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I started a quest to find terrific blues music and incredible musicianship when I was just a little kid. I also have a tremendous appreciation of fine musical instruments and equipment. One of my greatest joys all of my life was sharing my finds with my friends. I'm now publishing my journey. I hope that you come along!


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Showing posts with label Spin Doctors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spin Doctors. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Vizztone Label Group artists: Godboogie - Play Music & Dance - New Release Review

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Play Music & Dance from Godboogie and it's a funky party. Opening with a New Orleans/BoDiddley beat, Play Music & Dance, Jerome Godboo takes the lead on vocal, harp and accordion with Eric Schenkman on guitars, Shawn Kellerman on guitar and Gary Craig on drums. On shuffle track, Honey Badger, the band hits a nice groove with Schenkman taking a real nice ripper of a solo. Slowing it down with a nice lope, Wounded shows a broad range of vocal capabilities by Godboo and of course showcasing his harp work. Ripping loose with another flier of a solo is Schenkman giving the track a nice edge. Breaking down to a smoking funk, It's A Party is really a dancing groove with slashing guitar riffs. Stumble blues track, Kitty has a real cool beat and the edgy vocals of Godboo contrast nicely against the grinding guitar work of Schenkman. Very cool. Hitting right up the middle with slow blues ballad, Sign Of The Times, Godboo brings his soulful blues vocals and Schenkman throws down his best blues chops. Another soulful ballad, The Way to Heaven, is my favorite track on the release with a nice hook, really soulful harp work and a super melody. Soul track, Call On My Love, is another of my favorites with a great melody, lead vocal work and musical tension. Wrapping the release is Tigers, Horses, Kings & Queens, a cool blues rocker with solid vocals. Schenkman plays a fairly outrageous guitar solo on this track over a driving bass line by Kellerman and tight drums by Craig. A real nice closer for a cool release.



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Thursday, May 14, 2015

Spin Doctors Pour A 3-Finger Whiskey Shot with Songs From The Road DVD/CD - Out on June 23rd

Spin Doctors Pour A 3-Finger Whiskey Shot
Offers Fans A Toast With Songs From The Road DVD/CD
Out June 23rd on the Award-winning Ruf Records Series

“…rocks like a rodeo bull on amphetamines and had my blood pumping from the first few chords. “  - No Depression

Atlanta, GA – Ruf Records recording artist Spin Doctors pay their old blues bar band tab with a June 23rd release called Songs From The Road, a live DVD/CD out on the label’s award winning series. The ever-popular band from the 90s had radio hits, million plus album sales and a Rolling Stone magazine cover but they always focused on their live performances. Filmed live at Harmonie Club in Bonn, Germany, this was a perfect setting to capture a dynamite set from a band that has made it their business to blow off the roof.

“We get up onstage and we turn it on,” says Spin Doctors vocalist Chris Barron. “We play our hearts out.”

Stop the man on the street and he might tell you the Spin Doctors are the million-selling legends behind hits like “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”. Ask a longer-term, harder-core fan, though, and they’ll remind you that Chris Barron, Aaron Comess (drums), Eric Schenkman (guitar) and Mark White (bass) came up playing for their lives on the sharp-end of the New York blues circuit.

“Those blues clubs were our bread and butter in the late-’80s,” says Aaron, “and people loved that we stretched out and jammed out.” - Mark White

The NYC scene took no prisoners. As such, when hysteria hit – around the time of 1991’s Pocket Full Of Kryptonite album – the lineup was already a stingingly tight live draw. Over the next quarter-century, fashion moved on, but the Docs’ talent for rocket-fuelling killer original songs onstage has only grown with age. And with 2013’s restorative If The River Was Whiskey album giving their catalogue a blues-flavored adrenalin shot, there’s never been a better time to catch them live. “I think a lot of people might come out and see us based on the hits,” says Aaron. “But then they get there and they’re like, ‘Holy shit, these guys have a whole other thing that I didn’t know about.’”

Christopher Barron proves to be a funny, crowd-pleasing frontman…” -Allmusic.com

Ruf’s popular Songs For The Road live series has always been driven by the concept of capturing a band as they sound from the front row, and with this latest two-disc CD/DVD release, all the stops were duly pulled out in terms of production. Recorded live at the Harmonie club in Bonn, Germany, on October 17th, 2013, you can almost feel the gust of the speakers, the hot bounce of the crowd and the buzz crackle through the venue as much-loved studio material is twisted into bold new shapes. “Aaron, Eric and Chris are the most amazing improvisers I’ve ever played with in my life,” says Mark. “It’s almost like we’re four jet fighters, and we’ve all got each other’s backs.”

"We just all had the same sense of rhythm, and there was a feeling that it was more than four guys playing," he said. "That always felt like magic.”Chris Barron to NY Times (2005)

More than production values, though, Songs From The Road is about the songs with the Doctors chasing through a set list that runs the gamut of genre and vintage. Naturally, there’s a healthy slug of Kryptonite-era material (alongside the aforementioned über-hits, look out for early fan favorites like What Time Is It?” and “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues). But you’ll also find the track listing rooted squarely in the here-and-now, with Whiskey cuts including “Some Other Man Instead”, “About A Train”, “Scotch And Water Blues” – plus the song that Chris deems the best he’s ever written, “Sweetest Portion”. “Our tunes are not a drag to play live,” notes Eric. “It feels seamless from the stage, like any of the new tunes can sit with any one of the Kryptonite songs. We can do any of them.” 

“Their  sound  hasn’t  aged  a  bit:  it  still  reflects fondness  for  the  honky-tonk  lurch  of  the  Rolling  Stones,  the  psychedelic  reach  of Jimi  Hendrix  and  the  rubberized  funk  of  the  Red  Hot  Chili  Peppers.” – New York Times

So pull up a ringside seat at the rebirth of the Spin Doctors. This is Songs From The Road; no smoke, no mirrors. They come armed with their best material yet, they are still playing for their lives. They are just an honest band; “Some bands, you go and see 25 years later and they’re just up there going through the motions,” says Aaron. “But I think because everybody is so serious about their craft, to me, we sound better than ever. We sound world-class now, I think.”

Stream A Song: “What Time Is It?

2015 Tour Dates:
5/23/15          Reserve Casino & Hotel                                                   Central City, CO
7/04/15          House Of Blues/Kissimmee Lakefront Park                  Kissimmee, FL
7/24/15          Friday Night Live Series                                                    Rutland, VT 
8/01/15          Fremont Street Experience                                             Las Vegas, NV
8/08/15          FolsomFest in Rodeo Park                                               Folsom, CA
8/21/15          Craft Brew At The Zoo                                                      Powell, OH
9/05/15          Guild Hall                                                                                 East Hampton, NY

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Spin Doctors announce London Garage concert with special guests Dodgy



 
LIVE AT THE GARAGE, LONDON
WEDNESDAY 25th SEPTEMBER
plus very special guests

Exclusive 24hr Ticket Presale starts Thursday 9th May at 9am.
Tickets on sale to the general public on Friday 10th May from www.eventim.co.uk
and 0844 249 1000.
Following the release of their critically acclaimed new studio album If the River Was Whiskey, Spin Doctors are pleased to announce a rare London concert at The Garage in Islington, North London, on Wednesday 25th September. Special guest is Dodgy
An exclusive ticket presale starts on Thursday 9th May at 9am before tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday 10th May from www.eventim.co.uk and 0844 249 1000.

plus very special guests


www.eventim.co.uk // 0844 249 1000
THE GARAGE, LONDON
Wednesday 25th September 2013

Box office: 0844 847 1678
Tickets: £20.00
www.thegarage.co.uk
20–22 Highbury Corner, London, N5 1RD
Doors 7pm

Dodgy - Official Biography
The definitive line up of Nigel Clark, Andy Miller and Mathew Priest is back!
The first time round, Dodgy were only together for seven years but during that time they sold over a million records worldwide, released three albums and 12 Top 40 singles, including 3 Top 10s and the Top 5 hit Good Enough, still a staple of the Radio 2 playlist.
They also sold out the Brixton Academy for three nights in a row and were awarded an unprecedented 90-minute Saturday evening slot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury Festival in 1997 just before Radiohead. Not bad, considering that they also partied harder than an Ewok.
2012 saw the release of Stand Upright In A Cool Place to unanimous critical acclaim.

click for hi res
You think you know the Spin Doctors. Think again. When the legendary New York quartet release If The River Was Whiskey in the UK on May 6th through Ruf Records, casual fans will discover the secret past the hardcore have never forgotten.
To the wider world, the Doctors might be the multi-million-selling icons behind hits like Two Princes and Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, not to mention the classic Pocket Full Of Kryptonite. But in 2013, Chris Barron (vocals), Aaron Comess (drums), Eric Schenkman (guitar) and Mark White (bass) are reconnecting with the flat-broke twenty-somethings who scraped for dollars at the sharp end of the Big Apple blues circuit. The Spin Doctors have come full circle.
Spin Doctors (L-R): Eric Schenkman (guitar), Aaron Comess (drums),
Chris Barron (vocals) and Mark White (bass). Photo Credit: © 2013 Lucy Onions
"We were four guys in our twenties," remembers Aaron of early days in the late-’80s. "Our goal was to write our own songs and make a living doing it. The blues is such a big part of our roots, but one of the reasons we came up with such a big catalogue of blues songs back then is that we’d play these downtown blues bars in New York. You were supposed to play blues covers – but we were actually playing our own songs!"
We all know what happened next… the hits, the hysteria, the fame and the money. "At one point, we were selling 50,000 records a week," recalls Chris, "I’d walk into a shopping mall to buy underwear and 300 kids would surround me."
If The River Was Whiskey hits rewind. It’s the deep-blues album the Spin Doctors almost made before mega stardom came knocking. It finally bottles those near-mythical songs from that sweatbox circuit. It’s simultaneously a tipped hat to the band’s lost past and the freshest record you’ll hear all year. "Every note feels dangerous," says Barron. "It’s like this ramshackle, broken carriage running down a cobblestone hill, with pots and pans, and a screaming baby…"
Spin Doctors perform "Traction Blues" at Rockwood Music Hall
The concept to revisit these songs struck as the Spin Doctors toured Europe to toast the 20th anniversary of Pocket Full Of Kryptonite, and polled über-fans David Landsburger and Daniel Heinze on what they’d like to hear as the encore that night. Their answer – So Bad – was a song so old that Chris had almost forgotten the verses, but when the venue exploded, a lightbulb lit over the band’s heads. "We had such a good time playing these tunes," the singer explains, "that we thought, ‘We should go make a record of this stuff’. It’s really brought us back as a band, musically and interpersonally."
The songs on If The River Was Whiskey are different vintages. "Some Other Man Instead and the title track, I wrote those lyrics in the last year or two," explains Chris. "I wrote Sweetest Portion when I was only 19. I’d run away from home, and when I got back, my friends were really upset and there was a rumour going around that I had died. So I wrote that song – and I’m not sure if I’ve ever written a better one since."
The songs might be a quarter-century in the making, but If The River Was Whiskey took just three days to record when the four members convened last summer in New York. The original plan was to get together at Aaron’s His House Studios in Manhattan and record some demos (no pressure) before heading upstate to a boutique analogue facility and start tracking in earnest. "We didn’t expect to make a record," smiles Eric. "We were just going to make a demo and play at the Rockwood. And then, lo and behold…"
Photo Credit: © 2013 Richard Ecclestone
Instead, without the pressure of the red light, the sessions began to unfold with an effortless magic. "We just kinda winged it, man," says Mark. This album sounds exactly the same as it does onstage, because we recorded it live, which is the way it should be done. There are no overdubs. Anybody that tried to do an overdub was gonna get whacked!"
"We really kinda fooled ourselves and tricked ourselves, and I think that’s one of the reasons why it sounds so fresh," says Aaron. "There was absolutely no pressure on us of any kind. We just hit a moment. Everything came together and we created this great record. Usually, the best things happen when you’re not trying. That’s exactly what happened here."
The band quickly realized the supposed rough-cuts captured by engineering ace Roman Klun couldn’t be topped. "By the third day," reflects Chris, "we’d recorded all ten of the demos. We went out to dinner that night, we were all having a cocktail, and someone was like, ‘Gentlemen, I believe our demo is a record’. We all just laughed."
Take a spin of If The River Was Whiskey and you’d have to agree: they aced it. The Spin Doctors might have given you the soundtrack to the best nights of the ’90s, but with this new album, they’ve rediscovered a strand of their musical DNA that melds perfectly with the hits you know and love.
"It’s been so refreshing to go back to this material," says Aaron. "It’s just brought everything that’s good about the band out again. I can honestly say that we’re playing better than ever right now, and I think a lot of that is because of the material on this record: it’s just really opened things up. Some bands, you go and see them 25 years later and they’re up there going through the motions. I think we sound better than ever. We sound world-class now."
"We play about four or five tunes a night from this new album and they all work," says Eric. "It just feels seamless, like any of the new tunes can sit with any one of the Kryptonite songs. And the band is just playing amazing now. It’s a pleasure to play with people that you’ve been playing with so long… and everybody’s still breathing!"
Likewise, when If The River Was Whiskey arrives on May 6th it’ll be a pleasure to toast the return of the Spin Doctors, and a new album set to score new fans while making the hardcore love them more than ever.
"I don’t care about sales, man," states Chris, honestly. "I mean, it’d be awesome if it sold millions of copies, but honest to God, I just want to keep making a living playing music. We get up onstage and we turn it on, and sing and play our hearts out. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do: just make real music, give people something from my heart."