Chrissie Hynde - Stockholm

Note: This review originally appeared in the Illinois Entertainer. 

Considering how often The Pretenders’ lineup has changed over the years, in a way, Chrissie Hynde has been a solo artist for some time now. But Hynde still looks as tough as nails, and if she says Stockholm is her solo debut, who’s going to argue with her? Recorded in the city of Stockholm with guitarist Bjorn Yttling from Peter, Bjorn and John producing and helping out with the songwriting, the album does find Hynde breaking new ground while still playing to her strengths.

“You Or No One” and “You’re The One” exhibit Hynde’s knack for celebrating the excitement of new-found love, and are fortified with alluring string arrangements. Nothing here has the raw power of “Tattooed Love Boys,” but Hynde, possibly more than any other contemporary vocalist, has that ability to wipe a tear from your cheek one moment and spit in your eye the next. “Dark Sunglasses,” the guitar-driven first single, is a satiric jab at high society, and on the bristling “A Plan Too Far,” she kicks an ex-lover to the curb with a series of clever put-downs. “Tourniquet” and “Adding The Blue” are precious rather than “Precious,” but overall, Hynde’s first official solo flight soars nicely.

Saturday Slumgullion

A few more items about the entertainment world.

Singer Imelda May will be bringing her uniquely vintage mayhem to the Park West in Chicago tomorrow (August 3rd) night. The soul/punk band Tracer Bullet will serve as the opening act. Showtime is 8:00 PM. 

Feel The Noise, the first CD from Paul Collins since his impressive and tongue-in-cheek titled King Of Power Pop came out in 2010, will be released on September 9th. Fans can get a preview by listening to the song “I Need My Rock n Roll” on Whitney Matheson’s Pop Candy column on USA Today’s site. Collins, who was a member of the highly influential trio The Nerves before recording classic power pop tunes with The Paul Collins Beat, will open his next tour in Chicago at the Cobra Lounge on September 23rd. Other dates across the U.S.A. will include Louisville, KY, Pittsburgh, PA, and Houston, TX.

Single tickets for David Bowie Is at The Museum Of Contemporary Art are now on sale for $25. The multi-media exhibit will be in Chicago (the only American stop) from September 23rd through January 4th, 2015. Also at The MCA, as recently reported by Hedy Weiss in the Chicago Sun-Times, Bryan Ferry will join Roxy Music biographer Michael Bracewell for a discussion on September 17th. Admission is $5.00.

Now that Lollapalooza 2014 is two-thirds of the way toward being history, indie rock fans may be interested to know that single day tickets are on sale for this year’s Riot Fest And Carnival in Chicago. The annual event is marking its 10th Anniversary of coming to town by offering seven stages of cutting edge rock in Humboldt Park over the weekend of September 12 through 14th.

Considering the impressive lineup of talent, choosing a single day could be difficult. Personally, I’d be torn between Saturday, which includes performances by The Flaming Lips, Metric, Paul Weller, The Dandy Warhols, and The Buzzcocks; and Sunday, with bands like The Cure, Cheap Trick, Patti Smith, Naked Raygun, Billy Bragg, Archie Powell And The Exports, and Tegan And Sara.

Elgin, IL will be holding its very first Fringe Festival from September 11th through the 14. Local venues Elgin Art Showcase, Imago Studios, Elgin Public House, the Doctor Who-themed Blue Box Cafe, and Side Street Studio Arts will be involved in the festival, which will offer 100 performances involving art music, dance, comedy, and theatre. Tickets range from $5 to $10, and some some events will be free. Applications for participating artists are no longer being accepted, but hopefully this will become an annual event.

On October 25th, Elgin will stage its annual zombie-inspired Nightmare On Chicago Street, which incorporates live music, a costume contest, special guests, a Steampunk-themed Underground  City, and comedy clips filmed by Jeff Kelley from the Sunday Morning Coffee With Jeff internet show and podcast. I’ve had a lot of fun acting in Kelley’s zombie clips in the past, and it looks like I’ll be doing it again this year.

Slumgullion

As it began. About five years ago when I started this blog, my very first post was about a local 1960s cover band called The New Invaders. They’re playing tonight at Hodges Park in Park Ridge, within walking distance of the Metra station. The New Invaders draw upon an eclectic selection of artists from the 1960s, including The Hollies, The Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills And Nash, and Question Mark And The Mysterians. They’re also be performing at Summer Daze in Warrenville tomorrow afternoon at 5:30 PM.

A hearty BHT welcome to everyone who has come to Chicago for Lollapalooza.  If you’re a visitor or even a local who’s not sure how to choose from among the amazing selection of cutting-edge musical acts being offered, rest assured the city’s media has your back. WXRT, 93.1FM will once again be doing live reports from Lollapalooza. You can stream the station at its website. Local free papers The Reader, New City, and Innerview Magazine all have special issues devoted to Lollaapalooza.You can find those publications at Reckless Records locations, including the one downtown on Madison, between State and Wabash. Today’s issues of the Tribune and Sun-Times also offer their choices for the best acts to check out.

And if you’re in town on business but still want to pick up some Lollapalooza souvenirs, there’s a Lolla Popup store in Block 37, at State and Washington downtown.

The Webstirs, Phil Angotti, Hurtin Kind, and Keiffer MccLean are all performing at Martyrs’ on Lincoln Avenue tonight. There are some interesting tributes coming up at Martyrs’ next week; when Great Moments In Vinyl performs Fleetwood Mac “Well To Rhiannon + Rumors” on Monday, and Tributosaurus Becomes The Bee Gees on Wednesday. 

Echo And The Bunnymen have a WXRT show next Sunday night, August 10th, at Metro. Most likely they’ll be doing songs from their recently released CD, Meteorites.

Those English guys always did like birds. It will be an evening of British Invasion hits when Chad And Jeremy join forces with Peter Asher of Peter And Gordon for a single night on October 18th at the Flying Monkee venue in Plymouth, NH. The concert will benefit the New Audubon. Asher’s former performing partner Gordon Waller passed away in 2009.

The Plastiscines have released a video of an acoustic performance  of “Coming To Get You” from their latest release, Back To The Start.

The Red Plastic Buddha - Songs For Mara

Since forming in 2005, The Red Plastic Buddha has helped establish a vibrant psychedelic scene in Chicago, along with bands like Secret Colours, The Luck Of Eden Hall, and Tomorrow The Moon. A few band members have come and gone over the years, but lead vocalist-bassist Tim Ferguson remains at the helm on Songs For Mara, The Red Plastic Buddha’s third and most adventurous effort. In addition to fellow band members keyboards player-backup vocalist Eric Ahlgren, drummer Neil Hunt, lead guitarist Derik Kendall, and guitarist-backup vocalist Mike Connor; Ferguson is assisted by some guest musicians, including vocalist-guitarist Pamela Richardson from The Pralines (she’s also his wife), guitarist Gregory Curvey from The Luck Of Eden Hall, and singer-songwriter Phil Angotti.

Lindsey Snyder’s flute playing adds a hippie vibe to “Being Human,” a simple but knowing look at various personalities. In addition to psychedelic gems like “Little White Pills” and “A House Is Not A Motel,” The Red Plastic Buddha also connects with the garage rock of “Girl Like You.” And there’s a surprising sense of humor woven through the mind-blowing imagery of some of these songs.

The spacey “She’s An Alien” depicts an attractive extraterrestrial who, “Came to save the world but just gets drunk in bars.” The high-speed “Cosmonaut” offers fun in a sort of outer space “Back In The U.S.S.R.” vein, and “Stuck At Zero” lurches along to some powerful guitar playing by Kendall and Connor while Ferguson spits out lines about a zombie who’s given some thought to what he can accomplish under his new circumstances. “When I come back from the dead, I ain’t messing around,” Ferguson vows, along with a number of other threats like stealing a G.T.O. Chances are, The Red Plastic Buddha will be coming back some time soon as well. 

The Kumari - Until That Day

The Kumari, a London-based quartet that has been drawing critical acclaim for its authentic 1960s style rock since forming in 2012, is once again utilizing the 7-inch vinyl record format. “Until That Day” is a three-track single being offered in a limited run of 500 copies via the Spanish label Hey Girl Records. The songs can also be downloaded on The Kumari’s Bandcamp page.

The energetic Side A “Until That Day,” which features the ethereal vocals of Claude Pelletier along with the ringing guitars of Pelletier and Dimitri Rouzo, harks back to an era when psychedelia flowed like a river through San Francisco. The Kumari switch to pure garage rock on Side B for “Her Heart Of Stone,” using Pellertier’s raw singing, fuzzed-out guitars, and an infectious beat that will make everyone (guys included) want to start go-go dancing. “Girl Don’t Exist,” the second track on the B Side, offers a change of pace. The twanging guitar arrangement on this tale of love and longing owes as much to Country and Western music as it does to the 1960s underground rock that The Kumari do so well. 

The Click Beetles - Wake Up To Music!

The Click Beetles might sound like the name of a Beatles tribute band, but it’s actually a pseudonym for musician/journalist Dan Pavelich. Numerous power pop fans will be familiar with his band The Bradburys, as well as the holiday compilations he puts out on his Vandalay Records label to help charities. Longtime power pop fans may even remember him as a member of The Steppingstones. Wake Up To Music! is the result of a few years of recording solo material in Pavelich’s home studio, with only his wife and daughter helping out.

There’s one Beatles cover within the 11 tracks on this effort, but Pavelich reinterprets “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” as though it had been recorded by one of The Fab Four’s British Invasion contemporaries. He also taps into that era for the appealing “Try Girl.” He offers a solid cover of Marshall Crenshaw’s “Cynical Girl,” and gives “I Never Said Goodbye,” co-written with pop singer-songwriter Lisa Mychols, the feel of a mid-1960s Motown single.

The catchy “Shut The TV Down” and “Tell Me How You Feel” are similar to Pavelich’s work with The Bradburys, and he borrows the line “Do you, don’t you want me to love you?” from “Helter Skelter” for “Glad,” a fun song that evokes The Cars with its peppy synthesizer arrangement. Wake Up To Music! gets even more adventurous with harder guitar and darker theme on “Ever Since The World Began,” and the rock biz satire “Bubblegum.”

Bangles 101

Drummer Brad Elvis joined The Bangles on two of their more popular songs.

At one point at City Winery last night, The Bangles joked that they should have brought along a slide show. The concert, the first of two sold-out gigs at the Chicago venue, did provide an extensive history of the band, with Susanna Hoffs, Debbie Peterson, and Vicki Peterson (Michael Steele departed over 10 years ago) sharing memories of their earliest recording days. Maybe they were inspired to uncork their vintage material by the custom-made bottles of “Bangles Wine” City Winery had for sale.

Hoffs and the Peterson sisters, along with bassist Derrick Anderson, entered to a recording of “My Own Time”* by their brethren in L.A.’s Paisley Underground, The Three O’Clock. The opening number “Hazy Shade Of Winter” set the pace for a band that has always had more to offer than a handful of Top 40 singles and still performs with a fountain-of-youth intensity. The harmonies were consistently impressive, whether on early LP cuts like “Live” or on the title track from The Bangles’ 2011 release, Sweetheart Of The Sun.

Other than “Manic Monday,” the first half of the concert concentrated on lesser-known deep tracks like “Some Dreams Come True,” “James,” and “Angels Don’t Fall In Love.” They went back to their very first single, the independently released, “Getting Out Of Hand,” and played all three tracks from their  1982 self-titled EP. “In Your Room” had a grittier feel than one might remember from the seductive rock video, and an extended version of “Hero Takes A Fall” morphed into a jam session that included the riff from Status Quo’s “Pictures Of Matchstick Men.”

While introducing a sterling cover of the Alex Chilton-penned “September Gurls,” Vicki Peterson suggested that anyone not familiar with his band Big Star should, “get yourself educated.” She added,  “You’ll be glad you did.” The Bangles also romped through the classic garage rock of “Open Your Eyes” by The Nazz, and called upon a popular local musician to help out with the Kimberly Rew composition “Going Down To Liverpool.”** Debbi Peterson joined her sister and Hoffs at the front of the stage, while Brad Elvis from The Romantics and The Handcuffs took over on the drums.

The same lineup was later used for “Walk Like An Egyptian,” which served as the evening’s second and final encore, following a delicately beautiful rendition of “Eternal Flame.” As with every previous Bangles concert I’ve seen since their return in 2000, they seemed to thoroughly enjoy performing on their own terms without interference from a major label. And that’s another important lesson.

*   Originally recorded by The Bee Gees

** Originally recorded  by Katrina And The Waves