Consider the Source - Are You Watching Closely 2009

Consider The Source started forming in 2004 after Gabriel Marin and Justin Ahiyon played together in a jam session and discovered their musical compatibility. John Ferrara and Ahiyon had been playing together since childhood. The three musicians met and their collaboration eventually turned into Consider The Source. The group started out almost exclusively improvisational and was not a full-time endeavor. They released a demo EP in 2005 and their debut album, Esperanto, was included on jazz critic Howard Mandel's list of his favorite albums from 2007. Around this time, the trio decided to put all of their efforts into the band. In the next two years, they toured the United States seven times and began to play festivals such as the 2008 NYC Fretless Guitar Festival.

In 2009, Consider The Source released their second full-length album, Are You Watching Closely and quickly followed with a third full-length album, That's What's Up, in 2010. In 2012, Ahiyon left the group, and was briefly replaced by Louis Miller, before Jeff Mann took over on the drum kit. The band toured Germany and Israel. The new trio continued to produce original material which was constantly being introduced at shows and resulted in two live albums. Around this time, the band also began to play full acoustic sets at summer festivals. In February of 2014, Consider The Source completed a crowdfunding campaign to fund the production of their largest studio release, titled World War Trio. In October of the same year, part one was released as a stand-alone composition. In June of 2015, parts two and three were released as a double-disc.

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Blood Oranges - The Crying Tree 1994

Before there was alt-country there were the Blood Oranges. Their three releases fell squarely in a genre that didn't even have a name yet; indeed, had it formed, they'd have been one of the leading names. Not only did they have a superb guitar player in Mark Spencer (check his jaw-droppingly good break on "Hell's Half Acre" if you need proof; they can't play that fast and cleanly outside of Nashville, can they?), but they had a wonderfully emotional writer and singer in Cheri Knight and Jimmy Ryan's mandolin, composing, and singing provided much of the country flavor. And with The Crying Tree they perhaps reached their zenith, firing on all cylinders with the slow crunch of the title track, the quiet desperation of "Shadow of You," and the loneliness of "This Old Town," which segues into the breakneck, guitar-driven "On the Run," with its breathless vocal and utterly wild guitar. They were never afraid to mix a bit of noise with their melody, with Spencer's solo edging out past the stratosphere in true guitar-hero fashion. Everything's helped by Eric Ambel's production, capturing lovely, raw harmonies and giving the band real musical freedom, as on "Hinges," which almost sounds like a Richard Thompson song gone below the Mason-Dixon line (ironic, given the fact the band was based in the Northeast). They had it all going and brought it all together in perfect fashion here. It's just a shame they were ahead of their time. AMG.

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Alo (Animal Liberation Orchestra) - Sounds Like This 2012

If in the past ALO had a kind of Doobie Brothers jamming around a campfire appeal, on their fourth album, Sounds Like This, they get a little freakier and add all sorts of sonic weirdness to their sound. They haven't totally ditched the core elements of their sound and there's still a ton of warmth in the way the band is recorded, in Zach Gill's burnished vocals and in the hippie-deep lyrical sentiments. There's also a left-field approach to the songwriting this time. A lot of the tracks deal with the pitfalls of making music and being in a band, with a healthy dose of rueful bitterness that makes you think that maybe they are second-guessing their career choice. Oddly though, the music is supremely uplifting. Mixing blues-riff guitar workouts with strutting disco jams and loose-limbed funk jammers with synthy Steve Miller-influenced pop, the band sounds more invested in making music that will inspire feet to get moving instead of creating a laid-back, laid-out mood. They also have a nice kitchen-sink approach to the arrangements, throwing in all kinds of goofy stuff (clavinet solos, dub reggae breakdowns, silly raps, cheesy synths) that keeps the mood light and fun throughout. It helps make the album's long running time (over an hour with most tracks over five minutes and one even pushing ten) seem a lot shorter than it is. It's easy to write off ALO (and any Brushfire artist) as merely a bunch of stoners who make albums for lazy, dazey times, but when they make an album with as many hooks as Sounds Like This, with as much sonic care and feeding, with such strong songs and performances, that's really not a fair assessment at all. Sure, the record works fine as a soundtrack for lying in the summer grass doing nothing, but it also works as a heady, brainy, silly, and fun slice of modern rock, too. AMG.

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Blue Rodeo - In Our Nature 2013

In many ways, Blue Rodeo are the Canadian version of the Eagles. Led by two distinct yet thematically similar songwriters and singers, Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, the band has been delivering a rootsy folk and country-rock-pop sound since 1984 across some dozen albums or so, and has won nearly every award given in the Canadian music industry, all without making barely a commercial dent in the U.S. Like the Eagles, Blue Rodeo usually feature acoustic guitars with rock dynamics, sharp harmonies, and songs that explore broken or troubled romances, vanishing dreams, busted promises, and lost or uncertain futures. Whatever personnel changes the band has had over the years, the core has always been Keelor and Cuddy (the two share songwriting credit in the Lennon/McCartney style, but apparently write alone), much in the way that Glenn Frey and Don Henley have always sat in the creative driver's seat of the Eagles, although in Blue Rodeo's case, without the acrimony. And also likethe Eagles, Blue Rodeo have been doing the same kind of thing for a long time, and like the Eagles, they sound a little worn, tired, and overly serious these days. In Our Nature is the group's 13th album, recorded at Keelor's farmhouse, much like one of the band's best albums, Five Days in July, was some 20 years earlier. There the resemblance ends. In Our Nature is full of well-recorded, warm-sounding songs that are brimming with personal commitment and passion, but unfortunately little in the way of melodies that stick in the head. That's a problem for a band that depends on its pop skills to temper the declarative nature of its songwriters. Almost everything here is at a slow to medium tempo, and whether it's Keelor or Cuddy, every song seems downcast, full of emotional turmoil that is unfortunately communicated with overblown, sophomoric lyrics -- every song literally seems to have storm clouds in it. There are a couple highlights, most notably the slightly Byrdsian "Over Me," which is maybe one rewrite away from being a great pop song, and "Tell Me Again," which is a great honky tonk jukebox country song by any standards. The rest of the album, though, sounds theatrically melancholy, full of bad poetry and not enough real hooks, however sincere and serious Keelor and Cuddy are about what they're doing. It just sounds tired, and maybe a little desperate, much like where the the Eagles find themselves a decade and change into the 21st century. AMG.

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Jeff Bridges & the Abiders - Live 2014

Actor Jeff Bridges has been doing shows and tours with his band the Abiders (named after his role as the Dude Who Abides in the 1998 iconic cult film The Big Lebowski) for some time now, a band that consists of Bridges (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Chris Pelonis (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Bill Flores(pedal steel, guitar), Randy Tico (upright, electric bass), and Tom Lackner (drums, percussion). Billed as Jeff Bridges & the Abiders, the band did a summer run at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas in 2014, all of which was recorded and led to this 14-track live album, which was produced by bandmember Pelonis. AMG.

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Fred Eaglesmith - The Boy That Just Went Wrong 1983

Country-folk singer/songwriter Fred J. Eaglesmith was one of nine children born to a farming family in rural southern Ontario. Often employing his difficult upbringing as raw material for his heartland narratives, he issued his self-titled debut LP in 1980. He recorded infrequently throughout the remainder of the decade, releasing only two more albums,The Boy That Just Went Wrong and Indiana Road. However, Eaglesmith gradually became an underground favorite in his native Canada, thanks largely to a relentless touring schedule in tandem with bassist Ralph Schipper and mandolinist Willie P. Bennett. In 1991, he released the double live collection There Ain't No Easy Road, followed two years later by Things Is Changin'. Another live set, Paradise Motel, appeared in 1994, and in 1995 Eaglesmith returned with Drive-In Movie. 1999 saw the release of 50-Odd Dollars. The double-disc Ralph's Last Show was issued in spring 2001, followed by Falling Stars and Broken Hearts in 2002, Dusty in 2004, and Milly's Cafe in 2006. AMG.

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Elders of Zion - Dawn Refuses To Rise 2002

The title track on Dawn Refuses to Rise immediately places San Francisco's Elders of Zion among a new order of prog rock sentimentalists. Alongside Trans Am and the Fucking Champs, Elders of Zion string together heavy drum patterns, whistling and screeching guitars, and poignant spoken sound sources to create quite a strong record. More importantly, though, Elders attempt to provide a voice of the people with a politically stirring, dramatic collage of field recordings and instrumentation. Punk Planet magazine editor Joel Schalit does most of the arrangements and processing, while Vance Galloway provides the seethingly raw guitar and basslines on Dawn Refuses to Rise. Like a rock-conscious Negativland, Elders' politics are never far away either. Tracks like "Future Avant-Garde Society" and "What's Your Badge Number" suggest a certain leftist leaning of the band's unwritten manifesto. Globalization is at the center of what Elders of Zion, along with many others in the post-everything music world, vehemently rail against. In particular, "What's Your Badge Number" is built around field recordings of IMF demonstrators clashing with police in Washington, D.C. The gradual build of guitar and drum rhythms beneath a frighteningly real dialogue between a protestor and an officer create an atmospheric tension that is almost unheard of outside of punk music. Thematically, Elders may be a bit more obvious with their social justice sample/instrumental pastiche than Godspeed You Black Emperor! but are similar to them in many ways. Elders prove that you don't have to scream to be heard and while they aren't quite a political beacon of hope in this foreboding worldview, they certainly process the day's events in a moving and intense manner. AMG.

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Dave Thomas with Special Guest Wallace Coleman - Repossession Blues (With Special Guest Wallace Coleman) 2007

Traditional Blues with feeling on Chicago style. A 22 Track Double CD Set dedicated to the loving memory of Robert Jr. Lockwood. Enjoy.


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Beck - One foot in the grave 1994

Recorded prior to Mellow Gold but released several months after that album turned Beck into an overnight sensation, One Foot in the Grave bolsters his neo-folkie credibility the way the nearly simultaneously released Stereopathetic Soul Manure accentuated his underground noise prankster credentials. One Foot is neatly perched between authentic folk-blues -- it opens with "He's a Mighty Good Leader," a traditional number sometimes credited to Skip James, and he rewrites Rev. Gary Davis' "You Gotta Move" as "Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods" -- and the shambolic, indie anti-folk coming out of the Northwest in the early '90s, a connection underscored by the record's initial release on Calvin Johnson's Olympia, WA-based K Records, and its production by Johnson, who also sings on a couple of cuts. Parts of One Foot in the Grave may be reminiscent of other K acts, particularly the ragged parts, but it's also distinctively Beck in how it blurs lines between the past and present, the traditional and the modern, the sincere and the sarcastic. Certainly, of his three 1994 albums, One Footerrs in favor of the sincere, partially due to those folk-blues covers, but also in its overall hushed feel, its muted acoustic guitars and murmured vocals suggesting an intimacy that the words don't always convey. Much of the album is about mood as much as song, a situation not uncommon to Beck, which is hardly a problem because the ramshackle sound is charming and the songwriting is often excellent, channeling Beck's skewed sensibilities into a traditional setting, particularly on the excellent "Asshole," which is hardly as smirking as its title. It's that delicate, almost accidental, balance of exposed nerves and cutting with that sets One Foot in the Grave apart from Beck's other albums; he'd revisit this sound and sensibility, but never again was he so beguilingly ragged. AMG.

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CTA (California Transit Authority) - Full Circle 2007

Drummer Danny Seraphine was a founding member of Chicago and performed with the group for over 20 years. He is the central figure in CTA, the initials standing for California Transit Authority, a reference to Chicago, which was called Chicago Transit Authority in its early days, also sometimes abbreviated as CTA. The appellation is appropriate, since Seraphine's CTA is, in effect, a tribute band to the earliest period of Chicago's music. This album, Seraphine writes in a sleeve note, "was done with the utmost in honesty and musical integrity to pay homage to a special time and place in music." That time, it seems clear, was the late '60s and early ‘70s; the place was Los Angeles (where Chicagothe band had relocated in search of a record contract). During that period, Chicago played in an eclectic array of musical styles, filling a series of double LPs that made its reputation; later, in the mid-‘70s, the group turned to a softer, more pop-oriented sound. Seraphine's CTA posits the question, what would have happened if Chicago had moved more toward its harder rocking, jazz-fusion side instead? Teaming with guitarist Marc Bonilla and including Larry Bragg (vocals), Peter Fish and Ed Roth (keyboards), and Mick Mahan (bass), Seraphine re-creates a bunch of early Chicago songs. ButCTA downplays the pop elements. Fish re-creates Chicago's horn section on a synthesizer; Bonillaechoes original Chicago guitarist Terry Kath's performances, but, as is his wont, also evokes the speedy metal playing of Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani. Seraphine makes sure the drums are high in the mix and plays with the same energy he brought to the initial recordings. So, these takes are closer to jazz-rock than pop/rock. "Make Me Smile" is done as an instrumental, with Bonilla's guitar replacing the vocal line. "Colour My World" is entirely rearranged by Bonilla and Seraphine, again making room for a lengthy guitar part. "I'm a Man" has a lengthy percussion section, withSeraphine joined by Sheila E. on timbales and Alex Acuña on congas. The result is an album that plays up exactly the style Chicago itself has often tried to play down, its jazz-rock side. Seraphine's departure from Chicago was not amicable. In his notes, he expresses his "deepest gratitude … to all the Chicago fans, fellow drummers and musicians around the world that have made me feel very special, appreciated, and missed." Full Circle is his version of his old band should have been, rather than what it became. AMG.

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Gary Duncan Quicksilver - Strange Trim 2005

There aren't many, if any, medals or awards given for the positions of best second lead guitar players in rock history. If there were, though, Gary Duncan would be right up there for his work in Quicksilver Messenger Service. Quicksilver is most-remembered for John Cippolina's striking, shimmering leads. Yet part of what made them a solid band, rather than just a pretext for guitar solo grandstanding, was Duncan's sympathetic second guitar, which could play (often in the same song) both rhythm and accomplished lead lines on its own, with a more traditional tone than Cippolina's.

Quicksilver Messenger Service, like many of the '60s San Francisco psychedelic bands, were assembled from disparate parts that few would have guessed would have been compatible. In Quicksilver, Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore emerged from the teen garage rock scene. Both had been in the Brogues, though Duncan (born Gary Grubb), wasn't in the band when they did their first single in 1965. Under the name Gary Cole, he joined the Brogues in the summer of 1965 and was in the band when they recorded their second and last single, which paired a fine sullen version of "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" (better known as done by the Chocolate Watch Band) and "Don't Shoot Me Down" (in the style of one of Duncan's favorite bands, the Pretty Things). In late 1965, the Brogues broke up and Elmore and Duncan moved from Merced to San Francisco to join Quicksilver Messenger Service.

On Quicksilver's first two albums, Duncan also contributed some vocals and co-wrote standout songs like "Light Your Windows," "Gold and Silver," and "The Fool." However, Duncan left at the end of 1968, frustrated by what he felt was the band's lack of motivation to expand their repertoire and write new songs. In 1969, he tried to form bands with his good friend Dino Valenti, who had been planning to be in the group that became Quicksilver Messenger Service before getting busted, before Duncan was involved in the project (and before Duncan had even met Valenti). At the end of 1969, though, Duncan ended up rejoining Quicksilver and Valenti got in the band as well. The band radically changed in character as Valenti took a heavy role in the singing and songwriting, and Cippolina and David Freiberg left over the course of their early '70s albums, which were less impressive than those of the previous decade. Valenti and Duncan kept the band going through much of the '70s, but by the end of the decade, Duncan left music for a while to work as a longshoreman for a few years.

Duncan was the sole remaining member of the vintage Quicksilver -- as their name had now been shortened to -- when Peace by Piece came out in 1986. He has remained active in the music since, sometimes as the principal in Quicksilver. AMG.

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Chuck Leavell - What's In That Bag 1998

In blues-rock circles, Chuck Leavell was famed for his work with the Allman Brothers and the Rolling Stones, but he never cut a solo album to showcase his talents. When he began his solo career in 1998, he made an odd choice -- he decided to record a Christmas album, What's in That Bag?. Even though it isn't a choice many other musicians may have made, the resulting album is quite charming. His backing group of studio musicians, including the Muscle Shoals Horns and vocalist Lisa Fischer, is first-rate, and the album has a warm feel which suits the carols just right. Leavell throws in a couple of originals (including the great "Hey Santa") and newly written tunes to balance such standards as "Merry Christmas Baby," "Greensleeves," "Away in a Manger," "We Three Kings," "Joy to the World" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." It all makes for a pleasing, bluesy holiday album that happens to also confirm Leavell's great talents as a keyboardist. AMG.

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Davy Sicard - Ker Maron 2006

Davy Sicard from Reunion is a singer and musician born in 1973. Multi-instrumentalist, he produced a fusion of world music and Maloya. After starting in the a cappella quartet of "Brothers College" in the 1990s, he embarked on a solo career in the early 2000s.

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