NUMERO GROUP ANNOUNCES JACKIE SHANE REISSUE, ANY OTHER WAY, OUT OCT. 20TH;
2xLP/2xCD + EXTENSIVE LINER NOTES & ARCHIVAL PHOTOS
The first artist-approved collection of Ms. Shane’s work features all six of her 45s and every highlight from the legendary 1967 live sessions at the Sapphire Tavern,
including three previously-unreleased tracks
LISTEN TO “ANY OTHER WAY”
https://youtu.be/wiDVfi5dVp0
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Singer, songwriter, painter, visual artist, and textile designer Kilo Kish will be playing an early set on July 16 at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Ms. Kish has a neat vision of the world and witty lyrics that cut right to the heart of issues of gender, politics, art, race, and being a Millennial. She’s intriguing. That alone makes her set worth a look, as do her slick beats that blend trip hop with R&B.
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I don’t know what I can write about George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic that hasn’t already been written. The man is the godfather of funk and pretty much spearheaded a musical revolution in the 1970’s. His bassist, Bootsy Collins, is one of the greatest of all time. They’re responsible for more psychotronic freak-outs than you can imagine, not to mention a thousand beats and bass lines you’ve heard in ten thousand hip hop songs. Their set on July 15th at the Pitchfork Music Festival is a can’t-miss show.
Keep your mind open.
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Bass guitar whiz, rapper, singer, and producer Thundercat (Stephen Bruner) is one of the funkiest musicians around right now. His music ranges from funk to soul to psychedelia to prog-rock (and he also plays bass in Suicidal Tendencies). His collaborations with Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, and Kendrick Lamar have all earned him wide acclaim (and a Grammy). His June 25th set at Mamby on the Beach is sure to be a must-see.
Keep your mind open.
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Chicago’s Rayvn Lenae is a teenaged R&B artist who is talented beyond her young years. Her blend of soul and electro is so smooth that you could practically ice skate on it. She’ll be playing the Beach Stage at Mamby on the Beach June 24th. I have a feeling her show will be one many will be talking about over the weekend and for years when she explodes into the mainstream.
Keep your mind open.
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Sharon Jones, lead singer of the funk / soul / R&B powerhouse band Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings has died at the young age of 60 of pancreatic cancer. She fought a good fight, even releasing two more records and touring after her cancer diagnosis. Her albums with the Dap-Kings were a shot in the arm to the music industry which had pretty much ignored her for years. They couldn’t ignore her when she was dropping future classics like “100 Days, 100 Nights,” “How Do I Let a Good Man Down?”, and “Your Thing Is a Drag.”
Her live performances (none of which I ever got to see, apart from recorded video) were fiery affairs, and she caught and held your attention from the moment she stepped onstage. You knew things were about to get real when she’d kick off her shoes so she could get down harder.
She will be greatly missed, but take heart in knowing she’s strutting with James Brown somewhere right now.
Keep your mind open.
I’ve been meaning to make it up to my wife for dragging her to see Japanese acid rockers Bo Ningen (a band she just doesn’t understand) at Levitation Austin a couple years ago, so I thought taking her to see Seal might do the trick.
He played at the Four Winds Casino Silver Creek Event Center in New Buffalo, Michigan. The “Silver Creek Event Center,” mind you, is just a big carpeted room the casino can use for everything from a Seal concert to a wedding reception. It is much smaller than the venue map on Ticketmaster’s website makes it appear. I’m happy to say that the acoustics in the place are quite good, however. The whole show sounded great.
Part of that is because Seal is a great performer. It was him, a DJ / synthesizer player, and a guitarist on stage. No drummer. No horn section. No bass player. They didn’t need any of them. Seal opened the set with “Crazy,” his biggest hit here in the U.S., and the crowd was instantly on its feet. His voice hasn’t lost any power since the song was released in 1991, and I loved the way his band turned it into a bit of a dark wave tune with the synth work. “Killer,” another early hit, followed it with even more of a dark wave feel to it with heavy synth bass.
The first track they played from Seal’s new album, 7, was “Daylight Saving,” a gorgeous love song that preceded another from the same album, “Do You Ever.” “Prayer for the Dying” was another heartbreaking cut (to the point it made my wife cry) that led into “Love’s Divine.”
A surprise was his cover of Hall & Oates‘ “Sara Smile” (with Seal on back-up guitar). “Love,” the last song on 7, led into the first verse of David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity,” and I thought my wife was going to slide off her chair.
“Deep Water” was another beautiful track, and then came another surprise – Seal’s cover of Tears for Fears‘ “Mad World,” which he dedicated to the victims of the recent earthquake in Italy. “My Vision” and “Right Life” got everyone up and moving again, and he even threw in a little bit of Chic‘s “Le Freak.” The fourth cover of the night was Prince‘s “Hot Thing,” which was one of the funkiest tunes of the night and closed out the main set to a standing ovation.
The encore consisted of “Kiss from a Rose” and then another track from 7, “Life on the Dancefloor,” which had everyone dancing and grooving and leaving on a good buzz. I saw two ladies a few rows behind us when the houselights came up, and they were dumbfounded in their chairs. They didn’t move for several minutes.
I asked my wife if the show made up for Bo Ningen.
“Almost,” she said. “Probably the Bo, but not the Ningen.”
I took that as a win. Thanks, Seal.
Keep your mind open.
