BOB GULLA

Kind of blue

BOB GULLA — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:28:24 GMT

Roomful soldiers on; plus, the Radionics and Ebu Gogo
Roomful of Blues is headed back home, and the timing couldn’t be better.

A FRESH START: The Radionics.

Roomful of Blues is headed back home, and the timing couldn’t be better. After the very sad and unexpected death of trumpeter Bob Enos on the road in Georgia, the band had to honor a commitment to play a week-long blues cruise. When a family member crosses over, the last thing you want to do is be forced into a social situation. But at two gigs this weekend, sympathetic family, friends, and fans will help the band mourn Enos’s passing. Roomful will also be celebrating the release of their new Alligator outing, Raisin’ a Ruckus. Enos’s studio swan song, Ruckus is another exhilarating batch of uptempo blues, roots, and swing. This time out, singer Dave Howard, guitarist/ bandleader Chris Vachon, and Rich Lataille all contribute memorable tracks. The quality of the material is consistently good and the performance was captured skillfully by Vachon and Jon Duva. The band’s label deal with Alligator suits them beautifully; fingers crossed that it lasts. It’s a match made in blues heaven. And speaking of heaven . . . We’re sure Bob and his trumpet will be watching over the proceedings, an angel with brass, always there, spot-on, pitch-perfect, and rockin’ the night away.

Roomful of Blues | January 25 | 8 pm | The Towers, 35 Ocean Road, Narragansett | $20 | 401.782.2597 | thetowersri.com | January 26 | 8 pm | Blackstone River Theatre, 549 Broad Street, Cumberland | $20 | 401.725.9272 | riverfolk.org

The Radionics
They used to be Rebecca Nurse, and while that name served its purpose, it didn’t really do the band any favors when they tried reaching outside the local area. Now coined the Radionics, Tracy “Trace” Garrity (voice/bass), Shawn Garrity (guitar, voice), and drummer Angelo Franco have regrouped for a fresh start. They officially kick off this new phase with the release of their debut, Doubt, Pain, and Rock ’n’ Roll, this Friday at Jerky’s. They recorded some decent stuff as RN, but they never quite attained the heights they’ve hit with their new disc. The trio fuses heavy classic and punky rock a la Joan Jett, with dashes of Zep and AC/DC. They’ve also added more intricate harmony work on guitar and voice, and come up with some nice melodic counterpoints, especially on “Holiday In Iraq” and the Who-influenced “Money,” which finds Trace doing her best Bruce Dickinson impersonation.

A life in music

BOB GULLA — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:51:12 GMT

Celebrating Ken Lyon's back pages
Why is that we install a stop light after an accident?

THEN AND NOW: Lyon in 1960 and 2006.

Why is that we install a stop light after an accident? In music circles, why do we wait until someone’s laid up with a serious illness before we pay tribute with a benefit? Why not show them the respect they deserve when the subject of the tribute can fully participate and truly enjoy what’s being done in their honor?

Now in his fifth decade of music-making, Ken Lyon is one of those artists who deserves to be recognized. Few musicians have had the legs he’s had to make the trek from upstart enthusiast to seen-it-all vet. And he’s done it with the kind of style and class that has allowed him to build, rather than burn, many dependable bridges along the way.

During his odyssey, Lyon has indeed been there and done that. Starting his professional career as a folk performer, he enjoyed a few brushes with stardom, including getting his single, “Fallen Idol,” played on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand back in ’61 and performing at those classic record hops of the early rock ’n’ roll era. From there he moved to Cambridge to try his hand at the budding folk music scene, where he befriended the likes of Tom Rush and Richie Havens. He played all the legendary folk clubs in Greenwich Village, and was among rarefied musical company. From there, he continued making inroads, sidling over to the blues, with the original Tombstone Blues Band. He recorded for Columbia, toured with Mott the Hoople and Queen in 1973 and, despite gaining momentum, fell on tough times brought about by regime changes at the label.

The Ken Lyon Tribute this weekend, an event occasioned by his 66th birthday, will be a kaleidoscopic trip through the guitarist’s back pages. Lyon will revisit each phase of his musical career, from the Brill Building pop of New York City to the coffeehouses of the Northeast and the concert halls of the world with the Tombstone folks. Musicians from every era of his musical history will be joining him in the fun. Whether it’s pop, folk, blues, or rock you dig most, Lyon has played it and you’re gonna get some. The night will feature Lyon in solo/acoustic mode, the Mark Taber Trio, Pendragon, John Cafferty and Beaver Brown, the new Shoefly Orchestra, the Tombstone Blues Band, and probably a whole bunch of “this-is-your-life” special guests. Be there to catch the start of Lyon’s next incredible chapter,

Bully for Woolly

BOB GULLA — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 19:14:07 GMT

Honeyhander’s Mannerisms is gripping and fully realized
If U2 played regularly at late, lamented underground mill spaces like Fort Thunder, they’d be lucky to sound something like Honeyhander

If U2 played regularly at late, lamented underground mill spaces like Fort Thunder, they’d be lucky to sound something like Honeyhander, a Providence fivesome that incorporates everything from early Depeche Mode and the New Romantics to dark, tensile bands like the Fall and those from the old Factory label. There’s even some shoegazer action going on a la My Bloody Valentine and a little post-Wave Radiohead vibe, which should please some of the folks in town that miss those long-lost days of early alt-rock. That said, Honeyhander sounds very much like they’ve taken all of these influences and squooshed them into their own thing. It’s pretty tasty and, if they find a way to keep it going, may be the linchpin of a vibrant new scene. Honeyhander is Anthony Ferreira (vocals, synths, guitars), Mike Cardoso (guitar), Christopher Todd (drums, percussion), Dan Burns (guitar), and Shane Broderick (bass).

That’s a big lineup for a rock band, and as evidenced by their debut EP Woolly Mannerisms, they make big splotches of noise daubed from a colorful palette. In fact, they’re so colorful Honeyhander is attracting the kind of attention not often seen in these parts — that is, from big-time record labels. Honeyhander, like many of the bands Rhode Island spawns, is edgy and uncompromising, daring and experimental. Unlike many of our very bravest bands past and present (Six Finger Satellite, Arab On Radar, Chinese Stars, Daughters, the Bolt), they fall on the accessible side of the tonal line. But they use that accessibility to bludgeon their audiences with decibels and daring every chance they get. Woolly Mannerisms, released on the Strictly Amateur Films label in the US and Release the Bats! in Europe, contains only a handful of tunes, but what’s present is gripping and beautifully realized. It oozes with personality and focus. Details grow like whiskers out of a hairy face, stubby at first, then needle-long and sharp; as the song builds, those details become a full-blown beard, a mug adorned with thick layers of hair. Like all promising bands, Honeyhander seems to have a strong sense of purpose. And they maintain that purpose throughout the EP’s best tunes: the opener, “Wear Out Your Muscles Mary,” and “Our Connoisseurs Are Feeders,” a track you can stream on the band’s website, honeyhander.com. Ferreira produced and mixed the recording, and it’s clear he and the band took an incredible amount of time developing the sound. The recording is thickly layered. The story goes that after an intense and fatiguing mixing and mastering process, Ferreira was unhappy with the end result and redid it. In his best crazed Brian Wilson persona, he paced the room for days, shut in, blaring the mixes and tweaking the minutest of details. “I detoxed from listening to it at all after we finished it,” he says on the band’s website, “and in retrospect I’m glad we were that anal with everything. It sounds really terrific.”

Barry Cowsill, 1954-2005

BOB GULLA — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:25:14 GMT

Plus, the Entrance, and a new name for Planet Groove
We wanted to bid a formal adieu to Rhode Island legend Barry Cowsill, whose death was reported last week.

We wanted to bid a formal adieu to Rhode Island legend Barry Cowsill, whose death was reported last week. He and I had spoken last summer about doing a story on what he was up to, but weren’t able to hook up. Certainly, we would not talk about the Cowsills, his child star-making vehicle. He had little interest in rehashing all that. His new stuff, as reported by Jim Gillis at the Newport Daily News, was really stellar and certainly worthy of attention.

“In 2004,” Gillis writes, “Cowsill recorded several tracks, with Mike Warner on drums and Frank Dwyer producing, at Dwyer’s SoundScape studio in Newport. Cowsill played keyboards, guitar and bass and sang all vocals. Some of the tracks are re-recorded versions of songs on his 2001 CD As Is and others are new.

“The songs, such as ‘River of Love’ and ‘My Car Don’t Lock,’ are largely power pop with strong melodic hooks and crunching guitar chords. ‘Kid’ has a ragtime piano flavor, with Cowsill employing a fake trumpet effect with his vocals.”

Barry’s first love, after his family, was music, and he spent much time and energy in the studio, where he was considered by many to be an eccentric, Brian Wilson-type genius. He had been playing frequently at Billy Goode’s in his hometown of Newport.

“He’s an absolute musical whiz in the studio,” Warner told Gillis. “He knew what he wanted to do. Barry has the best pop sensibilities. In the studio, he was all business but a lot of fun.”

But Barry, 51, never returned to finish the project, which still might see the light of day. He left for New Orleans last August, with plans for drug rehab in LA. But he disappeared sometime after Hurricane Katrina hit, around September 2. His body was discovered on January 4.

Says occasional collaborator Thom Enright, “Barry was a very talented and funny guy. He had a lot of great music left to finish. He used to show up at my gig Monday nights at Billy Goode’s in Newport and always bring a good vibe to the band and the crowd. A great singer and songwriter, he had a wonderful sense of humor and always a good story to tell. I’ll really miss him.”

Fury and serenity

BOB GULLA — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 18:57:39 GMT

Providence scene and heard: Verbana Darvell
Frenzied post-hardcore a la At the Drive-In, with throat-strangling screams interspersed with near-classical violin passages.

It all started a few years back when Brad Cottman and Blaine Wilkinson were in a band called Life This Week, an indie punk act with lots of chutzpah and good intentions. The band was around for a few years, toured quite a bit regionally, and laid down a debut disc, Has the World Gone Crazy?, before deciding on going separate ways. Wilkinson and Cottman then teamed up with guitarist Kevin Gougen on a more acoustic-based project, inspired by friendlier influences like the Beatles and Tom Petty. In time, their melodic pop turned electric once again, alternating between acoustic groove and electric punch. They recorded their first two songs with Mike Viele at Groundswell in Wakefield.

“We e-mailed those two songs to Andy Jackson,” says Cottman. “He was the front man for Hot Rod Circuit, who loved them and he said he wanted to work with the band.” To prepare for the sessions, they recruited a motley variety of bass players with mixed results and little stability. (Insert bass player joke here.) Eventually, they settled on a friend, Matt Bouressa. “The only problem was he didn’t know how to play!” muses Cottman. “But the funny thing was he picked it up and learned the songs like a natural, in a matter of days!”

Working at their trade, the South County-based quartet played a show at URI, and in the process caught the attention of Tory Danes, a violinist. They invited Tory into the studio to lay down a few leads, and were so intrigued by the eerie sound of a violin atop their mix that they invited her to become a member of the band.

“We had a really unique sound coming together,” says Cottman, “and the violin was making up for not having that second guitar.”

At last, a solid lineup. But a moniker proved elusive . . . “We needed a name for the band,” says Cottman, “a name we were pretty sure no one had. There are thousands of bands out there that you don’t even know about and lots of good names are already taken!” So they put their (goofy) heads together and decided on Verbana Darvell.