Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Guns & Time & Matter

The nasty youth criminal of the day for me is hard to pick...might be that teenage rascal Scott Dyleski, whom a California judge just sentenced to life without parole for the messy trailer murder of Pamela Vitale, a neighboring housewife. He reportedly struck her at least 26 times in the head, broke her nose, her fingers, knocked out some of her teeth, and left bruises and cuts all over her body.The judge derided Dyleski's plea for leniency saying that the only time he'd shown emotion during the trail was when watching autopsy photos blown up on a video screen.

"I saw you, sir, lean forward and your mouth fell open," the judge said.

"You were absolutely fascinated by your handiwork," said Judge Zuniga

"This was a very deliberate, planned murder," added judge Zuniga. She seemed apalled that as Vitale was dying, the killer carved a symbol into her back "because you were proud of your work," Zuniga told Dyleski.

--------
Derrell and Jarell Show...

But in a case that got far less attention, I'm gonna nominate two fellow East Bay teenagers who stomped a 45 year old woman to death mercilessly on the streets of Berkeley one night last year.

In fact they were so brutally kicking and jumping on the 110 lb homeless woman, a neighbor called police because he thought it was an act of vandalism on an object.

Derrell Morgan, 19, and Jarell Johnson, also 19, were defended by public defenders, one who claimed his client "is a thug, but that doesn't make him a murderer," ...

Either way a judge is expected to give each a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

here's an appropriate Undertones cover from a compilation album called Hot Funky & Sweaty: The Sound of Heavy Soul & Funk Today



The Gene Drayton Unit - Teenage Kicks


Hot Funky & Sweaty: The Sound of Heavy Soul & Funk TodayBuy at iTunes Music Store

  • Buy at Napster
  • Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody
  • Buy at eMusic




  • Anyhow, gotta love how that violence is in our schools, that stuff is just great...

    Heck, who doesn't love a good American style school shooting, even when it's not the students...

    some old gun crazy codger in Colorado today must have felt like he missed out on his chance to be a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia, and wanted in on all the sick juvenile excitement...
    Platte Canyon High School
    Platte Canyon High School is about 30 miles from Denver

    Wearing the typical psycho garb of hoodie & camoflage backpack...the man entered the Jefferson County school just miles from Columbine around lunchtime.

    He wanted to be left alone, with just female hostages. According to a parent, when the man's 16 year old son asked to stay behind with the girls, the gunman shoved his weapon in the boys face saying 'It would be in your best interest to leave,'".

    He then apparently began sexually assaulting the girls.

    The F'ing Champs - Guns In Our Schools


    An evacuation of two schools ensued after he threatenend to blow up explosives, and eventually after a standoff, there's a dead gun toting loser...and saddest of all, a dead girl hostage, Emily Keyes,16, who was critically injured as the SWAT team stormed the classroom. She was badly injured, and flown to St. Anthony’s Central Hospital where she later died.

    Not sure how, or why on this one yet...

    like we f'n need a reason or even care what makes such freakish idiots go off anymore...

    In my mind, I can already hear the incredulous neighbors being interviewed,
    "Didn't talk to him much, but he liked guns & seemed like such a normal guy..."
    Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson - Don't Take Your Guns to Town (storytellers)

    Posted below is a cut that was originally featured on a benefit compilation CD that came together after another sort of tradgedy. Before including it on their recent B-sides collection The Fastbacks contributed this song to a record designed to help out the group Home Alive. Released in 1994 on Epic, the Home Alive compilation and organization was a Seattle response to the rape & muder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. The Fastbacks track is a UK Subs cover and was one of the highlights of the original in my opinion... I suggest ya get either of the albums listed below... as they both have their merits...


    Download

    Fastbacks - "Time And Matter"

    now part of this Book Records release:

    Truth, Corrosion And Sour Bisquits

    Fastbacks - Truth, Corrosion And Sour Bisquits





  • Buy at iTunes Music Store
  • Buy at RealNetworks / Rhapsody

  • Tuesday, September 26, 2006

    Too Much Parenthetical Manic LSD

    Just read the comments by some of Senator George Allen's ex-college teammates on Salon.com including a Doctor who've accused the foolhardy blowhard who reps Virginia of being an overt racist back in the 1970's.

    George was actually raised in CA, but quickly developed a southern accent & a fondness for the ways of the Neo-Con-federacy. One story circulating has him leaving a bloody deer head in a black family's mailbox as a college student...and not surprisigly frequent & fluent use of the "N" Bomb.

    In fact if one believes the sadly silly stories, George threw around more "Niggaz" in his flow than a cell block full of gangsta rappers. What's interesting is his denial of past discrminatory behavior on Tim Russsert's softball NBC weekend program Meet The Press, when George said
    "And one of the things that you learn in football is that you don't care about someone's race or ethnicity or religion."


    Gee George , the key words I focused on were "you don't care"...

    Like that isn't obvious?

    Uh, you keep a noose hanging in yer office, like sporting the confederate flag, and yer Dad was the coach of the football team called The Redskins after all...

    One movie I'm pretty sure George won't be attending this year is first time director Nikhil Kamkolkar's festival circuit fave "Indian Cowboy". The film is a love story about some mingling "maccacas" & has those subversive south asian plotlines all over it, and a contemporary beyond Bollywood soundtrack album out currently. Here's a sample from the soundtrack CD

    Alms For Shanti (feat. Uday Benegal and Jayesh Gandhi)- Indian Cowboy Theme



    well.. not sure where all this is leading us...

    So

    In a shocking revelation that will shake up the blogosphere , I admit, I'm kinda at a loss for words tonight...

    It's rather late in the evening...

    and I will flabbergast ye with verbiage at some later appropriate date...or at least get all my pictures uploaded for my next mega post...

    in the meantime...

    it's Time For A Terrible Tuesday Mini Mix for ye...


    representing the madcap Uk team...actually they're technically Welsh... I speak of ...Manic Street Preachers.

    The lead single released in 1998 from their 5th CD, features a title lifted from a resistence poster from the Spanish Civil War, after the fascist air bombing of Madrid.


    Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

    and here's a few more lesser acclaimed tracks, one from that same era, this one written in reference to the life of Unabomber Ted Kacynski's withdrawl from society to a cabin in Montana.

    Manic Street Preachers - Montana/Autumn/78

    Luddite lover
    Forgiving father
    Unhappy forever
    Live it to where you can
    Those skies must drive you wild
    The earth around you
    This silence around you
    Be with the sky tonight
    You've ruined more than you'll gain
    Know what you mean - but not what you do
    Nature will take care of itself
    Your ego will destroy itself
    Montana/Autumn/78
    Your life into the future
    Maybe forty years
    A life worth saving or lonesome ever more
    The nothingness of truth
    Or everlasting youth
    Ideology or the ultimate thrill
    You've ruined more than you'll gain
    Know what you mean - but not what you do
    Nature will take care of itself
    Your ego will destroy itself
    Montana/Autumn/78

    This next two tracks are the previously unreleased bonus tracks put out to promote the Manic's 2002 'greatest hits' Lp "Forever Delayed". I myself prefer "Lipstick Traces", the double disc B-sides collection that came out in 2003, but I don't have it handy today... (pssst...bug me and I'll get around to posting fom that thang as well sometime...)

    Manic Street Preachers - Door To The River

    Manic Street Preachers - There by The Grace Of God

    ...

    and moving right along, we come to yer basic too cool for you chick singer songwriter babe... Now on Michael Gira's Young God Records, the label that brought us Devandra Barnhardt...we get Lisa Germano's In The Maybe World.. A longtime trouper, Germano has had plenty big name pals in the biz, and has even played with mega acts like John Cougar, David Bowie & U2. Over the years as a solo artists she's been on 4AD, Capitol, Ineffable/iMusic, Koch etc. Over the years she's had guests on her releases like Neil Finn ( Split Enz), Johnny Marr (Smiths), and Howe Gelb & Giant Sand. She also has contributed vocals, violin and other instruments on other people's albums, like Eels, Craig Ross, Sheryl Crow, etc. But despite all these high falutin' ties, to pay rent she works semi-regularly when not touring at Book Soup, the store on Sunset across from Tower in West Hollywood. Figures the geek girl might hide out in the racks with her fave non threatening companions, books.

    Lisa Germano - Too Much Space


    When in doubt we bring in the mighty Johnny Colon, this track released on George Goldner's Cotique imprint is the Boogaloo Blues LP title track circa 1968 featuring the awe inspiring chant... LSD has a hold on me ...!!

    Johnny Colon - Boogaloo Blues




    and leading us out of here are three pieces by the perplexing popsmiths of the Parenthetical Girls, from their latest efforts which include a sorta homespun remix project with help from Xiu Xiu that may just be too esoteric for it's own good...or not.

    but it's for you to decide & download now...

    (((GRRRLS)))

    (((GRRRLS)))

    Parenthetical Girls - Love Connection

    Parenthetical Girls - Love Connection pt 2

    Parenthetical Girls - C-86 Is Killing My Life

    Slender Means Society



    Monday, September 25, 2006

    dramarama uber alles

    Anyone that saw the amazing Rodney Bingnheimer doc directed by George Hickenlooper would've noted the subplot involving a member of Dramarama. He ended up co-producing the film, and works in the tale of how his band was rescued from utter obscurity in New Jersey by some far away airplay on Rodney's popular LA radio show.

    Dramarama - Anything,Anything



    That there was the breakthru track that still gets played on KROQ, and is still recalled fondly ...as if they were all dead and not sitting there like smoking elephants in the room...

    Dramarama, sorta like Rodney, of course had their moments in the late 80's & early 90's, flirting with the big tme but never quite getting there. I remember seeing them play a pretty sizable radio station sponsored outdoor festival back in 1990. Their song "Last Cigarette" was riding the airplay curve and was a real great live smoker...

    Dramarama - Last Cigarette
    (external you send it link)

    Somehow though the star train did not stop and pick em up, and a caterwauling cast of neutered charisma-less bands like The Gin Blossoms, Sugar Ray and Hootie & The Blowfish hit the charts while Dramarama petered out into semi obscurity...

    Singer John Easdale alaways put his heart into the tunes, and sounded like a man on the edge. Maybe this just scared corporate radio programmers or something. Here's one was from the album Sci Fi Hi Fi and was their last to really flirt with any kind of radio play...

    Dramarama - Work For Food

    Eventually, as far as the "music industry" was concerned, the band just kinda dissolved into the ether. Yet, I think Drmarama still do some reunion type stuff , playing clubs on the Jersey shore and wherever promotors are still willing to give it a go... Hmmmm, looks like they'll even be on a bill at The Greek Theater in LA in October. I'd probably still go to see 'em, cuz I'd hate to think it's all over but the declining royalty statements. Here's a couple lil' tracks relevant to today from their most recent self release...Everybody Dies

    Dramarama - Good Night, America

    Dramarama - Everybody Dies

    Everybody Dies

    Everybody Dies

    Dramarama




    oh hey... are you still here?

    well then check out there new version of The Dead Kennedys "California Uber Alles" with Arnold Schwarzenegger-centric lyrics...

    Dramarama - California Uber Alles

    I am Governor Arnold S...
    I'll soon clean up this mess
    I have inherited...

    I'm jingling all the way
    from the Southland to the Bay
    I'll govern all of you
    your kids will all lift weights in school...

    CHORUS
    California uber alles...
    Uber alles California...

    The Golden State is getting worse...
    Need Mr. Universe...
    I am a movie star
    and drive the biggest, dumbest car

    This hero always wins...
    conveniently forgets his sins
    jumpin' from the master race...
    and always wears the happy face

    CHORUS

    here comes 2004...
    knock knock on your front door
    it's my very own secret police
    come to pick up your ugly niece

    march quietly to the camp
    you'd make a lovely lamp
    don't worry it's just a shower
    for your clothes here's a pretty flower

    body builder's in control
    100% natural
    Say goodbye you lousy pest
    if you mess with Governor S.



    then grab yerself an east coast mash up of Dramarama & The Beastie Boys...

    DJ Quixotic - Triple Drama


    Sunday, September 24, 2006

    sunday sidewinders, maceo, mog & moggs

    Here's little Sunday something from a classic Blue Note recording of trumpeter Lee Morgan along with saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Barry Harris, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Billy Higgins.


    Prior to his solo deal with Blue Note for whom he recorded some 25 albums, he played with Art Blakely and Dizzie Gillespie.

    The tune here was actually a pretty big hit throughout 1964 and may have saved the label from bankruptcy at the time. Recorded in December 21, 1963, it's got a timeless presuasive sructure and ranks up there with the all time jams.



    here's from the original Blue Note 4157 liner notes written by jazz critic Leonard Feather:

    The title number might best be described as a long meter blues ( 24 measures to the chorus). "the tune kind of put me in mind of the sidewinder - you know, the "bad guy" on television," says Lee. "There's a snake called the sidewinder, but I was thinking of the bad guy." If the character and mood seems a little different from that of the aveerage blues, you can attribute it to the the unexpected change at bars 17-18 of each chorus, when a minor chord is introduced.

    The fascinating rhythm section figure established during the opening ensembles is sustained throughout the solos, giving the performance a deep blue tinge as wellas a Latin touch. Lee's solo, fluent and sensitively constructed, never becomes grandstandy and relies at times on essentially simple devices, such as the repeated B flat in the last of his three choruses. Henderson's solo is rich in melodic variety (note the contrast between the busy opening and simple continuation in his second chorus). Harris piano picks up in the intensity as it goes along, aided on his third chorus by the horns' backing. Cranshaw bears out Lee's complimentary observations in a fine solo that owe part of it's success to the continued pulsing of Billy Higgins percussion figures.



    Uh, what he said... You tell 'em Leonard...



    Being a short attention span un-analytical cat myself, I have to say there are few recordings that seem more enjoyable all the way through. I ain't gonna complain a bit here that the whole 10 minute sonic enchilda here just goes on too long, in fact ya almost wish for more.... jam on boys.

    Lee Morgan - Sidewinder




    Here's a cut from Branford Marsalis' hip hop influenced project Buckshot leFonque a few years back...these cuts are a tribute to Mr. James Brown



    Buckshot LeFonque - James Brown pts 1 & 2

    Speaking of James Brown, and horn players, why not a little Maceo eh?


    Starting with his work in James Brown's backing band and then onto his work with Parliament/Funkadelic, few modern sax players have reached and deeply pleased a larger audience...

    (save for say Kenny G... aaaackkk!)

    Here's something from a fairly recent Maceo solo release via What Are Records called Funk Overload...

    Funk Overload


    Download Maceo Parker - "Elephant's Foot" (MP3, 192kbps)

    Maceo Parker, What Are Records



    Awhile back I got turned onto a site called Mog.com, which sorta attempts to combine the appeal of MySpace with Last.fm and is attempting to build an online music community.

    The only thing I didn't like about it was the somewhat intrusive software aplication that seemed to cause problems with my windoze pooter hanging on the shutdown, and some hesher marketing lackey contacting me telling me to place their ad higher on my blog...

    yeah right dude... you listen to Boston and Alice In Chains, go see Y&T tribute bands and you wanna give me advice?

    But, hey check it out if ya have the time...

    Speaking of Moggs... or whatver

    hae ya checked out the Moggs?

    A quirky duo act based out of the tidy lil butter & egg loving town of Petaluma CA.

    Heres some tunes from their debut CD

    Moggs - Disco"


    Moggs - Interglacial Marriages

    The White Belt Is Not Enough

    The White Belt Is Not Enough

    Moggs

    Absolutely Kosher

    Wednesday, September 20, 2006

    My Sugarcube's Playing Bette Davis Eye Tricks Alone Again Or...

    Yo

    happy Hump day y'all...

    I'm busy ... gotta design & upload a postcard for a pub party thang, hit the south bay all day for three seperate promo jobs, and get back into the city for my night shift etc...

    and go visit my fave bartender at The Connecticut Yankee

    so I'm just gonna drop right into it here... time's a wasting...

    no punchy prose within, so no whiners...

    especially pudgy kids in PA who are cluttering up the comments recently claiming I linked to "their" files or something...

    sheeeesh...(like they ever made anything more creative than caca in their diaper)

    yo... here's the dealio: if you don't want us to have at it, then don't leave it laying around on the world wide web baby beeeotch...

    when you get off the fat ass and actually compose something more entertaining than a simple sentence... and you have copyrights and a career , then we'll consider yer whining to be legit...

    but ripping & linking up some old Billy Idol & XTC tracks doesn't make you their owner genius...


    anyhow,

    A few weekends ago I got a chance to catch the migthy crafty Calexico live...

    I was surprised how well the large, mostly unfamiliar audience received them at a large outdoor daytime street festival thang...

    When yer playing to the bleachers & boucing beachball crowd, you obviously can't be as subdued and moody as yer CD versions are. A few years back I toured the studio where they recorded a lot of their early stuff, and i can understand why they mighta been more depressed back then. It's amazing what a change of venue, leaving Howe Gelb back in Tucson and earning some extra dough will do for some guys...

    This song here was a cover they performed and dedicated to the late Arthur Lee & Love, and it was a real highlight of the set...

    at least for my 7 year old niece who was jammed up against the barricades...

    Calexico - Alone Again Or




    Saw that everyone's fave Swan wearer Bjork is doing a Sugarcube's reunion...

    Looks like a hometown crowd sorta thing, since it is so far only scheduled for Reykjavik on November 17, some 14 years since they called it quits.

    The show marks the twentieth anniversary of the band's debut single 'Birthday';

    Here's a different oldies I suppose so you can understand what you'll be missing

    Sugarcubes - Gold


    But if Bjork were to keep baller status as my fave early 90's performer ... she'd have to really stretch ... not be so experimentally high falutin & imcomprehensibly Icelandic...

    beeeotch coulda spent more time hanging in icehouses in Houston

    know what i mean...

    I was always hoping Bjork & Bushwick Bill woulda done some duets or something, that woulda cemented her street cred...

    Ghetto Boys - My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me ( Inst)

    speaking of interesting Eyeball related music...


    oh , remember this lil ditty, the 2nd most popular song of 1981.... just a couple winks behind Olivia Newton John's Physical...

    Chasin' Wild Trains

    Kim Carnes -Bette Davis Eyes (Acoustic Version)


    A bonus cut from her most recent CD "Chasin' Wild Trains"

    Corazong Records


    I got no real rhyme or reason for the next batch of hits I am tossing you tossers

    so just make up your own reason to enjoy em...Hey, I Feel The Love...

    But Is this how Donna Summer woulda wanted it?

    All post-rawk ironic with a New York meets Ohio sheen...

    Cobra Verde - I Feel Love



    Giorgio Moroder, eat your sequencer out baby...



    Oh, pssst just a reminder, here's some cool stuff I think you forgot to download that I posted recently... get on it before it's gone daddy gone...

    Mark Curry's Hell House Band - Cut 'Em Up (Feat. El Hefe)

    Dr.John - Food For Thot

    Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Goodbye Earl

    Monday, September 18, 2006

    Dixie Dicks

    It's Monday, the world is still spinnin of it's axis, and I think I'm gonna take the morning off...

    In fact I know I am, because it's 5:30 a.m and if I was gonna do what I coulda/woulda or shoulda been doing as far as a work wise commitment, I woulda left the house awhile ago...

    Let's just say the tone of the last conference call I was on didn't restore my faith in corporate humanity...and I'll let these folks get by this morning without me...

    Ya see I don't mind working at 6:30 am, cuz I'm already awake, it's just that I don't want to deal with these dorky demeaning out of town nervous nellie idiots from my conference call at 6:30 a.m... or likely ever.

    I'll live... in fact I live well.

    I might need the money, but then again I don't really need their f'kn money...

    I can usually make as much dough here in my pajamas in the same amount of time as i can it would take heading downtown to please these poison purveyors from Peoria... so f'k em.

    instead today y'all will get some new noise to take with ya...

    But something that might still flay in the heartland, depending on whether ya color yerself red or blue...

    It's a Dixie Chicks tune...

    Lots of people have likely heard of Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, the punk rock cover band whose sloppy live performances prove they are anything but a supergroup...

    Featuring Fat Mike from NOFX, and a slew of other ne'er do 'ells like Joey Cape and Dave Raun of Lagwagon they have a little too much fun playing some top 40 songs badly. Like this Billy Joel number here...

    Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - The Longest Time

    Speaking of sloppy, here's a pic of myself (bottom left) and Fat Mike (center) backstage hanging out with some of the folks found at a recent Gimme Gimmes gig...

    The Gimme Gimmes have a new CD coming out on October 17, and recently posted a new preview mp3 up on their website of a Dixie Chicks cover...



    I guess that would make them the Dixie Dicks...



    Me First & The Gimme Gimmes -


    Goodbye Earl


    Now I don't know why it takes so long for a record that was suposedly done by earlier this spring to appear, but who am I to judge the inner workings of the Fat empire...


    So if you've already heard that one.... I'll tide ya over with this semi-related nugget here...

    Oft in the shadows of messr. Fat Mike in NOFX, guitarist El Hefe ( a.k.a Aaron Abeyta) plays a serious musical role in that punk group, not only on guitar, but with trumpet and humorous vocals as well. Here he is in this little heard side project with Sacramento based ( & former Virgin Records artist) Mark Curry. Not to be confused with the black stand up comedian with the same name, Mark Curry is a sort of ragged rough hewn Central California troubadour and here with El Hefe, they both get to stretch out in a laid back bluesy rawk style.



    Mark Curry's Hell House Band -
    Cut 'Em Up (Feat. El Hefe)

    Mark Curry's Hell House Band - "Come On Out (Feat. El Hefe)"


    Dozen Lies

    taken from : Dozen Lies

    Mark Curry's Hell's House Band (Feat. El Hefe)

    Hard Soul Records

    Sunday, September 17, 2006

    ex-True Believer & Nun rises like Phoenix

    On Friday September 29th , former San Franciscan Alejandro Escovedo joins his old pal Chuck Prophet in a special appearance at 12 Galaxies.

    Both musicians are well known for being semi-unknown, despite having decade plus solo careers, and prior to that having been involved with seminal bands in the 1980's that influenced the modern No Depression alt-contry scene. Prophet, a guitar player in the influential road dogging rapscallion outfit Green On Red, while Escovedo blazed trails with cowpunkers Rank & File and also the True Believers.

    Escovedo, actually the uncle to Prince sidekick Sheila E, never had her hit records, and has lived a long, less "Glamourous Life" than her. Clean of the booze & drugs that weighed him down as a younger man, he's rising like a mythical Phoenix from the ashes of his own past to reclaim his place as one America's finest and most respected Latino musicians. He has looked death in the eye, made his peace, and seems primed to move on to other heights, which looked impossible just a few years back. His storied and at times sordid career are recounted briefly below. Read on for an overview, hear an interview, and to download some sample music tracks from some of his many recent releases...


    Alejandro Escovedo's father Pedro was a mariachi musician, his brother's Pete and Coke played in the 70's latin rock scene with Santana, but Alejandro got his start out here in SF as an art scene wannabe Johnny Thunders style punker in The Nuns.

    Now a more mild mannered 55 year old whose fathered 7 kids, his career has splintered off into a wild western buddhist bluesy sorta saga that goes more than a dozen albums deep as a musical artist. His 1998 live album entitled "More Miles Than Money", sorta starts to tell the story of this musical desperado from the title alone and is a good a place as any to start. Here's just a few mp3z of some tracks from his many albums to give ya a taste of the repertoire.

    From his first solo venture 1992's Gravity -


    Alejandro Escovedo - 5 Hearts Breaking


    From 1994's Thirteen Years -


    Alejandro Escovedo - Ballad Of The Sun & The Moon


    From 1999's Bourbonitis Blues -

    Alejandro Escovedo - I Was Drunk

    Here's Alejandro from a rare early eighties clip shot with his band the True Believers for the IRS Cutting Edge show that aired on MTV... In it he is interviewed, and performs both acoustically, and in a live club setting in Austin TX.
    (Runtime less than 5 min)



    Over the years, while based in Austin Tx, he got into the idea of having an orchestra style performance at the annual SXSW Conferences. Amongst those ensemble players he's plucked some fine local SF musician's out for road stints including Corey Porter of the Plain High Drifters and Cynthia Wigginton of Bermuda Triangle Service. Later he came up with a CD of string quartet lineup as well...

    One of the last times I recall Alejandro's name being billed in these parts, it was actually a benefit that Prophet and a slew of others like Dave Alvin, Jonathon Richman, Peter Case etc. played to help pay some of the uninsured Escovedo's musical bills as he lay in a hospital suffering the effects of Hep C. I'd post a video clip from that rare & memorable night of Alejandro's music out up here, but you'll have to ask the lame fat lady at Slim's for my confiscated tape back...



    His health condition was so serious few thougt he would survive to perform, much less tour again. On the opening night of a theatrical piece dedicated to his father Pedro in Tempe AZ, Alejandro Escovedo had become quite ill. Coughing blood at rehersal, he somehow made it through the performance, but collapsed later. Doctors discovered through an endoscopy that the veins in his esophagus had burst, and he had a tumor in his abdomen. This was all complicated by advanced cirrhosis of the liver and Hepatitis C.

    While he took in emergency surgery, and a long hard road to recuperation, people convened to raise money for his care... Aside from the SF show I mentioned, a simultaneous one in NYC brought in Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople & Jon Langford of The Mekons, while many other smaller scale events were held around the US. Afterwards 31 acts including Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and Los Lonely Boys recorded a two-disc set called "Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo", which helped Escovedo earn income from his publishing. In what may have been the most fortuitous event of all Roche Pharmaceuticals actually donated medicine that kept him alive.



    Meanwhile, Escovedo has since recovered well enough to continue touring, attributing his health to Tibetan Buddhist healing not Interferon, and has released yet another acclaimed recording, produced by Velvet Underground bassist John Cale, out now with distro via EMI.

    Here's a rocking Stonesy track from his latest release Boxing The Mirror

    Alejandro Escovedo - Break This Time.


    For those with even more interest, here's a 15 minute phone interview Alejandro did in April with Live Daily upon the release of the new CD "the Boxing Mirror"

    Alejandro Escovedo - Interview

    See Alejandro Escovedo w/ openers Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express in SF at 12 Galaxies
    on Friday September 29th
    2565 Mission St SF
    $22 at the Door

    He'll also perform at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park in early October and at The Last Day Saloon in Santa Rosa earlier that week. See http://AlejandroEscovedo.com for moe info

    Here he is from a Bloodsho Records compilation called Executioner's Songs Vol. 3, with a slew of folks including Jon Langford & Dave Alvin.

    Alejandro Escovedo - Bad News


    You can download up to 25 more free Alejandro Escovdo tunes via Emusic


    Or check out some albums:



    The Boxing Mirror
    2006
    Including: Notes on Air, Arizona, The Ladder, and more...
    Buy album: online stores »
    Gravity
    1992 - 1 review: *****
    Including: Oxford, Five Hearts Breaking, Bury Me, and more...
    Buy album: 5 stores »
    Gravity [Bonus Disc]
    2002
    Including: Bury Me/Hard Road, Oxford, Five Hearts Breaking, and more...
    Thirteen Years
    1994 - 1 review: *****
    Including: Thirteen Years Theme, The End, Baby's Got New Plans, and more...
    Buy album: - 7 stores »
    With These Hands
    1996 - 1 review: *****
    Including: Tugboat, Guilty, With These Hands, and more...
    Buy album: 4 online stores »
    A Man Under the Influence
    2001 - 3 reviews: *****
    Including: Follow You Down, Castanets, Across the River, and more...
    Buy album: 10 online stores »
    By the Hand of the Father
    2002
    Including: Inside This Dance, Dos Hermanos/Two Brothers, By the Hand of the Father Theme, and more...
    Buy album: - 6 online stores »
    More Miles Than Money: Live 1994-1996
    1998 - 1 review
    Including: Slip Away, Five Hearts Breaking, Last to Know, and more...
    Buy album: iTunes Music Store
    With These Hands [Bonus Disc]
    2003
    Including: Pissed Off 2 AM, Pissed Off 2 AM [Live], Tugboat, and more...
    Thirteen Years [Bonus Disc]
    2002