New gear alert!!! Bang-A-Song is proud to announce the arrival of their new 130 year old 1886 Steinway A1 grand piano! It’s got 85 keys and plays better than a piano 1/10th is age! The bass is deep and tight and the highs have it all. Feel free to come check it out!
Well, it’s been awhile but that’s summer in Gloucester….if we’re not in the studio cutting tracks were on the water kicking back….no extra computer time allowed! Still feels like summah here today but enough time has passed I think I ought to update….
Jeff Keithline, Sal Baglio and Dave Mattacks channeled Bonham and the boys
Not surprisingly, there are some great albums that have had their toes in the Bang-A-Song pool for even just a little bit. (And even if their toes weren’t here recently, we’re still happy to push these great recordings. Here are some of the latest:
In this day and age it’s rare to find any further unreleased records from the heyday of the rock era, let alone one from a unknown band that is at the absolute root of a giant rock family tree…but Yep Roc has, and it’s a doozy.
Have you ever heard the band Eggs Over Easy? They are the American group who inadvertently jump started a UK music revolution that culminated in the British punk of The Damned, Elvis Costello, The Clash and Rockpile.
If you admire The Band but wish they weren’t so damn serious, The Eggs are the band for you. Their criminally forgotten Link Wray produced LP “Good and Cheap” released on A&M in 1972 opens: “We’re gonna have a little party/It’s gonna last for a week or two”. Welcome to the pub!
Gigging the Tally Ho, their Kentish Town local, in 1971, their punchy songs, soulful singing and stripped down effect/affectless sound were a breath of fresh air in the land of Yes and Pink Floyd. A whole flock of players, writers, producers and managers that came to dominate pub and punk rock first had their heads turned ’round witnessing the Eggs’ anything-goes mastery and their rapidly swelling audience of punters. Just listen to Nick Lowe testifying how he never truly got over the effect Eggs Over Easy had on him.
I’ll never truly get over the effect the Eggs have had on me, either. In 2006, I learned that original member Jack O’Hara gigged regularly at BB King’s in Times Square. I looked in the paper. There he was. I drove down to the gig and was seated for dinner. There he was. I said hi and there was that same beautiful bass voice I knew from the “Good and Cheap” song “Arkansas”. He said we’d catch up after the show and went up on the stage and proceeded to lay down three subtly smoking hours of Jimmy Reed, Jimi Hendrix and Santo and Johnny.
After the gig I got to hang with Jack and he confirmed it. He’s a lifer who’d never stopped. Eggs Over Easy were a great time but he wrote tunes every day, and had a new CD filled with moving songs and performances (“Selected Shorts”). He’d been mixing monitors at the world famous Blue Note for the last 10 years. He’d helped friends cut records, booked clubs and mixed front of house at venues around the world. His life was filled with music before, during and after The Eggs.
But my life wasn’t filled with anywhere near enough Eggs Over Easy music. “Good and Cheap” had been reissued on CD once in the UK but there was so much more that so few had ever heard: the unreleased Chas Chandler debut record “London ’71”, “I’m Gonna Put a Bar In My Car and Drive Myself to Drink” b/w “Horny Old Lady”, a punk-as-fuck single released on Buffalo Records in 1976, and 1981’s “Fear of Frying”, a record that ranged from home recorded madness to Big Star/Steely Dan shimmer. I knew that someday some smart record company would set the record straight and get this largely unreleased/unheard trove of music on the shelves.
That day has come. Today Yep Roc is righting the wrongs of forty years of music business oversight with one big, beautiful package (double CD or triple vinyl).
Do yourself a favor, check this release out. It’s some of the greatest American music I have ever heard. It’s funny, it’s sad, its reverent, it’s irreverent. It’s the whole ball of wax. It swings and stomps. It is stripped down and dressed in the richest harmony three fellas could create. I love it. It’s spare, it’s snappy, it’s straight ahead. It’s good and cheap. It has a warmth of spirit that radiates inclusiveness so open that anything could happen and everyone was invited……even Sid Vicious.
a href=”http://yeproc.11spot.com/eggs-over-easy-good-n-cheap-the-eggs-over-easy-story-pre-order-6-24.html” target=”_blank”>Good N’ Cheap: The Eggs Over Easy Story (Yep Roc)
Lastly, the Full Length, Red Bird, Dynamic Duo, CroonSome TwoSome release from Renee and Joe has hit the streets. The album is entitled “Red Bird” You can buy it, gift it, stream it, and even acquire it on CD. You will be gratified.
February was a busy release month for Bang-A-Song artists (and we’re pregnant with some March releases, too), but just to make sure you can quickly add the latest tunes to your playlists/downloads/collections, here’s the rundown.
Matt Minigell has a new single that drops in two days (Saturday, 2/27/16), entitled “Lucy” (b/w “Elivette”), and you’re going to want to head over to his BandCamp to pick that up. Set your alarms!
*Edited: The video for his new single just dropped, too, and Bang-A-Song is part of the musical soundscape….
The ever dynamic Telamor released the ten-track LP “Outside The Lines” in February, and the whole thing is available on BandCamp, Spotify, and CD Baby, if that’s your kind of baby….!
We are derelict in having not noted the release of “Mostly Awake” from The Instinct late last year. As compensation, here’s a review from Francis DiMenno in the Noise so you know that we’re not the only ones who like what these Gloucester punks are doing! (Also streaming like crazy on Spotify!)
Please join us Monday, December 21st from 6pm-9pm for the 3rd Annual Bang-A-Song Holiday Jam at Bang A Song Studios in Gloucester.
We’ll have pizza and beer, instruments and amplifiers. Come perform your best version of “Jingle Bells in Dub”, “Christmas with the Martians” or “Santa’s Got an Airplane”!
Mosse finished their excellent debut. Jon Butcher continued to pave 2 Roads East. Grudge Roots brought the grunge. Ally Doody wowed us. Telamor finished an amazingly original EP of Rolling Stones covers. The Instinct mixed LP#2. Geoff Small got big sounds. Gary Shane transferred Johnny’s Coaltrain. Josh Cominelli snapped some pics. Simon Ritt paid tribute to Madeleine Albright and Jim Lauderdale in one song. John Jerome started something great. Pocket Tanya got his radio edit on. Sandra Lee sang her heart out. Lisa Manning touched up her mixed emotions. Missus Goddess cut background stacks.
