forms.

George has a new website, so be sure to check it out: www.georgebedard.com.

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: George Bedard and Paul McCartney

Posted on June 20, 2011 by PhilMaq

Well, it’s been longer than I’ve wanted it to be since I last wrote. There are two reasons for this: I’ve been sick and I’ve been out of town. Let me change that right now.

I have received and previewed the first sample from George Bedard’s upcoming release “Pickin’ Apart the Past.” The name of the song is “Okie Dokie Stomp.”  It’s an intense jump jazz/blues hybrid. (Intense for George, not the listener!)  It’s two and a half minutes of music that flies by at warp speed! The syncopation is perfect and tight. George plays his guitar like he’s “stompin” on an infestation of fire ants to save his house! The song has at least six times the amount of chords than most pop songs put together! In fact, he uses so many chords, he better check his guitar strings for frayed ends! If the rest of the album is as good as this first track, it will absolutely be a winner! And how do you know I actually listened to it? If you checked out my computer you’d see it’s still on “sizzle!” OWWWWW!

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Now, you might be wondering why I always seem to be featuring George Bedard with Paul McCartney or The Beatles. Good question. One is that I am all over anything about The Beatles, both as a group and as solo artists, so if I can pass on anything that you may not have heard, then it’s a labor of love for me. The same is true about George.  Apparently, the two hardest working guys in the music business right now are Paul and George. And why would I put George’s name above Paul’s?  Since Mr. McCartney can pretty much get all the great press that he wants when he wants it, I don’t think he would mind too much if I give the “headline nod” to a local hero who’s worked hard for it and deserves it!

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Speaking of Paul McCartney, this guy is unbelievable. What did he do for his 69th birthday on Friday? Just the typical thing that most normal guys do on their 69th birthday: Put up a stadium of tickets for sale.  

Last week’s Dennis Mitchell’s Breakfast with The Beatles had another pleasant surprise: a great spot-on cover version of an early Marvin Gaye hit called “Hitchhike.”  It was taken from a closed circuit performance by Paul at The Apollo Theatre a couple of months ago. I’m not aware of The Beatles ever performing the song, but it was out at the early stages of their career at a time when they were looking at Motown songs to cover. It’s such a fun song to play that I have to think that they at least considered it. And since Paul is coming to Comerica Park on July 24th, it would be a nice tribute to Detroit to play one of its own songs. Come on Paul. Play “Hitchhike” again for your Detroit show!

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!

Q

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Random “Q”sings: 2011 CMT Awards Show, Sheryl Crow

Posted on June 13, 2011 by PhilMaq

The CMT Music Awards were held last week. This is a show where country fans vote for all of the awards. It is held to coincide with Fanfare – an extremely popular event held in Nashville where fans can wait everyday for hours to personally meet their country heroes.

I won’t take the time to recap the award winners on what turned out to be a very pedestrian show. One highlight for me, though, was the opening sequence of Taylor Swift and Shania Twain satirizing “Thelma and Louise.” Another Highlight was Lady Antebellum breaking into a version of Prince’s “Kiss!” The final “highlight,” I guess, was something that was totally unscheduled: Sheryl Crow momentarily showed her underwear while she sang “Collide”, her current single, with Kid Rock. “Collide” is the couple’s attempt to try to recapture the magic of “Picture,” – a “monster” hit that they had several years ago. I prefer to call it a “bear song.” This refers to the old joke about two people being chased by a bear. One person tells the other person that he doesn’t have to outrun the bear. He just has to run faster than him! “Picture” was a bear song. It wasn’t all that good. It was just better than most of the other songs that were out at that time.

“Collide,” while recreating the “winning formula,” is a much different kind of song. First, it is a true duet, meaning that they both sing together for most of the song. On “Picture,” most of the singing is done separately. Sheryl provides the harmony. Both vocal performances are actually very good. Ah, but when you put the vocals together for the new song, they actually do collide, and they don’t sound very good when combined. The fact that there aren’t any great lines in the song doesn’t help either. No “I was headed to church/ I was off to drink you away” moment.

Now, let’s get back to Sheryl Crow’s underwear. Whoa! STI!!!* (Stop the Internet!) By default, this automatically becomes the most exciting thing she’s done in years!!! Honestly, I didn’t notice it when it happened. But in case you missed it, she announced to everyone watching the show that it happened and half apologized for it.

But then, CMT Insider had to question her about it – and show it a couple of more times. When your underwear is getting more attention than your music is, you’ve got problems.

Now I really like Sheryl Crow. Her first few albums are good enough to put her in the upper tier of most artists operating in the last twenty years. I’d say there were several simbies on each album that are still being played today. But she’s been coasting for a long time. I’d say ever since “Soak Up the Sun” came out. The song is half good. The chorus is light and hummable. Nothing wrong with that. The slower parts of the verses are good, too. It’s when the lyrics start to double time that it falls apart for me. All I hear is blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah blah, blah-blah blah-blah blah-blah blah. If she worked harder on it, it could’ve been a great song.

Last year’s cd, “100 Miles from Memphis,” was a flop. I hate to say that because she was supposed to be paying tribute to the music that she grew up listening to. You know: R&B, Soul Music. Ironically, the only thing missing in the songs was, hmmmm, let me think….. Oh, yeah. SOUL!!!!! I mean, she couldn’t even hit some of those notes in concert. Who let her put this out????!!!!

Now, if I had a band, I would have no problem having Sheryl Crow in it. She is a multi-instrumentalist, has an incredible voice, and at the worst, even if the band stunk that night, I could look over and see that eye candy! But that’s if she were in my band. Since she heads her own, she needs to have things more together than she does.

I’ve seen Sheryl a couple of times in concert – most recently last year at DTE Energy Theater. (A name I don’t understand because it means Detroit Energy Energy Theater. Huh? It’s like ATM machine. Automatic teller machine machine.) The old songs sounded fine, but not sharp. Almost as if she’s played them too many times. But the new songs were not received well. On top of that, she had a meltdown on stage. While playing the intro to “My Favorite Mistake,” she brought the band to a complete stop and f-bombed the sound. It sounded just fine to me. Then it started to get weird. She apologized for the first f-bomb by letting loose with another f-bomb and more swearing. Now I am far from a prude, but there were a lot of little kids there, for what most people probably thought would be a family show. I mean, they weren’t there to see Gilbert Gottfried!

I saw her another time at The Palace of Auburn Hills. It was the last show of the tour, which is usually very loose and often has a party atmosphere. For those reasons, I was really looking forward to it. Boy was I wrong. It was a dead atmosphere. To add to the strangeness, she wanted to film a segment of “Home,” an introspective piano ballad, for VH1. She didn’t like the way it was performed, so at the end of the show, she announced that they were going to do a couple of more takes of the song and that everyone was welcome to stay. Well, “Home” is a quiet, personal song, and, unfortunately, the Detroit Red Wings were in the NHL Playoffs, and some fans couldn’t stop shouting, “Go Wings” during the quietest moments. Now that wasn’t her fault, but for someone who brought a concert to a screeching halt because she felt something wasn’t quite right, she sure didn’t take control of the situation.

I don’t know. I’ve seen her twice now and both times I felt I didn’t get my money’s worth. And the second time, the ticket was free! Some good new music would fix this!

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Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other!

Peace!
Q

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