HE’S THE MAN: Walter Trout is a top-notch blues guitarist

My friend Hemant is a person whose recommendations I follow blindly. And whenever I do so, I realise how good an idea it is to do so. Back in the day, Hemant introduced me to Phish, a band that at that time (we’re talking about the early 1990s) I hadn’t heard of; Hemant was the one who dropped on my lap a copy of Ágætis byrjun by Iceland’s now famous Sigur Rós more than 10 years back, long before they became celebrated post-rockers who everyone is now talking about. But then Hemant is usually ahead of the curve when it comes to anything. Secretly, I’m a little envious of him. He lives on an island; restores old Merc sedans; is an outstanding cook; and shoots films for a living. So, when he mentioned that he was listening to a lot of Trout, I decided to do the same.

Walter Trout is a top-notch blues guitarist who started his musical career as a sideman – with John Lee Hooker; being the guitarist for Canned Heat; and even being part of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Thereafter, he embarked on a solo career, forming his own band, which has to its credit several albums. Significantly, Trout has played in India thrice, the latest being this February when he appeared at the Mahindra Blues festival.

I began my re-listening of Trout with the two live discs. They have together 14 tracks on them, with Trout also doing lead vocal duties but, more important, with his trademark scorching style of playing the blues guitar. There’s never a dull moment on Live Trout, whether he’s playing short tunes such as Livin’ Every Day (a shade over five minutes) or Serve Me Right To Suffer (which clocks in at nearly 11 minutes). There’s something about great blues guitar riffs – despite the genre’s cyclical form – that is addictive. I can listen to a good blues guitarist for hours on end and not be bored. Trout’s music is like that.

After spinning Live Trout multiple times, I wanted more. So, I headed off to look for his tracks while with John Mayall’s band, The Bluesbreakers. On iTunes, I found an album called Blues Breaker by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers that features Trout on the guitar. Trout’s guitar on the 12 tracks on that album aren’t as fire-inducing as they are on his solo albums but still, as a complement to the vocals and harmonica of the British blues godfather (Mayall, who’s nearly 80 now, has mentored guitarists such as Eric Clapton, former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, Jane’s Addiction’s and former Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Dave Navarro, Trout, of course, Fleetwood Mac’s John McVie, besides many more), Trout’s lead guitar riffs stand out. There is an 11-minute version of a Mayall staple, Room to Move, on the album where, six minutes into the song, Trout leaps out and shows his pure genius.

Sanjay Dutt

A few hours after grooving to Trout’s live album and then the Mayall one on which he features, I stumbled upon a surprise and a coincidence. This was on the morning of March 21. Still on a Trout fix, I’d just bought The Outsider, Trout’s album from 2008. The penultimate song on the album, I saw, is called Sanjay. Intrigued, I clicked on it and found that it was about Sanjay Dutt. I kid you not. Walter Trout was singing about how a good man had got a bad rap, referring to the Bollywood actor. Minutes later my phone, in day job mode, alerted me to Dutt’s sentencing by the Supreme Court: he’d have to spend three-and-a-half years in prison. Bewildered by the coincidence, I did some checking to find that Dutt is a huge Trout fan and, quite obviously, the two know each other. Well, what can I say, except that it’s a small world?

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At last year’s South By Southwest (SXSW), the annual music, film and interactive festival held in Austin, Texas, the keynote address was by Bruce Springsteen. This year, it was by Foo Fighters’ frontman, film-maker and former bandmate of Kurt Cobain in Nirvana, Dave Grohl. He spoke on why and how he chose to become a musician and what inspired and continues to inspire him. Set aside 60 minutes and catch the video online.

For us who heard Led Zeppelin in our formative years, their sound defined hard rock (Photo: CC/PAUL HUDSON)

I did, finally, only over the last week. Led Zeppelin, for all practical purposes, dissolved in 1980 (although there have been brief reunions such as the 2007 concert), but they are a band that many of us grew up listening to. I can still remember where and when I first heard their eponymous debut album, Led Zeppelin, or for that matter the three following that one: II, III and IV (the last one actually being an un-named album but referred to by fans as IV). There were five more albums that they released during their tenure, including Physical Graffiti and In Through The Out Door, but for many, the first four remain the most influential Led Zep releases.

For many of us who heard Led Zeppelin in our formative years, their sound defined hard rock music. Jimmy Page’s lead guitar, Robert Plant’s wailing style of singing, John Bonham’s (the band dissolved with his death in 1980) trademark drumming and John Paul Jones’ bass and keyboards were the precursors of heavy metal or hard rock as we know it today. I don’t know how many thousands of bands that one band has influenced.

For Celebration Day, Bonham’s son Jason joined the surviving members and the quartet produced a concert that many would die to be able to watch live. The band played 17 songs, including two encores, and the playlist has all of your favourite Led Zeppelin songs. Black Dog? It’s there. Dazed and Confused? Yes, a nearly 12-minute version! Kashmir? Yes. Misty Mountain Hop? Ditto. Whole Lotta Love? Yup. If you grew up in the 1970s listening to rock music, this album is your stairway to musical heaven. Yes, of course, Stairway to Heaven was also on the playlist.

Besides the glowing warmth of nostalgia that I felt while listening to Celebration Day, I couldn’t help but marvel at the remarkable fact that three ageing rockers (Jason Bonham is only in his 40s but the three of his late father’s bandmates are inching towards 70) were able to perform the way they did. If you don’t watch the video, they could well sound as if they were playing in the 1970s. I don’t know what others feel but for me, it was Page who stole the show at the O2 arena that night. Not having heard my Led Zeppelin albums for a while, I had indeed forgotten how huge a deal he was. And, evidently, still is. He’s grown old terrifically too. Just take a look at the elegant gent in the latest John Varvatos ad campaign for which Page has modelled, along with a more contemporary young bluesman, Gary Clark Jr. (See DC, dated December 16, 2012). Incidentally, it’s Page who outshines the younger musician in the ads.

FOR WHEN YOU DANCE IN THE RAIN: Miyazaki are an electronic band from Washington who describe their music as “gloomyspirit, house, loud beat, rain dance-synth pop” (Photo: COURTESY FACEBOOK)

But last week was not just about an old band in a reminted version. I caught a spectacular new band as well. Miyazaki are an electronic band from Washington DC and they describe their music as “gloomy-spirit, house, loud beat, rain dance-synth pop”. Whatever that may mean, they make music that I found instantly appealing. Miyazaki comprises Eduardo Rodela, Marisa Grotte, Rob Hart and Omari Mayers-Walker. As far as I could make out, they have one full-length album out and it’s called Color of Glass. Rodela and Grotte sing. Rodela’s vocals reminded me of The National’s Matt Berninger and not just because it’s a baritone but also its shade of gloominess. Yet, Miyazaki’s is music that you could dance to as well. I’m not sure it would work at a young people’s party as a medium to dance with but if you’re at a mature grown-ups’ party, it’s the sort of music that can be played after a couple of rounds of drinks have been demolished and every middle-aged leg is feeling uninhibited enough to afford a shake.

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It’s not often that the name of the recording label is what draws you to the bands that it produces. But when I heard of a label called What’s Your Rupture?, I quickly checked to see which bands this New York indie label produced. I found one called Parquet Courts. A punk band from Brooklyn, their first full-length album, is fun and full of malcontented songs that are a fun listen.

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Jimi Hendrix (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

So were his lyrics. On Purple Haze, he sang: “Excuse me, while I kiss the sky” a phrase that drove us young teenagers, desperately seeking to be cool and rebellious, wild. Then, later, we saw films—of Hendrix burning his guitar at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967 and of him strumming with his teeth at Woodstock in 1969—and the legend around the man grew for us. His untimely death, which is frequently clubbed together with the equally untimely deaths of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, did nothing to ebb the posthumous fan following that he had and still does.

In fact, there have been a dozen studio albums released after his death compared to the four that were released while he was alive. And the latest of these came in the first week of this March when People, Hell & Angels, a collection of a dozen hitherto unreleased recordings in 1968-69 by Hendrix and a band that comprised Billy Cox (bass guitar), Buddy Miles and Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Juma Sultan (congas) but also featuring some unexpected guest musicians. On one track Stephen Stills plays the bass; on another Lonnie Youngblood (a saxophonist and frequent Hendrix collaborator) sings; and on yet another, New Orleans’ R&B pianist James Booker joins in.

TOTAL RECALL: With People, Hell & Angels (inset) featuring musicians like Buddy Miles (below), I found myself enjoying Hendrix’s music once again (Photos: GETTY IMAGES)

In the last couple of years that Hendrix was alive, he played several sessions in many studios, sometimes recording secretly, and collaborating with different musicians. A few years ago, a friend had pointed me to Raw Blues, a collection of 17 (perhaps bootlegged) Hendrix blues songs, a couple of which appear on this new album, albeit in very different versions.

People, Hell & Angels is a showcase of Hendrix’s versatility. The wah-wah pedal and feedback distortions are certainly all intact (so Hendrix fans have nothing to fear) but there is a range of genres—down-home blues, R&B-inflected rock, psychedelia and even funk.

On most tracks, it is Hendrix who dominates — with his guitar that sounds like two or three people riffing together, and with his vocals that have his characteristic almost somnolent drawl—but on some, such as Let Me Move You, Hendrix steps back and allows the sax player Youngblood to star, even with the vocals. It results in a superb R&B song. Or on Mojo Man, a funky track reminiscent of New Orleans, on which Booker plays the piano. Of course, that is not to say that you don’t get Hendrix’s searing rock guitar solos. On Izabella, his solo is to die for. And then, as I said, there are the surprises—the fat bass line in Somewhere, courtesy Stephen Stills.

The good thing about People, Hell & Angels is that it sounds fresh and unaltered by technology. The 12 aren’t unfinished songs that were dubbed over or redone by others post-recording. They’re a set of great Hendrix songs and, in sharp contrast to my childhood fascination with Hendrix’s connection to on-stage pyrotechnics, getting high and teeth-strumming, this is an album with which I found myself enjoying Hendrix’s music once again, nearly 43 years after his death.

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Phoenix, the French pop band, caught the attention of the world in 2009 with their album titled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and particularly with the song, Lisztomania. Peppy and infectious, Phoenix’s music is a delight. Next month, a new Phoenix album, Bankrupt!, will be released. A single from the album, titled Entertainment, is already out and going by how it sounds, Bankrupt! is unlikely to disappoint.

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THE DIY TRIO: Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s frontman Ruban Nielson has a fresh voice and his lyrics are mature and deep (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

In any case, the hyphenated musical genres that are described as “post-” this and “post-” that are usually ambiguous definitions because they’re actually catch-all phrases to describe a brand of music that people have trouble describing in words that are in common currency. Hence, post-rock, post-punk, post-metal and post-almost-everything-else!

But when I first heard Unknown Mortal Orchestra (actually, I heard their second recently released album called II), I had no difficultly in instantly liking their brand of music, call it whatever you will. I also realized why their music is difficult to classify. Unknown Mortal Orchestra, a trio, which makes marvelously layered music. Nielson, who sings, has a fresh voice that exudes wonder and innocence yet his lyrics are mature and deep. There is a raft of influences that I could discern but most of all there was a floating, psychedelic quality to their music. If I were to describe Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s sound, I’d say it comprises well-crafted music, particularly Nielson’s virtuosity on the guitar (instrument to note: the occasional appearance of a delicate acoustic guitar in an electronica band that can be rare!), songs that fuse soul and pop with psychedelia, and, above all, a light-heartedness that makes listening to them a pleasure.

II is Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s second album. Their first, an eponymously titled release in 2011, has a rougher feel as if it was recorded on hissy, crackling analog equipment. Even II has a DIY feel to its sound and perhaps there lies the charm of the band.

I was tipped off about Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s new supergroup, Atoms For Peace by an early February email from the W.A.S.T.E. network that is a kind of collective for fans of Radiohead and Yorke. Atoms For Peace has Yorke, of course, and also his producer Nigel Godrich, sessions drummer Joey Waronker, Percussionist Mauro Refosco and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist, Flea.

A LONG TIME IN THE MAKING: Thom Yorke’s new supergroup, Atoms For Peace, released their nine-track album, Amok, the result of three or four years of jamming (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

A single or two were released as teasers shortly after the email and then the nine-track album, Amok, which is actually a result of three or four years of jamming between the musicians in Atoms.

Radiohead fans will remember Yorke’s 2006 solo venture, Eraser, a fine electronic album. The more die-hard of them will also remember a track called Atoms for Peace on that album, which is also the name of the supergroup that has made Amok. Eraser was a nicely ambient album, very close to being an actual Radiohead album (as far as I know, though, none of the other Radiohead members were featured on it) but not as heavy as those can be. I could write with Eraser playing in the background; I can’t with any of Radiohead’s other albums—they all require a lot more concentration while they’re being played.

As does Amok. Flea (and this may disappoint Red Hot Chili Pepper Fans) is remarkably understated but the percussion and drums have pronounced lines. Yorke doesn’t disappoint at all, his voice is as endearing as ever—yes, sometimes characteristically incomprehensible but always compelling. Oh, and there’s a video of one of the songs, Ingenue, which is compulsory viewing. Just as the video for Radiohead’s Lotus Flower (a song off their last album, King of Limbs) was. Here too we have Yorke dancing. He’s in a three-piece brown suit and sports a long ponytail. The video is stark but, unlike in Lotus Flower, he’s not alone. More details would spoil the fun. Watch the vid!

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I follow Yo La Tengo, the lo-fi upstate New York band, on twitter. And I heard of Melt-Banana from them. It’s the name of a Japanese grind-core band that makes extremely fast and noisy music that is curiously quite appealing. Worth trying. But be warned: you will hear lasers, sirens and, sometimes, very, very abrasive screams. As I told you, I got pointed to them by a band that believes in understated, almost mumbled, self-effacing songs!

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STRETCHED HOOKS The shortest track on Endless Boogie’s latest album, Long Island, is nearly seven minutes long (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

Endless Boogie are from New York’s Brooklyn area and are categorised variously as purveyors of heavy metal, stoner rock or blues rock depending on what source you’re trying to glean information on them from. What makes things difficult is that there’s little on the Internet that can give you an accurate idea of their provenance or what kind of music they play. The best way to get an idea is to play one of their albums.

Although Endless Boogie have been around for a bit (more than a decade, at least), there aren’t too many albums that they’ve released. I found three – this year’s Long Island, Full House Head (2010) and Focus Level (2008). I started with their latest, Long Island. As I said, the band lives up to its name. Their tunes are long, with many guitar-laden hooks and their solos are long. There are nine tracks on Long Island – the shortest is nearly seven minutes and the longest over 14. I mentioned the various descriptions that I’ve read of the kind of genre Endless Boogie play, but I think I’d call it heavy blues. Guitar riffs soaked in blues tradition but fried up to be much heavier; gruff vocals; and a tendency to jam and stretch hooks deliciously on most of their songs. That’s how I’d describe the band.

THE RETURN OF JANGLY MARR The guitar on Johnny Marr’s new solo album The Messenger is still jangly; but something is missing (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

Endless Boogie can be endless aural fun provided you like their messy sound and don’t mind that they can get a bit heavy – not exactly head-banging stuff but more like a dose of blues-rock that has been amped up by steroids. After searching endlessly, I found an interview with Paul Major, frontman, guitarist and singer of Endless Boogie, and learnt a bit about the origins of the band (they began in the late 1990s); their influences (guitar-led bands and psychedelic rock outfits, both obscure ones as well as the usual fare from the 1970s); and the fact that the band is most reluctant to play gigs or tour unless specifically invited. That kind of explains why they’ve been below the radar. But Endless Boogie deserve their place in the sun.

The other album that dropped recently was Johnny Marr’s first solo album (second if you count a 2003 album that he did as Johnny Marr and The Healers and which was, by all accounts, a forgettable venture). Marr, of course, is the former guitarist of Britain’s iconic alternative rock band of the 1980s – The Smiths, which broke up after Marr left. Former Smiths’ lead singer Morrissey has since had a glorious solo career but his former bandmate (estranged from Morrissey is also what I understand he is) has also been busy since the British band broke up in the late 1980s.

Marr’s trademark jangly guitar playing style was the hallmark of The Smiths’ sound and his influence has touched many guitarists over the past couple of decades. Post The Smiths, Marr has played with many bands, including The Pretenders, and has cut two records as part of the American indie band, Modest Mouse. Both those albums – We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank and No One’s First And You’re Next – are albums to buy (Tip: Modest Mouse even without Marr has other albums that are worth checking out).

I love The Smiths and Marr’s jangly guitar on all their albums and I loved the two Modest Mouse albums. So naturally, I was eager to listen to his new solo, The Messenger. It was a bit of a disappointment. Well, the guitar is still jangly; the music altogether not bad; but something is still missing. Marr is no gifted singer. I mean he sings alright but doesn’t really have a strong voice. I’m going to give The Messenger a couple more chances by spinning it some more but here’s the thing: I wish (and this is one wish that I’m quite certain shall never come true) he and Morrissey reunite.

The jangly guitar would then have the vocals it deserves.

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I’d mentioned in January about Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite collaborating to do an album. Well, that album is out. It’s called Get Up! and on it we see the eclectic songwriter Harper match his skills with Musselwhite, who is arguably the best blues harmonica player alive. Worth grabbing.

Charlie Musselwhite (left) and Ben Harper (Photos: GETTY IMAGES)

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GRATEFUL DEADHEADS: All the 10 songs on Keys are sung in Williams’ unique style (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

I’ll get to the 10 songs he’s playing but the fact that Williams is playing just a piano is somewhat of a rarity. Keller Williams is often known as a one-man band, a very apt name for him because he’s usually—in live performances as well as for his studio albums—unaccompanied by anyone else.

Williams uses something known as ‘live phrase looping’ to make it seem as if a full-fledged band is playing with him. He uses instruments such as drum machines and synthesizers but also a vintage electronic music device known as the theremin, which is operated without any physical contact but via two antennae that can respond to the movement of a musician’s hands. But more importantly, Williams plays guitars, percussion, bass, in addition to the synths, drum machines and so on, and manages to sound as if he is playing all of these at the same time.

Very roughly, live phrase looping works this way: the musician plays a riff on some instrument; it is recorded; and played back with a delay. You can layer as many riffs or tunes or melodies in this manner and play them back. The skill and expertise with which a musician uses the technique of live looping determines the final output. Williams, on his studio albums as well as live, is a highly skilled looper.

One major characteristic of Williams’ music is his ability to fuse different genres — bluegrass, rock, folk, reggae, jazz, you name it. Besides the plethora of instruments, Williams uses his voice in innovative ways, and has a distinctive performance and singing style. A third thing about Williams is the names he chooses for his albums — they are always one-word titles. So, his catalogue has albums titled Freek, Buzz, Spun, Breathe, Loop, Laugh, Dance, Home, Stage, Grass, Dream, Odd, Thief, Pick and so on.

The album I’m listening to right now is called Keys (probably because it has, uncharacteristically for Williams, just a piano as an instrument) and, as I mentioned, it has 10 songs. And now, here’s the thing: All the ten songs are covers of songs by The Grateful Dead. Songs that every Deadhead knows but each one stripped down to the barest minimum — played on the piano and sung in Williams’ unique style.

On Keys, Williams plays 10 Dead songs, none of them tunes that are minimalistic in their original forms. Most Deadheads know how complex Terrapin Station is. On Keys, Williams manages to turn it into a spare yet beautiful song without fooling around too much with the original tune. He does that with the others too. So, when on a sunny Feb (or any other month) morning, you spin Keys and listen to Williams doing his version of He’s Gone, Can’t Come Down, Brokedown Palace, Wharf Rat, Attics of My Life, Althea, Bird Song, Row Jimmy and Touch of Grey, you can’t have a better soundtrack to accompany whatever you choose to do on a sunny morning (as long as your range of choices excludes work!).

EARLY DAY ELECTRONICA: Besides drum machines and synthesisers, one of the instruments Williams uses is the theremin – a vintage electronic music device which responds to the movement of a musician’s hands

On his website, Williams says “It’s no secret I have an unhealthy fascination with the Grateful Dead. Whenever I sit down at the piano it seems the only thing that comes out are Jerry (Garcia) ballads. Even though these songs are not all Jerry ballads, I have sort of made them that way.” He admits to have taken some liberties with the lyrics but then with a band that always took liberties with its own music, I don’t think that matters much.

I’m grateful for having heard Keys because it renews my interest in Williams’ music and his back catalogue. I’d been quite obsessed with his stuff till around the early 2000s and then, I had moved on. Now, I’ve rummaged in my stash of old albums and found my copies of Breathe and Loop and Freek and Stage. I’ve rediscovered Keller Williams and am enjoying those albums, especially Loop and Stage, which are live albums, Stage being a double live.

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The fourth and latest full-length album from one of my favourite bands is here. Frightened Rabbit are a Scottish indie band that hails from Selkirk and their new album is called Pedestrian Verse. Frightened Rabbit make nervous, moody music that’s a compelling listen and Pedestrian Verse doesn’t disappoint. The thick Scottish brogue that marks frontman and singer Scott Hutchinson’s English doesn’t hurt either. It never does, and never did even on the band’s last four full-lengths: Sing The Greys, The Midnight Organ Fight, Quietly Now! and The Winter of Mixed Drinks.

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