New England Music Scrapbook Newsletter
Alan Lewis, Editor

Our Corner of the Rock 'n' Roll Life

January 18, 2008
Issue 2008:258

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We've got Thrills, chills, Dirty Water
What more do you need?
When the big beat hits ya
Comin' from your transistor
Like the T at full speed
When the big beat hits ya...

-- "Boston Lullaby," Dudick/Naihersey.
Copyright c. 1980 by Camaraderie Music, BMI.
All rights reserved. Used with permission.


. . . . .


BRATTLEBORO, VT, January 18 - After a summer slowdown that lasted deep
into the fall and then an extremely slow period through the holidays
and a bit beyond, once again there are big doings out there. New
England musicians are planning tours, announcing new DVD releases,
supplying music for national commercials, moving on up to more
prestigious venues, thinking ahead to their next CDs. One artist,

DAVID CROSSLAND,

has been getting more frequent bookings and steadily for quite some
time such that he has quit his day job. Now THERE is a sign of doing
okay. But to turn to our own old business for a moment...

[ ]

There are certain technical advantages, on this particular computer
system, for sending this newsletter just before a shutdown or a
reboot, or at least for getting as much of the last-minute work as
possible done beforehand. So last issue, I took the first few steps
toward mailing this newsletter and then restarted my computer. A bit
late, I remembered a few items inadvertently left out. TOO late for
that issue, but NOT too late for this one.

First, at some point last week, I got a look at a recent mailing from
a local guy who may be better known to Bostonians by his early 1980s
stage name,

DREDD FOOLE.

Do you know Dredd? It seems to me his recent message was one sent to
friends and maybe family about a change of contact information. It
also seems to me that more than a few of our readers will enjoy the
very act of seeing his name.

[ ]

I also forgot to mention that, in the preamble to her recent mailing,
Signature Sounds recording artist

EILEN JEWELL

welcomed a couple hundred new subscribers to her and her band's
mailing list. This is a pretty good sign that the Eilen Jewell Band
is coming up in the world.

[ ]

One of the novelists - I am quite certain it was Henry James - did an
exceptional job of giving a sense of the rapid growth of New York City
in the middle and late years of the nineteenth century. So it was
really thrilling recently to be researching an actual example - and an
important one - Niblo's Garden. If you read the piece at or near the
end of last issue, you will know that, when opened, many people feared
Niblo's Garden might be too far out in the country. It never moved
from its original location at the corner of Broadway and Prince
Street. Decades later, but still well within the same century, it was
considered to be downtown. That is how fast New York City grew around
and right past Niblo's Garden.

Prior to sending last issue, I had just read a surprisingly
detail-oriented history of the Niblo's Garden Theatre. And I had
meant to note last week one of the relatively early successes there
(1842). New Englanders ought to love this title. A decade and a half
before "Our American Cousin" became the first long-run play of the
American stage, Niblo's had a roughly four week engagement of
something called

THE GREEN MONSTER.

Talk about being ahead of their times! The year 1842 may possibly
have been before Ted Williams. I don't know. Apparently, though,
this theatrical piece was no premonition of Fenway Park. It must have
been a comic dramatization of a poem about a London statue of Achilles
which was erected in honor of the Duke of Wellington. Either way, for
us New Englanders, the title, alone - "The Green Monster" - would have
been worth giving this production a look.

[ ]

By last issue, I had gotten us added to several artist mailing lists;
and subsequently, I have gotten us added to a few more - hopefully
with even more to come.

As highly as I regard many of the artists whose news is copied here, I
would really like not to post information about the same acts week
after week. Signing up for new-to-us mailing lists ought to help with
this. But it depends on how many of these lists are currently active.
And clearly we need to keep subscribing to more lists.


DENNIS BRENNAN
At the Iron Horse Music Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts

A show is coming up in Northampton that ought to be of considerable
interest ... if fans can learn about it in time. One of the great and
classic rockers out of Boston,

DENNIS BRENNAN,

is having what I understand to be his debut at the Iron Horse Music
Hall. This, though, is a late booking; and well do we know that
Northampton is not the easiest place in the world to promote shows
that come about at the eleventh hour. The fine folk of a 1990s Boston
band - I'm thinking it was chelsea on fire - once sent out show
details good and early according to normal standards, but they still
missed the submission deadline for the Pioneer Valley alternative
weekly, the Valley Advocate.

For starters, here are the Dennis Brennan show's details:

Where: Iron Horse Music Hall
Northampton, Massachusetts

When: Fiday, January 25
7:00 pm, Jeff Foucault opening

We, too, will open this item with

JEFFREY FOUCAULT.

Foucault has independently thought through American roots music and
has come up with a style which is not quite like anyone else's. It
does not always come through for everyone on his records, though I
personally really like all his releases so far. But if you ever get
to see the Signature Sounds Tenth Anniversary Concerts DVD, you will
pick up, on Foucault's part, a degree of warmth and enthusiasm that
may be a little harder to find on his records. The way he went about
creating his art reminds me more than a little of Dwight Yoakam. By
the way, if you don't own the Dwight Yoakam box set, "Reprise Please
Baby," you lose. It ought to score high on any list of essential
boxes. I wouldn't be without it. Foucault's got something similar
going (though definitely not at all focused on country twang), the
Iron Horse is in his back yard, and he ought to put on one heck of a
show at The Horse on the 25th.

The beat of Dennis Brennan's rock 'n' roll heart was set long ago. He
has seen good times and bad. His career has had its upturns and down.
But he has known who he is as a rocker for a very long while. And if
his art was in keeping with the times, great. If not, well he kept on
anyway. Lately, the world has been coming around to Dennis Brennan.
His wonderful "Engagement" album is a big part of the reason why. But
the main thing getting his name around is now, as always, his
performances in front of an audience.

This is a concert that ought to be well worth telling your friends about.

Mark Erelli once told Daniel Gewertz, in remarks that ran in the
Boston Herald, Friday, December 26, 2003, "Some people have religion
and go to church. I go to Dennis Brennan concerts. That's how much I
love him." Erelli is not the only one. You can see why at the Iron
Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Fiday, January 25.

Special thanks to another New England legend,

RAY MASON,

for being first to tip us off to this must-see show.

[ ]


CUTTING EDGE OF THE CAMPFIRE
Coming to a Club Passim Near You

One of the great events on New England's music calendar is coming up
in February. It is a funky festival called the

CUTTING EDGE OF THE CAMPFIRE.

Here are some beginning details from the Club Passim website:

Winter Campfire!
Saturday, February 16th & Sunday, February 17th

http://www.clubpassim.org/campfire/

As important as the Campfire is, this festival is a little hard to
talk about. There are always some dynamite acts who we know in
advance we would love to hear live. So they, for instance, are the
artists who I, for instance, name here. But what makes this fest work
so well is the bookings of musicians we have never heard of ... yet
... along with those we HAVE heard of but so far know little about.
It is these folks, the new and less commonly known artists, who make
the words, "Cutting Edge," a fitting part of the name of this festival.

The Labor Day 2007 roster of festival talent has just been taken down,
making way for the lists of February's performers. But the new roster
is not yet up. If you should visit the Cutting Edge page and find the
names of performers for February's edition of the festival, please
e-mail us by way of the following Web page

http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/fred.htm

to tip us off. We would greatly appreciate it.

[ ]


CLUB 47

Thanks to Country Gordy for getting my e-friend Millie Rahn to send
information about the recently installed marker which commemmorates
the old Club 47, the forerunner of Club Passim ... but so much more.
First, here is what Millie sent:

The blue historical marker from the Cambridge Historical Commission,
unveiled on Saturday, 5 January 2008, the eve of Club 47's 50th
anniversary reads:

Club 47

Here Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sang duets,
Muddy Waters played the blues,
and Tom Rush, the Charles River Valley Boys,
and Eric Von Schmidt led the
60s folk revival.

1958-1963

We won't quibble over the failure to mention the most obvious act
along with Joan Baez, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. Well, actually,
yes we will quibble: just not now.

Club Passim's publicity efforts are very helpful, and this is how we
received the following direct Web address for a capsule news item
about the marker, which is pretty much exactly what I was looking for:

http://www.baystatebanner.com/issues/2008/01/10/scenes01100861.htm

Between this item and the actual text of the marker, I would say that
our query on this topic last issue worked out perfectly.

This marker should not be thought of as some nice but small thing.
First, Club 47 is a major part of New England's popular music
background. The 47 would be important simply because it was a
successful coffeehouse for many years and because it was a major part
of the folk revival of the late 1950s and the 1960s.

Second, The 47 is of special interest because the regulars there,
along with a good number of others who were in and out of Harvard
Square, were really different from other folkies of that era. For
instance, Bob Dylan may have had a New York City address and the
Greenwich Village people deserve tremendous credit for bringing him
out, but he was actually a much closer fit with the the Club 47
community. This shows in a variety of ways, including every album of
his starting with a personal favorite, "Another Side of Bob Dylan."
Also, Dylan and many, many of the Club 47 people accepted The Beatles
pretty much on first hearing. I am a HUGE Beatles fan, but I didn't
catch on to them right away. This Club 47 crowd was made up of people
who really knew their music: the music that mattered to them most. A
lot of the impetus behind the rise of folk-rock came out of Club 47.
The performers and listeners there were not afraid of a pronounced
beat and amplification.

Sometime well after Passim opened, I went to the original Club 47
location to get a look. Talk about underwhelming. It reminded me of
the laundramat where I washed my clothes in Bangor, Maine, and there
was absolutely not a thing to set it apart from anything else nearby.
Exactly, most specifically, and precisely what it needed was a marker
along the lines of the one which has just been put up.

Good for you, Betsy Siggins, Millie Rahn, and everyone else at Club
Passim!

For lots and lots more information, check out "Baby, Let Me Follow You
Down" by Jim Rooney and Eric Von Schmidt. I have been reading about
the history of American popular music of the 19th century, the 20th
century, and now the 21st century for many, many years, and "Baby, Let
Me Follow You Down" is among a select group of the very best books on
the subject. It is widely available at libraries and via Interlibrary
Loan, and copies may be purchased by way of Tom Rush's Web site. We
say, Good for you, also to Tom Rush!


= = = = =


BRIEF ITEMS :


THE HOOTCHIES
Newton, Massachusetts Band
Which Comes Highly Recommended

A band has been recommended to us by a rock singer-songwriter whose
opinion I value, Jennifer Tefft. The band is called

THE HOOTCHIES,

and the members of this outfit have a show coming right up. Here are
details from Hootchies Central:

Saturday January 19, 2008
The Attic
107 Rear Union Street
Newton Center, Massachusetts
617-964-6684

This calls JoEllen to mind who, it seems to me, may have grown up in
Newton Center.

The postal address posted at The Hootchies' official Web site
indicates a base, for one or more members, at Newton, Massachusetts.
That site's address is:

http://www.thehootchies.com/

Jenn's suggestion is good enough for me, and I promptly signed up for
the band's e-mail mailing list.

[ ]


AIMEE MANN
"Smilers" CD

"On Sat. Feb. 2nd, Aimee will be playing a special performance at The
Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. This will be your first chance to
hear songs from Aimee's upcoming album, 'Smilers,' (as well as all of
Aimee's 'hits!') No opener, no special guests, just Aimee and her
band in a very intimate setting. This will be Aimee's last show on
the East Coast until the spring, so don't miss it!

Sat. Feb. 2nd 10:30 pm
The Birchmere
Alexandria, Virginia"

-- "Aimee Mann Newsletter," January 15, 2008

IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT Aimee Mann's reputation for
jolliness in her songwriting, you should not have to nurse a chuckle
out of the title of her forthcoming album, "Smilers." There's no
knowing at this early date whether levity was intended; but either
way, it is there. - Ed.

[ ]


SCOTT KING
News-e E-News From Maine

"Progress on the next record has come to a screeching halt, I'm sorry
to say, due to lack of funds. The good news, though, is that I guess
the record will probably end up being better than it otherwise would
have been, because I'll be writing in the meantime, which means there
will be more songs competing with one another for a place among the
twelve or so finalists. (I like that choice of words ... picture songs
fighting: 'Oh, yeah? Well you don't even have a bridge!' 'So what?
At least MY lyrics are inventive, unlike yours which are nothing but
syrupy cliches!'"

-- "Scott King ENews January 2008," January 16,
2008

[ ]


QRST's

Once and future Stomper - and, well, I guess he is a current Stomper,
as well - Sal Baglio received the following. It is likely to be of a
good deal of interest to many of our readers.

QRST's
Peter Rinnig, owner

http://www.qrsts.com/
info at qrsts dot com
617-625-3335

QRST's has moved - around the corner! We are now located at 561
Windsor St., Suite B101, Somerville [Massachusetts].

At the moment, QRST's is the official printer for The Rat and
Neighborhoods merch. We also do The Fools merch. I am trying to add
several other prominent Boston bands.

[ ]


THE CHARMS
On National Television - Maybe International

"The Charms song, 'So Romantic,' will be featured in a television ad
for the TLC show, TRADING SPACES. The commercial begins airing
tonight at 8PM on TLC. In weeks to come it will air on over fifteen
networks nationally!"

thecharms.net

-- Red Car Records, "The Charms 'So Romantic in
National Commercial," January 18, 2008

[ ]


DAVE CROSSLAND
"The Set That Wasn't" CD

"As for the upcoming CD, it's called 'The Set That Wasn't' and it's at
the manufacturers right now. We should have the finished product in
about three weeks. It's the first time I've recorded an entire CD
live with a band and I'm diggin' it. That whole thing about being
able to hear the energy of a live performance? It's real. You can
totally hear the fun we had playing together in the studio. And Liz
Linder did the photography again, so the pics are awesome."

-- Dave Crossland Mailing, January 17, 2008

[ ]


GREGORY DOUGLASS

"LOGO UPDATE:

"'HANG AROUND' is #6 on CLICK LIST

"Thanks to all of your votes [votes of fans and mailing list
subscribers - Ed.] thus far, my new music video for 'Hang Around' is
currently #6 on LOGO TV's 'Top 10 Click List'! ... It was all thanks
to your votes that had my last video for 'I Wanted To Run' aired on
LOGO for six consecutive months in 2006 and continued to work it's way
up on the 'Top 10 Click List,' so please help me do it all again this
year!"

-- Gregory Douglass Mailing, January 12, 2008

[ ]


CROOKED STILL
Two Items, Both Are Brief

"We are finishing up our new record RIGHT NOW. I'm sitting on a couch
overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir at the gorgeous Allaire Studios in
Shokan, New York. We are so excited about this new music and can't
wait to share it all with you! For a detailed day by day account of
our recording process complete with pictures, check out Corey's blog:

http://www.playthebassdrivethebus.blogspot.com

"Our new lineup, featuring Tristan Clarridge and Brittany Haas, is
premiering THIS WEEKEND in New York City! Our 2008 tour dates are
still being locked down, but keep on the lookout for our brand new
website, as well as dates to be posted on the myspace page as they
appear."

-- Crooked Still Mailing, January 12, 2008

[ ]


STOP, POP, AND ROLL

The organization long known as Stop, Pop, and Roll is no more. It's a
long story but a story that is very easy for us to understand. We see
this, here and there, in many different forms. In this instance, the
divine Paula Kelley moved to the West Coast and other Stop, Pop, and
Roll bands are not necessarily entirely active. So, what was once
Stop, Pop, and Roll is now focusing on Ad Frank. I believe we have
been on the Stop, Pop, and Roll mailing list for the entire existence
of this newsletter, so for us this change is a sad one. On the
positive side, we hope this is a good change for everyone involved and
we wish them all luck.

[ ]


JOSH RITTER
On David Letterman

"Josh and Band Play 'David Letterman'
Tuesday, January 22nd

"That's right, Josh returns to the talk show of all talk shows as
musical guest this coming Tuesday, January 22nd.

"The Late Show with David Letterman airs every weekday night at 11:35
p.m. (in all US time zones) on CBS.

"Tune in or set your recorders!

"Or both."

-- Josh Ritter (News), "Josh Returns to Letterman,"
January 18, 2008

[ ]


STAR TREK
New Trailer in Theaters

If you know about the following item and could tell us about it - say,
what it is about and what production it is for - please e-mail us by
way of the following Web page:

http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/fred.htm

"There's a new teaser Trailer for Star Trek out in theaters,
apparently. ... It shows an incomplete Enterprise and features
[Leonard] Nemoy as Spock at the end with 'Space, the final frontier.'"


end BRIEF ITEMS


= = = = =


DON WHITE
And His...

"Projects for 2008

"I am currently working on the video of the two sold-out shows at
Jimmy Tingles Theatre in June '06. The DVD that will come primarily
from these shows will feature an 18 minute version of the piece about
the Red Sox winning the World Series and the entire extended Accordion
Door and Be 16 With Me stories as well as several songs including at
least one that features my son before he cut all his hair off.

"And ... this DVD will also contain at least 35 minutes worth of top
secret archival footage from The Somerville Theatre and the attic room
at The Bull Run in the 1990s, perhaps something from a show in 2001 at
The Lafayette Grand in Pontiac, Michigan, and some footage that was
recorded by my cousin on a betamax machine at The American Legion Hall
in Lynn, Massachusetts, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and
eighty three when I was younger than my son is now. Those of you who
will eventually acquire a copy of this DVD will be able to watch me
gain fifty pounds and degenerate significantly before your very eyes.

"I am also plodding forward in my effort to record myself reading my
book so that it might someday be made available on CD.

"There are also some new songs in the mix, so a new CD is on the
horizon. However, those of you that know me know quite well that I
take my sweet time with these things."

-- Don White, "Newsletter," January 17, 2008


NEMSnews

New England Music Scrapbook
Brattleboro, Vermont

E-MAIL US via:
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Please do NOT click the Reply button. Clicking Reply sends your
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. . . . .


IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO WOULD BE interested in any of the items in
this issue, please forward this newsletter to them. Thanks! We
believe this is one of the main ways we pick up readers.


As a rule, we do not post SHOW LISTINGS. The reason is quite
simple. Though our name is the NEW ENGLAND Music Scrapbook, probably
an easy majority of our readers are based outside the six New England
states. The great majority of show listings would be of no interest
at all to the great majority of our readers.

We make exceptions when show listings are part of an item of more
general interest. CD-release events are great examples. For us, the
main point of an item of this sort is that an act has a new record.
The show being announced is of secondary interest to us - if that - as
far as the contents of our newsletter goes.

In the very few, truly exceptional instances where we post show
listings...


... Shows can be canceled, sold out, or even moved to another
date or location. We recommend checking the Web, calling ahead or
otherwise confirming details.


To SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter:
http://www.geocities.com/nemsnewz/subscribe.htm

E-MAIL via:
http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/fred.htm
(Please do NOT click the Reply button.)

NEWSLETTER's Yahoo Groups Home Page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uridfm/

General CONTACT Information:
http://www.geocities.com/uridfm/contact.htm


Issue 2008:258

Published no less often than monthly.
We're guessing eventually we'll settle
into an every-other-week schedule.

Copyright © 2008 by the New England Music Scrapbook. All rights reserved.

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