Medleyville

A FEW FOLK SONGS

"There's a song about a bygone relationship fallen through the cracks of life. There's a tale for a vagabond lover on the run. A gospel-esque offering about someone's father -- a blue-collar every-man's hero. One decries a presidential administration and a blues is an open letter asking forgiveness. A couple have churchly overtones replete with an eminent chorus here, a 'hallelujah' exclamation there. These are new folk songs written for anyone willing to listen."

So states the press release heralding Folk Songs for the Curious Few, the latest home-conjured release from Michael Mazzarella.

Immediately recognizable by keen students of '90s indie pop as the voice, heart, soul and much-more-than-jangle behind those rightfully regarded Rooks, Mazzarella since 1999 has embarked upon a one-man, Bob Dylan-like Bootleg Series of archival and/or "vault" releases before going officially solo with 2006's Grey Over an Autumn Winter.

Said album "was supposed to represent a mood within a season," Mazzarella reports, the idea based "on [Frank] Sinatra's Capitol concept works, where songs were unified by a theme to paint in sound an isolated motif. Every song minus one was created specifically for that album.

"Even if songs are not connected thematically, there should still be some intrinsic thread that binds them. That's what an album is -- to me."

Consequently, this autumn finds the man mining similar aspirations, though Folk Songs' genesis pointedly steers far from Sinatra levels of loftiness. Simply stated, and oh so thankfully so, it was just "time to do a new album," Mazzarella realized. "What to write? Needed a direction again. Wrote a song. Wrote another. They had something. Felt and sounded like folk songs to me."

Then a partial pause to ask himself, "What do folk songs sound and feel like?" So he duly "searched around. Watched the news. Studied friends. Looked in the mirror. Went to visit my father. Read the papers. Listened to Music From Big Pink. Played the piano. Wrote 10 songs -- maybe more. Needed a title. Re-approached the folk songs idea. Thought, 'Who do I think I am to write folk songs?' Figured, what the heck? Threw it out there. It is what it is."

It is perhaps Mazzarella’s most eloquently regal, yet still somehow understated undertaking to date. Ten songs "delivered using simple guitars, piano, organ and sparse drumming recorded on a throwback eight-track recorder," to quote that press release again, gently tipping towards, yes, the Big Pink Band and "White Album" Beatles as well in its delicate keyboard and background vocal arrangements especially.

The opening "Reflections of a Young Girl Gone" brings to ear the gently tense Bookends-era Simon and Garfunkel, and “The Ballad of Who We Are” and especially "Open Letter of Sorry" often channel lost John Lennon Dakota demos meeting Dylan’s Mr. Jones.

But lest matters ever get a tad too reverently retro, along come "In An Ocean" and "October on Bleecker," which while luring melodies toward Mazzarella’s baroque-pop contemporaries Shane Faubert and Richard X. Heyman end up wholly, unmistakably, and ultimately uniquely Mazzarella.

"It's always raining somewhere, but when it rains in New York City, it's poetry and enterprise," Mazzarella recalls in creating the latter title. "I'm from New England, so I don't mind to walk in rain. Once, I did so from the West Village to my place on the Upper West. Got a song out of it. I think I caught a cold, but it was worth it."

To these ears however, the true undeniable gem in this entire collection is "Shine a Little," which somehow re-creates the deepest, most richly evocative soundscapes of The Rooks at their prime and peak, but by utilizing only Mazzarella’s six strings, keys and the always-supportive vocals of Gail George.

"Tried to write music with a lot of white and yellow in it," Mazzarella says."“No earth tones. No heaviness." Yet there's plenty of selfless heart-on-sleeve for us curious few to guiltlessly wallow within nevertheless -- poetry and enterprise, indeed.

"I know a lot of people," Mazzarella says. "Some are lost, many are fine and others can't get out of their own way. We're all moving along, but to where? There's too much 'I need, I want, I have, I bought, I read, I saw, I hate.'

"Stop! We're lucky to be here. Move along, and be happy you're around to still move along. Make lemonade."

Folk Songs for the Curious Few is available now at: http://cdbaby.com/cd/mazzarella4

Michael Mazzarella’s MySpace page is http://www.myspace.com/michaelmazzarella.

-- Musician/writer Gary Pig Gold is the co-founder of the To M’Lou Music label.

Posted by Medleyville at 08:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Laura Warshauer, Island Def Jam are on the same page

Call it the appetizer before the main course.

With Laura Warshauer's first full-length effort for the Island Def Jam Music Group finished and due in 2009, the company will release a self-titled, seven-song CD on Sept. 23 by the folk-pop singer/songwriter/guitarist as a way to whet the public’s appetite.

"What happened was I spent a few years in the studio and recorded 30-plus songs and wound up turning in a 12-song album to Island," says the New Jersey-bred Warshauer in reference to the upcoming Such a Lovely Place. "They were like, 'This isn't typical of an artist's debut album.' Because I was able to spend so much time in the studio, I was really able to fine-tune things and have the luxury of time, the luxury of living with a mix for six months and then saying, 'Let's scrap it and start again.'

"In this day and age," she adds, "when it's not so much about artist development, you can lose great records and I think the people at Island were wary of that, so that's when they thought of the EP/mini-album."

The EP contains the single "Sweet 17," a song that the 24-year-old Warshauer says she wrote when she was 22.

"You hear about friends of friends, what people are doing, who you knew back then and you haven’t talked to since then," she says about the song's inspiration. "You think about friends and where they are in the world. That song is really the sense of finding love, losing love, wondering if it existed or if it was something that was only in your head.

"There's that sense of playing out our lives in our minds – all that was and all that could have been. And I think that tension is where a number of my songs come from – that sense of what actually happens and what it could be."

-- By Chris M. Junior

Laura Warshauer on tour (schedule subject to change):

* Sept. 23: The Downtown – Red Bank, N.J.

* Sept. 24: Pianos – New York

* Sept. 26: Twisted Tree Café – Asbury Park, N.J.

* Oct. 10: Rehab – New York

* Oct. 16: Tin Angel -- Philadelphia

Posted by Medleyville at 09:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Unwritten Law documents live show, works on new album

A bigger budget could have meant an orchestra playing on Unwritten Law's new concert set, suggests singer Scott Russo.

But the funds weren’t there, says Russo, whose orchestral desire was inspired in part by Portishead’s PNYC, one of his favorite concert documents.

Sans orchestra, Russo and his self-described "genuine high-powered live rock band" did their usual thing at the Key Club in Los Angeles, and the result is the CD/DVD Live and Lawless (Suburban Noize). Even so, there's something a bit different about it -- a five-song acoustic set that's included on the DVD portion.

Unwritten Law will return to the Key Club for a gig on Sept. 19, and after that, the band has no other shows scheduled. That doesn’t mean an extended break is on the horizon: Russo says a new UL studio album, due next year, is in the works.

"The record will be another step in the evolution of this band," he says. "We really don’t wanna make the same record twice.

"There is a lot more reggae on this record," he adds. "We really just wanna make a fun record … an escape from real life for the listeners. Everyone's so serious right now -- everyone but us."

-- By Chris M. Junior

Posted by Medleyville at 08:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nashville, Tenn.-based singer/pianist Brooke Waggoner is making the most out of releasing her debut album, Heal for the Honey.

First came an exclusive iTunes release on Sept. 2. She will make it available worldwide on Sept. 9. And for those who like purchasing physical copies of albums in brick-and-mortar buildings, well, Waggoner will release Heal for the Honey in CD form via her own label, Swoon Moon Music, on Oct. 7.

To commemorate her first album, Waggoner recently took some time to discuss some of her other musical firsts.

First album you owned: "The first recording I can recall owning and listening to a lot was a pink cassette tape called Get in Shape, Girl! It came with pink leg warmers and a pink sweatband. Barbie would tell me what exercises to do with super awesome beats playing in the background. Guess every 6 year old needs to know how to use a dumbbell."

First musician you had a crush on: "Johnny Rzeznik from the Goo Goo Dolls."

First concert you attended: "When I was 15 years old, I went to hear a local band called NC2 play in Houma, about 20 miles south of where I went to high school in Louisiana -- lots of sweat and people in your face. A lot like a high school dance but waaaayyyy more fun!"

First song you wrote: "When I was 9 years old, I wrote a 'piano power ballad' called 'Right Now.' You don't even wanna know what kind of ‘anxst’ a 9 year old goes through."

First time you realized that you wanted to pursue a career in music: "I never really knew what else to do."

First impression of Nashville: "Exciting -- full of eager and interesting people."

First musician you met or worked with in Music City: "The first show I ever played in Music City was at Nashville's famous dive, Springwater Supper Club. After my set, some dude in the crowd came over to talk 'shop' with me. He said he was a songwriter in town and wrote for all the big country folks. This may or may not have been true -- I can't remember his name."

What you'd change now about your first solo EP, 2007's Fresh Pair of Eyes: "Making that project was such a special experience for me. It was the first time I'd ever gotten to record my stuff the way I always wanted to hear it. I wouldn't change a thing. It's my baby."

-- Introduction and interview by Chris M. Junior

Posted by Medleyville at 09:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Musicians join forces for benefit concert

When it comes to memorable moments at Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom, singer/songwriter Frank Bango can recall quite a few from his days working there as a bartender and manager.

There was the time he and Jonathan Richman played Wiffle ball following a concert. And then there was the night he served Arthur Lee a bloody Mary.

On Aug. 26, Bango, who has been battling cancer since March 2007, added a batch of Bowery memories to his list. That evening, Richard Buckner, Victoria Williams and others performed at the hip venue as part of the Frank Bango Bone Marrow-thon/Stem Cell-abration benefit.

Here Bango shares with Medleyville.us some of what he felt made it a special night.

Most interesting song choice:
"For me, it was Richard Buckner doing a version of 'Don't Be a Shy Nurse' from my new record [The Sweet Songs of Decay]. He sang it beautifully against a backdrop of loops and delays."

Biggest surprises:
"The whole night ran right on time every step of the way, and Sean Eden, formerly of Luna, joined Dean [Wareham] and Britta [Phillips] onstage for a rousing rendition of '23 Minutes in Brussells,' one of my all-time faves."

Coolest gesture:
"A fan who came donated the money that she raised by selling two Yankees/Red Sox tickets. I'm not even into sports, but I know that's a big deal. I was incredibly touched."

Notable backstage banter:
"Maybe it was Victoria Williams explaining how she sells back all her extra solar power back to the power company in Joshua Tree, Calif. She still insists that she's getting ripped off. I also got a lesson on dyeing wool from Richard Buckner's fabulous girlfriend Jill."

-- Introduction and interview by Chris M. Junior

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