The Monday Morning Mix – Thieves in the Temple of the Dogs – 11/2/09
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Graphic by Rachael Novak
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About Today's Mix:
You'll note the Prince reference in the title of this week's mix, which might just be a slight nod to our Prince-loving pals over at Ickmusic.
Meanwhile back at the ATV ranch, we're still in the midst of a vacation-like hiatus from posting. Your fearless blog leader (Matt) has been out of town or otherwise occupied for most of the past two weeks. And when I am around, things have been, well, busy. I guess you'll have that as you head towards the end of the year, and towards all of the holidays and events that come with that end of the year stuff.
A few weeks back, I promised a trip back to 1991, and hopefully you're ready to do that, because we're traveling back to the beginnings of grunge-tastically loud music as we speak!
During my teenage years working at the record store, and later at the radio station, I loved to read the weekly industry magazines like Album Network, HITS Magazine, and FMQB. This wasn't exactly a new development - I'd been reading Billboard Magazine each week at the library since I was 8 years old, already aware of my desire to eventually work in the music industry.
View CommentsBill Champlin: The ATV Interview
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
During my early years as a music fan, I came across albums that would be important mile markers in my continuing musical education. Chicago 17 was an important album that introduced me to the production of David Foster, and perhaps more importantly, the vocals of Peter Cetera and Bill Champlin. Champlin was a recent addition to Chicago, having joined during the songwriting sessions for Chicago 16, the band's first album for their new label, Full Moon/Warner Brothers, after a career length stint recording for Columbia. The winning combination of Foster + Champlin + Chicago led to platinum selling results, and the band's second #1 single with "Hard to Say I'm Sorry."
View CommentsBill Champlin plans solo tour this fall!
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
“He’s known the world over as the soulful singer/keyboardist of the iconic jazz-pop band Chicago. His featured spots on the hits “Look Away” and “Hard Habit to Break” are among his mainstream highlights. But Bill Champlin’s defining work with the Sons of Champlin and as a songwriter put him on the musical map long before he arrived in Chicago. Bill and the Sons were blowing the doors off venues back in the ’70s — and they returned to doing the same in the late ’90s and into the present.”
-- Greg Rule, Keyboard Magazine
It's been nearly a year since the release of No Place Left To Fall, the latest solo effort from Chicago/Sons of Champlin lead vocalist Bill Champlin.
Available physically nearly everywhere (Japan, Europe, etc) except the United States where it was released only digitally, U.S. fans will finally have the chance to pick up No Place Left To Fall on CD in stores and online on August 4th. That's good news for Chicago/Champlin fans everywhere.
The even better news is the announcement that Champlin will mount a brief tour of the United States this fall with a full band including the rhythm section from Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns! The tour is set to launch on November 6th with 9 shows currently on the tentative schedule, venues pending.
Friday, November 6 • San Juan Capistrano, CA
Saturday, November 7 • San Diego, CA
Tuesday, November 10 • Santa Cruz, CA
Wednesday, November 11 • Mill Valley, CA
Thursday, November 12 • Tuolumne, CA
Saturday, November 14 • Santa Rosa, CA
Thursday, November 19 • Portland, OR
Saturday, November 21 • Whidbey Island, WA
Sunday, November 22 • Seattle, WA
Champlin is looking for your help to help promote the shows, the old-fashioned way:
Even though I've been on the scene for a long time, a lot of people don't know me, other than as a singer/pianist for Chicago, so it's gonna' take a lotta' help to make this stuff happen. I hate to use old ad campaign slogans, but "Tell a Friend" is gonna' help immensely. This is a grass roots thing that is gonna' take a lot of Grass or a lot of Roots, maybe both. Thanks for being there. I appreciate all your help. See ya' in November!
I can't remember the last time Champlin played solo dates like this, and I know that I certainly was too young to attend them when it happened, so I am stoked beyond belief! Gotta figure out when, where, and how, but I will get my butt out to at least one of these shows, for sure! Bill Champlin is one of the last old-school true musicians still out there playing these days - that ain't no sample, that's a real B-3 organ up there, son!
Step 1 for you: Grab yourself a copy of No Place Left To Fall when it is released on August 4th. Step 2: Get yourself out to one of these shows, and as Bill suggests, "tell a friend," or three, or four. And if you're looking for additional homework, I can suggest that the Mayday album might be a good primer to paint a bit of a picture for what you can expect from Champlin's solo live show!
Relevant Links:
Pre-order your copy of No Place Left To Fall, or download it digitally.
Bill Champlin's official website
Dreammakers Music (The label behind the new album.)
View CommentsAt Bonnaroo (sort of.)
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Well kids, here we are!
After making my way through seemingly insurmountable amounts of work on Monday and Tuesday, I was finally ready and able to step out the door for Bonnaroo. At this point, I need to stop down and give huge amounts of thanks to my co-worker and fantastic friend Rebecca for being willing to make sure things happen while I am out of the office for five days. Without her help, I'm not quite sure how I would have pulled this excursion off.
Roommate Adam and I made it to Brian's house around 2:30AM, and we were on the road with a brief stop-off at Sheetz by 3AM. I can tell you that last year, on the tail end of Virgin Festival, I was so tired and grumpy when we made our first visit to an Ohio-area Sheetz location, that I had a bit of trouble navigating their computerized ordering system.
All I wanted to do was add cheese to my burger, and it was nowhere on the list of ingredients that I was seeing on the screen. So I kept cancelling my order and starting over. Turns out, that cheese was way down on the list of steps, filed in some ridiculous category that I would never place cheese. This year, the visit to Sheetz was a much better experience, and I ordered a couple of cheapie burgers loaded with bacon and about 12 other ingredients, and took my traditional place in the back seat for the trip.
My pal Brian has an account of our trip to Nashville that is mostly accurate, so I'll direct you to that, and skip straight to Nashville.
Once we were in Nashville, Brian had plans to stop by to visit indie record label gods Thirty Tigers, home of quite a few artists including Those Darlins, a group that you'll discover that like Blue Rodeo for me, Brian really likes those girls quite a lot.
The Thirty Tigers folks were really, really cool, and hooked us up with a bunch of tunes including the Freedy Johnston covers disc from last year that I didn't have, and a couple of Will Kimbrough discs (among many others.) Kimbrough has been on my list of artists that I've been curious to check out for a long time, and I've never gotten around to that. Now, I'll have some tunes thanks to the Thirty Tigers folks, to figure out if I'm a fan or not.
What are the odds that Thirty Tigers would be located right upstairs above a really cool record store? Really good, actually. My streak of finding an awesome record store in every city that I visit continues with this trip's discovery of Grimey's, a mecca/metropolis of used and new musical goodness including a huge selection of both new and used vinyl. I'm really trying to be financially smart, and anyone who knows me, knows that I could easily drop a hundred bucks in a place like Grimey's. But I didn't. I passed up Mobile Fidelity vinyl and CD copies of Faith No More's Angel Dust, which have been on my want list for quite a while now. But I also got a couple of nice scores as well.
While fielding what will hopefully be the one and only emergency work-related call (hint, hint,) I was making my way through the stacks of used CDs, and came across the new CD from Chicago-based Freddy Jones Band, a favorite of mine back in the 90's. Time Well Wasted, the new release from the group, is a collection of three new studio tracks, and 10 live tracks recorded live at Martyr's in Chicago.
And now, the score: My eyes see a copy of the previously Japanese only (on CD anyway) solo release from Chicago member Bill Champlin, No Place Left To Fall. Released here in America only as a download last year, the album is finally allegedly getting a U.S. release on CD in August. This could be an advance promo for that planned release, I'm not sure. What I do know, is that it has both the CD, and the 70 minute DVD documentary on the making of the album, something that up until yesterday would have cost me 50+ dollars on import.
Price tag at Grimey's: $5.95. So awesome!
We went to the legendary Music Row in Nashville to meet up for a late lunch at The Tin Roof with my Ohio pal Kevin Mason, now living in Nashville as a marketing king. I was pretty wiped out at this point and ready for the hotel, but it was still good to see Kevin and catch up with him.
Onward to the hotel, and at this point we all crashed out hard after a long day of traveling for the best naps ever. A txt message from D.X. Ferris letting me know that he was watching Jane's Addiction and NIN in Pittsburgh inspired mild amounts of jealously for a second, but then I was back asleep shortly thereafter.
At breakfast the next morning, Brian directed my attention to the fact that The B-52's are playing tonight in Chattanooga, about 20 minutes away from our hotel. Being the good pal that he is, he's willing to drop me off in Chattanooga for the show, so that's where I will be on day one of Bonnaroo. As our friend Bear said to Brian on Facebook, "Only Matt could find another concert to go to when he's going to a four day concert." Indeed.
So there's an update for you all on our first day 1/2 of activities and entertainment - Looking forward to Bruce on Saturday night!
View CommentsI heart The Friday Five
Written by: Matt Wardlaw
Today's post is dedicated to my good friends Michael and Pete at Ickmusic. Michael has a nice weekly series called The Friday Five, in which sharing from the class is heavily encouraged.
As you know, we heavily encourage the audience participation here as well, so I very quickly became a fan of The Friday Five. I don't often get a chance to share my choices on Fridays, which tend to be busy, but I always like to weigh in eventually. And by "always," I think I've actually done it two or three times, but who is counting? I felt pretty good about the five tracks that I shared this past Monday at Ickmusic, so I thought that I would share them with all of you. Check 'em out, and go have your own Friday Five fun with Michael!
1. Nada Surf - “No Quick Fix” - Gotta give credit to Heather at Fuel/Friends for really making me love this band with her posts about them. She posted an acoustic show that really hooked me in, and made me get the catalog. Sadly, the download link doesn't seem to be active for that acoustic show anymore, but you can still read a great interview that Heather did with Matthew Caws here. This cut can be found on this version of Let Go.
2. Ryan Adams - “Come Pick Me Up” - This song always seems to come up in the shuffle on the perfect morning. This is one of those mornings. I'll admit that I heard this song for the first time via Elizabethtown, although I had heard Adam Duritz weave it into the middle of "Round Here" countless times. I hadn't gotten on board the Ryan Adams train at that point, and when I heard it while watching Elizabethtown, it threw me for quite an emotional loop. Of course, that didn't stop me from turning down the chance to go see an amazing Ryan Adams show here in Cleveland last year. For even more good stuff, check out the Ryan Adams Elizabethtown sessions here.
3. Bill Champlin - “Organ Solo/In The Heat of the Night” - I got into Bill’s stuff after being a longtime Chicago fan. Started buying his solo albums in 1994, and this record Mayday, recorded live in the studio is a great career summary of Champlin’s solo work and also his work with Sons of Champlin. For the Champlin-curious, the Sons of Champlin Live album on Grateful Dead Records is also a good one, if you can find it. Honorable mention to his latest album No Place Left To Fall, the first solo release from Champlin in a number of years released last year - it's good stuff.
4. Extreme - “No Respect” - I’m not going to say that I was a diehard Extreme fan back in the day, but I liked the hits, and bought Waiting For The Punchline as soon as it was released. Saw them on the tour for WFTP, and was stunned at how good they were, and I subsequently talked up Gary Cherone to anyone that would listen, when he was tapped for the VH singer slot. And I continue to defend Cherone-era VH as recently as this past week on Twitter!
5. Ernie and the Automatics - “The Best Is Up Ahead” - This is the latest band project from former Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau. For any of you that followed his solo work in the 90s (i.e. not RTZ) you might cringe a little bit, because some of it was pretty bad. This CD is one of my unexpected favorites of the year.
Surf on over to Ickmusic and offer your five cuts - as you can see, it's a lot of fun!
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