{"id":2358,"date":"2012-11-28T05:50:54","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T05:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skylight.gr\/administrator_wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/11\/28\/la-punk-pioneers-concrete-blonde-re-group-for-vinyl-release-us-tour-in-december\/"},"modified":"2012-11-28T05:50:54","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T05:50:54","slug":"la-punk-pioneers-concrete-blonde-re-group-for-vinyl-release-us-tour-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/2012\/11\/28\/la-punk-pioneers-concrete-blonde-re-group-for-vinyl-release-us-tour-in-december\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. PUNK PIONEERS CONCRETE BLONDE RE-GROUP FOR VINYL RELEASE, U.S. TOUR IN DECEMBER"},"content":{"rendered":"


When singer\/songwriter\/bassist Johnette Napolitano first formed Dream 6 on her time off working at L.A.\u0092s famed Gold Star Studios with James Mankey in 1982, the music landscape was a lot like it is now, forcing new acts into a do-it-yourself ethic. Four years later, when Napolitano and Mankey renamed the band Concrete Blonde \u0097 from a purported suggestion by labelmate Michael Stipe \u0097 they signed to Miles Copeland\u0092s I.R.S. Records, who provided a home for the emerging punk\/New Wave scene. <\/p>\n

\u0093I love the new music business,\u0094 enthuses Napolitano from the five-acre ranch in Joshua Tree she\u0092s lived in for the better part of a decade, having just fed her two horses, two goats, three dogs and school of fish. \u0093Technology is made for me because I can live wherever I want. Wayne Kramer installed my first set of Pro Tools back in 1991. This is the best thing to happen for musicians. It\u0092s like when Brett Gurewitz launched Epitaph or Posh Boy started. Nobody would put out our stuff back then. It\u0092s easier and better now because you have the Internet to promote your music.\u0094<\/p>\n

For a band with one foot in the modern world, and another in the past, Concrete Blonde has decided to release its two new songs, the country lament \u0093Rosalee\u0094 and the vintage speeded-up punk-rock of \u0093I See the Ghost,\u0094 in an old-school way as the A- and B- sides of a beautifully designed, white 7\u0094 vinyl single, though it will also be available at all digital outlets.<\/p>\n

\u0093We knew we were doing this for vinyl,\u0094 she says of the tracks, recorded at Stagg Street Studios in Van Nuys with their longtime engineer Anne Catalino. \u0093So you have this A-side, which is an old \u009230s cowboy song that I imagined Willie Nelson doing, and on the B-side, you have a 1980 West Coast punk song. And they both sound as if they belong on vinyl.\u0094<\/p>\n

Indeed, \u0093Rosalee\u0094 is a product of Johnette\u0092s desert environment, a ballad sung around the campfire by a lonesome cowboy missing his lost love. \u0093She wraps herself in firelight,\u0094 croons Napolitano. \u0093And dances in the sand like a ghost.\u0094 The flip side, \u0093I See the Ghost,\u0094 is a vintage syncopated punk rave-up that also references the spiritual, a fascination for Napolitano, an admitted fan of eccentrics like Joe Meek, Upton Sinclair and Nikola Tesla \u0097 an image of whom she sports as a tattoo \u0097 since manning a psychic hot line back on Y2K eve. \u0093James and I couldn\u0092t make it through without stopping to breathe. It\u0092s about people who think they can get away with things, who try to fake their way through life . . . [who think] that they\u0092re always being watched.\u0094<\/p>\n

The band has shot a video for each of the songs and plans to release them as a DVD in conjunction with an East Coast tour that begins at Boston\u0092s Sinclair Music Hall on Dec. 12 and includes dates at N.Y.\u0092s Irving Plaza (12\/13), Asbury Park\u0092s Stone Pony (12\/14), D.C.\u0092s 9:30 Club (12\/17), Carrboro, NC\u0092s Cat\u0092s Cradle (12\/18), Atlanta\u0092s Variety Playhouse (12\/19), Chicago\u0092s Park West (12\/21) and Minneapolis\u0092 Variety Theatre (12\/22). Concrete Blonde will perform on WXPN Philadelphia\u0092s syndicated radio show \u0093World Caf\u03b9 Live\u0094 on Dec. 15. There is also the possibility of a New Year\u0092s Eve show in L.A.<\/p>\n

This comes after the band has played shows in China last year, as well as in Peru and Brazil, where they recorded their 2003 double-live album. A European tour is planned as well.<\/p>\n

It\u0092s all part of a spate of activity prompted by the deaths of Johnette and James\u0092 fathers over the past two years, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of Bloodletting, their most commercially successful album, reissued at the time in a re-mastered, unauthorized, deluxe box set with six bonus tracks by Shout! Factory.<\/p>\n

Concrete Blonde released five studio albums on I.R.S. Records, starting with their self-titled debut, through Free (1989), Bloodletting (1990), Walking in London (1992) and Mexican Moon (1993). The band\u0092s single, \u0093Joey,\u0094 from Bloodletting, a cautionary tale of an alcoholic, hit the Billboard Top 20 and went #1 at Modern Rock, while other singles like \u0093God is a Bullet,\u0094 \u0093Caroline,\u0094 \u0093Everybody Knows,\u0094 \u0093Someday?,\u0094 \u0093Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man\u0094 and \u0093Heal It Up\u0094 were all Top 20 Alternative hits. The B-side of \u0093Joey,\u0094 \u0093I Want You,\u0094 was featured in Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow\u0092s 1991 cult film, Point Break.<\/p>\n

After breaking up in 1993, Concrete Blonde reformed in 1997, when they released Concrete Blonde Y Los Illegals, a collaboration with the L.A. Chicano punk band, and then again in 2001, recording Group Therapy (2002) and Mojave (2004), the latter featuring new (and current) drummer Gabriel Ramirez replacing original member Harry Rushakoff.<\/p>\n

Inspired by her peaceful surroundings, Johnette has been able to tune out the distractions of urban civilization by concentrating on her art, which involved a great deal of communicating with, well, the ghosts which surround her. She hasn\u0092t had a TV since 9\/11 and often entertains herself by listening to the radio. You can regularly find her tuning into to Art Bell\u0092s Coast to Coast, which intermingles on her airwaves with a local Navajo station to create just the right sort of eerie mix that marks Concrete Blonde\u0092s latest music.<\/p>\n

\u0093I\u0092ll wake up at 3 in the morning and just have to write it down, not even knowing where it came from,\u0094 she explains of her creative method. \u0093These aren\u0092t my songs. They come to me in one piece, sometimes with chords I don\u0092t even know how to play. I believe in the collective consciousness of things coming to you and then receiving them.\u0094<\/p>\n

With a recent homecoming performance at L.A.\u0092s Troubadour \u0097 which they were playing for the first time \u0097 Concrete Blonde is enjoying the process of reconnecting with old fans, and making new ones.<\/p>\n

\u0093It\u0092s taken awhile, but we\u0092re really happy where we are,\u0094 says Napolitano, who has spent the last decade learning about art in Mexico and the flamenco in Spain, as well as how to sew and tattoo. \u0093As a unit, we\u0092re just amazing and completely self-sufficient. We\u0092ve come to the place where we trust ourselves. And as long as the music is good . . . that has never changed. It\u0092s all about being fucking great. We are very vain that way. We have to be the best or we won\u0092t bother.\u0094<\/p>\n

Listen to Concrete Blonde and you can almost feel the ghost.<\/p>\n

THE TOUR:
Wed., Dec. 12 BOSTON, MA Sinclair Music Hall
Thurs., Dec. 13 NEW YORK, NY Irving Plaza
Fri., Dec. 14 ASBURY PARK, NJ Stone Pony
Mon., Dec. 17 WASHINGTON, DC 9:30 Club
Tues., Dec. 18 CARRBORO, NC Cat\u0092s Cradle
Wed., Dec. 19 ATLANTA, GA Variety Playhouse
Fri., Dec. 21 CHICAGO, IL Park West
Sat., Dec. 22 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Variety Theatre <\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.conqueroo.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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