Let’s do an epic warm-up to a summertime Actionsuit! tribute to Porcupine Tree. I’ll go first: Gavin Harrison’s “Cymbal Song” from the Arriving Somewhere… DVD. Not the best quality, but still very cool.
Author Archives: GaryKramer
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil Scott-Heron died last week. He was a politically aware intellectual, poet, and musician who came up in the 70s and who had a big influence on many contemporary performers and activists. He is probably best known for this:
Here’s another one I found that I like even more because he stretches out and develops the ideas and the wordplay. You could call it a lot of things, but I’d probably put it with “protest music” alongside Rage and Bob Marley and Woody Guthrie.
Galactic is your favorite new band, you just don’t know it yet
I shall make my case in the coming weeks.
Galactic is an electric funk group out of New Orleans. I could begin almost anywhere, so I’ll just go with this: live in Japan in 2008, touring for From the Corner to the Block. They brought both Boots Riley and sissy bounce rapper Big Freedia with them, which seems to have greatly pleased the Japanese. This is “Hustle Up,” the official video for which features a breakdancing guy in a pteranodon suit.
(And nothing says Actionsuit! quite like a breakdancing guy in a pteranodon suit.)
Rebirth
The Rebirth Brass Band released their latest studio album this week. Happy Easter.
Led Zeppelin Live, As God Intended It
I was a huge, huge Zeppelin guy as a teenager, and they’re still probably my #1 all-time band. Before I really knew how to play guitar very well, I could play a handful of Zeppelin riffs and solos. I knew all the songs, especially the deep cuts, and used them to begin figuring out how music is made, and how bands work.
But live Zeppelin always sucked, and in my 30s I moved on to more and different kinds of music. Then I heard Black Dog live one night on the radio about five years ago. I was blown away by how heavy and how tight it was, not at all like the sloppy, druggy Song Remains the Same. I figured it was a good cover by the Black Crowes or someone, maybe even with Pagey. When they said it was Zeppelin from ’73, I couldn’t stop grinning.
The next day I picked up How the West Was Won, a triple live album released in 2003. It features crisp versions of Immigrant Song, Black Dog, The Ocean, Dancing Days Rock and Roll; an acoustic mini-set with John Paul Jones on mandolin and Robert Plant on guitar; and 20+ min. solos and medleys built around Whole Lotta Love, Dazed and Confused, and Moby Dick; and an uplifting rendition of Stairway that makes you ashamed you ever grew tired of it.
Listening to Zeppelin live in 1973, in California touring for Houses of the Holy, makes me happy and makes me feel young. Rock and Roll.
Actionsuit Alert! 