The New Yorks. Independent. 15 Oct 2017
The first thing that strikes me as I listen to the second release from local Adelaide band The New Yorks is that they have an appropriate name. New York is without a doubt my favourite city in the world, and while I don’t know if any of the band’s members have had the pleasure of visiting the city, their music exudes a mood reminiscent of the city and its energy. I’m not sure if it’s because they remind me a little of bands like The Strokes or because they have an urban rawness to their sound, but their name is certainly fitting.
The release I Wish I Was You, But That’s Just Me is a tight little effort, and though there’s only four tunes and a short interlude, there’s enough energy to fill an album. The band’s rock sound sounds familiar and yet is fresh at the same time. Their style is undoubtedly rock with an interesting mellow edge, where lead guitar strikingly follows the vocal melodies and soars over clean and tight rhythms.
The songs are punchy and feel simple, but the more you listen additional depth is revealed. The single from the EP is the closer, We Enjoy This Too Much, and this is also an appropriate name, being quite an enjoyable and catchy tune!
The band has had quite a lot of activity lately, with a bunch of shows in the eastern states, and lots of local activities too. Check out their Facebook page to see what they have coming up, and be sure to check them out. I may just see you there!
Luke Balzan
The New Yorks are a four-piece indie rock band from Adelaide, South Australia. The band includes Vinnie Barbaro, Marcus Rosella, Carlos Carosi & Jared Grimm. Their sound incorporates angular guitar work and hedonistic vocals, taking influence from the early 2000’s wave of indie rock.
Track Listing
1. Badman
2. Sir Wolf
3. Truman
4. Death In Modern Time (Interlude)
5. We Enjoy This Way Too Much
Supersonic Blues Machine. Provogue/Mascot Label Group. 15 Oct 2017
I’m definitely a summer kind of person. Earlier this year, I found myself working across Europe and Canada while they were in the grips of a bitterly cold winter. While it’s nice for an Australian to see snow and experience the big freeze, by the end of my ‘tour’, I was definitely missing the sun. On my way home, I stopped off in California to thaw out, and even though it was February and technically the dead of winter, I jumped in a big American muscle car, and headed for the beach. Cos it’s always sunny in California! It’s amazing what effect the sun can have when you’ve been deprived, even if only for a few weeks. Needless to say, my smile continues to grow as we plunge headlong into the Adelaide summer, with our long days, warm sunshine and fabulous sunsets.
Almost as important as the sunshine itself, a soundtrack to the summer is an essential season must-have, and listening to Californisoul, the second album from So-Cal act Supersonic Blues Machine seems to provide just that.
The band is a trio made up of well-known session players, who’ve obviously mastered their respective instrumental crafts, but here are free to play their own tunes, and do so very well.
As the band’s name may suggest, the blues is an important feature here, with a healthy doses of funk, rhythm and blues, rock, and even reggae. There are guitars a plenty, grooving drums, soaring blues harp, choral backing vocals, and the sweet tinkling of ivory too.
The album opener I Am Done Missing You has a grooving rocksteady rhythm, L.O.V.E. is a chunky blues party, Broken Heart ventures into country territory, Elevate has a hard-edged thump, and Hard Times gets right to the heart of the blues.
There are 13 tunes on offer, and all of them have plenty to take away and cherish. So pop on the album, crack open your favourite beverage, and enjoy the soundtrack to the endless summer.
Luke Balzan
Supersonic Blues Machine is the magic merge of drumming legend Kenny Aronoff, bassist/producer Fabrizio Grossi, and award winning guitarist/lead singer Lance Lopez. Californisoul is the second album and features guest appearances by Billy F. Gibbons, Steve Lukather, Eric Gales, Robben Ford, & Walter Trout.
Track Listing
1. I Am Done Missing You
2. Somebody's Fool (feat. Robben Ford)
3. L.O.V.E.
4. Broken Heart (feat. Billy F. Gibbons)
5. Bad Boys
6. Elevate (feat. Eric Gales)
7. The One
8. Hard Times (feat. Steve Lukather)
9. Cry
10. The Stranger
11. What's Wrong (feat. Walter Trout)
12. Thank You
13. This Is Love
SIMO. Provogue/Mascot Label Group. 15 Oct 2017
It’s a rare occasion these days that a piece of music has instant appeal. Even the so-called classic era of rock music would normally take a listen or two to draw you in, with the artist capable of instant fandom a rare and special commodity. I am quite pleased to note that the latest offering from SIMO is exactly that, an album full of tunes that won me over right from the get-go. I hadn’t really heard of SIMO prior to this, but I’m certainly keen to find out more now.
Rise & Shine is the band’s third long-player, and their second on their label, and it is a very impressive collection of tunes. Doing a bit of background reading on the Nashville, Tennessee trio, centred and named for guitarist-frontman JD Simo, I found they’d toured with the likes of the Allman Brothers, Deep Purple and Joe Bonamassa, so I’m not surprised to find that I got right into what SIMO was doing.
The music is along the lines of those aforementioned bands, being bluesy, funky, cruisy and a bit psychedelic too. The guitars are a pleasure and the grooving beats are instantly enjoyable. From the slow build of opener Return, to the funky chicken-peck guitar of People Say, the rollicking instrumental funk of The Climb, to the epic blues of
Light The Candle, this album’s got plenty to enjoy.
The pace is changed up for a few sultry numbers like I Want Love and acoustic The Light, before the whole thing wraps with a massive 13-minute epic I Pray, which is a great social commentary on everything going on in the world right now, sans all the right proselytising and leftist populism. For a cynic like me, this brings everything together beautifully!
On top of great tunes and subject matter, the feel of the album is raw and vintage, with a real ballsy sound, rich and warm with oodles of tone. The virtuosic guitar interludes are accompanied by solid drums and bass, and solid rock vocals. This is the kind of album that packs in the appeal for musos as well as having plenty for a casual listener too. Fans of ’70s blues rock, a la Allman Brothers, Hendrix, Deep Purple, even Creedence, will love this!
I’ve had a ball listening to SIMO for weeks now in the car, in the house, and anywhere. Great stuff… now, to check out their back catalogue!
Luke Balzan
SIMO is an American rock band which formed in Nashville, TN. The group is notable for having virtuoso guitarist JD Simo as the centerpiece and namesake. A psychedelic soul modern rock band that also incorporates extended improvisation into its live sets, the group consists of JD Simo (guitar, vocals), Adam Abrashoff (drums), and Elad Shapiro (bass, backing vocals).
Track Listing
1. Return
2. Meditation
3. Shine
4. People Say
5. Don’t Waste Time
6. I Want Love
7. The Climb
8. Light The Candle
9. Be With You
10. The Light
11. I Pray
Black Stone Cherry. Mascot Label Group. 15 Oct 2017
It’s well known that modern hard rock and metal music has the blues as its roots. Born out of the pain of slavery in the US, the style developed from the early 1900s and gradually gained momentum, with its veiled subject matter and story-telling, rocking African rhythms and irresistible and distinctive chord structures, until rock’n’roll was born, and the rest is history.
Rhythm and blues was an underlying factor in some of the biggest rock acts of all time, including the Stones, Zeppelin, Hendrix and more, with obvious extensions into the metal end of the spectrum. With all that in mind, it’s great to hear when hard rock bands pay homage to the style that started it all.
Kentucky metal act Black Stone Cherry, who had a killer rock album Kentucky out last year, have done exactly that, with their new EP Black To Blues, which has a bunch of immortal blues classics, given a characteristic Black Stone Cherry makeover to great effect.
There are tunes like Muddy Water’s Hoochie Coochie Man, Albert King’s Born Under A Bad Sign, Howlin’ Wolf’s Built For Comfort and Freddie King’s Palace Of The King, and more.
The breadth of cover tunes is wide, and equally wide is Black Stone Cherry’s take on these classics. If you’re a rock fan and not too familiar with this kind of stuff, check out Black To Blues, which serves as a great introduction to an amazing world. And it’s a great little release in its own right too!
Luke Balzan
Black Stone Cherry is an American hard rock band, formed in 2001 in Edmonton, Kentucky. The band consists of Chris Robertson (lead vocals, lead guitar), Ben Wells (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Jon Lawhon (bass guitar, backing vocals), and John Fred Young (drums, backing vocals). Black Stone Cherry has released six studio albums: Black Stone Cherry (2006), Folklore and Superstition (2008), Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (2011), Magic Mountain (2014), Kentucky (2016), Black To Blues (2017).
Track Listing
1. Built For Comfort
2. Champagne & Reefer
3. Palace Of The King
4. Hoochie Coochie Man
5. Born Under A Bad Sign
6. I Want To Be Loved
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 27 Sep 2017
At short notice, my ‘plus-one’ wasn’t able to join me for this concert but circumstances saw me give my spare ticket away to an engaging Costa Rican tourist whom I saw busily snapping away on his camera in the downstairs foyer of the Adelaide Town Hall and happily engaging with the theatre staff about the beauty of the building. He didn’t seem sure at first whether to accept my offer, but he did. During the interval we chatted and I learned that he was in town for the international space conference, and was presenting a paper on the performance of a machine in a micro gravity environment. Apart from his obvious intellectual prowess and exemplary English that would leave most Aussies in the slow lane, he also had a keen ear for fine music playing. I knew this when he commented that Amanda Forsyth played Beethoven and Chopin ‘with her entire body’. Amanda Forsyth of course is the cellist in the Zuckerman Trio, which is completed with the renowned Pinchas Zuckerman on violin and Angela Cheng on piano.
My new friend was of course quite right. Forsyth is one of the most talented and insightful cellists around, and her musicality and free spirit was on best display in Arensky’s Piano Trio No.1 in D minor, Op.32. Up until this performance I had never heard this work live, and all I could compare the Zuckerman’s performance to was my superb recording by The Lenore Piano Trio on the Hyperion label. The Zuckerman’s found something fresh in this delightful composition, and Forsyth revelled in having the lion’s share in stating the delightful and numerous themes. The scherzo waltz-like second movement zipped along with humour and flashes of virtuosic chutzpah from all three instrumentalists. Zuckerman himself makes it look so easy. Cheng is a picture of calmness and precision, while Forsyth looks and sounds commanding - almost nonchalant.
The programme began with Beethoven’s Sonata No.1 in D, Op.12 No.1 for violin and piano. He wrote ten sonatas for piano and violin, with the later sonatas eclipsing the earlier ones for popularity and musical daring. Zuckerman and Cheng were clinical in their performance: the many fragments in the composition were clearly and emphatically stated, some with more resoluteness than others, and the spotlight passed seamlessly backwards and forwards between them both. Equals, as it should be.
Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.65, is a troubled piece. It is almost as if Chopin did not ‘know where to be at’ with it. Where the Beethoven almost luxuriated in the freedom of loosely related musical ideas, the Chopin is a relentless search for a narrative. It’s there, but it takes concertation to appreciate its delicacy, and Cheng and Forsyth laid it out clearly before us. Cheng’s precise phrasing and finely balanced dynamics gave Forsyth the perfect aural canvas to clearly expose the subtlety of Chopin’s musical scheme.
At the conclusion of the concert, my new Costa Rican friend said his goodbye’s and left the Town Hall to return to his conference to ponder the intricacies of human kind’s engagement with space, but I suspect he did so with a different ‘music of the spheres’ at the front of his mind, at least for a while.
Kym Clayton
When: 27 Sep
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed